The red carpet raises all kinds of questions. What is the age range of a feather boa? Sequins: mutton or lamb? In the face of the carping and scrutiny, Paltrow has issued a bold sartorial retort

The 50s are an awkward decade for women on the red carpet. So, the Oscars , being the ultimate red carpet, are like a dramatisation of the awks, a silent movie told in One Dress After Another. It’s complicated by the convention that “over 50” and “in her 50s” are the same category for Hollywood , the existence of a greater age being so anathema to the condition of womanhood that it’s more tactful not to mention it. Sigourney Weaver (76) is an “Oscars over 50”, as is Goldie Hawn (80).

The case of Hawn was particularly confusing this year. When she was pictured alongside her daughter, Kate Hudson (46), they became the same age, it being semantically easier to pretend that “nearly-50 to 100” is a continuous phase of woman than to brook the idea of an age beyond “middle”.

The red carpet raises all kinds of questions. What is the age range of a feather boa? Sequins: mutton or lamb? In the face of the carping and scrutiny, Paltrow has issued a bold sartorial retort

The 50s are an awkward decade for women on the red carpet. So, the Oscars , being the ultimate red carpet, are like a dramatisation of the awks, a silent movie told in One Dress After Another. It’s complicated by the convention that “over 50” and “in her 50s” are the same category for Hollywood , the existence of a greater age being so anathema to the condition of womanhood that it’s more tactful not to mention it. Sigourney Weaver (76) is an “Oscars over 50”, as is Goldie Hawn (80).

The case of Hawn was particularly confusing this year. When she was pictured alongside her daughter, Kate Hudson (46), they became the same age, it being semantically easier to pretend that “nearly-50 to 100” is a continuous phase of woman than to brook the idea of an age beyond “middle”.

The red carpet raises all kinds of questions. What is the age range of a feather boa? Sequins: mutton or lamb? In the face of the carping and scrutiny, Paltrow has issued a bold sartorial retort

The 50s are an awkward decade for women on the red carpet. So, the Oscars , being the ultimate red carpet, are like a dramatisation of the awks, a silent movie told in One Dress After Another. It’s complicated by the convention that “over 50” and “in her 50s” are the same category for Hollywood , the existence of a greater age being so anathema to the condition of womanhood that it’s more tactful not to mention it. Sigourney Weaver (76) is an “Oscars over 50”, as is Goldie Hawn (80).

The case of Hawn was particularly confusing this year. When she was pictured alongside her daughter, Kate Hudson (46), they became the same age, it being semantically easier to pretend that “nearly-50 to 100” is a continuous phase of woman than to brook the idea of an age beyond “middle”.

A German tourist filed a lawsuit claiming he felt unpleasant symptoms after eating tacos with salsa at Los Tacos No 1

A German tourist’s attempt to pursue $100,000 in damages from a New York City taqueria whose salsa he found to be too spicy has failed after a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit.

In a complaint filed in October 2024, German national Faycal Manz said he was visiting New York City two months earlier when he stopped at the Times Square location of Los Tacos No 1.

A German tourist filed a lawsuit claiming he felt unpleasant symptoms after eating tacos with salsa at Los Tacos No 1

A German tourist’s attempt to pursue $100,000 in damages from a New York City taqueria whose salsa he found to be too spicy has failed after a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit.

In a complaint filed in October 2024, German national Faycal Manz said he was visiting New York City two months earlier when he stopped at the Times Square location of Los Tacos No 1.

A German tourist filed a lawsuit claiming he felt unpleasant symptoms after eating tacos with salsa at Los Tacos No 1

A German tourist’s attempt to pursue $100,000 in damages from a New York City taqueria whose salsa he found to be too spicy has failed after a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit.

In a complaint filed in October 2024, German national Faycal Manz said he was visiting New York City two months earlier when he stopped at the Times Square location of Los Tacos No 1.

Jeremy Piven is a celebrity hypnotist leading a client into dangerous waters in this Manchester-set affair also starring Pixie Lott and Aneurin Barnard

If films had past lives, Simeon Halligan’s memory-regression thriller might have been a glossy 90s psychological drama, a Twilight Zone episode, or even a tricksy Hitchcockian voyage. But in the 2020s, it gets to be a serviceable, low-budget Brit-pulp outing featuring Jeremy Piven who, where other big-name buy-ins might have phoned it in, authoritatively anchors the affair as a celebrity hypnotist leading a client into dangerous waters.

Traumatised Manchester journalist Jason (Aneurin Barnard, soon to be seen as the titular character in Duncan Jones’s Rogue Trooper) is to return to Syria, where six years earlier he witnessed jihadists slit a colleague’s throat. Probably a bad idea then, just before setting off, to volunteer on live TV to be hypnotised by Timothy Bevan (Piven), who claims to allow punters to access past incarnations. Jason is promptly transported into a scarlet, doorway-lined hall of horrors; one portal opens on to a scene of a horrific stabbing apparently committed by his previous self. So pregnant wife Claira (Pixie Lott) presses him to return to Bevan to get this door definitively locked and bolted.

Jeremy Piven is a celebrity hypnotist leading a client into dangerous waters in this Manchester-set affair also starring Pixie Lott and Aneurin Barnard

If films had past lives, Simeon Halligan’s memory-regression thriller might have been a glossy 90s psychological drama, a Twilight Zone episode, or even a tricksy Hitchcockian voyage. But in the 2020s, it gets to be a serviceable, low-budget Brit-pulp outing featuring Jeremy Piven who, where other big-name buy-ins might have phoned it in, authoritatively anchors the affair as a celebrity hypnotist leading a client into dangerous waters.

Traumatised Manchester journalist Jason (Aneurin Barnard, soon to be seen as the titular character in Duncan Jones’s Rogue Trooper) is to return to Syria, where six years earlier he witnessed jihadists slit a colleague’s throat. Probably a bad idea then, just before setting off, to volunteer on live TV to be hypnotised by Timothy Bevan (Piven), who claims to allow punters to access past incarnations. Jason is promptly transported into a scarlet, doorway-lined hall of horrors; one portal opens on to a scene of a horrific stabbing apparently committed by his previous self. So pregnant wife Claira (Pixie Lott) presses him to return to Bevan to get this door definitively locked and bolted.

Jeremy Piven is a celebrity hypnotist leading a client into dangerous waters in this Manchester-set affair also starring Pixie Lott and Aneurin Barnard

If films had past lives, Simeon Halligan’s memory-regression thriller might have been a glossy 90s psychological drama, a Twilight Zone episode, or even a tricksy Hitchcockian voyage. But in the 2020s, it gets to be a serviceable, low-budget Brit-pulp outing featuring Jeremy Piven who, where other big-name buy-ins might have phoned it in, authoritatively anchors the affair as a celebrity hypnotist leading a client into dangerous waters.

Traumatised Manchester journalist Jason (Aneurin Barnard, soon to be seen as the titular character in Duncan Jones’s Rogue Trooper) is to return to Syria, where six years earlier he witnessed jihadists slit a colleague’s throat. Probably a bad idea then, just before setting off, to volunteer on live TV to be hypnotised by Timothy Bevan (Piven), who claims to allow punters to access past incarnations. Jason is promptly transported into a scarlet, doorway-lined hall of horrors; one portal opens on to a scene of a horrific stabbing apparently committed by his previous self. So pregnant wife Claira (Pixie Lott) presses him to return to Bevan to get this door definitively locked and bolted.