Female Film Critics 24/375
Definitely queer and aggressively dark in tone, Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping’s feature debut Femme is a slick thriller that confounds any number of expectations across its taut 100 minute runtime. At every point where the filmmakers might take the easy way forward, they consciously choose the opposite, resulting in a genuinely exciting and vibrantly original viewing experience.
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Based on the 2017 best-seller by British novelist Robert Harris, Ben Power’s revisionist historical thriller revolves around two estranged Oxford University colleagues and their efforts to halt Hitler’s intended invasion of Europe. The sinister WWII story begins in 1932, when we first glimpse champagne-drenched best pals Hugh Legat (George McKay), Paul von Hartman (Jannis Niewohner) and Paul’s carefree Jewish girl-friend Lena (Liv Lisa Fries) cavorting at a garden party.
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In Munich – The Edge of War German director Christian Schwochow dramatizes the September 1938 meeting of the top echelon of Germany and Italy, England and France leading to a non-aggression pact meant to ensure peace. The hope driving negotiations and self-delusion is that appeasement will satisfy Führer Adolf Hitler as he prepares to annex the Sudeten German territory of Czechoslovakia.
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What’s extraordinary about Sam Mendes’ epic W.W.I film is that it follows the harrowing journey of two young British infantryman in one seemingly continuous shot. On April 6, 1917, when phone lines have been cut on the Hindenberg Line in France, Lance Corporal Blake is summoned to deliver an important directive preventing a planned advance to the front because the Germans have set an ambush.
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Opening Sept. 26, AWFJ’s Movie of the Week is Pride, based on a true story of a group of gay and lesbian activists who raised money to support mineworkers’ families during the 1984 union strike. Directed by Matthew Warchus and written by Stephen Beresford, the movie features Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West and Paddy Considine in an uplifting, crowd-pleasing story in the vein of The Full Monty and Billy Elliot. Read on…
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