Mogul Mowgli doesn’t quite know how to weight its issues or manage its scant runtime, but Ahmed keeps things raw and poignant. Rather strangely, Bassam Tariq’s Mogul Mowgli represents the second of two recent films in which Riz Ahmed plays a musician impacted by health…
Never Gonna Snow Again harnesses is an oddball, observational film that manages to comment on much without veering into obviousness. Premiering at the 2020 Venice Film Festival, Never Gonna Snow Again is the latest from prolific director Malgorzata Szumowska, who has teamed up with her…
The Man with the Answers aims for restraint but instead fails to either properly probe or articulate its characters. A well-meaning and tentative entrant into the realm of slow-burn road trip romances, Stelios Kammitsis’ The Man with the Answers is perhaps most noteworthy for…
Scales is an undeniably distinctive film, but one that doesn’t quite feel fully conceived or executed. Saudi Arabian director Shahad Ameen’s Scales was notable in the fall of 2019 for being one of the oddest films to play at that year’s London Film Festival. A…
Spring Blossom feels under-realized on the whole, but at least introduces a distinct authorial voice worth following. Part of the official selection at this year’s Cannes Film Festival that never was, Spring Blossom sees Suzanne Lindon, daughter of renowned French actors Vincent Lindon and Sandrine…
The Perfect Candidate keeps the stakes low and can be cloying at times, but its story is necessary. Haifaa Al-Mansour, whose 2012 feature debut Wadjda was the first film completely shot in Saudi Arabia (and became the nation’s first Oscar submission), returns with another…
Supernova is a restrained love story that manages to balance out the territory’s innate sentimentality. While actor-turned-director Harry Macqueen‘s debut film Hinterland utilized the premise of a road trip to chronicle a fractured, intimate relationship (earning fetching reviews from critics in the process), his follow-up,…
Herself is a well-intentioned but ultimately one-note message film that fails to build any real power. A patron of the British arts, Phyllida Lloyd’s transition from a director of theater to film could hardly have been more conspicuous. Her debut feature, Mamma Mia, set box-office…
Ammonite struggles to summon the visceral potency or emotional depth needed to tell its story. Three years on from Francis Lee’s terrific gay drama, God’s Own Country, and the director has moved on from the romantic union of two lusty male farmers to a 19th-century…
Divine Love is a frustrating, contemptuous affair that ultimately builds little depth into its religio-dystopic premise. Gabriel Mascaro’s Divine Love comes at a timely moment for Brazil. Recently-appointed President Jair Bolsonaro, a strong proponent of “traditional” family values and himself a former member of the…
