Wendy Ide’s pick of other films: Hoppers, Sound of Falling, Peaky Blinders, Mother’s Pride

Hoppers

(104 mins, U) Directed by Daniel Chong; voiced by Piper Curda, Jon Hamm, Dave Franco

After an uneven run of high-concept science fiction and fantasy stories – Lightyear, Elio, Elemental, Inside Out 2 – Pixar has come back down to Earth with this inventive eco-adventure. And it’s a delight. Hoppers is a reminder that while pinballing around the planetary system or engineering an intricate parallel universe has its appeal, the studio excels in finding magic in prosaic, real-world environments: a kid’s bedroom in Toy Story, a restaurant kitchen in Ratatouille and, now, an untouched glade threatened by the inexorable march of urbanisation.

That’s not to say there are no fantasy or sci-fi components in this tale, in which a 19-year-old animal lover named Mabel (Piper Curda) transfers her consciousness into a robot beaver in a last-ditch attempt to rally the local wildlife and save the woodland. The screenplay references Avatar for good reason: there are obvious thematic parallels, though, thankfully, a great deal more wit and comedic bite. For me, the picture has just as much in common with Cartoon Saloon’s sublime Wolfwalkers, with both films offering an opportunity to see the world through animals’ eyes, both infused with an awe for a natural domain threatened by human incursions.

This is the debut feature from the director and co-writer Daniel Chong, a new addition to the Pixar stable. The character design is expressive and tactile, the pacing is crisp and the voice talent impressive (Dave Franco’s despotic insect king is a standout). And the humour is bracingly savage – don’t get too attached to characters at the bottom of the food chain.

Sound of Falling

(155 mins, 18) Directed by Mascha Schilinski; starring Hanna Heckt, Lena Urzendowsky, Susanne Wuest

In this haunting drama, four girls in four different time periods are linked by the same sprawling farmhouse in rural north-east Germany and by recurring themes of violence, tragedy and repression. Mascha Schilinski’s ambitious Cannes Jury prize winner is a challenging but rewarding watch, a film that, through its lucid-dream imagery and immersive use of sound, blurs the barriers between the story strands, creating a kind of temporal permeability.

It’s as though generations of pain have seeped into the fabric of the farmhouse and the lives that pass through it are destined to replay certain moments, to relive certain emotions. The earliest glimpse of the farm in this patchwork of stories sets the tone: the first world war is rumbling and the family take extreme and brutal steps to avoid losing their son to the trenches.

His young sister, an elfin, flaxen-haired child named  Alma (Hanna Heckt), is our window into the dark secrets of a household that barters a daughter into service to pay off a debt to a neighbouring farmer. In a later section, in the 1980s, the river that runs near the farm marks the boundary between the east and the west, its churning waters representing the possibility of freedom or death, which for some is one and the same.

Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man

(112 mins, 15) Directed by Tom Harper; starring Cillian Murphy, Rebecca Ferguson, Barry Keoghan

Nobody can radiate anguished, tortured angst quite like Cillian Murphy. It’s a skill he draws upon extensively in this punchy feature film spinoff to the Steven Knight-scripted Birmingham-based gangster television series.

The second world war is in full flow. Murphy’s character, the charismatic crime boss Tommy Shelby, has retreated to write his memoirs. The conflict has reopened the mental scars he sustained as a soldier in the first world war, and he is haunted, in his crumbling mansion, by visions of his lost loved ones. Meanwhile, in Birmingham, his illegitimate older son Duke (Barry Keoghan), the new boss of the Peaky Blinders, is terrorising the streets of Small Heath and beyond. Throw Tim Roth’s sneering Nazi-sympathiser and a plot to engineer a German victory into the mix, and you have all the ingredients of a big, brash, swaggering conclusion to the story of the Shelby dynasty.

With its muscular music choices, slick CGI and a gruesomely inventive use for a yard full of stolen pigs, the film doesn’t break new ground, but it should sate the bloodlust of fans.

Mother’s Pride

(93 mins, 12A) Directed by Nick Moorcroft; starring Martin Clunes, Mark Addy, Jonno Davies 

Set in a chocolate-box Somerset village, Nick Moorcroft’s comedy drama presents the cosy face of class war. The embattled landlord of a failing pub finds himself in competition with a noxious posho with inherited wealth and a brewing empire. From the production team behind Fisherman’s Friends and its sequel, the feature – like its Cornish shanty-singing predecessors – relies on larger-than-life British eccentricity and haphazard plotting that zigzags between tragedy and hilarity. Or, at least, shots at hilarity: the picture contains several attempts at morris dancing-based humour that can only be described as harrowing.

Martin Clunes plays Mick, the pugnacious, recently bereaved owner of the Drovers Arms; Jonno Davies, delivering a largely biceps-based performance, is his estranged, semi-successful musician son. And Mark Addy, so florid and shiny he looks like an infected toe, is the pub’s only remaining regular. This is an underdog tale straining so hard to be endearing that it’s more likely to pull a muscle than tug a heartstring.

Photograph by Disney