Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy ★★★★☆
Directed by Michael Morris. Starring Renée Zellweger, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Leo Woodall, Jim Broadbent, Isla Fisher, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson. 15A cert, gen release, 125 min
The unexpectedly delightful fourth episode in the Jones Saga finds our heroine again a singleton after Mark Darcy (Firth, as a memory) dies and leaves her to raise two children. She hooks up with young Leo Woodall, but might not nice teacher Chiwetel Ejiofor be more in her line? Mad About the Boy may take place in the safest of all middle-class worlds, but it is more connected to the greater sadnesses of life than we had any right to expect. And it’s still properly funny. Lovely turn from Grant as a partly reformed Daniel Cleaver. Full review DC
To a Land Unknown ★★★★☆
Directed by Mahdi Fleifel. Starring Mahmood Bakri, Aram Sabbah, Angeliki Papoulia, Manal Awad. 15A cert, limited release, 125 min
It risks spoilers to reveal that Fleifel’s powerful – and morally brave – tale of Palestinian refugees adrift in Athens owes an unmistakable debt to Midnight Cowboy. Two rootless oddballs ramble about the city doing what is necessary, including the odd turning of tricks in the park, to keep their head above water. As in John Schlesinger’s picture, we are invited to sympathise, even when the characters step away from bourgeois norms. There is no attempt to make sport of their occasional banditry. Nor is there any finger wagging. Just an acceptance that humans are victims of their circumstances. Full review DC
Memoir of a Snail ★★★★☆
Directed by Adam Elliot. Voices of Jacki Weaver, Sarah Snook, Charlotte Belsey, Agnes Davison. 18 cert, limited release, 96 min
Australian stop-motion auteur Adam Elliot scored an international hit with 2010’s Mary & Max, a macabre account of a real-life friendship rendered in unsettling monochrome. Memoir of a Snail draws on the director’s biography with the same unforgettable, grubby aesthetic. Eliot’s eccentric background - the son of an acrobatic clown who grew up on a prawn farm in the outback - is parlayed into a sombre tale of divided siblings. Themes of grinding poverty, loneliness and death ensure that Memoir of a Snail, Oscar-nominated for best animated feature, is an adult-only entertainment. Full review TB
We Are Fugazi from Washington, DC ★★★★☆
Curated by Joe Gross, Joseph Pattisall and Jeff Krulik. Featuring Brendan Canty, Joe Lally, Ian MacKaye, Guy Picciotto. Limited release, 96 min
Fugazi’s enduring popularity in Ireland, evidenced by this month’s lightning-quick sell-out shows for splinter group Messesthetics and this crowd-sourced concert doc, was borne from a series of legendary shows, starting in 1988. The band, paragons of the DC punk scene, are simultaneously electrifying performers and hugely accessible, even at the level of bright, overhead lighting; all the better for budding end-of-the-century videographers. Forget your Ticketmaster account; even plucked from the archives, these are the best gigs you’ll see in 2025. Ticket profits from Dublin screenings of the new doc, will be donated to Novas, a homeless and housing charity. Full review TB
