Film

Lady Bird is a film that deals with the trials and tribulations of first love, losing your virginity, and the final year of high school in a way that is rarely seen on the big screen. Each section of the film is given its own space to breathe, and although the film sticks to its tight 93 minute running time, no scene feels rushed. The film in fact should be commended for leaving you wanting more, for making you want...

In eyes of Guillermo del Toro, ‘monster’ is a relative term. So when Richard Jenkins’ Giles, our nominal narrator, tells us that The Shape of Water is a story “of love & loss, and the monster who tried to destroy it all,” it would be unwise to assume that the antagonist he refers to is the piscine humanoid at the heart of this otherworldly fable. The latest offering from del Toro’s beloved cabinet of curiosities, The Shape of Water is...

“Just because something works, doesn’t mean it cannot be improved,” we’re told early on in Ryan Coogler’s courageous new entry into the Marvel canon. Loyal fans who have stuck with the series since the first Iron Man will no doubt be relieved to hear that this exhilarating blockbuster yarn doesn’t deviate too far from the studio’s winning formula, but it is those whose voices are callously sidelined so often in such big-budget fare, and crucially given such definition here, who...

“I’m sweating here. Roasting. Boiling. Baking. Sweltering. It’s like a sauna. Furnace. You could fry an egg on my stomach,” narrates Ray Winstone’s Gary “Gal” Dove, before The Stranglers “Peaches” kicks in and he takes a break from crisping himself under the white-hot heat of the Spanish sun to place an iced hand towel over the nether regions he has concealed behind a skimpy pair of yellow swimming trunks. So begins Jonathan Glazer’s cooler than cool, gangster-heist, love story hybrid:...

Based on the life of Arunachalam Muruganantham, Pad Man is the biopic of Lakshmikant Chauhan (Akshay Kumar), the man who dreamt of manufacturing and distributing subsidized sanitary pads to the women of India after seeing the dirty rags his wife was using during menstruation. Due to the taboos surrounding menstruation in his small village and across India in general; it is not just economics, but social mores Lakshmi must do battle against. What may not seem at first cinematic material...

Where most stories concerning plucky underdogs either see them miraculously come out on top or heroically fail with credit and respect intact, The Mercy shows us a third outcome that is much more realistic and true to life. For more often than not our grand plans do not turn out as we may have hoped, and we are left fearing ridicule and failure. The desire to cover up our mistakes is a common one that has consumed us all at...

In this Russian drama, a couple in the process of a bitter divorce has selfishly ignored their twelve-year-old son Alexey (Matvey Novikov) in pursuit of new relationships. When the boy goes missing, the pair are finally forced to acknowledge his existence before they can continue with their lives. Father Boris (Aleksey Rozin) comes across as selfish and uncaring, mother Zhenya (Maryana Spivak) worse. She emphasises how much she wishes she had aborted Alexey in the womb with savage glee, giving...

“This experiment could unleash chaos” remarks Donal Logue’s faceless news pundit about a third of the way through this unexpected, and frankly unnecessary addition to the Cloverfield saga. Though the first two films – 2008’s Cloverfield and 2016’s 10 Cloverfield Lane – didn’t share any direct DNA within their separate narratives, they did both function as effective post-9/11 paranoia pieces; melding blockbuster thrills with timely considerations on how we can feed on and be consumed, both individually & collectively, by...