The Other Way Around (12A)
Directed by Jonás Trueba
★★

A COOL, calm and collected middle-class couple, who work in the film industry in Madrid, are splitting after 14 years of marriage and decide to hold a party to celebrate the momentous decision.

The film consists of an endless procession of meetings with friends for the sole purpose of inviting them to said party which will include their unconcerned plumber and the perplexed next door neighbour and landlord. Yawn.

The inspiration for such a conclusion to a relationship comes, as they explain ad nauseam to all and sundry, from the wife’s father’s long held view that partings need such marking. Naturally the father, when offering his posh place for the event, denies ever saying such a thing.

If imitation were the sincerest form of flattery any “woodyallenist” reading of this should be concerned, for the “action” drags on interminably in a tedious and repetitive fashion, sustained by vacuous conversations and ample quoting from the lifestyle guru Kierkegaard and American philosopher Stanley Cavell.  

To complicate matters, it transpires that the couple are actually making in earnest the film we are watching: ie it’s anybody’s guess if any of this is for real, or fiction, or documentary.

Somewhat ironically, at a small private viewing of the end product, the film is described as repetitive and perhaps even irrelevant in pretentious, mealy-mouthed terminology.

All attempts at satire and irony misfire miserably as the set of skills required to pull this off with any degree of success is visibly and painfully missing.
MB
In Cinemas July 11

Modi, Three Days on the Wing of Madness (15)
Directed by Johnny Depp 
★★★

FILM star Johnny Depp goes behind the camera for the second time in almost 30 years to direct this surreal snapshot of Italian bohemian artist Amedeo Modigliani’s life and work. 

Based on Dennis McIntyre’s play, it is set in 1916 Paris and focuses on three days in Modigliani’s (a phenomenal Riccardo Scamarcio) life in which he is desperate to sell his paintings to pay for lodgings, food and drink. 

It is very much an impressionistic portrait of Modi, peppered with fantasy and drug fuelled sequences in which he is pursued by the grim reaper as his deadly coughing worsens. But there are many moments of humour and absurdity, some shot in Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin style. 

The film explores the struggles of impoverished artists, their striving for recognition and rejection. When Modi meets renowned art collector Maurice Gangnat (Al Pacino) he is crushed by the critique of his work. 

Though beautifully acted and exquisitely shot, the problem is that if you know little about Modigliani you will be none the wiser by the end, and not even informed that he died from tuberculosis at 35. 
MD
In cinemas July 11

Watch the Skies (PG-13)
Directed by Victor Danell
★★★

THERE’s something charmingly off-kilter in this AI-assisted Swedish YA UFO hunting caper.

Inez Dahl Torhaug carries the mad plot with a relatable urgency, while around her a misfit team of UFO freaks read papers in Swedish but speak English with heavy Swedish accents and are pursued by a big-hearted cop in a leather jacket four sizes too big.

The fact that nothing seems to fit properly doesn’t stop the car chases, explosions, or bewildered air of finding oneself marooned in a soft-core Spielberg fantasy. It’s as though a gang of precocious kids had got hold of a movie and are making it up on the fly, knowing the shots they want to pull off - from tumbling cars to wintry worm-holes - without quite working out how they fit into a story.

Holding it together is the emotional discovery that you’re better off without your absent father and sticking with the companions who prove themselves parental, and accommodate your fanaticism. Also holding it together is AI, not quite convincingly used to dub the voices into heavily slurred English.

A bizarre mayonnaise, but weirdly likeable.
AR
In cinemas July 11

Superman (12A)
Directed by James Gunn
★★★

JAMES GUNN has kickstarted the DC Universe with a Superman reboot which features a physically and emotionally vulnerable Man of Steel who can bleed and be defeated. 

David Corenswet’s chisel-jawed Superman, while humanly flawed, is still inherently good and believes in justice and saving lives, although he is pissed off by social media trolls attacking him with #supershit. 

He has a more complicated and nuanced relationship with Pulitzer award-winning journalist Lois Lane (an impressive Rachel Brosnahan) whose grilling of his intervention to stop a genocide in a foreign land without prior consultation is chilling. Nicholas Hoult channels Elon Musk to make Lex Luthor more devious and slimier in his determination to get rid of the world’s most famous illegal alien for good via a ruthless smear campaign.  

Krypto the flying dog provides the light relief and steals the film. 

It is a decent remake, but did we really need another Superman film? No.
MD
In cinemas July 11