Two new films center on the lingering effects of trauma and tragedy. Carey Mulligan is woman bent on revenge in Promising Young Woman; Vanessa Kirby is a mother whose baby dies in Pieces of a Woman.
The darkly comic thriller Promising Young Woman, starring Carey Mulligan as a woman on a mission, is a carefully constructed mix of genres and moods that doesn't pull its punches.
Even though most of us stayed away from movie theaters, 2020 was a banner year for independent narrative films, feature-length documentaries and pictures of all types and genres from overseas.
The reviewer's father, who was born in Wuhan, China, and lived there until he was 28, couldn't bear to keep watching. But she did — and was deeply moved by this new documentary film.
The film opens in an airport where a man greets the wife and daughter he hasn't seen in years. Farewell Amor is a deeply empathetic story about the struggles and anxieties of one immigrant family.
The story is simple, the themes surprisingly complex, and the hand-drawn animation is stunning in this stylish tale of a young girl yearning for freedom.
From Lovers Rock to The Good Lord Bird, the titles on John Powers' year-end list didn't simply distract; they also delved into enduring questions of freedom, dignity and survival.
Winslet plays real-life fossil hunter Mary Anning in a film that imagines an affair between Anning and another woman. "It's storytelling that normalizes and expresses same-sex love," Winslet says.
Riz Ahmed gives a quiet, intense and profoundly unsentimental performance as a rock drummer who suddenly loses his hearing and stubbornly refuses to accept it.
Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis play Abby and Harper, a couple headed home to Abby's parents' house for Christmas. Dan Levy, Victor Garber and Aubrey Plaza are among the terrific supporting cast.
A great cast and good intentions can't overcome Alan Ball's rushed, thin story about a closeted gay man returning to his South Carolina hometown in 1974.