Synthetic Sincerity (PG)
Directed by Marc Isaacs
⭑⭑⭑⭑☆

IDEAS jostle for attention in Marc Isaacs’ genre-blending film — a digressive and contemplative docu-fiction running for just 72 minutes. 

Isaacs, playing himself, is asked to license his back catalogue of documentaries to AI researchers at the fictitious University of Southern England. The Synthetic Sincerity team believe training their systems on his vividly portrayed “characters” will support synthesis of more engaging humanoid avatars. In return he gets access to the team at work.

The style is playful. Investment in the narrative is intentionally undermined by a comically glib and manipulative AI avatar and the farcically awkward interactions between director and participants. 

Some of the humour is subtler. Contradictions in the dialogue prompt consideration of complex issues, such as the flimsiness of scientific idealism and the problem of consciousness versus computation in AI.

There are meta-fictional elements. A participant objects to nudging the audience’s emotional response with intrusive music; and the writer (Adam Ganz) and director discuss the film’s brevity. Interactions switch between scripted confrontation and improvised conviviality: the effect is life-affirming and thought-provoking. 

It could have been an incoherent mess, but it works. Isaacs’ harmonisation of theme, form and style to reflect on the deceptions of documentary film-making is reminiscent of Orson Welles’ F for Fake. 

However, Synthetic Sincerity explores a wider range of topics — authenticity, data harvesting, digital simulation, the fragility of academic freedom and the importance of the human face in art. 

Isaacs and Ganz fire volleys of intriguing but unanswered questions. Ambitious, tricky, philosophical and fun.
AH
In cinemas July 17.

Our Hero, Balthazar (18)
Directed by Oscar Boyson
⭑⭑⭑☆☆

THIS deliciously dark and provocative comedy drama takes aim at the hubris of the wealthy and those who seek validation and popularity via social media by doing whatever it takes.  

Rich and entitled New York City teenager Balthazar (Jaeden Martell), who posts fake tearful reaction videos to mass shootings online, befriends someone who is threatening to carry out a school massacre in order to impress an activist crush. He decides to fly to Texas to meet Solomon (an unrecognisable Asa Butterfield) and try to stop him.

However Solomon, who is dirt poor and lives with his grandmother, is not what he appears. It is all bravado and as the boys become friends things take a deadly turn. 

Co-writer director Oscar Boyson’s complex debut feature straddles a fine line between satire and tragedy. It is driven by standout performances by Martell and Butterfield.  

A truly disturbing thriller.
MD
In cinemas July 16 only and on digital platforms from August 11.

Heartstopper Forever (15)
Directed by Wash Westmoreland 
⭑⭑⭑☆☆

THIS heartwarming coming-of-age queer romantic drama picks up where the Netflix TV series left off and replaces the fourth season. 

Kit Connor and Joe Locke return as Nick and Charlie, who are in love and face new challenges and pressures as Nick prepares to leave for university. The prospect of maintaining a successful long-distance relationship preys on Charlie’s mind.   

Most of the original cast are back except for Olivia Colman as Nick’s mother. Anna Maxwell Martin is now playing her. 

Based on Alice Oseman’s graphic novel which she has adapted for this feature film, this is an insightful and engaging love story. It also deals with a range of key issues including homophobia, bullying, teenage mental health problems and eating disorders. 

Featuring mainly LGBTQ+ actors and two phenomenal and charismatic leads, you can’t help rooting for Nick and Charlie. It provides a fitting end to their tale and the series.
MD
On Netflix from July 17.

A Year In London (15)
Directed by Flaminia Graziadei
⭑⭑☆☆☆

IN this wish-fulfilment lesbian fantasy, an Italian wannabe fashionista flees her strait-laced family for London, where she seduces her black teacher. And they all live happily ever after.

It is bizarrely underwritten: neither camp like Zoolander, not sexy and insightful about class like Blue Is The Warmest Colour. There’s no jokes, and what dramatic tension there is, is supplied by the older woman’s reluctance to accept the surrender of her superiority to the student.

The plot is predictable and the dialogue clunky, as though nobody believes in the parts they are playing, and are simply hirelings in the enactment of someone else’s memories. You suspect this is autobiographical fiction on the part of co-writer/director Flaminia Graziadei. With performances phoned in from a distance, all painfully earnest and inhibited, the film feels overdressed and awkward as a 1990s trouser suit with shoulder pads.

But perhaps this is the point. The characters have internalised so many taboos that, after struggling through their own emotional thicket, their eventual arrival at love is strangely moving.
AR
In cinemas July 17.