Tag Archives: romance

A Cult Of One: Bright Star

February 28, 2022 flawintheiris

Welcome back to a semi-regular feature on FITI, where I highlight an older film that maybe hasn't received the cultural attention it deserves. With Jane Campion very much in the current conversation as Power Of The Dog receives awards attention, here's a film of hers from more than a decade ago that never earned that… Read More

Reminiscence review — Romantic sci-fi an unlikely summer charmer

August 19, 2021 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Lisa Joy | 116 min | Netflix This shouldn't work. It's a hyper-stylized fantasy noir, deeply indebted to older — and let's be straight here — better films, but there's something about Reminiscence's commitment to its concept that raises it above being just another dystopic also-ran. It's easy to see where… Read More

Tove review — A complex and affecting love story

July 2, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Zaida Bergroth | Written by Eeva Putro and Jarno Elonen | 100 min | On Demand If you were like me and you weren't familiar with Tove Jansson, creator of the comic strip Moomins, this biopic will be eye-opening on a sheer information delivery level. It may surprise even more for what it… Read More

My Days Of Mercy (2018) review — Passionate, political romance balances dark and light

June 20, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Tali Shalom-Ezer | Written by Joe Barton | 108 min | Amazon Prime Every once in awhile you stumble on a film that has next to no profile in the culture, and you wonder how that's possible. How did My Days Of Mercy, starring local boy done good, Elliot Page, not receive a… Read More

Wild Mountain Thyme review — Irish romance a lot of blarney, but not all bad

May 10, 2021 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by John Patrick Shanley, based on his play Outside Mullingar | 102 min | Netflix The thing about tales out of rural Ireland — or rural anywhere, for that matter — they live and breathe due to their sense of authenticity. These filmmakers have certainly gone to shoot in County Mayo and County… Read More

Our Souls At Night review — Gentle drama of senior love

January 24, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Ritesh Batra | Written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, from a novel by Kent Haruf | 103 min | Netflix For readers in Halifax, here's the quintessential Oxford movie — remembering the kind of prestige drama programming aimed at local senior citizens at the much beloved, much missed single-screen cinema in… Read More

Luxor review — Trauma haunts gorgeous Egyptian romance

December 4, 2020 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Zeina Durra | 85 min | Hoopla, On Demand Back in 2009, an international co-pro with an Arabic-Canadian filmmaker opened in cinemas: Ruba Nadda's Cairo Time. It's about an American woman, Juliette, played by Patricia Clarkson, who gets to know a friend of her husband, played by Alexander Siddig, while visiting… Read More

Ammonite review — Lesbian love story worth seeing for the performances

November 16, 2020 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Frances Lee | 120 min | Netflix Francis Lee’s follow-up to God’s Own Country is a period drama set on a surf-swept shore featuring a romance between two women, but don’t let any surface similarity to Portrait Of A Lady On Fire lead you on. The tone here, of muted English… Read More

#FIN2020 Review — Deux (Two of Us)

September 23, 2020 flawintheiris

Directed by Filippo Meneghetti | Written by Meneghetti, Malysone Bovorasmy, and Florence Vignon | 99 min | On Demand I'd read this described as an Amour for same-sex seniors, but that's more than painfully reductive... it's also plain wrong. Deux has something else going on. In its delicate heart it's a late-life lesbian love story,… Read More

Portrait Of A Lady On Fire review — Passion simmers then burns

February 27, 2020 flawintheiris

Written and Directed by Céline Sciamma | 122 min | On Demand It screened at last year's FIN Atlantic International Film Festival, and now this gorgeous French romantic drama has finally arrived in Halifax cinemas. Céline Sciamma’s formal period film melts like butter on the tongue, a lovely if unlikely amalgam of The Piano and… Read More