JEUNE FEMME ★★★★★
Directed by Léonor Serraille. Starring Laetitia Dosch, Grégoire Monsaingeon, Souleymane Seye Ndiaye, Léonie Simaga, Nathalie Richard, Erika Sainte, Lilas-Rose Gilberti-Poisot, Audrey Bonnet. Club, limited release, 97 min
Paula (the remarkable Dosch), the rudderless, ridiculous, rapturous 31-year-old heroine of this wonderful, kinetic film, has no money and no place to stay. She does, however, have her former lover's cat. Think the same, messy axis as Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielmann or Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Fleabag. A white-knuckle sense of emotional freefall powers every fraught scene. Clemence Carre's fluid editing and Emilie Noblet's naturalistic cinematography provide perfect complement to Dosch's soaring, free-spirited turn. Full review TB
CITIZEN LANE ★★★★
Directed by Thaddeus O'Sullivan. Starring Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Gemma-Leah Devereux, Michael Gambon, Marty Rae, Derbhle Crotty, Barry McGovern, Ned Dennehy. G cert, limited release, 81 min
By any reasoning, O'Sullivan's hybrid portrait of the art collector and gallery founder Hugh Lane simply shouldn't work. The film's marriage – or rather menage – of talking heads, artistic flâneurism and historical recreation ought to make for a screaming match, or at the very least uneasy transitions. But working from Mark O'Halloran's fiendishly clever script, the December Bride director and dexterous editor Mick Mahon have fashioned a project as elegant as its subject. Full review TB
DEADPOOL 2 ★★★
Directed by David Leitch. Starring Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Zazie Beetz, Leslie Uggams, Morena Baccarin, Brianna Hildebrand, Julian Dennison, Stefan Kapicic, TJ Miller, Terry Crews. 16 cert, general release, 120 min
Deadpool is rescued by the X-Men after falling into suicidal despair. He blows his chance (obviously) during an encounter with a young mutant. Depending on your appetites, the constant self-reference is either a shameful cheat or a release from the superhero sameness. It's probably a bit of both and Reynolds's relish is, for the most part, passed on to the audience. This time round they've toned down the recreational sexism. Maybe that's why it feels less grating. Full review/trailer DC
DIVE ★★★
Directed by Daniel Holmes. Starring Vanessa Schaeffer, Emmet Ryan. Club, limited release, 85 min
A young swimmer, poised for Olympic glory, discovers that she is pregnant. Arriving just in time to enlighten and inform, this modestly budgeted drama highlights the pressures imposed on Irish women seeking abortion in the first half of 2018 (and possibly beyond). It's a humble sort of film, but it has a sincerity and focus that argues for attention. Full review DC
REDOUBTABLE ★★★★
Directed by Michel Hazanavicius. Starring Louis Garrel, Stacy Martin, Bérénice Bejo, Micha Lescot, Grégory Gadebois, Jean-Pierre Mocky, Marc Brun Adryan. Club, IFI, Dublin, 107 min
Jean-Luc Godard (Garrel) squabbles with wife Anne Wiazemsky (Martin) as 1968 bubbles around him. Suggestions that Hazanavicius's film trivialises Godard and his work are not so much wrong as irrelevant. It transpires that the director of The Artist, known first in France for spy spoofs, has returned to his original taste for broad pastiche. Redoutable is utterly trivial, occasionally disrespectful and hugely amusing. Wiazemsky, an intellectual in her own right, is misused, though. Full review DC
SHERLOCK GNOMES ★★★
Directed by John Stevenson. Voices of James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mary J Blige, Johnny Depp, Michael Caine, Maggie Smith, Stephen Merchant, Ashley Jensen, Matt Lucas, Ozzy Osbourne. G cert, general release, 86 min
The only film this year that can boast that it is "based on Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare and Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle" sees the headliners of the 2011 original relocate to a scruffy London garden. When all of their ornament chums are kidnapped, a bickering Gnomeo (McEvoy) and Juliet (Blunt) team up with Sherlock Gnomes (Depp) and Watson (Ejiofor). Juliet throws herself into her new duties, while Gnomeo goofs off and undermines her efforts. There are not nearly enough jokes and they misuse "wherefore art thou?". But Kung Fu Panda director Stevenson keeps the plot moving at a jaunty pace. Full review TB
