Sirat (2025)

Direction: Oliver Laxe
Country: Spain / France

The fourth feature by French-born Spanish filmmaker Oliver Laxe (Mimosas, 2016; Fire Will Come, 2019), Sirat unfolds as a radical road trip that transforms into a breathtaking survival thriller. Watching it feels like being struck by a seismic wave that grips you from the start. Early on, we’re told that Sirat is a bridge connecting heaven and hell—a fitting metaphor for the journey ahead. 

Co-written with his regular collaborator Santiago Fillol, the film follows a distressed father (Sergi López) and his young son (Bruno Núñez Arjona) as they search for his missing adult daughter in the southern mountains of Morocco. Along the way, they encounter a group of nomadic ravers caught in trippy dance rituals, awash in hallucinogens and the volatile promise of freedom.

Beautifully shot and powerfully acted, this intoxicating work confirms Laxe as a singular filmmaker. His skill in balancing nihilistic, hallucinatory, and spiritual tones is remarkable. Kangding Ray’s hypnotic trance score meshes seamlessly with Mauro Herce’s vivid, sun-scorched cinematography, deepening the film’s immersive atmosphere.

Aside from López, Laxe again directs non-professional actors, maintaining his idiosyncratic style—measured, raw, and far removed from conventional storytelling. Drawing inspiration from Kiarostami’s Taste of Cherry (1997) and produced by Pedro Almodóvar, Sirat is a grave, unsettling meditation on loss and human frailty. It builds on fear and anguish, creating a palpable sense of doom that seeps into your bones—you’ll feel the sweat on your back in its most intense moments.

Sirat is a punchy, excruciating film that shakes things up in a way rarely seen on screen. An audacious leap forward for Laxe, who edges ever closer to becoming one of auteur cinema’s defining voices.

40 Acres (2025)

Direction: R.T. Thorne
Country: Canada

40 Acres is a gnarly, slightly cynical thriller executed with precision but ultimately short on impact. Co-writer and debut director R.T. Thorne delivers a well-crafted film that nevertheless could have used a few more daring ideas and a sharper edge of imagination to fully succeed.

Set in post-apocalyptic Canada, the story follows the Freemans, a Black farming family determined to defend their fertile land from outsiders and cannibal raiders. Their rule is simple: ‘trust no one, and mercilessly annihilate trespassers. Lurking beneath the blood and grit is a pointed social critique—land ownership and theft—since the Freemans are both African-American and Native, while the marauding invaders are predominantly white men. 

Despite this intriguing layer, everything in 40 Acres feels carefully telegraphed, playing into the familiar rhythms of survivalist cinema we’ve seen countless times. The film raises stakes, develops threats, and maintains its grim tone with consistency, yet rarely ignites with urgency or surprise. In its attempt to flesh out character backstories, it sometimes loses focus, slipping into routines that blunt the tension.

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.