-
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…
-
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
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…
-
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
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…
-
Blue Moon (2025) Review – Watching Success From the Sidelines
In one sentence: Set over the opening night of Oklahoma!, Blue Moon follows lyricist, Lorenz Hart, as he spends a lonely evening in a hotel bar reckoning with professional displacement and unrequited love. Most people are familiar with Rodgers & Hammerstein, the legendary composer–lyricist duo behind The Sound of Music, The King and I and…
-
Titanic (1997) Review – The Gold Standard of Epic Cinema
In one sentence: Titanic follows a forbidden love between Jack and Rose, two young passengers from opposite worlds aboard the ill-fated ship. With Titanic’s long-standing Oscar nomination record recently surpassed by Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, I felt compelled to revisit James Cameron’s epic, particularly in the run-up to Valentine’s Day. Few films feel as synonymous with…
-
Kangaroo (2026) Review – Finding Purpose in the Australian Outback
In one sentence: Kangaroo follows a disgraced TV weatherman and a grieving young girl whose shared care for an orphaned joey leads them both toward healing, purpose and an unexpected community. Kangaroos are synonymous with Australia, but how much do we really know about these springy animals and the place they hold in Australian culture?…
-
Die My Love (2025) Review – A Portrait of Postpartum Descent
In one sentence: Die My Love presents a new mother’s descent into postnatal depression and psychosis that is intensified by isolation, dislocation and the emotional fallout of motherhood. We are often told that becoming a mother is transformative in the best possible way, but cinema rarely explores what happens when that transformation is destructive rather…
-
Hamnet (2026) Review – A Raw Meditation on Grief
In one sentence: Based on Maggie O’Farrell’s best selling novel, Hamnet explores the impact of the death of Shakespeare’s young son and how this loss was transformed into art through grief, memory and loss. Often we watch films hoping to be surprised, but Hamnet is not interested in twists. Its power lies instead in emotional…
Rhiann’s Reels 