ALSO SHOWING
Blinded by the Light (12A)
A coming-of-age fantasy about a British-pakistani teenager in 1980s Luton whose mind is blown by the music of Bruce Springsteen, Blinded
by the Light sees director Gurinder Chadha get back to something like the form of Bend it Like Beckham with an amiable, big-hearted adaptation of journalist Sarfraz Manzoor’s Springsteen-inspired 2007 memoir Greetings from Bury Park.
Fictionalising the transformative effect the Boss had on Manzoor’s life, the film – co-written by Manzoor, Chadha and Chadha’s regular co-writer Paul Mayeda Berges – revolves around Javeed (Viveik Kalra), a meek-seeming 16-yearold from a proud immigrant family whose discovery of Springsteen’s music encourages him to develop his own love of writing at a time when the world appears to be against him. Springsteen’s remarkable ability to articulate the anxieties of the marginalised and the dispossessed in a way that crosses oceans and cultures is at the heart of the film and though the film is ultimately too sentimental to do his music justice, the winning performances make it hard to resist. With Kulvinder Ghir, Hayley Atwell and Aaron Phagura.
Transit (12A)
First published in 1944, German Jewish writer Anne Segher’s novel
Transit told a contemporary story of the Holocaust by detailing the efforts of an unnamed narrator’s attempt to escape Nazi-occupied France using an assumed identity. In an effort to remain true to the spirit of the book – which was based partially on Segher’s own experience of getting out of France in 1942 – German auteur Christian Petzold’s film adaptation strips away period details, immediately suggesting parallels with the contemporary rise of right wing extremism, which in turn gives the film a stark, look-how-easily-thiscould-happen-again urgency. It’s a conceptually daring idea – the lack of specificity transforming its displaced protagonist Georg’s (Franzo Rogowski) futile efforts to leave into a troubling, existential nightmare about the toxic air of paranoia that can’t help but accompany any forced exodus.
The Art of Racing in the Rain
(PG)
A golden retriever called Enzo recalls his life as the dog of an aspiring Formula One driver in this unintentionally bizarre family film. Voice-over narration from Kevin Costner articulates Enzo’s interior life as he gets to grips with his new master (Milo Ventimiglia) and philosophises about the various new family situations – marriage, babies, terminal illness, custody battles – they encounter together. It’s mawkish in the extreme, not helped by a lot of mystical chat about souls and reincarnation that bring back horrible memories of the similarly odd
Dora and the Lost City of Gold
(PG)
Directed by James Bobin (The Muppets), Dora and the Lost City
of Gold finds the titular teenage adventurer – whom the world first encountered as a seven-year-old in the popular animated TV series Dora
the Explorer – initially facing the vagaries of an American high school for her first live-action adventure. If this suggests a Mean Girlsstyle riff on Tomb Raider, the film soon gets back to the jungle as the relentlessly positive Dora and three outcast classmates are kidnapped by mercenaries in the hopes she’ll lead them to her explorer parents (Michael Pena and Eva Longoria) as they try to solve the mystery of a lost Inca civilisation. Bobin brings a welcome irreverence to the usual Indiana Jones-style booby-trapped set-pieces, even finding a sly way to pay tribute to the character’s cartoon origins. Newcomer Isabela Moner, meanwhile, is an endearing ball of energy in the lead. ■