Does it count as representational progress when a drama about the fissures that destroy a gay marriage and the ensuing fight for primary custody of the couple’s child is just as bland as any heteronormative version of that sad story?
Bill Oliver’s Our Son boasts solid lead performances from Luke Evans and Billy Porter as the dads whose life together has hit a wall, plus a capable supporting cast stacked with talented theater actors. The movie is tasteful and restrained and sensitively handled at every step. But unless you count one of the men finding post-breakup sexual distraction wrapped around a slinky club kid named Solo (Isaac Powell), there’s too little here to distinguish the film from endless other broken-family dramas that have gone before.
There’s even less to put it on a level with standouts like Kramer vs. Kramer, The Squid and the Whale or Marriage Story.
Bill Oliver’s Our Son boasts solid lead performances from Luke Evans and Billy Porter as the dads whose life together has hit a wall, plus a capable supporting cast stacked with talented theater actors. The movie is tasteful and restrained and sensitively handled at every step. But unless you count one of the men finding post-breakup sexual distraction wrapped around a slinky club kid named Solo (Isaac Powell), there’s too little here to distinguish the film from endless other broken-family dramas that have gone before.
There’s even less to put it on a level with standouts like Kramer vs. Kramer, The Squid and the Whale or Marriage Story.
- 6/10/2023
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Watching a character make poor choices can be a trying experience, depending on the genre at hand. Seeing this in a comedy? Potentially hilarious. Observing similar acts in a drama? Quite possibly heartbreaking. The new drama Lost Girls & Love Hotels comes very close to going too far over the edge, but a tremendous central turn from Alexandra Daddario saves the day. Without her, it would have been a bleak and unduly trying experience. With her, it becomes a tough but compelling bit of cinema. By no means is it an easy one to watch, but armed with Daddario’s performance, there’s enough here to make it worthy of a slight recommendation. The movie is a character study, mixing some thriller elements into its drama. Margaret (Daddario) has found herself in Japan, living a duel life. By day, she’s an English teacher at a flight attendant academy, teaching a...
- 9/17/2020
- by Joey Magidson
- Hollywoodnews.com
Iram Haq’s What Will People Say won best director, Norwegian film, actor and screenplay.
Iram Haq’s What Will People Say triumphed at the Amanda Awards on Aug 18, winning the Norwegian national awards for best director (Haq), best Norwegian film in theatrical release, best actor (Adil Hussain) and best screenplay (Haq).
The film, a hit at festivals including Toronto, Les Arcs, AFI Fest and Goteborg, is about a Norwegian teenage girl who clashes with her traditional Pakistan-born parents.
Erik Poppe’s Utoya story U-July 22 won best actress and best supporting actress for newcomers Andrea Berntzen and Solveig Koløen Birkeland.
Iram Haq’s What Will People Say triumphed at the Amanda Awards on Aug 18, winning the Norwegian national awards for best director (Haq), best Norwegian film in theatrical release, best actor (Adil Hussain) and best screenplay (Haq).
The film, a hit at festivals including Toronto, Les Arcs, AFI Fest and Goteborg, is about a Norwegian teenage girl who clashes with her traditional Pakistan-born parents.
Erik Poppe’s Utoya story U-July 22 won best actress and best supporting actress for newcomers Andrea Berntzen and Solveig Koløen Birkeland.
- 8/20/2018
- by Wendy Mitchell
- ScreenDaily
Stars: Eili Harboe, Kaya Wilkins, Henrik Rafaelsen, Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Grethe Eltervag, Oskar Pask, Steiner Klouman Hallert | Written by Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt | Directed by Joachim Trier
Co-written and directed by Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier (Louder Than Bombs), this compelling psychological thriller is part coming-of-age drama and part supernatural chiller, layered with complex emotion and anchored by a superb central performance. Imagine an arthouse take on Carrie and you won’t be far wrong.
Thelma opens with a supremely unsettling prologue sequence, in which a father silently aims his rifle at his young daughter’s head while they’re out hunting deer. The story then jumps forward to find a now teenage Thelma (Eili Harboe) studying at Oslo university and having difficulty making friends, until she meets beautiful fellow student Anja (Kaya Wilkins) after suffering a severe seizure in the university library.
The pair quickly become close, with Anja introducing...
Co-written and directed by Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier (Louder Than Bombs), this compelling psychological thriller is part coming-of-age drama and part supernatural chiller, layered with complex emotion and anchored by a superb central performance. Imagine an arthouse take on Carrie and you won’t be far wrong.
Thelma opens with a supremely unsettling prologue sequence, in which a father silently aims his rifle at his young daughter’s head while they’re out hunting deer. The story then jumps forward to find a now teenage Thelma (Eili Harboe) studying at Oslo university and having difficulty making friends, until she meets beautiful fellow student Anja (Kaya Wilkins) after suffering a severe seizure in the university library.
The pair quickly become close, with Anja introducing...
- 2/28/2018
- by Matthew Turner
- Nerdly
Review by Matthew Turner
Stars: Eili Harboe, Kaya Wilkins, Henrik Rafaelsen, Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Grethe Eltervag, Oskar Pask, Steiner Klouman Hallert | Written by Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt | Directed by Joachim Trier
Co-written and directed by Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier (Louder Than Bombs), this compelling psychological thriller is part coming-of-age drama and part supernatural chiller, layered with complex emotion and anchored by a superb central performance. Imagine an arthouse take on Carrie and you won’t be far wrong.
Thelma opens with a supremely unsettling prologue sequence, in which a father silently aims his rifle at his young daughter’s head while they’re out hunting deer. The story then jumps forward to find a now teenage Thelma (Eili Harboe) studying at Oslo university and having difficulty making friends, until she meets beautiful fellow student Anja (Kaya Wilkins) after suffering a severe seizure in the university library.
The pair quickly become close,...
Stars: Eili Harboe, Kaya Wilkins, Henrik Rafaelsen, Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Grethe Eltervag, Oskar Pask, Steiner Klouman Hallert | Written by Joachim Trier, Eskil Vogt | Directed by Joachim Trier
Co-written and directed by Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier (Louder Than Bombs), this compelling psychological thriller is part coming-of-age drama and part supernatural chiller, layered with complex emotion and anchored by a superb central performance. Imagine an arthouse take on Carrie and you won’t be far wrong.
Thelma opens with a supremely unsettling prologue sequence, in which a father silently aims his rifle at his young daughter’s head while they’re out hunting deer. The story then jumps forward to find a now teenage Thelma (Eili Harboe) studying at Oslo university and having difficulty making friends, until she meets beautiful fellow student Anja (Kaya Wilkins) after suffering a severe seizure in the university library.
The pair quickly become close,...
- 11/3/2017
- by Guest
- Nerdly
As the ice flows thaw in the 24-hour daylight of a northern Norwegian summer, so too does the relationship of a father and son in Thomas Arslan’s Bright Nights, a consciously meditative but rather straightforward three-act road movie that takes just the bare minimum of plot points along for the ride. Combining an ambient use of imagery and music with a simple and sparse approach to dialogue, Arslan’s seventh feature as director might remind the viewer of the work of a small group of American independent filmmakers who broke out in the mid-to-late 2000s who were, at the time, collectively referred to as the neo-neo-realists by New York Times critic A.O. Scott. Indeed, you can see much of the work of Ramin Bahrani and Kelly Reichardt on display here, though, crucially, not their most profound gift as filmmakers: being able to divulge a great deal about a character...
- 2/13/2017
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Director: Ruben Östlund; Screenwriter: Ruben Östlund; Starring: Johannes Bah Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Vincent Wettergren, Clara Wettergren, Kristofer Hivju, Fanni Metelius; Running time: 120 mins; Certificate: 15
The latest striking, singular foreign film to fall prey to the clutches of Hollywood remake artists, Swedish director Ruben Östlund's Force Majeure is a gloriously uncomfortable deconstruction of masculinity and cowardice.
A middle-class Swedish family holidaying in the Alps find their picture-perfect facade beginning to crack after a not-quite-brush with mortality. During lunch at a mountaintop restaurant, a seemingly distant avalanche crashes down over the terrace and envelops everything in sight. It's a deftly executed exclamation mark of a scene, and sets in motion the almost unbearably quiet domestic drama that follows.
The disaster movie setup rapidly gives way to something much pricklier and more gripping - as it turns out, the avalanche is at a safe distance from the restaurant, but it leaves chaos in its wake nonetheless.
The latest striking, singular foreign film to fall prey to the clutches of Hollywood remake artists, Swedish director Ruben Östlund's Force Majeure is a gloriously uncomfortable deconstruction of masculinity and cowardice.
A middle-class Swedish family holidaying in the Alps find their picture-perfect facade beginning to crack after a not-quite-brush with mortality. During lunch at a mountaintop restaurant, a seemingly distant avalanche crashes down over the terrace and envelops everything in sight. It's a deftly executed exclamation mark of a scene, and sets in motion the almost unbearably quiet domestic drama that follows.
The disaster movie setup rapidly gives way to something much pricklier and more gripping - as it turns out, the avalanche is at a safe distance from the restaurant, but it leaves chaos in its wake nonetheless.
- 4/10/2015
- Digital Spy
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