Issue 83: Secrets and Confessions Archives

One of Naoko Yamada’s most striking and unique traits as a director is her ability to convey the emotional intensity of a love confession, not through bombast or theatrical showiness, but through the startling vulnerability of a genuinely honest conversation.

Working Girl (1988) | Art by Tony Stella

“Do I Look Like I Don’t Belong Here?”

Carrie Courogen·

Issue 83: Secrets and Confessions

Mike Nichols' Working Girl, at its heart, is a film that examines the nuances of the intersection of class and feminism, packaged slyly in the form of a light-hearted, girl power-flavored workplace comedy.

Deliver Me from L.L. Bean

Candace Jane Opper·

Issue 83: Secrets and Confessions

Like many American landscapes, Connecticut’s pop culture identity is so omnipresent that it’s sometimes difficult to tell where the stereotypes end and the real place begins.

The Age of Innocence (Scorsese, 1993) | Art by Brianna Ashby

I’m Enduring It

Veronica Fitzpatrick·

Issue 83: Secrets and Confessions

What we commend as “real” in life as in film, and perhaps in Scorsese’s films in particular, we might call gritty, dark, or uncompromising; The Age of Innocence proposes otherwise. What could be more violent than a life sculpted by compromise?

Enough Said (2013) | Fox Searchlight Pictures

Kind of an Ugly Crowd

Kellie Herson·

Issue 83: Secrets and Confessions

Nicole Holofcener's Enough Said, a quiet, charming romantic comedy, is also the most stressful movie ever committed to film.

Life Is Short: Stunt It

Frank Falisi·

Issue 83: Secrets and Confessions

Hot Rod is an activist text. It is not escapist; its weirdness calls attention to the flaws of our world instead of distracting from them.

Michael Haneke’s Secrets

Molly Cooper·

Issue 83: Secrets and Confessions

Michael Haneke’s films emphatically resist interpretation, laying out strange and sometimes bewildering scenarios that remain unresolved even as the end credits roll.

Please, Spare Me Your Secrets

Lara Ryd·

Issue 83: Secrets and Confessions

Rather than convincing us that we’re better off keeping our secrets, Le Jeu demonstrates what happens when our secrets remain stagnant—instead of providing relief, they suffocate us.

The Gambler’s Ruin

Ethan Warren·

Issue 83: Secrets and Confessions

For a story as doom-laden as Paul Thomas Anderson's Hard Eight, the mere desire to do good—and do it the right way—must be hope enough.

The Namesake (2006) | Fox Searchlight Pictures

We All Came Out of Gogol’s Overcoat

Roxana Hadadi·

Issue 83: Secrets and Confessions

On the uneasy duality of Identity in Mira Nair's The Namesake.