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How to sell a movie that’s partly a single-room play and partly a political drama—because this is a film about the transfer from one Pope to another. It’s fairly recent history, concerning the election of Benedict XVI following the death of John Paul II in 2005—and Benedict’s renunciation of his Papacy in February 2013, after which Cardinal Bergoglio was elected. The death of John Paul has presented a crossroads for the Catholic Church but it’s not one that it is collectively minded to contemplate at the time. Benedict ( Anthony Hopkins ) is asked by Cardinal Bergoglio ( Jonathan Pryce ) for permission to resign. Bergoglio is younger and more progressive than Ratzinger, and their conversation initially concerns the need for the Church to accept some of the unpleasant things that have been done in its name and to change and grow.  The film delves into the past lives of both men. Bergoglio is almost tempted away from his calling by the love of a woman when they’re both much...

This arty drama from Noah Baumbach is one of two Awards-heavy films that are presented on Netflix and so easy to watch without having to go to the cinema! It’s a study of a marriage coming apart, which sounds like a difficult sell but somehow this is approachable. Mostly because the writing is pretty good, and the performances are exceptional. Charlie is a hot-shot theatre director in New York. Married to Nicole, an actress, they have a young son and they are living their life until Nicole realises that objectively she is not happy. Adam Driver and Scartlett Johansson star as the couple—and although there is love between them there is also one-sided disappointment. Nicole reads in voice-over a document she’s prepared, evidently for marriage guidance purposes, in which she explains what’s excellent about Charlie, but in person she is soon getting angry in front of the mediator. The film manages not to take sides, even though it seems as though it might be one-sided. Char...

This is a gentle take on Charles Dickens ’ lengthy and partly autobiographical novel. The story of poverty giving way to success, and falling in love - not to mention debtors prisons and harshly cruel characters is turned into a light comedy by none other than Armando Iannuccu : a man known for satirising politics of a decade or more ago, or the Death of Stalin. The film is also curious because it’s Dev Patel ’s second consecutive work located in the East of England: specifically Great Yarmouth and Bury St Edmunds. Patel is a very likeable Copperfield: a character synonymous with Dickens even to the point where he stands at a stage and reads at the beginning and end. This framing device echoes Dickens’ own public performances. Most people will have read the massive novel in serial form though, and presentations of it usually have lengthy running times. Iannucci has cut the story to its elements though, and this is a great move. You’d have to be a poe-faced purist to not enjoy ...

Now is the time to regret not spending more of the past years thinking about Star Trek. The renaissance of always-popular franchise on Netflix is followed with a bold, ambitious series that was good enough to lure Patrick Stewart back to the role of Jean-Luc Picard. The new Amazon series has made much of Picard and his dog, Number One ( Deniro the Dog ), living in retirement at the family vineyard which will ring a bell if you watched The Next Generation back in the day. Stewart is back, so Picard must have a reason to stop tending the vines… The lavish futuristic looking series moves between this rural idyll and the bustle of ‘Greater San Francisco' where an abduction and murder sends a mysterious young woman looking for the only man she knows will help: Admiral Jean-Luc Picard. Picard has turned his back on Starfleet and the politics around this event sound so current. He doesn’t believe that Starfleet is Starfleet anymore—almost as if it’s not he that left, it’s th...

Fox News was for a while embroiled in a sexual harassment case when Gretchen Carlson sued the company and specifically the CEO Roger Ailes. Carlson in this film is played by Nicole Kidman , and Fox anchor Megyn Kelly is played by Charlize Theron —earning an Oscar Nomination for Best Actress. This is because the story’s arc is Kelly’s ascent to anchoring her own show and her later confirmation that she too had been on the receiving end of Ailes’ threatening advances—in the power dynamic acquiescing to him meant promotion. So it allegedly is with Weinstein and many others. The problem is apparently rife in any business where men have power over subordinate women, and so this is a timely piece. Roger Ailes is played by John Lithgow , and although he is an odious figure we can rest assured that John Lithgow is not. When Kelly is fired from Fox & Friends (Donald Trump’s favourite programme) she unexpectedly sues for sexual harassment and the event—which seems an unlikely indi...

Sam Mendes ’ grandfather’s stories of World War One have resulted in the film-maker dramatising an incident where two soldiers must travel to deliver a message to call off an offensive, which is a trap, in order to save thousands of lives. The film is notable for being a single shot: the camera stays on the protagonists for the entire running time: no cut-aways, no flashbacks, nothing to distract from the people. The premise sounds similar to Saving Private Ryan , with the War being the horrific backdrop to a personal story. If you’ve been to Ypres and the Menin Gate, or Arras or Vimy Ridge… any ground that was conceded or won in the ‘Great War’ you’ll understand the scale of devastation which is witnessed in part by Lance Corporal Blake ( Dean-Charles Chapman ) and Schofield ( George MacKay ). The single shot editing style quickly proves not to be a gimmick at all as the scene moves from almost beautifully peaceful countryside to trenches and explosions. Death surrounds every...

A  story about a ten year old boy in Nazi Germany sounds like one of those made-for-school dramas from the 1980s, but Taika Waititi —the New Zealand director with the vivid imagination and quirky humour—has come up with a sharp satire about Naziism which is unexpectedly tender and ultimately powerful and moving. Sneaking this in behind the trope of Hitler as an imaginary friend undersells the premise and promises some sort of broad comedy along the lines of Mel Brooks movies or—at a push— ’Allo ’Allo. But this isn’t either of those. The boy Jojo ( Roman Griffin Davis ) is weak, but in the Hitler Youth he finds that those around him will accept him if he joins in with their ideological hatred of anything that’s not Aryan. This sounds like it’s toeing some sort of tasteless lines but the anti-Semitic slurs on Judaism stick to the laughably preposterous and steer clear of the material that’s regrettably become topical again. Taika Waititi himself plays Adolph: he’s out in th...

The stage version of Cats confounded critics and others and has made billions. People from all around the world see something in a mixture of songs based on poems, woven with the idea of a feline talent show: the winner gets to go to the Heavyside Layer, which is Cat Heaven. You have to be a “Jellicle Cat”—whatever that is. It doesn’t matter… It seems like it should matter, but it doesn’t. The original production was a junkyard set, and the singing dancers filled the auditorium from all directions, singing and dancing in lithe catsuits. And now Tom Hooper has followed the success of Les Misérables with a film version that has been universally annihilated by the critics. The trailer generated mass social media mockery all the way back in July because of the CGI fur on very obviously adult humans. Cats begins in the familiar junkyard setting but it turns out to be a feline version of an old London: milk bars, theatres showing The Mouse Trap and all sorts of visual puns. In a c...

The classic novel from Louisa May Alcott gets a screen adaptation every generation, and it comes to Greta Gerwig to write and direct this excellent film. The last major version  starred Winona Ryder, and is a fine film but this version has universally excellent performances and is one of those occasions when a modern film makes you forget its contemporary existence and makes you believe that you are in Civil War era Massachusetts.  Having not read the book doesn’t really aid analysis of the film: Gerwig’s take uses different times and moves between them at points to tell the story of four sisters—each quite different characters—who live in Concord, and struggle to overcome illness, accidents, and the culture of the times to be successful in their own ways. It’s important obviously to note that this isn’t about just finding love although there is plenty of romance—thwarted and not—in the story. Arguably the central character, Jo March ( Saoirse Ronan ) is part of the ...