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| Danny Huston and Nicole Kidman in Birth |
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Cameron Bright, Danny Huston, Lauren Bacall, Alison Elliott, Arliss Howard, Michael Desautels, Anne Heche, Peter Stormare, Ted Levine, Cara Seymour, Zoe Caldwell. Screenplay: Jean-Claude Carrière, Milo Addica, Jonathan Glazer. Cinematography: Harris Savides. Production design: Kevin Thompson. Film editing: Sam Sneade, Claus Wehlisch. Music: Alexandre Desplat.
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| Sandra Hüller and Swann Arlaud in Anatomy of a Fall |
Cast: Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado-Graner, Antoine Reinartz, Samuel Theis, Jehnny Beth, Saadia Benthaïb, Camille Rutherford, Anne Rotger, Sophie Fillières, Messi. Screenplay: Justine Triet, Arthur Harari. Cinematography: Simon Beaufils. Production design: Emmanuelle Duplay. Film editing: Laurent Sénéchal.
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| Fong Fei-fei and Kenny Be in Cute Girl |
Cast: Kenny Be, Fong Fei-fei, Anthony Chan, Chang Ping-yu, Chi Kai-ching, Chien Lu, Chou Wan-sheng, Chang Hui-fen. Screenplay: Hou Hsiao-hsien. Cinematography: Chen Kun-hou. Film editing: Liao Cheng-sung. Music: Huang Mou-shan.
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| Nelly Frijda, Edda Barends, and Henriëtte Toll in A Question of Silence |
Cast: Edda Barends, Nelly Frijda, Henriëtte Toll, Cox Habbema, Eddie Brugman, Hans Croiset, Erik Plooyer. Screenplay: Marleen Gorris. Cinematography: Frans Bromet. Art direction: Harry Ammerlaan. Film editing: Hans van Dongen. Music: Lodewijk de Boer, Martijn Hasebos.
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| Masayuki Mori in Love Letter |
Cast: Masayuki Mori, Juzo Dosan, Yoshiko Kuga, Jukichi Uno, Kyoko Kagawa, Shizue Natsukawa, Kinuyo Tanaka, Chieko Seki, Ranko Hanai, Chieko Nakakita, Keisuke Kinoshita. Screenplay: Keisuke Kinoshita, based on a novel by Fumio Niwa. Cinematography: Hiroshi Suzuki. Art direction: Seigo Shindo. Film editing: Toshio Goto. Music: Ichiro Saito.
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| Marcus Carl Franklin, Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Ben Whishaw, Heath Ledger, and Richard Gere in I'm Not There |
Cast: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Ben Whishaw, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere, Kris Kristofferson (voice), Charlotte Gainsbourg, Bruce Greenwood, Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams. Screenplay: Todd Haynes, Oren Moverman. Cinematography: Edward Lachman. Production design: Judy Becker. Film editing: Jay Rabinowitz. Music: Bob Dylan.
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| Emma Stone in Poor Things |
Cast: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott, Suzy Bemba, Jerrod Carmichael, Kathryn Hunter, Vicki Pepperdine, Margaret Qualley, Hanna Schygulla. Screenplay: Tony McNamara, based on a novel by Alasdair Gray. Cinematography: Robbie Ryan. Production design: Shona Heath, James Price. Film editing: Yorgos Mavropsaridis. Music: Jerskin Fendrix.
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| Jane Russell in The Revolt of Mamie Stover |
Cast: Jane Russell, Richard Egan, Joan Leslie, Agnes Moorehead, Jorja Curtright, Michael Pate, Richard Coogan, Alan Reed. Screenplay: Sydney Boehm, based on a novel by William Bradford Huie. Cinematography: Leo Tover. Art direction: Mark-Lee Kirk, Lyle R. Wheeler. Film editing: Louis R. Loeffler. Music: Hugo Friedhofer.
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| Sabine Azéma and Louis Ducreux in A Sunday in the Country |
Cast: Louis Ducreux, Michel Aumont, Sabine Azéma, Geneviève Mnich, Monique Chaumette, Thomas Duval, Quentin Ogier, Katia Wostrikoff, Claude Winter. Screenplay: Bertrand Tavernier, Colo Tavernier, based on a novel by Pierre Bost. Cinematography: Bruno de Keyzer. Production design: Patrice Mercier. Film editing: Armand Psenny.
Bertrand Tavernier's autumnal A Sunday in the Country appropriately evokes several famous paintings, including Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party and Seurat's La Grande Jatte. The film's central character is a painter, M. Ladmiral (Louis Ducreux), an elderly survivor of the era in which those masterpieces were created, and some of the film's wistful tone is set by his acknowledgement that he never rose to their heights. It is a Sunday in the late summer of 1912 at his country home near Paris, and he welcomes the arrival by train of his son, Gonzague (Michel Aumont), and daughter-in-law (Geneviève Mnich) and their three children, the boisterous Emile (Thomas Duval) and Lucien (Quentin Ogier) and the somewhat petted Mireille (Katia Wostrikoff). But his daughter, Irène (Sabine Azéma), also shows up, driving her own car, and her free-spirited manner contrasts with the stuffiness of Gonzague and his wife. There are a couple of crises: Mireille somehow gets stuck up a tree, and Irène receives an upsetting phone call from her lover, whom she has been trying to reach throughout the afternoon. But mostly the film is a study of family dynamics in an era that's about to be blown away by World War I. Tavernier and his cast give the otherwise uneventful narrative a lovely, delicate tension.
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| Christopher Plummer and Elliott Gould in The Silent Partner |
Cast: Elliott Gould, Christopher Plummer, Susannah York, Céline Lomez, Michael Kirby, Sean Sullivan, Ken Pogue, John Candy. Screenplay: Curtis Hanson, based on a novel by Anders Bodelsen. Cinematography: Billy Williams. Production design: Trevor Williams. Film editing: George Appleby. Music: Oscar Peterson.
Solid, entertaining thriller with a good turn by Christopher Plummer as the heavy. Your enjoyment of it may depend on how much you can accept Elliott Gould's transformation from nerdy bank teller to romantic lead. I'm still struggling with it. Director Daryl Duke's conflicts with the producers led to screenwriter Curtis Hanson being called in to finish the film, which he had wanted to direct all along.