​Movie Review: The Christophers (Steven Soderbergh, 2025)

Steven Soderbergh returns to London after his recent spy caper Black Bag, although here the city recedes into the background, the scope being much more personal. Whereas Black Bag reveled in its Guy Ritchie-adjacent high jinx, The Christophers is a more delicate, intimate proposition.

The film is held together by two very different, complementary performances. Ian McKellen is Julian Sklar, an aging artist who was lauded in his heyday, but who has darkened his name with misanthropic behaviour that became his trademark. Lori (Michaela Coel) is a younger art restorer currently employed at a food truck. 

Sklar is entering his final years, beset by ill health and bouncing around his crumbing townhouse. His two children (so one-dimensional that they could have been played by anyone, but are Baby Reindeer’s Jessica Gunning and, I’m so sorry to report, James Corden) have an eye on their inheritance, including some potentially valuable unfinished works from a series dedicated to Sklar senior’s old love: works collectively called The Christophers. 

The works have gained a near-mythical reputation in the art world. Sklar’s daughter - who formerly went to art school with Lori - concocts a scheme for Lori to become Julian’s new assistant. She would then have access to the unfinished paintings and could finish them herself for a cut of the inheritance. Lori tentatively agrees and is installed in the chaotic Sklar household. 

What follows is a touching two-hander; a talkative, play-like film that examines artistic life, what ownership of artworks or what ownership of ideas looks like, and the nature of family and the art world in general. 

McKellen is in his element, turning up the bitchiness and camp but with a script that is intelligent enough to dodge tackiness. Cole - who I have not seen since her incredible TV show I May Destroy You - is more nuanced and reserved. She moves with canny instincts through a moral quagmire, and the multiple twists in their relationship keep you engaged in the story. 
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The Christophers shows us that Soderbergh, even at this stage of his career, isn’t out of tricks or new directions. If he can still pull off pseudo-camp spy thrillers as well as deft character studies like this, then we can hopefully look forward to a solid couple of decades of unpredictable but loveable work. (PO)

The Christophers is showing at ​Prytania Theatres at Canal Place

​Movie review: The Drama (Kristoffer Borgli, 2026)

Just to be clear, right off the bat: I really liked Kristoffer Borgli’s previous English-language movie (Dream Scenario, starring Nicolas Cage), and I’ve enjoyed performances by Zendaya (Challengers, Dune) and Robert Pattinson (Good Time, The Lighthouse). I’ve also loved and rewatched various recent films in the ‘high-stress caper’ genre, such as Uncut Gems, and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (plus the aforementioned Good Time).  

I was, therefore, algorithmically inclined to like The Drama, with director, cast and genre all right up my alley. Perhaps this was the problem. The movie I watched right before The Drama was Die My Love (2025, Lynne Ramsay), yet another tense ride, as R-Patt and Jennifer Lawrence navigate rural isolation and marital discord to sometimes violent ends. It’s raw and visceral, and it stayed with me. 

I hate to say it, but personally, The Drama felt tame in comparison. It has some engaging framing devices: the meet-cute, with Zendaya’s Emma having deafness in one ear, and Charlie (Pattinson) being a bumbling academic, all good fun stuff. The inciting incident - a game of confession gone awry, alienating their best friends when a shocking revelation about Emma’s past is uncovered - makes for an interesting set-up, on a par with everyone dreaming about Nick Cage’s character in Dream Scenario. 

The pieces are all there. The ticking time bomb of the wedding, the fresh doubts that sow unease in the relationship, the increasingly desperate measures that our protagonists take to iron things out before the big day…it should have been a dramatic home run for me. But I just didn’t click with this film. 

I think part of it is that the lead characters - to me, at least - get less likeable as the plot progresses. They manipulate their best man and maid of honor (Mamoudou Athie and Alana Haim respectively, both doing solid jobs as support), lie to each other, and are generally unsympathetic. I tried to relate, to the circumstances of Emma’s former life, to the betrayal that Charlie must have been feeling, but I just couldn’t muster anything. 

I don’t feel like Borgli delved deep enough into what should be the abyssal ethical mire of Emma’s past. We kind of skip along the surface of it, with comedic (sometimes slapstick) reactions, from its introduction, to how it affects Charlie’s feelings (shown by his constant rewriting of his wedding speech). But it all felt a bit lighthearted, in the vain of Bridget Jones’ Diary or similar romcom fare. 
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Our increasingly-unhinged couple don’t reveal any hidden depths as chaos ensues, and the characters felt one dimensional to me. There’s some rich, dark comedy in the positions that they put their friends in, and I loved Haim’s snark and Athie’s exasperation. I wish they’d both been on screen more, as Charlie and Emma continue apace with their self-absorbed wedding prep, becoming more judgmental and unforgiving as they careen towards the big day.

To me, this felt like a Safdie Brothers-style romp, but designed by committee. The script hits a fair amount of the right notes, but it feels like it’s done so too knowingly. I felt this from the purposely-disorienting editing, to the now-well-used trope of a single-note score that is used like an aural second hand to create suspense. 

Maybe a rewatch that’s NOT after a more extreme version of the same general premise would mean I could enjoy it more, but for me - and again, I love the idea of this movie on paper - I would have been happy to see these two just walk away from each other long before the nuptials. (PO)

The Drama is playing in movie theaters across the city

Heist and diced: Crime 101 (Bart Layton, 2026)
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Heist movies are so trope-laden these days that it’s become something of a weary format. Seven years ago, since when any number of such movies have darkened our screens, the TV cartoon Rick and Morty savagely lampooned the limping genre. “The only perfect heist is one that was never written,” is one relatable summary of the episode. 

In the year of Our Lord 2026, Director Bart Layton is in for one last job, though. Well, a job, anyway. Pleasingly, Layton takes the DNA of such capers and adapts this LA thriller (from a novella by Don Winslow) with originality enough to avoid cliche. It also helps that his assembled cast has the charisma to avoid a slide into mediocrity. 

Mike (Chris Hemsworth) is a lone conman/thief, working for a craggy old cove, and his mentor, known as Money (Nick Nolte). Disheveled, divorce-strewn, Detective Lou Lubesnick (Mark Ruffalo), the only LAPD cop with any integrity, takes note of his jewellery store robbery patterns, and starts investigating in his puppy-dog, Columbo-esque style.

Meanwhile, Mike is having doubts after a botched job and is replaced for a big diamond score by Money with an unpredictable, motorcycle-riding maniac Ormon (Barry Keoghan). Mike has also met a woman (Monica Barbaro) that he can only romance by faking normalcy. This situation is strained by his new plan: persuade put-upon insurance agent Sharon (Halle Berry) to give him inside info about a high-worth individual that he can rob, take the money, win the girl and become daddy’s, sorry Money’s, special boy again. 

The less we reveal about the twists and turns, the better. The plot is pacey enough, replete with equal parts action, emotion and an engaging rivalry (unheated) that pitches Mike’s tempered control against Ormon’s feral lunacy. Listen, any expansion on the ‘Barry Keoghan playing a weird little freak’ universe is alright by me. 

I might have misread things, but I thought that Mike was heavily autism-coded for the first hour (straightening cutlery, multiple mentions of his lack of eye contact, etc), but that element seemed to be weirdly dropped. Not that important, I just felt a slight shift in his character that added to the more uneven aspects of the plot. 

Ruffalo and Berry especially have great chemistry, and their half of the story was more engaging to me as they wade through the mire of low pay and abusive disrespect from their bosses. Crime 101 felt to me like a Michael Mann film, but directed by Steven Soderberg (can we call it a Steven Fauxderberg? Probably not, right?). It’s slick, but with a heart. OK, OK, FINE, Bart Layton. I’m in. But this is the last time. (PO)

Crime 101 is playing at cinemas across the city.

The Sudbury Devil 
(2023, Directed by Andrew Rakich​)

New Orleans local Andrew Rakich's debut feature premiered in 2023. Melding folk and historical horror, it’s an evocatively harsh, unfiltered experience that sits with you like a jolting mug of rotgut wine. I mean this as a compliment. There’s a cinematic earthiness to this story, marinated as it is in a steaming rural mire that almost wafts off the screen, stewing viewers in the ongoing discomfort. 

A fully-realised feature film (and a convincing period drama at that) from New Orleans talent is always an exciting feat, the production levels and practical effects here even more impressive once you consider the challenges of creating a film that looks this good on a $25k budget. The production admirably operated as a cooperative project, cast and crew working for profit share rather than upfront pay. Rakich cannily harnesses any aesthetic roughness, folding it into a vivid fever dream. 

Set in 1678 Massachusetts, it’s two years after King Philip's War left the colonies soaked in trauma and indigenous blood. The story follows Puritan witch hunters Fletcher (Benton Guinness) and Cutting (Josh Popa), who arrive to investigate the woods outside the village of Sudbury. Together with their guide, Goodenow (Matthew van Gessel), they soon encounter chaotic spiritual forces that are hostile to their pious, righteous certainty.

Directorial references might include Robert Eggers, Ben Wheatley or even Peter Strickland. Rakich dives into a visceral experience, grabbing you by the collar and rubbing your face in the rotting undergrowth. The period detail is thorough, and even the Early Modern English vernacular is rendered with linguistic integrity.

I especially admired the cinematography when it adhered to a distancing, objective discipline; when it’s at its most Protestant, if you will. Some of the still shots of interiors and the woods put me in mind of the uneasy aesthetic calm of Paul Shrader’s masterful First Reformed. Even the ever-looming 4:3 aspect ratio seems fittingly Calvinistic.

The reassurance of simple religious tradition is thrown into disarray by mysterious, ethereal landowner’s wife Patience Gavett (Linnea Gregg), and the primordial presence of former slave Flora (Kendra Unique). These women channel magical powers and a feral sexuality that torments the investigators even as it hints at a more sinister, larger evil. 

Rakich puts up the ritualistic violence of devil worship against the bloody genocide of so-called Christian colonizing and asks…are they so morally different, actually? Empires are built on curses, and we shouldn't show surprise at the devils that are summoned. (PO)

WATCH The Sudbury Devil online
MORE: Louisiana Movies: The Apostle (1997, dir Robert Duvall) 
More movie reviews

Movie review: Marty Supreme

Many are saying that the recent cult movie ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You’ should be renamed ‘MomCut Gems’ (I personally prefer ‘Uncut Gams’). Using that formula, Marty Supreme could be…(cough) ‘Top-spunCut Gems’? (a friend told me that’s a long walk, I don’t disagree). 

Riffing on the true story of a world-class table tennis player from Brooklyn (Marty ‘The Needle’ Reisman) trying to topple his Japanese nemesis, director Josh Safdie channels the pressure-cooker atmosphere that he and his brother Benny have made their signature vibe (see Good Time, Uncut Gems). You don't go to a Safdie film expecting restraint, and I don’t think it’s spoiling too much to say that you certainly don't find it here.

The story concerns the orbit of 1950s ping-pong (don’t call it that) miracle Marty Mauser, who personifies the hunger, drive, and specific energy of post-war American ambition. Timothée Chalamet attacks the title role with no little commitment. Every aspect of his life - all in some way geared towards world fame and fortune - is coated in hi-octane sweat, sometimes near-genius precision, and occasionally reckless abandon.
 
Marty is a hustler, the kind that denizens of Noo Yawk Cit-eh think that they have a monopoly on. He’s taking money from rubes at casual table tennis games with his associate Wally (Tyler the Creator), he’s having an affair with married childhood sweetheart Rachel (Odessa A’zion), he’s designing his own orange table tennis ball, he’s stealing money to travel to tournaments. 

It’s already a lot of plates to keep spinning, and throw in an erotic obsession with a fading movie star (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) and falling into the bad books of a local gangster (indie directing legend Abel Ferrara in a rare acting role) and you’ve got the kind of excessive, disorienting, occasionally exhausting caper that Safdie obviously relishes. 

The actual table tennis games are impressively choreographed and feasibly dramatic, but they’re almost sections of relief, given the frothing mess of everything around them. Adversarial investors, fraying family bonds and friendships, and an absolute casserole of a love life all build to a suitably chaotic climax, and some of the explosive set pieces - the hotel bathtub scene being one - are instantly memorable. 

If you found Uncut Gems (or Uncut Gams for that matter) somewhat on the anxiety-inducing side, then it’s likely not going to be a relaxing time at the cinema for you. If, however, you love a grifting-on-the-hoof, relentlessly intense, house of cards-style calamity that somehow keeps delivering hope, then let Marty Supreme paddle you into a good time (PO). 

Marty Supreme is showing in cinemas across the city.

Movie Review: Frankenstein

Legacy horror has enjoyed some big recent releases, what with Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu last year, and now Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of Frankenstein (a 35mm print is currently showing at Prytania Uptown). 

Before prodding the creation further, I’ll just note that I had a uniquely New Orleanian issue watching the opening. Last month, I saw NOLA Project’s excellent stage adaptation and so for the first 20 minutes, I was half distracted recalling the play’s hilarity as the otherwise-serious scenes played out. I laughed at the actual movie, too, but we'll get to that. 

Like the play, this sumptuous-looking film is faithful to Mary Shelley’s 19th century novel. Captain Anderson (Lars Mikkelsen) and his crew are stuck in the Arctic ice when they find a dying Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac). As they drag him onboard, they are attacked by a monstrous creature, really the last thing you need when you’re trying to evade advanced hypothermia. They temporarily repel the monster, cueing up Victor’s life story flashback. 

Victor's mother dies in childbirth, creating his lifelong conviction that death is negotiable. As he rises through the medical ranks, the establishment thinks he's lost the plot. Enter Christoph Waltz as arms dealer Harlander, along with his niece Elizabeth (Mia Goth) and her fiance, Victor's brother William (Felix Kammerer). Harlander backs Victor’s reanimation projects, and Victor juggles falling in love with Elizabeth with gathering battlefield corpses for his greatest achievement yet. 

One face-off with Harlander and a huge bolt of lightning later, and Victor’s hard work pays off. He awakes to find the creature (Jacob Elordi) watching over him, a meek and childlike giant, more baby giraffe than brute. Frankenstein becomes increasingly frustrated and cruel. Emotions run high, Victor’s love is unrequited and Elizabeth starts to feel affection for his tragic creation. Victor manically tries to destroy his lab and the creature, losing his leg in the explosion. 

Back on the ship, the creature has reappeared, and has violently boarded in search of Victor. It’s here that one of the clunkier plot devices kicks in, as Elordi also sets up a flashback. Granted, Del Toro has described the movie as an “emotional Mexican melodrama” but this, “Now let me tell you MY side of the story” and multiple people telling Victor that he’s the real monster both had me rolling my eyes and smirking cynically. Perhaps that was the point. 

Elordi instills an impressive emotional life into the creature, ricocheting between violence and tenderness as he becomes more articulate. He flees into the woods, is educated by a blind hermit, and returns to find Victor on the day of Elisabeth’s wedding. Now aware that he will spend eternity alone, the creature wants a companion, but Victor refuses. Pandemonium ensues, and the hunting of the creature begins, leading them both into the Arctic. 

Del Toro is a masterful world builder and the aesthetic flourishes, together with a tone that verges on camp without committing to it, make for an entertaining ride. The sets are perhaps less fantastical than Lanthimos created for Poor Things (essentially his Frankenstein), and aren’t as cartoonish as a Tim Burton joint. It’s a striking, visually dramatic work, though, and Alexandre Desplat’s excellent score only occasionally conjures up Danny Eflman. If you like your horror with a healthy amount of melodrama running through its DNA, then Frankenstein is well worth firing up (PO).

Frankenstein is currently streaming, and showing at the Prytania Uptown 

Review: ​One Battle After Another
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Fans of director Paul Thomas Anderson sometimes identify his filmography as being in drug-fuelled phases. There’s the ‘cocaine’ phase of Boogie Nights and Magnolia, with cameras whipping and zooming. Then the ‘weed’ phase of the more stationary There Will be Blood, The Phantom Thread and the nostalgic Licorice Pizza. With his latest, One Battle After Another, the weed is getting stronger and the paranoia is setting in. 

We open with a revolutionary group called the French 75 running riot as they free immigrants from federal facilities and blow up politicians’ offices. "Ghetto" Pat Calhoun (Leonardo di Caprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) lead the charge, the latter humiliating a military man, Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn). Lockjaw is depicted as being physically tense with bigotry, but develops a sexual obsession with Perfidia. He catches her planting explosives, offering her freedom for one night of motel sex. 

Peffidia gives birth to a baby girl, but abandons Pat and her new family. She remains active, getting caught again, eventually ratting out the French 75 and going into witness protection. Gang members are slain, the rest go into hiding, and Perfidia disappears. 

Cut to: 16 years later. Pat is now Bob Ferguson, a paranoid stoner and boozer. He’s bringing up daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti ) as best he can, and she’s independently learning self reliance and karate skills. It’s in the blood, after all. Also in her blood could be DNA from Lockjaw, though. He’s attempting to join an ultra-racist sect - The Christmas Adventurers Club - and an ‘impure’ bloodline just won’t do. 

What follows is two hours of tense mayhem, as Pat/Bob and Willa are forced into increasingly pressurised situations in light of Lockjaw’s personal mission, as well as general federal interest. Bob’s a little rusty, preferring to watch ‘The Battle of Algiers’ over activism. The weed has fried his brain, too, so he can’t remember old emergency code words to use with the underground resistance network or evade capture as nimbly as he used to. 

It’s a dynamic mix of humor (Bob running around like The Dude from The Big Lebowski, if The Dude had trained with the Bader-Mienhoff gang) and tension. Help comes in the form of Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro), Willa's Karate teacher who is running “A Latino Harriet Tubman situation”. We get manic car chases, brutal violence and multiple reckonings. 

Based on Thoma Pynchon’s book ‘Vineland’, it’s half Coen Brothers-style romp and half ‘How to Blow Up a Pipeline’ resistance flick. At almost three hours, we’re afforded time to develop character, but a good majority of the movie is action. Old revolutionary flames are reignited, but it’s all about whether Pat/Bob can keep the flame alive. (PO)

The New Orleans Film Society (NOFS)has announced its Closing Night, Centerpiece and additional Spotlight Films for the 36th annual New Orleans Film Festival (NOFF), taking place in-person October 23-27 and virtually October 23-November 2 through the NOFF Virtual Cinema (available globally). All Access Passes, Six Film Passes, Student/Teacher Passes and Virtual Passes are now available for purchase, with Individual tickets on sale to NOFS members October 9 (12 PM CST) and general public on October 16 (12 PM CST). To view the complete NOFF film guide, visit neworleansfilmsociety.org/lineup-events.  

• NOFF’s Closing Night Film, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (dir. Rian Johnson, prod. Rian Johnson, Ram Bergman, Katie McNeill), is the third installment of the Oscar-nominated Knives Out film series starring Daniel Craig as world-renowned detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), returning for his most dangerous case yet. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last week. 
• The festival’s Centerpiece Film is Jay Kelly, the latest from acclaimed director Noah Baumbach. Fresh off premieres at the Venice and Telluride Film Festivals, where it drew ecstatic acclaim, the film stars George Clooney in a career-defining turn as legendary movie star Jay Kelly who is joined by his loyal manager Ron (Adam Sandler) as he embarks on an unexpectedly profound journey across Europe that blurs the line between public persona and private truth.
• Other high-profile Spotlight Films announced include Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On?, which follows Alex (Will Arnett), who seeks new purpose in the New York comedy scene as he navigates a divorce from wife Tess (Laura Dern); Hedda from director Nia DaCosta and starring Tessa Thompson in the titular role; and HIKARI’s Rental Family, starring recent Oscar winner Brendan Fraser. 
• The festival also unveiled 16 features and shorts that will screen out of competition in a Special Presentations section, representing festival favorites, notable new voices and films with deep connections to the city. Highlights include: World premiere of Shelby (dir. Daniel Fiore), which follows one Louisiana man’s adventures underwater logging and treasure hunting; North American premiere of In Hell With Ivo (dir. Kristina Nikolova), a profile of provocative Bulgarian queer artist and songwriter Ivo Dimchev; Lovers (dir. Taylor McFadden), executive produced by Nathaniel Rateliff, follows two women who return to their hometown for the funeral of a friend and includes New Orleans–based musician Sabina McCalla in a supporting role. *Special performance by Rateliff at screening.

READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH NOFF ARTISTSIC DIRECTOR CLINT BOWIE