Hello, and welcome to the Film Roundup – bringing you the week’s biggest new cinema releases and some of the reasons why you should be excited for them. This week, in one of the most surreal weeks of cinema we’ve had this year, Amy Adams finds her inner canine, the G7 summit takes a very strange turn, and the Bard comes to San Andreas…
Usual disclaimer: unless otherwise stated, I haven’t seen these films. All of my opinions are based on trailers, early reviews and other rumours and buzz.
Nightbitch
Amy Adams plays a woman who’s had to put her career on hold to be a stay-at-home mother. As life becomes more and more overwhelming, she starts to let her instincts take over and maybe possibly turn into a dog.
On the face of it this is a wonderfully daft, original premise, but it looks like there’s more to it as well. Adams’s character has become defined by motherhood, to the point where we never learn her actual name and she is simply credited as ‘Mother’. The film takes the sorts of tropes that would normally define a werewolf movie and transform them into a feminist message about the strength and power of the female body. This is about the trials of motherhood and how it’s a miracle people cope with them at all.
Adams is always great, and she looks entirely committed here to what must have been quite a physically draining role. The conviction with which she delivers the line in the trailer about cracking walnuts has yet to fail to make me laugh. Also in the cast is Scoot McNairy as her slightly clueless husband, who seems to be digging more metaphorical holes for himself than his increasingly canine wife is digging literal ones.
This looks like a lot of fun.
- Nightbitch on IMDB
- Nightbitch on Rotten Tomatoes
Rumours
The leaders of seven of the world’s biggest democracies meet for the G7 summit to discuss their response to a global crisis, but are distracted by reanimated bog bodies and a giant brain. As they find themselves lost in the woods, will they be able to keep their heads and survive the night?
The cast here is fantastic, led by Cate Blanchett as the Chancellor of Germany and Charles Dance as the President of the United States (despite his RP British accent). Alicia Vikander also appears as the human chosen to give a voice to the giant brain in the woods. Plot-wise, I have very little idea of what will happen here – the trailer doesn’t give much away beyond the initial premise, and what we do see is so random and surreal that it’s hard to predict where it’s going to go or how it will all piece together. The trailer gives it a horror vibe (helped along by name-dropping executive producer Ari Aster, director of films like Hereditary and Midsommar), but by all accounts this is more of a comedic political satire.
And like any satire in the current political climate, your enjoyment of this will likely depend on your leanings. At the time of writing it has a 79% critic rating and a 26% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, suggesting that it’s well made but not everyone who watched it appreciated whatever messaging it’s landed on (which, as far as I can tell, is: politicians love a photo op but are a bit rubbish at actually getting anything done). It looks daft as a brush in all the best ways though, and the cast look like they’re having fun, so I think it will be well worth a watch.
- Rumours on IMDB
- Rumours on Rotten Tomatoes
Grand Theft Hamlet
Recorded during lockdown, this documentary tells the story of a small group of gamers who tried to put on a full production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the middle of Grand Theft Auto V – a famously violent game where standing still on a raised stage for more than 10 seconds will likely earn you several bullets to the face.
I haven’t heard too much about this, but it sounds chaotic and about as gloriously stupid as Shakespeare has ever been. The trailer and clip I’ve seen have focused on the difficulties of trying to put on a serious play when your audience keeps trying to shoot each other and the cast, so I’m not sure whether there’ll be much more to it than simply showing the footage of the game. But there is also potential to wring some emotion out of the idea of a group of people stuck at home trying to achieve something together through the internet. Everyone in the world can empathise with the difficulties of connecting with others during lockdown, and it will be quite cathartic if they can get to the end of the play.
- Grand Theft Hamlet on IMDB
- Grand Theft Hamlet on Rotten Tomatoes
If you only see one film this week…
Adding a bit of girl power to the surreal madness, my film of the week is Nightbitch.
Still in cinemas and worth a watch
- Moana 2 – The songs aren’t quite as catchy as the first one, but they’re still pretty great. The plot isn’t quite as compelling as the first one, but it’s still pretty great. A hugely enjoyable and gorgeously animated film which only suffers through comparison to the high bar of its predecessor and should be seen on a big screen to be fully appreciated. Stay a little way into the credits for a scene that paves the way for a third film which, given this one’s hugely successful opening weekend at the box office, seems like a dead cert to be greenlit.
- Conclave – The most exciting film about lots of old men putting bits of paper in a box and then counting them that you’re ever likely to see. This is tense, well-acted and beautifully shot, with a surprise ending that I did not see coming at all.
- Wicked
Trailer of the week
The Salt Path tells the true story of a couple (played by Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs) who, after losing their home and learning one of them has a degenerative illness, decide to pack up a tent and walk the 630 mile South West Coast path. This looks life affirming and heartwarming, with two fantastic actors in the lead roles and not a single CGI dwarf in sight…
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