The Demon 

Severance is about breaking down facades and confronting old models that were once frameworks of our lives. The somewhat subtle message to me is it’s never too late to fall in love, no matter your insecurities. 

“The most disrespected person in America is the Black Woman/the most unprotected person in America is the Black Woman,” Director Spivey Jr quotes. The quotes are absolutely true. Misogynoir is a devastating social ill that is not given the weight it is due.

A recent look at gender and racial diversity in film shows some signs of progress. However, white men still make up the vast majority of actors and directors in top-grossing films.

Friendships are tested when two girls have a crush on the popular boy at school.

What seems like such a simple story of survival is so much more than that—it’s a story of family, and of war, and of destruction. It’s painful to watch, but not in a bad way. It makes its audience reflect on their own actions, and in how they are complicit in the sufferings of others as the adults in this film are. Grave of the Fireflies does not hold back from being heartbreaking, and it shouldn’t. It tells a message that needs to be heard decades after the war, and a story that cannot be forgotten by history.

In a film where a Black couple is framed to be the lead characters, they still managed to get shuffled off to the sidelines. The enthusiastic cast delivers well on goofy bits- but can only go so far before they begin to fall flat.