A young boy with a troubled home life becomes "chosen," and he stumbles into the middle of a great war of yōkai (a class of mythological creatures), where he meets a group of friendly yōkai who become his companions through his journey. Now he must fight to protect his friends and free the world of the yōkai from oppression.
“To be universal, you have to get specific”: while the film does not attempt to provoke discussions about queerness or race, those watching closely may find something resonant in Sorrentino’s love letter to the Naples of his youth.
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.
Omaha reminds us of what it can feel like to look at old family photographs. You sit with the bittersweetness, allowing it to wash over you; not drowning in it, but certainly affected by it.
In this short film, writer/director Nikita Hattangady focuses on Jai, a starving artist rooted in the latter category. Though unhoused, he works hard.
The Sandman features a plethora of LGBTQ+ characters and is openly expressive about it!
