Warfare (2025)

Score: 3 / 5

Alex Garland's latest directorial venture is a joint project, and his co-director of Warfare lived the experiences dramatized on the silver screen. Ray Mendoza was a military advisor for Garland on Civil War, and apparently during that time regaled the director of his own experience in a fraught, deadly situation with Navy SEALs in Ramadi, Iraq, almost twenty years ago. During the American occupation at the time, his team got stuck inside a house and took heavy casualties before barely escaping with the few survivors. It wasn't a notable battle or major turning point in the war effort, unlike many war films, and it certainly wasn't an inspiring story of victory or noble defeat. But it did happen, and Garland decided it was worth recreating in painstaking detail with Mendoza helping to bring his memories to mass audiences.

Garland's usual excellent craft is very much on display here, but it's a different approach than he usually provides. Warfare is an immersive experience rather than a cerebral or spiritual one. We get to know the teammates in passing recognition, not quite spending the time to care about them individually, ultimately appreciating their clear and present danger in a hostile region. Threats could like behind any door or window in this desert city, and the team's goal is to set up an observation base overlooking a street market for enemy activity. The setup, in this way, is not wholly different from The Hurt Locker (or even something like Sicario, for that matter), and it doesn't take long for their cover to be blown. The whole film doesn't take long, for that matter, clocking in right around 90 minutes.

In fact, the film seems to be presenting these events in something very close to real time; after the team takes over an apartment under cover of darkness -- keeping its family of inhabitants fearfully hostage in a small bedroom under gunpoint -- it doesn't take long for enemies to descend on them. Literally. While watching an armed group rendezvous opposite the market, the team fails to notice assailants on their own roof, who deploy a grenade through their window and wreak havoc on the soldiers. With dust and blood coating the scene, the SEALs frantically try to figure out their next move, but their rescue tank is destroyed by the invisible enemy. With casualties mounting and the day drawing on, the soldiers try to make a plan out of the scant information they can receive via radio from their superiors. Amidst lots of hand-wringing and ass-covering by people who should be helping them regardless of material or political cost, the soldiers make a plan and wait for the next opportunity to be rescued. 

It's an overwhelming, almost agonizing viewing experience, to be sure. Garland's cinematographer and sound designers work in tandem to embellish the bleak setting and events with so much sensory detail that viewing the film feels both electrifying and numbing. We're so close to the action that when explosions erupt, we hear something like tinnitus ringing over muted sounds, and we can't see through the blinding dust and smoke just like the characters can't. Legs are blown apart and we're meant to feel the crunching bone fragments as much as we see them in the bloody mess. We occasionally get random shots from other places not held by the team, and from overhead satellite images in black and white, which do break us out of the otherwise quite claustrophobic main action of the film, a strange choice that the editor should be spanked for making. This isn't Eye in the Sky. 

A lack of real characterizations does not help the film, and for me, made it hard to connect with the film beyond its sensory presentation. I couldn't identify with anyone because they have no differentiating characteristics. Don't get me wrong: I applaud the actors for their physical and no doubt grueling time in principal shooting. There's just nothing of emotional or intellectual interest in their activity because we're given no time or reason to care for them beyond their vague assumed righteousness as Navy SEALs. We're forced into their perspective by the camera and screenplay, and it's telling that we never see much of the enemy combatants, nebulously and menacingly all around them yet rarely visible. And nobody acts in any particularly memorable ways, which while being realistic, makes it hard to root for anyone or fear anyone else.

The sound designers and technicians, which the credits list as more than a dozen people, should be awarded for their work on this film, as it's an astonishing aural experience. But I ended up walking away from this film wondering one particular thing, and it has persistently nagged my mind ever since: So what? What are we supposed to understand or take away from this film? I surely do not know, and I'm not convinced the filmmakers know, either. Maybe something about military brotherhood, or even small everyday heroisms that keep teams together in the face of battle. But it's not clear at all, and even these don't quite match up with my lasting impression of the film. I find myself also annoyed by the film's myopic approach to the war in Iraq; American Sniper was roundly criticized -- I think fairly -- for its xenophobic depictions of Iraqi soldiers and civilians, something that tends to plague war films in general, and frankly I don't see a difference in representation here despite not hearing any similar criticisms. I mean, even the brief moment near the end when perspective is poised to shift to the captured family, the film abruptly ends. 

Final note: it would seem that the film's structural logic wants to posit the SEALs and their fight for survival as a sort of heroic, historic tale. As such, during the credits, we see pictures of the real men alongside pictures of the actors who play them. But this choice makes no sense for two crucial reasons that make this loose understanding of the film utterly fall apart: first, most of the real soldiers have their faces blurred, presumably because they are still in active duty or could be compromised by such broadcasting of their faces, and second, the ones who are pictured look almost nothing like their fictional counterparts.

So I encourage you to watch for the experience. But don't ask me what the point of any of it is, because even the film doesn't seem to know. "Slice of life" is one thing, but an immersive experience for no purpose feels like a magnificent waste of resources.

The Woman in the Yard (2025)

Score: 3.5 / 5

A mysterious woman dressed in a black gown and veil appears in Ramona's yard one morning, sitting by the road on a chair that hadn't been there before, and barely moving. When Ramona goes out to question her, she merely says, "Today's the day," offering no idea about who she is or how she came to be there. Once she sees the woman's bloody hands, though, Ramona all but flies back inside, ordering her two children to remain indoors as well. If today is the day, it'll be a long one: the power has been cut off to their remote house as a result of unpaid bills stacking up quickly. Ramona and her kids -- teen son Tay and preteen daughter Annie -- are still grieving the loss of her husband (Russell Hornsby) from an auto accident that also broke Ramona's leg. She relies heavily on Tay, who has proven himself a capable man of the house; she's also clearly wallowing in her pain whereas the kids at least seem to have begun moving on with their lives. 

It doesn't take long to tell that the film will be a character study far more than a home invasion thriller. And that seems appropriate, as the last decade of horror films has demonstrated quite the tendency to dramatize issues of guilt, mental illness, depression, and trauma in supernatural and often neo-Gothic terms. Call it "elevated horror" or not, these films deploy monsters less in a traditional sense and more in a metaphoric sense that, given enough psychic stress and horror, any person can snap and become monstrous. The titular woman in the yard, in this story, does end up moving closer to the house, threatening the family dog, children, and finally mother as she and her shadow menace them, but her purpose and identity are the clear revelations to which the plot will eventually wend its way. I won't spoil it here, but it's also not a groundbreaking storytelling technique, and you'll likely guess it relatively quickly.

But a central mystery does not, for me, a film make or break. The Woman in the Yard might not be complex or dynamic in its emotional heft and character-based story, which will annoy and turn off some audiences. But it has its boons, first and foremost in Danielle Deadwyler as Ramona; her craft is always amazing to watch, here anchoring the film in a sense of urgent, desperate reality. She can't defend her home and protect her children by herself, but she doesn't seem quite ready to relinquish full power over her son. We wonder, early in the film, why, despite her apathy and isolationism, she doesn't foster a domestic atmosphere of honesty, interdependence, or even communal responsibility. Our questions will be answered by the film's climax in highly satisfying ways; not satisfying in terms of plot development, but satisfying in seeing and appreciating the nuanced depth Deadwyler brings to her character.

Additionally, the film's style is worth watching, and I'll be watching it again for that. Jaume Collet-Serra has long been a director of interest to me, from his fun and silly crime thrillers to big-budget major IPs, but his horror efforts tend to be genre-bendy, clever, and never less than thrilling. This return to his most robust form features perhaps not the most inventive of his material, but in as much as this safely PG-13 film can, it does represent his command of aesthetic and tone. Not much can be done about the screenplay, which is workmanlike but effective in targeting its modest aims (apparently this project is the screenwriter's feature debut), but Collet-Serra and his cinematographer Pawl Pogorzelski (who shot Ari Aster's feature films in addition to Blue Beetle and Fresh) do some really fabulous work in making the film visually arresting and memorable. Elements of shadow play should have been improved but are still nice to see, and the haunting daylight-drenched imagery worked really well for me. Playing on larger, better ideas may not be enough to win awards or a strong legacy, but I admire this film for its willingness to play with expectations and determination to make its gamble worthwhile.

Death of a Unicorn (2025)

Score: 4 / 5

A directorial debut hasn't been this exciting in a while, with writer-director Alex Scharfman's genre-blending and deeply satisfying Death of a Unicorn. Brimming with a stunning cast who very much understood the assignment and decided to work overtime with it, the film transforms from what could easily have been a mediocre creature feature and class-conscious satire into an original, entertaining, somewhat psychedelic trip dripping with style and fun.

Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega star as Elliot and Ridley, a father/daughter duo spending the weekend at the alpine mansion of his new client; their relationship is tense, as Ridley's mother recently passed from disease, and their terse conversation isn't helped by Elliot's severe allergies. Traveling through a nature preserve around the estate that bears the name of its lord, the duo stop their car after hitting and apparently killing a unicorn. Or, rather, fatally injuring it; Elliot panics and brains the beast with his tire iron, splattering both man and girl with its purple blood. Almost immediately they realize something magical has happened, as his allergies immediately subside and Ridley's acne clears. Ridley also experiences an ethereal vision while touching the horn, leaving her shaken and desperately curious. Fearing any dark marks on his record for this major job opportunity, Elliot determines to hide the corpse in his vehicle, sure he'll bury it quietly on the estate after nightfall.

Their arrival at the mansion is a thing of beauty, and I'll elide details of the utterly delicious characters we meet there. Suffice it to say that Elliot's employer is Odell Leopold (Richard E. Grant), a billionaire head of a pharmaceutical company (notice the constant thematic interest in health and wellness?), and his cancer appears to be in its final stages, hence Elliot's summons to help clean up shop, so to speak. His wife (Téa Leoni) and son (Will Poulter) are present, but it's never quite clear what role they play in the company, if any; they seem at a blissfully ignorant remove, both flattering dear old dad and slyly ready for their lives to jumpstart after his demise. They're the kind of family you expect to see dramatized in The White Lotus as "stupid rich" people, and their house staff (Anthony Carrigan and Jessica Hynes) are only marginally better; there is an edge to their unique brand of service, though, that is worth paying attention to. After all, servants understand their masters much better than the reverse.

The Leopolds aren't blind, though, and they aren't incompetent. No family that makes billions is unable to sniff out opportunity when it appears on their doorstep, and the shaken father and daughter who arrive don't sport worthy poker faces. Once the Leopolds discover the unicorn -- inexplicably alive in Elliot's car -- they kill it again and begin experimenting with its blood and horn, harvesting its curative properties without fully understanding them. Would you question such a miraculous and fast-working cure for cancer? Perhaps not, but bigger problems than unintended side effects are en route.

Some similarities to Jurassic Park cannot be avoided here, and I think the film somewhat capitalizes on that. Apart from themes of wealthy people recklessly exploiting the natural environment for the sake of even more fame and fortune, and their comrades who genuinely care about the creatures being exploited, there are some shared plot points, such as the parents of the captured, injured beast coming to rescue it and punish the human aggressors. Indeed, this is where the film tilts from fantastical dark comedy to a still very funny monster horror flick, as the young dead-ish unicorn's parents come galloping down from a remote cave in the Rockies to the estate, intent on wreaking their revenge.

In almost Spielbergian fashion, Ridley becomes the voice of reason as chaos envelops the household. She researches folktales of unicorns, learning that unicorns are much more violent and dangerous than kids' cartoons would have us believe, trying to convince the others to right their wrong and give the unicorn's corpse back to its family. Her lone dissenting opinion niggles her father, though, and it's Elliot's somewhat wide-eyed uncertainty between right and wrong, capitulating or resisting, that pulls the plot forward, even as the unicorns stalk and invade the house, brutally slaughtering the people in fabulously gory fashion.

We could talk about a few dead-end plot points, like the unnecessary grief that colors Ridley and Elliot, or the perhaps solidly B-movie visuals meant to titillate in the same way monster movies did a few decades ago, but it's really the concept and cast of this film that make it so worth watching. All the actors are showing us amazing individual work, especially with the comedic elements of their dialogue, and their mutual chemistry is some of the best ensemble work I've seen in years. Larry Fong's notable cinematography is fluid and exciting, and the CGI for the monsters worked well for me, even with its somewhat cartoonish style. For a wild, wacky ride through unbridled imagination, you could do a lot worse than Death of a Unicorn, the kind of film I'll always want to watch for the pleasure of its simplicity and earnestness.

The Amateur (2025)

Score: 2 / 5

Rare is the film that makes you want more of that gritty, greasy feeling I personally associate with Tony Scott and those action-thrillers of the '00s, but The Amateur should have been done in that style. Written as a cheap, familiar plot meant as a star vehicle, the story concerns a CIA agent who embarks on a quest for revenge when his wife is killed in a terrorist attack. A remake, the film is also just not A-grade material; very few spy stories have that edge of novelty anymore. So an increase of style would make more sense in a film like this.

But style is one of the many elements lacking in this film. Its mostly blue-gray color palette invites torpor while its synth-heavy droning score never quite makes itself memorable. In fact, it's such a lackluster experience that I suspect the filmmakers had so much faith in the intrigue of the screenplay to make up for a lack of visual pizzazz. But the televised procedural realism of its aesthetics do nothing to distract from (or capitalize upon) the narrative doldrums in which we find ourselves. Unbelievable coincidence and giant leaps in logic pile up quickly, so we're never on the same page as the characters and we're being jerked along in obnoxiously predictable ways.

The star for this intended vehicle, Rami Malek, performs well here in the kind of role he has long since perfected. Awkward and jittery, yet appealing in his wide-eyed gaze, Charlie is a data analyst, and though he keeps himself healthy, you can't help but see a cave creature when you look at him, locked in a dark, sub-basement office surrounded by screens all the time. His personal life seems really lovely, and the film demonstrates the health of his marriage with startling economy, helped by an effortlessly winsome Rachel Brosnahan; it must be said, though, that her role as the "dead wife" plot device was so unabashedly tone-deaf right now that I had trouble swallowing it.

There's a strange subplot about Charlie's work environment that bears consideration: while mourning his wife and getting upset about the CIA's inaction in dealing with the sensitive situation, he discovers some unethical secrets about his superiors' use of drones and bombs. Taking this to his bosses, he blackmails them (including Julianne Nicholson) into getting him training as a field agent so that he can carry out revenge on his wife's killers. He gets assigned to Laurence Fishburne (there's a character name, but who cares? It's Laurence Fishburne) who does his duty before his trainee suddenly flees the country. The desk boy became Jason Bourne.

Well, sort of. I don't know for sure because I can't stand the Bourne movies. But Charlie does indeed enact vengeance over the remainder of the film, which overstays its welcome considerably. I suppose the agency having turned against him functions to increase Charlie's urgency as well as our sympathies for him. After all, he's a rogue agent for most of the film, and we're not given enough access to his interiority to otherwise have much sympathy. Malek's tortured visage and fearful rage in this film rarely come across as heroic but often as desperate and, oddly, smug. It's not a "wrong" or "bad" choice, and it arguably could work in a story like this, but it'd have to lean into a noir sensibility that isn't in this project. Similarly, the other big names in the film -- including a bizarre bit part from Jon Bernthal and an equally bizarre but far more disappointing cameo of sorts from Michael Stuhlbarg -- don't seem to know what they're doing and aren't treated with any interest by the camera.

Even as an action film, though, The Amateur fails to excite our attention. The fights are distractingly overedited and underlit, and chase scenes are no different. The screenplay can't decide where to focus or how to differentiate itself from the floodwaters of spy fiction. As a thriller, there are too many coincidences and too few stakes for us to be caught up in any real emotion. These uninspired choices aren't just a failure of taste; they're a failure of matching content with style. Apart from Malek's admirable work here, there is little in this film I'll ever want to revisit.

I Saw the TV Glow (2024)

Score: 4 / 5

No doubt lending the film its title, Jane Schoenbrun's third directorial feature exists in the filtered colors and sounds of memory, specifically those blaring from an old analog screen. Much like their earlier film We're All Going to the World's Fair, or the visually and somewhat thematically similar Skinamarink, I Saw the TV Glow attempts to capture the essence of coming of age and into belonging during the relatively early days of home media. Any child of the '80s and '90s will be reminded of that and more while watching, which may entice as many as it deters. Escapism fantasies and the powers of dissociation through magic screens arguably began there, and for many millennials those regular shows on network television and available for rent on VHS were a means of cultivating a social identity while experiencing more than what their mundane lives had to offer. The glowing television can and did literally save many kids in those days, and anyone for whom that rings true will find boons in store here.

But I Saw the TV Glow is not for everyone, not even in that demographic. Mismarketed as a typically hyperbolic "scariest movie of the year" and so forth, the film indeed claims horror and fantasy as its aesthetic lineage, but it's by and large a dramatic arthouse exploration of youth, identity, and belonging in a world getting smaller by the day. The film takes place over three decades in the life of Owen, an isolated and awkward teen who befriends social outcast Maddy, bonding over a television show on once a week, late at night. The Pink Opaque seems to be a something like a cross between Twin Peaks and Goosebumps or a particularly camp Buffy, and it features two teenage women using a psychic connection to fight monsters and other supernatural threats. Maddy is a hardcore fan, no doubt partly due to her burgeoning queer sexuality, and she invites Owen over to watch it with her, as it airs after his bedtime at home. Lying to his mother (Danielle Deadwyler), he sneaks and and stays the night at Maddy's house.

The show's grotesquerie doesn't phase Owen a jot. At least, not negatively. He's enraptured. Even as we (the audience) see flickers of the creepy images on screen and grasp for meaning in the characters' cryptic hints about the show itself, we see Owen allowing -- inviting -- it in to his soul. He has a strong connection to this material, and it's a moment that will haunt me for a long time. It reminded me, personally, of my memory watching Jurassic Park for the first time, away at a friend's house so my parents wouldn't know their pre-teen kid was watching a PG-13 movie. I was in heaven. My fantasies about dinosaurs were coming to life in a very real way, and I laughed and loved the whole thing. It wasn't until I revisited it many years later that I was shocked by how truly horrifying and scary that film still is.

The largest portion of the film jumps ahead in time a bit to 2006, as an older Owen works at a movie theater. Ten years prior, Maddy said she was going to run away and then vanished, Owen's mother died of cancer, and The Pink Opaque was cancelled. Owen, likely shortly after high school at this point, still lives with his father but clearly hasn't adjusted and has no ambition. Justice Smith, in what may be his most accomplished performance yet, plays Owen as all but his youngest self (Ian Foreman), delivering layers of subtle nuance beneath each awkward gaze or twitch the character makes. His seemingly lost identity comes crashing back into sight when, suddenly, Maddy materializes and wants to talk to Owen, claiming to have been inside The Pink Opaque for the past several years.

A push-pull rhythm controls the flow of scanty information in this film, and it's rather difficult to discuss as a result. Its thin plot and thick theming are more about a particular sensation than about any concrete knowledge or answers. Much as teens question their own identities, Maddy and Owen are actively searching for that things that feels True for themselves. The brief clips we get of their favorite show tell us something interesting about the characters, despite its overtly silly design; they can't stand the mundane banality of their suburb and of the lives they've gotten stuck enacting. There's a reason each moment of inspiration or liberation is marked with neon colors, especially pink and blue. It's a queer lens through which they are finally allowed to view the world, and they can finally see where they fit in.

In a crucial scene, the two sit on the school bleachers unsure about having sleepovers to fool Owen's mother. Maddy admits to liking girls, and asks Owen who he likes. "I think I like TV shows," he replies, providing perhaps the most naked moment of raw honesty I've seen in any film in a long time. Owen remains an enigma the entire film. So does Maddy (an excellent Jack Haven, who I only discuss less because I know less of their work and because the character is a bit more flat and intentionally enigmatic... or opaque, if you will), to a slightly lesser degree, but Owen's mystery is a challenge to even qualify. There could be some gender dysphoria at work here (there is a moment when he wears a dress, though it seems more likely that he's reenacting a scene from The Pink Opaque as one of the characters). There is certainly, on the filmmaker's part, serious consideration for ideas of queer temporalities and the repressive political climate of the '90s; by telling us the story of two queer teens finding community and affirmation in a heartfelt spookfest on primetime television, Schoenbrun is concurrently inviting us to think about the elements of our lives that shaped us, for better and worse, and how all our identities are constructed. Media isn't warping kids' minds; it's saving them. And, the film seems to suggest, those foundational reference points to our ideal selves will forever be burning within our memories.

The identity crises at the core of this film will invite a broader audience than queer people, though many are labeling this film as, particularly, trans. Owen's family is living in a very white suburb; Maddy's family exhibits painfully clear gender roles. That they immediately connect can be no real surprise, and their chemistry onscreen is a wonder to behold. Just pay attention to their body language and you'll see what I mean; they begin slumping and visibly uncomfortable, but later on Owen is all but collapsed upon himself whereas Maddy is proud and strong in posture. Hopefully their connection will inspire casual viewers -- especially those who don't know what they're watching -- to think outside the box more and see the similarly struggling spirit within the person across from them. To go beyond their comfort zone and not give in to the suffocating fantasy of a safe, guarded life.

Because that seems to be the purpose of I Saw the TV Glow. I won't spoil it here, but the final scene scarred me in a big way and strongly affirmed my suspicion that this is, fundamentally, a deeply trans film. And not just because of the throwaway line about Sleepaway Camp, which is a standout moment of dialogue that recalls the shocking and upsettingly problematic original trans slasher film of the same name. Owen's agony by film's end is tragic, meant in terms of Greek drama. Schoenbrun and their team honor it with glossy, stylish design elements and a dreamlike aesthetic approach. Beautiful music, haunting visuals, devastating performances, and frankly risky storytelling combine into a unique and endlessly fascinating sensory experience. It won't be the most exciting, terrifying, romantic, or weird thing you've seen, and I do wish it nailed down a few more specifics, if not scares. But I'd rather artists willing to take risks over those playing it safe, every time.

Nightbitch (2024)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Marielle Heller returns to the directorial stool for the first time since the pandemic with Nightbitch, a surprisingly thoughtful and funny riff on modern motherhood. After her sweet, somewhat funny, and deeply meditative A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and Can You Ever Forgive Me?, she has here herself adapted the source material from Rachel Yoder's 2021 novel. Though I've admittedly not read it, the book's buzz indicated to me that a film would be soon forthcoming, though I did not expect it in the form of a wide release direct to Hulu (or produced by Annapurna Pictures and distributed by Searchlight, but everything is changing these days). In her latest, Heller leans more into the darker nature of truth -- Truth, perhaps -- she has long explored in her films, eschewing the realism of her previous ventures to literalize a weirder, more fraught vision of motherhood than we tend to see in mainstream American film.

Amy Adams plays the titular mother -- named only Mother in the credits -- in yet another accomplished and layered performance that has proven her bona fides time and again. Mother has given up her career as an artist to be a stay-at-home mom for her two-year-old son while her husband is constantly away for work. Isolated and resentful, she regularly imagines lashing out at other people, even in passing at the grocery store, which is where we first meet her in a pseudo-fantasy as she meditates in haunting style the impossible pressures placed on her as a woman and a mother in today's society. Heller's screenplay (and, likely, Yoder's novel) takes great pains to articulate the issues involved and to not lean too far in any direction. Mother is clearly unhappy with her body since having a child, and she mentions having let herself go; she misses her career and tries to get it back while not remembering how she was the one determined fit to stay home; she wants to socialize, but she's simply different from the other young mothers and feels painfully awkward.

Amidst all this concern, Mother has one more issue to handle: she's turning into an animal.

Well, not literally. She mentions the title of the film early, in regard to herself, suggesting that by night she's a "bitch," meaning angry and aggressive and sexual and the kinds of things a mother "shouldn't" be. It also means, though, a female dog. Her teeth are starting to get pointy, she's growing patches of hair and the start of a tail, and she starts hunting other animals. In so doing, Adams offers some physical skills we haven't seen from her in a while, and while moments are played for light scares -- there is a Cronenbergian version of this that is straight-up body horror -- or for light laughs, it's clear these elements are metaphoric and only extant in Mother's opinion of and regard for herself.

Apart from its insightful and endearing screenplay, the film does really great technical work. Editor Anne McCabe deserves awards for so economically establishing a rhythm to the repetitive nature of Mother's life as a mother. Additionally, while Son is played by young twins, their performances are really lovely, to the extent we can judge a child for this; more appropriate for accolades here is the editor, who makes Son an endlessly lovable character. Again, there is a version of this film that reads more like The Babadook, making Son a monstrous horror that Mother is obligated to handle daily, and this wisely chooses a different path.

I wanted a clearer reference point to establish Mother's marriage with her husband (Scoot McNairy), because while their dynamic is believable, we are left wondering more about their backstory and their foundational moments -- such as who decided, and when, that she would be the parent at the cost of her career -- by film's end. I could have done without the extensive voiceover narration from Mother, which makes the film feel a bit more like a confessional or overt invitation for post-screening psychobabble discussion; seeing the changes she's undergoing and reading into Adams's wide-eyed reaction would be much more engaging for the audience if we weren't being told as much as we're being shown. Finally, I would have liked more understanding of their financial situation (they mention a nanny, for crying out loud), if only to cement the attempt at realism in the film.

Snippets of instantly believable -- and, surely, relatable for any parent -- scenes are highly effective in enhancing the darkly comedic aspects of parenthood on the brink. Whether you want to call it allegorical or magically realistic, the film leans into its unique weirdness and tonal positivity in ways that maybe aren't wholly groundbreaking (I think of the literalized version of Mother's scenario in Bitch, from 2017) but are never less than engrossing and endearing. I also really love that the film doesn't resort to cynicism or nihilism as the end means or goal for Mother. She doesn't leave the family, kill the child, emasculate the husband, burn down the house, or get institutionalized or imprisoned. Any of those were endings I was expecting. Instead, the film celebrates her efforts to establish herself as an agent of her own empowerment within the structure of her chosen life.

Black Bag (2025)

Score: 4.5 / 5

With each new project, I'm increasingly grateful that Soderbergh didn't retire after all. His latest release, a spy thriller like few others, reminds us of his highly entertaining ability to cover familiar ground in a wildly unfamiliar way. Black Bag manages to turn a high-stakes story about international security, satellite surveillance, and eavesdropping with AI, and turn it into a tense dinner table drama about camaraderie and companionship. David Koepp's riveting screenplay takes special focus on a conspiracy to leak a top-secret software called Severus, which could apparently cause a nuclear meltdown and claim thousands of lives.

MI6 officer George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) is given one week to locate and stop the leak; he narrows his list to five suspects and invites them over for dinner. Perhaps I should say, rather, that he invites four over for dinner; the fifth suspect is his wife, Kathryn (Cate Blanchett), his personal and professional match in every way. The others include two couples, all British Intelligence agents of various temperaments and dispositions, and their dinner is a bit awkward; at least, it's a bit stilted and guarded between these folks with their stiff upper lips. But George has lightly drugged their meal to lower their inhibitions with the intention of getting someone loose enough to reveal their secret. One couple is fiery Freddie (Tom Burke), angry about not getting promoted, and satellite image specialist Clarissa (Marisa Abela), who is his subordinate. The other is Colonel James Stokes (Regé-Jean Page) and the agency psychiatrist Dr. Zoe Vaughan (Naomie Harris). Despite the revelation that Freddie has been cheating on Clarissa, causing her to stab his hand with her cutlery, and some fractures in their relationships generally, George learns nothing of value.

With less than a week to go, and with his own supervisor found mysteriously dead, George refocuses attention on his wife, resorting to secretive surveillance of Kathryn on one of her missions. Kathryn suspects their boss (Pierce Brosnan) of attempting to destabilize Russia at any cost, and leaks the Russian operatives' location to a CIA contact, resulting in their annihilation from a drone strike. Meanwhile, George issues polygraph tests to his suspects; based on their respective intel, George and Kathryn conclude that they are being set up and decide to host another little dinner party.

If you know me, you know I love a dramatized dinner party gone wrong. You don't often see these in espionage thrillers, but in this Koepp/Soderbergh project, we get two! As bookends of what is otherwise an engaging but somewhat rote spy story, these sequences frame the whole affair as one of intimate, psychological proportions. We get to know these characters as perfection-oriented, ambitious professionals and as socially icy Brits in what could be an awkward domestic setting. That drastically changes our opinions of them once the game is afoot. As we follow George, primarily, we see his calculated method of putting pressure on each suspect to try and elicit their secrets; Fassbender's typically masterful, subtle performance is key here in ensuring that we trust him without his having to say much.

As his second release this year already, Soderbergh is showing no sign of slowing down or of being predictable in his choices of cinematic topics. This film, understated as it can feel, nevertheless features speedy edits and cool camera tricks such as shifting focus mid-shot and dousing everything in soft lighting to create a unique visual appeal to the proceedings. This helps the dinner scenes best, making things feel natural and nice even as we wait for the traitor to erupt. It also helps us trust -- and then not trust, and then trust again -- George's relationship with Kathryn, as their sexual chemistry and cerebral gameplay are showcased only briefly but highly effectively. And despite her role as a sort of secondary character, Blanchett matches Fassbender point for point, performing Kathryn with a glamorous, ballsy delivery that makes the character have an edge you don't usually see in films like these. He lays a careful trap and waits for his prey; she will unapologetically push people to see which one takes the bait. The middle act of the film works because of Blanchett's choices: she is clearly the only character in the film who could actually be outsmarting George.

Koepp's fraught dialogue and Soderbergh's uncanny knack for unique genre twists combine here in a heady test of smarts that is over almost too quickly. I could have lived in this world a little longer. Brosnan is having fun as a former James Bond who is a bit insecure professionally, and Harris is particularly delicious to watch in her equally cerebral and emotionally complex position as the group's therapist. While the final reveal could delight or upset genre fans, it strikes a memorable balance of tonal uplift and satisfying closure that we don't often see in such films.