Drama

A Real Pain

  • Title: A Real Pain
  • IMDb: link

Most notable for Kieran Culkin‘s performance, A Real Pain stars Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg (who also wrote and directed) in and odd couple pairing as cousins visiting Poland after their grandmother’s death hoping to reconnect with their Jewish heritage and feel closer to her one last time. Starting out with a Holocaust tour group the pair find themselves shown around Poland landmarks ranging from restaurants to a concentration camp with an eclectic group who include Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiawan, Liza Sadovy, Daniel Oreskes, and Kurt Egyiawan, before moving off on their own to find their grandmother’s home.

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Nickel Boys

  • Title: Nickel Boys
  • IMDb: link

Presented from a first-person perspective with the camera acting as the eyes of our protagonist, Nickel Boys is a hard film to review both in terms of subject matter and in how the story is framed for the audience. The technique certainly allows the film to stick out, even when the person whose perspective unexpectedly shifts between our main character Elwood Curtis (Ethan Herisse) who finds himself in a reform school after being in the wrong place at the wrong time and Turner (Brandon Wilson) who he meets at Nickel Academy. 

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We Live in Time

  • Title: We Live in Time
  • IMDb: link

We Live in Time is a bit of a throwback, a solid film that shows the formula of throwing together two extremely likable stars and giving them a stage to perform is still a formula for success. For our pairing we get Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh as Tobias and Almut. The film jumps around in non-linear fashion to delve into the pair’s relationship from their cinematic meet-cute (where she literally runs into him with his car) through the ups and downs of their relationship over the years.

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Conclave

  • Title: Conclave
  • IMDb: link

Far less silly than Angels & Demons (at least until its final ten minutes), and with less conspiracy and murder, Conclave tackles the election of a new pope by the sequestered College of Cardinals. Our main protagonist throughout events is Cardinal-Dean Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) who despite his recent religious struggles finds himself in charge of the proceedings where he sides with the more modern liberal candidates (Stanley Tucci and Lucian Msamati) for the open position over other candidates (John Lithgow and Sergio Castellitto).

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Flow

  • Title: Flow
  • IMDb: link

Sometimes you search an entire year in vain for the film which will allow you to fall in love with cinema, and what it can be, all over again. Flow is that perfect film. Springing from the mind of writer/director Gints Zilbalodis and co-writer Matiss Kaza, Flow follows a nameless black cat, and the various other animals he will meet along the way, in the mostly abandoned woodland setting where a flood will displace everything. Featuring no humans, nor narration or dialogue of any language, Flow is a survival story told through its use of real animal sounds, and the sounds of the surroundings, helping to bring the characters and their world to life.

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