Culture Representation: Taking place in unnamed cities in France, the sci-fi comedy film “Smoking Causes Coughing” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Five superheroes called the Tobacco Force, whose mission is to combat people who cause pollution from smoking, are sent on a team-building retreat while a lizard villain threatens to take over the world.
Culture Audience: “Smoking Causes Coughing” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching quirky European movies that blend societal observations with bizarre comedy.
Oulaya Amamra, Vincent Lacoste, Anaïs Demoustier and Jean-Pascal Zadi in “Smoking Causes Coughing” (Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing)
“Smoking Causes Coughing” has some amusing satirical things to say about pollution and the concept of utopias. It’s not writer/director Quentin Dupieux’s best movie, and the ending is underwhelming, but most of the movie is entertaining to watch. Unlike his other films that have a overall cohesive narrative, “Smoking Causes Coughing” is more like a series of sketches compiled for a movie. “Smoking Causes Coughing” had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and later played at other film festivals in 2022, including Fantastic Fest and AFI Fest.
“Smoking Causes Coughing” (which takes place in an unspecified future in unnamed cities in France) begins by showing a road trip being taken by an unnamed mother (played by Julia Faure), an unnamed father (played by David Marsais) and their teenage son Stéphane (played by Tanguy Mercier), who are passing by a remote desert-shrub area in their car. Stéphane wants to stop the car because he has spotted five “celebrities” he wants to meet: a group of “superheroes” named the Tobacco Force, who all dress in outfits that are similar to Power Rangers outfits, but in blue, white and gold.
When Stéphane and his parents stop the car, Stéphane runs closer to see the five members in this desert-shrub area. The members of the Tobacco Force have surrounded a giant mutant turtle called Tortusse (played by Olivier Afonso), who moves like a human, and are fighting this creature. Laser-like gas comes out of the Tobacco Forces’ fists until Tortusse explodes, with the body splatter flying in all directions, including on Stéphane and his parents. (Part of this scene is already shown in the trailer for “Smoking Causes Coughing.”)
This star-struck family is unfazed by being covered in gunky remains of an animal. They want to take photos with the Tobacco Force. All of the members willingly oblige and happily pose for pictures with these strangers who have gunk on their faces and clothes. And then this family gets back in the car and is not seen again for the rest of the movie.
The Tobacco Force’s five members, whose ages range from 20s to 40s, have a mission to save the world from pollution, specifically pollution from people smoking. They are also told there is a constant threat of villains trying to destroy the world. The villian who is their biggest threat is named Lizardin (played by Benoite Chivot), who is said to be much more dangerous than Tortusse. The Tobacco Force has a small robot sidekick named Norbert 500 (voiced by Ferdinand Canaud), who does all of the cleaning up after the Tobacco Force’s inevitable messes.
All of the members of the Tobacco Force are named after ingredients found in cigarettes. The oldest member of the Tobacco Force is Benzene (played by Gilles Lellouche), who acts as if he’s the leader of the group. Nicotine (played by Anaïs Demoustier) is flirtatious and bubbly. Ammonia (played by Oulaya Amamra) is sassy and assertive. Mercury (played by Jean-Pascal Zadi) is cautious and a married father of two underage children. Methanol (played by Vincent Lacoste) is the group’s quietest and youngest member. Benzene says that Methanol reminds Benzene of how Benzene used to be when he was Methanol’s age.
The Tobacco Force has to report to a boss named Chief Didier (voiced by Alain Chabat), who is usually just called Chief. This cranky boss looks like a human-sized rat and constantly has green ooze drooling from his mouth. The costumes in “Smoking Causes Coughing” are deliberately made to look like they’re from a tacky, low-budge sci-fi B-movie. For example, Tortusse’s costume looks like it’s ready to fall apart at any moment. Chief is obviously just a cheap-looking puppet.
A running joke in the movie is that Chief (who has a personality as slimy as the green ooze the drips from his mouth) is a ladies’ man who has no shortage of women in his bed. (He is seen with a different lover in every scene.) It’s the movie’s way of commenting on how power can be an aphrodisiac and can make someone look more attractive.
And not even Nicotine and Ammonia are immune to this attraction. Another running joke in the movie is that Nicotine and Ammonia both want to be the “favorite” employee of Chief and probably date him, but Nicotine and Ammonia don’t want to admit it to each other. Still, Nicotine and Ammonia sneakily try to find out what Chief says and does when he’s alone with the other woman. Nicotine and Ammonia also pretend not to be jealous when they see Chief with any of his girlfriends.
The Tobacco Force has been having some in-fighting recently, so Chief orders this quintet to go on a team-building retreat, which is also in a desert-shrub area. The best way to describe their living situation at this retreat is it looks like a high-tech camp. The group members are supposed to be by themselves at this retreat, but it should come as no surprise that they get some unexpected visitors.
A large part of “Smoking Causes Coughing” is about people sitting around a campfire and telling their scariest or most unusual stories. Benzene tells a story about two married couples—spouses Bruno (played by Jérôme Niel) and Agathe (played by Doria Tillier) and spouses Christophe (played by Grégoire Ludig) and Céline (played by Adèle Exarchopoulos) going on a camping trip together. Someone in this group of spouses gets alienated from the other three people, and choas ensues.
“Smoking Causes Coughing” has a total running time of about 80 minutes, which is a good-enough length, because this movie doesn’t have much of a plot. The performances of the cast members are mildly engaging but not particularly outstanding, People should not be fooled into thinking that the “superhero” costumes are indication that “Smoking Causes Coughing” is an adrenaline-packed action movie. This is a film that is for viewers who like seeing movies with unusual characters, eccentric comedy and the appeal of some very unexpected things happening.
Magnet Releasing released “Smoking Causes Coughing” in select U.S. cinemas, digital and VOD on March 31, 2023. The movie was released in France on November 30, 2022.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Grenoble, France, the sci-fi drama film “The Five Devils” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A swimming instructor, who used to be a gymnast, has her life upended when her 8-year-old daughter finds out family secrets after a troubled relative comes to visit.
Culture Audience: “The Five Devils” will appeal primarily to people who like watching artsy and offbeat European films that have elements of science fiction.
Swala Emati and Adèle Exarchopoulos in “The Five Devils” (Photo courtesy of MUBI)
“The Five Devils” is a science-fiction mindbender that presents its story as pieces of a puzzle that eventually emerge to reveal the whole picture of a family that has been plagued by secrets and scandals that they don’t want to discuss. This time-travel drama is intriguing but a little repetitive and predictable. The cast members give interesting performances that strengthen the uneven script. Some viewers will be offended by how the movie glorifies a selfish and unfaithful character. However, there’s enough in the story to hold the interest of viewers who are curious to see what is revealed next.
Directed by Léa Mysius (who co-wrote “The Five Devils” screenplay with Paul Guilhaume), “The Five Devils” had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. The movie is set in Grenoble, France. Like a lot of time-traveling movies, “The Five Devils” has a plot that makes people think about how life experiences could be shaped by choices versus fate.
“The Devils” begins by showing a group of horrified women in their 20s, who are dressed in sparkly leotards and standing in front of a burning building. The women are screaming in fear and horror. Most of the women have their backs to the camera, but one of these young women can clearly be seen. And she looks like she’s in complete shock.
Her name is Joanne (played by Adèle Exarchopoulos), and viewers find out that this fire happened about 10 years before, when she was part of a group of gymnastic dancers called the Five Devils. The movie circles back to this scene later in “The Five Devils,” in order to explain the circumstances under which this fire happened. Without giving away spoiler information, it’s enough to say that this fire had a profound impact on many people’s lives.
In the approximately 10 years since that fire happened, Joanne has gotten married to (ironically) a firefighter named Jimmy Soler (played by Moustapha Mbengue), who is an immigrant from Senegal. Joanne, who quit being a gymnast ever since the fire, now works as a swimming exercise instructor at a community center, where most of her students are middle-aged and elderly women.
Jimmy and Joanne have one child together: a precocious 8-year-old daughter named Vicky (played by Sally Dramé, making an impressive feature-film debut), who sometimes helps Joanne do breath-holding practices at a nearby lake. In these practice sessions, Vicky is supposed to time Joanne on how long Joanne can stay underwater. Vicky is very perceptive and has more than above-average intelligence. Vicky also has the ability to travel in the past.
Vicky doesn’t find out that she has this time-traveling ability until after her family gets a surprise visit from Jimmy’s younger sister Julia (played by Swala Emati), who works in nano-biotechnology. Julia’s presence seems to immediately disturb Joanne. Jimmy is happy to see Julia, but Joanne is standoffish and abrupt to Julia. Privately, Joanne comments to Jimmy about Julia:” I want her to leave. I can’t stand it.”
Julia meets Vicky for the first time during this visit. Vicky has an acute sense of smell, and she tells Julia that Julia smells like peat whiskey. There are other signs that Julia abuses alcohol. When Julia arrives for the visit, her left eye is bruised. Julia says she got the bruise because she accidentally fell down while drunk. It later emerges that Julia has other issues that have to do with her mental health. She has spent a certain number of years in a certain facility. The details are eventually revealed in the movie.
Vicky is a loner who likes to collect insects. Joanne knows that Vicky has an unusually strong sense of smell, but Joanne doesn’t want to tell Jimmy about it because she thinks Jimmy will want to put Vicky in therapy. Joanne doesn’t think that Vicky needs therapy. Joanne wants to be a mother who can handle everything herself.
At school, some of the students bully Vicky for having big, natural hair. These school bullies (there are about five to seven of them) taunt and attack Vicky. Because of the way Vicky’s hair looks, the school bullies call her Toilet Brush or Butt Brush. If Vicky fights back in self-defense, the bullies try to put the blame on her.
During a disturbing incident at school, the bullies surround Vicky and force soap into her mouth. But then something bizarre happens during the attack: All the kids pass out at the same time, including Vicky. School officials and parents find out, and people try to blame Vicky. However, Joanne adamantly defends Vicky and says that the kids who were bullying Vicky are to blame and should be the one to make an apology. That apology never happens, and people never find out why all of the children lost consciousness at the same time.
Meanwhile, Vicky has other episodes of passing out randomly. And every time she passes out, she goes back in the past and sees parts of Joanne’s life. In the present day, Vicky has made a liquid concoction in a jar that includes some of her own urine. (Yes, this movie is weird like that.) Vicky puts the concoction underneath the bed where Julia is sleeping.
Vicky finds out that every time she inhales this concoction, she can control when she goes into her mother Joanne’s past. Vicky is invisible to people she sees in the past, except for one person who apparently has the same psychic abilities as Vicky does. The rest of “The Five Devils” shows how Vicky finds out some family secrets that the adults in her family don’t want her to know.
The secrets involve betrayals, infidelity and lies to cover up people’s true identities. One character in particular is the catalyst for most of the chaos because this person does the most deceiving and hurting of other people. However, the movie goes out of its way to try to make this character look sympathetic, when that sympathy is not deserved in most cases. This narcissistic person, who likes to play the victim when causing problems, doesn’t like to take much responsibility for causing so much emotional damage.
Some of the movie’s supporting characters have varying degrees of knowledge or ignorance about these family secrets. Joanne’s widowed father (played Patrick Bouchitey), who doesn’t have a name in the movie, suspects one of these secrets, but he doesn’t want to really know the truth. Jimmy has a co-worker friend name Jeff (played by Hugo Dillon), who warns Jimmy that Julia’s presence is upsetting to some people in the community. Joanne has a co-worker friend named Nadine (played by Daphne Patakia), who used to be in the same gymnastics group and whose face was disfigured in the fire. Nadine has a secret that is related to the Soler family’s big secrets.
All of the cast members play their parts well, but the movie would not be as fascinating without the riveting performance of Dramé as Vicky. It is through Vicky’s eyes that viewers discover all the family secrets. Dramé is able to convey with great skill the myriad of emotions that Vicky feels, including the hurt and confusion when she finds out that a big part of the family’s life turned out to be a lie that was actively covered up by the adult in the family who causes the most emotional chaos. Vicky also finds out something that makes her question if she would have been born in the first place if certain people had made different decisions.
Vicky’s loss of childhood innocence has more emotional weight than the soap opera-ish melodrama caused by the adults in the story. “The Five Devils” loses its way a little when it leans too heavily into an over-the-top “life or death” situation toward the end of the film. And the person who was hurt by infidelity doesn’t give the type of reaction that some viewers might expect. “The Five Devils” tries to show how life can be messy, but the ending of the movie succumbs to a conventional formula that tries to ignore the big mess caused by the most toxic person in the family.
MUBI released “The Five Devils” on March 24 in New York City, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on March 31, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Portland, Oregon, the comedy/drama film “Showing Up” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: An introverted sculptor artist, who works for an arts college, must contend with a variety of challenges, including a difficult landlord, getting her art ready in time for an upcoming exhibit, her divorced parents and a troubled brother with mental health issues.
Culture Audience: “Showing Up” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Michelle Williams, filmmaker Kelly Reichardt and realistic movies about neurotic people in quirky communities.
André Benjamin and Michelle Williams in “Showing Up” (Photo courtesy of A24)
“Showing Up” is right in line with writer/director Kelly Reichardt’s pattern of doing low-key movies about people who are emotionally stifled in some way. The last third movie is not as good as the rest of the film, but it’s still a watchable story. Viewers who are expecting “Showing Up” to have a lot of melodrama, suspenseful action or shocking surprises will be disappointed. In keeping with Reichardt’s filmmaking style, “Showing Up” is a movie about people going about their everyday lives and facing challenges that aren’t that unusual. “Showing Up” had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and also screened the 2022 New York Film Festival.
Reichardt co-wrote “Showing Up” with Jonathan Raymond after they originally wanted to do a biopic about Canadian artist Emily Carr (who died in 1945, at the age of 73), but Reichardt and Raymond abandoned the idea when they found out how famous Carr is in Canada. Instead, they made “Showing Up” a fictional film about a sculptor artist named Lizzy Carr (played by Michelle Williams), who is not famous and is living a quiet and unassuming life in Portland, Oregon.
Lizzy is a sculptor artist whose day job is working in administration at a small arts college. (The college scenes in “Showing Up” were filmed at now-defunct Oregon College of Art and Craft, which closed in 2019.) Lizzy is introverted and lives by herself. When she’s at home, she prefers to work on her art and doesn’t like being interrupted. Lizzy doesn’t get her art in gallery exhibits very often. And so, the upcoming gallery exhibit that she has is a very big deal for her.
Most of Lizzy’s sculptor pieces are the size of figurines and are often of people sculpted in ragged shapes. Lizzy wants to finish all of her art on time for this exhibit, but several things happen during the course of the story that prevent her for working on her art in the uninterrupted way that she would prefer. “Showing Up” is mostly about how she deals with these challenges, as well as what she learns about herself and her priorities.
In the beginning of the movie, Lizzy is dealing with one of those challenges: her landlord Jo (played by Hong Chau), who is also an artist. Jo has an annoying habit of ignoring or delaying Lizzy’s request to repair things in Lizzy’s rental home. (Jo lives nearby.) One of the movie’s early scenes shows Lizzy becoming irritated with Jo because Lizzy has no hot water for her shower, and Jo has once again been ignoring Lizzy’s requests to fix the shower.
Jo tells Lizzy that Lizzy can use Jo’s shower in the meantime. But that’s not the point. Lizzy is paying Jo rent to have working utilities in the home. Jo isn’t keeping her end of the deal as a landlord. Lizzy comments to Jo, “You’re not the only person with a deadline.” Jo’s replies, “I know, but I have two showers, which is in insane.”
Lizzy’s art in the movie was made in real life by Cynthia Lahti. Jo’s installation-sized art in the movie was made in real life by Michelle Segre. The sizes of art pieces are meant to reflect the different personalities of Lizzy and Jo. Lizzy is quiet and unassuming. Jo is extroverted and likes to call attention to herself.
Lizzy has some other issues in her life. Her mother Jean (played by Maryann Plunkett) is also her boss at work. Jean and Lizzy sometimes have disagreements that on the surface seem to be about work, but they’re really about unspoken resentments that Lizzy and Jean have toward each other. Jean thinks Lizzy is stubborn, while Lizzy thinks Jean is too demanding. Their conflicts aren’t major, but they’re enough to make the relationship slightly strained.
A lot of this mother-daughter friction has to do with how Lizzy has been affected by her parents’ divorce. Jean uses Lizzy as a go-between to communicate with Lizzy’s free-spirited father Bill (played by Judd Hirsch), who is very different from uptight and rigid Jean. Bill has let a random bohemian couple named Dorothy (played by Amanda Plummer) and Lee (played by Matt Malloy) live with Bill in his home, shortly after he met them. Dorothy and Lee, who are from Canada, say they’re just “visiting,” but they haven’t told Bill when they’ll be leaving.
Jean thinks that Bill is being taken advantage of by this couple, because she’s pretty sure these new housemates are not giving Bill any compensation for his hospitality. Because Jean is Bill’s ex-wife and no longer lives with him, she doesn’t have a say on how he lives his life. However, Jean is pressuring Lizzy to talk to Bill about his living arrangement with these two new housemates. Lizzy doesn’t really want to get involved, so she resents that her mother is trying to use her as a pawn.
Meanwhile, Lizzy has a younger brother named Sean (played by John Magaro), who’s been struggling with mental health issues, which have led to him being homeless at various times in his life. Jean is in deep denial about Sean’s mental health issues. Jean thinks Sean is a “genius” who doesn’t need psychiatric help, while Lizzy has a completely opposite opinion.
When Sean has a big scene in a certain part of the movie, “Showing Up” falters because it just looks like awkward slapstick comedy. “Showing Up” loses a lot of emotional resonance in this scene where the movie could have been had its strongest and most meaningful impact. And frankly, it seems like this mentally ill character is just used in the most negative, stereotypical ways, instead of treating this character as a well-rounded person.
Another wasted opportunity was in casting André Benjamin as Eric, Lizzy’s friendly co-worker who is a kiln master at the college. Benjamin shares headlining billing for this movie, but you wouldn’t know it, based it on how little screen time he has (less than 10 minutes) and how Eric ends up being a character who is completely inconsequential to any storyline in the movie. Quite frankly, Eric looks like a token character in “Showing Up,” as if the filmmakers wanted to show the audience: “Look, we gave an African American a speaking role the movie to make our cast look racially diverse.”
“Showing Up” also has a few subplots that might induce boredom with some viewers. Lizzy takes care of a wounded bird with a broken wing, after Jo finds the bird and hands off the responsibility of taking care of it to Lizzy. At least the wounded bird subplot (which is obvious symbolism for how Lizzy feels) actually has a purpose for the story—unlike a meandering and flimsy subplot about Lizzy and her co-workers having to accommodate an artist in residence named Marlene Heyman (played by Heather Lawless), who is diva-like and has many star-struck fans at the school.
“Showing Up” greatly benefits from having talented cast members (especially Williams and Chau), who make the movie’s characters believable when less-skilled cast members wouldn’t have been able to do the same thing. There have been many movies made about mopey male artists who’ve dedicated themselves so completely to their art, it’s affected their personal lives. Not many movies are made about this type of female artist, so viewers might have varying reactions to Lizzy’s less-than-charismatic personality. “Showing Up” is a well-acted story about the reality of most artists’ lives: far from glamorous, struggling in obscurity, and trying to be their definition of personal greatness.
A24 released “Showing Up” in select U.S. cinemas on April 7, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in Belgium, the dramatic film “Close” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Two 13-year-old boys, who are best friends, become the targets of gossip that the boys are gay, they get bullied for it, and then tragedy strikes.
Culture Audience: “Close” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching emotionally authentic dramas about how bullying and repressed feelings can affect young people.
Pictured clockwise, from left to right: Eden Dambrine, Gustav De Waele and Émilie Dequenne in “Close” (Photo courtesy of A24)
“Close” is a memorable coming-of-age film that effectively shows the intersections of identity self-esteem, homophobia and mental illness from an adolescent viewpoint. If you’re looking for a Hollywood-made version of these issues, then you won’t find it in “Close.” And that’s not because the movie takes place in Belgium. “Close” has a more thoughtful, realistic and subtle approach that is the opposite of Hollywood-made movies that tend to have obvious messaging in overly contrived melodrama.
Directed by Lukas Dhont (who co-wrote the “Close” screenplay with Angelo Tijssens, “Close” had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where the movie won the Grand Jury Prize. “Close” also received an Academy Award nomination for Best International Feature Film. It’s not a movie about trying to guess if the close friendship between two 13-year-old boys is about homosexuality. Rather, the movie explores themes of coping with grief, staying true to one’s self, and a heart-wrenching reality that love sometimes isn’t enough to prevent a tragedy.
“Close” takes place in an unnamed city in Belgium, where 13-year-old best friends/schoolmates Léo (played by Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (played by Gustav De Waele) are so close, when they have sleepovers, they cuddle next to each other in the same bed. This imagery in the movie is meant to get viewers to question and evaluate what they think is “appropriate” for kids of this age, in terms of masculinity and femininity. When 13-year-old girls act this way, it’s not automatically assumed that they are homosexual. But 13-year-old boys who act this way are usually perceived as being homosexual or being curious about homosexuality, if they express close and affectionate emotional intimacy with each other.
From the start of the movie, Léo shows that he’s the more confident and more extroverted of the two pals. Rémi plays the oboe as a hobby. Léo tells Rémi when they are in Rémi’s bedroom: “I have an idea. I’ll become your manager. And we’ll travel the world, even the moon. And we’ll become filthy rich.”
Léo also offers to upload a video on YouTube of Rémi playing the oboe. “It will get a million views,” Léo says enthusiastically of this proposed video. However, Rémi declines this offer. He wants to play the oboe for the pure enjoyment of it, not to get rich and famous
While they are in bed together, Léo tells Rémi a story in which Rémi must imagine himself as a newborn duckling who is more beautiful than the others. “You encounter a rhyming lizard, and you like it. You both leave and end up jumping on a trampoline. You jump as high as the stars.” And then, Léo blows air from his mouth on Rémi, to simulate the wind outside.
Throughout the movie, scenes with Léo and Rémi leave it open to interpretation if there’s something homoerotic brewing between these two teens, or if they really are just platonic friends. Other students at their school notice the ambiguity. Some of the students assume that Léo and Rémi are “dating” each other. One girl comes right out and asks Léo and Rémi if they are more than friends because she says Léo and Rémi act like they are couple.
Léo responds by saying that he and Rémi are best friends and are like brothers. However, Léo has more delicate-looking physical features, so he gets bullied more often than Rémi does for being “girlish” or “effeminate.” Some of the boys at school call Léo a “girl” and a derogatory term used for gay males that starts with the letter “f.”
If there is something “gay” going on between Léo and Rémi, then Léo is the one who’s more likely to show it physically, through affection or aggression. A scene in the movie shows Léo and Rémi playfully rough housing in bed. At the breakfast table the next morning, Rémi is tearful and says his stomach hurts. What really bothers him—but what he won’t tell his family—is that Léo got a little too rough in their playfighting the night before. As a result, Rémi acts aloof with Léo and seems to want to distance himself from Léo.
And what do the families of Léo and Rémi think of the relationship between these two teens? Léo lives with his mother Nathalie (played by Léa Drucker), his father Yves (played by Marc Weiss) and his older brother Charlie (played by Igor van Dessel), who’s about 16 years old. The parents are cotton farmers who expect Léo and Charlie to help out pick cotton in the field when they can. These family members of Léo are preoccupied with their own lives and don’t seem to have an opinion either way about the close relationship of Léo and Rémi.
Léo spends a lot of time at Rémi’s house and is very fond of Rémi’s mother Sophie (played by Émilie Dequenne), who is mutually admiring of Léo. An early scene in the movie shows Léo, Rémi and Sophie lounging together on some grass outside. Sophie tells Léo in a teasing voice that he’s more devoted to her than to Rémi. As for Rémi’s father Peter (played by Kevin Janssens), he doesn’t disapprove of Léo and Rémi’s relationship, but Peter is more of an observer who doesn’t get as personally involved as Sophie does.
At school, Léo is on the ice hockey team, where he gets increasing hostility from boys who think that Léo is gay. Rémi observes some of this bullying, but he does nothing to stop it. The hockey coach and any of the school’s faculty and staff don’t do anything either about this verbal abuse. Léo is often outnumbered when he’s being bullied, so he doesn’t think there’s much he can do to stand up for himself.
Meanwhile, Léo reacts to Rémi’s aloofness by spending more time with other kids in the school who are very tolerant of who Léo is. One day, Rémi has what can best be described as an emotional meltdown when he sees that Léo left hocky practice early and didn’t wait for Rémi so they could do their usual hangouts after hockey practice. Rémi starts a physical brawl with Léo in the school yard. The fight is so bad that some adults at the school have to intervene and put a stop to it.
It’s easy to see that even though Rémi initially put some distance between himself and Léo, it really bothered Rémi that Léo was going on with his life and spending time with other kids. What could prompt this possessiveness from Rémi? Many people could interpret it as Rémi being secretly in love with Léo and having a hard time coming to terms with it. However, “Close” never shows any explicit homosexuality between Léo and Rémi. Therefore, much of what the movie shows of Léo and Rémi’s relationship is left up to interpretation and speculation.
The relationship between Rémi that Léo is forever changed when an unexpected tragedy happens. It’s enough to say that one of the boys finds out that within this close relationship, he might not have known his best friend as well as he thought he did. How he copes with this harsh reality is one of the main plot developments in the second half of the movie.
In the production notes for “Close,” director/co-writer Dhont says that one of his biggest sources of inspiration for this partially autobiographical movie was Dr. Niobe Way’s 2011 non-fiction book “Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection.” The book expounds on how society’s definitions of masculinity and feminity affect friendships between boys. When boys reach puberty age, they’re expected to show their emotions less, as “proof” that they’re becoming men. That repression of emotions can often extend to friendships between boys too.
After all, when two 13-year-old male best friends say “I love you” to each other, people will often interpret it as “effeminate homosexual,” whereas if two 13-year-old female best friends say “I love you” to each other, they don’t get the same type of judgment. There is underlying homophobia and sexism in these gender expectations. “Close” invites viewers to contemplate and to be mindful of how this bigotry can affect emotionally fragile people.
All of the cast members of “Close” are admirable in their roles, but viewers will remember Dambrine’s performance the most. He makes an impressive feature-film debut as a 13-year-old boy who learns some adult life lessons in ways that his character Léo did not expect. The movie ultimately shows, in heartbreaking ways, the damage that can be done when people can’t or won’t express their true emotions to the people who matter the most to them.
A24 released “Close” in select U.S. cinemas for a one-week limited engagement in select U.S. cinemas on December 2, 2022. The movie was re-released in U.S. cinemas on January 27, 2023. “Close” was released in Belgium on November 9, 2022.
Culture Representation: Taking place in South Korea, the dramatic film “Broker” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.
Culture Clash: Two working-class men, who are in the business of brokering illegal adoptions, go on a tension-filled journey with a young mother who wants decide which family will buy and raise her baby.
Culture Audience: “Broker” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Song Kang-ho, filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda, and movies people who form an unlikely family bond.
Doona Bae and Lee Joo-young in “Broker” (Photo courtesy of Neon)
Suspenseful, amusing, and sometimes heartbreaking, “Broker” tells a memorable story about three people who find more than they bargained for when they attempt to sell a baby. The baby’s sassy mother insists on being able to choose who will get the child. “Broker” does not condone selling of children. Instead, it takes an unflinching look at the emotional toll of illegal adoptions.
Written and directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, “Broker” had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where the movie won the Ecumenical Jury Award and the Best Actor Award (for Song Kang-ho). “Broker” also made the rounds at other major film festivals in 2022, including the Toronto International Film Festival and the Telluride Film Festival. It’s a movie that doesn’t preach or offer easy answers but presents a fascinating portrait of what desperate human beings will do.
Hirokazu’s 2018 film “Shoplifters” won the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize—the Palme d’Or—in 2018, and received an Oscar nomination for the category that was then known as Best Foreign Language Film. “Broker” might get some comparisons to “Shoplifters,” because both movies have themes about outlaws who form a family-like bond. However, “Broker” moves at a much quicker pace and has much more satirical and occasionally comedically absurd moments than “Shoplifters.”
“Broker” (which takes place in South Korea) takes viewers on an unusual journey that finds strangers’ lives intertwined with each other in unexpected ways. Ha Sang-hyeon (played by Song) is a mild-mannered owner of a small business that does laundry by hand. His ultra-confident friend Kim Dong-soo (played by Gang Dong-won) works part-time at a church that operates a small orphanage that has about 20 of various ages at any given time. Sang-hyeon is in his 50s, while Dong-soo is about 10 years younger. They are not biologically related to each other but have a relationship that’s a lot like what an older brother and a younger brother would have.
Sang-hyeon and Dong-soo are also bonded by a big secret: They sometimes sell babies who’ve been abandoned at the church. Sang-hyeon is usually the one who does the actual abductions, while Dong-soo helps by deleting the church’s surveillance videos that would show the babies being left at the church and Sang-hyeon doing the kidnapping. Sang-hyeon and Dong-soo believe that what they’re doing isn’t so bad because they are placing the babies in homes where the children are wanted. Most of their clients are married couples who are having infertility problems.
The opening scene of “Broker” shows a baby boy being left at the church by the baby’s single mother. The church has a 24-hour “drop box” where babies can be left, with no questions asked. As the mother leaves, she is being observed by two female undercover police officers are doing a stakeout in their car. These two cops are investigating suspicions that babies abandoned at this church are being sold on the black market.
The police officers on this stakeout are Soo-jin (played by Bae Doona, also known as Doona Bae) and her younger cop partner Detective Lee (played by Lee Joo-young), who often defers to the more-experienced Soo-jin. It’s shown from the opening scene that Soo-jin is much more judgmental than Detective Lee about women who abandoned their children. Soo-jin says when she watches the young mother leave her baby at the church: “If you have a baby, you shouldn’t abandon it.”
The mother who left behind her baby boy at the church has left a note with the child. The note says, “Woo-sung, I’m sorry. I’ll come back for you.” Sang-hyeon comments to Dong-soo that it’s highly unlikely that the mother will come back for the baby, so Sang-hyeon tells Dong-soo to delete the surveillance video that the baby was left at the church. Sang-hyeon then takes the baby to his home.
Sang-hyeon’s assumption that the mother wouldn’t come back ends up being a very wrong assumption. The mother, who’s in her 20s, is named Moon So-young (played by Lee Ji-eun), and she returns to the church to get her baby Woo-sung (played by Park Ji-yong). So-young is concerned and then outraged to find out that the child isn’t there. She won’t leave until Woo-sung is brought back to the church.
Dong-soo tells her, “Even if we find the baby, there’s no proof that you’re the mother.” Sang-hyeon says to her, “Think of us as cupids who will embrace your precious child. We promise to find the best parents to raise Woo-Sung.” So-young replies, “Benevolence, my ass. You’re just brokers.”
So-young has not only figured out that Sang-hyeon and Dong-soo illegally sell babies, she wants in on the deal to broker the adoption of her baby. So-young has one condition though: She wants to be the one to approve who will get the baby and the sale price. So-young knows that boys are more valued in this patriarchal culture than girls, so she believes she should get a higher price for her baby son, compared to if she had a baby daughter.
And so begins a sometimes messy and tension-filled journey, as So-young insists on accompanying Sang-hyeon and Dong-soo when they travel to different cities in South Korea to meet with potential adoptive parents for Woo-Sung. (A great deal of the movie takes place in Busan.) Through a series of circumstances, an 8-year-old boy named Hae-jin (played by Im Seung-soo), from the church orphanage, gets mixed up in these hijinks. Hae-jin has grown emotionally attached to Sang-hyeon and wants to tag along on these road trips.
Meanwhile, some people are hot on the trail of this motley crew of baby brokers. The two undercover cops, who have identified Sang-hyeon and Dong-soo as the chief suspects and want to catch them in the act of selling a baby, in order to arrest Sang-hyeon and Dong-soo. Meanwhile, Dong-soo is a gambling addict who is heavily in debt to a gangster named Shin Tae-ho (played by Ryu Kyung-Soo), who goes with some of his thugs to track down Dong-soo.
A few things about “Broker” require a suspension of disbelief. It’s mentioned more than once in the film that law enforcement believes that Sang-hyeon and Dong-soo are part of a major crime ring that sells babies. If that’s the case, then it doesn’t make sense that there only two cops doing the surveillance. The movie has some intentionally comical moments where Soo-jin and Detective Lee bungle the investigation or just have very bad luck.
Despite a few plot holes, one of the best things about “Broker” is the development of the characters. So-young isn’t as cold and calculating as she first appears to be. Over time, her apparent greed in wanting to sell Woo-Sung to the highest bidder is revealed to be something more than just being money-hungry. And where is Woo-Sung’s father? That question is answered in the movie.
“Broker” shows the highs and lows of this group of outlaws and two children who end up becoming a makeshift family. The movie has the expected scenes of people bickering, but “Broker” also organically shows how even with the arguments, these seemingly mismatched cronies learn to trust each other. There are some adrenaline-packed action scenes, but some of the movie’s best moments happen during revealing conversations when these characters find out more about each other, including emotional vulnerabilities and some dark secrets.
All of the cast members handle their roles very well, but Song (as Sang-hyeon) and Lee Ji-eun (as So-young) are the ones who have the most believable characters and give the best performances in the film. “Broker” offers different perspectives of why people want to buy and sell babies. The movie also gives realistic depictions of the consequences of making these decisions. “Broker” lets views make up their own minds on how to feel about it all. Even though parts of the film are predictable, there’s at least one plot twist that many viewers won’t expect, making “Broker” better than the average movie about illegal adoptions.
Neon released “Broker” in New York City on December 26, 2022, and in Los Angeles on December 28, 2022, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on January 6, 2023. The movie was released in South Korea on June 8, 2022.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Seoul, South Korea, from 2014 to 2022, the dramatic film “Return to Seoul” features a predominantly Asian cast of characters (with some white people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A 25-year-old woman, who was born in South Korea and was adopted by a white, middle-class French family when she was a baby, impulsively goes to Seoul to find her biological parents and goes on an unexpected life journey in Seoul for the next eight years.
Culture Audience: “Return to Seoul” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in unconventional movies about adoptees looking for their biological parents.
Oh Kwang-rok in “Return to Seoul” (Photo by Thomas Favel/Aurora Films/Sony Pictures Classics)
“Return to Seoul” is as wandering and unpredictable as the protagonist’s emotional journey in her search for biological parents. The movie’s ending could have been better, but there is realistic ambivalence in how her search will affect her identity. “Return to Seoul” goes off on an unexpected tangent that might be a turnoff to some viewers, because this plot development doesn’t fit the usual narrative of scripted movies about adoptees looking for biological relatives. However, it’s an interesting and original choice that’s actually consistent with the the protagonist’s unpredictable and rebellious personality.
Written and directed by Cambodian French filmmaker Davy Chou, “Return to Seoul” draws on Chou’s own experiences of having a dual-nationality heritage. The movie’s lead character is named Frédérique Benoît (played by Park Ji-min), but she prefers to be called by her nickname Freddie. She was born in South Korea and adopted as a baby by a white, middle-class French family, who gave her a very good life. “Return to Seoul” had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and then made the rounds at several other film festivals in 2022, including the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. “Return to Seoul” is Cambodia’s official entry for consideration in the Best International Feature Film category for the 2023 Academy Awards.
“Return to Seoul” begins in 2014, when 25-year-old Freddie checks into the hotel where she will be staying in Seoul during her search for her biological parents. She makes fast friends with Tena (played by Guka Han), who is the hotel’s front desk clerk, and Tena’s close pal Dongwan (played by Son Seung-beom), who speaks French and can often act as a translator, since Freddie doesn’t really know how to communicate in Korean. Freddie tells Tena and Dongwan why she is in Seoul. Dongwan immediately recommends that Freddie go to the Hammond Adoption Center, where many South Korean babies and other children were adopted out to parents outside of Asia.
When Freddie checks into the hotel, she says she only plans to stay for three nights. “Return to Seoul” shows that she ends up staying in Seoul for the next eight years. As already shown in the movie’s trailer, Freddie meets her biological father (played by Oh Kwang-rok, in a very good performance), who does not have a first name in the movie. Freddie also finds out her birth name (Do Yeon-hee) and why she was given up for adoption.
Freddie’s biological mother remains elusive for much of the story though, despite efforts to contact her. It’s obvious that Freddie wants to meet her biological mother more than she wants to meet her father. Freddie’s biological father is remorseful and desperate to make up for lost time with Freddie. He lives with his wife (played by Cha Mi-kyung); their teenage daughters Aimee (Song Hae-in) and Cadette (played by ); and his mother (played by Hur Ouk-sook), who all welcome Freddie into their family with open arms.
What Freddie does not anticipate is for her biological father to become almost obsessed with her. He insists that she live with him and his family. And he expects Freddie to have a traditional South Korean life, where he says he can help her find a husband. It’s established early on that Freddie considers herself to be an independent French woman, so her reaction is what you will expect it to be.
And what does Freddie’s adoptive family in France think of her trip to Seoul? When she tells her adoptive mother by a video chat, Freddie mentions that the trip was not planned and that Freddie only went to Seoul because the two-week trip to Tokyo that Freddie had originally planned was cancelled because of a typhoon. Freddie’s mother is the only member of her adoptive family who is shown reacting to the news that Freddie is looking for her biological parents. Freddie’s adoptive mother (played by Régine Vial Goldberg) is accepting of the idea and doesn’t appear to be upset but is curious about how this search might affect Freddie.
There are other examples of how Freddie is the type of person who often acts spontaneously. Early on in the movie, while Freddie, Tena and Dongwan are drinking at a casual restaurant/bar, Freddie impulsively flirts with a table of bachelors. She then invites strangers who are men and women over to the same table to join in on the conversation, and almost everyone gets drunk. Freddie ends up spending the night with one of the bachelors, whose name is Jiwan (played by Kim Dong-seok), and he is almost immediately smitten with her.
“Return to Seoul” takes an unorthodox turn when the movie fast-forwards to 2016, on Freddie’s 27th birthday, where she is in Seoul on a dinner date with a middle-aged Frenchman named André (played by Louis-Do de Lencquesaing), who has four kids and is going through his third divorce. The last part of the movie takes place from 2021 to 2022, when Freddie gets involved in some shady dealings with a guy named Maxime (played by Yoann Zimmer), and Freddie’s biological father is still trying to develop a family relationship with her.
As the mercurial and sometimes flaky Freddie, Park makes an impressive feature-film debut in “Return to Seoul.” Freddie is complex in wanting to be strong and independent, but she has moments of vulnerability where she begins to question her identity and she fears if what she will find out about her biological family members will be qualities that she has inherited. And although Freddie never says it out loud, viewers can see that it shakes Freddie to her core to be reminded that she was once an unwanted child by biological parents she never know.
“Return to Seoul” is not a movie that will satisfy people who want a formulaic story with predictable outcomes. What makes the movie worth watching, even though the pacing of the movie sometimes drags, is showing how Freddie is subtly and not-so-subtly affected by the search for her biological parents. She gets more than she wanted and less than she expected in certain ways. What would make someone, who originally planned to stay in Seoul for three nights, end up staying for eight years? “Return to Seoul” is a compelling psychological portrait rather than a definitive statement about one woman’s quest for a deeper meaning to her identity.
Sony Pictures Classics released “Return to Seoul” in select U.S. cinemas on December 2, 2022.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Poland and Italy, the dramatic film “EO” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A former circus donkey named EO experiences highs and lows and different levels of freedom and captivity during his travels.
Culture Audience: “EO” will appeal primarily to people interested in an emotionally moving film that follows the life of a specific animal for a certain period of time.
Lorenzo Zurzolo and EO (played by Tako) in “EO” (Photo courtesy of Janus Films and Sideshow)
“EO,” a dramatic film made to look like a documentary, tells the fascinating and sometimes-harrowing story of a lovable donkey named EO, whose life becomes uncertain after losing his circus home. The “EO” film is so impressive with its realism, some viewers might think that it’s a non-fiction movie. Of course, one of the biggest indications that “EO” is a fictional film is that Oscar-nominated French actress Isabelle Huppert has a role as a fictional character in the movie. Her screen time in “EO” is less than 15 minutes, but she makes her screen time very memorable, as she almost always does in her on-screen roles.
Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski (who co-wrote the “EO” screenplay with Ewa Piaskowska), “EO” is filmed cinéma vérité-style, shown entirely from EO’s perspective. “EO” had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where the movie won the Jury Prize and Cannes Soundtrack Award for Best Composer. “EO” composer Pawel Mykietyn’s score is certainly the musical soul of the film, because there are some sections of the movie with no human dialogue. “EO”—which also screened at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival and the 2022 New York Film Festival—is Poland’s official entry for Best International Feature Film consideration for the 2023 Academy Awards.
“EO” begins in Poland, where is EO performing in a circus tent with his handler, an actress named Kasandara (played by Sandra Drzymalska), who treats EO with kindness and respect. Kasandra’s boyfriend is a circus co-worker named Wasyl (played by Maciej Stepniak), who is controlling and mean-spirited. An early scene in the movie shows Wasyl hitting EO because he doesn’t think EO is moving fast enough. Sensitive viewers be warned: There’s even worse animal cruelty later on in the movie.
The circus is under pressure because animal-rights activists are protesting outside while the circus operates. The activists want the circus to be shut down because they think that circuses and carnivals have rampant animal torture and other animal abuse. Early on in the movie, the circus goes bankrupt, so all the circus’ animals are repossessed. Kasandra is devastated.
The rest of “EO” shows what happens in EO’s life as he goes from place to place. His journey takes him from Poland to Italy. And his travels include living on a farm; being a stray animal; encountering a truck driver named Mateo (played by Mateusz Kościukiewicz); and befriending a young nomad named Vito (played by Lorenzo Zurzolo), who is training to be a priest and has a history of being the lover of an unnamed wealthy countess, played by Huppert.
There’s a lot more that happens in the movie, but it’s best if people know as little as possible about “EO” except the basic concept of the film and why EO ended up as a donkey without a permanent home. Viewers will be swept up in the suspense over what will happen to EO. And although it’s not really accurate to say that the movie’s donkey (whose real name is Tako) is acting, he certainly shows enough personality for viewers to feel empathy for him.
One of the standout characteristics of “EO” is the stunning cinematography by Michal Dymek. Many of the scenes are drenched in rich hues, such as red and blue, making the movie sometimes look like a very artsy nature documentary. And because the camera angles are often from the donkey’s perspective, viewers will get EO’s outlook on the contrasting beauty and horror at that exists this world for animals that are treated like property instead of like a member of Earth’s ecosystem family.
“EO” isn’t a completely perfect film, because the movie is occasionally slow-paced and has scenes that seem to drag on a little longer than necessary. However, the point of “EO” is that life for animals (especially when living in harsh conditions) can often be depressing and dull by human standards, even if the animals are surrounded by a gorgeous landscape. This isn’t the type of fantasy movie where a stray animal has to find a home and almost every scene is an adventure scene. “EO” is a striking and effective reminder that how we treat animals represents the best and worst of humanity.
Janus Films and Sideshow will release “EO” in select U.S. cinemas on November 18, 2022.
Culture Representation: Taking place mostly on a plane flight from South Korea to Hawaii, the action film “Emergency Declaration” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A plane carrying about 150 passengers about gets hijacked by a mysterious stranger and has to make an emergency landing.
Culture Audience: “Emergency Declaration” will appeal primarily to people interested in watching suspenseful movies about airplane crises.
Song Kang-ho in “Emergency Declaration” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)
“Emergency Declaration” does not do anything groundbreaking in its depiction of an airplane hijacking, but this action flick delivers plenty of suspense to make it memorable. The movie’s acting performances are also worth seeing. The scenarios portrayed in the movie are so harrowing, people who have a fear of flying will probably be even more afraid after seeing “Emergency Declaration.” The movie’s total running time is about two hours and 20 minutes, but it doesn’t feel that long, because the pace doesn’t drag.
Written and directed by Han Jae-rim, “Emergency Declaration” (which had its world premiere at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in France) follows an expected formula for plane hijacking movies. Some of the passengers are first seen in the airport before boarding the plane. There’s at least one person on board the plane who’s acting suspiciously because their plan is to hijack the plane. And then all hell breaks loose.
In “Emergency Declaration,” the ill-fated airplane flight is Sky Korea Airlines Flight 501, going from Seoul to Hawaii. The plane is carrying 150 passengers. Two of these passengers are Park Jae-hyuk (played by Lee Byung-hun) and his daughter Soo-min (played by Kim Bo-min), who’s about 9 or 10 years old and has skin eczema. (Her skin condition becomes an issue later in the story.)
At the airport, a man in his mid-30s, who viewers later find out is named Ryu Jin-seok (played by Yim Si-wan, also known as Im Si-wan and Siwan), approaches a ticket agent at Sky Korea Airlines to buy a ticket. “I want to go someplace where a lot of people go,” he tells the female agent. She suggests Hawaii and tells him that the next plane to Hawaii is leaving on Flight 501.
Jin-seok asks the ticket agent how many people are on the flight. When the ticket agent tells him that she doesn’t have the authority to tell him that information, he looks annoyed and walks away. And then, Jin-seok walks back to the ticket agent and coldly tells her: “For God’s sake, don’t smile like that. You look like a whore.”
In a private area at the airport, Jin-seok places a vial underneath his right arm by cutting his arm and sewing in the vial. His hateful remark to the ticket agent already showed that he’s a nasty person. But once he sews a vial into his arm, you just know that this passenger will probably be up to no good with that vial when he gets on the plane.
Meanwhile, a police detective in his 50s named Gu In-ho (played by Song Kang-ho) has been scheduled to be on this flight with his wife Gu Hye-yoon (played by Woo Mi-hwa), because the spouses are taking a vacation. However, In-ho has to cancel being on the flight because he’s suddenly called to be at work for an emergency: A man uploaded a video threatening to hijack a South Korean plane that day. Hye-yoon decides she will take the trip by herself.
In the waiting area before boarding the flight, protective father Jae-hyuk notices that Jin-seok has been staring at Jae-hyuk and his daughter Soo-min. Jin-seok begins asking Jae-hyuk personal questions, such as where they are going and if Jae-hyuk is married. Jae-hyuk says that they’re going to Hawaii, but he’s starting to feel uneasy around this nosy stranger.
Jin-seok starts asking more personal questions. Jae-hyuk gets so uncomfortable, he eventually snaps at Jin-seok and tells him to mind his own business. Jin-seok then decides to buy a one-way ticket to Hawaii on Sky Korea Airlines Flight 501. In the X-ray area before boarding the flight, Jin-seok has an inhaler that’s detected. He tells the security employees that he has an inhaler for asthma.
Meanwhile, police have burst into an apartment and found the bloody corpse of a man encased in plastic. The initial cause of death is determined to be poisoning. This man was apparently killed by the same poison that killed some rats in a glass tank nearby. It won’t come as too much of a surprise that this death has something to do with what happens on Sky Korea Airlines Flight 501.
On the flight, Jae-hyuk is unsettled when he sees that Jin-seok is on the same plane, which eventually takes off for its destination. He tells a flight attendant about the uncomfortable encounter that he and Soo-min had with Jin-seok, and that this stranger could be a suspicious passenger. Jae-hyuk feels even more uneasy when he sees Jin-seok put something under Jin-seok’s armpit.
When Jae-hyuk reports this suspicious act to a flight attendant, Jin-seok denies that he did anything wrong. Jin-seok also says that he’s a scientist on his way to a convention in Hawaii. But, of course, Jin-seok is not the harmless passenger he pretends to be. And you can easily guess what happens next.
The rest of “Emergency Declaration” shows the chaos that ensues when Jin-seok takes the plane hostage. He’s not armed with a gun, but he has another weapon that causes damage to people on the plane. In-ho becomes the police detective who gets involved in the rescue mission, which is obviously very personal for him because his wife is on the plane.
Other people on the ground who are involved in the rescue mission are transport minister Kim Sook-hee (played by Jeon Do-yeon) and a presidential crisis management center chief named Tae-su (played by Park Hae-joon), who try to assist the plane in making an emergency landing, in addition yo trying to negotiate with the hostage taker. On the plane, a co-pilot named Choi Hyun-soo (played by Kim Nam-gil) and a flight attendant named Hee-jin (played by Kim So-jin) are the main people who try to keep the plane passengers as calm as possible, which is no easy task because there is some death on this plane.
In addition to the nerve-racking action that takes place in the movie, there’s the mystery of Jin-seok and why he decided to hijack this plane. This mystery unfolds during the story and the answers are eventually revealed. The movie drops major clues before Jin-seok took the plane hostage, so observant viewers probably won’t be surprised when his secrets are revealed.
However, the revelation is still compelling enough, because it explains why there is such an urgent “race against time” aspect to the story. The performances by Song and Yim stand out because they are written to be the most obvious opponents in this crisis and therefore have the most emotional depth. It’s a classic “good versus evil” plot, but Jin-seok’s motivations for his heinous crimes are explained enough so that he’s not portrayed as just a shallow villain who wants to kill people.
The editing and cinematography of “Emergency Declaration” are so well-done, some viewers will feel like they’re experiencing the terror along with the passengers, as well as the anxiety of the rescuers on the ground. The movie’s storyline doesn’t offer a lot of surprises. However, “Emergency Declaration” will make viewers think more about why this type of hijacking occurs in real life and to look for any warning signs to possibly prevent it.
Well Go USA released “Emergency Declaration” in select U.S. cinemas on August 12, 2022. The movie was released in South Korea on January 22, 2022. “Emergency Declaration” is set for release on digital, VOD, Blu-ray and DVD on November 29, 2022.
Culture Representation: Taking place in 1980 in New York City, the dramatic film “Armageddon Time” (inspired by director James Gray’s own childhood) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: An 11-year-old, middle-class Jewish boy, who befriends a working-class African American boy from school, learns some of life’s harsh lessons about bigotry and privilege.
Culture Audience: “Armageddon Time” will appeal primarily to people interested in retro movies that explore the loss of innocence in childhood.
Jaylin Webb and Banks Repeta in “Armageddon Time” (Photo courtesy of Focus Features)
The talented cast’s performances elevate “Armageddon Time,” a drama that apparently wants to condemn racism, antisemitism and social class snobbery. Ultimately, the movie doesn’t have anything new to say about people who enable these types of bigotry. The cast members’ acting should maintain most viewers’ interest, but parts of “Armageddon Time” (written and directed by James Gray) might annoy or bore viewers who feel like they’ve seen this type of “loss of childhood innocence experienced by a future movie director” many times already.
That’s because there have been several movie directors who’ve done movies based on their real childhoods, with the childhood versions of themselves as the protagonists of the movies. In these semi-autobiographical or autobiographical films, these directors depict their childhood selves as inquisitive, imaginative and often misunderstood by many people around them. The child has at least one parent who usually doesn’t encourage the child’s artistic inclinations, because the parent thinks it’s not a good career choice to be any type of artist.
All of these clichés are in “Armageddon Time,” Gray’s dramatic retelling of what his life was like for a pivotal two-month period when he was 11 years old. “Armageddon Time”—which takes place from September to November 1980, mostly in New York City’s Queens borough—can be considered semi-autobiographical, because the characters in the movie are based on real people without using the real people’s names, except for members of Donald Trump’s family. At a certain point in the movie, viewers can easily predict where this movie is going and what it’s attempting to say.
However, because the cast members deliver good performances and have believable chemistry with each other, “Armageddon Time” has moments that can be entertaining and compelling. “Armageddon Time” had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival in France. The movie then made the rounds at several other film festivals in 2022, including the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado, the Zurich Film Festival in Switzerland, and the New York Film Festival in New York City.
The story is told from the perspective of 11-year-old Paul Graff (played by Banks Repeta, also known as Michael Banks Repeta), who has talent for drawing illustrations of people. Paul has a mischievous side where he makes caricatures or illustration parodies of people he knows. He’s also a science-fiction enthusiast who has created an original superhero character named Captain United.
In the beginning of the movie, it’s September 8, 1980—Paul’s first day of school as a sixth grader at P.S. 173, a public school in Queens. One of the first things that happens in a classroom led by a cranky teacher named Mr. Turkeltaub (played by Andrew Polk) is that Mr. Turkeltaub has found a drawing that depicts him as a turkey. An infuriated Mr. Turkeltaub demands to know who made the drawing, and Paul eventually confesses that he did it.
Just a few minutes later, a classmate named Johnny Davis (played by Jaylin Webb) tells a harmless joke as a reply to the teacher’s question. Johnny’s flippant response gets Mr. Turkeltaub even angrier. He hisses at Johnny as he points to Johnny’s head, “You’ve got nothing up here.” Johnny snaps back, “Look who taught me.”
Paul and Johnny both get mild punishments for their disobedience, as Mr. Turkeltaub orders them to clean the chalkboard in the classroom. Johnny and Paul become very fast friends from this shared bonding experience. Their friendship is defined by a lot of the rebellious things that they do together.
Johnny and Paul also share a passion for outer space. Johnny dreams of becoming an astronaut for NASA, while Paul wants to illustrate comic books about space travel. Although both boys talk about a lot of things with each other immediately, they’re not as up front about each other’s home lives when they first meet.
Paul’s family is middle-class, but he lies to Johnny by saying that his family is rich. Johnny, who doesn’t like to talk about his parents, comes from a low-income household and lives with his grandmother (played by Marjorie Johnson, in a quick cameo), whom Johnny describes as “forgetful.” (It’s implied that she has dementia.) Eventually, Johnny opens up to Paul about what’s really going on with him at home, but Paul keeps up the lie about his parents being rich for as long as Paul can keep telling this lie.
Paul’s tight-knit family at home consists of his energetic mother Esther Graff (played by Anne Hathaway), who is the president of P.S. 173’s Parent Teacher Association; his stern father Irving Graff (played by Jeremy Strong), who is an engineer; and Paul’s smug older brother Ted Graff (played by Ryan Sell), who is about 15 years old and almost the opposite of Paul. Ted is a popular, outgoing student at his private school, and he gets good grades. Paul is introverted, somewhat of a loner, and an average student, even though he has the intelligence to get better grades in school. Paul is much closer to his mother than he is to his father, who has a bad temper and tells Paul that being an artist is not a wise occupation.
Frequent visitors to the Graff home for family dinners are Paul’s grandparents, aunts and uncles. Esther’s father Aaron Rabinowitz (played by Anthony Hopkins), who is from the United Kingdom, is Paul’s favorite of these relatives. Grandfather Aaron is kind and patient with Paul, who feels like Aaron is the only family member who truly accepts Paul for who Paul is. Aaron is also the only one in this family who teaches Paul the realities of antisemitism and racism and how not to be a bigot.
Many of the Graff/Rabinowitz family members, including Aaron, are originally from Europe and survivors of the Holocaust. Aaron’s mother was a Ukrainian refugee who eventually settled in England. Aaron and his wife Mickey Rabinowitz (played by Tovah Feldshuh) are both retired schoolteachers. Other relatives who are in the story are Paul’s aunt Ruth (played by Marcia Haufrecht) and uncle Louis (played by Teddy Coluca), who are both very opinionated.
Family conversations around the dining room table reveal that although members of this family have experienced prejudice for being Jewish, many of the adult family members are racists who don’t like black people. Some of the family members are more blatant about this racism than others. Aaron is the only adult in the family who doesn’t come across as some kind of bigot or difficult person. He’s not saintly, but the movie depicts Aaron as the only adult who comes closest to having a lot of wisdom and a strong moral character.
Meanwhile, at school, Johnny and Paul get into some more mischief. In Mr. Turkeltaub’s class, Johnny tends to get punishment that’s worse than what Paul gets. Johnny is a year older than his classmates because he’s had to repeat sixth grade. Johnny usually get blamed first by Mr. Turkeltaub if there’s any student trouble in the classroom.
It doesn’t help that Johnny sometimes curses at the teacher in response to being singled out as a troublemaker, whereas Paul tends not to go that far with his disrespect for authority. However, Mr. Turkeltaub seems to deliberately pick on Johnny to get him angry. There are racial undertones to the way that Mr. Turkeltaub treats Johnny, who is one of the few African American students in the class.
Through a series of events and circumstances that won’t be revealed in this review, Paul transfers to the same private school where Ted is a student: Kew-Forest School, located in the affluent neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens. Paul is very unhappy about this transfer because he will no longer get to see Johnny at school. Paul also experiences culture shock, because most of the students come from upper-middle-class and wealthy families.
Members of the real-life Trump family are major financial donors to Kew-Forest School and sometimes stop by the school to make speaking appearances to the assembled students. “Armageddon Time” shows Fred Trump (Donald Trump’s father, played by John Diehl) and Maryanne Trump (Donald Trump’s older sister, played by Jessica Chastain) in cameos, as they give condescending lectures disguised as pep talks at Kew-Forest School. Maryanne Trump, who inherited her fortune from her father, even has the gall to say in her lecture that she worked hard for the wealth that she has.
Because “Armageddon Time” writer/director Gray didn’t change the names of Fred Trump and Maryanne Trump in the movie, the only conclusion that viewers can come to is that Gray wanted to show some kind of disdain for the Trumps in the movie, by depicting them as out-of-touch rich people whom he did not like or trust, even as a child. The only other semi-political statements made in “Armageddon Time” are scenes where the 1980 U.S. presidential election is in the news and discussed in the Graff family home. Irving and Ethel Graff are Democrats who want incumbent Democrat president Jimmy Carter, not Ronald Reagan (a Republican), to win the election.
Because “Armageddon Time” takes place during the height of the nuclear arms race between the United States and Russia (then known as the Soviet Union), the movie makes some references to the fear that many people had that a nuclear war could be imminent and would cause an apocalypse. In the production notes for “Armageddon Time,” Gray says that the movie’s title was named after the reggae song “Armagidion Time,” which had a cover version released by The Clash in 1979. (The Clash’s remake of this song is in the “Armageddon Time” movie.) Gray further explains in the production notes that the movie is about Paul’s personal Armageddon.
It’s during Paul’s experiences as a new student at Kew-Forest School that he begins to understand how race, religion and social class are used as reasons for bigots to inflict damaging prejudice on others. When Johnny shows up near the Kew-Forest School playground to talk to Paul, it’s the first time that Paul is fully aware that many of his peers at Kew-Forest school look down on someone like Johnny, just because Johnny is a working-class African American. One of the Kew-Forest students uses the “n” word to describe Johnny, and Paul is shocked.
Paul’s mother Esther also disapproves of Johnny, mainly because she blames Johnny for being a “bad influence” on Paul. There are some racial undertones to Esther’s dislike of Johnny, mainly because Esther wants to deny that Paul is a willing and active participant in whatever rebellious and rude antics that he and Johnny decide to do. Paul, who has an angelic face, is not as “innocent” as Esther thinks he is.
Repeta skillfully plays the role of Paul, a boy who starts to see life in ways that Paul did not expect. His performance is an admirable anchor for the movie, which at times is hindered by writer/director Gray’s self-indulgent nostalgia. And although Hathaway and Strong give solid performances as Esther and Irving, Paul’s emotional connections to his parents at this particular time in Paul’s life are secondary to the emotional connections that Paul has with his grandfather Aaron and with his new friend Johnny. Hopkins and Webb deliver fine performances as Aaron and Johnny, but much about how these two characters are written (the wise grandfather and the rebellious kid) are reminiscent of characters seen in many other movies.
One of the problematic elements of “Armageddon Time” is that Johnny is often treated as a “black token” in the movie. He has all the negative stereotypes of what many racists think black boys are: troublemakers who can’t be as accomplished or as intelligent as their white peers. It would have been better if the movie had at least a few other African American people in prominent speaking roles for some variety (after all, this movie takes place in racially diverse New York City), instead of putting almost all of the African American representation in the movie on a troubled adolescent boy.
There’s a point in the movie where Johnny runs away from home, because he suspects that child protective services will put him in foster care, and he asks Paul for help in having a place to stay. Paul’s reaction is realistic, but it seems like Gray wants to gloss over how Paul contributes to a lot of Johnny’s pain. “Armageddon Time” is less concerned about the root causes of Johnny’s problems and more concerned about making Aaron the noble sage who preaches to Paul about the evils of racism. However, the movie doesn’t actually show Aaron helping anyone from an oppressed racial group, or even caring about having anyone in his social circle who isn’t white.
“Armageddon Time” is a lot like watching people say repeatedly, “Isn’t bigotry terrible?” But then, those same people don’t really do anything to actively stop the bigotry that they complain about. The Graff household also has some domestic abuse that seems to be put in the movie for some shock value, and then the matter is dropped completely. The ending of “Armageddon Time” could have been a lot better, but the movie has enough good acting and memorable characters to make up for some scenes that wander and don’t serve a very meaningful purpose in the movie.
Focus Features released “Armageddon Time” in select U.S. cinemas on October 28, 2022, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on November 4, 2022.
Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in Turkey in 1999, and briefly in the United Kingdom in 2019, the dramatic film “Aftersun” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Middle Eastern people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Through home movie footage, a Scottish woman looks back on the last childhood vacation that she took with her single father in 1999, when she was 11 years old and not fully aware of his personal demons.
Culture Audience: “Aftersun” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in watching a well-acted dramatic movie that doesn’t tell a straightforward narrative but trusts the audience to piece together the meaning of the film.
Frankie Corio and Paul Mescal in “Aftersun” (Photo courtesy of A24)
It’s best if viewers know up front that “Aftersun” is mostly a series of “slice of life” flashback scenes shown through videos taken during a family vacation in Turkey in the 1990s. What’s more intriguing is the melancholic mystery behind these flashbacks. The story is told in fragments, so viewers who have the patience and curiosity to figure out what the movie is trying to say will be emotionally moved by the quietly devastating implications of why these home videos are on display. “Aftersun” had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, and has since made the rounds at several film festivals in 2022, including the Telluride Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, the New York Film Festival and the BFI London Film Festival.
“Aftersun” is a boldly unique feature-film directorial debut from writer/director Charlotte Wells. Most filmmakers telling a flashback story with an adult looking back on childhood memories would make the predictable choice of having the adult narrating the story in a voiceover. “Aftersun” doesn’t do that. The adult who’s doing the reminiscing is not at the forefront of the story, almost as if she wants the happy childhood memories that she’s conjuring to overshadow the sadness and vulnerability that she is feeling now.
In the production notes for “Aftersun,” Wells says that the movie was inspired by an experience she had when she was looking at childhood photos of a vacation that she took with her father, and all the memories that came flooding back about this vacation. However, Wells says that “Aftersun” is not an autobiographical film. The movie has something to say about anyone who has experienced looking back at a cherished moment in time with a loved one that turned out to be the last time being with that loved one.
The beginning of “Aftersun” shows video footage a 11-year-old Scottish girl named Sophie Patterson (played by Frankie Corio, also known as Francesca Corio) making a home video of herself and her single father Calum Aaron Patterson (played by Paul Mescal) while they’re on vacation together in Turkey. It’s 1999, and Sophie has a very good relationship with her father, even though she doesn’t see him as often as she would like.
Throughout this trip, Sophie is usually the one filming with the video, but Calum also does some filming too. Other times, the video footage scenes are just recreated memories of the adult Sophie (played by Celia Rowlson-Hall), who is seen in the movie occasionally looking sadly at these old videos that she took 20 years before. Why is Sophie looking so glum? Those answers aren’t obvious, but they are hinted at in fleeting glimpses throughout the flashback scenes.
In the footage shown in the movie’s opening scene, Sophie states her age and jokes to her father that he’s 130 years old. Calum is actually 30 years old, but he looks young enough to be mistaken for Sophie’s older brother, which occaisonally happens during this father/daughter trip. Sophie lives in Scotland with her unnamed mother, who is never seen or heard in the movie. Calum moved to England an unspecified number of years ago. (“Aftersun” was filmed on location in Turkey and the United Kingdom.)
It’s unclear if Sophie’s mother and Calum were ever married, but their breakup happened long-enough ago that Sophie has gotten used to living apart from Calum. She knows about some of the women whom Calum has been dating, and she openly discusses his love life with him. Durng this vacation, Sophie asks Calum what happened to a woman he was dating named Claire. He matter-of-factly tells Sophie that the relationship is over because Claire decided to get back together with a previous boyfriend. Calum seems disappointed by the end of this relationship, but not devastated.
Sophie is a naturally curious child. She asks Calum why he still tells Sophie’s mother, “I love you,” even though they’re not a couple anymore. Calum answers that it’s because he still considers Sophie’s mother to be like a family member. Sophie also teases Calum when she mentions one of her female schoolteachers, and Calum admits that he remembers this schoolteacher because he thinks she’s pretty.
Calum and Sophie are staying a middle-class resort in Turkey, where most of the resort’s other guests are also white Europeans. Many of them are families who have underage kids. The home videos show that Sophie ends up hanging out with some teenagers, who are impressed with her skills at playing pool.
Sophie also has a mild flirtation with a boy close to her age named Michael (played by Brooklyn Toulson), whom she first meets when they play a race car simulation game together. Michael initially acts like a brat with Sophie, but later she notices that it’s all an act, because he’s attracted to her. When Sophie and Michael are alone together at a public swimming pool, they kiss each other for the first time.
Viewers who look beyond the surface can see the signs that this vacation is not the fun-loving getaway that it might first appear to be. At first, Calum seems to be a loving and attentive father. There are moments when he shows some impish qualities, such as when he and Sophie are watching a singing performance while having dinner at the resort, and Calum comes up with the idea to harmlessly throw food toward the stage and quickly run away like pranksters. Calum also appears to be interested in spiritual wellness, since he’s avidly practices tai chi (which 11-year-old Sophie misidentifies as martial arts) and has many self-help books about inner peace and personal enlightenment.
Early on in the movie, Sophie tells Calum how she copes with not being able to see him as often as she would like. She explains that she sometimes looks up into a sunny sky and thinks about if he is looking up at the sky too, wherever he is. Sophie says to Calum, “We’re both underneath the same sky, so we’re kind of together.” As soon as Sophie says that, it’s easy to know why this movie is called “Aftersun.”
Eventually, the cracks begin to show in this seemingly idyllic vacation. First, there are signs that Calum is living beyond his means but is too embarrassed to admit it to Sophie. When he and Sophie visit a carpet shop, he tries to pretend that he can afford the merchandise, but they eventually leave without making a purchase.
Later, in a pivotal scene, Sophie and Calum are watching some other people at the resort doing karaoke. Sophie defies Calum’s wish for her not to get up on the stage and do a karaoke performance. She goes on stage anyway and sings a very off-key and stiff rendition of R.E.M.’s 1991 hit “Losing My Religion.” Something about the song’s lyrics triggers Calum, but it’s not quite obvious at first.
After the performance, Calum tells Sophie that he can pay for her to get singing lessons if she wants. Sophie is slightly offended and asks him if that means he thinks she’s a terrible singer. Calum says no, but Sophie snaps at him: “Stop offering to pay for something when I know you don’t have the money!” Calum is stunned into the silence and seems deeply hurt by this comment.
After that karaoke performance, Calum is seen by sobbing by himself. And there’s a time on the trip when Sophie goes back to their resort room and finds Calum fully naked and sleeping face down asleep on his bed. The implication is that he’s passed out while drunk.
Earlier in the movie, there’s a more subtle sign that Calum might be abusing substances, or at least is on some type of medication, when the video footage picks up the off-camera sound of Calum opening a bottle of pills. Calum also has a cast on his right arm during this vacation. How he injured is arm is never really explained, which implies that he doesn’t want to talk about it.
The movie also reveals that Calum is perhaps haunted by an unhappy childhood. When Sophie asks him what his birthday wish was when he was 11 years old, Calum seems uncomfortable answering the question. However, Sophie asks him again, so he tells her that no one remembered his birthday when he turned 11. He tells Sophie that when he reminded his mother that it was his birthday, she got irritated and told Calum’s father to take him to a toy store to buy a birthday gift for Calum. Calum says he chose a red phone as his toy.
The movie has some scenes that are not video footage but appear to be a montage of the adult Sophie’s memories speculating that Calum was spending some time at nightclubs during this vacation while Sophie was asleep. These nightclub scenes show Calum on the dance floor, with strobe-light effects, and are filmed like fever dreams that mix the past and the present, since the adult Sophie is seen in these visions. There’s a particularly revealing sequence of this “nightclub fever dream,” with David Bowie and Queen’s duet “Under Pressure” playing on the soundtrack, where the adult Sophie shows some anger at her father.
Viewers should not expect to find out much about the adult Sophie. There are brief hints of of what her current life is like as a 31-year-old in 2019. She’s in a live-in relationship with a woman, and they have an infant son together. And whatever Sophie’s memories are of her father, they are bittersweet. It’s not said out loud, but the emotional tone of the film is that this vacation in Turkey was the last time that Sophie and her father were together.
“Aftersun” is not the kind of movie that will please people who want a more traditional narrative structure for a movie that relies mostly on flashbacks to tell the story. Some viewers might get bored at what seems to be a compilation of meandering home video footage. However, observant viewers will notice that in order to fully appreciate the story, it’s about understanding that this footage is being looked at by an adult Sophia to make some sense of what happened to her father, to see if there were any clues that she missed in the video footage that she took back in 1999.
Mescal and Corio give riveting and believable performances as father and daughter Calum and Sophie. There’s nothing that looks fake or contrived in their depiction of this relationship, which is filled with love, tenderness, a little bit of mischief and some underlying tension that is sometimes expressed and sometimes left unsaid. In other words, it’s a lot like many parent/child relationships, but the relationship that a 11-year-old girl has with her father is usually not explored as the central story in a movie.
One of the other standout qualities of “Aftersun” is a nostalgia-driven soundtrack of well-placed pop hits from the 1980s and 1990s. They include Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping” from 1997, Los Del Río’s Macarena” from 1993, and Blur’s “Tender” from 1999. Each song enhances the mood intended for the scene and doesn’t come across as “needle-drop shilling” for the movie’s soundtrack.
“Aftersun” is not a movie that’s filled with big, dramatic, emotional scenes. The story shows that much of life’s biggest lessons are not necessarily “in your face,” but are presented as subtle clues that a child might not be old enough to fully understand until adulthood. The storytelling of “Aftersun” also takes this subtle approach and offers a quiet commentary about appreciating loved ones while they’re still alive and being aware of the not-always-obvious signs that someone might be crying out for help.
A24 released “Aftersun” in select U.S. cinemas on October 21, 2022. The movie is set for release in the United Kingdom and Ireland on December 18, 2022.
