Larry Oliver Film Reviews

Destroyer is nominally the story of a burnt-out Los Angeles Police Detective, Erin Bell (Nicole Kidman, defying instant recognition) who pursues Silas (Toby Kebbell), the leader of a criminal gang who killed her lover, Chris (Sebastian Stan). Actually, it is a shaggy dog yarn. You wonder why, seventeen years on, Silas would send Erin a purple-stained one-hundred-dollar bill through the mail. Maybe he wanted her to wash it. He’s the type of sadist who would order one of his gang, Arturo (Zach Villa) to play Russian roulette with a loaded snub nose and then remark, ‘you shouldn’t be such a push over’. In his world, bottled beer is referred to as the army to which Erin remarks ‘Gotta support the troops’. In the process of tracking down Silas, Erin tries to be a better mother to her sixteen-year-old daughter, Shelby (Jade Pettyjohn) who is dating a 23-year-old sleazebag with criminal facial hair. Not only does Shelby hate her mother, she has no ambition to finish school, which is a big pr...

Pictured : Mom ( Amy Adams ) makes some canine friends in the black comedy, ' Nightbitch ', adapted from Rachel Yoder 's novel by writer-director Marielle Heller . Still courtesy of London Film Festival (UK) / Searchlight Pictures (UK, US) Director Marielle Heller cannot be accused of making the same movie twice. Nightbitch , which she adapted from the novel by Rachel Yoder , features Amy Adams as an unnamed stay-at-home mother of a two-year-old boy – let us call her Mom - who we watch mentally collapse. It is as different from Can You Ever Forgive Me as it is from A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood . Nightbitch is highly-stylised, containing thoughts that are never spoken – Mom telling other women what she really thinks about the sacrifice she has made while her personality is systematically obliterated. It also features Mom attracting dogs and then imagining that she is one herself. The comedy is rooted in real experience. Appreciative guffaws of recognition fille...