Disney’s live-action Moana arrives only ten years after the animated original, which makes it very easy to question why this version exists at all. That was certainly where I was before watching it. The original film still feels recent, Moana 2 only arrived two years ago, and Disney’s live-action remake run has not exactly made a strong case for revisiting every animated favourite. Yet, against expectations, this new Moana works surprisingly well.

Directed by Thomas Kail, the film stays very close to the 2016 story while giving the world of Motunui a new scale. Catherine Laga’aia makes an impressive screen debut as Moana, Dwayne Johnson fully commits to bringing Maui into live action, and the familiar songs still carry much of the emotion. It does not replace the animated film, nor does it completely escape the usual question of whether a remake was needed. But it captures enough of the warmth and adventure of the original to justify its place alongside it.

Catherine Laga’aia Is A Strong New Moana

The biggest success is Catherine Laga’aia, who gives Moana plenty of personality and carries the film with confidence. She is playing a character audiences already know well, but still makes the role feel like her own, especially when Moana is torn between the life expected of her and her need to follow the ocean.

Her performance of “How Far I’ll Go” is one of the film’s first real highlights. The song remains one of Disney’s strongest modern numbers, and Laga’aia gives it the emotion it needs without trying to copy the animated version too closely. She also brings a clear sense of curiosity to Moana, which helps ground the bigger fantasy elements. Even when she is standing opposite fully digital characters or reacting to an ocean created through visual effects, the character still feels present.

Dwayne Johnson Fully Commits To Maui

Dwayne Johnson returning as Maui always felt like the safest part of the casting. In the live action, Johnson completely commits to Maui’s confidence and need for attention, while also giving the character a little more edge. He is never afraid to embrace the sillier side of the role, whether that means moving tattoos, magical transformations or a chicken constantly getting into trouble. “You’re Welcome” remains one of the film’s most entertaining musical moments.

His chemistry with Laga’aia also gives the middle of the film plenty of energy, particularly when Moana refuses to be impressed by him. Their relationship is the heart of the adventure. Maui repeatedly tries to take control, while Moana continues to challenge him and refuses to give up on the mission. That back-and-forth works, even when the story around them feels very familiar.

The Film Stays Very Close To The Original

Anyone hoping for a major reinvention may be disappointed, because this Moana follows the animated film very closely. Moana leaves Motunui to find Maui and return the heart of Te Fiti after darkness begins spreading across the ocean. Along the way, they encounter the Kakamora, Tamatoa and Te Kā before Moana discovers what it truly means to be a wayfinder. There are a few additions and small changes, but the film is clearly designed to preserve what audiences already loved. That faithfulness is both a strength and a weakness.

The familiar songs and emotional moments still work, particularly Moana’s connection with her grandmother Tala, played with warmth by Rena Owen. John Tui and Frankie Adams also bring real care to Moana’s parents, Chief Tui and Sina. At the same time, there are moments where the live-action version feels as though it is recreating scenes rather than discovering anything new within them. The opening on Motunui takes a little time to settle, and some of the group musical sequences do not move quite as smoothly as they did in animation. Once Moana reaches the ocean, however, the film finds a better rhythm.

The Visual Effects Mostly Work

A large part of Moana remains digital, which raises the usual question around how “live action” these remakes really are. The ocean itself is a character, Maui’s tattoos move across his body, Tamatoa is a giant treasure-covered crab, and the Kakamora remain tiny coconut pirates. There was never going to be a version of this story that avoided extensive visual effects. Fortunately, most of it works. The ocean feels expressive without becoming distracting, and Maui’s transformations retain the humour of the original. Tamatoa’s sequence is also one of the film’s visual highlights, with Jemaine Clement returning to perform “Shiny.”

Some of the open-ocean scenes still have that familiar green-screen flatness, particularly when Moana and Maui spend long stretches aboard the boat. The effects are strongest when the film embraces the more playful side of the world rather than trying to make everything look realistic. The location work gives Motunui a stronger presence, while the costume design adds detail without making the island feel over-designed.

The Music Still Carries The Story

The songs remain a major part of why Moana works. Lin-Manuel Miranda, Opetaia Foa’i and Mark Mancina created a soundtrack that has aged very well, and the live-action cast handles the material with confidence. “How Far I’ll Go” remains the standout, but “You’re Welcome” and “Shiny” also translate well into the new format. The music brings personality to scenes that may otherwise feel overly familiar.

The film does not attempt to radically rearrange the soundtrack or give every song a new identity. Instead, it trusts the original material, which is probably the right decision.

Was A Live-Action Moana Needed?

Probably not.

The animated film is still widely loved, and ten years is not a particularly long gap between versions. The release of Moana 2 also means the character has barely been away from our screen. That makes this one of Disney’s most obviously commercial remakes. However, there is enough heart in Laga’aia’s performance and enough commitment from Johnson to stop the film feeling like a hollow recreation. It may not bring many new ideas, but it does not lose what made the original special either.

For CultureCues, we went into this one feeling sceptical and came out pleasantly surprised. Catherine Laga’aia is a lovely new Moana, Dwayne Johnson is clearly having fun as Maui, and the songs still work exactly as they should. It may be too soon and it may be familiar, but this is an enjoyable return to Motunui that captures the heart of the original. We did not expect to be quite so ready to sail again.

CultureCues Rating: ★★★½☆ (3.5/5)

Moana is in UK cinemas from 10 July 2026.

<p>The post Moana Review: Disney’s Live-Action Remake Is Better Than Expected first appeared on culturecues.</p>

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is weirdly wonderful, unpredictable and very, very funny. Based on Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol’s cult web and TV series, the film follows fictionalised versions of the pair as they continue their mission to book a gig at The Rivoli, a Toronto venue they treat as if it were the biggest stage in the world. Their band, Nirvanna the Band, is not exactly racing towards global domination. In fact, most of the fun comes from watching Matt and Jay fail upwards, sideways and occasionally straight into disaster as they chase a dream that makes complete sense to them and to almost nobody else.

This time, their latest scheme takes a very unexpected turn. After Matt decides that parachuting from Toronto’s CN Tower into the middle of a Blue Jays game is the obvious way to get The Rivoli’s attention, the plan goes about as well as you would expect. Jay is, understandably, exhausted. Matt responds by deciding the only sensible next step is time travel. Cue: a homemade time machine built inside their battered old campervan.

From there, the movie becomes a proudly ridiculous riff on Back to the Future. When Matt and Jay arrive in 2008, the film starts having real fun with its own history, bringing them face to face with younger versions of themselves and folding old footage from the original series into the new story.

A Comedy That Fully Commits to the Bit

Anyone coming to Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie without knowing the original series may need a few minutes to settle in. The humour is chaotic and deliberately rough around the edges, with Johnson and McCarrol interacting with real people who appear to have absolutely no idea they have wandered into a film.

That approach could easily become exhausting, but the film has such a daft energy that it quickly pulls you in. Matt and Jay are ridiculous, of course, but never empty. Their friendship is needy, competitive, frustrating and occasionally very sweet, giving the film more heart than its madness first suggests.

The comedy also works because it is so specific. This is a film full of Toronto references, Canadian media jokes, local landmarks and heavily improvised moments, which may leave international audiences wondering whether they have missed something. Weirdly, that becomes part of the appeal. Their plans are absurd and their commitment to the bit is frankly alarming, yet the people they encounter often react with baffled helpfulness, giving the film a strangely wholesome quality.

Matt and Jay Are a Brilliant Comic Pairing

At the centre of everything is the dynamic between Johnson and McCarrol, and that is where the film really works. Matt is an unstoppable force of optimism, scheming and pure commitment. Jay, meanwhile, often seems like the quieter half of the duo, aware on some level that there are probably easier ways to book a gig in a bar, but still too wrapped up in Matt’s orbit to fully walk away.

The film does not rely on the larger set pieces or guerrilla-style public moments to be funny. Some of its best scenes are just Matt and Jay sitting together, talking themselves into another terrible idea and somehow making it sound like destiny. Beneath all the foolishness, there is a genuine bond between them. You believe that these two have spent years chasing the same impossible dream.

Back to the Future, but Make It Toronto

The 2008 setting gives Johnson and McCarrol plenty to play with, from old adverts and dated technology to pop culture references that have not aged particularly well. One of the funniest running ideas is that Matt and Jay do not immediately realise they have travelled back in time. They clock it through small details around Toronto, which makes the reveal even funnier.

There is also more technical craft here. The visual effects are far better than you might expect, especially once the story leans into its time-travel madness. Even more impressive is the way old footage is folded into the new material, allowing moments from the original series to suddenly become part of the story years later.

Small Venue, Big Laughs

The real magic of Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is that it takes something incredibly niche and makes it feel oddly universal. Matt and Jay may be obsessed with booking one Toronto venue, but the film is really about the ridiculous things people do when they are trying to prove they have not wasted their time.

The trip back to 2008 is not just a gag machine, there is a funny sadness underneath the chaos. It taps into the feeling of looking back at who you wanted to be and how quickly years pass while you are still waiting for life to start. That could make the film sound heavier than it is, but it never loses its sense of fun. It stays brilliantly daft right to the end, even as it quietly sneaks in something more heartfelt about friendship and ambition.

The CultureCues Verdict

For CultureCues, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is a proper little gem. It is odd, but it is completely committed to its own sense of humour, and that is exactly what makes it work. Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol have taken what could have stayed an inside joke and turned it into a brilliant comedy. The filmmaking is impressive, and the jokes consistently had us (and most of the cinema) laughing into our popcorn. We were not expecting to love it as much as we did, which made it such a wonderful surprise.

CultureCues Rating: ★★★★½ (4.5/5)

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is in UK and Irish cinemas from 3 July.

<p>The post Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie Review: Toronto’s Time-Travel Comedy Is a Proper Gem first appeared on culturecues.</p>

Twenty-one years after Confessions on a Dance Floor, Madonna has returned to the club with Confessions II, a sequel that could easily have felt like a nostalgia play. Instead, it feels focused, alive and surprisingly personal. Produced largely with Stuart Price, who helped shape the original Confessions, the album brings Madonna back to the place where she has always understood herself best: the dance floor.

The opening stretch is slick and pulsing, pulling you straight into its euphoric beats. Tracks like “I Feel So Free”, “Good for the Soul” and “Love Sensation” have the kind of late-night club energy Madonna does so well, where the outside world fades and the music takes over. We can already picture the drink in hand, the shimmy starting and the whole room sparkling under the lights.

The connection to Confessions on a Dance Floor is clear, but Madonna is not just trying to recreate that album exactly. The spirit is there, but Confessions II feels more reflective and expansive, drawing on house, disco, techno and club culture while allowing Madonna to look back over her own life and legacy.

That feeling comes through especially well on “Danceteria”, which takes listeners back to the New York scene where Madonna’s career began. The track moves through the clubs and characters of her early years, while the spoken-word roll-call gives us serious “Vogue” vibes with a more personal downtown twist. It feels nostalgic in the best way, with Madonna revisiting the world that first made her believe everything was possible.

“Everything” is another major standout, and possibly one of the album’s most addictive tracks. There is something slightly strange and wired about it that recalls the energy of some of her older tracks, but the song also feels very current, with Madonna pushing back against a world that has forgotten how to go outside and actually live. It makes the dance floor sound like a place of escape, but also a place of return.

Elsewhere, “Bring Your Love”, her duet with Sabrina Carpenter, is one of the album’s strongest pop moments. The pairing works because both artists know what it is like to have their image and sexuality picked apart in public, and the song lets them push back without sounding forced. Carpenter’s presence fits the track well, while Madonna uses it to restate something she has been saying for decades: she will not be quieted or corrected into something easier to digest. And to that we say: finger snaps, Mother.

Later in the album, Madonna lets more of her own history into the music. “Fragile” looks back on her relationship with her late brother Christopher, as she sings: “You said, ‘Don’t forget about me, don’t forget to be happy’”, a lyric that makes the song feel especially tender. “The Test”, her duet with daughter Lourdes Leon, then gives space to the complicated side of motherhood and fame. After spending so much of the record in the club, these songs bring the emotion closer to the surface without losing the album’s pulse.

The album does lose a little momentum in the middle, where a few tracks return to the same ideas about the dance floor as a place of freedom and escape. Still, the world of Confessions II is strong enough to carry it through, and even when the record feels slightly overlong, it remains committed to its own vision.

For CultureCues, Confessions II feels like Madonna’s strongest album in years. It honours what fans loved about Confessions on a Dance Floor, while giving her space to reflect on fame, family and the club culture that has followed her from the very beginning. Most importantly, it reminds us that Madonna does not need to chase trends when she can still command the dance floor on her own terms.

Also, we are saying this now: we can already imagine a few of these tracks making their way to Drag Race as full lip-sync battle extravaganzas. The queens would tear up the stage, the lights would be working overtime, and somewhere in the middle of it all, sequins and feathers would be flying to the beat.

So, was it worth the 21-year wait? Absolutely. Confessions II is bold and gloriously danceable, with Madonna lifting the veil just enough to let us see the artist behind the mirrorball.

CultureCues Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)

Confessions II is out now.

<p>The post Madonna’s Confessions II Review: A Glittering Return to the Dance Floor first appeared on culturecues.</p>

Prime Video’s Elle takes one of cinema’s most recognisable heroines back to high school, imagining what happened before Harvard, Warner Huntington III and that iconic courtroom victory. The result is a fun watch led by an excellent Lexi Minetree, although the further it moves into Elle Woods’ supposed backstory, the harder it becomes to connect this version neatly to the character we met in Legally Blonde.

Set in 1995, the eight-part series begins with Elle living her ideal teenage life in Los Angeles. She has loving parents, a huge Bel-Air home, a wardrobe filled with pink and a carefully organised plan for making the next school year her best yet. Everything changes when her family is suddenly forced to move to Seattle, leaving Elle to start again in a city where her bright style and sunny outlook immediately make her stand out.

At Rainier West High School, the students appear to live almost entirely in dark colours, flannel shirts and Doc Martens. Elle arrives in bright pink and soon discovers that Seattle’s proudly anti-conformist teenagers are not especially welcoming towards anyone who looks or behaves differently from them.

Lexi Minetree Is Brilliant as Elle Woods

The strongest reason to watch Elle is Lexi Minetree, who captures Reese Witherspoon’s original performance with almost uncanny accuracy. The resemblance is striking, but it goes beyond appearance. Minetree gets Elle’s voice, expressions and mannerisms right, including the little pauses and bursts of enthusiasm that make the character instantly recognisable. Importantly, she understands that Elle’s kindness and optimism should never be confused with stupidity. Even when those around her dismiss her as shallow, Minetree keeps the intelligence beneath the pink exterior clear. There are several moments where it genuinely feels as though a younger version of Witherspoon’s Elle has stepped onto the screen.

There is an argument that Minetree could have been given slightly more room to make the character her own, rather than recreating Witherspoon so closely, but it remains a very impressive performance. She carries the series through its weaker episodes and makes it easy to root for Elle.

The supporting cast also brings plenty to enjoy. June Diane Raphael is particularly funny as Elle’s mother, Eva, whose attempts at reassurance include telling her daughter: “These children are pale on purpose.” Her storyline gradually develops beyond comic relief as she begins questioning what she wants from her own life.

Gabrielle Policano is another standout as Liz, a shy musician who becomes one of Elle’s first genuine friends in Seattle. Chandler Kinney also gives school rival Kimberly more depth than the usual high-school mean girl, while Zac Looker is likeable as activist and skateboarder Dustin.

Pink Meets Plaid in 1990s Seattle

Visually, Elle is exactly as fun as you would expect. Elle’s wardrobe is excellent, with every pink dress, matching accessory and carefully chosen outfit helping her remain completely herself in a school where everyone else looks as though they have dressed for the same Pearl Jam concert.

The soundtrack leans fully into its 1995 setting, with music from Garbage, Soundgarden, Radiohead, No Doubt and The Cranberries. Garbage’s “Only Happy When It Rains” over the opening titles is a brilliant choice, immediately setting up the clash between Elle’s sunny personality and her new surroundings.

The series does occasionally turn Seattle into a broad collection of grunge stereotypes. Almost every student dresses the same way, listens to similar music and views Elle with suspicion, even as they insist that individuality matters above everything else. It is clearly intended to be playful, but the setting can become a little too exaggerated to come across as a convincing school filled with real teenagers.

The story becomes more interesting once Elle begins helping the school’s underpaid support staff and investigating a possible financial cover-up. These episodes allow her to use the qualities that made the original character so appealing. She pays attention when others do not, refuses to accept an unfair situation and proves that being fashionable does not prevent her from taking serious issues seriously.

The series also borrows from several other teenage favourites. There are clear shades of Clueless, a storyline with a little Veronica Mars energy and an entire detention episode that openly pays tribute to The Breakfast Club. Some of these references are fun, although the show occasionally explains the inspiration rather than trusting viewers to recognise it.

Does Elle Work as a Legally Blonde Prequel?

This is where the series struggles most. Taken as a standalone teenage comedy inspired by Elle Woods, Elle is enjoyable and easy to watch. It has a charming lead performance, great clothes and enough fun moments to carry viewers through eight episodes.

As a direct prequel to Legally Blonde, however, it does not always make sense.

The original film presents Elle as someone whose world has largely revolved around California, fashion, her sorority and Warner. Arriving at Harvard places her in unfamiliar territory, where she gradually discovers what she is capable of and learns to stand up for people who have been underestimated. The idea that she had already spent her teenage years in Seattle campaigning for workers, challenging authority and uncovering corruption does not sit comfortably with that journey. This younger Elle has already lived through a similar transformation, which weakens the sense that Harvard was the moment everything changed for her.

There are also several references designed to connect the series directly to Legally Blonde. Some are lovely, particularly the arrival of Bruiser, but others feel too obvious. A line asking whether Elle has ever thought about becoming a lawyer is the kind of prequel wink that does not really need to be spelled out.

The continuity problems are easier to forgive if the series is viewed as a fresh interpretation of Elle Woods rather than a missing chapter from the exact film timeline. On those terms, it works considerably better. This is still Elle, but perhaps not quite the Elle whose story began in 2001.

CultureCues Verdict

For CultureCues, Elle is a mixed bag, but there is still plenty here for Legally Blonde fans to enjoy. Lexi Minetree is brilliant in the title role and captures Elle Woods so well that it is sometimes genuinely difficult to believe Reese Witherspoon is not somehow playing the character again. The clothes are fabulous, the soundtrack is fun and the supporting performances give the series plenty of personality.

The storyline is less consistent. It improves after a clunky opening, but some characters never feel fully developed and the school mystery is not quite as gripping as it could be. The biggest issue is that Elle’s Seattle experience does not fit naturally with the woman we later meet in Legally Blonde.

Treat it as a cheerful alternate take on Elle Woods and there is a cute, bingeable teen series here. Treat it as firm Legally Blonde canon and you may have a few objections, Your Honour.

CultureCues Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3/5)

Elle is streaming now on Prime Video.

<p>The post Elle Review: Prime Video’s Legally Blonde Prequel Is Fun but Flawed first appeared on culturecues.</p>

Enola Holmes 3 begins with a wedding on the horizon, but the mystery that follows quickly becomes Enola’s most personal case yet. Millie Bobby Brown returns with all the wit fans expect, and Enola and Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge) finally get the romantic chapter viewers have been waiting for.

Warning: This review contains major spoilers for Enola Holmes 3, including the ending.

Three films in, Enola Holmes no longer needs to convince anyone that she is a detective. The intelligent but inexperienced teenager we first met in 2020 has built a name for herself, solved cases alongside her famous older brother and become increasingly confident in her own abilities. In Enola Holmes 3, however, the question is no longer whether Enola is capable of creating an independent life. Instead, she must decide whether that life can include another person without losing any of the freedom she fought so hard to claim.

It is a more grown-up challenge for a more grown-up Enola, and Millie Bobby Brown rises to it beautifully.

Directed by Adolescence filmmaker Philip Barantini and written by returning screenwriter Jack Thorne, the third film takes Enola from the familiar streets of London to Malta, where she is preparing to marry Lord Tewkesbury. But alas, no Holmes family occasion can unfold without a mystery interrupting it.

When Sherlock disappears shortly before the ceremony, Enola swaps her wedding celebrations for another investigation. His kidnapping is soon followed by the disappearance of Tewkesbury’s mother, bringing Enola, Tewkesbury and Dr Watson together to discover who is behind the abductions and what they hope to achieve.

Enola Holmes Has Grown Up

The film opens with a surprise, dropping us straight into what appears to be Enola and Tewkesbury’s wedding. After watching their relationship develop across the first two films, it feels unexpectedly bold to begin with them already at the altar. Of course, the ceremony does not go to plan. Enola’s doubts are already beginning to surface, and Sherlock’s sudden kidnapping gives her an urgent reason to leave the wedding behind.

This opening also shows how much Enola has changed. She is still quick-witted and impulsive, and still perfectly happy to pull the audience into her confidence, but she carries herself with more certainty now.

Brown has grown alongside the character, and her performance captures that without losing what made Enola so enjoyable in the first place. Her comic timing is as good as ever, especially in the fourth-wall-breaking moments that make viewers feel like her co-conspirators. Beneath the confidence, though, there is more vulnerability, and that becomes increasingly important as the film goes on.

“We are siblings, but our notebooks, like our minds, are our own,” Sherlock tells her, recognising that Enola has become a detective entirely in her own right. She can read a crime scene in seconds and throw herself into danger without so much as blinking. Marriage, however, is another matter entirely.

Becoming Lady Tewkesbury comes with the kind of expectations Enola has spent her whole life resisting. The Holmes name matters to her because she has fought so hard to prove that she is worthy of it, so the idea of giving it up feels like losing a part of herself she has only just claimed. Sherlock does little to settle those fears, warning that marriage could cost her both her independence and the detective life she has built.

Yet Enola has never been defined by being alone, no matter what her mother intended when she gave her a name that spells it backwards. “I want to be his,” she admits, making it clear that her uncertainty is not about Tewkesbury. She loves him. The question is not whether he is the right person, but whether choosing him can still leave room for the life she wants and the person she has become.

That is where Enola Holmes 3 finds its emotional centre.

A New Mystery in Malta

Malta gives the film a welcome change of scenery. The sunlit coastline, historic streets and dramatic stone architecture create a romantic wedding backdrop while opening the series visually beyond Victorian London.

The mystery itself moves quickly between kidnappings, coded messages, political tensions and the return of a familiar enemy. There are moments when the film pauses to explain how its different clues connect, but watching Enola piece everything together remains one of the most enjoyable parts of the series.

Her intelligence is never presented as a sudden revelation anymore. “A Holmes does not disappear without leaving clues for a Holmes,” Enola declares, before proving exactly why Sherlock trusted her to find them. She enters a room already knowing she belongs there, spots details everyone else has missed and confidently explains her deductions to those still trying to catch up.

Dr Watson, played by Himesh Patel, is an entertaining companion during the investigation. His understated reactions provide a good contrast to Enola’s energy, particularly when she becomes several steps ahead of everyone around her. The two make an enjoyable detective pairing without the film attempting to replace Enola’s relationship with Sherlock.

The story also incorporates Malta’s history under British colonial rule, connecting the central conspiracy to questions of power, inequality and resistance. While Enola’s personal journey remains at the heart of the film, this wider context gives the case consequences beyond the Holmes family.

Barantini preserves the visual personality established by the previous instalments, including Enola’s direct addresses to the camera, illustrated transitions and fast-moving deductions. The action feels slightly more intense this time, particularly during the horseback sequences and the physical confrontations towards the end, reflecting the darker and more dangerous case Enola has been pulled into.

Enola and Tewkesbury Remain the Heart of the Film

As entertaining as the investigation is, Enola and Tewkesbury’s relationship gives the film its heart. Millie Bobby Brown and Louis Partridge have always shared an easy chemistry, but Enola Holmes 3 gives it more space to breathe. Tewkesbury is understandably hurt when their wedding is interrupted and frustrated by Enola’s instinct to run towards danger, yet he never asks her to change for him.

Their disagreements come from two people trying to understand how their lives will fit together, rather than from any real doubt over whether they love one another. The challenge is convincing Enola that marriage does not have to change her, and that choosing him does not mean giving up the life she has built.

Their easy teasing leads to one of the film’s funniest moments, when Tewkesbury’s full name is revealed to be Earnest Augustus Tebbity-Gore, with Tewkesbury being a family given name. Enola turns to the camera and says, “Yes, he has a first name. I was surprised too.” Brown’s delivery here genuinely had us laughing.

Partridge is excellent in the role, giving Tewkesbury plenty of charm and more to do than simply wait for Enola to solve the case. He throws himself into the investigation and stays beside her when things become dangerous, never losing faith in the life they could build together.

The scenes where Enola and Tewkesbury are alone together are especially sweet. An early montage of them dancing, laughing and enjoying one another’s company builds their relationship beautifully, giving the film an immediate sense of how close they have become. “When it was just the two of us, those were the best times of all,” Enola reflects, and it is easy to believe her. Brown and Partridge make the affection between them feel natural in every look and exchange. For viewers who have followed Enola and Tewkesbury since they first met as two young runaways, seeing them reach this point feels genuinely rewarding.

Henry Cavill’s Sherlock Remains a Welcome Presence

Sherlock’s kidnapping means Henry Cavill is absent for a significant part of the film, but he remains a strong presence whenever he appears.

Cavill’s more restrained Sherlock continues to work well alongside Brown’s expressive and energetic Enola. Their sibling relationship has gradually developed across the trilogy, moving from Sherlock viewing his younger sister as someone who required his protection to recognising her as a detective in her own right.

Sherlock is initially sceptical about Enola’s decision to marry and cannot quite understand why she would choose a life he believes could limit her independence. His disapproval is blunt, but beneath it is a brother trying, rather awkwardly, to protect her.

“You’re being emotional. It’s understandable, but unnecessary,” he tells her early on. The line returns in one of the film’s best sibling moments, when Enola repeats it back to Sherlock near the end and stops him from doing something he would regret. It is a brilliant reversal, showing how far their relationship has come and how fully he now sees her as his equal.

That leads into an especially lovely scene between the two, as Sherlock finally gives Enola the recognition she has long wanted from him. “Enola, you are a Holmes. But what I failed to say is that, truly, you are so much more. You might even be extraordinary,” he tells her before they embrace. The apology, followed by their very sweet hug, gives their relationship one of its most rewarding moments across the trilogy.

Helena Bonham Carter makes a welcome return as Eudoria, bringing her wonderfully unpredictable energy back into Enola’s world. She remains mostly in hiding and was seemingly prepared to miss her daughter’s first attempt at marrying Tewkesbury, but as ever, Eudoria appears exactly when Enola needs her most.

It is exactly the kind of guidance Enola needs at that moment, reminding her that the decision still belongs entirely to her. Eudoria’s later advice, “Look at what’s in front of you, yes, but do not forget to look behind that front,” also proves important as the mystery unfolds.

Their relationship has never been straightforward, but Eudoria still knows how to remind Enola of her own strength when doubt begins to take over. She may spend much of the film away from the action, yet she arrives at the right moments and is there for her daughter in a particularly meaningful way by the end.

A Dangerous Reunion With Moriarty

Sharon Duncan-Brewster’s return as Mira Troy, better known as Moriarty, gives Enola an opponent who can match both her intelligence and determination. Moriarty is more physically threatening here than she was in the previous film, and her confrontations with Enola carry genuine danger. Their final battle is about more than who can fight hardest. It brings together two women whose brilliance has been underestimated by the world around them, but who have chosen very different ways to answer that.

Duncan-Brewster commits fully to Moriarty’s fury, making her a formidable force. Brown matches that intensity, especially in the final fight, when Enola has to rely on instinct as much as deduction. The action never overwhelms the series’ playful spirit, but it does reflect the film’s more mature tone.

CultureCues Standout Moment

The final wedding between Enola and Tewkesbury is the emotional payoff fans have been waiting for.

After the interrupted ceremony, the investigation and Enola’s fears about what marriage might take away from her, watching the pair finally choose one another feels earned. This is not Enola accepting a future that someone else has designed for her. She reaches the wedding after deciding for herself that loving Tewkesbury does not require her to stop being Enola Holmes.

The film gives Enola and Tewkesbury plenty of sweet moments, but holds back their kiss until the end, making it feel as though fans are waiting alongside them. Just before the wedding, clips from the previous films remind us how far their relationship has come, from their first adventure to everything they mean to one another. When they finally kiss, it is every bit as beautiful and rewarding as fans would hope.

The wedding itself is far more intimate than the grand ceremony planned at the beginning, with Eudoria officiating as Enola and Tewkesbury choose one another on their own terms. That smaller, more personal ending suits them perfectly. Enola does not have to give up her independence to be loved, and the film lets her step into this new chapter without closing the door on everything that makes her who she is.

The CultureCues Verdict

Enola Holmes 3 is a fun, beautifully designed and emotionally satisfying continuation of the Netflix series.

The mystery occasionally becomes tangled beneath its different conspiracies and historical threads, but the film always finds its way back to Enola. Her fears about marriage, her changing relationship with Sherlock and her love for Tewkesbury give this instalment a more personal focus than its predecessors.

Henry Cavill is great as always, Louis Partridge remains an endearing and thoughtful Tewkesbury, and Sharon Duncan-Brewster makes the most of Moriarty’s dangerous return. The wider cast also delivers strong performances throughout. Still, this is Millie Bobby Brown’s film from its first clue to its final kiss.

Brown makes Enola’s growth feel completely natural. She is stronger and more assured than the girl we first met, but she has not lost her humour, curiosity or willingness to race directly towards trouble. This is a more mature Enola Holmes story that still remembers to be playful, and one that delivers a particularly lovely reward for viewers who have been invested in Enola and Tewkesbury from the beginning.

Great stories may begin with a wedding, but Enola Holmes 3 proves they can end with one too. Thankfully, her next chapter looks set to contain room for both a husband and plenty more mysteries.

CultureCues Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)

Enola Holmes 3 arrives on Netflix on 1 July 2026.

<p>The post Enola Holmes 3 Review: Millie Bobby Brown Is Brilliant in Netflix’s Latest Mystery first appeared on culturecues.</p>

Netflix’s latest romantic comedy begins with grief, a reassigned phone number and one man making a decision that would be an enormous red flag outside the safety of a rom-com. Somehow, Voicemails for Isabelle still manages to turn that questionable beginning into a warm, funny story about allowing yourself to move forward without leaving the people you have lost behind.

Written and directed by Leah McKendrick, the film stars Zoey Deutch as Jill, an aspiring pastry chef living in San Francisco. Following the death of her sister Isabelle (Ciara Bravo), Jill continues calling the number and leaving rambling updates about work, disastrous dates and everything she wishes they could still discuss.

What Jill does not know is that Isabelle’s number has been reassigned to Wes (Nick Robinson), a successful real estate agent based in Austin. He begins listening to the messages, becomes invested in the life of the woman leaving them and eventually travels to San Francisco to meet her.

It is a set-up that requires viewers to accept a serious invasion of privacy as the beginning of a love story. Thankfully, Deutch and Robinson have enough charm and chemistry to carry the film through its more uncomfortable implications and keep the central romance believable.

A Rom-Com Built Around Grief

Despite its bright Netflix packaging, Voicemails for Isabelle opens with genuine sadness. Jill has built much of her life around sharing experiences with her younger sister, Isabelle, whose cystic fibrosis prevented her from having the carefree adolescence and adulthood Jill wanted for her. Jill dates recklessly, throws herself into her work and collects stories because she knows Isabelle wants to hear them. When that relationship is suddenly taken away, the voicemails become a way of continuing a conversation Jill is not ready to end.

The film handles this with more care than its rom-com premise might suggest. Jill is not waiting for romance to rescue her from grief, and falling for Wes does not magically remove the pain. Isabelle remains part of her life throughout the film, shaping Jill’s choices and her understanding of what moving forward might look like.

Deutch is particularly strong during these quieter scenes. Her natural comic timing makes Jill’s long, unfiltered messages entertaining, but she also allows the exhaustion underneath them to surface. Jill can be awkward and overly impulsive, yet she never becomes a collection of rom-com quirks created solely to appear adorable.

The relationship between the sisters is established quickly, but it gives the rest of the story its emotional foundation. Their connection is genuinely sweet, and even after Isabelle is no longer physically present, the film never treats her as a plot device to push Jill towards a new man.

Zoey Deutch and Nick Robinson Make the Romance Work

The film’s greatest strength is the chemistry between Deutch and Robinson. They are perfectly cast as Jill and Wes, making their connection believable from the moment they meet.

Wes has an obvious advantage because he has already heard Jill at her most honest. He knows about her dating history, career frustrations and oddly specific romantic fantasies before she has even learned his surname. Robinson plays him with enough nervous sincerity to make it clear that he understands how strange the situation has become, although perhaps not quickly enough.

Their time exploring San Francisco brings some of the film’s most enjoyable rom-com moments, from tourist stops and shared food to a deliberately ridiculous bus tour. As they grow closer, their friendship naturally begins turning into something more. There are accidental confessions and grand romantic gestures, followed by the secret that inevitably threatens everything. The film even acknowledges the influence of You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle, although Wes lacks the safe distance those stories gave their leads.

Audiences do not need a romantic comedy to surprise them. They simply need to care about the couple and believe in their journey towards the expected ending, which Deutch and Robinson make easy. Their first kiss has the spark the film needs, and their more intimate scenes bring a welcome physical chemistry to a genre that sometimes appears frightened of letting its leads genuinely desire each other.

The Voicemail Problem Is Difficult to Ignore

The central concept remains the film’s biggest weakness. Wes does not accidentally hear one message and immediately correct the mistake. He continues listening, searches for Jill online and uses what he has learned to create the kind of meeting she has previously described wanting. The film knows this is ethically questionable. Wes’s friends repeatedly tell him that his behaviour is inappropriate, and the eventual consequences are not brushed aside. Even so, the story still asks viewers to find his actions romantic.

Robinson’s natural charm helps considerably, but there are points where the film comes close to making Wes seem alarmingly calculated. A few moments of greater hesitation or an earlier attempt to contact Jill would have made the eventual romance easier to embrace without reservation.

It says a great deal about the central performances that the relationship survives this problem at all. Once Jill and Wes are together, their connection appears natural enough that viewers may find themselves temporarily putting aside how he reached her in the first place. Still, temporarily is doing some work there.

A Supporting Cast With Plenty to Do

The supporting cast adds another layer of humour without pulling attention away from Jill and Wes.

Nick Offerman plays Chef Bastien, Jill’s pretentious and thoroughly insufferable employer, complete with an accent almost as inflated as his ego. Lukas Gage appears as Arthur, one of the chefs helping maintain the misogynistic culture inside the kitchen. Their storyline gives the film space to explore Jill’s professional frustration and the barriers she faces as a woman trying to establish herself in the food industry. It also ensures her development is not limited to whether she ends up in a relationship.

Harry Shum Jr. and Lean McKendrick are far more likeable as Andy and Breeda, Wes’s friends and the closest thing he has to a functioning moral compass. They recognise almost immediately that listening to Jill’s messages is a terrible idea, even when Wes insists that his intentions are sincere.

Their relationship provides a useful contrast to Jill and Wes, showing a couple already comfortable enough to challenge each other without turning every disagreement into a crisis.

Familiar Territory With Real Emotion

Voicemails for Isabelle follows the familiar romantic-comedy formula and fully embraces it, from the emotional music choices to a final act designed to make viewers forgive almost everything that came before. Some of the songs push a little too hard to tell the audience how to feel, but Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own” has real meaning within Jill and Isabelle’s relationship. What begins as a shared joke becomes a touching reminder that grief can hold onto happy memories as well as painful ones.

The film occasionally packs too much into Jill’s story, including family loss, workplace misogyny, dating disappointments and her ambitions as a pastry chef. At just under two hours, it has enough time to explore most of these threads, although the middle section could move more quickly.

There are also moments when the humour appears written specifically to sound current, particularly around dating apps and social media. Deutch sells most of it through sheer commitment, but not every joke will age as gracefully as the romance surrounding it. Even so, the film remains funny and enjoyable throughout.

What ultimately carries the film is its sincerity. McKendrick believes in romantic comedies without pretending that love solves every problem. Jill still has to rebuild parts of her life for herself, and Wes must understand that a good intention does not automatically excuse a bad choice.

A Third Act That Brings the Secret Out

Spoilers ahead for the ending of Voicemails for Isabelle.

The film’s biggest obstacle is always going to be Wes’s secret. No matter how charming Robinson makes him, there is no escaping the fact that he built his relationship with Jill on information she never intended anyone else to hear. When the truth finally comes out during Andy and Breeda’s wedding in Austin, Jill ends their relationship immediately. The film gives her anger enough space.

The breakup arrives at an already vulnerable point for Jill. After finding out what Wes has been hiding, she also loses all the saved voicemails from Isabelle when a software update wipes them from her phone. It is a brutal double blow, forcing Jill to face the fear that moving forward might mean losing another piece of her sister.

After that, Jill begins making changes for herself. She leaves her job at Flâner, opens a food truck inspired by the dessert tacos she and Isabelle loved, and starts building a future that still keeps her sister close.

Wes eventually tries to make things right by recovering Jill’s lost voicemails and leaving her a message of his own. He tells her he has changed his work number and will keep Isabelle’s old line active so Jill can keep calling whenever she needs to. His New Year’s Eve attempt to win her back is a sentimental, rain-soaked run straight out of classic rom-com territory, but it works because the film has spent enough time showing what those messages mean to Jill.

The final scene keeps Isabelle at the centre of Jill’s life. When Jill and Wes call her for a kind of blessing and Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own” plays, Wes joins in the dance routine Jill once shared with her sister. It is sweet, a little cheesy and exactly the kind of ending the film has been building towards.

CultureCues Final Thoughts

Voicemails for Isabelle has a premise that becomes increasingly difficult to defend the longer you think about it, but Deutch and Robinson make an extremely convincing case for going along with it anyway.

Their chemistry gives the film the spark it needs, while Jill’s relationship with Isabelle adds an emotional depth that lifts the story beyond a standard Netflix romance. Deutch is funny and vulnerable without forcing either quality, and Robinson brings enough awkward sweetness to Wes to keep him on the correct side of the rom-com line, even when the character’s decisions test that boundary.

The film follows a familiar route and occasionally pushes too hard for an emotional response, but the important moments still connect. It made us laugh, brought a few tears and, crucially, left us rooting for its central couple.

We answered the call, and we are glad we did.

Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)

Voicemails for Isabelle is streaming now on Netflix.

<p>The post Voicemails for Isabelle Review: Zoey Deutch and Nick Robinson Answer the Rom-Com Call first appeared on culturecues.</p>

When Olivia Rodrigo releases a new album, the internet inevitably turns into a detective agency. Within hours of You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love arriving, fans and commentators were already combing through lyrics, searching for clues about exes, timelines and who inspired which song. It’s become part of the Olivia Rodrigo experience at this point.

The thing is, focusing solely on the gossip means missing what makes this album so impressive in the first place. You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love is Rodrigo’s strongest and most fully realised album to date. Across its 14 tracks, she charts the rise and fall of a relationship with remarkable honesty and humour, creating an album that feels personal, vivid and instantly easy to connect with.

Following the pop-punk energy of Guts, Rodrigo and longtime collaborator Dan Nigro take a different approach here. The guitars are still present, but much of the album leans into shimmering new wave, dreamy synth-pop and sounds drawn from the 1980s. There are clear nods to The Cure throughout, from the song title “The Cure” to Robert Smith’s appearance on “What’s Wrong With Me?”, but the album never feels trapped by nostalgia. Instead, Rodrigo uses those influences to push her sound somewhere fresh.

The first half of the album captures the exhilarating rush of falling in love, led by opener “Drop Dead”, which was released as the album’s lead single on 17 April through Geffen Records/Universal Music Group. The track has already become a major moment for Rodrigo, earning strong airplay and reaching Number 1 on the Official UK Singles Chart on 24 April, marking her fourth UK chart-topper. It is easy to hear why.

“Drop Dead” captures the drama and emotional whiplash that define Rodrigo’s best work, blending polished pop production with a darker edge. “Stupid Song” continues that all-consuming crush energy, while “U + Me = <3” and “Honey Bee” lean into the excitement of new romance, even as little warning signs begin to appear.

Then comes “Purple”, the track that marks the point where the romance starts to lose its shine. Rodrigo explores what happens when you become so wrapped up in someone else that you start to lose sight of yourself. When she sings, “I had big dreams ’til I tied myself to you,” it lands as one of the album’s most devastating gut-punches. It’s beautifully written and one of the most impressive songs she has released so far.

The album’s second half deals with the aftermath. “Begged” and “Less” sit among Rodrigo’s strongest heartbreak songs, capturing the ache of wanting more from someone who cannot give it. Elsewhere, “Expectations” adds some humour after the heartbreak, delivering some of the album’s funniest lyrics as Rodrigo looks back on a failed relationship with clearer eyes. She won’t be settling for anyone passive.

One of the most striking things about You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love is how much Rodrigo has grown as a songwriter. The emotional honesty that made Sour such a phenomenon remains intact, but the writing feels more nuanced and reflective. She’s still capable of delivering a devastating one-liner, but these songs sit with more complicated emotions and aren’t afraid of contradictions.

That growth extends to the production. Together, Rodrigo and Nigro create a world that feels cohesive from beginning to end. Whether it’s the dizzy rush of new love or the hollow quiet that follows a breakup, the music consistently mirrors the emotions at the heart of the story. That’s what makes the album feel so complete.

For CultureCues, this is Olivia Rodrigo at her best. You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love is funny, heartbreaking and packed with some of the strongest songwriting of her career. While the internet debates who inspired each lyric, we’re more interested in the fact Rodrigo has delivered another excellent album.

The gossip will fade. These songs won’t.

CultureCues Rating: ★★★★½

<p>The post Olivia Rodrigo’s You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love Is Her Most Accomplished Album Yet first appeared on culturecues.</p>

Steven Spielberg has spent much of his career looking upwards. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, he turned alien contact into a spiritual calling. In E.T., he made the unknown feel tender, lonely and full of childhood awe. With Disclosure Day, he returns to the skies again, but this is not simply a nostalgia trip back to his earlier science-fiction classics. This is Spielberg older, more reflective and still deeply curious about what humanity might do if faced with proof that it is not alone.

Written by David Koepp from a story by Spielberg, Disclosure Day is a slick sci-fi conspiracy thriller with a very human heart. It follows Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), a rogue cybersecurity expert on the run after stealing alien technology linked to a decades-long cover-up, and Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), a Kansas City weather presenter whose ordinary life is shattered when she begins speaking languages she has never learned and hearing the thoughts of those around her.

Both are pursued by Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), the head of a secretive agency determined to stop the truth from getting out. As Daniel and Margaret’s stories begin to connect, Disclosure Day becomes part chase movie, part alien mystery and part plea for communication in a world already standing on the edge of disaster.

A Spielberg Film Through and Through

There are clear echoes of Close Encounters here, from the film’s fascination with unidentified phenomena to its belief that ordinary people can feel drawn towards the unknown. There are also traces of E.T. and Minority Report, that mix gives Disclosure Day a lovely old-school quality. The film has the texture of grown-up blockbuster filmmaking, with government secrets, corporate control, whistleblowers and alien contact all wrapped into a story that still finds room for wonder.

Shot largely on 35mm by longtime Spielberg collaborator Janusz Kamiński, the film has a grounded, tactile feel even when its ideas become increasingly strange. John Williams’ score does a lot of emotional lifting, bringing that familiar Spielberg sense of awe without making the film feel like it is repeating old glories.

Emily Blunt Steals the Film

The cast is strong across the board, but Emily Blunt is the standout. Margaret could easily have become a plot device, the ordinary woman suddenly gifted with extraordinary abilities, but Blunt makes her fear, confusion and growing determination feel completely believable.

Her scenes are some of the film’s most affecting, especially as Margaret begins to understand that what is happening to her is connected to something buried much deeper in her own past. Blunt gives the film its emotional centre, holding onto Margaret’s humanity even as the story moves into bigger sci-fi territory.

Josh O’Connor is also excellent as Daniel, a man who knows too much and is trying to do the right thing before the system catches up with him. There is a bruised intensity to O’Connor’s performance that works beautifully opposite Blunt, especially as their connection becomes clearer.

Colin Firth has fun playing against type as Scanlon. He is calm, controlled and increasingly sinister, the kind of villain who believes he is acting for the greater good even while doing terrible things to protect it. Colman Domingo brings warmth and authority as Hugo Wakefield, a former insider who helps guide Daniel and Margaret towards the truth. There isn’t a weak link in the cast, with strong performances throughout.

Big Ideas, Big Chases and a Few Wobbles

Disclosure Day has real momentum when Spielberg leans into the action. A high-speed train sequence is one of his most exciting set pieces in years, with a sense of practical danger and clean visual storytelling that reminds you how good he is at building tension through movement. The film also has some wonderful visual flourishes. Spielberg finds clever ways to show Margaret’s new abilities without over-explaining them, while the camera often catches people through reflections or unusual angles, as if the truth is sitting just out of reach.

Not everything lands perfectly. Some of the alien technology edges closer to magic than science, and a few of the film’s bigger philosophical and religious questions are answered a little too neatly. There is also a wider backdrop of global unrest and possible nuclear threat that feels important, but not quite developed enough to carry the weight the film places on it. Still, these issues do not take too much away from the overall experience. Spielberg’s heart is so clearly in this story that even the more sentimental moments feel sincere rather than lazy.

A Return to Wonder With Something on Its Mind

What makes Disclosure Day work is that it never treats alien contact as just a spectacle. The real question is not simply whether humanity is alone, but whether people are capable of handling the truth without turning it into another weapon. That gives the film a timely edge. Its ideas about secrecy, fear, corporate power and the control of information feel pointed without becoming heavy-handed. At the same time, Spielberg still believes in compassion. He still believes people can listen, change and reach for something better, even when the world around them suggests otherwise. It is a hopeful idea, but Spielberg sells it with real conviction.

That hopefulness may not work for every viewer, especially in a film with this much paranoia running through it, but it feels unmistakably Spielberg. He is not naive about humanity here. He simply refuses to give up on it.

CultureCues Final Thoughts

For CultureCues, Disclosure Day feels like Spielberg returning to one of his strongest storytelling spaces: ordinary people facing the extraordinary, with fear and wonder sitting side by side. It may not reach the untouchable heights of Close Encounters or E.T., but that almost feels like an unfair bar. What it does offer is a smart, emotional and beautifully crafted sci-fi thriller with a a brilliant Emily Blunt performance, a great role for Josh O’Connor and some of Spielberg’s best action in years.

The film is full of curiosity and feeling, with Spielberg still clearly drawn to the big questions that have powered so much of his science fiction work. In an era where many blockbusters can feel overly engineered, Disclosure Day has the rare sense of a filmmaker still looking up at the sky with wonder.

Spielberg believes humanity can do better. By the end of Disclosure Day, you might just want to believe it too.

CultureCues Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)

<p>The post Disclosure Day Review: Steven Spielberg Returns to Sci-Fi Wonder first appeared on culturecues.</p>

For years, the idea of the Backrooms existed largely as an internet obsession. A blurry image. A strange concept. Endless yellow rooms stretching into nowhere. What began as an online horror phenomenon has now become a full-scale A24 feature, and remarkably, it manages to retain much of the unsettling atmosphere that made people fall down the rabbit hole in the first place.

Directed by Kane Parsons, who first brought the concept to life through his hugely popular YouTube series while still a teenager, Backrooms feels unlike most mainstream horror films currently arriving in cinemas. It resists easy explanation, instead pulling audiences into the disorientation of the maze.

The film follows Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a struggling furniture store owner whose life is quietly falling apart. Divorced, isolated and sleeping among the showroom displays of his failing business, he discovers a section of wall that leads somewhere impossible. On the other side lies an endless maze of fluorescent-lit rooms, corridors and spaces that seem familiar and wrong at exactly the same time. From there, Backrooms becomes a descent into something increasingly strange.

A Film Built on Atmosphere

The greatest strength of Backrooms is its atmosphere. Parsons understands that the fear of the unknown is often more powerful than anything a monster can do. Much of the film’s tension comes from simply exploring these impossible spaces. Room leads to room. Corridor leads to corridor. Every corner feels as though it could reveal an answer or something far worse.

The production design deserves enormous credit here. The yellow-tinted lighting, endless carpets and uncanny architecture create environments that feel strangely recognisable despite existing completely outside reality. It is the sort of imagery that lingers in your mind long after the credits roll. There are echoes of films such as The Shining, Eraserhead and Skinamarink, but Backrooms never feels like a collection of references. Instead, Parsons uses those influences as a foundation for something that carries its own identity.

Chiwetel Ejiofor Grounds the Madness

At the centre of all the surrealism is a terrific performance from Chiwetel Ejiofor. Clark could easily have become little more than a guide through the maze, but Ejiofor gives him enough sadness and frustration to keep him emotionally engaging. As Clark moves further into the Backrooms, his journey becomes a search for meaning in a life that has drifted off course.

Renate Reinsve is equally effective as Mary, Clark’s therapist, who is drawn into the mystery herself. Together they provide enough emotional grounding to stop the film from disappearing completely into abstraction.

Not Every Door Leads Somewhere

The film’s willingness to leave questions unanswered will undoubtedly divide audiences. Viewers expecting a conventional horror story packed with clear explanations may find themselves frustrated. Backrooms operates largely through mood, suggestion and symbolism. Some of its ideas feel deliberately out of reach, while certain character arcs never receive quite the depth they seem to promise.

There are also moments in the final act where the film edges closer to traditional horror territory. While still effective, these sequences are arguably less interesting than the quieter stretches where Parsons simply lets the audience wander through the nightmare alongside his characters.

CultureCues Verdict

What makes Backrooms fascinating is not just that it works as a horror film. It is that it feels like a glimpse at where horror might be heading next. A concept born from internet folklore has become a genuinely ambitious studio release without losing its weirdness along the way. Kane Parsons proves himself far more than a viral success story, showing a remarkable confidence in visual storytelling and atmosphere for a filmmaker making his feature debut. You may not leave Backrooms with every answer. In truth, that is part of its appeal. The film understands that some of the scariest places are the ones we never fully understand.

CultureCues Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)

<p>The post Backrooms Review: A24’s Creepy Internet Nightmare Finds a New Way to Get Under Your Skin first appeared on culturecues.</p>

The last-ever episode of Good Omens arrived on Prime Video today, 13 May, giving Aziraphale and Crowley’s long-running story one final feature-length chapter, with a lot of Heaven, Hell and unresolved feeling packed into 90 minutes.

This review begins with a spoiler-free look at the finale, focusing on the performances, tone and overall ending without giving away the major twists. Further down, we move into a full spoiler recap and ending discussion, so consider that your friendly warning to stop scrolling if you have not watched it yet.

Season 3 is not a traditional run of episodes. Instead, the final chapter arrives as a single movie-length special, picking up after the emotional fallout of season 2, when Aziraphale accepted the offer to return to Heaven and Crowley was left behind in Soho. It was a brutal place to leave two characters whose bond has always been the beating heart of the series, and the finale wastes little time in returning to that wound.

Now the newly appointed Supreme Archangel, Aziraphale is tasked with overseeing the Second Coming, a responsibility that sits heavily on him and causes more than a little concern among the other angels. Crowley, meanwhile, is heartbroken and lost, drifting through Soho while trying to pretend he is absolutely fine, even when every part of him says otherwise.

As the universe edges towards another possible ending, the pair are forced back into each other’s orbit. There are Hellish threats, London gangsters, divine complications and the usual bureaucratic absurdity of Heaven, but the real pull of the episode comes from watching Aziraphale and Crowley confront the fracture between them.

A finale with impossible expectations

There was always going to be a lot of pressure on this finale. Good Omens has built a fiercely loyal fanbase, and after the ending of season 2, viewers were waiting for more than just another apocalyptic adventure. They wanted emotional resolution. They wanted answers. They wanted some kind of healing for Aziraphale and Crowley. On that front, the finale knows what matters.

The story moves quickly, sometimes too quickly, with plot points arriving in a rush as the episode tries to cover material that may once have had more room to breathe. You can feel the shape of a fuller season underneath it at times. Certain characters are given less space than expected, and a few ideas seem to appear only long enough to push the story towards its conclusion.

Still, there is something genuinely worthwhile in the fact that Good Omens gets a proper ending at all. In a streaming era where so many shows vanish without resolution, this final episode feels like a gesture to the fans who have stayed with it. It may not have all the space it needs, but it does have a clear affection for the characters and the world they inhabit.

Michael Sheen and David Tennant carry the heart of it

The finale works best when it keeps its focus on Michael Sheen and David Tennant. Sheen remains wonderful as Aziraphale, capturing his anxious politeness, moral stubbornness and desperate need to believe there is still a right thing to do. There is a real sadness in watching him carry the weight of Heaven’s expectations while slowly realising that power does not make the system any less broken.

Tennant is, as ever, brilliant as Crowley, leaning into the humour and irritation while making it clear that this is a character carrying real hurt. His swagger is still there, but the finale lets the heartbreak sit beneath the surface rather than turning it into melodrama.

Together, they remain the reason Good Omens has lasted in peoples hearts. Their chemistry still feels beautifully lived-in, with thousands of years of history carried in the smallest pauses and looks between them. Even when the wider story feels compressed, Sheen and Tennant give the finale its emotional weight.

The 90-minute format is both a blessing and a curse

The biggest issue with season 3 is also the most obvious one: 90 minutes is not a lot of time to wrap up a story this cosmic, this emotional and this beloved. The episode has momentum, which helps, but it also has to sprint through parts of the story that might have benefited from a slower build. The Second Coming, the politics of Heaven, Crowley’s isolation, Aziraphale’s guilt, personal betrayals and the fate of the world are all fighting for attention, with some parts given enough space and others left feeling slightly underfed.

That said, the finale rarely feels careless. It feels condensed. There is a difference.

You can sense the creative team trying to honour the relationship at the centre of the series while still delivering the wild, end-of-the-world energy expected from a Good Omens ending. Sometimes that balance works beautifully. Sometimes it feels strained. But the affection behind it is hard to miss.

Still unmistakably Good Omens

For all the pressure around the finale, Good Omens remains unmistakably itself. The episode is full of comic beats, divine misunderstandings, demonic irritation and the kind of heightened nonsense that has always made the series feel slightly outside normal television logic. Heaven is still deeply ridiculous. Hell is still a workplace nightmare with worse lighting. Earth remains the place everyone is supposedly fighting over, even though most celestial beings do not seem to understand humans at all.

There are also moments where the finale recaptures the show’s old magic: a dry Crowley line delivered with perfect timing, Aziraphale looking quietly scandalised by something absurd, or the two of them bickering while the universe is literally on fire around them. The story may be crowded, but the tone is familiar. It is warm, weird, theatrical and occasionally uneven, which, frankly, feels very Good Omens.

CultureCues Final thoughts

The best parts of the finale are the moments when Aziraphale and Crowley are allowed to simply be in the same emotional space again. Not every exchange needs a grand declaration. Some of the strongest moments come from the discomfort between them: the things they avoid saying, the hurt they try to dress up as sarcasm, and the sense that neither of them has really known what to do without the other.

For a show filled with apocalypses, prophecies and divine machinery, Good Omens has always been at its best when it remembers that its central relationship is oddly human. That remains true here.

Good Omens season 3 is not the seamless final season some fans may have imagined, and there are places where the one-episode format clearly limits what the story can do. But as a final outing for Aziraphale and Crowley, it has enough charm and feeling to make the journey worthwhile. For longtime fans, it should satisfy more than it frustrates. For anyone who has loved this odd little universe, it is hard not to feel grateful that Good Omens was allowed to bow out on its own terms.

Spoiler Warning: Stop Here If You Have Not Watched The Finale

From this point onwards, we are getting into the actual ending of Good Omens, including the mystery, the Second Coming, the Book of Life and what happens to Aziraphale and Crowley.

Good Omens Season 3 Spoiler Recap And Ending Explained

The finale opens with a glimpse of Lucifer’s fall, immediately placing the story back in the long, complicated history between Heaven, Hell and everyone caught somewhere in the middle. In the aftermath, Aziraphale finds himself alone with Crowley, who steals his sword and demands answers. Crowley is wounded, Aziraphale tends to him, and even this early on, the episode reminds us what Good Omens has always understood about these two: they can be furious with each other and still instinctively care.

In the present day, things are far messier. Crowley is sleeping rough in an alley on Whickber Street, getting drunk, keeping one bitter eye on the bookshop and doing a fairly terrible job of pretending he is fine. His beloved Bentley is also gone, after a new local kingpin called Brian tricks him during a game and takes the car. Naturally, because this is Good Omens, the situation somehow involves Monopoly, a card trick and a level of petty chaos only Whickber Street could provide.

Meanwhile, in Heaven, Aziraphale has been trying to reshape the Second Coming into something less apocalyptic. Instead of another end-of-the-world event, he has turned it into a peaceful second chance for humanity, beginning with Jesus addressing the United Nations. It is a very Aziraphale solution: deeply sincere, quietly ambitious and absolutely convinced that if he can just make the system kinder from the inside, everything might work out.

Of course, it does not.

Jesus has returned, but he does not seem particularly interested in divine spectacle. What he wants is a familiar face, and that familiar face turns out to be Crowley, who once showed him the world before the crucifixion. When the Metatron is murdered and the Book of Life is stolen, panic breaks out in Heaven. Jesus slips away to Earth, Muriel is placed on the Book of Life investigation, and Aziraphale is sent to find the missing Messiah before everything unravels completely.

On Earth, Jesus eventually finds his way back to Crowley, though not in the grand celestial fashion anyone might have expected. Someone offers him food, he is touched by the kindness, and then he is led to the demon currently spiralling in an alley. Crowley, drunk and wounded in every possible sense, starts rambling about Find The Lady. Jesus takes this as something meaningful and sets off to find “the lady”, because apparently even divine beings are not immune to misinterpreting Crowley at his most sarcastic.

Aziraphale, realising he needs help, finally returns to Whickber Street. Muriel has already let slip that Crowley is not doing well, which rattles him more than he wants to admit. When he arrives, he is shocked by how much the street has changed. Mrs Sandwich, one of the few familiar faces still there, does not exactly let him off lightly either, calling him out for leaving both the street and Crowley behind.

The reunion between Aziraphale and Crowley is not instantly easy, which is exactly why it works. Aziraphale tries to be playful, as if they can step back into their old rhythm without touching the wound between them. Crowley does not let him. He is hurt, angry and passive-aggressive in that very Crowley way where every line sounds like a joke until it very much does not. Aziraphale apologises, but Crowley is not ready to accept it, so they do the next most familiar thing available to them: they team up to stop reality collapsing.

First, though, there is the urgent matter of the Bentley. After a flashback reveals that Brian threatened the bookshop to get Crowley to gamble away the car, Aziraphale steps in and challenges Brian to a competitive crossword. Obviously, he wins. Obviously, this is ridiculous. Obviously, it is exactly the kind of nonsense Good Omens does better than almost anyone.

The mystery around Heaven deepens when Sandalphon claims to have information, only to be murdered before he can reveal it. Uriel begins to look suspicious, Michael is behaving badly even by archangel standards, and Muriel slowly starts to realise she has been given the investigation because someone assumed she would be too naïve to uncover anything. Unfortunately for Michael, underestimating Muriel is a very silly thing to do.

Aziraphale and Muriel pretend to be high-ranking demons and question Dagon, learning that Hell somehow knew about both the missing Book of Life and the murdered archangels. The trail begins to point back to Michael, who has been orchestrating things from inside Heaven.

Aziraphale and Crowley’s own conversation circles back to the same idea. Aziraphale tries to explain why he accepted the Metatron’s offer. He believed he could make a difference. He believed he could change the system enough to save everyone, including the two of them. Crowley, still wounded by what happened between them, finally starts to see what Aziraphale was trying to do, even if it does not erase the hurt.

After murdering Uriel, Michael reaches the Centre of the Universe and uses the Eternal Flame to burn pages from the Book of Life. Reality begins to unravel. Aziraphale and Crowley race to stop her, crossing paths with Jesus and Harry as Jesus finally finds his purpose in comforting the people around him.

With the help of the Bentley, because naturally the Bentley gets a heroic moment, Aziraphale and Crowley reach Michael. By this point, the Book has driven her into a kind of cosmic breakdown. She rages about being unappreciated and insists she only wanted to fix things, before destroying the whole thing. Crowley manages to save the bookshop’s page and clings to Aziraphale as everything else disappears.

For a moment, the only things left are Aziraphale, Crowley and the bookshop.

It is here that the emotional heart of the finale properly lands. Aziraphale asks for Crowley’s forgiveness, and Crowley gives it. Not with a grand speech, not with melodrama, but with the exhausted honesty of someone who has been hurt and loves him anyway.

Then Satan appears, and Crowley has absolutely had enough. Nothing makes sense, the rules keep shifting, and the whole grand design is beginning to look less like a plan and more like a story being dragged towards an ending. Aziraphale and Crowley manage to draw God out, demanding answers, and what they get is deeply unsettling. God has been treating the universe as a story, one that needs shape, conflict and a satisfying final confrontation. Even Satan’s survival is part of that narrative tidiness.

Worse still, they realise their own relationship has not been entirely free from divine interference. Their romance, their connection, even the long road that brought them together, has been nudged along because it pleased God. Aziraphale still tells Crowley he loves him, and that he was the best angel, but the revelation cuts right to the centre of what the series has always asked: can love mean anything if it was written for you?

Crowley is given the chance to write the ending himself. His choice is simple, radical and very Crowley. He wants a real universe. One with free will. One where humans actually get a chance. No angels, no demons, no God, no Satan, no Great Plan and no one meddling from above or below. Aziraphale agrees, and the two of them hold hands as everything disappears.

But Good Omens does give them an ending.

In the new universe, every supernatural being has been made human. Aziraphale is now Asa Fell, running the bookshop with Derek, formerly the Metatron. Crowley is Professor Anthony Crowley, who walks in one day looking for a book on astrophysics. They meet again, not as angel and demon, not as pieces on a cosmic chessboard, but as people. They flirt. They go on a date. Around them, familiar faces appear in ordinary human lives, from Michael and Dagon behind the bar to Muriel, Eric, Uriel and Jesus nearby. There is also a lovely tribute to Terry Pratchett, with a painting of the Good Omens co-author appearing on the wall.

Twenty years later, Asa and Crowley are married. They are stargazing when they hear a nightingale, finally giving long-time fans the symbol they have been waiting for. After all the almosts, arguments, endings and rewrites, they get a love that belongs to them.

Spoiler Thoughts: Does The Finale Work?

As a final chapter, the Good Omens finale gives fans a lot of what they came for. There is Aziraphale and Crowley forced back into partnership, Heaven making a complete mess of things, Hell being useless in its own special way, the Bentley treated with the seriousness usually reserved for sacred relics, and enough absurdity to stop the emotional beats from becoming too heavy.

The mystery around the Book of Life gives the episode a clear engine, while the Jesus storyline brings a gentler strand about purpose, kindness and choice. It is strange, yes, but Good Omens has always been at its best when it takes the biggest theological ideas imaginable and runs them through something daft but human.

The strongest material, unsurprisingly, belongs to Aziraphale and Crowley. Their “breakup phase” gives the finale a different charge. Crowley is not just sniping for the fun of it, and Aziraphale cannot simply smile his way through the damage. Their scenes carry the weight of what happened between them, which makes the eventual forgiveness feel earned rather than easy.

That said, you can feel the squeeze. A story that was once expected to unfold across a full season has been packed into one feature-length finale, and the pacing does suffer in places. Some ideas arrive quickly, some characters get less room than they deserve, and there are moments where you can almost see the larger version of the season hiding behind the edit.

That final garden scene quietly says everything. They are stargazing together, slipping into one last bit of familiar bickering when Crowley points out that it is technically not a shooting star. Aziraphale, naturally, decides he is calling it one anyway because he wants to make a wish. Then comes the line that does the real damage, as Aziraphale asks, “Do you ever wonder if there’s anything more than this?” Crowley’s answer is simple and devastating: he has the universe out there, and he has Aziraphale. Taking his hand, wedding band visible, he tells him, “I have everything I’ve ever wanted.”

And yes, there is a nightingale, a pointed little nod to one of the show’s most painful romantic callbacks. Because after “no nightingales,” there really had to be one.

Good Omens season 3 is streaming now on Prime Video.

<p>The post Good Omens Season 3 Review: A Fond, Messy and Moving Goodbye to Aziraphale and Crowley first appeared on culturecues.</p>

It’s been nearly two decades since we last stepped into Runway, and The Devil Wears Prada 2 arrives with the kind of pressure few sequels can avoid. The original is not just a film people like. It is a comfort watch, a quote machine, a fashion reference point and, for many of us, a very specific part of growing up.

So yes, expectations were high. Thankfully, this return to Runway is an absolute joy.

Miranda Priestly, still played to perfection by Meryl Streep, remains as formidable as ever, but the world around her has changed. Print is struggling, advertisers are nervous, and the kind of power Runway used to hold is no longer guaranteed. Even Miranda has to face an industry where clicks, scandal and tech money can shake the foundations of everything she has built.

After a damaging controversy and a serious dip in influence, Runway needs a reset. That brings Andy Sachs back into Miranda’s orbit, with Anne Hathaway returning as a version of Andy who has clearly built a life beyond her assistant days. She has a career, a voice and the confidence to stand her ground, but she is still pulled back towards the place that changed her. It is a slightly convenient setup, but honestly, who cares when it gets these characters back in the same room?

The Cast Slip Straight Back Into It

The biggest pleasure of The Devil Wears Prada 2 is how natural the returning cast feel. They slip back into the world, older and more settled in themselves, but still recognisable.

Meryl Streep is fabulous as Miranda. She does not need grand speeches or raised voices. A look is still enough. What feels different this time is that the film lets us see more of Miranda’s human side without softening her too much. She remains demanding and almost impossible to please, but there is a real sense that she loves the work. Runway is not just her empire. It is her purpose. That makes her more interesting here. Miranda is not fighting for relevance because she cannot bear being replaced. She is fighting because the work still matters to her.

Andy’s personal life also gets a small update. Nate is nowhere to be seen or mentioned, while Andy’s new romantic thread comes through Peter, an Australian contractor played by Patrick Brammall, who has actually read her articles before their first date. A low bar, perhaps, but a welcome one. Andy’s later comment about having been in long-term relationships with men who never read her work gives the subplot a funny little sting.

Stanley Tucci is wonderful as Nigel, slipping back into the role with effortless warmth and that dry humour he does so well. At first, there is a slight surprise in finding him still at Runway and still so closely tied to Miranda after all these years, but Tucci makes that loyalty feel entirely believable. Nigel remains one of the film’s great pleasures, especially in his scenes with Andy, where that familiar sweetness between them is still very much there. The sequel also gives him a little more emotional depth, which pays off beautifully later in the film.

Emily Blunt gets some of the film’s best material as Emily Charlton, who has built a life outside Runway but still carries every ounce of the character’s theatrical judgement. She is now a Dior executive, and Blunt has a lot of fun with Emily being the one with power in the room for a change. Her scenes with Miranda are especially enjoyable because the comedy has a bittersweet edge. Emily’s hurt comes from feeling pushed out by Miranda without ever fully understanding why, which gives their dynamic more feeling beneath the perfectly timed insults.

Big Names, Bigger Energy

The film opens things up beyond the core group, and the new assistant setup works really well, especially because the film knows it cannot simply recreate Andy and Emily’s original dynamic. Simone Ashley is a real standout as Amari, Miranda’s new first assistant, or as the film’s world clearly frames her, the new Emily. She has the polish, the panic and the scary level of competence required for anyone working that close to Miranda, but Ashley gives her a fresh energy of her own. Caleb Hearon brings a softer comic touch as Charlie, Miranda’s current second assistant, who very quickly becomes “Charlie with the chair.” He adds a bit of warmth to the office scenes without making the character feel too broad. Still, nobody is mistaking Runway for a relaxed workplace. Assistants still wait up for the book, nobody dares wander upstairs into Miranda’s private life, and someone, somewhere, is still whispering that a million girls would kill for this job.

Lucy Liu brings mystery and glamour as designer Sasha Barnes, while Justin Theroux clearly enjoys himself as tech billionaire Benji Barnes, a billionaire with more money than sense. Kenneth Branagh does not get a huge amount of screen time as Miranda’s husband, Stuart, but I really liked what he brings to her story. His presence opens up a softer side of Miranda’s home life without making her feel any less like the Miranda we know.

The cameos are part of the fun, with Donatella Versace, Law Roach, Heidi Klum, Ciara and Ashley Graham among the famous faces popping up along the way. The biggest moment belongs to Lady Gaga, whose extended appearance gives the film a proper event-movie lift. Indulgent? Absolutely. But if there was ever a place for glamorous overkill, it is The Devil Wears Prada 2.

Still About the Work, Even Now

Under all the clothes, cameos and sunglasses, The Devil Wears Prada 2 is still about work. That is what gives the sequel more weight than a simple nostalgia trip. The original was about ambition and survival in a workplace that could either make you or flatten you. This time, the film is asking what happens when the workplace itself starts to fall apart. Runway is no longer untouchable.

Miranda cannot just command the industry into obedience. Andy cannot rely on good journalism being valued simply because it is good journalism. That gives the story a surprisingly current edge. Print media is under pressure, cultural institutions are losing their grip, and the people who care about the work are often left trying to defend it while the money people ask for numbers.

Andy’s return works because she is not seduced by Runway in the same way this time. She understands the glamour, but she also sees the problem. She wants the magazine to matter again, and she wants that meaning to come from substance rather than fear. Miranda, meanwhile, has to reckon with the limits of her own power. The film does not turn her into a cuddly mentor, thank goodness. It keeps her edge intact, but also allows more of her vulnerability to show. She is still demanding and intimidating, yet there is a more human quality to her here that makes her fight for Runway feel unexpectedly moving.

The Emotional Pay-Off

The final stretch of the film is where The Devil Wears Prada 2 really earns its return. One of the strongest scenes comes when Miranda realises that Nigel has spent years standing just behind her, not because he lacked ambition, but because he thought that was where he was needed. Stanley Tucci is impeccable again, giving Nigel the same dry warmth that made him so beloved in the first film, but with a little more ache underneath it this time. What makes the scene work is that Miranda is not treated as a villain for missing it. She truly did not seem to understand that Nigel wanted more, or that his loyalty had come at a cost. When she sees it, the film gives both characters a moment of real care. She values him. She respects him. She calls him amazing, and because it is Miranda, that one word feels enormous.

The film also gives Emily and Andy a sweet ending of their own. After everything that happened between them in the first film, there is something lovely about Emily finally admitting that she wanted them to be friends. It is funny, because of course Emily makes even friendship sound slightly inconvenient, but it gives their relationship a warmer full-circle feeling. After all these years, they may actually be pals.

Then Nigel tells Andy, “Forever my girl.” And yes, it is a tearful one. The line could easily have felt like simple fan service, but it works because Andy and Nigel’s bond has always been one of the warmest parts of this world. He was the person who saw her potential early on, helped her find her footing at Runway, and treated her with kindness when she needed it most. Seeing that affection still there years later is genuinely lovely.

The final image, with Andy, Nigel and Miranda all working in their offices as the camera pulls away from the building, gives the film a satisfying sense of closure without tying everything up too neatly. Runway carries on, only now there is a little more understanding between the people keeping it alive. For this story, that feels exactly right.

CultureCues Final Thoughts

The Devil Wears Prada 2 is not trying to recreate the original, and that is why it works. The nostalgia is there, and the film clearly knows why audiences care about Runway, but it gives Andy, Miranda, Emily and Nigel enough room to grow beyond the version we remember.

I loved it far more than I expected to. Seeing them together again is genuinely emotional, especially because the film allows time to have changed them without losing the spark that made them so beloved in the first place. There is a real warmth to the reunion, along with plenty of humour, and the affection for the original comes through without making the sequel feel trapped by it.

Meryl Streep remains fabulous as Miranda, while Anne Hathaway gives Andy the thoughtful, grown-up return she deserves. Emily Blunt is iconic all over again, and Stanley Tucci brings such care to Nigel that his return becomes one of the film’s most moving pleasures. It may not have quite the same bite as the first film, but it has a lot of heart and a clear love for these characters.

And oh, the fashion is fabulous. That’s all.

CultureCues Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)

The Devil Wears Prada 2 is released in UK cinemas on 1 May 2026.

<p>The post The Devil Wears Prada 2 Review: Runway Is Back, and So Is the Drama first appeared on culturecues.</p>

Michael was always going to arrive with noise around it. A Michael Jackson biopic could hardly do anything else. Directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson, the long-delayed film has become a major box office force, crossing more than $200 million worldwide and setting records for a biographical film opening. It has also opened up one of the sharpest critic-audience divides of the year, with critics largely unimpressed while fans have turned screenings into celebratory events.

That split says almost everything about the film itself. As cinema, Michael is frustratingly safe, often too polished and too careful to feel truly revealing. As a fan experience, though, it is much easier to understand why audiences are responding to it with such emotion. This is a film built around recognition: the songs, the steps, the silhouette, the glove, the hat, the impossible weight of a cultural figure who still feels larger than almost anyone around him.

A Biopic With Big Spectacle and Bigger Avoidance

The film follows Jackson from his childhood in The Jackson 5 through to the height of his solo superstardom, with the story ending around the late 1980s. That choice gives Michael a clear shape, but it also creates an obvious limitation. This is not a film that really wants to sit with the full complexity of Jackson’s life, public image or legacy. It gestures towards pain, pressure, childhood abuse, loneliness and fame, but it rarely stays with any of those things long enough to make them feel fully explored.

As the film moves forward, it becomes more interested in Michael Jackson the celebrity than Michael Jackson the person. We see the rise, the records and the famous stage recreations, but we do not always get a sense of what Michael is thinking, or what he wants beyond success. For a film about one of the most innovative entertainers of the twentieth century, Michael can feel oddly uninterested in the creative process.

Jaafar Jackson Is the Film’s Biggest Strength

The obvious talking point is Jaafar Jackson, and he is easily the film’s strongest asset. His resemblance to Michael is startling at times, but the performance works best when it goes beyond surface-level imitation. He captures the physical language beautifully: the stillness before movement, the delicacy of the speaking voice, the stage presence that could make a simple turn of the head feel choreographed.

The concert and video recreations will be a major reason fans return for repeat viewings, especially on the biggest screen possible. There is genuine pleasure in seeing those familiar moments rebuilt for the big screen, and at its best, Michael understands the thrill of watching a performer become almost mythic in front of an audience. For fans who never had the chance to see Jackson live, it is not hard to see why the film has been described by some viewers as the closest thing to a concert experience.

Nia Long brings warmth and steadiness as Katherine Jackson, while Colman Domingo gives Joe Jackson an intensity that cuts through the film’s more polished edges. The problem is that the script often flattens both characters into fixed roles: the loving mother, the cruel father, the loyal lawyer, the admiring executive. There is strong acting here, but not always enough complexity for the cast to really play with.

Where the Film Falls Short

The main issue with Michael is not that it is reverent. A music biopic can be openly affectionate and still be great. The issue is that it often feels managed. The film is so determined to present Jackson as gifted, wounded and misunderstood that it sometimes forgets to make him feel like a fully complicated person. That is especially noticeable in the way the film handles his eccentricities, his isolation and his relationships with the people around him. Instead of digging into the contradictions, it smooths them out.

There is also the unavoidable context of what the film leaves outside the frame. Because Michael ends before the later allegations against Jackson became part of the public record, it avoids the most controversial aspects of his legacy. Critics have strongly challenged that approach, particularly given the film’s estate-backed nature and its clearly affectionate framing. For some audiences, that will make the film feel incomplete. For others, especially devoted fans, the focus on music and performance will be exactly the point. That divide is not just a marketing story. It is baked into the film itself.

Why Fans Are Embracing It

Where critics see sanitisation, many audiences seem to see celebration. That does not make the criticism disappear, but it does explain why Michael has landed so strongly with fans. This is a film that gives them the Michael Jackson they came to remember: the performer, the perfectionist, the showman, the wounded child turned global superstar.

There is something undeniably powerful about watching a cinema audience respond to music they know by heart. When Billie Jean, Beat It, Thriller or Bad enter the film, the story almost becomes secondary. The songs do the emotional heavy lifting, and the audience fills in the rest with memory, nostalgia and feeling. That is both the film’s strength and its weakness. Michael works best when it becomes a shared cultural experience. It struggles when it has to be a drama.

CultureCues Final Thoughts

Michael is not the bold, searching biopic its subject arguably demanded. It is too cautious and too carefully controlled to sit with the discomfort at the heart of Jackson’s story. For all its scale, it can feel surprisingly narrow, more interested in preserving the legend than examining the person behind it. And yet, it is not without impact. Jaafar Jackson gives the film a real charge, Juliano Krue Valdi is quietly excellent as young Michael, and there are moments of spectacle that will absolutely hit the right note for fans. As a cinema event, it makes sense. As a piece of storytelling, it feels unfinished.

Michael is a complicated film about an even more complicated figure. It dazzles when it performs, falters when it tries to explain, and avoids too much to ever feel truly profound. But for audiences who came to sing, and see the King of Pop back on the big screen, it clearly gives them enough to keep dancing in the aisles.

CultureCues Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3.5/5)

Michael was released in UK cinemas on 22 April 2026.

<p>The post Michael Is a Box Office Giant, but Its Cultural Conversation Is Far from Simple first appeared on culturecues.</p>

A good rom-com is a surprisingly difficult thing to pull off, which is probably why it feels so refreshing when one arrives with enough charm, silliness and old-school romantic confidence to remind you why the genre works. You, Me & Tuscany is not trying to reinvent the romantic comedy, and honestly, that is part of its appeal. Directed by Kat Coiro and produced by Will Packer, the film feels inspired by the big, sun-soaked, slightly ridiculous romances that made us believe a holiday, a misunderstanding and one very handsome stranger could change your entire life.

Starring Halle Bailey as Anna and Regé-Jean Page as Michael, the film follows a New York house-sitter who has become very good at slipping into other people’s lives while avoiding her own. After a series of bad decisions, a chance meeting with charming Italian guest Matteo, played by Lorenzo de Moor, sends Anna off to Tuscany, where she finds herself caught in a very complicated situation involving an empty villa, a mistaken engagement, a suspicious family and Michael, Matteo’s cousin, who is immediately far too serious and far too attractive for this not to become a problem.

A Throwback To Big, Messy Rom-Coms

There is a real throwback feel to You, Me & Tuscany, with the film leaning into the kind of mistaken-identity chaos and big family energy that rom-coms have always loved. There is a clear While You Were Sleeping flavour to the set-up too, with Anna being welcomed into a family under very false pretences, along with enough sun-dappled scenery to make you consider booking annual leave before the credits roll.

The setup is silly, but that is not really a criticism. Rom-coms have always been built on people making choices that would be deeply stressful in real life but somehow feel completely acceptable when there is a vineyard, a family dinner and a beautiful Italian backdrop involved.

Anna’s arrival in Tuscany, and the misunderstanding that follows, is absolutely ridiculous, but it is also exactly the kind of ridiculousness the genre has always thrived on. The film leans into the fantasy of it all, from the warm family chaos to the dreamy setting, while keeping Anna’s emotional journey at the centre. Beneath the mistaken identity and romantic confusion, this is a story about a woman who has been hiding inside other people’s homes, routines and dreams because she has lost faith in her own.

Halle Bailey Gives The Film Its Heart

Halle Bailey brings a lovely warmth to Anna. She has that naturally luminous screen presence that makes the character easy to root for, even when Anna is making decisions that would make any sensible friend confiscate her passport. The film asks us to believe that Anna is a little lost, a little impulsive and very much in need of a reset, and Bailey finds the softness underneath that. Anna is not just running towards a romantic fantasy. She is running away from grief, disappointment and the version of herself she thought she would become before life knocked her off course. That gives the film a little more weight than the plot might suggest. Her dream of cooking in an Italian kitchen, and her desire to finally build a life that belongs to her, gives You, Me & Tuscany a personal thread that keeps it from becoming only a postcard romance.

Regé-Jean Page, meanwhile, slips comfortably into the role of Michael, the broody, vineyard-owner who initially seems like another complication in Anna’s already chaotic Tuscan detour, before gradually becoming the person who makes her question what she actually wants. Michael is serious, guarded and clearly carrying his own frustrations, which makes him a solid match for Anna’s brighter, more impulsive energy.

Sweet, Silly and Very Aware of the Assignment

The film is at its best when it lets itself be playful. The family misunderstandings, the over-the-top Italian hospitality, the fake engagement tension and the slow realisation that Anna may have fallen for the wrong man’s cousin all work because they are delivered with a kind of breezy confidence. There are moments where the stereotypes feel a little broad, and the script does not always dig as deeply as it could into the family dynamics or Michael’s backstory. Some of the humour is also not always laugh-out-loud funny, but the film has enough charm to carry it through the softer patches. It is the kind of rom-com where you know every turn before it happens, yet the predictability feels more comforting than lazy.

That is the thing about this genre. Surprise is lovely, but it is not always the point. Sometimes you want the misunderstanding, the lingering glance, the dramatic dinner, the slightly impossible setting and the moment where two people who have been pretending not to care finally run out of excuses. You, Me & Tuscany understands that pleasure, and even when it is a little uneven, it keeps the mood light enough to make it enjoyable.

Tuscany Does a Lot Of Heavy Lifting, In The Best Way

It would be impossible to talk about You, Me & Tuscany without mentioning the setting, because the film absolutely knows the power of a romantic landscape. The villas, kitchens, vineyards and golden light all help create the kind of escapist atmosphere the story needs. Is it all very glossy? Yes. Does it sometimes look like the Tuscany tourist board had a hand in the dream sequence? Also yes. But honestly, that is part of the appeal. A film like this needs to make the audience believe in the fantasy, and the setting does a lot of that work.

What makes it more enjoyable is the way the film ties Anna’s love of food and cooking into that world. Tuscany is not just a pretty backdrop for her. It represents the life she once wanted and the version of herself she has been too scared to chase. That gives the scenery a little more purpose, even when the film is clearly enjoying every sunlit angle it can find.

CultureCues Final Thoughts

You, Me & Tuscany is not perfect, but it is warm, sweet and properly watchable in a way that feels increasingly rare for a traditional rom-com. It borrows openly from the classics, leans into familiar tropes and never pretends to be anything other than a big-hearted romantic escape. Halle Bailey is a lovely lead, Regé-Jean Page brings the brooding romantic energy, and together they give the film enough pull to keep you invested. More than anything, You, Me & Tuscany feels like a reminder that rom-coms do not always need to be cleverer than the genre they belong to. Sometimes they just need to be sunny, swoony, a little bit messy and full of feeling. On that front, this one delivers.

You, Me & Tuscany was released in UK cinemas on 10 April 2026.

<p>The post You, Me & Tuscany Review: Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page Lead a Sweet, Old-School Rom-Com first appeared on culturecues.</p>

There is something very simple and very stressful at the heart of The Drama: how much of your past are you actually supposed to reveal before getting married? It is the kind of question that probably should not be pushed too hard in the final stretch before a wedding, but this film takes that exact fear and builds an entire squirming, high-anxiety comedy around it.

Directed by Kristoffer Borgli, The Drama follows Charlie and Emma, played by Robert Pattinson and Zendaya, a couple heading towards their wedding and, on the surface, looking like they have everything in place. Charlie is a rumpled British art historian living in the US, Emma is the kind of effortlessly magnetic woman who seems to have her life together, and their relationship begins with a slightly awkward but charming meet-cute in a coffee shop. Even in those early scenes, though, Borgli does not present it like a standard romcom. There is something uneasy in the framing, the sound design, the pauses, the way the camera hangs on people just a little too long. The film tells you very early that this is not going to stay comfortable.

When one confession changes everything

Things properly spiral during a drunken dinner with friends, when a game about the worst thing each person has ever done takes a much darker turn than expected. Emma shares something from her teenage years that completely changes the mood of the night and, more importantly, the way Charlie starts to see her. From there, the film becomes a nervous, often very funny, increasingly painful look at what happens when one revelation gets under the skin and refuses to leave.

Robert Pattinson and Zendaya hold it together

What makes the film work as well as it does is the way Pattinson and Zendaya play it. Pattinson is excellent here, leaning fully into Charlie’s panic, awkwardness and slow emotional collapse without ever making him completely ridiculous. He is twitchy, yes, but in a way that fits the film’s mood, and he keeps Charlie recognisable even as the situation gets more absurd.

Anxiety, awkwardness and a lot of very bad timing

There is also a lot of humour here, though it is not easy or crowd-pleasing in the usual way. It is awkward, cynical, often very dry, and rooted in the nightmare of oversharing, and social situations that suddenly become impossible to recover from. Borgli clearly enjoys pushing scenes until they become unbearable, then letting them tip into something funny again. That balance is hard to pull off, but for most of the film he manages it.

CultureCues Final Thoughts

What I liked most is that The Drama really does deliver on the title. It is anxious, messy, odd, and at times genuinely excruciating, but in a way that feels deliberate rather than random. It has that brittle, uncomfortable energy running through it the whole time, and even when the idea at the centre of it stretches credibility a little, the film stays watchable because the performances are so strong and the tone is so specific.

If there is one area where it loses a bit of its grip, it is the ending. After building so much tension and discomfort, it does not quite feel as sharp or as satisfying as the rest of the film, and it pulls back slightly just when it could have gone a bit harder. It is not enough to undo what works, but it does leave you wishing the final stretch had been as confident as everything leading up to it.

Still, The Drama is very much worth a watch. It is funny, strange, uncomfortable in the way it wants to be, and led by two performances that keep it compelling all the way through. Pattinson and Zendaya are great in it, and even when the film is making you squirm, it is doing so with purpose.

The Drama arrived in UK cinemas on 3 April 2026.

<p>The post The Drama Review: Zendaya and Robert Pattinson Make This Uncomfortable Wedding Spiral Worth Watching first appeared on culturecues.</p>

When Saturday Night Live UK was first announced, it was hard not to feel a little nervous about the whole thing. The American original is such a specific beast, built around live sketches, topical jokes, celebrity hosts and the kind of chaotic broadcast energy that can either feel thrilling or deeply awkward depending on the night. Translating that to a British audience was always going to be a risk, especially when UK sketch comedy on television has felt oddly quiet in recent years.

Thankfully, the first episode is much stronger than the most cynical predictions suggested. It is not perfect, and like all sketch shows, it has its hits and misses, but there is enough confidence, weirdness and genuine comic spark here to suggest Saturday Night Live UK could become a really exciting home for new British comedy talent.

Her opening monologue works as both a welcome and a gentle introduction to what this UK version is trying to be, with surprise appearances from Nicola Coughlan, Graham Norton, Michael Cera and Regé-Jean Page adding just the right amount of first-night sparkle.

The episode opens with a political cold open, with George Fouracres playing Keir Starmer as he is coached through a call with Donald Trump. It is a solid start, with funny touches in the idea of a deeply British, deeply awkward prime minister trying to handle a global crisis through polite panic. Still, the episode really finds its rhythm when it leans into the stranger, more specifically British sketches that give SNL UK its own flavour.

That is where the debut really starts to work. The best sketches tap into a slightly darker, more surreal British comic sensibility, whether through a disastrous Paddington-themed experience, a very committed spoof cosmetics advert, or a version of Shakespeare who returns from London with some deeply questionable new energy. There is also a lovely silliness to the way the show plays with familiar British references, from TV nostalgia to public figures to the general oddness of national life, because truly, we are not a normal country. When it hits, it feels less like a remake and more like a proper UK comedy show that happens to be borrowing the SNL structure.

The clearest highlight is Weekend Update, hosted by Ania Magliano and Paddy Young. The pair have that lovely live-TV energy where half the fun is watching them try not to laugh, and their chemistry gives the segment a real lift. It is easily one of the debut’s most confident sections, mixing topical bite with a bit of looseness and a sense that anything could go slightly wrong at any second.

The cast as a whole make a strong first impression, especially given the pressure of launching a live sketch show with this much attention on it. Some sketches work better than others, and a couple could probably be tighter, but that is also part of the strange joy of live television. You want a bit of unpredictability. You want the odd moment where everyone seems about two seconds away from bursting out laughing. The show already has great energy, and there is something genuinely exciting about watching a new group of comic performers find their rhythm in real time.

For a first episode, this is a promising start. There are a few rough edges, but there is also personality, confidence and a clear willingness to get a bit weird with it. More importantly, it does not come across like a copied-and-pasted American format with a few British references thrown on top. At its best, Saturday Night Live UK is funny, silly and properly British, with enough standout moments to make the whole experiment feel worth it.

If the show keeps trusting its own voice, backing its cast and letting the weirder sketches breathe, Sky could have something really fun here. Overall, the first episode delivered plenty of laughs, and more than enough reason to tune in again next week.

Saturday Night Live UK airs on Saturdays at 10pm on Sky One in the UK.

<p>The post Saturday Night Live UK Review: A Funny, Weird and Promising UK Debut first appeared on culturecues.</p>

After the whirlwind romance of Colin and Penelope in Season 3, Bridgerton returns for its fourth outing with a new leading love story and a fresh sense of energy. This time the spotlight falls on the second Bridgerton son, Benedict, whose charmingly rebellious spirit finally finds its match in a woman determined to live life on her own terms.

Across eight episodes, Season 4 blends sweeping romance, fairy-tale drama, and the lavish spectacle that has become the show’s signature. The result is a season that feels playful, heartfelt, and at times delightfully outrageous. In other words, this is Bridgerton at its most indulgent.

Benedict Takes Centre Stage

Luke Thompson’s Benedict has always been one of the series’ most intriguing characters, and Season 4 finally allows him to step out from the shadow of his siblings. From the opening episode, the show leans into Benedict’s restless personality. He is clearly uncomfortable with the rigid expectations of Regency society and eager to explore a life beyond its strict conventions.

His story begins with a chance encounter at a masked ball, where Benedict meets a mysterious “Lady in Silver.” The moment feels like something lifted straight from a fairy tale, and their connection is immediate. But the woman who captivates him vanishes before he can learn her identity.

When Benedict later encounters Sophie again, this time working as a maid, he has no idea she is the same woman from the ball. What begins as a romantic mystery gradually unfolds into a sweeping cross-class love story, raising the question of whether love can truly survive within the strict hierarchy of the Ton.

Sophie: A New Kind of Heroine

Much of the season’s charm comes from Yerin Ha’s performance as Sophie, who brings warmth, intelligence, and quiet resilience to the role. Sophie is neither a naïve dreamer nor a conventional Bridgerton heroine. Instead, she is pragmatic, self-aware, and fiercely protective of her independence.

This creates a compelling dynamic between the leads.

Where Benedict is impulsive and idealistic, Sophie constantly reminds him that love alone cannot erase the realities of class and social reputation. Their romance unfolds slowly across the season, filled with moments of longing, frustration, and tenderness that give the relationship real emotional weight.

CultureCues Standout Moment

Another storyline this season follows newlyweds Francesca and John as they return to society after their quiet and unconventional courtship. Their marriage brings a rare sense of calm to the Bridgerton world, with Francesca finding genuine comfort in John’s gentle and steady presence. They are soon joined by John’s spirited cousin Michaela, whose arrival adds a new dynamic to the household and quietly hints at future developments in Francesca’s story.

The season also begins to quietly touch on the deeper emotional journey that lies ahead for Francesca. In Julia Quinn’s novels, her story is closely tied to infertility and the complicated grief that can accompany it. The series hints at this future storyline when Francesca believes she may be pregnant, only for that hope to fade almost as quickly as it appeared.

One of the season’s most heartbreaking moments arrives in the aftermath of Lord John’s sudden death.

Francesca, usually calm and composed, tries desperately to hold herself together, containing her grief in stunned silence as the shock begins to settle in. But in a devastating scene with her mother Violet, the restraint finally breaks. Francesca collapses into raw, uncontrollable sobs, screaming and falling to the floor as the reality of her loss overwhelms her. The moment lands with even greater emotional weight because of the hope she had been quietly holding onto, making the loss of both her husband and the future she imagined feel almost unbearable.

It is a stunning performance from Hannah Dodd, capturing the shock and devastation of grief with heartbreaking honesty. For a moment, Bridgerton steps away from glittering ballrooms and romance to show something far more raw, and it is unforgettable.

Life and Love Across the Ton

While Benedict and Sophie’s romance anchors the season, the wider Bridgerton world continues to grow around them.

Now publicly revealed as Lady Whistledown, Penelope embraces a new chapter of marital bliss with Colin while balancing the joys of motherhood after welcoming their son, baby Elliot. Violet Bridgerton also finds herself stepping into a new chapter, as her own unexpected romance adds warmth and maturity to the season.

Elsewhere, familiar faces continue to shape the social season. Queen Charlotte and Lady Danbury remain at the centre of society, and their sharp, often hilarious friendship once again proves to be one of the show’s highlights. Eloise, meanwhile, remains as restless and independent as ever, still reluctant to fully embrace the marriage mart, while younger sister Hyacinth waits eagerly for the day she will finally make her own debut.

Anthony and Kate also make welcome appearances, the beloved couple returning briefly with their newborn son Edmund, a reminder that the Bridgerton family continues to grow.

New characters bring fresh intrigue to the Ton, particularly Sophie’s formidable stepmother Lady Araminta Gun (Katie Leung) and her daughters, whose schemes provide much of the season’s tension. At the same time, Bridgerton spends more time below stairs than ever before, giving the maids, footmen, and household staff their own moments in the spotlight.

These threads occasionally crowd the narrative, but they help remind us that Bridgerton is not just about one romance. It is a sprawling world of families, secrets, and society at every level.

The Signature Bridgerton Spectacle

Visually, Season 4 is as dazzling as ever.

The production design remains a highlight, from glittering ballrooms to flowing gowns and orchestral covers of modern songs that have become a Bridgerton signature. The opening masquerade ball is particularly memorable, setting the tone for the season with its sense of romance, mystery, and playful fantasy.

Costume design once again steals the show, embracing the bold colours and dramatic silhouettes that make the series feel both rooted in history and delightfully dreamlike.

A Love Story Worth the Wait

As the season builds toward its finale, Benedict and Sophie’s romance reaches its defining moment. Faced with the expectations of the Ton and the realities of class, Benedict must decide whether he will follow society’s rules or his heart. In choosing Sophie, despite her position as a maid, he finally rejects the rigid world he has long felt trapped by. Yet Bridgerton still finds a way to smooth Sophie’s path of being accepted into society.

The payoff feels earned, bringing their Cinderella-inspired romance to a satisfying and heartfelt conclusion.

While the series has always thrived on fantasy and spectacle, this season finds a satisfying balance between fairy-tale romance and genuine emotional sincerity.

Luke Thompson brings effortless charm and vulnerability to Benedict, while Yerin Ha matches him beat for beat with a performance full of warmth, resilience, and quiet strength. Together they make Benedict and Sophie one of the series’ most compelling couples yet.

The result is a season filled with romance, drama, and emotion, reminding us why Bridgerton remains such irresistible escapism. In a world that often feels far too serious, returning to the Ton for another season of love and scandal remains a joy. And if the series continues delivering stories like this, the ball will be worth attending for many seasons to come.

<p>The post Bridgerton Season 4 Review: A Cinderella Inspired Romance That Delivers first appeared on culturecues.</p>

There is something comforting about a rom-com that isn’t trying to reinvent love, heartbreak, friendship, the holiday wardrobe, or the laws of emotional timing. People We Meet on Vacation, Netflix’s adaptation of Emily Henry’s bestselling novel, arrives at a time when traditional romantic comedies feel strangely rare. We still get romance, of course, but the old-school kind of rom-com, built on chemistry, longing, beautiful locations and two people being painfully obvious about their feelings to everyone except themselves, has become much harder to find.

Thankfully, this film knows the assignment. Directed by Brett Haley, the film stars Emily Bader as Poppy and Tom Blyth as Alex, two former best friends who reunite in Barcelona for a wedding after two years of silence. The story moves between the present and the pair’s past summer trips, slowly filling in the gaps of their friendship, their fallout and the feelings they have both spent years trying not to say out loud. The film is based on Henry’s 2021 novel, bringing her sun-soaked, slow-burn romance to screen.

A Familiar Set-Up, But A Welcome One

On paper, People We Meet on Vacation is very much playing in familiar territory. Poppy is bright, spontaneous and full of energy. Alex is quieter and more reserved, with a broody, slightly too-serious edge that makes him seem like someone who has planned his whole life carefully, right down to the favourite mug and strong opinions on bookshops, until Poppy starts pulling him into the brighter, messier parts of life.

They are opposites. They become friends. They go on yearly summer trips. They do not admit what is clearly happening between them for an almost impressive amount of time. Is it predictable? Absolutely. But predictability is not always a flaw in a rom-com. Sometimes, it is part of the pleasure. You know where the story is going, but you still want to see how it gets there, and more importantly, whether the characters make you care enough to go along with it. For the most part, Poppy and Alex do.

Emily Bader And Tom Blyth Carry The Film

The film works best when it simply lets Bader and Blyth be together. Their chemistry has that slightly awkward, lived-in quality that makes the friendship feel believable before the romance properly takes over.

Bader gives Poppy a warmth that stops her from becoming too much of a standard “quirky girl” character. Early on, there is a risk she could tip into overly manufactured chaos, the kind of character who exists mainly to shake up a serious man’s life. But as the film settles, Bader lets you see the insecurity underneath Poppy’s brightness. She is not just bubbly for the sake of it. She is someone who fills the space because she is terrified of being left in it alone. That is where the film finds something more personal and affecting. Poppy’s fear of being too much, too loud, too needy or too hard to love gives the story a real emotional centre. For viewers who recognise that feeling, even slightly, it lands.

Blyth, meanwhile, brings a quiet charm to Alex. After playing a much darker, colder figure in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, it is genuinely lovely to see him shift into romantic lead mode. Alex could have felt flat in the wrong hands, but Blyth gives him a softness and a dry, hesitant humour that works beautifully opposite Bader’s brighter energy. Together, they make the film feel bigger than its fairly simple shape.

It Could Have Used More Breathing Room

The main issue with People We Meet on Vacation is not that it does anything badly. It is more that you can feel how much story has been squeezed into a two-hour film. Because the narrative moves between the present-day wedding in Barcelona and years of past summer trips, some of the emotional build-up can feel slightly rushed. We get glimpses of Poppy and Alex’s vacations, their jokes, their closeness and their almost-moments, but there are times when you want the film to slow down and let those years breathe a little more.

The criticism that this might have worked better as a limited series is fair. A few extra episodes could have given each trip its own emotional weight and made the final stretch feel even richer. There is enough here to understand why these two matter to each other, but there are also moments where you can sense the film lightly skipping over material that probably had more room to shine on the page. It doesn’t ruin the experience, it just leaves you wanting more time with them, which is not the worst problem for a romance to have.

A Rom-Com That Actually Feels Romantic

What People We Meet on Vacation gets right is tone. It is bright, easy to watch and emotionally sincere without becoming too sugary. The locations help, of course. Barcelona gives the present-day story a sun-soaked glow, while the flashbacks bring that holiday-memory feeling where everything seems a little funnier, warmer and more important because you know it did not last forever.

There is also a refreshing lack of cynicism here, with the film never seeming embarrassed to be romantic as it lets longing sit on the characters’ faces and gives small gestures the space to actually matter. It lets friendship be messy, intense and complicated before it becomes something else. That feels important, because a lot of recent rom-coms have either leaned too hard into gloss or forgotten to make the central couple genuinely likeable. This one understands that the audience needs to root for Poppy and Alex not just because the plot tells us to, but because they seem happier and more themselves when they are together.

CultureCues Standout Moment

The standout moment is the dance scene in New Orleans, when Poppy and Alex are posing as newlyweds and fully leaning into the ridiculousness of it all. Set to Paula Abdul’s “Forever Your Girl”, it is exactly the kind of rom-com sequence that could have felt too cute or too cringe, but instead becomes one of the film’s best moments.

What makes the scene work is not just the dancing itself, though that is genuinely fun. It is the way it captures the whole energy of Poppy and Alex’s relationship: silly, intimate, slightly embarrassing, and full of feeling neither of them is quite ready to name. There are playful nods to classic screen romances too, with the sequence borrowing a little of that Dirty Dancing spirit, while also leaning into a broader, goofy physical comedy that suits Bader and Blyth so well. It is the sort of scene that makes you smile before you even realise you are doing it. It understands one of the golden rules of the genre: sometimes the best romantic moments are not grand speeches, but two people letting themselves look ridiculous together and somehow making it feel like the most natural thing in the world.

Final Thoughts

People We Meet on Vacation is not a groundbreaking rom-com, but it does not need to be. It is warm, funny, charming and carried by two leads who make you believe in the friendship as much as the romance. Yes, it could have used more build-up. Yes, some of the flashback structure feels a little too compressed. But when the film works, it really works.

As a book fan, and as someone who was really looking forward to seeing one of Emily Henry’s romances make the jump to screen, this feels like a promising start. It has made me even more excited to see what comes next from the Emily Henry adaptation universe, and as someone who already loves her books, I’m very ready for more of that warmth, humour and heart on screen. Get your snacks, gather the group chat or your book club, and let this one do what rom-coms are supposed to do: make you laugh, make you swoon a little, and make you believe, just for a couple of hours, that timing might work out after all.

People We Meet on Vacation was released on Netflix on 9 January 2026.

<p>The post People We Meet on Vacation Review: A Breezy, Big-Hearted Rom-Com first appeared on culturecues.</p>

There is something almost delightfully improbable about Heated Rivalry becoming one of the most passionately adored shows around right now. On paper, it sounds niche in a way that should have kept it firmly in cult territory: a Canadian adaptation of Rachel Reid’s queer hockey romance novels, made for Crave, centred on two closeted ice hockey stars sneaking around, falling for each other, and trying not to implode under the pressure of a sport that still does not leave much room for softness. And yet here it is, growing into a genuine word-of-mouth phenomenon, drawing in viewers far beyond its expected audience and proving that television does not have to be loud, cynical or backed by a massive budget to hit hard.

What starts as a hook-up story between rivals quickly reveals itself to be something richer, sadder, sexier and much more carefully made than the premise alone might suggest. Yes, the show is steamy. Yes, the chemistry is ridiculous. Yes, it absolutely knows the appeal of putting two beautiful men in close proximity and letting the tension do the rest. But Heated Rivalry also has real emotional depth, proper character work, and an unusual amount of patience for a six-episode season. It trusts that audiences will stay with the quieter beats, the small looks, the hesitations, the silences, and that trust pays off.

A love story that goes deeper than the premise

Starring Hudson Williams as Shane Hollander and Connor Storrie as Ilya Rozanov, the series follows the pair across several years as a secret relationship begins in lust, deepens into something far more complicated, and keeps colliding with the demands of professional hockey and the culture around it. Their public personas are all rivalry, swagger and competition, while in private they are building something intimate, unstable and increasingly impossible to contain.

The beauty of Heated Rivalry is that it never treats that tension as a gimmick. It understands the fantasy of the set-up, but it also understands the cost of it. Shane and Ilya are not just archetypes filling positions in a romance. They are specific, wounded, funny, frustrating people, both trying to work out what they can admit to each other and what they still cannot say out loud, even to themselves. That specificity is what makes the show so addictive. You may arrive for the secrecy, the angst and the sex, but you stay because the relationship feels lived in, layered and real.

Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie are phenomenal

A huge part of why the show works this well comes down to its two leads, who are doing far more than simply looking good on screen together, though to be fair they do that too. Williams gives Shane a beautifully restrained presence, one that could easily have been flattened into coldness in less careful hands. Instead, his performance is full of detail. The avoidance of eye contact, the flatness in certain social exchanges, the fixations, the discomfort with emotional expression, all of it builds a character who feels thoughtful and distinct rather than explained to death. There is something especially impressive about how much Williams communicates through the tiniest shifts in expression. A jaw clench or a slight mouth twitch tells you more than a long speech ever could.

The show hints at Shane’s neurodivergence without turning it into a giant signpost, and that lightness of touch is part of what makes the performance land so strongly. At the same time, Shane’s identity as a mixed-race Canadian player with Japanese and European heritage adds another layer to the character, particularly in the sense of pressure he carries within a very white sporting world. The series touches on the representational weight placed on him and how much he is expected to embody progress simply by existing in that space, and that helps stop Shane from reading as just another perfectionist athlete pushing himself too hard.

That said, this is one area where the show feels slightly less probing than it could be. There is room for a more searching exploration of how Shane’s cultural identity and sexual identity intersect, especially in an environment as traditionally masculine and exclusionary as elite hockey. Heated Rivalry gestures towards that dynamic, but never really sits in it for long. Perhaps that is a deliberate choice, perhaps even a relief, but it does leave the sense that there is another layer still waiting to be properly explored.

Storrie, meanwhile, is doing astonishing work as Ilya. It would have been easy to let the character become all swagger and sex appeal, especially since the show is very aware of how charismatic he is, but Storrie keeps adding depth to every scene. His Ilya is seductive, arrogant, wounded, funny, deeply repressed and often far sadder than he first appears. There is a looseness and confidence to him in some moments, then a completely different stillness in others, especially when family, trauma or fear begin to creep in. It is a performance full of movement, not just physically but emotionally.

His command of the Russian dialogue is hugely impressive, and there are scenes where the language itself becomes part of the emotional architecture of the character. One phone monologue in particular is devastating, not because the show overplays it, but because Storrie lets the weight of it build naturally. He also has this tiny eye movement, a sort of bounce when Ilya is processing something difficult or trying to respond, and once you notice it, it becomes one of the most fascinating details in the whole performance. Alongside Williams, he turns Heated Rivalry into a genuine actor’s showcase.

It is sexy, but that is not all it is

There has been a lot of conversation around the show’s love scenes, and understandably so, because they are some of the best-shot and best-handled intimate scenes on television in recent memory. They are hot without feeling cheap, explicit without feeling exploitative, and there is a level of care to them that many much bigger productions still somehow fail to manage. They reveal character, they shift power, they deepen emotional stakes. They are not just there to make the trailer more exciting.

What also makes them stand out is the way consent is built into the storytelling. The dynamic between Shane and Ilya may lean into dominance and submission, but it is always framed through mutual trust, checking in, and enthusiastic consent. That matters, and it is one of the reasons the show has connected so strongly with women and queer audiences. Heated Rivalry understands that intimacy can be erotic and safe at the same time, and that treating those things as opposites is lazy writing.

It also deserves saying that intimacy coordinators matter, and Heated Rivalry is one of the clearest recent examples of why. The care around these scenes is visible on screen. Nothing feels careless, and nothing feels thrown in simply for shock value. That attention has helped the series build a romance that feels genuinely grown-up rather than merely provocative.

Smart direction, rich visuals, and a real sense of craft

Jacob Tierney deserves enormous credit here, because Heated Rivalry does not feel tossed together to chase a trend. It feels considered. It feels tender. It feels like a show made by people who understand both the romance genre and the grammar of television, which should not be rare, but sometimes is. The writing gives the story room to breathe, and the direction understands when to let the audience sit with a look, a pause or an unresolved feeling rather than rushing ahead.

Jackson Parrell’s cinematography is another huge asset. The series is beautifully shot in a way that never screams for attention but constantly enriches what is on screen. There is an elegance to the visual storytelling that makes the whole thing feel more cinematic than a lot of streaming television with three times the budget. The soundtrack helps too, weaving in Canadian artists and giving the series a strong sonic identity of its own.

Part of the reason the show rewards rewatching is that it is doing so much visually and emotionally at once. This is not background television. It asks you to pay attention, and it rewards that attention generously. There are details in performances, camera choices, music cues and recurring emotional patterns that make the whole thing feel unusually complete for such a short season.

CultureCues Standout Moment

The club scene at the end of episode four is the moment Heated Rivalry fully tips over from great to unforgettable. Shane and Ilya are both there with other people, both trying to go through the motions, both pretending they can keep a lid on what is very obviously still burning underneath, and the whole sequence turns that emotional misery into something almost hypnotic. Bathed in pinks, blues and purples, the scene traps them in the same space while making it painfully clear that the only people they can really see are each other.

And then there is the music. The use of t.A.T.u.’s “All the Things She Said” is inspired in exactly the right overdramatic, emotionally devastating way, the kind of needle drop that probably had every millennial and queer viewer nearly falling off the couch. It is not there as a wink or a gimmick either. It works because it taps straight into the ache of the scene, before morphing into the Harrison dance cover and pushing the whole thing into an even more heightened, anxious place.

What makes the sequence land so hard is how little anyone says. The eye contact does the work, the music does the work, and the miserable performance of desire with other partners only makes their connection feel stronger and sadder. As the episode moves away from the club, that same emotional desolation bleeds into the scenes that follow, turning lust into something colder, heavier and much more painful. It is stylish, loaded, and so sharply done that it instantly becomes one of the show’s defining moments.

Final thoughts

What Heated Rivalry really proves is that romance on television does not need to be treated as lesser, and queer romance especially does not need to come wrapped in tragedy to be taken seriously. The show is sexy, yes, but it is also tender, emotionally intelligent, sharply performed and made with an unusual amount of care. It understands the pull of fantasy, while also grounding that fantasy in character and consequence.

There are places where it could dig even deeper, particularly around Shane’s racial identity and how that shapes his place in the sport and the world around him, but even with that reservation, this is still one of the most compelling and beautifully made new shows I have seen in a while. It is heartfelt without becoming saccharine, explicit without becoming gratuitous, and romantic without losing sight of the real pressure surrounding these characters.

You hear about Heated Rivalry at first and assume it is just a horny little secret-hook-up drama about hockey players. And to be fair, it absolutely is that. But it is also far more than that, which is exactly why people have fallen so hard for it. Tender, layered, sharply directed and led by two excellent performances, Heated Rivalry is not just worth the hype. It is the rare show that makes the hype feel too small.

The first season of Heated Rivalry premiered on 28 November 2025 on Crave in Canada and HBO Max in the US, before arriving in the UK on Sky Atlantic on 10 January 2026.

<p>The post Heated Rivalry Review: The Little Canadian Hockey Romance Changing the Game first appeared on culturecues.</p>