article placeholder

Spencer – Review

This film was previously reviewed in September 2021 as part of our Venice Film Festival coverage. Pablo Larraín’s Princess Diana biopic, Spencer, gets about as far away from a cradle-to-grave template as...
article placeholder

Stardust – Review

This film was previously reviewed in November 2020 as part of our Raindance 2020 coverage. Feathers were unquestionably ruffled when it was announced last year by Duncan Jones that the upcoming biopic of...
article placeholder

Radioactive – Review

Radioactive should have been a slam dunk. The life of Marie Curie is ripe for cinematic adaptation, and this one is directed by Marjane Satrapi, the French-Iranian filmmaker behind the autobiographical...
article placeholder

Tolkien – Review

Dome Karukoski’s biopic of J.R.R. Tolkien brings to life the origins of the author’s career, charting the course of a life taken over by imaginary worlds. Shivering in the trenches, a young Tolkien...
article placeholder

Marighella – Berlinale 2019 Review

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...
article placeholder

On the Basis of Sex – Review

This review was originally published on 6/2/2019. In the age of Donald Trump, it's unsurprising that Ruth Bader Ginsburg – only the second woman in history to ascend to the US Supreme Court – has...
article placeholder

Mr Jones – Berlinale 2019 Review

Agnieszka Holland’s account of the man who exposed Stalin’s Ukrainian famine is a straightforward account whose tone occasionally jars with genre touches – these dynamic choices would work better if...
article placeholder

On the Basis of Sex – Review

In the age of Donald Trump, it's unsurprising that Ruth Bader Ginsburg – only the second woman in history to ascend to the US Supreme Court – has become something of a superhero. And like many superhero...
article placeholder

Bohemian Rhapsody – Review

Infamously plagued with problems throughout its production, including replacing not only its lead actor but also its director, Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody offers up very little substance but still...
article placeholder

Blaze – LFF 2018 review

Shot dead at the age of 39 in a mundane dispute over a friend’s pension slip, Blaze Foley has been folded into country music legend – spoken of in whispers, his influences keenly felt but never explicitly...
article placeholder

The Mercy – Review

Director James Marsh follows up 2014’s The Theory of Everything with The Mercy, another distinctly British drama. Starring Rachel Weisz and Colin Firth, this is, at first glance, an extraordinarily twee...