Film Reviews by griggs

Beyond the Black Rainbow postures as a reverent tribute to 1970s cult sci-fi, but quickly reveals itself as an exercise in imitation rather than inspiration. Instead of channelling the essence of THX 1138, Dark Star, Silent Running, or Solaris, it appears to lift entire stylistic elements wholesale, without understanding what made those films resonate. Though drenched in an icy 1980s aesthetic—with CRT fuzz, sterile corridors, and a heavy synth score—the film offers little more than visual mimicry. An early sequence cuts from Ronald Reagan archival footage to a suit carrier marked “Noriega,” a clumsy nod to the CIA-backed Panamanian dictator famously driven out by the sonic assault of Van Halen. Had this film’s soundtrack been used instead, he’d have surrendered within a day—not out of defeat, but sheer boredom.

Every scene fades to black before the next begins, as if grasping for meaning that never materialises. Characters barely exist, speaking in cryptic, stilted lines that suggest depth but carry none. The dialogue is not just bad—it’s empty. There is no plot to follow, no emotional core, and no real point beyond the surface-level visuals. What’s left is an art installation masquerading as cinema: flat, meaningless, pretentious.

I went into Chhaava knowing nothing about the history behind it, but I was pleasantly surprised—it’s a gripping, visually spectacular film. Clearly aiming for the same rousing energy as RRR, it doesn’t quite reach those heights. However, Vicky Kaushal delivers a commanding performance that wouldn’t feel out of place in an S.S. Rajamouli epic.

That said, the film has its issues. The pacing jumps forward in time with little warning, and if you miss the tiny on-screen text (easy when reading subtitles), you might get lost. A.R. Rahman’s score is grand but occasionally overwhelms the dialogue. And while the film insists it’s about freedom, not religion, there’s a clear nationalist undercurrent that feels in step with Modi-era politics.

One thing that truly shocked me was the sheer level of graphic violence. The battle scenes are unrelenting—swords slice through torsos, spears impale soldiers with sickening crunches, and arrows puncture throats in gruesome detail. Blood spurts in great arcs, and bodies pile up in the mud, some hacked apart or trampled underfoot. A ruthless execution scene lingers on the agony of a man being tortured—his tongue severed, his fingernail ripped off, and his back shredded with deep, bleeding wounds. The BBFC rating this a 15 feels surprisingly lenient, given how unflinching the film depicts carnage.

Despite these flaws, Chhaava is a thrilling watch—packed with action, drama, and spectacle. It may not be perfect, but it’s certainly unforgettable.

Helter Skelter is a visually striking, chaotic descent into the pressures of fame, beauty, and self-destruction. It follows Liliko, Japan’s top model, whose surgically enhanced perfection is her greatest weapon and inevitable downfall. Aware that time is running out and that younger models are waiting to take her place, she’ll do anything to stay at the top. But beneath her glamorous façade, she is deeply miserable, trapped in a system that exploits and abuses her. Her agency controls every aspect of her life, forcing her to undergo extensive plastic surgeries while keeping the procedures secret. She’s manipulated, gaslit, and pushed to exhaustion, with no real autonomy over her body or career. The film’s feverish energy, surreal imagery, and dazzling colours create a nightmarish, almost fairy-tale atmosphere, immersing the viewer in Liliko’s fragile, crumbling world.

It reminded me of The Substance in how it explores the impossible pressures placed on women to maintain youth, beauty, and relevance. Both films delve into body horror, but Helter Skelter is more theatrical and melodramatic. In contrast, The Substance is brutal and direct, blending psychological horror with dark satire. It doesn’t fully develop all its ideas, and its chaotic structure can be overwhelming. Still, Erika Sawajiri’s intense performance holds it together. Her portrayal of Liliko’s increasing desperation and volatility makes her both tragic and terrifying. Flawed but fascinating, Helter Skelter is an unsettling, visually stunning exploration of the cost of beauty and the inevitable downfall of those who chase perfection at any cost.

Watching Quo Vadis, Aida? feels like being trapped in a nightmare—one where the ending is already written, but you still cling to hope. The film follows Aida, a Bosnian UN translator, as she fights to save her family when Serbian forces seize Srebrenica. The tension is suffocating; every scene carries the weight of impending horror. For those who recall the harrowing images of Srebrenica, this film adds a devastating personal dimension.

Jasna Ðuricic is extraordinary, delivering a raw mix of fear, desperation, and determination. She’s constantly moving, pleading, searching for a way out while the UN soldiers stand by, powerless. The film doesn’t rely on graphic violence—it doesn’t need to. The dread is in the glances, the whispers, the gut-wrenching realisation that no help is coming. It’s a chilling reminder of how easily history repeats itself, with the world standing by until it’s too late.

Quo Vadis, Aida? sits alongside films like Come and See and Hotel Rwanda in its ability to make historical atrocities feel immediate and deeply personal. Like Come and See, it avoids large-scale battle scenes, instead keeping the focus on one individual’s increasingly desperate perspective, making the horror all the more suffocating. Unlike Hotel Rwanda, which finds moments of hope, Quo Vadis, Aida? offers no relief—only the crushing inevitability of betrayal and loss.

Honestly, A Face in the Crowd is a solid but slightly overlong drama that feels uncannily timely. Andy Griffith is shockingly intense here, delivering an unhinged, anxiety-inducing performance that genuinely put me on edge. In fact, his portrayal is so powerful that the film isn’t actually that enjoyable—it’s more stressful than entertaining. What hooked me was how eerily relevant this film is to today’s politics. Lonesome Rhodes is basically a 1950s version of Donald Trump—it’s almost spooky how similar they are. Both men build a “man of the people” image despite being wealthy and well-connected. They manipulate the media (radio/TV then, TV/social media now) to captivate audiences, even mocking their own followers behind closed doors. Their massive egos crave constant attention and only grow more erratic as their influence expands. Worth watching, but not quite the masterpiece, some claim.

Cottontail is a nice enough film–gentle, emotional, and clearly a tearjerker, judging by the number of hankies being used in the cinema. It’s a heartfelt story about grief, family, and reconciliation, with moments that definitely hit home. Lily Franky is easily the standout, delivering such a strong performance that it almost overshadows the rest of the cast. Even Ciarán Hinds can’t match Franky’s presence. The biggest problem is the editing. The flashbacks, while well-intentioned, go on for too long, slowing the film down and making it feel sluggish. Just when the story seems to build momentum, another extended memory sequence pulls it back, affecting the overall pacing. A linear storyline would have been much more fitting, allowing the emotional beats to land more naturally without the constant interruptions. The film has emotional weight, and there are touching moments, but the uneven execution keeps it from being truly memorable. A decent watch, but not one that will stay with me for long.

I found Contempt stylish but cold, more like an exercise in form than an engaging story. The visuals, particularly the use of colour, are stunning, but the endless ruminations left me detached. It’s interesting in theory, but I found it more tedious than thought-provoking in practice.

Mustang is a visually striking and emotionally rich film about five orphaned sisters in rural Turkey, trapped in a society that strips them of choice. If anything, it’s about the slow, suffocating erosion of women’s autonomy. The sisterhood, quiet rebellion, and creeping tragedy feel a lot like The Virgin Suicides, but Mustang stands on its own as a haunting, deeply affecting watch. Beautiful yet harrowing, with stunning cinematography and powerful storytelling, this one really sticks with you.

Just Another Girl on the IRT has a scrappy, energetic charm that makes it hard not to root for. Ariyan Johnson is magnetic as Chantel, a motor-mouthed Brooklyn teen with big dreams and zero filter, owning every scene with breezy confidence. Her cheeky fourth-wall asides land effortlessly; however, when things take a sharper turn, and her world is thrown off-kilter, the rawness of the performances suddenly feels more fragile. Still, there’s a gutsy honesty throughout—a fierce, funny, and quietly radical take on Black girlhood and ambition, balancing humour and rawness to keep you entertained and emotionally connected.

The French Connection is a film I’ve seen four, maybe five times, but this was the first time I experienced it on the big screen. Strangely, though, it was this viewing that impacted me the least. It's a curious feeling, considering it’s set in New York, my favourite city in the world. Though I’ve lived in London for the absolute vast majority of my life, New York always feels more like home to me, even if my visits have only been as a tourist. The city’s chaos, grit, and unrelenting energy perfectly mirror the film itself, which makes it all the more puzzling that it didn’t hit as hard this time. Technically, the film is almost flawless. William Friedkin directs with a kinetic style that pulls you into the frenetic pace of Popeye Doyle’s pursuit of the elusive French drug smuggler. With its screeching wheels and life-or-death stakes, the infamous Subway chase remains one of the most thrilling sequences ever committed to film. It’s a masterclass in editing and tension, and no amount of rewatching can dull its impact. Yet, the story itself doesn’t hold up quite well to repeated viewings. It’s not the strongest plot; it's more of a framework to hang moments of brilliance on. And that might be why, this time, the experience felt somewhat diminished. There’s also the challenge of caring about the characters. Nobody here is particularly likeable. Popeye Doyle, Gene Hackman’s iconic antihero, is a racist, arrogant, and deeply flawed man. But that’s also what makes him unforgettable. He’s not someone to root for, but you can’t look away. This is still an incredible film, a pillar of gritty 1970s filmmaking. But perhaps it’s one that loses a little something each time you return to it. Or maybe it’s just me.

I watched Madeline's Madeline, mainly because I liked Josephine Decker's later film Shirley. This one's trying to do a lot—race, mental health, coming of age, mother-daughter tensions, plus a whole meta-theatre layer—whilst bold, it often felt like it was trying too hard to be important. That said, Helena Howard is phenomenal. It's a breakout performance full of rawness and intensity; she holds the whole chaotic thing together. Miranda July felt oddly constrained by the direction, somewhat hemmed in a film that encourages improvisation and emotional looseness, which is her bread and butter but denied to her here. There's no shortage of ideas here, and it's definitely interesting. Still, it left me admiring the ambition rather than enjoying the ride.

Touki Bouki is a strange, stylish trip through ’70s Dakar, following two young lovers desperate to get to Paris. It’s got that scrappy, rebellious energy—lots of quick cuts, pop music, and surreal moments that give it a real French New Wave feel. But it’s not just fun and games. The slaughterhouse imagery is appropriately grim and sticks with you, casting a dark shadow over the whole thing. Mambéty’s saying something big about escape, identity, and what’s lost chasing a dream.

Microhabitat is quietly funny in that dry, blink-and-you'll miss it sort of way. Jeon Go-woon's debut is a subtle but assured sly satire about how utterly absurd adulthood turns out to be. The story follows Miso, played with pitch-perfect restraint by Esom, a character whose struggle to afford life's small pleasures in a world that demands too much and gives too little is all too relatable. Her choice of cigarettes and alcohol over her flat is a stark reflection of the compromises many of us make. What follows is a sofa-surfing odyssey through the crumbling dreams of her so-called friends, now the so-called 'adults'.

Each stop is a mini-tragicomic gem. Her sister, in the glamourous corporate job, which turns out to be little more than serfdom, held together by intravenous supplements, for which she undertook a nursing qualification to administer (the most valuable training she's taken). The joyless new parents, the pitiful man-child, a 50-year-old living with his parents, who support his attempts of abduction in order to marry him off. There's bleak satire in every corner—an unflinching look at how adulthood has failed us all. Never cruel—just painfully recognisable.

Miso's drifting detachment has hardened into something more radical. She begins to see those who've conformed as traitors—sell-outs to a broken system. Her lifestyle becomes a quiet manifesto, a rebellion against the rat race. Her freedom unsettles those who've buckled down, exposing their choices as cowardice. What begins as a story of survival turns into a powerful critique of societal norms. It's bleak, funny, and strangely empowering, leaving the audience enlightened and thoughtful.

The third act lands with a quiet, aching finality. As Miso's boyfriend confesses he's trading his dreams for stability, the film crystallises its core heartbreak—not just that adulthood is disappointing, but that even the dreamers eventually surrender. His choice isn't cruel, just crushingly ordinary. It's the slow erosion of hope that stings most. The time jump that follows is disorienting, deliberately so. Her old bandmates speak of Miso at a funeral with the hollow nostalgia of people who've long buried their idealism. Their words are polite, rehearsed, meaningless—revealing more about their own resignation than about her. And then, in a wordless, lingering moment, we glimpse a woman—greying, solitary, and still moving forward. Whether it's truly Miso or just her ghost doesn't matter. What matters is the sense that she never gave in. In a world that wears everyone down, her continued existence feels like a quiet act of defiance.

Microhabitat brilliantly mocks the illusions of adulthood with a knowing, bitter chuckle. Bleakly funny, oddly moving, and wonderfully observed.

Stylish, moody, and full of noir atmosphere, The Chase delivers strong performances and some genuinely suspenseful moments, even if Peter Lorre is oddly relegated to a minor role. Visually, it’s stunning—those shadowy, expressionist touches draw you in. But the dream twist feels like a cop-out, undercutting the tension it works so hard to build. Add to that a back-seat driver plot device that borders on the ridiculous, and the film’s promise never quite comes together in the end.

Maybe it was my mood or tiredness, but Weekend didn’t click with me. I couldn’t get into Godard’s style or the film itself. I get the point he was trying to make, the politics and the artistic flair, but it all felt a bit much. I couldn’t find any humour amidst the chaos unravelling on the screen to make it bearable. One to mark down as experience—I’ll give it another go.