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Hello and welcome to this week’s film review wrap – the big movies landing in cinemas this week.
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How to Make a Killing
★★★
(M), 105 minutes. In cinemas Thursday
It takes guts to update a classic. Who would have thought that so many outraged Emily Bronte devotees would take to their keyboards to denounce Emerald Fennell’s juiced-up version of Wuthering Heights? Yet the clamour goes on.
I would be surprised if fans of the old Ealing comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets are getting quite as stirred up by John Patton Ford’s How to Make a Killing but fond memories of the original, featuring Alec Guinness’s multi-faceted turn as eight different characters, may detract quite a bit from your enjoyment of this freewheeling rearrangement.
Stripped down to basics, the story is an uncompromisingly black comedy which requires you to identify with a serial killer who shows no remorse. Nor does he seem to care much about collateral damage.
The Bride!
★★½
(MA), 125 minutes
Where would-be adapters are concerned, Frankenstein is a trickier proposition than Dracula. The problem tends to be finding the right tone.
The British director James Whale, working in Hollywood, was probably the first to throw the switch to camp – if not in his original 1931 Frankenstein, then certainly in his 1935 sequel Bride of Frankenstein, even before Elsa Lanchester shows up as the wild-haired Bride (which isn’t till the last few minutes, as generations of viewers have been disappointed to find out).
A loose riff on Bride of Frankenstein, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Bride! is camp by default. But it’s not especially amusing, though there are absurdities galore, and a fair number of conscious jokes buried in Gyllenhaal’s wordy script, which incorporates direct shout-outs to Herman Melville, the Marx Brothers and the #MeToo movement.
The Moment ★★★
(MA15+), 103 minutes
Aidan Zamiri’s mockumentary about the British pop star Charli XCX is a critique of the short attention span and its domination of contemporary culture.
The problem is that the short attention span is also embraced by Zamiri: jittery hand-held camera work is punctuated by splashy graphics and edited with an urgent desire to keep you in the moment.
Set in 2024 during the aftermath of the phenomenal success of Charli’s breakout album, Brat, it’s a fictionalised account of preparations for what is to be her first arena tour, which is out to capitalise on her album’s popularity by dispelling any suggestion that she’s a one-hit wonder and carrying her on to the next big thing.
The Voice of Hind Rajab
★★
(M), 89 minutes
Awarded the grand jury prize at last year’s Venice Film Festival and in contention for an Oscar, The Voice of Hind Rajab is guaranteed to trigger strong emotional responses, at least among viewers with any feeling for the horror of events in Gaza over the past couple of years.
It’s not hard to see why many high-profile film industry figures have signed on as executive producers, including Joaquin Phoenix and Brad Pitt. Nor does the Tunisian writer-director Kaouther Ben Hania (Four Daughters) lack knowhow, audacity or a sense of purpose. All the same, it’s not a film I can honestly recommend.
To explain why, it’s best to start with the little girl at the centre of the story. According to the most reliable reports, Hind Rajab was five in January 2024, when she was part of a family group fleeing their Gaza City neighbourhood in a car fired on by the Israeli military.