It’s been an interesting year in film! We are still getting the usual franchise films and familiar IP titles doing the rounds, with Kung Fu Panda, Bad Boys and Despicable Me all releasing sequel no. 4, as well as the release of big epics like Dune: Part Two and Gladiator II (after a 24 year gap!) - both of which have been positively received.

Studios are reviving certain titles like Ghostbusters (Frozen Empire) to bring known and loved stories to a new generation, as well as recalling nostalgia for its original fans, though the audience scores for Ghostbusters aren’t wholly convincing that a follow up to the 2021 film was needed at all.

Disney/Pixar’s Inside Out 2 tops the box office charts this year with Deadpool vs Wolverine not far behind - both summer releases - perhaps proving that sequels are still huge moneymakers. Looking at the global box office list, only three films in the top 20 are original or first titles, suggesting that studios are incredibly reliant on pre-existing audience appetite and they are very risk averse when it comes to investing in new stories, filmmakers and… well, the unknown.

For what it’s worth, I loved Inside Out 2, thought Moana 2 was hugely disappointing and was surprised by how much I enjoyed both Wicked and Dune: Part Two. A couple of my favourites from the box office top 20 were Twisters and The Wild Robot. Kung Fu Panda 4 and Despicable Me 4 were big hits with our son - we probably did 8 cinema trips to see those films alone!

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Anyway, besides the big earners and tentpole movies, there were a lot of incredible releases this year that may not have got as many bums on seats, but some garnered a lot of attention and praise in other ways. Honorable mentions for me go to We Live In Time, My Old Ass, Monkey Man and Robot Dreams, and here are my favourites:

1. The Outrun (Dir. Nora Fingscheift)

I have recently written about The Outrun, so this should come as no surprise! Saoirse Ronan and Nora Fingscheidt is a dreamy combo and the end result is wonderful. The focus on the connection between people and place is particularly special, and Saoirse Ronan’s performance is, of course, phenomenal.

2. Babes (Dir. Pamela Adlon)

Babes is Pamela Adlon’s feature directorial debut and if you have seen her in anything else before, the comedy and tone of this totally checks out. Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau are hilarious together and it is a very unfiltered portrayal of pregnancy packaged in a chick flick shaped story. I saw it at FilmBath Festival sandwiched between a great short called Push and then later watched Nightbitch, so it was an intense day of films about motherhood, but the lightness it brought was most welcome and I enjoyed how well it reflects on how utterly bonkers pregnancy and childbirth is.

3. The Substance (Dir. Coralie Fargeat)

The IMDb poster for The Substance has a pull quote from Indie Wire that reads, “Absolutely f***ing insane” and if you ever watch it you will probably get about half way through and think. ‘Yes, this is pretty unhinged but that quote was a tad OTT’… and then you’ll reach the denouement and realise that the phrase is wholly appropriate for the last 20 minutes. The Substance is perhaps the breakout indie hit of 2024 for me - it received the Best Screenplay award at Cannes and friends that are more casual cinema goers have seen it and expressed their shock and delight in response to it. That sort of excitement about a film that just lands unannounced and blows you away is so rare that I hope it continues to be celebrated for all its daring originality and thrilling, stand out elements.

4. Challengers (Dir. Luca Guadagnino)

Challengers is the film that I obsessed over for the longest time. It is flawless in its direction, casting, writing, editing, score - for me, it is the whole package and it showcases the sort of filmmaking that really excites and inspires me. And I don’t even care about tennis! I have seen some Zendaya bashing online recently because she is frequently cast in popular films, but will have none of it. She is extremely talented and here it’s clear why (ditto for Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist). I am already booked in to see Guadagnino’s Queer early Jan 2025 so let’s see if he can top this year’s effort!

5. Love Lies Bleeding (Dir. Rose Glass)

Continuing the theme of fearless filmmaking, Love Lies Bleeding was another film that impressed me with its bold creative choices and the world that Rose Glass built to immerse us in a gritty world of bodybuilding and crime. As an aside, the film comes with the perfect tagline: ‘Revenge gets ripped’.

6. La Chimera (Dir. Alice Rohrwacher)

This is the second film in the list that Josh O’Connor stars in - what a year he’s had! In this one, he plays an archaeologist who has a gift for finding things (priceless things) and is part of a group of tomb/grave-robbers. It’s a layered and haunting film inspired by ‘The Great Raid’ and leans into the historical elements that drive the narrative, as well as providing social commentary on the things that we treasure as individuals and a society. A really thought provoking and special film.

7. Twisters (Dir. Lee Isaac Chung)

Twisters is the only film on my list that was a big box office smash, but with merit (and largely due to a huge promotional campaign - the marketing of the stars and the press tour was actually a bit of a masterclass in how to bring people along for the ride). As learned from the much loved 1996 Twister film that this blockbuster pays homage to, the pursuit of giant tornados lends itself well to large screens and although I didn’t get to experience the 4DX version of Twisters, I still left the cinema feeling energised, thrilled and entertained. It makes a considerable difference when the leads are capable of delivering convincing back stories and chemistry and in this, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell are fantastic. It’s also worth a mention that the film’s soundtrack was on heavy rotation for a long time after watching too!

8. My Favourite Cake (Dir. Maryam Moghadam and Behtash Sanaeeha)

As part of the FilmBath 2024 Festival, I saw My Favourite Cake and was immediately charmed by its warmth and subtle irreverence. It's a film that lets you into a lonely Iranian woman’s life and is therefore thematically and narratively rich. It balances joy and sadness with incredible skill, and the lead is consistently enchanting in the way that she lives and loves. A real gem.

9. Bird (Dir. Andrea Arnold)

I was struck by the genre defying nature of Bird, its blend of reality with fantasy and Andrea Arnold’s approach to a particularly complex coming-of-age story. She throws a lot at Bailey (Nykiya Adams), the main character, who lives in a squat with her father, Bug (Barry Keoghan), and the setting helps us empathise with how hard life can be for young people (in this case, in the south east of the UK). Although at times it is heartbreaking, ultimately I found it an uplifting film and adored the ambition with which it was made.

10. Anora (Dir. Sean Baker)

Anora won the Palme d'Or at Cannes so one might expect it to top a lot of end of year lists. Sorry to disappoint if it is unsurprising to see it in my number one spot, but experiencing this film is such a wild ride that I really had no other choice! Sean Baker is one of the best writers and directors working today, and if you have seen any of his previous films, this one won’t be surprising in terms of its subject matter and general content. He has previously explored the life of sex workers in Tangerine and Red Rocket (and also in The Florida Project to a certain extent), but never on this scale. And so, the portrayal of the eponymous Ani (Anora), is empathetic, multi-layered and completely compelling because there is a genuine love for the character that you don’t always see in other films where there are people in roles as exotic dancers or sex workers. While fun and absolutely bonkers, it is also incredibly thoughtful and introspective and being able to do all that in a single film - and do it this well - is a rarity. Hence the pole position.

What made your list? Let me know in the comments below or on Insta! Happy new year to anyone reading this, and here’s to an awesome year of film ahead!

The Outrun | Official Trailer (2024) | Studio Canal UK

Based on the memoir by Amy Liptrot, The Outrun is an intense and deeply personal drama about a young woman returning to her homeland of Orkney in a bid to rehabilitate.

In perhaps her most physical performance to date, Saoirse Ronan plays Rona, a woman in her late twenties with an alcohol use disorder. To mirror the disarray that this has brought to her life and relationships, the film has a clear start and end point but is littered with flashbacks and forwards so that the audience can piece together her story little by little. The details are - sometimes literally - hazy, and aid our understanding of how fun times quickly turned disastrous.

Sequences of Rona’s life in London start off gleeful and full of colour, with friends riding bikes, carefree dancing, and meetcutes in clubs - and my word, how beautifully Nora Fingscheidt directed that scene with Paapa Essiedu in particular, but a pattern emerges whereby joy is replaced with recklessness, pain and a person that people around her find increasingly difficult to be around. The duality of this lifestyle eventually takes enough of a toll that Rona leaves city life and all of its vices behind for the rural Orkney Islands, an archipelago off the north coast of Scotland.

When she first moves up to the islands, it feels as if Rona only has a choice between staying put and self-destructing, or opting for self-inflicted exile from modern society in this far flung corner of the UK. And though it’s true that London provided her with personal and professional opportunities, you can immediately feel the affinity she has with the islands and the gifts it has to give - things that we may not immediately place much value on: sparsely populated areas, fresh sea air and close-knit communities. A job with the RSPB surveying birds at risk of extinction has her moving even further away from civilisation and she moves from the mainland to Papay, a smaller island which has a population of between 80-90 people, residing in a tiny pink bungalow with only the coastal wind to keep her company most of the time.

Though the locations change, Rona (along with all the mental conflict she faces) is consistent and now with the clifftops around her, the audience can almost breathe a sigh of relief on her behalf as we can see how much physical and emotional space she has to enable her to change her habits and resist drinking. Not only this, but she can pursue her interest in biology (you will probably never see somebody talk so passionately about seaweed on film again!) and spend more time around her father’s flock of sheep on the eponymous outrun, than with crowds of clubbers in Hackney. To this end, the screenplay includes interspersed voiceovers from Ronan that provide insight into the natural landscapes and folklore of Orkney, and it is clear through this and the sprawling visuals of the almost-untouched countryside how much synergy there is between nature and the human inhabitants of the islands.

With respect to how the subject matter of substance abuse is handled, Fingscheidt doesn’t shy away from depicting traumatic experiences and the aftermath of blackouts, but the perspective is character-first and sympathetic, rather than dwelling on the behaviour and damning her every move. The psychological impact of the experience is very much shown rather than told, and there are a few subtlety used secondary characters that enable Rona to open up about her struggles. Her actions are never excused per se, but instead contextualised by showing us glimpses into her childhood and the reality of growing up with a parent whose bi-polar disorder means that they experience severe episodes of depression and mania. Later scenes show that this evidently doesn’t get any easier to handle as an adult child, especially while trying to manage your own disorder.

Despite the heavy themes, the film overall does feel like it’s following someone who is moving forward and it’s a journey of recovery and readjustment that is extremely compelling to watch. Recognisable patterns are formed with the audience: when Rona wears her headphones, for example, we know exactly what she is listening to because the sound becomes part of the diegesis, which is particularly jarring when she is listening to new rave EDM like Simian Mobile Disco with relaxing waves crashing silently around her. These repeated actions, much like her new career listening out for corncreaks, provide a renewed sense of perspective and purpose.

Rona’s process is conventional in some ways - she attends AA meetings and requests to be checked into rehab - but ultimately it is the relationship that she forms with herself in relative solitude that allows her to reinvent how she deals with life and sobriety. The formation of patterns, repetition, and being able to control external elements becomes one of the most important visual and narrative elements to the film, not to mention one of the singular best scenes on the beach, where the euphoric is swapped for symphonic power. This is her shining moment, when she is ablaze with courage and defiance, wild and enraptured. Ronan’s embodiment of the character (a living person, for reference) deserves all the high praise, but in this scene in particular she proves why she is one of the best actors working today.

People often talk about the benefits of freshwater and sea swimming, but in this film we see a character’s cleanse occur in real time. Being surrounded by untamed coastline where the Atlantic Ocean meets the North Sea brings a host of benefits for Rona, not least the self belief that she does have the inner-strength to control her mind, body and beyond.

Verdict: The Outrun features at least two scenes that will live in my head rent free for a very long time. Nora Fingscheidt continues her successful run of films exploring troubled and complex people in a creative and sensitive way once again. Saoirse Ronan is incredible… yet again. A perfect match.

Overall? ⭐⭐️⭐⭐⭐
Big screen appeal? 🎬🎬🎬🎬
Accolade eligibility? 💡💡💡💡💡
Study-worthy? 📚📚📚📚

Help and advice:

• NHS Alcohol Support: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-advice/alcohol-support/

• Mind: https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/recreational-drugs-alcohol-and-addiction/drug-and-alcohol-addiction-useful-contacts/#AlcoholSupportOrganisations

• Drink Aware: https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/advice-and-support/alcohol-support-services

Last month we looked at Young Visionaries in the film world, so it’s only fair that we give filmmakers who continue (or continued) to make films after an already extensive career some deserved praise, as well as spotlighting late bloomers who made their directorial debuts later in life.

When I’ve been looking at gender studies about film previously, I have been struck by the differences between the age of male and female actors who have leading and speaking roles. The data for first-time directors doesn’t seem as reliable: one study that analysed 750 directors found that the average age is 32, while this Hollywood Reporter article cites that the average age to start directing is ‘around 40’. And then there’s the question of what should ‘count’ - many films are made but not all of them get a theatrical release.

Either way, I think age plays an interesting role in filmmaking. The wisdom that life experience brings provides directors with a broader lens with which to tell their stories. And extra years on the planet means more time spent observing, learning and living. Just look at how perceptive and grounded the films of the likes of Andrea Arnold and Ken Loach are!

A little sidetone as we are focusing mostly on directors here, but a respectable nod to James Ivory (one-half of the British filmmaking team Merchant/Ivory), who won his first Oscar for his adapted screenplay for 2017’s Call Me By Your Name. He also co-directed and narrated 2022 documentary memoir A Cooler Climate, which played the New York Film Festival (featured in the list below!).

I hope you enjoy this month’s selection…

🎞 October Selection 🎞

American Honey | Official Trailer | A24

1. American Honey (2016; Dir. Andrea Arnold)

   A teenage girl with nothing to lose joins a traveling magazine sales crew, and gets caught up in a whirlwind of hard partying, law bending and young love as she criss-crosses the Midwest with a band of misfits. Arnold was 45 years old when she directed her first feature film and 55 years old when she directed this one.
   

2. Million Dollar Baby (2004, Dir. Clint Eastwood)
   Frankie, an ill-tempered old coach, reluctantly agrees to train aspiring boxer Maggie. Impressed with her determination and talent, he helps her become the best and the two soon form a close bond. Eastwood’s career in film began in 1955 and he has over 60 years experience in the industry, directing his first film at 41 years old and this one at 74. His upcoming film Juror #2 should be released this year and he is currently 94!
   

3. Hannah Arendt (2012, Dir. Margarethe von Trotta)
   A look at the life of philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt, who reported for 'The New Yorker' on the trial of the Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Von Trotta has been directing films since 1975 and for this one she was 70 years old.

🎬 The Long List: Optional Extras 🎬

• Killers of the Flower Moon - When oil is discovered in 1920s Oklahoma under Osage Nation land, the Osage people are murdered one by one - until the FBI steps in to unravel the mystery.

• Grizzly Man - A devastating and heart-rending take on grizzly bear activists Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard, who were killed in October of 2003 while living among grizzly bears in Alaska.

• A Cooler Climate - Oscar-winning filmmaker James Ivory discovers boxes of films he made during a life-changing trip to Afghanistan in 1960 recounting his life as a traveler, outsider, and artist.

• I, Daniel Blake - After surviving a heart-attack, a 59-year-old carpenter must fight bureaucratic forces to receive Employment and Support Allowance.

• The Piano Teacher - A young man romantically pursues his masochistic piano teacher.

• Both Sides of the Blade - A love triangle story about a woman caught between two men, her long-time partner and his best friend, her former lover.

• Hotel Rwanda - Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager, houses over a thousand Tutsi refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda, Africa.

• Faces, Places - Director Agnes Varda and photographer/muralist J.R. journey through rural France and form an unlikely friendship.

• The Post - A cover-up spanning four U.S. Presidents pushes the country's first female newspaper publisher and her editor to join an unprecedented battle between press and government.

• To Our Loves - An erratic young woman's family desperately tries to prevent her increasingly erotic ways.

🔜 Next Time 🔜

The theme for JANUARY will be U FILMS as a delayed way to mark International Children’s Day on 20 November. For readers in other territories, the ‘U’ stands for ‘Universal' and under the BBFC’s classification, it lets us know that films with this rating are suitable for all. Normally, it’s a good marker that a film can be watched by anyone, including children! Feel free to give me your thoughts about this post or the next one in the comments or on Insta! I’d love to know what you’ve been watching.

Like some of the other writers on Substack whose publications I follow, I took a break over August, so this month’s club post is a blend of two months under the title of ‘Young Visionaries’. August 12th is International Youth Day, which you can read about on the UN Website, but in summary it aims to ‘bring youth issues to the attention of the international community and celebrate the potential of youth as partners in today’s global society’.

Then tomorrow, September 2nd (honestly, how did that happen!?), people in the UK return to school, so the theme also felt pertinent for this time of year when young people get to start over and experience a daunting yet seminal time in their life. They may not think of it like that, but whether you had a good time at school or not, there is no doubting how much your school and college years shape you as a person.

Among the many challenges facing young people is how prevalent youth-related issues are in media, and particularly how well represented and how realistically young people are portrayed. There may be youthful characters being played on our screens but how well do they represent real life for young people today? It is vital young people are consulted about this and involved in creative processes - not just to ‘get it right’ - but because it risks alienating huge audience demographics if all they have to consume are stories about life as a ‘youth’ from unfounded points of view.

And that brings us seamlessly to the theme and its links with cinema: young visionaries of film. For this edition of Film & TV Lunch Club, we are thinking about directors who were considerably and impressively young when they made their mark in the film world. Everyone has to cut their teeth at some point but what a gift to be able to share the feeling and experience of youth through art!

The selection of films below focuses on the age of directors exclusively, but as an aside, during the research I did for this post I discovered that Marsai Martin made history in 2019 as Hollywood's youngest executive producer ever of a studio film, Little.

Before we get into the selection and longlist, check out the YDA (Young Director Award) website and Into Film website for two related resources. Feel free to suggest more in the comments if you have recommendations to share.

Finally, good luck to everyone starting a fresh academic year tomorrow - you’ve got this 💪

🎞 August/September Selection 🎞

Citizen Kane (1941) Official Trailer; Dir. Orson Welles

1. Citizen Kane (1941; Dir. Orson Welles)

   Following the death of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, reporters scramble to uncover the meaning of his final utterance: 'Rosebud.' Welles was 25 when this film premiered - one that is widely regarded as one of the best of all time.
   Stream on BFI Player.

2. Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975, Dir. Chantal Akerman)
   A lonely widowed housewife does her daily chores, takes care of her apartment where she lives with her teenage son, and turns the occasional trick to make ends meet. However, something happens that changes her safe routine. Akerman was 24 at the time of the film’s release.
   Stream on BFI Player.

3. The Apple (1998, Dir. Samira Makhmalbaf).
   After twelve years of imprisonment by their own parents, two sisters are finally released by social workers to face the outside world for the first time. One of the first films of the Iranian New Wave, this was Makhmalbaf’s debut, made when she was just seventeen.

🎬 The Long List: Optional Extras 🎬

• Fruitvale Station (Dir. Ryan Coogler) - The story of Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident, who crosses paths with friends, enemies, family, and strangers on the last day of 2008.

• Mommy (Dir. Xavier Dolan) - A widowed single mother, raising her violent son alone, finds new hope when a mysterious neighbor inserts herself into their household.

• Fireworks (short; Dir. Kenneth Anger) - A dissatisfied dreamer awakes, goes out in the night seeking a 'light' and is drawn through the needle's eye. A dream of a dream, he returns to bed less empty than before.

• Straight out of Brooklyn (Dir. Matty Rich) - A young man living in poverty makes a plan to rob a drug dealer and change the life of his family.

• Donny Darko (Dir. Richard Kelly) - After narrowly escaping a bizarre accident, a troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a man in a large rabbit suit who manipulates him to commit a series of crimes.

• Boyz N the Hood (Dir. John Singleton) - Follows the lives of three young males living in the Crenshaw ghetto of Los Angeles, dissecting questions of race, relationships, violence, and future prospects.

• The Evil Dead (Dir. Sam Raimi) - Five friends travel to a cabin in the woods, where they unknowingly release flesh-possessing demons.

• Clerks (Dir. Kevin Smith) - A day in the lives of two convenience clerks named Dante and Randal as they annoy customers, discuss movies, and play hockey on the store roof.

• Harlan County USA (Dir. Baraba Kopple) - A heartbreaking record of the thirteen-month struggle between a community fighting to survive and a corporation dedicated to the bottom line.

• Fast Times At Ridgemont High (Dir. Amy Heckerling) - A group of Southern California high school students are enjoying their most important subjects: sex, drugs and rock n' roll.

🔜 Next Month 🔜

The theme for OCTOBER will be RESPECT YOUR ELDERS meaning that we will be flipping this post on its head and looking at films directed by people who continue (or continued) to make films after an already extensive career, or directors who directed their debut post-40. Feel free to give me your thoughts about this post or the next one in the comments or on Insta! I’d love to know what you’ve been watching.

Aistė S. Gram is a filmmaker (writer, director) and actor from Lithuania who bases herself in various locations around Europe. Her most recent short film, funded by the Lithuanian Film Fund and a successful crowdfunding campaign, is impressively gripping, has universal themes and demonstrates incredible promise for the future! In this interview, the conversation begins about Aistė and her creative journey so far, and then delves into the production of her short. Read on for a plethora of knowledge and wisdom from a filmmaker who lives by her advice to ‘Follow your joy’!

Clare - Miss En Scene: First of all, can you tell us about your route into the creative sector, and, more specifically, into filmmaking?

Aistė S. Gram: I started out as an actress, but always knew I wanted to write - I was just too afraid or busy to try! When Covid hit and everything stopped, I was forced to work through my fears and start writing and that’s when the idea for my first film came to me. Writing feels like a bug now - the more I do, the more I crave it. When we started applying for funding to make my first film, I knew I had to direct it, and so I took it on, as an experiment but also something brave to do. It was one of the most challenging, yet rewarding things I’ve done in my life, and I’m so happy I said yes. Having a background as an actress and experience of other roles behind the camera (I worked in casting, production offices and helped friends on set for years) was hugely beneficial to me both as a scriptwriter and as a director. I now see how it all ties into each other. I always say - there’s never just one road to it!

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Clare: What is your approach to filmmaking, and does this differ depending on whether you are in front or behind the camera?

Aistė: When I’m in front of the camera, I am creative, but I am there to take someone else's lead and help make their vision the best it can be with the skills that I have. When I am directing - it’s all on me! It took me a while to be able to make brave decisions and to lead with a clear vision, I had to learn many lessons in communication, collaboration and in being adaptable. It was also super scary to show personal work to others, but I learned to just go with it. Filmmaking is a team sport, and that’s what makes it so exciting for me - I’m always surrounded by beautiful, talented and hard-working collaborators who are there to have my back and help me achieve my creative goals.

Clare: What are your favourite types of stories to tell, and why?

Aistė: Realistic, with a pinch of fantasy. I grew up reading fairy tales and I am fascinated by myth, symbolism and the beauty of an imaginative story. I try to explore real hard truths in my writing, but as I don’t believe in people ever being 2D, I add playfulness wherever I can, be it in form of humour, quirkiness, or elements of fantasy.

Clare: How has your experience of filmmaking in Lithuania compared to here in the UK (or the other countries you have worked in)?

Aistė: There are definitely some similarities and some differences. In short, smaller industries feel more special, because you get to work with the same people much more often, and so you feel a part of the community. Bigger countries have bigger industries and bigger budgets so you can go more adventurous with your ideas, they also have well-established professional practices and (positive) rules. But anywhere you go, you meet many talented, hard-working, kick-ass professionals ready to creatively work together to achieve a greater goal and turn a written idea into a visual story. It’s a magical world. I love film people.

Clare: For anyone - particularly women and girls - wanting to get into film, what advice would you give them?

Aistė: When I was growing up, I had no idea what a film director was - there were just no people like that around me! And somehow, I became one. I knew what acting was, yet I never imagined spending my birthday on a recreated Eurovision stage at Warner Bros. studios pretend-singing to a crowd of 500 with fire flares going off around me! The strangest things can happen in life. Follow your passion and see where it takes you. Follow your joy! We live in times where separation is losing importance, and many new things are being born. If you want something real bad, you’ll find your way. And if that way does not exist, you’ll create it, and gift that to yourself and others. I say go for it, at least try! Oh, and don’t be afraid to make mistakes - they will help you the most in life.

Clare: Congratulations on your fantastic short film, Mažoji. Can you give us an elevator pitch for it?

Aistė: Thank you so much! Sure! Told through the perspective of a toddler, this is a story of a family's first encounter with schizophrenia.

Clare: Like you’ve said, the film depicts a character with schizophrenia. What messages about mental health do you hope people take from the film as a result of watching it?

Aistė: It’s a very short film, and so, just a little glimpse into the theme of schizophrenia. For me this story was always about the family rather than the one who suffers from a mental health condition. It’s about relationships, the human fear of the unknown and about unconditional love (that is represented by the baby). It’s never just about the person who suffers, there are usually so many more people affected by it - parents, siblings, grandparents, partners, friends, etc. - and they all have their own feelings and perspectives around it. Many stories worth being told.

Clare: Mažoji was made as a result of the Lithuanian Film Fund and a successful crowdfunding campaign. For any new filmmakers reading this, what would be your advice on securing funding for a film?

Aistė: Believe in what you’re doing! When you’ve got something that has to be told, and when you can’t stop thinking about it - you’ll find a way of breaking those doors, one way or another! It’s asking oneself about all the niches you and your story represent, and looking for funding in those areas. Is there some local funding, is there a charity that digs your topic, are there people or businesses around who may be interested in helping you tell this specific story? When it comes to crowdfunding, it’s all about the time and the hard work, and thinking outside the box. It was an intense month of trying anything and everything, and it was a really testing time. But it was a success - lots of people believed in me, my story and my team (we had 133 Indiegogo backers and a few more who donated directly, including an Exec. Producer who came in at the last minute and added all the missing funds to make it a 100%). In short, go for it full force and don’t stop believing in your vision! And never underestimate the power of your community. Gather your team, educate yourself on the process, make a plan and follow it through.

Clare: Can you provide a summary of what you're developing or working on at the moment and how you balance multiple projects at once?

Aistė: I’m currently developing my next short film as a writer-director, writing three TV pilots/bibles, and I’m starting a novel! I’ve also recently launched a newsletter/blog that’s very different from anything else I’m writing, as it focuses on spirituality and the journey of an artist. How do I do it all at the same time? I plan my week, allocate specific time for each task/project, remove myself from anything that distracts, and set a timer while I work. I try to balance it all out rather than stress myself out, and if there’s a deadline for any of it, I adapt accordingly. Most importantly, I constantly remind myself to also live my life outside of my projects. I find that I am much more focused on anything that feels like “work” when I allow myself to “play” outside of the timer.

Clare: What does this year hold for you? What are you hoping to achieve in the second half of 2024?

Aistė: Funding, team building and community! Whatever happens for me in 2024, I hope I can leave this year with tangible results (finished scripts, an outline for my novel, a successful pitch or a funding application, core team secured, etc.). I’d love for my blog to grow too, it’s my favourite baby at the moment (don’t tell the others!).

Mažoji is now available to view online:

More info about Mažoji - the full story (idea, process and achievements to date): https://www.aistesgram.com/mažoji

Also check out Heron of Bath, Aistė’s blog about spirituality and creativity:

Heron of Bath

'It's like Sex and the City, but about spirituality', said my psychic and I ran with it. Reflections on film, art, philosophy, travel, mysticism, and all forms of healing.

By Aistė S. Gram

I live in a household which is pretty unified on most fronts, but when it comes to sports I just cannot get on board with big football tournaments, mainly because it feels like I end up shifting my life around for the schedule. And this time around (for the Euros for anyone outside of Europe), I’m told the games have been pretty lacklustre which doesn’t convince me that any of the upheaval has been worth it.

However, when it comes to the Olympics - summer or winter - we are in agreement that the games brighten up our lives while they’re happening.

I love the celebration of internationalism, the breadth of sports in the spotlight, and the general uplift it seems to provide for people. And in terms of sports, I am so grateful to the Japanese Olympic Committee for adding skateboarding and surfing to the program. And this year there will be breakdancing for the first time! I am so excited to see how that works!

I am in awe of the athletes and never fail to feel inspired by the actual games, but what about how this feeling and experience has been captured on film? In the run up to the 2024 Olympic Games (which starts on 26 July, will feature 32 sports and approximately 10,500 athletes) the aim of this month’s club list is to get you in the spirit, highlight some olympic history and prep you for an thrilling time ahead.

To borrow Paris 2024’s motto: Ouvrons grand les Jeux. I hope you enjoy the games and this month’s picks…

🎞 July Selection 🎞

The Boys in the Boat Official Trailer | Amazon MGM Studios

1. The Boys in the Boat (2023; Dir. George Clooney)

   A 1930s-set story centered on the University of Washington's rowing team, from their Depression-era beginnings.
   Stream on Amazon Prime.
   

2. The Crash Reel (2013; Dir. Lucy Walker)

   Fifteen years of verite footage show the epic rivalry between half-pipe legends Shaun White and Kevin Pearce, childhood friends who become number one and two in the world leading up to the Vancouver Winter Olympics, pushing one another to ever more dangerous tricks, until Kevin crashes on a Park City half-pipe, barely surviving.
   Rent from 99p or buy on Prime or Apple TV.
   

3. Icarus (2017; Dir. Brian Fogel)

   When Bryan sets out to uncover the truth about doping in sports, a chance meeting with a Russian scientist transforms his story from a personal experiment into a geopolitical thriller. Won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

   Stream on Netflix.

🎬 The Long List: Optional Extras 🎬

Other notable films suggested for the theme:

• Cool Runnings - When a Jamaican sprinter is disqualified from the Olympic Games, he enlists the help of a dishonored coach to start the first Jamaican Bobsled Team.

• Blades of Glory - In 2002, two rival Olympic ice skaters were stripped of their gold medals and permanently banned from men's single competition. Presently, however, they've found a loophole that will allow them to qualify as a pairs team.

• Chariots of Fire - Two British track athletes, one a determined Jew and the other a devout Christian, are driven to win in the 1924 Olympics as they wrestle with issues of pride and conscience.

• Miracle - The true story of Herb Brooks, the player-turned-coach who led the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team to victory over the seemingly invincible Soviet squad.

• I, Tonya - Competitive ice skater Tonya Harding rises amongst the ranks at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, but her future in the activity is thrown into doubt when her ex-husband intervenes.

• Foxcatcher - U.S. Olympic wrestling champions and brothers Mark Schultz and Dave Schultz join "Team Foxcatcher", led by eccentric multi-millionaire John du Pont, as they train for the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea, but John's self-destructive behavior threatens to consume them all.

• Race - Jesse Owens' quest to become the greatest track and field athlete in history thrusts him onto the world stage of the 1936 Olympics, where he faces off against Adolf Hitler's vision of Aryan supremacy.

• The Cutting Edge - A temperamental figure skater and an arrogant former hockey player attempt to win the Olympic Gold Medal as a figure skating pairs team.

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• Downhill Racer - Quietly cocky Robert Redford joins U.S. ski team as downhill racer and clashes with the team's coach, played by Gene Hackman. Lots of good skiing action leading to an exciting climax.

• The Weight of Gold - A look at the mental health challenges Olympic athletes often face.

• Visions of Eight - Eight film artists from different countries are given carte blanche to make a collection of short documentaries on the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics, offering unexpected, original and often humorous perspectives.

• International Velvet - Velvet's orphaned niece Sarah follows her dream of Olympic glory with her horse Arizona Pie.

• Munich - After the Black September capture and massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics, five men are chosen to eliminate the people responsible for that fateful day.

• Fists of Freedom: The Story of the '68 Summer Games - Documentary leading up to, during and after the 1968 Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City. Features interviews with athletes, including John Carlos, Tommie Smith and George Foreman, activist Dr. Harry Edwards, journalists and archival footage of the Games and the fallout after the raised fisted gloves by Carlos and Smith.

• Freedom’s Fury - A documentary on the 1956 Olympic semifinal water polo match between Hungary and Russia. Held in Australia, the match occurred as Russian forces were in Budapest, stomping out a popular revolt.

• Olympia Part One and Two - documentaries of the 1936 Olympics at Berlin.

• Tokyo Olympiad - Kon Ichikawa examines the beauty and rich drama on display at the 1964 Summer Games in Tokyo, creating a record of observations that range from the expansive to the intimate.

• White Rock - Documentary about the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck 1976.

• Without Limits - The life of renowned runner Steve Prefontaine and his relationship with legendary coach Bill Bowerman.

• 16 Days of Glory - The definitive photographic record of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, told "from the inside" through the lives of the participants, the words of David Perry, and the singing voice of Placido Domingo. From the opening to closing ceremonies, this unique style of storytelling shows a side of the Olympic Games not seen by television audiences.

🔜 Next Month 🔜

We are skipping August (summer break and all) but the theme for SEPTEMBER will be YOUNG VISIONARIES meaning that we will be looking at films directed by people under 30. It’s International Youth Day on 12 August and since we have already done a whole theme on ‘Youth’ itself, this one will focus on films made by young filmmakers. Feel free to give me your thoughts about this post or the next one in the comments or on Insta! I’d love to know what you’ve been watching.

Happy Pride Month! However you identify, I hope you live proudly and celebrate the month in a way that makes you feel safe, accepted and loved.

It’s a bit of a tenuous link, and if I’m being honest it wasn’t intentional, but I love that this month’s theme of Camp Out kind of ties into Pride and the LGBTQ+ community. If any of this month’s camping-themed films cross into queer cinema territory, it will just be a welcome coincidence - National Camping Month and Pride Month might just be the crossover we didn’t know we needed! I wonder if Priscilla (the bus from The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) is close enough to a camper van to consider? Answers on a postcard, please, and if you have any Campy Camp Out recommendations, please send them my way.

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If you did fancy some Pride themed films, you can check out the Club Vault post from June 2020:

When I was first thinking about what might make it onto this month’s list, the films that came to mind were The Blair Witch Project, Nomadland and Wild - all very different films, as far as the camping element is concerned. Is camping a lifestyle, a type of holiday or a necessary evil?

Films like Wild and Into The Wild are all about testing one’s physical and mental stamina, and it forces the viewer to consider how long they would last in the wilderness. Other films use camping as a way to explore untouched landscapes just beyond civilisation, to adventure into the wild and spend time in nature as a remedy to all the nonsense of modern life. Leave No Trace and Captain Fantastic are two excellent films that explore this wonderfully, and the latter just happens to be one of my favourites, ever.

There is something special about ‘setting up camp’ - a temporary home and mini community with minimal access to gadgets and luxury, and (in an ideal fictional world) with the added comfort that you get to sleep next to your mates, swim in creeks, toast marshmallows, and sing by the fire...

That said, it’s not all innocent fun, and isolating yourself in the middle of nowhere without any resources also lends itself very well to terror and mishap so it’s no wonder the woods are often a setting of choice for horror. The wholesomeness had to stop somewhere. I hope you enjoy this month’s picks…

🎞 June Selection 🎞

1. Captain Fantastic (2016; Dir. Matt Ross)

   In the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a father devoted to raising his six kids with a rigorous physical and intellectual education is forced to leave his paradise and enter the world, challenging his idea of what it means to be a parent.
   Stream on the Sundance Now Prime channel or rent/buy through Apple, Amazon, Sky and other online stores.

2. Third Star (2010; Dir. Hattie Dalton)

   James and his three closest lifelong friends go on an ill-advised trip to the stunning coastal area of Barafundle Bay in West Wales. What follows is a touching and comical adventure dealing with friendship, heroism and love.
   Rent or buy on Apple TV.

3. Happiness for Beginners (2023; Dir. Vicky Wight)

   Helen signs up for a wilderness survival course, a year after getting divorced. She discovers through this experience that sometimes, you have to get really lost in order to find yourself.

   Stream on Netflix.

🎬 The Long List: Optional Extras 🎬

Other notable films suggested for the theme:

• Stand By Me - A writer recounts a childhood journey with his friends to find the body of a missing boy.

• Brokeback Mountain - Ennis and Jack are two shepherds who develop a sexual and emotional relationship. Their relationship becomes complicated when both of them get married to their respective girlfriends.

• The Blair Witch Project - Three film students vanish after traveling into a Maryland forest to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their footage behind.

• Nomadland - A woman in her sixties, after losing everything in the Great Recession, embarks on a journey through the American West, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad.

• Wild - A chronicle of one woman's 1,100-mile solo hike undertaken as a way to recover from a recent personal tragedy.

• Into The Wild - After graduating from Emory University, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandons his possessions, gives his savings to charity and hitchhikes to Alaska to live in the wilderness.

• The Great Outdoors - A Chicago man and his family go camping with his obnoxious brother-in-law.

• Moonrise Kingdom - Two 12-year-olds, who live on an island, fall in love with each other and elope into the wilderness. While people set out on a search mission, a violent storm approaching them catches their attention.

• Meatballs - Wacky hijinks of counselors and campers at a less-than-average summer camp.

• Deliverance - Intent on seeing the Cahulawassee River before it's dammed and turned into a lake, outdoor fanatic Lewis Medlock takes his friends on a canoeing trip they'll never forget into the dangerous American back-country.

• Where the Wild Things Are - Yearning for escape and adventure, a young boy runs away from home and sails to an island filled with creatures that take him in as their king.

• Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown - The Peanuts gang goes to summer camp, and they participate in a river-raft race against some cheating bullies.

• Without a Paddle - After their friend dies, three men decide to fulfill their childhood dream by going on a camping expedition for the lost D. B. Cooper bounty, with calamitous results.

• Cub/Welp - Over-imaginative 12 year-old Sam heads off to the woods to summer scout camp with his pack convinced he will encounter a monster...and he does.

• Carry On Camping - Farcical misadventures by guests in an English holiday centre.

• Grizzly Man - A devastating and heart-rending take on grizzly bear activists Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard, who were killed in October of 2003 while living among grizzly bears in Alaska.

• Hunt for the Wilderpeople - A national manhunt is ordered for a rebellious kid and his foster uncle who go missing in the wild New Zealand bush.

• Leave No Trace - A father and his seventeen-year-old daughter are living an ideal existence in a vast urban park in Portland, Oregon when a small mistake derails their lives forever.

  ---

🔜 Next Month 🔜

The theme for JULY will be LET THE GAMES BEGIN since the Summer Olympic Games (the Limpy Gs) start next month and will be hosted just across the Channel in Paris! Feel free to give me your thoughts about this post or the next one in the comments or on Insta! I’d love to know what you’ve been watching.

I feel I need to preface this post by declaring my stance on film as a medium: I absolutely think that film itself is art. However, we are looking at art in film this month.

The theme was inspired by the 200th anniversary of the National Gallery in London, which opened its doors to the public on 10 May 1824. If you are one of the lucky people who got tickets to the ‘Big Birthday Weekend Late and Light Show’ I am really jealous! Check out the NG200 events on the official site for more info about how they are marking the occasion: www.nationalgallery.org.uk.

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We live in a country that is so rich is culture, yet sometimes I can’t help but feel that the arts generally is overlooked and undervalued. And this is backed up by recent local funding cuts which has directly impacted arts venues across the country and will be hugely damaging to cities, communities and the people in them. So as we celebrate art within film, I hope this month’s shortlist and longlist is a reminder of how wonderful it is, how enriching it can be, and of the various ways it can better our lives.

Filmmakers have long looked to art for inspiration, and there are many examples of films that reference paintings, pay homage to masterpieces, not to mention the films that look at the lives of the artists themselves - there are at least eight feature films about Van Gogh alone. So in many ways we are spoilt for choice this month!

You may be thinking that Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire would have been a perfect pick this month (and you would be 100% correct in your thinking), but it was in the September 2023 selection so is too recent to choose again. I have still included it in the longlist though and encourage anyone who hasn’t seen it, to watch it as soon as possible - it is undeniably a true work of art!

Here are this month’s picks…

🎞 May Selection 🎞

Showing Up Official Trailer | Dir. Kelly Reichardt | A24

• Showing Up (2022; Dir. Kelly Reichardt)

  A sculptor preparing to open a new show tries to work amidst the daily dramas of family and friends.

  Rent or buy from Apple, Amazon, Sky and other online stores.

• Final Portrait (2017; Dir. Stanley Tucci)

  The story of Swiss painter and sculptor Alberto Giacometti.

  Rent from £2.49 on Rakuten and other online stores.

• Frida (2024; Dir. Carla Gutierrez)

  A raw and magical journey into the life of iconic artist Frida Kahlo, told through her own words from diaries, letters, essays, and interviews. Vividly brought to life with lyrical animation inspired by her unforgettable artwork.

  Stream on Amazon Prime.

🎬 The Long List: Optional Extras 🎬

Other notable films suggested for the theme:

• Skyfall - James Bond's loyalty to M is tested when her past comes back to haunt her. When MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost. (Features J.M.W. Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire)

• Scream - A year after the murder of her mother, a teenage girl is terrorized by a masked killer who targets her and her friends by using scary movies as part of a deadly game. (Inspired by Edvard Munch’s The Scream)

• Pennies from Heaven - During the Great Depression, a sheet-music salesman seeks to escape his dreary life through popular music and a love affair with an innocent schoolteacher. (Resemblance to Edward Hopper’s 1942 painting Nighthawks)

• Pierrot Le Fou - Pierrot escapes his boring society and travels from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea with Marianne, a girl chased by hit-men from Algeria. They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run. (Features Picasso’s Portrait de Sylvette and Jacqueline aux fleurs).

• Call Me By Your Name - In 1980s Italy, romance blossoms between a seventeen-year-old student and the older man hired as his father's research assistant. (Features Eduardo Arroyo’s Roland Garros 1981 French Open poster and more).

• Dreams - A collection of tales based upon eight of director Akira Kurosawa's recurring dreams. (Reference to Wheatfield with Crows by Vincent Van Gogh).

• The Dreamers - A young American studying in Paris in 1968 strikes up a friendship with a French brother and sister. Set against the background of the '68 Paris student riots.

• Personal Shopper - A personal shopper in Paris refuses to leave the city until she makes contact with her twin brother who previously died there. Her life becomes more complicated when a mysterious person contacts her via text message.

• Salvador Dalí - The reunion of two art geniuses: the Pop Art master Andy Warhol directs the master of Surrealism Salvador Dalí in this short film where the Spanish artist pays a visit to The Factory where he gets the chance to meet rock group The Velvet Underground.

• Portrait of a Lady on Fire - On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman.

• The Square - A prestigious Stockholm museum's chief art curator finds himself in times of both professional and personal crisis as he attempts to set up a controversial new exhibit.

• Mr Turner - An exploration of the last quarter century of the great, if eccentric, British painter J.M.W. Turner's life.

• Loving Vincent - In a story depicted in oil painted animation, a young man comes to the last hometown of painter Vincent van Gogh to deliver the troubled artist's final letter and ends up investigating his final days there.

• Big Eyes - A drama about the awakening of painter Margaret Keane, her phenomenal success in the 1950s, and the subsequent legal difficulties she had with her husband, who claimed credit for her works in the 1960s.

• Little Women - Jo March reflects back and forth on her life, telling the beloved story of the March sisters - four young women, each determined to live life on her own terms.

• The Art of Getting By - George, a lonely and fatalistic teen who has made it all the way to his senior year without ever having done a real day of work, is befriended by Sally, a popular but complicated girl who recognizes in him a kindred spirit.

• Basquiat - The brief life of Jean Michel Basquiat, a world renowned New York street artist struggling with fame, drugs and his identity.

• Exit Through the Gift Shop - Following the style of some of the world's most prolific street artists, an amateur filmmaker makes a foray into the art world.

🔜 Next Month 🔜

The theme for JUNE will be CAMP OUT since it’s National Camping Month! Feel free to give me your thoughts about this post or the next one in the comments or on Insta! I’d love to know what you’ve been watching.

Hello, Spring! The inspo for this month’s theme comes from a short stint of research on ‘special days’ which ended with me reading that the last week of April is National Princess Week. As a prompt, this one has some obvious big hitters (the Cinderellas, Jasmines, and Belles of the world) but I also want to draw attention to some lesser celebrated princesses as well as those who have held a prominent place in cinematic history.

As well as being a definitive way to mark one’s ranking of nobility, the word ‘princess’ is LOADED with gender role ideals so I also want to tackle that and ensure that some of our princesses are atypical, subversive and resistant to the royal order. In fact, the archetypal princess that may come to mind when we think of a Disney princess can also be viewed as a reflective tool to see how attitudes towards women have changed since the 1930s (Snow White was released in 1937), or at least to see how Hollywood has perceived and dealt with societal shifts through the decades.

If they are ‘products of our time’, where does that leave us in 2024?

Thankfully there has been some evolution! There are still blind spots (and in some cases some serious repairing to be done), but slowly princesses are becoming more representative of our world. Tiana in Princess and the Frog is notable for being Disney's first black princess and Gurinder Chadha is set to introduce an Indian Princess to the Disney franchise in a new musical soon, but there is still an over-reliance on heterosexual romance and storytelling/directing by white men in films about princesses so some pivoting at the writing and production stage is still needed.

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This is by no means a measured study of princesses (though plenty do exist) but upon reading around the subject for this post, it did strike me that when men are in a role as a prince in a literal sense they are typically positioned as the hero and are often shown to be ambitious (being prepped as successor to the throne, learning the ropes, training for greatness, etc.) whereas the Princess has a far more passive role to play within the narrative. This aligns with Vladimir Propp’s Narrative Theory which sets out a framework for 7 core character types (and teachers or students of GCSE Media Studies will certainly recognise these!), whereby the ‘Princess’ archetype refers to the sought after prize that the hero seeks - this does come with a caveat though, in that it is just an archetype and the character type doesn’t have to correlate with a royal title, but it does provide us with a clear cut idea of the archetypes we’re still dealing with!

So what we’re really looking for if we want to instil some power, is the transition from princesses going from the object to the subject. I believe that starts with some agency and ownership over their respective stories, and a narrative that doesn’t solely progress in pursuit of a suitor. And though there are clear negatives about the ‘passive princess’, I don’t think we should be so hasty to try to rid characters of a certain type of femininity altogether - there can be strength in softness and patience as well as in rebellion and brazen fearlessness, so finding a way to show the plurality, complexity and nuance of what makes a princess is key. A complete role reversal would just displace all the badly thought out characteristics elsewhere and that wouldn’t be helpful for anyone so a bit of balance and sense is necessary here!

It seemed fictional princesses and queens used to fit into one of two camps: beautiful damsels (Aurora), or grotesque and wicked fiends (Ursula), with very little room for manoeuvre in between. But in recent years, we have seen some films challenging these outdated notions and writers are getting creative in the ways that stereotypes can be subverted. For example, in 2012’s Brave, Princess Merida is a skilled and courageous archer who rejects tradition and has to overcome a wicked curse; in 2018’s Black Panther, Shuri is a princess of Wakanda who engineers gadgets and leverages technology; and in this year’s Damsel, Millie Bobbie Brown plays a princess who is forced to escape the lair of a dragon she is fed to after initially thinking she had her fairytale ending.

Fantasy and sci-fi films have also given us some memorable and important princesses. From the Star Wars saga, Princess Leia revolutionised the idea of the princess as leader, played by the hugely missed and inspirational Carrie Fisher; Wonder Woman aka Princess Diana of Themyscira is a superhero and co-founder of the Justice League; and Princess Irulan, most recently portrayed on the big screen by Florence Pugh in the epic Dune: Part 2, will return with an even bigger role if Denis Villeneuve adapts Dune Messiah and Children of Dune too.

It was surprisingly difficult (though I know I shouldn’t be shocked at this point) at how hard it was to find a film for this month’s selection that was directed by a woman! Instead, I hope you will find variety in the longlist in terms of the decades and genres covered. I am aware that the list could be more diverse in terms of the films’ countries of origin but have tried to include more than just Hollywood titles where possible - if you have any further suggestions about what could be on the list, please comment on the post.

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Here are this month’s picks:

🎞 April Selection 🎞

PRINCESS MONONOKE | Official Trailer | Dir. Hayao Miyazaki

• The Princess Bride (1987; Dir. Rob Reiner)

  A bedridden boy's grandfather reads him the story of a farmboy-turned-pirate who encounters numerous obstacles, enemies and allies in his quest to be reunited with his true love.

  Stream on ITV X.

• Princess Mononoke (1997; Dir. Hayao Miyazaki)

  On a journey to find the cure for a Tatarigami's curse, Ashitaka finds himself in the middle of a war between the forest gods and Tatara, a mining colony. In this quest he also meets San, the Mononoke Hime.

  Stream on Netflix.

• Roman Holiday (1953; Dir. William Wyler)

  A bored and sheltered princess escapes her guardians and falls in love with an American newsman in Rome.

  Stream on Paramount+.

🎬 The Long List: Optional Extras 🎬

Other notable films suggested for the theme:

• Damsel (2024) - A dutiful damsel agrees to marry a handsome prince, only to find the royal family has recruited her as a sacrifice to repay an ancient debt.

• The Princess Bride (1987) - A bedridden boy's grandfather reads him the story of a farmboy-turned-pirate who encounters numerous obstacles, enemies and allies in his quest to be reunited with his true love.

• Spencer (2021) - Diana Spencer, struggling with mental-health problems during her Christmas holidays with the Royal Family at their Sandringham estate in Norfolk, England, decides to end her decade-long marriage to Prince Charles.

• Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) - In a twist to the fairy tale, the Huntsman ordered to take Snow White into the woods to be killed winds up becoming her protector and mentor in a quest to vanquish the Evil Queen. Kristen Stewart’s second entry as the lead in this list!

• The Princess Diaries (2001) - Mia Thermopolis has just found out that she is the heir apparent to the throne of Genovia. With her friends Lilly and Michael Moscovitz in tow, she tries to navigate through the rest of her sixteenth year.

• Elizabeth (1998) - The early years of the reign of Elizabeth I of England and her difficult task of learning what is necessary to be a monarch.

• Princess Undercover (2005) - A crown princess works incognito for the embassy of her country in Berlin where she fells in love with a gardener who does not know who she is. As the affair blows up two lovers and one kingdom have to make the right decision.

• The Young Victoria (2009) - A dramatization of the turbulent first years of Queen Victoria's rule, and her enduring romance with Prince Albert.

• Jodhaa Akbar (2008) - A sixteenth century love story about a marriage of alliance that gave birth to true love between a great Mughal emperor, Akbar, and a Rajput princess, Jodha.

• Enchanted (2007) - A young maiden in a land called Andalasia, who is prepared to be wed, is sent away to New York City by an evil Queen, where she falls in love with a lawyer.

• Anastasia (1997) - The last surviving child of the Russian Royal Family joins two con men to reunite with her grandmother, the Dowager Empress, while the undead Rasputin seeks her death.

• Strange Magic (2015) - With a battle sparked over a mysterious potion, the tough fairy princess Marianne crosses paths with the sinister Bog King.  As an adventure unfolds, their fanciful forest world will never be the same.

• Suriyothai (2001) - During the 16th century, as Thailand contends with both a civil war and Burmese invasion, a beautiful princess rises up to help protect the glory of the Kingdom of Ayothaya. Based on the life of Queen Suriyothai.

• Chasing Liberty (2004) - Anna wants to be like other girls her age (18): date a guy etc. but she's the US president's daughter and always guarded. In Prague he breaks his promise of only 2 agents following her to a concert and she runs away with Ben to see Europe.

• Death of a Princess (1980) - A journalist investigates a newspaper story of the execution of an Arab princess.

• The Scarlet Empress (1934) - A German noblewoman enters into a loveless marriage with the dim-witted, unstable heir to the Russian throne, then plots to oust him from power.

🔜 Next Month 🔜

The theme for May will be ART IN FILM. On 10 May 1824 the National Gallery in London opened its doors to the public for the first time so to mark 200 years since it opened we’ll be watching, adoring and admiring art in the movies. Feel free to give me your thoughts about this post or the next one in the comments or on Insta!

Ewan McGregor and Clara McGregor star in Bleeding Love | Dir. Emma Westenberg

In Bleeding Love, Emma Westenberg serves up an original drama featuring real life father-daughter duo Clara and Ewan McGregor. As the pair travel across New Mexico, the roots of their relationship are exposed, strained and tested, providing a gripping and affecting road trip film.

We’re dropped in the thick of a complex and tense situation, as a formerly estranged parent and adult child find themselves driving towards Santa Fe. And though they are two people travelling in the same direction, it often feels like more a chase as the father tries to catch his daughter before she slips away. The circumstances are upsetting, with the daughter having recently survived a near-fatal overdose, and the father re-entering her life to try to restore their broken bond, or at the very least, assist in her recovery. It marks a significant turning point in her life, and in their relationship.

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In the truck it’s awkward: conversation is stunted, resentment and smoke fill the cab as if to make up for the dead air between them. After years of disconnection, the difficult void separating the pair has understandably grown, and we sense this with every word, glance and exhale. The daughter, feeling rejected and unworthy of her father’s love due to his absence, is almost unable to compute that he may actually care about her. Unfortunately, she has developed her own coping mechanisms to deal with the emotional trauma of an absent parent. Fortunately, the father is all too familiar with these methods and recognises that he needs to intervene now or lose her to addiction for good.

His resultant decision to withhold the real destination of their trip to her is morally ambiguous at best, and as an audience we are only presented with the present actions of the characters and a series of hazy flashbacks to know whether or not his call to fabricate a reason for the trip in order to get her to rehab was the right one. It’s an interesting conundrum, and perhaps points to an innate impulsiveness on the the father’s part that he’s never been able to shake, but despite his naivety, his care and desire to protect his daughter never comes into question. How he gets her to the destination may be problematic, but his reasons for doing so are pure.

Existing in close quarters with someone for a prolonged period of time is a surefire way to get to know them quickly, and Westenberg uses the space to explore how the relationship progresses (or regresses) over the day or so they spend travelling as they come face to face with a multitude of issues - some more deep-seated than others. A lot of the conflict occurs because one of the characters is at a fork in their life’s journey, and they will soon need to choose between recovery or self-destruction, while the other is already on another path as a recovering addict (along with additional dependents).

As the father watches his daughter struggle with substance use and observes many patterns of behaviour that may recall triggering, painful memories for him, we realise how difficult it must be for him to witness history repeat itself in his child. To an extent, she tries to hide it from him by sneaking bottles of alcohol into her bag, and she’s worryingly efficient in the way that she procures other substances, but he knows this road because he has walked it, so any attempts to conceal this part of her are futile.

Among the despair, there are moments of hope. One being a scene where they both jump in the motel pool - the spontaneity of it creates a sense of lightness and fun and almost feels like they are in a carefree holiday mode. The other moment is in the truck when they sing along to Leona Lewis’s eponymous song ‘Bleeding Love’. There is just something wholesome and bonding about two people singing really loudly to a ballad while driving along a motorway and when it happens here, the tension lifts and they are both existing and living in the same moment. No thinking about the past (“he left us”), no thinking about the future (“when can I get out of this thing”), just projecting the same words at the same time, at roughly the same pitch. A present moment.

The writing team on this film (Ruby Caster, Clara McGregor, Vera Bulder) use pit stops as a way of introducing new, temporary characters to add another layer to the narrative. The people we meet are outlandish and entertaining (Kim Zimmer was particularly fabulous), perhaps as a way to counter the melancholy surrounding the lead characters, though they are certainly no less dysfunctional. The most striking triumph of the film is the chemistry between the father and daughter, and a lot of this is down to the screenplay, but largely owed to Clara’s performance. Her character is incredibly fragile and psychologically complex, oscillating between reasoned and irrational thinking, but McGregor subtly conveys cues about her feelings towards her father through body language alone. It’s a very nuanced physical performance and she is captivating to watch.

As road films go, this one treads an emotionally charged line between heartbreak and healing extremely well. Were it not for the convincing leads, it could have veered into tasteless territory, but thanks to the McGregors - Clara’s erratic manner and Ewan’s quiet determination to make things better - it is a consuming and compelling watch which will make you feel the gravity of a personal situation and if nothing else, act as a reminder of the fragility of human beings. Clocking in at just over the 1 hour 30 minute mark, it covers some heavy subject matter, makes a significant emotional impact and takes some creative risks that pay off - it’s a superb indie worth 96 minutes of your time.

Verdict: Bleeding Love is a film with a big heart. A year on from its premier at SXSW, Ewan McGregor lets his daughter Clara take the lead in this road trip-come-family drama, as she plays a vulnerable person struggling with addiction.

Overall? ⭐⭐️⭐⭐
Big screen appeal? 🎬🎬🎬
Accolade eligibility? 💡💡💡
Study-worthy? 📚📚📚

Bleeding Love official trailer | Vertical Entertainment | Dir. Emma Westenberg

Copa 71 | Official UK Trailer | Dir. James Erskine & Rachel Ramsay

Documentaries can all too easily slip into the trap of becoming a vanity project about a specialist subject that has very little bearing on what’s important in our world. Copa 71 does not fall into this category. In fact, it’s an exemplary, shining light in documentary filmmaking, telling an extraordinary story while uncovering a hidden truth within recent sporting history.

The 1971 Women’s World Cup took place in Mexico, but since women’s football was not officially recognised by FIFA, it was (and still is) considered an unofficial competition and was resultantly buried as soon as it ended. So it’s no wonder that most people are unaware that it took ever place, let alone that the tournament was record breaking and socially transgressive. It remains the highest attended women’s sporting event in history.

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Brandi Chastain (2 x World Cup Winner) is interviewed as part of the documentary and prior to being shown the footage within the stadiums, even she was unaware that a World Cup of this scale took place 20 years prior to the first ‘official’ one. It makes you wonder, especially with the influence and respect that professional sportspeople have, how much of a cultural and social impact could this event have had, if it had been promoted in the same way a men’s competition would have been? How many other little girls would have been inspired to play, exercise and kick a ball around a pitch without fear of judgement if they had seen women doing it too? The power of acceptance and inclusion are far reaching, as the documentary proves.

Before getting to Mexico, the film takes us through a brief history of women’s football to contextualise social attitudes and the utter nonsense that women have put up with for decades. In some European countries, for example, it was a criminal offence for women to play football; in some reputable journals doctors wrote that playing football could damage a woman’s ovaries - ultimately, women’s football was seen as a disgrace.

Cue dismissal, shame and loaded questions such as: “What’s a nice girl like you doing playing football?” Remove ‘playing football’ with any male-dominated space, activity or job and you’ve got yourself sexism in a nutshell. The introduction to the sport certainly provides enough information, even for non-football fans, to understand how anti-woman the global governing body of football was, and how aggressively those in power fought to politicise and gate-keep a sport that they believed should be a place to celebrate masculinity.

Though the film is about ‘the beautiful game’ it is also a fascinating exploration of the influence that governing bodies have to threaten and scare off anyone they don’t want involved, for fear of tarnishing their name and challenging the status quo. The tournament got off the ground because a set of Mexican entrepreneurs saw the potential in women’s football to turn a profit (and the exploitation of the Mexican players in lining the pockets of men is covered - albeit fairly briefly). But as a way to hinder its success, as it was being organised, FIFA forced the tournament into two of the largest stadiums in Mexico - the Estadio Jalisco (56000 capacity) and Estadio Azteca (87,000). Well, more fool them because that backfired: the Azteca sold out and it was all caught on film. The visuals are astounding, and the 70s graininess of the footage only adds to the authenticity of what will hopefully now be widely considered as an event that made history.

As we are taken through each stage of the tournament, footage and still images of the women as they train, play and engage with life in Mexico give us an insight into how much it really meant to the women from the national teams who played in 1971. For the players representing England, they were working class girls who had never been on plane before, in high spirits and full of appreciation for every opportunity to get on the field in front of a crowd in an unforgettably electric stadium. Interviews with players from England, France, Italy, Denmark, Argentina and Mexico reveal the grace, humility and amazement of the women as they relive a time in their lives that they could never truly celebrate afterwards, since footage was hidden and local press and football federations behaved like it never happened. Some were even publicly shamed for their success.

Interviews with women from the squads feel natural and unforced, drawing upon their memories from 1971 and provide enough space that their personalities shine through. Besides clearly being highly skilled athletes, they also come across as thoughtful, intelligent, interesting and funny. Some highlights of those featured include the following: Elba Selva, who scored 4 goals for Argentina against England; Carol Wilson, captain of the England squad (the ‘Lost Lionesses’ since they have never been recognised as an official team); Elena Schiavo, Italian footballer, who was known for her physical strength and considered by many to be the world’s best female footballer at the time; Birte Kjems and Ann Stengård, players from the winning Danish team, who were a delightful duo to watch and listen to: “I play football because I like to play football.”

The erasure of the success of the women in this global tournament is certainly one of the most shocking revelations to comprehend in the documentary, and it is devastating to see the effect that it had on some of the players for a long time afterwards. However, that is countered by the elation of the players as they experience the highs of an intense and joyous time on the pitch. They recount the warm welcome received from the host nation, the importance they felt as international athletes and the love they had for one another - and of course for the game itself. And now that Copa 71 has been released, their achievements can never again be buried, dismissed or minimalised - all 110,000 of the people in attendance for the 1971 Women’s World Cup Final are right there on film for all to see and admire, and these national, pioneering teams will no longer be forgotten.

Verdict: From its initiation to the final, Copa 71 tells the story of the 1971 Women’s World Cup. An excellent and essential sports documentary and with exec producers Serena and Venus Williams on the crew list, let’s just hope it travels far and wide and gets seen by people who have the right sort of influence to ensure that women’s football stays on the right track.*

Overall? ⭐⭐️⭐⭐1/2
Big screen appeal? 🎬🎬🎬🎬
Accolade eligibility? 💡💡💡💡💡
Study-worthy? 📚📚📚📚📚

*N.B. At the time of writing, the film is being review-bombed on IMDb, with 36.7% of scores rating it a 1 out of 10. If you see the film, please score it honestly and if you liked it, big it up to your friends!

Further information:

• Girls United is an international non-profit working to provide more opportunities and access to football for girls and young women at grassroots level. Using the power of football, Girls United aims to empower the next generation of players and be a catalyst of change for a more equal world on and off the pitch. Find out more about their work at www.girlsunitedfa.org or by following them on social media ‘@girlsunitedfa’.

• This post is part of an International Women’s Day event taking place on Instagram in support of this year’s IWD campaign theme, Inspire Inclusion. Search for #InspireInclusioninFilm on Instagram to catch up with all the posts. Read about the theme here: www.internationalwomensday.com/Theme.

This month’s theme was a no brainer. I have always marked International Women’s Day with Miss En Scene, and have previously brought together people from the film community to celebrate women in film in a way that aligns with the year’s ‘official’ theme in a range of ways and formats - sometimes throughout the day, sometimes for the entire month of March. In previous years, online events have focused on how we can #ChoosetoChallengeCinema (2021 - video post embedded below), #BreaktheBiaswithFilm (2022) and #EmbraceEquityinFilm (2023).

This year the focus is all about inclusion, a vital element in working towards equality. To quote the IWD website:

When we inspire others to understand and value women's inclusion, we forge a better world.

And when women themselves are inspired to be included, there's a sense of belonging, relevance, and empowerment.

Collectively, let's forge a more inclusive world for women.

In the film industry, like many sectors, women are a minority. The Celluloid Ceiling paper from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film analyses the employment of women in behind-the-scenes roles for the top grossing films (in the USA). In the 2023 (the year where Greta Gerwig’s Barbie was the highest grossing film worldwide) report, the key findings were as follows:

• women accounted for 22% of all directors, writers, producers, executive producers, editors, and cinematographers working on the 250 top grossing films (a 2% decline from the previous year!)

• by role, women made up 16% of directors, 17% of writers, 26% of producers, 24% of executive producers, 21% of editors, and 7% of cinematographers working on the 250 top grossing films.

• 83% of the 250 top grossing films last year had no women directors and 94% had no women cinematographers.

Women are still dramatically underrepresented in behind-the-scenes roles, and this is why the IWD theme of Inspiring Inclusion is all the more vital. The selection and long list for this month are films chosen because they celebrate and champion women’s achievements and/or raise awareness about discrimination. Collectively we can all #InspireInclusion, and film, oftentimes referred to an empathy machine (thanks Roger Ebert), is one of the most powerful ways to education and inspire. I regularly wonder what the impact of an inclusive film world would be for the wider world. Hollywood (and global film markets) wield a lot of power and influence over people so I think the effects would be far-reaching and incredibly positive for many other elements of life and culture.

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Besides which, women make some incredibly entertaining and important films and capture a far more authentic experience of the female experience than a man ever could, so it’s crucial that this perspective is out there and being accessed and absorbed by wide audiences. And that’s not to say that every film written or directed by a woman should be an exploration of female trauma or a story based around gender struggles; sometimes just viewing life - and all the trouble, wonder and beauty that it brings - through the lens of a woman is enough.

I hope that as a result of reading this blog post, you might be inspired to seek out some films directed, written and shot by women! Here are this month’s picks:

🎞 March Selection 🎞

Women Talking; Dir. Sarah Polley | Official Trailer | MGM

• Women Talking (2022; Dir. Sarah Polley)

  Do nothing, stay and fight, or leave. In 2010, the women of an isolated religious community grapple with reconciling a brutal reality with their faith. Triple-F Rated.

  Stream on Amazon Prime (UK).

• Wadjda (2012; Dir. Haifaa Al-Mansour)

  An enterprising Saudi girl signs on for her school's Koran recitation competition as a way to raise the remaining funds she needs in order to buy the green bicycle that has captured her interest. Triple-F Rated and the first feature length film made by a female Saudi director.

  Stream on Mubi.

• How to Have Sex (2023; Dir. Molly Manning Walker)

  Three British teenage girls go on a rites-of-passage holiday - drinking, clubbing and hooking up, in what should be the best summer of their lives. Triple-F Rated.

  Stream on Mubi.

🎬 The Long List: Optional Extras 🎬

Other notable films suggested for the theme:

• The Wonders - A family of beekeepers living in the Tuscan countryside finds their household disrupted by the simultaneous arrival of a silently troubled teenage boy and a reality TV show intent on showcasing the family.

• You Hurt My Feelings - A novelist's longstanding marriage is suddenly upended when she overhears her husband giving his honest reaction to her latest book.

• Revoir Paris - Three months after surviving a terrorist attack in a bistro, Mia is still traumatized and unable to recall the events of that night. In an effort to move forward, she investigates her memories and retraces her steps.

• Bottoms - Two unpopular queer high-school students start a fight club to have sex before graduation.

• Fair Play - An unexpected promotion at a cutthroat hedge fund pushes a young couple's relationship to the brink, threatening to unravel far more than their recent engagement.

• Joy Ride - Follows four Asian American friends as they bond and discover the truth of what it means to know and love who you are, while they travel through China in search of one of their birth mothers.

• Beach Rats - A Brooklyn teenager spends his days experimenting with drugs and looking online for older men to meet.

• Never Rarely Sometimes Always - A pair of teenage girls in rural Pennsylvania travel to New York City to seek out medical help after an unintended pregnancy. Article on this here:

• Past Lives - Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrested apart after Nora's family emigrates from South Korea. Twenty years later, they are reunited for one fateful week as they confront notions of love and destiny.

• Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. - When her family moves from the city to the suburbs, 11-year-old Margaret navigates new friends, feelings, and the beginning of adolescence.

• Polite Society - Ria Khan believes she must save her older sister Lena from her impending marriage. After enlisting her friends' help, she attempts to pull off the most ambitious of all wedding heists in the name of independence and sisterhood.

• Causeway - A US soldier suffers a traumatic brain injury while fighting in Afghanistan and struggles to adjust to life back home.

• She Said - Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey's quest to break the Harvey Weinstein scandal.

• The Assistant - A searing look at a day in the life of an assistant to a powerful executive. As Jane follows her daily routine, she grows increasingly aware of the insidious abuse that threatens every aspect of her position.

• Babyteeth - Milla, a seriously ill teenager, falls in love with a drug dealer, Moses, her parents' worst nightmare.

• Miss Juneteenth - A former beauty queen and single mom prepares her rebellious teenage daughter for the "Miss Juneteenth" pageant.

• She Dies Tomorrow - A woman becomes strangely convinced she will die the next day. Her friend initially disbelieves her before becoming paranoid herself that she too will die the next day.

• She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry - A documentary that resurrects the buried history of the outrageous, often brilliant women who founded the modern women's movement from 1966 to 1971.

• Equity - Senior investment banker Naomi Bishop is threatened by a financial scandal and must untangle a web of corruption.

• I Blame Society - A struggling filmmaker realizes that the skill set to make a movie is the same to commit the perfect murder.

• Hidden Figures - The story of a team of female African-American mathematicians who served a vital role in NASA during the early years of the U.S. space program.

• The Queen of Hearts (La reine des pommes) - Adele's attempt to recover from a devastating breakup leads to surprisingly hilarious results as she bounces from one lover to the next, but can't escape the vision of her ex. France. Official Selection - Locarno Int'l FF.

• Writing With Fire - In a cluttered news landscape dominated by men, emerges India's only newspaper run by Dalit women. Chief Reporter Meera and her journalists break traditions, redefining what it means to be powerful.

• Orlando - After Queen Elizabeth I commands him not to grow old, a young nobleman struggles with love and his place in the world.

• The Art of Loving - Michalina Wislocka, the most famous and recognized sexologist of communist Poland, fights for the right to publish her book, which will change the sex life of Polish people forever.

If you are looking for International Women’s Day content on social media, look for #IWD2024, #InspireInclusion and #InspireInclusioninFilm on 8th March.

🔜 Next Month 🔜

The theme for APRIL will be POWER OF THE PRINCESS. The last week of April is, apparently, National Princess Week and created by Julie Andrews no less, so we will be looking at films that feature princesses, their roles within the cinematic canon and how far the idea of a princess has developed (or not…). Feel free to give me your thoughts about this post or the next one in the comments or on Insta!

Sources:

International Women’s Day. (2024). Theme for International Women’s Day 2024 is #InspireInclusion. [online] Available at: https://www.internationalwomensday.com/theme.

Lauzen, M. (n.d.). The Celluloid Ceiling: Employment of Behind-the-Scenes Women on Top Grossing U.S. Films; 26 th Annual Edition. [online] Available at: https://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2023-Celluloid-Ceiling-Report.pdf.

Are you ready for a chunky slice of film history? As mentioned at the end of the January club post, It Happened One Night celebrates 90 years on 27th February this year and was the first film to win ‘The Big Five’ at The Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (or Actor in a Leading Role), Best Actress (or Actress in a Leading Role), and Best Screenplay (original or adapted). This, along with the fact that this year’s Oscar nominations were just announced, is the inspiration for February’s watchlist - as well as other films that have won, been nominated for or come close to these five awards.

This multi-award accolade is no easy feat! In fact, it’s only ever been done by three films:

• It Happened One Night (1934)

• One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest (1975)

• Silence of the Lambs (1991)

…and these are the films that were nominated for all five and missed out on the Big Five by a single award:

• Gone with the Wind (1939)

• Mrs. Miniver (1942)

• Annie Hall (1977)

• American Beauty (1999)

This year, Oppenheimer and Poor Things have dominated in terms of the number of Oscar nominations received, but neither film has a shot at The Big Five because there are nominations missing in the acting roles - Cillian Murphy got the acting nomination for Oppenheimer but there was no female counterpart to his character that even came close to a leading part - the roles of the women in the film were fragmented and tokenistic at best. Emma Stone was rightfully nominated for the acting award for her performance in Poor Things, while the other acting nom went to Mark Ruffalo for Best Supporting Actor, who played one of her many suitors in the film. If everything was right with the world we’d see the monstrously snubbed Barbie with all of the Big Five nominations, but that’s an entirely. different blog post…

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In terms of nominations, the closest a recent film has come to winning The Big Five is La La Land (2016). Damien Chazelle picked up Best Director, Emma Stone won Best Actress, but they fell short of the other three categories (though they did win six in total, out of a nominated 14!). But even more recent than that, Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) won four of the four ‘Big Five’ awards it was nominated for at the 2023 Academy Awards, and seven in total (also meaning that it holds the record with six above-the-line awards):

• Best Motion Picture of the Year

• Best Achievement in Directing (Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert)

• Best Original Screenplay (Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert)

• Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Michelle Yeoh)

• Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Jamie Lee Curtis)

• Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Ke Huy Quan)

• Best Achievement in Film Editing (Paul Rogers)

You may or may not have noticed that for all of the films listed here, not one of them is directed by a woman. In fact, when I was looking through the stats, none of the 43 films in a list of the films nominated in all five of the categories were directed by a woman - not one in the history of the Academy Awards. To further my point with a slightly better known fact, only eight (8!) women have ever been nominated for the Best Director Oscar. And this year will be the 96th Academy Awards.

So although film history is intwined with accolades and critical reception, try to remember that it’s also all very arbitrary and part of an imbalanced and inequitable system.

With that in mind, here are this month’s picks:

🎞 February Selection 🎞

Kramer vs. Kramer Trailer | Dir. Robert Benton

• It Happened One Night (1934; Dir. Frank Capra)

  The first film to win ‘The Big Five’ at The Oscars: A renegade reporter trailing a young runaway heiress for a big story joins her on a bus heading from Florida to New York, and they end up stuck with each other when the bus leaves them behind at one of the stops.

  Rent or buy on Apple TV, Amazon or the Sky Store.

• Seven Beauties (1975; Dir. Lina Wertmüller)

  The first woman nominated for Best Director: The defense of honor, a strong value in Neapolitan society, and its effects on the life of everyman Pasquale Frafuso.

  Stream on Kanopy or purchase physical media.

• Kramer vs. Kramer (1979; Dir. Robert Benton)

  Stars Meryl Streep, who is the most nominated performer in the acting categories, with 21 nominations and 3 wins: After his wife leaves him, a work-obsessed Manhattan advertising executive is forced to learn long-neglected parenting skills, but a heated custody battle over the couple's young son deepens the wounds left by the separation.

  Stream on Prime or rent with all usual online stores.

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  🎬 The Long List: Optional Extras 🎬

  Other notable films suggested for the theme (as mentioned above plus all other 8 films directed by a woman with a Best Director nomination):

• One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest - In the Fall of 1963, a Korean War veteran and criminal pleads insanity and is admitted to a mental institution, where he rallies up the scared patients against the tyrannical nurse.

• Silence of the Lambs - A young F.B.I. cadet must receive the help of an incarcerated and manipulative cannibal killer to help catch another serial killer, a madman who skins his victims.

• Gone with the Wind - A sheltered and manipulative Southern belle and a roguish profiteer face off in a turbulent romance as the society around them crumbles with the end of slavery and is rebuilt during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods.

• Mrs. Miniver - A British family struggles to survive the first months of World War II.

• Annie Hall - Alvy Singer, a divorced Jewish comedian, reflects on his relationship with ex-lover Annie Hall, an aspiring nightclub singer, which ended abruptly just like his previous marriages.

• American Beauty - A sexually frustrated suburban father has a mid-life crisis after becoming infatuated with his daughter's best friend.

• Oppenheimer - The story of American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in the development of the atomic bomb.

• Poor Things - The incredible tale about the fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter, a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter.

• La La Land - While navigating their careers in Los Angeles, a pianist and an actress fall in love while attempting to reconcile their aspirations for the future.

• Everything Everywhere All at Once - A middle-aged Chinese immigrant is swept up into an insane adventure in which she alone can save existence by exploring other universes and connecting with the lives she could have led.

• The Piano - In the mid-19th century a mute woman is sent to New Zealand along with her young daughter and prized piano for an arranged marriage to a farmer, but is soon lusted after by a farm worker.

• Lost In Translation - A faded movie star and a neglected young woman form an unlikely bond after crossing paths in Tokyo.

• The Hurt Locker - During the Iraq War, a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work.

• Lady Bird - In 2002, an artistically inclined 17-year-old girl comes of age in Sacramento, California.

• Promising Young Woman - A young woman, traumatized by a tragic event in her past, seeks out vengeance against those who crossed her path.

• Nomadland - A woman in her sixties, after losing everything in the Great Recession, embarks on a journey through the American West, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad.

• The Power of the Dog - Charismatic rancher Phil Burbank inspires fear and awe in those around him. When his brother brings home a new wife and her son, Phil torments them until he finds himself exposed to the possibility of love.

• Anatomy of a Fall - A woman is suspected of her husband's murder, and their blind son faces a moral dilemma as the main witness.

🔜 Next Month 🔜

The theme for MARCH will be INSPIRING INCLUSION. To celebrate International Women’s Day, we will be sharing films that coincide with this year’s official IWD theme. Feel free to give me your thoughts about this post or the next one in the comments or on Insta!

We’re half way through January, we’re past Blue Monday and awards season is in full swing - things are looking up! If you’re like me and use January as a month to decompress after Christmas and to recoup both your body and bank balance after a period of over-indulgence, perhaps this month’s list of films will align with your current state of being. Living on a shoestring isn’t easy… but it’s made much more enjoyable when you’ve got a load of great movies and TV to watch to pass the chilly evenings.

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Although there is a lot more to be said for a film’s production than its budget, some of the figures between budget and box office are truly astounding. Rocky (1976) for example - often cited in must-watch film lists and as one of the best boxing movies ever made - had an estimated budget of $960,000 and its worldwide gross was $117 million. Likewise, the first film in Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy, Pather Panchali (1955), was produced on a shoestring budget of an estimated $3000 and is now regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. As a genre, horror in particular seems to lend itself well to low budget and big profits, with Saw, The Blair Witch Project and Get Out being a few well-known and highly profitable titles. One of the most impressive examples is Paranormal Activity, which had an estimated budget of $15,000 and grossed $193 million - just going to show that you don’t necessarily need the big bucks to make a hit.

When looking at lists of profitable low-budget films, the vast majority (if not all) are directed by men. So why might this be? Although not based on the most recent data, a 2016 Hollywood Reporter article suggests that distribution is a factor:

On average, low-budget films directed by women were released on only a third as many screens that male-directed movies under $25 million received, a ratio of 242 to 646. And this distribution gap perpetuates the chronic problem facing women in film, especially when it comes to the fact that they are routinely given 25 percent smaller production budgets than their male counterparts.

And this Sight and Sound article states that actually, as budgets rise, fewer women are hired as directors.

The lack of female filmmakers cannot be attributed to a lack of drive, but to the fact that they are being overlooked by the industry once they are working within it. This is further validated by Directors UK statistics regarding the number of female directors at each stage of a career, from shorts and low-budget films to mid-range movies and studio blockbusters. The report’s statistics on the disappearance of women are stark: while 16.1 per cent of directors of films budgeted at less than £150,000 were female, women accounted for just 3.3 per cent of films with a budget of £30 million.

Taking both of these things into account, it seems that women aren’t often given the opportunity to direct mid-budget (£1-10 million) films, and even less so for big budget (£30 million and up) films, and when they have directed low-budget films, the chances of them being a box office success is hampered because the distribution is scant. So where does that leave us, besides angry and outraged? Well, the positive here it that there are plenty of incredible feature films directed by women with low to modest budgets, and even if they didn’t make millions of pounds/dollars upon theatrical release (for a multitude of reasons) they are still films well worth seeing, and that’s what makes up this month’s picks:

🎞 January Selection 🎞

THE RIDER | Official Trailer | Altitude Films | Dir. Chloe Zhao

1. The Rider (2017; Dir. Chloe Zhao; estimated budget of $80,000)

   After suffering a near fatal head injury, a young cowboy undertakes a search for new identity and what it means to be a man in the heartland of America. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Amazon, Youtube or Google Play.

2. Shiva Baby (2020; Dir. Emma Seligman; estimated budget of $200,000)

   At a Jewish funeral service with her parents, a college student runs into her sugar daddy and ex girlfriend. Stream on Mubi.
   

3. Aftersun (2022; Dir. Charlotte Wells; budget unknown - the film accessed £350,000 through Screen Scotland as well as funding through BBC Films and the BFI)
   Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories real and imagined fill the gaps between as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn't... Rent or buy on Apple TV, Amazon, Youtube or Google Play.

🎬 The Long List: Optional Extras 🎬

Other notable films suggested for the theme (all figures below are estimates): 

• Middle of Nowhere - Ruby goes on a journey of self-discovery when she drops out of medical school in order to focus on her incarcerated husband's well-being. Budget: $200,000.

• Paranormal Activity - After moving into a suburban home, a couple becomes increasingly disturbed by a nightly demonic presence. Budget: $15,000; gross worldwide: $193 million.

• Napoleon Dynamite - A listless and alienated teenager decides to help his new friend win the class presidency in their small western high school, while he must deal with his bizarre family life back home. Budget: £400,000; gross worldwide: $46 million.

• Blair Witch Project - Three film students vanish after traveling into a Maryland forest to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their footage behind. Budget: £200,000; gross worldwide: $248 million.

• Slacker - A day in the life of Austin, Texas as the camera roams from place to place and provides a brief look at the overeducated, the social misfits, the outcasts and the oddballs. Budget: $23,000; box office gross worldwide: $1.2 million.

• Eraserhead - Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child. Budget: $10,000.

• Catfish - Young filmmakers document their colleague's budding online friendship with a young woman and her family which leads to an unexpected series of discoveries. Budget: $30,000; gross worldwide: $3.5 million.

• Rocky - A small-time Philadelphia boxer gets a supremely rare chance to fight the world heavyweight champion in a bout in which he strives to go the distance for his self-respect. Budget: $960,000; gross worldwide: $117 million.

• Saw - Two strangers awaken in a room with no recollection of how they got there, and soon discover they're pawns in a deadly game perpetrated by a notorious serial killer. Budget: $1.2 million; worldwide gross: $103 million.

• Moonlight - A young African-American man grapples with his identity and sexuality while experiencing the everyday struggles of childhood, adolescence, and burgeoning adulthood. Budget: $4 million; gross worldwide: $65 million.

• Lost in Translation - A faded movie star and a neglected young woman form an unlikely bond after crossing paths in Tokyo. Budget: $4 million; gross worldwide: $187.8 million.

• Another Earth - On the night of the discovery of a duplicate Earth in the Solar system, an ambitious young student and an accomplished composer cross paths in a tragic accident. Budget: $100,000; gross worldwide: $1.9 million.

🔜 Next Month 🔜

The theme for FEBRUARY will be THE BIG FIVE. It Happened One Night celebrates 90 years on 27th February and was the first film to win ‘The Big Five’ at The Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay. So we’ll be looking at this and the other films that have won and been nominated for these five awards. Feel free to give me your thoughts about this post or the next one in the comments or on Insta!

Fleishman Is In Trouble Official Trailer | Disney+

Directors for Episodes 5 - 8: Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini, Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris

Writer: Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Looking at the directing duos in the second half of this mini series, it makes complete sense that there would be a male and female director on board for each episode because as the season progresses, we begin to see the differences in the male and female experience. Toby’s perspective dominates episodes 1-4, but as Libby becomes more invested in his life again, she makes some discoveries about the reality of the situation for Rachel, and the extent to which her version differs to his. In the latter half of this mini series, it becomes more complex, more philosophical, and devastatingly real. It manages to convey the complexities and interrelated elements of ageing, self-actualisation and the human psyche.

The predictions and hopes of the drama mentioned in the first of this two-part blog (linked above) are somewhat met in the episodes that follow. What I expected was some sort of twist, but instead of the conventional ‘big reveal’ moment, the show is written in a way which means that the truth is gradually uncovered as the narrative is retread from Rachel’s perspective, all the while being narrated by Libby. The voiceover begins as a pretty standard storytelling device and is non-invasive, if a little biased at times, but as Libby becomes personally more involved in Toby’s life, her investment crosses over into her personal life as she takes it upon herself to examine both sides of the story, as any journalist worth their salt would naturally do. What she finds is a string of heartbreaking revelations, told with an unrivalled analytical depth and performed incredibly - by both Claire Danes and Lizzy Caplan.

Though very melodramatic, one small possibility of how things might have played out for me was that Toby was a master of deception, he had been pretending to be a wholesome, somewhat bumbling family man, and actually murdered Rachel. That was always worst case scenario, and unlikely since Rachel’s friends reported having seen Rachel asleep in the park (a strange comment that was almost glossed over), but since she had been gone for such a long time, it was hard not to jump to conclusions about where she was, just like her children did! I’m so glad the series didn’t go in that direction as the nuanced approach to relationships and life is what makes it so brilliant.

Episode 7, titled ‘Me-Time’ is one of the best episodes of television I have seen this year. Everything changes in this hour. It's transformative. Everything we thought we understood about the Fleishman divorce is reshaped by a more balanced recollection of events, a reframing of context, and rephrased conversations. Things that seemed a done deal were not indeed how things took place, and we were missing one half of a complex and multi-faceted story. It all matters because it concerns privilege, silent battles and feelings that were cast aside the first time around out of bitterness, pride and resentment. This is not to say now that the tables have entirely turned and Rachel is actually a saint, but the viewpoint was previously skewed in Toby’s favour and neither one of them is all good or all bad. They are both flawed humans and they have both struggled. Divorce doesn’t seem to have changed that.

In ‘Me-Time’, we see how things went from Rachel’s point of view (as re-told with the help of Libby after she finds her in the park). We see how she wasn’t always ‘cold’, as I described her in part one of this series. We see how much she suffered during childbirth (she was absolutely terrified) and how the experience haunted her afterwards and then how she had no support network to help her in her darkest moments of early motherhood. We see how she had to grapple with the concept of consent (then stand in a lift with the very doctor who abused her). We see how she tried therapy. We see how she fought for her career out of a desire to provide a better life for her kids than she had herself. The motivators were hidden before, but with more context we see Rachel as a woman we can truly sympathise with and admire. For all the trauma she experienced and for all the mental hardship she endured, she is what many would describe as ‘successful’.

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In the episode, we even gain an understanding as to why she decides to shut herself off from ‘her world’ in NYC while she is at a yoga retreat (which was a location for an affair with Sam Rothwell, but she decided to stay even after he broke things off, saying she wasn’t as ‘fun’ as he expected'). Rachel is a woman operating a precarious balancing act - running her agency, being a mother to two children, socialising in the ‘right’ circles - so it’s no wonder there is nothing left in the tank for her after some time. I don’t know how much to believe Toby when he flippantly comments that she has ‘done this before’, because it really seems like she needs this break to recover from the constant onslaught of life. We all run out of steam at some point, but for her, this retreat has been years (perhaps decades) in the making. She attends a meditation session where she is encouraged to shout by way of an emotional release, and Rachel’s (Claire Dane’s) scream is one of the most guttural sounds I think I’ve ever witnessed on a TV show or film. It reminded me of childbirth. Anyway, post-retreat and back home, Rachel became seriously unwell resulting in her hallucinating, battling insomnia and losing sense of reality and time. The knock-on effect of this for her was enough to shatter her sense of self even further, and Libby finds Rachel sitting in a park when she is at the end of this episode feeling like she has lost control of everything she worked for in the space of a couple of weeks.

The episode, and therefore everything leading up to this point in the show, made me think carefully about the expectations placed on women, especially today. But even more so, the expectations that women place on themselves. The majority of the characters are extremely privileged. All but Rachel, whose parents died young, grew up around wealth and have always lived comfortably with the knowledge that if anything went wrong in life, there would be someone nearby to pick them up. When married, the Fleishmans had a huge Manhattan apartment, big enough to comfortably house a family of four, and a house in the Hamptons, and even after the divorce, Toby was able to afford a nice sized apartment on a single wage (which you would hope would be true as a doctor). Libby is a stay at home mother/writer and her husband is a lawyer - they’re all people in high paying professions. This all led me to think about the ability that these people have to work through problems - if you need childcare, just pay for camp or a nanny; if you are unwell, start therapy; if you want to get out of the city, go to your second home. What about the average American? What would they be able to do? Rachel’s situation is awful and this is not to denigrate any of her character’s experience, but how would it be different if it were happening to a person without her means? Sadly, I suspect the fight would be even harder, and the judgement from society even harsher.

The mini-series finale crams an awful lot into just over one hour. We continue following Libby across the city as she continues her investigation into Toby and Rachel’s life, with her declaring Rachel is in the middle of having a nervous breakdown and him very detached about what should be an important revelation. He immediately takes up the mantle as the ‘cold’ character. In the latter half of the series, especially in the last episode, we also learn more about Libby and her own internal confusion. The irony of this being that she is carrying out an investigation of a couple that nobody asked for, all while doing the very same thing that Rachel did to anger Toby - she leaves her family and becomes temporarily removed from their lives. It’s clear that both Libby and Rachel have similar insecurities around belonging and parallels start to be drawn between the Fleishmans and her own marriage with husband Adam (Josh Radnor). When Libby and Toby are in conversation at a party (which turns out to be Seth’s engagement party - there is just too much to fit into this blog!), she tells Toby about a book she is writing, recalling the key elements of the relationship but leaving enough out that the book could be about either couple. Toby is desperate to know how it ends, and it shows a glimmer of hope that there is actually some love remaining in him for Rachel after all.

What questions do I have at the end of the show? Will Seth be okay and have a happy marriage? I hope him and his fiancée have a long and loving life together! Does Rachel pick herself up, get some help, reach out to Toby, rekindle any of the broken relationships (personal or professional)? There are a lot of shattered elements in her life at the end of the show, but there is also an overtone of hope and new beginnings so I would like to try to be optimistic about her. I hope she thrives from this point forward, and Toby is far more understanding about what she has experienced so that they can (at the very least) co-parent in a civil way.

Other thoughts: I really should have done a post per episode because there is far too much to comment on across four episodes, but here are some of my other thoughts in bullet points:

• I haven’t discussed the Vantablack exhibit (and episode generally) but that is something that is open to many interpretations. The black void is such an interesting concept (I would love to go that museum!), as is the block universe that is referred to several times throughout the series. There are many examples of external concepts like this which are symbolic and applicable to the characters’ relationships.

• The Fleishman family is jewish and this is an important part of their identity. It also forms part of a sub-plot about Hannah and her bah mitzvah and commitment to judaism. Hannah’s behaviour and progress in the show could have its own blog, but I thought the scene in the church with her and her dad was really touching, and important in solidifying their bond and mutual understanding after so much upheaval.

• The show is shot on location in New York and I haven’t spent any time exploring the locations and their importance. However, it certainly adds to the authenticity of the show and makes it all the more easier to get caught up in.

• Hair and costume: I noticed when I looked on IMDb that the show is nominated for an Emmy for ‘Outstanding Contemporary Costumes for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie’ (specifically for episode 7), and I would just like to reiterate that the costume design in this episode elevate the story to new heights. The slogan tees, the ‘fall from grace’ from designer pieces to tracksuit bottoms, the period dress from previous decades - it is all instrumental. Rachel’s hair evolution is also important in sharing with the audience where she started and where she ended up - from soft, wavy shoulder length hair to a blunt bob which is quite severe in its cut, it hardens her look immensely.

Final word: Fleishman is in Trouble is a terrific mini-series well worth your time and it sure does make the aftermath of divorce look ugly for all involved. The performances from Lizzy Caplan and Claire Danes blew me away and I am pleased to see a show dealing with the intense feelings of doubt that creep in about where life has lead us, especially as an adult woman, as well as the extremely important depiction of birth trauma and postpartum depression. I wish all the Primetime Emmy nominees (especially Lizzy Caplan, Claire Danes, Taffy Brodesser-Akner and Valerie Faris) the best of luck for the upcoming awards season!

You can stream Fleishman is in Trouble on Disney Plus now.

Fleishman Is In Trouble Official Trailer | Disney+

Directors for Episodes 1 - 4: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris, Alice Wu, Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini

Writers: Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Michael Goldbach

Fleishman Is In Trouble was recently recommended to me by a friend and it was also ranked at number 11 in The Guardian’s 50 best TV shows of 2023 so after finishing Succession and Season 2 of The Bear (both top-tier telly), I needed something to fill that gap - and Fleishman was the show that I took a chance on to do that. And it has, at least for the first four episodes.

Here are some of my thoughts, questions and predictions after getting through half of this mini-series based on Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s best-selling novel…

What first impressed me was the core cast. Jesse Eisenberg plays the eponymous Toby Fleishman, a doctor, father and recent divorcee. He carries that typical frenetic, on-the-edge, awkward Eisenberg energy in this role, which is fitting for a man trying to balance the many demands of his medical career, two children, difficult ex-wife and social life while living in New York.

One thing that’s emphasised about Toby is how other people respond to him. He is a dedicated and specialist doctor in his field as a hepatologist, and yet when people outside of the healthcare sector hear what he does, the response is usually a patronising, “Good for you!” I’m not sure if this is an attitude of the wealthy in America, or perhaps people more generally, but I found the disrespect levelled at him for doing an admirable job really jarring.

Beyond his work, Toby spends any time he has to himself on dating apps to see what the world has to offer post-marriage. It turns out, there are a lot of interested women and he goes through some sort of mid-life sexual awakening when he has this realisation. Good for him!

Claire Danes plays Rachel Fleishman, a complex woman who has been painted in a somewhat negative light so far. She appears to be wholly focused on her career as the director of an agency, she is absent as a mother and the demise of her marriage to Toby has been almost completely pinned on her (though it’s worth mentioning that we are being told the story by Toby’s friend Libby.- more on her next). The first two episodes in particular made Rachel out to be an over-ambitious monster with a cold heart, but by episode 3 we are shown glimpses of her life with Toby through a series of flashbacks - the meetcute, dating in NYC, long walks in the park - before it all turned upside down.

There is some really important and incredibly intimate coverage of traumatic childbirth and postpartum depression through this character, which goes some way in helping us to see where Rachel is coming from in the latter years of their marriage. It is deeply saddening to see a medical professional carry out a procedure without a woman’s consent - on this occasion, a doctor ruptured Rachel’s membrane to force her waters to break, and chose to do so without telling her, and notably did so once Toby had left the room meaning that she had nobody there to advocate for her. This was one part of a distressing labour, and we see the profound effects that it has on Rachel long after leaving the hospital, in her relationship with herself, Toby and child. Once you know about this experience, it might start to change your opinion of her or to help begin seeing why she seems so detached.

Although angering and upsetting to watch, it is a taboo topic that affects hundreds of thousands of women (in fact, at least 1 in 3 women1 find some aspect of their birth traumatic), so seeing it on a show like this feels strangely refreshing. There are a couple of links at the end of this article about birth trauma and rights for those who might need them or want to learn more.

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Lizzy Caplan plays Libby Epstein, a close friend of Toby’s. They lost contact for years (which Libby blames on Rachel, who she believes doesn’t like her) after meeting at college. As mentioned earlier, Libby is omnipresent in the show because she narrates each episode, but she also seems to be a person that Toby can go to for emotional support at any given moment. She’s a good friend to him, temporarily dropping out of her aerobics class to take his call, or inviting him along to a family day at the pool, for example.

Her situation is stable. She lives in the suburbs with her children and husband, who doesn’t say a lot but looks permanently miffed. She seems content to a degree, although there have been moments where it looks like she is longing for something other than the comfortable life that she’s built with her family. Maybe she just needs a bit of fun.

Adam Brody plays Seth Morris, who is the other college friend of Toby and Libby. Their little trio has an unlikely dynamic but it works when the three of them are together - they seem like the sort of friends who have taken different paths in life (despite remaining geographically close) but when they’re together, it’s like they just pick up where they last started.

Seth is a party partner and provides ‘practical’ support to Toby when he needs to take his mind off his missing ex-wife - by taking him to a secret Laundromat-come-club, for example. He has very few responsibilities and fewer inhibitions. We like him; he brightens up the place.

Finally, there are plenty of secondary characters who all play a part in allowing us to see how the Fleishmans interact, how they respond to stress and how they adapt to different situations. At work, Toby is in a position of authority, training student doctors who look up to him and taking direct responsibility for patients, but at home we see that he struggles to have a single positive conversation with his 12 year old daughter, Hannah. In their social circle of Manhattan parents, there is a clear rift between the rest of the parents (most of whom made their wealth from big-pharma, or other such unethical means) and Toby. Meanwhile, Rachel craves to fit in with them, their lifestyle and their values, in complete opposition to her husband. She is seeking betterment and belonging, but he resists. The people aren’t particularly portrayed in a positive light, and you definitely wouldn’t want to be friends with them, but it’s still hard to see the very public disagreements take place and to watch as two people drift further away from what they once used to be.

What questions do I have at the half way point of the show? The obvious questions to ask would be about Rachel - is she missing, dead or intentionally hiding? What’s her side of the story? I’m perhaps too conscious of the unreliable narrator so just how skewed is the storytelling? Or is Libby just telling us how she sees it? The big question is: why is Toby Fleishman in trouble (and is the Fleishman in the title even about him - could it be referring to Rachel?)? Did he do something to land himself in trouble, or is the title just a reference to the trouble he finds himself in circumstantially?

What hopes do I have at the half way point of the show? I would like to see Rachel return and my hope is that there will be some form of redemption arc for her character. As a general comment, I hope they maintain the pace of the show going forward - it has a real feeling of momentum behind it and I’m enjoying how things are unravelling.

Other thoughts: The title sequence is very short and is just the title of the show layered over an upside down shot of the city. I would love to know whether it is like this because Toby Fleishman’s world has been turned upside down due to the tumultuous events in his personal life, or whether the narrative is going to ‘flip’ at some point to reveal something new.

You can stream Fleishman is in Trouble on Disney Plus now.

Resources:

Birthrights - human rights during pregnancy and maternity

Make Birth Better - birth trauma support for parents

Episode 7 - 'Sacrament'
Director: Craig Zobel
Writer: Brad Ingelsby

One of the things that I often struggle to deal with in American crime dramas is how a moment of tension often centres around guns, or a struggle for a gun, or someone almost shooting a gun, etc. etc.... I understand that gun culture is very different in the USA to in the UK because of the Constitution, and that this might be a realistic depiction of people in a fight in the US, but the opening scene of this episode with the scrabble for a gun just felt a little pitiable. Perhaps that was part of the subtext: that the men are pathetic and too reliant on weapons, but either way, the clear obsession with guns had me eye rolling.

Thankfully, the episode picks up from this point with a sequence of satisfying clarifications and consequences for the characters. The Ross family are far more dysfunctional than we already thought... and John is right in the middle of it. The disgust on Mare's face and in her voice as she interrogates him about Erin is palpable. He tries to justify his affair - with a teenager, who is also his niece - so we share this revulsion. Poor little DJ.

Mare of Easttown represents a range of different family units, and in most cases there is an element of forgiveness involved - often at the expense of one of the women . It's unusual that Mare can join her ex-husband and his new fiancée for dinner, while talking about his wedding tux, for example. With the Ross family, Lori accepts DJ as her own son, at the request of John. Carrie gives up Drew because she can't balance being his mum and battling addiction, and Helen pleas with Mare (or Marianne, as she calls her) to forgive herself for Kevin. Whether the actions of these characters are always morally right is questionable, but the strength on display in all cases is admirable.

The second half of this finale episode is jaw-droppingly well written and developed from a set of clues, incidental moments and the intelligence of Mare. It amounts to quite the show-down, with Lori gripping her son tightly as a squad of police approach the front of their house, led by Mare, who now more than ever is positioned as the protector of Easttown. "Nobody gets in front of me, alright?" she tells the men and women following her into the household of the suspect in the murder investigation. They walk towards the Ross house in slow motion, with a stripped back, pensive piano track playing, perfectly capturing the melancholic yet unexpectedly dramatic crescendo to this case. As Ryan cries into his mother's arms saying he's sorry, you also know that Mare is sorry that this is the house that her investigation has led her to - for a second time! The lengths that parents will go to to protect their children has been a constant thread for the entire series, but this really takes it to the most drastic of places.

Writer Brad Ingelsby and director Craig Zobel strike a balance between us feeling sympathy for Ryan and disgust at his dad. He is 13 years old and in his interrogation he admits to shooting Erin. It was 'an accident', even though he specifically went into Mr Carroll's shed to take the gun - supposedly to scare her. He says he was doing it because he wanted her to stay away from his family - this motivation is understandable, but the extremity and violence of the actions are not. Even the thought that he would steal a gun to threaten his dad's mistress is violent enough to warrant intervention. The sensitive approach to him as a child is an interesting one - it easily could have been far more sinister but this is dialled down - perhaps even subdued slightly so that the focus was more on the response of his conflicted mother instead of him as a troubled child.

Additionally, Erin is depicted in several flashback scenes as she attempts to fight off Ryan, but since she is dead she doesn't have much of a voice at all. It's important not to forget that Erin was not only a victim of murder, but of abuse. As a vulnerable teen mother, she had very little power at her disposal to enable her to have the best possible life for her and her son - it's another real tragedy of this show which is overshadowed by seedy affairs and children exposed to adultery.

The first post in this blog series identified the huge amount of broken relationships evident in the show. By the end of the season this hasn't necessarily changed. In fact, some have now completely shattered. But it does provide a more hopeful point to start again from. The final zoom out as Mare climbs the stairs to her attic confirms this. As endings to mini-series go, this was one of the most poignant I've seen, especially considering the enormous amount of grief and trauma experienced over the seven episodes. The religious symbolism, tying in nicely with the priest's sermon to the people of the town, could have been overbearing, but was actually all the more comforting as Mare finally finds peace in Easttown, and with herself.

What questions do I have at the end of episode seven? Is Jess in trouble with the police? She hid things from them that would have helped solved this case a lot quicker. How was Lore expecting Mare to act? Was she hoping she would turn a blind eye to her murderous son? I also wonder if that ever occurred to Mare.

What predictions do I have at the end of episode seven? No predictions but I would love to see Kate Winslet reprise this role. And for Richard to come back.

Final thoughts: An excellent crime drama which is superbly written and cast. With Mare of Easttown, you get emotional depth, thrilling action, and a satisfying feeling of resolution several times over. Kate Winslet is the star of the show (obviously!) but Jean Smart, Julianne Nicholson and Evan Peters put in incredible performances too.

You can stream Mare of Easttown on Now TV or HBO Max now.

In case you missed it, read Part 6 of the blog series here. Thank you for reading! If you've also finished watching season one of Mare of Easttown, let me know your thoughts on the show on Substack or Instagram!

Episode 6 - 'Sore Must Be the Storm'
Director: Craig Zobel
Writer: Brad Ingelsby

The aftermath of the previous episode's action plays out over a news report at the start of this episode, clarifying a few things: Katie Bailey was reunited with her mother, Mare was hospitalised but is doing okay, and Zabel lost his life. Any other show may have flirted with the idea of keeping him alive and having serious injuries which would keep him in hospital until the next season, but Mare of Easttown seems to love to remind us of the fragility of life so that wouldn't be in keeping with its tone and messaging.

I said it in the last blog post, but I'm going to say it again: Zabel's death is such a tragedy. There is something very cruel about the fact that he and Mare solved the case together, but he will never get to celebrate this with his partner, or even know that he really was a talented detective and valued team member. It's also someone else close to Mare who has died far too young under dreadful circumstances - and in front of her. Even if she didn't outwardly reciprocate his enthusiasm for mornings, he definitely had a a lot of love and admiration for her and she'll undoubtedly miss their special bond.

Mare's therapist (who she is going to see voluntarily now - good for her) hits the nail on the head when she offers an insight into the panic Mare is feeling. She tells her: "You've sought out a external solution to your internal pain," which sounds remarkably relatable. Don't we all do that when things get tough? Mare has just been doing it on a much larger scale, and for a really long time. Recounting the day that she found her son dead is painful to watch. The direction of the flashback coupled with Kate Winslet's delicate performance brought me to tears. Though very different to the thrilling sequences in the previous episode which had our hearts racing, this scene is up there with the best that this show has to offer too - from the editing to the actual content of the dialogue, it's of very high quality - now our hearts are wrenching for Mare and everything she's been through.

Later on, Lori tells Mare about John's affair while he moves out to stay with his dad for a while, who's been keeping his own secrets - this is visibly a burden for him, unlike some of the characters who manage to carry the weight of deceit effortlessly. Additionally, we find out that the necklace found in Erin's bedroom has an engraved date on it which matches the Ross Family Reunion. This leads Mare down an investigative track which seems to point to the Ross family - namely Billy, and a later conversation between the brothers shows she is on the right path. But can Lori protect her family and still remain a friend to Mare? It's a moral conundrum that nobody would ever want to be in.

The last 10 minutes of the episode are, again, very intense and revealing. Lore's retelling to Mare clarifies some of the deductions she was on the cusp of reaching on her own, but with one more episode to go it feels like Lori gave it all away far too easily, especially knowing the repercussions it would lead to for her family. Despite this, the chase is on and Mare, once again, walks directly into the 'lion's den' so to speak, but this time it's closer territory than ever - this isn't some strange incel nobody else knows (as was the case with Katie Bailey), but her best friend's family.

The build up to the finale episode is well and truly on. I can't wait to see how all the entangled threads of Easttown are ultimately unravelled.

What questions do I have at the end of episode six? Earlier on in the episode I was wondering whether Siobhan was coping well or does it just seem like she is? She seems remarkably balanced for a teenager who has gone through so much... up until the point she comes home drunk and lashes out at her mother - so question answered there.

What predictions do I have at the end of episode six? I don't know what, but there is still more to this case. I wonder if we (the audience) have been tricked somehow into believing that what we've seen and been told by the characters is 100% true.

Other thoughts (i.e. Helen Watch): Richard has the most soothing voice. And he brought a gift basket... and cold beers. I really hope that him and Mare can find a time in both their lives to let each other in because the honesty and empathy they show each other is a sign of a very positive relationship. Also, reason number 378 to love Mare: when she calls in the case to her chief, he listens and tells her to 'wait for back up'. What does she do? Immediately puts her foot down to get to the scene faster. I love her defiance. As far as Helen Watch goes, I laughed at her flipping off the paps as Mare came home (it must be where Mare gets her rebellious streak from) and it looks like she gives really good hugs.

You can stream Mare of Easttown on Now TV or HBO Max.

In case you missed it, read Part 1 of the blog series here: Clare on Mare: Unravelling Season 1 of Mare of Easttown - Episode 1.

Episode 5 - 'Illusions'
Director: Craig Zobel
Writer: Brad Ingelsby

If you were ever in doubt about the bleakness of this show, in the first 10 minutes of this episode, we overhear some sort of secret being promised to be kept in the Ross household between father and son, the town experiences a power cut, there's a car crash (with a fatality) and Mare speaks in her therapy session about depression and her dead son's mood disorder. It's heavy going!

Soon after, Billy Ross is under faux interrogation by Mare in a social capacity when it emerges that Erin stayed with him for a while during a conversation over pizza. An untouched bottle of beer as he bolts suggests that he wasn't ready to be questioned, and something about his nervous disposition and dark bags under his eyes indicates he isn't keeping well at the moment. Younger member of the Ross family, Ryan, also loses it at a bully in the school canteen proving that the secret his dad is asking him to keep is getting to him and rearing itself in ugly ways. In any case, the bully won't be throwing anything at his sister any time soon... so there's that.

The most exhilarating scenes - perhaps so far in the series - occur in this episode. The two girls - Katie Bailey and the other, newly abducted sex worker - who are being kept hostage discuss life (if it can be called that) as prisoners of a psychopath: his patterns, behaviour and treatment of other women. We know early on it's a man because of the way the shots of him are framed and his face remains hidden until the climax of the episode. Concurrently, Mare and Zabel are uncovering information based on anecdotes from other sex workers, which leads to a considerably more narrow search for suspects based on the vehicle. The narrative that they are building and the perspective that the audience have merge in this episode and makes for one of the most nail-biting discoveries yet - and is likely the reason behind the 9.4 score on IMDb.

'You've Got Another Thing Coming' by Judas Priest plays as the detectives enter one very run down and dirty house/bar. Tension rises as more questions are asked and as the locked up women realise that there are unexpected visitors they being banging the pipes as a distress signal. THIS is the moment we've been waiting for! Once it's clear that they're dealing with a very dangerous man, the last ten minutes of the episode play out with gritty action and barely any dialogue. God-tier television.

Though Mare and Zabel worked together to find the abuser and the victims, sadly it doesn't look like they will be leaving together. It's a true tragedy. The lingering close up on Mare's shellshocked face with the sound of Kevin's voice from the home video playing over it (and among all the police sirens, running, cacophony of voices entering the building) is an interesting choice of sound and conveys just how busy and complex the mind of Mare is, as well as the depth of Kate Winlet's acting repertoire.

What questions do I have at the end of episode five? The obvious question is now that two of the missing girls have been found, is Erin's death even connected to them? Dylan still seems guilty. Brianna pokes a hole in his story so where was he at the time of Erin's death? And why's he so concerned about the journals? He must have something to hide, even if it's not murder. Colin Zabel... Craig Zobel (director) - is the detective inspired by the director? Is there a semi-autobiographical element to the story?

What predictions do I have at the end of episode five? Mare is going to have the trust and support of her Chief and the local community going forward. Surely she has to after finding Katie Bailey!? I think it's become clear that Erin's case is separate now too so although there were some similarities between the victims, we now know the circumstances were different. The Ross brothers/Kenny still aren't off the hook and now the Deacon has come clean, the pressure is off him (though the rumour mill in Easttown is unlikely to let him off so lightly).

Other thoughts (i.e. Helen Watch): Helen's affair being aired at Betty's funeral reception by the widowed husband was completely on brand - an unlikely and uncomfortable moment of humour in a typically sad setting. Mare's reaction to this news (uncontrollable laughter) is priceless.

You can stream Mare of Easttown on Now TV or HBO Max.

In case you missed it, read Part 1 of the blog series here: Clare on Mare: Unravelling Season 1 of Mare of Easttown - Episode 1.

Episode 4 - ‘Poor Sisyphus'
Director: Craig Zobel
Writer: Brad Ingelsby

Before we get into the episode, why is it named after a character from Greek mythology? Sisyphys was punished by Zeus to eternally push a boulder uphill. However, as soon as he would reach the top of the hill, the boulder would roll off and Sisyphus had to push it back up again. So is the 'Poor' descriptor in the episode title suggesting that we should feel sorry for him, and those who represent him? Who is being punished in Mare of Easttown and who is the punisher?

Long term, Mare would be the obvious choice. She has experienced lots of knock backs recently with her family life as well as in her line of work and solving the case feels like a constant uphill battle. However, there is a standout scene in this episode featuring Dawn Bailey as she is blackmailed by an unknown caller claiming to have knowledge about her missing daughter, Katie. She walks through a dilapidated house, in low key lighting with vertical bars and elongated shadows all around her - applause to cinematographer Ben Richardson because the suspense and horror conventions utilised make the scene genuinely terrifying. It also acted as a reminder of the lengths that she will go to if it means even the tiniest possibility of being reunited with her daughter, and of how trapped she is by her awful reality. We know that the caller is phony, and we also get the strong impression that she knows this too, but she can't let the possibility - however unlikely, and however dangerous it may be - slide. Hence the boulder rolls all the way back to the bottom of the hill, and she is back to grieving for her missing daughter in a hellish purgatory. Perhaps the title of the episode wasn't chosen to align with any character, but as a universal recognition of what life can feel like sometimes. In any case, it really got me thinking and added another layer to the Mare of Easttown story for me.

We're at the midway point in the mini-series now and Mare has to deal with the repercussions of her suspension. It's very telling who she lets in on this information first. In the image above of Mare and Lori on the bench, we can see how much she leans on her friend during the toughest of times. They are women bonded by their town and the tragedies occurring in it. I want to say that they have been hardened by their experiences, and I think the costume and make up choices for them (minimal, perhaps even emphasising shadows and drawing attention to ageing features on their faces) supports this, though we also see flashes of softness and real vulnerability in moments like this too. The action of Mare resting her head on someone else's shoulder is an unusual sign of affection and it's good to see that she has a friend that she can be this close and unguarded with.

In contrast to this, we are witness to Mare's first therapy session in this episode (it's a condition of her suspension) and see how she goes into it with a blasé and even skeptical attitude with a view of just getting it over with. The wall goes up and the pseudo-hubris takes centre stage - she has a professional reputation to keep in tact, let's not forget! But then she realises the benefits of talking, and with the inclusion of a flashback to an abusive scene with her son Kevin (which is also terrifying), we can see exactly why the therapy is a positive move for her. Thinking about other TV dramas that include therapy (Big Little Lies, Insecure and most notably, The Sopranos), it is often a useful device to understand what drives a character and how their past is influencing their present. One of the hard things for Mare is that her past appears to be both a weakness and a driver for her determination to succeed with her work. As an aside, Richard appears to provide a more informal form of therapy, with his well phrased questions, thoughtful inquiries into Mare's life and sensitive approach, he is another person that she is gradually opening up to. I like him - he seems like a positive influence!

In terms of where we're up to with suspects and victims, another girl has gone missing under suspicious circumstances and it still looks bad for Deacon Mark. He has been found guilty of lying and looks shifty when asked about Erin. The fact he has previous accusations against him only fuels this idea, but at the same time, it seems too early for us to have such certainty about who the killer is. Despite Mare officially being on leave, she chases several leads based on the internet use of Erin as well as finding a hidden keepsake necklace engraved with a date. No doubt this will return at some point!

Commonality is drawn in this episode between all the grandparents who assume parental roles: Mare of her grandson, Drew; Helen of her granddaughter Siobhan and great grandson Drew; Dylan's parents taking care of DJ while he's incapable of looking after an infant (both because he is in hospital and in the wrong place mentally); and Dawn Bailey caring for her granddaughter since her own daughter Katie is still missing. It's interesting to see how amazingly supportive and natural the grandparents are without begrudging their children for landing them with additional responsibilities. It seems like a lot of grandparents for one TV show so I wonder if this is the creator's way of commenting on the almost impossible demands on families (mothers in particular) to take on childcare duties alongside their careers, or perhaps just represents alternative family units.

What questions do I have at the end of episode four? Why is Freddy included in some episodes? He is a character with drug problems and targeted Dawn as a way to get easy drug money, but I'm still not sure what his overall purpose is.

What predictions do I have at the end of episode four? The two missing girls are part of a different case to Erin. We saw her dead body, but they are very much alive. Psychos tend to have a pattern or trademark so it doesn't make sense that he/she would kill one and treat the others differently.

Other thoughts (i.e. Helen Watch): Mare's mum, Helen, hiding an ice cream stash in a bag of frozen veg... I've never related more.

You can stream Mare of Easttown on Now TV or HBO Max.

In case you missed it, read Part 1 of the blog series here: Clare on Mare: Unravelling Season 1 of Mare of Easttown - Episode 1.