Copilot movie review: how love warps women’s lives
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.
drama
The Last Bus movie review: middle of the road
British twee is baked into this slight travelogue. Spall’s performance is lovely, and though the film mostly avoids overt schmaltz in favor of mild sentimentality, it’s gentle to the point of inertia.
Candyman movie review: say his name… and understand its power
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.
Reminiscence movie review: remembering it for you retail
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.
Naked Singularity movie review: New York misery
A very good cast makes a valiant go of it, but a hugely ambitious experimental novel has been boiled down to a tepid mishmash of genres: social-justice drama + black-comedy heist + sci-fi mind-bender.
Riders of Justice and Pig movies review: rethinking the revenge movie
Two brilliant dramas upend cinematic tropes of male vengeance with precision, patience, and grim humor. These are radical rethinks in emotional maturity surrounding men’s grief, remorse, and shame.
Nowhere Special movie review: a father’s final bittersweet task
Beautiful and heartbreaking. A beguiling portrait of love, grief, and pragmatism that unites father and son, built up via tender moments of the most ordinary sort. James Norton’s performance is revelatory.
Charlatan movie review: more vegetative than herbal
An intriguing story with engaging performances about a compelling real-life character, but oddly inert, and can’t quite make all its many aspects gel into a wholly satisfying or wholly coherent story.
Les nôtres movie review: sacrificing girls for the greater good
Quietly chilling. A condemnation of supposed propriety over genuine decency, and the sacrifice of children to the illusion of communal cohesion. There are no easy answers here, and no pat resolutions.
Sweat movie review: let’s get metaphysical
Nuanced, sensitive peek into the world of a social-media influencer, with a beautiful central performance. Uncynical and pragmatic about the seachange human society has endured in the 21st century.
