period drama

It is a truth universally acknowledged that adapting a famous novel into a film comes with some difficulties. There have been many film variations of Austen’s novels. Just this year, another of her works, Emma, took in a worldwide…

A microcosm of a decadent and brilliant age, now long gone, Bright Young Things is a gaudy, spangled delight. An adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel Vile Bodies, the film is an insight into the sybaritic lives of a handful of wealthy…

Jean Luc Godard once said “Film is truth, 24 frames per second.” Now, I don’t know what that means, but I do know it's wrong. Downton Abbey cannot be truth, because it's made of film, and truth is made of emotions or something. I also…

Jean Luc Godard once said “Film is truth, 24 frames per second.” Now, I don’t know what that means, but I do know it's wrong. Atonement cannot be truth, because it's made of film, and truth is made of emotions or something. I also don’t…

Incest has to provoke a reaction of some sort. Shock, disgust, desire, sadness; it really doesn’t matter. Just something. Marguerite & Julien fails abysmally unless boredom, and maybe a bit of quiet sniggering counts. Once upon a time a…

Carol is a film crackling with opportunity, rich in period setting, richer still in personal relationships built up, torn down and glued back together with messy elegance. Returning once more to his favoured 1950s American backdrop, Todd…

Most know Martin Scorsese for his work concerning violence or crime, often following gangsters, criminals or outcasts into compelling stories of conflict and downfall. A director with a body of work as large as Martin Scorsese's is, often…

Set in a beautiful British country manor house and focusing on one day, with the addition of some flashbacks, the film tells the story of Dolly (Felicity Jones) and her best friend Joseph (Luke Treadaway). It is the morning of Dolly’s…

There Be Dragons is not the return of Roland Joffé. The name probably doesn’t mean anything to you. But this director made two brilliant movies in the 1980s, namely The Killing Fields and The Mission. These were intelligent, sensitive…

As the opening film to this year’s Berlinale and one of the competition films, Farewell My Queen (Les Adieux a la Reine) has high expectations placed upon it. Unfortunately this historical drama was rather underwhelming. Set in Versailles…