Lolida 2000 (1998)

There’s enough evidence to insinuate that What We Do in the Shadows is intentionally queer-coded.

Despite the film’s efforts to reframe its heroine with modern complexity, a certain emotional distance lingers.

A working class mom searches for her daughter.

With The Father, writer-director Florian Zeller- who wrote and developed the play upon which the film is based- pulls no punches as he confidently makes every effort to put the audience in the mind of someone whose grip on reality has all but vanished. It’s a dazzling testament to Zeller’s abilities as a director as he makes his first transition from stage to film appear as if he’s been working behind a camera his entire career. The dialogue he fashions with co-writer Christopher Hampton, along with the work of production designers Peter Francis and Cathy Featherstone, collectively makes the downward spiral of dementia startlingly tangible, doing so in a way that can be comprehended by everyone except the person it directly affects.

Its predictability shouldn’t distract from the enjoyment that the pure cinematic imagination behind the camera elicits. It is a movie of crises both moral and mortal, oozing with CGI, and thoroughly enjoyable.

Netflix's Afterlife of the Party might fall into the rom-com genre, but it's much more about grief, strong female friendships, and platonic love than it is about romance.