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Love, Rosie – Review

Lily Collins and her perfect eyebrows are delightful in this time-spanning rom-com, but sadly they aren't enough to save Love, Rosie from descending into overwrought schmaltz. The film follows childhood...
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Jimi: All Is By My Side – Review

Director John Ridley’s attempts to conjure the psychedelic life and times of Jimi Hendrix make for a colourful but ultimately mediocre spectacle of an artist on the cusp of stardom. The film rides on a...
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This Is Where I Leave You – Review

Family, eh? Ya gotta love 'em. Even when your wife is cheating on you with your boss, your mother’s demanding you home for seven days, your sister won't stop bleating advice and one of your brothers has a...
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Serena – Review

The extreme saccharine romanticism of Pemberton’s (Cooper) first meeting with Serena (Lawrence) may cause some to wish the film had remained in the can another two years, yet brutal dramatisation of the...
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The Book of Life – Review

The Book of Life makes an intriguing attempt at exploring gender stereotypes, but often ends up reinforcing them. Maria (Saldana) ticks a few painfully clichéd feminist heroine boxes, but mostly she is never...
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The Tribe – LFF Review

Miroslav Slaboshpitsky’s audacious feature debut masters visual storytelling without a single utterance. Told solely through sign language, and containing no spoken dialogue or subtitles, The Tribe breeds...
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Electricity – LFF Review

Bryn Higgins’ aesthetically challenging representation of disability brings with it the constant physical and emotional toll of struggling to maintain a passable level of control through everyday...
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The Drop – LFF Review

Michaël R. Roskam’s tense second feature offers subdued fatalism in and amongst the potential cruelty of things unseen. General life and character progression is seemingly set aside in The Drop’s...
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The Falling – LFF Review

Writer-director Carol Morley’s psychosexual trance piece, The Falling, maintains high levels of interest throughout, yet ultimately fails to bring about its reasons why. Though narrative significance is...
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The Keeping Room – LFF Review

Opening with the line "War is cruelty", Barber employs striking visuals, mumbled conversation and (very) slow pacing to weave this tale of woe and survival. Led by a strong Marling, supported by an even better...
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Son of a Gun – LFF Review

There are few logical explanations for Son of a Gun. The most probable is that writer/director Avery is getting paid by the cliché, each one more laughable and obvious than the last. It’s a shame because...
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A Little Chaos – LFF Review

‘Landscape gardener charms all she meets with fresh approaches to shrubbery’ is a synopsis that will set few pulses racing. Rickman’s first directorial effort since 1997, however, is a solid piece of...
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Foxcatcher – LFF Review

Foxcatcher is a fascinating study of dedication, loneliness and power. In many ways it’s a tonally opposite companion to Whiplash. Sadly, it’s also nowhere near as good. Fry and Futterman’s script...