Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 11/10/2018)

On 12 August 1945, the radio news informs the residents of a remote Hungarian village about the dropping of an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Town clerk István Szentes (Péter Rudolf) has other things to worry about, however, as his son, Árpád (Bence Tasnádi), is about to marry Kisrózsi (Dóra Sztarenki), a peasant girl who was previously engaged to Jancsi (Tamás Szabó Kimmel), a strapping farm worker who is convinced the forthcoming elections will change his country forever. István is also concerned about his addict wife, Anna (Eszter Nagy-Kálózy), who is convinced that Kisrózsi is only marrying Arpad because his father has placed him in charge of the local pharmacy. 

Down at the railway station, three soldiers from the Red Army look on from their jeep as a pair of Orthodox Jews, Hermann Sámuel (Iván Angelus) and his son Hermann, Jr. (Marcell Nagy), disembark from a train and load two heavy trunks on to the cart driven by Mihály Suba (Miklós B. Székely). The stationmaster (István Znamenák) is disconcerted by the arrival of the black-clad strangers and goes in search of István to alert him to their presence and tells Suba to take his time ferrying his passengers. 

Keen to ensure the celebrations go well, István calls on Kisrózsi's family and is embarrassed when Árpád chokes on a glass of brandy. He's polite to town drunk Bandi (József Szarvas) and his wife Andrásné (Ági Szirtes), and makes a fuss over a disabled war veteran (János Derzsi). István also offers a bottle of champagne to the Russian officer (Zsolt Dér), who is chatting to Jancsi, who still clearly has an emotional hold over Kisrózsi that makes Árpád nervous when his old friend announces that he wouldn't miss the wedding for the world. 

As Árpád shows Kisrózsi around the shop, István takes some money from the till and crosses the street to lunch in the local bar. He is disturbed by the stationmaster, who has cycled to warn him about the Samuels and their cases of cosmetics and perfume. Convinced that nobody of that name used to live in the village, István confides in cop Páli (Sándor Terhes), who shuttles him around in the sidecar of his motorbike. Having taken over property that once belonged to the Klein family, Páli is discomfited by the news and wishes that the victims of the Nazi round-ups could have stayed away for good. 

Árpád also knows his shop used to belong to the Pollaks and he flinches when he finds a family photograph album in the storeroom. István tells him not to panic, but tensions have already risen by the time the Samuels arrive. It's more a case of passions with Kisrózsi and Jancsi, however, and her mother, Rózsika (Tünde Szalontay), chides her for having a last fling with her former lover before coming home to try on her wedding dress. Anna also senses that her future daughter-in-law has been misbehaving and makes it clear that she will not stand by and watch her son get hurt. 

Suffering from a guilty conscience, Bandi is ready to return any appropriated property. But Andrásné reckons she deserves a nice house having lost one of her sons at the front and she warns István that her husband is being lily livered. However, despite Anna's reassurances, Árpád is also starting to get twitchy and he is unnerved when Bandi informs him that his father had coerced him into signing a complaint against the Pollaks. As the Samuels reach the centre of the village, István sends the stationmaster to keep an eye on them and reminds Árpád that he took a risk in securing him an exemption from military service and that he owes it to him to stand firm and defend his corner if things begin to turn nasty.

However, Árpád is too afraid to stay and he packs a case before heading to the station, as his mother seeks solace in her medication. Determined to protect her ill-gotten gains, Andrásné hides obviously Hebraic items in a broken-down car in the barn before cycling to warn Rózsika that she should do likewise. But she is too busy making preparations for the wedding and barely has time to listen to her mother confessing that she had betrayed the Jewish boy she had been paid to hide. Bandi also seeks absolution and tries to tell the village priest (Béla Gados) about how István and Andrásné had conspired against the Pollaks and forced him to sign a complaint. However, the priest refuses to listen to the ravings of a drunk and turfs him out of the church, just as the Samuels are passing on Suba's cart and having places of interest pointed out to them by his son (György Somhegyi). 

Unable to persuade Kisrózsi to leave with him, Árpád glares at Jancsi as he comes to see what is going on. István learns about his son's departure from Anna after he has threatened Bandi to keep his mouth shut. She curses István for betraying his best friend and making Bandi and Páli his accomplices and she accuses him of cheating on her with numerous women in the village. Meanwhile, the Samuels have reached the Jewish cemetery on the outskirts and the white-bearded Hermann asks the Subas to start digging, while he lays three tallits on the ground and reverently places various religious items, books and some children's shoes and a toy train upon them. When the hole is deep enough, he hands the bundles to his son to place in the earth and stands at the graveside to have the lapel of his suit torn.

As they are washing their hands, István arrives and asks the nature of their business. When the old man replies that he is burying what is left of the dead, the town clerk promises to keep the graves in good order to that nobody forgets and extends his hand. Samuel accepts the gesture and shakes the hand of the carter before starting the long walk back to the station. They pass Bandi's premises, just as his son finds his father's body hanging from a rafter in the barn and Andrásné fights back her anger and sadness as she brushes off his hat. She refuses István's attempt to console her and he wanders back into the village to see smoke billowing out of the pharmacy. 

Having been pursued in her wedding dress by the Soviets in their jeep, Kisrózsi has set light to the shop in revenge for losing her opportunity to escape poverty and she staggers into the street as István calls for volunteers to help douse the flames after the priest had forbidden anyone to leave the church to help. A clap of thunder erupts overhead and the Samuels are caught in the downpour, as they makes their way back to the station. They nod at Árpád in the waiting room before boarding the train. As István surveys the charred ruins of the pharmacy, a black plume of smoke from the locomotive rises into the air and drifts towards the village, as if linking it to the chimneys of the gas chambers. 

Rarely have silent avengers wreaked such havoc while on such a seemingly harmless mission. The Samuels don't have to do much to unsettle the villagers under István's jurisdiction, as almost everyone has their guilty conscience pricked by the mere presence of the strangers, whose attire alone is sufficient to evoke memories of the neighbours they had betrayed with their prejudice, envy and greed. István is the worst of the bunch, as he not only framed a close friend, but also abused his power for personal gain. But the priest and the cop have clearly sat on their hands, while the likes of Andrásné Kustár have regarded the misfortunes of others as recompense for her own suffering. Yet, the Red Army appears happy to maintain the status quo, as the troops who are both liberators and occupiers intimidate the locals into parting with goods and services, as well as anything else that takes their fancy.

Married in real life, Péter Rudolf and Eszter Nagy-Kálózy harrowingly convey the pent-up bitterness of years of treachery and sterility, while Ági Szirtes and József Szarvas provide flipsides of the coin a couple of rungs down the social ladder. Dóra Sztarenki also impresses, as the lustful gold-digger who wants to have her cake and eat it by stringing along both milksop Bence Tasnádi and hunk Tamás Szabó Kimmel. But one's attention keeps drifting back to Iván Angelusz and Marcell Nagy, who carry themselves with such dignity during their progress and take no pleasure from the tumult it provokes. 

Given current Hungarian attitudes to the migrant crisis, Török and Szántó lace the action with allegorical barbs. But the story (which bears a passing similarity to Gabriel García Márquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold) is as subtle as Elemér Ragályi's camerawork, which always seems to be peering through a window, door or gap in a fence and whose switches between detachment and intimacy are deftly handled by editor Béla Barsi. The settings crafted by production designer Laszlo Rajk (who also worked on Son of Saul) and art director Dorka Kiss are equally impeccable, as are Sosa Juristovszky's costumes, while Tibor Szemzö's score is both insinuating and unsettling. Consequently, this represents a sizeable stride forwards by the prolific Török, who was previously best known in this country for his feature bow, Moscow Square (2001), and his contribution to the portmanteau picture, East Side Stories (2010).

It's curious how often films about the same subject are produced in glorious isolation and released almost simultaneously. Earlier this year, James Marsh's The Mercy coincided with Simon Rumley's Crowhurst to offer differing perspectives on a doomed round the world yachtsman. Now, Utøya July 22, Erik Poppe's account of the massacre perpetrated in the summer of 2011 by Norwegian neo-Nazi Anders Breivik emerges slightly before Paul Greengrass's 22 July. But it's the English-language feature that has reached UK cinemas first and few will be left unmoved by this meticulous reconstruction. However, this often feels like one of those re-enactments that documentarists often employ to fill in the gaps between the talking heads and the archive clips.

As a ferry brings teenagers to the island Utøya for a camp run by the Workers' Youth League on 21 July 2011, Anders Behring Breivik (Anders Danielsen Lie) mixes fertiliser and fuel in an outbuilding at Vålstua Farm. While 17 year-old Viljar Hanssen (Jonas Strand Gravli) meets up with old friends and sings around a campfire, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg (Ola G. Furuseth) consults his aides about what he is going to say when he addresses the gathering the next day. Meanwhile, Breivik drives into Oslo and attracts the attention of his mother (Hilde Olausson) when he returns to their flat without greeting her. 

The next morning, having updated his website, Breivik dons a police flak jacket and sneaks out while his mother is watching television. He drives his white van into the government quarter known as Regjeringskvartalet and parks at the back of a building close to PM's office. Having lit a long fuse, he puts on a riot helmet and walks calmly to another van and sets off for Utøya, as security officers notice the vehicle on their CCTV screens. The detonation occurs just as a guard reaches the van and Stoltenberg hears the explosion before being whisked away to a safe zone. 

As Breivik listens to news reports on the radio and ignores a phone call from his mother, camp supervisor Monica Bøsei (Monica Borg Fure) urges the delegates to check their parents are okay and Viljar is relieved to hear his mother and father are fine, as they work in the area. Meanwhile, Breivik arrives at the Utøya ferry and poses as a cop who has been dispatched from the capital to secure the island. Monica allows him on to the boat without asking to see ID and he guns her and the head of security down almost as soon as he sets foot on the island. 

Naturally, the kids panic at the sound of gunfire and start running through the woods. Having gunned down those he finds inside the camp headquarters, Breivik stalks his quarry and fires at anything within range. Finding his younger brother, Torje (Isak Bakli Aglen), Viljar manages to make a quick call to his mother, Christin (Maria Bock), who speeds to the coast with her husband, Sveinn (Thorbjørn Harr), in order to protect her offspring. However, they are held at a roadblock, as police boats cross to the island. Viljar and Torje find themselves part of a group hunkering on a cliff ledge and they have to jump to the beach when Breivik finds them. Urging his sibling to get to safety, Viljar is hit several times and had just realised that he has lost the sight in his right eye when the first landing party spots him. 

Helicoptered away by paramedics after Breivik is coerced into surrendering in the woods, Viljar fights for his life as his parents locate Torje in the survivor centre. Questioned by the police, Breivik claims to be part of a coup and warns that a third attack will follow unless Stoltenberg puts an end of immigration and enforced multiculturalism. He is taken to Oslo for further interrogation after requesting Geir Lippestad (Jon Øigarden) as his lawyer. Dutybound to accept the case, Lippestad informs Breivik that he thoroughly disapproves of his actions and is very much part of the élite he supposedly despises. Yet, when his client asks for medical attention for a scratch on his hand caused by a piece of flying skull, Lippestad has no option than to make a plea. 

While Viljar undergoes extensive surgery, the hospital uses his phone to contact his parents and they arrive as police raid Breivik's flat and find his computer. He tells the interrogator that he is part of an organisation called the Knights Templar and is amused when he learns that Stoltenberg is listening to him. However, he remains poker-faced and continues to insist that he has sparked a class war that will reclaim Norway for its indigenous citizens. Consequently, Stoltenberg has to take him at his word when he addresses the press and vows to use the rule of law to preserve democracy. But he is shaken by the news that there have been eight fatalities in Oslo and 69 on Utøya, as well as over 200 confirmed as wounded. 

The surgeon tells the Hanssens the extent of Viljar's injuries before letting them see him and Christin sobs, as she holds her son's hand at his bedside. Further operations to remove bullet fragments close to the brain stem are only partially successful and the family has to wait before another attempt can be made. Meanwhile, Stoltenberg calls for a public inquiry to see how the police failed to identify Breivik as a threat, while he gives Lippestad a version of his childhood that is contradicted by the facts gleaned by his support team. 

Fighting revulsion with each new revelation, Lippestad accepts the brief and agrees with his team that their only defence can be incipient insanity. However, he gains some insight into Breivik's background when he visits his mother in her apartment and she begs not to testify because everyone will know who she is. She also lets slip that her son has a point when he says Norway has changed beyond all recognition. Naturally, Breivik is delighted with Lippestad's strategy, as it means he can speak in court and has a chance of being confined to a secure hospital rather than a prison. But Lippestad is growing increasingly concerned for the safety of his family, after they receive phone calls accusing him of being a Nazi lover. At 

One of the survivors, Lara (Seda Witt), comes to visit Viljar and Torje remembers his brother fouling her during a football match. Christin is sorry to hear that her sister was killed and invites her to come back whenever she wants. Shortly afterwards, Viljar comes out of his coma and not only has to deal with the grim statistics, but also some nightmares and the pain of his rehabilitation. He is pleased to see Lara, however, who had been in the shower block when the shooting started. She promises to return and Viljar also encourages Christin to continue her campaign to become mayor of Svalbard and even appears with her on Skype when she wins. However, he sees Breivik on television and is dismayed by the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia made by a pair of forensic psychiatrists and needs reassuring that he won't be released to come after him. 

Lippestad promises Breivik he will try and persuade the court to let him speak, but informs him we won't be able to cross-examine Stoltenberg, as he is on trial not Norway. But Breivik feels he has handed the initiative to the families and decides to change his plea and reaffirm his status as a soldier in a war. Having just been asked to withdraw his daughter from her school, Lippestad is under considerable pressure. However, he has to carry out his client's wishes and instructs his team to look into far right politics and find witnesses who will show that Breivik is not alone in his beliefs. 

Viljar returns to Svalbad, some 2000 km north of Oslo, and has to adjust to normality. But, while Sveinn returns to his wildlife sanctuary and Christin begins her term as mayor, Viljar becomes frustrated at being wrapped in cotton wool and goes on a late-night snowmobile ride that culminates in a car chase with his parents and a crash. He is unharmed and bemoans his fate when Christin pleads with him to take care of himself. However, Sveinn has also reached the end of his tether and he refuses to return to Oslo for a pre-trial briefing. 

In a bid to understand Breivik's motivation, Lippestad meets with a leading white supremacist who warns that people across Europe and the United States have had enough of being told what to do by bleeding heart liberals and that the day of judgement is close at hand. As the trial approaches, however, Viljar phones Lara to confess that he feels unable to give evidence and he feels he would be more useful trying to help Torje come to terms with what he has witnessed. The families are furious that Breivik has been afforded the opportunity to turn the court into a soapbox and prosecuting lawyers Inga Bejer Engh (Ulrikke Hansen Døvigen) and Siv Hallgren (Anja Maria Svenkerud) vow to deny him any leeway when proceedings open under Judge Wenche Arntzen (Tone Danielsen).

Much to the disgust of the families, Breivik is allowed to make a statement that presents him as a patriot warrior defending Norway. On hearing this on the television, Viljar asks his physio to help him walk unaided so he can go into court and confront the man who had ruined his life. As he confides to his parents, however, he really wants to beat him to a pulp and Sveinn suggests that testifying might be a way to exact his revenge. Breivik is furious when his mentor takes the stand to belittle him and curses his mother for her cowardice. But he regains his composure in time to hear Lara wonder why anyone could be so afraid of her because she is a refugee from a war zone.

Arriving in Oslo, Viljar goes to see Lena, who is working as a waitress. He promises to stay strong and gets annoyed with himself when he cries on the stand. But he manages a joke about being blind in the eye closest to Breivik, so that he doesn't have to look at him. However, he also reminds him that he still has dreams and something to live for while he is going to rot in jail alone and despised. He will continue to honour the memory of the friends he lost and strive to make society fairer and better. As he fixes his gaze on Breivik, he sense he has got under his defences and left him something to think about in his cell. 

After reaching a unanimous verdict, the bench sentences Breivik to solitary confinement for as long as he is a threat to society. Stoltenberg meets the families after the inquiry identifies police lapses and they urge him to remain in office because the country needs him. Lippestad visits Breivik for a final time and refuses to shake his hand in averring that he failed to ignite a conflagration and that future generations will continue to resist fanatics who threaten their peaceful existence. Closing captions reveal that Breivik remains in Skien Prison, while Viljar is studying law, Lippestad continues to practice and Stoltenberg is now Secretary General of NATO. 

Anyone familiar with Bloody Sunday (2002), United 93 (2006) and Captain Phillips (2013) will know what to expect from this conscientious, if detached vérité reconstruction, which draws on Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad's book, One of Us. Greengrass is as much interested in how the nation responded to the outrage, as he is in Breivik's ideology and methodology. But he tilts the balance by casting Anders Danielsen Lie as Breivik, as he had played another calculating killer in Joachim Trier's Oslo, August 31st (2011) and knows how to make such a reprehensible character seem compelling. Thus, no matter how gutsy newcomer Jonas Strand Gravli appears as Viljar, he is always in Lie's shadow, especially as Greengrass makes his recovery feel like the inspirational heart of a small-screen disease of the week movie.

Indeed, melodrama seeps into the sometimes morally dubious proceedings far too often for a film intent on seeming so gruellingly authentic. Sune Martin's delicate, but artful score is particularly culpable, although the dialogue often lacks finesse, most notably in the thick-eared references to extremism being on the rise in Britain and America and the use of a banner on Utøya echoing the Corbynista slogan, `For the many, not the few.' Incidents like the snowmobile pursuit also sit awkwardly, as Greengrass struggles to give equal weight to Viljar's recovery, Stoltenberg's crisis of conscience and Lippestad's determination to due his duty (in the face of threats that are never mentioned again after one emotive scene). 

Clearly, Greengrass has to insert some human drama to prevent this merely becoming a Nordic noir procedural. But, despite the ensemble excellence and the proficiency of Pål Ulvik Rokseth's cinematography and William Goldenberg's editing, this too frequently feels like an exercise in head-shaking gravitas and ostentatious restraint to achieve the desired level of gut-wrenching revulsion and fury.

Having made a clutch of shorts over the last decade, including Remix: Hello Kitty Is a Capitalist (2006) and I Am John Wayne (2011), Christina Choe makes the transition to features with Nancy. Something of an identikit American indie offering, this is a resolutely downbeat study of identity in the Internet era that also touches upon such themes as domestic dysfunction, class envy and the suppression of distress. Yet, for all the hardscrabble intensity and the creditable commitment of producer Andrea Riseborough in the title role, this always feels like a concocted story rather than a genuine slice of life. 

Thirtysomething Nancy Freeman (Andrea Riseborough) lives in a nondescript American town with her mother, Betty (Ann Dowd), who suffers from Parkinson's Disease. Barely able to rouse herself from perusing her phone messages to help Betty off the toilet, Nancy lives in something of a dream world. When temping at the Endless Smiles dental practice, she uses doctored photographs to bolster her claim of having holidayed in North Korea, while she has also set up a blog to chronicle a fake pregnancy. She writes capably and has ambitions to get published. But her submissions to publications like The Paris Review are invariably rejected and she chides Betty for always opening her mail. 

One of the correspondents on her website is a man grieving for the stillbirth of his daughter and Nancy tucks a false bump under her top to meet Jeb (John Leguizamo) at a seedy diner. She credits him with persuading her against having an abortion and he is grateful that she took the trouble to meet him and trust that he isn't `some creep from the Internet'. However, when he runs into Nancy in a supermarket and notices her flat stomach, she claims that she lost the baby and kept up the pretence because she thought she was helping him. He tells her she's sick and suggests she goes home. 

But there's no one to go home to, as Betty has succumbed to a massive stroke after Nancy ignored her complaints about pains in her arm. She even neglects her beloved ginger cat, Paul, who pads through the clutter in a search for something to eat. However, as she watches the TV news, Nancy sees a story about Leo (Steve Buscemi) and Ellen Lynch (J. Smith-Cameron) setting up a trust fund for underprivileged kids in memory of Brooke, the daughter who had been kidnapped from a shopping mall three decades earlier. Noticing her similarity to the artist's impression of how Brooke might look now, Nancy prints off the image and holds the folded paper against her face to look in the mirror. 

The next morning, she calls the couple, only for Ellen to put the phone down on her. But she persists and sends Ellen her photograph and the resemblance to Brooke is so strong that she invites her to come to the house. Hurriedly packing a bag, Nancy turns for a last look around the room and, as the camera pans back, the frame size increases from 1.33:1 to 1.85:1 to suggest that her horizons are finally widening after years of being boxed in. 

Driving through the snowy countryside, Nancy arrives at a large farmhouse and receives a cautious welcome from the Lynches. Leo is allergic to cats and Paul is confined to the sun room, while Nancy gazes round the spacious dining room, as she tucks into a lavish lunch. However, Leo is keen to ask questions and launches in with an inquiry about when she first became aware that she had been abducted. Speaking slowly, Nancy provides hazy recollections containing few hard facts and Leo, who is a psychologist, concedes that it's difficult to remember much from childhood. 

Nancy is thrilled to hear that Ellen is a professor in comparative literature, but Leo insists on probing further and Nancy reveals that Betty had confessed that she wasn't her biological mother shortly after she was diagnosed with Parkinson's. She also declares that her father had abandoned Betty before she was born. But the pressure gets to her and she rushes to the bathroom to throw up, leaving Leo and Ellen to exchange meaningful glances. 

Ellen comes to check Nancy is okay and scolds Leo when he mentions that he has contacted a private investigator to supervise a DNA test. Nancy nods her assent, but looks to make her excuses to leave as darkness falls. But Ellen coaxes her into staying and shows her to Brooke's room, which has remained unchanged since she vanished. She puts a spare mattress on the floor to spend the night with Nancy and get to know her better. Downstairs, however, Leo goes online to find evidence of Nancy's existence and is puzzled that there is no mention of her anywhere. 

He is discussing his scepticism in the kitchen the next morning when Nancy overhears him while feeding Paul. Embarrassed, Ellen suggests that he shows Nancy his photographic studio and he produces some old snapshots in the hope of jogging her memory. She consents to having her picture taken and provides a saliva sample for the investigator when he comes to the house. But, while she maintains her facade throughout this ordeal, she feels uncomfortable when they go to a gallery and Leo informs her that he doesn't want Ellen to get hurt again, as her hopes had been raised when a girl was found 20 years ago and turned out to be an impostor. 

Sidling over to Ellen, Nancy wonders why Leo dislikes her and Ellen explains that he has a hard shell. He peers at her in the rearview mirror on the drive home and is perplexed when Ellen asks him to print out the short story that Nancy had e-mailed her. While he's in the study, Ellen tries to teach Nancy to dance and he watches them from the doorway. When they read her story, Nancy looks in on the Lynches from the patio and is genuinely moved when Ellen informs her that she has talent and offers to show her work to a couple of editors she knows in New York. Later, in Brooke's room, she encourages her to persist in the face of rejection and offers Nancy a shoulder to cry on after she describes how she was pestered by several of Betty's boyfriends when she was a girl. 

Alone in her room, Nancy deletes her blog and removes the cuddly toys from the foot of her bed, as though she feels they are looking accusingly at her. However, when she creeps downstairs for a smoke, Paul slips out of the sun room door and disappears into the freezing night. Nancy is distraught and Ellen has to cajole her back indoors with a reassurance that the cat will return in the morning. At first light, however, Nancy goes into the woods and has a feeling of déjà vu when she sees the ruins of a tree house. Ellen goes searching for her and fears she is losing her daughter all over again when she can't find her. 

She is relieved to see Nancy on the porch and Leo is taken aback when she mentions the sense she has played in the treehouse. When Paul returns, he allows her to keep him in Brooke's room and Ellen hugs him for coming round to the idea that Nancy might well be their lost child. She proposes a walk to the lake and is getting ready when the private eye rings with the negative results of the DNA test. Nancy peeps in through a crack in the bedroom door to see Ellen sobbing on the bed and tiptoes downstairs to wait for her in the hall. 

After a while, Ellen joins her and silently puts on her coat. It's snowing outside and they walk in silence, with Nancy a few paces behind her hostess. On reaching the lake, Ellen recalls how Brooke had dashed off in the mall to see a kitten in a pet store window. Nancy tries to reassure her that it wasn't her fault. But they are interrupted by a teenage hunter needing a phone because his friend has been accidentally shot. Ellen looks on as Nancy covers the boy with her coat and uses her scarf to staunch the bleeding. She is impressed by her poise and the compassion and, as they drive back to the house, Ellen reaches over to squeeze Nancy's hand. 

Over supper, Ellen tells Leo how admirably Nancy had coped in an emergency. However, the praise only emphasises what Nancy is about to lose and she asks to be excused to have an early night. She pauses and announces there is something she has to tell them. But Ellen cuts in to spare her the ordeal of having to come clean and declares that the past should stay where it is. She hugs Nancy and whispers that she loves her in promising to always be there if she needs someone. 

Unable to sleep, despite Paul padding on to her chest, Nancy realises that the charade is over. Something inside her had hoped that she was Brooke, but she now accepts that she has to return to her own life and find a bearable kind of normality. Packing her bag, she sneaks down to the car and Ellen watches from the window, as the vehicle snakes away into the darkness. Catching her reflection in the driver's mirror, Nancy allows herself a small smile, as she had experienced a form of happiness for the first time in a long while. But her future can only be uncertain, as the image fades to black.

Despite being backed by Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, whose EON company sponsors the Bond franchise, this sombre melodrama wears its indie credentials on its sleeve. Christina Choe establishes Nancy's milieu with assured brushstrokes, while Andrea Roseborough unshowily suggests that her fabrications and fantasies come from a need for affirmation rather than from anything more pathologically sinister. But, while the characterisation is deftly delineated, the storyline is more convoluted, as Nancy learns about Brooke so soon after Betty's passing and after Jeb rumbles her online deception. Similarly, having set the scene with the Lynches, Choe resorts to contrivances to repair the damage caused by the DNA result. 

Choe doesn't help herself by ladling Peter Raeburn's sonically ethereal, but insistently mawkish score over the key set-pieces, as if she doesn't trust the audience to have the correct emotional response to the action. Considering how much Choe leaves for the viewer to fathom for themselves about Nancy's psychological state, such hand-holding seems more than a little patronising. However, she and editor David Gutnik pace things precisely and Zoe White's views of the upstate New York countryside contrast tellingly with Charlotte Royer's telltale interiors. 

As the enigmatic anti-heroine sporting a protective helmet of matted hair, Riseborough retains an impassivity that adds complexity to her connivances. Clearly, Nancy has suffered some sort of emotional trauma in her past. But, because she lies so easily (to herself, as well as to others), it's never clear whether she was preyed on by Betty's lovers or suffered at school for being so self-contained. Choe might have explored more deeply the connection between her catfishing and her desire to become a writer. But she always seems more interested in how Nancy gets herself out of the situations she lands herself in than in the mindset that caused the crisis in the first place. 

Steve Buscemi and J. Smith-Cameron also have to do a lot of reading between the lines to flesh out the thinly sketched Lynches. Leo can't resist testing Nancy, such as when he wonders whether she still has the scar on her foot from when she trod on a nail. But Ellen is so desperate to stop punishing herself for the momentary lapse that ruined her life that she's more willing to accept Nancy at face value. Indeed, such is her need to become a mother again that she is even willing to overlook the genetic evidence and provide Nancy with some much-needed TLC. Yet, such fleeting flashes of humanity aside, this always feels too calculated and controlled to convince (the shift in aspect ratio is incredibly gauche) or to invite sympathy for any of the principals, no matter how well they are played.

Multimedia artist Rachel Maclean has never been afraid of holding up a mirror to the times. Having explored the gap between rich and poor in Please Sir (2014) and responded to the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump in the Pinocchio pastiche, Spite Your Face (2017). Maclean turns to the depiction of women in classical art and moving images, as well as on social media, in Make Me Up, a feminist satire that examines `how women's bodies, voices and minds contend with a world that often prefers you to be slim, silent and subservient'.

Transforming St Peter's Seminary in Cardross into a candy-coloured enclave, the film introduces us to The Figurehead, a pink-haired emcee whose speech is taken verbatim from Kenneth Clark's once-seminal 1969 BBC series, Civilisation. She plucks Siri out of a sticky mould and a series of large surveillance eyeballs descend from the ceiling to cast a disapproving gaze over her and classify her as a `naughty girl'. As Siri looks around in annoyance, several other scantily-clad women march into view and they are branded with their own patronising labels: Ava (`Sexy'), Sophia (`Fun'), Dewey (`Cute'), Farrah (`Fierce'), Cortanna (`Gorgeous'), Erica (`Sweet'), Tay (`Bouncy'), Harmony (`Pretty'), Maria (`Sassy') and Alexa (`Cool'). 

As they break into a song-and-dance routine, The Figurehead uses a device on her wrist to slow them down and speed them up for her own amusement. Alexa catches Siri's eye and she blushes before The Figurehead's tampering causes the women to stagger menacingly towards her and she is only able to tame them by activating the buttons inserted into their throats. Obediently, they file across the room to kneel behind contestant desks, as though they were suddenly on a quiz show. When The Fountainhead asks them to define civilisation, Cortanna buzzes in, but her voicebox prevents her from expressing her opinion. Alexa is similarly struck dumb and The Figurehead fills the void by giving her own definition that centres on male artists striving to recreate idealised visions of womanhood.

A stylised version of Botticelli's Venus appears on the screen behind The Figurehead, as Siri takes her place with the group. She is prevented from answering a question about the beginning of civilisation and is left standing when a box of clothing appears and she only receives a garment because Alexa grabbed one for her. She stands on a dais in imitation of Venus, as the others deport themselves over draped couches. The eyeballs drop down to survey them and they select Siri and Sophia to compete in the first showdown. Siri has no idea what is going on, but Sophia attempts to run away and she is dragged back to the stage by two of the other women, in time to fall through a trapdoor. 

The scene shifts to a dining room with a long table at its centre. The competitors file in and take their places, as The Fountainhead uses a cleaver to hack at a large sausage. Each slice has a smiley face motif, but only Cortanna is allowed to eat. The others have to pretend and a confused and hungry Siri faints face down into her plate. Alexa uses the distraction to steal a piece of meat and hide it in her party dress. The Fountainhead invites Cortanna to join her on a dais and they defy gravity to ascend through a hole in the ceiling before the women retire to their rooms. 

Alexa slips Siri the stolen food and she has to hide it from the prying eye watching her every move. She crawls into bed after seeing several besuited men cross the floor beneath her window and wakes to find an elderly man using `perfecting paint' to mark out the necessary nips and tucks that would improve her face. As she tries to make sense of what she is experiencing, the focus falls on a mobile phone (with Mickey Mouse ears) showing an extract from a social media show in which Siri gives beauty and lifestyle tips. When she wakes, she hears sounds of distress and peers under the partition separating her from Cortanna's room to see her in distress on all fours on the floor. 

It's not made clear whether she is being abused or punished, but Cortanna (whose face is bruised) is still crying when the group reassembles at the podiums. Siri has only been allowed to leave her room after she touches up her make-up and dons an Alice in Wonderland-style dress. The Figurehead appears to begin the next phase of the game, only her wrist device malfunctions and all the women start talking at once and she has trouble regaining control. Eventually, the hands from the Sistine Chapel depiction of the Creation of Adam appears on the screen and the image shifts to show a woman behind God holding a sausage.

The contestants find themselves in fig leaf leotards in a Garden of Eden whose trees bear sausages. Siri is tempted by a talking frankfurter who promises not to make her fat if she eats her. But it's Tay who succumbs first and several of the others stuff the bangers into their mouths. The eyeballs wrinkle up disapprovingly and select Tay and Cortanna to contest the next elimination. As The Fountainhead laments that Cortanna must have been a beauty in her time, she is removed and Alexa is given the position of honour at the dining table. This time, the meat has a sad face and Siri is confused as Alexa slips her a slice while gobbling down as many as she can manage before ascending to the ceiling with The Figurehead. 

Back in her room, Siri snaffles her food under the reproachful gaze of an eye. She bumps into her dressing table and her hand mirror smashes. When she sees her fragmented reflection, Siri realises that the surveillance device can no longer fix on her identifying features and she uses make-up to paint another pair of eyes on her cheek. The eyeball is so baffled that it opens her door and she uses the floating platform to see what has happened to Alexa. 

Emerging in a long corridor, Siri spots her friend assuming the pose of the Rokeby Venus and being confronted by a man with his trousers round his ankles. He asks her when the world is going to end and The Figurehead nods her approval at the question. However, Alexa spots Siri in her mirror and her panic alerts The Figurehead to the intruder, but she is unable to get a fix on her because of Siri's extra eyes. 

Plunged into a nightmare, Siri finds herself covered in perfecting paint again, with the old man peering over her to ask when the world will end. He raises a cleaver and her severed head lands on the floor and introduces the next edition of Siri's beauty show. She confesses that being in the spotlight has made her realise how much she hates her nose and she is now coming to dislike the rest of her body, too. Waking with a jolt, she finds Alexa at her door and she mimes that they are eating themselves alive and Siri isn't quite sure what she means. 

Returning to the main hall for another lecture, this time on the importance of the Madonna and Child. As The Figurehead speaks, the image of Mary is beheaded and blood spurts up from her neck. Suddenly, the contestants are all in Marian garb and have the caption `Bad Mum' hovering over them. But Siri and Alexa are singled out as the worst because their babies are the saddest. However, when her infant is designated `happy', Siri opts not to follow Alexa's lead of tweaking it to make it cry and watches her friend drop through the floor. 

At dinner, Erica has the place of honour and Siri has to perform the Heimlich Manoeuvre when she starts to choke. She spits up a piece of meat containing Alexa's name necklace and The Figurehead steps in to stuff Erica's face to distract the others from what they have seen. As Erica is dragged towards the elevator, Siri notices that image on the sausage slices is Edvard Munch's `The Scream' and she returns to her room to mourn for her friend. When she peers through the curtain, however, she sees a woman wandering around in the hallway. Painting on a new pair of eyes, Siri sneaks out of her room to greet her and guide her to the Make Me Up waiting room. 

Much to her horror, however, Siri sees `before and after' images of herself, Cortanna and Alexa playing on a video screen, as clients wait for their treatment. Hearing someone coming, she sees a trolley containing waste meat for the sausages and steals a pot of perfecting paint. Dressed in an outfit that would have been worn by a Suffragette, she takes the lift to a picture gallery and uses a cleaver to damage the Alexa version of the Rokeby Venus. She is distracted, however, by the latest episode of the beauty vlog and sees herself excitedly announcing that she is booked in for a total body reconfiguration. 

When the contestants reassemble, they see `We're Eating Ourselves Alive' daubed on the screen and The Figurehead uses her wrist controller to torture the women in the hope one will confess to her misdeed. The eyeballs have noticed that Siri is behaving sheepishly, but no one owns up. At supper, The Fountainhead malfunctions when she sees the face on the sausage has an extra pair of eyes and Siri grabs the cleaver to sever the arm with the wrist device. As The Figurehead twitches and jabbers, Siri uses her hand to activate the floating platform and locks herself in a storeroom. 

She tries to change the voice on the controller and only succeeds in switching to Andrew Graham Dixon. However, when she switches to `Congregation Voice', her fellow competitors are able to speak and they swarm around The Figurehead. Siri is hoping to find Alexa and is taken aback when a lurid hologram leaps out at her. She falls and this enables The Figurehead to regain her composure and she takes one of the women hostage and forces Eva and Harmony into a bidding war to save her. 

But Siri does find Alexa, who is posing like the Venus de Milo. She tries to apologise, but has to take cover when a man enters with a cleaver and proceeds to chop off Alexa's left arm so that she more closely resembles the statue. However, she still has legs and she kicks the man from behind and Siri grabs the chopper and charges downstairs to confront The Figurehead. She uses the wrist device to choke her and the survivors break into joyful song before standing alongside Siri. 

She reaches into a wicker basket and produces a tin of Princess Pasta Shapes before she laments the fact that so many women are afraid of food because they are on harmful diets. As they devour the contents of their own tins, the other women destroy the eyeballs before lip-synching to audio archive clips about feminism and its demonisation in the male-dominated media. The women go into another formation dance before the camera wanders off for a series of external shots. 

When we return indoors, Siri has put on weight. But Alexa (who is now reciting the script of Civilisation in a female voice) still finds her desirable and they kiss, with one of the few functioning eyeballs looking on. The footage finds its way online, where it is discussed in a mixture of supportive and bileful comments before the screen goes black in a blaze of texts and emojis. However, when a male voice asks Siri when the world is going to end, she replies that everything will be fine if we just keep things fully charged. 

Bold, brash and bolshie, this is a magnificent piece of work that demands to be seen. In addition to playing The Figurehead, Rachel Martin also writes and directs while also doubling up as editor and her own production and costume designer. She is ably abetted by art director Ayden Millar and cinematographer David Liddell, as well as an ensemble comprised of Christina Gordon (Siri), Colette Dalal Tchantcho (Alexa), Kirsty Strain (Cortanna), Alice Zhang (Erica), Jenny Douglas (Sophia), Sanaa Zaheed (Tay), Cressentia Masuku (Dewey), Moyo Akandé (Farrah), Catriona McFarlane (Maria), Kirsty Punton (Ava) and Kayleigh Andrews (Harmony). 

Some of the characters rather make up the numbers, but Gordon and Dalal Tchantcho prove admirable foils to Maclean's slyly winking turn as the mouthpiece for a patriarchal stereotype whose time should have passed decades ago. Digitally turning an architectural masterpiece designed for the training of Catholic priests into a `Brutalist Barbie Dreamhouse', Maclean unsettles viewers from the outset and subjects them to a barrage of inspired audio/visual juxtapositions, whose meaning they are barely able to digest before the next onslaught begins. The result is a terrifying insight into what it means to be a woman in a world of prying eyes and anonymous judgements and how difficult it is for female voices to be heard above the chauvinist cacophony that has been concocted to drown them out. 

Andrew Kötting has long been creating soundtracks from found audio, but there's a subversive potency to Maclean's inspired counterpointing that forces the audience to re-evaluate its attitude to the accepted artistic canon. Given that Civilisation (and its recent revision) was shown on the BBC, it's apt that the Corporation has sponsored this vivid response. One can only hope they show more of Maclean's work in support, as it's notoriously difficult to access and not everyone can just pop along to the gallery where it's showing.

Not every debuting director can list Mark Rylance and the late Alan Rickman among his associate producers and their presence in the credits undoubtedly gives writer-director Mark Gillis's Sink an enviable seal of approval. In fact, there's nothing particularly new about this account of one man's struggle to keep his head above water after the recessional tide starts rising. But a strong central performance, a sure sense of place and a refusal to overindulge in the socialist sentimentality that has come to characterise Ken Loach's most recent outings ensures that this is a worthy addition to the kitchen sink canon. 

Having lost his job as a tool fitter after 20 years, fiftysomething Londoner Micky Mason (Martin Herdman) finds work folding t-shirts at a printing company. When he learns that his dementia-suffering father, Sam (Ian Hogg), has to leave the Parkside residential home because of restructuring, Micky has no option but to give Sam the sofa bed and make do with the floor of his bijou studio flat. Luckily, on the same day Micky is laid off from the factory, Vic the caretaker (Ken Shorter) is able to offer him the use a bigger property, on the proviso he tells anyone he asks that he is former tenant Drew Thompson. 

Kindly neighbour Jean (Marlene Sidaway) is worried that Micky is going to have his hands full with Sam and a full-time job search, but he's confident something will turn up, as the job centre manager (Joanna Monro) is in his corner. He copes with Sam wetting the bed and even plucks up the courage to ask café waitress Lorraine (Tracey Wilkinson) to go on a date. But the problems start tumbling in after he is mistaken for Drew by a pair of thugs working for the local drug dealer. However, Paul (Mark Gillis), turns out to be an old classmate and they natter about the old days while sipping posh coffee and Micky seeks reassurances that he won't be pestered by any more heavies because Drew has absconded with some of Paul's merchandise.

Despite missing his signing-on time, Micky gets a tip about a business looking for drivers and he feels sufficiently optimistic to go for a run. However, he exhausts himself after a few minutes and spends the afternoon with Sam and his son, Jason (Josh Herdman), a recovering addict who insists that things will turn out for the best. Taking Lorraine to a hill above the city to see Big Ben and the London Eye lit up against the night sky, Micky feels ashamed when he can't afford another round at the pub. But Lorraine is happy to pay and teases him about being Jenson Button when he shows her the police notices for being caught speeding twice within an hour by the same camera. 

They are enjoying a little intimacy back at the flat when Sam comes barging in looking for a clean shirt to wear for work and mistakes Lorraine for Micky's ex-wife, Joanne. He is curt with her the next morning and Micky leaves him with Jean when he heads off to do a cash-in-hand job at the t-shirt factory. When he gets, home, however, he finds that Sam has slipped out alone (although he knows nothing about the fact he had found a gun in Drew's sock drawer and had been pointing it at Jean while having monochrome flashbacks to playing cowboys as a kid with the girl next door). He is grateful when a couple of teenage gang members bring him home. But Micky confronts the black lads he catches selling drugs to Jason and demands to know why he has lapsed after working so hard to get clean. 

Realising he can't rely on Jean to keep an eye on Sam, Micky asks the Parkside manager (Karen Archer) if he can spend time in the day rooms. But she regrets that it would be against the rules and has to hold him back when he threatens one of the directors in the car park for putting profits first. Lorraine also regrets not being able to help, as she is still getting over nursing her late mother. However, the gravity of the situation becomes clear when Sam walks in on them, brandishing the gun, and shoots Micky in the arm. Paul gets him an appointment with a Harley Street doctor so he can attend his job interview. But Mr Wilson (Robert Calvert) withdraws his offer when Micky confesses to the nine points on his licence and he has to stop himself from heaving a brick through the windscreen of a sneering yuppie's car when he bad-mouths him for parking in his space. 

Along that night, Micky looks at some old photos and fights back the tears, as he tries to find a solution to his problems. Against his better judgement, he pays a visit to Paul, who hooks him up with Marion (Sadie Shimmin) so they can pose as a couple of tourists and pick up a consignment of drugs from the French countryside. Taking the ferry across the Channel, Micky is a bundle of nerves and Marion has to give him a pep talk after they spend the night at a vineyard, while the car is being fitted up. She reminds him of the money he stands to earn and teases him about not sweating when the vehicle is checked by a sniffer dog. However, even she gets twitchy when a customs officer (Simon Hepworth) asks Micky to open the boot and he hesitates before declaring that the booze they have bought is for a surprise party Marion knows nothing about. 

They are allowed to pass and Micky throws up after they have gone a few miles from the docks. But it's all smiles as Marion drives them home and they chuckle when they tell Paul about their adventure. He hands over two chunky envelopes and Marion drives off with her girlfriend, leaving Micky to buy some groceries for Jason, flowers for Jean, a box of Rice Krispies for Sam, and a coffee maker for himself. He tries to convince himself that he's turned a corner and is consoled when Sam opines that what matters is where you're going rather than where you've come. But the reality of what he's descended to kicks in, as he gazes from his balcony at Canary Wharf, that capitalist den of thieves where conscience is an alien concept. 

When the original Angry Young Men wrote about the Condition of England for the page and stage in the late 1950s, they devoted as much time to locale and character as they did to dramatic incident. Television soap opera has done much to shift the balance, with the result that so many social realist and BritCrime pictures are stuffed with short scenes of often tangential significance that clutter the action while keeping it ticking along. 

To his credit, Mark Gillis makes a virtue of this development by focusing on `the constant drip' that pushes Micky closer to the edge and prompts him to park his disdain for Paul's operation and join the strength. The Gallic escapade feels rather like a discarded storyline from Eastenders. But there's no denying the fact it's suspenseful and introduces the last of the numerous female characters who try to help Micky out of his mire. Indeed, with the exception of the drug-dealing trio, the Mercedes duo and the care home director, everyone seems to like the onetime promising boxer and it's always circumstances beyond his (or their) control that conspire against him. 

Yet, while the shadow of the skyscrapers stretches a long way across the Thames, Gillis avoids overt politicising and, consequently, Micky is spared the kind of emotive diatribes that Dave Johns got to deliver in I, Daniel Blake (2016), with which this film otherwise has much in common. Despite being every bit as effective as Johns, Martin Herdman is unlikely to receive the same plaudits because his middle-aged white man (who drives a Nissan Micra rather than a white van) is more a plaything of fate than a victim of the Department of Work and Pensions. 

Clearly, Gillis might have been more trenchant in his discussion of the ongoing economic crisis and it's a touch surprising that nobody mentions Brexit, let alone conflicting ideologies. But, maybe that's the point: film-makers use working-class characters to espouse their own views, while real men and women on the street are too busy getting by to bother with such intellectual niceties. 

Simon Archer's camerawork keeps Micky rooted in his environment, while Lucy Cooper's production design feels suitably lived-in. Mallik Gris's score is also well judged and ably supplemented by Oliver Hoare's renditions of such standards as `Rigs of the Time', `No Power on Earth' and `We Poor Labouring Men'. Of course, the script could have been harder hitting and less dependent on stereotypes and clichés. But you won't see another film all year make wittier use of a Jamie Oliver cookbook.

There's nothing more frustrating than British films that throw in the kitchen sink to validate what is essentially a laddish lark. Debutant Joe Martin is guilty of such a cynical ploy in Us and Them, a home invasion movie that is strewn with calculating flashbacks and garish references to the works of the auteurs who have influenced Martin's scenario. It's easy to spot the nods to Stanley Kubrick, Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie and Ben Wheatley. But Martin also exploits the fact that his leading man is the son of Tim Roth in order to draw parallels with Alan Clarke's Made in Britain (1982) and the 2007 English-language remake of Michael Haneke's Funny Games. 

As we see a rat struggling in a tub of water, Danny (Jack Roth) explains in voiceover that too many people are simply content to keep their heads above water and declares that it's about time they started living rather than surviving. As a sequence captioned `Animals' begins, Danny arrives at the gated home of Citybanker Conrad Stonebridge (Tim Bentinck) and his wife, Margaret (Carolyn Backhouse), with their daughter, Phillipa (Sophie Colquhoun). She is clearly on edge over lunch, even before Danny announces that he has come to see Conrad's permission to marry her. But it's only when her father tries to manhandle Danny off his premises and he is restrained by the ski-masked duo of Sean (Daniel Kendrick) and Tommy (Andrew Tiernan) that it becomes clear that he isn't Phillipa's lawyer fiancé, Glen (Paul Westwood), but an intruder who brandishes a gun before declaring, `It's called class war for a reason, There has to be victims on both sides.'

Monochrome flashbacks during the credits show Danny planning the operation before Phillipa tells her bound and blindfolded parents what she thinks is going on (`What Phillipa Knows'). As she is driving through the idyllic countryside with Glen, he spots a body in the road and is aghast when Danny pulls a gun on him and deposits him with Tommy and Sean, while he climbs in the backseat of Phillipa's black Volkswagen to complete the journey to the Stonebridge mansion. Ignoring Conrad's snooty comment about his attire, Danny (who is already off script) embarks upon his charade and orders his sidekicks to search for the safe while he goes to fetch his bag from Phillipa's car. 

Removing the sticky tape from the Stonebridges' eyes, Danny pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket and addresses a camcorder being held by one of his pals. He explains that the gap between the rich and poor has become unacceptably wide and he intends making an example of a one-percenter who represents the bankers who caused the Credit Crunch without being punished for it. Whisking a cloth off a roulette wheel, he informs his hostages that they are going to have to gamble for favours and survival. When he asks if they have anything to say, Conrad imagines himself giving Danny both barrels and the gesture is reciprocated, as the pair maintain a dignified silence.

Flashing back to a conversation in the pub, we hear Danny describe how the Internet has been hijacked by exploiters when it was invented to help bring about a fairer society. He suggests that online pornography has made angry young men go soft, as they should be out demonstrating on the streets about poverty and injustice and the fact that their generation will be the first in living memory not to enjoy a better standard of living than their parents. However, after eavesdropping on Phillipa and Conrad in his printer father's old (and much gentrified pub), Danny hatches the idea to inveigle his way into her family home, terrorise her folks and post the footage online as a statement to spark an uprising of the dispossessed. He is abetted by the fact that Phillipa forgets her phone in fleeing the pub and Danny is able to plot his campaign to the last detail.

Tommy and Sean aren't entirely convinced. But they go along for the ride and, when Conrad refuses to choose whether to save Margaret or Phillipa, Danny opens the curtains so he can see him setting fire to his classic car on the drive. While Sean films Danny's every move, Tommy tells Conrad that he's solely interested in the watch collection kept in the safe and he offers to intervene with Danny in return for the combination. Indeed, when Danny returns and orders Conrad to pick which woman to save (`Last Chance'), Tommy tries to overpower him. But he winds up with his hands gaffer-taped behind his back and his mask removed before Danny kicks him and Sean out of the front door. 

Struggling to compose himself, Danny thinks back to buying his gun from Irish villain, Little Kev (Louis Dempsey), who reminds him that it's the fear of what he might do that will make his victims comply rather than what he actually does. He uses a £20 notes to explain the potency of symbolism in society (`Confidence Trick') and this recollection steels Danny to return to the living room and restate his complaint against the Establishment for keeping the wealth and power for itself (`Trickle Down') before holding Conrad down in his swimming pool in order to force him in choosing between Phillipa and Margaret. As cutaways reveal Danny finding his father's corpse after he committed suicide in the tub, Conrad finally succumbs and selects his wife, as he tries to convince Danny that he is no different to Tommy and Sean in wanting easy money and what's best for his loved ones. 

As a flashback to a café meeting suggests, Tommy is cut from very much the same cloth. He knows that Conrad collects watches that are so replete with complications that they are worth a small fortune and he tries to convince Sean to help him steal them so that they can disappear abroad and open a bar somewhere sunny. But Sean thinks Danny and Tommy are dreamers and doesn't believe either is being serious about their schemes. However, as Danny drags Conrad back into the lounge and spins the roulette wheel, he knows he is about to destroy the bond between husband and wife. 

When the ball lands in the No.3 slot, Danny reaches into his bag and producer a small petrol can and proceeds to douse Margaret in its contents. As Conrad tries to apologise and Phillipa screams at the top of her lungs, Danny drops a lighter on the carpet and turns to the camera in triumph at having fooled them into thinking he would actually commit such an atrocity. He makes a speech about the élite needing to come to terms with the new reality that's coming. But, as he turns back to enjoy his moment of triumph, he is confronted by a spade-wielding Glen (who has a word that resembles banker in all but one letter inked on his forehead). 

Sean and Tommy had marched Glen to their car after Danny had departed with Phillipa and driven him to the house. They had left him tied up in the garden shed, but he had used the blades of some grass clippers hanging on the wall to cut the rope. However, just as he gains access to the house, Tommy and Sean also wriggle free and a fracas ensues. Sean knocks Glen out, while Danny tries to throttle Tommy with the handle of the spade. But Tommy reaches under the sofa to retrieve his dropped knife and stabs his buddy in the back. 

As Danny falls unconscious, Tommy frog marches Conrad to the safe. He is astonished at the amount of superfluous luxury with which the family surrounds itself and reveals that he has been forced to stack shelves for a living since he lost his job as a printer. He bridles at the fact that a boss half his each earns what he would need three lifetimes to make (`Rewarded in Kind') and, protesting that he's a good guy who just can't take it anymore, Tommy stabs Conrad to death when he suggests that society needs the gifted to keep the wheels turning. Downstairs, he empties the last petrol can and flicks his lighter before slumping into the driver's seat of his car. He turns on the radio and is about to make his getaway, when Sean pops up in the backseat and rakes a blade across his throat so that a spurt of blood lands on the camcorder perched on the dashboard. 

It's safe to say that this savage class satire will do Joe Roth no harm whatsoever. However, whether it will prove quite so beneficial to Joe Martin is more open debate. He displays admirable ambition in trying to do something new with a scenario that has been tiresomely overused since the Millennium and should be commended for his thematic sincerity, structural acuity and editorial precision. His dialogue, however, is often labourious and hyberbolic, while his characterisation (particularly where Phillipa and Margaret are concerned) is far too sketchy. It could be argued that this is entirely justifiable, as he is dealing in types. But had he studied something like William Wyler's The Desperate Hours (1955), he might have avoided this coming across like a Mockney Clockwork Orange. 

Viewers of a certain age will be amused by the references to the BBC sitcom, Citizen Smith (1977-80), while the soundtrack blend of Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt and Tchaikovsky with The O' Jays, The Damned and (lots of) Sleaford Mods is equally droll. Stefan Mitchell's busy camerawork is also impressive, as is the suffocatingly immersive sound design created by Vanesa Lorena Tate. But the use of snarkily Godardian captions rapidly becomes tedious, while some of the tonal shifts are rather clumsy (notably the flashback to the death of Danny's dad). Consequently, the harder this tries to pass itself off as a politically incisive and subversive tract, the further away it gets from its objective and the more blatant, bludgeoning and banal it seems.

CinemaItaliaUK is off to the Genesis Cinema in London's East End for a screening of Marco Ponti's Una vita spericolata. Translating as `A Reckless Life', this cross-country caper may remind some viewers of Ponti's 2001 cult hit, Santa Maradona, in which university graduate Stefano Accorsi's slacker lifestyle is disrupted by a meeting with aspiring actress Anita Caprioli. That freewheeling comedy earned Ponti the Donatello for Best Directorial Debut. But the humour sometimes feels a little forced in this madcap follow-up, although that's perhaps understandable given that Domenico Diele had to be replaced by Eugenio Franceschini three days into filming after he was arrested for killing a woman on a scooter while suspended from driving and being preoccupied by his phone while under the influence of drugs. 

Waking up beside girlfriend Eva (Desirèe Noferini) to discover that his bed has been loaded on to a bailiff's truck, twentysomething garage owner Rossi (Lorenzo Richelmy) curses his luck to his best friend, BB (Eugenio Franceschini). Smarting at being dumped by Eva, Rossi laments the fact that the high-speed railway line bypassed their small town. But BB has also had his dream shattered, as he was once a champion rally driver before fate intervened and deposited him in the café adjoining Rossi's garage. 

BB's parents (Gigio Alberti and Giusy Frallonardo) pay the rent on the premises and Rossi is trying to explain why he won't be able to pay when BB's father arrives home having been informed that his factory is being closed down for the good of the wider company. He grabs a gun from a drawer and threatens to shoot the board and then himself. But his wife calms him down and urges Rossi to take the gun with him (which she assures him is unloaded).

Borrowing a jacket, Rossi goes to the nearby bank to request a loan. However, the smarmy banker (Stefano Scherini) scoffs at the idea of lending money to the poor and is busy pushing Rossi towards the door when the gun falls out of his pocket. As everyone begins to panic, Rossi has a bag and an envelope thrust into his hand by staff and customers eager for him to leave without causing bloodshed. Only soap actress Soledad (Matilda De Angelis) seems unperturbed and demands that the teller sorts out her problem rather than paying attention to the hold-up.

Unable to convince anyone that he is not a robber, Rossi staggers to the door, only to be confronted by an armed guard. As his life flashes before his eyes, Rossi yells in terror and simultaneously squeezes the trigger of a weapon that turns out to have been loaded after all. While he makes his getaway, BB and his folks watch the TV news coverage, as Capitano Greppi (Massimiliano Gallo) dodges questions from a female reporter (Stella Novari) and the bank manager announces that the CCTV system was off and that the well-organised gang behind the robbery has got clean away. They barely look up when Rossi joins them and confesses to the crime by tipping €20 million on the table. However, while BB is congratulating him on his enterprise, Rossi realises that he left his wallet on the banker's desk.

Dressed in lumberjack shirts and hats and travelling by bus to be less conspicuous, Rossi and BB slip through the police cordon and manage to get into the bank without being challenged. Indeed, Rossi is only noticed when he goes to light a cigarette. But Soledad has spotted him and she sidles up to return the wallet with a mixture of bemusement and admiration. Removing his sunglasses, Rossi gives BB a thumbs up. But he is recognised by the bank manager and Soledad forces herself into his arms and orders the cops brandishing weapons to back off because she's been taken hostage. Going with the flow, Rossi bundles Soledad into the waiting car that BB has stolen and tells the reporter that Italian society has been ruined by the rich before they speed off. 

As Rossi used to be BB's navigator, he is able to call him through the tight bends on a winding Val di Susa road and gets him through a sleepy village, where a reversing tractor blocks the path of the pursuing police cars. When Soledad vomits in the backseat, they switch cars and leave cash for the elderly fisherman whose vehicle they commandeer. She is angry because they have not recognised her and a clip from a period drama in which she once starred is shown on the evening news, along with a repeat of Rossi's statement about the nation's moral bankruptcy.

Snorting cocaine in his office, Greppi is seething because Rossi has blundered into a sting to plant marked money on Elena Castiglioni (Michela Cescon) and her gang. But she is just as angry and has bearded sidekick Rambo (Mirko Frezza) abduct the bank manager for being a bungler and snip off his finger before shooting him in the head. When Greppi finds the body, he is more offended by the tie the deceased is wearing than his murder and then gets frustrated when he can't decide what to have for lunch. 

Meanwhile, the fugitives have stopped for food at an out-of-the-way eaterie and BB and Rossi are surprised that Soledad only consumes hot water during the day. While they tuck into some home cooking and decide which of them will sleep with her first, Soledad slips away to a callbox and phones her agent, Leonardo (Antonio Gerardi), and tells him to exploit the coverage to salvage her career. She returns to the café to tell the boys they are heading south to Puglia, where she will make arrangements for them to lay low in Albania until the fuss dies down. They see sense in her suggestion and agree to splitting the loot. But, even though BB wants to make for Copacabana, he still hands the matronly waitress (who has recognised them and asked for autographs) a bundle of notes and tells her to buy out the owner and go into business for herself. 

Determined to recover her money, Castiglioni tries to bully BB's parents into shopping him. But they insist they have no idea where he is and have a greater sense of loyalty to their son than she could ever command. She leaves a henchman to finish them off, but he is killed by a poker to the chest and the couple dissolve him in a bath of acid before ordering pizza to avoid seeming suspicious. Meanwhile, the accidental bandits have reached Perugia, where Soledad meets up with Leonardi to give him instructions on how to keep her name in the headlines. She returns to the car the boys are stealing to pick a fight with Rossi, who slaps her across the face in full view of Leonardi's camera. 

As they drive off, Rossi asks BB why he keeps giving their money away and he reveals that it makes them look like the good guys. However, they have been recognised once too often and find themselves being shot at on a straight country road studded with wind pylons. Luckily, BB is able to flip the chasing car and they make their getaway. But they crash through a wooden fence after Soledad blames them for making her dead-end life worse than it already is. She explains that she was once Italy's leading child prodigy, but she went out of fashion as soon as something new came along. In a bid to stay in the spotlight, she had slept with producers and directors who had promised her the earth. But her fortunes hadn't changed and she literally plunges into the deep end when she gets out of the car and steps into the swimming pool attached to a large and seemingly empty villa.

Soledad goes for a bath and finds an elegant blue dress, while Rossi and BB watch a compromising video of her and a screenwriter online. She announces that she wants to make love to them both. But, as they enjoy a post-coital nap, Rambo barges in with Leonardi and ties them up to wait for Castiglioni. He taunts Soledad with lurid threats and fails to notice Rossi wriggling free and picking up a heavy book. No matter how hard he hits him over the head, however, Rambo refuses to lose consciousness and BB and Soledad take turns with increasingly large implements to no avail. 

They succeed in locking him in the bathroom, however, before Rossi forces Leonardi into confessing that he had tipped off a cop so that he could film their arrest and make his client a superstar. He confides that he had once been the finest Billy the Kid impersonator on the children's party circuit. But he had been fired when tastes had changed and he couldn't hack it as a pirate. Dismissing his sob story, Soledad bids him farewell. But BB and Rossi are more softhearted and beckon him into the car. 

Unfortunately, the fan belt snaps and they have to pull into a service station for Rossi to fix it. While inside the café, however, Castiglioni arrives with her thugs and she orders them to beat Rossi into divulging where the money is hidden. As BB is dozing in the car, Leonardi realises he will have to rescue Rossi and Soledad, who appears to have a prior acquaintance with her captor. Taking the guns he finds in the boot of the car, Leonardi goes into Billy the Kid mode and wastes the entire gang without harming his friends. 

As they dash out of the diner, however, they are confronted by Greppi and dozens of armed police. But Rossi grabs Soledad and (having shot open the boot because Leonardi has locked the keys inside), they speed off again. However, he also shot the petrol tank and they have to stop at a fountain to douse the flames threatening the bagful of cash. Having arranged a dinner date with Castiglioni, Greppi joins the column of cop cars following them, armed with a map of their planned route that Leonardi just happened to leave on the diner table. 

Heading south to the port of Santa Maria di Leuca, the boys ask Soledad to come clean about her involvement in the bank job and she reveals that she had sunk so low that she was about to smuggle cash for a crook (presumably Castiglioni). They forgive her and BB calls his father to say goodbye before they sail for Albania. He has bought a boat of his own with his slice of the loot and he tells BB to arrive in the town square at precisely midday, if they are to avoid being gunned down. Greppi already has snipers on the ramparts. But, when a marching band emerges from the church at the head of a Marian procession, their commander (Luigi Mastrangelo), refuses to fire on unarmed civilians and has Greppi arrested for disregarding protocol.

Discovering that the money has gone up in smoke, the wounded Leonardi offers to hold off the cops to give BB, Rossi and Soledad time to get to their boat. But she urges them to go alone, as she has been bad luck since her Russian mother had died and she had wound up in an orphanage. However, Rossi and BB can't envisage leaving without her (especially after she declares her love for them both) and, as the picture ends, they rob another bank and scoop her up into their escape.

There's something grimly ironic about the amount of high-speed auto action crammed into this hectic road movie. But, while it must have been difficult for all concerned, the cast and crew make the best of the situation to deliver an entertaining, if rarely hilarious comic thriller. Ponti tosses in a few political points in the opening scenes, but Rossi's impassioned speech to the TV camera feels a little shoehorned, as does the banker's spiel about the undeserving poor. However, Soledad's casting couch revelations chime in with the #MeToo campaign, even though Ponti slightly undermines his good deed by having BB and Rossi watch her moment of shame online before she leaps into bed with the pair of them. 

Nevertheless, this isn't neo-realism and Ponti capably lampoons the poliziotteschi genre with a post-post-Tarantino flourish. He's well served by Lorenzo Richelmy and Eugenio Franceschini as the lovable rogues, while Matilda De Angelis veers between femme fatale and vulnerable victim with an aplomb that doesn't quite offset the fact she is required to be slinkily sensual throughout and topless in the sex scene. Michela Cescon is allowed to use her wiles more knowingly as the vicious Castiglioni, while Massimiliano Gallo throws himself into the shoutily unfunny role of the rule-breaking, coke-snorting cop. Gigi Meroni's score similarly overplays its hand in places, but cinematographer Roberto Forza makes the most of the atmospheric villages and rustic expanses, as the action hurtles along towards its cockamamie conclusion.

Among the titles showing under the Dochouse banner in London this week is Shai Gal's The Jewish Underground. Drawing on archive material and interviews with those involved with the terrorist network and some of the Shin Bet agents seeking to end its reign of terror, this is more than a reflection on events that happened three decades ago. Indeed, it draws a number of disconcerting conclusions, as several key players in the organisation now hold prominent posts within the Israeli establishment and remain wholly committed to fulfilling their thwarted objectives. 

Opening captions explain that the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem was the site of the Jewish Temple in biblical times. However, the Dome of the Rock (known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif) was built in the area where the ancient Temple once stood and, as a consequence, this is the most contested and volatile spot in the entire Middle East. Onetime Shin Bet operative Yaakov Peri watches footage of the Passover sacrifice of a sheep and recognises Yehuda Etzion, a former member of the Jewish Underground who is determined to return such ceremonies to the Temple Mount. 

Fellow agents Reuven Hasak and Carmi Gillon consider him a dangerous individual, with the latter going so far as to claim that the planned attack on the Temple Mount might well have sparked nuclear conflict or a third world war. Sixteen when it occurred, Etzion recalls celebrating the capture of Jerusalem during the Six-Day War in 1967. But he feels the job was left unfinished, as the Dome of the Rock remains as a symbol of the Palestinian resistance and the hope that the Jewish population will one day be driven from its Promised Land. 

Back in 1980, six Jewish pilgrims were killed while travelling from the Cave of the Patriarchs to Beit Hadassah, near Hebron on the West Bank. Etzion was among the first to call for a revenge attack and Boaz Heinemann, Uri Meir and Natan Natanson rallied to the cause and they decided to target members of the Palestinian leadership who would have sanctioned the Beit Hadassah outrage. Natanson was involved in the booby-trapping of Bassam Shakaa, the mayor of Nablus, in a bid to wound but not kill. A similar attack was launched on Karim Khalif, the mayor of Ramallah, who lost both legs in the explosion. A third operation in Bethlehem (with Meir involved) was aborted and Etzion is still embarrassed that the unit failed in its duty. 

As the Shin Bet commander in Jerusalem, Peri was surprised by the attacks of June 1980 and admits that he had no idea who was behind them. When he sent agents to check other Palestinian mayors, Suleiman Hirbawi was blinded when a device exploded and Etzion and Natanson regret that an Israeli was harmed, but insist that such scars are bearable. In response, Prime Minister Menachem Begin promised an investigation, but Peri recalls how the community refused to co-operate and that it was next to impossible to get any intelligence, let alone find anyone willing to become an informer.

Hasak was placed in control of Operation Green Light (which had originally been called `Dead End'), in the hope of eradicating the Jewish Underground before it got a grip on hearts and minds. However, Shin Bet took time to understand the depth of feeling nurtured by movements like Gush Emunim about planting new Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. Indeed, Natanson responds with fury to Gal's question about their rights to such territories and is offended that he feels he is entitled to insult him in such a way on camera. 

Back in March 1982, Shin Bet found a bomb in the Kiryat Arba Council building and the clues led to council leader Ze'ev Hever (aka Zambish), who refused to crack under questioning by Rafi Rahav, who was head of the Shin Bet Investigations Department. However, they had a lead and it took them to Menachem Livni, who was a respected explosives expert with connections to the Israeli Defence Force. In the hope of getting somebody on the inside, Shin Bet launched a recruitment drive and this brought David Handler into their orbit. Nervous during his polygraph test, he agreed to write what was bothering him on a piece of paper and keep it under his hand while he was hooked up to the lie detector. Foolishly, he tore up the paper and deposited the pieces in the bin and Gillon recalls being surprised that he had scribbled down the names of those involved in the mayoral bombings and that Yehuda Etzion was on the list. 

Raiding his warehouse in Jerusalem, Shin Bet found plenty of suspicious material. But they had no idea that Etzion was already collaborating with Heinemann and his father to produce enough explosives to destroy Haram al-Sharif. As he returns to the scene of his proposed crime, Etzion reveals that he went inside on a recce mission, while Gillon points out the proximity of the Dome and the nearby al-Aqsa mosque to the Western (or `Wailing') Wall that is so sacred to the Jews. Removing them would free up adequate space for a new Temple and Gillon admits he could see why the Jewish Underground had settled on their target.  

With Shin Bet now monitoring the activities of the leading members, they tried to identify incidents that might spark a reprisal. The murder of Aharon Gross infuriated Shaul Nir, who issued a statement threatening to take action if the government sat on its hands. Etzion and Natanson claim to have been against the attack that followed on the Islamic College in Hebron and regret that they were unable to prevent the bus bombing campaign that ensued in April 1984. Having intercepted calls about the movement of some saplings, the agency was able to follow a car planting the bombs and Heinemann was arrested at the sheep farm where he manufactured the explosives and Etzion was snatched on Holocaust Memorial Day.

Under interrogation, Etzion was tricked into writing down the names of those involved in the mayoral bombings and Gillon reveals that they found indentations on the writing pad after Etzion had set fire to his piece of paper. Among those he named was Natanson, who admits to cracking under pressure after his arrest. But, while they were pleased to have thwarted the bus attacks, they were shocked to uncover the plan for the Temple Mount on 22 April 1982, the day the Sinai settlement of Yamit was due to be evacuated as part of the terms of a treaty with Egypt. Prosecutor Dorit Beinisch remembers the enormity of the threat dawning on her and Gillon reveals that an attempt would have been made if Livni (who was the architect of the scheme) hadn't decided that the Israeli population was insufficiently primed to accept the validity of the mission. Without his expertise, his co-conspirators were hamstrung and the operation was postponed. 

In all, 25 members of the Jewish Underground were arrested and Beinisch suggests the majority expected to escape without prosecution because they considered their cause a holy crusade and were sure high-ranking government officials would sympathise with them. She also recalls them compiling a dossier of quotations from the Torah to justify their actions and them being surprised when she declared that sacred scripture can't be used to justify breaking the laws of the land. Etzion shrugs on being reminded of her approach and says their was a cultural chasm between his co-defendants and their prosecutors. 

Peri and Gillon admit to being perplexed by the amount of leeway the prisoners were granted, as a wave of support for their campaign swept across Israel. They were allowed to attend family gatherings and were rarely restrained, even when travelling to court. Indeed, Heinemann remembers being asked to hitch back to Tel Mond prison when a car broke down and they did so because they were well treated inside and didn't believe that they would be behind bars for long. On another occasion, they were taken to the beach and they were cheered along the route to court each morning. Moreover, members of the Knesset and leading rabbis came to visit them and, thus gave their cause a political and a spiritual legitimacy. 

Shin Bet was convinced that the Jewish Underground had rabbinical backing, but they have never been able to prove the link and leading advocates like Rabbi Moshe Levinger were released after just 11 days in custody. Hasak is particularly frustrated that they were not allowed to interrogate the rabbis in the same way as the lay prisoners, even after Livni provided them with the names of those who had sanctioned their actions. Gillon blames Beinisch for letting them off the hook, but she explains that it would have been dangerous to give rabbis like Dov Lior a courtroom soapbox to provide chapter and verse from the Torah to justify murder. 

When the sentences were handed down, Etzion got seven years and Natanson received three. However, they joke that the campaign to reprieve them began before they had even returned to prison. In 1987, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir announced that he felt the time had come to move on and unburden the suffering families of the detained. Shimon Peres opposed his motion for a full pardon, but all had been freed within three years, including Shaul Nir, Menachem Livni and Uzi Sharbaf, who had been given life terms of 24 years each. Gillon and Hasak remain disgusted by such leniency and the interference from the top that made a mockery of their investigation. They also believe that the releases provided tacit approval for the crimes, while hinting that future operations should be more selective in their targets.

While inside, however, ideologies hardened and links were forged between other right-leaning groups. Thus, Gal is convinced that the Jewish Underground continues to exert a worrying influence over Israel and the direction of policy towards the Occupied Territories. He follows Etzion to the Adei Ad settlement to witness a talk on his plans for the new Temple once the Dome of the Rock has been cleared. Gal also joins Natanson (who is now a senior political adviser to the Jewish Home Party) on a visit to the nascent settlement of Amichai, which has the support of  Minister of Agriculture, Uri Ariel. 

Now a member of the Knesset for the Yesh Atid Party, Peri was astonished to encounter Natanson in the corridors of power. During her time as Supreme Court President, Beinisch also locked horns with him and she states that he is much more confident about the future than she is. Gal also notes that Hagai Segal is now a newspaper editor and a presenter on the Knesset Channel (as well as being the author of the book, Dear Brothers, which guided Gal's research), Shaul Nir stood for election as a Likud Party candidate, Ze'ev Hever is the leader of the settlement movement and has ready access to the Prime Minister's office. Indeed, Benjamin Netanyahu shakes his hand at a political rally, which is also attended by Natanson, who is proud that settler numbers in Judea and Samaria have reached 420,000 from 12,000 in 1980.

He has no regrets about what he has done and neither does Etzion, who is seen attending a conference in the Knesset at which several government ministers speak and one even mentions him by name in hoping that the Temple Mount can one day be reclaimed. Natanson thinks God will be pleased with what they have achieved and Gillon is convinced they have won the battle, as their ideas are now entrenched in the debate and religious fanatics believing they have divine support for their cause will rarely be persuaded of anything other than their rectitude. Peri fears there will be a civil war, while Etzion hopes there will be a revolution that puts power in the hands of the true patriots. As Gal leaves those words hanging, however, it is clear that Israel is a tinderbox and there is no knowing from whence the spark will come that causes the conflagration.

Following along the lines of Sam Green and Bill Spiegel's The Weather Underground (2003), this `rise and fall' chronicle proves most disturbing in its final third, as Gal exposes the influence that leading members of the Jewish Underground wield today. Etzion and Natanson seize the opportunity to espouse their views and clearly regard their participation as a publicity coup. By contrast, Gillon and Peri - who had featured in Dror Moreh's Shin Bet study, The Gatekeepers (2012) - lament that they don't need airtime, as their message has been legitimised by the politico-religious hierarchy that covertly supports many of their aims. Such sobering conclusions leave little room for optimism about a peaceful solution.  

It seems odd in the Internet era that so much of this material should have taken the country by surprise, as appears to have been the case judging by the some of the reviews in the Israeli press when the film was shown as a three-part series on television. Nevertheless, Gal deserves enormous credit for piecing the story together and for confronting Etzion and Natanson with questions that clearly got under their defences. Moreover, he should be commended for showing how extremist and populist ideologies can become normalised parts of the mainstream debate without anyone seeming to notice.