Hope Gap – A quiet and intimate film, Hope Gap explores the realities of marriage and what it means to age together. Bill Nighy and Annette Bening deliver reliably strong performances as a couple who face some cold truths about their relationship.

The Secret Garden – It may not have the emotional pull that you’d expect from a story about children undergoing the trauma of parental loss, but what it lacks in dramatic clout it makes up with the quality of its production. Although being cast with the acting talents of Colin Firth and Julie Walters, the film’s biggest star is its art department. Luscious set designs and exquisitely lit forested wallpapered hallways wonderfully flirt with magical realism and blur the lines between interior and exterior, fantasy and the real. The overall effect is one of total visual emersion.

See my reviews for the NZ Herald here and for Witchdoctor here.