Tag Archives: Colin Firth

Empire of Light review — A flawed but gorgeous film

December 28, 2022 flawintheiris

Empire Of Light | Written and Directed by Sam Mendes | 119 min | ▲▲▲▲△ | Crave A version of this review appeared on FITI in September from the Toronto International Film Festival Here's another semi-autobiographical drama from a garlanded filmmaker, following Belfast and The Fabelmans, both of which were lovely and intimate, if not… Read More

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Empire Of Light reviews #TIFF22

September 14, 2022 flawintheiris

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery | Written and Directed by Rian Johnson | 139 min One of 2019's unalloyed treasures, Knives Out brought ensemble mysteries in an Agatha Christie vein very much back into the mainstream, with a delightful dollop of eating the rich. No shade on Kenneth Branagh's efforts to do the same… Read More

Operation Mincemeat review — A thrilling piece of wartime history

July 12, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by John Madden | Written by Michelle Ashford, based on a book by Ben Macintyre | 128 min | ▲▲▲▲△ | Netflix Sometimes a genre picture, otherwise conventional in many ways, can excel just via its commitment to the material, stylish choices in the direction, and a collection of unimpeachable performances. That's what's happened… Read More

Mothering Sunday review — Love and despair in post-war Britain

June 30, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by Eva Husson | Written by Alice Birch, adapting a novel by Graham Swift | 110 min | ▲▲▲▲△ | Amazon Prime An earlier version of this review appeared on Flaw In The Iris in September 2021 during the FIN: Atlantic International Film Festival Mothering Sunday is a lyrical, gorgeous, and deeply melancholy British… Read More

#FIN2021 Reviews — The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, Mothering Sunday

September 24, 2021 flawintheiris

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain | Directed by Will Sharpe | Written by Sharpe and Simon Stephenson | 111 min | Amazon Prime Not that we needed any further confirmation, but Benedict Cumberbatch is really good at portraying eccentric real-life period Brits, from Alan Turing to Thomas Edison to Greville Wynne. It's certainly not… Read More

The Secret Garden reviews — Five adaptations of the Hodgson Burnett book

March 22, 2021 flawintheiris

Having binged the various versions of Little Women, I discovered the many adaptations of another beloved book: Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden. Not all the versions are available — apparently the first feature version was released in 1919 but it's been lost in time. Here are reviews of the films I was able to… Read More

Supernova (2021) review — Quietly devastating dementia drama

February 16, 2021 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Harry Macqueen | 93 min | Crave Plus and On Demand This is a small, intimate drama, a straight-ahead two-hander for most of its running time. It's also a deeply moving film. Sam (Colin Firth) and Tusker (Stanley Tucci) have been together for years. Sam is a famed concert pianist and… Read More

Now On Canadian Netflix: January 2020

January 18, 2020 flawintheiris

The Two Popes On the face of it, this strikes me as strange material for Fernando Meirelles to approach. The Brazilian filmmaker responsible for City Of God and The Constant Gardener is a visionary of colour and kinetics, of movement. Why would he choose to tell the story of two senior citizens having a conversation, his… Read More

1917 review — A technically impressive, immersive war picture

January 13, 2020 flawintheiris

Directed by Sam Mendes | Written by Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns | 119 min It's April, 1917, and two British soldiers on the European front, Lance Corporal Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Lance Corporal Schofield (George MacKay), are assigned to take a vital message to another battalion elsewhere along the line, orders to cancel a dawn… Read More

A Brief History of Spy Movies: Part Three

June 29, 2019 flawintheiris

THE LE CARRÉ ADAPTATIONS In the past two posts I review Harry Palmer movies and a dozen spy pictures from 1966 to 2006. This post is devoted to the film adaptations of the godfather of spy novels. Roger Ebert described John Le Carré’s novels as “chess problems in which one solution is elegant and all… Read More