Tara Brady

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The Irish Times
For 554 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 53% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 43% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 6.5 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Tara Brady's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 72
Highest review score: 100 Prey
Lowest review score: 20 No Hard Feelings
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 348 out of 554
  2. Mixed: 203 out of 554
  3. Negative: 3 out of 554
554 movie reviews
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    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Tara Brady
    Blue Moon
    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.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Tara Brady
    The Velvet Queen
    By the time we finally see the leading lady, La Panthère des Neiges – as the film was called at home – has long since privileged the journey over the destination.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Tara Brady
    The Eight Mountains
    Happily, Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi put in mountain-sized performances to offset the film’s silences and propensity for postcard shots, bringing heart and guts to the chilliest scenery. A worthwhile hike through many obstacles to friendship.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Tara Brady
    Barbarian
    Taking a leaf from Parasite, Barbarian both literally and figuratively plays with the idea that however unpleasant things seem there’s always a scarier, lower level.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Tara Brady
    If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
    A bruising character study that challenges the audience to sift genuine catastrophe from psychic projection.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 60 Tara Brady
    Frankenstein
    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.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Tara Brady
    Away
    Away is as unique as it is lovely.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Tara Brady
    Only You
    O’Connor, who caused a stir with his breakthrough turn in God’s Own Country, and Catalan actor Costa, share an easy and natural chemistry. They don’t blaze up the screen: they simmer and charm.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Tara Brady
    The Substance
    Director Coralie Fargeat follows up her gory 2017 rape-reprisal thriller, Revenge, with this outrageous comic body-horror, pitched somewhere between Sunset Boulevard and Brian Yuzna’s cult classic, Society.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 70 Tara Brady
    Nosferatu
    The first half of the film is spellbinding; Eggers and his cinematographer, Jarin Blaschke, brilliantly redeploy the grammar of German expressionism to make Dracula (or thereabouts) scary again.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Tara Brady
    The Blue Trail
    The script, written by the director and Tibério Azul, occasionally fumbles its dystopian framework. But the journey has enough vigour, underpinned by ideas on autonomy and ageing, to sustain its adventure.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Tara Brady
    Till
    Against the distress, Chukwu and Deadwyler find purpose in Mamie’s transformation into a hugely influential civil rights activist. This is a woman’s account of striving for racial justice in the era of Jim Crow laws.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Tara Brady
    Broker
    The winner of the Ecumenical Jury Award at the 2022 Cannes Festival finds warmth and empathy in the unlikeliest and most unethical places.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 80 Tara Brady
    Malcolm & Marie
    The script is as indulgent as it is compelling, which is fair considering its depiction of two riled people who know each other’s weaknesses. Marcell Rév’s crystalline high-contrast black and white cinematography is gorgeous enough to transform a domestic dispute into something wonderfullycinematic.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Tara Brady
    The Royal Hotel
    The sustained twitchy energy of the script amplifies the jangling nerves of Hanna’s fight-or-flight dilemma. But Liv’s weak-mindedness can feel implausible and the grandstanding denouement feels jarring and unearned.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Tara Brady
    The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo
    At the heart of the film is 11-year-old Lidia, raised within this fiercely loving queer household. Through her eyes, Céspedes captures the tenderness and volatility of a family under siege.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Tara Brady
    Slalom
    It’s a recipe for an emotional journey to match the trajectory of the title, but director Charlène Favier’s script, co-written with Antoine Lacomblez and Marie Talon, is as chilly as the permacold of its surroundings, and punctuated by DOP Yann Maritaud’s serene, snowy tableaux.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Tara Brady
    Urchin
    Dickinson plays a small role as Mike’s antagonistic friend, but everything rests on Dillane’s powerhouse turn and the writer-director’s compassionate, daring script.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Tara Brady
    Small Body
    Celeste Cescutti leads a parochial cast that is largely unprofessional, with a fierce performance that bosses and grounds the film’s magic realist themes.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Tara Brady
    The Promised Land
    This handsome Nordic demi-western, inspired by real events and adapted from Ida Jessen’s 2020 novel, The Captain and Ann Barbara, is powered along by Mikkelsen’s rugged charisma and various rustic and maggoty scene partners, including the married runaway serfs Ann Barbara (Amanda Collin, quietly expressive) and Johannes (Morten Hee Andersen), and the self-possessed Romani orphan Anmai Mus (Hagberg Melina).
    • 77 Metascore
    • 60 Tara Brady
    Presence
    We’re never properly spooked. The presence, ironically, lacks presence. An excellent cast and flashy film-making ensure we are entertained, nonetheless.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Tara Brady
    Thelma
    Writer-director Josh Margolin, making his feature debut, based the eponymous character on his grandmother. The script, accordingly, is never patronising.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Tara Brady
    Girls State
    The compassionate directors of The Mission wisely let the young women do the talking. Seven credited cinematographers are there to capture every compelling moment.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 60 Tara Brady
    Empire of Light
    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.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Tara Brady
    How to Train Your Dragon 2
    Dragon 2 feels like a proper film, not just a cartoon.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 60 Tara Brady
    Father Mother Sister Brother
    Not atypically for a portmanteau picture, this surprise winner from last year’s Venice film festival is intermittently arresting and wildly uneven.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Tara Brady
    I Like Movies
    There remains a warmth and goofiness in Lehtinen’s performance that harks back to Napoleon Dynamite as much as it recalls such similarly themed bro pics as High Fidelity and Clerks. It’s enough to restore one’s faith in the near-extinct subgenre once known as the teen comedy.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Tara Brady
    Shayda
    Niasari, who writes and produces as well as directing, racks up the tension to match his psychopathy in this sure-footed debut feature.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 100 Tara Brady
    Corsage
    Corsage shares some obvious DNA with Pablo Larraín’s Spencer and Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, but where those films swoon for their put-upon heroines, Krieps brings an unapologetic flintiness.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Tara Brady
    The White Tiger
    The lively narration and rollicking pace make for favourable comparisons to Scorsese’s Goodfellas. The Bangalore backdrop and Indian social relations bring something unique to this frequently imitated (and seldom rivalled) crime movie template. Paolo Carnera’s camera has fun with dark corners and sickly neon. Adiga’s dark humour keeps abreast of the political commentary in a film that powers through its source material at breakneck speed.
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