Abi Lendrum

Five teenagers spend the summer house-sitting for Keanu Reeves and discover more about themselves and love in the process. Los Angeles native Alex Israel’s debut film is a plotless, vapid, and exasperating mess. Trying to think of a way to describe SPF-18 is almost as perplexing as the film itself. There is almost no plot, or at least not one that makes an ounce of sense, characters are flat, and their motivations are completely unclear. On the opening of the film, Penny (Carson Meyer) seems borderline obsessed with her ex-flame from high school Johnny Sanders Jr. (Noah Centineo) and has her sights set on losing her virginity to him this summer. Penny and her cousin Camilla (Bianca A. Santos) join Johnny in Keanu Reeves’ Malibu beach house, where they meet singer Ash (Jackson Baker) who has run away from Tennessee to try and escape his controlling record label and is caught illegally camping on the beach by lifeguard Steve (Sean Russell Herman). The five spend the next few days sur...

Never Look Away depicts the life of German Artist Kurt Barnert (Tom Schilling), as he struggles to find his artistic voice torn between the Socialist Realist movement of East Germany and the liberating but eccentric art world of West Germany.  Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s new biopic inspired by the life of German painter Gerhard Richter is a beautifully shot but tonally confused piece. Throughout this film two opposing stories are seeming to be told in conjunction with one another. One, a harrowing war drama telling the story of Kurt Barnert as he grows up in war-torn East Germany, and as he and his family struggle to find their footing under the new Socialist regime. The other, a romantic tale between two college students, Kurt and Ellie (Paula Beer) who fall in love and attempt to forge their own artistic paths in life, despite the objections of her Nazi doctor father (Sebastian Koch) and the rigid structure of Social Realism. Regardless, these two juxtaposing stories...

Irisz Leiter (Juli Jakab) arrives in Budapest to apply for a job at her family’s former hat shop. Upon her rejection, she begins to uncover some dark secrets about her family and is forced to navigate her way through the criminal gangs of 1913 Hungary in order to uncover the truth. Premiering at the 75 th  Venice International Film Festival, Laszló Nemes’ new feature  Sunset  is a technically interesting but ultimately disappointing follow-up to his Oscar-winning debut  Son of Saul. Nemes’ distinctive directing style first established in  Son of Saul  is further developed in  Sunset.  As the only film at Venice to be screened in 35mm, it has a grainy quality, perhaps fitting for the location and era of this film, illustrating the dirt that lies underneath Hungarian society before World War I. This is strengthened by the dull, neutral colour palette, with every frame appearing like an old painting, as we are viewing another world. The film is...