Few actors can play a self-satisfied bastard as well as Aidan Gillen. As the unscrupulous Petyr ‘Littlefinger’ Baelish in the HBO series Game of Thrones, he had television viewers cringe at his every insincere utterance. In Rose Plays Julie, his third collaboration with the writer-director team Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, he is cast as an unpleasant, full-of-himself archaeologist, Peter. I’d like to imagine that … Continue reading Rose Plays Julie – Review
It is easy to spend too much time on social media. You are in the middle of something, decide to glance at your feed through your phone and then get sucked in, liking, commenting or just unburdening. You need to have a job that prevents distraction or else keep the darned thing switched off – to heck with FOMO. Sweat, Swedish writer-director Magnus von Horn’s … Continue reading Sweat – Review
After his feature debut, Another Earth and follow-up, I-Origins, writer-director Mike Cahill struggled for a high-concept title for his third feature, apologetically named Bliss. It tells the story of a newly divorced middle-ranking executive, Greg Wittle (an apologetic Owen Wilson) who fails to re-order his meds, loses his job, kills his boss and meets a stranger in a bar in rapid succession. Greg is summoned … Continue reading Bliss – Review
Over the last few years, we have been treated to American movies that have focussed on the wives or girlfriends of career criminals. Generally though, films such as Widows or The Kitchen have shown groups of women associated with crime getting together to prove that they are better than their deadbeat husbands, even if they are played by Liam Neeson. Set in Pittsburgh in the … Continue reading I’m Your Woman – Review
There is something unsettling about the London-set psychological thriller, Cordelia and it isn’t the neighbour, Frank (Johnny Flynn) upstairs. The titular protagonist (Antonia Campbell-Hughes, who also co-wrote the script with the film’s director, Adrian Shergold) is an actress, who twelve years earlier had an experience on the tube that scarred her for life, after she gave up her seat for a blind man. Cordelia is … Continue reading Cordelia – Review
Will British actor Paul Bettany ever get the recognition he deserves? A firm favourite of Ron Howard who cast him in A Beautiful Mind and The Da Vinci Code before tapping him for a key role in Solo: A Star Wars Story – his character was originally conceived as a computer generated alien, but Howard thought of Bettany and said, ‘we don’t need that’ – … Continue reading Uncle Frank – Review
