Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda has built his reputation on intimate studies of family life. But, while he is best known in this country for such Ozu-esque shomin-geki as Nobody Knows (2004), I Wish (2011) and Like Father, Like Son (2013), he has departed from the theme with the likes of the samurai saga, Hana (2006), and the romantic fantasy, Air Doll (2009). Indeed, even before he embarked upon the courtroom thriller, The Third Murder, he had experimented with the detective genre in After the Storm (2016). Yet, while this treatise on the quirky nature of Japanese legal procedures contains echoes of the John Grisham canon, Kore-eda still manages to address his trademark concern with domestic affairs and the often fractious relationships between parents and their children.

Having bludgeoned his boss to death with a wrench and torched his body on some rough ground on the outskirts of Tokyo, Koji Yakusho puzzles attorney Kotaro Yoshida by repeatedly changing his story. Baffled, Yoshida asks junior partner Masaharu Fukuyama to take over the case and they visit Yakusho in prison with their junior associate, Shinnosuke Mitsushima. Yakusho is pleased to see Fukuyama, as his judge father (Isao Hashizume) had spared him the death penalty when he had been convicted 30 years earlier of killing a couple of loan sharks. He tells the lawyers that he had killed his former employer after being sacked for stealing from the safe to pay his gambling debts. But Yoshida points out a fresh contradiction in his testimony, as Yakusho hands over a letter of remorse he has written to his victim's widow. Yuki Saito, and her 14 year-old daughter, Suzu Hirose.

Fukuyama and Mitsushima spot the limping Hirose at the crime scene and are taken aback when her mother rejects Yakusho's apology and their traditional gift as his legal representatives. But Fukuyama has his own daughter difficulties, as he is awoken in the middle of the night because Aju Makita has landed herself in trouble. She thanks him for fibbing on her behalf that he has been too bound up in work to be a good parent and shows him how she has taught herself to cry on cue to get out of sticky situations.

During their next visit to Yakusho, Yoshida shows him a magazine interview in which he claims to have killed Saito's husband in order to help her claim the insurance money. When asked whether he had been having an affair with Saito, Yakusho declines to give a straight answer. But he informs the lawyers that he has an e-mail message on his phone asking him to commit the crime and Fukuyama is convinced that they can bargain with the prosecution to have the charge reduced to conspiracy to murder and shift some of the blame on to Saito. But Mikako Ichikawa drives a hard bargain and accuses Fukuyama of manipulating the law to benefit his client, even though he has no real empathy with him.

This prompts Fukuyama to visit Yakusho's lodgings and he learns from his landlady that he buried his pet bird in the garden. When asked about the size of the cage, Yakusho admits that he had five birds and that one had flown away when he tried to kill them. He also reveals that he took pleasure in paying rent because he had lived at the state's expense during his time behind bars. Moreover, he surprises Fukuyama by asking about his daughter and he is more intrigued when Yoshida insists that he said nothing about Makita to the prisoner. This sets him wondering about Yakusho's relationship with Hirose and Fukuyama follows her after school to see where she goes. When she goes to the library, he notices a prospectus for the Hokkaido School of Veterinary Science on her desk.

Back at the office, Fukuyama is pleased to see Hashizume, who has brought his records from the case against Yakusho three decades earlier. He flirts with legal secretary Izumi Matsuoka and urges Mitsushima to make the most of working on such a tricky case. While preparing supper at Fukuyama's flat, Hashizume expresses his regret at not sentencing Yakusho to death, as another person has lost his life because of his decision. But Fukuyama knows his father is against capital punishment and wonders whether he is playing devil's advocate.

Keen to find out more about Yakusho from his 36 year-old daughter, Fukuyama travels to snow-covered Rumoi in Hokkaido and dreams on the train of having a snowball fight with Yakusho and his young child. However, they fail to find her and one of her friends blames the Tokyo cops for driving her away and demands to know how long children can be expected to pay for the crimes of their parents. However, Fukuyama and Mitsushima do get to meet with the cop who had arrested Yakusho in 1986 and he recalls him changing his testimony all the time before settling on a grudge defence because the loan sharks had bullied him after he had lost his job in the nearby mine and been forced to survive as best he could.

When Fukuyama and Mitsushima tell Yakusho that they failed to track down his daughter, he gets angry and declares that he has no remorse about killing Hirose's father because some people should never have been born. The religious Mitsushima challenges his assertion, while Fukuyama takes exception to Yakusho's contention that the law has equal disregard for human life in the way it dishes out death sentences. Over supper at the office, Fukuyama and Mitsushima discuss the change in Yakusho's personality during the interview and wonder how reliable he will be in front of a jury.

Curious to know more about Yakusho's relationship with Hirose, Fukuyama follows her after school and breaks the news that Yakusho's own daughter suffered from a problem with her leg. Hirose had been born with hers, but tells people that she damaged the limb in a fall from the factory roof. Meanwhile, Saito is disturbed by the rumours circulating that she had been Yakusho's lover and she reminds Hirose that she had put money into his bank account because he was helping with a cover up at the food factory and not because they were involved or because she was paying him to murder her husband. As Hirose cooks supper, Saito reminds her to say nothing at the trial about either the way the factory operates or the way her father had treated her.

That night, Fukuyama chats with Makita on the phone and she asks if he will come to her aid if she gets into trouble in the future. In his cell, Yakusho feasts on the peanut butter that Hirose has sent him. When they meet next day, he is in combative mood and asks Fukuyama whether he believes in the defence strategy they have concocted for him and inquires whether he wants to know the truth. Yet, when Fukuyama prompts him to reveal the real motive for the crime, Yakusho launches into a diatribe about the unfairness of life that leaves him facing a murder rap when his blameless parents and wife died before their time. Once again, Fukuyama is confused by his client and can't decide whether he is taking the blame to protect his victim's family or whether he is trying to avenge fate.

On the first day of the trial, Yakusho is led into court in cuffs and chains. He is accused of murder, burglary and mutilation and Hirose looks on in some dismay as her mother insists that she had not coerced him into killing her husband in return for a percentage of the insurance money. She also looks uneasy when Saito claims that the message to Yakusho on her phone had been sent by her husband and probably related to a work order rather than a grand conspiracy. Following the recess, Hirose asks to see Fukuyama and Yoshida and she intimates that her father had been sexually abusing her and that Yakusho had come to her defence after her mother had chosen to turn a blind eye. That night, Fukuyama envisages a scene in which Hirose had led her father to the banks of the Tama River so that Yakusho could attack him and he imagines the pair of them watching the body burn after they had taken it in turns to strike him with the wrench.

Uneasy in his mind, Fukuyama goes to visit Yakusho in the middle of the night. He asks if he murdered Hirose's father because he had been raping her. But he denies killing him at all and claims never to have been to the riverbank in his life. When Fukuyama presses him about the stolen wallet and the 500,000 yen in his account, he claims to have been threatening to expose the fact that the factory was selling cheap flour as a luxury item. He also avers that he burnt his hand lighting a bonfire the day before the crime and that he had sent the money to his daughter to atone for being such a poor father. Fukuyama asks whether Yakusho had viewed Hirose as a surrogate child, but he states that she is something of a fantasist and that she is forever making up stories.

Yakusho decides to take his chance with the jury because he would rather stay in jail and not have to worry about the petty details of everyday existence. Accepting his choice, Fukuyama confers with Yoshida and Mitsushima about their tactics. As there were no witnesses to the crime, the prosecution only had Yakusho's confession as evidence and he insists he was persuaded to plead guilty in order to avoid the death penalty. Yoshida fears he will change his story again and make them look foolish, while Mitsushima can't understand why they aren't willing to make more of Hirose's allegations against her father. However, he is shocked when Fukuyama declares that some people deserve to die and Yoshida concludes that the judge will find against them because they have failed to make Yakusho face up to the enormity of his offence. But Fukuyama feels he has a duty to his client to take him at his word and use that version of the truth in his defence.

The next morning, Fukuyama convinces Hirose not to testify that Yakusho was trying to protect her. Although disappointed at not being able to help him, she agrees. But the court is thrown into disarray when Yakusho admits only to stealing the wallet and the legal teams are sent out to discuss the turn of events. The judge is reluctant to call a mistrial and begin again and the prosecution team realise this change of heart makes it easier for them to establish that Yakusho has shown no remorse for his crime. Thus, much to Mitsushima's bemusement, they agree to continue with the current trial and, when he questions Fukuyama and Yoshida for not making a stance, they explain that the judge gave clear signals that he had reached his verdict already and would not be changing it under any circumstances.

Despite being sentenced to death, Yakusho thanks Fukuyama for his efforts and avoids making eye contact with Hirose as he leaves the court. She asks Fukuyama who gives someone the right to judge and sentence another and his shoulders droop when he realises he doesn't have an adequate response when she asserts that everyone involved with the case has told lie after lie. He hopes Yakusho will be more forthcoming when he visits him in prison. At peace because a bird has been perching on the branch outside his window, Yakusho is unwilling to allay any suspicions. Instead, he declares that he wishes he had never been born. Yet, if he had killed Hirose's father to spare her further misery, he would have done something useful for someone he cares about. But, as his face is superimposed on Fukuyama's on the glass panel separating them, he refuses to confirm or deny his motives or his actions.

This sense of ambiguity will delight as many as it frustrates, as Kore-eda examines the nature of truth and its place in the Japanese legal system. Having become intrigued by the workings of the courts, he spent many months collaborating with lawyers and workshopping scenarios before writing his script that has an insider feel. But, while this bears a passing similarity to Chaitanya Tamhane's Court (2016), it is also rooted firmly in Kore-eda's own canon, as he explores four different sets of father-child relationships, as well as one key mother-daughter connection. In each case, the parent fails to protect their offspring, with Yakusho and Fukuyama feeling guilty for neglecting their troubled teenage daughters and Saito and her dead husband betraying their duty of trust to Hirose. The dynamic between Hashizume and Fukuyama is trickier to fathom, as the son has clearly followed the father's profession. But there's an uneasiness to their scenes together, as though Fukuyama resents Hashizume for the high expectations that the latter evidently feels have not been met.

Throughout this meticulously made drama, Kore-eda poses provocative questions about the rituals and strategies dictating the dispensing of justice in Japan. But he also teases out a whodunit strand, which is ably played by the admirable cast. As always, Kore-eda adopts a humanist stance in delineating his characters, with the result that the action is largely driven by the Renoirian maxim about everyone having their reasons. Yet there is nothing platitudinous about the proceedings, which play out at a leisurely pace that is reinforced by Kore-eda's use of Takimoto Mikiya's widescreen frame and Ludovico Einaudi's insinuating score. But the Bergmanesque merging of Fukuyama and Yakusho's faces on the partition glass strains to convey the extent to which the two men overlap.

Despite the fact that China has been churning out animated features and series since the 1980s, they have made markedly less of an impact in this country than those from Japan and South Korea. However, Liu Jian's Have a Nice Day seems set to reach a wider audience than his debut outing, Piercing I (2010), with its blend of noir, satire and social critique being couched in a rough-and-ready variation on the claire-ligne graphic style.

Opening with a quote from Leo Tolstoy's Resurrection about spring defying all urban efforts to blot it out, the story begins in a rundown part of an unnamed southern Chinese city. Needing money to pay for an operation to repair fiancée Yan Zi's botched plastic surgery, construction site driver Xiao Zhang (Zhu Changlong) steals one million yuen from bagman Lao Zao (Cao Kai), who works for gangster Uncle Liu (Yang Siming). He is busy torturing childhood friend and successful artist Fang Yuanjun (Liu Jian) who once wet the bed during a sleepover, but places a call to butcher-cum-assassin Skinny (Ma Xiaofeng) to recover the money and teach Zhang a lesson.

Having ditched his car and phone on a deserted road beside a statue of a saluting policeman, Zhang checks into the railway hotel. He eats in a shabby restaurant owned by Second Sister (Zheng Yi) before heading to the Integrity Internet Café to inform Yan Zi that they can go to South Korea for her surgery. However, Yellow Eye (Cao Kou) had been suspicious when Zhang had paid for his meal with a red 100 yuen banknote and he chloroforms him while he dozes at his computer terminal and bundles him in the back of his van.

Meanwhile, Uncle Liu continues to toy with Yuanjun, while sidekick A De (Shi Haito) has a go at painting. Yuanjun tries to appease his old friend by offering him all the pictures in his studio. But Uncle Liu mocks him by revealing that he turned him into a success by inflating the prices of his paintings on the art market and now he intends punishing him for sleeping with his wife. As he contemplates his next move, Yellow Eye and Second Sister drive home with their ill-gotten gains. He has designed a pair of X-ray specs and explains how he wants to use the money to fulfil his boyhood dream of becoming an inventor. However, he triggers a speed camera and is electrocuted when he tries to destroy it with a hammer.

Fresh from hearing Donald Trump claiming victory on the car radio, Skinny arrives at the Integrity to find the hotel key Zhang had left on the desk. He also discovers that he is still online to Yan Zi and sends a message asking her to meet him at the hotel. As her face is still too swollen, her mother (Wu Wu) calls niece Ann Ann (Zhu Hong) to ask her to find out what is going on, as she is worried that Zhang has done something stupid. Ann Ann is hanging out with long-haired pool table manager Wu Lidu (Wang Da), who has promised to take her on a trip when he can afford a cool motorcycle. As they speed across town, Uncle Liu reassures Buddhist monk Brother Biao (Yang Yuexin) that he will recover the money, while Skinny takes up residence in Zhang's room. He has come round and driven back to the Integrity. But, in forcing a user out of his seat, he incurs the wrath of a pair of student slackers (Zhang Renwen and Wu Qicheng), who knock him out with a glass bottle.

They had been chatting about going to university in Britain, but one tells the other that there is no point after Brexit and that the biggest players in the computer business as college dropouts like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Ann Ann also has big plans to raise pigs in Shangri-La and, as she goes up in the lift at the Railway Business Hotel, she imagines herself starring in a video for the Bridge North New Village Singing Contest, which takes its graphical cues from classic Communist poster art. When they enter Room 301, however, Skinny is waiting for them and knocks the cleaver out of Lidu's hand and incapacitates Ann Ann by spraying something in her eyes.

While Ann Ann and Lidu sleep it off in the corner, Skinny plays with his phone while waiting for Zhang. He comes round at the Integrity and makes his way back to the hotel. Brandishing a knife, he tiptoes into the room, only to be overpowered by Skinny. Flinching, Zhang says he only stole the money to help his girlfriend and he is only marrying her because his mother wants grandchildren. Skinny is touched that Zhang is such a devoted son and offers to introduce him to a plastic surgeon friend and get him a discount if he returns the money. But Zhang has no idea where it is and seizes a chance when Skinny answers his phone to stab him in the abdomen. Enraged, Skinny beats Zhang to a pulp before falling back on the bed to call Uncle Liu for help.

Meanwhile, Second Sister has gone to see pregnant sister Cuifang (Haochen Li) to give her some money. Her husband, Li Er (Liu Jan), has started a new job as a security guard at the construction site and he chats with Zhao about whether God is superior to Buddha. They also discuss liberty and Li Er says that there are three kinds of freedom - farmer's market, supermarket and online market. However, they are interrupted by Cuifang looking for Li Er to give Second Sister a lift back to town. As Zhao is heading that way, he offers her a ride. But he has recognised the bag of money and is trying to wrestle it from her grasp when they crash.

Uncle Liu and An De are also on the road (with the half-naked Yuanjun trussed up in the boot). They stop to allow An De to beat up a flashy motorist who had zoomed past them in his Land Rover. Meanwhile, a dog pees on Yellow Eye, who wakes up and wanders back into town. He barges into Room 301 and takes Zhang's recumbent body and speeds away with a furious Skinny limping after him. As Yellow Eyes drives on, he runs into Uncle Liu, who has stopped with An De after spotting Zhao's crashed car. They had been discussing why things were going so wrong today and why Skinny would waste his hard-earned money sending his daughter to college in America. But, with Uncle Liu twitching helplessly in the gutter, Yellow Eye confronts An De, who has just spotted the bag on money in Zhao's car.

Removing the head from his mallet, Yellow Eye stabs An De in the forehead and he falls down dead. Turning to the car, Yellow Eye smashes in the passenger window and is about to reach in for the bag when he turns to see Skinny hurtling towards him with his foot to the floor. A thudding crash is matched with a crack of thunder, as the rain pours down on the scene. Zhang comes round on the back seat of Yellow Eye's vehicle and staggers on to the road. As he looks round, he sees the bag of money. But any hope he has of getting off scot-free are dashed by the post-credit image of Uncle Liu lifting himself on to all fours.

While the credits roll to a Shanghai Restoration Project song that includes a reference to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, most viewers will still be pinned back in their seats after the rollercoaster ride they have just witnessed. With so many twists and contrivances to stuff in, the Tarantinoesque plot has little room for characterisation. But Liu Jian finds time for the odd philosophical reflection and lots of sly allusions to life outside China that range from namechecks for Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather trilogy (1972-90) and quotations from Steve Jobs to poster images of Sylvester Stallone and Lionel Messi. He also passes some daringly overt comments on Chinese society, with its obsessions with speculation, acquisition and gratification prompting those at either end of the ladder to operate outside the law.

At times, the animation is a little pedestrian, as Liu Jian relies heavily on static backdrops and impassive faces. But the settings are detailed and evocatively stylised, while the characters have a no-nonsense quality that often recalls those in Mike Judge's Beavis and Butt-head cartoons. Adding to the mix is a David Liang score that is equally eclectic in its maverick style, although it's at its best parodying revolutionary model opera during the gleeful parody of Mao-era propaganda that typifies the picture's postmodernist cynicism.

Although British cinema has a decent track record when it comes to films about immigrants, it has yet to produce anything truly memorable about the current migrant crisis. It could be argued that Paul King's Paddington (2014) and Francis Lee's God's Own Country address the key issues with a palatable sweetness that also informed Aki Kaurismäki's The Other Side of Hope, while being most decidedly absent from Michael Haneke's Happy End (all 2017). In Gholam, however, Tehran-born photographer-cum-film-maker Mitra Tabrizian opts for a brand of stylised grittiness that occasionally makes it feel like a social realist remake of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976). Marking her feature debut after the shorts The Third Woman (1991), Journey of No Return (1993) and The Predator (2004) - as well as a number of photographic exhibitions, including `Veil' at Modern Art Oxford in 2003 - this gives the viewer plenty to think about before taking a frustratingly formulaic generic turn in the final third.

Exiled from his native Iran in 2011, Shahab Hosseini drives a taxi at night and works in fellow émigré Behrouz Behnejad's garage during the day. He sleeps in a poky bedsit with mould stains on the walls, where he keeps his meagre earnings in a metal tin and has long phone calls with his ailing mother back home. She urges him to see plenty of his uncle, Russell Parsi, who owns the restaurant, where he eats most of his meals. Auntie Soudabeh Farrokhnia always offers his food on the house, but Hosseini insists on paying and always offers encouragement to nephew Armin Karima, who has ambitions to become a rapper.

One night, a well-heeled passenger is so cross at being dropped at the corner rather than outside his door that he takes Hosseini's number and reports him to the cops. He's detained for questioning and has his pay docked by boss Philip Herbert for having his radio switched off. The next night, he tries to help Afro-Caribbean pensioner Corinne Skinner-Carter when she drops some oranges while crossing the road. But, while she is grateful for his assistance, she refuses a free lift home.

As he leaves the restaurant one lunchtime, Hosseini is recognised by  customer Hossin Pakzad, who tells companion Nasser Memarzia that he served alongside him in the Iranian army. He remembers him being young and fearless and asks Hosseini's auntie for his name. Karima is intrigued to learn that his uncle was a war hero and asks for details of his exploits. But Hosseini merely jokes that he was persuaded to become a warrior by a dog he'd befriended that wagged its tail when it was patted by an Iraqi prisoner. Moreover, he has nothing to do with Memarzia when he pays a call on the garage.

Meanwhile, Hosseini bumps into Skinner-Carter in the launderette and insists on giving her a lift to the cemetery when he passes her with a bunch of flowers one wet afternoon. She tries to pay for the ride, but he refuses to take any money and is punished again by his boss, who tells him that he will lose the job unless he bucks his ideas up. When he calls round to check on the old lady a few days later, neighbour Tracie Bennett says she is feeling low and misses her grandson, who was killed by a gang of white thugs. Perhaps with this in mind, Hosseini stands up to a customer who refuses to pay the full fare and launches at him with a broken beer bottle. But news of the incident reaches control and Hosseini is fired.

With the radio news centring on the Arab Spring protests, Hosseini feels the need to pay a call on Memarzia, even though he isn't convinced that he has much to offer his cause. They walk under the streetlights deep in conversation, but Hosseini decides not to get involved and Memarzia is furious and informs Pakzad that it would be dangerous to allow Hosseini to remain at large in case he betrays them. He tries to reassure his leader that Hosseini is a good man, but Memarzia seems unconvinced.

Forced to mooch around with little work at the garage to keep him occupied, Hosseini goes for long walks in rundown parts of the neighbourhood and strikes up a friendship with corner shop owner, Amerjit Deu, who tries to sell him some drugs with his pint of milk. Hosseini also takes Skinner-Carter some grapes and finds her potting plants in the back garden. She asks about his family back home and he spots a pair of her grandson's trainers in the undergrowth. He also wanders past the floodlight skateboard part, where Karima hangs out with his pals. His cousin tries to persuade Parsi to give Hosseini a job, but he protests that times are too hard to take people on out of charity - a sentiment echoed by Farrokhnia when, for once, Hosseini takes her up on her offer of free food.

Pakzad comes to warn Hosseini that Memarzia is not a man to be messed with, but he is confident he can look after himself. Parsi similarly shows up at the garage and informs Hosseini that his mother is trying to raise the money for him to come home. But he has long since stopped trusting his uncle and fobs him off with excuses, as he has no intention of leaving London, even though things are not exactly going swimmingly. When he returns to his bedsit, he finds a scarfaced man waiting for him in the dark. He rises from his chair and puts a gun to his head. But it's only a nightmare and Hosseini wakes with a start.

He calls his mother and asks her to stop trying to raise money for his passage home and promises that he will sort things out for himself. Removing his savings from his tin, he goes to Parsi's restaurant, but thinks better of going inside and gives Karima a hug when he bumps into him on the pavement. He heads to the pub where thugs Lee Long, Lewis Allcock and Matt Collins hang out and lures them on to a patch of wasteland, where he gives them a pasting. Bennett reads the newspaper story to Skinner-Carter, who wonders whether Hosseini has dispensed some vigilante justice to the gang that had killed her grandson, only for them to be released for a lack of evidence.

Hosseini goes into hiding and Behnejad is worried about him, while Memarzia becomes more nervous than ever that the police will investigate Hosseini and discover his connection to their cell. He leaves his savings in the desk at Behnejad's place and returns home to tend to the knife wounds on his arm. Ignoring his friend when he knocks on the door and slips under a note, Hosseini goes to the 7/11 to buy some bandages and milk. As he crosses the road, however, he is killed by a single shot from a speeding car that could either belong to Long or Memarzia.

Wonderfully atmospheric in its depiction of a lesser-seen side of London, this is also a thoughtful study of isolation and alienation in neighbourhoods devoid of community spirit. Even though Hosseini moves among exiles, they don't see eye to eye and it's deflating to see the reasonably well integrated Karima glorying in past conflicts in his ancestral region. Similarly, the lack of a bond between Hosseini and his uncle and aunt contrasts with his easy friendship with Behnejad, an academic who has been forced to fixing cars to make a living. However, his backstory is as vague as everyone else's, as Tabrizian and co-scenarist Cyrus Massoudi keep Hosseini's past as mysterious as Memarzia's cause.

Having shared the Best Actor prize at Berlin for Asghar Farhadi's A Separation (2011) and won the same award at Cannes for Farhadi's The Salesman (2016), Hosseini represents quite a casting coup and he delivers a compelling performance. His early scenes in the cab seem to reference such landmark Iranian pictures as Abbas Kiarostami's Ten (2002) and Jafar Panahi's Taxi Tehran (2015). But the whiff of Scorsese becomes more pungent after he loses his job and decides somewhat improbably to punish the hoodlums who got away with murder. Like the majority of the white characters (and, it has to be said, the black and Asian ones, too), these are poorly drawn caricatures and clumsily tip the denouement into clichéd crime territory.

Even so, Dewald Aukema's views of the nocturnal streets are unsettlingly evocative, even when Hosseini is hanging out at a snack bar or outside Deu's store. He photographs the overgrown footpaths and busy thoroughfares with equal acuity, while production designer Stéphane Collonge nails the dank shabbiness of Hosseini's bedsit. The scenes of him killing time because there is nowhere he feels he belongs are particularly well done. However, they also make the resort to noirish melodramatics all the more disappointing.

A single mother has to come to terms with major changes in her life in I Got Life!, (aka Aurore and Fifty Springtimes), Blandine Lenoir's follow-up to the much-admired Zouzou (2014). Exploring how modern Frenchwomen approach middle age, this would fit neatly into a triple bill with Mia Hansen-Løve's Things to Come and Anne-Gaëlle Daval's De Plus Belle. But, while Lenoir and co-scribe Jean-Luc Gaget offer some thoughtful insights into the ageing process, they over-rely on comic set-pieces that don't always flow organically from the narrative.

La Rochelle waitress Agnès Jaoui has hit 50 and slammed straight into the menopause. She can just about put up with the hot flushes, but she is shaken by doctor Marc Citti's verdict that women's bodies start going downhill after 30. Husband Philippe Rebbot clearly agrees, as he has left her for another woman, and Jaoui is dreading the prospect of younger daughter Lou Roy-Lecollinet going to university. However, when Sarah Suco announces she is pregnant, Jaoui is even less enamoured of the prospect of becoming a grandmother and clings to best friend Pascale Arbillot for morale support when she loses her job because new café owner Nicolas Chupin considers her too old-fashioned for his modernisation plans and, as a parting shot, she accuses him of molesting her when his girlfriend calls in.

Hope comes in the form of Thibault de Montalembert, who bumps into Jaoui when Arbillot is showing his niece around a flat. They were teenage sweethearts and she arranges for Suco to have her sonogram in his hospital, as part of her competition with rival grandma, Nanou Garcia. However, when they go to dinner at a Bel Canto restaurant with opera-singing waiters, they have to keep on breaking off their nostalgic reminiscences and resort to either sign language or deep, meaningful eye contact. But, even though she has another hot flush at the table, Jaoui recognises that De Monalembert still fancies her and she buys a Walkman to listen to the cassettes that he had recorded for her when he was doing his national service.

She had broken up with him while he was away and started dating his best pal, Rebbot. He has no hard feelings about Jaoui hooking up with her old flame, as the mother of his two young daughters is keen for them to get married and he asks Jaoui about a divorce. However, she is frustrated because he kept no paperwork relating to her working as his secretary-cum-bookkeeper and, thus, she is finding it difficult to compile a CV that will get her noticed. When she attends an interview seminar, she is appalled to find it is being run by Samir Guesmi, who had so annoyed Arbillot by dating a woman half his age that she had posed as his spurned spouse at a café in order to humiliate him. He exacts his revenge on Jaoui during a mock interview, although he is impressed by her ability to gauge the number of letters in any word and asks for Arbillot's phone number so he can return the wedding ring she had thrown at him.

Meanwhile, Jaoui becomes concerned that Roy-Lecollinet is going to throw away her education by going to Barcelona with her musician boyfriend, Théo Cholbi. She is also becoming increasingly perplexed by the staff at the Pôle Emploi offices, as Laura Calamy goes into a fuming rage when Jaoui tells her that Rebbot didn't issue her with payslips and Florence Muller has an even more severe hot flush than Jaoui and sends papers fluttering when she turns on a powerful desk fan. So, when De Montalembert informs her shortly after Roy-Lecollinet leaves home that he can't keep seeing her because it's bringing back too many painful memories, Jaoui sinks on to her bed and sobs.

She gets a job as a cleaner and workmate Houda Mahroug reveals that she had a high-powered job in her home country and jokingly reminds Jaoui that white, middle-aged, heterosexual women have much nicer problems than women of colour, those with disabilities and lesbians. Taking this to heart, having dozed off on the bus imagining herself singing `Habanera' from Carmen, Jaoui rouses herself with a blast of Nina Simone's `Ain't Got No, I Got Life', and imagines herself dancing with her daughters when they were little (Billie Droz and Elisa Lifshitz). She also has an unexpected sexual encounter when she joins Arbillot for dinner with friends Sébastien Lalanne, Éric Verdin, Fanny Glissant and Éric Viellard and the latter takes her back to his flat for some drunken fun.

Jaoui quickly realises that a long-term relationship would be a mistake. But, as Viellard's father is in hospital, she sticks it out and tries to distract herself with a new job cleaning for seventysomething Iro Bardis, who has opened her house to four other ladies of advancing age and slender means. She also takes a chance and attends the school reunion, where she has an awkward chat with De Montalembert and agrees with Rebbot that their old classmates have become old and dull. She returns home to find Suco in the bath, having made up after a tiff with boyfriend Pierre Giafferi. However, she finds it weird talking to her mother about sex, just as Jaoui feels odd chatting to Arbillot about her botox treatment and the fact she has started dating Guesmi.

While cleaning at the communal house, Jaoui sees militant feminist Françoise Héritier describe how men and women approach life after 50 in very different ways and the notion that she will drift towards death without courage causes her to break down and sob while scrubbing the floor. Bardis tries to console her with details of a passionate affair with a man that ended with his death three years earlier and Jaoui rises an eyebrow in impressed surprise. She is also pleased when Roy-Lecollinet comes home after being treated as a trophy by her boyfriend. But she still has the problem of Viellard (who has invited her to Venice) and De Montalembert, who has continued to blow hot and cold. So, chance intervenes on her behalf, as the latter's house burns down on the day she is about to leave for Italy and she is just about to sleep with De Montalembert when Suco goes into labour and the film ends with a close-up of Roy-Lecollinet smiling at the way everything has worked out for the best.

Full of running gags about lecherous males and faulty automatic doors, this is a breezy slice of arthouse lite. As always, Agnès Jaoui is splendid, as she tries to put her best foot forward even though she has no idea where she is heading. But the suggestion that feeling desired again is the solution to her problems seems a trivial contrivance and one that flies in the face of the recurring references to the theories of Françoise Héritier.

The asides on the shortcomings of the Pôle Emploi agency dedicated to helping the unemployed find job satisfaction are somewhat sharper, but Lenoir always seems more intent on making the audience smile than in making grand existential statements or in putting the world to rights. Thus, even though many of the secondary characters are sketchily drawn and the resolution feels cornily trite, this is never anything less than engaging, sincere and optimistic.


Only a handful of features have been made on the Channel Islands. A number centre on the wartime occupation by the Nazis and range from Ralph Thomas's charming comedy, Appointment With Venus (1951), through standard actioners like Terence Young's Triple Cross (1966) and Clive Rees's The Blockhouse (1973) to Paul Campion's supernatural chiller, The Devil's Rock (2011), and Christopher Menaul's tribute to resistance heroine Louisa Gould, Another Mother's Son (2017). Among the other disparate titles set or filmed on Guernsey and Jersey are Michael Anderson's The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959), Seth Holt's Danger Route (1967), Alejandro Amenábar's The Others (2001), István Szabó's Being Julia (2004) and Graham Fallows's mockumentary, Southern Softies (2009). Now Coz Greenop's Dark Beacon can be added to this exclusive list.

Several months after her lover suddenly disappeared, April Pearson tracks her down to La Corbiéthe, a lighthouse on a tidal island near St Brelade on the south-western edge of Jersey. Hoping to have left her old life behind, Lynne Anne Rodgers is less than pleased to see Pearson. But the sounding of the alarm means that she would not be able to make it back across the causeway before the tide comes in and Rodgers reluctantly invites Pearson to spend the night.

Despite expecting a cool reception, Pearson is surprised to see Rodgers snap at her mute daughter, Kendra Mei, while making a fish supper. But, while they chat more amicably on the lighthouse balcony after Rodgers puts Mei to bed, Pearson notices how frequently her friend takes a slug on a half bottle of whisky. Waking in the night with the sensation that she is not alone in her room, Pearson wanders into the kitchen for a glass of water and sees Rodgers sleeping on the sofa. As she drinks, she feels Rodgers standing beside her and their fingers touch before Pearson senses that Rodgers is holding back and she pulls away and returns to bed.

The following morning, Rodgers gives Mei a lesson on erosion and Pearson questions her home-schooling methods. However, Rodgers spots a figure lurking beneath the cliffs and urges the others to return to the lighthouse as quickly as possible. Pearson is puzzled by her erratic behaviour. So, when Rodgers has a nap, she uses a hairpin to open the door to a locked room. Mei appears behind her and they look around the bric-a-brac stored in the room. Pearson recognises a photograph of Rodgers's husband, Toby Osmond, but thinks nothing untoward about it.

Noticing that Rodgers has vanished, Pearson ventures on to the viewing platform and sees her friend on the cliff edge. Rushing over the rocks, Pearson ducks down to prevent Rodgers from seeing her and is surprised to find that she has disappeared again, leaving a rope dangling into the sea. On returning to the lighthouse, Pearson hears Rodgers coming in behind her with a pair of crabs for dinner. Rodgers lets her know that she doesn't appreciate her snooping and Pearson feels hurt, as she is only trying to help her. She suggests leaving this godforsaken spot, but Rodgers insists she prefers being far from the madding crowd.

Pearson has a shower and notices a drawing of a hooded figure standing over a dead dog that Mei has scrawled on the tiles. As she had spotted feeding bowls, Pearson is perplexed and she becomes even more agitated when she realises that Mei is not in the lighthouse. Despite being the worse for drink, Rodgers snaps into action and they find the child kneeling beside the body of her slaughtered pet. That night, she wets the bed and, when Rodgers and Pearson come to her room to check on her, they are astonished when she lets out a piercing scream.

They take Mei to see doctor Jon Campling, who conducts some tests. He reassures them that she has calmed down, but suggests that they keep an eye on her for a few days. Campling can see no reason why Mei can't talk and urges Rodgers to let her mix with children of her own age. Back at the lighthouse, Rodgers is spooked to find the front door open and she goes from room to room with a knife. She accuses Pearson of breaking into the boxroom and flinches when her friend reminds her that her husband is dead and poses no threat to her. Rodgers promises Mei that they are safe, but she seems far from convinced.

Returning from burying the dog, Pearson finds Mei standing over her slumbering mother brandishing a knife. Waking with a start, Rodgers realises her daughter is in a trance and tries to coax her into letting go of the blade. However, Mei cuts deep into the palm of Rodgers's hand and runs to her room clutching the gold ring she had found among her father's belongings. Pearson goes to console her and confides that she also thinks she has found someone prowling around the island.

At this point, we flashback to a party some months before. Osmond spots Rodgers and Pearson smooching on the patio and accuses his wife of being too selfish to be a wife and mother. He talks her into leaving the gathering and having a heart-to-heart looking out to sea. Rodgers pleads with him to give her a second chance, but he cites the Halo Effect in lamenting that she uses her looks and charm to dupe people into believing she's perfect. He almost feels sorry for Pearson because she has also been fooled by Rodgers's façade. But he knows that she's a controlling, narcissistic drunk and he suddenly grabs her by the hand and jumps her off the cliff. She struggles in the water and her ring sinks to the bottom, as she swims for the surface and Osmond drowns.

Pearson dresses the wound on Rodgers's hand and pleads with her to leave the lighthouse and return to the mainland with her. She reminds her that this is Osmond's house and that she is torturing herself with the associations. Snapping to her senses, Rodgers seems to agree and barges into the boxroom with a bin bag, whose contents she torches in a metal dustbin. When Pearson comes to check on her, Rodgers panics that Mei has been left alone indoors and rushes back her room. She notices she is trying to hide the wedding ring and snaps at her for disobeying orders to keep out of the locked room.

As Rodgers goes on to the rocks (seemingly oblivious to the spectral figure at the other end of the beach), Pearson climbs under Mei's quilt and tells her that her nurse mother also had a drinking problem and reassures Mei that she knows how it feels to see the person you love most in the world slowly becoming somebody you no longer recognise. In order to relax, Pearson takes a bath. But, as she dozes in the tub, Osmond materialises and forces her head under the suddenly black water. Hearing the commotion, Mei runs to the door, but is unable to call her mother for help.

Rodgers realises something is amiss and breaks down the bathroom door to see the sea-ravaged ghost of her late husband standing before her. He follows her into the bedroom and the door slams shut, as Pearson resurfaces in the bath. Dressing quickly, she grabs Mei and ventures into the corridor in time to see the bedroom door open and Rodgers turn round to face her. Clutching a bottle, she sinks to her knees and asks her lover to help her. They kiss passionately. But Rodgers bites Pearson's tongue and she reels away in horror, as she suspects that Osmond has possessed her. However, she knows from past experience that it's the drink that has taken over her friend and she grabs the carving knife to protect herself.

As the tide alarm sounds from the island, Pearson beckons Mei to her side and they make a break for the causeway when Rodgers lurches forwards and is stabbed in the stomach. Reeling from the loss of blood, she tries to give chase. But the water laps over the concrete and she is swept away to be greeted by her drowned spouse. Watching on in terror, Pearson reaches the shore with Mei draped around her. However, any thoughts that they are safe when they return to the city are quickly dashed when Pearson collects Mei from school and she hears the child greeting her mother in the backseat.

British cinema has a long tradition of lighthouse chiller stretching back to Michael Powell's The Phantom Light (1935), Roy Boulting's Thunder Rock (1942) and Jim O'Connolly's Tower of Evil (1972) and coming forward to Simon Hunter's Lighthouse (1999), Craig Rosenberg's Half Light (2006) and Chris Crow's The Lighthouse (2016). Coz Greenop's sophomore outing falls somewhere in between, as it lacks the brooding atmosphere of the first three titles while demonstrating considerably more restraint than at least a couple of the others. Written with Lee Apsey, the screenplay opens with the cliff leap and makes a rather awkward return to it halfway through to suggest that Rodgers may not be quite the innocent victim she seems. However, the pair fail to generate much suspense or shock value out of the denouement, as Osmond's lurking presence lacks the requisite sense of menace, while Rodgers struggles to convey being under the influence of two kinds of malevolent spirits.

Nevertheless, Pearson makes a plucky heroine, while Mei is suitably wide-eyed and vulnerable. Moreover, the ever-dependable Haider Zafar makes splendid use of the coastal scenery, with the camera hovering on a drone above the rocks and waves around the first concrete lighthouse in the British Isles. Max Sweiry's score is also effectively understated, while the three Elcko songs that crop up in the early scenes have an eerie quirkiness that helps establish the uneasy mood.

The sea and sanity also figure prominently in Simon Rumley's Crowhurst, another account of amateur yachtsman Donald Crowhurst's doomed bid to sail around the world in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race. It follows hard on the heels of James Marsh's The Mercy. But this epic act of misguided hubris has been fascinating film-makers for five decades. In addition to factual studies like Colin Thomas's Donald Crowhurst - Sponsored for Heroism (1970), Jill Evans's The Two Voyages of Donald Crowhurst (1993) and Jerry Rothwell and Louise Osmond's Deep Water (2006), there have also been a clutch of feature films about Crowhurst's exploits, including Peter Rowe's Horse Latitudes (1975), Christian De Chalonge's The Roaring Forties (1982) and Nikita Orlov's Race of the Century (1986), They have also inspired a number of stage plays, a couple of video installations and an opera. But few have succeeded in getting inside of Crowhurst's deteriorating mind with such immediacy as this low-budget offering, which has been executive produced by Nicolas Roeg, who had also tried to film the story in the 1970s.

Opening with Donald Crowhurst (Justin Salinger) breaking down on learning from press agent Rodney Hallworth (Christopher Hale) that he is the last man standing in the 1968-69 Golden Globe Race, the story flashes back to show Donald struggling to sell his Navicator invention and being informed by bank manager Barry Sanderson (Hugh Hayes) that he will not be extended further credit. Wife Clare (Amy Loughton) commiserates before urging Donald to get a proper job. But, over breakfast one weekend, he spots the Sunday Times announcement of a £5000 prize for the fastest time in the race it proposes to sponsor and, inspired by the feats of Francis Chichester, he believes he can win the cash and earn himself a knighthood into the bargain.

Denied a loan by Sanderson, Donald seeks sponsors and attracts the attention of Hallworth, who suggests that a number of Teignmouth businesses would be interesting in backing his expedition. Among them is caravan salesman Stanley Best (Glyn Dilley), who is intrigued by the revolutionary trimaran that Donald intends fitting with a self-righting buoyancy aid of his own design. However, Best's contract terms are punishingly stringent and will cost Donald his home if he fails to complete the race. But, ignoring the advice of his lawyer, he signs and puts his own ambition before the security of Claire and their four children, Simon (Haydn May), James (Marcus May), Roger (Austin May) and Rachel (Agatha Cameron Kettle).

As Donald prepares Teignmouth Electron, John Ridgway (Gavin Nolan) and Chay Blyth (Christopher Davies) are disqualified by the race organisers and he is in good spirits as he conducts trial runs and is interviewed by local TV reporter, Peter Porter (Edwin Flay). Clare has her misgivings, however, and is lukewarm in her enthusiasm, as Hallworth secures deals to get Donald free provisions for the duration. She does provide a shoulder to cry on, however, after Donald is frustrated by a series of delays that prompt increasingly angry phone calls. But, with just seven hours to spare, he leaves Devon in October to a chorus of `Land of Hope and Glory' from the small band of well-wishers on the quay.

Silence descends as Donald becomes accustomed to his new isolation. He performs his morning ablutions, makes tea and boils baked beans with just the creaking of the boat and the sound of the sea for company. His routines quickly become monotonous, as he washes plates and pans in his pump action sink and almost welcomes a problem with the rudder, as it gives him something to do besides standing on the deck and gazing at the horizon. When not eating joylessly solitary meals, he updates his logbook and charts and sends Morse messages to shore. He finally speaks aloud to curse the lack of a hose to pump water out of the hold after a rough night and he is forced to use a plaster baler and a bucket. Aware that much worse is still to come, Donald confides in his journal that he is breaking his vow to Clare to continue only if everything is shipshape.

While Donald doubts the pumps will be good enough to get him through the Roaring Forties, Porter announces that Alex Carozzo (Philip Perry) has been airlifted from his boat suffering from severe stomach ulcers. The news has little impact on Donald, however, as he informs Hallworth during a radio telephone call that he thinks the boat is ill-suited to its task and that he fears he will not be able to complete the race. Poring over his maps, Donald declares it would be suicide to continue. But, a rousing rendition of `Jerusalem' - which is concluded by Donald after lines are taken by his various supporters in a parodic patriotic montage -  just about keeps his spirits afloat. 

War veteran Bill King (Richard Lee) is the next to call it quits after he capsizes, while Loick Fougeron (Nicky Jordan) sought refuge on St Helena. But, while experiencing distorted recollections of dancing at home with Clare and having nightmares about fish floundering on his bunk, Donald hits upon a way of salvaging his pride by laying low off the coast of Argentina for a few months and then rejoining the race in last place. He would fudge his records in the hope that nobody took too close a look at the doodlings of a gallant loser. This way, he would keep the house and avoid bankruptcy, while also being able to exploit the British love of a trier.

Re-energised by his ploy, Donald sends a series of newsworthy messages to Hallworth, who blitzes the papers with stories of record distances and bulldog bravery. Donald also resigns himself to four months of radio silence to prevent his call signals being traced to the South Atlantic. Yet, as the children sing `Silent Night' at Christmas, Donald and Clare struggle to keep their emotions in check during the cross-cut second verse, as he smiles sadly and she nurses a glass of red wine in growing consternation (although the hardships she endured that were chronicled in The Mercy are absent here). He cooks himself a hearty lunch and laughs at the joke in his cracker before toasting the Queen and calling home. The children burble happily, but he nearly cracks when Clare asks where he is because he knows is having to lie to her.

Keeping Hallworth at bay proves less stressful, as Donald ignores demands for weekly updates to keep the press onboard. Instead, the becalmed sailor plays himself at chess and dangles his toes in the warm water. He even resorts to flicking baked beans over the side and making drunken recordings for radio broadcast. Moreover, he also keeps having nightmares of fish invading his cabin and one scream of anguish is continued by his wife, children and press agent. But worse comes when he discovers a hole in the vessel and he fears that he will be exposed, as he is uncertain he can survive long enough for him to fake his return around Cape Horn.

He lands on a remote beach in Argentina and is provided with the means to repair his craft by Santiago Franchessi (Lewis Nicolas) and his wife, Lucille (Myrian Oje-Da Patino). While dancing a drunken tango with the latter, however, Donald imagines himself with Clare and is pushed to the floor by a shocked hostess when he tries to kiss her. As Clare haltingly sings `I Vow to Thee My Country', Donald smashes a telephone receiver in frustration at not being able to speak to his wife and confess that he has messed up. But he remains locked in his lie and returns to the race that has just been won by Robin Knox-Johnson (Michael Harkin), who becomes the first man to sail single-handed around the world without stopping. However, the prize for the fastest time is still up for grabs between Donald, Nigel Tetley (Chris Poole) and Bernard Moitessier (Chris Wilkinson).

The screen splits into four and the images assume a bluish tinge, as Donald tries to come to terms with the fact that he just might get away with his scam. A cacophonous version of `Rule Britannia' plays on the soundtrack, as he struggles to remain in control. He decides to come out of hiding and sends Hallworth a progress report, which is passed to the relieved Crowhurst family. But Donald is pushed closer to the edge when he learns that Moitessier has withdrawn from the race in order to sail around the world for a second time. Suddenly, the prospect of winning returns and Donald is crushed by the dread of being exposed as a fraud. The music becomes more distorted on the soundtrack, the quarters of the split screen take on different hues and Donald's face contorts in close-up, as he tortures himself with the prospect that getting home alive may no longer be an option.

His worst fears are realised when Tetley sinks within touching distance of the finishing line. As his family cheers and Hallworth chats on the phone like a sinister figure in an acid dream, Donald succumbs to despair. His image fragments into dozens of tiny split screens, as he buries his head in his jumper and begins to spout wild philosophical ramblings. The screen changes colour with each new rant, as he declares that by learning to manipulate the space-time continuum, he shall become God and disappear from this physical universe. Scribbling frantically in his notebooks, he reveals the extent of his creeping madness until he concludes with the famous words: `It is finished. It is finished. It is…The Mercy.'

Regaining his composure, Donald lowers the sails, shaves and dresses in a shirt and tie before standing on the deck in the moonlight some time in July 1969. He starts singing `God Save the Queen' and, as he continues through the mostly unheard verses, we see him tiptoeing through the house to kiss each child, as they sleep. They wake as he leaves the room and congregate on their mother's bed after she has also received her farewell embrace. This would be a poignant way to end, as their suffering while awaiting news must have been every bit as excruciating as Donald's descent into despair. But Rumley opts to show stills of the wreckage of Teignmouth Electron on the beach of Cayman Brac before closing on Crowhurst signing his life away in Stanley Best's office. After all, this was the moment that his fate was sealed.

A former critic who already has such noteworthy credits as The Living and the Dead (2006), Red, White & Blue (2010) and Fashionista (2016) on his CV, Rumley takes a sizeable stride forward with this distinctive biopic. Despite lacking the funds at Marsh's disposal, he consistently finds more innovatively visceral ways of conveying Crowhurst's state of mind as his adventure becomes a nightmare. Production designer Chris Barber, cinematographer Milton Kam and editor Agnieszka Liggett make substantial contributions, as do composer Richard Chester and sound designers Andy Walker and Vincent Watts. But it's the boldness of Rumley's use of the confined cabin space and the vastness of the ocean (actually the Bristol Channel) that reinforces the agonies being endured by the exceptional Justin Salinger.

The split screens and crash montages also make an impact. But their usage might have been a little more restrained, as hallucinatory colour changes and image distortions always feel more self-conscious than similar shifts in audio tone and timbre. Nevertheless, Rumley disconcertingly conveys Crowhurst's breakdown, while also questioning the brand of Britishness that seeks to turn a human tragedy into a source of patriotic pride. Crowhurst was clearly intoxicated with the same sense of self-delusion and it's this that lingers longest in the mind rather than the amateurish deceptions of an eccentric outsider who was out of his depth from the moment he set sail.

The producers of Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House must be on their knees thanking Donald Trump for giving chilling relevance to Peter Landesman's workaday account of how Watergate mole `Deep Throat' exacted his revenge on the Nixon administration. There was a danger this well-researched, but dramatically inert saga would have been overshadowed by Steven Spielberg's The Post, which recently revisited the story pretty much definitively told by Alan J. Pakula in All the President's Men (1976). But, by sacking former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe just a few days short of his retirement, President Trump has given hot-button status to the subject of upsetting a previously loyal jobsworth who knows where the bodies are buried.

On 11 April 1972, 203 days before the US presidential election, Mark Felt (Liam Neeson), the Deputy Associate Director of the FBI, is summoned to a meeting with White House staffers John Dean (Michael C. Hall), John Mitchell (Stephen Michael Ayers) and John Erlichmann (Wayne Père). They ask how President Richard M. Nixon would go about persuading Bureau chief J. Edgar Hoover to relinquish the post he has held for nearly four decades. They point out that both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson had wanted to remove him and hint that Felt could be rewarded handsomely for his advice. But he reminds them that he has spent 30 years passing snippets of information on key public figures like themselves for Hoover to store in his secret files. Felt reassures them that these details of their professional and private lives remain entirely safe, but the point is made that they could easily be leaked if the need arose.

Felt himself goes home to party with his wife Audrey (Diane Lane) and another couple, who tango the night away, as the booze flows. But, whatever difficulties he might have in his home life, he remains on the ball at work. Thus, when Hoover dies 178 days before the election (on 2 May), Felt has Ed Miller (Tony Goldwyn) - the Deputy Assistant Director of the Inspections Division - destroy the secret files before they can be seized by Assistant Attorney General L. Patrick Gray (Marton Csokas). He is appalled, therefore, when Nixon appoints Gray as Hoover's successor and rival G-man Bill Sullivan (Tom Sizemore) delights in Felt's failure to secure the top job, as he had done much to derail his career after he had sent compromising photographs of Martin Luther King to his wife. Felt welcomes Gray to the Bureau and warns him that he will have to earn trust as an outsider. But he also promises to remain loyal, as long as Gray remembers that the FBI is a proudly independent body and not a political football.

Audrey is furious that Felt has failed to land the top job after she has made so many sacrifices to support his career. She reels off the number of times they have had to move house and mentions the many friends she has been forced to leave behind. But Felt refuses to resign until he feels the Bureau is in safe hands.

With 133 days to go to the election (17 June), Felt is awoken in the night with the news that there has been a burglary at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate building in Washington, DC. It quickly becomes clear, as Angelo Lano (Ike Barinholtz), Charlie Bates (Josh Lucas) and Robert Kunkel (Brian d'Arcy James) start to investigate, that the thieves have connections to the Committee to Re-Elect the President and Felt orders his lieutenants to say nothing to anybody in the administration about what they know. He also tears Gray off a strip when he sees Dean in his office and reminds him that he works for the FBI and not Nixon.

When Nixon tries to find a new job for Sullivan and Gray orders Felt to close down the inquiry after 48 hours and concentrate on the terrorist activities of the Weather Underground, he has a clandestine meeting with Time magazine reporter Sandy Smith (Bruce Greenwood) and asks him to light a fire around the edges of the story, as he simply wants to warn off the White House so that the FBI can be left alone to do its job. On returning home, however, he sits in his daughter Joan (Maika Monroe)'s bedroom and flicks through her Weather Underground literature before promising Audrey that he will go against the rules and use Bureau records to track her down, as she has been missing for over a year.

Shortly afterwards, Bob Woodward (Julian Morris) and Carl Bernstein publish their first story on the Watergate break-in in The Washington Post. Panic sets in at the FBI because they suspect somebody is leaking information and Felt urges Bates, Miller and Lano to tighten security. However, Gray is also trying to gain access to all of the files pertaining to the case and pressurises Kunkel into passing them over after reassurances are made that Felt is in the loop. He isn't and he dupes Gray into betraying his duplicity and warns Kunkel that his first duty is to the Bureau and not its chief. Felt also reminds Dean that the FBI does not take orders from the Oval Office and intimates that any attempts to use Sullivan to unearth information will be frowned upon.

Having established that Attorney General Mitchell could well be involved in the Watergate case and deduced that there may be enough evidence to link Nixon, Felt battens down the hatches and attempts to conduct business as usual. A montage of news clips and chat show interviews brings us to 45 days before the election, when a terrorist attack is made in the Pentagon. Despite being concerned that Joan might be involved, Felt orders a crackdown on the group and Miller and Bates are sceptical about using such old-fashioned methods to solve a very modern problem. Meanwhile, Gray receives a demand from Nixon to close the Watergate investigation so that Mitchell can announce that the president has clean hands and can focus on his election campaign without having to keep looking over his shoulder.

Coerced into standing on the podium as Mitchell and Dean close the inquiry and clear Nixon of any wrongdoing, Felt is furious when the Democratic Party accuses the FBI of participating in a whitewash and failing to show moral leadership in a time of crisis. When Gray mentions Joan while showing him a speech he is going to give to deny FBI collusion, Felt snaps and contacts Woodward with information about the relationship between former Treasury lawyer Donald H. Segretti and Alex Shipley, the assistant attorney general of Tennessee, who had been hired to spy on the Democrats. For added atmosphere, he makes the call from a payphone outside a laundromat on a rainy night and then meets Woodward in an underground car park. He ticks him off for not making enough of the story and the reporter complains that he is drowning in detail. So, Felt goes on the record to clarify matters and, with 29 days to go before the election on 7 November, the Post accuses the White House of conducting what amounts to political warfare.

Under orders from the West Wing, Gray addresses the agents on the case. Felt makes a big deal of defending Lano and Bates gives him a sideways glance that suggests he knows that Felt is up to something. Gray appeals for the honour of the Bureau to be upheld in calling for someone to betray the Judas in their midst. But no one comes forward and Kunkel and Bates are transferred to St Louis and San Francisco respectively, as Gray tries to distance them from sensitive information.

On Election Day, Nixon wins a landslide and Felt goes drinking with Bates and Miller. He says something unguarded about putting sick bodies out of their misery and Bates is only prevented from asking an awkward question by Miller's stare. A few days later, Gray comes to Felt's office to inform him that he is under suspicion of being the source of the leaks and he orders secretary Carol Tschudy (Wendi McLendon-Covey) to have his office swept for bugs. He also meets with a CIA agent (Eddie Marsan), who lets him know that his boss is going to be fired for not nailing Felt quickly enough and hints that the CIA and the FBI will always scratch each other's backs before they cosy up to the White House.

Shortly before Christmas, Gray calls on Felt and they meet in a car outside his house. He reveals that Nixon is going to confirm his appointment as FBI chief and that he intends appointing Sullivan as his deputy. Gray also discloses that the president has ordered a clearing out of the old guard and he apologises for no longer being able to protect him. He reminds Felt that Nixon is afraid of him, but suggests it would be better for all concerned if he delivered the traitor's head on a platter. Rather than play ball, however, Felt gives Smith details of wiretaps and surveillance missions sanctioned by Sullivan on behalf of the administration and he urges Time to publish its story before Gray is confirmed by Congress. Smith warns him that he will bring down the entire house of cards, but Felt is no longer concerned.

Three months after the election, Gray performs badly at his hearing and admits that Nixon had ordered him to deliver confidential FBI files to the West Wing. Felt listens with quiet satisfaction as the gasps of incredulity prompt the president to dismiss several close aides for their part in the Gray affair. He is even more delighted when he tracks down Joan to a hippie commune and meets his grandson. Joan forgives Audrey for being a bad mom and attends her father's retirement ceremony after 31 years of service.

His departure is cross-cut with Nixon's resignation speech on 8 August 1974 before we zoom forward four years to Felt giving evidence in a Grand Jury inquiry into civil rights violations by the FBI in the Hoover era. While giving evidence about the campaign against the Weather Underground, he takes full responsibility for a serious of break-ins and refuses to name any of the staff involved. He also jokes that he was in the Oval Office so often during this period that people began to suspect he could be Deep Throat. But the screen freeze frames before he can answer a jury question about whether he was and closing captions reveal that he was convicted of conspiracy for his role in the Weather Underground episode. However, he was pardoned by Ronald Reagan in March 1981, three years before Audrey committed suicide. Felt lived to 18 December 2008, when he died in Joan's arms. Three years earlier, he had told Vanity Fair that he had been Deep Throat.

Almost half a century after it first broke, the Watergate scandal remains compelling, even in a frustratingly flat and cumbersomely titled retelling like this. Given that Ridley Scott, Tom Hanks and Jay Roach list themselves among the producers and that Landesman had made such a solid job of chronicling the chaotic hours following the JFK assassination in Parkland (2013), it comes as something of a surprise that he struggles to invest this insider account with sufficient pace and tension. Part of the problem lies in the depiction of Mark Felt as an unflappably impassive company man, as this leaves Liam Neeson with little room for dramatic manoeuvre as the prototype whistleblower. It hardly helps that Landesman veers between clumsy exposition and assumptions of prior knowledge in the sketchy delineation of the secondary characters. Consequently, those around Felt at the Bureau and those opposing him from inside the Oval Office are often confusingly indistinguishable, while key players like Sandy Smith and Bob Woodward barely register.

Despite working from books by Felt and John D. O'Connor, Landesman fails to make the most of the subplot involving Diane Lane, whose performance has reportedly been much truncated. Clearly, daily dealings with a mentally unstable spouse and the search for a runaway daughter would have taken a huge emotional toll on Felt, as he battled to save his job and preserve the integrity of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But they are so negligibly handled that they become an unwelcome distraction from the main storyline. The loyalty issue involving Miller, Bates, Kunkel and Lano and the ferocity of the rivalry with Sullivan are also fudged, although Marton Csokas makes the most of the underwritten role of Pat Gray.

On the technical side, David Crank's production design and Adam Kimmel's photography are sombrely adequate, which Daniel Pemberton's score attempts to compensate for the lack of suspense. But such dogged attempts to convey the murky nature of events deprive them of authenticity. Thus, while this would make for acceptable late-night viewing on television, it lacks the insider nitty-gritty to pass cinematic muster.

From such early outings as Amos Poe and Ivan Král's Blank Generation (1976) and Don Letts's The Punk Rock Movie (1978), documentaries about punk have tended to focus on the boy bands. Until now, The Punk Singer (2013), Sini Anderson's profile of Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna, was the only study attempting to present the grrrl's eye-view against the likes of Julien Temple's The Filth and the Fury (2000) and Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten (2007) and Michael Gramaglia and Jim Fields's End of the Century: The Story of The Ramones (2003). But William E. Badgley's Here to Be Heard: The Story of The Slits goes some way to redressing the balance by completing a project that had been initiated by Ariane `Ari Up' Forster and abandoned following her death from cancer in 2010.

Following a deluge of gushing off-screen voices, we follow Tessa Pollitt home to see the scrapbook she kept during her time as bassist with The Slits. She recalls the pre-punk scene at The Roxy in London, where DJ Don Letts used to play reggae and Pollitt met the likes of Viv Albertine and Spaniard Paloma `Palmolive' Romero, who were in a band called The Flowers of Romance, with Sid Vicious and Keith Levene. Pollitt and Albertine were late replacements for Kate Korris and Suzy Gutsy and Gina Birth of The Raincoats recalls seeing their first gig at the Harlesden Coliseum in 1977.

A former member of The Castrators, Tessa was 17 at the time, while the German-born Ari Up was only 14. But Albertine insists that she had the raw power of Johnny Rotten and seemed all the more iconoclastic because she was a girl in a world run by middle-class, middle-aged white males. Indeed, The News of the World was so stunned by The Slits (whose name they considered too obscene to print) that it claimed they made `the Sex Pistols look like choir boys'. A former lover of Joe Strummer when he was a hippie known as Woody, Palmolive had been the driving force in forming the group, with Korris and Ari joining first and Pollitt being added when Ari and Gutsy fell out. Korris was also quickly replaced by Albertine and turned down the chance to manage the band.

Letts took up the challenge and got them on the White Riot tour, with The Clash and The Buzzcocks. We see footage of them rehearsing `Number One Enemy' and Albertine, Palmolive and Pollitt agree that the men on the bus were intimidated by them and lacked their stamina and sense of fun. However, in acting out so blatantly, The Slits earned themselves a reputation of being confrontational feminists and Pollitt reads clippings and interviews from her scrapbook that suggest that the music press were delighted with them, but didn't quite know how to go about reporting them. A clip follows of them playing `Let's Do the Split' at The Vortex

Journalist Vivian Goldman and academic Helen Reddington extol the band for breaking taboos about dress, hair, language and attitude and shattered the myth that little girls existed to be seen and not heard. As they hadn't been manufactured by a male manager, they could be unreconstructed and do whatever they liked and those who didn't understand could do one. Pollitt shows a cutting of her wearing a pair of jeans that Ari had been stabbed in by a male fan and she recalls that these were violent times when women were not taken seriously. She reads an interview in which her bandmates had proclaimed themselves to be normal girls who wanted to show that you didn't need to conform to society-approved standards of beauty and talent in order to make music and make a mark.

Footage follows of a live performance of `So Tough', as Albertine recalls how they went through 13 managers during their heyday. She also notes how they decided not to follow the commercial route that the Pistols had taken under Malcolm McLaren and she credits this to Ari's German mother, Nora Forster, who would marry Johnny Rotten. As Pollitt explains, she was the daughter of a German publishing tycoon who had left home to work in the music industry and had collaborated with the likes of Cream, Yes and Jimi Hendrix. Ari had grown up around these people (so she wasn't really the `normal' working-class girl the band liked to project) and Pollitt and Albertine briefly mention the influence of reggae on their style. But no one stops to analyse their music or their impact on young girls across Britain. We are left to take their word that they changed things without being shown much tangible evidence.

Pollitt recalls the scene in The Punk Rock Movie in which her bandmates criticised her for not rehearsing enough and she realised she had to knuckle down to keep her place in the group. But, while they were tight knit and always watched each other's backs, there were tensions and, around the release of their debut album, Cut (1979), Palmolive was replaced with
Peter `Budgie' Clark of The Spitfire Boys. She spent a short time with The Raincoats before going to India to find God.

Meanwhile, The Slits signed to Island Records and were assigned dub producer Dennis Bovell to record their first LP. As we hear `Typical Girls', we see the provocative topless cover and Budgie jokes about how different it would have looked if he hadn't left to join Siouxsie and the Banshees before the photo shoot. Home movie footage of the trio skinny-dipping in the sea is complemented by Goldman asserting that they were trailblazers defying the male-dominated system. Similarly, Albertine and Letts note that they ceased to be a punk band and started introducing diverse elements into their music. But, once again, notwithstanding passing interjections by producer Adrian Sherwood and musician Steve Beresford, nobody goes into analytical depth to explain how and why this was such a radical departure.

Clips follow of The Slits doing the old Paragon numbers `Man Next Door' and `I've Got to Get Away' with Neneh Cherry, as she recalls being thrilled by their blend of punk and reggae. However, Island dropped them after Cut and some were concerned that the inclusion of Budgie, Beresford and Bruce Smith diluted their feminist message. But new manager Christine Robertson says they were proving that men and women could work together on an equal footing and start a new form of tribalism for a better world.

In 1980, they recorded a new album, Return of the Giant Slits, which embraced so many musical styles that the media had no idea how to approach it. However, it convinced Tanju Boerue to manage Ari Up's solo career and The Slits split. Albertine complains that people wanted to pigeonhole them and refused to accept that they might want to explore their own projects and Pollitt confirms that they felt the time was right to go their separate ways after Ari had twin sons. Pollitt had a daughter of her own before she battled heroin addiction, while Palmolive got married and raised a family before becoming a Spanish teacher in Cape Cod.

After 15 years, however, Ari bumped into Pollitt and they decided to reform the band. Despite Albertine declining the invitation, they found guitarists Dr No, Michelle Hill and Adele Wilson, drummer Anna Schulte and backing vocalist Hollie Cook and relaunched themselves with a gig at Selfridges in 2005. Amusingly, we see footage of them playing `Shoplifting' and Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook proclaims that The Slits never got the credit they deserved for being such an influential band. Ari's friend Jeni Cook says she needed to make music again and remind people what they had achieved.

As we hear `Kill Them With Love' on the soundtrack, the surviving bandmates recall the bonding experience of touring America in a van with new manager Jennifer Shagawat, who was also filming a documentary that Ari was directing with a mix of staged and ad hoc scenes. She kept joking on the trip that she needed to squeeze in lots of things because she didn't have much time and it was only in retrospect that Shagawat realised that she probably already knew she was dying.

They recorded the Trapped Animal album in Los Angeles and we hear a snippets of `Lazy Slam' and `Hated By Many, Loved By a Few', as the surviving Slits praise Ari for encouraging them to express their ideas and contribute songs to the mix. However, the last tour of Europe proved to be an unhappy experience, as Ari suffered from mood swings and she kept picking on Pollitt and Schulte. Pollitt informed Ari that the others needed a break and she never spoke to her again, as the 48 year-old Ari chose not to see her bandmates when Forster called to tell them she only had a few days left.

As Pollitt, Albertine and the born-again Paloma McLardy describe where they are now in their lives, another chorus of disembodied voices attempts to sum up the legacy left by The Slits. Some claim they provided the impetus for the Riot Grrrl movement, others for Madonna. All agree, however, that they told young women to be themselves and refuse to accept the limitations that the chauvinist world was trying to impose on them. Obviously, this is a tremendously positive message. But it's difficult to determine the band's enduring effect from this primarily insider account, which becomes more hyperbolically hagiographical as it goes on. There are a few voices from outside the charmed circle, but they are content to enthuse rather than assess. Consequently, there is no critical or socio-historical subtext to the gaggle of press quotes and anecdotes. Moreover, there's too little balance, with the contributions around the same period of Siouxsie Sioux. Poly Styrene and
Chrissie Hynde (who appears in the footage) being unfairly downplayed.

It's also a pity that Badgley couldn't persuade either Nora Forster or John Lydon to participate, as they could have provided a markedly different version of Ari Up's final years, as she battled breast cancer. Similarly, by devoting so much time to the reunion and her sad demise, he sidelines the erudite Albertine, who had embarked upon a new career as a film-maker and was in the process of making a musical comeback of her own when Ari came calling. Nevertheless, Pollitt makes a genial guide through the pages of her scrapbook and it's good to see The Slits finally being accorded their rightful place in the history of British punk - although there is no room for them in this week's final offering.

It's never a good sign when the subject of a documentary disowns it. Dame Vivienne Westwood afforded debuting ex-model Lorna Tucker unique access to make Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist. But, while the 76 year-old fashionista was reluctant to pay yet another visit to her punk past, Tucker clearly considered it more viewer-friendly than her commitment to saving the planet. Consequently, Westwood has criticised the film for paying insufficient attention to her activism. Yet, with the fawning Tucker hanging on Westood's every word and seemingly unable to use the classic punk era clips seen in the likes of Julien Temple's The Filth and the Fury and Phil Strongman's Anarchy! The McLaren Westwood Gang (2013), this often feels like a corporate video.

The opening shots rather give the game away, as Westwood tells Tucker that she is bored to tears with the punk phase of her life and suggests that she allows her to tell her own story in her own way. She urges her to avoid banal questions, as she glowers at the camera in a funk of self-important misery. Yet, once she is allowed to talk about herself, Westwood warms to her theme and declares that she had such excellent spatial awareness at the age of five that she was able to make a pair of shoes. Now, she is doing what she wants and see no need to retire. However, she would like a little spare time to learn Chinese.

Swooping into her atelier, Westwood assesses a new line of clothing with her staff and models. She is forthright in her views and quick to blame underlings for not following orders. Second husband Andreas Kronthaler watches attentively, as Westwood complains about thin hems and dismal designs. She wonders whether she would be better off selling the company before taking a nap at an awkward angle on an uncomfortable looking sofa.

Returning to her childhood in Glossop, she explains how she started making her own clothes at the age of 11 and never forgave her parents for failing to mention that the Baby Jesus wound up on a cross. Over images of Joan of Arc, Westwood compares herself to a knight who protects people from evil before averring that her designs have always had a dynamism that suggest the wearer is ready for action.

Having quit Harrow Art School after a term because she was worried how she would earn her living, the 17 year-old Westwood enrolled on an art course at a teacher training college so that she could fall back on the classroom if her artistic ambitions failed to pan out. Around this time, she met and married Derek Westwood, whose best feature seemed to be his ability to dance. But, even though they had a son, they were never love's young dream and Ben Westwood recalls how Malcolm McLaren became more of a fixture in their lives around the time of his fifth birthday. He recalls him being hot-headed and resentful of Ben's presence while they were living in a flat in Thurleigh Court, near the Oval cricket ground.

Despite contemplating an abortion, Westwood had a second son with McLaren - Joe Coffé - as she felt he was the only person who could help her understand the world. He sold old rock records to trendy types under the banner `Let It Rock' at Mr Freedom and Westwood enthuses about the premises at 430 Kings Road, as she remembers how she started making clothes to sell and the shop changed its name from Too Fast to Live Too Young to Die to Sex. Among their best-selling lines were rubber wear items for the office, which Westwood claims reflected McLaren's fondness for 1950s models in torn castaway clothing and their conviction that Britain was the home of the flasher.

However, Westwood is keener to talk about her own torn black dress than The Sex Pistols. Consequently, we see V&A Senior Curator Claire Wilcox describe how the muslin Destroy t-shirt used a swastika and inverted the crucifix to confront society. Westwood declares that she and McLaren invented punk after he returned from managing The New York Dolls in America. They formed a band around their Saturday boy, Glenn Matlock, who was joined by two customers and singer Johnny Rotten. Westwood laments that the latter has yet to grow out of the image he cultivated in the 1970s. But Tucker offers few insights into the ethos and aesthetics of punk in a segment devoid of Pistols music and replete with familiar images of the posturing Rotten.

She moves swiftly on to the Worlds End shop, as Westwood proclaims that her clothes always have a story and are timeless because they tap into the past and allow people to experience a positive kind of nostalgia. Period footage shows Westwood positing that the tartan suit she has designed resembles something that might have been worn at Culloden. She revels in her anti-establishment persona. Yet, as we see Dame Vivienne being feted by guests and the media at a swish function, Tucker misses the opportunity to question Westwood about her status as a national treasure. 

Instead, she films Andreas reclining louchely in a chair and simpering about loving the designer, the campaigner and the person in equal measure. He doesn't know why he loves Westwood - he just does. Tucker shows the couple cavorting at a photo shoot in eccentric designs and almost parodic poses, as a dreamy piano plays slow notes on the soundtrack. It's unclear, however, whether she wants us to think `aww, aren't they adorable' or `oh, aren't they daringly cutting edge'.

Westwood proclaims that the best compliment she can pay Kronthaler is that she is as happy living with him as she is living on her own. They met when she was teaching in Vienna and she hired him after he came to London and offered constructive criticism on her new collection. He reminisces in sing-song fashion about living in the studio with fleas and filth and finding it so romantic to wear the clothes he used to find in cardboard boxes. They look content posing on the red carpet, but Kronthaler was initially treated with suspicion. Coffé states that he looked gay when he first arrived and started bossing people around. But, despite the age difference, Kronthaler has remained besotted and Coffé jokes that this means he doesn't have to worry about his mother in her old age.

Back in 1977, the Queen's Silver Jubilee proved a red rag for the punk assault on the establishment and Westwood claims that the swastika became a symbol of the young's need to confront the old and dismantle their order. But she realised that the marketing of punk diminished its subversive impact, as the authorities declared that only a truly democratic society would allow youth to rebel in such an anarchic manner. Looking back, Westwood is disappointed that all they succeeded in creating was distraction rather than destruction.

Over at the V&A, Wilcox swoons over garments from the Pirate collection, as she explains how Westwood put her own imprint on historical styles. She discusses her use of colour and shape to produce clothes that enabled men and women to proclaim their enjoyment of life. At this time, however, Westwood didn't consider herself to be a designer, even though she knew she was `very talented' and wanted people to know that she was behind the designs they were seeing on the Paris catwalk. She admits to becoming frustrated by McLaren trying to take the credit when he had stopped growing intellectually. Yet, even though she believed she had outstripped him, Westwood felt a duty to be loyal to McLaren. However, Coffé insists he was petty and spiteful and left them in Clapham to pick up the pieces after he absconded to become a film producer in Hollywood.

Assistant Peppe Lorefice admits to being surprised by how much of a team Westwood and Konthaler are, while marketing manager Christopher Di Pietro notes the classical nature of their insistence on designing on the body. They are very hands on backstage at a fashion show, as they fuss over the clothing, hair and make-up of their models. As they strut on to the runaway, Westwood declares herself to be her husband's guiding muse.

In 1985, Westwood forged a link with future CEO Carlo D'Amario. Coffé recalls how he sold cars, carpets and watches, but also had connections with Italian designers like Elio Fiorucci. But McLaren resented her success and a £350,000 contract with Giorgio Armani fell through because he insisted he was still Westwood's legal business partner. Forced to live on benefits, Westwood joined forces with her widowed mother, Dora, to reopen Worlds End, which was lit by candles because the electricity had been cut off. Designer Bella Freud recalls the fun of taking a show to Paris during this period and Murray Blewett (who is now Senior Design Manager) gushes about the privilege of working for such a legend.

Freud and Murray recall how much fun it was making clothes to arm people to face the world. But nobody provides any critique or explains why Westwood's work was so revolutionary. No one assesses her styles, fabrics or use of colour and cut. Moreover, nobody puts them into context by showing what other designers were doing at the same time and who exactly was feting her. Tucker includes the famous clip of Westwood appearing on Wogan, when the elderly audience laughed at her designs and she threatened not to bring on the next model, as guest presenter Sue Lawley tried to prevent proceedings descending into farce. Friend Sara Stockbridge claims that Westwood didn't care two hoots about her reception. But it's quite clear that she was taken aback and Tucker should have pressed her about the public perception of haut couture and what she derived from this unquestionably embarrassing incident.

Coffé bullishly notes that his mother didn't remain a joke for long. But Westwood has no idea when she became a success and is now concerned that her company has become too big for her to keep an eye on all the key decisions. She particularly worries that substandard items will slip through the net and we see her berating Murray about a collection and letting the young woman responsible for selling it know that a buyer had called her clueless. Westwood's frankness is clearly an asset. But, once more, she fails to explain what she actually wants or what her standards are. Instead, she grumbles about having too little control. Murray mutters that Westwood can't unpick decisions that have been made for the good of the company and Di Pietro concurs they have to tweak the brand in order to keep it visible and relevant. But, as Westwood chunters in his office about staff not knowing what they are doing, one is forced to wonder how such a situation has arisen and who is responsible.

As Tucker shows Westwood cycling home in high heels, Coffé bemoans the fact that nobody in the fashion mafia took his mother seriously. An unnamed critic is shown denouncing her lack of a philosophy of fashion on Newsnight after she had won the Designer of the Year award in 1990. She won it again the following year (to the obvious dismay of the industry bigwig host) and Westwood recalls how things continued to look up after she took a temporary shop on Conduit Street - while her Davies Street premises were being redecorated - and the increased visibility boosted both her sales and status.

It's at this point that Tucker turns to the issue of Westwood's eco-warrioring. She follows her on a Greenpeace expedition to the North Pole, as Westwood recalls how a James Lovelock article about the population boom had convinced her to put her celebrity to good use. Konthaler drones on about clothing with a political message being boring, while Di Pietro concedes that the company is not as green as it might be. As Westwood protests about fracking, her CEO suggests that her first duty is to her employees and mutters something non-committal about doing things in increments. Similarly, while she addresses a rally in Westminster, Konthaler loses his temper with a minion over some socks. He also becomes agitated when she tells branch staff that she would rather sell what she likes than make pots of cash. Westwood worries that her husband risks getting frazzled in holding the fort, while Di Pietro hints that it takes three times the work to ensure that a company like Westwood's retains its independence.

Vogue maven André Leon Talley explains that Westwood opted not to attend the opening of her New York store as she couldn't eco-justify the flight. But, while she cancels plans for a Beijing franchise, she does go to the Paris launch, where she complains about the music and grumbles about only wanting to sell stuff she likes. Coffé reveals that he has left the company because he could not longer work with Di Pietro. However, he persuaded his mother to sign a deal with a Japanese licensing company that should bolster the empire's finances.

Having exhausted the number of insiders with little to say, Tucker enlists the help of some famous faces. Kate Moss recalls going topless on the runway for Westwood, while Naomi Campbell smiles at the recollection of slipping over in some blue stack shoes. During a montage to Ravel's `Bolero' of Westwood taking bows at various unidentified shows, actress Christina Hendricks brands her a phenomenon, while fashion editor Carine Roitfeld expresses relief that she has not been tamed by age or become ridiculous, Pamela Anderson lauds Westwood's authenticity in stating that she is on this planet to stir things up.

Coffé dubs his mother the only genuine punk rocker before she has the last word - a complaint that the film is too long and dull. Nothing like a ringing endorsement, eh? As the credits roll, Moss avers that Westwood once told her that she was the only girl she ever fancied, while Konthaler laments the shortage of outspoken people in the world. As a parting shot, Westwood is introduced to Tiny Tempah and confesses to not a clue who he is.

Stuffed with stock footage and talking-head platitudes, this lacks the coherence or unifying thesis to offer any worthwhile insights into Westwood and her exceptional achievement. One can sympathise with Westwood's disgruntlement, as the coverage of her activism is tokenist at best. But, with Tucker having so little punk era material to work with, this leaves her heavily dependent on conversations with employees, who are hardly going to dish any dirt or offer any negative impressions of Westwood as an artist or as a boss. Maybe that's why Tucker refrains from asking any awkward questions. But her lack of curiosity so outweighs her tact that she ends up pandering to Westwood like one of her servile acolytes.

The real fascination here lies in Westwood's transition from a would-be smasher of the establishment to someone who craves accolades from her peers and gongs from the Palace. But Tucker prefers to peddle the trademarked image of the rebel with a cause, even though this lost its shock value a long time ago.