When a film boasts a morbidly obese albino, a Swiss alpenhorn, and fingernail clippings posted from prison, you know you’re not in for an ordinary trip to the cinema. This bizarre concoction stems from a novel by Chris Mills, as envisioned Jonas Åkerlund, a director who has risen to fame making music videos for the likes of Madonna, Lady Gaga and the Rolling Stones. Playing the corpulent, oddball antihero is Matt Lucas, and fans of the British comedy series Little Britain will already be familiar with his own clutch of curious characters. However Lucas digs deeper here with Franklin Franklin, a lost soul now that his brother (James Marsden) is in gaol, who wants nothing more than to flee his tiny abode for the vast horizons of Switzerland. So it probably wasn’t a great idea to have killed his exploitative landlord (Peter Stormare). Johnny Knoxville and James Cann add extra colour as Franklin’s kooky neighbours; their own microcosms of domestic misery fleshing out a story that revels in disquietingly dark comedy. Billy Crystal’s cop introduces refreshing flashes of lighter laughs, but for most that won’t be quite enough to redeem the macabre mess of scenes Åkerlund serves up in Small…

A sumptuous yet grittily grounded drama sweeps audiences back into the Court of Versailles in 1789.

Most love stories chart the start of a relationship, but in this Cannes Palme d’Or winner, Michael Haneke charts the power of love near the end of a married couple’s lives. The film is as much about ageing and death as it is about love, and many will find it uncomfortably close to home. But the Austrian auteur (The Piano Teacher; The White Ribbon) has never been interested in giving his audience an easy ride. His concern is the excavation of difficult emotional truths, few of which have been as deep yet commonly experienced as those examined here. Veteran French actors Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva play an initially sprightly Paris couple (Isabelle Huppert makes an appearance as their daughter), retired music teachers seen near the start enjoying a classical piano recital before arriving home to discover they’ve had intruders. That’s a typical Haneke plot device, but this time more portent than threat. The couple’s true antagonist is already within: one of them is about to suffer a minor stroke. It will be the beginning of the end. Even for Haneke this is astringent stuff, light on visual flourish or narrative surprise, but driving it all are magnificent performances that cut…

An extraordinary account of sexual exploration and intimacy against the odds, The Sessions is a powerful achievement. John Hawkes gives a courageous performance as poet Mark O’Brien, a man crippled by polio and forced to live his life in an iron lung. When invited to research a story about sexual therapy for the disabled, Mark retains the services of sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen Greene (Helen Hunt), but not before appealing for permission from his priest (an affable William H. Macy). Australian writer-director Ben Lewin drew on his own experiences with polio to craft a tale that is both delicately lovely and refreshingly matter-of-fact. Much will be made of Helen Hunt’s “brave” nudity, but looking past that, her characterisation of a resolutely private and chipper therapist who allows herself to experience intimacy with Mark is a true triumph. And similarly, this is another must-see turn from Hawkes, whose remarkable physical transformation is matched by his wonderful comic timing and emotional vulnerability. A hit from the Sundance Film Festival, The Sessions should be remembered come Oscar season. So even if the supporting characters feel rather slight, a cinema session with Hawkes and Hunt is well worth your time. Continue reading Get unlimited…

Killing people can be a “touchy feely” business. So opines professional enforcer Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt), whose endeavours to murder from a distance never quite keep him safe from the sob stories. But watching him try makes for a brilliant twist on the gangster genre. Writer-director Andrew Dominic has reinterpreted George V. Higgins’ 1974 novel Cogan’s Trade to fit America’s contemporary economic woes. Money is tight so when two punks knock over a mob-run poker game, Cogan is brought in to clean house. But between reckoning with middle-management (Richard Jenkins) and controlling his boozy gun-for-hire (James Gandolfini), Cogan reveals that murder by committee is no easy affair. Surprisingly wordy and sedately paced, Killing them Softly is spun out through a series of yarns that may prove too long-winded for some. Yet they are punctuated by moments of intense violence. With Pitt in peak form, Dominic delivers a sublimely sardonic portrait of capitalism couched as a gangster thriller. It’s dark, it’s smart, and it’s destined to become a classic piece of cinema. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

This US documentary on bullying arrives on the back of a Stateside ratings furore that led to it initially being released unrated after censors absurdly classified it “R” on language grounds. That rating (later softened after cuts) would have prevented under-17-year-olds from seeing the film in cinemas – precisely the audience that should be exposed to this moving and sometimes enraging film about entrenched behaviours that virtually everyone will recognise from their own school days, whether as former victims, perpetrators or both. That the film is set in the US Bible Belt is bitterly ironic given the determinedly non-Christian behaviour it depicts, habitually accepted as “just one of those things that are hard to police” by complacent school staff. Director Lee Hirsch divides the running time between the parents of two teenage suicide victims, a handful of children still being bullied, the views of their school officials, and an incendiary public meeting. The bullying – both verbal ostracism and physical violence – focuses on any kid seen by their peers as weak or different, whether they be a tomboyish lesbian or a sensitive introvert with an unusual face. There are some powerful moments here in a film that will give…

Packed with laughs, toe-tapping songs and performances as sparkly as the costumes, Wayne Blair’s musical is a sure-fire hit.

Taking a fairytale trope of the trip to Grandma’s, and relocating it in the final days of the Third Reich, Lore is at once a mesmerising and haunting ordeal

Philippe Falardeau’s Academy Award-nominated tale took out the Audience Award at the Sydney Film Festival, and rightfully so: it’s a film that will make you want to find and hug your favourite school teacher! The titular Algerian (Mohamed Fellag) arrives at a Montréal public middle school in the wake of a tragedy. A Year Six class reels from the suicide of their teacher, with two students in particular – Simon (Émilien Néron) and Alice (Sophie Nélisse) – bearing the brunt of the emotional aftermath. Seemingly well qualified, Bachir Lazhar takes over the class, and his combination of classic texts and old-school formality helps the children come to terms with their grief. Shot with a light, naturalistic touch, and featuring simply beautiful performances from Néron and Nélisse, Monsieur Lazhar is a film to cherish. Falardeau weaves in broader themes of threat and protection, but eschews morbidity by grounding the film in Fellag’s wonderfully compassionate lead role. Indeed, Monsieur Lazhar is destined to find its place among the cinematic teaching canon alongside To Sir, With Love and Dead Poet’s Society. The soundtrack You could be forgiven for thinking this music, by Morricone protégé Martin Léon, was written by Yann Tiersen. Here are those…

The extraordinary directorial debut of US director Benh Zeitlin is one of those special US independent films that come along too rarely. Not another lazy comedy full of slackers making cynical wisecracks, this is a genuinely original film with a mythic dimension that makes it sit even bigger in the imagination than it does on the screen. The story is seen from the viewpoint of a feverishly imaginative six-year-old African American girl named Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), who lives with her father in a ramshackle community on the wrong side of a Mississippi levee and obsesses about her absent mother. Her world is one where mythical, boar-like creatures mix with stories of the melting of the polar ice caps and a real-life flood of Biblical proportions. Though this catastrophic event is obviously inspired by Hurricane Katrina, the real-life event is never mentioned; the film aims for something timeless and achieves it. Zeitlin captures a miraculous performance from Wallis, and despite his regrettable weakness for the overuse of shakycam, creates a powerful sense of place in his mixture of the fantastical with the everyday. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

It’s great to see more female actors moving behind the camera, since they so often bring a fresh and distinctive vision.

This handsome, vigorously dramatic production features Denmark’s biggest star, Mads Mikkelsen.