The Guardian

Nothing in Girls Like Girls exists beyond individual feeling, and there are no larger institutions to speak of, not even a school. It all leaves the film stranded in an unsatisfying place: intensely personal yet emotionally unearned, politically gestural yet totally vacant of politics. Kiyoko has made a film obsessed with being seen. It never once learns how to look.

In trying to scratch our itch for the old while also recognising the new, McKendrick settles for something stale.

Here is a really impressive directorial debut from Mumbai film-maker Rohan Kanawade: tender, subtle, candid, scrupulously observed.

A couple of its good-looking actors give performances with frozen, startled expressions, like they’ve been kidnapped from the set of an advert for luxury five-star holidays.

For a slow – and often ponderously uneventful – film, the ending also feels strangely rushed, decisions and reveals not explored enough for them to really land in the way that’s clearly intended (there’s a potentially more satisfying psychological thriller using the same ingredients). There’s really impressive craft here though.

It’s almost incredible to think that the Toy Story series is more than 30 years old, a central plank of the Pixar animation golden age. But now it is played out and IP exhaustion has set in.

The way Friedland subtly works in these little touches is truly impressive. But her finest achievement here may be casting Chalfant, who gives an astonishingly nuanced, considered and graceful performance.

This unsettling parable has a scriptural concision and mystery.

As a formal experiment, Dry Leaf has its own conviction and self-possession and there is a deliberate, if opaque artistry here: one shot shows us a dry leaf under Irakli’s car-tyres, another gives us wet leaves in a waterfall. The soft-edged, pixelated look is, however, interesting and surprisingly watchable, bringing a kind of painterly effect.

Ladykins, Stop! That! Train! is a winner. Perhaps that’s unsurprising seeing as many recent Drag Race challenges have felt like mini movie sets themselves, with elaborate scripts and costumes. And while recent gay movies like Pillion and Blue Film have focused on uncomfortable home truths about queer life, Stop! That! Train! offers refreshingly rosy escapism. See it with as rowdy – and gay – an audience as possible.