| Tomb Raiders |
RATCATCHER 15
Glasgow bliss…
1999 ★★★★★ OUT 12 APRIL CINEMAS
As we wait for news about Lynne Ramsay’s first film (Polaris? Die, My Love?) since 2017’s blistering You Were Never Really Here, the scab-kneed poetry of the Scottish director’s still-startling debut reiterates why we’re waiting so expectantly.
After several rarefied shorts, Ramsay arrived fully formed with Ratcatcher, a rough-edged tale of innocence and experience set on Glasgow’s mean streets circa the 1973 bin strikes. Harbouring a guilty secret involving a friend’s death, young James (William Eadie) navigates the churn and turmoil of youth with a haunted expression.
The opening sets the polarities of Ramsay’s vision, as a boy is awakened from a floaty reverie by a slap from his mum for messing with the curtains. Worse will follow for him, and Ramsay repeatedly pivots between the tough and the tender, rapture and rough reality. ‘I’m always gorgeous when you’re half-cut,’ says James’ ma to his beer-soaked da, nailing the extremes. Later, The Chordettes’ perky Lollipop plays while da – bleeding from a fight – slaps ma.
Like its near-contemporary, David Gordon Green’s George Washington, Ratcatcher mounts unsentimental yet fitfully lyrical portraits of childhood. A boy drowns, a rat flies to the moon: in between, Ramsay teases out youthful yearnings for somewhere better in images of rhapsodic power. Whatever she makes next, make it come soon.
THE VERDICT Bruised and beautiful, surreal and scuffed, Ramsay’s debut is an unforgettable one of a kind.
THE GREATEST HITS TBC
★★★★★ OUT 12 APRIL DISNEY+
It’s a case of time traveller’s strife for grieving Harriet (Chevalier’s Lucy Boynton), who only has to hear a snatch of certain songs to be whisked back to happy days spent with the boyfriend (new Superman David Corenswet) she lost to a car crash. Can she remix her past, even if it means missing out on love with Justin H. Min’s antique seller? Maudlin, glum and flatly acted, writer/director Ned Benson’s (2014’s The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby) fantasy stumbles when it should (quantum) leap. Odd a film about the persistence of memory should be so consistently unmemorable.
RYUICHI SAKAMOTO: OPUS TBC
★★★★★ OUT 29 MARCH CINEMAS
Released to mark the first anniversary of Sakamoto’s death, this is an intimate recording of the great composer’s final performance, directed by his son Neo Sora. Unable to perform for audiences due to his cancer diagnosis, Sakamoto (Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, The Revenant) channelled his all into a singular solo concert, filmed in 2022. The ambitious showcase spans 20 pieces from across his career, shot in sombre black and white, without commentary. With Sakomoto aware that this could be his last performance, it feels hauntingly elegiac.
IMAGINARY 15
★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS
Blumhouse’s latest offering follows Jessica (DeWanda Wise) as she moves her family – Tom Payne’s cookie-cutter ‘horror husband’ and two stepkids - into her childhood home. In the basement, youngest daughter Alice (Pyper Braun, the best actor of the bunch) discovers Jessica’s old teddy bear Chauncey; creepiness, naturally, ensues. There are some decent-enough scares, from the impactful cold open to the pull-string set-piece. But for a film about the power of imagination, it’s frustrating how little this ultimately toothless effort trusts the audience to use its own.
CHRISTSPIRACY 15
★★★★★ OUT NOW CINEMAS
It’s fair to say that one shouldn’t expect too much nuance from an investigative documentary with a title as clunky as Christspiracy. Even so, Kip Andersen and Kameron Waters’ effort is surprisingly flimsy, giving the sense that you’re watching an extended YouTube video rather than a piece of cinema. Despite the broad title, the actual scope is narrow, centring on speculation over whether Jesus was a vegetarian. For those who are highly devout and would immediately put down a burger on hearing that Christ would approve, this may hold some weight. Otherwise, there’s little to chew on.