Category: DVD & Digital

Reviews of the latest UK DVD & Digital releases.

DVD & Digital

Film review: After the Hunt

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Since the #MeToo movement ripped through Hollywood a little under a decade ago, there have been a spate of misconduct stories on the big screen, from Kitty Green’s The Assistant to Maria Schrader’s She Said. The latest in this contemporary sub-genre wave is psychological thriller After the Hunt by director Luca Guadagnino. Unravelling in and around Yale University, the plot follows esteemed philosophy professor Alma Imhoff (Julia Roberts) who is up for tenure. After she and her husband Frederick (Michael Stuhlbarg) host a dinner party, her PhD student Maggie (Ayo Edebiri) accuses Alma’s colleague and close friend Hank (Andrew Garfield) of sexual assault.

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DVD & Digital

Film review: Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale

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 After six series of television, five festival specials, and two features, the curtain is drawn on the historical franchise with a third and final film. Written by Julian Fellowes who created the show, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale is set in 1930 as the Crawleys prepare to embrace change with head of the table Robert (Hugh Bonneville) set to retire. Simon Curtis returns as director for a plot that centres around his eldest daughter Lady Mary Talbot (Michelle Dockery) as the scandalous news of her divorce spreads through their high-society. Meanwhile, Cora (Elizabeth McGovern) hosts her brother Harold (Paul Giamatti) and his friend Gus (Alessandro Nivola) who are visiting from across the pond, bringing news of financial hardship for the family.

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DVD & Digital

Film review: I Swear

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 Tourette’s syndrome activist John Davidson is no stranger to our screens, having been the subject of groundbreaking Q.E.D. television episode titled ‘John’s Not Mad’ among many other documentaries over the years.  His campaign to raise awareness of the disorder led to an MBE award in 2019 and his incredible story has been dramatised in the latest feature from writer and director Kirk Jones. Based in the Scottish Borders town of Galashiels, biographical comedy drama I Swear follows John through a challenging adolescence (Scott Ellis Watson) and into adulthood (Robert Aramayo) as he comes to terms with his diagnosis. After mental health nurse Dottie (Maxine Peake) takes him under her wing, he meets Tommy (Peter Mullan) who presents him with a rare opportunity and encourages him to speak out about the condition.

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DVD & Digital

Film review: The Long Walk

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 Known for his work on the Hunger Games young-adult franchise, director Francis Lawrence treads a similar thematic path in his latest feature. Based upon the novel of the same name by iconic horror writer Stephen King, survival thriller The Long Walk takes place in an America dystopia ravaged and in financial ruin after a second Civil War.

Under a totalitarian regime, the plot follows a group of fifty young men, namely Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) and Peter McVries (David Jonsson) who each represent their state in an annual event whereby they walk for miles until only one remains. If participants fails to follow a set rules outlined by military leader ‘the Major’ (Mark Hamill), after three warnings they are mercilessly executed by an army of soldiers. The winner will be awarded a significant cash prize and granted one wish.

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DVD & Digital · EIFF25 · Interviews

All the Devils Are Here Interview: Eddie Marsan, Burn Gorman, Barnaby Roper & Tienne Simon

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 Taking its title from an ominous line in William Shakespeare’s tragicomic play The Tempest, crime thriller All the Devils Are Here is written and directed by Barnaby Roper – a stylish feature debut from the filmmaker who uses his breadth of experience in making shorts and music videos to craft a slick experience. The plot centres around thieves Ronnie (Eddie Marsan), Grady (Sam Claflin), Royce (Tienne Simon), and Numbers (Burn Gorman) who hide out in a secluded house in the countryside after a heist spirals out of control. I took the opportunity to chat with the director and his cast ahead of its world premiere at Edinburgh International Film Festival.

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DVD & Digital · EIFF25 · Interviews

Reality Is Not Enough Interview: Irvine Welsh & Paul Sng – ‘It’s quite an achievement to make a writer look interesting’.

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Known for his drug-fuelled novels such as Trainspotting, Filth, and Crime that depict working-class life in Scotland, novelist Irvine Welsh continues to explore fresh artistic mediums some thirty-plus years into his creative career. He has recently released concept album The Sci-fi Soul Orchestra as a musical companion piece to his latest book, Men in Love, and is always working on exciting new ideas across stage, screen, and of course literature. Giving a unique insight into his life and psyche, experimental documentary Reality Is Not Enough is written and directed by Paul Sng and uses a range of filmmaking styles to present a vivid and deeply personal portrait of the iconic writer.

Ahead of its world premiere at the 78th edition of Edinburgh International Film Festival, I was lucky enough to sit down with Sng and Welsh to discuss the film…

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Berlin25 · DVD & Digital · Interviews

Late Shift Interview: Petra Volpe – ‘COVID came, everybody was clapping for nurses, and then we forgot’.

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Earlier this year I attended Berlin Film Festival and the final screening of my trip was the gripping Swiss-German drama Late Shift which follows an eventful day in the life of surgical nurse, Floria who is brilliantly portrayed by Leonie Benesch. It was one of my festival highlights and ahead of its UK release next month, I was fortunate to sit down with its writer and director Petra Volpe to discuss the film…

It feels like very important, especially post-pandemic, to focus a film on the experiences of a nurse. What drew you to tell this story initially?

Well, I had lived with a nurse for many years before COVID even, and I kind of observed how the conditions she worked under got worse and worse, and how it affected her deeply. I just always felt like the work I’m doing, at home writing screenplays, was so banal compared to what she encountered every day. It’s such an emotionally complex but also technically complex job.

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DVD & Digital

Film review: Superman

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 Over a decade has passed since writer and director James Gunn was called upon to add his filmmaking flair to the world-building of Marvel’s cinematic extended universe with the beloved Guardians of the Galaxy series. In more recent years, he jumped strip to reimagine DC’s Suicide Squad division and has now been tasked with rebooting their tale of arguably the world’s most iconic caped figure.

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DVD & Digital

Film review: 28 Years Later

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Their collaboration on 28 Days Later was credited with revitalising the zombie-horror subgenre for the 21stcentury, but director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland soon parted ways after falling out over the religious and philosophical themes in their sci-fi venture, Sunshine. It’s taken over two decades for them to reconcile their creative differences, and they have reunited to revive their post-apocalyptic franchise with thriller 28 Years Later.

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DVD & Digital

Film review: The Uninvited

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“I’ve never really been good at metaphors” says a drug-addled talent agent in The Uninvited, a comedy drama that takes a satirically sideways glance at ageing in modern-day Los Angeles. Written and directed by Nadia Conners, the plot centres around once-acclaimed stage actor Rose (Elisabeth Reaser) who has somewhat reluctantly fallen into a homemaker in the hills lifestyle since becoming a mother. While preparing to host a glamourous party with her husband Sammy (Walton Goggins) in order to impress their peers, an elderly woman named Helen (Lois Smith) arrives unannounced and claims that their house is in fact her own.

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