The lost boy.

La Chimera — 3/5

It's both better and worse than the 3/5 I've given it, mainly in that it creates a compelling world but takes way too fucking long to get going. I believe I remember Alan Moore saying he wrote 'Jerusalem' to be a bit of a slog to confront and drive away casual readers. As such with this movie, and these movies in general. They challenge us to keep watching, and my constant opinion of them is "if I just force myself to finish it, it will be worthwhile" and it is worthwhile enough times to keep putting myself through it. But man, fucking, get a move on. As the last half comes around, things start to feel like something. Josh O'Connor is a star, self-evident, and even more particularly Carol Duarte is something unique. In less than 60 seconds, as she starts dancing, he, and I, fall in love with her, and the whole movie turns on its head. Alice Rohrwacher knows how to be poetic, which I'll define as being able to piece together a feeling through fragments. I can't really pinpoint what the movie's about, other than being lost with the occasional malady of not being lost, but it feels like something, something untouchable, but there in front of you all the same. It's a world of lost souls, digging through graves, trying to find something worth keeping.

You, who looks like you, but you're not yourself.

A Different Man — 3.5/5

I struggle with this one. I enjoyed it, particularly in contrast to the body-horror-in-a-different-way 'The Substance' which also plays with stylistic flourishes, though overdone and more celebrated, while this one had a humanity to it absent from that one. The first half, or even three-quarters, is a banger of low-key surrealism, centered around a sympathetic lead. Sebastian Stan does a great job of splitting himself between the before and after, feeling like the same person, but different, but the same. He does a good job of mucking up his good lucks, bringing it to a place of a guy who could be hot but doesn't know how to put himself together. By the time Adam Pearson shows up, the movie's riding high on petty jealousy that someone didn't need to change what they were to become who they were. But then that ending! Your disability doesn't make you who you are? It doesn't matter if you've changed your mask if you live inside a shell? I mean... yes? But no? It feels like telling a shy person "have you tried talking to other people?" Fuck you, friend. Or fuck me for placing too much pity on them to think that the disability does mark their life. Shit, maybe I'm in the wrong here, fuck.