Ballad of a Small Player (2025)

Direction: Edward Berger
Country: USA

From Conclave’s Swiss-Austrian director Edward Berger, Ballad of a Small Player is an adaptation of Lawrence Osborne’s 2014 novel of the same name. Not a groundbreaking work, this oddly psychological gambling drama oscillates between reality and fantasy, carrying a faint but persistent aura of supernatural eeriness.

Colin Farrell stars as Lord Doyle, a ruthless gambler with a battered conscience who heads to the gambling mecca of Macau in a desperate attempt to manage his mounting debts. The situation is increasingly dire, yet the stubbornly optimistic Doyle refuses to surrender, especially after meeting Dao Ming (Fala Chen), a lonely woman working at the casino where he plays. What he cannot escape, however, is Betty Grayson (Tilda Swinton), a private detective and debt collector who knows far too much about his murky past.

Berger is unafraid to take big swings, staging sharp contrasts between moments of crushing despair and others of intoxicating invincibility and ecstasy. Farrell embodies this compulsive risk-taker with such uncompromised honesty that his performance can only be called courageous. Still, some of Doyle’s actions remain deliberately opaque, leaving the viewer suspended in a state of ambiguity that is both intriguing and occasionally exasperating.

Drenched in saturated colors and striking, vivid imagery, and populated by a few characters that verge on the cartoonish, Ballad of a Small Player is far from Berger’s strongest effort. Alongside Conclave (2024), his filmography includes Jack (2014) and All Quiet on the Western Front (2022). Yet this film retains its share of compelling moments. Presented as a nightmarish, old-fashioned character study, it probes the tension-fueled psyche of addiction before drifting toward ideas of redemption and lost love. The film never quite coheres as a whole, and its twists are unlikely to astonish, but Farrell remains a constant source of fascination. Once you surrender to its rhythm, it’s a film that carries you along, unevenly but smoothly.

Dreams (2025)

Direction: Dag Johan Haugerud
Country: Norway

Dreams is the second installment in a film trilogy by Norwegian filmmaker Dag Johan Haugerud. This feminist coming-of-age manifesto follows Sex (2024) and precedes Love (2024), exploring themes of love, sexuality, and family dynamics through a blend of first desire and literary awakening. It offers a refreshingly different perspective on teenage angst, examining the fleeting ecstasies and quiet disillusions of a 17-year-old high school student (Ella Øverbye) who falls in love with her female French teacher (Selome Emnetu). She channels her emotions into vivid writing, which unexpectedly earns the attention and encouragement of her mother (Ane Dahl Torp) and grandmother (Anne Marit Jacobsen).

Although the film carries the lightness one might expect from the genre, Haugerud keeps the material grounded and quietly captivating, shaping characters who display an unusual degree of emotional maturity. His approach to the subject is gentle and thoughtful, and the romantic connection is never overstated. Instead, it unfolds as a recollected experience, mediated by a restrained, almost immobilizing voice-over that preserves its fragility.

At times honest and even sensual, this intimate confession recalls the romantic sensibility of Éric Rohmer’s love tales, generating empathy through the careful plausibility that permeates every scene. Dreams stands as a cohesive and rewarding work, buoyed by the performers’ natural charisma and its willingness to incorporate unexpected elements into a tender meditation on first love, fantasy, and the gradual process of growing up and moving on.

The Things You Kill (2025)

Direction: Alireza Khatami
Country: Turkey

The Things You Kill, the third feature from Iranian-Canadian filmmaker Alireza Khatami (Terrestrial Verses, 2023), is a Lynchian misfire. Semi-autobiographical in nature, the film follows Ali (Ekin Koç), a college English professor grappling with fertility issues, who returns to Turkey after several years in the US. Back home, he is confronted with deeply ingrained patriarchy, ongoing family disputes, government corruption, and a series of invisible wounds rooted in shameful, inherited behavioral patterns. Everything shifts after his mother dies under suspicious circumstances, prompting Ali to hire a new gardener, Reza (Erkan Kolçak Köstendil), an enigmatic wanderer from the North with whom he enters an obscure and unsettling pact.

At first, the film sustains a slow-burning tension, working as a measured psychological character study with a clear sense of purpose. However, the surreal second half—a hall-of-mirrors pact that probes darker impulses, exposing cruelty, vengeance, and simmering resentment—possesses an enigmatic allure, though one that feels more decorative than illuminating. Like a Picasso painting, it invites interpretation without necessarily deepening emotional engagement.

The performances are solid, and Khatami deliberately sidesteps several conventions of the crime thriller. Still, everything feels a bit jarring and soulless throughout. It is a thinly veiled, downbeat tale that, despite its complex narrative construction, still delivers a fairly straightforward message. The austere tone and chilly portrayal of grief and obsession are intellectually intriguing but rarely visceral. Spiraling and twisting without arriving at anything truly revelatory, The Things You Kill won’t make you sweat—its surreal dimension adding too little substance to justify its ambitions.

Train Dreams (2025)

Direction: Clint Bentley
Country: USA

Co-written and directed by Clint Benton (Sing Sing, 2023), Train Dreams adapts Denis Johnson’s 2011 novella of the same name. Set in the early 20th century, it follows Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), a humble, hard-working lumberjack employed by a railway company that operates around Bonners Ferry, Idaho. He lives a largely solitary existence until he meets and marries Gladys Olding (Felicity Jones), with whom he has a daughter. Struggling financially, Grainier is forced to spend longer stretches working in the forests, and his prolonged absences from home grow increasingly painful. Yet nothing compares to the sudden tragedy that ultimately reshapes his life.

Influenced by the dreamy tones and minimalist aesthetic of Terrence Malick, Benton crafts a cruel, elegiac, and melancholic tone poem about life, loss, grief, and the inexorable passage of time. Will Patton’s voice-over narration gently guides us through a harsh landscape of hope and disillusionment. The intimacy and sorrow are quietly transfixing, and despite its unhurried pace, Train Dreams emerges as a deeply moving piece of filmmaking. It is elevated by polished, evocative visuals (shot by Adolpho Veloso), a bittersweet script that also reflects a racially divided America yearning for progress, and a soundtrack that convincingly transports us to another era.

Carrying the sweep of an epic drama without overreaching, Train Dreams stands as a heartfelt tribute to honest, hard-working men in search of solace and inner peace.

It Was Just An Accident (2025)

Direction: Jafar Panahi
Country: Iran

Jafar Panahi (Crimson Gold, 2003; Taxi, 2015; No Bears, 2022), the ingenious Iranian filmmaker long targeted by his country’s authoritarian regime, draws directly from his second imprisonment for his 11th feature, It Was Just An Accident. Favoring long takes and dialogue-driven scenes, the film follows Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), a mechanic falsely accused of spreading propaganda against the regime, who believes he has unexpectedly crossed paths with Eghbal (Ebrahim Azizi), a ruthless, one-legged agent who tortured and humiliated him for years. Consumed by rage, Vahid kidnaps the man with the clear intention of killing him. When doubt begins to creep in, however, he turns to a group of fellow survivors—Shiva (Mariam Afshari), Goli (Hadis Pakbaten), and Hamid (Mohammad Ali Elyasmehr)—to help confirm the man’s identity.

Filmed clandestinely, It Was Just an Accident functions as a straightforward thriller that, despite its lucid dialogue and principled intentions, gradually loses narrative momentum. Blending political courage with cinematic audacity, the film bears the mark of a true fighter, one who insists on distinguishing executioners from victims even when rage and the thirst for vengeance blur moral lines. Panahi approaches these heavy themes—acknowledging wounds that never truly heal—with a tone that oscillates between dark humor and sober drama. He worked with the advice of Mehdi Mahmoudian, himself a former political prisoner who spent considerable time in Iranian jails.

While not a radical departure from Panahi’s earlier work, the film signals a shift toward a more direct approach. The result is a provocative, at times satirical drama whose parts often feel stronger than the whole. It’s a film that actually stands up and shouts, wanting to be noticed, yet its narrative twists are limited, and several key scenes fall short of the emotional impact they seem to aim for. Support for Panahi is unquestionable, but he has articulated sharper and more inventive statements in his previous films.

The Ice Tower (2025)

Direction: Lucile Hadzihalilovic
Country: France 

Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s new feature, The Ice Tower, is a contemplative and gloomy fairytale that reaches gothic proportions by playing with shadows and immersing itself in dark, anguished atmospheres. However, this mise-en-abyme exercise, set in the ’70s, nearly exhausts itself in artifice. Adopting experimental, surreal, and glacial tones, this fantasy drama strikes with emotional cruelty—a bleak blend of strange passions, obsession, motherless trauma, and inharmonious relationships. The controversial filmmaker Gaspar Noé—Hadzihalilovic’s partner in real life—makes a cameo appearance, while Marion Cotillard reunites with the director 21 years after their first collaboration, Innocence (2004).

The script, co-written by Hadzihalilovic and Geoff Cox, draws an obvious connection to Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Snow Queen, while its cinematic influences range from Black Narcissus (1947) to A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935) to The Spirit of the Beehive (1973). Never rushing its narrative flow, The Ice Tower follows a runaway 15-year-old orphan, Jeanne (Clara Pacini), who takes refuge in the film studio where volatile actress Cristina Van Den Berg (Cotillard) is shooting The White Snow. Drawn to one another, they develop a very strange bond.

This is one of the oddest, most outrageous, and most disproportionate films to emerge this year—a beguiling mix of art and fantasy, psychic dissonance, and shattered mirrors that yields yet another intriguingly peculiar experience. It is, however, a difficult film to watch, and not as captivating as Hadzihalilovic’s previous feature, Earwig (2021). Technically well made, it is not particularly enjoyable at its core, limned with bitter rawness and marked by loneliness and despair that can be terrifying. But does its dreamlike, phantasmagoric aura carry us anywhere more profound than the merely artistic? Not quite. The narrative eventually freezes, suffocating without knowing where to go next. It’s a film that transfixes more than it enchants.

Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake) (2025)

Direction: Sierra Falconer
Country: USA 

Executive produced by Joanna Hogg (The Souvenir, 2019), Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake) is a soulful five-vignette anthology directed by newcomer Sierra Falcone. The semi-autobiographical film, built around coming-of-age themes, follows a 14-year-old girl who discovers a love of sailing while staying with her grandparents after her mother’s recent remarriage; a young violinist striving to excel at a summer music camp under the pressure of his ambitious mother; a brief, tragic romance between a dreamy fisherman and a rebellious young woman; and the deep bond between two sisters who run a bed-and-breakfast on Michigan’s Green Lake.

Through carefully framed shots and a cohesive ensemble cast, Falcone tackles mature themes while maintaining a gentle patina of softness across the film. There is a generosity of spirit and a sense of lived experience that lift Sunfish above more conventional indie dramas. The screenplay’s objectivity and simplicity may frustrate viewers seeking denser plotting, but Falcone has an undeniable gift for tuning into deftly tactful wavelengths, rendering each story with a delicate, warm sensibility.

These modest, uncynical tales make space for compassion—occasionally moving, never manipulative. The actors bring nuance and vitality, often adding just when the film seems to risk subtracting from itself.

The Smashing Machine (2025)

Direction: Bennie Safdie
Country: USA 

In his first film without his brother Josh, Bennie Safdie (Daddy Longlegs, 2009; Uncut Gems, 2019) turns to the true story of former wrestler and MMA fighter Mark Kerr, reconstructing key events—between 1997 and 2000—of his professional and personal life with with the relaxed, comfortable posture of an alternative sports biopic. Safdie casts Dwayne Johnson—here boasting an intimidating, Herculean presence—in the lead role, with Emily Blunt as Kerr’s selfish yet intermittently supportive girlfriend. Double-time Bellator MMA champion Ryan Bader appears as Kerr’s best friend Mark Coleman, while Dutch MMA former champion Bas Rutten, who trained Kerr in real life, plays himself.

Buoyed by terrific lead performances, The Smashing Machine avoids pushing the drama into radical territory, instead adopting a mildly superficial stance toward adversity. Although well shot, the fighting scenes lack visceral bite and could have carried more tension. Ultimately, this is a compact, low-key film that resists showiness. Safdie—who also wrote, produced, and edited—doesn’t inject new life into the familiar framework. It’s Johnson, vigorously supported by Blunt, who keeps the film afloat with a ferocious, career-expanding performance, breaking free from his usual screen persona and delivering a convincing portrayal of Kerr in a successful turn toward dramatic acting.

The Smashing Machine, overshadowed by John Hyams’ 2002 documentary of the same name, sometimes feels like a re-enacted documentary, following a classic, predictable narrative path. It’s a minor biopic with a satisfying retro flavor—one we watch without either great enthusiasm or boredom.

Tina (2025)

Direction: Miki Magasiva
Country: New Zealand

This New Zealand drama, written and directed by debut filmmaker Miki Magasiva, follows a Samoan teacher (Anapela Polataivao) who loses her daughter in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake and seeks solace in directing a student choir at an elite, predominantly white private school. There, she confronts racism and social inequities but gradually earns the respect of her students, their families, and the broader community, ultimately finding redemption through music and mentorship.

Tina is a motivational, feel-good story infused with genuine emotion and strong dramatic moments. Its triumphs feel hard-won, and Magasiva—himself born in Samoa—approaches the material with sincerity and craft. He employs a largely traditional filmmaking style, balancing it with a modern sensibility. His camera searches earnestly for emotion, particularly in the climactic musical sequence, where sentimentality hovers. However, he walks that tightrope with passionate devotion, showing he has a way with both actors and sets.

Generic and uncomplicated—which doesn't mean it doesn't work—Tina catches the eye as an admirable tale of resilience and hope.

Lurker (2025)

Direction: Alex Russell
Country: USA

Alex Russell’s debut feature, Lurker, is a sharp, unsettling study of competitive environments, the hunger for attention, obsessive fantasy, and emotional manipulation. Shot in textured 16mm, it unfolds as a psychological drama tinged with darkness and simmering tension, anchored by strong performances from Théodore Pellerin (Genesis, 2018; Never Rarely Sometimes Always, 2020) and Archie Madekwe (Midsommar, 2019). Pellerin plays a lonely, obsessive fan who cunningly insinuates himself into the inner circle of the musician he idolizes—played by Madekwe. Playing a toxic game, he ensconces himself in his idol’s house and pretends to be his best friend. 

Slyly aware of its own absurdity, the film keeps you hooked through its intricate web of relationships and subtle rivalries. It deftly examines the psychology of a narcissistic outsider turned confidant, revealing the corrosion and chaos his presence brings to those around him.

Though Lurker never transcends the confines of traditional storytelling, it retains an alluring spark—serving as a quiet warning against the ever-smiling manipulator desperate for validation. Pellerin is superb, walking the fine line between unhinged stalker and misguided devotee, radiating unease in every glance. It’s a pity that this perspicacious setup never fully detonates, but even without the explosive payoff it hints at, Lurker remains an astute, unnerving character study that lingers.

Suze (2025)

Direction: Dane Clark, Linsey Stewart
Country: Canada

Married couple Dane Clark and Linsey Stewart’s sophomore feature, Suze, is a smartly observed excavation of dependent single parenthood, middle-aged crisis, conflicted choices, and the unfulfilled expectations of youth.

Super-protective single mother Susan (Michaela Watkins), navigating the challenges of perimenopause, finds herself adrift when her daughter Brooke (Sara Waisglass) leaves home to attend university in Montreal. To her dismay, she unexpectedly maintains contact with Brooke’s blunt, unfiltered boyfriend, Gage (Charlie Gillespie), whom she can barely tolerate.

Flawed yet sympathetic, Suze is intimately aligned with its topics, hitting the sweet spot between awkward and affecting. Clark and Stewart’s sharp understanding of their characters’ inner lives makes the film consistently engaging, even when dealing with uncomfortable truths. Watkins delivers one of her most rounded performances, finding humor and heart in Susan’s vulnerability, while the film’s charming attention to small details makes the film easy to watch and like. 

If there’s one minor irritation, it’s how often the title name is repeated throughout — but even that can’t dull the film’s gentle wit and emotional honesty.

Familiar Touch (2025)

Direction: Sarah Friedland
Country: USA 

Familiar Touch, the first feature by 33-year-old Sarah Friedland, draws inspiration from the filmmaker's dementia-stricken grandmother. Through carefully composed frames, Friedland depicts a challenging reality with the help of 80-year-old actress Kathleen Chalfant, whose performance stands as a career highlight. Their collaboration yields a delicate, sensitive, and luminous portrait of aging.

Avoiding melodrama, the story follows Brooklyn-based octogenarian Ruth Goldman (Chalfant), who enters a nursing home after a gradual psychological decline. Filmed with precision, the slow-paced, documentary-like staging captures gestures, smiles, and silences that feel authentic, challenging clichés and striking with sobriety and purity. Though it is difficult to witness the decline of an independent woman, Familiar Touch remains warm and affirming. 

Friedland’s script doesn’t take us to a sticky-sweat swamp of tears and wild emotions, but somewhere subtler than that, without sacrificing genuine emotion. This is a small film, but one that gets to the heart with profound affection.

Hallow Road (2025)

Direction: Babak Anvari
Country: UK

British-Iranian director Babak Anvari proves himself a master of economy in his fourth feature, Hallow Road, an intense, low-budget parent-child psychological nightmare stripped down to just two actors: Rosamund Pike and Matthew Rhys. The pair sustain the film admirably, delivering committed if occasionally repetitive performances.

Written by William Gillies, the script follows a married couple—troubled paramedic Maddie (Pike) and overprotective father Frank (Rhys)—who receive a distressed late-night call from their 18-year-old daughter claiming she has crashed her car on a deserted woodland road. Both parents fight to maintain control, but fear and paranoia quickly take hold when they discover the road is steeped in sinister myth and lore.

Hallow Road is taut and spare, sustaining a hypnotic sense of unease that favors suggestion over revelation. Anvari builds suspense with precision, weaving a psychological trance that relies less on shocks than on atmosphere and dread. Yet, while the film gets the job done on its own terms, it lacks the spark that might have elevated it further. The ambiguous finale leaves your mind spinning more than your gut churning, as hope flickers desperately within the shadows of the woods.

Dahomey (2024)

Direction: Mati Diop
Country: France / Benin / other

This intelligent yet ultimately unexceptional documentary directed by Mati Diop (Atlantiques, 2019) centers on the 26 royal ethnographic objects from the Kingdom of Dahomey—now Benin—returned by France after being looted during the colonial era. Their repatriation sparks heated debate among students at the University of Abomey-Calavi. Some hail it as a diplomatic victory spearheaded by President Patrice Talon; others dismiss it as a cynical political gesture, even an insult, noting that over 7,000 pieces were stolen and only 26 have been returned. 

Feelings of frustration and injustice are amplified by a deep, resonant voiceover from Haitian writer Makenzy Orcel, who personifies the treasures in a decolonial monologue that occasionally slips into poetry. The film presents these dilemmas with transparency, leaving questions hanging rather than resolving them. 

Yet Diop’s atmospheric approach doesn’t quite summon the emotional weight the subject demands. While the mood is striking, the narrative offers little historical depth, leaving the reigns of kings Ghezo, Glele, and Béhanzin—and the broader cultural context—underexplored. In the end, the form feels more like a conceptual exercise than a fully engaging historical inquiry.

Stranger Eyes (2025)

Direction: Yeo Siew Hua
Country: Singapore / Taiwan / other

Stranger Eyes is a patiently constructed voyeuristic thriller that simmers with tension but never quite reaches a boil. Though the film is steeped in themes of surveillance and the unease of a mysterious vanishing, it leans too heavily on familiar tropes to become something truly distinctive. Still, Yeo Siew Hua’s taut direction gives it a notable edge.

A middle-aged man (Lee Kang-sheng), living with his blind mother, obsessively observes and records the lives of a young couple (Anicca Panna and Wu Chien-ho). The only crucial moment he fails to capture is the sudden disappearance of their young daughter while she plays at a public park. 

There are distinctive elements that set the film slightly apart—an atmosphere of creeping ambiguity and paranoia—but the wonderfully eerie mood that initially takes hold eventually plateaus, leaving the impression that much more lies beneath. The emotional undercurrents are complex, yet not every element touches a nerve. While my interest never wavered, something essential seems absent from the overall mix. 

Stranger Eyes leans heavily on its strong performances, and fortunately, the cast delivers even when the film itself doesn’t fully follow through.

Eddington (2025)

Direction: Ari Aster
Country: USA

American writer-director Ari Aster ventures into new territory with Eddington, following two unforgettable entries in horror—Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019)—and the far-fetched psychological black comedy—Beau is Afraid (2023). Eddington is a disturbing neo-western set in the fictional small town of Eddington, New Mexico, during the Covid era. Its bleakly comic vision of America’s violent culture unfolds through Joaquin Phoenix—in his second collaboration with Aster—who plays a lawless, asthmatic sheriff spiraling out of control after deciding to run for mayor. Emma Stone plays his moody, cult-bewitched wife, while Pedro Pascal portrays his progressive political rival.

The film is uneven, often veering into excessive satire, but it’s also sparked by occasional flashes of inventive twists. The plot takes on the form of a hallucinatory nightmare, saturated with sardonic humor and sharp social commentary—an uncomfortable, potent reminder that alienation is here to stay. Aster channels the spirit of the Coen brothers to portray a vortex of collective American madness. The viewer is submerged in a world of protests, lies, opportunism, manipulation, humiliation, conspiracies, obsession, crime, and cults. The pervasive restlessness and instability of the characters mirror today’s chaotic reality.

Unfortunately, the film loses steam and unravels after the madcap chase that marks its violent climax. Still, we forgive Aster, who, despite the narrative decline, delivers full-throttle filmmaking in what stands as his most overtly political work to date.

Unicorns (2025)

Direction: James Krishna Floyd, Sally El Hosaini
Country: UK

Ben Hardy and Jason Patel star in Unicorns, a British queer drama directed by James Krishna Floyd— who also penned the script—and Sally El Hosaini (The Swimmers, 2022). The story revolves around the serendipitous relationship between Luke (Hardy), a single father from Essex who works as a mechanic, and Aysha (Patel), a drag queen striving for artistic recognition.

The film presents a respectful and sincere narrative, told with honesty and restraint, though it takes a quieter approach than one might expect—even when going to unsettling places. It’s a cross-cultural love story marked by rivalry, cruelty, and prejudice, elevated by empathetic and grounded performances from its leads.

Straddling the line between kitschy flair and indie sensibility, the filmmakers inject the familiar premise with insight and intimacy. Most notably, the film avoids becoming overly sentimental or obnoxiously cautionary. Not particularly groundbreaking, Unicorns takes an eventful route to a predictable destination. It’s a plot you can see coming once the main characters are in place.

Eden (2025)

Direction: Ron Howard
Country: USA

Eden, a survival thriller based on a true story and directed by Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind, 2001; Frost/Nixon, 2008), boasts an impressive ensemble cast that includes Jude Law, Sydney Sweeney, Vanessa Kirby, Ana de Armas, and Daniel Brühl. But even with that star power drawing audiences to theaters, they’re unlikely to leave fully satisfied. 

The scrip by Noah Pink explores rising tensions among early European settlers on Floreana Island in the Galápagos. The year is 1929. Reclusive Dr. Friederich Ritter (Law), a semi-renowned German philosopher, and his wife Dora (Kirby), who suffers from multiple sclerosis, savor their isolated life. Ritter is busy crafting a new philosophy he believes will save humanity from itself. Their solitude is soon disrupted by the arrival of the Wittmers (Brühl and Sweeney), followed by the flamboyant and deceitful French baroness Eloise von Wagner-Bousquet (de Armas, in her most irritating role yet) and her two companions. Her dream? To build a luxury hotel for millionaires on the island.

Howard’s unwieldy, cynical screen adaptation is over-staged and draped in noir tones. It’s a little too uneven to match the heights of the director's best work. Although watchable, the film veers into ludicrousness, culminating in spiraling chaos and a burst of physical and psychological violence. With a dark, overarching theme, this propulsive if shapeless tale feels as much flaccid as it is unfocused. Eden is such a mixed bag.

Thunderbolts (2025)

Direction: Jake Schreier
Country: USA

Thunderbolts*, the 36th installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, assembles a group of disillusioned misfits—most of them tired of cleanup duty. Among them are Yelena Belova, her father Alexei Shostakov (Red Guardian), John Walker (Steve Rogers’ controversial successor as Captain America), Ava Starr (Ghost), Bucky Barnes (Winter Soldier), and the fragile, amnesiac Bob Reynolds, who unexpectedly emerges as a serious threat. Together, they must navigate the hidden agenda of CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, reprising her role from Black Widow and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), whose office is now under scrutiny.

Directed by Jake Schreier (Robot & Frank, 2015), the film offers its strong cast opportunities to shine. However, the script—penned by Marvel regular Eric Pearson (Thor: Ragnarok, 2017; Black Widow, 2021) and Joanna Calo (The Bear)—lacks imaginative spark. This is a different kind of Marvel entry, clearly aimed at attracting a fresh audience. The result is an imperfect yet visually and tonally consistent work—where not everything is fixed, but everything feels slightly patched up. Is it fun? Yeah, sort of. But still not especially memorable.

April (2025)

Direction: Dea Kulumbegashvili
Country: Georgia 

Produced by Luca Guadagnino (Call me By Your Name, 2017) and directed by Dea Kulumbegashvili (Beginning, 2020), who strives to go beyond the simple exposition of a controversial topic, April denounces patriarchal abuses in the Georgian countryside through long shots and anguished tones. 

The plot follows Nina (Ia Sukhitashvili), an experienced obstetrician accused of performing illegal abortions in the village. Solitary, she does what she must, sometimes becoming a stranger to herself. Responsibility clashes with the law in a quiet and lugubrious character study, where sinister realities can morph into quirky surrealism. This is a tough cookie of a film—visually jarring and emotionally despondent, as if Christian Mungiu had joined forces with Carlos Reygadas in ambiguous gestures filled with raw authenticity and layered metaphor. 

Substance prevails over form in a film where unspoken fear, rage, and alienation permeate the oppressive cinematic space. At times, it’s almost too uncomfortable to endure, with brutality and fragility in constant confrontation, making for a slow-paced experience that, while laudable in intention, often feels overwhelmingly static. 

One of the oddest films I’ve seen lately, April wasn’t a pleasant experience for me, but I do understand its point. I tolerated its radical, open-to-question aesthetics to learn more about the rebelliousness and inner decay of its main character. A shame that its art-house tactics tarnish much of the story’s emotional impact.