Borrowed Time: Lennon's Last Decade (12A)
Directed by Alan G Parker
★★

THERE is a scene in this documentary where a neighbour from the the building opposite the Dakota observes the murder and decides not to take a photograph of the prostrate John Lennon believing it would amount to an invasion of privacy.

The same should have been considered by the makers of this film which is just an interminable procession of “talking heads” mostly with little to say that would illuminate the subject in any substantive manner.

Journalist Ray Connolly was the first to hear from Lennon that he was leaving The Beatles and when asked to, admirably kept shtum. Thoughtful, loyal and considerate, he is the exception in this crowd.

Unaffiliated politically, Lennon and Yoko Ono were free to pick up causes on a whim and drop them just as suddenly to move on to the next, intimates one of the talking heads with a hint of reproach.

Lennon’s aunt Mimi Smith recalls jovially reprimanding him for his and Ono’s Amsterdam Hilton Hotel “Bed-In for Peace” with “That’s enough, thank you, we had enough.”

An omitted lesser known fact is that Ono, rather idiotically, suggested at a press conference at the time that Jewish women could have changed Adolf Hitler by becoming his girlfriends and sleeping with him for 10 days. Oh yeah!?

Radio executive Gerry Cagle posits that were five people to share a dinner table with Lennon you’d get five diametrically different accounts. “But time,” he concludes, visibly moved, “will never erode what Lennon meant to people and the music world.” Roger that.
MB
In cinemas tomorrow.

Parthenope (15)
Directed by Paolo Sorrentino
★★

ITALIAN writer-director Paolo Sorrentino returns to his hometown of Naples for this visually arresting and gorgeously shot drama about the passing of time as observed through the life of a young woman named Parthenope. 

The film opens with her birth in 1950 in the sea of Naples and then, 18 years later she emerges as this great beauty who captivates and mesmerises everyone who sets eyes on her. Yet she is as intelligent as she is beautiful.

Filmed from the male gaze, the character is vapid and has little to say as she just wafts through life on her looks. She has a very close relationship with her older brother which borders on the incestuous. There is a gratuitous and disturbingly graphic sex scene which aims to shock. 

Celeste Dall Porta gives an astounding performance as Parthenope but it is Daria D’Antonio’s stunning cinematography which steals the show. Also, Gary Oldman pops up in a surreal cameo as real-life American writer John Cheever in this self-indulgent and pretentious drama. 
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In cinemas tomorrow.

Where Dragons Live (PG)
Directed by Suzanne Raes
★★

AN upper-class English family are forced to face their childhood fears and their troubled relationships with their late parents as they clear out the family home in order to sell it in this intimate part-fly-on-the-wall documentary by Dutch film-maker Suzanne Raes. 

Following the death of their 82-year-old mother Jane Impey, a former neuroscientist, the four Impey siblings return to Cumnor Place near Oxford, a large estate, and sift through their mum’s extensive possessions. It brings up a lot of emotions and memories as the three brothers and one sister recall their upbringing at the hands of nannies while their parents were distracted by their work. Plus their father’s fascination with dragons. 

Their children prove the stars of the documentary with their insightful comments. 

Though cathartic for the family, I cannot see its appeal to a wider audience. 
MD
In cinemas tomorrow.

Thunderbolts* (12A)
Directed by Jake Schreier
★★★★

A GROUP of misfits and troubled anti-heroes are forced to team up initially for their own survival in what proves to be the most interesting and compelling MCU offering of late. 

It is headed by Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova a former Black Widow, who lifts this film and makes it punch above its own weight with her standout performance. She is joined by Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes), David Harbour (Red Guardian), Wyatt Russell (John Walker), Hannah John-Kamen (Ghost) and Olga Kurylenko (Taskmaster). They are all battling their darkest demons while attempting to stop the villainous Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) who will do whatever it takes from being impeached. 

Directed by Jake Schreier (Robot and Frank) this is very much a character-driven MCU film which blends comedy with drama and the major action sequences seamlessly. 

While the Vatican has Kevin, the Thunderbolts* has Bob (Lewis Pullman). All (plus the asterisk) is revealed in the film. 
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In cinemas tomorrow.