ANOTHER BODY TBC

★★★★★ OUT 24 NOVEMBER CINEMAS, DIGITAL

Beginning with a still from a sex video, reflected in an eye, then moving closer until all is black, Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn’s documentary explores a troubling new phenomenon. An American student is horrified to discover her face has been used to make deepfake porn – but who is responsible, and how can she stop them? Cleverly, Compton and Hamlyn use the same digital trickery as the perpetrator to expose the terrible things men do to women, simply because they can. Executed with the discretion and sensitivity its subject matter calls for, this is unsettling but urgent viewing.

RETRIBUTION 12A

★★★★★ OUT NOW SKY CINEMA/NOW

A dilemma for you, high-powered bank exec Liam Neeson: there’s a bomb under your seat as you’re driving your kids to school. If you get out, it blows. If you don’t obey the mystery person calling the shots, it blows. What do you do?! Well, you could consult the Spanish (2015), German (2018) and South Korean (2021) movies that have already been coined from this Speed-indebted scenario. Or you could just sit back and enjoy the ride, safe in the knowledge that your Takenhoned smarts will overcome any problem Nimród Antal’s (Vacancy, Predators) generic thriller throws in your way.

EILEEN 15

Jail bonding…

★★★★★ OUT 1 DECEMBER CINEMAS

Next to Last Night in Soho, Thomasin McKenzie’s previous foray into psychosexual thriller territory, Eileen might at first be dubbed Drab Days in Massachusetts. Until, that is, exotic Rebecca (Anne Hathaway) flutters into the title character’s life: a startling femme fatale in fire-engine red who offers McKenzie’s timid prison staffer both a Carol-esque whiff of temptation and the chance to escape the grim juvenile-detention facility she works at when not pandering to her drunken ex-cop of a father (Shea Whigham).

Seven years on from Lady Macbeth, British director William Oldroyd – here working from Ottessa Moshfegh’s 60s-set 2015 novel – brings us another female-led story about a young woman kicking against her restricted circumstances, this time in a literal prison. But halfway through, a neat reversal deftly diverts the action into Coen brothers territory. A rash move on the part of psychologist Rebecca obliges the same from Eileen, suggesting that a vein of calculating criminality was never too far beneath that meekly submissive surface.

Like Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett before them, McKenzie and Hathaway make an enticing duo in a film that grips tightly all the way to its slightly deflating conclusion. Yet it’s not just the ladies who shine; the reliable Whigham makes Eileen’s dad a casually cruel embodiment of everything she’s eager to escape.

THE VERDICT McKenzie and Hathaway shine in William Oldroyd’s compelling journey into twisted immorality that’s taut, lean and sprung like a steel trap.

THERE’S SOMETHING IN THE BARN 15

★★★★★ OUT 1 DECEMBER CINEMAS

The promise of the Northern Lights gives way to goofy frights in this culture-clash comic horror from TV’s Magnus Martens (Fear the Walking Dead). An American family moves to Norway for Christmas, expecting twinkly fairy-tale magic. Yet the resident barn elves have rules, Gremlinsstyle, and they get pissy when they’re broken. Martens fumbles the tonal balance initially, the laughs/scares muffling each other. But as the siege-like mood develops, the blood taps are opened: between impaled elves and explosive baubles, there’s seasonal slaughter with glee.

IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE? 12A

★★★★★ OUT 17 NOVEMBER CINEMAS, DIGITAL

Norfolk-raised filmmaker Ella Glendining goes on a journey of self-discovery in this moving documentary. Born with an extremely rare disability – she has no hip joints and extremely short femurs – she resolves to find out if there are others out there with her condition. Though her quest is hampered by the pandemic, Glendining offers insights into living with a disability, highlighting the everyday prejudices she has faced from prospective employers. Weaving together interviews, home movies and video diaries, this is a body-positive, lifeaffirming film.