The Florida Project (2017)

Directed by Sean Baker
Country: USA

46-year-old American filmmaker Sean Baker seemed to have found his own voice through a mesmerizing cinema-verité that concurrently fascinates, disturbs, and ultimately infuriates.

If his masterwork “Tangerine”, entirely shot on iPhone 5s, was packed with a mix of punchy reality and funny momentum, his new drama, “The Florida Project”, captured on 35mm film, leaves the humor aside, effectively depicting human degradation and parental negligence with the same raw intensity.

The animated rhythm of 'Celebrate' by Earth, Wind & Fire, together with the sight of three little kids fooling around and upsetting the people of their neighborhood, passed the misleading idea that this could be a feel-good movie focused on childhood. Don’t even think about it! This film is about the immense suffering that some reckless and negligent parents can cause to their children.

With a deft command of the camera, Baker takes us to the light purple-colored Magic Castle motel in Kissimmee, Florida, where the lazy twenty-something Halley (Bria Vinaite) and her six-year-old daughter, Moonee (Brooklynn Prince), currently live. Halley not only doesn’t have a job, she doesn’t want to find one. She prefers to remain in her room, indolently smoking weed, while her kid is left unsupervised, frequently misbehaving with her friends Scooty (Christopher Rivera), Dicky (Aiden Malik), and Jancey (Valeria Cotto). 

She gets some food from her friend Ashley (Mela Murder), Scooty’s mother and upstairs neighbor, as a payment for watching for her son while she’s at work. Ashley would never imagine how vulgar, rancorous, and cunning her friend is, until they cut relations due to an incident involving the children.

Obviously, the weekly rent is a constant problem for Halley, who resorts to illegal schemes to get the money. Huckstering cheap perfumes to tourists, offering sexual services online, and stealing her clients whenever possible, are all part of her deal.

Despite fond of Halley and her kid, Bobby (Willem Defoe), the motel manager, is many times forced to impose his authority. But she's not his only problem since he has to deal with trafficking in some rooms, sneaky guys trying to maliciously approach the kids outside, and the stubborn Gloria (Sandy Kane), who loves sunbathing topless near the pool. Not to mention taking care of mattresses impregnated with bedbugs.

Extremely absorbing, mostly because of the strange acting rapport between Vinaite and the young Prince, “The Florida Project” mirrors the immaturity, irresponsibility, and rudeness of a lost person, whose terrible example for her child, both behavior and language-wise, is sad and vexatious.

The script was cleverly co-written by Baker and his habitual collaborator Chris Bergoch, while the briskness of the editing, credited to the filmmaker, felt a bit tiresome at times without compromising the effectiveness of the story or the essence of its message.

I, Tonya (2017)

Directed by Craig Gillespie
Country: USA

Margot Robbie does a fantastic job as the former figure skater Tonya Harding in a facetious biopic directed by Craig Gillespie who, despite spirited in tone, didn’t surpass his 2007 comedy “Lars and the Real Girl”.
If the cited Australian actress got our eye through a fine performance, Ohio-born Allison Janney, who plays her mother, LaVona, is absolutely insuperable. Curiously, Janney aspired to become a champion skater at a younger age, but an accident prevented her to fulfill that dream.

Following a script by Steven Rogers (“Kate & Leopold”, “P.S. I Love You”), who also produces, the director pins the camera in front of Tonya, in her mid-forties, and gives her free rein to express herself in regard to a controversial past that got her banned from figure skating for life. According to her fictional testimony, every complicated situation that happened in her agitated life was never her fault.

Tonya, who won her first competition at the age of four, achieved brilliant moments in her career. She became an Olympian champion and a Skate America champion twice, and also made history in the sport for being the first woman to successfully execute two triple axels in a single competition, among other records. While she was never satisfied with the scores, often lowered due to a poor presentation, her abhorrent and super controlling mother was never satisfied with her performances, making a constant psychological pressure that intended to pique her toward excellence.
Unstable, mean, and utterly rude in her language, LaVona only smiles to scorn or humiliate. She's so dangerous that she even threw a knife at her daughter once in the heat of an argument.

If this weren’t enough, Tonya was being a victim of domestic violence by her prickly husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan). The latter joined Tonya’s unrefined bodyguard, Shawn Eckhardt (Paul Walter Hauser), in a dirty scheme to attack Nancy Kerrigan, his wife’s main competitor, in order to prevent her from competing in the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.

Tonya hardships were depicted with straightforwardness; however, the film’s narrative was not so effective, perennially wobbling between the cheaply dramatic and the absurdly comic. It works as an absolution for Tonya, who went to professional boxing after realizing that her figure skating career was over. But it's also a definitive condemnation of the cruel, companionless LaVona, whose unbending personality persists, even when declining and wearing a nasal oxygen cannula.

Like the story of its title character, “I, Tonya” embraces contradiction from start to finish. While the soundtrack is awesome, with Heart’s 1977 hit ‘Barracuda’ attempting to have the same boosting effect that Survivor’s ‘Burning Heart’ had in "Rocky", all the moody characters are unenchanting and some of them even useless, like Martin Maddox (Bobby Cannavale), the producer of Hard Copy, an unreliable tabloid news television show popular in the 90s. The feeling is even stronger after we hear LaVona saying to her daughter: “I gave you a gift”, and getting “You’re a monster” as an answer.

Robbie and Janney’s performances avoided further damages.

The Disaster Artist (2017)

Directed by James Franco
Country: USA

“The Disaster Artist”, a sort of Ed Wood meets an antithesis of James Dean, is a biographical comedy-drama about the eccentric Tommy Wiseau, the actor, producer, and director behind the cult indie drama “The Room” (2003), many times considered by the critics as one of the worst movies ever. The one who took advantage from that peculiarity was actor/director James Franco (“127 Hours”, “Spring Breakers”), who builds up a widely entertaining story about the making of that movie, often using a rollicking sense of humor to describe Wiseau’s personality. He focuses on his dreams and frustrations, as well as on the bizarre friendship with his movie partner, the actor Greg Sestero. The screenplay by the team Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber (“500 Days of Summer”, “The Spectacular Now”) was adapted from Sestero and Tom Bissell’s non-fiction book that gave the film its title.

James Franco decided to embody Wiseau himself, bestowing a droll expression that characterizes an intriguing man with a mysterious past, weird Eastern accent, long hair, and stony pose. Moreover, he has no skills for playing football, lies about his age, and claims he was raised in New Orleans. Money is not a problem for him, a fact that constitutes another mystery, and all these aspects, in addition to his awkward ways, are what compels us to know more about him. 

After befriending the 19-year-old Sestero (director’s brother Dave Franco) in San Francisco in an acting class, Wiseau invites him to move with him into his well-located apartment in LA, so they can follow their dream and becoming movie stars. The duo makes a pact for life, whose guidelines are to push each other, believe in each other, and never give up on their dreams. 

Wiseau, whose semblance would give a wonderful Frankenstein or Dracula, refuses to play a villain role, being successively discarded by the Hollywood studios due to his terrible accent. But because he is a go-getter, he equally attempts unorthodox methods to achieve his goal, like approaching a famous producer in a restaurant. Yet, that strategy only results in sadness and frustration. The embarrassing situation, rather than remove his stubbornness or ambition, leads him to make the irreversible decision of producing his own film, The Room, based on a defective script he wrote.

The 40-day shooting schedule starts smoothly but develops into a nightmare, especially after Sestero, who plays a leading role in the film, has promulgated woman bartender Amber (Alison Brie) as his girlfriend. Jealousy and bad temper dominate our anti-hero from that point on, which makes “The Disaster Artist” even more appetizing and outrageously funny in its last section.

The absolutely gorgeous soundtrack boasts tunes such as Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch’s “Good Vibration”, Faith No More’s “Epic”, and Corona’s “Rhythm of the Night”, which help to create the right mood at the right time.

Beguiling rather than thrilling, this new cult film fully defines its characters, serving as a showcase for the Francos' acting skills, particularly James. The one who didn’t get enough space to shine was the comedy celebrity Seth Rogen, who calmly embodied Wiseau’s script supervisor, Sandy Schklair.

By recreating the true story behind a weird film, Franco also creates a weird film. He takes his directorial career to a higher peak, delivering the weirdest and perhaps the funniest comedy of 2017.

Last Flag Flying (2017)

Directed By Richard Linklater
Country: USA

Throughout his outstanding career, reputed writer-director Richard Linklater proved to have a special gift, handling conversational romantic dramas (Before Trilogy), meticulous coming-of-age epics (“Boyhood”, “Dazed and Confused”), and entertaining period comedies (“Bernie”, “Everybody Wants Some”) with plenty of thoughtfulness, charm, and narrative charisma.

This time around, he joined forces with novelist Darryl Ponicsan to present a totally different story and style. Far more traditional, I would say.

“Last Flag Flying” takes a poignant look at war and at a father’s suffering. However, this woefully dramatic view intertwines with a comedic side that only works intermittently, without never providing that plain satisfaction one expects.

Not so cozy or smart in the dialogue, the film tells us about three old friends and Navy-vets, Larry "Doc" Shepherd (Steve Carell), Sal Nealon (Bryan Cranston), and Richard Mueller (Laurence Fishburne), who reunite in sad circumstances, decades after having returned from Vietnam.

Arrived from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Doc, who finds everyone on the Internet and did time in a US Navy prison, was the one with the initiative of establishing contact with Sal, the reckless, permanently-hungover owner of a small bar, and Richard, a former alcoholic now turned into a married, respectful preacher at the Beacon Baptist Church. The reason for that is because Doc, now a widower, needs help to fetch and bury the dead body of his 21-year-old son, another national hero killed in Baghdad, days before Saddam Husain has been captured.

The friends drive to the Dover Air Force Base, just to learn that Doc’s son was no hero after all. He died when he left the base to get cokes for his buddies. Piqued by Sal, who approves of conflict and confrontation, Doc opts for taking his son to Portsmouth and bury him like a civilian in his graduation suit, provoking the exasperation of the authoritative Lt Col. Willits (Yul Vazquez).
 
The road trip back home becomes quite adventurous with some unexpected frictions, a couple of good laughs regarding the time in Vietnam, along with some regrets too, and the tightness of an almost forgotten friendship. Yet, the film keeps relying too much on the bigmouthed Sal and his agitated personality to impress, which, unfortunately, didn’t cause so much impact on me. 

Making a feel-good movie from a tragedy is no easy-to-do task, and Linklater only partially succeeds in that challenging endeavor. For most of its duration, “Last Flag Flying” felt more like a banal film rather than a Linklater’s film. Since the characters look and sound hypocritical on several occasions, authenticity was never set as a priority.

The Departure (2017)

Directed By: Lana Wilson
Country: USA

“The Departure” is a potent documentary about a former rebellious rocker turned Zen priest who spends his days helping depressed people on the verge of committing suicide. Working for a decade in the suicide prevention, Tokyo-native Ittetsu Nemoto leads with confidence one of his famous retreat sessions known in Japan as The Departure. He urges the attendants to think of what they will leave behind if they follow their suicidal thoughts, in a clear attempt to find remnants of hope in the emptiness of their anguished souls. As a considerate counselor and a great listener, he makes them feel less lonely by reinforcing that fear is a road we’ve all traveled at some point. Reacting to the irrationality of living (being born to struggle until the time of our death), he also encourages people to express themselves through art in order to find some relief. However, this is not always the case with the people who seek him.

Nemoto lives in a temple located in the countryside with his wife, Yukiko, the nurse who took care of him after a serious motorcycle accident when he was 24, their little son, Teppei, whom he barely sees due to a busy schedule, and his helpful mother, who worries about his health.

It’s truly honorable what this priest does for the sake of others, but he keeps forgetting of himself and his own needs. His mission seems to be more important than anything that can happen to him, however, he’s getting weaker, stressed, and vulnerable since most of his energy is consumed by his patients, who, in turn, pass him their sufferings. Furthermore, the 24/7 availability takes his sleep away, with phone calls, emails, and text messages arriving in the middle of the night.

Emmy-award winning director, Lana Wilson (“After Tiller”), intersperses Nemoto’s medical condition - he suffered a heart attack in the past and now faces the real danger of clogged arteries - with several suicidal cases of people who remain in treatment with him, including a man who cannot bear not to see his kids, a young girl who is anxious and uncertain about the future, a man with 30 years of drug addiction, and a middle-aged woman whose sadness is endless. Serene and unhesitating, our hero refuses to give up on them.

Besides focusing on the grandiose altruism and compassion of its protagonist with a lyric simplicity, what the film actually questions is utterly complex: how can this man take care of other people when he is not taking care of himself? Would he feel better after leaving the patients at the mercy of their own miseries? What will happen to him if he continues with such an exhausting lifestyle?

This is what keeps revolving in our heads throughout a meditative film that treats both dejection and encouragement with the same quiet impartiality. Sometimes hope turns into light, other times it’s the despondency that brings us down.
 
“The Departure”, sliding with a deliberate melancholy toward the painful reality that concludes its story, benefits from the competent editing by David Teague. Nonetheless, better the subject matter than the technical aspects.

Lady Bird (2017)

Directed By: Greta Gerwig
Country: USA

The extremely talented actress turned deft writer and now promising director, Greta Gerwig ("Francis Ha", "Mistress America"), reveals her genius in “Lady Bird”, a delightful coming-of-age comedy-drama with so much to be apprehended and cherished.

The semi-autobiographical film is a love letter to her city of Sacramento in California and also a glorious portrait of family and friendship, personal dreams and social status.

The American actress of Irish descent, Saoirse Ronan, who excelled in John Crowley's drama "Brooklyn", stars as Christine McPherson, a quick-tempered 16-year-old who wants to be called by Lady Bird. Her rebelliousness can easily turn into radical actions such as throwing herself out of a moving car because of an argument with her nurse mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf). The clash between these strong personalities is very perceptible here, becoming the responsible factor for those typical love-hate bonds in the life of an adolescent. Besides, the title character hates Sacramento and doesn’t want to study at the Catholic high school, despite the scholarship granted to her. According to her mother, this financial help came at the right time since her depressed father, Larry (Tracy Letts), is currently unemployed. But the ambitious Lady Bird wants more and dreams about going to the East coast, where all the culture is. Unfortunately, her parents couldn’t afford to give her an education there, but that’s no reason to give up, though. The resilient Lady Bird already engendered a plan with the complicity of her benevolent father.

Meanwhile, at school, she hangs out with her best friend, Julie (Beanie Feldstein), and starts dating with an Irish Catholic boy, Danny (Lucas Hedges), who comes to the conclusion he’s gay after all, stressing out with the thought of having to confess the truth to his parents. 

In a blink of an eye, the life of Lady Bird shifts from anonymity to the center of attention when she starts a more serious relationship with the popular Kyle (Timothée Chalamet), the leader of a cool rock band, who often puts on airs. Moreover, she cuts off relations with Julie, replacing her with the spoiled and pretentious Jenna Walton (Odeya Rush). However, and because life always reveals us if we're right or wrong, she realizes, sooner than later, that those moves were nothing but mistakes. Learning and growing!

Ms. Gerwig not only depicted the tempestuous mother-daughter relationship with extraordinary precision, but also set up each and every other interpersonal connection with outstanding truthfulness. The topic has been addressed countless times but few attained this level of credibility. 

The characters are meaningful and fascinating, the narrative is no slouch, and the story, incredibly simple, is grandiose in terms of gracefulness and spirit.
This funny, tender, and brilliant film, thriving with witty observations and touching conclusions, is undoubtedly at the very top of my 2017 best list.

Wonder (2017)

Directed By: Stephen Chbosky
Country: USA

Stephen Chbosky’s “Wonder” delivers a clear, positive message with the best of the intentions. I wish I could say there’s nothing wrong with it, but the truth is that this tearful family drama grows too condescending after a promising start, assuming the shape of an optimistic crowd-pleaser instead of a realistic portrait of life.
 
The trio of writers - Chbosky, Jack Thorne, and Steve Conrad, adapted the 2012 novel of the same name by R.J. Palacio, which tells us about Auggie Pullman (Jacob Tremblay), a smart young boy who loves Star Wars and was born with TCS, a genetic disorder characterized by facial deformities that cost him 27 surgeries. This traumatized kid, who uses a helmet to hide his face from the world, complains about how burdensome has been his life: “an ordinary kid doesn’t get stared wherever he goes or doesn’t scare the other kids out of the playground”.

Auggie just started to go school for the very first time and went directly to the fifth-grade after having been homeschooled by his caring mother, Isabel (Julia Roberts). A very complicated moment because, without the protection of his parents, he faces the cruel reality of bullying and the constant scorn of some of his schoolmates, especially Julian (Bryce Gheisar), a swagger who doesn’t miss a chance to provoke him and hurt his feelings. The nicest boy in school is Jack Will (Noah Jupe), who rapidly finds valuable qualities in Auggie's personality to notice his malformation. However, their apparently solid friendship takes a thorny course when the protagonist catches Jack talking behind his back.

The focus then turns to Auggie’s sister, Via (Izabela Vidovic), a responsible student who claims more than ever the attention of her parents. Since she lost her grandmother, the only one who could truly understand her, and her best friend, Miranda (Danielle Rose Russell), who, all of a sudden, stopped talking to her after returning from a summer camp, life has become arduous. 
 
An array of dissociations, reconciliations, and conquests follow, always depicted with a mix of grace and contrivance.
 
“Wonder” simply didn’t work for me. Besides the setbacks described above, the two funniest characters, Auggie’s father, Nate (Owen Wilson), and the school’s principal, Mr. Tushman (Mandy Patinkin), had very little time to shine. Chbosky, who also didn’t convince in his previous feature “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, plays this ‘music’ so in tune that he forgot to orchestrate some twists to cause surprise. This is a melting and flimsy tale.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

Directed By Rian Johnson
Country: USA

The stylish episode VIII of the Star Wars franchise, the second of a trilogy that began in 2015 with “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”, was given the title of “The Last Jedi” and keeps dividing audiences worldwide. While its visual impact is undeniable, old and new characters work together to infuse zest and grittiness in an impetuous inspiration by Rian Johnson (“Brick”, “Looper”), who penned and directed with equal doses of passion and fascination. The director actually captured the tonal spirit of the preceding episodes and elevated it through bold and fresh ideas. However, this spacial opus could have run shorter than the two hours and a half without major loss.

The spectacular battles between the dominant First Order, an evil military junta commanded by the Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), and the Resistance, led by General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), are in the center of the attention. However, and because this is far from being a tacky tale, one can find a decent emotional side attached to it, as well as a winning humor, which associated to speedy action scenes, regales with an inviting diversion.

In this episode, Rey (Daisy Ridley) travels to the secluded planetary island of Ahch-To, where Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), a Jedi master turned hermit, decided to hide six years before. She wants to convince him to join the Resistance. After the initial stubbornness and refusal, Luke ends up accepting the challenge and even teaches her the ways of the Jedi as he sees a lot of courage, righteousness, and skills in her that are so characteristic from The Force. However, Rey communicates telepathically with the venomous Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), son of Leia and Han Solo, whose ambiguous behavior and sly intentions will drag her to Snoke’s den.

On another front, we have the former stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega) teaming up with Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran), a maintenance worker for the Resistance that appears for the first time in the series. I don’t see her as a super strong character, though. Also, the often funny X-wing fighter pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), does what he has to do for the sake of the Light with fearless bravura, even if he needs to confront his inflexible, stern superior, the Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo (Laura Dern). 

As a bold director, Johnson didn’t turn his face to risk or experience and his efforts become successful. The stunning tete-a-tete between Skywalker and Kylo Ren was the most exciting moment of the film, culminating in a sophisticated artifice of teleportation. It felt like I was in a video game without being able to control it.
 
“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” was dedicated to Carrie Fisher, who died of cardiac arrest on December 15. The last installment of the trilogy will be released in 2019, having J.J. Abrams once again in the director’s chair.

Thelma (2017)

Directed by Joachim Trier
Country: Norway

The first minutes of “Thelma”, Joachim Trier’s first experience on psychological horror-thriller, is enchanting and baffling. Walking on a frozen lake, Trond (Henrik Rafaelsen) and his 8-year-old daughter Thelma (Grethe Eltervag) contemplate the fish swimming underneath the thick layer of ice. They're crossing the snowy woods that surround their small town located on the west coast of Norway to hunt. A young deer stops, staring in front of them. While Thelma gets petrified, Trond points his rifle at the animal and prepares to shoot. However, and to our surprise, the gun changes direction, aiming at Thelma for brief moments. Standing about seven feet away from him, the kid doesn’t realize that her life is hanging by a thread. This is an enticing premise of a film whose veiled prescription takes a ponderous and valid effect.

The story moves onward, and we are taken to the cosmopolitan scenario of Oslo, where the beautiful yet reserved Thelma (Eili Harboe), now a freshman in college, struggles to adapt to a big city and new people. Nevertheless, she shows clear signs of wanting to live an independent life. Sometimes, when not picking up the phone, she gets her overly controlling parents worried. It’s clear that she maintains a close relationship with her father, but he can make her truly uncomfortable with his to-the-point remarks. Her wheelchair-bound mother, Unni (Ellen Dorrit Petersen), despite observant, remains silent most of the time. One can tell there’s pain here, but the mystery stubbornly persists.

The secrets, having had tragic repercussions in the past and within the family, only begin to surface when Thelma, who grew up immersed in a rigid Christian doctrine, is tormented by guilt as she experiences what people at her age are exposed to, namely, alcohol, drugs, and sexual desire. On this latter aspect, she gets particularly overwhelmed when in the face of an irrepressible lesbian attraction for Anja (Kaya Wilkins), the extrovert college mate who was sitting next to her in the library when she had the first of a series of weird seizures.
 
These completely strange occurrences along with abominable dreams, occasional panic attacks, and an unrestrained spiral of emotional vulnerability lead Thelma to the fantastic yet intimidating discovery that she possesses a freaking strange power that can be used over people with possibly alarming outcomes.
As the sexual repression stings deeper, the main character acknowledges she is special, and yet the film loses a bit of direction after a couple of flashbacks have clarified what she’s really capable of.
 
“Thelma” is loaded with invention but stands below the high standards the director set with top-notch dramas such as “Oslo, August 31” and “Reprise”. If the film is technically unblemished, it’s no less true that it feels a bit strained, story-wise. Notwithstanding, and for his own sake, the talented filmmaker eschewed any type of melodramatic flourishes and was wise enough to intensify those suspended, dreamlike, and highly atmospheric segments where the senses become affected by the use of substances and the sexual pleasures are set loose. There’s a scene of a party that is absolutely enthralling, and the scintillating Elie Harboe, delivering a standout performance, gives you another good reason to see this movie.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
Country: USA

Do you like being psychologically disturbed and at the same time poked by wry humor while you're watching a movie? Do you feel compelled to explore dark paths and search for logic connections when you have no idea where an odd story is going to take you? If you answered affirmatively to these questions, I urge you to watch “The Killing of a Sacred Deer”, the latest ingenious and tragic brain-teaser from Greek helmer Yorgos Lanthimos, author of “Dogtooth”, “Alps”, and “The Lobster”.

Laden with a painfully perverse eeriness and strategic circumspection, this unearthly tale, co-written by Lanthimos and his creative right-hand partner Efthymis Filippou, was inspired by Euripides’ ancient play Iphigenia at Aulis.

Acting convincingly, Collin Farrell and Nicole Kidman pair up once again after having collaborated recently in Sofia Coppola’s “The Beguiled”. He is Stephen Murphy, a successful cardiac surgeon who conquered a drinking problem in a recent past. She is Anna, his wife, and a dedicated mother of two, Kim (Raffey Cassidy) and Bob (Sunny Suljic), 14 and 12, respectively. The couple is solidly married for sixteen years, living in a beautiful house that accommodates their quirky, libido-sparkling sexual games - “general anesthetic?”, she asks. Their concerns, sometimes turned into slight disagreements, are mostly related to giving a proper education to their children and assign them common household chores to reinforce their responsibility.

The family's serenity is shattered when Stephen invites an atypical teenage friend, Martin (Barry Keoghan), to dinner and meet his family. The kid, acting in a very considerate way, makes a good impression, especially on Kim, with whom he develops an instinctive chemistry. The unlikely relationship between Stephen and Martin is not immediately clarified and we only learn that the boy’s father died three years before during a delicate heart operation conducted by Stephen. Since that dinner, Martin has become pushier in an obsessive way, popping up everywhere without notice and making Stephen uncomfortable with his presence. The most awkward moment occurs when the doctor meets his friend's brazen mother (Alicia Silverstone), after accepting a scheming invitation to dinner at his place as a form of retribution. 

Despite injurious, this disagreeable episode had almost no expression to Stephen when compared with the adversity that stemmed from the unexplainable illness of his two children. All of a sudden, they got both legs unaccountably paralyzed. An intransigent impudence grows in the diabolical Martin as he reveals part of his occult plan, casting a four-stage curse upon Stephen’s children as a punishment for the death of his father. The malediction will affect the members of his direct family, who will all perish if he doesn't pick one to be killed at his own hands.

Lanthimos can easily flip between quiet uneasiness and maniacal violence, but he mostly sticks to the former option, giving a cerebral course to the twisted emotions, in the same line of “Dogtooth”, rather than embracing the spirited subversion that outlined “The Lobster”. It’s quite perplexing how this talented filmmaker manages to depict darkness and mischief by embedding so much light in the geometrically composed shots, conveying not fear, but more of a calculated and almost fragile profanity. 

Provocative, transgressive, and predominantly off-the-wall, “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” bites with cinematic decorum and also throbs with an opportune, startling score.

Sweet Virginia (2017)

Directed by Jamie M. Dagg
Country: USA

The Coen-esque “Sweet Virginia”, a small-town neo-noir western crime thriller directed by Jamie M. Dagg (“River”) and written by the brothers Paul and Benjamin China, qualifies to illustrate a clear-cut plot where nothing is given fortuitously or happens out of the blue. Actually, the wackiness of the story is Dagg’s best trump, while his unsophisticated filmmaking style, often relying on moody frames containing sunless settings and deplorable characters, accomplishes its purposes without groundbreaking stunts.

Sam (Jon Bernthal), a natural from Virginia, is a former rodeo champ who owns a small motel located in an underpopulated Alaskan valley. He maintains a secretive relationship with Bernadette (Rosemarie DeWitt), a married woman whose husband is shot dead at point-blank range with two of his longtime friends while having drinks at a local bar. One of them, Mitchell (Jonathan Tucker), was a successful businessman who was actually facing bankruptcy, a fact that not even his attractive wife, Lila McCabe (Imogen Poots), would suspect. Highly dissatisfied with a lousy 3-year marriage, Lila, reveals her co-responsibility in the killings, having hired a psychologically unstable assassin named Elwood (Christopher Abbott) to do the job. This dangerous man, also a Virginian, was supposed to shoot only Mitchell but ended up appeasing his darker instincts by shedding blood in an evil, premeditated way.

An aspect that truly bothered me was the fact that we don’t see a single cop investigating the case. Hence, Elwood, the stranger in town, continues lodged at Sam’s motel as if nothing had happened. Another slightly tortuous episode presented as a futile subplot has to do with a noisy, virulent host of the motel, who brutally confronts a debilitated Sam whenever he attempts to bring him to his senses.

Things get a little bit more neurotic when the penniless Lila, drastic to the core, engenders another filthy plan so that Elwood can receive his job payment.
 
Exploring sicko paths, this shineless indie has its interesting moments. Even when the depiction wasn’t so effective and the narrative scanty in intensity, I felt compelled to follow the story with considerable inquisitiveness while attempting to guess where it would take me. To be honest, I was taken to a primal ground and challenged with raw emotions, interpersonal destructiveness, and a perpetual sense of dark fate.

My particular praises go to the awesome performances by Abbot and Bernthal, as well as for the disturbing music score by the talented Brooke and Will Blair. The brothers' compositional work also includes “Blue Ruin” and “Green Room”, a pair of tenebrous movies directed by Jeremy Saulnier, whose heavy atmosphere is not so distant from the one devised for “Sweet Virginia”.

If you're looking for pitch-dark tales packed with wickedness, cruelty, and crime, this one can make your day.

Spoor (2017)

Directed by Agnieszka Holland
Country: Poland

“Spoor”, the 16th fictional feature by Polish writer/director Agnieszka Holland, slides into swampy ground, never attaining the impressive prowess of works such as “Angry Harvest”, “Europa, Europa”, and “In Darkness”, which elevated the cineaste's reputation, assuring her a place in the international cult film circle.
 
Based on the novel Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, who also helped co-writing the script, the story focuses on Janina Duszejko (Agnieszka Mandat-Grabka), a retired, auto-sufficient, astrology enthusiast, and highly neurotic schoolteacher who is a staunch advocate for animal rights, a problematic task in her remote small town located in Poland, next to the border with the Czech Republic, since the hunting season is seen with tremendous enthusiasm by the majority of the inhabitants. Most of them, backed by scornful police officers, shoot at everything that moves, and that might have been the reason for the vanishing of Dusjejko’s two beloved dogs.

When unexplainable crimes start victimizing the local hunters, the wrathful Ms. Duszejko sees her name on the list of suspects appointed by the police. Would this aging, fragile woman be capable to use force and do justice with her own hands?

The performance by Mandat-Grabka is diligent, and yet she couldn’t save the film from that sort of irritating cathartic neurosis that puts the finger in the wound without devising a proper or satisfying outcome. To tell the truth, Holland showed an embarrassing indecision about which direction to take, toggling between the activist drama, the faltering thriller, and the shabby comedy. She ends up compromising the story with a powerless, almost aleatory mix of the cited options.

Besides the main character, we see a bunch of loners attempting to fill a bit more the unfocused main plot with distracting sub-plots that feel more ludicrous than fulfilling. Even with promising pouches of intrigue and an interesting, atypical character, we don’t get a full delivery of that promise. I’m remembering of Carlos Saura’s “The Hunt”, whose minimal plot and narrative simplicity creates far more tension than “Spoor”, a mere disjointed fiddle-faddle whose real joy comes from the beautiful hazy landscapes and the morbid human decomposition captured by the lens of the skilled cinematographers, Jolanta Dylewska and Rafal Paradowski, along with the dark chamber music composed by Antoni Lazarkiewicz. As for the rest, it doesn’t really live up to its premise.

The Meyerowitz Stories (2017)

Directed by Noah Baumbach
Country: USA

Noah Baumbach is an American writer/director with a knack for witty dramas, usually loaded with amazing characters and a driven emotional content. These are the cases of “The Squid and the Whale”, “Greenberg”, “Frances Ha”, and “Mistress America”, irresistible highlights of an admirable filmography.

His new film, “The Meyerowitz Stories” showcases a brilliant cast with Dustin Hoffman, Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, and Emma Thompson in the main roles and depicts with ups and downs the gathering of an estranged, dysfunctional family that has the elderly patriarch as a model.

Harold Meyerowitz (Hoffman) is a retired art professor and established sculptor whose work is frequently exhibited at MoMA and Whitney Museum. However, like most of the artists, he seems never satisfied with what he achieves and shows signs of pickiness, selfishness, and petulance in several details related to his life, past and present.

Harold lives with his third wife, Maureen (Thompson), a gem of a person but also an incorrigible alcoholic. Suddenly, their house is invaded by the arrival of Harold’s son, Danny (Sandler), an uninspired, jobless loafer who could have been a great pianist and just feels disoriented after separating from his wife. He and his sister, Jean (Elizabeth Marvel), whom nobody pays much attention to, were always the ugly ducklings of the family. All the attention went to their half-brother, Matthew (Stiller), a successful accountant in L.A., who still bears a little grudge against his father due to past issues. Notwithstanding, he’s peremptory when affirming: “I don’t get angry anymore. Now it’s kind of funny to be with him because I have my own business, a wonderful kid, and I live three thousand miles away from him.”

Everyone in the family deals with an unexpected shake-up when Harold has to be transported to the hospital with a chronicle hematoma in his head. This mishap coincides with a group show at the Bard College, where his most famous piece, wryly entitled ‘Matthew’, is one of the attractions. There, his sons take the opportunity to talk publicly, yet, instead of focusing on their father or his work, they open up about themselves and how they feel as his sons, good and bad. While Baumbach devises this scene with a purposely increase of dramatization, the scene that precedes it, a brothers' fight, feels nonsensically overstaged.

The humorous side relies solely on Danny’s daughter, Eliza (Grace Van Patten), an unflinching self-starter and talented videographer whose artistic work exhibits a very naughty sexual content.

Baumbach set the dialogues with interesting lines and the pretentiousness of the artistic milieu is perfectly calibrated. Even without digging too much, it’s easy for us to find humanity and even warm-heartedness among the family members, regardless the emotional instability that follows them like shadows. Although lacking the habitual attractive charm and magic spell that made Baumbach a treasure of the contemporary American cinema, “The Meyerowitz Stories” is perfectly good to watch, demonstrating a genuine keenness to amuse.

Stronger (2017)

Directed by David Gordon Green
Country: USA

Starring an effective Jake Gyllenhaal in the main role, “Stronger” is a taut and heavily dramatic biographical account about the misfortune that hit Jeff Bauman, a Costco employee, who lost both legs during the 2013 terrorist bombing attack perpetrated during the crowded Boston marathon.

Jeff inspired many people with his towering courage and might have become a symbol of the Boston Strong movement, but his adaptation to his new reality was anything but smooth.

After making up with Erin (Tatiana Maslany) for the third time in their on-and-off relationship, Jeff seemed to regain some independence despite sporadic post-traumatic stress disorder manifestations he is forced to control on his own. He set about post-surgery rehabilitation and finds strength in the total availability of Erin, who abandoned her job and agreed to move in with him and his mom. However, Jeff’s alcoholic mother, Patty (Miranda Richardson), can be a nuisance sometimes and her recalcitrant personality often clashes with the benevolent Erin.

Slowly yet unmistakably, Jeff slides into a depressive, self-destructive state where he simply gives up his recovery to fall into the dangerous abyss of alcohol and despair. Fortunately, the encounter with the good man who saved him, Carlos (Carlos Sanz), will bring him back not only the hope he needs but also the self-respect and responsibility that enable an appropriate life, both lived as an individual and family member.
   
The resourceful cast does a pretty decent job under the direction of the once-promising director David Gordon Green (“George Washington”, “Prince Avalanche”, “Joe”), who discontinued the attractive indie style that had marked the beginning of his filmmaking career to embrace supplementary standardized forms and structures. Naturally, it was Bauman’s memoir that served as the inspiration for the first-time playwright John Pollono, who passed the difficult test of assembling a capable storytelling.

This re-creation of the events weighs with emotion and humanity, but there’s no stroke of genius here. Even with a fluctuating approach that sometimes tends to rudimentary, Green sustains sufficient levels of honesty throughout to make us follow our hero with interest until the final credits start to roll. Indeed, he was particularly successful in the way he conjured the finale and staged the family dynamics with an aching authenticity.

The Other Side of Hope (2017)

Directed by Aki Kaurismaki
Country: Finland

Using his extraordinary filmmaking artistry, Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki, who won his first Silver Berlin Bear this year, aims once more at the immigration hardships in his new comedy-drama “The Other Side of Hope”. Following the same steps given in his previous feature, “Le Havre”, which addressed the same topic but having the French harbor as the backdrop, the director relies on an overwhelming sense of absurdity, graceful wit, and sharp socio-political observations to tell a story packed with flourishing humanity and personal triumphs, but also touched by condemnable malice.

Involved in an absorbing quietude, the story brings two contrasting yet interesting characters to the forefront. If Waldemar Wikstrom (Sakari Kuosmanen) is a bored Finnish citizen who resolutely abandons his unresponsive, alcoholic wife and decides to rebuild his professional life from scratch, Khaled Ali (Sherwan Haji) is a Syrian refugee who had to flee from his hometown in the outskirts of Aleppo when his house was bombarded with most of his relatives inside.

Hence, both are trying to bring something new into their disintegrated lives and that goal seems to be simplified after their paths cross. Even not meeting in the nicest circumstances, their relationship grows synergistic when Khaled is illegally hired to work in Waldemar’s restaurant, his newly chosen field of business. The small local restaurant already has an established clientele but keeps vacillating with a poor menu and dissatisfied employees. However, Khaled gives wings to his creativity, turning the place into a Japanese bistro that irremediably serves up sushi plates with salted herring instead of the usual tuna. The latter benefits with the fake ID peremptorily proposed and approved by the boss, who also uses his connections to bring Khaled’s sister, Miriam (Niroz Haji), to Finland.

Knowing the work of Kaurismaki, I wouldn’t expect him to shape these characters superficially. Indeed, he gives them further dimension with fascinating additional details. Waldemar, for instance, reveals to be a fearless poker gambler whose luck is unbeatable. Although a generous human being, he’s definitely not a perfect one. This is patented on several occasions: when mentioning tax evasion at the moment he buys the restaurant, or when hiding serious nonconformities when the place is subjected to a strict quality inspection.

In turn, the refugee fights a different battle, being frequently harassed and threatened with death by a trio of extremists from the Liberation Army of Finland.
The peak of the absurdity arrives when the minister of Finland deliberates that Aleppo is a safe place to live, emitting a remorseless repatriation order for Khaled.

Embracing a glowing formalism in terms of camerawork, “The Other Side of Hope” is a dead-on satire enhanced with eccentric musical interludes, a staple in the director’s artistic vein, which range from alternative folk-rock to rockabilly country to retro Finish pop acts. The glam visuals captured by the director of photography Timo Salminen, a regular collaborator of the director since the beginning of his career, are also very characteristic, including semi-naked indoor Scandinavian settings, old stylish cars, clouds of cigarette smoke, and idiosyncratic personas in conventional outfits.

Viewers may expect slow and steady developments but the waiting compensates by way of deadpan humoresque tactics, self-assured performances, indispensable messages of unity and understanding, and a copious affluence of human warmth.
The film was dedicated to the late Finnish film historian and director Peter Von Bagh.

Bad Genius (2017)

Directed by Nattawut Poonpiriya
Country: Thailand

Who would have thought that common school exams could motivate so stressful situations? Thai director Nattawut Poonpiriya manages to create exactly that in “Bad Genius”, a scholastic, teen-centered heist drama with favorable doses of originality and intense pace.

The story, co-written by Poonpiriya, Tanida Hantaweewatana, and Vasudhorn Piyaromna, was based on real-life occurrences involving cheating students on SAT, the American standardized test widely used for college admissions.

The star of the film, Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying, is a young fashion model turned into a promising debutant actor. She flawlessly impersonates Lynn, a top-notch student and gold medal in math, who engenders a scheme to help her colleagues passing the tests in exchange for significant sums of money.

It all starts when Lynn is transferred to a new school, one that will give her ampler possibilities of a bright future. This is the wish of her supportive father (Thaneth Warakuklnukroh), a teacher himself, who makes huge financial efforts to have his only daughter studying in such a prestigious school. Yet, Lynn doesn't feel intimidated when explaining to the school’s principal how this change will bring extra expenses to her struggling divorced father. Her fierce determination, clarity of speech, and mental agility will immediately provide her with an unplanned scholarship and free meals.

At school, Lynn befriends Grace (Eisaya Hosuwan), a sympathetic artist-wannabe who does much better at the extracurricular activities but is not so expeditious in dealing with the school subjects. Lynn agrees to help her cheating in the exams, but soon, the task extends to Grace’s wealthy boyfriend, Pat (Teeradon Supapunpinyo), who pays her good money for the right answers. Soon, nearly all the other students are attempting to hire her in order to progress in their studies.

That’s when Lynn has the brilliant idea to start out an exam-cheating business that is directly related to piano chord fingering. Four harmonic patterns establish a direct correspondence with each letter of the multiple choices of an exam, a hassle-free stratagem to get everybody excellent grades. However, things can get very complicated whenever there are two different versions of a test. Besides, Bank (Chanon Santinatornkul), an honest, hard-working scholar and direct competitor, finds out the conspiracy and snitched on his classmates.

Later on, Bank, who also struggles financially, also agrees to become part of the team in a wider cheating machination that will bring him some advantages but also inconveniences. Things start to change when, after a venturesome trip to Sydney to take the STIC test, Lynn urges herself to reflect on her conduct.

Remarkably edited by Chonlasit Upanigkit, “Bad Genius” presents a few quibbles that are easily dissolved by the emotional side of the story. One cannot deny the slickness and freshness of its self-confident moves. The tension is unstoppable and the film has no dead moments or delays in its well-planned course of events. Throughout the two-hour odyssey, I kept my fingers crossed for the cheaters, regardless their misconduct and dishonest business.

With social inequalities at the center of this examination, Poonpiriya vouches for a solid entertainment, deftly portraying astute teens whose intelligence combines with a tenacious firmness of purpose and strong personality.

Good Time (2017)

Directed by Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie
Country: USA

The filmmaking artistry of the brothers, Benny and Josh Safdie, belong to that independent, neo-realistic wave that is definitely worth checking out. Poignant dramas such as “Daddy Longlegs” and “Heaven Knows What”, definitely career peaks, are treasures very unlikely to be forgotten for those who had the chance to dig them up.

Their latest work, a noir crime-drama film sarcastically entitled “Good Time”, feels more like a downbeat misadventure covered with an intense dramatic wallop. The film, satisfactory as a whole, captures our attention for the most of its duration, however, the directors couldn’t eschew a few uneven, maybe even rudimentary sequences whose intermittence in terms of thrills, together with the persistent sensation of déjàvu that surrounds us, could have compromised the outcome. Still, the Safdies managed to tie everything together, minimizing the damages with the rawness of the scenes and the effectiveness of the performances.

The script, emphasizing the tremendous influence one person can have on another, especially if related, focuses on two brothers who, although very distinct in nature, are connected by an unstable, traumatic past that makes them misfits with a frequent unlawful conduct. Emotionally torn apart and often confused in the mind, Nick (Benny Safdie) shows to be a good-natured young man desperately in need of psychological help. That essential support was being given to him by Dr. Peter (Peter Verby), who reveals a dedicated interest in his case, but the work is interrupted without warning when Nick’s older brother, Connie (Robert Pattinson), an erratic criminal whose conscienceless is barbarous, walks in without permission and drags his brother out of the room. Don’t think he did that because he was worried about him, or because he didn't understand the treatment his brother was being subjected to. The viewer instantly acknowledges that his intentions have an egotistic purpose, a fact corroborated when the following sequence of images shows them robbing a bank, silently and discreetly, wearing rubber masks to hide their faces.

The heist is successful; yet, an unexpected incident impels the police to go after them. Connie just wants to save his ass, leaving behind a disoriented Nick, who ends up in the hole.
 
In a desperate attempt to gather the large sum of money required to bail Nick out of the jail, Connie contacts his precarious girlfriend Corey (great appearance by Jennifer Jason Leigh), whose elderly mother is wealthy but not so fool to give her credit cards. The plan falls flat, but Connie engenders another scheme when informed that his brother was transferred to the hospital after a fight with other inmates.

Ironically, from this point on, the pace wobbles considerably, regardless the introduction of new characters and the creation of situations full of potential that should have given the film a more stimulating perspective. Playing with luck, Connie sneaks into the hospital but picks up the wrong person, a guy named Ray (Buddy Duress), another crooked loser like him who had been released from prison on parole one day before.

After securing the precious cooperation of Crystal (Taliah Webster), a 16-year-old girl whom he totally discards after getting what he wants, Connie and his new partner, fall into a spiral of criminal actions that will complicate their miserable lives even more.

This wild ride, part social commentary, part character study, is not a pleasurable watch, holding a tighter grip in its first half, but failing to surprise in the debilitating second.

The Son of Joseph (2017)

Directed by Eugène Green
Country: France

“The Son of Joseph”, the newest drama from American-born French-based helmer/writer Eugène Green, was magnificently written, but felt a bit clumsy in its rendering.

Divided into five chapters, the film centers on Vincent (Victor Ezenfis), a frustrated teenager who keeps asking his lenient nurse mother, Marie (Natacha Régnier), about the father he has never seen. The answer is always the same: “you have no father”. Needless to say that, finding this secret unacceptable, he resolves to act on his own to finally reach the one who never showed any interest in him.
 
He finds out that Oscar Pormenor (Mathieu Amalric), a vain, self-centered publisher, is the man he desperately searched for his whole life. What he wouldn’t imagine is that Oscar is a satan’s servant, a despicable, greedy bastard who is unfaithful to his wife and doesn’t even know how many legitimate children he brought into this world.

Pretending to be a writer, Vincent infiltrates himself in his father’s arty circles and gets to know Violette Tréfouille (Maria de Medeiros), a disoriented literary critic, who, even appearing in only a couple of circumstances, becomes the funniest and more satisfying character of the film.

Vincent quickly realizes that his biological father is a lost battle, but unexpectedly stumbles upon the latter’s brother, Joseph (Fabrizio Rongione), a natural father figure with a kind temperament, a God believer and a farmer wanna-be, who immediately assumes the paternal role with joy and passion, bolstering it by dating with Vincent’s mother.

Green continues to adopt the same direct filmmaking style observed in his previous dramas, “La Sapienza” and “The Portuguese Nun”.  Yet, here, despite some affinity with the cinema of Alain Resnais, he didn't get away from excessively mechanic dialogues and tacky postures that often catapult the theatrical modes of expression to a greater extent. Moreover, the visual aesthetics weren’t brilliant and we’re only left with the interesting biblical connotations of a tale that could have been more attractive if the tension hadn’t been injected so forcefully. By doing so, it just increased the contrivance of the scenes.

The absence of score is compensated with an extended live music act, performed with lute and voice, when son and ‘adoptive’ father were immersed in the Louvre's culture. 

“The Son of Joseph” encompasses the following aspects: the artistic, the philosophical, the religious, the parenthood, the drama, the romance, and the satire. Question: was this enough for us to remember it in the future? Answer: No.

Mudbound (2017)

Directed by Dee Rees
Country: USA

American filmmaker Dee Rees has all the reasons to be proud of herself and her career. The outstanding drama, “Mudbound”, arrives in good time since racial discrimination and prejudice is a hot topic, which deserves immediate attention due to the recent escalate of tension. Ms. Rees was able to closely obtain the recognition of both cinephiles and critics with an incredible semi-autobiographical debut, “Pariah”, and since then, has been dedicated to several TV series as well as the Emmy award-winning biopic, “Bessie”, focused on the American blues singer Bessie Smith.

Based on Hillary Jordan’s debut novel of the same name, “Mudbound” was co-penned by Rees and Virgil Williams, starring Garrett Hedlund, Carey Mulligan, Jason Mitchell, Mary J.Blige, Jason Clarke, and Jonathan Banks, who played their respective roles with as much forceful conviction as impassioned soul.

The first scene of the film bestows a lugubrious atmosphere when two brothers, Henry (Clarke) and Jamie McAllan (Hedlund), digging a big hole in the ground to bury Pappy McAllen (Banks), their widowed father, realize that the spot was a former slave’s grave. On the next day, in the company of Henry’s wife, Laura (Mulligan), they ask Hap Jackson (Rob Morgan) for help as he was passing by with his family. Hap is a black tenant farmer who worked all his life in the same neighboring piece of land, just like their ancestors had done in the past.

The story, set in a highly segregated rural Mississippi and spanning from pre-WWII to the subsequent post-war years, winds back to involve us in the hapless life of these characters. All of them have a different yet equally massive emotional weight to carry on their shoulders.

Jamie, the younger of the brothers, departs to war, as well as Ronsel (Mitchell), Hap’s son. When they return, the handsome Jamie, who served as a pilot, is heavily immersed in alcohol, drinking every day to forget the traumas of war. He and his sister-in-law have an ardent chemistry that is difficult not to notice. In turn, Ronsel, wasn’t caught by post-traumatic disorder but arrives with another type of problem in hands. He had a relationship with a British girl in Germany and she just gave birth to his baby. His mind can’t go anyplace else. Moreover, the Mississipi's intolerance toward his ethnic group was the first thing he felt when stepped on that soil again. He couldn't be more articulate in his words: “I kind of miss the wartime. I was proud to serve my country and was seen as a liberator. Here, I’m just another nigger pushing the plow”.

Struggling to readapt to the civilian life, the two veterans understand each other, becoming genuine friends. They open up about their problems and enjoy the good-time moments spent together. However, the situation is seen as outrageous by the town’s fundamentalists, especially Pappy, a snooty, petulant, and spiteful racist who happens to be the local leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
 
Additionally, another type of understanding is shared by Laura and Hap’s wife, Florence (Blige). Both know the difficulties of being a mother and a wife, and a quiet, tonic bond is formed through beautiful gestures from both sides.

The pacific days are gone, when Pappy discovers Ronsel’s secret and forces his own son to choose the punishment for his best friend.

Conjuring up a good slice of American history, “Mudbound” is an effective blend of emotional depth and rigorous craft. Never sloppy, the engrossing drama comes packed with strongly built characters whose natures make us care or despise them, with no space for middle ground. 

This is another triumph by Dee Rees, an important, intelligent voice in the contemporary cinema, who knows exactly which message she wants to convey and what she needs from her cast and crew to make a film look and feel authentic.

Wind River (2017)

Directed by Taylor Sheridan
Country: USA

American actor-turned-director, Taylor Sheridan, gives good indications of his filmmaking qualifications in his sophomore feature, “Wind River”. He’s also a competent screenwriter, author of above-the-average crime thrillers such as “Sicario” and “Hell or High Water”.

His new film, a gorgeously photographed neo-western revenge thriller set in the glacial Wind River Indian Reservation, Wyoming, stars Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen as Cory Lambert, a federal wildlife officer, and Jane Banner, an extraneous FBI agent in town, respectively. The two meet in the sequence of the intriguing death of an 18-year-old Native American woman, found completely frozen in the snow, barefoot, and with the mouth covered in blood.

Without hesitation, Cory, who found the body, undertakes the mission of helping Jane deciphering the mystery. Besides knowing the victim’s father well, to whom he promised justice, he also had lost his own daughter three years before because of the bitter cold. The incident turned his life upside down and the unbearable pain caused him and his wife to split up.

The autopsy reveals that the young woman was raped multiple times while the blood in her mouth was caused by inhalation of the sub-zero air, which means she was desperately running from someone or something when the temperature was around -20ºF.

Her missing new boyfriend, Matt (Jon Bernthal), was immediately appointed as the prime suspect, but his dead body was also found in the snow a few days later.
Jane, struggling to understand the dynamics of the locals, as well as their behaviors, decides to gather her team and head toward the oil drilling camp where Matt was working, in an attempt to find something in his trailer and obtain more information from his co-workers.
While the painful truth is revealed to us through flashbacks, a wild shooting puts Jane in danger.

After the culprit has been identified, Cory will chase him mercilessly as he always does when a wild predator is in the vicinity. He knows he has two options to deal with the case: to follow legal procedures and hand him over to the authorities, or opt for a totally different type of law, commonly known as ‘an eye for an eye’.
 
Sheridan’s ambition is perhaps a bit too uphill, yet, even if you won’t have your jaw dropping with the revelations, the storytelling delivers more positive than negative aspects. Unlike “Hell or High Water”, this is not a masterpiece but rather a solid, well-mounted film supported by a plausible story that raises moral questions.

On the technical side, I could only discern benefits when one looks at the impressive efforts developed by editor Gary Roach (“Gran Torino”; “Prisoners”), cinematographer Ben Richardson (“Beasts of the Southern Wild”), and the outstanding team of composers and longtime collaborators, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, who effectively designed eerie drones and vibes to work in consonance with chants and whispered words.

At the end, we have an eye-opening statement on the screen saying that only Native American women are not included in the missing persons statistics. The number of cases related to this ethnic group remains unknown.