Week Ending 1/23/26

Between this and 20 Days in Mariupol, few are doing what director Mstyslav Chernov is as far as filming from the front lines of an ongoing war. I don't think 2000 Meters to Andriivka is as effective a documentary as that Oscar-winner, but I cannot deny its potency as a first-hand account of what has been lost due to Russia's act of aggression and the world's waning interest. Not just the lives and the cities, but the hope that Ukraine will survive at all.

Besides some expository drone shots from above and contextual footage of funerals and base camps, the majority of the film is captured by helmet cameras during firefights. Chernov embeds himself with Fedya Courier as he prepares to fly the blue and yellow upon reclaiming Andriivka in the nation's 2023 counter-offensive while other battalions gradually win back land from the Russians that have remained. 2000 meters away. 1000. 600. 300. Andriivka.

I wish the harrowing nature of its vérité style was enough to keep me engaged, but the violence constantly being fed to us this past decade has numbed me like so many others. The fact I was watching real people die on-camera wasn't enough to stop the onslaught from becoming monotonous. The point is, of course, to not see these men as numbers. To see their faces and understand their individuality, courage, and dreams. But it inevitably becomes a laundry list of the dead.

Even so, it's objectively important, will probably earn Chernov another Oscar (Note: it did not get nominated yesterday), and stands as a reminder of Putin's evil. Could it also reinvigorate public attention by revealing all this carnage was in service of securing a decimated village that has since been taken by Russia again? Maybe. I do, however, fear it's too late. If true, the film becomes even more important as evidence that Ukraine existed. That its people gave their lives for it. That small victories do matter.

7/10

It's always fun to think about the butterfly effect of certain projects—like how Arco never would have happened without creators Ugo Bienvenu and Félix de Givry meeting as actors on set for Mia Hansen-Løve's Eden. Neither could have known the journey they'd ultimately take to imagining a world where rainbows are the vapor trails of time travelers surfing on a rainstorm's refracted light, yet that's exactly where they wound up after a five-year production process.

It's a cute, inspiring, and often terrifying vision considering its 2075 setting depicting climate change's worst effects. Young Iris (Romy Fay) longs for something different in her life—a dreamer ready to leave the hardships of constant apocalyptic tragedies forcing everyone to secure their homes with a domed shield and the loneliness of an existence where her parents are always away at work in the city. She's often left fending for herself.

Enter Arco's (Juliano Valdi) similarly disgruntled child, desperate to travel through time and space like his parents and sister to experience the wonders of the past. So, he steals a rainbow cloak and diamond crystal without the necessary training to do anything but crash land in an unknown era. Thankfully, however, it's Iris who finds him, protects him, and believes his impossible story. Because getting him back home might just mean also escaping hers.

Bienvenu and de Givry glean bits from so many science fiction tales to create an exciting vision of the future. There are the holographic classrooms at Iris' school putting the students into the Jurassic period or onto a pirate ship. There are the nanny robots like Mikki who raise kids while their parents are away for weeks at a time—a gentle and loving steward programmed to speak in an echo of both Mom's (Natalie Portman) and Dad's (Mark Ruffalo) voices simultaneously.

My favorite part, though, is that this futuristic 2075 is actually the film's present with Arco's time being even further down the line despite feeling like our own. It's probably more like our past considering how volatile things are now. He gets to live with his family when they aren't adventuring. They don't have robots and thus remain responsible for their own chores. And, while they live in the clouds, their homes have gardens and fresh air with no threat of catastrophic weather.

A time travel plot like this also provides room for ambiguous crackpots (are they allies or foes?) who know something's amiss but can't prove it. The brothers serving this comic relief role being voiced by Will Ferrell, Andy Samberg, and Flea ensures the entertainment value stays high as their unavoidable buffoonery prevents us from fearing them as threats regardless of what gets revealed as their intent. Sometimes people just want to prove they aren't crazy to themselves.

And while the main messaging is about love (Mikki's trajectory is wonderfully fleshed out), patience, curiosity, and empathy for that which is unfamiliar (there's a lot of ET in Arco as far as working to get this stranger back to his family), there's also some intriguing cause and effect in how past and future interact. Some of it is in-film, but most of it comes via a wordless camera pan via epilogue that introduces some great chicken and egg dynamics.

The animation style is attractive, the environments intricately detailed, and the action energetic whether via car chase, survival run through fire, or escapes from an army of robot schoolteachers. I also really loved Arnaud Toulon's score—always present yet never overpowering. It's a crucial piece that augments the emotions carried by Fay and Valdi. The rest of the cast might prove a tad too star-studded, but those two kids deliver performances devoid of any false notes.

8/10

Helen (Claire Foy) isn't handling the sudden death of her father well. So, she decides to get a Goshawk. An unaffectionate pet is probably not the best choice to fill the void, but Helen isn't necessarily looking to replace the man who raised her as much as understand his absence. As she states during a catastrophic lecture, mankind has become adept at hiding from death. Raising Mabel and accompanying her hunts are thus a way to remind her that death is essential.

Adapted from Helen MacDonald's memoir, H Is for Hawk takes a winding road to that crucial piece of insight without really using it to reveal any grand epiphanies beyond the reality that people get depressed when loved ones die and often cope in eccentric ways. Helen also falls prey to common ones (neglecting her career, wellbeing, and sanity), so the film is as much about her living vicariously through the hawk as her friends and family trying to coax her from the malaise.

Foy is great in the lead role and the footage of Mabel on the hunt is invigorating. The flashbacks to Brendan Gleeson as her late father are heartbreaking in the fact that the memories are always so delightful and it's never not funny to see people's fascination and fear when confronted by the hawk in public. The whole ultimately comes down to wishing we had hoods to blind our senses from reality like Mabel, but our brains sadly don't grant the same luxury.

6/10

It's a story best experienced blind because the flashes of fate intervening in Lightning (Hugh Jackman) and Thunder's (Kate Hudson) lives—for better and worse—are pretty much always so unbelievable that they must be true. From the phone call to that sharp corner. From the Badger Trolley Bus to sold out theaters. From Alcoholics Anonymous to a psychiatric stay. These soulmates went on a journey together through love, music, and tragedy.

Based on Greg Kohs' 2008 documentary of the same name, Song Sung Blue's subjects are the perfect mix of second chance American Dreamers and soulfully genuine underdogs who own their flaws, fight to be better, and try to always put family first. It's difficult not to see its underlying themes and recognize that it's not an accident writer/director Craig Brewer came aboard. It's truly the perfect double feature marquee pairing for his breakout hit Hustle & Flow.

Jackman is great and Hudson shines to earn that Oscar nomination. It's probably her best work and their chemistry drives the drama forward with both heavy emotion and jubilant celebration. Brewer collects an entertaining supporting cast too from Michael Imperioli to Mustafa Shakir and Fisher Stevens to Jim Belushi. The real star, though, is Ella Anderson as the proud yet worried daughter who proves to be the only one positioned to understand how it all must end.

7/10