Pjtaylor-96-138044

'Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)' is the latest Benoit Blanc whodunit, but - as with Marta in 'Knives Out (2019)' - the real heart of the piece is Josh O'Connor's priestly protagonist. O'Connor is also the stand-out performer in a strong cast of stand-out performers, crafting a cohesive and compelling character charmingly full of empathy even when surrounded by those who foolishly view such things as weakness. Although the picture is arguably ten minutes too long, it's a very entertaining and often surprisingly moving experience that keeps you on your toes and feels genuine in its examination of how faith can be used either to calcify and radicalise or to heal and fortify, to spread closed-minded hate or inspire open-hearted love. The mystery itself isn't necessarily all that engaging, and it takes some twists and turns that are both thunderously obvious and entirely unexpected (or, to be less generous, unnecessary), but this is less an exercise in unravelling an enigma ahead of the characters and more about seeing how said enigma effects the lives of those characters and relates to the underlying central theme. It's a really well-made and well-performed picture that does some interesting things with diegetic lighting to shape and reflect the core players' relationship to God, faith and ether fellow man. It's a really solid effort all round, and it makes an excellent addition to its continuously stellar series. I may just like it more than 'Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)', even though it's inarguably less effective than the wonderful whodunnit that first introduced us to CSI: KFC.

'Farewell Amor (2020)' is a tender and empathetic exploration of a family who reunite in New York after seventeen years of rejected visa applications. Focusing on the perspective of each family member in turn, the flick examines the strain placed on each of them individually and all three of them as a unit as they struggle to reconnect, readjust and really start to live as they always hoped they would. A love of dance acts as a potential spark for their new start, the suppression of that same love also threatens to tear the trio apart. It isn't about the political aspect of immigration, something which - as revealed during a post-movie MUBI Q&A with director Ekwa Msangi - was a conscious decision taken to keep the focus of the film on the people caught within the situation rather than the situation (or "issue") itself and thereby make it even more resonant to those watching. As its director also points out in the aforementioned Q&A, this isn't a typical African-in-New-York movie because it isn't about excellence and it isn't about destitution, but instead a very human story about very human individuals whose struggles represent something being gone through on a daily basis by (probably) millions of people. The narrative doesn't quite come together as nicely - or, I suppose, cohesively - as I'd like it to, essentially just making a major leap in terms of character development prior to its final scene, but I can't deny that I still find it subtly moving. The performances are all incredibly naturalistic, and the soft-spoken vulnerability of Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine is particularly striking to me. You can feel the strained connection between each family member, can sense the ways in which they've changed without the film ever needing to tell you explicitly. It's all suitably lowkey, yet ultimately really effective. It's the sort of thing that sweeps you off your feet without you realising it, and it's really charming overall. It's a very strong, delightfully specific effort.

'Evil Does Not Exist (2023)' is a slow-burn eco-thriller that focuses on a mountain community who find their futures thrown into question when an unempathetic agency decide to quickly set up a glamping site to make use of post-Covid subsidiaries. The film has a purposefully glacial pace and its first hour consists primarily of long shots of the environment or of people practicing their craft in harmony with it. The central conflict arrives much later than expected, and the narrative constantly keeps you on your toes by following characters who you'd think would just be throwaway additions. This creates an interesting effect, and the story - along with its themes of preserving nature and working with our world rather than against it - are compelling enough to keep you watching even as you're constantly on the edge of becoming bored. You never quite tip into that territory thanks to some fantastic cinematography and incredibly naturalistic performances, both of which afford the piece an almost fly-on-the-wall feel that makes it feel all the more real and urgent. The problem is that it never quite lands on what feels like its core message, or at least it doesn't appear to on a first watch, and its ending comes almost (but not quite) out of nowhere rather than being the inevitable conclusion of the thematic, character and plot beats we've previously been shown. The ending makes sense, but it doesn't quite gel with the rest of the experience and it almost feels intended for a quick shock - or, at least, a somewhat hasty endpoint - rather than the natural way for this tale to go in order for it to say what it's obviously trying to say (in a way, the ending is so left-field it almost undercuts the desired message). It's never quite as compelling as I'd like it to be, and its pacing really does act as a barrier to enjoyment even as it compounds the specific vibe the flick is going for. It's an odd one, really. I like it, but I don't love it. It's well-made and interesting, but it honestly isn't all that enjoyable. It's pretty good in its own way, but it certainly won't be for everyone.