IFFBoston 2025

DEAF PRESIDENT NOW!

I knew nothing about Gallaudet University, a liberal arts college in Washington DC for the deaf and hard of hearing; nor was I familiar with the 1988 eight-day, student-led protest against the appointment of a non-deaf president instead of two other deaf candidates. Going in cold to a story like this is obviously the most effective way to experience it but the retelling of this incident is so well-crafted that it has that rare potential to enlighten possibly even those who lived it first-hand.

Co-directed by model/activist Nyle DiMarco, who is deaf and David Guggenheim (WAITING FOR SUPERMAN), who is not, DEAF PRESIDENT NOW! similarly feels like a bridge made to represent the deaf community and educate everyone else. While the filmmakers are privy to and make good use of an excess of archival footage of the protest (which occurred at a time when camcorders made such widespread documentation possible), it’s the modern-day interviews with the four student protest leaders that add context and resonance. Some may question the addition of voiceovers accompanying the subjects’ signing to the camera when subtitles are also present for a non-signing audience but as a concession to making a more accessible film for that very audience, it’s not a distraction; neither is the elaborate put-a-hearing-person-in-a-deaf-person’s-ears sound design. More important is how the film details this community coming together, especially viewed at an age this removed from an era in which said community was viewed much differently and often detrimentally from the outside.

This is the rare feel-good documentary that’s genuinely inspiring without coming off as cloying while also being informative and entertaining. I don’t often give films 5/5 but by successfully achieving what it wants to do and also through sheer goodwill, this one earns it.

SORRY, BABY

Movies about trauma are tricky to pull off for obvious reasons: how does one express such discomfort, anger, sadness and fear to an audience without alienating them or coming off as a weight that’s too much to bear? Eva Victor, a 30-year-old actress best known for the TV series BILLIONS takes on this challenge not only as a writer/director in her feature debut but also as its star. She plays Agnes, a college professor in a small Maine town (but mostly filmed near Ipswich, Mass.) recovering from a traumatic event whose details are only gradually disclosed. To make such a scenario digestible, Victor infuses the film with a near-caustic humor, dividing in into sections with whimsical titles, gently satirizing such events as an HR meeting with deadpan punchlines and overall gifting Agnes with a persona that leans towards the comedic self-deprecation of a humorist writer like Sloane Crosley or Jessi Klein.

As an actor-turned-filmmaker, Victor is not a revelatory talent such as Greta Gerwig or even the Jesse Eisenberg of A REAL PAIN. Her use of humor doesn’t shy away from the pain Agnes experiences but the muted tone with which she often approaches it doesn’t fully register at times. SORRY, BABY works best when she has a simpatico screen partner to play off of, particularly Naomi Ackie who as best friend Lydie brings warmth but also energy whenever she’s onscreen or the great character actor John Carroll Lynch whose one sequence in the film leaves such an impact one can sense the potential of an entire ancillary feature about his character. The missing-in-action-as-of-late Lucas Hedges also has a small role seemingly crafted to display his natural charm as Agnes’ neighbor. As for Victor, this is a good first effort that mostly works but maybe doesn’t fully live up to the buzz it has received so far. 3.5/5

PEACOCK

Matthias (handsome beanpole Albrecht Schuch) has a most unusual job “renting” himself out to temporarily be whomever one needs him to: whether a friend, son, father or dinner-date companion, he’s a willing blank slate, a cipher who can fulfill any need or role. A great idea in theory but one that has serious complications for his personal life as he can’t stop being whomever anyone wants him to be even when he’s not being asked to perform.

As a zany comedy by design, PEACOCK works best whenever it’s funny; when it tries to aim for something deeper such as pathos, it’s a little wobbly, not fully pulling off the tonal shifts needed to add depth and nuance to Matthias’ plight. Happily, it just ramps up the absurdity in its final act, arriving in a place not far off from Ruben Ostlund’s THE SQUARE, only arguably more inspired (give this to Schuch, he totally commits to the bit.) This won the audience award for Best Narrative feature at IFFBoston this year, which I did not expect but can see why: for all it does to explore the consequences that come from being a likable cipher, the film’s likability (and humor) is perhaps its greatest asset. 3.5/5

HAPPYEND

A terrific sight gag and a newfangled high concept alone do not make for a wholly satisfying narrative from writer/director Neo Sora (RYUICHI SAKAMOTO: AN OPUS). Set in the near-future (though low budget enough that one may not discern this from sight alone), high school students are subject to a Big Brother-esque AI surveillance following a prank that happens to coincide with a series of minor earthquakes portending fears of an upcoming major one. The quieter, more casual moments between childhood best friends Yuta and Kuo suggest Sora has at least learned something from the films of Kore-eda, if not how to economically tell a story. Albeit an interesting mix of humanist drama and slightly absurdist satire, HAPPYEND is less notable for its accomplishments (the sight gag is pretty inspired, after all) and more for what it could have been. 3/5

Another IFFBoston, another eight movies seen. My reviews of the first four.

CAUGHT BY THE TIDES

Jia Zhangke (MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART) will never run out of ways to explore rapid change in 21st Century China or roles for his muse Zhao Tao to excel in, thank god. His latest partially distinguishes itself from previous efforts by literally going back to them, incorporating scenes and outtakes from UNKNOWN PLEASURES (2002) and STILL LIFE (2006) along with newly-shot footage to track how much China and, in particular, the Northern city of Datong has reconstructed itself between then and now in part due to the Three Gorges Dam project that the 2006 film centered on.

Using the same actors (Tao and Zhublin Li) and reediting the earlier footage (with help of some intertitles that refashion the earlier stories to relate to the current one), CAUGHT BY THE TIDES is stitched together in a way that often brings attention to its manipulation of time and space for those familiar with the earlier work, although those new to the director’s oeuvre may not even pick up on this. It’s an approach that risks confusion, but that actually might have been Zhangke’s intention. After all, time rarely travels in a straight line; the immersive, collage-like soundtrack which spans copious genres and traditions (East and West) amplifies this sense of impermanence and might be the director’s most ambitious and striking use of music to date. I now want to go back to revisit his strange, rich filmography to see how he arrived here and ponder where he might go next in detailing this world forever in flux. Rating: 4.5/5

PAVEMENTS

Where to begin with PAVEMENTS? Is it a vehicle meant to document the famed 1990s indie-rock quintet Pavement as they reunite and rehearse for a 2022 tour? A biopic of the band casting the likes of Joe Keery and Nat Wolff to play lead singer/songwriter Stephen “S.M.” Malkmus and guitarist Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg, respectively? A behind-the-scenes account of the making of said biopic? A look at a stage musical about the group from its conception to its premiere? Footage of the opening of a halfway-reverent museum exhibit of copious artifacts/detritus related to the band?

Of course, the resultant ambitious collage is all of these things and many more. Supposedly, when director Alex Ross Perry (with his first feature since 2018’s HER SMELL) signed on to make a movie about the band, he was given carte blanche to do what he wanted and encouraged not to make anything resembling a traditional overview. He certainly understood the assignment as the final product is equal parts THIS IS SPINAL TAP and SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK, but that dual-comparison only scratches the surface of everything going on here.

This isn’t an approach one could use for every musical act but it is the exact right one for Pavement, who arguably never became household names because they were just too sardonic, too drenched in irony, too much willing to be a shambles rather than a dependable, accessible outfit (all of this in the long run benefiting them artistically if not commercially.) There’s footage of Malkmus referring to the band as “the slacker Rolling Stones of the ’90s” at that time, which ends up more apt a description than I could ever come up with. Appropriately, as a genre-bend, PAVEMENTS is a bit of a shambles and ideally for those-in-the-know. Still, there’s so much that’s inventive and exciting about it (especially in how it captures the band’s time and more importantly, how it shows their impact reverberating over time) that it at least gives off the impression it’s willing to reach for the unconverted in spite of itself. 4/5

COME SEE ME IN THE GOOD LIGHT

Documentaries where the subject is terminally ill are always a tough sell; the people behind this one, chiefly director Ryan White (ASK DR. RUTH) seemingly go out of their way to dispel this impression, highlighting the film’s humor in the face of impending tragedy. Of course, with a subject like poet/activist Andrea Gibson, it would be disingenuous to oversee or even ignore how funny they are in day-to-day life, an intriguing counterpart to archival footage of them intensely performing in poetry slams and one-person shows onstage. It’s not a disconnect but more of a revelation as to how our public and private personae inevitably contrast with and also complement each other.

Gibson’s ovarian cancer diagnosis in their late 40s provides the premise for White following them and their partner, Megan Falley, mostly in and around their cozy Colorado home. Laugh-out-loud conversations about such not-profound activities as fingering and obscure word choices (“octopoidal”?) are given the same weight as the spectre of death that can’t help but color everything; to do so with such intimacy and candidness endears Andrea and Megan to us considerably. Their portrait is one of life not as a series of big moments but as something given inspiration and meaning by all the random, casual ones that naturally occur in the act of simply living. While a little slick for my taste at times (particularly the score and some editing choices), I can’t deny how genuinely effective and moving this is as a whole. 4/5

THE KINGDOM

Opening with a scene so shocking and visceral that you’re best off not expecting the filmmakers to even try topping it (and they don’t), this story of a Corsican crime family set in 1995 is business-as-usual as these things go–lotsa scenes of attacks, retaliation and hiding out from both the enemy and the police. At the center is 15-year-old Lesia (Ghjuvanna Benedetti) who has mostly been shielded from the action until she’s reunited with her crime boss father, Pierre-Paul (Santucci). This relationship is the only interesting facet here and the film’s second half is better for devoting more focus to it (particularly in some tender, nuanced exchanges between Benedetti and Santucci.) Alas, the rest is mostly unmemorable, though I did note that when Benedetti cut and bleached her hair to disguise herself, she suddenly, uncannily resembled a young Aimee Mann (but without the braid.) 3/5

Haunted Jukebox

IFFBoston 2025: Part Two

IFFBoston 2025: Part One