TIFF21 REVIEW: Earwig [2021]

Everything is well, sir. Director Lucile Hadzihalilovic explained how she’d rather viewers of her latest film Earwig (co-written by Geoff Cox) go in knowing as little about it as possible. As such, her introduction said little beyond its source material’s mysterious origins (author Brian Catling dreamt of a girl offering him her teeth before writing the novella in one sitting) and her freedom to make her adaptation unique with as many changes as she saw fit. Do I wish she gave more in hindsight now having finished watching? Yes. Very…

Read More

REVIEW: Eternal Beauty [2020]

I’m in my oils. You cannot just watch part of Craig Roberts‘ latest film Eternal Beauty. You might think you could since it’s seemingly as schizophrenic as its lead character Jane (Sally Hawkins), but that chaos is premeditated so that it can find tonal and thematic sense by the end. I was about twenty minutes in when “hate” started to solidify as a reaction to what I saw because it felt like Roberts was poking fun at the disease—purely using Hawkins’ monotone delivery and erratic actions for laughs. If I…

Read More

REVIEW: Lady Macbeth [2017]

“We did it” At the back of William Oldroyd‘s Lady Macbeth (adapted for the screen by Alice Birch from Nikolai Leskov‘s 1865 novella Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk) are the ideas of oppression, power, and the fluidity of both as the oppressed often find themselves clawing their way to a position of becoming oppressor above another more marginalized sect of society. This theme isn’t one that has been solved by any means since the time of 19th century England and its persecution of women as subservient baby-makers to be bought by…

Read More