New releases from The Orb, Meredith Monk, and Marconi Union
Cold comfort farm
MARIA DUARTE sees a drama about a fraught rural family that's raw, visceral and relentlessly bleak
RITA DI SANTO draws attention to a new film that features Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn, and their personal experience of media misrepresentation
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
MARJORIE MAYO welcomes an account of family life after Oscar Wilde, a cathartic exercise, written by his grandson
KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces
ANDY HEDGECOCK revels in a hugely enjoyable but deadly serious examination of the 1930s, that is an indictment of our own era
The bard distills our hellish times into fiery words
Dark River (15)
Directed by Clio Barnard
AFTER the evocative The Arbor and The Selfish Giant, Clio Barnard returns with a searing and grim Yorkshire drama about sibling rivalry, the effects of child abuse and burying the past, juxtaposed with a rural community in decline.
Inspired by Rose Tremain's novel Trespass, it stars the outstanding Ruth Wilson as Alice, a contract sheep shearer. Following the death of her father (Sean Bean), she returns to the family farm on the Yorkshire Dales for the first time in 15 years to claim the tenancy she believes is rightfully hers.
Her older brother Joe (Mark Stanley) is furious because he has been the one managing the farm in the meantime — and running it into the ground — while taking care of their dying father.
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The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE review Cottontail, Memoir of a Snail, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, and Captain America: Brave New World
ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends two collections of short stories that use a single location to connect the narratives, and explore the limits of our ability to understand the world
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews September 5, The Fire Inside, Bring Them Down, and Love Hurts