John Bleasdale

Mitchell’s third film feels like a script that was locked in a drawer after numerous rejections but now can be brought out and pushed through with clout earned from the success of It Follows.

Seidl is a filmmaker of both talent and merit, but the blatant manipulation of his subjects and the nakedness of his own intentions and dribbling fascination make In the Basement irrelevant as a comment on Austrian society as a whole, and only passingly interesting as an unsurprising picture of what some very odd people do in the privacy of their own homes.

It has to be said that Van Sant is not above doing one for the studio but quite what sins he had committed to be made to make this pile of sub-Nicolas Sparks tripe will be beyond most.

Other than a sinking feeling, there’s not much else The Chamber is going to give you.

The final twist is so manipulative and cynical as to be actually enraging.

American Honey ticks off all of the indie clichés. Fireworks? Check. Standing up in convertible with your arms outstretched? Check. Grubby children? Check. But all of this could be forgiven, or at least put up with, if the film wasn't so long and meandering.

The trademark brutal violence remains effective, and Zahler maintains a pervasive feeling of dread throughout his films, but Dragged Across Concrete shows the limits of taking the game long.

Intermittently entertaining and laudably short, for all its best intentions Cymbeline is cursed by doing again what others have done better.

Some of it is funny. Some of it is moving. More of it is plain dull.

It’s just Huppert on autopilot and like that dry white wine, you can have too much of it.

As fate closes in on the lovers, the silliness of their own behaviour and Marguerite & Julien in general prevents any pathos from entering the scene. The taboo of incest never troubles as one never truly believe that they are brother and sister - or in love - or anything else.

Ultimately, though it hints at moments of wit, Cuck never feels serious enough to be a convincing character study and not garish enough to head into genre territory. Ultimately, this sordid tale feels both real and inconsequential.

A neat little thriller which unfortunately never achieves plausibility.

The material is weak, overly familiar and cliché-ridden. Dolan throws the cinematic sink at it but his latest feels like a shorter, not particularly watchable sequel to August, Osage County.

Both leads produce solid performances despite a sloppiness in both the direction and the writing.

It soon becomes difficult to dismiss the suspicion that Goldthwait had set out to make a comic horror but forgot to insert any laughs.

Hill does his best but Jim is woefully underwritten, a shuffling loser who various other characters try to bolster with the dignity of a back story that doesn’t seem to fit his actual behaviour.

Doremus doesn't appear to take the world he has created at all seriously. The rules shift and bend, are observed - or aren't - according to the exigency of the narrative, which ultimately renders the whole exercise fundamentally unconvincing and fatally irksome.

When Good Kill takes aim at US foreign policy and the advances in military technology, it creates moments of chilling and powerful drama, but this is dissipated and compromised by its mirror-punching domestic drama and its bizarre need to bring about something like a happy ending.

Its aspirations to high-end production values and the inventive use of urban cityscapes filmed from carefully selected futuristic angles are all very well, but it could have done with something a little looser, more punk, more grimy, more stoned.

In its determined avoidance of sensationalism, it finds itself stranded in an empty space so understated, it is genuinely difficult to understand what, if anything, it is saying.

Superficiality soaks the entire film.

It is as glitzy and gaudy as the festival itself, with its vacuous politics drowned out by the thunderous sound of it slapping its own back.

Everything seems designed to disturb or perhaps infuriate the viewer.

There are some dumb thrills to be had but there is also the sense here of an ambition not quite realised.

Sadly, the intriguing set up - along with Del and Bonnie - is left behind for a too nakedly state-of-America musing, with everyone Charley happens across having some social ill to portray.

Although there is certainly tension at moments and Driver once more proves himself an actor of great promise, Hungry Hearts falls between two baby chairs - neither satisfying as a thriller nor convincing as a drama.

The Danish Girl is as handsome yet disappointingly flat as a painting on a chocolate box. It should certainly be applauded for bringing to light an unsung hero of the transgenderism, but in its unremitting tastefulness and sentimentality - even a beating has beautiful setting and a lovely bit of blood - it ultimately left this reviewer as cold as a dip in a Danish bog.