Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 23/2/2017)

Adapted from Tarell Alvin McCraney's short play, In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, Moonlight is the overdue follow-up to the acclaimed but little-seen Medicine for Melancholy (2008), in which Jenkins celebrated the shabby grandeur of San Francisco in detailing Wyatt Cenac's bid to convince Tracey Heggins that their one-night stand is the start of something big. In many way, this three-act homage to the romantic realism of Hou hsiao-hsien and Wong Kar-wai tells a similar story. But it also challenges the conventions and stereotypes upon which independent and mainstream cinema alike have lazily come to depend in discussing the black experience in post-millennial America.

Opening to the sound of the sea rolling in the distance, Part One (`Little') sees Miami drug dealer Juan (Mahershala Ali) checking up on Terrence (Shariff Earp), one of his street-corner sellers. When he inspects a boarded-up crack den, however, Juan finds nine year-old Chiron (Alex R. Hibbert) cowering in the dark after being chased by homophobic bullies. Persuading the boy (whom everyone calls `Little') that he can be trusted, Juan takes him to a diner to eat and tries to find out something about him. Realising that he is scared to go home, Juan suggests he spends the night at his place and smiles as Chiron tucks away another plateful of food prepared by his kindly girlfriend, Teresa (Janelle Monáe).

Driving home the next morning, Chiron feels the breeze between his fingers as he dangles his hand out of the passenger window. But nurse mother Paula (Naomie Harris) is furious with him for staying out all night and she can barely bring herself to thank Juan. She insists he is big enough to take care of himself, but classmate Kevin (Jaden Piner) wonders why Chiron lets Terrel pick on him and they play-wrestle on the school sports field after his cheek gets cut during a boisterous game of rag football.

Reluctant to go home, Chiron seeks out Juan. They go to the beach and Juan teaches Chiron to float and he feels safe and free in the water. As they sit on the sand, Juan explains how an old woman once told him that black blues look blue while running around in the moonlight. He also warns him that a time will come when he will have to decide who he is and take a stand to protect his identity. But Chiron is too young to understand and is equally puzzled when he gets home to find a stressed Paula ushering a stranger into her bedroom.

The next day at school, Chiron wanders out of a dance class to find Kevin and his pals comparing their penises in a side room. Embarrassed because he is forever being taunted for being gay, he joins in and goes home to boil water in a pan for a bath. Meanwhile, Juan breaks off a chat with Terrence to haul Paula out of a parked car. She snaps at him for his hypocrisy, as he wants her to take better care of her son, yet also needs to keep selling her the crack that lines his pocket. Juan tells Chiron about the encounter the next time they meet and the latter admits that he hates his mother. He sits pensively before asking what a `faggot' is. Teresa nods as Juan tries to explain that it's a cruel term for gay people and reassures Chiron that he has nothing to fear if he likes boys. But, when he asks Juan if he sells drugs to his mother and receives a regretful reply in the affirmative, Chiron gets up and walks out of Juan's life forever.

Seven years later (as Part Two, `Chiron', begins), Chiron (Ashton Sanders) is being harassed by Terrel (Patrick Decile), despite the efforts of Kevin (Jharrel Jerome) to protect him. Juan has died, but Chiron continues to have sleepovers with Teresa, as Paula has now become so hooked on crack that she is always seeing clients and hustling Chiron for the cash Teresa gives him. One night (after Teresa teases him about his bed-making skills), Chiron has a dream about Kevin having sex with classmate Samantha (Herveline Moncion) in the back garden and he wakes with a look of horror on his face as he realises he is jealous.

After being menaced by Terrel on the way back from school and fleeced by the ingratiatingly desperate Paula, Chiron takes a train into the city and dozes at the station to avoid going home. He drifts down to the beach and bumps into Kevin, who has snuck out for a joint. Kevin jokes about the fact that an innocent like Chiron knows how to smoke and they get the giggles. But Chiron is surprised when Kevin says that feeling mellow makes him want to cry and he admits that he often sobs because he is so unhappy. As they josh, their eyes meet and they close in for a kiss. Kevin unbuckles the jeans that Terrel had mocked for being so unfashionable and Chiron scoops a handful of sand as he succumbs to the rare sensation of intimacy.

As they sit together, Chiron apologises and Kevin tells him not to be foolish. He smoothes the sand before sitting in silence on the ride home. They clasp hands as Kevin drops him off and Chiron tiptoes inside to find a blanket to cover the tripping Paula on the sofa. But his happiness barely lasts a day, as Terrel coerces Kevin into participating in a hazing ritual that involves punching Chiron in the face. His eyes stinging with tears, Kevin urges Chiron to stay down. But he gets up after each blow and squares up to his friend until Terrel and his gang start kicking him on the floor.

A security guard intervenes. But, even though he is badly injured, Chiron refuses to squeal to Principal Williams (Tanisha Cidel), as he believes reporting his assailants will solve nothing. Instead, he plunges his swollen face into a sink filled with ice and exacts his own revenge by breaking a chair over Terrel's head. As he is bundled into a waiting police car, Chiron shoots Kevin a look that's at once accusatory, longing and defiant.

In the decade that passes before the opening of Part Three (`Black'), Chiron (Trevante Rhodes) has bulked up in prison and learned how to take care of himself. Now based in Atlanta, Georgia, he still dreams of Paula standing in the neon-lit doorway of her bedroom and buries his face in ice. But Chiron has come up in the world and not only sports a set of gold grillz, but also carries a gun to protect his own network of pushers. He baits Travis (Stephen Bron) by accusing him of falling short with a payment, but cuts him some slack in the way Juan used to with Terrence.

Woken in the night, Chiron answers the phone expecting it to be Paula. But it's Kevin (André Holland), who got his number from Teresa. Since completing his own jail term, Kevin has become a diner chef and thought of his old friend when a familiar song came on the jukebox. He apologises for the trouble he caused him and promises to cook for him the next time he is home.

Having had a wet dream about Kevin leaning against a wall and smoking, Chiron goes to see Paula at the rehab clinic where she helps out while battling her addiction. She begs him to go straight, but he is in no mood to listen to her advice, even though she insists that she loves him. Perhaps recalling Juan's lament about missing his chance to patch things up with his own mother, Chiron lights a cigarette for her and embraces her when she makes a tearful apology.

That night, with the moon high above the sea, Chiron goes to Kevin's diner and sits at the counter while he attends to his customers. Surprised to see him, Kevin jokes that Chiron is as tongue-tied as ever and offers to fix him the chef's special. He brings it to a booth, along with a bottle of wine, and shows Chiron a photograph of his son with Samantha. Smiling, he notes that they get along better now that they live apart and asks what Chiron is doing with himself and makes no attempt to hide his disappointment when he admits he is dealing, as he knows he has the potential to do better.

Chiron asks Kevin why he called him, so he plays the 1963 Barbara Lewis R&B hit `Hello Stranger' on the jukebox and they watch each other without betraying any emotion while listening to the lyrics. Driving to Kevin's apartment, Chiron refuses to reveal why he came to Miami. But, when Kevin concedes that he is content with his lot, Chiron confesses that he has never touched another man since their teenage tryst and he rests his head on his friend's shoulder, as a closing image shows Little looking back at the camera on a moonlit beach.

Providing a ringing endorsement of the slogan `black lives matter', this is perhaps the most important film about the African-American community since the eruption of New Black Cinema in the late 1980s. Eschewing that movement's raw hood fury, Jenkins slows the pace and replaces handheld pugnacity with a Steadicam elegance that enables James Laxton to do widescreen digital justice to Hannah Beachler's glorious production design. Her omission from the Oscar nominations is one of the scandals of the year, along with Joshua Adeniji's sound editing. But Laxton deserves his accolade as much as editors Joi McMillon and Nat Sanders, and composer Nicholas Britell, who blends classical and `chopped and screwed' hip-hop in a score that also finds room for standout tracks like Boris Gardiner's `Every N****r Is a Star', Jidenna's `Classic Man' and Caetano Veloso''s `Cucurrucucú Paloma (Hable con Ella)'.

Nominated for his direction and the screenplay written with McCraney, Jenkins does well to keep sentiment at bay during some of the more emotive moments. But the magnitude of his achievement lies in the fact that he has put an arthouse spin on the ghetto genre, thanks to the meticulous lighting of the close-ups and the nuanced depiction of the commonplace details that punctuate the picture and root it in a reality that ring true despite its lack of obvious urban grit. Much of the veracity, however, comes from the performances, with Alex R. Hibbert, Ashton Sanders and Trevante Rhodes excelling as Little, Chiron and Black, alongside Jaden Piner, Jharrel Jerome and André Holland as Kevin.

Yet much of the attention has been focused on Naomie Harris and Mahershala Ali, with the latter looking set to become the first Muslim to win an acting Oscar. He would be a worthy recipient, if only for the climactic conversation in which he has to face up to his ethical dilemma. But, while Harris brings a skittish intensity to her role, it comes closest to caricature, beside Janelle Monáe's saintly surrogate and Patrick Decile's dreadlocked bully - although there is a redeeming subtext here about a societal victim channelling his macho rage to ostracise an even more insecure classmate. Such is the extent of poverty, abuse, addiction and despair in America's black neighbourhoods that their discussion on screen has become clichéd. But Jenkins has reclaimed the tragedy and made its shameful agony feel human again.

Marco Bellocchio has been one of the sharpest commentators on the Italian socio-political scene for over half a century. Since debuting with Fists in His Pockets (1965), he has examined the systemic mechanisms and human failings that have kept the country in a seemingly permanent state of uncertainty. An advocate of the left and a fierce critic of the Catholic Church, Bellocchio has never been afraid to speak his mind. But he misjudges the tone in adapting journalist Massimo Gramellini's autobiographical bestseller, Sweet Dreams, which shares some of the insights into idealised notions of motherhood with Bellocchio's 2002 drama, My Mother's Smile.

As a young boy in 1960s Turin, Massimo (Nicolò Cabras) delighted in dancing the Twist with his mother (Barbara Ronchi) and watching creepy shows on television like Belphégor. But, as he looks out of a bus window at the many statues around the city, Massimo fails to notice a sadness that prevents his mother from getting off at their stop and travelling the entire route again. So, it comes as a complete shock around Christmastide when she falls mysteriously ill in the night after wishing her son `sweet dreams'.

Massimo is billeted with his godparents (Arianna Scommegna and Bruno Torrisi) while his father (Guido Caprino) keeps vigil at a nearby hospital. But, eventually, the parish priest (Roberto Di Francesco) breaks the news that mother is with her guardian angel and father hides a newspaper report about her death in an old book on the shelf behind his desk. Convinced that they are lying because his mother would never leave him, Massimo refuses to pray for the repose of her soul and makes a scene at her funeral by urging her to wake and escape her coffin under the protection of Belphégor. He sulks at school and can barely bring himself to look at his father at mealtimes. But a trip to the Stadio Municipale to see Torino play fires the boy's imagination and he starts commentating on imaginary games.

His father finds the strain of dealing with Massimo too much, however, and he hires Mita (Monica Piseddu) to look after him. But the child resents losing his room to a stranger and drops one of his father's busts of Napoleon out of their apartment window while doing his physics homework. Imagining that Belphégor is watching over him, he turns the gas stove on to avoid a telling off. Yet because he sees Mita watching a late-night horror movie, Massimo wonders whether she could become his surrogate mother and attempts to snuggle up to her on the sofa while watching a Raffaella Carra variety show. But Mita pulls away and Massimo pleads with his mother to forgive him for betraying her.

For a while, sports provide the teenage Massimo (Dario Dal Pero) with an outlet. But he can't help noticing that everyone else has their mother watching from the balcony of the school swimming pool and he particularly envies the close relationship between his spoilt friend Enrico (Dylan Ferrario) and his doting mother (Emanuelle Devos), who wrestles with him and indulges his testy expressions of independence, At this point, the action flashes forward to 1992, by which time Massimo (Valerio Mastrandrea) has become a football reporter with La Stampa and is living with Agnese (Miriam Leone), who disturbs him by holding alternative prayer meetings in their apartment. She is growing tired of his lugubrious timidity and despairs when he bails on a trendy party to answer a phone call from the wealthy Athos (Fabrizio Gifuni). But he witnesses Athos commit suicide when the police come to arrest him on a corruption charge and the scoop leads to Massimo becoming a war correspondent in Sarajevo. He witnesses the impact of the Bosnian conflict on ordinary people, as well as a protest fashion show. But he also exploits the cunning of a photographer colleague who stages a shot of a young boy playing a computer game beside the body of his murdered mother.

On returning to Rome, Massimo experiences a panic attack and calls the hospital. Doctor Elisa (Bérénice Bejo) calms him down over the phone and conducts a series of tests. She is surprised to hear that his mother died of a sudden heart attack at 38 after undergoing surgery on her breast, but Massimo insists that is what his father told him. He also confides that Belphégor has long been his guardian angel and she smiles when he asks if she would like to be his new trusted confidante.

Recalling his mother tossing a bouquet into the river from a bridge, Massimo reflects on science teacher Father Abisso (Roberto Herlitzka) explaining the role of faith in the evolution of the planet. However, he had misunderstood his comments about God existing before time and the dead's ability to see earthly lights and had been caught lighting votive candles after hours in the school chapel. He confesses that he has been doing everything he can think of to get into heaven (including going to communion several times in different churches on Sundays), but the old priest urges him to stop lying to himself and admit that his mother is gone and get on with his life. His father also tells Massimo to be strong, as they have a heart-to-heart in his bedroom and he relives the night his wife died. He insists she didn't want to leave them, but refused to make a fuss and slipped away so as not to disturb them as they slept.

The scene shifts to a stormy Turin in 1995, as Massimo and his father attend a memorial for past Torino players. He is surprised to be introduced to a female companion who is 30 years his father's junior, and asks if he plans to marry her. Embarrassed by his feelings, his father assures Massimo that he has never stopped loving his mother and entrusts him with her wedding ring. But the gift awakens scarcely suppressed emotions and, when the paper's agony aunt (Giulio Brogi) loses his temper over a letter from a man (Fausto Russo Alesi) who wants to kill his cold-hearted mother (Piera Degli Esposti), Massimo is asked to write the reply and his paean to mother love touches the heart of the nation. Indeed, when Elisa invites him to a party celebrating the 60th wedding anniversary of her grandparents, he is thanked by her aunt (Manuela Mandracchia) for understanding what women go through. Swept on to the dance floor by Elisa, Massimo lets go of his inhibitions to `Surfing Bird' and the guests form a circle for him to strut his stuff. Seeing a new side of him, Elisa ushers him into the garden and they kiss passionately.

Four years later, Massimo (Valerio Mastrandrea) returns to Turin to clear out the family apartment. Fazed by the sight of his collection of Bonaparte busts and disturbed by flashbacks to the night his mother died, he calls his godmother Madrina in the middle of the night and asks her to come and help. He asks her what happened and she fetches the newspaper cutting from the study. Finally forced to accept that his mother had jumped to her death, Massimo asks Madrina why no one had had the courage to tell him with truth. But he dismisses her insistence that his mother had loved him, as he curses her for being so selfish as to take the easy way out and abandon her child. He laments the wasted tears, as he strolls outside and looks up at the window.

Returning to Rome, he watches Elisa swimming and diving into the dimly lit pool from the high board. That night, she lies beside him and implores him to let go and he thinks back to a game of hide and seek when his mother had remained inside a cupboard long after he had become scared because he couldn't find her. She had eventually revealed herself and invited Massimo to share her hiding place. But his expression suggests that his fears had been awoken at that moment of shaken faith.

Despite some decent supporting performances and the muted camerawork of Daniele Cipri, this fragmented melodrama never quite comes together. Bellocchio and co-writers Valia Santella and Edoardo Albinati set editor Francesca Calvelli a stern challenge in piecing together the narrative and she often struggles to prevent the action from seeming like a procession of achingly significant set-pieces. Her cause is not helped by Valerio Mastrandrea's inability to make the audience care about a character whose lack of curiosity about his mother's demise is a peculiar trait for a journalist. Indeed, one is left to wonder how much fact Gramellini embedded in his novel, as this seems like a ruinous weakness in a plot so heavily predicated on Massimo's psychological scarring. It's fine for the admirable Nicolò Cabras and Dario Dal Pero to exhibit such naive vulnerability, but it stretches credibility too far when it continues to cripple a supposedly intelligent adult. There's much to admire in Marco Dentici's production design and the recurring use of clips from both Belphégor and the iconic works of German silent Expressionism. But Carlo Crivelli's score is as unpersuasive as the old-age make-up used on Guido Caprino, whose Napoleonic obsession is as clumsily inserted into the storyline as Mastrandrea's Bosnian assignment and his mawkish eulogy to motherhood. With a little more wit to leaven the solemnity, this could have been a valuable contribution to the ongoing cycle of pictures on the current crisis of Western masculinity. But Bellocchio never seems in control of either his message or his material.

Presenting its second film in a week, CinemaItaliaUK screens Roan Johnson's Piuma at the Genesis Cinema in London on Sunday 26 February. With its title translating as `Feather', this is the third feature by the London-born, Pisa-raised film-maker and follows The First on the List (2011) and So Far So Good (2014) in exploring the ways in which the younger generation are coping with the frustrations and temptations of a new century blighted by domestic dysfunction, political tension and economic recession. However, the shortage of genuine insights and the surfeit of dubious jokes at the expense of Romanians and Moroccans cast a pall over this breezy teenpic's guiltier pleasures.

When Lazio teenager Blu Yoshimi discovers she's pregnant, she informs boyfriend Luigi Fedele that she doesn't want a second abortion and he backs her decision to keep the child. However, they suspect that his parents, Sergio Pierattini and Michela Cescon, will be as furious as her wastrel father, Francesco Colella, who lives in a tower block with his sharp-tongued Romanian girlfriend, Francesca Antonelli. Having spent a rainy night in a friend's father's car, Fedele and Yoshimi seek sanctuary with his grandfather, Bruno Sgueglia. But he betrays them and winds up in hospital after suffering a seizure during a family argument that also sees Pierattini cut his hand while punching a glass display case.

Still hoping to persuade the pair to consider their futures, Pierattini and Cescon pay a visit to Colella, who seems oblivious to the fact his daughter is not a virgin. However, he starts rowing with Antonelli and Pierattini and Cescon heat a hasty retreat while agreeing to let Fedele and Yoshimi stay with them for the time being. As the second month progresses, however, the teens start planning a trip to Morocco with their school friends to celebrate the end of their exams. But they have to abandon the holiday when Yoshimi has a miscarriage scare and gynaecologist Massimo Reale orders her to rest and stop riding around on the back of Fedele's moped.

Envious of their friends' social media posts, Fedele and Yoshimi make the most of summering in Rome. However, they are not left alone for long, as Pierattini and Cescon are forced to return from a stay in Tuscany (where they are hoping to relocate) after Fedele loses his keys, while Sgueglia has to endure excruciating physiotherapy sessions with Francesca Turrini, who is not averse to prescribing the odd pain-relieving spliff. But Colella ruins Yoshimi's plan to get maternity pay from a local bookmaker by blurting out about her condition while she is reapplying for her job. Thus, she is in no mood to appreciate the fact that Fedele has set up a paddling pool in the front room to make up for her missing out on Morocco.

She gets used to the idea, however, and they sit in the pool thinking up names for the daughter who has just come through a five-month scan with flying colours. Fedele suggests Piuma, so that she can glide above the world's problems. But Pierattini is furious with his son for creating a damp patch on the floor while he is trying to sell the house and he gets into a typically heated bedtime row with Cescon, who defends her habit of coddling her son, even when he needs a little discipline. Stomping off to sleep on the sofa, Pierattini is surprised to find it already occupied by Turrini, who has missed her bus and decided to sleep over so that she could be on time for Squeglia's manual manipulation in the morning.

Six months have now passed and Fedele has rarely left Yoshimis side. But when his pal Brando Pacitto gets back from Morocco with a gaggle of new friends, Fedele can't resist accompanying them to a party. However, he is tempted when Argentinian singer Clara Alonso flirts with him and he decides to lay low with Turrini to let his hormones settle. Unfortunately, her walls are covered with erotic art and a debate about her breast size saps Fedele's willpower. He arrives home late and tries to make excuses. But Yoshimi sees through his lies and insists that he sleeps on the floor, while making no guarantees about being polite to him when Colella and Antonelli come for lunch the following day.

Events quickly take a dramatic turn, however, when Colella arrives late and alone and accidentally drinks some fabric softener (and crashes through a plate glass table) when looking for something to disinfect the scratch marks on his face. The shock causes Squeglia to have a heart tremor and the entire family finds itself in a hospital corridor awaiting news. But it transpires that Colella has a habit of making melodramatic cries for help and Pierattini is livid when Cescon offers him the spare room until he recovers. He also loses his temper when Squeglia locks himself in the bathroom while the estate agent is showing potential buyers around and Fedele is horrified to learn during the ensuing furore that Turrini is pregnant.

With Cescon refusing to move to Tuscany, Pierattini moves into the outhouse and blows a gasket when Fedele comes clean about Turrini. He orders him to stop telling him the truth and makes him promise not to tell Cescon or Yoshimi. However, with only a month to go to the birth, the latter has reached the conclusion she is not ready to become a mother and suggests that they give up the baby for adoption. Fedele (who now knows that a relieved Turrini miscarried) promises to support her decision and they hug. While travelling to meet the lawyer to arrange the paperwork, however, everyone listens to the message that Fedele has recorded for Piuma and emotions run so high that Colella runs the minibus off the road into a field. No one is hurt, but Fedele and Yoshimi agree that they can't bear the thought of parting from their daughter and the film ends with them in matching sweatshirts breathing through contractions and arguing amicably about how access will work when they eventually break up. In fact, the final image shows the pair swimming in a pool superimposed over a top shot of their rundown neighbourhood. This reprises a similar scene that prompted Fedele to purchase the paddling pool and a quirky companion sequence comes in the form of a swim through the amniotic fluid in Yoshimi's womb, as they try to make out Piuma's features on the scanner screen. Such flights of fancy may fit nicely with the film's title, but they sit rather awkwardly with a sitcomedic tone so heavily reliant on breakneck vernacular exchanges that often descend into shouting matches.

Fedele and Yoshimi make a nice couple, but the ensemble playing threatens to overwhelm them, especially as she is such a passive presence and his samurai code angle feels like an afterthought. Indeed, some of the other principals are so much larger than life than some teeter on the edge of caricature. But Sergio Pierattini amuses as the emasculated father failing miserably to stamp his authority on the household, while Cescon holds her own as the family's voice of reason. But Johnson has little to say about age replacing class as the new division in Italian society and this lack of satirical bite renders the comedy a touch toothless and the conclusion cloyingly cosy.

Taking place `Somewhere, a while ago already', Xavier Dolan's It's Only the End of the World sees the Quebecois auteur work with a stellar French cast for the first time in adapting a lauded play by Jean-Luc Lagarce, who died of AIDS at the age of 38 in 1995. Having earned a reputation as an enfant terrible with How I Killed My Mother (2009), Heartbeats (2010), Laurence Anyways (2012), Tom At the Farm (2013) and Mommy (2014), the 27 year-old Dolan has declared this to be his `first film as a man'. But, while he reins in the dramatic and stylistic flamboyance that has characterised much of his earlier work, Dolan is hidebound by the talkativity of the conversational scenario and, thus, struggles to convey its emotional intensity, despite shooting much of the action in tight close-ups designed to counter the overtly theatrical nature of the material.

After 12 years away, Gaspard Ulliel returns home to inform his family that he is dying (of an unspecified disease). He lands with a sense of dread that intensifies during the lengthy cab ride, but he is given a warm welcome by mother Nathalie Baye, sister Léa Seydoux and sister-in-law Marion Cotillard, whom he has never met before. Baye forgets that Ulliel missed the wedding and her nervous laugh earns her a reprimand from Seydoux, who was only a girl when her brother left. She introduces him to Cotillard and criticises them for shaking hands. But husband Vincent Cassel comes to Cotillard's rescue by reminding Seydoux that she and Ulliel are strangers.

While Baye fusses over canapés, Cotillard shows Ulliel photographs of her children. They are staying with her mother and she gets flustered as she tries to describe how much her daughter resembles Cassel. He stares out of the window with his back to the others and snaps at needing to be reminded of the happiest moments of his life. As he scolds Cotillard for boring everyone with family trivia, Ulliel rolls his eyes as the tensions he has avoided for over a decade come rushing in and he wonders how on earth he is going to break his news. Their eyes meet and Cotillard senses his sadness. But she continues to babble about how she came to name her son and accidentally lets slip a homophobic slur about gay men not having children that makes Seydoux smile and Cassel seethe with patronising rage.

Recognising that Ulliel is feeling overwhelmed, Seydoux sweeps him off to see her room. Her wall is covered with her drawings and press cuttings chronicling Ulliel's success as a playwright. She shows him her collection of the postcards he has sent on her birthday and wonders why he has opted for such a public mode of communication when a letter would be more private and intimate. He blenches, as he knows that postcards (no matter how carefully they are chosen) suggest the haste and duty associated with dashing off a note while on holiday. But Seydoux insists she isn't complaining, as Baye has made it clear that Ulliel has made his choices and that the family has to respect them.

While Seydoux complains about the heatwave and the fact she has to ferry her mother around in Cassel's old car, Ulliel is reminded of the old family home by the belongings stored away in a back bedroom. Further memories flood in, as they gather in the kitchen and Baye recalls the Sunday picnics they used to enjoy in the country before Seydoux was born. Cassel ticks her off for being sentimental and repeating stories everyone has heard a dozen times before. But even he cracks a smile when the Moldovan boy band O-Zone's disco hit `Dragostea Din Tei' comes on the radio and Baye and Seydoux perform one of their old aerobics dances.

Thoughts of lost sunny days fill Ulliel's mind, as he remembers his father lifting him high above his head. But reality returns as he rushes to the bathroom to vomit. He chats to a friend on the phone and admits to being scared about telling his family his time is short. However, he is forced to face up to his own shortcomings when he bumps into Cotillard and she gently reprimands him for accusing Cassel of being callous when he has no idea what her husband thinks or feels or does for a living. Ulliel is stung when she informs him that Cassel hardly speaks about him, but he knows he has never left an address for them to reply to his postcards and that he is the one who walked out on them.

The subject of post crops up when Baye summons Ulliel to the garden shed, where she is having a crafty cigarette away from Cassel. She reproaches him for not telling her he had moved, as she had been sending letters to his old digs. Moreover, she urges him to be more positive towards Cassel and Seydoux, as they got left behind when he vanished and she thinks he owes it to them to approve of their choices and encourage them to make more of themselves. She realises that Seydoux has itchy feet, but frets that she is too naive to avoid the pitfalls of independence. Baye also knows that this is Ulliel's last visit and she wants it to be one they can all look back on with a degree of affection.

Wondering whether this is the moment, Ulliel is knocked off course when Baye asks his age. She sprays a sample perfume on her wrist and asks if she should buy some for herself at Christmas. They embrace and Ulliel gazes into the lens, as he watches the net curtains fluttering in the breeze coming through the open window. He steels himself, but Baye implores him to keep the mood light for the remainder of his stay. She notices the resemblance to his father and smiles, leaving Ulliel torn between disregarding her wish and hurting her by not having the courage to say what needs to be said.

Over lunch, Ulliel looks at his watch as Cassel tells a cruel anecdote about a Down Syndrome girl and some chickens. Baye thinks it's hilarious, but Cotillard is offended and Cassel barks at her when she suggests he changes the subject. In a bid to keep the peace, Ulliel suggests a trip to the old family home. But Cassel shoots him down because it has been empty for several years and he has no wish to be reminded of the neighbourhood they had struggled for so long to leave. Baye tries to change tack by asking Ulliel for some showbiz gossip. But he regrets that he rarely goes out and Seydoux fills the awkward silence by accusing Cassel of trying to humiliate her in front of her brother. He rejoins that she is showing off and then turns on Ulliel when he asks Cotillard for a cup of coffee and she nervously calls him `sir' in reply.

Wandering into the basement, Ulliel sees his old mattress and relives his first moments of passion with the long-haired blonde who had also introduced him to drugs. His reverie is interrupted by Cotillard, however, who distractedly asks him how much time he has and suggests that he might like to chat with Cassel. He needs cigarettes and Ulliel accompanies him to the shop. However, when he tries to tell Cassel about his flight and his decision to have breakfast at the airport, Cassel launches into a tirade about how sick he is of people waffling instead of getting to the point. Ulliel tries to explain that he was merely making small talk, but Cassel denounces him for blathering in a bid to disguise the chasm between them. He puts his foot down in his fury and has to swerve to avoid a cyclist. Ulliel covers his eyes and wishes he was somewhere else. But there's no escape when they return to the house and Cassel callously announces that Ulliel's first love has died of cancer.

Smoking alone in the garden, Ulliel feels the heat of the afternoon sun and hears the relentless tick of the cuckoo clock in the hallway. Cotillard is worried that the brothers have fallen out, but Baye is too preoccupied with making dessert to notice. Cassel joins Seydoux for a cigarette in her room and he begs her not to let Ulliel's little act fool her, as he has always put himself first and has barely given them a second thought all the time he has been away. She shoots him a quizzical look and looks even more perplexed when he consoles her with the notion that it will all be over soon anyway.

Congratulating herself on her puddings, Baye looks round the table. Sensing his moment has arrived, Ulliel announces that he intends to visit more often and write longer letters. He invites Seydoux to stay with him and invites Cassel out to dinner. Cotillard reaches for her husband's hand under the table, as he tries to find excuses not to go. Both give the impression that they know what Ulliel is trying to say. But Baye and Seydoux appear nonplussed, especially when Cassel suddenly jumps up and offers to drive Ulliel to the airport so he can get back to the city in time for his big meeting. Dismayed that he has an appointment on a Sunday, Seydoux pleads with Ulliel to spend the night, so they can have breakfast together. But Cassel grows more insistent and Ulliel bows to his pressure and agrees that he has to go.

Crushed by the anguished relief that Ulliel's revelation has been supressed, Cotillard bids him farewell. But Seydoux is furious with Cassel for driving Ulliel away and the implication is that this is not the first time. Baye tries to adjudicate, but it puzzled by the sudden need for Ulliel to leave. Fighting back the tears, Cassel insists that it is not his fault that Ulliel cannot stay and is so enraged by Seydoux's seething accusations that he almost punches Ulliel when he tries to intervene. He regains his composure in time, however, and Baye embraces Ulliel and promises that they will be better prepared next time he calls.

Left alone with Cotillard, Ulliel realises that she knows his secret and puts his index finger to his lips. As she follows Baye and Cassel into the garden, the cuckoo clock chimes the hour and a small bird zooms in through the window. Ulliel ducks as it flies over him and crashes on to the carpet. He pulls his baseball cap over his brow and walks through the door, leaving the camera trained on the heaving chest of the ailing bird.

Although this closing symbol feels a touch de trop, Dolan deserves credit for keeping his cine-exuberance in check and allowing the focus to remain firmly on his extraordinary ensemble. It's tempting to suggest that this might not have been quite so compelling with lesser actors, as so much emphasis is placed on the expressions and emphasis of a shrewdly cast quintet. Cassel is peerless when it comes to inarticulate macho ferocity, while Seydoux (with her flower-tattooed biceps) suggests a slutty potheaded naiveté that contrasts so starkly with Cotillard's knowingly tactful timidity. Torn between contempt and regret, Ulliel manages to be both enigmatically reprehensible and empathetic, while Baye demonstrates again under thick make-up and a dark brown bob the effortless versatility that she brought to Antoine Cuyper's Prejudice (2015) and Frédéric Mermoud's Moka (2016), which recently featured in MyFrenchFilmFestival.

Serving as his own editor and subtitle translator, Dolan certainly reveals a new maturity. But he lacks the storytelling finesse to prevent this from seeming like a sequence of studied and stagily eloquent set-pieces. Moreover, by sticking largely to close-ups in order to keep the audience at the centre of the emotionally draining action, he leaves himself few stylistic options (especially as cinematographer André Turpin often opts for such murky lighting) and it might have been interesting to see him adopt more of a Rainer Werner Fassbinder approach to filming stage plays. Abetted by Gabriel Yared's deft score, he does leave sufficient space, however, for viewers to ponder the relationships between the characters and speculate on who knows (or suspects) what and why they are so unwilling to face up to the pent-up emotions and vicious truths keeping them together and apart.

While few would champion Steven C. Miller, it's hard not to admire the tenacity that enables him to keep churning out thick-ear action movies featuring onetime A-listers in need of a payday. Following hard on the heels of the execrable Bruce Willis vehicle, Marauders, comes Southern Fury (aka Arsenal), a sibling saga scripted by first-timer Jason Mosberg that affords John Cusack the opportunity to wear a baseball cap backwards to convince everyone he is a rapper and not an undercover cop and Nicolas Cage the chance to gnaw on the scenery while sporting the silliest prosthetic nose, moustache, wig and sunglasses combination in living memory. There's no need to see this tosh on the big screen. But it's awful enough to acquire the kind of cult cachet that makes disc or download viewing all-but essential.

As kids in Biloxi, Mississippi, Zachary Legendre was often mean to younger brother Kelton DuMont and rarely gave him money to spend at the local amusement arcade. But he protected him after their uncle shot himself and gave him his lawnmowing route after local thug Nicolas Cage gave him work at the arcade for keeping quiet about a savage baseball bat assault on a creditor. Thus, when DuMont grows up to be the successful Adrian Grenier, he feels responsible for Johnathon Schaech after he is booted out of the Marines and does some jail time. Wife Lydia Hull would prefer Grenier to focus on her and their new baby, especially as Schaech has messed up his relationships with Megan Leonard and their teenage daughter, Abbie Gayle. But blood is thicker than hooch and Grenier agrees to find Schaech to lend him some cash.

Unfortunately, Schaech uses the funds to buy some cocaine that is stolen from his fridge by a couple of local hoodlums. However, he recognises Shea Buckner's car and dispenses some swift retribution (involving a toilet bowl) and squares the situation with the disapproving Grenier during a Fourth of July barbecue. Drifting off to a bar, however, Schaecs runs into Cage and he suggests that they fake Schaech's kidnapping and split the ransom when Grenier pays up.

On receiving the demand to come up with $350,000 cash in four days, Grenier asks business manager Christopher Rob Bowen to sell what he can. But he also asks Cusack to make some inquiries and refuses to believe the rumour passed on by informant Tyler Jon Olson that Schaech and Cage have conspired to defraud him. Convinced that Buckner is out for revenge, Grenier busts into his home and, following a foot race and a car chase, he discovers at gunpoint that Schaech is being held at Cage's club.

Meanwhile, Cage gets a visit from gun-toting brother Christopher Coppola (his real-life sibling buried beneath a baseball cap, shades and a bogbrush goatee), who is less than amused that he is dragging the family name through the mud by resorting to kidnapping and extortion. However, Coppola underestimates Cage, who beats him senseless in manic slow motion to the accompaniment of a gospel choir singing `Oh, Freedom'. This grotesque sequence triggers a flashback to show how Cage sent henchman Sean Paul Braud to abduct Schaech after he refused to co-operate and this, in turn, tees up a scene of Braud giving Schaech a slo-mo, gore-spurting knuckle-dusting after he delivers a sob story about hating violence after witnessing his father putting his mother in hospital.

As Schaech tries to cut the rope binding his hands, Cage stumbles in to ask if he will listen to a letter he has written to Coppola. With his powder blue suit soaked in blood, Cage outlines how he went to jail for his brother when he was just 17 and emerged three years later to discover that he had kept his share of the loot and set himself up in New Orleans. But he explains that he can't send the note because he has just killed Coppola and he fumes that he has always hated Schaech and Grenier because they have remained close through thick and thin.

Cage forces Schaech to phone Grenier to remind him that the kidnappers mean business. But a casual remark about video games strikes Grenier as odd and he ponders its meaning while showing Hull what a man he can be when his dander is up. He is still mulling it over when Cage sends Braud (who has just pulped Schaech for trying to escape) to invite him to a very public meeting in a restaurant. Now in a salmon pink jacket, Cage puts drops in his eyes, gives Grenier a tip about mixing a Bloody Mary and warns him that Gayle might be in danger unless he comes up with the ransom.

But it's Leonard who is in trouble, as she has taken an overdose after receiving an envelope full of Polaroids showing Gayle in compromising positions. Urging Hull to take care of her, Grenier takes the money and finds Schaech bound at the back of the billiard hall. He frees his brother and goes to the club to pay Cage. However, he has put a stun grenade in the holdall and this stuns Cage sufficiently for Schaech to burst in blazing as banknotes float on the air. As slo-mo shots show one bullet pass through the cheeks of one henchman and another to splatter the back of Braud's skull. Schaech is wounded, but the brothers ping Cage before Grenier lets him have both barrels in the face.

Meeting on the bleachers where they used to hang out as kids, Schaech tells Grenier he is proud of him and they run on to the field for some batting practice to celebrate being able to get on with their lives at long last. Of course they do, how else could this wholesome, sentiment-drenched slice of all-American slaughter and depravity end? Presumably, if they were Mockney mobsters, they would have popped down to the local cricket club for a net.

Words can scarcely convey how utterly redundant this picture is. But where else could you see an Oscar winner having so much demented fun giving his craft the middle finger? The hilariously self-pitying/loathing Cage apart, this is a shambles that is played with all the finesse of Ryan Franks and Scott Nickoley's booming score. The majority of the action sequences have been rendered incomprehensible by the combination of Brandon Cox's jerkicam imagery and Vincent Tabaillon's slice`n'dice editing style. But their efforts are vastly superior to those of Mosberg and Miller, who seem oblivious to the fact that their narrative lurches around like a decapitated chicken in search of an original idea before collapsing in a confused heap. Unfortunately, given Miller's rate of production, we won't have to wait long for the next one.

Opening with a warning about flashing and stroboscopic images that may not be suitable for people suffering from photosensitive epilepsy, Dubliner Lorcan Finnegan's debut feature, Without Name, is a drab dendrological horror whose portentous build-up and crass eco preachifying are compounded by the singular lack of chills. Demonstrating impressive technique for a first-timer, Finnegan capably captures the forest as a place of disconcertion. But screenwriter Garret Shanley's characterisation lacks depth, while the Finnegan's struggle to generate and sustain suspense means that this falls well behind other recent Irish genre offerings like David Keating's Wake Wood (2009), Stephen Fingleton's The Survivalist and Corin Hardy's The Hallow (both 2015).

Returning from an expedition to a grey grim quarry, land surveyor Alan McKenna fails to spot that wife Olga Wherly is lying awake and glaring back at him from the bedside mirror in their well-appointed Dublin apartment. He does notice the noise her toast makes at breakfast the next morning, however, and pointedly ignores her as he urges schoolboy son Brandon Maher to behave himself while he is away.

Pausing to inspect how his shadow falls on a trickle of oil on the concrete, McKenna navigates his way out of the capital to the accompanying chatter of the local radio station. Darkness has fallen by the time he arrives at the remote cottage that will be home for the next few days and he idly thumbs through a notebook labelled `Knowledge of Trees' that seems to have been written by Brendan Conroy, whose careworn photograph sits on the mantelpiece. Sipping beer, McKenna makes use of the surprisingly good broadband signal to Skype with student-cum-assistant Niamh Algar, who complains that she won't get her dissertation finished if he keeps interrupting her.

Next day, McKenna climbs into his Jeep and heads into the forest. He passes a white caravan on the road before setting up his equipment in a secluded glade. The trees seem to quiver with indignation as he carelessly drives the theodolite tripod spikes into the undergrowth and McKenna is taken aback when the bare branches appear to cut out the light while rustling in quiet unison. Feeling spooked as the dusk wind gets up, McKenna calls client Morgan C. Jones to ask if the survey is legitimate and why he was hired. Jones reassures him that the land has been purchased legally and that the environmental agency broadly agrees with the proposed project. He also hints that McKenna has been chosen for his discretion.

Having returned to the glade to find his equipment has been tampered with, McKenna is unnerved by what looks like a silhouette moving through the mist. But he makes it back to the cottage without further incident and treats himself to a pint in Donncha Crowley's pub in the nearby village. Sitting at the bar, McKenna gets chatting to James Browne, who lives in the caravan with his dog Chaplin. He explains that Conroy went mad while conducting his study into the trees in the unnamed gully and Crowley confides that the place has a bad reputation. As they walk home, Browne jokes that McKenna should wear his coat inside out to ward off the faeries, but he repeats the warning that Conroy was found wandering in a catatonic state after spending too much time alone in the woods.

Somewhat bizarrely, the action then cuts to Conroy lying on a hospital bed and staring at the ceiling, as if he is looking at the canopy of branches swaying over the gully. But the focus returns to McKenna, as he gets up the next morning to collect Algar. She is also his mistress and he feels better for having a companion, especially as Wherly gives him a hard time for being away while Maher is in trouble at school for bullying. But he snaps at Algar for sleeping in when they have work to do and she finds Conroy's manuscript under the bed when she accidentally knocks over a glass of water.

While in the gully, Algar notices a sudden change in the light and calls out for McKenna, who is nowhere to be seen. The camera prowls around her as she lurches between the trees. But McKenna is in no mood for her prattle when he insists that he was there all along and he remains gloomy on the drive home because he has no wish to discuss Jones's possible plans for the site. He brightens up over supper, as Algar hints that she could get used to a secluded life with him. But he snaps that he has responsibilities and has no right to deprive her of the best years of her life. Nettled by his refusal to consider her wishes, Algar goes to bed alone and is woken in the night by McKenna brandishing his tripod and loudly challenging the intruder he swears rapped on the door. She suggests it was merely the wind and urges him to come to bed. But McKenna is convinced that something sinister is going on.

Convinced Browne is causing trouble, McKenna pays a call to his caravan and is invited to stay with Algar for tea and stew. Detecting a flicker of attraction between the pair, McKenna goes to leave. But Algar refuses to budge, as she is fascinated by Browne's description of Conroy's theory of the secret language of trees and she agrees to take some magic mushrooms in order to become closer to Nature. They debate the ownership of the land and how wildlife is forever trying to teach lessons that humans ignore. But they are distracted when McKenna reveals that he has polished off the entire packet of mushrooms and Browne and Algar take him for a midnight walk in the woods to bring him down.

However, the tripping McKenna wanders between the trees in a daze and stares with wide eyes at the unfamiliar foliage. He even sees Wherly sitting beside him and accusing him of lying to her. But, while they tease him for being so spaced out and pull faces in the torch beam, Browne and Algar get him back to the cottage to crash. Still high, McKenna sleeps all day and dreams of seeing a silhouette in the woods, as well as a naked Conroy staring at him through his confusion.

He is woken by Algar informing him that there has been a power cut and they wander into the attic in search of candles. Algar finds some of the aura photographs that Conroy took in his effort to prove that the trees communicate and she reads the opening paragraphs of his book. She mocks his notion that plants and trees can speak, but McKenna wonders if he had not stumbled on to something and snatches the manuscript and stomps back to bed.

McKenna remains sullen the next day and spends more time on his laptop than he does assisting Algar, who decides she needs a walk in the woods to clear her head. But McKenna thinks he hears anguished cries when he returns to the glade to collect the last of the equipment and rushes back to the Jeep in some distress. For some reason, he is reminded of the oil stain on the concrete at home and has to fight to compose himself, as he jumps into the driver's seat and grips the steering wheel.

Surrounded by Conroy's images, McKenna has worked himself into a paranoid state by the time Algar returns. He implies that she has been unfaithful with Browne and accuses her of colluding with the client and the locals to warp his mind. Appalled by the suggestion, Algar packs her bag and strides into the darkness to find somewhere to spend the night. McKenna follows, but bumps his head on a branch and looks back into the headlights to see the silhouette standing beside the Jeep.

Having been tormented by voices in the cottage that seem to be drawing strength from his anxiety, McKenna endures another nightmare and turns to Conroy's book for some answers. He goes foraging for leaves and fungi and makes a foul-tasting tea that he downs with manic determination. The water spilt from his glass forms tendrils on the stone floor, as the camera pulls back from a shot of him slumbering in a doorway. But he remains none the wiser and, as the wind whistles outside, he examines the pictures in the hope of finding clues. He ventures outside and swims in a pool, laughing as he looks up at the branches stretching out like fingers across the slate sky. But he clambers to the bank when he sees the silhouette and races after it to demand that it communicates with him. Suddenly, a bright light pierces the murk and he is bombarded with sounds that deafen him without making any sense.

Trembling foetal naked on the floor (seen again through the doorway), McKenna hears Wherly knocking on the door. He wraps a red velvet curtain around himself, but the perspective shifts between McKenna cowering in the woods from a search party and him hiding behind the cottage sofa as though hallucinating about a moth fluttering in the ceiling chandelier. He sees the silhouette again and realises it is Conroy coming towards him.

Transfixed, he is powerless to resist as the older man tries to throttle him. A flash-cut strobing montage of silvery negative and jet black positive imagery follows as the soundtrack builds to a crescendo that shatters as Browne and Algar find McKenna dazed and suffering from hypothermia in the clearing. Yet, in an out-of-body experience, McKenna looks down on the scene with a bemusement that deepens as a cutaway shows him being wheeled through the asylum where Conroy is being treated before the light fades on the primal part of him that has remained in the forest and the implication lingers that he has also become a silhouette (or has become the silhouette that had been haunting him).

Although Neil O'Connor and Gavin O'Brien's score sounds like something the BBC Radiophonic Workshop might have concocted for a creepy episode of Doctor Who, Finnegan is well served by his collaborators. Production designer Jeannie O'Brien and cinematographer Piers McGrail help set the tone, but the editing of Tony Cranstoun and sound mixing of Aza Hand are so outstanding that it's a shame Finnegan and Shanley couldn't come up with a better showcase for them.

Overdoing the use of mirrors, top shots, canted angles and worm's eye views, Finnegan strains for unsettling effects without much success before he spirals off into the trippy finale. His measured pacing is more understandable, but he is not helped by the capriciously sketchy backstory, the threadbare storyline and the psychological superficiality of McKenna's frazzling. Moreover, the performances are less than convincing, although McKenna does commit to the breakdown after establishing his character as a charmlessly chauvinist and amoral control freak.

Britain can currently lay claim to two of the world's most prolific sports documentary makers in James Erskine and Daniel Gordon. Since making his name with The Game of Their Lives (2002), which chronicled the exploits of North Korea's 1966 World Cup squad, Gordon has reflected upon North Korean gymnastics (A State of Mind, 2004), the disgrace of Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson (9.79”, 2012) and the rivalry between Mary Decker and Zola Budd (The Fall, 2016). But he will always struggle to surpass the achievement of Hillsborough (2014), which provided a devastating insight into how 96 Liverpool supporters were killed at an FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest on 15 April 1989.

Consequently, Best (aka George Best: All By Himself) feels like a missed opportunity to go further than Sharon Walker's There's Only One George Best (2002) and Ritchie Beacham-Paterson's George Best: The Legacy (2009) in profiling the greatest footballer these islands have ever produced. Aficionados will insist that the most revealing study of Best's mercurial talent is Hellmuth Costard's Football As Never Before (1971), which used multiple cameras to record his performance against Coventry City in a 1970 First Division match at Old Trafford. But, while Gordon (who grew up in Manchester) leaves Mary McGuckian's dismal biopic, Best (2000), in his wake, he and screenwriter Peter Ettedgui too often content themselves with retelling the familiar decline and fall tale rather than seeking to offer any psychological analysis. Using archive recordings to allow Best to narrate his own story, the first segment spends more time discussing the emotional impact of the 1958 Munich air disaster than the Belfast childhood that the 15 year-old left behind (after a homesick false start) to join Manchester United in 1961. However, the loss of the Busby Babes did much to shape the club's destiny in the ensuing decade, as manager Matt Busby sought to win the European Cup that his brilliant young side had perished while pursuing. Travelling companion Eric McMordie and new best mate Mike Summerbee (who played for Manchester City) remember the strain of being alone in the big city, while teammates Pat Crerand and Harry Gregg recall watching an audacious talent rise through the ranks to make his debut against West Bromwich Albion in September 1963.

As landlady's son Steve Fullaway recollects, it took a while for the 17 year-old to find his feet. But he was soon starring alongside Bobby Charlton and Denis Law in a championship win that afforded United another tilt at Europe's biggest prize. Veteran journalist Hugh McIlvanney notes that the campaign transformed Best into a superstar after he scored a quarter-final brace against Benfica in the Estádio de Luz in March 1966. But his good looks had also caught the eye of the lifestyle reporters, who even spotted him dancing to The Rolling Stones miming `The Last Time' in the Top of the Pops studio in 1965. Thus, when he returned from a trip to Spain sporting a sombrero, Best was dubbed `El Beatle' and the boutiques he opened with Summerbee caught the mood of the Swinging Sixties.

Although he started to date beautiful women like model-turned-screenwriter Jackie Glass (who is now Buddhist nun Ani Rinchan), Best was still deeply in love with football. But the romance began to sour after he scored the second goal in United's 4-1 victory over Benfica in the 1968 European Cup Final at Wembley. Part of the reason was that the 22 year-old had achieved his lifetime ambition. But Busby's resignation and the decision to move into his own luxury home deprived Best of the steadying influences that had helped guide him to the top. He could still rattle in six goals in a 5th Round FA Cup romp against Northampton Town in 1970 and produce iconic moments like the impudent lob over Northern Ireland teammate Pat Jennings against Tottenham Hotspur in 1971. But managers Wilf McGuinness and Frank O'Farrell failed to put an arm round Best when he needed reassurance and their refusal to build a new side around him, as the great 60s squad was dismantled, left him questioning his future.

Spending as much time partying and evading the paparazzi as playing, Best began missing training (once disappearing for a week to canoodle with Miss Great Britain, Carolyn Moore) and acquired a reputation for being temperamental after throwing mud at the referee during a Home International against Scotland in 1971. New United manager Tommy Docherty refused to pander to Best's tantrums, however, and he was suspended after another prolonged absence in December 1973. Despite appearing alongside Busby to apologise for letting everyone down, Best announced his retirement shortly afterwards, although he was lured back in April 1974 in a doomed bid to help United avoid relegation.

Cut adrift after 474 appearances, Best allowed Elton John to persuade him to sign for Los Angeles Aztecs in the North American Soccer League and journeymen Ray Hudson, Chris Dangerfield and Bobby McAlinden recall the excitement generated by stars like Pelé, Johann Cryuff and Franz Beckenbauer signing to US teams. But, as agent Ken Adam reveals, Best found love rather than fulfilment in California, as he met and married Angie MacDonald, who was working for Cher. However, as Lindy Dangerfield (Angie's sister) relates, the pair decided to open a bar and Best succumbed so hard to the inevitable temptation that it affected his play and the Aztecs sold him to Fort Lauderdale Strikers.

As agent Bill McMurdo states, this would be the first of many transfers, however, and the Bests became nomads as he turned out for Fulham, Hibernian, San Jose Earthquakes, Bournemouth and Brisbane Lions before finally quitting football in 1984 after a single game for Ulster minnows Tobermore United. This is a neglected period in Best's career and Strikers manager Tim Robbie reflects intriguingly on a spell in Florida, when he could still show flashes of the old magic. Hudson similarly recalls the rage with a referee that led to a slaloming goal for the Quakes (who had forced him into rehab) that was named the Budweiser goal of the season. But the night of the presentation saw Best fall off the wagon after 11 months and embark upon a 22-day binge that prompted Angie to concentrate on raising their son Calum rather than trying to cope with her husband's flaws.

McMurdo suggests that Best suffered from depression and went on benders out of guilt at having let people down. Among them was his mother, Annie, who drank herself to death in October 1978. Lindy opines that booze was in his blood, but Angie insists that alcoholism is not a disease because a drunk always has a choice and her successor, Alex Pursey, opines that she could never decide whether Best couldn't or wouldn't stop drinking as he sought something to replace the adrenaline rush of his golden era. But Gordon opts to gloss over the next 30 years and cuts to Calum announcing his father's death on 25 November 2005, with a sombre Denis Law at his side. Summerbee and Crerand confess they had no stomach for visiting him in hospital and old friend Malcolm Wagner admits that his circle let him down by failing to coerce him into formulating a plan of action to keep him sober.

As Gordon reruns Best's infamous inebriated interview with Terry Wogan, Alex suggests he was a gentle soul who was occasionally possessed by a demon. She admits that he sometimes beat her under the influence, but she sincerely hoped that his liver transplant would bring him to his senses. But, as agent Phil Hughes reveals, Best spent three years in agony longing to drink and his willpower eventually gave out. McMurdo admits that they exploited the situation to profit from press fascination with Best's struggle and Hughes regrets taking the deathbed picture that appeared in the News of the World (even though Best agreed to its publication to show what drink had done to him).

Over shots of the crowds lining the Belfast streets for Best's funeral, Hudson suggests that he had insisted on doing things his own way and this refusal to accept help shocked old friends like McMordie, who had known a very different individual when the odyssey began. Speaking on radio two months before his death, Best hoped he would be remembered solely for his football. But, while he wishes it was otherwise, McIlvanney laments that his reputation will forever be tarnished by the lapses that became a way of life.

Despite counting Bobby Charlton, Denis Law and Calum Best among its notable absentees (and Brian Kidd, Alex Stepney, Willie Morgan and Sammy Mcllroy among those left on the cutting-room floor), this portrait of a flawed genius builds on its predecessors without presenting much fresh evidence or insight. The boastful bluster of Paddy Crerand scarcely conveys the startling impact that Best had on English football in the mid-1960s and it's a shame that Gordon elected not to invite more opponents, pressmen and pundits to assess his contribution to the game and make comparisons with his peers. He is hampered to some extent, however, by the fact that so little football was shown on television in Best's heyday that only a handful of his finest moments were actually captured on camera. But even those with no interest in sport knew all about Georgie because he had been groomed to be the prototype Golden Balls by PR gurus who knew there was no such thing as a bad headline.

Ultimately, however, they turned Best's head and Gordon might have done more to put some of these liggers in the dock. Instead, he and Ettedgui coast through the highs and lows assembled with polished precision by editor Andy R. Worboys without offering any opinions of their own. Some may laud this objectivity, but others will wish that Gordon (who was at Sky Sports when Best served as an unreliable analyst) had delved a little more deeply into the reasons why this charismatic, but damaged maverick was allowed to hurtle `downhill on a toboggan'.

Finally, this week, comes one of those music documentaries that is so specific to a particular time and place that its almost impossible to appreciate if you weren't there at precisely the right moment. Niall McCann's Lost in France harks back to a show that was played at the Momo Club in the small town of Mauron in 1997 by a clutch of Glaswegian indie combos on the Chemikal Underground label. For those making the return pilgrimage in 2015, this is clearly a journey to the centre of their collective past. But, while they may be touched by the sense of camaraderie and nostalgia on show, anyone unfamiliar with the works of Mogwai, The Delgados, Bis, Arab Strap and The Karelia are going to wonder what all the fuss is about.

Staged by Mauron festival programmer David Sosson, the gig was nowhere near as epochal as, say, The Sex Pistols playing Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall. But it is clearly seen as a landmark moment in the evolution of Glasgow post-rock music scene in the mid-1990s and Mogwai's Stuart Braithwaite, El Hombre Trajeado's RM Hubbert, Delgados Stewart Henderson, Emma Pollock and Paul Savage, and future Franz Ferdinand frontman Alex Kapranos all reflect on the period with a mixture of misty eyes and regret that the music industry has changed so much that it is unlikely that a similar creative flourishing will happen any time soon.

More intriguingly, however, Kapranos muses on the fact that changes to the benefits system have done much to limit the options of up-and-coming musicians, as they can no longer rely on dole payments while they refine their sound in their bedrooms. Moreover, they cannot hope to be sent on training courses to learn how to use mixing desks or operate a studio. But the switch to downloads and streaming has also done much to decimate record label culture and Henderson recognises that Chemikal Underground happened along at the right time, as venues like King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, Nice `n' Sleazy, Barrowlands and The 13th Note played host to emerging talents with something to say about being young and disillusioned in a newly devolved Scotland at a time when the rest of the country was fixated on Girl Power and Britpop.

Frustratingly, McCann makes no concession to those not already au fait with the featured bands and references to appearances on John Peel's Radio One show and Top of the Pops will mean as much to many as the Delgados album, The Great Eastern, which was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2000. Furthermore, the shift of focus between the six travellers prevents them from making the impact that Arab Strap's Aidan Moffat was able to make in Paul Fegan's engaging Where You're Meant to Be (2016). Pollock and Savage talk a little about their personal relationship and how they keep plugging away with music even though its financial rewards are meagre, while the others flick through old photos and press cuttings, revisit a golden tree in the lush Breton countryside and reminisce about a football match against the locals (that was nearly ruined by the brawny bus driver) and the perilous ferry crossing that almost ended the story before it began.

When not filling the screen with self-consciously Godardian captions, McCann finds time for anecdotes by the likes of onetime promoter Tam Coyle, DJ Mark Percival, photographer Stephanie Gibson, 13th Note owner Craig Tannock, James Graham from The Twilight Sad, Andy Wake of The Phantom Band, and Manda Rin and Sci-fi Steven from Bis. He also periodically cuts away to Rick Flick and Pat M'Bongo of The Johnny 7, who appear to be busking on a Glasgow street. But their significance is not explained and their witty brand of working-men's club muzak seems to sit awkwardly alongside the `serious' stuff seen in archive material or performed on the tiny Mauron stage.

Between the banter on the mini-coach and in the farmhouse where they rehearse, there is plenty of music. Among the archive material are extracts from The Delgados's `Strathcona Slung' and `American Trilogy', Trout's `Owl in the Tree', Bis's `Kandy Pop', Arab Strap's `The First Big Weekend' and Holy Mountain's `Earth Measures', while the live clips in front of an appreciative rather than enthusiastic crowd include Braithwaite's `Cody' and `Mogwai Fear Satan', Hubbert's `False Bride' and `For Joe', and Pollock's `Cannot Keep a Secret'. It's interesting to note that only one of her songs makes the cut, while she is absent from The Maurons, the ad hoc combo comprising Kapranos, Savage, Hubbert and Braithwaite, who close the show with `Jacqueline' and `Owl in the Tree'. But, for all the happy chat, a lot is left unsaid in this genial, but elusive and somewhat evasive study.