Tara Brady

The big narrative rug-pull isn’t quite as smooth as it ought to be, but there’s plenty to admire here, including Monáe’s expressive eyes, Pedro Luque Briozzo’s unsettling camerawork, and a thrillingly vicious turn by Jena Malone.

Straddling the current revival of the picaresque in US indie cinema (The Sweet East, Riddle of Fire) and cinéma vérité, this is a pleasing meander, skilfully directed, shot, and edited by the upcoming auteur siblings.

It’s not for everyone. Please Baby Please often forgets that it’s a musical, and the action is increasingly chaotic.

The tricky father-daughter pairing at the centre of Charlotte Regan’s surefooted debut feature marks Scrapper as the poppier, knockabout cousin of last year’s Aftersun. In common with Charlotte Wells’s award-winning film, this drama pitches a knowing pre-adolescent against an uncertain parent. But the tone, colours and flights of fancy make Scrapper lighter and sparkier viewing.

It’s a ravishing spectacle. The trouble is that the unremitting gorgeousness robs the material of all its grit, of its satire, of the sense of precariousness that one experiences on the characters’ behalf, of the fear of hunger, and of the dread that any chill or fever might be a death sentence.

This pleasant dramedy is jollied along by its talented veteran ensemble and the odd narrative curveball: a subplot about dead cats yields macabre surprises.

The film – like its subject – lets the pomp and circumstance do the talking.

Kielty, an accomplished comedian, firmly sits on his jazz hands and performs some of the worst stand-up routines in the history of comedy. Kerslake brings an edge and unpredictability that animates a carefully shaded story. The specifics of place have their own texture; seldom has a script encompassed such a variety of uses for the great Ulster standard: ballbag.

Pugh’s emblematic, muddy-hemmed blue dress — designed by Odile Dicks-Mireaux — marks her out against the windswept exteriors. Not for the first time this year, she’s the standout in a film that, given the remarkable personnel involved, really ought to pack a greater punch.

It’s good fun. The critters are cute. The landscapes are burnt orange dystopian or pretty and pink. The action sequences – some utilising the Philippines’ national martial art, arnis – are staged with aplomb. The central conceit, however, feels unwieldy.

These picaresque and picturesque adventures fail to coalesce into a movie. But it’s impossible to argue with Daria D’Antonio’s ravishing cinematography and an unexpectedly moving coda featuring Stefania Sandrelli as an older Parthenope.

Mostly, this is a film of intriguing, maddening loose ends.

There are few reveals, but narrative restraint is commendable in the telling of this almost unbearably unhappy tale.

Co-written with Blomkamp’s District 9 collaborator Terri Tatchell, the film has agreeably creepy blurred ideas about the human experience and the simulated experience. And it’s never dull.

The dialogue is yellow-pack, the set-up is so silly you wonder why they didn’t parachute in a dinosaur or set off a volcanic explosion for good measure, and the sparsely populated commercial flight screams budgetary constraints. Still, it ticks along, makes merry, and everyone works hard and sweatily to put the “AAAAAAH” back into action.

With looming grace and the fluffy heart of a Golden Labrador, Elordi, standing in for a departing Andrew Garfield, turns out to be the most swooning Goth heart-throb since Edward Scissorhands emerged from Vincent Price’s laboratory.

Gore, who directs with her partner, Damian Kulash, maintains a giddy tone that sometimes sits uneasily with temporal shifts that mirror the narrative complexities of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. The needlessly busy structure is easily offset by appealing performances from Banks, Snook and Viswanathan and by a keen critical eye for the mad free-for-all economics of the Bill Clinton era.

We’re never properly spooked. The presence, ironically, lacks presence. An excellent cast and flashy film-making ensure we are entertained, nonetheless.

Husbands longueurs and wobbly shots of improvised tangents never congeal into anything as satisfying as Cassavetes s The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Gloria or A Woman Under the Influence. But, in contrast with director s mean-spirited inheritors, the film does own that husbands even rubbish ones are people too. [28 Sep 2012, p.13]

Working on a small budget, writer-director Alison Locke puts the confinement of one location in service of her claustrophobic script. A promising first feature.

There’s plenty of razzle dazzle here but little that passes for oomph.

The Spielberg film casts a long shadow over the stage musical, which too often feels like a retread of that film interrupted by songs. The musical number as narrative speed bump is a flaw that carries over to the big screen.

The Eternal Daughter remains a dazzling double-header for Swinton, who, against all odds, disappears into both roles.

It’s loud, it’s silly, it’s over-saturated; the smaller viewers at the family screening I attended were wildly impressed. Adults may be somewhat impressed that the word “bollocks” makes the final cut.

Not atypically for a portmanteau picture, this surprise winner from last year’s Venice film festival is intermittently arresting and wildly uneven.

It’s fortunate that Dylan O’Brien has just enough goofy charm to hold all the plundered Build-a-Bear bits together.

Edebiri works hard, but her notebook-clutching Nancy Drew asks dimwitted questions, even after the guests start to “disappear”.

Nicholas and Tryhorn’s new film for Netflix, though plenty laudatory, presents a contemplative Pelé that appears human after all.

Mr Malcolm’s List plays like Jane Austen fan-fiction, which isn’t the worst subgenre in the world, even if nobody could ever confuse the plot with that of Lady Susan, let alone Pride and Prejudice.

This is a fond requiem from a Bowie fan, made with reverence for his art and respect for his privacy.

Watchable, if a bit lopsided, it’s far from the catastrophe that some of the more unkind reviews have suggested.

Occasionally, the narrative is almost as wilfully undisciplined as its commendably rebellious heroine.

Daliland is an entertaining if disappointingly formulaic entry into the Harron canon.

Blitz lacks the emotional heft of Hunger or the director’s Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave, but it’s an absorbing, reliable depiction of a much-mythologised historical moment.

Like the village it depicts, the film is meticulously crafted yet oddly two-dimensional: a map, not a place.

The appearance of Malik Zidi rounds off a fine cast and introduces intriguing echoes of the amnesiac romance of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. That and decent tech specs, including some nifty shots from veteran horror cinematographer Maxime Alexandre, offset the slightly cobbled-together feel of the material.

It’s a fascinating delve or “kaleidoscope” as the film-makers have it. The film is as complete a portrait as we may ever get.

The emotional pyrotechnics that scaffold most cancer dramas, give way to something that is as honest as it is understated.

The film never attains the Shakespearean-sized tragedy of the Korean director’s Decision to Leave or the bludgeoning impact of OldBoy.

The Bard’s most famous creation may be many things, but Scarlet’s earnest moralising about empathy and collective responsibility feels more like Polonius’s vibe.

Will Gluck, who presided over the disastrous 2014 adaptation of Annie and the misfiring comedies Friends with Benefits and Easy A, makes for a competent presence in the director’s chair. It’s the human stars, however, who truly shine.

Malmkrog is a talky, challenging slog, but it’s seldom short of ideas. One is unlikely to find greater consideration of pelagianism in any other film this year. Or decade.

Mendes’s script, though it contains some memorable scenes, tries to do too much, as it takes on racial and sexual inequality, mental-health issues and, incongruously, the romance of cinema.

Onward falls well short of magical.

Has Denis Villeneuve succeeded where others – most notably Alejandro Jodorowsky – have floundered? Given the extensive runtime, it’s impossible not to think of Chinese premier Zhou Enlai’s alleged assessment of the French revolution: “Too early to say.”

In common with Edgar Wright’s recent portrait of Sparks, Tornatore’s film largely eschews such niceties as documentary structure in favour of enthusiastic chronology. And then Ennio worked with Pasolini; and then he worked with Dario Argento. And so on. It’s an interesting biography, nonetheless.

Full of sound and fury, signifying something. If only we knew what that was.

Loyal fans will be pleased. Untold millions of BookTok users can’t be wrong, surely.

There are interesting notes on the intersection between love, mental illness, obsession, performance, and fandom. If only the movie were a little better.

There are things to admire, but Bring Them Down is a hard film to like.

The camera dutifully records esteemed actors – including one Corrie veteran, as it happens – talking in beautifully appointed rooms, but it seldom finds the cinematic spark that might elevate the drama beyond a polished theatrical exercise.

There are qualities to admire here even if it always feels like a movie manufactured by a committee.

Ziegler’s performance is the best thing about Music. For friends and family members of those on the spectrum, it’s a revelation and an acknowledgment that people with autism can be remarkable without having remarkable abilities like those found in Rain Man or Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

A perennially sun-dappled kitchen. Cast-iron pans. Belle-époque bustles. Gastroporn doesn’t come more XXX-rated than this insanely pretty, airily vacant livre de recettes.

Afterlife is fine. It passes the time. But somewhere between the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man recycled as hundreds of Tribble-alike menaces and Muncher, a fatter variant of Slimer, one finds oneself wishing that studios might use their vast resources for something more than the repackaging of old rope.

The storytelling is routine. It warrants neither its hard-core disciples nor its worst enemies. Ignore the dishonest huffing and puffing.

By focusing on human-sized and domestic drama, The End We Start From can’t match the escalating jeopardy and horrific narrative punch of such similarly themed, bigger-budgeted fare as The Road or I Am Legend.

Sadly, the film falls short of being A-ha’s Some Kind of Monster (Metallica’s cringy group therapy epic).

The film frantically tries to juggle farce, family comedy and the inherited trauma of the Holocaust. The results are not as egregious as Life Is Beautiful, but too much feels unearned and wildly inappropriate.

It’s a pleasing enough vibe, nonetheless – Sevigny and Wolff channel Gen X-worthy self-deprecation. Del Campo and a wandering horse come close to delivering the magic promised by the title.

Seydoux and Poupand bring plenty of emotional clout to their roles, even if the script straddles uncomfortably between verité and melodrama.

The problem here is not insight but narrative stagnation. Too often H Is for Hawk confuses slowness with contemplation, repeating emotional beats and trumpeting parallels between Helen and Mabel.

The script is smartly self-fulfilling. Devil’s Due co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett deliver jump-scares with mechanical precision. The thrill, however, is gone.

LeBron has charm to burn, even if his performance is unlikely to keep Denzel awake at night. It’s a shame this messy film can’t keep pace with his likability or mad skills.

The moon is square and the action is so daft that it makes the Sonic the Hedgehog sequence feel like the work of Ingmar Bergman.

The Croods: New Age remains a sequel that no one was crying out for. It’s busy. It’s well-staffed. It passes the time.

Affleck has made no secret of his struggles with alcohol and has talked about the catharsis he experienced shooting Finding the Way Back. It’s a career-best performance, one that marries hulking physicality and internalised demons, as Jack battles grief and addiction.

The Fire Inside has enough quality to please genre and sports enthusiasts even if it feels like an undercard fixture. For all the talent on both sides of the camera, the nuts-and-bolts script lacks innovation and the pacing neither bobs nor weaves.

For all its craft and atmosphere, this is folk horror that makes the ears twitch yet rarely raises goosebumps.

For all Joachim Philippe and Virginie Surdue’s handsome cinematography, this lyrical documentary lacks focus and, more disappointingly, historical context. A missed opportunity.

Watching anonymous child after anonymous child arrive for treatment makes for grim and frustrating viewing. We want to know who these kids are, but the film does not. It’s the very antithesis of how hospital drama – narrational or otherwise – are supposed to function.

There’s a half-hearted plot twist that doesn’t land. Mostly, however, this is a film about explosions and bad guys getting their comeuppance. Fast cuts and more than 50 credited stuntmen and stuntwomen make for, well, buzzy spectacle.

Keeping up with the many, many characters and their peccadillos is dizzying.

Expect head-scratching, some non-sequiturs and lots of quirks and Bliss will mostly entertain and consistently baffle.

In common with too many modern thrillers, the set-up spooks more than the climax and rather less than the real-life Warren exorcism tapes that play over the end credits.

It is unfortunate that two directors and a screenwriter (Matthew Fogel) felt the need to shoehorn in an extended family and – groan – Oedipal crisis for both Mario and Donkey Kong. Despite this misstep, the film belts along with an assault of candy colours and a commendable command of canonical detail.

The animation remains enchanting and is punctuated by exciting swords-and-sandals action, even if the finished film is not quite the classic we might have anticipated from the talents attached.

Tornado will frustrate the giblets out of anyone seeking narrative momentum or emotional catharsis. But viewers willing to sit with its stark silences and oppressive atmospherics can look forward to a singular, if rarely easy, watch.

As a Liverpool fan, this critic is hardly the target audience. But if this consistently engaging film has a flaw – here are words I did not expect to write – it’s the truncation of the Man United years. It’s the only shock in a fond, fast-moving tribute.

Die My Love is uncompromising, hypnotic, brave and often indelible looking, even when the theatricality and fractured structure erode any emotional weight. The result is an impressively punishing, intermittently brilliant bad trip that may be the worst date movie ever made.

It’s tricky material, but what the script loses by making an actual monster it gains in small, poignant details.

This already improbable dream boasts an interesting supporting cast.

This later timeline, featuring two of the planet’s most wonderful actors, adds clout to a film that, in stark contrast to most faith-based fodder, is gorgeously shot and designed.

In common with My Neighbour Totoro, there is no menace here, only strange fun aimed squarely at younger viewers.

Based on the novel by Elena Ferrante, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s opening gambit as a writer-director is a brave charge at source material defined by flashbacks and far too many subplots.

Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon features a luminous ensemble and arguably a career-high performance from Ethan Hawke, yet it’s hobbled by an aesthetic gamble so distracting, so patently absurd, that it nearly sinks the enterprise.

Production designer Tamara Deverell and costume designer Luis Sequeira make for an arresting spectacle, one that is, ultimately, too luxurious for the sleazy travelling show and 1940s hoboism at the heart of the movie.

The wafer-thin characterisation and over-reliance on musical recitals make it hard to buy into the film’s premise of enduring love.

For all that structural uncertainty, Ella McCay is difficult to dislike. It’s old-fashioned and undeniably heartfelt. There’s a compelling sweetness in its rooting for good public service, and a refreshing optimism that feels almost radical in 2025.

It remains a fascinating, stylish, uncompromising thriller for all its repugnant prejudices: punk rock movie-making for the ruling elite.

The central father-son plotline feels a little too modest to accommodate Wyatt Garfield’s impressively shot action set pieces, Nathan Parker’s ambitious production design and scathing social commentary, but this remains an impressive and visually innovative directorial debut for the film-makers.

Despite the best efforts of Graham, menacing in monochrome flashbacks, the sanitised script never truly pins whatever unprocessed trauma is eating at the rising star.

The sins and injustices of the outside world find terrible expression in St Pio of Pietrelcina’s body and imperfect expression in Ferrara’s 22nd feature.

Ironically, the project’s occasional attempts to pass itself off as a political thriller slow the material down. The run time doesn’t help. A worthwhile historical curio, nonetheless.

The balance between humour and heart that defined the carefully calibrated earlier films is slightly off.

The machinations find a charming focus in the thawing between Del Toro and Threapleton. Both actors bring a jouissance to the slightly jaded milieu.

A trinity of exceptional performances from Booth, Mellor and Starshenbaum work to convey a moral knot as exceptional circumstances and extremism become normalised.

Unrequited love is seldom so much fun.