The Handball Alley 

For one widowed father and his five kids, an extraordinary gift will change their lives forever.

Coralie Fargeat once said that “Being a woman is body horror,” and when you think about the ways we are taught to experience our own bodies, it becomes almost impossible to argue with her.

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.

The film reminds us to remember the people who had the courage and dignity that had made the world better, even when the memory was absent.

It’s 2021 and what few LGBTQ+ films that are produced by major film studios continue to star cisgender heterosexual actors, rather than actual LGBTQ+ people.

"Well, the film industry is completely sexist and completely class-biased." A closer look at Lynne Ramsay's impressive body of work.