A compelling, meaningful coming of age story, full of honesty and blunt humour. Christine, raised and living in Sacramento, California, dreams of escaping her backwater life and controlling mother despite not having the grades at school to allow it, or the money to afford it. But while she angrily protests and rebels against established social…
Tag: drama
Review: Downsizing
Well that was disappointing. Paul Safranek lives a pretty unfulfilling life, always supporting others but not especially giving in to his own wants or needs. Drowning in debt, living small with big dreams, he convinces his wife to join him on a newly discovered science: Downsizing. Living in a miniature world, being only ten centimeters…
Review: The Post
Spielberg can make a great film from filming paint dry, and The Post is very deliberately made in this day and age of political anxiety. A widow is placed in charge of The Washington Post newspaper firm after her husband passed away, taking on the responsibility of a legacy just when strongly guarded Government secrets…
Review: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Award season begins strong, a movie that is surprisingly funny, tragic, subtle, deep and ambiguous. Seven months after her daughter was brutally murdered, an angry and grieving mother takes matters into her own hands and advertises the local police department’s negligence in catching her killer on three huge roadside billboards. However, does she appreciate how…
Review: Hacksaw Ridge
Something of a cliched war movie, but it has a great focal point in Andrew Garfield. Based on the true story of Desmond Doss, an American army medic sent to Japan in World War 2, who takes part in the siege of Hacksaw Ridge and would become one of the most decorated soldiers for bravery…
Review: Nocturnal Animals
A great example of deep character writing. It will definitely benefit from repeated viewing. An artist turn exhibit organiser received a book written by her ex-husband, the story it tells is both moving and unsettlingly personal. With an awesome cast, Jake Gyllenhaal, Amy Adams, Michael Sheen and Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals is an unwinding psychological…
Review: mother!
An incredibly traumatising and dark dive into multiple facets of human nature. She is a resourceful wife set about rebuilding her husband’s old house after it was devastated in a fire. The house holds significance with him, a muse to his poetic and creative writing that he has had much success with. But while she…
Review: The Hunt for the Wilderpeople
What a charming, quirky and enjoyable adventure. In New Zealand, a troublesome child is sent by child services to live in the countryside with foster parents and maybe adjust his immature behaviour. From there a wild story begins with him and his foster uncle throughout the wilderness of New Zealand. With director Taika Waititi being…
Review: War for the Planet of the Apes
The latest installment is still incredible to look at, but feels a little directionless and even anti-climatic compared to the incredible Dawn that preceded it. Set fifteen years after the rise of intelligent ape kind, War follows Caesar and his growing tribe of apes as they try to escape a ruthless human colonel who wants to…
Review: Okja
Like a live-action Studio Ghibli, Okja has tremendous heart, charm and nightmare fuel. Your love of bacon could be threatened. A young orphaned Korean girl living with her grandfather befriends a colossal new breed of pig that they are raising in the countryside. Little does she know, her grandfather was chosen ten years ago as…