vanessa kirby – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

EDEN – Review by T.J. Callahan

August 19, 2025August 19, 2025 T. J. Callahan ana de armas, Daniel Bruehl, Galapagos, jude law, ron howard, Sydney Sweeney, vanessa kirby

Eden is Gilligan’s Island meets Lord of the Flies. Based on “those who survived”, the Ron Howard film is the true story of Dr. Friedrich Ritter and his partner, Dore Strauch, who settled on Floreana Island in the Galapagos to live a better life alone, foraging for themselves while escaping the collapsing economy of WWI Germany. Ritter’s letters home soon became glamorized by the press encouraging others to join “Paradise”. He was the first influencer without meaning to be.

Reviews

THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS – Review by Valerie Kalfrin

July 23, 2025July 24, 2025 Valerie Kalfrin Ebon Moss-Bacharach, joseph quinn, marvel, Matt Shakman, mcu, Pedro Pascal, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, vanessa kirby

The film’s true superpower is its grounded, heartfelt tone. Director Matt Shakman leans into the source material’s wackier elements with an unironic touch that makes the performers and emotions shine. The four look out for each other as a family—and consider the world as their family too. At a time when real headlines can be depressing, The Fantastic Four: First Steps celebrates thoughtfulness and empathy with a can-do attitude and sense of community that never goes out of style.

Reviews

THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS – Review by T. J. Callahan

July 23, 2025July 24, 2025 T. J. Callahan Ebon Moss-Bacharach, joseph quinn, marvel, Matt Shakman, mcu, Pedro Pascal, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, vanessa kirby

When someone with superpowers says they’ll move the Earth for you, take them seriously.
In The Fantastic Four: First Steps that’s exactly what Reed Richards is trying to do…move the Earth to save the planet and its people…from the gargantuanly gluttonous Galactus…a being who needs to feed on other worlds with an appetite that is never satisfied.

Reviews

THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS – Review by Susan Kamyab

July 23, 2025July 24, 2025 Susan Kamyab Ebon Moss, joseph quinn, Pedro Pascal, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, vanessa kirby

While I loved Superman, the same can’t be said about the newest superheroes movie to hit the big screen. The Fantastic Four always struggles to make a successful adaptation. They seemingly find the right cast, but the wrong script. The Fantastic Four: First Steps is headed in a better direction than its predecessors but lacks the charm that typically leaves audiences wanting more.

Reviews

NAPOLEON – Review by Susan Granger

November 27, 2023November 29, 2023 Susan Granger Apple TV+, David Scarpa, Joaquin Phoenix, Napoleon, ridley scott, Rupert Everett, vanessa kirby

Big-budgeted Napoleon is an epic bore. Working from David Scarpa’s history-heavy script, director Ridley Scott (Gladiator) spends 2 hours, 38 minutes alternating between brutality on the battlefield and violence in the bedroom, succeeding more in the former than the latter – since he used 11 cameras, filming simultaneously for the frontline carnage. In the titular role, Joaquin Phoenix is almost as quirky and creepy as he was as Arthur Fleck in Joker. He whines, sneers and – almost comically – habitually covers his ears after ordering the canons to fire. What he lacks is charisma.

Reviews

THE SON – Review by Susan Granger

January 18, 2023January 19, 2023 Susan Granger anthony hopkins, florian zeller, Hugh Jackman, Laura Dern, The Son, vanessa kirby

The Son revolves around an affluent family, headed by workaholic Peter Miller (Hugh Jackman) who is struggling, along with his ex-wife (Laura Dern), to help their volatile, self-destructive 17-year-old son, Nicholas (Zen McGrath), while grappling with an infant, a younger partner (Vanessa Kirby) and the psychological trauma inflicted by his tyrannical father (Anthony Hopkins.)

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THE WORLD TO COME – Review by Martha K Baker

February 22, 2021February 22, 2021 Martha K. Baker (Archived Contributor) Katherine Waterston, Mona Fastvold, the world to come, vanessa kirby

Abigail’s journal begins on Jan. 1, 1856: “With little pride and less hope, we begin a new year.” Her soft, plain voice, intoning her written words aloud, drives The World to Come as surely as the hand-lettered dates on its pages. The film is beautiful, sad, historical, and hopeful. As the title suggests, Heaven, the world to come, holds hope for women like Abigail. She milks the cows, kneads the biscuits, feeds the chickens, knits. Grieving the loss of her daughter to diphtheria, she withholds herself from her dominant husband’s desires.

Reviews

PIECES OF A WOMAN – Review by Susan Granger

January 16, 2021January 17, 2021 Susan Granger Ellen Burstyn, kornel mundruczo, molly parker, pieces of a woman, shia leboeuf, vanessa kirby

As their story begins, pregnant Martha (Vanessa Kirby) is feted at an office baby shower, while her husband Sean (Shia LaBeouf), a construction engineer on a Charles River bridge project in Boston, is so eager to become a father that he frames the ultrasound photographs of their daughter to hang in the nursery.

Reviews

PIECES OF A WOMAN – Review by Pamela Powell

January 9, 2021January 16, 2021 Pamela Powell Ellen Burstyn, kornel mundruczo, molly parker, pieces of a woman, shia leboeuf, vanessa kirby

Young love, a new marriage and the excitement of becoming parents for the first time implodes when a tragic accident occurs during the birthing process. Vanessa Kirby and Shia LaBeouf star in the new Netflix film Pieces of a Woman as Martha and Sean, the mismatched but charming couple who find themselves in an inexorable downward spiral after losing their baby.

Reviews

PIECES OF A WOMAN – Review by Martha K Baker

December 30, 2020January 16, 2021 Martha K. Baker (Archived Contributor) Ellen Burstyn, kornel mundruczo, molly parker, pieces of a woman, shia leboeuf, vanessa kirby

“The first 30 minutes of [‘Pieces of a Woman’] contain some of the most intense footage you will see this year — quite possibly the most bloodcurdling images of [birth], in all its hideous brutality, you have ever seen.” That quote paraphrases the Washington Post’s review of Stephen Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan from 1998. But those words apply equally to the first 30 minutes of “Pieces of a Woman

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