Category Archive: Drama Film
Sentimental Value (dir. Joachim Trier)
[Norwegian, 2025] Nora (Renate Reinsve) is an acclaimed actress. She lives in the family home which changes from traditional, dark and maximalist to sleek, pale and minimalist during the film. Which is better – messy, intricate family life or a cleaned-out refurbished freedom, with everything open to view? Nora, as a child, decided that the house was happiest when full of people, – namely her parents, her sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) (Ibsen seems to be getting a workout here) and herself. Now that they are adult, Nora is a bit miserable. We think it’s more than just being Scandinavian….
Continue Reading →The Thread
(Directed by Daniel Auteuil, 2024) It was hard for The Varnished Culture to dislike this court-room thriller. After all, it stars the terrific Daniel Auteuil as Jean Monier, a kind of French Rumpole, stepping-in for his overworked barrister wife (ex-wife?) defacto? (Sidse Babett Knudsen), to take over the defence of a befuddled father of five, Nicolas Milik (Grégory Gadebois), charged with the murder of his flakey wife, who tends to go on benders and sleep-it-off at a bench in the heart of their village, but one night turns up dead, throat slashed. Auteuil also directed. The cast is full of…
Continue Reading →Heretic
"The wife is shy, but the pie is nigh!"
(Directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Wood, 2024) We who do not live in horror-film-land know that no young woman should ever go into the isolated, charming house at the bottom of a wind-strewn garden during a rainstorm. Unfortunately for them, LDS missionaries Sister Paxton (Chloe East) and Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) do live in that land and did not get the memo. In non-horror-film-land the missionaries would be young men but of course, women are the proper victims of imprisonment, slashings and creepy things in horror-film-land so there it is. Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant) lives in that house and…
Continue Reading →Conclave
(Directed by Edward Berger, 2024) [Thanks to our Guest Reviewer, Dr. Jack White] Last night, I attended the final night of the Italian Film Festival in Adelaide that presented “Conclave” – a papal thriller based on Robert Harris’s novel. This is a film you must see, certain to take out many Academy Awards. Obviously, the setting is the Vatican. The Pope has died. The film explores the process by which Cardinals come together to vote for a new Pope. What is clear from the outset is that the cardinals are real people with real frailties who are driven by human…
Continue Reading →Barbarian (2022)
(Director – not to be mentioned. He is not to be encouraged.) [Zach Cregger directed, his first, possibly last, effort, although the film made good money apparently – Facts matter- ED.] “Barbarian” is not rateable on the “Babadook Scale“. It’s not that sort of horror movie. It’s the sort on which even fewer pesky script meetings are wasted. You can determine whether you have seen this film by casting yourself in the lead role and answering the following questions. You are a young woman who arrives in the rainy dead of night to find that your B & B is…
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