Enola Holmes (2020) - capsule review

Direction: Harry Bradbeer
Country: UK

A quite charming detective adventure, Enola Holmes is also extremely entertaining, regardless the messy way it was assembled.

The plot, adapted from Nancy Springer’s writings, follows Sherlock Holmes’ sister, Enola (a launching pad for Millie Bobby Brown’s career), in a double mission. While she tries to solve the mysterious, if deliberate, disappearance of her liberal mother (Helena Bonham Carter), she also helps a young Lord (Louis Partridge) to escape his controlling family and a relentless killer sent his way.

An expedite pace, strong production values, easy humor, candid romance, and a pertinent subtopic involving women’s rights are all motives to see Harry Bradbeer’s first non-TV movie.



Tigertail (2020) - capsule review

Direction: Alan Yang
Country: USA

Tigertail, the quiet debut feature of American writer/director/producer Alan Yang, is rudimentary but honest. It’s a bitter immigrant song immersed in simplicity and sacrifice, whose interest decreases with the time. Patiently structured with numerous flashbacks and temporal leaps, the narrative never succumbs to the melodrama artifice, providing the right tonal balance to favor connectedness with the viewer. It might be forgettable and meager, but the truth is that Yang never loses contact with his characters and their emotional states. 

My Happy Family (2017) - capsule review

Direction: Nana Ekvtimishvili, Simon Groß
Country: Georgia

Hailing from Georgia, this powerful drama film denotes wonderful acting and a compelling direction from Nana Ekvtimishvili, who wrote it, and Simon Groß. Thoroughly engaging from start to finish, this is a fluid and confident effort centered on family and intricate relationships. It surpasses in a large scale the pair’s debut feature, In Bloom (2013). It tugs the heartstrings as the realistic life crisis unfolds.

A Taxi Driver (2017) - capsule review

Direction: Hun Jang
Country: South Korea

A Taxi Driver depicts a black page in South Korean’s history, being often melodramatic to become entirely satisfying. The historical facts are lightened up by a charismatic central character enjoyably played by Song Kang-ho (Parasite; Snowpiercer). Despite overlong and emotionally elaborate, Hun Jang’s drama film has its moments and ensures amusement.



The Assistant (2020) - capsule review

Direction: Kitty Green
Country: USA

Kitty Green’s rigorously observant The Assistant depicts a long, exhausting work day in the life of Jane (Julia Garner), a fresh college graduate and producer-wannabe working as a junior assistant for a wealthy film production company in New York.

Perspicacious, she soon figures out the sordid schemes that occur in a male-dominated office; she identifies the predators and the preys, the indifferent and the ambitious, as well as the frequent sarcasm and passivity in the face of the abusive behavior of a leader, whose face we never see. We have the sense that he hides in the shadows, yet still spreading gloominess around.

Despite strong and able, Julia is about to break down with embarrassment and disappointment, and the taciturn drama poignantly expresses the miserable work environment that many people experience but haven’t the courage to denounce.

Wasp Network (2019) - capsule review

Directed by: Olivier Assayas
Country: France, other

A misstep from acclaimed French director Olivier Assayas (Personal Shopper; Clouds of Sils Maria), Wasp Network tangles itself in a plot transferred to the screen with the shopworn conventions associated with the American cinema. The espionage tale, toggling between Cuba and the US, is based on a true story, but the capable cast led by Penelope Cruz and Edgar Ramirez was powerless to make it shine.

Sunday's Illness (2018) - capsule review

Direction: Ramón Salazar
Country: Spain

Exhibiting a severe, intriguing mood, this film could have been much more effective if the director, Ramón Salazar, didn’t have stretched a few scenes into the limit while packing them with a lugubrious gloominess. Somewhat painful to watch in all its human suffering and ultimately redemption.

The Social Dilemma (2020) - capsule review

Director: Jeff Orlowski
Country: USA

A comprehensive and eye-opening documentary by Jeff Orlowski about the dependency, isolation and other serious problems caused by social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram to their users. What has started with good intentions ended up in greediness, personal data manipulation, adverse political influence, and negligence. The ones who warn us are true connoisseurs of the business, people who have worked in these companies but became conscience-stricken with the direction things went. Watch the film to be both elucidated and petrified about the controversies surrounding the topic.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020) - capsule review

Director: Charlie Kaufman
Country: USA

With this new film, Charlie Kaufman (Synechdoche, New York; Anomalisa) confirms his tendency for knotty, moody, suspenseful writing/storytelling crammed with references to past lives, time discontinuities, memory tricks and baffling developments. I found some scenes utterly repetitive and ultimately inconsequent. The final segment of the film touches the ridiculous and, at times, it’s inevitable not to think: ‘I’m thinking of terminating this movie session’. But I give you one good reason to watch it: David Thewlis.

RBG (2018) - capsule review

Director: Julie Cohen, Betsy West
Country: USA

A so-so documentary about a key figure in the fight for gender equality and women’s right. It’s sort of bland the way co-directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West conduct this presentation, but if you want to know a bit more about Justice Ruth Baden Ginsbourg, maybe this is a good place to start.



Cuties (2020) - capsule review

Director: Maimouna Doucouré
Country: France

Most of the polemic involving Cuties, the debut feature of Maimouna Doucouré, is unjustified. It’s just painful to watch. I don’t see a bad intention from the writer/director here, rather seeing the story as an eye-opener for the perils to which susceptible youth is exposed through social media. The pursuit of fame at all cost, cultural differences, estrangement, and insertion in a new community are addressed. Yet, the film gradually loses strength and focus as it moves forward.