A Haunting Portrayal of Motherhood in "The Lost Daughter"
'The Lost Daughter' doesn't paint over the choices Leda and Nina make as mothers as right or wrong but examines the messy in-between.

'The Lost Daughter' doesn't paint over the choices Leda and Nina make as mothers as right or wrong but examines the messy in-between.
The idea of Rosemary's baby but with lesbian partners drew me in, and I was anticipating what the film had in store with its reimagining. Unfortunately, it all felt a little too vague to leave an impact.
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.
Honey Don't! is a chaotic queer noir that's part detective story, part midnight movie madness. Margaret Qualley is fantastic as the wise-cracking private eye Honey, with Aubrey Plaza and Chris Evans adding their own dry humor to the mix. The mystery itself is pretty loose, but the film makes up for it with crackling sexual tension, weird side characters, and razor-sharp dialogue. It's messy and uneven, but in the best possible way.
Cord Jefferson's hilarious and thought-provoking film continues a long-standing cinematic tradition, expanding the conversation around the impact of systemic racism in today's media.