The Father (2020)

This multi-Oscar-Award-winning film is no-one's idea of a good time but it is so rivetting on account of its being so well-acted and filmed and told, you are not able to take your eyes off it and the sting in the tail of course is that while delivered with thrills of a distinctly Hitchcockian style, these thriller elements are just the trappings of a very real, commonplace, and oh-so-heart-breaking aged-care conundrum and the film cleverly makes you guilty of assuming wrong things about the cantankerous old man Anthony Hopkins plays.

★★★★☆

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The Favourite (2018)

Director Yorgis Lanthimos's latest and most accessible movie to date tells of Queen Anne's friendships with the privileged Lady Sarah and 'downstairs' Abigail, two women in competition to be the Queen's favourite; sumptuous period detail, a cracker performance by Olivia Coleman as Queen Anne, and titled chapters that recall Barry Lyndon help disguise the fact that this is essentially an episode of Melrose Place transported to the 1700s - one of the ones where Jane Mancini and her sister Sydney Andrews fight and end up in the pool.

★★★★☆

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