Steven Soderbergh’s The Christophers is a two-handed, modest bit of drama driven by a pair of eminently watchable actors—no more nor less. It’s Soderbergh applying a deceptively low-key style to a few weighty subjects, in the tale of a formerly renowned painter in his…
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The new Faces of Death, a clever, creepy riff on the notorious 1978 shock doc video nasty, is a “meta” consideration of exploitation and clicks, from the mondo VHS legend to the lurid labyrinths of the dark web. But it’s also a smart serial-killer…
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It’s a fairly common assumption that the one thing a man should never ask about is a woman’s past. What good can ever come of it? Not because the woman necessarily has anything to explain or atone for, mind you, but because most men…
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Michel Franco’s Dreams is a sobering statement on power and exploitation, masquerading as a love affair between an affluent American and a Mexican ballet prodigy locked in a game of escalating stakes. Jessica Chastain, in a bold performance, is a calculating San Franciscan arts patron whose…
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The most intriguing aspect of Harry Lighton’s debut feature Pillion is that it attempts a love story, of sorts, that is specific by design yet reaching for a universal longing. In adapting Adam Mars-Jones’ 2020 novel Box Hill, Lighton has made a sometimes funny, sometimes explicit and…
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Harry Lighton’s debut feature Pillion arrives with unflinching frankness in its love story of sorts rooted in power and control, resisting easy categorization. Both transgressive and oddly tender, Pillion—adapted from Adam Mars-Jones’ acclaimed 2020 novel Box Hill—traces dominance, submission and personal awakening with deft…
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This movie season has given us three sensational political thrillers including Jafar Panahi’s battle cry against Iran’s theocratic regime in the Palme d’Or winning It Was Just an Accident andKleber Mendonca Filho’s The Secret Agent rebuke of Brazil’s military dictatorship and its power to assassinate the lives and…
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Filmmaker Mona Fastvold’s unconventional The Testament of Ann Lee is a striking origin story of the Shaker religious movement, its titular founder played by Amanda Seyfried in an enigmatic portrait of emotional, physical and spiritual conviction. Set in the mid-1700s, Fastvold’s epic charts the…
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The degree to which Marty Supreme—Josh Safdie’s live-wire tale of American gumption and hustle, starring Timothée Chalamet in a career performance—works for you is likely to depend on how you feel about Chalamet himself. If you plug into the star’s rich commitment to craft, you’ll…
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Kleber Mendonça Filho’s films (Aquarius, Bacurau, Pictures of Ghosts) have always resisted easy classification, but The Secret Agent may be his most expansive work yet—a film that moves deftly between political thriller, character study and city symphony without ever announcing its shifts. Set in…
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