Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore film review
Third movie in the Harry Potter spin-off series mostly delivers
Juho Kuosmanen, the Finnish director of Compartment No. 6, has said of his own films: “Basically, they are boring.” And it’s true that nothing much happens in this one, said Deborah Ross in The Spectator. It is set over the course of a long train journey across Russia in 1998. Seidi Haarla plays Laura, a Finnish archaeology student who’s travelling to Murmansk in the north of the country to see some Stone Age rock carvings.
On boarding the train, she’s dismayed to learn she’s sharing her sleeper carriage with a “bullet-headed, tough-looking, chain-smoking, vodka-glugging Russian man”, Ljoha (Yuriy Borisov), who is drunk and grabs at her crotch. It seems there’s “no way this pair are going to connect” – but gradually they do. This is a “character-as-plot film, and if that isn’t your style it is going to feel like a very long journey indeed”. It didn’t to me, though. “It seemed worthwhile.”
Compartment No. 6 has a lovely visual “texture”, said Tim Robey in The Daily Telegraph. But it’s the “rapport between the actors – or the anti-rapport, to start with” – that makes it so enjoyable. Haarla plays Laura with great vulnerability, while Borisov presents “such a vivid portrait of inarticulate male neurosis, hiding behind an armour of pathetic misogyny, that we even grow oddly protective of him, too”.
Subscribe to 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.
The film was mostly shot “within the confines of a real Russian train”, said Mark Kermode in The Observer, and it captures the setting “brilliantly”. As for any wider message, its “central theme of overcoming otherness and finding common ground across personal, cultural and geographical borders seems like a balm for the soul in these tumultuous times”.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
5 ladylike cartoons about women's role in the election
Cartoons Artists take on the political gender gap, Lady Liberty, and more
By The Week US Published
-
The right to die: what can we learn from other countries?
The Explainer A look at the world's assisted dying laws as MPs debate Kim Leadbeater's proposed bill
By The Week Published
-
Volkswagen on the ropes: a crisis of its own making
Talking Point The EV revolution has 'left VW in the proverbial dust'
By The Week UK Published
-
Juror #2: Clint Eastwood's 'cleverly constructed' courtroom drama is 'rock solid'
The Week Recommends Nicholas Hoult stars in 'morally complex' film about a juror on a high-profile murder case
By The Week UK Published
-
Explore a timeless corner of Spain by bike
The Week Recommends Take a 'dawdling route through the back-country' far from the tourism hotspots
By The Week UK Published
-
Saoirse Ronan: how the actress went viral
In the Spotlight The actress dropped a 'chat-icide bomb' on Graham Norton's BBC show
By The Week UK Published
-
Griddled salmon and vegetables with miso and melted butter recipe
The Week Recommends Hokkaido comfort food classic with a delicious twist
By The Week UK Published
-
Edmund de Waal on this year's Booker Prize shortlist
The Week Recommends The chair of judges details works by Rachel Kushner, Percival Everett and others
By The Week UK Published
-
Shattered: Hanif Kureishi's 'inspirational' memoir of accident that left him paralysed
The Week Recommends 'Exhilarating' book is composed of diary entries dictated to his son Carlo
By The Week UK Published
-
Dr. Strangelove: is stage adaptation of iconic film a 'foolish' move?
Talking Point Steve Coogan puts on a dazzling performance in show that falls short of 'the real thing'
By The Week UK Published
-
Small Things Like These: 'stylish' Irish drama 'casts a powerful spell'
The Week Recommends 'Stylish' drama starring Cillian Murphy as a devoted father
By The Week UK Published