Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  Pictured : Daughters Georgina ( Emily Beecham , left), Victoria ( Sienna Miller , 2nd left) and Katy ( Scarlett Johansson , right) accompany their mother Diana ( Kristin Scott Thomas ) in a scene from the comedy-drama, ' My Mother's Weddin g', directed by Kristin Scott Thomas from a script she co-wrote with John Micklethwait . Still courtesy of Universal Pictures UK The English actress Kristin Scott Thomas (born May 1960) had an atypical childhood. Her father, a Royal Navy pilot, died in a flying accident in 1964. Her stepfather, also a Royal Navy pilot, died six years later. This double tragedy inspired her directorial debut, My Mother’s Wedding , which was completed in 2023 but has taken three years to reach UK screens. Originally entitled North Star , it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2024. Scott Thomas co-wrote the screenplay with John Micklethwait, whom she married the same month of the film’s premiere. She takes the title role of ...

  Some call it ‘colour blind’ casting. The late Peter Brook preferred the term ‘colour rich’. This is the selection of actors of different ethnicities to play roles that according to the setting would have gone to white Europeans. British-born, Los Angeles-based director Emma Holly Jones has opted for the ‘colour rich’ approach in her feature debut, Mr. Malcolm’s List , screenwriter Suzanne Allain’s adaptation of her 2010 Regency-era novel. Jones filmed a short, Mr. Malcolm’s List: Overture with many of the same cast, but also Gemma Chan, in 2019 to prove the concept. The resultant feature benefits to some extent from its multi-ethnic cast but suffers from a fatal absence of chemistry between its leads. Did I wish for vicar’s daughter Selina Dalton (Freida Pinto) to win the heart of wealthy bachelor Jeremy Malcolm ( Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù)? No, reader, I did not. Set principally in 1818, after the defeat of Napoleon, it stars Zawe Ashton as eligible London bachelorette, Julia Thistlethwai...