Writer/director Greta Gerwig with cinematographer Sam Levy on the set of Lady Bird, 2016.
Here are twenty-six new movies due to be released in theaters or via other viewing platforms this November, all of which have been directed and/or photographed by women. These titles are sure to intrigue cinephiles and also provoke meaningful discussions on the film world, as well as the world in general.
NOVEMBER 1 (theaters), NOVEMBER 3 (Video on Demand): 11/8/16 (many directors, including Petra Epperlein, Alma Har’el, Sheena M. Joyce, Alison Klayman, Ciara Lacy, Martha Shane and Elaine McMillion Sheldon) (many DPs, including Tacara Donaldson, Autumn Eakin, Alma Har’el, Alison Klayman and Elaine McMillion Sheldon) – Synopsis from the film’s official website: “On the morning of Election Day 2016, Americans of all stripes woke up and went about living their radically different lives. These were the hours leading up to Donald Trump’s unexpected, earth-shaking victory, but, of course, no one knew that yet.
“What did that day look like?
“With 11/8/16, producer/creator Jeff Deutchman’s second installment in his Election Film series, viewers are afforded a uniquely cinematic look at the chaotic glory of American democracy from sea to shining sea. Featuring footage captured by a carefully curated group of some of America’s finest documentary filmmakers, 11/8/16 follows sixteen subjects spanning the country’s geographic, socioeconomic and political divides throughout the course of that history-altering day.
“As the evening wears on, and it becomes clear that the impossible was about to become reality, Trump supporters rejoice at their candidate’s surprise victory as Hillary voters come to grips with the shocking turn of events in stunned disbelief. 11/8/16 was an election unlike any other. 11/8/16 brings us back to that day with the immediacy of great nonfiction filmmaking, and shows with vibrant directness how life happens as history is being made.”
NOVEMBER 1: The Light of the Moon (dir. Jessica M. Thompson) (DP: Autumn Eakin) – IFC Center synopsis: “Bonnie (Stephanie Beatriz), a young and successful Latina architect, is sexually assaulted while walking home from an evening out in Brooklyn. While she at first tries to keep the attack a secret from her long-term boyfriend, the truth quickly emerges. Determined to deny the impact of what’s happened to her, Bonnie fights to regain normalcy and control, but putting the assault behind her is harder than she thought.”
NOVEMBER 3: Battlecreek (dir. Alison Eastwood) – Synopsis from the film’s official Facebook page: “Henry Pearl’s (Bill Skarsgård) rare skin disease has left him hiding from the sun in the shadows of small town Battlecreek. His overprotective mother, the local diner and his night time job at the gas station provide him a nocturnal and mundane existence. When a beautiful, yet tormented girl becomes stranded in town, Henry is awakened by love, forcing them both to face their turbulent pasts in light of the future.”
NOVEMBER 3 (NYC), NOVEMBER 10 (LA), NOVEMBER 14 (digital): It Happened in L.A. (dir. Michelle Morgan) – Film Journal International review by Tomris Laffly: “Love-hate relationships with urban metropolises make for juicy cinematic satire. There is no prouder term of endearment a denizen can grant to her city than an open declaration of self-deprecating loathing. Michelle Morgan’s nonstop witty, and at times laugh-out-loud funny It Happened in L.A. starts slow but in the end delightfully portrays one such relationship between a town and one of its millions of dwellers—in this case, the writer-director herself, who also plays the perennially dissatisfied yet oddly loveable lead character.
“Morgan’s Los Angeles is full of a certain breed of superficial West Coast people who in theory should be as unlikeable as leftover kale salad or artisanal cocktails served in mason jars in restaurants with two-noun names like ‘Lettuce & Tomato.’ But you can’t really sneer at them when they are clearly in on the joke. Thanks to the film’s insistence on wearing its light satirical air proudly on its sleeve, It Happened in LA is refreshingly not another ‘privileged people having trivial troubles’ film and compulsively watchable even when its characters get on your nerves.
“Annette (Morgan), a writer on hiatus and a self-defined objector to walking and juvenile games like Twister, is our way into to this world where everyone’s working on some sort of a script. ‘It’s about this girl who dies from touching this thing, and I’m working out the rest,’ someone hilariously states at one point, just to give you an idea. Despite being in a seemingly fulfilling relationship with her boyfriend Elliot (Jorma Taccone), a writer on a TV show that looks like a ridiculous spoof of ‘Game of Thrones,’ Annette decides they aren’t happy enough together, especially when compared to some of their blissful friends. So she breaks up with him, moves into a friend’s apartment to housesit and starts evaluating her new romantic prospects. Meanwhile, her good friend Baker (Dree Hemingway), an interior decorator with flawless taste in everything but men, deals with her own share of issues. Romantically pursued by her cousin (Kentucker Audley) and emotionally mistreated by her client-turned-boyfriend Tom (Tate Donovan), Baker is the type who seems to create her own problems and complicate simple situations for herself. And we follow Elliot too while Annette and Baker go off on their own misadventures: He gets involved with a blunt, no-nonsense hooker (Margarita Levieva) who asks odd personal favors from him, with amusing results.
“Of course, you can guess the type of predictable lesson Annette would eventually learn. This is the age of Instagram, as we were recently reminded by Ingrid Goes West, another Los Angeles-based (yet much darker) comedy and we are all posing and playing versions of ourselves in our daily lives. In the end, Annette doesn’t really have it that bad and everyone but she seems to know it. But her self-discovery (which is a joke in itself) is the lesser point in It Happened in L.A., which charms, gratifies and sometimes purposely repulses us with the flaky rhythms of a town Morgan clearly adores but also loves to hate. Peppered with hat tips to Yasujiro Ozu and Federico Fellini and contemporary quips like ‘I don’t feel like eating out of a truck tonight’ that consistently land, Morgan’s script is filled with sharp, quotable gold. And her filmmaking sensibility—often manifested in various impeccably composed, postcard-like shots—is marked by a promisingly sophisticated, stylish flair. One might be inclined to compare Morgan to Woody Allen, but her humor is more akin to Whit Stillman, as her It Happened in L.A. is La La Land’s modern-day answer to Metropolitan.”
NOVEMBER 3: Lady Bird (dir. Greta Gerwig) – New York Times review by A.O. Scott: “Christine McPherson, who prefers to be called Lady Bird — it’s her given name, she insists, in the sense that ‘it’s given to me, by me’ — is a senior at a Catholic girls’ high school. Sister Sarah Joan (Lois Smith), the principal, has read Lady Bird’s college application essay. ‘It’s clear how much you love Sacramento,’ Sister Sarah remarks. This comes as a surprise, both to Lady Bird and the viewer, who is by now aware of Lady Bird’s frustration with her hometown.
“‘I guess I pay attention,’ she says, not wanting to be contrary.
“‘Don’t you think they’re the same thing?’ the wise sister asks.
“The idea that attention is a form of love (and vice versa) is a beautiful insight, and in many ways it’s the key to Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig’s beautiful, insightful new film, the first for which she is solely credited as writer and director. Ms. Gerwig, a Sacramento native and member of her heroine’s generation — the movie takes place mostly during the 2002-3 academic year — knows her characters and their world very well. Her affection envelops them like a secular form of grace: not uncritically, but unconditionally. And if you pay the right kind of attention to Lady Bird — absorbing its riffs and digressions as well as its melodies, its choral passages along with its solos and duets — you will almost certainly love it. It’s hard not to.
“Lady Bird herself may be a bit more of a challenge. Played with daunting, dauntless precision by Saoirse Ronan (already, at 23, one of the most formidable actors in movies today), Lady Bird can give herself and everyone around her a hard time. Not because she is especially reckless or troubled — Lady Bird is the farthest thing from a melodrama of youth gone wild — but because she insists on asserting her own individuality, even when she’s not quite sure what that means.
“She tackles the practical and spiritual project of becoming who she is with the mixture of self-assurance and insecurity common to adolescents of a certain sensitive kind. She is idealistic and hypocritical; self-centered and generous; a rebel and a conformist; an enthusiast and a skeptic. A typical American teenager, but also — and therefore — a unique bundle of contradictory and confusing impulses.
“‘I want you to be the very best version of yourself,’ says her judgmental, habitually disappointed mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf).
“‘But what if this is the best version?’ Lady Bird responds. It’s a sharp, sardonic line (one of many) and also an anguished existential question.
“Christine (to use the name Marion gave her) wants to satisfy her mother, which is a difficult task because the standards seem impossibly high and subject to change without notice. She also wants to be true to her own desires and convictions, which is difficult for other reasons.
“While Lady Bird honors the gravity of Christine’s struggle, it hardly neglects the everyday absurdity of her plight. The very first scene begins in tears. Mother and daughter, listening to an audiobook of The Grapes of Wrath while driving home from a college tour, cry over the novel’s moving final sentences. Their shared moment of literary catharsis quickly devolves into an argument, which is punctuated by a startling and hilarious jolt of physical comedy (one of many).
“In tone and structure, after all, this is a teenage comedy. It finds humor in the eternally renewable cycle of senior year: homecoming and prom; math tests and school plays; the agonizing stages of the ‘admissions process.’ Along the way, Christine undergoes other, extracurricular rites of passage. She falls in love for the first time and has sex for the first time. She trades in her loyal, longtime best friend (Beanie Feldstein) for a richer, more popular girl (Odeya Rush). She fights with her mother and her older brother, Miguel (Jordan Rodrigues), and leans on her father, Larry (Tracy Letts), an affable fellow with troubles of his own.
“You might think you’ve seen this all before. You probably have, but never quite like this. What Ms. Gerwig has done — and it’s by no means a small accomplishment — is to infuse one of the most convention-bound, rose-colored genres in American cinema with freshness and surprise. The characters can look like familiar figures: the sad dad and the disapproving mom; the sullen brother and his goth girlfriend (Marielle Scott); the mean girls and the cool teachers; the too-perfect boyfriend (Lucas Hedges) and the dirtbag boyfriend (Timothée Chalamet). None of them are caricatures, though, and while everyone is mocked, nobody is treated with cruelty or contempt, at least by Ms. Gerwig. (Lady Bird is not always so kind.)
“The script is exceptionally well-written, full of wordplay and lively argument. Every line sounds like something a person might actually say, which means that the movie is also exceptionally well acted. It is not too quick to soothe the abrasions of class and family. The McPhersons are hardly poor, but the daily toll of holding onto the ragged middle of the middle class is evident in Larry’s melancholy and Marion’s ill humor. They are a loving family, but their steadfast devotion to one another doesn’t always express itself as kindness. They are real people, honestly portrayed.
“That might make Lady Bird sound drab and dutiful, but it’s the opposite. I wish I could convey to you just how thrilling this movie is. I wish I could quote all of the jokes and recount the best offbeat bits. I’d tell you about the sad priest and the football coach, about the communion wafers and the Sacramento real estate, about the sly, jaunty editing rhythms, the oddly apt music choices and the way Ms. Ronan drops down on the grass in front of her house when she receives an important piece of mail. I’m tempted to catalog the six different ways the ending can make you cry.
“I’ll settle for one: the bittersweet feeling of having watched someone grow in front of your eyes, into a different and in some ways improved version of herself. In life, that’s a messy, endless process, which is one reason we need movies. Or to put it another way, even though Lady Bird will never be perfect, Lady Bird is.”
NOVEMBER 3 (in theaters and on Video on Demand): Most Beautiful Island (dir. Ana Asensio) – Samuel Goldwyn Films synopsis: “Most Beautiful Island is a psychological thriller set in the world of undocumented female immigrants hoping to make a life in New York City. Shot on Super 16mm with an intimate, voyeuristic sensibility, Most Beautiful Island chronicles one harrowing day in the life of Luciana (Ana Asensio), a young immigrant woman struggling to make ends meet while striving to escape her past. As Luciana’s day unfolds, she is whisked, physically and emotionally, through a series of troublesome and unforeseeable extremes. Before her day is done, she inadvertently finds herself a central participant in a cruel game where lives are placed at risk, and psyches are twisted and broken for the perverse entertainment of a privileged few.”
NOVEMBER 3: No Dress Code Required (dir. Cristina Herrera Borquez) (DPs: Cristina Herrera Borquez and Cristina Florez Valenzuela) – Human Rights Watch Film Festival synopsis: “Víctor and Fernando, a devoted, unassuming couple from Mexicali, Mexico, find themselves in the center of a legal firestorm over their desire to get married. Weighing all their options, the pair opt to stay in their hometown of Mexicali and fight for their legal rights. With the help of two committed attorneys, Víctor and Fernando withstand a seemingly interminable series of bizarre hurdles and bureaucratic nitpicking with grace and dignity. No Dress Code Required is a rallying cry for equality, a testament to the power of ordinary people to become agents of change, and above all, an unforgettable love story that touches the heart and stirs the conscience.”
NOVEMBER 3: Princess Cyd (dir. Stephen Cone) (DP: Zoe White) – Vulture review by Emily Yoshida: “There is something vaguely utopian about Princess Cyd, the new film by writer-director Stephen Cone. In a way that I can only describe as Miyazaki-esque, there is, for the most part, a noticeable lack of onscreen threat in its sleepy suburban Chicago setting. The story’s main act of violence remains offscreen, referred to in the film’s opening moments via a 911 call reporting a murder-suicide that left our protagonist motherless and brotherless at age 8. With that tragic and half-remembered act in the distant past, Cone’s film feels like it’s willing the world to be a benevolent place his characters can believe in, the kind of place where the neighbors come over to recite poetry and you can walk into a coffee shop and meet a cute stranger. Not a lot happens in Princess Cyd, but it’s hard not to watch this film without feeling changed.
“Cyd (Jessie Pinnick) is 16 when we meet her, having been abruptly sent off for a couple weeks to live with her aunt Miranda (Rebecca Spence). Some domestic unhappiness is kept between the lines, but her father seems to think she needs some ‘time out of the house.’ So Miranda, an acclaimed author living unmarried and childless in the house she grew up in with Cyd’s mother, takes the kid in, despite not having seen her since she was a child. Cyd is a soccer player, who announces unceremoniously that she ‘doesn’t really read’ when Miranda attempts to interest her in her book collection. As their first couple days together pass by, Miranda and Cyd regard each other with a kind of bemused curiosity. Cyd takes to ‘lying out’ in the yard in her bright-red, retro two-piece; a scene where she asks Miranda to put sunscreen on her back finds a completely different note for that typically prurient teen-movie trope. In Princess Cyd, other people are not abstract ideas to work with or against, but very tactile bundles of likes and dislikes and experiences.
“It would be easy for Princess Cyd to slip into a kind of pat odd-couple simplicity; two very dissimilar women forced to live under the same roof, fighting and learning things. But Cone continually dodges the expected beats for this kind of story, which is less about conflict and more about coexistence. One of Cyd’s first requests upon arrival is the Wi-Fi password, but it’s not a ‘teens these days’ punch line. Cyd is not dumb, but she’s probably not going to be the same kind of smart as Miranda, and in Cone’s generous worldview, that’s totally okay. Spence plays Miranda, an intellectual Christian and bookworm who hasn’t had sex in five years, beautifully and without judgement — it’s one of the warmest and best performances I’ve seen this year. Miranda’s chief worry at first is not that Cyd’s presence will cramp her style, but that she’ll be bored. But in the tensest exchange between the two, after Cyd makes a crack about her sex life, Miranda passionately defends her version of joy in a startling, eloquent speech.
“Cyd, for her part, ‘likes everything.’ Pinnick’s effortless radiance, her sleepy eyes and nearly perpetual half-smile could be mistaken for jock-ish dullness, but are really the look of untarnished youthful curiosity. She’s a roving inhaler of sensation, trying to figure out what she wants from the world and what captures her imagination. She’s got a ‘sort of’ boyfriend back home, but she falls instantly for a barista with a Mohawk named Katie, with very little anxiety or stress over her sexuality or what it means for her identity. We’re watching her form her identity onscreen, through her relationships with Katie and Miranda and pretty much everyone else who crosses her path. Searching for an outfit for a writerly soirée, she spots a tuxedo in Katie’s brother’s closet and takes to it with a breezy lack of self-consciousness that anyone over the age of 18 will watch with more than a little envy.
“Storm clouds come and go, but in Cone’s film any pain can seemingly be relieved by the simple, generous act of liking someone — not to possess them, but to have your world changed by them. Princess Cyd is a wonderful movie to live in for this reason; it’s full of hope and empathy, as are its two leads. This is a film that believes finding joy in each other is not just what we should do but what we are naturally inclined to do, and man, oh, man, do I want to believe that right now.”
NOVEMBER 3 (in theaters), NOVEMBER 7 (Video on Demand): Uncle Gloria: One Helluva Ride! (dir. Robyn Symon) – Seventh Art Releasing synopsis: “Filed under stranger than fiction, Uncle Gloria: One Helluva Ride! tells the astonishing true story of how a 67-year-old macho owner of a South Florida auto-wrecking company named Butch, who undergoes a nasty second divorce and needs a place to hide. But the last place anyone would think to find him is in a dress, wig and heels, living as a woman. What starts out as a trick to beat the system ends up changing Butch forever. Featuring risky surgeries, sex work, family dysfunction, activism and falling in love, Gloria’s life is one that must be seen to be believed. Fasten your seatbelt. This is most definitely one helluva ride! Winner of Audience Award for Best Documentary at it’s Miami Premiere and directed by Robyn Symon (Transformation: The Life & Legacy of Werner Erhard and Behind the Blue Veil).”
NOVEMBER 7 (streaming on Netflix): The Journey Is the Destination (dir. Bronwen Hughes) – Toronto International Film Festival synopsis: “Fiercely creative artist, restless wanderer, courageous photojournalist, and compassionate humanitarian aid worker, Dan Eldon is a tremendous inspiration to all who aspire to better themselves by doing good in the world. This stirring biopic from director Bronwen Hughes (whose Stander screened at the Festival in 2003) chronicles Eldon’s tragically abbreviated, yet robustly lived life in vivid detail.
“Born in London to a British father and an American mother, Dan (Ben Schnetzer) is raised in Nairobi. By the time he’s a teenager, he’s already organizing a daredevil supply run to Mozambican refugees, an experience that merely whets his appetite for adventure and for meaningful human connections that transcend class, culture, and creed. Dan skips post-secondary study in favour of leaping into the fray, becoming a self-taught photojournalist and covering events such as the end of apartheid in South Africa and burgeoning violence and famine in Somalia. It is in the latter country that Dan will forge his greatest professional triumphs — and where his life will be woefully snuffed out far too soon.
“Eldon accumulated an astonishing wealth of experience in his 22 years and The Journey is the Destination, written by Jan Sardi (Shine, The Notebook), is an homage to his valiant spirit. Featuring charismatic, heartfelt performances from Schnetzer and co-stars Maria Bello, Kelly Macdonald, and Ella Purnell, this is a film that makes you want to re-examine all you hold dear in your life — and live every day to the fullest.”
NOVEMBER 7 (on Amazon Video, iTunes, and Vudu; also on DVD and Blu-ray): The Secret Life of Lance Letscher (dir. Sandra Adair) – Synopsis from the film’s official website: “The Secret Life of Lance Letscher is a deeply personal and psychological portrait of internationally known, and Austin based, collage artist Lance Letscher. Told through memories of trauma and triumph, the film provides a doorway into Letscher’s profound insights on creativity, the subconscious, work ethic and spirituality. Through his intricate artistic process, we witness the artist’s unwavering determination to stay in the moment—free of mind, thought and preconception. Featuring detailed images of more than a hundred of his collages, sculptures, and installations, viewers are offered a visual feast while gaining intimate access into Letscher’s methodical techniques and brilliant mind.”
NOVEMBER 10 (in theaters and on Video on Demand): Bitch (dir. Marianna Palka) – Excerpts from IndieWire’s Sundance Film Festival review by Eric Kohn: “There are plenty of stories about domestic housewives who grow tired of their oppressive routines, but none quite like Marianna Palka’s vicious feminist satire Bitch, in which the writer-director-star plays a woman who takes on the identity of a wild dog. It’s a blunt metaphor, but Palka transforms an absurd premise into a chilling look at the destruction of the nuclear family with a vivid, snarling vision driven by the propulsive energy of its biting critique.
“Inspired by a real-life case study documented by psychologist R.D. Lang, Bitch follows the plight of afflicted matriarch Jill (Palka) and her clueless husband Bill (Palka regular Jason Ritter). The usually sweet-natured Ritter boldly plays against type, initially coming across as an American Psycho-like creep who sleeps with his secretary and buries himself in the office, leaving the care of his three young children to his clearly unstable wife. When she snaps, he’s forced to reconsider his ways, although the deranged events around him suggest he may have missed his window to set things right.
“By the first scene Jill’s world is falling apart, attempting a horrific suicide by dangling from her chandelier by a belt. The violent moment plays out with operatic intensity, and while she doesn’t succeed, she snaps. Bill has no idea about the mania he’s about to confront the next morning, as Jill ushers the kids out the door and mutters under breath, ‘I’m terrified I’m gonna do something.’ A mysterious dog prowls the front yard and locks eyes with her, but Bill’s lost in his own world. Then she vanishes, and there’s just enough time for him to throw a fit about her decision to abandon them when she resurfaces in the basement — nude and growling on all fours, smeared in feces and eyes filled with rage. While Jill howls away, Bill struggles to maintain control of a situation far beyond control.
“With its jittery formalism against the backdrop of a nightmarish suburban setting, Palka recalls Michael Haneke, but with an eye for surreal black comedy that suggests the anything-goes weirdness of Quentin Dupieux (Rubber, Wrong). Palka’s fourth feature is lightyears ahead of her last effort, the more conventional romantic drama Good Dick, and even when Bitch stumbles through some of its stranger moments it remains an uncompromising vision. The wacky drama is aided in large part by Morgan z Whirledge’s chaotic score, which erupts with discordant melodies that play off a layered sound mix rich with competing cues, overlapping dialogue, and ever-present barking that convey the sheer chaos of a stable world facing its reckoning.
“Though Palka uses Jill’s plight as its key animating device, Bitch works best when it focuses on Bill’s ongoing shock at the sudden demand for his responsibility, as he fights through the task of delivering his kids to school and suddenly loses traction in the workplace. A fierce portrait of unwieldy comeuppance, it’s both hilarious and terrifying to watch Bill take in the strange events around him. One brilliant sequence finds him dashing in and out of his kid’s school, collapsing onto the ground and throwing tantrums as everything he took for granted dissolves beneath him.
“…Even as the high-concept premise wears thin, Palka manages to generate an unexpected degree of sympathy for the floundering couple, and the wordless finale allows for a complete transformation that extends beyond Jill’s bizarre condition. By its end, Bitch focuses as much on what it means to wake up to the frustrations of an American dream coming to pieces as it is a fierce indictment of them.”
NOVEMBER 10: Destination Unknown (dir. Claire Ferguson) – Cinema Village synopsis: “They endured the death camps. They hid in remote farms. They fought as partisans in Polish forests, but when the war ended, the struggles of the Holocaust survivors were only just beginning. Destination Unknown paints a uniquely intimate portrait of survival, revealing pain that has never faded but hasn’t crushed the human spirit.”
NOVEMBER 10 (in theaters and on Video on Demand): Gold Star (dir. Victoria Negri) – Cinema Village synopsis: “After dropping out of music school, Vicki (Victoria Negri) drifts aimlessly between her family’s house in Connecticut and an itinerant existence in New York. When her father (Robert Vaughn) suffers a debilitating stroke, she has to become his primary caretaker. Vicki resists connecting with him, and making peace with herself, but finds a way forward thanks to a new friend and a life-changing event.”
NOVEMBER 10: In Between (dir. Maysaloun Hamoud) – Eye for Film review by Jennie Kermode: “Is there anything that makes traditionalist men as angry as women talking openly about their feelings and the things many of them do every day? Earlier this year, Indian film Lipstick Under My Burkha faced a ban (later overturned) for doing just that, and now In Between, a film made in Israel by Palestinian director Maysaloun Hamoud, has attracted an angry response. Hamoud, now the subject of a fatwa, says that she knew it would be controversial but never expected such a strong reaction.
“‘Remember where we are living,’ one of the film’s heroines is told. This is not the West; she must, she is told, adjust her expectations as a result, and not insist so loudly on living life on her own terms. But what does being a rebel mean in this context? What makes Hamoud’s film so potent is that it doesn’t just show the impact of sexist tradition on women who want to party, drink alcohol and wear skinny jeans. It also shows what it can do to women who themselves adhere to old fashioned values.
“Nour (Shaden Kanboura) is a shy, sweet-natured hijabi student who seems distinctly out of place when she moves into the flat shared by Leila (Mouna Hawa) and Salma (Sana Jammelieh), but although their lives are very different from hers – Leila has a Jewish boyfriend, Salma is a lesbian, and both conduct their social lives much as they might do in London or Berlin – she’s drawn to their friendliness, and a strong bond forms between them. A mutual love of good food seals the deal. The problem is that Nour’s fiancé doesn’t like these new influences in her life. As his controlling behaviour escalates, she becomes increasingly aware that she has to make a change in her life – and find a way to do it that will let her remain true to herself.
“With Leila and Salma facing problems of their own, Hamoud is able to explore not just the challenges in women’s lives but the solidarity that makes it possible to cope, even if that doesn’t always mean that things work out the way they want. She does so with a deft touch in a film that never feels heavy-handed, and the performances she coaxes from her leads are compelling. Kanboura, in particular, stands out for the depth she gives to her character, making her much more than just a victim, though at times her suffering is heartbreaking to watch.
“A complicated ensemble piece with a lot going on, In Between is an astonishingly mature feature debut from Hamoud, who balances themes and events with great skill. Importantly, the women at the centre of her story never really seem remote from the Palestinian Israeli society around them, but emerge from it as part of an organic whole. Cultural connections go much deeper than the value system built around restricting their behaviour. There are echoes of 2012’s Out in the Dark in the visible disconnection between how cinemagoers expect to see Palestinians represented and what is, essentially, real life.
“This is a gem of a film that is deserving of international attention in its own right, and not just because of the hatred it has attracted. It doesn’t just raise women’s voices; it tells a very human story about women who are complex and believable and intriguing.”
NOVEMBER 10: Requiem for a Running Back (dir. Rebecca Carpenter) – Cinema Village synopsis: “Director Rebecca Carpenter’s father, Lewis Carpenter, was a World Championship running back for the Detroit Lions and Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers. As an NFL coach, he was one of the most respected football minds of his era. When he dies, her family receives a surprise call from Boston University’s brain bank requesting his brain – with shocking results. Lew becomes the 18th NFL player diagnosed postmortem with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative neurocognitive disorder that can cause episodes of rage, social withdrawal, and other unusual behaviors. In disbelief, Carpenter finds herself at ground zero of an unfolding public health controversy and embarks on a three-year odyssey across America to explore the far-reaching implications of this ‘new’ disease.
“Using the diagnosis as an opportunity to heal their troubled relationship, Carpenter travels through time zones and generations to piece together her father’s story. But as her road trip progresses, CTE starts to permeate the national airwaves, and Carpenter realizes that hers is not the only football family shaped by a little-known disease. This simple road trip turns into a cacophony of competing sound bites and complicated family stories, ending with one question: When one in three former players will have these problems, why do we still play football?
“Carpenter approaches her subjects with refreshing humor, manic curiosity, and a huge heart as Lew’s former teammates, scientists, and historians offer their insights and support. Through quirky and poignant visits with Dr. Bennet Omalu and player advocate Mike Ditka, neuropathologist Ann McKee and NFL Hall of Famer James Lofton, headline stealing NFL retiree Chris Borland and hellraiser Dave Meggyesy, Rebecca obsessively pursues every available avenue to understand her dad, including interviews with families living in the aftermath of brain damage: Ray & Mary Ann Easterling, Greg Lens & his daughter Sarah Lens, Mike & Candy Pyle and Mike’s daughter Samantha, and Penny and John Hilton.
“Ultimately Carpenter must confront her own complicity in missing the signs of her father’s brain disease as she begins to understand his depression, obsessiveness, forgetfulness, and unpredictable temper were common side effects of repeat blunt force trauma to the brain.”
NOVEMBER 15: Rebels on Pointe (dir./DP: Bobbi Jo Hart) – Quad Cinema synopsis: “Established in the wake of the Stonewall riots, New York’s all-male dance troupe Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo have for over 40 years traveled the world presenting a distinctly modern take on classical ballet: performing it in drag. This moving verité documentary traces the inspiring history of The Trocks and offers an intimate portrait of its members, past and present, as they upend stereotypes and gleefully pirouette on the line between high art and camp.”
NOVEMBER 17: Atomic Homefront (dir. Rebecca Cammisa) – Cinema Village synopsis: “Atomic Homefront reveals St. Louis, Missouri’s past as a uranium processing center for the atomic bomb and the governmental and corporate negligence that led to the illegal dumping of Manhattan Project radioactive waste throughout North County neighborhoods. The film is a case study of how citizens are confronting state and federal agencies to uncover the truth about the extent of the contamination and are fighting to keep their families safe.”
NOVEMBER 17: Big Sonia (dirs. Todd Soliday and Leah Warshawski) – Synopsis from the film’s official website: “Standing tall at 4’8″, Sonia is one of the last remaining Holocaust survivors in Kansas City and one of the only survivors there who speaks publicly about her wartime experience. Sonia’s enormous personality and fragile frame mask the horrors she endured. At 15 she watched her mother disappear behind gas chamber doors. Sonia’s teenage years were a blur of concentration camps and death marches. On liberation day, she was accidentally shot through the chest, yet again miraculously survived. Sonia is the ultimate survivor, a bridge between cultures and generations. Her story must never be forgotten.
“Our film interweaves Sonia’s past and present using first-person narrative with stories from family and friends. Along the way, we learn valuable life lessons – ‘Soniaisms‘ – from a woman who can barely see over the steering wheel, yet insists on driving herself to work every day to run her late husband’s tailor shop, John’s Tailoring. Running the shop is Sonia’s entire being – it is her reason for living and the center of her life. Sonia is a ‘diva’ and she’s known for wearing leopard print and high heel shoes – she is the most popular woman I know. Her influence spans generations and cultures, and we see first-hand how she transforms a room of self-involved teenagers into thoughtful citizens. Sonia is an enigma.
“John’s Tailoring is the last shop standing in a desolate corner of a rundown mall, and there is a looming threat the mall could close its doors any day. Will Sonia be able to continue working? Will she have to shut the doors on John’s Tailoring and finally retire in her late 80’s? How will Sonia’s stories make a difference to people now? How will her stories inspire audiences to learn about their own families and ensure that we don’t repeat mistakes of the past?”
NOVEMBER 17: The Breadwinner (dir. Nora Twomey) – IFC Center synopsis: “From executive producer Angelina Jolie and the creators of Oscar-nominees The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea, this is the story of Parvana, an 11-year-old girl growing up under the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001. After her father is wrongfully arrested, Parvana disguises herself as a boy to save her family, finding strength in her memories of the tales her father used to tell her.”
NOVEMBER 17 (in theaters and on Video on Demand): Cook Off! (dirs. Cathryn Michon and Guy Shalem) – Excerpts from Rolling Stone article by Jon Blistein: “Melissa McCarthy bumbles through a cooking competition in the wild new trailer for the long-gestating mockumentary, Cook Off! The film premiered at the Comedy Arts Festival in 2007 – long before McCarthy’s breakout turn in Bridesmaids – and will finally receive an on-demand and limited theatrical release November 17th.
“Cathryn Michon and Guy Shalem co-directed Cook Off!, which centers around the Van Rookle Farms Cooking Contest, a reality competition with celebrity judges, a $1 million prize and a giant muffin mascot. Along with McCarthy, the film’s cast boasts an array of seasoned improvisors including Michon, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Louie Anderson, Gary Anthony Williams, Niecy Nash, Diedrich Bader, Stephen Root and Ben Falcone.
“The trailer finds McCarthy at her slapstick best, dashing around the competition hall with a heavy pot before falling flat on her face and getting overzealous with her doomed dish. ‘I’m making a sweet potato,’ she excitedly tells a reporter while stuffing marshmallows into an already overflowing pot. ‘Which is technically a vegetable.'”
NOVEMBER 17 (LA), NOVEMBER 22 (NYC) (opened in Austin, TX last month): Mr. Roosevelt (dir. Noël Wells) (DP: Dagmar Weaver-Madsen) – Variety’s SXSW review by Andrew Barker: “Mr. Roosevelt is the debut film by writer-director Noël Wells, a Texas native who decamped for Los Angeles to become a comic. It also features Wells in the lead role, as a Texas native who decamped for Los Angeles to become a comic, only to make an abrupt return to attend a cat funeral at the home of her ex-boyfriend, and perhaps take stock of the shambling mess she’s made of her life amidst Austin’s remaining pockets of weirdness. If you’re already starting to roll your eyes, stop: This riotously endearing comedy is substantially funnier, sharper, and more peculiar than that premise is bound to make it sound. While its knowing touch for the rhythms of Austin life make it a perfect fit for SXSW, the film has potential to travel much further, and announces Wells as a behind-the-camera talent worth watching.
“A veteran of L.A.’s improv scene, Wells had a single-season run on ‘Saturday Night Live’ before landing her recent role on ‘Master of None,’ and the former experience certainly seems to inform Mr. Roosevelt’s opening scene, as Wells’ fictional counterpart Emily soldiers through a failed audition for a sketch-comedy show. (Kristen Wiig is among Emily’s celebrity impressions, though it’s her take on Holly Hunter haggling at a yard sale that really should have gotten her a callback.)
“All she has to show for her time in Hollywood is one viral video that she ‘wasn’t able to monetize’; she’s barely making ends meet as a promotional video editor; and the improv comedy dating pool is proving somewhat suboptimal. So when she receives a call from her ex, Eric (Nick Thune), with news that their once-shared cat is sick, she doesn’t hesitate to hop on a plane to Texas with little but the clothes on her back.
“Back home, she learns that the cat has already died, and Eric – whom she had just assumed would let her stay at his place – is happily cohabiting with his new, perfectly poised girlfriend, Celeste (Britt Lower), to whom Emily takes an immediate dislike. After all, she’s completely redecorated the place, relegating all of Emily’s leftover possessions to a shed out back. Pleading poverty, however, Emily gets the couple to put her up for a few days.
“Although she’s only been gone for two years, Emily finds her former home city has been gentrified just as strikingly as her former home. Her favorite dingy coffee shop has been boarded up, and the new one nearby is a modernist maze of antiseptic steel. Eric has embraced a thoroughly L.A. set of voluntary dietary restrictions, and Celeste lists her occupation as ‘entrepreneur.’ The two take Emily out to the kind of restaurant that actually requires nicer attire than t-shirts and jeans, and it isn’t long before she has a tableside meltdown.
“Quickly coming to Emily’s rescue is a firecracker waitress-musician named Jen (Daniella Pineda), who recognizes her from her fleeting bout of YouTube stardom. After employing some tough love methods to staunch her panic attacks, Jen becomes Emily’s new best friend literally overnight, and ferries her around from overcrowded artist co-ops to topless Greenbelt picnics and musical house parties. Meanwhile, Celeste mounts an ever-escalating Cold War with her predecessor, and Eric and Emily spend enough time together to risk rekindling their old flame.
“Nothing here, from the premise to the plotting to the basic tone, is particularly novel, but the entire affair has a distinctive personality. Wells has a clear gift for physical comedy, and as a director, she tends to underplay her funniest bits in a way that gives the film an engaging, lackadaisical flow, rather than fragmenting into a series of sketches. That distinctiveness extends to her character too – the hapless twentysomething woman-child has become almost as well-worn a type as its male equivalent, but Emily feels like an original creation within those broad parameters.
“Mr. Roosevelt does occasionally reveal a few first-time filmmaker kinks, and in the later-going Wells forces closure on some narrative arcs that could have just as well stayed open-ended. But never does the film’s comic energy wane, and the supporting cast is highlighted by Lower, Pineda, and a scene-stealing turn from Andre Hyland, whose puckish stoner may be too laid-back even for Austin.”
NOVEMBER 17 (in theaters and streaming on Netflix): Mudbound (dir. Dee Rees) (DP: Rachel Morrison) – LA Weekly’s Toronto International Film Festival review by April Wolfe: “Writer-director Dee Rees is breaking all the rules with her third feature, Mudbound. In film school, they tell you, ‘No voiceovers,’ yet this film about two WWII and post-war Mississippi families — one black, one white — is filthy with them. They tell you, ‘Play it safe until you’re more experienced,’ yet Mudbound is a sprawling epic. They say, ‘Never make a period piece because the budget will be prohibitive,’ yet the setting here spans multiple years and continents in the 1940s. With Mudbound, Rees proves the truest rule of all: That talent and vision make all lesser rules negotiable. This absorbing, incredibly accomplished film should win awards and be taught in history classes all over America.
“The film opens at the end of this story, with Laura McAllan (Carey Mulligan) describing what her existence once was like on the Mississippi farm with her husband Henry (Jason Clarke). She leads her two daughters through a brown and barren expanse of land to the makeshift grave Henry and his brother Jamie (Garrett Hedlund) have dug for their father, Pappy (Jonathan Banks). ‘When I think of the farm,’ she says, ‘I think of mud. … I dreamed in brown.’ The story of Mudbound is adapted from Hillary Jordan’s book of the same name, and Rees and her co-writer Virgil Williams adeptly use Jordan’s poetic prose in voiceover, with multiple characters getting their turn to control the story, letting us see the world through their eyes and aches and pains.
“After visiting the grave, we go back to the beginning of this story, before the McAllans have even settled on the farm, to the days of the Jackson family eking out a living as cotton sharecroppers. Patriarch Hap (Rob Morgan) and matriarch Florence (Mary J. Blige) send their oldest son Ronsel (Jason Mitchell) off to fight the Nazis, but we sense that they take no pride in his decision. Throughout this story, Rees suggests that this black family has little allegiance to a country that wishes to kill them. But overseas, Ronsel is given the freedom to become a man — a human — though later, back home, he recounts that women in Europe would slap his ass to check to see if he had a monkey’s tail. Still, during his tour, we see him in the embrace of a German woman who happens to be white, and the look on his face is one of great peace, something he will not exhibit back home in Mississippi until he befriends Jamie, also an emotionally wounded veteran of the war.
“The friendship that blooms between Ronsel and Jamie isn’t sugarcoated. Jamie doesn’t immediately become Ronsel’s hero, and Ronsel isn’t asking for a white savior anyway. But they both have seen the literal insides of human beings, the blood and guts, and understand their shared humanity. They’re up against some hardcore racists, none more chilling than Banks’ Pappy, but what’s most unnerving isn’t the overt racism depicted in the film but the silence from the ‘good’ white people like Laura and Henry when Pappy spouts his hateful thoughts.
“The poverty on the farm is visceral. No matter what stations in life these characters hold, they are painted in mud, and no amount of money can save them from it. It’s almost as though death is clinging to their skin, asking them to succumb. Hollywood has often done a poor job of filming and lighting black skin, but cinematographer Rachel Morrison (Fruitvale Station, Dope, Black Panther) has mastered her craft, so every minute variation of color comes through clearly. The result of her work has the richness and clarity of an oil painting.
“Production design is also shrewdly considered. When the McAllans move into their new ramshackle home on the farm, I couldn’t help noticing the peeling paint on the walls, one layer revealing another, revealing another. The paint may be a small detail, but it’s one of great meaning. There’s no removing paint once it’s there. If you sand it away, you inhale the lead, and it’s too much work. Easier to paint over it, to hide it with a nicer-looking coat. But underneath, the poison’s still there. What Mudbound does is peel off all those layers, and it’s painful as hell, but necessary. Dee Rees is clearing the poison away.”
NOVEMBER 17 (in theaters and on Video on Demand): Sweet Virginia (dir. Jamie M. Dagg) (DP: Jessica Lee Gagné) – IFC Films synopsis: “A mysterious stranger sends shockwaves through a close-knit community in this nerve-jangling slice of raw suspense. In the wake of a triple murder that leaves the residents of a remote Alaskan outpost on edge, tightly wound drifter Elwood (Christopher Abbott) checks into a motel run by Sam (Jon Bernthal), a former rodeo champion whose imposing physical presence conceals a troubled soul. Bound together by their outsider status, the two men strike up an uneasy friendship—a dangerous association that will set off a new wave of violence and unleash Sam’s darkest demons. Driven by tour de force performances from Christopher Abbott and Jon Bernthal, this precision crafted thriller pulses with an air of quivering dread. With Imogen Poots and Rosemarie DeWitt.”
NOVEMBER 24: Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (dir. Alexandra Dean) – IFC Center synopsis: “Hollywood star Hedy Lamarr was called the world’s most beautiful woman—but her hidden legacy as an inventor who helped revolutionize modern communications is even more stunning. Combining a rediscovered interview with reflections from her closest friends, family and admirers, including Mel Brooks and Robert Osborne, Bombshell finally gives Hedy Lamarr the chance to tell her own story.”
NOVEMBER 24: Eric Clapton: A Life in 12 Bars (dir. Lili Fini Zanuck) – Toronto International Film Festival review by Thom Powers: “For Eric Clapton, blues music made a strong impression at a young age: ‘It was always one man with his guitar versus the world. He was completely alone and had no options other than to just sing and play to ease his pain.’
“Over a five-decade career, Clapton has proven himself to be a guitar virtuoso, creating rock music deeply influenced by the blues. In this documentary, he reflects candidly on how his life experiences were channelled into music. The film traces his career through The Yardbirds, Cream, Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominos, and his solo years, telling the stories behind hits like ‘For Your Love,’ ‘Layla,’ and ‘Tears in Heaven.’
“Filmmaker Lili Fini Zanuck draws from an extensive archive of performances and home movies to construct the film. Accompanying the footage are audio interviews with Clapton and people who played central roles in his life, including his grandmother Rose Clapp, George Harrison, Ahmet Ertegun, Steve Winwood, and his former wife, Pattie Boyd.
“Clapton grew up with an inferiority complex. He struggled with the demands of the music business, tumultuous love affairs, drug addiction, and the tragic loss of his young son. The film traces how he coped with these challenges, for better and for worse, before establishing a family with his second wife, Melia McEnery. We come away with a deeper sense of what has inspired so much memorable music.”
The Iron Cupcake 