Festival Review: The Program (2015)
★★★☆☆
With an outstanding performance from Ben Foster, Stephen Frears’ The Program gets bogged down in intricately retelling the rise and fall of Lance Armstrong.
★★★☆☆
With an outstanding performance from Ben Foster, Stephen Frears’ The Program gets bogged down in intricately retelling the rise and fall of Lance Armstrong.
★★★☆☆
The energetic and sassy tale of two transgender hookers in West Hollywood, Sean Baker’s Tangerine takes friendship and revenge to the streets.
★★★☆☆
Adapting JG Ballard’s dystopian novel for the silver screen, Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise is a glamorous reproduction of the Seventies high life.
★★★☆☆
Staging a battle of the sexes in Algiers, Merzak Allouache’s Madame Courage reveals a desperate injustice pervading male and female relationships.
★★★☆☆
After An Inconvenient Truth, Davis Guggenheim’s He Named Me Malala brings Malala Yousafzai’s story to the masses. Just a little too easily.
★★★☆☆
A violent exploration of civil war in West Africa, Cary Joji Fukunaga’s Beasts Of No Nation is a powerful portrait of a continent thrown into darkness.
★★★☆☆
Uncovering the life and works of Jia Zhangke in his home city, Walter Salles’ A Guy From Fenyang reveals the metropolis behind the man.
★★★☆☆
Celebrating nearly a century of women’s right to vote, Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette is an important and inspirational film on democracy in action.
★★★☆☆
Recreating a brief episode in James Dean’s life, Anton Corbijn’s Life sees the icon on the cusp of fame thanks to a series of photographs for Life magazine.
★★★☆☆
Just Jim by Welsh actor, writer and director Craig Roberts, is a dark, offbeat coming-of-age story set in South Wales.
★★★☆☆
Combining gay rights with all the tropes of a horror movie, July Jung’s A Girl At My Door is strangely haunting, but struggles with a split personality.
★★★☆☆
Transporting August Strindberg’s play to colonial Ireland, Liv Ullmann’s Miss Julie imbues her underwhelming tale of forbidden love with Swedish style.
★★★☆☆
A fictional retelling of the bloody final days of the Medellin cartel, Andrea Di Stefano’s Escobar: Paradise Lost brings a personal touch to Escobar’s violence.
★★★☆☆
As light and summery as one of her floaty summer frocks, Anne Fontaine’s Gemma Bovery brings to life Posy Simmonds’ graphic novel of Flaubert’s classic.