Genre: Drama – Page 12 – Wimbledon Film Club

Nebraska

This bittersweet, tragicomic but unsentimental road movie from a distinguished director and star at the top of their game depicts a crotchety, senile old man and his harassed son’s quest for riches in Lincoln, Nebraska. Panoramic shots in grainy black and white of the American mid-west are accompanied by an elegiac, plaintive soundtrack. Distinguished actor…

Leviathan

Kolya (Madyanov) faces a bid by corrupt local mayor to take his land. Dmitri (Vdochenkov) arrives from Moscow to support Kolya’s fight. The director has been likened to a modern Dostoyevsky, so this slyly subversive film is a surprising choice for Russia’s official foreign language Oscar entry. Zyvagintsev delivers a compassionate, satirically incendiary’ film. The…

Northern Soul

Set in Lancashire in 1974, the film follows Matt and John as they leave behind a humdrum life of youth clubs and factory lines to chase a dream of travelling to the US, unearthing unknown soul 45s and establishing themselves as top DJs on the Northern soul music scene. Their dance and amphetamine-fuelled quest brings…

Testament of Youth

WFC pays tribute to the centenary of WWI and to International Women’s Day by screening this adaptation of feminist and pacifist Vera Brittain’s landmark 1933 WWI memoir. A sterling British cast is led by Swede Alicia Vikander (A Royal Affair, Ex Machina) as Vera Brittain, in her first major English-language lead performance. First-time director Kent…

Black Cat White Cat

In this delightful comic fairy tale from the former Republic of Yugoslavia, Emir Kusturica, director of Underground and Arizona Dream, serves up a mix of farce, romance and crime. As main character Matko Destanov, small smuggler and profiteer, likes to say: “Brother, if you can’t solve a problem with money… solve it with a lot…

Fruitvale Station

This recounting of the circumstances running up to the shooting of Oscar Grant III at Fruitvale Station in Oakland, California makes for an engrossing docu-drama rooted in standout performances from Jordan as Oscar Grant and Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer as his mother. For his first feature Coogler had unfettered access both to the legal documents surrounding…

Lift to the Scaffold

Distinguished French director Louis Malle (1932-95) made his debut feature film at the age of 24 with this taut thriller, having won the Palme d’Or in 1956 for the documentary The Silent World, co-directed with Jacques Cousteau. The film’s narrative and editing techniques are seen as a key influence on the Nouvelle Vague movement. The…

Whiplash

Whiplash focuses on Andrew (a standout performance by up and coming young actor Miles Teller), an ambitious and single–minded young jazz drummer inspired by his terrifying teacher Terence Fletcher (a deservedly multi-awarded performance from character actor JK Simmons). Writer-director Damien Chazelle’s second feature film draws on his own experiences as a young drummer in love…

Like Father Like Son

Ryota has worked hard for everything in his life and he thinks nothing can stop him from pursuing a perfect life. Then one day, he and his wife Midori, receives a phone call from the hospital. A blood test shows that their son is not theirs, that the hospital made a mistake when their son…

Timbuktu

Mauretanian director Sissako, who spent part of his youth in Mali, was inspired to make this film when he read an article in Paris newspaper in 2012 about the public stoning of an unmarried couple in the town of Aguelhok (for reportedly having children outside wedlock). Set against the stunning landscapes of the fabled Saraha…