Real (15)
Directed by Aki Omoshaybi
★★★★

THE HARDSHIPS of dating and nurturing a relationship while struggling to make ends meet are laid bare in this poignant and insightful romantic drama.

Set in Portsmouth, it has Jamie (a phenomenal Pippa Bennett-Warner) and Kyle (a charismatic Aki Omoshaybi) encountering each other in the city centre. Looking their best, each incorrectly assumes that the other is a successful professional.

But in reality Jamie is an unemployed single mother who is battling to feed her son, while Kyle is serving a community-service order while staying with his mum again. These troubled souls attempt to keep up appearances while setting themselves up for a major fall.

Actor-turned-writer-and-director Omoshaybi’s impressive debut feature is a multilayered and nuanced drama in which he paints an honest picture of relationships and two working-class people battling the system and their own demons while trying to keep their struggles hidden.

A powerful and uplifting film, it shows Omoshaybi as definitely one to watch.

Savage (18)
Directed by Sam Kelly
★★★

SAM KELLY’S sterling debut feature, which was eight years in the making, is an unrelenting drama which lifts the lid on street-gang culture in New Zealand.

It follows Danny, aka Damage (Jake Ryan from Home and Away), at three key moments in his life — 1965, 1972 and 1989 — as he grows from a young boy into the violent and menacing enforcer of the Savages Poneke gang, whose name he has tattooed across his face.

The opening scene sets the brutal tone for what is to come as Damage smashes a hammer into another member’s hand in punishment.

The film provides a fascinating insight into the conflicts, structure and inner workings of gangs as seen through the eyes of Damage and his lifelong friend Moses (a phenomenal John Tui), the leader of the Savages.

It explores the meaning of family, loyalty and belonging but at its core is about the friendship and unbreakable bond between two troubled men who have been brothers-in-arms since they met in borstal as kids fighting the system.

Graphically violent, it's a surprisingly poignant and haunting gang drama.

The Broken Hearts Gallery (12A)
Directed by Natalie Krinsky
★★★★

HEARTBREAK is difficult to handle at any age but none more so than in your twenties. Yet this funny and quirky rom com from first-time director Natalie Krinsky provides an unusual and uplifting solution.

It centres on millennial Lucy (Geraldine Viswanathan) who, after a bad break-up, decides to open a pop-up gallery in New York where people can leave mementoes from their past relationships in order to move on.

She does it with the help of struggling hotel owner Nick — a delightfully grounded Dacre Montgomery — who she encounters in a borderline creepy hook-up.

Krinsky injects new life into an overdone genre, delivering a fresh rom com for the here and now, aided by Viswanathan whose whip-smart and passionate Lucy, channelling Bridget Jones at one point, most women will be able to relate to.

A dose of  optimistic escapism which perhaps we could do with right now.

Max Richter’s Sleep (PG)
Directed by Natalie Johns
★★★

THIS behind-the-scenes look at Max Richter’s ambitious staging of his eight-hour-long opus Sleep at an open air concert in Los Angeles is, according to the acclaimed composer, “my personal lullaby for a frenetic world. A manifesto for a slower pace of existence.”

Film-maker Natalie Johns weaves in personal archive and performance footage from Berlin, Sydney and Paris to deliver a rich and immersive experience, as the audience is encouraged to lie down on camp beds close to each other and sleep if they wish.

The film analyses the art, science and mathematics behind the composition of Sleep, which is played throughout the documentary and which results in a unique and at times soporific cinematic experience.

A must-see for insomniacs.

The Painted Bird (18)
Directed by Vaclav Marhoul
★★★

AT ALMOST three hours, this brutally harrowing epic film adaptation of Jerzy Kosinski’s violent and complicated novel requires both an iron-clad stomach and extraordinary stamina to sit through

Shot in black and white and set somewhere in Eastern Europe at the close of WWII, it follows a young Jewish lad — The Boy (Petr Kotlar) — who, following his elderly foster mother’s sudden death, is forced to travel from village to village seeking refuge.

What he experiences is violence and brutality — beatings, sexual abuse, rape and murder — on an unimaginable scale wherever he goes.  On the way, he is seduced by an older girl who uses him for her own ends.

It is excruciating to watch this naive youngster turn into a cold-hearted cynic, although he does encounter the odd show of humanity from a German soldier who lets him live, a priest and a Russian sniper.

With limited dialogue throughout, newcomer Kotlar gives an extraordinary performance as The Boy and he holds his own against a stellar international cast which includes Harvey Keitel, Stellan Skarsgard, Udo Kier and Julian Sands.

Despite its striking and arresting cinematography, this is a tortuous horror show which may  leave you shaken and possibly traumatised.

Memories of Murder (15)
Directed by Bong Joon Ho
★★★★

FANS  of Academy Award-winning director Bong Joon Ho will surely appreciate this reissue of his dark and compelling 2003 crime drama.  

Loosely based on a series of real-life murders which took place in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s in provincial South Korea, it has Kang-Ho Song playing one of two bungling small-town detectives who make a mess of the case, resulting in leading detective (Sang-kyung Kim) being sent from Seoul to hunt down the serial killer.

He has a more methodical approach by following the evidence and police procedures, in contrast to veteran Detective Park (Kang-Ho Song) and his cronies who believe in beating up and torturing suspects in a bid to coerce a confession out of them.

All this makes for a gripping slow-burning thriller, which shows Joon Ho’s masterly skills as an exciting and thrilling film-maker in this, his second film.

The Unfamiliar
Directed by Henk Pretorius
★★

A BRITISH army doctor, returning home from war with suspected PTSD, discovers that she is being haunted by a greater evil in her own house in this psychological horror which starts off promisingly but soon verges on the ridiculous.

As Dr Elizabeth “Izzy” Cormack (Jemima West) tries to reconnect with her estranged husband (Christopher Dane) and her three kids, she begins seeing things and believes she is slowly being consumed by trauma.  

Cue jump-scares but, if co-writer and director Henk Pretorius had stuck with examining the horrors of PTSD and its effects, that would have been frightening enough.

Instead the action switches to Hawaii, where Izzy meets up with a spiritualist to explore dark ancient mythology in order to save her relationship with her family and it's in the US's 50th state that the film loses the plot completely.

Despite the cast's fine performances as they pull out all the stops, it isn't enough to save what's unsaveable.

On video on demand.