All of Us Strangers
I find the parental melodrama here far more effective than the love story; the ending, which attempts to (quite sloppily, imo) bridge these two traumas felt almost laughably cruel to me, a somewhat unnecessary grace note on what was up to that point a mostly beautiful film. There are some insanely poignant needle-drops here, along with an absolutely stunning performance from <PERSON>. Not quite as aesthetically precise as the (it must be said) quite thematically/stylistically similar Aftersun, but <PERSON> treats this emotionally gutting material with so much reverence and careful observation that it’s fairly hard to imagine anyone watching this without tearing up at some point. A very genuine and open-hearted film; I have my quibbles with some of the details of the script, but I couldn’t help but leave the theater with admiration overall. 80