Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 29/6/2017)

Fresh from an argument in a garden centre about a two-for-one offer, 59 year-old Ove Lindahl (Rolf Lassgård) puts flowers on the grave of his late wife, Sonja (Ida Engvoll). Returning to his cul-de-sac, he performs his periodic tour of the neighbourhood to remove illegally parked bikes, retrieve toys from the sandpit and sort the recycling. He notes Anita (Chatarina Larsson) feeding her paralysed husband Rune (Börje Lundberg) and marches on to lecture residents' association chair Anders (Fredrik Evers) and his spouse, Mähät (Jessica Olsson) about keeping their dog on a lead. But Ove is more than just a busybody. He has never forgiven Rune for ousting him as head of the association several years before and insists on doing his rounds to prove that no one could do the job more diligently.

Ove feels much the same way about his job at the railway engineering shed, where he has toiled for 43 years. But his thrusting young bosses have other ideas and, when they suggest he retrains to learn some digital skills, he resigns on the spot and stalks off with a garden spade as a parting gift. Having paid another visit to Sonja's grave, Ove comes home to hang himself. But, just as he puts the noose around his neck, he is disturbed by Parvaneh Lufsen (Bahar Pars) backing a car past his window. As driving is forbidden in this part of the street, he rushes outside in time to see her husband, Patrick (Tobias Almborg) reverse into his pillar box. Pushing Patrick out of the way as the heavily pregnant Parvanesh swears in Persian, Ove says hello to their young daughters in the backseat - Sepideh (Nelly Jamarani) and Nasanin (Zozan Akgün) - before strutting back indoors.

Following a disturbed night's sleep, as the new neighbours opposite party loudly with their friends, Ove does his customary tour. He tries to shoo away an unkempt stray cat and is affronted when a stranger (Johan Widerberg) in a vehicle from the Konsensus care home flicks a cigarette out of his window, as he snubs Ove's complaint about him driving in a pedestrian area. When Anita informs him that the man works for the council and has come to see about putting Rune in a home, Ove turns on his heel and ignores her request to take a look at their faulty heating. He returns to the cemetery and fights to keep his frustration under control, as he tells Sonja that the world has gone mad since everyone started having time for lunch. But he promises to join her later in the day and heads home to don his suit and fetch the noose out of the jacket pocket.

However, he is interrupted again when Sepideh and Nasanin ring the doorbell to offer him a tupperware of their mother's cooking. He accepts testily and equally begrudgingly lends Patrick a ladder, while correcting Parvaneh's Swedish. She introduces herself to Anita when she pops round to ask Ove to help with the radiators and they chat about the `coup' that saw Rune take over the running of the association by a landslide. Fuming at this lack of consideration, Ove storms inside and only calms down when he catches sight of Sonja's smiling face in his favourite photograph. He breathes in her scent from the clothing hanging in the wardrobe and relives a happy moment from when they first moved in and she asked his younger self (Filip Berg) to make some more bookshelves.

More determined that ever to join his beloved, Ove climbs on to the stool and feels it disappear beneath his feet. As he hangs from the ceiling, his mind goes back to his mother's funeral and how his seven year-old self (Viktor Baagøe) had followed his father (Stefan Gödicke) in showing no emotion. They did bond over car engines, however, and Ove enjoyed helping him clean the rolling stock in the shunting yard. He could never understand why people claimed his father was too kind and never forgot the day he rescued him from the burly Tom (Ola Hedén), who was threatening to beat him for refusing to hand over a lost purse. But, on the day he got his final exam results, Ove saw his father crushed by a locomotive when he ran to show his workmates his son's grades.

As the shock of this recollection hits home, Ove is pitched on to the floor by the snapping rope and he bemuses the clerk at the DIY store by complaining about their shoddy goods. He keeps chuntering while changing the flowers on Sonja's grave before putting down some newspaper so that he can lie beside her. On returning home, he reprimands Mähät for throwing stones at the cat (who is called Cat Nuisance in the book) because it hissed at her Chihuahua. He goes to feed it the saffron chicken that Parvaneh had made, but it has gone by the time he comes out.

Hitting upon a foolproof plan, Ove demands that Anita returns the hose she had borrowed several months before. He agrees to bleed the radiators while she fetches it and he confides in Rune that the neighbourhood has so gone to pot that he plans to kill himself. As local slacker Jimmy (Klas Wiljergård) arrives for lunch, however, Ove is appalled to learn that, despite being unable to communicate, Rune can understand everything that is said to him and is spooked when he grabs on to the hose as he tries to leave.

As he sits in his car, with the engine running in the garage and the fumes passing through the hosepipe, he thinks back to the way he had tried to rebuild his life after his father's death. He had been given his job after he had tried to pay back his unearned salary and had dealt with Tom when he attempted to steal his father's watch. But two representatives from the council (whom he brands `whiteshirts') had informed him that the family home in a sleepy country nook had been earmarked for demolition and one (Erik Ståhlberg) had ordered the firemen not to extinguish the flames after it had caught fire while he was rescuing two of his neighbours from a blaze they seem to have caused in a bid to claim the insurance.

From that moment, Ove had detested authority. But his fortunes had taken a turn from the better after he had started sleeping in idle carriages. Waking one morning to find himself an hour from home and Sonja smiling at him, he had let her pay for his ticket and listened as she chatted about the fare-dodging cat in Mikhail Bulgarkov's The Master and Margharita. She had corrected his pronunciation and announced that she was training to be a teacher. But, even in his panic to get back to work, Ove had noticed her red shoes and her smile and he had spent the next three weeks on the same train hoping to bump into her again. When he finally succeeded, he had fibbed about doing his military service and she had coaxed him into inviting her for dinner. Conversation had hardly flowed during their date, but she was so smitten with the handsome, tongue-tied palooka that she had kissed him in order to stop him from leaving in embarrassment.

At Sonja's urging, Ove had qualified as an engineer and had asked her to marry him. But the memory of the smoke emanating from the dumper truck that had parked beside his open window as he had popped the question rouses him back to consciousness in the present, along with Parvaneh knocking vigorously on the garage door. She needs a lift to the hospital because Patrick has fallen off a ladder. Sitting on newspaper in the backseat, Sepideh and Nasanin complain about the smell and annoy Ove by winding down the windows. He is even more nonplussed when Parvaneh asks him to keep an eye on the girls while she visits Patrick.

Unused to dealing with children, he starts to read them a story and they are amused when he puts on a funny voice for a train-driving bear. Unfortunately, they are distracted by Beppo the Clown (Anna Granath) and winds up being questioned by hospital security when he makes her fall into a potted tree after treading on her long shoe in trying to recover a coin she had borrowed for a magic trick. Parvaneh wants to be cross with him for neglecting the girls, but they give him such a warm hug when they get home that she lets it slide.

The next day, Ove leaves early with the intention of throwing himself under a train coming into the station. However, a passenger collapses on the platform and rolls on to the track and, seeing the other bystanders doing nothing but filming the incident on their phones, Ove jumps down to rescue him. For a second, he considers letting the train plough into him. But he catches sight of his younger self in the crowd and thinks better of it. However, he soon has cause to regret his change of heart, as Parvaneh and Jimmy insist on him taking care of the cat when they find it shivering on the doorstep. In searching for a blanket, Pavaneh notices the low table in the kitchen and Jimmy tactfully informs her that Sonja needed it that way before she died. Returning to the cemetery, Ove (who had struggled for breath after running upstairs to find a blanket) grumbles about the difficulty of topping onself before introducing Sonja to the cat. As he gets ready for bed that night, he sees Parvaneh with her daughters and his mind drifts back to the night that Sonja had told him she was pregnant. She had reassured him that he would be a good father and they had fallen asleep with him holding her index finger. But he doesn't have time for reveries, as Anders has offered to give Parvaneh driving lessons and Ove is damned if he is going to let that boob gazump him again. She hugs him in delight and brings some homemade biscuits to her first lesson. Yet, even though he puts paper down on her seat, Ove gets out to remonstrate with a motorist who honks her when she stalls at some traffic lights. He also reminds her that she has escaped from Iran, learned a new language, married an idiot and given birth twice, so driving should be a doddle.

They stop for Napoleon cake and coffee at Sonja's favourite café. He tells her how he and Rune (Simeon Da Costa Maya) had whipped the neighbourhood into shape after he had moved in with Anita (Maja Rung). But they had fallen out when the Saab-loving Ove discovered that Rune drove a Volvo and they had virtually stopped speaking by the time of the coup. However, Ove had felt sorry for Rune when his son moved to America and he had tried to bury the hatchet. But Rune ruined everything by showing off his new BMW.

Parvaneh asks Ove if he ever had children of his own. But, before he can answer, she dupes him into babysitting Sepideh and Nasanin while she is at a highway code class with Patrick. On her return, she is astonished to find that Ove has tidied up the kitchen and is cradling the sleeping Nasanin while he watches Sepideh play a house-building game on her laptop. She wonders if she has discovered the old man's soft centre and he certainly seems to have mellowed, as he strokes the cat as it snoozes beside him on the bed.

The next morning, Ove gets chatting to Adrian (Simon Edenroth) about the bicycle he has confiscated. He learns that Sonja used to be his teacher and, because he spoke so nicely about her, Ove fixes the puncture and drops off the bike during Parvaneh's driving lesson. Adrian works at a kebab shop with Mirsad (Poyan Karimi), a gay Bosnian who is touched by the fact that Ove has more against Adrian buying a French car than he does against him wearing eye-liner. Parvaneh is also becoming increasingly fond of Ove and is pleased to make him laugh after he tries to lock a journalist (Anna-Lena Bergelin) in his garage because she wants to do a story about his station heroics. But she oversteps the mark in offering to help box up Sonja's belongings so that he can move on with his life and Ove gets even more wound up when the whiteshirt seeking to commit Rune refuses to be intimidated by his bluster because he has looked him up online and knows he is nothing but a blowhard.

He also tells Ove to look after his heart and he feels pains in his chest after he slams the front door. Ignoring Parvaneh knocking to check he is okay, he sits on the sofa and sobs, as he remembers how Sonja had broken the news about their baby while they danced in the front room. Unsure what to say, he had rushed into the garage to make a crib and, on going up to the attic to find it, he comes across an old rifle. Stripping to his underwear and putting up plastic sheeting to stop the blood going everywhere, he puts the barrel against his forehead.

However, his arm is jolted by the sound of the doorbell and the shot misses. On opening the door, he finds Adrian and Mirsad standing in the darkness. They ask he can put the latter up for a couple of days because his parents have thrown him out for being gay. When Adrian claims Sonja would not have turned him away, Ove agrees and is pleasantly surprised when Mirsad not only makes breakfast, but also asks to join him on his rounds. Jimmy also accompanies them and they mention that Rune is being taken to the home the next day. Ove insists that Anita will fight, but Jimmy says she has given up struggling after three years and Ove is appalled that she never mentioned the problem to Sonja because she felt they had enough to contend with.

Aghast to have been such a fool for so long, Ove sits at Sonja's graveside and apologises for having been such a grump and vows to put things right. Gathering all Anita''s documents on the case, he borrows Parvaneh's phone to lodge an appeal against the verdict. But he loses his temper and she asks him to leave because she is tired of him being so quixotic and convinced that the whole world is against him. He calms down and tells her about the idyllic Spanish holiday he had enjoyed with Sonja just before the baby was born. They had travelled by bus and sampled the local cuisine at every opportunity. But, on the journey home, a drunken driver had crashed off a winding mountain road and Ove had only escaped serious injury because he was in the toilet. Sonja lost the baby and the use of her legs and Ove had spent the next year trying to sue the wine merchant, the bus company and the schools that refused to employ Sonja because they didn't have a ramp for her wheelchair. One night, however, he had gone out and built one himself and they had started to live again.

Parvaneh takes Oves hand, as he recalls how she had dedicated her time to special needs kids and taught them to value themselves. However, she had died of cancer six months ago and he had promised to follow her. But, now maybe, he realises he still has things to do. Consequently, he stands beside Anita as Lena the journalist he had tried to lock in the garage confronts the Konsensus whiteshirt with evidence that Ove has unearthed about financial irregularities and he delights in the slight smile that Rune gives him as he describes how easily the weasel had backed down.

As he walks home, however, Ove collapses and is rushed to hospital. Parvaneh is touched that he has listed her as next of kin and she laughs at how rubbish he is at dying when the doctor informs her that he will survive in spite of the fact that his heart is too big. Ironically, he mirth sends her into labour and a recovered Ove offers her the crib that was never used. Parvaneh accepts and leaves him holding the baby, who smiles up at him. He feels even more part of the family when Sepideh and Nasanin start calling him grandpa. But, just as he begins to relish this new phase of his life, Ove dies in his sleep with the cat on his chest. Parvaneh realises something is wrong when she sees the snow undisturbed on his path at 8am and finds a note beside the bed. He reassures her that he has not done anything silly, but asks for a church funeral and she is happy to see it so well attended.

Sepideh makes sure the gate is properly locked, as the mourners make their way home. But they have nothing to worry about, for, as the elderly Ove wakes from his slumber, he sees Sonja sitting opposite him and the years fall away from their faces as she reaches out her hand and he takes her by the index finger with a smile in the knowledge that they can never be separated again.

Initially known for his partnership with Måns Herngren on such breezy comedies as Adam & Eva (1997), Sh*t Happens (2000) and The Class Reunion (2002), Hannes Holm has been flying solo for the last decade with the likes of Wonderful and Loved By All (2007) and Behind Blue Skies (2010), as well as working on three entries in the Anderssons kidpic series. None of his previous pictures had secured a release in this country, but A Man Called Ove seemed destined to travel having landed an Oscar nomination after becoming the biggest home hit at the Swedish box office in 32 years.

Although it has been lazily compared in some places to Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946), this has much more in common with Ingmar Bergman's 1957 masterpiece, Wild Strawberries, which also followed a grumpy egotist on a journey of self-realisation that was punctuated by reveries and dreams. Borrowing from Alf Sjöberg's 1951 adaptation of August Strindberg's Miss Julie, Bergman had dispensed with cuts and dissolves to blur the line between past and present, musing and memory, and Holm does much the same in this twilight rite of passage by having Rolf Lassgård wander in and out of recollections that seem to be taking place right in front of his eyes.

It's a risky gambit, but it pays off handsomely thanks to Göran Hallberg's agile camerawork and Jan Olof Ågren's exceptional production design, as well as Lassgård's subtle shifts between being querulous, mournful, bombastic and foolish. Essentially playing variations on the roles that Bibi Andersson and Ingrid Thulin took opposite Victor Sjöström's irascible medic, Ida Engvoll and Bahar Pars enhance the feel-good factor.

But, as with Gaute Storaas's orchestral score, Holm's direction can't resist the temptation to overdo the bathos and overstate the message in the closing stages, with the result that some of the Kaurismäkian satirical edge is frustratingly blunted. A case in point is the dead-end digression involving Mirsad, who seems to appear from nowhere solely (there's no sign of him co-habiting when Parvaneh notices the virgin snow) to remind the audience that while Ove is a misanthrope, he is not a bigot. The showdown with the whiteshirt seeking to exploit Rune and Anita also feels overly contrived. Yet, such quibbles aside, this is a hugely enjoyable film and worth watching alone for the excellently cantankerous Lassgård's interaction with the sleepy Orlando and the pugnacious Magic in the role of the blue-eyed Persian cat who adopts him.

Speaking of cats, this is a good week for ailurophiles, as it also sees the release of Ceyda Torun's documentary, Kedi. As everyone knows, the World Wide Web was invented so that people could post their video clips of cats doing cute and/or hilarious things. But Torun and cinematographers Charlie Wuppermann and Alp Korfali are content merely to pay homage to the feline population of Istanbul, as it goes about its business with a poise, ingenuity, resolution and insouciance that no other animal can match. Delicately edited by Mo Stoebe to a charming score by Kira Fontana, this is an absolute delight that dispels the myth that cats are aloof and scheming and might even engage the odd cynophile, too.

The first cat we encounter is Sari (`The Hustler'), a tabby-and-white mother of four adorable kittens, who trots between pavement cafés and rubbish bins in Galata in search of tasty treats. Quite prepared to use her charm to coax reluctant diners into making donations, she lives near a clothing shop, whose owner, Arzu Göl, has noticed a distinct change in her personality since she had her litter. Whereas she previously spent much of her time curled up in comfort, she is now a bundle of energy who seems able to dispel negative vibes with her upbeat resourcefulness.

Following shots of cats on ledges, rooftops and awnings, we see waterfront fishmonger Kemal Suncu feeding kittens clustering around his stall, while their mother competes with a flock of seagulls for some scraps. We are then introduced to Bengü (`The Lover'), a scrawny kitten who stayed behind in Karaköy after its sibling trio had gone to explore the wider world. Eight years on, she is the queen of the parade and enjoys being brushed by shopkeeper Necati Özer, who reveals that she sulks if he pets any other cats.

Yet, while she purrs and preens while being chucked under the chin, she flicks a paw at a black cat who ventures too close to the cardboard box containing her young. Describing her as part of the family, but stressing that she comes and goes on her own terms, Hamdi Selami Karaci insists that she is as good for the soul as prayer beads. He continues: `It's said that cats are aware of Gods existence, but that dogs are not. Dogs think people are God, but cats don't. Cats know that people act as middlemen to God's will. They're not ungrateful - they just know better.'

Dreadlocked journalist Mine Sogut claims that befriending a cat is like making contact with an alien, as we somehow manage to overcome the fact we have more differences than similarities. Keeping its distance, the camera watches cats being stroked by passers-by and fed by those who make no claim to ownership. Fisherman Teoman Toraman uses a syringe to give milk to a litter sheltering in a box by the Bosphorus after they had been abandoned by their mother. An old male keeps an eye on them and stays at the back of the box, while the fisherman feeds his mewling charges. He explains that he has protected cats like Bombis since a stray had directed him to a lost wallet when he needed 120 lira to repair his boat after a storm. Such is his conviction that this was a genuine godsend that he declares that anyone who refuses to believe his story is a heathen.

Following a montage filled with shipping, fishermen and kittens playing in a covered market, we meet Aslan Parçasi (`The Hunter'), a black-and-white predator, who dispatches the rats and mice that scurry around a quayside restaurant in Kandilli. Owner Yilmaz Yildiz calls him a lion of a cat, but also insists that he repays the kindness he receives by being part of the team. A night-vision interlude shows Aslan on the prowl, as a rat tries to keep one step ahead after being cornered in a gully. But even the local pit bulls cower when Psikopat (`The Psycho') is on the move in Samatya. More white than black, she is a tough cookie, who enjoys a rough scratch and stealing fish when not patrolling her patch and giving `husband' Osman Pasha a hard time for trying to eat the biscuits put down by their café-owning carers, Vecdi Kelav and Erdogan Amca. However, she is even more aggressive towards a ginger female that tries to flirt with him and chases her under a hedge.

Painter Elif Nursad Atalay admires the effortless elegance that cats possess and avers that they carry themselves better than modern women. She explains that it has become difficult to express defiant femininity in Turkey and worries that society will try to suppress feline independence rather than embrace the honesty of the animal spirit. Doubtless, she would like Deniz (`The Social Butterfly'), who lives in an undercover bazaar in Organik and flits between the stalls with a mix of curiosity, mischief and affection that is superbly captured by low-level travelling shots that follow in his wake before he crashes out on some packaging. However, the café owner who looks after Deniz fears for the future of the neighbourhood cats, as there are plans to demolish the market and build new tower blocks and a road.

An older man is presented with an injured kitten and takes it to a vet by taxi and this willingness to go out of one's way to help a cat in distress also drives toyshop owner Gülsüm Agaoglu, who cooks chicken and rice for around 50 animals a day. In addition to those who hang around the store, she also ministers to those who prefer to remain outdoors. Cartoonist Bülent Üstün recalls freaking out his father as a boy by building a cat cemetery in the garden with his brother and marking each grave with a cross, like the ones they had seen in Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). As drawing is such a solitary occupation, he takes comfort from seeing his cat snoozing in a drawer and delights in the fact that she never shows the slightest gratitude for food or petting because she believes she is doing him a favour by extending her trust.

Üstün lives in the Cihangir district and claims that cats became part of the Istanbul scene after they hopped off boats in the nearby harbour and decided that terra firms offered them better prospects than a life at sea. As the first sewers were built in this area, households kept cats to fend off the invasion of rats. But relationship with the residents was never based entirely on pragmatism, as bakery owner Murat Sögütlüoglu, who tends to Gamsiz (`The Player'), points out. Initially, he was known as `The Milkman', as he would just eat and leave. After he started getting bullied by bigger males, however, he kept returning for fussing and his happy-go-lucky nature made him popular with all the customers.

As Eda Dereci notes, he can be a bit of a bruiser himself and is forever at the vet's. Moreover, he drops into different houses around the block, as he has worked out who has the best sausages or gives the best ear tugs. Laçin Ceylan has got used to him pawing at her window and lets him eat with her own cat, Gece. But Gamsiz isn't one for sharing and his joust with new kid on the block, Ginger, shows how territorial street cats can be, as he follows the interloper up a tree, along a ledge and on to a balcony in his bid to stake his claim.

There's nothing quite like the howl of a possessive puss, but things are a little quieter around Hagia Sophia, as one cat lover muses on the similarities between cats with their nine lives and superheroes. But the hero is Süleyman Erdogan, a man recovering from a nervous breakdown who found feeding cats so therapeutic that he slips away from his café everyday to look after the strays living around a waterfront complex. He even brings eye drops for one of the kittens and, the moment he arrives, cats emerge from every nook and cranny to pad after him until he slips them some fish.

It's pleasure to watch the interaction between this benefactor and his brood. But, everywhere you look in Istanbul, as the rush-hour stampede gives way to nocturnal meandering, cats and humans are rubbing along. Among them is Duman (`The Gentleman'), a smoky grey fellow who is first seen dozing in a basket in a Nisantasi delicatessen. He is the only cat wearing a collar in the entire film, but he is anything but tamed. Refusing to let the customers stroke him, he remains outside the shop and paws at the window to let staff members Fatih Dogan, Ülkü Demirtiken and Erol Köroglu know when he wants some smoked turkey, beef or manchego from the fine food counter. Yet, just behind him, we see a little girl begging with a paper cup and it says much that no one gives her a second glance. A loner who knows when he's well off, Duman knows how to use his street smarts when it suits him. As do the many other cats shown over a discussion about Turkish society losing its sense of humour and needing to show greater compassion towards the cats that have helped give Istanbul its character. One woman hopes they can rekindle a dying love of life, while another states that a cat looking up from your feet is life smiling at you. We see Bombis snuggled up to Toraman's dog as they head out to sea and he reiterates his conviction that cats are a gift from above. And, as the last speaker proclaims that cats remind us that we are alive, we see a proud profile against a red sky over the city, as though an air of contentment had descended.

Although the emphasis falls firmly on the characterful creatures milling around Istanbul, this is as much a city symphony as it is a cats' chorus. Cutting between aerial shots of the red rooftops and views across the twinkling strait separating Europe from Asia, Torun captures the atmosphere of her hometown, as well as the personality of its inhabitants. She is careful to keep things apolitical and secular and, consequently, earns the trust of the interviewees, who explore the coexistent bond between Istanbulites and their feline friends with eloquent simplicity.

Initially, she pursued 35 cats and began filming 19 before deciding to concentrate on her magnificent seven. Each is as charismatic as they are photogenic. Yet, no matter how infatuating they are, Torun keeps the vignettes rooted in reality by alluding to the lingering sense of the danger that they face from traffic, disease, other animals and the uncaring humans plotting to destroy their backstreet habitats. There's nothing cutesome, either, about the hissing and howling that Burçin Aktan and Ilkin Kitapçi record during the various catfights, while Torun also stresses how hard the humans have to work in order to be so generous with their largesse and time. But, ultimately, this is a celebration of all things cat and the natural-born performers on show here prove utterly irresistible, whether they are bobbling, clambering, feasting, napping or coaxing men, women and children into doing their bidding with little more than a tilt of a head, the widening of an eye or the prod of a paw. The focus shifts from cats to pigs in Bong Joon-ho's Okja, a Netflix release that caused a degree of controversy at Cannes when questions were asked about the eligibility of digital platform picture for the Palme d'or. The debate about what constitutes a `real' film dates back over half a century to NBC broadcasting the first TV-movie, David Lowell Rich's See How They Run, on 7 October 1964. In fact, Universal had produced Don Siegel's The Killers for the small screen earlier in the year, but this gritty noir with Lee Marvin and Ronald Reagan was deemed too violent for armchair audiences and it was forced to premiere in cinemas.

There's little to shock modern sensibilities in Bong's capitalist satire, which is receiving a limited UK screen release courtesy of Curzon. But everyone else will have to fork out for a Netflix subscription to enjoy a story that will delight fans of PG Wodehouse's Blandings novels, as well as lovers of such deceptively quaint creature features as Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbour Totoro (1988) and George Miller's Babe (1995).

At a New York press conference announcing her accession to the post of CEO of the Mirando agrochemical corporation, Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton) informs the assembled media of the existence of 26 superpigs that have been bred from a Chilean mother and entrusted to farmers across the planet. She promises that these eco-creatures will help alleviate the world food shortage without having a negative impact on the environment. Moreover, she vows that the meat they produce will be delicious. But, the project is still in its infancy and will take another 10 years to transform the way we eat.

A decade later, Mija Koo (Ahn Seo-hyun) spends her days in the idyllic South Korean countryside with Okja, the superpig being tended by her grandfather, Heebong (Byun Hee-bong). Resembling a snouted hippopotamus, Okja is forever hungry and lollops flatulently around the forest in the hope that Mija will feed her with the fruit she knocks down from the trees. She also helps her catch fish by jumping in a waterfall pool and provides a comfy bed for an afternoon nap. Most importantly, she has the selfless intelligence to rescue Mija after she slips taking a shortcut and is left dangling from an escarpment by a rope.

But their delightful existence is disturbed by the arrival of Mirando executive Mundo Park (Yoon Je-moon), TV photographer Jennifer (Shirley Henderson) and zoologist and Animal Magic presenter Dr Johnny Wilcox (Jake Gyllenhaal), who is the media-friendly face of the superpig project. Exhausted from the climb to the mountain-top farm, he is initially prickly. But he is so astonished by Okja that he clicks into celebrity mode and does a piece to camera before presenting Mija and her grandfather with sashes for their achievement in nurturing such a remarkable specimen.

Heebong coaxes Mija away to visit the graves of her parents. He presents her with a golden pig and explains that the time has come for her to start thinking of herself as a young woman. But she is furious with the old man for betraying her and letting the Mirando people take Okja away and, in the middle of the night, she smashes her piggy bank and gathers the coins so that she can travel to Seoul to save her pet from the slaughterhouse.

A tiny red-jacketed figure in a sea of bland commuters, Mija finds the Mirando office and shatters the plate-glass door with a running shoulder barge. She is chased through the corridors by the snooty receptionist and a security guard, but spots Okja being loaded into a lorry and dashes through the winding sidestreets to keep up with her. Jumping on to the roof, she slings on as the driver passes under a couple of low bridges and she is left hanging on to the rear door when another lorry draws up alongside.

It's occupied by members of the Animal Liberation Front and Jay (Paul Dano), K (Steve Yeun), Red (Lily Collins), Silver (Devon Bostwick) and Blond (Daniel Henshall) liberate Okja after ramming the Mirando truck in a tunnel. Having been thrown on to the road, Mija calls out to Okja, who runs towards her for a touching reunion that results in several cars being squished. The pair career off into the city and cause untold damage in a shopping mall to the tune of John Denver's `Annie's Song'. But the ALF persuade Mija that they are on her side and they lead Okja to the underground car park, where the truck is waiting for them and Okja covers the chasing Mundo in an effluent parting gift, as they speed away.

With K translating, Jay explains that the ALF has spent 40 years saving endangered and exploited animals and wants to put an end to Mirandos superpig project. He reveals that Okja is a product of genetic modification and was born in a laboratory in New Jersey. Thus, everything that Lucy Mirando said about breeding natural superpigs was a lie designed to fool consumers into buying GM meat under false pretences. The ALF wants to expose the company's duplicity and needs Okja to go to the lab with a spy camera fitted to the databox stapled into her ear. However, Jay insists that he will only undertake the mission with Mija's consent, as she has Okja's best interests at heart. Silver and Blond are more militant and disapprove of Jay's adherence to the ALF charter. So, they are delighted when K deliberately mistranslates Mija's request to return to the farm and Meanwhile, in New York, Lucy is so dismayed by the news footage from Korea that she is convinced she has failed in her bid to improve Mirando's reputation after her twin sister predecessor, Nancy (also Swinton), blew up a lake with toxic chemicals. However, acolyte Frank Dawson (Giancarlo Esposito) persuades her to bring Mija to America so that she can be reunited with Okja at the launch of the superpig range. But Wilcox insists that he is still the face of Mirando and slips away from the boardroom to start trying to mate Okja with Alfonso in his underground lair.

Watching on their video link, the ALF unit is appalled by this mistreatment and Jay has to convince Red that it is necessary if they are to succeed. However, K admits to lying about Mija giving consent and Jay gives him a brutal kicking for breaching the 1970s code of ethics. But, with Mija already on her way to New York, he feels he has no option but to see the campaign through, especially as Jennifer has taken to social media to create a media blitz.

Having picked up a few words of English from a book on the flight, Mija is aware that Jennifer is not to be trusted, as she tries to force her to put on a new dress. But she also has her doubts about Jay, even after he sneaks into her hotel room disguised as a bellhop to use a series of printed pages to assure her that he has Okja's best interests at heart. He disappears down a fire escape and mingles with the crowd watching a parade advertising the new Miranda pork products. Lucy is thrilled with the jerky, but is taken aback when Frank informs her that Nancy has flown in from London to witness the unveiling of Okja, who has become sullen after being separated from Mija and having had meat samples taken from her flesh by the increasingly deranged Wilcox.

However, he takes to the stage to brag about his role in the superpig enterprise and is reluctant to surrender the microphone to Lucy. She introduces Mija, who has brought one of Okja's favourite giant tomatoes as a treat. But, when the pig is released from her cage, she brushes Mija aside and stomps around the stage in front of the agitated throng and a large screen that Blond hacks into in order to project footage of the forced mating process. Fearing that Okja is going to hurt Mija, Jay goes to strike her with a metal rod. But Mija stops him and glares at him unforgivingly for letting her down.

Realising that the situation is threatening to get out of control, Frank and Nancy send in the NYPD. Amidst scenes of slow-motion police brutality, the ALF crew rush to get Okja aboard a lorry. But a harpoon is used to pluck her from their clutches and Mija is lucky that Jay and K manage to sweep her away. But Lucy's moment has come and gone and Nancy takes charge of rolling out the new lines and orders Frank to prepare all of the surviving superpigs for culling.

Driving to the outskirts of the city, K locates the abattoir and Mija and Jay rush through the pigs being kept in a pen to find Okja. Forcing her way inside, Mija watches in horror as carcasses are butchered for a conveyor belt. But she arrives just in time to stop Okja from being killed with a stun gun and convinces Nancy to swap her for the solid gold pig that her grandfather had given her. As she is only interested in cutting deals, Nancy agrees and orders her minions to let Mija and Okja go. Wandering through the compound, Mija can barely bring herself to look at the pigs crowded together behind the electrified fence. One couple push their piglet through the wire and, before the guards escorting her off the premises realise what is going on, she hides the creature in Okja's mouth and they continue on their sorry way to freedom.

Back in Korea, Mija wakes from a nap, as the piglet dives into the waterfall pool. Wandering back to the farmhouse, Okja whispers in Mija's ear (as she had done thought the film to calm the pig in times of stress) and she smiles before joining Heebong for lunch. Halfway across the world, however, Jay gets out of prison and is met by K. They catch a bus and are soon surrounded by the other members of the ALF. K explains that they are preparing to sabotage an event hosted by Nancy and they all put on their black balaclavas. An elderly woman sitting in their midst looks round in shock and the screen cuts to darkness as she is handed a spare balaclava and invited to do her bit.

Reuniting with Tilda Swinton following his English-language debut, Snowpiercer (2013), Bong Joon-ho puts an animal rights spin on the King Kong story with this slick, if occasionally sluggish morality tale. No stranger to the creature feature after imperilling canines in Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000) and unleashing Gwoemul the mutant fish in The Host (2006), Bong revisits the mordant wit that also informed Memories of Murder (2003) and Mother (2009) in chronicling excellent 13 year-old An Seo-hyun's intrepid bid to save her porcine pal.

But, while there is much to amuse in Tilda Swinton's fiendish scheme and Paul Dano's achingly sincere liberation crusade, the pace slackens on a number of occasions after the scene switches Stateside. The meeting at which Giancarlo Esposito dupes Swinton into bringing An to New York drags on interminably, as does the scenes in which Dano first encounters An and then learns about Yoon Ji-moon's perfidy. And as for Jake Gyllenhaal's bizarrely mannered and irksomely screechy performance...! But, then, Swinton's second incarnation is scarcely more nuanced, as she combines Hillary Clinton's hairstyle with Donald Trump's love of a deal.

This cartoonish miscalculation aside, the plot fashioned by Boon and British journalist Jon Ronson makes deft use of sentiment and sentience in urging the audience to contemplate the global food chain and the ill-treatment of animals reared for the table. But their approach can rarely be described as subtle and it's unlikely that their blend of pathos and anti-Monsanto rhetoric will win too many converts to vegetarianism. However, Boon is better served by cinematographer Darius Khondji and effects guru Erik-Jan De Boer (who deservedly won an Academy Award for his work on Ang Lee's Life of Pi, 2012), as Okja is a charming creation, while the climactic sequence in the slaughterhouse yard is deeply moving, even though the concentration camp allusions come close to being highly insensitive.

Yet, for all Okja's corporeal credibility (thanks to a combination of puppetry, CGI and hydraulics) and the authenticity of the rural prelude, the carnage in the shopping mall struggles to integrate live and pixellated action as convincingly and, consequently, the audience is reminded of the essential artifice of the picture at the very moment it most needs to believe. So, while Bong is to be commended for attempting to raise awareness of animal rights issues, the digs at corporate capitalism and guerilla protest movements are as cumbersome as the tonal lurches that render this well-meaning saga overly dark for juveniles and underly profound for the grown-ups.

Since competing at Cannes with his debut short, Rien à dire (1999), acclaimed Swiss actor Vincent Perez has had a chequered time as a director. But, following Peau d'Ange (2002) and The Secret (2007), he seems set to reach his widest audience to date with Alone in Berlin, which has been adapted from the 1947 Hans Fallada novel, Every Man Dies Alone.

Written in 24 days during the last weeks of his life, this was one of the first anti-fascist stories published after the war and drew on the Gestapo files of Otto and Elise Hampel, a working-class couple who had responded to the death of her brother during the push west in the spring of 1940 by conducting a postcard propaganda campaign against the Nazis. Initially reluctant to undertake the project, as he had remained in Germany and earned the opprobrium of exiles like Thomas Mann, Fallada was persuaded to research the topic by poet Johannes Becher, who knew that his drug-addicted friend (whose real name was Rudolf Ditzen) had been both incarcerated and institutionalised during the Third Reich.

During Fallada's lifetime, Frank Borzage filmed his classic account of the decline of the Weimar Republic, Little Man, What Now? (1934). But it wasn't until 1976 that Alfred Vohrer starred Hildegard Knef and Carl Raddatz in Everyone Dies Alone after television versions had appeared either side of the Berlin Wall in 1962 and 1970. Restricting the number of secondary characters (yet retaining the former fiancée and new husband of the central couple's dead son), this retelling makes Knef the instigator of the protest and heightens the suspense by having them argue their way out of a police station after they are identified by an eyewitness. But Perez and co-scenarist Achim von Borries play down the thriller aspects in a human drama designed to celebrate grassroots resistance at a time when the Internet has increased the potential for individual action to unprecedented levels.

Awaiting news of their son, Hans (Louis Hofmann), machinist Otto Quangel (Brendan Gleeson) and his wife, Anna (Emma Thompson), are crushed when postwoman Eva Kluge (Katrin Pollitt) delivers an official letter informing them of his death in the Ardennes. Anna tears up the paper, but tries to piece it back together again after being too distraught to do her daily shopping or make her house visits with the National Socialist Women's League. As a non-Party member, Otto also endures an awful day at work, as he is accused of not doing his bit to increase productivity. But he denounces the shirkers and avers that no one can question his loyalty, as he has given his only child to the cause.

That night, he changes the word `Führer' to `Lügner' (meaning `liar') in one of Hans's patriotic books and decides to spread the message by creating a series of postcards containing anti-Nazi slogans that he hopes will be passed between people to create a groundswell against the regime. Disguising his handwriting, he starts to scrawl, `Mothers, Hitler Will Kill Your Son Too', but he is interrupted when Jewish neighbour Frau Rosenthal (Monique Chaumette) knocks to inform her that crook Emil Barkhausen (Rainer Egger) is trying to steal from the belongings she has had to store in an upper room of their Berlin tenement block.

Kindly neighbour Herr Fromm (Joachim Bißmeier) hides Frau Rosenthal in his daughter's bedroom and warns her to stay put, as the authorities are becoming increasingly repressive towards the Jews. But, knowing that her husband is already dead and that she has nothing more to live for, she slips out just before Barkhausen snitches to the police and throws herself from an upper window to the horror of bar manager Persicke (Uwe Preuss) and his Hitler Youth son, Baldur (Sammy Scheuritzel), who had always enjoyed her apple cake. Returning from planting their first card on the steps of an official building, the Quangels are twitchy when Gestapo inspector Escherich (Daniel Brühl) comes to inspect the premises and allows Barkhausen to keep the watch he stole from the corpse in return for spying on his fellow residents.

When not writing postcards, Otto works on a bust of his fallen son. He purchases cards from shops across the city and wears thin cotton gloves as he writes to avoid leaving any telltale prints. However, Escherich agrees a wager with underling Zott (Daniel Sträßer) that people are too scared to circulate the cards and that the vast majority of them will fall into their hands. He is also sure that the perpetrator has recently lost a son at the front and orders Prall to run a check on Berlin's bereaved. But he suspects that their best chance of catching him will come when he makes a mistake.

As Otto makes coffins in his workshop and drops off the cards while walking the streets, Anna does her bit for the Women's League. She pays a visit to the imperious Claire Gehrich (Katarina Schüttler) in her large house and chastises her for not getting a worthwhile job. However, as her husband is a high-ranking officer, Gehrich lodges a complaint against Anna and colleagues Frau Busch (Imogen Kogge) and Ida Kuhn (Hildegard Schroedter) come to inform her that she has been relieved of her duties.

Feeling liberated, Otto and Anna ignore air-raid danger to place cards in more public buildings. He is nearly caught on one occasion (in a block burning a lot of lights during a supposed blackout), but Anna poses as a frightened mother looking for a lost child to enable her husband to slip away after the janitor spots him descending in the lift. Escherich fills his map with little red flags to mark each of the 129 deliveries. But he is no closer to unmasking the scribe he has dubbed the `Hobgoblin' and SS Officer Prall (Mikael Persbrandt) orders him to make an arrest or face the consequences.

One night, Otto asks Anna whether she thinks about what people do with their cards. He compares each one to a grain of sand stopping the smooth running of the war machine. But his frequent use of this word eventually dawns on Escherich, who has reached the conclusion that his quarry is a craftsman of mediocre intellect, but with an ordered mind. He has also narrowed down the tram routes that the culprit uses and swoops to make an arrest. Fearing Otto is in danger when she discovers he is absent from work, Anna scours the streets for him and is scared when Eva's estranged husband, Enno (Lars Rudolph) is bundled into the backseat of a black SS car. She pleads with Otto to reconsider their strategy, as she is convinced they are going to be caught. But, when he explains that they a team honouring the memory of their son, she kisses him and leads him into the bedroom (which is clearly something that doesn't happen very often).

Forced to let Enno go because his sons are both alive, Escherich is humiliated by Prall in front of his SS pals and given two days to eliminate Enno and put a stop to the Hobgoblin charade. Bleeding from a split lip after being slapped and thrown down the steps into the street, Escherich is determined to save face and forces Enno to commit suicide. Meanwhile, Anna nearly gets caught leaving a card in a local school, where she bumps into Hans's old classmate, Dietrich Necker (Jacob Matschenz). But, as the air-raids continue and refugees take to the roads with their belongings, the Quangels reach 285 cards and Escherich is close to a breakdown, as he knows Prall is on his case.

However, he finally gets the stroke of luck he has been waiting for. Otto fails to notice a hole in his coat pocket and two cards fall on to the workshop floor when he does an extra shift. He insists on them being handed into the Party official and Escherich quickly swoops to arrest him. Otto signs a confession and assures his captor that Anna had nothing to do with the campaign. But he is sceptical and bemused why the Quangels thought they would change anything - as only 18 cards were not voluntarily turned in by members of the public. Yet, he feels a qualm when Prall orders him to smash a celebratory glass on Otto's head after they torture him in the cells.

Fromm comes to court, where Otto and Anna are briefly able to hold hands in the dock and reassure each other they have done the right thing. He also visits Anna in prison, while Escherich asks Otto if there is anything he needs as he is being led to the guillotine. With scowling bravado, he asks for a card and a pen. But his nemesis proves an unlikely ally, as Escherich throws the 267 cards in his possession into the street before shooting himself in the head.

Suitably poignant and played with commendable restraint, this is a well-intentioned tribute to Otto and Elise Hampel. But, despite the excellence of Jean-Vincent Puzos's production design, it falls some way below the standards set by Marc Rothermund's Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005) and Max Färberböck's A Woman in Berlin (2008). Christophe Beaucarne's camerawork is as discreet as Alexandre Desplat's score, but such vigilance prevents Perez from building up much suspense as the investigation continues. It hardly helps that the focus falls so heavily on the cat-and-mouse games between Brendan Gleeson and Emma Thompson and Daniel Brühl, as they are kept so rigorously apart and any chance of overlap or jeopardy is removed when the reprehensible Rainer Egger vanishes from the story the moment he is entrusting with snooping on his neighbours.

Perez capably conveys something of the patriotism and paranoia gripping the Wedding district of Berlin, but he offers little insight into the effect (if any) that the cards had on its residents. He also struggles to suggest the passage of time or to intimate the turning of the tide against the Nazis. Moreover, he and Von Borries try to cram too many incidental characters into the action, with the result that it becomes difficult to keep track of everyone, especially as so few have any tangible backstories. Another problem that goes unresolved is the clumsy bilingualism (printed matter is in German, while everyone speaks English) and the decision to have Gleeson, Thompson and Persbrandt adopt wavering accents. But authenticity matters less than sincerity here and, consequently, it's just about possible to forgive the crass climax. However, one can't help but wish that Perez had approached Fallada's text with a greater sense of fidelity and profundity.

All credit must go to Harry Michell for writing, directing and starring in his debut feature, Chubby Funny, at the age of 25. Of course, it helps to be able to ask your Notting Hill-directing dad to serve as executive producer. But this vaguely autobiographical comedy has its own character, even though it occasionally echoes twentysomething American Adam Bowers's indie outing, New Low (2010), and sometimes feels like three back-to-back episodes of a BBC3 sitcom featuring an aspiring Josh Widdicombe-alike.

Struggling actors Harry Michell and Augustus Prew decide to rent a one-bed flat together in Kentish Town. They throw a housewarming party, at which Michell protests that it's becoming increasingly difficult to be a privileged white male. But he has given himself a year to make a breakthrough and hopes that an audition for a chocolate commercial will set the ball rolling. He is slightly put out when Prew asks to spoon at bedtime and describes him as a ladle because he is so big. But his insecurity is exacerbated when shopkeeper Asim Chaudhry demands ID because he thinks Michell looks so young and then agent Alice Lowe advises him to go for `chubby funny' support roles and leave the romantic leads to the top-knotted Prew.

Peeved at being branded a Ron Weasley kind of sidekick, Michell attempts a magic trick with a napkin and his tongue that dismally backfires. As does a bid to pass himself off as South African to chat up girls in a club. But he puts a brave face on it when Prew lands a stage role in Two Gentlemen of Verona and hopes that romance is in the air when female impersonator Ben Kavanagh introduces him to his French friend, Olivia Ross. However, after his first day working for a homeless charity with supervisor Dave Benson Phillips goes badly wrong, Michell seeks solace in a bathtub with writer gal pal Isabella Laughland (whom Prew thinks he should date). She suggests that all relationships are made up of a narcissist and an echo and they bicker about who is which.

Stung by Chaudhry knowing more about Schubert when he revisits the corner shop, Michell throws himself into the role of a squirrel in a chocolate nut bar shoot. However, director Julian Rhind-Tutt keeps quibbling about his enunciation and Michell steals a typewriter from the set and heads home to write a play. He is interrupted by Prew complaining about his tendency to take over the flat without doing any of the cleaning and further winds him up when he refuses to take his announcement that he's gay at face value. Despairing because Michell manages to make everything about himself, Prew slams the bedroom door and Michell is still feeling out of sorts when he goes to spend Christmas with father Jeff Rawle and finds himself competing for attention with aunt Phoebe Nicholls and stepmother Anna Maxwell Martin and her young daughter.

Arriving home to find the flat empty, Michell gets bored watching Big Momma's House 2 (2006) with Italian subtitles and drags Laughland away from a date to walk along the Embankment. She mocks him for wearing a onesie and accuses him of being a man-child and a massive narcissist. Yet, when they stop opposite Tower Bridge, she shares his headphones to waltz to some Schubert. This seems to nudge Michell into a better place and he patches up with Prew, who has managed to obtain Ross's phone number. She agrees to spend the afternoon with him and he tries to impress her by chatting about Baudelaire and Larkin outside a bookshop before attending Prew's opening night. He stares enviously at his friend on the stage, but joins him for a celebratory drink after the show, where one of the group bemoans the fact he is typecast as a terrorist because of his looks.

Ross comes back to the flat and crashes on the bed. Uncertain whether she has given him a come-on, Michell dozes off beside her. But he wakes in the night to find her kissing Prew on the sofa and is appalled by their betrayal. Surprised to learn that Prew is gay, Ross apologises. However, she insists that there was no spark during their date and admits to finding Michell a bit whiny. Protesting that he is less moany than a realist, Michell slinks back to bed and his mood dips further when Phillips urges him to push harder on the doorstep and he quits his job after reducing the recently widowed Jemma Redgrave to tears. Tossing Prew's peace offering in the bin, Michell dons his onesie and returns to his play. But he soon slopes off to the park with Laughland, although he resists her efforts to cheer him up. He similarly sulks through a conversation with Prew about how he is going to pay the rent now that he is unemployed and exacts his revenge for the Ross incident by refusing to make himself scarce so Prew can have some privacy with his new boyfriend. In the end, he does go out to meet old English teacher David Bamber in the pub. He was surprised by Michell getting in touch and shatters his nostalgic illusions by not remembering his performance in a school production of Hamlet and, then, by dismissing teaching as a chore and by asking if he wants to sleep with him.

Returning to the flat to find Prew stuffing his papers into a bin bag, Michell gets antsy. He protests that he needs a little support because things are going badly, but Prew insists that he grows up and recognises the personal flaws that have more to do with his failures than ill-luck. Frustrated, Michell slaps his friend's face and, as tries to apologise on the stairs, he hurts Laughland's feelings when she comes round with the ingredients for a Mexican-themed party to boost his spirits. Returning indoors, he thrashes around the cluttered space before slumping on his bed.

Spending the evening mooching around the neighbourhood, Michell helps Chaudhry remove some offensive graffiti from his widows. He returns to find Prew packing and they mutually apologise for damaging their friendship. But, as he smokes on the balcony and wonders what on earth to do next, Michell gets a call from Lowe about a part. Consequently, the film ends as it begins, with a view of the London skyline from Primrose Hill and Michell stopping by a lamp post in the park. However, there's no longer such a jaunty insouciance about his stride.

Revealing debts to everyone from Woody Allen and Philippe Garrel to Wes Anderson, Lena Dunham and Noah Baumbach, Harry Michell makes a solid start to his directing career after dipping in his toe with the 2015 short, Guinea Pig. He even manages to draw comparisons with Hugh Grant and Rhys Ifans's living conditions in Notting Hill (1999). But, for all its borrowings, this feels fresh and confident. Opting to keep things simple style-wise, Michell and cinematographer Craig Dean Devine make evocative use of their locations and Claudia Smith's astutely observed interiors. He also works well with his ensemble, although he does allow himself the odd self-indulgent doodle and struggles with pacing in some of the seemingly improvised passages.

However, Michell makes the biggest impression as an actor. Apart from a couple of small-screen credits, he has primarily been seen in such Roger Michell ventures as The Mother (2003) and Tom & Issy (2013). But he effortlessly reclaims the schlubby slacker persona from Seth Rogen in bantering with the excellent Isabella Laughland and Asim Chaudhry and in acting the giddy goat with the not entirely convincing Augustus Prew. He even gets to sound off against his own stepmother during the Christmas lunch. So, let's hope we see more of him in the near future, although he will need to hone his writing skills before embarking upon another assignment behind the camera, as the script for his 2015 short, The Brief History and Untimely Death of George III: Guinea Pig (which introduces three of the key characters). was much funnier.