david-meldrum

Appropriately for the content, a film adaptation of Frankenstein has long been an obsession of Guillermo del Toro. In finally achieving his aim, he has given us a film that is sad, beautiful, often strange, and ultimately a devastating indictment of what happens when humans deny their humanity and seek something else instead. As befits the filmography of one of the age's foremost film-makers, it's rich in symbolism, parallelism, and allusions to other texts - so much so that rewatching is likely to prove a rich experience. It's a film on a grand scale that nevertheless keeps returning to a satisfying, often enjoyably squelchy corporealness; while not a frightening film in the traditional sense, it is a horrifying one in its conclusions about humanity and human nature. Jacob Elordi and Oscar Isaac are both good in their own ways in the lead roles, their humanity somehow recapturing the original text's foundational place in the creation of both of what we know now as the horror and science-fiction genres (it still beggars belief that this was originally the product of a teenage woman in a competition against adult men designed to fill in a housbound weekend). Like so much of del Toro's work, this is a rich, satisfying film about which we'll only be able to get a true perspective with the benefit of time.

This Bruce Springsteen biopic takes an even shorter span of time than the recent Dylan film, A Complete Unknown. Detailing the making of his Nebraska album, a wilfully lo-fi, dark, folk-flecked release in contrast to the albums that had made up his career to that point. It's in concert with his own struggles with his mental health, something that really forms the main concern of this film, rather than the music itself. People expecting the music content of a standard music biopic will probably be disappointed - there is a fair amount, but some will feel that it's not enough. The wrestles with depression, the often torturous artistic process, his love life, and negotiating the expectations of those who profit from him are all movingly portrayed, and Jeremy Allen White's performance is nothing short of remarkable, ably backed up by a terrific supporting cast. Despite an occasionally too on the nose script, it's a largely subtle, affecting and powerful film that effectively executes its non-standard approach to the music biopic genre.

If a more workaday director than Steven Soderbergh was directing this sleek espionage thriller, it wouldn't attract a cast of the depth and quality this film has. That this superb cast is present, and that the film is so well written, elevates it above a regulation genre exercise. Michael Fassbender is the agent tasked with working out who out of a possible 5 people - including his wife - is behind the leaking of a vital and dangerous piece of computer code. This set-up bears more than a passing resemblance to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; and while it plays out differently to Le Carre's classic, it shares his sharp observations about relationships between people and between people and the country they are supposed to be serving. It also shares something of the chilly sophistication of the settings that Le Carre likes, and it's both a little funnier and a little more self-aware than the great author's. It's Soderbergh on fine form, and all the more enjoyable for it.