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I Saw the TV Glow (2024)
A Mood that Goes Beyond Nostalgia
I Saw the TV Glow creates a strikingly effective mood while containing a layered, thoughtful and emotional story. Visually, the film captures the 90s look but more impressive, it captures the feeling of being a teenager at that time.
It leans heavily into darkness and surrealism. The whole film feels like it's lit by the glow of a TV screen, with darkness at the edges. The dialogue is sparse and the music is evocative.
The two leads are so effective as shy, awkward teenagers, one determined to shape their own future and the other too afraid to try.
Obviously, TV and VHS media features heavily. The film addresses front and centre the huge influence of television, and the cultish mystique of falling in love with a show.
Despite an unconventional structure, I Saw the TV Glow has an impressively focussed message and is incrediblely disciplined in delivering it. It has left me quite in awe of just how much is going on in this film but everything connects, and there is so much to think about, after the film is over, if you choose to.
Triple Frontier (2019)
Strong cast. Entertaining action. Unclear message.
Watchable and often enjoyable but at the same time a Triple Frontier was quite a dispassionate film that felt a little flat. In spite of this, a high quality collection of actors all giving fine performances and some very well made action sequences certainly helped elevate it.
Former military colleagues come together after years of estrangement, to do one last job. A morally questionable, international heist, stealing millions of dollars from a drug cartel and embarking on an unexpectedly treacherous journey to get back to the USA.
The films drama came from the issues of ethics and mortality for the characters who start out torn between their military code of honour and their desire to obtain the financial compensation they feel they are owed for the sacrifices they've made.
Righting this perceived injustice is an intriguing setup, but it becomes somewhat lost sight of through the film as multiple other moral quandaries present themselves. Ultimately by the end I felt the films message was somewhat muddled, and I wish it had been more interested in exploring the deeper justification behind it all.
Watcher (2022)
Isolation and Paranoia in a Foreign Land
A superbly subtle slow burn of a horror film. It is all about building mood and a sense of paranoid dread and it does it very well. A young American woman moves to Bucharest for her boyfriend's job. She is isolated by language, feeling out of place in unfamiliar surroundings, when she begins to feel the growing sensation of being watched by a stranger.
The film does an excellent job of conveying our main character's sense of disconnectedness from people, including her own partner. It is very much a film about loneliness and the way your mind and perceptions can warp when you have an abundance of time and no one to spend it with.
It feels like Bucharest; a modern metropolitan city with grand old architecture and everyday convenience. The city doesn't play a major role as a sense of place but in a more intimate way it feels authentic. But it is a story that could be played in any big city.
The film doesn't tip its hands for a very long time, and it excells in leaving you feeling totally in the dark while completely empathising with our main character's state of mind.
Maika Monroe does an excellent job portraying her character's well disguised unease gradually transform into completely founded paranoia and discontentment.
There is a great sense of maturity in the slow way the film builds. I particularly appreciated that characters got straight to the point and shared their feelings and vital information at appropriate times. There was no contrived withholding of details as a dramatic short cut. Instead the story and the execution did the heavy lifting as they should.
However it is always difficult to stick the landing when a film has spent all of its time steeped in low-key dread building. To leave the audience with no dramatic finale is a bold and often unpopular choice to make for any film maker in this genre. But likewise inserting a last moment spike in the action can ruin what comes before.
I won't spoil the direction this film chooses but it is the reason I didn't score the Watcher higher.
Drag Me to Hell (2009)
If Indiana Jones did Horror
Drag Me to Hell is a well made thrill ride but not personally what I look for in a horror film. An old woman seemingly from somewhere in Eastern Europe curses our main character, forcing her to find a way to break the curse in a race against time. The scares are big, brash, loud and gross spectacles akin to a theme park haunted house.
This film is not interested in building atmosphere and developing dread, instead it focuses on jumps and crashes and in-your-face effects. It wants to hold nothing back and leave nothing to your imagination. In doing so, for me, it quickly ran out of places to go with the scares. There was little sense of psychological horror and the only apparent threat was physical. So once a character had been thrown around a room once or twice I wasn't sure really what was left to fear.
Within the first 10 minutes I couldn't shake the comparison with Indiana Jones. An action adventure with a big cinematic score, broadly drawn myths and legends and mild cultural insensitivity with crudely written, foreign stereotypes employed.
As someone who leans more towards subtle, moody horror I felt Drag me to Hell was well made but ultimately not for me.
Hostile Dimensions (2023)
Imaginative and Ambitious
Firstly, Hostile Dimensions is much more a sci-fi thriller than it is a horror. The film cares a lot about it's story and has a driving momentum towards solving it's central mystery, much more so than typical found footage horror. This certainly works to the film's credit and it left me impressed with the scope and inventiveness of its ideas.
A couple of documentry makers obtain a mysterious door which appears to be a gateway to other dimensions. Malevolent forces reveal themselves and what started as professional interest turns into a personal quest for the film makers.
The idea is intriguing and the film contains plenty of interesting details to help it feel fresh while keeping the audience interested. On the other hand the writing felt a little patchy and inconsistent. Many ideas that ended up being key to understanding character motivations were under developed leaving me confused by some of the behaviour and choices being made.
The acting was endearing and the cast seemed to be having fun but it was unclear to me whether I was supposed to be taking the film seriously or whether it was striving for a more tongue in cheek tone.
Overall there was much to enjoy about Hostile Dimensions, which was able to accomplish a great deal on screen with a tiny budget.
Heojil kyolshim (2022)
Overly Complicated or Too Smart for Me?
Decision to Leave is a complicated film to follow. It presents many strands of plot and delivers information rapidly, jumping quickly from scene to scene, particularly in the films early stages. It unfolds in a classic film-noir style and feels Hitchcockian in a number of places.
It is very well shot and well acted with the lead detective and the femme fatale both doing a lot of the work. There was a lot of comedy woven into the story particularly coming from the lead detectives' coworkers who each had their own quirky yet not-over developed character.
I wanted to like the film more than I ended up liking it and I think that was mainly down to the long run time and overly confusing delivery. I was left wondering if it was too smart for me to understand on a first watch or whether it was a simple story masquerading as a complex one.
Rebel Ridge (2024)
Nail-biting Action/Thriller About Blood-boiling Injustice
I am a big fan of Jeremy Saulnier's previous films, Green Room and Blue Ruin. They have a feeling of dark, visceral danger and brutality. He has a way of making you root for flawed characters, and has you on the edge of your seat as they battle through injustice.
Rebel Ridge was a definite softening of edges compared with the grimey brutality of Saulnier's previous films. But we are still given similar ingredients: a compelling protagonist and a blood-boiling injustice for him to fight against.
It is a story of small town police corruption delivered with painstaking attention to showing the audience the multiple layers and interconnected parts. There are very obvious comparisons with the Reacher TV series, although the hero of Rebel Ridge is more mysterious.
The police chief played by Don Johnson is an efficient antagonist, in too deep and trying to hold on to power. A victim of his own injustice almost as the film does shine a light on the poor funding of local government. The system is broken and it could be argued all of these characters are just doing their best in a bad situation, the ends justifying the means.
Aeron Pierre is extremely watchable in the lead as a highly skilled marine veteran. Excellent at playing cold, calculating restraint, while also unleashing glimpses of manic energy and occasionally even playfulness in the face of his adversaries.
Overall the film is perhaps 20-30 mins too long, the investigation elements could have been condensed in particular but it's a minor criticism and what was otherwise a fun, nail biting, action/thriller.
Speak No Evil (2024)
More fun but less effective remake
When I saw the Danish 2022 original of Speak No Evil, I knew nothing about it and it shocked me quite profoundly. I was hugely impressed with it as a psychological horror film. Watching the US 2024 version it was difficult to put aside bias and preconception. Why remake a film that was so good, just 2 years later?
Of course Speak No Evil (2022) is far too bleak and upsetting to ever be a mainstream success but it had at its core a really compelling idea. The idea of polite, comfortable, complacent people being unwilling or unable to maintain their boundaries. Taking that brilliantly executed idea in the original film in a slightly more audience-friendly direction actually makes a great deal of sense. And this is what Speak No Evil (2024) does with some success.
James McAvoy is the shining centerpiece of this film and it is worth seeing for his performance alone. A loud and brash portrayal of volatile and fragile masculinity; a horrible character but with just enough charm and charisma to keep you from despising him.
Much like the original a mild mannered couple from the city and their young child take up an invitation to stay with an edgy and wild family that they barely know, at their country home. The hosts continually test, probe and push the boundaries of their embarrassed guests in increasingly alarming ways and it is a testament to the writing and acting that it mostly stays on the side of believable and relatable.
Overall Speak No Evil (2024) is much less subtle and has a lot less to say about culture and power dynamics than the original but it will have a whole new audience asking themselves 'how far would I let this go on?'
Chupacabra Territory (2016)
Not the worst but not good found footage
Found footage is a sub genre of horror that I really enjoy, but recognise it has a lot of quality issues. Chupacabra Territory was one of many weak efforts in the category. It's certainly not alone, nor the worst example, but it contributes to the bad name that found footage has created for itself.
The writing and the characters had very little focus and consistency. One minute a character would be a serious and scientifically-minded documentarian, and the next minute the same character was a crude, frat-boy-esque prankster.
Dialogue was also very patchy. Occasionally conversations would be surprisingly authentic sounding but often they were nonsensical. Character motivations were confusing and inconsistent. Why the comic relief sidekick was even on this trip was a mystery, given his aggressive and vocal disinterest in every aspect.
There was a heavy dose of repetitiveness. For a long stretch of the film, characters seemingly took turns rushing off into the forest for contrived reasons only to get spooked and rush back to their camp.
The chupacabra itself was thankfully kept at a distance from the audience which was a good choice. Less is more always works best with found footage in my opinion. But it's methods didn't really seem to match up with the legend explained at the films outset, and came across as an all-purpose, off-the-shelf monster.
It is worth bearing in mind that Chupacabra Territory was made in 2016. By no means a pioneer in the genre but it is to its credit that it is probably came just before the wave of cheap derivative found footage being routinely churned out in the 2020s.
What Is Life Worth (2020)
Surprisingly Compelling
It is quite astonishing that this film was made given the dry subject matter but Worth is a surprisingly compelling and thought provoking watch.
The film is about the implementation of the 9/11 victims' family fund. The drama comes from the tension between the fund's administration team, led by Micheal Keaton and the families. Arriving at a fair 'worth' to calculate the compensation payments is riddled with compromise and controversy as the team try to work out how to value the lives of CEOs and janitors.
The films strength lies in it's restrained performances and even handed portrayal of those involved. The victims weren't all saints, and the administrators are not cold hearted villains. I felt Worth conveyed exceptionally well the burden that comes with authority and the righteousness of legitimately aggrieved activism which made it an engaging watch.
Tetris (2023)
Fun and Fascinating if Heavy Handed and Generic at Times
A fun film, that manages to incorporate potentially boring business negotiations and intellectual property law into an energetic and vibrant story.
Undoubtedly a lot of creative freedom and embellishments have been made with this film compared with what must have been a far less eventful story but overall it got across its message: it was very hard to do business with the USSR.
Tetris did not feel like the most sophisticated film. Some characters and performances were cartoonish in their villainousnes with lazy and outdated stereotypes in all directions.
I found the protagonist's home life storyline to be a bland, and generic device about the perils of putting business ahead of your spouse and kids. Even though this mortality lesson did not ring true to the story.
Although blunt and heavy handed, I did enjoy many aspects of the time spent is the soviet union. And although exaggerated, I suspect many of the challenges and conditions shown were realistic and I found it to be a fascinating insight.
A History of Violence (2005)
A Violent Melodrama
This is a film that's hard to pigeon hole. On the one hand it's a family melodrama about relationships between a husband, wife and son, living in a small American town and on the other hand it's a brutal action revenge film. These two sides of the film also feel very different in the way they are presented and at times, in between the action, I felt like I was watching a made-for-TV movie, due to its schmaltzy score and lingering human drama.
A History of Violence tells you a lot with it's title so it's giving nothing away to say the film is very much about the idea of your past catching up to you. Can you ever really leave it behind or must you eventually confront your own history before you can really move past it.
It is the most un-David Cronenberg film I have seen. There is no surrealism and while there is violence there is none of the body horror synonymous with Cronenberg films.
This film is best enjoyed with an open mind and without preconceptions.
Longlegs (2024)
Incredible 1st Half of Horror and Mystery
The first half of Longlegs is a fantastic horror experience. Pacing, mystery, dread and intriguing characters. Longlegs himself was highly effective with genuine creepiness. We spend only a few moments with him and when we do, the dialogue is sparse and his face is out of shot or obscured in some fashion that made it all the more unsettling.
Our lead character is, a young, inexperienced FBI agent who is a brilliantly interesting mix of intuitive, obsessive and terrified. She is a quirky kind of awkward personality. Her boss is a classic 90s law enforcement manager, tough and a bit reckless but ultimately a grounded realist. The two agents work together to progress the case in a very believable way, and they meet a whole host of quirky characters through their investigation in what becomes a very 90s-ear procedural crime drama format.
Longlegs builds dread as it builds mystery and for much of the films first half it feels genuinely unsafe for all of the character and the viewer. There is a properly dark and menacing atmosphere.
The 2nd half goes off on a somewhat different direction tonally as it starts driving towards answering the mystery it has set up. The more we learn and the more we see, erodes away the expertly constructed atmosphere. And as a result the 2nd half of Longlegs I felt lets it down by giving the audience too much.
Overall a hugely enjoyable cinema experience and a film that had the potential to be really great.
The End We Start From (2023)
A Story of Motherhood More So Than of Natural Disaster
The End We Start From is a serious and somber road trip story about a woman struggling with motherhood and survival during an epic UK-wide flooding disaster.
The film's tone is deliberately bleak with almost no moments of levity. It's certainly not a fun Saturday night watch. There are parallels with Children of Men in both its themes and its portrait of societal break down. Where the films differ is that The End We Start From chooses to bypass the action and our main character has no impact on the course of the events unfolding around her. She is not a hero on the macro scale although perhaps she is on the more personal level.
Jodie Comer is good in a role that demands a lot from her putting her on screen for almost every single shot of the film. It's her film and the story is singularly interested in her point of view. And this makes sense when you realise that this is not a story about a natural disaster. It's a story about becoming a mother for the first time. Not a topic that I have any personal experience of but none the less, I am confident this is what the film was trying to convey. The overwhelming force and inescapable impact of the flood, the all consuming struggle just to get through each day, the isolation as the people around you fade away, the loss of identity, the loss of the life and the sense of self you had before. All of these impacts could relate to the feelings a new mother may experience, expressed through the analogous lens of the struggles to survive a natural disaster.
I enjoyed thinking about this film in retrospect perhaps more than I enjoyed watching it. Purely seen as a disaster film, will leave you very disappointed but as a film about motherhood and depression it is much more affective, if maybe not hugely enjoyable.
Alien: Romulus (2024)
Enjoyable if Unoriginal Action Film
Alien: Romulus leans in to the style and aesthetic of Alien and Aliens. Much of the film takes place onboard a grimy, dark spaceship so there are many similarities to be drawn straight away.
The first quarter of the film does well to build on the world of the Weyland company and its workforce. Which is a part of the lore I had always found fascinating. It's a great reminder that at the core of the alien franchise lies a stornch anti-capitalist message.
The rest of the film is an action-oriented thrill ride. Every scene, shot and piece of dialogue is efficiently used to drive forward the plot and lay the ground for something to come, everything the audience is shown is necessary and pays off. So in that regard it's a satisfying, expertly crafted, propulsive action film.
What Alien: Romulus lacks however is a genuine sense of originality. Of course this may be a foolish expectation, given it is part of a franchise. But in it's devotion to craft and very obvious yet affectionate borrowing from the early films, Alien: Romulus didn't deliver a fresh perspective. Which for me is needed in order to justify the continuation of the franchise.
Hundreds of Beavers (2022)
Hilarious and Imaginative Slapstick
Hundreds of Beavers is hilarious for it's madcap absurdity and violent (but never gory) slap stick. It's not a silent film but the characters are mostly unintelligible with much of the communication coming from a range of grunts, shouts and screams.
The stylistic choices created a unique look, reminiscent of early 1900s films, enhanced but a mix of tasteful computer generated imagery, what seemed to be stop motion and then and array of unrealistic person-sized animal costumes.
The film comes across as quirky and arthouse from the start but once it gets going it's a highly entertaining and accessible film. The lead performance carries most of the film although the animal-costumed actors have a lot to do, just without the glory of being seen.
Children of Men (2006)
Incredible World Building Anchored by Clive Owen's Performance
An exceptionally well made road trip style film. Elevated by exceptional cinematography, directing and lead performance from Clive Owen.
Children of Men is a bleak portrait of a crumbling world seen from the point of view of a disaffected bureaucrat and former hell-raising political activist, Theo. Set in an ultra isolationist, near future Britain, the central premise is the idea that no children have been born in more than eighteen years. Humanity is facing oblivion, and society is plagued by a mix of apathy, self-serving ruthlessnes, and authoritarian brutality.
In many ways the story delivery is formulaic. Theo is a typical dispassionate and reluctant hero, suffering many of the archetypal troupes. Other characters come and go to drive the hero's journey. The world is bleak and the people are tragic. But the world building is superb, every aspect we see is uncanny as a near future dusyopia, both familiar but just enough differences to distinguish it from our own reality
There are some iconic cinematography choices. Chief among them a seemingly unbroken action sequence of continual rolling camera work, following the hero through a devastating, life or death gauntlet.
Nocturnal Animals (2016)
Hits hard and stays with you
Nocturnal Animals is memorable for its two distinctly opposing asthetics. On the one side Amy Adams character lives in a dark, plush, highly stylised world of sterile luxury while on the other Jake Gyllenhaal inhabits a brightly lit, gritty, wasteland. Adams' becomes absorbed when she receives an advanced copy of her ex husbands novel. We watch her read and we see the book's narrative unfold in chilling realism. We feel her reactions as we watch, jolted back and forth between her world and her ex husband's imagination.
Writer and director, Tom Ford is best known as a fashion designer which is no surprise given the lavish setting and sparse dialogue at times resembling a long form perume advert. But the other side of Nocturnal Animals is brutal and ugly. Is the author ex husband perhaps an avatar for Ford's own creative desires.
Nocturnal Animals hits hard and stays with you. The film lingers in misery and this is what gives it its power. In this film no one is happy, and it's not likely to make you happy either but that doesn't stop it from being a magnificently thoughtful and intriguing film.
Terrifier (2016)
Slasher Masterclass with a Memorable Villain
A grimy, straightforward, gruesome slasher, with a superbly terrifying antagonist. Terrifier, is exactly what it looked like it would be, and is as good as it could have been. What I mean by that is the slasher genre is tricky, even the very best efforts are not great films, they only work when they don't take themselves too seriously; when the acting is patchy and the circumstances are absurdly contrived. And Terrifier is a first-class example of this.
Terrifier sets up a subtlety off-kilter world, that serves to make more believable the events that follow. From the reactions of characters to the tone of radio broadcasts, it left me with the impression that maybe a killer-clown murder spree is not as surprising to these people as it would be to you or I.
Practical effects are superb, and the audience is shown a lot of showboatingly over the top gore. Terrifier is not for the faint hearted. But viewed in the context of its genre and decades of predecessors, it is a masterpiece of careful curation, evoking a vague 70s/80s era feeling.
The real success that elevates Terrifier into franchise-worthy territory is the villain, Art the killer clown. The dress and makeup alone are a truly horrible vision. Add to that some terrifyingly unsettling facial expressions, brutal methods and ambiguous motivation and Art has the potential to be a villain for the ages.
Dashcam (2021)
Unenjoyable due to the Main Character
I admire that the film makers wanted to give the audience a wild ride and the visual effects were very good but I found Dashcam to be a painful film to endure. The live stream take on found footage had potential but ultimately it was the relentlessly insufferable main character that made Dashcam so unenjoyable to me.
Found footage as a genre, is riddled with idiotic, dislikable characters. When used effectively, a dislikable protaganist can enhance a horror film. Either through a satisfying arc or a cathartic comeuppance. But Dashcam does not provide either. Instead the main character's obnoxiousness is front and centre, for every minute, and felt like the focal point of the film. There may have been a message that the the film maker was trying to convey about the destructiveness of selfish people and maybe this was the perfect character through which to convey it but the point is lost when it makes the film watching experience unbearable.
Twisters (2024)
Lacked a Sense of Threat
Twisters is certainly well made with a talented core cast. It is far from a bad film, but I found the story to be familiar and predictable as far as disaster films go.
I was happy to settle into something fun and entertaining; I don't think my expectations were too high, but I think Twisters was missing tension, which is a vital part of a film like this. At no point did I feel any of the central cast of characters were under real threat as they bounced between set piece stunts.
Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones are very watchable in the leads and Anthony Ramos does well to give dimensions to a difficult role. There are however, simply too many peripheral characters.
A large portion of the film's runtime focusses on the relationship between the two leads and, aside from Anthony Ramos, there is no time left to flesh out the rest of the supporting cast, who operate largely as comic relief.
Kinds of Kindness (2024)
Lanthimos successfully revives the style and surrealism of his earlier films
Kinds of Kindness has much more in common with Lanthimos' earlier films such as Dogtooth and Killing of a Sacred Deer, than it does with his more recent and well known efforts.
Harsh and barely-melodic piano keys score the dread-building camera work. Wide shots, slow zooms, low angles and uncomfortably close close-ups. The way body-horror and gore is used reminds me of Ari Aster's film making, shocking in its unflinching, heightened discomfort.
Kinds of Kindness is a beautiful film to watch. Masterfully shot and with a real sense of lavishness. Grand, modern interiors and decadent sun-drenched, palatial gardens. We are reminded constantly of the inequality between those who have power and those who aspire to be in its orbit.
The film is split into three separate stories, featuring the same core group of actors. Plemons and stone are superb, Defoe is Defoe. Each story is surreal and thematically coherent but otherwise unrelated. We see characters let each other down and treat each other badly while abuses of power run ludicrously rampant.
At 2 hours 45minutes Kinds of Kindness is an epic and feels like the result of Lanthimos' culmination of talent, experience and access to resources. Undoubtedly this film was only made possible by his growing reputation as an auteur film maker and on a budget of just $15m is an incredible achievement.
Manhunter (1986)
Thrilling, dark and very 1980s
Manhunter is a 1980's time capsule. Filming techniques, style, lighting, score, it is unmistakably a film of its time. In both mood and visuals, it evoked Ridley Scott's 1982 Blade Runner and I wonder how much influence there was, if any.
William Peterson gives a fantastic performance as Will Graham, a former FBI profiler, trying to recover from the trauma of his last case, which put the infamous Hannibal Lecktor behind bars. We see Graham quite easily convinced to leave his family in Florida and return to the grimy and frightening world of FBI serial killer profiling, to help his desperate former boss catch a dangerous new threat.
Despite the many police procedural cliches, Michael Mann directs a thoroughly captivating serial killer film. Manhunter is filled with unsettling angles, and long, slow zoom-ins. Conversations often take place face on, in particular those between Graham and Lector creating discomfort and disorientation.
William Peterson's performance is intense and brooding. He plays Graham as deeply invested and highly disturbed; a man still struggling to put his life and his relationships back together. Combined with Mann's directing, the audience is given a dark and threatening tone.
Given the various re-imagined versions of the Hannibal Lecktor universe it's hard to imagine this film outside of that context. But Manhunter is a really impressive standalone serial killer thriller, that I think works best in isolation.
The Holdovers (2023)
An instant Christmas classic
The Holdovers is an instant classic. Watching it for the first time, feels like watching an old favourite Christmas film. Crafting such a vivid sense of nostalgia and warmth. I believe it will become a go-to Christmas fixture for many years to come.
A troubled student, a pompous teacher and mourning cook, are forced to spend Christmas together at their prestigious school. A heart-warming and universally relatable story unfolds between the three as they learn from each other and tackle their own set of demons.
The Holdovers manages to have something for everyone; relatable to those just finding their place in the world as much as it is for the cynics who have seen it all. Occasionally edgy, but ultimately family-friendly. The film jumps effortlessly from laugh-out-loud comedy, to moving moments of tragedy and triumph for the characters.
The performances are superb. Dominic Sessa plays the student with a perfect balance as both old-before-his time and a genuinely believable teenager, doing stupid things. Giamatti as the teacher, plays to-type as a misanthropic intellectual elitist. Da'Vine Joy Randolph brings humanity and warmth, but skilfully avoids cliché.
Overall The Holdovers is a joyful and optimistic film that I hope win status as an all time Christmas great.
May December (2023)
A slow-burn drama about drama
The first thing that struck me about May December was the use of a very over the top melodramatic score, akin to a light-entertainment soap opera. That shaped my viewing experience and I ended up seeing a commentary on people's relationship to drama, whether it be through tabloids, film or personal connections.
Natalie Portman plays an actress, researching a role where she will play Julian Moore's character. We watch as Portman gets to know Moore in her home and day to day life, as well as through the eyes of her close friends and family. A well publicised event from Moore's past has shaped her entire life, and those around her chose to acknowledge or ignore it to varying degrees.
The film is a slow burn, about drama, but largely undramatic, at least on the surface. It is riveting to watch Portman gradually inhabit the Moore character and in doing so stir-up an uncomfortable past for everyone in her orbit.
May December is multi-layered and has certainly left me thinking for many hours after viewing.