TWO AND A HALF STARS A wedding-band singer believes a former boy-band star stole his song. He could be right. COMEDY DRAMA IRELAND English #POWERBALLAD Starring Paul Rudd, Nick Jonas There’s a certain agreeable familiarity to POWER BALLAD, the latest from John Carney, who continues to refine his preferred recipe: emotionally wounded Irish souls, attractive American ring-ins, music as therapy and just enough whimsy to sand down any hard edges. Here the story revolves around

FOUR AND A HALF STARS The world suddenly and fundamentally shifts for a young boy - a member of The Hitler Youth - when the Third Reich falls. PERIOD DRAMA GERMANY German #AMRUM Starring Jasper Billerbeck, Diane Kruger In his quietly extraordinary AMRUM, Fatih Akin (HEAD ON) trades the urban intensity that has long defined his work for something softer, sadder and infinitely more reflective. This is perhaps the least recognisably “Fatih Akin” film he has made - stripped of t

TWO STARS A wealthy matriarch falls in with a lively photographer. That he's also a free-loading grifter doesn't escape the attention of her family. DRAMA FRANCE French #RICHESTWOMAN Starring Isabelle Huppert, Laurent Lafitte Thierry Klifa’s THE RICHEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD has the ‘you couldn’t make this stuff up’ pedigree that usually does half the work for you. Loosely drawn from the Bettencourt affair (the extraordinary saga surrounding the L’Oréal heiress) it follows Mari

THREE AND A HALF STARS A mother is searching for her missing kids who've been forced to work in a Northern Terriotry mind. A young man tries to get them to safety. DRAMA AUSTRALIA English #WOLFRAM Starring Pedrea Jackson, Deborah Mailman Warwick Thornton’s WOLFRAM opens draped in red dust, moral outrage and the his signature visual style - vast, sweeping, gorgeously framed vistas. As a loose companion piece to SWEET COUNTRY, this 1930s frontier drama reaches for something sp

TWO AND A HALF STARS Andy returns to Runway to write 'serious' articles. Miranda is horrified. DRAMA US English #PRADA2 Starring Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA 2 is draped in sequins and sparkly couture then stuffed with more celebrity cameos than The Met Gala. Yet it's also weighed down by its own sense of self importance as it trades the sharp bite of the original for something more reflective and, at times, oddly subdued. Twenty years have passed and Mi

THREE AND A HALF STARS A closeted copper is assigned to entrap gay men in shopping centres. Then he meets Andrew. DRAMA US English #PLAINCLOTHES Starring Tom Blyth, Russell Tovey There are films that arrive draped in relevance, and then there are films that arrive carrying history by the scruff of the neck. PLAINCLOTHES does the latter, with enough emotional bruising and romantic tension to remind us that progress is rarely linear and never tidy. Set in upstate New York in th

FOUR STARS The first chapters of Les Misérables but there's no singing when a man imprisoned for kindness finds purpose when finally released from gaol. PERIOD DRAMA FRANCE French #JEANVALJEAN Starring Grégory Gadebois, Bernard Campan If LES MISÉRABLES is the grand, table-groaning banquet of French literature, then JEAN VALJEAN is the entree; thoughtfully plated and undeniably tasteful. Director Éric Besnard zeroes in on the opening stretch of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, st

FOUR AND A HALF STARS A young man in colonial Algeria is a stranger to everyone who knows him. DRAMA FRANCE French #THESTRANGER Starring Benjamin Voisin, Rebecca Marder With THE STRANGER, director Francois Ozon doesn’t simply revisit Albert Camus’s famously cool slab of existentialism, he turns into something pared back, distilled, faintly accusatory. The result is a film of icy assurance and unnerving beauty, one that feels philosophically aligned. The broad strokes will be

THREE AND A HALF STARS Three stories about the little things not said that makes a family what it is. DRAMA US English #FATHERMOTHERSISTERBROTHER Starring Adam Driver, Cate Blanchett FATHER MOTHER SISTER BROTHER is as wonderfully compelling triptych of family (dis)connection. Three stories in three distinct settings pick at how families work, or don’t; first in a cluttered American cottage (Father), then an uptight British home (Mother), and finally an empty apartment in Pari

THREE AND A HALF STARS John Davidson has Tourette's. Everyone thinks he's inappropriate and swears too much. DRAMA UK English #ISWEAR Starring Robert Aramayo, Maxine Peake Kirk Jones (WAKING NED DEVINE) is no stranger to sentiment, and I SWEAR is no exception. Based on the true story of John Davidson, a Scotsman diagnosed as a teenager with Tourette syndrome, it’s a film with heart, humour and a fair amount of grit. If it doesn’t quite stick the landing, it certainly at least