Ray & Liz

What distinguishes "Ray & Liz" is its ability to find strange tonal nuances within that terrible sadness; bleak as it is, it's remarkably devoid of bitterness or rancor, and even its most despairing passages are flecked with humor and hope.

Billingham's famous photos are tough-minded and emotionally painful, silent by virtue of their medium. And his live-action version offers a similar experience.

Gorgeously photographed on 16mm, Richard Billingham's Ray and Liz counters the grubby, quasi-authentic tenets of so-called British miserablism with humor, beauty, and a sensuality that in no way dilutes the hardships and neglect at its core

We often say art "cuts close to the bone," but in its depiction of clinking liquor bottles and drawers of unopened rent notices soaked in dog urine, Ray & Liz slices clean through that bone.

Performed with absolute commitment by its cast (Justin Salinger and Ella Smith play the younger versions of the title characters), "Ray & Liz" is a quietly harrowing movie.

With its very tamped-down emotion, Bellingham's decision not to attempt insight or empathy is the most telling display of the consequences of his story.

The domestic portrait with which it reconstructs fragments of Billingham's childhood and his dysfunctional family seems infinitely flat to me. Full review in Spanish

Even the presence of memory and the past show that no evil lasts forever. At least for Richard and Jason. [Full review in Spanish]

Whilst it doesn't follow a concrete narrative, Ray & Liz is a moving portrayal of a family trying to stay above the poverty line.

In 108 spare, harrowing minutes, we see the walls closing in on a family that's given up, never equipped to deal with the despair of Margaret Thatcher's Britain.