
James Gillespie is 12 years old. The world he knew is changing. Haunted by a secret, he has become a stranger in his own family. He is drawn to the canal where he creates a world of his own. He finds an awkward tenderness with Margaret Anne, a vulnerable 14 year old expressing a need for love in all the wrong ways, and befriends Kenny, who possesses an unusual innocence in spite of the harsh surroundings.
Hours before their line-up of screenings for Trans Awareness Week began, the filmmakers of 'When Men Were Men' chatted with me about the film's personal exploration of masculinity.
She is being made to justify why she doesn’t believe he’s a feminist, instead of him having to justify his choice to claim he is one.
That gut-wrenching feeling you have while watching it is okay but needed, and you, the viewer, will be okay.
These confines won’t really encourage you to read the film as a metaphor for the nerve-inducing experience we’ve all been through over the last year, however — and in the interest of maintaining your dignity, you probably shouldn’t. While the sociopolitical commentary may have worked for the similarly-themed Buried (2010), in which we find Ryan Reynolds on his own buried alive in the Middle East, but this futuristic take on the premise is best left as a piece of distracting entertainment. Nevertheless, the atmosphere is no less suffocating, literally and dramatically.
An episode of "The Sopranos" articulates an identity crisis unique to the Italian-Americans and demonstrates how Indigenous communities are pushed aside in the ensuing debate.