Alison Rowat

Testament of Youth (12A)

four stars

Dir: James Kent

With: Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington

Runtime: 130 minutes

VERA Brittain's landmark memoir spanning the First World War and its aftermath is given a fittingly reverent and handsome adaptation. Alicia Vikander (A Royal Affair) leads the way as Brittain, a young woman who begins the twentieth century thinking she has only one battle to fight - to go to university and get a degree. Like her beloved brother and his friends, she is impatient for all she believes lies in the future. Then comes the war, turning her world, and that of millions of others, on its head. Director James Kent moves the action confidently from peacetime idyll to the carnage of the battlefield, and an outstanding young cast, backed up by Dominic West and Emily Watson as Vera's parents, and Miranda Richardson as a university lecturer, do the heartbreaking rest. While you may feel Kent misjudges where to end the picture, there is no doubting the overall ability of his film to pitch the tone just right.

Wild (15)

four stars

Dir: Jean-Marc Vallee

With: Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern

Runtime: 115 minutes

CHERYL Strayed was to hiking what a brick is to water. Hardly the ideal candidate to walk the 1100-mile Pacific Crest Trail solo but then, as Jean-Marc Vallee's rousing picture shows, life is complicated. What led Strayed (played here by Reese Witherspoon) to don an unfeasibly heavy backpack and head into the wilderness is shown in flashback as she puts one foot in front of the other on the trail, with Vallee (Dallas Buyers Club) and British screenwriter Nick Hornby driving the story along with a slick mix of humour and poignancy, even if there is the occasional lurch into self-help speak (Strayed's memoir was an Oprah Book Club choice). The stunning landscapes and ace soundtrack add to the pleasure to be had watching someone else's hiking pain; you may want to look away when Strayed takes her boots off to inspect her poor feet. Witherspoon has been taking some big career leaps of late, and between this, Mud, and her part in the forthcoming Inherent Vice, this new seriousness suits her well.

American Sniper (15)

three stars

Dir: Clint Eastwood

With: Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller

Runtime: 132 minutes

CLINT Eastwood's war drama tells the true story of Chris Kyle, a US Navy SEAL known as "The Legend" among his brothers in arms for his sharp shooting skills while on four tours of duty in Iraq. Eastwood, no stranger to dramatising the lot of the American fighting man in Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, chooses to spend most of the picture following Kyle (played by Bradley Cooper, also a producer on the film) in country in Iraq as he faces daily life or death decisions. Adding to the pressure on him is his enemy counterpart, a sniper who is cutting a swathe through the ranks of US Marines as they patrol door to door. Between portraying the action on the ground and attending to this sub-plot, Eastwood is left with far less time to spend on the story of Kyle and others when they come home, lending the picture an unbalanced feel. It is left to Sienna Miller, playing Kyle's wife, to sum up the pain and worry of those left at home and she does so ably. This is Cooper's picture though and, beefed up to play Kyle, he shows himself more than capable of more heavyweight roles in the future.

Paper Souls (N/C 12+)

three stars

Dir: Vincent Lannoo

With: Julie Gayet, Stephane Guillon

Runtime: 100 minutes

PAUL writes funeral orations for a living, putting into words essential last words as the living say farewell to the dead. In his own life, however, he remains grief stricken from the loss of this own wife five years ago. From this initially gloomy and unpromising premise Vincent Lannoo weaves a Paris-set comedy drama that ventures into some strange, farcical territory at times but has just enough charm to pull itself back from the brink. Delightfully different.

Glasgow Film Theatre, January 16-22