Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  Pictured : Rona ( Saoirse Ronan ) controls the waves in a scene from ' The Outrun ', a British-German co-production, adapted by Amy Liptrot from her memoir in collaboration with director Nora Fingscheidt . Photograph: Roy Imer . Still courtesy of Studio Canal (UK) Saoirse Ronan is the whole show as Rona, the fictionalised version of author Amy Liptrot, whose memoir The Outrun has been brought to the screen by German director Nora Fingscheidt. In an early scene, in a London pub, Rona is out of control, wanting one more drink, one more, come on, I’m on the bar, I don’t want to leave, hey, get your hands off of me. Fingscheidt knows ‘ein ding oder zwei’ about out-of-control women. Her 2019 debut feature, Systemsprenger ( System Crasher ) featured a mesmerising performance from nine-year-old Helena Zengel, as an emotionally disturbed boundary testing child who just wants to live with her mother – and no one else. In The Outrun , we don’t know what feeds Rona’s alcoholism – ther...

  Pictured : Better days behind her. Elizabeth Sparkle ( Demi Moore ) contemplates life in her luxury apartment in a scene from the body horror film and Cannes Palme D'Or competitor, ' The Substance ', written and directed by Coralie Fargeat . Still courtesy of Mubi (UK, US) Caution: Spoilers At its second screening in Cannes, writer-director Coralie Fargeat’s ‘living your best life’ body horror flick The Substance had patrons heading for the exit early. It is extreme – and none too subtle – about the extent to which one should sacrifice oneself for the cause of reinvention, or more particularly, to have a younger body to use as one shouldn’t. In her first leading role in a horror film, the 1990s-star Demi Moore ‘puts her back’ – and pretty much everything else - to enable a younger doppelganger, played by Margaret Qualley, to be born. Expect this to be on Quentin Tarantino’s top ten list for the year – but not Barack Obama’s. Fargeat’s titles are in block capitals and s...

  Pictured : Mary ( Juliet Stevenson ) and a mysterious stranger ( Erin Doherty ) as viewed by John ( Jared Harris , not shown) in a scene from the fractured family drama, 'Reawakening ', a British film written and directed by Virginia Gilbert . Still courtesy of Eclipse Pictures (Ireland), Signature Entertainment (UK) To lose a child. To experience your child, aged fourteen, run away from home, never to return. To appeal to the media – the world – and hear nothing. To sit at home, blaming, fretting, focussing on one thing. To grieve without a body. To flinch at sympathy. To watch the bills mount up. To return to work, unwillingly. To shift focus but always revert to that central wrong. To repeat the question: why? To pretend - at work, at home, living with the fog of distraction and trauma. To carry on. Reawakening , British writer-director Virginia Gilbert’s second feature – her first was A Long Way from Home starring James Fox and Brenda Fricker released in 2013 – explore...

  Pictured : 'What did you think of the poetry?' Literature teacher Jonathan Miller ( Martin Freeman ) attempts to impress new student Cairo Sweet ( Jenna Ortega ) in a scene from the drama, ' Miller's Girl ', a 2024 American film written and directed by Jade Halley Bartlett . Photo: Zac Popik . Still courtesy of Lionsgate . Studios can have bad years. 2024 is the turn of Lionsgate . First, the John Wick spin-off Ballerina was pulled from the summer schedule. Then Borderlands and The Crow tanked. This fall, Lionsgate is releasing Francis Ford Coppola ’s Megalopolis , a bold decidedly uncommercial pet project of the director and vineyard owner, who I suspect knows something about bad harvests. Personally, I’m disappointed Coppola’s film isn’t the long-awaited sequel to Zootropolis . Lionsgate’s bad year began with Miller’s Girl , which grossed less than $900,000 from a $4 million budget. Written and directed by Jade Halley Bartlett , the Tennessee-set drama star...

  Pictured : Troubled lady poet Sybil ( Rebecca Calder ) goes for a walk in the park in a scene from director Joanne Mitchell 's horror film, ' Broken Bird ', written by Dominic Brunt . Still: Catalyst Studios  (UK) Broken Bird is a modest budget British horror film shot in Serbia that relies less on jump scares and fetishiz ed violence than on unsettling performances and fragmented narrative strands. Not to mention fantasy sequences, exposed intestines and stitched together body parts. Expanded from her short film, Sybil , by director Joanne Mitchell, working from a script by her husband Dominic Brunt, it tells the story of a troubled young woman who has an unfortunate habit of causing every funeral home she works at to close down. Rebecca Calder excels as Sybil who we first meet at an evening of ‘pies, pints and poetry’ in an unspecified Northern town. She fits the stereotype of troubled lady poet, reciting verse slowly and deliberately, as if every word might be the last...

Pictured : Kate Winslet as photographer Lee Miller in the drama ' Lee ', set in the years 1938-1945.  The film is written by Liz Hannah , John Collee and Marion Hume and directed by Ellen Kuras . Still courtesy of Roadside Attractions (US), Sky (UK)  Cinematographer Ellen Kuras ( Summer of Sam , Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ) forged a career in directing for television on series such as Ozark , Brave New World and The Umbrella Academy . Lee , which follows seven formative years (1938-1945) in the life of American photographer Lee Miller, played by Spotless Mind co-star Kate Winslet, is Kuras’ first film for the big screen. Scripted by Liz Hannah, Marion Hume and John Collee, Lee plods from incident to incident, focussing on the background to some of Miller’s celebrated photographs taken during World War Two. It even has that most contrived of devices, the older Lee (Winslet in convincing make up) being interviewed at home by a young man (Josh O’Connor) and re...

Pictured : At a crossroads on her way home to New York City, the unnamed passenger ( Dakota Johnson ) in the cab-set drama, ' Daddio ', written and directed by Christy Hall . Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics (US) / Sky Movies (UK) Midway through Daddio , Dakota Johnson ’s unnamed character describes how she was tied up. My immediate thought was, ‘oh no, not again.’ Johnson was elevated to stardom for her role in the Fifty Shades of Grey films in which her character, Anastasia, was involved in a sado-masochistic relationship. She was most recently seen in the critically reviled comic book spin-off, Madame Web , which she only appeared to promote under sufferance. She hasn’t yet demonstrated that she can be a star across a range of genres but was effective in a supporting role in Maggie Gyllenhaal ’s directorial debut, The Lost Daughter , squaring up in one scene against Olivia Colman. Written and directed by Christy Hall , who adapted Colleen Hoover ’s novel, It End...