Author Rachel Brook

A circus artist from one of the documentary’s strands explains how his show, Knitting Peace, throws out images and emotions and lets audiences draw their own conclusions. Unfortunately, this is much too true...

Houston, We Have a Problem is a compelling piece of revisionist and utterly manipulated history. Although input from cynical Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek in a framing device...

Indivisible has a tragicomic parable-like plot that, while rather bare, predictable and sometimes tedious, also has great thematic depth. The almost supernatural levels of religious fervor directed at the...

With Little Men Ira Sachs continues to represent his cynical view of the working generation. In 2014’s Love is Strange he placed his sympathies firmly with an elderly gay couple. This time he swings to the...

400 Days uses a mission-simulation premise as part of an attempt to get away with making a space movie with astonishingly low production value. The vaguely named “ship” and paraphernalia aboard doesn’t...

The extent to which Diane immediately trusts Alexandre, the stranger who finds her lost phone and promptly whisks her on extravagant dates in planes and down dark alleys, is baffling, but Virginie Efira and...

Brady Corbet’s first film as director has several excellent and even jaw-dropping elements, but the glacial pace does try viewers' patience. Explicit division into three acts using title cards does nothing...

The Library Suicides, the first film directed by Euros Lyn (Broadchurch, Happy Valley) is highly accomplished, yet it incorporates an unforgivably hackneyed device in its final minute. Disappointingly this...

The Lure mashes up folklore, vampiric mermaids, ‘80s hair and body horror to create a bewitching and surprisingly touching musical tragedy. The title couldn’t be more fitting; despite the characters’...

Sticky Notes shares its premise with Chris Kelly’s Other People, but mood and characters make it a totally different experience. Like David in Kelly’s film, Athena (Leslie) pauses her attempt to make it in...

Although Slash is undeniably influenced by countless sensitive-boy coming-of-age films like The Perks of Being a Wallflower or The Way Way Back, it is insidiously charming. Both Michael Johnston and Hannah...

At its best River is an exciting, pulse-pumping and fast-paced chase movie, but nothing more than adrenaline fuels its narrative. John, the fugitive doctor, is sketchily archetypal, but if writer-director...

A film is a complex machine of moving parts, and the best built don’t creak but turn smoothly, keeping mechanical secrets veiled and showing only the fictional world they seek to create. Adult Life Skills is...

With its repetitive visuals of water and insistent voiceover, My Name is Emily at first threatens to be claustrophobic and indulgently contemplative. Yet it develops into a well-constructed road movie, and,...

Though Tom Hanks’ performance in Ithaca is surely the briefest he’s ever given, it’s one reason why Meg Ryan’s directing debut feels like it could have been a Spielberg movie. Casting repeat co-stars...