Parallel Mothers (2021)

Direction: Pedro Almodóvar
Country: Spain 

Contents and style converge smoothly and seductively in Parallel Mothers, the most recent effort from Pedro Almodóvar. The acclaimed Spanish helmer mixes motherhood - a favorite topic - with Spanish politics and serves up a scintillating feminist melodrama anchored by outstanding performances from Penelope Cruz and Milena Smit. This is the seventh time that the former actress works under the guidance of Almodóvar. Smit, in turn, joins him for the very first time. 

A few unexpected twists spice the story of two unmarried women who deal with unplanned pregnancies in different ways. Janis (Cruz) is a confident middle-aged professional photographer who wants to unearth the sad past of her family lost to fascism. Ana (Smit) is a traumatized fragile teen who doesn't know what she wants. They meet in a room of a Madrid maternity hospital where each give birth to a daughter. Further incidents will bring them even closer.

The camera lens focuses on magnify the mothers, and this is also valid for Aitana Sanchez-Gijon who plays Ana's failing mother with personality. 

In spite of dealing with life and death in an adult way, the film is not an infallible achievement, but it also doesn’t hurt the solid filmography of Almodóvar. His early flamboyant ways took a pronounced decline with Talk to Her (2002), and Parallel Mothers continues the level of maturity found in Julieta (2016) and Pain and Glory (2019), even without reaching the thought-provoking abilities of the latter film.

Well patented here is his penchant for projecting women to the center of a story while directing them with real affection.

Nightmare Alley (2021)

Direction: Guillermo Del Toro
Country: USA 

Cleverly helmed by Guillermo Del Toro, Nightmare Alley is less fantastic than The Shape of Water (2017) but more atmospherically noir in the true sense of a thriller. Based on the novel by William Lindsay Gresham, which had been adapted to the screen in 1947 by Edmund Goulding, the film boasts an amazing cast with A-listers, an intriguing energy and alluring visuals. 

By following the obscure path of Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) - a manipulative, remorseless and tremendously greedy con artist - one comes to the conclusion that the miasma of misplaced morality that permeates this story can be fascinating and disturbing in an equal manner. Stan joins a bizarre traveling-show as a carny, first working with Clem (Willem Dafoe), whose number consists of a caged man/beast who decapitates a hen with his teeth, and then with the clairvoyant Zeena (Toni Colette) and her alcoholic husband, Pete (David Strathairn). After learning the tricks of Mentalism with the latter, he leaves the fair with his good-natured sweetheart, Molly (Rooney Mara), in search for their own gigs.

Two years later, they’re holding a fruitful show in Chicago, but his ambitious nature leads him to a dangerous, if financially rewarding, pact with Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), a seductive psychologist who had defied his psychic abilities in the first time they crossed paths. 

There’s nothing really groundbreaking here, even considering that this dark and lurid thriller comes from a director who has firmly established himself as an innovator. Nightmare Alley plays more like an ever-shifting, lopsided endeavor that finds the right magic to catch us in a villainously astute manner. It boasts a great conclusion, by the way.

The Rescue (2021)

Direction: Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Country: USA

The Rescue is an absolutely must-see documentary about 12 young soccer players (aged 11 to 16) and their 25-year-old coach who got trapped in a flooded cave in Northern Thailand during the monsoon season. The occurrence took place on June 23, 2018, and has moved the world, with people from everywhere setting foot in the Chiang Rai province where the Tham Luang Nam Non cave is located. With the danger looming, some never-attempted measures were implemented to make this a successful operation involving experts to volunteers. 

The directors and marital partners, Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, did another great job here, following up praised works such as Meru (2015) and Free Solo (2018). They narrate the facts with the help of footage, interviews and several explanatory images that don’t leave margin for doubt. Further detail emerges about the difficulties and pressure encountered on site, the myth and creeds behind the operations, and the diligence and generosity of many people, including the skillful English cave divers Rick Stanton and John Volanthen (true heroes who risked their lives), and the Australian Dr. Richard Harris, who besides being an experienced diver, was fundamental from a medical point of view. 

Suspenseful and powerful from minute one until the end, the film provides a harrowing look at how an apparently safe gathering could veer into a nerve-racking, life-threatening situation. It’s also a moving scenario of perseverance and faith. One advice, though: watch it with precaution if you’re claustrophobic and prone to panic attacks.

Don't Look Up (2021)

Direction: Adam McKay
Country: USA

Boasting an out-of-this-world ensemble cast that includes Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Mark Rylance, Timothée Chalamet and Jonah Hill, Don’t Look Up defrauds all expectations by functioning as an overextended, unexciting and pathetic apocalyptic satire. Writer-director Adam McKay, who delivered likable biographical dramas in the past such as The Big Short (2015) and Vice (2018), totally misfires here, throwing himself headlong toward the ridiculous and attempting to embrace too many things at once in what is a 138-minute screening torture.

The story follows two lower-ranking Michigan astronomers, Dr. Randall Mindy (DiCaprio) and his PhD student Katie Dibiasky (Lawrence), who rush to the White House as soon as they realize that an unprecedented comet, wide in range, is heading toward the Earth. The impact will certainly destroy our planet, but in the oval office - the unqualified president Janie Orlean (Streep), her no-brains son and chief of staff, Jason (Hill), and their favorite scientist, Peter Isherwel (Rylance) - couldn’t care less. The astronomers are also not taken seriously when invited to a precarious TV show hosted by the brainless journalists Brie Enentee (Blanchett) and Jack Bremmer (Tyler Perry).

Staged to be funny, Don’t Look Up fails each and every move. I count no hits but rather thousands of misses in a film that, attempting to depict our times of disbelief in science in favor of conspiracy theories, misses the opportunity with the force of a 100-km wide comet moving at a jaw-dropping high speed.

What Carl Sagan would say? Don’t waste your time seeing this mess.

Red Rocket (2021)

Direction: Sean Baker
Country: USA

Sean Baker has been a blessing to contemporary cinema, coming up with enthralling films such as Tangerine (2015) and The Florida Project (2017). In his new project - the dramedy Red Rocket - he keeps the provocative combination of social realism and recreational fiction, delivering a transgressive satire about the American male ego, which gains a special force with the performance of Simon Rex (a regular in the Scary Movie franchise). He is Mikey Saber, a washed-up porn star and manipulative bragger who returns to his small Texas hometown after years spent in L.A.  

Homeless and penniless, he begs to his estranged wife, Lexi (Bree Elrod) and her cranky mother, Lil (Brenda Deiss), to stay with them, promising to help with the house chores and pay rent. To do so, and because the conservative local Texans don’t seem impressed with his CV and porn industry awards to hire him, he returns to the amateurish drug dealers with whom he worked in the past. Besides that, he starts hanging out with Lonnie (Ethan Darbone), a lonely neighbor, and lures a flirtatious 17-year-old girl, Raileigh (Suzanna Son), into one of his dirty schemes. 

In a tragicomic way, Baker manages to inject sarcasm (Trump’s unlawful America lurks dangerously), discomfort (regarding Mikey’s opportunistic and predatory instincts) and amusement (there are a lot of funny incidents bringing conflict and tension together), taking good advantage from the environment itself and the largely non-professional cast to make it even more real. The acting styles are well-matched with the uninhibited direction.

With a few stark shots and coherent vision, Red Rocket finds disenchantment and hilarity in America.

West Side Story (2021)

Direction: Steven Spielberg
Country: USA 

The celebrated director Steven Spielberg, who had never directed a musical before, takes the 1957 Broadway success West Side Story in his hands and makes it darker and unemotional when compared to Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’ quintessential version from 1961. This version maintains both the music of Leonard Bernstein (here re-arranged by David Newman) and the lyrics of the recently departed Stephen Sondheim intact while adding a new choreography by Justin Peck.

With a screenplay by Spielberg’s regular collaborator Tony Kushner, the film deals with the same topics - Manhattan’s Upper West Side gang rivalry in the mid-1950s, gentrification, racial prejudice and forbidden love - while presenting a sumptuous artistic direction and some elaborate choreography. However, this 21st-century reading only delivers half of the emotion generated by the original, with the two leads - Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler - lacking the chemistry that Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood once achieved to make this story famous on the screen. Particularly interesting is the fact that the Puerto Rican-born American actress Rita Moreno, who played Anita in the 1961 version, appears here as Valentina. She also serves as an executive producer. 

Visually, it’s basically the same thing, only more expensive and not so well done. Some scenes even drag while keeping that swaggering posture typical from the Broadway musicals.

Spielberg's West Side Story didn’t thrill me, and I’m still wondering why this half-hearted, unimaginative film was even made in the first place.

I'm Your Man (2021)

Direction: Maria Schrader
Country: Germany 

Maria Schrader’s third feature, I’m Your Man, is a wonderfully bizarre sci-fi rom-com with a polished aesthetic, some architecturally interesting settings, lovely performances, and tragicomic undertones. She re-teams up here with Jan Schomburg in the script, following the successful biopic Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe (2016). The machinations that drive the film, which was based on a short story by Emma Braslavsky, are never too obvious, and both the formal discipline and slow pace are more beneficial than questionable. 

At the center of the plot is Alma (Maren Eggert), an archeologist in her mid forties, who, reluctantly, accepts to take an advanced humanoid robot home for three weeks, after which she has to write a report about the experience, answering the question: “are robots suitable as a partner replacement?”

This gallant robot, Tom (Dan Stevens), was programmed to be her perfect partner. He is able to read her slightest reactions and improve his algorithm on how to make her happy. Alma, who is more concerned about her soon-to-be-finished long research and her demented father (Wolfgang Hübsch), shows no enthusiasm in living with this figure, especially after a disappointing software crash during their first date. However, their relationship evolves over the course of the film, to a point where she becomes emotionally confused… more than she ever thought possible.

Comparisons with Spike Jonze’s Her have been made, but the present film, less sad in tone, pushes both the humor and the emotional depth to the foreground through a realistic human/robot interaction and not just a computerized voice.

The rippling musical score by Tobias Wagner is effective, while the central performances of Eggert (Das Experiment, 2001; Marseille, 2004) and Stevens (The Guest, 2014; Apostle, 2018) are of the lofty levels we have come to expect of them. Persuasively made, I’m Your Man is a smart move that elicits both strong thoughts and feelings without ever becoming creepy. Therefore, just let it gnaw at your own humanity.

Belfast (2021)

Direction: Kenneth Branagh
Country: UK

Set during the violent Protestant-Catholic turmoil of the late 1960s in Northern Ireland, the autobiographical Belfast is the writer-director Kenneth Branagh’s love letter to the city he was born in. Digging into his childhood memories, Sir Branagh (Henry V, 1989; Much Ado About Nothing, 1993) crafts a finely-acted, sensitively-written chronicle about an Irish working-class family with a very hard decision to make.

Seen through the eyes of a 9-year-old (the performance of the young debutant actor Jude Hill as Buddy is immensely likable), this drama gets a lot of things done by the book but also shows a huge heart that one perceives very personal. The script, which could have been better disciplined, is sometimes too sweet to be completely winsome, and the film relies on the cheerful vibes of Van Morrison’s songs to add soul. I spotted a few unnecessary scenes - including a terrible singing moment featuring Buddy’s father (Jamie Dornan) - that work merely as superficial adorns to the story. However, while finding warm family ties and love in the ugliness of ‘The Troubles’, Branagh creates some emotional resonance. The scenes that involve Buddy and his grandparents (Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds are awesome) are among the best moments. 

Without getting overly manipulative, the film flows with the deep intimacy of Minari, the insatiable love-for-cinema of Cinema Paradiso and the violent backgrounds of Bloody Sunday. The enchanting black-and-white cinematography by Haris Zambarloukos is responsible for the seductive looks, and the performances enhance the director’s lingering sense of sentimental nostalgia. This work - dedicated to those who have departed, those who have remained and those who have lost their lives - is fairly enjoyable but not especially mesmerizing.

Drive My Car (2021)

Direction: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Country: Japan 

This strangely affecting drama directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi produces a flash of quiet brilliance that resonates steadily throughout the engrossing three-hour session. Slowly mesmerizing, Drive My Car brings many rewards in what is an interesting adaptation of a short story by the Japanese writer Hakumi Murakami. Hamaguchi, who co-wrote with Takamasa Oe, modified it with cleverness and gave it extra depth by virtue of delicate gestures and a timeless grace. 

The self-aware and fluid storytelling is at the base of huge moments of cinema, bringing personal life drama and professional theater together, as we follow the sad path and ultimate liberation of Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a theater director and actor consumed by loss and guilt. This man lost his beloved wife (Reika Kirishima), a respected screenwriter, shortly after finding out she was betraying him with a younger actor, Koji Takatsuki (Masaki Okada). Two years later, the director takes the latter as his student during a residency in Hiroshima. Chekhov’s play Uncle Vanya is to be performed. Despite the painful memories this situation brings, he finds some relief in his competent new female chauffeur, Misaki (Toko Miura). She is a 23-year-old from a small village in Hokkaido with a complex past and a similar trauma to heal.

This is Hamaguchi’s 2021 double achievement, after having drawn attention with the anthology romantic drama Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy. Despite of the possible traps in the material, he was able to maintain a rigorously unsentimental tone here, and mounted each scene like a virtuoso of restraint with the assistance of cinematographer Hidetoshi Shinomiya.

The film won the Best Screenplay award in Cannes, a totally deserved accolade for setting an incredibly subtle example of cinematic virtuosity and poetry.

Son of Monarchs (2021)

Direction: Alexis Gambis
Country: Mexico / USA

It’s not entirely by chance that Son of Monarchs, the sophomore feature film by the French-Venezuelan writer-director Alexis Gambis, employs biology and experimentation as notable elements surrounding the core drama. The director is a biologist as well as the founder and artistic director of the Imagine Science Film Festival.

The story revolves around Mendel (Tenoch Huerta), an up-and-coming Mexican biologist living and working in New York, where he researches and modifies pigments, scales and patterns of butterflies’ wings. His passion for and commitment to these animals come from childhood. In his Michoacán hometown village, he was often transfixed while observing a whole bunch of monarch butterflies in the company of his older brother, Simon (Noé Hernández). Regretfully, he and his brother broke ties since he departed to the US.

Many years have passed since then, and only the death of his dear grandmother (Angelina Peláez) compels Mendel to return. His brother is still resentful, and the traumas of the past promptly surface. They’ve been serious obstacles in his life, and we are told that in two occasions: when his work lands on the cover of a prominent science magazine and when he meets Sarah (Alexia Rasmussen) in New York, a woman he’s attracted to. Mendel’s volatile mood rings true. He seems unable to fully enjoy his achievements without resolving the inner complexities that have been tormenting him. 

There's a poetic rhythm and sensitive touch to the bittersweet melancholic tone, and the fact that the film displays less perspective shifts than many films within the genre is not a problem. What works less well in this hybrid slice of life is the articulation within the structure and the reconnection scene between the brothers, whose awkwardness removed any sort of emotion.

Nonetheless, I slouched back with my head resting on the top of the seat because this is not a stressful watching but a contained, introspective experience that stresses issues like social identity and trauma. Considering all the facts, the low-key Son of Monarchs is passable.

Prayers For the Stolen (2021)

Direction: Tatiana Huezo
Country: Mexico

Turned into a remarkably straightforward and effective drama film by the El Salvador-born documentarian Tatiana Huezo (Tempestad, 2016), Prayers for the Stolen is a successful screen adaptation of Jennifer Clement's novel of the same name. The film tells the story of Ana (Marya Membreño) and her two friends - Maria (Giselle Barrera Sánchez) and Paula (Alejandra Camacho) - who are strictly forbidden to act and dress like girls. They are forced to cut their hairs like a boy and need to hide underground whenever cars approach their houses. 

This infuriating story, set in the Mexican mountain village of San Miguel (where they explode the mountains and the telephone signal is limited to the outskirts), set mothers and daughters to be incessantly alert against savaging kidnappers, rapists and extortionists who operate beyond the law. The kidnappings of young girls are recurrent, and their absent fathers, all living and working in bigger cities to send money home, are not there to defend them. Ana’s mother (Mayra Batalla), a worker in a small poppy field who is often consumed by sadness, has to show a firm hand as she trains her daughter to prevent and escape threatening situations. There’s a special language between them but that’s not always a guarantee. 

The restlessness of Prayers for the Stolen never ebbs and that makes for a thoroughly entertaining, if somewhat exhausting, 110 minutes. Brilliantly composed, it finds beauty as well as ugliness in this part of Mexico, a place where the cartel enforcement and the violence steal the innocence of the local female teens, depriving them of freedom and a proper life.

Nitram (2021)

Direction: Justin Kurzel
Country: Australia

Given a clinical treatment by the Australian director Justin Kurzel (The Snowtown Murders, 2011; Macbeth, 2015), Nitram is a slow, suffocating psychological drama based on the 1996 mass shooting that occurred in Port Arthur, Tasmania, where 35 people were shot by a mentally unstable young man. 

Caleb Landry Jones (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, 2017; Get Out, 2017) stars as the title character (the nickname Nitram is Martin spelled backwards), a troubled, formerly bullied boy who, even on medication, sometimes doesn’t know what to do with the loneliness and infinite sadness he experiences in a daily basis. All the same, there’s something inherently evil in him, and his parents know it. Whereas his patient father (Anthony LaPaglia) always tries to ease things up, the mother (Judy Davis) doesn’t seem to know how to react properly to his defiance, usually showing coldness and strictness or pushing him to the edge. We’re talking about a person with fixed ideas - fireworks, guns, surf - who’s not capable to measure the danger in particular situations. 

Unexpectedly, his pain is substantially eased and his mind pacified when he meets Helen (Essie Davis), a wealthy and much older woman who, like him, lives a solitary life. When everything seemed to go so well, an accident reverts every improvement he had made. 

You know what's going to happen at the end, but Kurzel, who worked from a screenplay by Shaun Grant, gives the audience precious details that help shaping the protagonist with faultless depressive realism. This unsettling account works like the implacable pull of a bad dream, and comes stripped of any possible sentimentality associated with the criminal act itself. 

It will likely lodge in your head for a while, thanks to the rigor with which it was mounted, and the top-notch performances from Landry Jones and Judy Davis.

The Humans (2021)

Direction: Stephen Karam
Country: USA

Lebanese-American playwright and first-time director Stephen Karam adapts his own one-act Broadway play (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award winner) to the screen, relying on a fine ensemble cast to compose a family scenario with a fine line to walk between multifaceted wit and depressive comfort.

An old apartment in lower Manhattan is the place where The Blakes will celebrate Thanksgiving. Erik (Richard Jenkins) has to keep an eye on his Alzheimer-stricken mother (June Squibb) but doesn’t waste a chance to make lugubrious speeches and talk about eerie dreams; his wife, Deirdre (Jayne Houdyshell), casually complains about her 40-year stint as an office manager; their daughter, Aimee (Amy Schumer), is trying to cope with the end of a relationship, which is aggravating her health problems; on the contrary, their other daughter, Bridgid (Beanie Feldstein), is delighted with this haunted apartment in need of repairs, where she’s about to move in with her laid-back boyfriend, Richard (Steven Yeun).

A strange energy is felt in the house, and tensions start to emerge slowly, exposing fragilities and secrets among the members of the family. Filled with signs that everything could go wrong any minute, the film is actually never jaw-dropping and none of its characters is unique or memorable. But I was pleased with the metaphoric finale and the paranoia-induced state to where the film takes us. It’s an indescribably human drama that probes some beyond-human atmosphere. 

Admittedly, by making the camera an observer (lurking in corridors, corners and through door frames) we get a perspective that often comes out of horror movies. The narrative advances with an equal share of slightly ominous phantasmagoria and natural conversation. Most of it rings true, especially during those ripe moments when people relax and reveal themselves. 

Hence, even not packing a gut-punch, the film tickles then pinches, advancing confidently toward a satisfying conclusion.

House of Gucci (2021)

Direction: Ridley Scott
Country: USA

2021 has been a busy year for the acclaimed English director Ridley Scott (Alien; Blade Runner). On the heels of the medieval conspiracies and the fierce battles of The Last Duel, he makes a u-turn into the fashion world with House of Gucci, a biographical portrayal of the Gucci family, starring Adam Driver, Lady Gaga, Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons and Jared Leto. Despite the marvelous cast, a likable male central character and the elegant outfits, there's something wrong in the cinematic design of House of Gucci, whose script, adapted from the 2000 book by Sara Gay Forden by Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna, is partially accountable for the infrequent pleasures and major disappointments found. After a promising start, the narrative flow becomes crippled by pace and inarticulation. 

Gucci is a brand recognized and admired around the world, and Maurizio (Driver), a demure yet distinctively smart member of this Italian family, happens to be humbler than his actor father, Rodolfo (Irons), more discreet than his cunning and domineering uncle Aldo (Pacino) and more empathetic than the latter’s silly son, Paolo (an unrecognizable Leto). The story begins with the romance and consequent marriage between Maurizio and Patrizia Reggiani (Gaga), a woman from a lower class whose inordinate ambition becomes an obstacle in her marriage. 

Rarely as playful or fluid as it hopes, the film declines instead with pacing fluctuations in its middle section - when it mostly relies on Paolo’s idiocy and excessive Italian-accented speech to amuse - and an unemotional conclusion that definitely fails to elevate the account into something satisfying. Scott is heedless in his leadership, seeming unable to point out the best direction to the members of the cast, from which only Driver and Pacino stand out. House of Gucci is unlikely to gain any traction, even among those interested in the story of the family.

A Cop Movie (2021)

Direction: Alonso Ruizpalacios
Country: Mexico 

Alonso Ruizpalacios’s A Cop Movie is a didactic docufiction that brings to the center two Mexican police officers from Mexico City. The film doesn’t play with stereotypes, preferring an experimental approach that, blurring the line between reality and fiction, leaves the viewers questioning what’s to be a “true" cop and what’s their role in the society.

By making a clever use of structure and employing an artful narrative, Ruizpalacios (Gueros, 2014; Museo, 2018) offers a raw, sometimes funny glimpse into the discredited Mexican police force, stressing their (de)motivations and daily struggles in the performance of their jobs. 

Teresa (Monica del Carmen), whose apparently dismissive father was also a cop, is 34 and spent half of her life as a police officer. Her partner in life and at work, Montoya (Raul Briones), is unsmiling while on duty and only joined the law enforcement unit because of his brother. In addition to depict them in several difficult situations in the streets - including a stagey arrest, a strained childbirth, an altercation with a big shot, and dealing with bribery - the film also addresses their family problems, emphasizing the joys and the pathos of living and working together.

The first two acts are competently mounted and astutely joined; the third - about the couple - is the most redundant; while the last two - when the actors reveal themselves and the real-life officers speak truth to power - are precious. 

There’s a clunkiness to A Cop Movie, which, nonetheless, delivers a unique 107-minute distraction.

7 Prisoners (2021)

Direction: Alexandre Moratto
Country: Brazil

Following his debut with the Brazilian writer-director Alexandre Moratto in Socrates (2018), the young actor Christian Malheiros stars again in the latter’s sophomore feature, 7 Prisoners, a realistic hostage thriller about modern slavery, human trafficking and corruption. The film co-stars Rodrigo Santoro (Carandiru; 300) as the antagonist. 

Leaving the audience with a bitter aftertaste, this disquieting and harrowing tale follows Mateus (Malheiros), an 18-year-old from a small village in the countryside who gladly accepts a job in a junkyard of São Paulo to provide a better life for his poor family. He and three other teenagers will work under the supervision of Luca (Santoro), becoming victims of an exploitative work system. With their IDs and phones confiscated and their families threatened, the prisoners try but fail to escape. 

Mateus, the cleverest of the boys, has to find other ways to guarantee he’s comfortable and make his family proud of him. How far can he go? The line between victim and accomplice can be very thin, raising complex moral dilemmas. 

It's not great filmmaking from Moratto, but this horrific rite of passage touches crucial points, so one can have the idea on how these exploitation schemes work, often headed by greedy politicians and linked to a corrupt police force. The denouement gets an extra half-star for its surprising implications.

Freeland (2021)

Direction: Mario Furloni, Kate McLean
Country: USA

Filmmakers Mario Furloni and Kate McLean have been sharing writing and directorial efforts since 2011, the year they released the short documentary Pot Country. Ten years after, inspired by that short, they expand the idea into a fictional feature film - their debut - which stars Krisha Fairchild as an aging weed farmer from Humboldt Country, California, who sees her work and daily bread threatened by progress.

Devi (Fairchild) has been in the business for 32 years with no major problems, but from the moment that a nuisance abatement notice was issued by the local authorities, the open air of the surroundings gradually becomes oppressive and Devi’s life goes from sunny to intolerably burdensome. The legalization of cannabis farms is an extremely expensive process with no guarantee of approval. In a minute, Devi’s sales end abruptly, her name is on the newspaper as an illegal dealer and the money dissipates quickly.

She's forced to renegotiate with the three employees hired for the ongoing harvesting season - college student Mara (Lily Gladstone), the cunning Josh (Frank Mosley), and the low-keyed Casey (Cameron James Matthews) - and nostalgically bids farewell to Ray (John Craven), a long-time partner from the times she belonged to a hippie commune.

Skillfully shot (kudos to Furloni’s cinematography), Freeland is lyrically scenic, handling the subject with a muffled cry of despair and a raw, natural methodology that recalls Kelly Reichardt’s filmmaking style. This is a totally convincing ride in which the magnetic performance by Fairchild doesn’t need words to convey what’s in her mind and chest. You feel it just by looking at her. 

The film’s patient progress is driven and tensed, and seeing those solitary roads wiggling through the woods at the sound of William Ryan Fritch’s apt score, only increases one sense of loneliness and despair. It’s painful what we see; memories of a happy past, the acute awareness of a dark present and the fear of an unknown future.

Beans (2021)

Direction: Tracey Deer
Country: Canada

Beans is a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama set in 1990 Quebec, during an over two-month standoff between Mohawk protesters and the Canadian authorities. The debut feature of Mohawk writer-director Tracey Deer is motivated by her personal experiences, and she chronicles this piece of history through the eyes of Tekehentahkhwa (a.k.a. Beans), a 12-year-old girl living in the Kahnawake reserve with her parents (Rainbow Dickerson and Joel Montgrand) and younger sister (Violah Beauvais).

While a land dispute escalates into an armed conflict in a neighboring reserve, Beans (first appearance and central role in a feature for the young actress Kiawentiio) figures out a way to become tougher as she bonds with April (Paulina Alexis), whom she considers a brave warrior. Within a short period of time, she shifts from laid-back and obedient to an angry and rebellious teen.

Interspersed with TV footage, the shots eschew poeticism, telling the story through a frame of reference shared by harmed communities turned combatants and activists. It's a shame that Deer’s noble intentions got so obstructed by a patchy narrative, overdramatic acting - especially during the freaking moments - and a banal score. In my perspective, she missed the opportunity to make this story appealing on the screen, making instead a film too fragile to carry its own weight on its shoulders. 

The director has all my respect for what she went through and for trying to do something with it, but there’s so much room to improve here in terms of filmmaking and storytelling.

King Richard (2021)

Direction: Reinaldo Marcus Green
Country: USA

Will Smith gives a tremendous performance in a plainly told biopic documenting the ascension to stardom of tennis-playing sisters Venus and Serena Williams through the eyes of their controversial father and mentor, Richard Williams (Smith).

Scripted by Zach Baylin and directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (Monsters and Men, 2018; Joe Bell, 2020), King Richard is basically the movie you except to be, although slightly elevated by strong performances. Smith couldn’t be more convincing as an obstinate man, whose commitment in turning two of his five daughters into tennis world champions is no less than extraordinary. The rigid discipline he demands of them is often mistaken for abuse by a neighbor, but that's nothing when compared, for instance, with the story revealed in I, Tonya (2017), where Craig Gillespie limns the toxic relationship between the American skater Tonya Harding and her mother. 

In this case, he’s just a super protective father who wants to keep their children out of Compton's rough streets, refusing to make them pro without being kids first. This is an unrelenting man with a plan, who, having never played tennis in his life, was able not only to predict but also to help building a brilliant future for his daughters. 

Despite inordinately familiar in tone and structure, this crowd-pleaser is not a bad Hollywood biopic. The family arguments, especially between Richard and his wife Brandy (Aunjanue Ellis), are the most genuine moments of the film, while much of the fun lies in Richard’s personality - how he thinks and reacts to every situation and detail. 

King Richard is no classic but rather a respectable entry in the sports movie genre. This stupendous story deserves to be told.

Nine Days (2021)

Direction: Edson Oda
Country: USA

Have you ever thought about the possibility of a psychological evaluation in a pre-life state? Well, the Brazilian-born writer-director Edson Oda did. 

His feature debut, Nine Days, was executive produced by Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich; Her) and tells about a nine-day selection process - including behavioral assessment, interviews and tasks - of several unborn souls considered to fill a vacancy to become a living person. All procedures and evaluations take place in a house located in a desolate place, and the judge of everything is Will (Winston Duke), whose painful past as a human being suddenly surfaces because of a distinctive, positive and free-spirited candidate named Emma (Zazie Beetz). This very perceptive woman never answers his questions but has a special chemistry with and the support of Will’s assistant, Kyo (Benedict Wong), a soul who had never experienced human life.

The international cast is very strong from top to bottom and the plot’s interesting concept takes a route that goes from intriguingly spiritual to deliberately theatrical. This last part, however, is when the film loses some strength. Yet, even getting a little tiresome and hokey toward the end, the ride is not that bad if this is the kind of psychological unearthly mysteries you are after. 

Everything feels very human and surprisingly artistic in this simplistic depiction of ‘life’ before life. We shall all agree in the end that to live is a blessing, but can be painful too.