Ashley Jensen

Throwing a solid Hollywood cast into a surreal arthouse satire, acclaimed Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth) makes his English-language debut with a bang. This is a blackly comical parable about how it feels to be single in a society that only values couples. With its two-part structure it almost seems like two movies mashed together, exploring the topic in ways that are smart and revelatory, and utterly deranged. And the strikingly gifted actors bring it to life beautifully.

It's set in a remote hotel on the Irish coastline, where the recently divorced David (Colin Farrell) has gone to find a mate. Single people here have 45 days to find their perfect partner, or else they're transformed surgically into an animal of their choosing. David has opted to become a lobster, but is determined to find a wife. He watches as one guy (Ben Whishaw) fakes nosebleeds to appear more like a young woman (Jessica Barden). So David pretends to be something he isn't, but is caught by the hotel's imperious manager (Olivia Colman). He escapes into the woods, where he joins a desperate band of loners led by a fierce warrior (Lea Seydoux). There he falls for a woman (Rachel Weisz) who is short-sighted like he is, but romance is forbidden among the loners.

The filmmakers are inventively exploring some very real issues in society, which makes the story ring eerily true, no matter how relentlessly odd it gets. The script's action sequences sometimes feel a bit contrived, but they add to the characters' nagging sense of desperation as they're stuck in a world that simply won't accept them as they are. And it helps that the actors dive in without hesitation. Farrell has gained weight to play the middle-aged David, who had a happy life before being plunged into this nightmare. He's very easy to identify with, both in his awkward interaction and as he boils over in rage. Weisz adds a lusty, razor-sharp intelligence to her role. And Colman quietly steals the movie with her deadpan performance as the godlike hotel manager.

Sometimes this extreme satire feels rather on-the-nose, but it's also a powerfully provocative exploration of the way society forces people to comply, marginalising anyone who refuses to join the status quo. And Lanthimos is gifted at using comedy and emotion to deepen the characters and themes, digging beneath the surface while telling a story that's simply impossible to predict. So in the end, we're almost taken aback at the way all of this has wormed its way under our skin, revealing things about ourselves we thought we had suppressed. Especially the way we value or dismiss people around us based on factors that are utterly irrelevant.

Continue reading: The Lobster Review

There's probably a fascinating, complex story behind the invention of the vibrator in 19th century London, but this silly farce isn't it. Instead, this is a comical romp that just happens to be set against the birth of the most popular sex toy in history. It's nicely assembled, with a strong cast, but the tone is so goofy that it never breaks the surface.

It's the late 1880s when young doctor Mortimer (Dancy) takes a job in London with Dalrymple (Pryce), who specialises in treating hysteria, considered a serious medical condition at the time, even though it seems to only afflict women whose husbands are neglecting them socially and sexually. As Mortimer courts Dalrymple's placid younger daughter (Jones), lining himself to take over the practice one day, it's the feisty older daughter (Gyllenhaal) who continually challenges his worldview. And as he treats his patients, Mortimer works with his friend Edmund (Everett) to create a mechanical vibrating device that has an immediate effect on his patients.

Everything in this story is played broadly, as if it's frightfully hilarious to talk about sex in such a straightforward way. But this prudish approach only trivialises everything about the story, from the premise to the characters themselves. And it doesn't help that the script never gives any of these people more than one or two key personality traits. The actors do what they can with them, adding moments of effective drama and comedy while hinting at the serious themes underneath the story. But it's so silly that we never really care about anything that happens.

Continue reading: Hysteria Review

The film is almost too crowded with witty visual and verbal gags to catch on a single viewing. Although it's also too corny to be a real classic.

The Pirate Captain (voiced by Grant) never gets any respect, especially with the Pirate of the Year competition gearing up. But his first mate (Freeman) and rag-tag crew (Tovey, Gleeson and Jenson) are fearlessly loyal. While accumulating plunder to win the award, they accidentally hijack a scientific ship and then travel with Charles Darwin (Tennant) to win a science prize in London. But this means that the crew needs to get dangerously close to venomous pirate-hater Queen Victoria (Staunton).

Continue reading: The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists! Review

This lively holiday romp has a steady stream of sharp verbal and visual gags that hold our interest. Even when the plot stalls in the middle, it's difficult to stop chuckling at the filmmakers' deranged sense of humour.

At the North Pole, Santa (Broadbent) is a bit complacent after 70 years on the job, letting his heir-apparent son Steve (Laurie) convert Christmas Eve into a high-tech black-ops style mission executed with military precision. To Steve, missing one child is an insignificant statistic. But Steve's younger brother Arthur (McAvoy) disagrees, and teams up with his feisty Grandsanta (Nighy) to make sure the last gift is delivered the old fashioned way.

Yes, the film is a riot of clashes between tradition and progress, the wisdom of the years and youthful vigour. Fortunately, the serious themes are subverted, hilariously playing with our expectations and never turning into a nostalgic paean to the olden days. That said, this British production does feel eerily co-opted by Hollywood, from the use of the American "Santa Claus" (no one ever calls him "Father Christmas", which might have made sense of the film's odd title) to the somewhat feeble attempts to ramp up the action and suspense. Not to mention a massive wave of sentimentality at the end.

But even this is undermined by Baynham (Borat) and director Smith's script, which maintains a dry British sense of humour and gives the strong vocal cast plenty of snappy material to play with. While most of the characters are a bit unmemorable, Nighy gets the best lines: Grandsanta as an old coot full of surprises, including some terrific rude jokes and an amusingly animated hound-style old reindeer sidekick. Staunton also has some terrific dialog as the underestimated Mrs Santa.

Visually the film is brightly colourful, amusingly designed with small sight gags and continual Christmas imagery. While the characters look a little plasticky, the settings are gorgeously rendered, and the flying sleigh sequences almost make it worth seeing in 3D. The problem is that the film feels stretched out by random antics and underdeveloped plot-threads along the way that add nothing to the overall story. So we get tired of the bumbling chaos, mainly because we know exactly where it's got to end up.