Film-Forward

Book adaptation

Passing | New York Film Festival 2021

The elegant directorial debut of British-American actress Rebecca Hall revolves around two light-skinned Black women following different paths.

The Lost Daughter | New York Film Festival 2021

The New Yorker hailed Ferrante’s slender yet loaded novel as “a brutally frank novel of maternal ambivalence.” The same could be said of Maggie Gyllenhaal’s adaptation.

The Power of the Dog | New York Film Festival 2021

Jane Campion performs a seductive sleight of hand in her adaptation of American writer Thomas Savage’s 1967 shapeshifting novel.

The Mad Women’s Ball

Overstuffed and often heavy-handed as it is, the movie is beautifully shot and styled, features some very moving scenes, and derives power from its incendiary performances.

Dune | TIFF 2021

Director Denis Villeneuve turns Frank Herbert’s multilayered, 1965 sci-fi classic novel into an involving adventure.

Mama Weed

The sight of Isabelle Huppert schlepping unwieldy blocks of dope evokes a comparison to the actress herself dragging her talents to languish in a slight, down-market caper.

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit

Based on a semi-autobiographical novel, a German Jewish family presciently flees the Nazis in 1933.

My Salinger Year

Sigourney Weaver is the standout here as a complex, layered woman, sometimes mean, sometimes kind, but always fully human.

Cherry

Directed by MCU masterminds Joe and Anthony Russo, Cherry tackles a lot of issues: youthful malaise, PTSD, the opioid crisis, and Midwestern economic collapse.