IDENTIKIT no stars

 Generally regarded as the worst picture Liz Taylor ever made "Identikit" aka "The Driver's Seat" barely saw the light of day and virtually disappeared until now but then Taylor was always a force to be reckoned with and the director Giuseppe Patroni Griffi was no slouch either so could it be as bad as its reputation? Well, frankly yes. Both the plot and the screenplay are preposterously daft but if you read it as the imaginings of a highly unstable woman, in its crazy way, perhaps it makes sense and when Liz goes over the top she's always worth a look.

On the other hand, for a film clearly dealing with mental illness, you could say it's in the worst possible taste. It plays in English with most of the supporting cast dubbed, (it's an Italian production), so maybe it suffers in translation. If there's comedy here it's mostly unintentional and God only knows what audience it was intended for or what author Muriel Spark thought of it, (she wrote the original novel). A curiosity at best.

ANORA ****

 There are very few directors who can make a scene feel both very funny and deeply moving at the same time and almost within the same frame and yet it's a knack that Sean Baker seems to have perfected over a remarkable if relatively short career. His new film "Anora" is arguably his best to date, (it won the Palme d'Or at Cannes), and like all his films it deals with people living, or perhaps just surviving, in the margins of society,

Once again a sex-worker takes central stage. She's Anora but who prefers to go by the name of Ani, an escort and lap-dancer at a club named HQ and who, because she can speak Russian, (her grandmother, she says, never learned English), is chosen as 'girl-for-the-night' for Ivan, the obscenely rich and very horny son of a Russian oligarch. They hit it off, fly to Las Vegas and before you can say 'Putin' are married.

It's then that all hell breaks loose in a magnificent extended sequence mid-movie when the heavies Ivan's parents have sent arrive demanding the marriage is annulled and it's here that Baker pulls his Antonioni or Hitchcock moment as Ivan flees and a new character, Igor, is introduced. Of course, as Ivan's physical presence is needed for the annulment everyone goes off in search of him but, unlike in "L'Avventura", he's found though you may ask yourself was he worth finding.

As our interest in Ivan wanes so our interest in Igor grows with Anora remaining all the while centre-stage and once again Baker has found the perfect actress for the role. Newcomer Mikey Madison is superb but then Baker has the uncanny ability to draw superb performances from all his actors, (Karren Karagulian is another stand-out). As I said it's very funny but also incredibly moving. For all her bravado Anora is damaged goods which the film's final scene amply demonstrates and although we leave her weeping at last she may be with someone who actually loves her and the film's end is just her beginning.