Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  Why re-tell a story in another language? You can bring it a wider audience, revealing its mainstream resonance. You can fashion it into a vehicle for a talented Hollywood star. You can expand the boundaries of a national cinema by appropriating a story line from another culture. Nadav Lapid’s 2014 film, The Kindergarten Teacher , has not been seen widely outside Israel, its country of origin, and France outside of the festival circuit. It is well-regarded and received distribution in Canada and Argentina. Lapid himself has achieved festival acclaim for his 2019 film, Synonymes , which won the top prize (the Golden Bear) at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. The English language audience’s unfamiliarity with the film made it ripe for adaptation by an American filmmaker. That task fell to writer-director Sara Colangelo, whose debut film, Little Accidents , was also first seen in 2014. Looking at the trailer for Lapid’s film, Colangelo’s adaptation appears to follow the plot, e...

Still courtesy of A24 Films (US) / Lionsgate (UK) Five years after her notable debut, Saint Maud , that took audiences into the delusional mind of a tortured, lonely, self-sacrificing nurse, director Rose Glass is in more cheerful mood with her long-awaited follow-up, Love Lies Bleeding , a film set in the late 1980s that pays homage to Thelma and Louise . She casts Twilight star Kristen Stewart, recently seen as Princess Diana, in a sharply contrasting role, as Lou, a gym manager first seen with her hand down a blocked toilet. Co-writing the script with director Weronika Tofilska, whose credits include the television series, Baby Reindeer , Glass explores the love at first sight romance between Lou and Jackie (Katy O’Brian), a body builder with a dark past who is on her way to Las Vegas on her way to a contest. Lou introduces Jackie to steroids, which has genuinely unexpected consequences. Glass’ mood is relative. The catalyst of the drama is domestic abuse. Lou’s sister, Beth (Jen...