Since it was first performed at the Apollo Theatre in London on 9 December 1928, RC Sheriff's acclaimed play, Journey's End, has been frequently adapted for film and television. James Whale also directed the first cinematic version for Gainsborough in 1930, while Heinz Paul produced a German variation, Die andere Seite/The Other Side, the following year. In November 1937, the action was abridged for the BBC by George More O'Ferrall for a live Armistice Day transmission. Intriguingly, this lost interpretation included scene-setting footage from GW Pabst's Westfront 1918 (1930) and Sheriff (who studied at New College between 1931-34) found his own material being reworked for Jack Gold's Aces High (1976), which took the story out of the trenches and into the skies with the Royal Flying Corps.

The BBC took a second tilt at the material in 1988, when Michael Simpson caused a degree of controversy by staging the raid that Sheriff had left to the audience's imagination. By all accounts, Ben Elton and Richard Curtis based the final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth (1989) on this teleplay. But writer-producer Simon Reade and director Saul Dibb have taken liberties of their own in bringing Journey's End back to the big screen to mark the centenary of Operation Michael, the March 1918 offensive that Sheriff (himself a veteran of Passchendaele) used as the backdrop for his timeless study of troops waiting to go into combat.

On Monday 18 March 1918 near St Quentin in northern France, Lieutenant Osborne (Paul Bettany) urges Captain Stanhope (Sam Claflin) and Second Lieutenant Trotter (Stephen Graham) to finish their card game and join Second Lieutenant Hibbert (Tom Sturridge) in returning to the front line after a few days away from the trenches. Meanwhile, at the British Army Depot at Amiens, Second Lieutenant Raleigh (Asa Butterfield) reports to his uncle, General Raleigh (Rupert Wickham), who tries to advise him against joining C Company simply because Stanhope is an old school friend who is engaged to his sister.

Relieving Captain Hardy (Miles Jupp), Osborne uses a periscope to check out the German positions some 60 yards away, while Stanhope orders his men to patch up the planking of a trench he suspects wouldn't last five minutes in the face of the expected German offensive. In the cramped subterranean quarters, Mason the cook (Toby Jones) brings candles after Hardy's men remove the electric light bulbs before leaving. Stanhope is furious that they have also taken their ammunition and left his unit with some rusty Mills bombs. But his mood is scarcely improved by the sight of Raleigh, as he doesn't want him to know how much of a toll the war has taken since he was decorated at Vimy Ridge. Trotter joins them for an awkward supper before taking Raleigh on a mud-squelching tour of the trench, while Stanhope guzzles down whiskey under the watchful gaze of Osborne (who is known to his men as `Uncle'), who knows the strain his commander is under, as the men wait for the enemy to make its move.

The next morning, Stanhope learns that the German push is expected on 21 March and he conveys the news to Trotter and Osborne. However, he withholds it from Raleigh, who has just written a letter to his sister and Stanhope orders him to leave it unsealed because all correspondence has to be censored. Dreading its contents, he asks Osborne to read it aloud and is admonished for suspecting that the hero-worshipping Raleigh would do anything to betray a confidence.

While Osborne and Raleigh inspect rifles, Stanhope goes to HQ. Reprimanded by the Colonel (Robert Glenister) for reeking of spirits, he is told to select two officers and 10 men to lead a raid on the German trenches to try and grab a prisoner and learn something about the reinforcements being brought into the line. The Colonel suggests Osborne and Raleigh, as the former is a steady chap and the latter knows too green to be afraid. Returning to the bunker, Stanhope confronts Hibbert, whose nerves are equally shot, and pulls his revolver in denying him permission to visit the doctor and be stood down from duty. Lowering the weapon, Stanhope gives Hibbert a reassuring hug and admits that he feels much the same way, but cannot allow himself to show any weakness in front of the men and is grateful that Osborne accepts his mission with stoic grace. He feels queasy, however, when toasting C Company while dining that night with the Colonel and the complacent officer in charge of the bombardment designed to soften up the enemy ahead of the raid.

Extra provisions arrive at the bunker the next morning, including live chickens (which are, literally, being sent to the slaughter) and Stanhope coerces the Colonel into addressing the rank-and-filers about to go over the top. Left alone, Osborne chats to Raleigh about walking in the New Forest and on the Sussex Downs to take his mind off the ordeal he is about to undergo. He offers a few reassuring words about the smokescreen that will enable them to cross No Man's Land before removing his name tag and leaving his watch on the table for Mason to guard until they return.

The camera follows the spattered puttees, as Osborne and Raleigh pass along the trench and acknowledge the good luck wishes of their comrades. Stanhope greets them with a cigarette and a smile, as they slither along a gully to the embarkation point. Raleigh vomits with fear, as they wait for the signal to go and Osborne nods to keep him calm.

Suddenly, the howitzers land in the German trench and the detail scrambles into the line of fire. The jerky handheld camera movements and rapid cuts convey something of the chaos of the manoeuvre, as some men fall and others complete their objective of snatching a prisoner. As they head back, Osborne grabs the collar of a wounded fellow and tries to drag him towards safety. But, while Ernst (Eirik Bar) is given a hot cup of tea and the Colonel congratulates Stanhope on a job well done, he laments the fact that six of his men have been killed and that Raleigh rather than Osborne made it home. Indeed, when Raleigh sinks on to Osborne's bunk in traumatised exhaustion, Stanhope berates him for showing such little respect. Having ripped into Hibbert for getting drunk on champagne and boasting obnoxiously about his sexual conquests, Stanhope tears off another strip when Raleigh accepts an invitation to eat bread and soup with the men rather than dine with his fellow officers and Mason skulks in the kitchen with a pained expression, as Stanhope breaks down and sobs on Raleigh's shoulder at losing his friend.

As the day of the expected attack dawns, Mason wakes Stanhope with tea and gives Trotter and Raleigh sandwiches to take up top. Hibbert is reluctant to leave the bunker, but Stanhope shames him into leaving with Mason, who jokes about popping back down around 10am to peel the spuds for lunch. An unbearable silence descends, as the men wait for the Germans to attack. A flare shoots into the grey sky before the first shells and gas canisters land. Stanhope and Trotter try to rally the sitting ducks under their command and the former helps Raleigh on to Osborne's bed when he is hit in the back by some shrapnel. For the first time since his arrival, Stanhope talks to Raleigh like an old friend, as he urges him to hang in there until the stretcher bearers arrive. But he fails to survive and Stanhope is blown backwards by the force of an explosion, as he attempts to climb the steps to the trench.

On 22 March, Margaret (Rose Reade) opens the letter that Raleigh had written on his first night with C Company. Over in France, German soldiers wearing gas masks scour the trench for survivors. But there are none and an overhead shot reveals the extent to which the post has been obliterated during the opening salvoes of what came to be known as the Spring Offensive, which lasted three months and claimed over 700,000 lives. Within a month, however, the captured territory had been retaken by the Allied forces. As a closing caption reveals, one million more men were to die before the Armistice was finally signed on 11 November 1918.

By drawing on the novelisation that Sheriff wrote with Vernon Bartlett, Dibb and Reade are able to open out the stage play without straying too far from its enduringly poignant core. However, the compelling action takes place in the bunker and adjoining trench that has been designed with chilling simplicity by Kristian Milsted and photographed with boggy authenticity by Laurie Rose. Markedly more effective than Hildur Gudnadottir and Natalie Holt's nuanced, but superfluous score, Bryn Thomas's sound design is also key to conveying the claustrophobic dankness of the setting, as each breath seems to resound as loudly as a mortar, as the men wait for their invisible foe to make its inevitable move.

Underplaying impeccably to capture the inimitably British sense of sang froid, the leads feel like pals who have already been through hell together. Yet the formality imposed by class remains, as Sam Claflin adopts a different tone of address to working men Stephen Graham and Toby Jones, even though he has much more admiration for them than he does Robert Glenister's desk-bound colonel and his pampered aides. Forever gulping down Dutch courage and clinging to the last vestiges of the heroism that earned him the Military Cross, Claflin steadily unravels as the wide-eyed Asa Butterfield's arrival forces him to face the grim reality of his situation. But Paul Bettany also excels as the composed and kindly schoolmaster, whose ease with his charges reminds us that Sheriff earned an Oscar nomination for Sam Wood's adaptation of James Hilton's bestseller, Goodbye Mr Chips (1939). Only Tom Sturridge strikes a wrong note, but that is the point of his character, as his psychological distress is partly feigned.

Dibb stages the battle sequences with suitable solemnity to emphasise the futility and horror of the exchanges. Yet he also includes a number of neat touches, such as the hospitality meted out to the captured German and the way in which Graham uses food as a coping mechanism. The exchange between Butterfield and his uncle and the sequence in a cosy Hampshire home a world away from the Western Front feel more extraneous. But this works best when it sticks to the manuscript, most notably when Bettany seeks to distract Butterfield with happy memories and quotations from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

And so, we come to the final act in the career of Daniel Day-Lewis. Naturally, he has received an Oscar nomination for his performance in Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread. But this brooding drama set in 1950s London feels less like a showcase for Day-Lewis's incomparable talents than an opportunity for Anderson to experiment with tropes gleaned from Alfred Hitchcock and Ingmar Bergman in fashioning a study of the kind of toxic masculinity that has recently been exposed by the campaign to name and shame those powerful men who abuse their status for sexual gratification.

As a new day begins at the London atelier run by Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his sister, Cyril (Lesley Manville), Johanna (Camilla Rutherford) realises over breakfast that her relationship with the fastidious designer is over. He barely acknowledges her presence, as he reads and sips his coffee before dancing attendance on Countess Henrietta Harding (Gina McKee), who has come for a fitting for a gown she needs for a forthcoming function. Thus, over supper that night, Cyril suggests that Reynolds ditches Johanna and takes some time for himself at their Yorkshire retreat while she moves out.

Driving through the night, Reynolds arrives in a picturesque village in time for breakfast at the local hotel. He smiles when a pretty waitress trips between the tables and insists on keeping the order she has written in her notebook. When she brings his food, he invites her to dinner and she slips him a message revealing that her name is Alma Elson (Vicky Krieps).

After speeding through the winding country roads to an exclusive restaurant, Reynolds fixes his gaze on Alma as she eats. He uses a napkin to remove her lipstick and asks to see a photograph of her mother. When she asks about his own, he explains that she is very dear to him, as she taught him his trade and he keeps a lock of her hair sewn into the lining of his jacket. On returning to the family home, Reynolds shows Alma a picture of his mother in the dress he made for her second wedding and muses on the superstitions that have grown up around trousseaux. He also delights in disclosing that his ugly childhood nanny never married, but becomes defensive when Alma asks why he and Cyril remain single.

Eager to change the subject, Reynolds whisks Alma to an upstairs workshop and asks her to try an unfinished dress. He works with forensic intensity and is about to take her measurements when Cyril arrives. She unnerves Alma by savouring her scent before taking her place on the sofa to record Alma's statistics in her notebook. When Reynolds remarks on the size of her breasts, Alma bridles, especially when he retorts that he will give her some if he feels she needs them. But Cyril reassures her that he was paying her a compliment, as he likes boyish bodies.

Over the next day or so, Reynolds dresses Alma like a doll and takes her for long walks along the coast at Staithes and Robin Hood's Bay. He says he has been searching for her and she urges him to take good care of her. Back in London, he moves her into the bedroom adjoining his own and takes pleasure in showing her off at the best restaurants wearing his creations. Alma also starts doing photo shoots and Reynolds fusses over her. Yet, when she makes too much noise buttering her toast at breakfast and when she criticises the fabric he has chosen for one of his dresses, he snaps at her and Cyril sniffily suggests that she makes more of an effort to fit in with her brother's routines.

Alma describes living with the siblings to Dr Robert Hardy (Brian Gleeson), as we see her striving to be useful to Reynolds in competition with the ever-hovering Cyril. She models for him at private showings and makes herself available to him whether it's after midnight or before dawn. Most nights, she sleeps alone. But, every now and then, he drags her into his room and, just as impulsively, makes excuses to keep her out. He also becomes exasperated when she brings him tea on a whim, as he cannot tolerate interruptions. Cyril understands Alma's need to please her lover and shoots her an unexpectedly sympathetic smile across the breakfast table. But she promptly falls foul of Reynolds herself when she informs him that one of his most important clients, Barbara Rose (Harriet Sansom Harris), wants him to attend her forthcoming marriage to Rubio Gurrerro (Silas Carson).

Aware of his reliance on Barbara's patronage, Reynolds strives to produce a beautiful dress, even though he finds her repulsive. He even attends a press conference, at which Gurrerro is questioned about selling visas to Jews during the war. At the reception, however, he becomes so enraged at seeing Barbara slump drunkenly on to the top table that he storms into the room where she is sleeping it off and orders Alma to remove the gown because he regards his creations as works of art not gewgaws for the rich and vulgar. As they stride away from the hotel, however, Reynolds turns to kiss Alma for being his accomplice and she feels close to him for the first time.

The next morning, he is considerate over breakfast and urges her to share his porridge. But she gets jealous when she sees him greeting Princess Mona Braganza (Lujza Richter) when she comes for a fitting for her wedding dress. Feeling possessive, Alma makes a point of introducing herself to the princess and informing her that she lives with Reynolds. Emboldened, she asks Cyril if she can vacate the premises for an evening so that she can cook for Reynolds and dine alone. Cyril reminds her that her brother dislikes surprises, but Alma has made up her mind and greets Reynolds on the staircase in her new dress when he gets home.

He is annoyed to find that Cyril has conspired against him and insists on taking a bath before eating. When he finally comes down, he can barely suppress his fury at being ambushed and berates Alma for serving his asparagus with butter instead of oil and salt. When she tries to explain that she loves him and wanted to do something special, he sneers at her and suggests that she leaves if she is so unhappy. She protests that she simply wishes to spend some time with him and he retorts that his time is his own and that she has no right to impose upon it.

At breakfast the next morning, Cyril asks Reynolds if he would like her to ask Alma to leave. When he seems puzzled, she reveals that she has become fond of Alma and doesn't want to see her being persecuted like his other conquests. He goes to gainsay her, but Cyril hisses that he doesn't have what it takes to beat her in a fight and he glowers at her in resentful silence. Reynolds has also underestimated Alma, who puts poisonous mushroom shavings in his tea and he tears the royal wedding dress in collapsing during an inspection. Alma puts him to bed and enjoys having control over her victim, while Cyril supervises the repairs to the dress. However, she insists that Dr Hardy sees Reynolds and he refuses to be examined. Nevertheless, he admits to Alma that he feels scared and she gives him a quiet smile of consolation so that he can see her being the model wife and nurse.

After a restless night, in which he has a vision of his late mother staring at him in her wedding dress from the other side of the bedroom, Reynolds comes downstairs to find Alma sleeping beside the wedding dress. He kisses her bare feet and apologises for his past mistakes and asks her to marry him because he has realised that time is passing him by and that there is so much that he can only do with her at his side. She accepts and Cyril smiles as she watches them exchange their vows. Yet, on honeymoon at an Alpine ski resort, Reynolds finds himself being annoyed by the way Alma crunches her toast at breakfast and stays at the chalet to work while she heads for the slopes.

Back in London, they attend a Christmas dinner being hosted by Lord (Nicholas Mander) and Lady Baltimore (Julia Davis). The latter sympathises with Reynolds on getting saddled with such a spoilt child and points out how she has barely looked in his direction since she spotted Dr Hardy. Lady Baltimore stirs the pot further after Reynolds and Alma squabble over a game of backgammon and she exacts her revenge by accepting Hardy's invitation to the Chelsea Arts Ball on New Year's Eve, Reynolds watches her leave without a word. But, as the clock ticks towards midnight, he becomes increasingly indignant and storms into the hotel to snatch Alma off the dance floor. She puts up token resistance, as he drags her away, as she knows she now has the upper hand.

Alma watches Reynolds suffering during a fitting with Mrs Vaughan (Jane Perry). He excuses himself and goes to Cyril's office to pour out his woes. Wounded at being dropped by Henrietta Harding because she wants to look chic, Reynolds complains to his sister that he has made a terrible mistake and needs Alma to leave if he is to regain his confidence and self-esteem. Unaware that Alma is listening at the door, he pleads with Cyril to help him get rid of her. But she is in no mood to conspire against her sister-in-law and suggests that Reynolds bucks up his ideas and stops whining.

Returning alone to the country, Reynolds and Alma survey each other across the kitchen. He suspects that the mushrooms she is chopping for his omelette are poisonous and, yet, he says nothing as she tosses them into the frying pan and stirs in the butter and eggs. Moreover, despite making a performance out of sitting at the table, he takes a mouthful and chews with a deliberation that lets his wife know that he is on to her. She tells him that she wants to see him helpless on his back and needing her to comfort him. But she also wants him to recover and regain the strength she admires and he kisses her passionately, as they finally acknowledge that they cannot live with or without each other.

Leaving the bathroom to call Dr Hardy, Alma shoots Reynolds an adoring look and his eyes twinkle as he watches her during his examination. We see Alma telling Hardy about her twisted relationship before a shot shows her wheeling a pram across a London park for Cyril to mind the baby while she and Reynolds grab some time alone. She helps him run the atelier and keep his new clients happy and he repays her by staying on the dance floor after everyone else has left the hunt ball. As the film ends, Reynolds rests his head on Alma's lap and she smiles when he mumbles something about being hungry.

The result of many discussions between Anderson and Day-Lewis, this is a remarkable piece of work that keeps teetering between masterpiece and parody. Rooted firmly in the Woman's Picture tradition of postwar Hollywood film-making, this occasionally strays closer to Jean Negulesco than Douglas Sirk, especially when Oxford's own Jonny Greenwood's score mischievously allows the strings to swell and the piano to plink, as though Liberace was playing along to Mantovani. But, with its echoes of Rebecca (1940) and Vertigo (1958), this most often feels like the kind of film that Alfred Hitchcock had hoped Marnie (1964) would be.

It's apt that the action is set in 1955, as this was the year that Anatole Litvak filmed Terence Rattigan's chamber drama, The Deep Blue Sea, and Anderson seems to have taken many of his tonal cues from Terence Davies's 2011 remake. Yet, for all its focus on the dangerous liaison between Reynolds and Alma (and, for that matter, between them both and Cyril), this also has a delicate vein of screwball comedy that has been sewn into the lining of the melodrama. Maybe that's why Anderson dedicated the picture to Jonathan Demme, as the byplay between Day-Lewis and Vicky Krieps does bring to mind the way Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster circled each other in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

In fact, as the screenplay keeps us so firmly in the here and now, we get to know very little about Reynolds Woodcock and Alma Elson, who remain by-products of backstories that are never revealed. Given the time frame, Alma would probably have been a teenager in Europe during the last days of the Second World War. Her accent is Germanic, but the actress playing her is from Luxembourg and, so, we are left to guess Alma's perspective on the conflict and what scars it might have left. Reynolds is an even more of a closed book. We know he was a mother's boy and is very much under the thumb of his sister. But we are none the wiser about his recent past and whether he served in the forces of exploited his establishment contacts to remain in his elegant home on a fashionable London square.

Despite his reputation as a ladies' man, it's never made definitively clear that Reynolds is entirely heterosexual. By all accounts, the character has been modelled on the flamboyant designers Charles James and Cristóbal Balenciaga. However, his creations seem closer to something that Norman Hartnell or Hardy Amies might have run up for their exclusive clienteles. First seen clipping his nostrils and ear lobes and slipping his feet into knee-length mauve socks, Day-Lewis - playing his first English character since Pat O'Connor's Stars and Bars (1988) - teasingly gives his dandy a wondrously fey speaking voice that can slip between urbanity, sycophancy and ferocity with disconcerting ease. Looking variously like John Le Mesurier and Conrad Veidt, he is an obsessive control freak whose cruel streak is tempered by his emotional fragility.

The impassive Lesley Manville is even more terrifying, especially when she stares directly into the camera lens. But, while her nomination for Best Supporting Actress is entirely merited, the omission of Krieps from the Best Actress line-up is deeply regrettable, as the credibility of the storyline depends on her ability not only to hold her own against Day-Lewis, but also to suggest that she could crush him if she so desires. Passion and power are as key to the drama as possessiveness and precision, with Anderson reinforcing the latter theme with his sinuous camerawork, which recalls Max Ophüls at his most erudite. Mark Bridges's costumes and Mark Tildesley's production design are equally astute, although it might have been useful to have contrasted the cocooned world of the Woodcocks with the realities facing the rest of post-Austerity Britain.

If this meditation on the dynamic between a genius and his muse is to be Day-Lewis's swan song, it means he leaves on a high that also represents a return to form for Anderson after the relative disappointments of The Master (2012) and Inherent Vice (2014). But it also marks a huge leap forward for Krieps after impressing in Philippe Claudel's Before the Winter Chill (2013), Ingo Haeb's The Chambermaid Lynn (2014) and Florian Gallenberger's Colonia (2015).

Born in the Punjab, but raised in Bradford, debuting director Mitu Misra draws in Lies We Tell on his own experiences of the tensions that arose between the Yorkshire city's different ethnic communities in the wake of 9/11. Billed as a `northern noir', this glossy thriller has attracted a couple of Hollywood heavyweights and several familiar British character players. Yet it falls a long way below the standard set by Freesia (2017), fellow Bradfordian Conor Ibrahiem's less generic and more focused study of Islamophobia.

Gabriel Byrne is employed as a chauffeur by American billionaire Harvey Keitel, who lives in a mansion on the outskirts of Bradford. He regularly drives him to an address in the country, where Keitel meets mistress Sibylla Deen. But, when he dies suddenly, Keitel leaves instructions for Byrne to clear out the apartment and ensure that nothing remains linking him to Deen, who is the ex-wife of her gangster cousin, Jan Uddin. Unfortunately, Deen arrives for an assignation as Byrne is looking round and she feels hurt and humiliated at not being informed of her lover's demise. She is even more aghast when Byrne offers her a lift home and they are stopped by the police in the city's red light district and she is forced to flee before she is recognised by anyone leaving the nearby mosque.

Deen has left her handbag in Byrne's car, however, and she uses a payphone to call her mobile. But, as he pulls up to return her property, Byrne sees Deen being beaten up by the heavily pregnant Emily Atack, who is currently dating Uddin and plans to marry him once she has converted to Islam. Her friend, Ambur Khan, takes a photo of Deen being consoled by Byrne after he comes to her rescue and jokes that Uddin won't be pleased to see the company she is keeping. Deen offers no explanation to Byrne, as she cleans herself up in the car. But she does ask him to find Keitel's phone, as it contains a compromising video of them together in Paris.

Returning to the farmhouse he shares with brother-in-law Mark Addy, Byrne ignores the divorce papers sent by wife Gina McKee and chugs a beer. In the days the follow, he clears out the apartment, while Deen works in the office of Leeds lawyer Nicholas Farrell and tries to help mother Sonia Kaur keep on top of the bills her work-shy father, Manzar Sehbai, can't afford to pay. She thanks Byrne for finding the phone, but needs further help when her younger brother, Aqib Khan, runs away from home and she tracks him down to the Score nightclub, where Uddin is regarded as a hero. When he recognises Byrne from the snapshot taken by Atack's pal, he follows him to the car park to taunt Deen. But she hits him in the face with a brick from handy skip and runs off into the night, much to Byrne's bemusement.

A few days later, Deen comes to the farm to explain to Byrne how she was raised alongside Uddin before her parents flew them to Pakistan on her 16th birthday and forced her into an arranged marriage. Uddin agreed to put up a front until they could divorce. But he changed his mind and raped her and Deen alienated both families by lying to secure a divorce. In an effort to smooth things over, Deen agrees to apologise to Uddin's father and she has to endure the false bonhomie of a traditional celebration organised by matchmaker Harvey Virdi, while Byrne flies his dead daughter's kite with Addy to mark her birthday.

While Deen studies for her law exams in her room, she hears a scream and rushes downstairs to find younger sister Danica Johnson being castigated by Virdi for wearing make-up. Deen protects her sibling and burns the curse she leaves tied to the living-room table. She also takes her to the farm in time to see Addy's dog give birth to puppies. But she is unable to prevent her parents from agreeing to let Johnson marry Uddin and Deen warns him that he is making a mistake if he thinks he can intimidate her. She also takes in her stride the news that Keitel's son, Reece Ritchie, has found the Paris video and that Byrne has quit his job rather than reveal her identity.

However, Ritchie makes contact and suggests that he inherits her along with the rest of his father's property. But Uddin interrupts their conversation and forces Deen to promise not to interfere in his marriage to Johnson in return for the memory stick containing the video. She agrees, but promptly whisks her sister off on the train, only for Johnson to call a friend and betray the fact they are in Manchester. Disowned by her family, Deen seeks sanctuary at the farm and teases Byrne about having feelings for her. However, she also needs his advice about what to do next and he urges her to make peace with her father.

Deen catches Sehbai drinking and gambling with his pals and says he would have made a better pimp than a father. But he refuses to cancel the wedding and Deen decides to leave for London. En route to the station, Byrne takes her to the venue and sneaks her in through the back door so that she can catch Johnson's eye as she gives her three-time assent to Uddin's proposal. While he whoops it up aside with his mates, Johnson turns him down at the third time of asking and Sehbai and Deen patch things up, while Virdi and Harish Patel glower at them with disdain. However, the furious Uddin refuses to let Deen get away with thwarting him and, having given Atack away to lascivious friend Amer Nazir, he has her murdered on the station platform as she says her goodbyes to Byrne. But Byrne also has vengeance in mind when Uddin confronts him at Deen's graveside.

Ending with the improbable sight of Byrne barking on all fours at the snarling dog chasing its own puppy across a wild moor, this is a plot-heavy saga that keeps using fragments of subplot to atone for the lack of character development. Yet nothing about Byrne's history with his wife, daughter and brother-in-law is disclosed in any detail, while Deen's relationships with her intellectually challenged brother, quasi-rebellious sister and ultra-conservative parents are important only in so far as they justify the lurchings of a storyline that is strewn with clichés and caricatures. Her romance with Keitel also strains credibility, especially as we learn so little about the home life he is jeopardising when he smugly informs Byrne, `the only men who get caught are those who don't love their wives enough'.

Looking less comfortable than he does playing Winston Wolf in the Direct Line adverts, Keitel feels utterly detached from his milieu, while Byrne appears out of his depth in a Bradford he seems not to have suspected existed before encountering Deen. It might have made sense had this been worked into the scenario to suggest how little the component communities mingle. But Mistra and screenwriters Ewen Glass and Andy McDermott seem more intent on questioning the customs of British Pakistanis and how they prevent them from integrating with their neighbours than they are on examining the dynamics of multiculturalism.

Byrne and Deen (who hails from Sydney) do what they can with a script that does Addy, McKee and Atack few favours and leaves Uddin, Virdi and Sehbai battling against soap operatic stereotype. Veteran composer Zbigniew Preisner also has an off day, with a score that underlines the action rather than complementing it. Ever-reliable cinematographer Santosh Sivan and production designer Jane Levick fare better, as does editor Chris Gill, who contributes some neat transitions to speed up the otherwise sluggish storytelling. Considering this is a first outing, Mistra has done remarkably well to assemble such a notable cast and crew. He also generates considerable testosterone-fuelled menace during the nightclub sequence in which Uddin helps Nazir find a suitable bride from among his female clientele. But the surfeit of tangled threads and loose ends prevents this urban thriller from being as gritty and gripping as it might have been.

A few years ago, the BFI restored Franz Osten's A Throw of Dice (1929) and it has returned to the archives for another of the German director's collaborations with one of the founding fathers of Bollywood, Himanshu Rai. Inspired by the building of the Taj Mahal, Shiraz: A Romance of India (1928) may not boast the most intricate of storylines. But the production values are exceptional, as is the new score composed by Anoushka Shankar, which deftly blends Eastern and Western musical styles to complement the imagery's cosmopolitan chic.

In the early 17th century, a caravan crossing the Great Persian Desert is attacked by bandits as it enters a gorge. As a skirmish develops, the driver of one camel tries to escape, as a toddler princess is travelling in the howdah on the beast's back. Her mother looks anxiously through the canopy curtains, but is powerless to protect her daughter, as brigands lever boulders from the mountainside to crush them.

Fortunately, the girl is unharmed and is found sitting on a rock by Hasan, an impoverished potter who saves the child from a lurking cobra and takes her back to his village. As Hasan returns, his wife learns from the fakir that their son, Shiraz, will enjoy immortal fame after a life of love and tragedy. The wise man also sees an amulet around the foundling's neck and exhorts Hasan to take great care of her, as she is beloved of Allah, and they name her Selima.

As the years pass, Shiraz (Himanshu Rai) falls in love with Selima (Enakshi Rama Rau) and carves her animal statues to show his devotion. However, Hasan reminds him of his fraternal duty and urges him to keep an eye on Selima when some slave traders see her drawing water at the well. They think she will fetch a good price at the market and overpower Shiraz, who is knocked unconscious and left clutching Selima's amulet. He summons his neighbours to pursue the kidnappers, but they refuse to go far without water and Shiraz is forced to carry on alone after Selima is taken to Al Kalab.

Arriving in the city in time to see Selima paraded on the dais, Shiraz protests that she is a free woman who has been abducted from her home. But no one pays him any heed, as Selima is sold for one thousand dinas to Kasim (Profulla Kumar), the Nazir of Khurram (Charu Roy), the Crown Prince of India. He lives in a fine palace with handmaidens to pander to his every whim. When Kasim parades the new slave girls, Khurram is amused by Selima's refusal to prostrate herself and, much to the fury of besotted courtier, Dalia (Seeta Devi), he orders the Nazir to show her to her to the most luxurious quarters available. Denied entry to the palace, Shiraz offers his services to a potter in the town and bides his time.

Dalia has set her heart on marrying the prince and schemes with her servant, Kulsam (Maya Devi), to catch his eye. However, Khurram hears that she has been bragging to friends about their forthcoming engagement and warns her father, who a general in the palace guard, to ensure that she holds her tongue, as he disapproves of gossip and will not be railroaded into a match. But he is also frustrated because the law forbids him to marry anyone not of noble birth and he knows that Selima is too chaste to give herself to him.

Each day, Shiraz comes to the palace to watch the merchants pass through the security gates with their wares. Admittance is only granted to those bearing a document sealed by Dalia's father and Shiraz despairs of ever getting past the guards. However, he persuades Kulsam to take a message to Selima and she is on her way to deliver it when she notices the newcomer walking by the fountains with the prince. Keen to please her mistress, Kulsam sees Selima rebuff Khurram's advances and rushes to show Dalia the note. As her father is about to leave for Delhi with his master, Dalia decides to use the seal to make a fake pass that will allow Shiraz to enter the palace. She will then arrange for Kulsam to take him to Selima's rooms, where they will be caught together by the guards and she will be able to console Khurram in his distress.

Having kissed Selima goodbye, Khurram departs at the head of a grand procession of elephants, horses and soldiers. However, Dalia sends a messenger after him with an anonymous note revealing Selima's inconstancy. But her plan hits a snag when Shiraz forgets to take his pass back from the guard at the gates and Kulsam is concerned that it will fall into the wrong hands and Dalia's father will discover her deception. As time is of the essence, however, she escorts Shiraz to Selima's boudoir. She is surprised to see him and sees the disappointment in his eyes when she informs him that she is safe and happy. At that moment, Khurram bursts in and has Selima cast into a cell. He orders Shiraz to tell him how he got a pass into the palace and lines up all of the slaves in the lower hall so that Shiraz can point out the perpetrator. But he refuses to betray Kulsam and is sentenced to be crushed to death by an elephant.

While Selima prays for Shiraz's deliverance, Kulsam pleads with Dalia to help him for not identifying her. But Dalia realises that she can blame Kulsam for forging the pass and poisons her drink and rushes off to try on her finest jewellery to look good for the prince. However, as Shiraz is being chained to a board beside two pillars whose shadows must meet for the punishment to begin, Kulsam struggles into a corridor and alerts two female slaves to her need to stop the execution. They help her to the gate, beyond which a large crowd has gathered to witness the gory spectacle.

With her last breath, Kulsam tells Khurram that the forged document is still at the gatehouse and he orders a servant to fetch it before sending for Selima and Dalia. The sound of a horn reminds him to reprieve Shiraz, just as the elephant is raising its foot above his head. He is brought to the chamber, where Dalia is doing some quick thinking on seeing Kulsam's corpse on the floor. However, the pass condemns her and Khurram refuses to accept that she acted out of love and banishes her from his empire.

When Shiraz arrives, Khurram apologises for putting him through such an ordeal. But the pain of Selima admitting she only loves him like a brother is much greater and he returns her amulet before turning to leave. The prince recognises the design, however, and calls for Asaf the soothsayer, who confirms that Selima is of royal birth because the trinket was given by the Empress Noor Jehan to her niece, Princess Arjumand, who died 18 years ago during an ambush in the desert. Thanking Shiraz, Khurram gives Selima the new name of Mumtaz Mahal and asks her to be his queen. While she assents, Shiraz rejects the precious stones and gems offered as a reward because they would not help him mend his broken heart.

On their wedding day, a cheering multitude greet the bride and groom. But, while Shiraz is happy for his childhood playmate, he cannot ignore his feelings and he comes to the palace every day for the next 18 years to peer through the tracery of the walls and see Selima walking in the gardens. After a while, his sight begins to fail, but he keeps up his vigil until the day that his beloved dies. As he crumples beside the locked palace gates, Khurram (who has assumed the title Shah Jehan) announces that he will erect a monument to commemorate Selima's beauty and invites all of the craftsmen in the kingdom to submit their designs.

Inspired by his love. Shiraz fashions a majestic temple and Khurram is enraptured. Yet, on meeting the creator, he orders Kasim to put out his eyes to prevent him from making anything else so beautiful. Shiraz is tied to a pillar and a hot spike is prepared. But the executioner realises that he is already blind and Khurram suddenly recognised Shiraz and praises Allah for guiding his hand to create such a worthy monument. He declares that they will work together on the project and we see the royal architects drawing up their plans before Khurram welcomes Shiraz to the Taj Mahal at Agra, which is shown in all its glory from a variety of angles.

Refusing to let the facts get in the way of a good story, screenwriter Niranjan Pal ladles on the melodrama in adapting his own play, which depicts Shah Jahan as a short-fused despot, who seeks to seduce Selima while knowing he can never marry her because of her lowly status and twice tries to harm Shiraz before fate intervenes. He also fails to develop Selima and Shiraz beyond being ciphers, with the result that Dalia and Kulsam are by far the most intriguing characters, as they hatch their fiendish plots and fall out over a point of honour. Yet Osten keeps the narrative rattling along and, in the process, vastly improves upon such previous German excursions to the subcontinent as Joe May's The Indian Tomb (1921), which was co-scripted by Thea von Harbou and Fritz Lang (who would remake the picture in 1959).

However, Osten is clearly more interested in the sumptuous mise-en-scène, which anticipates the stylised visuals concocted by Josef von Sternberg during his partnership with Marlene Dietrich. Production designer Promode Nath fully exploits the architectural splendour at his disposal, while cinematographers Emil Schünemann and Henry Harris make evocative use of natural light to make the white stonework shimmer. Osten also brings a touch of grandeur to proceedings with the desert raid and the Delhi departure, while also swelling the crowd scenes. He also draws restrained performances from his cast, although there is little chemistry between Charu Roy and Enakshi Rama Rau.

Far more animated is Seeta Devi, whose real name was Renee Smith. Hailing from a prominent Anglo-Indian family, she had been spotted as a 15 year-old by Himanshu Rai, who had cast her as Princess Gopa in his first collaboration with Osten, The Light of Asia (1925). She would go on to play the heroine in A Throw of Dice, but stopped acting after appearing in Mistake (1928), Enchantress of India (1929) and Fatal Marriage (1930). By contrast, Osten, Pal and Rai would go on to form Bombay Talkies, which proved a key player in the early days of Bollywood, as Rai (who had been disowned by his influential Bengali family when he abandoned his legal studies to go on the Londonn stage) paired his wife, Devika Rani, with Ashok Kumar to form a popular romantic team in box-office hits like Osten's Achhut Kanya (1936). Shortly after Rai died in 1940, however, Osten was interned and deported as a potential threat to India's wartime security.

By all accounts the first documentary to be selected for Critics Week at Cannes, Emmanuel Gras's Makala promptly took the Grand Prix. Taking its title from the Swahili word for `charcoal', this is a gruelling account of one family's bid to survive poverty in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Yet it also celebrates the dignity and determination of charcoal burner Kabwita Kasongo without patronising him or sentimentalising his condition. Following on from the Cesar-nominated Bovines (2011) and 300 Souls (2014), this intimate portrait confirms director-cinematographer Gras as a bright hope of French actualité.

Leaving the village of Walemba in the early morning with an axe over each shoulder, 28 year-old Kabwita Kasongo walks into the bush in the Congolese province of Katanga to find a tree to cut down. Operating a Steadicam rig, Emmanuel Gras follows close behind and gives Kabwita space as he starts to chop down a gnarled tree whose leaves rustle in the wind. It's hard work and Kabwita pauses to pray to Jesus Christ to give him the strength to feed his family.

After felling the tree, Kabwita returns home and makes a fuss as wife Lydie removes a thorn from his foot. She keeps an eye on their daughters, Evodie and Brigitte, as she barbecues a rat on a small griddle outside their hut. The next day, with her youngest strapped to her back, she accompanies her husband to the tree and helps him carry wood to create a large pyre. When she cuts her finger, Kabwita covers it with gum from a branch and they chat about corn beer while taking a break.

Working alone, Kabwita cuts sods of earth and places them over the bonfire and pounds them into place to that the structure is compact. As the sun goes down, he lights a fire and digs small holes in the oven surface to start the smoking process that will turn the wood into charcoal. That night, he sketches his dream house and suggests that Lydie starts preparing the spot they have chosen while he is away selling the charcoal in the nearby town of Kolwezi. He hopes to be able to buy 15 sheets of corrugated iron for the roof and describes the trees that he will plant to provide fruit and shelter and even considers building a pond for their ducks. But supper is another rat and both Kabwita and Lydie are fully aware that their hopes will be in the balance unless he can get a good price for his wares.

Having loaded several sacks, Kabwita straps them to his bicycle and sets off while it's still dark on the 30-mile trek to Kolwezi. Fires burn in the distance, as he heaves the laden cycle over parched and pitted tracks and roads, with the headlights of an occasional car lighting his way. It's a Sisyphean struggle and Gras keeps the camera and Manuel Vidal's microphone close to Kabwita so that every wince and gasp of effort can be captured, as he makes his excruciatingly slow progress. After a few miles, he pauses to eat some fruit before pressing on, with each passing car enveloping him in a cloud of white dust.

Stopping for the night, Kabwita builds a fire from brushwood and chats to another traveller about the dangers that lie ahead and how it's better to be part of a group than journey alone. The next day, he is overtaken by a pair using wooden props to steer their equally unwieldy bicycles and he trudges into another night, with trucks and coaches coming uncomfortably close on the unlit road. It comes as no surprise, therefore, when a lorry knocks the bike over while Kabwita rests in the shade and he has to rely on some good Samaritans to help him get back on the road. (It should be noted, however, that Gras retains the focus on Kabwita's face as the truck passes, as if he knows in advance that the bicycle is going to be overturned and it does look rather `arranged' when he goes to inspect the damage.)

He has lost a sack and his tyres are flat. But worse follows when Kabwita is waylaid on a busy stretch of road by a chancer who demands 2000 francs for his safe passage. When he protests that he has a sick child, the stranger agrees to take a bag of charcoal and makes Kabwita carry it to the kerb. Lots of people and vehicles pass the scene and, yet, no one intervenes. Given that he will have taken this route before, it seems unlikely that Kabwita would not have known of this threat and the fact that Gras is able to film the encounter without being challenged seems to suggest that this is a reconstruction designed to highlight the dangers that hard-working individuals could face from unscrupulous crooks.

As night falls, he reaches the bustling outskirts of the town. No one seems to pay him much attention, as he plods past shops and street market stalls, and he seems relieved to reach the sanctuary of his sister-in-law's house. He leaves a pair of shoes for his daughter, Divine, who is staying with her aunt while she goes to school. Kabwita decides not to see her, however, as he knows they would both cry. Rather than spend the night, therefore, he sleeps beside his bicycle on the pavement before joining the throng at the local market.

Using his charm, Kabwita persuades one woman to take two sacks for 4500 francs. But others are reluctant to pay 3500 per bag and suggest that he should lower his prices during a recession. After some lively haggling, Kabwita goes to a pharmacy to buy some diarrhoea medicine for his daughters before discovering that the metal sheeting he needs for the house roof is well out of his price range. As the day wears on, his bright yellow football shirt becomes increasingly dirty and Kabwita decides to cut his losses by selling in bulk to a man willing to pay 2000 francs a sack.

Exhausted and disappointed, Kabwita stares at a billboard bearing the image of President Joseph Kabila promising a brighter future. There seems no evidence of anything but destitution in this rundown part of town. But Kabwita finds solace in a backstreet church, where the pastor is preaching a sermon about honest men. As Kabwita looks on, the camera begins to roam around the rickety chapel and eavesdrop on the prayers of the faithful. Kabwita joins in and entreats God to keep him strong so that he can do right by his wife and children and he sings along with the hymn being belted out by the small, but committed congregation.

The following morning, Kabwita starts out for home, with some money in his pocket (providing he can get past the bandits possibly lying in wait for him) and the sure knowledge that things are not going to improve for his family or his war-torn country any time soon. It's a sober ending to a film that seems to lose its way en route to Kolwezi, as Gras appears to abandon Direct Cinema for a little vérité stage-managing. Documentarists have been calling the shots since before the pioneering days of Robert Flaherty. But the confrontation with the hoodlum, the brush with the speeding truck and the climactic religious revival meeting feel less observed than the earlier sequences showing Kabwita and Lydie going about their daily routines.

Nevertheless, this remains a potent reminder of the dire situation in DR Congo, which is ranked among the poorest nations on the planet. The sight of Lydie roasting rats should fill us all with shame. But Gras avoids hectoring. Indeed, besides allowing Gasper Claus's cello score to tug a touch insistently at times on the audience's heartstrings, this is a study in dignity and determination, as Kabwita hammers away at his tree under a cloudless sky and employs the same methods of building a charcoal oven as the Calabrian villagers in Michelangelo Frammartino's Le Quatre Volte (2010). It might have been instructive to see a bit more of Walemba to see how the family fits in and learn what other options are available for making a living. Furthermore, it would have been useful to know how many other charcoal burners there are in the vicinity, as a fair few seem to pass Kabwita on the road. But Gras is more interested in capturing lyrical impressions of the quotidian struggle than in providing a detailed work of National Geographic-like ethnography.