Reviews

Ken Loach's 1996 film Carla's Song marks the first of his many collaborations with lawyer and screenwriter Paul Laverty, and concerns the fallout from the Contra War in Nicaragua. Many of the pairs subsequent films would be marred by mawkish sentimentality, but their first work together is a powerful and dramatic study of a conflict rarely explored in Western cinema and it remains one of their best.

Carla's Song stars Robert Carlyle as George Lennox, a Scottish bus driver who befriends Oyanka Cabezas's Nicaraguan refugee Carla and ultimately takes her back to Nicaragua so that she can discover what happened to her boyfriend Antonio. It's part love story, although in that sense it doesn't unfold along the lines one might expect: ultimately, George makes the difficult decision to reunite Carla with her true love, even though he loses her as a result. Carlyle - who learned to drive a bus for the role of George - gives a typically assured and charismatic performance and establishes convincing on-screen chemistry with unknown actress Cabezas who is equally convincing as Carla. Despite her relative lack of acting experience, Cabezas conveys a wide emotional range very naturalistically, which the script demands in spades.

Laverty's screenplay includes powerful themes such as Carla's attempted suicide and the horrors of the war in Nicaragua, achieving the latter by focusing on the civilian cost. The scene of the bloody casualties in the hospital when George and Carla give blood is shot with stark simplicity in the docu-drama style that Loach occasionally favours, whilst his regular cinematographer Barry Ackroyd makes great use of the location filming, especially in the latter half of the film, depicting Nicaragua as a beautiful country torn apart by conflict. When Carla recalls past violence, grainy colour-desaturated film stock is used to striking visual effect.

The characterisation of the two leads is exemplary; it's would be hard for the audience not to empathise with either of them. George's big-hearted, rebellious bus driver gives everything to the traumatised Carla and then graciously steps away at the end to provide her with what she really wants, as she elects to stay with the scarred, mutilated Antonio. He's also written as a fully rounded character rather than a two-dimensional local hero; his eventual decision he can't cope with the killing (which he albeit overcomes when he thinks Carla is in danger) is very realistic.

Whilst the film cast is fleshed out by local non-professional actors, adding authenticity (a trick that Loach also used in 'Land and Freedom'), the relatively high profile Carlyle is joined by Gary Lewis as George's likeable flatmate Sammy, and Scott Glenn as Bradley. Glen's cantankerous but well-meaning character is memorably eccentric, and he's great during Bradley's furious rant about CIA involvement in Nicaragua has real anger to it - it ultimately transpires that he used to work for the CIA, suggesting that guilt motivates his desire to help the people of Nicaragua.

Loach directs with his characteristic skill, and the film benefits from one of George Fenton's better soundtracks for the director, which underscores the film without being intrusive, which is not always the case. The only flaw - and a sign of a tendency that would undermine Laverty's later scripts - is that the officious ticket inspector is a typical one-dimensional bureaucratic Laverty antagonist. But he's only in it for a couple of minutes, and it isn't enough to detract from the fact that Carla's Song is one of Loach's best films, and one of his most fruitful collaborations with Laverty.

Ken Loach's 2002 film Sweet Sixteen, written by regular Loach screenwriter Paul Laverty, is what one might be forgiven for considering to be typical of their work. A bleak and uncompromising coming of age drama set in working class Scotland, it follows teenager Liam as he approaches his sixteenth birthday and lives a life of deprivation, crime and violence. It is, of course, quite depressing, but in its stark portrayal of its protagonist's life, it manages to stand as one of Loach and Laverty's most powerful works.

Liam is fifteen years old and lives with his grandfather Rab, as well as Stan, a violent drug dealer and his mother's boyfriend. His mother is in prison, with her release pending, and he dreams of a better life with her and his sister Chantelle, who leads a much less chaotic life in a nearby town. Events conspire against him however; already embroiled in drug dealing, the film sees him getting caught up in fights with rival dealers before he falls in with local drug baron Tony. This seemingly marks an improvement in his fortunes, albeit in unsavoury circumstances that include him being ordered to murder his troublesome best friend, but there is little hope to be found here. With Tony providing him with a new apartment in return for his loyal service, Liam plans to move both Chantelle and his mother in with him, but when the latter decides she prefers to remain with Stan, Liam stabs him in the chest just in time to reach his sixteenth birthday and thus be eligible to be tried in an adult court.

Overall, it's hardly a bundle of joy. Frequently brutal, it takes a matter of fact approach to violence amongst the working classes that is not unusual for Loach and Laverty, who seem to imply (not for the first time) that crime is an inevitable consequence of social deprivation. But whether one agrees with this or not, the end result is undoubtedly effective. Set in and filmed in Inverclyde, it looks and sounds like a docu-drama at times, with cinematographer Barry Ackroyd shooting in the sort of realistic style that Loach has always favoured; a familiar example for followers of Loach's work is the use of handheld cameras to draw the viewer into the chaos of fight scenes. Everything looks convincing, from the make-up used to show Liam's injuries after fights, to the run-down homes and seedy clubs in which it is filmed.

And the casting makes it. More often than not, Loach has favoured using unknown actors throughout his career, and so here we get a cast full of them. Made long before he became more famous, Martin Compston plays Liam and is now the most familiar face in the film, but at the time it was his debut performance and he had never acted before. His performance is incredibly realistic, but so too are those of his fellow cast members, with Loach coaxing naturalistic performances even out of very young child actors. The authentic Scottish accents add further realism and are so broad that the film has reportedly played with subtitles to some audiences. The film's only flaw is the incidental score by George Fenton score, which actually detracts from the film since it is - not uniquely for Fenton - quite intrusive.

Sweet Sixteen shows Loach and Laverty's approach to what might be classed as kitchen sink drama in its purest form; whilst their social politics are always on display, the film takes an analytical, non-judgemental approach to its frequently unpleasant characters and feels, as it is no doubt intended to, simply as a document of what those sort of lives are like. It is hardly an uplifting viewing experience, but it is a deeply compelling one.

Ken Loach's 2006 film The Wind That Shakes the Barley is one the director's numerous collaborations with screenwriter Paul Laverty, and one of the best. Set during the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War, it follows the fortunes of brothers Damien and Teddy O'Donovan as they join the Irish Republican Army to fight for independence from British rule. It's an often depressing tale of a difficult period in British and Irish history, albeit slightly refracted through the prism of Loach and Laverty's socialist politics (indeed, Loach has since expressed his view that the Irish revolution was a socialist one rather than a nationalist one, which informs his take on it here), and it stands up as one of the director's finest films.

Loach's socialist dramas tend to be contemporary set and study the issues he is interested in via detailed characterisation. That is true of The Wind That Shakes the Barley, but relatively unusually for Loach, the backdrop means it's more action-packed and violent than one might expect from him. It's often brutal, right from the start when the Black and Tans execute Micheál Ó Súilleabháin for refusing to say his name in English, whilst the scene of Teddy having his fingernails ripped out with pliers is hard to watch. If the actual lack of blood when people are shot dead dates the film, the high body count - and the fact that the audience is allowed to get to know most of those killed - still carries weight. Damien shooting his lifelong friend Chris when he turns out to be a traitor is emotional charged and illustrates how divisive the conflict was. The means by which the war is ended - creating the Irish Free State but retaining Northern Ireland within the UK - results in a tragic ending as it divides opinion, with Damien dying by firing squad on Teddy's orders after they end up on opposite sides of the argument.

Whilst the screenplay shows the conflict through a socialist lens, it remains a compelling depiction of a vicious, nasty war. Loach and Laverty tend towards one-sided arguments, and so inevitably, all of the British characters are portrayed as brutal, snarling villains. But whilst nuance may be lacking, it's hard to argue with the larger message that those fighting against British rule had justifiable grievances, and that the eventual solution left many problems unresolved and certainly did not cause an end to violence, despite the apparent peace deal. It makes for powerful and compelling drama, and it is well handled by all involved.

By its nature, the film is a period drama, and Loach - not for the first time - demonstrates his usual skill behind the camera in realising the setting. Shot on location in Ireland, it benefits from his usual attention to detail in the props and costumes, and Loach works well with another regular collaborator - cinematographer Barry Ackroyd - to ensure that it is handsomely shot. George Fenton once again provides the score, and traditional Irish music features, mostly diegetic. The cast is excellent, led by Cillian Murphy as Damien and Pádraic Delaney as Teddy, with strong supporting performances from actors including Liam Cunningham as Dan, Orla Fitzgerald as Sinéad Ní Shúilleabháin and Roger Allam as Sir John Hamilton.

The Wind That Shakes the Barley tells a story that cannot help be controversial; it portrays a notable historical conflict in a very black and white fashion, and was bound to find as many detractors as it did supporters. But that is, to a large extent, true of all of Ken Loach's films. If you can cope with that, then this is one of his very best.

Ken Loach's 1995 film Land and Freedom marks his final collaboration with socialist playwright Jim Allen, before Allen's death four years later. The film follows unemployed Liverpudlian worker David Carr - a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain - as he travels to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War, and as usual, Allen and Loach's politics are firmly front and centre. On this occasion however, since the protagonists are fighting fascists, most audience members are likely to side with them... The film is framed in flashback, as an elderly Dave dies and his granddaughter Kim discovers his past as she sorts through his belongings. The plot charts Dave's arrival in Spain, where he joins a POUM militia and fights against the fascist Government forces. Along the way, he falls in love with fellow fighter Blanca and gets together with her after her lover's death, although the somewhat depressing narrative sees her killed during an altercation with Government forces near the end of the film, after which an increasingly disillusioned Dave returns home.

It's fairly straightforward stuff, but Allen's political leanings are evident in the screenplay, making for a fascinating journey. It's often stirring, but makes no attempt to glorify the reality of war; the blood and horror of the Civil War are well captured. Loach has cited a debate amongst villagers as the key scene in the film, with local residents village playing crowd members and improvising dialogue. It's makes for fascinating and gripping material, and is filmed in a style that recalls Loach's previous docu-drama approach from his BBC television days.

Amongst the politics, Allen focuses on characterisation, making Dave a believable and sympathetic lead, whilst also writing the large number of supporting characters very convincingly. The cast is excellent, with Ian Hart giving a blistering performance as Dave, and Rosana Pastor matching him as Blanca. Nobody puts in a bad performance, and Suzanne Maddock has a small but notable role as Dave's granddaughter Kim.

It looks great too. Always a skilled director, Loach captures the period setting extremely well, and the location filming (a characteristic of Loach's work, which has only rarely been confined to the studio and never for the big screen) looks splendid, thanks both to Loach and cinematographer Barry Ackroyd. Loach has rarely directed action sequences beyond the occasional fight scene, but he does an admirable job with the gun battles here. Numerous directorial flourishes help to make the film visually memorable; in addition to the excellent costumes and props, the use of Spanish and Catalan with on-screen subtitles adds authenticity, as does the use of archival footage to set the scene of the civil war, which it then turns out the Communist Party of Great Britain members are sat watching. The framing flashback structure also works well, with Hart occasionally narrating as Kim reads Dave's letters. George Fenton provides the suitable Spanish-flavoured score.

Loach's collaborations with Allen can be hugely divisive; anyone who doesn't sympathise with their political ideology is likely to be deeply cynical towards previous efforts both for television and film. But Land and Freedom works because it feels like a document of a specific period in history, for good or ill, and it stands as possibly their most effective work.

Ken Loach's 1990 film Hidden Agenda marks the first of three collaborations for the big screen with socialist playwright Jim Allen, with whom Loach had previously worked for the BBC. Unusually for Loach, who is best known for gritty socialist dramas, Hidden Agenda is a thriller. Loach and Allen's political bias is evident throughout, with slightly controversial results, but as a thriller in its own right it proves rather effective.

Set in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles, Hidden Agenda sees American human rights lawyer Paul Sullivan assassinated after receiving a tape recording from an ex-army intelligence officer. British police officer Peter Kerrigan is sent to Belfast to investigate and - with the help of Sullivan's friend Ingrid Jessner - gradually uncovers not a tangled web of police brutality and cover-ups, but also a conspiracy leading to the heart of the British Government. It's quite gripping and constantly intriguing, although by the end it has wandered firmly into the realm of conspiracy theories. It also blatantly shows off both Allen and Loach's political biases right from the opening quotation by James Fintan Lalor ("The entire ownership of Ireland, moral and material, up to the sun and down to the centre, is vested of right in the people of Ireland"), placing the blame for the Troubles solely at the feet of the British Government, whilst suggesting that a security service that operates outside the law brought down the previous Labour Government and installed Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street to support its own needs. It makes for interesting fiction, but it's unsurprising that when the film was first released one critic described it as "IRA propaganda".

But it remains, nevertheless, a strong piece of filmmaking. Loach proves more than a competent to direct a thriller, from Sullivan's brutal assassination, to the growing sense of paranoia as Kerrigan discovers just who was really behind his assassination and why. Interestingly, Loach eschews conventional thriller techniques, sticking to his usual matter-of-act style; even if he and cinematographer Clive Tickner aren't quite aiming for the docu-drama vibe of some of his earlier television work, its influence is still felt, notably during Sullivan's murder and Harris' final abduction. More in keeping with thriller conventions is the excellent incidental score composed by Stewart Copeland of the Police.

Typically for Loach, the film is shot entirely on location, mostly in Belfast, but also in Dublin and England, which adds a further air of gritty realism. Brief of moments of violent action aside, Allen's screenplay is very dialogue heavy rather than action oriented, which suits Loach's style and proves riveting, notably during Sergeant Kennedy's interrogation and Kerrigan's fascinating and highly charged conversation with the scheming Sir Robert Neil and Alec Nevin, as they justify abuse of power for the greater good.

Relatively unusually for Loach, the film has a high profile cast led by Frances McDormand as Ingrid Jessner, Brian Cox as Peter Kerrigan and Brad Dourif as Paul Sullivan, and also includes familiar British and Irish actors such as Maurice Roëves' as Harris, Bernard Archard as Sir Robert Neil, and Jim Norton as Brodie. All the performances are excellent, especially those of Cox and McDormand. The film ends pessimistically: Kerrigan and Jessner lose - Kerrigan is blackmailed into silence and the tape dismissed as a forgery, whilst Harris is murdered by British Intelligence and the IRA blamed. The film ends with another quotation, this time from ex-MI5 agent James Miller, which states "There are two laws running this country: one for the security services and one for the rest of us." It sums up the film's key point, but whether this reflects reality or Allen and Loach's paranoia is an issue that audiences may find divisive. Nevertheless, Hidden Agenda remains one of Loach's slickest and most gripping efforts.

It takes guts to remake a Hitchcock film. British director Ben Wheatley certainly shows no lack of those in his 2020 film version of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, even if the original film version - in spite of winning an Academy Award for Best Picture - isn't Hitchcock's best work. Unfortunately, in straying out of familiar territory, Wheatley demonstrates that whilst his nerve may hold, the results leave something to be desired.

Rebecca faithfully adapts du Maurier's plot, much as Hitchcock's version did. Usually described as gothic horror, it is also technically a period drama, and Wheatley - whose previous films have been low budget folk horror, contemporary character-based dramas, and a single science fiction film - demonstrates a decent mastery of mise en scène. Great attention is paid to period detail in the costumes, sets and props, and regular Wheatley collaborator Laurie Rose makes great use of the extensive location filming, such that the whole thing looks glorious. He also makes extensive use of close-ups, focusing on the faces of the actors at key moments, an always reliable technique.

The problem is, it's all style and very little substance. The first half, showing the courtship of the two leads, is really rather dull, but then that was also true of Hitchcock's version. Wheatley is always good at atmosphere, so once things start to get creepy in the second half as the second Mrs de Winter starts to slowly uncover the truth about Rebecca, he does a reasonable job. But it is merely reasonable, not exceptional, and the murmuration and dream in which the second Mrs de Winter is consumed by ivy are straight out of Wheatley's folk horror films, giving the distinct impression that this was a commission rather than a labour of love, and that he'd rather have been directing something more in his oeuvre instead. Similarly, the ball scene feels like an attempt to invoke the spirit of Grand Guignol, largely without success. Once Rebecca's body is discovered and the second Mrs de Winter discovers the truth, the story becomes more of a thriller, and Wheatley's approach becomes far more assured, but it all feels a bit disjointed and tonally inconsistent, a fact not helped by the incidental score. Clive Mansell's music is lovely, but doesn't quite fit the material, and at two points in the film there are songs by folk-rock band Pentangle, which again feels be better suited to one of Wheatley's folk horror films.

The cast is fine. Lily James and Armie Hammer step into the very big shoes of Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier as the second Mrs. De Winter and Maxim de Winter and both give convincingly passionate performances, with James making an impressive heroine. Ann Dowd is very convincing as the obnoxious Mrs Van Hopper, the second Mrs. De Winter's unpleasant employer, whilst Kristin Scott Thomas is suitably terrifying as Mrs. Danvers. The supporting cast is full of familiar British talent, including Keeley Hawes, Sim Riley and Nill Paterson, and the performances are all solid. But for all of the talent involved both in front of and behind the camera, this version of Rebecca falls flat, suggesting that - whilst a bold experiment - Wheatley may be better of sticking to what he does best.

2009's Looking for Eric is a rare comedy-drama for director Ken Loach and Paul Laverty, and a sports-based one at that. The plot follows postman Eric Bishop and the ups and downs of his life, which he navigates with help from a hallucination of famous French former footballer Eric Canton. And the results are rather mixed, to say the least.

Looking for Eric may technically be a comedy-drama, but has plenty of the working class misery that characterises most of Loach and Laverty's collaborations. It opens with Eric Bishop crashing his car due to his fractured psychological state, and documents his broken relationship with his ex-partner Lily, whom he left. He fights with his troubled stepson Ryan, who has fallen in with a violent drug dealer. But the screenplay sees Laverty in optimistic mood (incredibly, Eric has a steady job and a decent house), so the film sees Eric - with help from the hallucinatory other Eric - rebuild his family relationships and thwart the drug dealer.

Tonally, it's a mess. The comedy is threadbare and the film veers uneasily from slapstick, to violence, to farce, via melodrama. There are a few flashbacks along the way, as Eric tells Cantona about his - inevitably quite depressing - life, but then it totally changes direction in the last quarter, as Eric faces off against drug dealer Zac, a situation dealt with in a farcical fashion. It's rarely genuinely funny and unlike most Loach and Laverty films it has very little of interest to say, substituting their usual social realism for Eric Cantona's often facile aphorisms.

When it just about works it does so because of the characters and cast. The cast has an unusual (for Loach) number of professional actors (although no "big" names), with Steve Evets making an impression as Eric Bishop, who like most Laverty protagonists is flawed and down on his luck, but likeable. He gives a very naturalistic performance and is joined by more familiar faces such as Max Beesley and John Henshaw. Indeed everybody in the film gives a decent performance (Steve Marsh is memorably unpleasant as drug dealer Zac, although the character is a one-dimensional cliché), with the notable exception of Eric Cantona, who ironically plays himself as the least believable character in the film. Cantona plays along gamely and proves willing to send himself up, although he's a terrible actor.

It's hard not to find Eric Bishop sympathetic, and it's equally hard to dislike the denouement, silly though it is. And Loach directs with his usual assured, non-showy style, helped by fine cinematography from Barry Ackroyd. The climax, featuring most of the cast and a whole host of extras is undoubtedly well choreographed. Plus, like most Loach films, it benefits from being shot entirely on location, this time in Greater Manchester. On the other hand, on this occasion regular Loach collaborator George Fenton provides an incidental score that is both irritating and frequently intrusive.

Looking for Eric ends up being a real oddity. It seems likely to appeal to both fans of Loach and Laverty, and fans of Eric Cantona and football, but ultimately falls through stools and probably truly satisfies nobody. Fortunately, it's a blip in an otherwise fruitful writer-director partnership, and they have handled comedy-drama more successfully elsewhere (The Angels' Share), but frankly the film mainly just proves the wisdom of sticking to what you're good at.

Ken Loach's 2014 film Jimmy's Hall is a rare (albeit not unique) period drama from the director, in the form of a biopic about the life and eventual deportation of Irish Communist Jimmy Gralton. Given that it is written by Paul Laverty, one might be forgiven for expecting a typical Loach and Laverty affair with heavy bias in favour of their own political sympathies, and to an extent it is. However, it's admirably balanced in its handling of a true life event and those involved.

The film stars established Irish television actor Barry Ward as Gralton and he males a charismatic and likeable lead, allowing the audience to empathise with a character whose politics they may not share. Surprisingly for Loach and Laverty, Grafton's politics are not as prominent as the audience might expect; whilst his communism (and atheism) is a large part of the reason that he incurs the wrath of local priest Father Sheridan, it is his not overt. Ultimately, Jimmy clashes with Sheridan because the latter hates his disrespect for the church and its institutions, with his communist beliefs simply an excuse for Sheridan's ire. There is also a strong theme of generation clash, with members of the Church disapproving of the dancing because they fear it will corrupt and undermine their teachings. Ultimately, when Jimmy stands up to Father Sheridan, the hall is burned down and Jimmy ends up being deported - the only man in the history of the Republic of Ireland ever to suffer such a punishment.

Jimmy is portrayed as a decent man who simply wants to help the youngsters in his home town when he builds the eponymous dance hall. Even Sheridan acknowledges his courage and decency when Jimmy is taken for deportation at the end of the film. Indeed, surprisingly for the writer-director team, the film's principle antagonist is remarkably well-written. He's ruthless and political, but also fighting for what he genuinely believes is right and at times - briefly - genuinely sympathetic. Jim Norton is excellent in the role, but then not one member of the cast gives a large performance (relatively unusually for Loach, there are many familiar faces in the cast, rather than the unknowns he often favours).

Always a talented director, Loach handles the sets, costumes, make-up and period detail impeccably, and away from the usual working class urban settings of his films, he makes great use of the gorgeous rural location filming. Regular collaborator Robbie Ryan provides the cinematography and - as usual - is adept at using hand-held camerawork to emphasise the film's brief moments of violence (he beating scene with the belt as a furious and humiliated father thrashes his daughter to the point where she is bleeding is hard to watch). Another regular collaborator - George Fenton - provides the score, which makes use of traditional Irish music, some of which is diegetic. There are plenty of other effective filmmaking tools deployed to good use: the opening titles play over archival footage; on-screen subtitles establish the background; and a final title card at the end reveals that Jimmy died in New York and was never allowed to return to the Irish State. The end result is one of Loach's most thoughtful and understated yet effective films; it was reportedly instrumental in the President of Ireland issuing a public apology to Grafton's family and unveiling a memorial, which is more than testament enough to its power.

Family Life is Ken Loach's 1971 film adaptation of his early Wednesday Play 'In Two Minds', with both the original television play and the film written by David Mercer and produced by Tony Garnett. 'In Two Minds' was effective but slightly flawed; Loach and Mercer learn from that to make a much more consistent and powerful piece of drama for the cinema, albeit one as predictably depressing.

For this version, the Winter family becomes the Baildon family, but the basic plot remains the same, with the story following a troubled young woman as her mental health deteriorates over the course of the film and she ends up in a psychiatric hospital with little hope of ever getting out. Like 'In Two Minds', the focus is on how she gets to that point and the key crucial feature is retained, which is the implication that Mrs Baildon's stern disapproval of her daughter and the pressure she placed her under to have an abortion is the cause of Kate's mental illness, reflecting the theory published by Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing, which heavily influenced Mercer's story. Mr Baildon is less understanding in this version, and Janice is forced to see a psychiatrist by both her parents, who simply don't understand and can't empathise with her behaviour or feelings. Her mother repeatedly tells her that there must be something wrong with her.

The toxicity of Janice's home life presumably informs the change of title from 'In Two Minds' (which implies that the problem lies with the protagonist) to Family Life (which implies that her home life is instrumental in her problems). It's certainly a topic more directly and openly addressed in the film version, with psychiatrist Dr Donaldson putting it to Mrs Baildon that she is responsible for Janice's mental health problems due to her preoccupation with control. He openly challenges her views and attitudes. There's a quite lengthy scene added to the film, in which Janice's older sister - who is married and has moved out - comes round for dinner and has a blazing row with her parents, blaming them for her sister's mental health problems. A scene of the conservative Mrs Baildon talking to the psychiatrist about morality and traditional Christian values segues into a scene of long-haired youngsters sitting in a circle whilst one of them plays a Neil Young song on a guitar, emphasising the clash of generations and views that underscores the film.

The move to the psychiatric hospital comes earlier than in the television version, and has more of an emphasis on the conditions and other patients, reminiscent of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. As in the original, it eventually invokes that film in depicting psychiatric hospitals as terrifying, dehumanising places with unsympathetic staff, although they are more human than in 'In Two Minds'. There is also more emphasis on the innovative and experimental nature of Dr Donaldson's work, notably during the scene in which his registrar term at the hospital is not renewed, marking a change in Janice's fortunes as she is subjected to electroconvulsive therapy.

Sandy Ratcliff stars as Janice Baildon and Malcolm Tierney plays her boyfriend Tim (a new addition for the film version), but in early indication of Loach's fondness for casting unknowns, the mother was played by a suburban housewife Grace Cave and the Dr Donaldson by real psychiatrist Michael Riddall. Ratcliff is excellent, but the non-professionals are a revelation, with both Cave and Riddall proving utterly convincing. In keeping with the aesthetic of Loach's television work, cinematographer Charles Stewart helps bring the same docu-drama look and feel to the production as many of the director's television plays. As usual for Loach, the extensive location filming helps with the air of realism.

Like 'In Two Minds', Family Life ends on a depressing note, with Janice being sectioned (effectively, if not technically) at her mother's behest. And, like the television play, it ends with a lecture being delivered to a group of students about her case, with Janice actually placed on display at the front of the lecture theatre. The end result paints of bleak picture both of Janice's repressive home life and mental health care at the time; it's more nuanced and more satisfying than 'In Two Minds' and remains one of Loach's finest films.

Ken Loach's 2019 film Sorry We Missed You marks another collaboration with screenwriter Paul Laverty, and another of their works that places working class misery under the spotlight. This time, the pair is inspired by real life accounts by delivery drivers, forced to work long hours with appalling employment conditions, an issue that remains topical five years after the film was made. It's a worthy subject, although not unusually for Loach and Laverty, it's also an exercise in melodrama and emotional button-pushing.

The film stars Kris Hitchen, who is offered independence and the promise of higher wages as a delivery driver, a job initially pitched as a golden opportunity. Anyone even vaguely familiar with employment laws will spot red flags from Ricky's very first interview with boss Maloney, and indeed the job soon turns into a nightmare that drains Ricky's energy - both physically and mentally - and places enormous strain on his family life. Almost immediately, Ricky is beset by an array of misfortunes so exaggerated that it's almost comical, as he's given targets he can't meet, turns up to the wrong address, encounters obnoxious and unpleasant customers, and nearly gets a parking ticket on his first day. It's typical Laverty melodrama, with Ricky's family life ruined by his demanding job, as his son Seb goes off the rails, his wife Abby is frequently brought to the edge of tears, Ricky strikes his son, and Ricky is finally assaulted and then fined for the muggers destroying his scanner into the bargain. We also get glimpses of Abby's job as a home care nurse, which is portrayed as wretched, depressing, and also unmanageably stressful, just to heap on the misery.

It could very easily have been too much, but Loach pulls it off. Mainly, this is because of a sublime cast consisting - not unusually for Loach - of unknown actors. Hitchen is entirely convincing in a frankly astonishing performance in the lead role, whilst non-professional actor Debbie Honeywood is equally convincing as Abby, giving an assured and naturalistic performance. Rhys Stone is also worthy of note as the troubled and troublesome Seb, as is child actor Katie Proctor as Liza Jane, Ricky and Abby's young daughter. Ross Brewster's unreasonable boss and a bully Maloney is portrayed as a one-dimensional (a characteristic common to all Loach and Laverty protagonists), but Brewster nevertheless manages to make the character unapologetically real.

Loach's skill as a director is rarely in doubt in his work, and the film has an air of gritty realism that his fans will find familiar, helped by regular collaborator and cinematographer Robbie Ryan, who again brings a documentary feel to the camera work, and the fact that the film is shot entirely on location, this time in Newcastle. There's also a characteristic discrete but powerful incidental score from another Loach favourite, composer George Fenton. Despite the trademark Laverty excesses, Sorry We Missed You actually ends up being one of Loach's most powerful films made with the writer, since it focuses on a real-life issue without trying to tackle big political subjects such as the benefits system and immigration. Consequently, it feels like the purest expression of their politics they've ever made together.

Ken Loach's 2012 film The Angels' Share sees the director once again teaming up with screenwriter Paul Laverty, and shows the pair in relatively light-hearted mood, with a comedy-drama set in Glasgow. Despite the comic approach, there is - of course - more than a hefty share of working class misery, but this is as whimsical and optimistic as they get, and the end result is very likeable.

The film stars Paul Brannigan as Robbie, a reforming criminal with a violent past who find new hope for the future in the whisky distillery business when he's introduced to the world of whisky by Harry, the big hearted supervisor in charge of his community service. Having realised that there is money to be had in the distillery business, Robbie struggles - ultimately successfully - to escape his past, with help from Harry, three friends from community service, and a roguish whisky dealer named Thaddeus. The film's frequent description as "comedy-drama" is fairly accurate; neither Loach nor Laverty is especially well suited to the comedy side of things, but they demonstrate a lightness of touch here that works admirably well, even if most of the occasionally genuinely funny moments come at the expense of Robbie's friend Albert, who exists purely to provide comic relief rather than as a character in his own right (the opening scene rather sets the tone, as a drunk Albert falls onto a railway track, much to the frustration of an increasingly foul-mouthed announcer at the station).

Unsurprisingly for this creative team however, it isn't all light-hearted. Robbie's violent past hangs over the film, from the powerful scene in which he faces a former victim, to his realisation that to escape his past he must also leave his girlfriend Leonie and their baby son behind. Scott Kyle's Clancy seeks revenge for past actions at every turn, resulting in a couple of violent fight scenes. It is of note that, in a sense, the film sees Robbie graduate from blue collar crime with a violent past amongst the gangs of Glasgow, to white collar crime with Thaddeus, once again demonstrating that Loach and Laverty are fine with crime, as long at it gives poor working class folk a chance at a better life.

Paul Brannigan is himself a reformed criminal with a violent past, so the casting is inspired and reflects Loach's always good instincts when it comes to casting unknown actors in his films. Brannigan is great, giving an utterly naturalistic performance. Gary Maitland plays the part of Albert as realistically as his comic dialogue allows (which is not very), whilst William Ruane and Jasmin Riggins are rather more believable as Rhino and Mo and Scott Kyle is convincingly terrifying as the thuggish Clancy. The most recognisable members of the cast are John Henshaw as Harry, who becomes a mentor of sorts to the troubled Robbie, and the great Roger Allam appears as the devious Thaddeus.

The film boasts Loach's usual craftsmanship, and as usual is shot on location, this time in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Cinematographer Robbie Ryan makes good use of hand-held cameras during fight scenes, bringing an added air of realism to proceedings, and the scene is the distillery actually looks and feels like a scene from a documentary, suggesting that Laverty and Loach are as interested in the distillation process as the characters are. There's also a fine score from regular Loach collaborator George Fenton. Loach's career has been characterized by social realism and often quite depressing films; The Angels' Share makes a pleasant change from that norm.

Probably Ken Loach's final film, 2023's The Old Oak sees him collaborating with Paul Laverty one last time for a film that explores the impact of immigration on small communities and - of course - post-industrial working class hardship in the north of England. Fans of the director's work won't be disappointed, but his critics will it cloyingly sentimental, not unusually.

The Old Oak stars Dave Turner as the eponymous pub's landlord Tommy Joe "TJ" Ballantyne and Ebla Mari as Yara, the Syrian refugee he strikes up a friendship with. The plot opens with a group of refugees arriving in a small, unnamed northern village, which is suffering from terminal post-industrial decline and is populated by predictably hostile locals who aren't happy to see foreigners placing a strain on local services and eroding their sense of community. As one might expect from Loach and Laverty, it combines an undercurrent of real anger at the treatment of the refugees with mawkishness as the locals are gradually won over, and also typically for the pair it's heavily one-sided: all of the refugees are women and children, and all paragons of virtue, which is designed to make the locals' reaction look much more unreasonable whilst conveniently ignoring real-life (if not necessarily warranted) alarm about young single men suddenly arriving in an area. On this occasion however, Loach and Laverty don't entirely shy away from the attitudes of the locals - worried about the effects of immigration on their communities - or completely condemn them, except when their prejudices spill over into violence. The role of Islamophobia also isn't ignored, with the locals expressing anger and incredulity when Yara walks into the pub.

At times, like so many of Loach's previous films, the end result is a slightly shrill left-wing rant combing his traditional "it's grim up north" kitchen sink approach with social commentary heavily skewed (inevitably) in favour of his own views. The opening title card reads "The North of England, 2016", a lack of specificity which almost enters into the realms of self-parody. The pub's four remaining regulars are typical Laverty antagonists, in the sense that they are more caricatures than characters, in this case walking embodiments of unthinking racial prejudice. And Laverty's tendency towards melodrama is also evident again, with Ballantyne's dog Marra being mauled to death by an out of control American Bully proving the epitome of emotional button-pushing, designed to emphasise the fact that the landlord is at rock bottom with virtually nothing left. To further pile on the mawkishness, he subsequently recounts to Yara how he first found Marra on a beach whilst planning his suicide.

But at the same time, the film is hugely optimistic. TJ of course finds hew hope in the kindness of strangers. Loss of traditional communities is central to the plot (and relevant to the post-industrial decline of the setting), but the film also celebrates what newcomers can bring. Ultimately, the film goes for a heartwarming approach, as small acts of kindness and mutual deprivation allow bonds to form. The Old Oak becomes symbolic, seemingly the last pub in the village and a crumbling beacon of hope for locals and refugees alike. The ending is slightly odd in that there's no anticipated resolution to TJ's problems with the pub, leaving the four regulars who sabotaged the back room to get away with it, but at the same time the rest of the community rallies around when Yara's father is reported dead and it ends with a celebratory march through Durham city centre.

If this does indeed prove to be Loach's final film, then it sees draw on decades of experience behind the camera to provide a movie that is, if narratively flawed, impeccable made. As per his usual modus operandi, it's shot on location, in various places in County Durham. Appropriately, it's partly produced by BBC Film, meaning that Loach's television and film career both starts and ends with the BBC, and probably coincidentally, cinematographer Robbie Ryan brings a semi-docu-drama look to the film, which is reminiscent of Loach's early BBC television programs. This feeling is emphasised by the opening sequence of the refugees arriving, revealed via static black and white photos (taken, it turns out, by Yara) over which the hostile voices of the locals are heard. Also not unusually for Loach, the cast consists largely of unknown actors, which pays off, especially in the cases of Turner (who previously appeared in I, Daniel Blake and Sorry We Missed You) and Mari. Partly this is because it adds to the semi-realistic approach to the film, but mainly it's because everyone gives believable and naturalistic performances. Long-time Loach collaborator George Fenton provides a subtle, elegant score that enhances the film without distracting the audience or making it seem less realistic.

In collaboration with (more often than not) three key screenwriters (Barry Hines, Jim Allen and Paul Laverty) Ken Loach has made a career out of making left-wing British drama television programs and films with themes of social justice and - frankly - working class misery. The Old Oak is amongst his best, even if - or perhaps because - it shows him at his most one-sided and self-righteous.

Wes Anderson's 2023 film Asteroid City sees the director (who wrote the screenplay based on a story he conceived with Roman Coppola) pay homage to American UFO and alien abduction mythos, in typically idiosyncratic style. Technically, the film could be described as science fiction - but that's hardly the first genre one would think to place it in.

Asteroid City is a play within a film. It opens with a television special about the eponymous play, the somewhat rambling plot of which sees an alien appearing during a Junior Stargazer convention, prompting the military to try and cover the event up, with little success and considerable resistance. There's also a duel romance within the play, whilst without out the television special gives way to behind the scenes looks at the making of the play and the lives of the cast and crew involved. It's very tongue-in-cheek, with an element of meta-fiction, heralded right from the opening scene in which Bryan Cranston's television host informs the audience that Asteroid City is a purely fictional creation.

All of this makes for a hugely self-indulgent Anderson film which has little of any great importance to say, but says little with the director's trademark quirkiness in a way that makes it quite delightful. It is almost the archetypal Anderson film, as though he's honed his craft over previous films and distilled all of his personal tropes in a polished exhibition of whimsy, populated by eccentric characters who are more accurately described as caricatures. The film is awash with small tangents that signify nothing but nevertheless amuse, from Augie filling his cigarette lighter from a petrol pump then using it to light his pipe whilst still stood next to the pump, through the bizarre scene with Matt Dillon's mechanic describing an ailing vehicle as a doctor would describe a patient, to the vending machine that dispenses deeds to nearby plots of land.

There is lots of rapid-fire dialogue, exemplified by General Gibson (a perfectly cast Jeffrey Wright) giving a rapid speech that provides a condensed biography of his life. The actors playing the actors playing the characters within the play give deliberately stilted and mannered performances, both verbally and physically; the actors playing the actors outside of the play - and the actors playing the writer and director - are encouraged to send the whole thing up, with Jeff Goldblum getting a hilariously pretentious cameo as he sits around in alien make-up talking vaguely about metaphor. Occasionally, the actors in the play break character or the fourth wall. Jones Hall walks off set towards the end to ask the director about the play, which he admits he doesn't understand.

Hall is played by Anderson regular Jason Schwartzman, and Hall in turn plays war photojournalist Augie Steenbeck; Scarlett Johansson plays actress Midge Campbell, Hall's love interest. The pair give perfectly pitched performances as both actors and characters played by their actors, and get support from a hugely impressive cast that also includes Tilda Swinton, Tom Hanks, Edward Norton, Steve Carrell, Rupert Friend and Adrian Brody. They are all underused and don't seem to care, apparently more than happy to participate in a Wes Anderson film for the fun of it as much as for the money. One can hardly blame them.

The film's visuals would mark Asteroid City out as an Anderson movie even if the screenplay and characters did not. The scenes outside of the play are shot in retro black and white; the scenes inside the play are shot in retro-futuristic and rather bright colour. The film was shot partly on location on Spain, but it looks entirely shot on sets, those sets being stylistically cartoony and unreal. The sets for the framing sequence of the play being produced are no more realistic than those used for the play. The mise-en-scène is typically Anderson, with impeccable attention to the often hyper-realistic or simply unrealistic detail. Animation - a tool increasingly deployed by the director - is used to depict the alien ship. On screen title cards divide the play into acts and scenes. Regular collaborator Robert Yeoman provides the cinematography, with familiar traits from previous Anderson films including static cameras framing the actors and flat-space pans. Another Anderson regulator of recent years - Alexandre Desplat - provides the score.

Asteroid City is Anderson at his most playful. It seems to have been made purely for the benefit of Anderson fans, and Anderson himself. Anyone who counts themselves amongst his fans will undoubtedly love it; anyone else will likely find it baffling.

Another Year is a Mike Leigh comedy drama released and at the time of writing is his last contemporary-set film before he elected to make a pair of period dramas in the form of Mr. Turner and Peterloo. Set in middle-class suburbia, it's what might be termed "classic Leigh", a character study based around the lives of happy couple Tom and Gerri Hepple over the course of a year, and how they interact with their less happy friends and family.

Divided into four parts for each season of the year, Another Year opens in spring and introduces Jim Broadbent's geologist Tom and Ruth Sheen's counsellor Gerri, who share a comfortable suburban home and live in domestic bliss. Their happiness remains constant throughout the film: they don't argue, they warmly entertain friends and family, and they support each other unquestioningly whenever minor trials and tribulations - invariably involving said friends and family crop up. In contrast, the film's first scene introduces Imelda Staunton's Janet, a minor character who only appears in a couple of scenes, who struggles with depression and asks her GP for sleeping pills before being referred professionally to Gerri, emphasising the point that the Hepples are a rock to which others cling.

Those others most notably include Lesley Manville's lonely divorce Mary, a friend of Gerri's who becomes increasingly emotionally distraught as the film unfolds, unlucky in love and drinking with increasing frequency to numb the pain. Along the way, the audience also meets David Bradley's quiet, shell-shocked Ronnie, Tom's brother, when the Hepples attend Ronnie's wife's funeral, plus Ronnie's angry, aggressive and estranged son Carl, who turns up late to the funeral and then loses his temper about the fact that it wasn't delayed until he arrived. There is also Tom's old friend Ken (played by Leigh regular Peter Wight, whom the director often casts as eccentric or larger-than-life characters), a boozy, overweight, smoker who is also miserable, considers himself to be stuck in a rut, and gets tearful once he's been drinking. By contrast, Tom and Gerri's son Joe seems to have inherited his parents' generally happy demeanour, especially when he meets girlfriend Katie, who provokes jealousy in Mary, who has a badly-concealed crush on him.

If Another Year can be describe as a comedy-drama, then the comedy arises from Leigh's ability to create scenes that feel embarrassing to watch. The dinner party scene is excruciating, as Mary's barely hidden jealousy of Katie comes to the surface, to the palpable discomfort of everybody else. Later, there's a hilariously awkward scene when a distraught Mary turns up at the Hepples' house and finds only Ronnie home, whereupon she attempts to make small talk with Tom's increasingly baffled-looking brother. The scene with the angry, aggressive Carl venting spleen at his family before storming out is also discomforting to watch, although markedly less comical.

And so we get a familiar Leigh tale of ordinary people going about their daily lives, with all their ups and downs, set in and around the Hepple house, and played beautifully. As per his usual, Leigh spent weeks and months improvising the dialogue and developing the characters with the members of the cast, and whilst on a couple of previous occasions (notably Life is Sweet and Career Girls) this resulted in at least a couple of caricatures, here it works perfectly. Broadbent and Sheen are utterly convincing as a devoted and thoroughly likeable couple, whilst Oliver Maltman gives a naturalistic performance as their son Joe, that makes him completely believable as part of the family. Manville is alarmingly convincing as the emotionally fractured Mary and does drunk acting very well, whilst Wight, Bradley and the rest of the cast all give superb performances. Martin Savage is authentically angry as Carl. The always excellent Philip Davis also appears in the small role of Jack, whilst Karina Fernandez plays Katie, and the aforementioned Staunton successfully conveys despair in her brief scenes.

Like most of Leigh's films, Another Year is shot entirely on location, with Dick Pope as cinematographer. Leigh always pays such close attention to detail in his mise-en-scéne that most of it goes completely unnoticed by virtue of being so flawless, and thus it is here. On screen titles divide the film into the four seasons, and Pope used different film stock for each of them, subtly altering the film's appearance as the year unfolds. Much use is made of hand-held cameras and tracking shots focused on the actors; the first scene of Janet talking to her GP is shot entirely using close-ups of the actor's faces and the props they use.

After briefly incurring Gerri's disappointment, the film concludes with Mary being comforted by her and told she needs counselling. The final shot lingers on Mary's face as she sits down to eat with the Hepples, showing her looking alone and uncertain despite being surrounded by the happy family. It serves as reminder that Leigh's films don't always bring closure to its their characters: Another Year shows the audience just that, part of a longer story that extends both before and after the film without neatness or closure - that of ordinary life.

Ken Loach's 2016 film I, Daniel Blake sees him once again team up with screenwriter Paul Laverty to deliver a blistering attack on the benefits system. It's one of the pair's angriest films, railing against perceived - and no doubt in some cases actual - injustices inherent in the benefits system, but it also shows them at their most predictably one sided.

I, Daniel Blake follows the eponymous character, whose doctors declare him unfit for work following a heart attack, but who nevertheless falls foul of an over-bureaucratised and unsympathetic benefits system. And thus, although Daniel's doctors have forbidden him from working, he is denied the benefits he is entitled to when a Work Capability Assessment deems him fit to work and forced to seek Jobseeker's Allowance, only to be sanctioned when he is judged to not be making enough of an effort to find work he cannot take.

What follows is an outraged diatribe against a callous, uncaring system, which is of course - this being a Loach and Laverty collaboration - massively one-sided and occasionally mawkish. The Work Capability Assessment is carried out by an unnamed "healthcare professional" allegedly employed by an American company, Daniel struggles to fill out online forms and gets no help to do so, and he is obstructed at every turn by nameless voices on phones. Predictably, the political response was a slanging match between left and right: Conservative politicians argued - not without justification - that the film demonises Job Centre staff as uncaring jobsworths. Indeed, in some cases, they are openly hostile and portrayed as obstructive at every turn; wWhen one staff member tries to help Daniel complete his forms online, she's dragged into her boss's office and told it sets an unacceptable precedent. The scene in the Job Centre in which Daniel first meets his friend young, single mother Katie is a highly contrived exercise in emotional button-pushing.

It isn't the only one, naturally. Daniel's inability to use the internet despite being given instructions by a Job Centre staff member and another user is ludicrously exaggerated to make a deeply contrived point. Cynical points are made about digital CVs and the use of smart phones, giving the impression that Laverty is ranting against change for the sake of it rather than arguing the case for supporting people to adapt. A familiar trend of Loach and Laverty films is excusing criminal behaviour as long as it is committed by working class folk crushed by the system, in this case Daniel's graffiti (which he justifies by telling a Job Centre employee "if you'd done your job like you should have done, I wouldn't have had to resort to this") and Katie's shoplifting.

And it is, like most of Laverty's scripts, horribly melodramatic at times. At one point, to add to the litany of misery, Daniel talks to Katie's kids about his late wife's mental illness and death and later, despite facing a complete lack of money, Daniel decides to employ the services of a prostitute, who predictably turns out to be Katie, forced into the roll by financial desperation. The ending sees Daniel dies in a toilet from a second heart-attack, just as he is about to start his appeal hearing; one wonders if actually keeping him alive and making his appeal hearing the climax of the film might have better served the filmmakers' message, especially given the likelihood that he would have won.

So typical Loach then, although as with most of his work, his skill as a director is evident. Setting the scene right from the off, it opens with Daniel having an assessment, heard but unseen, as the opening credits roll over a black screen. Typically, the film is shot on location, providing added realism, and there's a discrete, unobtrusive score by George Fenton that serves the drama well. Loach also gets blistering performances out of his cast members, especially writer, stand-up comedian and actor Dave Johns, who plays Daniel and conveys his frustration at the system brilliantly. The cast consists largely of then-unknown actors, with Hayley Squires providing support as Katie Morgan, and nobody gives a bad performance.

I, Daniel Blake was a huge critical and commercial success for Loach and won a BAFTA for Best British Film, amongst other accolades. It's undoubtedly well acted and well made, and has an important message at its heart, but one wonders if that message might have reached a wider audience had it Loach and Laverty taken a more measured and less shrilly hysterical approach to the subject matter. Loach's fans loved it, but there's little point in preaching to the converted.

Another Christmas, another episode of A Ghost Story for Christmas on the BBC. For 2023, writer and director Mark Gatiss breaks with tradition and eschews the work of M. R. James, instead adapting Arthur Conan Doyle's short story 'Lot No. 249'. The end result is rather satisfying, albeit not terribly scary.

'Lot No. 249' stars Kit Harington as Abercrombie Smith, an Oxford student who recounts to his friend the tale of his neighbour Edward Bellingham (Freddie Fox) using an Egyptian mummy to murder anybody who crosses him on campus. The plot is largely true to Conan Doyle's original, with Smith uncovering Bellingham's activities, having a narrow escape from the Mummy, and confronting Bellingham at gunpoint and forcing him to destroy the creature. Gatiss however adds a modern slant - Bellingham is implied to be gay, to Smith's seeming disgust - and also changes the ending to provide a dark twist in the tale, as it turns out that Bellingham also has a Lot. 250, and - more in keeping with James' work - he protagonist of the story meets a terrible fate at the end.

Gatiss' track record with A Ghost Story for Christmas is highly variable, but 'Lot No. 249' is one of his stronger efforts. Despite tweaking the story, he stays true to the spirit of Conan Doyle's version, with Smith the embodiment of the Victorian ideal of manliness, an athletic medical student who combines a keen intellect and good looks. Or "just the sort of man to keep the flags of empire flying", as Bellingham puts it. Smith triumphs in the original story, and one wonders whether Gatiss' new ending is intended purely to provide the traditional grisly ending one excepts from A Ghost Story for Christmas, or in fact to acknowledge contemporary views that Victorian morality, including Smith's condemnation of Bellingham's "perversions" and championing of English law over Egyptian superstition and barbarism, has long since had its day.

As a director, Gatiss is even more variable than he is as a writer; his lesser episodes of A Ghost Story for Christmas have suffered simply from not being especially scary. That is equally true here, but proves to be less of an issue when adapting Conan Doyle than adapting M. R. James, for whom chills were a must. Nevertheless, the scene of the snarling Mummy chasing Smith to his friend's house is quite tense, and the creature looks great. The cast is excellent to, with Harrington perfectly cat as the square jawed epitome of Victorian masculinity, contrasted with Colin Ryan's submissive and terrified Monkhouse Lee (implied to be Bellingham's lover) and Fox's foppish, smarmy, slightly camp Bellingham. John Heffernan is also very good as "the Friend", who in a nod to both Conan Doyle's most famous works of fiction and Gatiss' own career with the BBC is strongly implied to be Sherlock Holmes.

Unsurprisingly, the period setting is well realised, with great sets and costumes, and if 'Lot No. 249' isn't the scariest instalment of A Ghost Story for Christmas, it is nevertheless a solid episode and a ripping yarn. Gatiss has cast doubt over the future of the program, due to the increasing difficulty of raising the budget to make these festive offerings. Hopefully, that is a problem that he will continue to overcome.

Another of three shorter Wes Anderson Roald Dahl adaptations made to accompany The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, Poison is a strange tale of man caught up in the grip of a paranoid delusion, with a vague whiff of Colonial guilt.

Poison is set in India, a setting captured generically by distinctive sets and good sound design, and concerns a white man named Harry who is lying in bed, gripped by terror due to the venomous snake dozing on his belly beneath his sheets. Dev Patel narrates again and also plays Woods, Harry's friend, who enlists the help of Ben Kingsley's Dr. Ganderbai to deal with the snake whilst minimising the risk to Harry's life. Ralph Fiennes is also back - briefly - as Dahl.

It boasts the same impressive mise-en-scéne and acting/narrating as its companion shorts, with a sweaty Cumberbatch delivering most of lines without moving his lips, as Harry tries to avoid disturbing the snake. Kingsley brings great urgency to the role of Dr. Ganderbai, only to be met with a string of racist bile from Harry once the twist - that there is no snake after all - is revealed. The disturbingly realistic sourness of Woods' verbal abuse possibly lends a double meaning to the title.

Together with the other three Anderson shorts, Poison shows how twisted but also how varied Dahl's imagination could be. The director's distinctive approach to adapting these tales has been highly effective; whether there will be more to come remains to be seen, but Dahl wrote a great many short stories and there are plenty of rich pickings yet to adapt should Anderson - or anybody else - wish to do so.

Another of the three shorter Wes Anderson Roald Dahl adaptations made to accompany The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, The Rat Catcher shows both director and late writer at their most wonderfully macabre. It's a slight tale about the eponymous Rat Catcher, who freely admits that in order to understand his prey, he has had to become very much like them... The Rat Catcher is a black comedy with a fairly disgusting denouement, and unlike the accompanying stories, it isn't really about anything, it's just a gleefully unpleasant and twisted vignette. Anderson has great fun, with more of the typical deliberately stylised sets, albeit no actual rats. At one point, the Rat Catcher pulls a rat from one pocket and a ferret from the other, in both cases Ralph Fiennes simply miming with his empty hands to show their presence. Later, he uses an obvious rat prop, which is later brought to life by animation.

Fiennes is brilliantly seedy as the Rat Catcher, and also briefly appears as Dahl again too, joining in the narration during a particularly tense moment when the Rat Catcher kills a rat with his teeth. Richard Ayoade and Rupert Friend join him, and in stark contrast to The Swan, this sees the three actors exchanging dialogue, although there's still a narrator essentially reading the story, in this case mostly Ayoade, in character. Overall, The Rat Catcher is the most playful of the four shorts, albeit playful in the disturbingly surreal way that Dahl excelled at.

One of three shorter Wes Anderson adaptations of Roald Dahl stories made to accompany The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, The Swan represents one of Dahl's darkest, least pleasant tales. The plot sees Raymond and Ernie, a pair of bullies armed with a shotgun and happily shooting bird life indiscriminately, deciding to bully birdwatcher Peter Watson in the most disturbing way possible, first by tying him to a train track, then by shooting a swan, severing its wings, tying them to Peter, and forcing them to fly.

It's grim stuff, and in typically nasty Dahl style (at least as his short stories go), the bullies don't get their just desserts, even if Peter flies to freedom at the end. Raymond and Ernie are the sort of psychotic bully one would like to think only exists in fiction, but probably doesn't - a note at the end reveals that Dahl was inspired to write the story by a newspaper article of a real-life event.

In comparison to its three companion pieces, The Swan shows Anderson at his most economical: once again, it's essentially a glorified version of Jackanory with striking visuals that combine cartoonish sets with others that almost look real locations but aren't. On this occasion, Rupert Friend is the sole narrator and speaking cast member until right at the end when Ralph Fiennes returns once again as Dahl to finish the story, although there are other, non-speaking actors playing Peter, Raymond and Ernie.

The end result captures the blackly surreal nature of the story perfectly, although Anderson stops short of showing an actually bloody swan corpse on screen (the wings, despite red spots at the jointed end, are deliberately stylised). It may be a shorter and simpler affair than The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, but that doesn't stop it from leaving a lasting impression - much like Dahl's original version.

Having previously directed an animated version of Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson returns to the work of Roald Dahl for a set of four short films for Netflix based on some of the author's short stories. These are not typical film adaptations however; rather, Anderson brings his eccentric and visually distinctive style to Dahl's works in a rather more idiosyncratic fashion that is reminiscent if anything of BBC children's program Jackanory, but on a much bigger budget... The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is the first of the four shorts and the longest, and stars Benedict Cumberbatch in the eponymous role, supported by an A-list cast that also includes Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley, and Richard Ayoade. It's based on Dahl's tale of a vain man who discovers an unusual way to cheat at cards, realises that his newly - if dishonestly - acquired wealth can't bring him happiness, and becomes a philanthropist until his dying day.

The surprise here - at least for the uninitiated - is that the entire short consists of the actors reading Dahl's story verbatim to the camera, whilst in character and delivering actual lines of dialogue to each other as appropriate. Thus, Ralph Fiennes starts proceedings with an uncanny performance as Dahl, after which Cumberbatch, Patel and Kingsley all take turns as Sugar discovers Dr Chatterjee's written account of how he met Imdad Khan, Chatterjee tells the audience how the pair met, and Khan explains how he learned how to see without his eyes from the Great Yogi.

It's all very quirky and eccentric, not unusually for Anderson, and it's all quite charming. There's something delightful old fashioned about actors simply reading a story to the audience - hence the Jackanory comparison - but it remains quite captivating. It helps that Anderson brings his familiar style of handling mise-en-scéne to the production, as the actors narrate and performance against a backdrop of brightly coloured, detailed, almost cartoonish sets, with an aesthetic that owes as much to theatre as cinema. There is actually a small amount of actual location filming in London, although the near-riot caused by Henry throwing money from his balcony is realised entirely through the use of sound effects. Animation is occasionally used, sets move around the cast, and at one point, Kinglsey's make-up is applied whilst he's talking to the camera. Various members of the small cast double up, sometimes for what are essentially cameos, with Pulp singer Jarvis Cocker appearing briefly, presumably just for fun.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is - unusually - a film production that sees Anderson using the tools of cinema to enhance a piece of simple storytelling that holds the writers work to be sacrosanct. It would be unique had Anderson not made four such shorts simultaneously, and whilst it will undoubtedly not be to everybody's taste, the whole thing makes for a disarmingly charming experience.

After a six year hiatus from filmmaking to concentrate on other products including television, David Fincher returned to directing with 2020's Mank, a biographical drama starring Gary Oldman as Herman J. Mankiewicz, the writer Citizen Kane. Journalist and screenwriter Jack Fincher - the director's late father - wrote the screenplay, which is not entirely without controversy as it embraces a largely debunked view that Orson Welles had no involvement in the screenplay at all. Nevertheless, it remains an engrossing and fascinating slice of cinema.

Fincher is best known for making thrillers, with the odd exception, and superficially at least Mank is a very different beast. It follows Mankiewicz as Welles commissions him to write the script, and follows him as he draws inspiration from his associate William Randolph Hurst (on whose life Citizen Kane was famously based), struggles to write the screenplay in the midst of the alcoholism that eventually killed him, and eventually demands credit for a piece of work he originally agreed to provided uncredited. It's essentially a character piece driven by dialogue, although Fincher's fondness for thrillers is still felt in the form of the political manoeuvring of Hollywood's studio executives and growing concerns about socialism, communism, and the growing threat of war in Europe.

Shot in black and white, it's also a tribute to nineteen-thirties Hollywood, with Fincher paying homage to the look and feel of a movie from that era with impressive results, right from the opening credits which are very reminiscent of films from that period. Ticker-tape style on-screen captions state the dates and locations of different scenes, whilst the sets, props and costumes are impeccably detailed too. More than that however, there's clearly a deliberate attempt to invoke the feel of Citizen Kane, both in the film's non-linear, flashback heavy structure, and in Erik Messerschmidt's cinematography, which intentionally recalls the style of Citizen Kane cinematographer Gregg Toland at times. In addition, Fincher's regular musical collaborators Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross composed the score in the period style and using only period-authentic instruments; the resulting soundtrack doesn't exactly sound like Bernard Herrmann's score for Citizen Kane, but achieves the same effect in terms of often unsettling mood.

The acting too has a mannered theatricality to the performances that is very true to movies of the time. Gary Oldman is exceptional as Mankiewicz, immersing himself so thoroughly in the role that he is entirely believable, whilst fellow English actor Tom Burke uncannily captures the look and voice of Orson Welles. Charles Dance is excellent as William Randolph Hearst, as are Arliss Howard as Louis B. Mayer, Tom Pelphrey as Herman's level-headed, long-suffering brother Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and Lily Collins is very good as Rita Alexander, Mank's secretary who tries to look after the bed-ridden alcoholic against his considerable resistance. Amanda Seyfried seems every inch the nineteen-thirties' Hollywood starlet as Marion Davies, the much younger partner of Hearst, whom she has come to love, and whose friendship with Mank is strained when he goes ahead with Citizen Kane.

Whilst the film pays homage to Hollywood past, Jack Fincher's often witty script also has plenty of tongue-in-cheek critique of the studio system at the time, some of which may still be relevant today. It's a brilliantly written screenplay: Mankiewicz had a reputation as a great wit, and the highly quotable dialogue reflects that. The film ends on a bittersweet note that sees Mankiewicz accepting his and Welles' Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) before an end caption reveals that he died twelve years later at the age of 55 from complications of alcoholism. Mankiewicz wrote - or co-wrote - a classic of cinema. He may just now have become the subject of another.

Soderbergh's 2019 Netflix collaboration High Flying Bird was almost immediately followed up by another one in the same year. Watching the two consecutively demonstrates Soderbergh's eclectic tendencies: whereas High Flying Bird was a serious sports drama, The Laundromat is a rather less disciplined comedy drama about a real life scandal, albeit one that has been heavily fictionalised. Unfortunately, unlike High Flying Bird, it's also a bit of a mess.

Loosely based on Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite by Jake Bernstein, the film stars Gary Oldman as Jürgen Mossack and Antonio Banderas as Ramón Fonseca, the real life founders of Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian provider of dodgy off-shore financial accounts that went bust after its activities were revealed to the larger world. It's an interesting premise that would lend itself well to biopic of Mossack and Fonseca or a drama based on the real events and there's lots of fascinating - if shocking - detail about companies such as Mossack Fonseca work. But instead Scott Z. Burns' fictionalised screenplay takes inspiration from this to tell three slightly comic tales of misery resulting from the company's unethical activities.

The problem is, the comedic tone of the film sits rather uneasily with Soderbergh's obvious objection to the behaviour of companies like Mossack Fonseca and indeed with the cringe-worthy final scene that sees Mossack and Fonseca - plus Meryl Streep, stepping out of character and removing her make-up and joining the pair in breaking the fourth wall - to call for finance reforms. Tonally too, it's all over the place, with deadpan humour sitting not quite easily alongside personal tragedies such as Joe's accidental drowning near the start, and a nauseating scene of organ harvesting in the third tale, which deals with the death of Neil Heywood (renamed Maywood for the film) and by extension the Wang Lijun incident.

Thus, a mess. But it's a mess with a stellar cast and Soderbergh behind the camera. It is, in essence, Soderbergh throwing caution to the wind and having fun, so he plays with a mishmash of cinematic storytelling techniques including onscreen titles to divide the film into chapters, a mix of deliberately fake-looking sets (during the scenes with Mossack and Fonseca) and extensive location filming, and even animation when Mossack and Fonesca are explaining how shell companies work. A fish-eye lens is used for the "Doomed Gringo" scene, for no apparent reason. Reality intrudes towards the end with archival news footage of responses to the data leak. The framing sequence is a theatrical extravagance: Oldman and Banderas, in character, introduce the film, breaking the fourth wall in a staged desert environment that includes ersatz cavemen as they explain the history of finance. They both give uncharacteristically but entertainingly hammy performances, with Oldman adopting an outrageously exaggerated German accent. All of which means that David Holmes' meandering, unobtrusive soundtrack proves quite well suited to a film that has all the focus and direction of a jam session between jazz musicians.

The impressive cast is uniformly excellent, even with Banderas and Oldman choosing to chew the scenery. Meryl Streep gives a superb performance as grieving widow Ellen Martin, who tries (largely unsuccessfully) to take on the system that allows Mossack Fonseca to profit (a barely-recognisable Streep also doubles up - in heavy make-up and somewhat controversially - as Elena, a Panamanian woman who works for Mossack and Fonseca), and the large cast also includes the likes of James Cromwell, David Schwimmer and Robert Patrick in small roles. Nonso Anozie ends up getting most of the best - and funniest - lines, in the second story as African billionaire Charles, who is caught by his daughter Simone having an affair with her roommate and bribes her into silence with ownership of a shell company that turns out to be worthless.

The end result is that The Laundromat is one of the worst films in Soderbergh's filmography, a badly pitched and extremely uneven comic treatment of a film which isn't quite dark enough to make a truly black comedy, but with subject matter a little too serious to treat light-heartedly. And yet... it demonstrates that even a bad Soderbergh film can't completely fail to entertain: in spite of its many flaws, it's hard to truly dislike.

After the time-bending visual spectacle of Tenet, director Christopher Nolan clearly fancied something different for his next movie, Oppenheimer. Starring Cillian Murphy as the eponymous J. Robert Oppenheimer, it is a biographical thriller charting Oppenheimer's life and career up to and after the invention of the atomic bomb, and it succeeds in being as engrossing as anything Nolan has made in the past.

Oppenheimer focuses on the man rather than the bomb that he became famous (or infamous) for, although the two are inextricably linked. The film opens with Oppenheimer attending the hearing that revoked his security clearance and then unfolds in flashback; the hearing frames the film, with the narrative frequently flicking backwards and forwards in time as testimony is offered. Nolan wrote the screenplay, based on American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, and the narrative conceit of the hearing is subtly used to intrigue, as it assembles a picture of Oppenheimer's life and personality; the audience knows that Oppenheimer ends up in the hearing, but how and why unfolds more gradually.

The actual bomb test forms a very small part of a very long film. The rest is character and dialogue based and yet remains utterly gripping, partly due to the characterisation, partly due to Murphy completely immersing himself in the title role, and partly because the political manoeuvring, military logistics and - impressively - physics are thoroughly absorbing. Nevertheless, the film starts to feel like a thriller once the race to build a bomb before either the Nazis or the Russians gathers pace, and the eventual build up to the first bomb test is edge-of-seat tense. When it finally comes, the incidental music builds to a crescendo, only for the explosion takes place in silence, slowed down and with the camera lingering on the rising column of flames; it's a brief moment of visual spectacle as impressive as one might expect from the director of Inception and Interstellar.

The real-life characters are convincingly written and brought to life by an A-list cast that includes - amongst many other noteworthy names - Robert Downey Jr. As Strauss, Emily Blunt as Kitty, Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, and Matt Damon as General Groves. Downey Jr gives an impeccable, quiet performance as Strauss, the man who ultimately ruins Oppenheimer's subsequent career out of spite and who only loses his cool when his own political aspirations are thwarted. Damon is excellent as he surprisingly likeable Groves, whilst Josh Hartnett - cast against type - convinces as physicist Ernest Lawrence. Jason Clarke gives a significant and compelling performance as the formidable Roger Robb, whilst Casey Affleck is quietly intimidating performance as the ruthless Boris Pash. In a film dominated by men, Blunt and Pugh both give electrifying performances, with Kitty's withering confrontation with Robb at the hearing proving a fleeting highlight. Nolan casts many of his regular collaborators in various roles, with a barely recognisable Gary Oldman as Harry S. Truman and Kenneth Branagh playing Nils Bohr.

If Oppenheimer is more character-based and less visually spectacular than many of Nolan's previous films, it is no less cinematically impressive for it. The film mixes elaborate sets, location filming, and recreations of explosions to great effect, whilst special effects are used powerfully to show how haunted Oppenheimer is after the bomb is dropped on Hiroshima. The makeup used to age the characters is impeccable. Hoyte van Hoytema provides the cinematography, having collaborated with Nolan on three previous films, and uses the camera to carefully frame the actors, frequently in static or lingering close-ups. Parts of the film are shot in black and white (on film developed specially for the movie), a stylistic decision that serves no purpose other than to grab the audience's attention, which it does. Ludwig Göransson provides the highly effective, omnipresent score, having previously done so for Tenet.

Oppenheimer might seem like a departure for a director best known for epic science fiction and a trilogy of comic book movies, but it explores many of the themes familiar from his increasingly extensive body of work. It is cinema at its best and, just possibly, Nolan's masterpiece.

David Fincher followed up his biopic film Mank with a return to the thrillers that have characterised much of his filmography in the shape of The Killer, an adaptation of a French graphic novel of the same name. The film stars Michael Fassbender in the eponymous role as a professional assassin who relentlessly seeks revenge after a hit goes wrong and his girlfriend suffers the consequences, and the result is a stylish, drily witty and frequently violent movie that shows Fincher at his best.

The plot is straightforward: the Killer plans a job, but when it goes wrong his handler recommends to the client that the Killer is now a loose end that needs to be tied up. But when a pair of fellow assassins are despatched to his home in the Dominican Republic and find that he hasn't returned there, one of them tortures his girlfriend Magdala instead, prompting the Killer to exact retribution on his handler, both assassins, and the client. It's a plot that is not only straightforward but also linear and meticulous, reflecting the Killer's approach to his work. The Killer narrates throughout the film, from the very start when he explains his philosophy of life plus the mechanics - and frequent tedium - of his work to the audience, the latter reflected in the film's structure, which follows his careful planning of his revenge punctuated by subsequent moments of sudden violence.

Reflecting the source material, the film is deliberately stylised: notably, most of the main characters - even if they are given names - are known by titles such as the Expert, the Lawyer, the Client, and - of course - the Killer. The characterisation is wafer thin, but that's because it doesn't need to be anything more; the Killer is defined by his profession, although his personal sense of (rather warped) morality gradually starts to encroach on his decisions throughout the film. The Killer's confidence in his professionalism is such that the hugely tense scene in which he accidentally shoots the Dominatrix is genuinely surprising, at least for anyone unfamiliar with the source material, whereas the climax is deliberately anticlimactic, as the Killer chooses not to kill Claybourne. The Killer's over-the-top, well-choreographed and ultraviolent fight with the Brute contrasts with the electrifying confrontation with the Expert in the restaurant, during which the Killer barely speaks.

The film sees Fincher embrace the Neo Noir aesthetic familiar from many of his previous films, with his fondness for colour desaturation contributing significantly to the visual tone of the piece. The film is largely shot on location, and in the real-life locations in which the story takes place, which cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt (who previously worked with Fincher on Mank and the Netflix series Mindhunter) makes great use of, although whilst the location filming isn't wasted, the camera - as per Fincher's usual preference - tracks the actors, usually Fassbender, often from a variety of interesting angles. On screen titles divide the film into chapters, also reflecting the source material. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross again provide the soundtrack, although the music of The Smiths features heavily, since the titular character regularly listens to their music whilst patiently waiting to complete a job.

Fassbender gives an electrifying performance and gets plenty of great - and quite quotable - dialogue, some of which is very amusing, for example his explanation for his decision to base his appearance on a German tourist on the grounds that people tend to avoid them as much as they do Mime artists. No other cast member gets anything approaching his screen time, as their characters appear in individual chapters, which they don't usually survive. Charles Parnell, Arliss Howard, and Kerry O'Malley are all noteworthy as the Lawyer, the Client and Dolores, although perhaps unsurprisingly it is Tilda Swinton who makes the biggest impression after Fassbender, with a scene-stealing performance as the Killer confronts the Expert in the restaurant.

The Killer is not the most weighty or meaningful film that Fincher has directed; in terms of its simple plot and sketchy characterisation, it's as two-dimensional as the graphic novel it is based on. But it's slick, stylish, and hugely entertaining, and sometimes that is all a film needs to be to succeed.

Steven Soderbergh's 2019 American sports drama High Flying Bird is the first of two consecutive feature films directed by Soderbergh and distributed by Netflix, effectively reflecting his habitual for experimentation as he switched from cinema to streaming before many of his peers. It is also once again - like Unsane - shot on an iPhone, with a preference for intimate camerawork rather than panoramic shots, which does rather suit itself to viewing on a streaming platform, since it helps to give the impression of a particularly slick television movie.

High Flying Bird stars André Holland (who reportedly suggested the idea for the story to Soderbergh) as Ray Burke, a sports agent who has an idea to deal with a lockout by using social media and streaming services - including, in a very tongue-in-cheek moment, Netflix - to allow people to watch unofficial basketball games, forcing the company he works for to negotiate with the players' representatives and bring the lockout to an end. For viewers who don't know anything about basketball or indeed what a lockout is, this all sounds monumentally tedious, but a combination of Soderbergh's dynamic direction and an excellent, dialogue- and characterisation-heavy screenplay by Tarell Alvin McCraney means it isn't. The nitty-gritty and political manoeuvring becomes perversely fascinating: a sauna scene between Ray Burke and Kyle MacLachlan's smug, smarmy executive David Seton becomes electrifying, despite the fact that the pair talk a great deal without really saying anything.

The cast certainly helps. Holland makes a charismatic lead as Ray, and gives a passionate performance as a man both haunted and driven by the death of his cousin, and one who deeply cares about his players. He gets superb support from Melvin Gregg as ambitious and cocky basketball player Erick Scott, Zazie Beetz is great as Ray's former assistant Sam (who admires him but doesn't shy away from telling him what she thinks and when he's wrong), and Sonja Sohn as Ray's ex-wife and friend Myra. Bill Duke is exceptional as Spencer, who talks of slavery and bemoans the sacrifice of "street ball" for the sake of money. Indeed, race is a key theme of the film: Sam reads Harry Edwards's book The Revolt of the Black Athlete at the end of the film, and Edwards himself cameos. David Seton and Zachary Quinto's David Starr (Ray's likeable but ineffectual boss) are the only two prominent white characters in the film; significantly, both are effectively outmanoeuvred by Ray by the end.

Soderbergh's response to such a character-driven screenplay is to use the camera to frame his cast members at all times. Peter Andrews provides the cinematography and as per Soderbergh's preferences, shots are often both simultaneously close-up and usually slightly-high or slightly-low angle. The camera is occasionally in motion, but it frequently isn't due to the static nature of the many scenes in which characters talk, or argue, or debate; instead, we get rapid cuts between angles, all of which creates the same vaguely disorienting illusion of constant motion that characterises most of Soderbergh's films. His fondness for coloured washes is also in evidence, especially during the heavily yellow-washed bar scene, almost subliminally influencing the mood of the audience. In a memorable touch, real-life NBA players appear throughout the film in black and white interviews, recalling what it was like when they were rookies, with Reggie Jackson's interview starting the film; it lends the film a docu-drama feel that also seems well suited to viewing on Netflix, and shooting the film entirely on location in New York City adds a further realistic feel that certainly helps. David Wilder Savage provides an incidental score, but it is subtle, unobtrusive, and used sparingly.

High Flying Bird thus shows Soderbergh at his best and yet at his most understated; this is a far more discreet, intimate affair than many of his most successful blockbusters, and recalls his frequent tendency towards and independent film aesthetic. As his first foray into the increasingly all-conquering world of streaming services, it must be judged a success. So it is little wonder that his next film saw him repeat the collaboration with Netflix.