Members’ Choice 2019-20 Autumn

Bait  Members’ Choice 
RT 100% IMDb 7.8.
U.K. drama, 2019, 15, 89m. B/w. Dir Mark Jenkin.

Tense, poignant and often funny story of a Cornish fisherman, with a unique visual style. Class and culture clash to breaking point in a fishing village where locals resent the impact of affluent incomers on their community.

RTCC: As visually distinctive as it is narratively satisfying, Bait blends a classic aesthetic with timely themes to produce a thrillingly original and uniquely enriching drama. 

Booksmart  Members’ Choice 
RT 97% IMDb 7.3
. USA comedy, 2019, 15, 100m. Dir Olivia Wilde.

Lady Bird’s Beanie Feldstein stars in a modern, smart female buddy comedy. Two high achieving best friends realise on the eve of graduation they should have played more and studied less. As they let loose, a series of chaotic events ensue which lead to self-discovery and new friendships.

RTCC: Fast-paced, funny, and fresh, Booksmart does the seemingly impossible by adding a smart new spin to the coming-of-age comedy.

Hail Satan?
RT 96% IMDb 7.2.
USA doc, 2019, 15, 94m.  Dir Penny Lane.

Fascinating and often hilarious chronicle of the rise of the Satanic Temple, a media-savvy movement challenging the religious right in America and fighting for freedom of expression and belief.

RTCC: Hail Satan? challenges preconceived notions of its subject with a smart, witty, and overall entertaining dispatch from the front lines of the fight for social justice. 

Transit  Members’ Choice 
RT 94% IMDb 7.0.
Germany drama, 2018, 12a, 102m. German/French, Eng subt. Dir Christian Petzold.

Intelligent, complex thriller from the director of The Lives of Others, updating a classic German WW2 novel to a modern setting. A German refugee from fascism encounters Kafkaesque obstacles and a mysterious woman (Frantz’s Paula Beer) as he seeks to escape from Marseilles to a new life.

RTCC: Transit lives up to its title with a challenging drama that captures characters – and puts the audience – in a state of flux and exerts an unsettling pull.

Fighting with my Family.
RT 92% IMDb 7.1. 
U.K. comedy, 2018, 12a, 106m. Dir Stephen Merchant.

Rising star Florence Pugh (Lady Macbeth) & Nick Frost (Hot Fuzz) star in this funny and heartwarming comedy, inspired by a true story. A teenage girl has to leave her tight-knit Norwich family to make her mark in the cut-throat sport of international wrestling.

RTCC: Much like the sport it celebrates, Fighting with My Family muscles past clichés with a potent blend of energy and committed acting that should leave audiences cheering. 

Happy as Lazzaro
RT 90% IMDb 7.6.
Italy drama, 2018, 12a, 124m. Italian, Eng subt. Dir Alice Rohrwacher.

Charming magical realist drama. A kind-hearted peasant from a secluded rural community in Italy befriends a rich young man cursed by his imagination, forming an unlikely and life-altering bond.

RTCC: Happy as Lazzaro uses a friendship’s ups and downs as a satisfyingly expansive canvas for a picture rich with thematic and cinematic depth.

The Sisters Brothers 
RT 87% IMDb 7.0
. USA western/comedy, 2018, 15, 119m. Dir Jacques Audiard.

Subtle, funny western from Jacques Audiard, director of previous WFC screening Dheepan. John C Reilly & Joaquin Phoenix star as two cynical, squabbling brothers/assassins, who along with detective Jake Gyllenhaal attempt to track down a gold prospector.

RTCC: The Sisters Brothers rides familiar genre trails in occasionally unexpected ways – a satisfying journey further elevated by its well-matched leading men.

Le Redoutable
RT 53% IMDb 6.6.
France biopic, 2017, 15, 106m. French, Eng subt. Dir Michael Hazanavicius.

Whimsical biographical comedy/drama from the director of The Artist.  Imagined account of the relationship between French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard and 19 year old actress Anne Wiazemsky, with whom he fell in love when filming La Chinoise in 1967

RTCC: Godard Mon Amour imagines a chapter from Jean-Luc Godard’s life with no shortage of whimsy, but lacks its subject’s essential inspiration.

Farming
RT 44% IMDb 6.6.
U.K. drama, 2018, 18, 102m. Dir Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje.

Autobiographical coming of age story from debut writer-director Akinnuoye-Agbaje.  A Nigerian boy is placed by his parents in temporary foster care with a white English family: racial confusion and self-hatred result, drawing him into a white skinhead gang in 1980s East London.

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