Dave Calhoun

The word exploitation comes to mind.

This is a smart, meaningful first film, with nods all over the place to classics like The Shining and Rosemary’s Baby, as well as more recent obvious touch points like Get Out. It’s not all subtle, but then neither is prejudice.

This new version features the voice of Pharrell Williams as the narrator, dipping in and out of Dr. Seuss’s warming rhymes. That binds to the film to its authentic source, but the gaps between the spoken verse still remind us that this is a slender story s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d into a feature.

Thematically, White Elephant is a vague animal and its true interest never truly comes into focus.

If the crime element feels like little more than a red herring, it’s the characters that give the film its appeal.

There are no great upsets or fireworks here, just a tender sketch of what it means to (probably) be gay as a school kid. The storytelling style is as inoffensive as the music (Arvo Pärt, Belle and Sebastian), and the performances are amiable and relaxed.

The unusually extended shooting period and Winterbottom’s decision to cast siblings as the kids make for a strangely intimate and powerful depiction of time passing and the peaks and troughs of childhood.

Yes, The Lobster is arch: this is cinema in quotemarks, tongue-in-cheek storytelling that uses absurdity to hold a mirror to how we live and love. At its best, it has incisive things to say about how we shape ourselves and others just to banish the fear of being alone, unloved and friendless.

The mix of fact and fiction is a little confusing, but a strong sense of warm enquiry pulls it through.

It’s a sad project, a testament to lives cut short and stories half-told.

Just the name ‘George Galloway’ – this doc’s presenter and co-writer – will have some vowing to go nowhere near this lively character assassination of Tony Blair. But anyone expecting wall-to-wall ranting and raving might be surprised by it’s relative sobriety.

There are some genuine laughs, and the air of deep-frozen cynicism reminds you that Niven’s book was on to something behind the violence and farce.

The result is a soil-under-the-fingernails, forest-bound mindmelter – with bonus pagan chills.

Beyond the shocks and games, there's not a great deal to take away in the form of meaty ideas or lingering themes, and its catchy premise doesn't really deliver in the end.

Loushy’s project can feel repetitive, a bit too in awe of his admittedly significant sources. Perhaps most striking are their prophecies that this was only the beginning of an intractable conflict that could only get worse, not better.

Luckily, Hawke and Delpy remain as charming as ever, and their combined goofiness is more endearing than annoying. Winning, too, is the sense that this peculiar project, though imperfect, could grow old with its audience and its cast.

The film’s said to be autobiographical, but that’s entirely left to us to guess.

Only Lovers Left Alive drags its feet and shows serious signs of anaemia as a story.

Cloying at times – but always good-natured.

Skarsgård himself is fairly bland as Greystoke, delivering a po-faced Byronic spin on the character, all velvet coats and dreamy romantic stares at his belle while sitting barefooted in the boughs of trees. But at least the animals are memorable – best of all is a pack of scene-stopping silverback gorillas digitally created for the movie. This Tarzan isn’t quite the jungle VIP – but it’s got a little swing.

It’s anarchic, sometimes amusing, intermittently tedious, with ideas about digital alienation and the corruption of technology that too often feel blunt and tired.

As storytelling, it’s pristine: it moves like a reptile playing the long game. But its cruelty is tough to bear.

This good-natured hagiography isn’t anywhere near free of pomposity, but even Bono seems to know when it’s best just to keep quiet and move on.

This slapdash but endearing doc about the rise, fall and resurrection of '80s pop outfit Spandau Ballet is an inside job, packed with strong archive footage yet lacking anything you'd call truly incisive.

Fitfully entertaining, with some grabby trial scenes, the film struggles to find a proper, engaging focus.

This is an unapologetically fluffy film that never digs deep into its characters’ lives. Its pleasures are patchy. Keaton offers an endearing performance, even if her chemistry with Gleeson (not on top form) is weirdly lacking.

Some prior interest in Berger would help, but even newcomers should find this an infectious portrait of independent thought and living.

Some clunky coincidences and unlikely events confuse the film's mission, and it lacks the clarity and parable-like meaning of the brothers' best films.