From Carrie to Olivia Dean: the week in rave reviews
Summed up in a sentence John Boyega opens up for the first time about being with childhood friend Damilola Taylor on the night he was murdered.
What our reviewer said “Damilola: The Untold Story swerves true-crime cliches of graphic reconstructions and psychological profiling. Instead, the scenes it chooses to recreate are stylised but disquieting.” Lucy Mangan
Pick of the rest
Carrie
Prime Video; available now
Summed up in a sentence A witty, smart remake of the classic horror movie based on Stephen King’s terrifying debut.
What our reviewer said “It has intelligence, wit and things to say about the fathomless potential for good and ill in the teenage heart.” Lucy Mangan
Bel
BBC iPlayer; available now
Summed up in a sentence A tender, grief-stricken documentary about singer-songwriter Beldina Odenyo, who took her own life in 2021, featuring her sister trying to finish her album.
What our reviewer said “A sensitively drawn portrait of a visionary artist haunted by trauma.” Lucy Mangan
Pierre
Channel 4; available now
Summed up in a sentence David Harewood stars in a noirish series that feels like a milestone for Black British crime drama.
What our reviewer said “Establishes itself with confident concision, which is largely down to Harewood’s performance.” Ellen E Jones
You may have missed …
My Brilliant Career
Netflix; available now
Summed up in a sentence A joyous, witty and beautiful adaptation of the classic feminist novel about a young woman in 1890s Australia who rebels against society’s expectations.
What our reviewer said “Sybylla, the charmingly irrepressible and irrepressibly charming heroine, is played utterly convincingly and with vim, vigour and joy by Philippa Northeast. Creator Liz Doran must have wept with happiness when they found an actor capable of bringing so much to an already glorious script – and who embodies the joie de vivre upon which so much of the plot, as everyone she meets becomes part of her orbit, depends.” Lucy Mangan
Film
If you only watch one, make it …
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Aaron Sorkin’s jittery sequel, with Jeremy Strong as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, is the background to a thriller about whistleblower Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison).
What our reviewer said “Mikey Madison sympathetically plays the unhappy, principled, supersmart Haugen, who is dismissed as a ‘disrupter’ – and Sorkin leaves it to us to notice that this in other circumstances is what oligarchs smugly call themselves.” Peter Bradshaw
Further reading Big tech goes to Hollywood: is Silicon Valley ready for a silver-screen reckoning?
Pick of the rest
The Lost Children of Tuam
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Deeply serious retelling of Ireland’s devastating tragedy, with Monica Dolan superb as the amateur historian who uncovered the horror of mass graves at a mother and baby home.
What our reviewer said “It is usual to say that a film like The Lost Children of Tuam is a difficult watch – but in fact it’s the opposite: hard to look away.” Cath Clarke
Further reading ‘She never accepted no’: Liam Neeson on dogged heroine behind Tuam mass baby grave film
24 Hour Party People
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Michael Winterbottom’s freewheeling 2002 film about the Manchester music scene stars Steve Coogan as post-punk champion Tony Wilson in a daring metatextual paean.
What our reviewer said “The music itself is not used in the jukebox slam way that another director might have chosen, to direct mood and atmosphere and help create the light and shade of narrative. It always seems to stay diegetically in the background as the story just rolls onward, all its crazy episodes and incidents apparently not having any real emotional effect on Wilson, even as his empire collapses financially.” Peter Bradshaw
The Craft
In cinemas now
Summed up in a sentence Cult high-school witch horror rereleased for its 30th anniversary, starring Robin Tunney and Neve Campbell, tackles the sensitivities of teenage anxiety with energy and confidence.
What our reviewer said “It’s a movie to compare to Heathers or Mean Girls but with a supernatural edge, a flourish of scariness where the comedy or sexiness might otherwise go.” Peter Bradshaw
Now streaming …
Intercepted
True Story; available 9 October
Summed up in a sentence Compelling war documentary in which wiretapped phone calls provide a chilling glimpse into Russian soldiers’ minds in Ukraine.
What our reviewer said “A bleak and searing wiretap into Putin’s warping effect on his people and the psychology of power.” Phil Hoad
Books
If you only read one, make it …
Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State by Michael Lewis
Reviewed by Sam Freedman
Summed up in a sentence Stories of the people who stood up to Doge.
What our reviewer said The “blockers” are the dedicated officials who try to stop the wanton and often illegal destruction of their life’s work by Elon Musk’s Doge or other agents of chaos.
Pick of the rest
Partita by Barbara Kingsolver
Reviewed by Lara Fiegel
Summed up in a sentence The follow-up to Demon Copperhead explores a musician’s midlife compromises.
What our reviewer said “Kingsolver is a committed social novelist and, ultimately, Partita is an impassioned testament to the need for art in ordinary communities, and the need for ordinariness in art.”
Sleeping Beauties by David Byrne
Reviewed by Sukhdev Sandhu
Summed up in a sentence The Talking Heads frontman on the inventions we forgot.
What our reviewer said “There’s a curriculum here that schools and universities would do well to champion: engage with science and with art, be open to play and to metaphor, consider all that is counterintuitive.”
Further reading ‘Ramones had leather jackets when they got spat on. We didn’t!’ David Byrne on touring with Talking Heads and taking advice from Lou Reed
The Queerest of Folk by Russell T Davies
Reviewed by Rebecca Nicholson
Summed up in a sentence The It’s a Sin creator on a rollercoaster career in groundbreaking television.
What our reviewer said “It’s partly a manifesto for the future: a rallying cry for invention and creativity, a call for hope and optimism in the face of ongoing threats to the arts from autocrats, AI and collapsing budgets.”
Agate Head / Stone Soup by Patricia Lockwood
Reviewed by Rishi Dastidar
Summed up in a sentence The American author’s first poetry collection in 12 years.
What our reviewer said “There are countless moments that remind you that her poetic voice is unique: charming, whimsical, intimate; able to deliver images of great beauty, piercing philosophical insights and glimpses into a creative life behind the public persona.”
You may have missed …
Wrong Norma by Anne Carson
Reviewed by Jennifer Lee Tsai
Summed up in a sentence A collection of prose poems by this year’s winner of the Nobel prize in literature.
What our reviewer said “Carson’s latest work displays her brilliance and originality through a series of hybrid, free-flowing texts interspersed with images and digressions.”
Albums
If you only listen to one, make it …
Troye Sivan: She’s the Best
Interscope; out now
Summed up in a sentence Adored by the A-list but still short of a huge smash, the Australian singer treads his own path through pop via shoegaze, Balearic and the Smiths – with Charli xcx on backing vocals.
What our reviewer said “There seems no reason whatsoever why Troye Sivan should still be a relative cult figure within pop, rather than an actual multiplatinum star.” Alexis Petridis
Pick of the rest
Branford Marsalis Quartet and Dianne Reeves: Dedicated to You
Blue Note; out now
Summed up in a sentence The saxophonist and the jazz singer reinvent John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman’s 1963 ballads album for Coltrane’s centenary year.
What our reviewer said “The title track makes time stand still in its cherishing of every word and sound.” John Fordham
Jess Williamson: A Mile South of Heaven
New West; out now
Summed up in a sentence The Texas-born alt-country singer weighs up whether to stay in or flee Los Angeles on her sixth solo album.
What our reviewer said “On this record, homesickness is a constant no matter where you go, and every note is packed with yearning.” Aimee Cliff
Susan Tomes: Women and the Piano
Hyperion; out now
Summed up in a sentence A compilation of salon pieces by a dozen female composers, from Haydn’s pupil Marianne Martines to Teresa Carreño, who played for Abraham Lincoln.
What our reviewer said “None of this would be half so rewarding if it were not for Tomes’ poetic instincts.” Clive Paget
On tour …
Olivia Dean
Touring Australia and New Zealand to 17 October.
Summed up in a sentence The Grammy-winning singer opens the Australian leg of her world tour with a theatrical big-band show about what love is really all about.
What our reviewer said “It’s as affirming as it is fun, and she’s just as silly as she is sincere and clever.” Brodie Lancaster
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