Certain Women (2016)
That lovely 16mm look. Really slow burn of a film, which I had conflicting thoughts about while watching, but how it wrapped things in the end settled it. It is sort of three short movies spliced together, but not exactly like an anthology film. At first glance, all dealt with women issues in some manner that was pretty up front. Especially the first story about a female lawyer who has a male client, that really doesn’t understand boundaries or fully respects her. I was initially a bit annoyed with how non-subtle it was, but it was also very much in character for Laura Dern’s character to straight up say the point out loud. The two following stories are a more restrained with their themes. What I came to realize towards the end, was that the common denominator was really loneliness. For both male and female characters. The gender dynamics may seem at first to be what it is about, and it still is, but especially the third story really delved deep into the loneliness formed by society. All of this is backed up by stellar performances by all leading actresses.
Rating: 4