BFI London Film Festival’s Best Films
10 Must-See Films At The London Film Festival
London gets its turn on the festival circuit next week, bringing an opportunity to see some of the year’s best films months before the rest of the country. There are so many movies that it would be impossible to see them all – not to mention cripplingly expensive – but if you’ve time to pop along to 10 then these are the ones we’d suggest you head for.
Steve Jobs
The ‘proper’ film about the late Apple chief, following the disappointing one with Ashton Kutcher. Danny Boyle directs Michael Fassbender as Jobs in a film that looks at the rise of Apple, and to a degree the changing of the world, through the company’s biggest launches. Seth Rogen and Kate Winslet co-star. The script was written by Aaron Sorkin. It’s just pedigree all over the shop here.
Black Mass
It’s not quite the operatic gangster epic it wants to be, frequently bringing to mind work by Scorsese, Coppola and the like, but always falling short by comparison. Yet Scott Cooper’s take on the life of nefarious Boston gangster Whitey Bulger is worth seeing for two things: 1) The performance of Johnny Depp as Bulger, once again under heavy prosthetics but more real than he has been on screen in years; 2) Joel Edgerton as the FBI agent who surrenders to corruption in Bulger’s presence and, with a much quieter performance, steals the show.
Beasts Of No Nation
You’ll be able to see it on Netflix very shortly, but Cary Fukunaga’s (True Detective, season one) is worth seeking out on a big screen. It’s the tale of a boy in an unnamed African country, who loses his family to the violence spreading through his home region and is then himself taken in by a charismatic, possibly insane warlord (Idris Elba). Gorgeously shot and full of Fukunaga’s visual flourishes, but the reason to see it is for the depth and timelessness – and indeed placelessness (not a word, but let’s go with it) – of the story, and a truly extraordinary performance by Abraham Attah in the lead role.
Carol
Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven) does his best work when telling the stories of people stuck between the life they want to live and the life they think they’re supposed to live. Carol, set in the 1950s, concerns the relationship between Therese (Rooney Mara), a young department store worker, and Carol (Cate Blanchett), a middle-aged woman looking to escape a loveless marriage. The meeting sparks Carol’s journey of self-discovery and all the dangers that come with that.
Trumbo
The presence of Bryan Cranston is the big selling point here. The film has received solid, if not glowing reviews, but Cranston is always worth the admission price. Here he plays Dalton Trumbo, a screenwriter whose successful career was stopped dead in the 1940s when he was blacklisted for his communist beliefs during the investigations of the House Un-American Activities Committee. The film documents Trumbo’s fight back against his accusers.
Brooklyn
Saoirse Ronan makes the transition into adult roles without the slightest stumble. The Atonement actress plays a small-town Irish woman who, in the 1950s, is sent to New York in search of a more promising life. Her initial fear of the place subsides just as she is called back home for tragic reasons. But can you ever truly go home? Ronan is subtle and heart wrenching in a film beautifully written by Nick Hornby.
High-Rise
Potentially the most commercial film yet made by Ben Wheatley, director of A Field In England and the marvelous Sightseers. Tom Hiddleston, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, Elisabeth Moss and Jeremy Irons feature in a film about a luxury tower block that functions as its own society, cut off from the rest of the world. A young doctor (Hiddleston) comes to live in the block and notices a growing tension between the different classes of residents, which threatens to tip into violence.
Room
This started getting lots of award hype for Brie Larson when it premiered at the Telluride Film Festival. It follows the life of a young woman (Larson) and her energetic five-year-old son as the mother tries to give her child the most loving and exciting upbringing possible. What makes their situation distinctly unusual is that they are both trapped in a windowless room, where the mother has been kept for seven years since she was kidnapped, a truth she is trying to keep from her boy.
A Bigger Splash
Don’t come to A Bigger Splash expecting to like anyone. It’s a film about the appalling selfishness of the privileged, with a record producer and his daughter (Ralph Fiennes and Dakota Johnson) inviting themselves to spend the summer with a singer and her new boyfriend (Tilda Swinton and Matthias Schoenaerts) on a quiet island. They all wallow in their various trivial concerns while other inhabitants of the island struggle with actual real problems. Director Luca Guadagnino doesn’t need you to care about his characters but to be fascinated by them, which is easily done when they’re played by such a fine cast, particularly Ralph Fiennes enjoying himself immensely as the man with whom you’d least like to be stuck on holiday.
Hitchcock/Truffaut
The book Hitchcock/Truffaut has a place on the shelf of any serious film nerd. The book recounted a week-long series of conversations between two of cinemas directing titans. This documentary uses archive material to look at this meeting of minds, combining it with interviews with great modern directors – Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Wes Anderson – giving their take on the master of suspense.
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