4 pieces
Justin Kurzel's FBI procedural about white supremacist terrorism in 1980s Idaho was one of the most under-watched American films of 2024. It is also one of the best, and the under-watching is a specific commercial failure worth understanding.
RaMell Ross adapted Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer-winning novel through a first-person camera almost continuously across two hours. The argument is that the formal gamble is the adaptation, and the adaptation is, so far, the film of the awards year.
RaMell Ross adapted Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer novel by refusing the one thing most literary adaptations insist on. The camera is the character, and the choice changes what the film can do.
I took my younger sister to see Megan Park's second feature thinking it would be a throwaway, and we walked out crying. The retrospective case is that it is the sharpest coming-of-age indie of the year, and I'll fight about it.