Ray & Liz

What distinguishes "Ray & Liz" is its ability to find strange tonal nuances within that terrible sadness; bleak as it is, it's remarkably devoid of bitterness or rancor, and even its most despairing passages are flecked with humor and hope.

Billingham's famous photos are tough-minded and emotionally painful, silent by virtue of their medium. And his live-action version offers a similar experience.

Gorgeously photographed on 16mm, Richard Billingham's Ray and Liz counters the grubby, quasi-authentic tenets of so-called British miserablism with humor, beauty, and a sensuality that in no way dilutes the hardships and neglect at its core

The domestic portrait with which it reconstructs fragments of Billingham's childhood and his dysfunctional family seems infinitely flat to me. Full review in Spanish