Category: Review

Based on a true story, the film follows the remarkable heroics of Desmond Doss (Garfield) – an American WWII conscientious objector who enlists as a front-line medic, but his firm anti-violent tendencies and deep religious beliefs mean that he refuses to bear arms on the battlefield.

The film follows Boston handyman Lee Chandler (a career best performance from Affleck) who is suddenly called back to his hometown of Manchester, Massachusetts after the death of his brother, Joe (Kyle Chandler). Once there, he is tasked with looking after his now fatherless teenage nephew (Hedges), but Manchester is also the scene of an even greater grief for Chandler, and returning there threatens to push him over the edge.

Set in Los Angeles, La La Land follows the blossoming romance between plucky, aspiring actress Mia (Stone) and stubborn jazz pianist Sebastian (Gosling). As their future together looks written in the stars, the lure of their own career dreams begins to test the strength of their relationship.

The film centres around young Conor O’Malley (the highly impressive MacDougall) – an introverted, bullied loner struggling to come to terms with his single mother’s terminal illness. Finding solace through his imaginative and artistic tendencies, Conor begins receiving nightly visits from a giant yew tree monster (Liam Neeson) who insists on telling him stories that will help him face the turbulence of his reality.

Based on Shūsaku Endō’s 1966 novel of the same name, the film follows two Portuguese Jesuit priests: Rodriguez (Garfield) and Garupe (Driver) as they venture across a Japan where Christianity is punished by torture and death, in search of mentor Father Ferreira (Neeson), who has reportedly renounced his faith.

Based on the 1998 short story entitled Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang, when 12 identical alien vessels appear in the skies at various places across the globe, Linguistics Professor Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is enlisted – along with Physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) – to help decipher their inhabitants’ language before widespread panic and paranoia starts to dictate actions.

Based on the autobiography Highest Duty, the film follows Chesley Sullenberger’s 2009 emergency landing on the Hudson river, and the subsequent media attention and government investigation in the aftermath.

Set in 1942, after being parachuted into the French-Moroccan desert, the film follows Canadian muscle Max Vatan (Pitt) who, along with French agent Marianne Beausejour (Cotillard) must convincingly play husband and wife to fulfil their mission of assassinating the German ambassador. It soon becomes apparent that, while a true romance blossoms, there is something much deeper and more dangerous at play.