Tag: tablet

Bitter Christmas
(Amarga Navidad)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date August 24 2026
No Comments on Bitter Christmas
(Amarga Navidad)

Bitter Christmas (Amarga Navidad)

Director – Pedro Almodóvar – 2025 – Spain – Cert. 15 – 111m

***1/2

A woman learning to deal with panic attacks is actually a character playing out a screenplay as it is being written by a writer director coming out of an arid creative period – out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, August 28th

This loosely falls into the category of the story of the film being written by a person outside that story, with a parallel narrative dealing with the person outside the story writing that story.

Almodovar uses this schema to talk about the writer-director whose creativity has dried up. And the medical phenomenon of panic attacks.

Elsa (Bárbara Lennie) has a migraine she can’t shift. Painkillers and rest – in the words which appear at the bottom of the screen of Elsa’s narrative as Raúl (Leonardo Sbaraglia) types them on his laptop – only make it worse. Her partner Beau (Patrick Criado) stays at home that evening to be there for her instead of going to the club as he normally would on a Friday. But then she feels worse, so he drives her to hospital, where she’s given an injection and a sedative, stays in overnight, and the next day feels well enough to go home.… Read the rest

Features Live Action Movies

Rebuilding

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

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Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Disconnect Me

Director – Alex Lykos – 2023 – Australia – Cert. 12 – 87m

***1/2

A man attempts to live for 30 days without the use of his smartphone, tablet or computer – out on digital from Monday, April 1st

This documentary opens with an advisory to keep your phone handy during the screening, as you may be required to use it at some point. In the UK, it’s only available on digital platforms… but even so, that advisory marks it out as different from most films.

Lykos, who narrates his documentary, is old enough to have grown up without a smartphone or other digital devices, but kids today handle smartphones from a younger and younger age. What would happen, wonders Alex, if I disconnected myself for an entire month? His and his wife’s home contains their two smartphones, two tablets, and a TV. Learning that Alex wakes and checks his smartphone three or four times a night, Alex’s doctor wires him for a sleep test.

Like many of us, Alex finds himself spending an hour on social media and wondering, what just happened? He and others admit to feelings of envy when others post about good things in their lives. A near-tearful divorcee talks about it being hard seeing people having a good time with partner or family.… Read the rest

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