Review: “Hamnet”

Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet opens with a quote from a 2004 article by Stephen Greenblatt titled “The Death of Hamnet and the Making of Hamlet”: “Hamnet and Hamlet are in fact the same name, entirely interchangeable in Stratford records in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.” It’s a plain, matter-of-fact statement, not the sort of […]

Review: “Wicked: For Good”

When I reviewed Jon M. Chu’s big-screen adaptation of the first half of the hit Broadway musical Wicked around this same time last year, I was surprised to find that it had some merit— in its performances, and its translation, and its broadening of the source material— given my distaste for both the show and […]

Review: “Die My Love”

Die My Love opens on an unexpected scene of stillness: a static camera trained on the interior of a rural Montana home, quietly observing the two people maneuvering around inside it: Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) and her partner Jackson (Robert Pattinson), who inherited the dilapidated house from his uncle, who committed suicide there. Perhaps that doesn’t […]

Review: “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk”

Sepideh Farsi couldn’t enter Gaza. From Cairo, where she traveled in the hopes of crossing the Egypt/Palestine border to document the ongoing war in Gaza, an Israeli-imposed blockade obstructed all paths. But while speaking to Palestinian refugees in Cairo, Farsi met a man who suggested that she speak to Fatma (Fatem to those close to […]