this week’s UK cinema releases
Prima Facie ★★★★☆
In a sentence Screen adaptation of Suzie Miller’s international stage hit stars Cynthia Erivo as a lawyer whose career defending rape suspects is undermined by experience.
What our reviewer said “A blazingly fierce, effortlessly commanding central performance from Erivo, like something from classical drama, powers the movie.” Peter Bradshaw
Whispers in the Woods ★★★★☆
In a sentence Director Vincent Munier takes his father and son into the Vosges forest in France in an emotional study of human-animal interaction.
What our reviewer said “A subtle, tender work that evokes the need to pass on interest and engagement in the natural world to younger generations, but which manages to avoid feeling too preachy or sanctimonious.” Leslie Felperin
1 in 2 ★★★★☆
In a sentence David Wilkinson’s compassionate film deals with his own bowel cancer treatment, and asks why so many much younger people are getting the same diagnosis.
What our reviewer said “This is a sobering but very compassionate, humorous, generous film, and one that shows how Wilkinson’s highly personal and unselfconsciously confessional style has grown into something very watchable and distinctive.” Peter Bradshaw
A Fox Under a Pink Moon ★★★★☆
In a sentence Refugee Soraya Akhlaghi filmed her perilous flight from Iran and precarious new life over five years on her phone, reassembled here with boldly imaginative animations.
What our reviewer said “A born creator, Akhlaghi channels her struggles and despair into florid, intense drawings.” Phuong Le
Soul Patrol ★★★★☆
In a sentence Story of the US army’s first Black special ops team at work in Vietnam, relating the incredible bravery they showed in the face of battle and unrelenting bigotry.
What our reviewer said “The title of course refers to the soul music that became anthemic to these soldiers, but also, with grim irony, to their sense that their souls had died in the jungle, fighting people they felt were just like them.” Peter Bradshaw
Give Me the Ball! ★★★★☆
In a sentence Sparky and engaging documentary about tennis ace Billie Jean King, who fought her whole career to ensure the women’s game got the respect it deserved.
What our reviewer said “King was a ferocious force in women’s tennis from the 60s onwards and a vehement but polite advocate for equal rights on prize money.” Peter Bradshaw
Ebenezer ★★★☆☆
In a sentence Johnny Depp stars as the celebrated miser who finds redemption in a new version of the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol.
What our reviewer said “As Scrooge, Depp is in fact rather good; theatrically bad-tempered and petulant and, as with his Jack Sparrow, I suspect Depp’s comedy timing and sonorous British accent might have been learned from his old Fast Show comrade Paul Whitehouse.” Peter Bradshaw
Traces of Justice ★★★☆☆
In a sentence Forensic scientist Cui Daozhi, the “Chinese Sherlock Holmes”, is the real-life central figure of a cop thriller that ranges across 30 years of gripping cases.
What our reviewer said “The latest from Chen Sicheng, prime mover behind the hit Detective Chinatown franchise, offers a disarming mix of propaganda, copaganda and gripping narrative.” Mike McCahill
The Mosquito Bowl ★★★☆☆
In a sentence Peter Berg directs a handsomely made second world war drama about an American football game before the battle of Okinawa.
What our reviewer said “Berg has a knack for grace within visual cacophony and chaos; graphic sequences in battle and from the 1944 Christmas Eve pickup game at Guadalcanal that gives the film its name suggest, far more than its anvil-heavy dialogue, the connections between the gridiron and the battlefield.” Adrian Horton
100 Sunset ★★★☆☆
In a sentence Kunsang Kyirong’s debut feature is an elliptical, elusive drama that follows Kunsel, an introverted woman, through Toronto’s tight-knit Tibetan community.
What our reviewer said “In the end, the film fades like a vapour trail in the sky, its mood of disorientation and dislocation perhaps a reflection of Kunsel’s state of mind.” Cath Clarke
Fjord ★★☆☆☆
In a sentence Cristian Mungiu won his second Palme d’Or with this disquieting child abuse drama starring Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan.
What our reviewer said “Ultimately, the film does not compellingly deliver a blazing truth about its various relationships – but neither does it intriguingly withhold any such truth from us.” Peter Bradshaw
How to Rob a Bank ★★☆☆☆
In a sentence Nicholas Hoult, Anna Sawai and Pete Davidson play Robin Hood in an anti-capitalist caper movie that attempts to mix social commentary with action.
What our reviewer said “For a film that’s supposed to enrage and excite and energise, it’s all strangely, boringly flat and with a runtime stretching past two hours, surprisingly sluggish too.” Benjamin Lee
Re-released this week
The Man Who Fell to Earth ★★★★★
In a sentence David Bowie plays an intergalactic visitor who becomes a successful tech entrepreneur in Nicolas Roeg’s 1976 sci-fi story.
What our reviewer said “There is an extraordinary sui generis central performance by David Bowie, whose unselfconscious gentleness and vulnerability now look very moving and bizarrely authentic in a way that they didn’t in 1976.” Peter Bradshaw
Female Perversions ★★★★★
In a sentence Tilda Swinton’s first US film, from 1996, in which she plays a lawyer who searches for erotic adventures in a rework of Madame Bovary.
What our reviewer said “It’s an amazingly unselfconscious performance which marked her out as quite unlike any other female lead, all but impossible to cast in boilerplate Hollywood cinema.” Peter Bradshaw
Marie Antoinette ★★★☆☆
In a sentence Sofia Coppola’s biopic of the French queen, combining dazzling visual tableaux and formal set pieces in strict period, with new wave chart hits from the 1970s and 80s.
What our reviewer said “Coppola’s presentation of Marie’s life has a sisterly, unjudging intimacy, and the director has carried off pert inventions and provocations with some style.” Peter Bradshaw
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