Shelagh Rowan-Legg
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
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This Closeness (2023) |
This Closeness is part of a new wave of American indie cinema, one that shows how interwoven our emotional wellbeing is with vulnerability to the forces of material survival. Zauhar is quickly honing her talent. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Mar 12, 2023
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I Like Movies (2022) |
I Like Movies embraces the things that give us joy, and (with a healthy dose of reality) encourages us to seek that joy. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Mar 08, 2023
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The Civil Dead (2023) |
A inventive and original ghost story, The Civil Dead is as awkwardly funny as it it disturbing and a few times quite frightening. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Feb 01, 2023
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Skinamarink (2022) |
Skinamarink is the very definition of creepy, and terrifying right down to your soul. Always keeping the child's perspective at the centre, it is a nightmare even to the adult mind, of the home and its inhabitants turned slowly inside out. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Jan 11, 2023
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Ashgrove (2022) |
A drama with speculative fiction around the edges, it's rather an intimate story, studying the small moments that belie the heavy weight they carry of meaning and importance, and how each moment is unique and defies all attempt at logic and containment. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Dec 09, 2022
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La vie rêvée (1972) |
In Dream Life, Dansereau gives her characters the opportunity to explore their desires through this mix of fantasy, flashback, montage, and conversations over cigarettes and coffee. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Nov 09, 2022
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Please Baby Please (2022) |
Queerness is embraced and celebrated in all its colour and depravity, and the darkest corners are as much a part of this world as the light. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Nov 09, 2022
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Bros (2022) |
Bros truly is reinventing the rom-com wheel. This is a thoroughly modern, thoroughly queer manuevering of the genre into a much-needed new space. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Sep 29, 2022
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The Eternal Daughter (2022) |
The Eternal Daughter is an astute and melancholy piece with just the right level of creepiness to leave the viewer unsettled, the very definition of uncanny. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Sep 13, 2022
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The Woman King (2022) |
The Woman King might on occasion follow something of a formula, but it's used to great effect, with terrific action, great performances, and a hefty story told with a deft hand. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Sep 13, 2022
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Holy Spider (2022) |
Holy Spider pulls no punches, spares no institution or individual that would uphold an institution that degrades and demeans women, and shines a harsh light not only on Iranian society, but forces us to look at our own. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Sep 13, 2022
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Country Gold (2022) |
Country Gold is a whiskey-infused feverdream for one man who wants to keep his nose clean, and another who refuses to acknowledge the dirt of his own making. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Jul 27, 2022
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Diary of a Spy (2022) |
Diary of a Spy takes us into this dark, dangerous world via a often neglected side door, probing this story with observations on human vulnerabiltiy and the price of exploiting it. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Jul 18, 2022
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Gone in the Night (2022) |
Gone in the Night meshes together a wild and quite villanous premise with a person just trying to navigate the slow oncoming inevitability of aging. A tight script and solid performances, plus more than a few surprises, will keep you guessing. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Jul 18, 2022
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Ashkal (2022) |
Ashkal is a dark and subtle supernatural thriller, a deft combination of neo-noir and the fantastic. Its story moves like shadow through the flames that greet the characters, its confrontation simultaneous cold and searing, right to the skin. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Jul 09, 2022
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Clara Sola (2021) |
Like a slow, pained moan that slowly builds into a furious scream, Clara Sola is a remarkable feature debut from Álvarez Mesén, full of desire, anger, love, and magic, with a heroine you want to protect even as you are in slight fearful awe. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Jun 30, 2022
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Official Competition (2021) |
with more than a few dark twists and a heart that is laughing at both itself and the world that created it, Official Competition is quite a satire, one that finds its heart of darkness hidden in the absurd reality of high-art cinema. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Jun 15, 2022
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Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022) |
With a fierce honestly and a dry wit, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande asks us all why we can't enjoy touch, sex, pleasure, the way we want (safely, consensually), with or without strings, as human needs demand. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Jun 15, 2022
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The Time Capsule (2022) |
While it has a good concept, & there is a quite intimacy and grace to the storytelling, The Time Capsule ultimately falters, focusing on a character we're seen too often, & not spending enough time on the far more interesting character and her story. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Jun 02, 2022
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After Blue (2021) |
After Blue comes on like a slow-burning fever, with a meditative abstraction that is likely to test some people's patience, and yet there are rewards for those who succomb to its dream-nightmare that sits at the edge of waking. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted May 24, 2022
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The Aviary (2022) |
Cullari and Raite have crafted an intimate thriller, one that asks us to question the sanity of two people in a terrible situation and a terribly lonely existence, even as they are together. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Apr 25, 2022
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Night's End (2022) |
Night's End is the kind of intimate horror that, arguably, could only be made since we have had a better understanding of what it means to be physically isolated and technically connected at the same time. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Mar 29, 2022
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Rapture (1979) |
There's a reason the title is 'rapture': anything, be it something we consume, or watch, or engage with, can become enrapturing, but what is the damage? What is worth losing ourselves to? - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Jan 23, 2022
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Something In The Dirt (2022) |
Something in the Dirt takes a labyrinthian walk through the minds of two lonely and somewhat shifty men, something of a return to Benson and Moorhead's indie roots and yet an expansion on the unique world they've created in their films. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Jan 23, 2022
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Last Words (2020) |
Last Words takes a somewhat intimate look at what those wishes might be, how that finality would weigh on those last humans left, and what are the memories we take, the pieces of ourselves we leave behind, when there will be no one to leave them to. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Dec 14, 2021
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The Shepherdess and the Seven Songs (2020) |
The film unfolds almost like a theatre shows, traveling like the nomads from place to place, picking up its story like crumbs along the route, each a new piece of the puzzle. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Dec 09, 2021
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Double Walker (2021) |
Double Walker wants us to examine the life of someone who didn't quite have one. What it means to have an existence of either troubling uncertainty, to be a person who brings pain or peace, and how the smallest joys are the sweetest. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Nov 12, 2021
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Beans (2020) |
Beans stands out not just as a coming-of-age tale, with a lead character whose struggle we understand and feel keenly, but as a drama of a painful and pivotal moment in Indigenous and Canadian history. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Nov 04, 2021
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The Power of the Dog (2021) |
The Power of the Dog bristles with longing and jealousy, at once staring straight ahead and sneaking up behind you, leaving its clues like muddy bootprints tinged with sorrow. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Oct 13, 2021
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Night Raiders (2021) |
Night Raiders is a nail-biting story, filled with drama, pathos, some good action, and a little magic, the best kind that comes from a place of anger, hope, and determination. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Sep 13, 2021
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Language Lessons (2021) |
Language Lessons is smart and funny, heartwarming without being sacchrine, and genuinely moving, it's a testament to the performers, and to all of us who have had to figure out a different way of being, and being together. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Sep 07, 2021
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Anne at 13,000 ft (2019) |
Anne at 13,000 Ft is a remarkable film, a true indie that asks us to be front and centre in the protagonist's mind and heart, unflinching and raw in its portrayal of a spirit that cannot fit into expectations. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Sep 01, 2021
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Candyman (2021) |
Candyman is powerful and disturbing, one that keeps the audience on the other side of the mirror, watching as that individual and collective trauma is forced to be inescapable to those left vulnerable. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Aug 25, 2021
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The Green Knight (2021) |
Leaning into the Pagan roots of the story, The Green Knight keeps its story on the side of the beautiful and terrible. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Jul 29, 2021
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Scales (2019) |
Shahad Ameen's feature debut Scales is a stark and haunting fable, a Middle Eastern fairy tale that feels both ancient and timeless, a parable about the roles of men and women and the wrath of the earth and the sea. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Jul 07, 2021
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Too Late (2021) |
This is the kind of low-fi satire that works well with a premise that is both quite ridiculous and very believable. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Jun 22, 2021
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Les Nôtres (2020) |
Les Nôtres finished on something of an unsatisfactory but realistic note, but such is the story that knows that sadly this is still common in small communities, those that only pretend to have everyone's best interests at heart. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Jun 18, 2021
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The Woman in the Window (2021) |
While there's nothing inherently wrong for opting for style over substance, when even the style lacks a certain depth, it ends up little more than a resonably packaged, empty shell. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted May 14, 2021
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Oxygen (2021) |
Oxygen keeps itself humming at a brisk pace, with a plot that has more than its fair share of twists. While it's not completely without substance, it certainly has an engaging style, which almost makes up for missed narrative opportunities. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted May 05, 2021
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About Endlessness (2019) |
About Endlessness (oddly) may clock in at a relatively short 76 minutes, but like the rest of his ouevre, time is not a factor when there are so many stories to tell. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted May 01, 2021
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The County (2019) |
The County is a firm and unsentimental reminder of the force of community. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted May 01, 2021
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No Ordinary Man (2020) |
Knowing how much transgender people still have to struggle to be recognized, we can also take joy in hearing their voices made central to this story, and having Tipton's story be told, finally, as it should. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted May 01, 2021
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At Night Comes Wolves (2021) |
There are some good ideas in At Night Comes Wolves, but it never amounts to much beyond that, instead switching ideas and directions in its short running time that leaves too many interesting avenues unexplored. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted May 01, 2021
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Sin La Habana (2021) |
Sin La Habana weaves its tale of three souls who come together by strange force and circumstance, as each tries to figure out where home is, what family and love is, and what their place is in the world. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Mar 26, 2021
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The City of Wild Beasts (2021) |
Moving between the city and the country, Rincón walks a blurred line between hope and cynicism, finding the beauty and the anger of youth who strive to be heard, even as they are unsure of their direction. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Mar 26, 2021
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Cuban Dancer (2020) |
Cuban Dancer is a joyous film, a rare moment of hope in a world too often cynical with the futures of young people. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Mar 26, 2021
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The Yellow Wallpaper (2021) |
The Yellow Wallpaper is a strong and unsettling adaptation of this gothic tale, one that allows for the moments of silence and atmosphere to permeate our minds. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Mar 26, 2021
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Malcolm & Marie (2021) |
With Malcolm & Marie, there are two fine actors doing some good work with a script not quite worthy of their talents. Still, it's a journey worth taking, if taken as less than the sum of its parts. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Feb 11, 2021
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Malcolm & Marie (2021) |
With Malcolm & Marie, there are two fine actors doing some good work with a script not quite worthy of their talents. Still, it's a journey worth taking, if taken as less than the sum of its parts. - That Shelf
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| Posted Feb 11, 2021
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The Reckoning (2021) |
The Reckoking suffers from being too boring, too lacklustre, and too poorly constructed from start to finish, to recommend. - ScreenAnarchy
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| Posted Feb 11, 2021
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