Film

The Secret Agent

06/03/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

If this film’s title suggests that we might be about to watch a run of the mill spy movie, don’t be misled. Kiba Mendonça Filho’s historical drama is many things, but straightforward it certainly isn’t. Shown here in a season of 2026’s Oscar-nominated films, it’s a complex, multi-faceted work that pulls in elements from many different genres with absolute authority.

The story opens in 1977 in Recife, Brazil, a country suffering under the curse of a brutal military dictatorship. ‘Marcelo’ (Wagner Moura) pulls in at a remote petrol station looking to fill his empty tank. He’s taken aback when he sees a dead body lying in the dirt under a flimsy covering of cardboard boxes. The attendant casually tells him that the man has been lying there for several days while everyone waits patiently for the cops to come and investigate. When two policeman do drive up, they’re much more interested in trying to extort money from Marcelo (real name Armando), who is returning to his old stamping ground three years after the mysterious death of his wife, Fatima.

Armando is also here to reconnect with his young son, Fernando, who lives with Fatima’s parents in Recife. Fernando is currently obsessed with the film Jaws, which he is desperate to see. When a shark is caught in local waters and a man’s leg is found in the creature’s stomach, the resulting news headlines kick off a whole series of wild rumours and myths. Meanwhile, Armando manages to secure a place in a refuge, run by former anarcho-communist, Dona Sebastiano (Tanya Maria), and there he meets others who have various reasons for wanting to stay under the radar. He finds work at the local identity card office, which gives him an opportunity to search for information about Fatima.

But it transpires that two hit men, Bobbi (Gabriel Leone) and Augusto (Roney Vilella), have been despatched by the man responsible for Fatima’s death, their sole mission to murder Armando…

The strength of this film is that it takes in so many different beats that it constantly challenges my expectations. The seventies setting is brilliantly evoked and there’s a vibrant, Latin American score by Mateus Alves and Tomaz Alves Souza. Maura is utterly compelling in the central role, but he’s only one of a host of fascinating characters that parade exuberantly across the screen in smaller parts. Watch out for the final performance of veteran actor Udo Keir as Hans, a German-Jewish holocaust survivor.

There’s also a engaging subplot set in the present day, where young research student, Flavia (Laura Lufési), attempts to piece together the puzzle to discover what eventually happened to Armando.

With a formidable running time of two hours and forty-five minutes, The Secret Agent is inevitably going to prove divisive, but that Oscar nomination for best international picture is there for good reason and I won’t be at all surprised if it ends up walking away with the trophy.

4.5 stars

Philip Caveney

The Testament of Ann Lee

03/03/26

Filmhouse, Edinburgh

Watching The Testament of Ann Lee I find myself, once again, in the uncanny valley of the true story that seems so mind-bogglingly unlikely, I start to ask myself if the ‘facts’ might have been tampered with for entertainment value. But no, it only takes a swift Google after the viewing to establish that Ann Lee really did do all the things that are depicted here. She was the founder of The Shakers – and, if your knowledge of this mysterious religion extends only to the rather fancy furnishings they left in their wake, join the club.

Directed by Mona Fastvold and co-written with Brady Corbet (director of The Brutalist), TTOAL is a great big sprawling narrative about the titular Ann (Amanda Seyfried), narrated by her sister, Mary (Thomasin McKenzie). It follows Ann from her humble childhood in Manchester, through her ill-fated marriage to Abraham (Christopher Abbott), and on to her ambitious pilgrimage to America where, accompanied by her tireless brother, William (Lewis Pullman), she establishes a religion on the premise that she is the reincarnation of God in female form. As you do.

It’s clear, when viewed through a modern lens, that Ann’s beliefs are founded upon a mixture of depression after losing four children in their infancy and her subsequent conviction that sex is inherently evil, something only to be indulged in with the express aim of creating babies. Blaming herself for their premature deaths, she stopped eating and subsequently suffered from visions and began exhibiting the strange, twitchy movements that ultimately gave her religion its name. (For a while there it was going to be the Shaker-Quakers, but they settled for something snappier.)

Oh, and did I mention that this is also a musical? Composer Daniel Blumberg has created a whole series of songs based around original Shaker hymns, to which Seyfried and the rest of the cast dance and leap like demented trancers at an all-night rave. It shouldn’t work and yet it does, big time. TTOAL is an ambitious and exhilarating epic that provides the ever-watchable Seyfried with what just might be the role of her career. She even manages a pretty convincing Mancunian accent, though she does very occasionally lapse into Liverpudlian. It’s important to add that this is not just a star vehicle for Seyfried, but the very embodiment of an ensemble piece, with every member of the cast working hard to make this incredible story credible.

There’s no denying this is the kind of film that’s destined to divide audiences (aside from anything else, I suspect the many song and dance numbers will alienate a lot of people) but, to my mind it’s an ambitious enterprise that achieves all its goals. Brought in on the same kind of ‘modest’ budget that gave us The Brutalist, this screening in 70mm employs old-fashioned matte painting techniques to achieve its stunning vistas and it looks absolutely ravishing. However manic it gets, it manages to keep me hooked throughout its two hours and seventeen minutes run time.

Do I come to understand the rabid sensibilities that fuelled the Shaker movement?

Not for a moment, but I have a wild ride trying to get to grips with it.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

02/03/26

The Cameo, Edinburgh

Her child is sick and Linda (Rose Byrne) can’t cope. Caring for her daughter (Delaney Quinn) is a full-time job – and she has an actual full-time job as well. Throw in an absent husband (Christian Slater), a judgemental doctor (writer/director Mary Bronstein) and a gaping hole in her bedroom ceiling, and it’s no surprise that Linda is tired, snappy and a little too reliant on wine and weed.

The child has an unspecified eating disorder and has been fitted with a feeding tube. (In an audacious directorial decision we never get a proper look at the girl, but it really works – this isn’t her story.) Linda’s paediatrician insists that she should attend parents’ meetings, where a group of mothers (no fathers in sight) are exhorted not to blame themselves for their children’s conditions. With no sense of irony, Dr Spring follows the meeting by telling Linda that her child is “failing,” that Linda doesn’t have the right attitude and, essentially, it’ll be her fault if the treatment doesn’t work.

Meanwhile, Linda’s husband, Charles, can’t help because he’s working away, but that doesn’t stop him from phoning to hector her. She should make the most of staying in a hotel, he says, implying it’s a holiday, but why hasn’t she chased up the contractor who’s supposed to be fixing the apartment? Why isn’t the child gaining weight? Why has Linda left the child alone to go shopping? Why hasn’t Linda answered his texts? Why, Linda? Why?

Her therapist (Conan O’Brien) isn’t much use either. Linda’s a therapist too, with an office down the hall from his, and his impassive responses rile her. She knows the tricks of the trade and is frustrated that he won’t transgress, won’t relieve her of responsibility by simply telling her what to do. When one of Linda’s own patients, a young mother with post-partum depression (Danielle MacDonald), abandons her baby in Linda’s office, it’s the final straw. Linda has reached her limit.

Almost a companion piece to Lynne Ramsey’s Die My Love, Bronstein’s movie is a searing indictment of a system that sets mothers up to fail, that overloads them with responsibility but provides no safety nets. Byrne’s portrayal of Linda’s mental decline is devastating: she loses all confidence in every area of her life, no longer capable of functioning as mother, therapist, wife or friend. Even her putative relationship with her hotel neighbour, James (A$AP Rocky), proves shallow and unreliable, prompting her to turn even further in on herself. The world is hostile and everyone is an enemy. In the end, there’s only one way out…

Linda’s disintegration is magnified by cinematographer Christopher Messina’s use of light: the gold flashes that dance in her periphery; the dreamscapes that veer between illusion and reality. The hole in the ceiling looms ever larger over Linda’s head, a great big gaping metaphor for a woman on the edge.

Byrne’s towering, nuanced performance makes her a worthy Oscar contender (although I’m still backing Jessie Buckley for the win). Meanwhile, this intense, emotional movie certainly seals Bronstein’s reputation as one to watch.

4.4 stars

Susan Singfield

“Wuthering Heights”

15/02/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

I’ll be the first to admit: I’m not the biggest fan of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. I love its complexity, its uncompromising depiction of broken people and the wildness at its heart, but it just doesn’t speak to me as clearly as, say, Jane Eyre, Villette or The Tenant of Wildefell Hall. I’m not denying the author’s genius, but – for me – there are too many narrative layers between the reader and the central story; I don’t want the Lockwood and Nelly Dean filters. And, let’s be honest, it’s all a bit histrionic, isn’t it?

Emerald Fennell certainly leans into the melodrama in this sumptuous interpretation, and she’s sensibly expunged Lockwood (whatever purpose he serves on the page, it doesn’t translate well to film). However, some of the other changes are genuinely baffling. It’s like she’s made an adaptation of an earlier movie rather than the novel. It’s also – dare I say it? – like she doesn’t really get the book.

Let’s start with the most glaring problem: Heathcliff. He’s played by two perfectly competent actors: first Owen Cooper and then, in a sudden age-defying leap, Jacob Elordi. There’s no problem with their performances but, let’s face it, neither is right for the part – and not just because Elordi is a decade too old.

They’re white; Heathcliff isn’t.

While I’m not someone who expects screen adaptations to be exact replicas of their source material, I do think that something as fundamental to the character as Heathcliff’s race can’t simply be erased. His outsider status stems from the fact that he is visibly different from those around him; he is deemed an unsuitable match for Cathy because of his unknown ethnicity. Racism is the reason he’s rejected. It matters that he’s found at the Liverpool docks and not just the village pub. He’s persona non grata from the start. It also seems an odd decision to cast British Pakistani, Shazad Latif, as Edgar Linton. Why not swap the two leads?

What’s more, Fennell bottles out when it comes to Heathcliff’s monstrosity. She depicts him as a romantic hero, but that’s the antithesis of what Brontë wrote. The novel’s Heathcliff is a nuanced character, at once sexy, pitiful, admirable and monstrous. Like Frankenstein’s creature (a better casting for Elordi), we are shown the trauma that destroys him, but we also see the nasty brute that he becomes. Fennell’s iteration lets him off the hook: he’s not cruel or abusive, just too deeply in love. Making Isabella (Alison Oliver)’s degradation consensual is horribly tin-eared, especially the moment Heathcliff demonstrates that she could easily get away if she wanted to. I don’t think you need to be particularly socially aware to know that “Why doesn’t she just leave?” is a harmful, victim-blaming trope when it comes to domestic violence.

Leaving aside the obvious issue with Fennell deciding to omit the second half of the story, there are two further choices I need to question. First, why has Hindley been deleted from the tale? His role is shared between Mr Earnshaw (Martin Clunes) and Nelly Dean (Hong Chau): the former physically abuses Heathcliff, while the latter is jealous after being displaced in Cathy’s affections, and neither response rings true. And second, why doesn’t Cathy’s baby live? One of Wuthering Heights‘ main themes is emotional inheritance – but there’s nobody here to represent the next generation. It seems a glaring loss.

Novel aside, there are also some problems with the film itself. Everything is so over-the-top that it’s hard to take seriously. From Isabella’s “ribbon room” to Mr Earnshaw’s ridiculous alcohol-bottle mountains (never mind that he’s famously broke, glass was expensive back then and he’d have been more likely to get his booze in a refillable ceramic jug), there’s no subtlety here at all.

Is there anything to like? Yes. Charlotte Mellington and Margot Robbie both play Cathy well, although – like Elordi – Robbie is way too old for the role (Cathy is only supposed to be 18 when she dies, and Robbie is almost double that). The intensity of Cathy and Heathcliff’s relationship is convincingly drawn, and I love the black, red and white colour palette. The moors are perfectly windswept and gloomy, and the portrayal of an impoverished gentry clinging to its name is clear-eyed and unsentimental. I also quite like the music, with a score by Anthony Willis and an album’s worth of original songs by Charli XCX.

But, in the end, that’s not enough. This feels like a wasted opportunity from a promising young director whose blind spots have thwarted her passion project.

2.5 stars

Susan Singfield

Nouvelle Vague

15/02/26

Filmhouse, Edinburgh

I’m a longtime fan of American director, Richard Linklater, and I suspect that what I like most about him is his eclecticism: I never know what kind of thing he’s going to come up with next. Despite this, the advance word about Nouvelle Vague comes as a genuine surprise. It’s about the filming of Breathless (A Bout de Souffle), shot on location in Paris and featuring a cast of (mostly) French actors speaking their own language. There are so many elements here that could have gone spectacularly wrong – and, of course, there were plenty of nay-sayers concerned about cultural appropriation. But no worries, this film is in an unqualified delight from start to finish.

It’s 1959 and the various members of the influential group of film critics known as Cahiers du Cinéma are starting to make their respective marks on the industry. François Truffaut (Adrien Rouyard) is about to wow the audience at Cannes with his debut feature, The 400 Blows, and Claude Chabrol (Antoine Besson) has also made an impact with a self-financed film, Le Beau Serge. But the group’s leading light, Jean-Luc Godard (Guillame Marbec), has yet to dip his toes into directorial waters.

At Cannes, he manages to persuade veteran film producer George de Beauregard (Bruno Dreyfűrst) to finance his debut, which will be loosely based around a script conceived by Truffaut, itself inspired by the misadventures of real-life car thief, Michel Portail. Luc Godard has already signed affable young actor Jean Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin) for the lead role, but when the director bumps into American star, Jean Seberg (Zooey Deutch), fresh from her role in Bonjour Tristesse, he becomes convinced that she is the only woman who can play the second lead in his movie and sets about doing everything he can to persuade her to come on board.

But, back in Paris, budget in place and cast duly assembled, it soon becomes clear that Luc Godard has his own ideas about how a film should be directed – and they’re not like anything that’s gone before…

Marbec is brilliant as the chain-smoking, brooding Luc Godard, totally convinced of his own genius and, frankly, a bit of a knob, disregarding every bit of advice he’s given by more experienced friends. His casual approach causes Beauregard enough stress to drive him to the edge of a nervous breakdown. The novice director pretty much always uses the first take (though he rarely bothers to watch it back) and has a habit of calling a halt to the day’s shoot after a couple of hours’ work, simply because he’s ‘feeling peckish.’ Both Deutch and Dullin are eerie lookalikes for their real life counterparts, and the film effortlessly captures the frantic day-to-day shooting process that against all the odds, would result in one of the most groundbreaking films in movie history.

But lest I’ve made this sound like a worthy slog aimed at cinephiles, don’t be misled. Nouvelle Vague is an absolute breeze, fast, funny and utterly charming. Just like the film it’s homaging, it was shot on location in Paris with a tiny budget and no special effects, yet it somehow manages to capture the look and feel of a lost era with absolute conviction.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Hamlet

08/02/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

I’m a sucker for a modern interpretation of Shakespeare, illuminating the continued relevance of his themes. I’m also a menopausal woman who needs to pee quite frequently, so when I read that Aneil Karia’s Hamlet has a tight sub-two-hour running time, I’m sold. I might actually be able to sit through the whole film!

London, 2025. Hamlet (Riz Ahmed) is devastated by the death of his father (Avijit Dutt), the mega-rich owner of a controversial construction company, Elsinore. Numb with grief, the young heir is horrified when his mother (Sheeba Chaddha) announces she plans to remarry without delay – taking Old Hamlet’s brother, Claudius (Art Malik), as her new husband.

As if things weren’t difficult enough, Hamlet soon has a lot more to deal with, when his father’s ghost appears before him, accusing Claudius of killing him and urging his son to seek revenge. True to Shakespearean form, Hamlet devises a convoluted scheme to prove his uncle’s guilt. He’ll pretend to be mad, verbally abuse his girlfriend, and interrupt his mum’s wedding with a play that shows the groom committing murder. What could possibly go wrong?

In this version, Hamlet and his family are British Indians, and we’re in England, not Denmark. In my favourite change to the original, Fortinbras is no longer the defeated King of Norway, but instead the name of a collective of homeless people, who’ve been displaced by Old Hamlet’s cruel business practices. Here, Hamlet’s madness is not just a reaction to his own situation, but a response to the belated realisation that his family’s wealth comes from theft and exploitation. His struggle, in the end, is to restore social justice, as well as to avenge his dad.

There’s a lot to like about this film. It’s exciting and propulsive, stripping Hamlet down to its most interesting parts, while retaining enough soul-searching to make us understand the young protagonist’s despair. I love the depiction of the players’ performing Old Hamlet’s murder, and the famous soliloquy (“To be or not to be…”) is utterly thrilling, as Hamlet – driving through London’s busy night-time streets – floors the accelerator and takes his hands off the steering wheel…

I’m not sure that the omission of Horatio works particularly well: the contrasting counsel of Horatio and Laertes (Joe Alwyn) adds an interesting dimension to the play that is lacking here. I also think that, in a contemporary adaptation such as this, Ophelia (Morfydd Clark) could be given more to do. On the other hand, I like the subtle changes to Gertrude’s character, cleverly rendering her innocent of any crime while also giving her more agency. Chaddha’s performance is nuanced and convincing – and Timothy Spall was surely born to play Polonius.

But this is Riz Ahmed’s film, and he’s as fine a Hamlet as I’ve ever seen: a flawed young man tormented by grief and guilt, behaving badly and impulsively, hurtling towards his own demise. It’s a tale as old as, well, four hundred years. And still it endures.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

Send Help

07/02/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

After a somewhat muddled attempt to helm a Marvel film (2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), Sam Raimi heads back into the kind of territory that’s a better fit for his directorial skills. If Send Help initially seems like an odd choice of vehicle, it nonetheless features the kind of perfectly-judged horror tropes that he’s founded his reputation on. And if it’s vaguely reminiscent of JM Barrie’s 1902 play, The Admirable Crichton – with the gender roles reversed – well, that may just be coincidental.

Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) has worked for years as a strategist for an American financial institution and has become the right-hand woman of the company’s CEO. She’s confidently expecting a hard-earned promotion when his son, Bradley (Dylan O’Brien), takes over the business, but it’s clear from the outset that the smug new boss has a low opinion of Linda with her sensible shoes and her tuna salad sandwiches. He informs her that the role of Vice President will go to his bestie, Donovan (Xavier Samuel), who plays golf with him and knows not to take things too seriously. The fact that Don has even less business acumen than Bradley seems not to bother the latter one jot.

But Bradley is sensible enough to keep Linda on the team for an important trip to Thailand, where he fully expects her to use her skills to finalise the company’s upcoming merger with their Eastern counterparts. On the flight over, Donovan chances on an old audition tape that Linda has made for the survival reality show that she watches in her leisure time. He gleefully shows it to the others. The all-male team take great delight in mocking her ambitions… and then the plane is hit by a sudden storm and suddenly, nobody’s laughing any more.

Come morning, Linda and Bradley are the sole survivors of the crash, stranded on an apparently uninhabited island. Bradley has suffered a leg injury. And the tables are beginning to turn…

Raimi has always had a knack of leavening his horror tropes with well-timed gags and that’s a quality that’s very much to the fore here. The screening I attend is punctuated by gales of laughter and gasps of horror in pretty much equal measure. Okay, so a late stage ‘revelation’ may not be quite the surprise that screenwriters Damon Shannon and Mark Swift were presumably aiming for, but there are nonetheless plenty of other unexpected twists and turns in the narrative that I really don’t see coming.

Both McAdams and O’Brien supply impressively nuanced performances (the film is essentially a two-hander) and, whenever I start to warm to one or the other of them, something happens to push me back in the opposite direction. But the overarching message about toxic masculinity comes through loud and clear and, no matter how devious Linda Liddle becomes, I can’t help rooting for her – even when she’s puking in the face of the person she’s attempting to deliver the kiss of life to.

Raimi aficionados will need to keep a very sharp eye out for the inevitable Bruce Campbell cameo – blink and you’ll surely miss it – but it is there.

Send Help is fast, frenetic and perfectly paced. It’s good to have the veteran director back in the driving seat with his foot on the accelerator.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

Primate

01/02/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Walking into an empty auditorium for Primate, we momentarily suppose that we have accidentally wandered into the room where they’re screening Melania. But no, we’re in the right place – and this is horror of an entirely different kind. This low-budget fright film makes no attempt to hide the fact that what we’re being offered here is essentially Cujo with a Chimp – but, that said, I can’t pretend that it doesn’t have me filled with absolute dread throughout its pacy 89-minute run-time.

Which is, I suppose, the object of the exercise.

The action takes place in a fabulously remote mountain retreat in Hawaii, where novelist Adam Pinborough (Troy Kotsur) lives with his young daughter Erin (Gia Hunter) and their ‘pet’ chimpanzee, Ben (performed by Miguel Hernando Torres Umba). Ben’s origins are briefly explained in the film’s opening credits and Adam – who is deaf – utilises a clever piece of kit that allows Ben to communicate by tapping on a screen. But Ben has been behaving strangely of late so, for safety reasons, is locked in his outdoor enclosure. When the ape receives a visit from Dr Doug Lambert (an uncredited Rob Delaney), who has come to administer an injection, the film unflinchingly demonstrates that there’s a very good reason for its 18 certificate.

After the credits, we backtrack thirty-six hours. Adam’s older daughter, Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah), is boarding a plane to make her first home visit in ages. She has been away at college along with her best friend Kate (Victoria Wynant), and they’ve brought their flirty pal, Hannah (Jessica Alexander), along for the ride. Unfortunately, Adam has to travel away from home to attend an important book signing, but he’s happy to let hunky Nick (Benjamin Chang) keep an eye on things during his absence. After all, Ben is safely locked up in his enclosure, so what could possibly go wrong?

To be honest, there’s little point in me mentioning the human characters, because they are nothing more than potential targets for the rabies-infected Ben to convert into piles of blood and bone. But director Johannes Roberts and cinematographer Stephen Murphy handle the film with considerable panache, managing to rack up the suspense to almost unbearable levels. Sometimes it’s all I can do not to yell out warnings at the screen. Even if most of the teenage characters fail to entirely convince, it matters little. The film’s real triumph is that it uses practical effects to deliver its scares and must have been made for a fraction of the budget of your average CGI extravaganza. Ben is utterly believable, despite being nothing more than an actor in an ape suit, utilising a few simple animatronics.

One extended sequence, which plays out in total silence to accentuate the fact that Adam is deaf (and therefore cannot hear any of the carnage that is happening all around him), is particularly inspired. But perhaps the biggest surprise of all is to discover that, despite all those exterior shots of Hawaii, the production was actually based in the UK.

As Primate hits its final scenes, you can’t help wondering about the court case that’s going to ensue, and it’s hard to feel sorry for Adam, who shows no contrition for the deaths that his dangerous ‘pet’ has caused – but then again, he did have hopes that his latest book might be turned into a film, so… it’s not all bad news.

Joking aside, Primate is gnarly stuff. Those of a nervous disposition might prefer to give this one a judicious steer, but for me, it ticks enough boxes to qualify as an entertaining thrill-ride. With added bite.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

The History of Sound

29/01/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

The History of Sound is another ‘small’ but momentous film, one that narrates the story of an on-off relationship between two gay men, in an era when such liaisons had to be conducted in secret. It pretty much spans the central character’s lifetime and is set in several different locations, but at every turn is flooded with a pervasive mournful yearning for what could – should – have been.

We first encounter young Lionel Worthing (Leo Cocovinis) living with his parents in a shotgun shack in the wilds of Kentucky, already developing an interest in the folk songs played by his father to help pass the long, lonely hours. When next we meet Lionel, it’s 1917 and (now played by Paul Mescal) he’s a student at The New England Conservatory of Music. In a pub one evening, he encounters David White (Josh O’ Connor), who is sitting at a piano and singing a song that resonates in Lionel’s memory. He introduces himself and, when David tells him that he ‘collects folk songs’, Lionel ends up singing Silver Dagger, a song from his childhood – and an attraction sparks between them. They become lovers.

But just one year later, David is called up to serve in the American Army and, though the two men promise to stay in touch, it’s several years before Lionel hears from David again. His classes at the Conservatory suspended, Lionel is compelled to head back to Kentucky, to care for his ailing mother (Molly Price), now a widow and still living in the same humble home in which Lionel grew up. It’s a thankless, hard-scrabble existence and Lionel is desperately lonely there. So when a letter from David arrives out of the blue, he reads it with mounting excitement. David is now a teacher at Maine college and is planning to spend the summer on a 100-mile trip across America, seeking out and recording American folk songs on wax cylinders. Would Lionel like to join him on the trip?

Of course, he says yes, even though he feels horribly guilty at the thought of leaving his mother alone. The ensuing summer is the happiest time of his life – but, as the two men make their way across country, Lionel has no inkling of what is to follow…

Directed by Oliver Hermanus and written by Ben Shattuck (based on his original short story), this is a handsomely mounted film that skilfully captures the changing eras and several different locations with great skill, thanks to Alexander Dyan’s dazzling cinematography and Miyako Bellizzi’s costume designs. Mescal and O’Connor play their roles with absolute distinction – little wonder that they are two of the most prolific actors in the firmament – and Oliver Coates provides a lush original score to supplement the traditional folk songs sung by the strangers the duo encounter on their travels. (I’m pleasantly surprised to discover how many of the ballads are familiar to me from my own youth).

A lengthy section set in Rome in the 1920s provides a lush, sun-drenched contrast to some of the earlier scenes but, here – as well as later in Oxford – Lionel’s attempts to find happiness in a more conventional relationship are destined to fail; and there’s a heartbreaking coda set in 1980, where an elderly Lionel (played by Chris Cooper), now an eminent musicologist, receives an unexpected parcel, containing memories of more optimistic times.

I won’t pretend this isn’t a sad story; it most certainly falls into that category. But it’s utterly compelling throughout and is the kind of film that leaves you thinking about its themes, long after the credits have rolled.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney

H is for Hawk

25/01/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Based on Helen Macdonald’s 2014 memoir, H is for Hawk is the story of the author’s headlong plunge into depression after the sudden death of her beloved father, Alisdair (Brendan Gleeson). When we first meet Helen (Claire Foy), she’s an academic, teaching History and Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, but already feeling that she’s not really inspiring her students. Alisdair, a celebrated newspaper photographer, is her constant source of solace: warm, understanding, the only one who really ‘gets’ her. His unexpected demise leaves her utterly bereft, unable to properly communicate with her mother (played by Lyndsey Duncan) and strangely detached from her Aussie best friend, Christina (Denise Gough).

After chancing upon one of her father’s old photographs, where a teenage version of herself is standing with a hawk perched on her outstretched hand, Helen becomes obsessed with the idea of revisiting this long-forgotten interest and, almost before she knows it, she’s impulsively driven to the North of Scotland to purchase a goshawk – the most feral and unpredictable of birds. But once she has ‘Mabel’ installed in her college digs, she realises that she will now have to spend her days working with the bird, learning its habits, how to feed it, care for it and, eventually, take it out to hunt in the Cambridgeshire countryside.

Meanwhile, her commitments at the University are going to have to take a back seat. To her friends and family, it seems as though she’s having some kind of nervous breakdown…

H is for Hawk is a ‘small’ film with big things to say about the nature of bereavement. Adapted from Macdonald’s book by director Philippa Lowthorpe and novelist Emma Donoghue, it’s an absorbing story, anchored by a remarkable performance from Foy. Lacking the kind of budget that would allow for CGI, she works alongside real birds – there are four of them in total, though only the eagle-eyed will spot the joins – and the developing ‘relationship’ between woman and raptor is at the heart of this affecting story. The moments where Helen unconsciously mirrors some of Mabel’s feral characteristics are a particular delight and so are the scenes featuring extraordinary wildlife footage, courtesy of veteran cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen.

Flashbacks to Macdonald’s memories of Alisdair are nicely interwoven throughout the narrative and a climactic scene where Helen delivers a moving eulogy at her father’s memorial mass has me in floods of tears. The mournful tone won’t appeal to everyone, but for me, this ticks all the right boxes.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney