Tangerine
MA15+
USA, 2015
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Language: English
Director: Sean Baker
Starring: Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor, Karren Karagulian, James Ransone
What's it about?
Hell hath no fury like scorned Sin-Dee, in this indie comedy drama. Released from prison on Christmas Eve, trans sex worker Sin-Dee hits up the old block and embarks on an odyssey through downtown Los Angeles to track down her cheating boyfriend. She enlists the help of her best friend, to dispense justice before the day's out.
An Education
M
UK, 2009
Genre: Drama
Language: English
Director: Lone Scherfig
Starring: Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard
What's it about?
Beware the dashing stranger who sweeps you off your feet. Carey Mulligan earned her first Oscar nomination for playing bright-eyed teenager Jenny who starts a whirlwind romance with a much older man. Moral of the story: If you think he's too good to be true, you're probably right. But how to tell your besotted parents?
Why You Should Watch: An Education
An Education Review
The Vicious Kind
MA15+
USA, 2009
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Language: English
Director: Lee Toland Krieger
Starring: Brittany Snow, J.K. Simmons, Alex Frost, Adam Scott,
What's it about?
Bearing all the hallmarks of a Xavier Dolan-level melodrama, the implosion of the family unit is also at the heart of writer/director Lee Toland Krieger second feature, The Vicious Kind. Set over the Thanksgiving weekend, a pre-Parks and Recreation Adam Scott impresses in the challenging role of the volatile, misogynistic Caleb. No longer speaking to his father (J.K. Simmons), he’s nonetheless driving his naïve young brother Peter (Alex Frost) home for the holiday. Taking an immediate, aggressive dislike to his bro’s new girlfriend Emma (Brittany Snow), it all, inevitably, blows up, though there is a surprisingly redemptive curve to this particular car crash.
101 Reykjavik
MA15+
Iceland, 2000
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Language: Icelandic, English, Spanish
Director: Baltasar Kormákur
Starring: Hanna María Karlsdóttir, Hilmir SnÁ¦r Guonason, Victoria Abril
What's it about?
Two words: it's complicated. A drunken one night stand gets real serious real quick when it results in a pregnancy, for a chronic procrastinator and mischief maker, in this gleefully debauched Icelandic comedy drama that's been compared to the work of Pedro Almodovar - not least because it features his '90s leading lady, Victoria Abril.
Vincere
M
Italy, 2009
Genre: Biography, Drama, History
Language: Italian
Director: Marco Bellocchio
Starring: Fausto Russo Alesi, Pier Giorgio Bellocchio, Filippo Timi, Michela Cescon, Giovanna Mezzogiorno
What's it about?
However bad the breakups in this collection of Anti-Valentines are, none are as devastating as the fate of Ida Dalser, consumed by her love for a fiery young political upstart, Benito Mussolini destined for much darker things. Meaning ‘win,’ in his native Italian, writer/director Marco Bellocchio’s traumatic Vincere relays the brutality with which Filippo Timi’s dictator-in-waiting casts aside his ex-lover Dalser (a magnificent Giovanna Mezzogiorno), the mother of his first child, in favour of his new family, imprisoning her in a series of horrific mental asylums like a dirty little secret he’d rather erase, in stark contrast to the fate of Eva Braun. Dalser’s determination for her son to be recognised as the true heir of the man she still adores is a terrible tragedy to behold.
The Last Days of Chez Nous
PG
Australia, 1992
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Language: English
Director: Gillian Armstrong
Starring: Kerry Fox, Miranda Otto, Bill Hunter, Bruno Ganz, Lisa Harrow, Kiri Paramore
What's it about?
Outstanding Australian director Gillian Armstrong explores fraught familial relationships in this Sydney-set chamber piece penned by journalist, author and screenwriter Helen Garner. Novelist Beth (Lisa Harrow) knows her marriage to Frenchman J.P (Bruno Ganz) is on the rocks, but seems powerless to do anything about it. When Kerry Fox shows up as Beth’s pregnant younger sister Vicki, it’s pretty obvious to all and sundry exactly what’s going to happen when the elder sibling heads into the Outback to re-connect with her estranged father (Bill Hunter). Nothing much good. Also look out for a young Miranda Otto.
The Last Days of Chez Nous review
Appropriate Behaviour
MA15+
USA, 2014
Genre: Comedy drama
Language: English
Director: Desiree Akhavan
Starring: Desiree Akhavan, Rebecca Henderson, Halley Feiffer
What's it about?
Fans of Lena Dunham’s hit series Girls will recognise the fabulous Desiree Akhavan who wrote, directed and stars in the Brooklyn-based lesbian hipster rom-com Appropriate Behaviour. Drawing heavily from her own life experiences as the first generation daughter of Iranian expats, Akhavan plays the hapless Shirin, recently dumped, stuck in a ridiculous job teaching filmmaking to attention-deficit five-year-olds all the while trying to broach her bisexuality with the parentals. Invoking Woody Allen as much as it does Dunham, Anti-Valentiners will appreciate the slow motion disaster that is Shirin’s interactions with her ex, a horrendously awkward first date and a pleasingly feminist subversion of an almost three-way that leaves the one boy involved well out on a cold shoulder.
Desiree Akhavan on ‘Appropriate Behaviour’ in sex scenes (interview)
Appropriate Behaviour review
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