CINEMA

Next Door Cert: 15, 1hr 32mins ★★★★☆ Deadly Cuts Cert: 15, 1hr 30mins ★★★☆☆ The Addams Family 2 Cert: PG, 1hr 33mins ★★☆☆☆

With Daniel Craig and No Time To Die dominating UK box offices, it can be difficult even to find alternatives. But they are out there, and some are definitely worth tracking down.

Leading the way is Next Door, a tense and absorbing German psychological drama that sees Daniel Brühl – best known for Rush, Inglourious Basterds and his role as Zemo in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – playing a successful actor travelling from Berlin to London to audition for a film. But when, on the way to the airport, he drops into a local cafe for a coffee, he is accosted by an oddly tactless stranger.

Turns out, the unsettling Bruno (Peter Kurth) is a neighbour, and knows an awful lot about Daniel and his wife, as is slowly and painfully revealed.

Many of you will remember Angeline Ball from The Commitments – she played the lovely, bubble-permed Imelda – although in truth she’s hardly stopped working since. But 30 years on, she’s back in another film of Dublin-based workingclass life, Deadly Cuts, a black comedy based around the cutthroat world of er, hairdressing. She plays Michelle, owner of a salon in a rough, run-down part of the city. But she’s popular with her loyal customers and with her young team of stylists, who dream of competing in one of Ireland’s top hairdressing competitions.

With young thugs from the area demanding protection money and a local councillor keen to close them down, they surely don’t stand a chance. Slightly uneven, a little over-the-top at times, but good fun once you’ve tuned in to the accents.

Disappointment of the week is The Addams Family 2, which may still have a voice cast led by Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron and Chloë Grace Moretz but is as wretchedly unfunny as the 2019 original.

And no, the facts that this time around the cartoon ghouls are going on a family-bonding road trip, no one is quite sure who Wednesday’s father is and the truly charmless Uncle Fester might be turning into an octopus don’t make any difference.

Look out for a fleetingly amusing spoof of the classic horror Carrie, which, alas, is all too quickly gone.