It’s been a couple of months since the last TTR, so there’s been a lot to get through! For the most part we’ve had some pretty decent films find their way to DVD and streaming, including some hard-hitting dramas, dry comedies and devastating stories based on real events. Before we get rolling with summer blockbuster season, whet your appetite with a smörgåsbord of entertainment.

This month’s TTRs consists of: Another Simple Favor; Ash; Grand Theft Hamlet; Hard Truths; Havoc; Heart Eyes; Holland; I’m Still Here; The Last Showgirl; The Monkey; Opus; The Room Next Door; The Seed of the Sacred Fig; The Ugly Stepsister; Warfare; You’re Cordially Invited.

Director: Paul Feig
Writers: Jessica Sharzer, Laeta Kalogridis
Cast: Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Henry Golding, Allison Janney, Elizabeth Perkins, Joshua Satine

2018’s A Simple Favour was anything but simple, with its characters being quite mysterious and its plot twisting all kinds of ways. Now, single mum Stephanie (Kendrick) and the sly Emily (Lively) return in another crazy plot, with Emily due to marry another filthy rich man. The story is indeed crazier than the first, but not in a good way. The first seemed well-plotted, but its sequel feels less tight and less well-thought out, perhaps due to its wider murder-mystery theme. Kendrick’s performance is top notch, adding more humour and a bigger backbone to Stephanie than she had in the first film, but Lively takes Emily (and those related to her…) all sorts of which way, to the point where it’s a little uninteresting. It’s worth a watch, if only to see what happened next with the frenemies, but don’t expect to be quite as thrilled as the first film.

Director: Flying Lotus
Writer: Jonni Remmler
Cast: Eiza González, Aaron Paul, Iko Uwais, Kate Elliot, Beulah Koale

Waking up on her wrecked space station with the crew deceased, Riya (González) has no memory of what happened, and soon puts her trust in Brion (Paul) to help her. She soon discovers the fate of the crew was much more horrifying than she was led to believe. As sci-fi goes, this one had an interesting premise, but it wasn’t executed to the best of its potential. It was mostly monotonous up until the third act where it picked up steam with some solid body horror, alien activity and general oddness, all the good stuff poured into that final act. It’s also a little too dialogue heavy when it needn’t have been – spreading out the action would have been more effective and leaving audiences less likely to zone out. González’s performance was decent, but it was difficult to feel a connection to Riya.

Directors: Sam Crane, Pinny Grylls
Writers: Sam Crane, Pinny Grylls

During the pandemic, actor Sam Crane and his filmmaker partner Pinny Grylls found themselves in the world of Grand Theft Auto with a mission to put on an in-game performance of Hamlet, using players from all around the world as actors and other players as an eventual audience. It’s amazing for someone such as I, who has a very stereotypical view of GTA (having never played it) and the kind of people who play it, to see the variety of people and personalities who enjoy the game for differing reasons., and as interesting as it was to see a Shakespeare play rehearesed and performed in a digital world, the story surrounding the making of it is like a play itself, its themes of human connection and finding a purpose placed in the weirdest of places under the most extraordinary of circumstances. I personally still have no interest in GTA, but this film and the game it showcases is so much more than the sum of its parts, and that’s what makes this truly solid modern cinema.

Director: Mike Leigh
Writer: Mike Leigh
Cast: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Michele Austin, David Webber, Tuwaine Barrett

Pansy (Jean-Baptiste) is a deeply unhappy woman, lashing out at anyone and everyone for any little thing, including her own family, who in turn struggle to love her. On the surface it’s a story about a woman’s struggle with her own feelings and mental health and how it affects those around her, but it also delves into how we all deal with things in different ways and can struggle to understand those who process things very differently. At times the film is funny, other times devastating, with tiny sprinkles of hope here and there, but ultimately it’s very human. Mike Leigh has done an amazing job of capturing a point in time that looks like it precedes an imminent make-or-break situation, but we aren’t to know the outcome. The performances are stunning, particularly from Barrett who manages to convey so much with next to no dialogue as Pansy’s son Moses, and Jean-Baptiste’s performance working to alienate us from Pansy, but with a little wiggle room for empathy.

Director: Gareth Evans
Writer: Gareth Evans
Cast: Tom Hardy, Jessie Mei Li, Justin Cornwell, Quelin Sepulveda, Luis Guzmán, Yeo Yann Yann, Timothy Olyphant, Forest Whitaker

With Tom Hardy doing what Tom Hardy does best, we have him portraying Patrick Walker, a homocide detective who seeks some kind of reconcilliation with those he is estranged from while protecting the son of a real estate tycoon, in spite of everyone, including Patrick’s own son, being wrapped up in shady dealings in one way or another. Frankly, I lost focus quite a few times during this film due to it being action-heavy and laden with multiple characters to keep up with. The plot itself is fairly solid, and Hardy comes off like a chattier John Wick, but at times it just felt like there was too much going on at once, especially with the added layer of familial relationships between a few characters.

Director: Josh Ruben
Writers: Christopher Landon, Greg Gilreath, Adam Hendricks
Cast: Mason Gooding, Olivia Holt, Gigi Zumbado, Michaela Watkins, Devon Sawa, Jordana Brewster

If it’s a fairly straightforward comedy-slasher you’re after, this is the one for you. ‘The Heart Eyes Killer’, or HEK, is a serial killer that has been killing couples in various cities in the US for a few years, but he finally meets his match with non-couple Ally (Holt) and Jay (Gooding) in Seattle. This horror would likely have scored lower were it not for its tongue-in-cheek humour and rom-com subplot. The twist is a little dumb, but by the time it comes around, you really wouldn’t expect anything less. You’ll soon realise you’re watching it for the comedy, not necessarily the horror (I mean, with a title like Heart Eyes and a killer with such a name, what would we expect!?)

Director: Mimi Cave
Writer: Andrew Sodorski
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Matthew Macfadyen, Gael Garcia Bernal

Honestly, it’s a struggle to get through a Nicole Kidman film these days. In Holland, she plays a teacher with a husband and son who soon finds herself questioning her husband’s fidelity, leading her down a sordid path of death and deceit. While the premise does sound intriguing, it’s not executed to its full potential. The relationships between the characters are written well, however the performances felt lacking, particularly from Kidman. Macfadyen is underused in his abilities to portray a character harboring secrets, and Garcia Bernal was like a spare part at times. Perhaps if the characters and performances were tighter, the thriller and mystery aspects may have stood a better chance.

Director: Walter Salles
Writers: Murilo Hauser, Heitor Lorega, based on the book by Marcelo Rubens Paiva
Cast: Fernanda Torres, Selton Mello, Fernanda Montenegro, Guilherme Silveira, Valentina Herszage, Luiza Kosovski, Barbara Luz, Cora Mora

This multi-award-nominated/award-winning film has slowly made its way onto streaming, but it was quite worth the wait. Based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s memoir, it tells the story of his mother Eunice (Torres) and her fight to find out what happened to her husband Rubens (Mello) when he was taken in 1971 during the military dictatorship in Brazil. In a way it’s an old tale, with secretive politics making way for under-the-radar/unexplained kidnappings and murders, and this film firmly goes to show that it’s not something that is ever going to go away. But then, neither is the fight for justice, a fight that is bravely fought by Eunice while she continues to be a parent to hers and Rubens’s children. Torres’s performance was scrutinised for Eunice being too emotionless throughtout her ordeal, however some research shows that this is how Marcelo Rubens Paiva described his mother: she was a pillar of strength, even if she was breaking inside. It’s a terrific yet devastating story of strength in the face of overwhelming odds.

Director: Gia Coppola
Writer: Kate Gersten
Cast: Pamela Anderson, Brenda Song, Kiernan Shipka, Dave Bautista, Billie Lourd, Jamie Lee Curtis

Shelly (Anderson) is a showgirl in her late 50s, having been on the stage in Las Vegas for thirty years. With the show she has been a part of that entire time coming to a close, Shelly is at a loss, and tries to figure out her future away from something that has meant everything to her, even more than her own daughter. Anderson indeed puts in a great performance, proving in part that there certainly are roles for older women, but also that there is an audience for such films. The story itself is likely to resonate with many people of a certain age, though there’s not quite as much depth within it as there could have been to make this more than an average film. Coppola’s direction is excellent, and there are some superb supporting performances, making it a film worth seeing.

Director: Osgood Perkins
Writer: Osgood Perkins, based on the short story by Stephen King
Cast: Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, Colin O’Brien, Rohan Campbell, Sarah Levy, Adam Scott, Elijah Wood

After Perkins’s Longlegs performed well, there was a lot of hype surrounding his next project. The Monkey sees twins Hal and Bill (James) lead very different lives but both remain firmly connected by a strange toy monkey that causes multiple deaths around them. This project was stronger than Perkins’s last, far more frightening (from the very first scene) with better characterisations and a more even plot. James’s performance as both twins is very good, creating distinct personalities for each twin, and the mystery side of the film is almost more interesting than its horror side. Perkins has a better eye for horrors than thrillers, it seems, so his next project, Keeper, could also be one to watch out for in the near future.

Director: Mark Anthony Green
Writers: Mark Anthony Green
Cast: Ayo Edebiri, John Malkovich, Juliette Lewis, Murray Bartlett, Amber Midthunder, Tatanka Means, Young Mazino

Journalist Arial (Edebiri) is, along with a few other select individuals, invited to the compound of retired ’90s popstar Alfred Moretti (Malkovich) to see him come out of retirement and showcase his new work. However, Ariel and the other attendees quickly discover that Moretti has surrounded himself with followers and now exists in some sort of cult, and they have to fight for their lives. In theory, Opus ought to be quite an original idea, but in truth, its inspiration feels plucked from multiple sources, thus rendering it a little too familiar and uninteresting (The Menu, Blink Twice and the Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities episode ‘The Viewing’ come to mind). It has a creepy atmosphere that will keep you watching, and the strange events that occur will keep you going from one to the next, but I couldn’t help but feel like I’d been here before.

Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Writer: Pedro Almodóvar, based on the book What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez
Cast: Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore, John Turturro, Alessandro Nivola

In this beautifully told story, Esther (Swinton) calls upon her old friend Ingrid (Moore) to assist her in taking her own life, not wishing to suffer through a terminal illness and instead end her life on her own terms. It’s an age-old moral dilemma, the right to end one’s own life, as is assisting someone in committing suicide, and it is handled with great care by Almodóvar while also allowing the film to deal the effects of such a decision. The art direction and wardrobe is fantastic, with the visuals being very characteristic of what or who they represent within the film, and then cinematography says so much while appearing to do very little. Add to this Swinton’s and Moore’s performances and general chemistry and you’ve truly got something that makes its mark.

Director: Mohammed Rasoulof
Writer: Mohammed Rasoulof
Cast: Soheila Golestani, Missagh Zareh, Mahsa Rostami, Setareh Maleki, Niousha Akhshi, Amineh Arani

It’s quite a feat to make a film, but it’s quite another to make a film that could cost you your freedom, if not your life. Iman (Zarheh) is promoted to investigating judge at the Revolutionary Court in Tehran, and so he lives quite comfortably with his wife Najmeh (Golestani) and their two teen daughters Rezvan (Rostami) and Sana (Maleki). Due to rising tensions and protests after a young woman is killed while in police custody, Iman is given a gun for protection, but when it goes missing, he grows suspicious of his wife and daughter, causing a deep divide within the family. It is a troubling film that sheds a lot of light not only what is happening in Iran, mainly to women, but also the effects it has on families. The film itself was shot in relative secrecy, and Rasoulof gave up his freedom in his home country of Iran and fled to Europe to avoid severe punishment for showcasing an honest portrayal of life under a suppressive regime, and the actors have been banned from leaving Iran, a disturbing case of life immitating art. But to them, the risk was worth getting the message out to the world, succeeding in many award ceremonies across many countries. I hope this is one film that will not be forgotten, as it’s not a historical account – it is very much Iran’s present.

Director: Emilie Blichfeldt
Writer: Emilie Blichfeldt
Cast: Lea Myren, Thea Sofie Loch Næss, Ane Dahl Torp, Flo Fagerli, Isac Calmroth, Malte Gårdinger

Take what you think you know about the fairytale Cinderella and turn it on its head. Then, flip it over and take a long, hard look at one of the ‘ugly’ stepsisters. After the passing of her father, Agnes (Næss), aka Cinderella, and her step-family find themselves near-destitute, and her ‘evil’ step-mother begins to push her eldest daughter Elvira (Myren) into more intense lessons, beauty regimes and surgical changes to make her more attractive to the opposite sex, the goal being to find a rich husband. Its subject matter regarding societal beauty standards is clear from the off, as Elvira admires Agnes’s beauty, but the extreme measures Elvira puts herself through, intiated by her mother, are truly horrific and reflective of the pain women will put themselves through to achieve the ‘perfect’ look. The performances are excellent, the story and characters well written, and the body horror scenes hard to look away from.

Directors: Ray Mendoza, Alex Garland
Writers: Ray Mendoza, Alex Garland
Cast: D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Will Poulter, Cosmo Jarvis, Kit Connor, Finn Bennett, Joseph Quinn, Charles Melton, Noah Centineo, Michael Gandolfini

In this account of Mendoza’s and his platoon’s experiences, we are taken through the events of the Alpha One Navy SEAL platoon’s fight for survival on November 16th 2006, during the Iraq war. It’s a jarring film for sure, a stressful hour and a half of soundtrack-less war sounds, including intense silence while the platoon survey the area they occupy, but it no doubt conveys but a fraction of the extreme terror and emotions the SEALs would have felt. The film does not shy away from graphically depicting the realities of war, and the actors test their own limits to portray a traumatising event, with the some of the platoon assisting with the film to give it its authenticity. Almost like multiple war movies (Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down and Jarhead most come to mind) rolled into a concentrated 90 minutes, this is one war film not for the faint of heart.

Director: Nicholas Stoller
Writer: Nicholas Stoller
Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Will Ferrell

On the surface, this film looks to be like just another run-of-the-mill comedy churned out by Amazon to gain a little cash while they push their more dramatic roster of films, but You’re Cordially Invited actually has a little more to it than your average comedy. Widower Jim (Ferrell) organises to have his daughter marry her partner at the same venue on a small island where he married her mother. But when the wedding party shows up, it turns out they were accidentally double booked with the wedding of Margot’s (Witherspoon) sister. As both parties attempt to share the venue for the weekend, Jim and Margot come to blows, with all sorts of insane shenanigans ensuing. Although the characters are a little annoying at times in their own way and the story isn’t exactly the most original, the film is held together by Ferrell and Witherspoon’s unlikely chemistry, both as comedic and dramatic actors, and adding a little underlying sexual tension. Though the moments that do hit relatively high on the LOL-factor are not as many as one might hope, the film muddles through to a fairly satisfying ending.