Temperatures remain freezing here in the shadow of the mountains of Park City, but the 2023 Sundance Film Festival is only heating up. The first weekend saw the launch of several feature films that are expected to have audiences talking throughout the year, with many vying for jury prizes in the festival’s various competition categories. In the news of acquisitions, Fair playwith Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich, sold to Netflix for $20 million after a heated bidding war. Will the Chloe Domont thriller win the US Dramatic Competition prize? Netflix too acquired the Sarah Snook function Running Rabbit Runningwhile Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman theater camp ended up at Searchlight Pictures.
Cynthia Erivo (Derivative), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (flora and son), first director Randall Park (Gaps), Sanaa Lathan (Young. Savage. To free.), and Teyana Taylor and producer Lena Waithe (one thousand and one) were among the stars who showed up for the weekend premieres. During the post-screening Q&A session for You hurt my feelingswriter-director Nicole Holofcenerfor the fifth time at Sundance, Michael J. Fox stood up from the audience to praise the film, which stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tobias Menzies.
Below are capsule reviews for five of the most talked about titles from the festival so far: Sometimes I think about dying; Cassandra; Bad behaviour; Encore: A Film by Michael J. Fox; and You hurt my feelings.
Sometimes I think about dying
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Director: Rachel Lambert
Discard: Daisy Ridley, Dave Merheje, Parvesh Cheena, Marcia Debonis, Meg Stalter, Brittany O’Grady
Fran (Daisy Ridley) is an Oregon office worker who lives in a cocoon separate from her co-workers and is prone to highly dissociative daydreams. When new recruit Robert (Dave Merheje) seems to tune into her wavelength, it forces Fran into uncharted and very uncomfortable territory. As scripted, Sometimes I think about dying is really an interpretive film that feels deliberately vague. Working in conjunction with her team Below the Line, however, director Rachel Lambert (In the radiant city) brings a unifying vision and tonal coherence to this intensely shoe-gazing arthouse ball, even if its lineage (the film is adapted from a 2019 short film in turn based on a play) sometimes makes it feel like an unsuccessful stretching exercise.
Audiences have seen many films about social self-isolation told from a male perspective, and so much of what gives Sometimes I think about dying a sense of intrigue is its gendered perspective. Is Fran on the autism spectrum, a victim of trauma or abuse, a combination of the above, or none of the above? Ridley’s restrained, engaging, and withdrawn performance invites viewers to ponder that, and more. [Brent Simon]
Cassandra
Director: Roger Ross Williams
Discard: Gael García Bernal, Roberta Colindrez, Perla De La Rosa, Joaquín Cosío, Raúl Castillo
Mexico’s Lucha libre, with its flashy costumes and performative visions of masculinity, has long been ripe for the kind of tender queer storytelling behind Roger Ross Williams’ fictional feature debut, Cassandra. The film follows the eponymous luchador (played with wounded vulnerability and lithe physique by Gael García Bernal), who dreams of telenovelas and is completely devoted to his mother, as he builds a career as one of the most (in ) famous “exoticos”. ” for ever honoring the scene of Lucha libre.
Showing how Cassandro – born Saul Armendariz – turned his own effeminacy and penchant for the dramatic into assets amid an industry that expected their fighters to be bad guys and losers, the film follows the familiar tropes of “sports drama” (although, at least here, edits are set to the likes of Celia Cruz and Juan Gabriel). But the incandescent performances (joining García Bernal are the most reliable Roberta Colindrez and Raúl Castillo, along with a luminous Perla De La Rosa), fabulous costumes and captivating Lucha libre sequences, make for an exciting film about learning the truth to one’s scintillating advantage. [Manuel Betancourt]
Bad behaviour
Director: Alice Engert
Discard: Jennifer Connelly, Ben Wishaw, Alice Englert
No great movie needs likable protagonists. But you should at least hope for absolutely unsympathetic personalities. Making her screenwriter-director debut, Alice Englert pours plenty of quirky personality into Bad behaviour, a tale of loose mother-daughter reconciliation. But the thorny characters she sketches here are so vague and formless that you’ll be hard-pressed to find a reason to care about any of them, resulting in a film as formless and researched as the individuals who drive it.
One of them is fortunately a stunning Jennifer Connelly, giving it her all to Lucy, a former child actress in pursuit of a goal as a well-to-do adult as she goes to a retreat run by an evil guru of Elon Bello textbooks (Ben Whishaw, doing his best not to turn Elon into a new-age caricature). Meanwhile, Englert plays a stuntman in practice, delivering an increasingly grating performance. The movie is peppered with crude humor and cartoonish characters – like an influencer played by Dasha Nekrasova – as the story follows them unleashing their anger. In the aftermath, the most charming memory you might walk away with is a brief appearance from Jane Campion, Englert’s mother. The rest does not go beyond the privilege of its characters. [Tomris Laffly]
Encore: A Film by Michael J. Fox
Director: David Guggenheim
What Gen-Xer hasn’t had a youth defined in part by Michael J. Fox as a dreamy presence? In the joyful and suitably emotional Encore: A Film by Michael J. Foxskilled documentarian Davis Guggenheim understands this nostalgia on a deep level and delivers the actor’s life story both inventively and with the the greatest sensitivity. Guggenheim’s greatest success here is letting Fox be in charge of his own narrative by telling his own story, a decision that cleverly eliminates all potentially problematic avenues for engaging with the incurable Parkinson’s disease.an illness the star lives with, having been diagnosed at age 29.
In this regard, Still is a work of empowerment and empathy, a celebration of Fox’s life as an actor and philanthropist who rose to fame through the sitcom Family ties and the Back to the future trilogy, after years of struggle in Los Angeles, locked up in a small apartment with no prospects. Alongside the masterful work of editor Michael Harte, Guggenheim reconstructs the beloved actor’s story, using mostly scenes from Fox’s own shows and movies. The romantic nature of the film is also exquisite – indeed, Fox’s relationship and marriage to wife Tracy Pollan is a constant throughout the film. Still. It’s nice. [Tomris Laffly]
You hurt my feelings
Directed by: Nicole Holofcener
With: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies, Michaela Watkins, Arian Moayed, Owen Teague
Writer-director Nicole Holofcener has a special sense of elegance on the page and behind the camera. Through her curious characters of urban privilege, she makes one feel understood on a human level, articulating our secret thoughts with shrewd honesty in ways that are both illuminating and incredibly funny. On reuniting with Julia Louis-Dreyfus after her understated romantic comedy masterpiece Enough saidof Holocener You hurt my feelings is no exception.
Holofcener’s latest book revolves around a best-selling New York author (Dreyfus) who struggles to generate interest in her next book. Secondary characters include a therapist husband (Tobias Menzies) with questionable finesse in his work, and the friends and relatives who surround the couple’s colorful world. Throughout, Holofcener offers pointed observations about marriage, career success, and insecurities that sometimes become self-fulfilling prophecies, doing so with both a serious sense of humor (sometimes laughing out loud) and a very observant eye. Anyone who has ever told a white lie to uplift a loved one or kept a seemingly innocent secret longer than necessary in the name of support will feel a little less alone in the world thanks to Holofcener’s skill at articulating the quieter corners. of the human mind. [Tomris Laffly]
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