Richard Broom Photography

See all my film reviews here.

I was very much looking forward to watching the Indian language film Jab Harry Met Sejal (2017) but the film turned out to be something of a disappointment.

Jab Harry Met Sejal has all the makings of a good romantic comedy but it just doesn’t make it.  The film is based around the two lead actors, Shah Rukh Khan (Harry) and Anushka Sharma (Sejal) as they wander around Europe looking for Sejal’s lost engagement ring.  I sensed that both lead actors – two highly accomplished actors – were doing their level best to move the film along but the script is bitty and disjointed.  The story line is flimsy.  Now, for any romantic comedy, you have to suspend belief from time to time, but this film asks too much of the audience.  This is a pity because the film could have been so much better.

I give this film the PhotoNomad 6/10 award.

See all my film reviews here.

I am not sure how this truly excellent English language film, Deception (2013) escaped my attention but it is a monumentally brilliant film.  I nearly passed this film over but was drawn to it because Geoffrey Rush plays the lead character.

Deception stars Geoffrey Rush, Jim Sturgess, Sylvia Hoeks and Donald Sutherland.

Deception’s plot is fast moving, exciting, gripping, entertaining and delightfully complex. This is a film with lots of different interwoven threads running through it from start to finish. Geoffrey Rush gives a towering performance in this film which keeps you guessing from start to finish – and then afterwards! Jim Sturgess also deserves a special mention as the crafty techy bloke – he’s a little bit like ‘Q’ in the James Bond movies.

The photography, sound, sets and music give this film a great deal of depth and atmosphere.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, this film is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.  It is a multi-dimensional ‘who done it’ with many twists and turns.

This is another wonderful film and I give it the PhotoNomad 10/10 award + two ticks and a star!

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You will need a box of tissues if you watch this delightful Spanish language film (2017) – Thi May – a light but heartwarming comedy.

A Spanish mother’s daughter is killed in a car accident.  The single daughter was, at the time of her death, about to adopt a child from an orphanage in Hanoi, Vietnam.  The child is called Thi Mai.

The Mother, Carmen (Carmen Machi), travels to Vietnam with her two best women friends (Rosa (Adriana Ozores) and Elvira (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón)) in an effort to adopt the child her daughter would have adopted had she not died. 

Naturally, Carmen and her friends run into all sorts of cultural and legal problems when they arrive, unannounced, in Hanoi and try, with no official backing, paperwork or anything else, to adopt Thi Mai.

Carmen Machi, Adriana Ozores and Aitana Sánchez-Gijón give excellent performances.

This is a wonderful film and I give it the PhotoNomad 10/10 award.

Watch the trailer (below) and I am sure you will be hooked!