In Halina Reijn’s impossibly sexy workplace thriller, a gloriously unfettered Nicole Kidman lusts after Harris Dickinson’s deliciously cocky intern, a new recruit at the robotics company she presides over. A confusing flirtation tips over into a rambunctious affair where seemingly nothing is off limits, and the threat of being discovered proves to be an irresistible turn-on. This is a juicy, discomforting, combustible romp of the highest order—a frank, uncensored, and non-judgmental examination of the contradictions and complications of female desire as well as the knottiness of sexual power dynamics which, delightfully, doesn’t take itself too seriously. It makes for a raucous big-screen experience which leaves you gasping, wincing, laughing awkwardly, and then doing everything you can to avoid eye contact with the people next to you.
Photo: Courtesy Venice Film Festival
With a more-than-three-and-a-half-hour run time (with a built-in 15 minute intermission to boot), Brady Corbet’s ambitious epic—a decades-spanning saga outlining the life and times of a fictional Jewish-Hungarian architect (a never-better Adrien Brody) who survived the Holocaust and painstakingly constructed a new life for himself and his family in America—was perhaps always going to have trouble sustaining its momentum. The first half, which outlines our hero’s arrival on the East Coast and acceptance of an ambitious commission from a volatile benefactor (Guy Pearce), is a stone-cold masterpiece: the opening scene alone, with its spine-tingling score, breathless pace, and staggering visual style brings to mind the scope and swagger of The Godfather: Part II, a comparison no one should make lightly. In the second half, the story lurches and meanders, but the film deserves a spot on this list for the electric atmosphere during the intermission alone—think: a smoking area bursting with excited chatter, as if we were midway through a play, after which the audience rushed back inside to count down the seconds to the film’s final portion. This is bold, imperfect filmmaking which demands to be seen and dissected.
Photo: Iglesias Más / Courtesy of El Deseo