Wicked: For Good ★★☆☆☆
Directed by Jon M Chu. Starring Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum. PG cert, gen release, 137 min
The completion of Chu’s two-part take on the hit musical finds Grande’s Glinda acting as propaganda stooge for the Wizard of Oz’s fascist regime and Erivo’s Elphaba acting as underground resistance. It doesn’t help that the second act is famously weaker than the first: shorter on momentum, less abundant in big tunes. The numbers are not strong enough and the narrative not sufficiently robust to distract us from peripheral concerns such as shaky politics and a boring obsession with backstory. Yet, through sheer insistence, Erivo and Grande almost pull it back together with a stirring closing duet. Full review DC
Testimony ★★★☆☆
Directed by Aoife Kelleher. Featuring Maeve O’Rourke, Catriona Crowe, Imelda Staunton, Elizabeth Coppin. 12A cert, gen release, 102 min
Kelleher, director of Mrs Robinson and One Million Dubliners, here asks us to again consider a national trauma that still requires some processing: the mistreatment of women and girls in the Magdalene laundries and mother-and-baby homes. The material has been dealt with in films such as Margo Harkin’s exhaustingly moving Stolen, but Kelleher, a diligent film-maker, persuasively makes the case for another airing. Aside from anything else, there are more stories to be heard. The film’s stress on attempts to make the State accountable is particularly interesting. The film confirms the survivors as national heroes. Full review DC
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Jay Kelly ★★☆☆☆
Directed by Noah Baumbach. Starring George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Riley Keough, Grace Edwards. 15A cert, gen release, 122 min
Baumbach’s latest casts Clooney as a Clooneyesque movie star travelling through Europe for a retrospective (while also tracking down a daughter). With a nod to 8½ and All That Jazz, a feeble script by Baumbach and Emily Mortimer touches on interesting conceits – the isolation of stardom, the regrets of the career-driven sad dad – without having anything especially interesting to say. It falls to Sandler, as the star’s harassed agent, to save the day. His weary, fraught turn reminds us that, away from lowbrow comedy, this is the committed, authentic star of Punch Drunk Love and Uncut Gems. Full review TB
The Thing With Feathers ★★★☆☆
Directed by Dylan Southern. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Boxall, Henry Boxall, Eric Lampaert, Vinette Robinson. 15A cert, limited release, 98 min
Adaption of Max Porter’s acclaimed book with Cumberbatch as a grieving man who encounters a winged beast that seems to represent his loss. Writer-director Southern works hard to fashion the material into a pleasing film. It retains the book’s tripartite structure, with chapters for Dad, the Boys and Crow, while removing several literary elements, including the Ted Hughes association. Cumberbatch delivers a possessed portrait of a man struggling to perform parental duties against an eroding emotional paralysis. Credit should also go to David Thewlis as the persuasive voice of the looming Crow. Full review TB
