It’s autumn in Cambridge, which can only mean one thing: Thousands of Harvard alumni, current students, prospective students, currently-gestating-in-utero students, and random-ass tourists will take to Memorial Drive to watch the Head of the Charles. Chicago may dye their river green each year, but those Ivy Leaguers will piss enough White Claw into the river to get some fish hammered. So, if traffic jams, angry rich people, tented TD Bank booths, and the drunken chaos inherent to any public sporting event don’t appeal too much to you, the city’s got an even better option.
That’s IFFBoston’s Fall Focus, which runs from Thursday to Monday (October 19 to 23) at the Brattle Theatre (in addition to screenings at Brookline’s Coolidge Corner Theatre and the Somerville Thratre), just down the street from the puddle of Fireball-laced enchiladas summoned up from the guts of some future senator next to John Harvard’s golden toe. We’ve got Palme d’Or-winners, Massachusetts neo-noirs, dreamy Nicolas Cage horror pictures, and two animated masterpieces among plenty more titles this year, and it’s gonna be a hell of a time. Plus, there’s two related screenings – a pre-festival and a post-festival one – that you should definitely consider as a part of the lineup this year. So let’s get to it before that contract that one of the Final clubs put out on us gets to whatever world-grade assassins those kids can afford.
Anatomy of a Fall
Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or-winning drama is long, yes, though it’s definitely quite a bit shorter than, say Killers of the Flower Moon, but don’t fear too much: This is not a Ryusuke Hamaguchi movie. Anatomy of a Fall is a granular procedural documenting the aftermath of a man’s fatal fall from the balcony of his family home in the French Alps. His German wife (Sandra Muller) immediately comes under suspicion, and a family friend (Swann Arulaud) takes the case, attempting to prove her innocence. Muck will be raked, slander will be tossed about, intrigue will be had, and you’ll walk out having watched a surprisingly deep, bizarrely funny humanist drama that also gets a swell brass band cover of 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P.” in your head.
‘ANATOMY OF A FALL’ :: Wednesday, October 18 at 7 p.m. at Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard St. in Brookline, MA :: Tickets
Eileen
Break out the Leadbelly, because it’ll be a good opening night at Fall Focus proper with William Oldroyd’s Eileen, an adaptation of Ottessa Moshfegh’s hit novel. It’s about the relationship that forms between a young woman (Thomasin McKenzie) – the title character, of course – and the firebrand (Anne Hathaway) that enters into her drab life in ‘60s Massachusetts when the stranger comes to work at Eileen’s day job. Which is a prison. Literally. Cue the dramatic music. This neo-noir, from the director of Lady Macbeth, is basically the epitome of literary pulp squeezed into fluid celluloid. Get an early preview of how much your winter might suck, especially if you live out on the South Shore or in Western Mass.
‘EILEEN’ :: Thursday, October 19 at 7:30 p.m. at The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St. in Cambridge, MA :: Tickets
Fingernails
Christos Nikou’s English-language debut checks off all of the boxes on the “How to Overcome Film Twitter Inertia to Get an Audience for Your Streaming Premiere” to-do list. It’s shot on 35mm, stars three of the most popular young actors in indie-adjacent cinema today, and is a high-concept sci-fi picture about a world in which people don’t have cellphones but do have something that proves true compatibility/love with more accuracy than a Match dot com quiz. Anna (Jessie Buckley) has a genuine document proving that she and her partner Ryan (Jeremy Allen White) are in L-U-V, but all that is thrown into disarray when she meets Amir (Riz Ahmed), who causes her to question everything she knows. Will true love triumph over the machine? Probably! Will we still think that The Bear is a mass hallucination rather than a television program? Most likely! Will you go out to see this? We hope you do!
‘FINGERNAILS’ :: Friday, October 20 at 8:30 p.m. at The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St. in Cambridge, MA :: Tickets
Robot Dreams
Ever since we saw Pablo Berger’s Robot Dreams at TIFF, we’ve been stewing about it. And not for the normal reasons – the kind of brooding a critic does when they have “Festival Brain” and overpraise some dogshit streaming release because the star happened to be there for a Q&A – but because we didn’t praise it effusively enough. There were a lot of great movies at this year’s fest, but this wordless animated tale about the friendship that forms between a dog and a robot in ‘80s NYC is, for whatever reason, one of our favorite pictures of the year. It’s vibrant, full of life, genuinely moving, and just a real good time at the movies. Again, as we said from TIFF: This is a movie that’s so good that it actually manages to make a “September” needle drop into an emotionally stirring motif, which is something that we assumed was impossible after Ben Stiller got trapped in that museum. If you see one thing that isn’t one of the big-ticket items during Fall Focus, definitely make it this.
‘ROBOT DREAMS’ :: Saturday, October 21 at 12:30 p.m. at The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St. in Cambridge, MA :: Tickets
Evil Does Not Exist
When we made that joke about Ryusuke Hamaguchi a little earlier, it was with this film in mind. Sure, Drive My Car was long and slow, but Hamaguchi manages to make this 100-minute and very lovely tale, about a mountain community at war with the developers who want to make a “glamping” compound on some land in their small town, feel like Warhol’s Empire. Some people will vibe with this, and we totally understand: If you like gorgeous cinematography, subtle plot movement, and a fabulous score, you’ll be at home here. If you have sleep apnea, though, maybe get a really good night’s sleep beforehand or drink a few Red Bulls before entering the theater. Snores may happen, and remember: Other people are trying to enjoy the movie!
‘EVIL DOES NOT EXIST’ :: Saturday, October 21 at 2:45 p.m. at The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St. in Cambridge, MA :: Tickets
Monster
It wouldn’t be a Fall Focus without an appearance by the master himself, Hirokazu Kore-eda, back with a new film set in Japan after his last two jaunts throughout France and Korea. Surprisingly, this plot summary isn’t for the Hayao Miyazaki movie that’s also playing at the fest: it’s about a boy who believes that his brain was switch with a pig’s, and his mother’s attempts to get answers from the staff at his local school, who are busy playing Rashomon games trying to get out of any culpability. Meanwhile, the boy becomes pals with a bullied kid at the same school, and you know what’s gonna happen: lots of tears, shed by people on screen and in the audience. Depending on who you ask, Kore-eda makes soulful observations of people’s fragile yet enduring connections or artsy versions of those Thai life insurance commercials that were memes in the ‘10s. You decide. But what’s an unimpeachable draw here is that this film features the last score ever composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto, who passed away last year. If nothing else, see it for him.
‘MONSTER’ :: Saturday, October 21 at 6 p.m. at The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St. in Cambridge, MA :: Tickets
Dream Scenario
If you’re looking for a pre-Halloween treat, you can’t go wrong with Kristoffer Borgli’s Nightmare on Elm Street riff about a dad and professor who suddenly becomes a media superstar after it’s discovered that he’s been randomly appearing in the dreams of folks he doesn’t even know. This is all well and good as a plot, but what really brings it to life is that the protagonist is played by The One True God, Nicolas Cage, who turns in an amazing comedic performance in an often well-constructed and considered excoriation of the randomness and ephemerality of fame. Oh, and also, it appears that we’re required by law to say “Ari Aster produced this movie” somewhere in the text, so here it is. But don’t hold that against it!
‘DREAM SCENARIO’ :: Saturday, October 21 at 9 p.m., at The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St. in Cambridge, MA :: Tickets
The Boy and the Heron
We are just going to be honest with you: even though we’ve embedded a link below for you to buy tickets, we’re really just doing that to ensure continuity throughout the post, not because you’ll actually be able to grab one. Why? Well, it’s a new Hayao Miyazaki movie, that’s why: every single person with a Totoro backpack in the Greater Boston Area will be fighting with families and college kids and film nerds for space in the Brattle. They should, too, because this story, about a boy who moves to the countryside during WWII and is lured into a magical world by a weird-ass heron, is delightful. Just remember: If you have to break out the pepper spray to beat some weeb to that seat you want, make sure to cover your eyes with your left forearm so you don’t accidentally blind yourself in the process.
‘THE BOY AND THE HERON’ :: Monday, October 23 at 7:30 p.m. at The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St. in Cambridge, MA :: Tickets
The Holdovers
Even though The Boy and the Heron might be the actual closing night film for this year’s Fall Focus, IFFBoston’s got a post-fest screening that is a genuinely unique opportunity. Let’s get this out of the way first: Alexander Payne’s latest movie, about the bond that forms between a kid and his stuffy teacher (Paul Giamatti) when they’re trapped at their boarding school over Christmas break, is so good that it made us have a crisis about finally liking a Payne movie. But, for one night only, the Somerville Theatre will turn into a House of Payne because he’s gonna be there for a Q&A afterward. Even better, you know how there’s been a trend of showing movies in the locales where they were shot? Well, you don’t have to wait for some hip nerd to get permits for it in 20 years time: The Somerville Theatre is in this movie, so go out and give a big ol’ fuckin’ shout, for pride’s sake. As the bouncers used to say at Great Scott whenever they’d hear someone bitching about a $5 cover for a dance night, “This is fucking Boston. Go Sox.” We’re pretty sure that’s on the city’s seal, as it is. Also, it’s free! And that definitely isn’t a part of our motto normally, so seize it!
‘THE HOLDOVERS’ :: Monday, October 23 at 7 p.m., at the Somerville Theatre, 255 Davis Square in Somerville, MA :: Passes