Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 27/9/2018)

But film-makers have largely steered clear of the Great Hunger (1845-49), which reduced the country's population by a quarter, as around a million died and the same number emigrated after losing their livelihoods and homes. A rare exception is the BBC drama, The Hanging Gale (1995), which is set in Donegal in 1846 and stars the four McGann brothers as the Phelan siblings fighting against a callous British land agent. But it's now been joined by Lance Daly's Black 47, which recasts events in Connemara during the worst year of the Potato Famine as a Bog Western in the mould of John Hillcoat's Bush odyssey, The Proposition (2005).

Returning home after deserting from the British army in India, Martin Feeney (James Frecheville) discovers that the family cottage has been tumbled and further learns from a neighbour (Andrew Bennett) that not only has his mother died of the fever, but that his brother has also been hanged. Sister-in-law Ellie (Sarah Greene) takes Martin home and introduces him to his nephew and two nieces. The boy shares his father's distaste for the fact that Martin took the Queen's shilling and sits sullenly by the fire, as his uncle and mother sing old Gaelic songs. 

The following day, Ellie shows Martin around the decimated village and explains how the potato blight destroyed the crop and left hundreds starving. His mother perished because she wouldn't eat stolen food for fear of going to Hell and he informs her that he plans to emigrate to America. On returning to the cottage, however, Martin sees constables arresting his nephew for theft and he is pinned to the floor when they gun the boy down. Taken to the cells in the town, Martin breaks his way to freedom and returns to the tumbled cottage to find Ellie and her daughters frozen in the corner. Removing the bullets from his arm, he goes in search of the neighbour who has been keeping pigs in his mother's home. When he pulls a pistol on him, Martin stabs him with his trusty sword and mounts his horse to find Judge Bolton (Dermot Crowley), who had sentenced his brother.

Meanwhile, Inspector Hannah (Hugo Weaving) has been released from prison, where he is awaiting execution for killing a prisoner he was interrogating. He is paired with Captain Pope (Freddie Fox) in order to capture Martin, whom he knows from their time together in Afghanistan. As they travel by train, an Irish journalist asks Pope about the causes of the Famine and he quotes the Bible to him in suggesting that the peasants were victims of their own ignorance. Arriving at the local barracks, Pope enlists Private Hobson (Barry Keoghan) to look after their horses and they ride past the window where Bolton is hanging from a rope. Sergeant Fitzgibbon (Moe Dunford) blames a Connaught Ranger for the crime and for the torching of his police station. But Pope refuses to confirm whether Martin is the man he seeks. 

Arriving in the village, Hannah and Pope discover that the neighbour has been decapitated and has a pig's head resting on his shoulder. Local Conneely (Stephen Rea) reveals that he was the rent collector for Lord Kilmichael (Jim Broadbent) and they find his severed head on a spike inside the Feeney home. Conneely offers to ride along with the lawmen to act as translator and pockets a few coins proffered by Hannah for his information. As they sit by the fire that night, Hannah tells Hobson about Martin saving his life in Kabul and declares him the best soldier with whom he served. The only trouble was that he fought for his mates and not for the crown. 

Nearby, Martin shelters from a downpour in a tent where a Protestant preacher is offering soup to anyone who will renounce their Catholic faith. A priest stands at the entrance pleading with his starving parishioners not to enter. But Martin strides in and helps himself to a bowl of broth and turfs the preacher out when he reminds him that the needs of the soul should take priority over the longings of the flesh. 

The next morning, he rides to the house of Cronin (Aidan McArdle), who is Kilmichael's land agent and was responsible for evicting both his mother and Ellie. He ambushes him in the barn and suffocates him in the grain that the landlord has harvested for export. However, before he can make his escape, Pope, Hannah and Hobson reach the farmhouse and rides into the courtyard. Martin shoots Pope's horse from beneath him and lays low while Hannah and Hobson search the stables. But, when he rides out and recognises Hannah, Martin opts to hit him in the face with a rifle butt rather than shoot him and he faces Hobson down in order to make his getaway. Pope is furious with them for letting the fugitive flee, but he also missed with a clear shot as Martin was galloping through the gates. 

Reaching Kilmichael's estate, they are surprised to find Fitzgibbon in his study. He accuses Pope of endangering the nobleman's life in the pursuit of glory and Kilmichael avers that he has no intention of being cowed by a renegade soldier. Outside, Hobson is dismayed to see peasants looking through the gates, as sacks of grain are loaded for export. A set-to develops when he vows to help the starving and Hannah is aghast when Fitzgibbon's men gun the private down and Kilmichael congratulates them on their swift action. 

Pope and Hannah join Kilmichael in his carriage, as he accompanies the grain consignment across country to Dublin. As they drive, Kilmichael doubts whether anyone could get close enough to shoot him through the window and he feels safe at the inn after Fitzgibbon conducts a thorough inspection. He sits by the fire drinking with Conneely, who tells him risqué stories until Kilmichael suggests that no Irish girl could ever by as pretty as an English maiden. Conneely declares that he would be hard pressed to tell the difference if the rose had to live in the same squalor as a colleen and, when Kilmichael professes to love this beautiful country, Conneely proclaims that the Irish would like it more if beauty was edible. 

Pope asks Hannah if his heart is still in the mission, after Martin had taken him by surprise at the campfire the previous evening and admonished him for agreeing to track him down. Hannah acknowledges his debt to Martin and wishes his superiors had recognised his heroism rather than dismissing him as a mongrel. But he swears to not to leave without him, as the Irishman laments the lack of justice for his kinfolk and curses the hypocritical difference that the British discern between acts of war that are rewarded with medals and crimes of survival that are punished by death. 

After lights out, Martin creeps into the hotel and makes his way to Kilmichael's room. When he pulls back the covers, however, he finds Pope waiting for him. Hannah emerges from the shadows with a rifle, as Kilmichael and Fitzgibbon enter the chamber to see what the fuss is about. Much to Pope's fury, Hannah refuses to shoot and Martin is able to escape with Kilmichael as his hostage. They ride to the abandoned cottage, where Martin insists on speaking Gaelic and Kilmichael refuses to be cowed. 

Accusing him of treachery, Pope puts Hannah before a firing squad at dawn. But, as he is lined up against a wall, Martin appears on the rooftop and takes out the sergeant and one of the marksmen. Conneely watches on, as peasants try to break down the gates and get at the grain store, and he flinches as a hooded rider gallops into the courtyard. Pope orders his men to fire, only to discover that he has gunned down Kilmichael. As Martin and Fitzgibbon fight in the barn, Conneely cuts Hannah's handcuffs and he rides to his old comrade's rescue. Martin shoots Pope in the shoulder and he is powerless to stop the pair fleeing on horseback. 

Reaching the sanctuary of the wilderness, Hannah lies Martin on the muddy ground. He dies after urging Hannah to go to America rather than waste his time with vendettas. As Pope rides alone with a sling over his scarlet tunic, Fitzgibbon leads Kilmichael's funeral cortège past the pub in which Conneely is drinking. Refugees rest on the road and Hannah rides up to them, as he sees Pope in the near distance. He pauses and considers which road to take, as the screen cuts to black and a caption dedicating the film to those who lose their lives in the Famine and those who left Ireland and never returned. 

Since his hard-to-see debut, Last Days in Dublin (2001), Lance Daly has produced four very varied features in The Halo Effect (2004), Kisses (2008), The Good Doctor (2011) and Life's a Breeze (2013). All but the third were characterised by their offbeat humour and there was certainly nothing in their stories about a Dublin chip shop, a couple of Christmas runaways and a missing mattress to foreshadow a relentlessly grim saga that imposes a generic narrative on to a national tragedy. 

Although Daly and co-scenarists PJ Dillon, Pierce Ryan and Eugene O'Brien deserve credit for bringing the Famine to wider attention during another migrant crisis, their plot is frustratingly formulaic and their characterisation is sketchy in the extreme. This doesn't mean that the action doesn't grip or that the performances are not admirable. But there is nothing remotely new about a vigilante finding ironically gruesome methods of bumping off his victims or about his pursuers being reprehensible symbols of the system against which the anti-hero is kicking. 

Despite snippets being dropped in the dialogue, we learn little about Martin as either a son or a soldier and James Frecheville's Eastwoodian taciturnity ensures that he remains remote throughout. Looking like Sam Neill and sounding like Timothy Spall, fellow Aussie Hugo Weaving proves equally enigmatic as Hannah, while Jim Broadbent and Freddie Fox are asked to do little more than play hissable imperialist toffs and it's hard to suppress a laugh at the clumsiness of Kilmichael's hope that `a Celtic Irishman in Ireland will be as rare a sight as a Red Indian in Manhattan'. But Conneely's songs and anecdotes allow Stephen Rea to suggest an inner life, as he treads the fine line between being a partisan and a quisling. 

Often draining colour from the landscape, cinematographer Declan Quinn conveys the bleakness of the ravaged countryside. But the CGI crofts are far from convincing and undermine Waldemar Kalinowski's otherwise impressive production design. Magdalena Labuz's costumes are also effective, with the drab shades of the peasant rags contrasting starkly with the scarlet and gold of the British uniforms and the green on the constabulary caps. But Brian Byrne's repeated use of Uilleann pipes makes the score feel tritely twee rather than authentic or atmospheric. So, while this admirably paced and morally well-meaning account has much to commend it, it's a solid film rather than an important one.

In his 2014 short, A Generation of Vipers, writer-director Tom Beard shows how adolescent Londoner Oliver Woolford spirals out of control in the face of the off-screen rowing of parents Charlie Creed-Miles and Lois Winstone, the well-meaning prying of social worker Jessica Hynes, the macho banter of buddy Alex Esmail and the accusatory insinuations of part-time shopworker Jasmine Jobson. When left to his own devices, Woolford is content to play quietly with his white mice. But the simmering tumult prompts him to lash out and consider an even more reckless act after dodging the police. Beard includes a similar character in his feature debut, Two for Joy, which not only offers an empathetic insight into the plight of its juvenile leads, but also captures the sense of impotence that many feel while languishing on the lower rungs of broken Britain. 

Fifteen year-old Violet (Emilia Jones) has friends at school, but is something of an outsider. She lives with her mother, Aisha (Samantha Morton), who has been suffering from depression since the death of her husband and who won't lift a finger to discipline Vi's younger brother, Troy (Badger Skelton). He bunks school most days to go fishing and stomps up to his room, where he plays computer games rather than communicating with Aisha or Vi. 

Curled up on the sofa in a blanket eating a microwaved dinner, Aisha tries to take an interest in Vi's life and asks if she has any parties to go to. But Vi would much rather get away to the family's seaside caravan for the weekend in the hope of luring Aisha out of herself. However, she changes the subject by sending Vi up to Troy with the remains of her supper, as she has just realised that he won't have eaten. He barely acknowledges his sister, however, as he is sulking because Aisha pushed him off the bed when he tried to cuddle with her and took some money from her purse in petulant revenge.

During the night, Aisha wakes the kids with her anguished cries. But, while Troy remains in bed, Vi goes to console her mother and spoons her until she gets back to sleep. The following morning, Vi is running a bath for Aisha when Troy slips into the bathroom and she loses patience with Aisha for doing nothing to control him. She becomes more exasperated when she discovers that Aisha's hasn't told her about a change in her medication and she urges her to stop moping in bed all day and start pulling herself together. 

When Vi goes to school, Aisha fetches a suitcase from under the bed and starts packing for the trip, but gets no further than unearthing some bikinis that no longer fit. Heading off to fish in the lake abutting the railway line, Troy sees his friend Kyle (Adam Young) having an argument with the owner of a 7/11 (Dana Haqjoo) and he flips a supportive finger as they cycle away. He is horrified, however, when Kyle batters a fish with a piece of wood (after we had seen Troy kiss a fish before putting it back in the water) and he is frustrated when the older boy refuses to return his penknife. Anxious to get it back, he agrees to go into the shop as a decoy so that Kyle can hold up the shopkeeper with the knife and he picks the blade off the pavement before making his getaway. 

Hurrying up the stairs and hiding the knife in his drawer, Troy cowers in his bedroom and states at the calming screensaver on his computer. He is still fidgety the next morning when he joins his mother and sister in the car for the coast and ducks down when he sees a police car outside the corner shop. Looking back through the rear window, Troy eventually settles down as the suburban landscape gives way to countryside and Vi looks anxiously at Aisha, as she momentarily appears to be dozing off at the wheel. 

The campsite is maintained by Lias (Daniel Mays) and his sister Lillah (Billie Piper), who live in a caravan with her rebellious daughter, Miranda (Bella Ramsey). Lias has a magpie in a cage and Troy is woken up by Lillah shouting at Miranda for going too close to the tideline. He watches for a while before checking Aisha's phone to see if she has had any messages about the robbery. She has gone back to sleep, while Vi has gone for a shower and she is put out by Miranda glaring at her when their paths cross in the shower room. 

Troy also falls foul of Miranda when he wanders into the games room and she pushes him off the street fight arcade game he is playing. When he goes to the beach to fish, Miranda mocks his efforts and he notices the bruises on her back when she strips off to her pink bathing suit and urges him to join her in the sea. They jostle in the waves and she puts seaweed on his head and pushes him around in the shower, where he gets a shock when her period starts and she laughs at the expression on his face. 

Meanwhile, Vi has abandoned her homework to get some teabags and sugar from the camp store, which is situated in the corner of the games room. Lias invites her to a barbecue that evening, as there aren't many other people on the site and it would be nice to have some company. Lillah is tipsy and not very talkative and neither is Aisha. But Miranda interrupts when Vi tries to explain about the caravan belonging to her dad and, when Lillah tells her off, Miranda stands on the bench of the picnic table to tower imposingly over Vi. She strops off, but Lias tries to lighten the mood by promising to take Troy fishing in a dinghy. 

Back in their own caravan, Aisha tells Vi to stop rummaging around as she wants to sleep. But Vi finds a box of old photographs and her eyes well with tears when she sees pictures of herself with her father. Next morning, she slips away to do her homework by the pool so that she doesn't have to fend for her mother or brother. He is freezing on the beach with Lias, as they fish for mackerel. They catch a couple and Troy turns down the chance to put them out of their misery. Miranda sits in the dinghy with a face like thunder and tries to push the boat across the shingle when Lias asserts that the sea is too rough to go out. She accuses him of being a liar and drags Troy away. 

They go back to the caravan and, while Troy borrows his mother's phone, Miranda steals some of her pills. Lias takes the kids to the funfair and Lillah upsets him by replying to a phone message from Miranda's abusive father. Vi tries not to eavesdrop in the backseat, but she is notices that Miranda suddenly seem fragile and tries to stay with the younger pair when they get dropped off by the pier. But Miranda tugs Troy away and they go into an arcade, while Vi wanders around listening to a French speaking and listening exercise to prepare for an imminent exam. 

While Aisha gets up after another bad night's sleep and goes for a wander on the beach, Lillah and Lias argue about her repeatedly giving her worthless fella another chance. On a shooting game in the arcade, Miranda jokingly puts the gun under her chin and feigns blowing her head off. Troy laughs and steals a handbag and they use the money to buy chips. Still on her own, Vi goes on a whirling ride and clings to the bars as it spins round and she tries to conquer her fears before eventually letting out a scream. 

She meets the others at the bus stop and is furious when they pelt her with chips. So, she gets the bus without them and goes to the camp washroom to clean her top and long blonde hair. Armed with a bottle of wine, Lillah finds Aisha bobbing in the pool in a t-shirt. She tries to apologise and explain for being tipsy so early in the day, but Aisha reassures her that everyone has their problems and their own way of dealing with them. 

On the bus, Miranda and Troy rifle through the stolen bag and she rips pages out of a notebook and throws them out of the window. She tries some red lipstick and kisses Troy on the cheek and he flinches and quickly wipes off the mark . But, when Miranda reaches for his hand, he links his fingers and they sit in silence for the rest of the journey. 

After her swim, Aisha gets back to the caravan to find Vi huddled in a corner in one of her tops. She tells her it's rude to borrow other people's clothing and Vi says it's a bit late to start parenting now. Raising her voice, she reminds her mother that she wasn't the only one to be bereaved and that she's being selfish in letting her grief take her over to the extent to which she's neglecting them. Aisha thinks she's being harsh and mutters that she's doing her best, as it's not been easy. She picks up some schoolbooks from the floor and goes to change for the barbecue.

As Lias guts the fish to wrap in foil, Miranda and Troy get his store key and steal a half bottle of vodka, as well as some soft drinks and snacks. With dusk descending, the necklace of fairy lights Miranda won on the pier starts to twinkle, as they push the boat into the water and head out to sea using the outboard motor. Leaving Vi asleep, Aisha joins Lias at the table and they tuck into the fish. He expresses his sympathy for her loss and surmises that she must be having a tough time. Lillah comes to sit with them and tells Aisha not to believe that her brother is an angel, as he's working away from his young child and has no right to judge her life. 

Back in the caravan, Vi is woken by Aisha's phone and she picks up to learn that Troy is in trouble with the police. She tells Aisha, who realises that he didn't come home with Miranda and Lillah gets into a flap about her daughter's whereabouts. Lias tells Vi to show him where she left the kids and hopes they can find them. 

Out on the boat, Troy huddles at one end, while Miranda dilutes the booze with fruit juice. She gazes into the flame of a lighter and cuts into Troy's palm when she tricks him into thinking she can tell fortunes. As his hand hurts, she gives him some of Aisha's pills and he washes them down with the vodka and soon comes to feel unwell, with his mood not being helped by Miranda shining a torch in his eyes. 

Vi tells Lias about the police inquiry back home and he is surprised that such a small and seemingly quiet boy would get himself involved in armed robbery. Waiting with Aisha, Lillah insists she is unconcerned and avers that youngsters respond better when they're cut a little slack. But Aisha admits that she has been too focused on her own misery to help her two and Lillah (who stilll seems to think Aisha's husband has merely strayed rather than died) puts on a CD and coaxes her into getting up for a little dance. 

While Vi and Lias search the funfair, its swirling lights blur with Troy's vision, as he looks up at Miranda and her flashing necklace. When she realises he's unwell, she tries to start the motor. But it doesn't work and, in a panic, she decides to strip off and swim for the shore. Troy is too out of it to stop her, but the boat appears to lurch when Miranda stands on the seat and Troy manages to rouse himself in order to haul her out of the water. Coming to his senses, he calls for help and tries to cradle Miranda, who has blood oozing from a cut on her head. 

As Lias and Vi return to find Lillah and Aisha asleep, he is dismayed that the kids aren't back yet. However, he hears the motor and dashes on to the beach, where he clambers aboard the boat to discover that Miranda has stopped breathing. Lillah wraps her in her blanket and bawls over her, as Lias tells Aisha to call an ambulance. She doesn't know where they are, however, and crouches on the shingle and pulls her kids towards them, as Lias gives directions down the phone and Lillah wails in helpless agony. 

Next morning, the fish heads stare out of their bucket, as the cold light of day bathes the camp. Aisha speaks to the police, as they leave the hospital and drive back to the site. A shaken Troy sleeps, while Aisha tries to console the sobbing Vi and apologise for everything she's been through. The magpie cage is empty, as the family drives home in sombre silence. 

Back on the estate, Aisha makes Troy a sandwich while he lies on the sofa watching TV. But he doesn't want it and spurns her offer of a cuddle. He goes for a ride on his bike, but pushes it across a field in frustration at the mess he's landed himself in and sinks to his knees in his hoodie. When Vi gets home, she hears a social worker (Eve Fontaine) telling her mother that the situation is serious and that they want to implement an action plan to help her keep the family together. Vi goes upstairs and guzzles rosé while putting on her make-up before going to a party, where she sits on a crowded sofa drinking strong lager before leaving early and tottering home on her high heels. 

Awoken by the wound in his hand, Troy climbs into bed beside Aisha. He wishes he could have done more to save Miranda, but Aisha reassures him that it was an accident and pulls him under the cover to snuggle. He gets up when he hears Vi come in and finds her heat a can of soup in the kitchen. She beckons him to get a spoon and tells him off for gobbling like their dad. Troy says sorry and she asks if he's scared. He asks about her exams and insists she'll do well because she's clever. Ruffling his hair, Vi tells him to finish the soup and goes to bed. 

Next morning, as a single magpie sits on the fence, Aisha tells Vi that she's made an appointment to see the doctor in a bid to sort herself out. They have a tentative hug, as Vi decides to trust her mother again. Aishaa drops her at school and wishes her luck in her exam. Sitting in the front seat, Troy flicks his sister a V-sign, which she returns with a smile and he looks for approval from his mother as they drive away. 

Having lost much of the hearing in one ear at the age of 13 after being injured while playing rugby at school, Tom Beard knows all about teenage struggle and he channels his empathy into his depiction of the trio at the centre of this sobering, if sometimes contrived narrative. Nevertheless, in the true Loachian manner, he piles a bit too much melodrama on to the shoulders of the taciturn Troy and asks us to accept in Miranda's wild childishness on the basis of the sketchiest backstory. Indeed, none of the characters is fully rounded and it says much for the brilliance of Samantha Morton that she makes Aisha's suffering so excruciatingly palpable when the audience gets to know so little about her circumstances. 

The fact their father owned a caravan means that the family can't be living in penury, although they are clearly subsisting on benefits while Aisha deals with her grief. But Beard encourages us to read between the lines in discerning how the loss affects each individual. Clearly, Troy used to go fishing with his dad, but we don't get to know when he started having problems at school or fell in with wrong `uns like Kyle. We can gauge from Vi's response to the snapshots at the caravan that she was something of a daddy's girl. But we learn little about the nature of Aisha's relationship with her husband, even though she is evidently bereft at his passing. By contrast, we get to know next to nothing about Lias, Lallah or Miranda and they often feel like social realist identikits whose problems help move the plot towards its flash points. 

That said, they are played with laudable restraint by Daniel Mays, Billie Piper and Bella Ramsey, whose feral readiness to challenge and confront everyone makes her a more intriguing character than Violet, who is sensitively essayed by Emilia Jones, despite being a rather archetypically dutiful daughter. Rodaidh McDonald's score sometimes hits a touch too squarely on the nose, as does the sound design and the visual effects used to convey Aisha and Troy's disorientation. But Tim Sidell's jittery camerawork makes evocative use of the locations in Ringstead and Weymouth, while production designer Laura Ellis Cricks gives her interiors a spartan feel that reinforce the family's sense of emptiness much more effectively than the forced symbolism of the caged magpies suggests their mournful entrapment. 

No matter what she does in her estimable career, Glenn Close will never emerge entirely from the shadow of `bunny boiler' Alex Forrest in Adrian Lyne's Fatal Attraction (1987). She has earned other Best Actress nominations for Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and Albert Nobbs (2011), as well as Best Supporting citations for The World According to Garp (1982), The Big Chill (1983) and The Natural (1984). Indeed, along with Deborah Kerr and Thelma Ritter, the 71 year-old Close holds the record for the most Oscar nods without a win. But, since having a ball as Cruella de Vil in 101 Dalmatians (1996) and 102 Dalmatians (2000), Close has made so many odd choices that her stock has rather slipped. Yet she remains one of the finest performers of her generation, as she ably demonstrates in Swede Björn Runge's The Wife, which has been adapted from a novel by Meg Wolitzer. 

In Connecticut in 1992, an anxious Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce) snacks in the middle of the night. He wakes his wife, Joan (Glenn Close), and tries to cajole her into having sex to take his mind off the phone call he's awaiting. When it finally comes and Joe learns that he has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, Joan listens on the extension with mixed feelings that carry over into a drinks party with friends and their children, the heavily pregnant Susannah (Alix Wilton Regan) and David (Max Irons), who is tetchy because his father hasn't yet read the short story he has sent him.

On the plane to Stockholm, the Castlemans are cornered by journalist Nathaniel Bone (Christian Slater), who is keen to write Joe's biography. However, Joe has no time for him and Joan reminds him that there's nothing more dangerous than a scorned writer. Arriving at the hotel, Joe is feted by the Nobel reception committee and photographer Linnea (Karin Franz Körlof), who will be accompanying him during his stay. Up in his room, Joe assures Joan that he is not attracted to Linnea (suggesting that he has strayed in the past) and chides David for being in such a sour mood. 

As she removes her watch to go to bed, Joan thinks back to when she (Annie Starke) first met Joe (Harry Lloyd), when he was her creative writing tutor at Smith College in 1958. He had been impressed by one of her stories and had asked her to babysit because his wife needed to let off some steam. But, even though she could sense he was a self-centred misogynist, Joan had been unable to prevent herself from falling in love with Joe and she remains devoted to him, even when he gets crumbs in his beard while telling interminable anecdotes at receptions and keeps flirting with Linnea. She had been snapping away after the Castlemans had been woken by a choir singing `Santa Lucia' in their hotel room and she looks on as Joan just about hides a wince as Joe introduces her as a non-writer to one of the scientific laureates.

David is also having a hard time dealing with the backhanded compliments that Joe pays to him in public. They argue in the car taking them to Joe's lecture and he storms off with some money borrowed from his mother. Joan asks Joe to be more supportive towards his son and he insists that he has to earn praise by writing something worthwhile. She also implores him not to thank her in his speech, as she doesn't appreciate being made to seem like the long-suffering spouse. As she thinks back, however, she realises that this is exactly what she has become and she reflects on meeting famous author Elaine Mozell (Elizabeth McGovern), who had told her that the men who run the American literary élite have no intention of allowing women to gatecrash their boys' club. 

Aware that she stole Joe from his first wife, Joan is alert to the signs that he is attracted to another woman. So, on waking to find he has not come to bed, she hastens down to the dining-room to see him quoting his favourite passage of James Joyce's The Dead to Linnea. She ticks him off for eating fatty food so late at night and rolls her eyes when he suggests that they slip away from all the fuss and get drunk in a cabin by a fjord. However, the idea of letting him swim alone for a while appeals and she sets off to explore the city.

In the hotel lobby, however, she is waylaid by Bone, who invites her for a drink in a nearby bar. Against her better judgement, Joan agrees and learns that he has been commissioned to write a warts`n'all biography of her husband. He admits that he knows about Joe's infidelities and tells Joan that he reckons they say more about his insecurity than her shortcomings as a mate. She is amused by his clumsy attempts to flirt with her and concedes that she is not proud of having enticed Joe away from his first wife and daughter. But, when Bone asks about the stories she published at Smith, Joan insists that she realised that she didn't have the personality to bolster her talent and that she recognised that she could be more valuable supporting Joe in his success than trying to cope with her own failure. 

Meanwhile, Joe has gone to a rehearsal of the prize-giving ceremony. He is teased by some of the scientists for being a fuddy-duddy, as he struggles to follow the simple instructions. But he feels faint and is recovering in a side room when Linnea comes to check up on him. She is about to kiss him when the alarm to remind him to take his pills sounds on his watch and she recoils. When he goes to sign her name on a walnut (a gambit that dates back to his Smith days), she gets embarrassed and hurries away, leaving him to pick up the nut from the floor and drop it in his pocket. 

Back at the bar, Bone mentions that he was surprised by the low standard of Joe's early stories and asks Joan if there is a reason why he improved so markedly as a writer after they met. She congratulates him on concocting such a far-fetched notion, but loses patience when he inquires why David is such an unhappy person. On returning to the hotel, Joan is badgered by Joe for going off alone and for smelling of cigarettes and alcohol. She finds the walnut with Linnea's name misspelt on the shell and they begin a blazing row that is abruptly ended by Susannah calling to tell them that they are grandparents. They talk to baby Max down the phone and hug each other, as they appreciate that, for all their problems, they have an enviably good life. 

They go for a drink with David, who gets mardy when Joe criticises his story. He explains that writing is a painful process and Joan nods quietly, as she harks back to New York in 1960, when she was an assistant at a publishing house looking for its next new writer. She had urged Joe to write The Walnut and had risked breaking up their relationship by being brutally honest in her assessment of his style. But she had also offered to fix the problems and they had bounced on the bed (as they would do on hearing the Nobel news) to celebrate the fact that their manuscript had been accepted for publication. 

While waiting for David on the night of the ceremony, Joe becomes twitchy and lambastes his son for smoking pot. He accuses him of trying to sabotage his big moment and David reveals that he had spoken to Bone, who had informed him that Joan had ghost-written every one of Joe's novels. She dismisses the theory as wild speculation. But Joe and Joan exchange glances as David asks why his mother spent so much time in his father's study when they were kids and he scoffs when Joe avers that she was proof-reading. However, they are clearly shaken and Joe reminds Joan that they are not bad people, as they drive to the ceremony. 

With Bone somehow sitting a couple of rows behind her, Joan looks on as Joe receives his medal from King Gustav (Nick Fletcher). She struggles to contain her emotions as she watches her husband take the adulation of the audience. But, when he credits her during his banquet speech with being his better half and thanks her for sparing him the tyranny of a blank page, Joan finally snaps. She resists his attempt to kiss her when he returns to the table and she shows him up in front of the monarch by storming out of the reception. 

In the car, she announces that she is leaving him because she is sick of playing such a demeaning role. He attempts to explain that he meant every word of his speech and tosses his medal out of the window when she refuses to accept it as her own. The chauffeur retrieves it and the Castlemans return to their hotel room. Joe pleads with Joan to calm down, but she lets the suppressed rage pour out and accuses him of being nothing more than a mediocre editor while she has allowed him to bask in her spotlight because she knows that the literary world would never have accepted her on her own terms. He argues that she had based her books on his life and that she had simply fleshed out his stories. But she reveals that each one had been spawned by one of his affairs and that she had built his reputation upon his flaws. 

As she starts packing, Joe tries to make her see reason by reminding her that their partnership has given her an idyllic life. He mentions their grandchild and how alone she will be when her friends start dying off. But, at that moment, he has a heart attack and Joan tells him that she still loves him as the medical team rush in and attempt to save him. On the plane home, the stewardess expresses her regrets at Joan's loss and claims that it was clear to see what a perfect couple they had made. Bone also offers his condolences. But Joan says she will sue him if his book does anything to reduce Joe's status. She promises David that she will tell him everything when they get home before she turns to a blank page in her notebook and looks beyond the camera, as though wondering how to write about this latest chapter in her life and, more to the point, how to ensure that it gets read. 

Several fictional films about the Nobel Prize have been thrillers centred around the ceremony. Among them are Mark Robson's The Prize (1963), Randall Miller's Nobel's Son (2007) and Peter Flinth's Nobel's Last Will (2013) and the suspense should have been just as unbearable in this exposure of a closely guarded secret. But Björn Runge and screenwriter Jane Anderson (who won an Emmy for her adaptation of Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge, 2014) reveal their hand far too early in the piece, with the result that they are unable to build any tension, as Joan Castleman draws ever closer to snapping. 

Recalling both Julie Kavner in Nora Ephron's This Is My Life (1992), which was also based on a Wolitzer novel, and Charlotte Rampling in Andrew Haigh's 45 Years (2015), Glenn Close delivers a performance of subtle intensity that is made all the more impressive by the fact that she spends so much of the story reacting with gracious poise to the careless words of her husband, their son and the various acolytes and liggers who latch on to them after the good news is announced. Yet, while she insists that she would prefer to be self-effacing, echoes of Alex Forrest rumble beneath the surface, as Joan is getting tired of being ignored.

Bearded and blowing hard in much the same way he did as another egotistical author in Alex Ross Perry's Listen Up Philip (2014), Jonathan Pryce does what he can with the thankless part of the needy, guilt-ridden and clay-footed novelist, while Christian Slater connives to give his slimeball journalist a modicum of empathetic charm. But Max Irons is left as high and dry in the role of the embittered son as Harry Lloyd and Annie Starke (who is Close's daughter) are as the wholly unpersuasive younger versions Joe and Joan. 

Runge has a decent track record, thanks to outings like Daybreak (2003). Mouth to Mouth (2005) and Happy End (2011). But, while he often blocks the action to emphasise Joan's marginalisation in her husband's world, Runge directs this predictable saga with an old-fashioned stolidity that is rather exposed by the sudden shift to handheld jerkiness at the start of the climactic contretemps. Yet, for all the polished proficiency of Ulf Brantås's imagery, Mark Leese's production design and Jocelyn Pook's score, this is primarily an actors' showcase and Close, Pryce and Slater seize their opportunities in the standout scenes. But the fervency of these set-pieces merely serves to highlight the predictability of the overall scenario.

In 2014, Carlos Marques-Marcet won the Goya for Best New Director for 10,000 Km, which followed the efforts of David Verdaguer and Natalia Tena to sustain their relationship after she moves to Los Angeles and leaves him at the other end of a Skype link in Barcelona. While it began promisingly, the storyline became increasingly convoluted as it went along and Marques-Marcet allows the same thing to happen in his sophomore outing, Anchor and Hope. Reuniting Tena and Verdaguer and relocating the action to London, this meticulously made, but frustratingly underwhelming dramedy bears an unmissable resemblance to Daisy Aitkens's You, Me and Him (2017), in which the loving relationship between lesbians Lucy Punch and Faye Marsay enters choppy waters after the latter gets pregnant during a one-night stand with lusty neighbour, David Tennant. 

Emerging from a long tunnel at the start of Chapter One, `We Can Get Another Cat', lovers Eva (Oona Chaplin) and Kat (Natalia Tena) steer their narrow boat along the Regent's Canal. They drop in on Eva's mother, Germaine (Geraldine Chaplin) to bury their cat, Chorizo, in her back garden and Kat plays along as Germaine chants to free the dead feline's spirit before allowing Eva to bring her to orgasm on a wooden bench. Walking back along the towpath, Eva says she wants her children to know their grandmother and Kat tries to change the subject, as she enjoys their freewheeling life too much to tie them down with a baby. 

She dashes off to meet her oldest friend, Roger (David Verdaguer), who is spending a fortnight in London. Kat wants him to stay on the barge and Eva goes along with it, even though she finds him a bit loud and rather resents his closeness to her girlfriend. However, after two bottles of wine, it dawns on Eva that Roger could be the sperm donor for their baby and it's Kat's turn to be put out when he readily agrees. When Eva starts throwing up, Kay puts her to bed and thinks the topic will be forgotten. But she wakes with a raging hangover to find Eva and Roger discussing genetics and is so confused that she strops out. Roger follows her and makes things worse by trying to reason with her and it's only when she gets back to the boat to find Eva sobbing on the bed that she gives in. 

After Roger borrows Eva's phone to watch some porn in the bathroom at the start of Chapter Two, `You Don't Have Steady Jobs', Kat uses a syringe to insert his donation and smiles when Eva insists on an orgasm to help the process along. As they have to move the boat once a fortnight, Roger helps them with the lock gates and asks if they would object if he moved to London to be closer to the child. They are pleased that he is taking such a keen interest, but reassure Germaine when she comes to supper that they would raise the baby and that Roger would only ever have visiting rights. 

She wonders how they will get along, when Eva teaches salsa, Kat works part-time at the Anchor and Hope pub and Roger has a temporary job handing out baked potato samples. Kat loses her patience when Germaine recalls how good intentions couldn't save the commune she had lived in during the 1970s and informs her that she has no right to criticise them because her generation had tried to change the world and made a right mess of it. Smiling sadly, Germaine realises that they have to do things their own way and toasts their future. 

A few weeks pass and Eva gets her period during a salsa class. She is disappointed and is waiting for Roger when he drops round with his new girlfriend, Jinx (Lara Rossi). Despite knowing nothing about his sideline, she claims to be fine with him helping his friends and listens with a look of incredulity on her face when he pops into the bathroom and returns to pass Eva a small plastic container. As Chapter Three, `A Kidney Bean', progresses, Eva becomes convinced she's pregnant when she notices that her breasts feel different in the morning. The three of them go to the clinic, but Roger has to wait outside while Eva has her scan. She is thrilled by the sound of the heartbeat, but fails to notice the glum expression on Kat's face and is touched instead by the fact that Roger cries when she shows him a printout of the image. 

When they go to a fancy dress party for the daughter of one of their friends, Kat stays close to the wine supply in the kitchen, while Eva and Roger entertain the kids with some animal impressions. They also go to a baby shop together and play along when the clerk mistakes them for a couple. But, when they get back to the boat and start considering some décor changes, Eva suddenly realises that she is making all the preparations with Roger and not with Kat. He doesn't think there's a problem and wants to keep playing duets on the piano. But he is hurt when Eva backs away when he goes to touch her tummy and accepts that she is serious about him backing away so that Kat has to start taking some responsibility. 

Roger is furious with Kat for messing things up and they fight on the barge and fall into the canal. However, as the camera focuses on water slowly slipping by, a cut take us to the nearby hospital, as Roger and Kat rush to Eva's side after she miscarries. Back on the barge, Roger tries to cheer her up by drawing a face on the side of his hand and blaming himself for not having the right stuff to create a healthy baby. But Eva realises that he is genuinely upset, while Kat betrays her relief by wishing this awful thing hadn't happened to Eva, when she thinks it has happened to them as a couple. Desperate to say the right thing, Kat begins burbling. But she's left speechless when Eva suggests that they break up because they are clearly not on the same wavelength. 

At the start of Chapter Four, `But You're Here Now', Eva moves into her old bedroom. But Germaine refuses to allow her to unpack her books and says that her thirtysomething daughter is too old to return to the nest. Meanwhile, Roger tries to jolly Kat along by singing at the piano on the barge. She gets teary when she remembers how Chorizo used to pad along the keys and they make up a song about a cute, but half-witted cat who was unable to float. He tells her to smarten up because she needs to move on and find someone new. They bring Susana (Charlotte Atkinson) and Christina (Meghan Treadway) back to the boat and Susana is keen to get Kat into bed. But she spooks her out by having a No.2 in the chemical toilet and Susana takes offence when Kat suggests that this is a more intimate activity than sex. 

Six months pass and Roger decides to return to Spain. He wants to say goodbye to Eva, but Kat doesn't know where she is. Germaine passes on her new address in a towerblock near the canal. She is surprised to see Kat waiting on her doorstep, as she had asked her to keep her distance until she had sorted herself out. Up in the flat, Kat begins to explain how she is now ready for motherhood and misses not having Eva in her life. But Eva shows her the nursery in the adjoining room and Kat is stunned that she is already pregnant by artificial insemination. Strutting across the park, Kat returns to the barge and is heading for the lock when Roger spots Eva sneaking along the towpath. She helps with the gates and the pair exchange hesitant grins that suggest this could still go either way. 

Beautifully played by Oona Chaplin and Natalia Tena (whose English accent is exceptional), this determinedly alternative romcom is engaging without ever being particularly enthralling. In adapting feminist activist Maria Llopis's novel, Maternidades Subversivas, Marques-Marcet and debuting co-writer Jules Nurrish dot the action with numerous dead-end scenes populated by non-returning characters that clutter proceedings without giving the audience any fresh insight into the protagonists. Even the scenes involving Geraldine Chaplin (acting opposite her own daughter for the first time) feel shoehorned in, as too much emphasis is placed on her hippy-dippiness and not enough on how she feels about Eva and Kat's relationship and the prospect of becoming a grandmother to a stranger's baby. 

Despite David Verdaguer's lively performance, Roger stubbornly remains an outsider, whose ability to drop everything and stay in London goes as unexplained as his friendship with Kat and his readiness to donate sperm when he senses that Kat isn't keen to become a parent. Yet, even though he appears to be a shameless womaniser, he must be sufficiently close to Eva for her to accept him as a potential father without a moment's hesitation. Such gaps in the narrative and glitches in its logic prevent the viewer from buying fully into the scenario, while the ease with which Eva and Kat fall apart and then patch things up feels equally specious. 

Cinematographer Dagmar Weaver-Madsen makes the most of the looming buildings on the quayside and the duck weed on the placid water, while production designer Tim Dickel ensures that the narrow boat seems both cosy and cramped in order to reflect how Kat and Eva variously feel about their relationship. But Marques-Marcet overdoes the use of tunnels, bridges and locks, while underselling the legal need (and the possible recessional necessity) to keep moving along the canal and the impact that this has on the couple finding jobs and putting down roots. Indeed, this lack of a socio-economic anchor means that the picture often drifts. But it scarcely helps that it's so similar in so many ways to Daisy Aitkens's earlier outing.

It's been a while since Harry H. Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell tried to train a greyhound named Hercules the Second in Peter Sykes's Steptoe and Son Ride Again (1973). But this wasn't the first British movie to be centred around the world of greyhound racing, as the legendary Mick the Miller had headlined Albert de Courville's Wild Boy (1934). Several characters have since pinned their dreams on a unprepossessing pooch, including Peter Noone in Saul Swimmer's Mrs Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter (1968), Colm Meaney in PJ Dillon's Most Important (1999) and Tyrone McKenna in Pearse Elliott's The Mighty Celt (2005). Now, Luke Newberry can be added to the list in Betsan Morris Evans's Dusty & Me. 

As the credit sequence provides a whistle-stop tour of the big news stories of 1977, 18 year-old Derek `Dusty' Springfield (Luke Newberry) is collected from his post private school by wheeler-dealing brother Little Eddie (Ben Batt) in his flash motor. They drive back to Leeds and are having a drink in the local pub when Dusty bumps into both dream girl Chrissie (Genevieve Gaunt) and a runaway greyhound belonging to Mickey the Bubble (Iain Glen). Little Eddie names the dog `Slapper' and cuts a deal with Mickey (who sports an ill-fitting wig) to board the dog at his kennels and let Dusty walk him until he gets the exam results that he hopes will get him into Oxford.

An outsider who reads books and watches subtitled films, Dusty worries his idle docker father, Big Eddie (Ian Hart), who is most proud of middle son, Georgie (Tom Prior), who has been signed by Leeds United. But mother Lil (Lesley Sharp) dotes on her youngest and presents him with a garish homemade shirt for his birthday. She defends him when the others tease Dusty at the breakfast table and, during their next walk, he tells Slapper how hard she tries to make ends meet on meagre resources. 

Despite throwing balls and sticks, Dusty can't get Slapper to run and he reads lots of books on the subject in a bid to get into her mind. Before slipping off to Spain to lie low for a while, Little Eddie jokes that he's wasting his time with Slapper and should be devoting himself to Chrissie, whose father owns the local chip shop. She asks if she can see Slapper run and Dusty is astonished when the dog suddenly hares off across the park and he has to go charging after her. Unfortunately, shifty rat catcher Bill (Lee Ross) and his dodgy mate, Alfie (Christian Foster), also notice Slapper's turn of speed and, while Dusty is at the pub with Chrissie and her friend Tracy (Geraldine Sharrock), they break into the kennels and steal the greyhound. 

Mickey breaks the bad news and Dusty searches everywhere for her, unaware that Chrissie has asked the neighbours to keep an eye out for the dog. Meanwhile, Bill has entered Slapper in an illegal race on a track illuminated by car headlights. But, while she wins, Slapper keeps running and Bill is furious with Alfie for letting her escape. Dusty finds her a few days later looking much the worse for her mistreatment and he hides her in his bedroom and is delighted when Lil sends Bill packing when he pokes his nose over the garden wall. He's even more chuffed when Lil defies Big Eddie (who hates dogs and thinks the Koreans have the right idea) by letting Slapper sleep in the shed. 

Moreover, Dusty is relieved to see that the dog is none the worse for her ordeal and he challenges Mickey to a race with his best greyhound, Flash. Chrissie and Mickey's pal, Frankie (Billy Geraghty), wait at the finishing line with bags of meat and Dusty is thrilled when Slapper trails Flash by a whisker and Mickey agrees to enter her in a novice event. He also goes along with Chrissie's suggestion that they dye Slapper's coat to prevent the You Dirty Rat duo from recognising her and even consents to a punk makeover disguise of his own. 

Lil thinks she should go to the Silverdale track to keep an eye on Dusty and Georgie agrees to come along with her. But Big Eddie refuses to join them and gets a lecture from Little Eddie about being a misery guts when he returns from Spain. Mickey registers both dogs and sends Dusty and Chrissie around the bookies to put small bets on Flash and Slapper to keep the odds up. They are entered in the same race and Slapper wins in a new track record. But, as they are celebrating, Bill squares up to Dusty and demands his share of the winnings. However, Chrissie, Lil, Georgie and the two Eddies (who arrive in the nick of time) land telling blows to leave Bill squirming in the dust. 

Back at the pub, Dusty thanks everyone for supporting him and he offers Lil a clean hankie when she cries with happiness. A letter falls out of his pocket and he discovers that he has won a place at Oxford. Big Eddie beams with pride and the entire bar tells him to shut up when he asks how much it's going to cost him. As the band strikes up `The Things We Do For Love', Frankie finds a guitar and Mickey grabs the microphone and Dusty gets his first kiss from Chrissie when everyone gets up to bop - apart from Slapper, who dozes off on a banquette in a manner that suggests that she is the `Me' of the title. 

Despite getting off to an awkward start by adding an extra `e' to Lesley Sharp's surname in the opening credits, this turns out to be a breezy comedy that diverts without making too many demands on the audience. In truth, Rob Isted's script would have felt a little antiquated back in 1977, as its humour is as broad as its insights into northerness and male chauvinism. Isted also fails to make the dognapping villains from the wrong side of the Pennines seem anything other than pantomimic contrivances borrowed from the Children's Film Foundation. 

Yet this glorified sitcom rolls along and is populated by a host of genial, if stock characters. Making her first theatrical feature since the 1998 Patrick Stewart vehicle, Dad Savage, TV veteran Betsan Morris Evans directs steadily and makes amusing use of stylised inserts to allow Dusty to converse with the exiled Little Eddie. She and cinematographer Katie Swain also achieve a decent sense of place without romanticising the terraces and back alleys. That said, production designer Ben Smith and costumier Lance Milligan oftimes come close to pastiche. 

Initially, Luke Newberry struggles to make Dusty seem something more than a prissy snob who looks down on his fellow Loiners. But, like Brenock O'Connor in Steve Kelly's The Bromley Boys (2018) - with which Dusty & Me shares a number of themes and caricatures - Newberry grows into his character alongside Genevieve Gaunt, even though they're both a decade too old for the roles. Ben Batt also amuses as the family rogue. But, when it comes to scene stealing, dependables Ian Hart, Lesley Sharp and Iain Glen give the doe-eyed greyhound the closest run for her money.

In 2015, Israeli documentarist Mor Loushy produced a contentiously compelling alternative history of the Six-Day War in Censored Voices. The Israeli government had suppressed all but 30% of the recordings that kibbutzniks Amos Oz and Avraham Shapira made with soldiers returning from the conflict in June 1967. But, while Loushy secured access to the tapes, she opted to present them in a manner that precludes comment on their content. Instead, she and editor Daniel Sivan intercut between archival news footage and close-ups filmed by Itai Raziel and Avner Shahaf of the ageing campaign veterans listening impassively to their own accounts of what they had seen and done almost half a century earlier. As a consequence, while the testimony retained its potency, the refusal to contextualise it or analyse its significance left it in a politico-historical netherworld at the heart of an ongoing conflict that was exacerbated by the Israeli seizure of the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai Peninsula and part of the Golan Heights.

Now, in analysing the secret talks that culminated in the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1993, Loushy and co-director Sivan have again taken an unconventional approach to their material. In addition to the usual blend of archive footage and talking heads, The Oslo Diaries also makes extensive use of dramatic re-enactments and actor-read extracts from the diaries and memoirs produced by the Israeli and Palestinian delegates involved in the nascent peace process. As with so many recent documentaries bent on revising the actuality format, the effect proves something of a distraction and, while its results are nowhere near as confusing as they were in Christopher Martin's Under the Wire, the gambit suggests a lack of faith in either the material or the audience's ability to focus on the matter in hand without visual embellishment. 

With relations between the Israelis and the Palestinians at an all-time low in July 1992, history professors Yair Hirschfeld and Ron Pundak met with a Tunis-based trio representing the Palestine Liberation Organisation, Abu Ala, Maher El-Kurd and Hassan Asfour, in a remote villa in a forest near the Norwegian capital, Oslo. As the discussions were not officially sanctioned, the only records were kept by the participants themselves and we hear an extract from Pundak's diary lamenting that the end to his story still lies some way in the future. 

According to Pundak's account, the PLO was a terrorist organisation led by Yasser Arafat, whose belief in an armed struggle had sparked hijackings, bombings and the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. The majority of Palestinians trusted Arafat, but Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (1992-95) refused to contemplate a Palestinian state controlled by the PLO. He had been elected on a peace and security ticket, but his failure to deliver led to a right-wing revival under new opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu. Consequently, Deputy Foreign Minister Yossi Beilin, decided to act outside the law and establish a secret line of communication with the PLO and Hirschfeld and Pundak agreed to be his representatives, even though they risked being charged with espionage and treason if their negotiations were ever uncovered.

In his final interview, former Foreign Minister Shimon Peres asserts that the PLO was a brutal terrorist organisation and that direct contact was anathema to him. But, as Abu Ala explains, sacrifices had to be made in the name of peace and he had to suppress his hated of the occupiers who had stolen his homeland when he flew to Oslo in December 1992. Pundak also had misgivings, as he set off to attend a bogus academic conference with Hirschfeld. He recalls the first session being very tense, as Ala was the PLO Minister of Finance, El-Kurd was a close confidante of Arafat and Asfour was a militant Communist with a hardline approach to diplomacy. 

Looking back, Hirschfeld recalls being insulted by Ala's comparison between the Nazi occupation of Norway and Israeli control of the Palestinian Territories and having to let the remark go on the proviso that any repetition would mean the end of the meeting. However, the professors were stunned when Ala went on to say that the PLO wanted a compromise and proposed an end to hostilities in return for an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. On the basis of this offer, Pundak and Hirschfeld drafted a strategy and returned to Jerusalem to pitch it to their handlers in March 1993. 

However, neither Rabin nor Peres took the Oslo breakthrough seriously and it was only when a new wave of violence brought protesters on to the streets that they agreed to send the academics back to the table with diplomat Uri Savir and military lawyer Joel Singer. The latter got off to a bad start when he bridled at being kissed on both cheeks by a male terrorist. Savir also got off on the wrong foot with Ala when they discussed their family origins. As Savir's family had returned from Germany, while Ala's remained in Jerusalem, they agreed to focus on the future rather than bicker about the past. 

Yet, while Savir was prepared to accept Palestinian resentment and try to see the situation from their perspective, Ala was furious that Rabin's suggestions rowed back on the proposals made by Hirschfeld and Pundak. He muttered that this solution would only lead to massacre and he returned to Tunis in June 1993 in some confusion. News footage showed Israel clamping down on Palestinian protests. Yet, by sending Savir and Singer to Oslo, Rabin and Peres had shown they were prepared to talk and Ala recognised that such a risky initiative had to be embraced, as there might not be another one. 

Despite Rabin sealing off the West Bank and Gaza, Ala's delegation returned to Norway with a new proposal aimed at securing United Nations Resolution 242, which related to the Israeli withdrawal of the Occupied Territories. However, Savir and Singer refused to discuss definitive borders and he confided to his diary that the PLO never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. But Israeli intransigence prompted Ala to announce his resignation from the talks and expressed his torment in his diary, as he contemplated abandoning both the struggle and the chance for peace. 

In a bid to salvage the situation, Ala and Savir met again and reached a new level of understanding when Ala asked how a superpower could feel to threatened by such a small populace and Savir explained that any sign of weakness in dealing with the Palestinians would encourage the Arab neighbours that wanted Israel wiped off the map. Ala promised to convey this mutual recognition offer to Arafat. But, at that moment, news of the top secret conference leaked and, while details remained sketchy, Rabin and Peres knew they had to act quickly to prevent Likud accusing them of being traitors. 

As no one knew the location of the talks, however, the principals were able to continue towards a deal. Among the concessions agreed was an initial Israeli exit from Gaza and Jericho, with a withdrawal from the West Bank following within a year. Within five years, a treaty would be concluded to address the issues of Jerusalem, Israeli settlements, Palestinian refugees and the delineation of borders. A secret pact was signed and, in home movie footage,  Ala and Savir spoke with generosity and optimism about the need to make it work. 

With the global news media reacting with shock to the PLO recognising Israel's right to exist and Israel accepting the PLO as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people, Norwegian Foreign Minister Johan Jørgen Holst emerged as the honest broker between the two sides. American President Bill Clinton invited Rabin and Arafat to Washington to sign the Camp David Accords and adviser Daniel Kurtzer recalls how they had to pick their way through a protocol minefield to ensure no wrong signals were given by either party. Nabil Shaath also remembers Clinton asking if Arafat could abandon both his military uniform and his habit of hugging and kissing people for the ceremony on 13 September 1993. However, he only consented to tone down his form of greeting. 

As PLO spokesperson Hanan Ashrawi tells US television that the accords represent that emergence of a Palestinian state, we see footage of Clinton leading Rabin and Arafat on to the White House lawn. Peres recalls how difficult it was for Rabin and himself to shake hands with a man they still regarded as a terrorist. But, as Peres notes, peace is made with enemies and not friends and that their discomfort was a small price to pay for what appeared to be a sizeable step forward. 

In his speech, Rabin quoted Ecclesiastes 3:8 in declaring that the time for peace has arrived, while Arafat told Peter Snow in a Newsnight interview that he has grounds for optimism. But Ala admitted to being afraid for the future, while Savir regretted the fact that the disclosure of the process meant that he and Ala were no longer secret partners, but advocates on opposing sides. When a new round of talks commenced at Taba in Egypt in October 1993, Saath also found it difficult to sit down with former Israeli general Amnon Lipkin-Shahak after learning that he had been part of a raid that had claimed the lives of three of his closest friends in Beirut. But he was persuaded that the discussions were designed to prevent a repeat of such tragedies. 

The pair drafted a Gaza-Jericho Agreement and hopes rose of democratic elections, the introduction of Palestinian passports and the opening of an international airport in the West Bank. But they were shattered in February 1994 by the murder of 29 Palestinian worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron by American-Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein, who was a member of the far-right Kach movement. When riots broke out across the Occupied Territories, Israeli security forces killed nine Palestinians and wounded hundreds more. Yet Peres found himself being accused of treachery in the Knesset when he denounced Goldstein as a murderer, who was being proclaimed a saint by his supporters. But rather than clamping down on the settlers, it was the Palestinian population of Hebron that was placed in lockdown.

Saeb Erekat, the chairman of the Palestinian delegation, reveals that 82% of Palestinians supported the Oslo deal. But that backing quickly dwindled after it became clear that the settlement programme was going to continue unabated and that Israel had no intention of honouring its side of the bargain. As Arafat was burned in effigy, Mahmoud Al-Zahar, the co-founder of Hamas, became an increasingly important figure in the region and he tells a TV interviewer that any act of revenge would be fully justified. Footage shows the ramifications of the first suicide bombings, which came exactly 40 days after the Hebron shooting, as the Palestinians ended their period of mourning with reprisal. 

In the midst of such carnage, talks resumed at Taba in March 1994, as Ala and Savir continued to fight for their deal. In May, the Gaza-Jericho documents were due to be signed in Cairo. President Hozny Mubarak hosted the ceremony, but he was left hanging when Arafat and Rabin refused to sign the map booklets, which rendered the accompanying printed agreements worthless. As Middle East envoy Dennis Ross explains, the distance between the two side was considerable. But Mubarak used his influence with Arafat to get him to sign-off the maps and a calamity was avoided, even though both sides considered the incident humiliating.

Arafat's return to Gaza in July 1994 was also a partial triumph. As Ashrawi recorded in her diary, it was unclear whether he had been allowed to return by the Israelis so they could control him or whether this was another step in the right direction. Ala had mixed emotions, as his father had died just four months before his return. He wept with the emotion of returning to his homeland and was touched when Savir called with some Arab words of welcome for his new neighbour. 

Yet, when they met again in Taba a month later, they found themselves at loggerheads over the West Bank, as Israeli was only prepared to give the PLO control over 2% of the territory and insisted on keeping the army in the other 98. Arafat stormed out of the room and Ala warned Savir that forcing him into such a corner would be counterproductive. That night, Ala collapsed and was rushed to hospital and Savir urged his friend to stay strong. But, while the diagnosis was exhaustion, he knew that the map he had presented had broken Ala's heart. 

Ashrawi remembers the day that Palestinians had presented Israeli troops with flowers and olive branches in the hope that the tide had turned. But the sense of betrayal was overwhelming and the wave of bus bombings drove a wedge between the two sides. Peres recalls driving to the scene of one such attack and being called a traitor by the bystanders. Yet Beilin and Ala were determined they had come too far to give in. They resumed the round of secret talks and tackled issues that Israel had previously been reluctant to discuss, including the status of the 1967 borders and sharing Jerusalem as a capital city. Genuine progress was made. But the situation had changed again by the time they reunited in Taba in September 1995. 

Following a fractious meeting that Kurtzer considered unhealthily tense, the two sides had socialised during the evening and even participated in the Friday breaking of bread. But news filtered through about a bus explosion in the centre of Jerusalem and the teams watched the bulletins in silent despair. A couple of days later, Ala insisted on Savir watching Palestinian reports about a young boy being killed by Israeli soldiers and they agreed that neither side held dominion over suffering. Remarkably, in the days that followed, the pair managed to agree a draft of the Oslo-B Accord, which made provision for the Israeli withdrawal from six West Bank cities and free elections.

Rabin declared it `a day of achievements', but Netanyahu accused him of selling out the biblical Promised Land and he whipped up crowds in his heartlands to call for Rabin's violent removal. Meanwhile, Rabin signed Oslo-B in Washington and jokes that Arafat is becoming Jewish because he has become so fond of making speeches. Ala and Savir are also interviewed together to reaffirm their optimism. But those in favour of peace opted not to take their message on to the streets and Likud and Hamas filled the vacuum by inciting the voices of angry opposition. 

Eventually, however, Rabin agreed to a rally on 4 November 1995 in Tel-Aviv and Peres reveals that he had never seen his friend of 50 years so happy. He sang along with a song for peace and thanked the young people for turning out in such enthusiastic numbers. As he returned to his car, however, he was gunned down by members of the Jewish Vendetta Group and Erekan recalls Arafat telling him that they had assassinated the Peace Process as well as Rabin. 

With Peres now prime minister, Beilin urged him to honour Rabin's memory by implementing the terms of Oslo-B. But he insisted the time wasn't right and Beilin blames himself for not being strong enough to coerce his boss into reconsidering what Beilin thought was the biggest mistake of Peres's political life. Savir was also dismayed by the stalling, but had no idea that when he parted company from Ala in May 1996 with the words, `See you soon, my friend,' that this would be their last meeting in an official capacity, as Peres was swept from power in an election that saw Neyanyahu take 50.4% of the vote.

Singer reflects on the moment he knew the bridge he had been building had been destroyed and that a once in a lifetime opportunity had been frittered away. As Netanyahu addressed supporters about taking the State of Israel in a new direction, captions reveal that Oslo-B was never implemented and that a planned 1999 treaty was never signed. Since the collapse of the talks, over 16,000 Palestinians and Israelis have been killed. As Peres avers in the closing remark, there are only victims rather than victories in war and that peace is the only thing worth fighting for. 

It's hard to avoid a profound sense of sadness at the end of this accessible and admirably equitable account of the Oslo peace initiative, as it seems grimly evident that a bold and courageous strategy was doomed to fail from the outset because of the intransigence of extremists on both sides. We are never told whether Loushy and Sivan sought their input and were rebuffed or whether they were marginalised. But the absence of those opposed to the Peace Process means that viewers have to make do with only half of the story. 

Many more will be frustrated by the mode of presentation, as the lookalikes are so convincing and the manipulation of the image texture is so adept that it's often difficult to discern what is archive footage and what has been manufactured. Clearly, film is a visual medium and documentarists have to do something to fill the screen when primary material proves unavailable. But the use of such artfully persuasive facsimiles feels disingenuous and risks distracting the audience from the important audio information being provided by either the reminiscing speakers or the actors quoting their printed recollections. 

Covering ground explored by JT Rogers in the Tony-winning play, Oslo (2016), Loushy and Sivan will help many make sense of an intractable situation, even though they rather skimp on placing events in a wider historical context. But, while they wisely devote plenty of time to the shattering aftermath of the talks, their use of François Jolin's score to ramp up the aura of melancholic suspense doesn't always leave viewers with much room to reach their own conclusions.

A former Vogue editor-at-large and America's leading black tastemaker, André Leon Talley has become a familiar face to British audiences through such fashion documentaries as Matt Tyrnauer's Valentino: The Last Emperor (2008), RJ Cutler's The September Issue (2009), Whitney Sudler-Smith's Ultrasuede: In Search of Halston (2010), CS Leigh's A Quiet American: Ralph Rucci and Paris (2012), Francesco Corrozzini's Franca: Chaos and Creation, Andrew Rossi's The First Monday in May (both 2016), Sandy Chronopoulos's House of Z and Michael Robert's Manolo: The Boy Who Made Shoes For Lizards (both 2017). Now, he has a profile of his own in the form of Kate Novack's The Gospel According to André, But, for all its sincerity, this scarcely does justice to either Talley's struggles or his success. 

`I don’t live for fashion, I live for beauty and style,' reveals André Leon Talley in the opening moments of the documentary. `Fashion is fleeting, style remains.' But, as we see clips of Talley in action between 1984-2016 and hear hyperbolic tributes from designers Marc Jacobs and Tom Ford, Vogue doyenne Anna Wintour and academic Eboni Marshall Turman, we also have to listen to musician will.i.am (in his sole contribution to the picture) making the ridiculously glib claim that Talley is `the Nelson Mandela of couture and the Kofi Annan of what you got on'. 

As Talley reminisces at his home in White Plains, New York, Chapter One, `Sunday Best', whisks us back to his childhood dwelling in Durham, North Carolina. Abandoned by his mother Alma into the care of grandmother Binnie Davis, Talley was surrounded by storytelling relatives who taught him the importance of a good narrative. He compares their relationship to the one depicted in Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory and school friends Bruce Weaver, Alexis Thomas and Anne Bibby remember them doting on each other. Talley claims that Binnie has an aristocratic attitude, even though she didn't have a bean. But she did have a lot of hats, which formed a crucial part of the Sunday Best ensembles she wore to church and these displays of humble finery were what attracted Talley to the art of dressing well.

As journalist Tamron Hall seeks out Talley's advice on the dress she is going to wear to the White House, he recalls seeing African-American models like Naomi Sims on the pages of Vogue in the local library and he states that his views on fashion, culture, poetry and beauty were formed during these moments of juvenile escape from reality. Another key influence was John Fairchild's book, The Fashionable Savages, from which he learned about Vogue's new editor in chief, Diana Vreeland (1963-71).

But daily life was tough and Talley recalls having rocks thrown at him by the white students on the campus at Duke University. He attended the all-black Hillside High School and teacher Wanda Garrett reflects on an era of segregation with dismay, as black kids didn't have to be good, they had to be better than their white counterparts. She smiles sadly, as she opines that success was the best form of revenge for black kids in this period. When Talley comes to visit, she is delighted to see him and praises his performance as the Duke in a production of The Mouse That Roared. 

Inspired to learn French by TV cook Julia Child, Talley also looked up to
Lady Ottoline Morrell and Martin Luther King and took to shopping in thrift shops after seeing Barbra Streisand singing `Secondhand Rose' on television.  Weaver fondly recalls going to baseball games with Talley's Washington cab-driving father, William. But he couldn't get out of the stadium fast enough to go shopping and he muses about the various capes, kaftans and turbans that became his trademark after he started to fill out in his forties. While walking to church one Sunday, Alma had ticked him off for his outré fashion sense, but Binnie had supported him every step of the way and Turman notes that Talley has defied standards of African-American masculinity throughout his life. 

On getting a French studies scholarship to Brown, Talley broke more chains and he speculates at the start of Chapter 2, `The Debutante', that he would still be in Durham as a nice churchgoing fellow if he hadn't moved away when he did. College friends Yvonne Cormier and Reed Evins remember him growing in confidence and start writing pieces for the nearby Rhode Island School of Design newspaper. 

Designer Norma Kamali also recalls their early days together in New York in 1974, when the kings of the fashion world were Yves Saint Laurent and Halston. However, he got his break when Diana Vreeland, who was then at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, appointed him a special helper during the curation of a show entitled, `Romantic and Glamorous Hollywood Design', after he pieced together a metal costume that Lana Turner had worn in Richard Thorpe's The Prodigal (1955). Italian designer Valentino Garavani speaks warmly of their bond and Talley remembers Binnie being furious with him for not coming home for Christmas and accusing him of hooking up with a white woman. 

Moving up the ladder, Talley landed a job on Andy Warhol's Interview magazine, where he met columnist Fran Lebowitz, who was impressed by this black giant answering the phones on the reception desk. They would frequent Studio 54, but model Bethann Hardison backs his claim that he went to dance and people watch rather than indulge in sex and drugs. Friend Whoopi Goldberg suggests that the scene dwellers were taken aback by him because he stood out. But, as designer Diane von Furstenberg reveals, he also had the knowledge and the personality to ensure that people took him seriously. Among them was Karl Lagerfeld, who was so impressed by Talley's interview technique that he gave him clothes from the trunks in his hotel room and they remained good friends. 

Indeed, their relationship helped Talley land a job in Paris with Women's Wear Daily in 1978. He admits to having been nervous on his arrival, but he was welcomed with open arms and designer Ralph Rucci states that he quickly became the centre of the bureau's circle. Muse Betty Catroux introduced him to Saint Laurent and he wrote glowingly about a show inspired by George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess because it reminded him of the fashions he had known in the South. However, such was his immersion in his career that he never found time for romance and Talley confirms friend George Malkemus III's suspicion that this is a disappointment rather than a major regret.

Back in New York, Talley goes to visit Isabella Rossellini and watches her rubbing the tummy of a pig on her farm. They became friends when Talley moved to Vogue under editor Grace Mirabella (1971-88), who didn't always approve of some of his bolder concepts. However, he found a protector in Anna Wintour and she confides that she recognised his knowledge of fashion history could help her bluff her way through the daily routine. Comedian Sandra Bernhard admires the way Talley embraced being larger than life and Manolo Blahnik praises his sense of layout style, as his pages always conveyed his passion for the clothes and the models. Jacobs concurs that Talley became bewitched at runaway shows, but was drinking it all in and relating it to the art, fashion and cinema that had inspired the collection. 

He meets Vogue fashion director Tonne Goodman in the Condé Nast archive and looks back at stories involving Cindy Crawford walking around Monte Carlo in a black veil and swimsuit and Naomi Campbell playing Scarlett O'Hara in a race-inverted take on Gone With the Wind that also featured Manolo Blahnik as a gardener and fellow designer John Galliano scrubbing floors. Former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter and advertising executive Steve Stoute testify to his intelligence and influence as a black man in a very white world. 

Hall and Turman allude to his struggles down the years, while Wintour claims that he disliked discussing race. But he reveals being hurt by the nickname `Queen Kong' and the fact that people he admired were convinced that he must have slept with Vreeland and the major French designers to have risen so high. Dismissing the ignorance of such remarks, but pointing out their association with buck slaves, Talley states that he learned enough in the segregated South to know when to say his piece. But it saddens him that little has changed during the course of his lifetime, despite Barack and Michelle Obama getting to the White House. 

The 2016 presidential election comes closer in Chapter Four, `Precious Memories'. and Talley meets with Hall, Turman and designer Andre Walker to share his concerns that Hillary Clinton might get pipped at the post. He is devastated when Donald Trump wins and joins New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd to live blog the inauguration. He concedes that Melania looks regal and jokes that his social media accounts will be blitzed because of his honesty. But the oath stuns him into silence and friend Catie Marron reads an extract from a letter he had written her when Obama took office and he hoped he would become the black Abraham Lincoln. 

Returning to Durham, Talley pops into the Mount Sinai Baptist Church and embarks upon a six-week diet. He shows Novack around his home and admits that one room has been decorated to please both his grandmother and Diana Vreeland. On a trip to Duke, he watches Turman preaching in the chapel and he tells her that she reminds him of Binnie. His friends are delighted that he turned out to be the man he told them he would be and, as we see him having a facial in a beauty spa, Wintour suggests that the kaftans and the jewellery were a form of armour that allowed him to be so fearless in breaking down barriers. 

Perhaps because of the access that Novack had to her larger-than-life subject, this is less a hard-hitting biographical study of an African-American pioneer and the hurdles he had to overcome during his remarkable career than a leisurely colour supplement profile that touches on contentious topics without exploring them in what most viewers would see as the necessary detail. Nevertheless, the eloquence with which Talley reflects on the racial slurs he has had to endure says much about his passion and intelligence and it's a shame that Novack declines to show more of these qualities in seeking to mythologise Talley and demonstrate how much he is revered by his friends and fans. 

It would have been nice to hear him discuss a theory of style and go into more detail on his approach to fashion writing, as we learn little about his qualities as a journalist or his insights into what set the great designers apart from their peers. Lots of names are dropped and there are plenty of famous faces. But the effect is more gossipy than scholarly and, while Talley emerges as a fascinating and engaging character, Novack sells him and his achievement short. As with so many fashionista treatises, the sense of deferential awe is over-powering and Novack makes no attempt to explore the socio-economic aspects of couture or its connection to quotidian reality. Nevertheless, in making her first solo feature, she teams well with cinematographer Bryan Sarkinen in order to contrast Talley's backwoods origins with the metropolitan mayhem in which he has thrived against all the odds.