A SHOT AT LOVE // A FILM REVIEW OF "BARBARIANS"

BY MATEO MORENO

Adam (Iwan Rheon) and Eva (Catalina Sandino Moreno) are a happy-ish couple. He's a director and she is very popular artist. We meet them on Adam's birthday and he's feeling second thoughts. Second thoughts on settling down with his girl and living in a beautifully lush woodside home together. The stress of this alone is crippling him, but then comes his sort-of-friend (let's just say "frenemy" at best) Lucas (Tom Cullen) and his new girlfriend Chloe (Inès Spiridonov), arriving for dinner and ready for chaos. Tensions between the two couples arise, with the two men consistently trying to outdo one another. All of that comes to a crashing end though when their evening takes a dramatically sinister turn when a third set of party guests arrive.

BARBARIANS is setting out to be a dark British comedy of manners, a home invasion thriller and a spooky mystery all wrapped into one. Sadly though, it consistently gets tangled in its own web making it hard to ever truly find its footing. None of which is the actors fault, who all bring terrific game to the proceedings. Rheon, Moreno and Cullen all give great performances, with Cullen masterfully laying down the most showy performance, and also the most grating (and I mean that in a good way. The character is awful). Spiridonov does less here, but her character ends up being more window dressing next to a trio of more interesting characters. Co-written (with Statten Roeg) and Directed by Charles Dorfman, the film wants to creep you out while it takes you on a journey into the center of toxic masculinity. But the biggest issue is that it's just not very exciting, or interesting to watch. The cinematography is lovely, the acting hits the right notes, but it really doesn't have anything interesting to say. And in a thriller trying to reveal something, revealing nothing at all seems to be the worst trick of all.

GRADE: C-

WRITTEN BY Charles Dorfman, Statten Roeg DIRECTED BY Charles Dorfman STARRING Iwan Rheon, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Tom Cullen, Inès Spiridonov

"THE THIEF COLLECTOR" // SXSW 2022

BY MATEO MORENO

THE THIEF COLLECTOR, the captivating new documentary featured at this years SXSW film festival, is so unbelievable that it seems like it fell out of a Hollywood movie script. So much that the reenactments include Glenn Howerton from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia to really nail down how unbelievable this true story is. In 1985, a woman acting as a distraction and a man wearing an obvious fake mustache, walked into the University of Arizona Museum of Art and simply walked out with Williem de Kooning's "Woman-Ochre," worth hundreds of thousands of dollars at the time. When the employees noticed it gone, they saw it was simply cut out of its frame. The painting then just...disappeared, not to be uncovered until the couple's estate sale. How did this meek and mild-mannered couple walk away with one of the biggest art crimes of modern day?

At the time of the theft, the painting was worth $400,000. Now it's valued at $160 million and that's one of the least surprising things about this wild story. The couple at the center of the heist, Jerry and Rita Alter, are no longer with us to tell the why's and how's behind their thievery. We only have clues and stories they left behind, including several other rare pieces of art that were also found at their estate, not to mention Jerry's book of fiction that possibly might be a collection of confessions. The pride of the Alters were their vacations and they took them all the way to the end of their life, without selling this famed painting. Instead, it seems they stole it for themselves, a much more rare kind of art theft. Director Allison Otto frames a fascinating tale and wildly entertaining documentary that seems to be too strange to be real, yet it all is. It's a wild ride, one that surely will have Hollywood barking at its heels asking, "How did we not think of this first?"

GRADE: A

DIRECTED BY Allison Otto FEATURING Glenn Howerton, Sarah Minnich, Scott Takeda, Matt Pittenger SELECTED AS PART OF THE 2022 SXSW FILM FESTIVAL. FOR MORE INFO: THE THIEF COLLECTOR

"IT IS IN US ALL" // SXSW 2022

BY MATEO MORENO

Cosmo Jarvis gives a stunning performance in Antonia Campbell-Hughes new film IT IS IN US ALL. Campbell-Hughes uses the film to delve into male masculinity and what hides beneath it. Jarvis plays Hamish, a man who has just arrived in Ireland to collect, or get rid of, what his late aunt has bequeathed him. In a rush of a scene, Hamish gets into a brutal head on car crash. He walks away with it, but his arm is left in a cast. The aftermath of the crash is what seems to awaken Hamish, who begins to question everything, from his own life to his family. He checks himself out of the hospital and heads to the home his Aunt has left him. It's not at all what he expected and he finds himself drawn to it, uncovering and connecting memories of his childhood.

He also develops an unexpected and intense friendship with a boy Evan (Rhys Mannion) who also survived the crash. Evan is drawn to Hamish, letting go when he's near him. Hamish is drawn to him, though they both seem to complete this moment in their lives without knowing exactly how. Hamish sees himself in Evan and Evan sees a different life in the brutish but curious Hamish. The fact that Hamish lets his guard down at all is stunning to him and he can't quite explain everything happening around him. They also share the secret of what really happened the night of the accident, a secret that seems to hold them together like a terrifying glue. The stunning scenery and cinematography complete the picture around the broken man and sequence after sequence seem to break into a hypnotic gaze. A sequence where Hamish watches Evan and his friends practice a dance is fascinating. It's as if a man is discovering bits of him that he never realized existed one piece at a time. Other moments of him screaming into the wind, of exploring inside a dance club. It's a slow build that tears into you slowly but surely. Under Campbell-Hughes assured direction, who often tells the story with minimal dialogue but clear-cut pictures, she creates a bold canvas for us to look upon and Jarvis gives us a performance that will simply daze you.

GRADE: A

WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Antonia Campbell-Hughes STARRING Cosmo Jarvis, Rhys Mannion, Claes Bang, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Lalor Roddy SELECTED AS PART OF THE 2022 SXSW FILM FESTIVAL. FOR MORE INFO: IT IS IN US ALL