Feeling stressed and anxious about the weather, the world and the possible totalitarian takeover of our country? Need a break from your social media feed exacerbating the doom and divisiveness? Here are four films, of varying genres, that might take your mind off the impending apocalypses, if only for a brief spell.
Suze
Every once in while an enchanting indie film will sneak up on you and make you forget your woes. Linsey Stewart & Dane Clark’s second feature, Suze is that film. Sure, it’s formulaic and doesn’t take obvious risks but the film’s daring lies in how it organically allows its two central characters to connect with one another and make each other better, stronger people.
The film opens with a humdinger of a scene. A couple are having sex in a pool and telling each other how much they love one another. Suddenly the titular character, who prefers to go by Susan (Michaela Watkins) can be seen and we realize she’s watching her husband and his much younger golf instructor. Five years later, a single, peri-menopausal Susan must come to terms with the fact that her selfish brat of an only daughter Brooke (Sara Waisglass) is going away to college (empty nest syndrome).
While at college, Brooke breaks up with her sweet, seemingly dim slacker boyfriend Gage (Charlie Gillespie), who Susan never liked. A distraught Gage tosses himself from a water tower but survives. Brooke refuses to return to see him but asks mom to do it for her, which leads to Susan taking Gage in and looking after him. So begins the most off-beat but truly endearing story of how two lost souls get to know one another and grow.
Watkins and Gillespie are both fantastic. Each bring their own magic to their respective roles and have real chemistry—not that kind —it’s not a Between the Temples type of story. Although, you never know what happens post-credits…
Like Carol Kane in Temples, Watkins has a terrific part and brings tremendous nuance and authenticity to ‘Suze,’ a woman who rarely thinks about her own happiness. Her arc is never forced, she earns it.
Gillespie is a revelation. His Gage is the kind of character that could easily have been a one-dimensional joke. Instead, as embodied by Gillespie, he’s a paradox—a lovable optimist who’s also super aware of the crap world he’s in.
Suze made me hyper conscious of the fact that there are too many humans out there who are mistreated by the people around them and made to feel like they don’t matter. This is a film full of empathy and heart, something we truly need right now.
Suze is currently in theaters.
Seven Veils
Atom Egoyan’s electrifying Seven Veils, reminded me of just how incredibly well the Canadian auteur handles acting ensembles, getting the best out of each thesp. Many of his past films, specifically Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter and Ararat—all excellent—boast amazing casts. His latest film is expertly led by the gifted Amanda Seyfried, who fearlessly delves into the psyche of a woman deeply damaged by her past, bent on purging her demons through art.
Seyfried is Jeanine, a theatre director who has been asked to stage her deceased mentor’s famous opera production of Salome. Said mentor was also her lover and used elements of Jeanine’s traumatic past in his initial staging of the spectacle, based on the Oscar Wilde play.
Egoyan has directed opera before, specifically Salome, to great acclaim and the staged scenes in the film are mesmerizing—and strangely mirror some of the ending of Jamie Lloyd’s current re-imagining of Sunset Blvd on Broadway.
There’s a plethora of backstage drama going on in the film that involve the actors playing Salome (Amber Braid) and John the Baptist (Michael Kupfer-Radecky)—who actually played both roles onstage for Egoyan— as well as a subplot involving the props manager (Rebecca Liddiard) and her current girlfriend (Vinessa Antoine), who is Salome’s understudy.
In addition, Jeanine is estranged from her unfaithful husband (Mark O’Brien) and rekindling a past crush on one of the other understudies (Douglas Smith, who Seyfried worked with on the TV series, Big Love).
One of the many themes the film tackles is consent and inappropriate behavior.
Seyfried collaborated with Egoyan in 2009 on the controversial thriller Chloe and here the writer-director gives us just enough of Jeanine’s backstory that’s necessary and leaves room for Seyfried to tell us so much more, simply with her movements and expressions.
Egoyan’s films are never dull, usually divisive and always alluring—even those that haven’t been well-received—especially in the last two decades. Seven Veils makes me want to revisit each one.
Seven Veils is in theaters March 7, 2025
Bring Them Down
First-time filmmaker Christopher Andrews makes an impressive debut with the gritty, anxiety-inducing thriller, Bring Them Down.
Michael (Christopher Abbott, always fascinating to watch) is a lonely sheep farmer plagued by past guilt, living with his irascible father (Colm Meaney). His former sweetheart (Nora-Jane Noone) has married a rival farmer (Paul Ready), and they have a son, Jack (Barry Keoghan). Conflicts arise and escalate. Suffice to say, there’s a lot of plot, most of it dark and bloody. Midway through the movie, we return to the scene of an accident to show the narrative from a different perspective.
What makes the film so compelling are the central performances by Abbott and Keoghan, who take unsympathetic characters and give them nuance and variation.
Bring Them Down is an unrelentingly grim look at what happens when assumptions are made and communication breaks down between already angry and distrusting people—in particular, men—who feel the world owes them something. The film doesn’t always work on a narratively satisfying or depth-of-character level, but Andrews is fab at delivering a foreboding atmosphere where you can’t be certain what will happen next. I just wish he’d gone bolder.
Bring Them Down is currently in theaters.
Cleaner
What makes Martin Campbell’s Cleaner such an entertaining ride is the central performance by Daisy Ridley as Joey Locke, an ex-soldier who now works as a window cleaner. Yes, it’s the usual ‘disillusioned-therefore-reluctant-hero’ role but she gives it more depth than usual. And there is no resorting to those annoying and idiotic Bruce Willis/Will Smith action-adventure quips and witticisms that always detracted from the plot.
This film is set in a London hi-rise at an energy company’s annual gala. A group of radical activists seize hundreds of hostages in order to expose corruption. Unbeknownst to some of those involved one of their leaders, Noah (a dastardly Taz Skylar), has more terrorist-type plans and will eliminate anyone who doesn’t go along with him. As this is all happening, Joey is trapped outside the building, suspended 50 stories high, on a cleaning scaffold.
Besides Ridley and Skylar’s fab work, Michael Tuck is a standout as Joey’s autistic brother and Bridgerton’s Ruth Gemmell commands the screen as the superintendent in charge on the ground. Clive Owen also shows up in what amounts to a cameo.
Campbell, who helmed two Bond films, Golden Eye and Casino Royale, keeps things moving at a brisk pace and wraps things up quickly, which is refreshing since most times audiences must withstand an extended and exhausting mano-a-mano end scene between the hero and villain.
Cleaner is currently in theaters.
