THE BIG SCREEN
FENCES (12A)****
STRONG-willed patriarch Troy Maxson (Denzel Washington) presides over this tug-of-war for supremacy. He works as a rubbish collector alongside best friend Jim (Stephen Robertson). Troy toils in order to provide for his wife Rose (Viola Davis) and their son Cory (Jovan Adepo). The young man is a gifted athlete and is being scouted for college football. Troy refuses to sign his son’s permission slip as he believes the leagues are rife with racial prejudice and he doesn’t want his flesh and blood to fail, as he did playing baseball years before. Financial pressures tip Troy over the edge.
THE LEGO BATMAN (U) MOVIE***
THE beginning is a very good place to start because the opening five minutes of credits and droll voiceover are sheer perfection. Sly digs at previous incarnations of the Caped Crusader on the big and small screen up the comic ante, as the titular vigilante panders to his overinflated ego.
20TH CENTURY WOMEN (15)****
THE epicentre of 20th Century Women is bohemian mom Dorothea Fields (Annette Bening), who gave birth to her teenage son Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann) when she was 40. She divorced her husband, who telephones on Jamie’s birthday and at Christmas, but otherwise, mother and son are an inseparable unit. They share a ramshackle home in Santa Barbara with New Wave photographer Abbie Porter (Greta Gerwig) and handyman William (Billy Crudup), who is slowly renovating the property. This madcap menagerie of misfits is completed by 17-year-old waif Julie (Elle Fanning), the object of Jamie’s hormonedriven affections.
LOVING (12A)****
CONSTRUCTION worker Richard Loving (Joel Edgerton) falls giddily in love with family friend Mildred Jeter (Ruth Negga). When she falls pregnant, the couple decide to marry. Forbidden from consummating their relationship in Virginia, Richard and Mildred drive to Washington DC and return home with a marriage licence, which they proudly display on the wall of their home. Sheriff Brooks (Marton Csokas) arrives soon after with his deputies and arrests the Lovings. They are eventually released, but the couple must publicly keep their distance.
T2 TRAINSPOTTING (18)****
CHOOSE to follow Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) as he returns home to beg forgiveness from Spud (Ewen Bremner). Choose revenge, the poison coursing through the veins of reluctant publican Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) when he discovers Renton is back. Choose seething rage, which drips from the tongue of psychotic jailbird Begbie (Robert Carlyle) as he finally glimpses life without bars. Choose Spud as the trembling, emotional core, willing him to succeed as he struggles to sever ties to heroin and discover self-worth. Choose the sinking realisation that the giddy high of the first time you watched Trainspotting isn’t going to be replicated.
HACKSAW RIDGE (15)****
DESMOND (Andrew Garfield) is born and raised with his brother Hal (Nathaniel Buzolic) in Lynchburg, Virginia. His father Tom (Hugo Weaving) is an emotionally scarred veteran of the First World War and mother Bertha (Rachel Griffiths) educates her brood using The Bible. At an early age, Desmond almost kills Hal and is haunted by the episode. Hacksaw Ridge pulls no punches in its depiction of the horrors of conflict. Garfield delivers a mesmerising lead performance, as a caring man who yearns to serve his country, but isn’t willing to abandon his moral compass in the name of patriotism.