Female Film Critics 24/375
If the idea of Marisa Tomei as a romance-addicted tugboat captain sounds like your cup of tea, then grab the popcorn and settle in for Rebecca Miller’s She Came to Me, a quirky, well-acted dramedy about the intersecting lives of two families of New Yorkers and the people in their orbit. By turns heartfelt and slightly absurdist, it’s ultimately the kind of cinematic escape from the real world that we all sometimes need.
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If you’ve ever doubted that one person really can make a difference when it comes to systemic change, just spend two hours getting to know Black model/1970s fashion icon/activist Bethann Hardison via the thoroughly engaging documentary Invisible Beauty. Though, fair warning: Her passion, drive, and relentless activism may leave you feeling somewhat inadequate about your own internal drive by the time the credits roll.
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Prolific author, keen observer, insightful storyteller, compulsive writer, incisive tweeter. Joyce Carol Oates is all of these things and more, as director Stig Björkman makes abundantly clear in his thoughtfully constructed, affectionate documentary Joyce Carol Oates: A Body in Service of Mind. Tracing Oates’ life and career over the course of several decades, Björkman makes it clear that she has well earned her reputation as an iconic American writer.
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Themes of identity, memory, trauma, and the possibility of second chances come together in a potent blend in writer/director Ellie Foumbi’s gripping debut feature Our Father, the Devil. Part character study, part thriller, it centers on a woman whose horrifying past unexpectedly comes back to haunt her years after she believes she’s left it behind — and she isn’t at all ready for what that might mean.
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In a USA that’s lucky enough to have strong women like Kamala Harris, Maxine Waters, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Elizabeth Warren, and Katie Porter speaking up, persisting, reclaiming their time, and generally schooling the White male political old guard, it’s important to remember that Bella Abzug did it all first. Jeff L. Lieberman’s engrossing documentary Bella! reminds us what a trailblazer — and force of nature — Abzug was, detailing her impact on American government and culture.
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Part Only Murders in the Building, part Nancy Drew, and part Wednesday, Susie Searches is a charming, appealingly quirky little mystery with some genuinely surprising twists. Stylish and well-acted, this story about an earnest, ambitious armchair detective (played by Kiersey Clemons) marks the feature directorial debut of Sophie Kargman, who co-wrote the screenplay with William Day Frank based on their 2020 short, also titled Susie Searches, in which Kargman originated the title role.
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“Life finds a way.” This classic line from Jurassic Park is referenced more than once in director Mel Eslyn’s Biosphere, and there couldn’t be a more apt way to summarize the story of this quirky, unexpected dramedy about two lifelong best friends (Mark Duplass, who co-wrote the film with Eslyn, and Sterling K. Brown) who may be the last people left alive on Earth after an unspecified planet-ending disaster.
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Hiding behind a carefully constructed wall of aloofness and solitude, Jina (Gong Seung-Yeon) successfully avoids feeling grief, anger, and…pretty much everything else in South Korean writer/director Hong Seong-eun’s delicate feature debut Aloners. As it explores the potentially devastating impact of denying yourself the time and space to experience pain and loss, the film ultimately makes a clear argument for the importance of establishing genuine connections with other people.
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Writer/director Nicole Holofcener does what she does best in You Hurt My Feelings: Get inside the heads of insecure characters who are at a crossroads in their lives, figuring out how to navigate the thornier aspects of life and love. There’s a lot of big interpersonal drama, but there’s plenty of humor mixed in, too. (How could there not be, with gifted comediennes like Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Micaela Watkins playing smart, sophisticated sisters?). Kudos to Holofcener for portraying a marriage that has its bumpy bits but is fundamentally built on genuine affection and frank communication. We may not all talk as expressively as Holofcener’s characters, but we can all take a page from their book and grow through honesty.
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Tiger King meets The Thomas Crown Affair in Allison Otto’s captivating documentary The Thief Collector. As it tells the story of colorful couple Jerry and Rita Alter and their likely role in the 32-year disappearance of Willem de Kooning’s Woman – Ochre — one of the modern art world’s most valuable paintings — from an Arizona museum, it will remind you quite forcefully that truth really often is stranger than fiction.
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