SCREEN SAVERS
Read our reviews before you watch.
BPM (Beats Per Minute) ( ): This Cannes Grand Prix drama is both intimately shot and historically aware, drawing from director Robin Campillo’s past as an AIDS activist in the 1990s to find humanity behind the headlines. Fans of Campillo’s previous writing — the Palme d’Or winner The Class, for instance — will appreciate the energetic dialogue and optimistic verve. Those unfamiliar with the Moroccan-born filmmaker’s close-quarters style may find the ricochet of words too repetitive to feel compelling. Peter Howell
Beyond Words ( ): Urszula Antoniak’s tactile blackand-white drama glows like a vintage silver-print, exploring a father-son relationship while asking topical questions about who has the right to live where in the world. Polish-born lawyer Michael (Jakub Gierszal) specializes in refugee cases and thinks he’s an equal at his top-drawer Berlin law firm. But his rough-hewn father (Andrzej Chyra), long presumed dead,
suddenly turns up to shake up that notion. A powerful examination of immigration and human rights today, Antoniak’s stylish, well-acted drama also explores historic wrongs. Linda Barnard
Call Me By Your Name ( ): Luca Guadagnino follows A Bigger Splash with summer idylls (and idols) in a young man’s sexual awakening in the Italian Riviera of 1983. Visiting scholar Oliver (Armie Hammer) is staying at the vacation villa of distinguished culture prof Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg) and his wife Annella (Amira Casar), a translator. The worldly Oliver befriends the couple’s 17-year-old son Elio (Timothée Chalamet), a bookish lad who has yet to fully experience life. A relationship begins, very slowly, allowing viewers to drink in the intoxicating sights, sounds and moods of this exquisite film. PH
Cardinals ( K ): Sheila McCarthy is riveting as Valerie, recently paroled after driving drunk, killing her neighbour. Back home with her two daughters, she wants to put the past behind her. That’s impossible when the dead man’s son (a compelling Noah Reid) keeps showing up with increasingly demanding questions. One daughter (Katie Boland, very good) knows the truth, but this is a family that believes in closing ranks. Co-directors Grayson Moore (also the writer) and Aidan Shipley are sometimes uneven in their first feature but show promise. LB
Custody ( K ): French filmmaker Xavier Legrand elevates a standard — as in sadly commonplace — story about the breakdown of a marriage and fallout from a battle over shared custody of son Julien. The mother has gone to great lengths to hide from her ex, the sorrowful father is desperate to maintain a relationship with Julien, but the boy and older sister want nothing to do with him. Great performances as the story burns slowly toward a heart-pounding climax. Bruce DeMara
The Day After ( K ): South Korean minimalist Hong Sang-soo has the germ of a great idea, sadly no more than that, in a philandering man’s exploitation of misapprehension. A recently ended affair between publishing house manager
Bongwan (Kwon Haehyo) and his employee Changsook (Kim Saebyuk) has prompted Changsook to find a new job. She’s replaced by Areum (Kim Minhee), hard-working and disinterested in office shenanigans, who nevertheless feels the wrath of Bongwan’s wife when an old love letter from Changsook surfaces. Hong could have taken this in interesting directions but chooses not to; rich character shadings only partially atone. PH
Disappearance ( K ): Stark, atmospheric and surprisingly tender in spots, this Dutch-Norwegian mother-daughter drama often chooses symbolism over dialogue, as globe-trotting, 30something photographer Roos (Rifka Lodeizen, excellent) reluctantly makes her annual visit to her mother’s (Elsie de Brauw) remote northern home. They seem unable to tolerate each other, so how can Roos, prone to running when they invariably fight, share difficult news? It’s easier for her to mend fences with her 13-year-old half brother, who finds music in unusual places in the beautiful, snowbound landscape. LB
The Disaster Artist ( ): From the ashes of arguably the worst movie ever made, The Room, comes a great dramatic telling of how this 2003 cult film got made in the first place. Actor/director James Franco plays Tommy Wiseau, the mysterious San Francisco narcissist of non-existent talent but apparently unlimited brass and cash who conceived and made The Room as a not-so-veiled dramatization of his strange life. Brother Dave Franco plays Greg Sestero, Tommy’s loyal but concerned friend and co-star. Rampant ego built The Room but there were a lot of down-to-earth emotions propping it up. PH
Happy End ( ): Making his audiences once again complicit in extreme behaviour, Michael Haneke dissects the sinister ennui of an affluent French family in this decidedly small, overwhelmingly misanthropic drama. Belgian actress Fantine Harduin, 12, plays an unhappy daughter who harbours the darkest of thoughts and commits shocking acts of cruelty, all while communicat-
ing with unseen friends via Snapchat. If you think the title is anything but a grim joke, you don’t know Michael Haneke. Isabelle Huppert and Jean-Louis Trintignant co-star. PH
In the Fade ( K ): Diane Kruger took Best Actress at Cannes for her lead role in German auteur Fatih Akin’s latest drama, which gives agency to a mother’s rage and the most powerful of human emotions. Kruger seizes and holds every frame as Katja, a woman out to avenge the terrorist bombing that killed her husband and young son. The film is an unusually thoughtful take on the payback thriller, asking questions about grief and justice that resonate with these perilous times, all the more so in light of recent terror atrocities the world over. PH
The Killing of a Sacred Deer ( ): Rising Irish actor Barry Keoghan had a significant yet tiny role in Christopher Nolan’s recent Dunkirk, suggesting promise that Yorgos Lanthimos ( The Lobster) brings to terrifying fruition in this kinky horror of collecting on debts unpaid. Keoghan’s character Martin is shy and lonely one moment, utterly blood-chilling the next, leaving a family headed by Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman — there’s some serious star wattage for you — wondering what kind of game is afoot. The film makes you squirm as much as it makes you laugh. PH
Loveless ( K ): Bleak stories with impeccable craftsmanship. Such is the cinema of Russian auteur Andrey Zvyagintsev ( Leviathan). In this beautifully sad new reality check of his homeland, lost boys and lost souls culminate in a devastating critique of life under the dispiriting rule of Vladimir Putin. Outclassing his elders is young Russian actor Matvey Novikov, playing the missing 12-year-old child of this cold winter’s tale, where emotions are harder than permafrost. PH
Luk’Luk’l ( ): It’s 2010, the Vancouver Olympics are happening, but in the unlucky neighbourhood toured by writer/director Wayne Wapeemukwa, the only gold-medal activity is coping
with poverty, disabilities and disenfranchisement. He meets five Vancouverites who are trying to survive in an apparent land of plenty. Beautifully photographed, with an empathetic eye to the people on view. The Olympic motto “Higher, faster, stronger” seems like the motto for regular folk who are just holding on, rather than the athletes competing down the road. PH
Mary Goes Round ( K ): Filmmaker Molly McGlynn delivers a family drama that only succeeds because of the affecting performance of Aya Cash as Mary, an addictions counsellor whose own life is crashing down in pieces due to alcoholism. When Mary goes home to Niagara Falls at her estranged father’s urging, she meets a younger half-sibling for the first time and begins to confront the roots of her self-destructive behaviour. Fine cinematography and a great supporting performance by Melanie Nicholls-King. BD
Miami ( K ): After years apart, an exotic dancer reunites with her younger half-sister, and their bond becomes the tender heart of a road movie full of violent turns. With debt-collecting thugs in pursuit, the sisters work their new routine: blackmailing businessmen. But the scheme, a little predictably, speeds out of control in Zaida Bergroth’s film. Watch this for the warm, complicated, shifting dynamic between the dangerously dazzling Angela (Finnish rising star Krista Kosonen) and the smart but less worldly Anna (newcomer Sonia Kuittinen). Will love save them both? Jennie Punter
Mudbound ( ): Multiple narratives keep outcomes in doubt for this sprawling 1940s Deep South drama by Dee Rees ( Pariah), set in a Mississippi Delta cotton-farming community more torn by racial divides than the ravages of the Second World War. Adapted from Hillary Jordan’s acclaimed novel, it tracks the parallel but not equal lives of rural neighbours: the McAllans (Carey Mulligan, Jason Clarke and Garrett Hedlund) and the Jacksons (Rob Morgan, Mary J. Blige and Jason Mitchell).
The film takes its time, but there’s a huge payoff. PH Nina Sweetly impish and quietly stubborn, a 12-yearold competitive swimmer bounces between her divorcing parents, trying to stay cheery and not take sides, despite their hurtful bickering and casual neglect of their only child. Despite the deceptively simple story of Juraj Lehotsky’s film, the director creates a rich, emotionally convincing portrait of family love and heartbreak, sprinkling it with daydreams, and delivering a suspenseful final sequence. Newcomer Bibiana Novakova utterly charms as Nina, who has to disappear in order to be seen. JP North of Superior Graeme Ferguson’s IMAX original looks as bold and daring as it did in 1971, even if certain elements — like the Lightfoot-influenced folksinger on the soundtrack — date it a bit. Ferguson’s giant camera is strapped to a vintage helicopter, small airplane, white-water canoe and a rubber-tube toboggan as it zooms the viewer through northern wilderness (and Indigenous communities) rarely glimpsed on film, taking in everything from a shoreside wedding to a raging forest fire. Just 18 minutes that tell a huge story. PH
Novitiate ( ): Aspiring nun Cathleen (Margaret Qualley, The Nice Guys) negotiates the rigours of a cloistered life in this sexually aware coming-of-ager set in the early 1960s. Carefully calibrated drama by writer/director Maggie Betts shifts between lives caught up in doubt, illicit romance and the sweeping liberalism of the Roman Catholic Church’s Vatican II reforms. Torn by faith and a feeling of betrayal, Melissa Leo’s controlling Reverend Mother makes a supporting role seems like a leading one; she deserves consideration when Oscar time arrives. PH
The Other Side of Hope Ari Kaurismaki’s Silver Bear winner from Berlinale 2017 continues the stranger in a strange land theme of his previous film Le Havre, with his compassion and absurd wit once again much in evidence. Syrian stowaway Khaled (Sherwan Haji) arrives in Helsinki covered in coal dust from a cargo ship and shattered by the violence of hometown Aleppo. He’s greeted by red tape and rednecks, but finds solace from another lost soul: shirt seller turned restaurant owner Wikstrom (Sakari Kuosmanen), whose gruff manner and eccentric ways can’t hide the gleam of a heart of gold. PH Porcupine Lake Fully immersed in the complex world of 13-year-old girls, Ingrid Veninger’s sixth film is sure to spark memories among many women. Loner Bea (Charlotte Salisbury) arrives from Toronto for a Georgian Bay extended vacation, dreading a boring summer and fearful her parents are verging on divorce. Confidently brash local Kate (Lucinda Armstrong Hall) blows in and changes everything. The script is occasionally obvious, but strives for truth. Salisbury and Armstrong Hall are naturals as maturing girls bonding in ways that
go beyond pinky swears. LB Radiance In this sun-dappled melodrama by Japan’s Naomi Kawase, a naïve writer meets a nearly blind photographer. Can love see a connection? Misako (Ayame Misaki) works as an audio describer of movies for the blind, but her audience is rarely satisfied — she either says too much or too little. Her harshest critic is an aging photographer named Nakamori (Masatoshi Nagase), his sight rapidly diminishing and with a heart in need of affection, who challenges her to do better. We could offer the same advice to writer/director Kawase, who aims for poetry but settles for sentiment. PH Redoubtable When New Wave auteur Jean-Luc Godard proclaimed the death of cinema in the 1960s (and onwards), he might have been foreseeing something as rote and reductive as this failed rendering of his public persona, tediously conjured by Louis Garrel. Aping Godard’s signature styles with only the most basic understanding of their importance, writer/director Michel Hazanavicius paints a bourgeois marital drama between Godard and Anne Wiazemsky, the neglected actress that first appeared in 1967’s La Chinoise. PH Soldiers. Story from Ferentari Ivana Mladenovic’s film won’t go down well in Romania because it deals with two taboo subjects in a pretty raw way. The first is homosexuality, still not cricket in a conservative former East Bloc country where people habitually invoke the Church. The second is the Roma minority, who are plainly treated as second-class citizens. It’s both autobiographical and a love story of sorts about a taciturn PhD student living in a poor district of Bucharest who forms a romantic bond with an ex-con. Fiercely original. BD
Tulipani, Love, Honour and a Bicycle This colourfully romantic dramedy springs from a fable about a stubborn Netherlander who ends up in an Italian village with a sack of tulip bulbs and a yearning for the girl he left behind. He becomes a local hero for The Florida Project.
more than his miraculous blooms. Dutch Oscar-winning director Mike van Diem offers bouquets to Wes Anderson but Tulipani can be silly when it goes for the quirky. Lost Girl’s Ksenia Solo and Gijs Naber star. Lovingly lensed by Luc Brefeld. LB Under the Tree Here’s a chilly treat to savour, a dark comedy from Icelandic filmmaker Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson that will unsettle and amuse in just the right way. Steindor Hroar Steindorsson plays Atli, forced to go home to Mom and Pop when his wife catches him watching homemade porn involving another woman (it’s complicated). His mother still mourns the loss of her other son Uggi, as a dispute with next door neighbours about a backyard tree escalates out of control. The final scene is sublime. BD
Valley of Shadows Norwegian auteur Jonas Matzow Gulbrandsen weaves an enigmatic tale as seen through the eyes of 6-year-old Aslak (Adam Ekeli). Something or someone is killing sheep in a remote village, leaving most of the carcass. It’s possibly a werewolf, according to his older friend Lasse. The cops visit, looking for Aslak’s older troubled brother. In the forest on the mountain near his home, Aslak, in search of a monster, becomes lost until encountering a mysterious stranger. The cinematography and the score create an unsettling sense of foreboding and mystery. BD What Will People Say The price of perceived shame swirls through writer-director Iram Haq’s semi-autobiographical feature about a Pakistani teen living in Norway. Maria Mozhdah’s naturalistic portrayal of 16-year-old Nisha centres on her conflicted desire to fit in and devotion to her traditional family. Discovered with a boy, betrayal by her once-doting father (Adil Hussain) to silence wagging tongues is devastating, with shattering consequences. The confidently directed drama often has the feel of a thriller, yet goes deep into the emotional world with memorable performances. LB