Hamnet ★★★★★
Directed by Chloé Zhao. Starring Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, Joe Alwyn, Jacobi Jupe, Olivia Lynes, Justine Mitchell, David Wilmot, Louisa Harland, Freya Hannan-Mills. 12A Cert, gen release, 125 min
Brilliantly acted story, adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s much-loved novel, of the relationship between William and Agnes Shakespeare after the death of their titular son. Few actors besides Buckley can so unashamedly access such torrents of simulated emotion.
It is among the marvels here that she gives so much without giving too much. She and Mescal are East Midlands yin and yang. She has a muscular dexterity that can practically turn itself upside down. His steadiness asks more questions than it answers. Some may find the woodsy, folky stuff a bit much, but the emotional power cannot be denied. Full review DC
Giant ★★★☆☆
Directed by Rowan Athale. Starring Pierce Brosnan, Amir El-Masry, Katherine Dow Blyton, Ali Saleh, Ghaith Saleh, Ariann Nik, Toby Stephens. 15A cert, gen release, 110 min
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Tolerable study of the relationship between legendary boxer Prince Naseem Hamed (El-Masry) and his inspirational trainer Brendan Ingle (Brosnan). El-Masry has bulked up impressively to get as close as a mere actor could get to Hamed’s taut torso. He does better still in marshalling the boxer’s sub-hip-hop banter. Brosnan is, well, Brosnan: charming, sweet, crafty, never fully in control of an accent that veers from deepest Dublin all the way across the Irish Sea in the space of a single clause. The story is just about strong enough to keep the film on its feet through all 12 rounds. Full review DC
Oh, Canada ★★★☆☆
Directed by Paul Schrader. Starring Richard Gere, Jacob Elordi, Uma Thurman, Victoria Hill, Michael Imperioli, Penelope Mitchell, Kristine Froseth. 15A cert, limited release, 95 min
Adapted from Russell Banks’s novel Foregone, Schrader’s latest centres on Leonard Fife (Gere), a celebrated documentarymaker facing terminal cancer in his Montreal home. A former student, now an admiring film-maker, sets up a camera to capture Leonard’s legacy. Whereas American Gigolo, Schrader and Gere’s earlier collaboration, turned sex into sleek menace, Oh, Canada reframes desire as decaying, regretful memory. In common with much of the director’s late work, Oh, Canada is austere, talkative and faintly ungainly. It lacks the wild provocations of his scalding recent Man in a Room trilogy, but it pokes and probes in quieter, sneakier ways. Full review TB
People We Meet on Vacation ★★☆☆☆
Directed by Brett Haley. Starring Emily Bader, Tom Blyth, Lukas Gage, Jameela Jamil, Alan Ruck, Molly Shannon. No cert, Netflix, 117 min
Adapted from the beachy bestseller by Emily Henry, People We Meet on Vacation follows solid dude Alex and Manic Pixie Dream Girl variant Poppy over a decade of romantic dilly-dallying, starting with a much-delayed carpool journey that improbably coalesces into will-they-won’t-they best-friendship. The miscommunications that keep the couple apart are ill defined. Ruck, Jamil and Shannon, seasoned comic actors, are criminally underused. Colin Wilkes’ sleek costumes can’t compensate for the lack of onscreen chemistry. They might as well be wearing hazmat suits. It just doesn’t work. Full review TB
