This year’s London Film Fest has come to a close, with another impressive lineup – here’s what impressed the writers of Flicks.
After being treated to two weeks of stunning cinema, we asked our writers to pick their faves of The BFI London Film Festival 2023. For those unable to attend, consider these some hot tips for the viewing year ahead…
Read on for recommendations by Lillian Crawford, Rory Doherty, Fatima Sheriff and Katie Smith-Wong.
All Of Us Strangers
How would your parents react if your adult self showed up at their house for dinner? In the case of Andrew Haigh’s latest film, this surreal encounter comes through the death of parents, but the film inspires its audience to reflect on this question themselves. It is a film about how times changes, how attitudes towards queerness have developed, and whether our parents would be so accepting of us if they had not been on the journey with us.
The sheer emotional force of this exchange, conveyed by Andrew Scott as the orphaned son of his parents played beautifully by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell, cannot possibly be expressed in words. It is a film which must be experienced, with an open mind and a raw heart. LILLIAN CRAWFORD
The Boy and the Heron
Breaking his vow to retire for the umpteenth time in his career, Miyazaki may in fact still return to direct Studio Ghibli films—but it’s unlikely his next film will feel more of a definitive closing statement than The Boy and the Heron.
A WWII-set portal fantasy adventure in a spiritual world from the POV of a grieving youngster, Miyazaki’s musings on time and legacy feel more spirited than ever, and yet show a patience and maturity that the Ghibli movies have developed over his career. Obviously stunning, it still feels more precious as an artistic statement than a fully coherent narrative, but what a special time to be alive. RORY DOHERTY
Eileen
Eileen isn’t Ottessa Moshfegh’s finest literary work, and William Oldroyd’s adaptation is an excellent example of a book working better on screen than on the page. Set in 1960s New England, the film allows a silent understatedness to drive the picture with Thomasin McKenzie capably cast in the title role. Working in a prison, Eileen lives in the world of her sexual fantasies for pretty much everyone around her, especially psychiatrist Rebecca, a breathtaking blonde Anne Hathaway.
It is a tale of unrequited sapphic obsession which inevitably goes too far as Eileen continuously fails to pull herself out of her imagined existence. The whole production is stunning, with Ari Wegner providing the lush cinematography and Richard Reed Perry providing the score. A deliciously dark and horny winter treat. LILLIAN CRAWFORD
Hit Man
Real ones know Glen Powell from his role as Handsome American in The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society, or Hidden Figures, and rom-com watchers of distinction will remember his sparkling chemistry with Zoey Deutsch in Set It Up. Here, as star and co-writer, he comes into his own, perfecting his wit and charm in the capable hands of Richard Linklater.
Hit Man follows in a long line of almost true stories and the creative licence here is a successful blend of fact and fiction. Building on the premise of an unassuming professor becoming a chameleon to trick would-be murderers into confessing, it becomes a sexy, funny thriller that is a thing of beauty. With visual jokes combined with one-liners to make you chuckle, and fiery chemistry with Adria Arjona to make you swoon, Powell cements his talent as a true star. So don’t let having to see Hit Man on your small Netflix screen detract from what is a truly unmissable and uniquely entertaining movie. FATIMA SHERIFF
Kensuke’s Kingdom
Clashing with his adventurous parents on a sailing trip, our young hero Michael isn’t exactly a stickler for safety rules. He smuggles his dog Stella on board and in running after him, gets himself into dangerous waters, and onto a desert island. The titular king, an aged man, appears to save him and quickly takes Michael and Stella under his wing, as he has done with many of the creatures on the island.
Full of delicate watercolours that reflect on Kensuke’s own traditional style ink drawings, vibrant skies and seas, and a menagerie of adorable animals that move so naturally in the animation, the oasis Michael stumbles upon is brought to life. This film shows Michael Morpurgo’s oeuvre has more to give the screens beyond War Horse. With a heart-stopping sense of real peril, and streamlined yet emotive character-building, Kensuke’s Kingdom reinforces a timely respect for nature and refugees. FATIMA SHERIFF
The Killer
An atmospheric pulsating score that counteracts with The Smiths soundtrack sets the tone for David Fincher’s latest feature, which is based on Alexis Nolent’s eponymous graphic novel. The unnamed protagonist’s calm narration outlines their mental empathy to the job, which later drives a personally motivated mission after their assignment goes wrong.
Fincher returns to form to deliver a high-class, intricate thriller with moody direction lined with small bouts of dry comedy and detached observations. Combined with Michael Fassbender’s controlled yet calmly sinister performance, The Killer is a quiet awards contender. KATIE SMITH-WONG
Monster
Though the title sends me down a spiral of Nicki Minaj verse, Hirokazu Kore-eda strikes again with a tale that shifts from tense domestic thriller to delicate dramatic catharsis over three acts. Starting from a concerned mother (Shoplifters‘ Sakura Ando) to a manipulated teacher, to the pair of damaged children at the heart of their concerns, every layer of perspective makes this spider’s web of connection more complex. While the children escape to an overgrown eden, they leave a trail of destruction in their wake, pieced together gradually over the runtime.
Monster is an eerie tale of enabled abuse that becomes a murky grey area of repressed emotions, inarticulate trauma and an exploration of self-hatred. The real monster remains to be seen, but finding the humanity and monstrosity in all the characters makes this story Kore-eda’s most abstract, thoughtful and rewarding to watch in recent years. FATIMA SHERIFF
Perfect Days
In a year with new, acclaimed work from Hayao Miyazaki and Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Japan’s picking this quiet Wim Wenders drama as their International Feature submission seems an odd choice. But the gentle story of a Tokyo cassette-tape-obsessed public toilet cleaner (starring Cure’s Kōji Yakusho) is one of the most compelling and affecting of the whole festival.
It’s repetition without ever becoming tedious and shot with a dynamic poise—trust Wenders to observe mundanity with surgical precision and curiosity. Before long, you want to know everything about this cleaner; by the end, you’ll want the world for him. RORY DOHERTY
Poor Things
Based on Alasdair Gray’s eponymous novel, The Lobster director Yorgos Lanthimos follows his Oscar-winning black comedy with his boldest film to date. Emma Stone puts in the performance of a lifetime as Bella, a woman who embarks on a hedonistic yet empowering journey of self-discovery that highlights the importance of autonomy. Co-starring alongside Stone is a hilarious Mark Ruffalo as Duncan, a smarmy lawyer who underestimates Bella’s growing intelligence.
Robbie Ryan’s bold cinematography and Holly Waddington’s gorgeous costume design elevate Lanthimos’ ambitious direction while Tony McNamara’s hilarious screenplay evokes horror and hilarity. Overall, Poor Things is a visually dazzling spectacle with Stone marking herself as a serious awards contender for Best Actress. KATIE SMITH-WONG
The Pot-au-Feu
Like Frederick Wiseman’s four-hour culinary documentary Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros, which also screened at LFF, Trần Anh Hùng’s The Pot-au-Feu features extended sequences of hands cooking the most mouthwatering food imaginable. It is a haptic experience—so powerful are gastronomical images that we can smell and taste the meals prepared on screen. Every dish conveys a story, an aspect of the love between chef Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel) and his cook Eugénie (Juliette Binoche) backlit by the golden greenery of the French countryside.
Binoche is sublime, but this is Magimel’s film—he is an absolute dream of a man, his passion both for the kitchen and his lover is often as overwhelming as the steam rising from the oven. Just make sure you don’t watch it on an empty stomach. LILLIAN CRAWFORD
Priscilla
After Luhrman’s electric Elvis, Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla feels like a muted, pastel-coloured palette cleanser as we see the tumultuous romance through the eyes of the former Mrs Presley. Coppola’s intimate direction and sensitive screenplay balances the narrative of a lovestruck girl who is forced to grow up to keep her famous and much older boyfriend with the idealism and realism of first love.
In a star-making turn, Callie Spaeny conveys naivety and a natural reluctance as the sheltered Priscilla, a girl who is swept away by the dominating Elvis, played with aplomb by Jacob Elordi. Amid its timely production design, costume and jukebox soundtrack, Priscilla closely verges into a case of style over substance (which causes pacing inconsistencies) but audiences cannot deny the beauty amid the troubled romance. KATIE SMITH-WONG
Stopmotion
An outsider voice in British stop-motion animation, Robert Morgan has been taking advantage of the tactile creepiness that comes with the animated medium for decades. His feature debut is a live-action/animation hybrid about stop-motion—where a grieving young animator’s attempts to produce her own scary movie and break out of her mother’s shadow are affected by an increasing mental destabilisation infecting her creative process.
With raw meat, mortician’s wax, and bodily fluids all making their way in front of the animator’s camera, it’s clear Morgan is tapped into the exhausting and maddening symptoms of such a hands-on artistic process. Even though the live-action storyline suffers from real indie horror staleness, it only emboldens how unsettling Morgan’s animated work is. RORY DOHERTY
