![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/7a3982f619ed2f5568f366401f85fe674650aee1a66bcde7a6ba3d741e1599ba.webp\")
<\/p>\n106 minutes, opens on April 16
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The story: Robert Pattinson and Zendaya star as Charlie and Emma, an engaged couple whose nuptials in the coming week are spectacularly derailed by a plot twist.<\/p>\n
British expatriate Charlie, a museum curator, and American literary editor Emma share a trendy apartment in Boston and the promise of a happy future.<\/p>\n
But at a drunken dinner, she elects to also share a transgression from her teens. The act is one of particular political sensitivity in the United States.<\/p>\n
Her maid of honour (Alana Haim) is revolted, and The Drama is an American relationship cringe comedy about the catastrophic fallout.<\/p>\n
The cinema of Norwegian writer-director Kristoffer Borgli (Sick Of Myself, 2022; Dream Scenario, 2023) leans into discomfort: Charlie\u2019s, as he processes the bombshell confession; and the viewer\u2019s, watching him endure the wedding industrial complex of photographers and florists, his awful misgivings setting in all the while.<\/p>\n
The camera jump-cuts anxiously like his flinches and averted eye contact, and the audio further unsettles by undulating between sound and silence: Emma is partially deaf. Not to mention bewildered, stung and stunned by Charlie\u2019s overreaction.<\/p>\n
Pattinson is very good as this handsome weakling who, in the light of his partner\u2019s past, is doubting his commitment and whether he even knows who she is.<\/p>\n
Does anyone really? It may be best that way: Some love cannot survive the truth.<\/p>\n
The flighty screenplay is both incapable of and uninterested in resolving the debates on trust, honesty, acceptance and forgiveness.<\/p>\n
But the movie is a naughty conversation starter that lives up to its title as the tense farcical crisis climaxes in wedding-day horror. There will be projectile vomiting (hers) and paranoid visions (his).<\/p>\n
Hot take: Daring and darkly funny, this anti-romance on the limits of unconditional love is no date flick.<\/p>\n
124 minutes, opens on April 16
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<\/p>\n
Bai Xiao-ying in Girl.<\/p>\n
PHOTO: SHAW ORGANISATION<\/p>\n
The story: Taiwanese actress Shu Qi won Best Director at the 2025 Busan International Film Festival for this story of generational trauma based on her growing-up experience.<\/p>\n
Since her 1990s start in Hong Kong Category III soft-core porn, Shu Qi has transitioned into an art-house muse of Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien (Millennium Mambo, 2001) and international blockbuster star.<\/p>\n
The 49-year-old turns writer-director with her debut feature Girl in a career trajectory all the more remarkable if her childhood was indeed as depicted in this semi-autobiography.<\/p>\n
Hsiao-lee (Bai Xiao-ying) is her alter ego, a fearful and withdrawn schoolgirl from a wretched family in 1988 Keelung, Taiwan.<\/p>\n
The deadbeat father (Roy Chiu), a garage mechanic, staggers home drunk each night to physically and sexually assault the mother (hip-hop artiste 9m88). Hsiao-lee hides cowering in the closet: her petrifaction at his approaching footsteps suggests she is not spared.<\/p>\n
The mother is an exhausted salon assistant who, in turn, vents her bitterness in her cruelty towards Hsiao-lee, though never directed at her younger daughter (Lai Yu-fei).<\/p>\n
Hsiao-lee is cheerless even when a rebellious transfer student (Lin Pin-tung) wheedles her into cutting class for a day of carefree gallivanting.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s vibrant colours are a contrast to her squalid apartment, this oppressive household tense with the constant threat of violence.<\/p>\n
The cycle of poverty and abuse is a brutal watch: There are intermittent flashbacks to the mother\u2019s own unhappy youth in a patriarchal society.<\/p>\n
Their clumsy insertions into the story are shortcomings easy to overlook because of how touching the movie is in Shu Qi\u2019s unsentimental candour.<\/p>\n
It may be her process of healing, albeit with wounds still raw.<\/p>\n
Hot take: The damage of terrible parenting is painfully felt in this unflinching memoir.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"106 minutes, opens on April 16 \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606 The story: Robert Pattinson and Zendaya star as Charlie and Emma,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":531868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-531867","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/531868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}