Director: J.C. Chandor
Writers: Richard Wenk, Art Marcum, Matt Holloway
Stars: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Fred Hechinger, Russell Crowe

Synopsis: Kraven’s complex relationship with his ruthless father, Nikolai Kravinoff, starts him down a path of vengeance with brutal consequences, motivating him to become not only the greatest hunter in the world, but also one of its most feared.

There are two reasons I was excited about Sony’s latest (and likely final) entry in the Sony Spider-Man Universe: Kraven the Hunter has Aaron Taylor-Johnson and J.C. Chandor. Taylor-Johnson has always been a versatile, dynamic performer known for his emotional and physical commitment, which can be awe-inspiring. Chandor, on the other hand, had an extraordinary first three-film run with Margin Call, All Is Lost, and A Most Violent Year, though he stumbled slightly with the star-studded Triple Frontier.

Surely, a respected heartthrob and critical darling like Taylor-Johnson, paired with a director known for introspection, could bring a fresh perspective to a tired genre and transcend the tropes and clichés that often plague it. Sadly, Kraven the Hunter falls short. The film suffers from cringe-worthy dialogue, occasionally hysterically bad special effects (Kraven’s friends, the water buffaloes, have the look of a Lindt Milk Chocolate Holiday Bunny), and even some embarrassingly poor performances from Academy Award-winning and otherwise respected actors.

The story follows Sergei Kravinoff, aka Kraven (Bullet Train’s Taylor-Johnson), a conservationist who sees it as his duty to protect wildlife rather than hunt it. This mindset likely stems from his father, Nikolai (Academy Award winner Russell Crowe), a ruthless Russian crime lord and big-game hunter. While Nikolai takes lives for selfish gain, Kraven takes them to serve the greater good. It’s a tale of overcoming circumstances—faith versus free will—harnessing a brutal nature and a thirst for vengeance. 

However, Kraven’s resolve is tested when he faces Aleksei Sytsevich (Alessandro Nivola), a Russian mercenary who has become a human-rhino hybrid. Sytsevich possesses the comedic style of Michael Scott, the temperament of the Hulk, and an impenetrable hide. Eventually, Aleksei abducts his brother, Dimitri (Fred Hechinger), sending Kraven on the, well, hunt. He enlists the help of London’s very best “investigative” lawyer, Calypso Ezili (Ariana DeBose), who has a connection to Sergei’s past to help track down Dimitri, which is strange since Johnson’s character states how it is “undeniable” he’s the greatest hunter/tracker on the planet.

Johnson is one of the most talented actors in the world, but the film and sound editors do him no favors, allowing him to ham it up here. His performance is so over the top, it’s almost laughable. The same goes for Alessandro Nivola, who was excellent in The Art of Self-Defense and The Many Saints of Newark but plays the Rhino so inconsistently that his portrayal feels disjointed. Yes, he’s playing a psychopathic villain, but the character’s uneven shifts are so erratic they come off as practically schizophrenic. Even Ariana DeBose is left standing awkwardly in one scene, showing no fear, shock, or even surprise when a leopard attacks Sergei, as if such events are an everyday occurrence in a courtroom.

And don’t get me started on Christopher Abbott’s “Foreigner.” The script has his character undergo a series of repetitive minor assassinations, leaving the audience wanting to scream, “For God’s sake, we get it!” These so-called “iconic” characters—Kraven, Calypso, Rhino, Foreigner, and Chameleon—are so paper-thin, it’s a blatant misuse of the source material. The writing team seems uninterested in understanding these characters, reducing them to glorified cameos. It’s as if they’re mere action figures with a pull-string, endlessly repeating the same scenes or one-liners repeatedly.

The main issue with the film is that it juggles too many perspectives, a clear sign of repeated rewrites. Richard Wenk is credited as the primary screenwriter, with additional contributions from Art Marcum and Matt Holloway. The first 45 minutes drag under the weight of exposition, unfolding as slowly as thawing permafrost. Predictably, the film relies on the same tired tropes and clichés you’d expect from the genre. For example, lion blood and some magic voodoo medicine give Kraven the animal powers of a lion. 

However, did you know a lion can jump off a fifty story building without breaking a bone and spot a cigarette butt a mile away? What I find particularly amusing about environmental superhero films is their tendency to preach against animal cruelty only to fall into hypocrisy. Case in point: while Kraven fights for vengeance over the killing of animals, he seems perfectly fine catching a fish and then ripping the flesh off for his own enjoyment and nourishment. I mean, fish are animals, too, right? 

This should have been fun, but the gory, tedious, and laughable final product should hopefully hammer the final nail in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU) for good.

You can watch Kraven the Hunter only in theaters on December 13th!

Grade: D

Director: Mélanie Laurent
Writers: Mélanie Laurent, Christophe Desplandes
Stars: Lucas Bravo, Léa Luce Busato, Yvan Attal

Synopsis: Inspired by real events, the story of Bruno Sulak, a true Arsène Lupin of the 20th century.

In a movie about a Bonnie and Clyde-esque couple, director, Mélanie Laurent, chooses a breathtaking, opening shot. In an extreme closeup of Léa Luce Busato’s face, her lips are lustrous, her freckles prominent, and the smoke from her mouth forms faint clouds of hazy dreams. Then a reverse dolly camera movement reveals that it’s not a girl lying lazily on a beach, but waiting in her care for her lover to finish a heist. As we realize we’ve been played carefully by the tactful Laurent, we also surrender that the female gaze can make a whole difference in a particular genre like biographical crime dramas.

Freedom stars the enigmatic Lucas Bravo fresh off his Emily in Paris fame, alongside Busato -her first time in front of a film camera- and Yvan Attal. It’s a fictionalized biopic of Bruno Sulak’s life; the modern Arsène Lupin, the handsome gentleman thief with ideals and principles. Instead of focusing on the robberies and the crime element of the film, Lauernt takes a different approach to telling the story.

The film benefits from Laurent behind the screen, a sensitive, passionate woman who knows her directorial tools. Her montages of footage between Bruno and his lover Annie take center stage, even amidst all the intense heists. Laurent benefits immensely from the chemistry between Bravo and Busato, but her keen direction and nurturing of their talents allow her to explore the characters more deeply. In comparison, Sulak is a messed up, crazed version of a social activist and an anarchist. He believes he is doing the world a favor by stealing from the rich. The lovestruck Annie is mesmerized by him, living the dream that many women before her have only dared to envision.

Annie is a delusional young girl, infatuated by a dream of a nonexistent breed of machismo, the sexy, strong, and kind outlaw. In one scene, she talks about him rollerblading, and it’s like she’s using him as her muse and object of fascination. In a brave flip of POV, Laurent makes Annie a creator in the story, as if she is not simply the young silly girl dragged around with a criminal mastermind, but a creator of her narrative, someone who wants to live the bohemian French life of no work but sex, games, danger, and fun. Annie is the rogue version of Jane Birkin following around a hot and unbothered Serge Gainsbourg, the young girl in love with a soon-to-be-extinct breed of heterosexual masculinity, one that is not sexually confused or uncomfortable. He lives to be her icon of desire, and she is comfortable in her femininity to hide in his presence, while secretly manipulating the situation to her favor, so that she can live as this imaginary French lover for as long as she can.

It could be that nostalgic Laurent is romanticizing the gangster genre. For good reason, she brings a colorful, very French exploration of love, crime, and sacrifice. Cinema hasn’t had that brave narrative where (hetero) love intersects with violence in a long time. Admittedly, the violent scenes are toned down, but then again, brutality is not part of Sulak’s philosophy of a boho life. It’s not a critique of Laurent’s directing style for turning a crime movie, a hot outlaw’s biopic into a sun-drenched dream.

Laurent makes great use of handheld cameras and during intense, action-packed scenes. Her DOP Stéphane Vallée knows how to work his cameras, and the action-packed scenes differ from the lovers on a run scenes. Laurent defies all the crime/noir aesthetics by creating a colorful, vibrant feature. That may not work in her favor at most times, because people —especially critics— expect more. They expect a reason for making this film, a rationale behind bringing Bruno Sulak’s story to life, but there is no reasoning because the dreamer in Laurent wanted to make a movie about love and crime walking hand in hand, and the result is as fresh and poetic as can be.

Freedom is truly a passion project, a swan song from Laurent’s creative mind about a French tale that she misses watching unfold on screen. In it, she enjoys creating the world she dreams about, and through her eyes, we witness her inner thoughts and feelings about a timeless tale like Bruno Sulak’s life.

Grade: A-

Director: James Mangold
Writers: James Mangold, Jay Cocks, Elijah Wald
Stars: Timothée Chalamet, Monica Barbaro, Scoot McNairy

Synopsis: At the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, a young Bob Dylan shakes up his act on the folk music scene by going electric and siring rock as the voice of a generation – defining one of the most transformative moments in 20th century music.

It is 1961 and the Village in New York City is buzzing alive with the folk music revival led by Pete Seeger (Edward Norton), carrying on the tradition of his very sick friend, folk legend Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy). Coming from Minnesota is Robert Zimmerman, better known as Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet), only with a backpack and guitar looking to break into the business. After making his pilgrimage to visit Guthrie, who is suffering from Huntington’s disease, Dylan meets Seeger who quickly introduces him to his family and the rest of the musicians, with manager Albert Grossman (Dan Fogler) immediately realizing Dylan’s talents and signs him to a record deal.

In a few years, Dylan is no longer a complete unknown, and fame rages onward, sweeping him and his girlfriend, Sylvie (Elle Fanning). Dylan, still somewhat guarding his life as his fans swarm him and ask him to keep playing the political hits (“Blowin’ In The Wind”), wants to change all of that but feels chained by the base, demanding he stick to the traditional folk tradition like his counterpart, Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro). Looking for that radical change, he considers going electric – the enemy of folk music traditionalists – and shaking up the status quo with what music can be without being shackled by expectations and rules. 

For Chalamet, this is the best performance he’s given since Call Me By Your Name and is Oscar-worthy. This isn’t just playing a real-life musician and lip-syncing, this is Chalamet singing Dylan’s songs in his near-perfect Minnesotian dialect and becoming the Nobel Prize winner (as noted in the end credits). From the opening moment featuring him in the back of a car looking ahead to the Manhattan skyline to the final shot of Dylan riding his motorcycle, Chalamet converts himself into an American icon that blasts out of the screen with every note picked on his guitar and every stirring lyric sung. Tour-de-force is too common to describe the performance, but no other tern matches the height he’s accomplished as a folk-rock star. Chalamet doesn’t just play Dylan, he is Dylan.  

Norton’s Seeger fulfills the real-life persona with the ultimate grace and softness of the real-life singer and activist; Fanning portrays the loneliness of being the lover of a superstar and enduring Dylan’s tinges of narcissism. Barbaro as Baez, the Barefoot Madonna (because of her natural beauty while performing without shoes on) is radiant while Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash comes in with a more nuanced portrayal as the Man In Black during his hard-drinking period. The scenes at the Newport Folk Festival with the live audience and at the recording studio make us feel as if we are there in person and part of music-making history with the cornerstone songs of this period being played. Being immersed in the Village during the ’60s is a surround sound experience that never feels out of place. 

Director James Mangold, who knows a thing or two about making a musical biopic, effortlessly guides this consequential chapter in music history. He washes off that foul taste of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny with influential music that swoons us back into the 1960s when the world was changing rapidly. So much of that aesthetic looks good on screen and gets us in with its hook from the beginning. It isn’t flashy, but A Complete Unknown doesn’t have to be when telling this section of Dylan’s life and fills the story with the amazing songs that changed the world. 

Follow me on Bluesky: @briansusbielles.bsky.social

Grade: A

Director: Armani Ortiz, Tyler Perry
Writer: Kevin Hymel, Tyler Perry
Stars: Kerry Washington, Ebony Obsidian, Milauna Jackson

Synopsis: 855 women joined the war to fix the three-year backlog of undelivered mail. Faced with discrimination and a country devastated by war, they managed to sort more than 17 million pieces of mail ahead of time.

There are many examples of directors who primarily work in one field or genre moving successfully into another. Usually, these creatives have understood the nuances of what makes their chosen genre great and applying those to the next. Tyler Perry is not one of those directors. The Six Triple Eight, his attempt at a prestige historical drama bringing to light the efforts of the first and only battalion of Black Women soldiers deployed in Europe during WWII is ham-fisted, exasperating, filled with lines no one could imagine any human being delivering, and entirely surface level. 

The film opens in 1943 on the Italian front line. Young American soldiers attack and are beaten back. An infantry man encounters a pilot who has been shot from the sky. He’s dead. He pulls a blood-stained letter from his pocket and places it in a sack. Letters from families and soldiers echo. No one has heard from the front lines. Without word from home or afar, the stasis of anxiety is causing morale issues. This much is told clearly and concisely in two scenes. However, Perry will continue to reiterate how important the mail is because it was what the WAC group was begrudgingly sent to Scotland to oversee. Perry will also reiterate every basic theme in the film to the point where one wonders if he’s so used to telling a gag six times in his comedy work hoping repetition hits the mark, that he has no idea that audiences might not know about the work of Charity Adams (Kerry Washington) and her troops, but they have heard of racism and misogyny before.

Flashback to Bloomfield, Pennsylvania and we meet our focus heroine, soon to graduate schoolgirl Lena Derriecott (Ebony Obsidian). Her childhood friend Abram David (Gregg Sulkin) arrives at her high school to drive her home. A White teen stands between them telling him he shouldn’t be seen spending time with a Black woman – it’s improper. But, of course, the friends are inseparable and in love. “She’s so horrible for treating you that way for the color of your skin,” says Abram at his going away party. The bright-eyed Jewish boy is off to fight Hitler. He declares his love for Miss Lena that very night: Her: “You know this is not right in the eyes of many people.”  Him: “The only eyes that matter are ours.” He declares his intention to court and marry her on his return. He will write to her. 

Lena is an intelligent and sensitive young woman. Her aunt Susie (Baadja-Lyne Odums) wants her to go to college. Her mother, Emma (Donna Biscoe) doesn’t want Lena to have any pie-in-the-sky ideas. Struggling as essentially a single mother, as her husband has vanished, there is no money and experience has shown her that being a woman and Black is about keeping your head down to survive. Nevertheless, she wishes her daughter the best. Susie and Emma are ridiculously thinly drawn characters. Often, they exist simply to deliver exposition in a scene where none is needed. Lena is getting letters from Abram which is shown by Lena going to the door and not getting letters from Abram and placing the other mail on a tray with disappointment. “I guess she don’t get no letters,” says one. Yes – that was the scene we just watched. When the news comes that Abram has died and Lena takes to her bed in grief (again, shown) the voice over from the women below is, “She’s not getting out of bed.” 

Lena makes the decision to enlist. There is no money for college. “There ain’t no way they’re going to let you fight Hitler,” says one of them. “You will just be cooking and cleaning for White folks and you can do that here.” Lena is firm. She needs to find a trace of the life she might have lived with Abram, and she must find a way to fight.

Once on the train to basic training, segregation happens almost immediately. The White women are sent to a different compartment. The audience meets the women who will be the core characters they follow through their journey from training camp in Georgia through to deployment in Europe. A Black-Latina, Delores Washington and history buff (Sarah Jeffrey), her cousin and math genius Elaine White (Pepi Sonuga), a Harlem woman looking for an education, Bernice Baker (Kylie Jefferson), and a rural woman who worked in the cotton fields escaping her violent husband, Johnnie Mae (Shanice Shantay). Elaine tells them that she and Delores were told they failed the entry exam, but they wrote to esteemed African American Women’s leader Mary McLeod Bethune (played in a cameo by Oprah Winfrey) and she ensured they were admitted. Mary McLeod Bethune is a close friend of Eleanor Roosevelt (who turns up played by Susan Sarandon and a set of false teeth). Johnnie Mae’s response boils down, “Ooh ain’t you all fancy pants,” as she’s there for men, adventure, and her own version of liberation. 

At training camp in Georgia, the women encounter the reality of military life as delivered by Captain Charity Adams, the exacting head of training and the highest-ranking Black woman in the WAC. “We have the burden to be better,” she says again and again. The military is still segregated, no one wants women fighting to begin with, and the last thing anyone wants is Black women fighting and succeeding. It is the war on two fronts. Every small personal failure from one of her soldiers is an indelible failure for Black women. 

While Lena, who is not physically strong, struggles through boot camp supported by Delores, Bernice, and Elaine but often antagonized by the buxom wildcard Johnnie Mae, Captain Adams along with her 2IC Noël Campbell (Milauna Jackson) struggle with a racist command system that refuses to deploy any of the soldiers she has trained. Adams’ Captain’s rank means nothing to White men from Private through to Major. It seems they will be going nowhere until Eleanor Roosevelt is made aware of the issue of the lack of post getting through to families and soldiers. Alerting her husband FDR (Sam Waterson), he sets up a meeting with one dimensional racist General Halt (Dean Norris, sweating, growling, and Southern drawling through the role) who insists that no one has been able to deal with the problem because all transports have been diverted to the fighting. “We even put the women on it,” he says. Not the Negro women, Mary McLeod Bethune points out. Charity Adams and her division, the 855 women strong WAC 688th have their mission regardless of if Major Halt likes it or not – and he most certainly does not.

The ludicrous cliched dialogue and set-ups break apart almost every point Perry and co-director Armani Ortiz try to make. The second half of the film in which the women come up with ingenious systems to identify the mail and sort what ended up being over seventeen million pieces is overshadowed by clunky character work, cheap visuals, melodrama, and stagey acting. Asking the question is Kerry Washington, good in her role. who becomes excruciating because the script rarely lets her act. All that can be said is she does her best with sub-par material. Ebony Obsidian delivers lines like she’s in a first stage rehearsal community theatre play. We are supposed to believe in character development for Johnnie Mae but as she is the rough-hewn foil to the accomplished, serious, and polite characters in the group she’s ironically tokenized. 

The 688th did something incredible for the war effort in connecting families and soldiers during the later parts of the war in Europe. They were asked to achieve the near impossible with no support and active interference from a command that would prefer their men go without mail and morale than to allow Black women to succeed. Yet, apart from a handful of scenes, Tyler Perry reduces the enterprise to badly written, visually cheap, amateurly acted schmaltz. Even a postscript with the real Lena falls flat because the audience has long since stopped being invested in her if they ever really were. “You put a human face on to what we are doing,” Major Adams tells Lena after it is revealed what motivated Lena to keep going in the army. As if it is some kind of revelation that caring about the dog tags of deceased soldiers being mailed home is something a woman with an MA in psychology couldn’t work out for herself without a visual representation from a distressed Private under her command.

Audiences are well enough acquainted with narratives about World War II, sexism, and racism that they don’t need the issues spelled out as if they are children encountering these ideas for the first time. For many people it will be the first time they’ve heard of the WAC 688th – women who deserve to be celebrated. Tyler Perry’s film is an object lesson in how not to tell a story of adversity, dignity, service, and fortitude. The Six Triple Eight is cheap when it should be rich, hollow when it should be deep, and fundamentally bad narrative storytelling.

Grade: F

Director: Clint Eastwood
Writer: Jonathan A. Abrams
Stars: Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, J.K. Simmons

Synopsis: While serving as a juror in a high-profile murder trial, a family man finds himself struggling with a serious moral dilemma, one he could use to sway the jury verdict and potentially convict or free the wrong killer.

Part of me wants to think that Warner Brothers intentionally held back what is likely Clint Eastwood’s last movie, Juror #2, from a nationwide release because who goes to the theater to watch a ’90s throwback courtroom thriller anymore? Those are now usually reserved for streaming. The only way anyone will shell out enough money to dust off the John Grisham ’90s genre is if it has a Taylor Swift song on the soundtrack.

The thing is, it’s pretty good. It’s a throwback to legal thrillers of years past that build anxiety-ridden intellectual suspense. So, why did Warner Brothers shelve the film? Are they afraid of political ramifications? Why not just add it to Max for streaming so more people could see it? It’s a mystery why Juror #2 was hidden in only 37 theaters, but with it coming to digital soon to rent or buy, you now have a chance to watch a Hollywood legend and his steady hand tell a good story with an even better payoff.

The story is relatively straightforward, which is surprising, considering how it starts. We first meet Justin Kemp (a very good Nicholas Hoult), who is sitting in the back of a dingy dive bar on the outskirts of Savannah, Georgia. We cannot tell yet if he has had a sip of his drink, but we can see he is struggling with the decision. As he leaves in the background, we know a couple—a total disaster of a dumpster fire type—arguing at the bar.

They are James (The Night Agent’s Gabriel Basso) and Kendall (Francesca Eastwood), whose argument eventually ends up outside in the pouring rain. Meanwhile, as the patrons watch the heated banter unfold, Kemp is in his car, struggling with something obviously on his mind. Flash forward months later, James is on trial for the murder of Kendall, and Kemp is now on the jury. Meanwhile, he has a pregnant wife at home (Zoey Deutch), and the memories of that night keep creeping up in Justin’s mind as the case progresses.

We don’t want to ruin anything for you going into Juror #2, even though almost any trailer ever made gives away too much of the plot, but most importantly, the setup, which is a joy in itself. (Can you imagine how much more enjoyable the opening sequence of Trap would have been if you didn’t know what Josh Hartnett’s character was going into the film?) What essentially happens is a morality play—12 Angry Men meets Runaway Jury. Yes, that is the lowest form of film criticism, but it’s an apt assessment here, meaning the film works as both a thriller and a finely tuned drama.

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Clint Eastwood directs, working with an original script from Jonathan Abrams, his first. The film is old-fashioned, taking its time with methodical pacing that helps with the straightforward approach as the story moves into its second and third acts. It helps when you can form a jury of disparate characters with strong personalities to distract you from that fact. J.K. Simmons plays a former detective and helps move the jury away from their passions into a more common-sense approach. That being said, the script is also heavily reliant on some red herrings and a few too many moments that would require a significant amount of incompetence for any member of the legal system to overlook.

Still, not every movie has to be a work of art, and some classics that define a generation are, for lack of a better term, fun. That’s where Juror #2 draws you in, with quietly compelling performances, like an excellent Toni Collette, playing an ambitious district attorney who lets her election campaign get in the way of the facts of the case. As questions pile up, tension, suspense, and personal stakes build as Hoult’s Kemp is put in a corner, he tries to find his way out of. Along with Hoult’s best performance of his career in The Order, this has been quite the year for the actor in leading roles. 

Think of all the special effects-driven films, like comic book or adventure movies, that bypass smart writing by having a “portal” open up in the sky to avoid storytelling traps. That’s rare today, and the reason why Juror #2 is well worth your time if you’re looking for a legal thriller that is smarter than most.

You can rent or buy Juror #2 on December 3rd and stream exclusively on Max or HBO on December 17th.

Grade: B

Director: Jon M. Chu
Writers: Winnie Holzman, Dana Fox
Stars: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande-Butera, Jonathan Bailey

Synopsis: Elphaba, a misunderstood young woman because of her green skin, and Glinda, a popular girl, become friends at Shiz University in the Land of Oz. After an encounter with the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, their friendship reaches a crossroads.

Modern movie musicals are a little afraid of themselves. In their marketing they rarely show actors singing. Within the films they rely heavily on editing and close ups, which can completely detract from the dance sequences and complex movements. Singing and dancing are paramount to the genre; it’s strange for a musical film to not want to market that to potential viewers. Wicked is even afraid of telling us that it is an incomplete story. Much like Dune in 2021, it is only after release that everyone is officially informed that this particular film is actually Wicked: Part I. It doesn’t help either that 21 years after the original musical’s run on Broadway, the story feels a little dated.

The songs are beautiful, but feel dissonant somehow like they are dated and too well worn. The story is powerful, but doesn’t say enough. The themes are universal, but they ring a bit false. Within the musical genre it’s also very difficult to establish real emotional rawness because it has to move on quickly. There is an emotional core to the story, but it feels as if when the story hits those notes, the filmmakers want to move on. If you’re really going to bring this story to life, it could have used an actual story update instead of just a major movie face lift that should have included new orchestrations for the songs. It’s obvious from the vehemence of the fan base for the original stage musical that those would be very unpop-u-lar choices.

In spite of that lingering, nagging negativity, Wicked: Part I will still take your breath away. Director Jon M. Chu is proving to be a director who can pull off some incredible sequences and who hires incredible artisans. Production designer Nathan Crowley has created an enchanting world filled with beautiful, unique sets and props. The costumes designed by Paul Tazewell are otherworldly and absolutely gorgeous. Even Alice Brooks’ cinematography feels immersive, like we’re in the film with the characters, walking and dancing apace. Frances Hannon and Karen Cohen led a makeup and hair team that created some really stunning looks for each character. 

The comments in the first paragraph notwithstanding, there are some incredible dance sequences that show off this talented cast. Especially the incredible song, “Dancing Through Life” featuring Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) in the library. Bailey plays it with so much oozing sex appeal and charisma that it makes every person in the scene, and every person in the audience, immediately melt into gooey lust at his charm.

In contrast, there’s also a spectacular scene later as Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) realizes that her presence at The Ozdust Ballroom is to be the butt of the joke. In the middle of the circle of people who laugh and snicker at her, she makes a choice about a dance. The scene is virtually wordless as she choreographs the dance for herself. She thrusts her arms, taps her heels, and just moves in a unique and pained way. Glinda (Ariana Grande-Butera) joins Elphaba not to mock, but to encourage her and to assuage her, Glinda’s, guilt at playing a heartless prank on someone who didn’t deserve it. It becomes a dance between the two of them and it is beautiful to watch.

It’s hard not to watch Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba. Yes, she has incredible pipes, but she also has immense acting talent. Her emotional journey is played out in silent looks, in miniscule facial expressions, and large emotive eyes. There is a scene toward the end as her mentor, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), villainizes her to all of Oz. Rather than cutting away to Madame Morrible speaking, we only see Elphaba’s reaction. It’s a pitch perfect movement on Erivo’s part. She goes from disbelief, to devastation, to anger over the course of the speech.

As good as Cynthia Erivo is, Ariana Grande-Butera is astounding. She fits into Glinda like she was born to play her. Her singing is beautiful, but her comedic chops are simply perfection. There are so many laugh out loud moments and phrases that she tosses out expertly without missing a perfectly coiffed stride. Her playing hard to get with Fiyero is so delightful and such an excellently played scene. She owns every bit of the screen.

The effects, both practical and computerized, and the choreography are also truly spectacular. In spite of its story flaws, Wicked: Part I is an extremely entertaining and affecting ride. The acting ensemble is terrific and the original cast cameos are worth it. It’s a film that makes you wish it were five hours just to see it and Wicked: Part II in a single sitting so it doesn’t lose so much momentum with a year gap in between.

Grade: B

Director: Johan Grimonprez
Writers: Johan Grimonprez, Daan Milius
Stars: Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Miles Davis

Synopsis: Jazz and decolonization are entwined in this historical rollercoaster that rewrites the Cold War episode that led musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the UN Security Council in protest against the murder of Patrice Lumumba.

Politics and music during the 1950s and 1960s and the Civil Rights Movement aren’t strangers to the movies, with countless releases touching on this timeline. Archive footage and recordings of those who were there are limitless in a hostile era beyond the United States. International events, such as the Cold War and the decolonization of Africa, dominated the headlines and grabbed the attention of many artists, especially African-Americans who felt their ancestors finally being free from Europe’s grasp of centuries of domination and exploitation. The centerpiece of director Johan Grimonprez’s exhilarating documentary is the current Democratic Republic of the Congo, when it was given independence in 1960 by Belgium, but was quickly overwhelmed by various forces inside and out of the country. The main figure of this story was the country’s first Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba. 

Intercutting between archival footage, interviews, and splashy newspaper graphics to tell the narrative of this massive event, Grimonprez sets up one of the more explosive and original documentaries this year. The Cold War heated up between the United States and the Soviet Union as the United Nations added sixteen newly independent countries, all from Africa, creating a new geopolitical shift between East and West. These countries, former European colonies mainly from Britain and France, suddenly hold power in what the UN will do with future conflicts, namely the Belgian colony of the Congo and the push for independence. (To better explain that background, I’d recommend reading “King Leopold’s Ghost” by Adam Hochschild.)

In the middle of this, the United States, fearing the country and its charismatic, socialist leader Lumumba would tilt the country into the Soviet sphere, decided to send jazz musicians like Louis Armstrong and Nina Simone on a goodwill tour to the continent. In reality, these were CIA-funded covers to reach out to leaders to win their support and stay close to the West, and other jazz musicians like drummer Max Roach and singer Abbey Lincoln realized this. However, from independence, Belgium, with the implicit backing of the United Nations, supported what amounts to a coup to overthrow and assassinate Lumumba in favor of rivals in the country. This struggle played out with other world leaders, including Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, demanding the end of foreign interference as they recognized the clear smokescreen the US provided, with jazz musicians going to play to thousands.  

There are many characters, especially the number of jazz artists, but you always keep track as Grimonprez identifies the leads and supporting players. The leading sources who control the narrative are Andrée Blouin, an associate of Lumumba, Congolese writer In Koli Jean Bofane, Irish diplomat to the Congo Conor Cruise O’Brien, and Khrushchev himself. All four have unique voice overs from past interviews that told what happened on the ground and contrasted it to American and British television and their coverage which had a different story playing out in public. For those who have never heard about this subject, the story plays like a political thriller and Grimonprez never lets loose the tension as we go back and forth between the Congo and the US. Brief cuts to the present day where the country remains in constant conflict and UN peacekeepers are still around is a reminder that what started in 1960 has not yet ended.

Soundtrack To A Coup d’Etat explores an expansive narrative that connects jazz and Cold War politics with exceptional capacity that makes its 150-minute runtime worthy. There isn’t a moment that drops off and our eyes remain fixated on the screen. The editing and sound design work in sync with the changing graphics, allowing us to take in all of this information steadily and understandably as the film unravels to the climax of this brutal chapter in world history. To quote a New York Times article cited in the movie, “America’s secret weapon is a blue note in a minor key.” That key, however, is as explosive as Dizzy Gillespie playing his unique trumpet or Armstrong’s growling voice.

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Grade: A

Director: Gints Zilbalodis
Writers: Gints Zilbalodis, Matīss Kaž

Synopsis: Cat is a solitary animal, but as its home is devastated by a great flood, he finds refuge on a boat populated by various species, and will have to team up with them despite their differences.

Throughout my writings on cinema, I’ve always said that images are far more important than dialogue. Usually, when people remember a powerful line of dialogue spoken by an actor, it’s always accompanied by a strong image. It’s what supports it. Not how the actor delivers the line, but the image. And I’m not the only one who seems to think this. Director Denis Villeneuve controversially said the same earlier this year, stating, “Frankly, I hate dialogue. Dialogue is for theatre and television. I don’t remember movies because of a good line, I remember movies because of a strong image. I’m not interested in dialogue at all. Pure image and sound, that is the power of cinema, but it is something not obvious when you watch movies today. Movies have been corrupted by television.”

He’s right, by the way. Image and sound-making are sparse in the televised-driven cinema we currently have, and it’s a rare feat when a filmmaker releases a movie solely driven on its visual/aural storytelling. John Woo did so with his incredible Silent Night last year, and now we have Gints Zilbalodis giving us an animated visual story with Flow (Straume). Told without dialogue and entirely reliant on its images, the story is one of great importance. It raises awareness of the climate cataclysm coming our way if none of us change course. Sadly, with the election of climate-denying politicians, it seems that we’re very well on this way!

It also doesn’t patronize, but shows how bad it will get not only for humans, who seemingly don’t exist in the world Gilbalodis paints, but for nature’s balance. It puts a black cat in the middle of a disastrous flood that wipes out most of the environment he lives in, forcing him to team up with many animals, including dogs, lemurs, capybaras, and eventually secretarybirds. What’s most compelling about Zilbalodis’ film in its first half is how it introduces a clear rivalry between animals – dogs and cats being the most classic of all. In fact, Zilbalodis introduces them fighting over a fish until the flood occurs, leading to them putting their differences aside. 

The way communication is captured between the animals is also impressive. Zilbalodis never judges the characters he depicts within his entirely virtual world, but empathizes with them as they are forced to work together in the hopes of finding another place to live that isn’t submerged by water. But everywhere they go, waters have risen to unlivable heights. This is all deftly shown through its striking visuals, rendered on the free (and fun) software Blender. 

If you’ve ever worked on such a platform, you’d think that Zilbalodis used something else to give this film its look. But he didn’t. As a technical achievement alone, Flow showcases the bountiful opportunities free software like Blender can bring if we dream big enough. Zilbalodis has undoubtedly pushed the boundaries for what’s possible to capture, animate, and render in such a platform, and he deserves all the commendations he’s been getting in that regard. 

And yet, there’s something so plastic about Flow that one can’t help but feel distanced from everything occurring on screen, even if it is consistently visually arresting, contains soothing music, and its sound design envelops us in its wholly imaginative world. As much as I was always compelled to see what would happen next and would gasp in horror every time the film’s cat would go into the water (because he can’t swim!), I also felt that its structural approach seemed more like an elongated quick-time event cutscene than an actual visual story. 

I was waiting for button icons to appear on screen every time Zilbalodis would wait for a few milliseconds before a character completed an action, almost as if a Flow video game was in the works. Usually, I try not to compare apples to oranges. Still, it isn’t hard to make that contrast when Zilbalodis renders his entire movie on a software also used for game development. This, unfortunately, makes Flow feel a tad emotionless. The animals do have differences in how they speak to each other, which makes this wholly imaginative world lived-in and authentic, but they feel more like commands than characters imbued by true feeling, as illustrated in Chris Sanders’ wonderful The Wild Robot. 

The world of that movie was all synthetic, but we’re eventually bought into its impeccably crafted, lustful animation by a camera that’s always in proximity to the animals (and robot) it humanizes. While the animals in Flow certainly have some qualities that distinguish them from each other, they don’t feel fully realized. Sure, some impressively jaw-dropping sequences make us care about the group, but I’d be lying if I said my investment in the proceedings was at a maximum. I always felt emotionally distant from what was on screen, even if Zilbalodis drew a decent enough technical exercise. 

But the technical exercise isn’t enough for me to give the movie the flowers most gave it. Of course, it is a reminder that images trump dialogue all day, every day. But the images must be filled with immense emotion for our senses to be so overwhelmed by what we’re watching that we always look at things to draw from the frames. Unfortunately for Zilbalodis, this is never the case with Flow, as breezy and crowd-pleasing a watch as it is. It may go all the way at this year’s Oscars, which honestly wouldn’t be a terrible choice, even if an animated movie like SPY x FAMILY: Code – White deserves far more attention – and accolades – than it had upon its release.

Grade: C+

Director: Mike Cheslik
Writers: Mike Cheslik, Ryland Brickson Cole Tews
Stars: Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, Olivia Graves, Doug Mancheski

Synopsis: In this 19th century, supernatural winter epic, a drunken applejack salesman must go from zero to hero and become North America’s greatest fur trapper by defeating hundreds of beavers.

When you watch a lot of movies, like literally thousands of movies, you sometimes feel like you have seen it all. You’ve heard this before. There are only seven types of stories. This is derivative of that. Show, don’t tell. Style over substance. Pick your cliché. It’s not that these things cannot be true, it is that they can be severely limiting and box us in as viewers. But every great once in a while, something wholly original comes along to shake things up. And this year, that experience has arrived. I promise you that you have never seen anything like Hundreds of Beavers, and god bless it for being completely itself.

With a title like that, you might assume that Hundreds of Beavers is infantile, silly nonsense. You would be both wrong and right. After all, this is a movie featuring people in beaver costumes, sometimes attacking humans and sometimes chewing through wood, like you do. But, this should not be a movie that you dismiss out of hand. The plot follows Jean Kayak (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews), who is a successful applejack (an alcoholic beverage made from apples) salesman, whose orchard is destroyed by a rogue beaver chewing through the legs a giant keg.  That keg goes rolling down the hill, demolishing everything in its path. All of this occurs before the opening credits and sets the stage for the type of movie it is perfectly. There is basically no dialogue, everything feels handcrafted, and the focus is on humor, with touches of drama. Think 1920s-1930s silent, slapstick comedy with a relatively modern sensibility.

There is no way this should work. You might think that the schtick would wear thin, but director Mike Cheslik has a firm grasp on exactly how long each bit should last, aided by a lovely screenplay, from Cheslik and Brickson Cole Tews. As the story continues, Jean Kayak reawakens in the winter, without a penny to his name. He attempts to hunt for food, repeatedly failing in increasingly spectacular ways. Eventually, he injures himself and is taken in by trappers, who teach him their trade. After the trappers perish in a both funny and haunting sequence, Kayak starts his own path using his learned trade and this is where the film could have gone horribly awry.

As he has finally learned to trap some animals, he travels to a merchant to sell. There, he meets the merchant’s daughter (Olivia Graves). Despite the lack of dialogue, there is an immediate romantic connection and both actors should be commended on their performances. Sadly, her father demands, you guessed it, hundreds of beaver pelts as a sort of dowry for his blessing on their union. The scenes in which she teaches Jean how to remove the fur and innards of the animals is oddly romantic. There is no gore here, this is all managed in slapstick style and is completely endearing. But honestly, this relationship carries the film.

There are, of course, many more joys in Hundreds of Beavers yet to come. A duo of beavers investigating Jean’s traps, repeated failures from Jean leading to enormous success, dozens of beavers combining into an almost Voltron like figure to chase down the humans, the list goes on and on. There is never a dull moment here, but it is not just madcap hilarity. Don’t get me wrong, it has many belly clutching moments of humor, but the humanity is what carries it through.  Somehow, some way, I found myself actively rooting for Jean and his lady love, and by the time the film comes to fruition, I challenge you not to leave with a gigantic smile on your face. 

Hundreds of Beavers is an absolute gem and we are lucky to experience it. In terms of creation, it is also an honest-to-god inspiration. The idea for this film began in 2018 and was created almost solely by Cheslik and Brickson Cole Tews. The process was lengthy, and they even chose to distribute the film themselves. And, from this reviewer’s perspective, it was all worth it. Against all possible odds, the tandem created a funny, touching, romantic, action-packed, original film. Hundreds of Beavers could not be more worth your time.

Grade: A-

Director: Kathryn Ferguson
Writers: Eleanor Emptage, Kathryn Ferguson
Stars: Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart

Synopsis: Explores the iconic actor’s journey to stardom through his relationships with his mother and four wives, including Lauren Bacall, using rare footage and his own narration to offer an intimate portrait of a deserving star.

“Funny, I considered myself never particularly well-liked. I really never knew before how many friends I did have.” For the first time, a full-length feature documentary about legendary actor Humphrey Bogart was made with the support of his estate, led by his surviving son, Stephen Bogart. Being protective of his parents – including his mother Lauren Bacall – Stephen most likely had full control of how director Kathryn Ferguson put together this montage of Hollywood history. However, being a sucker for something of Hollywood’s Golden Age made it easy for me to give it a fair shot.  

The documentary follows Bogart’s life, starting from when he was born to wealthy parents in New York City. His father was a doctor with a very successful practice, while his mother, Maud Humphrey, was a famous illustrator. Maud used baby Humphrey for her illustrations in ads in newspapers and magazines all over the country. However, the lack of affection for him plays a role in his social development and he rebels against his parent’s expectations in school, so Humphrey joins the Navy. By the time he gets out of there, Bogart takes an interest in being an actor and starts to work on Broadway, first as a stagehand, then gets his shot at acting. He would marry his first wife, Helen Menken, a successful actress on stage, but it didn’t last because her career came first. It’s a theme that would affect Bogart in the next two marriages he would go through. “If you’re not married or in love,” Bogart says, “then you’re on the loose. And that’s not comfortable.”

Due to the Depression, Bogart went westward to Hollywood like other stage actors and got his first studio contract with Fox Studios. Some of those first films tell how young Bogart was at the time being in his early ‘30s. Warner Brothers then signed him and Bogart’s standout performance in The Petrified Forest opposite Leslie Howard confirms his stay in California. His third wife, Mayo Methot, was an established actress whose career began to decline when the Hays Code began, but still helped Bogart’s career. It was a fiery marriage, called “the Battling Bogarts,” by the press, with pervasive arguments, a shooting, and Bogart being stabbed. All of this before he met Lauren Bacall on the set of To Have and Have Not. Bogart’s stardom only came to fruition with John Huston directing The Maltese Falcon, the start of film noir. Soon afterward, Casablanca.

The entire film is a mix of archive footage, home movies from the Bogart estate, and clips of movies he was in. Voiceover of his words is being read out by a soundalike (Kerry Shade) and accompanied by audio interviews with those who knew Bogart, including Huston, Bacall, Bogart biographer Eric Lax, and Howard Hawks, among others. Bogart’s love for smoking and drinking is highlighted; he died of esophageal cancer in 1957 with footage of his funeral played at both the start and the end of the documentary. In between, Bogart’s words reveal his opposition to censorship and resented the intrusion of one’s personal views, as well as his dislike for the new method of acting of actors like Marlon Brando. “These actor studio types, they mumble their lines…This scratch-your-ass mumble school of acting doesn’t please me.”  

Bogart: Life Comes In Flashes doesn’t give enough to go deep into the rest of his career, but gives enough to satisfy the casual Hollywood fan. Bogart is part of the high standard of stardom and hearing his thoughts being said, even from a voice actor, is different. It would have been better to go into depth with his major films. This isn’t a docuseries, but a 1-hour-and-38-minute movie that brisks through each moment key to his life like flashes, as the title says. 

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Grade: B-

Directors: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods
Writers: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods
Stars: Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East

Synopsis: Two religious women are drawn into a game of cat-and-mouse in the house of a strange man

Finally, a mainstream movie about religion that dares challenge viewers on their preconceived beliefs, religious or otherwise. In Heretic, writing/directing duo Scott Beck and Bryan Woods use Mormonism as a framing device to criticize not only religion but how we have deluded ourselves that ‘believing’ in a figure designed to control every aspect of our lives will reward us in any way. I say this as someone who is a confirmed catholic (this was accomplished after following a three-year program at the Church) who progressively rejected religion when beginning to study how spirituality is frequently misinterpreted for personal and monetary gain. One could say I’m a lapsed catholic. However, truth be told, I remain fascinated by the relationship religion has in art and cinema as an experience of pure enlightenment when directors imbue their films with spiritual imagery as signifiers or embellish a miraculous moment on screen. 

Oscar-hopeful Conclave looks to be the religious film of the year. However, it does absolutely nothing in exploring why religion, and in this case, Catholicism, corrupts the soul when scripture is perverted for one person to be fully rewarded by controlling others in making them ‘believe’ in things that don’t exist. Director Edward Berger takes a rather incurious stance on electing a new Pope and the conspiracies that arise when Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) begins to be far more involved than he should, ultimately sinking what could’ve been an incredible film. Add a baffling, soap opera-lite final twist in the movie, and you’ve got a movie that people who have never stepped foot in a Church will laud, while others more critical of the religion and have experienced time inside will have a disparate opinion on. 

With Heretic, Beck and Woods see the traps Edward Berger deliberately fell into with Conclave and transcend their religious discussion into a confrontation on society’s position on Earth and their innate beliefs of their place in this world. It’s in that vein where we discover Sisters Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Paxton (Chloe East), Mormon missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints on their way to convert Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant) to their religion. Immediately, one knows Mr. Reed isn’t to be trusted – his house door has a timed lock, and his wife is noticeably absent even if the missionaries have rules to follow for the conversion to be enacted. Even worse, the host has made several uncomfortable comments that challenged them on the nature of belief and Mormon faith.

One such comment occurs at the top of the movie, where Mr. Reed discusses polygamy, which was practiced by leaders of LDS in the 1800s as, according to one of its fundamentalist leaders, Joseph W. Musser in Celestial or Plural Marriage, “a proper marriage system” that “leads towards God’s plan and disavows that of Satan.” This belief is still perpetuated – and practiced – today by many adherents of the Mormon faith. 

The details of Reed’s explanations are accurately illustrated, showcasing the fundamentally broken belief in which religion is based on: control. You can ‘believe’ all you want, but when a ‘prophet’ of God tells you to do something, you must obey His commands. If someone like Musser states (and by deliberately misinterpreting spiritual texts) that polygamy is supported, then adherents of the faith must follow suit and control the lives of themselves and others through this practice that the Bible itself has properly condemned. This isn’t belief, and it’s what Reed attempts to expose to the two followers of Jesus Christ who blindly follow the teachings of their leader without question. He does it sickeningly, sure, but they will likely have a far different perception of what religion does to people when they are done interacting with Mr. Reed. 

Deliberately paced, Beck and Woods spend the first half of Heretic assuredly building tension through a three-handed conversation between Mr. Reed and the two missionaries. What’s most impressive about these scenes isn’t necessarily Grant’s incredibly chilling turn as a man who wants to ‘test’ ideals of belief or Grant and East’s palpable chemistry as two innocent devotees wrestling with what their ‘belief’ means but in Chung-hoon Chung’s indelible photography.

Known for his collaborations with Park Chan-wook, Chung’s juice has unfortunately lost itself in making a sea of corporate gunk for a cheap buck (i.e., the supremely ugly-looking Obi-Wan Kenobi, Uncharted, and, most recently, Wonka, among others). But in Heretic, he’s in complete control of how his camera guides the story and characters and reveals crucial parts of the frame that immediately posit a different atmosphere than the conversations were leading into. It begins with symmetrical images worthy of his contributions to Park Chan-wook (think specifically of The Handmaiden) until it gets more elaborate.

One such instance occurs when Sister Barnes learns that the ‘blueberry pie’ Reed’s wife is cooking is actually just a scented candle. The camera swifts around the candle, never revealing what it says as Barnes turns the label to her face until it cuts to an extreme close-up of her reacting to what she’s now learned. Such an approach maximizes dread and pulls us further into the drama that, sadly, becomes less theological as it goes along. However, Chung always remains in control of its visual style, giving us enough to sustain our excitement, but never the complete picture until it is shockingly revealed.

It’s in that section, though, that Heretic began to lose me. The otherwise compelling conversation on what religion is and why the people who support it don’t realize what they’re enabling gets diluted in favor of cheap thrills that, while compellingly shot, aren’t as horrifying as the directors think they are. It’s one of those “bold swings” that, on paper, sounds tantalizing but is far more confounding than its initial proposition set up the movie. It does have its fair share of unexpected moments, especially in its conclusion, but it doesn’t delve deep into its horrific images the way it should execute it. 

And if its central message is on how religion controls, its final section seems to forego this altogether until it’s haphazardly brought back to twist the miracle of resurrection and the belief that there is life after death. The final scene certainly gives us hope that this could be attainable, but never in a spiritually-charged fashion. The best movies that challenge viewers on religion utilize images of spiritual power to vehemently reject what they convey. John Woo did so in The Killer by having its climax set in a Church (the place where hope and miracles are attainable), only for its protagonists to suffer the most cruel, crucifying fates.

Beck and Woods utilize plenty of religious paintings and references to how pop culture movies can be interpreted in a theological light but don’t have the courage to surpass this discussion further than what they introduce. However, they don’t fall into the traps of Conclave because they meaningfully give enough information for the audience to interpret what they are seeing on their own. It may lead to similar conclusions, but it at least deepens its study enough to have material that will make all of us think of our place in society amidst cults that basically perpetuate the same ideals that will never make its followers achieve something real from a spiritual, and personal perspective (Scientology is, of course, its worst offender).

As such, Heretic miraculously (pun intended) does what Conclave doesn’t and, in turn, becomes the defining religious film of 2024. It may not offer profound meditations on the questions it raises. Still, in an era of incurious filmmaking and criticism, it may be one that will turn the tide in favor of more religiously challenging films to hit our big screens. Plus, no generative AI was used in the making of this film (as bluntly stated in the film’s end credits), so this is a movie everyone needs to support. As a result, Beck and Woods should be thanked for championing human-made art. Here’s hoping for more of them in our theatrical ecosystem than any machine-made junk.

Grade: B+

Director: Sarah Young
Writer: Sarah Young
Stars: Tori Ernst, Charlie McElveen, Katharine Chin, Ryan Nicholas Cooper

Synopsis: When her husband turns strange and violent, a wife becomes convinced he is possessed. But will anyone believe her?

“It’s fine,” said no one ever when things were actually fine. But that’s how Michelle (Toni Ernst) begins describing her relationship with her husband John (Charle McElveen) to her best friend Kim (Katherine Chin). Key word: begins. In the same breath, Michelle says, “And then, all of a sudden, he’s just… wrong.” Wrong how, exactly? Kim suggests that John is probably just stressed at work – or, better yet, that he’s simply being a pain in the ass because he’s hungry – the tried and true excuse for the unraveling male whose actions cannot be made sense of by anyone other than the person enduring them. When Michelle raises the possibility that John could be possessed, it’s met with Kim’s scoff and a thinly veiled, “Do you hear yourself?” After all, the John that everyone else sees must be the same version that Michelle sees behind closed doors.

Isn’t that the case in every outwardly-perfect marriage? It’s this question, among other simply-posed yet deftly-executed ideas, that Sarah Young’s mysterious and dark short, Not Him, examines. In just 14 minutes, Young crafts the indelible image of a union that, for those involved, is crumbling due to the spirit that wishes to dismantle it from within, while what friends and neighbors chalk it up to is the need for a buffer. But Michelle is hardly crazy: John, the man she loves, is no longer the same man she married, but not because of his job nor an unsatisfied appetite. When he returns to their apartment after a long day at the office, his strange behavior is far closer to that of a violent stranger than a frustrated finance bro. There’s just one problem: Who will believe the only woman who can see what’s really going on here? Especially when whatever is inside John is doing a bang-up job masquerading as the handsome, charming guy who buys pizza and beer for the gang?

“You can scream to the world that your husband isn’t your husband,” the clearly-possessed John demonically tells his distressed better half. “But how do you think that’s going to go for you?” For much of the film’s brief runtime, the answer, insofar as there is one, is “not well.” But the more aggressive “John’s” behavior becomes, the blacker his eyes go, to the point where it’s unclear what (or who) is behind them. Young, who has plans for a feature-length adaptation of the short, would do well with more room to operate, yet the demented possibility that Not Him raises doesn’t require concrete answers given its command over tension and the raw factor of fear with which it is imbued. If anything, the lack of context that Young’s script provides makes the desire for a deeper look that much more intense.

I spoke with Young about her plans for the extended adaptation, the genesis of her short’s idea, and the depiction of domestic violence in today’s cinema. Our conversation includes spoilers for Not Him.

Will Bjarnar: How did the idea for this film – your first as both writer and director – come about?

Sarah Young: I am primarily a director, so yes you’re right this was my first time writing my own script. I have always been a fan of genre filmmaking as I think it’s a great opportunity to explore challenging subjects in a more accessible way. So I knew I wanted to work in the horror genre. One night I had a nightmare that was basically the opening of the short, I woke up, and furiously started writing based on that image. It became clear to me that what I was writing about was domestic violence through the lens of demonic possession so I dove into that concept.

WB: Let’s talk about that opening sequence. Not Him starts with a familiar image, that of a husband moving his hand to his wife’s as they lay in bed, sleeping. But then John’s grip tightens, and we see him climb atop Michelle as his eyes go black, almost as though a switch has been flipped in a manner of seconds. Why did you choose to open the film this way?

SY: That’s it exactly! That was my nightmare. Sadly I think that’s everyone’s nightmare, and an all too real one for a lot of folks. The person you love, the person who is supposed to protect you, turning on you and hurting you. Like most people unfortunately I too have a personal relationship with domestic violence, so I have my own experience to draw from, and I’ve had really intense conversations with many survivors. I wanted to give the audience a glimpse into the emotional experience of domestic violence with this opening, a peaceful night that turns on the whims of the abuser. 

WB: Immediately following that moment, we see Michelle recount her experience to her friend Kim, who initially brushes John’s actions off as one of either work-related exhaustion or hunger. However, Kim later comes to understand that Michelle really did see what she described. How crucial was it for you to deploy that juxtaposition between initial skepticism and eventual belief, especially in a narrative that is so clearly entrenched in, as you’ve described it, the fight for domestic violence victims to be believed?

SY: Extremely. I’m so pleased to hear you describe it that way. It’s a challenge to tackle a subject as big as domestic violence in a short film (the film is just under 15 mins) and it was very important to me that this was a story about a victim who is eventually believed, which helps her find her strength again. But it’s not an easy thing to ask for help, and it can be a struggle for people, even those close to the victims, to fully grasp the situation. We want to believe the best in people, we don’t want to think that those around us could be monsters in their own homes, especially if they are people we already have relationships with. But sometimes all it takes to save a life is one person to believe a victim to save their life. 

WB: You’ve previously mentioned that films like The Babadook and Smile were on your mind in relation to Not Him, especially how those are films that explore mental illness and grief. Were there any standout cinematic influences you had in crafting the thematic contents of Not Him? As I watched, I felt like I could see some shades of Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, specifically in relation to that film’s titular character struggling to find someone who would believe her. Gaslight was on my mind, too.

SY: Yes, The Babadook in particular is one of my favorites and a big influence on me as a filmmaker. Smile is another great example of using horror to talk about mental health. Gaslight and also The Shining were very much on my mind when I wrote the script. I’ve actually never seen Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore! I’ll have to add it to my list. Barbarian is another horror film I absolutely love and although it’s not as direct a comparison I still think it’s an incredible example of using horror to make a really profound social commentary that’s not always as accessible in traditional drama. 

WB: What were you looking for when it came to the John character? I was so struck by Charlie McElveen’s dual performance. I’m curious, what made him stand apart?

SY: I was looking for an actor that could very quickly (again the problem with it being a short film) show us all aspects of John; the loving husband worth fighting to keep, the abuser, and the possible victim of the demon itself. Charlie is naturally charming and charismatic, which makes it all the more frightening when he turns cruel and violent. He’s got a wonderful big creepy smile in his actor toolbox as well which is a big help. And he’s a wonderful person and extremely caring to his scene partners, which was important to me in casting. It takes trust to do intense scenes of physical and emotional abuse. 

WB: It might be a less-direct dual performance given, but Michelle similarly has to play two roles in this story, that of a terrified wife who no longer recognizes her husband and that of someone who has to put on a brave face just to get through interactions with people who don’t believe her. How did you and Tori Ernst craft that balance, if you will? The story may be a work of fiction, but its ideas are certainly entrenched in horrifying, familiar truths.

SY: Absolutely. That’s the truly insidious thing about domestic violence, it’s happening behind closed doors. The abuser is pulling every trick in the book to keep their victims quiet, to make them feel isolated and incapable of leaving or getting help. So many folks have experienced that double life, the need to keep up the appearance of normality while their world is falling apart at home. The need to lie to everyone around them, constantly. Tori Ernst as Michelle gives an incredible and nuanced performance that captures that struggle perfectly. She and I spoke about the character at length as I was writing the script. It was important to us to capture as many aspects of domestic abuse as possible in this short story, that dual life, the experience of being gaslighted, having a loved one threaten self harm if you leave. Her fantastic performance and insight as the character was written were invaluable. 

WB: I know you’re planning on expanding the short into a feature. What more do you hope to explore with a feature version that perhaps isn’t broached in the short?

SY: A feature gives us an opportunity to expand on the world we’ve built. I think the world is very ready for a domestic violence horror film and the success of the short shows that. The short is about Michelle discovering the truth about her husband and turning to her best friend Kim for help. It ends with Michelle convincing John to let them go for the night but promising he will “see her tomorrow”. Then Kim and Michelle open the door to leave but we cut before we see them walk through it. In the feature I want to go further into Kim and Michelle’s relationship, it’s so important to me to highlight the experience of Michelle, but also to expand on the effects on those close to her, in this case her best friend Kim. It’s a Hitchcockian journey for Kim to learn the truth about John, and it becomes a fight for both women to try and get Michelle away from him. And we’ll get to learn what happens when Kim and Michelle attempt to walk out that door. 

Grade: B

Director: Dallas Jenkins
Writers: Platte F. Clark, Darin McDaniel, Ryan Swanson
Stars:  Judy Greer, Pete Holmes, Sebastian Billingsley-Rodriguez

Synopsis: Nobody is ready for the mayhem and surprises that ensue when six of the worst youngsters disrupt the town’s yearly Christmas performance.

On the surface, the new holiday film The Best Christmas Pageant Ever may seem like a family drivel that stars experiencing a box-office dry spell would take on to keep their careers afloat. However, when an adult delivers a holiday ham, everything begins understated and turns touching without using cheap theatrics. The scene is so well-written that it sneaks up on you.

I wouldn’t call this the genius behind The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. The real strength may lie in the fact that this second adaptation of Barbara Robinson’s bestselling novel, directed by Dallas Jenkins, uses his penchant for religion as a backdrop to expose the judgmental hypocrisy of a flock that has lost its way. Additionally, Jenkins shows respect for past holiday comedy classics, which is evident throughout the film in nods to A Christmas Story, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and Home Alone.

The story follows the Bradley family, who take on the task of reining in and reaching out a helping hand to the Herdman family—a group of six dirty, rude, mean, rowdy, and even thieving siblings who have been terrorizing the community for years. Known as the worst kids in the world, they begin to show interest in community activities, particularly the town’s premiere event of the year, the local holiday church pageant, but only for the free, sugary treats.

Grace (Judy Greer) takes on the responsibility of pageant director after Mrs. Armstrong (Mariam Bernstein), who rules with an iron fist, drops out due to an injury. Grace accepts the role partly because the snobby church elite believe she cannot handle it. However, she soon realizes she may have taken on the role for a greater purpose, as the Herdman children—led by Imogene (Beatrice Scheider)—bully their way into the play’s most significant roles.

Grace’s husband, Bob (Pete Holmes), initially seems like the type of husband who might be annoyed that his wife has taken on such a task without having dinner ready at the usual time. However, he turns out to have the same heart of gold as his wife, paying particular attention to the Herdman clan and lending a helping hand. They have two children: their youngest, Charlie (Sebastian Billingsley-Rodriguez), and Beth (Molly Belle Wright); with the latter taking on the responsibility of acclimating the Herdman kids to the pageant experience.

Jenkins, best known as the creator and showrunner of the historical faith-based series The Chosen (there was a free preview of the upcoming season during early screenings this past weekend), does a remarkable job using faith-based community activities as a backdrop to enhance themes of acceptance, love, compassion, forgiveness, serving others, humility, and gratitude. However, you never once feel that the film tries to shove its religious message down the viewer’s throat.

The setting in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is familiar to anyone who has lived in a middle-class, predominantly white suburb—something I was all too familiar with in an era when the church was much more prevalent in family life than it is today. Anytime any of the children act up, religious leaders like the reverend, his wife, or the Bradley family take the time to reach these kids rather than demonize them, despite the pressure from others who choose to do so. It’s a difficult battle against those pressures.

While the movie has excellent messaging for a family film, it also effectively mixes heartwarming moments and laughs. In between, there are adorable performances from Wright as Beth and Lorelei Olivia Mote as Beth’s friend, Alice. Then there’s Kynlee Heiman, who steals every scene she’s in. And, of course, Beatrice Scheider, who gives her character, Imogene, well-rounded characteristics in what is arguably the most challenging role in the film—she needs to be funny, abrasive, and deliver accurate, poignant moments that resonate.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever has flaws but has so much genuine heart that it’s hard not to get lost in it. With excellent narration from Lauren Graham and wonderful supporting performances from Greer and Holmes, this winning film is well worth watching this holiday season.

You can watch the new film The Best Christmas Pageant Ever only in theaters on November 8th!

Grade: B

Director: Pat Boonntipat
Writers: Pat Boonntipat, Thodsapon Thiptinnakorn
Stars:  Putthipong “Billkin” Assaratanakul, Usha “Taew” Seamkhum, Sanya Kunakorn

Synopsis: M, a university dropout low on money and luck, volunteers to take care of his terminally ill grandmother, in the hope of pocketing an inheritance.

As increasingly rare as it is for one’s first discovery of a film’s existence to come via the pages of a newspaper, that’s precisely what happened to this critic in July. Eager to stay abreast of the world’s ongoings while traveling abroad for a wedding, I made a habit of stealing the hotel’s international edition of The New York Times. On this particular day, I flipped to the arts section, as I do, and came across a headline that captured my interest: “Why Southeast Asia Is Crying Over This Movie.” Color me intrigued.

The subject, Pat Boonnitipat’s feature-film debut, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, wasn’t a title I had heard of. But these gray, hallowed pages told me that the film – the tale of an aimless young man called “M” (Putthipong Assaratanakul, better known in his home country by the stage name “Billkin”) who quits his job to care for his dying grandmother, Amah (Usha Seamkhum), hoping to win her over in order to inherit her fortune upon her death – was a box office hit in Thailand and a sensation across Southeast Asia. Daniel Nico Laudit, a content creator who chose to document his viewing experience for his then-4.5 million Tik Tok followers, told the Times, “I went straight to the restroom after the movie because I wanted to cry out loud.” Other reactions were similar: Ian Jeevan, a financial consultant in Singapore, captioned his own reaction video, “Running over to hug my grandma now!!”

Such sentiments are bound to be a dime a dozen when it comes to How to Make Millions, as the film, at its simplest, is an excellent excuse for a good cry, whether alone in a restroom or buried in your grandmother’s arms. It’s conceit, simple and familiar, isn’t exactly ambitious in nature, as it places an apathetic gamer in the position of caregiver for his grandma; the perfect recipe for a weepy dramedy the likes of which we’ve seen before. Yet despite that notion, Boonnitipat’s film manages to transcend the trappings that a movie with a similar logline would willingly drown in, placing the intricacies of its principal relationship at the forefront as opposed to leaning to unnatural antagonism between two people living on opposite tracks of life. It helps that, even with the telegraphic nature of its plot – whether or not this greedy grandson will grow to cherish time with his elderly relative as opposed to merely desiring her fortune isn’t much of a question at all – it’s an easy story to root for. 

Inspired by its co-writer’s own families, How to Make Millions begins with a family gathering for the Qingming holiday, a ritual during which families come together to honor their late loved ones by visiting their tombs and leaving flowers, snacks, and other gifts at their feet out of respect. At Amah’s request, all take part, though M stays on the sidelines, his attention entirely consumed by his phone. (He dropped out of college to pursue a career in streaming, a goal his parents find difficult to support, leading to his distinction as “good for nothing” per the adults who find themselves drowning as they attempt to keep him afloat.) When Amah falls and a visit to the hospital reveals that she has stage four cancer, the family elects to keep the diagnosis to themselves, but M has plans of his own: To tell her the truth, curry favor, and to follow in the footsteps of his cousin Mui (Tontawan Tantivejakul), who was gifted her grandfather’s house after taking care of him for an extended period of time. 

In M’s eyes, the task, once a nuisance, isn’t as much of a bother when a sizable reward sits on the horizon. In turn, it doesn’t take too long for How to Make Millions to expand its own vision, embracing M’s evolving worldview as he becomes more willing to test the bounds of the world he’d trapped himself in. He takes in his surroundings, looking up from a screen to feel raindrops trickle onto his lanky arms, to see flower petals drifting away in the breeze. The ever-changing seasons play a significant role in Boonnitipat’s narrative, appropriate for a Taiwanese film, as the nation’s overall culture believes in the importance of man and nature finding ways to coexist, to benefit one another. Fitting, too, is the very idea of coexistence itself: between youth and experience, ambition and indifference, and even simpler, between two people who would have nothing in common if not for shared blood.

As such ideas unfold, they shouldn’t be too difficult for viewers (and skeptics alike) to clock, even to dismiss. But “cheap” is the last word one should use to describe what Boonnitipat and his How to Make Millions co-writer, Thodsapon Thiptinnakorn, do with their characters’ emotions. They craft seemingly-inconsequential yet intimate set pieces that connect to the past or present, with a ripple effect still to come in the future, all of which are authentic, if still emotionally-charged. One of these moments in particular, which involves M accessing a memory from his childhood in which his grandmother tells him something pivotal, may be sniffed out by viewers who wish to put their detective skills to work, but it’s more about how hard it hits M than how successful a revelation it is to the audience. If nothing else, it’s a scene that provides its main character with a moment of reflection, which Boonnitipat depicts with a simple yet beautiful camera pan-to-the-past move that nearly reduced this critic to a blubbering puddle of tears. 

Then again, he was on the brink of that tender state for much of the film’s runtime. You’re still human if you don’t find yourself a weepy mess by the time the credits roll, but only just, as the true magic of Boonnitipat’s debut is its universality. It’s specific enough for distant viewers to latch onto as an emotional narrative they can get behind, but plenty broad, a quality that should allow heartstrings of all creeds to feel a tug. That won’t be enough for some. Then again, for those that need a story of its ilk, How to Make Millions will be just right. Perhaps that’s what Boonnitipat was after.

How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies is now streaming on Netflix in Southeast Asia. It will become available in other territories later this year.

Grade: B

Director: Justin Kurzel
Writers: Zach Baylin, Gary Gerhardt, Kevin Flynn
Stars: Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan

Synopsis: A series of bank robberies and car heists frightened communities in the Pacific Northwest. A lone FBI agent believes that the crimes were not the work of financially motivated criminals, but rather a group of dangerous domestic terrorists.

The Order is an extraordinary crime film by a director with an unconscious power that is hard to put a finger on. It captivates with an intense, suspenseful atmosphere due to its modern themes, which have remained relevant for nearly forty years. In this “based on a true story” thriller, a young, brash white nationalist seeks radical change, while his superior, the Grand Minister, prefers a patient, long-term strategy.

The scene is particularly powerful: after the older and more strategic white supremacist outlines his plan—to place members in high government positions to effect “real change”—you can’t help but reflect on what has unfolded in our country by the end of the past decade. It’s a chilling realization of the consequences of their long-term ambitions. Perhaps the most terrifying aspect is that the subject matter of The Order continues to resonate today.

The story follows a federal agent who accepts a post in a remote area of the Pacific Northwest. Burdened by personal demons, Terry Husk (Jude Law) wears every beautifully weathered crease on his face. When he learns of a missing person, he enlists help to investigate in the form of young local sheriff, Jamie Bowen (Tye Sheridan). Together, they uncover a labyrinthine conspiracy hiding in plain sight. Well, except for the Nazi leaflets flying around town, spreading the good “White” word. 

A series of bank robberies spans multiple northwest states, each occurring just before a domestic terrorist attack, such as a synagogue bombing in Boise, Idaho. Bob Mathews (Nicholas Hoult), the mastermind behind these audacious robberies, robs banks to fund his radical agenda. His beliefs are based on a book called The Turner Diaries, which depicts a violent revolution to overthrow the “cult” federal government and establish a white supremacist regime.

The issue is that no one is taking Terry seriously enough; his only support comes from an old FBI agent friend (Jurnee Smollett), who calls in some favors when she feels he deserves to enjoy the crisp Idaho mountain air and indulge in hunting and fishing to his heart’s content. However, Terry is obsessive, working tirelessly in an era with weaker laws against terrorist groups, limited digital technology and surveillance, and poor communication between law enforcement agencies.

Some may argue that The Order is underdeveloped in its themes of extremism, radicalization, violence, and law enforcement. However, I would argue that the film is subtle in its approach, internalizing these themes because Justin Kurzel reflects the source material’s exploration of the government’s failure to recognize hate groups and define them as domestic terrorists, only getting involved when they fund their operations through illegal means.

The Order is a powerful film that thrives on Jude Law’s and Nicholas Hoult’s performances, which are the best of their careers. An extraordinary amount of relentless intensity and obsession fuels each turn. In particular, Law’s Agent Husk, when Hoult’s Matthews keeps raising the stakes, brings a gripping emotional urgency to the core of the film, in particular resonating with the audience today. The past decade reveals just how little we have come as a society, as extremist groups and mindsets still exist today because of the division of hate we continue to find ourselves in.

On the flip side, Hoult is mesmerizing, bringing the dark side of obsession when it comes to hate distorting a false sense of identity and superiority. In one of the film’s best (and most disturbing scenes), Hoult channels the power of a young Brando with a dominant brooding intensity that is, frankly, terrifying. Not in fear, mind you, but in the fervor he brings out of the radical group he has spawned within his extremist community. 

The Order is a one-of-a-kind film. This story feels like a precursor to and sparked Tim McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing because the government failed to act swiftly. Somehow, Justin Kurzel has made a film that takes you to a different time and place that still feels relevant with scenes that stay in your memory long after the film is over. 

You can watch Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult in The Order only in theaters on December 6th!

Grade: A

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Writers: Eric Roth, Robert Zemeckis
Stars: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany

Synopsis: A generational story about families and the special place they inhabit, sharing in love, loss, laughter, and life.

Imagine the living room of the house you grew up in. It’s warm and cozy, and the television hums at a reasonable volume. A friend you really connect with slouches with you on the couch, your hands and their hands clasped and resting on your bellies and your legs draped across the coffee table, theirs, respectfully, stretched out beneath the coffee table because they aren’t, “Like, trying to get your mom mad at them or anything. I mean, she’s, like, the best.” 

Then imagine that friend turns to you. You turn to them, the two of you really looking into each other’s acne spotted faces. Your friend then says, “Who do you think lived here before?” You scrunch up your face and reply, “I think my mom and dad bought it from—” Your friend shakes their head, “No, I mean, like, ever.” You stare at your friend confused, “Ever? Like for all time?” Your friend smiles and turns back to the TV nodding, “Like dinosaur times and Native Americans, and like, 1920s people and stuff.” 

You turn your head back to the TV, too, your brain barely connecting with what you’re seeing. You’re thinking about the existence of past people in or around your house. Now imagine someone made a graphic novel of that idea and someone else decided to adapt that graphic novel into a film. That film is Here and that film isn’t as good as that idea sounds.

The script that was born from that idea is the most flawed piece of the film. Writers Eric Roth and Robert Zemeckis, in adapting RIchard McGuire’s graphic novel, attempted to go very broad in scope, which disconnected many of the storylines from each other, even the ones that shared a common thread. There were several storylines that took far too long to pay off after we figured out the end point dozens of too quick scenes before. None of the scenes ever gets a chance to actually land. There’s something dramatic and it’s almost like a cut to commercial every time. It’s chopped and stitched to try and connect every storyline, but there is no reason for every story to connect. 

It doesn’t help that each storyline is also so obvious that every plot point is telegraphed to the point of audience aggravation. It’s one thing to know what’s coming, it’s another to know what’s coming and have a character turn and wink and then say their line again slower and wink again, then say their line again. The most cringe worthy example is the 1930s/1940s inventor (David Fynn) who tinkers with a new reclining chair and comes up with a stupid name for it and you just start screaming in your head, “It’s Laz-E-Boy! Just say Laz-E-Boy! We all know it! Stop trying to be clever! It’s not clever! Just say it!”

Many of the actors felt as if they were playing these obvious lines in a heightened way. It was so unnatural and, in some cases, laughable. These actors had to get a lot into the very short amount of time allotted to them with the short scenes that play out. To the actors, doing a lot meant doing a great deal of overwrought, unearned, and shallow emotions. Every person that we’re supposed to care about gets so little screen time that to care about them is to acknowledge they have any personality beyond the rote archetypes of the characters they play. It’s not even worth singling any actor out as each performance is so deeply uninteresting. Though, it doesn’t help a character to become three dimensional when the space they inhabit is so one dimensional.

For some reason Robert Zemeckis has become a gimmick filmmaker. Here in Here, his central gimmick is that the camera doesn’t move. Every scene takes place from the same angle. The big problem with this is that film is a visual medium. While there are things happening within the frame, that frame is stagnant. It becomes the least interesting play you’ve ever watched. At least with plays that take place in one room, there’s character development. The attempt to make this style of storytelling dynamic by having a sort of comics panel pop up to reach across the timelines is often less exciting than it is nonsensical. Sometimes these panels are only slightly forward or back in time and it’s confusing why that had to have its own panel at all.

That’s really what Here boils down to; it is nonsense. It attempts to be a film that has a grand message about humanity, Earth, place, and home, but it never lands, ever. What Here is, is Boomer dopamine. It validates and embraces nostalgia. It lets Boomers let out contented sighs, chuckles, grunts of approval, and, yes, tears at its absolutely shallow schmaltz. Here is not a movie for everyone. It’s not even close to a movie for now, even with its bizarrely shoe-horned conversation between Black parents and their teenage son about what to do when he is pulled over by a police officer. Here is a movie for people who want something that looks different, but has the exact same notes and DNA as every domestic drama they’ve ever seen. Here is a movie for them and only for them. The rest of us can and should just watch something, anything, else.

Grade: F

Director: Hans Petter Moland
Writer: Tony Gayton
Stars: Liam Neeson, Ron Perlman, Frankie Shaw

Synopsis: An aging gangster attempts to reconnect with his children and rectify the mistakes in his past, but the criminal underworld won’t loosen their grip willingly.

For better or worse, Liam Neeson has stayed in the public’s mind because he churns out about two horrendous movies a year. Frankly, the actor, so brilliant in films like Schindler’s List, Rob Roy, and Gangs of New York, has fallen into a rut of “lonely white guy seeking revenge” films since Taken hit theaters in 2008. On the surface, his latest film, Absolution, seems like yet another movie in which Liam Neeson takes the screen and does Liam Neeson action things.

For every The Grey, you have a dozen films that would never find a home without streaming: Non-Stop, A Walk Among the Tombstones, Run All Night, The Commuter, Cold Pursuit, Honest Thief, The Marksman, The Ice Road, Memory, Retribution, and the wildly overrated In the Land of Saints and Sinners. Sure, a couple in there have their loyal fans, but why does such a talented leading man keep leaning into the same film and character, year after year, as if he lost a bet or is part of some elaborate fraternity pledge-week prank?

However, Absolution is different because it has some real grit and isn’t afraid to stretch its experimental wings a bit. The result is a slow-burning crime thriller that takes more chances than most in the genre, scratching the itch for a revenge-filled cinematic fantasy while stepping into a few Neeson tropes along the way. If only the film had the same conviction in its third act as Tony Gayton’s (Hell on Wheels) script does throughout.

Neeson stars as a nameless muscleman who works for a local gangster known as “Thug.” He’s breaking in a new kid (Daniel Diemer), making the rounds, collecting weekly payments, and taking occasional side jobs for Mr. Connor (Hellboy’s Ron Perlman), a typical Southie crime boss walking around Boston. Thug hints at memory issues but plays it off as a lack of sleep after forgetting his boss’s name. In the real world, you may retire early. In Thugs’ world, the gold watch may come with a finely stained coffin. 

After punching a guy in the face for making a scene at his local dive bar (and taking his woman, Yolonda Ross, home, no less), he visits a neurologist who breaks the bad news: he has CTE from years of busting heads and knuckles with his forehead. With little time left, he tries to make amends with his estranged daughter (Frankie Shaw) and the grandson he has never met. Of course, Thug sees wrongs, and he feels he must set right, and the lines between what is real and what is not begin to blur.

The story’s theme feels like it may have been inspired by James Cromwell’s Dudley Smith asking Kevin Spacey’s Jack Vincennes, “Have you a valediction, boyo?,” in L.A. Confidential. Directed by Hans Moland, who worked with Neeson on Cold Pursuit, the film has no trouble focusing on Neeson and utilizing his greatest strengths in Absolution. The actor is an undeniably stoic presence and often broods, bringing out an inner conflict that makes this character compelling—a key element in a story filled with revenge, grief, and personal redemption.

As the film moves along, Absolution successfully combines personal elements, crime thriller tropes, and experimental techniques to immerse the viewer in Thug’s dementia, which somehow works. The story is predictable, yes, and engaging, and Neeson is very good in the role, giving the character a well-roundedness that has not been part of his repertoire in recent years. This crime thriller may have a few too many ideas in its head, but it’s the type of genre film that tries hard to give everyone a bit of what they want, so you can’t help but root for the character.

And yes, as I go into another film comparison reference, Neeson’s later filmography is like when in Get Shorty Delroy Lindo tells Harry Zimm he has seen a better film about teeth and Absolution certainly has its faults. It’s not exactly original, predictable, and even intentionally convoluted at times, but this is a well-made thriller for fans of the genre, crime, or Neeson’s post-2010 filmography, which is somber and reflective enough to be worth a mild recommendation on top of it’s genre trappings.

You can watch Liam Neeson in Absolution on November 1st only in theaters

Grade: C+

Director: Edward Berger
Writer: Peter Straughan
Stars: Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow

Synopsis: After the unexpected death of the Pope, Cardinal Lawrence is tasked with managing the covert and ancient ritual of electing a new one. Sequestered in the Vatican with the Catholic Church’s most powerful leaders until the process is complete, Lawrence finds himself at the center of a conspiracy that could lead to its downfall.

If critics and audiences were meant to judge a film by the number of harsh, booming cello strums that made up its score, then it would be safe to call Edward Berger’s Conclave the most propulsive thriller of the year, if not the decade. Volker Bertelmann’s composition, much like his Oscar-winning work for Berger’s 2022 film All Quiet on the Western Front, maintains a dominant, almost overwhelming grip on Conclave from its beginning moments, those centering on an anxious, biretta-clutching Thomas Lawrence (a restrained, excellent Ralph Fiennes) as he hastily trudges in the direction of responsibility. Each time the dean of the College of Cardinals tightens his grip on said cap, cue the orchestra. When he learns of a new nugget of deception and/or papal malfeasance, prepare for an onslaught of da na nums. It’s not exactly subtle, but then again, Conclave doesn’t seem to be particularly interested in keeping things enigmatic. It’s too busy taking itself far too seriously; we should do the opposite.

Adapted by Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) from Robert Harris’ 2016 novel of the same name, it’s not that Conclave suffers under the weight of its dramatic ambitions. In fact, that it is unaware of its ridiculousness might make it a stronger effort. It begins with the death of the current pope, an incident that is almost immediately followed by the necessary election of a new one. The task is to be met with deliberate haste, seeing that the longer the citizens of Vatican City go without seeing red smoke billow from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney, the more restless they become. Given this prologue, it appears as though Conclave is tipping its tonal hand from the top, telling its audience that the ensuing events are bound to make up a grave, dire affair. After all, Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci) is modestly devastated, wishing he and the Holy Father had been able to finish their final game of chess before his passing; Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow), the last person to meet with the Holy Father, is noticeably anxious; Cardinal Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati) is a bit too calm given what’s just occurred; and Cardinal Wozniak (Jacek Koman) is inconsolable, his drinking having increased in recent days due to some unspoken grievance, yet reaching its tipping point after his leader’s death.

But then the remaining members of the College of Cardinals descend upon the Vatican, and the film’s ideas come into focus. The conclave, which Lawrence is tasked with overseeing as the college’s dean, is nothing more than a cliquey mish-mash of rivaling personalities and power-hungry socialites, the likes of which you’d see inside a high school cafeteria (a setting Berger and production designer Suzie Davies (Saltburn) clearly understand, given how often the films dramatics unfold within the Cardinals own dining hall). One of the more outspoken members of the college, the vape-ripping Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto, feasting on a relatively minor role), is one of the few to make his intentions clear: He wants to win the election, a notion that concerns Lawrence and Bellini, the latter of which many fellow Cardinals wish would long for the throne a bit more. Yet as he says early on in the film, “No sane man would want the papacy.” If only he were aware how few sane men would end up in the room where it happens, something only Sister Agnes (an underused Isabella Rossellini) seems to grasp, despite her relative silence.

Cue Berger’s blatant directorial flair, the same quality that infused All Quiet on the Western Front with a quality of dull inevitability yet makes Conclave that much more intentional and entertaining in equal measure. When we eventually arrive at the first vote, cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine’s camera trains its focus on the four candidates Berger wishes to place an emphasis on prior to the start of the election. You need not wonder why, as to single out Adeyemi, Bellini, Tedesco, and Tremblay is to make the film’s motivations that much clearer than they have already become: Should nothing untoward occur, one of these men will be the next pope, receiving the necessary majority of 72 votes from their peers and/or competitors. Of course, plenty of untowardness must be afoot for this to be anything more than a pulpy Eastern European rendition of a C-SPAN broadcast, which leads to Lawrence’s role as political intrigue traffic cop. He excels with the duty despite enduring his own crisis of faith in the church as an institution; perhaps he’d rather play Gossip God than the man Himself.

Somehow, the biggest curveball Lawrence stares down comes in the form of Cardinal Benitez (Carlos Diehz), the self-proclaimed representative from the ministry of Kabul who arrives for the election out of nowhere. The present Cardinals plead legitimate ignorance to his existence, let alone his involvement in the proceedings itself, as he was appointed without their knowledge by the late Holy Father through a process known as “creation in pectore.” The true nature of Benitez’s presence (and, better yet, his past) is too mind-boggling to spoil, but it’s in this borderline-ham-handed execution that Conclave is at its most successful. Berger’s popcorny papal “thriller,” if it can be reduced to such genre conventions, may decidedly view itself as an urgent drama of cinematic note, but wouldn’t audiences rather see the tale of pretentious, ambitious popes participating in an election play out in this grand fashion as opposed to viewing a film that fails to understand its shallowness? 

Farcical and twisty – not to mention necessarily-confined to a single location so as to mute any noise from the outside, a quality that gives Conclave the vibes of Big Brother by way of Dan Brown – Berger has a silly, self-important hit on his hands. The only word in that sentence that anyone should care about, including the director and his producers, is “hit.” Leave the rest for the popes who feel the need to convince themselves of their own import. 

Grade: B

Director: Pierre Morel
Writer: Matthew Kennedy
Stars: Kate Beckinsale, Rupert Friend, Ray Stevenson

Synopsis: It follows Avery Graves as she is blackmailed by terrorists into betraying her own country to save her kidnapped husband.

It’s that time again for the annual awful Kate Beckinsale action film that keeps popping up like the by-product of a sexually transmitted disease—seemingly trashy fun at first, but leaving you unprepared for the consequences. Beckinsale has turned the overrated Underworld franchise into a cottage industry of underwhelming genre films like Jolt and now, Canary Black. This predictable spy slogfest barely gets off the ground.

Movies like Canary Black are predicated on your willingness to let go of plausibility, sit back, and enjoy the ride. However, with spy action films being released daily on almost every platform imaginable, you must do something to stand out. Canary Black stumbles on the fatal flaw of doing nothing exceptional, hovering aimlessly between average and below average. Prime Video sends this Canary down the coal mine in the search of endless cliches. 

Beckinsale struts around slowly in high-heeled boots, playing Avery Graves, a secret agent working for the United States government. Avery comes from a good lineage, being a second-generation spy. Her boss is the CIA Chief who goes by the name, Jarvis (the late Ray Stevenson), who worked with her father for years. Avery has been groomed to be a covert operative since she turned eighteen. Jarvis has taught her everything she knows and is also a close family friend. 

Avery’s parents have passed on, leaving Jarvis and her husband, David (Rupert Friend), as the only family she has. She has been traveling a lot lately, and David is worried about her stress and wants her to settle down, even pushing her to adopt some adorable puppies upon her return. However, after going into the office to brief Jarvis on her latest mission, she returns to find David missing, the house showing signs of a struggle, and a ransom demand that requires her to betray her country.

Canary Black is directed by Pierre Morel, the filmmaker who thrilled us with the original Liam Neeson hit Taken but has since delivered lackluster efforts like the John Cena vehicle Freelance and the problematic Jennifer Garner film Peppermint. (There’s even a scene in Peppermint where the main character attacks a cartel using a piñata warehouse as a front.) Canary Black feels like an unofficial sequel to that misstep. 

The script, written by Matthew Kennedy, offers nothing that couldn’t be produced by someone after watching a couple dozen competent spy films from the past twenty years. Everything in Canary Black sets a low bar, from the gadgets (and their laughable use—especially a drone delivering Iris when she could have simply ordered a rideshare or, you know, walked). 

The movie feels like a ’90s retread, full of technology but completely ignoring the reality of constant digital surveillance and the risk of getting caught. Canary Black isn’t worth watching because it demonstrates how cinema is shifting from an art form to a content-streaming mill. The plot is a recycled cliché, with Beckinsale’s character stealing a secret file that will expose military secrets and agents—yada yada yada yada.

We can, however, give credit to Kate Beckinsale, who, at 51, continues to land action heroine roles in an industry that turns its back on women over a certain age faster than Leonardo DiCaprio on a girlfriend’s 25th birthday. However, spy films are such an oversaturated genre that audiences expect something smarter. The action needs to be extraordinary, and the plot points need to be, well, on point. Canary Black offers none, and we should demand more for our time.

You can stream Canary Black exclusively on Prime Video.

Grade: D+

Directors: Brian Netto, Adam Schindler
Writers: T.J. Cimfel, David White
Stars: Kelsey Asbille, Finn Wittrock, Daniel Francis

Synopsis: It follows a seasoned killer as he injects a grieving woman with a paralytic agent. She must run, fight and hide before her body shuts down.

The new horror thriller Don’t Move may not have the gravitas or sheer dread of others in the genre, but it’s undeniably effective. To be fair, 2024 has been a standout year for horror thrillers. Just look at the embarrassment of riches we’ve had over the past nine or so months, with instant classics like Strange Darling, Red Doors, Longlegs, Trap, Cuckoo, and Smile 2 invigorating a typically tired genre that often goes for cheap thrills.

However, that doesn’t mean a good popcorn flick like Don’t Move should be ignored or scoffed at. There’s nothing groundbreaking or new here, but it’s almost an homage to classic bottleneck cast thrillers, with a hard edge and a classic misdirection setup, preying on a younger audience’s prideful empathy. Much of the credit goes to the leads, with committed performances from Yellowstone’s Kelsey Asbille and Origin’s Finn Wittrock.

If you want to go into the Netflix film fresh, I suggest skipping the following two paragraphs. However, if you’ve already seen the trailer, the excellent setup is spoiled anyway. The movie opens with a solemn woman, Iris (Asbille), who looks like she’s about to embark on her own Reese Witherspoon Wild-inspired adventure. Dressed in typical mom-athletic gear, she climbs over rocks and follows a trail to a cliff with a magnificent view overlooking breathtaking scenery.

Yet, there is something overwhelmingly sad as she takes in the setting, standing on the dangerous edge of the mountain. That’s when we hear a man approach, seemingly coming out of nowhere. His name is Richard (Wittrock), and he feels like her guardian angel, meeting by chance. He talks her down from a potential suicide attempt by connecting through shared trauma— with Iris revealing that her child died on this bluff and Richard surviving a car crash.

Don’t Move is produced by legendary horror-thriller filmmaker Sam Raimi, with directors Adam Schindler and Brian Netto (Delivery: The Beast Within) delivering a film with a visceral edge. Working from a script by T.J. Cimfel and David White (Intruders), the experience includes a few original elements. Still, it is mostly wrapped in a handful of frightening tropes that, while standard, are done competently—and at its best, quite well.

The real draw here is the script. Iris is injected with a paralytic, adding a unique element to the standard chase-and-release horror tropes, and it ratchets up the tension in what is otherwise a familiar story. The added subtext of grief and the primal urge to survive deepens the experience. (Studies, as well as the documentary The Bridge, explore the immediate regret that often follows a suicide attempt, highlighting the desire to undo what feels like an irreversible action.) 

Don’t Move is worth watching because its concept allows the filmmakers to take the audience on an emotional rollercoaster, effectively engaging streaming viewers. However, it offers a fairly mainstream approach. For instance, the cinematography by Zach Kuperstein pales in comparison to more distinctive thriller styles, such as Giovanni Ribisi’s recent work or the work of Pawel Pogorzelski (Hereditary) and Dario Argento (Suspiria). The film lacks cinematic grit and stylization, with fewer tracking shots, wide-angle frames, or classic Steadicam work.

It’s those safe choices that can be frustrating, especially in contrast to the wonderfully visceral and entertaining films of 2024, which delivered blood, sweat, and anxious tears across the silver screen. The ending, in particular, could have been much stronger had it taken a riskier approach. Still, Don’t Move offers enough suspense, thrills, and memorable chills to warrant above-average engagement, holding your attention for a mild recommendation.

Just do not expect to think about the move long after it ends. 

You can now watch Don’t Move, which only streams on Netflix.

Grade: B-

Director: Julien Hayet-Kerknawi
Writer: Julien Hayet-Kerknawi
Stars: Iain Glen, Sasha Luss, Joe Anderson

Synopsis: Amidst World War I’s chaos, a grieving father turns hero, leading villagers to safety while evading a relentless enemy driven by vengeance.

World War I was an unprecedented event when it happened. It changed the way people thought and the way they looked at the world. It is a war that, unlike World War II, has not been examined, picked apart and retread hundreds of times in movies. If it is depicted, the war is often shown from the lens of its greatest impact, which was the brutal and dehumanizing trench warfare. Rarely do we see the civilian toll that the war took or even what warfare was like outside of those trenches.

The Last Front seeks to tell one of these stories. The problem is that there isn’t enough exposition about the state of the war. We get a short title card about German advances into Belgium at the time the story takes place, but some of the set pieces become more confusing because of this. There are Belgian regular soldiers as well as resistance fighters who attack the Germans. The Germans seem to be trying to regroup, but they are pushed to take a different route, the direction of which is not made entirely clear. At one point, there is a pitched battle within a small trench in the middle of a forest and artillery going off, but no large guns in sight. It’s a needlessly confusing piece of an otherwise uncomplicated survival story.

The rest of the film would be fine without the complete perspective of commander and father, Maximilian (Philippe Brenninkmeyer) and his subordinate and son, Laurentz (Joe Anderson). It pulls us away from the idyll and class conflict that propels the beginning of the film. But those military pieces add color to the story and remind us that the distant booms in the night scenes aren’t put there by mistake. This story takes place during uncertainty and war. The war rears its ugliest head between the push and pull between the father’s 19th century gentlemanly warfare mindset and his son’s 20th century total war mindset. It’s this conflict that’s at the heart of why Leonard (Iain Glen) gets involved at all.

It also highlights a superb, if a little too arch, villainous performance by Joe Anderson. He plays Laurentz with the mix of a man who hates his military legacy and loves the chaos and power of war. His cold and calculating gaze sends shivers up your spine as his aim always seems terrifyingly true. It’s a great antecedent to Iain Glen’s stoic, reluctant, and brave Leonard. Leonard hates Laurentz because of what he did to Leonard’s family, yes, but he hates him even more because if he doesn’t stop him, he will do it to many more families.

The two concurrent narratives have their moments of slowness, but the film moves at a very good clip. Writer and director Julien Hayet-Kerknawi is the rare filmmaker who can make a war film under two hours long. It helps that there are no grand battle scenes to stage or hundreds of background characters to manage. It also helps that he keeps the story focused. Even though it would be helpful for more historical context, it is better that Hayet-Kerkwani sticks to the story at hand, which is the survival of the civilians caught in a war they wanted no part in. He’s able to find his emotional arc not only in a father avenging his slain children, but in a man grappling with the loss of his wife before the war.

There is a fantastical element within The Last Front that really works well. Leonard feels he’s not doing his best raising his children and he sometimes sees, but more often just speaks with the spirit of his wife, Elise (Trine Thielen). In one particular scene, Leonard has a position in a building overlooking where the German troops find cover from the sniper on the other side of the street. Leonard raises his weapon, but hesitates. Elise appears as if to give him strength. Her hand slides along his and presses so he will pull the trigger. It makes the spirit of Elise into a sort of vengeful presence, but it also serves to remind Leonard that killing one person who means you and everyone like you harm could save the lives of dozens of others.

The Last Front is a solid film. It has its moments of high drama, terror, and anguish with a beating, if staid, heart as well. It isn’t trying to create a new kind of genre, but to tell a simple story within a complex historical period. It has a good story, but it won’t try and teach you something grander about the larger conflict at play, which, in some ways, is to its detriment. The Last Front is worth your while if you want something that will hold your attention and leave you satisfied after it’s over.

Grade: C

Director: Kelly Marcel
Writers: Kelly Marcel, Tom Hardy
Stars: Tom Hardy, Juno Temple, Alanna Ubach

Synopsis: Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie’s last dance.

On the surface, it’s a head-scratcher how Venom has become a viable film franchise despite critical drubbing. However, if we’ve learned anything, the audience defines a hit—not to mention one with staying power; which explains how Venom: The Last Dance came to be. The Tom Hardy franchise makes money, all while people still pay for the theatrical experience instead of waiting to stream it on their phones. 

That’s nothing to dismiss nowadays when it has become harder and harder to put people in bedbug-infested seats and eat and drink overpriced concessions. The Venom films fought to be different. There has always been something punk rock about raging against the Hollywood suites, delivering a special effects-laden comic book film on their own terms. Now, the original scribe of the franchise, Kelly Marcel, takes the reins in her directorial debut with the franchise’s strongest effort, which, at its best, is pure punk rock comic book anarchy goodness, for better or worse.

The third chapter in the Venom saga features our anti-heroes, Eddie (Tom Hardy) and his parasite-like best friend, Venom (also voiced by Hardy), a symbiote with whom he has forged a special bond over the years as they navigate the world together. Now, escaping to an alternate timeline, Eddie and Venom try to outrun two forces: the God of the Symbiotes, Knull, and Rex Strickland (12 Years a Slave’s Chiwetel Ejiofor), an officer in the United States Army trying to rein in all the symbiotes around the world, with Venom being the last.

Along with Dr. Payne (Ted Lasso’s Juno Temple) and her right-hand woman (Clark Backo), they run the infamous Area 51 Military Base in Nevada, which is being decommissioned in a matter of days. However, before they do, Eddie’s old friend, Detective Mulligan (Stephen Graham), is brought in since he is still attached to his symbiote, Toxin, who attempts to explain what the military group does not: if Venom lives, the world will end. Rhys Ifans (Notting Hill) also has a small role, appearing to do his best Peter Stormare on happy pills impression, bringing some offbeat comic relief to the story.

Marcel has always had a talent for adapting her storytelling and comic style to a wide range of genres. I mean, who else can write a heartwarming family film like Saving Mr. Banks, the smoldering “sexcapades” of Fifty Shades of Grey, and the sardonic wit of the Venom franchise? So many superhero films fall into the cookie-cutter, follow-the-rulebook, step-by-step, paint-by-numbers formula that the genre has grown tired over the past few decades.

Does Venom: The Last Dance have that? Sure, in droves. The “last” entry in the Venom franchise falls back into comic-book superhero tropes and sometimes feels rudderless. In particular, the beginning of the film features helpful but excessive exposition, explaining the background of the Venom character. Additionally, whenever the story tries to tie in the Area 51 cast of characters, it feels more like an extension of the previous films than anything original to contribute to the genre. Then, there is the ultimate eye-rolling moment where an essential character does something so dumb that it costs their friends and colleagues dearly. It seems to be only written to move the story to the third act, which is contrived. 

Where Venom: The Last Dance excels is when it focuses on its roots as a dark buddy comedy. Hardy revels in the role, playing the straight man to his alter-oppositional-defiant ego, Venom. The writing is hilarious, with Hardy’s Eddie serving as the straight man to Venom’s ominous quips, which can range from deranged to childlike. The humor comes fast and is absurdist to a degree. The scene with Eddie navigating the world with his symbiote partner has always been rebellious and anti-establishment, defying Hollywood blockbuster conventions. Yet, Marcel is brave enough to outline a hilarious dance number seen with an old friend that manages to keep the film, to a degree, lively and fresh.

The final result can be uneven, but the third act has more emotion and heart than you’d expect. (Though I think Hardy and Marcel downplayed the moment too much, the disconnect from the buildup made me feel that Hardy was adding a neurodivergent anti-social quality to his character.) However, the Venom franchise is a Marvel entry with shades of what DC Comics has done so well for years with the Batman franchise. Venom has always been a metaphor for the duality of mental health issues (in this case, schizophrenia), as well as the social isolation and alienation of the downtrodden and castoffs that society turns its back on.

Like I said, at the very least Venom: The Last Dance is entertaining, has a wicked sense of humor, and goes its own way, for better or worse.

You can watch Venom: The Last Dance this Friday only in theaters!

Grade: B-

Director: Anna Kendrick
Writer: Ian McDonald
Stars: Anna Kendrick, Daniel Zovatto, Tony Hale

Synopsis: Sheryl Bradshaw, a single woman looking for a suitor on a hit 1970s TV show, chooses charming bachelor Rodney Alcala, unaware that, behind the man’s gentle facade, he hides a deadly secret.

When an actor gets to direct a motion picture for the first time, the response is usually met with trepidation rather than excitement. Some high-profile stars have made a successful jump, while others have failed to do anything meaningful with the cinematic language. Recently, Kevin Costner has been living in delulu land by making his four-chapter Horizon: An American Saga that nobody outside Film Twitter (sorry, it’s true) wants to see, partly financed by his own money, while Brady Corbet is receiving the most significant praise of his directing career for his 215-minute VistaVision shot The Brutalist. 

With Woman of the Hour, it’s now Anna Kendrick’s turn to make her mark in filmmaking. After a buzzy world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, crickets occurred until Netflix finally picked it up for a direct-to-streaming release in the United States on October 18. On the other hand, Canadians (like yours truly) got a wide, exclusive theatrical release from VVS Films and experienced Kendrick’s debut the way she intended. The result is a jaw-dropping drama that bursts with confidence at every turn to destabilize its viewers right as it opens with a cold and calculating sequence. 

But Kendrick’s confidence isn’t showy, a symptom that has plagued many actor-turned-director debuts. Instead of utilizing techniques to their fullest extent, the director usually indulges themselves in aesthetic platitudes and lose sight of the goals they wanted to lay out in their film. Kendrick never does so and immediately grabs our attention with its opening shot, a reflection of Rodney Alcala’s (Daniel Zovatto) camera as he takes a picture of the movie’s first victim. It’s hard to depict any serial murderer in a way that neither humanizes nor sympathizes with them. Unlike Ryan Murphy’s appalling Dahmer: Monster – The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which attempted to justify the actions of Jeffrey Dahmer by positing him as simply a misunderstood individual, Kendrick never falls into the traps that have plagued many movies and television series on pathological abusers and killers. 

There’s no humanity in Alcala, even if he attracts young female victims by showing a more vulnerable side of him before violently raping and killing them. It’s simply a façade, and we quickly realize this by the second Kendrick and cinematographer Zach Kuperstein showcase how he photographs and subtly objectifies women. 

Kendrick smartly does not linger on the killings either; she shows enough for us to understand the extent of his manipulation and disturbing pattern of extreme, sadistic violence. One such scene depicts Alcala pushing victim Amy (Autumn Best) off a cliff, but we don’t see the impact. Instead, we quickly cross-cut to flashbacks involving Rodney being friendly to them before committing his crimes and the ‘present-day’ storyline involving Sheryl Bradshaw (Kendrick) attempting to make a big break within Hollywood. 

Her agent has tapped her to participate in an episode of The Dating Game and thinks it will bring her good exposure on screen. But the game is in and of itself deeply sexist, hosted by a man (Tony Hale) who seemingly takes pleasure in objectifying women and making jokes at their expense. Down on her luck, Sheryl reluctantly accepts and participates in the game in which she has to match between Bachelor 1 (Matt Visser), Bachelor 2 (Jedediah Goodacre), and Bachelor 3, who turns out to be Rodney. 

Now, Kendrick, being the intelligent filmmaker she is, has been constantly communicating to the audience with flashbacks that don’t serve to humanize the character of Rodney but instead to viscerally exacerbate the terror in such an upsetting way that the reveal of him being in the show hits like an actual punch to the stomach. This is felt through the eyes of audience member Laura (Nicolette Robinson), who recognizes Rodney from an event that led to the death of her best friend. While this parallel storyline doesn’t go as far as it should, how Kendrick visualizes discomfort when Rodney lurks out of the shadow feels more than a simple upset. 

It’s startling how she blocks the camera to create this sense of dread, in which women feel like there’s always someone lurking behind them. It’s blocking worthy of M. Night Shyamalan, always in service of the atmosphere and visual style that feeds the story Kendrick wants to tell. It makes moments of raw emotion all the more effective, particularly in its nighttime parking scene, which is so terrifying for reasons that transcend the mere stalker/prey setting, which is, in and of itself, distressing. 

This occurs throughout the entire movie. Kendrick shows us what she wants to show and operates with a complete mastery of the craft, with cathartic jumps in time that are always in service of her deeper message and are steeped in subtext and meaning. Of course, it’s not subtle, but it’s done in a way that humanizes the victims and gives them agency, even if they ultimately fall for Rodney’s fake persona. Kendrick treats Sheryl with the utmost compassion and respect. Sheryl is an average human being, unfortunately, led in a path of darkness that she won’t know until it’s far too late. But she sees past Rodney’s posture and knows he’s not who he presents himself as. 

To be honest, I kept waiting for Zovatto to show up in the film until I realized that he was playing Rodney all along after forty minutes or so had passed. That’s how good he is here, a petrifying display of torment that effectively crawls under your skin and goes beyond directly scaring you. This is riveting, psychologically active work that constantly changes depending on the victims he chooses, which makes him all the more chilling in front of any woman. And as Sheryl, Kendrick delivers a career-best performance that she unfortunately had not had the privilege to show until now. 

I was never a massive fan of Kendrick, the actor. But it’s not entirely her fault as the movies that she starred in did her no favors (The Twilight Saga and Pitch Perfect films, for example, while commercially successful, aren’t very good). Here, she’s not only in complete control of her movie but of her lead performance, which is often very funny (she’s got a rather dark sense of humor that very much plays in this critic’s comedic sensibilities), but, more importantly, quietly devastating. 

However, the most impressive aspect of Woman of the Hour isn’t necessarily Kendrick’s performance (it’s very good, don’t get me wrong), but in how she operates her film. Rarely have we seen a directorial debut this towering, controlled in what she wants to show inside the frames (and leave outside), and confident in how she structures its multiple storylines (sprinkled with images that tip the hat to some of her cinematic influences). It may not reinvent the wheel, but it’s so assuredly well-crafted and constantly captivating to watch that one can’t help but admire the work Kendrick has put in as a filmmaker in such an impeccable debut. Here’s hoping her next directorial effort comes out much sooner than later. 

Grade: A

Director: Max Barbakow
Writers: Etan Cohen, Macon Blair
Stars: Josh Brolin, Peter Dinklage, Taylour Paige

Synopsis: Two criminal twin brothers, one who is trying to reform, embark on a dangerous heist road trip. Facing legal troubles, gunfights, and family drama, they must reconcile their differences before their mission leads to self-destruction.

The Prime Video comedy Brothers has all the makings of an under-the-radar hit, potentially striking all the right notes. For one, it comes from director Max Barbakow, behind the brilliant COVID-19 release Palm Springs. Perhaps no film was more embraced during the pandemic than Andy Samberg’s new classic, which found a home on Hulu when we needed it most.

Next, you have two stars known for their dramatic work yet equally recognized for their charismatic and funny interviews. However, Brothers may prove that personality doesn’t always fully translate on screen. In this case, it’s a tediously familiar buddy comedy that never entirely comes together. As if taking likable leads and making them unlikable is somehow comedy gold.

The result is a charmless, practically laugh-free experience with little suspense. Nothing in Brothers feels fresh or done well enough that you can give the recycled nature of the script a pass. There is a reason why this film is just a reprocessed effort in the streaming wars aimed at producing content, not perfecting it. 

Brothers follows a pair of fraternal twins, Moke (Josh Brolin) and Jady (Peter Dinklage), who have been on the wrong side of the tracks their entire childhood. One reason is that Jady is a mastermind of criminal activities, relying on his brother’s intuition and smarts, such as picking locks to grab some quick cash. It wasn’t their fault; their father was long gone, and their mother preferred her men to be criminals with no muscles and even smaller brains.

Fast-forward to adulthood, Jady finds himself leaving prison on good behavior with the help of a shady prison guard (Academy Award winner Brendan Fraser). However, Moke has turned his life around. He has bought a house and is having his first child with his girlfriend, Abby (Taylour Paige of Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F). However, Moke loses his job because he never disclosed his previous criminal history, putting his family’s future in doubt.

Of course, due to the nature of movies, having Jady come back into Moke’s life comes with a well-timed opportunity. This involves a cross-country road trip to land the score of a lifetime. Then, they throw in the monkey wrench of their long-lost mother (Glenn Close), who shows up to micromanage their operation. Moke must resist killing her before grabbing the cash that will secure his family’s future. 

Brothers wants to be the hybrid love child of better comedy films like Twins, Step Brothers, and even Ruthless People, but it feels more like a step-child of Masterminds. While it is fun to see Dinklage revel in the role of an arrogant and apathetic criminal, Brolin struggles to find humor in a role that requires him to be a sad sack.

All of this is forced by Macon Blair (Small Crimes), whose screenplay is as contrived as they come. It is as if the filmmakers want to put a spin on tokenism to show the juxtaposition that these leads are supposed to be twin brothers when they look nothing alike in an attempt to establish some sort of baseline comedy, which is a jaw-dropping miscalculation.

Most scenes are ludicrous, even for a comedy, and not in a good way. One of the few silver linings is a moment in which Dinklage’s Jady has an affair with a prison pen pal who has a pet orangutan that is so out of place it feels like it was lifted from a different movie. However, the characters are paper thin, not to mention the plot, as if a beloved cast playing grimy characters is worth your time or subscription.

There was a reason why a film like Brothers was not screened for critics. (For that matter, it’s mind-boggling that it was given a very limited theatrical release.) The film never had the backing to go beyond its trappings and plays it too safe. It makes you wonder why innovative storytellers like Barbakow and Blair waited so long to make a movie with so little appeal that follows the genre rule book step by step.

If they needed four years to make Brothers, by all means, let’s wait eight more for their next project.

You can stream Brothers exclusively on Prime Video on October 17th.

Grade: D+

Director: Titus Khapar
Writer: Titus Khapar
Stars: André Holland, Andra Day, John Earl Jelks

Synopsis: A Black artist on the path to success is derailed by an unexpected visit from his estranged father, a recovering addict desperate to reconcile. Together, they struggle and learn that forgetting might be a greater challenge than forgiving.

“I did you like my Daddy did me.” -La’Ron Rodin

Artist/filmmaker Titus Khapar’s debut feature Exhibiting Forgiveness asks why we forgive those in our lives who have caused us harm and reverberating trauma. Titus Khapar lands on the answer that we often don’t do it for the perpetrator, but for the sake of closing a chapter so we can move on. Exhibiting Forgiveness is a complex and layered piece of cinema that points to how religion in Black communities can both hurt and heal and highlights how the search for forgiveness requires more than a partial apology to be authentic.

André Holland, in a genuinely astonishing performance, plays  Tarrell Rodin a successful visual artist living with his singer songwriter wife Aisha (Andra Day) and his young son Jermaine (Daniel Berrier). Tarrell is a gentle husband, as well as an involved and loving father. He lives hours away from his hardscrabble life in poverty-stricken New Jersey where he was brought up. Tarrell might have escaped the physical reality of his childhood with his abusive drug addicted father La’Ron (John Earl Jelks) but the psychological scars are ever present in his nightmares and form the basis of much of his art. Tarrell struggles with exorcising the ghosts of his past. The final link he feels he can break is to bring his mother Joyce (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) close to his family and out of New Jersey, “because sons look after their mothers”. To do this, he has to return to the neighborhood where he was raised – a space which is both figuratively and literally filled with La’Ron as he turns up at Joyce’s invitation hoping to forge a renewed connection with his son and his grandchild (who he has never met).

La’Ron is recently clean after years of crack and alcohol abuse. He has “rediscovered” the Bible and promises Tarrell he’s a different man. Joyce is pushing hard for reconciliation, but Tarrell refuses to countenance La’Ron’s presence or hear him out. It isn’t until his stepbrother Quentin (Matthew Elam) tells him that Tarrell needs to do it for Joyce’s sake not for La’Ron’s that he agrees to spend time with him.

Tarrell films La’Ron as he “interviews” him about what brought him to the point of addiction and what he thinks justifies being let into Tarrell or Joyce’s life again. La’Ron was the son of an unhinged preacher who used violence on his own family and justified it as Godliness. After telling Tarrell an horrific story of his grandfather holding a gun to his grandmother’s head when La’Ron brought Tarrell and Joyce to visit him just after he was born, he ends it with saying “He was a good man.” Tarrell rejects La’Ron’s interpretation of “good” because no “good” man would beat his wife or son in the name of the Bible or for any other reason. “He taught me about hard work, I taught you about hard work. And look at you. You’re a success,” is essentially La’Ron’s justification. When Tarrell rejects La’Ron’s self-serving re-writing of the narrative, La’Ron loses his temper and throws a cup at the wall. “There’s the man I know,” Tarrell says, and he leaves.

Tarrell is burdened by such fierce resentment and justified anger at the PTSD his upbringing has wrought upon him that he can’t understand why Joyce wants him to forgive La’Ron so much. Khapar, uses a flashback technique and Tarrell’s paintings (which are Khapar’s paintings) to illustrate La’Ron’s monstrousness as a father caught in addiction. La’Ron was pitiless with both Tarrell and Joyce – his only focus being the next score and working Tarrell and himself to the bone to get it. Tarrell misses that perhaps why Joyce needs him to forgive La’Ron is so in part he will forgive her for not leaving him sooner, and so he will learn that he must practice forgiveness to be good with God.

Tarrell’s mental state begins to spiral further as he loses his touchstones and the only person who remains consistently around him is La’Ron. As patient as she has been with Tarrell’s broken psyche, Aisha tells him he must find a way to get his act together because he’s beginning to frighten Jermaine with the intensity of his panic attacks and how they manifest as blind violence (Tarrell punches holes in walls). If Tarrell doesn’t face up to the damage done, he is bound to repeat it no matter how hard he consciously represses his anger.

Tarrell’s child self played by Ian Foreman places him back into the past by wheeling his paintings in front of the houses in Orange New Jersey like a magical portal into a foundational hell. Although the device can be read as a little self-indulgent it is important to remember that Titus Khapar is a visual artist who has used his art and specifically erasing figures in his work to investigate how the white gaze has cut Black people out of history. Ian Foreman’s Tarrell tells the adult Tarrell not to go back inside the house on Gordon Street, but Tarrell has never left it.

Titus Khapar also points out how the personal and political artwork of Black artists and POC artists is still reliant on the “gaze” and patronage of rich white people. His agent Janine (Jamie Ray Newman) positively drools over the paintings he has been creating at the beginning of the film thinking in dollar signs. She’s forcing him back into a new exhibition mere weeks after the last. Tarrell doesn’t get time to ‘be’ after major upheavals in his personal life. Like La’Ron, Tarrell has learned that he must be an exemplary worker in front of White people to be considered of value.

Exhibiting Forgiveness stumbles a little in the dialogue with some of it coming across as cliché – but it doesn’t stumble in its intention or the acting. André Holland gives a towering performance and clearly learned the fundamentals of drawing and painting so the brushstrokes he places on canvas seamlessly blend with Khapar’s style. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor rarely misses as a performer, and in Exhibiting Forgiveness her Joyce is both resilient and ashamed. What holds it all together is John Earl Jelks as the pitiless, pitiful, and self-pitying La’Ron. The interactions he has with Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Ian Foreman, and André Holland are electric. He may be clean, but he will never come clean about what he did.

Andra Day as Aisha gets to once again display her sublime talent as a vocalist with Aisha recording the song “Bricks” which forms the thematic foundation for Exhibiting Forgiveness. Written by Jherek Bischoff and Cassandra Battie and performed by Day, the song is a poetic summary of the struggle Tarrell is going through and the one Joyce and Aisha have acted as support networks for. The often-unacknowledged burden of Black women unknotting the destructive behavior of Black men.

Exhibiting Forgiveness is about finding a way forward by acknowledging the harm of the past and understanding the context out of which it grew. Tarrell says to his father, “You took the past and I forgive you. But the future, that’s mine.” Tarrell doesn’t forgive La’Ron because he fundamentally deserves to be forgiven, he doesn’t – he forgives him so he can stop the pernicious loop of damage and put an end to the fear that he will become the worst of La’Ron.

Exhibiting Forgiveness is intimate, raw, and hopeful. Tarrell takes control of his story and his art. Titus Khapar does indeed shift the gaze by honoring the work Black men and women do to acknowledge the past and its hold upon them and move forward into a future of their own making.

Grade: A-

Director: Quentin Dupieux
Writer: Quentin Dupieux
Stars: Léa Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, Louis Garrel

Synopsis: Florence wants to introduce David, the man she’s madly in love with, to her father. But David isn’t attracted to her and wants to throw her into the arms of his friend Willy. The characters meet in a restaurant in the middle of nowhere.

Quentin Dupieux is not a serious filmmaker. His films should not be taken seriously. They should instead be approached ironically, knowing that he doesn’t really want to say anything beyond flipping off the audience for wasting their precious time with him at every turn. Yet, many film critics unfamiliar with his work insist that there’s a deeper meaning behind his provocation or surface-level humor, partly explaining why The Second Act is one of his worst-reviewed movies. They think Dupieux is trying to say something about cinema’s (doomed) future in an era where streaming services (ergo, the Netflix logo appearing at the top of this) and artificial intelligence attempt to kill art as we know it. 

But he doesn’t have anything to say, and he knows it. In fact, he has repeated on multiple occasions that his films “don’t have any messages except to relax you and make you feel good. It’s like a calming bath, with a little bit of acid in it, to distract you from this distressing world we live in.” Once you know this inextricable fact from Dupieux’s body of work, one begins to approach The Second Act as a meaningless distracting affair that will culminate in nothing and is designed to make the audience pissed off at the lengths Dupieux takes to upset people. It’s all paradoxical, and if you’re trying to extract some form of sense into this work, you’re not only missing the point entirely but going to have a terrible time with it. I saw many reviews where the throughline was, “He’s trying to say something but isn’t saying anything.” Exactly. He’s not saying anything. You’re just the butt of the joke! 

But I can see why people may think Dupieux is saying something. In the first degree, the movie is absolutely designed to make you vehemently angry, with glib jokes that poke fun at everything and everyone, which include reactionary boomers who have a narrow-minded viewpoint of the world (in this case, homosexuality) and far-left activists who have to be careful in using the right words to not offend anyone. In fact, this is how the movie starts: with an almost unbroken 20-minute-long dolly shot of David (Louis Garrel) and Willy (Raphaël Quenard, always incredible with Dupieux) walking towards a café named The Second Act to meet Florence (Léa Seydoux) and her father, Guillaume (Vincent Lindon). 

In this very long scene where the two walk (and walk ad infinitum, a classic joke from Dupieux), one is more attuned to the times, while the other isn’t afraid of making deeply transphobic remarks if Florence ends up being so. But he corrects himself once he realizes people are (literally and figuratively) watching by looking at us and apologizing. It’s probably the only time that Dupieux has ever apologized to us, and it immediately jolts our attention that he has broken (once again) the fourth wall. It seems he wants to ensure no one gets offended until we realize the two are shooting a film and playing fictitious characters. 

Just like his last project, Daaaaaali!, was one long dream within a dream (within a dream within a dream), The Second Act is one massive metatextual film that’s never fully clear when it is the fake movie (apart from a Georges Delerue-esque score that punctuates moments of intense drama whenever the characters are in the fake movie’s diegesis), and when the movie on the making of the movie kicks into gear, only to reveal that it’s also part of the movie, and so on and so forth. He has no set rules in his movies, and one has to suspend their disbelief at every turn to know that he will break any convention he possibly can to make this experience feel somewhat discombobulating for the viewer. 

But that’s part of the fun of watching a movie like this. You eventually surrender to its unconventional narrative trappings because each actor goes from one ironic undertone to another. The most impressive of the bunch is Lindon, who breaks the fake movie’s diegesis just as the plot is starting to be set in motion and prompts another 20-minute-long dolly walk, this time with Florence (we eventually see how Dupieux pulled both sequences off with a bravura final shot that should give Jean-Luc Godard’s voiceover opening credits of Le Mépris a run for its money). It’s there that most should realize this film isn’t going anywhere, but they eventually make their way to the café, where a nervous waiter, Stéphane (Manuel Guillot), can’t pour wine without violently shaking his hands. The movie is now in total shambles because he has to practice doing it right before they can shoot again, which culminates with Dupieux’s sickest punchline in years (that he eventually repeats at the end, further hammering home that his films always swerve around in circles with no exceptions). 

Of course, Dupieux is an acquired taste. If you don’t vibe with any of his previous films, chances are The Second Act won’t do much for you. But the thrill of watching his movies is seeing respectable actors, such as Benoît Poelvoorde, Alain Chabat, Jean Dujardin, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Anaïs Demoustier, and Gilles Lellouche, among others, perform in ways you’ve never seen them on screen before. And it seems unreal that he would ever work with Léa Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, and Louis Garrel, three of France’s biggest stars, with legitimate global reach (Dujardin won an Oscar for The Artist but hasn’t a presence in other markets than France as strongly as Garrel and Seydoux). 

That’s why it feels miraculous to see them in this movie and deliver some of the best work of their careers. Garrel, in particular, an actor who is usually restrained in his emotional composure and intonations (see, for example, Martin Bourboulon’s The Three Musketeers diptych), now goes all in on Dupieux’s proposition and delivers a farcical turn that’s both unflinchingly hilarious and deeply sincere. Lindon has already tapped deep into his vulnerabilities throughout his career, most recently in Julia Ducournau’s Titane. Now, he just wants to let loose (a little bit) and have fun. He’s in perfect synchronicity with Quenard’s always ironic tone, leading into some of the film’s funniest  – and most surprising – laughs. 

Of course, with any Dupieux film, the highs of its gonzo comedy can often be brought down by scenes that go on for far too long, which he tends to do, even if his movies have never exceeded 95 minutes. You could feel this exhaustion near its conclusion, which seems par for the course for such a cyclical movie. But he smartly understands that it’s getting a bit long, leading him to wrap the movie in an experimental fashion that boldly asks filmmakers to leap more primal techniques as cinema becomes more expensive and is now (as in the case of the fake movie Dupieux showcases) led by artificial intelligence. It’s the only image in The Second Act from which you can extract meaning because Dupieux urges all of us to think about how a human can move a camera so it can be employed to its fullest potential. 

Artificial intelligence does not have the power to do what Dupieux does here, nor does it have the knowledge to create a human movie with characters steeped in reality and, above all else, emotion. The soul of The Second Act’s final shot is staggering. It’s an almost rallying cry against the trappings of A.I. that will never create something as meaningful as the mile-long track to pull off four impressive dollies that are always in different variations (medium shots, close-ups, extreme close-ups, long shots, you name it). 

A.I. may take away many things in cinema and kill the artform in ways that the doomers might have predicted long ago, especially if studio executives put their anti-art plans in motion. However, it will never remove a human’s desire for creativity, especially if they have ideas they want to see realized on screen. Human beings have an innate desire to create to survive, whether in the arts or in life. Without human-born creativity, we’re as good as dead. As a result, the final shot of The Second Act is a potent reminder of this fact, and it’s up to us to resist this affront to imagination and emotion by supporting human-made creativity, such as, among others, the trolls of Quentin Dupieux. 

Of course, this film isn’t much of a jab at the audience as Daaaaaali!, only because he eventually reveals a vulnerable side of himself and tells us that the thing he loves doing the most may not be worth it anymore if it goes in the direction it’s heading. Like the Titanic hitting an iceberg (an apt metaphor used countless times in this film), the movie industry is close to hitting it straight ahead and killing itself for the worse, potentially damaging in ways that should’ve never been teased in the first place (for example, the use of digital necromancy or generative A.I. used to create opening credits sequences). 

It may not happen as quickly as some have stated, but it will occur if they do not reverse course now. As such, a change is in order, and Dupieux may be among the few filmmakers to instill it. Ironically, sure, but flipping off the audience in every movie could prove more effective than the audience thinks it is because they automatically attempt to reject it. However, by resisting, they, too, are conditioned to look away at robot-made garbage and call it out as the anti-art piece of hubris it is. 

I was wrong when I initially said that you could not extract meaning from Quentin Dupieux’s films. I should have said most of his films because The Second Act’s final image represents, in a simple gesture, why human-made cinema is worth saving by people who care so deeply about an art form that’s sadly in shambles. By doing this, Dupieux instills a warning to everyone: never accept machine-driven work. Always support human-made art. One path will ensure the perennity of cinema, while the other will destroy it. Which one will you take?

Grade: A

Director: Caroline Lindy
Writer: Caroline Lindy
Stars: Melissa Barrera, Meghann Fahy, Tommy Dewey

Synopsis: After her life falls apart, soft-spoken actress Laura Franco finds her voice again when she meets a terrifying, yet weirdly charming Monster living in her closet. A romantic-comedy-horror film about falling in love with your inner rage.

Your Monster is, hands-down, the most fun I’ve had with a rom-com in recent memory. It’s like a Beauty and the Beast story, but instead of a fancy castle, it’s set in your mom’s house, and the Beast is a total grump with a serious case of “get out of my closet” syndrome. Add in some delicious rom-com vibes, a dash of horror, and Melissa Barrera delivering a performance so fabulous that you can’t take your eyes off her, and you’ve got a film that’s an absolute blast!

Barrera plays Laura Franco, and let’s just say, her life is a total mess at the start. She’s just gone through surgery, her terrible playwright boyfriend Jacob (Edmund Donovan, who you’ll definitely want to boo off the screen) has dumped her, and now she’s recovering in her mom’s empty house. Yep, her mom is MIA—no texts, no notes, nothing. But don’t worry, her bestie Mazie (played by Kayla Foster, who’s bubbly in all the best ways) is by her side, doing her best to keep Laura from totally falling apart.

Now, this is where things take a turn way off the rom-com map. One night, during a super creepy thunderstorm, Laura meets the monster in her closet. And when I say “monster,” I mean full-on monster—sharp teeth, growly voice, and absolutely no chill. He’s been living there for years, and he’s not happy about Laura moving back in. In fact, he gives her two weeks to pack up and get out. Yep, two weeks! Imagine having an eviction notice from a creature living behind your shoes—wild, right? But as you probably guessed, things don’t go as planned.

So here’s where Your Monster really shines. The movie is technically a romantic comedy, but it’s got all these little quirky twists that make it feel like a breath of fresh air. It’s not just about the will-they-or-won’t-they, it’s about how Laura starts piecing her life back together with a little help from, well, her childhood closet monster (Tommy Dewey). The chemistry between Barrera and Dewey is so much fun to watch—it’s awkward, sweet, and downright swoon-worthy in parts (seriously, there’s a scene with Szechuan chicken that had me melting). It’s giving major “weird but wonderful” vibes, and I am here for it.

But don’t let the cutesy parts fool you—this movie has some depth. Laura’s not just some damsel waiting to be saved. She’s struggling to figure out who she is after a breakup and a major health scare, and Monster (yes, that’s his name—love the simplicity) isn’t just your average growly guy. He’s got his own baggage too, and their relationship becomes this fun, messy, heartwarming journey of self-discovery for both of them. By the time Laura is ready to go after a part in Jacob’s Broadway play (one he literally wrote for her while they were together), you’re fully rooting for her. The way the film balances light, funny moments with real emotional beats is what makes it so special.

The visuals in Your Monster are stunning. Will Stone’s cinematography turns even the smallest sets into whimsical playgrounds, and there’s a Halloween party that is absolutely to die for. The lights, the costumes (thank you, Matthew Simonelli!), the vibes—it’s a rom-com dream come true. And let’s not forget the soundtrack. It’s a mix of classic love songs and original music that just wraps you up in the feels.

As the movie heads toward its grand finale, things get surprisingly intense—think Black Swan, but with more monster claws and romantic swooning. It’s one of those films that doesn’t shy away from its horror roots, but still manages to keep everything feeling light and fun. The final act is a bold mix of heart and humor, with just enough blood to keep it exciting.

At its core, Your Monster is a love letter to anyone who’s felt lost, brokenhearted, or like their life is falling apart. It’s about finding the strength to move forward, even if you need a little push from the monster living in your closet. And honestly? That’s what makes this movie so special. It’s not just cute—it’s got layers, and it knows how to tug on your heartstrings while making you laugh and squeal in delight.

Bottom line: If you’re looking for a rom-com that’s equal parts charming, hilarious, and a little spooky, Your Monster is your new obsession. Get ready to fall in love with monsters, messy lives, and the magical, chaotic beauty of it all.

Grade: A