★★

London, 1934. The Daily Chronicle’s acid tongued theatre critic torments a popular but cripplingly insecure actress via a sequence of cheerfully vitriolic reviews. He is Ian McKellen, she is Gemma Arterton. Together, they elevate an otherwise middling effort from Leap Year director Anand Tucker. They, and a clutch of tremendously catty barbs in a script from Patrick Marber, making his long overdue return to cinema. Where The Critic boasts strength in the line, however, the wider whole hasn’t half the zest and flavour.