Reviews by Andrew Robertson

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  House Of Gucci (2021)

  Review preview for House Of Gucci

  An inconstancy of detail might be forgivable if it were not matched by inconstancy elsewhere.

  When an outsider from humble beginnings marries into the Gucci family, her unbridled ambition begins to unravel their legacy, leading to a spiral of betrayal and violence.
• 
  Titane (2021)

  Review preview for Titane

  The audience laughed at times that were not meant to be that kind of funny, a primate exhalation of surprise and relief.

  A dancer becomes pregnant after having sex with a car.
• 
  Spencer (2021)

  Review preview for Spencer

  There are strong supporting performances from a relatively small cast, but they pale in comparison to Stewart.

  The marriage of Princess Diana and Prince Charles has long since grown cold. Though rumours of affairs and a divorce abound, peace is ordained for the Christmas festivities, across which handful of days, the film is set.
• 
  Eternals (2021)

  Review preview for Eternals

  This is almost an hour longer than anything else Zhao has directed, and while her eye is keen there must surely have been a point where someone looked at a script and thought 'this is too much'.

  The saga of a race of immortal beings.
• 
  Antlers (2021)

  Review preview for Antlers

  Variously Antlers lets what might have been subtext break the surface but in doing so undermines subtlety and overmines tapped out seams.

  In an isolated Oregon town, a middle-school teacher and her sheriff brother become embroiled with her enigmatic student, whose dark secrets lead to terrifying encounters with a legendary ancestral creature who came before them.
• 
  Dune (2021)

  Review preview for Dune

  Simplifications make the length of the film all the more surprising, as so many parts of characters' dualities are removed.

  A young man must survive on the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people.
• 
  The French Dispatch (2021)

  Review preview for The French Dispatch

  It all has a very particular flavour. Even a new one.

  A love letter to journalists set in an outpost of an American newspaper in a fictional 20th Century French city that brings to life a collection of stories published in the French Dispatch magazine.
• 
  Dune (2021)

  Review preview for Dune

  It is pretty.

  A young man must survive on the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people.
• 
  The Last Duel (2021)

  Review preview for The Last Duel

  Everyone involved here has done better elsewhere.

  Based on actual events, this historic drama unravels long-held assumptions about France’s last sanctioned duel between Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris, two friends turned bitter rivals.
• 
  Chiffon (2021)

  Review preview for Chiffon

  There is much to admire here beyond the immediate perceptions, sensibilities too.

  Bijoli is serene until a mysterious visitor shows up in her small tailoring shop with a commission.
• 
  Vegetarians (2021)

  Review preview for Vegetarians

  Able direction, crisp production and a convincing cast in something that has clear aims and hits its target.

  Hunting with his father, a son's first shot will have a lasting impact.
• 
  The Other (2021)

  Review preview for The Other

  The liberties taken with the work of a playwright famed for his contemporary analysis of the morays of fin-de-siecle Vienna are a triumph.

  A man becomes suspicious of his wife's faithfulness, more so when he sees another at her graveside.
• 
  The Balloon Catcher (2020)

  Review preview for The Balloon Catcher

  Kaneko writes/directs/animates, the brevity of this piece all the more effective for not a moment wasted.

  Rejected and feared, will the axeman manage to use his peculiarity to find freedom?
• 
  Halloween Kills (2021)

  Review preview for Halloween Kills

  There is an exercise in nostalgia from the fonts in the credits that seem serif-perfect to the liberal reapplication of Carpenter's original score.

  The Halloween night when Michael Myers returned isn’t over yet.
• 
  The Solace Of Ruins (2020)

  Review preview for The Solace Of Ruins

  Gabriela Lourenzato's film takes us along and at the close makes the allegorical actual.

  Madu and her small assistant investigate the case of a woman who suddenly disappeared.
• 
  The Bitch (2021)

  Review preview for The Bitch

  This is not easy viewing, but beneath the gleam of staring eyes and the bloodied lips is something visceral.

  The fate of three brothers is tied up with that of a missing woman.
• 
  Termites (2020)

  Review preview for Termites

  Shot through with a rightness, every frame a photograph, every unstill moment a miracle.

  The voice reminds the city that all art is banned, but when a young girl discover's one man's secret he cannot remain silent.
• 
  Migrants (2020)

  Review preview for Migrants

  It's beautiful to look at, there is detail and delight in every stitch and stem.

  Driven south by climate change, a family of polar bears tries to make a new life.
• 
  The Heart Of The Volcano (21)

  Review preview for The Heart Of The Volcano

  Fee Strothman's camera is somewhere between the dreamlike and the documentary.

  Their fate in the hands of a powerful sorcerer, by the next moon a daughter must save her father's soul.
• 
  Ron's Gone Wrong (2021)

  Review preview for Ron's Gone Wrong

  This is an animated kids' movie in a furrow well ploughed.

  Ron, a Bubble Bot damaged in transit, is wreaking havoc and only young Barney can make things right.
• 
  Days Lost (2020)

  Review preview for Days Lost

  Though it has subtleties aplenty its core confrontation lays it on a little too thick.

  Olja and Igor's sibling equilibrium is broken by his new girlfriend, and will be tested further by what they leave behind.
• 
  Bungee To The Beyond (2020)

  Review preview for Bungee To The Beyond

  That this manages to be so heartwarming is down to an ensemble effort, the cast's chemistry convinces and so too decisions made behind the camera about what to show and what not to.

  Friends help fulfill a dying wish, but they're not the only ones late to do so.
• 
  Where The Leaves Fall (2020)

  Review preview for Where The Leaves Fall

  You Guolin's cinematography is crisp, a combination of lens and grading that feels old without feeling tired.

  Giacomo, a young second-generation Italian-Chinese student, travels to the Chinese county of Wencheng to bring back the ashes of his late father.
• 
  Weightlessness (2021)

  Review preview for Weightlessness

  Alexey Lyubimov's performance is rooted in the physical, the palpable.

  A young ballet dancer tries to cope with trauma and faces a creative crisis.
• 
  The Next One (2020)

  Review preview for The Next One

  The camera in Dominik György's film is never still, tight within this small space to faces and hands, the tremble of finger and lip.

  A troubled young woman enters an abortion clinic and realises she has forgotten the socks that she must have with her in order that the procedure will be carried out.
• 
  The Last Illusion (2020)

  Review preview for The Last Illusion

  Gorgeously shot, from from the candlelit parlours of the nouveau riche to the wet streets of a man on his differing uppers.

  Russia. 1910. A once-famous magician has been reduced to a wandering circus artist. He prepares himself for his final performance…
• 
  Romantic Eggs (2021)

  Review preview for Romantic Eggs

  This is a delight, a chaotic collage of the dreamlike and the deliberate.

  After some insects warn a girl the Earth is under threat she sets out on a mission to save it.
• 
  Pile Of Salt (2021)

  Review preview for Pile Of Salt

  Marc Camardon's film, co-written with Jordi Tortosa, explores familiar themes with verve.

  A diligent and faithful Catholic seminarist, experiences a crisis after meeting a fellow student.
• 
  Little One (2020)

  Review preview for Little One

  As pleasant as this is, their performances might have been better highlighted in a tighter run-time.

  A couple of sisters stick together.
• 
  Europa (2021)

  Review preview for Europa

  Jose Lillo's performance as Pedro is of chiselled weariness, whisper, mutter, movement.

  A foreign worker in Switzerland has to take a cow to slaughter while his mother is dying in a Spanish hospital.
• 
  En Rang Par Deux (2020)

  Review preview for En Rang Par Deux

  There is a rhythm to this, a catchy sense of improvisation.

  Animation sees Afif, originally from Tunisia and Aliou, from Senegal, tell their different stories.
• 
  Black Holes (2020)

  Review preview for Black Holes

  Lazarus and co-writer Dorothee Levesque keep things minimal.

  When David mysteriously falls into a coma, his friends and family all try to deal with the trauma.
• 
  By The Time I Fall Asleep (2021)

  Review preview for By The Time I Fall Asleep

  Damian Kosowski's film is cold and claustrophobic, tight in shot and focus in the few scenes outdoors and distant and distressed even by the bath.

  About what happened one November night, in one of the apartments on the top floor of a block of flats.
• 
  Gossipy (2021)

  Review preview for Gossipy

  Inventiveness with camera in what feels like location shooting rather than two-camera studio gives it a versimilitude that helps carry its comic elements.

  A woman watches every move in her neighbourhood.
• 
  The Boy Who Walked Barefoot

  Review preview for The Boy Who Walked Barefoot

  There are kindnesses within the film, but stark ones.

  Zbyszek has a special connection with animals. One day a stranger man brings his restive horse to the stable. How much will Zbyszek sacrifice to become a man?
• 
  Round 0

  Review preview for Round 0

  Sonia Ladida Schiavone's film, with Rosario Cammarot's cinematography, has the sense of something born of the stage, but transformed by cinema.

  Kolbeinn and his friends are young boxers from Iceland and they are training for the Nordic Championship. A serious accident risks copromising their future.
• 
  A Toy In The River (2020)

  Review preview for A Toy In The River

  Though dressed in the detritus of the modern era, it is a tale sufficiently plastic that its flotsam and jetsam could be substituted for any cargo discarded.

  A boy steals a toy dinosaur and runs away from home... and into trouble.
• 
  Yard Kings (2020)

  Review preview for Yard Kings

  This is grain as grit, the fuzziness of focus the grip of grime across everything we see.

  The film follows the story of Ellie, a young girl from a violent home, who decides to confront the situation.
• 
  Ascension (2021)

  Review preview for Ascension

  From the first shot of a uniformed member of a cleaning team walking the tiled lip of a rooftop infinity pool this is the edge of image, the thing unseen.

  Documentary portrait of the "Chinese Dream" - a contemporary vision of a China that prioritises productivity and innovation above all
• 
  The Sugar Grocer (2020)

  Review preview for The Sugar Grocer

  Ferman Narin's camera creeps along with the grocer, through doors, up stairs, and further as things escalate.

  Salih is a neighborhood grocery living alone in a monotonous life. One day with an order coming while Salih is sitting at the grocery store, he will come out of this monotony and experience the most traumatic day of his life.
• 
  Dayfly (2021)

  Review preview for Dayfly

  Yi Baoxingchen's film is as mixed media as a single thing like film can be, and all the stronger for it.

  Life is a ray of sunshine that breaks through darkness. In the vast universe, the life of human beings and of all the things in the world comes to an end, a short and wonderful experience which is at the same time evanescent, just like a dayfly.
• 
  Aida (2021)

  Review preview for Aida

  The widescreen of Hanane Abi Khalil's camera manages an intimacy, one born of proximity.

  A woman decides to get married. What is her story?
• 
  No Time To Die (2021)

  Review preview for No Time To Die

  No Time To Die might not save cinemas, but it will keep Bond going.

  James Bond has left active service. His peace is short-lived when Felix Leiter, an old friend from the CIA, turns up asking for help, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology.
• 
  A Clockwork Orange (1971)

  Review preview for A Clockwork Orange

  Kubrick's canvas is best enjoyed large, right at the front.

  Long-banned film about a future distopia.
• 
  Copshop (2021)

  Review preview for Copshop

  There's some good old fashioned film-making here.

  On the run from an assassin, a con artist devises a scheme to hide out inside a small-town police station.
• 
  Occupation: Rainfall (2020)

  Review preview for Occupation: Rainfall

  The film throws ideas at the screen so much that it's not only for its two hours and change of runtime that it feels like more than one film at once.

  Two years after an alien invasion, the survivors fight back with the help of unexpected allies.
• 
  Django & Django (2021)

  Review preview for Django & Django

  Corbucci's influence on Tarantino can be seen, heard - as can his passion.

  Homage to director Sergio Corbucci led by Quentin Tarantino.
• 
  Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings (2021)

  Review preview for Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings

  The centre of Shang Chi is a wuxia picture. A very entertaining one too.

  Shang-Chi, the master of unarmed weaponry-based Kung Fu, is forced to confront his past after being drawn into the Ten Rings organisation.
• 
  Snake Eyes (2021)

  Review preview for Snake Eyes

  Hidden in this is a competent ninja flick.

  A GI Joe spin-off centered around the character of Snake Eyes.
• 
  Our Ladies (2019)

  Review preview for Our Ladies

  It feels a bit like a box-ticking exercise at a funding body.

  Comedy drama sees a group of choirgirls on a day trip to Edinburgh.