Girls Will Be Girls
Drama, Romance (Hindi)
In a strict boarding school nestled in the Himalayas, 16-year-old Mira discovers desire and romance. But her sexual, rebellious awakening is disrupted by her mother who never got to come of age herself. (more…)
Guild Reviews
Zebra
Crime, Action, Thriller (Telugu)
Surya is a street-smart bank employee, in a bid to protect his loved one, gets entangled in a complex multi-crore scam. He must do whatever it takes to prove his innocence.
Cast:
Satyadev Kancharana, Dhananjay, Priya Bhavani Shankar, Satya, Sathyaraj, Sunil Varma, Jeniffer Piccinato, Amrutha Iyengar, Suresh Chandra Menon, Pithamagan Mahadevan
Director:
Eashvar Karthic
Writer:
Eashvar Karthic
Satyadev’s financial thriller delivers the goods
Fri, December 20 2024
Weeks after Lucky Bhaskar, a tale of a bank employee whose greed nearly leads to his downfall, another film centred on financial fraud in the banking sector, Zebra, is out in theatres. Incidentally, Zebra also begins with a bank official instructing his subordinates, “We don’t want another Harshad Mehta.” However, the similarities between the films more or less end there.
Satyadev, Dhananjaya, Sathyaraj power an intriguing but convoluted cat-and-mouse game
Sun, December 1 2024
What is it with Telugu cinema and banking fraud? Within the past three weeks, we’ve had Lucky Baskhar, Matka, and now Zebra, which deals with banks, scams, heists, boyish charm, ticking clocks, tension-filled banks, middle class aspirations, and of course, references to Harshad Mehta. But, in a very weird way, all three films are as different as chalk and cheese thanks to the era the films are set in, the stars headlining the films, and the unique treatment. Zebra differs from both these movies despite having banking and scams at the centre of it because director Eashvar Karthic designs a protagonist who does what he does for others and not for individual gains, and most importantly, the adversary isn’t the system, but an individual.
Pace Makes Up For Flaws In This Heist Thriller
Sat, November 30 2024
Zebra, the film’s title, could denote the game the characters play with black and white money (they call it sugar) throughout the film. It could also mean the colour grey you get when the two stripes of the animal are mixed–which would be the moral tone of almost all the characters in the movie. Incidentally, that’s how you feel about the film as well. It is neither a smooth entertainer nor a problematic drag. In essence, Zebra is an over-the-top heist thriller that is more about entertainment and less about logic and other rational thoughts. As it gets the entertaining part right, it overshadows even its worst flaw.
Girls Will Be Girls
Drama, Romance (Hindi)
In a strict boarding school nestled in the Himalayas, 16-year-old Mira discovers desire and romance. But her sexual, rebellious awakening is disrupted by her mother who never got to come of age herself.
Cast:
Preeti Panigrahi, Kani Kusruti, Kesav Binoy Kiron, Kajol Chugh, Nandini Verma, Devika Shahani, Akash Pramanik, Aman Desai, Sumit Sharma, Jitin Gulati
Director:
Shuchi Talati
Writer:
Shuchi Talati
Kani Kusruti takes your breath away in one of the best films of 2024
Fri, December 20 2024
In an unspecified North Indian hilltown boarding school, a girl comes of age. That overused phrase ‘coming-of-age’ is a misnomer when it comes to mainstream Hindi cinema: the years between thirteen and eighteen are those where contradictory impulses leap between synapses, with mind and body taking off in opposite directions, and explorations of both taking you into spaces where you’ve never been before.
Shuchi Talati’s searing psychological drama is one of the best films of the year
Thu, December 19 2024
Like its protagonist, director Shuchi Talati’s Girls Will Be Girls is a constantly evolving entity. But behind an outer veneer of control, there is burgeoning angst, a simmering chaos, and a terrible desire to be seen and heard. The psychological drama played to an uncommonly interactive packed crowd at the Dharamshala International Film Festival recently — it was a bizarre screening that exemplified how important it is to watch movies in a community environment. Often, these experiences reveal more about society than the films themselves.
Asks to break the cycle of trauma.
Thu, December 19 2024
The Day of the Jackal
Drama, Action & Adventure, Mystery (English)
An unrivalled and highly elusive lone assassin, the Jackal, makes his living carrying out hits for the highest fee. But following his latest kill, he meets his match in a tenacious British intelligence officer who starts to track down the Jackal in a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase across Europe, leaving destruction in its wake.
Cast:
Eddie Redmayne, Lashana Lynch, Eleanor Matsuura, Chukwudi Iwuji, Úrsula Corberó, Adoney Díaz Barajas
Even Eddie Redmayne can’t elevate this empty adaptation of Frederick Forsyth’s assassin thriller
Thu, December 19 2024
Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne is at his slipperiest in The Day of the Jackal, the new mini-series based on the classic beach read by Frederick Forsyth. The book was previously adapted into a lithe (and largely faithful) movie back in 1973, but has been updated for a modern audience by series creator Ronan Bennett. The bones of the story — a cat-and-mouse chase between an assassin on a mission and a secret agent tasked with stopping him — remain the same, but Bennett’s attempts to flesh the narrative out are mostly unsuccessful.
Black Doves
Action & Adventure, Mystery, Crime (English)
When a spy posing as a politician's wife learns her lover has been murdered, an old assassin friend joins her on a quest for truth — and vengeance.
Cast:
Keira Knightley, Ben Whishaw, Sarah Lancashire
Classy and kinetic, Keira Knightley’s Netflix spy series is an unmissable romp
Thu, December 19 2024
In the almost criminally enjoyable new Netflix series Black Doves, Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw play a chic housewife and her gay best friend who just happen to be covert operatives. They straddle dual identities, as does the show, which can often juggle tones with the deftness of a circus performer. Black Doves is at once a complex espionage thriller, a cheekily humorous dark comedy, and when it needs to be, a dreary domestic drama. It soars on the strength of its two central performances, and writing that is both self-aware and endearingly sincere.
Emilia Pérez
Drama, Thriller (French)
Rita, an underrated lawyer working for a large law firm more interested in getting criminals out of jail than bringing them to justice, is hired by the leader of a criminal organization.
Cast:
Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, Edgar Ramírez, Mark Ivanir, Eduardo Aladro, Emiliano Hasan, Gaël Murgia-Fur, Tirso Pietriga
Director:
Jacques Audiard
Writer:
Jacques Audiard
Jacques Audiard’s audacious new film is like a cross between Chachi 420 and Dog Day Afternoon
Thu, December 19 2024
Did the French auteur Jacques Audiard watch Chachi 420 and feel inspired to make his latest film, Emilia Pérez? Stranger things have happened this year. Nick Jonas has celebrated Holi in Greater Noida, and Ed Sheeran has fried a batata vada with Sanjyot Keer. Is the idea of Audiard, a Palme d’Or-winning maestro, watching a Kamal Haasan rip-off really that outlandish? The genre-fluid mess that it is, Emilia Pérez certainly has origins in mainstream Indian cinema — it can go from Ekta Kapoor-style drama to Farah Khan-inspired musical in a matter of minutes. And like so many of our country’s films, its gender politics aren’t entirely above reproach.
Senna
Drama, Documentary (Portuguese)
Fascinated by cars since childhood, Brazilian racer Ayrton Senna became a sports legend — until tragedy struck, changing Formula 1 forever.
Cast:
Gabriel Leone, Kaya Scodelario, Matt Mella, Patrick Kennedy, Arnaud Viard, Steven Mackintosh, Camila Márdila, Marco Ricca, Susana Ribeiro, Gabriel Louchard
Director:
Vicente Amorim, Julia Rezende
Writer:
Gustavo Bragança, Alvaro Campos, Álvaro Mamute, Rafael Spínola, Thais Falcão
Spectacularly silly, Netflix’s big-budget mini-series is the cinematic equivalent of a flat tyre
Thu, December 19 2024
If nobody were to speak in the new Netflix show Senna, it would immediately warrant at least two extra stars. But each time any of its wafer-thin characters opens their mouths, you’re likely to be overcome by an intense desire to pump the breaks and make a pit stop, or perhaps rewatch Asif Kapadia’s seminal documentary on the subject. Based on the life and career of the legendary Brazilian Formula One driver Ayrton Senna, the six-part biographical drama is flat, uninteresting, and most criminally, boring. It is perhaps the least effective way in which his extraordinary career, and lasting influence, could’ve been commemorated.
Woman of the Hour
Crime, Drama, Thriller (English)
An aspiring actress crosses paths with a prolific serial killer in '70s LA when they're cast on an episode of "The Dating Game."
Cast:
Anna Kendrick, Daniel Zovatto, Tony Hale, Nicolette Robinson, Autumn Best, Pete Holmes, Kathryn Gallagher, Kelley Jakle, Matt Visser, Jedidiah Goodacre
Director:
Anna Kendrick
Writer:
Ian McDonald
Anna Kendrick’s inventive serial killer thriller takes stabs in the dark
Thu, December 19 2024
Sometimes, the wiser thing to do is to scale down. Not every film needs to be a sweeping epic, especially not one that demands a tight telling. Directed by the debutante Anna Kendrick, the darkly humorous thriller Woman of the Hour is based on an intriguing real-life story, but suffers from an under-confident execution. The movie would’ve worked wonderfully as a claustrophobic chamber piece, but feels compelled to jump across timelines and juggle between characters with an haphazardness that only does it harm. Kendrick is like an overeager Indian mum, checking the pressure cooker more often than she needs to, thereby releasing all the steam.
Anna Kendrick's Directorial Debut Is Powerful And Chilling
Sat, November 30 2024
The saying ’truth is stranger than fiction’ hits harder in films adapted from true-crime stories. The drama feature, Woman of the Hour, tells the unbelievable story of a serial killer who somehow ended up on a dating show as an eligible bachelor in the late 1970s. The shocking story is told by actress Anna Kendrick in her promising directorial debut that is sure to leave an impact.
Joy
Drama (English)
A young nurse, a visionary scientist and an innovative surgeon face opposition from the church, state, media and medical establishment, in their pursuit of the world’s first ‘test tube baby’, Louise Joy Brown.
Cast:
Bill Nighy, James Norton, Thomasin McKenzie, Charlie Murphy, Rish Shah, Cecily Cleeve, Eoin Duffy, Mariam Haque, Abbiegail Mills, Olivia Sellers
Director:
Ben Taylor
Writer:
Jack Thorne
Netflix’s melodramatic and manipulative IVF origin story is an Akshay Kumar remake waiting to happen
Thu, December 19 2024
A well-intentioned drama that teeters on the edge of self-parody, Joy is a film that absolutely deserved to be made, but certainly not in this form. Some years ago, the utterly forgotten The Current War had all the messy ingenuity that a film about the creation of literal electricity demanded — the movie’s tone captured the spirit of its themes. Joy, which dramatises the events leading up to the first in vitro fertilisation (IVF) birth, would have you believe that all conception — let alone that of the artificial kind — is a cakewalk.
The Piano Lesson
Drama, Music, Horror (English)
A brother and sister's battle over a prized heirloom piano unleashes haunting truths about how the past is perceived — and who defines a family legacy.
Cast:
John David Washington, Danielle Deadwyler, Samuel L. Jackson, Ray Fisher, Michael Potts, Corey Hawkins, Gail Bean, Jerrika Hinton, Stephan James, Skylar Aleece Smith
Director:
Malcolm Washington
Near-perfect Netflix drama finds John David Washington in incendiary form
Thu, December 19 2024
It is easy, one would imagine, for a filmmaker to be overwhelmed by the words of the great August Wilson. Especially if they’ve never made a film before. Musical and marauding, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright’s language is a vessel for the ambition and anger of his people. Netflix’s The Piano Lesson — the latest adaptation of Wilson’s celebrated Pittsburgh Cycle of plays — is directed by the debutante Malcolm Washington, whose father, the legendary Denzel Washington, has publicly devoted this stage of his career to shepherding Wilson’s work onto the screen.
The Teacher
Drama (Arabic)
A Palestinian school teacher struggles to reconcile his life-threatening commitment to political resistance with his emotional support for one of his students and the chance of a new romantic relationship with a British volunteer worker.
Cast:
Saleh Bakri, Imogen Poots, Muhammad Abed Elrahman, Stanley Townsend, Paul Herzberg, Mahmood Bakri, Andrea Irvine, Asmaa Azaizeh, Ruba Blal, Muayyad Abd Elsamad
Director:
Farah Nabulsi
Writer:
Farah Nabulsi
An honest portrayal of dehumanising oppression in Palestine
Tue, December 17 2024
A house, lived in for years, bulldozed by the Israeli military in front of its inhabitants, leaving behind a pile of tangible memories under the rubble. A youth resisting the burning down of an Olive orchard shot down by a settler with practised ease and nonchalance, just as if it were the most normal thing to do. Soldiers violently barging into every single home in a village in search of an Israeli military man who was abducted.
Young Hearts
Drama, Romance (Dutch)
14-year-old Elias increasingly feels like an outsider in his village. When he meets his new neighbour of the same age, Alexander, Elias is confronted with his burgeoning sexuality.
Cast:
Lou Goossens, Marius De Saeger, Geert Van Rampelberg, Emilie De Roo, Dirk van Dijck, Jul Goossens, Ezra van Dongen, Olivier Englebert, Olga De Saeger, Wim Opbrouck
Director:
Anthony Schatteman
Writer:
Anthony Schatteman
A heart-warming teenage gay romance
Tue, December 17 2024
Sometimes, the most gentle turns in a film can create a considerable emotional impact on the viewer. The filmmaker need not necessarily move a mountain to achieve that. Belgian filmmaker Anthony Schatteman’s Young Hearts, with its fresh take on teenage gay romance, is filled with several such moments that flow organically one after the other. Being screened in the World Cinema section at the 29th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK), this rather small film about young people has gained appreciation amid a flurry of bigger films boasting wider festival play.
Pierce
Drama, Mystery, Thriller (Mandarin)
Shy and sweet-natured Zijie spends his time learning the art of fencing and listening to his widowed mother, Ai Ling, sing at a local nightclub. When Zijie’s older brother Zihan – a three-time national fencing champion – is released from juvenile prison, Zijie remains intent upon seeing him, despite his mother’s wishes. As Zihan starts mentoring his younger brother, their bond strengthens. But as Zijie develops newfound skills as a fencer and a romance with his teammate blossoms, Zihan’s innocence becomes more questionable.
Cast:
Tsao Yu-ning, Hsiu-Fu Liu, Ding Ning, Rosen Tsai, Benjamin Tsang
Director:
Nelicia Low
Writer:
Nelicia Low
Nelicia Low’s worlds of movies and fencing come together seamlessly in her debut film
Tue, December 17 2024
While watching Pierce, the debut feature of former Singapore national fencer Nelicia Low, one would assume that the sport inspired the film, for fencing is at the very centre of the narrative which deals with brotherly affection and psychopathic tendencies. The trademark moves in the sport, which one character defines as chess played with swords, also parallels the behaviour of the characters in the film, screened in the world cinema section at the 29th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) on Saturday (December 14, 2024).