Six of the best films to see at the cinema this weekend

‘A Ghost Story’ is a heartbreaking haunting while an award-winning Godzilla returns to stomp Tokyo

Fri Aug 11 2017 - 06:00

A GHOST STORY ★★★★★
Directed by David Lowery. Starring Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara. 12A cert, limited release, 92 min

Lowery follows up Pete’s Dragon with an engrossing experimental piece starring Affleck as a spirit who – literally draped in a sheet – lurks around his bereaved girlfriend (Rooney) as she recovers from his death in a car crash. The gimmicks do not distract from the film’s sentimental energy. Shot in a narrow ratio with rounded corners that suggest old photographs from a lost album, A Ghost Story swells with meditations on the unkindness of time: how we remember and, worse, how we forget.

DC

[ Review/TrailerOpens in new window ]

Trailer for, A Ghost Story, a film from writer/director David Lowery, starring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck.

SHIN GODZILLA ★★★★
Directed by Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi. Starring Hiroki Hasegawa, Yutaka Takenouchi. 12A cert, limited release, 120 min

Ishiro Honda’s original 1954 film Godzilla was rooted in second World War and atomic anxiety. Shin Godzilla – winner of picture and director of the year at the 40th Japanese Academy Awards – takes its cues from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster and the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Dear Hollywood, this is how you make a melon-farming kaiju movie. Thirty-one films and 63 years later, the monster has seldom looked better. The final shot is haunting.

TB

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[ Review/TrailerOpens in new window ]

MAUDIE ★★★★
Directed by Aisling Walsh. Starring Sally Hawkins, Ethan Hawke. 15A cert, general release, 116 min

There are people who will remain unmoved by Walsh's wonderful study of the Canadian folk artist Maud Lewis. There are also people who wilfully stand on spiders. I can't say I'd like to spend any time alone with such a fellow. Hawkins is heart-breaking as the title character: a simple, determined woman who sticks to her painting despite the advance of severe arthritis. Hawke gives a crafty performance as the brutal fisherman who becomes her husband. Essential. DC Review/Trailer

LAND OF MINE ★★★★
Directed by Martin Zandvliet. Starring Roland Moller, Louis Hofmann, Joel Basman. 15A cert, limited release, 101 min

Gripping, Oscar-nominated Danish drama concerning the German POWs who, after the armistice, were forced to clear mines from Danish beaches. The picture plays cleverly with our expectations by initially positioning the Allied commander as the villain and the young Germans as the heroes. The Danish sergeant is brutal. The prisoners are young and vulnerable. A slightly clunky softening does inevitably happen, but the tension counterbalances any sentimentality. A crowdpleaser. DC Review/Trailer

WILLIAMS ★★★★
Directed by Morgan Matthews. Featuring Frank Williams, Claire Williams, Jackie Stewart, Nigel Mansell, Alan Jones, Patrick Head. 15A cert, limited release, 109 min

Frank Williams works on an F1 car in his team garage in 1969. Photograph: Curzon Artificial eye

Frank Williams doesn't "do emotion" we are told early and often in this intriguing documentary portrait of the Formula One titan. Indeed, the highest praise Frank can think to bestow upon his daughter Claire is that, in common with her late mother Ginny (Virginia), she "Doesn't make a lot of fuss" and "gets things done". It's that sort of world. Away from those personal dilemmas the film has plenty to tell us about a true sporting phenomenon. TB Review

THE BIG SICK ★★★★
Directed by Michael Showalter. Starring Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano. 15A cert, general release, 120 min

Zoe Kazan and Kumail Najiani in The Big Sick

Lively, funny romantic comedy that follows the classic template while finding fresh innovations. Nankiani plays a comic who falls for Kazan's bright spark. He decides not to tell his Pakistani parents. Then Zoe's character falls seriously ill. Nanjiani draws on the story of his romance with cowriter Emily V Gordon to construct a twisty, unusual entertainment. The female lead is missing for a good third of the picture, but she feels present throughout. The romcom is back. DC Review/Trailer