Immaculate

Close up of Sister Cecilia as she gives birth

Sydney Sweeney plays a nun – how about that for an elevator pitch? Immaculate is a film that Sweeney really wanted to play, having first auditioned to play the lead role aged 17. Now, ten years on, with money in the bank and acting as a producer on the movie, she finally gets the project aloft, a touch of a rewrite here, a fave director there and casting herself as a sweet novitiate nun who become the brood mare of
 well it must be Satan, though no one ever utters the name. A “devil’s dick” movie then, joining the likes of Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen, with the plot remarkably close to The … Read more

Anyone But You

Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney get up close

Since Reality Sydney Sweeney has nothing left to prove. A standout performance that didn’t rely on her usual standout performers, it was sober and pitiless and one of the best films of 2023. And now? Anyone But You, the sort of thing you might have thought she’d have left behind, a boy meets girl, loses girl, etc romcom with the 90s in its rearview, with sexy jokes, some whoops-nudity, side characters who are funny and/or supportive confidants, plus parents who push too hard or are gross-out buffoons, all the trappings really. It’s a strange Frankenstein creation welding together bits from two Australian directors. From PJ Hogan the vibe and drive of Muriel’s Wedding … Read more

Reality

A deglammed Sydney Sweeney as Reality Winner

A couple of FBI agents turn up at the house of a young woman called Reality Winner as she arrives home with some groceries. They have a warrant to search the property, they say. Reality’s reaction is on the range of the expected, somewhere between stunned and acquiescent. But she seems to be taking this sudden intrusion in her stride, attempting to carry on as normal though appearing unsure as to what normal looks like when the FBI has just arrived. The FBI guys ask Reality if she has any pets inside the house, whether there are guns in there, if anyone else might be in there. Reality behaves as if she has … Read more

The Voyeurs

Pippa and Thomas with binoculars

Sydney Sweeney’s big eyes and impressive breasts both work hard in The Voyeurs, a trashy thriller designed to titillate even as it vaguely warns of the perils of being too interested in what other people get up to. As is often the way with these things, a hearty interest in what other people get up to is actually The Voyeurs‘ raison d’etre. It starts with one of those grand cinematic establishing shots of a cityscape, the camera gradually zooming in, in, in, onto a street, a shop, then dissolving the window separating outside from inside, before advancing still further into this boutique selling lingerie, and towards a changing cubicle where Sweeney can just … Read more

Nocturne

Vivian and Juliet

Nocturne is a story about two sisters. Twins. Both students at an arts academy. Vivian (Madison Iseman) is off to prestigious Juilliard soon; Juliet (Sydney Sweeney) isn’t. Vivian has a hot boyfriend; Juliet doesn’t. Vivian plays tricksy pieces by the likes of Saint SaĂ«ns; Juliet sticks with safe dependable Mozart. Vivian is feisty and popular; Juliet is moody and a loner. Both seem reasonably accepting of their lot, until a fellow student commits suicide (we see her leaping from an upper floor in a pre-credits sequence), and Juliet comes into possession of a book once owned by the dead student, a book full of spooky satanic drawings with a medieval flavour. Duh, duh, … Read more