Just as the tiniest of quantum processes may produce explosive reactions, so too does the father of the atomic bomb set off seismic ripples across human history in Oppenheimer, and from beneath his shadow Christopher Nolan whisks us forward through a relentlessly non-linear narrative to witness the tortured Destroyer of Worlds emerge out the other end.
Armed with self-aware humour and a kitschy production design, Greta Gerwig delivers a camp visual treat in Barbie, balancing a feminist interrogation of the doll’s controversial place in pop culture against the innocent, whimsical joy of everything it was intended to represent.
As the mystical powers of one mute Indigenous Australian boy begin to emerge within a 1940s Catholic orphanage in The New Boy, Warwick Thornton delicately weaves a magical realist allegory of spirituality, assimilation, and colonialism’s stranglehold on ancient cultures, set against the backdrop of the beautifully unfathomable outback.
Even as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse hurtles through universes of conflicting pop art aesthetics, the archetypal hero conventions it deconstructs binds them together within a set ‘canon’, all the while pushing against such restrictive notions of fate with a meta-modernist humour and hyper-kinetic animation.
As far as storytelling in the MCU goes, the creative tonal balance and cartoonish playfulness of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 makes for a terrific send-off to the franchise’s most colourfully eccentric series, as James Gunn faces his oddball characters up against painfully tragic pasts.
Brandon Cronenberg’s overarching metaphor in Infinity Pool may not be particularly subtle, but it is overwhelmingly visceral in its technicolour, cyberpunk nightmares, centring a cabal of reckless vacationers who psychologically dehumanise themselves through the masochistic torture of locals – and their own clones.
Beneath the comic absurdity of Beau is Afraid’s existential nightmare, Ari Aster delineates a surreal path leading to the source of our self-destructive shame, turning one man’s trip to his mother’s house into an epic, psychological odyssey of Freudian terror and incredible formal invention.
With its staggering set pieces and consequential narrative stakes, John Wick: Chapter 4 ends this series on a majestic cinematic high, not just confirming Chad Stahelski’s well-earned position among our great modern action directors, but also his talents as a storyteller communicating through striking theological symbolism.
Humanity has never looked as simultaneously kind and cruel as it does through the eyes of the world’s lowliest beast in EO, as Jerzy Skolimowski’s elliptical direction effortlessly drifts us along one donkey’s nomadic odyssey, unveiling profoundly graceful meditations on our most fundamental nature.
Although young Cáit comes from an abusive home in The Quiet Girl, Colm Bairéad’s tender reflection on emotional healing proves to be a film of gentle repose, establishing a symbiotic harmony between broken children and adults alike that graciously alleviates their parallel traumas.
