Critic's Notebook

Devil's Advocates

Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
Realm of Satan (2024)

By TIM HAYES

Cheerful locals and neighbors, if not yours then somebody's, go about their normal domestic lives in Scott Cummings's nonnarrative Sundance-premiering documentary "Realm of Satan." They clean their nice black Maseratis; they hang the laundry on the line; they empty the dishwasher. They engage in mildly fetishistic sex and cavort a little in the woods around Poughkeepsie, N.Y., although some of these good folk are comfortably middle-aged and the level of cavort might be limited by wear to the knees. They live in well appointed houses full of terrific heavy drapes and esoteric knick-knacks and the odd goat or raven allowed indoors, plus several portraits of Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan to which they all belong. They are living their best lives, as should we all.

Writer's Tricks

Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
Sebastian (2024)

By SARAH MANVEL

The young writer at the heart of “Sebastian,” Max Williamson (an astounding Ruaridh Mollica), doesn’t seem to know how lucky he is. As many queer authors in London can tell you (ahem), it’s not usual to find a literary agent based on short stories written in university, nor for your first book to get such rave prerelease reviews that you’re personally profiled in the newspapers, complete with a professional photoshoot. If you have a job freelancing for a serious monthly magazine there’s no way you’d dismiss even the most boring advertorial as beneath your talent, when that writing work affords a London rent. And even if you were the most gilded literary talent in your city, your peers in your creative writing workshop will never, ever applaud your work. They’d nitpick out of jealousy. But having said all that, the device of the ongoing deconstruction of Max’s writing is clever meta-critique of the plot of “Sebastian,” in which this young man with such obvious talent decides to risk it all by delving into sex work. Gay sex work, no less. It’s a tremendous high wire act; and it’s a testament to the bravery and skill of everyone involved that the movie succeeds completely.

All Is Full of Love

Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
Love Me (2024)

By SARAH MANVEL

In 2008 the robots left behind after life on earth becomes extinct had a VHS tape of “Hello, Dolly!” to teach them about love in “Wall-E.” In 2024 the robots left behind after the Earth becomes extinct in “Love Me” have the entire internet, or at least a version of the internet in which pornography does not exist. That means the whole movie is actually aimed at 13-year-old girls, and leaves the adults wishing for better use of the incognito button.

Work in Progress

Martin DiCicco/Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
Union (2024)

By TIM HAYES

Organizing a shop floor union from scratch, the grunt work involved in persuading your colleagues of its value when they may or may not be interested, is the topic of "Union" as it follows the birth pains of the Amazon Labor Union in 2021 and 2022, under the long shadow of Covid. Stephen Maing and Brett Story's film is observational and one-sided; apart from some covert first-person filming on the shop floor, usually catching some strong-arm tactic from the company, the film mainly puts you on the street outside with the workers trying to round up the support needed to get the A.L.U. off the ground. Workers and management play out the old struggle, updated only slightly by the sour modernity of fluorescent jackets and security guards with cameras pinned onto them. When management respond with antiunion posters and leaflets, one of the A.L.U. organizers says "They're hitting us with hundred-year-old-tactics"; the cajoling and oral presentations of a worker proselytizing for organized labor are older tactics than that, even when they take place over Zoom.

The Long Goodbye

Eric Zachanowich/Searchlight Pictures

MOVIE REVIEW
Suncoast (2024)

By TIM HAYES

End-of-life care becomes an issue on almost everyone's plate one way or another. The dilemma faced by the family in "Suncoast" as they place Max (Cree Kawa), a young man dying of brain cancer, into a hospice will resonate a little or a lot with most people; for this is the art and craft of the medical drama, to which few are fully immune. In this one premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, writer-director Laura Chinn gives the mother of the patient, Kristine (Laura Linney), and her other child, Doris (Nico Parker, daughter of Thandiwe Newton and with some of her mother's wary watchfulness), equal focus in their shared but different grief. So the film is about one parent's agonies and one young woman's coming-of-age at the same time, two films for the price of one. And there's a political dimension, since Ms. Chinn sets her story in 2005 at the same hospice where Terri Schiavo is receiving care, the real-life right-to-die case playing out in the background on all news channels. The tact and delicacy of the film will have much to do with all this being based on experience: the film maker has fictionalized things for narrative purposes, but Ms. Chinn's brother did die in that hospice; it was at that time; and she was that sister.

Art Attacks

Leo Matiz/Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
Frida (2024)

By TIM HAYES

Carla Gutiérrez's documentary about Frida Kahlo wants to focus on the artist as a person and a woman, rather than get dragged into the higher showbiz orbit of the cultural presence, Madonna-influencer and biopic subject also called Frida Kahlo, famous enough that her unibrow is enough to spark recognition. The result could be termed back-to-basics. In the absence of any third-party commentary, "Frida" uses Kahlo's own letters and diaries, alongside other contemporary texts written by lovers and friends, all read in voiceover by actors. Meanwhile the screen shows still photos, clippings and newsreel footage, plus views of Kahlo paintings. The film, premiering at Sundance on its way to audiences via Amazon, is after authenticity, fact rather than legend, although Ms. Gutiérrez is an editor by trade and knows that assembling a montage is as much of an active manipulation as a dramatized narrative can be.

Ghost From the Past

Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
Exhibiting Forgiveness (2024)

By SARAH MANVEL

It’s not so much that this movie has strange ideas about the healing power of art. It’s that it has strange ideas about the healing power of forgiveness. Here forgiveness is not a gift you give yourself. Instead it’s something other people have the right to, without apology or doing the work to set things right. This strange sense of entitlement is the hook on which hangs a difficult family history and how it has shaped an artist. So the choice of the word “exhibit” in the title is appropriate: it’s only a feeling of the real thing.

Losing My Religion

Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
Krazy House (2024)

By MARTIN TSAI

Many European artists – Lars von Trier, Michael Haneke, to name a couple – have very skewed ideas about what defines Americana, deduced exclusively from our pop culture exports. The Dutch filmmaking duo Steffen Haars and Flip van der Kuil is yet another example. “Krazy House,” premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, can best be described as “Funny Games” reimagined as a sitcom.

About Face

A24

MOVIE REVIEW
A Different Man (2024)

By MARTIN TSAI

“A Different Man” reunites filmmaker Aaron Schimberg with his “Chained for Life” leading man, Adam Pearson. If you think deeply about it, the new film, premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, is actually incredibly sweet in its attempt to normalize the actor’s deformity caused by neurofibromatosis type 1. For the uninitiated, though, it’s more like some mashup of “Face/Off,” “The Elephant Man” and “Beauty and the Beast.” It may look like body horror, but it’s a comedy . . . maybe?

Attack of the Killer Lesbians

Anna Kooris/A24

MOVIE REVIEW
Love Lies Bleeding (2024)

By MARTIN TSAI

“Saint Maud” auteur Rose Glass returns with something more deliberately A24-y, a gonzo pulp fully in the mode of ’70s grindhouse and its ’90s Quentin Tarantino-led renaissance. Ms. Glass disclosed at the Sundance Film Festival premiere of “Love Lies Bleeding” that she originally set it in Scotland, but the story just makes much more sense in the States. She ain’t wrong. This toxic mix of unhinged bloodlust and sleazy softcore is basically cinematic apple pie.