In writer-director Clio Barnard’s Bradford-set love story, Adeel Akhtar plays Ali, a DJ turned landlord who spends his days “flitting around” an impoverished local estate collecting rent from his tenants, but also – because this is not a film by Ken Loach – fixing their kitchen cabinets, said Kevin Maher in The Times. Ali even drives his tenants’ children to school, if he is not too busy raving alone in a car park.
When he forms a bond with widowed teaching assistant Ava (Claire Rushbrook), it seems superficially impossible. Although Ali’s marriage to his wife (Ellora Torchia) has broken down, they still live together and they haven’t told his British-Pakistani family. Meanwhile, Ava’s irrationally angry son (Shaun Thomas) is appalled by her attraction to Ali. But while racism is never far from the surface, Barnard does not dwell on bigotry or violence: her film is ultimately optimistic.
It is not entirely sunny, said Beth Webb in Empire; on the contrary, there are moments when it seems needlessly bleak. But it finds a “startling, exuberant” beauty in the couple’s willingness to broaden their cultural horizons, and in their shared love of music. This is a charming movie, aided by a chemistry between Akhtar and Rushbrook that feels effortless and “utterly captivating”.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
More celebratory than Barnard’s 2013 film The Selfish Giant, but with some of its “poetic grit”, Ali & Ava is an “ode to the beauty of Bradford, and the indomitability of its inhabitants”, said Mark Kermode in The Observer. Based on real-life characters, it “uses the transcendent power of song to turn a streetwise tale into a diegetic musical, with genuinely surprising results”.
-
Starbucks workers are planning their ‘biggest strike’ everThe Explainer The union said 92% of its members voted to strike
-
‘These wouldn’t be playgrounds for billionaires’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
The 5 best nuclear war movies of all timeThe Week Recommends ‘A House of Dynamite’ reanimates a dormant cinematic genre for our new age of atomic insecurity
-
Bugonia: ‘deranged, extreme and explosively enjoyable’Talking Point Yorgos Lanthimos’ film stars Emma Stone as a CEO who is kidnapped and accused of being an alien
-
The Revolutionists: a ‘superb and monumental’ bookThe Week Recommends Jason Burke ‘epic’ account of the plane hijackings and kidnappings carried out by extremists in the 1970s
-
Film reviews: ‘Bugonia,’ ‘The Mastermind’ and ‘Nouvelle Vague’feature A kidnapped CEO might only appear to be human, an amateurish art heist goes sideways, and Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Breathless’ gets a lively homage
-
Book reviews: ‘Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity’ and ‘Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice’feature An examination of humanity in the face of “the Machine” and a posthumous memoir from one of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, who recently died by suicide
-
The dazzling coral gardens of Raja AmpatThe Week Recommends Region of Indonesia is home to perhaps the planet’s most photogenic archipelago
-
Salted caramel and chocolate tart recipeThe Week Recommends Delicious dessert can be made with any biscuits you fancy
-
6 trailside homes for hikersFeature Featuring a roof deck with skyline views in California and a home with access to private trails in Montana
-
Lazarus: Harlan Coben’s ‘embarrassingly compelling’ thrillerThe Week Recommends Bill Nighy and Sam Claflin play father-and-son psychiatrists in this ‘precision-engineered’ crime drama
