James R | On 01, Nov 2019

This weekend sees Netflix’s Earthquake Bird released in UK cinemas, following its recent premiere at the London Film Festival.

Based on the book by Susanna Jones, the noir thriller follows two women who fall in love with the same man, which leads to dangerous consequences. It’s set in 1989 Tokyo and stars Alicia Vikander as Lucy Fly, an enigmatic expat haunted by a painful past, who enters into an intense relationship with Teiji (Naoki Kobayashi), a handsome yet similarly troubled local photographer. Lucy’s imperturbable exterior begins to crack when a naive newcomer, Lily Bridges (Riley Keough), becomes entangled in their lives and ends up missing – suspected dead.

With those two starry co-lead roles, you might expect Earthquake Bird to be in a number of cinemas, but Netflix remains surrounded by controversy within the industry, with major exhibitors refusing to screen its titles, because the streaming giant typically releases movies day-and-date or with a much shorter theatrical window than the conventional 16 weeks. The streaming giant is, though, increasingly releasing movies in cinemas with a brief exclusive window. In the UK, that has been through a partnership with Curzon Cinemas and sometimes a handful of other venues, including Scotland’s Glasgow Film Theatre and Edinburgh Filmhouse – more than a dozen other indie cinemas have petitioned for Netflix to work with them too. (Vue and Cineworld cinemas have both said that they will not be showing Netflix movies in cinemas at present.)

Earthquake Bird, however, is currently only engaged at Curzon Cinemas, and London ones at that: the film is currently screening at Curzon Soho, Wimbledon and Aldgate cinemas. The good news is that you won’t have to wait too long to catch it where you are on Netflix: it will be released worldwide on the streaming service on 15th November. You can book Curzon tickets here, read our review here – or head this way to watch the trailer.

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