Belfast Film Festival — A–Z of films

Less concerned with scrutinising the playground than the dangerous games adults can play with one another.

The word ballad is a good choice in the title because Hunt-Ehrlich’s film is a rhythms and muse affair.

It's worth suspending disbelief for a tale that grips where it matters and, through its superb performances, serves as a potent reminder that there were real human beings at the heart of all the real life horrors.

The writer/director also zeroes in on the importance of physical contact for Ruth - something concrete in a world that is now full of things that she can’t always grasp.

Cat’s viewpoint predominates, and Zilbalodis has an acute understanding of how the world looks from its point of view, of what catches its attention and how its body follows instinctively.

Friedkin's trend-setting handheld-camera gives a documentary-style feel, puting you right in among the tense surveillance and hunch-following legwork.

Clarke’s utilisation of eerie Irish lore and the supernatural to explore very real horror, and the lifelong lingering aftermath of a single, damning moment, is a potent and unsettling brew.

It’s funny to begin with, watching Pansy rant with no filter, sharing her negative thoughts on everything from baby clothes with pockets to sofa salespeople, but gradually we realise just how close to the edge she is.

Junk slush action fiasco.

Nightbitch is of an ilk that is off-kilter. It is unreliable and unstable. It is visceral and dark. It is taxidermy and what I think are freezer potato pancakes.

Eisenberg takes us through the entire journey in a brisk 90 minutes, but the film never feels rushed.

The writing is sharp and succinct.

The warmth between the two leads keeps us rooting for them as everything seems to be going against them, often due to their own poor decisions.

What emerges is a carefully calibrated, bleak but elegiac picture of an environment where people are being forced to perform rather than allowed to live on their own terms.