This monthly feature offers an overview of what’s new on the big screen, spanning both mainstream and arthouse films across all genres, while also revisiting titles from the archive of classic cinema.
Bring Her Back
Written by: Danny Philippou, Bill Hinzman
Directed by: Danny and Michael Philippou
Country of Production: Australia
Following the global success of their debut film Talk to Me, directors Danny and Michael Philippou (twin brothers) return with their second feature, Bring Her Back, a work that adheres more strictly to the horror genre, with graphic detail including shattered bones, broken teeth, torn flesh, and efforts to mutilate the living body to resurrect the dead.
The resurrection efforts involve an unexplained magical ritual preserved on videotapes and obsessively reviewed by the grieving mother, Laura (Sally Hawkins), a psychologist working in care homes, who draws on her understanding of psychological manipulation to become a monstrous ghoul who will stop at nothing to bring her deceased daughter back to life.
She ensnares two underage teenagers, Andy and his blind half-sister Piper (Billy Barratt and Sora Wong), drawing them into her hellish plan after eliminating their father through some vague but diabolical means. To enact the resurrection ritual, a dark trinity emerges: the corpse of the dead child, a living host whose soul is to be extracted, and a medium body—a child host consumed by demons, stripped of humanity.
Fans of Talk to Me will appreciate the slow, simmering horror that is both familiar to audiences and concealed from the victims. Sally Hawkins delivers a powerful performance, oscillating between genuine tenderness toward the blind child, Piper, and a chilling malice as she manipulates Andy. Her split character mirrors the father’s own gentleness toward Piper and violence against Andy.
Abuse, then, becomes the groundwork for the ritual and the key to locating victims. Visually, the circles Laura draws become metaphors for cycles of abuse: those experienced by parents, and by the victims of Laura, the death-hunter. A film well worth watching for fans of the genre, even if it does not quite reach the frenzy, fury, or psychological disruption of Talk to Me.
40 Acres
Written by: R.T. Thorne, Glenn Tyron, based on a story by Thorne and Laura Campbell
Directed by: R.T. Thorne
Country of Production: Canada
This Canadian film begins with a fungal pandemic that destroys much of the biosphere essential to animals. This triggers wars throughout much of the world, followed by famine, anarchy, fragmentation, isolation, and a struggle for survival, including the fierce protection of possessions and crops from raiders.
Among the survivors are the Freemans, a Black farming family who have developed a rigid system to defend their territory. At the helm is matriarch, Hailey (Danielle Deadwyler), who resents white settlers. Her husband, Galen (Michael Greyeyes), preserves the memory of the Indigenous peoples who resisted displacement and racism.
Hailey raises her daughters and son, Manny (Kataem O’Connor), as soldiers stripped of compassion and mercy, as evidenced early on in a confrontation with intruders. The family’s protection comes at the cost of warmth and humanity, as her children get cut off from the outside world.
Tension mounts as a gang of white cannibalistic marauders closes in on the scattered survivor groups, eventually approaching the Freemans’ farm. They exploit Manny’s yearning for connection, especially with a woman, to breach the impenetrable security system devised by Hailey, as they infiltrate the family’s 40-acre estate.
It successfully builds suspense, layering this with both internal and external conflicts, propelling events towards a heightened finale. On the way, it examines family dynamics, showing the family unit as both a protective force and a repressive authority.
Visually, this is not typical Hollywood fare. When the father lures the cannibals into the house only to destroy them, for instance, there is a clever cinematic play between light and shadow. There is a lot to see in this subversive siege thriller about land, family, and a world that seems doomed.
I Don’t Care If the World Collapses
Written by: Wael Hamdy
Directed by: Karim Shaaban
Country of Production: Egypt
Inshallah, El Donia Tethad is a short Egyptian film, whose title translates to ‘God willing, the world will unite. The film is also known by the English title I Don’t Care If the World Collapses. The screenplays of Wael Hamdy have a recurring theme—dreams of the past—such as in 6 Days, which showed how difficult it is to forget the dream of love born in innocence, a dream that neither fades nor fully materialises, or in Mekano, where the dilemma lay in the rapid evaporation of such dreams and their easy surrender to oblivion.
Hamdy’s short film Shift Masa’i (Nightshift), in artistic collaboration with director Karim Shaaban, started from the premature and seemingly benign collapse of a dream, then descended into a confrontation with the nightmare of nihilism, revealing that even in nothingness, one can be tormented.
In their latest short film, I Don’t Care If the World Collapses, Emad Rushdy plays the gentle Farouk, a fragile man in his 60s who is on the cusp of realising his long-held dream of becoming an actor during a one-day commercial shoot, when he hears that his lifelong friend has died.
About to leave the filming set altogether, the career-driven production team manager effectively imprisons him, forcing him to perform a role of happiness that becomes unbearable.
Lubna (Salma Abu-Deif) steps in to soothe Farouk, just enough to keep him acting. This is her manipulating him, visually accentuated by Shaaban’s overhead shots of an abandoned Farouk alone at the flimsy model set. Just as in Shift Masa’i, the viewer is confronted with the grotesque indifference of capitalism.
There is also the recurrence of generational conflict, though in their latest offering, the younger generation has the last laugh, owing to their ability to adapt to the changing rules of the labour market, and their chameleon-like capacity to meet its demands.
My Mom Jayne
Directed by: Mariska Hargitay
Country of Production: United States
This is an HBO documentary about the late American actress and sex symbol Jayne Mansfield by her youngest daughter, Mariska Hargitay. Mansfield died in a car crash aged 34, when Mariska was just three years old.
Jayne lived a life that fit the stereotype of a silver-screen blonde beauty, and photos of mother and daughter together highlight the child’s longing met by the mother’s distracted gaze, looking toward something else.
In My Mom Jayne, Mariska retraces her mother’s journey through black-and-white photos and archival footage, aided by the testimonies of her older siblings, particularly her half-sister Mary-Jane, who knew Jayne more intimately. Married at 17, Jayne’s passion for cinema led her to California, Texas, and Georgia with her young daughter, in search of opportunity. Her short life included three marriages and five children.
Starring alongside the likes of Cary Grant, Mansfield mastered the role of the 'dumb blonde' in her film-making heyday from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, having risen to prominence after appearing in Playboy magazine in the mid-1950s. Yet in real life, she was far from dumb, learning several languages and mastering the violin and piano.
Eventually, with fewer calls for big-breasted blondes, the roles dried up, triggering a professional decline. Initially, this documentary centres on Mansfield, but gradually shifts to Mariska herself, culminating in the revelation of a family secret in a story about a daughter who became a casualty of her mother's fame and impulsiveness.
In the end, once the secret is revealed and Mariska finds space to breathe, the film becomes a journey toward loving a mother who was never truly present. Through the magic of cinema, Mariska's mother comes to life once more. There are lighter moments, but these are broadly overshadowed by the tragedy and early demise of Mansfield's life.
Materialists
Written and Directed by: Celine Song
Country of Production: United States and Finland
In the American marriage market, everyone has a value. These values are meticulously calculated by matchmaking firms. Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a glamorous woman in her 30s, works at one of them and is constantly on alert for new clients looking to marry and willing to pay exorbitant fees for the privilege.
The film opens on a comedic note, with writer-director Celine Song showing how Lucy manipulates both men and women. This lets her meet her company's monthly targets, impressing her awestruck colleagues. Materialists then shifts to Lucy's own life and social background. Outwardly polished, confident, and wealthy, she grew up quite differently, with financial struggles and parental conflict.
Fear of replicating the same dysfunctional patterns in her adult relationships, she leaves a partner despite their deep love, remaining single for many years. Things change when she meets the dashing Harry (Pedro Pascal), dubbed "the unicorn" at her firm, a metaphor for his rare and high market value. Harry pursues Lucy with a life of luxury, just as her ex-lover John (Chris Evans) reappears on the scene.
John remains devoted to her and to his passion for acting, which has left him poor and waiting tables at the elite parties Lucy now attends. This romantic conflict has shades of La La Land, but as the title suggests, Materialists places far greater emphasis on the role of money, and how a life driven by passion alone may not be enough.
Fuelled by the tangible world of materialism, the film paints Lucy as a woman torn, yet the screenplay falls short of fully articulating this conflict. The dialogue often seems detached from the narrative progression. A sharper focus on her past relationship might have given the story more depth.
While the filmmaker deserves credit for recognising the role of class background in complicating marriage, not just in terms of money but also values and lifestyles, ultimately Materialists stumbles in its message, caught between a thoughtful introspection and the more common dreamy romance.
From the Cinema Archive:
Being There (1979)
Written by: Jerzy Kosinski (novel and screenplay), and Robert C. Jones
Directed by: Hal Ashby
Country of Production: United States
Comedy legend Peter Sellers plays it straight to hilarious effect in this story of Chance, the gardener (Sellers), who ends up advising the US president. Yet although the film is funny, it also offers room to reflect, which is rare in commercial filmmaking.
Chance, who has gone through life without identification, medical records, or learning how to read or write, working as a gardener for "the old man"—a figure who is never named, who forbids Chance from ever leaving the premises. His only window to the outside world is television, which lets him imitate what he sees and hears.
The film begins with the old man's death, forcing Chance to leave the house and navigate the world with a passive grace. He acts simply, such as by following the outstretched hand of a statue, whom he takes to be guiding him. He often repeats the last uttered phrase in a conversation, suggesting that he may be neurodivergent.
He is courteous, empathetic, and pure, meaning others often project their own meanings onto his words, making them feel affirmed and at ease in his presence. Among them is Benjamin Rand (Melvyn Douglas), an advisor to the President, and Rand's wife, Eve (Shirley MacLaine), who finds in "Chauncey Gardiner" – the name Rand gives him—relief from her emotional loneliness.
The film is truly enjoyable, genuinely funny, yet constantly open to interpretation. Do the highest offices attract only the foolish or those without opinions? Or is it Chance's lifelong neutrality that has, as Zen masters might suggest, opened the way for blessings beyond anything he could have imagined? The performances of Sellers and MacLaine are unforgettable, while the music is also a star, weaving through the narrative to give the film a spiritual, contemplative tone.
