Carey Mulligan – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND – Review by Sarah Ward

January 21, 2026January 22, 2026 Sarah Ward Ballad of Wallis Island, Carey Mulligan, James Griffiths, Tim Key, Tom Basden

Tim Key, Tom Basden and James Griffiths return to a story that they initially brought to screens 18 years earlier with their BAFTA-nominated 2007 short The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island. The leap to feature length, The Ballad of Wallis Island boasts a pivotal addition: Carey Mulligan. This time, Mulligan plays Nell Mortimer to Basden’s Herb McGwyer. When the latter recorded a solo album, he was on his lonesome stuck both professionally and personally. Nell swapped the melodic life for selling homemade chutney in Portland, Oregon, and traded romance with her bandmate for marriage to Michael (Akemnji Ndifornyen. Herb went pop and turned brooding. They both journey to the movie’s remote locale for the money, Nell’s American husband in tow, with Key’s wealthy and eccentric Charles Heath footing the bill.

Reviews

SPACEMAN – Review by Susan Granger

March 6, 2024March 6, 2024 Susan Granger adam sandler, Carey Mulligan, isabella rossellini, netflix, paul dano, Spaceman

Adapted by Colby Day from Jaroslav Kalfar’s 2017 novel Spaceman of Bohemia, Spaceman is unevenly directed by Sweden’s Johan Renck, who never quite decides whether this is a melancholy marital relationship drama, an existential meditation on loneliness, or cosmic conjecture about the ability of a human to remaining sane while in claustrophobic solitude. Spaceman is ambiguous and inconsequential.

Reviews

SALTBURN – Review by Susan Granger

February 1, 2024February 7, 2024 Susan Granger Archie Madekwe, Barry Keoghan, Carey Mulligan, emerald fennell, Jacob Elordi, Linus Sandgren, Paul Rhys, Richard E. Grant, Rosamund Pike, saltburn

After Promising Young Woman (2022), Emerald Fennell’s auspicious writing/directing debut, her audacious second feature Saltburn is a disappointment. Set in 2006, it’s a twisted, kinky, social-climbing satire revolving around Oliver Quick (Irish actor Barry Keoghan), a guileless ‘scholarship’ Oxford undergrad who cleverly befriends handsome Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi), an aristocratic yet surprisingly compassionate classmate. According to Oliver’s tragic backstory, his parents suffered addiction/mental health problems before his father’s recent death – which is why it’s so important to him to wangle an invitation to spend the summer at Catton’s family’s Baroque country estate called Saltburn.

News

WEEK IN WOMEN: Dee Rees’ MUDBOUND gets Criterion Blu-ray/DVD release – Brandy McDonnell reports

January 25, 2024January 26, 2024 Brandy McDonnell Carey Mulligan, criterion collection, dee rees, garrett hedlund, Jason Clarke, Jason Mitchell, Jonathan Banks, Mary J. Blige, mudbound, rachel morrison, rob morgan

Writer-director Dee Rees‘ groundbreaking 2017 Oscar-nominated drama Mudbound is getting a new Blu-ray and DVD release through The Criterion Collection. Although it didn’t win any Oscars, Mudbound achieved multiple breakthrough nominations for the 90th Academy Awards.

Reviews

SALTBURN – Review by Nadine Whitney

November 27, 2023November 27, 2023 Nadine Whitney Archie Madekwe, Barry Keoghan, Carey Mulligan, emerald fennell, Jacob Elordi, Linus Sandgren, Paul Rhys, Richard E. Grant, Rosamund Pike, saltburn

Emerald Fennell’s baroque psychosexual thriller wants you to have fun. There are lines that are spun with a golden malice. She has no pity for the upper crust and delights in displaying how insular they are and how easily they wield their wealth and titles. Their peccadillos are supposed to be transgressive, but in effect they are just the result of bored rich people needing their fix from extending a form of noblesse oblige.

Reviews

SALTBURN – Review by Diane Carson

November 20, 2023November 20, 2023 Diane Carson Barry Keoghan, bfi london film festival, Carey Mulligan, emerald fennell, Jacob Elordi, Linus Sandgren, Richard E. Grant, Rosamund Pike, saltburn

Saltburn satirizes the ultrarich in 2006 England. How can a scholarship student at posh Oxford University, England, possibly fit in or relate to his privileged, silver-spoon-in-their-mouths classmates? In writer/director Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, set in 2006, that’s the dilemma for poor Oliver Quick who looks as drab as others find him. But he has one advantageous attribute, i.e., he watches carefully and assesses individuals astutely.

Festivals Reviews

SALTBURN (Middleburg FF 2023) – Review by Leslie Combemale

October 30, 2023November 3, 2023 Leslie Combemale Barry Keoghan, bfi london film festival, Carey Mulligan, emerald fennell, Jacob Elordi, Linus Sandgren, Middleburg Film Festival, Richard E. Grant, Rosamund Pike, saltburn

From the moment the crimson red, Hammer horror-inspired opening titles show onscreen, the film warns it will not be your usual British uni coming of age story. It wouldn’t be, would it, given that it comes from Emerald Fennell, who brought us Promising Young Woman? That movie, Fennell’s feature debut as writer/director, won her a Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and speaking of promise, made audiences and critics frothy to see what she’d do with her sophomore feature. Though not nearly as original as her first, Saltburn, a sexually transgressive tale of privilege and the desire to belong, allows its lead performer to shine brighter than a diamond encrusted dagger.

News

WEEK IN WOMEN: Emerald Fennell’s SALTBURN set for holiday release – Brandy McDonnell reports

October 26, 2023October 26, 2023 Brandy McDonnell amazon studios, ATHE WEEK IN WOMEN, Barry Keoghan, Carey Mulligan, emerald fennell, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, saltburn, twiw

Oscar-winning writer-director Emerald Fennell will help kick off the cinematic holiday season when her Saltburn bows into theaters in limited release on Nov. 24, which is Black Friday. It will expand to additional theaters Dec. 1. Hailing from MRC Film and Amazon Studios, “Saltburn” also will reunite Fennell with two-time Academy Award nominee Carey Mulligan, who starred in Fennell’s 2020 feature film directorial debut Promising Young Woman.

Reviews

SALTBURN – Review by Serena Seghedoni

October 5, 2023October 6, 2023 Serena Seghedoni (Archived contributor) Barry Keoghan, bfi london film festival, Carey Mulligan, emerald fennell, Jacob Elordi, Linus Sandgren, Richard E. Grant, Rosamund Pike, saltburn

Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn is a wickedly subversive, exquisitely twisty character study that leaves no room for redemption and satisfying resolutions, and that’s the real genius of it. Fennell defies our expectations and delivers a clever character study disguised as an “eat the rich” satire, where everyone is a horrible person and absolutely deserves what they get.

Reviews

SHE SAID – Review by Jennifer Green

December 6, 2022December 11, 2022 Jennifer Green ashley judd, Carey Mulligan, Gwynneth Paltrow, harvey weinstein, jodi kantor, Maria Schrader, megan twohey, patricia clarkson, Rose Mc Gowan, She Said, Zoe Kazan

Is She Said the portrayal of female journalists we’ve been waiting for? A lot has been written about the depiction of female journalists in She Said, director Maria Schrader and scriptwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s adaptation of New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s book about their Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein. Reviewers have praised the film for offering what other investigative journalism movies have not — the female perspective, especially outside the newsroom.

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