This week's UK cinema releases offer a mix of powerful performances, from Cynthia Erivo's commanding turn as a barrister in Prima Facie to Johnny Depp's surprisingly effective Scrooge in Ebenezer. Critics have also weighed in on new documentaries, dramas, and a pair of re-released classics.
Prima Facie and Whispers in the Woods
Prima Facie (★★★★☆) is a screen adaptation of Suzie Miller's international stage hit. Cynthia Erivo stars as a lawyer whose career defending rape suspects is undermined by her own experience. Peter Bradshaw's review calls it "a blazingly fierce, effortlessly commanding central performance from Erivo, like something from classical drama, powers the movie."
In Whispers in the Woods (★★★★☆), director Vincent Munier takes his father and son into the Vosges forest in France. Leslie Felperin describes it as "a subtle, tender work that evokes the need to pass on interest and engagement in the natural world to younger generations, but which manages to avoid feeling too preachy or sanctimonious."
Documentaries: 1 in 2, A Fox Under a Pink Moon, and Soul Patrol
1 in 2 (★★★★☆) is David Wilkinson's compassionate film about his own bowel cancer treatment, asking why so many younger people are getting the same diagnosis. Bradshaw notes it is "a sobering but very compassionate, humorous, generous film, and one that shows how Wilkinson's highly personal and unselfconsciously confessional style has grown into something very watchable and distinctive."
A Fox Under a Pink Moon (★★★★☆) follows refugee Soraya Akhlaghi, who filmed her perilous flight from Iran and her precarious new life over five years on her phone. Phuong Le says, "A born creator, Akhlaghi channels her struggles and despair into florid, intense drawings."
Soul Patrol (★★★★☆) tells the story of the US army's first Black special ops team in Vietnam. Bradshaw's review notes the title "refers to the soul music that became anthemic to these soldiers, but also, with grim irony, to their sense that their souls had died in the jungle, fighting people they felt were just like them."
Give Me the Ball! and Ebenezer
Give Me the Ball! (★★★★☆) is a documentary about tennis ace Billie Jean King. Bradshaw writes, "King was a ferocious force in women's tennis from the 60s onwards and a vehement but polite advocate for equal rights on prize money."
Ebenezer (★★★☆☆) stars Johnny Depp as the celebrated miser in a new version of A Christmas Carol. Bradshaw says, "As Scrooge, Depp is in fact rather good; theatrically bad-tempered and petulant and, as with his Jack Sparrow, I suspect Depp's comedy timing and sonorous British accent might have been learned from his old Fast Show comrade Paul Whitehouse."
Traces of Justice, The Mosquito Bowl, and 100 Sunset
Traces of Justice (★★★☆☆) is a cop thriller centered on forensic scientist Cui Daozhi, the "Chinese Sherlock Holmes." Mike McCahill calls it "a disarming mix of propaganda, copaganda and gripping narrative."
The Mosquito Bowl (★★★☆☆) is Peter Berg's second world war drama about an American football game before the battle of Okinawa. Adrian Horton notes Berg's "knack for grace within visual cacophony and chaos."
100 Sunset (★★★☆☆) is Kunsang Kyirong's debut feature, following Kunsel, an introverted woman, through Toronto's Tibetan community. Cath Clarke says, "In the end, the film fades like a vapour trail in the sky."
Fjord and How to Rob a Bank
Fjord (★★☆☆☆) is Cristian Mungiu's child abuse drama starring Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan. Bradshaw writes, "Ultimately, the film does not compellingly deliver a blazing truth about its various relationships – but neither does it intriguingly withhold any such truth from us."
How to Rob a Bank (★★☆☆☆) stars Nicholas Hoult, Anna Sawai, and Pete Davidson in an anti-capitalist caper. Benjamin Lee says, "For a film that's supposed to enrage and excite and energise, it's all strangely, boringly flat and with a runtime stretching past two hours, surprisingly sluggish too."
Re-releases: The Man Who Fell to Earth, Female Perversions, and Marie Antoinette
The Man Who Fell to Earth (★★★★★) features David Bowie as an intergalactic visitor in Nicolas Roeg's 1976 sci-fi story. Bradshaw praises "an extraordinary sui generis central performance by David Bowie."
Female Perversions (★★★★★) is Tilda Swinton's first US film from 1996, playing a lawyer in a rework of Madame Bovary. Bradshaw calls it "an amazingly unselfconscious performance which marked her out as quite unlike any other female lead."
Marie Antoinette (★★★☆☆) is Sofia Coppola's biopic of the French queen. Bradshaw notes "Coppola's presentation of Marie's life has a sisterly, unjudging intimacy."
