Tag: adaptation

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Features Live Action Movies

The Wizard of the Kremlin
(Le Mage du Kremlin)

Director – Olivier Assayas – 2025 – France – Cert. 15 – 137m

*****

Starting in 1990s Russia, an avant-garde theatre director morphs into first a TV producer then the mastermind behind the rise and rule of Vladimir Putin – out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 17th

2019. Roland (Jeffrey Wright) writing a book on a prominent Russian novelist and on a research trip to Moscow when he receives a message from someone who has materials that will interest him. So he accepts the invitation and is driven to a private house on the woodlands outskirts of that city where he is shown first editions and documentation pertaining to the writer.

All this, however, is a pretext to the main event. His host, Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano), starts to tell Roland his life story from his student days onwards. Which sets the scene for what is to follow: a portrait of a close-up portrait of a shadowy figure who was to become Vladimir Putin’s arch-manipulator and right-hand man.

Dismissive of Gorbachov, he takes us back to the early 1990s when the Soviet Union was collapsing and Boris Yeltsin was in the presidential ascendant. A time of gunfire and violence, when men of increasing wealth and power could be killed at any time, a fact illustrated by an SUV exploding mid-convoy along a Muscovite spaghetti junction.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

The Stranger
(L’Étranger)
(2025)

Director – François Ozon – 2025 – France – Cert. 15 – 120m

*****

A Frenchman living in French Algiers with an attitude of detachment is arrested following a violent incident with an Arab – adaptation of Albert Camus’ existentialist novella is in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, April 10th

Albert Camus’ 1942 novella is a character study of a non-conformist to the widely held ideals of the day. Ozon’s film adaptation roughly follows its template, making some subtle changes which alter its overall stance and meaning. 

The following synopsis contains spoilers, but, to be honest, given that this is an adaption of a significant work of French literature, and that you’ll get just as much if not more out of it if you read the book beforehand, I’m not convinced that knowing the plot in advance is a bad thing.

The novella has a two-part structure. First, it follows the life of its main, French Algiers-based protagonist Meursault from his receiving news of his mother’s death and taking time off work to attend her funeral, through his embarking on a relationship with the besotted Maria, to his involvement with his friend the local pimp Raymond Sintès and Meursault’s fatal shooting of an Arab, who has been following Raymond with murderous intent after Raymond mistreated his sister.… Read the rest

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Animation Features Movies

All You Need is Kill
(Oru Yu Nido izu Kiru)

Directors – Kenichiro Akimoto, Yukinori Yakamura – 2025 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 86m

***1/2

A woman trapped in a repeating time loop dies fighting alien plant monsters, joins forces with a man in a similar time loop – animated science fiction tale is out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 27th

This began as a science fiction novel first published in Japan in 2004. Ten years later, as is the way of things in Japan, it appeared as a manga. It also formed the basis of the Tom Cruise / Emily Blunt vehicle Edge of Tomorrow (Doug Liman, 2014). The novel is about a cowardly military man killed in a skirmish with unexpected invading aliens who wakes up and realises he’s reliving that first day of the alien invasion. He gets killed over and over again, and wakes up and relives the same day over and over again. Similarly trapped in a time loop is a brave military woman fighting the aliens. It’s a military hardware alien action movie using the looped repeating day structure of Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993).

While I recommend the 2014 movie, and have no issue mentioning it in terms of contextualising the new film, I also recommend you put it firmly to one side and don’t try and base whatever expectations you might have about the new film on it.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

The Ice Tower
(La Tour de Glace)

Director – Lucile Hadzihalilovic – 2025 – France, Germany, Italy – Cert. 15 – 117m

*****

Midwinter. A homeless girl stumbles onto a film set where a notoriously difficult actress is shooting an adaptation of The Snow Queen – screens exclusively on BFI Player from Monday, January 12th

Opening with microscopic images of of snowflakes and more abstract visuals of refracted light, this swiftly delivers a female voiceover (by Aurélia Petit from Saint Omer, Alice Diop, 2022; By the Grace of God, François Ozon, 2018; Happy End, Michael Haneke, 2017; Personal Shopper, Olivier Assayas, 2016; The Science of Sleep, Michel Gondry, 2006) in French with English subtitles for those of us in the UK, in which the word ‘neige’ (snow) is seemingly, endlessly repeated. Then images of a girl wandering snow covered mountainsides gives way to night time small town streets before Jeanne (newcomer Clara Pacini) is told off for arriving late at the supper table. “I was afraid you’d gone”, says one of the younger girls (Cassandre Louis Urbain).

At night, Jeanne surreptitiously reads a postcard from a friend picturing Alpenaille skating rink addressed to her at the Bon Secours (Good Rescue) Foster Home.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Oh, Canada

Director – Paul Schrader – 2024 – US – Cert. 15 – 94m

From the novel by Russell Banks

***

A documentary filmmaker dying of cancer consents to a filmed interview about his life and work to air his dirty laundry – on UK and Ireland digital platforms on Monday, January 12th

“Remind me why I agreed to do this,” says the ageing Leonard Fife, aka Leo (Richard Gere, from Schrader’s earlier American Gigolo, 1980) setting up for a filmed interview, about his life and work as a documentary filmmaker, at which he has insisted his wife Emma (Uma Thurman), a former student of his, be present. His interviewer Malcolm (Michael Imperioli from Song Sung Blue, Craig Brewer, 2025; The White Lotus, TV series, Mike White, 2021; The Sopranos, TV series, 1999–2007) is another former student, as is Malcolm’s producer Diana (Victoria Hill from First Reformed, 2017; Master Gardener, 2022, both Paul Schrader), another former student conquest of Leo’s; Malcolm’s production assistant is 24-year old Sloan (Penelope Mitchell from Sting, Kiah Roache-Turner, 2024; Hellboy, Neil Marshall, 2019; The Vampire Diaries, TV series, 2014-15; Hemlock Grove, TV series, 2013).

What lies behind Leonard’s acceptance of the gig swiftly becomes clear when he hijacks the first question, framing it with a date in 1968 of great significance in his personal life.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Hamnet

Director – Chloé Zhao – 2025 – UK, US – Cert. 12a – 125m

*****

An imagining of the story of William Shakespeare’s son Hamnet, whose name gave rise to the play Hamlet – Maggie O’Farrell’s adaptation of her own novel is out in UK cinemas on Friday, January 9th

According to the opening title card, the names Hamlet and Hamnet were regarded as interchangeable in Elizabethan England. This is curious, since the piece’s female lead (Jessie Buckley from Women Talking, Sarah Polley, 2022; Men, Alex Garland, 2022; Misbehaviour, Philippa Lowthorpe, 2020) appears to be variously addressed as Alice, Agnes or Anyes while the male lead (Paul Mescal from Gladiator II, Ridley Scott, 2024; All of Us Strangers, Andrew Haigh, 2023; Aftersun, Charlotte Wells, 2022) is not referred to by name as William Shakespeare until well towards the end. Since this is being promoted as the story of William Shakespeare’s son Hamnet, whose name gave rise to the play Hamlet – as you can see from the trailer below – audiences will enter the film knowing who the Paul Mescal character is as soon as he appears unnamed.

The outdoors, looking up through the trees of a forest.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Hamnet

Directed by Chloé Zhao
Certificate 12A
125 minutes
Released 9 January

Shakespeare’s romantic relationship, family life and the tragedy of bereavement resulted in his writing one of his bestknown plays, Hamlet. In Elizabethan England, we are told at the start of Hamnet, the two names were interchangeable. Adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, this film is well-served by the landscape-friendly sensibilities of the director Chloé Zhao (Nomadland). [Read the rest at Reform magazine…]

[Read my longer review on this site…]

Hamnet is out in cinemas in the UK on Friday, January 9th.

Trailer:

Categories
Features Live Action Movies

Steve

Director – Tim Mielants – 2025 – UK – Cert. 15 – 93m

****1/2

In 1996, the head, his staff and their students struggle to get through a particularly difficult day at a school for troubled teenage boys – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 19th, and worldwide on Netflix on Friday, October 3rd

Steve (a burned out, visually unrecognisable Cillian Murphy, also the producer) is asked if he’s ready to do an interview to camera. He isn’t, but now is as good a time as any. He drives into work across a vast estate and spots teenager Shy (Jay Lycurgo) dancing to drum and bass music on his Walkman cassette player and smoking a spliff. Steve disciplines his pupil in a friendly manner, then returns to his car after being reminded that today is the day a TV film crew is coming to the school to film a segment for the local TV news magazine programme. Shy attempts, playfully, to ride on the bonnet of Steve’s car. Steve, talks him out of it.

Most of what follows, which covers the next 24 hours, takes place within the school buildings themselves, although the action occasionally wanders (or flies drone-shot style) out into and around the wider grounds of the school estate.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

One Battle After Another

Director – Paul Thomas Anderson – 2025 – US – Cert. 12A – 161m

*****

Over a decade after they disappeared into a safe town with new identities, a father and now-teenage daughter are tracked down by their army officer nemesis… – one of the most extraordinary Warner Bros. action movies you’ve ever seen is out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 26th

Radical, black revolutionary Perfidia Beverley Hills (Teyana Taylor) is on the verge of leading the forces of underground far-left organisation the French 75 in an attack on a Californian immigration centre to free those imprisoned when a bedraggled man pulling a trailer, looking to all intents and purposes like a refugee, turns up. Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) tells Perfidia he has all the explosives she could possibly need, and sets about using them with her blessing, putting on an impressive show of pyrotechnics to prove his credentials. Inside the centre, Perfidia locates its commanding officer Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn) to sexually humiliate him at gunpoint. Surprisingly, this personal violation only serves to turn the white soldier on.

With Pat and the pregnant Perfidia now a couple, she carries on her high octane, physically demanding revolutionary activities, belly fully swollen, as if there were no child.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

The Piano Teacher
(La Pianiste)

Director – Michael Haneke – 2001 – Austria, France – Cert. 18 – 131m

*****

A masochistic piano teacher with an abusive mother embarks on an affair with a young male student – the opening film of Complicit: A Michael Haneke Retrospective, in UK cinemas from Friday, June 6th and on BFI Player from Thursday, September 11th 2025

Warning: NSFW.

This is at once representative of Haneke’s wider body of work and very different from it.

Representative because he is one of those directors whose personal use of cinematic vocabulary has been so honed over his years of making movies that he is able to clearly and precisely articulate problematic, controversial and taboo ideas and subject matter that few directors would be able to handle without descending into exploitation or commercialism. He is a director steeped in cinema, fascinated by how the process of making a movie constructs the narrative or other viewing and listening experience, and how that is perceived and understood by audiences.

Different because although Haneke generally writes as well and directs his own films, they are mostly original pieces whereas this one is an adaptation of a book, The Piano Teacher / Die Klavierspielerin by Elfriede Jelinek.… Read the rest