Director: Teresa Sutherland
Writer: Teresa Sutherland
Stars: Georgina Campbell, Nick Blood, Wai Ching Ho

Synopsis: Lennon, a new back-country ranger, travels alone through the dangerous wilderness, hoping to uncover the origins of a tragedy that has haunted her since she was a child.

The first mistake Robert Frost made when he approached the infamous “two roads diverged in a yellow wood” was entering the woods in the first place. Nothing good happens in the woods. Those who disagree are either not of this world or superior beings to us normies. John Muir is one of those people; the naturalist author, who created the National Parks System, wrote a great deal about the beauty of nature and its mysteries. He once wrote, “And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”

That passage, which appears at the beginning of Teresa Sutherland’s directorial debut, Lovely, Dark, and Deep, is a common misquote — he actually wrote, “And into the forest I go, to lose myself and find my soul.” But the version Sutherland cites feels more fitting for a horror film these days, particularly one where the main character experiences most of their terror not just in the forest, but because of the forest. It might as well read, “And into the forest I go, to eventually die.”

Which isn’t quite how things unfold for Lennon (Barbarian’s Georgina Campbell), but just as well! We first meet our heroine, a newly-minted park ranger with a haunted past (Indie Horror Mad Libs, anyone?), as she drives to work in the dark, listening to a radio broadcast about missing persons, specifically those who have gone missing in the woods. Along the way, Lennon comes to a stop at the sight of a black deer in the middle of the road. It stares into her soul; she stares back. But her attentive gaze is interrupted by a screeching sound on the A.M. dial. She switches it off, exhales, and when she looks up, the deer is gone.

It’s a familiar opening sequence — a character, alone in a dark setting, is harshly disturbed by a frightening creature/object that doubles as a foreboding omen. Yet just because something is familiar doesn’t make it cheap. What follows may feel repetitive and safe at times, but this set piece lays the groundwork for a competent film about how we respond when old wounds reopen. 

Lovely, Dark, and Deep delivers beats you’ve seen before, but in distinctive ways. Deer, for instance, pop up in horror films all the time — they represent innocence and protection, often presenting themselves to others if you’ve been hurt and your heart needs tending, which makes the dead deer we see at the start of Jordan Peele’s Get Out all the more heartbreaking. But have you ever seen a deer with smoky, blackened fur? You’ve seen a deer in headlights before, but have you ever seen a character be more fearful of the deer than vice versa? 

In short, what follows is The Cabin in the Woods if the cabin was the woods, an imbalanced yet absorbing descent into madness and terror through the eyes of a tortured vessel. As has become a staple in the genre, the seeds of this terror were planted long ago: When Lennon was a child, her sister went missing in the woods, a loss she feels responsible for. Naturally, it’s what led her to becoming a park ranger: she who was once responsible for one person in the wilderness must now be responsible for all of its visitors. 

This sort of narrative decision does feel rather on the nose — no longer is it one’s fear that is the mind-killer in horror films, but one’s trauma — yet it doesn’t matter nearly as much as it otherwise might thanks to Campbell’s layered performance. The ascendant Scream Queen draws more out of her character than one imagines Lennon could have been in lesser hands. While Barbarian required Campbell to access terror on full-tilt, Lovely, Dark, and Deep sees her mining authentic hope out of a hopeless scenario. To instill even the slightest shred of optimism in an audience well aware that the backdrop to her terror is a vast, dangerous national park essentially defies the impossible. 

Not as impossible, yet still an impressive feat, is the ability to render real scares in broad daylight. And though Sutherland’s film does so with sharp orchestral strums and screams from those suffering, both common cues in the genre, it’s commendable that it even tries. Midsommar this is not, particularly because Lovely, Dark, and Deep does still spend a great deal of its time in the dark. Ari Aster’s second film did what no film had done before, drawing discomfort and dread out of increasingly bright landscapes littered with inviting bursts of color that made up its central Swedish cult’s design palette. 

But Lovely, Dark, and Deep still manages to create something fresh, tactfully keeping its reliance on recognizable, cult-adjacent themes that give a heftier weight to its chills to a reasonable minimum. What matters more to Sutherland is what we struggle to live with whether the lights are bright or have gone out completely, and how it impacts our mindset, for better or worse. In a horror film forest full of trauma-laden trees toppling silently, this is the rare sort that makes a sound.

Grade: B

Director: James Hawes
Writers: Lucinda Coxon, Nick Drake, Barbara Winton
Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Lena Olin, Johnny Flynn

Synopsis: Sir Nicholas ‘Nicky’ Winton, a young London broker who, in the months leading up to World War II, rescued over 600 children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.

Sir Nicholas Winton was, for many years, one of the “unsung heroes” of World War Two. Dubbed the “British Schindler,” Winton and his associates managed to rescue 669 children who ended up in Prague after The Munich Agreement ceded Sudetenland to Hitler in 1938. Bohemia’s ethnic, political, and religious diversity made it a prime candidate for the Nazi first putsch. With a large amount of Jewish and Roma people inhabiting the area as well as Socialist intellectuals; the Third Reich used it as a testing ground before the invasion of Poland.

Director James Hawes takes from Barbara Winton’s biography of her father, Winton’s own scrapbooks and stories, and the now famous episodes of ‘That’s Life!’ aired in 1988 to build his by-the-numbers biopic. The aim is not so much to adequately explain the horror of the beginnings of the Holocaust; something most people should be more than familiar with, but to highlight how a few “ordinary people” decided to step up and do what they considered to be the right thing. Unbidden by any government, Nicholas Winton was an educated stockbroker from an immigrant family, who decided he must do whatever he could to assist those in need.

Hawes begins the film in 1987. Nicky Winton (Anthony Hopkins) is still tirelessly working collecting money for charitable causes. His wife, Grete (Lena Olin) is patient but bemused by Nicky’s drive to keep making a humanitarian difference. They are about to become grandparents and Grete just wants Nicky to start letting go of the past so he can embrace the future of new life joining the family.

Grete decides she will spend some time with their pregnant daughter Barbara (Ffion Jolly) and begs Nicky to start making space. There are boxes upon boxes in their Maidenhead shire home. Nicky reluctantly agrees to declutter; but there is a briefcase he can’t let go of. The briefcase filled with information about the Kindertransport scheme he was involved with from 1938 to 1939. Before Grete gets goes to spend time with Barbara, she says to Nicky, “Don’t let yourself get the way you get.”

The way Nicky “gets” is haunted that he failed to save as many children as he could. Hopkins plays Winton as somewhere between mournful, annoyed, uncommunicative, yet still pushing for people to know what happened. He doesn’t want the credit, but people should not forget. He’s haunted by the Holocaust. Nicky Winton is also the easy focus for the British Savior narrative, because he was born in England to Russian and German Jewish parents. His parents converted to Church of England and became prosperous. Nicky worked as a stockbroker, became a left-wing agnostic, and somehow represented all that is “right and proper” within Britain.

Hawes takes the audience back to 1938 and the Wintons’ (recently changed from Wertheim after having to deal with the xenophobia of World War One) well appointed Hampstead apartment. Babi Winton (Helena Bonham-Carter) is bemoaning the fact that young Nicky (Johnny Flynn) has decided he will go to Czechoslovakia despite the growing troubles there. It was supposed to be a skiing trip with his friend Martin Blake, but instead Nicholas volunteers to help a group of people trying to keep the Sudenten alive through a harsh winter and the incoming Nazi takeover of Prague and eventual border closures.

Winton meets up with Doreen Warriner (Romola Garai in serious no-nonsense mode), the somewhat impetuous but passionate Trevor Chadwick (Alex Sharp) and camp liaison Hana Hejdukova (Juliana Moska). Doreen’s operation, The British Committee for Refugees, from Czechoslovakia is running on donations and fumes. Doreen’s primary objective is to get political refugees and intellectuals out, but Winton insists that the children are the most vulnerable and must be prioritized.

Hawes directs Nicky in the freezing makeshift camps very well. He spends just enough time on the faces of the children to make his point — or particularly to inform the audience how Winton came to desperately want to protect the children. In reality, Winton was only in Prague for three weeks. But during that time the film posits he was the man who ensured the Prague Kindertransport happened. Meeting with a skeptical Rabbi (Samuel Finzi) who asks, “How will you ensure they maintain their heritage?” Winton’s answer is enough to convince him to advocate for the transport. The Rabbi warns Nicky, “Don’t start what you cannot finish.”

While Flynn gives an empathetic and adequate performance as the younger Winton, he is very much outclassed by Bonham-Carter as Babi Winton. It is Babi who uses the rhetoric of the “British people being morally upstanding” to guilt bureaucrats, bankers, Rotary Members, Ladies who Lunch, Church of England clergy, Sports clubs, and others to get involved. Babi’s “I am British, thank you very much,” attitude serves as one of the few acknowledgements of the still prevalent xenophobia in British society at the time. There are no Oswald Mosley types in the background (perhaps the film would be a little less cloying if there were). Hawes isn’t doing anything particularly complicated with the social attitude. Babi sees one letter which comes in with the donations asking, “Why are you bringing the dirty Jews here?” which she throws on the fire.

Lack of complication seems to be what the film is aiming for. The frantic race to get the children out of Prague doesn’t quite feel as urgent as it should because Hawes is more concerned with talking about the beginning of the Holocaust without showing the audience anything profoundly distressing. It is sad, and in hindsight tragic, but more melodramatic than filled with terror. What Hana, Doreen, and Trevor are doing is consistently interrupted by the older Nicky’s poring over pictures of the ones he lost and his extended guilt. 

One Life is designed to reach the endpoint which is the now famous BBC segments hosted by Esther Rantzen (Samantha Spiro). To get to where Anthony Hopkins starts weeping and the audience is filled with the children he helped place, including Vera Diamontova Gissing (Frantiska Polakova and Henrietta Garden) who he discussed skiing and swimming with when she was a child. Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines who is now a member of the aristocracy. Hanuš Šnábl who returned to Prague in 1945 but eventually permanently moved to Britain as a journalist.

Anthony Hopkins is, of course, giving an excellent performance in a film which is designed to elicit some audience sniffles when he cries, but, like Winton himself, doesn’t want to really discuss what happened after that last train didn’t make it. Hopkins’ Winton is the focus. “Nicky’s Children” and the bravery of the parents, children, and Doreen and Trevor serve as background.

“Save one life and you save them all,” is the maxim the elderly Martin Blake (Jonathan Pryce in what is essentially a cameo) reiterates to Nicky. Saving 669 lives was an extraordinary achievement, but it didn’t only belong to Winton, as he keeps telling people. It’s the tenacity of the younger Winton and the humility of the elder Winton around which Hawes builds the emotional core. 

One Life is a “feel good” Holocaust narrative — something which seems a tad manipulative. Of course, the world needs the “ordinary people” to step up in times of great injustice. But without Hopkins sincerely selling Nicky Winton, One Life is nothing much beyond a reverse engineering of the ‘That’s Life!’ segments. Competent but not excellent filmmaking.

Grade: B-

Director: Luke Sparke
Writer: Tom Evans
Stars: Barry Pepper, Jamie Costa, Sam Neill

Synopsis: Under orders from a ruthless crime boss, a getaway driver must battle his conscience and drive an unsuspecting crew member to an ambush execution. There is a long drive ahead.

The Australian crime thriller Bring Him To Me is one of those frustrating film experiences because it has all the makings of a good genre film. For one, Barry Pepper is an underrated actor who can bring enough grit and complexity to any role to make it interesting. The premise takes the viewer on a mystery that’s a long and winding road. However, the action scenes are stagnant, and a handful of supporting performances range from weak to over-the-top, and that does not even mention the head-scratching plot points and character decisions.

Tom Evans’s script follows Pepper’s character, “Driver,” a shadowy mob figure always sitting in the car while running, waiting for his team to be their getaway. The film alternates between two narratives—one is in the present day. Driver gets a message to bring an associate in for a meeting; that character is known as “Passenger” (played by Jamie Costa), and Driver is immediately worried.

That’s because his boss, Veronica (Rachel Griffiths, doing her best Jackie Weaver impression), puts a premium on punctuality. He also finds it strange to call everyone in at the last minute. However, when Veronica goes over their previous score, it is light. The implication is that Passenger is the one behind the missing money, and Driver knows the end game if he delivers the young man to the murderous mobster. In fact, his overreactions to the most straightforward questions and roadblocks are questionable, which makes the screenplay rather obvious.

That’s where Bring Him To Me should thrive, but rather, it meanders with action sequences and plot points that fail to camouflage the central mystery. The main character is a contradictory one. If he doesn’t care about his criminal peer and knows the rules of the game, why is he so anxious about delivering him to his boss? Why would he be putting himself in danger over someone dumb enough to steal from a prominent member of the criminal underworld? And why does the Passenger seem oblivious and nonchalant during the trip?

Director Luke Sparke (Red Billabong) needs to address these issues adequately. Bring Him To Me feels like a short film with bloated filler to create a feature film. I would equate this to a clause where you take out the middle section, but it wouldn’t affect the beginning or end. In between, you have a few listless car chase scenes that occur for the primary purpose of killing time. That involves a second local mobster, Frank (Sam Neill), and his son. The scene is laughable, with them being notified and chasing down the duo in a short time frame when the script noted how far their destination was to begin with.

Frank believes anything his intended targets have to say as he holds them at gunpoint. This is just an excuse for Pepper and Costa’s characters to create an opening that would typically never be available to them. To that point, Griffith’s Veronica lets one of her henchmen, whom she knows is guilty, go, which leads to another eye-rolling action scene driving around a parking lot when they could have just been taken right then and there by a half dozen armed men. Not to mention, she let them take the money. Oh, and why is one of the men walking around with no injuries from gunshot wounds from the robbery days later?

All of this could be a bit of B-movie bliss, but instead, Bring Him To Me has higher aspirations it simply cannot reach. Costa is too lightweight an actor to play a character with the needed depth and complexity to accomplish those desired heights. The villains are so underwritten that it forces Griffiths and Neill to play their roles as exaggerated cartoon figures because they are rather one-note. The only person who comes away clean is Pepper, who keeps the movie mildly engaging because of his strong presence and emotional range.

If you have seen enough crime thrillers, Bring Him To Me is the film equivalent of a road trip that goes nowhere but ends up where it started. 

Grade: D

Director: Jessica Hausner
Writers: Jessica Hausner, Géraldine Bajard
Stars: Mia Wasikowska, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Amir El-Masry

Synopsis: A teacher takes a job at an elite school and forms a strong bond with five students – a relationship that eventually takes a dangerous turn.

Jessica Hausner distrusts every institution dedicated to “caregiving, comfort, and devotion.” Her targets have ranged from the Catholic Church and faith healing in Lourdes, the devouring service industry in Hotel, charismatic poet-philosophers in Amour Fou, nature, pharmaceuticals, and motherhood in Little Joe. Her first feature, Lovely Rita, was a violently nihilistic coming-of-age story. Rita is abused by her Catholic School peers. She deals with religious fervor at home with her overly devout mother. After unsuccessfully trying to seduce an older man, she turns her attention to a just pubescent boy — the only person who makes her feel special. Conceptually, Lovely Rita is a Rosetta Stone to unlock Hausner’s cinema of mistrust and anxiety.

Club Zero has Hausner home in on the exclusive private school: “good parents,” “bad parents,” and the abnegation of responsibility they have for their own actions and children. The school is for gifted students — but often their gifts are nebulous. It is prestigious and prestige is a business. It is run by an immaculately groomed woman, Miss Dorset (Sidse Babett Knudsen) who is catering specifically to the rich parents of the “sensitive children” — the next generation who will inherit whatever is theirs by dent of cultural and class endorsement.

When wealthy parents decide that clean eating should be a course offered on the curriculum, they prime their discontented teens to be seduced into a cult run by the enigmatic Miss Novak (Mia Wasikowska). She seeks out her targets carefully. At first, she introduces them to the idea that conscious eating is a remedy for consumerist wastefulness, that it is a solution to environmental destruction. Conscious eating is a form of self control which provides mental clarity. Disciplining the body will enhance physical agility. Radiant beauty is paired with a body no longer filled with toxins. All negative energy will be expelled on a cellular level.

Miss Novak identifies each of their needs. Ragna (Florence Barker) is the child of liberal bohemians (Lukas Turtur and Keeley Forsyth). They are both artists of some kind and also desperate to be the “cool parents.” Ragna is embittered because for all their doting, they are primarily self satisfied. Look what a good example they set with their communal largesse. With their artisan house, cursory questions, and nutrient rich menu, they believe the job of parenting Ragna is complete. Ragna is a competitive trampoliner who secretly fears she is ugly and overweight. Resentment hangs over her blue-streaked head of hair. 

Elsa (Ksenia Devriendt) is the school beauty and Queen Bee. She already has an eating disorder quietly encouraged by her lonely trophy wife mother (Elsa Zylberstein). Her father (Mathieu Demy) is a high-level finance man. He is the bullish bully who refuses to indulge Elsa’s or his wife’s behavior. He has his servants cook elaborate feasts and refuses to let either of the women go until they have eaten to his satisfaction. Greed is good. Pleasure is his just desserts. Elsa is a concert pianist in training. She already metaphorically and literally regurgitates the lessons both her parents have taught. Be perfect, pretty, and powerful.

Ben Benedict (Samuel D. Anderson) is an intellectual scholarship student. Of all the participants in Miss Novak’s class, he is the skeptic. He knows Miss Novak is using pseudoscience mixed with just enough objective evidence to promote her radically restricted diet. His modest background sets him apart from the beautiful people. Although he projects insouciance based on his high grades and academic performance, he has an unrequited crush on Elsa. He is also the roommate of Miss Novak’s most psychologically fragile student — Fred (Luke Barker).

Fred is training to be a classical dancer. He is lithe, fluid, and obsessed with his image. He needs to be seen. His white savior Ghana based NGO parents (Camilla Rutherford and Sam Hoare) have summarily dumped him as a boarding student. For reasons he can’t process he is rejected while they favor his much younger brother. Every attempt he makes to communicate with them is cut short. They barely feign interest in his progress and circumvent every request that he be able to visit them with weak excuses. “The climate is too much for him his delicate skin would burn,” or “It is not a good time to arrive during Seth’s development.”

Fred has a dance instructor who is trying to guide him. Yet, as soon as Miss Novak pays him motherly attention, he rejects him as a jealous gatekeeper who refuses to allow him to experience what he must to become an artiste. A simple pass to allow him to go to an Opera.

Finally, there is the environmental activist, Helen (Gwen Currant), whose parents think nothing of consuming fossil fuels as industrial manufacturers. They are antithetical to her stance as an eco-warrior.

With the exception of Ben’s unpretentious single mother (Amanda Lawrence), almost no one has done their due diligence in screening who comes into contact with their children. Miss Novak, a woman who prays to a mysterious icon for strength to carry out her purpose, was simply found via an internet advertisement. She used self-branded cleansing tea as a way into the school. Miss Novak is an invention of the cult which she serves or the cult of which she is the creator. She is an avatar of an omnipresent devourer – watching, waiting, and stalking. She is Lamia — one who preys on the children of others. Yet without the children, she is nothing.

Promising the children they will be purified, they instead develop Autophagia. Every step they take to become a member of Club Zero relies on primal rituals. Screams, shrieks, and vocal catharsis become a secret language. Common practices in tribal behavior, but also tactics used in indoctrination. There will be a cost, but the result is worth it.

Fred almost dies because he stopped taking his insulin. The arrival of his father at his bedside in the hospital is not because of genuine concern for his son, but because it is the expected gesture of a parent. It’s inconvenient. He once again entrusts Fred to the school; “Fred has always been a difficult child. I have to rely on you. Please take good care of our child.”

Hausner’s technical fingerprints are all over the work. An uncanny internally mid-century modern school with a queasy color palette. Bright yellow and royal purple clash against the clean modernity of Oxford’s Saint Catherine’s College (the key location standing in as the school). Choirs sing about being lifted up to something higher. The banners, statues, and medallions evoke a mixture of traditional pride and the aesthetics of dictatorial states. An elite school is already a battleground for supremacy. 

Similarly, whichever home space the audience encounters speaks to the privilege, or lack thereof, of the inhabitants. Hausner’s aestheticized absurdism is telegraphed via location and composition; expertly filmed by Martin Gschlacht who has a granular understanding of Beck Rainford’s purposive production design.

The audience is experiencing the euphoria of starving children and watching their bodies and minds collapse. Fred’s exam dance recital is glitter-soaked humiliation. A tacky ballet rendition of “Peter and the Wolf” by Rachmaninov. Conversely, Elsa’s piano recital is executed with embodied perfection, but a key spectator is not there to witness her. Ben has gone so far down the rabbit hole he rejects his mother’s ministrations as a form of control. He accuses her of offering him food as an unfair test of his love for her. Ragna’s furtive acquiescence to filling her belly which makes her temporarily an outcast, a failure, and a figure of disgust. Helen’s declaration that if people stop eating no one can starve because of poverty, while later scooping her school provided food into a waste bin with the others. There is no awareness that they are imbedded in late-stage capitalism and any act — mundane or seemingly gifted by manipulation will change anything in the economics of greed.

Eventually, Miss Dorset realizes that Miss Novak is a threat to the school and to her authority over the children. She ignored Miss Benedict’s concerns because her son was not a full fee-paying student. An opportunity to remove Miss Novak comes via alleged sexual impropriety with Fred. Something relayed to her because of one student’s anger at being rejected by another.

The all-powerful parent association meets and discusses the ethics of dismissing Miss Novak. The dark comedic tone belies the fact none of them want to take responsibility for endangering their offspring. The statement “We must not be lenient just because we brought Miss Novak into the school” is Hausner’s pugilistic condemnation of their hypocrisy. 

The removal of Miss Novak doesn’t halt the bizarre behavior of the teens. They were promised deliverance from all that ails them. Their bodies are no longer temples, they are traps. Never feeling “good enough” to be good, each teen forces their parents into stalemate. The parents have to deliver their genetic commodities to the now rightful owner. Body horror, vomiting, regurgitating the regurgitated as an anti-capitalist act. There is no boundary between sacred and profane for them in their delusional state. A version of God asks worshippers to take his body and eat it.  

Or perhaps what was delusional was expecting their children to do whatever they expected from them. Be pretty, do better, be smart, be less visible, stand out more, don’t be demanding, don’t prioritize their own desires. Survive high school group think and come out the other side as rational but extraordinary talents.

“We want to know why.” The parents ask a student.

“Isn’t it obvious?” She responds.

“I thought I did everything I could to support my teen, friend, lover…” is often the lament of those who discover a person who has erased themselves in some manner. “Why didn’t I see the signs?” Hausner’s Club Zero lights up the signs in a sickly neon. Many teens are searching for some kind of faith. Someone they can trust is looking over them. 

Jessica Hausner interviewed high school students before she wrote the script with Géraldine Bajard. They reported the effects of bullying and the weight of expectation on them while at school. Incidents of body dysmorphia, self-harm, disordered eating, and mental health crises among teens has statistically never been higher than it is currently. Youth suicides have increased by over sixty-percent since 2007. Underlying Hausner’s Vantablack satire is a material reality.

Jessica Hauser is often profoundly misconstrued. Perhaps some audiences will see Club Zero as too abject, too fetishizing, and too tonally uneven. Mostly it could be read as too pulchritudinous for a film filled with puke. How can something be so pretty-ugly? Club Zero is not favoring style over substance — which is the entire point Hausner is making. If only the members of Club Zero had something authentic to anchor them, they would no longer fall for falsehoods.

Grade: B+

Director: Nayla Al Khaja
Writers: Nayla Al Khaja, Ben Williams, John Collee
Stars: Jefferson Hall, Faten Ahmed, Saud Alzarooni

Synopsis: A boy is going through a mental health crisis, prompting his mother to seek help from an unlikely man. This man must set aside his Western thinking to save her son through an intense ritual.

Often we only think of religious horror, especially possession and exorcism, through the lens of Christianity. In Three, we get a glimpse into the practice of Islamic exorcism. In many ways, the rites are similar. Both use holy men as bulwarks against evil and use the scripture of their holy text to drive out the evil within the possessed.

In this way Three falls into an easy rhythm. It follows the pattern of the exorcism film. The parent is distraught, she seeks help from doctors and when the doctors fail, she goes to the spiritual leader, the ultimate bastion against the unknown. That makes most of Three a bit formulaic. There’s little to set it apart from other films of the genre.

What does differentiate Three from other films like it isn’t only the difference in religion, but the way science interacts with faith. Typically in a film like this, the medical doctor or psychologist would be made irrelevant by the second act. Though, in this film, Dr. Mark Holly (Jefferson Hall) is around for the duration, even being present at and interfering with the exorcism. This integration of science and faith is a way to introduce skepticism into the proceedings. It almost feels like a metaphor for the city of Dubai in which the film takes place. Dubai is a city that straddles the traditions of its indigenous people with the heavy western influence that came with the country’s vast wealth.

There are a few other things that set Three apart from other films in the genre. There is that the djinn possessing Ahmed (Saud Alzarooni) was let in by malevolent human trickery, not by the act of the spirit itself. Alternatively to other films, the family here seeks the help of several mullahs before they find one who will be strong enough to combat the djinn and complete a successful exorcism. It is also of note that the horror of the film isn’t based on simple jump scares.

Director Nayla Al Khaja builds the terror of her film from tension. There is a particularly good scene when Ahmed’s friend Yasmeen (Amna Rehman) comes to visit after Ahmed has been expelled for assaulting his teacher. Ahmed and Yasmeen seem to be having a nice time until Ahmed’s face goes slack and Yasmeen slowly backs away. Ahmed is able to trap Yasmeen in the shower where he repeats words over and over as he smacks the wall, eventually cracking it and also cracking Yasmeen, alerting the adults to what is going on upstairs.

There are several tense scenes like this one that make your heart pound. Though, the tension is often deflated too soon. It builds to a nice peak, but the drop is sudden. The exorcism itself feels anticlimactic because of this. This makes the film less scary rather than just plain unnerving, which isn’t a bad thing, but if you’re looking to be terrified, not a satisfying thing either.

All in all, Three is a solid thriller. It’s derivative of other films in its subgenre. It never fulfills all the aspects of the body horror of exorcism films or the gore of Ahmed’s violence when under possession. See it for the unique take on the genre, not only in the aspect that it is an Islamic exorcism, but that modern science plays a much larger role than in other films of its ilk.

Grade: C

Director: Johan Renck
Writers: Jaroslav Kalfar, Colby Day
Stars: Adam Sandler, Carey Mulligan, Paul Dano

Synopsis: Half a year into his solo mission on the edge of the solar system, an astronaut concerned with the state of his life back on Earth is helped by an ancient creature he discovers in the bowels of his ship.

Spaceman attempts to use the backdrop and void of space to examine depression and anxiety about the unknown—yes, the feeling of just how inconsequential we are in the universe, a blip in time, if you will. What Spaceman does is take its time to examine our regrets, fears, and possibly the prospect of reinvention. That’s where Adam Sandler comes in. The role is his best career performance and his most intimate on-screen to date. 

Sandler plays Jakub, an astronaut trying to outrace a South Korean team looking for a pinkish space anomaly resting just past Jupiter. From there, Sandler’s Spaceman is a raw, emotionally expressive, and evocative take on mental health, showcasing how the titular character leaves their most painful feelings on their sleeves.

However, Spaceman begins to meander in its self-pity. I would call director Johan Renck’s (Breaking Bad) penchant for excessive self-exploration an endless drag instead of having the right amount of poignancy. Initially, the film becomes gripping, even suspenseful. That’s because Jakub may have finally been broken for good after six months of solitary confinement in space and in the tin can he calls a ship.

For one, his wife, Lenka (Carey Mulligan), right before Jakub is about to make history, sends an electronic message to her husband, saying she’s filing for divorce. The head of mission control, Commissioner Tuma (Isabella Rossellini), and Jakub’s handler, Peter (The Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar), intercept the message before he can view it. However, it doesn’t matter, as Jakub has been waiting to hear from Lenka for weeks and can read the stars.

First-time scriptwriter Colby Day then makes a bold choice. Jakub encounters a giant space spider that can talk and goes by the name Hanuš (voiced by Paul Dano). Is this a clear mental break, or has Jakub made another grand discovery? He’s sane enough to ask Peter to locate a camera and tell him what he sees in the control bay, but all of the cameras have been slowly going offline for weeks.

Renck’s pacing and Day’s plotting do an excellent job of keeping the viewer from staying a step ahead of the ending, which ends up being ambiguous, allowing the audience to draw their own conclusions. The interactions between Sandler’s Jakub and Dano’s Hanuš slowly become a fascinating character study of the titular character’s own existential crisis. Dano’s calm, even tone and soothing voice mirror a therapeutic relationship. This allows Sandler’s character to begin pondering themes of his existence, the power of his choices, and the search for the meaning of his life.

This is all very provocative stuff. Yet, the film begins to become mildly repetitive. The script starts to fold in some backstory of how Jakub and Lenka met, even their fights before he left. The film would have done better to add one more layer to flesh out the main character thoroughly. They leave hints of haunting family memories, with Jakub’s father floating away like George Clooney in Gravity. 

Exploring this part of the human condition in Jakub’s backstory, such as suffering, morality, and paternal relationships, would have added greater depth to the film’s experience. Yet, the film’s final few scenes are sublime. It’s a daunting finale, with a sense of ominous beauty and melancholy that is even more profound. Most movies cannot find an appropriate ending for a film, but Spaceman manages to encompass the vast and powerful setting is a metaphor for what’s essential in life.

Now, Johan Renck’s movie is nothing new; we have seen countless takes on a tried and true story of life and love, even if the setting here.is vastly different. Additionally, the film could have benefited greatly if the filmmakers continued to explore the marriage and Jakub’s haunting childhood with additional flashbacks. However, Spaceman succeeds on the shoulders of Sandler’s soulful turn. He does what great actors do, making the viewer feel something that is emotionally visceral. 

That’s how Sandler’s Spaceman wins.

Grade: B-

Director: Julio Torres
Writer: Julio Torres
Stars: Julio Torres, Tilda Swinton, RZA

Synopsis: Alejandro is an aspiring toy designer from El Salvador struggling to bring his unusual ideas to life in NY. As time runs out on his work visa, a job assisting an erratic art-world outcast becomes his only hope to stay in the country.

Problemista has the My Favorite Shapes comedian-turned-filmmaker Julio Torres venturing into his mind via a whimsical tale of modern-day immigrant life and the fractured art industry. However, it ends up as a messy and disorganized feature with a great scene-stealing performance by the effortlessly captivating Tilda Swinton. 

A24 has been known for giving aspiring filmmakers the freedom to make their debuts so that their voice is smeared across the entire project. That’s one of the things I admire about the independent production company. They roll their dice for a chance at hitting gold with a unique and transcending voice. Lately, they have helped lift the careers of Robert Eggers, Rose Glass, and Ari Aster, amongst other directors, with their respective debuts. The latest person they are helping to express themselves cinematically is comedian Julio Torres, known for his hit special My Favorite Shapes. A24 has teamed up with him to present his debut feature film, Problemista. While it is undoubtedly distinctive and showcases the comedian’s talent as a director stylistic-wise, in which you see how his stand-ups have inspired his vision, the film itself is quite messy and muddled – ending a mostly unfunny and plodding feature.

Julio Torres plays Alejandro, an aspiring toy designer from El Salvador living in New York on a temporary visa. The film’s narrator (Isabella Rossellini) tells us he has always been a dreamer; his mother always encouraged him to explore his creative side. His aspirations lead him to work for Hasbro making unique gifts for kids. He doesn’t want to craft toys that aren’t primarily focused on fun, only those that make children learn something. The reason why Alejandro migrated to the United States is because the toy company’s work application only allows them within the country. As he awaits an answer to his application, he has been making models of his potential future toys and working for a cryogenics company named FreezeCorp. This business sells people the promise of putting them in a cryogenic sleep until they can be awakened later on in the future. 

The problem is that he just got fired from his job because of an accident. This dilemma changes his life for the worse, as he needs another employer to sponsor him so that Alejandro can pay the costs to extend his visa. At last, Alejandro arrives at the hands of an insufferable and eccentric art critic named Elizabeth, who is brought to life by the saving grace of Problemista, the always magnificent Tilda Swinton – she never misses a single beat when it comes to playing anomalous characters. Elizabeth has spent most of her recent time archiving the work of her late husband, Bobby (RZA), who decided to freeze himself after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Bobby left her with an array of egg paintings, which she doesn’t seem to understand. 

In order to try and keep that issue out of her hands, she makes Alejandro a promise: if he helps her secure a private show for those paintings, Elizabeth will sponsor him. You begin to see the whimsy of Julio Torres’ vision right from the get-go, for better or worse. This tendency helps him curate an array of scenarios in which he can innovatively explore his (and his character’s) anxieties. Torres seeks inspiration from the work of Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze, albeit without the wit and sharpness that comes with the storytelling of these filmmakers. From Alejandro’s glimpses of his fairy-tale-like childhood to the personification of his frustration through detailed, overly capricious set-pieces, these scenes sum up the creativity simmering in his mind, both as a comedian and a filmmaker. 

The eccentricity emerging from each plot thread feels reminiscent of what people love about his stand-up work. Although I’m not a fan of his comedy, I admire how he intertwined his passion with a new art form he’s still trying to figure out. Unfortunately, this array of circumstances that Torres puts his characters in arrives as a messy nuisance that plagues the entire picture for several reasons. First and foremost, the human elements scattered across the film – the main character’s aspirations, backstory, love interests, and future – aren’t explored to their fullest degree in exchange for these whimsical and weird dream-like scenes. You never feel that working at Hasbro is one of Alejandro’s main priorities. And putting a rival/roommate alongside him doesn’t do it any favors since he doesn’t do anything with these plot threads or ideas. 

The only time you get an emotional payout is when Problemista begins to speak about the modern-day life of immigrants. That’s when the film becomes something rather touching and fulfilling. However, the rest seems tied up in frivolous attire that separates the viewer from the director’s vision and story. The image of people disappearing after their visas are not extended is haunting. This short scene is supposed to elicit an impact on the viewer. Yet, because it is submerged in a movie that wants to dedicate time to anything but plot development, you never get that emotional attachment to what’s happening. Torres’ ideas are scattered and disorganized; the main issue is that Problemista wants to bite more than it can chew – failing to manage style and substance with the message he wants to present in his debut. 

The second reason the film falls flat is that its jokes aren’t funny. Some of the best segments rely on Swinton’s Elizabeth, who amazingly chews the scenery and is, by far, the best thing in the film. She’s described as a fire-breathing dragon, and Swinton literally takes that description into consideration for her performance. These scenes are pretty funny, not because of the screenplay but because of her line delivery and attitude. Yet, it comes as a double-edged sword because you see that Problemista is becoming a one-trick pony. 

Whenever the movie feels like it is falling apart, it gives you another one of those scenes where Swinton shines. But the audience can’t be amused by such a joke if it’s the only one being used. All of my issues aside, Julio Torres has some talent behind the camera. However, he needs to be able to trim the fat out of his screenplays and focus on one specific side of his ideas and concepts. There’s so much going on in Problemista, and nothing actually feels satisfactory in the end. 

Grade: C-