Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  Pictured : Having witnessed a sexual assault, eight-year-old Josephine ( Mason Reeves ) finds herself in the back of a police car with the victim ( Syra McCarthy ) in writer-director Beth de Araújo's troubling drama, ' Josephine '. Still courtesy of Berlinale / Sundance Film Festival Review contains significant plot detail and triggering material However you respond to writer-director Beth de Araújo’s second feature, Josephine – her feature debut, Soft & Quiet , was released under the Blumhouse [horror] banner in 2022 - you are unlikely to forget it. The titular Josephine (Mason Reeves) is an athletic-minded, father-worshipping eight-year-old girl, who witnesses a sexual assault after racing ahead of her Liverpool Football Club-supporting father, Damien (Channing Tatum) in a San Francisco public park. In looking for her, Damien takes a wrong turn – cue early gasps from the audience. Josephine, variously referred to as Jo by Dad or JoJo by her dancer mother, Claire (G...

  Before she started shooting Eternals in July 2019, Chlo é Zhao was just another indie director given her first chance to helm a big budget movie, with only two completed features to her name, Songs My Brothers Taught Me and The Rider , and a film, Nomadland , in post-production. By the time Eternals was released in November 2021, she was only the second woman to win an American Academy Award as Best Director for her road movie starring Frances McDormand. Zhao shouldn’t be judged against her Academy Award success for her fourth film; it is what she does afterwards that will prove significant. It is fair to say that she will never have another film as widely seen as Eternals, as it represents Marvel Studios’ latest attempt to extend its Cinematic Universe. It is also fair to say that after its initial splash ($71 million opening weekend, domestic), Eternals won’t be too fondly remembered, being a little too hectoring in tone, a little too much, ‘we must save the humans’. For...