Downhill (15) | Close-Up Film Review
An American remake of the Scandinavian movie Force Majeure, this is perhaps predictably a somewhat lighter piece of work.
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Author: Carol Allen
True History of the Kelly Gang (18) | Close-Up Film Review
The film describes itself as being inspired by Peter Carey’s Booker prize winning novel and admits in an opening statement that this is not the true history of the Kelly gang.
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Little Joe (12A) | Close-Up Film Review
Austrian director Jessica Hausner’s first English language film has a strong cast and an intriguing, genre defying story, which combines science fiction with psychological drama in a most unusual way.
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Mr. Jones (15) | Close-Up Film Review
The story told here is largely true, historically interesting and indeed relevant to the present day world.
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The Personal History of David Copperfield (PG) | Close-Up Film Review
The film holds the attention through its sheer pace and theatricality, though it’s a technique that in some ways keeps the audience at a distance.
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Uncut Gems (15) | Close-up Film Review
Set in 70s Manhattan, Adam Sandler gives a sensationally good and wildly energetic performance in this as dodgy gem dealer Howard Ratner.
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The Two Popes (12A) | Close-Up Film Review
The two popes of the title are Pope Benedict XVI, Austrian born Joseph Ratzinger and his successor, the current Pope Francis, Argentinian Jorge Bergoglio. The meat of the film consists of fictional and imagined conversations between the two of them.
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The Nightingale (18) | Close-Up Film Review
Director Jennifer Kent, who made her feature debut with the gripping psychological horror movie The Babadook, here turns her attention to what she describes as “the fallout of violence from a feminine perspective.”
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Harriet (12A) | Close-Up Film Review
As the film industry and indeed other aspects of arts and culture have become more diverse in their story telling, previously unknown stories from the black experience are being revealed.
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Judy and Punch (15) | Close-Up Film Review
This reworking of the old Punch and Judy tale is a dark, indeed almost Grimm fairy tale, reminiscent of the work of novelist Angela Carter, which puts a feminist revenge slant onto the violence of the traditional seaside puppet show.
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