me on feminist film criticism
Enjoy the rage.
AWFJ
Capernaum movie review: a child’s real-life horror
Harrowing and heartbreaking, a nightmare dystopia that could almost be a documentary. This tough but essential film slyly asks us to consider what we owe children, not just our own but the world’s.
On the Basis of Sex movie review: Notorious RBG’s origin story
Coasts on the awesomeness of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a way unadventurous if solidly crowd-pleasing. But the depiction of her incredibly supportive marriage to a feminist man is intensely satisfying.
Dumplin’ movie review: throwing her weight around
A lovely movie that warmly embraces a wide(ish) range of girls-and-women-as-people, one that doesn’t reduce its large heroine — the amazing Danielle Macdonald — to nothing more than her size. This should not feel so damn radical, but it is.
What They Had movie review: family ties and lies
Simultaneously sharp and tender portrait of longstanding family squabbles and resentments finally coming to a head. Achingly affecting performances and poignant details ground it in melancholy authenticity.
Sadie movie review: coming of age the hard way
This tale of a teenaged girl’s crossing the boundary from childhood to too-early adulthood, simultaneously a portrait of a society quietly yet inexorably collapsing, has a disturbing power that sneaks up on you.
Jane Fonda in Five Acts documentary review: the political is her personal
An extraordinarily intimate and perceptive new biography of the legendary actor and activist. Fonda reveals insecurities and anxieties that are achingly raw and very personal, but which many women will see themselves in.
A Happening of Monumental Proportions movie review: no, honey, no
The title is intentionally ironic, and yet still feels like a bad and desperately unfunny joke. The spectacular all-star cast holds their noses and gamely dives in anyway, for the sake of Judy Greer’s directorial debut.
The Rider movie review: when the work that makes a man is taken away
An extraordinary semidocumentary drama, beautifully accomplished, about dignity, work, and masculinity. Heartbreaking and yet utterly unsentimental, this is one of the most important films of the year.
Memoir of War (La Douleur) movie review: woman on the homefront
Marguerite Duras’s semifictionalized memoir of psychological survival and emotional endurance in Paris during the Nazi occupation makes an uneasy, listless transition to the screen.
