WOMEN TALKING is a compassionate, reasoned film about a very ugly subject that tells its compelling story within strict confinements. The action takes place among an Amish-like sect in 2010 as its women take on issues of the patriarchy with a fiercely clear eye and the safe remove of an almost metaphorical setting. Within this… Read More »
SHE SAID
SHE SAID is a compelling story that is well told by director Maria Schrader and screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Based on the book of the same name by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, it follows those two New York Times reporters as they crack the story of Harvey Weinstein’s decades of sexual harassment, abuse, and rape… Read More »
BRIAN BANKS
BRIAN BANKS is an earnest film that hits all the necessary and expected plot points as it makes its cogent indictment of the criminal justice system. It never becomes a screed, though the based-on-a-true story of 16-year-old who ended up serving time for a rape he didn’t commit certainly has all the elements to support… Read More »
ROOM
ROOM is a profound meditation on the human condition, a meditation as bittersweet as life itself, and as uplifting as a child’s innocence. Based on the novel by Emma Donoghue, it confronts the barbaric simplicity of captivity, by contrasting it with the confusing complexity of freedom. What should be easy is not. Happiness is elusive.… Read More »
SANDSTORM (BAWANDAR)
Jag Mundhra’s SANDSTORM succeeds on several levels. First, it’s a fine piece of filmmaking that tells this story of cultural discrimination with a directness that never panders to either its audience or its characters. Second, it succeeds in outlining in stark and uncompromisingly personal terms exactly what this sort of injustice means for one woman… Read More »