Three recs, indie film edition
That sexy tennis movie, a different refugee story, an outlandish queer crime thriller
It’s been a weird week. Four out of five evenings, I’ve been at film screenings. I don’t usually think of this as film screening season, since we’re well past all the major awards. We also happen to be having nice weather in London for the first time in practically six months, so I don’t know why I keep agreeing to go sit in a dark room for hours at a time. And yet, I do. Which is good for you guys, I suppose, since I keep seeing films that I enjoy.
The film and TV industry is in a truly strange place right now. You’ve probably seen the articles proclaiming its death – or, at least, questioning where we go from here, and how we can possibly recover. Almost everyone I know who works in production is struggling to find jobs, and even the most successful screenwriters I know are struggling to sell projects with big-name actors attached.
The immediate future, to me, is independent film. It has never been easy to make indie films. They are the result of several people believing so fiercely in a very specific creative vision that they’re able to somehow find enough money to bring it to life. Indie films don’t wait for permission. They only get made because the people behind them refuse to give up.
Right now, with almost no one giving permission for TV shows and studio films to get made, it feels like the perfect time for the pendulum to swing to indie films. For a number of years now, TV has been where creative risks were being taken. But now that private equity is calling in its debts, it seems like those days are over.
If the films I’ve seen thus far this week are anything to judge by, I’m not alone in feeling like this is where the creative future is. They are all weird and funny in their own ways, with truly distinctive styles and aesthetics. They’re smart and unexpected, challenging viewers in different ways. But most of all, in our increasingly dark and upsetting world, they are enjoyable.
If this is the direction that indie film is going, I can’t wait to see what the next few years bring.
Rec 1
Challengers (film)
I’m willing to bet that half of you are already tired of hearing about Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino’s latest film, and the other half of you have never heard of it at all. I’m not sure how this has happened. I know people who’ve seen it multiple times, and others who have no clue that the the words “tennis” and “Zendaya” will now forever be connected.
I very much landed in the former camp. Even before it came out, I felt like I’d been inundated by the fawning press campaign – to the extent that I started to go off the very idea of the film. No one likes a movie that seems to buy its own hype.
Now that I’ve seen it, I still think the press campaign has been annoying. But I also think that the film is an outrageous, bombastic good time. So it all balances out, I guess.
If you don’t know the drill: Burgeoning superstar Zendaya plays a onetime tennis phenom who gets caught in the middle of best friends and tennis not-quite-phenoms Josh O’Connor (of The Crown and also the table next to my birthday party in March 2020) and Mike Faist (of Broadway hits like Dear Evan Hansen and West Side Story). Not unlike a tennis rally, the movie cuts back and forth between a crucial match between the two guys in 2019 and the history between the three of them that brought them to this point.
My primary takeaway from this film is: vibes. It honestly feels like watching a really stylish and stylized music video about sexy people playing tennis. It knows it’s ridiculous and over the top, and it wants you to be in on the joke, too. Despite the beautiful stars, it’s also kind of awkward and weird, and that’s part of the fun. I highly recommend seeing this in the cinema, surrounded by loads of other people who are there for a good time and ready to laugh.
Also: get ready to hear the music everywhere all summer long.
Where: In cinemas now!
Rec 2
Nezouh (film)
I was lucky enough to get to host a q&a earlier this week for a screening of this gorgeous British-Syrian film from Syrian filmmaker Soudade Kaadan, and now I want to evangelize about it.
When was the last time you saw a film set in Syria – or most of the Middle East, for that matter – that wasn’t full of explosions, battle sequences, and death? This challenge is encapsulated by a line from one of the characters: “A film about Syria where no one dies?” Nezouh rises to that challenge and creates an almost magical world of safety and imagination despite the death and destruction all around.
Look, Nezouh – which means “displacement” in (Syrian?) Arabic – is a war film. There’s no avoiding that. Drawn in part from Kaadan’s own experience choosing to leave Damascus after the civil war broke out in 2011, it tells the story of a 14-year-old girl and her parents as they grapple with the decision of whether or not to leave their home and become refugees. But, even though there is one bombing, and there are a few guns, and the danger is ever-present, the violence is at enough of a remove that you almost never fear for the characters’ lives.
Which is part of the magic of the film. The experience is almost entirely seen through the teenage girl’s eyes, as she finds hope and possibility amidst the danger and limbo of her reality. Using magical realism and a distinctive visual style, Nezouh gives its characters the opportunity to live their lives and explore their dreams and fears so that they’re not exclusively defined by the war that’s happening around them and stripping them of control.
One last thing: This film is funny. I know, a film about displaced people that will also make you laugh? But life doesn’t just stop even though you’re in a war zone. Which is the point.
Where: In cinemas now!
Rec 3
Love Lies Bleeding (film)
To veer right back to bombast and over-the-top entertainment, indie British director Rose Glass’ sophomore feature is a tense and ridiculous queer crime thriller set in 1980s New Mexico and the world of bodybuilding. Yep, you read that right.
Ed Harris steals the show as lonely outsider Kristen Stewart’s crime boss dad, with whom she’s been trying and failing to cut ties for years. When she meets and falls for a drifter and aspiring champion bodybuilder played by (new-to-me actor) Katy O’Brian, their relationship inadvertently pulls them both back into the crime family’s orbit – with disastrous and deadly consequences.
If the genre weren’t very clearly queer crime thriller, I would also call this a comedy-horror. It’s so funny and weird, and also has real moments of graphic violence and body horror. (I don’t do horror, to be honest, but I do love a crime thriller, so it all balanced out.) How about we just settle on genre-bending and leave it at that?
This is another one I’d recommend seeing in a cinema. Someone told me they saw it at a midnight screening at a festival, and I imagine that is the perfect vibe – a couple drinks, everyone a bit punchy and game to go with whatever the screen brings them. One of my favorite moments in the screening I went to was when one of the characters very seriously said something patently ridiculous; one person in the audience scoffed, and then the whole theater burst out laughing. That’s the vibe this film deserves.
Take it at face value – it’s a genuinely good thriller – but be ready to guffaw at its heightened absurdity.
Where: In cinemas now!
That’s all for this week! What are you reading/watching/listening to that I should be aware of? Drop me a line (or comment) to let me know if you check out any of my recs and what you think.
Please spread the word and I’ll see you in a couple weeks.
xo
Kate
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