BFI LFF 2020: Ammonite (2020)
★★★★☆
Francis Lee’s second feature after his stunning, award-winning debut with God’s Own Country is another queer love story, this time between two women in 1840s Lyme Regis, starring Kate Winslet and Saorse Ronan.
★★★★☆
Francis Lee’s second feature after his stunning, award-winning debut with God’s Own Country is another queer love story, this time between two women in 1840s Lyme Regis, starring Kate Winslet and Saorse Ronan.
★★★★☆
Read More ★★★☆☆
Ben Wheatley’s lavish take on Rebecca, though truer to Daphne du Maurier’s novel, can’t help but be overshadowed by the iconic Hitchcock version.
★★★☆☆
Lucy Brydon’s powerful drama Body of Water is unusual in showing anorexia affecting an adult, rather than the teenage girls we usually associate with the eating disorder.
★★★★☆
Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci are superb in Harry MCQueen’s Supernova, this intimate portrayal of a couple facing a challenging future with one of them suffering from early onset dementia.
★★★★☆
Mangrove, part of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe canon, is a grippingly acted reconstruction of police racism in 1970 Notting Hill, the iconic café and the courtroom sensation of the prosecution of the Mangrove Nine.
★★★☆☆
Schemers is director David McLean’s appealing comedy-drama – a blend of Trainspotting and Gregory’s Girl with a touch of Good Vibrations – of how he became a teenage music promoter in Dundee.
★★★ώ☆
Paul Morrison’s 23 Walks is a slow-burning focus on the hidden difficulties of new relationships at an older age, with great performances by Alison Steadman and Dave Johns.
★★★☆☆
Writer/director Hong Khaou draws upon his own experiences in Monsoonwith this moving story of a British-Vietnamese man returning to Saigon.
★★★☆☆
Nocturnal, by director/writer Nathalie Biancheri, has a suspenseful surprise that turns creepy horror into emotional drama.
★★★★☆
Rocks by Sarah Gavron is a sad and joyous film about the resilience and spirit of girlhood – sisterhood at its most powerful.
★★★☆☆
The Roads Not Taken has the best of motives – it’s acclaimed director Sally Potter’s way of conveying how her brother’s dementia fractured his personality. It’s very personal, maybe too personal.
★★★☆☆
William Nicholson’s Hope Gap benefits from a starry cast in the stagey story of the death of love in a middle-aged, middle-class marriage on the South Coast.
★★★★☆
Matteo Garrone’s surreal live-action fantasy takes the Italian classic Pinocchio disturbingly back to its original dark roots.