Screening Room

June 10, 2026

Words by JANE CROWTHER

If Artemis’ recent moon mission has taught us anything, it’s that humans are still capable of wonder at our universe. In a world of bin fire news headlines, war and polarisation, a global community was awed by the possibility and unknown of the endless stars, shared common ground in curiosity of, and appreciation for, the magnitude of our galaxy. Steven Spielberg’s latest foray into sci-fi leans hard into what unites us as a race, rather than what divides us – exploring the possibility of aliens and UAPs through a lens of compassion and empathy, tapping into his ET toolbag more than that of War of the Worlds.

Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo — Niko Tavernise/Universal Pictures/Amblin Entertainment

Based on a story crafted by Spielberg and screenwritten by his longtime collaborator David Koepp (who’s penned genre stablemates Jurassic Park, War of The Worlds and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for the director), Disclosure Day asks not if other life exists, but rather what happens if we have proof of it. As a spiritual sequel to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the filmmaker wants to unpack what evidence of not being alone does to humanity; emotionally, politically, theologically. His tale centres on four key players: maths genius and cyber security expert Daniel (Josh O’Conner) who is on the run with a smoking gun backpack, TV weather reporter Margaret (Emily Blunt), whose morning meeting with a Red Cardinal bird gives her incredible empath powers, whistleblower mastermind Hugo (Colman Domingo) and Daniel’s girlfriend and former novice nun, Jane (Eve Hewson).

In a ticking-clock espionage drama, the four are chased as they attempt to reveal the truth of alien life by Big Bad, Scanlon (Colin Firth), the turtleneck-wearing head of WARDEX, a shadowy government consultancy outfit who have kept the public in the dark about visitations from other planets since Roswell in 1947. All have pasts that have shaped their ideology, and will clash during a 48-hour period when the top story on rolling news is the possibility of war with Korea as people panic-buy and faith is tested.

As an addition to Spielberg’s sci-fi canon, Disclosure Day feels like a director operating at the top of his emotional game and playfully referencing his previous work, tracking clear lines of fascination all the way back to his teenage-made Super 8 movie, Firelight (revisited in The Fabelmans). Some of the lensing and lighting is evocative or ET and Close Encounters, John Williams’ score is deja vu in orchestral soar, there’s a motel called Inn-Di-Ana, Scanlon’s arc recalls Keys from ET, a heart-pounding train sequence is reminiscent of both Duel and Spielberg’s grand obsession with The Greatest Show on Earth…

As a storyteller who has dominated most audience members’ cinematic history, that adds to the warmth of this tale, the idea of shared experience and emotional pull. Spielberg has already succeeded in making generations feel for a stranded alien and he creates the same magic trick again, frontloading his picture with top-drawer action and intrigue before walloping with tear-inducing sequences of human cruelty, solidarity, heroism and ultimately, affinity. Aspects of that could be criticised as soft-pedalling the realities of our species’ nature, but this is a film that positions itself firmly within hope, optimism and fellowship – misanthropes may struggle.

Key to that emotional register are Spielberg’s players – strongest among them, Blunt and Domingo, who may be on the awards train as well the one hurtling through Maryland in that high-octane action segment. Domingo emanates empathy and elegance as a melodious missionary, intent on providing clarity to the world while also understanding the terror inherent in that. Blunt, so often sidelined in roles as a wife/girlfriend, finally gets her big moment as a powerful woman fighting darkness through communication. Those getting the stories out in the newsroom (a key scene was filmed at NBC’s news studios in Rockefeller Plaza using real TV journalists) also adds heft and messaging about the importance of impartial reportage and truth seeking in a world of ‘alternative facts’ and partisan coverage. It’s a film that believes in our ability to be better and – in entertaining us with what-ifs – asks us if we can be.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Images courtesy of UNIVERSAL PICTURES/AMBLIN ENTERTAINMENT
Disclosure Day is in cinemas now

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE

June 3, 2026

Words by MATT MAYTUM

Barbie for boys? That’s one way of looking at this reboot of Mattel’s ’80s dominating toy line. In the original stories and cartoons – which previously received the live-action treatment in a Dolph Lundgren-fronted film from 1987 – Prince Adam hailed from the fantasyland of Eternia, where he was heir to Castle Grayskull. By wielding the Power Sword and chanting his famous catchphrase (‘By the power of Grayskull… I have the power!’), Adam would transform into the super-strong He-Man and do battle with his enemy Skeletor, a hench, skull-faced sorcerer as archetypally evil as He-Man was heroic.

Nicholas Galitzine, Jared Leto, Camila Mendes, Alison Brie, Idris Elba, Travis Knight — Giles Keyte/Sony Pictures Releasing

Directed by Travis Knight – who knows his way around an ’80s-inflected, toy-inspired blockbuster thanks to his work on Bumblebee, comfortably the best live-action Transformers movie – this latest incarnation Masters of the Universe has a deep affection for its source. But while MOTU ’26 delivers fan service aplenty, it’s also smart enough to know that you can’t just make a straight-faced romp out of this material, stuffing in Thor: Ragnarok levels of gags, self-mockery and near-the-knuckle rudeness into a solid quest narrative that’s on a par with a decent Marvel character intro.

In this mercifully ungritty take, Adam (Nicholas Galitzine, possessing the bulging biceps and self-aware humour the role requires) is spirited away to Earth as a kid, to keep him safe when Skeletor (Jared Leto) attacks. Years later, he’s working an HR office job – the source of plenty of yuks, not least the pronoun-bearing nameplate on his desk – but hasn’t forgotten about Eternia, and is desperate to find his missing sword and return. The path to reclaiming his homeland is littered with action set-pieces, as old pal and potential love interest Teela (Camila Mendes) brings him back to a very different Eternia.

It’s heaps of fun, and anyone who grew up with the franchise and will get a bonus nostalgia boost out of the sheer number of familiar faces here (and that’s before you even get to the three post credit stings). MOTU doesn’t shy away from some of the sillier supporting characters from the series’ history – Beast Man, Trap Jaw, Mekaneck and Fisto all get a look in – and Skeletor hams it up in all his cartoonish glory. You’d struggle to guess that he’s played by Leto, as his face is replaced with a CGI skull, and his boomingly camp voice is unrecognisable. But like much of the rest of the film he remains true to the spirit of the animated series while being transplanted onto a big-budget blockbuster backdrop. Supporting turns from the likes of Idris Elba (as Adam’s mentor Duncan, AKA Man-At-Arms) and Alison Brie (as Skeletor’s right-hand-woman Evil-Lyn) add some good-value gravitas, with everyone on the same page about what film they’re making.

If the narrative arc is basic, and a bit familiar to anyone well versed in contemporary superhero movies, it’s still easy to get swept along thanks to the brightly coloured world, game performances, and the absolutely rocking score by Project Hail Mary’s Daniel Pemberton, who brings in Queen legend Brian May on guitar duties. The Flash Gordon inspiration is clear and it’s an apt accompaniment to the film’s action-figure playset energy. If it’s not quite as philosophical and subversive as Barbie, it still manages to add some depth to a cartoon hero predominantly known for his magically bestowed super-strength, and – whisper it – it’ll actually be more satisfying for viewers in the age range that still play with toys than Barbie was. If MOTU is not quite masterful, it has the power where it counts.

Words by MATT MAYTUM
Images courtesy of SONY PICTURES RELEASING
Masters of the Universe is in cinemas now

Screening Room

MOSS & FREUD

May 29, 2026

Words by JANE CROWTHER

‘Never complain, never explain’ is a maxim Kate Moss legendarily lives by, but as exec-producer on this semi-biopic, she attempts to do some explaining on the May-December relationship of the supermodel and painter Lucian Freud during the months in which she sat for him for a portrait. We meet Moss (Ellie Bamber) smoking and speeding at the wheel of her vintage MBG in 2002, a supermodel and it-girl who is seeking some sort of enlightenment in an endless carousel of photo shoots, catwalks and club nights. When her friend Bella Freud suggests her artist father would like to meet with the possibility of painting her, Moss arrives at the National Portrait Gallery after an all-nighter, strutting the gallery and smoking her trademark cigarette. (Moss had said in a Dazed & Confused interview that she yearned to be captured by him). Charmed by Kate, Freud (Derek Jacobi) suggests she sit for him three nights a week for as long as it takes to finish the painting. Despite her misgivings over the amount of time it requires, Moss chooses to sit nude and the duo begin a conversation over the easel that unwinds over several months. Their unusual relationship lasted for the remainder of his lifetime.

Writer-director James Lucas explores fame, persona and creativity as Moss is habitually late and incenses Freud, they discuss his past lovers, she seeks to be truly ‘seen’. The painter is enchanted by her – possibly in love with her – and Moss comes to view Freud as the truth-teller in her life. In limiting the time-scale to the life cycle of the portrait (which is later sold for £3.9million), Moss & Freud charts a tumultuous time in the supermodel’s life as she meets Jefferson Hack and becomes pregnant with her daughter. It probably should feel more pop culture than it does, possibly because of the involvement of both parties (Freud’s estate helped produce). That makes for a somewhat toothless character study of either cultural icon. Both feel less vibrant and more conventional than their well-known profiles – perhaps the reality, or the result of careful curation. We learn that the duo smoked opium and discussed truth, image and artistic ownership – and how/why Freud tattooed Kate, but it feels somewhat sanitised.

That said, Ellie Bamber nails the idiolect of Moss – particularly her laugh – and body language, delivering a fully believable performance. She was cast with the blessing of the model to play her and the choice pays off. She brings Moss to intriguing life beneath a selection of wigs and well known fashion looks. She delivers real vulnerability to a public figure who has always maintained a purposeful distance from her audience. This film will continue that trend.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Images courtesy of CORNERSTONE FILMS
Moss & Freud is out in cinemas now

Screening Room

JOHN LENNON: THE LAST INTERVIEW

May 20, 2026

Words by JANE CROWTHER

The 8th December 1980 is a grim date for Lennon fans – it’s known that the former Beatle was gunned down by Mark Chapman outside his apartment in New York’s Dakota Building. What is less known is the free-wheeling interview he gave to a radio team from San Francisco in the hours before. Having just made Double Fantasy with his wife, Yoko Ono, after a step back from the spotlight to become a house husband and dad to his son Sean, Lennon was full of renewed creativity and opinions on everything from masculinity, politics and childcare to fame, legacy and artistry. Intro by the team who interviewed Lennon aside, Steven Soderbergh has taken that audio interview and laid it out in all its prescient, charming, time-capsule glory.

John Lennon, Steven Soderbergh, Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon

Despite the interviewers being warned that Lennon should not be asked about the Beatles or his past, he’s an open subject – volunteering memories of meeting and gelling with McCartney, delving into his first date with Yoko (‘we didn’t make love’) and discussing his party boy era. It’s unusual to hear such a huge star talk in such an unfiltered and personal way, and feels like a true window into the person behind the personality. Also on the table for discussion: the pro and cons of global fame, the public hatred of Yoko, trying to keep your kid off sugar and marketing, the daily schedule of a creative couple and why celebrities are so inclined to join cults and movements. Intelligent, informed and disarmingly self-aware, Lennon is an entertaining orator and in many ways, ahead of his time in his thoughts on working-from-home, ally-ship, Totalitarian governments and polarised politics.

Yoko is equally fascinating, heard at the beginning of the interview but rarely later, despite having insight into a phenomenon that still continues: the particular public punishment of women. It’s clear she and John had a magnetic attraction, understanding and partnership – yet she is sidelined fast, whether by the interviewers at the time or by Soderbergh’s editing. It’s also a shame that the personal photos and footage of both of them run out towards the end of the film to be replaced by AI slop, something it feels likely hand-on creative Lennon would not have been into.

Still, as a film that captures a cultural icon at a crossroads in his life when he felt he was on the cusp of transformation, it’s both sad and celebratory. Lennon had achieved so much before that December morning and felt that he was about to embark on a new phase of prodigious songwriting, instead his potential was extinguished by someone else. It’s a Sliding Doors interview: had he planned a different day after his chat instead of heading out of the door, what might we have seen from him? As a historical record of a mobius strip moment it’s an intrigue.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Images courtesy of MISHPOOKAH ENTERTAINMENT GROUP
John Lennon: The Last Interview premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival

Screening Room

CLUB KID

May 18, 2026

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Jordan Firstman is a knowingly bratty, provocative presence on social media and one might expect his first film to debut at Cannes to be a baiting, meta, Marmite affair that courts controversy. What’s unexpected is that his queer, specific take on Chaplin’s The Kid is universal, warm, funny and full of soulful hope. Like Anora (also produced by Alex Coco), Club Kid transcends its sweary, druggy NSFW settings with vibrant characters and hell-for-leather performances. One doesn’t have to know what being grundled is or the details of Clare Danes’ connection to the Philippines (though ‘normies’ will learn) to understand or fall for it.

Firstman is front and centre as New York party promoter Peter, who enjoys his events as much as his punters. Collabing with party girl Sophie (Cara Delevingne, excellent), Peter gets the right people, and drugs, in a room – and he does all of them. An intoxicating pre-title sequence literally tags us along for this ride, starting with an Uber ride and descending to the strobing rooms and glitter cannons of Club Labor. For a decade, he exists in a blur of MDMA, GBH, coke and sex, until Sophie tires of his chaos and a figure from his drug-hazed past arrives on his doorstep with the product of an orgiastic night in tow; a 10 year-old British kid, Arlo (Reggie Absalom). Like Three Men and A Baby but with more queens, fisting chat and inappropriate slogan tees, Peter must learn to be a father and, in the process, learn the value of a created family.

That sweet through-line is constantly juxtaposed with salty bitching, inventive swearing and laugh-out-loud moments (a dairy intolerance vomit, the unlikely May-December romance between Peter’s houseguest and the OAP downstairs, a UK lawyer who likes Drag Race). And paternal love isn’t the only tenderness nurtured. In trying to gel with Arlo, Peter meets child psychologist Oscar (Diego Calva, emitting pure warmth) and discovers a relationship doesn’t have to be limited to one night stands. The two men have incendiary chemistry; a fizzy moment where they decide not to kiss in Central Park is magic while Oscar’s embrace at a point of emotional turbulence for Peter will prompt tears. There’s also strong solidarity from Peter’s ‘freak’ friends group which is heartwarming to watch; especially DJ Saffron (Saturn Risin9) who teaches Arlo the decks and his ex Devon (Nigil Whyte) who mixes parental advice with sex suggestions. Even bitchy coke queen Sophie operates with a morality code, albeit one of being strung out around the clock.

Club Kid may open a window of a super cool NY community (and their slang) but it also has something to say about Peter Pan lifestyles and responsible parenting, there’s a moving earnestness at play amid the snark. And though Arlo seems something of a fantasy child (he’s not messed up by a family tragedy, accepts Peter immediately and is just so damn cute), the lack of character depth here can be excused by the authenticity elsewhere. Sincere, saucy and loaded with tunes (from Rihanna to Ethel Cain), Firstman’s film was understandably snapped up at Cannes. Like last year’s Pillion, this is a filthy-gorgeous crowd-pleaser with immense heart.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Image courtesy of A24
Club Kid premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival

Screening Room

FATHERLAND

May 15, 2026

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Paweł Pawlikowski’s latest film is beautifully calibrated and poignant – and proof that running times do not need to be bombastic to tell a profound story. In just 82 minutes, Fatherland explores big themes of art and legacy while also teasing out conversation points of parental overshadowing, national identity and the small things that break a dam of contained grief. Sumptuous monochrome and academy ratio, it’s a period piece with plenty to say about the 21st century, and a cinematic treat that demands big screen viewing – with the drama of screen curtains closing to accommodate its pleasingly old-school format.

Sandra Hüller, Hanns Zischler, August Diehl — Mubi

It opens with a phone call between siblings; depressed Klaus (August Diehl) and pragmatic Erika (Sandra Hüller), the adult children of celebrated German writer and egghead, Thomas Mann. Erika wants Klaus to attend a trip their father is about to embark on, Klaus is unsure. The rest of the film tracks the trip in question as Mann (Hanns Zischler) returns to his homeland in 1949 to receive two awards for his work, after fleeing the nation for America during WWII. Erika is his helpmeet; driver, translator, secretary, publicist, stylist. As the duo travel between destroyed Frankfurt and the Weimar communist sector, family tragedy reshapes their experience and their relationship.

Though this ostensibly is a story of a male genius (Mann is a Nobel prizewinner and intellectual), the real focus is Erika, a formidably accomplished woman whose calm calculation snaps during a sharp conversation with a Nazi actor during a party and when drunk former soldiers carouse outside her window. Though she is fluent in multiple languages, a writer and a former actor, her most powerful act comes in gently taking the hand of an old man struggling to process his feelings or forgive himself for narcissism. Though the whole cast is excellent, Hüller is exemplary. The way she holds a cigarette informs an audience, just as the micro twist of her mouth betrays the feelings she doesn’t give voice to. And the recreation of a destroyed post-war Germany is like dreamlike time-travel. Every shot is gorgeous, but a couple of sequences of the Manns driving through bombed, shattered streets and along East German lanes feel like historical gems liberated from long lost archives.

While Mann talks loftily of art and what society should look like, the parallels between a fledgling East German tightening control via autocracy and a Trump-era America are easily found. Recognisable too are the concepts of being on the right side of history and the way that art can illuminate and soothe. Whether a Bach fan or not, the moment one of his pieces plays in a devastated building, is a haunting, healing moment of hope. It transports, just as Pawlikowski’s movie does.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Images courtesy of MUBI
Fatherland premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival

Screening Room

TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA

May 14, 2026

Words by JANE CROWTHER

I Saw The TV Glow creator, Jane Schoenbrun, returns with another zeitgeisty future-cult exploring fandom and the blur between art and life – bowing at Cannes in a gush of blood and fried chicken dipping sauce. Taking place in a world where eighties slasher franchise Camp Miasma exists (a seven-picture series that is realised nostalgically and brilliantly in a bang-on credit sequence), Sundance darling, Kris (Hacks’ Hannah Einbinder) is asked to bring her woke smarts to rebooting the artistically zeroed but still monetisable brand. Or as the constantly reanimated series is described by her, ‘zombie IP’.

Gillian Anderson, Hannah Einbinder, Jack Haven, Jane Schoenbrun — Ryan Plummer/Plan B Entertainment

A director with ideas about the intersection of queerness and cultural monstrosity in horror – this one has a murderer who rises from the lake at the teen camp wearing a vent hood to terrorise nubile, scantily clad girls with a spear – Kris arranges to meet with the original final girl of the franchise, Billy (Gillian Anderson). A Norma Desmond-esque recluse who lives at the location used in the first film, Billy has a Southern accent that drips like molasses from her scarlet lips and a penchant for fried chicken. Swishing around her trapped-in-time house in sexy peignoirs or Hitchcock Blonde hats, she is alluring to Kris, a queer ‘pip squeak’ who is disassociated from her own desire in bed. Kris is seduced by the idea that Billy reached the most exquisite orgasm of her life while viewing herself as both killer and victim during filming. In accessing the male gaze of the lake-dwelling murderer, known as ‘Little Death’ (he evokes post-coital ‘petit mort’, geddit?), Billy has stepped into her power and a liminal space where art/reality fuse. Do the movies create Little Death or does he create the movies? And just how much fake blood can spew from beheaded and impaled bodies?

Schoenbrun has recently transitioned and while their psychosexual dark comedy horror sharply analyses the idea of gender dysmorphia via horror tropes, it also dismantles the libidinal and misogynistic aspects of slasher films by inviting audiences to consider why we are so often asked to root for female victims while also given the POV of their male predators. But those are only two aspects of a film loaded with concepts to consider on multiple views. The impact of porn (also a VHS boom industry) on female eroticism, the exploration of consent and the numerous sly nods to cinematic iconography are also offered for the unpacking.

But even if you don’t want to parse it, Camp Miasma, offers a fun time at the flicks. Both Einbinder and Anderson are delicious to watch – Einbinder comedic while leaning into the terror, Anderson Southern gothic vamping without ever mocking. There’s banging needle drops from Counting Crows, REM and Donna Lewis, decapitated heads sighing ‘bummer’ with their last breath and pleasing visual effects that provide a tangible sense of the video cassette age. Twin Peaks DNA ripples through the bloodlust, a sense of watching something smart – the sort of jewel-box movie that probably will play at midnight screenings in the future and inspire fan theories. The meaning of ‘miasma’ is of an unpleasant or unhealthy smell or vapour, and while Schoenbrun’s reflexive romp dwells in death and franchises past their sell-by date, it’s certainly no stinker itself.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Images courtesy of Plan B Entertainment
Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival

Screening Room

BUTTERFLY JAM

May 14, 2026

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Closeness and Beanpole filmmaker Kantemir Balagov debuts his first English language movie at Cannes this year and, unfortunately, the third time is not the charm. Set in New Jersey, it tracks a blue collar Circassian family running a failing diner where delens (regional cheese and potato pies) are talked about incessantly and the minutiae of working class life is considered enough of a narrative hook. Azik (Barry Keoghan) is a whimsical chef who claims to make his excellent conserve out butterflies. ‘I can make anything,’ he boasts to his gambling, wrestling crew who swig vodka and rough house through the restaurant after hours. Only, he can’t. A widowed dad to a 16 year-old wrestling champ, Tamir (Talga Akdogan) – who behaves more like the parent in the relationship – Azik can’t make a living or much of himself. He’d like to work at a mate’s new flashy restaurant but fails to recommend himself, his idea of a gift to his son is a visit to a local sex worker, and his male pride is constantly pricked by Marat (Harry Melling), a shifty livewire whose mood seems always in flux. Azik’s heavily pregnant sister, Zayla (Riley Keough) despairs at the lack of purpose as she furiously mops the floors and phones an absent husband.

Barry Keoghan, Riley Keough, Harry Melling, Talga Akdogan — Why Not Productions

Masculinity is prided within this group – the ability to provide for family, pin a man to the floor, seduce women in bars. Marat struggles with all of them, baiting Azik with macho posturing that has fatal consequences. There’s also a pink pelican that wanders around the family’s plant-strewn house clapping its beak together and watching the cast with doleful eyes. The bird is incredibly engaging where the characters are not. The film closes with a celebrity cameo that feels unmoored and unearned.

As a study of the Circassian community and toxic machismo, Butterfly Jam never digs deep enough into either. Delens and a professional funeral mourner played for comedy aside, there’s little to learn about the culture or diaspora of this group. While the posturing and slighting of male ego is Scorsese-lite and culminates, violently, in something of a cheap shot (narratively and visually). Pink is everywhere – in Tamir’s clothes and wrestling suit, the pelican, the broken candyfloss machine Maret buys, the jam that Azik serves – but within such an unfocused story it adds little meaning. It’s a shame that such a talented filmmaker and his buzzy cast do not have more to say. Like the job that Azik fails to get, it feels like a missed opportunity.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Images courtesy of Why Not Productions
Butterfly Jam premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival

Screening Room

THE CHRISTOPHERS

May 12, 2026

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Steven Soderbergh’s latest twisty thriller features no guns or spies like the entertaining Black Bag, but double-crossing, motive reversal and tart conversation set within the art world are present and correct to delicious effect. The tale may essentially be a two-hander set in a London townhouse with only canvases and paint daubs as the collateral at stake, but there’s plenty of blindsiding and fun to be had.

Sir Ian McKellen, Michaela Coel, James Cordon, Jessica Henning — Claudette Barius/NEON

The ‘Christophers’ of the title are a series of heralded works by enfant terrible painter Julian Sklar (Sir Ian McKellen), a misanthropic grinch who was once a philandering sixties art bad boy whose works and lifestyle were as rock ‘n’ roll as any of his artistic music contemporaries. His pieces have fetched huge sums at auction and now he is artistically blocked; unwilling to complete the set, unable to paint anything new. Instead he grumpily sits in his studio (clearly modelled on Lucian Freud’s) raging against the world – particularly his two adult children (James Cordon and Jessica Gunning) who he accuses of moneygrabbing.

He’s not wrong. The Sklar siblings are keen on getting the Christophers series finished to net them cash (especially as Dad’s health is failing), and they don’t mind how. In the opening of the film, the duo engage art restorer, Lori (Michaela Coel), to act as Julian’s new assistant with the aim of finding the canvases and using her latent forgery skills to finish them. She’s a quiet, watchful woman who went to the same prestigious art school as Julian, yet is working in a food truck rather than pursuing her passion.

When Julian and Lori meet the sparks fly. Used to harranging, bullying and shocking any audience (whether that’s fans paying money for Cameo videos or wannabe painters on his eighties TV art show), he is wrongfooted by Lori’s stoicism, how unimpressed or undaunted she is by him. Lori’s still waters run deep, and as the duo learn more about each other, allegiances change, revenge is served and the art world is lampooned.

McKellen tears into Julian with gusto – ranting about cancel culture, his terrible children, the horror of mediocrity with glee. He’s a monster and initially sucks all the air from the screen, leaving the usually incendiary Coel with little to do but remain passive. But it ultimately works to provide sweet satisfaction when her power arrives. While McKellen hisses zingers, Cordon and Henning are gloriously craven and avaricious as a pair of talentless freeloaders wanting an easy payout.

Ed Solomon’s screenplay questions art (what is true genius? Who should decide it?), the morality of reality TV shows (Julian’s condescension to contestants is the worst kind of cruelty for entertainment) and misogyny (why are men allowed to behave badly and women are not?). His twists and turns are not only fun, they reveal what we as an audience may be guilty of in assumption and profiling. And though we know McKellen is a generational talent, his sketching here of a bitter, performative man hiding self-doubt and fear is something of a masterstroke.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Images courtesy of NEON
The Christophers is in UK cinemas 15 May

Screening Room

REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES

May 8, 2026

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Lewis Pullman is having an extended moment. Having impressed in Marvel fare, competed with the flyboys as Bob in Top Gun: Maverick and showed off his pipes and moves in The Testament of Ann Lee, he’s dipping his toes in sentimentality and romance in this, a whimsical adap of Shelby Van Pelt’s bestseller. He’s Cameron, a young drifter on a personal mission along the Cascadia coast, stuck in the small town of Sowell Bay when his crappy camper van conks out. Strapped for cash to fix it, a cheery local (Colm Meaney, emanating kindness) gets him a temp job night cleaning at the local aquarium.

Sally Field, Lewis Pullman, Colm Meaney, Alfred Molina — Netflix

The job is available because widowed Tova (Sally Field) has bust her ankle and can’t polish and mop as thoroughly as she’d like. Tova isn’t only nursing a sprain, she’s heartbroken from long-term grief and the growing realisation that her age and loneliness might mean she needs to leave her lush waterside cabin for a nursing home. Tova chats about all her feelings when she cleans to the aquarium’s octopus, Marcellus, who narrates his own version of events (voiced soothingly by Alfred Molina) as we follow a trio of arcs of three lonely beings who find unexpected connection.

A rom-com of sorts that is gently amusing and romantic in platonic love as Tova and Cameron create a slow bond (though he also tries, spikily and entertainingly, to woo a local surf shop owner), Remarkable Bright Creatures is a balm to watch. Filmed in Deep Cove, near Vancouver, the locations are travel porn alone – a beautiful backdrop for the halting relationship between both Tova and Cameron, and Tova and a would be paramour.

While Marcellus is entirely CG (and excellently rendered), the bright spark between a wounded OAP and hurting young man feels authentic and moving thanks to natural chemistry between Pullman and Field. With nuanced performances that travel from comedy to deep sadness, both make their characters real within a picture postcard setting. The only false note is the gaggle of horny retired friends that Tova has, their hijinks in emotional relief to the quiet work Field is doing.

Though the ‘twist’ might be predictable and the action gentle, Remarkably Bright Creatures is the sort of cosy hug of a picture that might take tear ducts by surprise as well as prompt googling trips to British Columbia. Deep Cove is likely to have a busy summer and Pullman net more fans.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Pictures courtesy of Netflix
Remarkably Bright Creatures is in cinemas now

Screening Room

DISCLOSURE DAY

June 10, 2026

Screening Room

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE

June 3, 2026

Screening Room

MOSS & FREUD

May 29, 2026

Screening Room

JOHN LENNON: THE LAST INTERVIEW

May 20, 2026

Screening Room

CLUB KID

May 18, 2026

Screening Room

FATHERLAND

May 15, 2026

Screening Room

TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA

May 14, 2026

Screening Room

BUTTERFLY JAM

May 14, 2026

Screening Room

THE CHRISTOPHERS

May 12, 2026

Screening Room

REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES

May 8, 2026

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