Blue Moon ★★★☆☆
Directed by Richard Linklater. Starring Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Scott, Simon Delaney, Patrick Kennedy, David Rawle. 15A cert, gen release, 100 min
Hawke plays Lorenz “Larry” Hart – the brilliant, self-destructive lyricist behind My Funny Valentine, Bewitched and the wistful song of the title – and he does so with extraordinary commitment: wide-eyed, jittery, enthralled, embittered and heartbreakingly exposed. The film finds him boozing in Sardi’s while the premiere of Oklahoma!, by Oscar Hammerstein (Delaney, bullish) and Hart’s old collaborator Richard Rodgers (Scott, weary), plays to hurrahs nearby. It’s the kind of turn that should anchor a film. Instead, it’s upstaged by Linklater’s obsessive attempts to shrink his leading man to Hart’s purported sub-5ft stature. There should have been another way. Full review TB
The Ice Tower ★★★★★
Directed by Lucile Hadzihalilovic. Starring Marion Cotillard, Clara Pacini, August Diehl, Gaspar Noé, Marine Gesbert. No cert, limited release, 118 min
Jeanne (impressive newcomer Pacini), flees her mountain orphanage and drifts toward a film studio shooting a version of The Snow Queen with one Cristina (given froideur by Cotillard) in the lead. Mistaken for an extra, she is quickly absorbed into the production’s dream logic, where boundaries between reality, fantasy and performance scarcely hold. Hadzihalilovic’s latest is a cool, exacting reverie: a 1970s period piece, replete with skating girls and brutalist architecture, and a cinematic snow globe refracting Hans Christian Andersen’s oddest tale. Full review TB
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Christy ★★★☆☆
Directed by David Michôd. Starring Sydney Sweeney, Ben Foster, Merritt Wever, Katy O’Brian, Ethan Embry, Jess Gabor, Chad Coleman, Bryan Hibbard. 15A cert, gen release, 135 min
Straight-down-the-line biopic of Christy Martin, the boxer who transformed the woman’s game in the US. Begrudgers, pushing back at Sweeney’s sudden fame, have made much of the film’s box-office underperformance, but few could find realistic fault in her performance. Bulked up to pocket dynamo, Sweeney is convincing as a middleweight with a heavyweight’s piledriver punch. The boxing sequences don’t exactly strive for documentary realism, but they effectively convey the momentum behind each jaw-shattering blow. Elsewhere, she convincingly conveys the desperation of a woman running a gauntlet of domestic cruelty. Full review DC
Pillion ★★★★☆
Directed by Harry Lighton. Starring Alexander Skarsgard, Harry Melling, Douglas Hodge, Lesley Sharp, Jake Shears, Anthony Welsh. 18 cert, gen release, 107 min
Fascinating, disarming dramedy about a shy young man (Melling) who becomes sexual submissive to a handsome biker (Skarsgard). Pillion is a degree cosier and sweeter than this synopsis suggests. It’s as if Norman Wisdom had stumbled among gay motorcyclists and, remaining himself, decided to act as plaything for the tallest of their tribe. The film is gently interrogative of the boys’ lifestyle. It is meant to be awkwardly funny when Colin’s nice mum (Sharp), who has cancer, tells Ray off for mistreating her son, but she is expressing reasonable confusion at what she sees. Full review DC
