Three new feature films debut in South Africa this week, and they’re all delivering thrills in some form or another. Screening in more limited release, meanwhile, are prison drama The Shawshank Redemption as the latest Throwback Cinema offering, along with a livestream of Offenbach opera Les Contes D’Hoffman, which is coming to one South African cinema only for a single show.
Releasing exactly five years after 2019’s Oscar-winning Joker, Joker: Folie à Deux continues the “Elseworlds” standalone story of Batman villain Joker. Taking the form of a twisted romance and courtroom drama, the film sees failed comedian Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) incarcerated in Arkham State Hospital, where he meets similarly delusional Harleen Quinzel (Lady Gaga). Together, literally madly in love, the pair embark on a doomed affair. The 138-minute Joker: Folie à Deux is once again written and directed by Todd Phillips.
Look out for our review before the end of the week.
Actress Anna Kendrick makes her directorial debut with real-life thriller Woman of the Hour, which she also stars in. The film centres on aspiring actress Cheryl Bradshaw, whose appearance on TV game show The Dating Game in 1978 saw her paired with serial killer Rodney Alcala, who brazenly was in the middle of a murder spree. File this one alongside Zoe Kravitz’s chilling Blink Twice.
Combining fresh faces and action thrills is Aftermath, a Die hard-esque tale where Dylan Sprouse’s PTSD-stricken military veteran is forced to once more pick up a rifle when he, along with his teenage sister, is trapped on Boston’s Tobin Memorial Bridge by a heavily armed group of revolutionaries. Mason Gooding, Cuba’s son, plays the film’s hostage-taking big bad.