Week Ending 6/27/25

(streaming on Peacock)

Fast-forward to the end, just after Herb McGwyer (Tom Basden) finally sets sail back to civilization, and we hear his host, Charles Heath (Tim Key), talking himself in circles about lunch before remembering he still hasn't eaten breakfast. It's a small moment of levity, but also perhaps the most important moment of the film for truly understanding this character who's been physically unable to shut-up despite being told to countless times. More than even an earlier tennis scene (where he's all serves), it reveals how isolated Charles has been these past five years. It isn't therefore nerves or ego, but a necessity since entertaining guests is so anomalous. His unceasing loquaciousness is a defense mechanism combatting an otherwise unbearable silence.

And since he cannot talk twenty-four seven without risking losing his voice, Charles permanently fills his house with the songs of McGwyer Mortimer (Herb's early folk duo with Carey Mulligan's Nell Mortimer). Not because they're his favorite band, but because they were the favorite of his late wife Marie. Those records serve a dual purpose then: filling the air with sound and conjuring his love. It's why he's decided to hire both musicians for a very intimate performance on the remote island where he lives for the anniversary of her death. What better way to honor her memory and feel her presence than with the music that quite literally personifies her essence within his heart? In hindsight, however, Charles probably should have let them know that was the reason too.

Written by Basden and Key and directed by James Griffiths (adapted from the trio's own 2007 short film), The Ballad of Wallis Island is quite astute at never letting the audience equate Charles' small-time bumpkin flavor with a lack of intelligence. He knows that reason would surely help his cause getting them out to the middle of nowhere, but he also knows they haven't spoken to each other in a decade. So, money becomes the key factor. Money and a select few white lies. Because, while Nell knows this is to be a "reunion" gig, Herb is under the impression that he will be playing his newer, more commercial work alone. Charles did this on purpose in hopes the old "ask forgiveness instead of permission" adage might grant a wish he knows full transparency never would.

As such, the entire script builds off their parallel ideas of what's happening. Charles doing everything in his power to remind Herb that his music was never better than when he collaborated with Nell and Herb fooling himself into believing the obvious artistic rejuvenation he feels while rehearsing with Nell is actually a rekindling of their love. Many interactions that follow are thus predicated on this disparity between truths. Yes, Charles' viewpoint is based in reality while Herb's is not (Nell is married and her husband, Akemnji Ndifornyen's Michael, is also in attendance), but it's also not a perfect truth considering Charles is, wittingly or not, exploiting that fantasy for selfish gains. The hope is that level heads prevail, but art and love are often too messy for that.

Credit the filmmakers for understanding this fact because they refuse to cut corners or soften edges. Both Charles' and Herb's actions (altruistic or not) are damaging in their ultimate penchant for greed and consequences must be introduced as a result. These men must be forced to see the error of their way, not to teach the other a lesson, but to realize where they went wrong themselves. That the music should never be solely about money or that great songs written about love mustn't only be about lasting love rather than heartbreak. That refusing to move on from the past is just as unhealthy as hiding it away with a lock and key because both ensure that the present will always be held prisoner by that past. This film isn't about holding on. It's about letting go.

It's also about moving forward with fresh eyes. Nudging Charles towards the island's earnestly sheltered shopkeeper Amanda (Sian Clifford). Reminding Herb about the magic of creation he's lost beneath the demand for profit. These aren't easy lessons to take either. They demand the discomfort and pain of confronting who you've become to dismantle it and return to who you were and can be again. That the main players are complete polar opposites of each other in persona only adds to the entertainment value for us while helping to speed-up their need for self-reflection rather than external comparison. Because it's not about Charles being more like Herb and vice versa. It's about needing to become more like their best selves.

Key and Basden's rapport is wonderful. The comedic timing of their delivery and reactions is impeccable and every fit of rage that might arise from the dynamic is always intentionally pointing backwards rather than towards the other. The remote location only amplifies the laughs because Charles is just as oblivious to why something he does is weird as Herb is incredulous. They're as unlike each other as two people can be, but they both understand the power of art to unite them just the same. And that's where Mulligan enters as a bridge for Charles and door for Herb. She knows what was lost when she walked away from music, but also what she gained. Now it's their turn to do the same. To break nostalgia's hold and recognize that their lives haven't stopped. Rebirth remains possible.

9/10

(streaming on Watermelon+)

While some might use Mahmoud Khalil's participation in Kei Pritsker and Michael T Workman's documentary The Encampments as a means to simply vilify Donald Trump and his MAGA administration for their unlawful detention and potential deportation of the Columbia University graduate student (thankfully reversed 104 days later), the events depicted in the film all happened on Joe Biden's watch. The events that specifically revolve around Columbia's campus all happened under democratic mayor Eric Adams' watch. If you still believed America operates as a two-party system, hopefully this will open your eyes.

Focusing mainly on Columbia considering it was the first site of Palestinian encampments and ultimately the first instance of city police being used to forcibly arrest protestors (with a few asides at the University of California and many video clips of some three hundred other campuses around the world that joined the movement), we are provided an on-the-ground look at the hypocrisy of what went on removed from the agenda-fueled filters of mainstream media on both sides of the aisle (it was surely an intentional move to ensure there were as many or more clips from CNN and MSNBC as Fox News) via testimonials from Khalil, Sueda Polat, Grant Miner, and Naye Idriss.

We hear about the closed-door negotiations with campus officials and the strong-arm attempts to trick students into signing away their rights to protest for empty promises their own language confirmed would never be binding. We watch numerous examples of Zionists spewing hateful rhetoric ("I hope they rape you.") towards protestors, leading us to wonder why so much footage of their hate exists and yet the world simply takes their word that more occurs on the other side without any proof. And we learn from an administrative whistleblower that the so-called "antisemitism" numbers being reported are mostly compiled from pro-Israelis' saying that hearing the word "Palestine" and being in the physical presence of Palestinians in class are themselves antisemitic acts.

That last one is crucial to this subject and why everything happening today under Trump's Christofascist regime is so scary. The problem with ethnostates like Israel is that genocidal leaders like Benjamin Netanyahu can blur the line between government and religion. They can weaponize the Zionist notion of a "Jewish state" as one that renders it so any anti-Zionist rhetoric must simultaneously also be considered antisemitic. It's an intentional conflation meant to house their violent actions inside a manufactured gray area for those who believe a persecuted people cannot themselves be persecutors. So, we line-up behind Ukraine when Russia invades for a land grab (with Columbia quickly divesting their Russian interests), but cheer on Israel once they do the same.

Trump and company love this contrast. They've been steadily working to mimic it ever since 2016 through a constant stream of xenophobic bile. "All Mexicans are rapists." "All Muslims are terrorists." Where they sought to ban countries from immigrating to America during his first term, they now seek to remove those who are already here regardless of their citizenship or immigration status. They have equated brown skin to "criminal" in such a way that republicans still favor the on-going ICE kidnappings despite 70% of those taken having no criminal record. It doesn't matter that the government threw the first stone. Any attempt to fight back becomes terrorism. The October 7th tragedy gave Israel a shield to act with impunity. Trump acts with impunity in hopes of inciting a shield of his own.

It's why the most damning piece within The Encampments comes from that whistleblower. The film does a great job of historically contextualizing the protests (drawing all the parallels to Vietnam that the organizers intentionally drew when escalating their plans) and the mix of live footage and interviews eloquently explains the motivations of this multi-racial and multi-religious (Zionists love to call Jewish people antisemites these days) community, but the look inside the conscious attempt to dehumanize Palestinians by Columbia itself makes the project invaluable. Delete all reference to "Palestine," but keep "Hamas" in. Listen to complaints from white students, but ignore everyone else. Do whatever you can to protect the money.

These truths must be called out. So much so that Watermelon Pictures rushed to get the film out in theaters just three days after its festival premiere and online as a flagship title for the studio's streaming platform debut a month later. Khalil was incarcerated without being charged with a crime and Miner was expelled just weeks beforehand. Giving them a voice was therefore crucial at a time when the establishment sought to silence them. Not that those two men, or anyone else involved, did this for themselves. No, they did it for the Palestinian people. And despite the battle still raging across the United States today without divestment, the number of people waking to the truth because of these actions has increased. The struggle for empathy over greed continues.

8/10

(limited release)

"It's a fantastic premise that provides Dickey a perfect showcase to remind audiences why she's such a sought-after commodity in Hollywood. How it all unfolds is sadly too often on-the-nose."

Full thoughts at The Film Stage from Fantasia 2024.

(streaming on Hulu)

The title is in the camerawork. From frame one, Steven Soderbergh's lens (credited as his usual cinematographer/operator pseudonym, Peter Andrews) floats around an empty house without the ability to leave its walls. Are we looking through the eyes of a ghost? If so, whose? That's the optimal question once Rebekah (Lucy Liu), Chris (Chris Sullivan), and their teen children Tyler (Eddy Maday) and Chloe (Callina Liang) move in. Because its purpose isn't to haunt. No, what initially seems like observation soon evolves into a desire to protect.

That's why Chloe—the first person to notice and interact with it—believes it's her friend Nadia's spirit followed her as a guardian angel. Dead as the result of an overdose, this tragedy has stuck with the entire family: half looking to move on (Rebekah and Tyler) while the other hopes to heal (Chris and Chloe). So, it makes sense they'd all be on-edge. That their anxieties place them in a weird headspace with which to try and conjure unexplainable answers to events that aren't even that out of the ordinary. Chloe doesn't want to be alone and now, whether true or not, she no longer is.

As David Koepp's Presence script progresses, however, the question of whether this voyeuristic camerawork is merely aesthetic stops holding water. Pointed looks into the lens can be disregarded as a trick of the mind, but floating books and falling shelves prove much harder to ignore. He and Soderbergh (who also directs) are therefore guiding us as we continue living with this house and its inhabitants. We go from fantasy to legitimacy and danger to support. From the ghost of a previous owner to the memory of a friend to an entity who may not even know its own identity once the concept of nonlinear time is introduced. Rather than someone who did die, this might be someone who will.

That revelation also holds ambiguity by arriving at a moment of narrative discovery that knows we'll presume an answer a specific that makes too much sense to keep trying to guess other possibilities. Koepp and Soderbergh's marriage of plot and visuals is shrewd in this way—always building towards a twist with so much evidence pointing one direction that we get distracted from the truth. Because the final reveal demands our surprise for full potency. Not because it isn't good enough to exist on its own, but because today's audiences find it difficult to just let go and allow the film to carry them forward devoid of expectations.

It helps that there's a lot of real-world drama going on with the family outside of this supernatural conceit too. We start seeing the cracks in their foundation and wonder if this ghost is perhaps a distraction of its own shielding us from the bottom falling out in different ways. Rebekah has been party to shady business dealings she fears she isn't as insulated from as she thought. Chris is struggling to keep his head above water as everyone retreats within themselves to adopt a crueler, more selfish façade. Tyler's rage has increased so acutely that even his new friend Ryan (West Mulholland) points out the mood swings. And Chloe might be gravitating too close to the spirit to pay attention to worse threats.

Everything we need is there, though. Enough that a second viewing would surely be rewarding on its own by us knowing the truth and watching through that lens. Like how one destructive fit delivered by the ghost wasn't about making a point to protect victims as much as it was to punish one specific perpetrator. Or how conversations about parents playing favorites or siblings attacking each other more than providing comfort take on different meaning in the sense that the spirit, like us, is listening, processing, and learning to prepare for what's yet to come. And by infusing the film with the concept of eternalism, we are freed from the knee-jerk desire to chicken-and-egg the result.

In many ways, Presence is constructed with the intention of reminding us about the escapism cinema offers removed from the myriad ways in which social media rewired how our brains consume media. By forcing us into the vantage point of the ghost, we're more likely to engage with the emotional and psychological toll these characters place on each other (the lead quartet are all great, but Sullivan truly astounds in this regard) instead of using them to "solve" the usual haunted house us-versus-them dynamic. We align with the ghost, imploring it to act how it ultimately acts, to become an integral part of the experience. We're wading through the chaos to do what's right and discover our identity by finally looking into that mirror, knowing our purpose had been achieved.

8/10

(premiered at Chattanooga Film Festival)

"It all adds up to an invigorating ride that supplies everything necessary for horror fans to latch onto at the surface and a captivating human story of imperfect souls doing their best to, ultimately, accept themselves underneath."

Full thoughts at jaredmobarak.com.