Chicago International Film Festival continues through October 27, with films and events taking place around Chicago. Follow our Chicago International Film Festival tag for all our latest posts on recommendations and recaps.
Conclave
Directed by Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front) and adapted by Peter Straughan from a book by Robert Harris, Conclave takes the form of a political thriller despite being set in the world of the Vatican (and if you think religion and politics aren’t sometimes the same thing, shame on you). The pope has just died, leaving Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) in charge of one of the most secretive rituals in world history: the selection of a new Holy Father, where even the windows are covered to prevent listening devices from detecting vibration on the glass. During the ancient process, several candidates emerge, some more conservative who would undo many of the forward strides the late Pope made, while others are more liberal.
Stanley Tucci plays the liberal Cardinal Belllini, whose support is strong but perhaps not enough to win. John Lithgow is Cardinal Tremblay, a conservative who had the last meeting with the late Pontiff that may have resulted in a dismissal that never became official. Lucian Msamati plays Cardinal Adeyemi, who has support behind him becoming the first Black Pope, and Sergio Castellitto is Cardinal Tedesco, who wants the Pope-dom to go back to an Italian and the church to go back to times when holy wars against other religions were the norm. All of this jockeying for position is happening while the surrounding area is being attacked by suicide bombers, which seems less scary than the long list of secrets being revealed around Lawrence, who also becomes an unexpected candidate because of his level-headedness as he attempts to keep the voting process civil.
And then there are the outliers, such as the previous unknown and quietly mysterious Cardinal Benitez (Carlos Diehz), who has a secret ministry in Afghanistan and keeps accumulating votes with each round. I particularly liked Isabella Rossellini as Sister Agnes, who leads a group of nuns who prepare meals and other accommodations for the visiting cardinals and is privy to a few secrets of her own that are vital to the process. Brian F. O’Byrne is also quite good as O’Malley, Lawrence’s right-hand man, whose delicately balanced job is to gather information but also keep some of it from Lawrence so as not to influence the voting too much.
There’s something utterly hypnotic about the repeated voting accompanied by discussions and earth-shattering revelations happening in between each round. Frontrunners suddenly fall dramatically out of favor, and candidates who initially appear out of the running surge in popularity. Director Berger seems particularly impressed with how forces rally when a conspiracy threatens to rock the foundations of the Church, and everyone attempts to keep everything secret from the outside world in particular, which sometimes leads to even more trouble. Conclave has a hell of an ending that you almost have to admire for its audacity and its willingness to try something truly unexpected (I’m sure the faithful will have spiritual coronaries while watching). But it's the precise, laser-focused performances that pulled me fully in, especially from Fiennes, who can often be quite icy in roles of authority. Here, he’s warm, empathetic, and orderly to a fault. This is one hell of a movie. (Steve Prokopy)
The film is screening Friday, Oct. 18, at 6:15pm at AMC NEWCITY 14, then opens theatrically on Oct. 25.
The Last Republican
In one of the oddest pairings of filmmaker and subject, the documentary The Last Republican centers on conservative former Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who was an unwavering supporter of former President Donald Trump until the January 6, 2021, insurrection and Trump’s refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power or acknowledgment that he lost the 2020 election. Kinzinger’s strong belief that these are a fundamental part of the political process made him assume that his fellow Republicans would line up with him in support of decrying Trump’s actions, but instead, he became a pariah in his party as Congresspeople cared more about holding onto power than democracy.
Directed by fellow Illinoisan and self-confessed liberal filmmaker Steve Pink (who helmed the Hot Tub Time Machine movies), The Last Republican is not only an account of Kinzinger’s final 14 months in office after Jan. 6, during which he became one of two Republicans on the committee tasked with investigating the insurrection; the film also looks at the emotional anxiety he and his then-pregnant wife Sofia suffered as a result of countless threats and verbal attacks after he spoke out against Trump.
Kinzinger and Pink joke about their political divide, but they never stop discussing it, and the film represents one of the clearest examples yet of people with different belief systems talking things out and still getting along. No matter your feelings about Kinzinger or his value system, the film hits hard about what is broken in politics to this day while also finding the humor in the never-ending hypocrisy that seems to have become the norm in the government. There is something wonderfully optimistic in Kinzinger’s outlook about his own path forward, and it makes the entire doc less hopeless than many films about politics these days. (Steve Prokopy)
The film screens Friday, Oct. 18, at 5pm at AMC NEWCITY 14. Maura Gillespie, Deputy Chief of Staff/Communications Director for Adam Kinzinger, is scheduled to attend. The film’s second screening is Saturday, Oct. 19, at 12pm at AMC NEWCITY 14. Director Steve Pink is scheduled to attend, along with political analyst Paul Lisnek (WGN-TV).
Memoir of a Snail
One of the most emotional cinematic experiences you will go through in 2024 (in animation or any type of film), writer/director Adam Elliot’s (2009’s Mary and Max) stop-motion masterpiece Memoir of a Snail centers on the troubled life of Grace (voiced by Sarah Snook) as she grows up supported by her twin brother Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee). The two are separated after the death of their father and put in foster homes at opposite ends of Australia, pushing the already shy Grace deeper into isolation, with only her pet snails to comfort her.
As Grace gets older, she becomes friends with an elderly woman named Pinky (Jacki Weaver), whose outlook on life inspires Grace to attempt to live a less secluded life and perhaps even reconnect with her long-lost brother. With top-notch supporting voice work from the likes of Eric Bana and even musician Nick Cave, Memoir of a Snail tackles weighty topics like suicide, gay conversion therapy, death, sex, and depression, yet it manages to also be uplifting, hopeful and beautiful, even at its most dark. It also represents a new wave of animated work that isn’t afraid to be primarily geared toward adults and profile subjects that real people deal with every day. And somehow these tiny clay creatures feel more human than 90 percent of live-action characters I see in movies every year. It’s a remarkable feat, and you should absolutely see this movie immediately. (Steve Prokopy)
The film screens Friday, Oct. 18, at 5pm at Gene Siskel Film Center, then opens theatrically on Nov. 1 at Music Box Theatre.
The Rule of Jenny Pen
Although it resulted in one of the more uncomfortable and unpleasant experiences I’ve had in a movie theater in quite some time, I’m still recommending director James Ashcroft’s The Rule of Jenny Pen about elderly judge Stefan Mortensen (Geoffrey Rush), who has a stroke on the bench, causing partial paralysis, and is forced to move into a retirement home in order to go through rehabilitation. Although he hates the place and the people that surround him (staff and patients alike), he finds himself especially at odds with another resident, Dave Crealy (John Lithgow, in full creep mode), who has a particularly sadistic streak, especially when he dons a hand puppet meant for dementia therapy. Crealy uses the doll to torture and torment other residents in the middle of the night, and he feigns being feeble and slightly forgetful so that none of the staff would suspect him for a second.
Naturally, being a man of law and order, Mortensen complains to staff, but since the other residents are too afraid or unaware to back him up, he ends up being treated like he’s having dementia issues. A New Zealand production, The Rule of Jenny Pen is as much an indictment of the way older people are treated, especially in facilities such as the one depicted here, but more than that, it’s a very different type of horror film, in which an infirm man must fight against his fragile body and mind to plot against another person’s reign of terror. What Crealy is inflicting on this place is a fate worse than death, particularly because no one believes it's happening, and victims are often defenseless in such a place. The film is smart, flawlessly acted, and taps into deeply rooted fears about getting old. It will likely leave you rattled by the conclusion. (Steve Prokopy)
The film screens Saturday, Oct. 19, at 10:30pm at AMC NEWCITY 14, and Friday, Oct. 25, at 1:30pm at AMC NEWCITY 14.
The Return
For those lucky enough to have seen the Goodman Theatre’s recent production of The Penelopiad, a reconfiguration of Homer’s The Odyssey written by author Margaret Atwood, then you may be a few steps ahead on the story being told in The Return, from director Uberto Passolini (Nowhere Special, Still Life). Told rather dryly and in a straightforward manner, the film takes place 20 years after the Trojan War, as Odysseus (Ralph Fiennes) washes up on the beaches of his once-glorious kingdom, Ithaca. Before he reveals himself to his ever-waiting and long-suffering wife Penelope (Juliette Binoche), he poses as a beggar to discover how much his kingdom has changed in his absence.
His wife is effectively a prisoner in her own home, as potential suitors live in her home, trying pointlessly to get her to select a new husband. Her son Telemachus (Charlie Plummer) is being hunted by these same suitors who see him as an obstacle to winning Penelope and the kingdom. Odysseus bides his time, revealing his true identity to few, but mostly just feeling traumatized by the violence he has seen and committed against others during the war. But when he finally does decide to let everyone know who he is and what he has become, The Return gets shockingly bloody.
It’s certainly thrilling to see Fiennes and Binoche together again after their work in The English Patient, although the two don’t share much screentime here. Told with little emotional baggage, despite the film being about the pain both characters suffer from so much time apart, The Return pays more attention to the political goings-on behind the scenes, particularly by Odysseus’ one-time friend and associate Antinous (Marwan Kenzari). Until the explosion of violence that closes out the movie, the back half of the story drags quite a bit. But Fiennes’ performance (not nearly as compelling as what he brings to the upcoming Conclave) is still fairly gripping when it needs to be. (Steve Prokopy)
The film screens Friday, Oct. 18, at 12pm at AMC NEWCITY 14. Director Uberto Passolini is scheduled to attend.
The End
Ten years after his two Oscar-nominated documentaries that challenged the genre in unexpected ways, Joshua Oppenheimer has completely shifted gears and delivers The End, which he co-wrote with Rasmus Heisterberg (A Royal Affair), an end-of-the-world musical set entirely in a bunker where a small family has created a mirage of a life as the planet, apparently, burns down around them. We surmise this from the dialogue, as the entire two and a half hours of the film are spent underground between the finely manicured living spaces and the cavernous tunnels that appear to be some sort of abandoned salt mine.
In this contained existence is only Mother (Tilda Swinton), Father (Michael Shannon), and Son (George McKay), plus Butler (Tim McInnerny), Doctor (Lennie James) and Friend (Bronagh Gallagher). Son has never known life outside the bunker, and he spends his days working on a tabletop model of clichéd American scenes, practicing emergency response drills and editing his father's memoir, a revisionist history of the man's time as an oil industry executive. Their world is upended when a stranger, Mary (Moses Ingram), stumbles into their enclave.
That all of this is also a musical is a head-scratcher, for sure, but the music (lyrics by Oppenheimer, Josh Schmidt wrote the score) is tolerable if not memorable, and every actor is completely bought in to the premise. Swinton may not be the strongest vocalist, but she makes up for it, per usual, with character quirks and depth of presence. McKay (best known for 1917) is the standout, a young man who transforms from doe-eyed and hanging on his parents' every word to someone more clear-eyed and curious thanks to Mary's influence.
There's much Oppenheimer is trying to say about the direction the world is headed in and how we can fool ourselves into thinking none of it is our fault, but he's taken us to such a strange place (literally and figuratively) that it's hard to parse all that out around the weirdness. Not a total miss, but I for one would be fine with the filmmaker returning to his documentary roots. (Lisa Trifone)
The End screens Friday, October 18, at 8:30pm and Saturday, October 19, at 8pm, with actor Michael Shannon scheduled to attend both. The film opens theatrically on December 6.
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