La La Land
On release from 13th January
Damien Chazelle’s film starts boldly—on an elevated section of the LA freeway scores of drivers dance away from their cars. Having come on like West Side Story, it soon slides winningly into sung-through dialogue: actress Mia (Emma Stone) happens one night on Sebastian, a jazz musician played by an effortlessly seductive Ryan Gosling. They fall in love in venues from the Griffiths Observatory to the Hollywood Hills, negotiating commitment and ambitions, until... If it never quite soars like an MGM musical or stings like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, La La Land leaves a grin as wide as Stone’s. For all Gosling’s grace, this is her film.
Manchester by the Sea
On release from 13th January
Writer-director Kenneth Lonergan leaves long pauses between films. But it’s worth the wait for this deceptively simple story of a handyman returning to his coastal hometown to look after his nephew. Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams lead a strong cast, with searing performances in a devastating screenplay. Yet, even in extremis, Lonergan never neglects humour as fundamental to human experience. Rarely does screen drama feel so true or so compelling.
Silence
On release from 1st January
For 25 years, Martin Scorsese has tried to bring to the screen Shusaku Endo’s 1966 novel of 17th-century Portuguese Jesuits in Japan. Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver portray priests defending their faith against persecution, and enduring God’s silence in the face of suffering. Profoundly researched, it asks questions even more acute than The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).
On release from 13th January
Damien Chazelle’s film starts boldly—on an elevated section of the LA freeway scores of drivers dance away from their cars. Having come on like West Side Story, it soon slides winningly into sung-through dialogue: actress Mia (Emma Stone) happens one night on Sebastian, a jazz musician played by an effortlessly seductive Ryan Gosling. They fall in love in venues from the Griffiths Observatory to the Hollywood Hills, negotiating commitment and ambitions, until... If it never quite soars like an MGM musical or stings like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, La La Land leaves a grin as wide as Stone’s. For all Gosling’s grace, this is her film.
Manchester by the Sea
On release from 13th January
Writer-director Kenneth Lonergan leaves long pauses between films. But it’s worth the wait for this deceptively simple story of a handyman returning to his coastal hometown to look after his nephew. Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams lead a strong cast, with searing performances in a devastating screenplay. Yet, even in extremis, Lonergan never neglects humour as fundamental to human experience. Rarely does screen drama feel so true or so compelling.
Silence
On release from 1st January
For 25 years, Martin Scorsese has tried to bring to the screen Shusaku Endo’s 1966 novel of 17th-century Portuguese Jesuits in Japan. Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver portray priests defending their faith against persecution, and enduring God’s silence in the face of suffering. Profoundly researched, it asks questions even more acute than The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).
