Breaking Fast: Movie Review

Mature and inclusive, a rom-com with emotional candor.

Breaking Fast could be a straight-forward romantic comedy but instead it breaks the mold with layered characters and thoughtful discussions on dramatic themes. It includes commentary on family, religion, religious extremists, sexual orientations and acceptance, does so with the best written characters this genre has seen and then wraps that all up in a joyful rom-com plot with really high indie production values.		2020 Directed by: Mike Mosallam Screenplay by: Mike Mosallam Starring: Haaz Sleiman, Michael Cassidy

Our Friend: Movie Review

Effective comedy and drama, unnecessary time jumps.

I get what Our Friend is trying to do: a weepy cancer drama that is not about a person dying of cancer but about the positives that a friend can bring while a person is dying of cancer. But the film does itself no favours with the constant time-jumps. Instead of setting itself apart, it’s brought down by unnecessary disorder that doesn’t add anything to the story.		2019 Directed by: Gabriela Cowperthwaite Screenplay by: Brad Ingelsby Starring: Casey Affleck, Jason Segel, Dakota Johnson

Locked Down: Movie Review

A conversation with two great characters.

A mainstream HBO release billed as a heist comedy starring Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor, most people would not envision this movie. Produced during the pandemic and featuring our now-too-well-known lives of Zoom calls and quarantine, Locked Down is a very different take on the heist comedy – namely in that it really isn’t, this is a character-centric relationship dramedy that ventures into a department store heist for its final act.		2021 Directed by: Doug Liman Screenplay by: Steven Knight Starring: Anne Hathaway, Chiwetel Ejiofor

Wild Mountain Thyme: Movie Review

Wildy insane and tedious but vividly captured.

John Patrick Shanley is an interesting writer and an accomplished filmmaker who has been making movies for over thirty years including the Oscar-winning Moonstruck and Doubt. And now here we are with Wild Mountain Thyme with all the pedigree, including Christopher Walken and Emily Blunt, to be a major awards player, but it most definitely will not be. Not that Shanley cares.		2020 Directed by: John Patrick Shanley Screenplay by: John Patrick Shanley Based on the play Outside Mullingar Starring: Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan

Spontaneous: Movie Review

Wildly creative, insane, funny and poignant.

Spontaneous is wildly original and insane with a touch of poignancy and real world politics. Teenagers start spontaneously combusting with no reason why. The FBI arrives “Are you blowing up your classmates?” “Um, no?” “Ok, back to the drawing board”. The politicians offer their thoughts and prayers, and unsurprisingly, that doesn’t solve it either. What are the still living students supposed to do?		2020 Directed by: Brian Duffield Screenplay by: Brian Duffield Based on the novel by Aaron Starmer Starring: Katherine Langford, Charlie Plummer