Good One (US) (review)
The crossing of lines seems to be a theme of many films recently especially from a female perspective, perhaps encouraged by the highlighting in recent years of the daily crap that many women face just as part of their normal daily lives. Good One is a good example of such a film. Taking place in the Mountainous Catskills outside New York, Daughter Sam and her dad, Chris take what appears to be the latest of numerous trips from their downtown home to get away from it all. As a teen, her mobile phone being well out of range causes anxiety but its clear that though she might not say it, Sam enjoys the father-daughter time enough to tear herself away from other relationships for a few days.
Along for the ride is Matt, Chris's longtime friend. Similarly aged but not nearly so successful with the important things in life, his son keffled at the last minute leaving the three of them on their own and Sam without a chat buddy for the duration of the holiday, which means she's relegated to listening to the two old men bickering about how to pack a backpack.
For the most part, Good One is just a buddy movie - two friends, and father and daughter spend a bit of time away from it all to bond and mend a few fences. But you know there is something coming on the horizon, and the film injects a few red herrings along the way to keep you interested. When it finally comes, it is muted in it's execution such that many people might wonder what the fuss is about, although many of those I suspect would be male.
This is a film that tries to centre in on a single, stupid but seemingly small incident and asks the viewer to think, discuss and ruminate on it's effect for a while. 7.5
U Are the Universe (Ukr) (review)
You might conclude, given the horrendous situation that the Ukraine has been in for the last couple of years, that their cultural output may be affected. Perhaps in a similar way to how Japan processed the fallout of World War II by creating stories around the theme of annihilation, so too may this film be seen as the product of potentially being wiped from the face of the earth in the still escalating conflict.
We are introduced to Andriy, a low-key grunt worker ferrying nuclear waste to one of the moons of Jupiter, when the earth - packed solid with nuclear waste until someone realized that might have something to do with all the new earthquakes - catastrophically explodes, killing everyone instantly - except Andriy and his overly attentive robot companion Maxim.
Unsure how to come to terms with this sudden rise in the human rankings - to the top no less - he hits the several stages of acceptance pretty hard, before his crashing down is met with a distress call from across the galaxy - another person - a mysterious woman - has also survived but needs rescuing.
Equal parts deadpan end of the world humour and a genuine exploration of the best and worst of human spirit, U Are the Universe is surprisingly both entertaining and touching, and I found myself affected somewhat by it's ending which brings quite the lump to the throat Another example - if one were needed where my lowish expectation of a film going in was pleasantly surpassed. 8
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