Ellen Ripley. Buffy Summers. Foxy Brown. Beatrix Kiddo. Sarah Connor. And introducing…Ria Khan.
There’s a new inductee into the action heroine hall of fame this week courtesy of British comedy Polite Society – and this kung fu-fighting teenager packs quite a punch.
The fists keep flying in sports biopic Big George Foreman, while Jim Broadbent gives his shoe leather a good pummelling in The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry…
New releases
Polite Society
A Muslim teenager sets out to save her big sister from her impending marriage the only way she knows how – through the power of kung fu – in this fun-looking action comedy from Nida Manzoor (the brains behind Channel 4’s joyful punk sitcom We Are Lady Parts).
Martial arts obsessive and wannabe stuntwoman Ria Khan (newcomer Priya Kansara) has always looked up to her cool older sister Lena (Ritu Arya, The Umbrella Academy) – so when the disillusioned Lena drops out of art school and decides to marry charming doctor Salim (Akshay Khanna), a furious Ria determines to save her from herself.
Enthusiastic reviews suggest that writer-director Manzoor’s debut feature shares the same infectious exuberance as her much-loved TV show, with comparisons being made with everything from Jane Austen to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.
| Cert 12A, 104 mins | |
| Cineworld, City Screen, Everyman, Vue | |
| From Fri Apr 28 | |
| More details |
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Two national treasures for the price of one here, as Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton star in this adaptation of Rachel Joyce’s bestselling novel about one pensioner’s heartfelt odyssey.
Broadbent stars as the titular everyman, a recent retiree living an uneventful life in Devon with his wife Maureen (Wilton), until the news that his old friend Queenie (Linda Bassett) is dying prompts him to make the 450-mile journey to her hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed on foot: “I’ll keep walking and she must keep living.”
Like Forrest Gump before him, Harold becomes an improbable national celebrity, his one-man mission picking up new recruits as he goes along – while also forcing him and Maureen to reckon with the tragedy which has long cast a shadow over their marriage.
| Cert 12A, 108 mins | |
| Cineworld, City Screen, Everyman, Vue | |
| From Fri Apr 28 | |
| More details |
Big George Foreman
From the ring to the pulpit and back again, this sporting biopic tells the story of the legendary boxer who mounted one of the greatest comebacks of all time.
The film follows Foreman (Khris Davis, Judas and the Black Messiah) from impoverished beginnings to sporting glory, becoming an Olympic Gold Medallist and World Heavyweight Champion – only for a near-death experience to prompt him to quit the game and become a Baptist minister.
When he sees his community struggling, Foreman makes the bold decision to come out of retirement and make another bid for the title (and if you’re wondering, his patronage of a certain nifty cooking device gets a look-in too).
| Cert 12A, 129 mins | |
| Cineworld, Vue | |
| From Fri Apr 28 | |
| More details |
Other screenings
Other new releases and previews
How far would you go for social media fame? That’s the question posed by Norwegian black comedy Sick of Myself, which sees its narcissistic anti-heroine chasing online celebrity via the means of popping black market pills which cause severe facial disfigurement.
Surely a couple of cute cat videos would have been easier? Like and share at City Screen on Fri 28th, Sat 29th, Weds 3rd and Thurs 4th.
City Screen also have a preview of acclaimed drama Return to Seoul on Tues 2nd – the story follows a young Korean-born French woman’s return to the country of her birth, and her mission to track down her biological parents.
Over at Vue, their BFI Presents strand has a screening of tense political drama Cairo Conspiracy (Tues 2nd), which follows the ruthless power struggle at a prestigious Cairo university following the death of its Grand Imam – there are also a couple more screenings at City Screen on Fri 28th and Mon 1st.
Family-friendly films
Cineworld’s budget viewing option this week comes courtesy of everyone’s favourite feline adventurer, with his well-received new outing Puss in Boots: The Last Wish showing from Sat 29th to Mon 1st (tickets £2.50)
City Screen are putting on a show with Sing on Sat 29th (£3.30), while another mismatched menagerie has a run-in with showbusiness at Vue as Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted sees the gang hiding out in the circus (Sat 29th to Mon 1st, tickets £2.49).
Vue also have an Autism-Friendly screening of Little Bear’s Big Trip on Sun 30th (£2.49), while the original How to Train Your Dragon screens from Fri 29th to Mon 1st (tickets standard price, £6.99 – £9.99).
Batman, Brando and Ben Wheatley: Old favourites back on the big screen
The countdown continues at City Screen this week, as their year-long run through the top ten of Sight and Sound’s prestigious greatest-films-of-all-time poll arrives at number nine: trailblazing 1929 Soviet documentary film Man with a Movie Camera (Sat 29th).
A portrait of a day in the life of a city, director Dziga Vertov’s film was dismissed in its day but has since come to be seen as a cinematic milestone thanks to its pioneering filming techniques, as legendary US critic Roger Ebert’s review testifies.
As if to demonstrate that the spirit of cinematic invention is still alive and thoroughly kicking, City Screen is also playing host to screenings of psychedelic period pieces by two of modern indie cinema’s more maverick talents, Robert Eggers and Ben Wheatley.
Sun 30th sees Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson going slowly mad in 2019’s The Lighthouse, a head-spinning saga of isolation, vicious seagulls and malicious farting from Eggers, who is carving out quite the career as the maker of atmospheric historical thrillers (he followed it up with last year’s bloodsoaked Viking epic The Northman) – the film is showing as part of City Screen’s A24 season, which is free to members and £8.00 for non-members.
It’s followed on Mon 1st by 2013’s A Field in England, an increasingly trippy tale of bickering English Civil War deserters starring Reece Shearsmith – it marks the start of a four-film season in celebration of Wheatley, the British director with a flare for off-kilter genre pieces such as Kill List and Sightseers, both of which are coming up later in the month.
Over at Vue, you can catch a slice of sweltering Southern Gothic as sparks fly between Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire (Sun 30th, Mon 1st), and there’s another chance to catch the 4K restoration of Martin Scorsese classic Raging Bull on Mon 1st.
With Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer set to be one of this summer’s most talked-about releases, Vue are revisiting the director’s blockbusting Dark Knight trilogy over the next few weeks, starting with Batman Begins on Sat 29th.
And finally, I’m sure I’m not the only one to have detected an echo of Ripley and Newt in the new Evil Dead reboot’s surrogate mother-daughter dynamic – but when it comes to facing down slavering beasties, no-one does it quite like Sigourney Weaver: you can watch her give the Xenomorphs what for in Aliens at Everyman on Sun 30th and Tues 2nd.