Emily (15)
Directed by Frances O'Connor
★★★

ACTOR turned director Frances O’Connor's debut feature is a haunting and visually arresting reimagining of the life of Emily Bronte, whose one and only novel Wuthering Heights is considered a literary classic.

Emma Mackay (Death on the Nile and Sex Education) is absolutely mesmerising as Emily who is full of contradictions — shy yet rebellious; quietly opinionated yet demure — who expressed her passions and yearnings through her poems and writings.

The film explores the relationships that inspired her and may have led her to write her masterpiece: her raw yet tumultuous relationships with her sisters Charlotte (Alexandra Dowling) and Anne (Amelia Gething) and her adoration for her maverick drug-addicted brother Branwell (Fionn Whitehead) and her inseparable cohort.

Finally her forbidden first love for her father’s (Adrian Dunbar) assistant curate William Weightman (a phenomenal Oliver Jackson-Cohen), though in real life he apparently fell for her sister Anne.

Rather than concentrate on the Brontes’ literary endeavours, the film depicts their imagined day-to-day lives, their sibling rivalry and Emily’s struggles with finding her own voice as a woman and a writer.

The striking drama of the Yorkshire Moors and the elements reflect Emily’s own conflict with nature and struggle to find her place in this patriarchal world. It also examines the mental health issues she was battling, ignored by her family.

While purists may not approve of this interpretation — part fiction, part reality — it is passionate and engaging, anchored by a powerhouse performance by Mackay.

In cinemas

Rosaline
Directed by Karen Maine
★★★

THIS refreshing comic remake of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is told from his jilted ex Rosaline’s point of view in an enlightening and delightful retelling of this classic love story.

Rosaline (Kaitlyn Dever) who is mentioned but not seen in the Bard’s work is the reason Romeo (Kyle Allen channelling Heath Ledger) met the love of his life Juliet (Isabela Merced), Rosaline’s cousin.

So it is in this wickedly funny and whip-smart reimagining set in ye olden times of Verona, Italy, where everyone speaks in modern vernacular except for Romeo, who talks in flourishing poetic prose which Rosaline (his first love) tells him off for.

Dever (Booksmart, Ticket to Paradise) is magnificent as the independent and forthright Rosaline, who is ahead of her time, and refuses to cow-tow to this patriarchal society’s sexist rules.

While she is intelligent and ambitious, Romeo is dim but pretty and she soon meets her match in the dashing yet enigmatic Dario (Sean Teale).

Meanwhile Minnie Driver steals the show as the outspoken nurse, who refers to Rosaline as chicken and keeps reminding everyone she is a trained and registered clinician.

Beautifully acted and beautifully shot, Rosaline is an entertaining joy which brings a new and exciting twist to the story of these star-crossed lovers.
 

Available on Disney +

All Is Vanity (15)
Directed by Marcos Mereles
★★

AN ECCENTRIC photographer, his intern/assistant, a jaded make-up artist and a bored model meet for a photo-shoot in a London warehouse (no, it isn’t the beginning of a joke) which takes a bizarre turn when one of them disappears in Marcos Mereles’s surreal debut feature.

All is Vanity begins as an intriguing photo-shoot before it transforms into a film within a film and turns very meta. Divided into four parts, this know-it-all, tongue-firmly-in-cheek drama written and directed by Ellesmere soon loses the plot along with its characters.

The eager intern (Yaseen Aroussi) tells the model (Isabelle Bonfrer): “I hardly think we’ll see this on the big screen going how it’s going.” Wink wink, say no more.

They then comment how the ending doesn’t fit with the rest of the film. It feels random, apparently. It does indeed.

The cast, which also includes Sid Phoenix and Rosie Steel as the photographer and make-up artist, do a decent job but the film goes awry when it tries to be too clever by half, going down a random rabbit hole.

It’s a good try.

In cinemas

Halloween Ends (18)
Directed by David Gordon Green
★★

AFTER forty-four years, the never ending Halloween franchise is at last coming to an end (fingers and everything crossed) with the final confrontation between Laurie Strode and the evil Michael Myers.

Jamie Lee Curtis reprises her longest-running role as Laurie — the part that launched her career — and gives another tour-de-force performance as this long-suffering survivor.

The film directed once more by David Gordon Green is set four years after last year’s Halloween Kills and Laurie is living with her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak), writing her memoir.

The plot thickens when Allyson starts going out with Corey (Rohan Campbell), who was accused of killing a young boy he was babysitting.

Halloween Ends begins with a killer opening which shows great promise. However, it soon turns into a bit of a mess as they shoe-horn Myers’s comeback.

The long awaited showdown between Laurie and Myers is ridiculous but fun. It is a gory film but not particularly horrifying. It could have done with more laughs.

Halloween fans may well be disappointed. I just pray the fill does live up to its name.

In cinemas