Helen Barlow

Critic and Journalist at Freelance

Australian film/travel journalist writes in English. Covers festivals including Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Sundance, Berlin.

Articles

Richard Gere, Uma Thurman star in touching drama

1 month ago | thenewdaily.com.au | Helen Barlow

An emotional investigation of mortality, Paul Schrader’s new film Oh, Canada is a bit dour at times, but don’t let that put you off. Hollywood legends Richard Gere and Uma Thurman play husband and wife in this film, which the writer-director Schrader adapted from Russell Banks’ 2021 novel, Foregone. The author, a good friend of Schrader’s since the director made the 1997 film of his 1989 novel, Affliction, died from cancer in 2023. Oh, Canada draws on Banks’ illness.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North trailer revealed

1 month ago | thenewdaily.com.au | Helen Barlow

The first trailer for the the epic miniseries adaptation of Richard Flanagan’s 2014 Booker Prize-winning novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North has been released after its acclaimed preview earlier this year in Berlin. The trailer shows rising Australian star Jacob Elordi portray Dorrigo Evans, a young doctor haunted by a love affair as he struggles to survive the brutal treatment as a prisoner of war during the Second World War.
Mickey 17: Toni Collette embarks on a larger-than-life sci-fi outing

1 month ago | thenewdaily.com.au | Helen Barlow

After Toni Collette’s strong turn as an ambitious prosecutor in Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2, the 52-year-old Australian actor takes nastiness to another dimension in Bong Joon-Ho’s film Mickey 17 – quite literally set in outer space. Collette plays the forceful Yifa, married to Mark Ruffalo’s buffoonish despot and failed politician Kenneth Marshall.
Mickey 17: Toni Collette embarks on a larger-than-life sci-fi outing

1 month ago | thenewdaily.com.au | Helen Barlow

After Toni Collette’s strong turn as an ambitious prosecutor in Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2, the 52-year-old Australian actor now takes nastiness to another dimension in Bong Joon-Ho’s film Mickey 17 – quite literally set in outer space. Collette plays the forceful Yifa, married to Mark Ruffalo’s buffoonish despot and failed politician Kenneth Marshall.
Cate Blanchett on

Nov 30, 2024 | thenewdaily.com.au | Helen Barlow

Cate Blanchett exerted a political presence in Cannes this year, although Rumours – the satirical film where she plays a bureaucratic, lustful German Chancellor hosting a G7 summit – was more a lark than a strong political statement. It was at a press conference on cinema about refugees where, in her capacity as a UN Goodwill Ambassador, the Australian actress spoke about having recently travelled to Africa.
Film Festival review: The Correspondent

Oct 23, 2024 | inreview.com.au | Suzie Keen |Penelope Debelle |Helen Barlow |PHIL BROWN

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Netflix's Territory is a Succession-style drama with a wild Top End vibe

Oct 22, 2024 | inreview.com.au | Suzie Keen |Penelope Debelle |Helen Barlow |PHIL BROWN

Territory is a sprawling, soapy dive into the lives of cattle barons of the Top End with a television heritage that is part Yellowstone, part Succession, with maybe a touch of Dallas. The director of the biggest Netflix series to come out of South Australia, Greg McLean, would be very happy for the comparisons to stick. “I don’t think the initial reference was Yellowstone – in fact, the initial reference was Game of Thrones and Succession,” he says.
Five ways to make the most of the 2024 OzAsia Festival

Oct 22, 2024 | inreview.com.au | Suzie Keen |PHIL BROWN |Helen Barlow

Por Por’s Big Fat Surprise WeddingWho doesn’t love dinner and a show? Especially when dinner is a four-course Indian banquet and the show revolves around a wedding. Seventy-year-old Singaporean matriarch Por Por (actor Koh Chieng Mun, from hit film Crazy Rich Asians) is the bride but no one else – not even her family – knows who the groom will be. Is Por Por the victim of a love scam as her kids fear, or will she surprise them all?
Film review: Lee

Oct 21, 2024 | inreview.com.au | Suzie Keen |Penelope Debelle |Helen Barlow |PHIL BROWN

It happened so slowly, Lee Miller says, after she and her carefree friends in coastal France mocked the German tyrant Adolf Hitler and his gospel of racial cleanliness. Overnight they woke up and Europe was at war. Miller (played by Kate Winslet), had already traded modelling for arty, surreal photography and was working for Vogue magazine when she inveigled her way onto the European battleground.
Green Room: Art fair, Raw talent, picture the Park Lands

Oct 16, 2024 | inreview.com.au | PHIL BROWN |Heidi Maier |Helen Barlow |Louise Martin-Chew

Tarnanthi Art FairA reminder to art lovers near and far that thousands of works from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists across the country will be for sale this weekend via the online Tarnanthi Art Fair. While the digital platform – here – may not offer the same tactile and social opportunities as an in-person fair, it does mean you can browse the works from any location – and return to shop as often as you like between 5pm on Friday, October 18, until 9pm on Monday, October 21.