Tár ★★★★★
Directed by Todd Field. Starring Cate Blanchett, Noémie Merlant, Nina Hoss, Sophie Kauer, Mark Strong, Julian Glover, Allan Corduner, Sylvia Flote. 15A cert, gen release, 158 min
Blanchett is next-level as a tyrannical conductor in a film that touches on cancel culture but is memorable more for its elision of ghost-story tropes with Kubrickian froideur. There are voices in the woods. A terse melody sticks in Lydia Tár’s head. As events progress, Blanchett moves from near-robotic insouciance — an empress among dung gatherers — to a hand-wringing, paranoid Lady Macbeth. The role is tailored to the actor’s familiar haughty strengths, but her performance is no less compelling for that. A film that welcomes equivocation in an age addicted to the binary. Full review DC
Enys Men ★★★★★
Directed by Mark Jenkin. Starring Mary Woodvine, Edward Rowe, Flo Crowe. 15A cert, gen release, 96 min
It is said no man – nor woman, indeed – is an island, and yet Enys Men blurs those lines. Set in 1973 on a lonely Cornish islet, Mark Jenkin’s phantasmagorical follow-up to the brilliant Bafta-winning Bait concerns a mysterious horticulturist (Woodvine, fearless) known only as The Volunteer. The writer-director’s use of colour 16mm, his now-famous 1970s Bolex clockwork camera, and post-production sound anoint Enys Men as the Kernowek equivalent of such classic English folk horrors as The Wicker Man. It’s often difficult to believe that we’re not watching something shot during the early 1970s. TB
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M3GAN ★★★★☆
Directed by Gerard Johnstone. Starring Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Amie Donald, Jenna Davis, Ronny Chieng, Jen Van Epps, Brian Jordan Alvarez. 15A cert, gen release, 102 min
The latest cracker from Blumhouse, purveyors of superior horror, places an artificially intelligent doll in the company of a bereaved child and her aunt. Everything goes fine and nobody ends up with their face chewed off. I’m joking, of course. The film works escalating unease in with sly satire on our addiction to portable technology. It does slip towards industry-standard punch-ups in the last 15 minutes. But there is enough promise in this cheeky, witty, incisive shocker to let us look forward to inevitable sequels with something like enthusiasm. DC
Empire of Light ★★★☆☆
Directed by Sam Mendes. Starring Olivia Colman, Micheal Ward, Tom Brooke, Tanya Moodie, Hannah Onslow, Crystal Clarke, Toby Jones, Colin Firth. 15A cert, gen release, 119 min.
Mendes has said that his ninth feature as a director was inspired by his mother’s struggle with mental health. Don’t expect a bildungsroman in the style of Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast. The autobiographical material begins and ends with Hilary Small (played with a little too much abandon by Colman), a troubled front-of-house manager in a fading Margate cinema in 1982. Mendes’ script tries too much, as it takes on racial and sexual inequality, mental health issues, and, incongruously, the romance of cinema. If he had gone the full Fablemans, Empire of Light might have been a more persuasive piece of cinema. Full review TB
