Film: Friends with Kids

Jennifer Westfeldt writes, directs and stars in this relationship comedy about two singeletons who decide to have a child together, hoping their plutonic-only love will sidestep the negative affect kids have on relationships. It’s a tad overlong, but witty, funny and shrewdly observed, nonetheless.
 
 On general release from June 29

Film: Killer Joe

Matthew McConaughey is typically the abbed pin-up star of rom coms such as Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past: the good-looking guy who saves the day and gets the girl. He is not, usually, the maniacal, predatory hitman, with a penchant for young girls, and a general disregard for life and morals. Yet he excels in exactly that role in William Friedkin’s gloriously twisted comedy thriller.
McConaughey is Detective Joe Cooper, who’s hired as an assassin by Emile Hirsch’s drug dealer, Chris, to kill his mother so he might claim an inheritance. Predictably, though, things don’t go to plan, and Joe begins a dubious relationship with Chris’s younger sister Dottie, as part of his ‘retainer’ until he is paid in full. Adapted by Tracey Letts’ from her own novel, this is a sleazy trailer park tale, loaded with double crosses by dumbasses whose incompetence is the only thing for which they can be relied upon.

Film: Your Sister’s Sister

US indie-cinema darling Lynn Shelton follows up her Sundance-award-winning Humpday with this low-key comedy-drama. Mark Duplass retreats to best pal Emily Blunt’s remote island holiday home after his brother’s death, only to find her sister has had the same idea.  A warm, funny and touching exploration of relationships and how complicated they can be.

 On general release June 29.