The Mercy movie review: a sea of troubles
An unsettling true story smartly told, from a moment in time at once uniquely its own and a harbinger of things to come. Colin Firth is subtle, unflinching, extraordinary.
Scorched Earth movie review: there’s still room for feminism at the end of the world
Gina Carano roams a mild yet tedious postapocalyptic wasteland as a bounty hunter, and either you are here for this lady badass of our feminazi dreams, or you are not.
Peter Rabbit movie review: splat the bunny
Tosses out the very sentiments that make Beatrix Potter’s work so beloved and so enduring in favor of the sullen bratty championing of cruelty and disenchantment. Nihilistic money-grubbing garbage.
Winchester movie review: she hosts dead people
The story of a fascinating woman retold in the most reductive, least resonant way possible, while actually sidelining her. Even cast as a simple haunted-house tale, it’s not even a little bit scary.
movies by or about women opening US/Can from Fri Feb 02
Gina Carano kicks ass, Helen Mirren placates ghosts, and Daniela Vega fights for basic human dignity.
movies by or about women opening UK/Ire from Fri Feb 02
Vicky Krieps, Lesley Manville, and Helen Mirren are dealing with men’s crap in the corporeal and the spiritual worlds.
Journey’s End movie review: where the war winds blow
A descent into the muddy trenches of World War I that is intimate and immediate, melancholy and profoundly moving. An experience as visceral as it is intellectual.
Adele and Everything After (aka Letting Go of Adele) documentary review: for love of a very special dog
Sensitive, marvelously engaging portrait of the extraordinary relationship between one woman and her service dog. A remarkable story told with intense empathy.
Early Man movie review: primordial goop
A huge disappointment, crude and simple compared to Aardman’s earlier, more sophisticated and multilayered work. No satire or subversion, just a bog-standard triumph-of-the-underdog story.
12 Strong movie review: America enters the “graveyard of empires”
Tense but never sensationalized action adventure about the first post–9/11 US foray into Afghanistan, an extraordinary culture clash and mashup of medieval and modern technologies.
