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Laura’s giant step
Laura Marling takes a giant step on Semper Femina (★★★★★), nine exceptional songs of vulnerability, bursting with femininity and passion. Skilfully produced with great sympathy by Blake Mills (Alabama Shakes), Marling’s sixth album is the most magnificent of the bunch. Rob Moose’s inventive string arrangements, tinting Marling’s songs with hues that stretch from playful to majestic, are another plus. Soothing, co-written by Marling and Mills, opens the album on a high note, with sliding basses (electric and acoustic), crackling percussion and sweeping strings. A percussive effect that’s like a horse snorting marks Wild Fire ,a Shelby Lynne-style southern drama, while Don’t Pass Me By sees Marling exposing her feelings with a restrained Dusty Springfield-like vibrato on lines like, ‘‘Can you love me if I put up a fight?’’ Marling’s guitar-playing and songwriting are uniformly terrific and even her range of British-american accents is more mischievous than distracting. There’s no doubting she is a unique folk singer creating her own traditions of excellence. – Pablo Gorondi, AP
Almodovar hits 20
Operatic, balletic, romantic, symbolic, melodramatic. There’s no doubting that Pedro Almodovar’s 20th feature Julieta (M, ★★★) is a sumptuous slice of cinema. Beautiful to look at and listen to, this sees the Spanish auteur at the top of his game, from a composition and cinematography point-of-view, as he makes terrific use of reflections and camera angles to add depth and intrigue to what is a rather simple story. It’s true that Julieta is occasionally portentous and just a touch pretentious, as it layers on the tragedy and symmetry, however it offers enough emotional turmoil and dramatic insight, as well as two terrific performances from Emma Suarez and Adriana Ugarte, to make it a compelling watch. – James Croot
A fitting finale
Jimmy’s Hall was supposed to be veteran British director Ken Loach’s final film. However, the 1930s-set 2014 drama didn’t feel like a memorable final flourish. Thank goodness then that regular collaborator Paul Laverty persuaded him out of retirement for one more story. For I, Daniel Blake (M, ★★★★★) is a bold, bravura and quite brilliant slice of British drama that’s enraging, enchanting and engrossing in equal measure. At once a searing social drama and Kafka-esque nightmare, Daniel Blake is not only a distillation of the best of Loach, but also a timely but grim assessment of modern-day Britain’s ills. – James Croot