10 Film to watch in May

Baywatch

David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson make cameo appearances in this reboot of the 1990s TV series that turned them into household names. Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson and Kelly Rohrbach take over their roles as lifeguards Mitch Buchannon and CJ Parker, while Zac Efron co-stars as a new recruit and Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra makes her Hollywood debut as the villain. There will be objectification aplenty, much of it in slow motion, with nods to the original’s slo-mo shots of lifeguards running along the shore. It’s tipped toward comedy, though, with tongue firmly in cheek. So far, pre-release hype has included insightful interviews from cast members, with Rohrbach – voted Rookie of the Year for her bikini shoot in the 2015 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue – telling GQ: “My suit was that neoprene scuba gear material so it really rides up. [The film crew] would use glue and tape it to my bum so it wouldn’t make a wedgie wrinkle.” Released 11 May in Australia, 25 May in the US and 1 June in Russia. (Credit: Paramount Pictures)

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Another film never in danger of taking itself too seriously, this superhero action-comedy follows up Marvel’s irreverent 2014 hit. Chris Pratt stars alongside an ensemble cast featuring Kurt Russell, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel; the heroes include a genetically engineered raccoon bounty hunter, a green-skinned love interest and a tree-like humanoid. The band of space outlaws defend a trove of valuable batteries from an inter-dimensional monster while exploring issues of parentage; according to The Playlist, writer-director James Gunn “actually has some things to say about family and fatherhood amongst this tale of aliens, space battles and space gods — those who raise you and instill values in you as opposed to your biological parents”. It’s a sequel that manages to match the success of the first film with “a belly of genuine emotion”. Released 4 May in Russia and 5 May in China and the US. (Credit: Marvel/Disney)

Alien: Covenant

Michael Fassbender and Guy Pearce star alongside Katherine Waterston, Danny McBride, James Franco and Noomi Rapace in the sixth episode of the sci-fi horror series – one that looks to be both a sequel to 2012’s Prometheus and a kind of prequel to the 1979 original. Taking place 10 years after the events of Prometheus, it follows the crew of the Covenant on a mission to colonise a planet when they pick up a distress call. “In Prometheus, we began the search for who made us and why,” says director and Alien creator Ridley Scott in a featurette, in which Pearce’s character asks: “All these wonders of design and human ingenuity, all utterly meaningless in the face of the only question that matters: where do we come from?” Fassbender – who plays an AI double of the character he played in Prometheus – argues that “this film is like the first Alien, being that it’s very gritty and dark”. Scott says it will terrify viewers. “The trick is to have that sense of unease leading to dread… it’s going to be everything you want in an Alien film.” (Credit: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation)

Snatched

Goldie Hawn hasn’t been in a film since 2002 – but she agreed to star in this comedy to work with Amy Schumer. “She’s a funny, smart person who can also make you cry,” Hawn told EW. “To be matched with someone so deeply instinctive, naturally funny, and incredibly brilliant? It’s a great coup.” Yet when Schumer first proposed Hawn for the role, film executives said no. “I said, ‘Over my dead body Goldie is not going to be in this movie. I’d die for her,’” says Schumer, who co-wrote the film with her sister and Kate Dippold (Ghostbusters). Snatched tells the story of a mother and daughter’s South American holiday-turned-kidnapping adventure, and it explores that parent-child relationship as well as offering up laughs. Director Jonathan Levine says that’s what drew him to the film. “It’s what I gravitate towards – real character stuff in the midst of funny.” Schumer says it’s been a deeply personal project. “This is some ways a love letter,” she said. “You know Trainwreck was kind of to my dad, and this is kind of a peace with my mom.” On general release from 12 May. (Credit: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation)

Berlin Syndrome

An Australian photographer (Teresa Palmer) meets a Berliner (Max Riemelt) while holidaying in the German city – and a night of passion becomes something much darker when he locks her in his apartment. According to Variety, in the film “a heady, sexy holiday hook-up turns overnight into an abusive abduction – cuing a nightmarish game of sexual control and captivity”; director Cate Shortland “nails a handful of straight-up, nerve-shredding tension sequences”. The Skinny praises Shortland for “casting promising young women in complex lead roles and drawing out powerful, authentic performances”, while RogerEbert.com argues that “the tension builds through the lack of standard histrionics that often dominate thrillers”. Released 25 May in Germany, 26 May in the US and 9 June in the UK. (Credit: Sarah Enticknap/Aquarius Films)

Manifesto

Cate Blanchett has the only speaking part in this adaptation of a multichannel video installation by German artist and film-maker Julian Rosefeldt – and she’s also in nearly every frame. In the art project, which premiered in Australia in 2015 and toured to Germany and the US in 2016, Blanchett played 13 characters, each reading from different art manifestos. Viewers of the installation were able to wander about, watching each of the tableaux projected onto screens: this ‘linear version’ instead intercuts the scenes as a patchwork. While this splicing and dicing does sacrifice “a coherent train of thought”, according to BBC Culture’s Sam Adams, “Manifesto’s visual inventiveness and Blanchett’s multifarious performances make the movie consistently engrossing”. The star is the main draw. “Blanchett is expectedly mesmerising, finding different accents and body language to go with the costume changes,” says RogerEbert.com. “She’s one of our best actresses, and so viewing Manifesto purely as an acting exercise for her has some inherent value.” Released 10 May in the US. (Credit: Bayerischer Rundfunk)

Harmonium

Japanese director Kōji Fukada made this explosive family drama as a companion piece to his award-winning 2010 black comedy Hospitalite – and it’s drawn rave reviews from critics. When a stranger (Tadanobu Asano) appears at the door of a suburban family home and explains he has just been released from prison after serving 11 years for murder, he is welcomed in by Toshio (Kanji Furutachi), the father, who explains to his wife (Mariko Tsutsui) that the man is an old friend. What unfolds, says Variety, “makes the viewer question neat causal equations of sin, retribution, and atonement… Cycles of guilt, blame and vindictiveness are replayed in scenes of scorching emotional power, which elicit gut-wrenching performances from Tsutsui and Furutachi”. It makes for uncomfortable viewing. According to the South China Morning Post, “Fukada’s film sidesteps easy catharsis to stage a serious, and quite emotionally intense, inquiry into the unknown shades of human nature”. Released 5 May in the UK and Ireland and 16 June in the US. (Credit: Nagoya Broadcasting Network)

Baahubali 2: The Conclusion

The 2015 epic Baahubali: The Beginning was the most expensive Indian film ever made, and boasted a list of spectacles to match: “topless men fight bulls, couples kiss amid orchids, hundreds of flogged extras erect a tower”, according to The Guardian. “At each turn, the money’s right there on screen, yet what’s most striking is how these resources have been marshalled – to enhance, rather than clutter up, the narrative throughline.” Its sequel has surpassed the budget of the first and “is reinterpreting grandeur, scale and vision in Indian cinema”, according to the Indian Express. The film draws on Indian mythology, starring the actor Prabhas as a superhero-like Shiva, Anushka Shetty as Maharani Devasena, Tamannaah as Avanthika and Rana Daggubati as the villain Bhallaladeva. Director SS Rajamouli has gained widespread success, despite working outside of Bollywood: shot in Telugu and Tamil as well as Hindi, his Baahubali two-parter has been praised for its universal appeal. “We believed we could transcend this barrier if we based our stories on basic human emotions without being pulled down by regionalities,” Rajamouli said in an interview. “I always believed that if you have a story like that, it will reach beyond.” Released 28 April in France, India and the US. (Credit: Arka Mediaworks)

The Red Turtle

Watching this Oscar-nominated animation “is like falling into an 80-minute wormhole of spare artistry”, according to The Chicago Tribune. “The grace, elegance, carefully muted color palette and gradual acknowledgment of life’s milestones lift The Red Turtle far above the average.” Dutch animator Michael Dudok de Wit collaborated with the legendary Studio Ghibli for its first non-Japanese feature, a fable of a man shipwrecked on a desert island that has no dialogue. “This quiet meditation on humans’ relationship with nature hews to Ghibli’s core values of exquisitely rendered visual images combined with gently ruminative sensibilities,” argues The Washington Post, “offering respite from an all-too-cluttered and cacophonous world”. Released 30 April in Argentina and 26 May in the UK and Ireland. (Credit: Prima Linea Productions)

Last Men in Aleppo

Syrian filmmaker Firas Fayyad and Danish co-director Steen Johannessen’s boots-on-the-ground feature won the Grand Jury Documentary prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and amid a raft of Syria-themed films it “stands out for its rich craft and practical candour”, according to Variety. Following three founders of the Syrian Civil Defense’s White Helmets volunteer rescue organisation as they decide whether to flee with their families or stay and fight for their country, Last Men in Aleppo “brings a rigorous sense of craft and shock-and-awe scale… without impeding its anxious, on-the-hoof spontaneity”. It makes for difficult viewing – The Guardian described the film as “a 100-minute account of lives lived in hell, without proper medicine and housing” – but, as The Hollywood Reporter argues, ���the film demands to be reckoned with as a testament to the selflessness and courage of these literal life savers”. Released 3 May in the US and 11 May in New Zealand. (Credit: Larm Film)