There is a fine line between love and obsession, and David O. Russell explores both in Silver Linings Playbook. When our mind is preoccupied with something or someone, we make decisions as a consequence of that obsession. At the start of Silver Linings Playbook, Patrizio “Pat” Solitano Jr. (Bradley Cooper) is looking to reconcile his relationship with his ex-wife, Nikki (Brea Bee). Every decision of Pat’s is in the belief of a future reconciliation. Pat decides to read Lord of…

US publisher Abrams describes Christine Leunens novel Caging Skies as “darkly comic”, but the story is also a bleak one. It seems baffling why anyone would want to make a comedy about a boy in the Hitler Youth who discovers his mother is hiding a Jewish girl, but that is what writer-director Taika Waititi has done with Jojo Rabbit. Waititi applies his comedic style to this story with a thought-provoking statement, but as a whole, it does not entirely succeed.…

Wes Anderson last dabbled with stop-motion animation with his adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox almost a decade ago. When the auteur announced he would be returning to the genre with Isle of Dogs, fans of his work were quick to generate anticipation for the film. The title of this latest feature may derive from an area of London in the River Thames, but the film takes place in a dystopian Japan and follows a young boy, Atari (Koyu…

Since the turn of the decade, there has been a rise in the popularisation of television series and films from the 1970s and 80s receiving modernised adaptations. Steve McQueen’s Widows is based on a British crime drama series from this period, telling the story of a group of women whose bank-robbing spouses are killed during a heist and are then forced to take on a job in order to pay off their late husbands’ debt.

Widows opens with a juxtaposition…