You Hurt My Feelings (2023)

Direction: Nicole Holofcener
Country: USA 

Writer, director and producer Nicole Holofcener (Please Give, 2010; Enough Said, 2013) has a penchant for exploring adult relationships with a certain kind of humor that, most of the time, feels modest. You Hurt My Feelings, intended as a tuneful satire about an upper-middle class Manhattan couple, mixes smart observation with a less effective execution.

At the center we have Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus ) and Don (Tobias Menzies), who have been happily married for years. She’s a writer and literature professor desperately striving to put her long-awaited sophomore novel out; he’s a psychotherapist who definitely needs a break as he keeps mixing his patients’ life details. Their 23-year-old son, Elliott (Owen Teague ), manages a weed store and wants to be a writer. And then we have Beth’s ever-supportive sister, Sarah (Michaela Watkins), her struggling actor husband Mark (Arian Moayed), and her finicky mother, Georgia (Jeannie Berlin). The world seems to collapse when Beth incidentally eavesdrops on Don disclosing he doesn’t like her new book. 

The story - in the attempt to differentiate lying from encouragement - is plausible, but by adopting a cozy ambience for every situation, Holofcener makes us always feel comfortable. Hence, the dramatic stakes are at the minimum, not to mention that everything gets fixed in a blink of an eye, and with a lightness that doesn’t convince. It’s a shrewd plot with some sharp dialogue, which, nevertheless, lacks edginess and a satisfying resolution. 

You Hurt My Feelings is an insufferably cute rom-com but I have absolutely no qualms in saying that it misses out on something. Although the director and her cast bring some funny situations to keep the story going, the film leans more on the average side.

Monica (2023)

Direction: Andrea Pallaoro
Country: USA 

Andrea Pallaoro’s third feature tells the complex emotional story of a transgender woman (Trace Lysette) who, after 20 years away, returns to her Midwestern hometown to care for her dying mother (Patricia Clarkson). Despite the premise, this is not a story about falling apart, but all the compromises that hold things together. 

By sharing a couple of honestly touching moments between mother and daughter and adopting an understated tone, the film is never sentimental. However, a few weaknesses thwarted its ambitions. There’s this repeated lethargy mixed with an overstated tenderness in the last third that becomes tiresome. The anxiety to show forgiveness and acceptation erases any rough edge within the family, making it pulpous and somewhat unfulfilling, giving the circumstances of the title character’s traumatic past.

The unsmiling Lysette is self-assured while Clarkson is a marvel. They help paint this family canvas with subtleties as their silences speak more than a thousand words. All the same, Pallaoro, who co-wrote with regular collaborator Orlando Tirado (Hannah, 2017; Medeas, 2013), does little to develop the narrative setup beyond the basic and obvious. The sensation that passes is that of superfluous prolongation. I felt that for every sublime moment the movie has to offer, there's a cinematic dead zone of indulgence that wipes it away. As a consequence, our interest wobbles in a story that promises more than delivers.

Scarlet (2023)

Direction: Pietro Marcello
Country: France / Italy / other

Following the critical acclaim of Martin Eden (2019), Italian director Pietro Marcello, who moved to Paris in 2020, has a hard time giving a meaningful expression to Scarlet, failing authenticity. His newest film is a gorgeously photographed but inept screen adaptation of the 1923 novel Scarlet Sails, one of the most known by Russian author Alexander Grin. 

In the aftermath of the First World War, Raphaël (Raphaël Thiéry), returns to his small rural village on the Picardy coast, to learn that his beloved wife died suddenly, leaving him a little girl called Juliette. Madame Adeline (Noémie Lvovsky), the farm owner who raised the girl, accepts him as a handyman. The years go by, not without difficulties. One day, Juliette (Juliette Jouan is a revelation) finds love, when an adventurous pilot (Louis Garrel) descends from the sky. 

Scarlet doesn't melt, but it drifts. Oscillating between historical realism and moony tale, the film still arouses some early curiosity that, unfortunately, doesn’t last long. Numerous plot holes and gray areas make it hard for us to get attached to the characters. Lacking nerve, this inefficiently executed story never reaches the required emotional power to work as a whole. 

The film’s musical parts are inconsequential and, for their brevity, ludicrously whimsical; the pedestrian romance is without passion; the sixth sense and witchcraft suggestions feel like jokes; and the archival footage - with colorized and sepia frames - creates a completely redundant, even distracting tonal mishmash. The cinematography by Marco Graziaplena is your best bet, but it’s on the bottom that this film sins.

Plan 75 (2023)

Direction: Chie Hayakawa
Country: Japan

Named after a controversial if imaginary bill passed by the Japanese government, Plan 75 opens with a suicide, which, according to the suicider is a brave act, for the country and toward a brighter future. This pathos-filled drama is about aging, loneliness, exclusion, and death. The film’s depressing tones are ceaseless and the rhythm often crumbles within its schematic structure. 

Co-wrote by Jason Gray and debutant director Chie Hayakawa, the story follows three individuals whose paths cross at some point due to this particular program. We have Michi Kakutani (Chieko Baisho), a lonely widow who is forced to retire at the age of 78 with no means of survival; Hiromu Okabe (Hayato Isomura), a young Plan 75 salesman who unexpectedly connects with an estranged uncle; and Maria (Stefanie Arianne), a Filipino nurse desperate to collect funds for the expensive surgery of her little daughter. 

Japan has the fastest aging population in the world and the idea of not disturbing anyone is especially strong among the Japanese elderly. Working from there, Hayakawa mounts achingly poignant situations, though not particularly memorable as they tend to miserabilism. A quiet intensity and elegiac melancholy pervades the scenarios of a chamber film whose feelings and textures didn’t always resonate with the expected emotional weight. Most likely, the audience will remain at a distance, both physical and emotional, but the inner journeys are made vivid by purely filmic means. 

One can find discreet compassion without condescension; and that’s positive. However, some of the parts are more engrossing than the whole.

Hypnotic (2023)

Direction: Robert Rodriguez
Country: USA

Director Robert Rodriguez made a name for himself in the ‘90s with rowdy, bloody movies such as El Mariachi (1992), Desperado (1995), and From Dusk Till Dawn (1996). His new release, Hypnotic, flagrantly misses the grip and frisson required for a solid thriller. 

A sixth sense plays a key factor in a story that doesn’t hold up; the chemistry between Ben Affleck and Alice Braga is bland; and Rodriguez directs with a heavy hand. Thus, the film never quite gels into a cohesive cinematic experience, and is, far too often, simply boring and too inconsistent to entertain.

Affleck is David Rourke, a tough police detective whose daughter was abducted in a park. Through therapy, he spent considerable time dealing with trauma and guilt, and was finally considered apt to return to duty. While investigating a series of mind-bending robberies, he finds out that the criminals behind them are strangely connected with the kidnapping of his daughter and a shady governmental program. Still, the mission to find her would be impossible without the help of psychic Diana Cruz (Braga). 

Aggressively formulaic, the film is stitched with clichés and implausibilities. Maybe if in the hands of David Cronenberg or Christopher Nolan, this story - co-written with Max Borenstein (Godzilla, 2014; Worth, 2020) - would have a different appeal. Hypnotic is as misleading as everything you see on the screen. I couldn’t help feeling bluffed in the end, sadly realizing how empty this experience was.

Master Gardener (2023)

Direction: Paul Schrader
Country: USA

In recent years, American filmmaker Paul Schrader has been dedicated to portraying lonely men paying for sins of the past, who are ironically presented with a chance of forgiveness and redemption. It happened with the nearly masterpiece First Reformed (2017) and the just tolerable The Card Counter (2021). Fitting seamlessly into this group, Master Gardener is the weakest of the three as it goes from a promisingly obscure opening to a decrease of solutions that turn it uninteresting and clumsy.

Joel Edgerton is Narvel Roth, an accomplished gardener with a violent past of racial hate and crime. He was "rescued" by and works for the wealthy Mrs. Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver), with whom he maintains a casual affair. When the latter asks him to take her estranged, mixed-blood 20-year-old grandniece, Maya (Quintessa Swindell), as an apprentice, Narvel’s peaceful life changes drastically. Their age gap is not an obstacle for them to falling in love, and that comes with a price. 

Despite the authentic rotgut flavor, the film has a one-take feel about it, being buried in a clunky framework that, not dancing with originality, rarely cracked me up. The frustrating Master Gardener brings a message of inclusivity and redemption but forgets the thrills, never going far beyond the basic set-up. To add fuel to the fire, the acting couldn’t be more stiff and the gardening descriptions, with all their obvious allegories, more tedious. The silly conclusion only confirms the miswriting of Schrader, whom we definitely prefer cynical and bolder. Better luck next time!

Showing Up (2023)

Direction: Kelly Reichardt
Country: USA 

American independent filmmaker Kelly Reichardt is one of the most consistent storytellers of our times. In her eighth feature, Showing Up, the director of First Cow (2019) captures the artistic community of Portland and trivializes it in a positive way. For this comedy-drama film, she teams up again with one of her favorite actors, Michelle Williams. It’s their fourth collaboration after Wendy and Lucy (2008), Meek’s Cutoff (2010) and Certain Women (2016).

Williams is Lizzy, an uptight artist in socks and crocs who is not confident enough about her work. She has no hot water for a while and is forced to take care of a damaged pigeon brought by her best friend, neighbor and landlady, Jo (Hong Chau), who is also an artist. One can feel some tense rivalry between the two but also closeness and affection. Aside this aspect, and on the eve of an important exhibition, Lizzy has to deal with her dysfunctional family - a mother (Maryann Plunkett) in denial, an excessively convivial father (Judd Hirsch) who seems not to care about a thing, and an isolated brother (John Magaro) with mental problems. 

I must admit that, due to its drowsy tone and lazy pace, the film may feel apathetic and unresponsive at times, almost as if it has no direction. One needs to give it time to develop and compose. With each step, the story gains depth, the characters get a clearer shape, and topics start to work appropriately together. The notion that artists are people with common problems gives the film a human dimension, and there's a wise exploration of the intricacies between artistic creation and the ordinary, everyday life. 

Reichardt is subtle but incisive in her analysis. Showing Up is an observant, critical, gently lilting, and hyper-realistic account that uniquely captures the inner world of an introverted and peculiar artist.

Amanda (2023)

Direction: Carolina Cavalli
Country: Italy 

The surefooted direction by debutant Carolina Cavalli in Amanda - an off-kilter comedy with wealthy, borderline teenagers at the center - couldn’t have had a more adequate performance by Benedetta Porcaroli, a name to look for in the future.

Carrying large amounts of irony and sarcasm, the film follows the whimsical 24-year-old title character (Porcaroli), whose permissive mother (Monica Nappo), the wealthy owner of a pharmaceutical chain, allows her to slack 24/7. Amanda lives disgusted and obsessed with not having friends. Struggling with ennui and desperately craving connections, she gets to the point of inviting her mother’s maid to join her at almost-empty rave parties.

Her miserable existence gains purpose when she realizes that a once-close childhood friend, Rebecca (Galatéa Bellugi), is more lonely and depressive than she is, and never leaves her room. With an unyielding tenacity, Amanda’s new mission is to drag her up from the bottom she hit a long time ago. 

Vapid at times, and with a deft camerawork refusing to cope with the story's confined temperament, the film is full of artifice to the point of absurdity. But that may just be the point of Cavalli, who keeps the humor, the drama and, let's face it, the goofy undertones that make this portrait of Italian bourgeoisie more derisive. Amanda is never less than provocative as its foolish characters challenge one another in strange modes.

Reality (2023)

Direction: Tina Satter
Country: USA 

Previously staged as an Off Broadway play with the title Is This a Room, Reality puts the focus on a real episode involving Reality Winner, a former member of the United States Air Force, a Farsi translator, and a yoga and CrossFit instructor whose home in Augusta, Georgia, was searched by the FBI on June 3, 2017. A warrant was issued on the basis of mishandling of classified information. 

Winner, compellingly embodied by Sydney Sweeney (Nocturne, 2020), had leaked an intelligence report on Russian interference in the 2016 US election. The two agents that approached her, Taylor (Marchánt Davis) and Garrick (Josh Hamilton), conducted a tense interrogation, but also created wry humor on several occasions - the scene involving the unlocking of Winner's cellphone is hilarious. The story moves forward in static bursts that are contained by the simple, unobtrusive direction of Tina Satter. She signs her debut feature film with promises of future quality work. 

Reality is well-made but depends almost entirely on the acting. And neither the lead nor the supporting actors let it down, providing merciless authenticity through crisp performances. The hard part is to realize that the truth is not what matters here. Winner spent four years in jail and remains under tight vigilance until November 2024. The Senate used the document leaked as evidence of Russian interference. Where does patriotism lie?

Leonora Addio (2023)

Direction: Paolo Taviani
Country: Italy 

Italian filmmaker Paolo Taviani dedicates Leonora Addio to his late brother, Vittorio, with whom he worked all his life. Together, they won the Berlin Golden Bear in 2012 with Caesar Must Die, in which inmates of Rebibbia Prison perform Shakespeare. Now, directing alone, Taviani won the prize again, with this lugubrious drama composed of two parts. The first of which set in post-war Italy and centered around the funeral of playwright Luigi Pirandello (awarded Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934), whose ashes are to be taken from Rome to his hometown in Sicilia’s countryside. The second part is a decent staging of The Nail, one of Pirandello’s short stories, where an immigrant Italian boy kills a young girl in Brooklyn.

This is not the first time that Pirandello has inspired Taviani; Kaos (1984) and You Laugh (1998) are two more favorable cases. Politically charged, the film is a dead-serious, mournful ballad with sparse lines and inexistent twists. At once sketchy and cerebral, this marginally intriguing film struggles to keep its disparate parts together. Skimming the surface is not elucidative enough about Taviani’s purpose, and I really feel he didn’t succeed in this aspect. 

The centre fails to hold, lashed around in an intellectual straitjacket, so the plot never wraps up appropriately. Although crossed by some beautiful cinematic imagery, Leonora Addio hardly seems more than an experimental exercise.

Falcon Lake (2023)

Direction: Charlotte Le Bon
Country: Canada / France 

Falcon Lake is a successful adaptation of Bastien Vivès’ 2017 graphic novel Une Soeur by Canadian actor-turned-director Charlotte Le Bon. She moved the original story from Ile aux Moines in Brittany to Quebec, and shot a sweet, endearing tale of teenage love and ghosts in 16mm. 

We can almost smell the air of summer, when the extroverted 16-year-old Chloé (Sara Montpetit) and the timid Bastien (Joseph Engel), who is about to turn 14, wander in the surroundings of the remote lake cabin where their parents took them to spend the vacations. Whereas the former smokes, drinks, and dances with friends in parties, the latter is still locked in his teenage shell. Both will experience the excitement, anxieties and frustrations of an immature first love, and deal with the natural dilemmas that arise from there. 

With the collaboration of François Choquet on the screenplay, Le Bon signs a remarkable first feature that feels acutely genuine and unique. Demonstrating a charming sense of storytelling, she directs the young actors with confidence, assuring that the story subtly progresses with a sensitive and melancholy atmosphere. 

This sort of works like an ode to that time in our lives when we still paid more attention to impulses than consequences. The talent of the young actors is obvious as they reflect teen life and confused feelings with impressive accuracy. In recent times, rarely the patterned behaviors of this age have been so well embodied in a coming-of-age drama that, in this case, is mildly stimulated by an understated supernatural dimension.

John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

Direction: Chad Stahelski
Country: USA

The fourth installment in the John Wick franchise is pelted with gratuitous violence, far-fetched action scenes, and dialogue marred by triviality. Over nearly three hours, we follow Wick (Keanu Reeves) - the perpetual killer turned ‘excommunicado' by the High Table - fighting for his freedom.

In this episode, director and former stuntman Chad Stahelski takes the acrobatics too far, making almost impossible to count the number of stray bullets wasted in confrontations with numerous Table vassals commanded by the unrestrained and sadistic Marquis de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård). His main opponents here are his former ally turned enemy, Caine (Donnie Yen); a mysterious tracker who goes by the name of Mr. Nobody (Shamier Anderson); and Killa Harkan (Scott Adkins is unrecognizable), the head of the German Table. 

Using multiple settings - from New York to Osaka to Berlin and then, finally, Paris - Stahelski included long and repetitive action scenes that don’t make the film any better since the script’s infinite roundabouts are terribly limited. It all turns ridiculous in this endless killing saga with absent thrills and not much to tell. 

By trading brains for bullets and characters for puppets, the director made the worst possible choices for this exhausting fourth chapter. I was hoping this one would be a definitive wrap up of Wick as a renegade. But no, it seems that a first spin-off to the John Wick films - directed by Len Wiseman (Underworld, 2003; Total Recall, 2012) and titled Ballerina - is on its way. Taking into account the director's style and past work, the focus should remain on the box-office, not on a clever script with acceptable perspectives.

Moon Garden (2023)

Direction: Ryan Stevens Harris
Country: USA 

Moon Garden, the daring sophomore feature by Ryan Stevens Harris, is a freakish visual delight told from an unconventional perspective. Redolent of works by Jan Svankmajer, Guillermo del Toro and Tim Burton, the film follows a sweet 5-year-old girl, Emma (Haven Lee Harris), who wanders through a scary subconscious realm filled with dark phantasmagoria while trying to leave a comatose state.

The girl is often encouraged by whispered messages from her parents (Augie Duke and Brionne Davis), who are locked in an unhappy marriage. She avoids coming across invisible entities and grotesque monsters with teeth that seem to claim her soul, but occasionally bumps into sinister men whose intentions are uncertain. Once in a while, her mind erupts at the surface, recalling past moments of love and self-confidence. This gives her the strength and courage to keep going. 

A simple story at the core opens up vast possibilities for experimentation, and the director, who has been working as an editor since his feature debut - Virus X (2010) - finds some magical love among petrifying horror and chaos. The inventiveness of detail makes it a sensory experience; one of those that is hard to stay laser-focused as the screen gets crammed with such a proliferation of bizarre elements. 

With warped sounds enhancing the industrialism of the setting, this twisted fairytale is pretty darn hypnotic.

Blackberry (2023)

Direction: Matt Johnson
Country: USA 

BlackBerry is a well-told true story about the meteoric rise and precipitous fall of the Canadian brand that brought the first smartphone into the world. Director Matt Johnson, whose staple is also starring in his own films (The Dirties, 2013; Operation Avalanche, 2016), assembles a gripping biographical tech-thriller with refreshingly witty passages and character-driven fortitude as its most entertaining values.

Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel), a brilliant if shy software developer, and his more confrontational business partner and best friend, Doug Fregin (Johnson), hire the ambitious entrepreneur Jim Balsille (Glenn Howerton in his best) for their company Research in Motion. The latter is an aggressive negotiator who may grab you by the throat and beat you about the head without ever lifting his feet from the desk. Intense and fast-moving, this thriller portraits their high demands for data as a matter of life and death. 

Even if you’re not tech savvy, Johnson puts it all in fascinating context. Aiming for greatness and not quite making it, he, nonetheless, discloses a vital, engaging part of technology history while guaranteeing absolute fun by effectively mixing serious and comedic tones. The rules of this tech business game are questioned in a last part tinged with bitterness. The acting, staging, editing, soundtrack, and direction are handled with competence.

The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future (2023)

Direction: Francisca Alegria
Country: Chile 

Employing magic realism, The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future, can be haunting at times as it languishes in an oppressive atmosphere that goes beyond superstition. Symbolism and dreamy sequences help to extract depth and meaning from a story that fuses past, present and future, while touching on topics such as family, death, forgiveness, generational damage and trauma, and environmental concern. 

Intriguingly, a woman called Magdalena (Mia Maestro) emerges from the polluted river where fish are dying. Arriving barefoot and with a helmet on, she seems to know exactly where to head. Her daughter, Cecilia (Leonor Varela), a respected surgeon in Santiago, returns to her childhood home to visit her father, Ernesto (Alfredo Castro, who worked with Pablo Larraín in some of his best films). He had a cardiac episode after seeing his dead wife. Burdened by the past, Cecilia brings her two children with her, including her trans son Tomas (Enzo Ferrada), who doesn’t hide a special kinship with his long-lost grandmother.

The beauty of the story lies precisely in how to overcome fragility, doing it with both realistic and supernatural quests that will take you out of your comfort zone. Debutant director Francisca Alegria co-wrote with two others, maintaining the lyricism intense in a non-linear film that will divide audiences. Yet, one can't help wonder if that's not exactly what the director was looking for. What is unquestionable here is that: understanding in order to repair and heal applies both to family and our mother Earth.

More Than Ever (2023)

Direction: Emily Atef
Country: France 

In Emily Atef’s death-related drama More Than Ever, Vicky Krieps invests passionately in her performance, releasing a subtle discomfort that comes between exasperation and swallowed tears. This film is certainly a strange experience if we think that it marked Gaspard Ulliel’s last performance after the tragic skiing accident that took his life in 2022. He was 37. 

Hélène (Krieps), who is in her early thirties, and Mathieu (Ulliel) try to organize their Parisian life after the former is diagnosed with a rare, progressive, and ultimately terminal disease called IPF - idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Their love is strong but the visibly depressed Hélène, for her own sake, decides to make a trip to Norway and stay with a blogger (Bjørn Floberg) she met online. 

Between Paris and the Norwegian fjords, a slow agony unfolds with quietude but also luminous hope of reaching a higher state of mind. In each shot, Atef breathes sensitivity, but her approach suffers from a stiffness that is compared with the romantic stillness that affects the protagonist's spiritual process. 

Profoundly human and saddled with a mix of somber and limpid energy, More Than Ever is, in some measure, a slightly conventional work that could have explored its characters a bit deeper. Still, we can’t help feeling sorry for this strong, searching young woman, whose life changed so abruptly. Not necessarily bowled over by what I was seeing, this is not a dislikable drama.

Winter Boy (2023)

Direction: Christophe Honoré
Country: France 

Christophe Honoré's fifteenth feature, Winter Boy, is a heavy and uninspired semi-autobiographical drama starring Paul Kircher as Lucas, a high school student whose existence becomes unbearably painful after a family tragedy. It’s a personal look at the director’s grievous emotional state in the months following the death of his father, and the desperate attempt to find comfort, usually in the wrong places. The director also stars as Lucas’ father, a reflection of his own. 

Often shot in claustrophobic close-up, the film is a full miss in its vain attempt to blend the dreamy and the depressing. Juliette Binoche, who plays Lucas’ helpless  mother, is a shadow of herself; her superb acting qualities are wasted here. 

The director of Love Songs (2007) and The Beautiful Person (2008) can’t quite get a handle on this cumbersome mess. Winter Boy is stilted, with deficient dynamics and questionable choices of monologues in front of the camera and explanatory voice-over. Losing energy along the way, what should have been done with melancholy grace, ends up in tedious disgrace. The strange mixture of vulnerability and strength that Honoré wanted to convey never convinces, and the film ends ridiculously, in flagrant hypocrisy.

Smoking Causes Coughing (2023)

Direction: Quentin Dupieux
Country: France 

Whether you love or hate his movies, Quentin Dupieux is a singular filmmaker who is not afraid to experiment. His new fantastical and absurdist film, Smoking Causes Coughing, is satirical in a way that is both disarming and perplexing. This gory, outlandish superhero comedy with some big laughs is centered on the Tobacco Force, the coolest Avengers unit comprised of Nicotine (Anaïs Demoustier), Mercury (Jean-Pascal Zadi), Methanol (Vincent Lacoste), Ammonia (Oulaya Amara), and Benzene (Gilles Lellouche). Although saviors of humanity, they struggle with emotional problems themselves and egotistic instincts. But one thing bonds them tightly: the love for grim, scary stories.

The five vigilantes led by Chief Didier (Alain Chabat), literally an old rat with drooling problems, is put to a test when Lizardin (Benoit Poelvoorde), the Emperor of Evil, decides to annihilate the Earth.

More of a sketch film willing to entertain adult audiences with the spirit of TV comedies of the ‘70s than anything else, Smoking Causes Coughing bears a horde of pop curiosities and caustic yet valid social commentary about saving our planet and the dangers of compromising technology (the presence of advanced robots - one suicidal and one retarded - is not by chance). To spice things up, he interlaces the droll mockery with disgustingly bloody scenes. Certain jokes have a forced quality, but there's something gleefully self-aware about them. 

Dupieux’s antics are provocative, psychedelic and unapologetic. His film, so well titled, so funny, so pathetic and so bizarre, is also so memorable for all that.

The Night of the 12th (2023)

Direction: Dominik Moll
Country: France 

German-born French director Dominik Moll (With a Friend Like Harry, 2000; Only the Animals, 2019) confirms an extraordinary maturity in The Night of the 12th, painting with grippingly realistic touches and surgical precision the scenario of a crime investigation and the mental struggle that consumes two cops. The film, a slow-burning noir thriller that alerts for femicide, was adapted from a 50-page passage of the book 18.3 - Une année à la PJ (2020) by Pauline Guéna. 

With a straight-line narration, this funeral fable turns our attention to brutal violence against women, rising above common trappings with the help of carefully modulated performances by Bastien Bouillon and Bouli Lanners. The former is Yohan, the newly appointed judiciary police captain in Grenoble, who gets obsessed with the case of a young woman burned alive in a small town; the latter is Marceau, an impulsive veteran officer going through a painful divorce.

Moll and his regular collaborator Gilles Marchand co-wrote the film with seriousness, making it less immediately stunning and sometimes hardly pleasurable to watch. Yet, this is a considerably impactful and realistic cinematic experience. The inexhaustible mystery persists in a story that, even wholly absorbing, is full of blank uneasiness. It can be frustrating to follow these cops, both locked in their solitude and lost in their leads.

Other People's Children (2023)

Direction: Rebecca Zlotowski
Country: France 

In her most accomplished work to date, Rebecca Zlotowski (Grand Central, 2013; An Easy Girl, 2019) encapsulates more than just a simple romance. Pruning rather than emphasizing, the plot is a realistic evocation of motherhood as experienced by Rachel (Virginie Efira), a caring 40-year-old middle-school teacher who desires a child of her own but ends up deeply attached to the five-year-old daughter (Callie Ferreira-Goncalves) of his new partner (Roschdy Zem). When things go in an unexpected direction, it’s necessary to come to terms with her own feelings. After all, a separation means two losses, not just one. Emotionally damaged and poked with unfairness, Rachel opts to remain in the background because she’s not the confrontational type.

The topic, rarely addressed in cinema, is treated with luminous candor and simplicity by Zlotowski, whose attentive gaze is empowered by Efira’s performance. The Belgian-born actress continues to astound with the depth of her characterizations - recent examples are Benedetta (2021), Waiting for Bojangles (2021), and Revoir Paris (2022). 

Other People’s Children is a tone poem of a film that entangles tenderness and cruelty within a mix of refined classicism and breezy modernity. The emotional waves are never allowed to erode the unflinching truthfulness of the film’s insights. Accordingly, with intelligent nuance molding storytelling, this is a drama that, in the end, reaches our hearts.