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getting more relentless. His latest film, Julieta (15A) ★★★, features no fewer than three terminal illnesses and three premature deaths. That counts as overdoing it in my book.
The title role is played by two actresses: Emma Suárez plays Julieta as a still-glamorous fiftysomething whose plans for a new life are disrupted by a sighting of her long-estranged daughter. Young Julieta is played by doe-eyed Adriana Ugarte. In a long flashback, we discover the unhappy events that led to their split.
There’s an undeniable emotional intensity to what eventually becomes an exploration of guilt, but it’s also overwritten.
No sooner has David Brent: Life On The Road hit our cin- emas than along comes another music-based mockumentary in the shape of Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (16) ★★, which aspires to do for supposedly edgy boy bands what This Is Spinal Tap did for heavy metal. The pulling power of producer Judd Apatow has produced a stellar cast of reallife celebrity talking heads, but the fictional underlying story just isn’t funny enough; doubly so given its familiar path. Saturday Night Live alumnus Andy Samberg, left, plays white rapper Conner4Real, who used to be in the Style Boyz but is now out on his own with a new album and tour. Both turn out to be disasters in a film that has its funny moments but still feels like a Saturday Night Live sketch that goes on way too long.