THIS BLESSED PLOT 15

★★★★★ OUT 26 JANUARY CINEMAS

When Chinese filmmaker Lori (Yingge Lori Yang) comes to stay in Thaxted, Essex, she’s drawn into the lives of the local townspeople: both the living and the dead. As well as uncovering familial secrets, she communes with several ghosts, offering an outsider’s perspective on parochial English life. Despite exploring interesting ideas about faith and socialism, this docudrama from writer/director Marc Isaacs (2020’s The Filmmaker’s House) sadly underwhelms. From production values to nonprofessional performances, it has the feel of a village am-dram show.

THE END WE START FROM TBC

Flood, sweat and tears…

★★★★★ OUT 19 JANUARY CINEMAS

Climate change knows no borders. Yet it’s still a shock to see London become its latest victim in Mahalia Belo’s apocalyptic drama, where rising flood waters send residents out of the capital in an increasingly desperate search for sustenance and shelter.

Among the affected is an unnamed woman (played by Jodie Comer) who’s had a baby with her partner (Joel Fry) just as the world starts to crumble around her. The man’s mum and dad (Nina Sosanya, Mark Strong) offer an immediate safe haven, yet when that too is compromised they head further north – first to a government-run encampment where only Comer’s character and her baby are admitted, and from there to a commune in the Orkneys where friendship with another young mother (Katherine Waterston) supplies fleeting respite from their stark new reality.

Adapted by Alice Birch from Megan Hunter’s novel, The End We Start From eschews epic FX in favour of an intimate, close-up immediacy. There’s a rueful matter-of-factness to how things disintegrate so rapidly, while Fry’s inability to cope under pressure resonantly suggests it will be the women who’ll do the rebuilding in whatever grim future awaits us.

A brief cameo from producer Benedict Cumberbatch provides some mid-film star wattage. Yet who needs it when you have Comer, a force of nature to rival any city-swamping deluge?

THE VERDICT A mum’s survival instincts face an incredible test in this mournful but powerful end-of-the-world parable.

JACKDAW 15

★★★★★ OUT 26 JANUARY CINEMAS

A full-throttle thriller, this debut from British director Jamie Childs sees desperate, double-crossed army veteran Jack (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) hunting for his kidnapped brother (Leon Harrop) through the industrial badlands of the North East. Crammed with white-knuckle motocross chases and crunchy shotgun-toting fights, it rocks a nice Drive-in- County-Durham vibe… until, that is, the story skids into soapy melodrama and starts to sputter. Still, Jackson-Cohen’s taut, taciturn performance, finding vulnerability under Jack’s violence, proves he can handle action-hero duties with aplomb.

SAMSARA U

★★★★★ OUT 26 JANUARY CINEMAS

The word ‘documentary’ doesn’t quite do justice to this transportive cinematic experience from Galician filmmaker Lois Patiño. Taking its title from the Buddhist concept of life being a cycle of birth/death/rebirth, it begins in a dreamily lensed rural Laos, where a teenager is reading extracts from The Tibetan Book of the Dead to an ailing elderly woman. Patiño proceeds to chart no less than the reincarnation of the latter’s soul. Particularly audacious is a 15-minute bridging sequence where the viewer is encouraged to experience the diverse sounds and flashing images behind closed eyes. No peeking!

WERNER HERZOG: RADICAL DREAMER 15

★★★★★ OUT 19 JAN CINEMAS 19 FEB BD, BFI PLAYER

Thomas von Steinaecker’s documentary takes us on a whistlestop tour of the legendary filmmaker’s greatest hits.

Beginning with a very Herzogian ‘Based on a true story’, it whizzes us from the director’s humble beginnings in rural Bavaria through chaotic classics such as 1972’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God to gonzo documentaries such as 2005’s Grizzly Man. At 96 minutes it only digs so deep, but offers a diverse range of contributors: Christian Bale, Wim Wenders, Carl Weathers and more pay homage to a self-confessed ‘good soldier of cinema’.