HEAD COUNT 15

★★★★★ OUT NOW DIGITAL

There’s a dash of Tarantino and a pinch of the Coens in this lively debut from the Burghart brothers (Ben and Jacob). A Kansas-set slice of pulp fiction, it stars Aaron Jakubenko (Tidelands) as Kat, an escaped con who, at the outset, is seen with his own revolver being held to his head by an unknown aggressor. How many bullets has the gun fired? That’s part of the mystery, as Kat recalls prior events across several interlinked chapters. It’s nothing new per se, but it’s still a brisk 80-minute ride that boasts some ace supporting characters, intricate plotting and dialogue that occasionally fizzes.

EUREKA 15

★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS

Three apparently disparate narratives are connected by themes of colonial oppression in this singular drama by Argentinian auteur Lisandro Alonso. A gunslinger (Viggo Mortensen, star of Alonso’s 2014 film Jauja) searches for his kidnapped daughter in a brutalist black-and-white western; a Native American police officer (real-life law enforcer Alaina Clifford) navigates a rough night on the job; and an indigenous community encounters a strange bird in 1970s Brazil. True edification is AWOL in a voyage through time, space and multiple genres, but the journey’s an exhilarating one.

MONSTER 12A

Points of view…

★★★★★ OUT 15 MARCH CINEMAS

Sharing its name with Charlize Theron’s 2003 Oscar-winner arguably doesn’t do Hirokazu Kore-eda’s latest many favours, prompting as it does misleading expectations that he has ventured into serial killer or even rampaging beast territory. The reality, mercifully, is rather more benign, even if it does stay teasingly elusive for much of what constitutes the Japanese director’s first film on native soil since 2018’s Shoplifters (after forays to France and South Korea to make 2019’s The Truth and 2022’s Broker, respectively).

A fretful single mother (Sakura Ando) is concerned by her young son’s strange behaviour, and decides to consult his school’s seasoned principal (Yûko Tanaka). Satisfactory answers are less than forthcoming, though, leading her to suspect that young Minato (Soya Kurokawa) is being abused by one of his teachers (Eita Nagayama).

Things are not always as they appear, though – a truism pushed home by having the action played out, Rashomon-style, from three distinctly different perspectives. Only when all the pieces are in place do we see the whole picture, with seemingly unimportant details from the opening third paying off down the line in ways that are surprising, revealing and gratifying.

The result is an emotional coming-of-age story reminiscent at times of 2022 gut-puncher Close, sensitively scored by the late Ryuichi Sakamoto and elegantly lensed by Shoplifters DoP Ryûto Kondô.

THE VERDICT This is a poignant and mysterious addition to the Hirokazu Kore-eda canon, finely acted and impeccably crafted throughout.

HIGH & LOW: JOHN GALLIANO 15

★★★★★ OUT 8 MARCH CINEMAS

Kevin Macdonald’s (Touching the Void) nuanced documentary charts the rise, fall and comeback of British fashion designer John Galliano, who was sacked as creative director of Dior in 2011; a French court later found him guilty of antisemitic and racist rants in a public setting. Alongside illustrative film clips (The Red Shoes, Abel Gance’s Napoleon) and footage of his workaholic subject’s headline-grabbing shows, Macdonald interviews friends and high-profile colleagues of Galliano, as well as the man himself. Just how repentant he is remains ambiguous.

THE PERSIAN VERSION 15

★★★★★ OUT 22 MARCH CINEMAS

Maryam Kershavarz’s buoyant comedy follows the trials of Leila (Layla Mohammadi), a New Yorkbased Iranian-American would-be screenwriter enduring strained relations with her immigrant family, especially mum Shireen (Niousha Noor). Kershavarz is good on cultural differences – not least the impact Leila’s sexuality makes – and has a fine sense of comic timing, with Tom Byrne’s British drag queen a real hoot. Mohammadi is also a compelling lead. But a long-winded third act, as family secrets come to light, hampers the film’s otherwise breezy nature.