film criticism by maryann johanson | 25 years: 1997–2022
Everything about this astonishing, just-plain-satisfying film feels like a revelation. Bone-deep subversive yet universal, dripping with a quiet dread yet also beautiful and beautifully wise.
An ultra-low-budget marvel, a perspective on societal disruption and disorder as everyday precariousness comes for those previously sheltered from it. Barely speculative, maybe terrifyingly prescient.
Apocalyptically sorta-satirical, bone-deep terrifying slap in the face that humanity has properly earned. Formidable, intense… and funny, in a very dry way that is nevertheless difficult to laugh at.
Ambiguous, introspective, thoughtful. As weirdly uncomfortable as horror should be, and rarely is, as it examines how these movies can infect us. Niamh Algar is terrific, and deeply empathetic.
Tragic anti-romance uses cinematic conventions and the presumptions of fiction to disorient us. Bursts the bubble of a certain kind of movie delusion to highlight a harsh reality of women’s lives.
Fairy tale goes jukebox musical with a feminist, gender-fluid spin. Throws irony and sarcasm at heterosexuality, patriarchy, even monarchy. Pretty darn fun, with a sweetly spunky Ella in Cabello.
Strikingly original horror with a purpose: to delve into the mythologizing of the past, to explore the boundary between cultural appropriation and artistic inspiration, to heed the lessons of history.
A cautionary tale about getting mired in the past is itself hamstrung by what has come before: overplayed noir tropes and underbaked sci-fi ideas. The fab cast at least elevates this to the mediocre.
Honest, compassionate, and very necessary, this is a provocation, a challenge to our individual and cultural preconceived notions about and neurotic relationships to food, weight, and body image.
Dishearteningly less concerned with giving Natasha Romanoff her own story than with setting up her MCU replacement. Superfluous, backward-looking, its bit of feminism belabored. She deserved better.
