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 ...

  Stop me if you have heard this one before. In rural contemporary England, a young woman returns to the family farm after the death of a close family member. The farm is in difficult straits. The woman tries her best to fix things but also come to terms with demons from her past. That for the most part is the plot of writer-director Hope Dickson Leach’s accomplished feature debut, The Levelling . It is also a description of Clio Barnard’s third film as writer-director, Dark River , adapted from Rose Tremain’s novel, Trespass . British films have a habit of recycling Hollywood movie titles: Dog Soldiers , directed by Neil Marshall, about a group of soldiers on a military exercise who take on werewolves, is also the name of a 1978 Vietnam War movie directed by Karel Reisz. I can understand why Barnard did not take the name of a 1992 Walter Hill movie starring Ice Cube (and not a good one at that) nor for that matter a 2011 damp squib of a home invasion thriller starring Nicolas Cage...