Sherin Nicole – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

EXTRA GEOGRAPHY (Sundance FF 2026) – Review by Sherin Nicole

February 3, 2026February 4, 2026 Sherin Nicole Alice Englert, English boarding school, Extra Geography, Galaxie Clear, Marni Duggan, Miriam Battye, Molly Manners

From the very first moments in the classrooms of Extra Geography, we realize that Minna and Flic (Galaxie Clear and Marni Duggan) want desperately to be in sync; they slow down or speed up to match each other’s pace, but they are already slightly out of rhythm. They don’t know this, but with personality quirks and sharp dialogue, director Molly Manners ensures we do. Those little seeds reveal Minna and Flic’s suppressed individuality, growing into tension in this comedy of ‘Manners’.

Festivals Reviews

HA-CHAN, SHAKE YOUR BOOTY! (Sundance FF 2026) – Review by Sherin Nicole

February 3, 2026February 3, 2026 Sherin Nicole Alberto Guerra, Alejandro Edda, ballroom competition, Ha-chan, Ha-Chan Shake your Booty!, Josef Kubota Wladyka, Rinko Kikuchi, Shake Your Booty!, sundance ff 2026, tokyo

director Josef Kubota Wladyka’s Ha-chan, Shake Your Booty!, the kawaii (super cute) and quirky story revolves around Haru (Rinko Kikuchi), whose husband, Luis (Alejandro Edda), quite literally expires while they’re dancing in a Tokyo ballroom competition. So yeah, the duality of sweet and bitter is present from the start. Another point of duality is the contrast between Luis’ life in Japan with Haru, and his upbringing in Mexico with his father and sister. Who gets to decide which life represented him best, his wife or his family by blood? Throughout this comedically surreal runtime, we’re treated to wild hallucinations, big dance numbers, sensual daydreams, and a desperate recklessness that Haru can’t help but be drawn into. Ha-Chan’s story is about the lies we tell ourselves when we can’t face the guilt or the devastation of surviving, and the fantastical—although artificial—pocket universes we create when we wish things had gone a different way.

Festivals Reviews

HOLD ONTO ME (Κράτα Με) (Sundance FF 2026) – Review by Sherin Nicole

February 3, 2026February 3, 2026 Sherin Nicole Christos Passalis, HOLD ONTO ME, Maria Petrova, Myrsini Aristidou, Sundance World Cinema Dramatic - Audience Award 2026, Κράτα Με

Musing on the sight of the sky and sea flipped upside-down, Iris (Maria Petrova) defines the concept of a horizon that both is and isn’t. She is also caught in the middle—having and not having a father. Until Aris (Christos Passalis) comes into town to bury his father, her grandfather, and she gets into trouble for stealing while her mother is away. Hilariously, Iris didn’t need to grow up with Aris to inherit his criminal ways. The prickly pair can’t stand each other; their mirrored sullen personalities and acid-dipped tongues don’t sit well together. Winner of the Sundance World Cinema Dramatic – Audience Award 2026, Myrsini Aristidou imbues her debut feature with a sunbaked sense of adventure and intimate camera angles, allowing us to get closer to Iris and Aris as they get to know each other.

Reviews

SINNERS – Review by Sherin Nicole

December 18, 2025December 21, 2025 Sherin Nicole Autumn Durald Arkapaw, hailee steinfeld, hannah beachler, Jayme Lawson, Li Jun Li, MICHAEL B JORDAN, Miles Caton, Ruth E. Carter, ryan coogler, Sinners, Wunmi Mosaku

Sinners is alive. Both in the moment and immortal. It’s a story about stories, a cinematic conjuring where folklore, music, and family become the marrow of survival. Ryan Coogler has crafted a bold reclamation but also an expansion of the American narrative on film, where vampires are less monsters than metaphors for the forces that have haunted and fractured our communities for generations. Here, the juke joint isn’t just a set piece. It’s a crossroads where Black-American, Chinese-American, Choctaw, and Old Irish traditions intersect in harmony and discord—each of our musical traditions entwined in the story’s DNA. Coogler trusts us to reconcile the mixing of genres, allowing the weight of history and centuries of rage to roil beneath the surface of Mississippi culture and lore. Never spelling out what anything means but trusting us to find the poetry in what we see and how it makes us feel.

Reviews

RENTAL FAMILY – Review by Sherin Nicole

November 10, 2025November 16, 2025 Sherin Nicole Brendan Fraser, Hikari, HIKARI | Rental Family | Searchlight Pictures |, Rental Family, Searchlight Pictures, twiw, week in women

In each vignette, director Hikari and her co-writer, Stephen Blahut, focus on the heart of humanity and who we are by exploring the loneliness that draws us together—seeking connection. In my favorite set of scenes, when Philip (Brendan Fraser) looks out at the people in other apartments across from his, it feels like he’s seeing a mini-multiverse, and he’s imagining how he might fit into each of those worlds. It’s cleverly communicative filmmaking, a symbolic way of alleviating isolation. All of those “boxes” contain different lives, and through the Rental Family service, many lives are tied together.

Festivals Reviews

BILLY IDOL SHOULD BE DEAD (Tribeca 2025) – Review by Sherin Nicole

June 16, 2025June 16, 2025 Sherin Nicole animation, Billy Idol Should Be Dead, documentary, Jonas Åkerlund, London punk, Steve Stevens, Tribeca 2025

Director Jonas Åkerlund guides the documentary from gorgeously crisp interviews—shot in rich black and glowing white—to lush but cheeky animated sequences that play out like fever dreams, weaving through the mayhem and pivotal moments that reveal the man behind the wild child persona. Allowing every line on Idol’s face to tell the tale as clearly as his voice and the testimony of those who know him well. Billy Idol Should Be Dead is a compendium of ironies—some delightful and others tragic.

Festivals Reviews

BIRD IN HAND (Tribeca 2025) – Review by Sherin Nicole

June 16, 2025June 16, 2025 Sherin Nicole Alisha Wainwright, Bird in Hand, Christine Lahti, James Le Gros, Jeffrey Nordling, Melody C. Roscher, Tribeca 2025

Director Melody C. Roscher crafts Bird in Hand as a biting blend of absurdity and insights. The film is as much a farce as it is a deep dive into generational trauma and the quest to understand ourselves through our origins. Alisha Wainwright and Christine Lahti are the tumultuous anchors of this story. Their performances peel back the layers of lifelong resentment with hilarity and heartbreak, while Roscher smartly denies us any illusions about an easy fix. The closest this movie gets to the gold of kintsugi is the mud of Virginia. By the time the credits roll, you’re smiling because broken isn’t an ending, if you can see where the pieces fit together.

Festivals Reviews

THE WOLF, THE FOX AND THE LEOPARD (Tribeca 2025) – Review by Sherin Nicole

June 16, 2025June 17, 2025 Sherin Nicole David Verbeek, dutch films, Jessica Reynolds, Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen, Marie Jung, naomi kawase, Nicholas Pinnock, the wolf the fox and the leopard, Tribeca 2025

I’m not going to start this review in the usual way but with something akin to a recap of its opening moments and part of the first act. I know you’re likely wondering why, and it’s because those scenes, literally, hit me in the head: Making its world premiere at Tribeca this year, The Wolf, the Fox and the Leopard begins with a radio scan, scrolling through the news of several natural disasters caused by climate change. A woman begins to narrate over a black screen in Japanese: “In the beginning, there was no story…” We see the tops of green trees: “The forest was breathing in and out peacefully. But a fever was taking hold of the world. An era was ending…” We drop to the forest floor, where brown and green ferns reach upward, searching for the light: “And it was precisely at this crucial time that she would enter our world.”

Festivals Reviews

THE TRAVEL COMPANION (Tribeca 2025) – Review by Sherin Nicole

June 11, 2025June 11, 2025 Sherin Nicole Alex Mallis, Anthony Oberbeck, Naomi Asa, The Travel Companion, Travis Wood, Tribeca 2025, Tristan Turner

The Travel Companion is the story of a man who pushes back against change so vehemently he knocks himself over, hopefully, to fall into a revelation. It’s also hilarious to watch unfold because that man, Simon (Tristan Turner), reacts to his best friend’s new girlfriend with such over-the-top shenanigans that you can’t help but giggle while you cringe. The film was inspired by the filmmakers, Travis Wood and Alex Mallis’ experiences navigating friendships and relationships during rapidly changing lives, making the film both relatable and grounded in honest emotional chaos. With a quietly hilarious script full of truly embarrassing behavior, The Travel Companion is a peek into a filmmaker’s life and how true inspiration often comes from boundaries.

Festivals Reviews

DEEP COVER (Tribeca 2025) – Review by Sherin Nicole

June 11, 2025June 12, 2025 Sherin Nicole Bryce Dallas Howard, Deep Cover, Ian McShane, orlando bloom, Sean Bean, Tom Kingsley, Tribeca 2025

Deep Cover is a deliciously crime-y romp that proves improv skills might just save your life—or get you killed by drug gangs. The film follows the perfectly cast trio of Bryce Dallas Howard as an improv instructor whose “just go with it” mantra is about to be put to the ultimate test. Alongside Orlando Bloom, a method actor who never breaks character, and Nick Mohammed an endearingly nebbish IT guy with a foul mouth. What starts as an opportunity to stretch their talent by helping the hard-nosed cop, DS Billings (Sean Bean), with a simple—and supposedly safe—sting operation spirals into a full-blown London gang war. Let’s just say our trio’s acting is too good and everybody gets greedy. Kingsley pours his signature blend of character-driven comedy and progressively bonkers situations into an action-buddy-comedy that is carefully crafted and gloriously unhinged.

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