Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  Jukebox musicals can be extremely lucrative. The hits of a popular artist are employed in the service of a flimsy plot. Audiences don’t ask, ‘what happens next’, rather ‘how will it feature my favourite song?’ One of the most financially successful jukebox musicals of the latest twenty years is Mamma Mia! , directed on stage and screen by Phyllida Lloyd and utilising the songbook of the Swedish pop quartet, Abba. The film brought together Meryl Streep, Christine Baranski and Julie Walters - the triple act we never knew we wanted. Not quite as successful – and not yet turned into a film - is We Will Rock You , featuring the songs of Queen. Greatest Days , written by Tim Firth and directed by Coky Giedroy ć , utilises songs made famous by the band Take That – Gary Barlow, Mark Owen, Jason Orange and Howard Donald. It is based on Firth’s play, ‘The Band’, first staged in 2017 about a group of female pop fans who are spuriously reunited twenty-five years later. In the film, Radio Cli...

Actress Alice Lowe was seven months pregnant when she filmed her directorial debut, Prevenge and took the leading role. It is the film’s raison d’être . Lowe shows off her baby bump at every available opportunity, even in the bath. It gives the film a unique selling point, but also a challenge. Lowe couldn’t exactly do re-shoots. Moreover, as directing a film is an exhausting experience even without being pregnant at the same time and appearing in every scene, Lowe could not film it over an extensive period – instead, shooting took place over 13 days. The plot is simple. After her boyfriend Matt (Marc Bessant) dies during a climbing trip – his fellow climbers having elected to cut the rope - heavily-pregnant Ruth (Lowe) goes on a killing spree, murdering those who made the decision and believing that her unborn child is telling her to act. However, the film has a rather large flaw. If there is a series of random murders across London and Cardiff, linked by the victims all having taken...

  Pictured : 'Stand and deliver. Your money or your life.' Alex of Nine Tassles ( Aneurin Barnard ) proves that chivalry is something to be scared of in writer-director-star Alice Lowe 's time hopping anti-new-romantic comedy. ' Timestalker '. Still courtesy of Vertigo Releasing (UK) Most British actresses who take a punt at directing generally stop after a single attempt. Rebecca Hall, Kristen Scott Thomas, Jessica Hynes, Dolly Wells and Romola Garai all exemplify ‘one and done’. Kudos to Alice Lowe who scores ‘two and cool’, with Timestalker , the amusing, long-in-gestation follow-up to her 2016 debut, Prevenge . Both films are comedies that stretch a single idea to breaking point. Once again, she takes the leading role, this time of Agnes, a 17 th Century lovelorn woman who falls for a performer, Alex ( Aneurin Barnard ) who is about to be put to death – her friends turn up for the gore. As he faces the rack, Alex’s mask is removed. Agnes is besotted, approa...