To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
A Cure for Wellness (18) Directed by Gore Verbinski 4/5
Once upon a time, notably in the heyday of Hammer Films, the cinematic home of Gothic horror was darkest Transylvania.
Here, director and cowriter (with Justin Haythe, from the latter’s delightfully deranged original story) Gore (how appropriate for a horror movie) Verbinski returns to the Alps of old by sending junior executive Lockhart (Dane DeHaan) into darkest Switzerland to rescue the failing company by bringing back the company’s CE O from the gothic alpine spa commanded by Jason Isaac’s smoothly sinister doctor Volmer (“Do you know what the cure for the human condition is? Disease. Because that’s the only way one could hope for a cure”) who bids fair to make the late horror film great Christopher Lee seem positively benign as you get to know him.
Although this production was in rehearsal before the playwright’s death, it allows us to pay homage to his life, suggests MARY CONWAY
ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review The Ceremony, Eddington, The Life of Chuck, and The Thursday Murder Club
ANGUS REID is bowled over by a cinematic masterpiece that examines the labour of nursing in forensic, dramatic detail
MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Friendship, Four Letters of Love, Tin Soldier and The Ballad of Suzanne Cesaire


