Tag Archives: Lily James

Relay review — A cracking New York thriller

August 23, 2025 flawintheiris

Directed by David MacKenzie | Written by Justin Piasecki | 112 min | ▲▲▲▲ A version of this review appeared during the coverage of #TIFF24 in September of last year. This picture is an achingly chilly, exceptionally well-crafted anti-tech tech thriller, one that may not quite be in Michael Clayton or The Parallax View's league,… Read More

The Iron Claw review — Tragic tale, but a terrific movie

December 25, 2023 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Sean Durkin | 132 mins | ▲▲▲▲△ | Amazon Prime I came to this movie with a small personal investment: I watched World Class Championship Wrestling for about a year when I was about 13 or 14. I cheered the three Von Erichs who were wrestling when I watched — David… Read More

What’s Love Got To Do With It? review — Culture clash works better than the romance

May 20, 2023 flawintheiris

Directed by Shekhar Kapur | Written by Jemima Khan | 108 min | ▲▲▲△△ | On Demand Best known as the director of Bandit Queen, the movie that made Cate Blanchett a star, Elizabeth, and it's sequel, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, a romantic comedy might seem an unlikely project for the Indian filmmaker, but it's actually… Read More

The Dig review — It’s a classy, poignant English period drama

January 30, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Simon Stone | Written by Moira Buffini from a novel by John Preston | 112 min | Netflix A gentle, moving drama, and lovely to look at, apparently based on a true story. The Dig has plenty of space for the stock and trade of English period movie: a host of repressed emotions,… Read More

Rebecca (1940/2020) review — Traditional melodrama worth seeing in two versions

November 3, 2020 flawintheiris

Rebecca | Directed by Alfred Hitchcock | Written by Robert E. Sherwood, Joan Harrison, and Philip MacDonald, from the novel by Daphne Du Maurier | 130 min The Hitchcock original remained unseen by me until recently — all I knew was it was his first Hollywood picture, and it won Best Picture over films like… Read More

Yesterday review — Too many bum notes spoil the song

June 28, 2019 flawintheiris

Directed by Danny Boyle | Written by Richard Curtis and Jack Barth | 116 min | Crave Plus In the current spree of musical biopics like Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman, and whatever Mamma Mia is, Yesterday arrives with a genuinely clever premise, stoked by a lot of excitement around one of the best trailers in years:… Read More

Now on Canadian Netflix: October 2018

October 2, 2018 flawintheiris

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society A fine, romantic period drama, stewed in the bones of 84 Charing Cross Road and any number of WWII-era tales of British privation. This most clumsily-titled film earned a cinematic release in the UK, but not here. It's too bad because it's a good-looking picture, with lovely seaside… Read More

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again review — ABBA musequel delivers fragrant cheese and fun

July 23, 2018 flawintheiris

Directed by Ol Parker | Written by Parker, Richard Curtis, and Catherine Johnson, based on the musical by Johnson | 114 min | Netflix I know I saw the first Mamma Mia! from 10 years ago, but I don't remember much beyond Meryl Streep having a blast. I recall the on-location cinematography clashing badly with… Read More

Darkest Hour review — Sterling, if unnecessary, historical drama

December 29, 2017 flawintheiris

Directed by Joe Wright | Written by Anthony McCarten | 125 min It isn't the fault of the filmmakers that Darkest Hour is the third feature film to show up in cinemas this year—following Their Finest and the titanic Dunkirk—inspired by the same historical material, the rocky period in May 1940 when Britain was staring down the… Read More

Baby Driver review — Wheelman can’t drive 55

June 30, 2017 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Edgar Wright | 113 min It feels like Brits want Edgar Wright to be their own personal Tarantino, the pop-culture obsessed filmmaker who will absorb all those Hollywood influences and create perfect, post-modern genre films for the 21st Century. He succeeded the first time out of the gate with Shaun Of The… Read More