Recent reviews

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  Hard Truths 2024

  ★★★★ Watched 16 Oct 2024

  This is now my favourite Mike Leigh movie. I didn’t expect so many (affectionate) laughs. The movie really demonstrates how we’re all nothing more than the sum of our experiences.

  It might not be immediately apparent to foreign audiences, but it is a topical and political movie. It’s not quite ‘I, Daniel Blake,’ but there is a quiet and devastating political message running through the movie like “Blackpool” through a stick of rock. Let me explain. The UK is a…

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  The Swan 2023

  ★★½ Watched 28 Sep 2023

  It’s hard to write a review of an adaptation of a story that held me in such thrall as a child. The Swan is a horrible, terrifying story. It was written during a time in which adults believed that a little scare was good for children. They called it ‘character building.’ I suspect that reading The Swan repeatedly as a child was a formative experience for me. It’s a story about the horror of casual cruelty. It’s about loving and…

Popular reviews

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  In the Cut 2003

  ★★★★ Watched 14 Sep 2023

  Written, directed, and produced by a female team, I understand In the Cut bombed on its release in 2003 (but has since been reevaluated). I’ve also read that this film was the death knell for (my beloved) 90s erotic thrillers. In the Cut is to 90s erotic thrillers what Blazing Saddles was to westerns. 

  I loved it though. I’ve never especially liked Meg Ryan (I prefer her co-star Jennifer Jason Leigh), but she offers a really dark, beautiful, nuanced performance…

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  The Power of the Dog 2021

  ★★★★ Rewatched 12 Feb 2022

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

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