Movie Review Crimes of the Future

Crimes of the Future 

Directed by David Cronenberg 

Written by David Cronenberg

Starring Viggo Mortensen, Lea Seydoux, Kristen Stewart

Release Date September 8th, 2022 

Crimes of the Future is yet another example of David Cronenberg’s favorite theme, bodily autonomy, the right of people to do what they want with their own bodies. In his 1975 feature, Shivers, Cronenberg examined how outside forces take bodily autonomy away from individuals by force. In Crimes of the Future, the sides are a little more even. In this strange Cronenbergian universe, the war between those who want bodily autonomy and those who want government control over how humanity is evolving has reached a boiling point. 

Caught in the middle of this ideological war is performance artist Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) and his performance partner, a former surgeon named Caprice (Lea Seydoux). Together this duo performs an act in which Saul is operated on by Caprice and has an organ removed. Something the film calls accelerated evolution has led to Saul being able to grow new organs which may or may not have a function. He, and everyone else in this strange future, have also evolved to no longer feel physical pain. Saul and Caprice's art is a live surgery followed by Saul tattooing the new organ and displaying it all for the paying crowd.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Movie Review: One Fine Morning

One Fine Morning (2022) 

Directed by Mia Hansen Love 

Written by Mia Hansen Love 

Starring Lea Seydoux, Pascal Gregory, Melvil Poupaud, Nicole Garcia 

Release Date December 9th, 2022 

Published December 13th, 2022 

One Fine Morning stars Lea Seydoux as Sandra, a lonely, French, single mom. Sandra's days center on her lovely daughter and visiting her ailing father, Georg. Sandra's father is slowly slipping away following a stroke. He can no longer care for himself and much of the movie is about him being shuffled from one care center to another as Sandra, her sister, and her mother, try to find a place that will take good care of Georg in his final years.

Sandra's story shifts when she runs into an old friend at the park with her daughter. Clement (Melvil Poupaud), was a friend of Sandra's late husband. The two always had chemistry but she was married and so was he. He still is married but that doesn't stop him from openly flirting with Sandra. For her part, Sandra welcomes the flirting and more. Despite some reservations, Sandra welcomes Clement to her bed and the two begin a fraught affair. 

Meanwhile, Sandra is helping to pack up the life of her father. The once great man, a professor of literature, defined by the books he loved, can no longer remember the stories that made him who he was. In a lovely monologue, Sandra explains to her young daughter why her grandfather's books meant so much to him. It's one of the most emotional and lovely moments in any film in 2022. I can't do it justice by trying to repeat it, just see this movies. 

One Fine Morning is not the kind of movie that lingers on scenes, it's a movie that lingers in feeling. Director Mia Hansen Love crafts an emotional world and the movie lives in these feelings, this airy, open, often raw, emotional spaces. The story may appear stagnant to the impatient observer, but Hansen-Love and her cast are slowly carrying you along on an emotional wave, one that doesn't crash so much as it crests lovingly, caressing the beaches of bigger meanings and emotional truth. 

Find my complete review at Geeks.Media.