The best films to watch at the cinema this week – and what to avoid
The pick of this week’s films is End of the Century, a tender love story set in Argentina and spanning 20 years. Our critic Tim Robey can’t praise this one highly enough.
The Call of the Wild sees Harrison Ford, one brave dog and a whole load of CGI bring Jack London’s classic adventure story to the big screen.
If you think that Greed is essentially a thinly-veiled portrait of Sir Philip Green, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone to contradict you. Steve Coogan leads the satirical Mediterranean party.
Waiting for Anya is the second book adaptation of the week; this time, the plot is drawn from Michael Morpurgo’s tale of France during the Second World War.
Finally, Little Joe sees Ben Whishaw and Emily Beecham paired as botanists working on a genetically modified plant that may have a toxic secret.
End of the Century ★★★★★
A brief encounter in Barcelona prompts two men (Juan Barberini and Ramón Pujol) to wonder if they’re not strangers after all, but in fact met in the same city 20 years before. This beautiful wisp of a romance, a debut from Argentinian writer-director Lucio Castro, becomes a slippery yet profound meditation on time, memory and desire, in which half a lifetime passes by as a kind of mirage. 18 cert, 82 min
The Call of the Wild ★★☆☆☆
Harrison Ford, as a grizzled outdoorsman, tries to lend ballast to Jack London’s classic adventure yarn about a stolen dog in the Yukon, but the CGI pooch and green-screened landscapes leave it feeling fake. PG cert, 100min
Greed ★★☆☆☆
Michael Winterbottom directs Steve Coogan as a thinly veiled version of the retail magnate Sir Philip Green, in a broad-brush satire that winds up torn between snickering and finger-wagging. 15 cert, 104 min
Waiting for Anya ★★☆☆☆
This cloying adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s children’s book about wartime France is let down by ’Allo ’Allo! accents. 12A cert, 131 min
Little Joe ★★★☆☆
In this chilly sci-fi fable, Emily Beecham and Ben Whishaw play scientists working on a GM botany project. With its sumptuous design and eerie score, the film is more impeccable diagram than living-or-breathing drama. 12A cert, 105 min
Have you watched any of the “must-see” films on this list? We want to hear what you thought of them in the comments section below.
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