Reviews by Richard Mowe

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  Crimes Of The Future (2022)

  Review preview for Crimes Of The Future

  Cronenberg, a seemingly gentle soul on the surface, remains tortured by the possibilities of technology and how it may tear us apart.

  In a near-future human evolution has accelerated, a situation embraced by a performance artist.
• 
  Clouds Of Sils Maria (2014)

  Review preview for Clouds Of Sils Maria

  There is much irony on the theme of generational gulfs, internet obsessions and the nature of creativity and culture. Unfortunately none of it rings true.

  A reclusive actress on the brink of divorce is asked to take on a challenging role - that of a doomed woman whose betrayer she made her name as.
• 
  Corn Island (2014)

  Review preview for Corn Island

  Ovashvili tells the story with spare dialogue and absorbing attention to detail.

  An old peasant and his innocent 16-year-old granddaughter sow corn on an island in the middle of the Inguri River dividing Georgia from Abkhazia.
• 
  Dancing Arabs (2014)

  Review preview for Dancing Arabs

  The narrative, based on a novel by co-screenwriter Sayed Kashua, veers off course only in the final scenes and an implausible resolution.

  A boy from an Arab Israeli city is sent to a prestigious Jerusalem boarding school.
• 
  Dalloway (2025)

  Review preview for Dalloway

  The creepy big brother aspect of the film pervades everything.

  Clarissa, a writer lacking inspiration, joins a prestigious artist residency at the cutting edge of technology. There, she finds support - and even a confidante - in Dalloway, her virtual assistant, who helps her write. But Clarissa begins to grow uneasy with the AI’s increasingly intrusive presence.
• 
  The Dead Don't Die (2019)

  Review preview for The Dead Don't Die

  Jarmusch usually manages to invest his films with a quirky sense of humour, but here the lines fall decidedly flat.

  The peaceful town of Centerville finds itself battling a zombie horde as the dead start rising from their graves.
• 
  De Gaulle: Part 2 - Liberté (2026)

  Review preview for De Gaulle: Part 2 - Liberté

  A follow-on that more than rivals its predecessor.

  Second part of the biopic following Charles De Gaulle's life between 1940 and 1945.
• 
  De Gaulle: Résistance (2026)

  Review preview for De Gaulle: Résistance

  Baudry excels in the well-orchestrated battle sequences and the huge protesting crowds surrounding the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

  The story of Charles de Gaulle's rise to power.
• 
  Dheepan (2015)

  Review preview for Dheepan

  The director is adept at confronting ordinary people with extraordinary situations to test their resilience.

  The story of a Sri Lankan Tamil warrior who flees to France and ends up working as a caretaker outside Paris.
• 
  Die, My Love (2025)

  Review preview for Die, My Love

  Ramsay's style takes no prisoners.

  A woman battles her demons.
• 
  The Divide (2021)

  Review preview for The Divide

  Corsini agilely combines elements of cinéma verité and farce.

  Two women on the verge of a breakup, in a hospital, are further stressed on the night of a big demonstration by the overwhelmed staff and by angry, injured protestors who land up besieging the building.
• 
  Dog On Trial (2024)

  Review preview for Dog On Trial

  Dosch uses the true story to make wider observations about the often fraught relationships between humans and animals.

  A young lawyer tries to save a dog from capital punishment.
• 
  Donbass (2018)

  Review preview for Donbass

  Each successive scene hits you over the head with the ferocity of the action.

  In the Donbass, a region of Eastern Ukraine, a hybrid war takes place, involving an open armed conflict alongside killings and robberies on a mass scale perpetrated by separatist gangs.
• 
  Dragonfly (2025)

  Review preview for Dragonfly

  The performances of double Oscar-nominated Blethyn and Riseborough provide hypnotic accounts of their characters as two vulnerable souls on the edge.

  When Colleen volunteers to care for her elderly neighbor Elsie, the two quickly bond. But beneath the pleasantries, motives start to be questioned leading to a devastating series of events.
• 
  Eddington (2025)

  Review preview for Eddington

  The truly admirable aspect of Eddington is the way Aster constantly pulls the rug from under expectations.

  A stand-off between a small-town sheriff and mayor sparks a powder keg as neighbour is pitted against neighbour in Eddington, New Mexico.
• 
  The Edge Of The Blade (2023)

  Review preview for The Edge Of The Blade

  Perez manages the set-piece confrontations with precision and a nail-biting suspense.

  Paris, 1887. Duels have been officially outlawed but are still regular practice. This historical drama is set against that backdrop.
• 
  Elvis (2022)

  Review preview for Elvis

  Where Luhrmann and Butler score are in the concert sequences in which the King truly comes alive.

  Biopic about the star and his manager.
• 
  Emilia Perez (2024)

  Review preview for Emilia Perez

  Audiard has assembled a remarkable team of actors

  A lawyer gets an offer to help a cartel boss start a new life.
• 
  Enys Men (2022)

  Review preview for Enys Men

  It has a Wicker Man feel but without the flamboyant histrionics

  A volunteer observing a rare wild flower finds the different worlds that have inhabited the island where she is beginning to collide.
• 
  Enzo (2025)

  Review preview for Enzo

  Yet Pohu’s performance sums up all the conflicted feelings, desires and anxieties of someone at the crossroads of entering adulthood.

  A 16-year-old boy breaks out from his bourgeois family and starts an apprenticeship as a stonemason. He also meets a Ukrainian colleague who turns his world upside down.
• 
  EO (2022)

  Review preview for EO

  The beast of burden’s travails seem to be a thinly veiled criticism of Polish society which erupts in one sequence into mindless violence.

  Tale revolving around an unassuming grey donkey.
• 
  Everybody Knows (2018)

  Review preview for Everybody Knows

  While Farhadi certainly knows how to spin a web of intrigue, deceit and suspicion, the narrative has a tendency to leap from strand to strand, often leaving the audience stumbling in its wake.

  Secrets resurface after a woman returns to her family's village for a wedding.
• 
  Everything Went Fine (2021)

  Review preview for Everything Went Fine

  François Ozon makes what could have been an impossibly painful subject more palatable but nonetheless affecting.

  A father asks for help to die.
• 
  Eleanor Rigby (2013)

  Review preview for Eleanor Rigby

  How the characters deal with grief is beautifully captured in the nuanced performances of McAvoy and Chastain.

  Two people struggle to stay together after the death of their child.
• 
  Elle l'Adore (2014)

  Review preview for Elle l'Adore

  The two leads of Kiberlain and Lafitte spark off each as a pair of highly unlikely yet strangely engaging partners in crime.

  A divorced mother agrees to do a mysterious favour for a singer she has adored from afar throughout her life.
• 
  Entertainment (2015)

  Review preview for Entertainment

  It is by turns sad and disturbing - with occasional bouts of highly dubious dark humour.

  En route to meeting with his estranged daughter, a broken, ageing comedian plays a string of dead-end shows in the Mojave Desert.
• 
  Fair Play (2014)

  Review preview for Fair Play

  The atmosphere of the drab Czechoslovakia at the time has been captured with uncompromising realism.

  Teenage Anna’s background may be altogether unsuitable for the communist regime, but her talent as a sprinter will help her into the state-run doping program regardless.
• 
  Father And Solider (2022)

  Review preview for Father And Solider

  In throwing a spotlight on these neglected and unsung heroes Vadepied does an invaluable service to their memories that no amount of medals and ceremonies could achieve.

  A father enlists in the French army in 1917 to join his 17-year-old son.
• 
  Final Cut (2022)

  Review preview for Final Cut

  An homage to truly bad film-making - but it sails perilously close to self-parody

  Things go badly for a small film crew shooting a low-budget zombie movie when they are attacked by real zombies.
• 
  Firebrand (2023)

  Review preview for Firebrand

  Handsomely mounted and costumed with enough sparks and pace to quicken the interest and heighten the senses.

  A dramatisation of the marriage between King Henry VIII of England and Catherine Parr.
• 
  The Fireflies Are Gone (2018)

  Review preview for The Fireflies Are Gone

  The film demands and receives a strong and forceful performance from Karelle Tremblay who is more than able to rise to the challenges.

  The sleepy town where Léo lives doesn’t offer her much chance of self-fulfilment. Extricating herself from her mother’s influence and her constricting environment isn’t easy for the frustrated young woman, yet happiness might be close at hand.
• 
  Flag Day (2021)

  Review preview for Flag Day

  As a snapshot of the influence parents bring to bear on their offspring it lacks engagement for the audience and takes the attitude that everyone watching should be enrapt by the self-importance Penn brings to bear.

  A father lives a double life as a counterfeiter, bank robber and conman in order to provide for his daughter.
• 
  For The Sake Of Peace (2022)

  Review preview for For The Sake Of Peace

  Looks at the ways the younger generation seek ways to live in peace rather than perpetual conflict.

  South Sudan is the youngest country in the world, at war with itself, with over 350,000 people killed since its inception in 2011. However, through this darkness, its endless cycle of conflict has hope: the determination of young women and men who refuse to give up on peace.
• 
  Frankie (2019)

  Review preview for Frankie

  It is only sporadically involving with even the usually hypnotic Huppert struggling to make an impression.

  Three generations grappling with a life-changing experience during one day of a vacation in Sintra, Portugal, a historic town known for its dense gardens and fairy-tale villas and palaces.
• 
  Friend (2018)

  Review preview for Friend

  Touching and brave.

  When they fall in love, two girls from rival families must choose between being together and being safe.
• 
  Fucking Bornholm (2022)

  Review preview for Fucking Bornholm

  The screenplay by Kazejak and Filip Kasperaszek produces believable and well rounded characters, with plenty of humour to leaven the psychological torments on view.

  Two families who have known each other for years spend the long May weekend camping together as usual on the idyllic Danish island of Bornholm. However, instead of the relaxation they had anticipated, the holiday turns into purgatory…
• 
  Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

  Review preview for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

  You cannot help but get swept up in it all.

  Prequel about the young Furiosa, who is snatched by a biker gang.
• 
  The Fool (2014)

  Review preview for The Fool

  Seizes the attention from the brutal opening – and refuses to let go for an instant.

  A smalltown plumber takes on corrupt bureaucracy.
• 
  Foxcatcher (2014)

  Review preview for Foxcatcher

  Miller paces it all beautifully so that the tension creeps up unawares.

  The story of wrestling stars Mark and Dave Schultz and their poisonous relationship with John du Pont.
• 
  Fruitvale Station (2013)

  Review preview for Fruitvale Station

  The film takes an even-handed view of its main protagonist, illustrating faults on both sides of the divide.

  The true story of Oscar Grant, who set out one day to try and bcome a better person and ended up in a shocking encounter at Fruitvale station.
• 
  Gabrielle (2013)

  Review preview for Gabrielle

  Archambault has succeeded in making a film with her subjects and not simply about them – imperfections and all, while the musical element serves her purpose perfectly.

  Young love comes up against prejudice.
• 
  Girl (2018)

  Review preview for Girl

  Directed with admirable understatement and restraint.

  A teenage trans girl dreams of becoming a ballerina.
• 
  Gloria (2012)

  Review preview for Gloria

  The script is beautifully nuanced, looking perceptively at the behavioural patterns and emotions of the middle-aged subjects.

  A woman finds late romance at a dance club, but will family intrude?
• 
  The Goldman Case (2023)

  Review preview for The Goldman Case

  A documentary-drama of hypnotic power.

  A chronicle of the trial of Goldman, a French left-wing revolutionary who was convicted of several robberies and was mysteriously murdered.
• 
  Good Time (2017)

  Review preview for Good Time

  The Safdies invest their own knowledge of their home turf to give it all a frenetic and authentic sense of urgency.

  Crime caper sees a bank robber try to evade capture.
• 
  The Great Arch (2025)

  Review preview for The Great Arch

  An absorbing account.

  1982. French President François Mitterrand decides to launch an international architectural competition for the flagship project of his mandate: the Great Arch of La Défense, aligned with the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe. Against all odds, Otto von Spreckelsen, a Danish architect, wins the competition...
• 
  The Guest (2026)

  Review preview for The Guest

  A fascinating and mature ensemble piece

  New parents Karl and Emilie are looking forward to a weekend break where they plan to announce their baby's name. The day before the celebration, Karl's estranged mother shows up.
• 
  A Ghost Story (2017)

  Review preview for A Ghost Story

  Reveals just enough in the sparse dialogue and long silences to keep us intrigued.

  This is the story of a ghost and the house he haunts.
• 
  Grace Of Monaco (2014)

  Review preview for Grace Of Monaco

  The film never really engages either the heart or the intellect.

  The story of former Hollywood star Grace Kelly's crisis of marriage and identity during a political dispute between Monaco's Prince Rainier III and France's Charles De Gaulle, and a looming French invasion of Monaco.
• 
  Grand Central (2013)

  Review preview for Grand Central

  Although the actors acquit themselves with some distinction the performances cannot quite disguise the one dimensional aspect of the characters.

  A complex romance set against the backdrop of the nuclear power industry.