Any notion that a more mainstream following, in a post-Favourite world, might have impacted a dampening of spirit upon the vision of Yorgos Lanithimos are quickly quashed by his latest feature. Indeed, Poor Things is a stunningly depraved endeavour. It is a film that renders the quirks of Queen Anne quite tame. Take the plot. Emma Stone plays a woman resurrected from suicide, only to have her brain replaced by the still cooking foetal brain of her as yet unborn baby. The lunacy is better understood in the film’s conceptual context, of course, but proves no less rampantly weird for it. What’s more, one will be hard pressed to uncover a more visually resplendent film all year. A bold statement for January but impudently true nonetheless.
There’s not so much scope for scares in swimming pool horror. Sure enough, the Duffer Brothers more or less maxed out the potential with the upside-downing of poor Barb in the first series of Stranger Things. The short film upon which Night Swim is based might have predated the ‘Justice for Barb’ movement by two years but essentially proved the same point. Kudos then to Bryce McGuire – one half of the original directing duo, with Rod Blackhurst – for his efforts in attempting to extend the mileage. Stick to what you know and all that. Come the closing credits, it’s not entirely clear it worth the bother but at least the definitive proof is finally out there.
Six hundred and sixty nine. That’s the number of, mostly Jewish, children Nicholas Winton helped to save from Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War. Accounting for the generations since, the total lives in his debt now exceeds six thousand. And yet, until 1988, virtually nobody knew of his effort. Not until it was splashed in the Daily Mirror and on the BBC. It’s that story, as much as the 1939 narrative, at the core of James Hawes’ One Life, which comes adapted from the Barbara Winton penned biography. Sir Anthony Hopkins plays the elder Winton, the one set for an Esther Ransom shaped surprise on the Beeb’s That’s Life. Johnny Flynn is his junior counterpart of some fifty years prior. The film around them is every bit as moving as you’d expect.
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