Director: Rajat Kapoor
Writer: Rajat Kapoor
Stars: Vinay Pathak, Koel Purie, Neil Bhoopalam

Synopsis: A seemingly perfect anniversary party at an old mansion turns into a deadly game of secrets when the most hated guest, Sohrab Handa, is found murdered. As the night unfolds, friendships crack, loyalties shift.

The “whodunit” genre is one that is filled with incredibly memorable and dense mysteries, ranging from classics like Rear Window, Se7en and Clue to recent releases like the Knives Out trilogy and A Haunting in Venice, and sprawling across different film regions of the world. Oftentimes, it is the most entertaining, keeping the audience guessing as to who may have been involved in a high-profile murder and who might have finally done the deed. Many a time, “whodunit” murder mysteries also carry a somewhat theatrical flair to them, as characters are often in confined locations where the crime took place, and have to talk amongst themselves to figure out the truth, especially as tensions begin to escalate. It would only make sense then, that someone who is a theater actor/director would take a crack at the genre, which is where Rajat Kapoor enters with his film, Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa.

The plot is simple: on a weekend celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary, Raman and Jayanti Chawla (Neil Bhoopalam and Palomi Ghosh) invite a group of their friends and colleagues to a mansion on the outskirts of town to join in on the festivities. The most prominent of these guests is Raman’s business partner Sohrab Handa (Vinay Pathak), who is far from the nicest person in the bunch, as he often berates and insults everyone around him and acts superior to the rest of the crowd. That night, after the celebration has died down, Handa is found dead, seemingly murdered. As the police arrive and the guests are confined to the mansion while questioning begins, it becomes clear that every single person present had something against Handa, and enough reason to want to kill him if the opportunity arose.

Taking place over the duration of a single day, Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa often feels like an Agatha Christie play brought to life. Kapoor’s background in the theater medium allows him to present an extensive amount of dialogue-driven moments where characters are limited to only a few rooms of the mansion in total, while ramping up the tension as everyone begins to point fingers at one another to see who would have the most compelling reason to kill Handa. This approach from Kapoor leads to some incredibly strong performances, particularly from Pathak, who is most known by audiences as a terrific comedic actor. Here, playing the unlikeable and disrespectful titular character, he gets to display his more dramatic and serious chops considerably, leading to one of his best performances in years. Kapoor, starring as Chandra, a psychologist who is slowly beginning to understand how fundamentally flawed and messy everyone seems to be, from people like Madhavan (Ranvir Shorey) and his girlfriend Nazia (Kankana Chakraborty) who seem to be seeing each other under suspicious circumstances, to Kumar (Danish Hussain), a news anchor who seems to escalate everything to get views and rile his audiences up, and of course Handa, who continually deteriorates with every scene.

Where Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa also succeeds is in its sense of claustrophobia. Once the inspector, Afzal Qureshi (Saurabh Shukla), arrives to find the killer, Rafey Mahmood’s cinematography is often with close quarters of every character, while also providing some great moments that showcase the surroundings of the mansion, including a wonderfully candlelit moment in the evening, and even providing some clever POV sequences like an extended one-shot which lays out the whole scene and showcases all the characters. The production design is also effective in this regard, making every room feel lived in and every object tangible. There is an attention to detail captured by the camera and Kapoor’s direction that makes the situation far more immersive.

The dialogue is mostly crisp and allows for some great interactions as well, especially when exposing the emotional deterioration of each character, and providing a reason for the distrust between every guest. By the halfway mark, everyone has a reason to hate each other, let alone Handa, and help provide extensive motivations and suspicions to make the mystery more bizarre. And yet, the actual murder mystery angle of the story feels a bit undercooked. On a thematic and narrative level, Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa often introduces ideas like the reasoning behind why Handa may be how he is and the backgrounds of other characters building into the mystery, such as with Handa’s father Baba (M.K. Raina), with whom he seems to have a tumultuous relationship, and his quieter brother Arun (Chandrachoor Rai), who also seems to have troubles of his own, but it doesn’t develop many of those aspects past these shallow points. As a result, when the movie begins to explore a few things in later parts of the movie, they do not quite land as effectively as they could. Adding to that, many of the supporting characters do not get much development and screen time to flourish beyond an initial setup, such as with Shorey and Chakraborty’s storyline, which is addressed in bursts, but is relegated to the side after some time.

Towards the end of Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa, however, what also fizzles out is the final reveal, which almost feels like an afterthought and significantly underdeveloped. Save for one moment that only mildly hints at something deeper, the jump to the answers feels less earned. And yet for all its flaws, it never ceases to entertain and keep up a solid momentum. While nowhere near a perfect whodunit murder mystery, it is still a compellingly acted, well directed and lensed thriller that has some excellent moments of dialogue sprinkled in to make the performances shine. Everybody may not love the movie, but it is a fun enough watch.

Grade: B

Director: Ildikó Enyedi
Writer: Ildikó Enyedi
Stars: Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Luna Wedler, Enzo Brumm, Léa Seydoux

Synopsis: At the heart of an old German university grows a majestic ginkgo tree, its lifespan measured in centuries. As the years pass, the distinguished plant bears witness to the private lives of those who seek shade under its boundless branches. Over time, each is transformed by the quiet, enduring, and mysterious power of nature.

One of the foundational aspects of being alive is the need for connection. Even individuals prone to introversion typically have at least a few close people they trust enough to be a part of their little community. What qualifies as connection is often extremely personal, and it is not always going to translate to an obvious, grand spectacle. Director Ildikó Enyedi is seemingly fascinated by the unseen, and perhaps unknowable, forces that bring us together. In 2017’s Oscar-nominated On Body and Soul, two outsiders found themselves drawn to one another when they realized they were meeting each other every night in their dreams. Now, in her long-awaited follow-up, Silent Friend, she transitions out of the mystical space of dreams and into the awe-inspiring wonder of the natural world. With so much emphasis often put on technology as the grand uniter of the world, it is rewarding to be reminded that, even when we feel at our most alone, we are always connected to something larger than ourselves. 

Our story begins in the present era, as we serpentine through the neural pathways of an infant whose parents are aiding the work of a curious researcher. This observer is Tony (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), a neuroscientist from Hong Kong who is visiting a historic German university in early 2020. As you may guess from the date, Tony gets stranded on campus during the pandemic lockdown, completely alone outside of a territorial groundskeeper (Sylvester Groth) who eyes Tony with almost comical suspicion at every turn—an odd development for a film so steeped in subtlety. Unable to continue his research into the brain activity of babies, Tony pivots to a most unlikely subject: a noble ginkgo tree that has slowly been making itself a prominent fixture in the space since it was planted in 1832. Tony believes that he can measure the organic waves emanating from the tree to glean something about the complex internal life within this mighty presence. 

Silent Friend is presumably one of only a handful of films in history that has a “Featured Plants” section in the closing credits, rightfully giving these plants the respect they deserve as pivotal characters in their own right. Enyedi gives us glimpses of the tree’s experience, from the stimulating fireworks of a hard rainfall to the unremarkable inevitability of someone losing their lunch over its roots after too much to drink. With such a long lifespan, this ginkgo tree has seen it all, and, as such, it acts as our shepherd to two other distinct time periods. 

The oldest memory it shares is from 1908, when we meet Grete (Luna Wedler), who has just been admitted as the first female student at the university. Her story is the most overtly dramatic, especially in an introductory scene in which a panel of professors grills her on scientific procedures with a healthy dose of cutting sexism not even attempting to mask their disdain. The tightrope that Grete and Wedler have to walk to remain composed in the face of such an exasperating barrage is captivating to observe. In a movie with Tony Leung Chiu-wai, it is hard to emerge as the MVP, but Wedler certainly puts up a fight throughout her journey of persecution and self-discovery. Yet, even within this seemingly familiar arc, the movie does not take the most obvious roads, taking cues from the reserved nature of its central monolith. 

We also spend time in 1972 with Hannes (Enzo Brumm), an aloof, young German student who appears eager to leave his simple farm life behind, even to the point of being dismissive of plant life altogether in one instance. Of course, this shifts a bit as he develops a friendship with Gundula (Marlene Burow), who has a passion for botany. Of the three stories, this one is the slowest to gain momentum, but it pulls its weight once Hannes begins to house-sit for Gundula and take care of a geranium on which she is experimenting. The movie shows such love and respect for plant life that you will find yourself wondering why you are holding your breath and gripping your seat as you await to see if any misfortune falls upon this flower. 

The major barrier for many audience members will be the slow, luxurious pace of the movie that urges you to take time and truly observe every inch of the screen. The sentiment is lovely, yet even as someone who has bought into the narrative, you really start to wonder if the film necessarily needed to clock in at two-and-a-half hours. Enyedi and cinematographer Gergely Pálos combat the restlessness somewhat by keeping things visually interesting. While the modern time period has a crisp digital aesthetic, things get more hazy and imprecise in the ‘70s as the footage switches to 16mm, and, finally, black-and-white 35mm for Grete’s section in 1908. Each time period swirls together and fades in and out of one another in the editing process, lending credence to the belief that, even if we might feel isolated, we are all part of a larger story.  

Silent Friend is an extremely thoughtful and ambitious narrative that eschews easy sentimentality in favor of something more meditative and cerebral. All the pieces are here for greatness, yet it comes up just short by playing things a little too emotionally cool and not completely earning its massive runtime. Plus, having Léa Seydoux in your film and confining her to a handful of expository Zoom calls with Tony Leung Chiu-wai feels like some sort of crime against the gods of cinema. Nevertheless, Ildikó Enyedi continues to earn our admiration for the way she approaches humanity and connection in ways that are not easily quantifiable. It is a work that lingers with you and makes you extra mindful that, even when no one else is in sight, life is all around you.

Grade: B+

Director: Travis Knight
Writers: Chris Butler, Aaron Nee, Adam Nee
Stars: Nicholas Galitzine, Camila Mendes, Idris Elba

Synopsis: A young man on Earth discovers a fabulous secret legacy as the prince of an alien planet, and must recover a magic sword and return home to protect his kingdom.

When it comes to Masters of the Universe (or rather He-Man and the Masters of the Universe), Mattel’s premiere toy-line turned media franchise, the power hasn’t always been there. Despite some small successes on the small screen with few various animated series – including one starring his female counterpart She-Ra – the silver screen attempts at He-Man and friends have been fraught at best. Starting with the box-office failure of 1987’s Masters of the Universe starring Dolph Lundgren, the idea of another stab at bringing Eternia back to life via a complete reboot has been held hostage by development hell. Everyone from John Woo (yeah, that John Woo) to Netflix and Noah Centineo being involved with it getting so close off the ground, only for it never to materialize.

Luckily, director Travis Knight’s Masters of the Universe is a fun, engaging, yet surprisingly earnest ride from beginning to end. With Knight’s MOTU, along with Kubo and the Two Strings scribe Chris Butler, Knight balances a traditional fish-out-of-water story and high-octane action with ease. Butler’s script also echoes tonal elements of Thor: Ragnarok – in which the film uses situational humor to downplay or uplift serious moments. This works, but also doesn’t always succeed at times. But, this is too far in-between. Yet, the film surprisingly strikes a balance between this type of humor with genuine earnestness, most of which is due to reverence for the source material. 

This is also extended into other areas with production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas (Maria) applying a faithful look to the world of Eternia. Dyas’ production designer also goes in line with what costume designer Richard Sale (Jurassic Park: Rebirth) is cooking, in which bright and pure colors are on full display. Additionally, this is also present in the cinematography with director of photography Fabian Wagner (Venom: The Last Dance) giving the film a glowing bright aesthetic.  At times though, this does clash with some of the VFX work – with some of it not computing well. But, for the most part, visual effects supervisors Tim Burke (The Little Mermaid) and David Vickery (Jurassic Park: Rebirth) along with VFX companies Industrial Light & Magic, Double Negative, Rodeo FX, Cinesite, Untold Studios, and Host VFX manage to supply the film with an insane wealth of effects, balancing both digital and practical at the same time. 

But, the one area that does an insane amount of heavy lifting is the score (and by extension – the soundtrack). Composer Daniel Pemberton – fresh off of the incredible Project Hail Mary – in collaboration with Queen guitarist Brian May combine ’80s synth with a heavy electric guitar presence. Thus, amplifying scenes that should be basic into a fun, jovial ear-worm. Now, in regards to the soundtrack, music supervisor Kier Lehman (Spider-Noir) included some major needle-drops. (Some of which, I refuse to spoil.) Others, were surprising in nature asking “How is this song in this movie?” 

As for the cast, Nicholas Galitzine (Bottoms, The Sheep Detectives) leads with an interesting balance. Portraying both Prince Adam (or in this case, just Adam) and He-Man, he uses broad humor to breakdown and display the character’s personality. We see this especially with the fish-out-of-water aspect of the film, for which Galitzine excels at. Once he starts to turn into He-Man himself, Galitzine takes a very Superman-like approach, honoring the film’s main messaging. However, when it comes to the rest of the ensemble, most are game and feel right. Examples include Camila Mendes (Riverdale) – whose dynamic between her and Galitzine is fun, Idris Elba (Zootopia 2) – who as Duncan provides a combination of strength, humor, and heart, but most especially with Mendes’ Teela, and Alison Brie (Together) – whose Evil-Lyn straddles the line between menacing and somewhat sympathetic. But, a standout that is present (and one that I’m hesitant to include because of all the baggage this particular individual has) is Jared Leto (Tron: Ares). As Skeletor, Leto combines Shakespearean wit and gravitas with elements of camp. This not only recognizes the character’s flair for the dramatic, but also represents Leto’s Skeletor as being a formidable foe in the form of Galitzine’s He-Man. In other, more simpler words – he’s actually pretty good (God, everything about writing that felt wrong). 

By embracing the absurdity of its source material and showing reverence and respect for the cartoon, Knight’s Masters of the Universe is a fun, yet surprisingly earnest ride. One that balances high-octane and hilarious humor. Not to mention, the VFX, score, cinematography, and production designer all help bring the world of Eternia to life. Finally, the cast led by Galitzine not only feels right, but in some cases, feels too right (looking at you, Leto). To quote He-Man himself: By the power of Grayskull, this film simply does…have the power.

Grade: B-

Director: André Øvredal
Writers: Zachary Donohue, T.W. Burgess
Stars: Lou Llobell, Jacob Scipio, Melissa Leo

Synopsis: After a young couple witnesses a gruesome highway accident, they soon realize they did not leave the crash scene alone, as a demonic presence called the Passenger that won’t stop until it claims them both turns their van life adventure into a nightmare.

Many audience members equate “horror movies” with “jumpscares,” but there’s nothing more boring in this economy of listless cinema than a technique that transforms an experience of pure agony and terror into a theme park ride. Jumpscares don’t make a movie scary – the atmosphere and sense of tension do. Look at Ian Tuason’s undertone as a note-perfect example of how to employ a jumpscare through its aural designs, and compare it to André Øvredal’s latest misfire, Passenger. In this film, jumpscares are overused to distract the audience from its nonsensical plot, to the point where it becomes a festival of “BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” moments that permanently blast your eardrums forever. 

It’s a real shame, because there are two excellent sequences in this movie that show how capable a filmmaker Øvredal is at establishing tension through the visual medium of cinema. One sees protagonist Maddie (Lou Llobel) walk into a vast parking lot to her camper van. Ever since she was the witness of a horrible accident with her fiancé, Tyler (Jacob Scipio), Maddie has been seeing visions of a demonic entity dubbed “The Passenger” (Joseph Lopez), who has been tormenting them by continually distorting space and time until they no longer recognize what is real. 

With the aid of cinematographer Federico Verardi, Øvredal circles his camera around Maddie as she walks around this expansive parking lot to reach her van, but she’s hearing ominous footsteps of an unseen creature. Every time she tilts her head back, the van gets further away from her. It’s an incredible sequence that perfectly establishes the creature’s mechanics and the aesthetic impulses of the picture, without relying on cheap jump scares to scare people…until Maddie reaches her van, turns on the vehicle’s touchscreen and, well, I don’t need to tell you what happens next, right?

The same thing happens later in the movie, when Maddie and Tyler watch William Wyler’s Roman Holiday, and the Passenger appears on their screen, looking to rip it wide open. Instead of using their flashlights to investigate the demonic being’s whereabouts, they instead look at the dark woods through the projector, which hasn’t stopped playing the film. The faces of Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck eventually bleed out on the trees and coalesce on the Passenger, creating the most evocative (and jaw-dropping) visual juxtaposition of Øvredal’s entire career. And yet, the sequence still ends on a dumb jumpscare, almost as if the Norwegian filmmaker can’t help himself and doesn’t feel confident that he can sell this sequence of pure atmospheric terror on its own. 

Why the insistence on such a tired trope to fill your entire runtime with? This is also what sank (pun intended) Øvredal’s last movie, The Last Voyage of the Demeter. Instead of building atmosphere and leading to rewarding – and scary – sequences, Øvredal uses jump scares to distract audiences from a lack of a compelling hook and a story that makes narrative sense. Of course, in horror movies, you have to suspend your disbelief. Demonic occurrences do not happen in real life (until proof of the contrary), so it becomes necessary to throw some logic out of the window.

However, as Øvredal and screenwriters Zachary Donoghue and T.W. Burgess begin to expand on the lore of the passenger and link it to the Catholic figure of Saint Christopher, the Patron Saint. The use of Biblical imagery is always welcomed in horror films, until we realize that Øvredal is doing nothing (and I mean nothing) with the parallel he presents, other than haphazardly linking the Passenger to scripture and wasting the talents of Melissa Leo as an exposition-delivery machine who will tell the protagonists that the creature can be weakened if it’s brought to a specific Church no one can find. Of course, that character disappears from the picture as soon as important pieces of exposition have been fully delivered, but none of what she says has any significance. 

It’s hard to go into deeper detail on the religious parallels of the film without spoiling anything, but let’s just say it retroactively makes The Passenger less scary, because Øvredal contradicts many of the entity’s parameters that were introduced in the thrilling parking lot and projector sequences. The film’s climax is an explosive confrontation that wants to add a demonic dimension to Steven Spielberg’s Duel, but let’s just say it falls much flatter than Demeter, even if it’s at least more aesthetically polished than Øvredal’s previous entry in the world of transportation horror (his next movie is going to be set on a plane, right?). 

At least Llobel and Scipio give impassioned performances and keep the movie relatively engaging until its final moments, which removes all the romantic tension the two actors thoughtfully built. Passenger is more engaging than The Last Voyage of the Demeter because it sees Øvredal evolve his techniques away from trying to become the next Guillermo del Toro. However, he needs to do away with jumpscares for good, or at least know when to use them. All of them are predictable. All of them are boring. And none of them actively enhance the story; they only highlight the movie’s cracks even more. If you’re going to do Catholic horror, please engage with the images you’re crafting. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Grade: D+

Director: Anthony Maras
Writers: David Haig, Anthony Maras
Stars: Andrew Scott, Brendan Fraser, Kerry Condon

Synopsis: In the tense 72 hours before D-Day, General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Captain James Stagg face an impossible choice, launch the most dangerous seaborne invasion in history or risk losing the war altogether.

Our lives revolve around weather. We are beholden to the strange, unpredictable, and changeable patterns that swirl above our heads and are entirely out of our control. Humans have attempted to predict the weather for thousands of years and it’s rarely more than an approximation. We have technology now that maps, moves, and gets ahead of weather systems, but we still have to run inside if black clouds roll in during our picnic because things change in fractions of degrees that no computer can calculate fast enough. We never think about how the weather can affect war, though. Humans have fought in every kind of weather there is, but something so precise as a seaborne invasion cannot be left to just looking up at the sky. Pressure puts the credit for the success for the landing of the Allied Expeditionary Force on D-Day to the meteorologists who found a lucky break in the weather.

As fascinating as the weather is, meteorologists are often not fascinating people. There’s a reason why when people have run out of small talk, they often remark on the weather as a last resort. Though, writers Anthony Maras and David Haig, whose play is the basis for the screenplay, do find many ways to amp up the drama. These ways are hit and miss at some points. Often it ends up with sniping, bloviating, and shouting, which feel a bit forced at times. Though, Damian Lewis’ delightfully smarmy turn as General Montgomery is all those things and the film is better for it every time he’s on screen. We lose much of the tension as we know the historical fact that this invasion was a success.

What keeps the tension from disappearing entirely is the way in which human empathy comes into the decision making. Often when war films focus on the higher ups, they lose touch with the actual fighting men or even civilians in harm’s way. Maras and Haig have built in small scenes to keep this kind of pressure on those in charge. There are interspersed scenes of the enlisted men camped at the headquarters, mixed with colorized footage of soldiers from the time of the actual invasion that bring into focus that this undertaking will cost the lives of some of these men.

That’s where the excellence of Maras’ direction comes in as well. He and cinematographer Jamie Ramsay start the film with the face of a young soldier wounded during a disastrous training exercise. Slowly, they pull back so we see the blood washing up with the surf and the dozens of bodies of dead and wounded soldiers. We never forget the faces of these men as Maras’ camera never lets us.

It even shows up in the edit as well. Editing was done by Maras and he was able to make the final scenes that depict the invasion as well as the reaction of the top brass in the bunker really resonate. That’s hard to do when history tells us what happened on June 6, 1944 and when Steven Spielberg gave us a gruesome, if realistic depiction of what it was like on the beach at D-Day. Yet, Maras finds the faces again. A man or two we saw in camp are followed as they struggle up the beach. We see their reactions to the battle around them mixed with the hectic shouting into phones and radios at the command bunker. Then the weather breaks just as hoped and the men find their way to taking out the machine gun nests that have been killing their comrades. It’s an excellent piece of intercutting action that achieves an exciting and emotional forward momentum.

Pressure is a well acted, tense, and emotionally powerful film about one of the greatest achievements in military history. You can forgive it for being a bit slow in places and for being a bit high and mighty in others because the pros far outweigh the cons. It’s a film you know the historical ending of, but it hits far differently when the human effects of the war take center stage.

Grade: B

Director: David Mackenzie
Writer: Ben Hopkins
Stars: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Theo James, Gugu Mbatha-Raw

Synopsis: An unexploded WWII bomb is discovered on a busy construction site in the centre of London. Chaos ensues as the military and police begin a mass evacuation against a ticking clock.

Action films have always thrived on controlled chaos. Whether it’s the gritty paranoia of Heat, the brutal momentum of John Wick, or the psychological tension buried beneath the violence in Sicario, the genre works best when it balances spectacle with suspense. Fuze is lean, tense, and constantly simmering with unease. Even when the destination feels somewhat predictable, the journey remains tense, stylish, and entertaining enough to keep audiences fully invested.

It certainly helps that the film is anchored by two incredibly watchable leads in Theo James and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. James has quietly built a strong reputation for morally slippery characters through projects like The White Lotus and The Gentlemen, while Taylor-Johnson continues to bring an unpredictable intensity ever since films like Nocturnal Animals, Bullet Train, and Kick-Ass. Both actors are particularly good at playing men who seem calm on the surface while quietly radiating danger underneath, making them ideal choices for a film built around distrust, shifting loyalties, and buried motivations.

At the center of Fuze is a deceptively simple plot that gradually spirals into something more layered and dangerous. What begins as a tense criminal operation quickly evolves into a web of shifting loyalties, hidden motivations, and personal betrayals. The narrative slowly unravels through a series of confrontations and escalating violence, allowing audiences to piece things together as the story unfolds. Yes, many viewers will likely predict where certain revelations are heading fairly early on, but that doesn’t necessarily hurt the experience. In fact, part of the enjoyment comes from mentally working ahead of the script, trying to connect the dots before the film catches up.

The action sequences are also impressively staged. The violence is genuinely shocking in places because the film uses it sparingly enough that each moment has real impact. There’s one particularly sudden act of violence midway through the film that completely shifts the tone, giving the story an extra layer of gravitas and reminding viewers that nobody here is operating safely within genre conventions.

The acting across the board is solid, minus some cheesy pouts, eye contact, and occasionally wobbly accents. Theo James and Aaron Taylor-Johnson both bring the intensity and screen presence needed to carry the material. They supply enough charisma and unpredictability to lift scenes that could otherwise have felt familiar. And we are treated to some topless moments. Are they needed? No. Does it matter? Also no.

But where Fuze stumbles is in its final act. Not because the twist itself is bad, it actually works reasonably well, but because the film suddenly loses confidence in the audience’s ability to understand what’s happening. After spending most of its runtime trusting viewers to engage with subtext and character dynamics, the ending arrives and begins explaining itself far too explicitly. The relationship dynamics among the three lead characters were already clear enough from their performances and context. We didn’t need lengthy dialogue clarifying every emotional connection or hidden truth. Trust your audience – it wasn’t hard to figure out.

It’s an increasingly common problem in modern films. So many now seem terrified of ambiguity or audience interpretation, worried that viewers will miss emotional beats unless every detail is verbally confirmed. But audiences are smarter than many scripts give them credit for. In Fuze, the over-explaining actively weakens what had previously been working so well. It’s frustrating because Fuze spends so much of its runtime behaving like a mature, intelligent thriller before slightly undermining itself in the final stretch.

Still, despite those occasional issues and an ending that over-explains itself, Fuze remains an entertaining and genuinely suspenseful thriller. The action sequences are sharp, the violence carries real impact, and the film maintains a strong sense of tension throughout. Fuze delivers exactly what a modern action thriller should: strong performances, nerve-shredding tension, and enough grit to leave a lasting impression.

Grade: B

Director: Milagros Mumenthaler
Writer: Milagros Mumenthaler
Stars: Isabel Aime Gonzalez-Sola, Esteban Bigliardi, Ernestina Gatti

Synopsis: During a business trip to Geneva, Lina’s impulsive decision leads to perilous consequences. Back in Buenos Aires, she tries to bury her secret, but the dark past she left behind resurfaces to threaten her current life.

It can be hard to depict a character’s inner life and thoughts visually. Sometimes a running monologue or a voiceover narration will help the audience along, but these devices, if used poorly, can be more of a hindrance to the flow of a film than helping with our understanding of a character. A silent, action oriented sequence can, if done well, give us everything we need without hand feeding us too much detail too early. The Currents is a film that is heavily reliant on a visual language to help us understand Lina’s (Isabel Amie Gonzalez-Sola) thoughts and choices.

The film presents a difficult and ethereal concept to understand before we are given something concrete to grasp on. Much of the silent first sequence feels impenetrable. That veil over the audience’s eyes keeps us at arms length through much of the film. It feels frustrating at times when you think you have an answer and then the motivations of the characters seem to shift within a blink and seemingly without a reason why. It’s hard to understand why writer and director Milagros Mumenthaler wrote the film this way. Until the end, that is.

The intelligence of Mumenthaler’s storytelling is in her ability to confound. Nothing in The Currents is ever obvious or quite like anything else. It’s a story and plot that reveals itself slowly, sometimes painfully slowly. Taken as a whole, though, when the veil of the mystery is fully lifted, the film has a grand design that, if revealed earlier, wouldn’t have had the same impact. Mumenthaler is strategic with her slow burn. She gets us to the end precisely when she means to and not a second sooner.

This comes through in her direction as well. What we see and how we see it is as controlled as the clues in dialogue. It feels like we see our clues about two scenes before we know they’re clues. Lina sits in her car outside a shop, watching a woman struggle with her security gate. Just a few scenes later, we meet the woman, Amalia (Jazmin Carballo), who knows much more than we do about Lina and her past. Lina’s daydreams about Julia (Ernestina Gatti) and Ines (Claudia Sanchez) reveal different aspects of Lina’s psyche and current confusion. All of this to express and not fully explain Lina’s burden.

There is not only a veil on the film, but a weight to it. We are feeling through what we see that Lina is struggling with the gravity of something. Something about her life has gone awry and she can’t seem to pull herself out of a tailspin. This comes through not only visually, but auditorily. The sound of The Currents, interpreted by Mumenthaler and sound editor Federico Esquerro, is invasive. It cuts in giving us the sounds of rain, running water, or an annoying tablet app, taking our attention as well as Lina’s. It’s a great touch on the mystery and becomes the greatest “aha moment” when much of the mystery is revealed. The sound is almost as good as the lead performance.

As Lina, Isabel Amie Gonzalez-Sola is captivating. She does so much with so little dialogue. You can see the tension in her body language, the thoughtfulness in her eyes, and the internal ache along each part of her face. Gonzalez-Sola is able to deftly convey Lina’s internal struggles and guides us to answers through her choices. She is brilliant and makes the film richer with her presence.

The Currents is a struggle to get into. The slow burn of the script will turn many off. Yet, the answers to the questions and the revelation of the mystery is well worth the struggle. This is a movie you stick with so you can have the experience of it sticking with you. It’s hard to want to stay, but hard to look away once it has you.

Grade: B

Director: Lucía Aleñar Iglesias
Writer: Lucía Aleñar Iglesias
Stars: Zoe Stein, Lluís Homar, Núria Prims, Nonni Ardal, Martina García

Synopsis: During her Mallorca summer, Antonia recognizes similarities with her late grandma. She develops an influence over her mourning grandpa through dress-up, blurring who inhabits who.

Grief does strange things to the people experiencing it, especially when that grief comes on in sudden and shockingly confusing ways. When you’re young, the impacts of losing a loved one are amplified by seeing the adults in your life in a new light. So when the person who kept it all together is gone, how are you supposed to move on? Forastera is Lucía Aleñar Iglesias’s debut feature, which explores the many ways life changes when death occurs.

The world is cruel in many ways to young girls, and there are few things worse than losing a grandma. The ones who taught family recipes, passed down their vintage fashion, or had their personalities rub off on their grandkids. Cata (Zoe Stein) is spending the summer with her sister Eva (Martina García), grandmother Catalina (Marta Angelat), and grandfather Tomeu (Lluís Homar) at their home in Mallorca, Spain. Their days are filled with good food, laughs, and an endless amount of love. Though all those memories make the loss of Catalina that much harder for this family to deal with.

Iglesias paints a beautiful portrait of this family in the small amount of time that they are together in their happiness. A matriarch of the family that, even into her elderly years, is still the head of the home. Cooking each meal with care and passing those traits to the girls who will someday lead their own families, if they choose. Both Cata and Eva see how a healthy relationship is supposed to be through seeing their grandparents together. It’s a poetic circle of life that is captured in such an intimate and real way that makes audiences idealize this tight-knit family. When they then have to suddenly live their lives without Catalina, that warmth is gone. Smiles have faded, and rooms, even when they are filled, don’t hold the same joy.

Cata and Eva are both in their early teenage years and still take immense happiness in being close to their grandma. It’s clear that they see her as the glue that keeps the house together, and they take in each moment and lesson she gives. Ultimately, when Cata finds her grandma dead outside on the stairs leading to her home, it’s a life-altering moment for her. Being the person to find a lifeless body is hard enough to deal with, let alone it being someone you love. It changes the entire dynamic of the family, but Cata has a hard time grieving. Telling her mother Pepa (Núria Prims) that she hasn’t cried about the loss, even when the sadness is overwhelming.

What Forastera does well that sets it apart from other coming-of-age films that deal with loss is that it shows the psychological changes that occur in strangely wholesome ways. Cata develops a coping mechanism that helps her deal with these complicated thoughts she’s having. It first appears when she is going through old clothing of her grandmother’s. This allows her to get to know her in ways that she didn’t know before. It might not be a conventional way of healing, especially when it delves into how Cata carries herself. Causing blurred lines between who she was before her grandmother passed and after.

There are numerous characters in Forastera that are dealing with this major loss other than Cata. Iglesias shows the loss of a partner and how it takes the light from Tomeu that once was blindingly bright. Mostly spending his days enjoying the company of friends and family as they play games or eat food cooked with Catalina’s love. After her death, he is shown looking distracted during conversations and gazing off into space. A once carefree man now gets irritated at the thought of selling his home. Both Cata and Tomeu are drawn to one another through their grief, and this is the most thoughtful portion of Iglesias’s film.

Visually, Forastera has a great sense of escapism through the lens of cinematographer Agnès Piqué Corbera. The film takes place on an island that I’ve only seen in postcards. Sunny rays peer in from the windows as Catalina and her granddaughters prepare sweet treats. And waves crash against one another on a patio with one chair empty next to Tomeu. Corbera uses reflections in water and mirrors to show the faces of grief that the family tries to hide from one another. Her work makes audiences feel like they are seeing moments that weren’t meant for our eyes, and paired with the intimate script, it makes Forastera one of the most tender films of the year.

As much as the film has strong emotional depth, there are parts of Cata that aren’t completely fleshed out. The coming-of-age aspect that starts strong through her blossoming freedom and new crush is stunted when her grandmother dies. There’s not much that audiences learn about Cata, or even Eva for that matter, outside of the grief they are experiencing that doesn’t allow them to feel like fully written characters. Stein has a star-making performance within Forastera that lets audiences get lost in her mind as she wanders through life.

For those seeking a sweetly unusual take on navigating grief, Iglesias’s debut is more than worth the watch. Its heartfelt approach to life’s most difficult aspects doesn’t judge how people grieve. Rather, it accepts the many ways grief shapes those who experience it with captivating performances and warm summer rays.

Grade: B

Director: Kane Parsons
Writers: Will Soodik, Kane Parsons
Stars: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renata Reinsve, Mark Duplass

Synopsis: After a therapist’s patient disappears into a dimension beyond reality, she must venture into the unknown to save him.

Horror can be found in the most unexpected of places, sometimes in locations that are incredibly familiar to us. In May 2019, an anonymous user on 4chan found the horror in his post about “the backrooms,” an endless space of bare walls and no exits, with yellow fluorescent overhead lighting that buzzed loudly as you walked through it, a musty and moist scent following you as you realize you are forever trapped. The post went viral quickly, with many beginning to speculate and wonder what the backrooms were and where they led. Many theories and stories were shared. From “entities” inhabiting the “liminal space” who moved towards you, to various “levels” that expanded the backrooms, the background around the purpose of the backrooms began to take shape. In January 2022, the rooms were brought to life through a 10-minute short made with Blender and After Effects that explores an endless space that is constantly transforming. The director, Kane Parsons, captured the hopelessness and fear found in the backrooms in horrifying fashion, leading the protagonist through the endless space with his camcorder documenting everything.

The short was its own viral sensation, racking up 78 million views at the time of writing this piece, and over the last few years, Parsons built extensively on the lore of the backrooms (or as it is named later, “The Complex”), along with the addition of different kinds of “entities” and “levels,” an organization looking into how the Complex functions, entrances to the backrooms appearing in the most random of places, and people wanting to understand how the space operated more. Throughout it all, however, answers were seldom given to fully explain the Complex, leaving many of its mysteries ambiguous, even as the more devastating incidents of people going missing began to escalate.

22 shorts later, Parsons brings the mysteries of The Complex to the big screen with the feature film Backrooms. The plot is simple: Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) runs a flailing furniture store based in Santa Clara Valley, California. Life, as of late, has not been going well for Clark, both personally and professionally, and is even seeing a therapist, Mary (Renate Reinsve), to try and figure out what to do next. However, one day, he discovers an anomaly within the walls of the store, as a blank spot leads into a space that is filled with endless rooms lit with yellow fluorescent panels above and random bits of furniture just lying around in bizarre ways. As he begins to look around, however, this space begins to take on a more sinister form.

Much like the shorts, Backrooms is an incredibly atmospheric watch, with many extended moments of the movie built around characters moving through The Complex often confused and perplexed by what they are seeing. Whereas the YouTube shorts were “filmed” in first person (animated primarily in Blender) and presented as found footage case studies that were interspersed with presentations, the film provides a third-person perspective in a real built set sprawling 30,000 square feet, which amplifies the scale and emptiness of the Complex more, though it does also have moments captured through a camcorder in a character’s hands, as well. The cinematography here from Jeremy Cox is eerily effective, with every corner of the space and startling object captured with intense precision. The production design from Danny Vermette is some of the year’s best so far, particularly when the lower and more bizarre levels of the Complex begin to unravel in all their musty, dirty, yellowed glory. Beyond just the backrooms, however, the look and feel of 1990s Santa Clara Valley is also showcased in an effective manner, as advertisements on TV and neighborhood layouts in the town evoke the moment of time well, the attention to detail ever present once again.

From its opening sequence to its final act, what also really shines is the direction from Kane Parsons. At the age of 20 making his feature film debut, he brings to life chilling sequences with horrifying imagery as if he has been directing for the better part of a decade (which in a way, with the shorts, he has). In this bigger jump in scale, however, Parsons is effective in still keeping events contained and providing a claustrophobic feeling to the proceedings, and even capturing that eerie atmosphere which prevails throughout in an unsettling manner. This includes everything from moments where Clark and Mary are discussing what is going on to quieter moments where characters reflect or react to something. Once the backrooms are discovered and the movie begins to venture further in, with something potentially chasing him at times, the moments with extended blank spaces purposefully feel much smaller and less expansive, even as the sets become more complex. When more violent events begin to happen, those are often unnerving to watch, and make for some effective jumpscares as well. All of this is further backed by Parsons and Edo van Breemen’s ominous score, adapting themes from the shorts and adding an extra layer of dread to them for this feature.

Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve, both Academy Award nominees, are expectedly great here, particularly in the latter half of the movie as both bear witness to aspects of The Complex. Both get ample opportunities to shine and work with the material. However, it is with their characterization that the movie does suffer a bit. While more often an audiovisual experience where the main character is really the liminal space Clark and Mary are in, Backrooms does also aim to give its leads a more emotional breakthrough at times, albeit with not much development past their initial scenes. As a result, some of the moments of catharsis the script aims for at a later point of the movie don’t fully land. These moments, however, are still more than some of its supporting actors, as characters like Bobby (Finn Bennett) and Kat (Lukita Maxwell) get next to nothing, despite doing a fine job in the movie. Mark Duplass also stars as someone who becomes involved in everything, and gets to shine in his limited screen time, despite also not knowing much about him.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Backrooms, however, is that while it continues to maintain a sense of mystery in regards to how everything in The Complex works, it does attempt to give some amount of legitimacy to a few of the concepts introduced in the shorts. The ideas introduced help provide some form of thematic connection to Clark and Mary as well. As a result, there is a slight loss of ambiguity to some of it, particularly when revisiting the shorts after the movie. On the other hand, it makes said few concepts in the series far more interesting to look back on, while also continuing to maintain that not everything has answers.

Backrooms will likely prove to be a treat for fans of the original material and its most eagle-eyed viewers. While Parsons directs the movie in a manner that would allow audiences unfamiliar with the original material to watch it, there is an enhanced experience to be had with more contextual backing, especially as the narrative and characterization is a bit thin. By the end, however, what Backrooms does succeed at, is being a really solid horror experience that continues to showcase the talents of young filmmakers in the industry and pave the way for even more impressive works in the future. Time will tell where Parsons’ career goes, but if Backrooms is any indication, he will go a long, long way.

Grade: B+