Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  High Life , French director Claire Denis’ first foray into English language storytelling, science fiction and, erm, Robert Pattinson, boasts in its credits a ‘cosmic companion’. I wonder exactly what this is and whether they have voting rights at the Cesars. The phrase suggests a star. Not a motion picture star - that would be Pattinson. The one that appears to shine down upon you from many light years away, guiding you even as in its own time zone it is already burnt out. No, that wouldn’t be Pattinson. Denis is 73 years old and makes a science fiction film as if she hadn’t seen one for forty years – Silent Running and 2001: A Space Odyssey appear to be are influences, as does One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest .  She offers us retro-science fiction; the future as imagined back in 1973. The space ship, simply identified as ‘7’, floats rather than rockets towards a trajectory. It resembles a cereal box, one with no free toy. I say that, but I really must mention the f-box, a ...

  Pictured : The couple Grace ( Jennifer Lawrence ) and Jackson ( Robert Pattinson ) celebrate their child's first six months in a scene from the film, ' Die My Love ', adapted from Ariana Harwicz 's 2017 novel by co-writers Alice Birch , Enda Walsh and co-writer-director Lynne Ramsay . Still courtesy of Mubi (photo credit: Kimberley French) Ariana Harwicz’s 2017 novel, Die My Love has been Americanized and brought to the screen by producer-star Jennifer Lawrence and co-writer-director Lynne Ramsay, via co-writers Alice Birch and Enda Walsh, as well as Martin Scorsese, whose Sikelia Productions is also involved. It is a tough watch, one hundred and eighteen minutes in the company of an unstable young mother, Grace (Lawrence), a writer who places her baby, boyfriend and herself in jeopardy. You watch it in a state of constant anxiety, clenching your buttocks and feel the need to change your underwear afterwards. Harwicz’s novel is set in France. Ramsay’s film, shot b...