WILD ROSE ★★★★☆
Directed by Tom Harper. Starring Jessie Buckley, Julie Walters, Sophie Okonedo, Jamie Sives, Ashley Shelton, James Harkness, Gemma McElhinney, Daniel Campbell
Kerry's own Jessie Buckley plays a Glaswegian ex-con who dreams of making it to Nashville. Some films build themselves so determinedly around a central performance that you can't imagine them existing without their star. Buckley triumphs in all areas: she can do comedy; she can do sass; she can sing. She and a fine supporting cast are so strong that the film's missteps (an awkward subplot involving posh Okonedo, a silly celebrity cameo) are easily overlooked. A literal crowd-pleaser. It will greatly please crowds. 15A cert, gen release, 100 min Full review DC
MID90S ★★★★☆
Directed by Jonah Hill. Starring Sunny Suljic, Lucas Hedges, Na-Kel Smith, Olan Prenatt, Gio Galicia, Ryder McLaughlin, Alexa Demie, Katherine Waterston
Kids hang, get up to no good, and ask wildly inappropriate questions ( "Would you rape your parents if you had to?", "Don't thank me; that's gay") in mid90s, Jonah Hill's promising debut as a writer-director. Stevie (The Killing of a Sacred Deer's Suljic) is a 13-year-old in 1990s LA who falls in with the older, cooler kids he meets at a skate shop. Hill's clever, observational dialogue flags how arbitrary teen social standing can be. For all their chilling, the shifting group dynamics between the charismatic Ray (Smith), the sweary Fuckshit (Prenatt), and Ruben (Galicia) – as filmed by Fourth Grade (McLaughlin) – crackle and seeth. Drugs are taken. Heads are cracked. House parties are low-key wild. Super Nintendo controllers are used inappropriately. 16 cert, gen release, 85 min TB
LITTLE ★★★☆☆
Directed by Tina Gordon. Starring Regina Hall, Marsai Martin, Issa Rae, Justin Hartley, Tone Bell, Rachel Dratch
Yet another entry to the sub-genre of body-swap comedies that sees a grown-up inhabit a child's body (or vice versa). Little works through most of the familiar cliches.. Once again, the protagonist takes an awfully long time to accept the unlikely evidence of her own eyes. But a stunning juvenile performance lifts the film above the pack. Hall is under-used as a bossy CEO, but Martin is just brilliant as the kid she becomes. Messy but fun (and a little transgressive). 12A cert, gen release, 109 min Full review DC
PET SEMATARY ★★★★☆
Directed by Kevin Kölsch, Dennis Widmyer. Starring Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, John Lithgow, Jeté Laurence, Obssa Ahme
Dr Louis Creed (Clarke) and his family, including winsome daughter Elle (Laurence) relocate to a small town in Maine amd into a home that backs onto ancient tribal lands where the barrier between life and death is permeable. The family are soon plagued by horrible visions. And that's before Louis and kindly neighbour (Lithgow) decide that they'd rather not tell Ellie that her beloved cat has been killed on the dangerous Chekovian road out front, opting instead for the titular graveyard that brings animals back as evil shadows of themselves. This superior horror often resembles Mary Lambert's 1989 adaptation, but it has more than a few nasty surprises. 16 cert, gen release, 101 min Full review TB
MISSING LINK ★★★★☆
Directed by Chris Butler. Voices of Hugh Jackman, Zoe Saldana, Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry, David Walliams, Timothy Olyphant, Matt Lucas, Amrita Acharia, Zach Galifianakis
Daredevil explorere Sir Lionel Frost (Jackman) longs to be recognised for his feats but has, thus far, failed to impress the snoots at the club. When an expedition to photograph the Loch Ness monster goes wrong, Sir Lionel heads westwards in search of Bigfoot. When he finally meets the lonely sasquatch (Galifianakis), he hatches a plan to travel to Shangri-La, where, in theory, the loveable creature can finally be among his own kind. Director Butler, cowriter of Kubo and the Two Strings and codirector of ParaNorman, has fun with British colonialism. A vertiginous sequence on an ice-bridge is as nail-biting than any live action (or CGI) scene you care to mention. There are good jokes, a playful sensibility, and a genuine sense of jeopardy. PG cert, gen release, 94 min Full review TB
US ★★★★☆
Directed by Jordan Peele. Starring Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Anna Diop, Evan Alex, Shahadi Wright-Joseph
Peele follows up the era-defining Get Out with a horror film about an African-American family meeting their doubles while on holiday. Us follows in a grand tradition of doppelgänger horrors that stretches back to The Student of Prague over a hundred years ago. Michael Abels's choral jabs increase the unease. Mike Gioulakis's camera risks impenetrable levels of darkness. Nyong'o is stunning in twin roles. But the film does lack its predecessor's satirical punch. 16 cert, gen release, 116 min Full review DC
Other ★★★★☆ films out and about: At Eternity’s Gate, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, The Man Who Wanted to Fly, The White Crow
