Sydney Morning Herald

Tomatometer-approved publication
Rating Title/Year Author
3/5 () Paul Byrnes It may have been possible to adapt Carey's florid book for the screen, but Kurzel fails to bring the basics. He goes straight for the flourishes, neglecting character, plot and dramatic build-up. The film is all surface. EDIT
Posted Jan 8, 2020
4.5/5 1917 (2019) Paul Byrnes The overall impact of 1917 is simply breathtaking, horrifying, appalling. It offers a compelling version of what a day in the war might have felt like for two soldiers. EDIT
Posted Jan 6, 2020
4/5 A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2019) Sandra Hall Aardman prefers the deadpan approach, helped by the fact its puppeteers, animators and editors can do so much with a single, well-timed gesture. Never mind about the words, Shaun's body language is all he needs to win you over and raise a laugh. EDIT
Posted Jan 6, 2020
4/5 The Gentlemen (2020) Sandra Hall The film is a triumphant return to home base for Ritchie... It's his wit which energizes the film and shapes the characters -- with a lot of help from his actors. EDIT
Posted Jan 2, 2020
4.5/5 Little Women (2019) Paul Byrnes About 20 minutes in, the characters cease to be characters; they are now flesh and blood, our sisters. We feel their happiness and despond, their cold feet and warm hearts, their slights and loves. It's a masterful, passionate, all-in kind of adaptation. EDIT
Posted Dec 31, 2019
4 Devils (1928) SMH Staff Murnau's work has a largeness and profundity of conception which are sadly lacking in the great majority of the films that come to the Sydney screen. EDIT
Posted Dec 29, 2019
() SMH Staff To the amusement-seeker the intensity of the dramatic action warrants more than one visit. At each visit new impressions are formed. EDIT
Posted Dec 26, 2019
3/5 Cats (2019) Sandra Hall While it's far from being perfect, or even purr-fect, it certainly doesn't warrant the abuse that has been heaped upon it. At the very least, it deserves a chance. EDIT
Posted Dec 26, 2019
4/5 Jojo Rabbit (2019) Paul Byrnes Jojo Rabbit is bold in its inversion of expectations and its reimagining of a familiar subject. There's nothing trivial about it. EDIT
Posted Dec 26, 2019
3.5/5 The Truth (2019) Paul Byrnes It feels like a chamber piece because it is: a chance for the director to observe an ocean-going star in all her glory, to see what he can do as her captain. EDIT
Posted Dec 20, 2019
One Child Nation (2019) Brad Newsome Grand atrocities pile atop private heartbreak as this powerful film unfolds. EDIT
Posted Dec 18, 2019
Togo (2019) Brad Newsome Willem Dafoe and a bunch of adorable sled dogs star in this heartwarming, action packed new movie based on a true story... The sequences involving Togo as a mischievous pup are pure magic. EDIT
Posted Dec 18, 2019
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) Sandra Hall Despite some clunky chunks of exposition, the action rockets along, powered both by its need to be more spectacular than ever before and the script's desire to tie up the saga's many loose ends... It's a rousing finish. EDIT
Posted Dec 18, 2019
3.5/5 Jumanji: The Next Level (2019) Sandra Hall A very hard-working film, so much so that it seems to be driven partly by an anxious desire to prove itself capable of matching its predecessor. Ignore this if you can, for it's such a satisfyingly wild ride that its flaws can be forgiven. EDIT
Posted Dec 16, 2019
London After Midnight (1927) SMH Staff People with weak nerves who see this film, and impressionable children, will probably find such fights mingling in the substance of their dreams for some nights afterward. EDIT
Posted Dec 12, 2019
4/5 Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love (2019) Paul Byrnes This film is different precisely because Broomfield was a long-time friend of Marianne. His heart is invested, which gives the film a welcome intimacy and warmth. EDIT
Posted Dec 12, 2019
4/5 They Shall Not Grow Old (2018) Paul Byrnes What a superb way to remember the centenary of the end of the war. Hail Peter. EDIT
Posted Dec 11, 2019
3.5/5 The Ideal Palace (2018) Paul Byrnes The movie is seductively pleasurable, for most of its length. Tavernier corrals the emotions and restricts musical embellishment, concentrating on the powerful landscape and Cheval's life within it. EDIT
Posted Dec 11, 2019
2/5 Playing With Fire (2019) Sandra Hall This might matter if we had been encouraged to care more about the kids' fate, but the script is so bad that you care instead about the actors and their vain efforts to do something with its cliches. EDIT
Posted Dec 11, 2019
2/5 Playmobil: The Movie (2019) Sandra Hall There's a plot in there somewhere, but most of the time it's subsumed by a frenetic attempt to showcase the whole Playmobil range in an extended kinetic eruption of primal sound and primary colour. EDIT
Posted Dec 11, 2019
The Kacey Musgraves Christmas Show (2019) Brad Newsome American country star Kacey Musgraves brings us the feel-good hit of the summer in this delightfully daggy Christmas special. EDIT
Posted Dec 11, 2019
2.5/5 Fighting With My Family (2019) Jake Wilson Yet realism, emotional or otherwise, is beside the point: this is a film that prints the legend, perhaps on the assumption that nothing is too cornball for true wrestling fans. EDIT
Posted Dec 10, 2019
3.5/5 Kairos (2018) Sandra Hall A bold piece of work tackled with a perceptive candour. EDIT
Posted Dec 5, 2019
Dolemite Is My Name (2019) Brad Newsome This riotous, poignant and uplifting true story couldn't have been told half as well without the singular magnetism and intensity of Eddie Murphy at its heart. EDIT
Posted Dec 4, 2019
Hala (2019) Brad Newsome Young Australian Geraldine Viswanathan delivers a performance of tremendous poise, prowess and resonance in this affecting new coming-of-age film. EDIT
Posted Dec 4, 2019
2/5 () Paul Byrnes The new documentary will be used to raise funds for dog rescue. That's a fitting tribute to Koko, who was a special dog. Alas, this film doesn't do him justice. EDIT
Posted Dec 4, 2019
3/5 Ask Dr. Ruth (2019) Paul Byrnes She is good at deflecting those who want to pry and that's a problem for the film. If we're going to go 100 minutes with this remarkable old lady, a little depth is pretty much required. EDIT
Posted Dec 4, 2019
3/5 Where's My Roy Cohn? (2019) Paul Byrnes The documentary does a reasonable survey of his faults and foibles, lining up those willing to plunge a knife, but it's neither definitive nor detailed enough to satisfy even a minimum standard of proof. EDIT
Posted Dec 4, 2019
2/5 The Addams Family (2019) Sandra Hall It's tedious but, worse, it's wasteful. The wealth of talent that has gone into its making has been frittered away in a vain attempt to pump new heart into a creation that ran out of puff long ago. EDIT
Posted Dec 4, 2019
3.5/5 The Good Liar (2019) Sandra Hall It's an enthralling exercise but a peculiarly cerebral one -- a psychological thriller without the thrills. EDIT
Posted Nov 27, 2019
3/5 Mrs. Lowry & Son (2019) Paul Byrnes Both actors give this bed-bound script their all and their jousting is enjoyable if you like other people's pain. EDIT
Posted Nov 27, 2019
4/5 () Sandra Hall Thoroughly engaging... In so many ways she has been ahead of her time. EDIT
Posted Nov 26, 2019
3.5/5 Frozen II (2019) Sandra Hall [Some] sequences have a gleam and a rhythm to them that encapsulates Disney animation at its purest and most sinuous. The film itself doesn't hit that sweet spot that makes Pixar animations, for example, fun for adults as well as their children. EDIT
Posted Nov 26, 2019
4/5 Grâce à Dieu (2018) Sandra Hall Ozon was wise to translate the story into fiction. In their rawness and their sense of intimacy, the family scenes ferret out the emotional truths behind the bald and bitter facts. EDIT
Posted Nov 26, 2019
4/5 Official Secrets (2019) Paul Byrnes The script, based on a book by Marcia and Thomas Mitchell, keeps layering in complexity, refusing to go dumb. And Knightley's performance gets steelier as she struggles to overcome her fears EDIT
Posted Nov 21, 2019
Outback Rabbis (2018) Brad Newsome This documentary makes absorbing viewing as the rabbis and their families pile into their camper-van "synagogues on wheels" and set out looking for fellow Jews everywhere from Innisfail to Alice Springs. EDIT
Posted Nov 20, 2019
() Brad Newsome There's also a real element of emotional vulnerability and insecurity as a group of six very different friends arrive at a beach house that they've rented out as a weekend party pad for the whole summer. EDIT
Posted Nov 20, 2019
3.5/5 Farming (2018) Paul Byrnes The tone of the film is also unexpectedly lyrical -- like a fairytale, albeit grimmer than Grimm. Unrelieved horror and violence can be enervating, but this film has the benefit of truth, and a message of survival. EDIT
Posted Nov 20, 2019
3.5/5 Fisherman's Friends (2019) Sandra Hall It's a cheering success story highlighting the homely pleasures and eccentricities of English village life. EDIT
Posted Nov 20, 2019
4/5 Judy & Punch (2019) Sandra Hall Any taint of earnestness would have killed this film, as Foulkes is clearly aware. As a result, she's cannily approached it in the spirit with which it was meant. She's successfully matched its urge to amuse and outrage with her own. EDIT
Posted Nov 20, 2019
The King (2019) Brad Newsome Almost everything about The King works brilliantly, from the casting (not least Robert Pattinson as a deliciously detestable Dauphin) to the generally cracking script by Michôd and Edgerton. EDIT
Posted Nov 13, 2019
3.5/5 Charlie's Angels (2019) Sandra Hall There's a jaunty feel to it all, together with a few well-placed plot twists, lots of good-humoured banter and the usual fun to be had from the Angels' fondness for disguise. EDIT
Posted Nov 13, 2019
4/5 Ford v Ferrari (2019) Sandra Hall This is certainly not a film for our times. Drawn from recent history, it's a nostalgic celebration of gas-guzzling fast cars and the people who risked their lives racing them. Yet it's wholly seductive. EDIT
Posted Nov 13, 2019
3/5 A Reindeer's Journey (2019) Paul Byrnes Sutherland adopts the tone of a kindly grandpa reindeer, or perhaps God himself, looking down from a drone's eye view. For younger kids, it might well work. For anyone over age 12, it will probably sound a little patronising. EDIT
Posted Nov 13, 2019
() SMH Staff The characters of the hero and heroine were finely acted by Thomas Meighan and Betty Compson, and the star film should prove a great draw. EDIT
Posted Nov 7, 2019
Hail Satan? (2019) Brad Newsome This engrossing documentary illuminates numerous facets of an outre circus with a serious purpose. EDIT
Posted Nov 7, 2019
Tell Me Who I Am (2019) Brad Newsome It's tragic but utterly compelling viewing as director Ed Perkins allows the two men to share their stories -- and their lifelong anguish -- direct to camera before they sit down face-to-face for a final, painful catharsis. EDIT
Posted Nov 7, 2019
4/5 Dolor y gloria (2019) Paul Byrnes A masterful, melancholy, tender, lacerating self-examination, filled with colour and light and the ghosts of those he has loved. Almodovar at 70, and perhaps astonishing to himself, continues to grow. EDIT
Posted Nov 6, 2019
2.5/5 Arctic Dogs (2019) Paul Byrnes It's more like a compendium of familiar ideas bolted together and painted white -- a snow job, in other words. EDIT
Posted Nov 6, 2019
3.5/5 Last Christmas (2019) Sandra Hall There are plenty of funny bits. Thompson is a delight and I appreciated the controlled elegance displayed by Yeoh in affording us a rare glimpse of her sense of humour. But the central romance lacks any trace of spontaneity. EDIT
Posted Nov 6, 2019