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I did not want to see The Wrestler. I don’t enjoy wrestling and only went to see it with the promise of Wagamama afterward. What I saw was not a film about wrestling but a powerful character study that had me gripped for the duration and left me in a happy daze.

Similarly Black Swan is not really about ballet, Darren Aronofsky return with another powerful character study, this time all the more tense, deranged, fragile and more than a little sexy. Like all great films it is incredibly involving, enveloping you in the film and keeping you on edge for the full 100 minutes.

Natalie Portman is at her best as the frail ballerina who gradually finds her confidence and loses herself in the process. Portman is no longer anyone’s dream girl, instead an actress on top of her game. Vincent Cassel and Mila Kunis offer able support, Kunis as the rival free-spirit ballerina and Cassel as the man who helps Portman to achieve perfection.

Views are split about whether Black Swan is a cinematic masterpiece or an over-theatrical mistake. I am firmly in the first camp. I’m sure it has its flaws, but I was too engrossed to notice.

Black Swan is on general release on 11th February 2011, so you can make your mind up for yourself. In the meantime you have our trailer dissection to study.

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Catfish is a documentary that is best watched without knowing too much about it. It focuses on three friends who live in New York city and share an office. They are creative types and often film themselves in the aim of making short films.

The film begins by covering one of the friends, Yaniv, as he corresponds with a young girl who has started to paint his photographs. Before long he is chatting with her mum on the phone and flirting with her older sister on Facebook. What happens then is the bit that is worth discovering yourself as you follow the friends on a journey.

At times I was genuinely unsettled and a little scared. While Catfish may not be at all well shot for the most part it certainly has a story to tell that is unnerving but also quite moving.

Certainly one to watch if you’ve ever made friends online.

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Submarine is pretty great.

Here we have a British film that is not gritty, involves zero gangsters and is not a bland romantic comedy. Instead we have a story of a young boy worried because his parents haven’t had their dimmer switch down halfway for months and who is forced into a relationship by a girl at school, who then dictates what he writes about her in his diary.

Submarine is written and directed by Richard Ayoade (Moss from The IT Crowd), and both are done in a playful way which show a love for film and a real raw talent.

The two young leads Craig Roberts and Yasmin Paige carry the film well, easily matching the more established supporting cast which includes Paddy Considine and Sally Hawkins.

Submarine is a fun and effortless watch that does not lack in heart. It has no UK release yet but when it does I suggest you go and try not to smile.

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I was looking forward to It’s Kind of a Funny Story, it looked like a funny heartwarming tale about people in a psychiatirc hospital possibly with an indie soundtrack, but it let me down and fell pretty flat.

The main problem is the main character Craig played by Keir Gilchrist, he is supposed to be depressed and suicidal but going by everything we’re shown he seems perfectly fine. This completely deflates the entire plot as he ends up completely fine too having no development at all, apart from discovering a love for making quite unimpressive paintings.

The film also features too may twee cutaways, far too deliberate efforts to make the film “quirky” that just come off as desperate. These include a pointless animated sequences and a glam rock music video for the entire duration of a lip-syncing performance of Under Pressure.

While Craig may be a dull character, some of the other patients provide much more intrigue. Both Emma Robert’s Noelle and Zach Galifianakis’ Bobby are interesting, fragile characters whose journeys inside the hospital would have been much better subjects for the film.

It has its moments but it a deeply flawed and overly self-conscious film.

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It’s the new biggest surprise of the festival. The King’s Speech is at first sight another stuffy period piece looking at a period of English history while in reality it is a touching and, most importantly, fun film with some soon to be award winning performances.

When did Colin Firth become so good? Firth, Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush are all great in their roles, bringing a bit of humanity to historical figures. Timothy Spall, Guy Pearce and Michael Gambon aren’t too shabby either, and Ramona Marquez from Outnumbered pops up as a young Princess Margaret.

At the press conference following the screening director Tom Hooper described the historical story of abdication and war as the “A plot” and the relationship between Firth and Rush as the Duke/King underwent speech therapy as the “B plot” but I disagree. What sold the film was their sessions together and the fun the two actors had with it. I’ve never heard people laugh so hard at a period piece before.

That’s it really, the film is very good and more fun than you’d expect.

Here are some photos from the press conference which you can watch here:

The King’s Speech is on general release on 7th January 2010.

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