The Olive Tree (2016)
★★★☆☆
The Olive Tree is a heartwarming film scripted by Ken Loach’s collaborator Paul Laverty, directed by Icíar Bollaín, demonstrating the power of personal conviction and positive action.
★★★☆☆
The Olive Tree is a heartwarming film scripted by Ken Loach’s collaborator Paul Laverty, directed by Icíar Bollaín, demonstrating the power of personal conviction and positive action.
– ★★★★☆
Subtle, beautifully shot documentary about the residents of a small town in the middle of nowhere, so remote that it barely exists.
★★★★☆
Isabelle Huppert is elegantly transgressive in Paul Verhoeven’s disturbing Elle.
★★★★☆
Mohsen Makmalbaf’s The Nights of Zayandeh-Rood, banned in Iran since 1990, gets its first showing in London.
★★★★☆
Bringing Christian fundamentalism to the playground, Kirill Serebrennikov’s The Student satirises the conservatism of Russian institutions.
★★★★☆
Kelly Reichardt takes an appraising look at four women’s lives in Certain Women‘s intriguingly overlapping stories.
★★★★☆
It’s desperate times for democracy in Erik Poppe’s The King’s Choice as Norway’s monarch attempts to save both King and country.
★★★★☆
Moonlight is a very different gay coming-of-age movie by Barry Jenkins and it will break your heart.
★★★★☆
In Hidden Figures Theodore Melfi reveals the hitherto hidden story of the African American women maths geniuses who got America to the moon.
★★★★☆
A delightfully nostalgic and evocative portrait of young love, Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name has all of the pleasure and only some of the pain.
★★★★☆
Offering a warm welcome to refugees in gloomy Finland, Aki Kaurismäki’s The Other Side of Hope is one of the director’s lightest and brightest.
★★★★☆
With a whipcracking script and a stellar cast, Sally Potter’sThe Party is an uproarious comedy with a nostalgic whiff.
★★★★☆
A more sobre companion piece to Es war einmal in Deutschland…, Török Ferenc’s1945 offers a new perspective on the horrors of war.
★★★★☆
Prevenge is a darkly funny directorial debut for Alice Lowe, who also stars as a pregnant serial killer.