Rory O'Connor

This effort to show Lara’s struggle like a coming-of-age story is what sets Girl apart. Dhont fleshes out his story with little growing-up moments everyone can relate to.

While The Square is not as slick and streamlined a film as Force Majeure it still hunts for that same meaty psychological game and is never afraid — no matter how close to the bone — to twist that knife.

It isn’t difficult to imagine Denis–one of the most cerebral, confounding filmmakers we have–constructing Fire, with its oddly trivial love triangle and omnipresent string section, as a duplicitous farce; a way to upend our expectations of how a film like this should look.

The result is a rich and gradually rewarding bildungsroman, a film that can be cold to the touch but leaves much to unpack.

It’s coarse to the touch but The Adults is a tender film. That those moments come in flashes only makes them all the more profound.

Gavras, for better and worse, is a creature of spectacle; not apolitical, per se, but more concerned with triggers and semiotics than manifestos.

Taormina achieves a singular tone.

The Untamed does that very rare thing in cinema in that it blends mystery, horror and pseudo-reality with a kind of dark subconscious arousal.

Shot entirely in infrared and using augmented reality effects and AI imaging tools, Aggro Dr1ft appears like the fever dream of a day spent drinking lean, watching music videos, and playing God of War and Grand Theft Auto. At times it’s funny, dazzling, almost beautiful; at others ugly, misogynistic, numbingly dull.

I would say it’s this director’s weakest film, but when you’ve never made a bad one that probably doesn’t say a lot. Whatever the case, Die My Love remains worthwhile.

With its drab interior settings, cinematographer Kim Hyung-koo’s uncharacteristically unforgiving black-and-white photography, brutally honest subject matter, and rare moments of catharsis, it’s not the easiest watch. Of course, it’s this very slog that makes bigger moments all the more powerful.

Having returned to form with Crimes of the Future, it’s surprising that so much of The Shrouds falls flat: the awkward sex scenes, the general incoherence, the uncharacteristically unimaginative tech (though I did like the gothic vibe of the blanket of cameras used to cloak the corpses). That said, for a meditation on death, grief, cancer, and libido, The Shrouds is funnier than expected.

It is a film of surfaces, admittedly, but one made by perhaps our era’s best director of surfaces.

Ema is Larraín at his most freeform.

Haynes fails to impart Wonderstruck with the sort of zip that gives young persons’ capers like these the pacing they require.

While derivative and endlessly cheesy, it’s a characteristically visceral return for Gibson, and one that confirms that little has changed in the man’s singular artistic psyche.

Perhaps the most interesting thing in Hopper/Welles is that you can’t quite tell if the battle-scarred veteran is looking to wrap an arm around the younger man or is trying to defeat him.

It’s succinct, light on its feet, totally earnest, and––in spite of some indulgent conversations on art and writing––never feels like it’s trying too hard.

All that flare and stealthy humor give the familiar sense of a young director attempting to flex every creative muscle at once. Seldom is this advised, yet it’s nothing if not thrilling to watch.

There are things to cherish: busily moving between sterile offices and boxy, lived-in apartments, the film keeps you guessing about the practicalities and implications of its central conceit to such an extent that its moments of real poignancy can catch you off guard. A lot of this comes down to Baisho’s heartbreaking central performance.

Rush is a joy to watch, no doubt, but the unavoidable sense remains that Tucci is stretching his material a little thin, restricting the narrative to the two-weeks-plus Lord spent in Paris with nothing on either end to really fill us in.

One of the great achievements of A Ciambra is how it maps out the food chain of local authorities (both legal and otherwise).

A Traveller’s Needs is just the tonic: a film that passes through you like a breath of fresh air.

If Jarecki struggles a little with this alchemy at times it is because Promised Land is essentially three movies in one: a detailed account of the King’s career; a loose account of the last 80 years of American politics; and a musical performance film.

Drawing a number of deeply felt performances from her cast, it is an aching period piece, if frankly staid, that comes complete with many of the genre’s most reliable tropes: sharp intakes of breath; glances stolen through laced curtains; and love, as ever, in opprobrium.

It is a film that will entice the viewer’s senses, if not necessarily their brain activity.

Sossai’s movie (which is certainly not without sentiment) definitely follows through on the promise of its title. It might slip into Alexander Payne territory at times––there are a few moments when the trio drive in contented silence––yet if Last One is Sossai’s Sideways, it’s a version with two Jacks and no Miles.

Jia’s earnest approach has always been endearing and Swimming Out sees it in full flight.