Tag: Venice International Film Festival

Review: ‘After the Hunt’ (2025), starring Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg and Chloë Sevigny

September 27, 2025

by Carla Hay

Ayo Edebiri and Julia Roberts in “After the Hunt” (Photo by Yannis Drakoulidis/
Amazon MGM Studios)

“After the Hunt” (2025)

Directed by Luca Guadagnino

Culture Representation: Taking place in New Haven, Connecticut, in 2020 and briefly in 2025, the dramatic film “After the Hunt” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A respected philosophy professor at Yale University gets caught up in a scandal when one of her former students, who is now a Yale professor, is accused of sexual assault by one of her current students.

Culture Audience: “After the Hunt” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, and psychological dramas about sexual assault allegations and flawed people.

Andrew Garfield and Julia Roberts in “After the Hunt” (Photo courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios)

The uneven drama “After the Hunt” explores and sometimes abandons thought-provoking questions about secrets, lies, power and perception in a tension-filled story about sexual assault allegations. The movie has good acting but the ending plays it too safe. “After the Hunt” is the type of film that doesn’t offer easy answers and leaves a lot open to interpretation. However, this vagueness gives the unflattering impression of a movie that wants to say something important but is too afraid to say it.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Nora Garrett, “After the Hunt” had its world premiere at the 2025 Venice International Film Festival and its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival. The movie takes place in New Haven, Connecticut, the city where Yale University is located. “After the Hunt” was actually filmed in England. The story’s timeline is mostly in 2020, with an epilogue taking place in 2025.

“After the Hunt” is told mainly from the perspective of Alma Imhoff (played by Julia Roberts), a philosophy professor at Yale. Alma is well-respected at her job and is popular with many of her students. Alma seems to have a comfortable and routine upper-middle-class life with her husband Frederik (played by Michael Stuhlbarg), a psychiatrist whose job is a lot less in the public spotlight than Alma’s job. Alma and Frederik, who are both in their 50s, do not have children.

Alma is the type of professor who hosts cocktail parties in her home for a select number of Yale students and faculty. It’s at one such party where viewers see the dynamics of certain people whose relationships with each other will change forever after this party. Two of the party guests are Yale assistant professor of philosophy Hank Gibson (played by Andrew Garfield) and Yale philosophy grad student Maggie Resnick (played by Ayo Edebiri), who has nearly completed her dissertation on “performative discontent.”

Hank (who is in his late 30s) is a former student of Alma’s, while Maggie (who is in her mid-20s) is currently a student of Alma’s and Hank’s. At the party, there’s a lot of pretentious prattle and some mild debates between Maggie, Alma and Hank about Maggie’s dissertation and the merits of her thesis. Frederik occasionally participates in these conversations, but he’s mostly a slightly amused observer.

Hank is very touchy-feely with Maggie when he’s talking to her. Some viewers might think Hank’s touching is friendly, while others might think his touching is inappropriate. Maggie seems slightly uncomfortable but doesn’t say anything to Hank about his touching tendencies. Hank can be charismatic, but he has a short temper. Observant viewers will notice how quickly and easily he calls a woman a “bitch” when he gets angry.

Maggie and Hank are later revealed to be among Alma’s chosen past and present students whom she’s given preferential treatment to because she’s considered them to be among the best and brightest of her students. Maggie is openly queer and has a live-in lover named Alex (played by Lío Mehiel), a Yale law student who appears to be a transgender man or non-binary. (In real life, Mehiel identifies as a transmasculine non-binary person with “they/them” pronouns.) Hank, who is an available bachelor, has a reputation for being flirtatious with women, regardless of the women’s sexual identities.

At one point during the party, Maggie excuses herself because she says she needs to use a restroom. Alma tells Maggie to use the bathroom that’s further down the hall than the nearest bathroom because Frederik is using the nearest bathtroom for a “work project.” Inside the bathroom that Maggie is told to use, Maggie notices with some annoyance that there’s no more toilet paper on the roll that’s next to the toilet. And so, Maggie looks in the bathroom cabinet for any toilet paper.

Maggie is looking in a cabinet underneath the bathrom sink when she notices that there’s an envelope taped to the ceiling of the cabinet’s bottom shelf. Curiousity gets the best of Maggie, so she carefully removes the envelope and looks at what’s inside. The movie only shows a glimpse of what’s inside the envelope: newspaper clippings, which Maggie reads. She then puts the envelope back in its place but steals the contents of the envelope.

As the party is winding down, Maggie and Hank leave together. They’ve both been drinking enough alcohol to be tipsy and giggly but not so intoxicated that they can’t walk or speak clearly. Hank and Maggie say their goodbyes to Alma and Frederik. Everyone seems to be in good spirits.

After the party, Alma and Frederik have a private conversation in their home. It’s in this scene that cracks begin to show in their marriage. Frederik mentions, with some underlying resentment, that Alma has a pattern of giving special treatment to the students who have obvious infatuations with her and “worship” her. Alma somewhat denies it and says that the students she rewards are those who deserve special treatment based on their own intellectual merits. However, Alma doesn’t deny that she enjoys the attention from these types of students.

Another indication that Alma doesn’t have a picture-perfect life is she’s been having some type of health issue that isn’t fully revealed until the last third of the movie. Whatever is bothering Alma, it causes her to double over in pain or vomit at random times. Things have been getting so bad with this health issue, Alma illegally gets painkiller prescriptions for herself. There’s a scene showing Alma stealing sheets of paper from a prescription pad owned by her jaded friend Dr. Kim Ayers (played by Chloë Sevigny), who is a student liaison at Yale, so Alma can forge Kim’s signature to get illegal prescriptions.

On the day after the party, it’s raining, and Alma meets up with Hank at a local pub. They have a friendly conversation. And then, Hank lightly kisses Alma affectionately on the lips before he leaves. Alma seems a little taken aback but says nothing to Hank about how she feels about this kiss. Other scenes in the movie show that when it comes to Alma’s marriage to Frederik, Alma is a lot less sensitive to Frederik’s feelings than Frederik is to Alma’s feelings.

When Alma goes home, she’s surprised to see Maggie at her front door. Maggie is shivering and soaking wet from the rain. Maggie says she needs to talk to Alma about something urgent. And then, Maggie drops a bombshell: She says that Hank walked her to Maggie’s on-campus home after the party. When they got to Maggie’s place (Alex wasn’t home at the time), Maggie says Hank began kissing Maggie and ignored Maggie’s repeated requests to stop.

Maggie says Hank’s kissing escalated to sexual assault. Maggie doesn’t want to tell Alma any more details about what happened during the assault. However, Maggie insists that Maggie and Hank knew that what Hank did was non-consensual. Alma is in shock and wants to give Hank the benefit of the doubt.

Maggie looks disappointed and frustrated when she tells Alma that she thought Alma would be more supportive, “given your history.” Alma looks alarmed and defensive when she asks what Maggie meant by that comment. Maggie says, “Your history of supporting women.”

Alma privately asks Hank about Maggie’s accusation to get his side of the story. Hank says he and Maggie kissed each other consensually but he vehemently denies sexually assaulting Maggie. He adds, “This is going to sound so male: I think she came on to me.”

Hank later reveals that he thinks Maggie is lying because a few months earlier, he had discovered that she committed plagiarism for her dissertation, he confronted her, and she was under investigation for this plagiarism. Hank says he thinks Maggie accused him of sexual assault as a way to get revenge on him and to distract from the plagiarism investigation.

The rest of “After the Hunt” keeps viewers guessing about who is lying and who is telling the truth. Alma has a few big secrets that affect her perspective of this “he said/she said” sexual assault scandal. Those secrets are eventually revealed in the movie.

At first glance, “After the Hunt” seems like a “whodunit” crime drama. However, as the movie continues, it becomes apparent that “After the Hunt” is less interested in solving crimes and is more interested in showing how people’s secrets and insecurities cause them to have unconscious or conscious biases. Alma is put in a difficult position where she is pressured to “pick a side,” in terms of whom she believes and supports in this scandal.

“After the Hunt” makes attempts to depict Maggie as someone who has major disadvantages about being believed because Maggie is a black and queer woman. Her race, gender and sexual identity automatically give her “protected class” status when it comes to civil rights laws. But when it comes to how people often treat alleged sexual assault victims, Maggie doesn’t hesitate to point out that she automatically has to deal with systemic biases against her.

However true these prejudices are, “After the Hunt” makes things more complicated when it’s revealed that Maggie is an adopted child from a billionaire family that’s among the top donors to Yale. Who’s at a disadvantage now? Does that make Hank look less credible, just because his accuser comes from a rich family? Or does it make Maggie look like a rich kid who’ll use her family’s money to ruin the life of a possibly innocent man? And should the income level be important for the accuser and the accused if the investigation is supposed to be fair and impartial?

These are all questions that “After the Hunt” should have given more weight to in the story. However, the focus of the story remains on how this scandal affects Alma the most, even though Alma was not directly involved in the incident that led to this damaging sexual assault accusation. By putting too much of the focus on Alma and her secrets, “After the Hunt” loses its way.

The movie becomes a bit too much like a soap opera, where social justice movements such as Black Lives Matter and #MeToo are used as mere thematic props in superficial scenes. The movie seems to be saying, “What does a sexual assault of black queer female student at Yale mean to the big picture? Viewers need to worry more about how this scandal is going affect the reputation and career of a white female Yale professor who wasn’t a witness to the alleged crime.”

As serious as Maggie’s accusations are, “After the Hunt” ignores that there are things that are realistically out of Alma’s control, such as how Yale officials or any law enforcement officials would investigate this accusation. Maggie needs to be more concerned about what legal actions to take if Maggie’s allegations are true. Instead, “After the Hunt” turns much of the story into a petulant feud between Alma and Maggie.

Maggie wants to publicly shame Alma for not giving Maggie the emotional support that Maggie thinks Alma should’ve given to Maggie. Alma thinks Maggie is on a spiteful witch hunt. Meanwhile, Hank’s story arc gets sidelined for Alma’s personal drama and Alma’s secrets about certain things that happened long before Alma ever knew Maggie. Unfortunately, “After the Hunt” makes it all too obvious that Alma has something big to hide when Alma aggressively tells Maggie to stay out of Alma’s personal life.

Despite the flaws in the storytelling narrative, “After the Hunt” has some strong points, particularly the believable performances of Roberts, Edebiri and Garfield as the three people tangled up in this mess. Stuhlbarg has less screen time than Roberts, Edebiri and Garfield in “After the Hunt,” but Stuhlbarg gives a wonderfully nuanced performance as supportive husband Frederik, whose perspective isn’t shown nearly enough. Even though Alma has an image of being powerful and in control at work, it’s in contrast to when Alma is at home, where Frederik is clearly the more emotionally mature and more stable spouse.

The revelation of one of Alma’s secrets is sure to be the most divisive thing about “After the Hunt.” When this secret is revealed in a confession, it’s meant to blur the definition of what a victim really is. However, all this disclosure really accomplishes is to make Alma’s personal life overshadow the mystery of whether or not the sexual assault of Maggie really happened. (And once again, Frederik turns out to be the voice of reason when he finds out certain things.)

Even with all the scandal and moral ambiguity that “After the Hunt” wants to stir up, the movie ultimately comes across as looking too contrived. The bland “five years later” epilogue of “After the Hunt” tries to be crowd-pleasing, but it’s really a cop-out that makes what came before it in the movie look like an empty exercise in outrage. “After the Hunt” wants desperately to be a movie that feminists can admire, but the movie is a letdown to any gender. It turns a gripping story about alleged sexual assault into a basic, stereotypical and somewhat lazy cliché of women being pitted against each other, while the main man in the controversy barely gets the same type of gossip-mongering scrutiny.

“After the Hunt” does a disservice by warping the facts about who would really be held accountable in investigating rape accusations on a campus such as Yale. In real life, someone in Alma’s position would not be saddled with as much of the blame as she gets in the movie. However, Alma is the type of person who would want to make someone else’s trauma all about Alma, because Alma knows she lives in a society that places more value on a story from someone like Alma, compared to someone like Maggie. By making Alma the focus of this misguided movie, “After the Hunt” proves that point and misses an opportunity to tell a fuller and more fascinating story.

Amazon MGM Studios will release “After the Hunt” in select U.S. cinemas on October 10, 2025, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on October 17, 2025. Sneak previews of the movie were shown in select U.S. cinemas on Sepember 27 and October 4, 2025.

Review: ‘Harvest’ (2025), starring Caleb Landry Jones, Harry Melling, Rosy McEwen, Arinzé Kene, Thalissa Teixeira and Frank Dillane

August 11, 2025

by Carla Hay

Caleb Landry Jones in “Harvest” (Photo by Jaclyn Martinez/MUBI)

“Harvest” (2025)

Directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unspecified time period in rural Scotland, the dramatic film “Harvest” (based on the novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with one black person, one Asian person and one multi-racialperson) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A longtime serviceman of an affluent land owner has various conflicts with himself, the local villagers and strangers who arrive in the area.  

Culture Audience: “Harvest” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and rambling dramas about people who are boring and/or strange.

Harry Melling in “Harvest” (Photo by Jaclyn Martinez/MUBI)

Dull, meandering and pretentious, Harvest is the type of movie that seems to be confused about everything it’s trying to be. Caleb Landry Jones plays yet another eccentric loner in a drama where his character mumbles and fumbles through life. By the end of the film, you probably won’t remember any meaningful conversations or fascinating characters. That’s because there are none—although some viewers might be fooled into believing that “Harvest” is more important than it really is, just because the movie was at several high-profile film festivals.

Directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari (who co-wrote the “Harvest” screenplay with Joslyn Barnes), “Harvest” is adapted from Jim Crace’s 2013 novel of the same name. “Harvest” had its world premiere at the 2024 Venice International Film Festival before making the rounds at several other film festivals in 2024, including the Toronto International Film Festival, the New York Film Festival and the BFI London Film Festival. The movie is mostly faithful to the book’s story, but the changes that are in the movie are not improvements.

The “Harvest” movie takes place in an unspecified time period in an unnamed village in rural Scotland. (“Harvest” was actually filmed on location in Argyllshire, Scotland.) Some of the cast members do not have convincing Scottish accents. The movie’s story is in a period of time before cars were invented, because the main mode of transportation is by horse.

“Harvest” protagonist Walter Thirsk (played by Jones) is a widower who is the longtime servant of Master Charles Kent (played by Harry Melling), a wealthy land owner in the village. Walter’s wife Cecily died an untold number of years ago. He still seems to be grieving over her death, due to his reluctance to find a new love partner. However, there are hints that Walter has some mental health issues that probably existed before he was married.

It’s eventually revealed, from a conversation that Walter has with someone, that Walter and Master Kent have known each other since childhood because Walter’s mother was Master Kent’s milk nurse. When Walter and Master Kent were children, they had a brotherly friendship. Things changed as they got older and their differences in social class put Walter in a subservient position to Master Kent.

Near the beginning of “Harvest,” a horse barn is on fire on Master Kent’s vast farm property. Walter and several of the villagers who work on Master Kent’s farm work frantically to put out the fire and rescue the horses. Master Kent, who has a blank personality, wants to know who or what caused the fire, but no one knows or says anything.

Not long after this fire happens, three strangers—two men and a woman—are captured by the villagers and accused of stealing livestock and burning down the barn. These strangers deny committing these crimes. The villagers don’t believe them.

The two men are identified in the movie’s end credits as Older Beldam (played by Gary Maitland) and Younger Beldam (played by Noor Dillan-Night), while the woman is named Mistress Beldam (played by Thalissa Teixeira). Older Beldam and Young Bedlam are imprisoned next to each other in a pillory in the town square. Also in the same location, some of the female villagers cut off almost all of Mistress Beldam’s long hair to humiliate her, before Mistress Beldam is allowed to leave. She quickly runs away.

The rest of “Harvest” is a series of frequently turgid and sometimes incoherent scenes, where Walter interacts mostly with Master Kent; a resourceful map maker named Phillip Earle, also known Quill (played by Arinzé Kene); and a confident woman named Kitty Gosse (played by Rosy McEwen), who is very attracted to Walter. Any loves scenes in the movie are about as interesting and sexy as looking at a run-down fence.

A girl named Lizzie Carr (played by Maya Bonniwell), who’s about 11 or 12 years old, is crowned the Gleaning Queen of a festival that is a major event of the village. Lizzie will later represent a pivotal turning point in the story. About halfway through the movie, Master Kent’s smirking cousin-in-law Master Edmund Jordan (played by Frank Dillane) arrives unannounced. Master Jordan has an agenda that’s easy to predict, even if some people are tricked by Master Jordan’s smooth-talking ways.

Walter is an inscrutable oddball whose weirdness is not endearing and becomes repetitive. The very first scene of “Harvest” shows Walter biting some bark off of a tree and then spitting out the bark. And then, he sticks his tongue in a hole in the tree. Later, he demands that Quill hit him hard in the face for no reason. Walter shows other indications that he likes to self-harm.

Even though “Harvest” has lovely outdoor locations and very good cinematography, the performances in “Harvest” can get downright tedious. Most of the “Harvest” cast members seem bored with the characters they’re portraying and unsure of their purpose in the movie. The characters in “Harvest” are all surface-level, with mostly vague personal backgrounds and superficial dialogue. By the end of this flaccid movie, you won’t learn much more about protagonist Walter, and you’ll know you probably don’t want to see Walter or any of the other “Harvest” characters again.

MUBI released “Harvest” in selet U.S. cinemas on August 1, 2025. The movie premiered on the MUBI streaming service on August 8, 2025.

Review: ‘Familiar Touch,’ starring Kathleen Chalfant, Carolyn Michelle, Andy McQueen and H. Jon Benjamin

July 31, 2025

by Carla Hay

Kathleen Chalfant and Carolyn Michelle in “Familiar Touch” (Photo courtesy of Music Box Films)

“Familiar Touch”

Directed by Sarah Friedland

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the dramatic film “Familiar Touch” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: An elderly woman struggles to accept that she has dementia when she is sent to live in an assisted living facility.

Culture Audience: “Familiar Touch” will appeal primarily to viewers who are interested in realistic dramas about how dementia affects people.

Kathleen Chalfant and H. Jon Benjamin in “Familiar Touch” (Photo courtesy of Music Box Films)

“Familiar Touch” might be too slow-paced for some viewers. However, this emotionally authentic drama has admirable performances in portraying how an elderly woman and the people around her are affected by her dementia. It’s a “slice of life” movies that shows both mundane everyday activities and profoundly moving interactions.

Written and directed by Sarah Friedland, “Familiar Touch” is her feature-film directorial debut. “Familiar Touch” had its world premiere at the 2025 Venice International Film Festival, where it won three prizes in the Orizzonti/Horizons section: Best First Film, Best Director and Best Actress (for Kathleen Chalfant). The movie is inspired by Friedland‘s “work as a memory care worker and teaching artist to older adults,” according to the “Familiar Touch” production notes.

“Familiar Touch” (which takes place in an unnamed U.S. city) begins with a scene that at first seems to be an awkward first date. A woman in her late 80s named Ruth Goldman (played by Chalfant) has prepared a lunch for a middle-aged man named Steve (played by H. Jon Benjamin) in her home. They exchange small talk at the dining table.

Steve asks Ruth, “How are you feeling?” Ruth says, “I feel great.” He then asks Ruth, “Are you sleeping okay?” Ruth responds defensively. “Yes. Why does it concern you how I sleep?”

The discussion then moves on to what Steve does for a living when Ruth asks him. Steve tells her that he’s an architect. Ruth comments, “That’s great. In a destructive world, the ability to build things is a very important gift.”

The first indication that Ruth does not have all of her wits about her is when she mentions that her father is a carpenter and talks about him as if he’s still alive. “Maybe you’ll meet him someday,” Ruth tells Steve. Steve mentions that he’s married. Ruth says that he’s married too, and her husband’s name is Seymour. Steve says that he’s met Seymour.

Steve tells Ruth more about his job by saying that he’s building a house that uses sustainable architecture, which generates its own natural energy, such as wind and other elements, to power the building. Ruth is affectionate to Steve, as she touches his knee during this conversation. Steve looks very uncomfortable, abruptly gets up, and says it’s time to go.

It’s eventually revealed that Steve is actually Ruth’s son, she’s a widow, and she has dementia. Steve had come over to her house to drive Ruth to an assisted living facility called Bella Vista, where most of the residents are elderly people. (The Bella Vista scenes in “Familiar Touch” were actually filmed at Villa Gardens, a retirement community in Pasadena, California.) Ruth is very angry about this relocation because she thinks she can take care of herself.

The rest of “Familiar Touch” shows Ruth going through a wide range of emotions (and various states of confusions and lucidity) as she adjusts to life at Bella Vista. She gets to know two Bella Vista employees: an aide named Vanessa (played by Carolyn Michelle) and a medical doctor named Brian (played by Andy McQueen), who see Ruth at her best, her worst, and everything in between. Ruth also interacts with some of Bella Vista’s other residents, although she initially thinks she’s in better health than most of them.

Ruth shows all the signs of having early on-set dementia that is getting progressively worse. She remembers things such as her birthdate and where she was born (March 6, 1937, in Brooklyn, New York), but she forgets other things such as who her son Steve is and what she might have said just minutes before. Ruth goes through all the stages of grief when she slowly begins to understand she has dementia.

One thing that Ruth remembers is that she used to be a cook. And so, one day she starts cooking in the Bella Vista kitchen as if she’s the head chef. The movie ends up showing how the Bella Vista staff deals with Ruth’s unpredictability.

“Familiar Touch” won’t be an easy film to watch if anyone has had a loved one with dementia and that person needed round-the-clock care. All of the “Familiar Touch” cast members perform impressively in their roles, but Chalfant carries the movie with her very realistic performance. Ruth is at times sassy and defiant and at other times frightened and vulnerable. “Familiar Touch” is highly recommended for anyone who is prepared to see many uncomfortable truths about the effects of dementia—as well as how patience, compassion and love can make a difference for those who are living with this devastating disease.

Music Box Films released “Familiar Touch” in select U.S. cinemas on June 20, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on August 19, 2025.

Review: ‘One to One: John & Yoko,’ starring John Lennon and Yoko Ono

April 10, 2025

by Carla Hay

A 1972 photo of John Lennon and Yoko Ono in “One to One: John & Yoko” (Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)

“One to One: John & Yoko”

Directed by Kevin Macdonald; co-directed by Sam Rice-Edwards

Culture Representation: Taking place from 1971 to 1973, primarily in New York City, the documentary film “One to One: John & Yoko” features a predominantly white group of people (with a few Asians, Latin people and African Americans) discussing the period of time when John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono were outspoken sociopolitical activists during the first few years that they lived in New York City.

Culture Clash: Lennon’s and Ono’s left-wing liberal political views and the couple’s celebrity influence made them targets of the right-wing conservative then-U.S. President Richard Nixon, whose administration put the couple under surveillance and immigration scrutiny.

Culture Audience: “One to One: John & Yoko” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Lennon, Ono, the Beatles and documentaries about rock music, pop culture and political activism in the 1970s.

A 1969 photo of Yoko Ono, Kyoko Cox and John Lennon in “One to One: John & Yoko” (Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)

“One to One: John & Yoko” is named after the One to One charity concerts (headlined by spouses John Lennon and Yoko Ono, a member of the Plastic Ono Elephant’s Memory Band) that took place on August 30, 1972 at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, as a fundraiser for the Willowbrook State School for disabled children. There were two concerts for the event: one concert was held in the afternoon, and the other concert was held in the evening. Die-hard fans will already be familiar with many of the concert performances in the documentary. The movie is more interesting with its previously unreleased archival material, such as recordings of John Lennon’s and Yoko Ono’s phone conversations. In this all-archival documentary, the concert footage is prominent, but it’s not the main purpose of the film.

Directed by Kevin Macdonald, “One to One: John & Yoko” had its world premiere at the 2024 Venice International Film Festival and subsequently had screenings at the 2024 Telluride Film Festival and the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. The One to One concert performances were not only Lennon’s first full-length concerts as a solo artist after the 1970 breakup for Lennon’s former band The Beatles but the concerts were also Lennon’s last public performances where he did a full set of songs. Highlights from Lennon’s performances at the One to One concerts were released in 1986 as a John Lennon album and home video titled “Live in New York City.”

“One to One: John & Yoko” features restored and remastered concert footage that includes Ono performing “Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow),” a song that was not in the “Live in New York City” compilation. Sean Ono Lennon (the son of Lennon and Ono) produced and remixed the documentary’s score music and serves as one of the movie’s executive producers. Sam Rice-Edwards co-directed and edited “One to One: John & Yoko,” which has Macdonald, Peter Worsley and Alice Ebb as producers. Other performers at the One to One concerts included Stevie Wonder, Roberta Flack, Melanie Safka (also known as just Melanie) and Sha Na Na, but they are only seen in this documentary in the all-star finale when Lennon led a sing-along of “Give Peace a Chance.”

The documentary aims to serve as a time capsule of what was going on in the lives of Lennon and Ono (who got married in 1969) during the years 1971 to 1973, the first years that the couple made New York City their main home base. Lennon (who was born and raised in England) and Ono (who was born and raised in Japan) still maintained a home in England throughout their marriage. On December 8, 1980, Lennon (at the age of 40) was tragically murdered by a lone gunman outside of Lennon’s home in New York City. Lennon’s murderer was sentenced to life in prison.

Lennon and Ono said in interviews that they spent of a lot of their free time watching TV. The documentary has a clip of Lennon quipping in an interview that TV is “the window of the world.” Much of the documentary consists of news clips and pop culture tidbits to give context to the period of time that’s covered in the movie. Sometimes, the clips are well-edited. Other times, the clips look like a hodgepodge of things thrown together to fill up time in the documentary.

These news clips include coverage of the Vietnam War and the 1971 deadly prison rebellion Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York. There’s also footage from TV journalist Geraldo Rivera’s 1972 WABC-TV documentary “Willowbrook: The Last Great Disgrace,” which exposed Willowbrook to be a hellish, understaffed institution that abused and neglected its child residents. Rivera was the person credited with persuading Lennon to perform at the One to One concerts, which were intended to raise money to reform Willowbrook. The pop culture clips, which are less substantial than the news footage, include commercials for Coca-Cola, footage from the TV game show “The Price Is Right” and scenes from the family drama “The Waltons,” which was a popular series at the time.

The documentary also includes clips (video and audio) of interviews that Lennon and Ono did during this time period, including their appearances on “The Mike Douglas Show” and “The Dick Cavett Show.” In various other interviews, Ono talks abut feminism and about the racist bullying, death threats and physical attacks (such as hair pulling and worse) that she received from people who wrongfully blamed her for breaking up the Beatles. Lennon praises Ono for being a strong and creative woman.

Lennon’s attitude about the Beatles was summed up in an interview quote included in the documentary: “I don’t want to recreate the past. I want to be me now.” Ono takes issue with the other former members of the Beatles (Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr) by saying that she doesn’t get enough credit for all the compliments that she gave to the Beatles in the media. Ono bitterly comments that McCartney, Harrison and Starr never gave the same compliments to her in the media.

Lennon and Ono both talk about the emotional pain of not seeing Ono’s daughter Kyoko Cox for years, due to a custody battle that Ono was having with Ono’s ex-husband Tony Cox, who was Kyoko’s father. There is no mention of Lennon’s son Julian, who was living with Lennon’s ex-wife Cynthia at the time. Even though there was no custody battle between Julian’s parents, it’s been well-documented (but not mentioned in this documentary) that Julian had a complicated relationship with his father, whom he felt neglected him during much of Julian’s childhood.

“One to One: John & Yoko” is at its best when it shows the evolution of Lennon and Ono as sociopolitical activists. The couple famously spent their 1969 honeymoon doing a Bed-In for Peace, where they stayed in bed in two separate one-week periods (one week in Montreal, another week in Amsterdam) to promote world peace. By 1971, as residents of the United States, the couple became more outspoken against the controversial Vietnam War. As the documentary points out, it’s one thing for celebrities to speak about their political views. It’s another thing for celebrities to use their influence to make a difference in legal and political situations.

And that’s what Lennon and Ono did when they performed a song at the John Sinclair Freedom Rally, an event for left-wing activist/poet John Sinclair, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for possession of two marijuana joints. The rally took place at the University of Michigan’s Crisler Arena in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which was Sinclair’s home state. Grammy-winning superstar Wonder, Bob Seger and Phil Ochs were among the other performers at the rally, which was filmed for the televised documentary “Ten for Two: The John Sinclair Freedom Rally.”

As a result of the rally, Sinclair was let out of prison. It put the U.S. government on notice that Lennon and Ono had the power to influence public opinion and outcomes of political oppression. Because of this event and the couple’s other high-profile activism, declassified FBI documents have since confirmed that Lennon and Ono were put under U.S. government surveillance and were targeted for immigrant visa problems. Lennon was threatened with deportation and had to go to court to fight these visa problems. Audio clips from recorded phone calls and interviews reveal that Lennon knew that his private phones were tapped, and the U.S. government was listening in on his conversations.

Lennon’s and Ono’s social circles began to include poet Allen Ginsberg and left-wing activist Jerry Rubin, who co-founded the Youth International Party (YIP), also known as the Yippies. Rubin, who was considered a leader of the counterculture/anti-establishment movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, became such a close confidante of Lennon and Ono, he convinced them to be part of a Free the People tour (a liberal counterculture event mixing politics and music) that was also supposed to have Bob Dylan as a co-headliner. The tour had been planned to culminate at the 1972 Republican National Convention, which was held in Miami.

Phone conversations between Lennon, Ono, Lennon’s manager Allen Klein reveal some of the behind-the-scenes drama and negotiations involved in the couple’s activism. For the John Sinclair Freedom Rally, Klein can be heard objecting to Lennon’s idea to perform the song “Attica State” (which is on Lennon’s 1972 album “Some Time in New York City”) because Klein thinks it’s too much of a controversial political statement. Lennon compromises and says he’ll do another one of his original songs instead. That song was “John Sinclair,” a song that he wrote specifically for the event. “John Sinclair” is also on “Some Time in New York City” album.

There was even more turmoil over Dylan’s involvement in the Free the People tour. In a phone call, Ono asks writer A.J. Weberman (who has been called outside of this documentary a “Dylanologist,” a “Dylan expert” and a “Dylan stalker”) to stop harassing Dylan because she wants Dylan to do the tour. Weberman says he will make an apology to Dylan. By this time, Dylan was having second thoughts about doing the tour and backed out before any official contracts were signed.

Even though Dylan had a “counterculture” image, he was reportedly wary of how the tour would affect his future business prospects. In the end, the Free the People tour didn’t happen. Lennon and Ono also dropped Rubin from their circle of friends. The documentary has a more diplomatic way of putting it by saying that Lennon and Ono “parted ways” with Rubin.

“One to One: John & Yoko” doesn’t have all the songs featured on “Live in New York City.” In addition to “Give Peace a Chance,” the other songs performed in “One to One: John & Yoko” are “Power to the People”; “Come Together” (a song originally recorded by the Beatles); “Instant Karma (We All Shine On)”; “Hound Dog” (a song originally recorded by Big Mama Thornton and made more famous by Elvis Presley’s version of the song); “Cold Turkey”; “Mother”; and “Imagine.”

An epilogue mentions that in August 1973, Lennon and Ono moved out of their relatively small apartment in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village region to a larger apartment in the luxury Dakota building in Manhattan’s Upper West Side region. This move to the Dakota also marked a new chapter in their lives. The documentary doesn’t mention that not long after Lennon and Ono moved to the Dakota, the couple separated for about 18 months (beginning in the summer of 1973 and ending in early 1975), when he lived mostly in Los Angeles with their personal assistant May Pang, who became Lennon’s mistress because Ono demanded it. Pang’s memoirs and the 2023 documentary “The Lost Weekend: A Love Story” have details about this marital separation period of Lennon’s life, when he self-admittedly was abusing alcohol and drugs.

Because “One to One: John & Yoko” was approved by the Lennon estate, these are the messy details of his life that aren’t going to be in this type of documentary. What is presented in this documentary is undoubtedly carefully curated, but still has some meaning in showing how even a world-famous celebrity as Lennon got backlash because he took risks and stood up for the political causes that meant a lot to him. Ono was a willing partner who also went through her own difficulties. “One to One: John & Yoko” doesn’t try to make Lennon and Ono look perfect but makes them look like two celebrities who were aware of the privileges and burdens of fame and did what they could to make the best of it.

Magnolia Pictures will release “One to One: John & Yoko” in select U.S. cinemas on April 11, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on May 9, 2025.

Review: ‘I’m Still Here’ (2024), starring Fernanda Torres, Selton Mello and Fernanda Montenegro

January 25, 2025

by Carla Hay

Fernanda Torres in “I’m Still Here” (Photo by Alile Onawale/Sony Pictures Classics)

“I’m Still Here” (2024)

Directed by Walter Salles

Portuguese with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Brazil, from 1970 to 2014, the dramatic film “I’m Still Here” (based on real events) features a predominantly Latin cast of characters (with a few white people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A family is permanently altered when a former politician and his wife get taken into police custody for questioning; the husband goes missing in custody; and the wife comes up against obstacles to find out what happened to her husband.

Culture Audience: “I’m Still Here” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and movies based on true stories about families affected by government oppression.

Fernanda Torres, Cora Mora and Guilherme Silveira in “I’m Still Here” (Photo by Alile Onawale/Sony Pictures Classics)

Anchored by a memorable performance by Fernanda Torres, the sprawling drama “I’m Still Here” tells the true story of a family affected by the patriarch’s disappearance while he was in police custody. The movie’s great spirit makes up for an uneven timeline. “I’m Still Here” takes an unshakeable look at how government oppression can rip families apart or bring them closer together.

Directed by Walter Salles, “I’m Still Here” was written by Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega. The adapted screenplay is based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s 2015 memoir “Ainda Estou Aqui.” “I’m Still Here” had its world premiere at the 2024 Venice International Film Festival and its North American premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. “I’m Still Here” received three Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Actress in a Leading Role (for Torres) and Best International Feature Film.*

“I’m Still Here” takes place in Brazil, from 1970 to 2014, but the vast majority of the story’s chronological timeline is from 1970 to 1971. In the beginning of the movie, the Paiva family seems to be living an ideal middle-class life in Rio de Janeiro. They live in a rented house near the beach. And they all get along well with each other. Their blissful family life will soon be shattered.

Rubens Paiva (played by Selton Mello) and his wife Eunice Paiva (played by Torres) are happily married and are very affectionate with each other in public. Eunice’s full name is Maria Lucrécia Eunice Facciolla Paiva. In 1970, Rubens and Eunice (who are both in their early 40s) have been married for 18 years and have five children together.

The Paiva parents have a progressive household where they let their children listen to and buy a variety of music, at a time in Brazil when rock music was considered sinful and too radical in conservative households. The Paiva children are allowed to express themselves and be who they are, without fear of being punished. Before moving to Rio de Janeiro, the family lived in São Paulo, the city where Eunice grew up.

The five children of Eunice and Rubens are:

  • Fun-loving daughter Vera Sílvia Facciolla Paiva, nicknamed Veroca (played by Valentina Herszage), born in 1953.
  • Moody daughter Maria Eliana Facciolla Paiva, nicknamed Eliana (played by Luiza Kosovski), born in 1955.
  • Inquisitive daughter Ana Lúcia Facciolla Paiva, nicknamed Nalu (played by Barbara Luz), born in 1957.
  • Sensitive son Marcelo Rubens Paiva (played by Guilherme Silveira), born in 1959.
  • Obedient daughter Maria Beatriz Facciolla Paiva, nicknamed Babiu (played by Cora Mora), born in 1960.

At this point in time, Rubens is a former Labor Party congressman for the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies. He is currently working as a civil engineer. Eunice is a homemaker who has help from a live-in nanny/housekeeper named Maria José (played by Pri Helena), who is loyal and attentive.

The first half-hour of this 135-minute movie shows the family going about their lives normally. “I’m Still Here” begins by showing Veroca playing volleyball with friends on the beach. A stray dog (a male terrier mix) interrupts the game. Veroca asks Marcelo (who’s also at the beach with friends) to take the dog away. Marcelo ends up taking the dog to the Paiva family home to keep as a pet. Marcelo names the dog Pimpão, the same name as one of Veroca’s friends.

Things seem to be going well for the Paiva family. However, there are undercurrents of danger always present because of Brazil’s political regime at the time. Brazil was under a military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. Even when the Paiva family seemed to be happy, there are constant reminders of this oppressive government.

In an early scene in the movie, some of the family members watch a TV news report about the National Liberation Alliance terrorist kidnapping of Swiss ambassador Giovanni Bucher, who is eventually freed in exchange for 70 political prisoners. In another scene, Veroca and three of her teenage friends are in a car when they are stopped and accosted by military police at a checkpoint in an expressway tunnel.

Veroca has recently graduated from high school. She plans to temporarily move to London with some friends of the Paiva family: married couple Fernando Gasparian (played by Charles Fricks) and Dalva Gasparian (played by Maeve Jinkins), whose teenage daughters Helena Gasparian (played by Luana Nastas) and Laura Gasparian (played by Isadora Ruppert) are close in age to Veroca. Eliana and Nalu are fascinated by British culture and joke that Veroca could get a boyfriend like John Lennon.

Unfortunately, not long after Veroca moves to London, the military oppression hits close to home for the Paiva family. On January 20, 1971, four armed men (claiming to be members of the Brazilian Air Force) show up at the Paiva house and demand that Rubens go with them to answer some questions. The leader of these men identifies himself only as Schneider (played by Luiz Bertazzo), and he says he’s a parapsychologist.

After Rubens is driven away by car by one of the men, Eunice and Eliana are also taken into custody and are forced to wear hoods when they are taken to a police station and interrogated in separate rooms. What is the reason for the home invasion and interrogations? It has to do with Rubens’ left-wing, anti-dictator political activities before, during and after he left office.

The rest of “I’m Still Here” shows what happens from Eunice’s perspective. She is kept imprisoned for several days and finds out that Rubens has gone “missing.” Making matters worse, the Brazilian government also denies that Rubens was ever taken into police custody. Eunice and Eliana eventually get to go home, but the mystery of what happened to Rubens plagues the Paiva family.

A typical movie with this subject matter would show the distraught spouse who’s left behind doing a lot of crying or shouting in her quest to find her missing spouse. But Torres’ performance in “I’m Still Here” is one of stoic restraint. She portrays a mother who wants to keep her emotions in check, so as not to alarm her children, even though Eunice knows that she and her family are under surveillance and could be in danger.

Eunice isn’t a robot though. There’s a scene when something tragic happens, and Eunice can’t hold back her emotions any more. She lashes out at two government agents who have been spying on her from a car parked on a street.

Torres’ performance is believable not just in how she says Eunice’s words but also by what Eunice doesn’t say. The way that Torres communicates with her eyes and body language is superb and a master class in unspoken acting. The other cast members of “I’m Still Here” are perfectly fine in their roles. However, this movie revolves around the Eunice character, which is why Torres’ performance is so vital.

“I’m Still Here” might be considered too understated for viewers expecting a formulaic Hollywood-styled film where there’s a check list of things that usually happen when someone is looking for a missing family member. “I’m Still Here” shows the harsh reality of Eunice having limitations on what type of help she can get, considering that the military police department that would be in charge of the investigation is the same department that she suspects is responsible for Rubens’ disappearance.

If there’s any noticeable flaw in “I’m Still Here,” it’s how the timeline is set up. The movie takes a little too long before showing Rubens’ disappearance. And there are huge gaps in the timeline that are hurriedly filled in by the movie’s epilogue.

For example: About two-thirds of the movie takes place in 1970 and 1971. Then, there’s an abrupt jump to 1996. And then, another abrupt jump to 2014. Torres’ real-life mother Fernanda Montenegro portrays an elderly Eunice in the 2014 scenes. There’s a major, life-changing part of Eunice’s life that deserved to be depicted in the movie, but it’s only mentioned quickly in the captioned epilogue.

“I’m Still Here” director Salles has a personal connection to the story because he first met the Paiva family in the late 1960s and became friends with the children of Eunice and Rubens. “I’m Still Here” puts a very intimate perspective on the untold numbers of families affected by disappearances of loved ones who were in government custody. “I’m Still Here” is not a political statement. It’s a powerful statement about human resilience in the midst of uncertainty and turmoil.

Sony Pictures Classics released “I’m Still Here” in select U.S. cinemas on January 17, 2025. The movie was released in Brazil on November 7, 2024.

*UPDATE: “I’m Still Here” won the Oscar for Best International Feature Film.

Review: ‘2073,’ starring Samantha Morton

December 27, 2024

by Carla Hay

Samantha Morton in “2073” (Photo courtesy of Neon)

“2073”

Directed by Asif Kapadia

Culture Representation: Taking place in 2073 in the fictional U.S. city called New San Francisco, the docudrama film “2073” features a racially diverse group of people (white, black, Latin, Asian and Indigenous) who portray apocalypse survivors (in the drama scenes) or who are real-life political activists.

Culture Clash: The politically liberal activists who make comments for the documentary predict that an apocalypse will happen in the 21st century due to environmental, socioeconomic and political issues.

Culture Audience: “2073” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of director Asif Kapadia and “end of the world” movies that place almost all the blame on politically conservative people.

A scene from “2073” of the Golden Gate Bridge in California affected by wildfires (Photo courtesy of Neon)

Pretentious and derivative, “2073” is a doomsday docudrama that combines dreary apocalypse scenes with left-wing political lecturing. There’s too much whining and not enough talk about practical solutions. The “end of the world” warnings in this movie just add up to a lot of annoying hot air. The so-called experts interviewed for this movie just want to blame the world’s problems on people who don’t share their liberal political beliefs.

Directed by Asif Kapadia, “2073” had its world premiere at the 2024 Venice International Film Festival. The movie made the rounds at several other film festivals in 2024, including the BFI London Film Festival and DOC NYC. Kapadia won an Oscar for the 2015 Amy Winehouse documentary “Amy.” Unfortunately, “2073” is a low point in his filmmography.

Although “2073” is undoubtedly a film that has noble intentions, it has a heavy-handed approach. The movie has an obvious political agenda, but that agenda’s credibility is lowered with the movie using fictional, scripted scenes as examples of the gloom and doom predicted in the movie. Kapadia and Tony Grisoni co-wrote the “2073” screenplay.

The concept of “2073” isn’t very original. According to the movie’s synopsis, “2073” is inspired by Chris Marker’s “iconic 1962 featurette ‘La Jetée,’ about a time traveler who risks his life to change the course of history and save the future of humanity.” As explained in the beginning of “2073,” the scripted portions of the movie take place in 2073—37 years after “the event,” which obviously means an apocalypse. In other words, this apocalypse happened in 2036, which is just 12 years after the release of this movie.

The scripted drama scenes in “2073” are in a fictional city called New San Francisco, which is described as the capital of the Americas. In this bombed-out city, there’s an electronic billboard showing news reports about Chairwoman Ivanka Trump. What entity has Ivanka Trump as a chairwoman? Don’t expect this ridiculous movie to answer that question. The “2073” filmmakers’ obvious intention is to provoke viewers who would get upset at the thought of Ivanka Trump being chairwoman of anything.

The movie’s drama scenes follows the depressing and solitary life of an apocalypse survivor (played by Samantha Morton), whose name is listed in the end credits as Ghost. Ghost, who is a voiceover narrator for these drama scenes, is seen living in a dark and destroyed building while avoiding being seen by other people as much as possible. According to Ghost, her memory was “slipping through [her] fingers, like sand.”

Ghost also says she’s in hiding because one day “they” came for her. “I ran. I’m still running. My life is turning into one of those sci-fi comics I used to read. There are others here—survivors, renegades.” Other scenes in the movie show that the Americas—or at least New San Francisco—is being run by an oppressive government that rounds up “renegades” and tortures them.

Ghost is trying to avoid detection from an artificial intelligence being called Jack. “He listens and watches everything,” Ghost says about Jack. “You can’t trust anyone anymore. People thought the world would end, but the world goes on. It’s us who’ll end.”

It’s all so tedious to watch this watered-down ripoff of Big Brother from George Orwell’s doomsday “1984” novel, which was published in 1949 and predicted a dystopian future. In “2073,” Naomi Ackie has a small and ultimately inconsequential role as a professor character. Morton’s acting as Ghost is adequate by can’t overcome the weak screenplay.

As for the “talking heads” interviews in the documentary sections of “2073,” these comments are presented as voiceovers, presumably not to distract from the movie’s dramatic images of Ghost suffering in a decrepit place where food and water are scarce. In the documentary parts of the movie, the people commenting are politically liberal activists from Europe, North America, and Asia. The documentary doesn’t explain why, in a movie about the “end of the world,” there is no commentator representation from other largely populated continents, such as Africa and Australia.

Almost all of the activist commentators are also journalists and/or writers, such as Maria Ressa, Carole Cadwalladr, Rana Ayyub Ben Rhodes, Rahima Mahmut, Silkie Carlo, Cori Crider, George Monbiot, Nina Schick, Douglas Rushkof, Carmody Grey, James O’Brien, Anne Applebaum and Antony Lowenstein. The other commentators are Amazon Labor Union founder Chris Smalls, computer scientist Tristan Harris and environmental activist Alessandra Korap.

The problem with “2073” is that the documentary parts of the movie are just soundbite compilations that recycle whatever rants these people have already said or written in other movies or media reports. Want to know about Ressa’s crusade for freedom of the press in her native Philippines? There was already an excellent documentary about it: 2020’s “A Thousand Cuts,” directed by Ramona S. Díaz. Labor union leader Smalls is the star of the 2024 documentary “Union,” (directed by Stephen Maing and Brett Story), which chronicles Amazon Labor Union becoming the first union at corporate giant Amazon.

The “2073” doomsday warnings about the environment are very “been there, done that” and were already well-presented by Al Gore in the Oscar-winning 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” (directed by Davis Guggenheim), as well as in many other documentaries and news reports about climate change. And that why it’s so boring and basic to hear political strategist/security expert Sherri Goodman say in “2073” commentary: “We are truly in a climate emergency.”

Other concerns brought forth in the documentary parts of “2073” have to do with government surveillance, civil rights and the erosion of democracy. The essential messaging of “2073” is that (1) anyone who’s involved in conservative politics is contributing to the end of the world; (2) only progressive political liberals are smart enough to tell you that; and (3) if you don’t believe the commentators in the movie, then you must be an idiot. It’s a very condescending tone that can be an absolute turn-off to people (even liberals) who are open-minded and intelligent enough to make up their own minds about how they feel about world issues.

It’s appalling that so many journalists are interviewed for “2073” but their comments in the movie are not really about investigative journalism but are just soundbite rants that say nothing new. By not presenting anything substantial to prove that opposing viewpoints are wrong, “2073” fails at being balanced and is actually quite didactic in its “political liberals are always right” messaging. For a more informative look at the world’s problems and effective ways to deal with these problems, progressive liberals can watch MSNBC or read Mother Jones and don’t need to watch “2073,” a misguided movie that is unrelenting in its paranoia and political divisiveness that don’t give any logical and hopeful solutions.

Neon released “2073” in select U.S. cinemas on December 27, 2024.

Review: ‘Babygirl’ (2024), starring Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson, Sophie Wilde and Antonio Banderas

December 24, 2024

by Carla Hay

Harris Dickinson and Nicole Kidman in “Babygirl” (Photo by Niko Tavernise/A24)

“Babygirl” (2024)

Directed by Halina Reijn

Culture Representation: Taking place mostly in New York City, the dramatic film “Babygirl” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A high-powered CEO, who’s married with kids, puts her marriage and career at risk when she enters into a secretive dominant/submissive sexual relationship with a younger man, who’s an intern at her company

Culture Audience: “Babygirl” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and are interested in dramas about people with sexual dilemmas.

Antonio Banderas and Nicole Kidman in “Babygirl” (Photo courtesy of A24)

The lifestyle of bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism (BDSM) has always been controversial when it comes to being a choice for sexual fulfillment because the definition of “consent” is often confused or misunderstood in these contexts. The ending of “Babygirl” will largely determine how much a viewer will like this erotic drama. Nicole Kidman gives a memorable and raw performance as a married mother coming to terms with her BDSM desires that are ignited by her affair with a younger man.

Written and directed by Halina Reijn, “Babygirl” had its world premiere at the 2024 Venice International Film Festival, where Kidman won the award for Best Actress. “Babygirl” had its North American premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Reijn is also one of the producers of the movie.

In “Babygirl” (which takes place mostly in New York City, where the movie was filmed on location), Kidman portrays Romy Mathis, the CEO of an unnamed company that is making a product called Harvest, which is the company “emotional intelligence” answer to artificial intelligence. It’s somewhat of an irony, since much of “Babygirl” is about Romy masking her real emotions with artificial emotions, in order to play the part of a high-powered business executive who has her whole life in order.

Romy is married to a kind of loving husband named Jacob (played by Antonio Banderas), who is a successful director of stage plays. Jacob, just like Romy, has a tendency to be absorbed by his work. But it doesn’t get in the way of the passion he still has for Romy.

The movie’s opening scene shows Romy and Jacob having sex, but viewers soon see that Romy isn’t really sexually fulfilled by Jacob. She wants to BDSM role play during sex, where she plays the submissive role. However, she’s afraid to tell Jacob about this desire. Later, it’s revealed that Romy has never had an orgasm when she’s had sex with Jacob.

At work, Romy is a well-respected and productive leader. The company’s business is doing well financially. At home, things aren’t running so smoothly for Romy. And it’s not because she’s unfulfilled by her sex life with Jacob.

Romy and Jacob have two teenage daughters. Older daughter Isabel (played by Esther McGregor), who’s about 15 or 16, is rebellious and disrespectful to Romy, while younger daughter Nora (played by Vaughan Reilly), who’s about 13 or 14, is obedient and respectful. Isabel rudely insults Romy for a variety of things, including Romy’s physical appearance, by taunting Romy for looking “old.”

Romy is hurt by these types of insults because Romy is self-conscious about looking as young as possible. A scene in the movie shows her getting Botox treatments on her face. The movie implies that Romy is also hurt by Isabel’s disrespectful treatment because Romy and Isabel used to be close, but their relationship has changed. It’s left up to interpretation if it’s just teenage rebellion or something else.

One day, Romy is walking on a street when she sees a German Shepherd running loose after getting away from its owner. She also sees that a young man in his mid-to-late 20s is able to calm down the female dog before handing the dog back to the owner. After this stranger gives the cookie to the dog, he says, “Good girl.” It’s a sentence that Romy will hear again from this same man in a dominant/submissive flirtation.

Later that day, a group of about 10 to 15 new interns are given a tour of the company’s headquarters. Romy’s intelligent assistant Esme Smith (played by Sophie Wilde) is giving the tour and has the interns briefly stop by Romy’s office. After a brief introduction, one of the interns asks a business question that makes Romy slightly uncomfortable because she doesn’t want to answer the question in that moment. Seeing Romy’s discomfort, Esme quickly ushers the interns out of the office.

Romy notices that this inquisitive intern is the same man whom she saw placate the German Shepherd earlier that day. It isn’t long before she finds out his name: Samuel (played by Harris Dickinson), who immediately tests Romy’s boundaries on sexual flirtation. Samuel is skilled at sizing people up psychologically, so he is quickly able to detect Romy’s vulnerabilities.

Shortly after meeting Romy, Samuel notices a Botox bruise on her forehead that Romy has tried to hide underneath her hair. Samuel comments to Romy about the bruise: “It looks good on you.” Romy looks startled but pleased by this unexpected compliment. However, she then covers up the bruise with makeup. Later, Romy asks Samuel how he was able to calm down the German Shepherd that was running loose on the street. Samuel tells Romy that he gave a cookie to the dog, and he flirtatiously asks Romy if she wants a cookie too.

Samuel also tells Romy that she was signed up to his personal mentor during this internship. It’s an excuse for Romy and Samuel to have private meetings inside and outside the office. At first, Romy doesn’t believe that she was signed up to be Samuel’s mentor without her knowledge. But when she asks Esme about it, Esme says the internship program will make Romy look more accessible.

And so, Romy agrees to have a 10-minute meeting with Samuel, who continues to test her boundaries. There is an unspoken attraction between Romy and Samuel that heats up the more that they see each other. Samuel’s seduction of Romy starts off gradually but then it ramps up fairly quickly when he figures out that she wants to be a submissive to a dominant sexual partner.

A pivotal scene to this revelation is when Samuel sees Romy with some colleagues at a restaurant/bar during a work get-together. Samuel orders a glass of milk for Romy, and she drinks it all. As seen in the movie’s trailer, after Romy drinks the milk, he whispers to her, “Good girl.”

“Babygirl” has the expected erotic scenes showing domination and submission, with obvious parallels in how Samuel was able to control the German Shepherd to how he is able to control Romy in this BDSM relationship. And if these parallels aren’t obvious enough, there’s a non-sexual scene with Samuel and the dog in a hotel room that mirrors a scenario that Samuel had with Romy. For example, Samuel makes Romy eat food from his hand, just like someone might do to a dog.

However, there are other layers to Romy’s life that show who she is outside of her sexual desires. Esme sees Romy as a mentor and wants a promotion, but things get complicated when Romy notices that Samueland Esme have a flirtatious attraction to each other. Although Samuel and Romy by no means have an agreement to be “exclusive” with each other, Romy can’t help but feel jealous and insecure that she could have competition with a younger woman who is also her subordinate.

Isabel is openly lesbian or queer, and her sexuality is not a problem or issue with her parents. Isabel has a girlfriend named Mary (played by Gabrielle Policano), who is known and accepted by Isabel’s immediate family. However, when Romy, Jacob and their kids are spending time at their second home in suburban New York City, Romy notices Isabel kissing a 17-year-old neighborhood girl named Ophelia (played by Tess McMillan) in the home’s backyard swimming pool.

When Romy asks Isabel about it later, Isabel responds by saying: “I’m in love with Mary. I’m just having fun with Ophelia.” It’s the first sign that Isabel and Romy are more alike than they think they are. Later, Isabel is the first person in Romy’s family to notice that something is “off” with Romy when Romy’s affair with Samuel gets more intense. Fans of 1980s pop music will appreciate hearing INXS’s “Never Tear Us Apart” and George Michael’s “Father Figure” in two of the movie’s memorable seduction scenes.

As the secret affair between Romy and Samuel heats up, they both start to take more risks. Romy meets Samuel for a steamy tryst at a nightclub, even though there’s a chance that anyone they know could see Romy and Samuel together in this public place. In another scene in the movie, Samuel shows up at Romy’s house unannounced and uninvited to return her laptop computer, but it’s really a way for him to test Romy’s reaction. The main suspense in “Babygirl” is in seeing if anyone will find out about Romy’s secret affair. And if so, what will happen?

One of the flaws of “Babygirl” is that the movie doesn’t give too many details about Romy’s background to explain why she is the person she is. In a conversation with Esme, Romy mentions that she was named Romy by a guru because Romy grew up in a commune. Esme jokes that she thought Romy was raised by robots. Romy mentions in a separate conversation with Samuel that she graduated summa cum laude from Yale University. Samuel replies that he thinks she likes being told what to do.

Before Romy began her affair with Samuel, a scene shows her trying to persuade Jacob to be “dominant” with her during sex, by asking him to have sex with her while he covers her face with a pillow. He awkwardly grants her request but he stops because he says he can’t do it because it makes him feel like a villain. Romy is disappointed but she doesn’t fully explain to a confused Jacob why she made this request.

Sex workers who are paid to dominate people sexually often say that their clients are usually powerful leaders who are secret submissives because the clients feel like it’s freeing to be in sexual situations that are the opposite of the responsibilities and burdens that they have in their work life. It would be easy to assume that Romy might have developed her BDSM desires after she became a CEO, but there’s a scene in the movie where Romy confesses that she’s had these dominant/submissive thoughts going back to her childhood.

Even less background information is revealed about Samuel, although his pursuit of Esme at the same time he pursues Romy is certainly an indication that he’s a serial seducer. As such, Dickinson’s performance as Samuel is effective but intentionally mysterious about who Samuel really is. All of the cast members give believable performances, but none of the performances can come close to the myriad of emotions that Kidman portrays in Romy’s complicated feelings of shame, liberation, arousal and denial.

“Babygirl” doesn’t pass judgment on people who make BDSM choices in their sex lives. Instead, the movie tells one woman’s personal journey in exploring her previously repressed BDSM fantasies. The sex is a manifestation of other issues that are left open to interpretation but can be ascertained as Romy’s desperation to express a part of herself that she can’t share with most people. The movie keeps viewers guessing until the very end if Romy’s choices will ruin her marriage, but the true intention of “Babygirl” is showing how Romy can save herself from self-deception.

A24 will release “Babygirl” in U.S. cinemas on December 25, 2024. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on January 28, 2025.

Review: ‘The Brutalist’ (2024), starring Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce

December 20, 2024

by Carla Hay

Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce in “The Brutalist” (Photo courtesy of A24)

“The Brutalist” (2024)

Directed by Brady Corbet

Some language in Hungarian with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in from 1947 to 1980, in the United States and partially in Europe, the dramatic film “The Brutalist” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A Hungarian architect immigrates to America and settles in Pennsylvania, where he becomes entangled with a wealthy family who employs him, and he battles an addiction to opium.

Culture Audience: “The Brutalist” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Brady Corbet and epic dramas about the American Dream.

An unidentified actor, Joe Alwyn, Guy Pearce, Stacy Martin, Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones and Raffey Cassidy in “The Brutalist” (Photo courtesy of A24)

“The Brutalist” tells an epic story about the pros and cons of the American Dream from the perspective of a brilliant but opium-addicted Hungarian immigrant architect. The acting performances are top-notch but the sprawling nature of this 215-minute film has some noticeable flaws. One of the biggest problems with “The Brutalist” is that a major question that comes up near the end of the film is never answered.

Directed by Brady Corbet (who co-wrote “The Brutalist” screenplay with Mona Fastvold), “The Brutalist” had its world premiere at the 2024 Venice International Film Festival and also screened at the 2024 New York Film Festival. “The Brutalist” (which takes place from 1947 to 1980) is named after the Brutalist style of minimalist architecture that is the specialty of Hungarian Jewish architect László Tóth (played by Adrien Brody), who arrives in New York Harbor on a crowded ship with other immigrants who want to start a new life in the United States. During this trip, László tries opium for the first time. It’s the start of an addiction that lasts for decades in László’s life.

László, who was a celebrated architect in Hungary, has left behind his loyal and loving wife Erzsébet Tóth (played Felicity Jones) and their niece Zsófia, who is being raised by László and Erzsébet because Zsófia’s parents died during World War II. László was separated from his family during the Holocaust, so he doesn’t even know for sure if Erzsébet and Zsófia are still alive when he leaves for America. However, he relies on friends in Hungary to look for Erzsébet and Zsófia. If Erzsébet and Zsófia are still alive, László plans to earn enough money so Erzsébet and Zsófia can immigrate to the United States and live with him.

László settles in Philadelphia, where his cousin Atilla (played by Alessandro Nivola) lives with his much-younger American wife Audrey (played by Emma Laird), who is Catholic. Atilla hides his Jewish heritage by pretending to be a gentile with a furniture store/construction business called Miller and Sons, where László works closely with Atilla. László also lives with Atilla and Audrey when László first arrives in the United States. Audrey becomes the reason why the relationship between Atilla and László eventually changes.

Attila and László are hired by a spoiled, wealthy heir named Harry Van Buren (played by Joe Alwyn) to remodel a library in the Van Buren mansion. It’s here that László first shows his penchant for the minimalist Brutalist style that later give him acclaim in the United States. Harry’s domineering and manipulative father Harrison Lee Van Buren Sr. (played by Guy Pearce), who goes by the nickname Lee, initially berates László for the remodeling job but then later hires László to design and build a massive community center. The building complex (located in Doylestown, Pennsylvania) is supposed to be a namesake tribute to Harrison’s deceased mother Margaret Lee Van Buren, who had a rocky relationship with Lee.

Much of “The Brutalist” is about László’s work on this massive project while he battles his addiction to opium, particularly heroin. László’s closest friend during this time is his co-worker Gordon (played by Isaach de Bankolé), who is also addicted to opium. Erzsébet and a teenage Zsófia (played by Raffey Cassidy) eventually come to live with László, who becomes more dependent on the Van Buren family when Harrison gets journalist Erzsébet a job at a newspaper in New York City. Erzsébet uses a wheelchair because she got osteoporosis (a bone disease) while she experienced famine during the Holocaust. Other characters in the movie include Harry’s twin sister Maggie (played by Stacy Martin) and building contractor Leslie Woodrow (played by Jonathan Hyde), a longtime associate of the Van Buren family.

“The Brutalist” takes its time but often gets repetitive in showing the push-and-pull power dynamics between László and Harrison. The movie’s tone gets very dark, including showing cruel antisemitism and a shocking sexual assault. The total running time for “The Brutalist” might test the patience of some viewers, even with the movie’s built-in 15-minute intermission. However, “The Brutalist” is a master class in acting, with Brody, Peace and Jones leading the way in this impactful story that is about people fighting not just for their version of the American Dream but also for what they want their legacies to be.

A24 released “The Brutalist” in select U.S. cinemas on December 20, 2024, The movie will be released on digital and VOD on February 18, 2025.

Review: ‘The Order’ (2024), starring Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Jurnee Smollett, Alison Oliver and Marc Maron

December 15, 2024

by Carla Hay

Jude Law, Jurnee Smollett and Tye Sheridan in “The Order” (Photo courtesy of Vertical)

“The Order” (2024)

Directed by Justin Kurzel

Culture Representation: Taking place from 1983 to 1984, in Washington state, Colorado, Idaho, and California, the dramatic film “The Order” (based on real events) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Latin people) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Law enforcement officials investigate and battle against a radical and violent group of white supremacists.

Culture Audience: “The Order” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and suspenseful and well-acted movies about cops versus criminals.

Nicholas Hoult in “The Order” (Photo courtesy of Vertical)

“The Order” capably tells a tension-filled story based on real events of American law enforcement battling against white supremacists in the 1980s. The acting performances are the main reason to watch this somewhat formulaic dramatic re-enactment. The fact that this true story was made into a movie is already an indication of which side won this battle.

Directed by Justin Kurzel and written by Zach Baylin, “The Order” is adapted from the 1989 non-fiction book “The Silent Brotherhood,” written by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt. “The Order” had its world premiere at the 2024 Venice International Film Festival, and then made the rounds at other film festivals in 2024, including the Toronto International Film Festival and AFI Fest. The movie takes place from 1983 to 1984, in the U.S. states of Washington, Colorado, Idaho, and California.

“The Order” begins with a brief scene taking place at KOA Radio studios in Denver. KOA talk show host Alan Berg (played by Marc Maron), who is politically liberal and Jewish, is having a heated discussion with a phone caller. The caller doesn’t say his real name, but he is Gary Yarbrough (played by George Tchortov), a ruthless member of the Order, a radical group of white supremacists who have splintered off from the Aryan Nation. Alan is an outspoken critic of these types of hate groups, who believe that people who are white, cisgender, heterosexual and Christian are superior to everyone else. And as soon as this argument is shown in the movie, you just know that Alan will be shown later in the movie in horrible circumstances.

“The Order” than has a scene of taking place in Spokane, Washington, on December 18, 1983. A man is taken into a wooded area at night and is shot dead. The murder victim is later revealed to be Walter “Walt” West (played by Daniel Doheny), who had been printing counterfeit bills for the Order. The Order members who murdered Walt are Gary (who looks like a scruffy militia man) and Bruce Pierce (played by Sebastian Pigott), Gary’s best friend, who is not as vicious as Gary, but he’s still full of hate and doesn’t hesitate to get violent.

The leader of the Order is Bob Mathews (played by Nicholas Hoult), who deceptively looks like a clean-cut and upstanding family man. In reality, Bob is the mastermind of the violent crimes committed by the Order. Later scenes show that Bob created the Order because he thinks the Aryan Nation isn’t acting fast enough and is too “soft” on its goals for white supremacist domination. The Order uses the 1978 white nationalist novel “The Turner Diaries” (written by Andrew Macdonald, an alias for Luther Pierce) as a handbook for many of the Order’s goals and criminal activities.

After the murder of Walt (who was killed because he was perceived as a potential snitch), Bob, Gary, Bruce and a recent Order recruit named David Lane (played by Phillip Forest Lewitski) commit an armed robbery of a bank in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The four robbers (who wore masks during the bank robbery) are elated to get away with this crime, where luckily none of the robbery victims got killed or injured. It’s later revealed that the Order funds its activities and pays its members through robberies of banks and armored vehicles. The Order also bombs buildings that are owned by targets of their hate.

When Bob gets home, he shows his wife Debbie Mathews (played by Alison Oliver) the loot of cash that he got in the robbery. Debbie is happy to see the money that Bob shows to her, and she knows that it’s stolen money, but she has a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude about Bob’s criminal activities. She doesn’t approve of people getting murdered, but Debbie’s ethical boundary on what she considers “unacceptable crimes” isn’t shown until much later in the movie.

These first few opening scenes are somewhat jumbled and could have done a better job of establishing the names of these characters. It isn’t until later in the movie that these characters’ names, roles and personalities are put into clearer perspective. It’s a flaw that the movie tends to repeat when introducing other characters.

The law enforcement official who leads the investigation of the Order is FBI agent Terry Husk (played by Jude Law), who has recently moved to Spokane. Terry is separated from his wife, who lives in another state with their two daughters, who are about 6 and 8 years old. Terry is hoping that his wife and daughters will eventually move to Spokane to live with him. But it eventually becomes obvious that this relocation won’t happen when Terry calls his estranged wife one day and finds out that her phone number has been disconnected.

The movie is purposely vague about other information about Terry’s life before he moved to Spokane. He has a surgery scar going down the middle of his chest. He gets nosebleeds. And when his FBI colleague Joanne Carney (played by Jurnee Smollett) shows up in Spokane, she mentions that she heard about Terry’s “scare in New York.” When Terry tells Joanne that his wife and children are expected to move to Spokane, so he “put the pieces back together,” Joanne looks very skeptical that Terry will be reunited with his family.

“The Order” doesn’t dwell too long on Terry’s personal problems because the bulk of the film is about tracking down and apprehending members of the Order. Joanne isn’t seen for most of the movie until near the end. Terry actually gets most of his help from Jamie Bowen (played by Tye Sheridan), a deputy in the local sheriff’s office, who is also eager to bring these criminals to justice.

Jamie is helpful because he grew up in the area where the Order is headquartered. In a scene where Jamie and Terry question Walt’s wife Bonnie Sue Harris (played by Geena Meszaros), Jamie is able to gain her trust because he’s known Bonnie Sue since they were students at the same high school. Bonnie Sue doesn’t trust Terry because she sees him as a “bad cop” outsider.

“The Order” spends a lot of time showing how Bob uses his influence to get his followers to do his bidding. At a church run by an Aryan Nation reverend named Richard Butler, Bob gets up during a service and upstages the reverend by giving a rousing speech that culminates with Bob leading the audience to chant “White power!” Bob thinks that the Aryan Nation plan to get the Aryan Nation members elected to political offices and other powerful positions is a strategy that is too old-fashioned and will take too long.

Bob is also shrewd about masking his radical intentions of the Order. In an early scene in the movie, he commands Gary and Bruce to stop burning crosses in front of the place where the Order’s meetings are held, because burning crosses will draw attention to their lair. Terry and Jamie later find out that Gary and Bruce were ousted from the Reverend Butler’s church because Gary and Bruce were using the church’s printing press to make counterfeit bills.

As the leader of the investigation, Terry is astute and logical, but he can sometimes rub people the wrong way, because he can be prickly and arrogant. With his personal life in shambles, Terry becomes consumed by the investigation and expects Jamie to have the same attitude. Jamie also has two underage kids. However, unlike Terry, Jamie is happily married.

Someone who is not a fan of Terry is Kimmy Bowen (played by Morgan Holmstrom), Jamie’s wife who was Jamie’s high school sweetheart. Kimmy tells Terry—in a conversation that starts out cordial and soon turns tense—that she doesn’t like it when Terry goes over to the Bowen family home and talks about the investigation while the kids are there. “You scare me,” Kimmy candidly tells Terry.

Bob’s home life is not as tranquil as it appears to be. Bob and Debbie have a son named Clinton (played by Huxley Fisher), who’s about 4 or 5 years old. Clinton is adopted because Debbie cannot biologically conceive children. Debbie is insecure about her infertility because she knows how important it is for white supremacist Bob to pass on his bloodline to biological children. Bob has a secret that he’s keeping from Debbie. This secret is eventually revealed to viewers.

During the course of the story, another recruit is welcomed into the Order: Tony Torres (played by Matias Lucas), who has recently moved from Seattle and is a friend of David, who introduces Tony to Bob. Tony blames black people for his recent job loss. Tony also hates black people because Tony’s best friend in high school was killed by a black person. Bob asks Tony what his ethnicity is because Tony’s last name is Torres. Tony is quick to say that he’s of white Spaniard heritage, so that he can be accepted into this hate group.

“The Order” is essentially becomes a “cat and mouse” type of hunt, with only two characters showing any complexity in their personalities: Terry and Bob. The movie’s other characters are not quite fully developed enough to be anything beyond generic, even though all of the principal cast members show talent in their performances. “The Order” is a crime thriller but it’s also a commentary on the insidiousness of hate groups and how they will continue to exist as long as people think that different identity groups are inferior.

Vertical released “The Order” in U.S. cinemas on December 6, 2024.

Review: ‘September 5,’ starring Peter Sarsgaard, John Magaro, Ben Chaplin and Leonie Benesch

December 13, 2024

by Carla Hay

Cast members in “September 5.” Peter Sarsgaard (facing group) and pictured from left to right in front row: Corey Johnson, Zinedine Soualem, John Magaro and Ben Chaplin. Pictured from left to right in back row: Marcus Rutherford, Georgina Rich and Leonie Benesch. (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

“September 5”

Directed by Tim Fehlbaum

Some language in German with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Munich, Germany on September 5, 1972, the dramatic film “September 5” (based on real events) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Middle Eastern people and black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: ABC Sports staffers and their associates grapple with how to cover a live news event when Palestinian terrorists take Israeli hostages during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.

Culture Audience: “September 5” will appeal primarily to people interested in historical dramas that have good acting and well-directed suspense.

John Magaro, Ben Chaplin and Peter Sarsgaard in “September 5” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

“September 5” is a dramatic recreation of an ABC TV control room during the tragic massacre of the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. This suspenseful and well-acted movie exposes the ethical dilemmas in televising live kidnappings and murders. Although the outcome of this tragedy is well-known to many viewers, seeing this recreation can still have a tremendous impact.

Directed by Tim Fehlbaum (who co-wrote the “September 5” screenplay with Moritz Binder and Alex David), “September 5” had its world premiere at the 2024 Venice International Film Festival and its U.S. premiere at the 2024 Telluride Film Festival. There have been other movies about the massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics—such as director Steven Spielberg’s 2005 drama “Munich”—but “September 5” is the first to take a comprehensive look at this tragedy from the perspectives of the mostly American TV employees who decided to do a live telecast of the hostage-taking event, which was watched by more than 900 million people worldwide.

“September 5,” as the title indicates, takes place in Munich on September 5, 1972, which was the day of this tragedy. The movie begins by showing a seemingly mundane explanation (with voiceover narraton) of technicalities involved in televising the Olympics live on this particular date. ABC Sports is sharing the telecast that day with CBS Sports. The time slots allotted to each network will later become a source of contention when the hostage taking begins and each network competes with the other over who will have the rights to broadcast this live event.

“September 5” doesn’t overstuff the story with too many characters. Behind the scenes, the four main characters who are shown making the most pivotal decisions are:

  • Roone Arledge (played by Peter Sarsgaard), the shrewd and ambitious president of ABC Sports.
  • Martin Bader (played by Ben Chaplin), the logical-minded chief of operations for ABC Sports.
  • Geoffrey “Geoff” Mason (played by John Magaro), a resourceful producer for ABC Sports,
  • Marianne Gebhardt (played by Leonie Benesch), a German TV employee hired by ABC Sports to be a translator.

The day begins ordinarily enough, but there’s a little bit of tension between Martin and Marianne when they first meet each other. Martin (who is Jewish) is a little uneasy about being in Germany, the country where Nazi leader Adolf Hitler rose to power. The Holocaust is very much on his mind when Martin aks Marianne if her parents are still alive.

When she says yes, he replies sarcastically, “Let me guess. They didn’t know.” Marianne looks taken aback and somewhat offended that Martin assumes her parents were among the Germans who pretended not to know about the Holocaust while the Holocaust was happening. She calmly responds and says about her parents: “I’m not them.”

“September 5” doesn’t waste time with idle chit chat and personal backstories of each of the main characters. The hostage-taking happens within the first 15 minutes of this 95-minute movie. Everyone in the control room has to react swiftly to this crisis: 10 people from the Israeli Olympic team (five athletes and five coaches/officials) were captured after terrorists broke into the Olympic Village and held the victims hostage in an Olympic Village apartment.

The first thing that the media had to find out and accurately report was who was behind this kidnapping. The answer: a militant Palestinian group called Black September. Roone hesitates to use the word “terrorists” to describe these captors on TV, until Marianne tells Roone that the local German media are using the word “terrorists” to describe the captors. Also giving an international perspective to ABC Sports team is French-born TV executive Jacques Lesgardes (played by Zinedine Soualem), who is ABC Sports director of broadcast operations and engineering in Europe

Roone is adamant in telling his team that audiences will care more about the story if they know personal things about the kidnapping victims. And so, there’s a scramble to find any personal stories about any of the victims. Because it’s a TV broadcast, the kidnapped person who had the most TV footage avalable at the time gets a lion’s share of the coverage.

As seen in “September 5,” ABC Sports team gives most of the “personal story” focus to kidnapping victim David Berger (played by Rony Herman), an American who moved to Israel to pursue is dream of becoming an Olympic wrestler after he wasn’t selected for Team USA for Olympic wrestling. It just so happened that ABC had interviewed David in previously unaired footage, so that footage is shown during the crisis. David is also the only American-born hostage, so Roone believes that American viewers will feel more invested in this story if they knew an American is among those taken hostage.

As the hostage crisis stretches over several hours, ABC and CBS clash over who would have the official telecast when ABC’s time slot ended. The movie shows how ABC was still able to get “credit” for the telecast, even when the footage was coming from CBS’s feed: An ABC logo sticker was put on the side of the main camera-feed screen, so that ABC viewers would still think that the live footage was coming ABC’s control room, when the footage was really coming from CBS.

In addition to ABC’s conflicts with CBS, there were conflicts within ABC ranks. Roone resisted attempts from ABC News to take over the reporting from ABC Sports. Even though ABC Sports was not experienced in “hard news” journalism, Roone argued that ABC Sports was better-equipped to be in control of ABC’s telecast of this crisis because the ABC Sports team had more experience covering live events, and ABC Sports staffers were already in Munich, compared to the ABC News staffers who were in the United States. Roone huffs to his ABC Sports team: “This is our story, and we’re keeping it!”

ABC News reporter Peter Jennings (played by Benjamin Walker) is one of the ABC News people who’s portrayed as one of the “snobs” who questioned the capabilities of the ABC Sports people to handle this live telecast. “September 5” includes some of the actual news footage from ABC or realistic recreations of ABC News anchor Jim McKay doing live coverage of the crisis from his anchor desk in Munich. There is also actual archival footage in other parts of “September 5.”

On a less obvious but still noticeable level, “September 5” also shows yet another battle during this crisis: the battle of the sexes. In this very male-dominated environment, Marianne is often treated dismissively by some of the men, even though she is a valuable member of the team. At one point, she’s asked to get coffee, as if she’s a low-level production assistant. However, Marianne often shows she’s much more astute than many of the men who have more important titles than she does.

Two men on the team express condescending surprise that a woman was chosen to be a negotiator for this crisis. They scoff at the sight (from a TV news camera stationed outside) of the negotiator and say she looks unprofessional because she has asked the kidnappers for a light for her cigarette. Marianne comments: “No, she’s gaining their trust.” Marianne later points out that choosing a woman to negotiate is actually a great idea because the hostage takers might underestimate her because she’s a woman.

“September 5” includes some of the clever ways that the ABC Sports team was able to get exclusive footage during this crisis. One idea that worked was having camera operator Gary Slaughter (played by Daniel Adeosun) sneak into Olympic Village by posing as an athlete and placing a hidden camera in a strategic area close to where the hostages were being held. Creating a fake ID for Gary was also part of this impromptu plan.

But having a camera so close to the hostage area created a new set of issues, such as: What if any hostages were killed? How much (if any) of this worst possible outcome should be shown on live TV? These questions and other dilemmas weigh heavily on the people in the control room who know that whatever decisions they make will have long-term repercussions.

The tension in “September 5” doesn’t let up, thanks to the movie’s tight pacing. An unrealistic movie would have had the ABC people constantly shouting in a panic as the violence in this hostage crisis escalated. Instead, “September 5” more accurately shows that people in the control room were often stunned and shocked into silence. The movie also depicts that it’s never far from the broadcasters’ minds that what they were showing on TV would be a major trauma to unknown numbers of audience members.

The talented cast members of “September 5” do a very good job of portraying people who are seeing real-life horror unfold before their eyes, but they have to maintain enough professional composure to do their jobs as journalists and objectively cover this news event without interfering in this event. Sarsgaard, Magaro, Chaplin and Benesch all have moments that show how all four of their characters were essential as moving parts to this team. Although there is no happy ending to this story, “September 5” serves as a meaningful reminder of the importance of empathetic humanity in journalism when reporting things that are very inhumane.

Paramount Pictures released “September 5” in select U.S. cinemas on December 13, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on January 17, 2025.

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