Letterboxd — Your life in film

I did enjoy this, but the writerly contrivances pulled me out of the experience - much as I could see why they indulged them, and how they tried to emotionally subvert them.

good

The compelling reality of the Thai cave rescue operation is given rote form here. Repetive, formally uninteresting, & oddly detached from the rescuees, who are barely even named in the film and almost feel like an afterthought to imagery of white heroism

Not since Get Out has an unpleasant white family tried so hard to make a young black man one of them

Morality is all about perception these days. After a string of weak efforts, this feels more like Farhadi operating in high gear. Perhaps a little rote at times, but Amir Jadidi’s performance - wounded, humble, proud - mostly binds it together.

Untrue crime. Slippery meta-doc about policing as a construct. Has some compelling things to say about how corruption is interwoven with institutional DNA, but ultimately a bit non-committal about its ideas (though committed in approach, for good or ill.

also, ACAB

Enjoyable until it’s not (can you tell the part of my brain responsible for my film criticism career has atrophied)

took a while to get to the duel factory but I dug. a little sad there wasn’t more scenery for Affleck to chew

S’cute.

Still fun, but also a lot more, for lack of a better term, Gleeish than I remembered.

Still kinda my favourite. Helm's fuckin' Deep, man.