Pieces of April (12a), 79 mins, *
Manhattan, Thanksgiving. April (Katie Holmes, of Dawson's Creek) is preparing dinner for her family, on their way over from New Jersey. She is nervous: they all resent each other and her mum (Patricia Clarkson) is dying of cancer.
This has the look of the American cult hit High Art and gets over a similar impression of an idiosyncratic NYC. It's interesting to see Holmes in something like this, which gives an edge to her usual cute and cloying persona.
Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (12a), 99 mins, X
David Spade plays a one-time child star who has to regress back to
childhood for a month as research for a part in Rob Reiner's new film. Spade, a Saturday Night Live hero and great mimic (though you'd never believe it from this), doesn't look to have the confidence to flourish in such a mainstream film. He seems too quiet and small. Too much cash and pressure?
Man Dancin' (15), 114 mins, X
An ex-con is released back into his Glasgow community to face gangster cronies, corrupt cops and a priest keen to give him a part in the parish Passion play. A batty film: harsh and grim, then madly thespy, with people in leather jackets being artistically serious about the garden of Gethsemane.
