Director:Luca Guadagnino Writer:Barbara Alberti, Ivan Cotroneo, Walter Fasano Stars: Tilda Swinton, Flavio Parenti, Edoardo Gabbriellini
Synopsis: Emma left Russia to live with her husband in Italy. Now a member of a powerful industrial family, she is the respected mother of three, but feels unfulfilled. One day, Antonio, a talented chef and her son’s friend, makes her senses kindle.
There’s always a first time for everything. First kiss. First acquired taste. First designer brand item bought. First salary. First time discovering a movie or director. In 2012, I wasn’t as much of a film expert as I am now. I was part of an active local literary scene when I encountered a different visual language of alternative cinema than the one I was accustomed to watching while growing up. I remember that writing mentor we had, she had very pointy black eyes and wild curly hair. We were sitting together in this cafe, waiting for other friends -poets, directors, short story authors, dancers- to join us, gushing over Tilda Swinton whom we both adored. This androgynous human being, an artist defying gender expression in a time when it was still revolutionary to be chameleonic, working her way through roles regardless of gender she’s playing. My writing mentor whispered in my ears, “Did you watch I Am Love? If not, do yourself a favor and watch it.”
Swinton plays Emma, a calm, kind woman married into wealth. She lives a life of luxury and excess but lacks passion. As a latent passionate woman, we viewers walk with her on this journey of self-exploration and finding the eros in her dead life as she starts an affair with her son’s friend, a chef, while handling the lives of her sons and daughter. Emma meets Antonio (Edoardo Gabbriellini), her son’s friend, and this awakens something within her that had long been dead, that neither riches nor palaces can satisfy in her poetic soul. As parties and festivities continue non-stop in the hallways of large mansions, Emma hides in her room, knitting and dozing off. Emma’s senses are reawakened through Antonio’s cooking, and that stirs the haute bourgeoisie domesticity she’s been comfortable in, though unhappily, arousing her into someone entirely different.
Back in the day I had no clue who Luca Guadagnino was. I was director-oriented, but seeking the director of a random film I liked was not on my radar back in the day. My entire focus was on Swinton. However, as I analyzed the film more, I realized there was a reason Swinton portrayed that ethereal being- delicate and feminine, unlike her more enigmatic, gender-defying roles. Some of these roles veered into the menacing lane, while others were more ambiguous, like a transparent fluid. Swinton, like water, takes the shape of every medium she is put in, regardless of the genre she’s starring in.
Guadagnino channels Éric Rohmer and Wong Kar-wai somewhat in this film. He traps the characters in frames within frames, utilizing wide shots to emphasize their lack of individuality and the insignificance of individuals within the larger context of powerful oligarch families. His meticulous attention to detail here bizarrely diverts from his later freer pictures, where the detail is more character-focused than aesthetic and design-focused. It’s a strange faithfulness to form that strangely seems out of the ordinary for him, resembling a Merchant Ivory production in the larger context. But at its heart, I Am Love is a Guadagnino picture to the core, with his complicated relationships, projection of desire, fluid sexuality, and characters yearning for what they can’t have.
Guadagnino’s sensual piece of cinema, part of his self-described Desire trilogy, relies on the awakening of the senses. A young Alba Rohrwacher portrays a fragile artist who conceals her truth as a lesbian from her family. Gabbriellini plays Antonio, the sensual and rebellious chef who steals Swinton’s heart. Beauty is the main word in this film, it’s insane seeing how Guadagnino’s outlook on life has changed with his more recent films, as his first three have nothing but pure refined beauty, gorgeous settings, and dazzling people falling in and out of love. There is no place for the gruesome or the gross-out in his Desire trilogy, so it’s his most restrained work, and his most poetic at that. Bringing to mind how Martin Scorsese found violence in The Age of Innocence, even with all the confinements of the period piece.
The wardrobe alone is a feast for fashion aficionados. Raf Simons brings to life every small detail in Emma’s fancy world through her outfits but also the assortment of Birkin and Hermes bags she casually carries around and places nonchalantly as a woman accustomed to the highest status of living without a care in the world. The jewelry, both elegant and perfectly worn by Emma, enhances her ethereal presence as she moves throughout the film like a mid-century ghost. As for the soundtrack, those pre-existing compositions by John Adams completely fit the mood, seeping underneath the skin, further complicating Emma’s situation as a bridge between two opposing worlds; those of her motherhood and member of the bourgeoisie, and a passionate wild lover.
I Am Love is a film for those who want to taste the screen and feel the silence. It’s a movie for the dreamers, those who still take long walks on the beach, and despite it shifting tonally completely at the end, it is still a soothing feature made for audiences who exist beyond a high-tech world.
On this episode, JD and Brendan review Duke Johnson’s first solo effort in The Actor, starring André Holland! We’ve been looking forward to this film for a few years now given Johnson’s relationship with the great Charlie Kaufman, and for reasons that are apparent, Kaufman’s influences are all over it. It might not be perfect, but there’s still plenty to discuss, in particular a great performance from Holland.
Review: The Actor (4:00) Director: Duke Johnson Writer: Duke Johnson, Stephen Cooney Stars: André Holland, Gemma Chan, Toby Jones
One of the best sports movies in years, Carson Lund’s Eephus, is now available to watch at home. It’s a somber film in many ways, but also one that is deeply romantic and full of comfort. From the gorgeous visuals to capturing just how poetic a sport baseball can be, Eephus is a film perfect for baseball fans, cinephiles, and anybody who has ever experienced the beauty of having a third place in their life. I was able to chat with writer/director/editor Carson Lund and cinematographer Greg Tango about their process, the unpredictable nature of baseball on film, and what a third place means to them.
Alex Papaioannou: I figure there’s no better place to start than by asking how you both got into baseball.
Carson Lund: Well, I’ve been playing forever. Greg, maybe you weren’t even a baseball guy before this [Laughs.] Did I bring you into baseball through Eephus?
Greg Tango: I played a lot growing up and in high school with friends. I didn’t play to the level that Carson did, but when I was a kid, it was Little League. Then in high school, it was playing pickup with my friends. That’s sort of why this story resonated with me in the first place.
Carson Lund: I should also say we played some pickup games as a cast and crew, and Greg was one of the better hitters. [We all laugh.] But I’ve been playing forever. I played in travel leagues when I was a kid, and when I moved to LA, I joined an adult rec league. So for the last 10 years, I’ve been playing in that, and it’s a big influence on the film. It’s all in the people that I play with and the characters I’ve met over the years. It’s just such a great kind of escape from daily life, and I wanted to capture the feeling of playing a game like that on a Sunday.
Alex Papaioannou: One of my favorite things about this film is it embodies the essential nature of a third place. We’re losing so many of them for a variety of reasons, and I’m curious about the impact it may have had on the film. Have you had any examples of losing a place that meant a lot to you, like the players do in the film?
Carson Lund: There are honestly too many to count. One of the most direct ways is how now that I live in LA, I don’t just have access to a park like I did in the past. There are parks, obviously, but I have to drive quite a ways to them. I mean in the sense of just a place that I can walk to and run around and shoot a basketball or something like that. All the space is already accounted for. That’s a space I always had in my life: a park that I could quickly get to. There’s also the change that’s occurred in going to the movies at the movie theater. Obviously, those can be a for-profit space, so it’s not quite the same. But I just remember growing up, and theaters being such a rallying point for people. Same thing with coffee shops. They were places where people all hung out. I think of my hometown library. It used to be really busy all the time, and now people don’t go in as much because everyone reads on their Kindle or they stream whatever. Mine had a great media section, so I grew up there while talking to people… And you know what? The biggest one is the video store. For me, losing a video store in my hometown cuts off such a great source of discovery for people. When you just doom scroll through a streaming service, it’s not quite the same.
Alex Papaioannou: Here’s hoping places like these, to lounge and connect and be off your phone, make a comeback. By any chance, are either of you familiar with John DeMarsico?
Carson Lund: The broadcaster, right?
Alex Papaioannou: Yes! The game director for the Mets on SNY. I’m a big fan of his, and what he’s doing for the live telecast of baseball is exciting. He’s been quoted as saying that baseball is inherently cinematic, more so than other sports. He provides his own details, but I’m curious: After shooting a baseball film, in your own words, what do you think it is about baseball that makes it such a cinematic experience?
Greg Tango: In a lot of ways, baseball is all about reacting, right? It’s a lot of waiting, which is one of the themes of the movie. I think what makes it cinematic is that you never know where something’s going to go. The ball moves from person to person, and it’s almost like a dance in a weird way. You’re capturing these people move. With our film, we constructed it based on how baseball is played. There are people crossing the frame. There’s a lot of movement and depth. I feel that in other sports, everything follows the ball in one direction. It all starts in one place and goes back and forth. In baseball, we go to every corner of the field. You can hit a ball to left field, then it might come back all the way to home, or quickly head to third base, or something like that. It moves around quite a bit. And as that happens, the depth of the area changes. You’re seeing people in both the outfield and infield. It just has a lot of range to it.
Carson Lund: Yeah, that’s a great point. The spacing is very different from a lot of other sports, where people move in a group or in a big chunk. And I think that’s always fun within deciding composition and cinematography. How can you place people quite far away from each other, but still make sure they have a relationship? You can work with deep focus to guide the eye around a very wide frame. That was something we really enjoyed doing with this film. I’d say the other part of it that makes it inherently cinematic is that it’s a sport that facilitates socializing. All that downtime results in people just chatting. That’s something I always enjoy seeing: how people fill their time with small talk. And then the dugout itself is so much like a Plato’s cave situation. At least the one we picked is. Everyone’s enclosed, and they’re looking out on this world that, when we’re shooting into the dugout, we don’t see. But we watch their faces watch it. And I think that’s always a very cinematic feeling: being able to look in at someone who’s looking out, and not being able to see what they’re looking out into.
Alex Papaioannou: Greg mentioned one of the things about baseball that is exciting is how unpredictable it is. You’re hitting a small ball with a bat that’s rounded, and it could just go anywhere. So, in terms of shot composition and planning out a film around the game, can you both talk about the challenges of capturing the unpredictable side of the sport?
Carson Lund: It’s almost a casting question. When we cast this film, I was looking for people with baseball experience, but you also have to be flexible. It’s a very specific thing that we needed: men in their 40s or 50s, or 60s even, who had somewhat recent experience and had some athletic skill in the Boston area. It was a very small peg we were trying to hit [said while laughing.] So inevitably, the skill level was not quite where I would have hoped or expected it would be, but I think that actually ended up being a blessing and produced a lot of very comical sloppiness. And so we just tried to embrace that. Part of that was by shooting in master shots, so we could see everything happening at once. There’s a lot of funny stuff happening, and I’ve seen it a few times in theaters recently, and people always laugh at certain moments. I think it’s because you can see everything happening. It sort of follows Chaplin’s idea of comedy being in long shots, and tragedy being in close-up. As far as choreographing it, a lot of the time it was very carefully thrown to a specific part of the frame. So Greg and I would have to collaborate on that. Usually, I’d be the one throwing because no one else in the crew had that accuracy. [Laughs].
Greg Tango: And sometimes, there were certain things we were worried about taking a long time to get, and we would get it really quickly. Or the opposite would happen, and things we weren’t worried about would take longer. Baseball is funny in that way. There’s one shot specifically that I’m thinking of. I think the ball comes from third to first, and I’m kind of shooting from behind first base, looking towards third. I remember we had a wall of flags around me. We had a crew member ready to jump in front to try and grab the ball if it happened to go over. So we did a lot of protecting the camera and ourselves. Luckily, we never even came close to hitting the camera or anything like that. It all ended up being pretty smooth.
Carson Lund: I will say one thing about that. There was one time when we had the camera set up between the mound and home plate. We put up a huge tent around the camera, so there was only a little hole where the lens could see out. And I remember Ethan [Ward] was hitting, and he hit it a few inches away from that little lens hole. But otherwise we were fine. If it went through that hole, the very expensive lens would have been shattered, and it would have thrown off the shoot, but we didn’t really have another way. We didn’t want to resort to VFX. So everything you see is a real ball moving through space, and real people catching it or throwing it.
Alex Papaioannou: Going off of what you’re both saying, a lot of baseball feels miraculous. That meant both in the context of baseball being played and in capturing it in a way that translates to an audience. And there are a lot of moments that feel organic and spontaneous throughout the film. Were some of these moments where you just followed the dugout or batters prepping the swing? Did you have these images in your mind going into the film, or was it after the fact that you could play around with the items commonly found on a baseball field?
Carson Lund: The film was thoroughly shot-listed and storyboarded. Greg and I did so much work in the run-up to the film. We just went over every single shot and talked it through to make sure we understood exactly what we were trying to capture. That was really important for scheduling, in terms of figuring out where the sun would be at any given moment. As the editor, I’m editing the film in my head as I make the storyboards, and even as I write the script. So we don’t always feel that we need anything extra on set. But there’s always going to be something that happens that excites you, or there’s a detail that a character does that you then want to spotlight in some way. A lot of this was figured out very carefully, but I should also note that sometimes an actor had their schedule change, so they couldn’t be on set. You might have to suddenly think about how a shot needs to be shrunk entirely if there’s nobody to fill the spot from far away. So there were cases where it wasn’t exactly what we planned, but we always had a lot of people on set, so we could always figure something out to get the shot.
Alex Papaioannou: There’s a lot of idle time, both in the film and in baseball in general. It works so well in the film. Greg, there are moments where you’ll just be shooting the outfield, and the characters aren’t really doing much of anything, and it’s intentional. Sometimes they’re muttering to themselves or chatting. Can you talk about whether there was any challenge in making “nothing” look cinematic?
Greg Tango: Yeah, we talked a lot about it in prep. It goes for any sort of movie as well. You just ask the question: What’s the point of the scene? What are we trying to say? We might to build something up visually before the payoff later. It’s figuring out the point of the scene and just building around that. One example is how we see Dilberto (David Torres Jr.) build up to getting mad in the film. Sometimes you’ll see him in the background looking off at other things, or there’s a shot where you see him getting ready to start leaving the field. It’s all about figuring out what the point of a moment is, and then layering your shot that way.
Carson Lund: Sometimes there’s what you call a pillow shot, where it’s just the clouds or the trees. I think those are really important for the editing flow. And here we also have people just hanging out when there’s not a play happening with them. We really did talk about all those moments. The script was written in such a way that every unit of time was accounted for. Every out. Every inning. What is happening now? And how is that advancing something that happens later? So it really was constructed in such a way that everything had some kind of payoff, even if it’s just a very small, subtle payoff. But the film just keeps planting seeds.
Alex Papaioannou: It all lends itself to the naturalistic feeling the film has, and it capitalizes on it in a wonderful way. We mentioned comedy beats earlier, and this is also a very funny film. The Linda Belinda line gets me every single time. I adore it. But it’s also a very somber film at the end of the day. It’s upsetting, but in a cathartic way. So can you talk about balancing that comedy versus that sadness, and never sacrificing one for the other?
Carson Lund: I think the somberness or melancholy is just inherent in the scenario: this is the last time they’re going to do this. The whole film is a slow march towards the end. And the conflicts that arise in the film have everything to do with light and the passage of time, right? The ball disappears, the light fades. People start leaving, and they get sore. It’s a very funereal film. So it’s hard to escape that somberness. And for me, the comedy is there to evade the darkness. It’s in all these men trying to find ways to ward off that creeping feeling of the end. And they’re using their old tricks, their old jokes, and their old lingo to avoid talking about the end. So in a way, I see the beginning to be just as somber as the ending. In some sense, if you’re really watching it and thinking about what these guys are doing, it’s like they’re all just performing this ritual for the last time. They’re just being a version of themselves in a very active, deliberate way so that they can avoid the fact that they’re actually quite sad about this. So I don’t really think of the two as completely different. But the film certainly does slow down in its pacing, and then as it gets darker, we play with a lot of new visual ideas that create bigger areas of darkness. It makes that feeling very literal. Greg, could you talk about shooting some of that night stuff?
Greg Tango: Shooting the night stuff was super fun. It was a big, elaborate setup. We created layers with the headlights and the park itself to make the streaks of light sort of separate the space between the players.
Alex Papaioannou: Greg, this is a very natural film in terms of its imagery and shot composition, but there are two moments that I was just blown away by. There’s such a stark shift in the style and visual language of the film. One is when the eephus pitch is first brought up, and we just see the ball in the frame. It’s almost like a moment from a Wong Kar-Wai film, that slow-moving blur, as if it’s frozen in time. And then there’s a home run scene at golden hour, which follows the batter through some slow motion. Can you talk about filming those two specific moments and the shift they take?
Greg Tango: For the eephus pitch, the first few shots focus on the pitcher in that really weird light. It was just a moment where we got to set, and it was one of those days that was a little hazy, and the sun wasn’t up yet. Carson and I were like, “We gotta get this. Let’s get the camera.” I think it was just me, Carson, and Nate [Fisher]. Everybody else was still getting ready. But we knew we just had to roll. And then it changed five minutes later. So I think we only got two or three shots, and one made the film. And then that shot you’re talking about with the ball itself, that’s actually Carson. He did that in LA afterwards!
Carson Lund: [Laughs.] It’s funny, you picked one of the only shots in the film that was a pickup we did away from the East Coast. Originally, that scene was just playing purely as a dialogue with comedy. But I wanted to get at some other level of the idea that he’s talking about. It’s kind of like the essence of the film. He’s talking about trying to stop time and achieve this dream-like state through a pitch or through the game. So I knew I wanted that kind of thing there. I didn’t know if it would completely work because, you’re right, it is sort of an outlier. But I didn’t have the right camera or lenses to pull that off on set. It wasn’t the same stuff we shot with, but I did my best to color it the same. Essentially, we tried a lot of different ways to capture that shot. At first, I was actually planning with the ball being thrown. But it was just too fast to follow, so I knew I wanted that slow shutter effect, like Wong Kar-Wai. I was thinking about David Lynch, too. But we ended up actually dangling a ball from a string, and the camera is actually in one place. My friend was holding the camera, and I was dangling the ball. He was slowly turning the camera, and we were dangling the ball so that the slight pan of the camera created that background motion. It’s just very small-scale trickery [laughs.] But it ends up looking pretty real. I had to paint out some moments where the string was falling into frame, but I can’t think of another way to capture that shot, short of maybe having a studio and some complicated wind rig.
Greg Tango: For the home run moment, I think that was the first time of two moments that we used slow motion in the movie. We just wanted to build up this moment, and then, as they come into home plate, to slow it down. We did a lot to try and keep flair out. I’m not big on a lot of flair, but this felt like a good moment to have some. We could sort of make it a little more cinematic, to use that term. But it’s a Steadicam shot pushing in and following him home. And then we have all the players come in. That’s one of my favorite shots, just because there are so many moments that happen with all the different players as he comes in from the home run. It’s one of those things that, the more times you watch the shot, the more funny interactions you observe between all the players.
Carson Lund: Totally.
Alex Papaioannou: It’s magical.
Carson Lund: And we really didn’t want it to be a hard cut from slow motion back to regular 24 frames per second. So we actually speed ramp it all the way back to normal. I just wanted this very smooth viewing experience where you slip into a dream-like state in a very almost unnoticeable way. It’s just: suddenly you’re in it. I think a hard cut would feel too jarring in this context.
Alex Papaioannou: At the end of the day, this is also a film about guys hanging out. So I’m curious if either of you has a favorite hangout film, or one that you just throw on thinking, “I need this as a comfort watch right now.”
Carson Lund: Honestly, I don’t really have that kind of movie for myself. There are films I like, like Dazed and Confused, for example, that I just absolutely love. I very rarely turn on a film just to hang out now. I’m always watching something new or going to the movie theater. If a 35-millimeter print of Dazed and Confused is playing down the street for me, I’ll go watch it again. But I guess I’m always trying to discover something new in the movies, so I don’t necessarily have that sort of comfort thing. But I’m sure Greg does. I’m probably the outlier here.
Greg Tango: I mean, it’s not always my go-to, but it makes a nice story. Right before we shot Eephus on, I think the last day of prep, for whatever reason, I was by myself in one of the houses where we were staying. Nobody else was around, and I watched Everybody Wants Some!!, which is one of the things we referenced a little bit in pre-production. There are some baseball scenes in there, where people are practicing, but it’s Linklater, so they’re also just hanging out. That was a fun one to get myself in the headspace to work on a baseball movie for six weeks.
Carson Lund: I did see that three times in theaters! At least one of those viewings was just pure comfort. At first it was discovery, but then I was like, “I just got to go back.” Two Linklater answers. He is the master of that; he knows how to hang out.
Director:Nadia Conners Writer:Nadia Conners Stars: Elizabeth Reaser, Walton Goggins, Lois Smith
Synopsis: A stranger crashes a party, sparking a comedy of errors, and a reordering of life.
Nadia Conners’ debut feature, The Uninvited, is a chamber piece set in the Hollywood Hills where three women each dissect their relationship to performance, age, and motherhood within the confines of what is expected of an actress. The gendered nature of their contributions to intransience inside a machine that celebrates youth as achievement. Rose (Elizabeth Reaser) is preparing for a post-shoot celebration for her husband Sammy’s (Walton Goggins) most celebrated client at his artist management firm. The director, Gerald (Rufus Sewell), who has known Rose and Sammy for decades is the special guest at the garden party; but it is an uninvited and unknown guest, Helen Hale (Lois Smith), whose presence sparks a mental reckoning for Rose who has found herself a useful adjunct to her husband’s career but failing in her own.
Rose and Sammy are Hollywood insiders with Sammy’s company representing a director who has made a billion dollar “property” and is now in a position to greenlight any project he wants. Sammy is desperate to please Gerald and his new girlfriend, the up-and-coming talent, Delia (Eva De Dominici). Rose and Sammy are parents to Wilder (Roland Rubio) a six-year-old who is carelessly minded by the phone obsessed Tracy (Kate Comer) but carefully monitored by Rose. One of the ironies of the day of the party is that Rose receives a call stating that she’s too old to play the mother of a six-year-old, “Nobody would believe it.”
It doesn’t help Rose that she’s also “mothering” her husband whose insecurity is in overdrive leading him to constantly snipe at her as he tells her he’s “Not sure you’d stick around with me if this grand project of ours were reduced to survival.” Rose has organized the party to what she believes is his specifications, yet she’s consistently interrupted each time she tries to get dressed to attend. First, it is by Helen who has driven “home” to their house – a place she once lived in with her husband also named Sammy. Helen is clearly confused and, as Rose finds out, is dying. Her memories of the house and her life there become a surreal prism that echoes Rose’s current reality.
Another uninvited guest who arrives to unbalance the already stress-laden evening is Lucien (Pedro Pascal) a Hollywood A-lister who has been recently released from rehab. Lucien is Rose’s ex-lover from the years when she was a heralded stage actress. His presence leads to Sammy having another crisis of faith: what if Rose is still in love with the man whose charisma is widely feted?
At its heart, The Uninvited is a story of the permanent impermanence of women who were once “somebody” until the system decided they weren’t. Helen talks about her time spent going to parties with stars such as David Niven (Delia doesn’t know who she’s talking about) and wonders who has kept the memories of her? Delia, who has been given a film role that Rose originated on stage with Lucien almost twenty years ago and is set to play opposite Lucien in the film, looks at Rose’s life and assumes she’s happy as a mother. Rose adores her son, but she’s not happy at having lost her career and being spoken about in the past-tense. While the three women interact, the men at the party wheel and deal and congratulate each other. Gerald, in particular, has decided he’s a Godlike figure. As much as he admires Rose, he doesn’t stop for a moment to consider what she may feel when he tells stories of her groundbreaking performance in the play that he’s not even considered her for despite the leading man remaining the same.
“If you were ten years younger,” says Gerald to Rose when he arrives with Delia who is treading a similar path to what Rose did in her “lost youth.” The solipsism and blindness of the men would be funny if it weren’t so casually entitled. Lucien waltzing back into Rose’s life and telling her he still loves her and only broke up with her all those years ago because he was threatened by her talent. Sammy speaking of how much he adores Rose to Helen as Rose “works the party” for him, but he clearly has forgotten that his wife has, not had, ambition as an actress. When Sammy is imagining his dream team for a new venture he forgets to include Rose’s name on it.
Because The Uninvited clearly wears its origins as a play, the immediate focus is on both script and performance. The performances are the defining strength of the film. Elizabeth Reaser, Lois Smith, Rufus Sewell, and Walton Goggins are eminently watchable as they interpret Connors’ script into a cinematic creation. The themes are expertly conveyed even when the script finds itself on shaky ground. For example, there’s a recurring bit about a glow fish fairytale that Rose tells Wilder which Connors gives undue weight to as a philosophical key, and some of the “reveals” that prove the core thesis of the film are easily spotted. Plus, a subplot about aura photography at the party doesn’t add anything to the work beyond shallow visual flair (flare?).
Clunkiness aside, The Uninvited is an earnest, sometimes scathing, but predominantly heartfelt examination of how little things change for women over the ages when it comes to having to choose career, motherhood, or being a support system for the insecurities of men. Being seen and heard as people rather than projections is incongruent in the Hollywood Hills where success is surface. When the party is over heartbreak might await, but if it does, there is still a heart to heal.
Director:Patricia Riggen Writer:Caitlin Parrish, Erica Weiss, Logan Miller, Noah Miller Stars: Viola Davis, Anthony Anderson, Antony Starr
Synopsis:Terrorists take over the G20 summit with President Sutton, bringing her governing and military experience to defend her family, company, and the world.
There’s no denying that Prime Video’s G20 sounds like the fakest movie in existence, especially when one watches the opening scene. Within the first two minutes introducing us to its antagonist, Corporal Rutledge (Antony Starr), the words “crypto,” “blockchain,” and “bitcoin” are mentioned without an innate understanding of what cryptocurrencies are. It’s as if the screenwriting team, comprised of four writers, heard those words in passing and decided to make an entire political thriller based on a terrorist who would want to enrich himself in bitcoin when the global economy collapses.
To be fair, G20 can now be considered a documentary, because the global economy did collapse in real life just a few days ago, and the current President is very much a fan of cryptocurrency. That said, I couldn’t explain, for the life of me, how Rutledge can actually accomplish the collapse of the world economy to enrich himself via unstable currencies, especially when “AI” and “deepfake,” more buzzwords blended in the script, are thrown in the mix. Essentially, the villain wants to hijack the G20 summit set in Cape Town, South Africa, to make all world leaders read a pangram, a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet at least once, to program their AI software to generate deepfake videos of these leaders explaining how their ill-defined treaty will enrich themselves, thus crashing the dollar, and boosting bitcoin?
What the terrorists didn’t expect, though, was that the U.S. President, is not only a military veteran, but kicks major ass. This is Danielle Sutton, played by Viola Davis, who has now become the world’s last hope at saving the leaders held hostage by Rutledge, and bringing back the global economy to what it once was. It’s as politically muddled and profoundly misguided in its understanding of current economic and geopolitical trends as any good Cannon Group movie (think Invasion U.S.A. or Assassination), but it’s also what makes G20 surprisingly fun.
I still wouldn’t call the movie good, by any means. Within the first 20 minutes, you’ll be able to pinpoint exactly who in the President’s team is in on it and works hand-in-hand with Rutledge in ensuring Sutton’s term will prematurely end, and you’ll also be able to guess how POTUS will foil the villain plot, with the help of her rebel daughter, of course. Why is that? Because in the opening scene, a parallel bait-and-switch, her daughter, Serena (Marsai Martin), is able to foil the Secret Service and party at a bar without a security detail with her. That will absolutely come in handy when Rutledge’s team hacks the keycards given to the attendees of the G20 summit.
Obviously, there are frictions with Sutton and her daughter, because Serena thinks her mother doesn’t allow her to do what she wants, which, duh, she’s the President! You would think that Serena would at least understand that the daughter of the most powerful individual in the world travelling with a security detail isn’t stopping her from living her life, but it does cause a divide in the family, notably in how she thinks their parents are controlling her, when Danielle believes it to be the exact opposite. Because a video involving her leaked online, sparking controversy at the President’s ability to lead the country when she can’t keep her daughter in check, she decides to take her entire family to the G20 summit, including First Gentlemen Derek (Anthony Anderson), and son Demetrius (Christopher Farrar).
We do know that their narrative arc will be emotionally resolved once they’re stuck in a life-or-death situation and can also predict who, in the broader White House security team, will sacrifice their lives and take a bullet for the President as soon as one specific character is introduced. For the ones who will want to see this movie, I won’t reveal it, but let’s just say director Patricia Riggen and her screenwriting team are absolutely not doing the movie any favors by making it the most predictable in existence. Every story, character, and thematic beat is seen a thousand miles away, even when Riggen attempts to fool us by including many contrived moments, and several fakeouts during an action scene. We can see right through them, and realize exactly where this entire script is going even an hour before the movie wraps up in a conclusion that absolutely recalls Invasion U.S.A. Once the villain is defeated, the movie abruptly cuts to credits. Incredible.
And yet, with all of these telegraphed arcs and screenwriting platitudes, the movie still manages to contain enough B-movie thrills to keep us invested. For a direct-to-streaming offering, the action is surprisingly kinetic and exciting, which is even wilder considering this comes from the director of Miracles from Heaven and, her most known effort, Lemonade Mouth. There’s intent behind some of the quick cuts (we can actually see the fight movements clearly), Checco Varese’s cinematography is surprisingly sweeping and playful, whilst the setpieces themselves bring about some well-dosed adrenaline to our seats. One in particular, set in a kitchen, rules incredibly hard. I never expected such a movie to contain this much well-mounted hard-R action, but if there’s any actor who deserves such a vehicle to at least nail that department, it’s undoubtedly Viola Davis.
We already knew the Oscar-winning actress kicks ass, especially if one saw Gina Prince-Bythewood’s incredible The Woman King. It’s no surprise that she does exactly the same in G20, though bringing a surprising amount of emotional heft to her portrayal of the President, given relatively flimsy material to work with.
The best parts of her performance aren’t exactly the most crowd-pleasing moments, where she delivers scene-chewing one-liners such as, “I was elected…coward!” Rather, the most memorable parts of her turn are when the movie reaches surprisingly heartfelt territory, either in her relationship with her family, or in how she teams up with U.K. Prime Minister Oliver Everett (Douglas Hodge), Elena Romano (Sabrina Impacciatore), South Korean First Lady Han Min-Seo (MeeWha Alana Lee), and agent Manny Ruiz (Ramón Rodríguez).
Each aforementioned character has their time in the spotlight and gets at least one satisfying moment. One can think about the U.K. Prime Minister and Elena driving “The Beast” while attempting to evade missiles – it’s one of the biggest highlights of the picture. Antony Starr is also unsurprisingly great as the antagonist, though it is not as nuanced of a character as Homelander is in The Boys. That, of course, isn’t his fault, but the screenplay’s. A-list actors stuck in a B-movie, but all of them are embracing this inextricable fact and fully know they are not in this to win Oscars or instill some perennity as a future classic.
And that’s exactly why the movie gets the job done. Again, it’s not anything to write home about, but it’s far from being the worst of the year, especially on Prime Video, where Tyler Perry’s Duplicity released not long ago and is the contender to beat for the most appalling film of 2025. As a disposable, ultra-generic action movie, G20 is one of the most serviceable streaming offerings you can watch. It has enough excitement to sustain your attention for its 110-minute runtime, though you likely won’t remember it by the time you wake up the following morning. It’s nothing more than a mere distraction watch after a long day at work. For many moviegoers, that’s exactly what they’re looking for.
On this episode, review the Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza war film Warfare, starring Will Poulter and D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai! For whatever reason, the Garland discourse has become quite strange in recent years. Some of it is warranted. Some of it is self=inflicted on Garland’s end. A bunch of it is disingenuous social media rage bait. And it’s somehow all become entangled with the Warfare discourse, which has been frustrating and hard to decipher. All of that to say, maybe we saw a different movie than a lot of other people? Not sure, but we had a great time breaking this one down.
Review: Warfare (4:00) Director: Ray Mendoza, Alex Garland Writer: Ray Mendoza, Alex Garland Stars: D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Charles Melton, Joseph Quinn
“Fair of face and full of grace.” Emilie Blichfeldt on the ferocity of fairy tales
We all know that fairy tales aren’t real, right? That fairy godmothers don’t turn mice into footmen and pumpkins into carriages. That gingerbread and candy houses don’t exist deep within a forest for lost children to find. Or this kiss of one true love can break an enchantment from a wicked witch (or fairy) and usher in a happy-ever-after. Fairy tales might not be real, but they are certainly part of an oral tradition that would take aspects of people’s real lives and turn them into moral tales. No big bad wolf is coming to huff and puff and blow the house down – but it’s a good idea to use the best building materials possible to create a stable home. Bluebeard might not have locked his curious wives in a chamber and murdered them, but Gilles de Rais did torture children and historically existed, and he’s the model for Charles Perrault’s tale. Stranger danger becomes a wolf on the pathway to Granny’s house. Food shortages mean children are abandoned. Both maternal and infant mortality rates mean the “evil stepmother” exists.
There are versions of Cinderella, Aschenputtel, or Mossycoat (the titles alone would take an essay) reaching from Asia to Africa to the European tradition – the one we know best via Charles Perrault and the Grimm brothers. The often-unnamed heroine (she only gets her name when she is made into a servant of the kitchen smut) resonates across continents and countries as an example of how true beauty and obeisance can never be eclipsed by falsity and trickery. The noble and gentle young woman will be found by her true love and saved from a life of drudgery. The proud and wicked stepsisters and stepmother might be forgiven (Perrault), or they might have to cut parts of their feet off and end up with their eyes pecked out by birds as punishment (The Grimm brothers).
Emilie Blichfeldt’s The Ugly Stepsister (Den stygge stesøsteren) imagines Cinderella from the perspective of one of the stepsisters who is as much, indeed more, a victim to the demands of a being a noble and gentle young woman who will attract the eye of the prince. Elvira is a bookish and awkward teen who is hauled in tow with her younger sister Alma to the house of minor aristocrats in Swedlandia where her mother, Rebekka is marrying a man she believes will raise them all out of poverty. When that doesn’t happen as planned, Elvira is pitched against Agnes (Cinderella) to be the fairest of all, leading Elvira down a terrible path of pain, delusion, starvation, and madness.
Nadine Whitney speaks to Blichfeldt about the horrors of beauty and how fairy tales are quite real: real enough that we believe in the moral coding that they have spun around our collective understanding.
Nadine Whitney: I love the way that you used a kind of indistinct 19th century. It has a Brontë Sisters Jane Eyre stylization at the beginning with the mid-century look and moves into a much later belle epoque style. So, you’ve got this stretched-out 19th century…
Emilie Blichfeldt: I love that you’re knowledgeable on this!
Nadine Whitney: Oh yes! The film is unanchored in time because it uses a fairy tale, but even more unanchored in time within its diegetic world because of the synth soundtrack and the visual references to Cinderellas across the ages. Angela Carter said there is no way to tell a folk or fairytale because the tale changes with each teller. You have remade Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, plus placing it into an everlasting context that points out the reality behind the fantasy.
Did you expect to get such a strong response from the film?
Emilie Blichfeldt: First of all, I just want to say, I love how you just you’ve just seen my film so beautifully, like all the delicate weaving I’ve done with the times and genres. So, thank you so much for that. But no, I didn’t expect the response. It’s totally overwhelming and also my dream scenario. I knew that in taking on the Cinderella story, there was a potential commercial aspect to it, in that it could speak to the whole world because it’s so well known. But I also knew that the body horror part of it could also make the film quite niche.
I hope that my way of creating it, tricking the audience into this fairy tale beauty and soft, feminine world and then twisting it slowly before it explodes in your face at the end, could be a way to kind of easing people into it. The Ugly Stepsister has been eight years in the making, and then, in the meantime, Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance came out and was trailblazing. So, when I released my movie, everyone knew what body feministic body horror was, and they were like, “This is so cool. I want more!” And then my film is released, and I couldn’t dream of better timing.
Nadine Whitney: Your film is doing some great and very original things, but the feminist fairy tale in itself isn’t new. In a lot of ways, because women are so often at the center of fairy tales, either as protagonists: tricksters or victims, princesses or witches –it’s a genre where women tend to be more represented than men. We grow up with the “old wives’ tales,” and the fact that they’re called our old wives’ tales means that, whether real or imagined, it is women telling the stories.
The first book I was given on the day of my birth was a huge compendium of fairy tales that I still have. I couldn’t believe the cruelty of them. People cut off fingers and toes, and they dance in hot shoes; crows come and pick out their eyes for transgressions, and vipers and toads fall from the lips of “bad girls.”
What you’ve done in The Ugly Stepsister, beyond the body horror, is to boil down the Cinderella story to the economics of the female body. Rebekka (the ‘evil stepmother’ played by Ane Dahl Thorpe) and her daughters, Elvira (Lea Myren) and Alma (Flo Fagerli), only have their bodies to sell to survive.
What is happening with Elvira is that her mother is forcing her body into a state of being saleable, which is being marriageable. The obsession with beauty becomes all-consuming.
Emilie Blichfeldt: I knew very early that the mother-daughter relationship would be very central to the film. Because this is not only the way these ideals, as you say, are passed on from one generation to the other through our common cultural heritage, like the fairy tales, but also through mother-daughter, right?
So, you are trained to think of yourself in one way as a woman, and you start living that way, and you place your value in how you appear and appeal to others. It’s really hard to deconstruct that when mothers who have daughters want to make them in their own image somehow. And that the daughter also strives within this world that she learned to navigate as a woman where appearance has been a big part of womanhood.
I think that kind of everlasting cycle is also one of the reasons why we’re still stuck with body issues after thousands of years of being objects, right? We’ve been partially emancipated, but we’re still doing this dance, and it’s so hard to unravel because it’s so personal for every single woman, and it’s such a big part of our identity.
We are taught very early to self-objectify, and then if you start self-objectifying, it’s so hard to unlearn it because you’ve integrated with your identity. So, to stop doing that, or to stop putting your primary value in your looks, if you’ve invested a lot in them, is really, really hard and very, very vulnerable.
I also thought a lot about how we have this idea that Cinderella is a story about class, in the sense that we talk about the Cinderella story being like rags to riches, but really, in most of the European versions, she is a noble girl that is just put in the kitchen for some time before she marries the prince. The whole time, she has had nobility and a comfortable life. She had an upbringing with manners, education, and proper food. While the stepmother is a widowed woman with two children, and what does that actually, practically mean? That her body is her asset. I think that’s also present in so many of the versions. She’s often described as this vixen, this evil vixen, that’s like carrying herself with sex appeal or with a kind of sensuality, and it’s very looked down upon. But actually, it’s like, “Who can blame her? It’s her way of surviving, right?” But it’s so looked down upon, and that’s the real class role. You know, if you have no money, that’s the only way you go. Cinderella has so many other assets. She’s not poor with her perfect face.
Nadine Whitney: Your Cinderella, Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss), is not a maiden or virgin in your telling, which I think is great. You’ve taken the Charles Perrault version and knocked out the moral lesson at the end of the tale.
Emilie Blichfeldt: I thought that it was really shocking to me when I found out that she was having sex, but it also helped me to find my Cinderella. Because I still wanted her to have like a Cinderella quality as an archetype. For me, her archetype is this natural beauty, and she also has this natural way of being in life where nothing is really natural. Her emotions and her sexuality. She has no shame, you know, and that’s also what makes her free and beautiful. She is also kind of like an aspirational role model, right? I really love that for her, that she could still be a kind of a role model, but in a modern and real way. Not in the moralistic, just be nice and shut up.
I think so many “purified” versions of fairy tales leave out eroticism. I really wanted to put that in there to make them people of the flesh.
Nadine Whitney: Very much of the flesh! We can start talking about the horror aspects. I don’t think I’ve ever seen “eye cam” quite that way, with the POV being sewing through the eyelid, through the point of view of the eye. That was a lot!
I was just reading about plastic surgery in the 19th century, and I was also reading a book by Harper’s Bazaar called The Ugly Girl Papers, published in 1875, telling “self-identified” ugly women how to not be ugly. Beauty being a pain is far from something that we’ve come to learn only in the 20th century. It has been women’s duty to be beautiful and suffer for centuries.
Emilie Blichfeldt: That is also a very big part of the Chinese version of the fairy tale with foot binding. Chinese poetry says about the binding of women’s feet that if a woman has unbound feet, there is no way for a man to “know” where the woman has been. She can run around with people, and with unbound feet, she has to work. If you bind your feet, you don’t have to work. An unbound foot is like a broken piece of jewelry. It doesn’t have any value. Morality via “beauty” turns women into objects, and their job, their trajectory, is to become the perfect objects. I think that’s so creepy.
Nadine Whitney: One of the aspects of your story that I found very interesting is Alma hiding her menses from her mother because she knows as soon as anyone becomes aware that she is of bleeding / marriageable age, she will be forced into the corsets and starvation that Elvira is suffering through.
Emilie Blichfeldt: I love Alma, and she’s such an important character. When I was writing the script, I came to understand her role because I knew I wanted two stepsisters, but I didn’t want one just to follow the other. I thought hard about how I utilized her sisterhood. I thought about how the younger sister sees the older one and what she is going through in front of her. She gets a chance to kind of see what is happening before she’s a victim of it herself.
I saw her as the only sane character in this insane world. She’s the audience surrogate. You look at the film, and everyone’s crazy, desperate, or corrupt, but Alma sees. Alma is also a representation of me as well in the story. In the end, with Alma being the rescuer, I wanted Elvira to get the worm out, but I didn’t believe that she would be able to do that herself, or she would be emotionally thinking, “Oh, I didn’t get the prince. Now, let’s get this worm out,” as she’s so frenzied and lost by that point.
I thought, of course, Alma wants her sister to get the worm out. When I had that idea, I got quite emotional because I think there’s a beautiful and very important truth in surviving body dysmorphia. You really get affected by unreasonable beauty ideals and start objectifying yourself. It’s so hard to get out of that space because your thoughts, and your gaze on yourself, and on others is obsessive and unhealthy.
That’s what I myself have suffered from for a long time. And if it hadn’t been for the people around me who saw that I was suffering and who said, “Please, here’s my gaze. Here is how you really are. You know this is, this is not okay. You know, the things that you’re seeing or believing are total bullshit.” If it hadn’t been for them, I wouldn’t have gotten out. It’s almost impossible to get out of that by yourself. And I think that’s just so powerful because when you suffer from things like that, you feel so lonely. You think that you’re the one to blame. It’s some kind of personal secret, a private thing. But actually, it’s something we have to deal with together and really talk about more publicly.
There is a big industry that’s earning a lot of money from us and pushing women into those unhealthy spaces. And we have to help each other get out from that mindset.
Nadine Whitney: Khloe Kardashian said that she wanted to take a tapeworm at one point. Part of one of the most famously aspirationally rich and beautiful families in the world was talking about ingesting tapeworms, which is insane.
Emilie Blichfeldt: It’s insane. I don’t know what to say to that. Actually, I try not to think too much about that because then I get very overwhelmed, and then whatever happens with my movie feels like a drop in the ocean. I know you can’t save the world in a day. I’m trying to nudge the narrative or at least present another narrative.
It’s also very important for me to say that I don’t judge anyone trying to navigate that space of “how to be a woman.” It’s so such a hard, hard space to navigate. I don’t judge anyone for the choices they make in that space. But I think we have to dare to go into that space and talk about how we are influenced, how we are influencing each other, and how we can try to make that space a freer one.
Nadine Whitney: Hopefully, we can all be Almas for the Elviras and write new fairy tales where the one true love is a firm, supported, and healthy sense of self.
Director:James Griffiths Writer:Tom Basden, Tim Key Stars: Tom Basden, Tim Key, Carey Mulligan
Synopsis:The Ballad of Wallis Island follows Charles, an eccentric lottery winner who lives alone on a remote island and dreams of getting his favorite musicians, McGwyer Mortimer back together.
It’s strange to be nostalgic for the late ’00s and the entirety of the ’10s folk music boom, but it was quite a phenomenon. All a band had to have was a powerful, melodic group of voices, at least one guitar, a kick drum, and someone playing an instrument like the banjo, lute, or mandolin. It was an acoustic sound that filled, and in some cases still does fill, arenas, stadiums, and amphitheaters. The Ballad of Wallis Island reminds us of what that kind of music can evoke within us. Folk music is intimate, rhythmic, and moving; just like this film.
The concept of a man hiring his favorite artists to play a private show for him, and having that be funny and not creepy, would not work without a strong script behind it. Tom Basden and Tim Key have written a very eclectic charmer of a film. The blended plot points weave in and out of each other like a beautiful melody. It’s raucously funny at times and utterly heartbreaking at others. The references fly at the speed of light and are often beautiful plays on words. The next time you’re caught in a rainstorm you’d be hard pressed to find a better one liner for the story than calling yourself, “Dame Judi Drenched.”
Though, as good as the script is, the chemistry between all of the lead actors is unquantifiably exquisite. The comic pairing of Basden and Key is so great and funny. They’re reminiscent of great cinematic comedy pairings with Key being the motor-mouthed goof and Basden the exasperated straight man. Even with as well known an actress as Carey Mulligan in the film, you only see her as Nell. The three of them together are very close to comedic perfection.
Tim Key is the clear standout of the group. His scenes of drama tend to land a bit harder and his scenes of comedy are absolutely perfect. While we get snippets of who Charles is, an eccentric wealthy man who lives alone in a large house on an island, it’s through Key’s reactions that we see the man underneath. In one of the quieter scenes, Herb (Tom Basden) comes back with his guitar so that he and Nell can sing one of their more romantic ballads. After a few chords, the camera stays on Charles. It pushes in as he has a strong emotional reaction to the song and the people singing it. He’s trying to swallow his tears with gulps of air. It’s written all over his face that this isn’t just a gimmick or a way to spend his money, but that this music means more to him than anything else that exists in the world. It’s a beautiful piece of beautiful dramatic acting within a comedy reminiscent of John Candy in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.
It’s also a point where we notice the filmmaker’s hand. James Griffiths’ style as a director looks to be to let the comedic moments fuel the film, but there are moments when he and his team go the extra mile to land the scene. After Herb questions Charles’ wealth, Charles shows Herb the framed winning lottery ticket that made him wealthy. He gives a story about how he spent it all and felt a little empty. In a stroke of genius, as Charles is avoiding Herb’s follow up questions, Griffiths and cinematographer G. Magni Ágústsson track the camera with Charles as he reveals his second framed winning lottery ticket. It’s a small moment, but it’s a moment that lands the joke better than any other could.
Even if you aren’t a lover of folk music, the original songs in the film are beautiful and human in their exploration of love, joy, and pain. Even if you like your comedies uncomplicated, the interpersonal relationships in The Ballad of Wallis Island are worth it. It’s a film that is the very definition of the phrase, “It made me laugh, it made me cry.” There is beauty in a small cast and a goofy concept that is well executed. The Ballad of Wallace Island is very much one of those rare beauties.
This week on the InSession Film Podcast, inspired by Warfare coming to theaters, we had a war movie draft discussing the best war movies of the 21st century so far! We also continue our Best Picture Movie Series with the 1967 winner In the Heat of the Night.
– War Movie Draft (8:15) After some opening banter, we begin the show this week with our War Movie Draft, where we discussed the best war movies of the 21st Century so far. There have been some incredible war movies over the last two decades and we thought it would be a fun exercise to do a draft (pun intended?) to see whose lineup would make for a great film festival. After listening and hear our picks, who do you think won this draft between JD and Brendan?
– Best Picture Movie Series: In the Heat of the Night (1:18:51) We continue this series with another fascinating entry into the Best Picture canon given the context of 1967. In the Heat of the Night might not go down as one of the best films to ever win the award, however, it was the right film for the year in which it won. Just three years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as tensions were still immensely high, comes a movie with a revolutionary lead character and remarkable performance by Sidney Portier. That cannot be overstated, giving In the Heat of the Night an importance that makes it a worthy winner.
If you want to help support us, there are several ways you can help us and we’d absolutely appreciate it. Every penny goes directly back into supporting the show and we are truly honored and grateful. Thanks for your support and for listening to the InSession Film Podcast!
Director: Robert Livings, Randy Nundlall, Jr. Writer: Ben Groves, Robert Livings, Rob Macfarlane, Randy Nundlall Jr., and Peter Paskulich Stars:Brenda Yanez, Samantha Laurenti, and Norah DeMello
Synopsis: While sorting through their late friend’s belongings, two women discover VHS tapes showing them in haunting, unfamiliar scenes, each one drawing them into the grasp of a mysterious, malevolent entity.
There’s a beauty to found footage/anthology horror films in which the rawness of a discovered video changes the course of events in the fictional world in which it takes place. It creates a microcosm of multiple stories within stories, a Decameron taking place in the land of the macabre. With the recent surge in low-budget horror making significant box office successes and shifting audiences’ attention toward a different formula for scary movies, there has been an openness for new frightening feature experiments.
For starters, this is what Conjuring Tapes is about: two friends who discover a set of tapes with themselves as heroes of morbid stories. A seance gone wrong, two influencer ghost hunters who meet more than they bargain for, a haunted therapy session, and a creepy cult set in the podcasting world. The further they dig into the tapes, the more they discover, not only about the events unfolding, but also about a malevolent entity that may or may not hold all the threads to their existence.
The film, as faithful as it is to its source material, starts with a slow burn. Too slow at times, but it is a significant precedent to the horror that happens later. The indie setting allows for a low-key, laid-back atmosphere. The unknown actors make the eeriness of the situation more believable and the horror more significant. The multiple roles that actresses Brenda Yanez and Samantha Laurenti play bring so much to the table as they go back and forth between characters and storylines while retaining the personalities of the original protagonists as they weave all the stories together. The beauty of their acting works in the film’s favor despite the script struggling to keep up, and it complements the dread that anticipates both the characters and the characters they portray in the VHS metaverse.
The camerawork is the highlight of this feature. Robert Livings is the co-director -along with Randy Nundlall Jr.- as well as the cinematographer, and he deserves all the credit for creating a pulsating, shaky screen that never lets the viewer rest with his magical handheld camera work. The biggest obstacle in this horror piece is that the narrative doesn’t hold up to the visual work, so there seems to be a disconnection between the two; while one elevates the game, the other drags it down. The jump scares are fantastic, but the build-up to them is what the script struggles with, for the most part.
One of the main reservations I have about this horror flick is its tameness. Imagine it with gorier, more brutal storylines and some scenes that will stick in your mind like glue. This one relies more on psychological horror than on explicit gore and sadistic violence. While some found-footage anthology horror films use that element to perfection, this feature, directed by Nundlall Jr. and Livings, needs a bit more spice.
Does this take away from the fun? Absolutely not. There’s a spark of creativity in this film that calls for not only fans of the genre but also avid admirers of horror family dramas, engaging them in a puzzle-solving game, interacting with the stories unfolding one after the other like Matryoshka dolls. Surprisingly -or not- Conjuring Tapes works perfectly as a horror family drama where the horror lies within the family dynamics and the interactions between characters: traumas resurfacing, old grudges and wounds dug from shallow graves, etc.
Conjuring Tapes feels like the film someone shoots in their basement. Indie horror filmmaking at its finest might work for some, while others won’t necessarily connect with the stripped bare aesthetic that makes it more like a home video footage without the cinematography prowess of films that use found footage as a formulaic cinematic medium. It’s still fun, though, and very spooky, in a way that will most definitely leave fans of the genre satisfied, regardless of relating to the meatiness of the film.
This week on Women InSession, we continue our critic spotlight series as we get to know ISF founder JD Duran and his experience becoming a critic and starting the website/podcast! JD talks about the movies that inspired him as a young person, the challenges of balancing film with family and even how sports plays a role.
On that note, check out this week’s show and let us know what you think in the comment section. Thanks for listening and for supporting the InSession Film Podcast!
Director:Francis Ford Coppola Writer:Francis Ford Coppola Stars: Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Harrison Ford
Synopsis:Harry Caul, a meticulous and intensely private surveillance expert, is hired to record a conversation between a young couple. As he painstakingly pieces together the fragmented recording, he becomes increasingly obsessed and guilt-ridden, believing he may have uncovered a potential murder plot. His professional detachment crumbles into paranoia as he grapples with the moral implications of his work and the ambiguity of what he has heard, leading him to question everything and everyone around him.
Francis Ford Coppola’s staggering run in the 1970s – The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Apocalypse Now often overshadows the quieter, more introspective film nestled right in the middle: The Conversation (1974). Yet, revisiting this paranoid thriller today reveals it as not just a product of its Watergate-era anxieties, but a chillingly prescient and masterfully crafted character study with themes that echo louder than ever in our hyper-surveilled world. It’s a film that leaves you feeling both tense and deeply thoughtful, grappling with ambiguity long after the credits roll.
At its heart is Harry Caul, arguably Gene Hackman’s finest, most understated performance. In the wake of Hackman’s recent passing, revisiting his portrayal of Caul feels particularly poignant. This isn’t the bombastic Popeye Doyle or Royal Tenenbaum; this is a deeply internalized study of a man at the absolute peak of his clandestine profession – audio surveillance – yet profoundly tormented by its moral implications. Hackman embodies Caul’s meticulousness, his crippling social awkwardness, and the gnawing guilt stemming from a past job gone wrong. He’s a virtuoso haunted by his own expertise. Weathered and competent, yet unraveling under the weight of his conscience. We see glimpses of pride in his craft, particularly during a revealing party scene in his workshop fortress, but mostly we witness a man desperately seeking detachment, only to be drawn inexorably into the lives he records.
The plot, like Caul himself, operates with a slow-burn intensity. Tasked with recording a seemingly innocuous conversation between a young couple (Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest) in a busy San Francisco square, Caul becomes obsessed with deciphering its meaning and potential consequences. Coppola masterfully uses ambiguity, is Caul uncovering a murder plot, or is his paranoia projecting sinister interpretations onto fragmented phrases? The film refuses easy answers, layering Caul’s escalating anxiety onto the narrative, forcing the viewer to question what is real versus what is perceived. This deliberate pacing and refusal to spell everything out are central to the film’s cumulative impact.
Released in the shadow of Watergate, The Conversation was undeniably a commentary on burgeoning surveillance technology and governmental overreach. Yet, its exploration of privacy, guilt, and the dehumanizing potential of technology feels startlingly contemporary. Coppola seemed to anticipate the anxieties of our modern surveillance capitalism. The tech may look quaintly analogue now, but the core dilemma – the trade-off between technological capability and personal privacy, the unease with relentless progress – remains potent. One can easily imagine a modern Caul as a conflicted Silicon Valley engineer, eschewing the very tools he helps create.
Crucially, the film’s power relies heavily on its groundbreaking sound design, orchestrated by Walter Murch, and David Shire’s unsettling score. Sound isn’t just accompaniment; it is the subject. The repeated playback of the titular recording, gradually revealing different layers and potential meanings, draws the viewer directly into Caul’s obsessive analysis. Shire’s piano-led score, balancing melancholy melody with jarring, discordant notes, perfectly mirrors Caul’s fractured psyche and amplifies the pervasive sense of unease. Watching with headphones truly immerses one in the film’s meticulously crafted soundscape – a debt clearly owed by modern scores like that of Severance.
While The Godfather films and Apocalypse Now sprawl with epic grandeur, Coppola adopts a more austere, claustrophobic approach here. The focus is tight, the mood oppressive. Much of the film unfolds in confined spaces – Caul’s workshop, anonymous hotel rooms, crowded convention floors enhancing the sense of isolation and paranoia. It’s a testament to Coppola’s directorial range, proving he could craft a taut, character-driven psychological thriller as effectively as a sprawling crime epic.
Though Hackman dominates, the supporting cast is superb. John Cazale, in another tragically brief but memorable turn, brings a nervous energy to Caul’s assistant Stan. Their dynamic subtly mirrors Harry’s own internal battle: Harry admonishes Stan for his curiosity about their subjects’ lives, a projection of the very impulses Harry struggles to suppress within himself, attempting to convince himself as much as his colleague. A young, almost unrecognizably sinister Harrison Ford makes an impact in a small but pivotal role, and Allen Garfield provides a contrasting note of sleazy professional bravado as competitor and counterpoint, Bernie Moran.
The Conversation doesn’t offer neat resolutions. Its famous ending is a haunting tableau of paranoia consuming itself, leaving the audience, like Caul, surrounded by questions. It’s a film that demands reflection, provoking debate decades after its release. In its meticulous craft, its profound themes, and its unforgettable central performance, The Conversation remains an essential, deeply unsettling masterpiece – a quiet film whose echoes continue to reverberate powerfully.
Director: James Hawes Writer: Ken Nolan, Gary Spinelli, Robert Littell Stars: Rami Malek, Rachel Brosnahan, Jon Bernthal
Synopsis: When his supervisors at the CIA refuse to take action after his wife is killed in a London terrorist attack, a decoder takes matters into his own hands.
The Amateur follows Charlie Heller (Bohemian Rhapsody’s Rami Malek), a cryptanalyst working in the CIA’s Decryption Department. Heller loves his job—cracking codes, busting ciphers, and decoding those pesky encrypted communications from enemies; both foreign and domestic. It’s quite the contrast to his wife: while Charlie is stuck behind a desk, slowly developing computer vision syndrome, Sarah (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s Rachel Brosnahan) travels the world for her job, going on one adventure after another.
However, that all changes when his wife is one of the victims of a terrorist attack in London while attending a work conference. Charlie is wracked with guilt, not having time to have a meaningful conversation the night before when she called. Why? Heller accidentally came across an illegal and unauthorized operation sanctioned by his boss (The Iron Claw’s Holt McCallany) that even their direct superior director, O’Brien (Togo’s Julianne Nicholson), doesn’t know about. Charlie gets the run around from his superiors, who refuse substantial help.
This is where the script gives you those eye-rolling moments. Charlie blackmails the CIA, scoring cash and a crash course on becoming a deep-cover operative—which, you know, might take more than a week or two. It’s disappointing, especially considering the screenplay is based on a novel by Robert Littell and written by Ken Nolan (and Gary Spinelli), since he wrote such great films as Black Hawk Down and Only the Brave. The problem seems rooted in the source material, though the script generates enough action and suspense to help you suspend disbelief.
The Amateur was directed by James Hawes (One Life) in his feature film debut, following a successful run behind the camera on television shows like Raised by Wolves and Slow Horses. The film embraces all the classic tropes of a vengeful action thriller—particularly the story of a man seeking revenge against those who killed his wife. (I’m shocked there wasn’t a scene where he remembered her smiling under a gently billowing bedsheet.) The picture is undoubtedly compelling, even if it follows the standard genre playbook step by step.
Gloomy and ominous, sure. (It appears Martin Ruhe can only use an under-lit and depressed color palette, taking the same point of view as previous films like The Midnight Sky and The American.) This isn’t the type of film to put much time and effort into comic relief. Instead, the film throws a handful of eccentric supporting characters that come and go as they please, hardly making an impression. (You wish the supporting roles played by Jon Bernthal and Laurence Fishburne had more meat on the bone.) The film has an even tone and pace, proving that Hawes has a knack for restraint that serves the movie well.
Ultimately, in a film like this, you have to care about the character, which depends on the lead’s performance. Malik always puts an interesting spin on his performance that stands out, like hyper-focused, expressive micro-reactions, and the sudden burst of energy in the strangest places. (When you watch the film, look at what he does with his expression and sudden movement in the garage scene.) You can never take your eyes off of him. He also brings a poignant emotional resonance to the role, which is standard in a film like this.
Some may point out thatThe Amateur is based on a novel written back in the 1980s. However, Doug Liman and Paul Greengrass had no trouble updating The Bourne Identity franchise for modern audiences. Those films effectively explored themes of guilt, identity, and moral agency through Matt Damon’s nuanced portrayal of the titular character. In contrast, Malek’s character here feels far more one-note, resembling a dressed-up, faux-sophisticated version of Law Abiding Citizen, rather than the compelling depth in the Bourne series.
Fans of the genre expect more from films like this, particularly when following the titular character into hell (and back), which requires a personality that contrasts with Malek’s introverted portrayal. While I won’t fault the thoughtful spin on the character, I do take issue with the predictable plot and story, which feels nearly 30 minutes too long and ultimately undermines the escapist experience the film strives for.
You can watch The Amateur only in theaters starting April 11th!
Director: Jared Hess Writer: Chris Bowman, Hubbel Palmer, Neil Widener Stars: Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Sebastian Hansen
Synopsis: Four misfits are suddenly pulled through a mysterious portal into a bizarre cubic wonderland that thrives on imagination. To get back home they’ll have to master this world while embarking on a quest with an unexpected expert crafter.
I don’t love Minecraft, the game—because I’m an adult and not under five years old. What I do love about it is the way it sparks creativity in such a powerful and accessible way. So, imagine my complete lack of surprise at how pedestrian and mundane the final product can feel. A Minecraft Movie looks great, but it’s overproduced to the point of becoming repetitive and redundant.
A strange trait for a film based on intellectual property is unlimited imagination.
That said, it’s clearly meant to be good-natured fun for a younger audience, which might lift parents’ spirits just enough to act as a form of emotional medication to get them through the one hundred and one minutes of A Minecraft Movie. Unfortunately, this movie has more holes in it than those blocks can patch and fill.
The story follows Steve (Jack Black doing what Jack Black does best), a lovable oddball who enjoys digging through his hometown’s abandoned mines, which he believes is his calling. (Maybe someone should have him stream October Sky and reach out to Homer Hickam.) There, he discovers a couple of mysterious artifacts, including a glowing liquid-blue block. Steve combines them, and just like peanut butter and jelly, something miraculous happens—he’s sent to the Overworld, a place of freewheeling creativity where anything is possible.
Jason Momoa also stars as Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison, a man with a unique flair—sporting a hot pink jacket and a fabulously voluminous shag, just like any former diva gaming champ from 1989 might. He’s also pulled into the Overworld, the eccentric and offbeat cubic realm where players hone their skills to become master crafters. He’s joined by two orphaned siblings, Natalie (A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder’s Emma Myers) and her little brother Henry (Sebastian Eugene Hansen).
The fourth member of their unit is Dawn (Danielle Brooks), who dreams of owning her own zoo someday. Unfortunately, Brooks is given so little to work with in the film. After her standout performance as a human stick of dynamite in The Color Purple, she only gets a few decent scenes and rarely has the chance to showcase her comedic chops. They eventually come across Steve, who introduces them to the “Endear Pearl,” which can help you imagine anything you want, as long as it’s in block form.
Yes, if this sounds like Tetris meets Jumanji, the filmmakers are probably laughing maniacally while smoking a fat cigar with their feet on the desk, counting their money as we speak.
A Minecraft Movie was directed by Jared Hess, known for Napoleon Dynamite,Nacho Libre, and last year’s underrated Netflix animated film, Thelma the Unicorn. Like the latter, Hess incorporates an infectious sense of humor, mainly drawing from the energy of Black and Momoa. However, the themes that could resonate with both parents and children feel sterile and recycled. The timely message of substance over style—what family and community mean to each other—is lost in the material’s overwrought style.
I will say the look and aesthetic are pleasing—full of fun and lively energy. The mash-up of real life and video game visuals is a hoot at times. Hess keeps the movie moving at a fast pace, which is a double-edged sword. On the plus side, you’ll never get too bored, though it can feel chaotic for an ADHDer like myself. Still, it moves so quickly that when you start to question the canon components of Minecraft, you don’t have time to dwell on them. In a way, that’s almost refreshing.
Where A Minecraft Moviesuffers most is in how unimaginative it feels compared to the game itself. The source material offers an endless world of creativity, stimulating young minds with the sense that anything is possible. The film, however, boxes that imagination in with tired genre clichés that are sometimes yawn-inducing, making the story utterly predictable from start to finish. Rather than taking bold swings with its narrative, the movie falls victim to corporate risk-aversion, leaning too heavily on safe, family-friendly material that plays it far too safe.
Of course, we know precisely who the film is aimed at: those who grew up with the best-selling video game that has stood the test of time since 2012 and the little ones who are just now discovering it. If judged overall, Minecraft is a mild rejection—no doubt kids of all ages will dig it, since it was made for them.
Unfortunately, in this critic’s eyes, it lacks the spirit of what the IP was meant to represent.
Director: Christopher Landon Writer: Jillian Jacobs, Chris Roach Stars: Meghann Fahy, Brandon Sklenar, Violett Beane
Synopsis: A widowed mother’s first date in years takes a terrifying turn when she’s bombarded with anonymous threatening messages on her phone during their upscale dinner, leaving her questioning if her charming date is behind the harassment.
Drop is an excellent idea for a thriller. A single mother, hesitant to dive back into the dating pool after being a victim of domestic abuse, is forced to murder the first man she’s met in ages on their first date. It’s cleverly cruel and adds a modern twist to the classic genre, like a strange love child of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Nick of Time. The final product is suspenseful, sometimes gratingly annoying, but always a bloody good time.
If only they had found a fresher way to end the third act, they could have really had something.
The script by Jillian Jacobs (Fantasy Island) and Chris Roach (Truth or Dare) follows Violet (The White Lotus’s Meghann Fahy), who is raising her nine-year-old son alone after being deemed responsible for the death of her abusive husband. Violet has been messaging Henry (It Ends With Us’ Brandon Sklenar), a hunky dreamboat who travels the world taking pictures for a living.
(Sure, Sklenar is the second coming of Harrison Ford, but personally, it sounds like he needs to get a real job, but Violet has lowered her standards in the past decade.)
Henry shows up, sporting some Hasselhoff chest hair, no coat or tie (classy guy), with an adventurous aura, saying he had to bring his camera bag up with him (and probably a Tom Selleck mustache comb) to the date or it might be stolen. Before he arrives, Violet meets a host of interesting characters, like a vivacious bartender (Gabrielle Ryan), an anxious gentleman on a blind date (Reed Diamond), and a lecherous piano player who hasn’t met a stiff drink he couldn’t fight off before near-inebriation.
While waiting, she begins to receive constant and insistent AirDrops to her cell phone. Violet keeps checking her phone because she wants to make sure it’s not from her sister Jen, who is babysitting her son tonight. Proving that Sklenar is not as dreamy as everyone says, Violet doesn’t get lost in those baby brown peepers. Instead, she keeps getting distracted over and over by the drops until she finally answers. It turns out there is a man in her house, and if Violet doesn’t do what the man on the other end of the digital messaging feature says, he will kill her son.
Drop is the new film from Christopher Landon, who has a history of innovative modern horror thrillers with Happy Death Day, Happy Death Day 2U, and Freaky, has made a good genre picture here, which rides the coattails of a strong performance from Fahy, who is excellent here. The beginning is suspenseful but oddly irritating, simply because Violet’s phone vibrates every few seconds. It’s odd, being one of the most annoying things to happen during a movie is a phone going off, making it a vexing plot in the film.
What transpired made me want to give Sklenar’s Henry a Klondike Bar, a product placement opportunity they missed at the movie’s end. Any other date would have left after the first hundred interruptions, but never question the possibility of taking a beautiful person home with you to see the forest for the trees. That’s the key to Drop: you have to suspend belief often, like Trap, and just turn your brain off to enjoy it. This is fine because not every movie is meant to be a work of art or Oscar bait.
The movie is fast-paced, sensationalized, and clearly over the top, but it’s a lot of fun. The characters are quirky, and the script does a nice job of keeping the potential suspects in the shadows. The reveal of the villain is well done. Unfortunately, I can’t specifically tell you how much I enjoyed how the actor revels in the role due to spoilers. It’s campy but scene-stealing and key to enjoying the experience.
Essentially, Drop is the perfect date movie. It’s an emotional rollercoaster full of adrenaline and excitement and clever at times, even though the third act has an atrociously bad ending involving a children’s toy. Fahy’s lead performance and her chemistry with Sklenar carry the viewer through the experience, which is enjoyable yet likely forgettable.
You can watch Drop only in theaters on April 11th.
On this episode, JD and Brendan discuss the new action-comedy from Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck in Freaky Tales! We love a good anthology film and this is one that sets off to connect its four stories together in a mystical way that we’ve never really seen before. Maybe it doesn’t all work, but the film is a lot of fun and has some captivating characters.
Review: Freaky Tales (4:00) Director: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck Writer: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck Stars: Pedro Pascal, Ben Mendelsohn, Jay Ellis
On this episode, JD and Brendan discuss the horror-comedy from Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk in Hell of a Summer! The background behind this film is so fascinating given that Wolfhard and Bryk sought financing for this when they were just 22-years-old. Not only did they find financing, they were tasked with starring in and directing the film that they also wrote the screenplay for, along with producing as well. Talk about getting some major experience at a young age, and if you ask us, it’s not all bad.
Review: Hell of a Summer (4:00) Director: Finn Wolfhard, Billy Bryk Writer: Finn Wolfhard, Billy Bryk Stars: Fred Hechinger, Abby Quinn, Finn Wolfhard, Billy Bryk
This week on the InSession Film Podcast, we discuss all the exciting news that came out at this year’s CinemaCon and continue our Best Picture Movie Series with the 1966 winner A Man for All Seasons.
– 2025 CinemaCon (3:19) We begin the show this week by discussing this year’s CinemaCon and all the news that was revealed over the last week. Because we spent a fair amount of time nerding out last week over Marvel, we kicked things off with all the MCU news that dropped at CinemaCon. We also get into the Fantastic Four updates and Spider-Man 4 being officially titled Brand New Day. We then shift gears to talk about Avatar: Fire and Ash, which sounds exciting, and the new trailer for Tron: Ares.
– More 2025 CinemaCon (41:48) As we continued to move on with our CinemaCon conversation, we talked about how the John Wick universe is continuing to expand, including a John Wick 5 movie that was announced. The live-action How to Train Your Dragon movie played in its entirety and they announced a sequel in the works. The reaction to Masters of the Universe was quite surprising and piqued our interest. The Beatles biopic movies were announced to be coming out all on the same weekend, which seems like a bad idea if you ask us. We couldn’t get to everything, but we had a great time digging into what CinemaCon had in-store for us this year.
– Best Picture Movie Series: A Man for All Seasons (1:20:45) We continue this series with arguably the most underrated film of the ’60s in A Man for All Seasons. It’s a film that holds up extraordinarily well today, given its themes and conviction, and where we find ourselves with today’s political landscape. But that aside, it also serves as a bridge between Old Hollywood and New Hollywood, given its filmmaking craft and how it works in both worlds. It’s a film that isn’t talked about much, but it’s a really good film that isn’t undeserving of its Oscar. Even if it wasn’t the best film of 1966.
Best Picture Movie Series – 1960s: In The Heat of the Night
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Director:Samir Oliveros Writer:Maggie Briggs, Samir Oliveros Stars: Paul Walter Hauser, Shamier Anderson, David Strathairn
Synopsis:May 1984. An unemployed ice cream truck driver steps onto the game show Press Your Luck harboring a secret: the key to endless money. But his winning streak is threatened when the bewildered executives uncover his real motivations.
The Luckiest Man in America includes a line about game shows being a version of the American Dream. It’s true that, in America, your intelligence, ambition, or abilities are not enough to ensure success. Success here is often about luck, but every system designed by humans has a flaw that can be exploited. Games of chance are just a math problem to be solved.
The Luckiest Man in America begins as a mystery to be solved. Unless you’ve read the real life account or seen the episodes of the game show “Press Your Luck” that the film is based on, Michael Larson (Paul Walter Hauser) is an enigma. He acts strange, he has a unique style all his own, and he’s cagey about every detail of his life. As the layers are peeled back, we see his motivation for pressing his luck more and more.
Writers Maggie Briggs and Samir Oliveros have crafted a script that works like a pyramid. We start at the broad base and work our way up as the details get finer. Not only are we learning about Michael, but we see an intriguing arc between two behind-the-scenes characters. At the beginning, Bill (David Strathairn) and Chuck (Shamier Anderson) have a typical give-and-take as boss and employee, but when Bill senses his lost grip on the show may mean his head on the chopping block, he throws Chuck under the bus. It’s a subplot that keeps the story interesting and moving forward when the main plot gets a little maudlin.
For the most part, The Luckiest Man in America stays on course. If there are slow parts it’s because of Michael’s complicated backstory. We don’t get concrete answers, but what we do get isn’t that interesting. It seems like Michael’s story will go one way, when we learn he has a restraining order out on him because of a Ponzi scheme; but then there is a hard shift toward the truth about his family. It gets complicated and never fully serves the purpose the filmmakers want for the story. Michael works better as a truly unknowable figure.
Though, there is a fabulously dreamy scene in which we get to finally hear some truth about Michael in his own words. Director Oliveros and cinematographer Pablo Lozano set up a sequence where Michael is realizing that he’s been found out, that the secret of his luck is that it’s not luck at all. He’s paranoid and frantic. The camera follows him as he tries to chase a security guard in a cart, then approaches a man dressed as a police officer, only to see another one and then another one and realizes they’re actors waiting for an audition. When he finally ducks into a studio he realizes he went in the wrong door and he finds himself at the taping of a late night talk show. The host (Johnny Knoxville), rather than stop the taping or get rid of Michael, invites him to sit down and talk. Michael finally lets his guard down and tells a part of his story.
This scene is so surreal and a little out of touch with the rest of the film, but the way that Michael is framed and the camera pushes in, it’s very affecting. It’s like the catharsis Michael needs to just keep going, to push beyond his fears and doubts because he knows that this far into the taping the producers can’t stop him without causing a scandal. It makes you wonder if the scene was all in Michael’s head and he just wandered onto an empty set.
Paul Walter Hauser plays this scene and all his scenes with an incredible sweaty anxiousness. He’s an actor who really understands the mind of an eccentric. Though, the ones to watch are David Strathairn and Shamier Anderson. Anderson cuts an imposing figure, but he plays his irritation and investigation through quiet anger and frustration. Even when his character, Chuck, is intimidating Michael, the intimidation is far more psychological than physical and it’s a testament to Anderson’s prowess. Strathairn has a tremendous arc from confident boss, to worried director, to submissive sycophant and finally, cowardly survivor. He morphs into each with a practiced ease.
The Luckiest Man in America has its ups and downs, but is a very enjoyable film. You expect it to be funny and it is in many ways, but more than that it is a strange and eerie character study. The characters are all fascinating and the writing is very good. It’s a tiny gem of a film that one could mine out of the rest of the craft on display at their local cineplex.
Director:Nick Hamm Writer: Friedrich Schiller, Nick Hamm Stars: Jonathan Pryce, Ben Kingsley, Jonah Hauer-King
Synopsis: The narrative unfolds in the 14th Century amidst the days of the Holy Roman Empire where Europe’s nations fiercely vie for supremacy and the ambitious Austrians, desiring more land, encroach upon Switzerland, a serene and pastoral nation.
William Tell throws audiences into the life of its titular character as he must aim his arrow true to shoot an apple off his son’s head, to guarantee the safety of his family. Directed by Nick Hamm, William Tell is a return to the epic hero-driven sword and board films of the early 2000s, like Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven and Wolfgang Petersen’s film Troy. Packed with medieval action, William Tell is overflowing with lush mountainous visuals and an inspiring story of revolting against a tyrannical government.
Right from the start, William Tell showcases its eponymous hero (Claes Bag), as he ischallenged with his most daunting task: shooting an apple off his son’s head. Surrounded by villagers, soldiers, and his wife Suna (Golshifteh Farahani), the film sets its iconic lead up while taking audiences back to the beginning of his story. A veteran soldier, Tell now lives a quiet life with his small family while the Austrian government rules over them with a violent and greedy fist. As Tell is out with his son Walter (Tobias Jowett), he must choose to help Baumgarten (Sam Keeley), a man whose wife was just brutally assaulted and murdered by the tax collectors and risk his own families safety or let the cruel soldiers take him in. In true Tell fashion, he agrees to see the man to safety; while on their journey, Tell finds that in order to stop this violence for good and restore their freedom, their ruling leaders must be stopped.
Hamm doesn’t just direct William Tell but also pens the story, taking elements from the 1804 play of the same name by Friedrich Schiller. Not only is the film a showcase for a folk legend, but it also serves as an inspiring story of citizens saying enough is enough when their government no longer serves them properly. Tell works with his friends to bolster the community against the Gessler (Connor Swindells), who works for King Albert of the Hapsburg royal house (Ben Kingsley) to keep the villagers of all walks of life in line, by whatever means necessary. Traveling the vast countryside putting a team of rebels together, men and women alike, Tell continuously does the right thing, even when it means taking a life. Hamm’s script shines during the most dramatic moments of the film, posing moral obstacles in front of Tell, like having to end a suffering old man’s life while he screams in pain from the Gessler’s men. The film earns its R rating, not shying away from the cruel casualties of war, and the brutal limb-slicing gore.
The film stands apart from other period dramas with its lavish costuming that shows the drastic difference between the ruling class and the working class of the fourteenth century. Where costume designer Francessca Satori explores the social rankings through fashion the best is with Bertha (Ellie Bamber), the niece of King Albert. Her fiery red hair is often matched with deep blue or green dresses, showing her rank in intricate stitching work. The rest of the Hapsburg family is dressed just as well; King Albert dons a gold eye piece with dark flowing robes that make him stand out among the rest of his court. Paired with Tonino Zera’s production design, William Tell is a breath of fresh air in a sea of films overusing green screens. Homes of villagers feel lived in, with their candle-lit tables and roofs fashioned with straw; they depict working-class men and women who take pride in what they have. Which makes it all the more devastating when the tax collectors invade their homes, tossing the place around.
The film’s performances are stacked with heroism, not only from Tell but also from its vast supporting cast. The standout is Bamber, who portrays a young royal that stands up for her own freedoms during a time when women were often silenced. She’s not afraid to speak her mind and stand up for herself, especially when it comes to her future. Claes makes Tell easy to root for, playing him as a somewhat Robin Hood; where his performance stands out the most is in intimate moments between him and his wife. He brings a vulnerability to his performance, showing that even the most heroic of men have their weaknesses. What really makes the film is the villainous performance from Swindells; his Gessler truly will have your blood-boiling with frustration. The joy Swindells exudes while taking pride in his cruelty is beyond impressive. There are many supporting roles that don’t get much time to shine; even with the film’s 2-hour and 13-minute runtime, there’s a lot going on with each character’s secondary stories that would work better in a limited series capacity.
William Tell brings a plethora of medieval action with different kinds of weapons; crossbows, sword and shield, even hidden daggers show the brutal impacts of war. Showcased best during a tax collector’s raid on a citizen’s farm, a homeowner uses a scythe to de-limb men in armor who threaten his prized bull’s life. Captured by cinematographer Jaime Ramsay, the action proves to be its own character, especially during flashback scenes with Tell; the camera lingers on moments of violence, letting the audience sit with it like the memories that haunt Tell. Ramsay’s stunning camera work doesn’t just stop at the action, as each frame in William Tell could easily be a painting with the vast mountain ranges and lush forests decorating the background as Tell and his group of heroes battle their way to freedom. Deep green forests and the dark blue waters of the sea pop with the film’s vibrant color grading.
Overall, William Tell is an epic story that is not only easy on the eyes with its visuals and costume designs, but in its fighting against those in power storyline. Hamm crafts a film that brings in inspiring performances from its main cast that is stuffed with gory medieval action. Worthy of a watch for fans of the once plentiful period piece action dramas of the early 2000s
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