Tag: Sydney Film Festival

Review: Sentimental Value

Following the monumental success of The Worst Person in the World, Joachim Trier reunites with actress Renate Reinsve for a different kind of exploration of life’s ripple effects. With his sixth feature, SENTIMENTAL VALUE (Affeksjonsverdi), Trier shifts from romantic entanglements to familial ones, deconstructing the complex ways families express (or fail to express) their love.

After the death of their mother, Nora (Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) are forced to reconnect with their estranged father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård). Once a highly sought-after director, Gustav hasn’t made a film in nearly 15 years. He brings a deeply personal script to Nora, now an acclaimed actress grappling with an anxiety crisis. Nora angrily rejects his offer, still harbouring resentment over his years of absence. Gustav instead casts Hollywood star Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), as familial tensions begin to simmer.

Trier’s slow-burn drama charts the therapeutic journey of a family long unable to communicate. Gustav remains emotionally closed off, his behaviour having kept his daughters at arm’s length for years. Their father’s new script focuses on a parent’s suicide, yet he repeatedly denies it’s based on his own mother’s death. Even in moments of reconnection he’s dismissive, telling Nora he dislikes theatre despite her success. His way of expressing love—handing Agnes a script, recreating fond memories of filming with Agnes via his grandson—is not the love language his daughters need.

Much of this struggle for connection centres around a family home none of them can quite let go. It’s a place of joy, tragedy, and shared burden. A house weighed down with sentimental value, as the title suggests. In contrast to the technical path of Robert Zemeckis’ Here, Trier eschews sentimentality, rendering the house almost as a living entity. One that demands to be filled, its sadness as present as its triumphs.

Reinsve, who’s delivered excellent turns in A Different Man and Armand in recent years, continues to impress with her layered performance. Like The Worst Person in the World, she balances anguish with disarmingly funny turns. Skarsgård first slips into the film without a word and delivers a quietly commanding performance. His years in Hollywood haven’t diminished his understated power on screen.

The other two leads are easily overlooked, and that’s partly the point. Lilleaas’s Agnes, once the child star of Gustav’s greatest success, now avoids making waves. Fanning, who has made intriguing role choices of late, maximises a part that’s deliberately positioned as a pawn.

In a powerful final sequence blending Gustav’s reality with his cinematic fiction, one character seems poised to mirror the past. Yet the truth proves more constructed than that. Whether any of them have truly worked through their grief or simply allowed Gustav to complete his long-standing vision remains uncertain. Either way, it’s captivating to watch unfold.

2025 | Norway, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, France | DIRECTOR: Joachim Trier | WRITERS: Eskil Vogt | CAST: Renate Reinsve, Elle Fanning, Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival 2025, Madman Entertainment (Australia) | RUNNING TIME: 135 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 4-15 June 2025 (SFF 2025), 20 August 2025 (France), 12 September 2025, (Norway) 7 November 2025 (USA)

June 17, 2025
Review: Sirât

Few films this year match the sheer intensity of the first ten minutes of Óliver Laxe’s SIRÂT, its speaker-rattling bass pounding over a desolate desert landscape. EDM thunders beneath close-up shots of dancers. Bodies move in sync with the relentless rhythm. There’s almost no dialogue, just sound and motion. So when father Luis (Sergi López), bearing an uncanny resemblance to a Spanish Buddy Hackett, emerges with his young son Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona), they cut through the haze like strangers in an alien world.

Luis and Esteban begin handing out flyers of a missing woman, their daughter and sister respectively, latching onto a small group of ravers—Stef (Stefania Gadda), Bigui (Richard Bellamy), Josh (Joshua Liam Henderson), Tonin (Tonin Janvier) and Jade (Jade Oukid)—and follow them across the desert to the next rave.

We’re told in the opening text scrawl that Sirât means the bridge between hell and paradise, and it’s the purgatorial landscape that Laxe places his players in. Shot on Super 16mm by DP Mauro Herce, many have already compared this to Mad Max. As their vehicles tear across the deserts of southern Morocco (and, occasionally, southern Spain as a stand-in), and the music continues to blast, that’s true on the surface at least.

Laxe is more interested in these core characters, and their singular purpose of journeying up the metaphorical river as the world falls into apparent catastrophe elsewhere. Aside from López, who gives a wonderfully grounded performance that’s alternately desperate and grief-stricken, Laxe has largely cast non-professionals. So when tragedy strikes, or they’re imperilled by the harshness of their surroundings—or enjoying a fleeting celebratory moment—their reactions feel genuine.

While it would be difficult to maintain the sheer immediacy of those opening beats, Laxe’s screenplay (co-written with Santiago Fillol) keeps dropping surprises like dramatic needle drops. There are no spoilers here, of course, but the first major dramatic turn shifts the tone so completely that you could hear a pin drop in the cinema. Laxe doesn’t let us rest for long in the aftermath, turning another moment of respite into white-knuckle action in the tradition of Henri-Georges Clouzot.

Late in the film, someone asks, “Is this what the end of the world feels like?” The answer seems to be unequivocally yes. The end of the world is alternatively pulse-shaking. It’s filled with disasters quiet and loud. And it happens while you’re busy making other plans. In the end, SIRÂT is a rare beast: a roller coaster that stops to smell the roses.

2025 | France, Spain | DIRECTOR: Oliver Laxe | WRITERS: Santiago Fillol, Oliver Laxe | CAST: Sergi López, Brúno Nuñez, Stefania Gadda | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival 2025, Madman Entertainment (Australia) | RUNNING TIME: 115 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 4-15 June 2025 (SFF 2025)

June 16, 2025
Review: It Was Just an Accident

When discussing the recent work of Mohammad Rasoulof, I noted that the word brave is often overused in film discourse—but it takes on renewed meaning when applied to a filmmaker who has faced exile, imprisonment, and censorship. The same has long been true of fellow Iranian director Jafar Panahi, whose IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT (aka Un simple accident) made a powerful statement when it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year.

Despite the official lifting of his filmmaking ban, Panahi still had to work in secret on this latest project. For good reason too: while the film plays like a reimagined road-movie thriller, it remains deeply critical of the Iranian government. The story begins with a man (Ebrahim Azizi) driving his family home at night when he’s involved in a minor traffic accident. Seeking help at a nearby repair shop, he’s met by Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), who hears the man’s squeaking prosthetic leg and becomes convinced the man is Eghbal, the prison torturer who once brutalised him.

What follows is a tense, claustrophobic journey as Vahid becomes unsure whether his impulsive act has caught the right man. He gathers a group of others to confirm the captive’s identity: wedding photographer Shiva (Mariam Afshari), bride-to-be Goli (Hadis Paak Baten), her fiancé Ali (Majid Panahi), and the volatile Hamid (Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr). All but Ali were once victims of the man they call “Peg Leg.” As they debate Eghbal’s fate, the lines between justice and vengeance blur.

The premise is simple, but Panahi’s skill lies in how he balances this taut scenario with rich human complexity. Genre tropes are a vehicle, but the film’s heart lies in its characters: their pain, trauma, and resilience. Despite the heavy subject matter, what may surprise viewers is how sharply funny the script can be. Panahi leans into the absurdity of the situation at times, such as when this ragtag crew attempts to explain their predicament to a pair of bewildered security guards.

The third act takes a slightly more conventional turn, with a sudden detour to help a pregnant woman reach hospital. (I’m deliberately vague here, as it’s best discovered in the moment). While this sequence feels more constructed than the otherwise freewheeling energy of the film, it serves a purpose: to remind us that even those scarred by inhumanity haven’t surrendered entirely to darkness.

It all leads to a gut-punch of a climax, one that tests the humanity of its central characters and challenges our own assumptions. Panahi saves his sharpest critique for last, offering both a glimmer of hope and a chilling epilogue that lingers long after the credits roll.

2025 | Iran, France, Luxembourg | DIRECTOR: Jafar Panahi | WRITERS: Jafar Panahi | CAST: Vahid Mobasseri, Mariam Afshari, Ebrahim Azizi | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival 2025, Madman Entertainment (Australia) | RUNNING TIME: 102 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 4-15 June 2025 (SFF 2025)

June 15, 2025
Review: The Blue Trail

There have been a number of well-received films in recent years, most notably Here I Am and The Secret Agent, examining the tight grip of Brazil’s military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. Yet it’s to the future that Neon Bull director Gabriel Mascaro turns in THE BLUE TRAIL (O Último Azul), envisioning a world in which an oppressive system is simply accepted as a daily fact of life—marketed, even, as a social good.

Sometime in an unspecified future, government propaganda reminds citizens that “O futuro é para todos” (“The future is for everyone”). Now 77 years old, Tereza (Denise Weinberg) is declared part of the “national living heritage” and scheduled to be relocated to a state-run colony. But Tereza isn’t finished living. Determined to fulfil her dream of flying a plane, and undeterred by bureaucratic rules requiring her daughter’s approval, she hires a boat from skipper Cadu (Rodrigo Santoro) and sets off to find her wings.

From the moment I first saw a still from Mascaro’s film (pictured above), I was captivated by the world his character inhabited. Mascaro immerses us in this vividly imagined future, with cinematographer Guillermo Garza capturing the Brazilian Amazon in rich, otherworldly hues. Tereza may be racing the clock, but the film is not. Mascaro and co-writer Tibério Azul let the story unfold at a meditative pace as our hero drifts upriver.

Part of the film’s dreamlike atmosphere comes from the titular blue trail: the residue of a native snail said to induce visions. In the film’s second half, Tereza bonds with a fellow traveller, a similarly aged boat captain who has bought her own freedom. Mascaro threads these ideas together in the neon haze of a casino that may or may not offer Tereza a final path forward. It’s here that the slow build begins to falter. The final act feels rushed, slightly fracturing the spell Mascaro has cast over the preceding hour.

THE BLUE TRAIL is a quietly potent meditation on ageism and the insidious reach of government control, steeped in the lived reality of a country with a very real history of authoritarianism. It doesn’t offer clear answers, leaving us instead with a lingering sense of unease. But it’s a beautiful, haunting journey getting there.

2025 | Brazil, Mexico, Netherlands, Chile | DIRECTOR: Gabriel Mascaro | WRITERS: Gabriel Mascaro, Tibério Azul | CAST: Denise Weinberg, Rodrigo Santoro, Miriam Socarrás | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival 2025, Palace Films (Australia) | RUNNING TIME: 86 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 4-15 June 2025 (SFF 2025)

June 15, 2025
Review: The Secret Agent

Speaking to the audience at the Sydney Film Festival, the first public screening of THE SECRET AGENT (O Agente Secreto) since it won multiple awards at Cannes, director Kleber Mendonça Filho described the Brazilian government as having effectively given itself amnesty for the abuses committed during two decades of military dictatorship. He noted that the film isn’t strictly about that, but rather a “reconstruction of an atmosphere.”

With its sweaty, smoky period detail, Mendonça certainly achieves that. Set in Recife, Pernambuco during Carnival in 1977, we’re introduced to technology academic Marcelo (Wagner Moura), who has earned the ire of a corrupt businessman and now finds himself the target of a pair of hitmen. As he reconnects with his estranged son Fernando, he begins searching government archives for clues about his mother’s past.

None of this is immediately clear. Mendonça immerses us so completely in his setting that we often feel like unseen observers to a series of loosely connected vignettes. After opening with a scene so bleak it borders on dark comedy—a body left under a piece of cardboard at a gas station, waiting days for the police to show up—the film is punctuated with moments of violence and quiet surveillance.

When an unexpected shift takes us into the modern day, two women are seen sifting through digital recordings of conversations Marcelo had under assumed names. If the film sometimes feels disjointed, it’s because someone is trying to reassemble it all later.

Departing from its gritty realism are surreal interludes featuring a CGI hairy leg hopping through Recife’s downtown, violently kicking pedestrians. Based on a real urban legend that appeared in the local papers of the day, it was a coded way for journalists to report on police violence against minorities with slightly less fear of retribution.

THE SECRET AGENT isn’t lacking in perspective or historical weight, but its length, glacial pacing and fragmented narrative may keep audiences at arm’s length. Curiously, it shares this distance with Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here, which also explores a similar period in Brazil’s past. The coda, which follows a violent pursuit, avoids any tidy on-screen resolution in favour of more impressionistic fragments of memory.

2025 | Brazil, France, Germany, Netherlands | DIRECTOR: Kleber Mendonça Filho | WRITERS: Kleber Mendonça Filho | CAST: Wagner Moura, Maria Fernanda Cândido, Gabriel Leone | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival 2025, Rialto Distribution (Australia) | RUNNING TIME: 160 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 4-15 June 2025 (SFF 2025)

June 14, 2025
Review: The Life of Chuck

Mike Flanagan just gets Stephen King. Having previously adapted Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep, and now holding the television rights to The Dark Tower opus, he understands that King’s work isn’t about the horror, it’s about the people experiencing it. That insight is essential to THE LIFE OF CHUCK, a story told in reverse.

Based on the 2020 novella from If It Bleeds, Flanagan’s screenplay follows King’s original three-act structure. We open on the end of the world. Teacher Marty Anderson (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is watching civilisation collapse: the Internet dies, California sinks into the sea, cities are ablaze. Amid the chaos, he and his ex-wife Felicia (Karen Gillan) begin spotting strange billboards and ads all over town: Charles Krantz: 39 Great Years! Thanks, Chuck! The world unravels, but the ads only multiply.

In the second act, we meet Chuck (Tom Hiddleston), a genial accountant who is blissfully unaware of his own mortality. In one spontaneous moment, he bursts into dance to the rhythm of a street drummer. As the story winds backward, we glimpse his younger self (Jacob Tremblay), learning to dance with his grandmother Sarah (Mia Sara) and studying math(s) under his grandfather Albie (a quietly excellent Mark Hamill), who fears the ghosts that haunt the house’s cupola and may just glimpse the future.

On paper, these might seem like loosely connected vignettes, and they are. But that’s precisely the point. A life is a series of fragmented moments. By telling them in reverse, under the steady narration of Nick Offerman, Flanagan reveals the cosmic connections and quiet patterns that shape a person’s existence.

When King published the novella mid-pandemic in 2020, he described it as “presented in reverse order, like a film running backwards.” This is perhaps why Flanagan is able to translate it so seamlessly to the screen. Each chapter could function as a standalone short, just as King’s original sections almost feel like separate pieces. Yet only when we reach the final act, set in Chuck’s childhood, does the full picture snap into focus. The message is clear: you can only understand life’s meaning by viewing all the flaws and joys as a whole.

This structure gives each act space to breathe, showcasing the stacked ensemble cast in unexpected ways. One standout scene late in the film sees elderly mortician Sam (Carl Lumbly) talk with Marty about the quiet, comforting truths of mathematics. But the blissful core lies in a central dance sequence between Hiddleston and Annalise Basso, a stranger who joins Chuck in an unplanned moment of joy. It’s nestled between heavier chapters, but the joy lingers. Like life, the light moments stay with us as readily as the dark.

Flanagan’s adaptation joins Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me and Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption as one of the great humanist Stephen King films, an ode to the fleeting, beautiful nature of existence. It’s a quietly stunning film, and like Chuck himself, it contains multitudes.

2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: Mike Flanagan | WRITERS: Mike Flanagan (based on the novella by Stephen King) | CAST: Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Mia Sara, Carl Lumbly, Benjamin Pajak, Jacob Tremblay, Mark Hamill | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival 2025, NEON (USA), STUDIOCANAL (Australia) | RUNNING TIME: 111 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 4-15 June 2025 (SFF 2025), 6 June 2025 (USA), 21 August 2025 (Australia)

June 12, 2025
Review: Somebody

The feature debut of directors Kim Yeo-jung and Lee Jeong-chan is a curious entity. Based on the Naver webtoon, it opens firmly in the K-horror tradition of an evil child getting away with everything short of murder. Yet an early twist initially defies expectations, before ultimately giving in to them wholesale.

Single mother Young-eun (Kwak Sun-young), a swimming instructor by day, struggles with the increasingly disturbing behaviour of her 7-year-old daughter, So-hyun. When So-hyun pushes her to the edge, Young-eun makes a drastic decision. Cut to 20 years later: trauma cleaner Min (Kwon Yu-ri) has no memory of her childhood. When the wide-eyed and overly eager Hae-young (Lee Seol) abruptly inserts herself into Min’s life, that carefully rebuilt world begins to unravel.

Kim and Lee may think they’re leading us down a stream of red herrings, but they taught us how to swim in the first act. The literal translation of the Korean title (침범) is something like “invasion,” which gives you a pretty clear idea of the film’s trajectory. As fragments of Min’s past surface, as we surface in the land of psychological thrillers, it’s increasingly obvious that Hae-young isn’t just some quirky new friend. Gee, who could she really be?

It’s hard to know how to feel about SOMEBODY, a film that feels overstuffed with competing ideas. The first act is genuinely gripping, though the evil moppet trope is laid on thick. Once the film shifts into mystery mode, Kwon Yu-ri (or Yuri, to K-pop fans) is strong as Min, keeping everything close to the chest. Lee Seol, on the other hand, veers sharply into manic pixie territory, leaving little doubt as to where this is going.

Technically, this is a handsome film. From the crisp opening shots, transitioning from snowy winter landscapes to the sterile lines of an indoor pool, cinematographer Kim Dong-hyuk brings a precise, almost icy touch. The minimal score heightens the inherent tension.

Ultimately, SOMEBODY is just a muddled film. Perhaps too beholden to its source material, the narrative often stumbles from scene to scene, with few surprises left by the climax. A curious epilogue hints at deeper pathology, and it’s a shame Kim and Lee couldn’t weave more of that into the fabric of the film itself.

2024 | South Korea | DIRECTOR: Kim Yeo-jung and Lee Jeong-chan | WRITERS: Kim Yeo-jung and Lee Jeong-chan | CAST: Kwak Sun-young, Kwon Yu-ri, Lee Seol | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival 2025, Studio Santa Claus Entertainment, Contents Panda (South Korea) | RUNNING TIME: 112 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 4-15 June 2025 (SFF 2025)

June 11, 2025
Review: Together

It’s not often a debut director comes out of the gate with such a high-profile film, although some of the publicity around TOGETHER is probably not what anyone intended. Australian filmmaker Michael Shanks, best known for The Wizards of Aus, uses the opportunity to explore codependency through the time-honoured lens of body horror.

Long-term duo Tim and Millie (real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie) have just moved to the country to take the next step in their life, or possibly just restart it. Their sex life is non-existent, Tim’s music career has stalled, and he’s increasingly leaning on Millie, who’s busy with a new teaching job and an enthusiastic coworker/neighbour (Damon Herriman).

After a misadventure in the woods, where the pair get trapped in a Gigeresque cave, they begin to experience disturbing physical symptoms. A gooey substance intermittently fuses them together. Tim deteriorates when Millie goes to work. Their dreams turn somnambulistic, and the edges of reality start to blur. Is Tim spiralling, or is something more sinister happening?

There’s not a lot of subtext to Shanks’s script. This is separation anxiety writ gory. For the most part, it works, especially early on, when the mystery unfolds with a good balance of unease and jump scares. Two standout sequences—a bathroom scene that redefines the term “stuck on you” and a squirm-inducing nighttime merge—had a festival audience giggling, gasping, and occasionally walking out. All good signs.

But once the premise is clear, the film becomes more predictable. Shanks telegraphs some of the later shocks, including one major needle drop. A subplot involving Tim’s family history, which fuels some early scares, is mostly abandoned in the second half. As the story shifts gears and the external threat is revealed (or for most audiences, simply confirmed), it falls into more familiar territory.

Franco and Brie are an always compelling pair, reteaming after their recent professional collaboration on Somebody I Used to Know, and their chemistry grounding even the most outlandish moments. Herriman, meanwhile, is creepy even when he’s just being Ned Flanders, which might also be exactly why he’s unnerving.

At time of writing, TOGETHER is the subject of a lawsuit from the makers of Better Half, who allege it’s a “blatant rip-off.” I haven’t seen the earlier film and can’t comment on that, but Shanks is clearly drawing from a deep well (pun intended) of body horror tradition, as most filmmakers do. Regardless of the controversy, TOGETHER is a solid debut with a strong central idea, and one that mostly sticks the landing. Plus, you may never listen to the Spice Girls the same way again.

2025 | USA | DIRECTOR: Michael Shanks | WRITERS: Michael Shanks | CAST: Alison Brie, Dave Franco, Damon Herriman | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival 2025, NEON (USA), Kismet Movies (Australia) | RUNNING TIME: 108 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 4-15 June 2025 (SFF 2025), 30 July 2025 (USA), 31 July 2025 (Australia)

June 10, 2025
Review: What Does That Nature Say to You

The immutable law of all film festivals is this: there will be a Hong Sang-soo film, and you will see the Hong Sang-soo film. WHAT DOES THAT NATURE SAY TO YOU (그 자연이 네게 뭐라고 하니), his 33rd feature in 30 years, is another opportunity to catch up. But if you’re already familiar with his work, you’ll know exactly what kind of terrain you’re entering.

Hong remains a keen observer of Korean social norms, often through the lens of male artists bumbling their way through long walks and booze-soaked self-reflection. Here, that avatar is Donghwa (Ha Seong-guk), a thirty-something aspiring poet who has rejected his wealthy family’s money. For the first time in three years of dating, he’s meeting his girlfriend Junhee’s (Kang So-yi) family at their Incheon home.

Initial conversations with her father (Hong regular Kwon Hae-hyo) are polite enough, but as the day progresses into night, and the alcohol flows, the carefully balanced social niceties start to unravel. Hong has long used his characters to reflect on class and art, and here Donghwa appears to be one of the most feckless examples of the model. He’s a listless poet who holds a verse together about as well as he holds his liquor. That is to say, poorly.

Through seemingly listless conversations, cigarette breaks, many meals and repeated voyages in Donghwa’s beat-up 1996 Kia, Hong’s commentary on art and money continues. The standout dinner scene sees Junhee’s father put Donghwa through an inebriate inquisition, gradually coaxing out a portrait of a man whose idealism may just be an excuse for inertia. It’s tense, but hilariously so. It’s ‘peak Hong’ as I’ve come to know it.

Hong seems even less interested in technical polish this time out, which is saying something. The low-budget camera lingers in long, often static takes. Awkward zooms drift in and out, pixelation obscures details, and night scenes are dim and fuzzy. It’s all deliberate, of course, a style that has long since become his signature rather than a limitation.

At nearly two hours, this is one of Hong’s longer efforts, but it never drags. Like the oversized meals that fill the screen, it’s hard not to keep coming back for seconds. For a filmmaker so committed to minimalism and repetition, Hong still manages to surprise, and WHAT DOES THAT NATURE SAY TO YOU is one of his most successful outings in recent memory.

2025 | South Korea | DIRECTOR: Hong Sang-soo | WRITERS: Hong Sang-soo | CAST: Ha Seong-guk, Kwon Hae-hyo, Cho Yun-hee, Kang So-yi, Park Mi-so | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival 2025, Finecut | RUNNING TIME: 108 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 4-15 June 2025 (SFF 2025)

June 10, 2025
Review: Vie Privée (A Private Life)

One of the big drawcards for Rebecca Zlotowski’s VIE PRIVÉE (A Private Life) is unquestionably Jodie Foster, making her debut in a French-language role. Yet there’s broader appeal here too. While the film may entertain more than it surprises, it’s a throwback European thriller, with just enough light comedy mixed into the noir to almost qualify as a cosy crime caper.

Foster plays psychiatrist Lilian Steiner, a woman of cool reserve who records her sessions on an outdated MiniDisc player. Her personal life is less tidy: she has a strained relationship with her adult son and her ex-husband Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil). When Paula (Virginie Efira), a long-term client, fails to show up for an appointment, irritation gives way to shock. Paula has died, and her death has been ruled a suicide.

Lilian is rattled, not least because Paula’s grieving husband (Mathieu Amalric) seems to blame her. But soon Lilian begins to suspect foul play. Together with Gabriel, she embarks on a strange journey through the clues Paula left behind—missing tapes, buried secrets, and the cryptic suggestions of a hypnotist who believes the answers may lie in past lives.

Zlotowski’s script, co-written with Anne Berest (Valiant Hearts) and Gaëlle Macé, has plenty of twists and turns, though discerning viewers may find few real surprises. At times, it feels as if they’re ticking off a checklist of genre touchstones: a Roeg-esque girl in a red coat, a dash of early Verhoeven, a Hitchcockian flirtation with duality and déjà vu. Yet even if the film isn’t breaking new ground, it’s still a compellingly watchable mystery, bolstered by its sly tone and stylistic flair.

The tonal shifts in the film’s back half aren’t handled as well. Audiences who sat stone-faced through a hypnosis-induced flashback were audibly cracking up when Lilian later recounts it to her son’s family. Which brings us back to the cast, without whom none of this would quite work. Foster is flawless in any language, and she makes a pitch-perfect double act with Auteuil.

Some may feel let down by the denouement, which comes in a flurry of revelations and convenient connections. It may fit the character’s arc, or perhaps it’s intended as a final winking joke, But if so, some of that may have been a little lost in translation. Still, if this is the beginning of a series of mysteries (Nights in Normandy?), I’d happily sign up for more.

2025 | France | DIRECTOR: Rebecca Zlotowski | WRITERS: Rebecca Zlotowski, Anne Berest, Gaëlle Macé | CAST: Jodie Foster, Virginie Efira, Mathieu Amalric, Daniel Auteuil | DISTRIBUTOR: Sydney Film Festival 2025, Transmission Films | RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 4-15 June 2025 (SFF 2025)

June 9, 2025