This is an expanded rewrite of the review originally published as part of our coverage of TIFF 2024 A has-been actress uses an experimental drug to become a better version of herself in The Substance. Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is a once-popular actress who has now been reduced to hosting the aerobics program Sparkle Your…
A has-been actress uses an experimental drug to become a better version of herself in The Substance. Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is a once-popular actress now reduced to hosting the aerobics program Sparkle Your Life. However, Elisabeth ends up being fired, on her birthday, by her chauvinistic boss Harvey (Dennis Quaid), who begins looking for…
Yorgos Lanthimos directs a triptych fable in Kinds of Kindness. In The Death of R.M.F., Robert (Jesse Plemons) refuses to do a task for his friend and benefactor Raymond (Willem Dafoe) and his wife Vivian (Margaret Qualley). This results in Raymond cutting off Robert, resulting in his life falling apart, including losing his wife Sarah…
A 30-something woman balances her life with her multiple BDSM relationships in The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed. During the day, Ann (Joanna Arnow) works an increasingly directionless job at a real estate company or gets together with her Jewish family. However, at night, partakes in master/slave relationships with multiple partners,…
A cash-strapped woman takes a job to seduce an awkward teenager in No Hard Feelings. Maddie Barker (Jennifer Lawrence) is a 32-year-old Uber driver and bartender in Montauk, New York, who is on the verge of losing her mother’s house, due to rising property taxes. After her car is towed away by ex-boyfriend Gary (Ebon Moss-Bachrach),…
An audio recording of our review of No Hard Feelings
A young nun has a sexual awakening after her sister’s death in Thunder. Elisabeth (Lilith Grasmug) is a 17-year-old nun on the verge of taking her vows when she is called home by the news that her sister Innocente (Léa Gigon) has died. Elizabeth learns that Innocente gained a reputation as a spawn of Satan…
The life of a sex worker and blogger is followed over the course of three years in Searching Eva. Eva Collé is an Italian-born sex worker living in Berlin, who shares the experiences of her life on her blog. Eva’s constantly changing life is followed over the course of three years, following her through Berlin,…
A man who’s slowly going invisible tries to save his daughter in The Unseen. Bob Langmore (Aden Young) is an ex hockey player, who is now a struggling mill worker in a quiet town. Bob abandoned his family 8 years earlier, partly due to the fact that he has a condition that is slowly turning him…
This review was originally published, under its original title Libera Nos, as part of my coverage of Hot Docs 2017 The daily routines of a Sicilian exorcist is observed in Deliver Us. Over the past number of years, the requests to the Catholic Church for the rite of exorcism has been on the rise, to the…
