mervyn-verstellung's - Favourites List

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Joan Castleman (Glenn Close) has spent forty years sacrificing her own talent, dreams and ambitions to support her charismatic husband Joe (Jonathan Pryce) and his stellar literary career.

Ignoring infidelities and excuses made in the cause of his art, she has put up with his behaviour with undiminished grace and humour. The foundations of their marriage have, however, been built upon a set of uneven compromises and Joan has reached a turning point. On the eve of Joe's Nobel Prize for Literature, the crown jewel rewarding a spectacular body of work, Joan will confront the biggest sacrifice of her life and some long-buried secrets. 'The Wife' is a poignant, funny and emotional journey, a celebration of womanhood, self-discovery and liberation...

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Tess, portrayed by the entrancing Nastassja Kinski, is the daughter of a poor, drunken farmer who discovers that he is actually of noble descent. Tess is sent off to live with their proper and wealthy relatives.

There, she is seduced by a suave but sinister cousin and bears him a bastard son who dies while still an infant. The backdrop is morally rigid Victorian England where Tess must carry the shame of her past even into her marriage to a minister's son, until she cleanses herself of all guilt in one ultimate act of passion.

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On 22 July 2011, more than 500 youths at a political summer camp on the island of Utoya outside Oslo were targeted by an armed, right-wing extremist.

In this first fictional movie about the attack, director Erik Poppe's breathless single-take re-enactment is told entirely from the perspective of a teenage girl Kaja (Andrea Berntzen) and her friends. Minute by minute we watch them trying to escape the gunman as they fight for their survival.

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From acclaimed director Mike Leigh comes this epic portrayal of events surrounding the infamous 1819 'Peterloo Massacre' in Manchester, when armed government forces charged into a crowd of 60,000 peaceful protesters who were desperate for greater democracy and improved working conditions.

Featuring stellar performances from Maxine Peake and Rory Kinnear, 'Peterloo' is an explosively visceral retelling of a defining moment in British history.

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The magic returns in Disney's all-new classic as Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) helps the Banks family remember the joy of what it's like to be a child.

Together with her friend Jack the lamplighter (Lin-Manuel Miranda), fun is brought back to the streets of London in celebration that everything is possible...even the impossible.

Melissa McCarthy is masterful in the captivating account - based on a true story - of a down-and-out writer who resorts to lies, deceit and outright crime to get back on top.

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This is the courageous story of Jared Eamons (Lucas Hedges), the son of a Baptist pastor in a small American town, who must overcome the fallout of being outed to his parents (Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe). His parents struggle with reconciling their love for their son with their beliefs.

Fearing a loss of family, friends, and community, Jared is pressured into attending a conversion therapy program. While there, Jared comes into conflict with its leader (Joel Edgerton) and begins his journey to finding his own voice and accepting his true self.

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During a cricket match at a lunatic asylum, patient Alan Bates relates a strange story to composer John Hurt and his wife played by Susannah York. It seems that Bates once lived with Australian aborigines, who taught him the secret of a deadly shout which has the power to kill anyone within earshot.

He moves in with the couple and starts a steamy affair with York. Meanwhile, Hurt who wants to harness the energy of 'the shout' for his music will not rest until he has discovered the truth about his guest's strange powers.

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Maggie Gyllenhaal stars as Lisa Spinelli, a kindergarten teacher and poet fed up with her career, her oblivious husband and teenage kids who largely ignore her.

When she discovers that a five-year-old in her class may be a poetic prodigy, Lisa becomes fascinated and tries to protect him from neglectful parents. She soon finds herself risking her career and family to nurture his talent.

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Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgård and Emily Watson star in 'Chernobyl', the critically acclaimed five-part mini-series.

On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukrainian SSSR suffered a massive explosion that released radioactive material across Belarus, Russia and Ukraine and as far as Scandinavia and Western Europe. Dramatising the true story of the 1986 nuclear accident, one of the worst man-made catastrophes in history, Chernobyl shines a light on the brave men and women who fought an unprecedented war against an invisible enemy, and who suffered and sacrificed, saving millions of lives, often at the cost of their own.

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Dani (Florence Pugh) and Christian (Jack Reynor) are a young American couple with a relationship on the brink of falling apart.

But after a family tragedy keeps them together, a grieving Dani invites herself to join Christian and his friends on a trip to a once-in-a-lifetime midsummer festival in a remote Swedish village. What begins as a carefree summer holiday in a land of eternal sunlight takes a sinister turn when the insular villagers invite their guests to partake in festivities that render the pastoral paradise increasingly unnerving and viscerally disturbing. From the visionary mind of Ari Aster comes a dread-soaked cinematic fairytale where a world of darkness unfolds in broad daylight.

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New England, 1630: William (Ralph Ineson) and Katherine (Kate Dickie) lead a devout Christian life with their five children, homesteading on the edge of an impassable wilderness. When their new-born son mysteriously vanishes and their crops fail, the family begins to turn on one another.

'The Witch' is a chilling portrait of a family unrevelling within their own fears and anxieties, leaving them prey to an inescapable evil.

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13-year-old Antoine (Jean-Pierre Leaud) can't seem to do anything right. His dysfunctional parents yell at him, his spiteful schoolteacher picks on him and luck just never goes his way.

Despite his efforts at patience, one day it all becomes too much and Antoine throws in the towel, choosing to take his chances on the Paris streets. At times joyous and at others bitterly hard, his new life brings a newfound freedom - one that Antoine will follow up to its painful, poignant and beautiful conclusion...

A darkness swirls at the center of a world-renowned dance company, one that will engulf the troupe's artistic director (Tilda Swinton), an ambitious young dancer (Dakota Johnson), and a grieving psychotherapist (Lutz Ebersdorf). Some will succumb to the nightmare. Others will finally wake up.

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Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen) is an orthopterist who is seemingly firmly in control of her partner Evelyn (Chiara D'Anna) through a strict, dictatorial fetish life behind closed doors.

But as Evelyn's requests to be dominated become increasingly extreme the true nature of their relationship begins to surface. A story about power and the exploration of discomfort that people will stretch to for the ones they love, told in mesmerisingly coruscating style by one of Britain's finest contemporary auteurs, Peter Strickland.