10 Films to Look Forward to from the Fall Festival Circuit
Film festivals are back!!! Until a few weeks ago, it had been almost two years since I’d been to one. They can be exhausting at times, but damn they’re fun. Doc Days and Austin Film Festival fell just four days apart this year. Usually I write about them separately, but since I barely had time to recover from one before the next began, I decided to do one piece focusing on my favorite films from both festivals.
Over the course of twelve days (not counting the break between Doc Days and AFF), I saw twenty-seven movies while managing not to get fired from my full-time job. I had a fucking great time, and I saw some fantastic films that I can’t wait to see again when they hit theaters over the next few months. Without further ado, here are ten films you should check out, listed in alphabetical order.
C’mon C’mon
Release Date: 11/19/21
Where to Watch It: Theaters
Director: Mike Mills (Beginners, 20th Century Women)
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Gaby Hoffman, Woody Norman
Have you ever wondered what it would look like if Woody Allen directed Big Daddy? I haven’t either, but Mike Mills clearly has. Mills’ new film C’mon C’mon stars Joaquin Phoenix as a single journalist forced to take care of his 10-year-old nephew while his sister deals with a family emergency. Phoenix and Hoffman are great, but Woody Norman steals the show with one of the best kid performances of the year.
The movie is incredibly sweet. The first half feels a bit like an artistically directed episode of Kids Say the Darnedest Things, but it comes together really nicely in the second half. Most earnest feel-good movies can’t avoid tripping over their own cliches or inducing moderate to severe nausea, but this is one of the rare instances that actually works.
Grade: B+
Cusp
Release Date: 11/26/21
Where to Watch It: Showtime
Director: Isabel Bethencourt and Parker Hill
The directorial debut of Isabel Bethencourt and Parker Hill is an intimate documentary about three teenage girls coming of age in a small Texas town. As the girls become more comfortable with the filmmakers, they reveal that all three of them have experienced sexual abuse. The matter-of-fact manner in which they discuss rape as a common, unavoidable part of life in their community is chilling. The film looks at rape through a generational and communal lens and points a damning finger at societies and institutions that allow it to transpire without consequence.
Grade: B+
Down with the King
Release Date: TBD
Where to Watch It: TBD
Director: Diego Ongaro
Cast: Freddie Gibbs, Bob Tarasuk, Jamie Neumann, David Krumholtz
Down with the King chronicles several months in the life of Mercury Maxwell, a famous rapper struggling with writer’s block. As his agent pressures him for new songs and bills begin coming due, Merc moves to a farm outside a small Massachusetts town to collect himself and find creative inspiration. Real-life rapper Freddie Gibbs turns in a great performance, bringing depth to the role and making the audience empathize with a character whose problems aren’t very relatable to the general populace.
Grade: B+
Flee
Release Date: 12/03/21
Where to Watch It: Theaters
Director: Jonas Poher Rasmussen
Jonas Poher Rasmussen has been friends with the subject of his new documentary since high school. Amin, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, is an Afghani refugee who fled to Europe as a teenager in the late 1990s. He’s never told anyone his story until now, including his boyfriend with whom he’s considering buying a house. Rasmussen interviews Amin several times over the course of a year, each time learning a little more about his tumultuous past and how those experiences have shaped his personality today.
The entire documentary is animated, which works really well in bringing to life reenacted scenes from Amin’s childhood, but it kept me a bit at arms length from the characters in the present-day scenes. I understand that they had to animate everything in order to conceal Amin’s identity, but I think the film could have been a more intimate, emotional experience if the interviews were shown in live action footage.
The pros of this approach far outweigh the cons, and I’d highly recommend this film to anyone. It makes the global refugee crisis more personal and relatable and shows the direct consequences of American military involvement in Afghanistan over the years. If you’re interested in hearing more about the film, I discussed it at the 2:32:48 mark of my podcast here.
Grade: B+
The Humans
Release Date: 11/24/21
Where to Watch It: Theaters
Director: Stephen Karam
Cast: Richard Jenkins, Jayne Houdyshell, Amy Schumer, Beanie Feldstein, Steven Yeun, June Squibb
Adapted from his play of the same name, Stephen Karam’s film chronicles a family Thanksgiving dinner in the mood of an intimate horror film. Beanie Feldstein plays Brigid, the youngest daughter of the Blake family who’s hosting Thanksgiving dinner in her new Chinatown apartment with her boyfriend Richard, played by Steven Yeun. The film juxtaposes millennial and baby boomer attitudes in a way that realistically conveys the tension and anxiety found in adult family gatherings. The cast is incredible, and Richard Jenkins gives one of the best performances of his career.
Reaching beyond generational issues, the story is told in the context of the cold cruelty of the modern American economy. Normal tension between relatives is heightened by the financial burdens on every member of the family as the movie explores the consequences of a society that values capitalism above all else.
My main issue with the film is that only a few of the characters (Richard Jenkins, Jane Houdyshell, and Amy Schumer) are fully explored while the rest (Beanie Feldstein, Steven Yeun, and June Squibb) are left in the background. I would have loved another twenty or thirty minutes to round out those characters and get to know the whole family on a deeper level. But that’s how family gatherings go. You have deep conversations with some people, and others get nothing more than a cursory hello.
Grade: B+
Jockey
Release Date: 12/29/21
Where to Watch It: Theaters
Director: Clint Bentley
Cast: Clifton Collins Jr, Moises Arias, Molly Parker
Jockey is a character piece about an aging jockey trying to eke out one or two more good years before retirement when a young rival shows up claiming to be his son. Clifton Collins Jr, a character actor for much of his career, gives a great performance in the lead role, and Moises Arias (Monos, The King of Staten Island) continues to show that he’s one of the most versatile young actors in Hollywood. Much of the cast is comprised of real-life jockeys, giving the film a rich texture as it explores a niche subculture with unique physical and mental challenges.
Grade: B+
Memoria
Release Date: 12/26/21
Where to Watch It: Theaters
Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Cemetery of Splendor)
Cast: Tilda Swinton, Juan Pablo Urrego, Elkin Díaz, Jeanne Balibar
This film kinda blew me away, but it’s definitely not for everyone. Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a master of slow cinema, focusing on atmosphere over characters or plot. In order to enjoy the film, it’s important to understand that dynamic and have the right mindset. Not much happens in Memoria, but the rich atmosphere hypnotizes viewers and invites them to bring themselves into the movie.
Tilda Swinton stars as a British professor in Columbia who begins hearing an unsettling sound and becomes obsessed with replicating it. The movie uses this concept to explore ideas about memory and mid-life crises and how humanity’s inability to accurately recall information leads to feelings of loneliness and uncertainty. I really enjoyed sitting in the calm atmosphere Weerasethakul creates and thinking about these ideas in relation to my own life.
If this sounds interesting to you, keep an eye out for this movie when it reaches your city. It may not be there for long. Neon is attempting an unprecedented release strategy with Memoria, committing to show it on only one screen at a time on a never-ending world tour beginning December 26th, 2021 in New York City. The distributor insists that the film will never be available on blu-ray or any streaming platform.
It’s a bold strategy, but I like it. Seeing this film in a theater at the Austin Film Festival was an incredible experience that would be greatly diminished by watching it at home. It’s a movie that requires your full attention to be appreciated, but if you give it your focus, you won’t regret it. I can’t wait to see it again when the Memoria world tour reaches Austin.
Grade: A-
Petite Maman
Release Date: TBD
Where to Watch It: TBD
Director: Céline Sciamma (Girlhood, Portrait of a Lady on Fire)
Cast: Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz
Céline Sciamma’s follow-up to the breathtaking Portrait of a Lady on Fire isn’t quite as powerful, but what it lacks in punch, it makes up for in sweetness and charm. Joséphine Sanz stars as Nelly, a young girl dealing with the death of her grandmother. She goes to her grandmother’s house with her parents to sort through her possessions when her mother leaves suddenly with little explanation. As Nelly plays in the woods near the house, she meets a girl who turns out to be a younger version of her mother. Sorry to spoil the surprise, but they give it away in the trailer, and the movie title translates to “little mom.”
The film discusses generational divide by exploring how a parent and child might understand each other better if they were the same age. It’s a creative concept that grows stronger as the film progresses and the characters develop empathy for each other through a shared perspective. Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz are incredible in the lead roles, creating perhaps the most likable characters in any movie this year.
Grade: A-
The Same Storm
Release Date: TBD
Where to Watch It: TBD
Director: Peter Hedges (Pieces of April, Dan in Real Life)
Cast: Mary-Louise Parker, Sandra Oh, Raúl Castillo
Peter Hedges wrote and directed The Same Storm during the height of the pandemic, asking actors to film themselves in their own homes using their laptop cameras. Taking place exclusively over zoom calls, the film is a collection of loosely connected vignettes about the communicable, cultural, and political turmoil Americans experienced in the spring and summer of 2020. Some of the segments in this movie are as powerful as anything you’ll see this year. Others don’t work quite as well, but they’re all solid.
My only complaint with the film is its rapid editing style, jumping from one story to the next without giving the audience room to breathe. Some of the vignettes bowled me over with their raw emotion only to be immediately undercut by a light-hearted joke at the beginning of the next scene. The movie could really benefit from some space after the heavier sequences to allow the audience to process those emotions before being jolted into something with an entirely different tone. However, this is a minor complaint. I’m really impressed that Hedges pulled this off so well.
Grade: B+
The Worst Person in the World
Release Date: 02/04/21
Where to Watch It: Theaters
Director: Joachim Trier (Oslo August 31st, Louder Than Bombs, Thelma)
Cast: Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie, Herbert Nordrum
My favorite film from the local festivals I attended this fall is a stylized romantic comedy from talented Norwegian director Joachim Trier. The movie stars Renate Reinsve as Julie, a book smart woman in search of purpose. After graduating at the top of her class, she bounces around between professions, looking for the career that will bring her fulfillment. As she approaches her 30th birthday, she begins dating a 44-year-old comic book writer named Aksel played by Anders Danielsen Lie. As they grow closer together, Julie finds herself tempted by a younger man she meets at a party.
It’s difficult to describe this film. It’s filled with interesting ideas, and it weaves them all together in a really satisfying way, never losing focus on its main characters. The core of the drama revolves around the age gap between Julie and Aksel and the differing priorities between millennials and Gen-Xers. Julie feels like an amalgamation of many of my friends, a representation of the lost millennial, adrift and lonely, seeking meaning through everything but yet to find it. Trier is empathetic to all of his characters as he paints a world where happiness is fleeting, and contentment seems always just out of reach. Equal parts funny, sad, and thoughtful, The Worst Person in the World is one of the best films of the year.
Grade: A-
Michael Dixon is a mild mannered accountant by day and a mild mannered movie watcher by night. He will not do your taxes for you. He lives in Austin, Texas with his lovely television and collection of fine whiskies. Follow him on Twitter @mDixon00 and check out his podcast here. You can’t purchase his book anywhere because it doesn’t exist.
