Let Them All Talk (2021)

Direction: Steven Soderbergh
Country: USA

Directed by Steven Soderbergh and boosted by the performances of a creditable trio of screen divas - Meryl Streep, Diane Wiest and Candice Bergen - Let Them All Talk is an innocuous Woody Allen-esque dramedy that seems more interested in conversational gambits than really creating any sort of tension or conflict.

Streep commands the screen as Alice Hughes, a celebrated author who tries to reconnect with two old university friends - Roberta (Bergen) and Susan (Wiest) - by inviting them to a cruise trip to the United Kingdom, where she will receive the coveted Pulitzer Prize. The occasion was arranged by her literary agent, Karen (Gemma Chan), who secretly infiltrates aboard the Queen Mary 2 as she tries to figure out what Alice’s new book is about. In order to do that, she persuades the writer’s young nephew, Tyler (Lucas Hedges), to provide her with all the information she keeps in secrecy.

Without feeling necessarily staged, the film is always talky, occasionally engaging and often manipulative. The unexpected finale elevates the material a tiny bit, but the road that leads there remains conventionally undeviating. The problem with this film is that some scenes really work, but some others don’t. 

The slowly emerging details about the characters and their relationships keep us going, but both Soderbergh, who competently handles the photography with natural light, and the screenwriter Deborah Eisenberg could have used more mordant tones and humor to pepper it. It’s a pragmatic yet rippling navigational episode rescued by the performances.

Undine (2021)

Direction: Christian Petzold
Country: Germany / France

Shaped with the unique perspective and filmmaking charms of German helmer Christian Petzold (Yella, 2007; Barbara, 2012; Phoenix, 2014), Undine is a hypnotic love story anchored in the mythology and in the contemporary. This fascinating reality-fantasy hybrid centers on a passionate, if tragic, romance lived in today’s Berlin between an historian woman and water nymph, Undine (Paula Beer), and an industrial diver, Christoph (Franz Rogowski). The 16th-century myth says that the mythological water creatures known as undines must kill the men who betray them before returning to the water.

Shot with absolute assurance and tinged with the glowing photography of Petzold’s regular associate Hans Fromm, the film is painted with an intriguing surrealism that counterbalances the quotidian details. It plays like an intimate, well-composed poem whose stanzas are crafted with demonstrative expressions and real intensity.

The waltzing adagio movement of J.S. Bach’s Concerto in D Minor reinforces both the oneiric and the emotional force of the scenes. However, in a stroke of genius, Petzold infuses some irresistible humor when least expected - you have here an opportunity to see a CPR being performed at the rhythm of Bee Gee’s Stayin’ Alive.

Ms. Beer, who is absolutely marvelous here, teams up again with Rogowski for a Petzold film - the first time happened in Transit, three years ago, with equally good results.
Undine is not just an imaginative fairy tale; it’s also a love letter to Berlin and its urban development. Highly recommended.

Test Pattern (2021)

Direction: Shatara Michelle Ford
Country: USA

A searing debut for Shatara Michelle Ford, Test Pattern uses the power of independent cinema to alert for predators of the night and the pestilence of racial discrimination in America.

Her story centers on a Texan interracial couple, Renesha (Brittany S. Hall) and Evan (Will Brill), whose blissful relationship is flustered when the former, a Black woman from Dallas, is drugged and raped by a white man she met at a bar. If the intermittent flashbacks of non-consensual sex are infuriating, then the way she’s treated afterwards by a negligent, racist health care system becomes nearly unbearable to see. 

The film, adopting a casual look and tone for most of its parts, enables the narrative simplicity to work as its secret weapon, depicting every moment with honesty and intention. In a crucially distressing moment of the story, I was surprised by the waltzing classical music gently playing in the background. A clear attempt to attenuate the massive amounts of tension and emotional pain this woman was being subjected to.

Ford gives us a sincere, balanced account of a devastating situation, in a heart-rending drama whose conclusion leaves a terrible taste in the mouth. Complementing her focused camera work, the performances of the two leads proved to be determinant, and the film sticks with you after the credits roll.

The Mauritanian (2021)

Direction: Kevin Macdonald
Country: USA

The Scottish director Kevin Macdonald has a knack for music documentaries (Marley, 2012; Whitney, 2018) and political thrillers (State of Play, 2009; The Last King of Scotland, 2006). Falling into the latter category, The Mauritanian tells the true story of Mohamedou Ould Salahi, an electrical engineer who was locked up for 14 years - from 2002 to 2016 - in the American military prison of Guantanamo without a single charge against him. He became a main suspect on the 9/11 attacks after receiving a call from his cousin and Bin Laden’s spiritual adviser, Mahfouz Ould al-Walid. For the American government, this call, allegedly made from Bin Laden’s own phone, automatically established him as a member of the terrorist group Al Qaeda . 

Subjected to multiple interrogations and all kinds of torture - from sleep deprivation to temperature extremes to beatings and humiliation - Salahi (Tahar Rahim) finds glimmers of hope for his case in the serious defense attorney Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster), who gradually sees her client as a witness rather than a suspect.

The plot was based on Salahi’s 2015 memoir, but the screenwriters - Michael Bronner, Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani - gave it a choppy articulation and tedious developments. The tension doesn't fade in this film, simply because it was never there, and that inability to create suspense is what plagued the film all along. By filling the central roles with Foster and Rahim, Macdonald could have used a much bigger bite if the script wasn’t so stiff and smug. 

The Mauritanian is a disarticulate, time-consuming, and nearly anesthetized drama thriller that’s not worth investing time in. Read the book instead.

Coming 2 America (2021)

Direction: Craig Brewer
Country: USA

After the successful collaboration in Dolemite is My Name (2019), director Craig Brewer and actor Eddie Murphy blur the picture with a more-miss-than-hit second installment of Prince Akeem’s adventures in America. This time, the African character not only becomes the sovereign king of Zamunda but also travels to Queens, New York, in search for an illegitimate son left behind without his knowledge. To aggravate the family imbroglio, his son, Lavelle Junson (Jermaine Fowler), demands that his tacky mother, Mary (Leslie Jones), move with him to Africa.

The visuals, mounted with great panache, are powerless to compensate the lack of creative inspiration throughout. Neither as titillating nor as funny, the circus is drenched with outdated jokes and predictable situations, and only the music scenes - featuring the female hip-hop duo Salt-N-Pepa, the soul diva Gladys Knight, and a choreographed dance act at the sound of Prince’s “Gett Off” - could stir some enthusiasm. 

The finale’s grand party reunites Akeem’s friends from Queens, with Murphy resurrecting the soul man Randy Watson and his Sexual Chocolate band with that retro glow that, working fine in the 1980’s, doesn’t impress anymore. 

No one should expect something clever from a sloppy round trip from Zamunda to America that comes relentlessly burdened with clichés of all stripes.

Wolfwalkers (2021)

Direction: Tomm Moore / Ross Stewart
Country: Ireland / UK / other

Wolfwalkers, the third installment of Tomm Moore’s animated Irish Folk Trilogy, provides an enriching experience with a 17th-century tale that involves wolves, humans and magic (wolfwalkers are humans that turn into wolves in their sleep). Following The Secret of Kells (2009) and Song of the Sea (2014), this gorgeous animation written by Will Collins from a story by Moore and co-director Ross Stewart, shows a deep criticism of religious fanaticism and an admirable respect for the Earth’s living creatures put in danger by ignorant men.

The young apprentice hunter Robyn (voice of Honor Kneafsey) is too lively and curious to be confined at home as her father (Sean Bean), an experienced English hunter tasked to kill all the wolves in the Irish town of Kilkenny, instructed her. Instead, she befriends Mebh (Eva Whittaker), a junior wolfwalker in search of her long-gone mother.  After being bitten by the latter, Robyn becomes a wolfwalker herself, which raises an obvious question: how can her father exterminate the wolves when his daughter became one of them? 

Without being flashy, the animation is workmanlike at best, and the fantastic story has a lot to like. Just sit back and enjoy, because this is not just a delightful film but an important one.

The Little Things (2021)

Direction: John Lee Hancock
Country: USA

The director of Saving Mr. Banks (2013), John Lee Hancock, imagines a neo-noir police thriller that teams up Denzel Washington as an experienced, obsessive deputy sheriff from Kern County and Rami Malek as a serious young Sergeant from the L.A. Police Department. Both are fixated on catching an insidious serial killer who mutilates young women for sexual pleasure without raping them. The investigations lead to a solitary local suspect, a crime-buff (Jared Leto) called Albert Sparma who adopts a confrontational behavior whenever challenged.

The film lingers on a great deal of hanging between the cops, dragging the story for too long. All the same, when the final comes, it just certifies a watered-down marriage between duty and personal conflict, in a film that fails to live up to its shadowy premise. Never transcending, The Little Things pretends to be more than it is, and that pretense comes aggravated by the fact that its conclusion is stale and the process that leads to it remains hardly entertaining.

Rather than conventionalizing procedures, Hancock should look for his filmmaking identity in the first place.

While at War (2020)

Direction: Alejandro Amenábar
Country: Spain / Argentina

Acclaimed Chilean-Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar makes a u-turn in his thriller-oriented filmography (Thesis, 1996; The Others, 2001; Open Your Eyes, 1997) with While at War, a historical biographical drama centered on the renowned writer/philosopher/rector Miguel de Unamuno during the 1936 Spanish coup.

Teaming up with Alejandro Hernandez (Cannibal, 2013; The Motive, 2017) in the script, Amenábar, who also produced and scored the music, creates an honest yet extremely formal portrait of the character (effectively impersonated by Karra Elejalde), a noble thinker who is caught between the rise of the fascist right wing and the fall of the 'reds'. Most of all, he shows to be reliable and frank, but is also depicted as stubborn and mercurial in his political views. Despite of that, he never vacillated in correcting his beliefs whenever the circumstances proved him wrong.  

The film is not the epic that Amenábar envisioned since it struggles with some stiffness and timidness on a regular basis. Nevertheless, the shortage of narrative agility is compensated with historical substance, notable production values (Goya award winning for best production and costume designs), Alex Catalan’s beautiful photography, and clarity in the exposition of a looming, dangerous dictatorship in the guise of patriotism. Moreover, Eduard Fernández and Santi Prego are particularly convincing as the wild general José Millán-Astray and the temperate dictator Francisco Franco, respectively.

The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021)

Direction: Lee Daniels
Country: USA

Unfortunately, Lee Daniels’ new directorial effort, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, is not as captivating as it was the groundbreaking vocal style of the jazz diva that it brings front and center. Based on Johann Hari’s 2015 book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, the film, set in the 1940's, dramatizes with fictional manipulation the continuous efforts by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to imprison Billie Holiday, a long-time heroin addict. In response, the singer discomposes her persecutors every time she sings the forbidden "Strange Fruit", a tragic song that protests the lynching of Black Americans.

Daniels, who earned considerable attention in the past with Precious (2009) and The Butler (2013), decided to play gracefully but forgot to dig the emotional side deep enough. While the color-saturated Harlem atmospheres load the visuals with a stylized contemporary feel, the stuttering, episodic pace and disorganized structure stain a messy narrative that complicates what should be simple. The dissonant fictionalized romance between Holiday and the undercover FBN agent turned admirer, Jimmy Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes), doesn’t attenuate the predicaments found in Suzan-Lori Parks' plot, squandering one last opportunity to pull the story above average waters.

Despite the positive performance from R&B singer Andra Day in her first major role, the film tells Holiday’s story with the wrong notes. It’s disappointing when we think how fluid, resonant and evocative this biopic could have been if appropriately and honestly built.

I Care a Lot (2021)

Direction: J Blakeson
Country: USA / UK

British filmmaker J Blakeson (The Disappearance of Alice Creed, 2009) has in I Care a Lot an imperfect yet sufficiently inspired dark comedy thriller mounted with propulsive intensity and satiric push. The most accomplished aspect in his third feature is the way he molded up the characters, while the story keeps contracting with fatuous exaggeration and expanding with some thrilling action.

Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl, 2014; Pride & Prejudice, 2005) will be remembered for her role here as Marla Grayson, an unscrupulous, avid lawyer whose scheme consists in becoming a legal guardian of wealthy elders living on their own, under the pretext that they cannot take care of themselves anymore. After confiding them to an assisted living facility with no contact with the external world, she’s in the position to make huge amounts of money by selling their house and assets. 

When Marla is informed about Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest), a rich woman giving signs of dementia and with no family at all, she immediately starts to celebrate with her partner/assistant Fran (Eiza González). However, this apparently solitary woman has a stable connection with the Russian mafia and its leader, Roman Lunyov (Peter Dinklage). Since the detestable, fearless Marla refuses to play fair, a cat-and-mouse game begins between her and the gangster. 

Persuasive for more than a third of its length, I Care a Lot stumbles in a few overdone scenes that, with the proper dedication from Blakeson, would have lead to a better outcome. Still, the film is a fun watch, moving stylishly and pulling out a couple of inflammatory twists. Sometimes, antagonistic disputes have no solution in sight. Hence, if you can’t beat them, join them.

Supernova (2021)

Direction: Harry Macqueen
Country: UK

Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci star in Harry Macqueen’s Supernova as lifelong gay partners, whose lives take a gradual painful change after an early manifestation of dementia affecting one of them.

As Tusker (Tucci), a writer, sees a considerable increase in his dementia symptoms, Sam (Firth), his 20-year partner, proposes a road trip across England with final stop at Lake District to reunite with relatives. Naturally, Sam wants to spend every minute left with Tusker, but his deep concern and anguish toward the situation leads to an inability to fully enjoy every moment. So much that Tusker feels like he’s being mourned while still alive. 

Things get really complex when suicide comes to the table. More than anything, Tusker wants to be remembered for the person he was and not for the one he’s about become.

Although the intimate story aches empathy, the film’s less than favorable results are compromised by the super controlled proceedings. The tone is ponderous, the dialogue not so ripe, and the pace reveals a torpor that hampers this drama from going beyond the expected. 

Macqueen (Hinterland, 2014) takes a crack at avoiding unnecessary sentimentality, which is understandable, but a tale of this nature requires to pull out a touching stimulus of any kind not to get diluted in pure banality. If only the narrative were as gripping as Tucci’s performance, the film would have offered that stellar explosion that the title suggests. Instead, it just scintillates with an irregular cadence until the lights go completely off and we simply forget it.

Little Fish (2021)

Direction: Chad Hartigan
Country: USA / Canada

Four years after the positive comedy/drama Morris From America, director Chad Hartigan turns his gaze toward a pandemic-related romantic drama that is neither persuasive nor involving. Written by the Romanian-born Mattson Tomlin from a short story by Aja Gabel, Little Fish stars Olivia Cooke and Jack O’Connell in the central roles. They are a young couple facing a memory-loss virus that has been affecting lives with damaging consequences.

When Emma (Cooke), a vet, realizes that her beloved photographer husband, Jude (O’Connell), is revealing amnesiac symptoms, she enrolls him in a clinical trial in a desperate attempt to have his full memory back. Their friends, Ben (Raúl Castillo) and Sam (Soko), are going through similar difficulties, but aggravated by uncontrolled episodes of violence.

The idea behind this depressing story is indeed promising, bolstered by undeniable connotations with the present times, but its materialization on the screen is not devoid of flaws and weaknesses. Thinly layered with recollections of the past, the story lingers on a loopy pathos that totally melts into a puddle of uncertainty and melancholy rather than groping for meaning. With that said, it passes the sensation that the only concern is the past, not the present or the future.

The tension created out of an underlying fear is deeply suggestive but not enough to spare us from a frustrating cinematic experience in the end.

Zappa (2020)

Direction: Alex Winter
Country: USA

This documentary about the American rock star Frank Zappa is moderately fluid as well as competently organized and edited, but don’t expect much insight about the compositions and the music itself. Above all, one catches wind of the peculiar personality and activism of a perfectionist workaholic whose complex ideas had never stopped coming in torrents. 

His unusual approach and love for unorthodox music (Edgard Varèse, Igor Stravinsky) established high standards for the other musicians to perform, a stunning fact considering that he was a self-taught composer and instrumentalist. The constant financial struggle never dissuaded him from doing his own thing, rather making him the first artist to go completely independent as he was only interested in quality work, not commercial success.

Controversial enough, Zappa was a prominent figure in the defense of musicians’ rights against censorship and was idolized in Czechoslovakia, where he was appointed Special Ambassador to the West on Trade, Culture and Tourism by president Vaclav Havel.

The film, directed by Alex Winter (The Panama Papers), is jam-packed with information and stressed to the limit, but a closer look at the course of events makes us conclude that a trim would not be viable without jeopardizing the outcome. The unflashy exposition includes appearances of people who were close to him - his wife Gail Zappa and musical collaborators Mike Keneally, Steve Vai, Alice Cooper, Ian and Ruth Underwood among them - and ends with Zappa’s memorable last concert with the Frankfurt-based Ensemble Modern, an orchestral collaboration immortalized with the album The Yellow Shark in 1993. 

Zappa fans won’t want to miss this.

Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)

Direction: Shaka King
Country: USA

This dramatization of the events that led to the killing of the 21-year-old Black Panther Party chairman of the Illinois chapter, Fred Hampton, in 1969, is mounted with a contextual insight that expedites the viewer’s understanding of the ideologically complex politics behind every act.

Moved by Che Guevara’s slogan ‘words are beautiful but action is supreme’, Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) aims to take care of Chicago by making a pact with the black gang The Crowns. What he’s unaware of is that former carjacker Bill O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield), a man he trusts and even promoted to security captain of the party, is an infiltrated FBI informer sent by the mundane agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons) to frame him. Comparing the Panthers to the KKK, the latter states that both groups have the ability to sow hatred and inspire terror.

On occasion, the film vacillates in terms of energy, but then we find spots where everything gets vibrant and trenchant again. The two indissiociable sides of the movement are clearly outlined - the activism against racial oppression and the armed wing as a response to unjust conditions and deliberate aggressions. 

Through key passages, the second-time director Shaka King reveals the grievous inner wounds and scars of the black fighters as well as the hatred and domination of the white hunters, adding a layer of poignancy on the topic of American racism. The final minutes include excerpts of a revelatory interview given by O’Neal in 1989 with the public TV series Eyes on the Prize.

The World To Come (2021)

Direction: Mona Fastvold
Country: USA

Norwegian-born Mona Fastvold’s The World to Come presents a bold, revolutionary love story between two women living in a frontier rural farm in 1950’s upstate New York. Following a screenplay by Ron Hansen (The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Robert Ford) and Jim Shepard (And Then I Go), the director approaches the subject - the self-educated Abigail (Katherine Waterston) - with poetic expression as she narrates her diary entries and clear-cut inner thoughts. 

Her burdensome, solitary life - she and her hardworking husband Dryer (Casey Affleck) recently lost a child to diphtheria - is suddenly struck by joy and astonishment when the confident and gracious Tallie (Vanessa Kirby) moves to the neighboring farm with her unsympathetic and insensitive husband, Finney (Christopher Abbott in his second collaboration with the director after performing in her 2014 debut feature The Sleepwalker). 

These courageous women have wasted a lot of time living an unhappy life. Certain of that fact, they resolve to spend every possible minute with each other, defying their husbands and the conservative norms of the time. 

Unlike Portrait of a Lady on Fire, this romantic period drama was not taken to a higher level due to its awfully familiar tones. Fastvold seems happy with just unpacking complex feelings and creating a mild uneasiness that lurks in the bucolic landscape. The pace, deliberately languid, is complemented with a glowing, well-composed cinematography, but the tension slowly fades away, leaving an illusive dreaminess floating in the air that is not completely cut and dried to me. I wish I could have liked this film more than I did.

Dear Comrades (2021)

Direction: Andrey Konchalovskiy
Country: Russia

Intensified by the stunning black-and-white cinematography of Andrey Naydenov, the historical Russian drama Dear Comrades is a fascinating, if disturbing account of the Novocherkassk massacre in 1962, when unarmed protesters were killed by the Soviet army and KGB snipers. The adroit filmmaker Andrey Konchalovskiy (The Postman’s White Night, 2014; Paradise, 2017) co-wrote it with his collaborator of recent years, Elena Kiseleva. 

The protagonist of this cruel tale is Lyuda Syomina (Julia Vysotskaya in her sixth collaboration with Konchalovskiy), a single mother and  inflexible communist who works for the Regional Committee Secretary, Loginov (Vladislav Komarov). As a well-positioned member of the party, Lyuda gets the best goods available, even when the country is sunk in an economical crisis, recently aggravated by a steep increase in prices and considerable cuts in wages. In her view, this is just a temporary hardship. But when the small industrial town goes fully on strike and a pacific protest takes place, a violent retaliation is commanded by the leaders. Her primary concern automatically shifts to her daughter, Svetka (Yuliya Burova), who works in a factory and was among the instigators.

The film compellingly builds the spirit of the time, addressing the intimidating blockades, the fear of an imaginary anti-Soviet movement rooted in America, sly intelligence maneuvers, the blood spilling of innocent workers and demonstrators, and an abhorrent attempt to wipe out any vestige related with a crime perpetrated by the Russian government against their own people.

Fanatic ideology can totally dehumanize and that’s what the film shows, speaking volumes about the indifference of officials who navigate morally murky waters just to prove loyalty to a shattered party.

Carried out in a flowing visual manner, Dear Comrades is both cold and moving.

Pieces of a Woman (2021)

Direction: Kornél Mundruczó
Country: Canada / USA

In Pieces of a Woman, Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó examines the grieving process of a couple who lost their child at birth. The screenplay came from the pen of Kata Wéber, who had collaborated with the director in his previous two efforts, White God (2014) and Jupiter’s Moon (2017). It was based on the stage play of the same name by Mundruczó and Wéber, inspired by their personal experience with respect to the loss of an infant.

The expecting Martha Weiss (Vanessa Kirby) and her recovered alcoholic partner Sean Carson (Shia LaBeouf) lead a happy life together. They agree to a home birth. The midwife initially hired for the task gets stuck in another labor and is replaced at the last minute by Eva Woodward (Molly Parker), who makes every possible effort to assure that the procedure goes fast and smooth. Unfortunately, she was helpless to save the baby from cardiac arrest. 

The relationship of the couple deteriorates considerably after the incident and the rupture seems inevitable. To worsen the scenario, Martha’s tenacious and manipulative mother, Elizabeth (Ellen Burstyn), insists that Eva should be prosecuted for criminal negligence, reasoning that finding a culprit would substantially ease suffering.

Following an uncluttered narrative, the film alternates solid and crumbling moments, but never loses sight of a resolution. What makes Pieces of a Woman satisfying is the quality of the performances, which emphasizes the authenticity of the inner struggles and relationships alike. Despite of a gradual loss of strength and inspiration as it moves further away from that agonizing 24-minute take labor scene, the outcome is still powerful. And it’s not a comfortable seat, let me tell you.

The Dig (2021)

Direction: Simon Stone
Country: UK

This second directorial effort from Simon Stone, a British actor turned director, is set in Suffolk, England, on the eve of WWII. Investing more than anything in its characters, the powerfully performed The Dig was adapted with satisfactory results by Moira Buffini (Jane Eyre, 2011; Byzantium, 2012) from the 2007 novel of the same name by John Preston. Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes lead a soberly efficient cast, playing Edith Pretty, a landowner with an interest in archeology, and Basil Brown, an experienced excavator, respectively. 

After discovering an Anglo-Saxon ship and other valuable relics buried for centuries in the Sutton Hoo, both will learn to deal with the tactless and domineering C.W. Philips (Ken Stott), a Cambridge archeologist who likes to have his own way.

Navigating the story’s period is easy since it was depicted with attention to detail, benefitting from the formidably composed images captured by the lens of Mike Eley (The Selfish Giant, 2013; Marley, 2012; and a few Roger Mitchell films). As a tolerable subplot, there’s this ruined marriage between the avid-for-love Peggy (Lily James) and the closeted gay Stuart Piggott (Ben Chaplin), two members of Philips team, who finally put an end in their relationship as their romantic interests are redirected.

Unfolding methodically with no ambiguities, the storytelling flows with interest but never reaches a climax per se as a consequence of scarce suspenseful moments. Instead, it burns with a constant flame that, never eradicating enjoyment, emits a light that never expands with novelty or surprise.

The Night (2021)

Direction: Kourosh Ahari
Country: USA

The third feature from Iranian director Kourosh Ahari, The Night, is a psychological thriller impregnated with ghosts that slowly plunges the viewer into its nightmarish scenario. The story, written by Ahari and Milad Jarmooz, lives uniquely from the mood and plays with something that no one is indifferent nowadays - being trapped with no control at all from a particularly unpleasant situation. 

In this case, an Iranian man (Shahab Hosseini, a regular in Asghar Farhadi’s films) living in the US for some time becomes prisoner of ghostly forces in a Los Angeles hotel together with his recently arrived wife (Niousha Noor) and baby daughter. The energy that surrounds them is adverse, starting with a displaced man (Elester Latham) who repeats unintelligible phrases, a sinister receptionist (George Maguire) who disturbs with his conversation, graceless presences as well as baffling disappearances and pranks. Heavily contributing to the atmosphere, the details do matter in the development of the story, but they also convey a sense of messiness in the way they are mounted. 

The visuals, not being particularly artful, are adequate, while the symbology linked to some sort of curse along with the necessity to extract the hidden truth from the Naderi family, play key factors here. Still, the film results more formulaic than twisted, and the minimally unsettling situations that occur in a blink of an eye are powerless to prevent it from sinking into the shadows of oblivion.  

As a curiosity, this is the first American-made film to receive permission to be screened in Iran since 1979. 

The White Tiger (2021)

Direction: Ramin Bahrani
Country: India / USA

A successful and confident Indian entrepreneur named Balram Halwai (Adarsh Gourav in his first leading role) tells his own story, describing step by step how he transitioned from darkness to light. Born to a lower-caste family in Laxmangarh, India, Balram is cautiously ambitious when he decides to move to Delhi and become the driver of The Stork (Mahesh Manjrekar), the former landlord of his poor hometown.

Although doing financially better than everyone else in his family, he remains a servant tied to tradition, being often mistreated and humiliated by his employer. However, the latter’s son, Ashok (Rajkummar Rao), who embraces progressive ideas due to the influence of his New York-raised wife Pinky (Priyanka Chopra), picks him as his own chauffeur. Lucky him! Yet, an unexpected and traumatic incident involving the aforementioned couple takes him to uncomfortable places.

Under the attentive direction of Iranian-American Ramin Bahrani (Chop Shop, 2007; Goodbye Solo, 2018; 99 Homes, 2014), who based himself on Arvind Adiga’s 2008 novel of the same name, The White Tiger is assembled with intelligence, humor and horror. It works on several levels, challenging us to think about the submissiveness and enslavement of people from these lower castes, who have to figure out the best way to survive, as well as the supremacy and abusive behavior of those in the higher castes, which in this particular case is aggravated by bribery. The moral concerns haven’t stop here since the means employed by Balram to achieve success also come to the table.

With strong acting and vivid narration, The White Tiger provides a darkly triumphant on-screen experience.