Movie review by Greg Carlson Helming her feature film debut, veteran theatre director Josie Rourke mounts a handsome but forgettable “Mary Queen of Scots” (no comma) with Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie. Like so many fictions rooted in the political intrigue of royalty, this latest model quickly reveals the same old preoccupation with matters of […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Based on the 1956 novel by Antonio di Benedetto, Argentine auteur Lucrecia Martel’s “Zama” invites the viewer to experience the humiliations of the title character, a doomed late 18th century Americano colonizer desperate for a transfer that we know immediately will never be authorized. Perfectly captured in a performance by […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson Veteran filmmaker Jennifer Fox’s “The Tale” addresses child rape in as straightforward and clear-eyed a manner as any film ever made on the painful subject. Fox’s background in nonfiction storytelling informs the movie’s magnetic investigative structure, which arranges and rearranges details both large and small as the adult Jennifer Fox […]

Movie review by Greg Carlson “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” director Marielle Heller beautifully translates another personal autobiography to excellent results. “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” is based on the confessional 2008 memoir of literary forger Lee Israel, and Heller’s movie pulls off the impressive feat of bringing visual urgency to the typically uncinematic […]