murraybuesst

Personally, I'm thoroughly enjoying season 3 just as much as the first two. And if you look at IMDb ratings for individual episodes in the last two seasons, it turns out that everyone else is too.

It's fun, I think, to try and work out what each season is about. I reckon the first was about money, the second about sex, and this one is about ageing, and/or death.

Season 4 about religion perhaps?

Anyway, personally I'm loving the usual interesting cast of extremely good actors from a wide range of parts of the world, glorious locations with cinematography to match, superior sound design, gorgeous costumes, and design in general, and a witty script with plenty of lines pregnant with ominous subtext.

I'm puzzled that this film hasn't had more positive user reviews. Perhaps Austen's anti-hero Emma is harder to like than her Dashwoods or Elizabeth Bennet; or perhaps the greater modern awareness of the source of the characters' wealth makes it harder to appreciate the story purely as a comedy of manners; perhaps current taste is for something rather more consequential than Jane Austen.

But this is a really beautifully crafted movie, with a finely judged screenplay, glorious design, costuming and cinematography, enchanting music, and uniformly fine performances, including some from actors that I admire in other genres but whom I hadn't expected to shine in a period piece.

For me, Sophie Thompson as Miss Bates in the Gwyneth Paltrow adaptation still has the slight edge on Miranda Hart in the heartbreaking picnic scene, but it's a close run thing. Otherwise, as a delightful Jane Austen adaptation I couldn't really fault it. And I sincerely appreciated the talent in front of and behind the camera.

I saw this film at the BFI Flare LGBTQ+ festival earlier today and was blown away. Quite simply, it is superb filmmaking at the very highest level, with extraordinarily subtle performances from the two leads. Director Marco Berger presents the story of a love affair in a series of uninflected, mostly static shots, letting the camera linger on characters' faces as they register attraction, desire, frustration, jealousy and love. In less skilled hands it could easily be boring or pretentious, but instead it's riveting ... and at times achingly painful. Both lead actors - Gastón Re playing Gabriel and Alfonso Barón as Juan - are outstanding, as it the girl playing Gabriel's daughter. Gastón Re, in particular, deserves to win multiple awards for his beautifully judged performance. Largely wordless, he brings to life the inner life of the shy, yearning Gabriel so fully that I felt I'd known him for years. If you were affected by Brokeback Mountain or God's Own Country then you will surely appreciate this film. Beyond that, if you admire the work of Ingmar Bergman or Wong Kar-wai or Pawel Pawlikowski then you should go out of your way to see this superb Argentinian film.