Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  Pictured : Having witnessed a sexual assault, eight-year-old Josephine ( Mason Reeves ) finds herself in the back of a police car with the victim ( Syra McCarthy ) in writer-director Beth de Araújo's troubling drama, ' Josephine '. Still courtesy of Berlinale / Sundance Film Festival Review contains significant plot detail and triggering material However you respond to writer-director Beth de Araújo’s second feature, Josephine – her feature debut, Soft & Quiet , was released under the Blumhouse [horror] banner in 2022 - you are unlikely to forget it. The titular Josephine (Mason Reeves) is an athletic-minded, father-worshipping eight-year-old girl, who witnesses a sexual assault after racing ahead of her Liverpool Football Club-supporting father, Damien (Channing Tatum) in a San Francisco public park. In looking for her, Damien takes a wrong turn – cue early gasps from the audience. Josephine, variously referred to as Jo by Dad or JoJo by her dancer mother, Claire (G...

  Pictured : Accused of intentionally inciting the burning of head scarves at the institution where she teaches, Roya (Turkish actress  Melisa Sözen ) considers whether she should confess in Iranian writer-director Mahnaz Mohammadi 's drama, ' Roya ', screened at the 2026 Berlinale. Still courtesy of Totem Films / PakFilm . Drawn from her experience of incarceration, having fallen foul of the Iranian regime like so many  writers, directors and critical thinkers in recent times, writer-director Mahnaz Mohammadi’s film Roya exerts a firm grip on its audience’s sympathy. For a long stretch, point-of-view camera shots represent ‘guest 2648’, detained teacher, Roya (Turkish actress Melisa Sözen) as she is intentionally disorientated, assaulted, berated and invited to make a confession, that she incited a spate of scarf burning at the institution where she works. We learn that her sister, Samira (Maryam Palizban) has died following complaints to an agent. Unlike Samira, Roya ha...

  Pictured : A panicked Sara ( Eva Kostić ) in a scene from North Macedonian co-writer-director  Kosara Mitić 's riveting drama, 17 . Still courtesy of Black Cat Productions / Totem Films .  There are films that ‘trigger’ and there is 17 , the debut feature of North Macedonian co-writer (with Ognjen Sviličić) and director Kosara Mitić. The audience experiences a state of heightened anxiety throughout the entire duration of this teenage drama, more so than in the average horror film. 17 is a compelling and unforgiving look at the impact of male behaviour on young women. Teenage hormones, arrogance and an impulse to dehumanise drives young students to use and abuse their classmates, with little effective adult supervision or censure. Mitić holds an unflattering mirror up to her country and asks, where is education? The film opens with two boys, Filip (Dame Joveski) and Caki (Petar Manic), taking turns kissing Sara (Eva Kostić). One of them decides to force himself into he...

  Pictured : Taking a weight loss drug with an unexpected chemical composition, Hana ( Midori Francis ) starts noticing shapes in convex mirrors in a scheme from Japanese Australian writer-director Natalie Erika Jame s' body horror, Saccharine . Still courtesy of Berlinale . Saccharine , Japanese Australian writer-director Natalie Erika James’ third feature, is all gut no punch. Horrifying in aspiration rather than effect, it recalls such movies as The Substance , The Whale and the 1984 Ghostbusters – the latter for the hungry spectral presence. The film takes a sideways look at the effect of niche weight-loss drugs. What if a pill could make you lose weight while also allowing you to gorge yourself mental on junk food? More specifically, what if your hunger was driven to fill the belly of a malign spirit who gets larger while you get thinner? James’ protagonist is Japanese American Hana (Midori Francis), a medical student with weight and self-esteem issues. She wants to sign up...

  When I started a blog in 2015 writing about fifty-two films directed by women, I didn’t expect to be doing so eight years later. Much has changed. I am writing this on 29 October 2023, Day 108 of the actors’ strike in Hollywood, led, aptly enough, by a woman (Fran Drescher), over which on-screen talent seek better rewards, a new system for paying cast members of streaming shows, and better protection for actors’ work against artificially generated digital doubles. Film reviewer friends in the UK, no longer able to earn money interviewing big-name stars, are feeling the pinch. I’m also writing this less than twenty-four hours news broke that Friends star Matthew Perry was found dead in his bathtub, aged fifty-four. In the real world, specifically in Gaza and Ukraine, much worse things are happening. Yet, in the somewhat narrow realm of the entertainment industry, there are signs of improvement. This week, in UK cinemas, there are four new releases directed by women: 20,000 Speci...

  The final film of Volume Seven of this series is a foul-mouthed feelgood comedy about female friendship entitled Joy Ride , co-written by Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao and directed by Adele Lim. The first film in this series (volume seven) was also called Joyride , but it is hard to imagine Olivia Colman doing half the stuff that the American Asian cast of Lim’s film act out – or maybe I just don’t want to. Joy Ride goes squarely for the crude belly laugh – nothing wrong with that, it is a form of exercise. At the US box office, it opened against Insidious – The Red Door , a franchise title with nothing new to offer but nonetheless scored an impressive $15 million in its first day of release (7 July 2023). I guess the guys taking dates to their movies are as controlling as an American comedian turned director who wouldn’t let his surfer teacher partner post pictures of herself on social media in a swimsuit. If you were shown The Red Door , maybe you should form an o...