Tag Archives: SIFF Reviews

SIFF 2025: Color Book (****)

May 25, 2025 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted at Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 24, 2025)

Everyone processes grief differently. In the case of recently widowed Lucky (William Catlett) and his 9 year-old son Mason (Jeremiah Daniels) there lies an additional complication in the healing process: Mason is developmentally disabled and doesn’t appear to understand why his mother is no longer with them.

Now more than ever, Lucky’s paternal instinct drives him to bond with his son; and even if Mason isn’t registering the same emotional pain over their mutual loss, he wants to do everything in his power to be a comforting and reassuring presence for him. But Mason’s chief concerns remain steadfast: drawing in his coloring book and watching televised ball games.

Lucky hits on an idea to break the impasse: he’ll take his son to his first pro baseball game. It’s perfect…a father and son bonding experience that will make Mason happy and get both of them out of the house for a day. What ensues is a veritable Homeric journey across the Atlanta metro area, driven by Lucky’s determination to get his son to the ball park on time to catch the game, regardless of any number of obstacles.

They say there is beauty in simplicity, and this is a simple story, beautifully told. It’s an astonishingly assured debut for writer-director David Fortune, shot in black and white by cinematographer Nikolaus Summerer. A truly compassionate drama that keeps it real at all turns, capped off by two outstanding lead performances. Color Book is a must-see.

Neo-Noir

SIFF 2025: Sons (***)

May 25, 2025 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 24, 2025)

Danish director Gustav Mölle’s followup to his excellent 2018 debut The Guilty (my review) concerns a prison guard (Sidse Babett Knudsen of Borgen fame) who works at a maximum security facility. Taciturn and unflappable (especially in contrast to her quick-tempered, frequently brutish co-workers), her professional cool gets sorely tested when she learns that a dark figure from her past has been transferred to her facility. An intense, unflinching drama that takes the moral and ethical dilemmas of its protagonist head on, and an uncomfortable reminder that there is an equal capacity for good or evil that exists within us all.

Culture Clash, Drama, Family Issues, Road Movie

SIFF 2025: Boong (***)

May 25, 2025 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 24, 2025)

Boong (Gugun Kipgen) is a precocious Indian schoolboy who lives with his mother in a small, insular village where everyone is always up in everyone else’s business. Unflattering rumors have been flying regarding Boong’s absentee father, who has cut off communication with his family since migrating to a city in nearby Myanmar to find work. When there’s a pronouncement from a dubious source that his father has died, Boong refuses to believe it. He enlists his best bud and they hit the road to investigate.

Writer-director Lakshmipriya Devi’s impressive debut feature is a gentle family drama/road movie that offers a child’s-eye view of the sociopolitical complexities that fan ethnic and sectarian tensions along the border of India and Myanmar. Despite bittersweet undercurrents, Devi has fashioned a charming and ultimately touching coming-of-age tale.

Eco-doc, The Environment

SIFF 2025: Flamingos: Life After the Meteorite (***)

May 24, 2025 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

While the title of Lorenzo Hagerman’s film could suggest some kind of fantastical post-apocalyptic Planet of the Avians scenario, what actually transpires is an 83 minute meditation on the cycle of life and the delicate balance of the natural world.

Truth be told, a meteorite of fantastical size (6 miles in diameter) did smack the Earth around 66 million years ago (this would be the Big One that wiped out the dinosaurs). More specifically, it hit the northern region of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, which is where this documentary was filmed (over a 9-year period).

With gorgeous photography, minimal narration, and a cast of thousands (of Caribbean Flamingos), Hagerman lets the birds enact their own story, a la Winged Migration. A nice bit of eco-therapy for anyone looking to take a mental health break from the current news cycle.

Dramedy

SIFF 2025: Sorry, Baby (***)

May 24, 2025 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

Mumblecore is alive and well, as evidenced by SIFF’s Closing Night Gala selection. Written, directed and starring Eva Victor (who you may recognize from Showtime’s Billions) this dramedy is a sometimes meandering but generally affable portrait of an independent young woman’s long recovery in the aftermath of a traumatic betrayal of trust. Victor slowly reveals her character’s arc in episodic fashion, using a non-linear timeline. Solid performances all around in a story that chugs along at the speed of life. The film left me thinking about something Mr. Rogers once said…“Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” He was right, you know.

Journalism, Politics, Radio Biz, Thriller

SIFF 2025: Waves (***1/2)

May 24, 2025 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

While it is set on the eve of the 1968 Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, in some respects writer-director Jiří Mádl’s riveting political thriller could have been ripped from today’s headlines:

The administration of Donald Trump has terminated nearly 600 contractors at Voice of America (VOA), the US-funded international news network known for delivering independent journalism to countries with restricted press freedom.

The firings, announced on [May 15], appeared to defy a recent court order requiring the government to preserve strong news operations at VOA. The US president has criticized the news network and accused it of spreading “radical” content.

The cuts, announced on Thursday, affected mostly journalists along with some administrative staff and represented more than one-third of VOA’s workforce.

Among those dismissed are journalists from authoritarian countries who now face deportation, as their visas are linked to their jobs at VOA. […]

Kari Lake, a Trump ally and senior adviser at the US Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA, defended the decision as legally permissible. Lake had previously denounced the agency as “unsalvageable” and accused it of corruption without presenting evidence. […]

Senator Jeanne Shaheen, ranking member of the Senate foreign relations committee, issued a statement in response to the firings:

“The Trump administration’s gutting of Voice of America threatens access to independent media in places where it is needed most,” the statement reads. “It deeply weakens a critical and cost-effective tool of American influence and soft power. If Voice of America is silenced, PRC and Russian propaganda and lies will fill the void. To add more fuel to the fire, Kari Lake’s recent announcement that the Voice of America will now become a conduit for One America News Network is a gift to Russia and propagandists everywhere.”

Reminds me of a funny story (well…not “ha-ha” funny). In 1967 Prague, a young man named Tomás (Vojtěch Vodochodský) lives in a cramped apartment with his younger brother Paja (Ondřej Stupka). Tomás is Paja’s legal guardian. The conservative and apolitical Tomás is concerned about rebellious Paja’s increasing involvement with an anti-regime activist group. One day, he is chagrined to learn that Paja has sneaked off to an open audition for a job as an assistant to a popular but controversial radio journalist. Tomás rushes down to the station to intervene, but stumbles into landing the gig himself.

While he cannot foresee it, Tomás is about to get swept up into the vortex of tumultuous political upheaval in his country, culminating in the August 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia by Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces (the film is based in part on the rousing story of how Czech Radio managed to keep broadcasting, even after Soviet troops forced their way in and seized control of the main studios).

Waves plays like a mashup of Three Days of the Condor and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and is a welcome throwback to films that hit that sweet spot between historical sweep and intimate drama. Oh, and don’t forget to support your favorite independent journalists, because democracy dies in…well, you know.

Comedy, Cult Movie, Musical, Show Biz

SIFF 2025: Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers (**1/2)

May 24, 2025 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

Robert J. Kaplan’s long-“lost” 1972 cult indie starring the legendary Holly Woodlawn (immortalized in Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side”) has been restored in all of its…glory, by the Academy Film Archive. This was Warhol Factory alum Woodlawn’s third film (she had previously appeared in two of Paul Morrissey’s features).

Woodlawn plays “Eve Harrington” (first in a series of references), a naive Kansas farm gal who hits the Big Apple with ambitions of becoming a huge, huge star. She encounters a bevy of fellow wannabes and low-rung show-biz hustlers. While this suggests a dark and depressing tale (there’s a nod to Midnight Cowboy with a character named “Joe Buck”), no worries-because this is a musical (sort of).

This campy wallow in some of NYC’s seediest neighborhoods is pretty over-the-top (reminiscent of Ralph Bakshi’s 1973 animated feature Heavy Traffic) and anyone looking for a cohesive narrative need not apply, but there are some genuine laughs and a couple of decent songs (one sung by Bette Midler). Not for all tastes; I’d wager that fans of directors John Waters and/or Paul Bartel will fare best.

Comedy, Sci-Fi

SIFF 2025: Time Travel is Dangerous (**)

May 23, 2025 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

Chris Reading’s comedy-adventure about a pair of North London antique shop owners who stumble on a working bumper car time machine seemed to have the requisite elements that would put it right in my wheelhouse: I love British comedy, I love science fiction, and I especially love British science fiction comedies (e.g. Time Bandits, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Morons From Outer Space, The Mouse on the Moon)…but unfortunately it never quite gelled for me.

The story centers on two long time friends, Ruth (Ruth Syratt) and Megan (Megan Stevenson) who are in arrears with their landlord and in imminent danger of losing the lease on their vintage shop. When they discover they have the ability to time travel, they see dollar signs (imagine scoring antiquities in mint condition!). What they don’t foresee are the (wait for it) dangers of time travel (wormholes, the possibility of meeting yourself, changing reality, etc.).

Despite a promising setup and some amusement, the proceedings get progressively more cacophonous and disjointed- especially once one of the women gets trapped (along with the third act) in some kind of inter-dimensional purgatory called The Unreason.

It feels like a waste of a good cast, which includes seasoned British thesps like Brian Blessed, Jane Harrocks, and Stephen Fry (Fry narrates). By the time the credits began to roll I found myself wishing I could travel 99 minutes back in time before all this happened to me.

Conspiracy a-go-go, Documentary, Politics, True Crime

SIFF 2025: Suburban Fury (***)

May 23, 2025 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

Within a 17-day period in the early fall of 1975, President Gerald R. Ford survived two attempts on his life-both taking place in California. One could argue that the first would-be assassin, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme is the only one people remember, by virtue of her well-known association with the Manson Family.

The second shooter, Sara Jane Moore, has remained a relative cypher. For one thing, she wasn’t a member of a high-profile death cult, and in stark contrast to Fromme’s psycho daisy couture, Moore looked for all the world like a buttoned-down housewife who had strolled straight out of a John Cheever story (although in this case, a buttoned-down housewife armed with a .38 Special).

Not that she didn’t have a screw loose…which became apparent (to me) as Robinson Devor’s documentary unfolded. Mixing archival materials and a present-day interview with an evasive and truculent Moore (now in her 90s), Devor tries to piece together the jigsaw of her bizarre journey from suburban mother of four to FBI informant, self-proclaimed revolutionary and would-be presidential assassin.

Moore (released from prison in 2007, after serving 32 years) is too cagey to drop any real bombshells here, so her motivations remain foggy. What I found even more interesting than Moore’s story was the adjacent retrospective on a politically tumultuous period in San Francisco (e.g. Moore has a tie-in with the Patty Hearst debacle). Despite leaving a number of questions unanswered, Suburban Fury is nonetheless a worthwhile watch for political junkies and the curious.

Con Game, Culture Clash, Drama, Politics

SIFF 2025: Souleymane’s Story (***)

May 22, 2025 Dennis Hartley Leave a comment

By Dennis Hartley

Every minute of the next 48 hours of Souleymane’s life counts, because it will determine whether or not he will be granted the asylum he has been seeking in France. He’s barely scraping by, and has to bike around Paris day and night delivering food just to remain flush with his creditors. He has no legal papers, so he has to pay to work, forking over a fee to a fellow Guinean delivery man so he can “borrow” his identity.

Most importantly, he has a looming deadline to pay off the shady fixer who is selling him a new “story” he claims will be more likely to convince the authorities that Souleymane warrants asylum. Adding to his stress level, Soueymane has to memorize the extremely detailed narrative to a tee, or he’ll risk raising red flags for the well-seasoned bureaucrat he has been scheduled to meet with in just two days time.

Driven by a realistic lead performance by non-professional actor Abou Sangaré and imbued with a kinetic energy and sense of urgency recalling Run Lola Run, writer-director Boris Lokjine’s Souleymane’s Story is really the story of millions of émigrés all over the world who dream and strive for a better life.