Cinemabangs pick of the films showing at Glasgow Film Festival 2019
Wednesday 20th February
In 1990s Los Angeles, life seems to be stacking the odds against
13-year-old Stevie (Sunny Suljic). His older brother Ian (Lucas Hedges)
regards him as a convenient punch bag, and his lonely mother Dabney
(Katherine Waterston) can’t provide the comfort he needs. What would it
take to become one of the cool kids? Perhaps hanging out with the
regulars at the Motor Avenue skate shop could be his passport to winning
friends and fitting in.
Mid90s Opens Glasgow Film Festival 2019
Thursday 21st February
Kristoffer Nyholm is a past master of stylish suspense
having directed TV series The Killing and Taboo. Now, he turns his
talent to the eerie true events known as the Flannan Isle mystery. Thomas (Peter
Mullan), James (Gerard Butler) and Donald (Connor
Swindells) are three lighthouse keepers who arrive on an
uninhabited island 20 miles off the Scottish coast. It is the start of a
six week shift that is anything but routine as they make a discovery that
provokes greed, fear, paranoia and a vicious fight for survival. What lies at
the heart of the mystery could be the root of all evil...
The west is wild and unforgiving in Jacques Audiard’s subtle, immensely engaging adaptation of the Patrick de Witt novel. Eli Sisters (John C Reilly) and his brother Charlie (Joaquin Phoenix) have earned a reputation as ruthless killers. In the early 1850s, they ride to San Francisco on a mission to kill chemist Hermann Kermit Warm (Riz Ahmed). Private detective John Morris (Jake Gyllenhaal) rides ahead of them to track the man down. The hunt for their prey has a profound impact on both men as they reflect on their lives and confront a time in which violence is unavoidable.
Critic, filmmaker and festival director Kent Jones makes an impressive move into fictional storytelling with Diane. Haunting, delicately handled and beautifully acted by Mary Kay Place, it finds a whole world in the modest life of one seemingly unremarkable woman. A widow who lives alone in rural Massachusetts, Diane fills her days seeing friends, helping in the community, visiting her extended family and refusing to give up on a son in the grip of drug addiction. It is a film that quietly beguiles as it tenderly captures all the little joys and sorrows of daily existence.
Friday 22nd February
Oscar nominated Border
brings together elements of folklore, fairytale, police procedural and
tragic romance in a thrillingly imaginative piece of storytelling. Tina (Eva Melander) seems
more animal than human and has spent her entire life accepting that she
is different. She can smell evil and her heightened senses make her
perfectly suited to her job as a customs officer. Then everything
changes when she stops traveller Vore (Eero Milonoff); not only do they look strangely similar, they have more in common than Tina could ever have imagined...
Christian Petzold’s adaptation of the Anna Seghers novel is both historical and strikingly contemporary. The
setting may be the Marseilles of the Vichy era but by eschewing period detail Petzold underlines the timeless
nature of a story about the plight of refugees. Georg (Franz Rogowski) has fled Paris for Marseilles, with the
papers of a writer who has committed suicide. In order to leave France he must assume the dead man’s identity.
As he waits for his ship to Mexico, he encounters other refugees and a woman desperately hoping for news of
her husband.
Saturday 23rd February
Ben (Lucas Hedges from Mid90s) is back from rehab. It is Christmas Eve when the prodigal son makes his surprise return. His mother Holly (Julia Roberts)
could not be happier or more anxious. Other family members are wary.
Will things just return to normal for the holiday season? Can Ben be
trusted again when he has disappointed so often in the past? Over the
next twenty-four hours, ties are tested to the limit in an intelligent,
urgent and beautifully acted family drama from Peter Hedges, exploring the grip of addiction and the pain it inflicts on those who are near and dear.
In 2008, Mumbai was struck by four days of terrorist attacks that left
164 people dead and hundreds more injured. The opulent Taj Mahal Palace
Hotel became a specific target for the Lashkar-e-Taiba militants. Anthony Maras (working with Scottish screenwriter John Collee)
has created a gripping, vividly engaging dramatisation of a siege that
was marked by selfless acts of heroism and the coming together of
individuals previously divided by class, creed and culture. Dev Patel leads a starry ensemble cast as Sikh concierge and devoted family man Arjun.
Sunday 24th February
Writer-director-actor Jim Cummings expands his
award-winning short into a darkly comic exploration of a cop on the
verge of a nervous breakdown. Struggling to control a flood of raw
emotions, Jim Arnaud (Cummings) prepares to speak the eulogy at his
mother’s funeral and follow it with her favourite Springsteen song.
Nothing goes according to plan at an event that lays bare his grief,
anger and despair. What follows ricochets between heartbreak and
hilarity, finding its humanity in committed performances from Cummings
and Kendal Farr as his daughter Crystal.
Monday 25th February
A determined and confident doctor, Rike (played with utter conviction by Susanne Wolff)
attempts to escape the pace of her everyday life with a well-deserved
solo sailing trip to the volcanic island of Ascension. However,
her plans are scuppered when she discovers a sinking fishing boat, with
hundreds fighting for their life. Recalling All Is Lost with a
political edge, this is a razor-sharp thriller that sustains immense
tension right through to the final reel. A punchy and thought-provoking
thrill-ride for the 21st century.
Steeped in the worlds of Hitchcock, David Lynch and Raymond Chandler, David Robert Mitchell’s Under the Silver Lake is a quirky trip through the city of dreams. Andrew Garfield’s Sam is a horny, 30-something LA slacker distracted by his beautiful neighbour Sarah (Riley Keough).
Just when they are getting to know each other, she disappears. Trying
to figure out what happened pushes Sam through the looking glass and
into a murky, labyrinthine mystery that unfolds in mysterious symbols
and secret codes, as the threat of a dark conspiracy grows.
Tuesday 26th February
How does a nation recover from the wounds of war? How do individuals rebuild shattered lives? In James Kent’s elegant and intriguing adaptation of the Rhidian Brook novel, Rachael (Keira Knightley) heads to Hamburg for a reunion with her husband Lewis (Jason Clarke),
a colonel in the British Army stationed there after WWII. The
occupation allows Allied families the pick of German properties but
Lewis agrees to share theirs with the original owner, widower Stefan (Alexander Skarsgård) and his daughter. Taught to hate her enemy, Rachael finds herself drawn to the handsome Stefan.
Wednesday 27th February
Carol Morley’s intriguing adaptation of the Martin Amis novel Night Train follows veteran New Orleans
homicide detective Mike Hoolihan (Patricia Clarkson) as
she investigates the grisly death of an astrophysicist. The case is
complex, the clues don’t quite fit together and the victim’s family may
not be entirely trustworthy.
Key items seem to have a personal connection for Hoolihan. Struggling to
unravel what happened dredges up
memories of her past. Is she too busy looking around for simple answers
to realise that some of the mystery lies
within her?
Stranded in a bleak, unforgiving frozen wilderness would you have what it takes to survive? Joe Penna’s
intense, slow-burning adventure yarn tells of endurance against
impossible odds and is all the more chilling for virtually dispensing
with dialogue. Mads Mikkelsen plays Overgard, the sole
survivor of a plane crash who has refused to surrender to despair. He
has food, shelter and a dwindling supply of hope, until he is joined by
the survivor of a helicopter crash. If they are to stand any chance,
Overgard must take charge and complete a gruelling trek across a vast
landscape of snow and ice.
Thursday 28th February
Eighth Grade is everything you would hope for from stand-up comic and YouTube sensation Bo Burnham. Scalpel-sharp in its observations and painfully funny, it follows 13-year-old Kayla (Elsie Fisher)
as she embarks on her incredible journey towards high school. Crippled
by self-loathing and insecurity, she creates YouTube advice vlogs that
present a calmly confident persona to the world. The reality is a sullen
resentment of her single dad, fragile friendships and a so-called life
that only seems to exist on social media. Welcome to the nightmare world
of the modern teenager.
The bloodiest of violence and the heaviest of Black Metal make for an
incendiary mix in this shocking portrait of the underground Norwegian
music scene in the late 1980s. The Satanic hard rock genre reached the
height of its expression when the band Mayhem took the
bleak movement to extremes of arson and murder to prove themselves its
most authentic adherents. Filtering the explosive psychology of
adolescent angst through horror movie aesthetics, this incredible true
story is an unrelenting trip through the minefields of clique and
celebrity at any danger or cost.
Jesse Eisenberg and Alexander Skarsgård star as two scheming cousins in director Kim Nguyen’s
latest feature. Frantic dreamer Vincent (Eisenberg) convinces his
computer-savvy cousin Anton (Skarsgård) to conspire in a bid to make
millions from the stock market. The plan is simple: build a tunnel
between Kansas and New Jersey to house a fibre optic cable that will
allow them to gain a millisecond edge on transactions at the New York
Stock Exchange. However, despite his grand plans, Vincent doesn’t take
into account how his actions will affect not only himself, but all those
involve.
Friday 1st March
Director Mélanie Laurent turns her talent to film noir with Galveston, a gritty, uncompromising adaptation of the novel by True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto. Ben Foster stars as Roy, a hot-tempered New Orleans ex-con turned gun for hire employed by crime boss “Big Country” (Beau Bridges).
Roy barely escapes with his life from a job that may well be a set-up,
but the last vestiges of gallantry in his weary bones oblige him to free
a captive woman (Elle Fanning). The two of them run for cover, embarking on a rocky road that holds the vain hope of redemption.
Described by Variety as ‘Get Out without the horror... but with a lot more alcohol’, Sebastián Silva’s jet black comedy is a razor-sharp analysis of racial divides in America. When Tyler (Jason Mitchell) agrees to join Johnny’s (Christopher Abbott)
group of bros in a countryside retreat, he’s not the least bit
surprised that he’s the only black man there. As alcohol consumption
rises and inhibitions dissipate, Tyler becomes gradually more uneasy as
the divides between the cultures become ever more apparent.
An Oscar-nominated Willem Dafoe gives an outstanding performance as Vincent Van Gogh in Julian Schnabel’s
bold, visceral portrait of the artist. Named after a Van Gogh painting,
also known as Sorrowing Old Man, the film focuses on the painter’s
productive final years in Arles. Capturing Van Gogh’s visionary approach
to painting stroke by stroke, it also immerses us in an inner world of
torment and anguish. The result is a dazzling, freewheeling biopic
sculpted in colour and light that is graced by an all star cast that
includes Mathieu Amalric, Mads Mikkelsen and Emmanuelle Seigner.
Sunday 2nd March
An electric and powerful sophomore feature from Brady Corbet (Childhood of a Leader)
merges tragedy and satire through the incredible life story of a pop
superstar. The film charts the life of Celeste (a
career-defining performance from Natalie Portman), who
survives a school shooting at the age of 13 to find early success as a
teen popstar, becoming an emblem of national healing. Building plans for
a comeback aged 31, tragedy threatens her life once again. Featuring an
original score from Scott Walker and brand new songs from Sia, Vox Lux is a provocative and essential take on 21st century trauma.
Tickets for Glasgow Film Festival 2019 are on sale now from Glasgow Film Theatre Box office or at glasgowfilm.org