Reviews by Amber Wilkinson

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  0,08 (2006)

  Review preview for 0,08

  Kramer truly gets to the heart of his protaganist’s handicap and helps you to see it more clearly.

  Documentary about a unique boy who loves football.
• 
  "10" (2013)

  Review preview for "10"

  People drift through the scenes occasionally but are more like ghostly hints of civilisation, ephemeral against the landscape.

  A documentary film poem, a travelogue, a twin town odyssey across the world.
• 
  100up (2021)

  Review preview for 100up

  Honigmann and her editor Jessica de Koning find an amiable rhythm, moving between straightforward interview segments and more contemplative moments.

  A look at the lives of centenarians from across the globe.
• 
  100% Wolf (2020)

  Review preview for 100% Wolf

  While adults might cry "cliche", youngsters are likely to fall in love with these familiar fairy tale elements, which are given a dash of modernity.

  A young werewolf has problems with his transformation.
• 
  11.59 (2005)

  Review preview for 11.59

  Thankfully, the world isn't as black-and-white as writer/director Johan Kramer would have us believe.

  A Dutch Moroccan, angry hip-hop and prejudice.
• 
  1234 (2008)

  Review preview for 1234

  The young cast has a natural air that complements the unforced scripting, which brims with an enviable amount of casual humour.

  Wry comedy drama about an indie musician's dreams of success and romance.
• 
  12 Angry Men (1957)

  Review preview for 12 Angry Men

  We may not know the names of the men in the room, but the combination of sharp scripting from Rose and focused performances gives us a window into the jurors' souls.

  One member of a jury tries to convince the others not to convict a man.
• 
  13 Going On 30 (2004)

  Review preview for 13 Going On 30

  The sheer predictability of the plot means it doesn't really stand up to the scrutiny of anyone older than 15.

  Age swop rom-com, as a feisty 13-year-old high school girl goes Big and wakes up as a man-eating magazine executive.
• 
  13 Minutes (2015)

  Review preview for 13 Minutes

  There's no doubting the film looks good..But there's a feeling of both too much gloss and of glossing over details.

  The story of the man who almost killed Hitler.
• 
  143 Sahara Street (2019)

  Review preview for 143 Sahara Street

  Life by, if not on, the road, is revealed in snippets, an impromptu dance here, a joke with a customer there, building a picture of shared humanity and communication that often goes beyond language.

  Portrait of a roadside cafe owner.
• 
  150 Milligrams (2016)

  Review preview for 150 Milligrams

  Knudsen is magnetic as the film's relentlessly pounding heart and its easy to fall into step with her beat.

  A lung specialist discovers a direct link between suspicious deaths and state-approved medicine. She fights single-handedly for the truth to come out.
• 
  16 Years Of Alcohol (2003)

  Review preview for 16 Years Of Alcohol

  Richard Jobson's debut is full of abiding images that linger long after the final credits.

  Life and times of a budding drunk in the mean streets of Edinburgh.
• 
  1745 (2017)

  Review preview for 1745

  Napier - who is surely going to step up from short films soon - tightly controls the mood.

  Two slave sisters flee their master in the Highlands of Scotland.
• 
  17 Blocks (2019)

  Review preview for 17 Blocks

  There's a searing honesty and immediacy about the footage.

  Using two decades of intimate home video, 17 Blocks tells the story of the Sanford family, whose struggles with addiction and gun violence eventually lead to a journey of love, loss, and acceptance.
• 
  1970 (2021)

  Review preview for 1970

  By creating a little microcosm of the world via the puppetry, it's much easier for Wolski to keep a grip on the mood.

  1970 unrest in Poland is explored through archive footage and stop-motion animation.
• 
  1976 (2022)

  Review preview for 1976

  Martelli carefully crafts an air of almost casual dread.

  A woman finds herself dicing with danger after she is asked for help.
• 
  1982 (2019)

  Review preview for 1982

  Mouaness has a better handle on the ins and out of school life and love than he does the bigger picture.

  A boy tries to pluck up the courage to tell a girl how he feels about her against the backdrop of encroaching war.
• 
  1991 (1991)

  Review preview for 1991

  Žiūra captures the strange mix of boredom and alertness that haunts these places.

  Drama unfolds at a Lithuanian guard post.
• 
  200 Meters (2020)

  Review preview for 200 Meters

  Although the shift in the film's gears isn't exactly smooth, it's an ambitious idea for a first-time filmmaker and Nayfeh brings home the sharp reality of the smuggling business.

  A man from the West Bank finds himself taking the smuggling route to Israel to be with his family.
• 
  20 Cigarettes (2007)

  Review preview for 20 Cigarettes

  Technically cutting edge and daring to the point at which the plot and characters start to play second fiddle.

  A day in the life of a smoking Muscovite executive.
• 
  20 Days In Mariupol (2023)

  Review preview for 20 Days In Mariupol

  Oscar shortlisted for Best International Feature and Best Documentary, this is an intense film with little respite even when no bullets are being fired.

  As the Russian invasion begins, a team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol struggle to continue their work documenting the war’s atrocities.
• 
  21 Nights With Pattie (2015)

  Review preview for 21 Nights With Pattie

  This initially seems like a set-up for a film exploring mental reconciliation after estrangement but the Larrieus have other ideas - perhaps too many of them.

  After her mother has died, Caroline befriends a woman who was looking after her mother, but events take a mysterious turn.
• 
  24hr Taxidermist (2006)

  Review preview for 24hr Taxidermist

  The joke isn't a bad one, although the production values are bargain basement.

  Woman calls the, er, fifth emergency service
• 
  24 City (2008)

  Review preview for 24 City

  This blending of the truth and invention is a key plank of Chinese director Jia Zhang-Ke's work, which skates so close to documentary it is hard to spot the join.

  Blend of fiction and documentary looks at a Chinese munitions plant scheduled for conversion into luxury apartments.
• 
  27 Nights (205)

  Review preview for 27 Nights

  At its heart, this Netflix comedy drama hinges on what we put a price on in life.

  The story of Martha Hoffman, an eccentric and wealthy patron who is committed to a psychiatric clinic by her daughters. The expert witness Casares investigates whether this is a scheme to control their mother’s fortune or if Martha truly suffers from a form of dementia that endangers her well-being and that of her family.
• 
  2 Birds (2008)

  Review preview for 2 Birds

  To make a film that is touchingly beautiful at the same time as dealing with very bad things is a remarkable achievement.

  A group of teenagers experiment with ketamine and find themselves out of their depth.
• 
  2 Days In Paris (2007)

  Review preview for 2 Days In Paris

  In the first part of the film, the script zips along with plenty of laughs but the biggest problem is that the characters, in particular Marion, become increasingly difficult to like.

  A couple try to hold their relationship together on a weekend in Paris.
• 
  2 Guns (2013)

  Review preview for 2 Guns

  Like the bulls that Papi is so fond of, this film is more interested in careering about causing mayhem than dwelling on details.

  Mismatched buddies make a lot of enemies after problems with a heist.
• 3000 Steps (2006)

  Review preview for 3000 Steps

  The film mirrors the narrative and, by keeping the visual stimulus in pace with the narration, it concentrates your mind on the tale.

  One boy's bus journey.
• 
  30 Minutes Or Less (2011)

  Review preview for 30 Minutes Or Less

  Like a sort of laughter thong, it covers very little and doesn't save the blushes of anyone involved.

  Two fledgling criminals kidnap a pizza delivery guy, strap a bomb to his chest, and inform him that he has mere hours to rob a bank or else...
• 
  3/4 (2017)

  Review preview for 3/4

  Scenes don't run fully to their end or don't quite start at the beginning, the drama often whisked somewhere else as we're about to reach what more mainstream films would consider the small moments of climax.

  The lives of a father and his two children.
• 
  35 Shots Of Rhum (2008)

  Review preview for 35 Shots Of Rhum

  Denis declines to make concessions, she’s willing to show, refuses to tell.

  The shifting relationship between a single dad and his teenage daughter.
• 
  36 (2012)

  Review preview for 36

  This photographic formula may sound as restrictive as it is perscriptive but Thamrongrattanarit has a light approach to his ideas of memory and recollection, weaving moments of comedy and poignancy into his sweet if slight drama.

  A location scout who loses her digital library discovers she has also lost her memory of a young man she met one of her trips.
• 
  38 At The Garden (2022)

  Review preview for 38 At The Garden

  Although this is a largely straightforward mixture of talking heads and archive footage showing Lin’s rise to fame, the use of animation adds welcome variation and it is powered by contagious enthusiasm.

  Documentary charting the rise to fame of basketball star Jeremy Lin, the racism he faced and his impact on the wider Asian-American community
• 
  3 Degrees (2006)

  Review preview for 3 Degrees

  The split-screen style is interesting and keeps the viewer hooked.

  Split-screen examination of a love affair.
• 
  3½ Minutes, Ten Bullets (2015)

  Review preview for 3½ Minutes, Ten Bullets

  Silver exposes is an underlying, deep-seated prejudice rather than some sort of murderous instinct.

  Documentary about the trial of Michael Dunn, who shot an unarmed teenager and claimed a 'stand your ground' defence.
• 
  42 (2013)

  Review preview for 42

  A handsome and suprisingly sturdy undertaking that explores the insidious effects of racism with a sharp eye.

  The story of the first African American baseball player Jackie Robinson.
• 
  (500) Days Of Summer (2008)

  Review preview for (500) Days Of Summer

  Flawed though it is, 500 Days Of Summer is still a fair cut above the average piece of Hollywood fare both in terms of its laugh quotient and offbeat romance.

  A greetings card writer recalls the highs and lows of romance.
• 
  53 Wars (2018)

  Review preview for 53 Wars

  Bukowska makes sure we become as fixated on Anna as she is on Witek, as cinematographer Tomasz Naumiuk's camera creeps ever closer to her, his stifling approach matched by dislocating sound design and Natalia Fiedorczuk-Cieslak's score.

  A woman slides into anxiety as her husband reports from a series of wars.
• 
  575 Castro St (2008)

  Review preview for 575 Castro St

  There's a mood of eerie melancholy as Milk lays out the reasons why he might become a target for someone who is "insecure, terrified, afraid" - a concept that has lost none of its resonance with campaigners in many fields of equal rights in the years that have passed since.

  A light and motion study accompanying a tape recording by Harvey Milk to be played "in the event of my death by assassination".
• 
  5 More Minutes (2026)

  Review preview for 5 More Minutes

  The five-minute nature of the loop is perfect for escalating humour.

  A husband and wife in an ailing marriage discover that actions really do have consequences in this twist on the time loop motif.
• 
  5 Seasons Of Revolution (2023)

  Review preview for 5 Seasons Of Revolution

  Lina’s filmmaking has a raw emotional quality.

  An aspiring video journalist in her 20s finds herself already facing self-reckoning. Born in Damascus, Syria, Lina starts to report on the events around her until she is compelled to become a war reporter and, later, the unexpected narrator of her own destiny.
• 
  '63 Boycott (2017)

  Review preview for '63 Boycott

  The format may be traditional but historical context is succinctly laid out.

  Those who took part in the 1963 Chicago schools boycott tell the story.
• 
  '71 (2014)

  Review preview for '71

  Burke is interested in people not politics, keeping the focus on the sudden outbreaks of inhumanity and humanity in the madness, expertly crafting his thriller from the swirling fog of war.

  A young British soldier is accidentally left behind by his unit on the deadly streets of Belfast in 1971.
• 
  76 Days (2020)

  Review preview for 76 Days

  Across this film, two dominant themes emerge - the overwhelming nature of the situation and the importance of small acts of kindness.

  Filmed in Wuhan, China by an independent crew, 76 Days covers the length of the city’s lockdown for Covid-19.
• 
  7 Boxes (2012)

  Review preview for 7 Boxes

  This Paraguayan thriller, featuring almost as many twists and turns as the market in which it is set, is a fast-moving, audience-pleaser with decent helpings of tension and black humour.

  A teenager finds himself with the custody of seven boxes... but everyone wants the contents.
• 
  7 Minutes (2016)

  Review preview for 7 Minutes

  Placido's direction and the cinematography of Arnaldo Catinari have a smooth elegance that retains tension without making the film feel confined by its original stage play setting.

  Female workers at a textile plant must to decide whether to accept a cut to their break time as part of a factory takeover.
• 
  88 (2022)

  Review preview for 88

  The thriller element of all is slickly written and the tension well generated, but sometimes it struggles for air amid the film’s more soapy subplots.

  The Financial Director for a democratic super PAC behind a frontrunner presidential candidate investigates donations uncovering a conspiracy.
• 
  8 Women (2001)

  Review preview for 8 Women

  Ozon's quirky French murder mystery-cum-comedy-cum-musical is a brilliant pastiche on so many genres, it has no right to be as entertaining as it is, or as gripping.

  Eight women, one body and a house full of lies.
• 
  9 (2009)

  Review preview for 9

  Ideas of fascism, loss of the soul and post-apocalyptic existence, all ripe for exploration, are given a body swerve in favour of muddled new-age nonsense.

  The post-apocalypse world is back... and this time its animated.