A retired professor and a young female escort spend a Tokyo night and day together in this patient film from celebrated director Abbas Kiarostami. Forever obsessed with people talking in cars, that’s exactly where this film, for the most part, takes place. The high-rise Tokyo backdrop merely acts as a windshield reflection as his characters skim the surface of everyday life. The abrupt conclusion might rub some the wrong way but this remains a crisp, humanist film of near transcendental beauty. 

Upon first viewing of this wide eyed retelling of Walt Disney’s attempt to win the production rights to Mary Poppins one could be forgiven for feeling much like Emma Thompson’s P.L. Travers- eyes set to roll, cynicisms at the ready- but despite its blatant fabrications, the film’s charms, much like those of the studio it portrays, can be difficult to resist.

With flashbacks of her childhood throughout, the story’s main arc follows Travers on her first trip to Los Angeles- financial difficulties having finally forced the author to consider the advances of a determined Walt Disney to bring her beloved character to the big screen. She sees her creation as quite realist fare and so fights her corner on everything from animated penguins to the Sherman brothers’ now iconic songs. Of course we all know the outcome so the fun comes in seeing Tom Hanks’ bumbling Walt trying to woo the cold dame over.

Is the Mouse House attempting to cement Disney into our collective psyche as America’s most beloved leading man instead of the alleged chain smoking anti-Semitic chauvinist of whom we’ve heard? Presumably so. But then again, perhaps such sunshine and fantasy is profoundly fitting. A spoonful of sugar indeed.

Paul Greengrass takes his docudrama toolkit to this true life tale of an American freight ship captain’s run in with a band of Somali pirates. A gripping globalisation allegory told through the microcosm of two sparring men.

Tom Hanks plays the beleaguered Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama for its journey from Oman to Mombasa. Whilst in International waters off the coast of Somalia, the container ship is boarded by four pirates- led by Abdulawi Muse (Barkhad Abdi)- and a 48 hour showdown ensues. 

Bred on his early career documenting conflict hot spots, Greengrass has gained a knack for leaving his audience on unsure footing. He shot the majority of this film on open water, only adding to that uncertainty. The vastness of the Alabama and the surrounding Indian Ocean give the conflict a tremendous sense of Isolation too.  It distils it somehow. Before the action we see Muse and his crew with scarcely any options for work. He later tells Phillips he would have been a fisherman had America not fished the waters bare. It’s clear what the director is getting at.

Greengrass chose to cast Somalis in their respective rolls and Abdi is strong as the fierce and desperate Muse. Opposite him, Hanks looks to finally be growing comfortable in his years and will, in all likelihood, pick up an Oscar nod in January. His director should too. Greengrass' remarkable sense for tension, pace and realism are here for all to see and it's all driven home with another muscular Hans Zimmer score.