3 Four-Star Capsule Reviews of
First Reformed, The Florida Project, I Love You Daddy
By Greg Klymkiw
Dir. Paul Schrader
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried
One of the elder statesmen of American Cinema has possibly pulled off his greatest work with a dense psychological thriller. Paul Schrader knocks it out of the park with this compulsive tale of an alcoholic priest (Ethan Hawke - never better) haunted by his son's death, obsessed with a young widow (Amanda Seyfried) and facing a deep crisis of faith. Imagine Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light crossed with Robert Bresson's Diary of a Country Priest and Schrader's own classic screenplay for Taxi Driver. Chillingly austere.
dir. Sean Baker
In a sleazy motel in Florida, just outside Walt Disney World, we follow the lives of a precocious, vibrant little girl, her drug addicted hustler single Mom and a kindly caretaker (beautifully played by Willem Dafoe no less). This oddball backdrop and rich characters comprise Sean (Tangerine) Baker's magical ode to childhood amidst squalor. A gloriously original film that both soars and breaks your heart.
Dir. Louis C.K.
Standup comic Louis C.K. writes, directs and stars in this gorgeously photographed (in monochrome no less) love letter to Woody Allen's Manhattan that finally lives and breathes on its own steam. This portrait of a father's relationship with his teenage daughter (and her affair with a man 50+ years her senior) is so piquant and moving that the tears it elicits from viewers are alternately due to laughter and the movie's deep emotional core.
First Reformed, The Florida Project, I Love You Daddy all played at TIFF 2017