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zoë rose bryant has written 410 reviews for films during 2019.

Boyhood

2014

★★★★★ Liked 2

“I just thought there would be more.”

Spent 165 minutes watching 12 years of Mason’s life and subsequently spent two hours in a nostalgic daze thinking back on every major life event I’ve endured throughout the past decade and now I’m currently attempting to make sense of my existence as we head into 2020! 🥰

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Lady Bird

2017

★★★★★ Liked 5

The scene where Marion is washing dishes and giving Lady Bird the silent treatment even though she’s begging her to talk to her is one of the most upsetting scenes in the history of cinema and resembles FAR too many agonizing experiences from my own adolescence and I’m HURT

A Hidden Life

2019

★★★½ Liked Watched

Though the film is obscenely overlong - especially when considering how simplistic its story truly is - Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life nevertheless contains enough raw emotional resonance to ultimately offer an enlightening (if exhausting) cinematic experience.

Terrence Malick is most certainly an acquired taste, and I’m not even sure I’m ever fully on his wavelength either. No matter, as A Hidden Life is by far and away his least esoteric and most accessible feature in years, centered around August Diehl’s…

Hustlers

2019

★★★★★ Liked Rewatched

Praise be the powers of the universe that prevented Ad*m McK*y from directing this and instead graced us with the presence of the legendary Lorene Scafaria.

2019 Ranked

Her Smell

2018

★★★½ Liked Watched

In spite of its heller-skelter structure, Her Smell manages to be harrowingly hypnotic throughout most of its 135-minute runtime, deriving almost all of its energy from Elisabeth Moss’s lyrically live-wire lead performance.

Taking cues from 2015’s Steve Jobs, writer-director Alex Ross Perry structures his story as a series of five separate vignettes, all separated by “home videos” which are shot to preface each vignette and filmed to appear as an insight into/prologue for the specific events and relationships explored in…

Diane

2018

★★★ Liked Watched

Kent Jones’s small-scale script causes this character study to drift a bit too much at times, but Mary Kay Place demands every last inch of your attention as the titular Diane, with a fully textured and thought-provoking depiction of a beleaguered middle-aged woman just trying to get by all while simultaneously atoning for past mistakes. No one else is quite on Place’s level (with Jake Lacy turning in sub-standard work in the first third as her drug addicted son), but Place’s and Jones’s empathy for this endlessly endearing individual keeps your interest nonetheless.

2019 Ranked

Spies in Disguise

2019

★★★ Watched

While it never fully decides whether it wants to be a full-blown deconstruction of spy films or just a pleasant and polished entry in the storied genre, and it may lack the greatest inventiveness and emotional resonance of the best animated features, Spies in Disguise is still an amiable and amusing adventure for all-ages. It might not have you bowled over with laughter, but it’s continuously charming throughout its brisk 102-minute runtime, primarily due to the charisma of its commendable…

Atlantics

2019

★★★½ Liked Watched

Though occasionally too aimless in its ambitions, Atlantics weaponizes this languor to deepen its dreamlike details and lull viewers under its seductive spell. The plot can feel a tad repetitive in the middle stretch, but the story’s startling supernatural secrets sneak up and surprise you by the film’s finale, and above all else, Mati Diop perpetually proves herself to be a dynamic directorial voice on the rise in this gorgeous, genre-bending exercise.

2019 Ranked