ALSO SHOWING
★★★★★
AD ASTRA (12A)
ASTRONAUT Major Roy McBride (Brad Pitt, right) works as part of the team on the International Space Antenna. A series of devastating electrical storms, christened The Surge, results in more than 43,000 deaths and General Rivas (John Ortiz) summons Roy to an urgent confidential meeting.
Scientists have traced the source of The Surge to Neptune, close to the last known location of Roy’s father Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones), who disappeared almost 30 years ago. Roy travels to Neptune to learn if Clifford is alive and creating the electrical storms.
Ad Astra quickens pulses with bravura action sequences, while Pitt shines brighter than the slick special effects.
THE FAREWELL (PG)
INTENSELY moving love letter to the ties that bind. Chinese American Billi
Wang (Awkwafina, right) lives in New York. During a visit to see her father and mother for dinner, Billi learns that her beloved grandmother Nai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen, pictured with Awkwafina) in China has been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. In keeping with tradition, the family has withheld the results from Nai Nai, who is unaware that she has three months to live.
The Wangs intend to gather in Changchun for the hastily arranged wedding of Billi’s cousin Hao Hao (Chen Han) and his girlfriend Aiko (Aoi Mizuhara). Billi wrestles with her conscience as the elderly matriarch’s condition worsens.
DON’T LET GO (15)
A GRIEF-STRICKEN detective warps the linear flow of time to solve his brother’s murder-suicide in Jacob Aaron Estes’s confidently executed thriller.
LA police detective Jack Radcliff (David Oyelowo) receives a muffled telephone call from his teenage niece, Ashley (Storm Reid), both pictured. The conversation is cut short and when Jack returns the call, he is diverted to her voicemail. That night the cop visits Ashley and finds his brother Garret, sister-in-law Susan, his niece and the family’s dog shot dead. Evidence suggests Garret murdered the family in a drug-fuelled haze then turned the gun on himself.
A few days after the funeral, Jack receives a call to his mobile from Ashley. The voice on the other end of the line is apparently his niece and she is alive and well. As Jack converses with the teenager, he surmises that she is talking to him from a few days before the massacre. Without alarming her, Jack makes Ashley an accomplice in his investigation.