Happening (2022)

Direction: Audrey Diwan
Country: France 

With this immersive adaptation of Annie Ernaux’s novel L'événement, director/screenwriter and journalist Audrey Diwan plunges us into experiencing societal severity through the eyes of a brilliant Literature college student whose life and rights are impacted when she can’t get an abortion done in safe conditions. This happened in France in 1963, when the termination of pregnancy was considered a crime. The procedure became legal in that country in 1975. 

The film strikingly punctuates the realist drama lived by Anne (Anamaria Vartolomei), an unhesitating young woman who realizes she’s not prepared to have a child at that particular moment. Giving birth would absolutely destroy her life and a future career that is bound to be extraordinary. Anguished and lonely, she fights with everything she has. The narrative exposes several difficulties that come her way: having to hide the truth from her hardworking parents, the shame of talking to her friends about the problem, approaching the estranged man who got her pregnant, continuing or not her studies, the doctors’ hypocrisy, the unemotional abortionist, the health and criminal risks. 

It’s a visceral experience that, unabashedly, takes the podium for this particular topic, alongside European contemporary classics such as Vera Drake (2004) and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007). The unpredictability of the story, together with a sensitive performance by Vartolomei, a Franco-Romanian actor who announces herself as a major name to watch, are prime causes for not letting this one go.

Great Freedom (2022)

Direction: Sebastian Meise
Country: Austria

This deeply humane gay prison drama outlined with a few good twists and a clear message is based on a true story of love and sacrifice that spanned more than 25 years. In his path of desolation, Hans Hoffman (Franz Rogowski), a fearless man repeatedly imprisoned in the post-war Germany because of his homosexuality, shows impressive resilience in the face of the monstrosity of a prejudice that first hurts, then slowly kills. The infamous Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code, which made homosexual relationships between males a crime, only ended in 1994. 

11 years after his fictional debut feature (a shocking family drama called Still Life), Austrian filmmaker Sebastian Meise returns with confidence, demonstrating a sincere attention toward the characters in addition to conferring them a real human depth. He paints a picture of daily prison life with a different angle in mind. Thus, don’t expect that typical climate of terror that usually invades these detention institutions. 

Moved by genuine love and monumental compassion, Great Freedom becomes an accomplished picture as a result, succeeding beyond all possible sentimental trappings that are common to the genre. It manages to remain tense and focused, even in the hollows of its efficiently structured story. We have seen hundreds of prison tales with both virile and romantic bonds at the center, but none like this one. It’s a beautiful, sensitive and touching picture that more than deserves its place in the queer cinema history.

Father (2022)

Direction: Srdan Golubovic
Country: Serbia 

From Srdan Golubovic, the Serbian director of The Trap (2007) and Circles (2013), comes Father, another inspiring move made by a qualified filmmaker who deserves wider recognition. This engrossing and horrifically authentic drama is likely the deepest felt and most emotionally affecting of his works.

The story follows, Nikola (Goran Bogdan), a day worker from a small Serbian town who is caught in despair in the possibility of losing his two children to social services. Poverty, hunger, and the inability to collect the financial compensation he was entitled to when fired two years before, made his wife protest in a vehement and radical way, leading to agonizing circumstances. Against corruption and injustice, the humiliated, penurious Nikola decides to cross Serbia on foot toward Belgrade, where he intends to appeal.

There is so much going on in Father. The observation and exposition of the situation described, as well as the honesty with which it is told, make this moving story penetrate our hearts. So much persistence is needed to earn a crumb from an exploitative system that simply doesn’t do its job. And then, the final blow extends from political corrosion to the society and the individual. 

The film is remarkably interpreted by Bogdan, and well seconded by Boris Isakovic, who manages to get on our nerves while impersonating the condescending head of the local social service department. Few films can be said to truly capture the silent struggle of a father and the love for his family. However, be advised that even refusing to discard hope, Father is not the uplifting type at all.

The Northman (2022)

Direction: Robert Eggers
Country: USA 

After the excellent results obtained with The Witch (2015) and The Lighthouse (2019), American director Robert Eggers is abandoning the horror genre that allowed him to make a name for himself. His new film, The Northman, is an unengaging, mythologically charged story of revenge that takes place in 10th-century Iceland. Actors Willem Dafoe, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Kate Dickie team up again with the director but with minor roles, while the heavyweights Alexander Skarsgard, Nicole Kidman, and Ethan Hawke join him for the first time in this exhausting, Hamlet-(un)inspired epic in need of a better dramaturgical arc.

Eggers, who co-wrote the script with Sjón, takes us to the kingdom of King Aurvandil (Hawke), who is betrayed and slayed by his half-brother Fjölnir (Claes Bang). The king’s only son and heir to the throne, Prince Amleth (played as an adult by Skarsgard), manages to escape, swearing revenge. He returns many years after, in the company of an enslaved sorcerer named Olga (Taylor-Joy), to finally avenge his father’s death and free his mother, Queen Gudrún (Kidman). 

Denoting a certain grim integrity, the film has its visual beauty exceeded only by the gruesomeness of the violence. As for the rest, there’s a scarce amount of cleverness here. The adrenaline refuses to pump, even when multiple screams of rage burst from the Viking’s mouth, and the execution didn’t satisfy, with Eggers often showing indecision between pure rawness and the frivolous adornment that typically mark high-budget flicks. By comparison, David Lowery’s The Green Knight (2021) was as darkly medieval as this one, but brought much more mysticism and ambiguity to the setting. The Northman has a limited payoff after two hours, and not even an unexpected finale saves it from averageness.

X (2022)

Direction: Ti West
Country: USA 

X, the new slasher flick that will give horror fans another good reason to smile, was conceived by American writer and director Ti West (The House of the Devil, 2009; The Innkeepers, 2011; The Sacrament, 2013), who applies his own formula with surprisingly good ideas. 

The story, set in 1979 Texas, follows a porn film crew that rents a secluded farmhouse to shoot a low-budget film that is intended to revolutionize the genre. The problem is that the elderly couple that owns the place and lives next door - Howard (Stephen Ure) and Pearl (a completely transformed Mia Goth) - turns out to be as much violent as they are creepy. Everything gets transfigured when the decrepit yet libidinous Pearl, already attracted to the vicious actor Maxine (double role by Mia Goth), witnesses a scene from the movie by peeking through the window. 

Endorsing the patterns of several classics but endowing them with unbridled new audacity, this shocker also provides substantial gore. There’s even a fierce crocodile attack that challenges Spielberg’s Jaws. When you enter the theater, you don’t really know where you’re stepping, but you get what you paid for: a viscerally graphic parody that oozes and suppurates.

Sexual Drive (2022)

Direction: Kota Yoshida
Country: Japan

Kota Yoshida’s scrumptious comedy, Sexual Drive, is another curious triptych film coming from Japan, after last year’s Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy by Ryusuke Hamaguchi. The film is an amusing sex-food hookup driven with skill, dynamism and humor. Although not always thrilling, it's excitingly cerebral and conveys an effective emotional undertow beneath its complex aphrodisiac food neurosis.

The first segment involves an apologizing man, Kurita (Tateto Serizawa), who visits his lover's husband to confess their passionate 3-year love affair. The second episode follows a woman suffering from panic disorder who accidentally hits Kurita while driving. In the last chapter, the latter character, who bridges the three stories, threats a married man on the phone, making him experience the same solitude his lover felt when he cancelled their rendezvous last minute. 

The menu includes natto, mapo tofu, and ramen with extra back fat, but extends the piquant pleasures beyond the palatable. If you’re into unpretentious, funny films that offer multiple scenarios as a 70-minute escapist entertainment, then the cinematic ingredients of Sexual Drive should be enough for you to have a good time.

7 Days (2022)

Direction: Roshan Sethi
Country: USA

7 Days, a confined yet colorful rom-com pulled out from the Covid-19 era, centers on two young Indian Americans - Ravi (Karan Soni) and Rita (Geraldine Viswanathan) - whose traditional parents set up their profiles on a popular dating website in hopes they find love and get married. He is abstemious, repressed, a compulsive cleaner and an impersonator, as well as an avid talker who only watches Bollywood. Much more aggressive in posture, she is a heavy drinker and meat eater, a terrible cook who is in a forbidden relationship with a married man.

Their hilarious first meet up - a picnic in an empty reservoir - doesn’t spark any chemistry, and to make things more uncomfortable and inconvenient, they are burdened with a stay-indoors order for a couple of days due to pandemic restrictions. Gradually revealing their true personalities, secrets and vulnerabilities, these two lonely and dissimilar beings suddenly realize they can fall in love if they care for each other and get in sync.

Co-written and directed by Roshan Sethi, and produced by the Duplass Brothers, the film is somewhat predictable but to the point, incorporating a few zany situations that really made me laugh. The two leads, keeping the excitement moving like a house afire, not only engage in sharp dialogue but also share moments of boredom, ecstasy and detailed observation. They turn the genre’s conventions into an up-to-date escapist flick, which, by the way, was shot in just one week.

Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle (2022)

Direction: Arthur Harari
Country: Japan / France / other 

There’s a certain appeal in the mental confinement of a man devoted to his cause to the point of denying the obvious. The French filmmaker Arthur Harari (Dark Inclusion, 2016) magnificently captures the topic in his sophomore feature, Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle, by telling the true story of a tenacious Japanese soldier who lived in a permanent state of belligerency on a Filipino island for thirty years, after the second world war was over. 

Eschewing any type of unnecessary flourish, this observant epic takes a heartbreaking look at a man’s spirit of duty, resistance, and ultimately delusion. Keen observation bleeds out of many scenes as we follow the incredulous soldier Hiroo Onoda (Yuya Endo / Kanji Tsuda), a man who never surrendered until ordered by the high-ranking official who had trained him, Major Taniguchi (Issey Ogata). Harari captures few battle scenes, almost conveying detached feelings when he does, as if not wanting them to overwhelm the deception and obstinacy of a soldier who fights an invisible war.

Unfolding with the enthrallment of some classics - directors Kon Ichikawa and Masaki Kobayashi are probably influences - the film is a seamless, nearly absurd, and pity-free account of a particular war episode that is, nevertheless, quite touching.

The Tale of King Crab (2022)

Direction: Alessio Rigo de Righi, Matteo Zoppis
Country: Italy 

The Tale of King Crab, a slow-burning folk tale, is more entertaining and atmospheric than essential viewing. What I've just said doesn’t take away the merits achieved with the categorically photographed images (the film was shot in 16mm), a sublime mise-en-scene that feels completely appropriate for the 19th-century ambience, and the volatile moodiness and cinematic poetry that, despite the slow pace, provide a certain rhythmic backbone to the story. 

Co-directed and co-written by Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis, who sign here their first fictional feature, the film tells the legend of Luciano (newcomer Gabriele Silli), a depressed man who returns to his secluded hometown in the Tuscia region, after a period of time spent in Rome. Seen by the villagers as a drunkard, a madman, an aristocrat, and a saint, Luciano takes the path of gold-digging adventure after being extradited to Tierra del Fuego, in the far south of Argentina. 

This bittersweet picture is as odd as it is mesmerizing. Even if over-ambitious at times, it still unveils disenchantment, disgrace, survival, and avidity with a personal touch. Yet, some connotations with Lucrecia Martel’s Zama and Werner Herzog’s Aguirre are not unreasonable. Crab is not an easy chew. But if you find a way to crack open its austere exterior, there is a treasure to be found.

Windfall (2022)

Direction: Charlie McDowell
Country: USA 

An unremitting establishing shot remains stationary during the opening credits of Windfall, a meager thriller directed by Charlie McDowell (The One I Love, 2014; The Discovery, 2017) and starring Jesse Plemons, Lily Collins, and Jason Segel. The beautiful vacation house we see in that shot, and its surroundings, become the setting of a conflict between the selfish tech billionaire (Plemons) who owns it, his unhappy wife (Collins), and the inexperienced burglar (Segel) who attempts to steal from them. 

The characters feel so at ease in the face of this situation that the film becomes instantly discredited. Moreover, the dialogues are pretty insipid and nearly every single scene feels tediously long and counterfeit, all good reasons to make us indifferent about the characters. 

About halfway, an unexpected occurrence creates the erroneous sensation that the film would turn for the better. The proceedings remained dull just the same, whereas the final twist, more than predictable, is dispassionate. Windfall is a huge misfire. It’s that kind of desensitized picture that proves unworthy of a big screen experience.

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

Direction: Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert
Country: USA 

This strenuous eccentricity from the directors of Swiss Army Man, Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, translates into a three-part Matrix-style fantasy where human bodies can be controlled by other universes. But there are positive messages delivered within the zaniness of its parallel realities. 

Brimming with a spiraling energy and packed with humor, this story follows Chinese immigrant Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh), a messy laundromat owner who’s not on good terms with her patient husband (Ke Huy Quan), nor with her lesbian teen daughter (Stephanie Hsu). Her conservative and cranky father (James Hong) is another trouble, but what’s really giving her heebie-jeebies is the laundromat’s cheating taxes and the IRS worker (Jamie Lee Curtis) who’s dealing with the case. In a split second, she gets involved in a spiral of requests and flashbacks from other universes in which she also plays a role. 

Having the sci-fi aspect blending with faster-than-Bruce-Lee kung fu scenes, the creators pile a few too many additional oddities into the mix, but the film supports its wild premise with a skillful direction and fine responses from the stellar ensemble cast. To my surprise, among oodles of unhinged sequences, I ended up enjoying this chaotic and far-fetched movie, which also happens to be conceptual and deliciously satiric.

The Outfit (2022)

Direction: Graham Moore
Country: USA

Graham Moore, the award-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game (2014), makes his directorial debut with The Outfit, a diverting Hitchcockian picture that packs a gut-level wallop in the name of entertainment. This atmospheric crime thriller set in 1956 Chicago is tailored like a classic, relying on sharp and quick story turns to prevent you from dwelling on any possible inconsistency.

At the center of the narrative is Leonard (Mark Rylance), a middle-aged English tailor who is somehow involved with the Chicago organized crime as he lets the men of Roy Boyle (Simon Russell Beale), a powerful crime kingpin, use his store both as a refuge and a point of communication. One night, Roy’s son, Richie Boyle (Dylan O'Brien), and his dubious associate, Francis (Johnny Flynn), have a misunderstanding about a tape that uncovers a snitch inside their gang. Blood is shed, and Leonard is forced to cover up the murderer. This submissive and meek man is also opaque and calculative. Always listening and barely talking, he has to find a way to save himself and his beloved receptionist, Mable (Zoey Deutch), from a bigger imbroglio. 

Although I wish that very last section wouldn’t exist, the film’s controlled cynicism quietly penetrated my mind, leaving a good mark. Rylance (Bridge of Spies, 2015; The BFG, 2016) is excellent, and Flynn (Beast, 2017; Emma, 2020) makes for a truly insidious villain.

Marvelous and the Black Hole (2022)

Direction: Kate Tsang
Country: USA

Marvelous and the Black Hole marks the feature debut from writer-director Kate Tsang, who had difficulty wrangling the material amassed and finding a way through it. Loosely based on her teenage years, the film depicts an atypical friendship between an angsty Chinese American teen, Sammy (Miya Cech), and a cranky magician woman, Margot (Rhea Perlman), who becomes her mentor. 

In spots, the friendship between these two multi-generational characters brings the coming-of-age dark comedy Harold and Maude to mind, even if massively undarkened and smaller in interest. Here, death is replaced with magic, but Tsang’s move, being thin in dialogue while sputtering out cacophonous doses of anger and insurgent mood, feels secondhand, disguising elementarily formulaic tactics behind an apparent forthright posture.

I cannot say it's not well-intentioned and kind in nature, I just wasn’t particularly stricken by its attempting spells, which felt more conventional than magical. Both execution and performances never cut above most buddy movies, and the results, far from groundbreaking, leave you stuck on the cusp of an outburst of teen’s exasperation, which, by the way, is the film’s weakest spot.

All My Friends Hate Me (2022)

Direction: Andrew Gaynord
Country: UK 

Penned by Tom Palmer and Tom Stourton, who also shines as the lead actor, All My Friends Hate Me is a British paranoid and conspiracy comedy assembled with a succession of awkward episodes that ensure the viewer is kept guessing. The film’s direction by Andrew Gaynord is fairly good, but the constant tactics and unflinching mood become a bit of a problem along the way.

The story follows Pete (Stourton), a soon-to-be-engaged refugee worker, who reunites with his university friends for a birthday week after eight years of absence. The meeting place is an old-fashioned manor in the countryside, belonging to the parents of one of his friends. While excited to see them, this once popular socializer feels very uncomfortable around Harry (Dustin Demri-Burns), a funny local stranger they met in a pub. This man, besides stealing all the attention he would like to have for himself, seems to purposely pick on him. Everyone seems to care more about the outsider, easily taking his side whenever an argument occurs. Is this paranoia or just a simple prank?

Although just fraught enough to make us keep watching, the film manages to keep these deceptive plates spinning for longer than most, but ultimately lacks ambition. Even a bit tired of this unchanging game of secrets, assumptions and mistakes, and not impressed with the emotional trifles of the last act, I still enjoyed the finale’s sarcasm. Strouton is a saving grace in this effort, delivering an inspired performance that perfectly shapes a more mature, reticent man who once was the captain of all parties.

You Are Not My Mother (2022)

Direction: Kate Dolan
Country: UK

In her feature debut, writer-director Kate Dolan presents a suspenseful horror film whose coming of age linkage comes tempered with balanced doses of familiarity and originality, and characters to whom you could relate. This grim yet soberly discrete possession account is set in North Dublin and takes shape one week prior to Halloween. 

The very first scenes, however, take us to a freakish ritual in the woods involving a baby girl and her opaque grandmother, Rita (Ingrid Craigie). Then the story is brought forward in time and the baby, Char (Hazel Doupe), is now a bullied teen who is frequently struck by uncanny dreams about her odd, depressive mother, Angela (Carolyn Bracken). After vanishing without a trace, the latter returns a few days later with an ever weirder and scarier behavior. Is grandmother responsible for all this? We ask ourselves. 

Dolan’s supernatural magnetism is augmented by the bullying topic, showing a genuine care for human feelings that is rarely found in the genre. Though the controlled shocks are well conveyed, it's the family bond that lingers, and the results don’t disappoint. The tension cranks up to frightening levels thanks to an adequate atmosphere and solid performances, but You Are Not My Mother is much at its best when playing with subtleness. The pleasures here are not gory or frenzy but rather quiet chilly vibes that should equally resonate with horror film fans.

Here Before (2022)

Direction: Stacey Gregg
Country: UK

In this mournful Northern Irish psychological drama thriller, a middle-aged woman (Andrea Riseborough) becomes convinced that the daughter (Niamh Dornan) of her new neighbors is the reincarnation of the daughter she lost a few years before in a car accident. Her husband (Jonjo O'Neill), incredulous about that idea, sees their lives turning upside down before his very eyes.

In this first feature film, writer-director Stacey Gregg manages to give the audience just enough, without going much beyond the expected. Still, she has the ability to involve us as the tension accumulates, and the film doesn’t end without a fine twist. Suspense-wise, Gregg attempts no improvement, but mounts everything with a firm hand: perfect pacing, supple camera work, and an intriguing plot that is purposely shy in bringing stuff into the fold, creating a pervasive deceptiveness that suits the film’s narrative interest. 

Hence, what we have here is nothing transcendental nor mind-blowing; it’s just an exercise in mood that makes us believe we are stepping in supernatural terrain. It’s that sort of psychological puzzle interleaved with abrupt, rapid flashbacks meant to intrigue rather than horrify. Riseborough (Oblivion, 2013; Birdman, 2014), who proves to be a versatile actor, goes from grief-stricken to obsessive in a minute, while the haunting score by Adam Janota Bzowski (Saint Maud, 2019) makes everything feel slightly more disturbing.

Ballad of a White Cow (2021)

Direction: Behtash Sanaeeha, Maryam Moghaddam
Country: Iran 

The heartbreaking story depicted in Ballad of a White Cow is anchored in mourning, resilience, remorse, and moral dilemma. Written and directed by Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghadam, who also stars, the film is a quietly shattering meditation on capital punishment and the condition of women in ultra-rigid Iran. 

The topics couldn’t have been clearer and more subtlety depicted. The camera turns to Mina Eghbali (Moghadam), an anguished widow who learns that the execution of her husband, wrongly accused of murder, was a mistake. The state offers her financial compensation for the error, but Mina, whose grieving eyes convey an infinite sadness, still demands a formal apology from the responsible judges, wishing to make them accountable for her loss. 

This brave widow, who works in a dairy factory, decided to live alone with her 7-year-old deaf daughter (Avin Poor Raoufi), but that's also a problem. She's being sued by her father-in-law, who wants the guardianship of the child. For being a widow, she’s forced to move out of her Tehran apartment, but a stranger called Reza (Alireza Sani Far), saying to be a former friend of her husband, miraculously appears in her life, saving her from trouble.

This tale of grief, injustice and reprisal, decays in the last quarter, just to pack a punch with an unexpected final twist. The emotions are firmly kept in check throughout a story that brings enough to the table as another heinous example of wrongful conviction in the Iranian judicial history. Moghadam carries the film on her shoulders, assuring that Ballad of a White Cow becomes a pertinent and beautifully acted piece of work in its own right.

The Lost City (2022)

Direction: Adam Nee, Aaron Nee
Country: USA 

As a mindless romance-adventure flick with no twists, The Lost City seems blithely unaware of its utter predictability. The film, directed by The Nee brothers from a script they co-wrote with Oren Uziel and Dana Fox, is a blatant crowd-pleaser thronged with mediocrity and clumsiness both in the action and romance branches.

Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum star as Loretta Sage, a reclusive award-winning novelist, and Alan Caprison, the popular cover model for her latest novel, respectively. Whereas the former is not bad, the latter is barely tolerable, but the winning performance goes to Brad Pitt. He plays Jack Trainer, the human tracker and expert rescuer hired to save Loretta from the hands of the wealthy criminal Abigail Fairfax (Daniel Radcliffe). Sadly, his kinetic appearance is short-lived as he succumbs to the pressures of the jungle at an early stage.

The sought-after spirit of Indiana Jones never inhabits the landscapes of the exotic Atlantic island on which most of the story takes place. The jokes don’t work, the scenes are recklessly mounted with extravagant coincidence, and there’s a constant struggle to empathize with the protagonist duo. It’s all very unimaginative, and the entertaining qualities they claimed easily fall to pieces. Patience is a requisite if you want to sit through this soulless yet visually acceptable adventure.

Deep Water (2022)

Direction: Adrian Lyne
Country: USA 

20 years after a so-so adaptation of Claude Chabrol’s The Unfaithful Wife, the distressingly erratic American filmmaker Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction; 1987; Indecent Proposal, 1993) returns with Deep Water, a crippled erotic thriller starring Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas. They form a discredited married couple who, no longer bonded by love, agrees to an open relationship where the lack of limits becomes intolerable. While she takes sexual partners home, he makes sure to get rid of them in the most discreet manner possible. 

The trouble with this film begins with its story, which never plays fair with the audience. Lyne doesn’t explore the dark side; he merely exploits it, and nearly every scene becomes ridiculous and tedious. Moreover, this is another failed effort at making Affleck a decent actor, whereas Armas is far from convincing either in her uncontrolled sexual impulses and provocations. 

Overall, Deep Water is a poor effort; one that’s difficult to forgive. In addition to the unlikable characters and an abominable screenplay by Zach Helm (Stranger Than Fiction, 2008) and Sam Levinson (Euphoria TV series, 2019-2022), who worked in accordance with Patricia Highsmith’s novel of the same name, the film is turned into a further embarrassment through forced coincidences, the absence of thrilling moments, and an unremarkable execution. Believe it or not, its most outstanding achievement was making me laugh without even trying to be funny.

Topside (2022)

Direction: Logan George, Celine Held
Country: USA

In this haunting and emotional drama about homelessness, addiction and sacrifice, the debutant pair of filmmakers Logan George and Celine Held, who also stars, dive deep into damaged characters while setting them against a particularly interesting backdrop - the abandoned, labyrinthine subway tunnels of New York. Displaying a raw dramatic power that steals part of its narrative craftiness, the film follows drug addict Nikki (solid performance by Held) and her five-year-old daughter, Little (Zhaila Farmer). Forced to leave the sunless underground spot they call home, they emerge into the chaotic and threatening world above. 

What keeps you watching is its gritty look at how people react to a homeless young woman who, holding a kid in her arms, asks for help. This failing mother is psychologically tortured with the biggest decision of her life, and the finale provides you with one of the most gut-wrenching and compassionate moments in recent cinema. Fast and unhesitant camera movements trigger giddy sensations, increasing the sense of disorientation and affliction. It’s both heartbreaking and fascinating to watch. With minor quibbles, Topside offers an affecting, if distressing, glimpse into an appalling situation that, known as real, deserves more attention than it actually gets.