There’s two different films happening in All The Beauty And Bloodshed, Laura Poitras’ documentary on the artist and photographer Nan Goldin. One is a more general documentary on Goldin’s life and works, the other is more specifically about her activism around the Sackler family, the name above countless gallery and museum wings and arguably the name responsible for the opioid epidemic. It just happens that Poitras hasn’t really picked which one she’s making. Each strand has its moments, but rather than feeling entwined, the transitions feel jarring. Goldin’s work is fascinating, the depiction of her art scene back in the day is well-realised, and her clear commitment to the cause of demanding justice and on some level retribution for the thousands who have died as a result of the Sacklers’ greed. More focus would have been to the film’s benefit, but here we are. The story of her older sister is tragic, and the surrounding family dynamics are a clear driving force behind Goldin’s beliefs, but the film never really takes the time to sit with that. A lighter tangent to end: the couple next to me in the cinema decided that the harrowing testimony of the relatives of opioid abuse victims was the perfect backdrop for some PDA and honestly I find that baffling.