Magazine

The result is a fresh, vibrant, absolutely wonderful film.

Stacked with pitch-perfect needle drops and nods to a sartorial moment, it overflows with warm nostalgia even as it shades its romantic outlook with a shrewd understanding of how it feels to be a young woman in a workplace that inspires reverence while courting disillusion.

Magazine understands that an experience need not be melodramatic or unique to be deeply transformative, and that moments of joy or bitterness, confusion or clarity, can all sit side by side.

Magazine is a sharply observed but frustratingly diffuse workplace drama, elevated by Lily McInerny’s precise performance and Alexandra Pechman’s willingness to make Nora flawed rather than merely sympathetic. Yet its scattered storylines never fully cohere, leaving a promising coming-of-age tale that is intermittently engaging but ultimately less memorable than the films it echoes.

For an opening feature calling card, Magazine is a pretty intriguing starting point.

Saddled with numerous montage sequences, one gets the feeling that even Pechman struggled with what quite to say about the world of literary journals, if they matter, or how their influence and stature has changed in fifteen years. In fact, we’re never really quite sure why Nora wants to work at Platen in the first place, other than its supposed sterling reputation.