What’s it about?

Following his escape from prison, former army soldier and charismatic, professional thief, Jeffrey Manchester (Channing Tatum), hides out in a Toys R Us while planning his next move. In the meantime, he finds himself falling for Toys R Us employee and divorced mother (Kirsten Dunst).

What did we think?

Rosie Elmer says: Derek Cianfrance’s Roofman, his first film in nearly a decade, is a surprisingly warm and quietly funny detour from his usual brooding fare (Blue Valentine, The Place Beyond the Pines). It feels like a lost relic of early-2000s cinema, the kind of film you’d stumble across at Blockbuster and cherish the memory of watching at home with family on a rainy afternoon.

Channing Tatum gives one of his most charming performances as Jeff Manchester, an ex-army veteran turned fugitive who takes up hiding in a Toys R Us and begins an unlikely romance with an employee, played by Kirsten Dunst. Cianfrance and co-writer Kirt Gunn resist moralising Jeff’s choices, instead presenting a man driven by loneliness and a longing to belong. Tatum’s mix of goofiness and melancholy (greeting fast-food workers with overblown enthusiasm and bouncing on trampolines in a pink feather boa) makes him irresistibly human.

With understated turns from Dunst, Juno Temple, and Peter Dinklage, the film radiates the kind of sincerity that’s become rare in studio-backed cinema. It’s funny, sad, and unpretentious. Roofman may centre on a man in hiding, but it’s one of the most openhearted films I’ve seen this year.