Boy Erased etches sketch of family versus faith into film history
Movie Review: Boy Erased
Director-actor Joel Edgerton brings Garrard Conley’s memoir of his time in conversion-therapy to the big screen with a cast of powerful voices. Veterans, and fellow Aussies, Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman form the harmony and chorus, while Lucas Hedges performs a heartbreaking solo as the son of a Baptist minister struggling with sexual identity. The combination of all three is close to a religious experience, writes critic Katherine Monk.
Bening Becomes Legend in Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool
Movie review: Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool Annette Bening pours pathos into a champagne glass as Gloria Grahame in Paul McGuigan’s moody portrait of the feminine mystique and its martyrdom at the grabby hands of Hollywood Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool
4/5
Starring: Annette Bening, Jamie Bell, Julie Walters, Vanessa Redgrave, Kenneth Cranham
Directed by: Paul McGuigan
Running time: 1 hr 45 mins
Rating: Restricted By Katherine Monk
She had a starring role in It’s a Wonderful Life, but Gloria Grahame had anything but. As one of the leading femme fatales of the 20th century, Grahame was a prisoner of her pin-up image, sentenced to the shadows of sexually charged parts in an era that regarded a woman’s libido as a moral liability. Sexuality was her ticket to the gleaming world of Golden Age Hollywood, but in Paul McGuigan’s emotionally detailed portrait based on Peter Turner’s memoir, we can see how her biggest gift also became her biggest ...
