MAYER WAKEFIELD is entertained but let down by an audacious production that, sadly, doesn't ring true
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Film round-up: September 6, 2024
Yorkshire chills, tangled in the dark web, pregnancy diaries and brackish juice: MARIA DUARTE reviews Starve Acre, Red Rooms, My First Film and Beetlejuice
(L) Juliette Gariepy in Red Rooms; (R) Morfydd Clark in Starve Acre
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MARY CONWAY is disappointed by drama that, despite accomplished performances, cannot overcome an unfocused script
New releases from Sam Carter, Spell Songs and Les Thomas
KEN COCKBURN traces the one original language – that of the Yamnaya pastoral nomads – from which all European and Indian languages derive
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the debunking of the iconic British war hero
ALEX HALL recommends a searing panorama of our global predicament
Starve Acre (15)
Directed by Daniel Kokotajlo
★★★
SET in 1970s rural England this chilling gothic horror revenge fantasy about the crippling effects of grief is writer-director Daniel Kokotajlo’s follow-up to his award-winning debut Apostasy.
Adapted from the novella by Andrew Michael Hurley, it centres on Richard (Matt Smith) and Juliette (Morfydd Clark) who relocate to their remote family home, Starve Acre, in Yorkshire when their son Owen (Arthur Shaw) starts acting oddly and upends their idyllic life, throwing it into turmoil.
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