Daniel Garber talks with Molly McGlynn about Fitting In
Photo by Jeff Harris.
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
Lindy is a 16-year-old girl living with her single mom who recently moved back to the small city and home her mother grew up in. She’s beautiful, smart and personable, and fits right in at her new school. Soon she has a best friend, a place on the track team, and a potential boyfriend she really likes. But everything falls apart when she discovers she has a rare medical condition called MRKH: she was born without a uterus and a smaller vagina. Which makes it impossible to 
have conventional intercourse with her boyfriend. She’s facing a crisis but is terrified of telling anyone about it. Can her doctor’s gruelling regimen allow her to return to “normalcy”? And will she ever fit in with heteronormative standards?
Fitting In is a funny, endearing and delightful new dramedy, a coming-of-age story about a teenaged girl learning to accept her body. It’s directed by award-winning filmmaker and writer Molly McGlynn, known for movies like Mary Goes Round, and TV shows including Working Moms and Grown-ish.
I spoke with Molly McGlynn in person at #TIFF23.
Fitting In opens in Canada on February 2nd.
Girls. Film reviewed: Ru, Totem, Four Daughters
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
There are lots of movies for girls about princesses, fairies and Barbie dolls, but not many about girls as, well, girls. This week I’m looking at three great new movies about girls and young women. There are four sisters in Tunisia, a Vietnamese girl arriving in 1970s Quebec, and a seven-year-old girl in Mexico going to a strange birthday party.
Ru
Dir: Charles-Olivier Michaud
It’s a small town in Quebec in the 1970s. Tinh (Chloé Djandji) is a young girl who has just arrived with her family in Canada. She feels strange, alienated and out of place. A tiny home in small-town Quebec is totally different from the luxurious mansion they lived in in Saigon. It’s also nothing like the leaky ship and the wretched refuge camps she lived through afterwards. (Her family is part of the so-called “boat people” who fled South Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975.) Luckily, her family is befriended by the Girards who are helping them adjust to life in Quebec, introducing them to snow, tapping maple syrup and eating peanut butter on toast. And they have a daughter Tinh’s age she can play with. The problem is, Tinh can’t speak French, just Vietnamese. Her parents can — they were well to do and educated in French when Indochina was still a French colony. But the courses are starting to make sense. And she enjoys hanging out at the only Chinese restaurant in town, run by a Haitian man, and listening to the harrowing stories of other Vietnamese refugees (dramatized on the screen). But will she ever adjust to this new — and very different — life?
Ru is a fictionalized retelling of novelist Kim Thúy’s 
childhood. It’s a new — and very different – look at the immigration experience from what you usually see. The film only covers her first few months in Quebec but packs a huge amount of story in that small space. It also shows, through flashbacks, her life in Saigon, and the frightening period she spent at sea. It also riffs on life in Quebec, some funny, others sad. A couple of the scenes struck me as jarring. Tinh is haunted by the killing of a bread vendor she witnessed, but in the movie she’s calling out “bread for sale” but carrying flowers, not bread. (Is this a deliberate aesthetic move by the director or just an editing mistake?) And “moving still photos” was a new gimmick in Quebec film about 15 years ago but looks dated now. Otherwise, though, RU is a fascinating, warm and engrossing look back in time.
I quite liked this one.
TOTEM
Wri/Dir: Lila Avilés
It’s present-day Mexico. Sol (Naima Senties) is a seven-year-old girl getting ready for a big party. She puts on a multicoloured fright wig and a clown’s red nose before her mom drops her off at her grandfather’s house. There will be food and drinks, music and performances, cake and presents, and lots of friends and relatives. She quietly takes it all in. Her bratty cousin Esther cuts up money with a pair of scissors. One neurotic aunt burns the cake she’s baking. Her grandpa — a psychiatrist — is busy pruning a Bonsai tree. Sol wanders off to explore nature, making friends with the snails and beetles she meets. But underlying it all is a dark, unspoken thought that makes everyone tense and depressed. This party is for her Dad (Mateo Garcia Elizonda) a young artist. He’s dying of cancer, and can barely get out of bed. Will he make it outside to the party? How will people react? And what will happen afterwards?
Totem is a lovely movie about a happy and sad party as seen through the eyes of a little girl. It paints a vivid picture of an eccentric, middle-class family in Mexico. It’s filled with realistic details — not the kind that are thrown into a film to make it look quirky or twee; it seems like a real-life family here. Visually, it’s intimate and close up, using a hand-held camera in confined, and sometimes obstructed, spaces. The dialogue is ongoing, but the point of view is constantly changing. And in its tribute to Mesoamerican culture, red, yellow and terra-cotta colours, and Aztec animals, swirls and suns fill the screen.
Totem is a wonderfully happy-sad story.
Four Daughters
Dir: Kaouther Ben Hania
Olfa is a single mom in Tunisia with four beautiful daughters: Ghofrane, Rahma, Eya and Tayssir. There here to tell us about their remarkable lives. Olfa grew up without her dad so functioned as the protector of her sisters. She cut her hair short and dressed like a boy to stop gangs of men from invading their home. She later married a good-for-nothing man she only slept with once a year to have another kid. He didn’t stay very long either when he only had daughters. The girls take different paths. Some become rebels. One dresses like a goth. Another has a boyfriend without her mom’s approval. She spanks her daughters when she thinks they’re going overboard. But when Olfa goes to Libya to earn a living — she’s the only one supporting the family — things start to fall apart, and two of the daughters disappear. What happened and what led them to their strange fate?
Four Daughters is a really unusual docu-drama that retells Olfa and her daughters’ real stories, and then acts them out for the screen. The two younger ones play themselves, but the two older ones are played by actresses (Ichraq Matar and Nour Karoui) because Ghofrane and Rahma aren’t there anymore (no spoilers). And Majd Mastoura plays all the male characters, including Olfa’s lover, a fugitive who escapes from prison during the Tunisian Revolution in 2010. It’s sort of an experimental film that never lets you forget the scenes you’re seeing are true, but not real; they’re recreations. The mother or the sisters themselves are often giving directions to the actresses on camera so they do the scene accurately. But though they are constantly breaking the fourth wall, it still manages to be a shocking and emotional journey through 
their lives. It deals in depth with family, ostracism, puberty, sex, sexism, feminism, violence, men, religion and pop culture in the Arab world like you’ve never seen it before.
Four Daughters is a gorgeous and fascinating film about women in Tunisia, before and after the revolution. It’s a thousand times better than any “reality show.”
Ru and Totem both open this weekend, with Four Daughters — which has been nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar — is on at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Women at work. Films reviewed: I.S.S., Memory, The Teachers’ Lounge
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
In traditional movies (and even contemporary ones) men are typically portrayed at work with women at home. But that’s not real life for most people. So this week I’m looking at three new movies about women around the world at work. There’s a social worker in New York who meets a man with dementia; a teacher in Germany with a rebellious student; and an astronaut in space interacting with cosmonauts.
I.S.S.
Dir: Gabriela Cowperthwaite (review: Our Friend)
It’s present day in the thermosphere. Kira (Ariana DeBose) is a biologist on board the international space station, manned equally by Russians and Americans, an example of world peace, scientific cooperation and mutual respect. It’s her first day in space, and she feels weird and queazy living without gravity. She does love the cake and vodka, though. The space station has a ramshackle feel to it, with exposed wires and old video screens, but gets used to it pretty soon.
She’s there to conduct experiments on mice, alongside her Russian counterpart Alexey (Pilou Asbæk). Also on board are Gordon (Chris Messina) a moustached astronaut, and Christian (John Gallagher Jr.) a US Air Force officer; and on the other team, the beautiful and glamorous cosmonaut Weronika (Masha Mashkova) and Nicolai (Costa Ronin), representing the Russian military. Gordon and Weronica — who seem especially close — are impressively bilingual, while the rest get by with broken English and Russian.
In honour of her first day in space, Kira’s teammates show her something very few people have ever seen: a view of the peaceful, blue planet without conflict or national boundaries. But everything changes a few days into her voyage, when communication breaks with earth and secret messages arrive to both teams: Since the US and Russia are in conflict on earth, they’re ordered to seize control of the space station…by any means necessary. What is really happening down there? Can international friendship override their planetary orders? Or is the space station doomed?
I.S.S. is a classic, smart, sci-fi space opera with a contemporary twist. The acting is not bad, though I had trouble distinguishing between the two Russian men who have similar builds, faces and brown beards. And at the beginning of this movie, the non-gravity scenes looked very fake. But after a few minutes everything looked normal again. I liked the taut structure of the film, the constant tension, and the shifting if alliances among the six players. The film also takes you out of the ship, into an unplanned and untethered journey in space. There’s even a guest appearance by the famed Canadarm, but this one was clunky and concrete and a little bit dangerous. With geopolitics as fragile as they are these days, this film’s themes seem especially appropriate. While there is some violence, ISS kept me interested the whole time.
Memory
Wri/Dir: Michel Franco
(review: New Order)
Sylvia (Jessica Chastain) is a social worker in New York at a home for adults with mental disabilities. Sylvia goes to AA meetings regularly; she’s stayed totally dry since the year before her 13-year-old daughter Anna (Brooke Timber) was born. They occasionally spends time with Sylvia’s sister Olivia’s family (Merritt Wever), but she’s very protective; she doesn’t want Anna to start drinking, smoking or taking drugs with her cousins. One evening, heading home after a high school reunion, she notices a man looking at her. He follows her home from a distance and spends the night outside her door in the pouring rain. Who is he and what is their connection? His name is Saul (Peter Sarsgaard) and — according to the card he wears around his neck — his emergency contact is his brother Isaac (Josh Charles).
Sylvia painfully remembers Saul as part of a group of older boys who sexual abused her when she was still in Junior High. It was one of a number of incidents that drove her to the alcoholism and depression she still carries with her. She agrees to meet him in the park so she can make him answer for his crimes. But to her chagrin she learns he has severe memory loss caused by early-onset dementia. She also 
discovers — through a third party — that he could’t have attacked her; he hadn’t even moved to that area yet when the incidents she remembers took place.
Later, Isaac hires her as a part-time caregiver — he says Saul never stops talking about her. She’s just supposed to keep him company in his home and make sure he doesn’t wander away. This puts them in a strange situation. He clearly likes her… but does she have feelings for him? And what will happen if their relationship changes from caregiver/patient to lovers?
Memory is a terrific drama about two troubled adults learning to understand each other despite their own deficits. It’s filled with shocking plot turns and secret revelations that totally change your perception as it goes. But through it all, the heart and warmth of the main characters always comes through. I wanted to see this because it’s by the fantastic Mexican filmmaker Michel Franco (the stunning New Order in 2020), but this one is totally different. While it also deals with issues of class, crime and family, it is as thoughtful and complex as New Order is hair-raising and revolting. Memory comes through as an unexpectedly powerful film while retaining a lightly playful and always unpredictable core.
Really interesting movie.
The Teachers Lounge
Co-Wri/Dir: Ilker Çatak
A public school in present-day Germany. Frau Nowak (Leonie Benesch) is a new, Grade 4 teacher, and her kids just love her. She has them instantly clapping twice when noise gets out of hand, and chanting answers to her when she poses daily questions. She does trust games, physical exercises and is always positive, but doesn’t let cheaters get away with it. She also encourages the kids to be creative in problem solving, especially, Oskar (Leonard Stettnisch), clearly the smartest kid in the class.
Between classes, she rests in the teachers’ lounge. But there’s trouble brewing. Someone is stealing cash from other kids’ wallets, and her students are forced — not by Frau Nowak — to point out potential suspects, who are pulled out of class by the admin. This leads to a feeling of distrust and tension. She thinks the problem isn’t with the kids, it’s with grownups — she sees teachers pilfering money from the coffee fund piggy bank. So one day she deliberately leaves her wallet in her jacket and steps out with her laptop set up to tape everything while she’s gone.
Sure enough, she notices some of her money is missing, and an arm (though no face) in a distinctive blouse is recorded reaching into her pocket. She privately confronts a woman wearing the same blouse that day and demands her money back. The woman Frau Kuhn (Eva Löbau) vehemently denies it. She’s a longtime staff who manages the school office, while Frau Nowak is a newcomer. The case goes to the principal’s office and Frau Kuhn is put on leave. The problem is, Oskar — the top student — is Frau Kuhn’s son. And he demands Frau Nowak publicly apologize for lying about her mom — or she’ll
regret it. The news goes viral among the students, staff and even the parents, till it spirals out of control. Can this problem ever be resolved? Who, if anyone needs to apologize? And what will happen if they don’t?
The Teachers’ Lounge is a fantastic drama that explores school life from a dozen angles. While the story is told from Frau Nowak’s point of view, it brings in tons of distinct characters, from the kids in her class, to the journalists at the school paper, to the complaining parents, the gossipy teachers, the bullies, the teachers pets, and the ordinary students just trying to fit in. Leonie Benesch is amazing as Frau Nowak, as she struggles to maintain control while doing the right thing as she sees it, even as she sees her students’ trust crumbling around here. This is a realy great movie, deep, realistic, moving and really well-acted. It’s Germany’s entry as best foreign language film at the Oscars, and I can see why.
Excellent movie.
Memory, I.S.S., and The Teachers’ Lounge all open this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. And for some great new Canadian films, shorts and docs, be sure to check out the Milton Film Festival next weekend, January 26-28 at the FirstOntario Arts Center, in Milton.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Current cinema. Films reviewed: Destroy All Neighbours, Freud’s Last Session, T.I.M.
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s “award season” when prizes are handed out to the best — or most widely publicized — movies. But not every film is prestigious or a blockbuster. So this week, I’m looking at three new movies — one each from the US, Ireland and England — that might otherwise fall through the cracks. There’s a robot with human traits, a music producer turned serial killer, and a psychoanalyst talking about God.
Destroy All Neighbours
Wri/Dir: Jonah Ray Rodrigues
William (Jonah Ray Rodrigues) lives in a rundown apartment with his girlfriend Emily (Kiran Deol) a lawyer. He’s tall, skinny, and wears unfashionable clothes and nerd glasses. He works in a studio at the soundboard, helping bands record their music. But sometimes he feels like he’s just a knob- turner, going through the motions. His real passion is recording the ultimate prog-rock album, and is constantly coming up with new ideas, but never finishing it. Emily encourages him to give up and move on, but he feels he has to do it. But he’s getting more and more tired and frustrated by the people around him. At work, his boss is constantly ragging him for being late. And the latest client, Caleb Bang Jansen is insufferable. Even the panhandler where he parks his car is getting on his nerves. At home, Eleanor, the elderly pothead superintendent (Randee Heller) is constantly calling him for help with the fuses. Another neighbour, Phillip, lets his pet pig roam the halls. But worst of all is the new tenant next door. Vlad (Alex Winter) is hideously ugly, aggressive and incredibly loud, playing non-stop euro disco all night long. Vlad lifts weights using buckets of cement attached to his barbell. He’s a scary guy, William is passive aggressive and terrified of face to face confrontations.
When he finally visits Vlad to ask him to turn down the music, they get in a fight and somehow Vlad ends up impaled on a stake, and — accidentally — decapitated! 
William doesn’t know what to do, but finally realizes he has to dispose of the body. But things have changed since Vlad — new bodies keep piling up — always killed unintentionally by him, by strange coincidences. He becomes a serial killer by default, or a serial manslaughterer, as he likes to say.
But when the all the people he killed come back to life, he realizes something really strange is going on. Can William keep his boss and girlfriend happy, record his prog rock album, stop killing people, and living a normal life? Is he destined for a very dark future? Or is he just losing his marbles?
Destroy all Neighbours (the title says it all) is a comedy/horror movie, with an emphasis on in-your-face, gross-out humour. So there’s lots of disgusting blood and 
gore, but it’s always so exaggerated it’s funny, not scary, in the manner of Monte Python or Army of Darkness. Jonah Ray Rodrigues is the writer/ director/star and the current host of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. I admit it’s an acquired taste, and some of the gags and schtick fall flat, but I was laughing more than not. I happen to like that kind of humour (in moderation) but, admittedly, it’s not for everyone. So if you’re into bloody horror-comedy set in L.A.s skid row, or even if you’ve ever had annoying neighbours, I think you’ll love Destroy all Neighbours.
Freud’s Last Session
Co-Wri/Dir: Matt Brown
It’s September, 1939. Germany has invaded Poland and Great Britain is about to go to war. Sigmund Freud (Anthony Hopkins) and his daughter Anna (Liv Lisa Fries) left their homes and vocations in Vienna after the Anschluss — the unification of Austria and the Third Reich, and moved to London. His office is decorated with the art and bric-a-brac of home: Persian rugs, African fertility statues and Catholic saints. Anna continues to research and give lectures on psychoanalysis and child psychology, but Sigmund, due to his age (he’s 83) and poor health (he’s dying of cancer) rarely leaves his home now. But on this day he has an unusual visitor: CS Lewis (Matthew Goode). Lewis is a don at Oxford where he teaches English and has written a book about Pilgrims Progress. (He later goes on to write The Chronicles of Narnia.) And he’s still suffering from shell shock from WWI. But why are they meeting? Lewis wants to talk with Freud about God and religion. He once was an atheist but now has adopted theism and Christianity as his guiding light. Freud, on the other hand, is a committed atheist and finds all religions equally fascinating and equally false. Still, they have a spirited discussion on a wide range of issues. But certain topics are taboo. For example, Freud refuses to talk about the fact that Anna has a female lover. And Lewis considers his own sexual relationship with his late best friend’s mother as something too private to share. Meanwhile, air raid sirens are going off, Freud is struggling with the oral prosthetic he calls his “Monster” and nobody knows what the future will bring. Will this be Freud’s very last session?
Freud’s Last Session is a fictional historical drama adapted from the successful stage play. There’s no evidence that an elderly Freud and a younger Lewis ever actually met; the story functions more as an intellectual exercise than a theatrical drama. So it’s not captivating, but it did keep my attention. They try to perk it up a bit with flashbacks — Lewis in the trenches in WWI; Freud as a small child — but I found them lacklustre at
best. There are some clever touches, where Freud ends up reclining on the settee while Lewis takes on the analysts role. Of course it has nice period costumes and sets, but the main reasons to see this film is first the topics and second the acting. The topics range from sex to psychoanalysis to theology. Devotees of Freud and/or Lewis may get a kick out of it, but no major revelations here. The acting, though is delightful. Hopkins walks through his usual role — along with a few artfully-placed wunderbars and ja ja ja and das ist gut! so we don’t forget he’s Austrian. Goode is more passionate, fearful and sad. Best of all is German actress Liv Lisa Fries (from Babylon Berlin) as Anna Freud, who gets to rush around London looking for meds for her Dad.
Freud’s Last Session is not bad, but not noteworthy, either.
T.I.M.
Co-Wri/Dir: Spencer Brown
Abi and Paul Granger (Georgina Campbell, Mark Rowley) are married, professionals, double-income, no kids, moving into a beautiful, modern home in rural England. It’s at the end of a long country road, with open staircases, glass walls and a huge garden, all paid for and arranged by Abi’s employer. She’s an engineer who specializes in AI robotic prostheses. She designs the human-looking hands of robots. Paul is currently unemployed, but is in line for a corporate position in London. They’re both looking forward to their first child, and are working hard at it each night.
Now this house is completely on the grid. Everything’s smart — smart windows, locks, heating, computers, lighting — all controlled through a central console, and co-ordinated with their smart watches and phones. The central console, though, is something her company invented. It’s a Technologically Integrated Manservant, T.I.M. for short, or just Tim. Tim (Eamon Farren) is a humanoid robot with perfect male features, blond hair, and artificial intelligence; he’s constantly learning. He’s a prototype: he can cook gourmet foods, do heavy lifting, play the piano, send and answer emails. Abi’s boss is adamant that all his employees have a T.I.M., so they can get rid of the bugs in the system before the upcoming release. Abi, loves her new toy, but Paul is less enthusiastic. Why did T.I.M. barge into their bedroom while they were making love? T.I.M. says Abi’s blood pressure and temperature had risen, he just wanted to make sure she was OK. But Paul suspects T.I.M. of spying on him. He thinks TIM sends messages to Abi whenever Paul visits Rose their only neighbour (Amara Karan), feeding Abi’s suspicious jealousies. And when he catches T.I.M. perving through Abi’s clothes, he knows something is very wrong. Is T.I.M. morphing into something bad? Can a robot even have feelings? And if things go wrong, who will Abi trust: Paul, the fallible human, or T.I.M., the perfect machine?
T.I.M. is a sci-fi thriller about the potential dire consequences of AI given a human form. This isn’t the first humanoid movie — there have been at least a dozen in the past few years — and some of the plot is predictable. And it does have that “pandemic movie feel” to it, with a tiny cast (just four main characters) located in an isolated country setting, but, in this case, it really works. It’s scary, it’s creepy, it’s interesting. It feeds on your worst fears about electronic devices communicating without your knowledge, and the possibility of the singularity, when humans will no longer be essential. I’m not familiar with any of the actors but the cast is good. The storyline is compelling, and most of all, the movie feels believable. So if you ever feel like your smart phone is a bit too smart, you’ll like this scary, sci-fi thriller. It’s a good one.
Freud’s Last Session opens this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings. Destroy All Neighbours is streaming exclusively on shudder.com, starting today; and T.I.M. is now available digitally and on V.O.D.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.
Dark movies. Films reviewed: Night Swim, The Zone of Interest, All of us Strangers
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
With winter comes grey skies and cold winds that can chill you to the bone. So this week I’m looking at three new movies with a dark theme. There’s an evil swimming pool, a Nazi Commandant, and a man visiting his parents… who died decades earlier.
Night Swim
Co-Wri/Dir: Bryce McGuire
Ray and Eve Waller (Wyatt Hawn Russell, Kerry Condon) are moving into a new home in suburban Minneapolis-St Paul. Their two kids, Izzie and Eliot, are less than pleased to be moving again. Izzie (Amélie Hoeferle) is popular and athletic, so she’ll have no trouble making new friends, but her little brother Eliot (Gavin Warren) is shy and withdrawn. But they are all happy their new home has a huge, built-in swimming pool, whose water comes directly from an underground hot spring. Ray used to be a pro baseball player but was forced to retire because he has Progressive Multiple Sclerosis. He hopes exercise and physio will help him recover and return to pro ball, though his doctor thinks that’s unlikely. Until Ray starts to improve — with a great gain in strength and stamina — which Rayattributes to the waters in their pool. But all is not well in swimming pool-land. There’s something strange in those waters. Apparently, a little girl drowned there 30 years earlier. Next, Eliot’s cat disappers. And now everyone in the family is seeing creatures — and hearing voices! — when they spend too much time underwater. What is going on? Is this pool haunted? Do its waters hold magical powers? And can it be trusted around Izzie and Eliot?
Nightswim is a thriller/horror where the unlikely villain is a swimming pool. While the title “night swim” hints at skinny dipping (or other vaguely erotic plot devices) this film is strictly P.G. No sex, no nudity, just all around spookiness. Even Izzie’s crush is on a squeaky clean Christian swim club member. It’s all about families and little league. But is it scary? Maybe a little. There are some disturbing and violent scenes, but for the most 
Night Swim is not bad, but it’s not very scary, either.
The Zone of Interest
Dir: Jonathan Glazer
It’s the 1940s in Poland. Rudolph Höss (Christian Friedel) is a careerist member of the Nazi SS who is doing very well for himself. He lives a comfortable, middle class life in a nice suburban home with his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) and his daughter and two sons. There are attentive staff to serve their every need, along with all the luxuries of modern living. Rudolf is later transferred to an office job in Germany, but his family stays behind to enjoy their cherished home. He eventually is transferred back again and they continue to live their wonderful lives. Except there’s a twist. His job is Commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau, a death camp where 1.1 million people were being murdered.
But except for a few small hints of what’s going on inside the camp, it’s pretty easy for the Höss family to ignore all of that. The subtle hints include women fighting over newly-arrived stolen clothes; Rudolf having clandestine sex with a female prisoner; and human body parts floating past Rudolf and the kids while they bathe in the river. In one poignant scene the daughter plays a piano piece she found scrawled on a piece of paper by one of the prisoners. She leaves apples tucked into shrubbery by the wall in the hope of helping the music’s composer. But it all ends up with him and other prisoners killed because of what she did. And that scene is filmed using a green, night-vision camera, presumably from the point of view of the guards.
Zone of Interest is a drama about the lifestyles of the SS during the
Holocaust. It’s loosely based on a novel by Martin Amis, and wholly embraces Hannah Arendt’s concept of the “banality of evil” — that the men who carried out mass murder were just boring, ordinary bureaucrats. But it’s really about the supposition that everyone already knows everything there is to know about the Nazi death camps, so why not make a Holocaust movie all about the Nazis, instead. And Glazer (review: Under the Skin) does that very well. He’s an innovative and fascinating filmmaker. But let me ask you this: do you really want to spend one hour and 45 minutes watching a boring but creepy Nazi family living their mundane daily lives just outside of Auschwitz?
I sure don’t.
All of Us Strangers
Wri/Dir: Andrew Haigh (Lean on Pete, 45 Years)
Adam (Andrew Scott) is a guy in his forties who lives on the 27th floor of a new condo in London. He’s working on a screenplay. Adam is gentle quiet and a bit depressed. One night, when a fire alarm goes off, he has to step out of the building, and he realizes he’s the only one in the tower, except a man he sees in a window. Later, Harry (Paul Mescal) the guy he saw, shows up at his door. He’s a real charmer in his 20s, and talks his way inside. They chat, flirt, and eventually end up in bed together.
But aside from Harry and the script he’s writing, there’s something else on Adam’s mind. One day he spontaneously hops on a train out to the London suburb where he grew up. He walks to his childhood home and thinks he sees a boy in his old bedroom window. So he knocks on the door. And to his surprise, it’s his Mum and Dad (Claire Foy, Jamie Bell) still living in the same house. Except “living” isn’t quite right; they both died in an accident in the 1980s when he was twelve, 
leaving his as an orphan. But here they are, the same age as they were then, now younger than Adam is now, but still his parents. They don’t know how long they’ll still be there but they want to make use of this time. Could he take Harry to meet them? How will they react if he tells them he’s gay? Or is this just a fleeting dream?
All of us Strangers is a lovely fantasy drama about isolation and alienation vs family, companionship and love. It’s languidly paced and elegantly presented, though with a surprising end. It’s full of wide, panoramic sunsets, open fields, and empty parks. I’ve never thought of London this way, but in All of us Strangers, this city is nearly empty and 
full of natural beauty, seen through the window of his high-rise condo. From the excellent tiny cast — Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Claire Foy and Jane Bell — to the exquisite cinematography, this is a well-crafted film that manages to be —simultaneously — eerie, dreamlike and romantic.
I like this one.
The Zone of Interest is now playing, with Night Swim and All of us Strangers both opening this weekend in Toronto; check your local listings.
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.
Best Movies of 2023!
Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.
It’s almost the end of 2023 — good riddance! — so it’s time for my annual best movies of the year. Since I see so many movies every year, in order to keep my “best of” list to a manageable size, I don’t include animated films — such as the amazing The Boy and His Heron, and the very good Spiderman Across the Spiderverse. Nor do I include short films, or documentaries or TV movies, many of which are great. And I’m only including films that played either theatrically or as part of a film festival, and, of course, only films I’ve actually seen.
I am trying to include both indie and big-budget films, as well as genre films — comedy, romance, sci-fi, horror and fantasy — which are often given short shrift in lists like these.
The films I choose have to have be a good movie, but also have something special about them — shock value, surprise, novelty, great acting, important stories, or beautiful production values. Also keep in mind I always forget to include some films I love, and only remember after I record this — so my apologies in advance for leaving out some great movies. (I realized, immediately after taping, that I accidentally left out Monster from the first list, and Rotting in the Sun and May December from the second list; see below).
Some of these are already available on streaming sites, others are still playing in theatres, and a few have not yet opened.
Ok, with no further ado, here is my list of the best movies of 2023, in no particular order:
1 Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret,
Dir: Kelly Fremon Craig
is a nostalgic, coming-of- age story about a pre-teen girl who moves from New York to a small town in New Jersey. Based on the YA novel by Judy Blume.
2 Beau is Afraid
Dir Ari Aster
…is a complex, psychological fantasy about a man named Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) trying to leave the hell-hole he lives in to attend his rich but controlling mother’s funeral (Patti Lupone). Some people find this movie overwhelming, but that’s part of its attraction.
Talk to Me
Dir: Danny and Michael Philippou
Is a Australian horror movie about a teenager party game involving a mummified hand that takes users into a world between the living and the dead. This is one of the scariest movies I’ve seen in years.
4 The Holdovers
Dir: Alexander Payne
is a drama set in a New England prep school in 1969, where some students, a teacher and the cook are staying there over the Christmas holidays.It’s a compelling story with superb acting by Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph — primarily a stage actress — and Dominic Sessa in his first role.
5 The Movie Teller (La Contadora de Películas)
Dir: Lone Scherfig
…is a wonderful romantic melodrama set in a company town in a Chilean desert in the 1960s. It’s about a family who need to find a new source of income when their father is injured in a mining accident.
6 The Promised Land
Dir: Nikolaj Arcel
…is an epic, historical drama about a former soldier (Mads Mikkeksen) who is trying to tame the soil of unsettled Jutland, Denmark, but has to deal with a cruel aristocrat who wants total control.
7 Poor Things
Dir: Yorgos Lanthimos
… is a brilliant picaresque fable about an adult woman (Emma Stone) with an infant’s brain transplanted in her head, as she discovers sex, morality and economics in Victorian Europe.
8 The Anatomy of a Fall
Dir: Justine Triet
…is a gripping courtroom drama set in the French Alps about a middle aged writer (Sandra Hüller) who is accused of killing her husband who fell out of a window. It’s also an intensely moving story about a mother and her young, blind son.
9 The Nature of Love (Simple comme Sylvain)
Dir: Monia Chokri
…is a delightful comedy/drama about a married, bourgeois intellectual from Montreal who falls in love with a redneck building contractor who is renovating her cottage.
10 Green Border
Dir: Agnieszka Holland
… is a harrowing drama about a group of asylum seekers caught in a hellish cycle of deportation and abuse in the area between Poland and Belarus. A moving and intricate story told through the eyes of very different characters.
11 Showing Up
Dir Kelly Reichardt
…is a deceptively simple comedy about an irritable sculptor at an art college in Portland Oregon (Michelle Williams) who is trying to put on a one-woman show at a local gallery.
12 Killers of the Flower Moon
Dir: Martin Scorsese
…is an historical drama set in Oklahoma in the 1920s where the Osage nation discovers oil, but have to fight off the swindlers, criminals and murderers looking for their piece of the pie. This one stars Robert De Niro, Leonardo Dicaprio, and Lily Gladstone.
13 Fallen Leaves
Dir: Aki Kaurismaki
…is a dark romantic comedy about a working class man and woman in Helsinki whose paths keep crossing but — because a series of accidents — can’t seem to realize their destiny as lovers and soulmates.
14 Monster
Dir: Kore-eda Hirokazu
And here are the runners-up, which are more or less as good as the list I just finished:
1 Godland — a moving historical drama about Danish settlers in a remote part of Iceland
2 Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
A fantasy action/adventure based on the game
3 The Eight Mountains
A story of friendship in Piedmont Italy
4 Blackberry
The rise and fall of the Canadian cel phone company
5 Afire
A tragicomedy about a struggling writer in a summer home in Germany
6 Oppenheimer
Historical drama about the Manhattan Project and its aftermath
7 After the Fire
A Parisian-Arab family reacting to the police after the death of their brother.
8 Do Not Expect Too Much of the End of the World
A biting social satire about workplace injuries in Bucharest
9 Kidnapped
A melodramatic retelling of Pope Pius IX’s kidnapping of a 5-year-old boy in 19th century Bologna
10 Perfect Days
A simple story about a kind and loving man who works as a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo
11 Evil Does Not Exist
A remote town fighting back against a developer who wants to build a glamping spa — by the director of Drive my Car.
12 The Iron Claw
A biopic about the Von Erichs —a family of pro-wrestling brothers — plagued with misfortune.
13. May December
14 Rotting in the Sun
Once again, my top movies off the year:
Monster
Fallen Leaves
Killers of the Flower Moon
Showing Up
Green Border
The Nature of Love
The Anatomy of a Fall
Poor Things
The Promised Land
The Movie Teller
The Holdovers
Talk to Me
Beau is Afraid
Are you there, God? It’s Me, Margaret
This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website, culturalmining.
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