Hot Milk
Emma Mackey is an engaging screen presence that keeps HOT MILK more or less on track in her lead role, but the lack of narrative direction leaves her character and the film to languish in the hot Spanish sun.
Category Archives: Reviews
28 Years Later
By defying a desire for simplistic metaphors and clear avatars for contemporary concerns, it’s arguable that 28 YEARS LATER allows meaning to emerge in the minds of individual viewers in more complex and unexpected ways.
Christy
The working-class coming-of-age genre has been one especially prone to descending into self-pitying or melodramatic tones without a strong vision behind it. CHRISTY never fails to feel genuine, the Berlinale ’14plus’ winner covering a rekindling of a fraught brotherhood with a joyous air of authenticity.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
With almost thirty years having passed since the first MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, the series has lasted much longer than the legendary 5-seconds-until-self-destruction. However, even if this latest spectacle delivers more than a tiny puff of smoke in an 80s tape player, it represents a fizzling out nonetheless.
The Return
Uberto Pasolini ably converts the last half of Homer’s Odyssey into a single narrative by focusing on the trauma of returning home when you’re no longer the person you were when you left.
Peacock
The premise of renting people to fill social roles resembles Werner Herzog’s FAMILY ROMANCE, LLC or Yorgos Lanthimos’ ALPS. Still, Bernhard Wenger, the film’s writer and director, takes the film in a different direction that feels very Östlund-esque but without Östlund’s satirical bite. As the film concludes, it feels like it has pulled its punches a little.
The Luckiest Man in America
Though THE LUCKIEST MAN IN AMERICA alludes to broader themes around media production and how broadcast media edits narratives to cut out the messy humanity of people’s lives, the film focuses on telling an entertaining story and highlighting Hauser’s performance.
Ghostlight
A tender and moving exploration of grief and art’s power to heal, GHOSTLIGHT’s performances, script, and tone are judged with expert subtlety and emotional authenticity.
Boys Go To Jupiter
BOYS GO TO JUPITER captures the fact that, with the future looming in terrifying, undefined finality ahead of you, the real world often feels like an absurd adventure full of dead ends and the never-ending grind. If only our world were this colourful and whimsical.
Stationed At Home
STATIONED AT HOME is a tale of community, discovery, dreams, and togetherness, bearing witness to everyday resilience and dreams.