Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  Aurore , co-written and directed by Blandine Lenoir, is the opposite of a high concept film. It is about a fifty year old separated mother of two, Aurore (Agnès Jaoui, a noted director herself – her latest, Place Publique, opens in France on 18 April) who experiences the menopause. It is a reflection on middle-age: warm, funny, rhapsodic, even a bit rude and edgy. It doesn’t have much of a plot, but it’s got everything else. The film revolves around four women: Aurore, her best friend, Mano (Pascale Arbillot) and Aurore’s two adult daughters, Marina (Sarah Suco) and Lucie (Lou Roy-Lecollinet).   Marina is expecting her first child and wants everything to revolve around her. Lucie, who has a boyfriend, Tim (Théo Cholbi) is chilled, though requires frequent reminders whilst having sex that Maman is home. Aurore frequently finds herself absently removing a layer of clothing to stay cool. She has a lot to heat up about. Her new boss, Seb (Nicolas Chupin, a Johnny Depp lookalik...

  Released in a mire of controversy in a handful of US cinemas in April 2016 by RLJ Entertainment, Nina , a drama about the later years of African-American singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone has finally surfaced in the UK two years later through Sky Movies, a cable TV service. Nominally telling the story of Nina’s battle with alcohol dependency and mood swings in the 1990s, aided by a male nurse, Clifton Henderson, who subsequently became her manager, its writer-director Cynthia Mort was reportedly shut out of the editing room. Cast in her 30s, ostensibly playing a 60 year old woman, Zoe Saldana was not only too young, but her skin colour had to be altered and the bridge of her nose widened by prosthetics. By the way I don’t remember anyone complaining about Robert de Niro’s fake nose in Raging Bull - and as for any actor playing Cyrano de Bergerac, from José Ferrer to Steve Martin to Gerard Depardieu, it is par for the course. Then there is Saldana’s singing – good, but...