Screening Room

February 7, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

At this time of year, cinema is an embarrassment of riches – the films that could have been contenders on the Oscars run jostle for position with those that made the golden nominee enclosure. In another year, The Fire Inside, a plucky boxing biopic, might have been included in awards conversations – most particularly for Brian Tyree Henry’s multi-dimensional performance as a coach.

Charting the climb of Claressa ‘T-Rex’ Shields, a determined young Black teen from Flint, Michigan, who took herself to the 2012 Olympics and astonished her opponents and the boxing community, The Fire Inside is both a classic sports flick and a story of female emancipation. As written by Barry Jenkins and directed by cinematographer Rachel Morrison (who lensed Creed), it not only tells that underdog story but provides nuance and lived-in detail to Clarissa’s struggle that wasn’t just competitive, but influenced by race, gender, geography and economics.

brian tyree henry, rachel morrison, ryan destiny, the fire inside — Amazon MGM Studios

An impoverished girl growing up hungry and caring for her siblings while her single mom parties, Clarissa (played with steely gumption by Ryan Destiny) doesn’t have many options in dilapidated Flint. But she turns up at the boxing gym of Jason (Henry), a guy who teaches the neighbourhood boys to spar when he’s not a telephone engineer. Clarissa’s diligence and Jason’s care forms her into a champ, one who could fight for America at a global level, as well as inspire other hungry overlooked girls.

Jenkins’ screenplay gives space for Clarissa to have agency not only in fighting against older, more experienced opponents but in questioning sports funding (white competitors who wear makeup and cute outfits get sponsorship and endorsements, male athletes get more deals than female) as well as the importance of financial compensation for talent. She can win gold but she needs more than praise to feed her siblings, telling her boyfriend bluntly that ‘money IS recognition’. At the same time, Jenkins expands the roles of those around this champ; her mother is a mess of contradictions, her coach isn’t merely a hardass.

Coach Jason, in the hands of Henry, is a warm, kind man who sees the opportunity sport presents to Clarissa and, without fanfare, does everything in his limited power to make it happen for her. That means taking on a fatherly, protective role and also stepping away when he needs to. In another, less crowded, year Henry would surely be planning his tux for Oscar night. As the two go for a second Olympic triumph, we see the cost of fighting for first when it’s not rewarded and the pressure on a teenager when she could be the ‘golden girl’ in every way. And though it ticks the sports movie bingo card (jogging in snowy streets, nailbiting matches, the threat of a fierce competitor), The Fire Inside succeeds in being about so much more – and reflecting audience real-life experience back at them.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Pictures courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios
The Fire Inside is in cinemas now

COMPANION

January 31, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

When we first meet Iris (Heretic’s Sophie Thatcher) she’s narrating a voiceover telling us about two epiphanies she’s recently had: one when she met her boyfriend Josh (Jack Quaid) during a meet-cute in a supermarket and another… well, that would be telling. Her second moment of truth comes when she and Josh take their robo-car to a luxury lakehouse in upstate New York for a weekend with friends. A tremulous woman with a candy-coloured kitsch wardrobe and cute retro headbands (kinda like a Stepford Wife, wink), Iris only has eyes for Josh. But when the wealthy owner of the lakehouse, Russian possible-mobster Sergey (Rupert Friend, pocketing scenes with a florid accent and mullet), tries to force himself on her, Iris sees red. The people pleasing demeanour gives way to rage, revenge, self-preservation: a new survival mode, if you will. Which is news to Iris, because – in a plot beat unconcealed by posters and trailer – she doesn’t realise that she is in fact a ‘companion’ robot and not a real girl. Now that Iris is off-programme and best laid plans have skittered into chaos, just how much damage can be done when your AI goes rogue?

Harvey Guillén, Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage, Sophie Thatcher — Warner Bros. Pictures

To say more, is to spoil the cheeky twists in a brisk, fun comi-horror about misogyny, tech fear and the salutary lessons of reading the small print. Once past the scene setting and narrative rules (Iris can’t lie, can be factory reset, is controlled by a phone app), Companion gets into its algorithm stride like a gen Z Ex Machina. The former good girl must fight her for her life as the friendship group unravels with the lure of money and Josh tries to control his fembot. That prompts jokes and jabs at incel culture, entitlement and the whining of a young, white man moaning that life is so unfair for him. Quaid treads a nice line between charming/charmless that he previously essayed successfully in Scream, while Thatcher aces the evolution of a naif to ninja. Lukas Gage and Harvey Guillén also bring sweet comic relief as a gay couple with a power imbalance.

Fast and loose – put any pressure on post-screening plot analysis and the wheels come off – Companion is a popcorn treat not designed to live long in the imagination once consumed. It’s not likely to instigate behavioural change, but it will entertain on a night at the flicks. Just turn your phone off…

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Pictures courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Companion is in cinemas now

Screening Room

HARD TRUTHS

January 31, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Some of the hard truths at the heart of Mike Leigh’s latest fall easily from the mouth of Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a misanthrope London mother and housewife whose daily diatribe at, and about, other people hides a crushing depression and self-loathing. When she’s not furiously polishing the leather sofa in the lounge, Pansy is berating her layabout son, scolding her cowed husband or shouting at random people in car parks or the health professionals at the dentist and doctors. She even has a scowl and a harsh word for the pigeons and a passing fox that dare to enter her garden. By contrast, her sister Chantelle (Michele Austin) is a laidback hairdresser with the patience of a saint and a vibrant social life that involves her two grown, ambitious daughters. She sees the boiling rage and frustration emanating from her sister (Pansy of course criticises her hairdressing skills) but struggles to tell her sibling a hard truth; that Pansy clearly needs mental health support.

marianne jean-baptiste, michele austin, mike leigh

A reunion of Leigh and Jean-Baptiste after their collaboration on 1996’s Secrets And Lies, Hard Truths marks a return to the velvet glove punch of the auteur’s trademark observational dramedy. With cinematography by longtime collaborator Dick Pope, Leigh allows seemingly insubstantial suburban moments to be captured as Pansy goes about her day which accumulate into a sorrow for a woman who can demand to see the manager, that checkout assistants smile more and that her husband never eats fried chicken in the house but cannot ask for the help she desperately needs.

The success in making an audience care about such a curmudgeon who even criticises a baby for wearing an outfit with pockets is due to Leigh’s sly script (gently unpicking a deep-seated trauma in Pansy from her mother’s death) and Jean-Baptiste’s performance which is the very definition of powerhouse. She rightfully deserves the heat she’s currently getting on the trophy trail. Pansy is monstrous and ridiculous, yet funny (she has a point about the baby) and vulnerable. A scene in which the two sisters attend the grave of their mother is so brusquely affectionate that it is heartwarming as Chantelle tells Pansy something many audience members will recognise in their own family relations.

They say that we can choose our friends but not our family and in this bittersweet meander through a world many of us know intimately, perhaps that is the hardest truth of all.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Hard Truths is in cinemas now

Screening Room

THE BRUTALIST

January 24, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

A talking point at Venice Film Festival for its epic running time (215 minutes including an interval), Brady Corbet’s uncompromising drama finally makes it to cinemas for audiences to decide if it’s as ambitious and empty as the building at the centre of it, or an Oscar-winning masterpiece. Following the life of Jewish architect László Tóth (Adrian Brody) over 33 years, Corbet’s opus tracks the story of America via immigration, anti-semitism, art and commerce.

Adrian Brody, Brady Corbet, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn — Universal Pictures

Arriving into New York on a boat from Hungary in 1947, László’s and our first view of the Statue Of Liberty is inverted, setting the tone for a film that seeks to play with expectation. László makes his way to Pennsylvania and his cousin (Alessandro Nivola) who gives him shelter in his furniture making business. Called to the home of wealthy industrialist, Harrison Lee Van Buran (Guy Pearce), to create a library for his study, the Eastern European genius’ work is so starkly modern that Harrison is impressed enough to commission him to design a building. The creation of that brutalist building over decades as László’s wife and niece are brought from Hungary and the Tóths become the Van Buran family pets, is the life-work and angst of the film. László attempts to find perfection in draughtsmanship and reconnect with a traumatised wife (Felicity Jones); his benefactor shows his generosity and cruelty…

Corbet and Mona Fastvold’s screenplay is dense and chewy, giving Brody the opportunity to show off the soulfulness that won him an Oscar for The Pianist and allowing Pearce to entertain with dangerous bonhomie. The two men dance around each other; one trying not to be obsequious in gratitude, the other trying to conceal his darkness. Waiting for those factors to collide as the building begins to take shape on the hill is much of what drives the film, which thrums with tension – both emotional and aural, thanks to sound design.

Lauded by critics during the festival circuit, The Brutalist is likely to be diverse to paying punters. While some will thrill to the immersive, indulgent nature of Corbet’s detailed universe, others will be tested by its unhurried pace, esoteric themes and bum-numbing length. Even the precisely styled credits might annoy. But for those looking for the bombastic results of an auteur with a vision, The Brutalist is arresting cinema that offers a unique experience. Whether you like it or not, depends on your tolerance to the didactic nature of auteurism.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs courtesy of UNIVERSAL PICTURES
The Brutalist is in cinemas now

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A COMPLETE UNKNOWN

January 17, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Bob Dylan has purposefully been an enigma for decades and James Mangold’s traditional biopic of a small window of his life doesn’t try to answer any questions about the troubadour – rather it unpicks the ambient influence swirling around the 19 year-old when he arrives in New York from Minnesota and takes the folk scene by storm. Kicking off in 1961, Mangold tracks Dylan from his beginnings through to stardom and up to the point when he ‘betrays’ folk music by plugging in an electric guitar at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. The director admits that not everything in the film happened exactly as depicted (and apparently Dylan himself asked for a completely invented scene to be added to further fox audiences), but the result is an accomplished primer for newcomers to Dylan and an account that won’t irritate diehard fans.

timothée chalamet, edward norton, elle fanning, monica barbaro, james mangold

Bob (Timothée Chalamet) first pitches up in NY in search of his hero, Woody Guthrie. Discovering the musician is critically ill in hospital, the wannabe visits him – the first time in many that Dylan puts his needs ahead of others. Woody (Scoot McNairy) is being cared for by the nicest man in folk, Pete Seeger (Edward Norton, emanating kindness) who takes the young songwriter under his wing. Dylan, still a gangly youth, impresses him as well as established folk star, Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro), setting him off on a meteoric rise to fame, prolific record making and a love triangle with Baez and Sylvie (Elle Fanning playing a thinly disguised version of Suze Rotolo). As Bob writes – and cheats and is selfish to the point that Baez tells him he’s an asshole – the world changes and informs his music; the desperation of the Cuban missile crisis, the freedom rides, Martin Luther King… The times, they are a-changing.

Chalamet had five years to perfect guitar, harmonica and Dylan’s scratchy vocals and his renditions of the classics are both spot-on and still retain an element of himself within them. As Dylan’s hair gets bigger and his jeans skinnier (via evocative costumes by Hollywood Authentic columnist, Arianne Phillips), Chalamet and Dylan infuse so that by the time he’s riding motorbikes around and behaving with the insouciance of a rock star brat, the transformation is entirely convincing. Similarly, Barbaro nails Baez’s sweet voice and zero BS attitude and Boyd Holbrook threatens to steal the show every time he shows up as sozzled man in black, Johnny Cash.

The highlight of the film is undoubtedly the ‘going electric’ moment at the ‘65 Newport Festival when, having watched Dylan do exactly as he pleases throughout his interactions, there’s a rebellious thrill in watching him purposefully plug into an amp in front of a horrified audience of acoustic fans. Once again, we’re not treated to any interior motivation to Dylan’s actions, ensuring he’s still a delicious enigma – a man who despite the biopic treatment, remains a riddle – as the title suggests, a complete unknown.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
A Complete Unknown is in cinemas now

Screening Room

WOLF MAN

January 17, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs by NICOLA DOVE

Leigh Whannell aced updating The Invisible Man in 2020 by making it a horror about domestic abuse and gaslighting, and he’s on the money again with another smart reinterpretation of a Universal classic monster. This time he takes the Lon Chaney jr horror and places it in 1995 Oregon where a young boy, Blake, lives in fear of his army vet dad and some unseen threat in the woods. Fast forward to modern day and Blake (Christopher Abbott) is a dad himself and married to a workaholic journalist and breadwinner, Charlotte (Julia Garner). In a neat role reversal, Blake is the primary parent to their kid, Ginger, complaining of Charlotte’s work impinging on family life, having put his own writing career on the backburner. So when a letter arrives declaring his missing father officially dead and his childhood home legally his, Blake suggests a family trip in a U-haul to clear out the remote cabin. He’s clearly forgotten a lot about his traumatic upbringing because the trio arrive in a no-phone-signal dense forest in the dark. The anticipatory dread that has pervaded the film from the start comes to fruition, as the family find themselves running through the woods pursued by something… and over a single night transformation will arrive for everyone.

christopher abbott, julia garner, leigh whannell, matilda firth, wolf man — Photography by Nicola Dove

Whannell excels in tension and Wolf Man is an exercise in ratcheting with jump scares, body horror and set pieces in the pitch black. But the aspects that make the concept truly frightening is the decision to show the shifting perspectives of hunter and prey – and the emotional clout that comes with that. As an audience we see the horror of a stalking man-creature from the POV of his would-be victims; and then, via disquieting sound design and instinctual VFX, the way dark-blind humans look like dinner to a predator. Wrapped up within this are themes exploring pandemic fears and infection, generational trauma and our anxieties about becoming the worst parts of our parents.

Abbott, in a role originally scheduled for Ryan Gosling, brings a tortured pathos to a Dad trying to do his best and protect his family from himself, while Garner gets to flex her ‘final girl’ muscles. And Whannell makes popcorn-spilling use of the terror of an animal’s breath, an escape from a truck, the velvet darkness of an unlit house and the unknown source of upstairs banging. Though some may tire of the repetitive running between house, car, greenhouse, barn… the overall takeaway is one of a sharp, effective chiller with considerable bite.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs by NICOLA DOVE
Wolf Man is in cinemas now

Screening Room

NOSFERATU

January 3, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Though it was released on New Year’s Day you may not have made it to the cinema to catch the latest potent fever dream from Robert Eggers – but you should make it your resolution to do so. Darkly designed to fill a big screen (it opens by descending an audience into pitch blackness and sounds of distress), the filmmaker’s reinterpretation of FW Murnau’s 1922 take on Dracula is a crepuscular, filthy and visceral vision of sexual obsession and the plight of women who speak up against predators. Yes, it’s about bloodsuckers and staking, but with current headlines it’s inescapable to not see a correlation between the claims of a young woman (Lily-Rose Depp) being dismissed and her realisation that only her own bravery will stop abuse.

amy adams, arleigh snowden, marielle heller, nightbitch, scoot mcnairy

Depp plays Ellen, a new wife to Nicholas Hoult’s solicitor in 1838 Germany, whose pallid complexion and nervous disposition are caused by the night terrors she suffers as a creeping, shadowy presence stalks her. When hubby is called away to attend to the needs of a client in Carpathia, a count ‘with one foot in the grave’, Ellen fears losing herself in the nightmares and moves in with friends (Aaron Taylor Johnson and Emma Corrin). Meanwhile, her husband undertakes the six week journey to the snowy mountains where gypsies warn of evil and Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard) lurks in his inhospitable castle with nails like a Guinness World Record holder and a truly disquieting, fetid voice that is the aural equivilent of damp, decay, death. The fresh blood that willingly enters his home sets Orlok on a course of destruction to Ellen that takes in plague, exorcism and monster hunting courtesy of Willem Defoe.

bill skarsgård, lily-rose depp, nicholas hoult, aaron taylor-johnson, willem dafoe, robert eggers, emma corrin, nosferatu

Though the story may be familiar, Eggers’ reliably striking visuals are not; Skarsgard’s creature design is disgusting enough you’ll be sure you can smell him, while the cinematography recalls a Vermeer painting – characters often framed in doorways, tree-tunnels, gateways to heartstoppingly beautiful effect. Set pieces such as Ellen’s possession (Depp contorting herself, eyes as large as saucers), her husband’s welcome in Carpathia (thundering horse hooves in the snowy gloaming) and a city laid waste by disease are grotesque, gorgeous, grim. The detail of costume, set design and sound is richly layered, while Eggers’ cast are pitch perfect. Skarsgard is cornering the market in terrifying characters you can’t shake while Hoult’s terror in Transylvania is palpable. But the film belongs to Depp; as fragile as glass, tremulous and bruised – but also erotic, feral and ultimately, kickass.

Viewers who are not fond of rats or scuttling things might find Nosferatu intolerable, but for everyone else Egger provides a thrumming discomfort of terrible beauty that will haunt as certainly as Orlok himself.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Nosferatu is in cinemas now

Screening Room

NIGHTBITCH

December 6, 2024

Words by JANE CROWTHER

You don’t have to be a parent or have been part of raising a child to feel the vibes of Marielle Heller’s adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s novel. But anyone who has ever played the hundredth mindnumbing toddler game in a day, cleaned up ankle-biter messes on rinse and repeat or prayed that the little darling goes to sleep in hour four of lullabies will feel seen watching Amy Adams, as an unnamed mother, lie facedown and aghast on the carpet of her living room while her child jumps on her.

Following the internal monologue of our nameless protagonist, Nightbitch introduces us to a woman who used to identify as an artist with a vibrant life in Manhattan and now struggles to find a clean shirt in a daily suburban routine of caring for her child while her sweet, feckless husband (Scoot McNairy) works away during the week. Heller depicts this as a relentless, machinery hum of monotony – the same hash browns for breakfast, the walk to the park, the fraught bathtime, the wind-down routine, the sleepless nights. The Mother dreams of shouting her real thoughts at former colleagues she meets in the supermarket who ask ‘Don’t you just love being a Mom?’, of running away from the sunny mums she meets at baby book club, of ripping her husband’s throat out when he returns to complain about his room service and tell her that ‘happiness is a choice’. Which is when a pack of dogs start showing up at the Mother’s door, when she starts to grow hair, likes eating a raw steak, when a nub protrudes from the base of her back like a tail… Is the Mother becoming something else?

With its flirtation with body horror (pus-filled sores are poked with needles), transformation and society’s rigid view of ‘good’ women, Nightbitch shares similar themes with The Substance. Tonally though, it’s a gentler rage against the machine. Fans of the book will perhaps feel that a certain cat incident lacks, ahem, bite, while the ferocity of Yoder’s societal critique is softened. But while the satire might be less savage, the commitment of Adams is not. In a truly vanity-free portrayal, she sticks the landing of playing a believable messy woman trapped in a maternal Groundhog Day and wracked with guilt for having wished for it. And when she’s digging into the back garden earth, nose pressed to soil and nails seamed with filth, she’s a feral, joyous creature that you’ll want to run the streets with.

Though it wants its doggy treat and to eat it, Nightbitch is nevertheless another encouraging step towards a world in which every type of woman and female experience is represented onscreen – and will certainly play like gangbusters at mother and baby screenings.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Nightbitch is in cinemas now

Screening Room

CONCLAVE

November 28, 2024

Words by JANE CROWTHER

On paper, Conclave does not sound like a thrilling and slyly comedic drama. Adapted from Robert Harris’ novel, it’s a film that revels in the minutiae and pedantry of pomp and ceremony. In Vatican City, the Pope has departed for the pearly gates, prompting church cardinals from around the globe to gather in their conclave and vote for a new pontiff in a specific and antiquated way. That means camping out in the Sistine Chapel and repeatedly casting votes for their favourite man until a majority decision is reached, for as long as it takes and as the world watches. A sort of Big Brother scenario with rosary beads.

But in the hands of screenwriter Peter Straughan and director Edward Berger, the repetitive process becomes a ticking timebomb, an intrigue and, yes, a thriller via deliciously tart dialogue, smart editing and an unexpected score that reveals the universal in the specific. The admin of the Catholic Church is rendered as a showcase for many of the deadly sins as the ambitious cardinals bicker, showboat, covet and envy in their bid to become His Holiness. The elegance of that presentation is matched by an ensemble of divinely talented actors.

conclave, isabella rossolini, john lithgow, lucian msamati, ralph fiennes, stanley tucci

Ralph Fiennes is our point of entry into this hidden world as Cardinal Lawrence, a logistics man in the Vatican who organises the religious voting and sleepover in the midst of suffering a crisis of faith. This, points out Stanley Tucci’s liberal contender Bellini, is what makes Lawrence a credible competitor to the throne. Certainly, Lawrence seems a better option than hard-line traditionalist Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), obsequious Tremblay (John Lithgow) or nakedly ambitious Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati). But as the voting begins and factions and secrets are revealed, the race takes an unexpected turn when an outsider takes the lead. And, as the men of God plot and whisper, pray and pontificate, they are watched by Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossolini), a nun whose army of sisters provide their every need – including some home truths.

It’s as delicious to watch what isn’t said by such accomplished actors as what is. The curtsy Rossolini executes speaks volumes, as do the constantly-moist eyes of Fiennes as he wrestles with humility and power, the jagged weeping of a cardinal stripped of the big job, the swirl of Castellitto’s theatrical cape. But when they do talk (in brutalist bedrooms, shadowy stairwells, a crimson auditorium) the running time speeds by on amusing moments, plot twists and a finale that is both bombastic and subversive. A movie that engages heart and mind without overstaying its welcome and is a savage piece of cultural observation wrapped in red velvet vestments. Heavenly.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Conclave is in cinemas now

Screening Room

WICKED

November 21, 2024

Words by JANE CROWTHER

That Stephen Schwartz’s hit musical adapted for the big screen would please Ozians was never in doubt. Debuting on Broadway in 2003, Wicked was a musical touchstone for audiences embracing the outlier characters as well as themes of female friendship and being your best bad self. Adapted for cinema by screenwriters Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox, and directed by In The Heights helmer Jon M Chu, it’s a story steeped in film history and designed for cinematic scale – pushing the lurid world of Oz beyond the confines of a theatre stage. So big they split it in half, with part 2 coming next festive season, and a winter release date that lands it right in the middle of awards season like a beautiful pink bubble coming to rest in Munchkinland.

Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jeff Goldblum, Jon M. Chu, Michelle Yeoh, Wicked

For non-Ozians then, the premise: a prequel to the 1939 interpretation of L Frank Baum’s book, Wicked charts the key moments that turned two schoolgirls from frenemies to besties and onward to battling witches of the North and West. An origin story, it asks the question whether anyone is born bad or merely formed by circumstance or shaped by myth and media. Opening with the death of the Wicked Witch Of The West (a puddle and that recognisable hat), sugary pink Glinda (Ariana Grande) tells the munchkins that they are now safe and also the story of their friendship. As students at Shiz academy presided over by sorceress Madam Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), spoilt, disingenuous Glinda is roomed with green newcomer Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), a hurt outcast who is rejected by her father and harbours a telekinesis power that is unleashed by rage and sense of injustice. Both girls fall for vapid Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) and both journey to Emerald City to meet the wizard (Jeff Goldblum). Both will have very different outcomes…

All of this is played out over nearly three hours and via numerous songs (two of the show’s bangers, Popular and Defying Gravity show up in Part One) and there is sumptuous production design, kinetic camera swirls, CGI cityscapes, technicolor hoofing and high-note hitting. All as expected from Grande and Erivo, two singers who certainly have pipes. But where Wicked succeeds in spellbinding an audience is not just in the comic hair-tossing of Glinda, the appearance of two OG original Broadway cast members,Goldblum’s jazzy line delivery, the majestic swirl of black cape as Erivo unleashes her full potential while riding a broom… but in the emotional punch it manages to pack.

The connection between Glinda and Elphaba feels true as essayed by Grande and Erivo, a sub-plot about the treatment of animals is distressing (possibly too much for young children), the parallels with modern polarising politics are uncomfortable (‘where I come from everyone knows the best way to bring folks together is to give them a really good enemy’ says Goldblum’s dodgy wizard). But the real gut-punch is Erivo – a moment when she wordlessly displays all her emotions at a bullying school dance is tear-inducing and the adrenal spike is sure when she belts out the bars of Defying Gravity from the boiling heavens surrounding Emerald City. At the European premiere in London, her end credit exit prompted a tearful standing ovation and it’s likely it will do the same in cinemas everywhere else. Cynthia Erivo may have departed from Oz, but she enters the awards conversation in a brilliant flash of light.
Though unlikely to convert musical haters, Wicked is the sort of four-quadrant entertainment that most cinemagoers want at this time of year. Pink does go good with green.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Wicked is in cinemas now

Screening Room

THE FIRE INSIDE

February 7, 2025

Screening Room

COMPANION

January 31, 2025

Screening Room

HARD TRUTHS

January 31, 2025

Screening Room

THE BRUTALIST

January 24, 2025

Screening Room

A COMPLETE UNKNOWN

January 17, 2025

Screening Room

WOLF MAN

January 17, 2025

Screening Room

NOSFERATU

January 3, 2025

Screening Room

NIGHTBITCH

December 6, 2024

Screening Room

CONCLAVE

November 28, 2024

Screening Room

WICKED

November 21, 2024

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