The End of Us follows a couple who unfortunately breaks up just as the world locks down in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic
How it Ends try to make a relatable pandemic-set romantic-comedy, instead the overwhelming feeling is “too soon.”
It’s oddly fitting that The End of Us, directed by Henry Loevner and Steven Kanter, is premiering at the SXSW Online 2021 Film Festival when last year’s edition was the first major event canceled by the coronavirus pandemic. The film follows the first few months through the eyes of Nick (Ben Coleman) and Leah (Ali Vingiano), a couple that unfortunately decides to break up just as the nation goes into lockdown, leaving them stranded together.
Unlike any other large historical event, the very nature of the pandemic allowed it to be documented in almost real-time. And while in some iterations it could be effective — see Shudder’s brilliant Host — the result with The End of Us is a resounding “too soon.”
Because the film begins with Nick and Leah’s breakup, we only see the worst of both of them. Instead of humorously skewering millennial relationships or LA culture, both characters just seem, to be frank, terrible people. Leah is particularly shown in a bad light, which feels a bit icky considering the film is based on Coleman’s real-life breakup.
The first 30 minutes of the film is dedicated to a “previously on” recap of the pandemic. Leah is forced to work from home while Nick loses his bartending job as the country locks down. However, instead of triggering a visceral reaction — like when you see and meme and say, “heh, relatable” — it feels oddly dated. Perhaps if we saw this in a decade it’d feel more like poignant rather than taking advantage of a moment.
What I was really craving was a story about two exes forced together by extraneous circumstances, that’s where the interesting story lies. Instead, the film focuses on baking bread, arguing about masks, and pandemic hookups. By the time we get to the actual substance, it feels like we didn’t actually go anywhere or learn anything about the pair.
The final scene, which could have had an impact had this been a different film, is a glimpse into what could have been. The End of Us is a prime example of a great premise done at the wrong time. In a few years and with more perspective on the pandemic (and the breakup), perhaps this would be a time capsule of our current era. Instead, it’s just an artifact of the time itself.
Director and writer Martin Edralin talks about his new film Islands, which is premiering in the narrative feature competition at the 2021 Online SXSW Film Festival
As I was perusing the lineup for the 2021 Online SXSW Film Festival one film, in particular, caught my eye. Martin Edralin’s Islands had a logline that immediately captured my attention with one word: Filipino. As a Filipino-American, it was a visceral experience to see my race so unabashedly showcased in a film premiering at a major festival. But that wasn’t even something that directorand writerMartin Edralin had thought about.
“It seems like there’s a movement in the US with foreign language right now, so it’s really interesting timing,” he told to me in an interview the week before the film premieres on Tuesday, March 16th.
In our chat, we talked about how Filipino culture shaped the film, how it relates to his great short film Hole, and how it was working with two non-professional actors in the lead roles.
Note: This interview has been edited and condensed.
Martin Edralin, director of Islands, premiering at the 2021 Online SXSW Film Festival. Credit: Karen Tsang
Karl Delossantos (Smash Cut):I watched the film last night and I don’t know if I should thank you for the therapy or charge you for the emotional distress. It was terrific!
Martin Edralin: Oh, thank you!
This is the first film in Tagalog to premiere at SXSW and as a Filipino-American that was great to see. How does it feel to have that distinction?
It feels great! I had no idea. It wasn’t something I even thought about. I think it was after they accepted the film that I looked into it and noticed it. I didn’t even know as a Canadian movie that we could be in the narrative competition. I thought it would be world cinema. It’s really exciting. It seems like there’s a movement in the US with foreign language right now, so it’s really interesting timing.
Yeah, especially coming off the heels of the Minari Golden Globe controversy where it was considered foreign language even though it’s an American film. The Filipino diaspora is at the center of Islands. What about that was interesting for you to explore?
That’s what I lived. Originally this was going to be made in the Philippines. Because of some funding in the development process that I qualified for I had to move it to Canada. And in that process, I realized that yeah I’m Filipino but I don’t actually know what it’s like to live in the Philippines. I visited a few times, but being Filipino in Canada or the US is very different.
And it’s my first Filipino film too so there was an awareness in the process where I really know [the material]. Where in my other films with white characters I was telling stories about humans and emotions I’m familiar with, but for Islands we could really color it with the houses we know and the family relationships. It all feels so natural. Even though I was on set, when I watched the movie for the first time I could smell the food in the scenes.
Joshua (Rogelio Bataglas) calls for help in Martin Edralin’s Islands | Credit: Film still
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Watching the opening scene was such a visceral experience for me because it was these artifacts of my childhood that I recognized. The one that really got to me was chopping the whole raw chicken with the cleaver!
Exactly! It’s little things like that. We know those sounds.
The theme of Islands is actually pretty similar to your short film Hole in that it’s about intimacy and someone trying to find it and they’re unable to.
It’s something I didn’t really realize until I was writing it or filming it that it was kind of like a follow-up. [Both films] have lead characters that are past their “prime dating years” and aren’t going to have an experience of love or sex or any real human connection.
Yeah, they’re definitely similar in that way. How did you find Rogelio Balagtas [Josua in Islands]? He and Sheila Lotuaco [Marisol in Islands] are both remarkable.
We went out to the community and we went on Facebook and I emailed every Filipino organization I could find in Canada and eventually we went to the US and the Philippines. We just really had to find the right people. With Rogelio, someone told me about a short that was made in Winnipeg and I saw him in it. He was a dad, it wasn’t the lead role or anything and he barely spoke, but there was something interesting about him.
So we asked him to self-tape and there was still just something about him. So we did a Skype audition, which was super fun because we did a few dialogue scenes but it was really about him doing things without dialogue. So we made him dance in a room by himself and cry into a pillow and pretend to masturbate and we were like wow this is the guy. Because we didn’t want the character to be sad or pathetic. We didn’t want him to masturbate and have it be seen as gross. And he’s just a sweet guy. He’s a nice guy.
Another connection with Hole where sexuality isn’t a taboo and it’s embraced and seen as a part of human life.
Yes! And especially with masturbation with men. It’s always portrayed as something as gross or bad or wrong unlike with women where it’s hypersexualized. I just felt like that’s just what everybody does.
I’m glad you mentioned too that you had Rogelio dance in his audition because I was texting my parents while watching it that line dancing is a plot device, which is so Filipino! Was that a part of the fabric of the film?
I don’t actually remember. I have a feeling that it was during casting when we were looking for senior actors — and they’re always difficult in any ethnicity to find. And I knew there were a lot of these line dancing classes out there — my mom actually goes to one — and there was one in particular that was four-hours long. The first time I went there I was almost moved to tears. It was so beautiful to see all these people that are old and some could barely dance, but they were there and doing this thing together.
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I love that the ability to dance alone is seen as something liberating in the film.
Yeah liberating and thinking of it as pleasure. It’s something we take for granted, the ability to move and to move to music. Thinking about love or sex, it’s just one of those things where it’s joy that needs to be experienced.
I want to talk about Sheila Lotuaco and the watershed scene in the middle of the film where she talks about her experience working abroad as a Filipino expatriate.What was it like shooting that scene?
That scene was made very early. This film was originally about that character, an overseas Filipino worker. It was becoming muddled and felt like two different stories so that script is away in a drawer somewhere. I did a lot of research about the OFW (Overseas Filipino Worker) experience and just read a lot of horror stories about these things happening in the Middle East and I felt like I had to keep that in the movie and say something about it.
I actually thought shooting it was going to be really challenging, but she was a natural. Even in the audition and in rehearsals, she would just cry. Actually both actors when we were rehearsing they would just cry. And I would be like, “you’re not even professional actors!” But they could really just live the experience.
And Sheila is a caregiver [like in the film], she’s a healthcare worker in Canada so it’s a little different than what other OFWs are doing around the world, but it was something important we had to say.
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We’ve all been thinking about mortality a lot with the pandemic. How did the entire story of Joshua bearing the burden of taking care of his aging parents come together?
My mom had just retired at the time in 2015 when I had just started thinking about the film, and my dad was on his way to retiring. And you hear these stories about how after someone retires they start to get old really fast from the inactivity or not using their brains in the same way. So I was thinking about that. As you know in Filipino culture we take care of our parents and I have a lot of South Asian friends who also have these multigenerational households where you’re taking care of your parents and they’re taking care of your kids, so I was also thinking about that.
Living a freelance filmmaker life with a busy schedule and whether you’re being paid well one month or paid at all the next month, how do you in this sort of life take care of your parents?
Yeah, it’s a distinction between American and Asian culture. It’s always something in the back of your mind: how do you live your life and also take care of them?
I almost feel guilty thinking about how am I going to do this. In the Philippines it isn’t even a question. It’s just something you do, it’s a part of life.
For an audience that is not familiar with the Filipino experience, what do you want them to take away from the film?
There was never really any intention of putting our culture on display, but we were certainly looking to decorate the film with it — in the production design and including line dancing and religion, how we mourn, our food. It’s all in there. We wanted to show what’s it like to be in a Filipino home.
The film was going to be quite dark. Hole and other shorts I’ve done are slower and there’s almost no levity whereas with Islands there are touches of dry humor and it’s brighter and more colorful overall. But if anyone is going to take anything from it, and I’m going to get a little dark, but we’re all aging and we’re all going to lose everybody in our lives and eventually we’re going to leave. I was thinking a lot about avoiding regret and experience these things whether it’s love or dance. We should just enjoy and experience the things we can while we can and take chances and if you life someone you should just ask them, maybe not if they’re your cousin *laughs* but yeah, just live.
Islands is premiering on Tuesday, March 16thduring the 2021 SXSW film festival. Visit sxsw.com to register.
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Two decades later, Love & Basketball is still one of the most empathetic romances and sports drama
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Happy Thursday! If you live in New York City, there will be an emergency rally on Saturday in Washington Square Park protesting the violence again Asian-Americans in recent weeks. If you’re able and comfortable please come out and support!
▶ Streaming on Hulu | Today’s movie is Gina Prince-Bythewood’s romance Love & Basketball. Despite cementing itself in pop culture in subsequent years, the semi-autobiographical film actually flopped in the box office. But what counts is where it’s at at the end of the game, and Love & Basketball certainly scored a homerun (sports!).
Childhood next-door neighbors Quincy McCall (Omar Epps) and Monica Wright (Sanaa Lathan) slowly fall in love over the years as they pursue their respective basketball careers through high school and college. [Trailer]
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Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps in Love & Basketball. Courtesy of Giphy.
Why you should watch it: After its release, Love & Basketball has become one of the most known and admired romances that came out of the 2000s. However, even with its newfound reputation, it’s somehow still underrated. The movie is beautifully complex with layers upon layers of achingly human emotions in each of the characters. Prince-Bythewood’s direction is brilliant as it shifts you in and out of the characters’ POV.
At its core, the film is a deeply intelligent and subversive character study about dreams, love, relationships, gender roles. However, what makes the film great is its memorable and irresistible cast of characters — in particular, Lathan, Epps, Alfre Woodard, and Debbi Morgan, who hits buckets in every scene she’s in (more sports!).
Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood Runtime 124 mins Year 2000
Chloé Zhao makesNomadland‘s melancholic but hopeful story of nomads traversing the American West a stunningly complex character study of life on the margins of society.
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The 2021 Sundance Film Festival went from the mountains of Park City, Utah to my living room. Here’s what the experience was like.
This post about the 2021 Sundance Film Festival first appeared in my newsletter! Sign up here.
I was fortunate enough to be invited back to cover the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, the first major fest of the year. 19 movies. 4 hours of sleep. 1 couch. Here’s how it went:
Virtual Park City, UT (aka my living room)
The experience
Last year, I was on a snowy mountaintop in Park City, Utah lacking sleep, hungry from skipping meals, and battling minor altitude sickness as I trudged through snow and ice-covered sidewalks to watch movies that may never be seen by the public. I loved every minute of it.
And while this year’s Sundance Film Festival was held virtually so that I could enjoy it from the comfort of my own couch, there was still a sense of anticipation largely thanks to clever work from the Sundance Institute to mimic the experience of the festival itself.
Part of the fun — and frustration — of any festival is taking bets on the right film to see. There were still screening blocks that forced you to pick between films and limited “seats” available for premieres. However, this time if you weren’t feeling a movie and wanted to start another you didn’t have to change theaters. It took two clicks.
Each film was still started with a slightly awkward introduction from a programmer and the filmmaker before we were treated to a beautiful homage to the Indigenous people and the land where Sundance usually takes place. But missing were the interactions with the hoards of volunteers that often were the best part of the fest.
However, what I did miss was the in-person aspect. Interacting with other critics and bloggers while waiting to get into the theater or finally finding a moment of peace to write in the corner of a hotel or the anticipation of maybe getting into a premiere if it had open space. My couch is still no Park City, especially when the buzzer from my food delivery can take you out of even the most engrossing film.
New year, new fest, new shirt
The films + acquisitions
There were certainly less buzzy films at this year’s fest, which was a blessing and a curse. Coming into the festival the only large centerpiece film was Judas and the Black Messiah, which we’ll get to. Fewer films came in with distribution meaning more chances to be surprised — and disappointed.
And even though there were more films available for acquisitions, there were few with one huge exception. Coda was acquired by Apple TV+, after a bidding war with Netflix and Amazon, for a record-breaking $25 million — it bested last year’s Palm Springs which broke the previous record with $22.5 million.
Usual streaming players like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu were largely absent while indie studio A24, perhaps the most successful studio when it comes to Sundance, didn’t show or acquire anything at the fest. Though Neon, hot on their tails as always, acquired three documentaries and premiered one film.
Compared to last year, which may have just been my first-time glow, this year’s slate felt minor by comparison. I came away last year loving a few films, this year I loved a couple and admired a few. Surely there were fewer submissions and fewer studios willing to premiere a film when they’d be unable to show it in theaters, so the programming team did the best with what they had. Here were my favorites:
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
My final film of the fest and the best. Questlove’s Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)is an archived look at the often forgotten Harlem Cultural Festival, a celebration of Black music and culture in the summer of 1969. Though it was often overshadowed by Woodstock, the festival was a watershed moment for the Black community. The movie is presented as a concert doc, except it uses the rhythm of each performance to underscore segments about the political and social environment happening around it — the various assassinations of the 60s, the Black Panther Party, etc. It’s a stunning, joyful, but enlightening doc of Black joy.
Where to watch it: The doc was acquired by Searchlight and Hulu for a record-breaking $12 million, the most for a documentary ever at a festival.
Judas and the Black Messiah
I won’t scoop myself here. More on this film next week…
Animation is an underutilized medium in documentary filmmaking, as Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Flee clearly demonstrates. Rasmussen tells the story of his friend Amir — a pseudonym — about his life in Afghanistan, his escape to Russia as a refugee family during the Taliban’s occupation of Kabul, and how he found himself settled in Europe. To protect Amir’s identity, the film uses beautiful hand-drawn animation with bits of archival footage mixed in to give us an incredibly intimate look at Amir’s journey. However, what makes this documentary truly great is how it demonstrates how past trauma can affect your present life as Amir tries to move in with his boyfriend. [Full review]
Where to watch it: The doc was acquired by Neon. They’re looking to release it this year.
CODA
The first film that I enjoyed was the first one I saw: Sian Heder’s CODA. The film focuses on shy high schooler Ruby (breakout Emilia Jones), the only hearing member of a culturally deaf family consisting of Jackie (Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin), Frank (Troy Kotsur), and Leo (Daniel Durant), who joins the school choir to spend more time with her crush. However, after the choir director realizes her raw talent, he encourages her to apply to music school — forcing her to decide between staying with her family or following her dreams. It doesn’t break far out of the coming-of-age drama formula, but there are beautiful moments of direction that help you understand what it’s like to be deaf in a hearing world. [Full review]
Where to watch it: CODA was acquired by Apple TV+ for a record-shattering $25 million. Expect to see it streaming on the platform for next year’s award season.
Every movie I watched ranked
Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
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Chloé Zhao makesNomadland‘s melancholic but hopeful story of nomads traversing the American West a stunningly complex character study of life on the margins of society.
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Judas and the Black Messiah is an electrifying and contemplative biopic about Black Panther party chairman Fred Hampton and the plot to bring him down
Chloé Zhao makesNomadland‘s melancholic but hopeful story of nomads traversing the American West a stunningly complex character study of life on the margins of society.
Of the movies that have come out after last year’s Black Lives Matter protests, Judas and the Black Messiah is perhaps the most essential. A raw and in the trenches look at the Black Panther party through the eyes of Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya returning to Chicago after his incredible turn in Widows), the chairman of The Illinois chapter, and FBI informant William O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield), director Shaka King’s sophomore feature feels like a magnum opus.
That’s stunning considering his last feature, which also premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, came out six years ago to little fanfare. However, what makes Judas and the Black Messiah so essential is its ability to switch between electric moments of rebellion against an oppressive system and quiet moments of beauty, sadness, and love in the movement.
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To properly communicate my feelings towards the movie, I have to talk about my very visceral reaction to watching it. In one scene after returning from prison for a throwaway charge, Hampton gives a speech to a packed church of party supporters. Kaluuya is brimming with emotion — happiness, pride, rage — as his onlookers cheer him on. I was shaking like I was in the room, unable to sit any longer.
In another moment, as Hampton is talking to the mother of his child, Deborah Johnson (played sensitively by Dominique Fishback). She recites a poem to him about the fear of bringing a child into this “war zone.” Not the war between the party and the cops, the war between the country and Black people. It’s impossible not to ache physically. To feel empathetic for the experience of being Black in America.
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I’m writing this review immediately after watching the film and I’m having trouble communicating what makes it work so well. It’s above plot and above character. It’s a feeling. It’s purely human. Even O’Neal, seen as a traitor to many, is humanized. However, as Stanfield put in the post screening Q&A, that humanization isn’t meant to explain away his behavior. It’s meant to show us he felt guilty, but did what he did anyway.
Judas and the Black Messiah is perhaps the closest I’ve gotten in this long quarantine to feeling engulfed by a film like it is to watch one in a theater. It’s oscillation between electric moments of genre storytelling — thrilling moments of action — and quiet introspective studies of character keep you spellbound. That’s the word I’ve been looking for this whole review. It’s a spellbinding movie. One that will be studied for years to come.
Coming Home in the Dark follows a family on a road trip in the New Zealand mountains that is isolated and tormented by an unknown assailant
While Coming Home in the Dark doesn’t bring anything new to the thriller genre, it is an anxiety-inducing mean and lean entry that is the perfect kind of Midnight screening at Sundance 2021.
Coming Home in the Dark is like the best of home invasion thrillers — slow-burning, shocking, and continually shifting circumstances — except it’s not set in a home. The movie takes us off a hiking trail and on the road across the New Zealand landscape. If there is a perfect film to screen in the Midnight section of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, it is this one.
The plot is simple. A family is on a road trip to do some hiking in the mountains of New Zealand. There’s father Hoaggie (Erik Thomson), mother Jill (Miriama McDowell), and their two sons. With sweeping vistas captured by cinematographer Matt Henley, it’s clear that the family is alone.
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That is until Mandrake (Daniel Gillies) and his quiet sidekick Tubs (Matthias Luafutu)come walking over the ridge towards the picnicking family wielding a powerful rifle and nothing to lose. The entire ordeal, which takes place over a chilling twenty or so minutes is reminiscent of the infamous lake scene in Zodiacor perhaps the eggs scene in Funny Games. It’s restrained, simmering with tension — until it’s not.
Director James Ashcroft, who wrote the film alongside Eli Kent, said at the start of the screening, “I hope it gets under your skin.” And it does. Coming Home in the Dark is built for maximum anxiety-inducing suspense that can turn into violence — though not glorified — at the drop of a hat. That opening scene, one of the best of the fest, is the perfect example of that.
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As the story moves from the mountains to a car driving to an unknown location in the dark, the claustrophobic atmosphere becomes all the more apparent thanks to Gillies’ committed and unpredictable performance. However, unlike many other home invasion-inspired movies, Mandrake and Tubs aren’t torturing the family for no reason — like The Strangers’s infamous “because you were home” line. No, they have a purpose, which makes things feel all the more hopeless.
Coming Home in the Dark doesn’t necessarily reinvent the thriller genre. Instead, it takes all its best elements and puts them to good use. The result is a sleek, well-shot, mean, and lean — it clocks in at 93 minutes — entry that leaves you satisfied knowing that you got exactly what you were looking for.
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Chloé Zhao makesNomadland‘s melancholic but hopeful story of nomads traversing the American West a stunningly complex character study of life on the margins of society.
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Nicolas Cage is on a mission to return a missing woman in the Japanese Wild West post-apocalyptic hellscape that is Prisoners of the Ghostland
Prisoners of the Ghostland is easily the wildest film of Nicolas Cage’s epic career. Mixing elements of Escape from New York and Mad Max: Fury Road with acid, the result is a psuedo-western-samarai post-apocalyptic action film that is going to be a midnight screening staple for years to come.
In the words of Trinity the Tuck, “I don’t know what the f—k she’s saying, but girl, I am living.” Prisoners of the Ghostland is an assault on the eyes, ears, mind, and sanity as Nicolas Cage rips through a Japanese Wild West post-apocalyptic hellscape littered with *checks notes* mutated corpses of prisoners. Yeah, I think I got that right.
To say that director Sion Sono, who is making his English-language debut with the 2021 Sundance Film Festival premiere of this film, is one of the most subversive filmmakers working today is an understatement. This satirical pseudo-western-samurai film feels like it has never existed before in any form. Yes, comparisons could be made to George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road or Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill or John Carpenter’s Escape from New York, but it’s his amalgamation of all those films, combined with some inventive East meets West production and costume design, that makes Prisoners of the Ghostland a singular property.
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Hero (Cage) is tasked by the Governor (Bill Moseley) to rescue his daughter Bernice (Atomic Blonde’sSofia Boutella) from a mysterious outpost just past the ghostland where unknown nightmares await. And that’s really the entire plot. Nothing else is going on — and nothing else needs to go on. All you need to enjoy this film is the wildly inventive staging of this incredibly built world, the surprisingly adept action, and some of ballsy humor and line delivery from Nicolas Cage — this is a pun.
I could go on and on about Prisoners of the Ghostland. I could tell you about the testicle-exploding suit or the interpretive dance explaining a nuclear explosion or the bank heist gone wrong with famed actor John Cassavetes son, but I’m just going to let you experience this acid trip of a film on its own. Is it good? I mean, objectively, no. It’s dramatically inert, devoid of character, and confusing as all hell. Did I enjoy every minute of it? You’re damn right.
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Chloé Zhao makesNomadland‘s melancholic but hopeful story of nomads traversing the American West a stunningly complex character study of life on the margins of society.
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Mass watches as four people come together to talk through an old wound that has been preventing them from moving on with their lives
Mass is a stunningly raw and emotional journey through trauma, grief, and healing featuring four tour-de-force performances that’ll leave you breathless.
Four people gather in a small room in the back of a Church basement. We know that they have a history considering the meeting is being coordinated like a sitdown between mafia bosses, but we don’t quite know what. And to truly appreciate Mass, which premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, you should keep it that way. The movie will tell you eventually, but it’ll earn that reveal.
Although, if you’re reading this review you likely already know it, so I’m not holding back.
Fran Kranz, perhaps best known as the stoner Marty in my beloved The Cabin in the Woods, directed the film from a script he wrote. His debut in both roles. But you would never know it from how assured the film is. Something happened to Gail (Martha Plimpton) and Jay (Jason Isaacs). Something so traumatic that they’ve been in therapy for years working up the courage to face Linda (Hereditary’s Ann Dowd) and Richard (Reed Birney).
The first 45 minutes of the film are spent skirting around the subject. Blessedly sparing us from any clunky exposition. We don’t need it anyway. All we need to know is the emotions. Gail is angry and hesitant. Jay is also angry but willing to hear things out. Linda is regretful. And Richard… well, Richard is detached. We sit in these roles through simmering, slow-burn dialogue where the couples catch up. Clearly not friends but connected. And then that moment happens. When Gail finally stops being hesitant and runs headlong into it all. “Well, your son killed my son, so I’d like to know.”
It’s revealed that Linda and Richard’s son killed Gail and Jay’s son in a mass shooting at their school. After years of therapy, Gail and Jay feel ready to ask Linda and Richard the questions that have been preventing them from moving on. Did they see the signs ahead of time? What happened in his childhood to make this happen? Do they blame themselves?
That last question holds a lot of weight for both couples. That’s because Gail and Jay want to find someone to blame, Richard wants to explain it away, and Linda is still trying to figure out whether or not she is to blame. Kranz’s screenplay shows incredible restraint by rarely veering into anything that feels overwrought or inauthentic — perhaps the one thread of conversation that does is about gun control.
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For a premise that is prime for melodrama, Mass has little of it. There is a flow to the conversation. A flow that starts out as a leek before becoming a tsunami in the third act. There are threads about parenting, consequence, and grief that take you on an emotional rollercoaster driven by four stunning and committed performances that is a watershed moment in each of the actors’ careers — Plimpton and Dowd steal the show though.
One theme that you’d expect me to list is forgiveness. But from my perspective Mass isn’t about that. Perhaps forgiveness is a part of it somehow, but it is simply a means to an end. At its core it is about healing. It is about hope. How in the darkest moments of life we have the capacity to heal our spirits. We have the means to do that but simply have to be willing to do the work. Mass shows us the work.
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Chloé Zhao makesNomadland‘s melancholic but hopeful story of nomads traversing the American West a stunningly complex character study of life on the margins of society.
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John and the Hole follows a teen named John who holds his entire family captive in a deep concrete hole in the middle of the woods.
John and the Hole as an intriguing enough premise holds you for some of its running time, but its lack of commitment to the black comedy or biting satire that it begs for leaves you wanting it to dig deeper.
A boy named John (Charlie Shotwell) stumbles through the woods looking for his lost drone and instead happens upon a nearly ten-meter deep concrete hole in the ground. Cue title card John and the Hole. Fascinatingly we don’t get that title card until about thirty minutes into the film when we cut away from John’s narrative to a young girl in an alternate story (universe?) who asks her mother to tell her the story of “John and the Hole.”
That aside does a lot for the film, which premiered in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. It tells us that this is a cautionary tale rather than a depiction of real life. That’s partly why it feels so akin to director Yorgos Lanthimos’ work like Dogtooth or The Killing of the Sacred Deer. It’s clear that John and the Hole director Pascual Sisto — this is his directorial debut — was at least inspired by those films. It also explains why this film was a selection at the canceled 2020 Cannes Film Festival — Lanthimos was a favorite.
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We don’t learn much about the titular John other than the fact that he’s motivated to be an adult, which partially explains why one night he systematically and quietly drugs his family — father Brad (Michael C. Hall), mother Anna (Jennifer Ehle) and sister Laurie (Taissa Farmiga) — and places them at the bottom of the titular hole with no way out.
Outside of the hole John drives his parents’ car, buys himself food with money he withdraws from the ATM, and even tries and propositions Anna’s friend. It’s like a twisted version of Home Alone. Meanwhile, in the hole, the family struggles to understand why John is doing this to them. From what little interaction we see it seems the family is well-adjusted and loving. And John still cares for them by bringing them water and food — he even cooks them risotto at one point, the only time he actually addresses them.
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And while this setup and much of the plot feels prime for some Lanthimos-like black comedy or a stinging satire on parenting, it feels like the movie is just kind of there. Sisto noted that he got the inspiration for the film after reading an article about “snowplow parenting,” a strategy where parents clear any potential obstacles or challenges for their children to succeed. And while I can see the story pushing for some commentary on the subject, it never really scratches the surface.
There’s so much potential in a movie with the premise (hell, even the title) of John and the Hole. But what makes Lanthimos such a successful and singular filmmaker is his ability to find the outsized versions of humanity in his absurdist situations. John and the Hole is almost too realistic in its approach to even hold your attention. Honestly, a little less John and a little more hole would have done wonders for this movie.
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Chloé Zhao makesNomadland‘s melancholic but hopeful story of nomads traversing the American West a stunningly complex character study of life on the margins of society.
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A doctor and a park ranger venture into the forest to find a research hub that went quiet in In the Earth. However, after a run-in with a stranger, they get more than they bargained for.
In the Earth is a hypnotic, psychedelic, and anxiety-inducing assault on the senses that invokes comparisons to the best of folk horror, body horror, slashers, and science fiction, yet still comes out as a singular — and stunning — piece of filmmaking.
In the Earth, director Ben Wheatley’s newest film that premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival this week, is clearly derived from a broad range of cinematic influences spanning multiple genres. Yet it still feels like a singular piece of work and perhaps his most successful film to date.
I’ll be candid, I struggle with Wheatley’s films. They’re well-made, intriguing for a moment, but I’m left cold in the end. With In the Earth, Wheatley is able to capture your attention with an ever-changing narrative that makes slight shifts to constantly keep you on the edge of your seat.
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In the first act, which harkens back to the best of folk horror — The Blair Witch Project, The Wicker Man, and the more recent The Ritual come to mind — we’re introduced to Dr. Martin Lowery (Joel Fry), who makes his way to a checkpoint on the edge of a forest where he is meant to meet with the park ranger to guide him.
There are allusions to our current day, masks, hand sanitizer, temperature checks. However, it’s not explicitly stated what is happening in the world. The movie isn’t about that. The park ranger, Alma (Ellora Torchia), is tasked with taking Martin into the forest on an arduous two-day hike to meet with his research colleague who has stopped responding to his correspondence.
The hike is underscored by an incredible synth-infused score by frequent Wheatley and Darren Aronofsky composer Clint Mansell and isolating cinematography by Nick Gillespie that invokes the feeling of dread so often associated with folk horror. It’s a slow-burn until a terrifying attack in the middle of the night leaves Martin and Alma injured, shoeless, and looking for help.
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They run into Zach (Reece Shearsmith), a man living in the woods who shows them kindness by tending to their wounds, giving them food, and shoes. But not all is as it seems. Eventually, the pair find themselves in the middle of a slasher movie complete with The Shining-like imagery and edited with masterful precision for maximum anxiety.
There are so many comparisons I could make to try to help you understand what In the Earth is. In addition to the folk horror and slasher elements, there are flashes of body horror — like last year’s Possessor (produced by Wheatley), high-concept science fiction reminiscent of Upstream Color or Annihilation, and even moments of fantasy. However, In the Earth stands completely on its own.
It would be a disservice to divulge any more of the plot than I already have, but what I can say is that In the Earth is an assault on the senses — your eyes, your ears, even touch. In the Egyptian theater at the center of Park City, this film would have swallowed the audience whole. Even from my living room, I felt untethered. It’s psychedelic, hypnotic, and impossible to not lose yourself.
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Chloé Zhao makesNomadland‘s melancholic but hopeful story of nomads traversing the American West a stunningly complex character study of life on the margins of society.
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Flee follows an Afghan refugee’s journey with his family to find safety in Europe. Years later he recounts the story to a friend who documents the story through animation.
Flee is a great argument for animation’s place in documentary filmmaking. Though we’ve seen refugee stories before, this one is specific and intimate. Filled with nuances about trauma, sexuality, and finding home. An emotional, visceral, and ultimately cathartic experience.
At the start of Flee, which premiered in the World Documentary section of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, we watch a man lie back in a bed. We see him from a bird’s eye view. He’s animated, but something about the animation tells us that this is drawn from life. Offscreen we hear director Jonas Poher Rasmussen ask the man, “what does the word ‘home’ mean to you?”
At that, the man, Amin, begins to transport us back to 1984 Kabul, Afghanistan. As he describes the place and time, the rough charcoal sketches morph into vivid colors as we meet his family. He begins to talk about them — his mother, father, brother, and sisters. However, he quickly cuts off the interview saying, “it’s my past. I can’t run away from it. I don’t want to.” But he can’t continue, which Rasmussen understands.
That’s because Rasmussen, we learn, is old school mates with Amin. He describes seeing him on the train. He describes him in great detail. Decades later they’re still friends and Rasmussen has taken interest in telling Amin’s story of fleeing Kabul as the Taliban took control of the city and his journey to eventually settle in Denmark. And the way Rasmussen tells it is the way any other person would learn about their friends’ past. Flee feels like a story that you lie back in a bed and listen to with the storyteller right next to you — this quite literally happens.
This might be a good place to mention that the entire film is animated. That’s in large part to protect Amin’s privacy. At the same time, it allows us to see his memories, as fickle as they are like all memories, as he remembers them. Months later he sits back down to recount the story. And from there, Flee captures you and doesn’t let you go until it cuts to black.
Jonas Poher Rasmussen, director of Flee, an official selection of the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Yann Bean.
There’s so much to unpack in Amin’s story, but I will leave that for you to uncover when you watch it. And I’m telling you now, watch it when it comes out — thankfully Neon has acquired the film for distribution (the first of the fest). Instead, I want to talk about what makes Flee so effective as a documentary.
Documentarians often find archival footage to piece together the story they’re trying to tell. They fill in the gaps with interviews or reenactments. Instead, Flee lets Amin tell the story. Rasmussen simply gives us a way to see it all unfold. Hearing Amin’s voice as it wavers, the animation often following his lead, makes the entire experience feel intimate. Like he’s telling it just to us.
Periodically, we’ll flip back to the present, which we also see in the same hand-drawn animation. It only heightens the intimacy. There are asides about how that past and trauma has shaped who Amin is now, especially his relationship with his partner Kasper, who hopes to move to the countryside with Amin. However, he can tell something is holding him back.
We learn through Amin’s story why he’s so hesitant to take the next step with Kasper. He doesn’t tell us, but we’re able to figure it out. In a gorgeous and poetic scene right before the end of the film, we watch Amin return home to Denmark in the present after a business trip. Kasper is off in the distance waiting for him in the busy airport. Amin stares from afar and says in voiceover, “even when you’re in a safe place, you’re on your guard.” Quickly, he adds, that maybe that’s something that needs to change.
Flee pushes the medium of documentary filmmaking forward by finding a way to get us to both sympathize and empathize with Amin’s feelings through our own experiences. It was almost a visceral experience. I experienced nothing close to the hardships Amin experienced as he tried to escape Afghanistan by way of Russia through human traffickers. However, the film’s intimate understanding of the story it was telling made it possible to find a way to apply his story to my own life. Even in a safe place, you’re on your guard. Maybe it is about time to change that.
Coda follows the only hearing member of a culturally deaf family as she finds her voice as part of her school’s choir
Coda starts Sundance 2021 off on a high note. While it doesn’t stray too far from its familiar coming-of-age dramedy plot, its keen observations of the hardships and joys of being deaf in a hearing world. It’s impossibly charming, funny, and filled with memorable characters.
Coda tells a story it feels like we’ve seen hundreds of times before — but trust me when I say you haven’t seen anything like it yet. Coda premiered in the U.S. dramatic competition section of the virtual 2021 Sundance Film Festival, the second film of writer and director Sian Heder to premiere at the fest, and will likely be one of the year’s success stories.
You know the setup. Ruby (Emilia Jones — get to know this name), an angsty and picked-on teen, struggles her way through her senior year of high school. She is mostly ostracised from her classmates because her family is poor and runs a fishing business, however the fact that she’s the only hearing member of her deaf family also plays into the torment.
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As you could imagine, she feels a weight of obligation to help her father Leo (Daniel Durant) and older brother Frank (Troy Kotsur) with the business, and her mother Jackie (Oscar winner Marlee Matlin) doesn’t help things either. However, she does it out of love for her family, which other than being culturally deaf are completely happy.
Knowing her crush Miles (Sing Street’s Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) is joining the choir, Ruby makes a rash decision to also join. However, as we see in moments of privacy, Ruby can sing — like really sing. As the movie progresses, her choir teacher Bernardo Villalobos (Eugenio Derbez), offers to train her to audition for music school. Of course, though, she keeps it from her family for fear of disappointing them.
You know the plot. You can tell me what you think is going to happen and I’ll probably tell you you’re right. However, there are moments where Coda breaks from the genre trappings to deliver one of the best musings on what it’s like to be deaf in a hearing world.
A still from CODA by Siân Heder, an official selection of the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
When Ruby’s parents watch her perform for the first time, we hear the song for the first few moments — and then silence. We’re in her parents’ heads. We can’t hear what she sounds like, which is anxiety-inducing for them. However, they begin to look around. The gift of observation that those that are deaf have allowed them to see what the music is doing to the audience so that even though they can’t hear her they know that she has something.
Coda benefits from its stellar and deep exploration of every character, each of whom just happens to be made of pure charm and delight. We get to spend a little time with each of them to understand exactly why they make the decisions they make, the struggles that they fight through — exploring the minutiae of being culturally deaf.
Coda never strays to the melodrama. Every moment feels earned and grounded in something real thanks to the strong performances from the entire cast. However, if there is a breakout this year at Sundance, it is Emilia Jones. She pours with emotion at every point often slipping in and out of signing that is wracked with emotion. If Coda is about anything, it’s about the joys we find through adversity. And though that adversity might shape us, it doesn’t define us. A stunning wait to start the fest.
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Chloé Zhao makesNomadland‘s melancholic but hopeful story of nomads traversing the American West a stunningly complex character study of life on the margins of society.
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The titular Promising Young Woman spends her nights baiting male predators into taking her home with them and teaching them a lesson they’ll never forget
Promising Young Woman balances its serious subject matter with a darkly comedic tone and satisfyingly entertaining revenge narrative that feels like a centerpiece of the #MeToo era. Add in a career-best performance by Carey Mulligan and you have a unique gem of a film.
▶︎ Available on-demand and in theaters on Christmas Day.
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If points were being awarded for level of difficulty, Promising Young Woman would score a ten. The incredible amount of thematic, tonal, and character weight that director and writer Emerald Fennell has to balance in the film—her debut—is admirable. Does it all work? Most of the time. Sometimes it gets away from her, but even when it does it’s hard to look away.
The movie, which makes a play for my heart by instituting Charli XCX’s “Boys” to great effect, opens with Cassie Thomas (Carey Mulligan) doing her best impression of me at a bar pre-pandemic. She’s sh!tfaced, barely able to hold her head up. Watching from afar, of course, are a group of men just off of work on the prowl. Fennell captures the group like predators—which you’ll see why—stalking their prey.
One of them, however, seems like a nice guy. Jerry (Adam Brody) chastises the men for objectifying Cassie before offering to help her get home. And that seems like the plan at first, but while in the car her makes a last minute decision to take her to his apartment. There he begins to try and have sex with her even though she’s passed out. However, he’s horrified to find you that she’s not drunk.
This is what Cassie does over and over every night as a way of scaring men into never preying on women again. We dig into exactly why Cassie is doing this throughout the movie in bits and pieces, but the core is because of an incident in college where her friend Nina was raped and, as the story often terribly goes, wasn’t believed. Though it’s never said, it’s heavily implied that Nina eventually killed herself.
After a swoon-inducing meet cute with Ryan (Bo Burnham), an old classmate, Cassie decides to finally enact revenge on the people that led to Nina’s suicide—a friend that didn’t believe her (Alison Brie), the dean of the school (Connie Britton), the lawyer who bullied her into silence (Alfred Molina), and the man who did it (Chris Lowell).
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This is the point when Promising Young Woman hits its stride with a keen handle on its darkly comedic tone mixed with devilishly fun revenge thrills—the movie is broken into sections as Cassie takes them down one by one. However, what elevates the movie is the sensitive exploration of Cassie’s complex and fractured psyche. We explore her motivations and why she’s chosen the life she’s chosen—with interludes with her parents played by Clancy Brown and the legend Jennifer Coolidge and her boss Gail (Laverne Cox). She was once on track to be a doctor, but this incident threw her life off track like it does many women.
The observations about men, sexism, and the systems in place—both societal and institutional—that allow predators to often get off free are both broad and specific, giving an acute insight into the plights of being a women in a society that doesn’t protect them. And that very ambition is admirable of Fennell.
The film does feel uneven at points. There’s a lot of story and development to get through—and to pack it up in a glossy and entertaining experience makes it even more difficult to pull off. However, Mulligan’s performance, emotional without being overwrought and campy without being over-the top, keeps us grounded in something real. She’s a revelation.
Even with a questionable ending, Promising Young Woman is one of those movies that you’ll find yourself coming back to. Its a heavy subject that it’s trying to cover, but Fennell does it with both reverence and a bit of cheeky fun that only someone who has a deep understanding of its complexities can pull off.
The Midnight Sky follows a cataclysmic event that leaves a scientist alone in the Artic and a spaceship returning home in the dark
The Midnight Sky combines the story of Interstellar with the action set pieces of Gravity but ends up being less than stellar and unable to leave the ground.
George Clooney’s directorial filmography is really as mixed as they come with highs (Good Night, and Good Luck) and lows (The Monuments Men) and then the low lows (Suburbicon). And so it’s fitting that his latest film The Midnight Sky—streaming on Netflix on December 23rd—lands very much in the middle. It feels as if it should be a sprawling sci-fi epic. It isn’t. It feels as if it should be a meditation on loneliness and regret. It isn’t. What it is is a perfectly serviceable two hour mishmash of the science fiction films that came before—mainly Interstellarand Gravity—that were noticeably more successful.
The Midnight Sky follows two storylines. In one, Augustine Lofthouse (George Clooney plays him in the present, Ethan Peck in flashbacks), a scientist who voluntarily stayed behind in the Arctic as the rest of the base evacuates back to their families during a global catastrophe is shocked to find a girl that was left behind (Caoilinn Springall). The pair, struggling to survive, must travel to a distant communications satellite that they are going to use to communicate with the spaceship Aether to warn them not to return to Earth.
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That spaceship is on its return mission from K-23, a recently discovered moon orbiting Jupiter that is able to sustain human life. Onboard are Sully (Felicity Jones), a bright and cheery communications officer, her partner Tom (David Oyelowo), the commander of the ship, along with the rest of their crew (Kyle Chandler, Damien Bichir, and Tiffany Boone). They are unaware of what has happened on Earth, all they know is that communication has gone dead, which has caused them to drift from course and into uncharted swathes of Space leaving them vulnerable to the unknown.
The two storylines battle for priority in Mark L. Smith’s screenplay, which betrays any momentum the film could muster. There are flashes of excitement, particularly a narrow escape from the frigid sea for Clooney’s half and a Gravity-like brush with an asteroid field for the Aether, but any of the thrills feel hollow because our investment in the characters and story are left in zero gravity.
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It’s one of the few times I’ve felt more exposition would have been welcome. We teased with so many interesting tidbits of information—including this cataclysmic event on Earth and the search for a habitable planet, but are left with more questions than answers. Which would be fine if the film had strong character arcs—instead we’re left with unearned payoffs.
And then it just ends with a third act twist that would have been more impactful had Augustine been more than just a character we were following. The Midnight Sky shot for the… well, sky, but missed in almost every one of its ambitions. A more focused-film and tighter screenplay might have helped this movie take off. Instead, it’s left grounded.
In Netflix’s DickJohnson is Dead, cameraperson Kirsten Johnson stages various enactments of her father’s death as he suffers from dementia.
Dick Johnson is Dead is a fascinating and extremely personal exercise in experimental documentary filmmaking that will have you laughing until you cry and crying until you laugh. It is a film unabashedly about death—and life.
There are a few constants in life. Maybe it’s a person. Maybe it’s something that has become a part of your story. Maybe it’s a part of your body. For C. Richard Johnson, they’re his wife and then his daughter, a chocolate cake and a chair, and his deformed toes. This is not a joke. In actuality, Dick Johnson is Dead the filmis a bit of a joke seeing as the titular Dick is very much alive. His daughter Kirsten Johnson, a documentary cameraperson as she puts it—she even made a film called Cameraperson (streaming on The Criterion Channel or you can rent it on Amazon), has tasked herself with filming dramatizations of her father’s death.
Why? Dick, a recently retired clinical psychologist, is suffering from dementia—the same illness that took his wife seven years prior, which Kirsten captured some of in Cameraperson. Instead of waiting for the inevitable, she films various enactments of his death, which at the start he enthusiastically participates in. The scenarios range from bleeding out from a neck wound to every New Yorker’s fear of being struck by a falling air conditioning unit. She even stages his funeral and entrance into heaven, which is full of glitter, modern dance, and Jesus performing a miracle. And as dark as the humor is, I found myself laughing at all of it—until it started to make me cry.
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What’s fascinating about both Cameraperson, which was stitched together from excess footage from her various projects across the globe, and Dick Johnson is Dead is that the filmmaking bleeds on the edge. You see what went into getting the shot—casting stunt people, the special effects. There are moments when Kirsten is discussing her motivations for the film with her father and asking him about certain scenarios. At one point, the voiceover we’re hearing cuts to her recording it her apartment closet. But this is all to say that the movie isn’t about these reenactments. Instead, it’s about what’s happening in between.
Both of them are still dealing with his wife’s passing, even if it was a decade ago. And the fact that he’s suffering from the same illness makes it all the harder because Kirsten knows what is coming. In one clip Dick heartbreakingly apologizes to her for it. The camera is on the floor and neither of them are in shot. We get those moments in passing. As I was watching the movie I got the sense that Kirsten was using it as a way to spend more time with her father and learn more about his life. I also got the sense that it was a sort of therapy for her. Ironic since Dick himself was a therapist—and a great one based on a scene later in the film.
I’m 26. My father just turned 60 and my mother is 57. I’m just now starting to feel the mortality of my parents, and Dick Johnson is Dead only made me feel it more. However, what it also did is motivate me to learn more about them. To spend more time with them. To capture them more. This movie isn’t the old cliché of being about life instead of death. It’s very much about death. It’s unabashedly about death. However, it’s about the alternating sensations of crying and laughing we feel when we confront it. Both are valid reactions from everyone involved, the person, their loved ones, and even those that only saw them in passing. Dick Johnson Is Dead is a love letter to life—a life that includes death.
