PRESENTED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE ANU FASHION AND BEAUTY SOCIETY

Unlike us mere mortals, it seems that actors either continue prolifically appearing in films well into old age (Michael Caine, Judi Dench et al.) or fade into obscurity. It’s not often an actor gets to choose when to bow out, but that’s what Daniel Day-Lewis has opted to do with Phantom Thread.

Reuniting with director Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood), Day-Lewis plays Reynolds Woodcock, a renowned dressmaker in 1950s London who plies his glamorous trade alongside his confidant sister (Manville). As precise as his tailoring is the way Woodcock conducts his life, with women providing inspiration and companionship only as and when necessary. That is until the workaholic and perennial bachelor crosses paths with Alma (Krieps), a waitress whom he soon makes a fixture in his life as both muse and lover. For now, at least.

If this is indeed Daniel Day-Lewis’s screen swansong, the three-time Oscar winner has certainly found a role to absolutely devour. And Krieps holds her own as the strong-willed Alma, forced to take drastic measures to keep Woodcock’s attention. A strange yet altogether intoxicating film, Phantom Thread and its finely woven tapestry of romance and mystery is well worth trying on for size.

Jo Nesbø has written a series of very popular crime novels featuring fictional Norwegian police detective Harry Hole (pronounced ‘who-lee’), of which 2007’s “The Snowman” is the seventh. In this, the first film adaptation of a Harry Hole novel, Michael Fassbender takes on the central role of the chain smoking, heavy drinking, unorthodox detective.

A prologue set in 1980 shows a woman in a lovers’ tryst in an isolated house, which ends badly. Twenty-four years later, during the first snow of winter, Hole is investigating a couple of apparently unrelated disappearances of married mothers. The only link between the two cases is a mysterious snowman constructed outside their homes. Along with new recruit Katrina Bratt (Ferguson), Hole embarks upon a twisting road to discover the secrets of the snowman killer in order to prevent an unthinkable evil from striking again when the next snow falls.

Come along for an exciting and thrill-laden ride into the darker side of Norway. You may never look at a snowman the same way again.