An orphaned girl discovers a magical garden hidden at her strict uncle’s estate. I was underwhelmed by The Secret Garden but not the secret garden. The film feels soulless, its magic and reality uneasy (flower)bedfellows; while the garden is a gorgeously tangled, artfully curated wilderness housing everything a child, kept captive by an adult world… The Secret Garden Read More
Hexing 2 stars
This is really a story about friendships: the unexpectedly strong and the poisonously clingy. Though here the toxic relationship in question comes not from another person, but from a board with supernatural powers, that simply wants to be friends. And when it doesn’t get its way all hell breaks loose. A young woman is waiting… Hexing Read More
Victoria And Abdul 2.5 stars
One of the downsides of being a rich, powerful monarch who is a figurehead for billions is a lack of privacy, and In Victoria And Abdul one of our most famous queens has to give regular updates to her physician, while surrounded by servants and courtiers, of her bowel movements. Sadly the film, like Victoria herself, could… Victoria And Abdul Read More
Viceroy’s House 3.5 stars
Gillian Anderson as Lady Mountbatten, last Vicereine of India, does that peculiar shoulder-slouching thing all through Viceroy’s House in the manner of members of the British upper classes who are rather embarrassed by their extreme privilege. This is not a criticism by the way – Anderson is brilliant as the terribly clipped, terribly rich Edwina who nonetheless genuinely tries… Viceroy’s House Read More
Lion 4.5 stars
“Did you REALLY look for my mum?” asks little Saroo, in an orphanage in Calcutta, sitting opposite Mrs Sood, a kind but firm woman charged with finding new homes overseas for unclaimed children. “I looked everywhere”, she replies. And with that, Saroo has to move on to a new family far away in Tasmania, while acknowledging that his mum… Lion Read More