Best of British
New Zealand’s inaugural British Film Festival is now under way. Featuring a range of titles, including classic movies, returning picks from this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival and sneak previews, there’s something for everyone among the 28-strong film lineup.
Keira Knightley stars in the biographical drama Official
Secrets, Kristin Scott Thomas headlines the dramedy Military Wives, and for the kids, there’s Horrible
Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans.
Documentary fans can choose from looks at a couple’s attempt to drive a 1936 Rolls-Royce across India (Romantic Road), Russia’s one-time wealthiest man (Citizen K), musician Liam Gallagher (As It Was) and former USSR general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev (Meeting Gorbachev).
Mel Gibson stars in a biopic of Oxford English Dictionary compiler James Murray (The Professor and the Madman), and Angus Macfadyen reprises his Braveheart
role in the quasi-sequel Robert the Bruce.
Bill Nighy and Annette Bening team up for the romantic drama Hope Gap, as do Gemma Arterton and Elizabeth Debicki in Vita and Virginia.
There’s also another chance to see Katharine Hepburn and Peter O’Toole light up the screen in 1968’s The Lion in Winter and laugh along with Sir Alec Guinness in 1951’s The Lavender Hill Mob. Stuff has had a chance to preview a selection of movies screening during the fortnight-long festival, which ends on November 13. Here are our picks.
All at Sea (M)
Offering more of Brian Cox than you’ll ever need to see, this Norwegian-set comedy will delight fans of oldies-behaving-badly tales like Waking Ned Devine.
The septuagenarian Scottish actor delivers a deliciously unhinged performance as rest home resident Wally, a man attempting to defy the authorities in his quest to bury his best mate at sea.
The eclectic cast also includes James Fox and, somewhat bizarrely, Lauren Bacall, who died in 2014, something that’s only explained when you discover that the film was first released in Norway in 2010.
The Elephant Man (PG)
While Robert De Niro fans would likely argue otherwise, surely one of ‘‘the Academy’s’’ great crimes of the 20th century was not awarding John Hurt best actor for his performance as the severely deformed John Merrick in David Lynch’s beautiful, bittersweet 1980 drama.
Shot in atmospheric, gorgeous yet gritty black-and-white, the impressive ensemble cast of this true classic also includes Anthony Hopkins and Anne Bancroft.
Farming (R16)
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje directs this disturbing dramatisation of his own troubled early life when his Nigerian parents ‘‘farmed’’ him out to a white British working-class family while they attempted to establish their legal careers.
Suffering from abuse at every turn, the young ‘‘Eni’’ finds himself strangely drawn to a gang of skinheads. Think but with an equally compelling twist.
Fisherman’s Friends (M)
Tuppence Middleton and
Daniel Mays star in this music-infused rom-com about a London music executive whose life is turned upside down when he is abandoned by his mates during a stag weekend in Cornwall.
While stranded in the village of Port Isaac, he uncovers a group of singing fishermen who he believes might just be ‘‘the next big thing’’.
Mrs Lowry and Son (PG)
Timothy Spall and Vanessa Redgrave star in this compelling biopic of English painter
L S Lowry. Set in mid-1930s Lancashire, it looks at the relationship between the frustrated artist and his bedridden, domineering mother.
Spall and Redgrave’s scenes together crackle with plenty of tension and barely repressed anger as Lowry finds his attempts to evolve stymied by his almost maniacal mum.
Spall is particularly impressive, whether with a brush in hand, or using the canvas of his face to portray the flickers of his pent-up emotions.
Sorry We Missed You (M)
Ken Loach’s latest searing drama focuses on one of the scourges of modern life: zero-hour contracts.
It follows the trials and tribulations of Ricky and Abby Turner, as they attempt to juggle working as a courier driver and a carer with keeping their young family from falling apart.
Shot in Loach’s usual gritty style and filled with terrific performances from relatively unknown actors, the result is tearand rage-inducing viewing.
The British Film Festival is screening in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Tauranga, Hamilton, Palmerston North, Hawke’s Bay and New Plymouth until November 13. See britishfilmfestival.co.nz