Domhnall Gleeson

Echo Valley

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Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney

Constantly on the move, always trying new things, Sydney Sweeney’s advance on the Oscars probably won’t be helped by Echo Valley – she’s just not in it enough – but it won’t be hindered either. And she’s surrounded by the sort of actor the Academy loves. What is it though, this Echo Valley? Julianne Moore and Fiona Shaw are in it, so there’s an expectation of a certain sort of high-tone emotional drama, which is exactly what we get… at first. Moore plays the mother to an abjectly drug addicted daughter (Sweeney). Kate is at her wit’s end over Claire’s regular relapses and yet she continues to enable her daughter because she is a soft … Read more

Frank

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Maggie Gyllenhall, Michael Fassbender (possibly) and Domhnall Gleeson in Frank

Frank Sidebottom was the stage name of musician Chris Sievey, whose Frank was a cult novelty act that toured students unions etc in the UK in the 1980s and 1990s, singing chaotically shambolic versions of well known tunes (it could be Kylie, it could be the Sex Pistols) in a wheedling high-pitched determinedly uncool accent. Frank wore a gigantic papier maché head and made much of the fact that he was from the equally uncool Timperley in Cheshire. I saw him perform once, in the University of London Union, and the memory is with me still. Jon Ronson, the journalist who co-wrote the screenplay on which Lenny Abrahamson’s film is based, was the … Read more