Film Reviews

TIFF 2026: Day 5

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My final full day at TIFF extended into the next one with my first ever Midnight Madness screening which ended up my second favorite title of the festival.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BRIAN MULRONEY

Winnipeg native Matthew Rankin’s second feature Universal Language was my favorite film of 2025. Imagining a Canada colonized by Iran, it was inventive, absurd, sidesplitting and in the end, oddly affecting. One could apply those descriptors in varying degrees to this follow up, but it does not do either film justice to compare them to each other. One depicts a topsy-turvy parallel universe with human nature still propelling it forward; the other posits that a former prime minister’s pickled brain is being kept alive in a glass jar, grandly exhibited as if it was The Wizard of Oz.

Where to begin with Ladies And Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney? A kaleidoscopic collage film feverishly packed with found footage and matching re-creations, it tracks the rise of our Quebec-born titular star from him first running for office and placing second on the ballot of the 1976 Progressive Conservative Convention leadership election to becoming Canada’s 18th Prime Minister in 1984. A congenial if unremarkable populist who today scans as sort of a right-wing Bill Clinton, Mulroney’s persona is perfect clay for Rankin to shape him into an unlikely rock star. What unspools often feels as if Ken Russell circa Tommy made a documentary about Gerald Ford.

The delirious use of period-inspired graphics and era-specific television tropes (the structure resembles a multi-episode, for-broadcast docu-series with cheeky nods to pop culture recognizable to anyone alive at that time) are so much fun to watch but they’re also a trojan horse, easing the viewer into the esoteric inner workings of Canadian politics. Footage of dowdy former PM John Diefenbacker is gleefully manipulated for him to appear as more of an evil foil to our hero than even the omniscient floating head of opposition party deity Pierre Trudeau. Rankin isn’t praising Mulroney, exactly, just demonstrating how the cult of personality towards national leaders was alive and kicking long before it all but defined some contemporary culprits.

His first feature Twentieth Century did similar service to Canadian PM William Lyon King roughly 70-80 years before. If that film often felt a little too heavily indebted to fellow Winnipeg auteur Guy Maddin’s silent-cinema shtick, this one revels in an entirely different aesthetic that, especially after the leftfield Universal Language, further establishes Rankin as no mere Maddin imitator but his rightful successor.

BITTER CHRISTMAS

Not a stretch to claim Almodovar’s long past his prime (Volver being his last great film for me) but his late-period work occasionally sparkles. Whether he’s essaying a wacky farce (I’m So Excited) or a tried-and-true melodrama (Parallel Mothers), no matter the quality, the result could not have come from anyone else. After a bumpy attempt at an English language picture (The Room Next Door), he returns to Spain with his most meta (and best) feature since Pain And Glory.

Revealed early on, there’s no great spoiler in disclosing that of the film’s two storylines, the earlier one is entirely the invention of the latter one’s central character. While Pain And Glory was his most blatantly autobiographical film with longtime collaborator Antonio Banderas as the director’s stand-in, Bitter Christmas has a sort of parallel figure in Raul (Leonardo Sbaraglia), who in the present-day narrative meticulously constructs a 2004-set screenplay involving Elsa (Barbara Lennie), herself a director of commercials. His focus on Raul, though, is less one of memoir than depicting an act of creation, exploring how real life can inspire fiction. As Raul’s screenplay develops and evolves, so does his approach to the point where he realizes what, and more importantly who the story’s about.

Although the constant shifts between narratives require an active viewing, the film’s tone is what may prove challenging for some audiences. Unsentimental, cynical and at times, a little pricky, it’s definitely not one the director’s more lighthearted romps, with the exception of Elsa’s nearly too-good-to-be-true boyfriend Bonifacio (Patrick Criado), a firefighter who moonlights as a male exotic dancer (his epic striptease scene is Almodovar at his campiest, sexiest best.) And yet, there’s a lucid energy that’s been missing from the director’s work for a little while. The furious cuts between storylines helps but there’s also the act of getting caught up in the creative process so thoroughly that when it all ends on an epiphany, it’s deeply gratifying.

LOW LIES THE LAND

This documentary follows three vineyard-owning families in the Piemonte region of Northern Italy. It is an idyllic setting to participate in such a time-honored trade as these subjects have done for generations. However, it only looks perfect on the surface. Global warming and all of its aftereffects (most notably droughts), along with other economic factors increasingly challenge the solvency of running such a business—enter an unnamed foreign investor only known as “The Broker” who is looking to buy up vineyard properties in this region, pushing each family to ponder whether it’s worth carrying on this tradition or time to pack it up.

Beautifully shot and somnambulantly paced, director Emanuele Gerosa’s film excels when he focuses on a real character such as an elderly matron who painstakingly moves herself around the kitchen in her chair to complete her domestic and professional tasks (someone really needs to buy her one with wheels.) While obviously an enticing place to visit, the film mostly lacks the spark and especially the quirk that materializes in similar portraits like The Truffle Hunters or Gates Of Heaven. Turns out winemaking is somewhat monotonous, boring work and via this depiction of it, lacking enough juice to sustain a feature.

TIFF 2026: Day 4

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My first three-film day! (I’m past the point of reasonably doing 4 or 5.) The following are in descending order of preference, with my favorite of them proof that occasionally, those chosen on a whim turn out to be hidden gems.

NOSOTROS

Married to an indigenous woman in a small Guatemalan village, Romero (Jozef Coxaj) temporarily leaves her and their young child behind to make some money in the city. He finds a job as a security guard; to his coworkers, he refers to having a sister back home, but not a wife. One day, he meets Nubia (Lola Vasquez), who is transgender and owns a shop in the mall where he works. While he doesn’t find much in common with his macho colleagues, he immediately falls for her.

Director Joaquin Ruano’s debut feature is remarkable for how naturally this all comes together. No dramatic revelation of Nubia’s gender identity or any crossed wires between her and Romero (apart from the secret he keeps about his wife)—they simply meet cute, acknowledge their connection and go for it, enjoying each other’s company at a bar, then renting a hotel room, consummating their relationship without fuss. Coxaj and Vasquez have palpable chemistry and the latter shows a real ease on screen while also cutting a striking figure and presence.

I’ve made Nosotros sound like a straightforward picture, but Ruano’s narrative follows its own path, upending expectations about two-thirds of the way through with a shocking turn that almost entirely reroutes the film’s trajectory. It then comes to a full stop at another abrupt but correct moment where one comes to see that it’s about more than one relationship, that life itself is about continuously moving forward, all of us together. 

THE BELOVED

The first 15-20 minutes are solely a conversation in a Madrid restaurant between Esteban (Javier Bardem), a middle-aged filmmaker with a bad boy reputation and Emilia (Victoria Luengo), a young actress to whom he’s offered a part in his next picture. Shot almost entirely in uncomfortable closeups back and forth between the two of them, one soon learns that they already know each other although the exact nature of their relationship doesn’t reveal itself until near the conversation’s end when it unexpectedly turns heated and volatile.

Although the rest of the film breathes within wider vistas, this bravura sequence is typical of director Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s approach. He often favors big gestures such as fly-on-the-wall camera movements, sudden shifts into black-and-white or another film stock, lengthy, unbroken shots, etc. Is it him simply showing off or forging a meta-critique of the prototypical tyrannical director (for the film rarely excuses Esteban’s behavior)? It’s a bit of both, actually as much of the film post-opening unfolds on shooting sets, the professional and personal connections between Esteban and Emilia forever blurring.

Bardem delivers some of his best work ever here and Luengo (who has appeared in a few Almodovar films) successfully tackles a challenging role that could be her breakthrough if enough people see her performance. Engaging and rarely boring, the film’s only problem is its occasional misshapenness, especially towards the conclusion as Sorogoyen cycles through four or five fake endings. With some more judicious editing, The Beloved could’ve been up to the sterling level of its two leads.

ANCESTORS 

Watching the opening sequence I thought, “This should have been called Shoegaze: The Movie” and not just because of the gauzy, dense Cocteau Twins-esque music in the opening sequence. Set in late 1980s UK (roughly around the passage of Section 28 banning local officials from “promoting homosexuality”), Ancestors is a flashback to another era, re-created by director David Turpin and his crew and then run through a  heavy dream reverie filter. It centers on Beau (Éanna Hardwicke), a gay Irishman who has left his provincial origins for London, and Tiny (Jack Wolfe), a younger, scrappier drifter with whom he gradually bonds with. An aged Rupert Everett’s also in this; he seems to be turning into Stephen Fry–a good thing, I guess?

It’s feasible to adore a film’s aesthetic, the pointillist world it conjures not so much as a mirror of one’s own but its rare essence while also acknowledging that it’s just that, a construct. I felt deeply receptive to what Turpin was attempting to express here, the queer-forward worlds of My Beautiful Laundrette and Derek Jarman films a generation or two removed. However, my guard also went up. I could say Turpin really goes for it with the symbolic imagery but it might’ve worked better if Tiny was an actual character rather than a rough construct. Today, when the AIDS epidemic increasingly feels like a memory threatening to fade into the ether, the film’s effort to remind one why it shouldn’t be forgotten or glossed over is admirable. Unlike a contemporary, galvanizing portrait of the era such as 2014’s Pride, this seems content to lovingly conjure the surfaces but not necessarily that crucial why.

TIFF 2026: Day 3

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Day 3 of TIFF included a film for kids of all ages and one strictly for the adults.

WHAT LIES BETWEEN US

If you’re longing to see Sidse Babett Knudsen commanding the screen as a morally conflicted matriarch, have I got the movie for you. One of my favorite actresses, Knudsen is known for work both in her homeland of Denmark (Susanne Bier’s After The Wedding, as lead of the long-running television series Borgen) and abroad (the reluctant dominatrix of Peter Strickland’s The Duke Of Burgundy, the forever-smiling instructor in Ben Sharrock’s Limbo.) 

This incisive thriller provides her with an especially juicy leading part. As realtor Anne Sofie, she seems to juggle a demanding job and raising two teens almost effortlessly. She’s good friends with two other mothers whose kids attend her son’s school: longtime friend Sarah (Sofie Gråbøl) and single mother/newcomer to the neighborhood Ulrikke (Asta Kamma August). Anne Sofie and Ulrikke’s sons are both 14; Sarah’s is two years younger. One evening, the mothers convince the two older boys to allow the younger one to hang out with them. The following day, Sarah’s son accuses the other boys of sexually assaulting him. They deny it and the viewer suspects one of the three boys is lying. This ordeal tears the mothers apart as speculation runs rampant among each of them, leading to further accusations, rumors and, after some crucial information is revealed to one of them, outright lies to protect their own child.

A good companion piece to the recent German film The Teachers Lounge, this benefits from an even more intimate scope. While we’ve seen a lot of dramas centered around parenting and school, director Amalie Næsby Fick excels at creating a lived-in world that’s instantly recognizable but also intricately detailed enough to give one a real sense of both place and the various dynamics between these characters. However, Knudsen has the most prominent role and she is at turns admirable, relatable, exasperating and chilling. One’s sympathy towards her is bound to fluctuate wildly. While the narrative shifts into some unexpected and potentially outlandish phases, Knudsen’s performance is assured and seamless (even if Anne Sofie is anything but.)

JULIÁN

From The Secret Of Kells to Wolfwalkers, I’m convinced Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon will never let me down. Their latest, the feature debut of director Louise Bagnall is an adaptation of Julián Is A Mermaid, a 2014 children’s book by Jessica Love. That title essentially gives away the plot but to elaborate, Julián is a young suburban boy dropped off to spend the summer with his Dominican grandmother in Brooklyn. He’s also a dreamer with an active imagination and a tendency to get into trouble, but his Abuela is less permissive and understanding of him than his father. Obsessed with the sea and marine creatures, he meets a trio of local girls preparing for the annual Coney Island parade. In them, he finds kindred spirits as the four of them plan to march in the event dressed up as mermaids. Julian’s challenging of gender roles doesn’t sit too well with Abuela and other kids and adults; fortunately, he finds solace in a magical water bubble come to life that exemplifies the production design’s whimsy and invention.

While not nearly as deep as the fantasy/folklore of Wolfwalkers, Bagnall’s adaptation is a simple, joyous fable about what it means to be different and how meaningful bonds are established when people take the time and thought to the understand one another. The bold, bright colors and Latin music soundtrack are delights and at just under ninety minutes, Julián doesn’t wear out its welcome. For kids (and adults) of all ages with even some moments near the end as affecting as the Roadrunner’s appearance in Coyote Vs. Acme.

TIFF 2026: Day 2

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My second day at TIFF consisted of my favorite and least favorite films of the festival!

I AM MARIO

“Trans man becomes pregnant” sounds like a tabloid headline on the page but for a film high-concept enough for this corker of a one-line premise, the potentially risky I Am Mario turns out to be an unexpectedly tender and nuanced character study. It was easily my biggest surprise at this year’s TIFF.

To understand such a premise, one has to establish that Mario (Oustin León) is in the middle of his transition when this occurs. A Mexico City cabdriver already masculine enough to pass, he’s been going through hormonal treatments but had to temporarily pause them (and put off gender-reassignment surgery) due to medical complications. Following a tryst with a male co-worker shot ambiguously enough to question whether the act was entirely consensual, Mario discovers he’s pregnant; his reaction is suitably conflicted as he does want to have children, just not in this way. Further complicating matters is Jessica (Ruth Ramos), a spirited taxi customer-turned-lover who accepts him being trans but has no interest in becoming a mother (this early in his pregnancy, she has no idea.)

Director/writer Sharon Kleinberg isn’t trans but her sensitive, non-sensationalist approach to the material is partially what makes the film work. Much time is spent exploring the complex dynamic between Mario and his family (whom he’s out to) and his coworkers (whom he’s not.) Still, for a premise like this to excel, one needs a strong lead performance. Leon, who appears in nearly every frame delivers just that; astonishingly, this is his first professional acting role. His contributed input to the screenplay based on his own experiences is also deeply felt. 

Just a decade or two ago, someone might have misguidedly attempted to make a wacky comedy out of such a premise. I Am Mario meets the current moment beautifully. One hopes enough people will see it so that it becomes a talisman for future generations of trans stories yet to be told. 

EVERYBODY WANTS TO F*CK ME

It’s the sort of title that makes one want to reply, “Cool story, bro.” Admittedly, I had some expectations for this to be good since it stars the normally likable Taron Egerton (who was sublime as Elton John in Rocketman) and it has a potentially amusing premise (soft and sensitive but secretly persistent lothario wakes up one day to find himself irresistible to all women.) The first fifteen minutes suggest the type of witty, battle-of-the-sexes rom-com/satire that’s been in short supply lately. Then, it gradually goes off the rails and not even in an entertaining way. As it veers towards (and then completely into) horror, whatever goodwill has been established quickly sours, leaving one wondering whether writer/director Jonathan Schey has ever had anything resembling a functional relationship. Along with fellow cast members Jessica Henwick (Glass Onion) and Charley Clive (TV’s Rooster), Egerton is completely wasted here; all three of them are far deserving of a better vehicle. I suppose I should’ve known better after seeing that lame asterisk in the title.

TIFF 2026: Day 1

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Returned to the Toronto International Film Festival for the first time since 2023 and saw a dozen flicks over five days. The first included two literary adaptations.

CLARISSA

I kicked off my TIFF with Nigerian filmmakers/twin brothers Arie and Chuko Esiri’s follow-up to their feature debut Eyifome (This is My Desire) which I had coincidentally seen five years ago to the date (it was also my first cinema screening since the Covid shutdowns eighteen months before.) Eyimofe was eye-catching and unique, a diptych regarding a man and a woman in Lagos each confronting a hardship related to another family member.

For their second feature, they’ve chosen to adapt Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway of all things. Given a closer look, the text’s domestic drama and interpersonal relationships have some precedent in the earlier film. Working with a larger budget and international actors portends a sellout move but no fear—for a Woolf adaptation, Clarissa retains the vivid sense of place and attention present in the minute gestures of their previous film but on a vaster scale.

Not too familiar with Woolf’s novel apart from its interpolation in The Hours, the film’s first half was a bit hard to follow, shifting between two time periods and devoting ample time a seemingly ancillary character. Fortunately, these strands come together in the second half with said character not so much galvanizing the narrative as he does enable us to more closely understand Clarissa (played by a dazzling Sophie Okonedo as older and by promising newcomer India Ria Amarteifo as younger.) Transporting this story to Lagos also opens it up substantially while still targeting the universality of Woolf’s construct of a middle-aged woman throwing a big party for herself, reflecting on a live lived and pondering what it all means.

While David Oyelowo and Ted Lasso actor Toheeb Jimoh are both good as respectively older and younger versions of Clarissa’s ex-lover Peter, the arguably highest profile cast member steals the show. As Clarissa’s tart young friend Sally, Ayo Edebiri is relatable and charismatic as ever, reminding one of her defining work in The Bear and Bottoms rather than her subsequent string of film flops. Whenever Clarissa occasionally drifts or risks pathos from its tragedies, she fully lights up the screen—a stirring contrast to Okonedo, whose gimlet-eyed gaze is more of a chiaroscuro effect.

GLAXO

The second literary adaptation of the day was of Hernán Ronsino’s 2009 novel about four young men in a backwater Argentine town not long after the Juan Peron-disposing military coup. Beginning and ending in 1984 (with a few sly nods to then-contemporary film The Terminator), the bulk is centered in the late 1950s where Miguelito (Joaquin Bonadeo) suddenly finds a mentor in Ramon, a retired policeman (Marco Subiotto) new to town (whose chief industry is the pharmaceutical company of the title). His glamorous young wife, La Negra Miranda (Lali Espósito) is the envy of Miguelito and his friends as she often shows up their youth dances looking for a partner to share the floor with (and occasionally much more.) Miguelito is blissfully unaware of Ramon’s past involvement in the coup, so it does not bode well for the former when he forges a friendship with Miranda (and soon, much more.)

Director Benjamín Naishtat transfers the narrative well from page to screen, holding one’s attention as the story gradually clicks into place across time periods (visually delineated by their own aspect ratios) and gets good-to-nearly-great work from his ensemble (especially Bonadeo, who hadn’t acted before and Esteban Bigliardi as the older version of Miguelito’s friend Flaco. Still, given Esposito’s flair of a presence, I was anticipating something wilder and more florid like Almodovar who would’ve really had fun with (and queered up) this material. As is, however, Glaxo resonates as a period piece, a betrayal fable and possibly a Mormon revenge fantasy.

2026 Movie Review Capsules, #4

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This round contains three contenders for my year-end top ten and we haven’t even hit the incoming glut of Fall prestige releases yet. As usual, placement is from best to worst.

Maddie’s Secret

Both uproarious and unexpectedly sincere–a tricky balance to fully pull off (only John Water’s original Hairspray arguably does this as well) and it probably would not have worked without Early playing the main character. It helps to know Lifetime Movie and Afterschool Special aesthetics but Early has crafted such a palpable universe (shot on an iPhone, no less!) that it’s not required. A future cult classic.

Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie

The act of discovery has always served a movie well when done convincingly, even when seemingly hand-stitched and taped-together like this, possibly the best series-to-feature-length adaptation I can think of (and I’ve never even seen the series, though I will now.) Go in blind even if you already know what classic movie it references/apes/pays genial tribute to (as I did.)

EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert

Never much of an Elvis fan, it turns out the visual presentation is key to understanding his brilliance. Baz Luhrman’s best film and one of the most visceral and compelling performance documentaries (that editing between rehearsal and concert footage of the same song!) I’ve seen. Too bad I had to dock half a star for Bono.

Case 137

Screened at the Boston French Film Festival, this is simply a strong police brutality procedural made sharper by Lea Drucker’s inquisitive, rarely showy performance. Could conceivably be remade in America but would it retain its subtlety?

Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs. That’s the Weight of the World)

What, no mention of the movie Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which they appeared in performing their hit cover of “Got to Get You Into My Life”? All kidding aside, this was fun and maybe more accomplished than Questlove’s Sly Stone doc if only because the filmmaker’s celebratory slant doesn’t fully lend itself to tragic figures. But I’m still waiting on him to make an advance on the rare promise of Summer of Soul.

Two Prosecutors

Alternate title: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. Moves slowly and deliberately yet I was on the edge of my seat in the last twenty minutes. Also tartly nails the relentless bureaucracy of Communism.

A. Rimbaud

A portrait of the titular poet with one actor and a shifting, black-box stage set is not what I expected from Patrick Wang after A Bread Factory; it’s also not enough to sustain nearly three hours. Many flashes of brilliance mixed with copious, impenetrable monologues. The Derek Jarman influence on this (particularly Wittgenstein) brings to mind an alternate version with Tilda Swinton, which might have been great.

The Drama

Discomforting, which I suppose was the point even if the pleasure extracted from it wasn’t fully worth the pain one had to sift through. However, this might be my favorite Robert Pattinson performance to date and Zendaya’s not far behind.

Time and Water

Weaving together a personal history and a study of Iceland’s disappearing glaciers, it packs in a lot even if it often strains to cohere. I’ve could’ve watched an entire film consisting of the gorgeous nature shots but I guess that’s what IMAX is for.

Mile End Kicks

Some nice moments between Barbie Ferreira and Devon Bostick and a sturdy reminder that yes, twentysomethings do tend to make one bad decision after another. Generic (and excessively messy) compared to director Chandler Levack’s I Like Movies although if I were 7-10 years younger this 2011-set film might’ve hit harder for me.

2026 Movie Review Capsules, #3

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Another ten 2026 released films, roughly in order of preference from best to worst, all of them streamed at home apart from Backrooms and Sheep In The Box, the latter with a brief in-person intro from Kore-eda himself.

Omaha

Not one minute wasted in this impressive, well-constructed debut feature. The reliable John Magaro is outstanding here and this makes one want to gift him Josh O’Connor-level ubiquity.

Dead Man’s Wire

Solid for-hire work from Van Sant recreating a time and place (Indianapolis, 1977) with pinpoint accuracy. I just wish they hadn’t shown archival footage of the real guys at the end for Skarsgard and Montgomery are just too pretty in comparison, exceptional as the former’s performance may be (Elwes’ gruff, grizzled cop is far more believable.)

The President’s Cake

Revives the tradition of kids having to complete ridiculous tasks in an adult world going back to Kiarostami and further still to The 400 Blows. Looking forward to more from this director (and more Iraqi cinema in general.)

Magellan

What better way to celebrate the 250th birthday of my home country than with this damnation of colonialism as I did? One of the more visually striking and composed films I’ve seen of late, and I can only imagine its impact doubling when viewed in a cinema.

Backrooms

Deeply unnerving more than explicitly horrific and at times, better for that. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve are both essential to this film’s surprise success although the suitably eerie production design (is this how Gen Z perceives the aesthetics of my high school years?) contributes just as much.

Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story

Sex-positive pioneer Byrd is a national treasure which makes this hard to fault for being essentially a hagiography. Still, the excess of archival footage is a reminder that we need more documentaries about cable access TV before memories of it completely ebb from our collective consciousness.

Sheep In The Box

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s inessential but pleasant sci-fi/AI fable is perhaps the highest concept he’s forged since After Life but he doesn’t do enough with it, utilizing it as a catalyst for a family drama without fully realizing its potential. If the story overall lacks urgency (or coherence), at least his directorial prowess makes this an engaging watch. The production design’s nearly as striking as, say, Almodovar’s (though more Japanese, obv.) and the references to The Little Prince lending the film its title are thoughtful. Also, as the father, Daigo Yamamoto exhibits just the right blend of pragmatism, snark and genuine feeling.

Project Hail Mary

What a peculiar mashup of 2001: A Space Odyssey and E.T. Makes smart use of Ryan Gosling for his comedic talents and also of Sandra Huller for her nimble gravitas. Rocky proves a tad too much of a good thing as the film wears on. Mostly deserving of its success even though it’s clearly Made For Schoolchildren (to quote a phrase an old friend often used in his film criticism.)

Andre Is An Idiot

Sincere if somewhat banal but its candidness in talking about death and dying is admirable. Can we please get Jason Mantzoukas to play him in the biopic?

She’s The He!

Raunchy teen sex comedies just aren’t for me but co-lead Misha Osherovich has some potential—hook them up with Jane Schoenbrun (or any good director, really.)

2026 Movie Capsule Reviews, #2

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Reviews for ten more 2026 released films, roughly in order of preference from best to worst (though there are no masterpieces or any real duds.)

Blue Film

Between this and his cameo nervously copping a feel (!) in Martha Coolidge’s Not a Pretty Picture fifty years ago, Reed Birney’s had quite the career. On the basis of his work here, Kieron Moore should have a notable one as well. A nuanced, thoughtful film regarding sex and identity and we can never have enough of those.

Fantasy Life

A solid feature debut from actor/director Matthew Shear with excellent work from Amanda Peet, playing a washed-up actress with wisdom and familiarity. Also, it’s the rare affluent NYC film that nakedly acknowledges its characters’ privilege rather than treating it as a given. If that’s not enough, Bob Balaban plays an asshole and does so with much of the finesse of his stock meek beta-males.

Yes

Presenting a crazy and cruel world where it’s okay to laugh at the insanity and simultaneously feel utterly conflicted about doing so. Nadav Lapid really Goes For It here, but he comes out the other side in an earned state of redemptive catharsis, maybe even some enlightenment. Who’s up for making an American equivalent of this about the state and culture of its dubious government?

Mr. Nobody Against Putin

One person can’t necessarily change the world, but they can make enough of an impact to encourage others to support them. Where the film makes its impact is in showing how the personal is political. Not sure I would’ve given this the best documentary feature Oscar, but I’m not mad it won.

The Ozu Diaries

The literal diaries actually elevate this beyond your standard narrated/talking heads/film clips documentary overview; it also helps that the calm, measured style is like a cousin to Ozu’s own.

Islands

“Some of them want to use you, Some of them want to get used by you.” Annie Lennox may have sung these words 40+ years ago, but they’re forever relevant. Here, the used is an ex-pat tennis instructor in the Canary Islands and the users are a wealthy vacationing couple, or is it the other way around? Little here resembles director Jan-Ole Gerster’s earlier character study A Coffee In Berlin but this understated Hitchcockian thriller shows he’s not a one-trick pony.

Disclosure Day

Notable for Spielberg attempting to capture the magic of Close Encounters and E.T. and very nearly getting there at the end, even if it means a lengthy buildup that occasionally relies on too much spectacle and not enough exposition. Also, I’ve rarely liked Emily Blunt more. Colman Domingo’s in every single film now and that isn’t a complaint.

OBEX

As with Computer Chess, it’s a kick to see (even with the sci-fi elements on display) the 1980s closer to what they actually were (darker apartments, analog equipment) than the usual neon color-accented redo. Was hoping for something more novel than the immersive video game it becomes from director/star Albert Birney (Reed’s nephew!); still, I couldn’t argue with the final takeaway which confirms the value of getting out of the house once in a while.

The Stranger

Not fully convinced of the necessity of Ozon’s Camus adaptation which too often veers towards the aesthetics of those pretentious Calvin Klein Eternity ads; I wasn’t too keen on Voisin either until he revealed the long game he played with his performance in that alarming, purgative moment near the end.

Stop! That! Train!

Almost grudgingly giving this purposely silly RuPaul-meets-Airplane! thing a pass because it’s fun, the cast is superb and it’s slightly better than The Bitch Who Stole Christmas (if not by much; same screenwriters after all.)

Silent Friend

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I love cities and have never not lived in one; however, reasonable proximity to a botanical garden, natural reserve or even a leafy neighborhood park is essential. To spend an hour or the better part of an afternoon soundtracked by birdsong and surrounded by a spacious weeping willow or paths lined with flowers and other plants is a serene, near-meditative reminder of a planet populated by species other than us dominating mammals.

I suspect Hungarian writer/director Ildikó Enyedi had this in mind when she conceived of Silent Friend. Its main “character” is a voluminous ginkgo tree in a garden in the University town of Marburg, Germany—a constant presence across three time periods. The first follows visiting Hong Kong neurologist Tony Wong (In The Mood For Love’s Tony Leung in his first European film) who’s stranded on campus during COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. The second centers on Grete (Luna Wedler) whom in 1908 becomes the first female student accepted to the University. Set in 1972, the third story features Hannes (Enzo Brumm), a young male student from a rural background. Introduced in this order, the three narratives soon overlap, their narratives eventually bouncing off each other, often in obvious ways (the settings), occasionally only gradually surfacing (all three characters come off as likable misfits in terms of how others perceive them.)

While all three form attachments to the ginkgo tree, the common motivator extends more to how plant life transforms their understanding of their world. Wong, whose research involves tracking newborn brain activity via a digital scanner, is moved to perform a similar experiment on the gingko tree with assistance via Zoom from French botanist Alice Sauvage (Lea Seydoux); this is much to the bewilderment of the only other person on campus, janitor Anton (Sylvester Groth). Grete, who faces sexism at nearly every turn due to her pioneering presence at the university, finds solace in studying botany before stumbling into an apprenticeship as a photographer’s assistant where she soon combines her two budding (so to speak) interests. Hannes befriends a female classmate, Gundula (Marlene Burow), who, like Wong, tracks the development and behavior of plant life (in this case, a sole geranium’s activity recorded via an analog printer.) Hannes steps in for her when she leaves town for a long camping trip and also has a breakthrough from attending to the plant (his actions mostly scoffed at by his male, would-be-radicals classmates.) 

At two-and-a-half hours, Silent Friend is slow cinema in the most palatable sense: immersive, thoughtful, deliberate and occasionally surprising (I’ve surely never been so invested in a geranium’s well-being before.) The digital scans in Wong’s narrative first serve as a transition to the beginning of Grete’s story; then, they become a motif: gorgeous, hypnotic, swirling strands of color adding texture, working in tandem with the film’s soothing electronic score. It requires patience—in particular, the Hannes sections, which feel somewhat less profound than the other two until Gundula leaves town and Hannes more or less finds himself. Rather than escalate each narrative to a conclusive, triumphant end, Enyedi cumulatively arrives at something more metaphysical and resounding—a connection between us and the natural world that, if so inclined, carries an emotional charge and perhaps a spiritual one as well. Not for nothing is Goethe’s Metamorphosis of Plants a key text utilized here.

IFFBoston 2026: The Invite

Chris KriofskeLeave a comment

Any resemblance between The Invite and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf is not coincidental. From a screenplay written by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones and directed by and starring Olivia Wilde as Martha surrogate Angela, it is almost entirely set in her and Joe’s (Seth Rogen) San Francisco apartment.  One night, Joe returns from his job as a music teacher to learn that Angela has invited a neighboring couple, Pína (Penelope Cruz) and Hawk (Edward Norton) over to dinner within the next hour. Their bickering-cum-full-out-arguing hits a wild crescendo just as the doorbell rings announcing Pína and Hawk’s arrival.

While it roughly follows the trajectory of Mike Nichols’ classic film of the Edward Albee play, this is not a remake of it (actually, it’s a remake of the Spanish film The People Upstairs.) For one thing, despite the earlier film’s gallows humor, The Invite is unashamedly hilarious (the words “screwball cringe” came to mind early on) with its rat-a-tat-tat dialogue, one-liners and sight gags (Rogen struggling to bike up the city’s infamously hilly streets is a highlight of the latter.) It’s not long before sex-therapist Pína and ex-firefighter Hawk feel like near-kindred spirits to Angela and Joe, especially in their own neuroses. All four actors are a delight to watch with a reminder of still-otherworldly Cruz’s often obscured talent for comedy.

As the night lingers on, events become more outrageous before the film pulls back for pathos and some catharsis. The shifting tone is handled elegantly even as it slows the built-up momentum to a crawl. As for Wilde, this makes the misguided Don’t Worry Darling feel like an aberration in her filmmaking career. While more fun than profound, The Invite is worth sitting through to arrive at an affecting if ambiguous détente of a conclusion between two of its four characters.