Five films to see at Glasgow Film Festival

Mark Wahlberg as Sgt. Tommy Saunders in Patriots Day

Elle

Described by Paul Verhoeven himself as “amoral”, the director’s latest stars Isabelle Huppert as the no-nonsense CEO of a videogame company who becomes embroiled in a game of cat-and-mouse with her rapist. Love or hate Verhoeven, there’s no denying the brilliance of Huppert’s Oscar-nominated performance.

18-19 February

Patriots Day

The 2013 Boston Marathon bombing gets the rigorous action docu-drama treatment, courtesy of Deepwater Horizon director Peter Berg and Berg-regular Mark Wahlberg, above. Expect taut action – and lots of dropped consonants.

20-21 February

Graduation

Romanian director Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) returns with this horribly compelling family drama about the virus-like spread of corruption in modern day Europe.

23-24 February

My Life as a Courgette

One of this year’s Oscar nominees for best animated feature, this French stop-motion family film – about a troubled orphan who finds kinship with his fellow misfits – was adapted by Girlhood writer/director Céline Sciamma, so expect its moments of uplift to come tinged with a tender, melancholic, more truthful edge.

17 -18 February

Kuso

The word ‘kuso’ is an all-purpose Japanese swearword – like ‘shit’. For Flying Lotus – aka musician Steven Ellison – it’s an appropriate-sounding title for his fecal-matter-obsessed vision of America in meltdown. Fresh from Sundance, where it caused mass walkouts, this might be your one chance to see the “grossest movie ever made”. n

24 February