Infinity Pool (2023)

Direction: Brandon Cronenberg
Country: USA

Brandon Cronenberg (Possessor, 2020), the son of cult filmmaker David Cronenberg, demonstrates his appetence for horror, sci-fi and unrelieved bedlam in his latest release, Infinity Pool. Alexander Skarsgård (The Diary of a Teenage Girl, 2015) and Mia Goth (Pearl, 2022) star as leads, whereas Cleopatra Coleman and Jalil Lespert join them in supporting roles.

 The film, shot in Croatia and Hungary, follows a writer (Skarsgård) suffering from creative blockage and his wife (Coleman), who travel to the fictional coastal country Li Tolqa to spend some relaxing time in an all-inclusive retreat. Their plans become compromised as, after a car accident, they are pushed into a spiral of alcohol, hallucinogenic drugs, and a mix of horrific and libidinous experiences. 

Sensorially stirring, the film succeeds mostly in the visual department by combining saturated colors, image overlapping and alluring tonalities to depict inexplicable oddities, both physical and mental. We follow every moment thrillingly but the film is a little too gruesome and scabrous to be likable. Infinity Pool is a dark head-spinner, which, as austere as it is incongruous, comes shrouded in pain, mystery and humiliation. Goth steals the show as a hedonistic actress who doesn’t waste time controlling her whims by slowly distilling horror and pleasure. The finale allows us to shiver and giggle at the same time.

Women Talking (2023)

Direction: Sarah Polley
Country: USA 

From the pen of Canadian helmer Sarah Polley (Away From Her, 2006; Stories We Tell, 2012), comes Women Talking, a loquacious, average and unpersuasive religious thriller without the holy water. Centered on a very sensitive subject matter - that of women being subjugated, exploited and sexually attacked within a religious colony without the possibility to complain or defend themselves - the film is undercut by shallow characters and cinematic deficiencies. It’s not uninteresting in the idea itself (inspired by a real case in Bolivia) but rather unstimulating, drama-wise. Polley's script was based on Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel of the same name. 

The scenarios are mounted with a monotonous visual palette, the calculated dialogues recycle without ever renewing, and the production is so literal that viewers risk staying hungry for bolder cinema. The ensemble cast plays their parts stiffly, and only Jessie Buckley (I’m Thinking of Ending Things, 2020; Men, 2022) stands out tenuously. Ben Whishaw plays August, a sensitive teacher in love and the only male allowed in the barn meetings of a group of illiterate, mistreated women who, collectively, will reach a final decision: to stay and fight their attackers, or to leave for good. Naturally, this is all weighted up by religious considerations and the fear of missing the Kingdom of Heaven. 

It’s encouraging that these desperate women abused by vicious men had found a way but there’s still something missing in the unfolding of a story in which the dramatics feel plastically inert.

The Whale (2022)

Direction: Darren Aronofsky
Country: USA 

A Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, 2000; Black Swan, 2008) in small form articulates ideas with unimpressive results in his newest film, The Whale, a painful drama based on Samuel D. Hunter’s play of the same name. The script by Hunter himself causes some emotional friction in spots, but this film will only be remembered for the burdensome mobility of its central character. 

The film works as a new springboard for Brendan Fraser (The Mummy, 1999), whose career started to go downhill in 2010, but even his unblemished commitment to the role can't redeem this intimate behind-doors drama from excessive pathos and an inordinately staged posture that makes it less genuine than it was supposed to. 

The story makes us acquainted with Charlie (Fraser), an introverted Idaho-based English teacher suffering from morbid obesity, who attempts to reconnect with his estranged teenage daughter (Sadie Sink) when he believes he's about to die. He had left home many years before to live with a male student. Refusing to go to the hospital even when dealing with congestive heart failures, Charlie is well taken care of by his best friend Liz (Hong Chau) at home. He also has unexpected visits from his alcoholic ex-wife (Samantha Morton) and an obliging door-to-door missionary (Ty Simpkins) who wants to save his soul.

The problem with The Whale is that the more Aronofsky wants to make cinema, the more it gets histrionic. In its desire to bring out emotions, the film skips over the more complex fallout of personal abandonment, in its physically and psychologically undertows. Corporeal deterioration achieved further notable triumph in The Wrestler (2008), and I suspect that many like me will find The Whale an underwhelming movie-going experience.

The Menu (2022)

Direction: Mark Mylod
Country: USA 

Gastronomy and madness go hand in hand in The Menu, a pungent psychological thriller served with large portions of humor. I found it agreeably witty despite the grimness, with an excellent performance by Ralph Fiennes in the role of reputed if enigmatic chef Julian Slowik, who happens to be a disgruntled sadomasochist storyteller. Mark Mylod, in his first theatrical effort, directs from a script by Will Tracy and Seth Reiss.

The chef’s special dinner is served in his exclusive restaurant located on a remote island. The menu is far from classic and the elitist guest list includes a vain food critic and her editor, a wealthy couple of regular customers, three arrogant business partners, a washed up movie star and his assistant, and the self-centered Tyler Ledford (Nicholas Hoult), an undisturbed food lover. The latter took his new date with him, the confident Margot Mills (Anya Taylor-Joy), without giving previous notice to the restaurant. Chef Slowik is particularly intrigued by her presence. 

Creative and unique in its conception, the film presents a dark side that haunts, scares and lingers. A number of substantive observations about one’s dreams and our society are to be savored, and the relaxed but steady pacing allows the buildup of an emotional crescendo. Giving us penetrating looks, Fiennes completely controls the kitchen, avoiding fussiness and sentimentality, while the the music composed by Colin Stetson - an estimable avant-garde multi-reedist - accompanies sophisticated plates and key moments alike.

By the way, never the thought and vision of a cheeseburger made such an impression on me. And by this time your appetite should be big for both the food and the movie.

Sharper (2023)

Direction: Benjamin Caron
Country: USA

Even boasting a talented cast, Sharper needed sharper angles and less artificial schemes to succeed. The screenplay by Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka vomits so many twits that it makes you tired and nauseated. It’s an elliptical story that, extending itself for too long, is not as immersive as one might want it to be. 

The film, with New York as its backdrop, is set in motion with Sandra (Briana Middleton), a timid PhD student who accepts an invitation for dinner from Tom (Justice Smith), an insecure bookstore owner recently rehabilitated from depression. The course of the story then takes us to Max (Sebastian Stan), a pitiless con artist who visits his indulgent mother, Madeline (Julianne Moore). At that specific time, he meets her new boyfriend, Richard (John Lithgow), a public figure and billionaire. Yet, in this game of deceit, nothing is what it seems.

Offering no innovation, director Benjamin Caron has difficulties in finding a tone of his own. The thriller seems complex on the surface but, looking closely, you’ll realize that it doesn’t unfold in an expert way. Its machinations, despite passing a sense of fun, are based on copy-paste rudiments that wear out our patience.

Empire of Light (2022)

Direction: Sam Mendes
Country: UK / USA 

In Sam Mendes’ romantic drama, Empire of Light, we are transported to a coastal English town in the early 1980’s, where an old-fashioned cinema employs two outcasts with complicated pasts: Hilary Small (Olivia Colman), a duty manager struggling with mental illness, and Stephen (Michael Ward), a black young man originally from Trinidad who endures systematic racism. 

This is a well-intentioned, sometimes awkward effort that is hard to emotionally embrace in full. The director of Road to Perdition (2002) and 1917 (2019) handles the story with sobriety and pathos, but almost never manages to touch us. Not being particularly romantic and living from embarrassing situations, the film tells us how love and friendship can become an oasis in a cruel and violent world. 

The film is passable just because of another outstanding performance by Colman (The Favourite, 2018; The Lost Daughter, 2021), who puts up a frank smile and a depressive facial expression with the same disconcerting charm. Looking like a young Sidney Poitier, Ward (Small Axe: Lovers Rock, 2020) is not bad, whereas the incredible Toby Jones (Berberian Sound Studio, 2012) as a veteran projectionist, and the self-assured Colin Firth (A Single Man, 2009; The King’s Speech, 2010) as the cinema’s general manager, weren’t given enough space to shine. 

There are a few lovely things in this film that make it easier for us to forgive its shortcomings. But so you know, Empire of Light is no magic movie.

M3gan (2023)

Direction: Gerard Johnstone
Country: USA 

M3gan is a sci-fi/horror hybrid film pelted with a lot of artifice but little intelligence. The sophomore feature from New Zealander director Gerard Johnstone, whose well-accepted debut happened in 2014 with Housebound, deals with the difference between a programmed robot and a human being as well as the perils that can arise from their linkage.

Allison Williams (Get Out, 2017) is Gemma, a brilliant coder and robotics engineer who develops a blue-eye human-sized titanium doll that can be very sweet and very creepy too. After a failed first contact with the world, M3GAN (theatrical debut of Amie Donald) - which stands for Model 3 Generative Android - is recovered and seems to have a purpose. She will help Gemma’s orphan niece (Violet McGraw) to overcome the unexpected loss of her parents. Their unbreakable bond, however, becomes extremist, revealing more trouble than the human love and affection the girl needs.

Working from an unsophisticated screenplay by Akela Cooper (Malignant, 2021), Johnstone makes an interesting point regarding the place of robots in the near future, but offers nothing more than that. With not enough surprises, this basic tale starts stable but goes to clichéd places as the author's imagination fails to go beyond the expected. 

Cinematically, M3gan remains soft at the core, contaminated by harmful robotization while following the codes of Hollywood’s easy scares. It feels like a Beta version of something that could be much bigger. A sequel will hit the theaters in 2025; I hope it can be more ingenious and scarier than this first installment.

Dry Ground Burning (2022)

Direction: Adirley Queirós, Joana Pimenta
Country: Brazil 

Directed with calm passion by Joana Pimenta and Adirley Queirós (White Out Black In, 2014), Dry Ground Burning is an interesting docufiction that teems with intimidating facts. Centered on the story of Gasolineiras de Kebradas, the film offers no clear calls to action but draws us in by delivering a cumulative exposure of the lives of three women from the Sol Nascente favela on the outskirts of Brasilia. 

Chitara (real name Joana Darc Furtado) made history as a gas hustler. After buying a piece of land crossed by underground oil pipes, she made a profitable deal with local motorcyclists and confesses that the world of crime absorbs her inescapably. Her half-sister, Léa, who did nine years in prison, is a gun expert and vigilante who dreams of opening a whore house. The twosome like to remember their father and get a bit nostalgic with stories from the past. Their friend, Andreia, is running for District Deputy with the Prison People Party. Her main goal is to end the police curfew at a time when Bolsonaro celebrates his presidential election victory and people shout on the streets: “Lula is dead”. 

The tough attitude, a consequence of a dangerous and coveted business, is sometimes surpassed by the importance of family, children and friends. Whenever these street warriors are not in action, this is a film of languid pauses and big close-ups. The scope is made palatable by the consistency of its focus and its dry, nearly post-apocalyptic look is reminiscent of Mad Max.

The Brazilian gangsta-rap and cheesy popular songs we hear also become vital for the mood the directors want to convey. This persuasive piece of filmmaking fuses crime and drama, showing not only the cost of lawlessness but also the power of these women.

Knock at the Cabin (2023)

Direction: M. Night Shyamalan
Country: USA 

Usually stories that entail doubt and the end of the world are exciting, but that's not the case with Knock at the Cabin. This brand new by-the-numbers apocalyptic venture directed by M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, 1999; Unbreakable, 2000) comes with the seal of a self-important bore. Deficiently adapted from Paul Tremblay's novel, the screenplay is weak and twist-less, following a simple succession of almost identical events that made me ask myself: “do I really need to see this?” 

A family of three is taken hostage in a remote cabin in the woods by four armed strangers who demand an impossible choice from them. We are paralyzed. Not by fear but tedium. The hybridization of Shyamalan's topics reaches a paroxysmal degree - disinformation and insane theories, obscure visionaries and cult extremism, isolation and horror, family and faith. And then some earthquakes triggering giant tsunamis, deadly virus outbreaks, multiple airline failures, and unstoppable wild fires add more fuel to an unbalanced mix that never burns. Implausible escapes and tons of sentimental bait make it even more monotonous and unconvincing.

This manipulative thriller only confirms that Shyamalan needs better ideas and smarter twists to overcome a creative crisis that has pestering him for decades. An artless film without the guts to bring the apocalyptic threat to life onscreen.

Mars One (2023)

Direction: Gabriel Martins
Country: Brazil 

Almost indifferent to Bolsonaro’s right-wing election winning, the Martins - a black lower-middle-class family of four from Minas Gerais, Brazil - struggles economically, living day by day. Wellington (Carlos Francisco), the father, is a building superintendent who has high hopes for his son, Deivinho (Cícero Lucas). He wants him to become a professional soccer player. However, the kid is only interested in astrophysics and join the Mars One project, whose main goal is to colonize Mars. His tenacious sister, Eunice (Camilla Damiao) is a law student who falls in love with a female colleague and moves into an apartment with her. The mother, Tércia (Rejane Faria), thinks she’s cursed after an abnormal episode that left her with PTSD. 

After two directorial collaborations in The Devil’s Knot (2018) and In the Heart of the World (2019), Mars One signals the first feature film directed by Gabriel Martins alone. It’s also his most successful one, despite a few arguable decisions that marred its denouement. This culturally rich experience - we have samba and soccer - doesn’t hide resonant universal topics in a drama about dreams, self-discovery and family dynamics. 

It’s the sincerity of the approach that keeps the film afloat at an early stage, but Mars One becomes more artificial, even melodramatic towards the end, when everything suddenly looks pink again. Even when the clouds are darker and things go wrong, the film never falls into extreme pathos and the four members of the family find the strength to fix things properly with the support of one another. On that premise, in a tender and obvious way, Martins delivers a valid message about family ties, acceptance, and hope in better days.

Pacifiction (2022)

Direction: Albert Serra
Country: France / Spain / other

This demanding but engrossing political drama-mystery directed by Catalonian director Albert Serra is set in the exotic island of Tahiti in French Polynesia, where big blue waves are surfed with intensity, and the red and orange tones of the sunset sky are gloriously captured by cinematographer Artur Tort. The film lives from rumors, conspiracy theories, and paranoia, being dramatized with hints of queer-ish fantasy, intrigue, and strangeness. 

Benoit Magimel is terrific as Mr. de Roller, a popular High Commissioner of State (a mix of civil servant and politician) who considers himself a man of action. This tormented French politician, caught between paradise and fear, lives obsessed with control and power, seeing ‘dangers’ all around him while walking in circles. He plays on both sides of the fence and his major worries consist of a casino to be build soon against people’s will; a little boat often seen with foreign men and local girls that is assumed to be in contact with an invisible spy submarine; a Portuguese diplomat (Alexandre Melo) who should be plotting against him with the help of a depraved admiral (Marc Susini) in secret mission; and a local organized movement against nuclear testings that is acting without his consent. There are few people he relies on, one of them being Shannah (Pahoa Mahagafanau), a transgender hotel receptionist whose assignment is to extract more info from those he suspects of conspiracy.

Serra has a very personal cinematic touch that reached a peak with the historical drama The Death of Louis XIV (2016). In the contemporary Pacifiction (a portmanteau of Pacific and fiction), his minimalist stance is as powerfully suggestive as the atmospherics that, lean or lush, permeate the film and can numb you into an abstruse, dark dream. This is a different kind of thriller that, capturing the sad constancy of political restlessness in a particular circuited context, feels like a delirious mania, sometimes annoying in its compulsory idée fixe.

Causeway (2022)

Direction: Lila Neugebauer
Country: USA

Causeway is a regular drama film with some good qualities and bad angles. The film, directed by Lila Neugebauer - in her debut feature - and written by Ottessa Moshfegh, Luke Goebel and Elizabeth Sanders, develops modestly with steady tones. This is not a drama of big twists but rather a delicate take on post-traumatic reconstruction and a warmhearted depiction of true friendship and support. Even if one spots a bit of ambition here, there are several aspects that didn’t gel.

The two leading actors, Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games, 2012; Silver Linings Playbook, 2012) and Brian Tyree Henry (If Beale Street Could Talk, 2018; Windows, 2018), may play two broken souls we believe exist, but the script brushes off the struggles involved with recovering from a serious brain injury. There's a pivotal scene between Lynsey (Lawrence), an engineer in the U.S. Army Corps who returned severely injured from Afghanistan, and James (Henry), an automotive mechanic devastated by a tragic accident and guilt, that attempts a dramatic climax that didn’t land. Although their unlikely friendship is positive, the traumas and family predicaments never found a deeper resonance to leave a mark.

And that’s the problem with Causeway; it advances casually and lightly for the sake of entertainment, and you kind of know what is coming at every single turn.

Mr. Bachmann and His Class (2022)

Direction: Maria Speth
Country: Germany

Humble, didactic and humane, this German documentary about a veteran teacher and his ‘foreign’ students was able to captivate, even if it draws out with more than three and a half hours of footage. Nothing too dramatic happens, but there’s warmth, caring and understanding all around. It’s an inspiring account that vibrates with compassion and tolerance. 

The title character, Dieter Bachmann, has been teaching at the Georg Büchner Comprehensive School in Stadtallendorf for 17 years. At just one step away from retirement, this man earns all the respect and affection of young students (ages between 12 and 14) in need of support and encouragement, who are about to attend secondary school. His classes are exceptional, favoring music and conversation to German and math. These very special teacher-student relationships are what make the film remarkable. 

The lack of a cohesive thesis may frustrate at times, but this baggy report, even not breaking my heart, provides illuminating insights into cultural issues and demonstrates that quality education is possible for even the most disadvantaged students. The patient, just, and attentive Mr. Bachmann is an example for everyone, everywhere, and Maria Speth’s second documentary isn't just a necessity, it might change the future of some kids.

EO (2022)

Direction: Jerzy Skolimowski
Country: Poland / Italy

The ingenious 84-year-old Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski, who directed peculiar dramas such as Deep End (1970), The Shout (1978), and Four Nights With Anna (2008), returns with the spectacular EO. Centered on the life of a donkey, the film makes for a unique and rewarding cinematic experience, conjuring up Robert Bresson’s masterpiece Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) while heading away from it by designating its own philosophical anthropomorphism and sensory-charged experimentation. 

The film is challenging, not too obvious, and delineated with multiple levels of human complexity. It’s a disconsolate portrait of humanity in the guise of a donkey’s journey painted with red-filtered dreams, life instinct, a lot of resilience in the face of adversity, and inescapable freedom, which is also the essence of Skolimowski’s enthralling cinema. 

The exquisite cinematography by Michael Dymek (Nocturnal, 2019; Sweat, 2020) is absolutely stunning, pairing up with Pawel Mykietyn’s adequate score, and Isabelle Huppert shines a light by the end as a wealthy French countess who faces emotional dilemmas.

The humor, dark enough to merit special attention, arrives unexpectedly in batches, making this moving ballad of fate and suffering even more irresistible. EO sounds an alarm for animal mistreatment while taking a painful look at the malice and cruelty present in our brutal society. Deservedly awarded in Cannes, the film establishes a connection with the viewer, sending us back violently to our mediocrity.

Babylon (2022)

Direction: Damien Chazelle
Country: USA 

Suffused in eccentricity and delusional grandeur, Babylon is a product of writer-director Damien Chazelle’s creativity. The film, working both as a love letter to cinema and a fierce disapproval of its excesses, is the result of 15 years of research, conveying an unrefined, buffoonish vision of the transition from silent to sound film in the late ’20s. 

Shot in anamorphic format (35 mm), this technically stunning exertion boasts a curious, rambunctious point of departure, but Chazelle's intentions and energy slowly rots along the way, taking the audience to exhaustion well before the end. The director of Whiplash (2014) and La La Land (2016) is more interested in shocking than providing a finely structured story. His complacent Hollywood pastiche flirts with sparkling euphoria and wild scenarios, taking good advantage of feverish jazz music and staging intensity. But if the surface shines here and there, then the interior borders the grotesque. 

Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and the charismatic Diego Calva are not responsible for the failure of a movie that competes and loses against the sweetness and elegance of Spielberg’s The Fabelmans. It’s also a weirder and more mundane beast than Ostlund’s ostentatious satire The Triangle of Sadness (a rival for the best puking moments); and a less clever, more pompous option than Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. There’s nothing personal or profound in this messy imagination of the early movies; it’s just a spectacle reduced to tics and gimmicks.

The Woman King (2022)

Direction: Gina Prince-Bythewood
Country: USA 

Between the historical African ballad and the feminist epic, The Woman King advances unspectacularly academic, annoyingly predictable, and blatantly contrived. The basic and uninteresting screenplay by Dana Stevens drove me away, making the proceedings misfire in its archetypes as quick as they attempt to connect. 

A bit more tension, characterization, and drama were required, while the unassertive directorial approach of Gina Prince-Bythewood (Beyond the Light, 2014; The Old Guard, 2020) makes it less impactant than it should. Viola Davis (The Help, 2011; Fences, 2016), in the role of General Nanisca - leader of the Agojie, the all-female group of warriors of the African kingdom of Dahomey - still conveys appreciated bravery, but the film is hermetic to its political and historic consideration, being reduced to a mediocre effort with the delicate topic of slavery at the front and an ineffective twist as an attribute.

The Pale Blue Eye (2023)

Direction: Scott Cooper
Country: USA 

Based on Louis Bayard's novel, The Pale Blue Eye is an austere mystery thriller shrouded in gothic mist. It's written and directed by Scott Cooper and stars Christian Bale (American Hustle; The Dark Knight; The Fighter) in the role of inspector Augustus Landor - a widowed, alcoholic and tortured veteran assigned to investigate a sordid murder case in the US Military Academy, and Harry Melling (known for several Harry Potter installments) as the morbid young cadet and future writer/poet Edgar Allen Poe. This is the third time that Cooper directs the incredibly adaptable Bale, following Out of the Furnace (2013) and Hostiles (2017). 

With the gloomy mise-en-scene and wintry atmosphere making it even colder, the film, set at the West Point in 1830 New York, tells a macabre story that oozes mysticism and blood. However, if its first part is solid and entertaining, the second is wobbly, marked by a descending curve in the script until crashing in an arguable final twist. 

Although not producing real brilliance, the systematized gothic tones and oppressive heaviness produce a quietly gripping surface. It’s a visually wow-inducing whodunit - with cinematography by Cooper’s regular Masanobu Takayanagi - that feels dour and slow at times.

White Noise (2023)

Direction: Noah Baumbach
Country: USA 

In White Noise, Oscar-winning writer-director Noah Baumbach (Frances Ha, 2012; Marriage Story, 2019) probes a different style, attempting to charm with adventure, crime thriller, and family comedy. The outcome of his first-ever adaptation is too theoretical and uneven to subsist. With Don DeLillo’s novel of the same name in mind, and showcasing an excellent pair of actors like Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig, Baumbach couldn’t quite handle the odd material. The course of events is perhaps excessively elaborated and the dramatic stakes feel rather low.  

The story, set in the 1980s, focuses on the Gladneys and how they react to a hazardous cloud of deadly chemicals, the fear of death (who thought of Woody Allen?), and the physical and psychological effects of an experimental drug not listed in the pharmacies. Jack (Driver) is a Nazism expert and professor who enjoys knotty chatting with his Elvis-devotee fellow, Murray Siskind (Don Cheadle); Babette (Gerwig), who normally reveals and confides, is visibly depressed as she goes through a difficult phase marked by insecurity and obscurity.

With its derivative style and witless plot-twists, the film aspires to be grandiose, comprehensive, and clever but falls flat. Baumbach quickly loses control of his film and often struggles to keep the story afloat, leaving us on the sidelines. White Noise is a disjointed and deliberately delirious monument, whose ambition is overburdened with messed-up ideas and genres, and whose required excitement becomes a tricky thing to pull off. In the end, this offbeat journey has no discernible point, and the only thing one can enjoy is the actors’ qualified performances.

The Swimmers (2022)

Direction: Sally El-Hosaini
Country: UK / Syria / other

Sally El-Hosaini’s The Swimmers is an effective dramatization of the true story of two teenage Syrian sisters - Yusra and Sarah Mardini - who fled their country to the Greek island of Lesbos in awful circumstances. Once in Germany, their final destination, Yusra (Nathalie Issa) resumes her swimming practice and joins the Refugee Olympic Team in Rio de Janeiro, while Sarah (Manal Issa) opts to aid other refugees who had to go through the same hazardous journey across the Aegean Sea. 

There are moments of sadness, panicking, excitement, and joy to be felt; at the same time, the film brings out the exploitation exerted by the greedy human smugglers, as well as the multiple dangers the migrants are exposed to in route. Although never boring or pointless, the film deals with its own adversities, sometimes numbed by a few sloppy transitions and the need of extracting emotion from every scene. Maybe for that reason, the film may feel a little extended and gradually less intense as the clock keeps running. 

Having said that, The Swimmers could have been a sentimental film, but it's not, because El-Hosaini bothered to assemble a canny combination of elements that resulted more fruitful than was expected. Taking advantage of a neat production and strong performances, she puts the focus on the refugees’ problem and gives it extra seasoning with a personal conquest in sports.

Glass Onion (2022)

Direction: Rian Johnson
Country: USA

Referencing a song of The Beatles, Glass Onion is the anticipated sequel to the well-received mystery film Knives Out (2019). The latter, without being brilliant, happens to be better than what it is offered now by the writer-director Rian Johnson, whose directorial peak occurred in 2012 with the ingenious Looper. 

Daniel Craig reprises his role as the low-key detective Benoit Blanc, who travels to the private Greek island of tech billionaire Miles Born (Edward Norton) to unravel a silly mystery involving five of his colorful, wealthy friends. 

Slackened by a low flow of energy, the film is reduced to a series of diffused circumstances that just want to prove how eccentric these characters are. It's not hard to find your way around, but the film offers no clever touches and there’s nothing really new. Occasionally, the dialogues proliferate across the general monotony with moderate invigoration, especially when hitting celebrities, but this drawn-out crime episode lacks the investigative depth required to surpass superficiality. 

Linearly plotted, Glass Onion is stunningly unfunny and desperately wacky; a barely coherent mess moved by a silly game with no thrills and no real mystery. The resolution of the puzzle is simply vomited without a gradual crescendo, making this second Knives Out installment a flat response to what was demanded by the fans of the original.