Orla Smith

I left the film having learned more about Parkinson’s than I did about Moran and Jones—and for a supposed tribute to their careers, that’s a real shame.

I appreciated Superior’s exploration of two characters who have crafted their identity as a reflection of other people (heightened by the fact that Marian and Vivian are literally mirror images of each other). But these ideas remain relatively surface level, and they aren’t paid off in the bungled final act.

Memory Box is at its strongest in its first half, when Alex steals objects from the box that she’s been forbidden to look at, and her imaginings about her mother’s youth are visualized on screen through mixed media animation.

It’s tempting to blame the broadness of Materna on the short runtimes of each segment, Gutnik and his screenwriters having little time to establish and explore each character’s identity.

No Ordinary Man is ultimately a melancholy look at how far things have or have not come for trans people since Billy Tipton’s death.

With a more patient script that’s richer in character detail, Scales could have been breathtaking. As it stands, it’s a slight visual feast.

What we get is a lot of good material presented in a rather straightforward manner.

What might not be apparent yet from my description of this explicitly political, nuanced, and angry film is that The Perfect Candidate is also a lot of fun. This is that rare, miraculous thing: a political crowdpleaser that doesn’t sand off its edges in an effort to be palatable.

While the gloss of studio thrillers allow enough distance that we can sit back and be entertained by what’s on screen, Profile’s desktop setting makes Amy’s situation all the more immediate, because it feels so authentic. The film is proof that ScreenLife isn’t just a gimmick, but a cinematic tool we ought to be taking seriously.

More than a romance, or a fairy tale about sentient security cameras, What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? is an ode to living in the moment and finding beauty in the familiar. It’s an endurance test of a film, but one rich with detail, if you have the patience to look for it.