Screening Room

May 17, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

‘Hindsight,’ runs Eddington’s tagline on its poster depicting buffalo tumbling off the side of a cliff, ‘is 2020’. For Ari Aster’s latest, that means training his quirky eye on America, linking where we are now to events of 2020 when Covid bred paranoia, conspiracy and MAGA like a socio-polical petri dish. Popping the pandemic in a neo-noir Western set in the appellative New Mexico town during May of that year, Aster picks at virtue signalling, bandwagonning, social media, fake news, radicalisation, trauma and first amendment jingoism via the moral and emotional meltdown of the town sheriff, Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix).

Ari Aster, Austin Butler, Eddington, Emma Stone, Joaquin Phoenix, Luke Grimes, Pedro Pascal

A mild-mannered chap in a fraught marriage to his doll-making, damaged wife Lou (Emma Stone) and living with his conspiracist mother-in-law (Deidre O’Connell), Joe is law-abiding until medical mandates come around. An asthma-sufferer, the sheriff does not believe anyone should wear a mask if they don’t want to (or that Covid is a real threat) and clashes with mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal). The two men have history involving Lou and Joe is fired up enough to run for office against his romantic rival, leaning into NRA/MAGA sentiments and further losing his rag when Lou brings home a charismatic cult leader (Austin Butler) and gazes at him in a way she hasn’t looked at her husband in many moons. Suddenly, this is no longer a movie in the vein of John Sayles’ Lone Star and takes an Asterian turn to something darker, more febrile and explosively ludicrous. As Aster films go, it’s less challenging than the big swings of Beau Is Afraid but not as startlingly fresh as Hereditary.

Peppered with as many fatalities as delicious performances, Eddington is surprisingly droll, luridly violent and has the prescience to use a Katy Perry song in a film that worries about the potential stranglehold of big tech in all aspects of life. (The proposed data bank that promises infrastructure and jobs for the area looms throughout as bellwether commentators warn of political control, ecological impact and wealth disparity.) There’s gallows humour to be found as characters declare Covid is ‘not a here problem’, espouse the virtues of Bitcoin and watch TikTok videos as news. The ranting homeless man who staggers into town at the start muttering incoherently about perceived wickedness is no longer the anomaly as ideologies burn brighter, fuelled by misinformation, frustration and ultimately, actually gasoline.

This is an accomplished cast so it’s no surprise that Phoenix holds focus despite playing an insubstantial man with shifting morals, ably supported by Pascal (stoic), Stone (fragile), Butler (scene-stealingly slithery) and Michael Ward, faultless as an ambitious sheriff department officer who becomes a pawn. Nothing so horrific as the decapitation of Hereditary, but Eddington offers a seething discomfort in recognising the start of the slip towards the dumpster-fire rolling-news reality we now live in. Which is truly terrifying.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photography courtesy of A24
Eddington premiered at the 78th Cannes Film Festival

HALLOW ROAD

May 16, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Student Alice is used to being picked up and brushed off by her parents whenever she stumbles. Though we never see her, we hear and know about her via her parents; over-protective Frank (Matthew Rhys) and his exasperated paramedic wife Maddie (Rosamund Pike). Early in the small hours, Alice calls her sleep-deprived mum in a panic – she has taken her dad’s car and driven to the titular road in a nearby forest where she’s accidentally knocked over a pedestrian. The parents jump into Maddie’s car to reach her, their SatNav informing them of the distance to reach their daughter while an increasingly upset Alice keeps them abreast over the speakerphone of the terrible, fatal mess she’s got herself into.

Babak Anvari, Hallow Road, Matthew Rhys, Megan McDonnell, Rosamund Pike — Courtesy of Universal Pictures

Essentially a real-time bottle episode in the vein of Locke, Hallow Road then unfurls, one mile and minute at a time, in the car as the couple struggle to help their child remotely, question their parenting and reveal the fractured family dynamic that preceded Alice storming out of the house earlier. And as the country roads become more labyrinthine and dark, a folk horror aspect begins to hover over proceedings as both parents’ psychological secrets come to the fore.

Hallow Road starts with a warning – a battery depleted smoke alarm chirruping – and grows in tension and disquiet as Rhys and Pike master myriad emotions while the green dashboard light casts a queasy hue over their distraught faces. To give more detail would be to spoil, but if you’re familiar with director Babak Anvari’s previous work in Under The Shadow, the fact that the crisis at the start of this thriller morphs to something more primal and primordial at its close should come as no surprise. Like the fraught relationship between parents and daughter (voiced by Megan McDonnell), there is something else going on in the trees – what exactly is open to interpretation by each viewer. And, based on a post-credit sting, those interpretations will not necessarily align.

Playing like a lost episode of Inside No 9, this disorientating, brisk thriller is an easy way to spend 80 minutes this weekend while also opening conversations of guilt, grief, helicopter parenting and the inherent creepiness of deep, dark woods.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Images © 2025 Universal Pictures
Hallow Road is in cinemas now

Screening Room

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: THE FINAL RECKONING

May 15, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

In case you missed the previous instalment, The Final Reckoning begins by ensuring viewers are on the right page with this adventure, kicking off a couple of months after the events of Tom Cruise’s 2023 summer blockbuster. Now Ethan Hunt’s (Cruise) hair is longer, his tech whiz Luther (Ving Rhames) is ill and the rogue AI threat, The Entity, has plunged the world into chaos. The Entity plans to initiate a world wipeout via armageddon by taking control of the nuclear codes of all nations, the only way to stop it is to retrieve its source code from the bottom of the Arctic ocean where it’s trapped in a crashed Russian sub (seen in Dead Reckoning) and then play out a complicated game of digi cat-and-mouse. The only person who can complete this mission is Hunt – appealed to by the US president (Angela Bassett) – and the thorn in his side is Big Bad Gabriel (Esai Morales) who holds a vital piece of the plan. The mission is literally world-saving and it triggers Hunt’s memories of all the people he’s lost and all the crazy stuff he’s done across seven previous films. Cruise and his co-conspirator/producer/director Christopher McQuarrie set this chapter up as a swan song (but is it really?), and ensure it goes out with a bang.

Angela Bassett, Christopher McQuarrie, Esai Morales, Hayley Atwell, Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, Pom Klementieff, Simon Pegg, Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames — Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

As is now expected of Cruise, The Final Reckoning ups the ante on stunts that its star completes personally, his face clearly visible as his body is battered by water and G-force. While there’s plenty of globetrotting, trademark running, mask removal, double crossing and bomb defusing, the big ticket here are two set-pieces in which Cruise and cinematic innovation are pushed to their limits. After a series of fights and escapes, Hunt embarks on solo deep diving to the Russian submarine, his chance of drowning immeasurable due to depth, location, temperature. Add to that a sub that is glitchy and moving on the Baring seabed, and the sequence becomes literally breathtaking as Hunt is trapped in the oceanic version of a freezing washing machine as his oxygen depletes. The production built the world’s deepest and largest water tank at Longcross studios and devised new diving masks to show Cruise’s face to complete the scenes for real, and it translates. It’s a claustrophobic, teeth-clenching watch.

It’s no spoiler to mention the finale – promotion quite rightfully leans hard into the vintage bi-plane sequence which see Cruise clinging to the spindly wings of not one, but two different swooping, diving and barrelling planes with South Africa’s stunning Drakensberg Mountains flying beneath him. His face flapping in the G-force, his body weightless as the planes invert, this is another breath snatching moment (certainly for Cruise trying to suck a breath in hurricane-level wind resistance) and provides some much needed levity. There’s a reason Hunt is costumed like Indiana Jones at this point – it’s the sort of delirious der-doing that evokes classic cinema. It’s worth the ticket price alone.

Though the extended IMF team play a part in proceedings (a bow-out adds emotional resonance), they are certainly second fiddle, facilitators to the Hunt show. That may disappoint fans who enjoyed the previous spike of Grace (Hayley Atwell) and Paris (Pom Klementieff). Via additional characters the movie champions the unpredictability of human nature, the concept of being on the right side of history despite the rules, the celebration of the rebel, the maverick. That’s seen in Bassett’s POTUS, Hannah Waddington’s aircraft carrier Admiral and Tramell Tillman’s sub captain who likes to call everyone ‘mister’ (bringing Jeff Goldblum levels of deliciously unexpected line delivery). But the star is certainly Cruise, his previous M:I incarnations celebrated in flashback montages and his character praised continuously by his team. ‘Only you can do this,’ he is constantly told, and when you see Cruise dangling off the corner of a vintage Boeing Stearman as it flips around a canyon, you might have to agree.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Images © 2025 Paramount Pictures
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning played at Cannes Film Festival and will release in cinemas on 21 May

Screening Room

THE ACCOUNTANT 2

April 25, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Was anyone asking for a sequel to Ben Affleck’s neurodivergent actioner from 2016 in which a money man with Autism kicks serious ass as a besuited assassin? Possibly not, but here we are nearly a decade later, returning to Christian Wolff (Affleck) as he lays low in a gulfstream trailer with priceless artwork on the wall in Boise, and now there’s not one socially awkward killer gunning his way through a criminal underworld, but two. This time the number in the title not only refers to sequel status but the return of Wolff’s hit man brother, Braxton, in the shape of Corgi-loving, lollipop-sucking bull-in-a-china-shop Jon Bernthal. Double trouble and twice the fun.

ben affleck, cynthia addai-robinson, gavin o’connor, j.k. simmons, john bernthal, the accountant 2 — Courtesy Amazon MGM Studios

Laying out the set-up with a stylishly executed shoot-up in a bingo hall involving J. K. Simmons, The Accountant 2 introduces a mysterious hit woman (Daniella Pineda) who is connected to the trafficking of undocumented immigrant workers into the US. The death of an innocent pulls a treasury department agent, Marybeth Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) into proceedings and she tracks Wolff down via his nonverbal tech-whiz handler (Allison Robertston) to help her unravel the mystery. Why Chris decides to take the case is as confusing as why Marybeth can move house and spend most days away from her desk job in service to an off-books gig, but the logistics matter little. It’s merely the route to getting Bernthal and Affleck together to bicker, go line-dancing together and cover each other during massive gun/knife fights.

This is where the film comes into its own as both brothers express hurt and bewilderment at their estrangement, unpick their childhood trauma, figure out if they’re cat or dog people and ultimately show up for each other – whether that’s at an LA hoedown or a Mexican bad-guy compound in Juarez. Affleck and Bernthal can do this stuff in their sleep and their needling of each other adds welcome levity to proceedings, while both actors’ flex their action credentials in a dusty finale that nods to spaghetti westerns. Yes, it’s blunt and daft but it’s more fun than taxes…

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs by ELI ADÉ/WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC.
The Accountant 2 is out now

Screening Room

SINNERS

April 17, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

When twins Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan via unobtrusive CGI sleight of hand) return to their Mississippi home after fighting in WW1 and then brawling in Chicago, they’ve seen some things. Having made some cash by disreputable means in the north, the brothers are gold-toothed, tailored and handy with guns and knives – and set on opening their own juke joint in their old neighbourhood. They may pop a bullet in a would-be thief’s ass without a care, operate as a slick unit and move through the world with a cocky stride (unless they’re talking to the women they left behind), but they’re about to be shaken by ungodly sights on opening night…

Delroy Lindo, Hailee Steinfeld, Jack O‘Connell, Li Jun Li, Michael B. Jordan, Miles Canton, Sinners, Yao — Eli Adé/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Rooted in the myth of a blues player paying for their talent via a deal with the devil (it’s set in Clarksville, the location for Robert Johnson’s crossroads), Ryan Coogler’s seductive, steamy take on From Dusk Til Dawn may not serve up a new scenario – one night in a bar beset by vampires – but it does provide a multi-layered, evocative and stylish night out on the sauce. In Coogler’s hands, a war for souls in a Jim Crow world has much to say about race, poverty, warfare, grief, colonisation and music, and the fact that though set in prohibition America, certain things remain depressingly the same as they ever were.

The bigger socio-political picture is wrapped in a compellingly small human story that unfolds as the brothers enlist a gang to open their club in an old sawmill. Their cousin Sammie (Miles Canton) may be a preacher’s boy but he plays the blues like Satan himself and will lose his innocence before the sun rises. Voodoo priestess Annie (Wunmi Mosaku) is brought in as chef and provides spiritual leadership as well as finger-lickin’ catfish. Drunk musician Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) is co-opted as an act but has seen it all before; Chinese storekeepers Bo and Grace (Yao and Li Jun Li) bring the equipment and a marital quandary, while Stack’s ex Mary (Hailey Steinfeld) and a sunburnt stranger (Jack O’Connell) are white visitors who mess with the vibe in different ways.

Gorgeously costumed (Ruth E. Carter), lensed (filmed in IMAX with a thank you note to Christopher Nolan in the end credits) and production designed (Hannah Beachler); Sinners may be peopled by intriguing characters but its music is also one. Ludwig Göransson’s lush score is sultry, soulful and needs to be heard in the surround sound of a cinema, not waited for at home. It provides a standout sequence at the midpoint when the beer is flowing and the blues are slapping, when music connects past, present and future and – for the duration of a song – everything seems right with the world. It’s exactly the sort of poetic, pertinent and ballsy moment we’ve come to expect from Coogler and connects deliciously to a cheeky mid-credit and post-credit sting. Bloody good stuff.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs by ELI ADÉ/WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC.
Sinners is in cinemas now

Screening Room

THE AMATEUR

April 11, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Charlie Heller (Rami Malek) is a self-confessed CIA nerd and puzzle fan. A systems analyst and decoder who can unpick a photo to determine the location of the subject, access cameras across the world and save the life of a field agent via technology, he’s nevertheless a homebody who has never travelled overseas and is tinkering with a cessna plane in his barn but may never fly it.

Caitríona Balfe, James Hawes, Jon Bernthal, Laurence Fishburne, Michael Stuhlbarg, Rachel Brosnahan, Rami Malek, The Amateur — John Wilson/20th Century Studios

When his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) jets off to London for a conference all that changes as she is taken hostage and killed by terrorists. Beset by grief, rage and retribution, Charlie tires of waiting for the CIA top brass to do anything about tracking down the killers and sets off to unravel their identities and exact revenge himself. And in doing so uncovers a conspiracy at the heart of the agency…

Developed by Malek with his producer’s hat on from Robert Littell’s bestseller, The Amateur plays with the idea of what would happen if a regular joe who couldn’t shoot or fight went out into the world of espionage. Rather than having the action competence of Bond or Bourne, Charlie sweats his way through security checks and devises nerdy, inventive ways of teaching bad guys a lesson. That fish-out-of-water element is the central charm of the film, with Malek convincing as a man who can improvise de-pressurised swimming pools (try to resist the trailer to save this set piece for the screen), but is out of his depth.

Though the film rests on the expressive Malek bringing audiences along for the ride he’s helped in his quest by Laurence Fishburne glowering as a handler on his trail, Caitríona Balfe as a spy widow who uses chickens and laptops with equal aplomb, and Michael Stuhlbarg making the big bad a morally nuanced catch. Jon Bernthal also turns up for coffee and cake (literally). A quieter espionage outing than 007 but one that still provides globetrotting, foot chases and explosions amid the tech tinkering with GPS, CCTV and pressure gauges.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs by JOHN WILSON/20TH CENTURY STUDIOS
The Amateur is out now

Screening Room

DEATH OF A UNICORN

April 4, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

The question of whether a mythical horse beast with a forehead protuberance shifts its mortal coil is answered fast in this debut satire from writer-director, Alex Scharfman. Within minutes of uptight attorney Elliot (Paul Rudd) and his emo teen daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) touching down in the Canadian wilderness, they have mowed down the titular equine in their hire car as they fractiously drive to the remote home of his obscenely rich, terminally-ill boss (Richard E. Grant), Odell Leopold.

Alex Scharfman, Jenna Ortega, Paul Rudd, Richard E Grant, Téa Leoni, Will Poulter — Balazs Goldi/Monoceros Media LLC

A make or break weekend for Elliot who wants to earn the trust of the pharma-wealthy Leopold family in order to make big bucks as their proxy lawyer, he insists on continuing with the trip by shoving the unfortunate road kill in the trunk and begging his reeling daughter to act normal. She’s obviously not going to toe the line because she wears smudged eyeliner and declares that ‘philanthropy is just reputational laundering’. But when the unicorn’s horn and blood prove to have transformative healing powers, a moral and physical battle commences – not least because the beast’s magical clan want revenge…

Though the themes are familiar and broad (wealthy people are awful, big pharma is ruthless, healthcare is ringfenced for the rich), the cast elevate proceedings with committed performances. Grant is reliably gonzo as a wildlife-hunting British toff with a safari-chic sartorial bent, Téa Leoni serves odious wealthy wife that fans of Parker Posey’s White Lotus turn will relish, while Will Poulter essays ‘moneyed doofus’ with aplomb, an entitled twit with delusions of grandeur who thinks short shorts and hot tubs are the answer to everything.

While they do the gags, Rudd and Ortega explore the emotion amid the carnage as ferocious, pointy-headed ponies savage staff – hoof-popping skulls, disemboweling with fangs and goring with horns. As the savagery amps up and night turns to dawn, Death Of A Unicorn becomes a meditation on death and grief as Ridley and Elliot work through their trauma from losing their mother/wife to cancer. And there’s an 11th hour moment that plays as truly dark and beautiful, shifting gear momentarily from an extended Black Mirror episode to something trotting on the edge of profound. At the centre though, Ortega shines – as lead and producer – the human heart in a cruel world.

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs by BALAZS GOLDI/MONOCEROS MEDIA LLC
Death of a Unicorn is out now

Screening Room

THE WOMAN IN THE YARD

March 28, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

The titular lady is a black-clad veiled figure who appears calmly sitting in her Victoriana outfit on the perimeter of a family farm on a sun-dappled day. That in itself may not be disquieting but it’s the start of a haunting film that deftly explores grief, motherhood, guilt and the interior darkness we all carry for much of its brisk run time.

The woman (Okwui Okpokwasili) appears one day that seems suffocating for Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler). The widowed mother of a teenage boy (Peyton Jackson) and little girl (Estella Kahiha), Ramona is a woman who awakes and asks the universe to give her strength. Why? Because her husband has died in a car accident that also seriously injured her, she’s struggling to pay the bills on the farmhouse they bought as a fixer-upper, she feels trapped in a life she didn’t want for herself and just getting out of bed is a feat – physically and emotionally. On this particular day the family discover that the electricity has been cut off, leaving them without juice to charge their phones or keep the food in the fridge fresh. Popping pills and struggling with mental health, Ramona is attempting to keep her rage at bay with her kids when the dark figure manifests on the lawn, sitting motionless and watching the house. Her period clothing and poise suggest an otherworldliness, her blood-covered hands and murmuring of ‘today’s the day’ evoke a fear in the family. Who is she and what does she want? As the trio lock themselves in the house and the shadows of the day length, the answer becomes apparent as the woman moves closer…

danielle deadwyler, estella kahiha, okwui okpokwasili, peyton jackson, russell hornsby, the woman in the yard — Daniel Delgado Jr./Universal Pictures

To say more is to venture into spoilers but Jaume Collet-Serra ratchets up tension and unease with creepy cinematography, a couple of jump scares and a reoccurring mirror motif. As the locus of the woman’s visit comes into focus, the story beats soften. And while the idea of the twist at the centre of the film offers opportunity to examine suicide ideation, depression, mourning, the pressure on women to carry a family and even generational trauma (the house is in Georgia), the final third is as fuzzy as Deadwyler’s mom. The pleasure then is in watching an actor who has wowed recently in The Piano Lesson and I Saw The TV Glow fill out the blanks of this role with unapologetic ferocity and tangible pain. Ramona isn’t always likable, but she is always relatable and Deadwyler sells a final act arc with incredible sensitivity.

A psychological horror that will likely intrigue and exasperate in equal measure. And serves as a reminder to always charge your phone…

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs by DANIEL DELGADO JR./UNIVERSAL PICTURES
The Woman in the Yard is in cinemas now

Screening Room

THE ALTO KNIGHTS

March 21, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

Robert de Niro playing two mob bosses in a film scripted by Nicholas Pileggi of Goodfellas fame in a decades-spanning true tale of NY turf wars? Ba-da-bing! Barry Levinson’s elegant biopic ticks all the boxes for audiences craving a little Scorsese-adjacent drama filled with sharp suits, mobster mumblings and period detail.

Leaning into his own acting legacy, de Niro plays Big Apple godfather, Frank Costello – a suave, temperate leader who’s happily married to Bobbie (Debra Messing) and has risen from an immigrant teen frequenting the Alto Knights social club, through prohibition to become the so-called ‘prime minister’ of syndicated crime. He also plays his rival, Vito Genovese, an erratic, violent kingpin who wants a slice of the pie and will leave a trail of bodies to get it. The two men are differentiated by modified Noo Yawk accents and CGI noses; Costello in the mode of de Niro in Goodfellas, Genovese taking a leaf out of the Joe Pesci school of hair-trigger rage monsters. When Vito books a hit on Frank (carried out by an almost unrecognisable Cosmo Jarvis committing fully to the bit as a heavy putz) in 1957, Frank narrates the fallout and build-up to this particular moment. That takes in the introduction of drugs, congressional hearings and RFK’s mafia purge.

alto knights, barry levinson, cosmo jarvis, debra messing, kathrine narducci, robert de niro — Jennifer Rose Clasen/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Levinson loads his film with archival footage, luxe production design and costumes, plus plenty of wise guy conversations in the vein of Goodfellas’ ‘how am I funny?’ moment. (Mob goons chat about Mormon history in the back of a car, Vito whines about the disrespect of an ex-husband and the appraisal of a failed hit is almost pastiche). There’s a humorous streak that runs through proceedings from the kick of seeing De Niro walking lap dogs in mink coats to a disastrous mafia barbeque. And there’s spirited women who hold their own in the Mafioso flexing; Messing and her plentiful jewels manage to create a warm and believable partnership and homelife, while Katherine Narducci is hugely entertaining as Vito’s vivacious broad of a wife.

But the main event is seeing De Niro face off with De Niro, and Levinson provides a number of scenes where Vito and Frank converse, biting at each other in candy stores and prison cells. It’s testament to the actor’s skills that the CGI trickery convinces and the two men feel both real and separate. While it doesn’t break the mold in mob tales, it’s not too shabby either. Capiche?

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs by JENNIFER ROSE CLASEN/WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC.
The Alto Knights is out in cinemas now

Screening Room

BLACK BAG

March 14, 2025

Words by JANE CROWTHER

George and Kathryn Woodhouse ((Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett) are married British spies – intentionally childless, cool as cucumbers, impeccable dressers and would kill for each other. They live in a glamorous townhouse in London and conduct covert ‘black bag’ operations that take them away from each other on secret assignments. He is fastidious in grooming, cooking and methodology; she reverberates with intelligence and sensuality. But when George is tasked with finding a rat in the organisation and given a list of five possible suspects that includes his wife, both their loyalties – martial, national and professional – are tested. With a week to find the traitor in a group that includes a psychiatrist (Naomi Harris), a tech whiz (Marisa Abela), a suave overachiever (Regé-Jean Page) and a lax agent (Tom Burke), George needs to be as sharp as his Dunhill-tailored suits…

black bag, cate blanchett, michael fassbender, naomi harris, pierce brosnan, steven soderberg — Claudette Barius/Focus Features

Steven Soderbergh’s brisk and smart thriller (written by David Koepp) enjoys riffing on our cultural awareness of spies in movies while still laying out a twisty bread crumb trail of clues to a satisfying reveal. It’s surely no coincidence that two former Bond stars feature in the cast – Miss Moneypenny Harris as a company shrink and 007 himself, Pierce Brosnan, as an ‘M’-adjacent agency boss who enjoys eating sushi while the fish is still gasping its last. The lensing and costuming evoke spy movies of the ’70s (prepare to covet the clothing), while scenes involving polygraphs deliciously skewer movie tropes while also teaching us a sphincter-clenching move to beat the lie detector. Drone strikes, hard drives, satellite surveillance and firearms are used, as are drugs to kill and to loosen tongues. But the most dangerous weaponry discharged is the ability to keep one’s head and use the brain within it.

To that end, though it’s fun to watch all the players as they circle each other (particularly a peevish Brosnan), the main event is Fassbender and Blanchett, ice and fire, as they toy with their team in the pursuit of marital stress-testing. Is Kathryn the mole? Would it even matter if she was? Does George actually watch her wherever she goes? And does she like it? With their one-on-one scenes played out in the bedroom (while dressing, undressing, preparing for bed or sex) Fassbender and Blanchett pull off a Mrs & Mrs Smith frisson that, given the open ending, could leave room for further films. And while we wait for the next Bond, why not? When it’s done with this much cheeky style…

Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs by CLAUDETTE BARIUS/FOCUS FEATURES
BLACK BAG is in cinemas now

Screening Room

EDDINGTON

May 17, 2025

Screening Room

HALLOW ROAD

May 16, 2025

Screening Room

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: THE FINAL RECKONING

May 15, 2025

Screening Room

THE ACCOUNTANT 2

April 25, 2025

Screening Room

SINNERS

April 17, 2025

Screening Room

THE AMATEUR

April 11, 2025

Screening Room

DEATH OF A UNICORN

April 4, 2025

Screening Room

THE WOMAN IN THE YARD

March 28, 2025

Screening Room

THE ALTO KNIGHTS

March 21, 2025

Screening Room

BLACK BAG

March 14, 2025

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