Director Luv Ranjan does have a flair for comedy but the laughs can’t compensate for the lack of logic in this film about a man trying to break off his best friend’s marriage

… this incoherent mess of a film plays out more like an extended skit or a school play

The Shape of Water is a love story set in the 1960s. The lovers are a mute cleaning lady and an amphibian man who has a muscled torso but also scales and gills. On paper, it sounds preposterous. On screen, it is poetry. Guillermo del Toro’s film is fantastical, gorgeous, nutty and so moving that I wept.

Black Panther is a landmark in terms of representation. It is the first, big-budget superhero movie to have a predominantly black cast. Coogler had a massive responsibility and he shoulders it magnificently. Black Panther speaks to the traumatic history of a continent but it also challenges every perception you might have about Africa and its people. And Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole give you enough besides politics to chew on.

With films like A Wednesday, Special Chabbis and Baby, Neeraj Pandey has established himself as Bollywood’s go-to director for stories of men in uniform. He has a genuine love and flair for making these worlds come alive.

But Aiyaary is a misstep.

Pad Man, a superman without the cape, is a memorable character. Like the real Pad Man, Lakshmi is self-deprecating and very funny – especially in the climactic speech at the United Nations. I wish the film matched his sparkle.

Phantom Thread is breathtakingly elegant. The costumes by Mark Bridges aren’t ostentatious but they are drop-dead gorgeous. I usually start noticing clothes in a movie when I’m bored but here costumes are one of the many elements to savour. As is the production design by Mark Tildesley. With extreme precision, director Paul Thomas Anderson creates a beautiful but claustrophobic world. And you are trapped in here with three individuals who are fascinating but not very likeable.

I’m an admirer of Sanjay’s passion and rigour, of his operatic sensibility and his commitment to creating epics. He isn’t subtle but he always plays for broke. To steal a line from the poet Robert Browning – Sanjay’s reach always exceeds his grasp. That’s what a heaven’s for. This time he doesn’t quite get there.

I’m an admirer of Sanjay’s passion and rigour, of his operatic sensibility and his commitment to creating epics. He isn’t subtle but he always plays for broke. To steal a line from the poet Robert Browning – Sanjay’s reach always exceeds his grasp. That’s what a heaven’s for. This time he doesn’t quite get there.

Wright sets this up an inspiring drama, which culminates in Churchill’s watershed ‘we shall fight them on the beaches’ speech, which we also heard at the end of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. In fact, Darkest Hour works as a nice companion piece to that film. Unlike Nolan however, Wright opts for easy sentimentality. McCarten invents a scene in which Churchill takes the tube for the first time in his life and finds strength in the courage of ordinary Londoners. It’s so cheesy that a B-grade Bollywood director would have rejected it. But there is enough to enjoy here. Especially Oldman’s towering achievement.