Film Reviews by griggs

Mukhsin is the kind of coming-of-age film that sneaks up on you. It floats through sun-drenched Malaysian afternoons—kids on creaky bikes, parents teasing in the kitchen, cultural norms quietly bent while a neighbour gossips from across the road. The pace is cosy—sometimes too cosy—but every digression plants a seed that later blooms.

Yasmin Ahmad’s camera finds poetry in the ordinary: shared jokes, bursts of laughter, and moments that slip by unnoticed in louder films. Her touch is light, but the themes run deep—gender, conformity, tenderness, and what it means to grow up different. The tone has none of Hollywood’s manic urgency; there’s stillness here, and space to breathe.

What makes the film sing is the friendship at its heart. Orked and Mukhsin aren’t sweethearts—they’re kids, tiptoeing along the fuzzy edge between mateship and something more. They swap jokes, trade secrets, and steal glances when adults aren’t looking. He’s allowed softness. She’s allowed cheek. Together, they sketch a kind of emotional blueprint—less about romance, more about trust.

Orked’s family are outsiders, emotionally open and deeply connected. You’d swear they wandered in off the street, fully formed. That warmth makes Mukhsin’s alienation cut deeper. He’s the new boy in a place that doesn’t know how to handle him—and Yasmin captures that with heartbreaking clarity.

Ahmad explores the gap between public performance and private truth. In this world, women defer in public but rule in private. Orked’s household flips the script: her parents flirt, argue, and love each other out loud. The mother isn’t submissive; the father isn’t aloof. There’s real equality—radical, not because it’s shouted, but because it’s shown.

The beauty of Mukhsin lies in its contrasts. It feels gentle, safe—but life creeps in. Childhood isn’t a bubble, and kindness isn’t armour. Even in the sunniest villages, shame and compromise live just under the surface. Ahmad lets that tension simmer, then gently, devastatingly, breaks the spell.

The final reveal—pulling back to show the crew—isn’t a gimmick. It’s a gesture of love. She’s saying: this is a memory, a truth wrapped in fiction. These people existed. So did this love. Mukhsin becomes more than a coming-of-age film—it’s a remembrance. An embrace. A goodbye.

Richard Burton struts through 1971 London as mobster Vic Dakin, but the menace fades fast, swallowed by the beige. Dakin’s queer relationship with his younger lover, played by a brooding Ian McShane, hints at something darker—part protection racket, part S&M psychodrama—but it’s never fully explored. The real fun is spotting sitcom stalwarts—Tony Selby, Colin Welland, and a parade of ‘oh-it’s-him’ faces from 70s and 80s telly—before they vanish into the background.

With Ian le Frenais and Dick Clement at the typewriter, its no surprise that the plot plays like an overlong episode of The Sweeney, Minder, or The Professionals: punch-ups, punchlines, and predictable payoffs. It’s a far cry from the tension of Get Carter or the danger of Performance. As vintage grit—with Woodbines, Ford Cortinas and flares—it’s an engaging fossil. As cinema, it’s merely adequate—best filed under ‘curio’ and left to gather dust.

I arrived knowing almost nothing about ice hockey and left just as unsure. What plays out though feels more like a candid field-study than a feel-good sports caper. Director George Roy Hill strips away polish: punch-ups crash into changing room grumbles, and the battered team’s fortunes mirror a mill town heading towards collapse. The thuggish humour lands side by side with streaks of kitchen-sink despair, giving the film its odd texture—one minute pratfalls, the next blue-collar rage.

Amid the racket, the seventies soundtrack cuts through the din with real bite, and Paul Newman anchors the madness with a wonderfully perplexed turn. Even so I never quite warmed to the film. A constant barrage of homophobic and sexist slurs—unapologetic and unredeemed—kept dragging me out of the fun. Age isn't and alibi. In the end, the raw energy intrigues, but the crudity overshadows the charm.

Ironweed sets its story in 1938 Albany, where frost-bitten streets and soot-streaked buildings give the film a strong sense of place. The production design is detailed and convincing, grounding the characters in a world of hardship.

Jack Nicholson reins in his usual intensity, letting small gestures hint at deeper regret. Meryl Streep offers a restrained, sympathetic turn. Even the supporting roles feel well observed.

But the story unfolds in stiff, episodic beats. Scenes arrive with clear intent but little rhythm, often ending before they fully develop. Francis’s hallucinations and Helen’s later absence feel less like emotional turns than structural decisions.

The film has craft and care behind it—strong performances, evocative settings, and a sincere tone. But its formal structure holds the drama at a distance. It’s a thoughtful work, but one that engages the head more than the heart.

The Shop on Main Street is a Slovak film front he Czech-Slovak New Wave that shows how catastrophe starts with small choices. In 1942, a quiet carpenter becomes the state-appointed “Aryan controller” of a button shop owned by an elderly Jewish widow. He tries to do right; the system presses him to do wrong.

Ida Kaminska brings the widow to life with warmth and wary dignity, and the camera lingers on her every flicker of doubt. Directors Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos keep the style plain: steady shots, dry humour, the odd surreal touch. No graphic shocks—just mounting moral pressure. The ending lands like a dropped stone and keeps echoing.

Along Came Love is a frank, handsomely acted melodrama about two people tethered to secrets they barely admit, even to themselves. Shame, guilt, and misplaced desire simmer beneath a marriage built on real affection but weighed down by repression. It’s emotionally direct and far more explicit than its 15 rating lets on. I regret watching the trailer—it spoiled too much—but even so, I stayed engaged and was, at times, genuinely moved.

Purple Noon is a slow-burn thriller disguised as a holiday. Shot in Rome, Naples, and on the sun-bleached islands of Ischia and Procida, it follows Alain Delon’s Tom Ripley as he slips into a life of luxury he clearly fancies wearing full-time. At first he’s just a broke hanger-on; soon the charm hardens into calculation.

René Clément keeps the surface calm while tension ripples beneath. Henri Decaë’s camera captures blue seas, sharp suits, and stylish interiors with a clarity that masks the danger. Delon is the draw—watchful, unreadable—and Maurice Ronet’s carefree playboy only spots the threat when it’s too late.

A couple of languid stretches hold it back from perfection, but compared to the glossier remakes, this one remains cooler, leaner, and far more unsettling. If Ripley ever needed a passport photo, this would be it.

I was convinced I’d seen Nobody while sweating through COVID on the sofa—though it might’ve just been the trailer and a fever dream. Lockdown warped time, and before I used Letterboxd, memory was more folklore than fact.

Watching it properly now, it’s a sharp, satisfying action film. What makes it click is Bob Odenkirk: a believable everyman pushed too far. Cast a typical action star, and it’d just be a daft revenge film. It’s lean, stylish, and never overstays its welcome. Roll on Nobody 2—this time, I’ll log it.

And Then We Danced is tender, defiant, and quietly powerful. Set in Georgia’s rigid national dance scene, it follows Merab, a young dancer caught between tradition and desire. The lead performance is subtle and affecting, and the choreography carries real emotional weight. Like Call Me by Your Name, it explores the exhilaration and ache of first love—but with a rawness and urgency that feel unique. Some story beats are familiar, and the pacing drifts at times, but the film’s sincerity and emotional payoff ring true.

Directed by Frank Darabont and based on a story by Stephen King—like The Shawshank Redemption—The Green Mile returns to prison life but shifts into spiritual territory. This isn’t horror, but a slow meditation on guilt, grace, and the unexplained. Tom Hanks plays it steady and restrained, while Michael Clarke Duncan delivers a deeply affecting performance that grounds the film’s more fantastical turns.

Set almost entirely on a single Death Row corridor, the story moves at a solemn pace, shaped by ritual and routine. The unchanging setting reinforces the sense of inevitability—every path leads to the same door. The direction is deliberate and unflashy, letting the mood simmer, while the soft lighting and measured cinematography lend the film a warm, sepia-toned melancholy. Darabont’s restraint allows the performances and themes to breathe.

At just over three hours, it’s a long sit. Sometimes the duration works—it lets the weight of time sink in. Other times, it drags. There’s power here, but also indulgence. It wants to be profound and often is—but not without testing your patience.

Djon Africa is a vibrant and visually rich film—sun-drenched, full of colour, and alive with the rhythm of Cabo Verde. The protagonist, a charming rogue with a soft centre, sets out on a gentle Odyssean quest to find his father. It’s good fun and refreshingly unpretentious, but it badly drags. Too much time is spent on scenic detours that feel more like a tourist board advert than a narrative. With a bit more structure and drive, it couldn’t soars.

The Silence of the Forest may start like a stiff soap—wooden dialogue and stilted delivery, but it slowly morphs into something more provocative. Gonaba, a European-educated African civil servent, sets out to “civilise” the BaAka, casting himself as a liberator. But this is no white saviour story—it’s a sharp reversal, with a Black man repeating colonial patterns.

Director Bassek Ba Kobhio doesn’t soften the blow. His still, wide shots underline Gonaba’s growing isolation, while Eriq Ebouany’s layered performance peels back the character’s ego and naivety. The BaAka non-actors bring authenticity and depth, never reduced to cliche.

As Gonaba’s dream’s fall apart, teh forest quietly resists him—and so does the narrative he’s built around himself. This isn’t a film about taming or exoticising, but about power, identity, and the bitter truth that simply changing the face of the coloniser doesn’t undo the damage. It’s quietly devastating by the time the silence finally arrives.

To Live and Die in L.A. is a sharp, cynical thriller where no one comes out clean. Friedkin ditches sentiment for style, pairing striking visuals with a pulsing Tangerine Dream soundtrack. The plot moves fast, driven by moral ambiguity and a sense that corruption spreads like wildfire. The car chase is a standout—almost as gripping as The French Connection—and the decision to kill off the lead mid-film is bold and unsentimental. As a bridge between classic noir and modern thrillers, it’s tense, stylish, and oddly prescient. In this world, survival means faking it better than everyone else.

Lon Chaney delivers a mesmerising performance as the Phantom—disturbing, tragic, and utterly compelling. His self-designed makeup is iconic, but it’s his eerie, almost balletic movement that really makes the character unforgettable. The film builds suspense beautifully, especially in the slow, drawn-out reveal of the unmasking, which remains genuinely chilling. Visually, it’s stunning—the sets are grand, the shadows thick, and the selective use of colour (especially the masked ball sequence) adds a surreal, almost dreamlike quality. A gothic milestone that balances horror, spectacle, and emotion with remarkable flair. Still powerful, still haunting, a true triumph of silent cinema.

Steppenwolf drags you through a dusty, war-ravaged landscape with a grizzled antihero and a stammering, neurodiverse trafficked sex worker searching for her abducted son. It’s a harsh and often uncomfortable watch—especially given how casually the man dishes out violence—but there’s a grim fascination in their dysfunctional alliance. The direction is unflinching, favouring long takes and sparse dialogue that let the silence fester. The cinematography captures the Kazakh wilderness's desolate beauty—barren, scorched, oddly hypnotic. Performances are raw: she’s quietly affecting, layered beneath the tics; he’s repellent yet magnetic.