Lola (2022)

After its hugely successful premiere at Frightfest in London last year, (and one of my favourite movies of 2022) Andrew Legge's unique and affecting science fiction movie gets a cinema release from Signature.

England 1941. Two sisters build a machine that can pick up broadcasts from the future. They christen the machine LOLA after their late mother, the first date they tune it to is 1973, and the first thing they see on LOLA's screen is David Bowie. The country is currently at war and it's not long before they are using LOLA to save lives, accurately predicting where and when air raid strikes are going to occur. Pretty soon the British military get in on the act and, with their cooperation, huge disasters are averted and thousands of lives are saved.

But there's a problem. By saving people who would have otherwise been killed LOLA is now altering the course of the future, with everything from music to the very future of the UK itself ending up radically changed. With the UK under German rule and very different recording artists to the ones with which we might be familiar now popular (singing some decent compositions courtesy of Neil Hannon) is there any way things can go back to the way they were?

LOLA was shot in black and white in 4:3 aspect ratio on hand-cranked grainy 16mm film. It's combination of the sisters' personal log, plus CG-altered newsreel footage of the time makes for a unique and effective way of telling this particular kind of SF story. Performances are excellent, particularly the two leads, and the story is so economically and skilfully presented that you'll feel you've watched something lasting rather longer than the running time of 78 minutes. LOLA is clever, creative, thought-provoking and extremely moving, and well worth catching on its cinema release. Here's the trailer:

Andrew Legge's LOLA is released by Signature Entertainment in UK cinemas on Friday 7th April 2023