THE POWER OF THE DOG ★★★★★
Directed by Jane Campion. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Thomasin McKenzie, Genevieve Lemon, Peter Carroll, Keith Carradine. 12A cert, gen release, 128 min
Campion returns with a stunningly grim, relentlessly gripping translation of Thomas Savage's novel concerning warring brothers in Montana during the 1920s. Cumberbatch, never better, plays the tyrannical Phil Burbank – educated, repressed, maniacal. Plemons is quietly brilliant as the quiet younger sibling who causes havoc when he brings a wife (Dunst) into this very male environment. The Power of the Dog is certainly Campion's most gripping film since The Piano and possibly her most impressive since An Angel at My Table in 1990. The drama is oppressive. The yawning spaces paradoxically claustrophobic. A wonder. Full review DC
KING RICHARD ★★★★☆
Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green. Starring Will Smith, Aunjanue Ellis, Saniyya Sidney, Demi Singleton, Tony Goldwyn, Jon Bernthal, Andy Bean, Kevin Dunn, Craig Tate. 12A cert, gen release, 144 min
Smith stars as Richard Williams, father of Venus and Serena, in a straight-edge, inspirational sporting film of the old school – closer to Rocky than Hoop Dreams. Taking all the inevitable compromises on board, it could hardly work better within its chosen parameters. Smith works hard enough to deserve the Academy Award he will almost certainly receive. Ellis makes something more substantial than "long suffering" of Richard's wife, Brandi. Cleverly they manage to end the film with a crucial match only Venus experts will know the result of. Maybe the "authorised version", but no less stirring for that. Full review DC
PETITE MAMAN ★★★★☆
Directed by Céline Sciamma. Starring Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne. PG cert, limited release, 74 min
For many young children, imagining their parents at their own age lies beyond the wildest flights of fancy. For eight-year-old Nelly, it's an adventure. An only child, Nelly and her parents return to her late grandmother's home to put the place in order. A rural pile surrounded by woods, granny's house is the perfect setting for a fairytale. So it proves. The slender running time belies a transportative experience. A delicately constructed miniature, this is a world away from the emotional sweep of Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Full review TB
DRIVE MY CAR ★★★★☆
Directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi. Starring Hidetoshi Nishijima, Tôko Miura, Reika Kirishima. Limited release, 179 min
Taut, elegant story of the relationship between a theatre actor and his producer wife. Director Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe became the first Japanese Palme d'Or nominees to win best screenplay at Cannes earlier this year. Their lovely, nuanced adaptation of a short story by Haruki Murakami (from his 2014 anthology, Men Without Women) finds complexities beneath the original conceit. Where Murakami's protagonist hires his late wife's younger lover with malevolent intent, the film's sorrowful hero is trickier to read. The extensive run time unexpectedly flies by at its own stately pace. The purring engine provides a warm, familiar hum. Full review TB
GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE ★★★☆☆
Directed by Jason Reitman. Starring Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Paul Rudd, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts. 12A cert, gen release, 123 min
Remember when an online army of cry-babies lost their minds over Paul Feig's gender-swapped Ghostbusters and hounded Leslie Jones off the internet? So here is a better movie than the cry-babies deserve. Afterlife is fine. It passes the time. But somewhere between the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man recycled as hundreds of Tribble-alike menaces and Muncher, a fatter variant of Slimer, one finds oneself wishing that studios might use their vast resources for something more than the repackaging of old rope. Some chance. Full review TB
