Clayface (2026)

While ostensively a comic book movie, Clayface is more Faust wrapped in a body-horror package. Matt Hagan, having everything unfairly taken from him, is given a horrific gift, and he is then poised with how to use it. He chooses and that choice leaves him alone but powerful. In many ways Clayface is about that choice and about its consequences. Clayface isn't afraid to go to some dark places, both visually and spiritually so strap in cause they pull no punches. 

The film's story is fairly "comic accurate" for being based on a character whose back story and abilities have changed so many times over the decades. But being an actor, having the ability to shape shirt, and choosing to use his abilities for his own gains all are a part of the story. Clayface packages all this in a modern and logical context which allows the questions the characters raises to be explored. And explore them it does. 

The film leans into the body-horror by not shying away from some gruesome moments. There will be times you want to look away and that's the point. There is a long tradition in literature of using exterior ugliness to reflect the interior ugliness. Clayface uses this trope to show how much Hagen changes through his anger and his growing power. And it does so through an enjoyable story which feels relatable. This is the best part of this script, the way it makes you understand why he does what he does but then makes us wrestle with the consequences of that. 

Harries was wonderfully cast. He has both the kind of striking handsomeness that someone playing a rising star actor would need but his face is also quite uniquely edgy with sharp angles and a malleability that makes his transformation feel real. His performance underlying the make up and effects is spot on. This could be the very career making role that his Hagen character would, well... kill for.

And in the end *spoiler* he is a killer. The film manages to humanize him and make us understand how he gets there but it doesn't redeem him. It allows him to be the bad guy, or at least one of the bad guys in a city (Gotham) full of them. The film's ending fulfills the tragic arc, like in Faust, he ends up in hell. 

Clayface

Starring: Tom Rhys Harries, Naomi Ackie, Max Minghella, Edie Marsan

Director: James Watkins

Writers: Mike Flanagan, Hossein Amini

A Talent for Murder (2026)

A Talent for Murder is a bit of a "what if" movie, it postulates a fictitious scenario mapped on to the life of a real person, in this case, the somewhat problematic Patricia Highsmith, author of the Tom Ripley novels as well as others such as The Price of Salt and Strangers on a Train. Known for her cleverly constructed murder plots and making a devilishly charismatic murdered the protagonist of her most famous novels, Highsmith is seen as one of the 20th century's greatest novelists mixing an intellectuality with an appetite for suspense and drama. 

A Talent for Murder posits her meeting a young man in the last year of her life who attempts to convince her to write one more Ripley novel. She is resistant and despite her proud gruffness, exposes a perhaps unsettled dealing with her inevitable death. This is a completely made up scenario yet it is intriguing as the more the young man begins to merge with her creation, Tom, more and more as they interact. Together they concoct a satisfyingly Riplian murder story which perhaps gives her a bit of life again near the end. 

Mirren and Ehrenreich play off each other in a very satisfying way. She embraces Highsmith as a highly misanthropic and somewhat unpleasant women staring death in the face. There is a reckoning happening here for a writer who made her career exploring death in tantalizing ways, now coming to her own end in a way she cannot control (she died of lung cancer). The film even has her fantasize that Ripley kills her. Ehrenreich has the even more impressive job of playing a man who also beings to see himself through the lens of a fictional character and attempting to live, or imagine living, as that figure. I love what he did here, playing such a well crafted balance of contradictions such as timidity and confidence mixed together. 

I think fans of the Ripley stories will get a lot of satisfaction. The film is itself a fantasia wishing into existence another Ripley book we never get to read. But the film is more than that, a fascinating character study of two disparate people which a pulpy and sultry murder story in the middle. 

A Talent for Murder

Starring: Helen Mirren, Alden Ehrenreich, Olivia Cooke

Director: Anton Corbijn

Writer: Joanna Murray-Smith

Wicker (2026)

Early into Wicker I realized that Fischer and Wilson, a male/female couple in real life, were telling a queer story. I don't mean in a literal sense. There is one character who appears to be either Ace or Queer but otherwise this is a story about heterosexuals. What is queer about it is in how it is about gender and sexual non conformity with the norm, a norm that is oppressive and restrictive and a non conformity which is liberating. That's queerness, however it is packaged. 

Colman's Fisherwoman (because everyone in this town is named for their role) is a woman who does not behave like the other women, taking on roles that men are understood to be suited for. She has no romantic relationship and questions the institutions around such relationships (such as marriage itself). She is berated and even bullied for her divergence and ends up being driven to go to the margins to seek out a love that ends up not being accepted. The relationship itself is attacked by the community. It is how the relationship by definition is structured differently than how relationships are supposed to be structured which brings on the turmoil. And it is through her attempts to normalize that relationship, through pressures from outside, that she damages it. 

This is queerness. And Wicker is about how queerness is a liberating force even for heterosexuals. The asks us to question our connections to gender roles, carnality, means of finding connections, and how we present and perform our relationships to the world. It is asking us if we really wish to be in the collars we put around us (no shade to BDSM loving folks). 

As I mentioned there may be some literal queerness in the story. Dinklage's character is presented as happily single living outside of the community and has a one line that suggests he would never pair with a woman (perhaps gay or asexual). And it is his character who offers the solutions that not only liberate Colman's Fisherwoman but end up undoing most of the town. In Wicker it is the queers that will save us all. Wicker is, in my opinion, a straight longing for the magic and lust for life that queerness offers, and perhaps a path towards it. 

Wicker

Starring: Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgård, Peter Dinklage, Elizabeth Debicki, Richard E. Grant
Writers/Directors: Alex Huston Fischer, Eleanor Wilson

Wildwood (2026)

It is rare that a film continues to exceed your expectations more and more as it plays out, building from a strong start into something truly magical and epic until its ending leaves you breathless. When a film like that comes along it is something to celebrate. Wildwood is that sort of movie. Wildwood is a modern fairytale which understands that fairytales are brutal stories packed with emotion, terror, beauty, pain, loss, and growth. It is part Labyrinth, part Lord of the Rings, part Disney's Robin Hood, part Narnia, part Return to Oz, part Portlandia, and yet wholly and completely original. 

First I will say this is a story that will grab you from the first frame and keep you on the edge of your seat for its full duration. Filled with diverse and uniquely rich characters, the film manages to do wonderful character development while keeping its story telling pace. I want you know that you will adore this tale. It has a powerful darkness to it and is NOT for young children, but in that darkness is a beautiful story of love and hope that rises from its heart. I found myself viscerally reacting moment after moment. I was literally laughing and crying and surprised by one development after the next. 

The sheer artistry of Wildwood is breathtaking. There are scenes where you loose count of the amount of figures on the screen, each one animated so intricately. The film looks like nothing you've seen before. This is the sort of film that big screens were made for as it is one of the most gorgeous movies I've seen in a while. I am in awe of the achievement this film is. We are lucky to get to see Wildwood come to life.

Go to see it on a big screen just for the spectacle of it alone, but I dare you not to be moved by the power of its story and characters. Simply perfection. 

Wildwood

Starring: Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Awkwafina, Angela Bassett, Jake Johnson, Charlie Day, Amandla Stenberg, Jemaine Clement, Maya Erskine, Tantoo Cardinal, Tom Waits, Richard E. Grant, Blythe Danner

Director: Travis Knight

Writer: Chris Butler

 

Fjord (2026)

For me Fjord never found its emotional core. The film felt clinical and when it did introduce emotions it felt forced. It is one of those films that feels more like it is making a point than telling a story or showing us some real characters. I know it's "based on a true story" but highly fictionalized, but its sense of realism felt off like it didn't really understand how humans act. 

Fjord moves at a fairly decent pace for a long film, always moving from one plot point to the next. It spends a decent amount of time on the characters in "moments" attempting to show us who they are. Yet I never felt that anyone was portrayed in a manner that made sense. It's almost like Fjord was saying "see??" "see this person" instead of actually making me see them. The kids from our two central families have moments to show us they are connecting but these scenes feel contrived and artificial. The main characters, both Stan and Reinsve but also the other central adults, never even get this well treated. They walk through scenes like they are doing the dress rehearsal, with all emotional investment held back until there are a few (extremely small) burst of humanness only to have that pulled away at the last minute. 

For a while I was wondering if director Mungiu was attempting to build some mystery around the film's central question, a "did they or didn't they" if you will. But Fjord never truly indulges in that. I also thought the film might truly wrestle with the philosophical question at the heart of the film, what is the intersection of the state's responsibility and the role of individual parents when it comes to children's safety, but the film deals so comically with the child protection services characters that you can't ever take it seriously. The film never addresses the fact it repeated bring up, the bruises on the children. 

And as the film reaches it climax, it hinges less on the relationship between the children and their parents, and goes all in one the connection between the eldest daughter and a neighbour friend that never felt like an honest relationship at all so all its emotional impact felt hollow. So much of Fjord felt hollow. It's not a film it's an intellectual argument that forgot to make any compelling argument.  

Fjord

Starring: Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve

Writer/Director: Cristian Mungiu

Rose of Nevada (2026)

Some of Rose of Nevada worked for me, some didn't. The story fascinated me, a small town still never having recovered from a long ago tragedy, and the sudden reappearance of the missing boat. But the film's aesthetic approach, from it's camcorder style visuals to its overly articulated acting style kept pulling me from the story and making me think about things other than the themes the narrative could have been exploring. 

The film looks like something someone made with their home video camera. It's like they got two big stars to make a home movie... and they asked everyone to give the most unrealistic line readings of the dialogue as they could muster. There is a tension between the unrealness of the performances and the cinema verite-ness of just following everyone around with the camera which never gelled. 

Still, there was something about this tale, with its exploration of the responsibility of these men to their village and its future, the loss of what could have been, and connections through time and community that was quite interesting to me. Sometimes its mixed bags like that that sit with you even when it wasn't something you enjoyed. 

Rose of Nevada

Starring: George MacKay, Callum Turner

Writer/Director: Mark Jenkin

 

You Can See Everything (2026)

I went into You Can See Everything fairly skeptical. I could never really get myself to give a shit about Elizabeth Holmes' story as it was happening, never cared to watch the Hulu miniseries starring Seyfried, and I was convinced that I would not be enthused about a three-frickin-hour documentary about her. Man could not have been more wrong. In my defence, perhaps if You Can See Everything was actually about Holmes and the case I would have bored. But soon into this film you see it's about other things, a lot of other things. 

Fielder and Oppenheim have crafted a film about the nature of documentary film making itself. It touches on relationships (romantic, professional, friendships) and how we connect. It touches on the based-on-a-real-story television/film industry. It touches on communication and our responsibilities to each other. And Fielder makes it about himself in someways. You Can See Everything evoked for me one of my all time favourite documentaries, The Stories We Tell by Sarah Polley. It asks us to reflect on what we are watching as a thing itself and not just on the story it's telling. Cause even documentaries are stories and they are shaped by their story tellers.

Fielder Michael Moores himself into the story, quite bravely asking us to consider him as subject as well. Like that provocative film maker of what seems like another lifetime, Fielder understands he and his perspective are as much under the microscope as Holmes. I was fascinated with the way he was willing to pose questions about his own role as film maker. I was also quite taken with how much Seyfried participates in this experiment in film making, letting herself get pulled in in ways I wouldn't expect an A-lister to be willing to do. Famously this film has a nude scene (neither Seyfried nor Fielder) which did elicit some gasps when it happens. It happens early in the film and feels like a war cry, we aren't going to hold back with what we expose. At first we think that is referring to Holmes and Evans, kind of like the title of the film itself, but by the end we realize You Can See Everything is a statement on how to view this film as a product itself. 

You Can See Everything

Starring: Elizabeth Holmes, Billy Evans, Nathan Fielder, Amanda Seyfried, Christopher Abbot

Writer/Directors: Nathan Fielder, Lance Oppenheim