Rose (12A)
Directed by Niels Arden Oplev
★★★★

 
THIS beautifully drawn-out road-trip comedy drama provides a refreshing and uplifting perspective on mental illness in writer-director Niels Arden Oplev’s most personal film to date. 

It is based and inspired by Oplev’s (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) two sisters and his brother-in-law. It is set in the late summer of 1997 in the wake of Princess Diana’s death and unfolds over the course of a week as Ellen (Lene Maria Christensen) and her husband Vagn (Anders W Berthelsen) take her sister Inger (Sofie Grabol) on a coach journey from Denmark to Paris. 

As soon as they are on the road Inger declares that she is a schizophrenic, to the horror and disgust of Andreas (Soren Malling), a middle-aged teacher, whose 12-year-old son Christian (a delightful Luca Reichardt Ben Coker) slowly befriends Inger.

Andreas is rude and obnoxious to Inger whom he treats with contempt. She is loud and unfiltered as she speaks her mind, but his comments cut deep.

Once in Paris Christian decides to help Inger find Jacques (Jean-Pierre Lorit), the love of her life. 

Grabol gives a world-class performance as a complex and troubled woman who shows more humanity than some of her fellow passengers. She knows the strain she is putting her family under despite the fact that her sister and her brother-in-law are happy to be with her. 

Rose is full of funny and moving moments as it aims to remove the stigma of mental illness while leaving you on a high. 

Out in cinemas June 28.

Horizon: An American Saga Chapter One (15)
Directed by Kevin Kostner
★★★ 

 
KEVEN KOSTNER’s three-hour-long Western is the first of a four-part epic (you read correctly) which chronicles the civil war expansion and how the American West was won. 

It is a slow-burning but surprisingly engaging drama which follows the stories of numerous characters, which may prove confusing.

Co-written, directed, produced and starring Kostner, it is an ambitious undertaking which might have lent itself better to a television mini-series. It is the first film Kostner has directed since 2003’s Open Range, another Western, and into which he has ploughed millions of his own money. 

It is visually breathtaking and opens with the brutal massacre of a white settlement by Apaches whose territory the settlers have usurped, having been lured there by the false promise of virgin land. 

It also depicts Native Americans fighting Native Americans, differentiating between different tribes.  

It features a cast of thousands which includes Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Danny Huston and Kostner’s own son Hayes Kostner. 

This has to be seen on the big screen and strangely it ends on a teaser for part two which is out in August. 

Out in cinemas June 28. 

Kinds of Kindness (18)
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
★★★ 

 
AFTER his critically acclaimed and Oscar-winning Poor Things Yorgos Lanthimos is back at his weirdest for this surreal triptych fable. 

Co-written and directed by Lanthimos the same cast, led by Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons and Willem Dafoe, appear in all three short stories playing different characters. 

The first is the most interesting in which Plemons stars as a man whose whole life inside and outside of work is controlled by his boss (Dafoe) down to when he has sex. He orders him to do the most heinous acts including killing another driver in a car crash.  

Graphically violent with people being drugged and raped and cutting off appendages and organs, this is a totally insane film driven by standout performances. 

Not quite as bold and visually arresting as Poor Things, it is still very intriguing.  

Out in cinemas June 28.

A Quiet Place: Day One (15)
Directed by Michael Sarnoski
★★ 

 
THIS prequel to the sleeper smash-hit A Quiet Place, which proved a masterclass in horror, is a pale imitation and clearly a blatant attempt to cash in on the latter’s success. 

It outlines what happened on day one when the frightening supersonic-hearing alien creatures invaded Earth which the last sequel showed us in a simple flashback scene. 

Written and directed by Michael Sarnoski (Pig) but minus Emily Blunt or John Krasinski (merely a producer here), this spin-off lacks the nail-biting tension of the original.  

Lupita Nyong’o plays a terminal cancer patient who finds herself trapped in New York with her cat and teams up with a British lawyer from Kent played by Joseph Quinn (Stranger Things). 

The cat, which steals the film, had great jump-scare potential but, as the quietest and most well-behaved feline ever, it was a golden opportunity missed. 

Out in cinemas June 28.