Breakwater review – troubled souls cross class and age barriers in nicely judged debut feature

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An Oxford theology student and a middle-aged fisher are drawn together despite their many differences in an ambitious first film from Max Morgan This evocative debut feature from Max Morgan is a film of many contrasts. One is the May-December attraction between Otto (Daniel McNamee), a theology student and aspiring violinist, and John (Shaun Paul McGrath), a middle-aged fisher with a shadowy past. The worlds that they inhabit seem poles apart. Compared with the storm-ravaged Suffolk coast that curves around John’s rugged village, the imposing halls of Otto’s college at Oxford are at once grand and isolating. Despite their differences in age, the two men are bound by shared trauma and turmoil: both struggle with their sexuality and the loss of a loved one. The highly textured cinematography renders these inner conflicts strikingly tactile. The camera at times stays uncomfortably close to the main characters, highlighting the gnawing anxiety of not belonging. From the demands of a frustr...
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Judy Blume Forever review – inspiring portrait of a fearless author

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As the author’s teen novels continue to aggravate the far right, this illuminating documentary spotlights her incredible career

What’s most astonishing about Judy Blume isn’t that her books keep selling 50 years after they burst onto the kids lit scene, but that they are no less potent than they were back then. With candid depictions of topics like menstruation, bullying and teen sex that is pleasurable rather than the fulcrum of a morality tale, Blume’s books still dominate summer camp cabins and school libraries daring enough not to ban them.

Deenie, a stunning 1973 novel about a girl whose scoliosis impinges on her mother’s dreams for her daughter’s modeling career, is the current favorite among the under-12 residents of this reviewer’s household. The same title, which also addresses masturbation with striking candor, aroused members of the far right. In a fabulous scene in Judy Blume Forever, Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok’s documentary about the iconic writer, Blume is seen on the television show Crossfire sparring with conservative commentator Pat Buchanan in the early 1980s. The petite mother of two doesn’t lose her composure in the face of her critic’s prurient hang-ups. “Did you read the whole book or just the highlighted parts?” she asks in the warm tone of a cocktail party host offering hors d’oeuvres.

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