A MISTAKE
Christine Jeffs writes, directs, and produces the adaptation of the best-selling novel by Carl Shuker, A MISTAKE. The film follows Dr. Elizabeth Taylor, a teaching surgeon whose resident falters during a routine cut. The script jumps right into the case in question. The next morning’s death of the patient begins an avalanche of questions, accusations, and steering misogyny. We witness the systematic attempt at taking down a successful female surgeon who challenges power.
Elizabeth Banks starts as a confident and calming presence in the OR. Amid the chaos, Banks walks a tightrope of mothering Richard through his doubts and defending her skills and judgment. As circumstances spiral, her protective, almost cold exterior begins to crack, and mistakes manifest outside the hospital. One scene with a dog will bring you to tears and puts Banks’s character on the other side of loss. It’s a subtly powerful performance.
The cinematography, especially the quiet moments, has an emotional impact. Jeffs masterfully captures the nuance of being a woman, particularly in any position of power. Words and actions somehow have an entirely different meaning if you are female. Jeffs highlights the infuriating double standards. A MISTAKE delves into the wildly erratic medical field, the human element of playing God, and noble pursuits.
Opens in Theaters this Friday September 20 from Quiver Distribution
Based on the page-turning novel by Carl Shuker, A MISTAKE is a thrilling exploration of the dangerous ripple effects that can be triggered by a single human error.
When expert surgeon Elizabeth Taylor (Banks) makes the decision to allow her young registrar, Richard Whitehead, to take charge of one small but delicate step during a routine surgery on a very sick young woman, a mistake is made that can’t be undone. Elizabeth’s efforts to protect Richard and herself come into conflict with the desperate need for black and white answers from the patient’s parents and the hospital’s single-minded attempts to protect their reputation. A film about human fallibility, and forgiveness.
Starring three-time Emmy Award nominee Elizabeth Banks, Simon McBurney, Mickey Sumner and Rena Owen.Written, Directed & Produced by Christine Jeffs (Rain, Sylvia, Sunshine Cleaning)Produced by Matthew MetcalfeCornerstone’s Alison Thompson and Mark Gooder served as executive producers.
WINNER
Zach Galifianakis is Reality’s activist-minded father, Ron. He plays a proud papa with a brilliant mind and passion for justice. The apple did not fall far. Galifianakis brings the sass in all the right ways. Connie Britton is Mom Billie Winner-Davis, someone I greatly admire. I followed her on social media once the story broke, urging others to retweet and signing petitions for the Biden administration to pardon Reality. Britton delivers a pitch-perfect performance as a Texas mother with the typical priorities before Reality’s arrest.
It’s an entire hour before we even touch on the infamous Russia document. The front end of the film gives us foundational reasons to root for Winner. Fogel skillfully injects humor into a story that appears authentically absurd from any sane outsider’s perspective. Jones’ narration sets the tone for the entire film. If you know Reality’s story, you understand what an indisputable hero she is. How this story got buried as quickly as it did will never cease to baffle me. 
THE CRITIC
Lush cinematography and lighting immediately draw you into the narrative alongside McKellen’s iconic voice. From the costumes to the jewel-toned sets, it’s a period drama fans dream.
Sir Ian McKellen is vicious and brilliant. Playing Jimmy Erskine, he is a rather vile curmudgeon who revels in taking down enthusiastic artists and their work. Jimmy is an unapologetic diva. The fear he leaves in his wake destroys careers with the stroke of his pen. McKellen succeeds in making audiences adore a genuine villain.
RED ROOMS
Juliette Gariépy initially gives Kelly-Anne a quiet ferocity. Assume nothing about the character as she slowly reveals her sleuthing skills. Gariépy morphs into a startling presence, with each consecutive scene getting under your skin. Gariépy is disturbing. 
The juxtaposition of her photoshoot stills and those of security camera suspects is undeniably clever mirroring. Once the infamous video plays, the decision to focus on our protagonist and not the most gruesome acts almost makes the plot more invasive. The combination of the audio and your imagination causes you to turn away. Kelly-Anne’s skills keep her on a tightrope. One missed step, and the bottom drops out. 
The script is far more nuanced than at first glance. Plante delves into technology, the female fascination with true crime, and the repercussions of unresolved trauma. The more Kelly-Anne shares with Clementine, the more unsettled the audience. As a parent, RED ROOMS is a visceral viewing experience. It is simultaneously rage and despair-inducing. As a mother, putting that hat aside, as difficult as that may be, the film is indisputably brilliant storytelling. The hideous twists keep coming. RED ROOMS will hold you captive, whether you like it or not.
In Luna Carmoon‘s debut, HOARD, it is 1984, and Cynthia and Maria live a trying existence. Mom is a hoarder with chaotic mood shifts. Maria exists in freefall, never knowing when she’ll be bullied or exposed to inappropriate scenarios. An accident leads to foster care. In 1994, teenage Maria latches onto a visitor and former foster as he attempts to tap into her unresolved grief and trauma.
Hayley Squires delivers authentic emotional distress. Hoarding is a trauma response and, often, a mental illness. Squires slides into that skin with astonishing ease. Her highs and lows are captivating.
Her and Quinn’s chemistry is glorious. Their unfiltered bond fascinates from start to finish. Together, their animalistic instincts create a healing trauma bond like no other.
TIFF 2024
Sook-Yin Lee
Johnny Ma
Joseph Kahn
For more information on TIFF 2024, 
THE BECOMERS
THE BECOMERS is bold, eschewing any societal norms. Have you ever seen an alien sex scene? Because you’re about to, and it is gooey. Russell Marl voices their backstory with a particular tone that perfectly encapsulates the film’s feel. Fritz Myers’ score is jarring and yet works perfectly. Myers also creates unique Alien vocalizations. The editing is delightful.
Isabel Alamin gives Francesca a tentative fear. She’s incredibly compelling. Molly Plunk and Mike Lopez‘s turns as couple Carol and Gordon. Their trust in Clark’s vision is evident. Plunk and Gordon embody the seemingly wacky premise and capture the sincerest longings within the slapstick comedy.
CLOSE TO YOU
CLOSE TO YOU
DETAINED
Laz Alonzo does a fine job as the hypermasculine group leader, doing his best to keep up with Cornish. Speaking of, Abbie Cornish owns this role. It’s a tour de force. From the moment we see her, it’s already over.
Mucci and Palmer give Cornish the time to work her magic. We know her gears are turning throughout. Watching the dominoes fall is delightful. While I worked out a key plot point relatively early- I watch hundreds of films each year, it never lessened the elaborate twists. I still wondered precisely how we’d get from point A to B. Audiences get a lot to chew on in just over ninety minutes. DETAINED is devilishly satisfying.
CUCKOO
Abandonment and unresolved trauma collide with a monster movie and mad scientist in Tilman Singer‘s (
For all things Fantasia 2024, 
The script plays like one carefully curated test after another, skillfully crafted to test Rob’s and our moral compass. screenwriter Dan Kelly-MulhernIt has Nina lull Rob into a sense of safety and care, playing on his desperation and redemption arc. The double-entendre dialogue is delicious. 
Eddie Izzard owns the titular role of Nina Jekyll. Delivering two fully fleshed-out personalities, one can only imagine the personal stake in Izzard’s performance. She is utterly mesmerizing, devouring Kelly-MulhernIt’s versions of Nina and Rachel. It is one hell of a turn. 
DOCTOR JEKYLL is endlessly intriguing, playing on the raw emotions and hitting every horror note, with precision. The finale is visually spectacular. DOCTOR JEKYLL is a prime example of keen manipulation.
DIRECTOR Joe Stephenson 
The production design by Lauren Kelly delivers visuals that are startling and sneaky. Creepy art pieces, like the anatomical drawing behind Ted’s desk to the Rorschach paintings, hung in the house subconsciously keep you off kilter. Darcy’s shop even houses director Damian McCarthy‘s disquieting rabbit from his 2020 terrifier CAVEAT.
Filmmaker Patrick Dickinson brings audiences a nuanced tale of loss and love in COTTONTAIL. Following the death of his wife, Kenzaburo travels with his son and his young family to fulfill his late wife’s last wish, to scatter her ashes at Lake Windemere in England. The film flashes back in time, giving us intimate details of the love story between Kenzaburo and Akiko. 
Tae Kimura gives an award-worthy performance as Akiko. The depth is mesmerizing. You will remember it. Lily Franky delivers a stunning complexity in Kenzaburo. Dickinson skillfully draws out the rift between him and his son Toshi (a fantastic Ryo Nishikido). The built-up guilt and regret flow off the screen as Franky moves from scene to scene. So, too, does the fierce adoration for his wife. 
Dickinson places the audience in a precarious emotional state once we witness the hardships of Akiko’s progressing condition and Kenzaburo’s increasing frustrations with losing the wife he vowed to love through thick and thin. The discussion of the impact of acting as a primary caregiver hangs above the film like a dark cloud, allowing the redemption narrative to hold your heart. COTTONTAIL is about the individuality of grief, keeping secrets, and human connection. It is an undeniably beautiful and affecting film.
Starring Academy Award® Nominee 
Shane Dax Taylor‘s WWII drama imagines the never-before-told story of a secret mission. While all the elements of greatness are there, MURDER COMPANY delivers a rather average film. I never found myself emotionally invested in the characters, which is unfortunate because performances from the entire ensemble deliver solid work. I found myself drifting. The battle scenes felt noticeably repetitive as if a few days had been spent in the same wooded location and shot from only a few different angles. The dialogue suffered the same fate. I couldn’t repeat a single line after watching. The FX were similarly subpar. Bullet holes were glaringly CG, and it was frankly distracting. War films are immense undertakings. Tackling an untold story adds extra scrutiny. Filmmakers should have taken more advantage of Kelsey Grammer‘s abilities. Ultimately, Murder Company waves the white flag.
It stars William Moseley (The Chronicles of Narnia trilogy, “The Royals”), Pooch Hall (“Ray Donovan,” “The Game”), Gilles Marini (Sex and the City, “Switched at Birth”), Joe Anderson (Across the Universe, The Crazies), and Kelsey Grammer (“Cheers,” “Frasier”).
The heightened sound editing by Andrew Siedenburg and Nikolay Antonov is a character in the film. There is no better way to articulate its effect. The camera work from Lidia Nikonova swings from following closeups to static long takes, and it is nothing short of magnificent.
There is a theatrical delivery of much of the dialogue. Deragh Campbell is marvelous playing Katy. She delivers a compelling performance, reminding us how much we rely on the family matriarch to set our boundaries. Campbell’s pervasive anxiety flows on the screen.
The film brilliantly captures the poetic chaos of family gatherings. A myriad of intimate vignettes are all swirling together in an authentic picture where time loses all meaning. FAMILY PORTRAIT is haunting in so many ways. It will leave you breathless and wanting more.
Performances from the entire cast are magnificent. Yoav Levi is Captain Hayim Amzalag, the prisonguard tasked with orchestrating the clandestine plans for the most valuable prisoner of war. Hayim’s anxiety manifests in a toothache, a burst blood vessel, and digestive issues as he dodges the press. Levi brings a dazzling physicality to the role. You will not soon forget him.
Noam Ovadia is David, a precocious, tenacious, Lybyan-Israeli who identifies as an Arab and Sephardic Jew learning perspective on the Nazis. Procuring an after-school job, David uses his quick-witted brain to solve problems. Ovadia is a star. It is an award-worthy turn. He outshines every other cast member.
Tom Shoval and Paltrow wrote the screenplay. In the third storyline, we explore Micah (Tom Hagi
Upon his upcoming release from a specialized mental hospital in Scandinavia, a man suddenly reveals his connection to a string of murders. His therapist and the police officer on the case go down the rabbit hole, putting all three of them in a precarious relationship. 
Gustaf Skarsgård is Mads a deep sadness. His gentle nature is at odds with his confessions, although his true motivations feel evident from the beginning. Nevertheless, Skarsgård delivers an emotionally wrought performance. 
Haunting takes in the gloomy natural light of a rainstorm or afternoon in an unlit room, capturing the dark essence of the narrative. The true story behind the film is one of the most unusual in criminal history. In the 1990s, Sture Ragnar Bergwall (later known as 
Girls are not held in the highest regard, and the slightest infraction or break from compliance is frowned upon. Zaffan dares to be an individual. The consequence of her behavior arrives in punishment with harmful words and physical abuse. Enter an opportunistic scam artist, and things get worse. Her unrelenting trauma triggers a fight response. Zaffan’s physical and emotional changes gradually manifest themselves into a dazzling creature of revenge.
Zafreen Zairizai is extraordinary as Zaffan. It is a fearless and emotionally wrought performance that is undeniably award-worthy. TIGER STRIPES takes a satisfying page from Frankenstein and perhaps a clever nod to The Crucible. TIGER STRIPES is like a live-action horror version of Disney Pixar’s TURNING RED. It is a fantastical allegory for girlhood and feminist power.
Goodnight Mommy filmmakers Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz‘s latest film, The Devil’s Bath, opens with a 
SYNOPSIS – In 1750 Austria, a deeply religious woman named Agnes has just married her beloved, but her mind and heart soon grow heavy as her life becomes a long list of chores and expectations. Day after day, she is increasingly trapped in a murky and lonely path leading to evil thoughts, until the possibility of committing a shocking act of violence seems like the only way out of her inner prison. Giving a voice to the invisible and unheard women of the rural past; THE DEVIL’S BATH is based on historical court records about a shocking, hitherto unexplored chapter of European history.
VERONICA FRANZ (Writer & Director) studied German and philosophy and worked as a journalist. She has also worked as an artistic collab-orator with Ulrich Seidl since 1997 and co-wrote the screenplays for all of his films including DOG DAYS (2001), IMPORT EXPORT (2007), the PARADISE trilogy (2012/13) and WICKED GAMES – RIMINI SPARTA (2023). In 2003 she also founded the Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion GmbH with him.
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