PAUL DONOVAN applauds an intriguing multi-layered depiction, dominated by a stunning impersonation of Marilyn herself
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Film round-up: June 9, 2022
The Star's critic Maria Duarte reviews Swan Song, Leave No Traces, All My Friends Hate Me and Jurassic World: Dominion
Udo Kier in Swan Song
LEO BOIX applauds an audacious, self-questioning film about grief, friendship and film-making
MARY CONWAY admires a brave and topical study of Armageddon that is, unfortunately, unable to come to a conclusion
ANDY HEDGECOCK, JAMES WALSH and JAMIE BRITTON review Hanging by a Wire, I Want Your Sex, The Pout-Pout Fish, and Rise of the Foot Soldier: Retribution
Chris Searle speaks to US pianist RAN BLAKE
The Bard hands out medals for his Edinburgh campaign and urges us to support The Men They Couldn’t Hang
Swan Song (12A)
Directed by Todd Stephens
★★★★
LEGENDARY actor Udo Kier gives the performance of a lifetime in this touching and bittersweet drama which writer-director Todd Stephens has described as his love letter to disappearing gay culture in the United States.
Kier stars as “Mister Pat” Pitsenbarger, a renowned and flamboyant former hairdresser who comes out of retirement, as well as his nursing home in Sandusky, Ohio, to fulfil his greatest client’s dying wish to style her final hairdo. The character was inspired by a legendary figure in Stephens’s hometown in this, his third film about Sandusky.
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