Screening Room

December 23, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

The warmth of the real-life story of the Neil Diamond tribute band, Lightning & Thunder (aka Mike and Claire Sardina), gets a jukebox sorta-musical treatment in this sentimental fable of second chances, perseverance and hope. After the challenging year we’ve had with 2025, ringing in ’26 with a bit of ‘Sweet Caroline’ and human kindness might be just the ticket.

Ella Anderson, Fisher Stevens, Hugh Jackman, Jim Belushi, Kate Hudson, Michael Imperioli, Mustafa Shakir — *Focus Features/Universal Pictures*

For those who didn’t catch the 2008 documentary of the same name, the Sardinas found each other on the Milwaukee tribute circuit, two people who had already been through the ringer but who lived in optimism and joy. We first meet single dad Mike (Hugh Jackman in an alarming wig) as he strums his Neil Diamond anthem at an AA meeting, perennially grateful to have survived the military and alcoholism but still looking for a happily ever after. Mike steps on stage as ‘Lightning’, not exactly a Diamond impersonator, more of a channeller of the songwriter’s music. That’s not a niche that’s working out for him until he meets single mom, Claire (Kate Hudson in an alarming mullet) who does a mean Patsy Cline impression. Sparks fly, music is played and the duo blend their talents, families and possessions as a unique double-act, both on and off stage.

This should be the second act both players have been hoping for – complete with benediction from Pearl Jam (yes, really) and sell-out shows – but disaster strikes. How unconditional love, resolve and Diamond’s choice back catalogue sustain a family through dark times is how Song Sung Blue earns its emotional resonance. Jackman can of course sing and emote to tear-inducing levels, but twinned with Hudson’s bubbly persona and a bleak narrative arc, he’s perhaps the best he’s ever been in this genre. He embodies optimism, even when it’s hard to find, and his lusty renditions of ‘Forever in Blue Jeans’, ‘Crunchy Granola Suite’ and Diamond’s bonkers ‘Soolaimon’ are a cinematic euphoria shot. Hudson meets him musically and emotionally, delivering a weepie solo of ‘I’ve Been This Way Before’ in a button-pushing moment that is played tonally – like the rest of the movie – with such sweet sincerity that cynicism struggles to have a place.

If that sounds cheesy it’s because it is. Song Sung Blue (written and directed by Craig Brewer) unapologetically embraces dreamers, rhinestones and yes, the healing power of a banger tune; offering a chorus line of nice, earnest people just struggling to get by. There’s no worldwide fame or cash windfall at stake here; this is a film about the elation of being your true authentic self, of finding your tribe, of getting up when you’re knocked down. It’s a portrait of a small but good life, and the love that sustained it. Sweet, feel-good and positive, it also reminds audiences of how many Diamond songs are on the cultural hard drive. You’ll be adding to your karaoke list post-watch…

Pictures courtesy of Focus Features/Universal Pictures
Song Sung Blue is in cinemas now

MARTY SUPREME

December 22, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Timothée Chalamet has already been testing the tensile nature of likeability with his recent promo stunts for this frantic, nervy sorta-triumph of the underdog story from Josh Safdie. With his viral marketing strategy (blimp, orange, ‘schwep!’) and unapologetic declarations about striving for greatness, Chalamet has been prepping audiences for his turn as fifties New York grifter Marty Mauser, a bombastic motormouth who wants to change his humdrum life as a shoe clerk for fame on the international stage as a table tennis champion. Marty will do anything (and anyone) to get that dream; his childhood married sweetheart (Odessa A’zion) or the movie star wife of a prospective sponsor (Gwyneth Paltrow), leading his bestie (Tyler, The Creator) into danger or pissing off a mobster (Abel Ferrara) with a beloved dog. His exploits leave him running as fast as his mouth, always one dollar away from triumph or disaster.

Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion, Tyler The Creator, Abel Ferrara, Josh Safdie — A24/Central Pictures

Written by Safdie and Ronald Bronstein and loosely inspired by real-life table tennis star Marty Reisman, Marty Supreme is a tale of America, of ambition, of audacity, of balls – orange ping pongs and the cajones required to con. As Marty races through Manhattan streets, to London (where he represents the USA on a shoestring), to dangerous New Jersey hinterlands and onward to Japan for an all-on-the-line bout, the film unpacks the psyche of a winner… who actually doesn’t win anything. Marty is a mythomanic whose tenacity and self-belief moulds reality, his want naked and feral. Modern parallels can be drawn between American foreign policy, the prostrating of contestants on talent shows telling judges they’ll ‘give it 110 percent’, the performative nature of social media existence.

Marty isn’t ethical or good, but he’s multi-dimensional and magnetic – whether he’s falling through a ceiling in a bath or acing a ping pong into a fruit bowl. There’s something to admire in his endless drive for success despite the odds being stacked against him. Much of that charm is down to Chalamet’s ballsy and unapologetic performance, rattling through the picture like a live wire, his activities soundtracked by anachronistic needle drops. The more Marty fails, the harder he tries, the more sure of his eminence he becomes. The verve and swagger of the kid is hypnotic, impressive.

Directed with kinetic energy by Safdie, watching Marty Supreme is like playing one of the matches so entertainingly essayed in the film. When the lights go up, the feeling is one of exhaustion and relief. And of certainty; that this is Chalamet’s best work of his career, that he is pursuing greatness as fervently as Marty. It is award-winning stuff and worthy of a big orange blimp. Schwep!

Pictures courtesy of A24/Central Pictures
Marty Supreme is in cinemas now

Screening Room

THE HOUSEMAID

December 19, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Who wears a push up bra to bed? If you wore exclusively white, wouldn’t there be a lot of laundry? Does liking Barry Lyndon make you a monster? Questions you will ask while watching Paul Feig’s knowing, horny, beach read of a movie that zips along breathlessly but leaves gaping holes in logic if you really think about it. That is not to say it’s bad – this is the sort of bonkbuster thrill-ride you’d consume on a sun lounger and feel satiated without ever declaring it a work of art.

Sydney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried, Brandon Sklenar, Paul Feig — Daniel McFadden/Lionsgate

The set-up: Ex-con Millie (Sydney Sweeney) needs a job and interviews as a housekeeper for the picture-perfect, wealthy Winchesters; cream cashmere-clad wife, Nina (Amanda Seyfried) and hunky hubby Andrew (Brandon Sklenar). Miraculously, Millie gets the gig – which fulfils her parole conditions and provides a home. But within days Nina has turned from calm delight to feral psycho, while Andrew simmers with disapproval, regret and a propensity to lurk around the house in a white vest that shows off his guns. So far, so Jane Eyre.

What is really going on in the Winchesters’ dynamic? Who is a reliable narrator? Why does the window not open in the housemaid’s room? How does Millie have this many Abercrombie & Fitch saucy-student outfits in her bag of meagre possessions? Why does the gardener look like a dancer from a Magic Mike show? As Nina turns to shrieking hysteria, Millie and Andrew start flirting over Junior Mints in the den and things flip to ‘thriller’ in ways that are easily pre-plotted by aficionados of the genre.

But sometimes, that’s exactly what you want. With dialogue that is knowingly camp, sex scenes that tap into Mills & Boon tropes and a performance by Seyfried that feels designed to let you in on the secret while Sweeney flaunts, The Housemaid is a wilfully trashy ride that should be enjoyed with a beverage and a side of self-awareness. The only trigger warning is to not watch if you like china sets or dentistry.

Pictures courtesy of Lionsgate
The Housemaid is in cinemas now

Screening Room

ELEANOR THE GREAT

December 12, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Feisty Eleanor (June Squibb) is 94 years young and still enjoys trolling her neighbours and bossing grocery store clerks around to fetch pickles. But when her bestie Bessie (Rita Zohar) passes away, Eleanor is lost. She and Bessie, a Holocaust survivor, had lived together in Florida – sleeping in matching twin beds, bitching together over the kitchen table – and Eleanor’s daughter decides to move her Ma closer to her, in Manhattan.

June Squibb, Erin Kellyman, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Scarlett Johansson — TriStar Pictures

Floundering in the big city, Eleanor joins a Jewish OAP group at a local community centre to make new friends, only realising once she’s part of the gang that they are all Holocaust survivors who regularly share their stories. Not wishing to differentiate herself, Eleanor fibs – recounting the experience she’s heard many times from Bessie as her own. And when a young journalism student (Erin Kellyman) asks to profile her, she agrees. What harm can it do?

Of course, this is no simple white lie in a world where faux Holocaust survivors threaten the authenticity of the events of WW2 for those wishing to deny it, but this is a gentle comedy designed to make audiences like Eleanor despite her misjudgements. That’s easy to do as played by Squibb, a cute granny with a comedically sharp tongue, but the film – directed by Scarlett Johansson in her helming debut – is soft around the edges.

A tinkling piano score suggests all proceedings should be viewed as quirky cute, but the way Eleanor’s lie builds out to take in the grief of a father (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and easy forgiveness, it’s territory seen numerous times before in Lifetime movies. And tonally, it’s a hard line to walk as it wanders through generational trauma, trips to Coney Island, family farce and a crisis of faith. Johansson doesn’t always manage to overcome the disconnects.

The treat therefore, is in watching Squibb twinkle her way through various situations – compelling as a fallible older woman, even if the material doesn’t meet her in quality.

Pictures courtesy of TriStar Pictures
Eleanor the Great is in cinemas now

Screening Room

GOODBYE JUNE

December 12, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

There are two types of people in the world: Christmas movie people and non-Christmas movie people. If you’re in the former group, you’ll likely love Richard Curtis, John Lewis adverts and enjoy Kate Winslet in the The Holiday. And Winslet’s directorial debut sits comfortably within that vibe, a festive comi-weepie with a star-studded cast, cute kids and a closer that will make you want to give your family members a good squeeze (even the grouchy ones). It’s unapologetically tinsel-y, emotionally manipulative and loaded with Britishisms – in other words, a successor to Love, Actually and exactly the type of movie you might want to watch post-turkey with the fam when it debuts on Netflix.

Andrea Riseborough, Fisayo Akinade, Helen Mirren, Johnny Flynn, Kate Winslet, Timothy Spall, Toni Collette — Kimberley French/Netflix

Written by Winslet’s son, Joe Anders, the titular June at the centre of a scrapping family is a granny matriarch (Helen Mirren) with terminal cancer, whose pre-Christmas fall puts her in hospital under the eye of nurse Angel (the absolutely delightful, Fisayo Akinade). June’s grown kids don’t really gel: bossy career woman Julia (Winslet) and abrasive organic-only Molly (Andrea Riseborough) fight; rumpled Connor (Johnny Flynn) doesn’t get out of his parents’ house much, and hippy Helen (Toni Collette) hasn’t been home from LA for years. Crammed together in a hospital room with various offspring (directed with appealing authenticity so as not to come over as stage-school brats) and a daft dad (Timothy Spall), June’s family unravels and binds tightly together again as she takes her final breaths…

Family squabbling is sketched with relaxed realism as the siblings talk over each other, tell their dad to shut up and get so infuriated by one another a visiting rota is drawn up. A vase is broken, people confess jealousy over vending machine snacks and there’s a gooey nativity with Christmas lights. None of it is deep, but the family dynamics feel recognisable even if death is somewhat sanitised. Winslet’s direction is assured, and regardless of whether Yuletide cheese is your bag or not, this is a confident start for an actor making their foray to the other side of the camera. It bodes well for what Winslet might do next.

Pictures courtesy of Netflix
Goodbye June is in cinemas now

Screening Room

ETERNITY

December 5, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Who hasn’t wondered ‘what if?’ about a lost love? Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) certainly has, despite a long marriage to perennial complainer Larry (Miles Teller). When she pops her clogs not long after he’s kicked the bucket she finds herself in an afterlife terminus with a destination choice to make. Does she head to a forever with her earthly ball and chain? Or with her handsome first husband, Luke (Callum Turner) who has been waiting for her for 67 years since he bought it during the Korean War? To help her in her quandary, she has an afterlife consultant and the choice of any number of fantasy existences to pick (Studio 54 World, Weimar World without Nazis, Men-Free World is full, Clown World decommissioned). Of course, there are rules: once eternity is decided, it can’t be undone and any escapees are thrown into the black nothing of ‘the void’…

Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller, Callum Turner, Da’Vine Joy Randolph — Leah Gallo/A24

It’s a classic rom-com scenario – a love triangle in which Joan must choose between the partner she has shared a life with and the husband she barely got a chance with; the familiar vs the novelty. And both hubbies are keen to win this contest, sniping and scrapping with each other as they try to entice Joan to endless days on the sunny coast in Beach World (Larry) or in a winter wonderland in Mountain World (Luke). Playing like a forties screwball comedy, Eternity is concerned with romantic overtures and smart protagonists, but also understands the choice paradox affecting us all. Yes, this may be a tale about picking the right guy, but it’s also about plumping for the right paradise, opening up bigger questions about happiness and contentment. While the characters walk through the recruitment hall of different, amusing eternities, audiences will certainly question their own ideas of perfection and if their current existence is meeting requirements.

Turner and Teller do admirably in matching each other in charm as well as foibles, ensuring the happy ending remains a genuine mystery while Da’Vine Joy Randolph sneaks off with many scenes as a seen-it-all afterlife consultant. Olsen, trapped between two spouses, is given more than standard fodder to work with by screenwriter/director David Freyne (co-writing the former Black List script with Pat Cunnane). Joan is frustrated by the process, tempted by an amusing third option and wrestles with what perfection looks like. And if, indeed, it exists on heaven or earth. Where she ultimately ends up feels earned and dramatically satisfying. That said, it’s a shame we don’t get to spend more time in some of the eternities – Ice Cream or Space World might have been fun to visit.

Pictures courtesy of A24
Eternity is in cinemas now

Screening Room

COVER UP

December 5, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

In these days of AI, fake news and the decline of print media, it’s something of a thrill to watch Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus’ study of a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist as he looks back at his scoops and old-school investigative reporting. Now in his eighties, but still a pill on the phone to his sources and scribbling longhand on countless yellow legal pads, Seymour Hersh is renowned for breaking the story of the US military massacre in My Lai during the Vietnam War via dogged research, nosy-parkering and tenacity – and he’s continued to expose corruption, power play and cover-ups in the decades since. Such a thorn in the US government’s side that White House tapes caught Nixon calling him a ‘son of a bitch’, ‘Sy’ is an entertaining subject, and a reminder of disappearing skills and industries.

Seymour Hersh, Mark Obenhaus, Laura Poitras — Netflix

In charting some of Hersh’s most famous stories – including those interweaved with Woodward and Bernstein over the Watergate scandal, and the torture at Abu Ghraib prison – the directors chart some of the US government’s darkest secrets and plots straight out of movies. One of Hersh’s leads took him to the CIA’s attempts to create a real-life Manchurian Candidate using LSD, his folly in believing he’d found love letters between Marilyn Monroe and JFK is unpicked, and his current unveiling of atrocities in Gaza keeps him horrified. And while Hersh reveals his methodology (he spent an entire meeting making small talk with military top brass while transcribing an upside-down document on his desk), he also reveals his own story.

A working-class boy expected to take on his dad’s business, he developed an unexpected flair for writing, tearing up as he recalls a teacher taking him to the admissions office of the University of Chicago. Study led to work covering police beats and gangland slayings on Chicago local papers until he decided he wanted to write about more than ‘mass murders’.

His tenure at The New York Times was during a period when newspaper print was impactful, stories typed out and sucked up tubes in the newsroom, journalists propped their feet up on messy desks while smoking and calling moles on their landlines.

That’s not to say that Cover Up is a nostalgia trip (though aficionados of archival presses churning out news print are well served), the film stays relevant due to the constants that remain throughout history. That power continues to breed corruption, and that someone needs to hold administrations accountable. The big question the film seems to ask is – with truth seeking, hard news reporters like Hersh, now a vanishing type – who will perform this role going forward?

Pictures courtesy of Netflix
Cover Up is in cinemas now

Screening Room

CHRISTY

November 28, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

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.

Sydney Sweeney, Ben Foster, Katy O’Brian, David Michôd — 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

Screening Room

PILLION

November 28, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

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.

Henry Melling, Alexander Skarsgard, Lesley Sharpe, Douglas Hodge, Harry Leighton — 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…

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).

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.

Pictures courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Pillion is in cinemas now

Screening Room

WICKED: FOR GOOD

November 21, 2025

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.

Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang, Marissa Bode, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Paul Tazewell — 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…

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.

Pictures courtesy of Universal Pictures
Wicked: For Good is in cinemas now

Screening Room

SONG SUNG BLUE

December 23, 2025

Screening Room

MARTY SUPREME

December 22, 2025

Screening Room

THE HOUSEMAID

December 19, 2025

Screening Room

ELEANOR THE GREAT

December 12, 2025

Screening Room

GOODBYE JUNE

December 12, 2025

Screening Room

ETERNITY

December 5, 2025

Screening Room

COVER UP

December 5, 2025

Screening Room

CHRISTY

November 28, 2025

Screening Room

PILLION

November 28, 2025

Screening Room

WICKED: FOR GOOD

November 21, 2025

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