Stay Through the Credits

Film twenty-four of the festival and the Esiri brothers' Clarissa is a genuine revelation. Mrs. Dalloway transplanted to present-day Lagos, shot on 35mm, with Sophie Okonedo, Ayo Edebiri and a Septimus played by Fortune Nwafor that will stay with us long after Cannes ends. We talk about what this adaptation finds that Woolf herself could not, and why this is the film of the festival we did not see coming. 

Film twenty-three of the festival and Koreeda's Sheep in the Box is the most thought-provoking mild disappointment at Cannes this year. A couple adopt an AI version of their dead son and the film is too bright, too resolved, and too philosophically optimistic to let the grief actually hurt. We talk about what Koreeda gets right, what the sunshine drowns out, and why this is still worth seeing despite everything.

Film twenty-two of the festival and Yeon Sang-ho returns to zombies with Colony. The good news: the creature design is genuinely chilling and Jun Ji-hyun is great. The bad news: CGI primates, an unnecessary parallel investigation, and a film that keeps interrupting itself right before it becomes something special. We talk about what made Train to Busan work and why Colony can't quite get there.

We open day five with John Travolta's directorial debut, a sixty-minute love letter to a TWA flight he took as an eight-year-old in 1962. It is slim, sincere, and completely inseparable from the ten-minute career montage that preceded it. We talk about what it means to be a movie star, his daughter Ella Bleu's scene-stealing turn, and why this might be the most charming nothing at Cannes this year. Day five dispatch from the Croisette.

We close day four with The Blow, a film with two remarkable performances, a bold visual instinct, and an editing problem that undoes most of it. Twenty films into the festival, this is the one that frustrates most because of how good it could have been. Full day four wrap from the Croisette.

Film nineteen of the festival and Marie Kreutzer's Gentle Monster is one of the bravest films at Cannes this year. Léa Seydoux discovers her husband is a pedophile and the film watches her decide what to do with that knowledge, one unbearable detail at a time. We talk about Seydoux's implosive performance, Kreutzer's personal connection to the material, and why this film refuses every easy exit. More from day four still to come.

Film eighteen of the festival and Karma, Guillaume Canet's cult melodrama starring his now-ex-wife Marion Cotillard, is exactly as juicy as it sounds. Flawed, lurid, two and a half hours long, and Cotillard carries every single minute of it. We talk about what the film gets right, what it strains to sell, and why Denis Ménochet might be the most quietly terrifying presence at this year's festival. 

We continue day four with Congo Boy, Rafiki Fariala's debut about a seventeen-year-old Congolese refugee in Bangui holding his family together by sheer force of love. Shot on location with non-professional actors, it is one of the warmest and most honest films we have seen at the festival. We talk about what new voices bring to Cannes and why this one matters.

Film sixteen and Hamaguchi's All of a Sudden is the one. 196 minutes of two women talking, one of them dying, all of it in Paris, and somehow the most hopeful film at this year's festival. We talk about what Virginie Efira did learning Japanese for a role, the whiteboard scene, and why this might be the Palme d'Or to beat.

Film fifteen of the festival and Club Kid is the surprise we didn't see coming. Jordan Firstman's debut is filthy, funny, shot on 35mm in a New York that's already disappearing, and somehow one of the most emotionally honest films we've seen at Cannes. We talk found family, Arthur Russell, Cara Delevingne two inches from a breakdown, and why this is the beginning of a real filmmaking voice. Day four dispatch from the Croisette.