The best films in June 2019—Dirty God and Gloria Bell

 

Dirty God

Released on 7th June

When a young mother from London leaves hospital after an acid attack perpetrated by her ex-boyfriend, her future, like her face, has changed radically. With little education and no financial security, opportunities for girls like Jade are limited. But now, without the currency of her looks to trade on, she must navigate reactions which range from pity to revulsion. A superb performance from newcomer Vicky Knight, herself a burns victim, drives this spirited portrait of a girl who comes back fighting, against her victim status, against staring strangers and anyone who dares suggest she’s an unfit mother.

 

Gloria Bell

Released on 7th June

Chilean director Sebastián Lelio has remade his 2013 drama Gloria, with a luminous Julianne Moore in the title role. Gloria is a woman in her 50s who loves to dance and date. It’s not a showy performance, but Moore is an actress who does some of her most satisfying work on a small scale. Here, she floods her character with warmth and hope, her good nature a snug comforter that insulates against disappointment and bad choices. A closing scene, set to Laura Branigan’s pop anthem of the same name, is a triumphant air punch of an ending.

 

Halston

Released on 7th June

A boy from rural Iowa became a society milliner and then, briefly, American fashion’s most stellar designer. Halston put the iconic pillbox hat on Jackie Kennedy and Bianca Jagger on a white horse in Studio 54. This documentary, accessorised with dramatised flourishes, is every bit as glitzy as you would hope. And it shows Halston as collateral damage in the collision between the fabulousness of the 1970s and the hard-nosed business approach of the 1980s.