ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

Female Film Critics 24/375

Author: Valerie Kalfrin

Reviews 

SHAUN THE SHEEP: THE BEAST OF MOSSY BOTTOM – Review by Valerie Kalfrin

Valerie Kalfrin , ,

Eureka! Shaun, the silent yet expressive sheep of Aardman Animations, becomes a fleecy Dr. Frankenstein in Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom, a frightfully fun family comedy. The visual storytelling here is marvelous, with sight gags galore and laugh-out-loud moments, despite the human and animal characters speaking just in sighs, yelps, grumbles and moans. (The sculpted brows alone do wonders.) Though a couple of distinctly British references will sail over some viewers’ heads, there’s lots of universal silliness, like one member of an angry mob sporting a torch that’s really an image on his smartphone, held aloft via selfie stick.

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Festivals Reviews 

UNION TOWN (TIFF 2026) – Review by Valerie Kalfrin

Valerie Kalfrin , , , , , , , ,

Ostensibly about the power of unions and workers uniting for better wages and improved job conditions in the microcosm of New York City, Union Town truly creates empathy and even admiration for the people who keep the Big Apple and America moving, one delivery at a time.

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Festivals Reviews 

PHOOLAN (TIFF 2026) – Review by Valerie Kalfrin

Valerie Kalfrin , , , , , , ,

Newcomer Sneha Kumari is fiery and magnetic as teenage Robin Hood-style outlaw Phoolan Devi in Phoolan, a biographical drama focusing on forty-eight hours where the future Indian politician and two colleagues struggled to evade capture during the siege of a tiny village. Inspired by Devi’s 1996 autobiography, Phoolan fills in the early years of India’s “Bandit Queen,” who in the film takes on a leadership role in an armed gang that initially kidnaps her. Having learned to shoot, she attacks rapists and brutal landowners, returning deeds for property to the lower castes, who cheer her for her mercy. The film opens as seventeen-year-old Devi hides her hair under a turban, scurrying with two colleagues away from police trying to flush them out of hiding. She’s wanted for killing at least twenty men, and thousands trying to capture her are told her gang is agile, like dragonflies. She’s seven feet tall. She’ll castrate you before killing you. (That much, at least, is true.) Phoolan is an effective contained thriller that serves as an intriguing introduction to a fascinating woman.

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Festivals Reviews 

SMUDGE THE BLADES (TIFF 2026) – Review by Valerie Kalfrin

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Smudge the Blades, which earned writer-director Cody Lightning a “Best Canadian Discovery” award from the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival, is not the type of sports film where the down-on-his-luck coach gets a second chance, inspiring a team of scrappy underdogs in the process. Rather, it’s about finding a precious space that validates one’s worth, even if no one calls it that. Smudge the Blades builds to a championship hockey game, but it’s down-to-earth in its ambivalence about what happens to the teams afterward. There’s more to life for a lot of these people than hockey, but hockey also is a haven, offering seconds of glory but often just a way to fight through everything else.

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Festivals Reviews 

CHEYENNE (TIFF 2026) – Review by Valerie Kalfrin

Valerie Kalfrin , , , , , , ,

one of a handful of women in the documentary Cheyenne driven to compete at riding wild broncos on the rodeo circuit after the sport excluded them for roughly a century. Debuting at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival, the film builds to the final competition at Cheyenne Frontier Days in Wyoming—the end-of-season rodeo billed as “the Daddy of them all.”

Directed by Taimi Arvidson, Cheyenne covers a smattering of women’s rodeo history through historical footage but largely focuses on four American competitors and their coach, Daryl. There’s no crying in the arena, he warns, calling it “a bad image for everybody.” Anyone flung to the dirt needs to walk it off with a wave and a smile.

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Festivals Reviews 

WHATCHA WANT (TIFF 2026) – Review by Valerie Kalfrin

Valerie Kalfrin , , , , ,

Moving from Hong Kong to Vancouver on the arm of a rich husband, Yin thought she’d landed the fairy tale. But when her husband’s not home for almost six months and her company is mostly a chauffeur and a similarly abandoned trophy wife, this former dancer discovers how to forge a new path in Whatcha Want. Director Mina Shum (Murdoch Mysteries), Whatcha Want layers in character beats about Yin, who danced as a child and now can’t help but move with her earbuds, even walking on the sidewalk. She soon discovers a hip-hop dance troupe near her apartment, where Penny (choreographer Helen Dang), the supportive leader, encourages her to pursue resuming her studies in dance.

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Festivals Reviews 

IDDA (TIFF 2026) – Review by Valerie Kalfrin

Valerie Kalfrin , , , , ,

There’s nothing like traveling together to highlight the fractures in a relationship. The Italian drama Idda, set against the backdrop of a hike to the summit of Sicily’s Mount Etna, brings together two young women whose friendship of years past doesn’t quite translate to where they are now in life. The two had planned to climb the active volcano, locally called Idda, after Adele’s mother died two years prior, but Sofia didn’t follow through at the time. That resentment sits between them, along with a secret that Sofia’s not ready to share, ignoring phone calls and messages.

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Reviews 

LATE FAME – Review by Valerie Kalfrin

Valerie Kalfrin , , , ,

Late Fame is not so much about a frustrated artist but about someone who, having enjoyed fame once, wonders later in life if he really wants such attention again.

Directed by Kent Jones (Diane), this lived-in New York story stars an understated Willem Dafoe (The Phoenician Scheme) as Ed Saxberger, a bohemian poet of the 1970s now sorting mail as a postal worker. Saxberger lives alone in a modest apartment of bookshelves and cassette tapes of poetry, but mostly, he’s content to shoot pool and joke around with other guys at a neighborhood bar where the female barkeep without asking sets out his favorite sandwich.

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