Supported by Wiltshire Council’s Future High Streets Fund
The Best in Classic & Independent Cinema
Programme
Friday 26th April
Doors open 6pm for 8pm start
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THE PROMISED LAND (2023) Cert 15. Danish with English subtitles
Mads Mikkelsen, Amanda Collin, Simon Bennebjerg. Directed by Nikolaj Arcel. (2hrs 2mins)
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Mads Mikkelsen leads a superb cast in a thrilling historical drama from Denmark about a dark period in the country's history. In the mid-18th century, the Danish government invited settlers to tame the country's vast, wild and near-barren Jutland Heath, much in the same way as the American West was colonised. Mikkelsen plays a recently demobbed military hero who receives permission from the Danish King to farm one such plot with the bold idea of planting a food crop previously unknown in Denmark: potatoes. However he quickly comes to blows with a corrupt local nobleman, who claims the land as his own and attempts to force Mikkelsen off the heath. A cycle of violence builds as the two men take increasingly dramatic steps to gain the upper hand. The resulting film plays like a Danish Western, presenting Mikkelsen as a force of good against the pure evil of the local landowner. (Not for nothing was the film released in its home country under the rather more blunt title of Bastarden or "The Bastard"). It's the type of sweeping big-screen epic in which Hollywood once excelled. Stunning photography and rich production design add to the movie's visual spectacle. A modern classic not to be missed.
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Why not join us for dinner before the movie? Ushers Bar is open for drinks and dinner from 6pm.
Friday 3rd May
Doors open 6pm for 8pm start
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AMERICAN ANIMALS (2018) Cert 15
Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, Blake Jenner, Jared Abrahamson. Directed by Bart Layton (1hr 52m).
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This year's movie Saltburn catapulted Irish actor Barry Keoghan into the front ranks of actors from the British Isles, but one of his first and most impressive lead roles was in Bart Layton's superb crime drama American Animals. It's a brilliantly audacious thriller, telling the true story of four disaffected college students who set out to steal the world’s most expensive book, John James Audubon’s masterpiece of ornithological art ‘Birds of America’. Keoghan shares the lead with Evan Peters, who plays the architect of the meticulously plotted but absurdly ill-conceived heist. The robbery itself is one thing, but how then to find a buyer for such a universally well-known artefact? In a unique twist on the usual format of thrillers like this, the edge-of-your seat dramatisation is intercut with documentary-style interviews with the real-life participants, all still struggling to come to terms with how and why they did what they did. The result is an absolute triumph: a funny, thrilling and truly original piece of bravura filmmaking.
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Why not join us for dinner before the movie? Ushers Bar is open for drinks and dinner from 6pm.
Friday 10th May
Doors open 6pm for 8pm start
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THE HOLDOVERS (2023) Cert 15.
Paul Giamatti, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Dominic Sessa. Directed by Alexander Payne. (2h 13m)
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Director Alexander Payne's bittersweet comic drama is a brilliant return to form to match his previous classics Election, Sideways and Nebraska. It may not have won all the awards many had anticipated for it this year, but Da'Vine Joy Randolph was a deserving winner at both the BAFTAs and the Oscars as Best Supporting Actress. At a posh American boarding school, most of the kids get to go home for Christmas, but one in particular is obliged as a result of family circumstances to become a "holdover" for the holidays, overseen by an equally unloved teacher - played by the excellent Paul Giamatti - and the school cook who is grieving the loss of her own son in Vietnam. Despite their very many differences they come together by necessity to form a bizarre little virtual family unit of their own for a few days. Though small in scale, it's a beautifully nuanced story of love and loneliness, with a happy-but-sad feelgood ending that will bring a tear to even the most stoical of eyes.
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Why not join us for dinner before the movie? Ushers Bar is open for drinks and dinner from 6pm.
Friday 17th May
Doors open 6pm for 8pm start
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WICKED LITTLE LETTERS (2023) Cert 15
Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Timothy Spall, Hugh Skinner. Directed by Thea Sharrock. (1h 40m)
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Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley lead a superb British cast in an outrageously potty-mouthed comedy, based on a true story. In the 1920s, the sleepy village of Littlehampton was sent into uproar after an anonymous author began sending rude expletive-filled poison-pen letters to different members of the community. (The parallels to online hate campaigns by internet trolls of the modern day are clear to see). Many of the letters were directed at one lady in particular, a prim spinster and pillar of society played here by Olivia Colman. Suspicion quickly fell upon her neighbour and former friend, a wild Irish single mother (Jessie Buckley of course) and a court case ensued. Needless to say, all was not quite as it seems. It's a wonderfully engaging story, and the inventive wit of the extraordinarily foul-mouthed insults contained in the letters is often breathtaking, especially for the 1920s. Colman and Buckley are, as always, superb and it's a pleasure to see them sparring with one another so effectively.
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