BLEEDING LOVE 15

★★★★★ OUT 12 APRIL CINEMAS

Starring real-life father and daughter Ewan and Clara McGregor as an estranged father and daughter called, helpfully, Father and Daughter, Emma Westerberg’s debut is an American road movie with family relationships at its core and a drifty, almost ambivalent tone. Originally called You Sing Loud, I Sing Louder, it’s an indulgent affair that relies heavily on the off-screen bond between its leads, gradually building towards a moving conclusion. Still, the best moments feel unscripted, like the pair’s joyful rendition of the eponymous Leona Lewis song.

SILVER HAZE 15

★★★★★ OUT 29 MARCH CINEMAS

This latest collaboration between Dutch writer/director Sacha Polak and British non-professional actor Vicky Knight is an empathetic character study that draws on the latter’s real-life experiences. Physically and emotionally scarred from surviving a childhood fire, 20-something Dagenham nurse Franky (Knight) falls for the psychologically troubled Florence (Esmé Creed-Miles). Shot with a strong visual feeling for its characters’ changing moods, Silver Haze sometimes struggles to weave together its various narrative strands, though Knight’s performance is compelling throughout.

DRIFT 15

Escape from the past…

★★★★★ OUT 29 MARCH CINEMAS

Every refugee has a story, and it’s often one laced with trauma and heartbreak. Such is the case with Jacqueline (Cynthia Erivo), a woman born into wealth and privilege in her native Liberia, who’s gone from a comfortable life in England to one of homeless instability on a sun-soaked Greek island populated by vacationers.

It must have taken something harrowing to bring about such a seismic reversal of fortune and Singaporean director Anthony Chen duly parcels out the details in periodic flashbacks over the course of his English-language debut. Even without them, though, one would intuit its essence from Erivo’s nervy, haunted demeanour and a guard that only lowers when a kindly tour guide (Alia Shawkat) takes an interest in her wellbeing.

Educated, erudite and equipped with a flawless English accent, Jacqueline hardly fits the tabloid stereotype of an émigré fleeing violence and persecution. Then again, that may well be the point of Chen’s sensitive adaptation of Alexander Maksik’s 2013 novel A Marker to Measure Drift: that every displacement tale is different and that one generalises at one’s peril. You could argue its hero has it better than, say, the kids from Io Capitano, even if she does live on pilfered sugar sachets and sleep in a cave. When the sun sets, though, who’d want her nightmares?

THE VERDICT A moving performance from Erivo ensures this considered migrant drama is worth sticking with.

JEANNE DU BARRY 15

★★★★★ OUT 19 APRIL CINEMAS

If your idea of fun is watching a waxen, pompadoured Johnny Depp strut around while speaking in halting French, then this ponderous historical drama about Louis XV’s favourite mistress may be one for you. Everyone else will doubtless be as disdainful as the 18thcentury king’s (Depp) family were of the biopic’s eponymous courtesan, for all the lubricious gusto that Maïwenn (who also directs) brings to the role.

Fabulous to look at, yet deathly dull to sit through, it’s a lumpen two hours very much in need of an editorial guillotine.

IF ONLY ICOULD HIBERNATE TBC

★★★★★ OUT 19 APRIL CINEMAS

The feature debut from Mongolian director Zoljargal Purevdash is an affecting story of hope amid hardship, mounted with empathy against a backdrop of poverty and pollution. Sharing a yurt with his family, teenager Ulzii (Battsooj Uurtsaikh) has ambitions to improve his lot through study. When his mother moves away, Ulzii stays with his younger siblings, yet becomes torn between school and the need to provide the basics – warmth, food. Redundant subplot about a kindly teacher aside, this emerges as a tender, lived-in portrait of dreams and despair.