MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable study of the friendship between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, broken by a hostile state
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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
MATTHEW HAWKINS rakes through un-fancy words and flair-free summaries to find who and what might be flamboyant
PETER MASON is exhilarated by an exciting, well-considered and historically minded tribute to the great Trinidadian instrument
Reducing historical lives to ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles, we lose the nuance of those lives and a clearer understanding of past societies, suggests CLAIRE ISABELLA GILMOUR
CHRIS SEARLE relishes the genius of pianist Alexander Hawkins, his many ensembles, and his new album
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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