EVERY NEW
RELEASE YOU NEED
TO OWN. NOW
HOME SCREEN
THE KINDERGARTEN TEACHER
OUT 10 JULY / RATED M / 96 MINSMaggie Gyllenhaal brings her signature charm
and chills aplenty to Sara Colangelo’s slow-burn
thriller about a child prodigy and his overly
invested mentor. Gyllenhaal plays the latter, an
aspiring poet by night, caring teacher by day,
and frustrated mother and wife in-between.
The answer to her problems comes through
Jimmy (Parker Sevak), a shy pupil with a
disarming knack for stringing words together.
Upon realising his genius, Lisa vows to protect his
faculty at all costs, even if those costs involve
breaking the law and some serious ethical codes.
However uncomfortable The Kindergarten
Teacher becomes, Colangelo counters it with dark
humour and a dash of empathy, and doesn’t
waste the talents of her star for a second.
Not since Secretary has Gyllenhaal delivered
a performance this guttural, and though at times
terrifying, you’ll be watching through fingers to
see what she’ll do next. BETH WEBBON THE BASIS OF SEX
OUT NOW / RATED M / 120 MINSFictional superheroes may be all the rage these
days, but the world isn’t wanting for real-life
champions either. One such figure is Ruth Bader
Ginsburg (‘The Notorious RBG’ to her fans), and
thankfully On The Basis Of Sex is less an all-
you-need-to-know hagiography and more of a
crowdpleasing origin story. RBG’s wit and smarts
are emphasised in Felicity Jones’ winning turn as
she teams with her husband Marty (Armie
Hammer) on a formative gender discrimination
case in the 1970s, and though that concludes in the
way you’d expect, there are plenty of rousing
moments throughout that highlight just how far
we’ve come. There’s even more inspiration to be
found in the Ginsburgs themselves, as here it’s the
husband who occupies the supportive wife role. It’s
an unusual and refreshing dynamic to see on
screen — in addition to proving that not all heroes
wear capes — and the easy chemistry between
Jones and Hammer is frequently endearing. AWARCTIC
OUT NOW / RATED M / 94 MINSThe only characters are a man, a woman
and a polar bear. The only dialogue is mostly
restricted to crying and shouting. The only
landscape is snow, ice, more snow, and some
very large rocks covered in snow. Like All Is
Lost or Buried, Arctic is a dazzling exercise in
minimalism, stripped down to the survival movie
essentials to tell a simple, efficient story of a pilot
who crashes somewhere in the Arctic circle.
Shot crisply and elegantly, it’s both methodical
and emotional, with a stunning central
performance from Mads Mikkelsen. In fact,
despite an acclaimed career, it’s possible he’s
never been better — particularly impressive
considering a) he’s always great, and b) he says
about three sentences in the entire film. His
face is itself a landscape, contours of hope
and despair alternately etched across a snow-
specked beard. He won’t win an Oscar for it,
but he should. JOHN NUGENTCOLD WAR
OUT NOW / RATED M / 88 MINSI’m increasingly only here for films in the
Academy ratio. After Paul Schrader’s First
Reformed, Pawel Pawlowski’s Cold War’s square
frame beautifully boxes in a passionate affair to
spellbinding effect. It’s Poland, 1949. Pianist
Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) is looking to put a state-
sponsored folk troupe together to sing songs
about agricultural reform and the joys of the
Motherland (stay with us). He is drawn to
vibrant twentysomething Zula (Joanna Kulig,
a firecracker of a performance), and so begins
a 20-year love affair traversing both sides of the
Iron Curtain. It’s one of those movies that works
on every level: intellectually (it’s as much about
Poland’s black heart as it is about the couple);
cinematically (the B&W cinematography is
spellbinding); and emotionally — it’s a swoonsome,
aching romance about the unfathomable
complexities of the heart. Don’t let Cold War
be the one that got away. IAN FREERINSTANT FAMILY
OUT NOW / RATED PG / 118 MINSA Mark Walhlberg comedy about adopting
kids, from Sean Anders, the director of both
Daddy’s Home movies. An instant appraisal of
Instant Family makes it the kind of movie it’s all
too easy to skip at the cinema due to looking like
the kind of milquetoast, manufactured gubbins
that would make you want to rip out your eyes
and hurl them at the nearest usher. Never judge
a movie by its poster. Or trailer. Or the people
involved. Instead, Instant Family is something
close to an actual delight — perhaps because it’s
based on Anders’ real-life experience of trying to
adopt children, and so doesn’t seem saccharine
or manipulative. Instead, Wahlberg (solid) and
Rose Byrne (excellent) play real(ish) people trying
not to come apart at the seams as their new
brood test the fences, like a pack of raptors. It’s
funny, not always predictable, and might even
make you part company with a few salt tears.
An instant watch. CHRIS HEWITT