After her mother's sudden death, ten-year-old Moja becomes the unexpected grown-up of her fragmented family, trying to bring her troubled older sister Vesna and distant father together.
Documented human suffering is never easy to view or read about and is understandably triggering for many people, but it can be educational, and education is a key to change. An overwhelming amount queer people worldwide (and in my own country) have it far worse than I could imagine, and documentaries such as Welcome to Chechnya bring issues to light that certain groups of people would never see.
I write for a diversity-focused film review blog, so I’ll be honest: I really wanted to like Pretty Lethal. Starring Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Iris Apatow, Avantika, and Millicent Simmonds, Amazon Prime’s new thriller seemed like it would be a girl power movie about dancers with a horror action twist. Sort of a Suspiria for teens. But with shallow and unlikeable characters, a confusing plot, an overreliance on violence, and cringey dialogue, any fun the movie started out with was quickly lost. What was left was a faint echo of greater horror movies about dancers made before.
By undermining the appeal and credibility of black characters, the show compromises the very idea of diversity and representation it sets to promote.
The trouble with Yara (2021) is that in its attempt to tell the whole story, it struggles to tell a consistently engaging story.
The trainwreck is hot but tame.
