There Are Already Some Big Hits And Misses At Cannes 2017

The 70th Cannes Film Festival kicked off this week on the French Riviera, and the line-up is an especially strong one this year. But in the first few days there have already been some disappointments. Todd Haynes' ambitious drama Wonderstruck, starring Julianne Moore and Michelle Williams, has had very mixed reviews, as has the festival's official opening film, Ismael's Ghosts, starring Marion Cotillard.

The lead cast and crew of Wonderstruck

And Tilda Swinton's new film Ojka, a Korean monster movie from director Bong Joon Ho, was booed at its screening due to technical issues. It's also at the centre of a row between the festival and Netflix, leading to a change in the rules to require all competition films to be released in French cinemas rather than only on the streaming service.

Still to come are high-profile competition films like Sofia Coppola's remake The Beguiled, starring Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell. These two actors also appear in The Killing of a Sacred Deer, a competition entry by Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster). And Kidman has two more films in the festival: John Cameron Mitchell's sci-fi musical How to Talk to Girls at Parties and Jane Campion's Top of the Lake: China Girl. This will make Kidman the most frequent resident of the festival's red carpet, so keep an eye out for at least four iconic looks.

Of competition films screened already, the early favourite is Loveless, the latest from Russian master filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev (Leviathan). And the critics and juries still have a lot to look forward to, including Redoubtable, a biopic of Jean-Luc Goddard by Oscar-winning French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist); Noah Baumbach's The Meyerowitz Stories, starring Emma Thompson, Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman and Candice Bergen; Joaquin Phoenix in Lynne Ramsay's war veteran drama You Were Never Really Here; Robert Pattinson as a bank robber in Good Time; and Isabelle Huppert reteaming with director Michael Haneke (Amour) for Happy End.

And that's just the competitive section. Other parts of the festival feature new movies from Alejandro G. Inarritu, Roman Polanski, Abel Ferrara, Claude Lanzmann, Abbas Kiarostami and directing debuts from Kristen Stewart, Robin Wright and Vanessa Redgrave.

All of these actors and filmmakers will get their moment on the red carpet as they present their films to the notoriously vocal audiences at Cannes between now and May 28th, who have been known to boo movies that later go on to be worldwide, award-winning hits. And with the recent terrorist attacks in Europe, security is higher than ever. Although of course the organisers have disguised barriers as flower pots as they try to maintain the colourful party atmosphere.

Lily Collins and Ahn Seo Hyun at the photocall for Okja