Copilot movie review: how love warps women’s lives
Tragic anti-romance uses cinematic conventions and the presumptions of fiction to disorient us. Bursts the bubble of a certain kind of movie delusion to highlight a harsh reality of women’s lives.
based on fact
Zola movie review: speed bumps in the road trip
A deliciously badass style — part 70s grindhouse, part verité pseudo-documentary — and all-in performances are undermined by an exploitive gaze, and a combination of failed caper and failed satire.
Charlatan movie review: more vegetative than herbal
An intriguing story with engaging performances about a compelling real-life character, but oddly inert, and can’t quite make all its many aspects gel into a wholly satisfying or wholly coherent story.
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It review: possessed innocent?
As credulous — or con-artist cheaty — as its demon-hunter protagonists, but lacking their charm. Worse, it can’t even be bothered to justify and satisfy the procedural approach to its mystery.
Nomadland movie review: ain’t that America
Come on down for a gen-u-ine American dystopia at the crossroads of end-of-empire and late-stage capitalism. Chloé Zhao’s outsider’s eye is hugely sympathetic but unhindered by knee-jerk patriotism.
One Night in Miami… movie review: the past, still prologue
An electrifying philosophical fantasia that imagines four towering figures of 1960s America arguing over how to navigate racism as Black men. Enraging, but also thrilling, bursting with cinematic joy.
Small Axe: Mangrove movie review: parties and protests (LFF 2020)
A triumph. McQueen brings history to life and makes it sing with zest and passion, with a spirit that endures beyond the strife. A celebration of Black joy alongside a raging against Black oppression.
The Binge: Mrs America
Apart from the value of its explicatory gloss on anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly, there is entertaining, gratifying drama in the clash of so many complex feminist women working against her.
I Am Woman movie review: more a purr than a roar
A winsome Tilda Cobham-Hervey leads a rote rags-to-riches tale, though its rampant sexism is a villain women will recognize. Needs to be seen, even if it’s not quite the tribute Helen Reddy deserves.
Tesla movie review: less than electrifying
Hawke is warm and empathetic, but the film’s artificiality is at odds with a celebration of the visionary’s life and work, and finally offputting. I wish this were either more earnest or more bonkers.
