‘Allelujah’ review: Hospital drama with Judi Dench and Jennifer Saunders flatlines

Nothing has illustrated the current turmoil in British politics quite as starkly as the recent tanking of the pound against the dollar, a puzzle even to the ruling party whose prime minister and chancellor caused it. Richard Eyre’s fitfully funny Allelujah reflects this schism in more ways than one, balancing broad grey-pound comedy and seriously macabre drama with the result that a seemingly gentle satire inexplicably dives into a murky existential abyss in its final act. Even fans of Alan Bennett, the famously folksy playwright and national treasure of the north, will struggle with the juxtaposition of wry bathos and savagery, the latter ramped up from Allelujah’s original incarnation as a Bennett stage play sprinkled with Dennis Potter-style song-and-dance numbers.

K.J. Yossman BBC have unveiled their fall/winter arts and factual slate including documentaries on Elon Musk and fashion designer Virgil Abloh, who tragically died last year at the age of 41, as well as a new Louis Theroux series in which he interviews stars including Judi Dench, Rita Ora and Stormzy. “I’ve been in my new role for four months and I’ve been blown away by the sheer range, scale and quality of programming coming out of the factual, arts and classical music departments,” said Kate Phillips, director for unscripted. “From stand out documentaries like ‘The Real Mo Farah’ and ‘Freddie’s Field of Dreams’ to the BBC Proms and the launch of ‘Frozen Planet II,’ the team here are at the very top of their game, bringing audiences high impact, uniquely public service content at its very best. We’ve got plenty more to look forward to in the months ahead and I’m excited to unveil such an impressive array of diverse new content featuring big and upcoming talent, and bringing us new perspectives, incredible access and big moments for everyone.”

At a critical moment in the billionaire vs. bear thriller “The Edge” (1997), protagonist Charles Morse (Anthony Hopkins) espouses a rather odd theory of what kills most people stranded in the wilderness—shame.

An A-list wing woman. Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Garcelle Beauvais revealed that Julia Roberts offered to help her find the man of her dreams.

A versatile star! Before her role in ABC’s Alaska Daily, Hilary Swank made a name for herself with a unique selection of roles.

Kate Winslet was taken to the hospital after she suffered an accident while filming LEE in Croatia. The Oscar-winning actor fell while on the set of the movie and a rep for the star is offering an update on her health condition.

Cobra Kai fans have been asking for the past two seasons whether or not an appearance from Hilary Swank, reprising the role of Julie Pierce from The Next Karate Kid, could be in the cards. Following the release of the hit Netflix series’ fifth season with no Swank in sight, the speculation continues.

Dame Judi Dench was given two pairs of "powerful" glasses on 'The Repair Shop' to enable her to see her late husband's watch. The 87-year-old actress - who was married to actor Michael Williams from 1971 until his death in 2001 - took a timepiece once belonging to her late husband onto the BBC One craft show, but she was unable to see the team's work until horologist Steve Fletcher loaned her his spectacles. Steve said: "She was looking at the watch and couldn’t see the engraving we’d put on the back.

Denying the drama. Colman Domingo has heard the rumors surrounding Barbie Ferreira’s exit from Euphoria — and he’d like everyone to calm down.

Dame Judi Dench was thrilled when The Repair Shop fixed a treasured watch, but she had not expected a ­magnify-cent gift as well. For horologist Steve Fletcher gave her two pairs of his super strong specs, which meant Judi, whose eyesight is failing, could see every tiny detail in her late husband’s pocket-watch. Dame Judi, 87, recently took part in a special Repair Shop show, where Jay Blades and his team helped to repair the timepiece belonging to her late husband Michael Williams.

Manori Ravindran International Editor The stars descended on Soho House in downtown Toronto on Saturday for Variety and Chanel’s Female Filmmakers’ Dinner during the Toronto International Film Festival. Guests in attendance included Tilda Swinton, star of Joanna Hogg’s “The Eternal Daughter”; Gina Prince-Bythewood, director of “The Woman King”; Darren Aronofsky, director of “The Whale”; and Anna Kendrick, who’s in Toronto shopping her new AGC Studios project “The Dating Game” to market buyers. Stars mingled on a packed rooftop before convening in the club’s private dining room, which gathered around 100 of the festival’s bright lights in filmmaking. They dined on a bespoke Soho House menu of beef tartare with black truffle, black cod and bok choy, and wagyu rib cap with porcini purée.

TORONTO – Sometimes films with the best intentions just doesn’t come together. A great cast, a notable filmmaker, and fine source material don’t always coalesce.

Brent Lang Executive Editor “Allelujah,” Richard Eyre’s latest film, unfolds in a Yorkshire geriatric hospital, following a group of patients as they make peace with or rage against the indignities of old age. It’s a story that resonates with Eyre, a legendary stage and screen director. “I’m about to be 80,” he says. “So old age isn’t my consuming passion, but it’s a subject that has been forced on me and that has become difficult to ignore. I’m acutely aware of having outlived both my parents and many of my friends.” Perhaps unwittingly, “Allelujah,” which premieres this weekend at the Toronto International Film Festival, also serves as a showcase for a generation of English actors such as Judi Dench, David Bradley, and Derek Jacobi, who have all entered their ninth decades.

A Syrian war film with a difference, Nezouh is a delicate and engrossing entry in Venice’s Horizons Extra section. Director Soudade Kaadan won Lion of the Future for 2018’s The Day I Lost My Shadow, and she continues to impress with this empathetic story of life under siege. 

Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic If you’re a fan of “The Trip” and its sequels, those semi-improvised road comedies in which Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon play slightly exaggerated versions of their real-life selves, you’ll know that they’re about more than just two men driving through the European countryside, eating fabulous food, trying to top each other with their Al Pacino impersonations. Coogan, in particular, comes off as a fellow who, for all his larkish narcissism, is so steeped in history that it’s literally alive for him. And that’s the feeling that courses through “The Lost King,” the new movie written by Coogan and Jeff Pope and directed by Stephen Frears. They’re the team that gave us “Philomena” (2013), the sharp-tongued heart-tugger that cast Judi Dench as a real-life Irishwoman tracking down the son she’d been forced to give up for adoption 50 years before. That movie was fine (a tad too sentimental in my book), but “The Lost King” is a growth ring, a richer, stronger, and more moving piece of work, a historical detective story that carries the kick of a true-life “Da Vinci Code.”

“The Swimmers” is inspired by the true story of teenage Olympic athlete and Syrian refugee Yusra Mardini who, in 2015, along with her sister Sara and two others, dragged a boat full of fellow refugees across the Aegean sea. After the girls made it to Germany, Yusra was selected along with ten others to compete with the Refugee Olympic Team at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio.

Netflix has a number of high-profile movies coming to the Toronto  Film Festival, just as it did at Venice and Telluride, but a less heralded title with no instantly recognizable star names was chosen to open the fest tonight, and The Swimmers may turn out to be a surprise winner for the streamer when it debuts this fall. It certainly reverses the curse of some of TIFF’s less successful opening-nighters.

The last decade has seen a plethora of movies about the crisis in Syria, most of them hard-hitting documentaries tracking the brutal effects of the war and the plight of those who’ve left and those who’ve stayed. At the same time, there’s never been a shortage of inspirational sports films where plucky athletes overcome obstacles to realize their dreams.But “The Swimmers,” which opened the Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday, is a rare mixture of the two: It’s an inspirational sports movie about a pair of Syrian swimmers, sisters Yusra and Sara Mardini, who fled from their home in Damascus during the Syrian civil war in 2015 to Europe, where they might have a chance to advance their athletic careers and swim in the 2016 Olympic Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro.TIFF has opened with sports movies in the past, though you might be forgiven for forgetting about the festival’s 2010 opener, “Score: A Hockey Musical,” or 2017’s “Borg/McEnroe,” with Shia LaBeouf perhaps typecast as the petulant John McEnroe. At any rate, “The Swimmers” is more substantial than either of those films.