With the dust now settling on the London Film Festival 2018,
it’s time to look back and highlight the best films I saw so you know what to
look out for in the coming months.
I saw 30 films at the LFF this year (taking my lifetime total to 480 films seen at the LFF), and I’ve highlighted 20
to look out for. Where known, I have listed the film’s release date.
Thunder Road:
intense, blackly comic character study of a cop on the edge. At times more
excruciating than The Office (I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or exit the
cinema), the film belongs to writer-director Jim Cummings who also fearlessly
plays the ‘hero’ to stunning effect.
Bill Murray Stories:
who knew a documentary could be so life-affirming?! This features the real
stories of Bill Murray ‘gatecrashing’ ordinary people’s lives and taking them
on mini-adventures. Quite moving in its own way.
The Guilty:
Hitchcockian thriller from Denmark. The less you know the better, but the
set-up is simple: the action focuses on an operative in the police call centre
handling incoming emergency calls; we see only him and his colleagues, but we
can hear the distressed persons he hears on his headset. By the end of his
shift, he will not be the same. Perfectly executed. Probably my favourite film
of the festival. See it ASAP!
Opens 26 October
Arctic:
Mads Mikkelsen does All Is Lost… on ice! Gripping survival thriller. Mads, as
expected, gives his all. Watch on the biggest screen that you can find.
Border:
a modern fairytale that has shades of both Shyamalan and Lynch, where the
fantastic is real, and the real is fantastic. It’s based on a book by the man who gave us the original story for Let The Right One In: so expect some
gender-bending and some pyscho-sexual weirdness. A beautiful piece of work
anchored by a strong performance from Eva Melander as the customs officer who
seems to have the power to smell guilt on a person.
Green Book:
hugely entertaining, feel good crowd-pleaser, buoyed by engaging performances
from co-leads Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen as, respectively, the
successful African-American pianist who hires an Italian-American to be his
driver/hired muscle while on a tour of the American South in the 1960s.
Directed gently by, would you believe, by Peter Farrelly of There’s Something
About Mary, Dumb And Dumber fame.
Opens 1 February
The Old Man & The Gun:
another crowd-pleaser that sees Robert Redford dominating the screen with his
easy charm as an elderly gentleman bank robber. Humourous, touching and a
reminder that you’re never too old to continue to embrace life. Redford’s
scenes with Sissy Spacek are delicious morsels to be savoured.
Opens 7 December
Utoya – 22 July:
not to be confused with Paul Greengrass’s film of the same terrorist attack
(nor to be thought of as ‘entertainment’), this Norwegian mini-epic is utterly
compelling and justifiably uncomfortable. Its 92-minute runtime includes one
72-minute take that details the terrorist's massacre of 69 young people on an
island holiday camp. Giving no oxygen of publicity to the attacker, the film
immerses the audience (courtesy of cinematographer Martin Otterbeck’s sterling
work), ensuring we share the victims’ horror and fear.
Opens 26 October
Destroyer:
neo-noir thriller that could see Nicole Kidman pitching for Oscar and Bafta glory
as a grizzled, washed-up LAPD cop facing a fresh case that may have connections
to the case that broke her and made her what she is now. Great soundtrack and
cinematography, and two classic, tense bank robberies.
Opens 25 January
The Front Runner:
classy political thriller nominally charting the three weeks in which the
wheels come off Gary Hart’s run for the Democratic presidential nomination in
spring 1987 after the press got wind of his affair with Donna Rice. Hugh
Jackman plays Hart with aplomb, but the real joy in this is its detailing of a
watershed moment for the US press as political coverage goes tabloid and notice
is served on white male entitlement.
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