The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty (2013)
★★★☆☆
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a charming, relatable and flawed film romanticising the virtues of escaping the tedium of reality with a hop, skip and a jump.
comedy
Nebraska (2013)
★★★★★
Determined to pick up a nonexistent million-dollar mailshot prize, an elderly father on the edge of dementia is driven across America by his long-suffering son.
Saving Mr Banks (2013)
★★★★☆
A clash of cultures with a war zone in the writers room, John Lee Hancock’s Saving Mr Banks puts adaptation and that special relationship on trial
Don Jon (2013)
★★★☆☆
A sexy battle of the sexes, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s debut feature Don Jon looks at the modern craving for perfection through the prism of pornography.
Philomena (2013)
★★★☆☆
As the worlds of an Irish catholic and an atheist ex-politican collide, Stephen Frears’ Philomena sees a simple faith go head to head with Catholic conspiracy.
Enough Said (2013)
★★★☆☆
A divorced woman who is the parent of a teenage daughter disovers that the man she’s just started a relationship with is the ex-husband of her new female friend.
Le Week-End (2013)
★★★★☆
Love, life and languor in the City of Lights, Roger Michell’s Le Week-End sees a couple renegotiating their marriage and giving it the ooh-la-la.
Looking For Hortense / Cherchez Hortense (2012)
★★☆☆☆
With the fate of a young woman hanging on a middle-aged nobody, Bonitzer’s Looking For Hortense is a rather bloodless comedy on husbands and wives, fathers and sons.
Frances Ha (2012)
★★★★☆
Down and out in Paris and Brooklyn, Noah Baumbach’s playful comedy Frances Ha is a bittersweet romp through the earnest dreams of youth.
I’m So Excited / Los Amantes Pasajeros (2013)
★★★☆☆
Cross check and doors to manual, Almodóvar’s I’m So Excited smuggles camp humour onboard a plane heading into disaster. Only the sky’s the limit.
Love Is All You Need / Den Skaldede Frisør (2012)
★★★★☆
A rom-com for realist romantics, Susanne Bier’s Love Is All You Need sees love blossom alongside life’s trials and tribulations.
Papadopoulos & Sons (2012)
★★☆☆☆
Like a Greek hero of yore, Marcus Markou is taking on the economic crisis single-handedly with Papadopoulos & Sons, his fleecy, feel-good, culture-clash comedy.
In The House / Dans La Maison (2012)
★★★★☆
Of schoolboy crushes and French assignments, François Ozon’s labyrinthine In The House is an intricate maze of fiction and reality worth getting lost in.
Robot & Frank (2012)
★★★★☆
An unlikely odd-couple relationship between man and robot, Robot & Frank poignantly contrasts human memory and ageing with its computerised counterparts.