The mistake Maud makes, that many of us make, is to believe that our restlessness and impatience will yield some sort of sign that God is listening. Read More
In Noelle’s search for justice, she slowly realizes that violent confrontation of those who have wronged you does not necessarily equate instant freedom. Read More
Every adoption story is unique, yet every adoptee shares a common quality to our stories of origin: our entrance into a family is not solely through birth but through choice, a choice made entirely outside of our control. Read More
The Leftovers makes two competing claims: that other people are mostly what gives life meaning; and that, despite guaranteed loss, we have to invest in them anyway. Read More
I wasn’t ready for The Meyerowitz Stories when it was first released, just as I wasn’t ready for forgiveness—to ask for it or to bestow it. Read More
Big Fan's excursion into the psyche of an alienated sports fan now plays like a prophetic warning, anticipating a number of the more ruinous social pathologies that plague this country, from the incoherent angst of working-class white men to the epidemic of loneliness engulfing them. Read More
Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place isn’t a whodunnit or a murder mystery. Rather, it’s the tale of a man who refuses to apologize for his bad behavior and the city that bends over backwards to excuse him anyways. Read More
Describing News from Home’s distinct quality of attention stumps me every time that I watch. But I would like to look at what’s before me in the way Akerman does, equanimous in the face of all that vacancy and rush. Read More
I return often to The Souvenir because what happened inside it happened to me, too. Its gift is that it hands those feelings back to me in a pure and unencumbered way. Read More
The Straight Story represents the Lynchian world redeemed, a pocket of America that battled dread and violence and won, earning its just reward. Read More