JohnDeSando

Co-writer/director Joachim Trier has gone where few artists would dare: the relationship between two daughters and a strong-willed father. He has accomplished this favorably in Sentimental Value, a Swedish drama so delicately told that the imperious film-director father becomes almost heroic if only just loving and, while still absent and ambitious, gradually moving back into their lives.

Sweden's pre-eminent actor, Stellan Skarsgard, plays Gustav Borg as a previously renowned director, not lately so much. As a successful actress, Nora Borg (Renate Reinsve) turns down his offer to star in a picture he wrote about her and him while other daughter Agnes Borg Pettersen (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) leads a more family-centered life with children after a promising career.

As always with high-performing stars, underlying motivations direct their decisions, dad possibly getting back to family and creating a successful film and Nora getting back at dad for abandoning them to have a career. This multi-level emotional transit, not unusual for any family, is a way for the audience to identify with the vagaries of family life.

Besides the common challenges, Sentimental Value offers the best acting of the year powerful in its underplaying. Each character carves a unique personality that is better for the father's remoteness as the two daughters navigate between breaking from his gravity and yet needing to bond with him emotionally.

As a father of 5 daughters and film critic, I can confidently claim Joachim Trier one of the finest younger filmmakers of our times. He has made endearing the eternal struggle between fathers and daughters for love and understanding, and he has brought an inside look at the creative process of transporting script to screen.

While Sentimental Value may not depict the sweet bond in To Kill a Mockingbird or the amusing eccentricity in Little Miss Sunshine, it does have the gravitational pull of Interstellar and Aftersun. In other words, if you want a film that will entertain and enlighten as well as win the international Oscar, see it now in your local theater. I should know.

"College students...they're all a bunch of little Mussolini's." Paul (Kyle Chandler)

The recent impressive allegories Civil War and One Battle After another try hard not to take political sides about the impact of autocracy on daily lives. Yet these dystopian allegories help usher in Anniversary, a more Jordan- Peele-like treatment, slowly exposing the divide in one almost clueless inside-the-Beltway academic family. Although such a setting and film as art form cry liberal, that posture is challenged even within and not always clear who is the winner.

Ellen and Paul Taylor (Diane Lane and Chandler) are prominent DC academic and restaurateur respectfully, she steadfastly supporting the rule of law and human rights, though sometimes MAGA seems to creep in silently to oppos her. Their future daughter-in-law Liz (Phoebe Dynevor) has published a right-leaning tome CHANGE that extols single party governance and decidedly fascist law enforcement.

Her former professor, Ellen, and she renew their ideologically-opposed stances, threatening the dinner and the family with hitherto self- banned political discussion. Most Americans can identify with the restrictions called for at, say, Thanksgiving dinners. Just so for the Taylors though Liz's breakout publication cannot be denied. When she is asked to visiting lecture at Ellen's Georgetown University, the gloves come off.

The destruction of family peace is apace with each passing day, Liz's pregnancy, and Polish co-writer/ director Jan Komasa's steady hand at distributing the exposition to keep the aud engaged while dropping jaws at fate and autocracy take over. The encroachment of intolerance into daily lives along with compromising principles creates a thriller atmosphere that heretofore would have been only abstract.

The evolving movement from CHANGE leads to weaponized census and curfews, among the other scary enforcements. Thanksgiving dinner is no longer neutral, and it is doomed to the dustbin of American dreams:

"Oh, how we'll miss those 'turkey and (Native American) genocide.'"

Perfect timing and perfect film for our Thanksgiving holiday. Civil discussion may ensue after viewing-no one will be neutral. Anniversary is a thriller in the true sense of the drama.

"The Earth is where we make our stand, It underscores our responsibility to preserve and cherish the only home we've ever known." Carl Sagan

An unattributed missile is heading for Chicago-what to do? Kathryn Bigelow's A House of Dynamite (Netflix) is largely a nailbiter moving at lightening speed, like the missile itself, as brass and lower order soldiers try to make the right decision about neutralizing the nuclear threat and figure what country launched it. It's a mess but until the end a hot, good one.

The initial build up feels authentic and almost undercooked as everyone tries to believe that the danger is real. Bigelow and co-writer Noah Oppenheim make enough space for some standard tropes like loves and kids but not too much. However, the emphasis is on the authenticity of process: from generals and admirals to enlisted, from POTUS (Idris Elba) to situation room deputies, have they been trained to deal with a crisis like this? At some point that the 18 min. Strike time is closeup, more chaos than not rules a military that is probably much more disciplined in real life.

Yet the film relies on our understanding of the current threats possible from N Korea and Iran, not just Russia and China. The film's tagline, "Not if. When," says it all about the possibility we must prepare for. Bigelow then can enjoy the cautionary tale aspect of this taut drama without inviting comparison with Dr. Strangelove. Not as humorous as Kubrik, but just a scary.

"This is not insanity. It's reality." General Anthony Brady (Tracy Letts)