Fréwaka ★★★★
Directed by Aislinn Clarke. Starring Clare Monnelly, Bríd Ní Neachtain, Aleksandra Bystrzhitskaya, Olga Wehrly. 15A cert, gen release, 103 min
Just when you think the folk-horror vogue is played out, along comes Clarke’s textured delve into Celtic mythology and intergenerational trauma. Siobhán (Monnelly) is a care assistant tidying things away after the suicide of her estranged abusive mother when she accepts an assignment in the Gaeltacht. Fréwaka ambitiously mines Irish mythology and history for socially conscious spookery. Nicola Moroney’s production design decks branches with ribbons, scissors and other mysterious talismans. And never mind the straw men: Die Hexen’s disquieting electronic score is the scariest thing in the movie. Full review TB
The Ugly Stepsister/Den Stygge Stesøsteren ★★★★
Directed by Emilie Blichfeldt. Starring Lea Myren, Ane Dahl Torp, Thea Sofie Loch Næss, Flo Fagerli, Isac Calmroth, Malte Gardinger, Ralph Carlsson. 18 cert, gen release, 110 min
Norwegian writer-director Blichfeldt roasts conventional heroines and female beauty standards in this gruesome, hilarious reworking of Cinderella. Elvira (Myren) is an awkward teenager who moves to the kingdom of Swedlandia when her mother (Dahl Torp) marries a wealthy widower. Unhappily, he drops dead into dessert just as his new wife learns that he is as broke as she is. Horror follows. One thinks of The Substance, another feminist Cronenbergian gut punch, watching the film’s series of revolting close-ups of body modifications, maggots and moulting. Full review TB
The Friend ★★★★
Directed by David Siegel and Scott McGehee. Starring Naomi Watts, Bill Murray, Sarah Pidgeon, Constance Wu, Ann Dowd, Noma Dumezweni, Felix Solis, Owen Teague, Carla Gugino. 15A cert, general release, 120 min
Lovely New York-enraptured film that casts Watts as a writer and lecturer who must care for her late mentor’s great dane. Murray appears in flashback and semi-ghostly mode as the deceased novelist. The leads make something genuinely touching of Iris’s quest to discover what prompted her pal to end it all. And newcomer Bing could hardly be more charming as the dog whose presence causes her to confront what’s missing in her own life. Can we avoid the weary cliche that “the city is a character in its own right”? It seems not. A gentle delight. Full review DC
April ★★★★★
Directed by Dea Kulumbegashvili. Starring Ia Sukhitashvili, Kakha Kintsurashvili, Merab Ninidze. Limited release, 134 min
An obstetrician wrestles with her conscience and societal intolerance in a hugely rich film from Georgia, a sprawling meditation on gynaecological morality that is unlike anything else in cinemas. Its ruthless naturalism bolts you to your seat with an early real-life childbirth scene that spares the squeamish no amount of bodily fluids. But there are certain familiarities here. Winner of the special jury prize at Venice, April swells with the sort of grand visual gestures that have long characterised European art-house cinema. The storm scene is worthy of Tarkovsky. Full review DC
