The Mauritanian, Streaming on all platforms, 1st April
Adapted from the bestselling memoir Guantánamo Diary by former detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi, this hard-hitting picture from Kevin Macdonald (State of Play) combines the sinuous plotting of a political thriller with a gruellingly vivid depiction of imprisonment and “enhanced” interrogation. Jodie Foster deploys flick-knife wits as Slahi’s lawyer, but it’s a mesmerising Tahar Rahim, in the central role of a man trying to cling to his humanity in the most inhuman of conditions, who is the beating heart of the picture.
Black Bear, Streaming on all platforms, 23rd April
Deliciously mean-spirited and capriciously plotted, Black Bear is a genuine original. Aubrey Plaza plays Allison, a writer and director whose main subject is herself in this gaslighting story that layers misdirection upon fiction. Allison’s arrival at a lakeside creative retreat unleashes tensions that are already at breaking point between the proprietors, musician Gabe (Christopher Abbott) and his pregnant girlfriend Blair (Sarah Gadon).
Spring Blossom, Curzon Home Cinema, 23rd April
Suzanne Lindon was just 15 when she wrote the screenplay for this delicate coming of age drama; she was barely out of her teens when she directed and starred in the film. And, as this beguiling portrait of a schoolgirl who becomes platonically involved with an older man demonstrates, she is a talent. She deftly balances the discomfort of a relationship between a 35-year-old actor and a girl nearly 20 years his junior against moments of fantasy, and the agency and control that the girl exerts over the story throughout.
