The hunt for the new Paddington is rife in Hollywood. Ever since the Paul King helmed franchise hit the big time, studio chiefs have had marmalade-sticky fingers all over the classics of kids lit. While 2021 saw Clifford the Big Red Dog bound off Norman Bridwell’s original pages, this year brings Lyle Lyle Crocodile, an adaptation of Bernard Waber’s 1962 favourite: ‘The House on East 88th Street’, and its eponymous sequel. With music from Greatest Showman maestros Pasek and Paul, Lyle has show-stopping high notes to combat a general lack of bite.
‘How did you write Wuthering Heights?’ So says a primly envious Charlotte Brontë (Alexandra Dowling) to her dying sister in the opening scene of Emily, Frances O’Connor’s exceptionally assured directorial debut. This question will fuel the film to come, an essay in the art of eloquent speculation.
A lot of this really happened. So Amsterdam opens. This being the new all-star enterprise by controversial awards magnet David O’Russell. Once known for winning, mid scale indie hits like Silver Linings Playbook and The Fighter, O’Russell shifted to more highfaluting affairs in 2013 with American Hustle. That was a glamorous, artfully convoluted and entirely overblown affair. Amsterdam follows suit. Regardless of how much of the film really happened, there’s no doubting there’s a lot of it.
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