Author Rhys Handley

This film was previously reviewed as part of our coverage for Berlinale 2020. Daycare assistant Anne has fallen, literally, in love. In the opening moments of Canadian director Kazik Radwanski’s sublime...

We’ve had a lot of time to reflect in 2020, whether we wanted it or not. That means time to look into ourselves, our culture, our society – our history. It’s not a passive process, though that’s an...

Pak (Tai Bo) is a taxi driver entering his twilight years yet still providing for his family. A long-closeted gay man, he spends his lunch breaks cruising in parks and public bathrooms. When he meets retiree...

This review was originally published as part of our London Film Festival coverage on 18/10/2018.  Most of us will one day be made to face our own mediocrity, contend with the fact we’re only ordinary and...

Ray and Liz are not the stars of their namesake film. Their presences hang spectrally around the edges – never fully-realised, but omnipresent. Saturating his images in the subjective haze of memory,...

Democracy only returned to Brazil in 1989, but the threat of another backslide into authoritarianism is dangerously imminent today. Far-right agitator Jair Bolsonaro was elected president in January 2019 and...

This review was originally published as part of our London Film Festival coverage on 18/10/2018. Capernaum was an ancient city in what is now northern Israel on the sea of Galilee, thought to be the setting...

The opening line of Woo Sang must be one of the boldest in recent memory. As the camera sweeps ominously across a modern cityscape, narrator and grieving father Yoo Joong-sik (Sul Kyung-gu) drops his...

When a film opens with its lead announcing in voiceover that the summer will never end, the beast of cliche rears its deadly horns. Sho Miyake’s decision to have wayward slacker Boku (Tasuku Emoto) declare...

Chiwetel Ejiofor’s acting career features many projects in which he explores African stories and identities across both the continent and the diaspora. Often, he does so under white and western directors,...

With a young teen’s understanding of sex, corruption and public administration, The Shadow Play is a captivating display of bold, shambolic filmmaking. Lou Ye’s conspiracy thriller tangles its wicked web...

This review was originally published as part of our Berlinale festival coverage on 11/02/2019. Paraphernalia preoccupies the hearts of the kids of Mid90s, who shed blood and break bones over logo-emblazoned...

This review was originally published as part of our London Film Festival coverage on 21/10/2018. New York in Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk is pulsating, alive and wholly authentic – populated...

In Deep Impact/Armageddon tradition, Joel Edgerton’s sophomore directing effort is the second film about young people subjected to gay conversion therapy released in a matter of months. As such, Boy Erased...

This review was originally published as part of our London Film Festival coverage on 13/10/2018. Journalist David Sheff and his son Nic exist on opposite ends of a spectrum; at once, they balance out a...