Cowboys (15)
Directed by Anna Kerrigan
⭑⭑⭑

A FATHER and his young son escape into the wilderness of the American West in this quietly moving and heartbreaking drama about the complexities of family dynamics and gender identity.

Steve Zahn delivers a career-defining performance as Troy, who suffers from mental health issues, as he takes his 11-year-old trans boy Joe (impressive newcomer Sasha Knight) on a camping trip to the mountains of Montana, without his ex-wife Sally’s (Jillian Bell) knowledge.

However, on discovering Joe is missing, she calls the police.

It is a truly impressive debut feature by writer-director Anna Kerrigan, who deals with complex issues using the tropes of a Western in such a unique way.

Both father and son feel like outsiders as they try and run away to Canada while Sally’s conservative Christian beliefs won’t allow her to accept that her daughter is a boy. 

It is a devastating tale, sensitively told against the majestic backdrop of the gorgeous northern Rockies.

Maria Duarte

Available on Curzon Home Cinema and digital download

Oxygen 
Directed by Alexandre Aja
⭑⭑⭑

THIS French survival thriller directed by Alexandre Aja is a masterclass in hair-raising tension, confinement and claustrophobia.

Melanie Laurent gives a breathtaking virtuoso performance as a young woman who wakes up alone in a cryogenic pod, not remembering who she is or how she ended up there, but discovering that she is in a race against time before her oxygen runs out.

Her sole companion is her Medical Interface Liaison Operator (Milo), voiced by Mathieu Amalric, who is programmed to answer all her medical needs.

From a screenplay by Christie LeBlanc, Aja delivers a deliciously taut and nerve-racking riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, which unfolds solely in the pod — very reminiscent of Buried.

It is a gripping but fascinating slow reveal, though if your greatest fear is waking up trapped in a box or being buried alive, then this might not be for you.

Maria Duarte

Available on Netflix

Once Upon a River (15)
Directed by Haroula Rose
⭑⭑⭑⭑

ALTHOUGH it’s a picture you know within mere minutes has clearly been adapted from an acclaimed novel, Haroula Rose’s adaptation of Bonnie Jo Campbell’s Once Upon a River tackles everyday racism, prejudice and white supremacy with all the vigour of an original work, ripped straight from the headlines.

Newcomer Kenadi DelaCerna makes a splash as Native American teen Margo, who endures an incestuous sexual assault that results in her becoming a river-bound fugitive with no recourse but to seek out her long-estranged Caucasian mother.

A powerful story of the bonds Margo forms on her journey — both literal and figurative — DelaCerna holds her ground mightily; offering up a wide-eyed wistfulness and exuberance that feels charming and contextually tragic in equal measure. Rose, in her feature debut, colours the journey spectacularly, with arresting visuals from fellow first-timer Charlotte Hornsby ensuring that Margo’s odyssey is as captivating aesthetically as it is emotionally.

Van Connor

Available on demand 

End of Sentence (15)
Directed by Elfar Adalstein
⭑⭑⭑⭑

THE kind of small but moving picture that would, pre-Covid, have likely bypassed audiences entirely, End of Sentence brings together acclaimed character performer John Hawkes and the increasingly impressive Logan Lerman for this rather moving and insightful father-son drama.

Journey and destination take equal prominence as Hawke’s newly bereaved beta and freshly paroled son take to the road in Ireland on a quest to scatter their matriarch’s ashes.

As festival-friendly as it is unconventionally whacky at times, End of Sentence thrives on the back of a typically marvellous performance from Hawkes, Lerman in turn relishing the ability to play with far more edge than we’ve seen in the Percy Jackson blockbusters that have defined his career to date.

It’s a charming two-hander — a picturesque road movie with bags of heart, solidly directed by Elfar Adalsteins but powered predominantly by a smart script from Michael Armbruster and two top-tier performances.

VC

Available on demand

Apples (12A)
Directed by Christos Nikou
⭑⭑⭑⭑

IT FEELS like there should be something strange about Greek director Christos Nikou’s Apples, and, in any other era, perhaps that might be the case. 

But, in the wake of Yorgos Lanthimos and even Jordan Peele’s rise to fame in recent years, this straight-faced absurdist tragicomedy about a man rediscovering his identity in the wake of a memory-wiping pandemic sparkles, but doesn’t feel too outlandish.

That Nikou actually got his start under Lanthimos speaks volumes to that — the acclaimed helmer’s influence evidently as towering as Guillermo del Toro’s to his acolytes — and yet results in a robust and handsomely staged drama with a terrifically soulful turn from lead Aris Servetalis, who provides its beating heart.

Offering up blackly comic humour alongside some (at times, truly bleak) drama, Apples plays like a subtitled feature-length Twilight Zone-riff — a corker of a concept fuelling one of the year’s more intriguing oddities.

VC

Available on demand

Mortal Kombat (15)
Directed by Simon McQuoid
⭑⭑⭑

THOSE hoping to finally see the crossover breakout of the video game adaptation sub-genre had best hold onto their razor-rimmed hats.

Mortal Kombat 2K21 brings the gore and the action chops, but is best compared to Lionsgate’s oft-forgotten Power Rangers reboot.

Like Dean Israelite’s 2017 teen superhero romp, Mortal Kombat, in which a group of mismatched fighters are tasked with defending our realm, dedicates entirely too much time to establishing itself as taking place in “the real world” — detrimentally so.

In fact, it goes to such extremes that it makes bafflingly little sense. So little sense that, despite being an adaptation of a game about a fighting tournament, it literally never gets to said tournament — commercials helmer Simon McQuoid’s feature debut instead serving as a glorified prologue with the now all-too-familiar promise of “Come back next time for the things you wanted in Part 1.”

It’s at least gleeful fun where possible, with some impressively staged fight choreography, modestly expensive looking VFX, and, yes, that theme song endures.

Ludi Lin, Joe Taslim et al bring the (literal) thunder, and it’s a decent Friday night sofa-watch, but Mortal Kombat ultimately proves far from a flawless victory.

VC

Available on demand