Emerald Fennell’s stylized retelling of Wuthering Heights (A-) paints with all the colors of her whim: statuesque leads involved in constant craving, outrageous bodice ripping romance, can’t-look-away couture costumes, an ultra-glam soundscape, twisted minor characters, luminous colors melting off the edges of the screen, a bodily fluid or two too many and very little fidelity to convention. The sum of the iconoclastic director’s fever dream of parts is often a hypnotic hoot and even more so a tantalizing tone poem on the nature of longing. Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi are absolute delights as childhood companions whose off-kilter dynamics have evolved into a tainted lovelorn mess. Their chemistry is a palpable cavalcade of mood and madness, played out with a paper doll palette of blissed-out bravura. The duo’s adventures from the peaks of fog-coated mountainside trysts to the valleys of vigorous palace intrigue make for a full-fledged extravaganza of love and vengeance; and while the film is overlong at times and likely a bit appalling to Brontë scholars, it is nonetheless sexy and funny as hell. The maximalist magic shell covering the bones of this literary classic (or rather about half of it), doesn’t sugarcoat or cloak the subtleties or satire of class structure themes. It tells its own tale and blazes its own trail, keeping the story timeless and contemporary. Linus Sandgren’s evocative cinematography lends the story surprises around each bend, and the music by Anthony Willis punctuated by Charli XCX bops underscores the film’s pop sensibilities with reckless rhythm. Jacqueline Durran’s costumes are shimmering and sublime, casting stunning silhouettes across Caroline Barclay’s creative off-kilter production design captured on 35mm VistaVision film. Among the pulpy players are Hong Chau as a cunning killjoy and Alison Oliver as a daffy comic foil. I’m not sure what Shazad Latif was going for exactly in a thankless role. Fennell’s film is magic and tragic, giddy and gothic, electric and eclectic and should fit the bill for those seeking a sumptuous cinematic bonbon with an independent sensibility in time for Valentine’s Day weekend.
Viewed as part of Virtual Sundance Film Festival 2026
There’s never an optimal time to make tough decisions affecting one’s personal destiny, and for the female protagonist in the Lithuanian film How to Divorce During the War (B+) directed by Andrius Blaževičius, separating from her partner on the eve before the Russian invasion of Ukraine is just the beginning. Žygimantė Elena Jakštaitė stars as steely corporate breadwinner Marija opposite Marius Repšys as faux-hipster homemaker husband Vytas, and the crumbling couple shares a precocious pre-teen daughter Dovilė, convincingly played by Amelija Adomaitytė. Set in Vilnius in 2022 in the Baltic state adjacent to a simmering war territory, the characters occupy a clinical and sometimes lightly satirical world as they maneuver through complacency about shifts to the status quo and soul search to be properly performative about life in flux on both domestic and geopolitical fronts. Jakštaitė is particularly effective, from an iconic early sequence told almost entirely through a windshield to her fluid interactions with corporate colleagues, refugees and even her own rebellious offspring. The elegant, classical composition of sequences by cinematographer Narvydas Naujalis against unsettling and insistent music by Jakub Rataj places the players in this ensemble as fascinating pawns in a zone of interest. Examining both the propaganda and realities of politics and war in their extended families tightens the psychological lens. From home life and corporate settings to the art scene and schoolyards where protests large and small start conjuring, a meditation on messiness plays out in interesting ways, even though the film feels like a pilot episode of an even more interesting plot to come. While those next milestones don’t fully manifest within the boundaries of this movie, its makers provoke a deep sense of introspection and conversation about identity in an interconnected world.
Anyone with kids will understand how stubborn they can be to get what they want. Shai Carmeli-Pollak’s The Sea (B+) explores the very fraught geopolitical complexities in Israel through the eyes of a tween Palestinian boy named Khaled who just wants to wade in the waters of the Mediterranean while he’s young. Unfortunately the beach is out of his reach as he’s singled out on a field trip and denied entry at a checkpoint, so he sneaks into Israel, sparking a journey for freedom and a desperate search by his father. Young actor Muhammad Gazawi is magnificent as the 12-year-old at the film’s center, and his mature, emotive abilities keep audiences locked in on his unlikely plight, in the style of a Hope and Glory or Empire of the Sun. Khalifa Natour plays his father Ribhi, an undocumented laborer working in Israel, and his quest to reunite with his runaway son adds poignant layers to the story. The film was Israel’s submission for the 98th Academy Awards. It is noted for its portrayal of Israeli occupation, drawing both acclaim and controversy within Israel for its depiction of soldiers and policies at large. Carmeli-Pollak keeps the journey moving, even though its plot and pace meanders in the middle. All in all, it’s a movie of both ideas and action, a tender tale with tense underpinnings . The child’s viewpoint on justice and the nature of borders will surely spark conversation.
Here are the dates to book an in-person viewing of this landmark film at the 2026 Atlanta Jewish Film Festival:
Jodie Foster plays an idiosyncratic American psychiatrist in Paris and flexes her remarkable language skills in Rebecca Zlotowski’s largely unremarkable dramatic thriller A Private Life (C). While the protagonist’s tightly knit world begins to unravel after the sudden death of a patient, the viewer can’t help but contemplate the lead actress in full French-speaking mode attempting to also emote within the confines of a fairly flimsy and meandering mystery. Her character is seen alternately puffing cigs, gulping wine or muttering “merde” while en route to each subsequent scene. Zlotowski doesn’t give Foster much to work with in terms of story, ensemble or even relics of modernity. For every reference to long Covid grounding the tale in modern times, there are countless conversations about missing cassettes and a tense trip to the card catalogue. The drab cinematography and dreary atmosphere fail to give the film the pick-me-up that might have helped hasten the pace. I kept waiting for my seventh grade French class teacher to invite us all to a “surprise-partie.” There’s one sequence of hypnosis that almost takes viewers to an alternate otherworld, but the film largely remains steeped in potboiler tropes without that veritable pot ever boiling. One sexy subplot goes absolutely nowhere; another goes further than one would wish. Thankfully there are a few anticipated moments of joie de vivre in the final act.
Strap onto your seats, not out of a promise of actual cinematic intensity, but because only literal harnesses or handcuffs will keep anticipatory viewers sufficiently locked in for this misbegotten A.I. justice thriller. Timur Bekmambetov’s Mercy (F) tethers career-worst performances by both Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson to a belabored plot, accompanied by a constant countdown which incessantly reminds viewers it’s almost over. The story places Pratt in a literal chair from which he must defend himself against a crime of passion before Ferguson’s monotone cyber judge with the assistance of computer files, municipal cloud recordings, location records and phone-a-friend technologies. This data dump boasts all the thrills of overnight mainframe maintenance. None of the film’s preposterous characters bears resemblance to any found naturally in reality, and the stakes are rotten from the get-go. The film’s format robs a generally charismatic actor of his charm and the actress of her nuance. Even a final act showdown is thwarted by mind-numbing dialogue and baffling answers to an already shaky thesis. This hour and a half of cheesy effects and weasely affectations is akin to an escape room where every participant simply wants out. It redefines “edge of your seat” in that you’ll find yourself rearing to slither away to any other place.
Dueling piano players, hit makers of the karaoke leaderboard and all-out tribute bands rarely get their proper due in the limelight. But get ready for the latter musical misfits to enjoy cinematic comeuppance. The true life story of two down-on-their-luck musicians who perform in a Neil Diamond cover band in grunge-era Milwaukee, Craig Brewer’s Song Sung Blue (B+) is one of those movies they just don’t make anymore, the idealistic tale of two good but imperfect souls overcoming incredible odds to make amazing music and life together. A jubilant Hugh Jackman and a resplendent Kate Hudson co-star as Lightning & Thunder, two halves of a novelty act that doubles as an excuse for mutual burgeoning love interests. The film is unabashedly melodramatic and formulaic, and yet it still hits all the right notes to keep viewers deeply engaged. Hudson in particular is wonderful in her role, acting and singing her way through a crucible of challenges as a salt-of-the-earth everywoman. It’s a triumph for this popular actress. Brewer stages montages such as “Sweet Caroline,” “Play Me” and “Holly Holy” with gregarious gusto, with several standout montages mirroring stage life and behind the scenes travails. The film is the genuine article, with legitimately nice people being good to one another and lifting each other up in community. This is an enjoyable crowd pleaser successfully turning on the heart lights of communal multiplex patrons everywhere.
Eva Victor announces her arrival on the independent cinema scene as sardonic writer, star and director of the tragicomic Sundance sensation Sorry, Baby (B+); and her raw, fragmented plot structure makes for a sneakily emotional knockout of an experience, set in and around New England academia. Given much of the narrative covers heavy subject matter, Victor wisely frames the film and starts it as a friendship story opposite the magnificent Naomi Ackie, with Victor’s grad student character’s signature wit and idiosyncratic outlook remaining center stage throughout, even during dark passages. The interplay between these two is hilarious and healing. The nonlinear story takes viewers through the protagonist’s variety of memories both playful and painful and sometimes overtly ordinary. It doesn’t depict the sexual assault that forever changed her life: in fact, it’s the clever scrambling of events that makes the film’s emotional and physical violations so potent and powerful. Victor’s unflinching near-soliloquy about the story’s inciting incident, tucked tenderly in a middle passage, is one of the best sequences captured on film this year. Reliable trauma film fixture Lucas Hedges and an adorable gray tabby kitten (not to worry, the feline survives) are enjoyable in small emotional support roles. It’s ultimately an uplifting and moving film about caring for one another from a perspective of someone who tells it like it is. Via these “Victorious” authorial hands, this movie is an apt exploration of how every day can be so much better than our worst day.
You can call it playing a character “similar to himself” all you want, but George Clooney isn’t stretching all that much as a veteran actor regretting some of his choices in Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly (C). To flee an incident likely to get him bad press, the protagonist and his longtime manager (Adam Sandler) step away to Europe, where there’s reflection on his legacy, a look back at his cinematic canon and a flurry of memories about choices he made related to his daughters (Riley Keough and Grace Edwards). Baumbach fills the film with insider elements about the movie business but fails to paint an intriguing central character. With not much interesting to see related to the titular character and the sidelining of an inciting incident, Sandler gets a few moments to shine as he laments whether he’s a friend or a cost center in a few sequences opposite Laura Dern as a similarly underappreciated publicist. This meta narrative treads very little new themes and isn’t particularly insightful or funny. There’s a moment during a film retrospective that was kind of embarrassing in its awards season thirst. This year alone, the film Sentimental Valueis a far richer film on the gulf and intersections between art and humanity.
Writer/director Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident (A-) traces a chance encounter at a body shop between two men in modern Iran who may or may not share fraught history; and as other characters enter the fray too, memories of the background between the two primary men become even more blurry. This is like a heist movie without the bounty: as the band gets together, the pieces of a political puzzle coalesce. Vahid Mobasseri is the standout main character, and viewers get to watch his vacillation over remembrances and feel his penchant for vengeance against an oppressor. Expect vigorous debates and revelations and sparse use of artifice like musical score. Panahi, who has risked his life and liberty for his anti-regime filmmaking, gets a stellar auteur showcase with this movie. It comes together beautifully in the final passages and is sure to spark discussion.
Multiple generations have difficulty communicating except through their art in Joachim Trier’s methodical and exhilarating drama Sentimental Value (A). Set in and around a charming legacy family home in Norway, the film follows a fractured relationship between an acclaimed movie director (Stellan Skarsgard) and his two estranged daughters played by Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, which becomes even more complicated when he decides to make a personal film about their family history including an American actress played by Elle Fanning. This is one of the rare works in which the films within the film are of enough quality that viewers will realize the characters are exceedingly bright and talented even if they stumble at maneuvering through real-life human relationships. Gorgeously shot by Kasper Tuxen, the film gracefully discovers mature and intimate moments that add up to a most poignant portrait. Highlights include tension around stage fright in action in a high-stakes theatre, a revealing look at a charged script filled with revelations and a torrent of healing between sisters. The sterling acting ensemble including keen child actors does complex and nuanced work all around, especially Reinsve and Skarsgard as among the most deliriously damaged. There’s warmth and good music here too, amidst all the somber solemnity. In all he does within his marvelous framework, Trier fashions subtle and moving ways to show people pushing within their respective limits in the parts they are born to play in life.
Take one iambic pentameter for your sadness, and call me in the morning. Set in the Elizabethan era, Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet (C) depicts two parents grieving the loss of a child in very different ways. Jessie Buckley offers a raw and harrowing reaction; and Paul Mescal, who plays William Shakespeare, addresses his sadness more obliquely through the presentation of a tragic stage play far away from the domestic despair. Despite Zhao’s penchant for painterly and geometric imagery, there’s not a whole lot going here: sequences of courtship, pregnancy, illness, loss and reaction play out in slow dollops. It’s a far better showcase for Buckley, doing very fine work here, than Mescal, who just doesn’t seem as ensconced in the devastation. The strained chemistry between the central pair doesn’t help; thus the final act, moving for many, rang like artificial Oscar bait. It’s a bitter quill with few breakaways or takeaways.
This is the film that finally answers the question, “If a tree falls down in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?” In this case, it makes both a sound and a statement. Gorgeously shot, gingerly paced and sneakily profound, Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams (A) stars Joel Edgerton as a logger, railroad worker and hermit in the early 20th century whose life might not have been outwardly remarkable but proves deeply worthy of examination as a universal allegory for the human plight on earth. The movie confronts time and modernity and observes how the human animal responds to stimuli and reacts across a lifetime. Judicious narration by William Patton evokes both the folksy language of the source novella from which this work is adapted and also that of a nature documentary as we watch Edgerton’s man of few words and even fewer outside influences process love, remorse and so much more within the confines of a sparse story. Adolph Veleso’s lush cinematography does a lot of the film’s heavy lifting, with natural wonders such as luminous sunsets, kaleidoscopic forest fires and gurgling river currents, punctuating lyrical passages with a free flow of landscapes and dreamscapes. Bryce Dessner of rock band The National provides a lovely, ethereal soundtrack to the proceedings. In small but critical parts of the ecosystem on display, an affecting ensemble including Kerry Condon and William H. Macy makes an indelible imprint, their tiny explosions inciting rousing ripple effects opposite the endearing Edgerton. This memory piece is film as poetry, worth a watch and a washing over you. Bentley channels the cinematic pioneer of this form, Terrence Malick, in effervescent use of natural settings to paint an impressionistic human portrait. The movie’s omniscient, elegiac beauty makes for one of the singular cinematic experiences of the year.
