Borat is the hero we all deserve right now. The world is in a tailspin and needs to take a long, hard look at itself. Now Borat is a known quantity, Sacha Baron Cohen needs help in throwing a spotlight on bigoted Americans, in the form of a partner in crime (Maria Bakakova steals the show from him as his daughter Tuta) and a lot of disguises. There’s a surprising amount of heart in this one and a lot more likely artifice in the construction of some of these situations – you hope Cohen had to pick and choose the most damnable responses in the edit and at least a few people called Borat out on the outrageous things he says. It’s a ballsy skewering of Trump and Trump’s America where the jokes don’t always land but when they do they’ll leave you reeling, and they’ll make you think. SSP
Review in Brief: Rebecca (2020)
I really liked Ben Wheatley’s REBECCA. With the impossible task of competing with Hitchcock’s Oscar-winning black-and-white classic, Ben Wheatley and co take a different path, turn a modern eye to a vintage tale and have produced something sumptuous, grand and enthralling. This is simply gorgeous to look at, with lavish production design, rich colours and, in the latter stretch Wheatley’s usual twisted and surreal visuals invading the earthly plane. Clint Mansell’s eerie score envelops you and never lets go. Lily James is mesmerising, Kristen Scott-Thomas unsettling and Sam Reilly entertainingly oily. Armie Hammer doesn’t quite leave the mark he should as one of the most unlikeable characters in literature, but he certainly looks the part and you understand the soon-to-be-Mrs DeWinter falling head over heels for him far more easily than you did when he was played by Laurence Olivier. Give Wheatley some more classic Gothic adaptations ASAP! SSP
SSP Thinks Film 