Culture Representation: Taking place in New Jersey, the comedy/drama film “Bugonia” (based on the film “Save the Green Planet!”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Asians and Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: Two cousins, who are conspiracy theorists, kidnap a famous and powerful CEO of a medical company because they think she’s an outer-space alien who plans to destroy Earth.
Culture Audience: “Bugonia” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, and oddball movies that have serious messages cloaked in dark comedy.
Stavros Halkias in “Bugonia” (Photo by Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features)
“Bugonia” is more than a dark comedy about conspiracy theorists kidnapping a high-powered CEO and hiding her in a house. It’s also a sly and subversive warning about an emergency that’s in plain sight but is often ignored. “Bugonia” can get a bit repetitive with the wacky conflict scenes between the kidnappers and the CEO, but viewers who are patient enough watch the entire movie won’t be fully prepared for the impactful way that this movie ends.
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and written by Will Tracy, “Bugonia” is based on the 2003 South Korean movie “Save the Green Planet!,” written and directed by Jang Joon-hwan. “Bugonia” had its world premiere at the 2025 Venice International Film Festival and its North American premiere at the 2025 Telluride Film Festival. The movie’s story takes place in New Jersey, but “Bugonia” was actually filmed in London, Greece and Atlanta.
The conspiracy theorists/kidnappers are domineering Teddy Gatz (played by Jesse Plemons) and passive Don (played by Aidan Delbis), two ne’er-do-wells who kidnap Michelle Fuller (played by Emma Stone), the CEO of Auxolith Medical, a company worth billions. Teddy works for Auxolith as a package processer who scans delivery packages. Teddy (who is the bossy leader of the duo) and Don (who is seems to have autism and learning disabilities) believe that Michelle is really an outer-space alien who is planning to destroy Earth.
Michelle is famous enough to be on the cover of magazines such as Time and Fortune. She has a brittle personality that she often masks by being professionally cordial when she has to be. Michelle is 45 years old, but she looks like she’s in her 30s. The reason why she looks much younger than 45 is explained in the movie. In the beginning of “Bugonia,” Michelle is seen filming a public-relations video in response to a recent Auxolith scandal, which is also revealed in the movie.
Most of “Bugonia” shows what happens when Teddy and Don keep Michelle captive in Teddy’s dilapidated house that is in an isolated rural area. It’s a battle of wits that also involves physical fights and torture. One of the first things that Teddy and Don do to Michelle is shave off all the hair on her head and cover her body in antihistamine cream.
Michelle isn’t the only one subjected to degrading and painful acts. Near the beginning of the movie, Teddy orders Don to ingest a toxin that will do a chemical castration of Don’s genitals because Teddy says that Don can no longer be allowed to procreate. Teddy has also ingested this castration chemical.
The disappearance of Michelle makes big news. A local police officer named Casey Boyd (played by Stavros Halkias) investigates the disappearance. Viewers will have to suspend disbelief that this type of cop is the only law-enforcement official in the movie who’s seen doing any real investigating for such a high-profile case. Casey has a connection to Teddy because Casey used to be Teddy’s babysitter when Teddy was a child.
Alicia Silverstone has a supporting role in “Bugonia” as Sandy Gatz, Teddy’s ailing mother, who is in a coma at a hospice. Sandy is seen in a few dream-like flashback scenes that show a brief glimpse of what Sandy was like before she was in a coma. The reason why she’s in a coma is mentioned in the movie.
“Bugonia” (which has compelling performances from Plemons and Stone) keeps viewers guessing about how much truth could be in the seemingly bizarre theories that Teddy and Don are convinced are real. The movie pokes fun at society’s tendency to be paranoid about “outside enemies,” when much of the harm and danger can come from within that society. “Bugonia” has a twisted and unconventional way of making the statement that it does at the end of the movie, but there’s no ambiguity about what that powerful message is saying.
Focus Features will release “Bugonia” in select U.S. cinemas on October 24, 2025, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on October 31, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in South Korea, the comedy/drama film “No Other Choice” (based on the novel “The Ax”) features a predominantly Asian cast of characters (with some white people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A manager at a paper manufacturing company gets laid off after 25 years with the company, and he decides to murder the rival applicants for the job that he wants.
Culture Audience: “No Other Choice” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of filmmaker Park Chan-wook, the movie’s headliners, and dark comedies that skewer the cutthroat sides of business.
Lee Byung-hun in “No Other Choice” (Photo courtesy of Neon)
“No Other Choice” is a compelling satirical look at unemployment trauma and how a laid-off manager goes to extreme lengths to eliminate competition for a new job that he wants. The movie takes a while to get suspenseful, but the performances are superb. This dark comedy is a searing commentary on how a company making layoffs for cost-cutting reasons can take a very real and damaging toll on human lives that go beyond what can be measured in financial terms.
Directed by Park Chan-wook, “No Other Choice” was co-written by Park, Don McKellar, Lee Kyoung-mi and Lee Ja-hye. The movie is adapted from Donald Westlake’s 1997 novel “The Ax,” which was set in the United States. “No Other Choice” takes place in South Korea. The movie had its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival and made the rounds at other film festivals in 2005, including the Toronto International Film Festival, the New York Film Festival and the BFI London Film Festival.
“No Other Choice” begins by showing the idyllic family life of factory manager Yoo Man-su (played by Lee Byung-hun) at their comfortable middle-class home. Man-su, his wife Lee Mi-ri (played by Son Ye-jin), their two children—son Si-One (who is about 11 or 12 years old) and their non-verbal daughter Ri-One (who is 10 years old)—are having a barbecue party in their backyard for Mi-ri because it’s her birthday. The four family members are the only people at this party.
Mi-ri (who works as a dental hygienist) and Man-su are happily married. Their children are good kids who don’t cause any problems. The family seems to be so picture-perfect, they’ve named their two Golden Retriever dogs (Si-Two and Ri-Two) after the two children. Mi-ri opens her birthday gift from Man-su. It’s a pair of high-heeled shoes. She jokes good-naturedly, “They say you shouldn’t give shoes to your lover because they might run away.
For the past 25 years, Man-su has been employed by Solar Paper, a paper manufacturing company. He is currently a well-respected manager of a Solar Paper factory. He prides himself on being a paper expert. During the barbecue party, Man-soo reads note that he received the company. The note says, “Thanks for your hard work at Solar Paper.” Man-su gathers his family around him so they can give each other a group hug. “I have it all,” Man-su says aloud with happiness and contentment.
Man-su’s stable life will soon be disrupted by changes at Solar Paper. First, he’s ordered to lay off 20% of his staff due to budget cuts. And then, Man-su is laid off too. Man-su is in shock because he thought that his longevity, hard work, excellent performance reviews, and loyalty to the company would make him immune from the layoffs. At the suggestion of Solar Paper, a despondent Man-su joins a support group for laid-off employees.
Three months later, the only work that Man-su has been able to find is a low-paying job stocking products at a big-box retail store. One of his former Solar Paper subordinates named Nam-su, who was also laid off by Solar Paper, now works for a rival company called Papyrus. Nam-su helps Man-su get a job interview at Papryus, but it’s a job at a lower level than what Man-su had at Solar Paper. In fact, if Man-su gets this job at Papyrus, he would have to report to Nam-su.
Man-su needs the money, so he does the job interview, which is conducted by a panel of four men. During the interview, Man-su rattles off a list of his accomplishments. When he’s asked what he think is his biggest weakness, Man-su replies that his biggest weakness is not being able to answer that question. This cheekiness doesn’t work. Man-su doesn’t get the job.
At home, Man-su is feeling the pressure of bringing in an income so that he and his family can continue in the life to which they’ve become accustomed. In order to reduce their expenses, the Man-Su and Miri cancel the family’s Netflix subscription and give the family’s two dogs to Mi-ri’s parents (played by Oh Gwang-rok and Lee Yong-nyeo), but Mi-ri does not want to cancel Ri-One’s cello lessons because Ri-One is a very talented cello player. Mi-ri says that Ri-One is a musical prodigy who should have a teacher who is a college-level music professor.
Man-su’s biggest fear is that he will have to sell their house, which was his childhood home that he bought after he and his family moved around several times. He fulfilled a major dream by buying this house. However, the house mortgage is in default, and the house will be in foreclosure if the overdue mortgage is not paid in three months. Mi-ri thinks that they should sell the house, but Man-su vehemently disagrees.
Desperate people sometimes do desperate things. Man-su applies for a manager position at another company called Moon Paper, which is even more successful than Solar Paper. The job would also pay more than the salary that Man-su had at Solar Paper. With the deadline approaching to pay his overdue mortgage, Man-su finds out who else applied for the job, and he plans to kill them all.
One of the most darkly comedic parts of the movie is how Man-su deals with a Moon Paper job applicant rival named Koo Beom-mo (played by Lee Sung-min), who has been unemployed for eight months, is often drunk, and is having marital problems with his aspiring actress wife Lee A-ra (played by Yeom Hye-ran), who resents having to be the sole source of income for their household. Other supporting characters in the movie are Moon Paper line manager Choi Sun-chul (played by Park Hee-soon) and Moon Paper job applicant Ko Si-jo (played by Cha Seung-won).
“No Other Choice” (which clocks in at 139 minutes) doesn’t get to the murder schemes until the last half of the film. It’s the movie’s way of showing the gradual mental unraveling of Man-su and how he is planning on committing crimes that he wouldn’t have ever considered doing if hadn’t lost his job. Although all of the acting is done very well, Lee Byung-hun is the obvious standout as the troubled Man-su, an anti-hero who is both overwhelmed but also calculating about his predicament.
“No Other Choice,” which has impressive cinematography by Kim Woo-hyung, is a rare movie that skillfully balances a tone that is darkly disturbing and absurdly comedic. The movie also invites viewers to ponder the emotional cost of Man-su’s murderous schemes. Even if Man-su succeeds in getting what he wants, will he lose his soul in the process? Considering that there’s no guarantee that he won’t get laid off from the job that he wants, “No Other Choice” has an ironic title and story about obsessive tunnel vision that doesn’t consider life’s unexpected possibilities.
Neon will release “No Other Choice” in select U.S. cinemas on December 25, 2025, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas. The movie was released in South Korea on September 25, 2025.
Greta Lee and Willem Dafoe in “Late Fame” (Photo courtesy of Late Fame LLC)
“Late Fame”
Directed by Kent Jones
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the dramatic film “Late Fame” (based on the novella of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans, Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: An elderly post-office worker, who gave up on being a poet after his 1979 book of poems was a commercial failure, is “rediscovered” by a group of young artists, who want him to make a comeback.
Culture Audience: “Late Fame” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and movies that take aim at false images that are presented when artists try to market themselves as “authentic.”
The witty drama “Late Fame” gives amusingly accurate observations about the pretensions of ambitious artists. Willem Dafoe exquisitely plays a disillusioned poet who is plucked from obscurity for an agenda-driven comeback. Although “Late Fame” gives a very specific portrait of what New York City’s artistic scene can be like in the 2020s, many of the movie’s themes can apply to any artistic community that has no shortage of brilliant talent as well as wannabes and pretenders.
Directed by Kent Jones and written by Samy Burch, “Late Fame” is adapted from Arthur Schnitzler’s 1894 novella of the same name. “Late Fame” had its world premiere at the 2025 Venice International Film Festival and its North American premiere at the 2025 New York Film Festival. The movie was filmed on location in New York City.
“Late Fame” begins by showing post-office worker Ed Saxberger (played by Dafoe) coming home to his modest apartment in New York City’s Manhattan borough. Ed (who is in his late 60s or early 70s) is a bachelor who lives alone and doesn’t have much of a social life, except for hanging out with a few co-workers at a local bar/pool hall. It’s implied that Ed has no children because there is no mention of him being a father. If Ed was ever married, that’s not mentioned in the movie either.
Ed mentions later in the movie that when he was 17 years old and a high-school dropout from western Pennsylvania, he moved to New York City with very little money and had big dreams of becoming a professional poet. In 1979, Ed had a book of poems published titled “Way Past Go.” The book was a flop and has long since been out of print. Shortly after the commercial failure of “Way Past Go,” Ed gave up his dreams to be a poet. He has been working as mail sorter for the U.S. Postal Service for the past 37 years.
When Ed arrives at his apartment building on this particular day, he finds out from his nosy neighbor Paulie (played by Tony Torn) that a young male admirer has been waiting “like a prom date” for Ed outside of the building. Ed is curious about who this stranger is, so Ed goes to talk to him. The stranger introduces himself as Wilson Meyers (played by Edmund Donovan), who is in his early-to-mid-30s, and says he prefers to be called by his last name.
Meyers already knows who Ed is and tells him breathlessly and enthusiastically, “I read ‘Way Past Go.’ It’s as if the poems were written yesterday. They just slap you across the face with their relevancy.”
Ed is surprised and flattered. Meyers mentions that he bought “Way Past Go” at a place that sells out-of-print books. When Meyers asks Ed what Ed is doing with his life now, Ed matter-of-factly says that he’s a postal service worker who sorts mail. “Ah, a man of letters,” Meyers says as a friendly joke.
Meyers (who describes himself as a poet) offers to take Ed out to dinner and gushes to Ed, “You wrote a masterpiece, whether people know it or not.” Ed thanks Meyers for the compliments but politely declines the dinner offer.
Meyers tells Ed that Meyers isn’t the only admirer of Ed’s work. Meyers says that he’s part of a small group of artists called the Enthusiasm Society, who are all fans of “Way Past Go” and would love to meet Ed. Meyers says that Ed has an open invitation to hang out with the Enthusiasm Society at a local cafe called Any Old Place in Manhattan’s East Village, where the group meets on a regular basis.
When Ed gets home, he listens to a voice mail message from his sister Barbara (voiced by Welker White), who is annoyed that Ed hasn’t been returning her phone calls. She gives an update on their ailing brother Jimmy, who is apparently close to dying. Barbara scolds Ed for not seeming to care about Jimmy. “He’s your brother too,” she says.
Ed’s reluctance to return his sister’s phone calls is the movie’s only indication that Ed’s family represents a painful part of his past that Ed feels he doesn’t want to revisit. When Ed decides to go to the cafe to meet the Enthusiasm Society, you get the sense it’s not just because of curiosity but also because a part of him might be seeking a new family, especially a group that he knows already adores him before even knowing him.
Ed meets the Enthusiasm Society when he sees stalkerish Meyers again. Meyers asks Ed if he can read and evaluate Meyers’ poetry. It’s during this conversation that Meyers persuades Ed to meet the other members of the Enthusiasm Society, who mostly want to be referred to by their last names.
As expected, the members of the Enthusiasm Society treat Ed like a long-lost celebrity. Meyers introduces the rest of the group to Ed. They are mostly in their mid-to-late 20s. Ed soon finds out that most of the members of the Enthusiasm Society aren’t really struggling financially because they come from affluent families who are funding their artistic endeavors.
Chia Carmichael (played by Arthur Langlie) is a fairly quiet aspiring playwright. Brussard (played by Clay Singer) is a brooding cynic who is a cultural critic/essayist. Sherfey Fernandez (played by Graham Campbell) is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design and has taken a vow of silence, so he is non-verbal for the entire movie. Winn (played by Luca Padovan) is a very perky multi-format writer and the youngest member of the group: He’s about 17 years old and still in high school.
Meyers tells Ed that the members of the Enthusiasm Society have a particular fondness for and want to emulate the beatnik artists of the mid-to-late 20th century. (Allen Ginsberg is a particular hero of the Enthusiasm Society.) Meyers says that the Enthusiasm Society consists of counterculture non-conformists who think social media and technology addictions are ruining society. The Enthusiasm Society members have a particular disdain for social media influencers, whom they point out in the cafe as shallow non-intellectuals.
Someone else is part of the group and shows up later: Her name is Gloria Gardner (played by Greta Lee), who is a theater actress and cabaret singer. Gloria is the only woman and only person of color in the Enthusiasm Society. And until Ed is asked to join the group, Gloria (who is in her early 40s) was the oldest member of the Enthusiasm Society.
Everyone tells each other a little bit about their personal backgrounds, except for Gloria, whose personal background is “murky,” according to Meyers. When Gloria does show up, she does a lot of preening and swanning. She talks a lot about how hard it is to get funding for a play that she wants to do. Mostly, she acts like she’s a fabulous and in-demand diva, even though it’s an obvious façade.
When the Enthusiasm Society members decide to have dinner at a nearby restaurant, the group wants to hear Ed tell stories of any respected artists whom he used to know. When he’s asked if he knew any of the Beat Poets, Ed says no. Gloria leans over and quietly suggests to Ed that when someone asks him that question, he should lie and say yes. Clearly, Gloria is accustomed to putting on false airs for herself, so it’s no wonder she thinks other people should do it too.
Ed is attracted to Gloria, but Brussard privately warns Ed that Gloria likes to manipulate men and is already involved with Carmichael. Gloria senses that Brussard has been saying negative things about her to Ed. She tells Ed that Brussard made a pass at her but she rejected Brussard.
Gloria leans into Ed and says seductively, “I have a high tolerance for despicable men.” Regardless of who’s telling the truth, it doesn’t lessen Ed’s attraction to Gloria. She openly flirts with him and goes out of her way to spend some time alone with him.
It isn’t long before Meyers tells Ed that the Enthusiasm Society is having an introductory event where the members will have their work performed in public. Meyers wants this event to be a showcase for Ed’s comeback and suggests that Ed write a new poem that Gloria can perform at this event. Ed is taken aback by this idea, but he eventually agrees to this plan.
Meyers invites Ed over to his place so they can get to know each other better. It’s here that Ed finds out how rich Meyers really is and how Meyers (who doesn’t have a job) has been living off of his family’s money. (Observant viewers will notice at the end of the scene that Meyers, who supposedly is very anti-technology, uses Amazon’s A.I. virtual assistant Alexa in his home, which is something that’s revealed after Ed’s visit ends.) Meyers, who has a master of arts degree from New York University, shrugs off his privileged lifestyle and says that the Enthusiasm Society doesn’t care about where its members went to school or who their fathers are.
But then, Meyers proceeds to ask Ed the type of questions that are aimed out finding out Ed’s educational background and family status. Ed mentions how he dropped out of high school and moved to New York City at age 17. When Meyers asks if Ed is Jewish (because Ed’s last name is Saxberger), Ed says his father was a non-practicing Jew, and his mother was a Catholic homemaker.
Meyers seems to think Ed being a high-school dropout who didn’t come from a wealthy family makes Ed look like some type of “cool” bohemian. Meyers suggests to Ed that Ed should write a memoir. It’s an idea that Ed is not enthusiastic about at all. However, Ed is open to the possibility of getting a new book deal to publish any of his new poetry. The attention that Ed gets from the Enthusiasm Society has renewed his interest in being a poet.
Meyers sets up a meeting with a literary agent whom he knows named Harrison (played by Jake Lacy), who works closely with a top publishing company called Novell. This meeting is an eye-opening experience for Ed, who finds out that what this agent has in mind for Ed is not what Ed wants to do. It’s also the first indication that Meyers wants to push Ed in a direction befitting what Meyers wants to do by promoting Ed as being worthy of a comeback.
As Ed spends more time with the Enthusiasm Society, their “high and mighty” intellectual ways start to rub off on him. Ed starts to avoid his blue-collar buddies Arnold (played by Clark Johnson), Irv (played by Stephen Badalamenti), Hank (played by Daniel Oreskes) and Leonard (played by William Hill) because Ed says he’s too busy with his new set of friends who admire him as a poet. And when Ed does hang out with his old friends, such as during Arnold’s birthday party, Ed literally says they’re too lowbrow for him. This insult happens after Ed gives “Way Past Go” as a birthday gift to Arnold, and Ed gets lightly mocked for it by the men at the party.
Ed ignoring his siblings and distancing himself from his longtime friends might sound like he’s a self-centered jerk. However, Ed has a very compassionate side to him, particularly when it comes to Gloria, whom he treats very well. His infatuation with Gloria, just like the Enthusiasm Society’s unexpected passion for Ed as a poet, seems to have reawakened Ed to a past version of himself that he thought had long disappeared.
“Late Fame” drops enough hints to show that certain people in the Enthusiasm Society are not exactly who they pretend to be. Why are they, especially Meyers, so fixated on making Ed a famous and widely respected poet? Ed is caught up in the non-stop flattery until he starts to see the true natures of some people who want to attach themselves to him.
“Late Fame” screenwriter Burch (who was Oscar-nominated for 2023’s “May December” screenplay) mines similar territory about how delusion and deceit can be a toxic mix in crafting public images. In addition to serving up biting commentary on privileged people pretending to be edgy struggling artists, “Late Fame” also skewers the hypocrisy that is often part of creating artists’ public personas. Ed has never been a “fake it ’til you make it” kind of guy, so he’s in for a rude awakening when he finds out that some of the aspiring artists he thinks are his new friends have no problem with telling lies to get ahead.
It leads to the inevitable question: How much of the Enthusiasm Society’s admiration for Ed is real or fake? It’s the part of the story that is the most intriguing. Dafoe (who can always be counted on to give above-average performances, even in his worst movies) is in fine form in “Late Fame,” as someone who has renewed hope in getting another chance at a long-abandoned dream. Dafoe’s portrayal of Ed has moments of wistfulness that are somewhat heartbreaking when you know that Ed’s Enthusiasm Society “fan club” is built on a shaky foundation of hidden agendas.
Jones’ engaging direction of “Late Fame” infuses an authentic blend of New York City’s artistic community in the present-day, by depicting those who are hungry for recognition and want the grit and the glamour, while chasing after fame and artistic credibility. The movie’s visual style and music also evoke some fond nostalgia for New York City of the 1970s, the decade that Ed had his biggest chance of “making it” as a poet. (Lou Reed’s 1976 songs “Charley’s Girl” and “Ooh Baby” are part of the soundtrack.) There’s a wonderfully simple but impactful scene of Ed taking out photo albums and scrapbooks when he’s by himself at his apartment, to remind himself of the “good old days” before his poet dreams were crushed.
Lee and Donovan also give standout performances for characters who are both similar and different from each other. Lee’s Gloria is obviously a “fake it ’til you make it” type of person, but you immediately sense that she does it out of necessity because she doesn’t have a rich family to support her, like Meyers does. Gloria also has the talent to back up her aspirations. There’s a scene where Gloria invites Ed to see her do a cabaret performance, and she sings a terrific rendition of “Surabaya Johnny” from the Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht musical “Happy End.” Ed is suitably entranced.
Donovan’s skillful portrayal of Meyers morphs from being a star-struck exuberant fan to being a calculating control freak. There are many different sides to Meyers, depending on who he’s talking to and what he wants. He can go from be a seemingly progresssive thinker who wants to relate to everyday people to being an elitist snob of the highest order. The Enthusiasm Society is supposed to be democratic, but Meyers often acts like a dictator.
“Late Fame” is not a cynical indictment of people who want another chance at pursuing goals and dreams. And although the movie has clear examples of how the “haves” and “have nots” can operate differently in society, “Late Fame” is not a complete attack on those who are more privileged than others. Rather, “Late Fame” is a clever and memorable story about identity and what can happen if we choose to let other people define who we really are.
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the comedy/drama film “Is This Thing On?” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans, Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A father, who’s separated from his wife, finds an emotional outlet in stand-up comedy, while he and his estranged wife decide if they get back together or get divorced.
Culture Audience: “Is This Thing On?” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Bradley Cooper, and bittersweet movies about marriage and personal transformations.
Bradley Cooper and Will Arnett in “Is This Thing On?” (Photo by Jason McDonald/Searchlight Pictures)
The comedy/drama “Is This Thing On?” is less about becoming a stand-up comedian and more about whether or not a separated married couple will get back together. The movie’s talented performances mostly overcome the story’s shaggy and uneven tone. At times, “Is This Thing On?” looks like it can’t decide whether it wants to be an acerbic adult drama or a sentimental family comedy. It doesn’t completely succeed at either, but it has enough moments where its shines to keep most viewers interested or curious to see what will happen next.
Directed by Bradley Cooper, “Is This Thing On?” was co-written by Cooper, Will Arnett and Mark Chappell. Cooper and Arnett are two of the producers of the film. “Is This Thing On?” is the third movie that Cooper has directed, following the 2018 remake of “A Star Is Born” and the 2023 Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro.” “Is This Thing On?” (which had its world premiere at the 2025 New York Film Festival) doesn’t have a celebrity as the protagonist. Instead, the central character is a “regular guy” named Alex Novak (played by Arnett), who lives in New York City and is having a mid-life crisis that leads to a personal crossroads. (“Is This Thing On?” was filmed on location in New York City.)
In the beginning of the movie, Alex is shown looking bored and unhappy at an event where Chinese dragon dancers are performing at the school where his two sons (about 10 and 11 yeas old) are students. Older son Blake (played by Blake Kane) is intellectual and somewhat neurotic. Younger son Calvin (played by Calvin Knegten) is fun-loving and more adventurous than Blake. There’s a reason for Alex’s discontent: He and his wife Tess (played by Laura Dern) have separated after being married for 20 years and knowing each other for 26 years.
Alex’s job isn’t specifically stated in the movie, and he’s not seen at the office where he works. There are some vague references to Alex possibly working in the financial sector. Tess is a homemaker who used to be an Olympic volleyball player in her 20s. She’s been a homemaker for an unnamed period of time—definitely since her children were born. After separating from Alex, Tess starts seeking out job opportunities to become a volleyball coach to Olympic hopefuls.
Alex and Tess didn’t break up because of infidelity, addiction, abuse or financial problems. Their marriage crumbled because Alex and Tess are bored and frustrated with each other and their lives. The movie doesn’t have flashbacks to give any insight into what led up to their decision to separate. However, they are the type of estranged spouses who don’t get into vicious screaming arguments. They try to keep their verbal disagreements as civil as possible.
One night, Alex goes to a comedy club, but he doesn’t have the cash for the $15 admission fee. (It’s a weird contrivance for the movie. Doesn’t Alex have any debit cards or credit cards to pay the admission fee?) When he finds out that it’s open mic night at the club, and anyone who signs up to perform that night will get in the club for free, Alex impulsively decides to perform so he doesn’t have to pay the cover charge.
Alex’s first stand-up set is improvised and somewhat awkward. But he loves the freedom that stand-up comedy gives him to joke about his personal problems and other things in his life. Alex is hooked. He gets to know some of the people who consistently perform at the local comedy clubs. And he begins to consider doing stand-up comedy as a professional career.
Many scenes in “Is This Thing On?” were filmed on location at the Comedy Cellar in New York City with real paying audiences, not people who hired to act as audience members. Comedy Cellar manager Liz Furiati portrays herself in the movie. Amy Sedaris has a small role as the Comedy Cellar’s open mic emcee named Kemp.
Alex discovering stand-up comedy and becoming part of a stand-up comedy community could have been a very intriguing central concept for the movie. However, the majority of “Is This Thing On?” is about Alex and Tess going back and forth about whether or not they want to divorce or save their marriage. The stand-up comedy aspirations take a back seat to this spousal quandary.
The acting performances are credible, but the movie’s story is at times unfocused. Alex’s entrée into the New York comedy scene seems like a detour to the main story about his marital dilemma, when the stand-up comedy storyline and the marital storyline could have existed as parallel routes in a better screenplay. The teaser trailer for “Is This Thing On?” is somewhat misleading because it makes it look like the stand-up comedy storyline is the main story of the film. This “bait and switch” might or might not disappoint some viewers.
Supporting characters in the movie are a bit underdeveloped. Alex’s parents Marilyn (played by Christine Ebersole) and Jan (played by Ciarán Hinds) adore Alex and his family, but that’s all the movie shows about these two grandparents. Marilyn really likes Tess and gets along well with her, so Marilyn is naturally upset that Tess and Alex have split up. Marilyn tells Alex that she still wants to be a friend to Tess.
Alex and Tess, even after they’re separated, still hang out together with two longtime friends: an unhappily married stoner couple named Balls (played by Cooper) and Christine (played by Andra Day), who are the most annoying characters in the movie. Balls and Christine are competitive with Alex and Tess. And that’s all you’ll find out about this insecure “frenemy” couple.
Perhaps the biggest disappointment in “Is This Thing On?” is the movie’s superficial depiction of the New York comedy scene. Although the movie has real-life comedians (such as Jordan Jensen, Chloe Radcliffe and Reggie Conquest) portraying themselves, they have cameos, not significant roles, in Alex’s life. Fun fact: “Is This Thing On?” cinematographer Matthew “Matty” Libatique also portrays a stand-up comedian in the movie.
“Is This Thing On?” glosses over or outright ignores how cutthroat and competitive stand-up comedy can be in real life. All the comedians who interact with Alex are immediately helpful and nice to him. If these new acquaintances have any dark sides to their personalities or personal demons (and many stand-up comedians do in real life), you don’t see any of that in this movie. Some of the comedians tell Alex that they think he’s got the potential to be a great and successful comedian, but none of them seem jealous. It’s all too good to be true.
There’s also a climactic scene using the Queen/David Bowie song “Under Pressure” that might remind people of the “Under Pressure” scene in the 2010 comedy/drama “It’s Kind of a Funny Story,” directed by Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden and starring Zach Galifianakis. Considering that Cooper and Galifianakis co-starred in “The Hangover” movies together, and Cooper is a well-known movie aficionado, it’s hard to imagine Cooper not being aware of this “Under Pressure” scene in “It’s Kind of a Funny Story” and possibly being inspired by it. It’s not a ripoff scene in “Is This Thing On?,” but more originality was needed for this movie’s climactic scene.
“Is This Thing On?” mostly excels in its performances. Arnett and Dern have believable chemistry as a couple trying to figure out if they should stay married or not, and as parents trying not to let their marital discord be traumatic to their children. Some of the stand-up comedy bits and other scenes are amusing. The movie’s cinematography (lots of shaky-cam closeups) might not be to everyone’s liking. However, as an overall cinematic experience, “Is This Thing On?” hits in enough of the right places to watch the movie at least once and get some enjoyment out of it.
Searchlight Pictures will release “Is This Thing On?” in U.S. cinemas on December 19, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the United States, Ireland, and France, the dramatic film “Father Mother Sister Brother” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with two African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: In this anthology film with three separate stories, various family members visit each other in reunions that have certain levels of tension.
Culture Audience: “Father Mother Sister Brother” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, and low-key independent films about families.
Luka Sabbat and Inya Moore in “Father Mother Sister Brother” (Photo courtesy of MUBI)
Viewers who know in advance that “Father Mother Sister Brother” is more of a character study than a plot-driven film will be more likely to appreciate this talkative and quirky drama. The movie has emotionally authentic depictions of family relationships. The storytelling is an uneven hodgepodge, but the talented cast’s performances are worth watching.
Written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, “Father Mother Sister Brother” had its world premiere at the 2025 Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Lion, the festival’s top prize. “Father Mother Sister Brother” had its North American premiere at the 2025 New York Film Festival. The movie was filmed on location in three separate countries for each story: the United States, Ireland, and France.
“Father”
The first story, titled “Father,” features two siblings named Jeff (played by Adam Driver) and Emily (played by Mayim Bialik) sharing a car ride on the way to visit their unnamed widowed father (played by Tom Waits) on a winter’s day somewhere in New Jersey. The siblings’ widowed father lives in isolation in a small, remote house near a lake. Jeff (whose occupation is not stated in the movie) and Emily (who works in academia) don’t see their eccentric father very often.
Jeff and Emily don’t see each other on a regular basis either, but they keep in touch by phone or email. Therefore, these family members’ conversations with each other are often awkward—a mixture of polite small talk and judgmental remarks. The death of the siblings’ mother (when this death happened s never stated in the movie) seems to have made the siblings and their father more distant from each other.
Emily has a noticeably smug attitude with Jeff because she seems to think her life is “perfect” (married with kids, good job, comfortable lifestyle), compared to the life Jeff, who divorced, has no children, and is still emotionally struggling after his divorce. In the car ride on the way to their father’s house (Jeff is driving), Emily asks Jeff where their retired father gets money because she’s not sure if he’s eligible for Social Security benefits due to his long history of “not having a real job.”
Jeff replies, “I’m not completely sure. He always seems to have projects.” It leads to Emily asking Jeff if he’s sent money to their father recently. Jeff admits that he occasionally sends money to their father byut only because their father said he needed money for emergency repairs, such a fixing the house’s well, a septic disaster, and a caved-in wall. Jeff also says that their father told Jeff that the father can barely pay his for electricity and phone bills.
Emily comments that her husband Harold doesn’t like that Jeff sends money to the siblings’ father. Jeff admits that his ex-wife Cheryl didn’t like it either. Emily remarks, “That’s probably why she divorced you.” Emily seems to immediately regret saying this hurtful comment and tells Jeff that she’s sorry.
Before the siblings arrive, their father is seen quickly trying to tdy up his cluttered house as much as he can. He gives the impression that he like to hold on to a lot of old possessions.: His furnishings are outdated, and he prefers use a beat-up looking landline phone instead of a cell phone. When the siblings are at the house, the siblings and father greet each other warmly, but the conversation is strained.
The father’s mental health is alluded to when Jeff asks if the father if he’s had any recent “episodes” like the “episode” that the father had at the funeral of the siblings’ mother. The father says no. Jeff replies, “You handled it admirably.” The father mentions that he’s not taking any medication, but he adds, “I take a drink now and then.”
Emily notices that the father is wearing a Rolex watch, but he insists that it’s a fake Rolex. The father is fixated on serving water to drink for the three of them. When the father wants to make a celebratory toast with the glasses of water, Jeff asks if water can really be used to give a toast.
“Father” is the most comedic of the three stories, mainly because of Waits’ performance, where he plays his gravelly-voiced, disheveled persona to the hilt. “Father” is also the most intriguing of the three stories because of what happens in the last five minutes. It’s enough to say that all is not what it seems with one of these family members.
“Mother”
“Mother,” the second story, takes place in the Irish capital of Dublin. It’s another scenario where two siblings meet up with an elderly parent in the parent’s home. In this situation, the three family members are an unnamed single mother (played by Charlotte Rampling), her prim daughter Timothea (played by Cate Blanchett), and Timothea’s free-spirited younger sister Lilith (played by Vicky Krieps). All three women have gathered for their annual tradition of having tea with this dignifed and formal mother in her stately, well-kept home.
It’s mentioned that the mother talks on the phone with Timothea and Lilith about once every few weeks. Timothea calls more often than Lilith. Timothea was recently appointed to a lofty position at a historical society. It’s not stated what Lilith does for a living.
Timothea and Lilith drove in separate cars to their mother’s home. Timothea was driving her car but had some car trouble and called to tell her mother why Timothea was running late. Lilith got a car ride from a woman named Jeanette (played by Sarah Greene), who is Lilith’s lover, but Lilith doesn’t want Lilith’s mother to know. Lilith asks Jeanette to pretend that Jeanette is Lilith’s Uber driver.
Jeanette seems slightly amused and not offended, which is an indication that she and Lilith haven’t been dating each other for very long or have the type of casual relationship that Jeanette doesn’t care if Lilith’s mother is deceived about the true nature of the relationship. Later, Lilith tells her mother that she’s been dating a man named Richard but doesn’t want to marry him. “I’m not sure I want to be tied to a man,” says Lillith.
Unfortunately, “Mother” is the weakest of the three stories because it mostly shows a dull conversation between the mother, Lilith and Timothea. This is a family who also doesn’t talk about whatever issues they have—at least not in this visit. And so, viewers can only speculate why Lilith is lying about Jeanette to Lilith’s mother. The “Mother” story is the least interesting of the three because it reveals very little about the characters by the time this story ends.
“Sister Brother”
“Sister Brother,” the third story in the movie, is the most sentimental and sweet-natured. It takes place in the French capital of Paris and shows twins Billy (played by Luka Sabbat) and Skye (played by Indya Moore) going to the apartment where their recently deceased mother used to live and sorting through her possessions. The conversations between Billy and Skye also start off with polite small talk, but their discussions end up going emotionally deeper than the conversations in “Father” and “Mother.”
Based on these conversations, the siblings grew up in a non-traditional family who allowed Billy and Skye to express themselves freely. The twins agree that they’re glad they didn’t grow up in a conventional household. It’s a “slice of life” story where not much happens except the siblings reminiscing about their past and talking about their current lives.
The favorite song of the twins’ mother was Classics IV’s 1967 hit “Spooky.” Annika Henderson’s cover version of “Spooky” is played in the beginning and end of “Father Mother Sister Brother,” like lovely book ends. The movie also has a throughline of scenes that feature skateboarders rushing past the main characters in each story.
The film’s cinematography by Frederick Elmes and Yorick Le Saux often features several overhead shots to draw attention to attractive locations or props. For example, in the “Mother” story, there are multiple “bird’s eye view” shots of the tea and pastries that are laid out on the table for the family gathering. The musical score by Jarmusch and Henderson is both whimsical and dreamy.
“Father Mother Sister Brother” is not the type of movie that is meant to overwhelm or dazzle viewers. The performances are good, but not outstanding. It’s an artsy “hangout” film where viewers get a brief glimpse into the lives of some unique characters and some of their family dynamics. “Father Mother Sister Brother” invites viewers to think about not just what’s said but what’s left unsaid, which is a lot more like real life than a movie that shows and tells viewers exactly what viewers should think.
MUBI will release “Father Mother Sister Brother” in select U.S. cinemas on December 24, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in North Carolina, from 2003 to 2005, the dramatic film “Roofman” (based on real events) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A convicted robber escapes from prison, hides in a Toys “R” Us store, and begins romancing a divorced mother, who is one of the store’s employees.
Culture Audience: “Roofman” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and well-acted dramas based on true crime stories.
Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst in “Roofman” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)
The crime drama “Roofman” has engaging performances in this “based on a true story” about a convicted robber who escapes from prison, hides in a toy store, and starts a romance with a divorced mother. The movie is a bit too long, but it’s entertaining. “Roofman” (which has a total running time of 126 minutes) also skirts dangerously close to glorifying this criminal and making him look too sympathetic, while glossing over a lot of the damage he did during his crime spree.
Directed by Derek Cianfrance (who co-wrote the “Roofman” screenplay with Kirt Gunn), “Roofman” takes place in North Carolina from 2003 to 2005. It’s a very condensed version of the real timeline period, which took place from 2000 to 2005. Several details of the real story are changed in the movie for dramatic purposes, although the names of movie’s central couple are the same as the real people portrayed in the movie. “Roofman” had its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.
“Roofman” (which was filmed on location in North Carolina, and is told in chronological order), begins by showing U.S. Army veteran/divorced father Jeffrey “Jeff” Manchester (played by Channing Tatum) doing what he’s been doing for the the past two years: robbing fast-food places by cutting open a hole in the roof at night, waiting for first-shift employees to arrive at the restaurant before it opens, and then forcing the employees by gunpoint to give him any cash that’s in the restaurant. Jeff, who wears a mask during the robberies, always politely tells his victims that if they remain calm and does what he says, then he won’t hurt them. (For the purposes of this review, the real Jeff Manchester will be referred to by his last name. The character of Jeff Manchester in “Roofman” will be referred to by his first name.)
In this opening scene, Jeff robs a McDonald’s and tells the three employees—Jade (played by Kirana Kiuc), Joslyn (played by Gabriella Cila) and store manager Duane (played by Tony Revolori)—that he’s locking them in the freezer room. Jade and Joslyn each has her own jacket, but Duane doesn’t have a jacket. Duane is afraid that he’ll get hypothermia in the freezer room. Jeff takes pity on Duane and gives his own jacket to Duane before locking all the employees in the freezer room. It’s this movie’s way of showing that even though Jeff is an armed robber, he shows “kindness” to his victims.
Jeff also assures the employees that they won’t be in the freezer for long because right before he leaves, he’s going to use a phone in the restaurant to call 911 to send help. (Jeff presumably disguises his voice for this phone call.) What the movie doesn’t take into account is that this seeming act of kindness doesn’t erase the possibility that one of the robbery victims could have an undisclosed medical condition that would be very harmful and possibly deadly if that person undergoes any expected stress. It also wasn’t smart of Jeff to leave his jacket behind because the jacket has DNA evidence.
Jeff is next seen hosting a birthday party for his eldest child: a daughter named Becky (played by Alissa Marie Pearson), whose only gift request is to get a bicycle. Becky is about 4 or 5 years old. Jeff can’t afford a bicycle, so his birthday gift to Becky is a box set to build toy cars. Becky is visibly confused and disappointed, even though Jeff tries to convince Becky that this is a fun gift for her.
Jeff’s financial problems and being a less-than-responsible father are depicted as two of the main reasons why he got divorced. He and his ex-wife Talena (played by Melonie Diaz) also have twin infant sons, whose names are not mentioned in the movie. Talena is fed up and disgusted with Jeff. She doesn’t trust that he will improve.
Jeff gripes about how miserable he is to his former Army buddy Steve (played by LaKeith Stanfield), who’s involved in criminal activities of his own: Steve and his girlfriend Michelle (played by Juno Temple) sell fake identities and fake ID documents. Steve tells Jeff that Jeff is smarter than most people because Jeff can see solutions to problems that other people can’t see. Steve advises Jeff to use his talents wisely.
After this birthday party, Jeff goes on a robbery spree. The media and others have given the robber the nickname Roofman because of how the robber accesses the restaurants by breaking in through the roof. Steve suspects that Jeff is really Roofman, but Jeff keeps his robberies a secret from everyone.
The movie fast-forwards to a year later, in 2004, when Jeff’s birthday party for Becky is much more elaborate, and he gives her the gift that she wanted: a brand-new bicycle. Becky is ecstatic, but the birthday party turns into a disaster when police show up to arrest Jeff for the robberies. Jeff runs away, but he’s quickly caught, and Becky witnesses this arrest. Jeff is subsequently convicted of the McDonald’s robbery and kidnapping that were shown in the beginning of the movie.
In real life, Manchester was arrested in a wooded area after a silent alarm went off during one of his robberies. His arrest did not take place in front of his daughter or during a birthday party. In the movie, as in real life, Jeff was sentenced to 45 years in prison because the judge felt that Jeff deserved a harsher sentence because Jeff put the robbery victims in a freezer room.
Jeff is the intermittent narrator of this movie. He explains that during his first several months in prison, he became a well-behaved prisoner who earned the trust of the prison employees. Jeff also learned the prison’s routines of when delivery trucks would come and go. He is entrusted with helping unload some of these deliveries and ends up escaping by hiding underneath a delivery truck.
Jeff hides in a Toys “R” Us store and lives there undetected for the next several months. Jeff turns off the recording function in the store’s video surveillance system, which the store employes don’t bother to check on a regular basis. He makes money by stealing items from the store and selling them. Using the alias John Zorn, Jeff ends up dating a Toys “R” Us store employee named Leigh Wainscott (played by Kirsten Dunst), whom he meets when he joins a local Christian church, which is led by amiable Pastor Ron (played by Ben Mendelsohn) and his cheerful wife Eileen (played by Uzo Aduba).
Leigh works as a sales clerk at Toys “R” Us. It’s mentioned at one point that she has a master’s degree, but the movie doesn’t give her enough of a backstory to explain why a middle-aged person with a master’s degree is working as a low-paid sales clerk at a toy store. In real life, Wainscott did not work at the Toys “R” Us store where Manchester was hiding. The movie also erases the fact that Manchester eventually relocated from the Toys “R” Us store to hide in a nearby Circuit City. In real life, Manchester was living in this Circuit City when he did the big robbery of Toys “R” Us that is depicted in the movie.
Leigh, who is not in contact with her ex-husband, is the mother of two daughters: moody Lindsay (played by Lily Colias) and sweet-natured Delilah, nicknamed Dee (played by Kennedy Maeve Moyer), who have very different reactions to Jeff/John when they first meet him. Lindsay, who is 15 or 16 years old, is standoffish and skeptical. Dee, who is about 11 or 12 years old, is friendly and accepting.
Jeff immediately wins over Dee because he knew in advance that she was a fan of “The Legend of Zelda” video games, so he gives Zelda toys and games to Dee the first time that he meets her. The movie shows several scenes where Jeff has a pattern of buying gifts for people as a way to get them to like him or love him more. His materialism and greed are his biggest flaws and will be his downfall.
Jeff becomes a popular member of the congregation because of his good looks and charm. When people ask him what he does for a living, he says he works in a top-secret job for the government. A big plot hole in the movie is the entire time that Jeff and Leigh are dating and fall in love, Leigh never asks to see where he lives. Jeff presumably told her that he couldn’t disclose where he lived because of confidentiality reasons related to his job.
Leigh’s blind trust of Jeff is an example of what can really happen, because there are thousands of people in real life who’ve been conned by getting even less information from the scammers who romance them. Leigh is also an ideal victim for this type of con artist: She tells Jeff up front that she hasn’t dated at all since her divorce. Her emotional vulnerability also set her up to be a target of Jeff’s con game and lies.
Other supporting characters in the movie are prickly Toys “R” Us store manager Mitch (played by Peter Dinklage) and Toys “R” Us stock employee Otis (played by Emory Cohen), who is meek and often verbally bullied by Mitch. By having Mitch be a jerk, the movie makes it easier for viewers to not feel much pity for Mitch when Jeff steals from the store, knowing that Mitch will be blamed for these merchandise losses. “Roofman” has this type of manipulation of the facts and fabrication of certain characters’ personalities, in order to make Jeff look more sympathetic than he deserves.
During the movie’s end credits, “Roofman” over-praises the real Manchester in a montage of archival news clips showing interviews with some of the people who were conned by Manchester in real life, such as Wainscott and Pastor Ron Smith. These interview clips only have flattering commentary about Manchester. It all seems very one-sided and agenda-based. The filmmakers also could’ve trimmed a few unnecessary scenes that didn’t happen in real life, in order to bring the total run time to less than two hours.
Even with distortion of certain facts, “Roofman” is held together by the believable performances of the principal cast members. One of the best scenes in the movie isn’t in the flashy “fugitive on the run” moments, but a moment that comes in the last third of the film when Jeff and Leigh are attending a church service. Leigh is singing in the church choir, while Jeff is in the audience. They look at each other with tears in their eyes because it’s at a point in their relationship when Leigh is having doubts about Jeff, and he knows it. This type of scene conveys the more impactful and heartbreaking consequences of the true story, rather than scenes that involve guns or police chases.
Paramount Pictures will release “Roofman” in U.S. cinemas on October 10, 2025. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on October 6, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City and briefly in Florida, the comedy/drama film “Eleanor the Great” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A sassy Jewish widow befriends a young journalism student, who wants to do a story about the widow being a Holocaust survivor, but the widow has a big, scandalous secret.
Culture Audience: “Eleanor the Great” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, director Scarlett Johansson, and comedy/dramas about senior citizens and how people cope with grief.
Chiwetel Ejiofor in “Eleanor the Great” (Photo by Anne Joyce/Sony Pictures Classics)
“Eleanor the Great” has talented performances and a well-intentioned story about coping with grief. However, this comedy/drama is problematic for how it tries to make dishonesty and rudeness from an old person look cute. The elderly age of the movie’s title character is used as an excuse for too many repulsive things that wouldn’t be excused as easily if a younger person did those things.
Directed by Scarlett Johansson and written by Tory Kamen, “Eleanor the Great” is Johansson’s feature-film directorial debut. Johansson, who is best known as an actress, does not appear in the movie but is one of the film’s producers. “Eleanor the Great” had its world premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and its North American premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. The movie takes place mostly in New York City (where “Eleanor the Great” was filmed on location) and briefly in Florida.
“Eleanor the Great” begins by showing best friends Eleanor Morgenstein (played by June Squibb) and Bessie Stern (played by Rita Zohar), who are both widows, waking up in separate beds in the same room in the apartment that they share in somewhere in Florida. Eleanor says, “Bessie, we overslept. You look tired.” Eleanor says it in a way that doesn’t express concern but has a condescending attitude. Bessie replies, “Thanks.”
This scene sets the tone for the rest of the movie: Eleanor makes unflattering comments or outright insults to people, and they just allow her to do it because she’s Eleanor. In the movie, Eleanor being “sassy” is supposed to be amusing. Eleanor, who is 94 years old, usually acts like she’s smarter than almost everyone who interacts with her, just because she’s lived to this advanced age. In real life, many people would think Eleanor is irritating and certainly not as adorable as the movie wants us to think she is.
Even with Eleanor’s flaws, there’s no denying that Eleanor and Bessie (who have been best friends for about 70 years) have a genuine friendship. When Bessie dies, Eleanor decides to move back to New York City, where she lived for 40 years with her husband Harry. Eleanor moves in with her divorced daughter Lisa (played by Jessica Hecht), whose son Max (played by Will Price) is a first-year university student who lives on campus. Max is friendly, but he’s barely in the movie: His screen time is less than 10 minutes.
Eleanor is kind and loving to Max, but she frequently insults Lisa, for no apparent reason. Eleanor’s insults are often delivered with a smile or “mother knows best” tone. However, Eleanor’s derogatory remarks and criticisms are still insults that she knows will hurt insecure Lisa, who has the maturity not to sink to Eleanor’s mean-spirited level. Eleanor’s snide comments about Lisa’s physical appearance are especially petty. Lisa does her best to please Eleanor, but Eleanor never seems completely appreciative and accepting of Lisa.
Viewers can only guess why Eleanor is often unkind to her only child, but it’s hinted that Eleanor is resentful that Lisa didn’t keep in touch with Eleanor as much as Eleanor would’ve liked when Eleanor lived in Florida. If Eleanor has treated Lisa this way for most of Lisa’s life, then it’s no wonder that Lisa would avoid being in regular contact with Eleanor. As it is, the movie doesn’t give enough background information about the type of mother that Eleanor was before she moved in with Lisa.
Lisa has a full-time job, but Eleanor is resentful that Lisa won’t be spending as much time with Eleanor during the day as Eleanor expected. Lisa thoughtfully signs up Eleanor to be a member of the nearest Jewish Community Center (JCC) to keep Eleanor busy and social during the day. Eleanor reluctantly attends a JCC singing class, where she thinks the featured singer (played by Beth Goodrich) is awful and isn’t afraid to say so out loud as Eleanor walks out of the class.
At the JCC, Eleanor wanders into a room where there’s a support group meeting for Holocaust survivors. Eleanor says she’s a native of Poland who escaped from Nazi persecution in the 1940s, and she moved to the United States in 1953. She tells a personal Holocaust story, which emotionally moves a visitor in the group: Nina Davis (played by Erin Kellyman), an undergraduate journalism student at New York University (NYU). Nina, who is in her sophomore year at NYU, asks Eleanor if she can interview Eleanor for an academic assignment story that Nina has decided to do about Holocaust survivors. Eleanor says no but then changes her mind.
Over time, brash Eleanor and sensitive Nina become friends who both open up to each about their grief. Nina was very close to her mother Jane, who died about six months earlier. Jane was Jewish and a successful photographer, so there are multiple scenes where Nina looks mournfully at the photos that her mother took. Nina and Eleanor do Jewish activities together, such as go to synagogue services or eat Jewish food when they go out for meals. Nina is biracial (her father is African American), but her black/African American ethnicity is sidelined and barely acknowledged in the movie.
Nina’s father Roger Davis (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), who is an anchor on local TV station Spectrum News NY1, is emotionally distant and doesn’t like to talk about Jane’s death. Nina chose to do a feature profile on Eleanor for a class assignment partly because Nina wants to do a story connected to Nina’s Jewish heritage and partly because Nina wants to impress her father in Nina’s aspirations to be a journalist. Spectrum News NY1 ends up becoming interested in Eleanor’s Holocaust story because of Nina’s NYU assignment coverage.
Eleanor spends more time with Nina than Eleanor’s biological family members. Nina is a self-proclaimed loner who says she doesn’t feel completely comfortable with many of her university peers. Unlike the stern and judgmental way that Eleanor treats Lisa, Eleanor is warm and open-minded in how she treats Nina. For example, when Nina casually mentions that she’s a lesbian, Eleanor smiles and immediately says she thinks it’s great that Nina can be herself.
Even though much of “Eleanor the Great” has scenes of Eleanor and Nina openly sharing their feelings, Eleanor has a big secret that is revealed to viewers about halfway through the movie. Even without this reveal, it’s easy to figure out that Eleanor is hiding something because of her reluctance to go on camera to tell her life story. It’s a secret that involves huge betrayals of trust.
“Eleanor the Great” (which is a solid directorial debut from Johansson) excels when it’s about the friendship that develops between Eleanor and Nina, because it shows the best side of Eleanor. Where the movie falters is in the hokey way that Eleanor’s problem is resolved. It’s just a little too contrived and needed more realism. Ultimately, “Eleanor the Great” is a feel-good movie whose quality is lowered by its cloying and unjustified schmaltziness, but Squibb carries the movie with a certain undeniable charm.
Sony Pictures Classics released “Eleanor the Great” in select U.S. cinemas on September 26, 2025. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on September 15, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place on New York’s Long Island, the comedy/drama film “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A therapist begins to mentally unravel while caring for her sick child, and several other stressful things happen to her.
Culture Audience: “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and dramas that take a surrealistic and dark comedy look at motherhood and caregiving.
A$AP Rocky and Rose Byrne in “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” (Photo by Logan White/A24)
“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” delves deep into the unraveling psyche of a sick child’s caregiver mother, who cracks under the pressure of feeling overwhelmed and underappreciated. Rose Byrne’s performance is a master class in anxious empathy and tragicomedy. The movie has surrealistic and absurd elements but remains realistic when making viewers think about who’s looking after the well-being of caregivers.
Written and directed by Mary Bronstein, “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” had it world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. It has since made the rounds at other film festivals in 2025, including Berlin International Film Festival (where Byrne won the prize for Best Lead Performance), the Telluride Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” takes place on New York’s Long Island, where the movie was filmed on location.
“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” begins by showing frazzled mother Linda (played by Byrne) in a doctor’s meeting with Linda’s only child: a daughter named Phoebe (played by Delaney Quinn), who’s about 7 or 8 years old. Phoebe’s face is not shown in the movie until a pivotal point in the story.
This meeting is to discuss any progress in Phoebe’s medical condition, but Phoebe has told the doctor that she’s worried about her mother being “stretchable” like “putty.” Phoebe also tells the doctor that her mother is “sad.” Linda tries to appear calm and tells the doctor that’s she’s not “stretchable” and is definitely not “sad.” Linda wants to give the impression that she’s got everything under control.
“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” doesn’t reveal right away why Phoebe is under medical care. However, it’s shown through flashbacks, conversations and other snippets of information that Phoebe has a mental illness that has made her afraid to eat food. Therefore, Phoebe has to be fed through a feeding tube that is inserted into her stomach, with the feeding usually done at night when she’s asleep. Phoebe was hospitalized for an unnamed period of time, but she is now getting outpatient care. The family has a feeding tube machine in their rented apartment.
Phoebe also has other anxieties. She is terrified of dying and doesn’t like to stay away from Linda for too long. Phoebe goes to school during the day, but it’s hard for her to make friends. Linda’s husband Charles (played by Christian Slater) is away for eight weeks because of his job in the U.S. military. Linda, who works as a psychotherapist in the Long Island hamlet of Montauk, doesn’t have any help in taking care of Phoebe when Charles is away.
Linda thinks Phoebe is well enough to no longer need the feeding tube. However, Linda is told by the hospital’s medical professional that the feeding tube can’t be removed until Phoebe reaches a minimum weight that Phoebe has not yet reached. If Phoebe doesn’t reach this weight by a specific deadline, Linda could be considered an irresponsible caregiver, and the hospital could decline the health insurance coverage for Phoebe.
Within the first 10 minutes of the movie, something happens that sets off a chain of events leading to one stress after another for Linda. Water suddenly gushes out from a bedroom ceiling in the family’s apartment, leaving a large hole in the ceiling and significant water damage in the room and other rooms in the apartment. When Linda looks up at the hole, she sees what can only be described as firefly-type lighting in an abyss-like galaxy. It’s the first indication that Linda might be losing some grip on reality.
Linda’s inattentive landlord (played by Manu Narayan) is responsible for repairing the damage. In the meantime, Linda decides to temporarily live in a motel with Phoebe while still maintaining a full-time work schedule. Being in this new and uncomfortable environment is a catalyst for Linda taking a very difficult and emotionally painful look at the toll it takes on her to try to be a “supermom.”
During this nerve-racking time in Linda’s life, the medical professionals who are supposed to help Linda are cold and clinical in their interactions with Linda. Her unnamed therapist (played by Conan O’Brien), who works on the same building floor as Linda, barely tolerates her and doesn’t seem to like her at all. Phoebe’s physician Dr. Spring (played by Bronstein) only talks to Linda about Phoebe, in terms of the weight that Phoebe is supposed to have and trying to get Linda to set their next appointment.
Linda finds some emotional comfort with an unexpected person: James, nicknamed Jamie (played by A$AP Rocky), a stoner maintenance employee at the motel. James is kind to Linda, while his front-desk co-worker Melanie (played by Amy Judd Lieberman) is rude. The movie also shows Linda in therapy sessions with clients Stephen (played by Daniel Zolghadri), Kate (played by Ella Beatty), Eva (played by Helen Hong) and Caroline (played by Danielle Macdonald).
Caroline, who is the mother of a baby boy named Riley, is extremely paranoid about leaving Riley with anyone who isn’t Caroline. Caroline brings Riley to the therapy sessions, which make Linda feel guilty because while Caroline appears to be a doting and overprotective mother, Linda is becoming an increasingly impatient and irritable mother. When Phoebe is asleep, Linda often leaves the motel room so she can have time for herself.
“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” shows how a mental breakdown can sneak up on someone if that person isn’t getting the proper mental health care. Stresses can accumulate like a dripping water faucet can cause water to accumulate until there’s an overflow that can cause damage. And sometimes, all it takes is one bad day for someone who go into a mental health freefall.
“If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” isn’t a completely depressing movie. The story shows some comedic moments (usually those involving Linda and James), especially in how Linda seeks to relieve some of her stress through alcohol, marijuana and other drugs. A scene in the movie reveals that even if Charles had been home during this time, he would still expect Linda to do the vast majority of the caregiving while she still works full-time.
Linda can be petulant, flaky, and self-absorbed, but she’s also well-intentioned and usually tries her best to be a good parent. In other words, she’s thoroughly human and realistically flawed. And considering the circumstances she’s under, no one should be expected to be perfect.
However, as much as society expects caregivers (especially female caregivers) to be expert multi-taskers, Linda puts a lot of this pressure on herself too. One of the best scenes in the movie is when Linda attends a caregiver support group led by Dr. Spring and gives an outspoken rant that goes against what Dr. Spring is saying to counsel the support group. It’s in this scene where Linda shows a lot of self-loathing for not meeting her own expectations of who she wants to be as a caregiver and as a mother.
Although all the cast members do well in their roles, Byrne gives the movie its emotionally authentic core and foundation—even when the story and direction tend to wander into episodic scenes that resemble a sitcom. A few of the subplots seem thrown into the story to stretch the movie’s runtime. And the movie’s forays into surrealism sometimes look “try hard” awkward and might alienate some viewers.
Some viewers might also have issues with how Linda (and the movie, by extension) can take for granted that Linda is privileged, compared to other people with the same problems. However, not every movie has to be about people experiencing poverty or oppression. “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” is an impactful look at how mental distress doesn’t discriminate, being a “supermom” is near-impossible standard, and caregivers need people looking after them too.
A24 will release “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” in select U.S. cinemas on October 10, 2025, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on October 24, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Iran, the dramatic film “It Was Just and Accident” features an all-Middle Eastern cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A former political prisoner kidnaps a man whom he thinks was a government agent who tortured him and other political prisoners, but he has doubts that he has abducted the right person.
Culture Audience: “It Was Just an Accident” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Jafar Panahi, and intense crime thrillers about vigilante justice.
Afssaneh Najmabadi, Delmaz Najafi and Ebrahim Azizi in “It Was Just an Accident” (Photo courtesy of Neon)
Harrowing and often darkly absurdist, “It Was Just an Accident” explores the moral dilemmas of revenge during a kidnapping that could be a case of mistaken identity. This piercing drama also has sharp observations of the damaging effects of oppression. The movie asks questions about redemption and forgiveness while not offering easy answers.
Written and directed by Jafar Panahi (who is also one of the film’s producers), “It Was Just an Accident” takes place in Iran, where the movie was filmed on location. “It Was Just an Accident” had its world premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d’Or, the festival’s top prize. “It Was Just an Accident” also screened at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival and the 2025 New York Film Festival. The movie was partially funded by a French production company, which is why “It Was Just an Accident” is France’s official entry for Best International Feature Film for the 2026 Academy Awards.
“It Was Just an Accident” begins by showing what appears to be a normal car ride taken at night by a family of three: Eghbal (played by Ebrahim Azizi) is driving the car. His pregnant wife Azam (played by Afssaneh Najmabadi) is in the front passenger seat. Their daughter Nilufar (played by Delmaz Najafi), who’s about 7 or 8 years old, is in the back seat.
Nilufar, who is happily playing with a Westland Terrier dog toy, seems excited to be on this trip. There are hints that the family is living an isolated existence. Nilufar mentions that their family has no neighbors. Later in the movie, Nilfar also says she’s not allowed to use a phone.
The reason for the car trip is never stated, but it appears to be an unusual outing for this reclusive family. Suddenly, Eghbal accidentally hits something with the car. He gets out and sees that he hit a dog, who is close to death. The dog is never seen in the movie, but its wounded whimpers can be heard. Eghbal leaves the dog on the street and gets back in the car to continue the journey.
Nilufar is very upset about what happened to the dog. Azam tries to bring some comfort and says, “It was just an accident. God put that dog in our path for a reason.” Nilufar responds, “He killed the dog! God had nothing to do with it!”
A few minutes later, the car engine stops working. Azam also thinks this car trouble is an omen. The family is stranded on a nearly deserted road near a mechanic garage that has closed for the night. A man named Omid passes by on a motorcycle and sees the stranded family.
Eghbal asks where the nearest car repair shop is that’s open, and Omid says it’s about two kilometers (about one mile) away. Eghbal thinks that’s too far for his family to walk at night, so he asks Omid to see if he can possibly help fix the car. Omid obliges this request. Observant viewers will notice that Eghbal doesn’t use a cell phone to call for help.
Omid has a co-worker named Vahid (played by Vahid Mobasseri), who is also at the garage that night. However, Vahid is acting strangely as soon as he sees this family. Vahid doesn’t want to be seen and stays in another room. He also disguises his voice when Eghbal asks him where a toolbox is.
The next day, a tow truck takes the family’s car to be repaired. Vahid stalks the repair shop to see when Eghbal gets his repaired car returned to him. And then, Vahid follows Eghbal by car and waits until Eghbal is walking on a street. When Eghbal passes by Vahid’s car, Vahid deliberately opens his car door to knock Eghbal unconscious.
As already revealed in the trailer for “It Was Just an Accident,” Vahid is a former political prisoner who ends up kidnapping Eghbal, because he thinks Eghbal was a government agent who tortured Vahid and other political prisoners several years ago. Eghbal now has kidney problems because of this torture. The prisoners were blindfolded while in captivity, but Eghbal says he remembers certain details about who tortured him.
Eghbal has a left leg that is prosthetic. Vahid tells Eghbal that he immediately identified him because he vividly remembers the unique scraping sound that Eghbal’s prosthetic leg makes when Eghbal walks. Vahid tells the kidnapped man that his nickname for Eghbal is Peg Leg. Vahid is also fairly certain that he recognizes Eghbal’s voice as the voice of the man who tortured Vahid.
Vahid is about to bury his captive alive in a desert, but the man whom Vahid has kidnapped insists that Vahid has kidnapped the wrong person. The kidnapped man says his name is Rashid, not a government agent named Eghbal who tortured Vahid years earlier. The kidnapped man says that he’s only had a prosthetic leg for about a year, and he shows Vahid a fresh scar on his leg as if to prove it. The man also says that he was on his way to a doctor’s appointment, and his doctor can also prove his identity.
Vahid is now thoroughly confused and begins to wonder if he kidnapped the wrong person. Vahid decides to tie up the captive, put him in a wooden box in the back of Vahid’s van, and show him to some other former political prisoners whom he knows were also tortured by Eghbal. The rest of the movie shows what happens during this topsy-turvy kidnapping scheme.
The former political prisoners who get involved in the kidnapping are a motley crew of people who all want revenge on Eghbal. High-strung bride Golrokh (played by Hadis Pakbaten) and her level-headed groom named Ali (played by Majid Panahi) get mixed up in the kidnapping on the eve of their wedding. The couple’s feisty wedding photographer Shiva (played by Mariam Afshari) is wary of Vahid at first but eventually learns to trust him. Shiva’s volatile ex-lover Hamid (played by Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr) is the person in the group who is the most eager to kill the kidnapped man.
Before going to these former political prisoners for help, Vahid asks another former political prisoner named Salar (played by George Hashemzadeh) to seek advice and to see if Salar (who was also tortured by Eghbal) can identify the kidnapped man as Eghbal. Salar is an elderly man who works in a bookstore. Salar cannot be certain that the kidnapped man is Eghbal, but he advises Vahid not to get revenge by killing the kidnapped man.
“This is not like you, Vahid,” Salar tells Vahid. “We are not killers. We are not like them. Even if it is him, let him go. You can’t get away with it.” It’s later revealed that Vahid has another reason to seek revenge against Ehgbal: Vahid’s fiancée committed suicide because of Eghbal’s sadistic actions.
“It Was Just an Accident” is an intense crime story that has touches of very dark comedy. Things go wrong in this kidnapping, and there are situations where the kidnappers come very close to getting caught. The kidnappers also bicker about what to do with the kidnapped man, as time is running out before he might need medical attention.
“It Was Just an Accident” also shows how police corruption and being falsely accused of crimes have become so common in this community, people are almost numb to it. The performances by the cast members are stellar all around, particularly with Mariam Afshari, Elyasmehr, and Mobasseri, since their characters in the movie have the most influence in how the group handles the kidnapping. The movie’s screenplay and direction masterfully weave a tension-filed story of revenge that might or might not be a misguided vendetta.
Iranian filmmaker Panahi is famously a former political prisoner in Iran for two months in 2010, and then from July 2022 to February 2023, after being accused of spreading propaganda against the Iranian government. Panahi was banned from filmmaking in Iran from 2010 to 2023, but he continued to make films in Iran during this time period. He has said in interviews that much of the dialogue in “It Was Just an Accident” was inspired by real conversations with former political prisoners in Iran.
Beneath the madcap screwball comedy aspects of “It Was Just an Accident” is an underlying tone of both rage and resignation about political oppression that seems to have no end in sight. How to resist this political oppression is open to debate, as depicted in how this ragtag group of kidnappers can’t agree on what to do with the person who’s in their captivity. After all the anger and chaos, “It Was Just an Accident” builds up to an impactful finale that shows with quiet intimacy that regardless of what happens in this kidnapping, the unjust imprisonment and torture of others will continue.
Neon will release “It Was Just an Accident” in select U.S. cinemas on October 15, 2025.
Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas in “Sentimental Value” (Photo courtesy of Neon)
“It Was Just an Accident”
Directed by Joachim Trier
Norwegian with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in Norway, Sweden, and France, the dramatic film “Sentimental Value” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A famous filmmaker plans to end his long hiatus by writing and directing a biographical movie about his mother, and this film project opens up long-festering wounds between the filmmaker and his two estranged adult daughters.
Culture Audience: “Sentimental Value” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Joachim Trier, and compelling dramas about how families deal with their family histories.
Stellan Skarsgård and Elle Fanning in “Sentimental Value” (Photo by Kasper Tuxen Anderson/Neon)
“Sentimental Value” is an absorbing character study and impressive cinematic achievement in showing layers of a complicated relationship between a filmmaker and his two estranged adult daughters. The acting performances are top-notch. And the movie will keep viewers invested and curious in how the story is going to end.
Directed by Joachim Trier, “Sentimental Value” was co-written by Trier and Eskil Vogt. The movie had its world premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix Award (second place) for movies in the In Competition main slate. “Sentimental Value” has since made the rounds at other film festivals in 2025, including the Toronto International Film Festival and New York Film Festival. “Sentimental Value” is Norway’s entry for Best International Feature Film for the 2026 Academy Awards.
“Sentimental Value” begins with a visual montage showing slices of life in the history of a family with the surname Borg in Oslo, Norway. (The movie was filmed on location in Norway, Sweden, and France.) A voiceover says that when Nora Borg was in the sixth grade, she was asked to write an essay about any object. Nora chose to take the perspective of the family’s two-story house, which has been in the Borg family for several generations.
In her essay, Nora wondered if the house preferred to be full and noisy or empty and quiet. Nora came to the conclusion that the house preferred to be full. Nora’s paternal grandfather noticed that the house also has crack in a wall that is causing the house to slowly sink. It’s at this point you know the house is a symbol for what the Borg family could become.
Nora’s parents—filmmaker Gustave (played by Stellan Skarsgård) and psychiatrist Sissel (played by Ida Marianne Vassbotn Klasson, seen in flashbacks)—got divorced before Nora and her younger sister Agnes were teenagers. This fracture in the Borg family would have long-lasting effects that still haunt the family. Gustave abandoned the family and remained out of the lives of Nora and Agnes for many years.
Nora (played by Renate Reinsve), a never-married bachelorette who is now in her late 30s, grew up to become an actress working in theater and television. Nora gets leading lady roles, but she’s not so famous that she’s a household name. An early scene in the movie shows Nora having a panic attack before she goes on stage to perform in a play, with some comedic things that happen backstage in the frantic efforts to get Nora to perform on stage.
Nora’s younger sister Agnes Borg Pettersen (played by Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), who’s about two or three years younger than Nora, works as a history researcher. Agnes is married to a nice man named Even (played by Andreas Stoltenberg Granerud), who is a loving and supportive husband and father. Agnes and Even have an adorable and bright son named Erik (played by Øyvind Hesjedal Loven), who’s about 7 to 9 years old during this story, which takes place over the course of about one year.
Not only do Nora and Agnes have different lifestyles, but they also have different personalities. Nora is confrontational, stubborn, and likes being a non-conformist. Agnes is non-confrontational, willing to compromise, and likes having a traditional life. Nora loves being an actress, in contrast to Agnes, who was a child actress and gave it up years ago because she didn’t like acting. Their father Gustav cast Agnes in a particular movie which proved to be Agnes’ last movie and the movie that has been considered Gustav’s greatest achievement. (“Sentimental Value” has more details about this fateful movie.)
It’s eventually revealed that Nora has issues with intimacy and trust that have a lot to do with her childhood. She has a married lover named Jakob (played by Anders Danielsen Lie), who is an actor co-starring with her in the theater production that is shown in the beginning of “Sentimental Value.” In a scene where Nora and Jakob are in bed together after having sex, he comments on how she doesn’t like to cuddle, and she tells him that she’s glad that he’s married so she doesn’t have to commit to him.
Gustav suddenly and unexpectedly comes back in to the lives of Nora and Agnes after the death of Sissel. Gustav shows up unannounced and uninvited at the family house during the wake after Sissel’s funeral. After Gustav and Sissel divorced, he let Sissel have the house, but she never got around to filing the paperwork to get legal ownership of the house.
Nora and Agnes know that Gustav technically still owns the house, and he could very well sell it, because he has no intention of living there again. The sisters are wary of Gustav and why he is really back in their lives. Nora’s resentment of Gustav is angry, while Agnes’ resentment is sad and more willing to possibly forgive.
It turns out that Gustav has a motive for this uneasy reunion: In a private conversation with Nora, Gustav tells her that he’s decided to end his years-long hiatus from filmmaking by writing a movie about his mother. Gustav also plans to direct the movie. He tells Nora that he wants her to have the starring role of his mother. Nora flatly and immediately refuses and reminds him that he’s unreliable because he’s often drunk.
A short while after this rejection, Gustav goes to the Deauville Film Festival in France, where he is being honored with a retrospective tribute. He does a Q&A after the screening of his movie that starred Agnes, where she played a child named Anna who has a heartbreaking separation from someone close to her. Gustav gets an enthusiastic and warm reception from the film festival audience.
In the audience at this screening and Q&A is an American actress named Rachel Kemp (played by Elle Fanning), who is an ardent fan of Gustav. Rachel is very famous but is known for doing lightweight movies. She wants to change the direction of her career by doing more artistic films so she can be taken more seriously as an actress. Rachel is a vibrant free spirit who is a refreshing counterpoint to moody and complex Nora.
During the Deauville Film Festival, Rachel invites Gustav to have dinner with her and some members of her clingy entourage, which includes Rachel’s publicist Nicky (played by Catherine Cohen) and Rachel’s agent or manager Sam (played by Cory Michael Smith), who might or might not be Rachel’s lover. (“Sentimental Value” leaves it open to interpretation.) The dinner party continues on a beach, where Gustav is charmed by Rachel’s constant flattery.
Gustav tells Rachel about his movie in development and says the movie is on hold. Rachel correctly guesses that Gustav needs financing. Because Rachel makes it so obvious that she wants to work with Gustav, and she has the type of star power to attract investors, it isn’t long before Gustav decides to make Rachel the star of the movie. He invites her to Norway to visit the family house, which will be a centerpiece in Gustav’s film.
The rest of “Sentimental Value” shows what happens during the process of getting Gustav’s film made. Family secrets and hard feelings, which have long been buried, come to the surface. And you don’t need to be a therapist to predict how Nora feels about Rachel getting the type of attention that Gustav never showed Nora and Agnes. Rachel is star-struck by Gustav and doesn’t really know the side to him that was a neglectful father.
Gustav’s mother died in a tragic way that he wants recreated in his movie. (The details won’t be mentioned in this review.) This recreation is the cornerstone of some of the most impactful moments in “Sentimental Value.” These moments can be tremendously somber or darkly comedic.
“Sentimental Value” also traces other aspects of the Borg family history. The movies shows glimpses of Gustav as a young adult (some flashback scenes feature Skarsgård with de-aging visual effects) and how he was affected by the death of his older sister Karin Irgens, who was executed for spreading “anti-Nazi propaganda.” Gustav can be a self-absorbed jerk, but the movie shows a lot of underlying emotional pain in his life that has a lot to do with why he is the way that he is.
Because there are so many flashback scenes in “Sentimental Value,” several actors portray the Borg family members at different stages in their lives. Nora as a baby is portrayed by Ibi Trier. Iben Policer Havnevik and Irma Trier portray Nora from about 5 to 8 years old. Olivia Thompson has the role of Nora as a tween. Julie Østhagen portrays Agnes at about 3 or 5 years old. Ida Atlanta Kyllingmark Giertsen depicts Agnes as a tween.
Emmet Øverland Crompton has the role of Gustav as a child. Aasmund Almdahl portrays Gustav as a teenager. Knut Roertveit and Nicholas Bergh depict Gustav as a young adult. Sigrid Lorentzen Abelsnes has the role of Karin as a child. Vilde Søyland depicts Karin as an adult. Eiril Tormodsdatter Solberg portrays Karin’s sister Edith as a child. Mari Strand Ferstad has the role of Edith as an adult.
Although all of the principal cast members give admirable performances in “Sentimental Value,” Skarsgård and Reinsve are the standouts for their realistic and soul-piercing depictions of Gustav and Nora, who are more alike than this father and daughter would care to admit. “Sentimental Value” has poignant observations about how the best and worst of family relationships can be repeated and passed down through generations. The house is like a silent character that has witnessed much of the Borg family’s history and faces an uncertain future.
Reinsve also starred in “The Worst Person in the World,” the Oscar-nominated movie that was directed by Trier and written by Trier and Vogt. (Norwegian actor Lie was also in “The Worst Person in the World,” where his role was much bigger than it is in “Sentimental Value.”) “The Worst Person in the World” (released in Norway in 2021 and in other countries in 2022) was about the personal journey of an indecisive bachelorette who also has a tense relationship with her father, but the movie is less about family and more about choices that the protagonist makes in her love life.
“Sentimental Value” is all about family and is a multifaceted film that invites viewers to wonder if family dysfunction is a curse that can be stopped in this particular family. The cast members bring such depth to their performances, viewers might wonder if “Sentimental Value” is based on a true story. (It’s not. “Sentimental Value” is a fictional story from an original screenplay.) The movie uses “story within a story” techniques that could have been gimmicky but are so creatively filmed, they make “Sentimental Value” a much richer and more meaningful viewer experience that will stay with viewers long after the movie is over.
Neon will release “Sentimental Value” in select U.S. cinemas on November 7, 2025. The movie was released in Norway on September 12, 2025.
