Andrea Riseborough

News, Reviews & Features

Review: Mandy is a hypnotic nightmare of blood, drugs and damnation

Movie Review | Matt Looker | 10th October 2018

Another year, another London Film Festival, another annual peruse of the festival programme choosing films that sound fascinating in theory without really knowing what to expect in practice. Take Mandy, for example, which the programme describes as â€œa film so singular, perverse and beguiling, itâ€™s almost impossible to defineâ€. Ok... maybe try though? â€œThink of the most exquisitely nightmarish LSD trip imaginable, then multiply it by tenâ€. Hmm, I have no idea how to do that, but it sounds interesting. Ok fine, Iâ€™ll see it. â€œDonâ€™t just see Mandy, experience itâ€. WHAT IS THIS IS IT EVEN A FILM.

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The Death Of Stalin

Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 23rd October 2017

By now the central premise of Armando Iannucci's recent satirical output is clear enough, or has maybe just about been done to death: in politics, everyone's a chancer, making it up on the fly and looking out for number one. In The Death of Stalin there's an extra layer of irony, too: under Communism, there isn't supposed to be a number one to look out for. It's kind of the point.

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Birdman

Movie Review | Matt Looker | 2nd January 2015

If I were a pretentious Film Studies student, I would discuss Birdman's importance at great length to anybody within earshot. I would write an entire thesis about the many ways in which it deconstructs the cinematic form and then I would go to parties and bore people with smug declarations like "Birdman is the best superhero movie ever made", proudly enjoying my own unique, daring perspective on the genre. Sadly, I am not a pretentious Film Studies student. I am, however, a pretentious film reviewer, so I still get to do all of those things and I don't even have to worry about getting graded afterwards. [B- for that intro - Ed]

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Oblivion

Movie Review | Ali | 10th April 2013

Joseph Kosinski made his directorial debut with Tron: Legacy, a movie that boasted the sleek lines of an Apple product with about as much narrative thrust as the iTunes terms and conditions. With Oblivion, his second movie as director and his first as screenwriter, Kosinski keeps the slick, glossy sheen of his sophomore effort (trading black for white) but bolts it onto an involving, expansive sci-fi that asks more of you than simply to ogle its gorgeous curves. Though it shares similarities with many iconic works of science-fiction, including The Matrix, 2001 and one recent movie that would act as a spoiler if I named it, Oblivion nonetheless makes a bold attempt to be remembered on its own terms thanks to a dazzling arrangement of future tech and some truly satisfying plot twists.

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Welcome To The Punch

Movie Review | Matt | 11th March 2013

At the press screening that I attended for this film, writer-director Eran Creevy gave a short introduction in which he outlined his main objective: to create a stylish US action thriller, but set in London. The kind of film that we just donâ€™t see made on our home turf â€“ glossy and sleek instead of gloomy and bleak. But is that a valid goal? To swap out stark realism in favour of polished spectacle? The answer of course is: "Shut up already and give me all of your cinema tickets".

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Shadow Dancer

Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 22nd August 2012

Unlike its namesake, a game for the Megadrive in which a ninja and his dog beat up a lot of other ninjas, James Marsh's Shadow Dancer is about the Troubles. This puts me in the awkward position of having little background knowledge of the Troubles to contribute, largely because I spent too much of my youth not doing my history homework so I could play Shadow Dancer on the Megadrive. You can see the bind I'm in.

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Never Let Me Go

Movie Review | Anna | 12th February 2011

It's difficult to know where you stand with Never Let Me Go. It's dystopian sci-fi, yet it's set in the recent past, not the future. There's a timeless quality to the film: it could just as easily be the 1960s as the '80s or '90s - how many sci-fi films are there where the protagonists look like they've tumbled out of a 2-for-1 jumper sale at Oxfam? - but at the same time, it taps into something very contemporary. It contains by no means a far-fetched concept; the technology and knowledge exist to make what happens in this movie a reality. At some point the ethical barrier holding us back will crumble, and then what?

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Brighton Rock

Movie Review | Anna | 2nd February 2011

There has to be a very good reason for taking on an adaptation of a beloved book or remaking a classic film - the Coen Brothers doing True Grit makes perfect sense - but I can't fathom the reason for Rowan Joffe reviving Brighton Rock. By any measure it's going to come off badly when compared to Graham Greene's novel or John Boulting's 1947 film. But let's shelve the comparisons for a couple of paragraphs.

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Made In Dagenham

Movie Review | Oli | 25th October 2010

Call it 'faction', call it 'docudrama'... call it what you will, but cinema is currently full of dramatic recreations of meaningful moments of history (and it'll only become fuller in the run up to the Oscars). Director Nigel Cole is on home turf in this forum, after finding prominence helming Calendar Girls in 2003; like riding a bike, he shows the skills employed to direct in this genre cannot be forgotten.

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