Downstate at the National Theatre is a difficult drama that questions how society should treat its worst criminals March 21, 2019 A new play about a group of four convicted child sex offenders on supervised release in a social home in Illinois, Downstate is at times a difficult act to stomach. It’s an exercise in humanising a quartet of sex criminals, an exploration of the complex relationship between an abuser and their victim, and of the [...]
What Men Want review: A badly made reboot of badly aged Mel Gibson comedy March 15, 2019 Back in the year 2000, before anyone knew any better, Mel Gibson was still a beloved star of the big screen. His Freaky Friday-esque comedy escapade What Women Want was smashing it at the box office, a bigger hit than anything he’d done previously and grossing three times what Mad Max had taken in. Alongside [...]
Under the Silver Lake film review: It Follows director David Robert Mitchell’s follow-up is bonkers but brilliant March 14, 2019 David Robert Mitchell’s 2014 teen horror It Follows is up there with Jordan Peele’s Get Out as one of the best scary movies of the last decade. It was a lean, stripped back study of teenage anxiety and the perils of sexual awakening. For his new movie he takes a different tack, turning out a [...]
Betrayal at the Harold Pinter Theatre review: Tom Hiddleston is brilliant in this gut-wrenching play about infidelity March 14, 2019 It’s been a hell of a year for Harold Pinter fans. Over seven productions, director Jamie Lloyd resurrected dozens of the playwright’s one-act works, many of which hadn’t been performed in decades. That series ended last month, but Lloyd, now surely the world’s go-to Pinter guy, has lost none of his enthusiasm, following it up [...]
Alys, Always review: Bridge Theatre presents a crowd-pleasing, pulpy thriller March 14, 2019 Alys, Always is an unabashed crowd-pleaser, a gripping, pulpy thriller in the mould of Gone Girl or The Girl on the Train. I imagine the novel, written by Harriet Lane, was advertised on the Underground. It follows Frances, a sub-editor on the arts desk of a magazine called The Questioner. Her job is fixing the [...]
Captain Marvel review: Brie Larson is a revelation in this middling Marvel romp March 7, 2019 It seems almost unbelievable that it’s taken Marvel 20 movies to feature a female lead, especially when Brie Larson makes it all look so effortless. Alongside a digitally de-aged Samuel L Jackson, she brings verve and charisma to what could easily have been a forgettable entry into the Marvel canon. It’s a strange film, showing [...]
Metro Exodus review: Back in the USSR, this long-running series hits an incredible high March 6, 2019 Nobody glorifies misery quite like the Russians. Across centuries of literature, poetry and music, some of humanity’s most brilliant minds have elevated the struggles of ordinary Russian men and women to incredible symphonies of suffering. Times of unparalleled political and social upheaval – the Bolshevik revolution, the rise of Leninism, the Stalinist purges, the threat [...]
Far Cry New Dawn review: An eye-searingly colourful expansion that isn’t afraid to have some fun March 6, 2019 The statute of limitations is probably up on Far Cry 5 spoilers, especially given that this stand-alone sequel, which takes place in the primary-coloured and strangely bucolic wasteland of irradiated post-apocalypse Montana, is set 17 years after the previous game’s finale. The last game ended when deranged evangelist Joseph Seed unexpectedly dropped a nuke on [...]
The Hole in the Ground film review: An intense psychological horror that plays on our fears of motherhood March 6, 2019 This suffocating psychological horror sits alongside the likes of The Babadook and Hereditary in a wave of movies that take our fears of rearing offspring and makes them terrifyingly solid, Rosemary’s Baby or The Exorcist for the 21st century. Seána Kerslake plays Sarah, a single mother who moves to a small Irish village with her young [...]
Dorothea Tanning at the Tate Modern review: The feverish, psychosexual work of a bona fide genius March 1, 2019 Strolling through the Tate Modern’s latest show is like revisiting a barely remembered dream: familiar yet strange, perhaps a little frightening. This retrospective of Dorothea Tanning’s 70-year career is a hell of a show, in more ways than one. It’s filled with bizarre, nightmarish visions that hint at psychosexual forces lurking just beyond our conscious [...]