Barbarian ★★★★☆
Directed by Zach Cregger. Starring Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård, Justin Long, Richard Brake, Matthew Patrick Davis. 18 cert, gen release, 102 min
A woman spends a night in a Detroit house with a stranger. “Game of two-halves” does not begin to cover the sudden swerve in this entertaining, properly scary new horror. The first hour is a flawless piece of filmmaking, characterised by expertly timed jump scares, a disconcerting series of shots in which the heroine walks through various wrong doors, and sneaky plotting. The second half, though wild, gross and persuasively escalating, eschews the nuance of the opening half in favour of a barn-door broad send-up of toxic masculinity and an iffy monster. TB
The Wonder ★★★☆☆
Directed by Sebastián Lelio. Starring Florence Pugh, Tom Burke, Elaine Cassidy, Kíla Lord Cassidy, Niamh Algar, Toby Jones, Ciarán Hinds, Brían F O’Byrne, David Wilmot. 15A cert, gen release, 103 min
Adapted from Emma Donoghue’s 2016 novel, Lelio’s drama follows Lib (Pugh), a Yorkshire nurse hired by a small Irish village in 1862 to watch over a young girl. Her charge is Anna (Cassidy, superb), a pious 11-year-old who has gained notoriety for surviving some four months without eating. The bookending of the film with a contemporary studio setting and thoughts about storytelling falls a bit flat, as does the repeated use of a bird-in-cage thaumatrope. Not for the first time this year, Pugh stands out in a film that, given the personnel involved, really ought to pack a greater punch. TB
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Bros ★★★☆☆
Directed by Nicholas Stoller. Starring Billy Eichner, Luke Macfarlane, Guy Branum, Miss Lawrence, TS Madison, Dot-Marie Jones, Jim Rash, Eve Lindley, Monica Raymund, Guillermo Díaz, Debra Messing. 16 cert, gen release, 115 min
One doesn’t wish to be too cynical, but our sympathy goes out to Billy Eichner in his efforts to fashion a gay take on the sort of mainstream, neatly designed, bubbly romantic comedy that…well, nobody much pays to see anymore. The star/co-writer plays an uptight New Yorker who falls for a more primped gym-friendly fellow (Macfarlane, smooth). Bros does a good job of gently satirising current concerns in the LGBT+ community, but it still feels stranded between indie sensibilities and those of the studio crowd-pleaser. DC
Triangle of Sadness ★★★★☆
Directed by Ruben Östlund. Starring Harris Dickinson, Charlbi Dean, Woody Harrelson, Vicki Berlin, Henrik Dorsin, Zlatko Burić, Jean-Christophe Folly, Iris Berben, Dolly De Leon. 15A cert, gen release, 150 min
Östlund won the Palme d’Or at Cannes with this scurrilous, relentless, sometimes disgusting attack on the super-rich. A group of disgraceful twits — arms dealers, super-models, Russian oligarchs — end up on a super-yacht captained by drunk, Marxist captain Woody Harrelson. Disaster, inevitably, looms. The relish of the attack, the invention of the imminent mortifications and the cool precision of Östlund’s filmmaking don’t quite absolve Triangle of Sadness from accusations of unsubtlety, but they ensure that the romp remains fun throughout. Watch out for the orgy of Wagnerian vomiting. DC
