Sydney Sweeney’s transformation from pin-up to boxing bod in prep for this role was made much of in the press. It’s unfortunately the only transformative thing about the role, which is more interested in the eighties styling and domestic abuse of a trailblazing real-life female boxer than her achievements in the ring. Though the coercive and abusive relationship at the heart of this poverty porn biopic is grubbily fascinating (a husband living through his wife’s success while also feeling emasculated by it), it makes a film about female glass-ceiling smashing ultimately about a man.
Warner Bros. Pictures
We first meet Christy as a scrappy teen amateur pugilist from Tennessee whose ferocity in the ring attracts the attention of a middle-aged local manager, Jim Martin (Ben Foster in an amazing comb-over wig). Jim briskly marries his young charge, devoting himself to getting her the same deals as her male counterparts. Now in her books as well as her bed, Jim can control Christy’s rising fortune, fame and friendships, a svengali in a shell suit. Though Martin was a truly astonishing fighter, gaining representation by Don King, lucrative prize fights and endorsements, and press coverage usually reserved for the gents, David Michôd’s film concentrates on the battles at home. Jim becomes jealous of his wife’s dalliance with a former girlfriend and of her financial clout, punching down physically and emotionally.
Sharing similarities with I, Tonya, Christy doesn’t offer the same internal life seen in Margot Robbie’s interpretation of a sportswoman from the wrong side of the tracks. While Sweeney gamely swings, she doesn’t always connect – her performance often marooned in ugly wigs and fashion. Martin’s conflicted sexuality is explored, but her future wife (played with real warmth by Katy O’Brian) is given short shrift. Foster has more success playing a toxic misogynist, imbuing the manager with gimlet-eyed, hair-trigger malevolence which manifests in a horrific incident that is genuinely shocking. Always excellent, he manages to make Jim’s self-pitying motivation plain and his mercurial monstrosity horribly plausible.
The story of ‘the coal miner’s daughter’ – as Martin was dubbed – is certainly fascinating, but audiences may want to do their own research on leaving the theatre. Christy is the title, but we learn little of her, only the outside forces that came to define her.
Pictures courtesy of Black Bear Pictures Christy is out in cinemas now
Based on Adam Mars-Jones’ novella, Box Hill, Harry Lighton’s Pillion might be about a BDSM relationship between a shy young man and biker – with butt plugs, rubber wear and orgy picnics – but it’s also a tender romance that leaves you with a sense of hope for love in all its manifestations. And with the Christmas setting, it’s a perfect cockle-warmer for the season.
Warner Bros. Pictures
Following Colin (Harry Melling) a meek traffic warden from Bromley who sings in a barber shop quartet with his dad, Pillion explores what happens when a gorgeous, statuesque biker (Alexander Skarsgård) muscles into his life and pushes his boundaries. They meet-cute: Colin has just harmonised in a pub with his singing pals when Ray, strapping and handsome in biking leathers, makes him pay for his round at the bar. Colin’s willingness to fork out for a bag of crisps denotes his suitability as Ray’s submissive and Ray tests it further by demanding a meet-up in a Bromley high street back alley a few days later. Sheltered Colin is thrilled to be unceremoniously pushed to his knees into a puddle to lick his paramour’s boots rather than go on a conventional date, learning he likes to be commanded. Ray moves on with his education by taking him home and ordering him to cook, sleep naked on the floor of his bedroom, wrestle and submit to sex…
Warner Bros. Pictures
That may sound exploitative or 50 Shades of Grey, but in the hands of Skarsgård and Melling the dom/sub dynamic is both sweet and funny. Though Ray is brusque, domineering and refuses to kiss, Colin finds his tribe in the BDSM community, his saucer eyes wide, a delighted smile on his face as he rides on the back of Ray’s bike, wears a heavy necklace like a choke chain and drapes himself over a picnic table in the woods for his lover’s use. His startled expressions at the things he’s asked to do and the politeness with which he obeys are fused with a giddy lust that ensures audiences feel assured of his empowerment, and part of the power play. That leads to comedic moments as Colin joins the biker gang (real life members of the LBGT+ group GMBCC) on a camping trip where he swaps sub stories with a fellow rubber-apron clad chap (Jake Shears) or takes Ray home for an awkward Sunday dinner with his nice, suburban parents (Lesley Sharp, Douglas Hodge).
Warner Bros. Pictures
Melling’s expressive face works in delicious counterpoint to Skarsgård’s inscrutable one – playing Ray as an enigma who doesn’t tell his lover his occupation or his true feelings. A moment where Ray gifts Colin a birthday present in a whisper and a gesture is played so delicately by both that it feels as heartwarming and joyous as any Richard Curtis romantic high. Equally, a scene in a cinema where power dynamics are inverted with a handful of popcorn plays as an emotional triumph.
Though it gives a window on the BDSM community, Pillion is much more interested in the way first love forms us, how it emboldens us, obsesses us and ultimately teaches us. And that makes it relatable, warm and feelgood – just with added lube, leather and latex.
Warner Bros. Pictures
Pictures courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures Pillionis in cinemas now
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Words by Jane Crowther
Greg Williams joins Rami Malek as he premieres Nuremberg in London, and considers the all-star acting relationships that create on-screen drama.
When Greg Williams’ meets Rami Malek as he prepares for the premiere of his latest film Nuremberg at Claridges in London, he tinkles the keys of the piano sitting in his suite. In his Valentino tux, he matches the keyboard. In his latest film the Oscar-winner plays US army psychiatrist Dr Douglas Kelley, a real-life shrink who assessed the Nazi leaders on trial in the titular city in 1945. Among his patients was Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe) and the conversations the two men have helped unravel Hitler’s high command and revealed the horrors of the Holocaust. It’s a film that shows in unblinking detail the footage of the liberation of the concentration camps and asks questions about how men can commit such diabolic acts. In a world currently in turmoil, Malek sees the modern-day echoes in the chain of events depicted on screen, and the themes the film explores.
‘What it reminds you is, this could happen at any time in history – history does repeat itself, and it will repeat itself. I think the lesson that hopefully people get is what we do when things like this happen in our world? Are we complicit? Are we silent? Is it a call to action? Do we speak up? For me, this film is a way of speaking up. It’s a reminder. Every time we’re screening the film, I’m getting notes from people who are saying, ‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t make it after. I had to wrestle with some things in my mind.’ I think that’s very meaningful. I love when things are entertaining, but I’m very proud of the message that this film tells. I’m really proud of it.’
Key to the film is the cat-and-mouse gameplay between Kelley and Göring. Malek had quite the scene partner in Crowe. ‘I absolutely loved working with Russell, because he’s a titan,’ he says as he walks through the hotel to a waiting car, ready to take him to Leicester Square for the premiere. ‘One would think that he could have a massive ego but he was very generous with me. After our first take, he came up to me, and he said, ‘You’re bringing more to this character than I had seen on the page’. He didn’t have to do that. And I couldn’t tell if that was him just, you know, playing into the character, of wanting to be a bit charming and intoxicating. Or if that was actually just Russell being Russell, and putting his guard down, and saying, ‘Hey, let’s jump into this together, because it’s a powerful story, and we want to bring our A-game’. And we did. There were moments where it was incredibly tense between the two of us. Each take was different. That’s what you expect from someone at his level. I think we just raised our game. We all knew we had to.’
I absolutely loved working with Russell, because he’s a titan, one would think that he could have a massive ego but he was very generous with me. After our first take, he came up to me, and he said, “You’re bringing more to this character than I had seen on the page.” He didn’t have to do that
Malek takes a spin in the hotel’s revolving door for fun before making it to the car. Once settled in the back seat he recalls working with Leo Woodall, co-starring as a German interpreter with hidden secrets. ‘James Vanderbilt, our director, wanted us to meet because we were going to spend so much time together. It started with a lot of banter. I was able to take the piss with him – back and forth, you know, as a Brit. But I quickly realised that we were going to get along very well, and we did. We had each other’s backs through every moment. He has this effortless charm.’ Also on-board, Michael Shannon, playing supreme court justice, Robert Jackson. ‘Shannon and I have known each other for years, so that was an easy relationship to spring back into. He works so damn hard. He loves what he does to a degree that I wonder if there’s another actor who appreciates acting as much as he does. But he is one of the funniest people I’ve also come across. No one expects it, but he’s got this dry wit and charm. And I think he should have his own stand-up routine.’ Despite personal admiration and friendships, each working relationship with each actor was different.
‘Russell could easily, in between takes, jump into a story about him visiting the Sistine Chapel, and them treating him as if he was Maximus, and we’d all be laughing. You’d get those great moments of charm, and that would, in a way, affect how we all related to him as Hermann Göring. You could see how someone could be so charming, even sitting across from him in that uniform. And it would remind you that evil doesn’t just get disguised as a certain uniform or a certain belief system. And then, in contrast, as funny as Shannon is, I know to leave him alone between takes. I have a sense that he wants to be in his personal space. You give that actor their space. And then you come in and bring something new to each take, which he did every time we were together. With Leo, we were able to joke around quite a bit because of the nature of our relationship. But then he ended up showing up to a surprise birthday party of mine, and you realise that relationship is going to continue for quite some time.’
With its subject matter, stellar cast and handsome production values, Nuremberg has something of an old-fashioned quality about it that recalls Kelly’s Heroes or A Bridge Too Far. Malek agrees that it’s the sort of film, in an established-IP landscape, that doesn’t get made very often these days. ‘Oppenheimer, on paper, is a film that shouldn’t be made, but was. That’s the same casting director we had – John Papsidera – who has assembled all of these great actors together. I think when you have people who gravitate to it from the acting perspective we had on board, but also designers – Eve Stewart, who’s an Academy award-winning production designer, cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, who has done all of Ridley Scott’s movies and the Pirates of the Caribbean films…. you get a sense that the film is timely, urgent.
These people could go and be doing anything at this point. The reason that they chose this is because it had something special behind it. We’ve heard of the Nuremberg trials, but we didn’t know that this relationship existed between a psychiatrist, who was charged with discovering if these 22 Nazis were fit for trial. And that’s fascinating in and of itself.’
Malek was moved by the history of the project himself. ‘There are moments when we’re watching the footage of the atrocity in that courtroom. It was played for us for the first time. It’s gut-wrenching. James Vanderbilt built the film like a thriller, and then he gives you this gut-punch as well. I find it odd to use the word, with Nuremberg, “entertaining”. That might sound like a very strange juxtaposition, but it exists, and I think that’s what makes this film especially powerful.’
As the car approached the red carpet on Leicester Square, Malek admits he still gets excited stepping out into the glare of the spotlight, amid crowds of shouting fans and media, despite having debuted numerous films in the city. ‘I used to get nervous. I’ve now found a way to just chill out. Have a nice bath, a cup of tea. But it’s exciting. I’ll find this moment – as we’re about to step out of this vehicle into all of the madness – I will find the joy in it.’ He looks at the crowds waving pictures to sign and chanting his name. ‘There’s a lot of love…’
Photographs by GREG WILLIAMS Words by JANE CROWTHER
Broadway adap Wicked was a commercial and critical success last year – buoying the box office with its green vs pink frenemy saga of two teen witches who take different paths when exposed to the hypocrisy of the wizard of Oz. The sequel is much anticipated as the love triangle and Ozian battle for hearts/minds comes to a head and frankly, it matters not whether it’s actually any good, such is the devotion of its fanbase. Plus, as Christmas season movies go, For Good has a lot going for it – colour-pop everything, big tunes and four-quantdrant appeal.
Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures
Having been separated by their differing ideology, ‘good’ witch Glinda (Ariana Grande) and ‘bad’ witch Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) spend this adventure coming to terms with being on the right side of history and ousting a narcissistic, corrupt and manipulative leader. The Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and his media maven Madam Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) have been hoodwinking the citizens of Oz and while Elphaba is already riding high (literally, on her broom) against him, Glinda and her fiance Prince Fiyero (current sexiest man alive, Jonathan Bailey) are slowly coming around. And when that pesky farmgirl, Dorothy, arrives, war ensues. The truth is lost amid the chaos…
Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures
Exploring themes of integrity, identity and friendship, For Good boasts more bold Nathan Crowley sets, Paul Tazewell costumes and big musical numbers, but fewer banger songs. Missing crowd pleasers like ‘Popular’ and ‘Defying Gravity’, part two feels more drawn out than its predecessor, relying on the chemistry of its stars to do the heavy lifting. Luckily, Bailey and Erivo manage to hold attention with an illicit love affair that drives the film to its ‘melting’ conclusion with more passion than the BFF thread between the witches. Their steamy pre-coitus ditty As Long As You’re Mine delivers feels and a taste of reality amid the emerald vistas and flying monkeys. Erivo creates real pathos with Elphaba, while Grande struggles to make vapid Glinda sympathetic, despite sterling efforts. Even Colman Domingo, as a CGI Cowardly Lion, fails to make much of a dent. Despite knowing where this tale will ultimately end (as dictated by Victor Fleming’s 1939 tale), For Good takes its sweet time to arrive at it, then rushes the iconic moment with the bucket.
That said, those who’ve already bought into the silver-slippered allure of this world should be content with more rainbow eye candy. It will certainly bring in the green.
Giles Keyte/Universal Pictures
Pictures courtesy of Universal Pictures Wicked: For Good is in cinemas now
It’s been over a decade since Robin Hood magician Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), mind-reader Merritt (Woody Harrelson), card shark Jack (Dave Franco), and escapologist Henley (Isla Fisher) got together as ‘The Horsemen’ to use their illusions and tricks to teach bad guys a lesson. Summoned by mysterious society, The Eye, the Horsemen are brought together with a new pack of young magicians to chase a McGuffin diamond around Europe and try to break the icy composure of South Africa mine owner Veronica Vanderberg (Rosamund Pike).
Katalin Vermes/Lionsgate
The new crew are played by Dominic Sessa, Ariana Greenblatt and Justice Smith but their MO is familiar. They like to sleight-of-hand steal fortunes from toxic tech bros and redistribute to their Gen Z audience via a series of fancy rabbit-out-the-hat stunts. On the trail of Vanderberg’s dirty arms money and fabulous gowns, the gang pitch up in Antwerp then find themselves in a fun house of illusion in Normandy, before private jetting to the Middle East for F1 shenanigans (one of them clearly has an expense account).
Katalin Vermes/LionsgateKatalin Vermes/Lionsgate
There’s a third reel reveal that can be guessed a mile off, a cameo from Morgan Freeman and a number of daft ‘magic’ tricks that impress on presentation rather than plausibility. For those seeking a perfect ‘second screening’ experience (the ability of a film to bring an audience along even if they’re simultaneously scrolling on another device), Now You See Me 3 provides constant exposition and a likable tongue-in-cheek vibe from a cast who clearly enjoyed reuniting. Newbie Pike is delicious as a foe, with an Afrikaans accent as clear-cut as her gems and haircut. She imperiously sells the Bond-lite energy almost singlehandedly, as one might expect from the former Miranda Frost.
Katalin Vermes/Lionsgate
In light of a recent real-life heist at the Louvre, it’s perhaps easier to suspend disbelief as the team lift the world’s largest diamond with some misdirection and costume changes. But the best magic tricks are those performed cinematically; fun fisticuffs in a forced perspective room, the incantation to Talladega Nights’ Ricky Bobby during a car chase, a pleasingly silly deception involving a lorry and a fog machine… Logic should be abandoned by all who enter, but for those looking for an amiable throwback romp, this threequel is diverting enough. But the success of the illusion relies on an audience not questioning the mechanics too robustly.
They say you can’t reinvent the wheel, but Dan Trachtenberg seems able to find new and nimble ways to revisit the Predator franchise after Prey and Killer of Killers – his latest, a surprisingly funny and heartfelt entry. The killing machine alien and apex predator, a Yautja of the Badlands, may have all the horrific accouterments of Schwarzenegger’s original (double mandibles, an impressive arsenal, a relentless bloodlust) but the tables are turned on both him and audiences as the hunter becomes the prey, the baddie becomes the goodie.
20th Century Studios
We meet Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) as a young Yautja warrior trying to earn his invisibility cloak and tribal respect from an unyielding father who thinks him a runt. Forced to prove his worth he’s sent to the inhospitable planet of Genna where every animal and plant kills, and the ultimate trophy awaits slaying: the ‘unkillable’ Kalisk. That’s if he can get to the monster on a planet where flora shoots anesthesia darts, tree vines are murderous and even the grass is razor sharp. What a floundering Dek might need is a buddy. And he finds two in chattering severed robot, Thia (Elle Fanning), who’s lost her legs but not her tongue, and a spitting blue simian-esque creature with cute eyes and an instant devotion to the alpha alien. Together they create a misfit gang who, via a series of eye-popping misadventures, take the piss out of each other and learn about honour, wolf pack analogies and that family isn’t necessarily the one you’re born to. Touching on themes of colonial plundering, parental toxicity and AI, Badlands serves up a more human and humane predator than we’ve seen before.
20th Century Studios20th Century Studios
Franchise purists might be apoplectic over the idea of a softer, caring protagonist, but there’s no shortage of badass action, cool tech, inventive slayings and CGI wonderment as Dek goes on a true ‘hero’s journey’. And despite having a face full of fangs and only speaking in grunts (made understandable by Thia’s translator capability and subtitles), murder-fuelled Dek becomes a fully rounded character who elicits compassion. It’s the equivalent magic trick of making audiences shed a tear for The Terminator in Cameron’s second outing. Dek’s interactions with Genna are also made amusing courtesy of Fanning’s perky performance and smart narrative beats that leave space amid the propulsive set pieces. It’s fun, funny and fresh – things we haven’t been able to say about this film collection in the slump before Trachtenberg got his hands on it. It bodes well for what he might do next…
20th Century Studios
Words by JANE CROWTHER Pictures courtesy of 20th Century Studios Predator: Badlands is in cinemas now
Clint Bentley co-wrote Sing Sing and his adaptation (with Greg Kwedar) of Denis Johnson’s 2011 novella is just as heartfelt, gem-like and profound – the seemingly specific experiences of American men rendered universal in their poetic handling. Taking Johnson’s slim but gorgeous prose and building out to a treatise on grief, memory, time, the unstoppable march of progress and mankind’s mark on the world, Train Dreams is a haunting, spellbinding experience that recalls the dreaminess of Malick and asks the audience to leave the theatre newly appreciating the beauty of the small things in life.
Netflix
Opening in the Pacific Northwest in the early 20th century with a sonorous voiceover narrated by Will Patton (like a meditation in itself), we meet lumberjack Robert Grainer (Joel Edgerton), a quiet man who goes where the work is. That takes him through cathedral groves of ancient forests, felling trees and building bridges to accommodate the railroad that will change the continent. It’s a hard life – poorly paid, hard graft and laced with death and racism – but one that blooms with the arrival of Gladys (Felicity Jones, luminous) into his life. A vibrant, capable woman who sees the interior story of this stoic man, Gladys provides happiness and a joyous filter on the world so that Robert can see its wonder. As the couple build an idyllic cabin together and welcome a baby, Robert has an anchoring home to return to from his nomadic labouring.
Netflix
When he’s away he pines for his family and begins to appreciate people and places anew; Arn (William H Macy) the explosives expert who acknowledges the majesty of the trees the men work among, a religious chatterbox (Paul Schneider) whose background isn’t as virtuous as his bible quotes, the nameless men crushed like ants beneath falling logs, their boots left nailed to trunks as proof of their existence. And it’s this opening of his heart that fells him when tragedy occurs, forcing him to take solace in nature, the compassion of a Native American man (Nathaniel Arcand), the companionship of dogs and the resilient outlook of a forestry fire warden (Kerry Condon) who has returned from nursing duties in WW1. As technology advances, as man lands on the moon and as his particular way of life disappears, Robert moves through life nursing pain as evidence of love, of life.
Netflix
Breathtakingly lensed by Adolpho Veloso using natural light, Robert’s seemingly unremarkable life becomes extraordinary – a man forgotten in the footnotes of history turned heroic figure. Damp forests shiver in the breeze, sunsets glow over babbling brooks, a humble chicken supper glows in candlelight, a train tunnel frames a tableaux that could be out of a painting… tracking Robert through his world. His capacity to yearn is clear in the cabin he builds and which is eventually subsumed back into the forest, the biplane he whimsically takes as an older man exhibits an ability to continue to grow, observe, persevere, like the trees around him. Though Robert doesn’t say much, Edgerton imbues him with such rich inner life that his homespun experiences feel complex, divine, intense. And though very much set in a specific, vanished time, they feel resonant. Covering themes of racism, immigration, deforestation, environmentalism, Train Dreams feels both intimate and global – a film like its lead character; deceptively simple but teeming with life, ideas and, ultimately, hope. By the time Nick Cave is singing plaintively on the end credits audiences will want to hug their loved ones (and a tree) a little closer.
Netflix
Words by JANE CROWTHER Pictures courtesy of NETFLIX Train Dreamsis in cinemas now and on Netflix from 21 November
Nia DaCosta puts a new spin on Ibsen’s classic Hedda Gabler by shifting the action from 19th-century Oslo to a sprawling country pile in 1950s England where the titular wife of an academic (Tessa Thompson, with a clipped accent of disdain) throws a house party – impulsively inviting a friend, Eileen (Nina Hoss) who, it transpires, is her ex-lover. ‘Hedda loves to eat out,’ one party wag announces tartly when discussing the dinners the newlyweds have enjoyed on their lavish honeymoon.
Amazon MGM Studios
Eileen is a scholar and rival to Hedda’s hubby George (Tom Bateman), and arrives at the soirée touting the manuscript of her new book, a barely controlled drinking problem and a new love interest (Imogen Poots). If the book is published, Eileen will eclipse George and threaten the precarious life the Gablers share, one party away from not affording their affluent lifestyle and in need of a professorial job which will be bestowed by another party guest, Professor Greenwood (Finbar Lynch). To assure her sexual dominance, social standing and financial security all Hedda needs to do is manipulate her guests during one bacchanalian night of boozing, dancing, skinny-dipping and gun-play…
Amazon MGM Studios
DaCosta’s decision to bring the party described in the play into the forefront of the action is a dramatic improvement, giving this adap a danger and kineticism as Sean Bobbitt’s camera glides from room to room, out into garden mazes, up staircases to whispered power negotiation and to a lake as dark as the secrets of the players.
Amazon MGM Studios
Like a Gatsby party unravelling in real time, relationships are tested, rage and jealousy boils and sex simmers – while the band plays on and chandeliers crash to the floor. At the heart of it all is Thompson in a fabulous dress; sardonic, feral, cruel. It’s an imperious performance that will likely garner noms chatter as well as dislike, while an ambiguous ending change might enrage purists. But for audiences looking for a fresh take on a classic – and one which teases feminism, equality and sexuality from a well-worn text – Hedda is a party invite worth taking up.
Amazon MGM Studios
Words by JANE CROWTHER Pictures courtesy of AMAZON MGM STUDIOS Hedda is in cinemas now
Tourette’s Syndrome is often misunderstood as merely cursing – and I Swear gives plenty of that to comedic effect. But as a study of a debilitating and socially ostracising condition it’s also loaded with compassion, serving as both a useful educational tool and a feelgood Brit film with the social conscience DNA of The Full Monty or Billy Elliot.
Graeme Hunter/StudioCanal
Following the story of Galashiels local John Davidson (Robert Aramayo) as he looks back on his life from an MBE ceremony (where he tells the Queen to F-off), the film charts his difficult journey from developing uncontrollable tics as an 80s teen (Scott Ellis Watson) in an unforgiving school, through an adolescence marked by parental disdain and dust-ups with people taking offence at his outbursts. By the time he’s a young man (now played by Rings of Power’s Aramayo), his prospects of getting a job, friends or a life look bleak. But when he meets a mental health nurse, Dottie (Maxine Peake) and the gruff caretaker of a community centre, Tommy (Peter Mullan), John gets the love and respect he needs to forge a path to becoming a leader in the Tourette’s community and a campaigner for greater understanding. Along the way he’ll suffer false arrest, assault and cruelty, as well as moments that restore a belief in humanity.
Graeme Hunter/StudioCanal
If that sounds dry, it isn’t. Though the script by writer/director Kirk Jones aims to enlighten, there’s inescapable fun to be had in tracking John’s misadventures. Aramayo is supremely charming as a cheeky chap who involuntarily shouts his innermost thoughts, spits food and punches people while also apologising profusely. The hurt in his eyes is as readable as the bravura of his posturing, and his delivery of the tics that mark his condition feels authentic. The resigned dismay on his face as he’s shouting ‘I’m a pedophile!’ or ‘spunk for milk!’ while making a cuppa (and worse) is both undeniably funny and heartbreaking.
Graeme Hunter/StudioCanal
He’s surrounded by similarly excellent performances; Peake is warmth incarnate while Shirley Henderson (as John’s cold Mum) is brilliantly brittle. Very nearly stealing the show, Mullan essays patience and no-nonsense kindness that is a delight to watch. Along the way audiences may learn something – not only about Tourette’s, but also about the resilience and magnificent power for empathy of people. In our current dark times, that feels like a gift at the cinema. It’s also got a banging soundtrack and is likely to figure in the BAFTA shortlist come February. So worth getting a F-ing ticket…
Graeme Hunter/StudioCanal
Words by JANE CROWTHER Pictures courtesy of STUDIOCANAL I Swearis in cinemas now
