Author: Rhiann’s Reels

  • F1 (2025) Review – Fast Cars, Familiar Course

    F1 (2025) Review – Fast Cars, Familiar Course

    In one sentence: F1 follows an ageing racing driver who is lured back onto the Formula One circuit to help rescue a struggling team, forcing him to confront his past, his limitations and a fiercely competitive young teammate. Summer blockbusters are not typically the Academy’s favourites, but perhaps the tides are beginning to turn. With…

  • Adore (2013) Review – Tides of Desire

    Adore (2013) Review – Tides of Desire

    In one sentence: Adore follows two lifelong friends who find their bond tested when each begins a secret affair with the other’s son, setting in motion a tangled web of love, loyalty and taboo desire. Cinema frequently explores forbidden love, but rarely with the ambiguous morality and emotional nuance found in Adore. The film challenges…

  • Sinners (2025) Review – Monsters, Men and Moral Reckoning

    Sinners (2025) Review – Monsters, Men and Moral Reckoning

    In one sentence: Sinners follows twin brothers who return to 1930s Mississippi to open a blues bar, only to find themselves trapped overnight when a group of vampires seek entry, turning a place of refuge into a desperate fight for survival. It is not often that a horror film performs strongly at the Oscars, let…

  • Together (2025) Review – When ‘We’ Replaces ‘Me’

    Together (2025) Review – When ‘We’ Replaces ‘Me’

    In one sentence: Together tells the story of a long term couple who, after a supernatural encounter, are unable to stay physically apart and are forced to confront the unsettling reality of their co-dependent relationship. Have you perhaps ever felt too co-dependent in a relationship? As though you cannot exist without the other person, want…

  • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) Review – A Musical That Rains Emotion

    The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) Review – A Musical That Rains Emotion

    In one sentence: A pair of young lovers are separated by war and circumstance, discovering that first love does not always survive the realities of adulthood. Few films suit a grey, rain-soaked day quite like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. With its constant drizzle, luminous colours and one of cinema’s most beautiful soundtracks, this 1960s classic…

  • Sentimental Value (2026) Review – A Quiet Study of Love, Loss and Legacy

    Sentimental Value (2026) Review – A Quiet Study of Love, Loss and Legacy

    In one sentence: Sentimental Value follows a troubled theatre actress forced to confront her past when her estranged filmmaker father returns home with a deeply personal script that reopens old wounds. Joachim Trier joins forces with Renate Reinsve once again after The Worst Person in the World in another gentle but powerful film about relationship…

  • Wuthering Heights (2026) Review – Style, Shock and Stormy Passion

    Wuthering Heights (2026) Review – Style, Shock and Stormy Passion

    In one sentence: In Emerald Fennell’s bold reimagining of Wuthering Heights, the fierce bond between Cathy and the brooding Heathcliff is tested by ambition, betrayal and the pull of social status on the Yorkshire moors. Emerald Fennell offers her own provocative take on Emily Brontë’s gothic classic, delivering a version that is visually bold, narratively…

  • Master Cheng (2019) Review – A Slow Burn Served with Heart

    Master Cheng (2019) Review – A Slow Burn Served with Heart

    In one sentence: When a widowed Chinese chef and his young son arrive in a quiet Finnish town searching for a mysterious contact, an unexpected kitchen partnership sparks healing, friendship and a gently unfolding love story. Not every film needs high stakes or dramatic twists to leave an impact. Master Cheng proves that a story…

  • Ella McCay (2025) Review – A Film That Tries to Be Everything

    Ella McCay (2025) Review – A Film That Tries to Be Everything

    In one sentence: Thrust into leadership by circumstance, Ella McCay struggles to balance public responsibility with private chaos as everything threatens to collapse at once. Some films try to balance ambition, emotion and quirk in equal measure, but Ella McCay struggles under the weight of its own intentions. What aims to be a warm, character…

  • Bugonia (2025) Review – Paranoia Has a Sting

    Bugonia (2025) Review – Paranoia Has a Sting

    In one sentence: Bugonia follows two conspiracy-obsessed cousins who kidnap a powerful tech CEO, convinced she is an alien intent on wiping out humanity. In an effort to watch all of this year’s Oscar-nominated films, I found myself reluctantly sitting down to a Yorgos Lanthimos movie. I have struggled with his work in the past,…