Portraits of Dangerous Women

Watched without any prejudgements and was captivated. There's something fresh here, a subtle and genuinely witty angle on the familiar and universal. Original in tone, yet clearly a work of passion with loads of heart. I'd seen mixed reviews and that astounds me actually. Okay, so this film defies genre and has an otherness, but those are surely qualities to be embraced? I'm afraid we live in spirituality stagnant times where it's too convenient to condemn everything that falls slightly outside a dictated norm. Reckon this film offers a rewarding little universe free of cynicism. Settle back and immerse yourself like I did.

This was a more unusual watch than I expected. The cast is excellent, Sheila Reid is one of my all-time favourite actors although she only has a small part she was as good as ever, and the rest of the cast deliver some daring and engaging performances especially young actor Yasmin Monet Prince who I hadn't come across before. I didn't know where this was going for half the time, but the last third of the film ties it all together and I was strangely touched by it and surprisingly both me and my friend found ourselves welling up at the end. It's gentle, funny and certainly an original indie film.

Portraits of Dangerous Women is pitched as a 'quintessentially British film' but I think it's more than that. It's an unusual indie affair with a great cast and surprisingly nuanced themes.

Other reviews have pointed out that it's hard to know where this film is going but I think that's part of the point? It's not following traditional 1 2 3 formulas but intentionally throwing you off slightly all the way through. Experimentation is good and this film does a good job of challenging tired norms around how stuff we watch is spoon-fed to us. Think of it as the antithesis of the 'films' Netflix is churning out at a rate of knots.

It has soul, it has fun, it's really well shot and the acting is terrific.

Go into this film with an open mind and you might find your horizons a little bit expanded.