Tag: Review

The Batman (2022)

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Quick Synopsis: Bruce Wayne has to deal with a serial killer known as The Riddler, and also responsibility and past trauma.

I’m going to get the obvious out of the way, this is a LONG film. But weirdly enough it earns it. It’s a bit like watching a 3-hour video of Piers Morgan being punched in the face. Yes, it’s long, but you still wish it was longer. There are a few scenes that could be cut down slightly, but there’s not very much wasted. In fact you come out wanting more, you want to see more of these characters, of this world. And it’s such a well-defined world. Gotham is almost a character in of itself in Batman media, and if you get it wrong it can really harm it. Think of how weird it looked in Batman And Robin. Usually, the way studios do this is to have it feel old, like it’s from a 40’s noir. In this it actually feels like a living city, you can imagine walking around it and living in it. It’s amazing how small things like “bright advertising boards and crowds” helped it feel real.

It’s not just Gotham, this film GETS who Batman is as a character. There’s a moment I didn’t actually notice the first time I watched it. Near the end, Batman is rescuing a group of people from a collapsed building/flood. When he approaches the people who need saving, they don’t respond with “Oh thank you, It’s Batman here to save us”. They recoil in fear. They’re scared of him. He has set himself up as a figure of fear and vengeance to scare criminals into going straight, but in doing so he’s scared everybody else too. He’s not a beacon to look up to and admire, he’s the boogeyman. He’s what parents use to control their kids. “If you don’t behave/eat your homework/do your dinner, then The Batman will get you”. It’s because of that that he realises that he needs to start doing more to inspire people to do good. So yes, this film is set in a time where Batman already exists (and has already put Joker in Arkham by looks of it), but it is still before he is Batman. He already has the fighting skills, the clothes, the vehicles, all that was missing was the hope, it was the final piece of the puzzle.

There was a lot of people doubtful that Pattinson could pull this character off. He nails it. He is a fantastic actor and this could be the film that makes people realise it. There’s not really a weak link in terms of performance, and it’s full of “oh, it’s him” casting. Paul Dano is surprisingly chilling and completely redefines Riddler from a joke to a psychopath.

Part of that redefinition is due to what Reeves did with the film. This isn’t an action film, it’s more of a detective drama/psychological horror. It’s a fresh and unique take on the character, and one that’s really obvious when you think about it. It’s one of the few times in modern films where we actually see him do detective work, being very careful not to damage crime scenes, use logical deduction to come to conclusions etc.

I have spent this entire review just gushing over how much I loved it, and it’s for a good reason. It’s genuinely incredible and I am in awe of what was created. Go see it.

Médecin De Nuit aka The Night Doctor (2020)

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Quick Synopsis: Mikaël (Vincent Macaigne) is a doctor on night call. He looks after patients from underprivileged neighbourhoods, as well as drug addicts. We see his nightly work as he’s torn between his wife and his mistress, and embroiled in trafficking fraudulent prescriptions.

The trailer had me excited. It looked like it was going to be incredibly intense and dark. And while watching it, I was on board. But the longer the film went on, the more my fondness for it dulled. It’s one of those films which you think is really good as you watch it and see it unfold, but after setting up all these narrative dominos, it seems to get bored and wander off, so it just leaves you feeling unsatisfied. It’s a shame as there are some great performances in here, and some incredibly tense moments. But overall a lot of it feels inconsequential.

I know this sounds cheap and goes against my usual “all about the narrative” viewpoint. But this needed a gimmick. Maybe it would have worked if it was done as a one-shot, as that would have shown the chaos he’s going through, and his panicking would have seemed real. But considering how much driving is in this that would have been difficult. The best bet would have been to have it like Locke, all take place in real-time. Most of the conversations with his wife could have been done over the phone. as could his dilemma with the mistress and cousin. It’s hard to love this film knowing that if they did it another way it would have been SOOOO much better. The character in this is supposed to be panicking and feeling trapped, but we never really get that. We never feel much emotion for him and his troubles, we just feel like an observer. It’s not helped by the fact that the longer the film goes on, the less you buy him as a character. He overpowers seasoned drug dealers too easily and at times it feels like self-insert fanfiction. The only person he doesn’t seem to easily physically overpower is his cousin, he goes from “quickly punching people in the face and taking them out ” to “awkward grabbing”.

That moment comes just after he had a fight with notorious drug lord Ossip, who is one of those characters who is supposed to linger over the entire film, but in reality, doesn’t. You don’t feel his presence looming over when he’s not on screen. He’s not built up as a danger. If we saw him executing somebody, then he’d feel more of a threat. As it is you don’t really get that “oh no, he has to do this or that drug lord will harm his family”. The film tries to fix this with the ending, but the way they do it seems cheap and is done purely to get the sympathy of the audience with the main character. That’s the issue the whole film has, by the way, it doesn’t know how to treat the main character. We’re supposed to sympathise with him, but he’s quite unsympathetic. But done in a way that constantly justifies all his bad decisions. It’s like the writers want to create a morally complex character, but want to ensure we still sympathise with him.

The Duke (2020)

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Quick synopsis: In 1961, a 60-year-old taxi driver steals Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. He sends ransom notes saying that he will return the painting if the government invests more in care for the elderly.

This is pretty much exactly what you expect it to be. It’s not going to top any end of year lists, but when it inevitably gets shown on TV over Christmas and you need something to watch with family while eating cheese, you’ll put it on. It’s incredibly inoffensive, but with great dialogue that will make you laugh. The characters are all incredible likeable and charming, and all with regional accents. It’s reassuringly touching and nice, with great performances all around. Really it’s the kind of film you could imagine being remade as a touring musical. It’s really hard to actively dislike.

But on the other hand, it’s hard to love. Yes, you’ll enjoy it. You’ll laugh, you’ll feel things, and it won’t be time wasted. But when you walk past it in a DVD shop, there will be no part of you that considers buying it. Even in a charity shop where it’s on sale for 50p, the option of buying it will not be one that enters your head. In a few years, you won’t remember that much about it outside of basic details.

The performances are all pretty damn good. There’s not really a weak link among them. Even those who are only in a few scenes do it perfectly. Most of the focus has been on Jim Broadbent, but Fionn Whitehead deserves plaudits too. His character could be a slimy pitiful character, but he’s played with so much earnestness and conviction that even he is doing slightly cowardly stuff, you root for him. I’ve seen him in one of the best episodes of Inside No. 9, and if he continues then he has a very bright future.

I’ve been somewhat critical of this film, but here is one thing it does phenomenally, and I can’t really talk about it without spoiling it. I know normally my approach to spoilers is “whatever”, but I do have a consistent logic to it all: if knowing what happens harms the viewing experience significantly, I don’t do it. And knowing the plot points for this will ruin it slightly. For the final third it takes an approach I genuinely didn’t expect. I can’t remember being that genuinely surprised by something I’ve seen in a long time. When it gets to the end of the year I will talk about it specifically, by whilst it’s on at the cinema I will refrain. The adverts did a marvellous job of concealing it.

The Justice Of Bunny King (2021)

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Quick synopsis: A mother of two with a sketchy past earns her keep by washing windows at traffic lights, hoping to earn back the custody of her kids. After promising her daughter a birthday party, she fights the social services and break the rules to keep her word.

I went into this with completely the wrong attitude. I thought it would be more like a feminist buddy road movie. Two women of different generations working together and learning things about life. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll marvel at the power of friendship.

That’s………that’s not what happened. This is bleak. Not in a “everybody is going to die horrifically” way, but in a “you cannot beat the system, it’s rigged against you” way. I haven’t felt this hopeless since The Day Shall Come. Similar to that, you understand every decision the main character makes. You can see her dig herself deeper and deeper. You know she’s making mistakes, and she knows it too. But it’s the only thing she can do. Much like that film, you’re watching it and you can just sense it’s not going to end well. No matter how good your intentions are, there are sometimes when the system fails you. Even if she went 100% through the correct procedures, she would still be waiting months or years to get her children back. When that’s the “right” way, you can understand why she would try another way.

She is frustrated and that is easy to see. You can’t really blame her either. Her husband abused her kids, leaving one of them with permanent injuries, and she killed him in self-defence. Her reward for this method of pest control is to have her kids taken away from her and making her jump through impossible hoops to get them back. It’s strange to know that governments hating women and poor people is a universal construct. She’s punished for keeping in touch with her kids. They actually tell her not to contact her children and if she does it affects her chances of getting them back. So her kids have to feel ignored. One of her kids is severely disabled, and the mother is told to ignore her and never contact her, even on her birthday. How do you think that makes them all feel? That is not the better option, it’s bureaucratic bullshit. The social workers who are supposed to help her aren’t actually helping her. They say they are but it’s all empty platitudes. You can tell this by the fact that they take her kids somewhere and don’t tell her. Leading to this:

“You gave my children away and didn’t tell me”

“I’m sorry you feel like that”.

No, that’s not how she feels, that’s what happened. This is how society works in this world and it’s inhumane. The way they treat the daughter isn’t best for her either. They don’t seem to talk to her directly, they aim questions at other people and get them to answer for her, denying her any agency.

The fact that this film genuinely enraged me is a testament to how believable the writing is. It’s almost perfect, the right mixture of pathos of humour. Crucially, the humour comes from the people, not the situation. There’s no “oh oh, we lost your kids, silly us. Road trip!”, it’s people in despair making jokes to reassure themselves. It’s all very human. The only negative to the script is her decision at the end of holding someone hostage at knifepoint is a bit out of tone for the film. In some ways it makes sense. But it just feels a little bit like they wanted to add unnecessary drama at the end. That section would be great as a whole film though, spread it out to 90 minutes and you’ll have a really intense drama. But for it to come at the end of this particular narrative falls a bit flat.

The performances are great throughout. Essie Davis is almost unrecognisable from her role in The Babadook. Thomasin Mckenzie is completely different from Last Night In Soho. There she seemed like an adult, a naive one, but one you can still imagine pays her bills on time. Here she seems almost childlike and incredibly innocent. She’s not as crucial to the narrative as the pre-release media made me think she’d be, but she is still very good.

So yeah go watch this. Just prepare a nice cup of tea for afterwards to calm down. You’re going to need it.

Belle (2021)

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Quick Synopsis: An adaptation of Beauty And The Beast, with VR, social media, and kayaks.

I love my local cinema, I really do, I encourage everybody to go see films at the cinema if they can. But they do sometimes annoy me. There have been multiple times where they’ve shown posters and trailers for films they then don’t screen: Popstar, The French Dispatch etc. So I suppose I should be glad that they at least showed this, once, at 7:45 on a weekday.

Now that I’ve seen it, I’m no longer annoyed by this, I’m f*cking pissed. This is astounding, and I hate that I left the cinema, text people how great it was, and yet they are unable to watch it like I did. This deserves to be watched. It’s probably the best film I’ve seen so far this year, not my favourite, but definitely the best. The emotion, the music, the story, the animation, it’s all so wonderful.

It is an adaptation of Beauty And The Beast, but a very loose one. It uses it as a foundation, but then takes it in a new direction. It’s like the original is a stick figure of a person, and this is a Picasso. You can see the similarities, but you wouldn’t recommend it to fans of the original.

You may be forgiven for thinking this goes a bit silly and light. That would be wrong, it goes dark. The revelation that the “beast” is a teenager who’s being beaten by his father, and the moments where he is hunched over and shaking are when he’s protecting his younger brother are heartbreaking. As are when the dad approaches the main character and attacks her in public.

The music is FANTASTIC too, wasn’t in English (obviously) but the melodies are terrific and haunting. There’s a weird ethereal beauty to it, like a fog made of reassurance and kind words. Definitely the best soundtrack of this year, not exactly the kind of songs you’ll listen to on their own individually, but definitely the kind where you’d sit down and listen to the whole soundtrack on your headphones.

The animation? It’s strange, some may hate it, some will love it. There are moments where it’s a bit “off”, but when you remember that those scenes are taking place in a virtual reality world it all makes sense that the buildings would have that weird feeling to them. There are moments where it feels like the backgrounds to some scenes are photos, and it’s certainly an acquired taste, but it’s one I like. The director, Mamuro Hosoda, also directed Wolf Children, and The Girl Who Lept Through Time, both of which have been highly recommended to me by multiple people.

So in summary, you have to see this. It could have been a cliche romance, instead, it’s a heartbreaking tale of online identity, systemic abuse, PTSD, art as therapy, plus it doesn’t end with a romance. There’s no “she loves him” ending, it has a “she loves herself” ending. Much more beautiful. I already know I’m going to buy it, I have to see it again. Have you ever been at a gig and there’s a moment where the singer stops singing, the band stops playing, and people stop cheering? In that moment where the only sound is thousands of people singing in unison? The mass emotion and passion seem to carry everybody today to a better place? Sure, life is shit, but at that moment, everybody belongs, everybody is as one, and it’s glorious. That’s what this film is like. Stunning, beautiful, and an experience you’ll carry with you.

Moonfall (2022)

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Quick Synopsis: The moon is out of orbit and will soon crash into the earth. It’s also not a rock but a spaceship.

This movie is fucking stupid. There’s no denying it. I mean, just look at it, how can this not be incredibly dumb? Luckily it knows how dumb it is and never really tries to be more than that. It’s not aiming to win any awards, which is good as it’s definitely not going to.

It’s also quite fun though. It’s ridiculous, I kind of want to watch this with someone who knows a lot about science, just to hear them get annoyed. There are so many instances where you want to shout out “that’s not how science works!”. But it’s so ridiculous that you just kind of roll with it.

It’s not really a film meant for analysis, which is good because if you do that it is lacking. I don’t mean in terms of intelligence (because that’s obvious), but the story is a bit meh. I’m not asking for fantastic storytelling, but when an entire sub-plot can be excised that says something. There’s a whole section about the guy’s son (along with her daughter and nanny) driving to get somewhere. A complete waste of time, doesn’t influence the plot at all and would not be missed if it wasn’t there. Those two characters aren’t particularly fun to watch either, they’re kind of bland. The only thing it adds is some car chases which the lowered gravity makes a bit more unique. Although those chases only happen because they happen to meet the same bandits 3 times.

It’s also aggressively American. Despite it being possibly the end of the world, we only really see how it affects America. Think back to Independence Day and the sequences of world landmarks being blown up, yes it was cheesy and a bit silly, but it showed that it was a worldwide event. This briefly mentions over countries in passing, but we don’t see it. For some reason, only America is considering how to stop this (although their solution is to nuke the moon, which is actually something they genuinely considered doing in real life, not even lying). It would have been good to see it as a multi-national collaboration, especially since they could cast actors who are unknown in the US but famous in other countries for quick cameos etc just to increase the visibility of the film in those countries.

A big upside is how it looks, it looks incredible. There’s a lot of effects work going on here and it never looks too fake. For some reason, there are conversational scenes that do look fake though. It’s weird, they can do massive grandiose scenes, but then you have two people talking and you can tell it looks like it’s in front of a green scene. How can they mess up something that simple?

So in summary: don’t pay to see this, wait until netflix, then get drunk as hell and watch it.

Licorice Pizza (2021)

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Quick synopsis: A coming-of-age comedy-drama about a romance between a 15-year-old boy and a 25-year-old woman.

I can sense this is one a lot of people will read and disagree with me about. I just never got past the general concept. It just doesn’t sit right with me. The film ends with them getting back together and it making them happy. It’s presented as a good thing. The whole thing would have been improved if there was even a hint of uncertainty about the whole thing. I don’t like stealing endings from other films, but if they just redid the ending of The Graduate it would have improved it a lot. Add some uncertainty, make it clear to the audience that these people are making terrible choices. I’m not sure why they’re those ages either. Her character is so immature and he is starting businesses all the time so nothing would have been lost if you cut the difference and made them both 20.

It might have been easier for me to enjoy it if the two leads were likeable. They’re not, at least not when they’re with each other. They bring out the worst in each others characters, it makes Cooper Hoffmans character (Gary) seem more of an insecure incel-like asshole, and it makes Alana Haim’s character (Alana) seem more petty and stubborn. The two are never less likeable than when they’re with each other. There’s a moment where he tries to get her an acting gig, telling her “if they ask if you can do anything, say yes, always say yes if they ask anything”. They ask her if she would be comfortable doing nude scenes, she says yes. He’s annoyed. He explains later “oh, so you won’t show me your boobs but you’ll show the whole world?”. It just shows that he’s not mature enough for this kind of relationship, which is to be expected because, you know, he’s 15. But her reaction, of leaving, then coming back and flashing him, means he wins. His insecure way of dealing with things got him what he wanted. It would be like if a film showed the main character sulking because the restaurant wouldn’t give them a free meal, and then the restaurant acquiesces. Nobody learns a lesson, and everybody seems a little bit less likeable.

There are also moments where she’s needlessly needling him, just verbally poking him and exploring his biggest flaws just to annoy him. This isn’t cute, it doesn’t make her fun or playful, it makes her seem really manipulative, honestly considering the age it seems kind of abusive.

When they’re apart from each other, they’re much better. Her anger is aimed at more just causes, his determined nature and optimism make him seem more like a teenage wheeler-dealer than the sad sack he is when he’s with Alana. When they’re dealing with other characters they’re a bit more tolerable. The trouble is they meet other people far too often, and it branches off into plot points that only happen very briefly. For example, Gary is shown at the start to be a former child actor. Alana accompanies him to a performance (because he needs to be accompanied by an adult) and he hits the main performer in the back of the head. In this section, there’s tension with another child actor (played by Skyler Gisondo), but then he’s never seen or heard from past that section. Characters just flit in and out of the film without rhyme or reason. It feels like an ensemble piece that has been half-written and is going to complete the other characters arcs soon.

On the plus side, it has a very unique look to it. The moments where the couple meets with historical characters are quite fun, and the soundtrack is among my favourite of the year so far.

It feels not enough like a compelling story, and more like a 15 year old lying to his mates about what he got up to over the holidays “I dated an older girl, went to new york, played pinball, and sneaked a beer” A lot of people will like this, they’ll find it charming. Just wasn’t for me, I wasn’t charmed, and I found the narrative lacking. I’ve seen some people say “well you’re not watching the movie correctly if you’re looking for a narrative”. Possibly. The only Paul Thomas Anderson film I’ve seen before was Inherent Vice, and I didn’t rate that too highly either. Maybe I just don’t vibe with his style of film-making, it happens sometimes.

Scream (2022)

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Quick synopsis: Twenty-five years after a streak of brutal murders shocked the quiet town of Woodsboro, Calif., a new killer dons the Ghostface mask and begins targeting a group of teenagers to resurrect secrets from the town’s deadly past. Brought to you by the directors of Ready Or Not.

So far, this is my favourite film of the year. Belfast was technically better and is definitely more important, but this is the one I’m more tempted to see again soon. Fun fact, this is actually the first Scream movie I’ve seen at the cinema. I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to watching it again with the knowledge of who the killers are. This is a film that’s REALLY going to benefit from repeat viewing. This franchise is a horror, but at its heart, it’s also a detective franchise. The audience looks at clues and tries to figure out who the killer is. It’s Poirot with pointier sticks. There are a few moments where the reveal doesn’t line up with what we’ve seen in terms of the strength and body mass of the killer. But it mostly works, it even sets up enough red herrings to catch you out. It mentions Billy Lomis from the first film quite a lot, treating him like the main killer, I felt certain that was to set up that Stu Macher would either return, or otherwise be involved in the reveal, with the motive being annoyance that he was forgotten and everybody focuses on Billy instead. Spoilers, that doesn’t turn out to be the case, but if I write a script based on it, that’s what I’m going to be aiming for, so spoilers for that.

By this point, the filmmakers know what the audience expects, and it plays with that. The opening scene has the usual violence and stalking that this franchise is known for, but the person survives. It’s clear that the directors, Matt Bettineli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, know the genre, and the franchise. There’s a shower scene where every few seconds it plays out like a jump scare is going to happen. The camera angles etc in scenes where someone opens a cupboard door mean that you expect something behind it, even if it is just a harmless character and the scare is fake. Instead……..there’s nothing. It repeats this trick more than once, and I love it.

One thing this film does which most horror films fail to do, is make the characters likeable. So often writers decide that everyone wants to cheer the deaths, and the best way to do that is to make the characters so annoying that when they get killed brutally, we’re happy, it’s cathartic to see them killed. But that means we have no emotional connection, and we’re spending most of the film stuck with characters we can’t stand. In this, even though the characters are snarky, sarcastic, and make stupid decisions at times, they’re all likeable. So when they die we’re actually sad. You’re not going to cheer the deaths in this unless you’re a sociopath, which a lot of horror film fans are.

Well, maybe not sociopaths, but a lot of film fandoms are quite toxic and hateful, incredibly resistant to any chance, or any role being played by a woman or someone non-white. This film takes aim at that and does so in a way that’s as sharp as the knives Ghostface uses. This will undoubtedly annoy certain people, but I don’t want those kinds of people to like the same films as me anyway, so fuck ’em. The killers reveal is both stupid and genius, and again, I’m sure will annoy a lot of people but I loved it. But I loved this whole film, it does so much so well. The performances are great, it’s very funny, and has a great selection of music on the soundtrack. On that note, this has the BEST use of Red Right Hand in the franchise, not the whole song, but the metallic sound effect the song uses.

So if you like the franchise, go see this. The kills are brutally simplistic (at one point he just stamps on someone’s ankle), the script is smart, and it looks beautiful. A lot of franchises have done “re-quels”, few have done it as masterfully and as true to the spirit of the original as this.

The 355 (2022)

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Quick synopsis: Spy shit happens. But with women.

I was looking forward to this, it looked stylish, slick, and fun. It had a great cast so it’s sure to be good. There’s one thing I didn’t notice before seeing it, something which would have affected how I went into it: From the director of Dark Phoenix. Obviously, that’s not all the director has done, he also wrote the 2015 Fantastic Four movie. If I knew that, my expectations would have been much lower, and I wouldn’t have been quite as disappointed.

It’s just so bland. It basically seems like the kind of film that post-2018 Bruce Willis would star in and go straight to streaming services, and not even one of the good ones. This is basically “What if Mission Impossible: But Vagina?”. It’s bringing nothing new to the table, nothing fresh, nothing exciting. It seems to want to have its cake and eat it, mocking James Bond films in one sentence and then taking a military plane to a gala the next, all in new clothes, new wigs, and futuristic tech.

It’s a shame as some of the performances are good, but if you came in after watching the trailer, and wanted a film of all these bad-ass women teaming together, you’re going to be disappointed. They spend a lot of time not liking each other, and one isn’t even introduced until the closing section. It NEVER feels like a group movie, it feels like a Jessica Chastain movie, featuring four other people. The narrative is focused almost entirely on her. So when she’s in conflict with another character, WE’RE in conflict with them. It would be like if the first Avengers movie focused entirely on Iron Man, and was also the first film in the franchise, oh and if it ended with “we probably won’t see each other again but we might”. The ending is in the trailer btw.

That’s how the trailer ends, an image they’re hoping will stick with you, so you know all 5 of them will end up on the same side, and alive. In the film it’s almost entirely pointless, the guy has been drugged and is about to be taken to a foreign prison. So why did they need all 5 of them there? By this point, he’s the head of the CIA, and they’re escaped criminals from different spy agencies. If one person sees them enter the house, alarm bells will ring.

It also spoils that his character didn’t actually die at the start. Although we know that anyway, if a character is killed but we see neither the death nor the body, they’re not really dead. And if they’re the main character’s partner in a cop/spy movie, they’re secretly a double agent who has betrayed them. So it’s not really a shock when he comes back, it’s expected. It would be more of a surprise if he was still alive. That’s the basic rule for spy films.

The other rule for spy films is that the action set pieces need to be entertaining. This fails that too. The geography of the fight scenes are confusing, the editing is too choppy (although there’s one piece of editing which is GLORIOUS where it cuts from someone being hit to a knife chopping a tomato), and they’re all ultimately rather boring. The characters don’t showcase themselves through the action either, there’s no uniqueness to the way people fight so everything looks the same. There’s no storytelling through the fight scenes, they’re just fight scenes. Compare that to the action scene in Shang-Chi between Shang’s parents, that was a fight that told us who they are, and developed their relationship through action. This, the only story is “shit gets blown up”

I mentioned in my review for Belfast that I thought the secret screening was this. I am very glad it wasn’t, I would have been disappointed to have seen this early. I’ve already forgotten most of it.

Belfast (2021)

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Quick synopsis: A semi-autobiographical film that chronicles the life of a working-class family and their young son’s childhood during 1960s Northern Ireland.

I will never go into a film as blind as I did this one. I’ve sometimes gone into films not knowing much about them, just watched a single trailer etc. A few times it’s just been the synopsis. Sometimes it has just been the title. This I didn’t even know that. It was a secret preview screening, I worried it was Cyrano, but assumed it would be The 355. I think this was quite unexpected, as when the title card came up there was a general feeling of “not what I expected, but I’ll take it”.

That was a great way to watch this film. It’s a coming of age story, and in life, you don’t know what’s coming. We don’t live in a horror story, or a romance story, we live in our own stories, the genre defined by what we see in front of us. What is coming is unknown, but we can make guesses based on what we’ve seen. It’s great to watch such an uncertain time period unfold through the eyes of a child. We see him play in the streets with childlike wonder, then shit starts going down. Considering when and where it was set, it’s not completely surprising, but it’s unsettling to see that kind of sudden terror interrupt something so innocent and pure.

That being the way to open is PERFECT. Then when more things like that happen they also stick in your head. This affects the way you watch the film. Even when nice things happen, even when there are moments of pure joy, the potential for sudden explosive violence is in your head. The fear that at any moment everything can go wrong is always in the back of your mind. That must have been what it was like though, so that alone does more to put you in their shoes than anything else similar but lesser films have done.

This feels like the most personal film in the career of Branagh, you can feel the genuine heart and love he has for the subject. The whole thing feels like someone is telling you a story, and the film is just in your mind as you try to picture it. He directs it beautifully, lending every moment a real intimacy.

The performances are great too, not just individually but how they interact with each other. The cast has such great chemistry that it’s easy to believe they’re all family. The one downside is that perhaps Dornan and Dench are too recognisable for this to be as effective as it could be, but that’s a minor quibble. The people you won’t know pull you in brilliantly. I didn’t know who Caitríona Balfe was before this but I probably should have (truth be told for most of the film I thought she was Cate Blanchett), I have seen her in things but she’s never stood out to me before now. She’s great in this, the torment she’s going through echoes through every moment of her performance. The true star, though, is Jude Hill, who gives a remarkable performance for someone so young.

So in summary, go see this. It’s a wonderfully personal tale and one that deserves to be seen.