Mia Hansen-Løve’s latest deals with hardships we will all face to one extent or another, and particularly the elderly care crisis in contemporary France with nuance, pragmatism and maturity. Paris native Sandra (Léa Seydoux) has a lot on her plate, being a lonely single mum desperate for intimacy, also balancing a busy work schedule as a translator and having to consider care options for her ailing academic father (Pascal Greggory). ONE FINE MORNING is a tough watch at times but it’s not without hope, passion and humour. Seydoux’s lead performance is honest and unadorned and the rest of the ensemble bring multiple shades to Sandra’s family and social circle. Hansen-Løve has explored the demands of supporting parents in decline while not losing your sense of self to the commitment before in films like THINGS TO COME, and here she presents Sandra’s quest for connection over multiple seasons of the year with a hopeful ellipses by the end. SSP
Review in Brief: One Fine Morning (2022/23)
Review in Brief: The Flash (2023)
The final gag almost makes it all worth it. What’s been saddest about seeing the slow decline of the failed DC shared movie universe is the frankly obscene amount of money and talent that’s gone to waste particularly over the last five years. This film, that loosely adapts the “Flashpoint” storyline from the comics sees Barry Allen / The Flash (Ezra Miller) use his super-speed to travel back in time to prevent his mother’s murder and his father’s false imprisonment and in the process changes the course of history and tears open the multiverse. Michael Keaton’s return to the role of Bruce Wayne / Batman after three decades is a joy, when he’s actually on screen and not a more agile digital double, and the under-used Sasha Calle as Super Girl makes for a restrained, burdened contrast to the irritatingly hyper and giggly younger Barry. But whatever early charm THE FLASH has soon gets weighed down by misjudged multiverse fanservice and never quite deciding what it’s trying to say. SSP
Review in Brief: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
All I wanted was something better than KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL. It is, but only just. Given its old-fashioned adventure story origins, an Indiana Jones movie should never feel video-gamey, but during its opening and final act set pieces DIAL OF DESTINY this disappointingly does. Elsewhere it’s more promising and more fun, with a septuagenarian Indy (Harrison Ford) reluctantly recruited by his formidable goddaughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) to find Archimedes’ legendary temporal-shifting dial before the Nazis (them again) do. You get all of the franchise greatest hits from elaborate puzzles in ancient temples to encounters with nasty beasties and various chases on an assortment of modes of transport all accompanied by John Williams’ uplifting orchestration. Ford is at his growly best until unexpected moments of humour or vulnerability shine through the cracks and it’s great to see Waller-Bridge get to play such a kick-ass role for a change, but most of the rest of the cast are disposable and by the end you find yourself asking, was that it? SSP
Review in Brief: Infinity Pool (2023)
Along with Julie Ducournau, Brandon Cronenberg is one of the most exciting, twisted directors to break through in the last decade. His latest uncomfortably funny sensory assault INFINITY POOL follows James (Alexander Skarsgård) a struggling author who has married rich and is holidaying in a perfect nightmare of a resort somewhere in Europe. Soon he gets drawn into the orbit of a gang of awful, privileged fellow guests led by Gabi (Mia Goth) who get their kicks through hallucinogen-fuelled orgies and murder without consequence, because if you’re rich enough the punishment for any heinous crime can be passed on to a purpose-built clone of yourself… Cronenberg delved into identity disassociation as a vehicle for horror in his previous film POSSESSOR and here it is used as a satirical sledgehammer standing in for inhumanity in a capitalist system. Skarsgård dials back his natural charisma to play a frankly pathetic, detestable man and Goth continues one hell of a run in horror as perhaps the most terrifying but also hilarious antagonist in recent genre cinema. SSP
Review in Brief: Evil Dead Rise (2023)
Who needs Ash? Lee Cronin’s addition to the Evil Dead franchise is just as, if not more, mischievously gnarly as the Sam Raimi-masterminded films, but he keeps things contained and personal throughout. Swapping out the usual cabin in the woods for a claustrophobic apartment building, we follow recently single mother Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) her three kids Bridget, Danny and Kassie (Gabrielle Echols, Morgan Davies and Nell Fisher) and their visiting guitar tech aunt Beth (Lily Sullivan). The awkwardness of slightly distant sisters soon falls by the wayside when an earthquake hits and unearths a recording of an incantation that awakens an ancient evil, an evil that corrupts Ellie and drives her to harm her family. EVIL DEAD RISE is a nail-biting chase movie confined almost entirely to a few rooms in a tower block and deviously makes it clear from the off that everyone is expendable, especially the children. More of this please. SSP
Paul Verhoeven Films Ranked
Where to Start with Wong Kar-Wai
Review in Brief: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
They only went and EMPIRE STRIKES BACK-ed SPIDER-VERSE. If the first film was “anyone can be Spider-Man” then this is “can (and should) Spider-Man save everyone?”. 2 years after several very different Spider-people crossed over to the world of Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) and he took the leap of faith to become a hero, the return of Gwen Stacey / Spider-Woman (Hailee Steinfeld) and the actions of supervillain the Spot (Jason Schwartzman) leads miles to encounter the fanatical Spider-Man 2099 / Miguel O’Hara’s (Oscar Isaac) Spider-Society and begins a battle to save the multiverse. One watch cannot do justice to part one of this audacious animated epic; the sheer volume of information conveyed and number of deep-cut references and gags can almost overwhelm you. This is one of the greats, from endless invention of the visuals (Gwen’s empathic watercolour world being a particular highlight) to the fearless plot swings, you still never lose track of who these heroes are and what makes them super. SSP
Review in Brief: The Five Devils (2022/23)
THE FIVE DEVILS (I never did work out why it’s called that) is a captivating, beautiful and very weird sort-of time-travel story. The life of the Soler family is rocked when aunt Julia (Swala Emati) comes to stay and young Vicky (Sally Dramé) begins to manifest powers linked to her extraordinary sense of smell. Joanne and Jimmy’s (Adèle Exarchopoulos and Moustapha Mbengue) marriage is already on the rocks, but Julia’s return brings back a scandalous past between her and Joanne and it is up to Vicky to navigate dark visions and help her family heal. It’s serene and heartfelt but equally eerie and twisted, the raw performances and fascinatingly flawed characters keeping the magical realism more weighted towards the latter. Writer-director Léa Mysius explored the horror of rapidly losing your sight in her striking feature debut AVA, and here it’s smell as a superpower, so it’ll be fascinating to see whether she incorporates other senses as genre plot devices in the future. SSP
Review in Brief: Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2022/23)
MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON is an endearingly strange and melancholic live-action/stop-motion animation hybrid mockumentary. An anthropomorphic shell called Marcel (Jenny Slate) lives with his grandma Connie (Isabella Rossellini) in the corner of an Air BnB and wonders where the rest of his family has disappeared to. When a depressed documentarian (Dean Fleischer Camp) moves in he films and assists with Marcel’s search, prompting the tiny crustacean to go viral on YouTube. How much joy or otherwise you get out of Marcel will depend a lot on if you find Slate’s vocal delivery cute or annoying, but there’s very little else even remotely like this out there; a hand-crafted tribute to outcasts and family told in a way only outcasts would think to tell it. SSP
SSP Thinks Film 