When she was five, Liza Volkova found her father, pistol in hands, standing next to her mother's dead body. That very day the father took the girl to the orphanage and left there. For 13 years the girl was planning her revenge, being bullied by peers. Having left the orphanage, Liza finds the shooting club, with the aim to hunt down and kill her father. However, she doesn't even suspect that she herself is someone else's target.
If you were to watch it on streaming when you have nothing to do, it’s still probably a giant waste of time, but you could do far worse. Paying $18 for a movie ticket and who knows how much for concessions turns this from an exercise in boredom to an exercise in frustration.
Netflix's Afterlife of the Party might fall into the rom-com genre, but it's much more about grief, strong female friendships, and platonic love than it is about romance.
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.
In a world where we hear ringers and beepers at every corner, technology feels inescapable. This is why technology is often an enemy in Digital J-horrors, like One Missed Call.
A wondrously imaginative, diverse, and spirited allegory of childhood and the arduousness of adulthood.
Kate Winslet and Saorise Ronan deliver stellar performances in a film that doesn't live up to its potential.
