Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s follow-up to the weird THE ENDLESS and the (slightly) more mainstream SYNCHRONIC is another low-key, cerebral sci-fi, this time filmed mostly in Moorhead’s own LA apartment out of Lockdown necessity. Two new neighbours discover a strange, unexpectedly musical physics phenomenon in the corner of an apartment living room and set about trying to make a documentary about it, putting pressure on their relationship and throwing up shocking personal revelations in the process. It’s a credit to Moorhead and Benson’s creative partnership, their inventiveness, craftsmanship and on-screen chemistry that their projects continue to be so compelling and unique. You never get easy answers from these films, but the images, the feelings they evoke and the threads left tantalisingly dangling at the close should please the established fanbase. SSP
Review in Brief: Something in the Dirt (2022)
Review in Brief: Pearl (2022)
X was a huge surprise horror hit earlier in 2022, so when the news dropped that director Ti West and star Mia Goth had simultaneously shot a prequel movie in secret, fans were eager to see what came next (or before). A 1920s-set small town girl dreaming of fame story but with a playful relationship to the early years of Hollywood and a seriously wicked streak running right though it, the account of how the wide-eyed young Pearl (Goth) became a decrepit serial killer is as enthralling as it is bloody and bizarre. West’s visual sensibilities, in particular how he plays with reality and pastiches music hall and movie musicals, will have you transfixed, but it’s Goth’s deranged central performance and especially a painfully uncomfortable long-take at the film’s close that’ll haunt your dreams. SSP
Review in Brief: Living (2022)
How can you improve on a classic from a master? You lean into the period detail, come at it from a new cultural perspective and make the meditation on mortality even sadder. Based on Akira Kurosawa’s IKIRU, Oliver Hermanus’ (director of Moffie) new film follows Williams (Bill Nighy), a local government middle manager who has let life slip by and is now faced with a terminal diagnosis. He finally decides to live, forges and unexpected connection with the ambitious Margaret (Aimee Lou Wood) and aims to actually get something worthwhile done in his coasting department in the time he has left. Maintaining the British stiff-upper-lip ensures that the closest Williams ever comes to telling his family how soon he’s going to die is rehearsing it to a coat stand. LIVING is unassuming, but it’s compellingly honest and really stays with you. SSP
Review in Brief: The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
In Martin McDonagh’s latest dark fable, friends become separable on an island off Ireland small enough to not be able to avoid each other. Day after day Pádraic (Colin Farrell) and Colm (Brendan Gleeson) meet at the pub and chatter inanely until all at once Colm decides life is too short and he should be focussing his remaining years on artistic fulfilment. Confused and hurt, Pádraic persists until Colm makes a gruesome threat that changes their relationship dynamic irrevocably. Being a McDonagh joint, this is pretty bleak, existential stuff, but it’s also really funny with moments of gallows humour and absurdist comedy coming from Farrell (in his best ever lead role), Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan and a scene-stealing donkey. It’s also a film of depths, of small details coming from its setting (Civil War Ireland) and illusive meanings to decode from its maybe-supernatural elements. SSP
Review in Brief: Aftersun (2022)
Charlotte Wells is a filmmaker unafraid to let a scene play out, to hold exactly as long as is required. AFTERSUN follows 31 year-old divorced dad Calum (Paul Mescal, sensational) and his daughter Sophie (Frankie Corio, an instant star), both trying to make the most of a holiday to Turkey and struggling to find connection. A symbolically relevant long-take early on sees Sophie fast asleep and Calum separated by a screen door behind her, frantically trying to light his cigarette one-handed, the only sound his daughter’s steady breathing in the room. This scene is repeated in reverse later on and several echoes in both their lives pack potent emotions as we draw towards the film’s conclusion. Films set in the 1990s are, depressingly, period films now, and Wells perfectly sums up universal memories of disappointing family holidays abroad in this period (you always arrived at 3am to a slightly shitty hotel with building work going on and had to endure some ghastly nighttime “entertainment”). This is completely grounded, soulful, beautiful stuff. SSP
Review in Brief: Do Revenge (2022)
DO REVENGE is MEAN GIRLS meets STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, but with plenty of choice 90s needle drops. After a humiliating sex tape is leaked to her prep school, former queen bee Drea Torres (Camila Mendes) makes a deal with outsider new kid Eleanor Levetan (Maya Hawke) for them to exact each other’s revenge against the people who wronged them. We’re definitely going to need to add “bitchasaurus rex” to common parlance, for the good of the species, and Sophie Turner’s sweary meltdown scene deserves to be hung in a gallery. Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s stylish and witty film hits most of the expected teen movie beats for sure, but usually with tongue firmly in cheek, plus it has more than a few big surprises in store in the constantly wrong-footing final act. SSP
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