The Man With The Answers (2021)

This unhurried, tender and utterly charming comedy has former diving champion Victor, a Greek, driving an old Audi from Greece to Germany, and on the ferry to Italy, he meets Mathias, a German whose Rupert Everett drollness so disarms Victor he eventually, after initial resistance, lets his guard down, braves the dangers of being chopped up into pieces on Italy's provincial backroads and welcomes Mathias as a companion on his journey to reinvigorate himself, a trip full of highs and lows, ups and downs, and beautiful scenery.

★★★★☆

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Old (2021)

No, director M. Night Shyamalan doesn't have an excuse for yet another lame ending because although this time his movie, a beach-based Picnic At Hanging Rock (a group of people lug picnic baskets to a beach only to discover they are trapped and inexplicably ageing there) is based on Sandcastle, a graphic novel by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters, Shyamalan actually changes the ending of the kooky Lost-like events, so the lame ending is his again, but up to that late point when the story turns rusty, he delivers a captivating fantasy horror thriller full of great acting, weird and wonderful ideas, a beautiful confined location like the stage of a theatre production, and of course his trademark cameo and camerawork, sweeping and overhead and long-take.

★★★☆☆

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