Starring: Janel Tsai, Ma Shih-yuan, Nina Ye, Brando Huang, Alvin Lin, Blaire Chang
Grade: B+
Recent four-time Oscar winner Sean Baker may be the carrot at the end of the stick that is Left-Handed Girl for cinephiles, but he’s a secondary force in director Shih-Ching Tsou’s delightful family dramedy. It’s easy to understand the duo’s collaboration; they co-directed Take Out in 2004, and have had a working relationship together on most of Baker’s projects in the intervening years. Baker’s sensibilities can be seen within the story (he’s the co-writer of the screenplay along with Tsou, and serves as the film’s editor), but the film is more than a triumph of good editing and writing.
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, LaKeith Stanfield, Nick Nolte, Sissy Spacek, Gabrielle Rose, Clare Coulter
Grade: B
Motherhood, and all its terrifyingly wonderful aspects, has rarely been rendered with as much dimension as in Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love. The Scottish writer-director is at her best when she’s tapped into fractured psyches, and the destruction they often wreak on others (You Were Never Really Here and We Need to Talk About Kevin), but her latest is no different, utilizing a scorching lead performance from Jennifer Lawrence. And though it’s often captivating and visceral, the film’s meandering plot tends to wear down the viewer throughout its 2-hour runtime.
Starring: Renata Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning
Grade: A-
Beloved international auteur Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård), the ersatz lead character of Sentimental Value, has written what may be his best, and possibly last, film, and he’s written it especially with his daughter Nora (Renata Reinsve) in mind for the lead role. For any actor, this would be seen as a no-brainer decision to gain some bona fide recognition. But Nora rejects his film, without even reading the script, and the remainder of Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s latest film presents an intriguing, nuanced look at why.
Starring: Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, William H. Macy, Kerry Condon, Clifton Collins Jr., Will Patton
Grade: A
In the entire history of the universe, since matter was first created, the time which humans have occupied on Earth has been microscopic. And the average life span of an average human fractures that already tiny number into an even smaller percentage. In other words, the modern world which you or I are seeing and experiencing is just a small bit of what’s come before and what will come after. This is, ostensibly, a review of Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams, the best film of the year, but because it’s a film that spoke to me on a deeper, more human level than any film in a long time, I feel it warrants a more philosophical and personal discussion.
Starring: Collin Farrell, Fala Chen, Tilda Swinton, Deanie Yip Tak-Han, Alex Jennings, Jason Tobin, Adrienne Lau
Grade: C+
Every gambler knows that, sooner or later, no matter how hot their streak becomes, they’ll eventually go bust; the only variable is how much it’ll hurt when it happens. After making an international splash in 2022, director Edward Berger’s new film Ballad of a Small Player isn’t a spectacular bust, but is a relative disappointment compared to his recent output. Though it’s easy to see why Berger was drawn to making the film, the end result is a worn-out character piece full of wasted potential.
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Andrew Scott, Bobby Cannavale, Margaret Qualley, Jonah Lees, Simon Delaney
Grade: B
Richard Linklater’s long and illustrious career has taken him across genres, decades, countries, and styles to make one of the most varied filmographies since his rise on the indie scene in the 1990s. For his latest, Blue Moon – the first of his two films to be released in 2025 – Linklater reunites with his most constant collaborator, Ethan Hawke, to produce a new spin on the biopic. I had written in my review of Linklater’s last film that he’s always been interested in exploring the private persona versus public, and while this certainly applies here, he’s perhaps just as fascinated with the passage of time and how it can distort those same perceptions.
Starring: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Christoph Waltz, Mia Goth, Felix Kammerer, Charles Dance
Grade: B-
Netflix has multiple auteur-driven films set to release throughout the rest of the year. From Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly to Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite and even the Sundance breakout Train Dreams, the streaming studio has numerous films gunning for Oscar nominations. Arguably the biggest contender is Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, a $120 million spectacle that adapts one of the most foundational horror novels of all time.
Films made by children of beloved filmmakers can run the gamut in quality and style. From critical failures like Ishana Shyamalan’s The Watchers or Oscar darlings like Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, it is almost impossible to tell how well films from nepo babies will turn out. Tina Romero’s Queens of the Dead is the latest debut from a child of an iconic filmmaker —in this case, horror director George A. Romero. Seeing Tina Romero take on the horror subgenre that cemented her father as an all-time horror director could lead to deadly consequences if it turned out poorly, but luckily, her film takes a unique spin on the zombie flick, making for an entertaining experience from start to finish.
Starring: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi, Hadis Pakbaten, Majid Panahi, Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr
Grade: A-
Getting any film made, even under the best of circumstances, is a small kind of miracle. For auteur Jafar Panahi, getting a film made under the Iranian regime is another kind of miracle entirely – not to mention an active act of resistance. Panahi has faced difficulties making films before (his last film, No Bears, was made while he was under house arrest). But It Was Just an Accident is as openly critical towards his government as possible, and presents a moral and existential quandary that anyone can relate to when living under fear.
It’s always nice to see actors challenging themselves after more family-friendly fare, and this is the case with Pearce Joza’s starring turn in Under the Lights. Viewers may recognize the actor from Disney’s Zombies franchise, but here he’s given the room to show his depth. Miles Levin, who writes and directs, expands on his short film of the same name, about a high schooler named Sam (Joza) with epilepsy who desperately wants to attend his prom. The story is full of mostly standard stuff, with Sam finding the courage, accepting his limitations, and finding his true friends, but Levin’s heart is in the right place.
The cast list is unusually stacked, with Randall Park, Nick Offerman, Mary Holland, and Mark Duplass making cameo appearances, plus Lake Bell playing Sam’s overly protective mother. Joza’s performance stands up to scrutiny, as he plays into Sam’s teenage naivety but bullish determination. After all, what teenager doesn’t feel deathly determined to prove their doubters wrong, regardless of their own potential health issues? I don’t know if any version of the film exists which scratches deeper beneath the surface, but Under the Lights is the kind of regional film festival title which comes and goes without much further investigation. Of course, it’s great to see accurate representation of little-seen disabilities on film, and Joza proves that he can easily break from the Disney mold, so Levin’s film is ultimately a mild net positive.
Another Heartland film featuring recognizable faces comes in the form of Elena Oxman’s Outerlands, starring Orange is the New Black star Asia Kate Dillon. The film is one of the few purely adult-oriented offerings at Heartland, as it explores a number of difficult topics without reservation. Though there are some rough edges in some areas, Dillon shines in a difficult role.
The film follows Cass (Dillon), a restaurant server who has a brief fling with Kalli (Louisa Krause), a new server with a shady past. Before long, Kalli asks Cass to take care of her tween daughter Ari (Ridley Asha Bateman) while she goes out of town for a job. Cass can barely take care of herself, but the added responsibility of a young girl who could care less about her or her problems. There isn’t much, dramatically speaking, to sustain the 100 minute runtime, but Oxman doesn’t go down unnecessary avenues, nor do characters behave like they’re in a movie. Outerlands may not be the standout film of the festival, but it’s not a total downer either.
Virtually every film festival, every year, contains some version of Adult Children, an indie comedy featuring overly qualified stars in overly written situations. Director Rich Newey’s still young career is full of Hallmark-esque holiday rom-coms, and screenwriter Annika Marks’ script sets up the major conflict – such as it is – not unlike those same films. Morgan (Ella Rubin) has to write a college application essay, but struggles for inspiration. The plot kicks in when her older half-brother Josh (Thomas Sadoski) relapses and comes to live with her and her parents.
Her other half-siblings Dahlia (Aya Cash) and Lisa (Betsy Brandt) have their own existential issues, but they come together to support him. The film succeeds more on the interpersonal relationships between them, and less when they’re on their own. Lisa is the type-A neurotic wife and mother in a loveless marriage, and now she’s dealing with a possible unplanned pregnancy. Dahlia is a directionless nude model between relationships, strapped for cash and needing a place to live. Josh is reeling from a break-up, but there’s not much more to him that this. Everyone is cast to perfection and Newey utilizes their strengths (Rubin is especially strong in the second half), but Adult Children plays out mostly how you’d expect once the plot is set up. There are dramatic contrivances between the siblings – not to mention the casual hostility towards sobriety and addicts – but there’s a level of nuance that comes into focus. In spite of its issues, I left the film mostly feeling warmer towards the interpersonal dynamics and performances overall.
The Movie State 