Cal review – grieving Helen Mirren superb in compassionate Troubles romance

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Mirren won best actress at Cannes in 1984 for her role as Marcella, who forms a relationship with John Lynch’s Cal – a man complicit in her husband’s murder Pat O’Connor’s Northern Irish movie from 1984, adapted by author Bernard MacLaverty from his own novel, holds up very well for its rerelease; better in fact than most of the movies and TV drama made about and during the Troubles. It has an unhurried, thoughtful and very human quality; Helen Mirren won the best actress award at Cannes for her performance here and in fact it is very well acted across the board by a blue-chip cast. Mirren plays Marcella, a woman from a Catholic background, married across the sectarian divide to a reserve police officer murdered at his parents’ farmhouse by an IRA man who had bullied a bewildered local guy into being his getaway driver; this is Cal, played by the gauntly intense John Lynch. Cal lives with his widowed father; a gentle performance by Donal McCann, who was Gabriel Conroy in John Huston’...
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From Blitz to Gladiator II: the Oscar-aiming films that missed this season

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This year’s nominations were led by smaller, less expected films like The Brutalist, Anora and Emilia Pérez, which left bigger bets in the cold

While films such as Wicked and Dune: Part Two amassed multiple Oscar nominations this year, the Academy’s ongoing embrace of the smaller, less conventional movie pushed a number of more traditional contenders out. From the long-awaited sequel to a best picture winner to an inspirational boxing drama to a music biopic starring an Oscar favourite, here are some of the more primed picks that failed to register:

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