Check out this week’s top DVD picks from Instant Family to If Beale Street Could Talk
MOONLIGHT mastermind Barry Jenkins returns with If Beale Street Could Talk, a stately, almost dreamlike meditation on race and injustice in America.
Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne get more than they bargained for in the surprisingly effective adoption comedy Instant Family and there’s a lukewarm dollop of fire-breathing action in How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.
DVD of the week: If Beale Street Could Talk
(15) 116mins, out now
★★★★☆
FOLLOWING Moonlight was always a big ask. Director Barry Jenkins just about lives up to those sky high expectations with this stately slow-burner.
An ambitious adaptation of James Baldwin’s 1974 novel about a young father accused of rape, Jenkins juxtaposes a serene, often dreamlike tone with his simmering rage at a rigged system.
Regina King scooped an Oscar for her furious supporting turn but leads Kiki Layne and Stephan James are every bit her equal.
It is beautifully shot in a sumptuous autumnal palette, with several euphoric sequences that feel both intimate and epic.
In fact, there are probably a couple too many. At times the pace slows to a standstill, less drama than diorama - albeit masterfully staged. A faintly anticlimactic finish lacks the emotional wallop that seemed all but certain throughout.
Instant Family
(12A) 118mins, out now
★★★★☆
SURPRISINGLY effective family comedy with Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne as the stuck-in-a-rut husband and wife who find their lives turned upside-down after deciding to adopt.
At a fair introducing prospective parents to kids who need a home, they bond with Isabela Moner’s sassy teen Lizzie - but they get more than they bargained for in the form of her little brother and sister.
Cue temper tantrums, DIY damage and sibling rivalries, throwing their cosy domestic set-up into chaos.
Octavia Spencer and Tig Notaro provide comic relief as care workers, with Spencer in particular shining.
Through them, the film tackles issues ranging from white-saviour complexes to drug abuse to flaws in the foster-care system.
What starts as typical Sunday-afternoon fare develops into so much more, with laughs, dizzying highs and tear-jerking lows. A feel-good gem.
Harry Benbow
How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
(PG) 104mins, out now
★★★☆☆
THE adventures of Hiccup and Toothless come to a conclusion (until the next instalment, at least) in neat, rather than triumphant, fashion.
It's amiable viewing with plenty of spectacle, including an impressively loud finale that goes some way to making up for the lacklustre villain (F Murray Abraham doing a generic Russian accent).
Latecomers to the franchise won’t be challenged by the uncomplicated plot, though there is plenty of mythology building for those who do know their Night Furies from their Light Furies.
In fact, it feels slightly padded, though the running time is hardly epic.
Adult viewers could use a few more laughs but there are some nice character moments on the way to the inevitable life-lessons about moving on, letting go and fireproofing your armour.
24-Hour Party People
(18) 112mins, out now
★★★★☆
WELCOME Blu-ray release of the seminal comedy about Manchester’s Hacienda days.
Steve Coogan is superb as telly reporter turned music impresario Tony Wilson in one of his least Partridgey performances, delivering buckets of twerpish charisma and delusional narcissism.
He is surrounded by a host of familiar faces from screen and comedy, from Paddy Considine and Andy Serkis to Simon Pegg and Coogan’s regular sparring partner Rob Brydon.
Riotously entertaining, though you get the feeling the real story was even more chaotic and brilliantly idiotic than this suggests.
Once Upon a Time in London
(18) 106mins, out now
★★☆☆☆
PLODDING gangster fodder that does a nice job of realising its wartime setting but is desperately short of wit and panache.
There is nobody to root for among the bevy of charmless toerags scrapping for the capital’s underground spoils.
MOST READ IN FILM
Rarely does five minutes slope by without some weaselly rascal losing an ear or being used as a dartboard.
But the stakes are so low, the alliances so arbitrary, it feels like platoons of crotchety bald men fighting over a comb.
The hubristic title, nodding to Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In America - an authentic gangster epic if ever there was one -- only accentuates the mediocrity on display.
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