Film Reviews by griggs

Sometimes directors take a hard left turn, and this one feels like Aronofsky loosening his collar. Known for psychological intensity and heavy allegory, he’s never gone near a fast-paced crime caper before. Caught Stealing is so far removed from his usual weighty style that I was hesitant going in, but what unfolds is fast, unruly, and surprisingly good fun.

The film rides on pure momentum. Scenes tumble into each other with a restless energy, violence sparking as quickly as the jokes land. It never settles long enough to feel safe, and that volatility is part of its charm. Aronofsky directs with a wink rather than a scowl, and the shift suits him.

Much of the pull comes from the cast. Performances are sharp, lived-in, and a little unhinged—characters who could have been clichés instead feel bracingly alive. Even when the story frays, the actors carry it, powering through with grit and sly humour. Caught Stealing may not be classic Aronofsky, but as a sidestep, it proves he can trade intensity for verve without losing his touch.

Adolescence is rarely pretty, and here it’s closer to a horror show. Welcome to the Dollhouse drops us into junior high hell through the eyes of Dawn Wiener, played with heartbreaking awkwardness by Heather Matarazzo. She nails every slouch, stare, and stammer, making Dawn’s humiliation feel both excruciating and real. It’s a pre-social media Eighth Grade of sorts, except the parents are just as clueless, petty, and self-absorbed as the kids.

Todd Solondz shoots it with a deadpan eye, finding bleak comedy in the everyday humiliations of being young and invisible. You can already sense the path he’d take later in Happiness—that fascination with the grotesque tucked inside the ordinary, the willingness to stare at ugliness without blinking. It’s often painful, sometimes funny, and occasionally both at once.

There are genius touches: moments of silence that give you space to breathe, then twists that make you laugh right in the face of misery. But as sharp as it is, the film feels more like a sketchbook than a finished canvas. Still, it struck a nerve on release, winning the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 1996. Welcome to the Dollhouse is brave and bitter, leaving a mark even when it pulls its punches.

Some noirs wear their nostalgia on their sleeve; this one bathes in it. Released just a year after Chinatown, Farewell, My Lovely doesn’t try to reinvent Chandler’s world so much as resurrect it. Robert Mitchum, decades on from Out of the Past, slips into Marlowe’s trench coat like it still fits. His gravelly narration and weary presence give the film its pulse—half confession, half shrug.

What really sells it is the look. Where Chinatown was sun-bleached corruption, this film is all smog and shadow, even when daylight creeps in. The production design doubles down on atmosphere, making Los Angeles feel less like a city of angels than a half-lit purgatory. It feels less neo-noir than a straight throwback with the benefit of colour and a bigger budget.

The story itself is well-built, though you’ve walked this street before, and not every twist lands with the bite it should. Still, Mitchum’s lived-in presence and the thick, smoky mood make Farewell, My Lovely a noir worth wandering into—even if the route feels familiar.

Some films grip you hardest when you don’t know where they’re heading. I went into Christine cold, and the story it tells blindsided me—the shock factor multiplied by ignorance. What unfolds is both tragic and uncomfortably human, a portrait of a woman out of step with her time and battling demons that go unrecognised until it’s too late.

Rebecca Hall is phenomenal here, carrying the film with a performance so precise and unflinching that it’s impossible to look away. She inhabits Christine’s intensity, her dry wit, her fragility, and the way she armours herself against a world shaped by misogyny and values that grind her down. The film handles mental health with care, never sensationalising, though it sometimes labours the point.

At just under two hours it feels a little long, the pacing sagging in places. Yet Hall’s presence keeps it compelling, her every glance and gesture pulling the story taut again. Christine is a tough watch, but it lingers—quietly devastating, and made unforgettable by its lead.

Some films test your patience; this one wears it down. In Praise of Love finds Godard deep in his late style—fragmented, elliptical, forever circling ideas of memory, politics, and love without much interest in clarity. Half the time you’re unsure what he’s saying, the other half you’re wondering if it was worth the detour.

The film splits in two: first, grainy black-and-white, then lurid digital colour. The contrast is jarring, but less profound than it seems—past and present crashing together in theory, though not always in feeling. Godard’s dialogue veers between lecture hall and diary entry, and while there’s an occasional glint of poetry, it often drowns in abstraction.

It isn’t exactly dull, but it is hard work. The rhythms drag, the pacing resists, and the reward feels slimmer than the effort. Every so often there’s an image that lands, but more often In Praise of Love drifts into static.

Some films test your patience; this one wears it down. In Praise of Love finds Godard deep in his late style—fragmented, elliptical, forever circling ideas of memory, politics, and love without much interest in clarity. Half the time you’re unsure what he’s saying, the other half you’re wondering if it was worth the detour.

The film splits in two: first, grainy black-and-white, then lurid digital colour. The contrast is jarring, but less profound than it seems—past and present crashing together in theory, though not always in feeling. Godard’s dialogue veers between lecture hall and diary entry, and while there’s an occasional glint of poetry, it often drowns in abstraction.

It isn’t exactly dull, but it is hard work. The rhythms drag, the pacing resists, and the reward feels slimmer than the effort. Every so often there’s an image that lands, but more often In Praise of Love drifts into static.

Some stories feel so rooted in reality that you have to remind yourself they aren’t documentaries. I Am Not a Witch blurs that line with startling ease, weaving satire, tragedy, and absurdity into a tale that never loosens its grip. It follows a young girl accused of witchcraft in Zambia, and the way her life is redefined by fear, superstition, and bureaucracy.

Rungano Nyoni’s direction is sharp and confident, balancing humour with heartbreak. The surreal touches—ribbons tethering the “witches,” ritualised punishments delivered with deadpan absurdity—land harder because they’re embedded in a world that feels so lived-in. There’s a constant sense of injustice, but it’s laced with irony rather than heavy-handed sermonising.

At the centre is a remarkable child performance: quiet, stoic, and utterly convincing. The film’s mix of satire and sincerity can be jarring, but that friction is part of its power. I Am Not a Witch makes its point with clarity and bite, leaving you unsettled, amused, and haunted all at once.

Some films aim for the cosmic, and this one shoots all the way past the stratosphere. The Fountain weaves three parallel stories—past, present, and future—each circling the same theme of love, loss, and the desperate attempt to outpace death. They’re designed to echo one another, a chorus of grief and resistance that’s as ambitious as it is overwhelming.

When the film stays grounded, there are flashes of something genuinely moving. The intimacy of two people facing mortality cuts deeper than the grand gestures, and there’s a tenderness in those quieter moments that lingers. But the further it strays into allegory, the more it risks collapsing under its own symbolism.

Visually, it can be stunning, with bursts of imagery that stick in the mind long after the plot has blurred. Yet the emotional weight is often smothered by repetition and abstraction. The Fountain is striking, bold, and haunting in places—but also heavy, elusive, and not half as profound as it wants to be.

Some films tiptoe around sensitive subjects; this one charges straight in, yet somehow never loses its balance. Sorry, Baby is a remarkable piece of work—engaging, disarmingly funny, and deeply unsettling all at once. It’s a story about trauma that refuses to flatten into tragedy, using humour as both a shield and a scalpel.

Eva Victor, who also writes, directs, and stars, comes across as a bold new voice. Her character’s sardonic wit is both armour and weapon, turning comedy into a self-defence mechanism. It won’t sit comfortably with everyone—there’s an edge to the humour that risks feeling too glib—but that tension is precisely what makes the film so striking.

What lingers is how carefully it balances tone. One minute you’re laughing at a barbed one-liner, the next you’re floored by the pain underneath. Few films manage to be this candid without collapsing under the weight of their subject. Sorry, Baby doesn’t just survive the risk—it thrives on it.

Sometimes the best thing about a film isn’t what’s on the screen but who you’re watching it with. The Roses played to a full house, and the crowd was primed—Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch had dashed in late, Colman sheepishly admitting she’d gone to the wrong cinema, before wrapping up an intro in under two minutes. 

The audience was warmed up and happy to lean into the jokes, which landed often enough to keep spirits high. The film itself is good fun: glossy, sharp in places, and for a portrait of a toxic marriage, oddly sweet-natured—more Cosmo Kramer than Kramer vs. Kramer.

If anything, Colman and Cumberbatch aren’t stretched; with their talent, they could have sleepwalked through half the scenes and you’d barely notice. That’s less a knock on them than on the material, which skates by on charm and plenty of jokes rather than depth. But as a night out, it worked.

Growing up fast is never easy, but in Fresh it’s a survival tactic. The film follows a twelve-year-old caught between schoolyard games and the deadly chess match of street life. He runs drugs, dodges dealers, and schemes with a cool detachment that’s both impressive and unsettling. There’s a methodical calm to it all, as if he’s already outgrown the childhood he barely had.

The story sets itself up like a thriller but plays more like a slow, grim puzzle. Each move Fresh makes—each lie, each trade-off—tightens the net he’s spinning around those who use him. At times, the plotting is a little too neat, the metaphor of chess hammered home with a lack of subtlety, but it still has a sting. The sense of inevitability weighs heavily, even when you see the moves coming.

What really lingers is the quiet. The performances are restrained, almost muted, which keeps the drama grounded but occasionally blunts its impact. Fresh is smart, well-constructed, and bleakly inventive, but it doesn’t always connect emotionally. Still, as portraits of childhood shaped by hard choices go, it’s a memorable one—cool, calculated, and just a bit too careful.

This one floored me. Anthony Quinn shuffles through as Mountain Rivera, a boxer too beaten to fight yet too proud to quit. The ring is closed, the money dried up, and the world outside has little use for broken men. His manager (Jackie Gleason, all charm and self-interest) pulls one way, his cutman (Mickey Rooney, unexpectedly tender) another, but the real fight is with dignity. Rod Serling’s script throws sharp jabs—wry one minute, gutting the next. Quinn is all bruised nobility, a giant who suddenly realises he’s small. It’s about what happens when the cheering stops, when the gloves are hung up and the spotlight moves on. The story fades out not with triumph or tragedy, but with a weary dignity that’s somehow harder to shake.

What stands out in Maangamizi: The Ancient One is the quiet restraint with which it handles material that could so easily tip into melodrama. Instead of outsiders imposing on Africa, it follows a doctor from the diaspora, armed with Western training, trying to help a patient who seems beyond reach. Science is her instrument, yet she moves through a world where healing is tied to memory, ritual, and spirits that appear not as spectacle but as steady, physical presences.

The effect is at once disorienting and calming. Viewers share the doctor’s uncertainty over what to believe, but the unhurried pace leaves room to notice the small things — the birdsong, the Tanzanian light, the space to breathe.

By the end, the question has shifted: is the woman in the ward truly the one who needs curing, or is it the doctor who must rediscover her ancestral ties?

Sometimes a film’s charm comes not from polish but from how much fun the cast seem to be having. Goin’ South is one of those. Jack Nicholson directs himself as a scoundrel saved from the noose by an unlikely marriage, and he leans right into a broad, almost commedia dell’arte style. Everyone sounds like they’re acting through a head cold, but that just adds to the absurdity.

The supporting cast is stacked — Christopher Lloyd, John Belushi, Danny DeVito — yet most of them barely get enough screen time to stretch. Still, they throw themselves into the silliness with gusto, playing it loose rather than heavy.

The real surprise is Mary Steenburgen in her debut. She owns the room without even trying, bringing wit and steel that cut through the film’s more slapdash moments. It’s messy, uneven, and hard to take seriously, but that’s also the point. A Western played for laughs rather than grit, and it gets by on sheer cheek.

What stands out most about Dark Passage is the way it plays with what’s shown and what’s withheld. The opening stretch unfolds entirely through Vincent Parry’s eyes, keeping Humphrey Bogart’s face hidden until after surgery. It could have felt like a gimmick, but instead it pulls the viewer into his paranoia, forcing them to piece together a city that seems ready to crush him. When his face is finally revealed, Bogart carries the scars and suspicion so naturally it feels inevitable.

Lauren Bacall is the film’s steady centre, calm yet razor-sharp, and her connection with Bogart feels more like fate than mere chemistry. The supporting players ooze menace, Agnes Moorehead especially, each encounter another snare being set.

San Francisco itself does much of the heavy lifting: staircases, skylines, and narrow rooms used like traps. The result is noir at its sharpest — stylish, tense, and grounded in enough humanity that the audience still cares who survives.