On the brink of the new millennium, Shen Tao (Tao Zhao) decides to reject her working class friend and admirer Liangzi (Jing Dong Liang) in favour of their obnoxious wealthy friend Zhang Jinsheng (Yi Zhang). A choice they will all come to lament.

Mountains May Depart, and if we are speaking in geological terms, it is fair to say that this film moves at glacial speed. Mountains May Depart is full of space, as is often the way in decade-spanning films (Boyhood (2014); The Tree of Life (2011)). After the long, slow build-up of the 1999 section, the appearance of the titles at 45 minutes is a little daunting. There is a frustrating amount of silence during most of the conversations, with each actor hoping to render their character brooding and philosophical. Sadly this technique falls flat when it reads as thought the actors have forgotten their lines.

A Cantonese song is played several times throughout Mountains May Depart, serving as a pivotal plot point, but Director Zhangke Jia seems reluctant to include much more music than that, as though the audience will fail to recognise its significance, given the distraction of too much other music.

Mountains May Depart contains many beautiful shots throughout. The second act, set in 2014, begins with a group photo of coal miners on a broad set of steps. Liangzi stands among them, and lingers as they all disappear afterwards. It is a scene which evokes the films of Wim Wenders. Though Wenders would have made much more of the soundtrack had he been at the helm.

There are a couple of scenes involving Shen Tao’s father (a woefully underused character), which take on the air of a Wes Anderson scene. One is a quiet moment on a train, and another involves a group of monks. Both of these scenes with Shen Tao’s father convey so much without dialogue, which Anderson did best in The Darjeeling Limited (2007). Anderson, in these more subtle moments, echoes Yasujirō Ozu: combining beautiful shots with wordless narrative. Pushing that connection one step further, a decent comparison can be drawn between Mountains May Depart and Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Café Lumière (2003) (a tribute to Yasujirō Ozu). Another slow-burner, which revolves around a young woman’s relationship with her parents as she decides to raise her child alone.

Stick with Mountains May Depart until the final, 2025 act. It is the most rewarding of the three. Zijian Dong as Shen Tao’s son, Dollar is a good fit, and Sylvia Chang is perfect as his teacher/lover when things take a Freudian turn.

The representation of characters over three time periods is really hit and miss. Yi Zhang as Zhang Jinsheng does not fare well in his transformation into grumpy middle-aged patriarch. He handles the grumpy part reasonably well, but it takes a while to adjust to the sight of his moustache. Tao Zhao is far more adept at playing Shen Tao at different ages, displaying a convincing array of reactions to all that life throws at her over the years: youthful naivety becoming sorrow, anger, and finally pragmatism as she reaches middle-age. Representations of the near future always bring to mind Spike Jonze’s Her. Zhangke Jia does well to acknowledge and include upgraded technology in a way that is subtle and convincing (unlike that moustache).

Two brothers and their wives meet at a haute-cuisine restaurant to discuss how they’ll handle a horrific, senseless and ferociously violent crime committed by their sons. As each course is served, the four discuss their lives, their son’s futures and reopen old wounds between the siblings.

The third adaptation of Herman Koch’s international best seller darts between tense restaurant scenes as a fractured family attempts to address the hideousness of their son’s actions, and revealing flashbacks, which unravel the numerous dramatic strands of the brothers and their lives. Richard Gere, Steve Coogan, Laura Linney and Rebecca Hall are each able to imbue their characters and relationships with a grounded reality, and in another film I would have revelled in their performances. Unfortunately, The Dinner continually misfires with its tone and there is a distinct lack of payoff to some of the more interesting developments.

There is a thin thread of humour that has absolutely no place in this movie. We flit from grotesque violence to a lighter moment involving mental illness. The pacing is spasmodic, the voice-over is picked up for periods of time and later forgotten, and at no point do we get to savour the performances, which manage to transcend the ill-forged mystery and “thriller” elements. After both Rampart and Time Out of Mind I was looking forward to Oren Moverman’s adaptation but it is apparent that this is a story that required space to breathe. While it was perhaps the filmmaker’s intention to deliver a collage of disparate and chaotic family moments, the lack of a distinct tone and journey make this an unsatisfying experience.

The Dinner contains flashes of greatness. It has a superb cast, an interesting narrative structure and an appealing soundtrack. Sadly, the execution left me wanting, as the tonal shifts, sporadic lulls and flaccid final reel failed to make an impact. I was going to end on a pithy pun like, “fails to find second Gere” but I’ll end on a final positive.

At least the food looked incredible!

The Dinner is released December 8^th in the UK

Wonder won’t fill you totally with wonder but it will leave you feeling slightly warmer than when you walked in on a cold winter’s night! It is Christmas after all and its all about kindness and families, in whatever form they take, that’s the take home message of Wonder. Here’s the single biggest issue with Wonder, if you don’t like it then you’re officially heartless.

Auggie (Jacob Tremblay) is born. We romp through his life – a lille boy wearing an astronaut’s helmet jumping on his bed, telling us how shoes can tell you a lot about people. He has endured 27 operations in his very short life and was homeschooled by his mother  Isabel (Julia Roberts). This year is the first year of first grade Auggie will be going to school and whilst that is huge for all children add facial disfigurement and it takes it to a whole new level.

Choose Kind is the measure of the film which is good. For some of us, we will think back to Mask with Cher which had a  gritty and multi layered narrative. This is not that film, it is sanitised and the central character and his family are resolutely middle class living in a New York Brown Stone house so a lot of issues that might have come along with having so many operations such as medical expenses are swept under the carpet.

It is a lovely film that doesn’t feel overly long, does what it says on the tin and delivers a timely film in this age of the selfie that it’s not about what you look like but how you act.  It does try to pay homage to other coming of age films such as Stand By Me but frankly, that is a blink and miss it. What’s good about the film is that it tells the story from three different points of view. The performances are ok – Julia Roberts smiles and cries in equal measure. The issue with films with child actors is the film’s success rests on how convincing they are. I liked Jacob Tremblay’s performance in Room however, in this film it is a little too much. I actually think the stand out performances were from the supporting child actors.

It’s a great family film for this Christmas season based on the best selling book. Wonder is one of those films that you can go, enjoy and discuss the moral of the film on the way home. Oh, if you cry easily take some tissues, there were other critics who could have filled a couple of empty jugs!

Wonder opened on Friday 1 December in cinemas across the UK.

By Marti Dols Roca.

It was 1918 and World War I was coming to an end even though it definitely didn’t look like that. The human and material resources that would be sent by the United States and would eventually help ending the conflict wasn’t fully deployed yet, and the European trenches were witnessing the so called Spring Offensive; during which both Allies and Germans were trying to gain as much terrain as possible. In a dugout in Aisne, the British army was sending different battalions to defend a crucial point of the French geography. Each battalion had to stay in the dugout for a week until the next one would replace them. Journey’s End (2017, Saul Dibb) tells the story of one of those groups of brave young men.

As brilliantly described by the director, Journey’s End is not at film about men at war. It is a film about men at war with themselves. As the most terrible enemy for a soldier is not another soldier but time: the anticipation of the unavoidable and the several ways of dealing with that while your friends keep dying around you without completely losing your mind. Therefore, Gibb’s film (one of the many adaptations of R. C. Sheriff’s 1928 play) dwells on character.  One example of that would be that the enemy, the Boches (pejorative term used for German soldiers during World War I), don’t really take part of the story.

The only German face we see is the young man taken prisoner by the main characters during the raid that will change it all; and he may have three seconds of screen time tops. At the end of the film we see two more German soldiers but their faces are concealed beneath their gas masks so, dehumanisation aside, they are not what’s important in this story. How each individual deals with his own time and sanity before what well may be his end is what this sad and beautiful movie reflects upon.

With a priceless cast (Paul Bettany, Toby Jones, Stephen Graham amongst others); a completely gripping sound design; the magnificent camera work of Laurie Rosa (Peaky Blinders) and a strong and very human (and British) story, Journey’s end is undoubtedly one of the best films about men at war (with themselves) of the recent years.

The movie will be released on the 2nd of February this year in British and Irish theatres.