Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  Pictured : Migrant construction worker Osmane ( Amine Benrachid ) reaches out to a sexagenarian Palestinian widower, Suzanne ( Hiam Abbass ) in a scene from writer-director Danielle Arbid 's Lebanon-set romance, ' Only Rebels Win '. Still courtesy of Easy Riders Films .   At the start of her sixth feature film, Seuls les Rebelles ( Only Rebels Win ), Lebanese expatriate writer-director, Danielle Arbid (born in Beirut in 1970), offers an apology. In spite of best intentions, she was unable to film in Lebanon as Israeli attacks, which continue at time of writing, prevented her from doing so. Instead, using Zoom to communicate, she directed a small team to take digital footage of the locations in her script. She then shot her movie in a studio and used the footage as back projection. Arbid did not want to offend her Lebanese audience by pretending that she endured their privations. She ends the film with a pan to the crew, an acknowledgement of her artifice. My first...

  Pictured : Daughters Georgina ( Emily Beecham , left), Victoria ( Sienna Miller , 2nd left) and Katy ( Scarlett Johansson , right) accompany their mother Diana ( Kristin Scott Thomas ) in a scene from the comedy-drama, ' My Mother's Weddin g', directed by Kristin Scott Thomas from a script she co-wrote with John Micklethwait . Still courtesy of Universal Pictures UK The English actress Kristin Scott Thomas (born May 1960) had an atypical childhood. Her father, a Royal Navy pilot, died in a flying accident in 1964. Her stepfather, also a Royal Navy pilot, died six years later. This double tragedy inspired her directorial debut, My Mother’s Wedding , which was completed in 2023 but has taken three years to reach UK screens. Originally entitled North Star , it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2024. Scott Thomas co-wrote the screenplay with John Micklethwait, whom she married the same month of the film’s premiere. She takes the title role of ...

  Pictured : Emily overload. Lovelorn Owen ( Spike Fearn , centre ) sparks a larger conversation than he ever intended in a scene from the British romantic comedy, ' Finding Emily ', written by Rachel Hirons and directed by Alicia MacDonald . Still courtesy of Universal Pictures .   Working Title is one of the UK’s most prolific film production companies. Since 1994, it is associated with romantic comedies, in particular those written by Richard Curtis, specifically Four Weddings and a Funeral , Notting Hill and Love, Actually . A successful British romantic comedy does not work like its American counterpart. Rather, an all-star cast is assembled, as if for a disaster movie. By the end, at least two of the stars acknowledge their love for one another. The ensemble element is important. We are shown relationships at various stages, contrasting with the plight of the central couple, in order to acknowledge life beyond the ‘happy ending’. The disaster movie analogy is appr...

  Pictured : Alec ( Caolán O’Gorman , right) pays attention in class in a scene from the coming-of-age drama with a twist, ' Truly Naked ', written and directed by  Muriel D’Ansembourg . Still courtesy of Paradiso Films (Netherlands)  There are coming of age movies and there’s Truly Naked , a not quite British film (with a very non-specific English setting) in which a teenage secondary school boy who records pornography for and starring his father falls for one of his classmates, Nina (Safiya Benaddi) when they are paired for an assignment involving internet pornography addiction. Of course, pornography should not appear in the same sentence twice. Indeed, a father should not encourage his school-age son to make pornographic videos. I don’t see this film being screened in English cinemas any time soon, except maybe at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. The protagonist’s father would hate that – he insists that pornography isn’t art. The Bristol Watershed would ...

  Pictured : Eighteen-year-old orphan Marina ( Llúcia Garcia , centre) observes her late father's family in a scene from Spanish writer-director  Carla Simón 's third feature, ' Romería'. Still courtesy of Curzon (UK)   If a father chooses to edit his version of reality for the purpose of appearances, should he be forced to acknowledge the truth for the sake of his granddaughter? This is the dilemma posed in Spanish writer-director Carla Simón’s third feature, Romería (an informal Spanish word meaning ‘pilgrimage’). Set in July 2004, and drawing heavily on her mother’s diaries, quoted in voiceover but underpinning a fictional narrative, Simón’s film follows five days in the life of Marina (Llúcia Garcia), an eighteen-year-old would-be film student who requires a document to confirm that she is the daughter of Alfonso (‘Fon’) Piñeiro, who died in the late 1980s before she was born, at least as far as she knows. When Marina travels to the records office in the Galician...

  Pictured : Vladimir, Vlado to his friends ( Slavko Sobin ) and daughter Maria ( Olive Gray ) in a scene from the Bristol-set British drama, ' Surviving Earth ', written and directed by  Thea Gajić . Still courtesy of Metis Films  (UK)   The Bristol-set drama, Surviving Earth , written and directed by South London-born Thea Gajić, is dedicated to her late father, Serbian émigré Vladmir Gajić, who died of a drug overdose after settling in England. The film is a fictionalised account of the months leading to his death, vividly speaking to the pressures placed on immigrants and the limitations of a positive outlook. It is elevated by a charismatic central performance of Croatia-born Slavko Sobin, who gives Vlado (the name he is frequently called, as opposed to Vlad) depth, humour and credibility. Sobin, who has been cast in tough guy roles in films like the thriller 97 Minutes , relishes the opportunity to play a three-dimensional character. You forget you are wat...