Genre: Drama – Page 19 – Wimbledon Film Club

Red Joan

A film of non-linear story-telling as pensioner Joan (Judi Dench) remembers her time at Cambridge, its communist circles that drew her in and what followed. Could this unassuming old lady have been a spy sending classified information to the Soviet Union? Red Joan wonderfully realises 1930s Cambridge and Britain at war, while Sophie Cookson’s shy,…

Boyz n the Hood

WFC celebrates Black History Month with the iconic debut of John Singleton, who died in April aged 51. A 22-year old screenwriting graduate when he started making the film (the screenplay was based on his thesis) he was the first African-American filmmaker, and remains the youngest person ever, nominated for a Best Director Oscar. Three…

Shoplifters

It’s current day Japan, three generations of the Shibata family living together in a tumbledown shack in suburban Tokyo are finding it difficult to make ends meet. They resort to shoplifting, pooling their illicit gains. Things get more complicated when they take in a vulnerable young girl found shivering in the cold. This Palme d’Or…

Pond Life

Entrancing 1990s coming of age drama adapted by Richard Cameron from his own play, follows a group of young people (Trevor (Tom Varey), Pogo (Esme Creed-Miles) and Malcolm (Angus Imrie) over one summer as a legendary carp focuses their attention in a South Yorkshire mining village. Riveting realism & poetry enhanced by Richard Hawley’s haunting…

The Pawnbroker

Rod Steiger (On the Waterfront, Dr Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night) launched a stellar career as a serious actor with his Oscar-nominated performance as an embittered concentration camp survivor running a pawnshop in 1960s Harlem. A powerful drama from director Sidney Lumet, who made some of Hollywood’s most visionary political/social dramas (12 Angry…

Monos

High on a mountain in South America, eight teenage guerrillas guard a woman hostage and, almost as valuable, a milk cow called Shakira. The curious life of the regimented girls and boys is revealed against a surreal landscape of abandoned industrial buildings and panoramic views. Power plays and clashes spiral spectacularly when the teenagers are…

Vita and Virginia

Fascinating period drama/biopic from director Chanya Button (Burn,Burn,Burn) that brings a modern sensibility and excellent soundtrack to the relationship between aristocrat and author Vita Sackville-West (the versatile Gemma Arterton, Their Finest, Gemma Bovery) and literary icon Virginia Woolf (Elizabeth Debicki, hotfoot from Widows). The film charts the relationship’s impact on Woolf’s landmark work Orlando. Drawing…

Booksmart

Director Olivia Wilde’s debut feature film is a charming comedy that’s winning critical praise from top reviewers. On the eve of their high school graduation, two academic achievers and best girlfriends realise they should have worked less & played more. They decide to make up for lost time. On this slight premise Wilde builds a…

Closely Watched Trains

Oscar-winning comedy-drama from Czech New Wave director and actor Jirí Menzel (Larks on a String, I served the King of England). Set in German-occupied Czechoslovakia during WWII, a shy clerk at a village train station fails in his first attempt at making-love, leaving him feeling inadequate and despondent, but eventually succeeds beyond his or anyone’s…

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

Nottingham writer Alan Sillitoe’s adaptation of his own novel is widely considered to be the most convincing of the British ‘angry young men’ dramas of the late Fifties/early Sixties. Middle-class Czech émigré and former documentary-maker Karel Reisz, directing his debut feature film on location in Nottingham and at Twickenham Studios, created an authentic atmosphere for…