Hope & George review this week’s new releases: Is This Thing On?, Primate, Greenland 2: Migration, Father Mother Sister Brother, The Chronology of Water, All That’s Left Behind, and Sleepwalker.
All posts by maddwolf
Heartbreak and Displacement
All That’s Left of You
by Rachel Willis
Opening with two teenagers swept up in a demonstration in the West Bank, writer/director Cherien Dabis drops us into a world of strife and sorrow with her film, All That’s Left of You.
After the tense opening, the film moves backward in time to 1948, Jaffa, Palestine. From here, we follow Sharif (Adam Bakri) as he struggles to hold onto his land and home amid ever worsening strikes in the region. His wife is less concerned with his ideals than she is with keeping her family safe.
As we follow Sharif and his family, and the decisions they have to make as Zionist troops close-in, we get a sense of the hopelessness of the situation. Whether or not you know the history, there is a sense of impending doom as the men in the region discuss their options—stay and resist or leave in hopes of a safer future.
The 1948 segment of the film is the shortest, but it gives a sense of what was lost for the people of Jaffa.
Jumping ahead 30 years to the occupied West Bank, Sharif is now an old man who lives with his son Salim (Saleh Bakri) and his family. Each moment we spend with this family shows how deeply the film cares about its subject matter.
One scene during the 1978 segment is so intense it’s nearly impossible to watch. As soldiers torture and humiliate Salim in front of his son, Noor (Sanad Alkabareti), their laughter only underscores the cruelty present when we dehumanize each other. Noor’s reaction to the event is heartbreaking, yet honest.
The film jumps ahead another ten years as we follow an angry, teenage Noor (Muhammad Abed Elrahman) in an increasingly charged West Bank. The scene that opens the film comes full circle as the third section begins.
This family’s trauma across generations is our gateway into this world. Events unfold around them that are almost incomprehensible. Protestors are gunned down in the street. Treatment for a medical emergency is delayed over bureaucratic red tape and a misplaced ID. All That’s Left of You is an impassioned portrayal of one family’s experiences of displacement and heartbreak in Palestine.
What a Snooze
Sleepwalker
by Brandon Thomas
Horror has always used trauma as a foundation for some of the best of the genre. Films like The Changeling or Don’t Look Now wouldn’t be what they are without the emotional trauma haunting their characters. However, these films also had outstanding scripts, a top-notch cast, and directors who knew how to bring it all together. How does Sleepwalker fare as a new entry into Trauma Horror? Unfortunately, like a bad dream.
Acclaimed artist Sarah (Hayden Panettiere of Scream 4 & 6, TV’s Heroes) is still in the throes of grief after the loss of her daughter in a car accident. This same accident left her estranged and abusive husband, Michael (Justin Chatwin of War of the Worlds), in a coma. As Sarah’s grief begins to manifest itself in sleepwalking, her grip on reality begins to loosen, putting those around her at risk.
Director Brandon Auman attempts to craft a psychological tale that works equally well as a dark drama as it does as a horror film. Think Ari Aster’s Hereditary. However, Auman’s script lacks the nuance, depth, and frankly, the scares, of Aster’s film. The very real topics of PTSD, domestic abuse, and grief get skimmed over with broad strokes instead of being given the attention and finesse needed to be effective.
When Sleepwalker shifts into horror mode, it’s never really able to escape reliance on the dreaded jump scare and a score that telegraphs said jump scares a mile away. There’s a lack of visual flair during these scenes that robs the film of any kind of mood or atmosphere and ultimately hobbles Sleepwalker from the get-go.
Instead of being given a complex, nuanced character to play, Panettiere’s Sarah spends the entire film bouncing through a cornucopia of emotions. Her entire role boils down to “gaslit character”. Chatwin fares even worse. His Michael is a walking, talking (actually, yelling) stereotype. Having your two lead characters be such empty vessels keeps Sleepwalker from finding any kind of emotional traction.
There are lofty goals to be found within Sleepwalker, but unfortunately, the film is ultimately DOA due to a poor script, uninspired direction, and a complete lack of scares.
Bob’s Your Uncle
Father Mother Sister Brother
by George Wolf
January is often regarded as a dumping ground for throwaway theater releases, featuring films not good enough to make into the holiday/award season push.
But this month is the perfect time to catch Father Mother Sister Brother, a richly human big screen triptych that explores the type of strained family get- togethers many of us experienced just weeks ago.
Writer/director Jim Jarmusch reportedly began writing the film as a way to cast Tom Waits as Adam Driver’s dad, and the opening “Father” sequence gives us just that. Jeff (Driver) and sister Emily (Mayim Bialik) don’t exactly seemed thrilled about visiting their father (Waits) at his place in very rural New Jersey. As the siblings converse in the car, we learn some things about Dad. But it isn’t long into their strained family reunion that we begin to doubt every one of these things.
The “Mother” chapter takes us to Dublin, Ireland, where Mom (Charlotte Rampling) is awaiting daughters Lilith (Vicky Krieps) and Timothea (Cate Blanchett) for their annual visit. Though life updates are spilled around a beautiful array of tea and cakes, only a few crumbs of truth actually get shared.
And in Paris for the “Sister Brother” finale, twins Skye (Indya Moore) and Billy (Luka Sabbat) meet after the recent plane crash that killed their parents. From a small cafe to an empty apartment, sister and brother sort through mementos and memories as they take a small step toward moving on.
Though Jarmusch films can sometimes be glacially paced (The Limits of Control) or deadpan enough (The Dead Don’t Die) to frustrate the uninitiated, FMSB finds him at perhaps his most tender and warmly funny.
The segments aren’t connected through these characters, but instead via beverages, watches, skateboarders and the old English phrase “Bob’s your uncle.” The camera lingers on old frames, photographs and empty rooms, making a subtle call to all that caused these recent moments to be less worthy of commemorating. Ultimately, what we don’t see happen begins to weigh as heavily as the things we do.
The cast – full of Jarmusch favorites old and new – is uniformly terrific. Each character is weary with obligations and regrets that seem as authentic as they are relatable, and each reacts to breaks of humor in ways that are different yet still feel very much like family.
And those people you were with over the holidays – would you have hung out even if they weren’t your family? Father Mother Sister Brother might make you consider the answer a bit longer.
Just find a screening, and you know, Bob’s your uncle.
To Live or to Drown
The Chronology of Water
by Hope Madden
Since becoming the reluctant icon of a franchise equally adored and loathed, Kristen Stewart has made a career out of fascinating decisions.
As an actor, Stewart’s veered from dark comedy (American Ultra) to awards contenders (Still Alice, The Clouds of Sils Maria) to genre (Lizzie, Underwater). She worked with some of the greatest indie filmmakers in the business (David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future, Olivier Assayas’s Personal Shopper, Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women, Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding) and finally shook that angsty adolescent image with an Oscar nomination for her stunning work in Pablo Larraín’s 2021 film, Spencer.
Since becoming an undisputed acting heavyweight, Stewart’s moved on to a new challenge: filmmaker. Her leap to the big screen feature format is an adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir, The Chronology of Water.
Imogen Poots plays Lidia. It’s the kind of a role that would simultaneously entice and worry an actor—survivor of abuse who numbs her trauma with self-destructive behavior. And for Stewart, Lidia’s is a tale told in close-up. The filmmaker has apparently never met a wide shot she liked. Her approach creates a wild intimacy, taking a story told in flashback and requiring us to see every second’s urgent immediacy.
It’s also a choice that disallows any kind of acting cheat. No matter, because Poots is no cheat. The actor has impressed in a wide range of characters but never has she brought such raw agony to the screen.
Stewart’s made a punishing film, and in Poots’s more ferocious moments, it’s difficult to watch. The actor externalizes pain as rage brilliantly, making her moments of vulnerability that much more heartbreaking.
A supporting cast goes often nameless, existing as fragments of Lidia’s reality. Still, Stewart draws wonderful performances from everyone. Thora Birch is understated excellence, a perfect counterpoint to Poots’s explosive passion. And Jim Belushi offers an affable, caring turn as Ken Kesey.
Together, cast and filmmaker find beauty in Yuknavitch’s tale, though at times The Chronolog of Water feels like it’s wallowing. Still, Stewart’s touch is lyrical, offsetting the brutality of the film’s content with images that are delicately wondrous, contradictorily peaceful, sometimes even lightly but discordantly funny.
Take My Wife, Please
Is This Thing On?
by Hope Madden
Back when Bradley Cooper forgot stealing Mike Tyson’s tiger, few would have guessed that he would go on to collect a dozen Oscar nominations for writing, directing, producing, and acting. His first two adventures behind the camera, 2019’s A Star Is Born and 2024’s Maestro, each earned him nominations for picture, screenplay, and performance. They also showcased a director of real power.
So obviously his latest is a comedy.
Cooper co-writes and directs Is This Thing On?, a midlife crisis disguised as a rom-com.
Alex (Will Arnett, who co-writes) and Tess (the ever-incandescent Laura Dern) are ending their 20-year marriage. No hard feelings, no infidelities, both just decided it was time to call it.
On his first night out of the house, in need of a beer and lacking the $15 cash to pay the cover, Alex puts his name on “the list” for a comedy club’s open mic night. He doesn’t bomb, gets some stuff off his chest, and finds that he kind of loves stand-up.
Because men will do anything to avoid therapy.
A supporting cast keeps things chaotic. Cooper plays Alex’s dumbass stoner actor brother whose wife (Andra Day) needs to stay high just to tolerate him. His parents (an inspired Christine Ebersol and Ciarán Hinds) mean well, Cooper directing their cacophony of advice, dismay, rebukes, and requests for juice boxes for giddy, exhausting mayhem.
Dern is characteristically wonderous, crafting a character who’s raw and on-edge and absolutely never the clichéd put-upon supportive partner. Her chemistry with Arnett breathes, bristles, and laughs as easily as a lived-in relationship rooted somewhere or other in love.
To Arnett’s credit, he goes head-to-head with the veteran Oscar winner and charms. Muddled but earnest and effortlessly likeable, Alex is the dad you want kids to know and the floundering ex you root for, if not to get back together, at least to just get it together.
Aside from one or two convenient plot beats, Is This Thing On? benefits immeasurably from authenticity. That emotional honesty drives the laughter and the tension, and elevates the relatively light film (given Cooper’s previous two efforts) above easy comedy or indie dramedy. The film is a unique beast, natural and messy but still totally sold on love.
Damn Dirty Ape
Primate
by Hope Madden
My working theory is that Johannes Roberts saw Nope and thought, when does Gordy get his own movie? IP being what it is, Primate is likely the closest the co-writer/director could come.
The film follows Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah) home from college. She’s summering with family—dad (Troy Kotsur, CODA), little sister (Gia Hunter), and Ben, the family’s beloved chimpanzee in their incredibly impressive compound on the side of a cliff in Hawaii.
But Dad’s off to a work event Lucy’s first weekend home, so friends crash to drink beer, smoke weed, eat pizza, and get picked off one by one when Ben turns super feral.
Roberts (47 Meters Down, 47 Meters Down: Uncaged, Strangers: Prey at Night, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City) has not built a career on nuance. He makes fun, obvious monster movies. The telegraphed scares are at least goretastic, and what he lacks in subtlety he makes up for with macabre humor.
Like any monster movie worth its chlorine, Primate is a survival tale. Quickly, the partiers assess the danger and jump into the pool because chimps can’t swim. Did you know that? I didn’t know it. Is it even true?
Google says it’s true.
There you go. Johannes Roberts taught me something today.
Superficial character development feeds into teen horror cliche as Sequoyah and her supporting players, including Jess Alexander (A Banquet) and Victoria Wyant, struggle with insipid dialog. The writing is pretty awful, and aside from jumping into the pool, the kids’ behavior is consistently dumb.
Some of the gore is inspired, though, particularly one jaw-related injury. The creature design is a little more touch and go. At times Ben’s look is passably realistic, but not always. But Kudos to Roberts for going practical, and Miguel Torres Umba inside the suit moves with menace.
There’s also an effective device made of Lucy’s dad’s deafness, handled with minimal manipulation and landing some authentic tension.
In the end, Gordy Meets Cujo delivers exactly what you should expect: jump scares, cliché, young adults behaving stupidly, and plenty of blood. Is it a great movie? It is not. Nope, definitely not. But it might be what you’re in the mood for.
Shark Infested Waters
The Plague
by George Wolf
2025 was yet another year with an impressive list of great performances from young film actors. Ana Sophia Heger (She Rides Shotgun), Cary Christopher (Weapons), and Nina Ye (Left-Handed Girl) were among those seasoned beyond their years. Now, The Plague‘s Everett Blunck leads a terrific ensemble of youngsters to join this group of standout turns.
Blunck (last year’s Griffin in Summer) is 12 year-old Ben, one of the young athletes spending the summer at a boys’ water polo camp in New England. A bit shy and awkward, Ben still finds a way to be accepted at the cool kids’ table.
And led by the smug, sarcastic Jake (Kayo Martin, also stellar), those kids target Eli (Kenny Rasmussen, just wonderful) – the weird kid with the rash – for taunts and bullying. Dubbing Eli’s skin condition as a “plague” that’s contagious, the boys are not shy about the finger pointing and mocking laughter.
Ben goes along to get along. But when he dares to show Eli some sympathy, he crosses an unpopular line. Jake and the King Bees decide it is Ben who now has the plague and must be cast out.
Writer/director Charlie Polinger’s feature debut bursts with vision and craftsmanship. He wanders the confines of the swimming pool, locker room and the campus buildings with a probing, studious eye, unveiling some gorgeously shot sequences with a cold detachment that fuels the mood of alienation.
Polinger’s writing is also urgent enough to make this more than just a chlorinated Lord of the Flies. Joel Edgerton’s coach character is aware of some of what’s going on in camp, but he’s purposely kept on the fringes, as Polinger explores how the boys navigate their cruelty around the adults’ anti-bullying sit downs.
Working equally as a microcosm and a singular coming-of-age narrative, The Plague is fascinating, heartbreaking and often quite beautiful. It’s a major debut for a gifted filmmaker, and an emotional showcase for a talented group of young performers.
Tasmanian Devils
We Bury the Dead
by Hope Madden
We Bury the Dead is an intriguing title, particularly for a zombie movie. Writer/director Zak Hilditch’s latest mixes familiar with fresh, focused less on scares than on contemplative action.
Daisy Ridley is Ava, a young woman determined to find her husband (Matt Whelan) after a US chemical weapons mishap wipes out every living thing in Tasmania. She volunteers with a group who will find, catalog, and bury the dead. As a Yank, she’s not too welcome, but her ulterior motive is to get to the heart of the catastrophe, to the resort where her husband had gone for a conference. To find him, she’ll have to risk exposure to the smoke, the military, rogue sharp shooters, and the dead who come “back online”.
Ridley has made a series of fascinating choices since being catapulted into merciless Star Wars fandom with her career-making turns as Rey. She has gravitated mainly toward quietly complicated characters in mid-budget independent films, as well as voice work in animation and documentary.
While not every project has been a winner, Ridley’s flexed a range of muscles. From dark, dry, awkward comedy (Sometimes I Think About Dying) to meditative, spooky thriller (The Marsh King’s Daughter) to inspirational, true life-adventure (Young Woman and the Sea), Ridley brings an introspective magnetism to projects. The same can be said for her work in Hilditch’s Tasmanian zombie drama.
Ava develops a frenemy situation with her volunteer partner, Clay (Brenton Thwaites), a bad boy who smokes a lot, shows no respect for the dead, and just might be criminal enough to help Ava get through the restricted areas of the country. Thwaites’s performance is better than the script, but it’s still tough to buy the burgeoning friendship.
A late side story with Riley (Mark Coles Smith) edges the film closer to horror, but Hilditch’s interests lie in drama. The heart of the story has to be the reason Ava risks so much to find Mitch. Much credit goes to Hilditch for some of the surprises he has in store, but he writes himself into a corner he can’t quite escape.
And though he crafts a few truly memorable sequences and injects zombie lore with a few new ideas, he unfortunately leans back on one of the most tiresome and suddenly popular cliches, a choice meant to wrap Ava’s arc up in a tidy bow when dystopia calls for messes.
But Ridley and Thwaites carve a compelling odd couple and Tasmania offers a handful of fascinating new details for the genre.
Best Films of 2025
Damn fine year, 2025. Well, for movies it was. Magnificent original films, like Ryan Coogler’s breathtaking Sinners, as well as blistering new work from Park Chan-wook and Yorgos Lanthimos. Gorgeous literary adaptations, including Chloé Zhao’s heartbreaking Hamnet, Clint Bentley’s lonesome Train Dreams, and GDT’s wondrous Frankenstein. Breathtaking stage-to-screen visions from Paul Thomas Anderson and Thomas Kail. Incredible documentaries, the best superhero film in years, remarkable horror, unusual comedies—if you couldn’t find a movie to love this year, you were not looking. But, we had to narrow it down, so here are our 25 favorites.
- One Battle After Another
Though the massive cast is characteristically littered with incredible talents crackling with the electricity of writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson’s script, Benicio del Toro stands out. He brings a laidback humor to the film that draws out Leonardo DiCaprio’s infectious silliness. While much of One Battle After Another is a nail-biting political thriller turned action flick, thanks to these two, it’s also one of Anderson’s funniest movies.
It may also be his most relevant. Certainly, the most of-the-moment. A master of the period piece, with this film Anderson reaches back to clarify present. By contrasting Bob’s paranoid, bumbling earnestness with the farcical evil of the Christmastime Adventurer’s Club, he satirizes exactly where we are today and why it looks so much like where we’ve been during every revolution.
But it is the filmmaker’s magical ability to populate each moment of his 2-hour-41-minute run time with authentic, understated, human detail that grounds the film in our lived-in reality and positions it as another masterpiece.
2. Sinners
Ryan Coogler reteams with longtime creative partner Michael B. Jordan to sing a song of a 1932 Mississippi juke joint. The Smoke Stack twins (Jordan) are back from Chicago, a truckload of ill-gotten liquor and a satchel full of cash along with them. They intend to open a club “for us, by us” and can hardly believe their eyes when three hillbillies come calling.
Jack O’Connell (an amazing actor in everything he’s done since Eden Lake) has a brogue and a banjo. He and his two friends would love to come on in, sing, dance, and spend some money, if only Smoke would invite them.
It’s scary. It’s sexy. The action slaps. It’s funny when it needs to be, sad just as often. It looks and sounds incredible. And there’s a cameo from Buddy F. Guy, in case you needed a little authenticity. When Ryan Coogler writes and directs a vampire movie, he gives you reason to believe there is yet new life for the old monster.
3. Train Dreams
Beautiful, lush, and quietly meditative, Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams is the kind of movie you just don’t ever get to see. It’s a wonderous, melancholy character study set against the rapidly changing America of the early 20th Century, and it is shouldered by the best performance of Joel Edgerton’s career.
Edgerton has yet to turn in a bad performance, nor even a mediocre one, but he seems custom built for this introspective figure, a witness, haunted but open and admirably vulnerable. Bentley surrounds him with so many marvelous performances, sometimes leaving an astonishing mark—on audience and protagonist alike—in only a single scene. Edgerton will no doubt be remembered this awards season, as should the film itself.
4. Hamnet
Chloé Zhao has crafted, aided by magnificent performances and hauntingly stunning cinematography from Lukasz Zal (The Zone of Interest, Cold War), a film that is shattering in its articulation that it is the depth of love that deepens and amplifies the pain of grief.
People make movies about grief all the time. We can expect one every Oscar season. But what Chloé Zhao does with Hamnet is ask us to experience that grief, not just witness it, and in experiencing it we understand the power and vital importance of art.
5. Frankenstein
Lush and gorgeous, even when it is running with blood, the world del Toro creates for his gods and monsters is breathtaking. The choices are fresh and odd, allowing for a rich image of creator and creation, the natural versus the magnificent.
Oscar Isaac is a marvel of angry arrogance made humble. As his creature, the long and limby Jacob Elordi offers a monster who’s more sensitive son than wounded manchild.
Mia Goth delivers the same uncanny grace that sets so many of her characters apart, and del Toro’s script allows Elizabeth an arc unlike any previous adaptation. You don’t wander into a Guillermo del Toro film expecting less anything than glorious excess—another reason why Frankenstein and he were meant for one another.
6. No Other Choice
Park Chan-wook’s crafted a seething satire on capitalism but manages to edge the biting farce with strange moments of deep empathy—just one example of the tonal tightrope Park doesn’t just walk, he prances across.
No Other Choice is complicated but never convoluted, constantly compelling and almost alarmingly funny. Between the intricate detail of the thriller and the gallows humor of the comedy, Park crafts a wondrously entertaining film.
7. It Was Just an Accident
This is the first film for Jafar Panahi (No Bears, Taxi, Closed Curtain) since Iran lifted his decade-long filmmaking and travel ban, and while he’s no longer filming himself in secret, Panahi’s storytelling still bursts with intimacy and courage. It Was Just an Accident is more proof that he is one of the true modern-day masters, with a clear and distinctive voice that demands attention.
8. Sentimental Value
Joachim Trier’s rich, quiet, masterfully performed film is about the places we keep our memories rather than dealing with them directly. It could be a house, like the one patriarch Gustav Borg (never-better Stellan Skarsgård) turns into a movie set. It could be the movies, or any art where the artist attempts to address conflicting emotion and memory without the interference of others’ interpretations or responses. But at the heart of these repositories is the family that fosters these memories. In this case, among others, Gustav’s daughters (Renate Reinsve, magnificent, and Inga Ibsdottter Lilleaas, also wonderful).
Sentimental Value is a gorgeously crafted family drama brimming with visual flourishes, comedic moments, heartbreak and honesty. It also boasts one of the finest ensembles of 2025.
9. Hamilton
(Released in theaters for the first time this year) The difference between seeing something live and feeling the energy exchange between cast and audience, as opposed to watching it on a screen where you’re removed from the human element of it, is often hard to overcome. (Remember Cats?) But Thomas Kail – who also directed the 2016 Broadway shows that were recorded for this film – has crafted a near perfect mix of spatial movement and character intimacy.
10. Bugonia
The script from Will Tracy and Jang Joon-hwan offers director Yorgos Lanthimos and his small but savvy (including Emma Stone and Jesse Plemmons, brazenly magnificent) cast fertile ground for the bleak absurdism the filmmaker does so well. Bugonia treads tonal shifts magnificently, slipping from comedy to thriller to horror and back with precision. Lanthimos’s control over audience emotion has never been tighter.
11. Superman
12. Pee-wee Herman as Himself
13. Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere
14. The Ugly Stepsister
15. Black Bag
16. Eddington
17. Hedda
18. Weapons
19. Zootopia 2
20. Friendship
21. Marty Supreme
22. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
23. A House of Dynamite
24. The Secret Agent
25. Baltimorons
Honorable mentions: Sirat, Nouvelle Vague, Warfare, Eephus
