The Zone of Interest (2023 | US-UK-Poland | 105 minutes | Jonathan Glazer)

With brightly exposed digital video, Jonathan Glazer trains a sterile, naturally lit, observational eye on the indifferent complicity of a German family living their dream life during the Second World War. An officer, his wife, and children enjoy a large house by a river with a beautiful yard and garden. It’s adjacent to a stream where the family enjoys afternoon swims and boat rides. The only catch, in terms of curb appeal, is that the property shares a wall and barbed wire fence with the concentration camp at Auschwitz where the husband oversees the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews, with an eye to mass efficiency.

As an audience we experience the camps only in the background, gunshots, constantly arriving trains, and the horrible fires and smoke at night. The family barely takes notice, hosting backyard parties and visitors. The boys marvel over the teeth of incinerated prisoners as casually as they play with toy soldiers. As the forceful matriarch, Sandra Hüller’s Hedwig enjoys the privileges of being a high-ranking officer’s wife, from the comfortable home to the stolen furs, jewelry, and a well-stocked pantry that come her way by way of her husband’s vile work. Hers is an utterly chilling performance at the center of this unmooring clinical dissection of a bourgeoise lifestyle enabled by administrative evil. Only the baby has sense enough to scream.

Strange Way of Life (2023 | USA | 31 minutes |  Pedro Almodóvar)

Pedro Almodovar directs in English for the first time in a slight but stylish Western. The theme, a gruff romantic reunion after decades apart gives Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke a well-appointed and intriguing canvas to flex their dramatic chops. Surrounded by models and costumed by Saint Laurent, the actors play out themes of duty and longing in the high desert. Like a good short story, it sketches a world and builds to a satisfying conclusion, leaving some details to the imagination. Feels a bit like something Almodóvar dreamed up on a fashion shoot, muy dramático!

Nyad (2023 | USA | 121 minutes | Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin)

Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s adventure filmmaking has honed their ability to endear audiences to prickly characters and to make historical certainties somehow still feel breathtaking. As with Free Solo and the Rescue, we might know the result of an athlete’s audacious quest in advance of watching one of their movies, but it doesn’t make the action any less captivating. So, it is unsurprising that in their narrative feature debut they’re able to bring thrilling life to the true story of Diana Nyad’s lifelong pursuit to complete a seemingly-impossible unassisted open-water swim from Cuba to Key West.

In the title role, Annette Bening is a force, embodying the relentlessness, determination, and physical toll of returning to a chase a dream that she wasn’t able to achieve at the peak of her fitness three decades prior. Bening’s physical commitment to the grueling performance is astonishing. Because she spends so much time in the water, like Nyad’s tremendous feat, the success of the film requires a team effort. Rhys Ifans gives quietly moving support as a salty navigator and Jodie Foster’s portrayal of Nyad’s best friend and weary coach Bonnie Stoll becomes the film’s beating heart. It’s a complete crowd-pleaser that had a teary eyed audience cheering along by the end.