Dispatch: End the Week with Stellar Films as Chicago International Film Festival Continues

The one person Pansy can get along with (within limits) is her younger sister Chantelle (Michele Austin), a charming, warm-hearted hair stylist who runs her own salon and is a single mother to two grown daughters, Kayla (Ani Nelson) and Aleisha (Sophia Brown). And it’s through the relationship Chantelle has with Pansy that we see the latter’s pain, fear, and afflictions that appear to come to a head when the pair visit their mother’s grave, where Pansy seems noticeably uncomfortable and even wounded from certain realizations that she may be taking after her mother in ways she’d rather not. Sprinkling in touches of dark humor, Leigh is determined for us to see the good in someone like Pansy by steering us toward a complete immersion into her life and allowing us to feel compassion for someone who seems absolutely miserable all of the time, even to those who want to help her through her difficult journey.

Not surprisingly, Jean-Baptiste is a marvel, even when her anger seems so complete, it threatens to turn her into a two-dimensional rage monster—but she would never allow that. As a result, the actor gives us no choice but to think of the people in our lives that we love but find it difficult to be around at times—a story being repeated a lot lately (Thank you, politics!). Above all else, Hard Truths is about how we often must cut through a lifetime of misery to find our family on the other side. Easily one of the most compelling works of Leigh’s long and storied run of exquisite dramas. (Steve Prokopy)

The film is screening Thursday, Oct. 24 at 5pm at AMC NEWCITY 14, and Sunday, Oct. 27 at 12pm at AMC NEWCITY 14.

Small Things Like These

This seemingly slight but intensely powerful work from director Tim Mielants (Wil, Patrick), Small Things Like These is based on the popular novel by Claire Keegan (adapted by Enda Walsh). It's the latest in a string of Irish films about the Magdalene Laundries (such as The Magdalene Sisters and Philomena) that existed for decades and were the Catholic Church’s way of dealing with the “shame” of unwed mothers.

In this telling, Cillian Murphy (in his first role since winning the Oscar for Oppenheimer) plays Bill Furlong, a quiet coal merchant in the mid-1980s who delivers coal to his entire community, including one of these laundries. He has a wife, Eileen (Eileen Walsh) and five daughters, all of whom attend or will attend a school run by the same nuns that operate the laundry. One night, while out making deliveries, Bill is approached by one of the girls (Zara Devlin) living and working at the laundry, and he’s given a peek at the appalling conditions inside as she begs him to help her escape. He refuses, but the encounter triggers memories of his own upbringing by a single, unwed mother (Agnes O’Casey) and the guilt and shame is almost more than he can bear.

Were it not for a generous and well-off neighbor, Mrs. Wilson (Michelle Fairley), who took in young Bill and his mother, Bill’s mother would have ended up in one of the laundries and Bill would have been given up for adoption as soon as he was born. In subtle yet pointed ways, the film makes it clear that the power of the Catholic Church in Ireland is unstoppable, such as in a single monologue delivered by the head of the local laundry, Sister Mary (an absolutely chilling Emily Watson), who lays out to Bill the price he and his family will pay if he allows his newfound knowledge to become known in the community. 

Bill practically becomes a mute in his own household, and his wife is scared of what he is becoming, although she starts to have an inkling why. Murphy’s performance is the personification of anxiety from being torn between doing the right thing as a human being and keeping his family safe. The world as his family knows it would turn upside down if he did or said anything against the Church, but he finds it increasingly impossible to keep silent because he is a man built of compassion. The film ends a bit abruptly, but it’s clear what happens after Bill has made his choice and the picture fades out. This one packs a punch that is both quiet and loud. (Steve Prokopy)

The film screenings Thursday, Oct. 24 at 7:30pm at AMC NEWCITY 14, with director Tim Mielants scheduled to appear; the film also screens Saturday, Oct. 26 at 5:30pm at AMC NEWCITY 14.

We Were Dangerous

New Zealand is still a country attempting to come to grips with its past, and the feature debut from Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu, We Were Dangerous, is a step toward reconciling the way certain elements dealt with the indigenous people of the area (specifically) and the age-old examination of how religion frequently corrupts otherwise good people by encouraging racism, sexism, homophobia, and a general distrust of anyone living outside the norms.

Set in 1954, the film centers on a home for delinquent girls who are so unruly they are shipped off to a remote island run by an exacting and sadistic matron (Rima Te Wiata). The film pays particular attention to three roommates—ringleader Nellie (Erana James), Daisy (Manaia Hall), both indigenous, and the token white girl, Lou (Nathalie Morris), whose backgrounds are examined as the film goes on. Some of the girls on the island are labelled sexual deviants, while others are simply difficult to control. The institution has a particular religious slant, and it’s clear the girls are being trained to be quiet, polite cleaning ladies or possibly proper Christian mothers.

We Were Dangerous moves from a snapshot of a disgraceful period in New Zealand's history to a shocking revelation that those who ran institutions like this engaged in experimental forms of punishment, often performed in the overnight hours, that would keep these girls from ever having children and poisoning future generations with their free thought. Nellie, Daisy, and Lou decide to fully rebel against their captors and perform the ultimate act of defiance in the process.

But equally interesting in this movie is the slow corruption of the Matron’s beliefs about those under her watch. As harsh as her methods are initially, it’s difficult to believe she would ever allow what eventually happens until it’s actually happening. The film moves back and forth between lighter moments when the girls are allowed to talk and behave like the teenagers they are, and far more serious moments when they find out what happens to disobedient young women. It’s a revealing and harrowing work about attempting to force those who frequently break the mold into one that is exceedingly ill-fitting. (Steve Prokopy)

The film screens Friday, Oct. 25 at 5pm, and Sunday, Oct. 27 at 11:30am, both at AMC NEWCITY 14.

The Other Way Around

Jonas Trueba’s new film The Other Way Around is a delightful throwback to the kind of smart, thoughtful, cosmopolitan European film that rarely reaches the big screen on this side of the Atlantic. The kind of film where lovers lie in bed, book in hand; where a parental figure pulls out two or three books from his shelves for his daughter to read and find the answers she is looking for; and where names like Bergman, Ullmann, Truffaut and Kierkegaard are bounced around without any pretension. 

Filmmaker Ale (played by Trueba regular Itsaso Arana) and her boyfriend actor Alex (Vito Sanz, another Trueba regular) decide to amicably separate after 14 years together and to celebrate their separation with a party based on the notion, proposed by Ale’s father many years ago, that people should celebrate their separation and not their union. Their friends receive the news with a mix of concern, surprise, amusement and skepticism. Ale and Alex insist that everything is fine, that it was of mutual accord, that it won’t affect their working relationship; but they have their doubts as preparations for the party continue.

Trueba, the son of director Fernando Trueba (who plays Ale’s father in a performance full of delicacy and wisdom), proudly wears his cinematic influences on his sleeve. There are touches of 1980s' Woody Allen here as well as a lot of Eric Rohmer there. He plays with form throughout: from the film within the film (Alex is making a film that is apparently the one we are seeing on screen) to the deliberate mistakes in framing and movement. But he, Arana and Sanz (all co-writers) never take their eyes off the prize: a rom-com that questions the genre while grounding it on lived experience. 

The Other Way Around is receiving its North American Premiere at the Festival and will screen  on Friday, October 25 at 7:45 p.m. and Saturday, October 26 at 12:15 p.m. at the AMC New City. Actor and scriptwriter Vito Sanz is scheduled to attend both screenings.

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