Film reviews: Filmed in West Cork — Everybody Digs Bill Evans could well feature this awards season

Plus, Oasis: Don't Look Back in Anger features cracking concert footage and deep emotional

Clockwise from left: Katie McGrath in 'Everybody Digs Bill Evans'; Andrew Scott as Captain James Stagg and Kerry Condon as Captain Kay Summersby in 'Pressure' (Picture: Alex Bailey/Focus Features/STUDIOCANAL); Liam and Noel Gallagher photographed during Oasis Live 25' tour. (Picture: Simon Emmett/Disney).

Everybody Digs Bill Evans

★★★★☆

Everybody Digs Bill Evans (15A) is a New York story which was filmed at West Cork Studios. The film opens with a performance by the Bill Evans Trio at New York’s legendary Village Vanguard. It is June 1961 and the trio, led by Bill (Anders Danielsen Lie), are recording what would become their landmark album, Sunday at the Village Vanguard.

A few days later, Scott LaFaro, Bill’s bandmate and best friend, is killed in a car crash.

Bill is a mess. His older brother Harry (Barry Ward) comes to his apartment to offer his condolences and insists that he come and stay with him, his wife Pat (Katie McGrath), and their daughter Debbie (Tallulah Cavanaugh).

Katie McGrath in a scene from Everybody Digs Bill Evans.

Harry is a music teacher, and nowhere near as gifted as his younger brother. There is no sense that he resents Bill’s talent or success, though. Bill is consumed by grief and unable to compose, and Harry finds himself wishing he could pull his brother out of the darkness.

Bill can’t sleep, so he heads out to visit his girlfriend Elaine (Valene Kane) and get high together.

Back at Harry’s house, Bill’s drug use eventually becomes too much. Harry decides that the best thing he can do for his troubled brother is to send him to stay with their parents in Florida, where he can rest and, hopefully, dry out.

Their mother Mary (Laurie Metcalf) is shocked to see how frail and gaunt Bill has become.

Mary sets about fixing her son, feeding him, nursing him through the fevers as he detoxes.

Their father Harry Sr (Bill Pullman) isn’t a fixer; he is a talker and natters constantly at Bill. He is cantankerous but proud to have a famous son. At the same time, he seems a little trapped by Bill’s success, believing that he too could have been an artist if times had been different. There is a sense that he sees something of himself in his son, even if he isn’t always sure how to deal with him.

They do their best to patch up their son but, as Bill heads back to New York, it soon becomes clear that his troubles are far from over. His life will be fraught with many more challenges.

Shot in stunning monochrome, Everybody Digs Bill Evans is an intimate, slow-burning look at genius and grief. It feels like a theatre piece, with the film spending more time observing Bill and those around him than charting his career.

For newcomers to his music, it probably won’t tell you much about the man’s rise to fame. What it does convey, however, is the price he paid for that success, and the terrible toll that genius, grief, addiction, and self-doubt would take on him.

With solid performances from all the cast, it is Pullman who really stands out. His turn as Harry Sr is quietly compelling, and his name could well feature in the Best Supporting Actor conversation come awards season.

Pressure

★★★★☆

Andrew Scott as Captain James Stagg in 'Pressure'. Picture: Alex Bailey/Focus Features/STUDIOCANAL © 2026 All Rights Reserved.

Granted, it doesn’t sound exciting — a group of people fighting over weather charts — but Pressure (12) is a gripping tale of Group Captain James Stagg, whose steely determination changed the course of the Second World War.

Brilliant Andrew Scott plays Stagg, who is called to the Allied Forces HQ, where General Dwight D Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser) is stationed.

Plans for the D-Day landings are under way, and Allied boffins are working through weather charts to predict what conditions will be like for the mission. The head US meteorologist Irving Crick (Chris Messina) is a charming yes-man who has predicted the weather using out-of-date references. Stagg is brought in to verify Crick’s work. Stagg has a vastly different opinion, which sets tensions high between the US and Britain.

Stagg isn’t a people person but he is a genius, so he is given some leeway by Kay Summersby (Kerry Condon).

Summersby, who was from Cork, was Eisenhower’s secretary and driver during the war, and famously held her own alongside Eisenhower despite his notoriously blistering temper. As Stagg and Crick clash, Stagg’s pragmatism frustrates the commanding officers but he knows he’s right; he just has to prove it.

As the final chapter closes in, Pressure proves to be surprisingly gripping and emotional. Scott again proves that he is one of our finest actors. If you think a film about the weather might be boring, just think about how many of our conversations revolve around the weather. We love nothing better than talking about the rain so, by that logic, everyone should take great pleasure from watching Pressure.

Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger

★★★★☆

Liam and Noel Gallagher photographed during Oasis Live 25' tour. Picture: Simon Emmett/Disney

Few bands captured the 1990s like Oasis. With swaggering guitars, massive choruses, and combustible sibling rivalry, they defined Britpop. After their dramatic 2009 split, Liam and Noel barely spoke for 15 years. Now, Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger (15A) follows their remarkable reunion, from rehearsals to the stage, and rediscovered brotherly affection.

The documentary opens with a whistle-stop introduction to the band’s story before skipping forward 15 years, as Noel and the musicians, including Bonehead, meet to rehearse. Liam arrives without acknowledging Noel, complains, heads to the microphone, sings for hours, then leaves without a word.

Over the next while, tension begins to ease. Then comes Cardiff, and the band’s first gig. What happens next feels almost miraculous: A brief hug, hands held high, and the Gallagher brothers walking onto the stage together.

The documentary takes us around the globe, with particular attention given to gigs in Manchester and their ancestral home, Dublin. Along the way, the brothers reflect on the surprising realisation of just how deeply emotional fans remain about their music.

There is a sense of gratitude too — for the opportunity to have a second chance, to make music together again, and, perhaps most importantly, to rewrite the familiar narrative of the warring Gallagher brothers.

With stories from fans intermingled, the brothers reveal themselves to be funny and self-deprecating but the biggest reveal is the love that regenerated after all these years. The concert footage is cracking, the emotions run high, definitely maybe put this on your watch list.

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