Kani Kusruti and Divya Prabha in “All We Imagine as Light” (Photo courtesy of Sideshow/Janus Films)
“All We Imagine as Light”
Directed by Payal Kapadia
Hindi, Gujarati, Malayalam and Bhojpuri with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in India, the dramatic film “All We Imagine as Light” features an all-Indian cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Three female friends, who are hospital co-workers, navigate various challenges in their lives.
Culture Audience: “All We Imagine as Light” will appeal mainly to people who are interested in drama about the lives of everyday people.
Chhaya Kadam and Kani Kusruti in “All We Imagine as Light” (Photo courtesy of Sideshow/Janus Films)
“All We Imagine as Light” offers a mood journey more than an obvious plot. It’s an introspective drama about relationships and hope from female viewpoints. However, the movie’s nearly two-hour running time is excessive for what this movie actually conveys. At least 30 minutes of the movie is unneccessary and could’ve been edited out without diminishing the overall plot. The movie’s slow pacing might also cause some viewers to lose interest in the story.
Written and directed by Payal Kapadia, “All We Imagine as Light” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where the movie won the Grand Prix, the equivalent of second place in the festival’s main competition. “All We Imagine as Light” subsequently screened at numerous other film festivals in 2024, including the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. It’s a movie about people who live unassuming lives and whose dreams are muted by society’s oppressions and prejudices.
“All We Imagine as Light” focuses on three female friends, who are all co-workers at the same hospital in Mumbai, India. Prabha (played by Kani Kusruti) and Anu (played by Divya Prabha) are nurses and roommates with opposite personalities and lifestyles. Prabha is introverted and traditional. Anu is extroverted and free-spirited. Their friend Parvaty (played by Chhaya Kadam) works as a cook at the hospital.
Prabha is married, but her husband is away because he works at a factory in Germany, but he hasn’t kept in contact with her, so Prabha assumes that he has abandoned her. A physician at the hospital named Dr. Manoj (played by Azees Nedumangad) shows a romantic interest in Prabha, but she rejects his advances because she wants to remain loyal to her husband. Prabha feels lonely but she tries to suppress her feelings by focusing on her work and helping her friends.
Anu’s parents are pressuring her to find a husband through an arranged marriage. Anu is secretly dating a man named Shiaz (played by Hridhu Haroon), who would not be approved of by her parents because Shiaz is Muslim, and Anu is Hindu. Anu doesn’t feel like she’s ready for marriage, but she know she wants to marry for love, not because it’s an arranged marriage. Shiaz is a passionate suitor who wants Anu to live with him.
Parvaty, who has a personality filled with determination, is having problems with her living situation because the owner of the building where she lives wants to demolish the building to make way for a high-rise complex. Her electricity has been cut off. And she’s told by an attorney that she doesn’t have any proof that she lived there, so it’s very likely she will be evicted.
All three of the women’s problems are somehow intertwined with each other. A catalyst for something happening is when Prabha gets a rice cooker delivered to her as a gift by an anonymous sender. Prabha also helps Parvaty when Parvaty has to make a decision about her housing problem.
“All We Imagine as Light” patiently shows how Prabha, Anu and Parvaty deal with their personal issues while going about their everyday lives. Therefore, the movie has many scenes of the women at work or doing things that are quite mundane, such as traveling by bus. The “forbidden” romance of Anu and Shiaz brings some sizzle to a plot that sometimes stalls without much progress.
Interspersed with the lives of these three women are occasional scenes where the camera pans across the streets of Mumbai, as viewers hear snippets of conversations from people on the streets. “All We Imagine as Light” capably shows how many people come to Mumbai from small villages because there are more work opportunities in Mumbai. And they find that life in the big city can be overwhelming and lonely at the same time.
All of the cast members portray their characters with enough authenticity that it’s easy to perceive “All We Imagine as Light” as being inspired by any number of real people. The cinematography by Ranabir Das has elements of artistic realism that can keep viewers engaged, even when not much is happening in the story. The title of the movie is explained in the film’s last 15 minutes, which show the power of people helping each other during tough times.
Sideshow/Janus Films released “All We Imagine as Light” in select U.S. cinemas on November 15, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Seoul, South Korea, the comedy/drama film “A Traveler’s Needs” features a predominantly Asian cast of characters (with one white person) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A French woman, who has recently immigrated to South Korea, starts working as a private French-language tutor with unconventional teaching methods.
Culture Audience: “A Traveler’s Needs” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of star Isabelle Huppert, filmmaker Hong Sang-soo, and talkative movies with arthouse sensibilities.
Kwon Hae-hyo, Isabelle Huppert and Lee Hye-young in “A Traveler’s Needs” (Photo courtesy of The Cinema Guild)
The comedy/drama “A Traveler’s Needs” offers a unique slice-of-life story of an unorthodox French-language tutor in South Korea. It’s best enjoyed by viewers who appreciate dialogue-driven movies in ordinary realistic settings. Everyone else will be bored.
Written and directed by Hong Sang-soo, “A Traveler’s Needs” had its world premiere at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury’s Silver Bear prize, the equivalent of second place for Best Picture. “A Traveler’s Needs” also screened at he 2024 New York Film Festival. “A Traveler’s Needs” is the third Hong Sang-soo movie to star Isabelle Huppert, after 2012’s “In Another Country” and 2017’s “Claire’s Camera.”
“A Traveler’s Needs” consists entirely of conversations in a very limited number of settings, usually in someone’s home or in a park. The movie’s protagonist Iris (played by Huppert) doesn’t say too much about herself. However, from conversations in the movie, viewers find out that Iris has recently moved to Seoul, South Korea, from her native France. She also has a fondness for drinking makgeolli, which is Korean rice wine.
Iris has recently decided to become a private tutor teaching the French language. Her first clients are affluent—not ultra-wealthy but upper-middle-clas. “A Traveler’s Needs” shows her meeting with two of these clients for the first time. Most of the characters in the movie are not identified by their names, but they offer glimpses into their lives in the time that Iris spends with them.
First, Iris is seen meeting with a woman in her 20s (played by Kim Seung-yun) in the student’s home. While they are talking, the student suddenly gets up to play the piano. When she’s finished, Iris asks the student what she felt when playing the piano.
The student replies, “I felt happy.” But Iris asks more probing questions until the student admits she wishes she were a better piano player. Iris takes notes on index cards and translates in French what the student said about her feelings. The movie soon reveals that this is how Iris wants to teach French.
At a nearby park, the student shows Iris a stone monument that has her father’s name on it. The student tells Iris that her father’s name is only the monument because he donated a large sum of money. The student says she’s a little embarrassed about it, but she tearfully adds, “He loved me very much.”
Next, Iris meets with an outspoken woman in her early 60s (played by Lee Hye-young), who is a CEO of an unnamed major company. Her mild-mannered and quiet husband (played by Kwon Hae-hyo), who has a flirtatious side, is not the one taking the French lessons, but he is her constant companion during this teaching session. The husband eventually reveals that he is an attorney who quit his law practice to become the “right-hand man” for his wife in her business.
These two spouses have a young adult daughter (played by Kang So-yi), who lives with them. According to the mother, this daughter quit her job about a year ago and is still looking for another job. The daughter doesn’t have any specific career goals in mind, just some “ideas.” The mother doesn’t seem to be too bothered by her daughter’s aimlessness.
The daughter also acts aloof when her mother asks her to come over and say hello in French to Iris. Even though this daughter took French for three years in high school, the daughter claims not to remember any French at all. Viewers are left to ponder what this family is really like behind closed doors, when there are no strangers who are visiting. These are questions that the movie doesn’t answer.
The CEO student is surprised and disappointed that Iris will not be teaching French by using textbooks but will be using index cards instead. This student also plays an instrument. During this session, she plays an acoustic guitar, but Iris excuses herself to go up on the couple’s rooftop lounge area to smoke a cigarette while the student plays the guitar. The spouses later joins Iris on the rooftop to smoke cigarettes too.
Iris asks the CEO student how she felt when she played the guitar. The student says she felt happy, But once agan, Iris prods the student for a more introspective answer, until the student admits she felt a little proud and a little annoyed because she likes her guitar playing but doesn’t feel she’s a “good-enough” guitar player to be at the playing skills that she wants. Iris did the same thing she did with the other student: She writes down those feelings in French and tells her student to memorize this translation.
Iris eventually admits to the couple that she has no training to be a French-language teacher and she’s trying a non-traditional way of teaching. Iris’ line of questioning sounds more like something a therapist would ask. It becomes obvious to observant viewers that Iris’ method of teaching is to get her students to express how they feel, and Iris then translates those feelings, with the intent being that her students are more likely to learn French if they learn sentences that are personally relatable to them.
And who exactly is Iris? It’s a mystery that “A Traveler’s Needs” doesn’t quite answer. But some clues emerge when Iris is seen with the person who knows her best in South Korea: her platonic roommate Inguk (played by Ha Seong-guk), an ntroveted, aspiring poet who is in his 20s. It’s eventually revealed that Inguk invited unemployed Iris live with him rent-free at his apartment until she could get a job. He was the one who referred her to her French-lesson clients when she decided to make money as a French-language tutor.
Through conversations in the movie, viewers find out that Inguk met Iris randomly in a park, where he saw her playing a recorder musical instrument. (This meeting is shown in a pivotal flashback scene.) Iris wasn’t very good at playing this instrument, but Ingkuk was intrigued by her, and they struck up a conversation. There’s no sexual attracton between Iris and Inguk, but they are clearly charmed by each other.
After they became roommates, Inguk tells Iris: “You are so bright and talented.” Iris later tells Inguk: “No matter what happens, don’t give up your poetry.” Iris is paid in cash (₩200,000, which is about $143 in U.S. dollars in the mid-2020s) for her first day as a French-language tutor. She insists on giving all of the cash to Ingkuk, who has set ₩500,000, or $356 in U.S. dollars, for Iris’ share of the rent.
Inguk is afraid to tell his domineering and overprotective mother (played by Cho Yun-hee, also known as Jo Yoon-hee) about Iris being his roommate. And so, when Inguk’s mother shows up at the apartment for an unannounced visit, some low-stakes hijinks occur that won’t be detailed in this review. It’s enough to say that after Inguk’s mother makes her appearance, it starts to make sense that he emotionally gravitates to Iris, who is the empathetic mother figure whom Inguk doesn’t have with his own mother.
Because “A Traveler’s Needs” doesn’t tell a lot about Iris’ background and just shows her having conversations with people, some viewers might find it hard to connect with this movie. “A Traveler’s Needs” is by no means a masterpiece, but it invites viewers to speculate about what circumstances led Iris to move to Seoul without a job and without knowing anyone. Iris’ unconventional way of teaching already indicates that she is someone who doesn’t want to live a conventional life.
Huppert gives a very intriguing performance as “go with the flow” Iris, while Cho has a likeable screen presence as the shy and socially awkward Inguk. It’s perhaps no coincidence that these two unlikely roommates are the only two characters who have names in the movie. Ultimately, “A Traveler’s Needs” (in its very understated way) shows the impact of finding and appreciating human connections, whether people are living in a country that is familiar or unfamiliar to them.
The Cinema Guild released “A Traveler’s Needs” in select U.S. cinemas on November 22, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in mostly in Poland and briefly in New York City, the comedy/drama film “A Real Pain” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Two American cousins with opposite personalities bicker and bond with each other during a trip to Poland, to pay tribute to their recently deceased grandmother, who was a Holocaust survivor from Poland.
Culture Audience: “A Real Pain” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and well-acted dramedies about family relationships.
Kieran Culkin, Jennifer Grey, Jesse Eisenberg, Kurt Egyiawan, David Oreskes and Will Sharpe in “A Real Pain” (Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures)
“A Real Pain” is actually a real pleasure to watch because of this comedy/drama’s skillful performances. In this story about two American cousins visiting Poland together, it uses a familiar movie formula of two opposite people who go on a trip, but this journey remains engaging. Don’t expect “A Real Pain” to be an action-adventure film or a movie with extremely shocking dramatic scenes. It’s a movie about the ups and downs of middle-class Americans as tourists in Poland, their education about the Holocaust, trying to heal fractured family relationships, and how these experiences affect the ways that they view themselves and others.
Written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, “A Real Pain” (his second feature film as a director) is a vast improvement from 2023’s “When You Finish Saving the World,” his feature-film directorial debut, which he also wrote. “When You Finish Saving the World” is cynical and frequently dull, compared to “A Real Pain,” which is much more interesting to watch and has better pacing. With sharp-minded dialogue and appealing direction, “A Real Pain” has characters that viewers wouldn’t mind seeing more of if the story continued, whereas “When You Finish Saving the World” has the type of characters that most viewers won’t ever care to see again.
“A Real Pain” had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where Eisenberg won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for the movie. “A Real Pain” also screened at the 2024 New York Film Festival. Eisenberg and filmmaking duo/spouses Emma Stone and Dave McCary were among the producers of “When You Finish Saving the World.” These three filmmakers also re-teamed for “A Real Pain.” (Stone and Eisenberg co-starred in the “Zombieland” movies.)
“A Real Pain” begins by showing the two cousins arriving separately at an unnamed New York airport so that they can go on their trip together to Poland. (“A Real Pain” was filmed on location in Poland.) The cousins are related because their fathers are brothers. The cousins, who are in their early 40s, were born three weeks apart and grew up together. They have a relationship that is more like brothers than like cousins.
David Kaplan (played by Eisenberg) is a digital sales executive who lives in New York City. David is nerdy, uptight and a happily married father of a son named Abe (played by Banner Eisenberg, Jesse Eisenberg’s real-life son), who’s about 4 or 5 years old. David is the type of person who likes his life to be as orderly and scheduled as possible. David constantly worries, but he doesn’t want his anxiousness to get in the way of any of his plans or relationships. He also dislikes over-sharing or getting too emotional in front of strangers.
David’s cousin Benji Kaplan (played by Kieran Culkin) lives in Binghamton, New York, which is about 178 miles northwest of New York City. Benji is a freewheeling bachelor with no children. Benji is an unapologetic pothead who is often unemployed and makes money by getting odd jobs (such as working in construction) whenever he can. Benji is the type of person who hates corporate capitalism and thinks it would be hell for him if he worked in an office job. Unlike emotionally reserved David, Benji has frequent curse-filled outbursts where Benji rants about how he feels, even if the way he expresses these emotions are rude and disruptive.
David and Benji had a beloved grandmother named Dory Kaplan, who was a Holocaust survivor originally from Poland. Dory, who recently died, was the mother of the fathers of David and Benji. In her will, Dory requested that Benji and David use part of the inheritance money that she left for them to visit her native Poland together, so that the cousins could better understand her personal history before she immigrated to the United States. David and Benji willingly go on this trip as a tribute to her, but this trip is also a way for Benji and David to reconnect because they haven’t seen each other in months.
Within the first 10 minutes of “A Real Pain,” it’s easy to see that these two cousins have very different personalities and contrasting lifestyles. David thinks Benji’s lifestyle is too immature and unstable, while Benji thinks David’s lifestyle is too boring and restrictive. These differences predictably cause a lot of friction during the trip. However, some of their conflicts and resentments have been brewing for months or years before the trip even took place.
When they arrive at the airport, Benji thinks he can sneak his marijuana stash on the plane in his carry-on luggage. David vehemently disagrees and persuades a reluctant Benji to throw away the marijuana in an airport garbage can before they pass through the airport’s X-ray machines and metal detectors. When the two cousins arrive in Poland and check in at their hotel, David sees that Benji found another way to have a marijuana stash in Poland: Benji secretly mailed himself a packet of marijuana to be delivered to him by the hotel’s front desk.
During conversations in the movie, it’s revealed that although Benji can be abrasive and argumentative, he is actually very sensitive deep down inside. Benji is taking his grandmother Dory’s death a lot harder than David is coping with the death. Benji says that Dory was “my favorite person in the world.” Benji expresses admiration for how Dory, who did not have a formal education beyond elementary school, was able to go from being an employee of a small real-estate company to becoming the company’s owner.
David and Benji signed up to be part of a small tour group to visit Polish landmarks, particularly those that have to do with Jewish history and the Holocaust. David told the tour in advance that the cousins would leave the tour group a day early so that Benji and David could visit the house where Dory used to live in Poland. The interactions with the other people in the tour group also show how David and Benji are different from each other.
The tour guide is a friendly and intellectual Brit named James (played by Will Sharpe), who tells the members of the tour group up front that even though he isn’t Jewish or Polish, he has tremendous respect and passion for Jewish history and Eastern European cultures. James mentions that he was an Eastern European scholar at Oxford University and is “obsessed” with Eastern Europe. James is very mindful of not doing anything to offend people, which is why he’s genuinely shocked later in the movie when Benji unleashes a torrent of harsh criticism against James for what Benji thinks James is doing wrong as a tour guide.
All the other people in the tour group are Jewish. Marcia Kramer (played by Jennifer Grey) is a divorced homemaker, who has recently moved back to New York City after living for about 20 years in Los Angeles. Married couple Mark Binder (played by Daniel Oreskes) and Diane Binder (played by Liza Sadovy)—who are from Shaker Heights, Ohio—are retired and easygoing, although Mark is much more opinionated than Diane. Eloge (played by Kurt Egyiawan) is a Rwandan immigrant/genocide survivor who moved with his mother to the Canadian city of Winnipeg when he was a child. As an adult, Eloge (who is thoughtful and philosophical) converted to Judaism.
“A Real Pain” has no interest in being a slapstick comedy. The movie’s story unfolds in a naturalistic way, where not much happens except further insights into the personalities of the two main characters. Benji and David get up to some minor mischief—at Benji’s urging, of course. It’s Benji’s idea for them to sneak up on the hotel rooftop to smoke marijuana. In another scene in the movie, Benji shows David how they can avoid paying the fare for an unexpected train trip that the two cousins end up taking separately from the rest of the tour group.
Fairly early in the movie, there’s an example of how different David and Benji are when it comes to interacting with others. While on a walking tour with the group, Benji notices that Marcia seems to be sad and lonely. Benji wants to start a conversation with Marcia to keep her company, but David doesn’t think it’s a good idea because David thinks Marcia might want to be left alone. Of course, Benji doesn’t listen to David. Benji walks over to Marcia and says to her jokingly, “Why are you walking alone? Are you a big fucking loser?”
Even though Benji and David get on each other’s nerves, each cousin has qualities that they admire about each other. And there’s obviously genuine family love that these two cousins have for each other. David is in awe of how Benji has the type of charisma that can “light up a room,” and people can still like Benji, even when Benji proverbially “shits all over everything the room.” Benji looks up to David’s intelligence. In a tender family moment in their hotel room, Benji says to David, “You look wise. It’s beautiful.”
The scenes where the tour group visits Holocaust sites are handled with sensitivity and care. And although deceased grandmother Dory is never seen in the movie, her presence is very much felt in the conversations and interactions that David and Benji have with each other. David feels a little bit envious that Benji had a closer and more special relationship with Dory.
“A Real Pain” mostly excels in how the movie lets viewers get to know these characters during this trip. The comedy flows through seamlessly in little moments, such as when Davd and Benji find themselves in awkward situations. Viewers can imagine how these two cousins might have interacted in similar ways when Benji and David were children.
The movie also realistically addresses the issues of people who used to be very close but who drift apart because of lifestyle changes. Benji has a lot of lingering anger because married father David doesn’t have as much time to hang out with Benji, compared to when David was a bachelor with no children. David has some pent-up fury over something shocking that Benji did that happened (but is not shown) six months before this trip to Poland took place.
If there’s any criticism of “A Real Pain,” it might have to do with the character of Benji, who is depicted as a not-so-lovable rogue, but he gets off the hook a little too easily for how he sometimes cruelly behaves to other people. Benji isn’t occasionally cranky. He often seems to go out of his way to hurt people with his insults. And he makes several comments that he dislikes seeing other people being happy. On the other hand, Benji is extremely moody: One minute, he could be berating someone, and within seconds he could also be praising the same person.
Benji is obviously emotionally troubled, but there’s a lot of enabling of Benji that might not sit right with some viewers. Anyone with basic knowledge of psychology can see that Benji appears to have an undiagnosed bipolar disorder, and he’s probably abusing marijuana to self-medicate. And although David smokes some marijuana too, David is obviously not dependent on marijuana to cope with life.
“A Real Pain” isn’t trying to be a movie that has the answers to Benji’s mental health problems. Rather, this movie authentically shows the helplessness that people can feel when they or their loved ones have a mental illness. By the end of the movie, some questions remain about what will happen next between these two cousins, but these are questions that are just the movie’s reflection of the real-life unpredictablity of ever-evolving relationships.
Searchlight Pictures released “A Real Pain” in select U.S. cinemas on November 1, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on November 15, 2024.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (center) in “Apocalypse in the Tropics” (Photo by Francisco Proner)
“Apocalypse in the Tropics” (2024)
Directed by Petra Costa
Portuguese with subtitles
Culture Representation: The documentary film “Apocalypse in the Tropics” features Brazilian people talking about evangelicalism and politics in Brazil in the 21st century.
Culture Clash: Right-wing political leaders have increased their use of evangelical leaders and religious preachings to further their political causes, while left-wing political leaders fight to keep the church and state separate.
Culture Audience: “Apocalypse in the Tropics” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in 21st century Brazilian politics and how these politics are eerily similar to 21st century politics in other countries, such as the United States.
Jair Bolsonaro (seated) in “Apocalypse in the Tropics” (Photo by Francisco Proner)
“Apocalypse in the Tropics” won’t do much to change political opinions that are on the extreme right or extreme left. However, it’s an insightful documentary about how evangelicalism has affected Brazilian politics in the 21st century. “Apocalypse in the Tropics” had its world premiere at the 2024 Venice International Film Festival. It then made the rounds at other film festivals in 2024, including the Telluride Film Festival and the New York Film Festival.
“Apocalypse in the Tropics” director Petra Costa, who is the documentary’s narrator, admits up front that she has a very secular point of view in believing in the separation of church and state. However, Costa said that in the course of making the documentary, she did extensive research on the blending of evangelicalism and politics to further understand why numerous Brazilian voters believe that religion should play more (not less) of a role in governmental policies.
Costa was nominated for Best Documentary Feature for directing 2018’s “The Edge of Democracy,” which chronicled the rise and fall of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and the impeachment of his successor, President Dilma Rousseff in 2014. “Apocalypse in the Tropics” is a sequel of sorts to “The Edge of Democracy,” because it chronicles the rise of Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing politician who was elected president of Brazil in 2018. Bolsonaro was then was voted out and replaced by President Lula in 2022.
Brazil has often been compared to the United States in how both countries seem to be on parallel tracks in political history in the 2010s and 2020s. Bolsonaro’s rise in politics used similar tactics used by Donald Trump, whose core base consists of many who live in rural areas and are working-class or poor and those who live in more urban areas who are wealthy. Middle-class people who support Bolsonaro tend to be frustrated by the changes happening in the nation, where immigrants, non-Christians, non-heterosexuals and political liberals are often blamed for any decline.
And just like Trump, Bolsonaro was voted out of office and replaced by a veteran politician whose politics have been liberal, but Bolsonaro and his most ardent supporters have not conceded defeat. Just like in the United States, this political divisiveness has erupted in violence on the nation’s Capitol building. It happened in the U.S. on January 6, 2021. It happened in Brazil on January 8, 2023.
“Apocalypse in the Tropics” features interviews with several politicians and regular Brazilian citizens on both sides of the political spectrum. Pastor Silas Malafaia Filho, a powerful and influential support of Bolsonaro, also gets a lot of screen time. What they all have to say is almost identical to the concerns of people on the opposite sides of the political spectrum in the United States.
Costa’s voiceover narration is measured and calm, but the words in her narration (which she co-wrote with Alessandra Orofino, David Barker, Nels Bangerter and Tina Baz) have an unmistakable tone of sounding an alarm. Unlike a political documentarian such as Michael Moore, Costa does not make herself the star of her documentaries and is only seen on screen intermittently when she is interviewing people. However, her interviews tend to be a bit on the tame side and offer no groundbreaking revelations. The most insightful aspects of Costa’s documentary filmmaking are cinéma vérité, when the camera just shows how people really act and what they say when they let their guards down.
Overall, “Apocalypse in the Tropics” has solid direction and focused editing in chronicle the story presented in the movie. The documentary’s cinematography is above-average. The most impactful footage in “Apocalypse in the Tropics” is shown in the last 20 minutes. It’s a significant reminder that far-way countries that could be considered “foreign” from each other can actually be a lot more alike than many of their citizens would like to admit.
Sara Jane Moore in “Suburban Fury” (Photo courtesy of 2R Productions)
“Suburban Fury”
Directed by Robinson Devor
Culture Representation: The documentary film “Suburban Fury” has only one person interviewed: Sara Jane Moore, a deliberately mysterious person who has had many different identities.
Culture Clash: Before spending more than 30 years in prison for trying to shoot U.S. President Gerald Ford in 1975, Moore says she was an informant for the FBI.
Culture Audience: “Suburban Fury” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching “where are they now” documentaries about notorious people who have faded from the public eye.
Sara Jane Moore in “Suburban Fury” (Photo courtesy of 2R Productions)
“Suburban Fury” is a mixed bag of a documentary about Sara Jane Moore, who famously tried to assassinate Gerald Ford in 1975. Moore is the only person interviewed for this retro-inspired movie, which she seems to be using as a way to play mind games. Viewers will hear some interesting stories from her, which might or might not have credibility since there’s no one in the documentary who can verify her elaborate tales of being a FBI informant going undercover as a left-wing radical.
A caption mentions in the beginning of “Suburban Fury” that Moore agreed to be in the documentary by insisting that she would be the only person interviewed for the movie. “Suburban Fury” could have have used more independent research to help verify some of Moore’s unverified claims. However, “Suburban Fury” succeeds at being a “where are they now” curiosity spectacle that re-creates and shows some archival material from Moore’s past. Moore (who was born in 193O) is purposely vague about her personal life but discusses at length her alleged involvement with the FBI as a confidential informant during the 1970s.
Directed by Robinson Devor, “Suburban Fury” had its world premiere at the 2024 New York Film Festival. The movie was filmed in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Moore has been a longtime resident and where she committed her notorious act of trying to kill a U.S. president. On September 22, 1975, she used a .38 caliber gun to fire a single shot at then-U.S. President Ford while she was standing in a crowd across the street from him when he was outside the St. Francis Hotel during a public visit to San Francisco. Moore was quickly arrested. She pleaded guilty to attempted murder and was sentenced to life in prison but was paroled in 2007.
Moore insisted then, as she does in this documentary, that she is perfectly sane. However, her unfocused ramblings don’t sound completely believable. Moore admits that she has spent much of her life being a pretender: When she was young, she was an aspiring actress. Later, she says she was very skilled at leading a life of many identities at once: She was a suburban housewife who also hung out and partied with people who were members of extreme left-wing factions of the Black Liberation movement.
Many of the interviews of Moore are conducted while she’s in the back seat of a 1970s station wagon parked on a San Francisco hill, while an unidentified man in a suit stands near the car, as if he’s on the lookout for someone, or waiting to see if Moore will try to leave. In the documentary’s end credits, a caption says that “Suburban Fury” was made with the cooperation of the U.S. Secret Service, but there is no further elaboration.
Moore gets very feisty and irritable with Devor, who can be heard but not seen asking her some questions. She yells at him if she doesn’t like the questions. She also gets very uptight and evasive about certain topics. For example, she defiantly says she won’t talk about her current family life because she wants to protect her family’s privacy.
The documentary has no information about what Moore did with her life after she was paroled from prison. The majority of what she talks about in the documentary is what she did in the 1970s, when she was supposedly an undercover informant for the FBI. She contradicts herself by saying she has no regrets about the presidential assassination attempt and but also saying in another interview that the assassination attempt was a mistake. There’s also some not-very-interesting commentary from her about what her life was like in prison.
“Suburban Fury” often uses boxy film aspect ratios of a 1970s-styled home movie, to give the look of a movie that could have been filmed in the era when Super 8 film cameras were consider hi-tech. “Suburban Fury” has the expected archival footage of the assassination attempt. Moore describes what happened immediately after she was apprehended by law enforcement. She says that male police officers began beating her out of anger at her attempted assassination. She says at one point during this assault, her trousers were pulled down, and one of the officers exclaimed in surprise that she was a woman.
The way Moore tells it, in the years before she went to prison, she was recruited by the FBI to infiltrate Black Liberation groups because the word on the street was that these groups would trust her. She says her main FBI contact was someone whom she calls Bertram “Bert” Worthington, which she says is not his real name. She tells elaborate stories about clandestine meetings with Worthington, whom she describes as a Yale University graduate who wore raggedy tweed suits and always treated her like a respectable lady.
These stories are the basis for the documentary’s narration of what Worthington might say about Moore now. “Suburban Fury” director Devor is the voice of Worthington in this narration. In “Suburban Fury,” Moore claims that Worthington knew about her plans to shoot Gerald Ford and advised her to escape with her son in her car and become a fugitive if she succeeded with her plan.
Moore will only discuss her doomed marriages to two of her ex-husbands, including the unnamed doctor whom she was married to when she was arrested for the assassination attempt. She says she was miserable in the marriage because he refused to let her have a job. “Suburban Fury” includes declassified FBI files that show by the time 45-year-old Moore was involved in this assassination attempt, she had already been married and divorced five times.
She also mentions how her previous husband—whom she does not name but she will only describe as someone who worked in the movie industry—wanted her to have an abortion when she had a surprise pregnancy. She refused to terminate the pregnancy. Moore speaks fondly of her son, whom she raised for a period of time with her doctor husband as her son’s stepfather. But the documentary also shows the FBI files that list she gave birth to about four children whom she abandoned. Moore is not fully confronted in the documentary about all the secrets and lies that she seems have accumulated in her life.
Moore will only admit that she came from an affluent background in West Virginia. The documentary has photos of Moore at various stages in her life when she had several surnames, to show without saying that she has long been a chameleon with different identities. Was she a bored housewife who somehow got caught up in espionage and political conspiracies? Or was she a calculating manipulator who knew exactly what she was doing?
“Suburban Fury” goes off on a tangent to discuss the 1974 kidnapping of heiress Patricia “Patty” Hearst, who was a 19-year-old student at the Unversity of California at Berkeley at the time of her abduction. Hearst joined her kidnappers in the left-wing Symbionese Liberation Army (which claimed to have an ideology of “rob from the rich to give to the poor”) on a crime spree that included bank robberies. Moore expresses disdain for SLA and Hearst, by saying that Hearst was kind of stupid and that SLA should have kidnapped Hearst’s wealthy father (Randolph Apperson Hearst) instead of going after one of his children.
What does SLA have to do with Moore? SLA was associated with Wilbert “Popeye” Jackson, who was involved with prison reform as a founder of United Prisoner Union while he was incarcerated at San Quentin Prison. Moore says she was one of many lovers that Jackson had at the time, like a harem. According to Moore, Jackson was sympathetic to the SLA but he also wanted to help Patty Hearst because he hoped that Randolph Apperson Hearst would reward Jackson by helping give a good education to Jackson’s son.
Moore also had an indirect connection to the Hearst family because she was a volunteer bookeeper for People in Need, a charity established by the Hearst family in response to SLA’s demands that in order for SLA to free Patty Hearst from SLA’s captivity, the Hearst family needed to do more for low-income people. There are some archival photos of Moore working for People in Need. Moore says she was very good at her People in Need job. However, since “Suburban Fury” viewers are only getting her selective version of events, it’s hard to know how truthful she is in certain parts of her story.
The many twists and detours that Moore takes in her storytelling get a little tiresome to watch when it becomes all too obvious that she wants to portray herself as a folk heroine who led a very unusual life. She portrays herself as a “victim” of “oppressive” government manipulations that involved death threats from government officials, even though she also describes herself in other parts of her stories as an independent woman who broke the law of her own free will. Without anyone else interviewed in the documentary, the narrative of “Suburban Fury” is obviously very one-sided.
Moore describes the day of her assassination attempt as, “I think I was in a fugue. A fugue state is a pattern.” She says she felt it was pre-destined that she would carry out the plan and remembers that there were no unexpected delays or hitches in the plan. “The plan had been written to be successful. I also thought I’d be killed,” she adds.
One of the many examples of Moore’s questionable credibility is that at one point in the interview, she claims she had no intention of killing Ford. In a separate interview, she says that at the time, she believed that political murders (including assassinating a U.S. president) were necessary for radical groups to get attention, and she had no qualms about killing a U.S. president if necessary. At some point during the documentary, viewers will wonder if Moore has told so many lies, she doesn’t know what the truth is anymore.
“Suburban Fury” doesn’t pass judgment on Moore but doesn’t go far enough in questioning her. She seems to get very irritated when she thinks she doesn’t have control of a situation. The main reason to watch this movie is out of curiosity to see what someone who has lived this type of duplicitous life has to say about herself when she’s in her 90s.
Moore seems to have a quick-thinking mind and looks healthier and younger than most people in her age group. One of the most telling things about her is in the documentary’s end credits. Moore, sitting silently in the back seat of a car at night, looks around nervously, as if she’s expecting the car to be ambushed at any moment. It’s a striking image that indicates that even though Moore is no longer incarcerated in prison, she remains a prisoner of her own paranoia.
Some language in Russian and Armenian with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in 2018 in New York City and in Las Vegas, the comedy/drama film “Anora” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latin people and African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A 23-year-old sex worker/stripper thinks she’s hit the jackpot when she marries a 21-year-old customer, who is the son of a billionaire Russian mogul, but her dream turns into a nightmare when her new husband’s family pressures her to annul the marriage.
Culture Audience: “Anora” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of filmmaker Sean Baker, star Mikey Madison, and movies that tell sordid stories from a sex worker’s perspective.
Mark Eydelshteyn and Mikey Madison in “Anora” (Photo courtesy of Neon)
“Anora” takes viewers on a frenetic and wild ride that goes on for a little too long as it zig zags to an inevitable outcome in this story about a sex worker and a Russian heir who have a quickie marriage. This foul-mouthed movie’s best asset is the acting. There’s really not much to the comedy/drama plot, which is stretched nearly to the breaking point during the movie’s 138-minute runtime.
Written and directed by Sean Baker, “Anora” is another movie in Baker’s filmography about people (usually sex workers) who live in the margins of society and are financially struggling or struggling to make a lot more money than they are now. Baker’s movies are filled with people shouting, cursing, getting naked, hustling, lying, and doing drugs. The characters in his movies are presented in a way that is not judgmental or exploitative but as a way to show how people like this live with a combination of self-absorbed survival skills and a yearning for some type of human connection underneath their “tough” exteriors.
“Anora” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d’Or (the festival’s top prize), the equivalent of Best Picture for the festival. “Anora” has also made the rounds at other major festivals, including the Telluride Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. Unlike other movies that have previously won the Palme d’Or, “Anora” isn’t particularly innovative, and the movie’s story is quite predictable. But for viewers who can tolerate some of the repetitive nature of the story, “Anora” is worth watching for the principal cast members’ captivating performances, particularly from Mikey Madison, who portrays the movie’s title character.
The movie (which takes place over a few weeks in 2018) begins with a scene in New York City, where much of “Anora” was filmed on location. A 23-year-old Russian American named Anora (played by Madison), who prefers to be called Ani (pronounced Annie), is shown working at her job at a dark and seedy strip club that tries to look more upscale than it really is. Ani, who does topless dancing, is a pro at flirting with customers and is very skilled at convincing many of them to spend more money on her by going in the back room for lap dances. Most of her customers are men who are in their 30s, 40s and 50s.
But one night, a 21-year-old Russian immigrant named Ivan “Vanya” Zakharov (played by Mark Eydelshteyn) goes to the club with his best friend Tom (played by Anton Bitter), who is also Russian and about the same age. Ani immediately catches the eye of Vanya, who doesn’t speak English very well. Ani happens to be fluent in Russian because, as she tells Vanya, she had a Russian grandmother who never learned English.
It doesn’t take long for Vanya to invite Ani to party with him the next day at the Brooklyn waterfront home where he lives by himself. She eagerly accepts his invitation. When Ani goes to this home, she is in awe when she sees that Vanya must be very affluent to live in this sleek and luxurious house.
At first, Vanya plays games with Ani when she asks him how he could afford this place. He lies to her and says he’s a drug dealer. And then he says he’s an arms dealer. Finally, he tells her the truth: His father is a famous Russian billionaire named Nikolai Zakharov (played by Aleksey Serebryakov), and Vanya has been in the United States as a university student.
Vanya has recently dropped out of school, so he is under orders by his father to return soon to Russia to start working in the family business. Ani knows exactly why she was invited to party with Vanya. He tells her he wants to have sex with her. They negotiate the price that he will pay her. They smoke some marijuana and get down to business.
Vanya is 21 years old, but he’s immature and acts more like someone who’s about 16 or 17 years old. He has a teenager’s fascination with playing video games. He’s impulsive and irresponsible. He’s also very sexually inexperienced. (Ani sometimes tries not to laugh at how quickly Vanya finishes during sex.) But Vanya becomes immediately infatuated with Ani, who teaches him how to improve his sexual performance.
Vanya invites Ani back to his place for a big party the following night. Ani brings along her best friend from work: another sex worker named Lulu (played by Luna Sofia Miranda), who’s about the same age as Ani. Vanya introduces Ani and Lulu to some more of his partier friends, who have already heard that Ani is a paid escort.
Vanya and Ani continue to have sex with each other, get drunk and stoned (on marijuana and cocaine), and hang out and goof around together with their friends on Coney Island. By the time Vanya and Ani have had a few sexual encounters, he tells her that he will pay her to be his “horny girlfriend” for a week. After they negotiate on a price ($15,000), Vanya admits he would’ve paid up to $35,000 if Ani had asked.
And so begins a binge of sex and partying, fueled by alcohol and drugs, that leads Vanya and Ani to go to Las Vegas and live like visiting high rollers. Vanya surprises Ani by proposing marriage to her. She thinks he’s joking at first, but he’s not. She gleefully accepts his proposal. Ani and Vanya then quickly elope (without a prenuptial agreement) at a small wedding chapel in Las Vegas.
Now that she’s married to the heir of a billionaire fortune, Ani quits her job at the strip club, where her co-worker rival Diamond (played by Lindsey Normington) is very jealous and declares that the marriage won’t last long. Ani doesn’t want to listen and essentially struts out of the club like someone who has won the lottery. Ani also makes plans to move out of her rented apartment as she envisions a life of being a pampered and jetsetting wife of a billionaire.
You know where all of this is going, of course. When Vanya’s family members in Russia find out that he has married an American sex worker, they immediately set out to get the marriage annulled. An aggressive Armenian thug named Garnik (played by Vache Tovmasyan) and his more mild-mannered sidekick Igor (played by Yura Borisov) have been dispatched to track down Ani and Vanya and end the marriage.
Garnik and Igor report to a “fixer” named Toros (played by Karren Karagulian), who reports directly to Vanya’s father Nikolai. Vanya seems to be afraid of Nikolai. But when Vanya’s mother Galina Zakharov (played by Darya Ekamasova) gets involved, it’s easy to see who is the more ruthless parent.
“Anora” has a lot of expected hijinks and mishaps, as Ani and Vanya (who gets intoxicated to the point of being incoherent and barely conscious) encounter the people who want to end the marriage. The marketing materials for “Anora” have described this movie as a “love story.” But make no mistake: This is a gold digger story. “Anora” fails to convince any viewer with enough life experience that what Ani and Vanya have is more than drug-fueled lust. And in Ani’s case, that lust includes lust for money.
“Anora” gets a little bit ridiculous with some of the sitcom-like scenarios in the last third of the movie. However contrived these scenarios are, the talented cast members make their characters’ personalities convincing enough to maintain viewer interest. “Anora” invites viewers to question if Ani really is capable of having lasting love if there isn’t some transactional financial benefit for her and if she isn’t offering herself for sale as a sexual plaything. The impact of the movie is when Ani begins to understand that she herself doesn’t know the answer to that question.
Neon will release “Anora” in select U.S. cinemas on October 18, 2024. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on December 17, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the early 1950s in Mexico City and in South America, the dramatic film “Queer” (based on William Burroughs’ novel of the same name) features a white and Latin cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: While living in Mexico City, a wealthy, drug-addicted, queer American writer looks for love with a man and goes on a quest to find an elusive psychedelic drug.
Culture Audience: “Queer” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, star Daniel Craig, author William Burroughs and decadent movies told from a queer perspective.
Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey and Lesley Manville in “Queer” (Photo by Yannis Drakoulidis/A24)
Like a lot of movies that portray drug addiction, “Queer” is sometimes unfocused, rambling and incoherent. However, Daniel Craig gives a memorable and uncompromising performance in this experimental drama inspired by Williams Burroughs’ life. “Queer” is not a biopic but a movie based on a semi-autobiographical novel. It’s a portrait of a troubled person who has self-esteem issues and who is struggling to find love and acceptance in a world that is often unwelcome and hostile to people who aren’t cisgender heterosexuals.
Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes, “Queer” is adapted from Burroughs’ 1985 novel of the same name. The “Queer” movie is the second film released in 2024 that was directed by Guadagnino and written by Kuritzkes, who previously collaborated on the tennis drama “Challengers,” another sexually charged film with themes of obsession, ambition and transactional relationships. Unlike the sex scenes in “Challengers,” the sex scenes in “Queer” have full-frontal nudity and are much more explicit. “Queer” had its world premiere at the 2024 Venice International Film Festival. It later had its North American premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival and its U.S. premiere at the 2024 New York Film Festival.
In “Queer” (which take places over a three-year period in the early 1950s), Craig has the central role as William Lee, which is the alias that Burroughs used briefly and early in his long career as a writer. Burroughs was know as an influential Beat Generation author, whose best-known work is the 1959 novel “Naked Lunch.” Burroughs was born in 1914, in St. Louis, Missouri. He died in 1997, in Lawrence, Kansas. Burroughs was a Harvard University graduate and an heir to the fortune of the Burroughs Corporation, which was founded by his paternal grandfather William Seward Burroughs. This wealth allowed Burroughs the writer to live a lifestyle where he didn’t have to work, and his drug addiction (he was openly addicted to heroin) was well-funded.
The William Lee in the “Queer” movie prefers to be called Lee. He is in his late 40s and is exactly what you think a well-educated, drug-addicted intelluctual writer would be: On the one hand, he has a fierce snobbery toward anyone who can’t discuss literary work that’s up to his standards. On the other hand, he loves getting down and dirty with shady, uneducated people and criminals. He uses his ability to float between high society and the unlawful margins of society as the source of many of his writings.
Lee’s writing is not as much of a priority to him as his main preoccupations: doing drugs and looking for gay sex. Omar Apollo has a small role in the movie as young man whom Lee picks up for a casual sexual tryst in the movie’s first sex scene. Lee has his flings at a motel where the manager is so accustomed to the place being used for gay sexual hookups, he lays out a towel on the bed as soon as guests rent a room.
In real life in the early 1950s, William Burroughs was divorced from his first wife Ilse Klapper and living in Mexico City with writer Joan Vollmer, their son William Burroughs Jr., and Vollmer’s daughter Julia Adams from her ex-husband Paul Adams. (A scene in “Queer” recreates how Vollmer died in real life, but with another character in this movie’s death scene.) In the movie “Queer,” Lee is not married, and he’s not exactly “in the closet.” He’s living the life of an openly gay bachelor in Mexico City, with no family ties at all. In fact, his loneliness and detachment from any family members are the reasons why Lee makes many of the decisions in this story.
Lee hangs out at a gay bar called the Ship Ahoy, where many men from the U.S. Navy are known to frequent. Lee’s bar-hopping pals are mostly other American queer men. His closest friend is Joe Guidry (played by Jason Schwartzman), who loves to gossip about his sex life and other gay/queer men’s sex lives. A running joke with Joe is that the men he often sleeps with end up stealing things from Joe. Another frequent Ship Ahoy customer is Winston Moor (played by Henrique Zaga), who is sometimes Lee’s drinking companion.
One night, Lee is walking down a street and casually observing a group of Mexican men who are involved in rooster fighting. Lee looks up and notices another white American man, who’s in his 20s. The stranger is across from Lee and is also casually walking by this disgusting and inhumane animal cruelty. Lee and this stranger look at each other in the way that people do when you know there’s an instant and unspoken attraction between them.
Lee is surprised to see this stranger again that night at Ship Ahoy. The stranger is at a table by himself. When Lee awkwardly bows and tries to flirt with the younger man, this would-be paramour seems to be a little turned off and doesn’t show any interest. Lee keeps seeing this stranger at various places until they finally have a conversation and get to know each other better.
The stranger’s name is Eugene Allerton (played by Drew Starkey), who used to be in the U.S. Navy but is currently an unemployed student in Mexico City. Lee is unsure of what Eugene’s sexuality is. Eugene hangs out at the Ship Ahoy (a known establishment for gay men), but Eugene is also seen dating a fiery redhead named Joan (played by Ronia Ava), who looks like the type who wouldn’t want Eugene to be dating anyone else.
Lee is a big talker, but he’s surprisingly shy about coming right out and asking Eugene what Eugene’s sexuality is, even though Lee clearly wants to have sex with Eugene. When Fred advises Lee to ask Eugene if Eugene is queer or not, Lee says it’s not a good idea and tells Fred that it would be too forward and impolite to ask Eugene. Meanwhile, Lee and Eugene have the type of flirtation that you just know will lead to something more. Because it’s already revealed in the movie’s trailers, it’s not spoiler information to say (and it should be no surprise) that Lee and Eugene eventually become lovers.
Lee falls in love with Eugene. The problem for Lee is that he isn’t quite sure if Eugene feels the same way about Lee, or if Eugene is just using Lee for a “sugar daddy” situation. Eugene also doesn’t seem to want to commit to declaring if he’s gay, bisexual or neither. When Eugene is around certain people, such as Joan, he gives the appearance that he’s heterosexual. Meanwhile, Lee can eventually no longer hide from Eugene that Lee is seriously addicted to heroin. Lee also abuses other drugs, such as alcohol, cocaine and psychedelics.
“Queer” is told in three chapters and one epilogue. Much of the third chapter is about a trip that Lee and Eugene take to South America to find an elusive psychedelic drug called yage (prounced “yah-way”), also known as the plant that is the basis for ayahuasca, a potent psychedelic. They travel to a remote jungle area, where they meet a grungy psychedelic American expert named Dr. Cotter (played by Lesley Manville, who is almost unrecognizable) and a man she calls her husband named Mr. Cotter (played by Lisandro Alonso). It leads to the most hallucinogenic and visually creative part of the movie.
“Queer” makes some interesting musical choices that are meant to be unconventional but sometimes comes across as pretentious and downright annoying. Oscar-winning music composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (who also wrote the musical score for “Challengers”) have composed very modern music for a movie that’s set in the 1950s. For better or worse, “Queer” does the same thing that “Challengers” does: It often plays the score music so loudly in certain scenes, this blaring volume can become an irritating distraction.
The songs on the “Queer” soundtrack consist mostly of songs that were written decades after the 1950s. A few Nirvana hits are prominently featured in the beginning of the movie: first, with Sinéad O’Connor’s cover version of “All Apologies” and later with Nirvana’s original recording of “Come as You Are.” Later in the movie, a few songs from Prince (such as “Musicology”) can be heard when “Queer” ramps up its sexual content.
Purists who think the music of a movie should be realistic for the time period of when the movie takes place will no doubt be put off by these musical choices in “Queer.” Some viewers who aren’t aware of this musical mismatch might feel disoriented when watching “Queer” and might think to themselves when they see clothes and cars from the 1950s but hear music from the 1990s and 21st century : “What decade is this movie supposed to be in anyway?”
At 135 minutes long, “Queer” tends to a little bloated in the story it’s trying to tell. The movie is based on a short story. And it’s easy to see why because there isn’t much of a plot. “Queer” has some “druggie” movie clichés such as “dope sick” scenes, “getting high” scenes, and “desperate to find drugs” scenes. The cinematography is very immersive, while the movie’s visual effects (although often grotesque) are quite unforgettable.
Despite the movie’s flaws, Craig gives a riveting performance throughout “Queer” as the insecure and self-destructive Lee. Starkey is also quite good in the role of the emotionally mysterious Eugene. Manville is a scene stealer and gives one of the most transformative performances of her career. Ultimately, “Queer” is not the type of movie that expects everyone to understand it or like it. It’s a movie that exists on its own terms, in all of its messiness in chronicling a period of time in the life of a privileged but troubled writer.
A24 will release “Queer” in select U.S. cinemas on November 27, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York state, the dramatic film “The Room Next Door” (based on Sigrid Nunez’s novel “What Are You Going Through”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A woman with cervical cancer reconnects with a close friend and enlists her to go on a monthlong retreat, where the cancer patient plans to kill herself and wants her friend to keep this plan a secret.
Culture Audience: “The Room Next Door” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar; stars Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton; and well-made movies about human euthanasia.
Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore in “The Room Next Door” (Photo courtesy of El Deseo/Sony Pictures Classics)
“The Room Next Door” raises thought-provoking issues about euthanasia for terminally ill people who want to choose when they will die. This well-acted, gorgeously filmed drama also has a lot to say about friendships and loyalty. “The Room Next Door” might inspire debates about these issues, but there’s no question that the movie is a compelling story about what could happen in real life under the circumstances portrayed in the film.
Written and directed by Oscar-winning Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, “The Room Next Door” is his first English-language movie. Almodóvar adapted “The Room Next Door” screenplay from Sigrid Nunez’s 2020 novel “What Are You Going Through.” “The Room Next Door” had its world premiere at the 2024 Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Lion (top prize), which is the festival’s equivalent of Best Picture. “The Room Next Door” subsequently had its North American premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival and its U.S. premiere at the 2024 New York Film Festival.
“The Room Next Door” begins in New York City, by showing a successful author named Ingrid (played by Julianne Moore), who is signing autographs of her most recent book at a personal appearance event. Although she was only obligated to be there for one hour, and that hour has passed, Ingrid says she will stay until all the people who are waiting in line will get their books autographed. It’s the first sign that Ingrid is a caring and compassionate person.
Ingrid’s latest non-fiction book is about how people should try to live their best lives for as long as possible. Ingrid openly says that she has a fear of dying. She views death as inevitable but a negative and sad part of existence. One of the people waiting in line to get her book autographed is a friend she hasn’t seen a while named Stella (played by Sarah Demeestere), who lives in the Boston area. Stella tells Ingrid some surprising news: Their mutual friend Martha (played by Tilda Swinton), a retired journalist, has cancer.
Ingrid and Martha haven’t seen or spoken to each other for years because they simply drifted apart. But this news about Martha’s health has prompted Ingrid to get in touch with Martha, who also lives in New York City. Ingrid visits Martha at the hospital where Martha is getting medical treatments.
They catch up on what’s been going on in their lives since they previously saw each other. Martha tells Ingrid that she has Stage 3 cervical cancer. “I swing between euphoria and depression,” Martha says of her state of mind. “Survival feels almost disappointing.”
Through conversations in the movie, it’s revealed that Martha and Ingrid used to work together in the 1980s at Paper magazine, during the “party girl” phases of their lives. Ingrid and Martha were lovers for period of time. Their sexual relationship didn’t last, but they remained close friends. Ingrid lived for several years in Paris but has been living in New York City in more recent years.
During the 1980s, Martha and Ingrid also dated writer Damian Cunningham (played by John Turturro) at different times. However, their dating relationships with Damian didn’t last either. Damian is also now a well-known author who is still a trusted friend of Ingrid.
Ingrid and Martha are both bachelorettes who don’t have a special love in their lives. Ingrid does not have children. Martha has one child: a daughter named Michelle, who was born from a short-lived fling that Martha had with a schoolmate named Fred, who was in his late teens when Martha was also a teenager. Martha and Fred started dating each other shortly before he went off to serve in the military in the Vietnam War, not long before the war ended in 1975.
For years, Martha lied to Michelle by saying that she didn’t know who Michelle’s father was. It was only after Michelle became an adult that Michelle found out the truth. According to Martha, after Fred came back from the Vietnam War, he was a different person and had issues with his mental health. Fred knew about Michelle, but he wasn’t involved with raising Michelle and stayed out of her life after he and Martha ended their relationship. Fred then got married to another woman and died in his 20s, when he rushed into a burning house to save what he thought were people who need rescuing. (This scene is shown as a flashback in the movie.)
The relationship between Martha and Michelle has also been strained because, by Martha’s own admission, Martha made her career a priority over being a parent. Martha worked for years as a war journalist. This demanding work schedule meant that she often had to travel and be away from home. Martha admits that Michelle still has a lot of resentment toward Martha because of Martha being a frequently absent parent.
Martha and Ingrid are opposites in many ways. Ingrid is nurturing, sincere and open with her feelings. Martha can be prickly, dishonest and emotionally guarded. They also have very different views about death. Martha doesn’t want pity but she wants to choose how and when she will die and has meticulously planned it. Ingrid believes that people should try to live as long as they can and try to avoid death for as long as possible.
Martha tells Ingrid that she wants Ingrid’s help with a big secret: Martha has rented a luxury vacation home for a month in New York state. (Most of “The Room Next Door” was actually filmed in Spain.) Martha bought a euthanasia pill on the black market and plans to take this pill on a day that only Martha will know. Martha asks Ingrid to accompany her on this trip for support and as a last goodbye. Martha insists to Ingrid that Ingrid can’t tell anyone else about this plan.
Ingrid is horrified but agrees to this request to go on this retreat, out of loyalty to Martha. Ingrid also thinks she can change Martha’s mind about ending Martha’s life. When they get to the rented house, Martha tells Ingrid that Ingrid can stay in the room next door to the room where Martha will be staying. Martha says that if Ingrid sees that the door to Martha’s room is closed, it means that Martha has taken the euthanasia pill and is probably dead.
The rest of “The Room Next Door” is an emotional rollercoaster for Ingrid, who is conflicted about this entire plan. As a safety measure, she confides in Damian about Martha’s plan. Damian says that he can recommend a good attorney for Ingrid, in case Ingrid needs an attorney. Ingrid is adamant that she is not going to help Martha commit euthanasia, but Ingrid’s advance knowledge of Martha’s plan would make Ingrid an accessory to this unlawful act. Alessandro Nivola has a small supporting role as a police investigator named Flannery who gets suspicious and questions Ingrid about matters related to Martha.
“The Room Next Door” is a very talkative and occasionally boring movie that consists mainly of the conversations between Martha and Ingrid, as they reconnect under these unusual and stressful circumstances. Now that Martha has decided when she will end her own life, she has become reflective about her life and wonders about things that she could have done differently. Ingrid offers advice and comfort but is also worried about Martha’s safety and emotional well-being.
Martha has a tendency to be self-absorbed and scatter-brained, which leads to some darkly comedic moments in the movie. For example, upon arriving at the rental home, Martha finds out that she left the euthanasia pill at her home in New York City. Martha insists that she and Ingrid drive all the way back to New York City to retrieve the pill, which takes a while because Martha forgot where she put the pill.
“The Room Next Door”—which has exquisite cinematography from Eduard Grau—juxtaposes the ideal beauty of the upscale location with the unpleasant sense of foreboding that Martha and Ingrid have that one of them plans to die before this trip is over. At times, Ingrid is in deep denial that Martha will follow through with this plan. Other times, Ingrid goes into a panic over it.
During this bittersweet reunion, this question looms: Will Martha reach out to Michelle one last time in an attempt to reconcile or at least say goodbye? Martha says that Michelle has rejected Martha’s previous attempts to communicate with Michelle. Moore and Swinton give riveting performances that stay authentic to their characters’ personalities.
No matter how viewers feel about terminally ill people who want to choose when to end their own lives, “The Room Next Door” presents these issues in a non-judgmental way by showing two friends who are directly affected by this issue. Some people try to avoid death, while others run toward it or don’t try to fight death. “The Room Next Door” is an impactful reminder that how people choose to live is remembered much more than how people die.
Sony Pictures Classics will release “The Room Next Door” in select U.S. cinemas on December 20, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Florida and in New York City, from the late 1950s to 2003, the dramatic film “Nickel Boys” (based on the novel “The Nickel Boys”) features a predominantly African American cast of characters (with some white people and a few Latinos) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Two teenage boys become friends while they live at at a reform school and endure an oppressive, abusive and racist environment.
Culture Audience: “Nickel Boys” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of filmmaker RaMell Ross, the book and which the movie is based, and well-acted movies about how people process childhood trauma.
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor in “Nickel Boys” (Photo courtesy of Orion Pictures)
Artfully made and absorbing to watch, “Nickel Boys” is a risk-taking drama that makes unorthodox choices about memories and perspectives. Inspired by real events about a reform school that abused teenage boys, this movie also has compelling acting. It’s the type of movie that will test the patience of viewers who might be expecting a more traditional narrative structure. But for open-minded movie fans who appreciate bold, artistic moves in cinema, “Nickel Boys” is like watching an unpredictable formation of a mosaic. “Nickel Boys” had its world premiere at the 2024 Telluride Film Festival and later screened at the 2024 New York Film Festival.
Directed by RaMell Ross (who co-wrote the “Nickel Boys” screenplay with Joslyn Barnes), “Nickel Boys” is adapted from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2019 novel “The Nickel Boys.” The book is loosely based on the real-life story of the Florida School for Boys, also known as the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, which was a state-operated reform school in Marianna, Florida, from 1900 to 2011. The school was permanently shut down after numerous lawsuits and a U.S. Department of Justice investigation uncovered decades of torture and other abuse against children who were at the reform school.
“Nickel Boys” (which takes place from the late 1950s to 2003) tells the non-chronological story of Elwood Curtis, whose life changes forever due to an unfortunate series of circumstances. In 1962, Elwood (played by Ethan Herisse) is a bright, empathetic and socially conscious 16-year-old, who will soon turn 17. Elwood’s parents are deceased.
Elwood lives with his widowed grandmother Hattie (played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) in the racially segregated community of Frenchtown, Florida. Hattie (who works as a hotel maid) and Elwood have hope for and enthusiastic interest in the burgeoning U.S. civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., even though Hattie and her co-workers have been ordered not to talk about politics when they’re on the job. Elwood excels in academics and has a promising future.
Elwood has a teacher/mentor named Mr. Hill (played by Jimmie Fails), who recommends Elwood for an advanced-placement academy program called the Melvin Griggs Technical School, which has college-level courses but accepts intellectually gifted high school students for enrollment. Mr. Hill is also involved in the civil rights movement. When a student asks Mr. Hill if he’s a Freedom Rider and how he got a scar on his head, Mr. Hill replies: “Nashville. A white man slugged me with a tire iron.”
One day, Elwood accepts a car ride from a man driving an emerald turquoise Impala. Elwood doesn’t know this man, who appears to be friendly and helpful. Elwood isn’t in the car for very long when the car is pulled over by a racist cop, who pulls the driver by the ear and tells him the car has been reported stolen and “only spooks” steal this type of car. Elwood is in the wrong place at the wrong time, so he is arrested and charged with being a theft accomplice.
“Nickel Boys” doesn’t show Elwood’s courtroom proceedings because the movie makes a point that Elwood was going to be found guilty no matter what, in a system that is racially biased and stacked against people who can’t afford good legal representation. Elwood gets sentenced to Nickel Academy, a reform school for boys. It becomes a terrible experience where he is desperate to escape.
On the surface, Nickel Academy tries to give the impression that this institution truly cares about making these boys into better people. When new enrollees first arrive, they are told about the four levels of existence at Nickel Academy, where reaching the highest level will supposedly get an enrollee released from Nickel Academy. The lowest level is being a Grub, which is the level that all new enrollees are automatically assigned. From there, an enrollee can work his way up to being an Explorer, then a Pioneer, and then the highest level: Ace.
But the reality is that Nickel Academy is an institution that regularly abuses boys who are imprisoned there. In addition to getting vicious beatings and whippings, boys are often locked in solitary confinement in unsanitary conditions and sweltering temperatures. It’s also a racially charged environment because the people on the receiving end of this abuse are mostly black, while the people in authority positions are white. The people in power at this school include a sadistic administrator named Spencer (played by Hamish Linklater) and a bullying school employee in his 20s named Harper (played by Fred Hechinger), who is essentially a henchman who eagerly inflicts abuse and punishment.
Elwood starts off as an introverted loner at Nickel Academy. But he strikes up a tentative acquaintance with Jack Turner (played by Brandon Wilson), who likes to be called by his last name and appears to be more street-smart and tougher that Elwood. As the two teens get to know each other better and become close friends, it becomes apparent to both of them that Elwood has more bravery when it comes to fighting against injustice. Elwood is also the one who is more likely to meticulously plan an escape.
Meanwhile, Elwood’s separation from his protective and worried grandmother Hattie takes a toll on her mental health. There’s a heartbreaking scene where she’s alone at her kitchen and begins talking out loud to herself while cutting slices of frosted cake. Ellis-Taylor isn’t a main character in “Nickel Boys,” but her performance has an indelible impact on the emotional core of the movie.
Because the story of “Nickel Boys” is mainly about the friendship between Elwood and Turner, other enrollees at Nickel Academy don’t get much character depth. Two of the teenage side characters who get some screen time are (1) physically large Griff (played by Luke Tennie), a student boxer who is exploited for money by academy officials and (2) Jaime (played by Bryan Gael Guzman), a friendly and somewhat bashful Latino who is often shunned or excluded by other students because he isn’t black or white.
The movie’s scenes with middle-aged Elwood (played by Daveed Diggs) unfold gradually to reveal what he did with his life after he left Nickel Academy. Without giving away too much information, it’s enough to say that he moved to New York City not long after his hellish experience at Nickel Academy and has been living in New York City ever since. In the early 2000s, Elwood’s bad memories about Nickel Academy are triggered when he finds out that Nickel Academy has been in the news for horrific discoveries that were made about the academy.
“Nickel Boys” (which has cinematography by Jomo Fray) often has extreme close-ups of people or objects that could be somewhat jarring to viewers who want to see everything in that scene. But these extreme close-ups force viewers to pay more attention to the dialogue rather than get distracted by what’s in the background. The lighting and hues in the movie range from vibrant when Elwood’s life is bursting with optimism to bleak when Elwood’s life reaches depressing low points.
There’s one particular flashback scene early on in the movie that is example of how these extreme close-ups make the movie look more artistic: In a scene taking place in the late 1950s, when Elwood (played by Ethan Cole Sharp) is about 11 or 12 years old. His grandmother Hattie is ironing something, and as her iron slides back and forth, Elwood can be seen reflected in the iron.
The camera’s point of view often switches back and forth from a first-person angle to an observational angle. When the middle-aged Elwood is on screen, his face isn’t fully shown until much later in the movie. “Nickel Boys” also has interludes of real-world archival footage as context and comparison.
Clips from the 1958 dramatic film “The Defiant Ones” (starring Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis as prison escapees) are shown when Elwood is in a situation where he and someone else are entangled with law enforcement. For example, when Elwood is in the back of a police car with someone, there’s also a similar clip of Poitier and Curtis in the back of a police vehicle. “The Defiant Ones” is an interesting choice because it’s a movie that was controversial in its time because of its observations of race relations and the criminal justice system.
Beyond the unconventional camera angles and somewhat abstract editing, “Nickel Boys” has a very talented principal cast authentically conveying the complex experiences of their characters. Herisse and Wilson are a dynamic duo together and separately in their portrayals of two teens fighting to keep their sanity and dignity when trapped in a cruel institution that wants to do permanent harm to them. Diggs also shines in his role as middle-aged Elwood, who is an example of survivor resilience.
“Nickel Boys” might get some criticism from people who think the world has more than enough movies about racism, child abuse and other struggles experienced by people who are often oppressed and exploited. However, even though “Nickel Boys” is a story that takes place in the past, the movie also serves as a reminder that these injustices are still going on today. And with children in institutions often being the targets of these crimes, “Nickel Boys” is also an urgent wake-up call to hold institutions accountable when they do more harm than good.
Amazon MGM Studios’ Orion Pictures will release “Nickel Boys” in select U.S. cinemas on December 13, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Iran, the dramatic film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” features an all-Middle Eastern cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A newly promoted investigating judge has conflicts over political unrest in Iranian society and dissension in his own household with his wife and two teenage daughters.
Culture Audience: “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof and movies that show how societal changes can affect an individual family.
Misagh Zareh and Soheila Golestani in “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” (Photo courtesy of Neon)
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig” is a little long-winded in showing how political unrest can have profound effects on a family. However, this well-acted drama has a very suspenseful last 30 minutes that make it worth the wait. With a total running time of 167 minutes, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” might test the patience of some viewers with some of the movie’s repetitive scenarios. Fortunately, the plot isn’t overstuffed, and there’s a small number of people in the movie’s cast, which gives the movie an intimate urgency that it deserves.
Written and directed by Mohammad Rasoulof, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it won a special jury prize. The movie made the rounds at other film festivals in 2024, including the Telluride Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” takes place in Iran, mostly in the capital city of Tehran. It’s the city where a family of four live during a tumultous time of political unrest in Iran, where activists (many of them young people) protest on the street against government oppressions.
The family of four who are at the center of the story are:
Iman (played by Missagh Zareh), the family religious patriarch, who has recently been promoted to being an investigating judge for the Iranian government.
Najmeh (played by Soheila Golestani), Iman’s wife, the family matriarch who is very pro-government and in favor of strict traditional values until certain events give her a different perspective.
Rezvan (played by Mahsa Rostami), the older daughter of Iman and Najmeh, who’s about 17 or 18 years old.
Sana (played by Setareh Maleki), the younger daughter Iman and Najmeh, who’s about 15 or 16 years old.
Rezvan is more outspoken than Sana, who is quieter and more obedient. Iman’s promotion comes with some problems. A colleague named Ghaderi (played by Reza Akhlaghi) tells Iman that Iman’s promotion was somewhat controversial because a colleague wanted his own man to get the job. Iman is also getting pressured to give a death indictment to a political prisoner when Iman hasn’t even looked at this prisoner’s file yet.
As part of Iman’s job, he has been given a service gun, which he tells Najmeh to hide in their home. Around the same time, Rezvan pleads with Najmeh to give a teenage friend named Sadaf (played by Niousha Akhshi) a place to stay for a few nights because Sadaf’s college dorm room isn’t available yet. Rezvan reluctantly agrees.
What happens next is a series of events causing increasing turmoil within this family. The catalyst for the most tension-filled aspects of the story have to do with Iman’s reactions when he finds out that his gun has gone missing. “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” has solid acting performances and gripping cinematography that make this movie compelling enough for viewers who want to see how it will end.
Neon will release “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” in select U.S. cinemas on November 27, 2024.
