Jaime Winstone

Deliberately unstructured, this likeable romantic comedy holds the audience's interest with its strikingly engaging cast and a slick visual style, but the plot is both contrived and underdeveloped. As the filmmakers try out some wacky slapstick, pointed political moments or a bit of darkly emotional drama, the movie's tone veers so wildly that we don't quite know where to look. And by never managing to crack the surface, the script leaves the actors with little to do but look good.

The story centres on two childhood friends: Rosie (Lily Collins) and Alex (Sam Claflin) grew up on the same street in England, developing romantic longings that they kept hidden. After a drunken teenage kiss, they rebound into the arms of other people: Rosie hooks up with the school hunk Greg (Christian Cooke), while Alex takes wannabe supermodel Bethany (Suki Waterhouse) to the big dance. Then Rosie and Alex's plan to go to university together in Boston is derailed by an unexpected pregnancy. Over the next 12 years they live on opposite sides of the Atlantic, trying to get on with their romantic lives. Alex finds a serious girlfriend (Tamsin Egerton) while Rosie re-connects with Greg and gets support from a pal (Jaime Winstone). But they never stop pining for each other.

Shot and edited in a bouncy rom-com style, it's immediately obvious where this is heading, so screenwriter Juliette Towhidi has to work overtime to throw the audience off the scent, which leaves the movie spinning in circles while we wait for the inevitable to happen. Fortunately, the characters are vivid enough to keep us entertained, as people move in and out of each others' lives providing the laughs and tears for Rosie and Alex, as well as the audience. Even if the characters are predictable and simplistic, Collins and Claflin manage to find moments of real depth along the way. Although it's difficult not to think that one proper conversation between these lifelong best pals would have saved them decades of frustration.

Continue reading: Love, Rosie Review

While women in the audience may find resonance in the comical prickliness, this film remains more of a stage play than an actual movie. Indeed, playwright Hirons has adapted the script from her play When Women Wee, but it's such a broad farce that we never quite believe any of it on-screen. Although two of the actresses nicely underplay their characters for the cameras.

The story takes place almost entirely in the ladies' room at a British nightclub, where the disorganised Sam (Smith) is having a night out with her friends: shameless maneater Chanel (Winstone), trashy Saskia (Hoare) and the too-nice Paige (Steele). Then Sam runs into the posh Michelle (Nash) and her gorgeous French friend Jess (Chaplin), and decides to ditch her pals. But the club isn't big enough to avoid them for long, and things get increasingly messy for everyone as the night progresses. Meanwhile, the restroom attendant (Fiori) just laughs at their melodrama.

With Sam at the centre, every other woman is essentially a stereotype carefully written to convey some aspect of femininity. By contrast, the men are barely defined at all, so only two register, both of them unusually nice: Sam's ex (Warren) and a guy (Balfour) she chats to in the smoking area. But in this large ensemble, only Sheridan and Winstone manage to give their characters three dimensions, mainly because they create properly cinematic performances that rely on understated details rather than histrionics.

Continue reading: Powder Room Review

British director Andrew Douglas (2005's Amityville Horror remake) takes a clever look at youthful naivete in this strikingly inventive thriller, which is based on a true story. Its focussed perspective lets us see the events unfold as the main character might, and watching him misinterpret everything is seriously unsettling.

That character is the cool North London teen Mark (Blackley), who avoids his annoying parents (Womack and Delamere) by hiding in his room while chatting online to local teen Rachel (Winstone). She has gone into witness protection because of her brutish boyfriend (Johnston), and she asks Mark to look out for her nerdy little brother John (Regbo), who's being bullied in school. As they hang out together, Mark and John strike up a friendship. But when Rachel disappears, Mark begins chatting online to an MI5 agent (White) who convinces him that he needs to take violent action to save lives at school.

Right from the start, we suspect that something is up with the people Mark meets in internet chatrooms. But we also understand why he doesn't question anything: the setting is 2003, rife with still-gurgling paranoia after 9/11 and Columbine. Also, the film intercuts Mark's story with the aftermath of his actions, as he's interviewed by a tenacious detective (Downton Abbey's Froggatt). So we know that we are seeing the people he's chatting to through his mind's eye, which is why director Douglas makes the eerie decision to show them talking to their computers rather than just typing. We question whether they're real, but Mark never does.

Continue reading: Uwantme2killhim? Review

Since their mum left nine months earlier, 15-year-old Dean (Poulter) has been taking care of 11-year-old brother Jimmy (Williams) by working in construction at the Olympic park. But Jimmy is failing at school and getting increasingly involved with a gang of local drug dealers (Gregory, Maskell and Rheon). Then after eight years in prison, their dad Bill (Creed-Miles) comes home, realising that he must show some responsibility to keep his sons from being taken into care. But they don't know him, and he doesn't know anything about being a father.

Continue reading: Wild Bill Review