★★
Just four years on from his Star Wars swan song, Adam Driver’s return to intergalactic space hopping is…well, it’s underwhelming. A half baked elevator pitch, cut to the core for the benefit of a palatably brief runtime. The result is a choppy editorial mess. A film laden with seismic holes. That’s even before the ‘catastrophic asteroid’ strikes.
Continue reading 65 | Review★★★★★
Having traversed L.A., Bruges and Ebbing, Missouri, in his first three films, Martin McDonagh’s fourth finds him on greener soil and can’t help but wear the intimate feel of a homecoming. The Banshees of Inisherin sees the London-born, Galloway-bred director return to at long lost Ireland. Or, rather, to lush island metaphor just off the coastal mainland. Inisherin’s literal meaning is ‘the Ireland island’. This is a desperately sad film, blackly comical and surprisingly tough. With so much to say, McDonaugh’s refusal to rush is a marvel. That his cast excel within the woe is but a bonus.
Continue reading The Banshees of Inisherin | Review★★★
One can only imagine the gallows humour that was banded around the set of Allelujah. The film adapts Alan Bennett’s eponymous play and comes directed by Notes on a Scandal’s Richard Eyre. It creams the upper crop of Britain’s most beloved veteran thespians and devotes just shy of a hundred minutes to reminding each that they’re nearer death than birth. Charming. A good job all involved boast a well honed sense of humour. Certainly, a cast so glittering can’t help but warm the cockles. And yet, an excess of worthy point-making can’t help but weigh down the film’s featherlight flurries.
Continue reading Allelujah | Review
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