Tag Archives: family

8,5-8,9, drama,, female director, female lead

“Mommy Is At The Hairdresser’s” by Léa Pool (Canada, 2008)

Non-U.S. female directors

Mommy is at the hairdresser

The 60’s, the American dream. A woman discovers that her husband betrays her with a man. She is so humiliated and wounded that she leaves her family.
Her three children express their resentment, loss, pain, feeling of guilt, and incomprehension in very different ways. A beautiful and poignant movie!

Cast: Marianne Fortier, Élie Dupuis, Hugo St-Onge-Paquin
Director: Léa Pool
Writer: Isabelle Hébert
Music by Laurent Eyquem
Cinematography by Daniel Jobin
Film Editing by Dominique Fortin

7,0-7,4, drama,, female director, female lead, first feature

“They” by Anahita Ghazvinizadeh (USA, 2017)

First feature

They

A movie about hesitation in which everyone is at a crossroad

Cast:  Rhys Fehrenbacher, Koohyar Hosseini, Nicole Coffineau
Director: Anahita Ghazvinizadeh
Writer: Anahita Ghazvinizadeh
Music by Vincent Gillioz
Cinematography by Carolina Costa
Film Editing by Anahita Ghazvinizadeh, Dean Gonzalez

7,0-7,9, comedy, drama,, female director, romance,

“A Perfect Ending” by Nicole Conn (USA, 2012)

Lesbian love seen by a female director

A Perfect Ending

An unnecessary soapy script saved by good acting and directing, and the surprising editing / Shunned by critics

Cast: Barbara Niven, Bryan Mordechai Jackson, Jessica Clark
Director: Nicole Conn
Writer: Nicole Conn
Music by Bob Fowler, Stephen Ridley
Cinematography by Tal Lazar
Film Editing by Nicole Conn

3,0-5,9, drama,, female director, romance,

“Forever My Girl” by Bethany Ashton Wolf (USA, 2018)

forever my girl

A movie that not only celebrates everlasting love, but adds to it family, religious, and small town values in a most simplistic and nauseating way / Propaganda cinema at its best! And it works: the public seems to like it (6,4 on IMDB and an astonishing 9 as audience score on Rotten Tomatoes)! So depressing! 🙁

Cast: Alex Roe, Jessica Rothe, John Benjamin Hickey, Abby Ryder Fortson, Tyler Riggs, Peter Cambor, Gillian Vigman, Morgan Alexandria
Director: Bethany Ashton Wolf
Writer: Bethany Ashton Wolf
Music by Brett Boyett
Cinematography by Duane Manwiller

7,0-7,9, biography, drama,, male director, true story

“The Glass Castle” by Destin Cretton (USA, 2017)

A few recent movies on fatherhood

The Glass Castle

Love your father no matter what / You can’t live with yourself and reject where you come from… These are a few of the messages in this ode to the family that is in fact a glorification of patriarchy and that ends in syrupy sentimentality / Ill-adapted flashbacks

Cast: Brie Larson, Naomi Watts, Woody Harrelson, Max Greenfield, Ella Anderson, Sarah Snook, Olivia Kate Rice, Dominic Bogart Shree Crooks, Charlie Shotwell, Sadie Sink
Director: Destin Cretton
Writer (based upon the book by) Jeannette Walls
Writer: Destin Cretton, Andrew Lanham
Cinematographer: Brett Pawlak
Editor: Nat Sanders
Composer: Joel P. West

3,0-5,9, comedy, drama,, female director

“Landline” by Gillian Robespierre (USA, 2017)

Landline

Some good moments, but at times clumsy script and direction / Jenny Slate sounds often fake, and the dialogues do not fit the period.

Cast: Jenny Slate, Edie Falco, Abby Quinn, Jay Duplass, John Turturro, Finn Wittrock, Amy Carlson
Director: Gillian Robespierre
Writer (story): Elisabeth Holm, Gillian Robespierre, Tom Bean
Writer: Gillian Robespierre, Elisabeth Holm
Cinematographer: Chris Teague
Editor: Casey Brooks
Composer: Chris Bordeaux, Jordan Cohen, Clyde Lawrence

6,0-6,9, drama,, female director, romance,

“Endless Love” by Shana Feste (USA, 2014)

Endless Love

Variation on a theme already found in Shana Feste’s The Greatest: a family mourns their deceased son / love introduced by a new personage brings the mourning process to a conclusion
Some good moments in an otherwise syrupy and predictable movie

Cast: Alex Pettyfer, Gabriella Wilde, Bruce Greenwood, Joely Richardson, Rhys Wakefield, Robert Patrick, Dayo Okeniyi, Emma Rigby, Anna Enger
Director: Shana Feste
Writer: Shana Feste, Joshua Safran
Music by Christophe Beck
Cinematography by Andrew Dunn
Film Editing by Maryann Brandon

6,0-6,9, comedy, drama,, female director

“Bitch” by Marianna Palka (USA, 2017)

Bitch

A wife who’s treated like a dog by her family becomes a dog
Unfortunately, just like her previous feature, this original idea with good humor doesn’t bring us anywhere. Interesting use of sound

Cast: Marianna Palka, Jason Ritter, Jaime King, Brighton Sharbino, Rio Mangini, Kingston Foster
Director: Marianna Palka
Writer: Marianna Palka
Cinematographer: Armando Salas
Editor: Brett W. Bachman
Composer: Morgan z Whirledge

7,0-7,9, comedy, drama,, female director

“Lady Bird” by Greta Gerwig (USA, 2017)

Lady Bird

Nuanced approach of all the things on which the life of a teenage girl is built / Excellent acting, great editing! However, a too “uniquely American” comedy, as Christopher Gray puts it.

Cast:  Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Tracy Letts, Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein
Director: Greta Gerwig
Writer: Greta Gerwig
Cinematographer: Sam Levy
Editor: Nick Houy
Composer: Jon Brion