Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 24/11/2016)

Rising before six one Monday morning, Paterson (Adam Driver) kisses Iranian-American partner Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) and eats a bowl of Cheerios under the watchful gaze of her bulldog Marvin before heading off to work. He carries a little grey lunchbox, as he walks to the bus garage, where he takes time to scribble a poem about a box of Ohio Blue Tip matches in his notebook before heading into the New Jersey city of Paterson. As he drives, he listens to the inconsequential conversations of his passengers and keeps mulling over the verse that he eventually writes down during a break he shares with a postcard of Dante Alighieri.

On arriving at his bungalow home, Paterson straightens the wonky mailbox pillar and compliments Laura on the curtains she has hand-painted with her trademark black-and-white design. She has ambitions to open a cupcake stall at the farmer's market and encourages Paterson to find a publisher for his poetry. But he would much rather take Marvin for a walk and slip into the bar run by Doc (Barry Shabaka Henley). He chats briefly with brothers Sam and Dave (Trevor and Troy Parham) and sips his beer as Doc moves a piece on a chessboard on the counter.

The next morning, he listens to the complaints of garage supervisor Donny (Rizwan Manji) before eavesdropping on two blue-collar pals boasting about recent encounters with women that draws the ire of a black female passenger as she disembarks. That night, Laura urges Paterson to photocopy his poems before anything happens to them and begs him to allow her to buy a guitar on Ebay so she can fulfil her new ambition to become a Country-and-Western star. Despite knowing they can't afford to waste $200, he gives his consent and is rewarded with a kiss before being dispatched to walk Marvin.

As he strolls through the neighbourhood, Paterson is advised by some lads in a car to make sure fhat Marvin doesn't get dognapped. Yet, as usual, he ties him to the post outside the bar, where Doc is debating whether to add a cutting about Iggy Pop to his wall of fame. They become involved, however, in a tiff between Marie (Chasten Harmon) and Everett (William Jackson Harper) that culminates in them getting the giggles when Doc commends Everett on the delivery of his tale of woe about being unloved and he takes offence at the suggestion that he should become an actor because he already is one.

After an unremarkable Wednesday on the road, composing poems about dimensions and legs with a mind of their own, Paterson comes home to upright the mailbox and discover he is having quinoa for dinner. Marvin seems unimpressed and pulls hard on his lead during their walk. But he pauses outside the laudromat to listen to Method Man (Cliff Smith) working on a rap while his washing spins. It's quiet at the bar and Paterson watches Doc chatting to a female customer, while two men play chess in a corner. He stares into his beer and seems content with his lot.

Thursday dawns and Paterson gazes at Laura as she dozes with her hair spread over the pillow. He passes through the rundown area adjoining the Market Street depot and overhears a couple of students discussing the exploits of a 19th-century Italian anarchist weaver. On his break, he writes a poem about waking up next to Laura and fearing she will one day see him for the ordinary Joe he is. As he knocks off, Donny regales him with his latest problems before Paterson stops to sit with a tweenage girl (Sophia Muller) who is waiting for her mother and twin sister. She shows him the secret notebook in which she writes her poems and reads him one about rain and the dirty mirrors made by puddles.

He is touched by her words and she seems pleased that a bus driver has heard of Emily Dickinson. Over a supper of cheddar and sprout pie, Laura tells Paterson that she read online that Petrarch kept his poems to his own Laura in a secret book. She badgers him to make copies of his writing at the weekend and he promises he will. Distracted by a picture of a waterfall on the wall, he recites part of the girl's poem and Laura says it sounds like one of his and teases him by muddling the name of his favourite poet, William Carlos Williams. He spots a large bag of flour in the kitchen and she says it is her turn to make cupcakes for the farmer's market. Looking over at Marvin asleep on his armchair, he gulps down water to take away the taste of the pie before gamely eating on.

At the bar, Paterson and Doc discuss Bud Abbott, who not only has a statue in Paterson, but also a park named in his honour. They start running through the `Who's on First' sketch when Doc's wife (Johnnie Mae) bursts in and demands that he replaces the money he took from her savings or there will be big trouble. He promises to pay her back after the weekend chess tournament, but she just snorts incredulously. As Paterson asks Doc if he is okay, Marie snaps at Everett and storms out of the bar, leaving Paterson to nurse his beer in gratitude that Laura understands him so well.

Waking alone on Friday morning, Paterson finds Laura icing cupcakes in the kitchen. Marvin barks when they kiss and whines in the hope of being fed a tidbit. Laura is excited about the market and the fact that her guitar is due to be delivered. But, while Paterson is less convinced that she is on the verge of a double career breakthrough, he mumbles encouragement before heading to the depot to begin on a new poem. He is interrupted by Donny, who is too stressed to even discuss his problems. But Paterson gets a problem of his own when the electrics fail and he has to wait for help on the pavement with his passengers. But he is not alone in feeling frustrated, as Marvin is so peeved by Laura strumming her harlequin guitar that he scuttles into the front garden to push against the mailbox post before returning indoors.

Stopping en route to give some money to a homeless person, Paterson arrives home to be serenaded with the part of `I've Been Working on the Railroad' that Laura has learned to play. He is impressed and she asks if they can have takeaway pizza for supper so she can conquer the whole song. She notices her husband looks tired and implores him to get a mobile phone for emergencies. But he insists the world worked fine before them and flatly refuses to be at everyone's beck and call all of the time.

In the bar that night, Doc teases Paterson about rescuing his passengers from a potential fireball. Marie comes in and complains that Everett refuses to accept that she is not in love with him. As they talk, he bursts in brandishing a gun and shouts that he will kill Marie or himself unless she relents. Seizing his moment, Paterson disarms him by knocking him to the floor. But Doc calmly fires the pop gun at Everett's and tells him to stop upsetting his customers. Marie thanks Paterson for being a hero, but Doc mocks him for not being able to spot a toy.

In view of a photograph of Paterson in his medal-strewn army uniform, Laura wakes him with a kiss on Saturday morning. She frets that he might have been in danger at the bar and asks him to read Williams's `This Is Just to Say' as she packs her cupcakes into boxes. Marvin sits grumbling on Paterson's chair at the table as he reads and proceeds to drag him along his chosen route past the waterfalls when they go for a walk. He also sulks when Paterson spends the afternoon writing in the basement and then gets left behind to guard the house when Laura insists on celebrating her cupcake success by going to a revival screening of Erle C. Kenton's Island of Lost Souls (1932).

When they get home, they find that Marvin has shredded Paterson's notebook. Laura apologises for her dog, who scurries away before he can be punished. But Paterson blames himself for leaving it on the sofa. The next morning, however, he whispers to Marvin that he doesn't like him as they sit facing each other in the living-room. Laura wants to put Marvin back in the garage, but Paterson lets him stay and goes for a walk rather than let Laura cheer him up by playing her song.

He bumps into Everett, who apologises for behaving so badly in the bar. They exchange banalities in the sun before walking on. Paterson sits on a bench by the waterfall bridge, where he is joined by a Japanese tourist (Masatoshi Nagase). He asks if Paterson knows about William Carlos Williams and they briefly discuss poetry. The stranger shows Paterson his notebooks and regrets that his own poems are in Japanese and would rather not translate them, as this would be akin to taking a shower in a raincoat. As he leaves, he gives Paterson a blank notebook and reassures him that the empty page presents the most possibilities. Feeling suitably buoyed, he finds a pen in his pocket and writes a poem.

As the film ends with Paterson getting up for work on Monday morning, he confirms Everett's throwaway line about the sun coming up each day regardless of the problems that ordinary people might be facing. It's a fitting way to close a picture that retains a quiet faith in the American way, even though all the recent evidence appears to give grave cause for concern. Some have criticised Jarmusch for filling the neighbourhood with so many flawed African-American and immigrant characters, who lack Paterson's Zen pragmatism. Others have complained that it celebrates an Eisenhowerian view of society, with the man of the house having a noble job that he enjoys while his homemaker wife bakes and works wonders with fabrics. But, while Laura seems proud that her little unit belongs in the 20th century, Jarmusch's lament for a lost age of innocence still has teeth (as Marvin proves).

The great neo-realist screenwriter, Cesare Zavattini, once said that the perfect film would depict ’90 minutes in the life of a man to whom nothing happens'. Jarmusch comes close to realising his ambition here by resisting the temptation to impose a conventional movie narrative upon the marvellously phlegmatic Adam Driver. His existence is scarcely without incident, however. Nor is it utopian and Driver channels these myriad mundane occurrences into lyrical musings (actually penned by 73 year-old Ron Padgett) that demonstrate the importance of the little things that stick in our minds for no good reason, like the pieces of trivia that Barry Shabaka Henley plucks from the air behind his bar. But what makes Driver so engaging is that he recognises that poetry doesn't have to rhyme. Thus, Marvin can chew his book to tatters because what matters is the serenity to accept the things that can't be changed and start again on a fresh page

No matter what he does, Driver seems at ease in his own skin and this sense of being comfortable extends to his relationship with Golshifteh Farahani, which has settled into an affectionate cosiness that suits them much better than the kind of grand passion that William Jackson Harper seeks with Chasten Harmon. He may be the more grounded of the two, as he knows her grandiose dreams for them will never be realised. But he supports her right to excel at everything she does and appreciates her faith in his writing, even though he would just as happily keep it hidden as have it published. Hence, he keeps his poetry books on a small shelf in his basement den and lets Farahani do whatever she wants with the rest of their home, as that is her exhibition space.

Conveying Farahani's kooky personality, Mark Friedberg's production design is as splendid as Frederick Elmes's Patersonian views and Carter Logan's stealthily affecting score. But, right down to the defiantly clumsy Iggy Pop reference that promotes his documentary, Gimme Danger (see last week), this is very much a Jim Jarmusch film. Its sedate pace recalls the early works that established him as an indie hipster in the 1980s and it is perfectly complemented by the droll humour and resolute refusal to indulge in any greater contrivance than a bus breaking down. Yet what most viewers will take away from this shambling feature is the scene-stealing brilliance of Nellie, the English Bulldog who deservedly (but very sadly) became the first posthumous winner of the Palm Dog award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Changing the mood somewhat, Niall Johnson's Mum's List is a touching adaptation of St John Greene's bestselling account of his wife Kate's battle with cancer. Towards the end of her life, the 37 year-old began writing down little notes to help `Singe' raise their young sons, Reef and Finn, and Johnson litters the screen with quotable examples from the 100+ pieces of advice and encouragement that Kate hoped would keep her at the heart of the family after her passing.

In outline, this sounds like the scenario for the kind of teleplay that has been cruelly branded a `disease of the week movie'. But, as Johnson lives in the same West Country village as the Greenes, this is a sensitive, insightful and sincere tribute to his neighbours and their kinship and courage. There are moments when the non-linear narrative strays into melodrama with the aid of some gauchely sentimental song selections and Amelia Warner's emotionally manipulative score. However, the excellent leads keep pulling the picture back from the brink and rooting it in an everyday reality that makes it all the more effective.

Recalling a happy day on the beach, St John Greene (Rafe Spall) collects sons Reef (William Stagg) and Finn (Matthew Stagg) and takes them to the Bristol Channel seafront to break the bad news that their mother, Kate (Emilia Fox), has died. They cuddle on the front seat of the car in a downpour and remember how Kate had taught them about vapour trails forming kisses in the sky. But, while Singe fights back the tears, the enormity of his loss hits him when he arrives home to find that the neighbours have left them food parcels on the front step.

As he wanders through empty rooms and sends the boys off for their bath, Singe recalls the day Kate found a lump in her left breast and the diagnosis that she needed a mastectomy to remove two cancerous growths. She tells Dr Adams (Andrew Byron) that five year-old Reef has just been given the all clear (after being given a 6% chance of survival during his own cancer scare) and she approaches her battle with a positivity that humbles her supportive husband, especially when the operation fails and she requires chemotherapy. Ever since he first met her at a roller-skating rink when they were teenagers (Ross McCormack and Sophie Simnett), Kate had been convinced she was lucky and frequently found four-leaf clovers.

Clambering into the attic, he finds photographs they took with her best friend Rachel (Naomi Battrick) and, after a sequence showing Kate having chemo for the first time, he shows them to the adult Rachel (Elaine Cassidy) and he tells her how Kate prepared all the paperwork before her death and started sending him little notes to bolster him during her ordeal. He decides to collate all the texts and post-it messages so that he can refer to them when times get tough.

Dozens of maxims fill the screen (frustratingly far too many of them to read at the speed with which they disappear) to the strains of the mawkish score and Johnson seems about to venture into calculating three-hankie territory, as Singe pins mum's list in prominent places around the house. But he pulls it back with a blast of `Teenage Kicks' by The Undertones playing at the funeral, as Singe thinks back to the 14 year-old Kate dancing to the song on the beach before placing her ashes among the cuddly toys in Reef and Finn's bedroom, as she had requested.

A montage follows, supposedly from Kate's vantage point on top of the wardrobe, although it seems odd to then see Singe at her grave in the clifftop cemetery of St Andrew's Church in Clevedon, with her mother Christine (Susan Jameson). Nevertheless, the story flashes back to Kate losing her hair and Singe insisting that she looks beautiful after she shaves her head. It heads further back to the teenage lovers hoping to have a huge family before lurching forwards again to Kate asking Rachel to keep an eye on her little men if she dies and to Singe jogging to the boatyard run by his younger brother Matt (Bobby Lockwood) to vent about going through hell with Reef only to endure it all over again with Kate.

Trying to get back into the swing, Singe joins Matt and girlfriend Olivia (Clara Charteris) for her birthday party. At the bar, however, he instinctively turns to ask Kate what she's drinking and he is reminded all over again that he is alone and will never make any new memories with his soulmate. Yet, she had been told she was in remission and they had started to enjoy life again. However, the chemo has damaged her lungs and Kate starts sleeping in a downstairs bed for convenience after she is told that a secondary cancer has spread to her bones and that she can't be cured.

Requiring oxygen to breathe, Kate struggles to the attic to find the box of keepsakes that remind her of their first kiss on her birthday, the contract that they signed when they started dating and the first time they said they loved each other `acres and acres'. But their most important conversation sees her reassure him that he can survive her loss and be a wonderful father to their boys, as it was this that inspired her to start jotting her notes. However, the lengthy scene of Kate delivering some of these directly to camera is a touch twee, as is the slow-motion montage of the family blowing out birthday candles. But the dinner party at which Singe describes coping as a battle with the undertow and the tide is nicely judged and poignantly performed.

As time passes, he is able to recall happy events like the afternoon they made a handprint painting in Kate's hospital room, the moment she held her sons for the first time and the evening she first broke the news that she was pregnant. But he continues to struggle with her wish for him to find another woman to give they boys a female influence. During a family holiday at Kate's favourite beach, his dad (Richard Cordery) tells Singe to take each day as it comes and makes the most of every minute, as he had done earlier when he stripped to his underwear and plunged into the sea.

Eventually, the awful night comes and Singe has to wake a neighbour to mind the boys so he can speed across town. The camera remains outside the door as he takes Kate's hand and a nurse draws a curtain to give them their last moment alone. But, having celebrated mother's day with a junk food blow-out, Singe takes up Rachel's suggestion to call Andrea (Elizabeth Healey) from her dinner party and, after Reef is given the all clear, he takes his next step.

Filmed on a modest budget in authentic locations, this offers a very different insight into the grieving process from the one Johnson presented in his screenplay for Geoffrey Sax's supernatural thriller, White Noise (2005). Taking his cues from St John Greene's memoir, Johnson adopts a tone of cosy informality that survives the rather corny first love flashbacks and the necessarily formulaic chronicle of Kate's illness. This is largely because of the excellence of Rafe Spall, who gives one of the best performances by a British actor in 2016, as the adoring husband and father who always manages to say and do the right thing despite seeming to stumble his way through his trials and tribulations.

Murmuring in a Somerset burr, Spall creates a person rather than a character and his shifts between vulnerability and fortitude prompt as many lumps in the throat as Emilia Fox's laudable display of strength and suffering. It might have been nice to know what they did for a living (Kate was an insurance underwriter and Singe was a paramedic), as Singe seems to be able to devote himself to his wife and sons without any hint of hardship and even has the wherewithal to take a trip to Lapland and hire a sailing ship for a pirate birthday party.

Such backstory blips should no more detract from the overall good impression, however, than the sketchiness of the secondary characters, the occasionally stiff acting of some of the supporting cast and the sometimes jumbled sense of timescale (as Kate was given 18 months to live at the end of 2009, yet died within a month, while four years passed before Singe found a new partner). But this is designed to be an inspirational tribute that invites the odd tear and, in this regard, it fulfils its brief admirably.

The same is true of Jane Linfoot's debut feature, The Incident. However, this slow-burning study of class division and psychological fragility is much less accessible, as Linfoot appears more interested in generating an atmosphere than telling a story. At times, this feels like an elongated short, which is perhaps to be expected, as has been steadily building her reputation with Creep (2005), Youth (2007), On Your Own (2010) and Sea View (2013), which was nominated for a BAFTA and showed in the annual touring package of cited shorts. Indeed, The Incident and Sea View have much in common, as each centres on a vulnerable teenage girl whose dreams of a better life are dashed by a seedy sexual encounter with an older man.

While waiting for a pizza from a takeaway on the edge of a Huddersfield housing estate, architect Tom Hughes engages in a flirtatious conversation with teenager Tasha Connor. She flatters him and he is sufficiently enticed to pay her £20 for a fleeting encounter that drives him to the shower almost as soon as he returns to the chic modern house he shares with elegant wife, Ruta Gedmintas. She is surprised by his choice of meal and puzzled by how distant he seems. But she is even more put out when she strips to her underwear to lure him into their woodland garden and he fails to rise to the occasion.

Having washed her hands and face in a public toilet, Connor goes home to sleep with a youth who barely acknowledges her presence. The following day, she seeks sanctuary in the local pet shop, where she gazes at the tropical fish and strokes a rabbit. Having been grumpily cool with each other after their nocturnal misfire, Hughes and Gedmintas are also in the shopping centre, as the latter has gone to buy a pregnancy testing kit after throwing up in the en suite loo.

Gedmintas slips into a supposedly out of order convenience and is about to open the packaging when she hears Connor in the next stall. Somehow intrigued, she emerges in time to see Connor strut off across the mall. But she fails to see her being menaced by three lads demanding the money she owes them and is heading back to the car by the time Connor casually steals a bike from outside a newsagent. She cycles to the station, where Gedmintas is seeing Hughes off on a business trip. Relations are still frosty and he is walking along the platform when Connor asks Gedmintas for some change and gives her a mouthful when she tries to ignore her.

Recognising Connor from the previous evening, Hughes is relieved to see her being ushered out of the station before she can spot him. But Gedmintas remains curious and follows Connor into the car park, where she climbs into the passenger seat of a white van that proceeds to follow Gedmintas for much of the way home. Relieved to lose the vehicle after a set of traffic lights, Gedmintas unpacks her shopping and is about to use the test when the white van arrives with a wine delivery for the party she is about to host to celebrate the fact that Hughes has managed to sell the house he designed for them at a handsome profit.

What Gedmintas doesn't see, however, is that Connor has recognised the number plate of the car parked on the drive and she slopes away from the van to mooch around the grounds. She finds the cases of champagne in the garage and steals a bottle to drink in the woods. When she wakes after a drunken doze, Connor sees the lights in the house and takes advantage of the door that Gedmintas left open after a smoke to explore inside. While Gedmintas takes a bath, Connor snoops around and marvels at the opulence of the living-room with a mixture of envy and awe. She tries on one of Gedmintas's tops and puts a pair of tights over her head before creeping into the bedroom.

Sensing someone in the room, Gedmintas sits up and is horrified to see Connor at the foot of the bed. However, the teenager is as scared as she is and flees without looking back. But the episode haunts Gedmintas, who is feeling vulnerable after discovering she is carrying a child. She is put out, therefore, when the returning Hughes fails to be suitably sympathetic after recognising the name that Connor carved into the table top. Indeed, he becomes agitated when Gedmintas is informed that Connor has been arrested and confessed to the intrusion. However, he is elated when Gedmintas breaks the news about her pregnancy and she allows herself a sad smile.

On returning from a motorboat ride along the river, Gedmintas finds policewoman Noma Dumezweni waiting for her. She invites her to meet with the remorseful Connor to gain some kind of closure. But Hughes is against the idea and Gedmintas goes behind his back in order to confront Connor at a session with her social worker and the local vicar. She asks what motivated her to come to the house and warns her about getting into cars with strange men. As she speaks, however, she sees Connor twisting a sweet wrapper and recognised the brand from the litter she found on the backseat the day she dropped Hughes at the station.

Gedmintas throws up at the side of the road and drives home in a daze. She finds Hughes in the garden supervising the erection of a bouncy castle and an ornate light display. Struggling to cope with his treachery, she curls in a ball on the bed. When he comes to check up on her, she simply tells him that she met up with Connor and wonders how this makes him feel.

It's likely that a number of viewers will have long ceased to care about such resistible characters before this showdown. But Linfoot deserves credit for sticking to her creative guns in making an atmospheric, if rarely fascinating first feature. Part of the problem lies in her reluctance to develop the backstories of the principals, as it remains frustratingly uncertain why Hughes and Gedmintas are still together when they appear so sullenly unsuited or whether Connor is underage and/or in an abusive relationship with the man who shares her bed.

Regardless of the circumstances, Hughes's behaviour is reprehensible. However, he is peripheral to the core action, which centres on Gedmintas's frankly unlikely preoccupation with Connor and her highly contrived arrival on Gedmintas's doorstep. Such coincidences do occur, but, with each actress retaining a mask of inscrutable impassivity, it's difficult for the audience to invest in their respective crises.

Linfoot keeps Pau Castejón Úbeda's camera prowling around the imposing property unearthed by production designer Ryan Broadbent. But Tim Hecker's score often strives to sustain a tension that is largely absent from the narrative because of the sketchy characterisation and mannered performances, as well as Linfoot's tendency to allow scenes to drift. Yet, while this is essentially a protracted vignette, its conceptual and technical confidence suggest Linfoot may well be a director to watch.

For the last two decades, Kiyoshi Kurosawa has been one of the defining talents behind J-horror. There has often been something Hitchcockian about his studies of terror in the everyday, hence his appearance in Kent Jones's documentary, Hitchcock/Truffaut. But, even though it's easy to spot the influence of Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958) and Psycho (1960) on Creepy, one suspects that the Master of Suspense might have taken a very different approach to adapting Yutaka Maekawa's prize-winning thriller.

Having retired from the police force after allowing psychopath Tonu Baba to escape from his custody and slash the throat of a female hostage, Hidetoshi Nishijima accepts a post teaching criminal psychology at a nearby university. In order to complete the fresh start, he and wife Yuko Takeuchi move house to a seemingly quiet suburban backstreet. But they are disappointed with the response when they offer introductory gifts to spinster Misaki Saisho, who looks after her bedridden mother and prefers keeping to herself.

Bored in his office after lecturing on killers with `mixed characteristics', Nishijima asks colleague Masahiro Toda about what academics do to pass the time between classes. He shows the rookie a database he is compiling about crimes in the local area and Nishijima recalls the six year-old unsolved case of a boy who disappeared with his parents leaving behind a sister (Haruna Kawaguchi) whose evidence changed with each retelling. Eager to see a real cop in action, Toda suggests visiting the house in Hino City, but Nishijima insists he has retired from crime fighting.

They visit the house regardless, but stop at the gate. Meanwhile, Takeuchi pays another call to neighbour Teruyuki Kagawa, who accepts his gift of chocolates with a bluff lack of etiquette that prompts Takeuchi to tell Nishijima over supper that he gives her the creeps. Yet, when Kagawa is attacked by her dog Max, he seems vulnerable and apologises so sweetly for his rudeness that Takeuchi forgives him and warms to his teenage daughter, Ryoko Fujino. But he becomes frosty again the moment she mentions his wife and Takeuchi looks on in confusion as Kagawa stalks back behind his gate.

On campus, Nishijima gets a surprise visit from his former assistant, Masahiro Higashide, who wants him to delve into the Hino City case. He persuades Nishijima to return to the house and they agree it has a sinister feel. As they walk round, they see Kawaguchi and ask if she would be willing to answer some questions. However, she says she endured enough from the police and media and scurries away before Higashide can stop her.

While returning home, Nishijima is stopped by Kagawa, who asks him curtly to keep his wife from prying into his affairs. He tells Takeuchi to give up trying to befriend such a weirdo. But she insists on taking round a bowl of stew and tentatively agrees to meet Kagawa's wife before a chance meeting with Fujino gives her misgivings and she retreats. Kagawa follows and explains that his wife suffers from depression and that he has no idea how to help her.

Across town, Nishijima calls on Kawaguchi to ask what she remembers of the day her family went missing. He insists that he is only interested in an intellectual capacity. But, even though she refuses to co-operate, Kawaguchi comes to the college to tells Nishijima, Higashide and Toda that she remembers having the feeling that her family were being controlled by someone over the phone before they vanished. When Nishijima urges her to think hard about the mysterious man on the phone, she accuses him of exploiting her. But he is sure she will return because she recognises that he is the only person who can help her recover her lost memories.

Nishijima arrives home to find Takeuchi giving Kagawa and Fujino a cookery lesson. They stay to supper and Kagawa reveals he is the head of an institute dealing in stocks and shares. He promises to tell Nishijima more about it the next time they meet. But he remains convinced Kagawa is an oddball and wants nothing to do with him.

As predicted, Kawaguchi returns to the university and tells Nishijima that she recalls the sinister way that her neighbour used to look at her. She wonders whether he was the man manipulating her parents and faints when Nishijima carelessly promises that he is sure he will find them alive. On his way across town, he sees Kagawa on the metro and runs into him again on the walk home from the station. Kagawa divulges a little about his past in business and thanks Nishijima for his hospitality. But he still feels there is something unusual about a fellow who can switch from being hostile to ingratiating in the blink of an eye.

Intrigued by Kawaguchi's story about her staring neighbour, Higashide searches the next-door house and finds five corpses in vacuum-sealed bags. He confides to Nishijima that he believes someone living in the house was bending two families to his will. Yet no alarm bells ring when Kagawa starts flirting with Takeuchi or when Fujino informs Nishijima that he is a total stranger rather than her father. There's a biting irony, therefore, when Nishijima tells Takeuchi he's not cut out to be a detective when he finds her talking furtively on the telephone and believes her claim she was catching up with an old school friend, as she has so few friends since they moved to Inagi City.

Nevertheless, Nishijima has spotted a similarity between his street and the crime scene in Hino and asks Higashide to check if Kagawa has a record. He also badgers Saisho about him, but she insists she has nothing to do with such a monster. Higashide notices that both Kagawa and Kawaguchi's neighbour gave `institute director' as their profession. But, when he comes to interview Kagawa, he is lured into a soundproofed basement.

That night, a series of explosions rips through Saisho's house and Nishijima is appalled to see Kagawa calmly watching the television in his living-room as if nothing untoward was happening. Once the blaze has been brought under control, Nishijima is visited by veteran detective Takashi Sasano, who informs him that Higashide's body was found in the rubble. Nishijima immediately blames Kagawa, but Sasano is reluctant to take action. So, Nishijima forces Kuawaguchi to look at a photograph of Kagawa to see if he was her neighbour. But she feels betrayed by the fact her family was found dead and refuses to co-operate.

With her arm covered in puncture marks, Takeuchi also struggles away from Kagawa when he tries to menace her on the street. But she says nothing to Nishijima, who fails to assume that she could be in any sort of danger, despite suspecting that Kagawa is a crazed killer. His supposition proves right when he bursts into the basement in which Fujino is vacuum-packing her recently slaughtered father and giving her mother another shot of the drugs that keep her docile and pliant. But Kagawa is angry because they bank balance has run low and when Fujino fails to kill her mother after she attacks him, Kagawa shoots her in the back of the head and orders Fujino to clean up the mess her family has made.

When Fujino asks for help burying her mother, Kagawa summons Takeuchi, who follows his instructions slavishly. Furious at being denied access to Higashide's computer, Nishijima gets home to find Takeuchi missing. As he looks for her, Fujino bangs at the door and demands sanctuary. But Kagawa uses Takeuchi's to gain entrance and Nishijima tells Fujino to call the cops. He follows his neighbour on to the street and tries to pin him down. But, when a police car speeds up, he is the one to be arrested and he pleads with Takeuchi not to trust Kagawa as he is driven away.

Fortunately, Sasano had read his files and he brings Kagawa in for questioning. But he escapes and Sasano falls through a trapdoor in his basement when he ventures into the house alone. He is injected with sedatives and Nishijima finds him unconscious when he comes in search of Takeuchi. She tells him she has been unhappy for a long time and seems indifferent when he promises to change. But, when Kagawa corners Nishijima with a gun, Takeuchi jabs a syringe into his hand and he collapses on the floor.

Keen to make a quick getaway, Kagawa buys a people carries and identifies a new home for them to appropriate. He stops at a deserted building near the airport and concocts a story to win over his next victims. But, when he gives Nishijima a gun to shoot Max, he misjudges his control over the ex-cop, who blasts him with two bullets. Fujino mocks the corpse before running off with Max, leaving Takeuchi (who instantly comes out of her trance - although she may have already emerged from it and not given her husband a full dose of the intoxicant) to cling on to Nishimima and scream hysterically with fear and pain.

Stuffed with Hitchcockian grace notes like sudden breezes and darkening backgrounds and invoking such masters of melodrama as Fritz Lang, Robert Aldrich and Richard Fleischer, this often feels more like a black comedy than an edge-of-the-seat chiller. Kurosawa generates much of his unease by having Akiko Ashizawa's camera prowl around Norifumi Ataka's artfully lit interiors. But, despite a gleefully malevolent display of paranoia and psychosis by Teruyuki Kagawa, he struggles to patch over the contrivances in the screenplay concocted with Chihiro Ikeda before settling for a thuddingly underwhelming denouement.

While he passes some telling observations on the insularity of Japanese society, Kurosawa has trouble binding the Kawaguchi subplot into the central storyline, while he never recovers from failing to give the audience enough of a stake in Takeuchi and Nishijima's relationship. He also plays too heavily on the notion that Nishijima is an incompetent, theory-fixated cop, by having him ignore the blatant clues provided by Saisho and Fujino and by causing him to be too narcissistic to notice the effect that his travails and obsessions are having on his wife. It's tempting to suggest that Takeuchi caught on to Kagawa long before Nishijima did and engineered the situation to bring them closer together. But, even in a film so replete with improbabilities (if not to say implausibilities), this is perhaps pushing things a bit too far.

Arriving hot on the heels of Mira Nair's Queen of Katwe, but coming much closer in tone to Andrew Bujalski's Computer Chess (2013), Benjamin Rhee's Magnus is the latest in a lengthening line of chess documentaries that already includes Vikram Jayanti's Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine (2003), Liz Garbus's Bobby Fischer Against the World (2011), Katie Dellamaggiore's Brooklyn Castle, and Ian McDonald's Algorithms (both 2012). Although Rhee is the nominal director, it seems clear that Norwegian wunderkind Magnus Carlsen's father Henrik is the eminence chauve behind this fast-moving profile, as not only is Rhee allowed to make free use of treasured home movies, but he is also granted unprecedented access to `the Mozart of Chess' as he rises through the rankings en route to becoming the game's youngest ever world champion in 2013.

Born in Tønsberg on 30 November 1990, Magnus Carlsen grew up with engineer parents Henrik and Sigrun and sisters Ingrid, Signe and Ellen in the town of Haslum, where he initially displayed such signs of arrested development that he was unable to jump over a low hurdle on camera. At the age of four, however, he spent six hours assembling a Lego train from some complex instructions and became obsessed with the numerical relationships between the emblems in a book of flags. This sudden aptitude for intellectual challenges persuaded Henrik that Magnus might enjoy chess and he quickly applied his intuitive analytical skills to calculate some 100 moves ahead of the state of play.

Aware that the best players put in hours of study to master the game, Henrik encouraged Magnus to play by instinct and quickly came to appreciate his potential when he performed creditably in the Norwegian Chess Championship at the age of eight. Rhee rather rushes through this stage of Magnus's development and fails to mention any mentors or sponsors who aided his progress. Instead, Henrik is shown accompanying him to tournaments and sustaining his spirits in hotel rooms across Europe, as he defies the odds by beating much older youths various prestigious events.

A crisis of confidence during the World Cup revealed that Magnus's intuition could occasionally let him down and Henrik and Sigrun took him out of the limelight to attend a sports college. However, despite being keen, Magnus was bullied for his lack of sporting skill in the ninth grade and it came as something of a relief when he returned to the chess circuit. He particularly gained confidence at the age of 13 from playing Garry Kasparov in Iceland in March 2004 (the year he became the world's youngest Grandmaster) when he overcame the fact that he was only ranked 786 in the world to force a draw against one of the game's superstars. Rhee cuts cannily between shots of Kasparov grimacing and covering his face as the fearless and often distracted junior tests his mettle. But he omits to mention after showing Magnus eating ice-cream with his family afterwards that he actually lost a second game and was eliminated from the competition.

Magnus finds it amusing that his father sees `phantom' moves during the course of games. But we lose sight of him for several years as he continues to punch above his weight and he suddenly reappears at Harvard in 2013, where he defeats 10 leading lawyers while playing blindfold and jokes for the cameras that he is not a `borderline nutcase'. This exhibition is staged a few weeks before Magnus competes in the Candidates Tournament in London for the right to take on world champion Viswanathan Anand (who is 20 years his senior).

He starts well and remains undefeated in acquiring six points from nine. But he makes a calamitous mistake against the weakest player in the contest and, following a second defeat in his last game, knows that Russian Vladimir Kramnik will prevail if he survives his final encounter. Magnus tries to explain that his intuition inexplicably deserted him and he suddenly felt as though he was no longer fluent in his native language. He admits that he has demons, but would rather keep them to himself, as he cannot allow anyone to discover his weaknesses. But chess is a lonely game and the pressure also gets to Kramnik and Magnus unexpectedly finds himself on the plane to Chennai.

As Rhee introduces us to Frederic Friedel and Matthias Wüllenweber from the German ChessBase company whose software helps Anand prepare for matches, Magnus goes into training with Grandmaster Jon Ludwig Hammer and he seems to spend as much time playing beach volleyball as he does studying openings and strategies. He clearly admires Anand (whom he has played several times before), but feels he can be knocked out of his stride by being made to think for himself rather than being allowed to follow pre-planned gambits.

Everyone in the family knows how much it means to the 22 year-old, as he has devoted himself to becoming the best at a game that has given his life meaning. They are concerned by the level of furore that greets his arrival in India and the number of public appearances that he has to make under the full media spotlight while Anand is locked away with numerous Grandmasters analysing Magnus's games in the hope of finding his Achilles heel. But, as the players arrive at the Hyatt Hotel for the first of 12 games, there appears to be little love lost between them as they forego handshakes after Anand keeps Magnus waiting on the stage.

Following the opening draw on white, Magnus keeps dropping his pieces while playing black in the second game and the online commentators highlight his poor body language and his evident inability to disrupt Anand's well-organised openings. Such is his determination to break through that he takes a risk playing white in the third game and is lucky to hang on for a draw. The fourth also proves a stalemate and the Carlsens descend en masse to help take Magnus's mind off the battle. Having splashed in the hotel pool, they play card games and listen to silly songs from their childhood, while Magnus finds solace in a book of Donald Duck cartoons.

The ploy pays dividends when a relaxed Magnus adopts an aggressive style in Game 5 and takes Anand by surprise. Knocked out of his comfort zone, he slips to defeat and Magnus extends his advantage by winning again on black. Friedel is impressed by this sudden display of unorthodox genius and declares Magnus to be superhuman while claiming that his feat is similar to climbing Everest in tennis shoes without oxygen. With the score standing at five to three in Magnus's favour after eight games, Anand knows he has to go on the counterattack. But this leaves him vulnerable and victory in Game 9 leaves Magnus needing a draw to take the title.

He claims the crown in the next game and the online commentary team struggle to find suitable superlatives. With the pressure off, Magnus leaps in the hotel pool and footage shows him returning to Norway as a national hero. Somewhat surprisingly, he becomes a fashion icon and girls scream when he arrives at venues. But his siblings insist that fame has not changed him and that he remains generous and grateful to his family because he is aware that chess has helped him grow as a person.

Kasparov is delighted that the game has found such a fine ambassador and Rhee shows young kids citing him as their inspiration. Naturally, Henrik is proud of his son and is pleased that he has been able to play a small part in his rise to the top. But Magnus is aware that he can never play the perfect game, as he will always follow his gut and this will sometimes lead him to make mistakes. However, he has no intention of changing the way he plays and this faith in his method enabled him to reach the highest rating in chess history (2882), as well as hold the world Rapid, Blitz and Chess titles simultaneously after he beat Anand in a rematch in November 2014.

Rhee fails to mention any of these subsequent achievements in his rattling 76-minute portrait. But he might have timed its release just right, as Magnus is currently in danger of being toppled by Russian challenger Sergei Karjakin, who leads their contest in New York by 4½ to 3½ with four games left over the next week.

Slickly assembled by Martin Stoltz and Perry Eriksen, this is less a full-scale biodoc than a series of edited highlights. Rhee seems happy to leap almost a decade in his story, but many viewers will be curious to know what happened to Magnus in this period and how these events transformed him from being a promising rookie to the undisputed champion. Of course, the family is entitled to its privacy, but Rhee and co-writer Linn-Jeanethe Kyed might have worked harder to fill in the gaps, especially as their film relies so heavily on its chronological structure before the Anand match takes over the final third. Surely there was one chess expert or friendly rival willing to extol Magnus's virtues while listing a few interim achievements?

While Magnus Carlsen made the most of the advantages that befell him during his privileged childhood, the young women profiled in Mehrdad Oskouei's Starless Dreams found themselves in a dormitory in a correctional facility on the outskirts of Tehran because they could no longer stand the poverty, abuse and degradation that had plagued their youth. It took Oskouei seven years to gain access to the facility and he was only allowed 20 days to interview the inmates. But, as in his hour-long studies of male delinquents, It's Always Late for Freedom (2008) and The Last Days of Winter (2012), he quickly established a rapport with his subjects, as he gently coaxed them into revealing details about their lives, their crimes and their hopes for the future as New Year approaches.

Opening with a shot of teenager Khatereh being fingerprinted before being locked in an isolation cell, the documentary cuts to a snowball fight in the yard, which suggests that the residents of this juvenile detention centre are given a reasonable amount of leeway. They are also shown playing spin the bottle and giving each other stinging hand slaps or `burning moustaches' as forfeits. But, when Khatereh is interviewed, we learn that her mother scorched her hand on a gas stove while depressed about her crack-addicted husband and it becomes clear that this sense of camaraderie is born out of a need for security and affection after years of domestic neglect and trauma.

As one girl is cuffed and bundled into a car to go to court, Oskouei chats to Ghazal, as she builds a snowman on the table-tennis table in the courtyard. Hooked on the drugs her mother used and her abusive stepfather forced her to sell, she was married at 14 and has not seen her two year-old daughter in seven months. She seems beaten down by the system, unlike the spirited girl who jumps to the front of the lunch queue after a courtroom appearance in which she openly admits she put on an act of contrition in order to influence the judge.

Grinning nervously on a bunk bed with a pink teddy bear behind her, Nobody explains how she sometimes stabs people while stealing cars. But, while she carries a gun for effect, she would only ever use it on her detested uncle, who drove her away from home when she was 12. She still thinks of herself as a good girl and would like to become Shaghayegh again. But she needs to keep acting tough to protect herself physically and psychologically. Oskouei tells Nobody that he has a 16 year-old daughter and this makes her cry, as she has been raised in rot and filth and is fully aware that her grandmother is insincere about her offer to protect her on her release.

An imam comes to the centre for prayers, but the girls are much more excited by a pizza delivery. They gather at the table in the centre of the dorm and Masoumeh grabs the boom mike and goes into diva mode, as she sings a song about misfortune and suffering that has the others clapping along and joining in with the chorus. Mocking Oskouei, Nobody uses a plastic cup as a microphone to interview Hasrat about being one of 11 children and being picked on by a mother who favours her eldest son. When asked how often she has stolen, Hasrat jokes that her crimes exceed the hairs on Nobody's head and everyone laughs. They also roar when she claims to have stolen pigeons as well as motorbikes. But they fall silent when she avers that she would kill any daughters, as only a son is a fitting crown for a mother's head.

The roles are reversed and Hasrat quizzes Nobody. She declares that Oskouei would get a better film if he focused on their families, as they are the real desperadoes whose crimes reflect the reality of life in Iran. They are glad he is a university professor and not a government lackey, but they decide it would be better not to discuss politics after Hasrat admits she went on demonstrations and chanted for both Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hossein Mousavi.

On another occasion, Hasrat shows her friends a sketch of her dress on the day she married Hasan the Lamb. But Oskouei wants to talk to 17 year-old Aya, who is about to be released. She is pregnant and regrets beating the mother who tried to reform her and feels sorry that her brother is on death row for a multitude of offences. As she leans on the bunk ladder with a blank stare, Aya makes 651 cry on the upper berth because she also assaulted her mother. She explains that she took this nickname she was holding 651 grams of drugs when she was arrested

As ever, Oskouei refuses to pass judgement and similarly lets Somayeh describe how she came to kill her father after he became a violent addict and ceased being the kind man she used to adore. But, instead of waiting to eat with him when he came home from work, she came to dread the arguments that inevitably culminated in him beating her mother. Eventually, her sister suggested murdering him and Somayeh and her mother agreed. Oskouei says he sense a lot of hurt and she calmly states that `pain drips from the walls' in this place. But, as everyone else has been prostituted or assaulted, they understand each other and Oskouei ends the segment with a close-up of the tear-filled eyes of a young girl consoling her sobbing friend.

Following shots of a noisy game of volleyball, Oskouei retreats to the greenhouse to speak to Khatereh. She looks down in mournful profile as she reveals that her mother beat her when she told her she was being `bothered' by her uncle. He asks about her love of studying and she replies that she would like to become a lawyer or a cop to protect girls like her sister. But she would settle for some peace and quiet and an early death, as she is tired of life.

Having sat in on a class about AIDS, Oskouei catches up with Fereshte as she is about to be freed. She is convinced she will be beaten when she returns home and asks one of the female warders for advice. However, as she has already signed her release papers, she is ineligible for any help and the guard callously informs her that they no longer care about what happens to her, even if she is killed. Through the bars of a gate, Oskouei films her getting into the backseat of a car and being driven away.

While practicing hairdressing on some dummies, Nobody chats to a girl recently arrested for vagrancy. She recalls sleeping rough under a stolen canvas car roof and waking to find it weighed down with snow. But she is in a good mood as her grandmother is coming to visit and she squeals with pleasure on hugging her. Across the hall, Ziba nurses her two young children and describes how she started stealing to pay for the medical bills when her mechanic husband fell into a coma on colliding with a plate glass window.

Ziba is allowed to take her infant daughter into the dormitory and Aya becomes tearful when she asks if she can hold her. As her friends comfort her, Ziba gives her baby a bath and wraps her up in blankets before feeding her. The girls concur that many parents simply have children so they can steal for them. But they all agree that they would be loving mothers to their offspring and prevent them from going astray.

Nobody begins keeping a diary, which she illustrates with little cartoons showing her wearing trendy clothes she has stolen and hanging from a noose. She looks on as some of the girls give a puppet show in the dormitory, while Ziba dandles her baby while using an exercise walker in the yard. Hasrat keeps her puppet and talks to it, as though it was her husband.

Khatereh informs Oskouei that she would dispose of any baby boys and her reasons become clear when she tells one of the staff that she doesn't want to go home for New Year because her parents will beat her for accusing her uncle of rape. She cringes as the social worker talks to her mother on speaker phone and she denounces her daughter as a serial liar. Yet, when her sister comes to see her, they cling to each other and Khatereh agrees to be reunited with her parents. They promise things will improve and she beams into the camera when confiding that she is going home to resume her studies because her family has finally accepted her story.

The girls join forces to wash their dormitory rug and give Khatereh a rousing send off. She turns at the gate to wave goodbye. But Nobody becomes frustrated during a phone call with her grandmother, as she needs someone to collect her to fulfil the terms of her release. She also becomes emotional when the imam comes to discuss human rights and she complains that the judge dismissed her because she was illegitimate. The girls bombard the imam with examples of how the law is biased in favour of men and he tries to calm them with platitudes. No wonder they listen to songs about women turning their backs on Allah because life is so cruel to them.

On the night before her release, Nobody is unable to sleep. She whispers in the darkness to Oskouei that she is scared she will end up back on the streets. But she is all smiles the next morning as she packs her bags and says her goodbyes. She hugs Hasrat, who knows she will not be leaving any time soon. However, she perks up during the New Year celebration, even though some of her roommates remain on their bunks with their thoughts.

Painting a picture of young Iranian womanhood that has rarely been seen on screen before, this uncompromisingly gritty exposé also lays bare the problems and prejudices facing the Islamic Republic, as it seeks to stem a crime wave motivated by poverty and addiction. It's difficult for outsiders to pick up on the accents that would reveal so much about each girl's background. But not even the toughest, blowsiest individuals can disguise their vulnerability, as they recount their experiences or answer Oskouei's deceptively searching questions about the circumstances that led them astray.

While the focus on the girls is sensitive and assured, however, Oskouei fails to define the nature of the facility and the duties of staff members who usually appear sympathetic to the teenagers in their care. Thus, the audience is never quite sure what precisely is at stake when the girls go to court or approach their release dates. Is this a prison, a halfway house or a remand centre for those awaiting sentence? Why are murderers and armed robbers billeted with petty crooks and junkies, and what, if anything, is being done about rehabilitating the inmates to prepare them for life on the outside?

Yet, while Oskouei leaves many questions unanswered, he provides insights into the running of a correctional facility that are devoid of the self-serving smugness that the likes of Nick Broomfield and Louis Theroux have brought to their excursions behind bars. Oskouei's compassion is readily evident. But so is his disgust at a society that allows young women and girls to be preyed upon and exploited with so little regard for their well-being. Its a shame, therefore, that he waived the right to follow up on their stories in order to gain access to them in the first place.