Reviews of the latest UK DVD & Digital releases.
Filmmaker Emerald Fennell has spent most of her career in front of the camera, known for her television roles in Call the Midwife and The Crown. A few years ago, Promising Young Woman was released; a bold, divisive debut that marked her as a writer and director to be reckoned with. Her follow-up feature is Saltburn, a black comedy thriller set in the mid-noughties.
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In amongst news of lockdowns and vaccinations, 2021 also saw the short squeeze on shares of dwindling retailer GameStop make the headlines, leading to the ‘war on Wall Street’ between everyday stock sellers and major hedge fund managers. Based upon the best-selling book The Antisocial Network by Ben Mezrich, this inspiring true story has been adapted for the big screen by director Craig Gillespie. Comedy drama Dumb Money centres around analyst turned YouTube celebrity Keith Gill (Paul Dano) who encouraged his online audience to invest in the video game store under his internet alias Roaring Kitty. Through the personal stories of nurse Jennifer (America Ferrara), students Harmony (Talia Ryder) and Riri (Myha’la Herrold), businessman Gabe Plotkin (Seth Rogen) and more, the film explores the ripple effects of this controversial financial advice.
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Beginning with the brutal retelling of the Rettendon murders, the Footsoldier franchise has since spanned nearly two decades, expanding the saga from true crime into fiction. The sixth instalment, Rise of the Footsoldier: Vengeance is a direct sequel to 2021’s origins prequel and sees actor-turned-filmmaker Nick Nevern return to the director’s chair. Craig Fairbrass reprises his role as Essex hardman Pat Tate who’s out for revenge when one of his loyal footsoldiers is brutally murdered in mysterious circumstances. Crossing paths with Sam (Jamie Foreman), David (Phil Davis), and Fergus (Stephen McCole) in the seedy underbelly of 90s Soho, he will stop at nothing to track down his friend’s killer.
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Robert Louis Stevenson’s gothic novella has been retold on the stage and screen countless times and is so familiar to us that the title itself has become part of our vernacular. The latest adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde comes from director Hope Dickson Leach, combining mediums in a bold hybrid vision, first shown as a live experience at Leith Theatre in collaboration with the National Theatre of Scotland. Reimagined as an Edinburgh-based noir, Lorn Macdonald stars as Gabriel Utterson, a legal practitioner who turns detective when his friend Dr. Jekyll (Henry Pettigrew) abruptly changes his will, leaving everything he owns to the mysterious Mr. Hyde.
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A subtly satirical take on the tortured artist trope, Afire is the latest effort from German writer and director Christian Petzold. The plot follows struggling author Leon (Thomas Schubert) and his photographer friend Felix (Langston Uibel) on a trip to a seaside holiday home to get some inspiration. On their arrival they find that they’re not the only guests, and their fellow lodger Nadja (Paula Beer) keeps them up through the nights as she entertains her lifeguard lover Devid (Enno Trebs). What begins as a work retreat soon turns into something quite different as procrastination leads to unexpected passion.
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Developing their own 2021 short into a taut feature, the writer-director duo of Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping study very different facets of masculinity in their neo-noir thriller Femme. The story follows Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) who performs in drag under his ferociously flamboyant alias Aphrodite Banks. On the way home after a show, he falls victim to a brutal hate crime at the hands of Preston (George Mackay), a small-time drug dealer egged on by his jeering gang of friends. Several months later, their paths cross again in the most unlikely of places.
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Complicated romance has been at the core of writer and director Ira Sach’s work across his career and is revisited once again in indie drama Passages. Set in modern day Paris, the plot follows German filmmaker Tomas (Franz Rogowski) as he is finishing up on his latest feature. Feeling neglected by his husband Martin (Ben Whishaw) at the wrap party, he meets schoolteacher Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos) on the dancefloor and they share a night of passion. This tryst leads to a love triangle where the three wrestle with their evolving emotions.
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Amidst the writers and actors strikes in Hollywood comes the latest film from Nicole Holofcener, one of America’s most acclaimed contemporary screenwriters. Set in modern-day Manhattan, romantic comedy drama You Hurt My Feelings follows author Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) as she in the process of writing a novel. Worried that it won’t live up to the success of her well received memoir, she is shocked and upset to learn that her husband Don (Tobias Menzies) isn’t too fond of her fiction, and this revelation causes a complicated conflict in their happy marriage.
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After working with Disney Pixar since the turn of the century, animator Peter Sohn made his directorial debut in 2015 with The Good Dinosaur. His follow up in the director’s chair is Elemental, inspired by his own immigrant experience of moving from Korea to New York in the 1970s. The plot follows fire element Ember (Leah Lewis), daughter of Bernie (Ronnie del Carmen) and Cinder (Shila Ommi), who is soon to take over their family business in Element City. On her first day left in charge alone, her fiery temper outburst causes a leak in the basement which leads her to meet water-boy city inspector Wade (Mamadou Athie), and the pair form an unlikely connection.
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In 2017, the pop songs of Take That were developed into a jukebox musical which enjoyed a stint on London’s West End and has now been adapted into a film of the same name. Directed by Coky Giedroyc, Greatest Days follows a group of pals that reunite for a trip to see beloved boyband ‘The Boys’ in concert. When superfan Rachel (Aisling Bea) wins tickets through a local radio competition, she reaches out to Heather (Alice Lowe), Claire (Jayde Adams), and Zoe (Amaka Okafor) to relight the fire of their teenage rebellion.
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Cinema Perspective 