You Hurt My Feelings is another Nicole Holofcener knockout. A witty look at the “little” white lies we tell those we love, and why. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is at the height of her powers here, landing every line with a biting blow, but the entire ensemble excels (Michaela Watkins is a wonder).
Judy Blume Forever is such an openhearted ode to the iconic author and all she’s given to girls by breaking every barrier imaginable and starting uncomfortable conversations about sexuality no one else would. A resonant tribute to the relationships she formed with readers.
Theater Camp is hilarious and heartfelt in equal measure, perfectly paced, and packed with laugh-a-minute gags and colorful characters (the kids are instant stars). Molly Gordon should run the world, Ayo Edebiri’s reactions are everything, and put Patti Harrison in more movies!!!
Eileen is a pure pulpy, psychosexual pleasure with a surplus of style - Ari Wegner’s chilly cinematography, Richard Reed Parry’s snazzy score - and a pair of provocative performances from Thomasin McKenzie and camp queen Anne Hathaway. Too twisty for some, not for me.
Cat Person is almost unbearably - yet authentically - uncomfortable, cycling through nearly all of the anxieties women have with dating in the digital age by placing us directly in the perspective of Emilia Jones’ Margot so we experience the movie in her mind. A scorcher.
Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields is insightful, inspiring, and infuriating simultaneously. An incisive analysis of not just the media’s sexualization of Brooke Shields, but of all young women, and how Shields reclaimed her agency and became the author of her life and an American icon.
Deep Rising takes an important and imperative issue - deep sea mining - and covers this conversation in the most plain and perfunctory manner possible. It sparks to life when Jason Momoa is narrating over vibrant visuals of our oceans, but dulls everywhere else.
Fairyland is a deeply felt look at fraught familial ties and a tender transportation back to 70s and 80s San Francisco, holding us all in its huge heart. It plays out predictably, but finds its power in the performances - a never-better Scoot McNairy and exceptional Emilia Jones.
Magazine Dreams is too long for the straightforward story it’s telling, especially one we’ve seen before (the Taxi Driver/Joker comparisons track), but Jonathan Majors is mesmerizing, playing a man on the margins who is simultaneously tragic and terrifying.
Fair Play is so slickly made, with one of the smartest and sharpest scripts of Sundance so far, offering a thrilling takedown of the fragility of male egos and career best performances from Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich. You rarely see this level of tonal precision in a debut.
Birth/Rebirth plays it a little too safe to fully deliver on the promise of its “modern female Frankenstein” premise, but Marin Ireland and Judy Reyes are absolute aces here, making for a peculiar but profusely entertaining pairing. Still wish it had some more energy though.