FLEE

Directing: A
Writing: A
Cinematography: B+
Editing: A
Animation: B+

Flee has to be seen to be believed. Or perhaps more accurately, seen to broaden your mind, about refugees, about people from Afghanistan, about the tumultuous modern history of Afghanistan, about the human experience. This is a window into a world and a past that puts the privilege of citizens of the Western World into sharp relief.

it’s also a uniquely incredible cinematic achievement. Flee is the first film ever eligible for an Oscar simultaneously in the Documentary, Animation and International Feature categories. Not since the incredible 2008 film Waltz with Bashir have I been so taken with and moved by an animated documentary film. I have to admit, that film was more immediately stunning on a visual level, helping render it both hypnotic and transporting. Flee, on the other hand, uses comparatively rudimentary animation in effectively specific, emotional ways. We left this movie in stunned silence.

The conceit of Flee is that Danish director and co-writer Jonas Poher Rasmussen interviews Afghanistan-born Amin Nawabi (who is also credited as co-writer) about his extraordinary life story, which he has not told a soul in his country of residence—Denmark—until now. Even when he begins referring to his story and his childhood, he casually references details that are later revealed to be part of the elaborate lie he told everyone in order to protect the family that actually did survive: that Afghan militants killed both his father and his mother, and kidnapped his sister. This was the story he concocted at the behest of the last in a series of human traffickers attempting to get him out of Russia and into Sweden. This after multiple unfortunate detours through Russia and, in one six-month period, Estonia.

Amin is not this man’s real name. The animation reportedly alters his appearance as well, which lends another layer to the choice of animation for this film. Many times throughout the film, Rasmussen switches to archival video footage. But, any time we see Amin and his family, whether in the present day or in the many flashbacks, they are animated. This is less an attempt at artistic flourish as it is a strangely comforting means of obscuring the vividness of Amin’s reality.

His extended traumas of childhood affect his relationships today. It feels like it was one of his few strokes of luck that he landed in a Scandinavian country, with its comparatively tolerant and permissive cultural attitudes. One top of all Amin’s family stresses, the kind of which most Americans can’t even fathom, Amin also turns out to be gay. There is an extended sequence after Amin finally confesses to his older brother and sisters in Sweden that he’s not interested in women, which, particularly if you’re also gay (like me) or queer, packs an acutely emotional wallop. It also bucks the stereotype of people from sexually repressed Muslim cultures.

Curiously, Amin never discusses religion in Flee, in spite of its massive influence on all of Afghanistan’s history. When it comes to Amin’s fears about the revelation of his sexuality, he doesn’t discuss any fear of God, but only the fear of being rejected by a family who had sacrificed so much for him to get the chance of a better life. His much older brother, who worked as a janitor in Sweden and scraped enough savings to attempt smuggling his family out of Russia, is ultimately supportive in a way many queer kids, even in America, can only dream of. There’s a scene where young Amin visits a gay bar for the first time, and I could only imagine that the un-self-conscious freedom on display was both intimidating and disorienting.

As for present-day Amin, there doesn’t seem to be any lingering issues with accepting his sexuality. Instead, his lingering issues have to do with how his traumas become road blocks to a healthy relationship with his current partner, who has never heard any of this backstory, and can only guess at the underlying cause of some of his subtly frustrating behaviors.

Flee is the kind of movie that not nearly enough people will watch, but which everyone should see. It’s great on a big screen in a theater, but luckily it’s also currently available on VOD for about six bucks. It’s undervalued. The idea that it reveals a dramatic story largely unrealized by xenophobic bigots, who might gain some understanding and compassion for immigrants and especially refugees, is the tip of the iceberg. This is a true story with plot twists that rival the most suspenseful of narrative feature films. It’s a literal illustration of resilience, as well as the lasting effects of deep trauma. This film is an experience I will not soon forget.

Amin and his mother, facing another in a llong ine of false promises

Overall: A

A HERO

Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B
Editing: B

I have seen and loved Asghar Farhadi’s films in the past, starting with A Separation in 2012 (A), then The Past in 2014 (B+), and The Salesman in 2017 (A). Apparently he shifted from Iran to Spain for a 2018 film starring Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem called Everybody Knows, which I never saw, somewhat surprisingly. While The Past had connections to Iran but was set in France, both A Separation and The Salesman had elements of subtle revelation about Iranian culture and daily living, and A Hero largely returns to that. Apparently, a person can be sent to jail for being too far in debt, and the debtor is the person given the power to choose whether said person is set free without the debt having been paid.

That’s a big part of the story this time, and it just didn’t hook me the way Farhadi’s previous films have. Generally speaking, it has about the same, relatively impressive production value, but with this one I’m not quite seeing the same greatness as a slew of other critics are. Maybe I’m just not as moved by a “modest morality tale.”

Farhadi, who once again both writes and directs, does weave elements of social media consequences through the narrative here in a way he hasn’t quite done before. A Hero did hold my attention for its 127-minute run time, yet again presenting Iranian people to an international audience with a deeply human eye.

Maybe I’m just missing something here, but I couldn’t quite get my head around the motivations of the central character, Rahim Soltani (Amir Jadidi), who spends a lot of time smiling at oddly uncomfortable moments. He has a young woman who hopes to marry when he is released from prison, who brings him a handbag full of gold coins with the hopes of selling them for enough cash to pay his debtor. This first attempt at getting himself out of jail happens during a two-day leave from the jail, and starts a chain reaction of sorts that only further complicates his position, instead of solving it.

The title, A Hero, refers to Rahim’s ultimate decision, after discovering the gold is not worth enough to bail him out, to return them to the owner of the bag. This woman is only seen once, and Rahim himself never even sees her; the exchange happens with his sister, and the original owner of the gold coins is never seen again. Rahim makes certain choices to engineer the spread, through word of mouth, of his “good deed,” which even gets to the point of his being interviewed by the local news. But, as his story is revealed to be increasing levels of shady or suspicious, particularly in the mind of his debtor, Rahim gets more desperate and makes self-destructive choices. Some of them, unfortunately, are inspired by a desire to endear himself to a young son who happens to have a stutter—ultimately another key plot point in the proceedings.

All of this is well and good, except although suspicions surface on the part of the woman to whom the gold was returned, Rahim tries in vain to find her in an effort to convince a potential employer that his story is true, and he cannot find her. This is the one element of A Hero that I remain stuck on. I want to know more about that lady, but instead she exists only as a transparent plot device. One could argue, perhaps, that it’s beside the point of the film, but to me it feels like an unnecessarily glaring loose end that’s never tied up.

That said, the performances and particularly the direction are solid, and A Hero fits well into Farhadi’s history of films with little action but great tension through narrative momentum alone. I don’t regret having watched it, I enjoyed it, and it’s a worthwhile couple of hours on Prime Video—it’s just not Farhadi’s best. His last Iranian film, The Salesman, is notably superior, and is also available on Prime Video. I recommend watching that one instead. But, if you like it, watching A Hero next might still be worthwhile.

Rahim hopes to present himself to his son as A Hero.

Overall: B

THE VELVET QUEEN

Directing: A-
Writing: B+
Cinematography: A+
Editing: A

Maybe this is hyperbole, because I have seen so many movies in my lifetime, and even so many documentaries, that I can’t possibly remember them all, so who knows if this claim is accurate. Still, right now at least, I am convinced I have never seen a documentary more beautifully shot than The Velvet Queen.

It all takes place in the largely unexplored Tibetan plateau, with renowned French wildlife photographer Vincent Munier, who has taken French writer and traveler Sylvain Tesson with him on his latest expedition. Their goal, here, is to get rare photos and footage of the elusive snow leopard. Spoiler alert! They get their shots, but not until after weeks of hiking and searching, in weather averaging between 3° and 14°F. Along the way, they get plenty of photos and footage of other fascinating, majestic, or also otherwise elusive wildlife, from birds to Pallas’s cats to foxes to a rare sighting of a Tibetan Brown Bear family.

It should be noted that there is no sense of frustration whatsoever in Munier and Tesson’s endeavors. It takes weeks for them to catch glimpses of a snow leopard, and yet they find joy in the hunt itself. And I don’t mean hunting to kill—just to observe and record. These men, who are both in their mid-forties, have a passion and joy in what they do that is infectious. It never seems to matter what the interest is, it’s always fun to see people do what they truly love.

As such, in contrast to most movies, and even most documentaries, The Velvet Queen features no conflict to speak of. There’s a central challenge, which is the search for the snow leopard, but that’s distinctly different. We’re not watching these people with any hope that they “overcome” any obstacles, because there are none to speak of. A lot of what they endure is astonishing; I’d be whining like a big baby within minutes in those conditions. These guys are as happy as pigs in shit the entire time.

They also have a bit of a relationship with local rural Tibetan farmers, who have young children nearly as fascinated with Munier and Tesson as they are with the wildlife. We see them interact only briefly, in maybe three brief scenes. In one, Tesson is attempting to ask an eight-year-old boy a question, using a Tibetan language book. This is the only time either of these guys show any real frustration, and even this scene is filled with joy.

“Joy” is a somewhat tricky word to use for this film, actually, because for Munier and Tesson, emotion that intense comes in short bursts. Most of the time, a better word might be serene. We get voiceover narration of journal entries, and sometimes see conversations between them, about how contented they are just to pick a spot in the wilderness, sit still, and wait, for hours. As they do this, they get the photos and footage that packs the film that is The Velvet Queen, usually of wildlife but often just of landscapes, all of it stunning and gorgeous. Sometimes, you think you’re just looking at landscape and then you’re informed of the camouflaged wildlife you didn’t even realize was in the frame. In one incredible still shot, the wildcat peering just over the ridge of a rocky mountainside wasn’t even spotted until the photo was reexamined later.

The only slightly odd thing about this film is how it’s presented as though it’s just Munier and Tesson on a trip by themselves, except of course, there is someone else there holding the camera. It’s not just footage we see the two of them filming themselves, and we often get the two of them onscreen together. Title cards at the end of the film note that it was filmed “with a small crew,” and with a crucial goal of not interfering with any of the wildlife—they use wide angle lenses from quite far off, and often discuss how the animals still know they’re there. They never discuss the crew during the film, though, and I often found myself thinking about them.

Whoever shot this movie, they did a spectacular job. The still shots and live footage alone make The Velvet Queen worth seeing. Once they finally get their glimpses of a snow leopard, it’s just icing on the cake. They are overcome with emotion. A couple of tears are shed. I didn’t get emotional in the same way watching it, but it sure was wonderful to watch it happening to others who care so very deeply about something.

Yasss queen, werk!

Overall: A-

PARALLEL MOTHERS

Directing: A-
Acting: A-
Writing: A-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

You can practically recognize a Pedro Almodóvar film on sight. Parallel Mothers is his 22nd feature film, and his track record, dating back to 1980, is overall so great that I will see any movie, regardless of what actors are in it, based on his name alone. This is not always a guarantee, of course; some of his more recent output as varied slightly. In the past 25 years, seven of his films have featured Penélope Cruz, whose best work has arguably been under Almodóvar’s direction. Almodóvar has more than one muse—he’s made eight films with Antonio Banderas, who was in his last film, 2019’s Pain and Glory (as was Penélope Cruz)—but Cruz brings a softer, if still complex, tone to his projects.

Almodóvar also has a history of unique stories centered around women, which is what he returns to with Parallel Mothers. And instead of pairing Cruz with a man as the co-lead, we get 25-year-old Milena Smit, playing 17-year-old Ana, who happens to be hospital roommate to Cruz’s Janis when they both give birth at roughly the same time. Janis as a character never states her age, except to say she’s nearly 40; Cruz herself is 47. I suppose she has to play at least a few years younger to make her getting pregnant at an unusually older age slightly more plausible.

Janis and Ana become friendly in the hospital, and to a degree, bond over their shared experience. They exchange numbers and, over time, develop the kind of relationship you might only expect to see in an Almodóvar film. The overall arc of the story here has to do with their respective babies and their relationships with them, and early on it becomes clear what unfortunate circumstance ties them together. The knack that Almodóvar has, however, is for taking his stories, which often only seem at first to be predictable, into shockingly bizarre directions. Granted, Parallel Mothers never gets as overtly weird as, say, The Skin I Live In (2011), but it still has its own “wait, what?” paths to take.

This is a hard movie to discuss without giving away too much. It has sort of gentle twists, even as Janis, who is ultimately the central character, endures some moments that are deeply shocking to her. These are revelations that we can see coming as viewers, though, and it’s much more interesting to consider the psychological implications of her position. A lot of it begs questions of what it means to be a mother, and how much genetics truly comes into play when bonding with an infant or a child.

Genetics play a larger contextual part of Parallel Mothers than just mothers and children, and Almodóvar folds in a subplot here tied to the Spanish Civil War, which Ana clearly is not very well informed about. But, Janis is in the process of getting the unmarked grave of her murdered great grandparents excavated, and discussions about this are what both open and close the film. Exactly how this dark part of Spain’s history ties directly to the story of Janis and Ana and their babies is kind of lost on me, but there must be some connection.

In the meantime, the acting is great across the board in this film, but Cruz’s performance is stellar, and although odds seem about even regarding her getting an Oscar nomination this year, she certainly deserves one. The uniquely complex emotions of the character she plays are unparalleled in their rendering onscreen, and Cruz alone makes this movie worth seeing. But then, so does the rest of the cast. So does Almodóvar’s direction, even with his sometimes odd or quirky choices of editing or cinematography. Parallel Mothers starts with several scenes that leave you compelled yet wondering exactly where this is going, and then ends having taken you places you had no idea you’d ever have wanted to go.

That shirt is very . . . direct.

Overall: A-

CODA

Directing: A-
Acting: B+
Writing: A
Cinematography: B
Editing: A-

In my 17 year history of reviewing movies, CODA must be setting a new record, in that I have never reviewed a movie this long after its release. This was released in theaters, and even streaming on Apple TV+ (as it still is now), on August 13—a good five months ago. In the “Before Times,” before the pandemic, if I didn’t catch a film in its initial theatrical release, I simply did not review it. Those were the rules—self-imposed, sure, but I stuck by them without exception for sixteen years.

The year 2020 changes a lot of things, of course, including this—and indeed, when I finally took up reviewing movies either streaming or VOD that had otherwise been originally intended for theatrical release, in the fall of 2020 after an unprecedented six-month hiatus, over time I wound up reviewing movies then that had been available for an unusual amount of time already. This increasingly became the case as I restarted my reviews in September 2020 but did not actually venture back into theaters until May 2021, which meant eight months straight of reviewing exclusively streaming or VOD content. For all I know, some of the films I reviewed in that period may have had their initial streaming releases five or more months prior to my reviewing them. But, I don’t think so.

My point is, I loved CODA so much that I felt it warranted this sort of exception, for its own sake. This isn’t a movie I’m reviewing because I can’t see movies in theaters. Granted, I am actively avoiding theaters again, temporarily, due to the current surge of the Omicron variant. But, this time it’s a choice I’m making rather than one imposed upon me—and although I had heard of CODA a while ago, my interest piqued after its recent two notable nominations for SAG Awards, including Outstanding Cast, that awards body’s equivalent to the Best Picture Oscar. The other is Best Supporting Actor, for Troy Kotsur, who plays the father of the family central to the story. Both nominations are well deserved.

All this is to say, CODA, which stands for Child of Dead Adults, is a movie you should see. It hasn’t aged past its moment. Its moment can still be right now, if that’s what you make it. Granted, it’s no longer in theaters and is only available on Apple TV+, which not everyone has. Most of the time, I don’t either. Just do what I do and sign up for a free trial month subscription, canceling immediately so you don’t get auto-renewed. Trust me, this movie alone will make it worth the effort.

I expected to enjoy CODA, and still it significantly exceeded my expectations. I had no idea it would be so funny. Technically it’s more of a dramedy, but it should be noted that I laughed a lot. High school senior Ruby (a wonderful Emilia Jones) is the only hearing member of her four-person family, and she loves music and singing and turns out to be very talented, which means, somewhat ironically for a movie revolving so much around deaf characters, CODA also features a fair amount of quite lovely music. I laughed, I was moved, I cried, I got to hear deeply affecting music. Really this film offers everything you could possibly ask for in a fantastic movie watching experience.

I suppose there could be some discussion about a film ostensibly about deaf people and how they integrate themselves into a hearing world, yet making a hearing person its central character. On the other hand, with three of the four principal characters being deaf and—thankfully—played by deaf actors, CODA offers a level of deaf representation rarely seen on film. It’s true we’ve gotten it before, but how often, particularly in mainstream films? Maybe, what, once or twice a decade?

We do get Marlee Matlin, always a welcome presence, as Ruby’s mom. Then there’s the aforementioned Troy Kotsure as her dad, and Daniel Durant as her brother, Leo. All of these characters, including Ruby herself who is hearing but also fluent in American Sign Language, are drawn as characters with nuance and dimension. In every other aspect, they are just regular people like any other, with hopes and dreams and fustrations and lusts. Director and co-writer Sian Heder has no pity for these people, because they don’t need any. Sometimes they have insecurities that are tied to their deafness, sure, but that’s never what CODA is about. The story here is about Ruby, who bridges the divide, caught between their expectations of her as part of an independent fishing family, and her awakening dream of pursuing a music education.

I have comparatively, somewhat mixed feelings about music teacher Bernardo Villalobos (Eugenio Derbez), who is written as a little over the top and then Derbez’s performance goes even a tad further over the top. He’s objectively entertaining, but he’s also the one character who feels more plausible in a movie than in real life.

But, that’s about as close as I get to any true complaint about CODA, which consistently surprises in its ample delights. I really can’t recommend it enough. If you’re looking for something to watch that will make you laugh, move you, and raise your spirits, you can’t go wrong with this one.

Yes, CODA, I love you too.

Overall: A-

BERGMAN ISLAND

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

Maybe Bergman Island is above my intellectual pay grade. I always say a film should work on its own merits, but some films are built to be fully understood only in real-world contexts, and I fear that is very much the case with this one. Would this be far easier to understand and appreciate with a working knowledge of Swedish film director and writer Ingmar Bergman? Having nearly zero such knowledge myself, I find myself presuming the answer is yes, although I have no way of knowing for sure. At least, not without doing a ton of research I don’t feel I should have to do. Maybe this movie just wasn’t made for me.

And yet, I say all that, still having found myself interested and compelled by this film, in spite of my having watched the entire thing feeling like I was missing something. That feeling is what prevents me from saying any of you need to fire up Hulu to watch it; the movie, released theatrically October 15, has been streaming since yesterday (January 14).

Part of it may just be that I tend to approach films about writers with interest, being a writer myself. I also have a soft spot for the kind of writing where the lines between reality and fiction get blurred. Typically this means an interest in meta fiction, which used to be a lot more novel than it is these days—we now get movies like The Matrix Revolutions, which hit us over the head with it—but French writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve is far more subtle.

In Bergman Island, middle-aged couple Chris and Tony (Vicky Krieps and Tim Roth) are writer-directors themselves, both with a deep love of the works of Ingmar Bergman, going on a writing retreat of sorts—on the Swedish island of Fårö, where Bergman lived and worked. For fully half the film, we see Chris and Tony arrive on the island, get settled there, and have subtle struggles, both with communicating with each other and with their respective relationships to both their current writing projects and with Bergman’s work. Bergman, of course, looms large in this area of the island, largely attracting tourists. In one sequence, Tony goes on a “Bergman Safari,” while Chris winds up with a local young man, Hampus (Hampus Nordenson), who gives her a personalized tour of Bergman points of interest on the island.

Hampus, as it happens, is the one character we see both here, and within the rendering of the film (or maybe TV series, she hasn’t decided) Christ relays the story of to Tony. About halfway through Bergman Island, Chris tells Tony she needs some advice about what she’s writing, and she begins to tell him the story. The narrative we see onscreen then switches to the story she is telling, of other characters also coming to this same island, this time a younger couple of people, these ones sort of estranged after years of near misses for a potential relationship. These are Amy and Joseph, played by Mia Wasikowska and Anders Danielsen Lie. They are both headed to the wedding of a mutual friend, and Hampus appears as another guest at the wedding.

When this happened, I wondered if maybe the characters Chris created might somehow show up in her real world in some way—that would be the predictable twist in a more overtly “meta” story. But that’s not the direction Hansen-Løve is interested in, and she leaves a lot more open to interpretation. Bergman Island is a surprisingly pleasant and quiet experience considering all the food for thought it provides, if you think long enough anyway: consider that the second half veers into a “movie within a movie,” and yet the primary characters we’ve watched up to that point are also characters in a movie. They don’t even realize it. And later, there is an abrupt transition from us seeing the rendering of Chris’s story, to Chris and Joseph being in the same scenes together—because we are now seeing the man who plays Joseph, on the set of the film (or series?) Chris eventually shoots in the same location.

How much all of this echoes the work of Ingmar Bergman, I couldn’t say. That’s, perhaps, something for people with a working knowledge and memory of his films to explore. This does leave me feeling limited in my capacity to process all that is onscreen in this film, which feels very intentional, nothing accidental, no matter how subtle. But, as I said, I found myself compelled by it anyway. I just can’t say exactly how or why. I even finished the movie kind of feeling like, I don’t get it. The reason I’ll still give this film credit, though, is because I don’t care about that so much. I enjoyed the journey regardless, even though I never quite gleaned what was its destination.

Is Chris reading what her husband wrote, or what we are watching?

Overall: B

FINCH

Directing: C+
Acting: B
Writing: C
Cinematography: B
Editing: C
Special Effects: B+

Finch has a compelling concept, which then gets squandered by a fatal mix of cutesiness and implausibility.

I was actually kind of enjoying it for a while, even as “Jeff,” the robot character created by Tom Hanks’s title character, evolves to become more “human” in ways that make less sense as time goes on. I kept wondering about anyone watching with even slight scientific knowledge (which, by and large, I do not have). I can easily imagine such people pulling their hair out in frustration. People who don’t mind, those who take this movie as simple escapism, either have no critical thinking skills or are happy to turn them off completely. More power to them, I guess.

The premise of a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by a massive solar flare that destroyed the ozone layer is plausible enough, I suppose, although I presume this movie gets pretty ridiculous the more details it gets into even with that—I don’t have any idea how it could be that cities like St. Louis and Denver are roasted and dead shells of what they once were, but the air around San Francisco and the Bay Area is somehow just fine.

What gets me more is the very concept of “Jeff” himself, basically a self-teaching android, whose very existence is never fully explained. When we meet Finch, he’s scavenging St. Louis with another robot creation that serves to place valuable items into its body basket with an extended robotic arm. He hasn’t even finished creating “Jeff” yet, and it’s never clear how Finch is smart enough to create an android but not smart enough to head west any earlier than this, when random weather systems threaten to destroy the laboratory he lives in and was once his place of work. Doing what, exactly, I don’t have any idea. The place doesn’t seem like a robotics lab, but that’s evidently what Finch has turned it into.

Jeff, as voiced by Caleb Landry Jones, is a vaguely humanoid robot that evokes memories of similar robots in earlier, superior films. He’s like a cross between the metal skeleton of The Terminator and Johnny 5 from Short Circuit. His voice is robotic in a way that recalls Stephen Hawking, and evolves over time to become “more human” until he sounds like a naive dipshit. In the film’s latter half, when my patience with it increasingly ran out, Jeff does narratively pointless things like give Finch a hug even though he can’t physically feel anything, or move his shoulders up and down as though he’s breathing—like, what? It’s not like Jeff is a replicant, as in the Blade Runner movies; he’s literally a walking collection of metal parts. I had a really hard time getting past this stuff.

To be certain, Finch would be a far worse film without the presence of Tom Hanks, who spends more time onscreen without any other human present than in any other movie since Cast Away (again, a far superior movie). Even at 65, Hanks remains a bona fide movie star, among the last of a dying breed, a man with such charisma and screen presence that he truly elevates anything he’s in. I was happily suspending my disbelief for a good two thirds of the movie thanks to Hanks’s performance alone. And even this is far from his best performance. But, he’s basically the only human face we ever see in the movie, with the very brief exception of a little girl in a flashback sequence. That flashback features one other grown man and one other grown woman, and neither of their faces are seen.

Finch is also fairly impressively rendered, on a visual and technical level. I can’t find any information as to its budget, but it looks like a movie that made the most of its limitations. I just wish the same had been done with its script, which clearly expects us to fall in love with this robot that exists to be heartwarming even though he was created by a terminally ill character who is dying from the effects of an extinction level global event. Why does this story need such a deeply incongruous, devastating framework? Finch creates Jeff with the sole purpose of leaving something behind to care for his dog. How sweet, right? I guess, if you’re okay with also seeing Tom Hanks cough blood all over himself.

This was Tom Hanks’s second movie to release straight to Apple TV+. The first was last year’s Greyhound, which wasn’t great either but at least it was good. Still, this process is starting to feel like the twenties equivalent to “direct to video,” the movies that have some value but aren’t quite good enough for theatrical release. Given its limited amount of content, Apple’s fledgling streaming service could stand to up its game a bit.

A great man and a couple of dummies.

Overall: C+

SWAN SONG

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

Mahershala Ali is an actor of such caliber, I can’t imagine anyone minding the idea of getting two of him in one movie. In the case of Swan Song, that is meant in a more literal sense than usual: his character, Cameron, is literally cloned, and we see many conversations between the two of them. Cameron is terminally ill, you see, and in a near future in which new technology allows for it, he is being entirely “regenerated,” his duplicate given all the same memories, so that he can be replaced with a healthier version of himself, his wife and son being none the wiser.

“Duplicate” is the word more frequently used in his movie, as opposed to “clone.” There are no discussions of “nature vs. nurture” here, as the duplicate Cameron—given the name “Jack” for the duration of their coexistence—has the memory of all the same experiences. This is often discussed when considering cloning, the way experiences shape an entirely different person. Is cloning a new person at the exact same age even possible? Will it ever be? I have my doubts, and writer-director Benjamin Cleary, in his feature film debut, never truly directly addresses that question, except to say that, in the world of Swan Song, it is indeed possible. He’s more interested in what the experience looks like in the case of it being possible, and to a much lesser degree, the ethical implications.

I’m not going to lie, I thought about what it would be like for me to be in this position, locked away with another version of myself in a secluded bunker outside Vancouver, B.C. with a medical and psychological staff of three, and AI systems that “do the work of fifty people.” I mean, let’s get real: I’d immediately want to fuck myself. On the other hand, I thought about even this idea maybe more realistically than I ever have before, and especially in regards to a duplicate of me at exactly the same age (as opposed to, say, a version of myself ten years younger), and I’d probably get right sick of myself after a week. Maybe less.

I suspect, actually, that it’s considerations like this that prompt Cleary to write Cameron as a deeply decent, loving, family man. What about people like me who, sure, would not want to devastate my spouse but am also very selfish? Making a movie like this about such people might be more realistic, but it’s maybe not as compelling.

It does make Cameron kind of dull as a character, though. Swan Song is a very meditative look at a hypothetical situation only possible in the context of vague science fiction, the kind that includes no real science because we aren’t actually that close to something like this really being possible. At least not in the “near future,” one in which, by the way, nature is beautiful and serene and somehow not being wrought by devastation. These narrative limitations are no doubt informed also by Benjamin Clearly not being a scientist himself. He’s just a film director with an interesting idea.

Don’t get me wrong, though; Swan Song is compelling throughout, in spite of these limitations. Clearly strips away complications in his characters to give them space to process the extraordinary nature of their circumstances. It helps that it features a stellar cast, in addition to Mahershala Ali: Naomie Harris as his wife, Poppy; Glenn Close as the benevolent Dr. Jo Scott; Awkwafina as Kate, another terminally ill patient at the facility whose duplicate has already been fully integrated into her family. Where the writing of their characters lack dimension, their performances add it.

If nothing else, Cleary succeeds at establishing and maintaining a tone, in this case contemplative and somber. It feels appropriate for both the subject matter, and for the lush forest landscapes around the secluded medical facility where the “duplication” work occurrs—Cameron being apparently only the third time it’s been done. There’s a lot that Clearly doesn’t bother examining, such as how much this costs or how Cameron can afford it, his clearly well-paying job notwithstanding. Dr. Scott only ever behaves as though she exists to offer ways to save families from the anguish of untimely loss. But, surely she’s profiting from this?

One might say that I am overthinking all of this, and for what appear to be Benjamin Cleary’s purposes here, I can’t deny it’s a valid argument. If you just want to lose yourself in the somber notes of this film with beautiful landscapes and skilled editing, it should work quite well for you. It did work for me, really; I liked the movie, in spite of its many questions that Cleary doesn’t bother to answer. It doesn’t even feel pointed, but rather almost as though he feels they are beside the point. Maybe they are.

It’s what that point is, precisely, where I struggle a little. But, I can also let it go, and enjoy the film for what it is, and leave thinking about how I might approach the same kind of opportunity. If the “duplicate” is functionally exactly the same person, indistinguishable from the original by anyone around him, with no memory even of having been duplicated (another key plot point), then what difference does it make? Why not?

Mahershala Ali externalizes his internal struggles.

Overall: B

THE LOST DAUGHTER

Directing: A-
Acting: B+
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B+
Editing: A-

The Lost Daughter could easily be held up as an example of how film critics are just movie snobs with little interest in just having a good time. The reviews have heaped lavish praise on this film, but on the review aggregate sites, the user reviews are decidedly mixed. Having seen it, this split is wholly unsurprising.

So, I guess, let’s just get this out of the way: if the only purpose movies serve in your opinion is to entertain, then you’ll have no business with The Lost Daughter. This is a deeply nuanced drama, a humane portrait of mothers who are sometimes inhumane, and at times challenging to relate to.

Or, maybe it just depends on who’s watching it. I do find myself curious as to how mothers in particular respond to it. I watched this by myself, on Netflix, because I knew even beforehand that my husband would find little interest in it. Even I only watched it because of the critical praise, which can easily persuade me. I don’t have kids, and this movie deals a lot with how overwhelming parenting can be. It makes me grateful I don’t have children, honestly. To be so endlessly frustrated by the children you still ache for? I’m happy to go without any of that shit.

It took me a while to get the meaning of the title. For a long time I thought it referred to a daughter who must have died young, and the woman lives her life feeling guilty about it. The literal reference is actually to a doll, which a little girl loses on a beach and Olivia Colman’s Leda has actually stolen. It’s still not clear to me why she does this, and perhaps we are not meant to; when Leda is eventually asked why she says herself, “I don’t know.” She also says, “I’m an unnatural mother,” the line I will always remember from this movie.

Leda is 48 years old. Her age gets mentioned several times. Her daughters are now grown, although as grownups we never see them onscreen. Instead, The Lost Daughter is so filled with flashbacks of Leda as a young mother of two young daughters that Jessie Buckley is third-billed as Young Leda.

In the present day, Leda is vacationing in Greece. After a tense introduction in which Leda responds to friendliness with obstinance, Leda starts getting to know a large family vacationing nearby and sharing the same beach. This includes another young mother, Nina (Dakota Johnson, almost unrecognizable), who is so frustrated with her own little girl—the owner of the aforementioned doll—that it triggers Leda’s memories with her own children.

There is something peculiar, almost subversive, about The Lost Daughter, which is incredibly well directed and written by Maggie Gyllenhaal in her feature directorial debut, adapting from the novel of the same name by Elena Ferrante. Mothers on film have typically been characterized as either selfless heroes or, less often, abusive nightmares. The mothers in The Lost Daughter decidedly occupy a space between those extremes, rarely seen. Leda clearly has some mental instability, but she’s not abusive. In fact, she clearly loves her daughters, even though she rarely seems locked in when it comes to motherhood. She seems like the type of person who maybe should never have had children to begin with. But, she has them now, so what can she do?

She does something pretty drastic, actually, which I won’t spoil as it’s revealed rather late in the film. And this film does take its time, the first several scenes just casually following alongside Leda as she arrives at her beachfront apartment rental in Greece and hangs out on the beach or in the town. Eventually, you discover that Maggie Gyllenhaal has assembled a bevy of talented filmmakers, particularly editor Affonso Gonçalves (Carol), without whom this film would be something different entirely. Between his editing and the handheld cinematography by Hélène Louvart (who shot last year’s incredible Never Rarely Sometimes Always), The Lost Daughter feels like a collection of memories, whether set in the present or in the past. It sets a unique mood, one that’s difficult to describe because that’s what unique means. In any case, we feel very much like we are in Leda’s guilt-ridden, deeply insecure head.

There is an incredible amount of talent onscreen in this movie. Olivia Colman will surely be nominated yet again for a Best Actress Oscar. Jessie Buckley, to be honest, is a bit underused as Young Leda, seen in large part as random memory clips. She does eventually get to some content with meat on it, but none that illustrates how she is easily one of the most talented actors of her generation. That said, whether it’s Ed Harris as the longtime caretaker of the house Leda’s staying in, or Peter Sarsgaard as Young Leda’s professorial fling, or anyone else in this movie for that matter, the cast is fantastic across the board.

Nearly everything about this movie is great, really, aside from it telling a story that I couldn’t quite lock into. And even there, I hesitate to criticize too much, as the clear themes of motherhood are things I cannot speak on with any authority. Leda is an odd lady, and sometimes her behavior really makes you think, What the fuck? But Colman plays her with a grace of performance that belies the character’s regular awkwardness and inelegance. This is an understated portrait of the melancholy side, if not the dark side, of motherhood, and for those open to giving it a look, it’s likely either illuminating or validating.

You’ll find her eventually.

Overall: B+