Rory Doherty

Starring Adeel Akhtar and Claire Rushbrook amongst its realist Bradford ensemble, Ali & Ava is a rare film to critic Rory Doherty: a heartfelt love story that’s not dripping in sentimentality.
The films of Yorkshire director Clio Barnard aren’t as similar or easily identified as you’d think, despite all taking place in quiet English counties, and all presenting rich interiorities of working class people with a natural, somewhat social realist lens. But the claim that her films are indistingui...

Some find his work distant, others are put off by its intensity; but there’s no denying Alex Garland’s storytelling has a tangible effect on his audience. Rory Doherty chooses five of the Men director’s essential works.
Alex Garland first snuck into Hollywood when his eco-utopian book The Beach was adapted by Danny Boyle and his frequent screenwriting collaborator John Hodge. It wasn’t before long that Garland himself became a Boyle collaborator, and so started the career of one of Britain’s ...

Do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and savior Jesus Christ? Or more accurately, do you have 860 minutes? That’s as long as it will take you to watch every film or series where Andrew Garfield plays a Christian whose faith is tested. Formerly a walking V05 commercial, Garfield has pivoted in the last half dozen years to playing an elaborate game of “Collect the Sects,” giving us a broad, complicated range of how faith can compel human beings.
The thing is, Christian denominations are ...

It’s heistin’ time, Brit-style. Rory Doherty plays mastermind, putting together the perfect plan fit for a Guy Ritchie movie.
Alright, geezer. You heard we’re putting a crew together? This job’s a big ‘un so we can’t have any Frankie Howards. It’s so big, we need the best of the best; a top crew, a top plan, top everything.
Where are we gonna get our mitts on all of that? We learn from the best. We’ve taken a gander at the cream of homegrown British heist pictures, and seen what they have to ...

Netflix’s portrait of a serial abuser Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story is certainly made for audiences outside the UK, Rory Doherty claims, in his review of this well-made yet frustrating docuseries.
There are two types of Netflix true crime documentaries; ones that contain substantial, legitimate investigative reporting, and exploitative ones that are more fascinated with a shocking, larger-than-life criminal story than sensitive filmmaking.
If it was pitched to you (and certainly if you...

Note: This article discusses events that have happened through Episode 8.
Every time Mark rides the elevator to the severance floor of Lumon Industries, a chip in his bifurcated brain is activated and every memory of life outside his work disappears, leaving him with only those he forms during office hours. When he leaves at the end of the day, he’ll regain access to his exterior memories, but retain nothing of the past eight hours. It sounds grim and dehumanizing, a perverse work-life balanc...

It’s too long and too unrealistic to elevate director Michael Bay’s reputation, but Ambulance is still an explosively fun time—especially amidst today’s drab blockbuster scene, says Rory Doherty.
It’s funny how things change. A decade ago, Michael Bay seemingly represented everything wrong with cinema; his maximalist directing style of crass, lowest-common-denominator scripts were routinely touted as the worst blockbuster filmmaking could get.
But after a decade of mind-numbing hyper-franchiz...

In Superior, a psychological drama set in a small snowy town in the fall of 1987, two identical twin sisters pretend to be each other. Their identity swap is not all-consuming and nefarious; this is not a Lynchian descent into the tortured psychology of a double, but there’s still something illicit and mischievous about living as someone else, who looks just like you but whose life offers a variety of enticing possibilities. Vivian (Ani Mesa) lives a stultified life as a housewife in a passio...

Film FestivalsGlasgow Film FestivalReviews
The obvious horrors of apartheid South Africa — the sectarian violence, the legal enforcement of people of colour’s subhuman status, and the day-to-day living in a prejudiced, stratified country — aren’t literally portrayed in Good Madam. Director Jenna Cato Bass plays with their absence, she lets them scream silently in the background so they’re always on your mind.
The story itself concerns a financially vulnerable and socially isolated Black mothe...

Despite perpetuating the dangerous myth that actors are funny and cool people, The Braves emerges from behind a textbook Bohemian-arts tale in its first act to reveal a quietly complex and affecting drama about young people forced to confront matters much maturer than themselves. The second film from French filmmaker Anaïs Volpé (although touted as her debut by some) confidently enters the canon of “play-within-a-film” cinema. The Braves probes what charged emotions actors bring to their perf...

Starring: Isabelle Fuhrman, Amy Forsyth, Dilone, Jonathan Cherry, Kate Drummond, Charlotte Ubben, Sage Irvine, Chantelle Bishop, Jeni Ross
Elitism in rowing goes further than its entrenchment in Oxbridge and Ivy League universities – in the world of this punishing endurance sport, it’s easy for struggling rowers to convince themselves that their competitors’ bodies are simply better than theirs. For novice Alex (a powerful Isabelle Fuhrman), a freshman at an excessively brutalist mid-tier col...

You can tell if a film is a labour of love even if you don’t know the story behind its creation. The passion of every cast and crew member on Paul Marris’ no-budget gangland debut is clearly on screen, as their characters try to take control or break free from the dreary scheme life of the fictional Mauchton. But while there’s a lot of inventive creativity to see in Angry Young Men, its comedy and drama can feel too distinct to truly blend together.
The ensemble cast is game, and all bring a ...

If you ever laughed yourself silly at a low-res Who Killed Captain Alex? trailer back in the early days of YouTube, you’ll be glad there’s now a feature-length documentary about it. More broadly, it’s about Wakaliwood, the Ugandan home of no-budget gonzo action movies directed by Isaac Nabwana, all of which are packed with ambition and martial arts. (Because, to quote, “Everybody in Uganda knows kung-fu.”)
Directors Cathryne Czubek and Hugo Perez have assembled a wildly entertaining doc from ...

A Banquet by Signiture Entertainment
An aversion to other people eating is a common human ick, and if you haven’t experienced it before, you certainly will while watching Ruth Paxton’s supernatural drama A Banquet. A grieving family are tested after their traumatic loss when the eldest daughter, Betsey (Jessica Alexander), finds herself transformed into an apocalyptic prophet – one who is unable to eat anything. Dinner table tension, as well as the sounds of cutlery and mastication, are diall...