film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Joel Fisher

  • My Best Worst Adventure: Review

    My Best Worst Adventure: Review

    Jenny (Lily Patra) is a typical thirteen-year-old girl that’s holding in a lot of contempt and doubt about the world. She hardly communicates with anyone, preferring to write down her feelings and post them on social media where she talks about being an alien and feeling out of place.

    She’s also dealing with the loss of her mother and her father has also shipped her off to rural Thailand so that he doesn’t have to deal with her and she’s feeling lost and alone. Then one day Jenny sees Boonrod (Pan Rugtawatr) and she saves him from getting beaten up by one of the most popular boys in school.

    Boonrod also has trouble speaking and prefers to stay mute and has family troubles of his own because his family are poor and his father in debt to local criminals. It’s unfortunate for Jenny and Boonrod then that Jenny saved Boonrod from being beaten up by the son of the leader of the criminal gang. So, not realising what would happen, Jenny and Boonrod soon find themselves in serious trouble.

    My Best Worst Adventure is a charming and emotional coming of age drama. Set in Thailand, director Joel Soisson makes it feel like a world apart from what Jenny knows. However, it also strangely familiar and so although most audiences may have not encountered that environment before, the issues that Jenny and Boonrod face are strikingly familiar.

    Remaining silent throughout the film, Patra and Rugtawatr are left with only body language and expressions in order to communicate with each other and Soisson manages to craft a beautiful friendship between the children which is bound to warm hearts.

    There’s something rather formulaic about theses kinds of coming-of-age dramas though and for those who have seen films such as The Karate Kid and My Girl then they may know what to expect.

    Although with such a wonderful pair of child actors and the score so wonderfully suiting the mood, the audience will certainly not mind. My Best Worst Adventure is something the whole family can enjoy and will leave them with a smile.

  • The Truffle Hunters: Review

    The Truffle Hunters: Review

    Piedmont, Italy is the source for some of the rarest and most expensive truffles in the world. However, the elusive white Alba truffle is something that all the most seasoned truffle hunters are dying to find.

    The Truffle Hunters is a documentary that follows a few of those men who have spent their lives looking for truffles with their trusty dogs who would do anything to stay by their sides. Although with such rarity in such delicious food comes varying opinions of these explorers who are now in their seventies and eighties, but the search still goes on.

    The oldest man is eighty-five and is showing no signs of stopping. He has no interest in passing down his knowledge and through to circumstances he’s never had the opportunity to find someone to settle down with, but he knows that he’s lived a good life.

    There’s another man whose wife worries for his safety as he likes to go out at night and has the bruises to prove it, but nothing will stop him even if he is one of the oldest out there. There’s even a man who has become disillusioned with the industry and wants to quit, but there are younger men willing to pay anything for his services.

    The Truffles Hunters shows a world that many wouldn’t know about, nor would they realise still exists in the modern day as it’s assumed that every food is readily available. However, the documentary shows this special group of men are part of a dying breed and the old-fashioned way is the best way to get what they want.

    The documentary also shows the relationships between these men and their dogs and this is the most charming part. There are birthday parties with cakes and meaty treats, bath times that although may seem unusual, show a loving bond between owner and pet and they show the loving connection that could only happen with these people.

    The Truffle Hunters may be a very niche documentary, but it will warm your heart and make you wonder how some can still enjoy the simple pleasures in life.

  • My Childhood, My Country – 20 Years In Afghanistan: Review

    My Childhood, My Country – 20 Years In Afghanistan: Review

    Life in Afghanistan has become increasingly difficult over the past twenty years. Ever since the attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001, the US and the UK came together to put a stop on terror and at first their efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan were successful. However, as in recent weeks, Afghanistan has been the biggest cause for concern as President Biden announced that American and British troops would be out of Afghanistan by September 11th of this year.

    My Childhood, My Country: 20 Years in Afghanistan is a documentary directed by Phil Grabsky and Shoaib Sharifi that focuses on a boy called Mir and tracks his life from when he was only seven years old to just months before the documentary’s release.

    Mir grew up as any other child did at the turn of the century in Afghanistan, he loved playing and having fun with his friends and family and as he grew up, he started to become interested in girls and the newest technologies. Then as he grew older, he put away childish things, got married and started to raise a family.

    Mir also became fascinated with filmmaking (probably due to the documentary makers themselves), so Mir started work as a camera man and soon was on the front line documenting the terrorist attacks from orchestrated by the Taliban on his own country.

    Never has a documentary been so poignant and heart-breaking as this. What probably started out as an ambitious documentary charting the life of a young boy living in Afghanistan and how foreign forces helped to rebuild the country, has turned into something so tragic and it’s reflected in Mir’s story.

    Starting out by showing his life and having all of the same troubles as any other young man, over the years My Childhood, My Country shows the effects that the Taliban have had not only on the country as a whole, but on the morale of its population.

    Mir has suffered personal tragedy and loss through the attacks on his country and all he wants is freedom. There won’t be any answers as to why foreign troops were pulled from Afghanistan so quickly and so completely, but anybody who watches My Childhood, My Country: 20 Years in Afghanistan will see how big of a mistake has been made.

  • We Need To Do Something: Review

    We Need To Do Something: Review

    Melissa (Sierra McCormick) is stuck indoors with her family during a storm. Her little brother, Bobby (John James Cronin) is calm, but anxious as he thinks that there’s something more to the storm than mere thunder and lightning. Melissa’s mother, Diane (Vinessa Shaw) is also calm and trying to reassure her children that everything’s going to be ok.

    On the other hand, Melissa’s father, Robert (Pat Healy) is becoming more and more irate that there’s nothing they can do as they find themselves trapped in their bathroom with no means of escape. Time passes and there’s barely a sound outside, however the door is still impenetrable and the family is slowly running out of patience. Melissa also has her own inner turmoil as she starts to think that she may be responsible for them being there.

    We Need to Do Something is an intense and claustrophobic horror and Sean King O’Grady’s directorial feature debut, based on the novella written by Max Booth III who also wrote the screenplay.

    Something of a timely film, We Need to Do Something is surely going to remind its audience about the situation we’ve all been living in for the past year. Something which may work for some and may make others want to switch off.

    However, as much as the film may be an unwanted reminder of how the world is right now, it may serve as a good way to show people how it felt while living at this time.

    Although being in a small, cramped setting with a small cast, O’Grady does manage to convey that feeling of endless dread and foreboding that we’ve all felt in the past year at some time or another. So, if you’re the kind of person that wants to embrace the chaos and like the characters, put yourself into the eye of the storm then We Need to Do Something may be a welcome distraction.

    For those who have been focussing a bit too much on all the doom and gloom though, maybe save it for a time when you feel more comfortable because it will only heighten that terror.

  • Son: Review

    Son: Review

    Laura (Andi Matichak) has just given birth to a beautiful baby boy named David (Luke David Blumm) and she’s overjoyed and will do anything to protect him. The problem is that she has to keep David safe from a satanic cult who want to take him as they believe he is the devil’s spawn.

    Laura’s only friend is Paul (Emile Hirsch) who may or may not believe Laura’s story, but as David becomes sick and starts displaying cannibalistic behaviour, Laura realises that she doesn’t only have to keep him safe, but that she has to satisfy her son’s hunger.

    Son is a satanic horror movie exclusive to Shudder which continues a rather family horror story. Most horror fans will know of Rosemary’s Baby and where that story left off, Son continues. However, there’s an added twist as to whether Laura is really being chased by a satanic cult or whether it’s all in her head. Sadly, Son is quite formulaic and so audiences will soon find that it becomes quite predictable, even when it thinks it’s being clever.

    The relationship between mother and son can be quite sweet and realistic at times, with both Matichak and Blumm playing their roles well. The element of a mystery chronic illness is also played quite realistically as well. This leads the audience to think that either Laura is delusional and has a chronically ill son, or that she really is in danger from a cult.

    However, with those two options it doesn’t really leave much for the audience to go on. Because once they’ve made up their minds then they will either be gratified or unsatisfied that they saw a twist coming from a mile away.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWwNszlfMlM

    It also doesn’t particularly help that the film seems rather disjointed, with Paul and his cop partner trying to track down Laura and her son, it only seems to heighten the idea that either Laura or her son are extremely dangerous. It’s also not all that tasteful using mental health as a plot device in a modern horror movie.

    Son is something many horror fans have seen before and that’s where the problem lies. Because once you know where it’s going then there are no surprises.