From Big Night to Boiling Point, setting your film in a restaurant remains a reliable way of cooking up drama on the big screen.
It’s not hard to see why – the stress and bustle of the kitchen makes for a combustible environment primed for tempers to flare, while out on the floor, the genteel clinking of glasses and soft murmur of conversation is just begging to be disrupted by a shock revelation or an outbreak of family fisticuffs.
I don’t imagine too many of Ralph Fiennes’ punters will be queuing up to leave glowing TripAdvisor reviews by the end of dark comedy The Menu, but the film itself has been currying a fair bit of favour with critics.
Elsewhere, it’s Armageddon Time for a young boy in 1980s New York, and Aftersun takes a poignant look back at a father and daughter’s last summer holiday.
New releases
The Menu
It’s not a good time to be a member of the ultra-rich elite on the big screen at the moment – following hot on the heels of the ill-fated cruise in Triangle of Sadness comes this blackly comic tale of an ‘exclusive dining experience’ which may leave its patrons wishing they’d ordered out for a Big Mac.
The worst excesses of ‘foodie’ culture come in for a skewering as a glittering assortment of the rich and famous congregate on a remote island for a night of culinary adventure presided over by world-renowned chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes).
Slowik super-fan Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) is eager for his new date Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) to experience the alleged wonders of his cuisine – but Margot’s scepticism proves well-founded when the exact nature of the chef’s plans for the evening become chillingly clear.
Cert 15, 106 mins | |
Cineworld, City Screen, Everyman, Vue | |
From Fri Nov 18 | |
More details |
Aftersun
This father-daughter drama starring Normal People’s Paul Mescal has been picking up rave reviews across the board since it premiered at Cannes earlier this year, with many critics hailing director Charlotte Wells as one to watch.
Mescal stars alongside newcomer Francesca Corio as loving dad Calum and his 11-year-old daughter Sophie, on holiday together in a fading Turkish resort in the late 1990s and both dealing with their own personal issues – for Sophie, the imminent approach of adolescence and for Paul, the cloud of darkness that threatens to overwhelm him.
Twenty years later, the adult Sophie looks back on her tender, bittersweet memories of their last holiday together.
Reviews suggest that this is something really quite special, and certainly likely to appeal if you’re a fan of the quietly observational, lyrical style of films like Boyhood or last year’s Petite Maman – with Empire’s five-star write-up concluding that ‘This mesmeric debut will make you want to stay suspended in its sun-baked setting with its two captivating lead characters for far longer than the runtime’.
Cert 12A, 102 mins | |
City Screen | |
From Fri Nov 18 | |
More details |
Armageddon Time
Having blasted Brad Pitt off into space in his last film, 2019’s Ad Astra, director James Gray returns here with a smaller and more personal story in the form of this coming-of-age tale set in New York in the run-up to Ronald Reagan’s 1980 election victory.
Inspired by Gray’s own childhood, the story centres on 11-year-old Paul Graff (Banks Repeta), the son of a Jewish family living in Queens, and the friendship he forms with Johnny (Jaylin Webb), the only Black pupil in his school – one which is tested when the pair are caught breaking school rules and Paul’s parents respond by sending him to an elite private institution.
Gray’s acclaimed, politically charged tale (members of the Trump family lurk ominously on the periphery of the story) features a stellar cast including Anne Hathaway and Succession’s Jeremy Strong as Paul’s mum and dad, while Anthony Hopkins plays his doting grandfather.
Cert 15, 114 mins | |
Cineworld, Everyman, Vue | |
From Fri Nov 18 | |
More details |
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Other screenings
In something of a bumper week for film lovers, No Bears (City Screen, showing daily) is another highly rated new release – it’s the latest film from celebrated Iranian director Jafar Panahi, here playing himself as a filmmaker trying to shoot a film in Turkey while forced to remain in an Iranian village close to the border.
In real life, Panahi – a vocal critic of the Iranian government – has been banned from making films since 2010, but has found a variety of novel ways to continue his work, including smuggling one of his films out of the country on a USB stick hidden inside a cake; his arrest and imprisonment by the Iranian authorities in July this year caused an international outcry, adding an extra layer of political urgency to the release of this new picture.
Meanwhile, Confess, Fletch (showing daily at Cineworld and Vue) sees Jon Hamm step into Chevy Chase’s shoes in a revival of the cult 1980s crime comedy franchise about a wisecracking investigative reporter – and by all accounts, Hamm and Superbad director Greg Mottola have made a pretty decent fist of it.
Over at Everyman, Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell team up for a meta musical spin on A Christmas Carol in Spirited (showing daily) – mixed reviews suggest the jury’s out on whether this Apple TV+ production (also out on the streaming service this week) will become a future festive fave.
More reliable seasonal shenanigans are on offer at Vue courtesy of ghoulish 90s classic The Nightmare Before Christmas, showing on Sat 19th, Sun 20th and Tues 22nd.
And keeping things on a musical tip, Tim Minchin: Back (City Screen, Vue, Weds 23rd) is a one-night-only big screen outing for the comic songsmith’s latest stage tour, nicely timed to warm you up for the forthcoming film adaptation of his Matilda musical, out next week.
You can have a right old Parisian knees-up courtesy of Everyman, who are making Baz Luhrmann’s vivacious 2001 caper Moulin Rouge! their Throwback screening this week, showing on Sun 20th.
For those who prefer their musical communion to involve rather more mate-hugging and pint-spilling, there’s an encore screening of Liam Gallagher – Knebworth 22 at Cineworld, City Screen and Vue on Fri 18th.
If the Aesthetica Festival has got you in the mood for some more miniature masterpieces, then head on down to City Screen on Tues 22nd for Straight 8: Best Super Shots, a compendium of shorts all shot on the iconic Super 8mm film format.
Making a virtue of its inbuilt limitations, all films are three minutes long (the length of time afforded by a single Super 8 cartridge) and were edited in-camera (i.e. shot in the order they appear on screen, with no alterations afterwards) – and if you fancy giving it a go yourself, the 2023 Straight 8 competition is now open for entries.
And talking of DIY filmmaking, City Screen have a subtitled screening of highly acclaimed new documentary A Bunch of Amateurs, following the colourful exploits of the Bradford Movie Makers society, on Tues 22nd.
Also keeping it real are Belgian directing duo the Dardennes, whose 2014 drama Two Days, One Night – featuring a terrific performance by Marion Cotillard as a young mother whose factory colleagues are offered a significant pay bonus if they agree to her dismissal – concludes City Screen’s short season in celebration of the pair on Sun 20th.
City Screen’s budget family-friendly offering this week is superpowered pooch-fest DC League of Super-Pets (Sat 19th), followed by an Autism-Friendly, subtitled screening on Sun 20th – tickets for both screenings are £3.00.
There’s also an Autism-Friendly screening of Marvel’s latest blockbuster Black Panther: Wakanda Forever at City Screen on Sat 19th (tickets standard price).
Vue’s Mini Mornings selection is Pip and Posy: Cinema Show (Sat 19th/Sun 20th, £2.49), a compendium of episodes from the hit TV show, while at Cineworld you can choose from two different gangs of loveable critters, with The Boxtrolls and Minions: The Rise of Gru both showing on Sat 19th and Sun 20th (tickets £2.50).
And with the weather having gone full November in recent days, here’s Diana Ross to sing us out with a blast of summer sunshine from the Rise of Gru soundtrack – ably assisted, of course, by her little yellow friends.