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Film Round-up: March 1
This week the Star's critics review A Fantastic Woman, Erase and Forget, Red Sparrow, and Monster Family
ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review On The Sea, A Useful Ghost, Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, and Pinocchio Unstrung
RON JACOBS enjoys a great tale, told by a US communist, of the lives of working-class New Yorkers
BRENT CUTLER searches a new history of contemporary Iran for an understanding of the Islamic Republic, finding both interesting detail and glaring omissions
MARIA DUARTE recommends the true story of the remarkable woman who sued Donald Trump for sexual assault not once, but twice
KENNY MacASKILL is disappointed by a polemical, rather than factual, account of the Lone Star State and its political path since the civil war
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the lives of Charles and Mary Bagot, and the insight this biography shines on the morals of pre-Victorian society
A Fantastic Woman (15)
Directed by Sebastian Lelio
★★★★★
THE CONTINUING bigotry displayed against the LGBT community by both conventional media and online commentators makes Chilean director Sebastian Lelio’s profoundly humane story about a trans woman’s battle for acceptance even more powerful and moving.
Lelio, who co-wrote the film with Gonzalo Maza, unforgettably brings a compelling blend of credible characters and honest emotion to life in a gripping drama that has its moments of spot-on comedy too.
The eponymous fantastic woman Marina Vidal, played to perfection by Daniela Vega, lives in Santiago — stunningly photographed by cinematographer Benjamin Echazarreta — where the young transgender waitress-singer is engaged in a mutually happy love affair with the formerly married 57-year-old textile company executive Orlando (Francisco Reyes).
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ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review On The Sea, A Useful Ghost, Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, and Pinocchio Unstrung
LEO BOIX, ANGUS REID and MARIA DUARTE review Night Stage, Two Women, Kim Novak’s Vertigo, and Fuze
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review The Six Billion Dollar Man, Avatar: Fire and Ash, Goodbye June, and Super Elfkins
LEO BOIX, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review Dreamers, It Was Just An Accident, Folktales, and Eternity