THE WEEK IN REVIEW
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.overview
What do you do when your home life suffers because you're always at the office? Get cloned, of course. Four Michael Keatons share the screen with Andie MacDowell in this new comedy from Harold "Groundhog Day" Ramis.
critical view
Ryan Gilbey was unimpressed. "It's nothing more than another showcase for Keaton's slim talents." "Four Keatons prove no funnier than one," opined the Times: "Groundhog Day was developed with surprising warmth and inventiveness. Multiplicity opts for guffaws and is often mean-spirited." Time Out's Tom Charity was more charitable, however, describing the film as "a midlife-crisis comedy about masculinity, mortality and the roads not taken. The development is funny and smart". The Guardian remarked on the lack of a group sex scene.
on view
112 mins, cert 12. They should have called it Multiplexity
our view
A dazzling psychological critique of a workaholic society? Hardly. Those responsible should go forth and multiply.
THE PLAY
WHO'S AFRAID OF
VIRGINIA WOOLF?
Most people probably best remember Edward Albee's acidic portrait of a marriage in crisis from the 1966 film, with Burton and Taylor. This production finds Diana Rigg and David Suchet hosting the dinner party from hell.
critical view
"Rigg and David Suchet are splendid at communicating the depths of George and Martha's vulnerable dependency upon one another," enthused Paul Taylor. "Kenneth Tynan said that, brilliant and funny though the play was, it left the watcher's emotions 'unbruised and unmoved'... Not last night," cheered the Times. Likewise the Telegraph: "Though doubts about the play may remain, you stagger out of the terrific production feeling both shattered and oddly uplifted."
on view
Battle is engaged nightly at the Almeida, Islington, London N1 (0171-359 4404) to 26 Oct
our view
Howard Davies's revival confirms that Albee's play is one of the most exhilarating and cathartic experiences post-war theatre has
to offer
THE EXHIBITION
MAPPLETHORPE
A retrospective for the sensualist equally at home photographing penises or pistils. A show that includes homoerotic and S&M images ironically made headlines when a shot of a naked five-year-old girl was withdrawn on police advice.
critical view
"Given his reputation, the majority of Mapplethorpe's pictures now seem almost shockingly devoid of sexual intensity," mused Andrew Graham- Dixon. "He was not, as is sometimes claimed, one of the very greatest photographers, but he is a very good one," he concluded. "By dying far too soon, he deprived contemporary photography of an intense singular vision which surely would have deepened," argued the Times. Not so, said the Daily Telegraph. "He reduces his male models to genitals or buttocks, degrading and dehumanising them."
on view
In conjunction with the Antony Gormley exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, London SE1 to 17 Nov
our view
Had the artist lived a different life, the semi-religious quality of his work might have been noted more often. His truest desire was for self-transcendence
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments