London East Asia Film Festival: Before We Vanish (2017)
★★★★☆
Before We Vanish by Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a genre-bending Japanese bodysnatchers movie that provokes an alien apocalypse on Earth.
Alexa Dalby
BFI LFF: Pickups (2017)
★★★☆☆
Jamie Thraves’ collaboration with Aidan Gillen in Pickups is an intriguing, self-mocking look at fame and an actor’s life.
BFI LFF: Dark River (2017)
★★★☆☆
Her native rugged Yorkshire is the setting for Dark River, Clio Barnard’s follow-up to The Selfish Giant, a grim drama of a dysfunctional family and their failing farm.
BFI LFF: Journeyman (2017)
★★★★☆
Paddy Considine directs and stars in melodrama about the hidden toll of boxing Journeyman.
Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017)
★★★☆☆
Brawl in Cell Block 99 is S. Craig Zahler’s grindhousefest and a new departure for Vince Vaughn.
BFI LFF: You Were Never Really Here (2017)
★★★★☆
You Were Never Really Here, Lynne Ramsay’s latest film is a dark, disturbing odyssey into the mind of a brutal yet tender hitman.
BFI LFF: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)
★★★★★
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri is Michael McDonagh’s five-star drama laced with humour featuring a gloriously Oscar-worthy performance by Frances McDormand.
BFI LFF: I Am Not a Witch (2017)
★★★★☆
Rungano Nyoni’s I Am Not a Witch is a surreal deadpan satire.
BFI LFF: Tides (2017)
★★★☆☆
Tides directed by Tupaq Felber is a black-and-white, quiet unfolding of old friendships.
BFI LFF: Let the Sunshine in (2017)
★★★★☆
Juliette Binoche stars in a rom-com departure for Claire Denis in Bright Sunshine In (Un Beau Soleil Interior).
BFI LFF: On Chesil Beach (2017)
★★★☆☆
On Chesil Beach is a well-acted, sensitive adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novella.
BFI LFF: The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
★★★★☆
In The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Yorgos Lanthimos creates a disturbingly strange and brutal dilemma.
BFI LFF: Anchor and Hope (2017)
★★★★☆
Carlos Marques-Marcet looks at London lifestyles on the water in Anchor and Hope, a modern romcom about ways of loving each other.
BFI LFF: The Shape of Water (2017)
★★★★☆
strong>Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water is a fairy tale, a story of love, loss and friendship, and a magical cinematic joy.