FILM REVIEWS:
ALMOST FAMILY (Brazil 2025) **½
Directed by Felipe Joffily
A Brazilian father finds a worthy opponent or opponents when he meets his daughter's Argentinian in-laws. A trip to Bariloche becomes the stage for an amusing national rivalry.
In-laws or feuding in-laws have always been a favourite subject for films and even for TV. Most notable is the TV series ‘The Mothers-in-Law ‘ is an American sitcom featuring Eve Arden and Kaye Ballard as two women who were friends and next-door neighbours until their children's elopement made them in-laws. The show aired on NBC television from September 1967 to April 1969. That was a pleasure to watch when I was young. Then there is the Arthur Hiller THE IN-LAWS (1979) starring Alan Arkin and Peter Falk. The 2003 remake with Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks was not that good.
Now arriving on Netflix is a Brazilian comedy about in-laws, this one upping the ante by having the in-laws coming from rival countries, Brazil and Argentina. Some of the jokes, and the film is in Brazilian Portuguese, might be over the head for local North American audiences, but the film is still entertaining, though the story often falls into cliched territory. A father/daughter relationship is also thrown into the story for good measure. An ok watch for the undemanding viewer.
ALMOST FAMILY opens this week for streaming, Friday on Netflix.
Trailer:
BURY ME WHEN I’M DEAD (USA 2023) ***
Directed by Seabold Krebs
The new psychological horror film BURY ME WHEN I’M DEAD is exactly what the title means. Catherine is diagnosed with brain cancer and asks her husband, Henry to bury her only when she is dead in the forest, the reason being her wish to be back with nature, a desire that comes from her hippie beliefs.
The story follows Henry, a man whose life spirals out of control after failing to keep his wife’s dying wish. When Catherine is diagnosed with brain cancer, they travel to her childhood home, where he promises to bury her in a remote forest. Meanwhile, Henry's been keeping a secret: their friend Rebecca is pregnant with his child. After Catherine's sudden death, Henry breaks his promise and returns her body to the city under threat from her powerful father, Gary.
Gary, Catherine's father's role is written to highlight the character’s maximum toxicity, which helps lift the otherwise slow burn (the film takes 20 minutes before Rebecca announces to Henry that she is late) up several notches. With respect to his daughter’s wish to be buried in the forest (ie, ti be buried naturally to blend with nature), he lashes out at Henry, dismissing her daughter’s wishes as hippie stuff, and saying that she is not to become a tree and demands that Henry bring her body back to the city. Gary threatens Henry that he had better do what he asks or he will sue him to no end. Even Gary’s wife at one point shouts out: “Gary, this is enough!”
The weight of Henry's betrayal of Catherine and fear of her overbearing father pushes him to the edge. As his life quickly begins to unravel, a series of increasingly strange and devastating events lead him to believe that Catherine's ghost is seeking vengeance.
The film has an interesting enough plot, but it is difficult to root for the protagonist who has cheated on his wife and someone who has broken his dying wife’s wishes for his own personal gain. It is natural that he will be haunted by his own guilt. There is no real surprise or twist in the plot in an otherwise slow-burning movie.
BURY ME WHEN I’M DEAD is available for streaming on Digital and on VOD on July 18th, Friday.
Trailer:
CLOUD (Japan 2024) ***
Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa has made a name for himself with small-budget thrillers often involving a protagonist slowly descending into hell. His best film, however, is the family drama TOKYO SONATA, which proves that he can also deal effectively with drama, in this case, a father-and-son drama.
CLOUD is a psychological thriller - slow but effective.
Yoshii (Masaki Suda) is a factory worker who moonlights as an online reseller. The audience first sees him ripping off a supplier of health devices, which he later sells online at a substantial mark-up. Yoshii had pressured the supplier to sell his design at a loss. With that profit, he turns down a promotion from his boss (Yoshiyoshi Arakawa) and instead expands his reselling business. He resigns from his job and moves into a larger house in a suburb, which he uses as an office and product storage. He asks his girlfriend, Akiko (Kotone Furukawa), to move in as well. He also hires an assistant, Sano (Daiken Okudaira), to help run the business.
Things slowly turn south.
Tension only escalates as Yoshii becomes more ruthless in his dealings. He is harassed, both online and in real life. Feeling increasingly neglected by Yoshii’s rather cold demeanour and preoccupation with his business, Akiko moves out of the house. Yoshii also fires Sano after he suggests potential new products to target.
Yoshii is not a likable character from the very start when he cheats the designer of the health product. Actor Masaki Suda, not too handsome with a down-to-earth average look, delivers a credible and controlled performance that can be easily overlooked for effortlessness. Though he seems sincere in his romantic relationship, his failure to show affection reflects another negative point in his personality. To director Kurosawa’s credit, he still manages to engage his audience in Yoshii’s demise and still has the audience rooting for him, also primarily because he becomes a victim during the second half of the film. An audience almost always roots for a victim.
Director Kurosawa titles his film CLOUD after the name used for internet storage. He also updates his film to the technology of the current times, which is noticeably missing in his earlier films.
CLOUD is a slow burn but picks up the pace in the second half, ending with a big bang - overall a well-paced film.
One wonders the message director Kurosawa is trying to deliver. His film has an uneasy change of pace from drama to action shootout towards the end of the film.
The film premiered out of competition at the 81st Venice International Film Festival on 30 August 2024. It was selected for the Best International Feature Film as the Japanese entry at the 97th Academy Awards, but did not make it to the nominations.
CLOUD is an entertaining enough, absorbing thriller, not great, which explains its failure to make it to the shortlist of Best International Feature Oscar nominations, but still a worthy watch.
CLOUD opens in theatres this week.
Trailer:
WALL TO WALL (84 Jegopmiteo)(South Korea 2025) ***
Directed by Kim Tae-joon and Sharon S. Park
Directed by Kim Tae-joon and Sharon S. Park and written by Kim, the new Netflix mystery thriller WALL TO WALL follows the film’s protagonist, who has just bought, asking for all that he had.
Not Woo-seong (Kang Ha-neul), a man who finally saves up enough to buy an apartment, only to have it turn into a nightmare with financial ruin and mysterious noises from neighbouring floors.
Credit must be given to director Park for detail accuracy and the pacing of the film. The film moves as fast as situations change in Seoul, the capital of South Korea. The film opens with Noh desperately buying a condo, cashing in on his savings, crypto, and rental deposit. He is wearing a mask, imitating COVID times, when real estate prices rose. Noh is pleased with his purchase and just as he had paid a phenomenal sum for it, the price immediately rose to 140 million won (which is US$100,000). Nohis pleased. His girl is pleased. Then….
Within 3 minutes of the film’s running time, things go south. There is a shot of broken-down apartment parts, a late payment notice, and cockroaches running around. Real estate prices have tanked. Interest rates have also risen. And crotoprices have soared. Noh is in trouble.
Noh has gone from poor to house poor, as joked by Noh’s boss.
WALL TO WALL is a fast-paced well well-made film that suffers from too many mixed messages, which makes one wonder where everything is leading to or what the real message is. Still entertaining enough as a cautionary tale of an atypical young ambitious man trying too desperately to survive in society.
WALL TO WALL (84 Jegopmiteo) opens for streaming this week on Netflix.
Trailer:
