Tag: DRAMA

LET HIM GO (2020)

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Written & Directed By: Thomas Bezucha
Based On The Novel By: Larry Watson
Cinematography: Guy Godfree
Editor: Jeffrey Ford & Meg Reticker

Cast: Diane Lane, Kevin Costner, Lesley Manville, Jeffrey Donovan, Kayli Carter, Booboo Stewart, Will Brittain, Greg Lawson, Ryan Bruce, Adam Stafford, Connor Mackay 

A retired sheriff and his wife, grieving over the death of their son, set out to find their only grandson.

The first half of the movie is more slow-burning, moving family drama built around a tragedy. That is better than one expects.

The film works as a new western. As it is a period tale with plenty of scenery of undisturbed landscapes. That slowly develops into a thriller of morals and honor. It even includes a Native American character. Who becomes a surrogate son for the main characters far away from home. 

Kevin Costner, we are used to this type of fun and role. As he more or less recently takes to roles that are more western influenced. So much so you wonder if he Is the new John Wayne or is he trying to be. Only less racist and a little more sensitive. Not to mention modern. Here he takes more of a back seat to Diane lane. Who is the true powerhouse throughout. Taking over scenes with a quiet dignity but ferocious spirit and manner. Costner ends up becoming her backup.

What Is interesting is that this is the type of film that Kevin Costner would usually Star in and direct back in the day. So while his appearance here isn’t surprising, which is how much he stays in the backseat rather than commanding scenes. Even if he becomes more active in the third act. 

They both display a fair amount of quiet acting that says so much and comes out of body language, facial gestures, and manners. 

Part of the interest In the first half is once they hit the road the people they meet along the way. Showing a kind of Americana. When it was changing and going dark. Hardening to a time of classical American values and idealism and their perversion of it. 

It’s also a nice reunion of sorts for Kevin Costner and Diane Lane last seen together in MAN OF STEEL. As the parents of Clark Kent/Superman making them the all-American mid-west couple. Here they are the same only as grandparents and their son went this time around.

Lesley Manville is deep in character and over the top memorable as the mama hen and main villain of the dangerous Weboy clan in this film and amongst the leads, she makes her mark and her presence felt. 

In fact, it might have been a little more interesting to see if the lebouf clan and how they operate. Their day-to-day operations and influence, but as they are talked about and built up as some kind of phantoms. They maintain an air of mystery and live up to their reputation and it makes the slow journey to them worth it. Even if they have mroe the unlikeable elements of the crime family in the film ANIMAL KINGDOM only less suggested incest. 

We barely get to know them personality-wise other than the matriarch and the family uncle, her consigliere of sorts. Who stands out. The uncle played by Jeffrey Donovan Whose character always offers a smile and a threatening manner. 

The film has many memorable scenes. Like the dinner scene at the weboy compound and we meet the family and it seems more a battle for power and strength over one another. Not necessarily physically but by implication. 

The Hotel room ambush is another striking scene that has shocking violence. That shows that this film is traditional but also kind of dark.

The film offers an ending that isn’t the massacre you might be expecting and still plays off not as satisfying as you might have hoped.  

GRADE: B

SHIVA BABY (2021)

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Written & Directed By: Emma Seligman
Cinematography: Maria Rusche
Editor: Hanna Park 

Cast: Rachel Sennot, Polly Draper, Molly Gordon, Fred Melamed, Dianna Agron, Jackie Hoffman, Danny Deferrari, Glynis Bell, 

At a Jewish funeral service with her parents, a college student runs into her sugar daddy.

The film works as a character piece. Even though it takes place mostly in one location and is full of colorful characters who add comedy and point of view to the story. It all centers around the main character played by Rachel Sennot in a subtle and ultimately powerful performance. As she is out under high pressure unknowingly in a continuous situation. She begins to unravel in all sorts of ways.

What makes the film so strong is that while there is comedy it plays almost like a horror film or thriller. As the score seems to help tighten the rope around the character and set in such a crowded space there are fewer and fewer places to turn.

Even as she is struggling to keep her sugar daddy who is far from a Prince Charming and the longer he stays at the party. The more his farm diminishes, but he is the only thing she had control over and loses him. She will feel like she has nothing. So she keeps trying harder and harder to lessen herself to keep and seduce him. 

As it seems scene to scene she is running out of places to hide or things to distract her as she gets more worried and more people to talk about her and the danger of her secrets being revealed. As she tries to make things seem normal.

Even as she tries to seduce a guy who is her sugar daddy back and you begin to wonder is it more about the power and strength as he isn’t all that appealing or beating the competition for him in his successful wife who seems to know more than she lets on. Or did she actually fall for him as something more than just a client?

Is she just desperate to keep the status quo as anything different would force her to grow up? As the man ends up not being all that appealing. Which one can tell early on before any revelations are brought to the table 

The whole cast is eye-opening, they are funny and emotional. Though Polly Draper as the roads mother has the right amount of emotions and judgment to be frustrating and sweet

Rachel Sennot as the lead is a revelation as she plays so many emotions and feelings all at once. Even though it is mostly through facial expressions and actions more than dialogue. Not to mention her natural beauty comes through when being plain but also wants to be looked upon with desire.

The film also offers us a bi-sexual lead where the film does have sex and sexual language the film doesn’t become all about or into about the character’s sexuality as their defining trait 

This film could have easily been more of a simple dramedy that would Feel more staged or at least stage-bound the way it is shown and protested here is short but keeps the audience on their toes as each revelation or emotion feels like a jump scare or is looked upon with dread. 

Though it offers up a few surprises, by the end it leaves the characters uncomfortable but in it’s own way a happy ending. 

Thankfully for all the awkwardness and Cringe-worthy conversations and situations that play like horror the film still has its fair share of laughs and humor.

Grade: B+

MERMAIDS (1990)

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 Directed By: Richard Benjamin 
Written By: June Roberts
Based on the book by: Patty Dann
Cinematography: Howard Atherton 
Editor: Jacqueline Cambas 

Cast: Cher, Bob Hoskins, Winona Ryder, Christina Ricci, Michael Schoeffling, Caroline McWilliams, Jan Miner 

An unconventional single mother relocates with her two daughters to a small Massachusetts town in 1963, where a number of events and relationships both challenge and strengthen their familial bonds.

Cher is the Star of the film even though the film is more centered around Winona Ryder’s character and is at heart a coming-of-age film. Her character ark is a kind of sneak attack where all of a sudden the supporting performance is actually the main one. By the end, we realize she is the film’s heart and soul. 

Here the main spectacle was supposed to be Cher as after all she is the star of the film and is center stage in all the advertisements but while she is healthy in the film she comes on strong at the beginning then becomes more of a supporting background performer. The nemesis to a certain degree of the protagonist is her daughter played by Winona Ryder.

This is a film that is dependent on each element. As only Cher had the star power and the cool to be the spectacle. She ends up doing good character work, but also she is the only person at the time who could play a fabulous independent female character. who is strong and knows what she wants and is not ostracized for it. Where it fits her personality to a t. It also allows for her to shine as a character and show more shades and a bit of vulnerability.

If anything I applaud this movie for its cast. Young Christina Ricci’s debut film and Bob Hoskins as Cher’s love interest and father figure to her daughters. A shoe salesman who is an artist at heart and open-minded, who tries to domesticate the family but not forcefully. He is understanding and a nice guy. Not to mention Michael Schoeffling is older, but kind of playing an older version of the same type of character he played in SIXTEEN CANDLES more of a mystery but genuinely a nice guy

Though Winona Ryder at large walks away with the whole film. Playing a teenage neurotic girl who also is the narrator and makes this almost a woody Allen Esque adventure in pursuing a crush. Only while the film seems that way it is about more than that. As she is driven by teenage angst and catholic religious obsession. Not to mention the changing and challenging times of the 1960s

Directed by Richard Benjamin who was a replacement for original director Lasse Hallstrom. and then Frank Oz. Before he finally came along. Whereas you could see Hallstrom’s version in your thoughts. Richard Benjamin’s direction is sensitive and strong.  Even more impressive that he was more of a last-minute replacement. One of his best-directed pictures. While some others came close this was truly his most heartwarming and dramatic that hit all the buttons. His best next to this movie MY FAVORITE YEAR.

By the end, the film shows how when young something can be an obsession you think about day and night but also how once something new comes along it can easily be dropped and forgotten entirely. It’s a quality of youth but might also be an inherited quality. 

Though this film at times might seem more formulaic, one quality the film possesses. Is that it feels lived in. It’s comfortable and feels more natural. The habitat of the characters is refreshing and gives the scenes so much more strength and allows them to be subtle when they need to be. 

The film even has a memorable soundtrack. Including the theme song which is a remake but sung by the star Cher. 

I will admit this is more of an underrated film that I have enjoyed ever since it came out. 

Grade: B

SWEETIE (1989)

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Directed By: Jane Campion
Written By Gerard Lee & Jane Campion
Cinematography: Sally Bongers 
Editor: Veronika Haussler 

Cast: Genevieve Lemon, Karen Colston, Tom Lycos, Jon Darling, Dorothy Barry

An introspective young woman’s life is upturned by the arrival of her maladjusted sister.

Not the first Jane campion movie I have seen but one of the few so far. Also, One that I have so far enjoyed the most. 

The film plays like an awkward comedy of dysfunctions more than anything else.

It has emotional hard-hitting moments but most of the film. While beautifully and symbolically filmed. The characters all come off as strange or off for the sake of the story more than naturally.

The title character comes off the maddest and while it seems has a mental illness. One wants to take her to a professional. So that she drives everyone around her mad. As they have to take care of her and know she will never see any of her behavior as wrong. Yet she still kind of fits in with the rest of the characters.

As the film is frantic but comes off as a rather dry romantic comedy. That seems more composed rather than written. As the romantic comedy storyline. Is only one of few that runs throughout but is affected by the behavior of the title character. 

The longer you spend with the characters the more you care and get more invested. The same can be said of the film the longer you watch the more you get used to it and find yourself brought into the film’s and characters’ world.

This is a film worth investing your time in. By the end, you feel like you were part of something special. 

Grade: B

WOLF (1994)

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Directed By: Mike Nichols 
Written By: Jim Harrison & Wesley Strick 
Cinematography: Giuseppe Rotunno 
Editor: Sam O’Steen 

Cast: Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Spader, Christopher Plummer, Richard Jenkins, Kate Nelligan, Eileen Atkins, David Hyde Pierce, Om Puri, Ron Rifkin, Allison Janney 

Worn down and out of luck, aging publisher Will Randall is at the end of his rope when a younger co-worker snatches his job out from under his nose. But after being bitten by a wolf, Will suddenly finds himself energized, more competitive than ever, and possessed with amazingly heightened senses. Meanwhile, the beautiful daughter of his shrewd boss begins to fall for him – without realizing that the man she’s begun to love is gradually turning into the creature by which he was bitten.

I remember being entertained when I first saw this movie on video. Watching it now It comes across as instantly dated. As that is only part of the problems one might have with the film. 

Watching this film you can tell Mike Nichols who is a great and legendary director. Is more of a character and actors director more than a genre director. He brings esteem to the proceedings in what could have been easily more exploitive fare. 

Who brings a well-known and established cast to the movie. Actors who wouldn’t necessarily be bothered to be in this type of film. At the later stages of esteemed careers. 

As much of this movie plays out as a drama and romance rather than a monster movie or horror film. As a first, the film chooses to showcase the peers he gets from being a werewolf that helps bring vitality to him

And his life. Where he stands up for himself. Then it becomes more of a burden in his romance with the boss’s daughter but only after he finds out his wife is cheating on him.

It seems like they either tried to keep the horror elements on the periphery or forgot about it at times and were only interested in the dramatic thriller aspects of the story. Because it seems like there are scenes of it largely being absent, then “oh yeah” moments. 

After a while he has to deal with corporate politics and then being a suspect in his wife’s murder and trying to prove his innocence. 

While Jack Nicholson looks a little ridiculous in his wolf persona. It does make him seem more seasoned and watching him actually get into a battle as one looks a little silly but also reminds you what type of film you are watching. That tries to distinguish itself away from the fantasy elements. As it seems to look more ridiculous when it selves into them, but It’s not like it’s Corporate storyline is all that sharp about a senior getting pushed out by a younger contender who he helped train.

The film ends up playing way too long and very predictable. As the film seems to go through the motions. As it involves mostly main characters, is that a message to the audience that the older you are the more then you take? and the more thorough it must all be. 

As the film seems to want to make an example between the battles of nature and the battles in the business world and how they are similar. 

James Spader does what he does best. Where he puts on a spin on his upper-crust yuppie character image, but once we get to the third act of the movie. You can kind of predict his character arc. Even though when he starts acting peculiar the special effects give it away. Even though he doesn’t act too differently.

Considering the talent involved in this film. This should have been more memorable. As it is actually kind of forgettable. There are barely any memorable scenes. Even though Michelle Pfeiffer is the only one who has a history more with genre films out of the cast. Plus her playing in a werewolf movie after playing Catwoman is an amusing film irony.

Michelle Pfeiffer almost comes across as just another big name in a star-studded well-respected cast because while she is the female lead. She is the damsel in distress throughout most of the film or just simply the love interest. 

The special effects involved make the final fight look ridiculous. Rick Baker designed them and while One can give credit as at least they are practical effects instead of digital. 

This seems to join the ranks with THE HULK films. Just as there isn’t anyone good of those films. It’s Really hard to find a really good to outstanding Werewolf movie but you are more likely to find the latter than the earlier one. Though it is a little long in the tooth when it comes to running time 

Grade: C+

MA MERE (2004)

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Written & Directed By: Christophe Honore
Based On The Novel By: Goeroges Bastille
Cinematography By: Helene Louvart
Editor: Chantal Hymans

Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Louis Garrel, Emma de Caunes, Joana Preiss, Jean-Baptiste Montagut, Dominique Reymond

Pierre, a youth, comes from his grandmother’s in France to stay with his parents in the Canary Islands. His father talks oddly about his lost youth and leaves abruptly for France. Mom promises to take Pierre to a nightclub, remarking that people will think he’s her lover. He prays. His father dies in France, and his mother wants him to empty his father’s office; Pierre finds it full of pornography. His mother takes him in tow into a night world without morality, a world of sexual exploitation, exhibitionism, and wildness. What will Pierre make of this, and what, ultimately, will he make of his mother?

Rated NC-!7

Is it art or is it pornography? Hobos to say, but this is a bad film that the only reason to watch the film is to see the beautiful euro-trash females in the hide and in sex scenes that seem realistic.

I just can’t get into a film about a mother and son who feel sexual feelings for each other. But don’t act on them.


The film is certainly erotic and has plenty of fetishes for the characters to act on and live out. As we watch the characters on their increasingly ridiculous erotic adventures.

From here on are spoilers. As this film is one you would watch more as an x-rated porn film than an actual art film. At least in my opinion as the film seems like those that as a child I would watch on cable dubbed never really knowing or paying too close attention to the plot. Though knowing nudity was involved and just sitting through the sort to get to the sex and nudity. The rest of the film feeling like filler. Now as a teen that was great, but now as an adult while it brings back a certain nostalgia. If that is all the film is really about it is disappointing or should have advertised that fact originally. Especially with such major actors cast in the film.

The story is about a son who comes home from boarding school after the death of his father. His mother, now a widow starts hanging out with some Eurotrash women, and together, they go out at night, seduce and prostitute themselves. Then the Eurotrash friend seduces the sexually frustrated son. That the film lets us know is sexually Frustrated by showing him constantly masturbating to his father’s porn collection. Not only does she seduce him. She has sex with him in public, then participates in an orgy with him. Which his mother constantly watches him and her and then actually congratulates him after. Then his mother leaves him. So he and a new girl he has met at the orgy and his mother has left him with start To date and have more adventures.

Major spoilers

The rest of the film involves beating a man half to death with a riding crop in as an S & M game. A man masturbating to his mother’s corpse. The mother slicing her own throat while giving her son a hand job.

End major spoiler

I’m sorry I just really couldn’t get into this film. I just don’t want anyone to has to sit through this film expecting something that is never coming. It was more like porn with a plot that had to include every fetish to appeal to every market out there.

This movie is based on a book. Why would anyone want to make it into a film? Maybe it sounded better on paper than it is in live-action. I don’t have European sensibilities. I’m just an ignorant American. So I don’t have too much Of an opinion on it.

For those of you who insist on sitting through it. Just to see if you can make it to the en as some kind of endurance test, why? You paid to see this for some kind of entertainment or at least to e intrigued.

I can admit the women in this film are fetching, but be warned there are not really three women to look at.

One of the problems with reviews in foreign films at times is that since they are in another language, a language you don’t really speak. Is that it is harder to tell if the acting is really good or bad. You just assume they are doing a good job as they seem believable with the text on the bottom of the screen. Or you go by the way they are saying things and the physicality.

Half the time you are reading subtitles so you look up after and may have missed a subtlety or a shot.

I give Isabelle Huppert credit as he mashes I keep her head held high and comes out of the film unscathed.

If you are looking for what amounts to erotic porn rent it. If not skip it.

 Grade: D

THE ULTIMATE PLAYLIST OF NOISE (2021)

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Directed by: Bennett Lasseter
Written By: Mitchell Winkie
Cinematography: Vincent Patin 
Editor: Robin Gonsalves 

Cast: Keean Johnson, Madeline Brewer, Bonnie Hunt, Ian Gomez, Rya Kihlstedt, Oliver Cooper, Carol Mansell, Emily Skeggs, Ariela Barer, Jake Weary 

Marcus, an audio-obsessed high school senior, learns he must undergo brain surgery that will render him deaf, and decides to seize control of his fate by recording the Ultimate Playlist of Noise.

As it goes down like a nice teen drama. It’s dramatic, funny, and heartwarming by the end. If this wasn’t already a young adult novel, it should have been.

We watch the natural growing pains, trials, and tribulations that most of us go through. Only here the main character is kind of an obsessive nerd. Whose main interests are music and putting together playlists. 

Then his passions come together in a cute young lady who is a musician and sends his heart flutter. Which happens to come into His life when he has learned of a condition that will rob him of his hearing and separating him from his favorite thing music.

While the film plays on romance it also becomes a road trip movie. So we get the eccentric, strange whimsy of the characters and traveling.

What is refreshing about this film is that it’s not a typical love story. As it has romantic moves but cuts them short offering genuine surprises from where you might think some moments are going in a good way. Like him having his first kiss.

It does try to show the beauty in supposedly the mundane. 

The film is more about bonding with a stranger and becoming so close that you can open up to them. The story more or less comes across as one of the connections between two people and inspiring one another to go face their fears and also learn to accept things. Deal with them and learn to live with it.

Even if staying somewhat predictable story-wise. There will be love involved, not romantic and not the kind where even if there was it could save you from yourself or help you outrun your problems. 

The film doesn’t offer a false or empty story. Where we are left to wonder what happens next or after that but should feel rest assured in just the here and now. 

Grade: B-

WHITEBOYZ (1999)

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Directed by: Marc Levin 
Written by: Danny Hoch, Garth Belcon, Marc Levin & Richard Stratton 
Story By: Danny Hoch & Garth Belcon 
Cinematography: Mark Benjamin 
Editor: Emir Lewis 

Cast: Danny Hoch, Dash Mihok, Mark Webber, Piper Perabo, Eugene Byrd, Lisa Jane Todd, Bonz Malone, Reno Wilson, Jaqueline Williams, Doug E. Fresh, Slick Rick, Kim Wozencraft, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Fat Joe, Dead Prez

In a virtually all-white Iowa town, Flip daydreams of being a hip-hop star,. He practices in front of a mirror and with his two pals, James and Trevor. He talks Black slang, he dresses Black. He’s also a wannabe pusher, selling flour as cocaine. And while he talks about “keeping it real,” he hardly notices real life around him: his father’s been laid off, his mother uses Food Stamps, his girlfriend is pregnant, James may be psychotic, one of his friends (one of the town’s few Black kids) is preparing for college, and, on a trip to Chicago to try to buy drugs, the cops shoot real bullets. What will it take for Flip to get real?

This feels like a film that tackles a cultural phenomenon movement but feels a little late. So it also feels stale and a bit out of step. 

While it offers lead actor (and Co-Writer) Danny Hoch a cumulation of his work (as a Caucasian obsessed with the stereotypes of African Americans and their culture) even as he looks too old to play the lead role of a teenager just beginning his post-high school life. 

The same when it comes to dash Mihok even though a little closer to the right age, but it becomes more obvious their age when next to Mark Webber, who actually still looks like a teenager. 

The film starts off being more satirical before becoming more dramatic and serious in the third act. Where it tries suspense and ends in violence. When due to that violence characters finally break out of their fantasy and reveal themselves good and bad as one shows his racism, but it finally adds the edge the film seeks.

As before the third act, the film jumps from Social realism where we laugh at the characters to more juvenile comedy that comes off as goofy. 

This was director Marc Levin’s next film after the Sundance award-winner SLAM. Like that film this film stays rooted in African American culture but whereas that film felt artistic. Even though it was independent also. This seems to go more for a mainstream audience. As well as taking on the story more from a Caucasian point of view trying to look in.

Soon the way to its inevitable end. It tries to provide insight but can’t help but feel a bit preachy while sticking to its small-town roots.

It seems to want to play into its own fantasy world.

Maybe if the film stayed with the character base and let the comedy come naturally from there and their ridiculousness. This film could have been stronger.

As it tries to present a microcosm it doesn’t offer up anything to say. So that it seems like posturing while presenting a subject that seems more comedic and like a news report that never probes any deeper. 

It might have been more interesting if the film opened itself up and explored other characters a little more than the less. Working fine when it decides that I have more of a plot. While it tries to offer insight. It just feels stale and where it’s missing some points

Grade: C

CACHE

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Written & Directed By: Michael Haneke 
Cinematography By: Christian Berger 
Editor: Michael Hudecek & Nadine Muse 

Cast: Daniel Auteuil, Juliette Binoche, Maurice Benichou 

Georges, who hosts a TV literary review, receives packages containing videos of himself with his family–shot secretly from the street–and alarming drawings whose meaning is obscure. He has no idea who may be sending them. Gradually, the footage on the tapes becomes more personal, suggesting that the sender has known Georges for some time. Georges feels a sense of menace hanging over him and his family but, as no direct threat has been made, the police refuse to help…. 

I’ll be the first to admit. I consider myself a film academic (Mostly Home Schooled) and I don’t get this film. There is supposed to be some kind of secret to this whole film. I just didn’t see it or if I did see it, I didn’t understand it. What I can say is I think the theme of this film is about personal history. What your memory of it is vs. what the actual facts are. Just because you change and become a better person doesn’t change any evil or pat crimes. There are still victims out there who will not only never forget, but can’t forget because what may have been just an incident to you could have been catastrophic to another person completely with tremors still being felt and only getting more violent with age. 

The film begins slowly then as it get’s going it picks up some speed with shocking moments and deeply felt emotional mystery That becomes a spiraling tragedy. There isn’t even a soundtrack, nor music. Which heightens the scenes and also never leads you anywhere so you have to take the scenes as they are presented and make up your mind and piece things together yourself. No real universal truth only what you believe compared to what might have actually happened, As it is never fully explained. 

Director Michael Haneke is like a modern-day Hitchcock only more of a masochist. He has a quirk for misery and human suffering. He is masterful with pace, timing, Settings, and camera work. Nothing is ever rushed nor feel that way. The performances he gets out of the cast are deep. 

This is a foreign film so it moves slower and is more about emotions than anything else. It plays like a thriller and it is, Though not in a conventional sense really it’s more of a drama. 

Check it out But as a rental and only if you enjoy a film that really makes you think and put together its pieces. 

GRADE: B-

PIECES OF A WOMAN (2020)

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Directed By: Kornel Mundruczo
Written By: Kata Weber
Cinematography: Benjamin Loeb
Editor: David Jancso

Cast: Vanessa Kirby, Shia Lebouf, Molly Parker, Ellen Burstyn, Iliza Shlesinger, Benny Safdie, Sarah Snook, Jimmie Fails 

When a young mother’s home birth ends in unfathomable tragedy, she begins a year-long odyssey of mourning that fractures relationships with loved ones in this deeply personal story of a woman learning to live alongside her loss.

This film has a tour de force lead performance by Vanessa Kirby. We see her in all of her glory and despair. The rest of the cast is great.

The opening third of the movie is intense emotionally and amazingly acted. Then in the second act while we see how each member of the couple deals with grief and the effect it has on those around them. In the background the film has a little courtroom drama brewing.

Then in the third act, we deal with only the aftermath but acceptance, especially of secrets revealed and acts that can’t be taken back. All the whole the film never wants to release the tension. As the film stays a docudrama in every sense of the term that it becomes Cassavetes-Esque in trying to expose raw nerves.

The problem is that it feels that way it feels more set up and more like an acting exercise than what it is trying to be. 

So much so that while you are watching it you can’t help but wonder if this is artistic storytelling it is it more trying hard to get awards. As this is a story that needs to be told, it is one that is told to conjure up an emotional story and conflict. 

Just as one character has an affair and it just so happens to be the other’s, family member. We are introduced to how they met, but it just feels more convenient to the film. Rather than natural. For all the naturalness emotionally the film tries to present. The situations feel more set up and false. Especially In What they are trying to present.

Even as another character seems to have an affair, but doesn’t make a show about it. It gives us enough information that we know what is going on and hints at the reasons why. Without spelling it out for us. Whereas the other is sloppy and we witness not the act and conversations afterwards. Though in each case it more matches the style of the characters. 

As the film doesn’t offer much happiness and joy. Let our characters make their mark or presence felt. Usually through despair.

The film’s piece-de-resistance is the 25 minute unbroken shot of Kirby’s character giving birth.

In the end this film is about painful truths and emotional intensity. That by the end does offer a release.

Grade: B