REVIEWS
Latest Irish Film and TV Reviews
IFTV’s BLITZ review
BLITZ opens in cinemas on Friday, November 1st, and streams on Apple TV+ from Friday, November 22nd In BLITZ, director Steve McQueen ventures into the tumultuous landscape of London during World War II, crafting a narrative that marries the visceral realities of war with deeply personal stories of family and
BRING THEM DOWN review
BRING THEM DOWN initially tells its story through the perspective of Michael. Weighed down by internal conflicts, he traverses the Irish countryside almost invisibly. His brooding aggression and minimal dialogue hook you into his world. Michael’s silent fury is far more fascinating and impactful than the noise of his neighboring
THE OUTRUN review
FOE star Saoirse Ronan is earning rave reviews for her performance in THE OUTRUN. The film is an adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s autobiographical story, in which a return to one’s origins is synonymous with inner healing. Here, Ronan finds a role tailor-made to explore the intricacies of the human soul, in
FOE review
After providing the raw fodder for Charlie Kaufman’s characteristically cryptic I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS, Canadian novelist Iain Reid serves up more brain-bender material in Garth Davis’ FOE. Anchored by emotionally raw performances from Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal, with Aaron Pierre as a stranger bringing equal parts seductive charm
BALLYWALTER review
The reviews for BALLYWALTER are in! The Irish Independent says “Patrick Kielty is a revelation and Seána Kerslake exemplary in this moving drama. Together they created something wonderful, something unique, something that deserves to find an audience. Armed with a moving, meaningful screenplay by Stacey Gregg, BALLYWALTER speaks only when
FLORA AND SON review
The reviews are in for ONCE director, John Carney’s FLORA AND SON. Single mom, Flora (Eve Hewson), struggles to keep her son Max (Orén Kinlan) out of trouble in Dublin. She gets the idea to give her teenager a guitar, but he quickly refuses it in all his teenage angst.
THE KILLER review
Straight from it’s World Premiere at Venice Film Festival, THE KILLER is earning highly positive reviews. David Fincher’s horribly addictive samurai procedural, adapted by Andrew Kevin Walker from the graphic novel by Alexis Nolent, stars Michael Fassbender as the un-named titular hitman: an ascetic who in the movie’s sensationally low-key
LOLA review
The debut film from Irish director Andrew Legge is a pacy, thrillingly inventive found-footage mockumentary that purports to show the invention, in 1940, of a machine that can intercept television and radio broadcasts from the future. The device is named Lola in honour of the mother of the machine’s creators:
WOMEN TALKING review
The reviews are in for WOMEN TALKING, starring Jessie Buckley. This important film tells the story of a community battered by rape and patriarchal ideas, as a mainly female cast debate the repercussions of the brutality meted out to them. Sarah Polley’s sober, sombre ensemble picture stars Rooney Mara, Claire
TOWN OF STRANGERS review
TOWN OF STRANGERS is set in the town of Gort in County Galway, perhaps best known for being the site of Coole House, the home of Lady Gregory and the Irish literary revival of Yeats, Synge, O’Casey and Shaw. None of that is mentioned, however: director Threasa O’Brien focuses on
AFTERSUN review
Charlotte Wells’ moving debut feature AFTERSUN details a father-daughter vacation at a cheap resort in Turkey. There’s something unknowable about Calum (Paul Mescal), and maybe this is because Sophie (Frankie Corio) is a child, and he’s her dad, and she’s just about coming to the age where she’s separating herself
THE WONDER review
In the new film version of Emma Donoghue’s richly absorbing novel THE WONDER, we confront what the march of history and colonialism has done to Ireland. The film opens in 1862, ten years after the Great Hunger, in a windswept midlands village where a local girl called Anna O’Donnell is