The Christophers (2025): review: 6.5/10

 *

An artist began painting a series of portraits of a lover which he then abandoned. His talent long since diminished, now he resides, embittered, in a huge London apartment.

His two children want these paintings as they ae highly valued. They hire a young woman -an art restorer- to find the paintings and complete them while masquerading as an assistant.

There then ensue are all manner of plot twists.

The film is not a success. 

While interesting themes are touched upon (talent and what permits it to flourish, resentment, aging, use of technology) these are not given their due. The many subplots are fussy and irksome. 

The acting styles, attempting humour, of the two siblings played by James Corden and Jessia Gunning jarr with that of Ian McKellan and his opposite, Michaela Coel.

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (2025): review: 5.5/10

 *

Springsteen records a miserable album, Nebraska, using simple recording equipment (it contains one good song  Atlantic City but the others are all very dreary) something his peers at the record station are sceptical about. 

The executives are wrong. Bruce is right. Of course.

There are sporadic but uninteresting asides such as a relationship with a fan. A theme of the plot is how depressed Bruce is. 

But there`s not much of a sustained central conflict to the plot and, though there`s nothing exactly wrong with this film, it does what it says on the can, it is just not very memorable.

Father Mother Sister Brother (2025): review: 8/10

 *

Three films, inter-related, by Jim Jarmusch, set in a country town in the USA, in Dublin and Paris, and featuring Tom Waits, Adam Driver and Cate Blanchett among others. 

The film concern relationships, small deceits, hypocrisies, and dishonesty across generations. All feature cars as visual devices, homes in states of dilapidation, as upper-middle class showcases or for sale.

The least satisfactory of these is Father, featuring Tom Waits and Adam Driver: unsatisfactory because of the clumsy performances both from Waits and Driver. Waits really is a dreadful ham.

The film suggests, with the Paris section, that only with the death  of their parents, can children live freely from a parental web of half-truths.

The film is beautifully shot.

I Swear (2025): review 8/ 10

 *

The life and career of a Scottish man who suffers from Tourette`s Syndrome, then seeks to promote better understanding of the condition and help others.

The film describes Scottish provincial and working class life, containing scenes which are in turns, disturbing, sad, and reassuring. It is occasionally funny, unsentimental and even disturbing in places.

It`s freshness of style is, thankfully, free of amateurishness of naivety.