Pick of this week's films

mother-daughter relationships and youthful exuberance, infused with unabashed warmth for her well drawn characters. The writer-director has a sharp ear for the ebb and flow of pithy conversations and she has attracted a stellar cast led by Oscar nominees Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf as the spunky title character and her hard-working mother who generate friction every time they are in close proximity. Lady Bird is a near-perfect confluence of direction, writing and performance. Being incredibly picky, there are several instances when Ronan’s accent falters and her melodic Irish lilt comes through loud and clear, which momentarily breaks the gently intoxicating spell cast by Gerwig’s film.

THE SHAPE OF WATER (15)

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro recaptures the visual splendour and simmering menace of his Oscar-winning 2006 fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth with a swoon-inducing re-imagining of the Beauty and the Beast fairytale set in 1962 Baltimore. The Shape of Water is a gorgeous, erotically-charged love story which empowers its richly drawn female characters to drive forward a tightly wound narrative and defeat prejudice in its myriad ugly forms. The script, co-written by del Toro and Vanessa Taylor, doesn’t sugarcoat the central romance between a mute cleaning lady (Sally Hawkins) and a carnivorous merman (Doug Jones). Carnal desires of the spirited heroine are laid delightfully bare and lustrous period detail evokes an era of suffocating Cold War paranoia with aplomb. Hawkins is luminous and heartbreaking, speaking volumes without saying a word – save for a musical fantasy sequence that choreographs a romantic pas de deux reminiscent of yesteryear’s La La Land.

Black Panther (12A)

Director Ryan Coogler made a name for himself with the laceratingly political Fruitvale Station and the crowd-pleaser that was Rocky Balboa’s return in Creed. Who better, then, to bring Marvel’s overlooked black superhero to the big screen? Chadwick Boseman plays

T’Challa/Black Panther, king of Wakanda, a developing African nation to outsiders but secretly a rich powerhouse where peace and technology reign supreme. With Wakanda having so much, should it help outsiders in need? The screenplay by Coogler and Joe Robert Cole contains all the usual elements, including a tush-achingly long wham-bam finale, but it is packed with originality, wit and a cast iron sense of confidence in the world it creates.

WINCHESTER: THE HOUSE THAT GHOSTS BUILT (15)

Directed by Michael and Peter Spierig,

ringmasters of the eighth instalment of the Saw franchise, Winchester: The House that Ghosts Built fleshes out the spooky mythology of a curious architectural landmark in San Jose, California. The wicked whispers that swirl around the grand Victorian property, built by a grieving widow (Dame Helen Mirren), are far more tantalising than anything the siblings summon from the murky depths of their

imaginations. Doors rattle, a whispering wind blows out a flickering flame, strange noises emanate from a dank basement and a

cherubic boy is possessed by a malevolent spirit that causes his voice to drop two octaves. We are in achingly familiar territory and a linear script, co-written by Tom Vaughan, groans almost as loudly as the mansion’s polished floorboards. The Spierigs are content to trade in cheap shocks to convince us to jump out of our seats in between yawns and impatient glances at watches.

THE MERCY (12A)

The Mercy is a handsome but emotionally waterlogged dramatisation of the fateful journey of self-discovery of amateur sailor Donald Crowhurst (Colin Firth), who vanished in 1969 during a round-the-world yacht race.

Director James Marsh captained The Theory of Everything to Bafta and Oscar glory but he struggles to keep this real-life tragedy afloat.

The ramshackle script bobs between present and past, inserting flashbacks to happier times in Donald’s relationship with his wife (Rachel Weisz) as his sanity unravels in the claustrophobic confines of his boat.

Being lost at sea with Firth would be a dream vacation for some people and the Oscar winner delivers a committed performance.

However, I struggled to tether an emotional connection to his tormented sailor and my interest went overboard before Crowhurst contemplates a shame-fuelled sacrificial

plunge.

Tad the Lost Explorer (U)

Enrique Gato and David Alonso’s Spanish adventure goes to town on plot as a girl archaeologist finds the secret of King Midas, only to have a villain steal it. Joining forces with the titular and lovestruck Tad, can our Indiana Jones-style heroes win the day? You may struggle to care. A measure of the film’s doomed bid to escape dullness is its tally of not one, not two, but three comedy sidekicks for Tad in the shape of a dog, a bird and an Egyptian mummy. One for the young and undemanding only.

FIFTY SHADES FREED (18)

When we left heroine Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) at the end of Fifty Shades Darker, her riding crop-wielding beau – buff billionaire Christian Grey – had just emerged unscathed from crash-landing his helicopter and lecherous fiction editor Jack Hyde was poised to wreak revenge on Ana for getting him the sack for sexual harassment. In the third and final picture, Ana walks down the aisle to Christian in front of friends and family. The happy couple look forward to building a new life together but the return of Jack puts Ana and Christian in jeopardy. Meanwhile Ana has unfinished business with Elena Lincoln, the woman who seduced Christian when he was 15 and refuses to let him go.

PHANTOM THREAD (15)

Daniel Day-Lewis delivers his final screen performance before self-imposed retirement as a perfectionist dressmaker in Paul Thomas Anderson’s artfully stitched drama, which is set in the salons of 1950s London. It’s another flawless embodiment of the emotionally crippled male psyche, deliciously complicated by an ambiguous sexuality and a softly spoken fastidiousness that doesn’t extend to personal relationships... except for an uncomfortably close bond to a ferocious, purse-lipped sister, played with scorching intensity by Lesley Manville. They are a formidable double act

and you genuinely fear for the sanity of a

sweet-natured waitress when she strays into the siblings’ tortuous web.

THE 15:17 TO PARIS

(15, 94 mins)

Director Clint Eastwood’s propulsive thriller casts three real-life heroes as themselves in a dramatisation of a 2015 attack on board a train. Anthony Sadler (himself), Alek Skarlatos (himself) and Spencer Stone (himself) grow up in Sacramento County, California, attending the same high school. After graduation, Skarlatos enlists with the Oregon Army National Guard and is posted to Afghanistan while Stone decides to serve in the US Air Force. During a break from active duty, the three friends embark on a sightseeing trip around Europe, including a train ride to Paris via Brussels. A Moroccan man is also on board and he emerges carrying an assault rifle. Passengers flee in terror and Stone turns in his seat to see the gunman walking into his carriage. He decides to charge at the El-Khazzani, whose rifle jams, and proceeds to restrain the attacker.

DEN OF THIEVES (15)

According to the opening sequence of

writer-director Christian Gudegast’s retread of the superior 1995 thriller Heat, Los Angeles is the bank theft capital of the world, notching up a robbery every 48 minutes. It takes considerably longer than 96 minutes to carry out the two explosive heists that bookend Den of Thieves, a bullet-riddled yarn of rule-bending cops and taunting criminals that lacks the lip-smacking promise of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino’s first shared screen time. Instead, Gudegast’s picture plays out its bruising battle using the permanent glower of Canadian actor Pablo Schreiber and Paisley-born action man Gerard Butler. Sadly, the latter can’t maintain a firm grasp on his American accent and unexpectedly gives his corrupt sheriff a fleeting Scottish burr.

JOURNEY’S END (12A)

Released to commemorate the centenary

of the end of the First World War, director Saul Dibb’s thoughtful tour of duty with soldiers on the front line expands RC Sherriff’s moving 1928 stage play without sacrificing too much of the psychological intensity. Screenwriter Simon Reade ventures beyond the claustrophobic confines of an officer’s dugout in the days leading up to the Spring Offensive, the setting for Sherriff’s anthem to doomed youth. His lean script trudges along muddy, collapsing trenches and sprints into no man’s land, where the loss of young lives is brought home in a disorienting barrage of sound and fury: rat-a-tat gunfire, exploding shells and blood-curdling screams heralding a concerted push by the Germans.

EARLY MAN (PG)

Aardman Animations turns back the clock thousands of years for a charming comedy of errors that traces the history of football to our club-wielding prehistoric ancestors. The beautiful game turns exceedingly ugly in a knockabout script, which scores a couple of own goals with groansome puns as caveman Dug (Eddie Redmayne) challenges a team of preening Bronze Age superstars to a winner-takes-all match. Thankfully, cute visual gags compensate, including an early human hanging up washing using baby crocodiles as pegs and a butcher trading as Jurassic Pork. The script runs out of puff in the second half and lacks some of the inventiveness of earlier Aardman pictures.