Clayface

 

This review may contain spoilers!

Clayface adapts the comic book villain of the same name. In this body horror feature, actor Matt Hagan finds his life destroyed after he is mutilated by a Gotham gang. After opting into an experimental human drug trial, Hagan slowly faces the monster within as he embarks on a path of revenge.

I went into this film thinking to myself, "Who is actually out there asking for a Clayface movie?" I love when a movie then proceeds to turn around and really challenge my expectations. We have had a few comic book villain movies in recent years; pretty much all of them have been complete burners. Clayface manages to stand out from the crowd and achieve something really impressive. When we start the film, we meet Matt Hagan, a young actor on the cusp of great success. He has overcome his underdog roots and emerged as a real up-and-comer. Then he takes one poorly timed step off the path. He sleeps with a mobster's girlfriend and pays the price for a moment of hubris. Hagan's face is scarred beyond compare, and he is subsequently ruined financially. He grows wild, desperate for something to save him and latches on to Caitlyn, a scientist who is developing a restorative A.I. nanobot for body degenerative diseases. Hagan becomes obsessive, even as the treatments change him past the point of human. His very nature starts to shift, and his own sense of self becomes dependent on two things: his connection with Caitlyn and his drive for revenge upon those who ruined his life. Watching Matt give over to the changes, to hold power so that he can massacre his way through his enemies is gripping and horrifying. The line inevitably becomes blurred for him, and keeping Caitlyn is solved through violence in the same way that taking revenge is. Ultimately, Matt doesn't let the treatment save him; that isn't enough. He needs his rage to be sated, which inevitably gives him over to the monster.

Tom Rhys Harries is performing on another level with this role; it's going to be a real career-defining role for him. He has an easy-going, humble charisma to him when we first meet. But he strips Hagan back and really shows those moments of wild rage and desperation. What becomes fascinating is that as Hagan loses his sense of self, Harries really plays into that. Suddenly Matt Hagan feels like the performance, and the monster feels like the true thing. It's a shift that subtly transpires, but it really tilts the whole performance in such a fascinating way. I was also blown away by Naomi Ackie (as I so often am). She has her own role in shaping Mark into a monster. For the most part, she is a grounding force - an external conscience for Hagan to listen to and return to. But she is also an enabler; she is morbidly fascinated by the scope of her work and what it is doing to her subject. You watch it in one of the more unnerving scenes of the film in which she watches Matt shapeshift into her as he sleeps. The path to revenge yields some interesting characters for Matt Hagan to work through. David Dencik is perfect as a Gotham mob head; he has that ruthless edge down. But there's plenty of fun Gotham goons here; Squillino Jr. looks to be having the time of his life, almost as much as Rob Brydon's talk show host role. But I was perhaps most captured by what Joshua James brought to Corey, Hagan's best friend. Their arc goes from one of brotherhood to betrayal; it's one of the more tragic aspects of the film.

I don't think Clayface is always out here running perfectly; it does struggle with bridging between acts. The first act is rather condensed, and the descent into ruin has to happen rather quickly so that we can get onto the main event. But this capacity to gloss through things in the first act means we don't get to connect with Hagan as who he was for very long. It also means the film really airbrushes past Caitlyn's experimental science experiment, which sounds painfully made up in any scene that lingers on it for too long. Which bridges into the next flaw: Clayface can get a little cartoonish at times. There are some points where watching him kill one person at a time, sometimes with a lousy quip at hand, feels a bit grey in terms of tone. There will be a long sequence where he's comedically pretending to be a mobster, followed by a funny dance number that then crashes into a killing spree. The cohesion isn't always there. The payoff around seeing Hagan take on the Clayface form is also not really there; he's quite easily defeated, which takes a bit of bite out of the film itself. Giving us a bit more time with the monster wouldn't have hurt anything, but the film almost seems afraid of that scenario. This is also a real character actor film, which means there are some wider cast performances that don't really land. Carroll and Marsan serve as Hagan's talent management but often fall into the background; a particular waste of a performer like Marsan. Max Minghella really doesn't feel much like a cop, and his relationship with Ackie needed to be fleshed out. I also felt like Ribeiro was only really there to play the adultress, rarely actually having character moments that fleshed her out further.

James Watkins really worked to make a stylistic horror in a year that is already brimming with some horror heavy-hitters. The camera is a light presence at times, but it holds tight to Hagan and his transformation like an examiner's lens. I was most impressed by the blend of practical and visual effects that went into crafting the creature design. Watching the facial prosthetics that Harries had layered over him was brilliant, a real grotesque approach that led to me feeling transfixed by the screen. The moments where CGI was deployed for transformation were also well-balanced; the final form was quite a strong realistic take on the Clayface monster. The soundtrack has a bubbly, peppy vibe that felt like it was intended to contrast, but also sometimes confused the tone of the film. However, Bertelmann provides a chilling film score that cuts to the darker tone of Clayface nicely.

Probably the most ambitious thing out of DC since The Penguin miniseries. I would give Clayface a 7.5/10.

Whalefall

 

This review may contain spoilers!

Whalefall is a survival thriller based on the Daniel Kraus novel of the same name. In this feature, Jay sets out on a dive in the wake of his father's suicide. During this search for his father's remains, he is swallowed by a whale and must race against the clock to escape.

I really don't like not knowing what lies beneath the water; I've always struggled with the thought of diving. For that reason alone, I was entirely riveted by the intensity of the first half of this feature. Whalefall opens as a sort of foolhardy, personal mission. Jay is proving something not only to himself, but to the weighty ghost of his father. There is a moment there where you watch this character who has been terrorised by his Dad over the years, and you feel tremendous empathy for him. And then he is swallowed alive. Watching Austin Abrams give such a stellar physical performance in this is so pleasing; he has really flexed his potential this year. Jay is absolutely brutalised throughout this journey; watching him crushed and squished from within or burnt alive by stomach acid is a true horror unto itself. When this film chooses to run with Jay trying to save himself, being punished for it and persevering, that was when Whalefall had my attention entirely.

The real strength of this feature is the technical prowess that goes into it. Wētā Workshop took the lead on designing a mechanical whale interior that we exist within for most of the film. It is a horrible, claustrophobic space, in which the camera forces us to suffocate steadily with Jay. But it also tunnels closer, with intense close-ups that give us a direct line into Jay's mind as he faces this peril. I loved watching the beginnings of his dive; that initial wade out through the waves is a real work of art and transitions us neatly under the water. I thought the visual effects that were utilised served the film well. The exterior design of the whale, the shots of the squid and even the scale of the underwater sequences all looked quite impressive. I also thought the black and white design of the echolocation scene was an inspired choice. The score also managed to hold those moments of intensity with powerful streaks of melancholy.

While I really felt those moments where the film has you hoping for Jay, I also don't think the story of Whalefall is anything special. If anything, it holds quite a toxic message. Josh Brolin plays Mitt, Jay's father in the film, and he is absolutely the right kind of loose unit, martial, ill-equipped Dad you would expect. It's a really great performance, but it doesn't steer away from the nature of the script. Throughout the film, the pace of the feature is interrupted by a number of flashback sequences of Jay with his Dad. We are grounded very early on in a relationship dynamic that is unhealthy; Mitt wants Jay to be like him, and Jay wants to break free of his father. Mitt is often painted as inflicting volatile behaviour upon Jay, almost with a stronger intent, as Jay is his only son and that seems to put him on a pedestal for some reason. But as the film goes on and Jay uses the skills he learned from his Dad to survive, this results in an almost spiritual reconciliation between Jay and the memory of his father. The film almost pauses to say that Mitt was such a wild, aggressive, larger-than-life person that he was actually worth finding redemption in as a father. Jay's entire relationship with Mitt changes due to the events of the film, but I'm not sure survival capacity equates to years of abuse we were also shown being okay. Ultimately, it's for the audience to decide, but that was where it sat with me.

Whalefall is a real blocky piece of cinema, with the emotional bandwidth of two stocky men at a bar talking around their feelings. I mean, John Ortiz is only really here to tell Abrams to watch out for all the whales in the bay (should've spoken up, John!). But as an audience member, I often felt like I was being treated like I was an idiot by this film. I don't know if I really required the word methane said fifty times to spell out how Jay was finally going to escape. I enjoyed the struggle with the whale being a simple metaphor for Jay's struggle with his father. But watching Jay become delirious, and the whale actually taking on the voice of his Dad? That went quite far. It was also a block of dialogue I wish could have been scrubbed from the entire thing. Not only did it really mess with my immersion, but it didn't feel like a conversation these two characters had earned with one another. Listening to Mitt (as a whale now) ask his near-death son if he was straight or gay felt out of place, just as much as Whale Mitt apologising for never letting Jay have a dog. It's a film that often borders on the absurd, hasn't done enough legwork thematically to pretend to be as deep as it thinks it is and just expects you to really put your suspension of disbelief aside too frequently. Also, for a film with such a great range of talent in the actresses present (Shue, Levy and Rudd), it completely squandered them.

It might be a technical feat of a feature, but the story leaves a lot to be desired. I would give Whalefall a 5.5/10.

Street Fighter

 

This review may contain spoilers!

Street Fighter is an adaptation of the Street Fighter video game series. In this feature, M. Bison hosts the second World Warrior Tournament as a scheme to capture Ryu and extract the power of the Hadou.

This is one of those insanely ridiculous movies; the sort of feature you find yourself laughing at far more than you're laughing with. This film just goes in a thousand different directions, and very rarely does it actually tie up a plot thread. In Street Fighter, there is a central story about two 'brothers': Ryu and Ken. Two fighters who trained under the same master in developing their skill with the Hadou, a fighting energy that holds the power to corrupt. We get whole streaks of their backstory delivered in beautiful, albeit quite jarring animation. The quality of design for the animation is so good it makes you wish that the entire film had been done in that medium. As it stands, we get this very personal arc for Ryu and Ken that often overrides anything else. A lot of it is highly predictable, and we're all left waiting for Ryu to inevitably be turned to the dark side and saved by Ken. However, there are so many times where their story needs to be pushed forward, and the film really struggles with how to do this. Pushing the prison break scene through and killing the fighting tournament storyline seemed quite lazy. Even the battle with Akuma later on felt like a lot of build-up for next to no return. Beyond loosely deciding to work together and believe in one another, the two leads don't really grow a whole bunch across the film either. The film putting everything on these two leads goes right with Noah Centineo; his work as Ken shows off his ability to belt quips and be charismatic. Andrew Koji, on the other hand, just seems quite boring; he isn't very expressive, and it's difficult to care about Ryu as a character.

I felt like there was a lot going on in the fringes of this film, which often made the whole thing play as overstuffed. The big focal point of this film was the fighting tournament, a setting where we barely got to see any action take place. The film is quite aware that it diminishes the tournament's importance, but you still feel cheated when you watch characters like Guile have their fight completely skipped over. There seems to be a bit of a push for characters from the games to have a spot at every turn, which just means there's a bit too much to look at and no one really gets good service out of it. There are a number of fighters who appear in the background and don't really add much to the film (50 Cent, Peck, Goto, Richters, and Volkanovski). There are also performers like Jason Momoa, Eric André and Kyle Mooney who just make complete unlikeable goofballs out of their roles; Momoa's childish Blanka is a particular low point. That's not to say all supporting characters were bad. I loved the rivalry and aggression Jarnson and Vallandingham brought to their characters. Andrew Schulz was absolutely hysterical here as Centineo's best friend and manager. 

This is a film that for the first hour is pretty self-aware of how crazy it is. There is a strong sense of playing into that. Jokes point at funny characters or circumstances and tease them out. There's a sense of levity that settles you in and gets you comfortable with a pretty zany world. This section of the film also has some brutal fight sequences with a very real sense of physical combat to them, although CGI swallows these sequences whole as the film progresses. I found villain stories in this to be where the film falls over in another way. Akuma, played by Joe Anoa'i, is not merely a bad performance but also just sort of happens without much effort to tell his story. The main antagonist feels like it should be Dastmalchian, who played M. Bison and has most of the villainous screen time. But as a character, Bison winds up being inconsistent and convoluted. Watching his eyelids flutter as pain and conflict happen around him is one thing, but the psychic floating that later turns into him fleeing out of the film entirely just fails to serve anything at all. This is particularly frustrating as Chun-Li, played by Callina Liang, is only really here to get revenge against that one villainous character. Her entire character often feels a little off to the side, doing her own thing but lacking the charisma to make that time her own.

This whole film is quite weirdly written and structured, with nothing ever really coming to much of a conclusion. You can have someone like Cody Rhodes comfortably play the funniest and best character in the film, oozing chemistry with performers like Jammwal. But then the film will just completely abandon him. Meanwhile, there's no cohesion in the main storyline, and the antagonist storylines create some really lousy, half-baked conflict. The fact that this film has the nerve to leave it all in the wind at the end is extremely disappointing. A movie like Street Fighter can tease a sequel, but there's no good reason to hang everything it has on a sequel without really bringing anything to a close. As a fighting film, it has the capacity to be cool, to get funky with the camera. But a lot of the time the camera caters to setting up a visual effect that often looks bad or half-finished. And if the camera isn't doing that, you can be sure it's taking in a woman's body like we're back to making early 2000s blockbusters. The soundtrack is chaos, with no real consistency here either. Although we'll always have Noah Centineo being beat up by 50 Cent as 'Many Men (Wish Death)' plays in slow motion.

There's never really going to be a good film adapted from a fighting video game, is there? I would give Street Fighter a 3.5/10.

Sense and Sensibility

 

This review may contain spoilers!

Sense and Sensibility is an adaptation of the Jane Austen classic novel of the same name. In this feature, we follow the Dashwood sisters, who face social and economic hardship after their father passes away. Their future prospects lie in the chance of a fortunate match with a gentleman; this is their story of finding love.

I simply adore a Jane Austen adaptation; it is so rare to find a period romance like this that doesn't absolutely pull out every conceivable stop. This is truly no different, a real gem given it's Georgia Oakley's major mainstream debut. There is a formula to an Austen film, and the trap is falling into that without carving something forth that is truly unique in its presentation. This take on Sense and Sensibility celebrates the kinship amongst women; we see it through the way they play and laugh, gossip and trade secrets, and endure hardship with one another. There's a steady series of sequences in which the Dashwood women toil at their garden together in the film that I think is filled with as much beauty as a furtive glance between matchmade lovers. Oakley understands that Austen's works aren't just about the scintillating romance storylines; they are an idyllic portrait of another time and another style of livelihood. It's a story rife with your gossips and bullies (Martin and Coveney), your comical characters (Brooke, Pirrie and Slater), the lovable hosts (Convery) and even the seedy roles that are tough to love (Bothwell). This is a tapestry of a story and a cast that you can really get swept away in if you let it. Even the way this film is edited feels like you are gently turning the pages of the book from cover to close.

There is a real sense of emotion to this story, a joy when all of the sisters are together. The youngest, Margaret (played by Breathnach), is an absolute source of hilarity. Her energy is infectious and sets this film running from the start of the feature. Watching these young women despair is difficult because you see them trying to make the best of things; you like their characters and you fear for what will happen to them now. The coursing thread of this film is the romance between Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferrars, which is the best performance of the film given by Daisy Edgar-Jones and George MacKay. This pair feels bound for one another from the very first moment we meet them, longing glances, a lingering touch and loving words on the cusp of being spoken. It's a fragile love story that races forth and then almost seems to fly out of reach, the two leads almost appearing broken at the thought of losing one another. The ending of the feature and its inevitable joyous conclusion are exceptionally satisfying as a result.

Whilst Elinor and Edward are the couple we hope for the most throughout, it is Marianne Dashwood's story that often speaks the loudest. A storyline that plays for sadness as often as it plays for humour, it really is a plot that has fun in the drama of it all. Marianne is a wild and dramatic young woman, portrayed by Esmé Creed-Miles. She gets to really play big, lean into the comedy and chase romance chaotically. Watching the classic Austen stoic man (Nordrum) pine for her whilst she engages with a dangerous match is enticing and leads to a satisfying end. The whole affair is fuelled by comedic side commentary given by Mrs Jennings, an eccentric gossip who fashions herself a matchmaker and is played with great hilarity by Fiona Shaw. Watching Creed-Miles and Edgar-Jones explore the bonds of sisterhood and how much they are tested by the experiences of London is a wonderful instance of exemplary acting. There is a feeling of something missing in that the mother, Mrs Dashwood (Balfe), is often diminished across the film and struggles to be placed in a scene.

There is a very real sense of natural beauty to Sense and Sensibility. The framing throughout captures broad landscapes awash with colour, classic art that propels you right there. But there is an incredible sense of the wild world around the Dashwoods, and sometimes we get these breathtaking shots of a hawk in flight, or a herd of deer galloping, or even a small insect delicately wriggling along young Margaret's finger. This is the wonder of this adaptation; it loves being so free in a natural world. London still feels lavish, and it's a feat to capture such strong internal and external period spaces. However, it is when our characters find themselves in the countryside that this movie really knows how to step up. The atmosphere of this is again uplifted by that beautiful musical score, a passionate series of tracks that really sing to the wonder, heart and, at times, tragedy of this piece.

However, for all the shining qualities of Sense and Sensibility, I don't feel it is without its flaws. It really sacrifices nothing and is in no hurry to conclude, meaning that this slow-burning romance can drag on when it comes to aspects of the pacing. I also felt it really did nothing to leave you wondering; there was absolutely no sense of pretence to this. I think a film that can be entirely predictable and often signposts its story can bore an audience, though as a classic work there is some expectation here. I also found myself thinking there were a few performers who just struggled to find their way to presenting a period role; Eliot Sumner is a very relevant example. But the better example is Frank Dillane, who manages to present an unlikeable figure as was intended, but who really struggles to find his way to a foppish, despondent period-accurate gentleman. There was no worse scene than Dillane and Nordrum's duel, which was a bit of a pantomime and quite overdone.

Another absolutely enchanting Austen adaptation that is really going to stand the test of time. I would give Sense and Sensibility an 8.5/10.

The Social Reckoning

 

This review may contain spoilers!

The Social Reckoning is a somewhat spiritual successor to The Social Network (2010). It's a biopic feature that explores the 'Facebook Files' exposé published by The Wall Street Journal and fueled by whistleblower Frances Haugen.

I think there's something that has to be said about this film, an obvious point, really. You just can't help but compare it to The Social Network. There's an inevitability in looking back, not helped by the fact that this film isn't shy about marketing and tying itself to its 2010 predecessor. But where Fincher crafted a tight, electric thriller of a biopic, Sorkin's is staggeringly plain and a bit scattered. This is a film that often looks like it has been shot on luxurious-styled sets, with a streamlined world of wealth before us. Yet, the camera never lifts these scenes higher. The cinematographer just so happens to be in the room, but you're insane if you think there's going to be any artistic framing or a creative edge to the visual style. The editing is also pretty docile, with a sedated approach to cutting scenes that really dragged the pace of the feature a fair bit. I was even surprised to hear that Alexandre Desplat's score was so sparingly used and bare of tone. Every time a technical proficiency could have elevated this feature, it simply was not there to do the job.

What this movie really has going for it is just how fascinating all of the information in it actually is. There's a real story behind all of this that deserves outrage. Hell, it should inspire you to detox from social media for a time. Seeing a film start with a tense scene (played by Doubleday, Braugher and Capri) in which a young woman escalates into a racist attack against two coloured police officers threads the beginning with curiosity. But there's a shock ahead, because hearing things like Instagram affected 34% of users with mental health issues, particularly in relation to body image is abhorrent. To have it pointed out that Facebook knew MSI would propel outrage to the forefront of algorithms on average makes you realise how socially affecting social media is. Or what about the fact that if they had done anything about it, they would have only lost 1% of engagement/users. But they refused to take even that much responsibility. This is a film that points out a business that is far less visible but has an all-encompassing reach, exerting a lot of control and needing to be fought to achieve some level of regulation.

There isn't really getting past that this film doesn't know how to tell its own story. We shunt left and right in time like we're on a toggle, and it can get completely exhausting. Sometimes we're tracking with the investigation, now it's COVID, here's the Capitol Jan. 6th Riot, oh and then we have Zuckerberg practising for a Senate hearing in a media training chamber. There are a lot of threads, and the story presents them all, by carving them up into pieces and making sure we see the remains of the jigsaw puzzle before us. In the right hands, this would be clever non-linear storytelling, but it just winds up feeling like a scattered essay of a biopic. I felt conflicted that it was Jeff presented as the champion of the truth and not Frances, who risked more for the truth. I also felt like there was a brief dramatisation of the Capitol Riot that didn't capture the authenticity of the event.

One of the greatest aspects of The Social Reckoning was the opportunity to watch a talented cast of performers really give it their all in the leading roles. I was supremely impressed by Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg. He had a real void of emotion, a clinical ability to just see the logic in his business model's success. Yet, when he gets to be invested, riled, and shows some anger, you will be captivated. It was great watching Strong and Burr spar with one another across the feature. Mikey Masison is a talent who I only really want to see more of. She presents a mousy, determined figure with an incredible intellect here. I loved watching her take Frances from a loyal employee to a fighter for truth. Jeremy Allen White is a quiet champion for the written word here, often seeking the right thing the right way. Billy Magnussen as a rabid middle management Facebook loyalist was depraved to watch; this was a role so loyal to the work that it bordered on being dark. In saying that, not every Facebook side role soared. Wunmi Mosaku was positioned to conduct the media training scenes with Zuckerberg, which she didn't really achieve. I also didn't really connect with Betty Gilpin's stone-cold Bureau Chief for the Wall Street Journal. In fact, almost all of the Wall Street Journal cast members failed to make any impact.

Fascinating topic, titanic cast and absolutely nothing comes together all that well. I would give The Social Reckoning a 5.5/10.

Other Mommy

 

This review may contain spoilers!

A horror feature based on Josh Malerman's novel 'Incidents Around the House.' This film follows Bela, a young girl who is painfully aware of the problems between her parents that threaten her family's happiness. However, Bela has a friend, 'Other Mommy'. A mysterious entity that helps Bela, but has sinister intentions of wanting to take possession of her.

Horror is the genre that is really having a moment right now. In 2026, we've been treated to an absolutely stacked roster of films like Obsession, Hokum, Resident Evil or 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. But Other Mommy is not like the rest; it's not even punching near films like Undertone. Rob Savage's latest feature is a painful watch that lacks a sense of pacing, decimates its own sense of tension and barely holds a semblance of narrative together between a couple of decent scare motifs. I liked that the stakes for this film started high, that Other Mommy had a tangible presence from the beginning. The fact that there was a physical aspect to this haunting of Bela made it all the more unnerving. Some of those very early sequences in which she steadily made herself known were fairly frightening and disturbing. Even later, there are some great moments with Bela being transported to the ocean or Other Mommy being backlit by the lighthouse at night.

This movie starts with high stakes and the sinister presence established, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Unfortunately, what I should have also realised was that this would be a precursor to an absolutely insane sense of pace. This movie is rushing without purpose, often chasing us along to the next big scare, but rarely feeling like it was lugging the story forward at all. The moment Other Mommy becomes a problem, she remains a problem for the duration of the film. We jump from one house to the next, from a fast food restaurant playground to the eccentric grandmother's house. The film is a chase: stay ahead of the demon that will inevitably just show up once again. In the background, there's family tension that feels poorly explored and unbearably vague. You wonder if this is thematic of impending divorce, or if it's about the mother's infidelity. Ultimately, we get an unusual confessional about the way their family dynamic came to be and an admission that the mother never wanted Bela. This is an important climactic reveal, but the work hasn't been done to get us here. But this is a film that often struggles with tone. Sometimes there will be an absolutely horrendous moment, like Bela being attacked during an anniversary party, only for us to suddenly cut to guests being politely and gently waved off as they slowly depart the household. The script lacks a real sense of itself, and that often leads to a feature that feels comical and not so scary. Watching a squad of ghost detectors rock up to grandma's mansion is a trope that really jumps the shark. Dichen Lachman is a great performer, but the moment we got a séance table involved, I had a feeling we'd be watching one of the weakest scenes of the feature. Even the conclusion struggles to make sense, often sidestepping Bela's confrontation and then twisting the end of Other Mommy into a sucker punch that will probably strike you in the funny bone.

I think some people might have been less than impressed with some of the visual choices in Other Mommy, but I think it's probably the one shining facet at play. There's a very clear intention here to try some inventive scare moments, positioning the camera to really go on a journey and experience each moment differently. I particularly loved the ceiling balloon scene with Other Kelvin (a role that is played superbly and all too briefly by Sean Kaufman). The visual effects are a real mixed bag, but I think that also adds value. It's entirely too difficult to predict how Other Mommy is going to present. Sometimes she's serpentine, others a shadow demon and I loved that imposed image of her under the water as we tilt into the final act. If there is a technical element that really let the feature down it's the score, which is your classic nails against the chalkboard stuff.

Jessica Chastain comfortably gives the best performance, though this falls short of some of her titanic performances in the past. It's also no surprise that Chastain is having the most fun when she gets to play a demonic entity that is from beyond this world. Arabella Olivia Clark leads this film as Bela and is really quite versatile as a young actress. I would have liked to see the final confrontation scene brought down a notch, but the film was well and truly off the rails by that point. Jay Duplass is clearly the weak link in this family unit as the meek Dad who slowly has to learn to fight for his family, and Karen Allen doesn't really flesh out the wise grandma stereotype. Uncle Frank (Moayed) is a side character with a ton of charisma; I could have done with more of him. It would have been stronger if the tension between Chastain, Moayed and Duplass had sincerely been allowed to come to a head.

A script that had no business being viewed as complete. I would give Other Mommy a 2.5/10.

Big Girls Don't Cry

 

This review may contain spoilers!

Big Girls Don't Cry follows Sid, a fourteen-year-old girl growing up in 1990s New Zealand and trying her best to fit in socially with a crowd she aspires to be a part of. 

I found this film a very uncomfortable watch almost till the very last frame. This is really the exact point. Big Girls Don't Cry isn't here to be a coming-of-age story with a rose-tinted glasses approach and warm conclusion. This film takes our protagonist, Sid, and puts her on a truly difficult path of personal identity exploration. Across this film, Sid is exploring her own sense of self and emerging sexual desires. She stumbles through flirtatious and sexual exchanges online, even using her best friend's brother's MSN account to solicit images from other girls. Syd is incredibly isolated in her own exploration of sexual identity, though she clearly falls into the orbit of Lana, a popular girl Sid is crushing on. As she goes through this process, Sid begins to push against her own boundaries, stealing alcohol, sneaking out to parties and engaging in drug use. Her own sense of self really gets tested too. She begins changing the way she wears her clothes, looks at her hair and experiments with make-up. There's a particularly gnarly scene in which she gives herself a belly button piercing. This is a vast range of change and experience to play through, and the whole thing really hinges on Ani Palmer's quite reserved and grounded leading performance.

This is as much a story about trauma as it is a journey of self-discovery. Paloma Schneideman has crafted a narrative that points a glaring finger at the ways young girls and women are failed their entire lives. The manner through which they are hurt, exploited and abused. Sid is often chasing something in this film, but she gives up pieces of herself to do it. Sometimes the autonomy to give up those pieces isn't even there. Social pressures push her into making poor decisions in a vulnerable setting or being forced into sexual encounters that feel like a dark corner more than anything else. One of my least favourite aspects of this feature is that it decides to tell this story by just ending. There is a moment where the story concludes by simply indicating Sid's story will continue to happen and things like this will come again. It's a clear thought but doesn't lend finality very much to the film. In some ways, it left me wondering if Sid has just endured awful things and consequences, but hasn't necessarily grown beyond those moments. Big Girls Don't Cry seems afraid to end; it barely knows how to look forward, which lessened some of the weight of the feature for me.

I also struggle with this trend in films at the moment to have a cast of extremely likeable characters. That's not to say the performances are inherently bad; in fact, it's a fascinating cast. But while you believe in everyone, it's difficult to find someone to root for in this film. Palmer is acting beyond her years in this, but it doesn't change the fact that Sid can be difficult to watch at times. She makes a lot of bad decisions, acts selfishly towards others and is quite manipulative. One of the better young performances in this came from Ngataitangirua Hita, who played Tia. She was this really steady best friend role to Palmer, and you really saw something unwavering in her role's principles that I liked. Noah Taylor gave the best performance of the feature as the complicated father figure, Leo. This was a role that could be creepy at times, a bit abrasive and certainly wasn't the most present father. Yet, he also had this clear fragility to him that I admired. There's a scene near the end of the feature where he actually shows a great deal of care for his youngest daughter that really hits home. Some roles came off quite generic; Lana (Wolfe) was a bit generic as a pretty girl with a mean streak, while the untrustworthy young guys (Blackburn, Boyle and Lee) really left you on edge. I found Rain Spencer fascinating; she was both a sort of guide and a light that was fast blazing out in Sid's life. I wish Canton had gotten more of a chance to do much in her big sister role, but this often felt pushed to the back.

This was a film that might have struggled to frame dialogue scenes at times, but on the whole, it was rather beautiful. It had some amazing picturesque shots, like the Jeep driving along the surf of the beach. But it also did some pretty powerful perspective storytelling. The camera really was the eye of Sid at times: lingering, furtive glances and burning curiosity. The whole thing had a good sense of flow to it, with a pretty precise approach to the editing. There was a very transcendent score that suited moments that felt out of body and freeing perfectly. The soundtrack had a light indie party vibe that really felt true to the world Sid was tethering herself to. It's the sort of aspirational indie coming-of-age tale I haven't really seen New Zealand cinema be inventive enough to branch into before. 

It's nice to see this kind of cinematic ambition coming out of New Zealand. I would give Big Girls Don't Cry a 6.5/10.