Minding the Gap (15)
Directed by Bing Liu
★★★★★

WHO says cinema doesn’t teach you anything? The skateboarding sequences alone make this film a thrillingly informative experience but there’s much more to it than that.  

First-time film-maker Bing Liu’s riveting, Oscar-nominated  documentary begins with a series of fascinating gravity-defying sequences featuring three young skateboarding friends in their rust-belt hometown in the US.

But, to Liu’s considerable creative credit, Minding the Gap delivers considerably more than simply a record of skateboarding triumphs.

Where Liu’s film scores strongly is in its fascinating no-hold-barred portraits of the troubled lives of two of the director’s best friends — the 23-year-old Zack Mulligan’s tumultuous relationship with his girlfriend falls apart after their birth of their son, while 17-year-old Keire Johnson continues to battle with his racial identity after the death of his father.

Liu graphically illustrates the pleasures and attendant disadvantages of growing up, without ever seeking to wallow in the kind of overwrought pulp psychology and melodramatic dialogue so frequently used to make emotional points in fictional films.  

Unmissable.

Alan Frank

The White Crow (12A)
Directed by Ralph Fiennes
★★★

RUDOLF NUREYEV’S extraordinary journey from poverty-stricken childhood to trailblazing ballet dancer and defection to the West in 1961 is explored in this fascinating drama directed and starring Ralph Fiennes.

Ukrainian dancer Oleg Ivenko is captivating as the arrogant and single-minded Nureyev and the newcomer gives an impressive recreation of the latter’s dance skills. Yet there is no-one like Nureyev, a one-off who transformed male ballet with his extraordinary showstopping performances.

That said, his remarkable story is bogged down by a complicated non-linear plot which switches between the events of 1961, Nureyev’s childhood and his early dance schooling. It’s confusing to follow and less would have been more.

Fiennes shows off his Russian skills as Pushkin, Nureyev's mentor and the script by David Hare, delivered in Russian and French, underpins a gripping drama which excitingly comes into its own at the very end.

Maria Duarte

Us (15)
Directed by Jordan Peele
★★★

WRITER-DIRECTOR Jordan Peele won best screenplay Oscar for Get Safe and does exactly that with this cliched blood-soaked shocker.

It pits an unfortunate all-American family against the murderous undead who appear as their monstrous doppelgangers while they’re on holiday.

Can mere humans survive undead homicidal doubles is the question and the answer is a slickly contrived, briskly delivered horror show.

While it definitely does the business in hand – to scare up profits for its makers – the film’s a tad too familiar in its plotting and ultimate impact by concentrating rather too much on gory action and suspense and ignoring narrative logic.

Lupita Nyongo’s mother-of-two, still haunted by a traumatic childhood experience in a beachside carnival, and Winston Duke as her monster-fighting husband, lead a hard-working cast who nevertheless are upstaged by the schlocky horror show.

AF

Sorry Angel (15)
Directed by Christophe Honore
★★★

LOVE, loss and sexual awakening are explored with great empathy, wit and skill in this French romantic drama set in 1993.

Parisian Jacques (Pierre Deladonchamps), a semi-renowned writer and a single father in his mid-thirties, is on a trip to Rennes when he meets and falls for Arthur (Vincent Lacoste), a 22-year-old student and aspiring film-maker who is exploring his awakening sexuality.

What transpires is a beautifully made and observed drama by writer-director Christophe Honore about youth, ageing, love and death, with captivating performances by Deladonchamps and Lacoste,who make a very engaging and believable couple.

It is a film which won’t fail to surprise you, particularly its conclusion.

MD

A Trip to the Moon (12)
Directed by Joaquin Cambre
★★★

THIS is by no means a remake of Georges Melies’s 1902 classic.

While Argentinian writer-director Joaquin Cambre — making his first feature film after a successful career directing music videos —  pays homage to Melies, what he finally delivers is a visually attractive but dramatically underdeveloped and less than credible coming-of-age drama.
It centres on troubled teenager Tomas (Angelo Mutti, impressive) who, while experiencing his first romance, falls back on his obsession with the moon to escape from his fractured family life.

Tomas is receiving psychiatric treatment for family traumas but is not taking his medication, a revelation that eliminates a credible psychological motivation for Tomas’s lunar obsession.

And it renders the climactic “voyage to the moon” with his family  — set in a patently homemade and increasingly unconvincing  spaceship interior —  even less credible in a film that promises much but ultimately fails to fully deliver.

AF