NO TIME TO DIE ★★★☆☆
Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga. Starring Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, Léa Seydoux, Lashana Lynch, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes. 12A cert, gen release, 163 min
Craig's last outing as James Bond begins and ends brilliantly. The pre-credit sequence is a riot. The final conflagration is good value. We get some well-fleshed out female characters and plenty of high-end luxury. But there is, alas, far too much aimless faffing in the centre of a hugely overlong film. We have never much cared about the plot of these things, but they are usually composed with a little more discipline. Something about a missing scientist. Malek as an off-the-peg megalomaniac. Blah, blah, blah. Still, it comes together well enough to satisfy all but the grumpiest Bondian. Full review DC
OLIVER SACKS: HIS OWN LIFE ★★★★☆
Directed by Ric Burns. Featuring Oliver Sacks, Paul Theroux, Jonathan Miller, Temple Grandin. 15A cert, limited release/digital platforms, 114 min
There are no remarkable innovations in this documentary on a much-missed literary and scientific original. Oliver Sacks, the neurologist who gained wider fame with books such as Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, talks fluently and hilariously some months before his death in 2015. Associates such as Jonathan Miller and Paul Theroux add further colour to Sacks's journey from middle-class north London to California. That story is, however, so fascinating that His Own Life emerges as among the year's most engaging documentaries. A man of great contrasts. Full review DC
ANNE AT 13,000 FT ★★★★☆
Directed by Kazik Radwanski. Starring Deragh Campbell, Matt Johnson, Dorothea Paas, Lawrene Denkers. Mubi, 75 min
A woman changes after her first skydiving experience. If you have ever experienced acute anxiety, panic attacks, or any other nervous disorder, then watching Anne at 13.000 Ft – presumably through your fingers – will bring a sense of representation and horror in equal measure. It's The Shining for nail-biters; Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence for millennials. It's not that anything truly horrifying happens during this succinct, naturalistic drama. The third feature from Ontarian wunderkind Radwanski demonstrates, yet again, why his work earns favourable comparison to that of Ken Loach and the Dardennes. Full review TB
GAGARINE ★★★★☆
Directed by Fanny Liatard, Jérémy Trouilh. Starring Alséni Bathily, Lyna Khoudri, Jamil McCraven, Finnegan Oldfield, Denis Lavant. Limited release/digital platforms, 98 min
In Paris, teenager Youri (Bathily in a star-making turn) resists the demolition of the utopian housing project in which he grew up. As his neighbours slowly leave on foot of an evacuation order, Youri remains. Never mind the building codes: Gagarin is his home. Working with some friends, including a local Roma girl and mechanical whizz, Youri has a plan that is almost as idealistic as the building around him. Just as Youri fashions outsider art – or survivalist dreams – from his doomed banlieue, Leotard and Trouith craft an imaginative debut feature from the rubble. Full review TB
