Irish Film Institute -REVIEW ROUNDUP: VOX LUX, WOMAN AT WAR, AND EXTREMELY WICKED, SHOCKINGLY EVIL AND VILE

REVIEW ROUNDUP: VOX LUX, WOMAN AT WAR, AND EXTREMELY WICKED, SHOCKINGLY EVIL AND VILE

Four new films release at the Irish Film Institute on Friday, May 3rd 2019: Vox Lux, Woman at War, and Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.

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

VOX LUX

“Nudging Natalie Portman towards a performance worthy of late Crawford, Corbet delivers countless striking set-pieces as the picture probes the politics of spectacle and the dynamics of contemporary fame.” The Irish Times – 4/5

“Natalie Portman gives her fiercest, most memorable performance since Black Swan Brady Corbet’s enjoyably subversive satire about a troubled pop star whose loss of innocence mirrors the fall from grace of the US itself.” – Independent (UK) 4/5

“Vox Lux has important questions to ask. Chief among them: if regression and the risk of destabilising your mental health is the cost of fame, why would anyone set out to do its bidding? […] The dream might be the product sold, but a nightmare is often the package delivered.” – Little White Lies 4/5

“The first act of Vox Lux is queasily inspired: disquieting, exciting, chillingly amoral. It impales you on its ambiguity.” – The Guardian 3/5

“Vox Lux is an audacious story about a survivor who becomes a star, and a deeply satisfying, narratively ambitious jolt of a movie.” – New York Times

WOMAN AT WAR

“Woman at War is a huge showcase for Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir, who brings grit, determination, and quiet charisma to every scene. An engaging curiosity and an absolute joy.” – The Irish Times 4/5

“It is confidently and rather stylishly made, with the same eccentric poise that distinguished his equine success, and the same sweeping sense of landscape.” – The Guardian 3/5

“A thoughtful and dynamic blend of genres,  Erlingsson’s contemporary environmental fable Woman At War continually thrills with a side of laughs.” – RogerEbert.com 3.5/4

“An artful fable that examines what it really means to save the world, Erlingsson’s Woman at War is the rarest of things: A crowd-pleaser about climate change.” Indiewire

“The film is also about very real questions having to do with globalization, ecological degradation, state-sanctioned media and the people we chronically dismiss, underestimate and ignore.” – The Washington Post 3/4

EXTREMELY WICKED, SHOCKINGLY EVIL AND VILE

“What we have is an efficient, well-acted walk through his first arrest, the broader investigation and his eventual conviction.” – The Irish Times 3/5

“Based on Elizabeth Kloepfer’s memoir, The Phantom Prince: My Life with Ted Bundy, the film boasts a strong cast and a fascinating set-up.” The Irish Independent 3/5

 “The film moves along at a quick pace at least thanks to its short, snappy scenes, and is punctuated by surreal moments of black humour. It effectively portrays the media’s obsession with the events surrounding Bundy, as well as the public’s – namely the women’s – fascination with the trials.” – entertainment.ie 3/5

 “Efron is a far better dramatic actor than even fans may have given him credit for. He is also the latest in a long line to prove the theory that if you can do comedy you can do anything.” – RTÉ Entertainment 4/5

“Efron plays it at just the right level, as if always behind a glass prison screen, never quite connected to the person in front of him.” – Empire 3/5

“Efron’s smoothly manipulative performance makes a mockery of their devotion, so much so that at times the movie appears less about the psychology of a specific sociopath than a general comment on women who shield such men and even hanker after them.” – New York Times

 

 

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