In recent years, Iran has become a world leader in the field of mature adult drama. This continues with Inversion, the story of Niloofar, a Tehranian woman whose life is disrupted when her mother takes ill. As a single woman, and thus considered dispensible, she finds herself pressured by her married brother and sister to leave the city with their mother. This may be a direct commentary on Iranian misogyny, but remove the headscarves and this is a scenario that translates universally.
Colossal boasts one of the year’s most striking premises. Anne Hathaway plays a young woman who discovers she has the power to control a giant monster that periodically appears in Korea. The movie manages to pull off its concept for its first half before it takes a dark turn and ruins all its good work with some unbelievable character development.
With King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, director Guy Ritchie takes the great folk tale and turns it into an episode of Minder, full of cockney geezers spouting insufferably laddish dialogue. Add incomprehensible editing and dodgy CG and you have the year’s most unbearable film.
The Lighthouse pays tribute to the late filmmaker Jonathan Demme, who passed away a couple of weeks ago, with screenings of two of his best works. On Friday night you can catch his Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense, while the following night his madcap cult comedy Something Wild plays.
By Eric Hillis of themoviewaffler.com