Amy Madigan - Jeremy C. Processing

Director – Max Walker-Silverman – 2025 – US – Cert. PG – 96m

****

A divorced man whose home has been destroyed by a forest fire begins to reconnect with his pre-teenage daughter – out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 17th

This opens with an image of red hot embers rising and falling a black night sky. A couple of brief, opening, expository shots is all we are shown of the tragedy, but it’s enough: much of the remainder of the narrative takes place against a backdrop of leafless, tall, burned trees, an area of likely great former beauty now reduced to desolation. This is not the cinema of big budget disaster scenarios with no-holds barred pyrotechnic effects: it’s something altogether much lower key and quieter, an exploration of the effect of natural disasters on the lives of those people who survive them.

The fire has destroyed the 20 acres of property on the edge of the forest where Dusty (Josh O’Connor from The History of Sound, Oliver Hermanus, 2025; Mothering Sunday, Eva Husson, 2017; God’s Own Country, Francis Lee, 2017) lives, an area of outstanding natural beauty. He sells off his surviving livestock at an auction, then calls in on his ex-wife Ruby (Meghann Fahy from The White Lotus, TV series, 2022) who lives in the nearby town with their pre-teen daughter Callie-Rose (Lily LaTorre) and his mother-in-law Bess (Amy Madigan from Weapons, Zach Cregger, 2025; Pollock, Ed Harris, 2000; Field of Dreams, Phil Alden Robinson, 1989).… Read the rest

Weapons

Director – Zach Cregger – 2025 – US – Cert. 18 – 128m

****

One night, all but one of the children in one class in the town school disappear into the dark, leaving the townsfolk baffled as to what happened to them… – Fortean-sounding mystery is out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 8th

One night at 2.17am, the 17 other kids in Alex’s class got up out of their beds, went downstairs, opened their front doors, and ran out into the night. As a child relates the incident, we observe it in flashback. The kids run with arms half outstretched at an angle, as if playing at being aeroplanes in the school playground. If you’ve seen the film’s poster, this strange angle of the arms is also apparent. As it also is in the film’s trailer, which starts with this flashback. But what is in the mind of these kids? Where are they going? To what purpose?

For that matter, why the title Weapons? I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that you’ll know the answer once you’ve seen the film.

Thus begins one of the most intriguing cinematic mysteries of recent years. To unpack his prologue, writer-director Cregger opts for an astute, six-part, character-based structure.… Read the rest