Patrick, Streaming from 20th November
Patrick’s favourite hammer has gone missing. Its loss becomes an all-consuming preoccupation for this taciturn, socially awkward loner. But Patrick should be worrying about other things—following the death of his father, he has been left in charge of a naturist campsite in the Ardennes. And the nudists are plotting against him. This slow-burning and glumly comic drama is the feature film debut from Peaky Blinders director Tim Mielants, who builds the hammer-based tension until an explosive, caravan-trashing climax is unavoidable.
Possessor, Streaming from 27th November
Brandon Cronenberg delivers a highly enjoyable mind-melting sci-fi thriller, with a smattering of body horror. Andrea Riseborough stars as a futuristic hitwoman who carries out assassinations disguised as suicides via brain-implant technology. The superior quality of the performances throughout (an excellent Riseborough is matched by Christopher Abbott, playing one of her targets) is one of the film’s strengths; another is the picture’s deliciously lurid visual impact.
Mank, Netflix, 4th December
The third biopic from David Fincher, following Zodiac and The Social Network, this account of screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz’s struggle to pen the screenplay for Citizen Kane is a dizzying triumph—a career high for the director and everyone else involved. Shot in velvety blacks and diamond-sharp whites, it’s a luminous celebration of Hollywood’s golden era, driven by powerhouse turns from Gary Oldman as the boozy, disruptive Mank and Amanda Seyfried as canny but big-hearted industry operator Marion Davies.
Patrick’s favourite hammer has gone missing. Its loss becomes an all-consuming preoccupation for this taciturn, socially awkward loner. But Patrick should be worrying about other things—following the death of his father, he has been left in charge of a naturist campsite in the Ardennes. And the nudists are plotting against him. This slow-burning and glumly comic drama is the feature film debut from Peaky Blinders director Tim Mielants, who builds the hammer-based tension until an explosive, caravan-trashing climax is unavoidable.
Possessor, Streaming from 27th November
Brandon Cronenberg delivers a highly enjoyable mind-melting sci-fi thriller, with a smattering of body horror. Andrea Riseborough stars as a futuristic hitwoman who carries out assassinations disguised as suicides via brain-implant technology. The superior quality of the performances throughout (an excellent Riseborough is matched by Christopher Abbott, playing one of her targets) is one of the film’s strengths; another is the picture’s deliciously lurid visual impact.
Mank, Netflix, 4th December
The third biopic from David Fincher, following Zodiac and The Social Network, this account of screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz’s struggle to pen the screenplay for Citizen Kane is a dizzying triumph—a career high for the director and everyone else involved. Shot in velvety blacks and diamond-sharp whites, it’s a luminous celebration of Hollywood’s golden era, driven by powerhouse turns from Gary Oldman as the boozy, disruptive Mank and Amanda Seyfried as canny but big-hearted industry operator Marion Davies.
