Irish Film Institute -REVIEW ROUNDUP: MEMOIR OF WAR, TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG, XY CHELSEA

REVIEW ROUNDUP: MEMOIR OF WAR, TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG, XY CHELSEA

New releases at the IFI from Friday May 24th: Memoir of War, Too Late to Die Young, XY Chelsea.

Read on for a selection of reviews or pop in to make up your own mind!

MEMOIR OF WAR
“A deeply humane and thought-provoking film, Memoir of War features surely one of the performances of the year from Mélanie Thierry as the protagonist. See it at the IFI from Friday. Unmissable.”
5/5 – RTÉ

“Buoyed by an astonishing central turn by Mélanie Thierry.”
3/5 – Little White Lies

“This isn’t a movie about set-up and payoff, it’s a movie about the torment of being stuck in your head, and the insoluble loneliness of walking through a crowd of people who are oblivious to your private suffering.”
IndieWire

“Melanie Thierry leaps towards the front echelons of current French actresses with her riveting turn as Marguerite Duras in Emmanuel Finkiel’s slow-burning Memoir of Pain (La Douleur).”
Hollywood Reporter

TOO LATE TO DIE YOUNG
“Nervy restlessness and the anticipation of doomed innocence shadows the brilliant Too Late to Die Young (Tarde Para Morir Joven), which is set in 1990s Chile.”
4/5 – RTÉ

“A lovingly textured addition to the coming-of-age genre.”
Hollywood Reporter

“An ambitious feat of storytelling delivered with a sensitivity to mood and emotion…”
Screen International

“Too Late to Die Young pushes its rhythmic approach to a satisfying climax in a closing sequence.”
IndieWire

“A long dazed journey into night; holding the recurring question mark of a new dawn.”
4/5 – Financial Times

XY CHELSEA
“We do at least get a sense of Manning as a person – though at this stage, she comes across as a person still trying to get a sense of herself.”
3/5 – Guardian

“What Hawkins’s film reveals, quite tragically and pessimistically, is a caring soul who has sacrificed their individuality to a perpetually muddled greater good.”
Hollywood Reporter

“This is a very difficult personal narrative to try to digest and make sense of, but at least XY Chelsea makes for a start on this, even if it cannot approach anything definitive on her singular story.”
The Wrap

IFI CINEMAS TODAY


The IFI is supported
by The Arts Council

Arts Council of Ireland