Steph Green

I’m not quite sure how this group of actors came together or how any of the ideas coalesce into something that a) makes sense or b) is meant to make us feel anything. It’s impenetrable with no intellect: a true curio in the worst way.

It’s a veritable snakepit of uneasy decisions that grips you with its novel approach to so-called truth-telling before lapsing into something a little more conventional.

Visually, emotionally, and spiritually, the film is embalmed in an antiseptic sheen. As such, despite its formal rigor and effective, economic approach to storytelling, “Stonewalling” is hard to connect with.

It is a spiritual journey through the very fabric of a land, anatomizing how we navigate nostalgia for home and grief for lost loved ones when both have been long-destroyed by the senseless strike of an invisible force.

It may feel a little too surreally awkward and plodding in its first hour. But as a sweet movie smartly attuned to the power of the weirdo bonds that bind us to our family no matter the geographical distance or emotional dislocation, Defa achieves a sledgehammer of an ending in which not a single word rings false or feels sentimental.

Inching towards its grand reveal through surreally awkward conversation, “Reality” is gripping and deceptively layered, delineating both the FBI’s queasily ingenious interrogation tactics and Sweeney’s extraordinary range.

Well made and with relatability and stark intensity, it’s by no means a disappointing film. But with the zeitgeist now so attuned to red flags in relationships, its message arrives a little out of time.

Despite a prioritisation of visual effects over story, Memory Box makes a compelling case for chronicling the big and small parts of your life, if only to share with generations to come.