A Complete Unknown ★★★☆☆
Directed by James Mangold. Starring Timothée Chalamet, Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Dan Fogler, Norbert Leo Butz, Scoot McNairy. 12A cert, gen release, 141 min
Chalamet is efficient as Bob Dylan in this just-the-facts study of that musician’s career between arrival in New York City and going electric at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. One yearns for director Mangold and co-writer Jay Cocks to move just a little further from the official legend. We get the meeting with Woody Guthrie. We get cliched sequences in which audiences gawp at the young man’s unquestioned, immediately understandable genius. It is hard to imagine anyone even peripherally interested in Dylan not having a pleasant time, but someone so creatively eccentric deserves a less vanilla tribute. Full review DC
Wolf Man ★★★★☆
Directed by Leigh Whannell. Starring Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, Matilda Firth, Sam Jaeger. 16 cert, gen release, 103 min
Whannell follows up his excellent take on The Invisible Man with an innovative unearthing of another Universal Studios monster. Abbott plays a young dad who starts to turn hairy while sheltering with wife and child in the woods. The film is most remarkable for its focus on the protagonist’s experiences as his body gets taken over by lupine influences. His sense of smell heightens. Vision alters dramatically. His understanding of human speech falters. Whannell’s risky focus on the psychological over the physical may alienate some gorehounds, but it makes for an original shocker with subtexts that linger. Full review DC
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Pepe ★★★★☆
Directed by Nelson Carlo De Los Santos Arias. Featuring Jhon Narváez, Fareed Matjila, Harmony Ahalwa, Shifafure Faustinus, Sor María Ríos. Mubi, 122 min
Speaking in a mix of Spanish, Afrikaans and the Namibian dialect Mbukushu between his sardonic guffawing, the late, titular narrator of Pepe is a dead hippopotamus. “I am dead,” explains the contemplative ungulate. “Where are my antenna ears?” In real life, Pepe was part of a herd of hippos the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar kept in a private menagerie at his residence in Hacienda Nápoles. Fans of Romanian auteur Radu Jude will likely enjoy the haphazard storytelling and epic travelling shots. But the cumulative effect of the speculative fantasy and hybrid presentation is profoundly sad. Full review TB
Emmanuelle ★★☆☆☆
Directed by Audrey Diwan. Starring Noémie Merlant, Will Sharpe, Jamie Campbell Bower, Chacha Huang, Anthony Wong, Naomi Watts. 18 cert, gen release, 105 min
Eyebrows were raised when Diwan, writer-director of Happening, announced that she would follow her Golden Lion-winning abortion drama with a new adaptation of the saucy ’70s soft-porn sensation. The casting of Portrait of a Lady on Fire star Noémie Merlant suggested a hip, feminist reworking of Emmanuelle Arsan’s source novel. Nope, the finished product is a dull, decidedly unerotic hotel stay. Laurent Tangy’s slick cinematography adds to the sense of watching a Luxe commercial. But for what? It’s impossible to figure out who this empty film is for or why it exists. Full review TB
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