Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  Pictured : 'I see you.' Helen ( Claire Foy , right) acquaints herself with her new companion goshawk in the British bereavement drama, ' H is for Hawk ', adapted from Helen MacDonald 's memoir by director Philippa Lowthorpe , who co-wrote the screenplay with Emma Donoghue . Still courtesy of Lionsgate .    Filmgoers have one common ask of filmmakers: put something on screen that we haven’t seen before. Director Philippa Lowthorpe and her team absolutely meet the brief with their British film, H is for Hawk , an absorbing study of one academic’s exceptional response to the loss of their father, based on the memoir by Helen MacDonald (pronouns: they/them). Grief does not adequately categorize Helen’s emotional state, nor depression either, though they are diagnosed with this late in the drama. Fascinated by goshawks from their student days and sharing their late father’s appreciation of nature, Helen chooses to displace academia with training a hawk. If they can’t...

  Pictured : Room for one more? Charlie ( Lily Whiteley , right) brings disgraced former weatherman, Chris ( Ryan Corr ) another young kangaroo in the family-friendly Australian film, ' Kangaroo ', written by Harry Cripps and directed by Kate Woods . Still courtesy of StudioCanal . There was a time when films featured real animals, trained to do endearing stuff on camera. They might be replaced by a puppet or an animatronic model – especially if the animal in question was a great white shark, there’s no telling them what to do - but we could find ourselves falling in love with the cute St. Bernard dog, Siamese cat or indeed Champion the Wonder Horse, whom I imagine was portrayed (if that’s the right verb) by more than one stallion. Then came computer generated imagery – CGI – and it changed everything. Now raccoons, Peruvian bears, cats and dogs can be rendered digitally to a high degree of verisimilitude, except that they stand on hind legs and sound like Bradley Cooper, Ben ...

  Pictured : 'I'm afraid of the dark. Come get me.' Omar ( Motaz Malhees , centre) responds to the urgent pleas of a five year old child, while the call is recorded by social media officer,  Leila ( Nesbat Serhan , left) and Red Crescent supervisor,  Rana ( Saja Kilani , centre) and welfare officer Nisreen ( Clara Khoury , right) listen on in the dramatic reconstruction, ' The Voice of Hind Rajab ', written and directed by Kaouther Ben Hania . Still courtesy of WILLA (US) / Altitude Film Distribution (UK) Many films demand that the audience suspend disbelief. The Voice of Hind Rajab invites the audience to succumb to hope. A mixture of drama and documentary, writer-director Kaouther Ben Hania’s film reconstructs the response of Palestine Red Crescent call centre staff to a real-life plea from a young child. Many viewers will watch the movie knowing the outcome in advance. Yet, as you watch it, you reject despair. You don’t want to believe in the worst in humanit...

  Pictured : 'You're not bright enough. How's that?' Comedian Chevy Chase questions director Marina Zenovich 's ability to explain his contrariness in the documentary, ' I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not '. Still courtesy of CNN Films (US). American comedian Chevy Chase has some explaining to do. Fired in 2021 from the television comedy show, Community , for uttering a racial slur, he was pointedly omitted in 2025 from appearing the 50 th Anniversary Special of Saturday Night Live , the television show on which he made his name, and for which he picked up an Emmy, naturally falling over on his way to the podium. Chase is a snarky Marmite comedian – you hate him, you hate him a lot – who draws crowds every holiday season at screenings of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation , the third in a series in which he appears as Clark Griswold, a hapless family man. It is regarded by some viewers as a classic, in a similar way that The Greasy Strangler is held...

Pictured : Young Mia ( Shannon Mahina Gorman ) spends time with her 'dad for hire', Philip ( Brendan Fraser ) in a scene from the Japan-set heart-warming drama, ' Rental Family ', directed by Hikari from a screenplay she co-wrote with Stephen Blahut . Photo: James Lisle . Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures . Rental Family , the second feature from Japanese writer-director Hikari, is a film about the effort made in Japanese society to respect convention when it is ordinarily not possible to do so. It is about professional stand-ins, people who are contracted to masquerade as individuals - grooms, the deceased, a missing parent - for the purpose of an event – a wedding, funeral or school interview. Their performance in the role is time-limited and does not involve physical intimacy – these stand-ins are not prostitutes. Yet there is an emotional cost to the performance. Attachments may be formed especially if children are involved. There is also the question of shame, the ...

  Pictured : Waiting to receive unholy orders, Lord Sir Jimmy Crystal ( Jack O'Connell , how's that) in a scene from the horror sequel, ' 28 Years Later - The Bone Temple ', written by Alex Garland and directed by Nia DaCosta . Still courtesy of Sony Pictures International. The Marvels and Hedda director Nia DaCosta might have seemed a left-field choice to helm the fourth film in the British ‘28’ horror franchise, 28 Years Later – The Bone Temple but the American delivers the series’ most impactful sequel to date. Filled with specifically British references - the Teletubbies, British Rail, Duran Duran and Jimmy Savile – the film blends an unrelenting sense of dread with leavening humour. At its heart, the film sidelines the threat from the infected – zombies, if you will – to chart the inevitable clash between tracksuit-wearing cult leader Lord Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) and iodine skinned doctor Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), introduced in the 2025 film, 28 Year...