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Once

There have been efforts to reignite the musical genre recently, with glitzy vehicles crammed with stars, dance routines and swishy costumes. Once has half the budget, none of the brashness, twice the heart, and four times the engagement.
Laura Barton loves this simple but charming musical
15, 85 mins

Nancy Drew

Teen sleuth Nancy Drew enjoys her latest jaunt from page to screen in this story of our heroine upping sticks to Los Angeles, where she investigates the legendary murder of actress Dehlia Draycott, aided by her new pal Corky (Josh Flitter) and a little hindered by the snarky residents of LA. Emma Roberts (niece of Julia) makes a thoroughly amiable Nancy, but overall this is a disappointingly pastel-hued adaptation, too keen to update itself into some kind of detective Clueless but too lacking in zing to succeed.
PG, 99 mins

The Nanny Diaries

The Nanny Diaries starts out rather well - an adaptation of a semi-memoir about the hell of au-pairing for rich New Yorkers, it stars Scarlett Johansson as Nanny, Paul Giametti as the straying man of the house and the magnificent Laura Linney as the at once both sympathetic and detestable mother. It is presented as an anthropological study but somehow fails to provide much insight and then proceeds to morph into a kind of teen romance. On the surface, much to admire, but one can't help but feel that this was an opportunity lost.
12A, 106 mins

Michael Clayton

There seems recently to have been a rise in sober, adult film-making that's easy on the special effects and intelligently concerned with the internal (and corrupt) workings of major organisations, be they the CIA or a multinational corporation. It's there in Breach, the Bourne trilogy and now in Michael Clayton. George Clooney is both the producer and the eponymous lead, playing a trusted fixer at a New York law firm, sweeping up when one of the senior lawyers, Arthur (Tom Wilkinson), suffers a breakdown mid-case. Over four tight days, we watch Clayton tussle with his own moral dilemmas and try to straighten out the law firm's rumply situation. There isn't a great deal of pizzazz to it but Clooney plays it cool, calm and collected, in one of his most consummate performances to date.
15, 100 mins

Blame it on Fidel

This is the splendid tale of Anna de la Mesa (Nina Kervel), a nine-year-old girl rather shaken up when her parents adopt a life of radical political activism in early 1970s France. Her father Fernando (Stefano Accorsi), a lawyer, devotes his energies to aiding Chilean exiles, while her mother Marie (Julie Depardieu) discovers feminism, campaigning for abortion rights, working in a family planning clinic and publishing a book. The tumult of the de la Mesa home, and of the times, are seen through the eyes of Anna, who's disorientated and somewhat furious. It makes for an illuminating and thoroughly convincing film.
PG, 99 mins

And When Did You Last See Your Father?

This is an adaptation of Blake Morrison's memoir about his relationship with his father, and at times one wishes the reverence such a book inspires once transferred to screen might have been toned down a little. Still, it is a deeply moving tale, telling how the life of Morrison (played variously by Bradley Johnson, Matthew Beard and Colin Firth) and his family has been overshadowed by his obnoxious, oblivious father, Arthur (a spectacular Jim Broadbent), only for a certain peace to be sought with the diagnosis of Arthur's terminal cancer. Sterling performances all round here, not least by Juliet Stevenson as Blake's mother and Gina McKee as his wife.

12A, 92 mins

Ratatouille

Entirely delightful Disney animation following the course of Remy (Patton Oswalt), a gastronomic sort of rat who longs to be a chef and, having been washed into a sewer, sloshes up in Paris where he meets Linguini (Lou Romano), a young man who has inherited a kitchen yet cannot cook. Together the pair rustle up something rather fantastic, but the heat is on as they prepare for the arrival of fearsome restaurant critic, Anton Ego (Peter O'Toole). Superb animation, and a heart-winning tale.
U, 110 mins

Stardust

This adaptation of Neil Gaiman's novel, directed by Matthew Vaughn, makes for a sometimes-rollicking, sometimes-whimsical fairy tale about Yvaine (Claire Danes), a fallen star who has assumed human form and is pursued by the fabulously wicked witch Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer). Meanwhile, humble English villager Tristan (Charlie Cox) has promised the fairest local maiden (Sienna Miller) the gift of a shooting star and has but one week to present it, a task that requires an excursion to Stormhold, the land humans are forbidden to enter. There's a little too much going on here, with too much star-studding and a few miscastings, but nonetheless Stardust makes for an enjoyable romp.
PG, 130 mins

The Invasion

Jack Finney's novel, The Body Snatchers, has enjoyed its fair share of adaptations, but, awash with big Hollywood guns though it is, The Invasion succeeds in being the least dynamic of them all. Tucker Kaufman (Jeremy Northam) is the first unwittingly to be infected with an alien disease that turns human beings into automatons while they sleep. When his ex-wife Carol (Nicole Kidman) leaves their son with Tucker to dine with her beau, Dr Ben Driscoll (Daniel Craig), it becomes apparent that this monstrous disease is spreading – and Tucker has it…. Cue frantic rescue attempts. There is a fair chunk of action, naturally, but it's hard to be propelled to the edge of one's seat. The problem is that the film has been polished into dreariness, leaving it as slick and soulless as a car advert.

15 , 99 mins

The Heartbreak Kid

There's something a little dead-eyed about this latest hook-up between the Farrelly Brothers and Ben Stiller. Stiller is Eddie, a thoroughly unlikable 40-year-old who at the urging of his father and friend quickly meets and marries the lovely Lila (Malin Akerman). On their honeymoon, however, he not only begins to discover the less-loveable side to his new wife but also to fall for another woman (Michelle Monaghan). There are plenty of the Farrelly mainstays here - slapstick, quirks, killer soundtrack - but there's also a want of their usual charm.
15, 107 mins

Breach

The Singer

Gerard Depardieu seems almost to have been designed to star in a May-to-December romance, the folds of his face at once charming and melancholic. Here he is as Alain, a fading nightclub talent, divorced, lonely, listless, reduced to touring the provinces in his white jacket. Introduced to a crisp young estate agent named Marion (Cecile de France), he sets about trying to make her fall in love with him. It's an old theme, but Depardieu’s performance is magnificent, at once hearty, forlorn and thoroughly convincing.
12A, 112 mins

Reviews by Laura Barton

FIRST POSTED
OCTOBER 18, 2007

Control

Anton Corbijn's wonderful Control is largely based on the book Touching From A Distance by Deborah Curtis - the widow of Joy Division leader Ian Curtis - and follows Curtis's musical ascent and personal decline, and the events that caused him to take his life in 1980 at the age of just 23. The movie's atmosphere and cinematography make this perhaps the most beautiful film of the year; as Curtis, Sam Riley is astounding, and the Macclesfield Corbijn evokes is monochromatic, dour and dramatic - the perfect backdrop to Joy Division's music. Control's major triumph, though, is that it quashes all those sugar-pie Hollywood biopics into bits by displaying an honesty, a tenderness and a real strength of love; it's there in Corbijn's feeling for his subject, in Deborah and in the web of people connected by Curtis, and by Joy Division's music.
15, 121 mins

Mr Brooks

Kevin Costner delivers a joltingly good performance here as Earl Brooks, a seemingly upstanding citizen with wife, child and fine job, yet a man who has, over the years, committed various perfect murders. Earl embarks upon these crimes with his co-conspirator Marshall (William Hurt), who is more figment of the imagination than literal friend. Along the way he acquires a blackmailer (Dane Cook) and a dogged police detective (Demi Moore), not to mention the suspicion that his own daughter may have inherited his taste for murder. Tight, sharp, clever, this is everything a thriller should be.
18, 120 mins

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