FILM REVIEWS:
THE CHORAL (UK/USA 2025) ****
Directed by Nicholas Hytner
A choral society's male members enlist in World War I, leaving the demanding Dr Guthrie (Academy Award Nominee Ralph Fiennes from CONCLAVE) to recruit teenagers. Together, they experience the joy of singing while the young boys grapple with their impending conscription into the army.
If the film about forming and survival of a choral (choir) during WWI sounds boring or uneventful, this film, THE CHORAL, written by Alan Bennett and directed by Nicholas Hytner (THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE), serves to prove otherwise. The importance of music is clearly established at the start of the film, through the more elderly population. Music transcends everything, including war. The choral master worked in Germany for several years and therefore faced prejudice against his hiring for the task.
The film is set in a fictional town in Yorkshire. It is all very English, and if one loves a good English film with story and morals included, THE CHORAL is the one to watch. From the beginning scenes, the sight of two lads on their bicycles riding down the winding lanes in the country is simply stunning English beauty.
Director Hytner and writer Bennett are able to capture emotions in key scenes as well as simple ones. At the film’s start, a postman delivers telegrams to soldiers who have died in action. As he delivers to a mother, with the words: “I’m sorry, missus,” the mother holds the postman’s head, giving him a kiss on the forehead with tears rolling down her face. It is a key moment illustrating the power of emotion that radiates from the work of these two artists, which is also observable in other parts of the film.
Every part of a choir is shown in all its glory and importance. When auditioning for the new choral master, the choral master says: Everyone is to audition. But we are in the committee, and I’m not prepared to argue one. “The scales will do,” replies the choral master. As different auditions are heard, the audience will be mesmerised by the expressions and songs chosen. This is my favourite segment in the film.
German composers such as Bach, Beethoven and Handel being unacceptable, Dr Guthrie proposes to stage a radical new production of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, its theme of death reflecting the current pains of war. He gets permission from Elgar (Simon Russell Beale) himself for this performance, though not until his daringly interpretive new variations are discovered by the angry Elgar.
The film contains a few excellent quotes, such as: Artists are like that. (referring to one knowing another’s talent) They know each other. The film also contains excellent scenes. The best of it is the choral master’s pep talk with Clyde (Jacob Dudman), a young soldier returning from the war prematurely for loss of his right arm. Clyde can sing but does not want to be in the choral. Life has dealt him a consolation prize - his voice, but otherwise, the loss of a limb and heartbrokenness (his girl now feels differently towards him). It is an excellent written scene, full of raw emotion and openness, and delivered with great effect, demonstrating the oneness between theatre and cinema.
THE CHORAL screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and opens on January 9th.
Trailer:
THE CHRONOLOGY OF WATER (USA 2025 ) ***
Directed by Kristen Stewart
THE CHRONOLOGY OF WATER is a biographical psychological drama film and the feature directorial debut of Kristen Stewart, adapted from Lidia Yuknavitch’s acclaimed 2011 memoir of the same name.
At the addiction meetings, Lidia (Imogene Poots) is told to talk about it and that that will help. “I am not talking,” she tells the group leader. Then, there are the scenes of overdose, when she lies on the floor, and the medics are trying to revive her. Her arm and veins are shown as she is about to perform an injection. Her sweaty face, bad complexion, and all are shown in close-ups. If there is any consolation from these disturbing scenes, they are occasionally accompanied by uplifting music. While her parents claim that she is doing so well, director Stewart flashes back to her vomiting into the toilet bowl. (Is the vomiting due to the drug taking or her pregnancy?)
Her indecisiveness is no help either. She punches her boyfriend because he is not nice and does nothing. She does not know what to do. She talks to herself.
The sexual abuse by her father is shown in horrible ways. The way he fucks her is shown in a lengthy and disturbing segment that one can only wish they could turn away from. The father alternates between a few moments of tenderness and screaming at her at the top of his voice.
Director Stewart’s film is a difficult watch. It is no easy watch to experience the trauma of an abused individual,l whether the abuse comes from within or from the outside. From Stewart’s fragmentation use of editing, for example, the audience sees a scene and the next edit with the same scene but occurring a few seconds before, she creates the effect of how Lidia feels and acts as she is bipolar and high. But there is redemption, which slowly emerges during the second half of the film.
A young woman finds her voice through the written word and her salvation as a swimmer, ultimately becoming a triumphant teacher, mother, and singular modern writer.
The term chronology means the arrangement of events or dates in the order of their occurrence. The film does not evolve in the same way as the meaning of the word, in relation to water. It is, in fact, a raw, nonlinear life story of Lidia Yuknavitch—from her traumatic childhood and escape into competitive swimming, to fractured relationships, addiction, sexuality, the loss of a child, and ultimately finding her voice as a writer. Rather than following a straightforward narrative, the film uses a fluid, memory-like structure to evoke how trauma, loss, and memory intermingle, transforming suffering into art.
The film mirrors the memoir’s style, with memories and experiences overlapping like waves—showing life as fragmented yet connected. Water (especially her life as a swimmer) functions as a powerful motif for escape, transformation, and emotional depth throughout the film.
But director Stewart’s artsy style can be overpowering at times, to the point that one wonders what all the fuss is about. Yet, one has to give Stewart credit for trying,
Kristen Stewart has an active and successful career in show business since an early age. This film marks her impressive directorial debut. THE CHRONOLOGY OF WATER premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on May 16, 2025. The film received positive reviews from critics. It opens in theatres on January 7th, 2026
TRAILER:
THE MOTHER ANDTHE BEAR (Canada/Chile 2024) **½
Directed by Johnny Ma
Winnipeg appears to be a favourite setting and site for Canadian films lately. Late years entry for the Canadian entry for the Academy Award for best International feature (though it did not make the shortlist), but the Winner won the Toronto Film Critics’ Association Best Canadian Feature, UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE and this film, THE MOTHER AND THE BEAR are both shot in Winnepg/
Two Canadian films will be released close to each other, b both of which share similar themes with a difference. The films referred to are THE MOTHER AND THE BEAR, th film reviewed in this article and MONTREAL, MA BELLE. The identical themes in both films are the mother and daughter estranged relationship. Also, one is gay and hidden, making the telaStionship even more troublesome. In MONTREAL MY BALLE, it is the mother, played by Joan Chen, who is gay, and in THE MOTHER AND THE BEAR, it is the daughter who hides her same sex orientation.
The beginning of THE MOTHER AND THE BEAR is the most original segment in the whole movie. The daughter sees a bear near a huge dumpster in the dead of winter, screams and slips. She is inn hospital. Was she attacked by the bear, or did she just slip on the ice? The girl is in a coma. As it turns out, director Johnny is the subject of the daughter to the mother.
Sara (Kim Ho-jung), a woman from South Korea, travels to Canada after her daughter Sumi (Leere Park), who had emigrated to Winnipeg some years earlier, is injured in a fall that leaves her comatose. Upon arrival, Sara discovers how little she truly knew about her daughter's life.
Sara despairs about her daughter’s single status, so she immediately starts catfishing the pleasant Min (Jonathan Kim) to be Sumi’s boyfriend — once she wakes up, of course — and also gets unwittingly entangled with Min’s estranged father, Sam (Won-Jae Lee), who runs a Korean restaurant in the city. As Sam and the widowed Sara connect over their mutual melancholies, a chance meeting with Sumi’s co-worker Amaya (Amara Pedroso Saquel) leads Sara to learn more about the life from which her daughter has chosen to exclude her.
Despite the common theme the film has with MONTREAL, MA BELLE, the themes of a meddling mother, a mother visiting Canada for the first time, and matchmaking are not new ideas. The audience can also find it difficult to sympathise with a bumbling, meddling mother who does harm, m like destroy another relationship, and lie her way around. Director Ma’s film is a quiet, pleasant one, but nothing fresh is0one display and watching the film plod along is a rather boring experience. One word, ‘meh’, can be used to describe the film. There is also a little tour of Winnipeg, of its budding, snowy and wintry streets that makes the film more like an advertisement for the Manitoba Tourist Board.
Performances are ok, and Kim’s performance seems like director Ma is directing it.
At Cinéfest, THE MOTHER AND THE BEAR won the award for Outstanding Canadian Feature. The film is scheduled for a **general theatrical release in Canada on January 9, 2026.
