Dear friend,
I am not in a relationship at this time in my life, and although I don’t subscribe to the idea that ’loneliness is awesome’ (as I recently read somewhere… unfortunately, I couldn’t find again that post), most films I watched this week depicted couple relationships in such an extreme bad way, that made me feel a bit less eager to change my status.
Black Bear, written and directed by Lawrence Michael Levine, US, 2020 - ⭐⭐
I remember mentioning this film on my old website, when it was first announced, with a certain anticipation; then… I lost track of it, probably because of a lack of distribution on my shores, never to be mentioned by anybody again. Not a good sign.
But that anticipation has stayed with me, dormant but present, so when I finally watched it this week, I was expecting great things. That didn’t come.
Its two-part structure feels sort of a film followed by its meta remake, but instead of the usual 15-20 years that this process normally requires, all it takes is a title card to separate the two.
I would be inclined to think there is something I missed between the two iterations of a couple’s relationship threatened by the arrival of a third person. But after reading other people’s reviews, I found that even the positive ones confess they can’t actually explain the point.
So, what’s left is a bravura performance by Aubrey Plaza, and good supporting roles by Christopher Abbott (first time I see him and think ‘hey, it’s Christopher Abbott’) and Sarah Gadon (who always makes interesting choices).
The Punisher: One Last Kill, directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, co-written Jon Bernthal, US, 2026 - ⭐⭐½
Fifty-ish minutes of unpleasantness and hard violence featuring Bernthal in Frank Castle mode, unleashed before being presumably restrained to an acceptable person in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
If you like kill!kill!kill!kill! movies, you’ll appreciate this one. My appreciation for the genre usually requires some kind of mythology to sustain them (see John Wick), and while I’m sure that The Punisher has quite a backstory, I haven’t seen the Netflix series and my knowledge of the character comes exclusively from Daredevil: Born Again. For people like me, Marvel added a cameo by Karen Page/Deborah Ann Woll, which left me a bit confused because I have no idea of the previous relationships between these two characters.
Die My Love, directed by Lynne Ramsay, co-written with Enda Walsh and Alice Birch, based on the novel by Ariana Harwicz, US, 2025 - ⭐⭐⭐½
During the first act, seeing Jennifer Lawrence being bored, alone, in her house, I thought this film seemed a women-driven response to Darren Aronofsky’s mother-exclamation-point1. Then terrifying things started happening, and it became the scariest movie I’ve seen in a long time. We have all heard post-partum depression horror stories, and this one goes the extra mile.
As a man, I couldn’t help identifying with Robert Pattinson’s useless guy (this is the second time this year his weddings turn into a nightmare).
What can you do when you no longer understand the behaviour of the person you love? When it seems that she doesn’t always understand her own actions?
I hope I wouldn’t be a partner as rubbish as this pointless husband, when things escalate, how would I react? Would early support prevent escalation?
This is a harrowing experience, one that even the screenplay doesn’t want to follow down to its realistic end, taking instead the artistic way out - and not one we haven’t seen before.
Obsession, written and directed by Curry Barker, US, 2025 - ⭐⭐
I’m thinking of ending things. And by things, I mean writing these posts. Or even watching films altogether.
The stellar reviews of this film made me doubt myself more than ever before. I didn’t enjoy it, but I also didn’t like Milk and Serial, which was in a lot of Top Tens for 2024.
I found it incredibly monotonous, and while watching I had the time and mental detachment to think about what I would have done. Which was, do immediately what the lead character takes almost two hours to even consider. I’m told that is the point of the film, and that’s where I come to doubt my ability to rate a movie - prioritising my enjoyment/involvement rather than trying to understand the filmmaker’s intentions.
But there are so many other things in the story that don’t make sense to me. And other scenes that you can see coming a considerable amount of time in advance.
So I’m be inclined to think that director Barker is given much more credit than the film itself grants him. Like there’s some hype machine at work (I thought I was going to watch a niche horror, but the room was fuller on a Friday afternoon at 14 than in most Saturday screenings).
Technically, horror-wise, it has its effective moments (pretty sure Barker has seen Evil Dead Rise and Talk to Me).
I think it’s a cruel film, and it enjoys its cruelty. Milk and Serial did as well. They make Barker a good fit for the Texas Chain Saw franchise.
Inde Navarrette is a star already.
For a real review of Obsession that explains most of my objections much better than I can in these hastily written notes - with spoilers - check the always excellent Chuck Jordan.
I’m Thinking of Ending Things, written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, based on Iain Reid’s novel, US, 2020 - ⭐⭐
The first time I watched this film, right when it came out on Netflix, I didn’t like it; but it happened in some unusual circumstances, and I had always meant to give it another try: after all, I have been a fan of Charlie Kaufman since Being John Malkovich, and I believe Eternal Sunshine is a masterpiece.
I loved Synecdoche, New York but I never pushed myself to watch it a second time (the first time was weird enough to add to the experience: on my laptop, from a USB stick, with a hundred other people hunched on their PCs, and Kaufman himself somewhere in the same building).
But this film, despite Jessie and Jesse, and despite having enjoyed the novel, felt like it totally derailed in its last act. Like the ‘pure artistic vision’ of author Kaufman was a bit too much for a Netflix film, or a commercial one.
I would like to be able to declare that my second watch, on a bigger TV and without the worry I was ‘forcing’ my less-Kaufman-inclined then-girlfriend to endure it, was more successful.
But I can’t.
Able to pay more attention, I did pick up more meaning. The worry about time passing. The distant affection for where you came from. The Pauline Kael book on the shelf. The song from Oklahoma-exclamation-point1 (although I’m not sure whether it has a meaning per se). The self-centred protagonist that is not necessarily who you thought the protagonist was.
I mean, as an intellectual exercise, it might work. As I write this paragraph, I can see how some pieces of the puzzle fall - more or less - into place and form a picture of the writer-director’s intent.
Put it in a museum room with some props from other Kaufman works, call it ‘Being Charlie Kaufman: the exhibition’, and it will be perfect.
Out of that context, it feels like a verbose, self-indulgent work, devoid of the irony that made his most famous scripts perfectly balanced.
Influencer, directed by Kurtis David Harder, co-written with Tesh Guttikonda, Canada, 2022 - ⭐⭐⭐½
Honestly, I watched this film a few days ago, and it has completely evaporated from my memory, as transient as the social media stories posted by the people it depicts.
It is perhaps because of a sort of ‘stream of consciousness’ style in the script, moving from one scenario to another so that it never feels predictable, at the same time keeping an overall consistency.
Saw II, directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, co-written with Leigh Whannell, US, 2005 - ⭐⭐ (down from ⭐⭐½)
At some point, in 2023, I decided to challenge myself and go through the whole Saw franchise, revisiting the original film and then binging through a first watch of its subsequent chapters, at the rhythm of one movie per night (two on weekends). Rather than the grossness of the ’torture porn’ component, what I retained was the extreme silliness of the ‘plot’, changing and mutating and retconning from one film to the next.
So, I was left with a perception that these films are ‘fun’ and, despite my awareness that anything after Saw III is utter nonsense, in multiple occasions I considered buying the €80 boxset - but I never did.
At the end of this quite depressing week, I thought of doing a full run again, starting from the second episode, The One With Donnie Wahlberg aka the guy at the beginning of The Sixth Sense. After all, what is Saw if not Taskmaster with a puppet in place of Alex Horne?
I didn’t like this too much on my first watch, and even less this time. The only points making the film interesting are the twists at the end, whereas the rest - except for that one Amanda-centric trap - is forgettable, as are most of the characters - if we can even call them characters: I’m sure they have a name and a face, but I couldn’t remember most of them. They are never given a chance to survive, and by the end of the film it’s not even clear why they are chosen to ‘play the game’ in the first place.
So, it’s not surprising to (re-)learn that this was a totally unrelated film, written by Bousman and later re-purposed by original creator Whannell.
But it’s the one that gives Tobin Bell more screen presence (aside from Saw X), and compared to Wahlberg’s cop, it manages to make Jigsaw a misunderstood hero.