Victoria & Abdul movie review: one of her best friends was brown
Charming based-on-fact British costume dramedy gently snarks about power and propriety but cuts a lot deeper when it comes to bigotry and bootlicking.
reviews
My Pure Land movie review: meet a real-life heroine in a land that really doesn’t want her
Behold a modern-day feminist western set in deeply patriarchal Pakistan. Stark and spare, with a heroine full of mean grace, it’s even a true story.
mother! movie review: from WTF to STFU
Darren Aronofsky’s self-pitying cinematic rending of garments is repulsive, transparent, and pointless. A grotesquely wrapped gift box of utter banality.
It movie review: a series of unfortunate events
The Goonies, Stand by Me, and Poltergeist went into a blender with a pinch of E.T. and John Hughes to smush into a mess of retro 80s mush.
The Vault movie review: where the money is haunted
Psychologically risible and paranormally inconsistent heist horror gives us not a single character to like or root for, or even to cheer dying.
Ingrid Goes West movie review: an antisocial-media story
Bitter, snide, and ultimately brutal, exactly the movie about social media we deserve; a satire that is barely satirical. Aubrey Plaza is hashtag savage.
The Limehouse Golem movie review: riffing on the Ripper
Lush sensationalism and Dickensian social justice collide in 1880s London, and if there isn’t quite enough of either, it’s still a slice of satisfying gothic horror.
God’s Own Country movie review: the cultivation of love
A wonderful portrait of life in a harsh, lonely place, and of romance as a prompt for personal growth and changing traditions. Raises the bar for British indies.
Detroit movie review: racism 101 for white people
Tense, gripping, enraging, but only about things that black Americans already know. This is a primer about racism for white people, and we must pay attention.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day 3D movie review: he said he’d be back…
An action masterpiece newly remastered in gorgeous 4K (and rejiggered for superfluous 3D) reveals how fresh it remains not only technically but thematically.
