‘Nowhere Boy’

A teenage John Lennon struggles with authority and home life in 1950s Liverpool as, in meeting fellow schoolboy Paul McCartney, he discovers his talent for music.

John Lennon’s (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) life is turned on its head with the sudden death of his uncle, George. Raised by George and the stern Aunt Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas), it’s George who has instilled a sense of fun in the suburban household and introduced the boy to music. An under-achiever at school, the toughie finds himself aimless and uncertain of the future. Until he meets his mother Julia (Anne-Marie Duff). Unstable she may be and with a younger family of her own, Julia encourages her son and, in meeting Paul McCartney (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), Lennon sees a future in their shared love of music.

A mischievous telling of the the artist as a young man in the lead up to Hamburg and The Beatles, Nowhere Boy is a wry, entertaining little film from director Sam Taylor-Johnson. Aaron Taylor-Johnson equips himself well but it’s the two dominant women who carry this particular drama.

Rating: 63%

Director: Sam Taylor-Johnson (Fifty Shades of Grey, A Million Little Pieces)

Writer: Matt Greenhalgh (Control, Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool)

Main cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass, A Million Little Pieces), Kristin Scott Thomas (Gosford Park, Sarah’s Key), Anne-Marie Duff (Suffragette, TV’s Bad Sisters)

‘Robbie Williams’

After more than a quarter of a century in the music limelight, Robbie Williams reflects on his troubled younger self and the poisonous gutter press of the British media in this fascinating four-part docuseries.

From a 16 year-old lead singer and youngest member of boyband Take That to solo global superstar with millions of album and singles sales to his name, WIlliams has struggled with fame and battled with drug and alcohol addiction alongside associated mental health problems. Now married with four kids and living in Los Angeles, a sanguine, surprisingly vulnerable Williams browses archive footage at home and talks directly to the camera. Documented from an early age, there’s plenty of material for Williams to comment on!

It’s a tale of success and fame coming too quickly without the emotional support – an opinionated 16 year-old ignored and in conflict with the unofficial leader of Take That, Gary Barlow, saw Williams escalate into addiction and depression. It was something he was to battle with for more than 20 years.

Director Joe Pearlman, off camera, questions Williams throughout as the documentary intermingles current family life at the LA home with footage of the rock star on stage, TV interviews, dressing rooms, recording studios, holidays from earlier years. Let Me Entertain You may be one of Williams’ most successful singles, but it is also his mantra – footage of the likes of Live at Knebworth (375,000 fans over 3 nights and the biggest music event in British history) certainly support this. Yet success did not come without cost. The British tabloid press (and The Sun in particular) loathed and targeted him – thus contributing to depression, addiction and fear of performing in his home country.

Robbie Williams is an honest, seemingly real four-part documentary of a humanly-flawed, charismatic personality. It avoids over-exposure of family and the last 10 years – we meet Ayda Field only in the last episode. Williams appears settled as he reflects on those early years of substance abuse, bad press, creative differences that creates a balanced portrait of musician, superstar, husband and father.

Rating: 72%

Director: Joe Pearlman (Lewis Capaldi: How I’m Feeling Now, Busby)

’Informer’

Coerced into working as an informer, Raza Shar is exposed to a very different East London to the one he thinks he knows.

Living at home in a Council-flat with his parents and devoted younger brother Nasir (Reiss Jeram), a cool Raza (Nabhaan Rizwan) drifts through life with his dead-end job paying for nights out at bars and occasional recreational drugs. But one night out leads to his arrest and into the clutches of Gabe Waters (Paddy Considine), an officer at the official Counter-Terrorism Unit. His life will never be the same.

Interweaving personal stories of key characters involved in all sides of the narrative, Informer, over its six episode season, creates a wholly engaging patchwork of life in Muslim East London and those policing it. From the non-religious, close knit Shar family through to those the Counter-Terrorism Unit are watching very closely – and with a lot in-between – the story builds to its crescendo and reveal of the identity (and names of victims) of the shooter that opens the miniseries. The hunt for an active terrorist cell may be the motivation and focal point of the main narrative but those opening scenes of an (unidentified) gunman letting loose in a Docklands cafe remain relevant and pertinent.

If that’s not enough, Waters is haunted throughout by the trauma of his five years undercover working among violent right-wing extremists in northern England. Unable to let go (and with the tattoos as a constant reminder), the result is Waters’ home life with wife Emily (Jessica Raine) and young daughter is seriously compromised – as is, on occasions, his professional judgements, much to the concern of new, straight-talking partner, Holly (Bel Powley).

It’s complex, character-driven storytelling. Central is the tumultuous to’ing and fro’ing relationship between Waters and Raza. The informer is unquestionably and understandably fearful of his predicament: Waters is using his source and would burn him if necessary. But he also believes Raza is a ‘natural’. Counterpoised is the officer’s rocky relationships with both his wife and work partner.

Generally avoiding terrorism tropes, Informer approaches its subject from a fresh and welcome perspective , helped without question by the relatable and extremely likeable Raza Shar. Strong performances and a tight script add to the quality of the series.

Rating: 75%

‘Anastasia’

With the secrecies and uncertainties surrounding the execution in 1917 of the Russian royal family by revolutionaries, history is littered with claims of surviving children. None more so than the romanticised survival of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna, youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II.

A decade later, General Sergei Pavlovich Bounine (Yul Brynner) and his accomplice Boris Adreivich Chernov (Akim Tamiroff) groom the destitute, suicidal Anna Koreff (Ingrid Bergman) to pass as Anastasia. Their aim – to access the £‎10 million inheritance sitting in the Bank of England. But they must first convince Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (Helen Hayes), the Grand Duchess’ grandmother and living in exile in Copenhagen, of her identity.

As directed by Anatole Litvak, Anastasia is somewhat dull and pedantic – an episodic, overly staged telling of its narrative but which benefits from empathic performances by Bergman and, in particular, Hayes.

Nominated for 2 Oscars in 1957 including best score (Alfred Newman), won 1 for best actress.

Rating: 50%

Director: Anatole Litvak (The Snake Pit, Decision Before Dawn)

Writer: Arthur Laurents (Rope, West Side Story) – adapted from the play by Guy Bolton & Marcelle Maurette

Main cast: Ingrid Bergman (Autumn Sonata, Casablanca), Yul Brynner (The King & I, The Magnificent Seven), Helen Hayes (The Sin of Madeline Claudet, Airport)

’The Super Models’

The perfect storm of glamour, haute couture fashion, high-end product advertising, the launch of MTV and global exposure combined to create four women in the right place at the right time into the original Super Models – Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington. It was they who were to set the rules for all who followed.

The Super Models over its four episodes follows the (public) lives and careers of these four icons as each, singularly and apart, talk directly to the camera. Along with archival footage and interviews with key peer fashionistas, the miniseries explores the impact the four had on the world of fashion in the late 1980s /early ’90s onwards – and the impact success had on them.

From the pages of magazines such as Vogue, Harper’s Bizarre et al, the four were the first to move to the catwalk. All the major houses demanded their services – Paris Fashion Week was seen as nothing without them. High fees were paid – but the paparazzi ensured global coverage. Naomi Campbell falling off her shoes on the Vivienne Westwood catwalk? Front page news around the world. Christy Turlington became the face of Calvin Klein, Cindy Crawford broke tradition and promoted Pepsi – and Linda Evangelista was seen as the most beautiful woman in the world. And then came the George Michael video for the song Freedom. There was no stopping them.

Admittedly, The Super Models is something of a ‘closed’ exploration – revealed is only what the four decide to reveal. Interviews with others generally accentuate the positive – even when a potentially contentious point is made, chances are that one of the four has already mentioned it, thus greenlighting the subject (racism, Evangelista’s abusive marriage, addiction). Now in their 50s, all four continue to be involved in the industry in their own way.

Whilst lacking incisive evaluation and avoiding flipping to the less glamourous aspects of the industry, it’s an immensely likeable, interesting skimming-the-surface insight. The four were great friends on the circuit – how much this has continued is moot as family and work pressures have kept them apart. Evangelista has also had more than her fair share of health problems which she talks about in the final episode of the fourparter.

Rating: 67%

Director: Larissa Bills (TV’s On Pointe), Roger Ross Williams (Life Animated, Stamped From the Beginning)

’Nyad’

Obsession and determination drive Diana Nyad to achieve a life-long ambition – to be the first person to achieve the 110-mile open ocean swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage.

Nyad is a remarkable tale as, at the age of 60, Diana Nyad (Annette Bening) persuades best friend and former lover Bonnie Stoll (Jodie Foster) to become her coach. A former world-class marathon swimming athlete, Nyad is determined to achieve the one that has eluded her – the ‘Mount Everest’ of swims. So begins a gutsy four-year journey of obsession, determination, disappointment and pain.

Strong performances keep Nyad afloat in what is, ultimately, a repetitive and singular narrative. Whilst understandably obsessed, Bening as a character is tedious and one dimensional in a film that offers inspiration but little respite away from the water. It’s Foster who offers a more rounded, multi-dimensional character as she argues, encourages, cajoles not only Nyad but navigator and boat owner John Bartlett (Rhys Ifans) and crew over the years.

Rating: 57%

Director: Jimmy Chin (Free Solo, The Rescue), Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (Free Solo, The Rescue)

Writer: Julia Cox (TV’s The Last Tycoon, Recovery Road)

Main cast: Annette Bening (American Beauty, The Kids Are Alright), Jodie Foster (The Mauritanian, Taxi Driver), Rhys Ifans (Anonymous, Snowden)

‘The Silence of the Lambs’

With the hunt for a serial killer who skins his victims, a rookie FBI cadet within the Behavioral Science Unit finds herself appealing to another serial killer for help, the imprisoned psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter. A psychological game unfolds.

With her own secrets, Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) works hard to advance her career. Unit chief Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) agrees for her to interview the heavily guarded Lecter, recognising there may be a few behavioural tips to be picked up in helping track down Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine). Responsible to date for five gruesome murders, a sense of urgency becomes manifold when the daughter of a Senator goes missing.

It’s a dark, gruesome psychological tale. Cannibalising his victims makes the manipulative Lecter (a deeply unsettling Anthony Hopkins) notorious yet Starling holds her own as the palpable chemistry between the two leads creates a tension so taut it’s on the point of snapping.

Nominated for 7 Oscars in 1992 including sound & film editing, won 5 for best film, best director, actor, actress, adapted screenplay

Rating: 71%

Director: Jonathan Demme (Philadelphia, Rachel Getting Married)

Writer: Ted Tally (Red Dragon, All the Pretty Horses) – based on the novel by Thomas Harris

Main cast: Jodie Foster (Hotel Artemis, Panic Room), Anthony Hopkins (The Father, Thor), Scott Glenn (Greenland, W.)

‘Sherwood’ (Season 1)

Engrossing six-part miniseries as an already fractured former Nottinghamshire mining town is further rent apart by two murders, leading to the biggest manhunt in British policing history.

Loosely based on true events, Sherwood is set in a town with a history – a town divided by the year-long miners strike of 1984/5. Animosities are not forgotten by members of the official striking miners trade union (NUM) of the breakaway Union of Democratic Mineworkers based in Nottinghamshire who returned to work. Almost 40 years later, neighbours refuse to acknowledge each other. So when the angriest and most vocal of the striking miners, Gary Jackson (Alun Armstrong) is murdered, memories of the violence attached to the strike come flooding back.

A constable back in the 1980s, the officious DCS Ian St Clair (David Morrissey) assumes command of the investigation. But, like everyone involved over the age of 40, he has historical baggage. Local police were targeted but, transferred in from London, the Met police force and their extreme violence in dealing with the strikers led to hatred. When St Clair discovers details of a potential identity-unknown suspect has been redacted, the result is the arrival from London of the suspended DI Kevin Salisbury (Robert Glenister) to help in the investigation. He too has history with the town and St Clair. If the murder caused waves, the arrival of Salisbury is potentially seismic.

Over its six episodes, Sherwood interweaves past and present focusing on the human side of the conflict. Married on opposing sides of the strike line, Jackson’s wife Julie (Lesley Manville) has no dealings with her sister Cathy (Claire Rushbrook) even though they live only a few doors from each other. The farm-based Sparrow family live in isolation and suspected to be involved in most illegal activities in the area. St Clair reprimanded Salisbury – even though they were equal in rank. But (no spoilers) all are linked to a specific event that happened one night 40 years earlier.

The viewing audience knows the identity of the killer. It becomes more of why – and what happened 40 years ago? It’s the procedural reveal of secrets and their political repercussions that lie at the core of the appeal of Sherwood. It’s much deeper than ‘simply’ a murder investigation. Knowing the killer’s identity, we witness the unexpected and violent second murder and which adds to the complexities of the police drama. And that drama keeps you riveted throughout.

Rating: 77%

‘Wanted’

A bored and bullied Chicago insurance clerk discovers he is the son of an elite assassin and, in being invited to follow in his father’s footsteps, joins the centuries-old secret Fraternity society.

An overbearing boss in a deadend desk job, a live-in girlfriend who cheats on him with Barry, his best friend and colleague (a young Chris Pratt), Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) medicates himself for debilitating panic attacks. Unbeknownst to him, a superhuman assassin has been murdered – and Gibson is next on the list. Cue the arrival of Fox (Angelina Jolie) to drag him away to safety and the clutches of the Fraternity, headed by Sloan (Morgan Freeman). Turns out those panic attacks, inherited from his father, is the ability to produce massive amounts of adrenaline, giving him superhuman strength and speed. He just needs to be trained to use it to the good of mankind…

Packed with action loosely based on a comic book miniseries, Wanted is an over-egged concoction of violent scene after violent scene by director Timur Bekmambetov as the geeky insurance nerd turns the tables of the hyper-trained superhumans. It has its moments but outstays its welcome.

Rating: 48%

Nominated for 2 Oscars in 2009 – sound editing & sound mixing

Director: Timur Bekmambetov (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Ben Hur)

Writer: Michael Brandt (3:10 to Yuma, 2 Fast 2 Furious), Derek Haas (3:10 to Yuma, 2 Fast 2 Furious), Chris Morgan (The Fast & the Furious: Tokyo Drift, 47 Ronin)

Main cast: James McAvoy (Split, Atonement), Morgan Freeman (Invictus, Million Dollar Baby), Angelina Jolie (Eternals, Changeling)

’Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens’ by Shankari Chandran

Layered and nuanced, the 2023 Miles Franklin Award winner, in spite of its title, has unexpected depth as Shankari Chandran tackles not only ageing but family, identity, racism and the trauma of civil war.

Cinnamon Gardens is a Sydney age care home catering mostly, but not exclusively, for Sri Lankans. Housed in an imposing two-storey federation building with a modern wing attached to the rear, the home was established some 40 years earlier by Maya and Zakhar Ali with the support of a childless older uncle. As Tamils, the young couple had fled their Sinhalese-controlled country. But not unscarred. Maya’s much academically published father and his brilliant student Zakhar had been arrested and tortured, with her father dying in captivity. Zakhar continues to carry the trauma.

But such past information is revealed only slowly by Chandran, chosing initially to focus on the present day and the characters populating the home. Nestled in the quiet, multicultural (fictional) suburb of Westgrove in Sydney, Cinnamon Gardens is run by daughter Anji with long-time best friend Nikki the resident doctor and Maya in residence upstairs in the best room in the old building. Anji is married to child psychologist Nathan whilst Nikki is navigating a strained relationship with husband Gareth, a local councillor. They lost a child 12 months earlier. Alongside residents with colourful histories and their own secrets, the enigmatic cleaner, odd-job man and carer Ruben dips in and out of the narrative. A speaker of 10 languages, he too carries the traumas, emotional and physical, of Sri Lanka.

So well cared for, the waiting list is growing as residents refuse to die off in this safe oasis. But Cinnamon Gardens does not exist in a vacuum and external social politics and the rise of racism continually threatens – Ruben seems to be a constant target. Police indifference or powerlessness goes hand in hand with the rise of gutter politics – with Gareth, much to the disgust of Nikki, playing a significant part.  

Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens is a carefully modulated social commentary juxtaposing the extremes of the civil war between Tamils and Sinhalese with the presence of ever increasing malignant violence in Australia. The personal drives the response in driving a wedge between difference rather than celebrating or embracing it, resulting in devastating consequences for all concerned. But Chandran herself celebrates that difference, resulting in a novel that is not, on responding to its title, a wry tale of ageing residents with their malapropisms and forgetfulness. Instead, we are presented with an engaging, emotive, shocking, tough, empathic story of individuals, old and young, male and female with differences of background, culture and experience coming together literally under one roof.

(A fascinating companion piece to the mordantly funny 2022 Booker Prize Winning The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka and set in Sri Lanka itself).