There is always the risk when turning a standalone horror film into a series that the core concept quickly wears thin, especially when such a firm narrative template has already been set. Smile 2 does not quite diverge from its predecessor’s steady, downward slide into tortured psychosis, and yet Parker Finn’s ambition has nevertheless grown, pushing his demonic metaphor for trauma into the realm of substance abuse and celebrity.
Pop star Skye Riley is the target of the smile curse this time around, suffering horrific visions throughout the week leading up to her comeback tour, which she rests her hopes for public redemption upon. It has been one year since her struggle with drugs led to the death of her boyfriend in a violent car accident, and although she has been on a path to recovery, bad habits are reemerging in the form of painkiller dependency and compulsive hair-pulling. It is initially easy to brush off her drug dealer Lewis’ erratic behaviour as a bad trip too, but after witnessing his bloody suicide via a gym weight to the face, it gradually becomes clear that the entity which haunted him is now threatening to send her reeling back into the dark, terrifying recesses of her mind.
We can see from the outset that Finn is swinging even harder stylistically here, as an 8-minute long take tracking police officer Joel’s attempt to deal with the curse picks up where the first film ended. We are hitched entirely to his distorted perspective, briefly passing by a hallucination of Rose’s burning body before entering a drug den where he intends to pass off the affliction. Every blunder here is heightened by the urgency of Finn’s camerawork, and when we finally make the leap to Skye’s point-of-view in the main storyline, these uneasy visual stylings barely let up. Close-ups narrow in tightly on Naomi Scott’s panicked expressions and flashbacks slice through in sharp cutaways, though even more chilling are their hallucinatory ingresses into Skye’s everyday life, stalking her wherever she goes with those stretched, sinister smiles.
This sequel’s shift to New York as the setting only adds to the malaise as well, flooding moody interiors with ambient lighting and turning the iconic cityscape into the subject of recurring, upside-down tracking shots. Although Skye is surrounded by people here, Finn is constantly emphasising her loneliness among crowds, leaving very few people she can turn to who don’t brush off her meltdowns as delusional relapses. Clearly the supernatural parasite knows how to play on this emotional isolation to feed on her suffering, taking the form of an obsessive fan severely overstepping boundaries, and later a troupe of grotesque, twisted dancers crawling in sync through her apartment.
Being the second film in the series, Smile 2 is also more liberated from the need for exposition, keeping the lore to a minimum while moving this story along through visual inferences and discomforting ambiguity. As Skye’s mental state rapidly declines, we begin to see the dysfunctional version of her that not only hit rock bottom a year ago, but which also claims a special place in her nightmares. That the smile entity chooses this as its most hostile form speaks deeply to her self-loathing, and perhaps at the root of her torment, it is this which keeps her from breaking free of its ruinous cycles.
Very gradually, reality slips from between Skye’s fingers, and Finn thrillingly paves the way to an apocalyptic finale which raises the stakes for a promising sequel. To relive one’s deep-rooted, psychological trauma is a frightening prospect on its own, and in Smile 2, he once again proves his ability to immerse us in that disorientating, self-sabotaging mindset. For it to be trivialised and gawked at on the world stage, however – that may be enough to shatter even the most ascendant of celebrities.
When journalist Catherine Ravenscroft first receives a mysterious novel called The Perfect Stranger in the mail, she is struck by the disclaimer – “Any resemblance to persons living or dead is not a coincidence.” The deeper she delves into the pages too, the clearer these resemblances become, and the revelations are deeply mortifying. Secrets she believed were buried deep in her past have been immortalised in ink for the world to see, and she immediately understands the threat it poses to every aspect of her stable, successful life.
This is only the start of widower Stephen Brigstocke’s plans for revenge though. The Perfect Stranger was written by his late wife Nancy, inspired by the grief she and Stephen both felt over the passing of their son Jonathan twenty years ago while he was travelling in Italy. They do not have a lot of information to go off, but after discovering erotic photographs of Catherine taken the night before his death, it doesn’t take long for them to reconstruct their version of events. To distil them into literary form, some truths may need to be twisted a little – but what good storyteller doesn’t smooth over such trivialities for the sake of a greater point?
Alfonso Cuarón’s unravels these layers with great patience in Disclaimer, keeping us from the reality of Jonathan and Catherine’s relationship until the final episode, yet the subjectivity of such accounts is woven into the series’ structure from the start. Two duelling voiceovers are established here – Jonathan’s speaking in first person, suggesting an inability to move on through its past tense reflections, and Catherine’s running an internal monologue via an omniscient, second person narrator. It lays bare the deepest thoughts of everyone in her family, but its direct, reproachful tone refers to her alone as “you”, as if framing her at the centre of a novel – which of course she very much is.
There is a third perspective here too, though one which takes the form of flashbacks rather than narration. This account belongs to the book itself, and by extension Nancy, who in her grief has desperately tried to make sense of her son’s profoundly unfair death. Cuarón wields excellent control over his non-linear storytelling to build intrigue here, particularly when it comes to the younger Catherine’s seduction of a stammering Jonathan and the provocative development of their holiday fling. With her husband Robert away on business, leaving her to care for their 5-year-old son Nicholas alone, this younger, unexperienced man seems like the perfect opportunity to escape the confines of marriage and motherhood.
At least, this is the version of Catherine that Nancy would like her readers to believe. As if to position us as observers looking through a peephole, Disclaimer uses iris transitions to formally bookend these flashbacks, effectively sectioning off this subjective rendering of events within their own idyllic bubble. In true Cuarón style, the camera romantically floats around Catherine and Jonathan’s interactions with tantalising intrigue, and grows particularly intimate when she finally ensnares him in her hotel room. Conversely, the cold detachment of his lingering shots in the present-day scenes underscore Stephen’s schemes and Catherine’s torment with a nervous tension, grimly witnessing the emotional isolation they have caused each other.
That Disclaimer possesses a greater command of cinematic language than most television series does not mean that it lives up to Cuarón’s own established standard though. It is far from the towering visual accomplishments that are Roma or Children of Men, and that it was shot by two of our greatest working cinematographers, Bruno Delbonnel and Emmanuel Lubezki, makes this all the more disappointing. Formal inconsistencies are infrequently scattered about, with episode 1 introducing flashes of lilac lighting that never appear again, and the final episode erratically falling into a zoom-heavy documentary style for a single scene.
Perhaps these flaws comes down to the challenge of sustaining such ambition over seven hours, though this then prompts the question of whether a series was even the right format for Cuarón’s story, particularly given the lagging pace of episodes 5 and 6. From there, the final stages of Stephen’s devilish sabotage and Catherine’s desperate attempts to salvage some dignity take the spotlight, carefully setting up the climactic collision of both characters in the finale.
Kevin Kline and Cate Blanchett’s performances are no doubt the highlight here, respectively capturing the roguish nihilism of a grieving misanthrope and the gut-wrenching trauma of a woman escaping his torment, though truthfully there is barely a weak link in Cuarón’s cast. Sacha Baron Cohen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Leila George are all given their moments to shine, while Lesley Manville in particular works wonders with her limited screen time as Nancy, subtly hinting at a bitter jealousy that transcends mere vindictiveness. As we follow the tangled threads of perspectives, not only are we led to challenge her biased presentation of Catherine and Jonathan’s characters, but Stephen too must question the foundation of his retribution – the conviction that his seemingly happy family held no responsibility for its own destruction.
After all, were those erotic photographs not just incomplete fragments of reality? And what is The Perfect Stranger if not Nancy’s disingenuous attempt to piece them together, assembling whatever pattern affirms her own assumptions? When Catherine finally gets a chance to speak about the events leading up to Jonathan’s death, her recollection is astonishing in its uncomfortably vivid detail, seeping through the flashback’s muffled sound design and visceral camerawork. Perhaps even more importantly though, it is also a complete shock to the beliefs we hold about virtually every single character, especially seeing Catherine’s implicating narrator latch on to another as they similarly face the inconceivability of their own redemption.
“Nothing can purify you. Nothing can absolve you. Ahead of you there’s nothing.”
What Cuarón leaves us with is more than just a lesson on the confounding subjectivity of storytelling. Disclaimer is a testament to the influential power of words themselves, granting us the ability to win sympathies, destroy lives, and even rewrite our own memories. There is little that can take them back once they have been put down in ink. Just as troubling as the guilt for what we have done is the shame over what we have said – and perhaps for those claiming to be passive witnesses in the matter, who we believed.
Disclaimer is currently streaming on Apple TV Plus.
When Marine Corps veteran Terry returns to the Louisiana police station where the $36,000 intended for his cousin’s bail has been confiscated, Chief Sandy Burnne and his colleagues are not prepared for the hell about to be unleashed on them. Jeremy Saulnier’s narrative has barely raised the heat past a gentle simmer up until now, matching Aaron Pierre’s cool performance with an equally composed pacing, though it is only matter of time before that patience wears thin. The police officers’ assumption that he lacks combat experience simply because he never served overseas during his military career is a dire mistake. Like so many action heroes of cinema history, Terry proves himself more than capable, using his unique set of skills and tactical wits to take down an entire squad.
Still, vengeance does not arrive through bloody carnage for this veteran. Violence is merely a non-lethal means to an ends, and so despite its proliferation in Rebel Ridge, the total fatalities remain remarkably low. Terry never killed a man during his service, and he is not going to start a John Wick-style rampage now, mowing down leagues of enemies before reaching a final boss. Institutional corruption must be dealt with at its source, and through his unlikely alliance with law student Summer, he begins to embrace a new fight for justice.
Of course, this is all purely tactical for Terry. Right from the opening scene when he is rammed off his bicycle by officers Marston and Lann, it is clear his identity as a Black man factors deeply into his careful interactions with the police. He is not going to pick any fights that he knows he is going to lose, and he is certainly not going to aggravate anyone looking for an excuse to detain or shoot him. In response to their extreme brutality, he responds with the least amount of force necessary, ironically demonstrating the ideal behaviour they should be modelling. Where Saulnier’s 2015 film Green Room veers far more heavily into gore and horror, Rebel Ridge makes for a far more sobering thriller, understanding the nuanced stakes that lie in this conflict beyond life and death.
Unfortunately, the dedication to murky, ambient lighting which gave Green Room such a distinctive visual character is largely absent here, leaving Rebel Ridge struggling to aesthetically set itself apart from the fray of modern action movies. At least beyond the remarkable fight choreography creatively tailored to Terry’s no-killing principle, Saulnier delivers a small handful of locations that play to his stylistic strengths, illuminating the police evidence room with a subtle blue wash and later piercing the darkness of the courtroom basement with green and orange light sources. Scenes like these do much of the heavy lifting when it comes to imbuing the setting with a sense of peril, hinting at the insidious exploitation lurking beneath the police force’s veneer of law-abiding respectability.
After all, the prejudice that Terry experiences is not an isolated incident. What starts as a quest to free his cousin inevitably gets wrapped up in a much larger conspiracy at play, raising suspicions when an unidentified whistleblower points Summer towards a strange anomaly in police records – over the past two years, many people who committed misdemeanours were held in jail for exactly 90 days before being released. The exposition which peels back the mystery here drags a little, though the payoff in Terry’s final confrontation with Burnne and his lackeys is certainly worth it, ultimately revealing where individual loyalties truly lie. Our veteran hero only may be alive due to his combat expertise, though physical conflict alone is never going to heal a broken system. Patience, discernment, and cunning are virtues embodied in his pursuit of justice, and superbly carried through in Saulnier’s tense, brooding storytelling.
When Todd Phillips created his own trauma-ridden version of Batman’s greatest nemesis in 2019, audiences were as polarised as the citizens of Gotham City. To a disillusioned minority, Arthur Fleck was an icon of bitter anarchy, seeking to tear down the broken system which drove him and so many others to madness. To critics, he was simply a glorified criminal, claiming the spotlight with little substance to back up his words and actions. This divide becomes the central tension in Phillips’ sequel, seeking to parse out the nuances missed by both sides in the debate over Arthur’s soul – and yet in doing so, Joker: Folie à Deux has met an even more troubled reception than the first.
Of course, part of this comes down to the perceived emasculation of our antihero, diverging from the tough guy persona he had artificially crafted for himself as Joker. Criticisms targeted at the duology’s surprising shift into the movie-musical genre are slightly more justified, especially given how hit-or-miss many of the numbers are, though even these condemnations fail to account for their sheer vibrance and passion. Phillips is no stranger to ambitious swings, and if there was ever a supervillain to make this leap into song and dance, then it is surely the one whose schtick is highlighting life’s senseless absurdity through colourful, extravagant theatrics.
It also makes sense that Phillips should credit Francis Ford Coppola’s maligned musical One from the Heart as a major inspiration here too, featuring similarly remarkable visual craftsmanship while drawing criticisms of ‘style over substance’. Both films float by upon expressionistic dreams of romance, detaching its characters from any recognisable reality and entering a realm that exists only in their elated minds. A brief nod to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg hints at this early on in Folie à Deux, but by the time Arthur is waltzing through the grounds of a burning Arkham State Hospital with fellow patient Lee Quinzel and singing an elaborate rendition of ‘If My Friends Could See Me Now’, we are fully immersed in their ecstatically unhinged delusions.
Unfortunately, the inconsistencies that plague Phillips’ direction of these scenes also happen to be among Folie à Deux’s most unflattering blemishes. Many great musicals are able express subdued emotion in duets without simply cutting back and forth between close-ups, but this is exactly the trap that he falls into here, leading to a sharp disparity between magnificently staged showstoppers and softer, blandly shot ballads. Additionally, songs that play out in creaky whispers waste the talent that comes with Lady Gaga’s otherwise inspired casting, while Joaquin Phoenix’s pitchy vocals are downright weak.
Still, Phillips is as confident as ever when it comes to his dystopian worldbuilding beyond the musical numbers, adeptly building upon the first film’s dingy ambience and grimy production design. Arkham State Hospital is one of two primary locations explored here, damning our protagonist to a hellhole flooded with murky green hues and heavy shadows, while maintaining an eerie elegance in long takes navigating its narrow hallways. The prison’s claustrophobic framing also strikes a dramatic contrast against the openness of the courtroom where Arthur revels in the limelight, violating the judge’s orders at every turn and reducing it to a circus where his Joker persona can deride the entire bureaucratic system.
Even then though, we are left wondering – what is this all for? Arthur’s indignation does not expose any hidden evil so much as it offers a cathartic release, but that too seems dubious when he is confronted by the innocent victims of his own actions. Luckily from among his throngs of fans, Lee emerges as the woman to put such insecurities to rest, effectively embodying that fetishisation of high-profile criminals which celebrates their iconography rather than understanding their humanity. “I want to see the real you,” she murmurs as she ironically paints Arthur’s face with clown makeup, and her glitzy musical influence only serves to further shape his identity to her vision of provocative sensationalism.
Phillips has never been a filmmaker who trades in subtlety, and while this has led to a series that aggressively beats its heavy-handed message home, it has also created some of the strongest imagery from any comic book movie in recent years. As the climax pulls Arthur through the streets of Gotham in a Children of Men-style long take and swallows him up in the dystopian monstrosity he has inadvertently created, we are reminded of what is truly at stake here. Not just “Gotham’s soul”, as The Dark Knight once operatically proclaimed – on a much smaller scale, Folie à Deux possesses a twisted kind of sympathy for broken individuals who respond to one evil with another, and a crushing lack of faith that righteous, even-handed justice will ever be served.
Joker: Folie à Deux is currently playing in cinemas.
The first time that fading Hollywood actress Elisabeth Sparkle injects the fluorescent, black-market drug that is the Substance, her metamorphosis is shocking. As she writhes in agony on her bathroom floor, her skin bulges with the birth of new bones and organs, and her irises split like regenerating cells. Along her back, a large, gaping slit opens, and from it a creature is born. Stumbling towards the mirror, we adopt this newborn’s perspective, our eyes adjusting to its bizarre existence. There, we witness Elisabeth’s younger, more beautiful self ‘Sue’ come into focus, successfully reclaiming youth from the wrinkles, sags, and insecurities of middle age.
There are several caveats which come with the use of this drug, chief among them being the time limit – seven days in the young body, seven days in old, or else there will be severe side effects. “What is taken by one, is lost by the other,” we are frequently reminded by the distributor’s deep, disembodied voice, and upon this simple warning, director Coralie Fargeat builds her allegory for the physical deterioration of ageing bodies. Any attempts to recklessly cling to youth will inevitably be felt further down the track, forming destructive, self-loathing habits which give our younger selves greater reason to scorn us.
Fargeat builds a cartoonish mirror world of old-fashioned chauvinism, typified in Dennis Quaid’s sleazy producer who leans into wide-angle lenses and devours a bowl of prawns in the most vicious manner possible.
The Substance is not overly subtle in its metaphor, nor does it need to be. Elisabeth lives in a cartoonish mirror world of 1980s pop aesthetics and old-fashioned chauvinism, working closely with a sleazy producer who embodies every misogynistic stereotype of America’s entertainment industry. He leers uncomfortably over us in wide-angle lenses, physically invading our personal space and tearing into a bowl of prawns with all the etiquette of a salivating dog. His firing of our protagonist and subsequent casting call for “the next Elisabeth Sparkle” only feeds her self-doubt – but with this rejuvenating drug on the market, who better to take her place than Elisabeth herself?
Clean, sanitised production design, conforming wholly to unified colour palettes and strong geometric shapes.
Contrary to what Fargeat’s win for Best Screenplay at Cannes Film Festival may suggest, the writing may be the least interesting aspect of The Substance. This is not to say that it lacks a compelling narrative, but the strength of this psychological horror bleeds through the visual storytelling, often carried along without dialogue by the dynamic editing, subjective camerawork, and brilliantly unhinged acting. Especially for industry veteran Demi Moore and rising star Margaret Qualley, The Substance displays both of their strongest performances to date, playing two sides of one woman simultaneously envying and revelling in her youthful glamour.
Beautiful formal mirroring between Elisabeth and Sue, carried through in Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley’s magnificent, parallel performances.
Fargeat too clearly has an admiration for the human form, though her camera refuses to submit so cleanly to the objectification it is criticising. The allure and repulsiveness of our physical bodies are woven deeply into each other here, and as Elisabeth comes to realise, we cannot indulge in one without eventually confronting the other. Extreme close-ups of dissolving tablets, needles puncturing flesh, and the Substance’s physiological effects blend seamlessly with the augmented sound design and distorted synth score, and their collective impact is largely magnified by Fargeat’s aggressive, rapid-fire montage editing. It is no coincidence that she is directly referencing Requiem for a Dream here, comparing the processes of beautification to an uncontrollable drug addiction. As much as the older Elisabeth despises her other half, still she is compelled to keep chasing that high of soaring confidence and attention, thus feeding the loop of self-abuse.
“You’re the only lovable part of me.”
Darren Aronofsky is a strong influence in the editing here, particularly in the rapid-fire drug montages.
The dual visual styles that The Substance establishes for both women draws a harsh dichotomy here. Where Sue luxuriates in smooth, slow-motion photography, Elisabeth’s shame is amplified by handheld camerawork and grating jump cuts, viciously wearing away at her mind and body. Bit by bit, we see pieces of both personalities bleed out into the world as well, alternately polishing and contaminating interiors designed to sanitised, Kubrickian perfection.
Sleek, slow-motion as we hang on Sue’s movements…...degrading into shaky, handheld camerawork as we adopt Elisabeth’s perspective.
Just as several decades’ worth of Elisabeth’s posters are stripped from the film studio’s bright orange hallway to make room for its newest star, so too is her image torn down from the billboard outside her penthouse window, and ultimately replaced with a larger-than-life model shot of Sue. This apartment is the only remaining space that truly belongs to Elisabeth, and so much to the revulsion of her younger self, she believes it is hers to degrade into filth and chaos any way she pleases.
Fargeat borrows Kubrick’s patterned carpets and hallways from The Shining to craft this brilliant piece of production design, visually reflecting the fall of one woman and the rise of another.Strong compositions of idiosyncratic interiors, transforming Elisabeth’s pristine penthouse apartment into a filthy extension of her breakdown.
Still, as much as these women furiously complain to the drug distributor about each other, both are firmly reminded of their equal culpability for their afflictions – “Remember you are one.” Elisabeth’s single, withered finger that results from Sue’s first attempt to push the limits of the Substance is only the beginning as well, revealing the long-term effects of those poor choices we make when we are young.
The more Elisabeth transforms into a spiteful, grizzled hag, the more we are reminded of the Evil Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, jealously comparing her deteriorating beauty against a more youthful replacement. By the time The Substance reaches its final act too, Fargeat fully embraces these fable-like qualities, though not without a nauseating edge of dark, ironic humour. Where the body horror begins with Darren Aronofsky as its primary inspiration, it gradually mutates into Cronenbergian visions of grotesque monstrosities, rendered in practical effects that grow progressively more depraved.
This is the least of the body horror on display – Fargeat revels in the beauty and grotesqueness of the human form, submitting us to both extremes.
The bookended return to Elisabeth’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame makes for a surprisingly poignant conclusion to The Substance, escaping the bloody chaos to mourn her dehumanisation, even if just for a fleeting moment. Self-acceptance is a rarity in this industry of extreme beauty standards, so the point at which it is fearlessly embraced reveals the slightest salvation within reaching distance of catastrophic disaster. For those so consumed by such superficial ideals though, perhaps the physical manifestation of one’s most hideous impulses is the only path to inner peace, tragically confining them to a hollow, obsessive existence where youth fades faster than it can ever be reclaimed.
On the rare occasion that a film is accurately described as one-of-a-kind, the world is usually gifted with a 2001: A Space Odyssey, Eraserhead, or Persona, pushing the boundaries of cinema pushed to new frontiers. Now in 2024, Francis Ford Coppola also accomplishes something quite unique in Megalopolis, though only to the extent that a chef who throws one hundred arbitrary ingredients into a dish might claim it to be truly original. There are drafts of compelling ideas floating around here, but when it comes to developing any into a coherent storyline or motif, this bewildering, regal mess is hindered by its own fanciful digressions.
On Megalopolis’ most conceptual level, its fusion of Ancient Rome and modern America into the setting of an epic Shakespearean fable is promising, and it is no wonder that Coppola held onto it for so many decades as a passion project. This anachronistic dystopia is so chaotically debauched, one might almost believe that Federico Fellini’s spirit has possessed him with demented visions of Roman fashion shows, chariot races, and spectacular circuses, paving the way for another Satyricon. The cityscape glows a golden luminescence that delivers some astoundingly surreal sequences atop towering clockface platforms, and abstractly considers the state of urban decay through living, monolithic statues physically bearing its brunt.
Even the notion that architect Cesar Catilina possesses the ability to freeze time is set up as a fascinating metaphor for all-encompassing power, though like every other conceit that passes through Megalopolis, Coppola is quick to discard it for whatever comes next. From a sex scandal, to a cataclysmic disaster, to an assassination attempt, there is barely a set piece here that carries weight beyond the moment it unfolds, often disappearing as quickly as it emerged. The visual style is also brimming with inconsistent flourishes of split screen montages, canted angles, and spinning camerawork, but these too give the impression of rambling experimentations more than a specific, coherent vision. As for the much-promoted ‘live fourth wall break’, Coppola delivers little more than an empty gimmick, facing a movie theatre employee towards the screen for half a minute while pre-recorded dialogue gives the unconvincing illusion that they are speaking to Cesar himself.
The deeper into Megalopolis one gets, the more it becomes apparent that Coppola simply can’t figure out the right rhetoric to express the ideas he has harboured for so long. “Only two things are difficult to stare at for long: the sun and your own soul,” his characters ponder, reaching for philosophical insight via awkward soundbites that lose meaning the more one thinks about them.
It doesn’t help either that the impressive gravitas Coppola occasionally manages to summon up is drastically offset by his campy attempts at humour. Given the talent present in this cast, it is hard to believe that Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, and Jon Voight all happen to be botching line deliveries of their own accord, and so we must look to the director here as the guilty party. The death of a key player in the final act is especially diminished by this tonal jumble, robbing them of the send-off they have earned in its power struggle.
For the first time in Coppola’s career, we can’t fully blame his failures on not having the resources on hand or studio compromise. Megalopolis is inimitably the work of a filmmaker whose interests have always lied in the mad ego of man, though the precision and focus that he once poured into The Godfather and Apocalypse Now is completely absent here. In its place, we get a dazzling glimpse into the mind of an artist freed from commercial constraints and cinematic convention, yet tangled in his inability to carry a single line of thought through to completion.
The television shows of our childhoods hold a special place in our memories. Quality is entirely irrelevant – to innocent minds, these flickering images are tactile, complex worlds inhabited by vibrant characters we subconsciously mould ourselves after. This is a common experience shared by millennials, and from within it I Saw the TV Glow extracts an unsettling horror, casting a Lynchian surrealism over the lives of two teenagers bonding over the same 90s young adult show.
The Pink Opaque is not for kids, Maddy defiantly claims, and Owen quietly bristles against his father’s passing insult that it is for girls. It feels “more real than real life,” allowing an escape from the insecurities of adolescence and the resulting malaise. They can see themselves vividly within the show’s telepathic characters and glimpse representations of their nightmares in its monsters, each manifesting as grotesque, Eraserhead-style abominations trapped behind a thin mask of lo-fi video grain. It is not the malformed Ice Cream Man or the bearded, lumpy-faced creep that poses the greatest threat though, but rather the largely unseen Mr. Melancholy, who warps time and reality with his mystical powers.
Beyond the titular glow of the screen that softly casts fluorescent magentas, greens, and teals across Maddy and Owen’s faces, Jane Schoenbrun weaves a psychedelic luminescence through their home and school, colouring in this world with shades of their favourite show. Along with the dissolve transitions and elliptical pacing that skip through years at a time, this lighting palette infuses I Saw the TV Glow with an eerie, dreamy quality, whimsically obscuring the boundaries between reality and fiction. Like our two leads, the source of our discomfort remains difficult to pinpoint for some time, until Schoenbrun gradually turns our focus to the truth of their identities.
For Maddy, this is first touched on when she explicitly states she likes girls and reveals her intention to run away from home. When she probes Owen on the matter of his own sexuality, he can’t quite pinpoint the word to describe his specific brand of dysphoria – nor does he seem to want to. Admitting that he feels out of place in his body and the world at large would be to accept that his entire life thus far has been a lie. While Maddy seeks to expose the mind-bending conspiracy behind The Pink Opaque, he shies away in fear of what its implications might be, despite understanding on a deep, intuitive level the exact feeling of imprisonment and disorientation that she is describing.
From there, Schoenbrun’s allegory for the trans experience flourishes, teasing out the horrifying effects of self-denial which keeps Owen from embracing the confidence and spirit of his actual self. His suffering is figuratively akin to being buried alive, forcing wheezing breaths from his chest that might easily be dismissed as asthma, and eroding his physical being into a pale, emaciated shell of his younger self. It is a poignantly clever use of voiceover that appears here too, granting Owen some subconscious awareness that he exists in a fictional world as he speaks to us through the fourth wall, even as he resists fully crossing that barrier.
Where the Wachowskis once called this simulated reality the Matrix, Schoenbrun labels it the Midnight Realm, both essentially representing the same false construct of identity within their respective genres. It is clear that I Saw the TV Glow prioritises its otherworldly atmosphere above all else, though perhaps Schoenbrun could have taken a few more lessons from Lynch in this respect, developing their overarching metaphor to completion while lingering in its ambiguous, wearying anxiety. Nevertheless, the psychological horror that is crafted here from distorted 90s nostalgia makes for an intoxicating examination of those artificial personas thrust upon society’s most vulnerable, and the insidious illusions of self-autonomy that maintain them.
I Saw the TV Glow is currently playing in theatres.
When spoiled heir Dickie Greenleaf catches Tom Ripley trying on his expensive clothing, the assumption that his new friend might be gay is only half-correct. Queer readings of Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Talented Mr. Ripley are nothing new, and Steven Zaillian is not ignorant to them in his television adaptation, though the icy contempt and admiration that are wrapped up in Tom’s repression also paint a far more complex image of class envy. Tom does not wish to be with Dickie, but to become him, and the depths to which he is willing to sink in this mission reveal a moral depravity only matched by his patience, diligence, and cunning.
Of all the qualities that vex Tom about Dickie, it is his complete lack of personal merit that is most maddening, deeming him unworthy of the lavish lifestyle funded by his wealthy father. While Dickie admires the cubism of Picasso and even proudly owns his artworks, his attempts at recreating that distinctive, abstract style fall short, just as his girlfriend Marge displays little talent in her writing and his friend Freddie is no great playwright. Money might buy the bourgeoisie false praise, yet no amount of riches can endow upon them the ingenious intuition that history’s greatest artists naturally possess, and which Tom nefariously manipulates to earn what he views as his unassailable right.
Tom arrives in Dickie and Marge’s life as a looming shadow, ominously cast over their bodies relaxing on the beach.Few television series in history look like this – Zaillian draws on the expertise of cinematographer Robert Elswit to capture these magnificent visuals, making for some of their best work.
It takes the sharp, opportunistic mind of a con artist to conduct a scam as multifaceted as that which Tom executes here, murdering and stealing Dickie’s identity while carefully navigating the ensuing police investigations. Though Tom adopts his victim’s appreciation of Picasso for this ploy, Zaillian also introduces another historic painter as an even greater subject of fascination in Ripley. The spiritual affinity that Tom feels for Baroque artist Caravaggio is deepened in the parallels between their stories, both being men who commit murder, go on the run, and express a transgressive attraction towards men. Though living three centuries apart, these highly intelligent outcasts are mirrors of each other – one being an artist with a criminal background, and the other a criminal with a fondness for art.
A graphic match cut deftly bridges historical time periods, bringing Tom and Caravaggio’s formal connection to a head in the final episode.Gothic expressionism in the Caravaggio flashback, revealing the murder which has tainted his name.Caravaggio’s artworks are strewn throughout Ripley, most notably drawing Tom to the San Luigi dei Francesi cathedral where his three St. Matthew paintings are on display.
At the root of this comparison though, perhaps Tom’s appreciation may simply stem from the aesthetic and formal qualities of Caravaggio’s paintings, portraying biblical struggles with an intense, dramatic realism that was considered groundbreaking in Italy’s late Renaissance. When Tom gazes upon three companion pieces depicting St. Matthew at the grandiose San Luigi dei Francesi cathedral in Rome, they seem to come alive with the sounds of distant, tortured screaming, blurring the thin boundary between art and observer. With this in mind, Zaillian’s primary inspiration behind Ripley also comes into focus, skilfully weaving light and shadow through his introspective staging of an epic moral battle as Caravaggio did four hundred years ago.
Though the rise of cinematic television in recent years has seen film directors take their eye for photography to the small screen, one can hardly call Zaillian an auteur. This is not to take away from his impressive writing credits such as Schindler’s List, Gangs of New York, and The Irishman, but the spectacular command of visual storytelling in Ripley is rare to behold from a filmmaker whose directing has often been the least notable parts of his career.
An Antonioni approach to photographing Italian architecture, using wide angle lenses to frame these shots that raise structures far above the tiny people below.Immaculate framing and lighting in the canals of Venice, trapping Ripley in a labyrinth built upon his greatest fear – water.Tom’s wandering through labyrinthine Italian cities offers both beautiful mise-en-scène and excellent visual storytelling, applying a photographer’s eye to the detail of each shot.
Robert Elswit’s high-contrast, monochrome cinematography of course plays in an integral role here, rivalling his work on Paul Thomas Anderson’s films with superb chiaroscuro lighting and a strong depth of field that basks in Italy’s historic architecture. Elswit and Zaillian’s mise-en-scène earn a comparison to Michelangelo Antonioni’s tremendous use of manmade structures here, aptly using the negative space of vast walls to impede on his characters, while detailing the intricate, uneven textures of their surroundings with the keen eye of a photographer. The attention paid to this weathered stonework tells the story of a nation whose past is built upon grand ambition, yet which has eroded over many centuries, tarnishing surfaces with discoloured stains and exposing the rough bedrock beneath worn exteriors.
Lichen-covered brick walls fill in the negative space of these shots with visual tactility, giving each location its own distinct character.Visual majesty in the cathedrals that Ripley ventures through, captured with astounding symmetry in this high angle.History is baked into the discoloured stains and weathered stonework of Italian architecture, dominating these compositions that push Tom to the edge of the frame.
Conversely, the interiors of the villas, palazzi, and hotels where Tom often takes up residence couldn’t be more luxurious, revelling in the fine Baroque furniture and decorative wallpaper that only an aristocrat could afford. The camera takes a largely detached perspective in its static wide shots, though when it does move it is usually in short panning and tracking motions, following him through gorgeous sets tainted by his corrosive moral darkness.
Baroque interiors designed with luxurious attention to detail, reflecting the darkness that Tom carries with him to each hotel and villa.Divine judgement in the unblinking gaze of these historic sculptures, following Tom all through Italy.
In effect, Ripley crafts a labyrinth out of its environments, beginning in the grimy, cramped apartment buildings of New York City and winding through the bright streets and alleys of Italy. Zaillian’s recurring shots of stairways often evoke Vertigo in their dizzying high and low angles, with even the flash-forward that opens the series hinting at the gloomy descent to come as Tom drags Freddie’s body down a flight of steps. Elsewhere, narrow frames confine characters to tiny rectangles, while those religious sculptures clinging to buildings around Italy direct their unblinking gazes towards Tom, casting divine judgement upon his actions.
Tom emerges from the cramped apartments in New York City – a cesspool of grime and darkness before he heads to the bright, sunny coast of Italy.Zaillian’s stairway motif arrives as a flash-forward in the very first shot of the series, which returns in its full context four episodes later.Dizzying high and low angles of stairway litter this series, forming spirals out of rectangles, hexagons, and arches.Distant doorways and windows place Dickie and Marge under an intense, microscopic lens from Tom’s voyeuristic perspective.Precision in Zaillian’s framing, trapping Tom in confining boxes.
As oppressive as these tight spaces may be, they are where Tom is most in control, though Zaillian is also sure to emphasise that the opposite is equally true. The only place to hide when surrounded by vast, open expanses of ocean is within the darkness that lies below, and Tom’s phobia is made palpable in a visual motif that plunges the camera down into that suffocating abyss. This shot is present in nearly every episode of Ripley, haunting him like a persistent nightmare, though Zaillian broadens its formal symbolism too as Tom seeks to wield his greatest fear as a weapon against others.
The dominant aesthetic of static shots is broken up by this sinking camera motif, appearing in most episodes as a persistent nightmare of drowning.The dark, churning water beckons Tom as he sails between destinations, threatening to pull him into the abyss.
Most crucially, Tom’s murder of Dickie upon a small boat in the middle of the ocean marks a tipping point for the con artist, seeing him graduate to an even more malicious felony. Zaillian conducts this sequence with taut suspense, entirely dropping out dialogue from the moment Tom delivers the killing blow so that we may sit with his discomforting attempts to sink the body, steal Dickie’s coveted possessions, and burn the boat. From below the surface, the camera often positions us gazing up at the boat’s silhouetted underside with an unsettling calmness. Equally though, the sea is also a force of unpredictable chaos, threatening to drag Tom into its depths when his foot gets caught in the anchor rope and knocking him unconscious with the out-of-control dinghy.
Zaillian’s execution of Dickie’s murder is cold, calculated, and passionless, the entire sequence unfolding over 25 patient minutes.Daunting camera placement from deep within the ocean, calling upon Tom’s phobia at the peak of his brutality.
Even when Tom manages to make it out alive, his continued efforts to cover his tracks bear resemblance to Norman Bates cleaning up after his mother’s murder in Psycho, deriving suspense from his systematic procedures of self-preservation across 25 nerve-wracking minutes. Within a two-hour film, a scene this long might otherwise be the centrepiece of the entire story, yet in this series it is simply one of several extended sequences that unfolds with measured, focused resolve.
Unlike most commercial television, there are no dragged-out plot threads or over-reliance on dialogue to push the narrative forward either. As such, Zaillian recognises the unique qualities of this serial format in a manner that only a handful of filmmakers have truly capitalised on before – Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage comes to mind, or more recently Barry Jenkins’ The Underground Railroad. By structuring Patricia Highsmith’s story around roughly hour-long episodes, each scene unfolds with a patient attention to detail, unencumbered by the constraints of limited run times while maintaining a meticulous narrative economy.
Zaillian borrows this use of colour from Schindler’s List – a film he wrote – leaving behind evidence of murder in these red, bloody paw print, and breaking through Elswit’s severe, black-and-white photography.Exposition is brought alive as letters are read out directly to the camera.
Specifically crucial to the development of Ripley’s overarching form are Zaillian’s recurring symbols, woven with sly purpose into Tom’s characterisation. The refrigerator that Dickie purchases in the second episode is a point of contention for Tom, representing a despicably domestic life of stagnation, while the precious ring he steals is proudly worn as an icon of status. After Freddie starts investigating his mysterious disappearance though, the glass ashtray which Tom viciously beats him to death with becomes the most wickedly amusing motif of the lot, laying the dramatic irony on thick when the police inspector visits the following morning and taps his cigarette into it. Later in Venice, Tom even goes out of his way to purchase an identical ash tray for their final meeting, for no other reason than to gloat in his deception.
Tom eyes Dickie’s ring off early, and from there it becomes a fixation for him, representing the status he seeks to claim for himself.An unassuming ash tray becomes the murder weapon Tom wields against Freddie, and continues to appear in these close-ups with sharp dramatic irony.
This arrogant stunt speaks acutely to Andrew Scott’s sinister interpretation of Tom Ripley, especially when comparing him against previous versions performed by Alain Delon and Matt Damon. Scott is by far the oldest of three at the time of playing the role, and although this stretches credulity when the character’s relative youth comes into question, it does apply a new lens to Tom as a more experienced, jaded con artist. He does not possess the affable charisma of Delon or Damon, but he delivers each line with calculated discernment, understanding how a specific inflection or choice of word might turn a conversation in his favour. He realises that he does not need others to like him, but to merely give him the benefit of the doubt, allowing enough time to review the situation and recalibrate his web of false identities. After all, how could anyone trust those onyx, shark-like eyes that patiently scrutinise his prey when they aren’t projecting outright malice?
Andrew Scott’s take on Tom Ripley is far from Alain Delon’s and Matt Damon’s, turning in charisma for sinister, calculating discernment.
Scott’s casting makes even more sense when considered within the broader context of Zaillian’s adaptation, leaning into the introspective nature of Tom’s nefarious schemes rather than their sensational thrills. The question of what exactly constitutes a fraud is woven carefully through each of Ripley’s characters, mostly centring around Dickie’s class entitlement and Tom’s identity theft, though even manifesting in the police inspector’s passing lies about his wife’s hometown. The rest of society wears false masks to get ahead, Tom reasons, so why shouldn’t he join in the game?
It is no coincidence that the disguise he wears when pretending to be the ‘real’ Tom Ripley so closely resembles the representation of Caravaggio that we meet in the final episode. If anything, this is the truest version of Tom that he has played thus far, and Zaillian’s magnificent conclusion brings that comparison full circle with a dextrous montage of mirrored movements and graphic match cuts. Our protagonist is not some demon born to wreak havoc on the world, but rather a man who has always existed throughout history, seeking to climb the ladder of opportunity with a sharpened, creative impulse and moral disregard. As Ripley so thoroughly demonstrates in studying the mind of this genius, there may be no profession that better captures humanity’s enormous potential than an artist, and none that sinks any lower than a charlatan.
Zaillian sticks the landing with this tremendous montage of match cuts between Tom and Caravaggio, their weapons, and their victims, clearly inspired by The Usual Suspects while integrating his own sinister flair.Tom’s disguise as the ‘real’ Tom Ripley bears striking resemblance to Caravaggio, authenticating the connection between artist and criminal.
The premise of a pop concert being one enormous setup to catch a serial killer is inherently absurd, but M. Night Shyamalan is nothing if not bold with his high-concept thrillers. Even more importantly, Trap strings together its set pieces with taut, suspenseful purpose, even overcoming some stilted dialogue and pacing issues with a refreshing creativity that his weakest films fail to properly develop. Here, the thrill isn’t just in navigating the narrative through the eyes of the murderer, now rendered a vulnerable target. It is that this man’s secret identity as a dorky, affable dad is so credible that we too find ourselves believing in the complete sincerity of the love he holds for his family.
Trap does not follow the template of multiple personalities like Psycho, and yet we fully believe that there are two minds who reside within one body, both working in unison. On one side we have Cooper Adams the father and firefighter, enthusiastically taking his teenage daughter Riley to a Lady Raven concert, cracking dad jokes, and defending her against bullies. On the other, there is the Butcher, a sadistic serial killer who imprisons his victims in the basements of empty houses and tortures them. It is eerie watching this sort of cognitive dissonance in play as Josh Harnett smoothly switches between both personas, forcing us to constantly question our own desire to see him either succeed or fail in his escape mission.
Following Shyamalan’s similar success last year with Knock at the Cabin, it appears that he is not only developing his skills as a writer, but also as a visual storyteller bearing closer resemblance to Alfred Hitchcock and Brian de Palma than ever before. Deep focus and split diopter lenses often divide the frame right down the middle, staging Hartnett in the distance as he eyes off the FBI profiler leading the manhunt, while the editing between his point-of-view and reaction shots silently key us into each plan unfolding in his mind.
Carrying over from Knock at the Cabin as well is his penchant for shallow focus close-ups – a technique too often abused by lazy filmmakers, yet which have enormous impact when wielded with the uncomfortable intimacy that Shyamalan does here. The fourth wall breaking stares are right out of the Jonathan Demme playbook, studying every worry line and strained smile that crosses Hartnett’s visage, while Shyamalan’s zooms and low angles alternately turn him into a warped, sinister figure. Most inventive of all though is the framing which slices his face right down the middle, displaying only half of it onscreen as a visual representation of his hidden dual identities.
Just as Trap is starting to grow stagnant, the unexpected perspective shift which moves to Lady Raven picks the pacing back up. Here, the Ariana Grande-inspired popstar starts earning Shyamalan’s close-ups instead, highlighting a fine film debut from his daughter Saleka whose enormous, expressive eyes dominate the screen. As she takes charge, our alliance begins to shift, and the walls finally begin to close in on Cooper – though we have learned by now he is not one to be underestimated. Even when he is cornered in the tightest of spaces, his ability to stealth his way out is equivalent to that of an escape artist, straining credulity by the final act.
It is during these last few scenes that Shyamalan shifts our perspective again to a third character, though one who enters the film far too late to earn its climactic payoff. This also coincides with the sudden disappearance of Lady Raven from the narrative – another significant formal misstep that denies her arc a proper resolution. That Shyamalan fumbles the landing is no great surprise, but it is nevertheless disappointing given the relative strength of his storytelling throughout the rest of the film. As much as its tantalising final seconds somewhat make up for this, Trap works best when it is drawing a captivating divide down the middle of Cooper Adams and the Butcher, grappling with the internal, antagonistic pairing of a father and murderer as unlikely partners in crime.
It was only a matter of time before Deadpool’s gimmick of irreverent, self-referential superhero gags would grow thin. For his greatest critics, it happened back in 2016, though at least that first movie injected a fresh burst of cynicism into the genre. The 2018 sequel shook up the stakes with a mission to save a young boy from a villainous future, and hilariously satirised superhero team ups. The greatest development that Deadpool & Wolverine has to offer is a surprisingly sincere examination of Logan’s legacy after Hugh Jackman’s ‘retirement’ of the character, but as a matter of coherent storytelling, this movie jumps between half-baked ideas with all the awkwardness of Marvel’s disjointed multiverse.
In fact, it is this attempt to tread the line between paying homage to Fox-owned Marvel properties and bringing Deadpool into the Marvel Cinematic Universe which keeps Deadpool & Wolverine from focusing its narrative. Its countless cameos may service the franchise’s most loyal fans, but most bear such little impact that they could easily be swapped out for any other retired Marvel character, with only a single exception bearing sizeable weight on Wolverine’s arc. This interaction produces one of the film’s most touching scenes, honouring the character that Jackman has spent over two decades exploring. Even in his repartee with Ryan Reynolds, the two actors hit on a buddy comedy dynamic that carries us through an array of contrived plot beats.
Still, their star-fuelled charisma can only take Deadpool & Wolverine so far. By the time we get to a second hand-to-hand fight between our titular antiheroes, we are left to wonder where the stakes are in a duel where neither superpowered combatant can be properly wounded. Of course, the easy answer to this is that the film cares more about cheap wisecracks and shocking audiences that ‘they went there’ than building a solid story – not that this possesses the subversive edge of The Boys, The Suicide Squad, or even previous Deadpool movies.
In the grand scheme of superhero movies, Deadpool & Wolverine is far too caught up in its throwaway nods to Marvel’s history to escape its own fourth-wall breaking criticisms of the genre, whether those be needless paragraphs of exposition or stale clichés. We only need to look at its development of Wolverine’s legacy to see how digging up old IP does not need to be a mindless, gratuitous exercise in moneymaking, and can enrichen long-established archetypes with fresh perspectives. Within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this alternate Wolverine may be one of the most singularly effective uses of the multiverse conceit. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the rest of Deadpool & Wolverine’s overstuffed narrative.
Scene by Green 