Sweet Girl (2021)

This year, in light of the pandemic and the inability to gather with our loved ones, a few of our staff members reviewed their favorite holiday films with the hope of recreating some of the sentimentality that reminds us of home.

Gritty and bleak are the best words to describe this film. There’s nothing happy about it.

It’s easy to dismiss Joel and Ethan Coen for writing from the world they build from outside the box of overarching Hollywood stereotypes, but their inability to compromise their collective vision is precisely what makes the simplistic nature of their world-building and characters so brilliant. It’s also what led Fargo to collect seven Oscar nominations and two wins for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress for Frances McDormand’s brilliant portrayal of the sincere, motherly detective whose wholesome demeanor seizes the day over the selfishness, corruption and evil of the men who don’t comprehend that there’s more to life than a little money.

The external threat invaded the domestic environment at the most valuable moment: grieving.

The justice system in the United States of America is supposed to operate as you are deemed innocent until proven guilty. But "When They See Us" shows what happens for Black people is they are deemed guilty until proven innocent.

Barry Jenkins' masterpiece holds up as the story of a lifetime centered on the intersection of Blackness and gay identity.