Thursday 5th October    The Fabelmans    Coming-of-age drama (12)

This semi-autobiographical drama is based on Steven Spielberg’s childhood and first years as a film maker.  It is both a love letter to films and an exploration of the strains imposed on family life when some members are driven by a passionate commitment to art and others to science.  As a child “Sammy”, the aspiring film director, uses film making to help him confront his own fears and to understand the stresses in his dysfunctional family.  Refusing to see this as “just a hobby”, he follows his mother’s advice “to do what your heart says you have to do”.  For Spielberg, this story is also about the moment when “a young person in a family starts to see his parents as human beings”.

Thursday 19th October               The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry        Drama (12)

Adapted from her bestselling novel of the same name by Rachel Joyce, this is a drama about resilience and reconciliation.   Retired couple Harold (Jim Broadbent) and Maureen (Penelope Wilton) live a life of quiet boredom and regret.  Then Harold receives a letter from an old colleague, Queenie Hennessy, who tells him she is in a hospice dying of cancer.  Harold writes a sympathy letter and takes it to the post box, but the post has already been collected. So he walks on to find another box and another, and then decides to go on walking all the way from Kingsbridge, Devon, to Berwick upon Tweed, convincing himself that this will give Queenie hope.  “I’ll keep walking,” he says, “and you keep living.”

Thursday 2nd November      What’s Love Got to Do With It?        Romcom (PG)

A feelgood film that revives the recently dormant, but ever popular genre of British romantic comedy.  Zoe (Lily James), a documentary film maker, and Kaz (Shazad Latif), a doctor, have been friends since childhood.  Searching for a new subject to film, Zoe hits upon the idea of following Kaz as he embarks on an arranged marriage to a stranger chosen by his parents.  What’s love got to do with arranged marriages?  “You grow to love the person you’re with,” Kaz explains.  As the action moves from culturally diverse London to the traditional, deeply rooted culture of Pakistan, the friends start to question their assumptions about each other and about what love means.  

Thursday 16th November        Aftersun                Drama (12)

Sophie, an eleven-year-old from Edinburgh, is on holiday in Turkey with her divorced father.  She records the holiday on her movie camera and the scenes she shoots are interspersed throughout this movie.  The bond between father and daughter is strong, but as a child she is too young to realise that he is struggling with adult concerns about money and happiness.  Slowly we become aware that we are seeing the holiday memories from the point of view of adult Sophie who now has the power to interpret things she couldn’t understand at the time.  Paul Mescal as the father delivers a powerful performance in a film with great emotional impact.

Thursday 30th November        Oppenheimer            Historical Drama (15)

A dramatic film, both in terms of its subject and the way the story is told. Director Christopher Nolan uses a series of flashbacks to convey the restlessness and anguish of a man “whose greatest contribution to civilisation was a weapon that could destroy it.”  Cillian Murphy is perfectly cast as the haunted, complex character J Robert Oppenheimer as he wrestles with the enormity of what he has let loose on the world.  Included in the story are his troubled relationships with the two most important women in his life, and his struggles with antisemitism and post-war McCarthyism.  This is one of the big films of the year.
There will be an earlier start than usual (exact time to be advised) and a comfort break halfway through the film.

Thursday 14th December        Barbie                Comedy Fantasy (12)

As the song says, “Life in plastic is fantastic.”  Get ready to party in a candy-coloured world where the women are all Barbies – flawlessly beautiful, professional and in charge of everything – and the men are just Kens, dependent on their Barbies for approval and any purpose in life.  Thanks to Barbie, all problems of feminism and equal rights have been solved … until one morning on waking up in her dream house she finds that she has developed flat feet and (horrors!) cellulite.  She flees, with Ken in tow, into real life – from a matriarchy into a patriarchy, to her horror and Ken’s delight.  Director and co-writer Greta Gerwig gleefully satirises both worlds in an appeal for true equality. Opinions differ among filmgoers and critics as to whether Margot Robbie (Barbie) or Ryan Gosling (Ken) steals the show.  Both deliver star performances.
For tonight’s show, let’s think pink.  Come wearing something pink and tuck into pink wine at the bar.  Or come looking “beach buff” like Ken.