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Woman of the Hour
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Woman of the Hour smartly weaves into the narrative the many ways in which women are conditioned to put up with men.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
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Wildcat
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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A dreamy movie that evokes O’Connor’s biggest project: an inquiry into the broken nature of grace.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
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The Teachers’ Lounge
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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The Teachers’ Lounge starts to feel like a high-stakes thriller, with no need to teach a lesson beyond the limits of do-gooder idealism. The deliciously twisted turns are enough to keep viewers riveted.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
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Songs of Earth
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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A remarkable, poetic meditation, Songs of Earth weaves the smallness of human lifespan into the grandness of the earth’s history, and does it all with unspeakable beauty.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
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Sleep
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Jason Yu crafts a twisty delight that leaves you doubting what you’re seeing and wondering what to believe right till the last moment.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
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Shayda
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Noora Niasari’s drama slowly builds into a thriller, and Ebrahimi’s enthralling performance coaxes us to lean in.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
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The Royal Hotel
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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It’s a thriller, and an uncomfortable one, in which dangers lurk around corners so common that we sometimes forget how dangerous they really are.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
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The Pigeon Tunnel
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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It’s much richer than a mere biographical documentary, fascinating even to those who haven’t read Cornwall’s work.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
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Perfect Days
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Perfect Days is a poem of extraordinary subtlety and beauty.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
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Pain Hustlers
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Pain Hustlers manages to be lively and moving, while also illuminating exactly how broken the American health care system is and how all of us are caught in its claws.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
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The Mission
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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It’s a troubling, smart, must-see documentary.
Posted Sep 30, 2023
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Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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It’s about as far from pedantic as you can get, instead giving viewers a long, gentle glimpse into the superior craft of the Troisgros chefs and the hospitality they hold out to those who visit them.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
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Janet Planet
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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The kind of luminous portrait of a summer where nothing happens and yet everything happens.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
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Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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First-time feature director Phạm Thiên Ân, and his deeply religious inquiry aims to crack open the trap by forcing Thiện, and the audience, into a confrontation with eternity itself.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
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In the Rearview
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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An extraordinary film.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
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The Holdovers
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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It’s a lighthearted film on the surface, but themes of grief, loss, and the fear of mortality for teenage boys who know they might be drafted and sent to Vietnam at any moment run beneath the beat of the plot.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
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Hit Man
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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I’s just fun to watch good old-fashioned comedy in which love, danger, and happy endings are all part of a damn fine evening at the movies.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
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His Three Daughters
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Writer and director Azazel Jacobs unspools the family’s story little by little, exploring the absurd humor of deathbeds and the meaning of memory and grief with extraordinary love.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
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Gasoline Rainbow
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Gasoline Rainbow is a joyous movie for everyone who’s ever sought community and found it waiting for them where they least expect it.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
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Fingernails
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Director Christos Nikou turns the premise into a subtle meditation on how different every partnership’s story is and the result is both kind and thought-provoking.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
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Fallen Leaves
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Aki Kaurismäki’s deadpan dark comedy dips with style and just a hint of weird whimsy into the lives of his working-class characters, and the tableaux he crafts give off the whiff of a Finnish spin on Hopper’s alienated figures.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
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Evil Does Not Exist
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Evil isn’t some disembodied thing, in Hamaguchi’s worldview: it’s something embodied by humans, who can choose whether they’ll fight it or just give in.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
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Dream Scenario
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Director Kristoffer Borgli’s comedy Dream Scenario makes joking feints toward being “about” cancel culture or internet fame, but it’s pretty clear he doesn’t have a particular ax to grind.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
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The Boy and the Heron
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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The Boy and the Heron revisits many of Miyazaki’s themes — loneliness, fear, sorrow — with his signature imagination and underlying reflection of Japanese history.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
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Days of Happiness
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Days of Happiness examines familiar territory — the musician battling her demons — but with a fresh, engaging touch.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
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American Fiction
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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It’s an extremely funny movie that lands some sharp blows, and a stellar feature debut from seasoned TV writer Cord Jefferson.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
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All of Us Strangers
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Emotional and lyrical, All of Us Strangers is a meditation on what it means to really be a human.
Posted Sep 29, 2023
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Dumb Money
(2023)
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Emily Stewart
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The movie is well-executed, exhilarating, and captures the tenor of the times.
Posted Sep 15, 2023
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Oppenheimer
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Nolan’s Oppenheimer barely qualifies as a biopic... Instead it’s a movie investigating the nature of power: how it is created, how it is kept in balance, and how it leads people into murky quandaries that refuse simplistic answers.
Posted Jul 21, 2023
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Barbie
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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in Gerwig’s hands, along with her co-writer Noah Baumbach, it’s sly and just about as subversive as a movie can be.
Posted Jul 21, 2023
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Elemental
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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The best thing about Elemental is that it looks incredible.
Posted Jun 16, 2023
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Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
(2023)
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Alex Abad-Santos
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It challenges ideas about great power and responsibility, stories about the worlds we live in and the things we’re searching for, and our concepts of heroism and morality.
Posted Jun 01, 2023
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Youth (Spring)
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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This is less a social-issue documentary and more about an extreme existential poignance... These are young people in the prime years of their lives, but without the means or mobility to move forward, living years of monotony without a break.
Posted May 31, 2023
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Strange Way of Life
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Strange Way of Life is not really a very good film; Hawke and Pascal deliver the mannered lines with discomfort, and there’s not much to grab onto.
Posted May 31, 2023
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The Nature of Love
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Monia Chokri’s limpid and charming comedy plays like a rom-com, until it’s not.
Posted May 31, 2023
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The Mother of All Lies
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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The Mother of All Lies is El Moudir’s documentary attempt to make sense of her family’s web of falsehoods and myths, anchored by her grandmother.
Posted May 31, 2023
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Monster
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Kore-eda is a master of directing children’s performances, so it’s no wonder that Monster is at its best when there are no adults onscreen, the children living in their own world of fantasy and adventure and emotion.
Posted May 31, 2023
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May December
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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It’s sort of a movie about guilt, sort of about conscience, sort of about exploitation, but Haynes’s wrapping it in camp trappings reminds us that this is the stuff of tabloids, and the lightness of touch makes it entertaining and uncomfortable.
Posted May 31, 2023
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Killers of the Flower Moon
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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This is in part a movie about how the bootstrapping American ethic lends itself to organized crime among the enterprising, and in part an uneasily self-reflective questioning of turning people’s real-life trauma into entertainment. It’s magnificent.
Posted May 31, 2023
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Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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A film that feels like an at least sideways commentary on Hollywood’s age of IP recycling. There have been better Indiana Jones movies, but it’s good to see one more romping send-off for the character.
Posted May 31, 2023
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How to Have Sex
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Avoids simple didacticism with Walker’s kinetic direction and appealing performances, particularly from lead Mia McKenna-Bruce, whose pain is easily shared.
Posted May 31, 2023
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Club Zero
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Jessica Hausner’s mannered, deadpan film buries body horror inside a satirical facade, using smart ideas about disordered eating... to tell a story about grasping for transcendence in a frightening, confusing world.
Posted May 31, 2023
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Close Your Eyes
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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The result is a moving mediation on existence, memory, and cinema’s potential to preserve them both.
Posted May 31, 2023
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The Breaking Ice
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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The film borders on the sentimental, but never grows too cloying, in large part due to its light touch and charming performances.
Posted May 31, 2023
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Asteroid City
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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This is a movie for the Wes-heads, and Jeff Goldblum’s role alone makes it worth watching.
Posted May 31, 2023
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Anatomy of a Fall
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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The film slowly peels apart its layers, exploring how truths and facts become fictions in the retellings, whether they’re told in a courtroom or in a novel.
Posted May 31, 2023
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Acid
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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It’s climate-change fiction, and thus it’s bleak; this is the kind of thriller without a heartwarming moment...
Posted May 31, 2023
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About Dry Grasses
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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It’s a gorgeous film, in Ceylan’s typical naturalistic style, and one that follows the novelistic impulse, complete with a self-absorbed antihero at its center.
Posted May 31, 2023
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Reality
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Reality is, quite literally, the kind of movie where people just talk the whole time. But that’s precisely why it works.
Posted May 30, 2023
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The Zone of Interest
(2023)
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Alissa Wilkinson
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Jonathan Glazer’s new film dismantles simple cliches about the banality of evil.
Posted May 26, 2023
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