The most intimate and tender movie of the first half of 2013 will land on the end-of-year top ten list for many. Past Lives, Celine Song’s feature debut, is a masterclass in storytelling, character development, and the subtle intricacies that subversive themselves in big and small relationships. Past Lives will undoubtedly be recognized during awards season, even with a nontraditional early summer release date.
Category Archives: Romance
About Time (2013)
About Time was a movie I watched for the first time a year after its 2013 release date. Despite relatively high Rotten Tomatoes scores (70% critics, 81% audience), I recall being unimpressed by it. Many accounts I follow on TikTok are of people giving film reviews. While most, if not all, of those I follow in this niche, are younger than me, more often than not, I generally agree with their assessments (hence, my reason for following them). So often, About Time is referenced in a video. The film is often called beautiful, poetic, and devastating. Some have gone so far as to call it a gut punch. Those characteristics I seek out in my romantic dramas, so I signed up for the rewatch, thinking I must have missed something. It turns out that I didn’t. My second viewing did hold my interest more than my first, but it still felt very average. I’m even more uncertain now about what others see in this film that I missed.
Bones and All (2022)
If a story about a pair of two young, hungry lovers devouring the flesh from a still-warm body that one of them has just killed sounds like your cup of tea, Luca Guadagnino’s (Call Me by Your Name, I Am Love) Bones and All is the movie for you. If a plot line that revolves around cannibalism revolts you, this would be a hard pass. In either case, if there’s one December. 2022 release to skip the concessions on, that film is Bones and All.
My Policeman (2022)
Brokeback Mountain set in 1950s Britain? That’s the best comparison I can give to Michael Grandage’s (Genius) understated and tender My Policeman, a movie that is beloved by audiences (96% on Rotten Tomatoes) but shunned by critics (46%). Much of the criticism has to do with Harry Styles (Dunkirk, Don’t Worry Darling), the singing superstar who, earlier this year, broke a Madison Square Garden record by selling out his concert for 15 consecutive nights. Much of the public was ready to declare him the next Justin Timberlake, based upon a single supporting performance in Dunkirk, a role that didn’t require him to do much. Styles was a late choice in Olivia Wilde’s highly anticipated but polarizing Don’t Worry Darling after Shia LaBeouf abruptly backed out. The film faltered for many reasons, including the less-than-flattering reviews of Styles’ inability to match his much more accomplished counterpart, Florence Pugh. My Policeman had been hyped as Styles’ acting breakthrough. He wasn’t nearly as miscast as in Don’t Worry Darling. His performance opposite David Dawson (most recognizable as King Alfred in the Netflix series The Last Kingdom) was one of the many highlights of the underseen My Policeman.
Lady Chatterley’s Lover (2022)
Score another victory for Netflix in its ongoing battles with Hulu, Apple+, Prime Video, Peacock, HBO Max, Disney+, etc. The original streaming movie streaming service has seen many peaks (and a few valleys) since it moved from its strictly digital base platform in 2007. Fifteen years later, with fierce competition, including the likes of Amazon and Apple, two of the most influential companies in the history of the world, the 1997 start-up company continues to be the clubhouse leader with both its quantity and quality of original content. Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre follows up The Mustang, her breakthrough directorial effort, with Lady Chatterley’s Lover, a heartwrenching retelling of the classic D.H. Lawrence novel.