Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  Inspired by a real-life case of serial abuse, the film Women Talking , adapted from the novel by Canadian author Miriam Toews by actress turned writer-director Sarah Polley, imagines a group of women living in a rural colony contemplating their response to being injected with cow tranquiliser at night and raped by their menfolk. The adult men in the unnamed community are entirely amorphous, unified by the violence towards women, which we deduce is borne out of entitlement – violence is never shown, only its aftermath. The community is deeply religious, though there is no church, no religious leader signing off on such action. We might perceive this community as a metaphor for the Middle East, where in many countries, misogyny to a lesser or greater degree is institutionalised. The lack of specificity here is an impediment to drama. Put crudely, there is not enough going on to hold our attention for the full 104 minutes, in spite of the cast and the premise. The one male character...

  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...