Interstellar (12A)
Directed by Christopher Nolan
4/5

Worm holes, quantum gravity, space travel and fathers and daughters are all explored in this epic space odyssey and Christopher Nolan’s most ambitious film to date. 

Shot in 70mm IMAX this is a visually stunning and complex work which will no doubt draw comparisons with Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

Set in the near future the Earth is running out of food due to extreme climate change and the human race is facing extinction. Former astronaut turned farmer Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is recruited to lead a team of explorers (including Anne Hathaway) to find a habitable planet by travelling through a black hole. 

Despite it being a race against time it is the intimate human story at its core which drives this prodigious tale. 

Cooper is haunted by his decision to leave his family and not letting his devastated 10-year-old daughter down with his promise to return which she knows he won’t be keeping. 

This poignant father-daughter relationship will hit a nerve with many cinemagoers but once Interstellar enters scientific and then hippie trippy sci-fi territory it is in danger of losing its audience. 

Like Memento and Inception it is a thought provoking major brain teaser which is, at times, rather testing. 

But I applaud Nolan for not dumbing down and continuing to push the cinematic envelope. 

Maria Duarte

Sacro Gra (15)
Directed by Gianfranco Rosi
5/5

The film’s title is a pun on the name of Rome’s ring road which references the holy grail in Italian. 

Exploring the lives of people living and working on the fringe of the road, Rosi’s discrete and sensitive film takes us from an elderly fisherman’s shack — as he comments upon a newspaper to his Ukrainian spouse — back to the ambulance as a paramedics comfort the victim of a car crash. 

An old and distinguished pundit and his college-student daughter share a one-room apartment in a tall modern building along the road. The botanist makes audio recordings of the interiors of palm trees to detect and then poison the insects that are devouring them. 

This is a metaphor for the country being chewed up by politicians for the last 50 years, and the film is about a few people who are able to survive in an incredible way in a place that has no hope whatsoever. 

The poetic force of the everyday stories, allied with simplicity, great visual and narrative technique, create something all the more affecting and unique. 

It is modern fable, addressing social and economic tensions that have enveloped the country. Outstanding.

Rita Di Santo

The Skeleton Twins (15)
Directed by Craig Johnson
3/5

Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader deliver two revelatory performances in this compelling comedy drama centred on a pair of estranged twins who reunite after attempting suicide. 

It isn’t the most uplifting of premises but the two comic actors are totally engaging as the screwed up brother and sister who make each other face their demons. 

Hader persuading Wiig’s character to lip synch to Starship’s Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us is the joyous highlight of this film. It is both funny and moving. 

This is definitely worth seeing. 

Maria Duarte 

Say When (15)
Directed by Lynn Shelton
3/5

Formerly known as Laggies this rather quirky rom-com revolves around a 28-year-old woman who, in the midst of a quarter-life crisis, befriends a teenage girl. 

The rather dubious premise avoids sinking into creepy territory by Keira Knightley’s fine performance as the confused Megan Burch who is drifting through life. 

So when her boyfriend (Mark Webber) suddenly proposes she panics and hides out at the home of her new found friend 16-year-old Annika (Chloe Grace Moretz) whose single father (Sam Rockwell) becomes intrigued by her. 

This is an unusual bittersweet coming of age story which is surprisingly amusing and endearing thanks to the engaging turns by Knightley, Moretz and Rockwell. 

Maria Duarte

The Case Against 8 (E)
Directed by Ben Cotner, Ryan White
3/5

Shot over five years, the film offers an inside look into the historic case to overturn California’s ban on same-sex marriage, while following the unlikely team that took the first federal marriage equality lawsuit to the US Supreme Court. 

While recording a crucial change of the times, it is a very personal and emotional story which allowed us to explore issues of civil rights, privacy and human dignity. At 112 minutes, this film is not a minute too long. 

Rita Di Santo