Brooklyn (12A), directed by John Crowley

5/5

THE British Film Institute and the BBC deserve real congratulations for Brooklyn.

Far too often, they have shamelessly wasted public money financing films that should have been left undeveloped.

Happily, they have spent our money wisely by helping fund the truly delightful tale of the young Eilis, perfectly played by Saoirse Ronan, who leaves her native rural Ireland in the early 1950s for a new life in the United States, thanks to the efforts of local priest Father Flood (Jim Broadbent) who tells her that: “We need Irish girls in Brooklyn.”

Once there, Eilis realises that she can now build a life and future she never could have achieved back home and makes the most of her new opportunities.

She finds love with Italian-American plumber Tony (Emory Cohen) and her first meal with him and his family are just one of the film’s many delightful highlights.

But the death of her sister draws her back to Ireland and leaves her facing more poignant emotional choices.

Ronan is superb in a memorable, star-making performance, Broadbent doesn’t overact for once and Julie Walters’s acid-tongued landlady is a treat — witty, wise and charmingly old-fashioned.

Director John Crowley and adaptor Nick Hornby do Colm Toibin’s novel proud.

ALAN FRANK

Kill Your Friends (18), directed by Owen Harris

2/5

NICHOLAS HOULT personifies the hedonistic and cut-throat world of the 1990s British music industry in this sharp and amusing satire which, sadly, disappears up its own pretentious fundament.

Hoult plays an A&R man — a wannabe Simon Cowell type — during the height of the Britpop era who’ll do whatever it takes to get his next hit and land the top job, including killing colleague (James Corden).

It’s based on James Niven’s novel about his short-lived career in A&R, in which he passed up on Coldplay and The Muse. Ouch.

Hoult gives a striking performance as the narcissistic and psychotic Stelfox, imbuing him with a likeability that he doesn’t really deserve.

It captures the drug and drink-fuelled wheeler-dealing music industry of the ’90s wonderfully.

But it soon outstays its novelty welcome.

MARIA DUARTE

Burnt (15), directed by John Wells

4/5

SUPERFICIALLY, Burnt seems aimed at fashionable foodies whose ideal meal is a beautiful arrangement of edibles on a plate resembling a slice of modern art destined to be admired at the Tate rather than simply a mere meal.

Fortunately, for most of us who cannot afford such eye-wateringly trendy repasts, director John Wells and screenwriter Steven Knight smartly flavour the feast with a pungent anti-hero in chef Adam Jones (Bradley Cooper). Once a lauded chef in Paris who’s been brought down by drugs and his dangerous lifestyle, he comes to London seeking both redemption and his third Michelin star as the chef of a new eatery.

Cooper’s commanding portrait of a flawed but ultimately likeable anti-hero aptly described as “an arrogant prick” carries the film to its predictable happy ending. While extraordinary meals frequently outperform mere humans, a multinational cast including Sienna Miller, Daniel Bruhl, Emma Thompson and Uma Thurman add welcome spice. 

AF

Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (15), directed by Christopher Landon

2/5

GIVEN its title, along with its colourful and frequently lewd orgasms of blood-spattering shocks and grossly clinical human slice-and-dice sequences. it’s patently obvious that this low-IQ, high-shock feature is aimed at filmgoers with a taste for terror.

Less credible than a government press release and irredeemably filthy into the bargain, providing you expect the worst visually and standards of good taste, it comes across as an amusing and not overly long exercise in gross-out horror.

Baden Powell would have blenched meeting the teenage scouts, played by Tye Sheridan, Logan Miller and Joey Morgan. They’re foul-mouthed. sex-obsessed — “Junior year is when all the girls become sluts” — and stupid.

But when the undead come to life and threaten their small town they and statuesque strip club waitress Denise (Sarah Dumont) rise to the occasion and save the day.

Pity the release date’s missed Halloween.

AF