If you are considering a trip to the cinema this weekend, what options are out there for you? Read on for the best current theatrical releases in the UK.
As of Friday (January 31), new movies hitting the big screen include Saturday Night, the behind-the-scenes story of the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live on October 11, 1975. Directed by Jason Reitman (Juno, Up In The Air), it stars Gabriel LaBelle as SNL founder Lorne Michaels, as well as Cory Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, Ella Hunt as Gilda Radner and Dylan O’Brien as Dan Aykroyd.
Also new in cinemas is the critically acclaimed Hard Truths, the latest drama from legendary auteur Mike Leigh (Mr Turner, Abigail’s Party, Naked). It sees him reunite with actor Marianne Jean-Baptiste after the success of their 1996 collaboration Secrets & Lies, and tells the story of the relationship between Baptiste’s depressed Pansy Deacon and her jovial sister Chantelle (Michele Austin).
In a five-star review of the film, NME wrote: “Like many of Leigh’s best films, it prioritises authenticity and recognisable glimpses of emotion over a splashy narrative arc. That may make it frustrating for some viewers, but there’s no doubt that Leigh and his cast have created a sad, captivating, fascinating slice of everyday life. Hard Truths offers no easy answers but few films reveal as much about the human condition.”
The other major new release of the week is Companion, a romantic horror starring Sophie Thatcher (Heretic, The Boogeyman) and Jack Quaid (The Boys, Scream). The film follows a group of friends on a weekend getaway at a remote cabin which unravels after it emerges that one of the group is a companion robot. The film has been well-received, currently sitting on a 94 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes.
With the Oscars coming on March 3 and the nominations having been announced, a number of the awards season’s biggest hitters are also in cinemas this week. The Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet as the music icon in his early years in the Greenwich Village folk scene, is in wide release. Chalamet is nominated for Best Actor, and the film is also up for Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actor (for Edward Norton’s turn as Pete Seeger) and Supporting Actress (for Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez).
NME awarded the film four stars, stating: “The most important (and often trickiest) job of any music movie is to get the music right. And this nails that. If you’re a Bob newbie, you’ll leave the cinema ready to dive into his back catalogue. If you’re already a fan, the next few weeks will be spent making playlists of lesser-known B-sides or reading the lore around a scene you weren’t familiar with. And that’s why it was a good idea to make this film – a mad idea, but a good one.”
Other Oscar nominees in UK cinemas this week include the epic post-Holocaust drama The Brutalist with Adrien Brody, Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci in the papal thriller Conclave and the experimental independent film Nickel Boys.
For those looking for family options, big hitters this weekend include the origin story Mufasa: The Lion King, directed by Moonlight’s Barry Jenkins, as well as the sequels Sonic The Hedgehog 3 and Moana 2.
Other options include the Mark Wahlberg action thriller Flight Risk, gothic horror remake Nosferatu, Nicole Kidman erotic thriller Babygirl, Steven Soderbergh’s mystery Presence, Robbie Williams biopic Better Man and Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin’s indie gem A Real Pain.
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