OUR LADIES (15)
In one of the era-perfect songs that accompany director Michael Caton-Jones' raucous rites-of-passage comedy, Edinburgh-born singer-songwriter Edwyn Collins repeatedly croons, "I've never known a girl like you before".
We seldom meet girls like the brazen, potty-mouthed and authority-flouting lead characters in Our Ladies, a film version of Alan Warner's award-winning 1998 novel The Sopranos, which was previously adapted for the stage by Lee Hall as Our Ladies Of Perpetual Succour.
Set in 1996 ("before social media and mobile phones changed everything"), Caton-Jones' picture witnesses the emotional devastation wrought by Catholic schoolgirls as they unapologetically cross the rubicon to womanhood and interrogate their sexual identities with vigour.
The girls' willingness to trade on their nascent sexuality strikes a discomfiting chord in the MeToo era (lest we forget, they are minors) but the script co-written by Caton-Jones and Alan Sharp makes abundantly clear they are in control of their actions.
A cast of relative unknowns led by Tallulah Greive as teenage narrator Orla embody the titular sisters of no mercy with vim and aching vulnerability, solidifying their winning screen chemistry with an end credits sing-along to Big Country in a behind-the-scenes style reminiscent of Bend It Like Beckham.
READ MORE: Tallulah Greive on the film adaptation of Alan Warner's Sopranos
"It was springtime and we had one thing on our minds: boys," coos hormone-crazed schoolgirl Orla (Greive) in voiceover.
She is in recovery from acute lymphoblastic leukaemia after a "miracle" visit to Lourdes and yearns to savour her teenage years in Falkirk.
"Unlike your mother, I don't want to be a virgin all my life," she cheekily quips to a likeness of Jesus on her bedroom wall.
Orla joins salty-mouthed classmates Chell (Rona Morison), Finnoula (Abigail Lawrie), Kylah (Marli Siu) and Manda (Sally Messham) at all-girls Catholic high school Our Lady Of Perpetual Succour in Oban ahead of an outing to Edinburgh for a choir competition.
Sister Condron (Kate Dickie) is determined to protect he wards' virtues, assisted by head girl Kay (Eve Austin).
In the capital, Chell, Finnoula, Kylah, Manda and Orla down £2 shots of sambuca, flirt outrageously with Edinburgh lads and test the bonds of sisterly solidarity, occasionally blinkered to the consequences of their actions.
Almost two years on from its world premiere at the 2019 London Film Festival, Our Ladies still fizzes with energy.
Full frontal male nudity is played for laughs and sex scenes are artfully and sensitively staged including a spot of al fresco experimentation that one lass amusingly refers to as "the bondage".
Dickie's wimpled supporting performance answers prayers for sobriety and offers a note of caution to counterbalance the youthful exuberance, unleashed on location in Edinburgh and the Highlands, which refuses to be tamed, rather like the characters.
8/10
THE NEST (15, 107 mins)
Scenes from a stagnant marriage reveal bitterness and resentment in writer-director Sean Durkin's long-awaited follow-up to his award-winning 2011 debut feature, Martha Marcy May Marlene.
Investment banker Rory (Jude Law) and horse trainer wife Allison (Carrie Coon) present an air of wealth and sophistication to fit Rory's business profile.
They are too concerned with the materialistic trappings of their existence and a glossy public facade to pay due attention to the needs of their teenage daughter Sam (Oona Roche) and introvert younger son Ben (Charlie Shotwell).
When Rory decides to relocate the clan to England, where he grew up, hairline cracks in the marriage become painfully apparent.
Anyone who strays into the couple's orbit risks becoming collateral damage as Rory and Allison channel their frustrations squarely at each other.
7/10
THE LAST BUS (12A)
A widower unearths his future by returning to the past in a bittersweet drama directed by Gilles MacKinnon.
Now in his late 80s, Tom (Timothy Spall) lives in John O' Groats, where his beloved wife Mary (Phyllis Logan) has recently passed away.
The devastating loss unleashes a flood of memories, including the couple's first meeting at Land's End, and Tom hatches a hare-brained plan to travel from one end of the UK using his free local bus pass.
His small suitcase contains Mary's ashes and as he leaves John O' Groats in the rear-view mirror, Tom meets a succession of colourful characters who shepherd him towards his final destination over 800 miles away.
His odyssey captures the public's imagination and by the end of his road trip, Tom has become an unlikely celebrity.
8/10
THE PEBBLE AND THE BOY (15)
Borrowing its title from a track on Paul Weller's 2005 album As Is Now, The Pebble And The Boy is a homegrown road movie written and directed by Chris Green with a soundtrack courtesy of Weller, The Jam and The Style Council.
When Mods obsessive Phil Parker is knocked off his scooter in an accident and killed, 19-year-old estranged son John (Patrick McNamee) inherits the old man's memorabilia including a prized Lambretta and fishtail parka.
To feel closer to Phil, the teenager decides to travel from his home in Manchester to Brighton on the Lambretta and scatter his father's ashes into the sea in Brighton, spiritual home of the Mods.
En route, John learns more about Phil from his father's dearest friends and the teenager acquires a feisty travelling companion called Nicki (Sacha Parkinson).
6/10
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