Cannes Review: Joanna Hogg’s ‘The Souvenir Part II’

The 78thVenice International Film Festival has set its full roster of juries.

The 78th Venice International Film Festival has set its full roster of juries.

A man declares he will marry the next woman to walk into a bar. That’s the most interesting thing about Ildiko Enyedi’s The Story Of My Wife, a flat Cannes Film Festival competition entry that squanders its intriguing premise.

Arnaud Desplechin returns to the Cannes Film Festival with Deception (Tromperie), a self-indulgent Philip Roth adaptation that’s only marginally better than 2017’s derided Ismael’s Ghosts. One of the late Roth’s most openly personal novels, it details a string of affairs conducted by Jewish-American writer “Philip,” here played by French actor Denis Podalydes, speaking French.

Netflix’s bonkbuster period drama Bridgerton has secured its first 12 Emmy Awards nominations.

It’s “octopuses,” not “octopi.”

CANNES – If you’ve already read Graham Swift’s novel “Mothering Sunday,” you’re well aware of the sensual and provocative nature of many of the scenes. The description of young English housemaid Jane Fairchild and the relatively young lord of the manor Paul Sheringham’s coupling leaves little to the imagination.

Clio Barnard returns to the Cannes Film Festival with the British drama Ali & Ava. While billed as a romance, the Directors’ Fortnight entry doesn’t take the path of a traditional idealized love story, instead exploring the connection between a new couple within Barnard’s social realist world. Based on locals that she encountered while filming The Arbor (2010) and The Selfish Giant (2013) in Bradford, it stars Claire Rushbrook (Secrets & Lies) as Ava and Adeel Akhtar (Four Lions) as Ali.

If the Merchant Ivory factory of well-appointed period British cinema was still in operation, a film adaptation Graham Swift’s novella Mothering Sunday, debuting today as part of the Cannes Film Festival Cannes Premiere section, might have been something they would have snapped up immediately.

After exiting the Netflix film “Rebel Ridge” directed by Jeremy Saulnier (“Green Room“), British actor John Boyega (“Detroit“) is reportedly looking to help out an indie drama that was about to collapse if they couldn’t find a new leading man.

Andrea Arnold turns her astute observational skills to the bovine world in Cow, a Cannes Premiere with a difference. It’s a documentary that follows a cow on an English farm over time, watching her intently as she gives birth and gives milk. Humans are only featured when they enter her orbit, and snatches of dialogue inform us of basic information. Her name is Luma, she is protective of her calves, and she isn’t getting any younger.

sequel isn’t quite the right term for this most delicate and exquisite of follow-ups. Aftermath might be more apposite.The first film dealt with our lead character Julie (played by Honor Swinton Byrne) and her first days at film school in 1980s London, a period marked by a relationship with the charming but raffish Anthony (Tom Burke), who turned out to be a total lying heroin addict.In the new film, time has gone by and Julie is completing her graduation film.

Guy Lodge Film CriticA beloved ceramic sugar bowl drops from the mantelpiece in “The Souvenir Part II,” and for a few seconds, it’s as if the world itself has shattered and split open. All the air is sucked from the room, replaced with a thick, still silence of devastation, apology and irrational fury.

Elton John has vowed to help new artists tour Europe despite the UK government’s “disastrous” Brexit trade agreement.The legendary singer has been very vocal about the government jeopardising the future of touring for UK artists, after its Brexit deal with the EU failed to negotiate visa-free travel and Europe-wide work permits for musicians and crew.He even called the government “philistines” and accused them of “crucifying” the careers of young artists.Today (July 6), John and his husband

The 74th Cannes Film Festival kicked off in earnest this evening as big names came out to support the event that’s just getting back to business after last year’s cancellation and this year’s delays. Assembled together, 2019 Oscar and Palme d’Or winner Bong Joon-ho, Cannes veteran Pedro Almodovar, Jury President Spike Lee and tonight’s honorary Palme d’Or recipient Jodie Foster paid tribute to the event and officially opened the 2021 proceedings in a mix of Korean, Spanish, English and French.

John Lawton, the vocalist for the long-running Uriah Heep during one of the British rock bands most popular eras, died June 29 of undisclosed causes.