Avatar: The Way of Water ★★☆☆☆
Directed by James Cameron. Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Stephen Lang, Britain Dalton, Kate Winslet, Sigourney Weaver, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement. 12A cert, gen release, 192 min
“The Way of Water has no beginning and no end,” someone says about five or six hours into Cameron’s bioluminescent mash-up of Free Willy and Rio Grande. The thing does eventually stop, but there is an awful lot of featherweight plot on the way to a modestly satisfactory conclusion. Much money has been spent on making the sequel to the highest grossing film of time look blandly blue throughout. The 3D still wears out its welcome. The high frame rate is alienating. We no longer get the consciousness tourism that gives the franchise its title. But it may still take a fortune. Full review DC
The Apology ★★★☆☆
Directed by Alison Locke. Starring Anna Gunn, Linus Roache, Janeane Garofalo. Shudder, 91 min
Darlene (Gunn), a recovering alcoholic, is preparing to host her family for Christmas. Jack (Roache) her estranged ex-bother-in-law, then arrives unannounced and uninvited. As they catch up, we realise that that Jack was something more than her sister’s former husband. He has come to apologise. But for what? Too late Darlene realises that her phone line has been cut. As the storm outside rages, a battle of wits escalates in unexpected ways. Working on a small budget, writer-director Locke puts the confinement of one location in service of her claustrophobic script. A promising first feature. TB
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Fanny and Alexander ★★★★★
Directed by Ingmar Bergman. Starring Pernilla Allwin. Bertil Guve, Jan Malmsjö, Börje Ahlstedt, Anna Bergman, Gunn Wållgren, Kristina Adolphson. Limited release, 189 min
Bergman’s account of his troubled relationship with his Lutheran minister father was intended as his farewell to cinema (even if, afterwards, he continued to work). This welcome reissue on its 40th anniversary arrives in time to remind us it just might qualify as a Christmas movie. From the opening sequence, in which Alexander – Bergman’s surrogate – goes searching for his sister and mother in empty room, Fanny and Alexander is in haunted, mysterious territory, somewhere outside of the adult world, adjacent to the Celtic idea of thin spaces, and rounded off by both a reading and critique of Strindberg’s A Dream Play. TB
The Bishop’s Wife ★★★★☆
Directed by Henry Koster. Starring Cary Grant, Loretta Young, David Niven, Monty Woolley, Gladys Cooper, Elsa Lanchester. G cert, limited release, 109 min
From 1947, one of the best – and most underappreciated – Christmas movies gets buffed up for another seasonal outing. The incomparable David Niven, no less charming in clerical robes, plays a harried bishop struggling to find the funds for a new cathedral. This being the season, his prayers deliver an angel in the form of Cary Grant You hardly need to be told that the (ahem) bishop’s wife, in the feisty form of Loretta Young, takes a fancy to the new arrival. The script touches on all the wholesome tropes of the Christmas movie without dipping too deeply into schmaltz. DC
