gautammayya

The new AppleTV+ movie directed by Sian Heder will surely hit you like a ton of bricks. It's emotional without being manipulative but rather by making us invested in the characters and their lives.

Basically the movie follows Ruby Rossi, a teenage child of deaf adults who has to take a huge responsibility in managing her family from a very young age and her coming of age and trying to have an identity of her own.

But that doesn't mean the supporting characters aren't fleshed out. They have their own agencies and they feel real which is probably why the movie works so well. The mother (Jackie) is shown to be conflicted about her daughter growing up as she doesn't want her daughter going away from them. The brother (Leo) is insecure as he feels the family favors and assigns more tasks to Ruby even though he is the older brother. He wants people to know that he can shoulder responsibility and take care of the family. Then it brings us to the father (Frank), featuring a magnificent performance from Troy Kotsur. He steals every scene he is in and his relationship with his daughter Ruby is the heart of the film.

There have been complaints that the film is standard and predictable and yes this is true. You can predict the plot points from a mile away because these kinds of movies are made a lot. But still the movie works because of hw dedicated and committed the cast and crew are. They believe in the story and characters and this makes the events happening real. We connect to the characters and are prepared to go on the journey with them. The plot points even though they've been covered a million times feels real because there is a feel of authenticity in this movie.

And Emilia Jones(who plays ruby). My god!! What a performance. The movie wouldn't work without her giving it all. She has to be authentic in multiple categories. She has to believable in catching fish, in sign language, singing and an American accent. And I haven't even talked about her acting skills because she has to be unbelievably likeable. We have to be prepared to go with her and she has to manage to be interesting for 2 hours and she does it with so much ease.

But the things I loved the most about this movie are the emotional beats. Ruby singing to her dad in the back of the truck and then the song at the audition had me bawling my eyes out. Also, it was genuinely funny with Troy Kotsur being absolutely hilarious. And I also think it's one of the very few movies which treats deaf people with kindness and takes them seriously. They are allowed to be full human beings with problems just like everybody else compared to other films where deaf person's only character trait is that he/she is deaf.

Overall, a terrific movie with some plot points which don't feel that sincere compared to the rest of the movie. It's one of those movies which I feel like everyone should watch because it makes you feel so much of empathy.

Ever loved a movie just because of how wonderful the imagery was? The Green Knight is one of those movies for me. It's just so gorgeous and you are transported right into the world created by David Lowery. But the imagery isn't the sole good thing about the movie.

The main theme the movie tackles is about the pursuit of greatness and what really constitutes greatness and is it really worth it. The movie is an adaptation of the story "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" but Sir Gawain takes opposite decisions in the movie compared to the book.

The story starts with Gawain being an irresponsible fool who has no ambition. This disappoints his mom who is a witch and she devises a plan to make him great. The whole movie can be interpreted in many ways, and all the plot points and imagery are metaphorically and we the audience have to connect the dots.

Coming to the characters, they don't really feel real as the director/writer is not interested in making them feel real. What they are interested in are the ideas and characters are written to push that idea. (Similar to Stanley Kubrick movies). Nevertheless, the performances are really good, with Dev Patel shining as he is the only one with a proper character arc. He is a terrible guy who, in the pursuit of greatness fails in being a good man.

But as I said earlier, the best part of the movie was the worldbuilding. It feels so authentic that a creature like The Green Knight feels it belongs there. It is at part gorgeous, at part terrifying and most of the time, both. There is a sense of tragedy and dread until the very end.

This is one of those movies where you have to watch it just for the experience and the themes and the ideas it explores just are an icing on the cake. There are a lot of stuff underneath the surface which demand multiple viewings. Don't go in expecting the usual Knight stuff as Gawain in the movie is like an anti-Knight.

Probably my favorite movie of the year.

The new movie from Joachim Trier starring Renate Reinsve in an absolute star making turn tells the story of Julia in 12 chapters about her indecisiveness and her lack of empathy towards others and how she overcomes this.

Renate Reinsve carries this movie as she embodies the character so well. The character Julia, is fascinating. At first glance she is likeable, incredibly charismatic and she just makes you fall in love with her. But as the movie goes on we get to know her dark side. She really cant take a strong decision which she will stick to, but rather jumps from one place to another, thereby hurting people that love her. So basically the movie is about the responsibility of growing up and having to take decisions knowing full well that these decisions affect people around you too.

But the best thing about the movie, other than Renate's performance, is the atmosphere. It's as if you are in Oslo with those characters which we can attribute to the wonderful production and directing. Add to that there ae two surreal scenes which are probably the best cinematic moments of the year. One is where the world just stops and Julia spends a day with her new lover. The scene is so beautiful and so so sad too. The other scene is when Julia takes mushroom and has a trip where we get to know her character a lot (Similar to the dream scenes in Sopranos), her fears and insecurities. The imagery in that scene is truly magnificent and scary.

But I don't think the movie is flawless. I think the director was afraid of the movie being labelled generic, that he tried too hard to subvert from it. (For example, the ironic use of narration) I thought it was unnecessary as the scenes were so genuine and so well made that it didn't matter it was explored before. I think the director should have just trusted the actors and the plot more and just made it as it is.

In the end, I do think it is one of the best movies of the year, with probably the best performance of the year (along with KStew in Spencer) by Renate. Even if you aren't a fan of Romcoms, you will enjoy this as it is a wonderful character study of someone growing up and taking responsibility of her own life.