RICHARD MURGATROYD is intrigued by a study that asks why the ability to diagnose outstrips the ability to cure
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Right Royale romp
MARIA DUARTE recommends a zany US thriller set in a hotel where the guests all have something to hide
SYLVIA HIKINS recommends a sweeping survey of the world's biggest desert and the people who live there
MICHAL BONCZA highly recommends a revelatory exhibition of work by the doyen of indigenous Australians’ art, Emily Kam Kngwarray
The Bard commutes to work for the first time in 45 years
DAVID RENTON is puzzled by an ambitious attempt to look back on world culture from the future without engaging with or understanding it
GORDON PARSONS is riveted by a translation of Shakespeare’s tragedy into joyous comedy set in a southern black homestead
GEORGE FOGARTY relishes the music of black British artists that channels Carribbean, Latin and club sounds, along with contemporary west African radicalism
Bad Times at the El Royale (15)
Directed by Drew Goddard
FROM the director of The Cabin in the Woods comes a smart and stylish mystery thriller with a political and social edge. Part film noir, part crime fiction, part dark comedy, Bad Times at the El Royale is wonderfully gripping and entertaining.
Set in January 1969, against the backdrop of Richard Nixon having been inaugurated as the 37th US President, it has seven strangers — each with a secret to bury — arriving at Lake Tahoe’s El Royale hotel which, like its visitors, has fallen into disrepute. Bizarrely, half of the hotel is situated in Nevada, the other half in California.
With the action unfolding over the course of one night, in a single location, each character is given a shot at redemption.
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