I've been in a not ideal mental state for the last week. Granted, 2025 hasn't been a rose garden psychologically, but harrowing chaos during my Austin trip (taken from October 23 through the 26th) and the lingering aftermath of all that madness have made the last week especially challenging to endure. In these arduous segments of existence, it's important to cling to whatever makes your soul feel full. "Any port in a storm," as they say.
Naturally, for me, that often comes in the form of cinema-based joys. Right now, when I'm getting overwhelmed or exhaustion feels like it's enveloping my body, I'm closing my eyes and looking back on one reality: over the last week, I've been privy to some superb 2025 cinema. Not only that, but these features demonstrated talented directors excelling in their greatest thematic and visual proclivities. Watching masters so deftly weaving movie magic that might as well serve as thesis statements for their filmographies, that's enough to give my mind some rest.
Directors are, like any human being, complicated. The internet enjoys boiling down Steven Spielberg to "family trauma" or Martin Scorsese to "gangster movies", but they and other directors are far more complicated in what themes fascinate them. Still, there are often molds or ideas that filmmakers do return to throughout their works, whether consciously or subconsciously. In the last week, I've witnessed several 2025 movies brought to life by directors clearly reveling in their greatest artistic passions...and it's been glorious.
This whole phenomenon started last Friday with me partaking in a screening of Mary Bronstein's If I Had Legs I'd Kick You. Bronstein's only helmed one other movie, 2008's mumblecore cringefest (complimentary) Yeast. Across just two movies, though, Bronstein's demonstrated remarkable visual and thematic conviction. She delivers claustrophobic works trapping her characters and viewers in uncomfortable material profoundly rooted in reality.
The messy, rude, and jagged interactions dominating daily existence often don't make it onto the silver screen. Bronstein's works, meanwhile, point a camera at those exchanges. Armed with a slightly bigger budget than Yeast's pricetag, If I Had Legs I'd Kick You shows Bronstein operating in a more polished but no less aching mode. Her depiction of the ceaseless turmoil greeting mother/therapist Linda (Rose Byrne) as she takes care of her ill daughter had my toes curled, teeth clenched, and my attention fully captured. This whole enterprise is also a phenomenal showcase for Byrne's talents. This comedic performer totally disappears into a role so believably realistic that it would make Gena Rowlands proud. She's a perfect anchor for something so specific and boldly willing to confront the turmoil of just being alive.
Next up was No Other Choice and Hamnet, a pair of Austin Film Festival screenings that I'll be reviewing in full for The Spool. I'll save my full thoughts for those pieces, but needless to say, they're both extraordinary works. Director Park Chan-wook's trademark style of audacious "WTF is happening?" madness and precise visual sensibilities are on total display in No Other Choice. Chloé Zhao, meanwhile, once again reduced me to tears with her visually and thematically beautifully exploration of lost souls. Though Hamnet is set in 17th-century Britain, it radiates intimate, naturalistic impulses of her prior American-bound work. Extraordinary to witness such confident pathos-driven creativity that makes well-trodden material like Hamlet feel fresh again.
Once I returned to Dallas, it was time for two press screenings, one on Monday, the 27th, the other on Tuesday, the 28th. On the former, I saw Nia DaCosta's Hedda, twisty-turny take on the Henrik Ibsen play. DaCosta's work here is much more grimly comical than her excellent debut feature Little Woods, but a similar emphasis on "what would you do to maintain your life?" does run through her interpretation of Ibsen's text. Freed from the franchise obligations of Candyman and The Marvels, DaCosta is fully alive with Hedda. She's having an infectious ball letting all this rich people chaos and treachery constantly escalate into increasing levels of madness.
Tessa Thompson and Nina Hoss are unspeakably absorbing and hot in the lead roles. They exude chaotic queer girly energy you can't look away from. It's such a privilege to live in the age of Thompson star vehicles. Also shout out to composer Hildur Guðnadóttir. This reliably talented musician delivers a great score here that sounds like a compelling mixture of Jonny Greenwood's jazz-infused Spencer score and Jóhann Jóhannsson's most ominous compositions. What a great way to sonically reflect the interior world of Thompson's Hedda Gabbler, a woman externally conveying a bougie lady air while battling suicidal impulses and scheming treachery inside.
24 hours after Hedda, I finally got to see the new Yorgos Lanthimos movie, Bugonia. Though a remake of a 2003 South Korean film (Save the Green Planet), it's a saga about two distinctly toxic archetypes (girlboss CEO's who maintain toxic workplace status quos and white boy conspiracy theorists) utterly wrecking modern American society. Neither Lanthimos nor screenwriter Will Tracey flinches from chronicling the darkest possibilities of this premise, which makes for a gripping viewing experience. The gusto performances (Aidan Delbis is a remarkable find as one of the two kidnappers) and fantastic blocking informed by the unorthodox 1.50:1 aspect ratio sseal Bugonia as another Lanthimos winner.
Then, on October 29, I checked out Richard Linklater's Blue Moon. When I was 17 and expanding my cinematic palette, Linklater's Before Midnight knocked my socks off and totally recalibrated my brain on how a "successful" movie functions. Motion pictures could just be low-key dialogue...still captivate the viewer! 12 years later, that Linklater magic is still alive. The hangout cinema king has come back, this time for Blue Moon, a movie following lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) over a single night in 1943 in the bar at Sardi's. His former creative partner, Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott), has just debuted his new show, Oklahoma!, and eventually, an opening night party will gather to celebrate the program's kick-off. For now, though, Hart is happy to blabber away to anyone who will listen about his perspectives on life, love, and infatuation with 20-year-old Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley).
Linklater's script and Hawke's magnetic performance lure viewers with Hart's unblinking cattiness. No matter the protests of the people around him, here is a man willing to blurt the word "cocksucker" out loud or openly declare that his sexuality is fluid. There's so much fun dialogue here as this lyricist chastises his least favorite parts of Oklahoma! (I was dying at his breakdown of why "corn stalks as high as an elephant's eye" is a terrible lyric) and gets lost in his own anecdotes. However, what really makes Blue Moon captivating is its aching soulfulness.
Early Linklater hangout movies like Dazed & Confused and Before Sunrise were about youthful possibilities and "l-i-v-i-n". Blue Moon, meanwhile, gradually reveals itself to be a feature-length extension of that heartbreaking Boyhood scene where Patricia Arquette quietly laments how quickly her life has flown by.
Hart maintains a confident air, but he's well aware that he's only good to many people as a way to be introduced to Richard Rodgers. Insecurity and sweaty pleading soak into his attempts to stage a "comeback" with his former partner. From the very start, it's clear that the romantic love Harts feel for Weiland is a one-sided affair. This is a tragic subtlety exercise accentuated in its impact by the low-key vibes only Linklater can realize so well. His dedication to stripped-down filmmaking that emphasizes conversations and subtle physicality above all else makes Blue Moon's melancholy atmosphere soar. Howke's also in top-notch form, vanishing into the fascinatingly complicated role of Lorenz Hart. He’s got a climactic monologue about where Hart finds beauty that left me in tears. Utterly staggering to consider that this is the same guy who headlined First Reformed.
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I sometimes get asked "don't you get tired of watching/writing/talking about movies?" The honest answer is no, because there's always something new to discover. The promise of exciting, unexpected cinema being just over the horizon has provided me comfort on more challenging mental health deaths than I can count. This nearly week-long deluge of quality 2025 cinema was a reminder of how reassuring sublime cinema is.
All of these ramblings are meant to say that titles like If I Had Legs I'd Kick You or Blue Moon are terrific movies that could only come from these specific filmmakers and the artists they've assembled. These disparate motion pictures also use a filmmaker's specific fascinations to tap into emotions, fears, and anxieties we all endure. Heartbreak is everywhere. The pain of loss is unbearable. Just trying to exist from one day to the next is an arduous quest. Why must capitalism make earning a basic living such a nightmare? These are the woes that daily responsibilities often keep us from fully confronting.
These artists making new movies in 2025, though, dare to craft compelling yarns that boldly stare such quandaries straight in the eye. They're also sticking to creative convictions in an age where feature-length storytelling is constantly under attack. "People don't want movies, they want AI/streaming slop!" so many executives say. The opportunities to get any kind of motion picture made are shrinking and shrinking. In the middle of this anguish, though, are quality 2025 movies like the ones discussed here. Against all odds, they exist. They don't adhere to algorithms or marketing pressures for what makes a "hit" movie.
There's something inspiring in that. If the artists behind these projects could endure in the face of unspeakable challenges, I can too.After all, if I don't endure, who knows what wonderful movies I'll miss out on?
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