Wendy Ide

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Screen Daily, The Observer (UK)
For 1,329 reviews, this critic has graded:
  • 48% higher than the average critic
  • 4% same as the average critic
  • 48% lower than the average critic
On average, this critic grades 2.2 points higher than other critics. (0-100 point scale)

Wendy Ide's Scores

  • Movies
  • TV
Average review score: 68
Highest review score: 100 Alien
Lowest review score: 20 Holmes & Watson
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 759 out of 1329
  2. Mixed: 538 out of 1329
  3. Negative: 32 out of 1329
1329 movie reviews
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    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Power Alley
    While the film’s conclusion is perhaps a little heavy-handed, the delivery of the message – of women’s reproductive rights and agency over their lives and bodies – is an emphatic slam dunk.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    The Road to Mandalay
    A combination of tender details – the way Guo carefully picks the fibres from his girlfriend’s skin after a gruelling shift at the factory – and a strikingly surreal approach to a scene in which Lianqing prostitutes herself for the first time makes this unflinching picture a notable addition to the ever-swelling list of films that deal with migration.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am
    Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’s generous documentary is a fitting tribute to the late, great author.
    • 67 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    A Simple Favor
    The lip-smacking, acid drops of malice in the latest film from Paul Feig (Bridesmaids) makes this unexpectedly cruel comedy as intoxicating as the mid-afternoon martinis swilled by the two central characters.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Mayor
    Deft editing and unexpectedly affecting music choices make for an engaging portrait of the kind of impassioned and dedicated politician who seems in short supply right now.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool
    Although there’s certainly a lot going on on screen, our attention is focused on Bening’s central performance.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Unicorns
    Hardy is terrific, his face crowded with conflicting emotions that Luke doesn’t have the words to express.
    • 95 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Portrait of a Lady on Fire
    Arthouse audiences will be intrigued to discover how Sciamma has channelled the fluid energy of her contemporary work into the more constrained environment of a costume drama. It won’t hurt that this is a strikingly handsome production which will be admired on a technical level.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Limbo
    It’s a distinctive work, both visually – the stark black and white photography accentuates the uncanny, almost lunar pockmarks on this scarred terrain – and in terms of its intriguingly detached outback noir storytelling.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Great Freedom
    The power of Sebastian Meise’s subdued prison drama comes not from big, brash moments but from subtle details. Sound design that hints at the aching emptiness outside the frame and beyond the walls.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Urchin
    This gritty social realist character study is spiked with striking and unexpected detours.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Sometimes I Think About Dying
    It plays out at the tipping point at which living with loneliness starts to feel easier than tackling the daunting prospect of conversation with a stranger.
    • 80 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    The Nature of Love
    It’s a comedy, certainly, but one that leans into the discomfort of the polar differences between the couple.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan
    Temple has always used archive material playfully; here, it’s particularly riotous, like a chaotic patchwork quilt tacked together by one of Shane’s drunk aunties.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Endurance
    While the 2022 expedition doesn’t match the nail-biting life-or-death stakes of the original venture, it’s compellingly captured through the eyes of a likable cast of eccentric world experts.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Profile
    The story is told entirely on a computer screen, through skype, social media and editing programs. And despite the restrictions of this device, the film crackles with tension.
    • 65 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Transformers One
    One of the aspects that makes this an unexpectedly satisfying piece of storytelling (aside from the obvious improvements in the joke quality) is the way that the film digs into the structure of Autobot society.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Mank
    This is film-making as role-playing, which has immersed itself, method-style, in a past era and aesthetic, which wears its luminous black-and-white cinematography like a costume.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Mandibles
    As a portrait of friendship, viewed through the compound eye of a mutant insect, it is multidimensional and rather moving.
    • 93 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    No Other Land
    The friendship that grows between the two is a splinter of hope in an otherwise increasingly bleak situation.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Four Hands
    Smart writing and an unflinching relish when it comes to the scenes of violence make for a deftly handled genre piece.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Bird
    Bird finds beauty and wonder in every frame (one that Arnold has slyly shaped to evoke the format and curved corners of a smartphone screen, echoing the way Bailey captures private moments of visual poetry). The film celebrates rather than judges its erratic and occasionally challenging characters It’s the closest Andrea Arnold has come to a feelgood flick.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
    The latest feature from the Bristol-based animation studio is an absolute delight.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Spring Blossom
    Lindon creates a portrait of first love which is fresh, honest and engaging.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Who You Think I Am
    This is a compulsively watchable drama which taps into some genuinely intriguing themes. A twisted and tangled final act makes heavy weather of some of its reveals, but Binoche is terrific throughout.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    The Promised Land
    An invigoratingly savage Nordic western, The Promised Land is earthy, enjoyable stuff: an expansive, sweeping epic with hope in its heart and dirt under its nails.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    The Mad Women's Ball
    The latest picture from Melanie Laurent is a strikingly beautiful production which delves deep into the ugliness at the roots of psychiatric medicine.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    The 8th
    There are charismatic figures fronting the movement, but the real power comes from each of the many shared, sad stories from women whose lives were affected by the law.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Hide and Seek
    Using a combination of verité and poetic reconstructions, Fiore paints a sobering portrait of a bright, personable kid whose destiny is preordained.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Being a Human Person
    This terrific, unexpectedly moving documentary portrait captures the man at work.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Lady
    Lady is a vivid, bracingly energetic examination of sisterhood and female bonds in an unequal society.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Music
    It’s a film that requires considerable investment from the audience, and one that rations its rewards even to those who fully commit to the experience. Still, Schanelec’s approach draws the audience in, even as it holds them at arm’s length; she is uncommonly fond of wide shots. It’s an oddly fascinating endeavour.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    A Bunch of Amateurs
    As this terrific and very moving documentary shows, the society, fuelled by bickering, biscuits and cinephilia, is a lifeline for its members, who weather bereavements, loneliness and fiercely argued creative differences within its peeling walls. Lovely stuff.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    True Mothers
    An elegant, absorbing piece of storytelling.
    • 74 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Scala!!!
    Borrowing a punky, handmade aesthetic from the famous monthly programme posters, the film collates wildly entertaining interviews with former staff and punters.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    While We Watched
    This is tense, essential film-making that argues for the importance of serious, balanced journalism in today’s world of factional infotainment, while also showing the cost to those who stand against the tide.
    • 59 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Good Grief
    Levy, who also wrote the screenplay and stars in the picture, has made a satisfyingly adult, bittersweet drama which argues that even a seemingly gilded life can be painfully messy.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Joyland
    Richly detailed and superbly acted across the board, the film cast a scathing eye over the rigid social constraints that ensnare anyone who fails to conform.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    3 Faces
    And Shahrzad, a huge star from the 1960s and 70s who was banished after the revolution, is present as a voice rather than a face in the film, but is no less significant for the fact that she is not seen by the camera.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Only the Animals
    This is film-making that really tests the elasticity of its story strands, but it largely manages to keep the audience from teetering into disbelief. For the most part, that’s thanks to persuasively solid characters and casting.
    • 75 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Under The Wire
    It gives heart-in-the-mouth insights into the realities of war reporting, and is a testament to the value – and the price – of great journalism.
    • tbd Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Typist Artist Pirate King
    There’s a disconnect between her inventive, impressionistic artistic output – Audrey’s actual work is interspersed throughout the picture – and the film’s flat, rather matter-of-fact look.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story
    [An] affectionate, frequently amusing documentary portrait.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Society of the Snow
    While there are moments in which the film’s generous running time starts to take its toll, Bayona’s smart decision to make this a tale of both the survivors and victims brings a nervy uncertainty to the story, even if we all know broadly how it ends.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    The Worst Person in the World
    A chaotic, unpredictable portrait of a chaotic, unpredictable individual, The Worst Person In The World is a spirited and thrillingly uninhibited piece of filmmaking from Joachim Trier.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Mogul Mowgli
    This is abrasive, confrontational film-making, with a machine-gun assault of ideas and influences.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Causeway
    Lawrence is phenomenal, giving the kind of wary, reined-in performance that made such a compelling impression in her breakthrough film, Winter’s Bone. And the always excellent Henry gradually strips back a character who at first seems wholly at ease with life to reveal layers of suppressed guilt and pain.
    • 88 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Apollo 11
    A celebration of human endeavour, and of a rare moment of global unity.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Support the Girls
    Under the party whoops and confetti cannons there’s a deceptively complex and layered portrait of female solidarity in the face of ingrained sexism, racism and general male shittiness.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    American Animals
    A heart-pounding heist movie and a bantering conversation between real life and fiction, the debut drama by documentary director Bart Layton (The Imposter) is a great deal sharper – and more slickly executed – than the lunkheaded criminal debacle on which it is based.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Girls Will Be Girls
    This impressive first feature from Indian director Shuchi Talati burrows into the skin of its high-achieving, ambitious central character.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    The Apprentice
    Most intriguing is Strong’s slippery portrayal of Cohn – a man full of sharp edges and wide, swinging contradictions.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Hail Satan?
    There’s a sense of genuinely creative mischief in some of the group’s satanic stunts, as well as a deft understanding of the workings of state legislature.
    • 84 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Fire of Love
    The film’s approach skirts around the actual science of the Kraffts’ work, but it does explore the psychology of a shared passion, of a couple who melted their boots together on smoking lava flows and danced by the craters in a confetti of volcanic bombs.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Tina
    It’s a crowdpleasing tale of triumph over adversity which hits its raw highs and gritty lows every bit as emphatically as Turner during her famously electric performances.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Thirteen Lives
    Despite the fact that we all know the outcome, and that it’s the third film in as many years to tell the story, Ron Howard’s account of the drama is compulsively watchable and breathlessly tense.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Good Posture
    Wells’s bracingly spiky writing vividly draws both the characters and the connections between them.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Dahomey
    It’s a wisp of a thing, clocking in at barely over an hour. But the agile poetry and formal playfulness of Mati Diop’s exquisite hybrid documentary belies the weight and wealth of ideas within.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Asia
    This impressive Israeli feature debut from Ruthy Pribar stars a mesmerising Shira Haas.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Woman at War
    Carried by a magnetic performance from Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir in a dual role (she plays both Halla and her identical twin sister Asa), Benedikt Erlingsson’s enjoyable follow up to Of Horses And Men is elevated by wryly idiosyncratic flourishes in its execution.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    The Brink
    It’s unsavoury viewing – flies on the wall are rarely attracted by the sweet smell of roses after all – but it’s queasily fascinating nonetheless.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Wendy Ide
    Speak No Evil
    It’s a profoundly uncomfortable piece of filmmaking, a meticulously judged exercise in satirical sadism. But a question mark over the third act climax leaves the audience with a sense of doubt: the ’what’ of the situation is genuinely disturbing, but the ’why’ is more elusive, a niggling inconsistency which undermines some of the picture’s considerable impact.
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