Two deeply-charmless brothers (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke), desperate for money in different ways, plan to rob a jewellery store owned by their parents (beautifully played by Albert Finney and Rosemary Harris).  The heist is a tragic disaster.  In an interestingly fractured time-frame, with flashbacks from different characters’ perspectives and a razor-sharp screenplay full of shocks and twists, the film evolves into a desolate account of the failure of family love, and shows how evil compulsively replicates itself.

UK/US 2007 Directed by Sidney Lumet,with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei (117 minutes)

Khaled Hosseini’s hit novel, set largely in pre- and post-Taliban Afghanistan, is faithfully transferred to the big screen.  Young Amir, son of a rich businessman, is best friends with Hassan, a lower-class Afghan.  The relative idyll of their young lives moves through tragedy and redemption as their world descends into chaos.  The young actors are heart-achingly convincing, well-supported by the adult cast.

US/China Subtitles Directed by Marc Forster,with Khalid Abdalla,Homayoun Ershadi, Shaun Toub,Atossa Leoni (128 minutes)

Paranoid Park is where teenage student Alex skateboards.  An older skater takes him on an adventure hitching on a freight train but they meet a security guard who chases them and things turn sour.  Subsequently Alex’s relationship with his girlfriend also doesn’t prosper.  And then he confides his misfortunes to his diary.  Through Alex’s eyes and words the spectator witnesses an ineluctable chain of events.   Gus Van Sant skilfully portrays another of his teen-age ‘lost boy’ chronicles.

France/US 2007 Directed and written by Gus Van Sant,with Gabe Nevins,Taylor Mornsen, Jake Miller,Dan Liu (85 minutes)

At an idyllic old New England coastal house, an about-to-remarry divorcée receives as wedding guests her more successful author sister with her pubescent son.  The two women’s relationship is strained and the male characters are not paragons either.  Baumbach’s dialogue rings true in this dysfunctional family drama as the audience become involved in embarrassing situations, sharing both the feelings of the sharp mockers whilst sympathising with the victims.  Kidman with a smile that could crack glass, plays a poisonously pretentious, manipulative and self-deceiving woman in an interestingly flawed role.

US 2007 Directed and written by Noah Baumbach,with Nicole Kidman,Jennifer Jason Leigh,Jack Black,John Turturro (93 minutes)