Four new films to see this week

A stop-motion version of Pinocchio by Guillermo del Toro, plus Don DeLillo’s famously ‘unfilmable’ White Noise, British drama The Silent Twins and, from China, controversial Return to Dust

Pinocchio, voiced by Gregory Mann, in Guillermo del Toro new version. Photograph: PA Photo/Netflix
Pinocchio, voiced by Gregory Mann, in Guillermo del Toro new version. Photograph: PA Photo/Netflix

Pinocchio ★★★☆☆

Directed by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafson. Starring Ewan McGregor, David Bradley, Gregory Mann, Burn Gorman, John Turturro, Ron Perlman, Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, Tim Blake Nelson, Christoph Waltz, Tilda Swinton. Netflix, 114 min

Del Toro, one of cinema’s great visual stylists, has a grand and original plan for the 140-year-old story of the mischievous animated marionette. The director’s stop-motion animation takes place in fascist Italy between the wars, a setting that allows for much contemplation of mortality, a dramatic bombing sequence that robs the carpenter of his only (human) son, and a cameo appearance by Benito Mussolini. The lighting and recreation of period Italy is exquisite. The character designs can be inspired. Swinton’s Blue Fairy is impressively unsettling. The twig-brown title character, however, is considerably less pleasing to the eye. Full review TB

White Noise ★★★☆☆

Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig and Don Cheadle in White Noise. Photograph: Wilson Webb/Netflix
Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig and Don Cheadle in White Noise. Photograph: Wilson Webb/Netflix

Directed by Noah Baumbach. Starring Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, Raffey Cassidy, André Benjamin, Jodie Turner-Smith, Winnie Richards, Don Cheadle. 15A cert, limited release, 135 min

Fitful adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel concern a midwestern academic family threatened by an “airborne toxic event”. The visuals are always striking, even if one wonders to what end. The obsession with mid-century packaging offers opportunities to shoot primary colours, but, 70 years after the high period of pop art, the endless blizzard of Tide, Birds Eye and Cheerios fails to sweep in any fresh insights. The costumiers and make-up folk have worked hard on Gerwig and Driver, but both still look dressed-up for a particularly boring Halloween party. What saves it is the sly, black humour retained from DeLillo’s book. Full review DC

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The Silent Twins ★★★★☆

Leah Mondesir-Simmonds as young June and Eva-Arianna Baxter as young Jennifer in The Silent Twins. Photograph: PA Photo/Focus Features, LLC/Jakub Kijowski
Leah Mondesir-Simmonds as young June and Eva-Arianna Baxter as young Jennifer in The Silent Twins. Photograph: PA Photo/Focus Features, LLC/Jakub Kijowski

Directed by Agnieszka Smoczyńska. Starring Letitia Wright, Tamara Lawrance, Leah Mondesir-Simmonds, Eva-Arianna Baxter, Nadine Marshall, Treva Etienne, Michael Smiley, Jodhi May, Jack Bandeira. 16 cert, gen release, 113 min

Imaginative, visually striking study of June and Jennifer Gibbons, British twins who, after sinking into mutually supportive isolation, were scandalously detained in Broadmoor for 11 years. Wright, currently serving Black Panther, has already proved her versatility in Steve McQueen’s Mangrove and Frank Berry’s recent Aisha. Here she finds a new, more antic energy as June — playing riffs off her sister like an avant garde jazz musician while the audience fails to catch up. The less well-known Lawrence is, if anything, even better as the marginally more sombre Jennifer. Full review DC

Return to Dust ★★★★☆

Hai Qing and Wu Renlin in Return to Dust
Hai Qing and Wu Renlin in Return to Dust

Directed by Li Ruijun. Starring Wu Renlin, Hai Qing. Digital download, 133 min

Simple Chinese farming drama that unfolds in a small village in Gaotai, the director’s home province, where life is dominated by natural rhythms and wheat harvesting. Here, an inconvenient, ageing fourth brother is hastily married off to an incontinent, barren and disabled younger woman. The stoical, quiet, affecting beast of burden in Ruijun’s much-admired drama is emblematic of the film’s larger appeal. It’s unfortunate that the charm of the director’s sixth feature has been overshadowed by reports concerning the suppression of Return to Dust in China. Full review TB

Donald Clarke

Donald Clarke

Donald Clarke, a contributor to The Irish Times, is Chief Film Correspondent and a regular columnist

Tara Brady

Tara Brady

Tara Brady, a contributor to The Irish Times, is a writer and film critic