As poetically teasing as it is psychologically precise, Make Up signals the arrival of an exciting new talent.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 22, 2020

An accomplished piece of work and a pronouncement of a great young actress.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 13, 2020

A fresh, grounded take on teenage confusion.

| Nov 13, 2020

It's an intriguing interpretation of adolescent discovery, one that uses horror to suggest the dread that comes with finding a sense of self.

| Nov 12, 2020

It's an insightful, deeply felt film that lets us in on a personal evolution.

| Nov 10, 2020

It is a dull commonplace to describe a debut as promising, but Oakley's film really does point towards a grand future. She can have the du Maurier comparison for free.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 14, 2020

A real texture to it...with horror inflections to it...I spent quite a lot of it just not knowing where it was going...

| Aug 11, 2020

Eerie images of a bloodied fingernail and long grass lit by amber floodlights signal Oakley's sly sense of humour and eye for visual poetry.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 2, 2020

This magnificently unsettling British debut is a serious calling card for writer-director Claire Oakley.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jul 31, 2020

This is no vanilla infidelity tale. The emphasis is on self-discovery and sense of place over straightforward storytelling.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 31, 2020

Writer/director Claire Oakley's atmospherically charged debut brilliantly confounds expectations and marks her as a visionary new talent to watch.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 30, 2020

It's a thriller but not quite a thriller, and a horror flick but not quite a horror flick, and a psychosexual fantasy but not wholly a psychosexual fantasy... It may be we can settle only on one thing, and the one thing is this: it is very, very good.

| Jul 30, 2020

It's a clever and expertly made movie; Oakley luxuriates in its winter chill.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 30, 2020

The scares here are suggestions, as the best kind always are.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 29, 2020

Set at the littoral intersection between land and water, Make Up also merges a grounded naturalism - bleak if beautifully framed - with the more fluid dreamscapes of Ruth's subjectivity. From this, a new British filmmaking talent comes out.

| Jul 29, 2020

Claire Oakley has created a vivid sensory experience out of limited means. Make Up is anything but cosmetic - it gets right under the skin.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 28, 2020

Claire Oakley's genre-bending debut feature slowly reveals itself as a lesbian romance that's as much about learning to love yourself as your lover, and it's a gorgeous and inventive piece of cinema.

| Oct 10, 2019