Film

Brother

Dir. Clement Virgo

Adapted from an award-winning novel of the same name, Brother follows the story of sons of Caribbean immigrants whose lives are forever changed one sweltering summer.

AT BEST: ‘Overwhelms with power and emotion, resulting in one of the most deeply felt films of the year.’ — Rachel Ho, Exclaim!

AT WORST: ‘An overly familiar Black drama with frustrating storytelling.’ — Rendy Jones, Rendy Reviews

What Comes Around

Dir. Amy Redford

An immersive thriller in which a young love affair quickly turns into a menacing game of cat and mouse.

AT BEST: ‘Able to hit you so squarely and refuses to pull its punches.’ — Stephen Saito, Moveable Fest

AT WORST: ‘Miscalculated keenness to shock with only a handful of halfbaked ideas of little substance.’ — Tomris Laffly, Variety

Lola

Dir. Andrew Legge

Set in 1941 against the backdrop of WWII, two sisters build a machine that can intercept radio and TV broadcasts from the future, including military intelligence.

AT BEST: ‘Gripping and uniquely strange alternative history tale. — Alan Corr, RTÉ

AT WORST: ‘The time-travelling paradoxes produce enormous plot holes and lapses of logic [but], Legge somehow makes it work.’ — Kevin Maher, The Times

Madeleine Collins

Dir. Antoine Barraud

In a tense psychological drama, a woman leads a secret double life split between two households in two countries.

AT BEST: ‘An absolutely stunning portrait of a monster.’ — Anne Brodie, What She Said

AT WORST: ‘Condenses much of its complicated, embryonic ambitions into a middlebrow soap opera.’ — Ayeen Forootan, In Review Online

In Gayce Osborne’s I Know What You

Did, a woman’s peace is broken when her name appears on the dedication page of an anonymously written book with a cryptic note: “I know what you did… And now everyone else will, too.” Fellow author, Cate Ray, writes that it is, “An alluring premise of a book within a book… a real page-turner, starring anti-hero Petal who has a dry humour and a dark past. I was gripped all the way to the dramatic cinemaesque finale.” Philippa East calls it a, “A whip-smart and thoroughly engaging psychological thriller, with a highly memorable protagonist and a brilliantly original narrative concept. I raced through it in a matter of days and found it a brilliantly fresh voice in the psychological thriller genre.” While Christina McDonald hails “A psychological thriller with a beating pulse… Gripping, atmospheric and sharp, this fresh, new voice is written with a wry humour. A must read.”

The latest novel from acclaimed Omani author Jokha Alharthi, Bitter Orange

Tree is a portrait of one young woman’s attempt to understand the roots she has grown from, and to envisage an adulthood in which her own power and happiness might find the freedom necessary to bear fruit and flourish.

“In this novel of remembrance and regret, Zuhour, an Omani student at a British university, obsessed with the possibility of ‘regaining or restoring just one moment from the past,’ reflects on her grandmother, who has recently died . . . Much of the grandmother’s life story takes place in the context of devastating waves of drought, inflation, and famine, and Alharthi marshals these elements to construct a mosaic of history with women’s crushing vulnerability at its centre,” says The New Yorker. “In probing history, challenging social status, questioning familial bonds and debts, Alharthi’s multilayered pages beautifully, achingly unveil the haunting aloneness of women’s experiences,” reviews Booklist, in a starred review. Captivated by

Alharthi’s tale. TIME has hailed it as, “Epic” and “Breathtakingly descriptive,” further stating that it is the book of the year. Does timing, circumstance, or luck impact your health care? That’s the question researched and answered in Random Acts of Medicine. “[the book] Will dazzle you as it reveals ingenious ways that data sleuths have answered questions that can improve your health and health care. Stimulating, creative, and smart, this book is a treasure,“ says bestselling author Katy Milkman. “It is a rare book that manages to be both fantastically entertaining and deeply thoughtprovoking. This is such a book,” hails Emily Oster. While fellow author Steve D. Levitt writes that the book is, “Smart, entertaining, and full of surprises. The field of medicine has been slow to appreciate the immense power of natural experiments. Jena and Worsham [authors] are on a crusade to change that. Read this book, and you’ll be a believer.”