In Review
Welcome to In Review! Check out the latest reviews across film, TV, theatre and so much more…
Film Review - The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan
There is a glimmer of hope with the upcoming Australian release of its sequel in June, The Three Musketeers: Milady, which may shed some light on the lacklustre narrative decisions in Part One, but as it stands D’Artagnan’s best is too fleeting, and settles itself far into the saturated market of generic blockbusters.
GERFF 2024 Review - From Hilde, With Love
If you’re into German language biographical films set in Berlin, offbeat heroines, and sobbing until your eyes are red then From Hilde, with Love is the film for you.
Film Review - Monster
Monster confronts viewers with an ambiguous ending, leaving us to decipher the truth of who really is the eponymous monster, but perhaps the objective truth is there are monsters in each and every one of us.
Film Review - The Taste of Things
The Taste of Things serves up a complicated feast for the eyes, intrinsically tying its romanticisation of cooking as a love language to the identities and passions of its two leads.
Film Review - The Conformist (4K Restoration)
Being able to see such a beautiful restoration on the big screen is worth the price of admission alone, and I could not recommend The Conformist more.
FFFA 2024 Review - Metal Skin (2K Restoration)
While Metal Skin may be uncomfortable or even unenjoyable viewing, it is a compelling, edge of your seat story of Australia’s male-dominated, rev-head culture, where burnt rubber and women who love fast cars are drivers of the male fantasy.
Film Review - Fremont
Fremont isn’t a thrilling film, and perhaps one that requires an eager mood, but you could scarcely imagine leaving the cinema without a sense of distinct peace.
FFFA 2024 Review - Mami Wata
Mami Wata truly has the ability to spellbind, yet keeps its feet rooted in a deeply nuanced point of interest: an ever-changing reckoning with modernity.
Film Review - Challengers
Guadagnino has served up a smash hit, and it’s up to audiences to decide what to do now that the ball is in their court.
Film Review - Robot Dreams
It’s a light summer breeze of a film clearly aimed to bring joy to both parents and kids whilst still telling a compelling story, so some kind of deep underlying metaphor is unnecessary. Just go have fun watching a cartoon dog and a robot roller-skate to Earth, Wind & Fire! Your brain deserves a break.
Film Review - La Chimera
A patchwork quilt of genres, Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera is a grimy and charismatic fairytale, and Josh O’Connor is its beating heart.
Film Review - Io Capitano
Io Capitano offers audiences an empathetic and raw portrayal of the harrowing challenges asylum seekers face, simply in order to have a better life that so many of us take for granted.
Film Review - NT Live: Vanya
Driven by a powerhouse performance, Vanya is devilishly funny, playful, and inextricably human.
Film Review - The Rooster
Just two bros sitting around a campfire. Five feet apart. Because they can’t face reality.
Film Review - The Sweet East
Beginning with Lillian (Talia Ryder) embarking on a class trip to Washington DC, before a Pizzagate-like violent outburst from a young man […] interrupts her night, sending her down an almost literal rabbithole.
Film Review - Fallen Leaves
World cinema can bring us a film like this: a tiny love story, from a country you may never visit, dressed up like an anti-capitalist screed.
Film Review - Anatomy of a Fall
Painting a portrait of a marriage in decline, a child irrevocably changed, and a woman in freefall, Anatomy vivisects the ripple effect of its victim’s demise, familial wounds spilling open to reveal grisly entrails for all to see.
Film Review - The Iron Claw
Sean Durkin’s The Iron Claw superbly avoids the pratfalls of biopic cliché and transforms the story of the Von Erich clan into a harrowing denunciation of toxic patriarchal masculinity masquerading as familial dynasty.
Film Review - The Holdovers
The Holdovers provides us with an inarguable Christmas Movie – despite its quintessentially-too-late Australian release date – that feels ready to be an instant classic.
Film Review - Ferrari
High octane thrills, chills and an (un)healthy dosage of familial anguish – Michael Mann’s Ferrari is an exhilarating portrait of a man whose complexity is shaped by a past scarred by immense grief.