ON SCREEN
Alice Burns finds out about recent film launches and the latest DVD releases
Little Women
Release Date: 27th December
Director: Greta Gerwig
Starring: Emma Watson, Saoirse Ronan, Meryl Streep, Florence Pugh and James Norton
Certificate: PG
The latest adaptation of Louisa-May Alcott’s bestselling novel hits the screens this New Year following the lives of Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy March whilst their father is away at war, in this classic coming-of-age drama set during the aftermath of the American Civil War. United in spite of their differences in character, the sisters pull together to endure the strife of poverty and uncompromising expectations of their gender to navigate the tricky path to adulthood. Through proposals and rejections, the March sisters are determined to create for themselves a life on their own terms.
1917
Release Date: 10th January
Directors: Sam Mendez
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, Andrew Scott and Dean Charles-Chapman
Certificate: 15
Two young British privates are given a near-impossible mission during the midst of the First World War, with the fates of over 1,000 British soldiers resting on their shoulders. They must work together to navigate their way through the perilous depths of enemy territory to deliver a message to their troops instructing them to call off a planned attack on the Germans. If they fail, it will be a massacre. If they succeed, they will save the lives of 1,600 soldiers – private Blake’s own brother included. Failure is not an option.
Mrs Lowry and Son
Release Date: 20th January
Director: Adrian Noble
Starring: Vanessa Redgrave, Timothy Spall, Stephen Lord and Michael Keogh
Certificate: PG
He’s a man who paints. Nothing more, nothing less. Timothy Spall and Vanessa Redgrave provide compelling performances showcasing the complex relationship between the celebrated Lancashire painter L S Lowry and his mother, Elizabeth. Living alone with his mother, Lowry attempts to pursue his passion for painting, depicting real-life as he saw it in among the industrial working-classes of Pendlebury in the 1930s. Increasingly frail, but having lost none of her razor sharp wit and cynicism, Elizabeth’s cantankerous dismissal of Lowry’s ‘hobby’ wears him down until her capricious decision to approve of some of his paintings correlates with the London art world’s growing interest in the unassuming northern painter.
