Overview
Do you guys ever think about all the new movies that didn't get as much love while everyone was seeing Barbie and the rest of 2023's huge box-office hits? If you haven't so far, the time to do so is now.
This year's's slate of cinema releases is like the year's biggest blockbuster, serving up multiple variations for everyone. So, while The Super Mario Bros Movie, Oppenheimer, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, John Wick: Chapter 4, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Elemental were among the typical successes (and 2022's Avatar: The Way of Water and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish as well), the massive money earners are just a fraction the flicks that've graced the silver screen over the last 12 months.
All of the aforementioned pictures made piles of cash from New Zealand audiences, and earned attention and chatter along the way. Elsewhere, warped mindbenders, thoughtful dramas, genre-hopping action, twisty delights and gorgeous animation also awaited — and they're worth catching up with ASAP. As we have since 2014 (see also: 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022), we've picked a heap of must-see movies that you likely didn't see in 2023, because that's what the cinema takings tell us, but you should definitely add to your list. Thanks to our 15 selections, don't say that you don't have anything new to watch.
BROKER
No matter how Hirokazu Kore-eda's on-screen families come to be, if there's any actual blood between them, whether they're grifting in some way or where in the world they're located, the Japanese writer/director and Shoplifters Palme d'Or winner's work has become so beloved — so magnificent, too — due to his care and sincerity. A Kore-eda film is a film of immense empathy and, like Like Father, Like Son, Our Little Sister, After the Storm and The Third Murder also in the prolific talent's past decade, Broker is no different. The setup here is one of the filmmaker's murkiest, with the feature's name referring to the baby trade. But showing compassion and humanity isn't up for debate in Kore-eda's approach. He judges the reality of modern-day life that leads his characters to their actions, but doesn't judge his central figures. In the process, he makes poignant melodramas that are also deep and thoughtful character studies, and that get to the heart of the globe's ills like the most cutting slices of social realism.
It isn't just to make a buck that debt-ridden laundromat owner Sang-hyun (Song Kang-ho, Parasite) and orphanage-raised Dong-soo (Gang Dong-won, Peninsula) take infants abandoned to the Busan Family Church's 'baby box' — a chute that's exactly what it sounds like, available to mothers who know they can't embrace that part for whatever reason — then find good families to sell them to. There's a cash component, of course, but they're convinced that their gambit is better than letting children languish in the state system. In Kore-eda's usual kindhearted manner, Broker sees them with sensitivity. Even if blue hues didn't wash through the film's frames, nothing is ever black and white in the director's movies. The same understanding and tenderness flows towards mothers like So-young (Lee Ji-eun, Hotel Del Luna, aka K-Pop star IU), whose decision to leave Woo-sung (debutant Park Ji-yong) isn't easily made but puts Broker on its course.
Read our full review.
BEAU IS AFRAID
Beau is afraid. Beau is anxious. Beau is alone. Beau is alive. Any of these three-word sentences would make a fitting name for Ari Aster's third feature, which sees its titular middle-aged figure not just worry about anything and everything, but watch his fears come true, concerns amplify and alienation grow — and then some. And, in the Hereditary and Midsommar filmmaker's reliably dread-inducing hands, no matter whether Beau (Joaquin Phoenix, C'mon C'mon) is wallowing in his apartment solo, being welcomed into someone else's family or stumbling upon a travelling theatre troupe in the woods, he knows that he's truly on his own in this strange, sad, surreal and savage world, too. More than that, he's well-aware that this is what life is inescapably like for all of us, regardless of how routine, chaotic or grand our individual journeys from emerging out of our mother's womb to sinking into death's eternal waters happen to prove.
Aster has opted for Beau Is Afraid as a moniker, with this horror-meets-tragicomedy mind-bender a filmic ode to existential alarm — and, more than that, a picture that turns catastrophising into a feature. Psychiatrists will have a field day; however, experiencing the latest in the writer/director's growing line of guilt-dripping celluloid nightmares, so should viewers in general. Even with Chilean The Wolf House helmers Cristóbal León and Joaquin Cosiña lending their help to the three-hour movie's midsection, where animation adds another dreamlike dimension to a picture book-style play within an already fantastical-leaning flick frequently running on dream logic, Aster embraces his favourite deranged terrain again. He makes bold choices, doesn't think twice about challenging himself and his audience, elicits a stunning lead performance and dances with retina-searing imagery, all while pondering inherited trauma, the emotional ties that bind and the malevolence that comes with dependence.
Read our full review.
CORSAGE
Britain's two Queen Elizabeths have enjoyed their fair share of film and TV depictions, aided by Cate Blanchett, Judi Dench, Margot Robbie, Helen Mirren, Claire Foy, Olivia Colman, Imelda Staunton and more — to name just a few — but they're not the only royals of that first name to grace the screen. While the spelling differs slightly and she's played as more of a Diana-style people's princess in her latest stint in cinemas, Empress Elisabeth of Austria (also Queen of Hungary) has received several celluloid and pixel resurrections of her own. Corsage ranks among the best of them, as famed as Austria's Sissi films from the 50s are and as recently as Netflix's The Empress hit streaming, in no small part due to two other outstanding women. One is Luxembourgish actor Vicky Krieps (Bergman Island), who is shrewd, wry and wily as the Bavarian-born wife to Emperor Franz Joseph I. The other is Austrian writer/director Marie Kreutzer (The Ground Beneath My Feet), whose handsomely staged and smartly anachronistic feature is no mere dutiful biopic.
Corsage's lead casting is the dream it instantly seems on paper; if you're wondering why, see: Krieps' scene-stealing work opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in 2017's Phantom Thread. Here, she's been earning deserved awards — the Best Performance prize in the 2022 Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard section among them — for a portrayal that never feels like she's stepping into someone else's shoes or jumping back to the past for a part. Krieps is, naturally. Also, given that Sissi lived between 1837–1898, viewers have no way of knowing how close this characterisation is. But Krieps' fierce, dynamic and layered performance goes far further than easy impersonation, or providing a period-appropriate rendering of the Empress based on how history dictates that women of the era behaved (or what flicks set then or focusing on regal women back then have served up before). Corsage is a portrait of a lady, after all, and not of a time.
Read our full review.
YOU HURT MY FEELINGS
When Seinfeld was the world's biggest sitcom, the show about nothing was also about everything. Its quartet of yada, yada, yada-ing New Yorkers was oh-so-specific, too, but also relatable. It's no wonder that the 90s hit made a star out of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who ensured that Elaine Benes was a work of comedic genius — with a Best Supporting Actress Emmy and six other nominations to show for it — and someone who could've walked straight in off the street. In razor-sharp political farce Veep, the actor did much the same to ample accolades. Making a Vice President in a gleeful satire feel real is no mean feat. But Louis-Dreyfus is at her best, and a true sensation, whenever she's in leading-lady mode in front of writer/director Nicole Holofcener's lens. That's only happened twice so far; however, both 2013's Enough Said and now 2023's You Hurt My Feelings are as excellent as engaging, lived-in and astute character-led dramedies come.
Holofcener's preferred type of tales rarely get a silver-screen run in these days of blockbuster franchises, endless sequels and remakes, and ever-sprawling cinematic universes. That battle earns an in-script parallel in You Hurt My Feelings, with novelist Beth (Louis-Dreyfus, You People) also struggling. Her first book, a memoir about her childhood with an emotionally abusive dad, didn't notch up the sales she would've liked. At lunches between Beth, her sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins, The Dropout) and their mother Georgia (Jeannie Berlin, Hunters), the latter still protests about how it was marketed. And, when she finally submits a draft of her next tome after toiling for years, Beth's editor (LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Grey's Anatomy) isn't as enthused. None of these situations give the movie its name, though, which stems from Beth's therapist husband Don (Tobias Menzies, This Way Up) and his opinion. When she overhears him tell her brother-in-law Mark (Arian Moayed, Succession) that he isn't that fussed about the new text, it's shattering, especially when he's been nothing but her heartiest cheerleader otherwise.
Read our full review.
SCRAPPER
Trust a movie that's all about connection and pluck to boast plenty itself. The second of cinema's 2023 father-daughter pictures out of Britain that's directed by a first-time feature filmmaker called Charlotte — the first: Charlotte Wells' Aftersun — Charlotte Regan's Scrapper couldn't be better cast or any more fearless about telling its tale. Starring as 12-year-old Georgie, a pre-teen striving to survive on her own with any help from adults or the authorities after her mum Vicky's (Olivia Brady, The Phantom of the Open) death from cancer, debutant Lola Campbell is an electrifying find. Fresh from playing a model in Triangle of Sadness, Harris Dickinson is now an absent rather than ideal dad, a part that he infuses with equal doses of soul, sorrow, charisma and cheek. And, recognising that she's hardly skipping through new narrative territory, writer/director Regan heaps on character and personality. This is a perky, bright and bubbly take on a kitchen-sink story.
There's sadness in 2023's Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize-winner, too, with Scrapper scoring its award in the fest's World Cinema Dramatic Competition. There's anger as well, especially about a society that has Georgie convinced that staying solo in the council flat she lived in with her mother — a space that she's now fastidious about keeping exactly as it was before heartbreak struck — is her top choice. But Regan sees colour amid the grey, plus possibilities alongside struggles. Her view is clear-eyed but never steely. Regan unblinkingly witnesses the realities of working-class existence, yet also spies joy and whimsy, and similarly isn't afraid of getting surreal. This is a flick with talking spiders — cue literal bubbles, of the speech variety — alongside scrapping to get by.
Read our full review.
SHAYDA
Whether or not Noora Niasari was ever explicitly told to write what she knew, the Iranian Australian filmmaker has taken that advice to heart. Her mother listened to the same guidance first, even if it was never spoken to her, either. The latter penned a memoir that has gone unpublished, but helped form the basis of the powerful and affecting Shayda. This account of a mum and her daughter attempting to start anew in a women's shelter doesn't entirely stick to the facts that writer/director Niasari and her mother lived through. The Sundance-premiering, Melbourne International Film Festival-opening, Oscar-contending feature — it's Australia's entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2024 Academy Awards — isn't afraid to fictionalise details in search of the best screen story. Still, the tale that's told of courage, resilience, rebuilding lives and finding a new community is deeply and patently personal. Perhaps even better, it's inescapably authentic.
Niasari peers back at being barely of primary-school age and making a new home. Fleeing to a women's shelter is the only option that the film's eponymous figure (Zar Amir Ebrahimi, 2022's Cannes Best Actress-winner for Holy Spider) has to get away from the abusive Hossein (Osamah Sami, Savage River), whose controlling nature is matched by that of their patriarchal culture. So, Shayda leaves with six-year-old Mona (debutant Selina Zahednia). As she waits for her divorce proceedings to go through — a complicated task under Iranian law and customs — she seeks refuge at a secret site overseen by the caring Joyce (Leah Purcell, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart). Even surrounded by kindness and filled with desperation for a better future, every iota of Shayda's decision is fraught and tense; Niasari starts the film with Mona at an airport being told what to do if she's ever there with her father, should he try to take her not only away from her mum but also back to Iran.
Read our full review, and our interview with Noora Niasari.
THE ORIGIN OF EVIL
Laure Calamy doesn't star in everything that's hitting screens big and small from France right now, but from Call My Agent! and Only the Animals to Full Time and The Origin of Evil, audiences can be forgiven for feeling otherwise. Calamy isn't new to acting, either, with a resume dating back to 2001; however, her in-demand status at present keeps showering viewers with stellar performances. Indeed, The Origin of Evil is a magnificent Calamy masterclass. She's playing a part while playing a part, and she makes both look effortless. The Antoinette in the Cévennes César Best Actress-winner is also a picture of unnerving determination and yearning, and resourcefulness and anxiety, too, as a seafood-factory worker usually tinning anchovies, then packing herself into a mix of Knives Out, Succession, The Talented Mr Ripley and Triangle of Sadness.
Unleashing in-fighting upon a wealthy family residing on Côte d'Azur island Porquerolles, this instantly twisty and gripping thriller from Faultless and School's Out writer/director Sébastien Marnier (who collaborates on the screenplay with Amore mio scribe Fanny Burdino) takes a setting that'd do The White Lotus proud as well, then wreaks havoc. On the agenda in such lavish and scenic surroundings, which come filled with an unsettling menagerie of taxidermied animals: witnessing savage squabbling over who'll inherit a business empire, bathing in the kind of bitterness that only the bonds of blood among the affluent and entitled can bring, more than one person wishing that patriarch Serge Dumontet (Jacques Weber, The World of Yesterday) would shuffle off this mortal coil and, just as crucially, not everything being what it seems.
Read our full review.
FINGERNAILS
In the world of Fingernails, 'Only You' isn't just a 1982 pop song that was made famous by Yazoo, is easy to get stuck in your head, and is now heard in this film in both French and English. It's also the philosophy that the first English-language feature by Apples filmmaker Christos Nikou has subscribed its characters to as it cooks up a fascinating sci-fi take on romance. In a setup somewhat reminiscent of Elizabeth Holmes' claims to have revolutionised blood testing (see: The Dropout), Fingernails proposes an alternative present where love can be scientifically diagnosed. All that's needed: an extracted plate of keratin, aka the titular digit-protecting covering. At organisations such as The Love Institute, couples willingly have their nails pulled out — one apiece — then popped into what resembles a toaster oven to receive their all-important score. Only three results are possible, with 100 percent the ultimate in swooning, 50 percent meaning that only one of the pair is head over heels and the unwanted zero a harbinger of heartbreak.
When Fingernails begins, it's been three years since teacher Anna (Jessie Buckley, Women Talking) and her partner Ryan (Jeremy Allen White, The Bear) underwent the exam, with the long-term duo earning the best possible outcome — a score that's coveted but rare. Around them, negative results have led to breakups and divorces as society's faith is placed not in hearts and souls, but in a number, a gimmick and some tech gadgetry (one of the sales pitches, though, is that finding out before getting hitched will stop failed marriages). As their friends go the retesting route — satirising the need for certainty in affairs of the heart pumps firmly through this movie's veins — Anna hasn't been able to convince Ryan to attend The Love Institute as a client. She's soon spending her days there, however, feeding her intrigue with the whole scenario as an employee. When she takes a job counselling other pairs towards hopeful ever-after happiness, she keeps the career shift from her own significant other. Quickly, she has something else she can't tell Ryan: a blossoming bond with her colleague Amir (Riz Ahmed, Sound of Metal).
Read our full review.
THE BLUE CAFTAN
In The Blue Caftan, a tailor's hands say everything that needs conveying about how he holds himself in the world. That garment-maker is Halim (Saleh Bakri, My Zoe), and he plies he trade in the Moroccan city of Salé, in a humble store overseen by his no-nonsense wife Mina (Lubna Azabal, Rebel). Refusing to use machines, Halim is meticulous in his work. He's patient, careful and thorough, as one needs to be in the painstakingly detailed job of hand-embroidering women's traditional tunics. As a result of his precision and artistry, he isn't short on customers — and that rigour and commitment seeps from him like breath whether he's letting Mina run the show; training Youssef (first-timer Ayoub Missioui), the apprentice brought on to help meet the demand for his exquisite wares; or finding ways to deal with his feelings, including the pull he feels towards his new protege.
For her sophomore feature after the also-tender and moving Adam, writer/director Maryam Touzani again makes a delicately layered and intricately woven film — a movie that digs deep into a subject considered taboo in Morocco, too, via an exceptionally well-observed triple character study. If her pictures say everything they need to about the filmmaker herself, then Touzani clearly values intimate and weighty connections, examining the needless pressures enforced by antiquated attitudes, the bonds that spring in such complex circumstances, and heartbreakingly poignant pictures about that list. She both appreciates and elicits sensitive performances, too, with Adam alum Azabal again superb under the helmer's gaze, and Bakri just as wonderful. It's no wonder that The Blue Caftan, with its resonant tale, rich cinematography and willingness to surprise while remaining emotionally raw as well, was chosen as Morocco's 2023 Best International Feature Oscar contender.
MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON
Every couple has in-jokes, a valuable currency in all relationships, but only Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp have turned a cute private gag into Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. The Parks and Recreation actor and the Fraud director are no longer together romantically, marrying and divorcing in the 13 years since they first gave the world the cutest talking shell anyone could've imagined; however, they've now reteamed professionally for an adorable film based on their 2010, 2011 and 2014 shorts. Marcel the Shell with Shoes On also gave rise to two best-selling children's picture books, unsurprisingly, following a familiar internet-stardom path from online sensation to print and now the big screen. Neither Slate and Fleischer-Camp's faded love nor their joint project's history are ignored by their footwear-sporting seashell's cinematic debut, either; in fact, acknowledging both, whether subtly or overtly, is one of the things that makes this sweet, endearing, happily silly, often hilarious and deeply insightful movie such an all-round gem.
That inside jest? A voice put on by Slate, which became the one-inch-high anthropomorphic Marcel's charming vocals. In Marcel the Shell with Shoes On's three initial mockumentary clips, the tiny critter chats to an unseen filmmaker chronicling his life, with earnestness dripping from every word. ("My name is Marcel and I'm partially a shell, as you can see on my body, but I also have shoes and a face. So I like that about myself, and I like myself and I have a lot of other great qualities as well," he advises in his self-introduction.) The same approach, tone and voice sits at the heart of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On's feature-length leap, of course, but so does a touching meditation upon loss, change and valuing what's truly important. Fleischer-Camp plays the movie's documentarian, mostly off-camera, who meets Marcel and his grandmother Connie (voiced by Isabella Rossellini, Cat Person) after moving into an Airbnb following a relationship breakup — and, yes, their work together becomes a viral phenomenon.
Read our full review.
SKINAMARINK
Age may instil nocturnal bravery in most of us, stopping the flinching and wincing at things that routinely go bump, thump and jump in the night in our ordinary homes, but the childhood feeling of lying awake in the dark with shadows, shapes and strange sounds haunting an eerie void never seeps from memory. Close your eyes, cast your mind back, and the unsettling and uncertain sensation can easily spring again — that's how engrained it is. Or, with your peepers wide open, you could just watch new micro-budget Canadian horror movie Skinamarink. First-time feature filmmaker Kyle Edward Ball has even made this breakout hit, which cost just $15,000 to produce, in the house he grew up in. His characters: two kids, four-year-old Kevin (debutant Lucas Paul) and six-year-old Kaylee (fellow newcomer Dali Rose Tetreault), who wake up deep into the evening. The emotion he's trading in: pure primal dread, because to view this digitally shot but immensely grainy-looking flick is to be plunged back to a time when nightmares lingered the instant that the light switched off.
Skinamarink does indeed jump backwards, meeting Kevin and Kaylee in 1995 when they can't find their dad (Ross Paul, Moby Dick) or mum (Jaime Hill, Give and Take) after waking. But, befitting a movie that's an immersive collage of distressing and disquieting images and noises from the get-go, it also pulsates with an air of being trapped in time. It takes its name from a nonsense nursery-rhyme song from 1910, then includes cartoons from the 1930s on Kevin and Kaylee's television to brighten up the night's relentless darkness. In its exacting, hissing sound design especially, it brings David Lynch's 1977 debut Eraserhead to mind. And the influence of 1999's The Blair Witch Project and the 2007-born Paranormal Activity franchise is just as evident, although Skinamarink is far more ambient, experimental and experiential. Ball has evolved from crafting YouTube shorts inspired by online commenters' worst dreams to this: his own creepypasta.
Read our full review.
POLITE SOCIETY
Fists fly in Polite Society. Feet as well. When the latter aren't suspended in mid-air attempting to execute stunning kung-fu stunts, they just might be busting out their best Bollywood dance moves. Words are screamed and shouted, often between sisters Ria (Priya Kansara, Bridgerton) and Lena Khan (Ritu Arya, The Umbrella Academy), who are thick as thieves until they suddenly aren't. Schoolyard fights rumble like they've spilled straight out an action movie, which budding stuntperson Ria dreams of being in. Showdowns with Lena's future mother-in-law Raheela Shah (Nimra Bucha, Ms Marvel) could've burst from a Quentin Tarantino film. Espionage missions are undertaken by high schoolers, as are heists at a spectacular Muslim wedding in a lavish London mansion. Lena scoffs down a whole roast chicken on a public footpath like it's the only thing she's ever eaten. Ria and Lena free themselves from their angst by letting loose in their living room to The Chemical Brothers' dance-floor filler 'Free Yourself'. And being a dutiful member of her community is the absolute worst fate that could await an ass-kicking British Pakistani teenage girl.
In other words, a little bit of everything happens in Polite Society, the anarchic and eye-popping debut feature from We Are Lady Parts creator Nida Manzoor. That includes nods to Jackie Chan movies and The Matrix, plus Bond-style antics and Ennio Morricone-esque music drops. Add in riffs on Get Out, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon-inspired wuxia, video-game flourishes, musical dance numbers, and nudges in Jane Austen and Crazy Rich Asians author Kevin Kwan's directions. Scott Pilgrim vs the World and Kill Bill leave imprints. When it examines intergenerational pressure, so do Everything Everywhere All At Once and Turning Red. Whatever this high-energy charmer throws at the screen, it always serves the narrative. It also showcases Manzoor's lively and bold filmmaking eye. But more importantly, Polite Society is the spin-kicking whirlwind it is because that's what it feels like to be a schoolgirl training in martial arts, yearning to pack a literal punch, desperate to become anything but what society demands and tired of being dictated to — and saddled with cultural expectations but determined to propel along one's own path in general, too.
Read our full review.
MEET ME IN THE BATHROOM
In 2022, The Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were meant to share the same Splendour in the Grass bill. Karen O's band didn't make it to what became Splendour in the Mud, but the two groups have shared plenty before — and for decades. Their maps have overlapped since pre-9/11 New York, when both were formed in the turn-of-the-millennium indie-rock wave, then surfed it to success and worldwide fame. Both The Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were born of the Lower East Side pre-gentrification. Both spun in the same orbit as late-90s saccharine pop and Y2K nu-metal rock gave way to electrifying guitar riffs and an explosive sound that'd become a whole scene. Both are led by charismatic singers who came alive onstage, but also found chaos and challenges. Alongside Interpol, LCD Soundsystem, The Moldy Peaches, The Rapture and TV on the Radio, both now sit at the heart of documentary Meet Me in the Bathroom.
Based on Lizzy Goodman's 2017 book Meet Me in the Bathroom, an oral history that focuses on exactly what its subtitle says it does — Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001–2011 — this is a fond look back at bands setting the room on fire and rolling heads as one century gave way to the next. While the film isn't about just one or two groups, it returns to The Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs again and again, and not simply because they're two of the early 00s' biggest NYC post-punk, garage-rock revival names. Listening to The Strokes' first record, 2001's Is This It, is a jolt and a buzz. With Julian Casablancas behind the microphone, it thrums and hums with the energy of hopping between bars, gigs and parties, and with the thrill of a heady night, week, month, year and just being in your 20s. Hearing O's voice is galvanising — intoxicating as well — and has been since the Yeah Yeah Yeah's self-titled EP, also in 2001. It's no wonder that directors Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern just want to keep listening, and also inhabiting that vibe.
Read our full review.
MISSING
Screenlife films such as Missing should be the last thing that moviegoers want. When we're hitting a cinema or escaping into our streaming queues, we're seeking a reprieve from the texts, chats, pics, reels, searches, and work- and study-related tasks that we all stare at on our phones and computers seemingly 24/7. (Well, we should be, unless we're monsters who can't turn off our devices while we watch.) There's a nifty dose of empathy behind thrillers like this, its excellent predecessor Searching, and the similar likes of Unfriended and Profile, however, that relies upon the very fact that everyone spends far too much time living through technology. When an on-screen character such as Missing's June (Storm Reid, The Last of Us) is glued to the gadget on their desk or lap, or in their hand — when they're using the devices that've virtually become our new limbs non-stop to try to solve their problems and fix their messy existence, too — it couldn't be more relatable.
As Missing fills its frames with window upon window of June's digital activities, cycling and cascading through FaceTime calls, Gmail messages, WhatsApp downloads, Google Maps tracking, TikTok videos, TaskRabbit bookings, plain-old websites and more, it witnesses its protagonist do plenty that we've all done. And, everything she's undertaking feels exactly that familiar — like the film could be staring back at each member of its audience rather than at an 18-year-old who starts the movie unhappy that her mother Grace (Nia Long, You People) is jetting off to Colombia with her new boyfriend Kevin (Ken Leung, Old). That sensation remains true even though Missing's viewers have likely never had their mum disappear in another country, and their life forever turned upside down as a result. We've all experienced the mechanics behind what writer/directors Will Merrick and Nick Johnson (who make their feature debut in both roles after editing Searching) are depicting in our own ways, with only the vast power of the internet able to help.
Read our full review.
CHEVALIER
"He is the most accomplished man in Europe in riding, running, shooting, fencing, dancing, music." Writing in his diary in 1779 about Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, American Founding Father and future second US President John Adams didn't hold back with his praise. But the world has barely taken his cue in the nearly two-and-a-half centuries since, letting the tale of this gifted French Creole violinist, conductor and composer slip from wider attention. Within a sumptuous period drama that's charmingly, confidently and commandingly led by Kelvin Harrison Jr — with the Waves, The High Note, The Trial of the Chicago 7 and Cyrano star full of mesmerising swagger, and also endlessly compelling as a talent forced to struggle as a person of colour in a white aristocratic world — Chevalier endeavours to redress this failing of history.
Veteran television director Stephen Williams (Watchmen, Westworld, Lost) and screenwriter Stefani Robinson (Atlanta, What We Do in the Shadows) begin their Bologne biopic boldly, playfully and with a front-on confrontation of the "Black Mozart" label that's surrounded their subject when he has been remembered — even if they also commence Chevalier with likely fiction. In pre-revolution Paris in the late 18th century, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Joseph Prowen, Father Brown) has an enraptured crowd in his thrall as he both plays and conducts. He pauses, then prompts his audience for requests. The response comes as a surprise: Bologne striding down the aisle, asking if he too can pick up a violin, then getting duelling with the musical instrument against the acclaimed maestro. Williams and Robinson start their film with a statement, announcing that they're celebrating a life that's been left not only ignored and erased — especially in a realm that's so often considered old, stuffy and definitely not culturally diverse — but also been stuck lingering in someone else's shadow.
Read our full review.