Review: Neil Marshall’s ‘The Reckoning’
“‘The Reckoning’ makes a sharp point about the complicity of women, or more accurately white women, in the destruction of other women.”
IFFR Review: Hung-I Chen and Muni Wei’s ‘As We Like It’
“‘As We Like It’ is a film that makes many unique moments out of its childish buffoonery, and it’s lifted, like its characters, into a class of its own.”
Review: Nora Unkel’s ‘A Nightmare Wakes’
“Making a gothic horror story about the creation of a gothic horror story is a worthy and potentially enlightening idea, but Unkel fumbles the ball at every turn with ‘A Nightmare Wakes.'”
Sundance Review: Rebecca Hall’s ‘Passing’
“‘Passing’ may be too ambiguous an experience for some, yet the way it reveals and conceals at the same time feels not just like a perfect encapsulation of its subject, but also underlines Hall’s emergence as a filmmaker to watch.”
Sundance Review: Ben Wheatley’s ‘In the Earth’
“The most surprising thing about ‘In the Earth’ may be just how much of a return it is to the pitch black humour that characterised Wheatley’s earliest films.”
IFFR Review: Anders Thomas Jensen’s ‘Riders of Justice’
“By the time ‘Riders of Justice’ ramps up its stakes, the final showdown hardly seems to matter as much as the gang’s presence.”
Sundance Review: Zoe Lister-Jones and Daryl Wein’s ‘How It Ends’
“While ‘How It Ends’ acts as a cathartic experience for all of us still in the throes of the COVID-19 crisis, its character study will allow it to remain relevant once this pandemic is (hopefully) settled.”
Sundance Review: Jane Schoenbrun’s ‘We’re All Going to the World’s Fair’
“‘We’re All Going to the World’s Fair’ would’ve benefitted from leaning more into the ambiguous lines between documentation and constructed fiction, but it remains a fascinating fiction debut nevertheless.”
Sundance Review: Nattawut Poonpiriya’s ‘One for the Road’
“‘One for the Road’ feels like a filmmaker trying to capture another director’s voice to the extent that they lose their own in the process.”
Review: Conor Allyn’s ‘No Man’s Land’
“‘No Man’s Land,’ Conor Allyn’s earthy effort at a serious revisionist western, is a film of good intentions that goes awry when it attempts to unpack any of its ideas.”
Review: Roseanne Liang’s ‘Shadow in the Cloud’
“The ‘Shadow in the Cloud’ team acknowledges gremlin mythology with genuine admiration and respect.”
Review: Vincent Paronnaud’s ‘Hunted’
“An exceedingly dark and violent survival horror film, ‘Hunted’ will make sure you never again go out alone at night.”
Kantemir Balagov’s ‘Beanpole’ Makes Oscar Shortlist
“‘Beanpole’ masters the unseen, the unspoken and the ‘presence of absence’ in the way it unpacks the toll of ongoing armed conflict through a kind of metonymic expression of experience.”
Review: Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s ‘Synchronic’
“Benson and Moorhead’s typically dark, cynical tone is well-suited to the material until a too-neat ending tries to retcon ‘Synchronic’ into something else in the most jarring way possible.”
Review: Chloé Zhao’s ‘Nomadland’
“One of the great pleasures of ‘Nomadland’ is the consistently shrewd and perceptive manner in which Fern’s hidden depths and flinty pragmatics defy expectations.”
Review: Evan Kidd’s ‘Panda Bear It’
“‘Panda Bear It’ suggests plenty about the human condition without the need to bog itself down with exposition or endless, energy-sapping ruminations.”
Review: Lawrence Michael Levine’s ‘Black Bear’
“It’s the sardonic, versatile Plaza performance that saves Levine’s ‘Black Bear.'”
Review: Emerald Fennell’s ‘Promising Young Woman’
“Fennell’s uproariously funny film showcases a powerhouse Carey Mulligan in what could very well be her career-best performance.”
Review: Thomas Vinterberg’s ‘Another Round’
“‘Another Round’ is a high-concept character piece that dips its toes into national themes, but never long enough to put off the international market it’s clearly geared towards.”
Review: Deepa Mehta’s ‘Funny Boy’
“‘Funny Boy’ may seem groundbreaking on paper, but there’s nothing particularly original about this overly familiar and largely reductive adaptation of an acclaimed novel.”