I Wanna Dance with Somebody ★★★☆☆
Directed by Kasi Lemmons. Starring Naomi Ackie, Stanley Tucci, Nafessa Williams, Tamara Tunie, Ashton Sanders, Clarke Peters. 12A cert, gen release, 144 min
By-the-numbers biopic of Whitney Houston with a solid performance from Ackie in the lead role. The Londoner is, quite reasonably given the sort of voice we’re dealing with here, not required to sing, but she makes the most of the dialogue sequences to create a vulnerable personality who too quickly becomes a victim of unimaginable success. Sadly, the screenplay plays it too safe. Everyone still living has the odd flaw, but no flaw so awful as to cause serious distress. The musical sequence are decent enough for a 50-somethings night out. DC
Peter von Kant ★★★★★
Directed by François Ozon. Starring Denis Ménochet, Isabelle Adjani, Khalil Gharbia, Hanna Schygulla, Stéfan Crépon, Aminthe Audiard. Limited release, 85 min
Ménochet stars as the filmmaker of the title, a hard-drinking, coke-snorting West German auteur whom the cinematic community reveres. Between dictating his next magnum opus and adoring letters to Romy Schneider, Peter is visited by his sometime muse, Sidonie (Adjani), and the married, promiscuous Amir (Gharbia). Ozon’s gender-switched remake of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant is the exception that proves Susan Sontag’s rule about pure camp always being naive. A playful addition to the canon. Every performance is overwrought and magnificent. Adjani hasn’t aged a day. TB
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The Pale Blue Eye ★★★☆☆
Directed by Scott Cooper. Starring Christian Bale, Harry Melling, Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Toby Jones, Harry Lawtey, Simon McBurney, Timothy Spall, Robert Duvall. Netflix, 130 min
A veteran cop is brought back from retirement to investigate a strange case. A familiar set-up? The deviation is in the historical details. Based on a 2006 novel by Louis Bayard, this fictionalised gothic mystery is set in West Point in the early 1830s, and follows a New York detective named Leander McNelly (Bale) as he investigates of a weird series of murders. The Pale Blue Eye marks Cooper’s third collaboration with Bale. It’s not a career high for either party but it’ll serve well enough as silly Christmas entertainment. TB
The Queen of Spades ★★★★★
Directed by Thorold Dickinson. Starring Anton Walbrook, Edith Evans, Yvonne Mitchell, Mary Jerrold, Anthony Dawson. Limited release, 95 min
Walbrook plays Captain Herman Suvorin, a Russian officer in St Petersburg who happens upon an elderly lady (Evans, making her film debut proper in her early 60s) with a diabolical method for winning at cards. The impressively amoral protagonist plots to get at the countess by seducing her young ward (Mitchell). As such stories will, the film creaks its way inevitably towards moral calamity. Dickinson’s wonderful 1947 Faustian spook story gets a welcome reissue at a time when we savour ghost stories. A favourite of Martin Scorsese, the film deserves to become a seasonal ritual. DC
