Capsule Reviews:

AMOUR APOCALYPSE (Peak Everything) (Canada 2025) **
Directed by Anne Emond

Director Anne Emond tackles male trauma with her forty-year-old protagonist suffering from insecurity and a need for acceptance.  Adam is a kennel owner, Adam grappling with climate anxiety. Amid a natural disaster, he embarks on an adventurous, bilingual romantic journey to find her.  Adam has issues that the story blames in his affection-avoidant father, and lets his young assistant take advantage of his good nature.  To help combat his eco-anxiety, Adam orders a therapeutic solar lamp. Through the lamp's supplier's technical support line, he meets Tina, a radiant woman with a voice that soothes all of his worries.   The film is a strange love story of sorts.   Director Emond gets her character, Adam, to cry, mope, and come to terms with himself.  Her female characters, those that Adam encounters, like Tina and his kennel helper, have stronger personalities.  It is hard to identify with a protagonist with self-worth issues, but the film feels too like one with too much of a female slant.

DANDELION’S ODYSSEY (France/Belgium 2025) ***½

Directed by Momoko Seto

 

 

Following the footsteps of the Oscar-winning animated FLOW from Latvia, DANDELION’S ODYSSEY is a stunning animation with little plot, though penned by three writers, but is more than made up by the imaginative journey that defies time and space.  Dendelion, Baraban, Léonto and Taraxa are four odd friends; four seeds used to belong to the same dandelion. Rescued from a nuclear explosion that destroyed the Earth, they find themselves hurled into the cosmos, travelling through planets and constellations. When they land on an unknown planet, they set off on an unforgettable adventure to find a new home and settle for good. through planets and constellations. When they land on an unknown planet, they set off on an unforgettable adventure to find a new home and settle for good.  The story is told through sounds and music, with a touch of cuteness added as the seeds with their tentacles often dance in the wind.  This is director Momoko Seto’s first full-length animated feature after three shorts.

 

DEUX PIANOS (Two Pianos)(Franc 2025) **
Directed by Arnaud Desplechin

 

The French film bears two heavyweights - director Arnaud Desplechin and Oscar nominated French speaking actress Charlotte Rampling.  But the story revolves around a virtuosic pianist, Mathias Vogler (Francois Civil), who travels to his hometown of Lyon, where his childhood mentor Elena (Rampling) convinces him to collaborate on a series of concerts at the city’s historic auditorium.  Elena is a supporting characte,r but the main character’s (Mathias) story is cliched all the way from start to end.  In a park, he encounters a boy who seems to be his doppelgänger.  This strange child leads Mathias to Claude (Nadia Tereszkiewicz), a woman he once passionately loved — and whose reappearance threatens to destabilize Mathias’ already-fragile mental state.  Mildly entertaining at best, that at least avoids melodrama.

 

NOVELLE VAGUE (FRANCE 2025) ****
Directed by Richard Linklater

 

Having spent several years writing for Cahiers du cinéma, Godard (Guillaume Marbeck), not yet 30, declares, “The best way to criticize a film is to make one.” So off he goes, convincing George de Beauregard (Bruno Dreyfürst) to fund a low-budget independent feature and whipping up a treatment — there was never a proper script — with fellow New Waver François Truffaut (Adrien Rouyard) based on a news item about a gangster and his girlfriend.  A meticulously and handsomely delivered black and white homage to the French New Wave aka NOUVELLE VAGUE, sees the homage paid through the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s A BOUT DE SOUFFLE, also known in English as BREATHLESS.  Cinephiles will definitely delight in all the film references as well as the depiction of New Wave greats like directors Claude Chabrol, Francois Truffaut, Agnes Varda and husband Jacques Demy.  The film also depicts the idiosyncrasies of Godard, who shot BREAThLESS sans script and and continuity, much to the chagrin of his financial backers, makeup artist and collaborators.  Seberg wanted to quit many times, but Belmondo finds all this absolutely amusing.

A PRIVATE LIFE (Vie privee)(France 2025) ***
Directed by Rebecca Zlotowski

Lilian (Foster), an American psychoanalyst in Paris, is devastated to learn that her client Paula (Virginie Efira) has taken her own life. Or has she? Visits from Paula's furious widower, Simon (Mathieu Amalric) and taciturn daughter Valérie (Luàna Bajrami), along with the discovery that files have been stolen from Lilian's office, suggest that Paula may have fallen victim to foul play.  Assisted by her ex-husband Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil), Lilian undertakes some amateur sleuthing.  Academy Award winner Jodie Foster stars in this strange murder mystery black comedy, playing an American psychiatrist working in France.  Foster speaks perfect French and it is strange but wonderful to watch her totally inhabit the role.  She works with French veteran Daniel Auteul, who plays her ex, Matthieu Amaric, in an angry, deranged encounter among others.  The script contains a lot of crazed characters, Jodie’s psychiatrist being one of them, with her conspiracy theories of murder and her past life.  It all turns out well at the end with a happy ending, though a bit too far-fetched for the film’s own good.

 

RENOIR (Japan/Singapore/France/Philippines/Qatar 2025) ***        

Directed by Chie Hayakawa

RENOIR captures the delicate and troubled transition from childhood to adolescence through the eyes of Fuki, an 11-year-old girl grappling with her father’s terminal illness, portrayed by incredibly talented newcomer Yui Suzuki.  Drawing on her own childhood experiences and set in the late 1980s when the director was the same age as her protagonist, Hayakawa’s narrative unfolds through the eyes of Fuki (Yui Suzuki), an 11-year-old girl coping with her father’s terminal illness. As Fuki navigates the emotional turbulence of preadolescence, she is left to fend for herself, with her mother (Hikari Ishida) overwhelmed by work and the stress of caring for a dying husband (Lily Franky).  The film is a slow burn but covers effectively the subjects of grief, emotions, adolescence and a parent/daughter relationship.  The heart of the story of Fuki’s father having cancer while her mother is working and stressed out over the situation, leaving Fuki much to herself.  The film covers too many issues, such as a sex predator and leaves too many unanswered questions about the issues brought forward.  One can argue that life is similar without many solutions, and director Jayakawa is providing a nuanced, though authentic, story of her past.

 

A USEFUL GHOST (Thailand/Singapore/France/Germany 2025) **
Directed by Ratchapoom Boombunchachoke

Un Certain Regard

Described as a black comedy, A USEFUL GHOST is an over 2-hour slow-burning deadpan comedy that moves so slowly that it takes great effort to stay awake, especially when watching the film during a festival.   The film boasts a fresh idea.  March is mourning his wife, Nat, who has recently passed away due to dust pollution. He discovers her spirit has returned by possessing the vacuum cleaner. Being disturbed by a ghost that appeared after a worker's death shut down their factory, his family rejects the unconventional human-ghost relationship. Msrch’s family accepts the fact and allows him to communicate with the ghost vacuum.  Trying to convince them of their love, Nat offers to cleanse the factory. To become a useful ghost, she must first get rid of the useless ones.  It is weird to see actors talking or making out with a vacuum cleaner, and the director Ratchapoom Boombunchachoke uses the fact for the utmost effect.  The film is mildly amusing and one wonders the point in all of this.