ANDY HEDGECOCK is entertained by a playful novel that embeds a fictional game at its heart
Latest editorial
Film round-up: April 19, 2022
Maria Duarte reviews The Northman, The Lost City, Benedetta, and The Great Movement
Death comes for Liberals, entitled murder, Vatican hit squads, and fraternising with the Blitz killer
New releases from Public Image Ltd, William Basinski, and John Luther Adams
GABRIELE NEHER draws attention to an astoundingly skilled Flemish painter who defied the notion that women cannot paint like men
The Bard pays homage to Hull’s finest promoter and venue, and awards Douze Points to Laibach
KEVIN DONNELLY outlines how the bourgeois institutions inhibit our ability to to view art in revolutionary ways, and suggests some tactics to overturn it
The Northman (15)
Directed by Robert Eggers
★★★
AFTER his horrendous The Lighthouse (two hours I will never get back), director Robert Eggers returns with an epic and stomach-churning Viking tale which isn’t for the faint of heart.
Co-written by Eggers with Icelandic author Sjon, it centres on a young Viking prince’s (Oscar Novak) quest to avenge his father’s (Ethan Hawke) murder and save his mother (Nicole Kidman), from a story apparently based on the Danish 12th-century text which inspired Hamlet.
Similar stories
ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review The Six Billion Dollar Man, Avatar: Fire and Ash, Goodbye June, and Super Elfkins
LEO BOIX, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review Dreamers, It Was Just An Accident, Folktales, and Eternity
ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review The Ceremony, Eddington, The Life of Chuck, and The Thursday Murder Club
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Along Came Love, The Ballad of Wallis Island, The Ritual, and Karate Kid: Legends