The selection of 10 films for the Audience Award at Glasgow Film Festival is nothing if not eclectic. In this first round-up of quick-capsule reviews we cast our eye over three of the films up for the award, which will be voted for entirely by the festival. There is surrealist, existentialist comedy starring one of cinema’s most beloved eccentrics, a road movie which takes a foreigners’ eye-view of the back roads of the US, and a tough Kazakh drama.

In Mr.K (Tallulah Hazekamp Schwab/ Netherlands, Norway, Belgium/ 2024/ 94 mins), Hollywood’s premier oddball Crispin Glover finds himself in a nightmarishly strange hotel that seems to be its own self-contained universe. Resistant to the logic of reality and possessed of an internal logic that would give M.C. Esher vertigo, the hotel seems to be deliberately thwarting every attempt Mr. K makes to leave. Not only this, but his presence seems to have a destabilising effect on the hotel’s many colourful residents too.

A good exercise in making something distinctive from recognisable influences, Mr. K is an impressive slice of strangeness that lingers in the memory. It’s been described as Kafkaesque, and the name seems to evoke the protagonist of The Trial, but it’s less interested in cloying bureaucracy than in an unquantifiable chaos that’s both whimsical and sinister. As such it has more in common with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, with Mr. K’s inability to leave evoking Bunuel’s The Exterminating Angel. It’s also possible to spot hints of Wes Anderson and Aronofsky’s Mother! in the mix.

It is however, an easier film to admire than to enjoy. While there is a coherent throughline which sees Mr. K find ever more alarming barriers to his escape before becoming something of an ersatz cult leader, the sheer relentless barrage of strangeness becomes a little wearying and its likely that individual set-pieces will stick with you rather than the film as a whole. It also fails to make use of Glover’s unique presence, leaving him in various flavours of bewilderment or exaggeration. That said, it’s always great to have him lead a movie – it happens far too rarely – and the film’s visual sense is exquisite, with some exceptional production design. 3/5

Coming across like a Gen-Z Thelma & Louise via Bonnie and Clyde, Silver Star (Ruben Amar, Lola Bessis/ USA/ 2024/ 102 mins) is an energetic and winningly performed odd-couple road movie. Parolee Billie (Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson) and heavily pregnant recovering drug addict Franny (Grace Van Dien) are thrown together when the former takes the latter hostage during a bank robbery.

French filmmakers Amar and Bessis paint an almost neo-Western tale of two very different outsiders who slowly grow closer as they make their way to Kentucky to try and stop Billie’s home being put up for auction. Along the way, they dodge police and drug dealers, try and locate a wayward horse, and deal with their initial mutual antipathy. One-eyed Billie is taciturn and intense. Franny talks incessantly about very little. It’s no surprise that the two women will ultimately connect – and perhaps more – but it’s how expertly the filmmakers use these road movie tropes that make Silver Star so engaging and surprisingly fresh.

Really, it’s the strong characterisation and the actors that make or break a road movie, and the two leads give exceptional, very different performances that complement each other beautifully. Van Dien’s is the showier role, finding vulnerability in what is deliberately an irritating character to begin with. There’s an innate likeability there that shines through in Van Dien’s hands. It is wise though, that we meet Billie first, as Johnson’s has a more subtle role to tease out; fewer words and more internalised guilt and trauma. Silver Star would be worth seeing just for the two lead performances, but it’s also a very good looking film with a strong sense of theme, and an offbeat look at some American roads less travelled. Fine stuff. 4/5

Having been a butt of cinematic jokes thanks to Borat, it’s nice to see Kazakhstan represented on its own terms. Sadly Crickets, It’s Your Turn (Olga Korotka/ Kazakhstan, France/ 2024/ 105 mins) is a misfire, a potentially gripping post #MeToo thriller undone by baffling decision making, and a playful sense of metaphor that clashes with the increasingly dark tone of the film.

25-year-old Merey (Inzhu Abeu) is a reserved, watchful young woman who prefers to view life through a camera lens. In moments of stress, she retreats into various fantasies that take place within a gleaming white room, indicating a disconnect from the world. She meets Nurlan (Ayan Batyrbek), a seemingly sensitive young man who seems at odds with the boorish, laddish nature of his friends. Against her better judgement, she agrees to join them on a birthday weekend at a remote dacha-like getaway. Things swiftly take a dark and predictably threatening turn.

There’s an undeniable boldness to Olga Korotka’s direction that is easy to appreciate, and the first act is involving as Merey slowly thaws enough with the charming Nurlan. The use of surreal interludes – a more austere version of a similar technique in the underrated Excision – also allows Korotka to artfully avoid any exploitative depictions of the most troubling part of the film. Yet, the rest of the film is too blunt in its depiction of the toxicity of male groups,with the red flags being too plentiful fro the beginning to make it believable that the cautious Merey would even go away with them.

From there the artistic touches begin to look jarring at best and willful obscurantism at worst. The depictions of the male antagonists are incredibly simplistic, not least the almost comically evil Bahyt (Arnur Kusaingazin), and the otherwise intelligent Merey’s decision-making is as bad as the dumbest knife-fodder in the crassest ’80s slashers. There’s a grim conviction at work here, but Crickets, It’s Your Turn leaves a similar sour taste to the similarly themed Promising Young Woman. 2/5

Mr. K screens on Sat 1 – Sun 2 Mar 2025

Silver Star screens on Sun 2 – Mon 3 Mar 2025

Crickets, It’s Your Turn screens on Tue 4 – Wed 5 Mar 2025