Search: Starring Frances Conroy

Unpredictable, offbeat and peppered with absurdist humour

Catwoman is a hybrid of superhero/romance, with a feminist touch.

It's important, when criticising some of the more clichéd elements here - the dark versus the light, the Tolkein parallels, the quests - to bear in mind that this film is aimed at older children, not your average jaded film critic.

Phoenix strips the skin off your eyeballs. What happens next is a gasp away from easy.

In a sea of cop drama, which is victim-orientated or defence-based, its unique perspective helps it to stand out from the crowd.

Richardson overacts outrageously and Bob Hoskins, as the hotel's butler-in-chief, is embarrassingly obsequious.

We never get a real sense of who Nimona is as an individual, beyond the impressions she gives to other people, so that the film comes to rely on the old trope of eliciting sympathy for a monster rather than de-monstering her.

Campion treats the material with such well-mannered reverence that you begin to wish that not just the characters, but she too, would loosen up a bit.

The screenwriter's approach to story seems to have prioritised quantity over quality. It's an attempt to dazzle the audience, throwing in so many twists that it might be hoped we don't notice how predictable most of them are or how little sense they make.

Modest and beguiling.

It is the superb acting and tightly plotted scripts that carry you through the mire of raw emotions - clutching your box of Kleenex like a floatation aid.

While there is no denying that a post-modern examination of John Hughes’ high school is interesting, there is an aloofness here which plays badly against the central will they/won't they romance.

The film is, necessarily, shocking but Fox handles what must have been difficult emotional material for her in a cool and responsible way that makes the message she delivers all the more devastating.

This remake is so clearly aimed at US audiences, it almost constitutes an international incident.