Dìdi, which won the Sundance 2024 U.S. Dramatic Competition Audience Award, tells the story of Chris Wang, a 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy trying to fit in while dealing with peer pressure, his own immaturity, assimilation and casual racism in the age of MySpace. 

During a Q&A session, director Sean Wang said he was inspired by Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me and wondered what it would be like if that film were set in Fremont, California, a community with many immigrant families, in the 2000s. Wang added that the film is also inspired by his upbringing.

For millennials, Dìdi is a call back to having to race home to use the Internet, AOL chat, Paramore, A Walk to Remember and what it meant to be on someone’s “top eight.” 

For adults, regardless of generation, it reminds us of being a third wheel or completely left out, our collective teenage stupidity, and struggling to meet the level of sexual experience we assume all our friends have. Perhaps even more strongly, adults will relate to Chris’ mother, Chungsing Wang, who struggles to remain relevant in her increasingly independent children’s lives. 

Along with the usual angst, Chris struggles with culture issues. A girl tells him he’s “pretty cute… for an Asian.” Likely internalizing such attitudes and trying to meet his friends expectations of an American kid, he falsely claims he’s only “half Asian.” Internally, he also seems to struggle with his sister going away to college and his father working overseas. 

All the pressure manifests in pranks, fights and rebellion. But when Chris has pushed everyone else away, will he realize who will always be there for him?

Dìdi deserves its audience award, and we hope to see more films from Wang soon.

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“I wanted to create a narrative that celebrated queer life, particularly queer Arab life, with unapologetic joy and tenacity.” 

These are the words director Amrou Al-Kadhi used to describe their debut feature film, Layla, following the self-discovery journey of the titular character Layla, a young, non-binary Arab drag queen struggling with the nuances of their identity. The result is a colorful and emotional film, full of just as much fun and flair as its director. 

Over the course of the film, Al-Kadhi’s script and characters take on complex identity explorations, from queer binary constructs to the challenge of being a child of Arab immigrants, and from “femme phobia” in the LGBTQ+ community to finding ‘self’ in a digital age. 

“I was tired of endless trauma narratives surrounding the queer Arab experience,” Al-Kadhi says. In avoiding those traumas, Al-Kadhi crafted a story of genuine connection, discovery and realistic heartbreak, a rarity for queer performers, especially those in drag. 

“Drag creates an accessible fantasy for the audience, acting as tokens for ‘woke’ societies” explains Al-Kadhi. “They are constantly modifying themselves for the role, and even in everyday life Layla transcends many worlds, often conflicting ones.” 

In Layla, a character is presented with that same facade of shiny surface candy, but is allowed to deliver what actor Bilal Hasna describes as ‘raw queer meat.’ Notably, Layla is permitted to have an inherent sexuality. Often, drag queens are only permitted to exist in a performative space. Layla, however, strays from the typical masc and cis-centered queer narrative, allowing femme energy and discovery to be on full display in the bedroom, a rarity among gay romances. 

Bilal Hasna delivered a remarkable performance as Latif-turned-Layla, embodying every contradiction of the role with confidence. Hansa allowed for endless self-modification–it was indeed striking how much the character’s aura morphed based on clothing and appearance. Though never fully realized or integrated, Hasna slowly allowed those identities to merge, bringing Layla (as a drag queen) poise and energy to the titular character’s daily persona. 

“Layla (and by translation, Bilal) was the ultimate shapeshifter,” says Al-Kadhi. “Both were constantly trying to embody the in-between.” 

Other characters in the film acted as ideal contrasts for Layla’s spark and joy. Best friend character Princy (played by Safiyya Ingar who fans may recognize from the Witcher franchise on Netflix) embodies a darker aesthetic against Layla’s fluorescent one, bringing a healthy dose of attitude to go along with it. On the other hand, love interest Max brings a beige-toned, gay cis-male opposition to Layla’s full-of-glitter life, but the performance itself was anything but bland. 

When casting Max, the producers landed on soft-spoken Louis Greatorex to embody the still-navigating lover. When browsing auditions, many actors seemed to fill the two-dimensional ‘bad guy’ jock trope. Greatorex’s corporate exterior and heartfelt performance allowed for a more realistic portrait of a gay relationship in the modern age, allowing Al-Kadhi’s story to play out without feeling contrived. 

Though Layla’s final transformations may not be fully realized or completed, the film leaves the door wide open for fluidity and potential, offering a sunny future for non-binary youth. 

“This film demands a full life of dignity and love for Layla by creating a new world for them to embody.” 

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Building on their excellent, award-winning feature Sin señales particulares (Identifying Features), from 2020, Mexican filmmakers Fernanda Valadez and Astrid Rondero return to Sundance this year with Sujo, the tale of a young man’s journey toward a transformative adulthood amidst the violent landscape of rural Michoacán.

The titular character Sujo is just four years old when his father Josue, a cartel hitman, disappears, leaving the child in the care of his aunt Nemesia, a virtual hermit, living on a mountain above their town. The terroristic power and dominance of the cartel that controls the region (known as Tierra Caliente, a potent, infernal sobriquet) is apparent in the timidity of the townspeople, particularly women, and particularly at night.

Throughout the film, the deadly potential of men and the cruel work they do on each other is often viewed from a distance or kept offscreen. Of course, this curtails any celebration of violence, but it also imparts something like mystery on those works, a dark magic whose evidence, when it comes to light, is both repulsive and sublime. Each wound, that is, each clandestine meeting is an embodiment of an institution so vast, so organic in structure, so complex and obscure that it seems as inevitable and eternal as it is incomprehensible. In this remote place, so far from the city, from help or concern (“These people don’t give a shit about us,” insists one character about the denizens of the capital), the cartel is a condition of life. More than a governing or social entity, it is an angry and suspicious, or paranoid, god and all his creation. The bang of fireworks can never not be mistaken for the reports of the actual weapons that one is certain are always about to open fire.

The imperial persona of the local boss, Aurelio—who is only ever heard or seen from the back, remaining a shadow in light—lends itself to the first part of the film’s tones of fable or myth. His initial orders are that the son must be destroyed for fear of what he’ll become, but, as mentioned, his sage aunt is allowed to raise him on tales of immortal stones and animal guardians in what she hopes is innocence, apart from the violent world. What has Nemesia promised, one wonders, in order have such power, and how has she acquired it? 

Whatever influence she may have, she doesn’t live so far from town that its lights and blaring music won’t reach Sujo, who is also provoked by the temptations and curiosity of adolescence that he shares with his friends Jeremy and Jai. At some point Sujo will want to know more about his father and what legacy he’s left his son, dangerous questions that can only draw him into the orbit of the power that for its own preservation must co-opt and then destroy young men. 

To make one’s entry into even the outer edges of Aurelio’s court requires ambition. The key to survival—always an illusion—is learning how to curb that trait, to accept a subservient position and to never look up. This was Josue’s fatal destiny. But it was his bold capture of Aurelio’s restless horse that first brought him to the boss’s attention. That opening scene provides a trio of possibilities, of paths for Sujo to strive for: master, servant, runaway. If he were to break free, like the horse, what would that look like? What route would he take and where? And is there really any chance some other Josue won’t appear to rein him in and return him to captivity?

Sujo is a deeply moving film of discovery, surprising without flash, but nevertheless visually and aurally stunning, featuring complex, understated performances from a stoic Juan Jesús Varela, in the title role, Yadira Pérez, as Nemesia, and Sandra Lorenzano, playing another guide to Sujo in the film’s final part. Alongside Sin señales particulares, Sujo testifies to the consistently high-quality cinematic and narrative talents of Varela and Rondero. They are definitely a creative team to keep an eye on.

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“Sujo” is the winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic award at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

In college, one of my required readings was an illustrated volume by Lauren Redniss, which detailed the biographical details and discoveries of Marie and Pierre Curie. The book was a fascinating portrait of the scientists, and took a very technical story to beautiful new heights with graphic, fluorescent imagery. I still flip through its pages simply for the beauty from time to time. 

The documentary Frida, directed by Carla Gutierrez, debuted in Sundance’s U.S. Documentary division, took a similar approach. However, rather than portraying scientific discovery with unexpected beauty, the film took the already beautiful and complex life of famed painter Frida Kahlo and gave life to her well-known work, infusing her takes on beauty into the biographical format of documentary. 

How, you may ask? With authenticity and animation. 

The documentary script was comprised of compiled entries in the voices of friends, lovers, and from Frida herself. Much of the story of Kahlo’s life was told in her own words, drawn verbatim from her own illustrated diaries, allowing the painter’s innermost thoughts to become the soundtrack to her art repertoire, which this film’s production team brought to vibrant life with intuitive animation. 

Every era of Frida’s life got a dedicated visual backing, whether it was historic photographs from that time (each imbued with a bit of beauty and liveliness through tactful colorization), never-before-seen sketches from Kahlo’s diary pages or a reimagined, galvanized version of one of her many instantly-recognisable works of art. 

The documentary tactilely presents hallmark moments in Kahlo’s life through art, from the horrific bus crash that started her trademark self-portraiture when she became bedridden, to a miscarriage that shook her from heavily Rivera-influenced collections back into her own surrealist style. 

This unmatched, imaginative format taken on by Gutierrez brought a new life to the possibilities within the documentary world, delivering reimagined beauty to the biography of a breathtaking woman. 

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Irish-Language hip hop trio Kneecap took Sundance by storm in their debut, self-titled film, and reveled in celebrating their heritage. 

Director Rich Peppiatt was inspired to tell the story of riotous hip-hop trio Kneecap from his first encounter with their music. Drawn to the group’s raw authenticity and passion, the filmmaker touched base with Kneecap’s management team for months, finally landing a meeting through their booking agent to begin crafting Kneecap, which made its Sundance debut over the weekend and was purchased by Sony Pictures Classics, marking the first major sale of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

The film is a rowdy and passionate fictional re-telling of the formation of Kneecap, as portrayed (á la Eminem’s “8-Mile”) by the trio themselves: Moglai Bap, Mo Chara, and the ever-elusive DJ Provai, finally making his public debut sans balaclava. Supported by Michael Fassbender, who plays Bap’s fictional exiled IRA father, and a host of dynamite characters, the crew brings to life a fun-filled, drug-fueled and deeply emotional story of pride in identity, in heritage, and in language. 

A big strength among those characters were the women. From Liam Óg’s racy protestant bedroom partner to Naioise’s West Belfast strong mother, and from DJ Provai’s activist wife to a fully bad-cop detective, the female forces in the film were ones to be reckoned with. 

The cast themselves were impressed with the writing behind each character. “They are all very varied, different and rich in their own ways, and are beautifully intertwined into the film,” says Fionnula Flaherty, who plays the Irish-language activist wife of JJ (DJ Provai). 

Jessica Reynolds, who plays fictional Kneecap member Liam Óg’s super-sexual love interest Georgia, wholeheartedly agrees. “It was terrifying for me to go in and do a role like this, because she is so fucking raunchy and mad,” she says. “In the past, if women do roles like these they could be typecast, or judged for presenting their bodies on screen. But genuinely this was the most freeing role. I am so glad I did it–I hope it helps people accept those type of people, because those types of women fucking exist and deserve to exist without judgment.” 

In the Q&A, director Rich Peppiatt shared that the depth of the female characters was critical to the story’s development. He explained that they didn’t want the women to merely serve the boys in the story, but rather to have their own narrative arcs. 

The emotional connection to women runs deep for Kneecap, as evidenced as much by their performance in the film as by their commentary afterward. 

“Obviously the Irish language is a growing community, but there is a silent part of that community that is the mothers and women who never get the credit they deserve for raising their kids and speaking Irish to their kids,” says Moglai Bap. “Language can only be rebuilt through families, and the script really represents this. We are very happy the women were represented properly in this movie–without them, none of us would be speaking Irish.” 

“That’s why it’s called the ‘mother tongue,’” adds a balaclava-clad DJ Provai. 

Irish mothers were honored in the soundtrack as well as the script, largely thanks to the influence of composer Michael ‘Mikey’ J. Asante, who joined the project to bring the beats. “He really just got the vibe right away,” Peppiatt says. “There are not a lot of composers who come from the hip hop world, but he came in and brought not only heavy beats and the tones of tribal vibe harking back to folklore than ran through everything in the film, but he also did such a good job of bringing real emotion to the soundtrack.” 

For example, a bespoke composition of Orbital’s “Belfast” uses the sounds of the film’s resident mother, Dolores, singing to represent her power as she is leaving the house for the first time to support her son. “We actually seeded her voice in the score through the film, so she is a sonic presence throughout,” Peppiatt shares. “She is always present through the film, even though she doesn’t hardly leave the house–because mums are always there.”

All in all, the film was a raucous success with the audience. It’s the kind of project you can tell was a true collaboration among friends, with the perfect doses of ad-lib humor and fervor for a cause that only comes from a truly united and dedicated team. We’re calling it here: if you haven’t heard of Kneecap yet, you certainly will. Hold on to your pints, lads, because Kneecap is coming. 

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A performance in celebration of performance itself, Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson’s Ghostlight explores the power of theater as a tool for therapy, connection and self-discovery. 

“Ghostlight centers on Dan (Keith Kupferer), a melancholic middle-aged construction worker grieving a family tragedy. Cut off from his devoted wife, Sharon (Tara Mallen), and talented but troubled daughter, Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer), Dan finds comfort and community in a misfit company of amateur actors. While moonlighting in a low-rent production of Shakespeare’s most protean tragedy, Dan is forced to confront his buried emotions.”—sundance.org.

Ghostlight was one of the more tangibly emotional films I saw over the course of the festival, in a way that went beyond the notably brilliant work of the cast. The score (or lack thereof, sometimes), the camera work and the dialogue all perfectly captured the uncomfortable emotions bursting from lead Dan (played by Kupferer). Now, that’s not to say the cast performance didn’t make a definite impact: Dan’s bumbling, Daisy’s full-volume outbursts and even Rita’s (Dolly De Leon) soft-spoken intensity all contribute to the power of every scene, both on-screen and on stage. 

On the subject of the soundtrack, I was struck by the interspersed use of infamous musical theater tracks, from “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” to “Out of My Dreams” as the backing to more or less mundane everyday life activities. These track choices showcased how storytelling and showmanship can deeply influence and infiltrate life’s simplest moments, bringing every viewer, like Dan, bumbling into a love of the theater. 

One of the most engaging elements of the film was the expertly executed, slow-burn mystery of the tragedy that has befallen the story’s central family. It begins the introduction with insights into the clearly troubled life of Daisy, the family’s teen daughter. There are allusions to a cryptic lawsuit involving the family’s absent son and an apparent former partner, but the audience is not given the immediate, satisfying explanation many might expect. Rather, it is not until one of those impressively emotional moments that Dan is able to reveal a tragedy that very closely mirrors that of Romeo and Juliet, the play Dan finds himself part of after pulled into rehearsals by newfound friend Rita. 
With all combined elements working together in full force, Ghostlight becomes a heartfelt, vulnerable story of self-discovery and family connection, playing out in the most unexpected of places: in front of an audience on stage in the most unlikely of Shakespearean performances. If you’re looking for a feel-good film in a modern retelling of a classic, look no further.

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What interested me most in the first 20 minutes of Greg Jardin’s noisome bro-mean girl-sci-fi-freakout It’s What’s Inside, was the rather ingenious and layered moment in which the film’s nominal heroine, Shelby, scrolls through Instagram, accumulating information and anxiety in connection to the upcoming wedding of her friends Reuben and Sophia, collectively known as “#reuphia.” On their way to a pre-wedding bash, Shelby (Brittany O’Grady) and her live-in boyfriend Cyrus (James Morosini), in the passenger and driver seats of their car, respectively, are confined to inset frames as the screen gradually becomes overwhelmed by popup windows showing their friends’ breathless posts about how excited they are for the wedding, their accompanying text voiced by the various characters we’ll soon meet. It’s a brief clip, but its frenetic and hilarious energy, its simple solution to depicting a chaos of image, text and emoticons, while clearly defining the rising tide of Shelby’s inner turmoil, demonstrate early on Jardin’s smart comic sensibility and the deftness, accessibility and modishness of his cinematic vision.

Which is also to say that I pretty quickly hated most—maybe all—of the film’s subjects. Loud, boorish, privileged, self-satisfied, effete, pretentious…shall I go on? When I feel this way, even after the momentary pleasure of the scene I’ve described, for another ten or fifteen minutes, it seems natural to begin wondering if maybe this film isn’t for me. Am I supposed to identify with anyone here? Are they designed to be repellent? Maybe it’s a generational thing, or maybe it’s genre? What is the genre? Do I even know yet? Someone’s going to show up with a suitcase with a mystery, so, okay, give it another couple of minutes and see what happens. (Jardin does provide some cagey closeups of the device right at the beginning, just to get us interested, but one still has no idea.) Anyway, I think I’m supposed to hate these people?

The party to which Shelby and Cyrus are heading, for just Reuben and his college gang—Sophia, the bride-to-be, nevertheless inexplicably (ahem, conveniently) absent—is set to take place at an immense pile, like an English manor house, in some spooky, misty forest somewhere—are we heading into Ari Aster’s Midsommar imaginary? [*scratching chin emoji*] Nah. The place, it turns out, now belongs to groom-to-be Reuben, whose (conveniently) recently deceased mother’s large-scale, vaginally focused artworks still remain scattered around the grounds and the mansion’s interior. The sculptures are dangerous, more physically than aesthetically, which is what gives them purpose in the script. Keep in mind (if I haven’t already made it clear) that much of the backstory in It’s What’s Inside is tissue-thin, absurd and merely functional, to create easy exigency for this or that. 

[Does anything in the present of the film, other than a couple of lines of dialogue, really make me believe that the characters went to college? Studying what exactly? And supposedly they have jobs now? The assumption, or, in a couple of cases, direct statement that these late-twenty-somethings already have all the money they’ll ever need is supposed to resolve most concerns, I suppose, because, as we know, or so I’ve heard, possessing a fortune pretty much eliminates a need to justify anything, c.f….oh, whatever.]

[Wait, but does the film even need to take place at this huge mansion? It certainly provides atmosphere and spaces for the characters to secret themselves away, as necessary, to work out a variety of unresolved emotional and erotic issues. But then, the spooky structure also may remind us of something like an Agatha Christie or Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes show, something both gothic and mind-twisting. Or maybe this is going to turn out more like an old horror film? The Haunting of Hill House? But funny? Whatever, it’s good atmosphere, it’s fine. Go on.]

And so, yes, it turns out that that one friend, alienated from the group after being expelled from college [*rolling eyes emoji*] because of an incident involving his sister and another friend and his former girlfriend—now also present at this party—but who’s made good anyway, becoming a big tech guy, does arrive after all with that suitcase, which, yes, allows them to bodyswap(?!?) and wouldn’t it be a great party game to slip into each other’s bodies and then try to guess who’s who, while continuing to get drunk, high, etc.?

Okay, so there’s something of the teen sex comedy here, too, but, you know, this atmosphere stuff is kind of working for me, now, and it seems like Jardin is consciously engaging with that treasured genre of the comic whodunnit, such as Murder by Death (1976) and Clue (1985), and, honestly, despite some carelessness with the writing (I know you can do better, Greg!), I was pretty entertained by the performances. The whole gag of the film’s actors taking on each other’s mannerisms is fun and confusing, like the film is a game for the viewer, too, which Jardin obviously intended because, without breaking the spell, he introduces a clever and effective device of reminding us which cup the bean is under in case we’ve gotten lost in the who’s who, and it totally works as the stakes get higher in some unexpected ways, and we finally arrive, through yet another left turn, at a rather satisfying denouement, or coda, as the film would have it. So, yes, while It’s What’s Inside has flaws, ultimately it’s an entertaining and frequently smart, media-savvy debut that makes me curious to see what Jardin will come up with next.

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About 30 seconds before I Saw the TV Glow ended, I thought “Wouldn’t it be hilarious if they just ended the movie here?” And then they did. My partner leaned over to me and whispered “I’m glad you’re reviewing this one and not me.” But let’s back up and introduce the film before I get into why reviewing the film was a bit of a challenge. 

I Saw the TV Glow (written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun) is A24’s newest Sundance offering. The indie studio is known for critically acclaimed movies like Under the Skin, The Witch, Moonlight and Hereditary, among others. A24 films are regarded as films to have a very quiet, very slow build-up that leads to very powerful and explosive climaxes.

This film follows Owen (played by Ian Foreman as the young Owen and Justice Smith for all other ages of Owen), a lonely, social outcast who struggles to connect or communicate with anyone outside his mother and his TV. The movie begins in 1996 when Owen is a seventh grader. He meets a ninth grader named Maddy (played by Brigette Lundy-Paine) who similarly doesn’t fit into the standard social structures of junior high, only she has found solace and purpose and hope in a late-night, young adult, magical thriller TV show, titled The Pink Opaque (think Buffy The Vampire Slayer by way of Nickelodeon). They bond over the show and, as the schooling years continue, they pour so much of themselves and their identities into their love and fandom of the show that the lines between reality and fiction begin to blur. As they enter adulthood, the blurring of those lines leads to a surrealist nightmare of uncertain reality. 

And, sadly, that explanation of the film’s plot is more coherent and complete than the film. About an hour into this 90-minute movie, a narrative event happened that provided some (badly needed) direction for the film, which then it failed to capitalize on for the remainder. Knowing I was watching an A24 movie, I was prepared to have patience until we got to the climax, but that patience was never rewarded. I was holding out hope of a much stronger experience until the credits started rolling and I realized it was over. 

When we describe surreal horror in films, the term often used is “Lynchian”—which comes from the works of auteur David Lynch (Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Lost Highway, Mullholland Drive)—whose brand of surrealism, absurdism and horror is so distinct and powerful, he is synonymous with a genre of horror. Lynch builds his films and series around visceral emotions, never explaining what’s happening, but evoking a powerful feeling as you watch inexplicable things happen. I Saw the TV Glow struggles to elicit any clear feeling or emotion while feeling like it doesn’t have much to say. The most oft-repeated idea in the film is that life after adolescence speeds up as the weeks collapse into months and months become years and years a lifetime in the blink of an eye. After much debate and discussion, I came to the conclusion that this concept is one a lot of people encounter in their mid-twenties as they graduate from college and enter the workforce. Life becomes repetitive and banal and time speeds up like a runaway train. There’s no point or purpose and as we fight to hold onto what felt important when we were younger, we find ourselves unfulfilled and hollow. But even that idea is never really explored as much as it’s hinted at. 

Though it struggles with narrative resonance, the technical aspects of the film are fantastic. Justice Smith (currently the go-to actor for neurotic, nervous young adult roles) has moments of powerful and raw emotion, tapping into a primal energy and fear. As the movie crescendos almost randomly at the end, Justice lets out a chilling barrage of visceral screams that left my skin prickling. Brigette Lundy-Pain’s performance is a standout, for me, even under an assortment of bad wigs. In the latter half of the movie, her character reemerges and gives a far-too-long monologue that, while indulgent and repetitive, is delivered in such a mesmerizing and commanding way that I was transfixed the entire time. These instances of deep and unsettling pain make me wish they were given a more coherent (whether narratively or emotionally or both) film to perform in. 

The cinematography is dark with deep neon colors, making the visual imagery of the surrealism beautiful and dread-inducing. Within the movie, we switch back and forth from episodes of The Pink Opaque to the real world of the film and the look of the mid-nineties network tween sitcom is pitch-perfect and left me chuckling many times. In fact, the mythology developed for the TV show was fascinating enough, I wanted it to crossover more into the film the entire time. 

The sound design is fantastic. Its loud, obtrusive and painful noise disrupts the quiet scenes at the best moments. I found myself covering or plugging my ears at times, but I also loved how effective and unnerving the sound was used in the film. 

And even for all the areas of the film where I feel it didn’t work, there were individual scenes and moments that were powerful in isolation—segments of brilliance and raw creative energy that, even if they weren’t working as a whole, were signs of genuine talent and craft. 

All in all, if you’re a surrealist horror fan, you’re going to want to give this a watch, as part of your 2024 Sundance Film Festival selection. There are moments in the film that hit the tone of that genre so well, even if, as a whole, it falls short of the greats. If you’re not a fan, this film isn’t going to convert you. In fact, it’ll probably leave you really frustrated and bewildered. When it abruptly ended, I was left laughing because I knew how upsetting the ending would be to most audience members. The difficulty in reviewing this movie is trying to make sense of a film that perhaps doesn’t quite know what it was trying to say or do. 

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