Film

Moody, often magical Icelandic drama

OPENS JULY 30, CERT 18, 102 MINS The title may threaten a rough ride, but former Skids frontman Richard Jobson's feature debut as a director is surprisingly tender. Graced by striking visual flourishes and spot-on musical choices, this story of a young man emerging from the haze of alcoholism to make a bid for redemption has a raw, vivid sense of reality. Kevin McKidd—long deserving of a leading role—plays Frankie, who we follow from a boyhood spent in his father's shadow to his teenage years as a skinhead and his subsequent struggles to fit into sober society.

OPENS JULY 30, NO CERT, 114 MINS Coming-of-age sports movies tend to adhere to a formula and, in essence, this debut feature from computer-effects whiz Fumihiko Sori is no exception. Familiar setbacks and triumphs are all present and correct, but this adaptation of a five-volume manga delivers enough character quirks, visual flair and unique detail to make it the Japanese equivalent of a Wes Anderson film. Friends since childhood, the wild, outgoing Peco (Yôsuke Kubozuka) and the quiet Smile (Arata) are ping-pong heroes of their school.

Black drinking comedy starring Hywel Bennett

Aristo shenanigans from director Claude Chabrol

DIRECTED BY Richard Linklater STARRING Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy Opens July 30, Cert 15, 80 mins Released in 1995, Richard Linklater's Eurodrama Before Sunrise was a charming holiday romance, a post-grunge Brief Encounter. Reuniting the same actors/characters nine years on, this sequel feels more like a Lost In Translation for the Middle Youth generation, with the same tone but higher emotional stakes.

Likeable Moroccan comedy-drama

Hagiography of gangsta rap's most potent icon

Anthony Minghella's Civil War epic has plenty of razzle: spectacular opening sequence; deserter Jude Law's trans-American journey to Nicole Kidman; leery sheriff Ray Winstone; doughty Calamity Jane farmhand Renée Zellweger; and a plethora of star cameos. And yet, bar some early 'war is hell' pomposity, it's a disappointingly hollow experience

David Lean's 1955 romance, restored by the BFI