RICHARD’S BLOG

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I became a playwright in 1996, having been an avid theatregoer throughout my life (averaging around 120 plays a year – watching, not writing!) I semi-retired from my day job shortly thereafter and for the next 25 years I worked only part-time, allowing me time to write. I ventured briefly into the world of television and wrote a couple of screenplays, although this pretty much came to nothing, except for TAPS making a short film of one of my scripts starring (a virtually unknown) Benedict Cumberbatch and Georgia Mackenzie, which was cool, and sufficient to get me BAFTA membership. Since the pandemic, theatre in the UK has never really found its way back to what it used to be, and so my attention has drifted more towards film. I am now fully retired from my day job and whilst I still visit the theatre two or three times a month, I now watch upwards of 500 films a year (crazy, but true!) Since I watch so many films and can write, I decided to create a blog – it seemed a very 21st-Century thing to do.
  • LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2026

    LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2026

    I have just completed nine days at the BFI London Film Festival, during which I saw 24 films, a total of 2,743 minutes. As usual, the general standard of the films was very high, although there were a handful that disappointed, and some that didn’t make the grade on any level. I will post my full reviews when the films get their UK releases, however here is a whistlestop tour of what you should be looking out for and what you should perhaps avoid:

    For me there were three standout films, which will no doubt earn 5* ratings when I post my full reviews:

    • Wild Horse Nine, by Martin McDonagh. Another take on male friendships, with strong echoes of his own In Bruges, two CIA agents visit Easter Island. John Malkovich is terrific!
    • Elsinore, by Simon Stone. The true story of Scottish actor Ian Charleson who took over the role of Hamlet at the National Theatre from Daniel Day Lewis after his meltdown. Charleson prepared for this, the most arduous of stage roles, whist seriously ill with AIDS, from which he died only weeks later. Andrew Scott is terrific!
    • 7 Miles Out, by Carol Morley. An adaption of her own semi-autobiographical novel, the film follows Anne through her formative years as she comes to terms with her father’s tragic death and seeks solace in the Manchester music scene of the ‘70s and ’80s. Wonderful Soundtrack.

    The four next best films, all very well worth a cinema visit, were:

    • Ink – Danny Boyle’s film version of James Graham’s stage play about Rupert Murdoch, Larry Lambe and the rise of the Sun newspaper;
    • Prima Facie – Suzy Miller’s adaptation of her own stage play, directed by Susanna White, about how the justice system deals, or fails to deal, with sexual assault cases;
    • Fatherland – Paweł Pawlikowski’s film about Nobel Literature Laureate Thomas Mann’s trip to Frankfurt in 1949, accompanied by his daughter Erika, to receive the Goethe Prize. The film draws heavily on Bergman’s Wild Strawberries, both structurally and thematically;
    • Fjord – Cristian Mungiu’s exploration into the somewhat heavy-handed Child Protection system in Norway, told through a family of Christian immigrants who hold different moral values from those enshrined within the law.

    The following four films, also worthy of a trip out, were:

    • Paper Tiger – James Gray’s classically structured thriller, focusing on familial duties in 1980s working-class New York, combined with links to the Russian underworld;
    • Bunker – Florian Zeller’s first film not based on one of his own stage plays. Cracking central performances from Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, but maybe I liked this more because of my theatre background, so it will be interesting to see what cinephiles make of it;
    • Gentle Monster – Marie Kreutzer’s investigation into the effect of paedophilia on a youngish family. Great performance by Lea Seydoux as the wife trying to make sense of what happened and why;
    • La Dérive – A 1964 French New Wave film by Paula Delsol which somehow fell through the cracks, almost ignored in France following an unnecessary 18 rating by the censor, then never even receiving a UK release until now. The story of Jacquie, a precocious and promiscuous 20-year-old finding her way in the world.

    The next four, all very good films, but possibly worth waiting for Netflix:

    • The Beloved – Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s film starring a terrifying Javier Bardem as a film director making a film with his estranged daughter in a leading role;
    • Fruit Gathering – A bit of a long-shot this one, Burmese director Aung Phyoe’s first film, dealing with a young girl coming to terms with her sexuality;
    • It Will Happen Tonight – Nanni Moretti’s comedy drama (or maybe romcom) Nanni Moretti based on the short story collection Hungry Heart by Israeli writer Eshkol Nevo, featuring an excellent soundtrack including a visit to a Springsteen concert;
    • The Debut – A musical comedy written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, starring Julianne Moore as a downtrodden New Jersey housewife who takes to the stage for a community theatre production of a fictional musical, to be directed by an enigmatic Paul Giamatti.

    The next four will end up with 3* ratings, at best:

    • A Man of His Time – Emmanuelle Marre’s 158-minute film about a Vichy collaborator, a specialist in administration. A bit pedestrian at times;
    • Rose – Markus Schleinze’s film starring Sandra Huller as a woman who has disguised herself as a man, first to be a soldier in the Thirty Years War, then to settle down as a farmer;
    • Tender Loving Care – Mike Leigh’s new film about the social care services, which whilst powerful in places, felt too much like a series of improvisations lacking in directorial control;
    • A Good Little Soldier – A French drama by Stéphane Brizé about a French HR exec who is considered a strong businesswoman by her ex-husband and son, but is a bit of a pushover at work.

    And finally, the ones that really disappointed me:

    • The Liberation – Guy Nattiv’s film, based on his own grandmother’s involvement with a cult and her daughters’ attempts to free her from its clutches. Too worthy but a weak dramatic structure;
    • A Long Winter – Andrew Haigh’s adaptation of Colm Toibin’s short story, which coincidentally I read quite recently. I found the adaptation failed to breathe life into the story;
    • The Idiot(s) – The story of writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky as he and his wife Anna flee Russia to Germany, penniless and short of literary inspiration, directed by Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert. Too silly by half!
    • Minotaur – Andrey Zvyagintsev’s adaptation of Claude Chabrol’s The Unfaithful Wife, with a few scenes grafted on about conscription for the Russian war in Ukraine. Simply doesn’t add anything of value to the Chabrol, other than about 45 minutes;
    • Coward – Lukas Dhont’s gay love story set in the Belgian army during the Great War. It simply doesn’t work on any level.

    And that is it for another year. My full reviews will appear if/when the films get their UK releases, but in some cases, there will not be long to wait: at least one of the films will be out this coming Friday!

  • REVIEW: Extra Geography ★★★★☆

    REVIEW: Extra Geography ★★★★☆

    Extra Geography is a 2026 British drama film, directed by Molly Manners, from a screenplay by Miriam Battye, adapted from Rose Tremain’s 2007 short story. The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January and went on general release in the UK last Friday, 2 October.

    Flic (Marni Duggan) and Minna (Galaxie Clear) are best friends. They are both academically gifted Year 11s, and top of the class when it comes to lacrosse. However, as 15-year-olds, living in the protective environment of a girls’ boarding school in the North of England, they are naïve and rather uninformed, especially when it comes to boys, kissing, love, and, of course, sex. They spend every waking moment together and tell each other everything, to the exclusion of everyone around them, including Phoebe (Aoife Riddell) who would love to be a part of their tiny cohort.

    The girls join the cast of the school play, A Midsummers Night’s Dream, a co-production with the local boys’ school: Minna is cast as Titania, Queen of the Fairies, whilst Flic is cast as a tree! They speculate on what it might be like to be in love and, inspired by Titania’s role, they decide they will fall in love with the first person they see on entering the school canteen: it is their geography teacher, Rosalind Delavigne (Alice Englert). So, Minna, as a lead in the play, will mix with the local boys; and Flic, well she has Miss Delavigne to pursue. Can their friendship survive the resulting upheaval?

    This is a very watchable coming-of-age drama. The two leads are excellent in their roles, perfectly balancing the confidence of youth with the naivety of their closeted upbringing, and they are ably supported by Riddell and Englert. The script is an absolute joy and Molly Manners’ direction, in what I believe is her first feature, showed real promise for the future. I also very much enjoyed the cinematography, which made the most of Castle Howard and the surrounding area.

    Extra Geography is a delight from start to finish, although there were moments so wonderfully cringe-worthy that they leave one squirming with embarrassment recalling one’s own naïve teenage assumptions. I whole-heartedly recommend it. In fact, I enjoyed it so much I have ordered a copy of Rose Tremain’s short story collection so that I can read the original tale!

  • REVIEW: Digger ★★☆☆☆

    REVIEW: Digger ★★☆☆☆

    Digger is a 2026 American satirical black comedy, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Sabina Berman, Alexander Dinelaris Jr., and Nicolás Giacobone. The original idea and story development was by Iñárritu, Berman, and Jez Butterworth. The film had its world premiere as a Royal Command Performance in Leicester Square in London in late September, and went on general release in the UK last Friday, October 2.

    I am sure you are thinking there are a lot of writers on this film – if that was cooks and broth, we’d be in real trouble. And maybe that’s the problem, for there seems to be a lack of focus: everything just rambles on a bit, albeit very shoutily. I understand that at the press screenings critics were asked not to give too much away about the plot twists so that audiences could enjoy the film without preconceptions. I think my invite to the press screenings must have gone straight to my spam folder, however I will endeavour to honour the producers’ wishes.

    Digger Rockwell (Tom Cruise) is an aging oil magnate who has repeatedly ignored warnings of impending climate catastrophe connected to his company’s Greenland oilfield; now there has been a gas explosion which has dislodged an ice shelf the size of Maryland and sent it hurtling (insofar as an ice shelf can hurtle) towards Europe, specifically Norway. Safety chief Dr. Nirav Ganesh (Riz Ahmed) warns that the result will be an environmental catastrophe of unprecedented proportions. Digger meets with US President Compson (John Goodman) to discuss how to handle the issue; it becomes apparent that controlling the narrative is more important to them than dealing with the issue, although in fairness it is probably too late to deal with the issue anyway. Then there are a couple of seismic plot shifts which make the thing, to my mind, marginally less interesting, followed by marginally more interesting.

    The problem is that there is a lot of shouting and, dare I say, desperately bad acting (and I should also mention there is a rather ridiculous cat who never looks real anyway). However, all is not lost: after the first plot shift, we discover that the bad acting was deliberate. I know, sounds ridiculous, and I think that is probably because it was rather ridiculous. I cannot really give much more story without spoiling the producers’ desire to keep it all secret however, spoiler to the producers here, the details are all over the internet anyway.

    I think that the basic idea was interesting enough and I suspect if it had remained the vision of just one man rather than virtually the entire Writers’ Guild, it might have been tighter and better realised, although I was left with the feeling that nobody had quite enough confidence to keep it on track, which is amazing given that the budget was $150 million give or take 20%. Of course, the direction was down to Iñárritu, whose work I generally like a lot, so he must shoulder the blame, and I am afraid blame is the right word.

    How was Tom Cruise at playing an older guy? Hard to tell – he was very shouty, but he was supposed to be a bad actor but even when he wasn’t supposed to be a bad actor, he didn’t seem all that good to me. Riz Ahmed was the star of the show – he really had the hang of acting badly in a way that shows that he is a really good actor. John Goodman was wasted, basically a weak caricature, as was Sandra Hüller as Emma, Digger’s half-sister and business partner, who is a hugely talented actor and to whom everyone concerned owes a massive apology.

    To be fair, there were some funny moments and there was a tremendous speech by Digger to the European Parliament outlining their effective complicity in the catastrophe, resulting from their environmental hypocrisy (which just pushed the film from * to **).

    However, I regret to say that Digger is probably not worth seeing. My advice: wait for it to reach Netflix and, when it does, invite a few wise-cracking friends around and get everyone pleasantly drunk before you start watching!

  • REVIEW: Just an Illusion ★★★★☆

    REVIEW: Just an Illusion ★★★★☆

    Just an Illusion is a 2026 French coming-of-age comedy drama, directed by Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano, from a screenplay which they co-wrote with Nathalie Hertzberg. The film had its world premiere at Le Grand Rex cinema in Paris in March 2026 and went on general release in France shortly thereafter. It was featured at the San Sebastián Film Festival and received a limited release in the UK on 11 September 2026. It is likely to be rolled out more widely in the UK during October.

    Vincent Dayan (Simon Boublil) is the youngest son of a lower-middle-class Jewish family living in an apartment complex in the western suburbs of Paris. It is 1985. Struggling to find the space to navigate through those difficult years, he is caught between his parents Yves (Louis Garrel) and Sandrine (Camille Cottin), who bicker incessantly, and a provocative older brother, Arnaud (Alexis Rosenstiehl), with whom he must still share a room. As his teenage years rapidly approach, he prepares for his bar mitzvah with the help of the rabbi; then he meets Anne-Karine Duchesnay (Jeanne Lamartine) and falls head-over-heels in love. Add to this mix his discovery of the North African heritage of both of his parents and his father’s unemployment resulting from the economic downturn, and there are all the ingredients for a fairly standard coming-of-age drama.

    And for the first forty minutes or so that is exactly what we get. It is entertaining enough, but there is little new or different, and it seems to lack focus, unsure whether it is about Vincent or his parents’ marital problems. Then somehow it lifts itself out of its ordinariness and for the last hour or so it really is excellent.

    Garrel and Cottin are hilarious throughout as the parents, and the story of their marriage difficulties is worthy of comparison with Woody Allen. Concierge Étienne Berger (Pierre Lottin), adds spice to their issues, coming to Sandrine’s aid when required and providing an outlet for Yves’ jealousy. But it is the unexpected twists and turns in Vincent’s budding romance, with the unlikely assistance of big brother Arnaud, which takes Just an Illusion from ordinary to special.

    Following their overwhelming success with hit film Intouchable, Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano prove themselves once again to be masters of gentle yet surprising comedy-drama.

    The music of the period works well throughout, and there is a scene where Sandrine, at home alone cleaning, dances to the Pointer Sisters’ I’m So Excited with such abandon that I will never be able to watch Camille Cottin again without remembering it and grinning to myself!

    Just an Illusion is well worth seeing. If you find it a little slow to start, don’t worry, when it gets going it definitely gets going!

  • REVIEW: De Gaulle: Liberté ★★★★☆

    REVIEW: De Gaulle: Liberté ★★★★☆

    De Gaulle: Liberté is the second part of the 2026 epic biographical drama film directed by Antonin Baudry, who co-wrote the screenplay with Bérénice Vila. The first half, De Gaulle: Résistance, I reviewed a few weeks ago. The films had their World Premieres at the Cannes Film Festival in May and Liberté was released in the UK on Friday 18 September.

    Basically, Liberté takes over where Résistance finished, as one might reasonably expect. However, the film does have a different feel to it, with the emphasis more on the political than the action. Now Charles de Gaulle (Simon Abkarian), has to deal with the Americans, and President Roosevelt (Campbell Scott)’s approach to the French is very much less agreeable to the General than that of Winston Churchill (Simon Russell Beale). In addition, his ongoing battle against the puppet French government in Vichy has changed to fighting the puppet French government in Algiers, the primary difference being that General Giraud (Thierry Lhermitte) in Algiers is an American puppet, not a German one.

    The more personal strand dealing with insurrection in France has been beefed up considerably, as one would expect, with the French Resistance gaining structure, although I was surprised at how little we saw of it in action. The focus was again more on the political, with Jean Moulin, codename “Rex” (Félix Kysyl) working to unite the disparate factions behind de Gaulle.

    There is also a significant change to the theatre of war, in that General Marie-Pierre Kœnig who was a key player in part 1 does not appear; instead, we follow General Leclerc (Niels Schneider), his battles in Africa and his parts in the Normandy campaign and the liberation of Paris. Whilst I understand Leclerc’s importance, the non-appearance of Kœnig seemed strange, especially since he was at least as important as Leclerc, being the leader of the Free French in the D-Day Landings.

    Through political sleight of hand, de Gaulle gets the better of Roosevelt, takes over the political leadership from Giraud, and is welcomed to the newly liberated Paris as the conquering hero. History lesson complete.

    If you are interested in Twentieth Century history then this two-part film is for you, provided you remember it is told on the side of the country that won the Second World War: France! As with Résistance, Liberté never drags, despite its 159-minute run-time. It is well written, well directed, and Abkarian’s version of de Gaulle is still just as fascinating as he was in real life. The supporting cast was strong, although the loss of Benoît Magimel playing Kœnig was a disappointment. I should mention Pip Torrens who brought a welcome degree of gravitas to the role of Bernard Montgomery, following Damian Lewis’s laughable performance in the same role in Pressure.

    De Gaulle: Liberté is well worth a few hours of your time, but I would strongly recommend seeing Résistance first. You could try both in one day, although a fortifying meal break in the middle would be a good idea.

  • REVIEW: La Femme Infidèle ★★★★★

    REVIEW: La Femme Infidèle ★★★★★

    La Femme Infidèle (The Unfaithful Wife) is a 1969 French erotic thriller, written and directed by Claude Chabrol. It was re-released across UK cinemas a week last Friday, 11 September, and what a treat it was to see it on the big screen!

    Wealthy insurance broker Charles Desvallées (Michel Bouquet) lives in a beautiful villa in Versailles with his wife, Hélène (Stéphane Audran), and their young son. Hélène often visits Paris, offering her husband a string of almost plausible excuses, but really, she is having an affair with a writer named Victor Pégala (Maurice Ronet). Charles becomes suspicious when he finds Hélène was not where she had claimed and hires a private investigator to follow her. Learning that his wife is having an affair, Charles visits Victor at his flat in Neuilly-sur-Seine.

    A straight-forward old-fashioned plot. I was going to use the word simple, but that is far too condescending. The new-wave directors were huge fans of Hitchcock, and his work is clearly a huge influence here (although Chabrol denied any link), but this is about character and relationships as much as it is about the plot. To use a horse-racing metaphor, this is Hitchcock, out of Rohmer. The performances of Bouquet and Audran are perfectly nuanced – we travel with both of them from their apparent domestic bliss at the beginning, through their separate pain and loss, and back to a newly rekindled love and respect at the end.

    The camerawork is wonderful, lots of languorous panning shots to establish the couple’s idyllic home, and indeed idyllic life. Chabrol’s filmmaking is, as ever, beautifully controlled. The pacing of the storytelling seems just right, never giving anything away too quickly, nor dwelling for too long on unnecessary detail.

    Incidentally, there is a moment where the couple drive past a cinema showing another Chabrol film, Les Biches, which is an interesting nod to several other new-wave films, notably Hiroshima Mon Amour seen at a cinema in Godard’s Breathless, and Summer with Monika on a poster in Trouffaut’s The 400 Blows.

    I have watched La Femme Infidèle many times on DVD, but it was a real treat to see it on the big screen. If you are able to catch this while it is still in cinemas, I would strongly recommend it.

  • REVIEW: Queen at Sea ★★★★☆

    REVIEW: Queen at Sea ★★★★☆

    Queen at Sea is a 2026 drama film written and directed by Lance Hammer. It had its World Premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival in February, where it won the Silver Bear Jury Prize, and was released in the UK last Friday, 11 September.

    Amanda (Juliette Binoche) walks in on her stepfather, Martin (Tom Courtenay), having sex with her mother, Leslie (Anna Calder Marshall), who has advanced dementia. This has been a bone of contention between Amanda and Martin before: Amanda believes that her mother does not want sex. Indeed, Martin has been told by Leslie’s doctor that, due to her mental incapacity, she can no longer give consent, although he cites online sources which dispute this. On the spot, Amanda calls the police and Martin is arrested for sexual assault.

    Amanda, is a tenured academic at Newcastle University who has taken a sabbatical to be close to her ailing mother in London, accompanied by her teenage daughter Sara (Florence Hunt). As Amanda tries to negotiate her mother’s illness, Sara seeks solace in first love, striking up a relationship with a local boy.

    So, we have a neat juxtaposition between first love and late love: Leslie, who may or may not be fit to give her consent; and Sara, who at fifteen definitely cannot, legally. And yet while Amanda calls the police in on Martin, she appears by her actions not only to condone Sara’s decision but to actively encourage it.

    This is a beautifully layered piece of filmmaking. Without ever feeling preachy, it covers the nature of consent, the relationships between mothers and daughters, and the assumptions we make about older people’s sex lives.

    However, at its heart this is a devastating film about dementia, and as such it is not an easy film to watch. Whilst both Courtenay and Calder Marshall are both excellent in their roles (and indeed both won acting awards in Berlin), their situation is utterly heartbreaking and so very difficult to watch.

    For me, this would have been a 5* film, but for one key plot thread fading away without any adequate conclusion. (Whilst I am firmly in favour of not tying up all the loose ends, this one needed something more than it got).

    If you can manage this very difficult watch, Queen at Sea is a very good film and will give you much to think and talk about afterwards; but be warned (again) – it is far from comfortable viewing, in fact it is devastatingly sad, and many will find in distressing.

  • REVIEW: Pressure        ★★☆☆☆

    REVIEW: Pressure        ★★☆☆☆

    Pressure is a 2026 drama film directed by Anthony Maras, from a screenplay which he co-wrote with David Haig, based on Haig’s own 2014 stage play. The film had its World Premiere on general release in the US in May and was released in the UK on Friday, 11 September.

    The future of Europe, and indeed the whole of the free world, hangs in the balance. After almost five long years of war, the allies are poised to invade Normandy. The date is fixed, the troops are trained and ready, air support is on hand, and the navy are all set to deliver their precious cargo to the five target beaches. We just need to check the weather forecast…

    That may sound half-way between glib and melodramatic, but I am afraid that this film errs on the side of unduly melodramatic. One would have thought that there would be sufficient levels of tension and drama in that critical moment in history without the need to trowel on extra fictional layers, however it seems that is not the case. Instead, they play around with the main protagonist’s personal life to heighten the moment, and they play with the timing of the bad weather for dramatic effect. Maybe it is just me, but I did not need this – the dramatised history lesson would have been entirely sufficient, indeed utterly fascinating.

    Back in 2018, I did see David Haig’s play at the Park Theatre in London, with Haig himself in the leading role of Group Captain James Stagg; in the film the part is played by Andrew Scott. I think the play worked much better than the film, because the pressure-cooker environment within a single interior setting is ideal for a stage drama but feels a bit, dare I say, stagey on the big screen. As I recall, the play concentrated more on the characters of Stagg and Eisenhower and the interaction between them, which again I would have liked to see more of in the film.

    Incidentally, I preferred Haig’s take on the character: all bluster and pride, which seemed to me just right for the role; I found Andrew Scott less convincing, however that may be due more to the stripping back of the detailed characterisation in favour of melodrama than to the actor’s own choices. To be fair, Scott was okay as Stagg, and Brendan Fraser was okay as Eisenhower; Kerry Condon was particularly good as Kay Summersby, Eisenhower’s private secretary and confidante, who acted as their go-between.

    So unfortunately, Pressure was not the film for me. I needed more reality and less melodrama. If you are genuinely interested in the actual meteorological events leading up to D-Day, you are better off doing your own research and this is a good place to start.

  • REVIEW: Late Fame ★★★★☆

    REVIEW: Late Fame ★★★★☆

    Late Fame is a 2025 American drama film directed by Kent Jones, from a screenplay by Samy Burch; it is based on the novella of the same name by Arthur Schnitzler. The film had its World Premiere at the Venice International Film Festival in August 2025 and was released in the UK last Friday, 4 September. Interestingly, Schnitzler’s story was written in the late nineteenth century, but the manuscript was lost and it was not published until 2014 – I guess that is, in itself, a kind of late fame.

    Ed Saxberger (Willem Dafoe), a once-feted but now-forgotten poet from the 1970s, works for the Post Office in downtown Manhattan, where he lives a quiet, uneventful life, splitting his time between his mundane job and the bar where he plays pool with his friends in the evenings. One day he is approached by Meyers (Edmund Donovan), an earnest, rather pretentious young man who found a copy of Ed’s 1970 poems Way Past Go on a visit to England and has become a massive fan of his work. He is a member of a group of equally pretentious young New York writers who call themselves The Enthusiasm Society; they meet regularly at an upmarket bar near to where Ed lives. Meyers tells Ed the whole group are huge admirers of his work and invites him along to meet them. They plan to host a cultural event, basically a reading, and Ed agrees to compose an original poem to be read as the star performance of the evening.

    Whilst the changes in Ed create friction with the guys at the local bar, he rather enjoys his ‘rediscovery’ and the potential it brings for a return to the life he once knew. However, he struggles with writer’s block, perhaps brought on from the pressure of having to write to a deadline or perhaps from the continual calls from his sister urging him to visit his estranged brother who is dying in a hospital bed.

    Dafoe is just right as Saxberger, allowing the character’s natural humility to be gradually replaced by a burgeoning pride brought on by the apparent hero-worship of the group. Donovan hits the right note as Mayers and Greta Lee is also very good in the supporting role of Gloria, an actress on the fringes of the group. This is the first time I have come across director Kent Jones, although it is only his second piece of fiction (he has previously directed documentaries). I will try to get hold of a copy of his first, Diane, which he made in 2018. I would also like to read Schnitzler’s novella upon which the film was based – I guess the urge to read and see more is a good sign.

    Late Fame is a nicely understated and nuanced film. If you enjoy slow-paced gentle films, such as Paterson of Perfect Days, then I suspect this one is for you. If you prefer action moves and a strong narrative drive, you might be better avoiding it.

  • REVIEW: Bad Apples ★★★★☆

    REVIEW: Bad Apples ★★★★☆

    Bad Apples is a 2025 dark comedy thriller directed by Jonatan Etzler (in his English-language debut – he is Swedish) from a screenplay by Jess O’Kane, based on the novel De Oönskade by Rasmus Lindgren. It had its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2025 and will be released in the UK a week next Friday, 18 September.

    Maria Spencer (Saoirse Ronan) is a teacher at a Somerset primary school. Her class of ten-year-olds is regularly disrupted by Danny, who is basically uncontrollable. After a remarkably believable escalating series of events, Maria ends up with Danny locked in her basement. Since he threatens to tell everyone that she attacked him (thus destroying her career), she cannot let him go; so, she decides to care for him herself in the basement. And then along comes another of her charges, Pauline, quite the spookiest little kid you would ever want to meet, and things begin to escalate further as Maria tries to keep a lid on her crime.

    At this stage I should stop explaining the plot. In any case, I need to remind you, as I needed to remind myself, that this is a black comedy. About halfway through the film, I was thinking that it could be a drama – as yet nothing had happened which was all that outrageous. I am sure you’re thinking that a primary school teacher kidnapping a small boy and keeping him in her cellar is a bit weird, but it honestly doesn’t seem it. It appeared to me as the best possible solution to the little b*#!%rs behavioural issues. But fear not, outrageousness is just around the corner.

    Ronan is truly excellent as Maria, however one would expect nothing less. Both the kids do very well in their roles – the lad playing Danny must have had the time of his life – fancy being paid good money to behave really badly. And the supporting cast were also fit for purpose, although nobody really shone out, hence only one adult actor named above. I particularly liked the way the plotting allowed this to develop as a comedy drama until it became so dark and (deliberately) silly that one could have no doubts about the author’s intentions. And Etzler’s direction was tight enough to keep the whole thing barrelling along at just the right pace.

    Bad Apples is a lot of fun – I recommend it without reservation. And perhaps it should be compulsory viewing for education professionals – this is how you should deal with unruly children!