Frances Morton

Worth it for the bit when Jane Fonda declares her desire to motorboat Marilyn Monroe’s bedazzled bosom alone, director Gillian Armstrong’s homage to the life of her compatriot Orry-Kelly (real name Orry George Kelly) is full of juicy surprises and exquisite style. Kelly went from small town Australia to Hollywood via New York, becoming one […]

No doubt walking the Camino is a wonderful, life-changing experience. Since medieval times people have trekked more than 700 km across northern Spain on this trail with religious origins that now draws sightseers and soul-searchers from all over the world. While this documentary makes a genial attempt to bring that profundity to screen, it does […]

This certainly isn’t the first review to liken Marshland to True Detective but the comparison between this Spanish thriller and IMHO the best television drama of 2014 is damn hard to avoid. Elements of what makes True Detective so good are wonderfully here too. Two detectives who don’t particularly get on but complement each other investigate a string of murders in […]

If you’re feeling short on time, see this film. It laboriously draws 90 minutes out into something that seems twice that long. That’s despite director Uberto Pasolini having a promising and – in the wake of recent events in Wellington – sadly topical premise. What does happen to people who die utterly alone? Eddie Marsan […]

It’s over 50 years since author Michael Bond introduced Paddington Bear on a London train station wearing the heartstring-tugging tag around his neck: “Please look after this bear”. That message referenced the plight of refugee children during World War II. In this charming screen update it could just as easily relate to wide-eyed Kiwis on […]

The biggest reveal in this documentary is how a stranger can eye up an unsuspecting woman on the streets of New York without appearing creepy. Ari Seth Cohen is in awe of the older stylish woman. Approaching a woman in leather pants and headscarf he snares his prey with a charming line: “You’re going to […]

A rom-com about boy-girl best friends is hardly going to floor you with surprises. And neither do you want it to. Rosie (Lily Collins) and Alex (Sam Clalfin) are both so charming and lovely on the eye – even in times of heartache and misery – that you can’t help clasping hands with them and […]

Iranian director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation) heads to France for this tightly-wound drama about a broken love triangle and its ripple effects on a modern-day imperfect blended family. When Ahmad comes to stay at Marie’s rickety home in a non-descript Parisian suburb he doesn’t turn up as the evil ex. Farhadi’s too perceptive a filmmaker […]

For a film based on an extraordinarily touching true story, The Railway Man is distractingly stagey. It starts off with a middle-aged meet-cute on a train where we encounter Colin Firth as Eric Lomax, a dweeby trainspotter who needs to be brought out of his shell by sweet, cardigan-wearing Nicole Kidman. But as the film develops it […]

Thank heavens for Jeremy Irons. There are few other actors who could glue together this plodding literary adaptation with the naturally engaging gravitas that Irons brings to the screen. He plays Raimund Gregorius, a self-declared boring professor living in grim, grey Bern who surprises himself by impulsively catching a train to sunny Lisbon in pursuit […]

Is there anything more dull than watching a writer tapping furiously on a typewriter, even if he’s on amazing drugs? Okay, with the notable exception of all-work-and-no-play-makes-Jack-a-dull-boy of course. Fortunately Kill Your Darlings is about more than the emergence of a literary group that would hold future English 101 classes in raptures. The boys who seeded the […]

No-one is safe from the vileness of James McAvoy’s loathsome cop Bruce Robertson in this dark tale of ambition, not even Robertson himself, as he claws his way towards the coveted role of detective inspector in a grubby Edinburgh. This is the same grotesque larger-than-life world as Irvine Welsh’s hit Trainspotting but without Danny Boyle’s […]

For a film that’s based on a novel published well over a century ago, What Maisie Knew feels remarkably modern. But then Henry James had a knack for slicing through to reality, and what could be more depressingly timeless than parents behaving badly? At first glance, gorgeous young Maisie has a charmed life. She lives in a […]

“I fell in love with the name Jasmine,” declares Alec Baldwin’s Hal at a glittery Park Avenue dinner party. Jasmine (Cate Blanchett), whose real name is actually Jeanette, is the ultimate wisteria girl, a beautiful social climber who has fashioned herself into a diamond-dripping society wife. Her name isn’t the only fabrication. Hal’s fortune is […]

The Weight of Elephants would make an exquisite photography book. A large, glossy tome that sat on the coffee table and you could flick through dreaming over the perfectly composed, evocative, flare-tinged images. But it’s a film, and films (generally) need storylines. It opens with the vanishing of three children – a mystery that serves as […]

In the shadow of the Twilight phenomenon, the director of the original bloodsucker blockbuster Interview with the Vampire returns to the genre and rewrites the rulebook in Byzantium.  From his home in Ireland Neil Jordan talks to Frances Morton about his tale of an immortal mother-daughter duo leading a less-than-glamorous existence, trying to avoid the attention […]

The jock, the flirt, the fighter, the showpony, the philosopher – the cast of Ping Pong have all the necessary character traits for a riveting ensemble drama. It lacks a villain but when the odometer of life tops 80 years, everyone deserves to be a hero. The determination these seniors show for the sport is profoundly and […]

Tilikum is the biggest killer whale at SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida – the mighty star attraction of the marine park. He is also a killer, implicated in the deaths of three people. After orca trainer Dawn Brancheau died while working with Tilikum in 2010, Blackfish director Gabriela Cowperthwaite started investigating the relationship between trainers and […]

Ryan Gosling has seduced the Tumblrverse but it seems he has a hold on directors too. The Gos reprises the role of muse for Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance, glowering as the troubled pivot of this father-son epic and doling out a gut-grabbing, moving performance as a staunch motorcycle stunt rider. Too often we see loser dads […]

It’s a blessing Audrey Tautou is so infinitely watchable because this leaden-paced period piece comes close to buckling under its own misery. Tautou, as the title character Therese, forges a successful match with the wealthy next-door neighbour – when success means combining their respective land holdings and ensuring the newlyweds can comfortably sit around smoking […]

In this coming-of-age drama set in 1981 New Zealand, the small-town life of half-Samoan Willie is dominated by an enthusiasm for muscle cars, domestic abuse and a boring retail job until a more glamorous lifestyle presents itself.  Read more and find movie times. Shopping comes highly anticipated after Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland showed they’ve got […]