Day-Lewis is the perfect fit... but the brooding plot is a little bit threadbare
Daniel Day-Lewis, already a three-time Oscar winner, says he has now retired from film acting. If that’s true, he not only signs off in quiet style but gives himself a sporting chance of landing a fourth Academy Award, with another typically intense and meticulously prepared performance in Phantom Thread (15A)
Day-Lewis plays Reynolds Woodcock, a couturier working in Fifties London. His fastidious, wellordered life is disturbed when he falls for a German waitress, Alma (Vicky Krieps). But is there room for a woman in his life? Especially given the prickly relationship he already enjoys with his strictly no-nonsense sister (Lesley Manville).
The frocks, period setting and acting are all exquisite, and both DayLewis and Manville deserve their Oscar nominations. But be warned: the screenplay is heading somewhere
dark, unexpected and ultimately disappointing.
Roman J Israel, Esq (12A) is a rambling mess of a film that sees Denzel Washington playing a former civilrights activist who, perhaps held back by his autistic tendencies or poor wardrobe choices, has spent the past 40 years as a behind-the-scenes lawyer at a law firm that has always put ideals before profit. And then his front-man partner has a heart attack. Will Roman return to his radical roots or sell out to the highprofile law firm run by the super-slick Colin Farrell? After a confusing while, I was past caring.
Lies We Tell (15A) feels like an updated version of Mona Lisa from 1986, with Gabriel Byrne playing the faithful driver, Donald, who ends up driving the lovely Amber, played by Sibylla Deen, around following the death of his boss (Harvey Keitel), with whom Amber had been having an affair. There’s lots of atmosphere and dramatic potential here, but tangled story-telling and jumpcut editing combine to ensure it’s never quite realised. In Winchester (15A) an improbably cast Helen Mirren (left) plays the ageing matriarch of an arms company who is convinced that her sprawling mansion is haunted by those killed by its wares. It’s essentially a
things-that-go-bump-in-the-night film and it does deliver a few decent scares, although the frights diminish with time, as does the quality of Mirren’s performance.
Den Of Thieves (15A) is an indulgent, overblown and unpleasantly violent thriller that pits hard-drinking LA cop Gerard Butler against a crack team of clever but seriously gun-toting bank robbers. Derivative, nasty and at least half an hour too long, it’s one of the worst films you’ll see all year.