Priscilla
Never meet your heroes, the saying goes. Sofia Coppola’s PRISCILLA would posit that neither should you marry them, have a kid with them, or agree to live in their gilded cage.
All posts by Jim Ross
Fingernails
Christos Nikou’s second feature doesn’t quite reach memorable comic and painful heights, but does have something to say about modernity’s continual perversion of the human experience and the need to dissect, categorise, and package it. Romance is far from dead, but FINGERNAILS takes a forlorn look at what might kill it.
Killers of the Flower Moon
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON achieves a delicate balance and underscores the dysfunction of America as a result of the pursuit of wealth; the warping of ambition into exploitation, ingenuity into criminality, and dreams into delusions.
Hoard
HOARD has some elements which could be tidied up. Still, the sum of this precarious pile of performances, imagery, and characters is a film of deep-rooted emotion and a beautiful mess by design.
Penal Cordillera
PENAL CORDILLERA delivers on its intriguing premise with a close examination of the characters of arrogant, formerly powerful men.
Fair Play
FAIR PLAY may not be as smart and original as it initially seems, but the momentum, central performances, and cranked-up drama deliver an engrossing takedown of fragile male entitlement and the roles many inhabit to advance despite it.
Fremont
FREMONT rarely puts a foot wrong, even if the walking speed is meandering to the point of dallying.
Passages
The character of Tomas, whose emotional and sexual openness reflects commitment to art and new experiences, embodies Ira Sachs’s PASSAGES – uncomfortable and challenging but exhilarating and captivating.
Oppenheimer
There are no more significant potential ramifications than the end of the world, and that awful looming mushroom cloud haunts every frame of OPPENHEIMER’s tense and emotionally violent portrait.
Master Gardener
As frustratingly stilted as MASTER GARDENER can be, Paul Schrader has still planted the seeds of something curiously mesmerising to watch grow.