MOVIES: TWO FIT FOR THE HOLIDAYS FROM ENGLAND AND A DISTURBING ONE FROM IRAN

You have some very good choices among the new films this week. I couldn't give a low mark to any of them, and very high marks to a couple. Here's what's so agreeable.

Empire of Light: 3 ½ stars

Fisherman's Friends One And All: 4

Holy Spider: 4 ½

The Eternal Daughter: 4

Spoiler Alert: 3

Framing Agnes: 3

EMPIRE OF LIGHT: Some critics have been giving this one a really rough ride. “Mundane” says Rotten Tomatoes, where it only gets 43%. “Souless” says one critic and worse: “rancid” says another. Don't believe them. You'll miss a warm and touching film about making human connection (fits the season, right?) and forego another strong performance by Olivia Colman. And nostalgic memories from writer-director Sam Mendes about the joys of watching movies in real theaters. That part is secondary, more a background to the human dramas among the staff. But it is stated and shown.

The staff includes Colman as the manager of an old-style theater in southern England in the 1980s. She's lonely with a sour backstory that we learn later on. Now and then she's called in by her boss (Colin Firth) for some secret sex in his office. She becomes equally close to a new hire, a young black man (Michael Ward) who is anxious about the racism that he senses is spreading. In fact, he does later get attacked by a mob that barges into the lobby. So, we have two souls who need repairing and can help each other do that. A symbolic counterpart, in which he helps heal a bird with a broken wing, is something of a mistep. But the growing link between them is real, emotional, and with a crisis still to come, bittersweet. Not everything connects properly but the acting and the scene-setting more than compensate for that. (In theaters) 3 ½ out of 5

FISHERMAN'S FRIENDS: ONE AND ALL: Here's a sequel to the surprise hit of two years ago and it's just as good. And yes it's about the same folks as in the stage show playing in Toronto right now. They're fishers in Cornwall, England who love to sing the old sea shanties, were discovered (in the first film) by a record company and had an unlikely top ten hit album. Now it's time for a follow-up album and there are problems. The label has sent a woman to give them “media training” which results in them being scolded for old attitudes about women. Worse, one singer is gone, a replacement is sought and the de-facto leader (James Purefoy) doesn't approve of the new guy. He's a fine singer, but not a fisherman. He's a farmer, or “sheepshagger.”

Meanwhile an Irish singer with a scandalous crash in her career is around and attractive to one in the group. That's a complication but the bigger problem is with the record company. A new boss wants to drop them and they have to travel to London to argue their case. They barge into a board meeting to do that. Meanwhile a plan is floated to get them invited to perform at the huge music festival at Glastonbury. Will all that work out, or will the group break up? It's based on a true story, but admittedly fictionalized. Very entertaining though. The sea shanties are wonderful, rousing and at least one (“This is My Home”) very moving. (VOD/digital release) 4 out of 5

HOLY SPIDER: This is a truly international production. It's set in Iran, was filmed in Jordan, and had input from several countries. One of them, Denmark, is sending it to the Academy Awards as its official submission. The star, Zar Amir-Ebrahimi, has already won the best actress award for it at Cannes. For us, it's a harrowing film about religious extremism and a true story of a serial killer and a courageous female reporter who helped track him down.

She comes to the “holy city” of Mashhad having heard that somebody is killing prostitutes. A local crime reporter helps her somewhat but not the local police chief. He's waiting for the killer to make a mistake, as they all do, he says. The killings are well on the way to the final number of 16 by then. We see a few in graphic detail. The killer takes the streetwalkers for a ride on his motorcycle and chokes them to death. He dumps the bodies in the same area each time, a fact that the reporter, but not the police, finds useful. Parallel to her search we see him (Mehdi Bajestani, superb) living an ordinary life. He's a construction worker, has an adoring son and is inspired by a local imam to do God's will, i.e. clear the streets of “conflicted” women. The reporter puts herself in danger to expose him and then sees at his trial that most people support what he did. The court may let him go. This film is haunting and absolutely compelling. (In arthouse theaters) 4 ½ out of 5

THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER: The bonds between mothers and daughters are explored in this one. So are the differences and who better to get that across than Tilda Swinton. She plays both mother and daughter, and very well at that, in a film written and directed by Joanna Hogg who specializes in studying human relationships. This is the last part of a trilogy but it stands up well on its own. The film studies memories and differences and misconceptions. Women will find it highly evocative.

It's almost a ghost story though not a horror. Mother and daughter check into a remote hotel that has an uninterested clerk running it, no other guests as far as we can tell and strange nightime noises inside and always fog outside. There's a mild sense of foreboding but no real scares. The two women are there to mark mom's birthday and reflect on their lives. Mom was sheltered there during World War II, so the building has memories for her. She doesn't understand her daughter who is a filmmaker and secretly takes notes for a movie she wants to make about her mother. She feels like she's “tresspassing.” How they get along and the shaky quality of the memories they have are the focus here. The story is very engaging and open to all sorts of interpretation thanks to a startling surprise at the end. (In 5 theaters now, including Toronto, Ottawa and Victoria, with Vancouver, Edmonton and others to come) 4 out of 5

SPOILER ALERT: The title of the memoir this comes from goes on with these words: “The Hero Dies.” That tells you right away what you're in for: a good cry if you're prone to that sort of thing. At the same time it's a good example of a genre that's becoming more common these days: a gay love story from a mainstream studio. Another one, Bros came a few weeks ago and didn't find much of an audience. This may do better because it's more truthful, relating bad as well as good experiences and, of course, those tears that will come.

In the film, Michael Ausiello, who wrote the memoir, is played by Jim Parsons (TV's Big Bang Theory). He's a writer for TV Guide, hooks up with a photographer (Ben Aldridge) on a night out with friends and lives with him for 13 years. That's even though the guy has an apartment full of Smurfs merchandise, prefers one-night stands and has never told his parents (Sally Field plays his mom) that he's gay. Michael has issues of his own. He was a fat kid and is still marked by that. He acted in a TV sitcom, scenes from which we see now and then. They tolerate each other and then don't. The script, co-written by Dan Savage, the sex-and relationships columnist. feels truthful and realistic about their problems. Passion slows. Infidelity intrudes. They split up and then the diagnosis appears. It's lethal. Both actors are very good and gay or not, you'll feel the emotions. (Many theaters) 3 out of 5

FRAMING AGNES: They, transgender people, are in the news now and then and here in a documentary we hear about their issues. Mostly about how society reacts to them. The film tells how that used to be, but I'm sure it's much the same today. All that is brought out in an innovative way—a simulated TV talkshow in which the Canadian director, Chase Joynt, recreates a series of interviews done at a UCLA medical facility back in the 1950s. He's playing the role of the researcher, actors play the trans people he talks to. The content comes straight out of research files and perfectly illuminates their lives, observations and often resentments.

It recalls Christine Jorgenson, who had a sex-change operation in Denmark and returned as a media obsession. Harold Garfinkle, at UCLA interviewed others, including Agnes, who had talked her way into getting a sex-change operation there and became something of an icon for trans people. She and others describe harassment (“Are you a man or a woman?”), validation (“my sex is just one part of who I am”) and wishes (“being seen is your emancipation”). It's fascinating to hear and culminates with “There is not as much difference between men and women than society would have us believe.” You'll learn quite a bit. (Arthouse theaters) 3 out of 5