Monday Night Cinema

La Chimera

Tuscany, the 1980s. Englishman Arthur (Josh O’Connor - The Crown), recently released from prison, is drawn back towards the hometown of his former lover Beniamina. Beniamina is nowhere to be found - perhaps she’s even dead - but Arthur does manage to reconnect with the rest of her family. Adrift and living in a shack, Arthur makes a living through his almost supernatural sense for discovering long-lost Etruscan artefacts. He falls in with a group of grave-robbers and embarks on a series of increasingly risky thefts.

The new film from Alice Rohrwacher (Happy as Lazzaro) is a fresh, engrossing adventure film that’s simultaneously gritty and magical; sad and romantic; satisfying and unpredictable. It is simply a film to lose yourself in for two wonderful hours.