Release Date – 17th December 2021, Cert – 15, Run-time – 2 hours 2 minutes, Director – Maggie Gyllenhaal

When another woman’s (Dakota Johnson) child goes missing, while on holiday in Greece, Leda (Olivia Colman) begins to be taken back to her early and troubled years of motherhood.

The Lost Daughter gradually opens its doors in a way that a perfect television series would run. With Olivia Colman on holiday. Quietly lying on the beach, bathing in the Greek sun while enjoying the occasional ice cream. One of the biggest delights that the film presents is her carefree, in-the-moment belting out of Livin’ On A Prayer. However, as feature debut writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal further pushes the door open a past of emotional pain slowly creeps up on Colman’s Leda as she almost re-experiences what she views as her bordering-on-tragic early years of motherhood.

It all stems from the missing child of Dakota Johnson’s young mother, Nina. It appears that there’s something about this event which reveals a much more worried, troubled and at times oddly behaving side to Leda. We see her mind flashback to her life with two young daughters of her own (her younger self played by Jessie Buckley). And in fact without these flashbacks Colman’s performance and character as a whole may seem somewhat off balance and out of place, however with the jumps back to Buckley – while occasionally feeling like we’re seeing too much too early on – it feels more grounded and, obviously, contextualised. There’s a further air of drama to her character and when mixed with her excellent performance makes the film overall more compelling as it acts as a simplistic, yet effective character study.

While most elements feel stripped down and looking at the general basics it simply allows for character, particularly Leda and her behaviours and interactions as her potential failings as a mother come under increasing light, to take centre stage. Behaviour and responses move the drama along and hold a grip on you that only tightens as things progress. You don’t truly realise how caught up in the piece you are until your emotional responses, questionings and even shock create equal interaction with the film as Leda acts out. Going from something oddly compelling to a film of true dramatic weight, thanks to its simplicity and the central performances that bring everything to life.

There’s tension in the friendliest scenes. As Leda and Nina get to know each other, despite an initial heated interaction on the beach with the latter’s family, we almost worry that some of Leda’s actions, such as taking the doll of Nina’s child, will be found out; more for the dramatic stakes rather than the character herself. All while managing to avoid a general dislike for the central figure. Even scenes where Leda is hiding an affair which she discovers Nina is having, further echoing her life, the stakes feel high for herself. She’s almost put her life on pause by retreating, still to work, to a Greek island, yet it’s where her past truly catches up with her and is almost put on replay from a dual first and third person perspective.

You watch in interest and intrigue at how the course will develop, with a slight air of finely balanced tension and emotion during such moments and interactions. It’s emotion which lies in the background of plenty of scenes as you can see Colman reflecting on her life, the two grown daughters she doesn’t appear to have any contact with now. Information is fed to you piece by piece through performances, through small details in the dialogue and the atmosphere of each scene.

Yet, by the end, you can’t properly explain what about The Lost Daughter makes it so good. There’s just something about the general tone and atmosphere that quietly brings you in to explore the past of the troubled figure at the centre of the piece. One who clearly doesn’t always think about what she’s doing in the moment as she worries about her regrets of the past. Much of it comes down to a fantastic central performance from Colman, and a great supporting cast – particularly Johnson and Buckley – all of whom manage to lift the gradually growing emotional pan, tragedy, regret, tension and more; all of which becomes increasingly powerful as the actions, thoughts and feelings of the characters allow the narrative to progress. It’s a fine piece of work, perhaps one of the best of the year, that almost comes from nowhere, particularly if you go in knowing as little as possible about it, and it’s all the more impactful for it.

While holding a selection of great performances, especially a weighty turn from Olivia Colman, The Lost Daughter succeeds most in its subtlety and gradual building of points and information. Offering an emotionally intriguing delve into the past and present thoughts and actions of the increasingly mysterious central character.

Release Date – 10th December 2021, Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 34 minutes, Director – Mark Cousins

Director Mark Cousins looks back on the career and impact of producer Jeremy Thomas as the two take a road trip to the Cannes Film Festival.

Through something as simple as a road trip director Mark Cousins manages to make plenty of links with ease to the life and career of Oscar winning producer Jeremy Thomas. The two are taking a lengthy trip down to the Cannes Film Festival which sees Cousins dive through the filmography of the man he is accompanying with his own spin and interpretations on the various subjects that are covered, understandably starting early on with cars. It’s a celebration of Thomas’ work in film and his creative drive that appears to make the projects that he’s worked on so appealing and fascinating, particularly to Cousins himself; whose passion for the films at the centre of this piece, and indeed film in general, is on full display throughout – in his typical analytical style.

This is less about Jeremy Thomas himself and more about his films. Those which attempt to express his idea that “the further you get away from the centre the more creative you can be”. Clips and archive footage are used to push Cousins’ thoughts and interpretations on the work as they often come more to the fore – after all they appear to have been present for many years, as he expresses early on. It’s certainly not anything to alienate the viewer, however it does sometimes feel like a much stronger presence than the main figure of the piece and his own personal relationships to film and those which he has been a part of making – particularly in the build up to the Cannes screening of Takashi Miike’s First Love, which Thomas co-produced.

He’s a determined and interesting figure when exploring the idea of creativity and just what cinema can do. “My nature would be to go further – to see how far we can go” he claims, echoing earlier thoughts and praise for the man and his drive by an interviewed Tilda Swinton. It’s such ideas and elements that make him an engaging figure – particularly when it comes to his initially simplistic but gradually detailed and sprawling conversations with Cousins in the confines of the car. It’s much like his creative process and the films that have made up his career, expanding and exploring to show further expression.

Expressions which then form the basis of Cousins’ own personal dives and explorations as he almost works through Thomas’ career film by film – yet still in a concise 94 minute run-time. Not reaching into dissection to remove more casual viewers from the piece. It’s his passion that stops the film from dropping or feeling that it’s two separate pieces cut together. It shows in the way that the camera follows Thomas and his actions within the festival and when interacting with other people; even when demonstrating the conversations the core pairing have on their journey. It’s a, as with many of his works, personal piece for Cousins; in both his relationship with film and Thomas. It shows and makes for something interesting, although perhaps flowing best when focusing more on the central producer and his creative drive and decade-spanning impact within the film industry, even now.

While working best when focusing on Thomas himself, there’s still interest in the passionate interpretations and dives of director Mark Cousins which help to highlight a shared creativity and passion for the pair on their conversation-led journey.

Release Date – 26th December 2021, Cert – 18, Run-time – 1 hour 48 minutes, Director – Julia Ducournau

As exotic dancer Alexia (Agathe Rousselle) begins to act upon long-growing violent and murderous impulses an aging fire chief (Vincent Lindon) finds himself reunited with his decade-long missing son.

Before its premiere at Cannes earlier this year very little was known about writer-director Julia Ducournau’s follow-up to the excellent Raw. Two very basic plot synopses were released. One saying “following a series of unexplained crimes, a father is reunited with the son who has been missing for 10 years”. The other simply being the definition of titanium (the English translation of the film’s title) – “a metal highly resistant to heat and corrosion, with high tensile strength alloys”. It doesn’t truly prepare you for what’s to come over the next 108 minutes and that’s perhaps the best, and only. way to watch Titane. It’s very easy to start talking about the film and find yourself unfurling various details of the its twists, turns and general madness; often helped by the fact that, much like the details before the debut screening, it’s very hard to pinpoint Titane as just one thing.

Ducournau blends fantasy, body-horror, action, crime, family drama and more over the course of her latest feature with help from an excellently dead-pan, yet fearful, Agathe Rousselle as Alexia. Alexia works as an exotic dancer at a car show. Dancing on and around the likes of shining, flame-patterned Cadillacs – just part of the initial burst of neon colours we see in the hangar-like club – we see her gradually become something more like machine than human. Acting upon growing impulses she descends into a rage of violent, and far from clean, killings. The audible style that runs throughout the film is just as important as the visuals. And that includes the audible flinches that escape from the audience during many of the bloody exchanges that Alexia acts out. Such scenes are relentless in their energy and the extents to which they go, and yet somehow when put into the world of the film and all its slight dark weirdness never feels as if it crosses a line.

As the body count heightens we see an almost alternative story, that of aging, steroid-abusing fire chief Vincent (Vincent Lindon). After a decade apart he finds himself reuniting with his missing son. And while for the former the relationship is perhaps more about an emotional catching-up, if he at all went away, than anything else, the latter experiences a silent settling in to a strange, uncomfortable set of surroundings. Both hiding more than they would like to show. Each strand that Titane follows links back to a theme of identity and body image. Each one being something different for each character and yet all dealt with well, thanks to the film’s tone, themes and the performances that help bring such elements to life. Everything manages to contribute to this overall theme while still never setting quite setting aside the insanity of Alexia’s strand as she begins to try and hide more than just her killings.

Perhaps because of such shared ideas the characters feel more united in their various efforts. It allows for the more plot-lead arc of Vincent and the action-lead arc of Alexia to feel less contrasting and help to overall create a slightly more intimate feel within Titane for these two unrelated strangers with their fair share of differences within their own stories. Stories which are heightened by the details that we see. Personal, and sometimes brutal, details that have undeniably earned the film a hard 18 rating. However, it all links back to the idea of body image and identity.

Through the mixture of ideas and genres that run throughout the film it’s hard to pinpoint Titane as one thing. While many have labelled it as something truly off-the-walls and insane – which it bookends itself with with style and almost instant sensory engagement, making the madness the highlights of the audience experience – what’s not been discussed as much is the drama that lies at the heart of the film. The man reuniting with his son after ten years, their relationship and identities and the ways that the interact. It’s well-handled and gives the final piece an extra layer that prevents it from being purely sequential overload. When paired with the consistent elements of darkness, weirdness, horror, fantasy, violence and shock Titane is truly a film that manages to stay sane inside insanity.

It’s difficult to pinpoint Titane as just one thing, and perhaps best going in knowing as little as possible. While on the one hand violent and shocking, making good use of sound and visuals, it’s held up by a narrative arc which houses well-handled details of body image and identity to link the central characters and stop things from going overboard.

Release Date – 3rd December 2021, Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 48 minutes, Director – Michael Pearce

Former Marine Malik (Riz Ahmed) takes his two sons (Lucian-River Chauhan, Aditya Geddada), in the middle of the night, on a trip through the desert plains of America to escape a body-consuming alien invasion.

Perhaps the biggest mystery within Encounter, the latest from co-writer (with Joe Barton) and director Michael Pearce, is that of whether there’s actually meant to be a sense of mystery of ambiguity within the film. While the piece certainly starts off this way, with former Marine Malik (Riz Ahmed) taking his two young sons, Jay (Lucian-River Chauhan) and Bobby (Aditya Geddada), from their home – which he has not been present in for some time – in the middle of the night to escape what he claims to be an alien invasion with lifeforms from another world taking over people’s bodies. We appear to see what he sees, brief glimpses of strange occurrences in people’s eyes to give away that they are no longer themselves, however gradually this line appears to be dropped. Initially in favour of asking whether Malik is going crazy or if what he’s actually seeing is real.

As he and his ten and eight year olds travel through the quiet American desert plains the audience is met with a narrative of facts rather than what could be engaging mystery. They’re offered a conspiracy theorist protagonist who offers answers to unasked question in his various ravings as he offers explanations as to why he’s taking his children to a secret bunker where they’ll be safe from the threat which surrounds them. As scenes change from focus on the aliens to family there’s a tonal shift from a modern indie-sci-fi flick to a genre-mixture family dynamic drama and then back to the more science-based monologues and elements. All while various authorities, and Malik’s PA (an underused and often forgotten about Octavia Spencer), chase after the trio believing Malik to be a danger to his children, particularly when believed to be holding weapons.

It’s at this point where the family bonding element feels to be completely dropped as the case appears to simply be that the increasingly agitated Malik is indeed a conspiracy theorist. More elements are dropped along the way, alongside brief narrative points which feel, much like a number of elements, quickly moved on from with little engagement or impact despite the potential that they hold. There are certainly a handful of scenes with plenty of potential, and Ahmed does his best with the material that he’s provided with, however the tonal shifts cause some scenes to feel underdone and lacking due to the difference to what has come beforehand.

There’s a lot being dealt with and instead of questions regarding the characters the biggest question that comes into play, particularly in the busy and slight drawn-out final stages, is what the film is actually about. With so much presented as fact there’s little room for questioning as things develop and are simply explained to you in the moment before moving on to the next stage of this off-kilter factual flow road-trip through the desert.

There’s potential within Encounter, however its construction and tonal shifts prevent it from becoming something truly engaging and mysterious, despite the efforts of the cast.