It was a straight jacketed life for the women who had to follow their man’s lead even if it meant a life spent in the kitchen while the man of the house runs down to the local pub. In the context of the slowly emerging freedom that women would have to work so hard to achieve, the main players here are forbearers of a better time.

Foreigner Julia Ormond as Magda is married to Stefan (Vincent Perez) and together they form an unusually equal union. Lisa (Angourie Rice) is just discovering herself as she strives to free herself from the life her mother (Susie Porter) has of servitude to an unappreciative husband played by Shane Jacobson. Rachael Taylor as Fay is distancing herself from Australian men and their boorish behaviour by dating Rudi (Ryan Corr) an immigrant with old world charm.

These women and their life stories are told with little judgement but as a direct sign of the times. In some ways it shows how far things have come but in others how little has actually changed.

Rob Hudson
www.facebook.com/SonyPicturesAUS

The film follows Eilis (Ronan), a young Irish woman who leaves her small town in Ireland hoping for a brighter future in 1950s Brooklyn. Despite her initial homesickness, she falls in love with Tony (Cohen) an Italian-American who opens her eyes her new surroundings. But a family tragedy leads Eilis back to Ireland, where her American sophistication catches the eye of the charming Jim (Gleeson).

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Competition will be drawn 10 February 2016, winners will be notified by mail.

Winner Best Actor – Rooney Mara – Cannes Film Festival 2015. Based on Patricia Highsmith’s novella The Price of Salt.

Set in 1950s New York, two women from very different backgrounds find themselves in the throes of love in Carol. As conventional norms of the time challenge their undeniable attraction, an honest story emerges to reveal the resilience of the heart in the face of change.

A young woman in her 20s, Therese Belivet (Rooney Mara), is a clerk working in a Manhattan department store and dreaming of a more fulfilling life when she meets Carol (Cate Blanchett), an alluring woman trapped in a loveless, convenient marriage. As an immediate connection sparks between them, the innocence of their first encounter dims and their connection deepens.

While Carol breaks free from the confines of marriage, her husband (Kyle Chandler) threatens her competence as a mother when Carol’s involvement with Therese and close relationship with her best friend Abby (Sarah Paulson) comes to light. As Carol leaves the comfort of home to travel with Therese, an internal journey of self-discovery coincides with her new sense of space.

Competition will be drawn 13 January 2016, winners will be notified by mail.

Based in the murky waters of the shadowy world of espionage back in the late fifties, the film does an admirable job of keeping the audience in the know. There was such a litany of enemies (both real and perceived) of the American way of life presented back then that the story could have easily diffused into myopic rubbish. It steers mostly clear of easy slogans.

Hanks plays super hostage negotiator James B. Donovan as he tries to trade a Russia spy to secure the release of Gary Powers, the pilot whose U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. It’s to Donovan integrity and force of will that he also secures the release of an American student caught in the cross hairs during the erection of the Berlin wall between the East and West.

Director Steven Spielberg keeps his proclivity for emotional overstatement to a minimum and takes full advantage of a sharp screenplay by Matt Charman and the brothers Coen, Ethan and Joel. The film holds your attention and keeps you on the edge of your seat until its conclusion.

Rob Hudson
www.bridgeofspies.com