Keeley 

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.

Gretel & Hansel falters due to its razor thin story and lack of characterization. It loses sight of horror’s key rule: In order to create an effective tale, characters and emotions must be emphasized.

The human experience is described through the eyes of a marginalized outsider, neither judgmental nor invested, just an observant donkey.

“There’s always something you can do…to make people feel like they’re welcome”

J Brooke, Incluvie Guest Columnist on 'Life and Beth' and 'Sort of': while living one’s truth is freedom, speaking it as a mandatory assignment can become captivity.

The differences in these films could not be more blatant, and yet Gus Van Sant has found a way to portray the same messages and use the same techniques in each.