True Mothers 
Directed by Naomi Kawase
★★★★

JAPANESE filmmaker Naomi Kawase returns with a tender and touching exploration of adoption and parenthood in this stunning drama, Japan’s submission for this year’s Academy Awards.

The film follows successful professionals Sakoto (Hiromi Nagasaku) and her husband (Arata Iura) who, after a long and unsuccessful struggle to have children, decide to adopt a baby boy. Their world is rocked years later when a girl (Aju Makita), pretending to be the youngster’s birth mother, turns up on their doorstep. 

The story unfolds via a non-linear time structure as you witness differing perspectives from each of the protagonists — a little confusing at first. With gorgeous, calming visuals of watery landscapes, leafy branches blowing in the wind and breathtaking sunsets interspersed throughout, Kawase paints a thought-provoking picture of the guilt and heartbreak of couples not able to have children and young teenage mothers being forced to give up their babies because they cannot afford to raise them.

A touch on the long side, it is nevertheless a captivating and haunting film. 

MD

Available exclusively on Curzon Home Cinema

Into the Labyrinth (15)
Directed by Donato Carrisi
★★★

THIS deliciously dark and twisted Italian crime thriller stars — surprisingly — Dustin Hoffman, though he doesn’t speak Italian, sadly.

Providing Hollywood star power and gravitas, he plays leading psychologist and profiler Dr Green, alongside Toni Servillo as a retired private detective Bruno Genko.

Dr Green is treating Samantha (Valentina Belle), found by Genko after being kidnapped and held captive for fifteen years. With days and hours left to live Genko, who has a dicky heart, is determined to find her captor. 

Directed by Donato Carrisi, who adapted his novel for the screen, this is a disturbing drama which plays with your sense of time and perception as it takes you down the rabbit hole of evil men grooming kids to carry out heinous acts, amid endless twists and turns.

It is slick, stylish and hugely compelling — largely due to Hoffman and Servillo’s charismatic and gripping performances. A chilling but entertaining ride. 

MD

Available on demand April 19

Henry Glassie: Field Work
Directed by Pat Collins
★★

NOT quite the probing insight into the mind of its eponymous subject that you’d hope, the “Work” element proves to be the most telling of this documentary’s title as we’re taken on a laborious insight into the perception of anthropologist Henry Glassie during a journey from Brazil to Northern Ireland, with a stop-off in Anatoli along the way.

Largely seen tucked in the corner taking notes, Glassie — despite his titular prominence — is in no way the focus of proceedings here; director Collins more focused on both the creation of art taking place around Glassie and his response to it.

Truth be told, Glassie is not the most effulgent of observers — his insights so abstract and sparsely apportioned as to feel deliberately withheld; his involvement in the documentary increasingly questionable throughout. With a near complete void of atmosphere or energy, this anthropological endeavour feels creatively extinct.

Van Connor

Available on demand 

Righteous Villains
Directed by Savvas D Michael
★

A BARELY tangible throwback to that weird few months a decade ago when cinema was awash with low-rent religiously tinged supernatural “actioners” — Paul Bettany managed two in what felt like a fortnight — Righteous Villains marks not only the dullest point of that sub-genre, but also its shoddiest to date.

With a production value, filmmaking prowess, and thoughtful insight that would be deemed below-average on a first year film course, the wastefully titled Righteous Villains takes a hackneyed stab at a Neil Gaiman-esque adventure in which a con man and avenging angel are teamed up to save the world. 

Whether or not you’ll give a toss about them succeeding, however, is literally as close as it comes to building suspense.

Somehow overlong at 75 minutes, the film’s cinematic gravitas is best exemplified by its opening: a poorly lit garden party crucifixion; its watchability by your desire to climb up on the cross yourself.

VC

Available on demand

The Reckoning (15)
Directed by Neil Marshall
★★★★

WITH his 2019 Hellboy reboot a post-production disaster, it’s a full-blown disaster this time around for Neil Marshall. The cult-favourite director, having debuted as a sadly underappreciated post-script to the wave of cool 1990s Brit helmers, returns (to next to no fanfare) with the otherwise delightfully nasty The Reckoning.

Co-written, executively produced by and starring director Marshall’s controversial fiancee Charlotte Kirk, The Reckoning continues its helmer’s long-standing, geek-friendly exploration of high-concept action-movie feminism with the tale of a woman forced to endure an accusation of witchcraft in Plague-ridden Britain.

Kirk, to her credit, owns the show instantly — offering herself up as a bombastic yet layered lead. BBC mainstay Steven Waddington plays to type, meanwhile, as the Gaston of proceedings. But it’s Sean Pertwee as the Witchfinder that makes for the most “Marshallian” of touches.

True to form, the Dog Soldiers director brings the glee, gore and gristle that have come to define his filmography — and if you think for one second that there’s any measure of subtlety to be found in mining statements on Covid and social distancing from a story driven by the Black Death… well, you might want to check IMDb and think again.

VC

Available on demand

The Year Earth Changed
Directed by Tom Beard
★★★★

WHILE we all despair at being in locked down on and off for more than a year, resulting in crippled global economies and growing mental health issues, the unexpected upside has been the positive effects on nature, wildlife and the planet itself.

Narrated by David Attenborough and filmed from the beginning of the first lockdown in March last year across five continents, this eye-opening documentary by Tom Beard shows how lockdown produced clearer air, cleaner waters and allowed animals to flourish in ways not seen for decades.

Birdsong in deserted cities; whales able to communicate more effectively due to a lack of cruise ships at sea; leopards hunting by day instead of by night among empty tourist lodges — all because, among other things, we stopped using our cars and travelling abroad.

The documentary features some extraordinary film footage of wildlife, including endangered penguins and deer foraging in cities and it shows how small changes in human behaviour can make such a drastic difference. 

The question is: what can we do to maintain this once we return to normal life? This love letter to planet Earth certainly gives you pause for thought. 

MD

Available exclusively on Apple TV+ (edited)