Black Box (Boîte Noire)

Rated: MBlack Box (Boîte Noire)

Directed and Written by: Yann Gozlan

Produced by: Wassim Béji, Thibault Gast, Mattias Weber

Starring: Pierre Niney, Lou de Laâge, André Dussollier, Sébastien Pouderoux, Oliver Rabourdin.

French with English Subtitles

“Make the CVR (Cockpit Voice Recorder) talk”, says Renier, head of BEA (Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety) (André Dussollier) to investigator Mathieu (Pierre Niney) after an Atrian 800 passenger plane goes down for, ‘Reasons unknown.’

Just starting to write this review you can already see there’s a lot of tech-speak in this film.  Which I enjoyed.  The analytics conducted by main character Mathieu just added another dimension to this suspenseful investigation of what really caused a brand new aircraft to crash during it’s flight from Dubai to Paris.

Mathieu specialises in acoustics.  He’s precise.  He can hear changes in black box recordings other investigators can’t.   But the price of his skill is not being able to stop hearing.

He’s always questioning, always listening, even when his team leader, Pollack (Rabourdin) tells him to stop.  Even when his wife, Noémie (Lou de Laâge) becomes afraid he’s hearing things that aren’t there.

The film invites the audience to listen as carefully as Mathieu as he investigates, literally pulling me to the edge of my seat, following the twists of this mystery as the story goes deeper.

I really don’t want to go into detail about the storyline or give anything away.  But to say I was completely absorbed into the film, the scenes flowing from one moment to the next, the layering of one moment so the first viewing is given a whole new perspective when replayed again later as Mathieu visualises the moments before the crash, like piecing together a puzzle, so we see how his mind works.

He’s, ‘Very clear and precise.’

‘Don’t get Pollack’s (Oliver Rabourdin) back up’, says Noémie.  ‘There’s more to a job than skill’.

To which Mathieu replies, ‘So I say nothing?’

He’s fearless in his need to find the truth, yet doesn’t need to wave a flag about it.

This is a finely tuned and balanced suspense-thriller that had me hanging on every turn.

Release part of the 32nd AF French Film Festival 2021

 

Demon Slayer – Kimetsu No Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train

Rated: MA 15+Demon Slayer

Directed by: Haruo Sotozaki

Written by: Ufotable

Produced by: Akifumi Fujio, Masanori Miyake, Yūma Takahashi

Voices: Natsuki Hanae, Akari Kitō,  Yoshitsugu Matsuoka, Hiro Shimono, Akira Ishida

Early in the film, a motley band of friends is racing to jump aboard a steam train that has already begun pulling away from the station. They are hampered by their swords which they need to keep hidden from the other passengers. Even so, they all bring their swords aboard because, ‘You never know when a demon might appear.’

Their plan is to meet up with the revered Flame Hashira, Kyojuro Rengoku (Hiro Shimono), and join him in the Corps of Demon Slayers. Forty passengers have recently disappeared off the Mugen train and there are suspicions that demons have infiltrated the line.

One of the essential differences between this film and its western counterparts is the way that the bad guys are conceptualised. In the west the baddies are stars and their backstory and motivations are often the focus.

Whereas in the Japanese film, demons do not act according to reason. The Japanese demons are almost solely defined by their appearance and their actions. This, of course, switches the role of their heroes also.

I noticed this in particular when I compared Mugen Train with Wonder Woman 1984. While both films are about vanquishing demons there are some significant contrasts.

In Wonder Woman, the evolution of the villain from smarmy snake oil salesman type to world conquering demon is far more nuanced in comparison to the personal journey of the exceptional being graced with magical powers who swoops in to save humanity from a demon who is manipulating the population through their wishes.

In Mugen Train the aspiring demon slayers all hail from humble backgrounds. Even the Flame Hashira Rengoku has come from a modest home and has risen above some heart wrenching setbacks.

The demon slayers could be you or me if we were that devoted to a cause, with Inosuke (Yoshitsugu Matsuoka), the boar-headed one appealing to the lustier side of our natures.

While ravening demons that immediately regenerate may have an unfair advantage in battle, at least until they are beheaded, the demon slayers each have a spiritual core which aligns them to the vast elemental forces of the earth.

Rengoku is able to call upon the Blooming Flame Undulation and Blazing Universe forms to pit against Destructive Death: Air Type of the demon.  Life hangs in the balance as the monster Akaza (Akira Ishida) confronts him with his own mortality, ‘Strength isn’t a word to describe a body . . . If you refuse to become a demon I’ll kill you. You’ll die while you are still young and strong.’

In this film dynamic action sequences and epic battles with a slew of hideous, soul slurping demons, but there is also a deep reverence for the fragility of life this planet and the elements that support our being. This is a film that ends with the question, ‘What’s more important than grief?’ It is a question the film asks so delicately we barely notice that we have been asked, and yet it is asking us to identify what it is that we will fight to the death to save.

Whenever I think of adult animations I usually feel that I have outgrown them so I was in for a surprise. The animation is so sensitively wrought, visually rich and poetically resonant in a piece of filmmaking with subtlety and depth.

Boss Level

Rated: MA15+Boss Level

Directed by: Joe Carnahan

Written by: Chris Borey, Eddie Borey and Joe Carnahan

Produced by: Joe Carnahan, Frank Grillo, Randall Emmett and George Furla

Starring: Frank Grillo, Mel Gibson, Naomi Watts, Annabelle Wallis, Ken Jeong, Will Sasso, Selina Lo, Meadow Williams and Michele Yeoh.

Roy Pulver (Frank Grillo) is stuck in the death loop of a never-ending day.

Sounds a little familiar (couldn’t help thinking back to Happy Death Day, etc).  But, Boss Level has the tone of an 80s arcade game, opening at Attempt 139.

Complete with 80s rock and muscled martial arts (Roy a former Delta Force captain, of course) and macho voice-over, I cringed a little with the dialogue when Roy’s apartment was getting shot-up and he nonchalantly says, ‘I’m never getting my security deposit back.’

But as this guy gets killed over and over again, sometimes in a sequence of yeah, this is me missing the back of the truck, and where is that bus?  As he crashes through the glass, pieces of glass patterning his face like a porcupine.

The voice-over dripping with sarcasm grew on me:

‘I think you have a better chance of growing a penis on your forehead.’

There’s some great tongue-in-check here which is such a classic layer to an action movie.

And by action, there’s car chases and sword fights, harpoon through chest and attached by rope to car that drives while being dragged behind…

Mel Gibson (is back?!) as the villain, Clive Ventor, shines as he tells an apt tale in warning to Dr Jemma Wells (Naomi Watts).

Now this is where it gets a bit flimsy, the doctor is Roy’s wife.  And she works somewhere on something top secret and time altering…  And there’s not much else to that side of the story:

Bad guy.

Time machine.

Threat to end the world?

Basically, it comes down to Roy fighting to get to the end of the game, each fight like a level to get to the end, to the Boss Level.

I could get philosophical and say the story’s a metaphor for growth to overcome selfishness, to fight to get to what matters in life.  And there’s some of that here.  But mostly, Boss Level is a fight-em-up, cheeky action movie that felt a little undercooked but still tasted OK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vRtfeUW_CU&t=6s

Minari

Rated: PGMinari

Directed and Written by: Isaac Lee Chung

Produced by: Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Christina Oh

Director of Photography: Lachlan Milne

Editor: Harry Yoon

Starring: Steven Yeun, Yeri Han, Alan Kim, Noel Kate Cho, Scott Haze, Yuh-Jung Youn, Will Patton.

Korean with English Subtitles

A ‘Carther Truck’ rental tumbles down a dirt road ahead.

There’re hay rolls in the paddocks.

Black cows.

And the look of concern in the rear-view mirror.

It’s been Jacob’s (Steven Yeun) dream to plant a crop of vegetables traditionally grown in his home country Korea, but here in America.  And finally he’s brought his family to where he sees his dream coming true: pan to a portable house but really a trailer still on it’s wheels in the middle of a paddock.  And the threat of a tornado.

Welcome to Arkansas.

“This just keeps getting better and better,” laments Monica (Yeri Han), Jacob’s wife.

A city girl.

She doesn’t understand why they need to live in the middle of no-where.

But when your job is sexing chicks – the male chicks placed in the blue container, the female in the white, knowing the blue container is for the furnace because the male chicks don’t taste as good or lay eggs – it’s hard for Jacob not to want to make himself useful.  Otherwise he might just end up as smoke in the sky.

Manari is the story of the family trying to make it work.  Making that tree change and making the dream a reality.

The first priority is his family.  But to look after his family, Jacob feels like he needs to achieve something that’s his.

It comes around.

A theme shown in the subtleties – Anne (Noel Kate Cho), the young daughter echoing her mother, “it keeps getting better and better”.

And how fire can mean the end, but also the beginning.

There’re all these bitter-sweet moments, like when Grandma Soonja (Yuh-Jung Youn) comes to stay – but she’s not a real grandmother, says David (Alan Kim).  She swears and doesn’t bake cookies.

But she loves David so much she can laugh, and she can make fun, she smells like home: she finds the perfect place to plant, minari.

It’s in these quiet circles the family drama of Minari is shown with sunlight shining through the long grass, the warmth of Paul (Will Patton), the crazy God loving American who is just so weird but such a gift.

There’s little David with his cowboy boots and stripy socks.

And there’s hardship.  But that just makes those good moments all the more sweet.

Most of the time I was smiling through-out this film, with a rise of emotion here and there, just a little melancholy.  Kinda like taking a walk in the afternoon, with the sun shining behind some cloud cover that gets you feeling the breeze and the moment a bit.  The sun comes out again.  Then you walk home.

The Little Things

Rated: MThe Little Things

Directed / Written and Produced by: John Lee Hancock

Produced by: Mark Johnson

Starring: Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto, Natalie Morales.

“It’s the little things that get you caught.”

I know there’s some heavy hitters here – director John Lee Hancock (“The Founder,” “Saving Mr. Banks,” “The Blind Side”); and three Academy Award winning actors, but, The Little Things felt like a film that didn’t know if it wanted to be a drama or a crime thriller.

Deke (Denzel Washington) is a man recovering.  He’s been suspended, divorced and has had a triple bypass – all in six months.  He’s not a detective that let’s go of a case.

Fast forward five years and Deke is in uniform, called back to LA on an errand.  Back to his old precinct where the chief is not happy about his return.

But some of his old buddies are happy to see him, remembering the old him.  The one who got the job done.

His replacement, Jim Baxter (Rami Malek), a god-fearing golden child, knows there’s rumours about him.

“You’re a popular guy,” he jokes.

But Baxter will take any help he can get, the pressure on with a current case of four dead.  And no suspects.

The foundation of the story is the two cops getting to know each other as they chase leads while unraveling the mystery of Deke’s past.

The film becomes more crime drama than crime thriller.  The violence watered down.  For me, taking away any suspense.

The murders they’re investigating are never seen, the terror of the crimes never a focus, just a car following behind, the splatter of blood across a crime scene or the ghosts of the dead still haunting.

The characters are the story so the mystery of the crime takes a back seat.

I admit, I prefer crime movies with more grit.

The soundtrack didn’t help.  There’s no build, just a background giving that feeling of thinking while the cops try to figure out the crime, and each other.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a strong performance here from Denzel, the chemistry between Deke and Baxter a good hook with some further interest thrown in with Jared Leto as the bad guy, his slow reptilian stare unsettling.

But the lack of any visceral violence or any real suspense left his bad character more comical (on purpose) at times, than scary.  He’s right on that edge and with more grit he would have been outright terrifying.  But again, it felt like the film was filtered.  Making this a more cerebral viewing.  And yes there are some clever moments.

But the pacing didn’t build those aha moments so although there’s some satisfaction, the story gets lost leaving the feeling of a missed opportunity.

Wrong Turn

Rating: TBCWrong Turn

Directed by: Mike P. Nelson

Screenplay by: Alan B. McElroy

Based on: ‘Wrong Turn’ by Alan B. McElroy

Starring: Matthew Modine, Bill Sage, Charlotte Vega, Emma Dumont, Damian Maffei, Valerie Jane Parker, Chaney Morrow, David Hutchinson.

Seeing the preview to Wrong Turn, it’s easy to think you’re in for another movie about a group of teens getting lost in the woods and murdered by some crazed hillbillies.

But ‘wrong turn’ doesn’t just mean, opps, went off the trail in the woods and got murdered.  There’s the idea of the moral, taking a wrong turn, of right and wrong – the question of what is the right way to live, what code, what society; to even think about, what is sick and what is living.

It’s a difficult movie to review.

So I’ll try to outline a synopsis without giving too much away.

Three couples go hiking on the Appalachian Trail.

Immediately, the tone of the film is ominous with flames and scary locals, shadowy figures and the landlady of the B&B where the group is staying, warning: ‘The landscape can be… Unforgiving’ (kinda harking back to that, right and wrong, idea).

There’re rumours of people living on the mountain.  Families going to live up there in 1859, to keep living the American Ideal.  They call themselves, The Foundation.

Any strangers that leave the trail and get lost up there never come back.  Either alive or dead.

But when Scott’s (Matthew Modine) daughter, Jen (Charlotte Vega) goes missing, he’s determined to find her.

And that’s where the film opens, to a father nervously tapping his clenched fist against his thigh as he drives into a small town in middle America.

The film starts as this visceral horror.  Not too gory but shocking at times and clever in the suspense and pacing – cue soundtrack building to those unexpected jumps.

At one point Jen laments, ‘This isn’t happening.’

And it is surreal how the movie (getting a little metaphysical here) unfolds, still a suspense thriller but pushing some unexpected questions from the characters and ideas for the audience to think about.  And it keeps going, with a horror-weird-society-cult-story layered with thought-provoking ideas like people’s preconceptions of what it is to live completely free from modern society being used to twist the story into another direction, so you follow the film into unforeseen places.

I really enjoy a film that starts as one type of movie to then open up and take the audience somewhere else.

What I thought was going to be a teen slasher move turned into so much more – but still with good jumps and hands-in-front-of-the-face action; not so confronting I couldn’t watch.  But enough to get the heart pumping, to keep watching to see where the film took me next.

Interesting stuff.  And entertaining.

Hope I haven’t given too much away because it’s such a pleasure to be surprised by a film and, Wrong Turn went places unexpected – worth a watch.

High Ground

Rated: MA15+High Ground

Directed by: Stephen Maxwell Johnson

Written by: Chris Anastassiades

Produced by: David Jowsey, Maggie Miles, Witiyana Marika, Greer Simpkin, Stephen Maxwell Johnson

Starring: Jacob Junior Nayinggul, Simon Baker, Callan Mulvey, Jack Thompson, Witiyana Marika, Aaron Pedersen, Caren Pistorious, Esmerelda Marimowa, Ryan Corr, Sean Mununggurr.

When you’ve got the high ground, you control everything

“Be quiet!” someone cussed at the other critics, chatting in the audience.

And then the film began, in complete silence.

Only the sound of birds twittering.  And screeching.

High Ground is a revenge film set in the early 1900s.  The days of the early settlers in Australia, when the indigenous population killing a cow could lead to massacre in retribution.

When a young boy, Gutjuk (Jacob Junior Nayinggul) witnesses his family killed by white settlers, Travis (Simon Baker), the army officer leading the team, takes Gutjuk in his arms, disowning the behaviour of his countrymen.

He leaves his army days behind.

Fast forward twelve years and we see the Wild Mob burning up settlements and causing mayhem.

Mayhem led by Baywara.

Gutjuk’s uncle taking revenge.

There’s more here than a little boy seeing his family killed.

There’s the complicated nature of finding the balance between the people already living on the land and those wanting to own the land; those who take and those who want to listen.

The complex nature of settlement is embodied in the character Travis.  A white man scarred by the slaughter of innocents by his countrymen.  He disowns the status quo but is unable to get away from his past.

There’s taking revenge to be someone, where standing in anger is better than feeling the pain of being treated like nothing.

Then there’s Gutjuk, re-named Tommy.  The little boy taken to live in a white settlement.  Loved.  But never forgetting his roots.

The conflict is intense but the film is quiet, inviting the audience to listen.  Really listen.  Making High Ground a tense film built on the sound of the land.

I can’t recall a soundtrack at all.  Just the sound of birds and language, the somehow warm slither of a snake across rock like fingertips over velvet.  Like the animals provided another voice all set in the vast landscape of the Northern Territory: Arnhem Land.

The dialogue is simple.  Sparse.  Too sparse.  But that’s what allows the sound of the birds to speak.  So there’s an immersive brilliance to the film broken by confronting moments of violence.

I kept jumping.

But because of this quiet focus, some of the story felt glossed over.  So I was in this magical moment, then frowning when the narrative didn’t add to the relationships of the characters, the storyline somehow underdone.

What absolutely hit the mark was the performance from Jacob Junior Nayinggul – I believed every single word, his character Gutjuk, a highlight.

But more than anything it’s bringing the land into the story that makes this film unique.

I am Gutjuk, meaning hawk.

The totem of the hawk a constant presence, a forever watchful eye.  High above, everything.

Recommend watching this one on the big screen.

All Traditional Owners of the land on which HIGH GROUND was filmed gave their blessing for the film and provided unprecedented access to country. On request of the Jawoyn the Kakadu National Park management closed tourist access to one if its key attractions the stunning Gunlom Falls for the filming of key scenes. Many local Aboriginal people worked on the film in front of and behind the camera.

Full Statement by Galarrwuy Yunupingu ” HIGH GROUND is a both-ways film, First Nations and Balanda. It depicts a time of trouble in Australia; it honours our old heroes, reminds us of the past and the truth of our joint history in the country. I hope that this film can play an important role in Australia’s national conversation towards a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution so that all our children will walk in both-worlds, never forgetting the past.” Galarrwuy Yunupingu AM Gumatj Leader

White Lie

Directed and Written by: Yoah Lewis, Calvin ThomasWhite Lie

Produced by: Yonah Lewis, Calvin Thomas, Katie Nolan, Karen Harnisch, Lindsay Tapscott

Starring: Kacey Rohl, Amber Anderson, Martin Donovan and Connor Jessup.

TIFF-nominated

White lie is the story of a girl who fakes having cancer.  A story that sounds familiar, the unfortunate truth the basis of the film – see article: directors (Yoah Lewis, Calvin Thomas) on the real scams behind their film here.

I was bracing myself, wondering if I could be in the mood to watch, White Lies, but from the opening scene of Katherine (Kacey Rohl) with a ‘K’, shaving her head, I was absorbed.

Immediately we know something’s not right.

She’s on posters, she’s on the cover of a magazine, she’s the lead of a dance group.

People give her money.

People watch her and smile.

She’s the centre of attention.

Everything is going fine for Katherine, until she needs to produce her medical records.

I could not look away from the amazing performance of Kacey Rohl as the character Katherine lies to cover lies, to cover herself and see just how far this girl will go to keep her secret.

Does her girlfriend (Amber Anderson) know?  I wonder as pillow talk turns to articles and donations.

Does her father (Martin Donovan) know?

How far can she take it?

That’s what kept me watching.  Waiting to see the unravelling.  Wondering what would drive someone to lie about having cancer.  Wondering if that’s all it takes to fool people: a young, sad girl holding her nerve, allowing people to see what they want to see.

Not able to believe someone could lie but the suspicion once raised a trauma of seeing and not seeing.

Another story for the media.  Another Facebook Page.  Another sad story to believe and charity to donate to.

But rather than get bogged down in the sensationalism, the film directs a clinical eye to record the misdeeds of lie and cover-up, the seamless unfeeling fantasy underlined with the warped scratch of strings, the soundtrack the indication of a broken mind because watching Katherine, she seems fine.

But she’s not OK because she will never see the wrong in what she’s doing.

It’s like the audience is allowed a window to see the truth while those around her are thoroughly fooled.  So instead of an unsettling fear like I expected, the film became a fascination.

Instead of another warning about social media, White Lie is an absorbing psychological thriller.  A film simply told so the complication of an unsound mind becomes a watch that’s both subtle and revealing.

Penguin Bloom

Rated: PGPenguin Bloom
Directed by: Glendyn Ivin
Based on the book by: Cameron Bloom and Bradley Trevor Greive
Produced by: Naomi Watts, Emma Cooper, Bruni Papandrea, Steve Hutensky, Jody Matterson
Starring: Naomi Watts, Andrew Lincoln, Jackie Weaver, Griffin Murray-Johnston.

‘Mum’s not the person she once was and she’s not the person she wanted to be.’

When a railing on a rooftop lookout gives way under her weight during an idyllic family holiday in Thailand, Sam (Naomi Watts) plunges several storeys to the ground. Sam had been an ‘awesome’ mum, the type who would go surfing and skateboarding with her three boys and would be at the centre of all the fun until she finds herself wheelchair bound.

The film opens at first light with a soaring bird’s eye view of the cliff tops surrounding Sydney’s Northern Beaches. The ocean is calm and clear, and the location is stunning. It’s a year after Sam’s accident and she is failing to adjust to her new reality. It’s an adjustment that not everyone makes. When the boys fall ill it is their father (Andrew Lincoln) they call for; as a mother she can barely even make the boys a cut lunch for school. Sam has always loved the water, now she dreams that she is sinking to the bottom of the ocean trapped in her wheelchair and, to her horror, it doesn’t feel unpleasant.

It is not only Sam’s vertebrae that are broken, the family are barely managing either. In his room, Noah (Griffin Murray-Johnston) is secretly videotaping the fragments of his mother’s life that have survived after Sam momentarily gives in to her rage and pain and smashes all the photos of her former life hanging above the mantelpiece. Blaming himself for his mother’s accident, Noah cuts himself off.

On a trip to the beach with his brothers, Noah is wandering alone when he notices a large goanna. Following its eye line, he spies a magpie chick in deadly peril. The little black and white bundle of feathers had fallen from its nest high in the treetops and, while it had survived the fall, it had lost its mother and is about to become supper for a hungry reptile.

Noah carries the tiny orphan home, but it cries out pretty raucously whenever it is left alone and it isn’t interested in eating. Even when Penguin settles into the household, the bird is reluctant to fly. Noah muses that maybe Penguin isn’t able to fly because she is motherless: ‘I read that baby birds dream of their mother’s soul and that’s how they learn to sing.’

Penguin’s predicament is, in many ways, a parallel to Sam’s. Neither one was what they might have been before their fall but they will both become, ‘Much more than that’.

Penguin Bloom is a quietly poetic and uplifting film. One that asks those questions for which there are no answers, but need to be asked regardless. Every year 20 million people visit Thailand, and that railing could have collapsed at any time on any one of them, yet it collapsed exactly when it did.

By the way, if you like to walk out as soon as the credits roll you’ll be missing out on a treat this time.

Music

Rated: MMusic

Directed by: Sia

Screenplay by: Sia, Dallas Clayton

Produced by: Vince Landay, Sia

Starring: Kate Hudson, Leslie Odom Jr, Maddie Ziegler.

Music opens onto an eye-poppingly bright yellow stage set, where a carefree girl in headphones twirls to the rhythms of African inspired music. When that scene cuts to the bedroom of the sleeping girl as she begins to awaken, the musical sequence resolves into a window onto the vivid dreams of an autistic girl who can only manage to shamble around in her waking life.

Music is the story of two sisters, Zu (Kate Hudson) and Music (Maddie Ziegler) Zu’s kid sister, each unable to take care of themselves. Zu, growing up with a ‘big’ Junkie for a mother, has followed in her parent’s footsteps, making a career for herself dealing drugs and abusing whatever substances she can scarf down. But Zu is failing badly in her profession, so when the film opens on her she is snoozing her way through a drug and alcohol diversion program. There are no flights into musical fantasy for her, just the cons she is trying to pull when she is awake.

Unlike Zu who has been eking out a life on the margins, the community has taken Music to its heart. Even though Music can barely speak, the news vendor collects clippings of dogs for her and her neighbours each in their own way all look out for her as she shuffles around the inner city streets. Until her beloved Grandmother is taken by a stroke, Music has been comfortably settled in a charmed world. But that is all about to change with Zu coming to take over her care.

Although Music is a heartwarming story and a surprise delivery in the final scene adds the perfect touch, the story takes a long while to take off. There is a fundamental conflict as to whether the film is a musical or a drama. This is particularly so in the early stages before we have had a chance to get know Music and engage with her. Although, the musical interludes have been designed to create a bridge between the mute and ungainly exterior of the girl and the lively person she is within, they slow the drama and for me they were overly long.

At the same time, there is a lot to like about this film and, ultimately, patience will be rewarded. The acting is outstanding, the drama beautifully crafted, the dialogue sparkling and the music sequences improve as they go on to reflect more conflicted inner realities.

Before it has even opened here, Music has sparked controversy with some arguing that the title role should have been played by someone genuinely affected by autism. The film clearly means a great deal to all involved in its production, including a surprise cameo by hard rocker and activist Henry Rollins. I wasn’t expecting that.

But, perhaps I should have been expecting the unexpected in such a quirky film where dealers have found a way to ply their drugs as an act of charity, so now, despite their past misdeeds, they are expecting to go to heaven or at least find their way to paradise.

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