Personal Shopper (15)
(Olivier Assayas, 2016, Fra/Ger) 105 mins
Kristen Stewart is haunted by virtual entities, real and imagined, in this cool art-horror: a dead twin brother, a creepy text stalker, an absent fashionista boss, a Skype boyfriend. It’s a supernatural thriller for the digital age, with notes of Don’t Look Now, The Devil Wears Prada, Body Double, maybe even Ghostbusters. Stewart’s classy, understated performance ties it all together.
Get Out (15)
(Jordan Peele, 2017, US) 104 mins
Surely there’s nothing to fear for a modern-day African-American man meeting his white girlfriend’s parents? Racial paranoia injects a real shot of life into this thoroughly entertaining horror, which treads a fine line between dread and satire as it gradually peels back the veneer of a strange, Stepford-like community.
Elle (18)
(Paul Verhoeven, 2016, Fra/Ger/Bel) 131 mins
After being raped in her Paris home, Isabelle Huppert refuses to act a victim, which takes this thriller off the generic rape-revenge track and into uncharted territory. Her character’s complex family and professional life shed light on both her response and society’s endemic misogyny.
The Love Witch (15)
(Anna Biller, 2016, US) 118 mins
Looking back at 1960s and 70s horrors and melodramas through a 21st-century feminist lens, this retro-styled one-off is a feast for the eyes. Samantha Robinson plays the potion-brewing seductress of the title, naively seeking true love but leaving a trail of corpses in her wake.
The Salesman (12A) (Asghar Farhadi, 2016, Ira/Fra) 123 mins
Another sophisticated domestic drama (and another Oscar) for the Iranian auteur, who once again explores the repercussions of a fateful incident. A stranger enters a woman’s Tehran apartment while she’s showering and leaves her with a head wound. Her husband feels he needs to find answers and take action. Their roles in an am-dram Death of a Salesman only add to the complexity.
