Festival Review: Love & Mercy (2015)
★★★★☆
More than a biopic, Bill Pohlad’s Love & Mercy is a portrait of musical genius and mental illness with tour de force performances from Dano, Cusack and Banks.
★★★★☆
More than a biopic, Bill Pohlad’s Love & Mercy is a portrait of musical genius and mental illness with tour de force performances from Dano, Cusack and Banks.
★★★★☆
A cosmological constellation of water, native tribes and Chile’s disappeared, Patricio Guzmán’s The Pearl Button is a powerful wave of connections.
★★★★☆
Dividing the world in two on a butterfly’s wing, Marco Berger’s Mariposa is a charming, delicate tale of the unflappable nature of love.
★★★★☆
Dancing, walking, laughing and shooting their way down the boulevard of broken dreams, Sebastian Schipper’s Victoria is a lyrical one-take wonder.
★★★★☆
A beautifully lensed portrait of Mayan life under the Pacaya volcano, Jayro Bustamante’s Ixcanul exposes the terrifying vulnerability of indigenous peoples.
★★★★☆
With brilliant performances from Rampling and Courtenay, Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years is an intense observation of a lifetime of marriage unravelled in one week.
★★★★☆
Turning the camera upon himself for the third time, Jafar Panahi’s Taxi is a moving portrait of the politics of filming and the filming of politics.
★★★★☆
Did video kill the radio? Nicolas Philibert uncovers the mystery of the medium in his warmly human documentary La Maison de la Radio.
★★★★☆
A beautiful adaptation of Vera Brittain’s bestselling memoir, James Kent’s Testament Of Youth is a bitter tale of love in wartime for the 21st century.
★★★★☆
With a brilliant one-hander from Reese Witherspoon as Cheryl Strayed trekking the PCT, Jean-Marc Vallée’s Wild makes for rehydrated but beautiful soul food.
★★★★☆
If this is a man. Claude Lanzmann’s The Last Of The Unjust recuts unused Shoah interviews to reveal the controversial figure of Benjamin Murmelstein – Europe’s last Jewish Elder.
★★★★☆
Satire and fantasy mix intriguingly as an actor known for his portrayal of a superhero in a movie series tries to earn artistic credibility by financing a Broadway production of his own adaptation of a novel.
★★★★☆
Dramatisation of Stephen Hawking’s life from gifted university student and romance with the woman who became his wife, to international acclaim as a physicist and the break-up of his marriage.
★★★★☆
Going back to the future through interviews with Switzerland’s first gay married couple, Stefan Haupt’s half-documentary The Circle reveals a postwar openness ahead of its time.