Bugonia

They say there’s no arguing with crazy, but that doesn’t stop Emma Stone’s kidnapped CEO from skillfully deploying every technique of corporate communication in her toolbox when faced with the tremendous fanaticism of Jesse Plemmons as her captor. Together they reveal the deeply damaged nature of an absurd response to our insane reality.

Ari Aster’s a co-producer and this plays on similar post-pandemic themes as his own Eddington of a world shattered into factions by true believers doing far too much of their own research, but Lanthimos’s spin was far more aligned with my wavelengths.

The relative crowd-pleasing mode of idiosyncratic wonder and fisheye lensing of Poor Things (and even The Favorite) has been left on the shelf. Reuniting with regular creative partner Emma Stone and Kinds of Kindness star Jesse Plammons, Yorgos Lanthimos reimagines South Korean sci-fi Save the Green Planet! with a pitch-black comedy of misplaced convictions written by Will Tracy (Succession, The Menu, The Regime). For my money there’s no one quite like Yorgos Lanthimos and his dependable troupe of regulars to dig into the pitch black dark humor of our present horrors and the perils of chasing ones beliefs down dangerous rabbit holes.

Certain that they can avert the Earth’s impending destruction, a pair of cousins kidnap a local pharmaceutical executive and hold her hostage. The most clever part is that even without the interplanetary suspicion, the depiction of their lives mindsets shows that they might as well be from different worlds. Theirs, a dilapidated rural cottage, living room calisthenics, black market off-label medications, and biking to thrift store. Hers in a sleek architectural marvel, a personal trainer, gliding to work on spike Louboutin heels to record diversity training videos.

As their caustic standoff escalates from violent kidnapping to captivity in a dingy basement, tools of corporate communication run into a wall of unshakeable convictions. It’s not easy to like either of these people (newcomer, non-professional neurodivergent actor Aidan Delbis, an exception), but the film succeeds in being both provocative and thoughtful. Building suspense, introducing doubt, yet refusing to play coy, it carefully exposes layers of tragedy on its way toward a stunning reveal of the truth of the imagined threats.

Hamnet

If I know one thing for sure it’s that when Paul Mescal rolls into Telluride, I’m going to leave the theater stabbed in the guts in the absolutely best way. His turn, here as William Shakespeare in the film adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel continues that trend. On this mystical wooded stage far from London, the great playwright is but a supporting player in this tragic imagining of an exceptional woman and the growing family who inspired his greatest works.

We’ve perhaps become too cavalier in tossing around the word “shattering”, but there is simply no other word for the physical effect of Jessie Buckley’s theater-piercing wail of despair or Paul Mescal’s transmutation of unceasing waves of grief in the wake of a death of a beloved boy. With extraordinary dexterity, Chloe Zhao divines the alchemical power of art to stretch across an unknowable gulf, hinting at something tremulous and meaningful on the other side of impossible sadness.

Pillion

Who could have possibly guessed that the squirmiest elements of watching a meek all-grown-up Dudley Dursley (Harry Melling) inadvertently stumble his way into a submissive arrangement with a godlike motorcycle dom played by Alexander Skarsgård (styled alternately like a superhero biker and a hot daddy) — would be the amount of holiday barbershop quartet singing?

Both are canonically Christmas Movies, but this sweet-natured BDSM coming-of-age story of self discovery isn’t your mother’s Babygirl. And by this I mean it’s surprisingly cute, but not nearly as daring in its investigation of sexual dynamics. This is an admittedly odd thing to say about a movie that features back alley blowjobs and a summer camping smorgasbord unlike any you’ve ever seen outside of adult websites, let alone in any other rom-com.

Melling’s transformation from awkward to confident submissive under the withholding tutelage of Skarsgård’s leather bootheels makes for a potent and unlikely journey of discovery. Harry Lighton directs it in a way that it is both transgressive in its depictions of kink yet relatively gentle in its worldview of the people who participate. Taken together, this frank juxtaposition combines into some kind of miracle that delivers a surprisingly warm and fuzzy depiction of dominance and submission that’s incredibly suitable to a general audience.