ALISON ROWAT

JENNIFER Aniston, she of Friends, the world famous hairdo and globally recognised perkiness, is the latest comic actor to show she's no slouch at the serious stuff either in Cake (15) (three stars). Former Los Angeles lawyer Claire (Aniston) is in chronic pain, the result of a devastating car accident. When not popping painkillers she is snarling at the world, unable to come to terms with what has happened, and reliant on her long suffering housekeeper (an excellent Adriana Barraza) for almost everything. Aniston, her hair brunette, her face and body scarred, comes to the role like a serious thesp born, now and then showing her comic chops too. If she is convincing, the story is alas not always so, coming across at times like a better than average television movie. Blame that, rather than Aniston, for her not receiving the accolades she is due this awards season. A brave new career awaits for; here's hoping she is back for more of the same soon.

British director Peter Strickland, helmer of the crime drama Katalin Varga and The Berberian Sound Studio, a thriller cum homage to Italian giallo cinema, could never be accused of staying in the same cosy groove. The Duke of Burgundy (18) (four stars) finds him in strange territory once more to wonderful effect. Borgen's Sidse Babett Knudsen plays a lesbian dominatrix having second thoughts about the way her lover's tastes are affecting the relationship. Can one put up with anything - including unfeasibly complicated underwear - in the name of love and devotion? Strickland's picture, set in a Seventies-themed, topsy turvy, highly stylised world all of its own, is beautifully shot, slyly funny and gloriously bizarre, with Babett Knudsen a revelation. Borgen will never seem quite the same again. This is what Fifty Shades of Grey could have been if it had possessed half a brain.

On the subject of witlessness, The Wedding Ringer (15) (one star) lives and dies on how fond one is of its star, Kevin Hart. In Jeremy Garelick's comedy, the Think Like a Man star is Jimmy Callahan, a fast-talking best man for hire for those like lawyer Doug (Josh Gad) who have been too busy working to acquire a friend to stand by their side on the big day. Telling his client from the outset that their friendship is strictly business, it is not long before Jimmy finds himself breaking his own rules. Who saw that coming? The concept creaks under the strain from the off, with the joke, and Hart's charms, soon wearing thin.

Being the tale of time travelling teens, Project Almanac (12A) (two stars) is Back to the Future for the Facebook generation. Up and coming star Jonny Weston plays David, a talented young scientist who wins a place at a top university but cannot afford the fees. Looking round the attic for something belonging to his late inventor father to convert into cash, he comes across an old home movie that puts him on the trail of something world changing - for him and his friends at any rate. Dean Israelite's picture takes a good idea and squanders it by taking too long to get going, then haring off in too many directions at once. That's untamed science for you.

Rob Carnevale writes: Michael Mann's cyber terrorism thriller Blackhat (three stars) may be relevant in light of the Sony email hacking attack last year, or the Stuxnet virus that crippled a nuclear power plant in Iran in 2010, but it provides an uneven mix of the potentially real and the Hollywood imagined. Early on, there's intrigue as Chris Hemsworth's imprisoned hacker is recruited by the FBI to help catch a ruthless adversary who has just caused a nuclear reactor meltdown in China. But for long periods, the ensuing "chase" suffers from being too keyboard-based and techno-dialogue heavy, often at the expense of any genuinely engaging character development. Mann does eventually broaden the movie's scope with the use of exotic locations and some trademark muscular action, but the latter comes at the expense of the film's early credibility. Blackhat therefore falls some way short of the director's best, such as Miami Vice or Heat.