Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  Pictured : Paul ( Viggo Ferreira-Redler , centre) shows his unhappiness towards his mother, Clémence ( Vicky Krieps , left) in a scene from writer-director Anna Cazenave Cambet 's film, ' Love Me Tender ', based on Constance  Debré 's 2020 novel. Still courtesy of Tandem (France) / Peccadillo Pictures (UK) After two viewings, I still don’t know what to make of Love Me Tender , writer-director Anna Cazenave Cambet’s adaptation of Constance Debré’s 2020 semi-autobiographical novel, featuring Vicky Krieps in the lead role as Clémence, a lawyer turned novelist who reveals her lesbian identity to her ex-husband, Laurent (Antoine Reinartz) and finds herself separated from her eight-year-old son, Paul (Viggo Ferreira-Redler) as a result. It is a film that respects Debré’s first person narration; there is no attempt to understand or justify Laurent’s response, psychologically or socially. This is a film that explores Clémence’s victimhood and how it impacts her relationship...

  Pictured : Angela ( Olivia Wilde , centre) and Joe ( Seth Rogen , standing) listen to their guests with interest in a scene from the marital comedy, ' The Invite ', adapted from the 2020 Spanish film, ' Sentimental ' by screenwriters Rashida Jones and Will McCormack and directed by Olivia Wilde . Still courtesy of A24 (US) / Black Bear (UK) The Invite , adapted by screenwriters Rashida Jones and Will McCormack from Cesc Gay’s 2020 Spanish film, Sentimental (English title ‘The People Upstairs’), feels like a personal project for actress-turned-director Olivia Wilde. Wilde was publicly humiliated by or on behalf of her estranged husband Jason Sudeikis in the run-up to the release of her 2022 psychological thriller, Don’t Worry Darling , whose request for child custody was served to her while she was on stage at Comic Con. Wilde knows something of the pain of a relationship that has run its course. She channels this into her filmmaking. The bulk of The Invite is set ...

Pictured : Bookshop owner Sandra ( Valeria Bruni Tedeschi ) joins six-year-old Alex ( César Botti ) under the table in a scene from the French drama ' L'Attachement ' adapted from Alice Ferney 's novel, ' L’Intimité'  by screenwriters  Raphaële Moussafir , Agnès Feuvre and director Carine Tardieu , working with scenario consultant Agnès de Sacy . Still courtesy of Diaphana Distribution (France). French director Carine Tardieu’s film, L’Attachement (clunky English title The Ties That Bind Us ) is exceptional. In it, the characters spend two years of their time, and 106 minutes of ours, doing the right thing whilst processing or responding to considerable emotional pain. Adapted from Alice Ferney’s 2020 novel, L’Intimité , by Tardieu working with co-writers Raphaële Moussafir, Agnès Feuvre and scenario consultant Agnès de Sacy, it stars Valeria Bruni Tedeschi – always a good reason to watch a movie – as Sandra, an unmarried woman in her fifties who runs a femin...

Pictured : Jim ( John Lithgow , centre) shares his history of protest with his 'grand-thing' Frances ( Aud Mason-Hyde , right) while his daughter, Hannah ( Olivia Colman , left) looks on in a scene from ' Jimpa ', an Amsterdam-set anti-drama directed by Sophie Hyde . Still courtesy of CineartBE (Belgium) ‘Look at the person’s hand,’ Australian filmmaker Hannah (Olivia Colman) tells a group of students at the start of director Sophie Hyde’s fourth feature, Jimpa . ‘Don’t judge, describe.’ This is the approach Hannah intends to adopt in a film about her father, Jim (John Lithgow), who having fathered two daughters with his then wife came out as queer and went off to live in Amsterdam. According to the family story, Jim’s wife and children didn’t begrudge his epiphany and allowed him to leave without guilt where he was able to live with AIDS and promote gay rights. Jim’s wife didn’t remarry. The two daughters came out well adjusted. At the start of the film, Hannah’s chil...

  Pictured : 'Are you tired, old man?' Divorced writer-turned-day labourer, Paul ( Bastien Bouillon ) works for less than UK minimum wage in the French social drama, ' At Work ' ( À Pied d’Oeuvre ), adapted from Franck Courtès ’ 2023 autobiographical account by Gilles Marchand and the film's director Valérie Donzelli . Still courtesy of Diaphana Distribution (France)  We see a perfectly beautiful stretch of patterned wallpaper, red on white. Then a mallet bursts through. Before long, the wall of a room in a house is rendered into dust, the rubble swept up into plastic sacks, one of which is loaded onto a truck by Paul Marquet (Bastien Bouillon), a bespectacled 42-year-old, divorced day labourer who is the protagonist of French director Valérie Donzelli’s eighth feature film, À Pied d’Oeuvre ( At Work ). Adapted from Franck Courtès’ 2023 autobiographical account of his own switch from photographer to handyman, Donzelli and her co-writer Gilles Marchand fashion a fi...

  Pictured : Fifteen-year-old Emma ( Lila Gueneau , right) dances with her husband Paul (Thomas Doret) in a scene from the Swiss film,  À bras-le-corps ( Silent Rebellion ), co-written and directed by Marie-Elsa Sgualdo . Still courtesy of Salaud Morriset .  What is neutrality? A conscious effort to recuse yourself from responsibility? Allowing events take their course without consideration of the outcome? Neutrality is an illusion, a pretence, a position taken to avoid conflict with others by formally treating all parties the same but pragmatically engaging with some parties more than others. Neutrality is diplomatic acquiescence. It is how Switzerland conducted itself in World War Two (1939-45). Swiss film director Marie-Elsa Sgualdo sets her debut feature film Silent Rebellion ( À bras-le-corps ) in her native country - specifically a village bordering France in the Swiss Jura - in 1943. Co-written (with Sgualdo) by Nadine Lamari, it follows fifteen-year-old Emma (...