Tag: tense

A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE – Review

A House of Dynamite. (Featured L-R) Tracy Letts as General Anthony Brady and Gbenga Akinnagbe as Major General Steven Kyle in A House of Dynamite. Cr. Eros Hoagland/Netflix © 2025.

To many of us, nuclear weapons seem like something relegated to the Cold War past, but in Kathryn Bigelow’s chilling psychological thriller A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE, we are reminded that threat is still very much with us.

An ICBM of unknown origin is detected by military sensors, and is headed towards the continental United States. The assumption is that it has a nuclear warhead but there are many unanswered questions. Who launched it? Was it launched by mistake? Is it the start of a barrage or a single missile? Most importantly, what do we do?

Military sensors detected the single missile after its launch, so determining it’s origin is difficult. The missile is coming from somewhere in Asia, but the exact source is hard to pinpoint, as the missile was not detected until it was far up in the atmosphere. The source could be North Korea or China, even Russia but all is unclear. Questions must be answered: Who launched it? Was it accidental? Will there be more? And can this lone missile be stopped?

The military has plenty of plans for responding to attacks but not knowing who launched it and whether it was deliberate plays a enormous role in how to respond. A HOUSE DYNAMITE follows the response of the U.S. on differing levels to this mysterious threat headed our way. There are only a few minutes until the ICBM reaches the U.S., and those minutes tick down quickly.

Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow is a past master at taut action and suspense, a skill showcased in her films ZERO DARK THIRTY and THE HURT LOCKER. Besides the ticking clock, she loops the action back so that we see events and decision-making from three points of view, ascending the chain of command, and frames this shocking situation with the human element and their personal emotional reactions as well as their professional ones. The film sports an outstanding cast, including Idris Elba, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Rebecca Ferguson and Gabriel Basso, all who deliver the goods in this nail-biting psychological – political thriller.

The events that unfold are terrifying, and even more so because of all the uncertainty and unanswered questions. Looping the events back, to see from different viewpoints, makes things even more tense.

Bigelow tells this story in three over-lapping viewpoints, starting with the rank-and-file who first detect it, the boots-on-the-ground charged with carrying orders to destroy it, as well as the lower-level White House staff, White House reporters covering it, and technical experts charged with providing information to the decision-makers. The next two versions move us up the chain of decision-making, overlapping what we saw happening but now from a new viewpoint, advancing events a few steps as well, and with the last one including the President. Presenting the same unfolding events from different viewpoints builds both suspense and fear, as we see some of the same confusion, or sometimes more, as we move up the level of responsibility, reaching into the highest levels.

The scenario is not far-fetched as one might think, but it takes by surprise the characters in this dramatic thriller as much as it does us in the audience. The mystery of who would launch this nuclear missile now headed towards the U.S. is a major puzzle, one that limits what can be done to counteract or respond. The launch could be accidental or deliberate, part of a larger coming attack or just a single missile on its own. The questions sow confusion that magnifies the paralyzing disbelief, disbelief that consumes everyone involved, top to bottom.

The film’s title refers what one character says about the world, that it is a house built of dynamite – explosive material – just awaiting a blow to set it off. It is a good metaphor for the pile of nuclear weapons – “dynamite” – built during the Cold War, but built during that time but never disarmed or disposed of after the Soviet Union fell apart, and now largely forgotten about. A danger forgotten but still very deadly.

That forgetting comes back to bite the United States in this fictional tale but the danger it reminds us about is very real. Disbelief is a big factor complicating this situation, as well as confusion about what to do. Too many unanswered questions, about who and why, cloud the search for solutions, and the lack of knowledge and direct experience is even more chilling.

The film is terrifying as well as engrossing. Bigelow crafts the story written by Noah Oppenheim with a sure hand and builds both tension and human emotion as it unfolds in it triple form, a process aided by its terrific cast. The cast humanize this story, as things twist and go down the dark alleys, and they struggle to cope with an emergency they never expected to face, as if the past has come back to haunt them, which it kind of has.

In the first iteration, Rebecca Ferguson plays Captain Olivia Walker, who is in charge of the technical military team who discovered the threat and are tracking the progress of the mysterious missile. Gabriel Basso has a major role that runs through the film as a Deputy National Security Advisor, pressed into service as an expert on nuclear policy and political dynamics when his boss is unavailable. Much of the time we see Basso on video screen in the first version, as he hurries through the street to reach the White House.

The further in we go, the more we learn of the individuals facing this crisis, and their personal fears. Jared Harris, as Secretary of Defense Reid Baker, and Tracy Letts, as General Anthony Brady, are stand-outs. Harris’ and Letts’ characters play smaller parts in the first telling of events but more significant ones in the second and third iterations.

The overlapping, looping-back technique, gives us different takes on events, adds information others did not know, and gives both insights and a particularly human perspective. Information is revealed as we move up the chain of command, as well as upping the fear. The three-version approach is far more chilling than one might expect, for what is known and for what is unknown, about the unfolding situation and the human aspects.

Writer Noah Oppenheim’s script delves deep into the unexpected situation, as well as the lack of experience or knowledge that nearly everyone has about nuclear war. Different personalities react with varying levels of emotion or coolness, with the military characters the coolest heads but also the ones with the strictly military point of view.

The film is also an eye-opener for the audience, and it opens with a reminder of the too-common mistaken idea that many people have of nuclear weapons have somehow vanished, deactivated after the Cold War, a process that actually started but was never finished.

This is a powerful film, gripping as a fictional thriller, but so close to the possible that the terror rises to a fever level. The sterling A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE may be Kathryn Bigelow’s most significant film, as well as her most terrifying. Hopefully, it will also spark some thought, and alarm, in all of us about the unseen cliff on which we are unconsciously teetering.

A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE opens in theaters on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025.

RATING: 4 out of 4 stars

THE TEACHERS LOUNGE – Review

Leonie Benesch as teacher Carla Nowak, in THE TEACHERS LOUNGE. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

There is something going on in the teachers’ lounge, which goes way beyond school walls, in the thriller-like German drama THE TEACHERS LOUNGE. With high tensions and a dark comedy undercurrent, THE TEACHERS LOUNGE is about more than the classroom, as the best of intentions gone horribly wrong. The powerful, jarring drama is also an Oscar nominee for Best International Film.

The story takes place in a middle school, where a series of thefts has the staff on edge but the drama is really a parable about modern society at large. THE TEACHERS also flips the expectations of movies about teachers, where the idealistic teacher breaks through the strictures of the school to triumph and change students’ lives.

In the teachers’ lounge of this nice but ordinary German middle school, the gossip is flying, particularly about the series of thefts taking place at the school. Idealistic young math and gym teacher Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) tries to avoid the gossip, and focus on her work with her beloved students. The chatter reveals that the teacher’s suspicions now are falling on students for the thefts.

In early classroom scenes, we learn Carla is a good teacher, caring and in control of her classroom. When students who did well on a test ask her to post the ranking of test scores on the chalkboard, she cleverly asks them questions to show them the downside of such public comparisons. Her warmth with the students and her idealism make her admirable, but set the stage for what is to come.

While Carla tries to steer clear of the other teachers’ speculations about the thefts, she is unwillingly drawn into the situation when she is called into a room by another teacher. There she finds the school’s principal (Anne-Kathrin Gummich) and some teachers pressuring two students to report on their classmates about who they think might be the thief. Alarm bells go off for us, and for Carla too, but despite her interjections letting students know their cooperation is voluntary, the principal and other teachers undermine that, first giving lip-service to those rights, and then pressing the students again. Uncomfortable, the kids assure the adults they don’t know anything but eventually, they point to a boy – who is the son of Turkish immigrants. Since the student said they don’t know, they likely just picked a student who is not well-liked. That it is an immigrant student is unsettling. Carla, as uncomfortable as she is with this situation, is now a part of it.

As an immigrant from Poland herself, Carla is aware of an undercurrent of discrimination and being labeled “other” herself, and sympathizes with the Turkish student. Hoping to prove Ali is innocent, Carla then makes her first mistake. She sets a trap for the real theft in the teachers lounge, counting the cash in her wallet and then leaving it in her jacket pocket, but with her computer camera on and pointed at the pocket. Then she leaves it unattended in the teachers lounge. When she returns to check the wallet, some money is missing. When she checks the camera footage, it does indeed clear Ali but what it reveals creates a whole new problem.

Carla is indeed idealistic and well-meaning, but she is also naive. She makes assumptions and mistakes With the best intentions, she did something she shouldn’t have, secretly filming the people in the teachers lounge,. Hoping to set things right, she keeps making mistakes which make the situation worse, and everything she does to correct that, makes it even worse. We’ve all had that day, that week, that month, where best intentions blow up and no matter what we do, things get worse. Everything Carla does just digs the hole deeper.

The story is told from her point-of-view, which means we don’t always know what goes on out of her sight. While early scenes showed us Carla is a good teacher, but as things outside the classroom spin out of control, so does her control of her classroom. Carla has a moral certainty but everything in the story is ambiguous. Carla identifies the real thief not because she see a face but by a distinctive patterned blouse. It is never established that she is the only one wearing that blouse that day, nor is it clearly established that Ali or another student is innocent. Instead, accusations and suspicions fly, with little proof of anything. Everything is ambiguous, but what is clear is that someone who was not a fault, Carla’s most promising student, Oskar (Leo Stettnisch), ends up paying the highest price,

The direction by İlker Çatak, who co-wrote the screenplay with Johannes Duncker, is as taut as the drama is tense. The acting, the tightly-controlled choice to shots, and the precision editing, gives us a sense of fear and dread that builds as things spin out of control.

The school says all the right things about diversity and treating students with respect but in practice it asserts control, making it clear that no matter what they say, the administration and the school structure that are in charge. What starts out as a private matter spreads throughout the school, and truly explodes with the student newspaper gets involved.

Director Ilker Çatak builds suspense and tension skillfully as the the situation’s complications grow and Carla starts to buckle under the pressure. Leonie Benesch is outstanding as the young, idealistic math and gym teacher Carla Nowak. Carla holds herself apart from the other teachers with her ethics but those same ideals make her inflexible and unable to see the fuller picture. Her idealism leads her to actions that are well-intentioned but not well-thought out, which do not accomplish what she hopes.

Director Çatak often focuses on Benesch’s expressive face, with her large, innocent eyes, as Carla’s confidence in her ability to put things right crumbles. As someone who has also been labeled “other,” she projects feelings into situations without truly understanding the facts. As things do not go as she hopes, her frustrations heighten and her confidence erodes.

Another acting stand out is Leo Stettnisch as her student Oskar, a shy but bright student. Oskar is torn between his fondness for the teacher who seems to recognize his potential, and his loyal devotion to his mother. Anne-Kathrin Gummich, as the principal, is a skilled player at school politics, turning everything to put herself and the school in the best light, and deflecting blame away from the administration, even if that means throwing Carla under the bus. Carla never seems to blame anyone for their self-serving behavior, even the person seemingly caught on camera, who responds to the accusation with over-the-top rage and a vengeful attitude that does not consider her son’s best interests.

Eventually, Carla becomes the object of accusations, not of the thefts but of being a bad teacher. Her control of her classroom degrades as the scandal spreads. We see early on that she truly cares for her students, that she is a good teacher, but her ethics and her idealism make her rigid in a way, and she wraps herself in a prim superiority to the compromising, more cynical staff around her. That inflexibility, that inability to engage with the realpolitik of the situation, contributes to disaster in the end. The ending is ambiguous too, except in one respect, that it is the innocent who will pay the price for this mess they did not make.

If you are looking for an inspiring teacher story who triumphs over the system, THE TEACHERS LOUNGE is not that. But it is a brilliantly-acted, beautifully-constructed, drama that is less about teaching or German schools, and more a symbolic commentary on a larger modern social system, one that is broken and cynical, that the wraps its prejudices in a cloak of tolerance and sensitivity, a cloak that often only really serves to cover one’s own posterior.

THE TEACHERS LOUNGE, in German, Polish, and Turkish with English subtitles, opens Friday, Feb. 9, in theaters.

RATING: 3.5 out of 4 stars

MAY DECEMBER – Review

L to R: Natalie Portman as Elizabeth Berry with Julianne Moore as Gracie Atherton-Yoo, in MAY DECEMBER. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Netflix

Director Todd Haynes re-teams with Julianne Moore, star of his Douglas Sirk-style melodrama FAR FROM HEAVEN, for another soapy melodrama (complete with emotionally-overwrought score) for Haynes’ new MAY DECEMBER. The story was apparently inspired by the 1990s Mary Kay LeTourneau case, a tabloid scandal about a married, 36-year-old teacher who was convicted of raping her 12-year-old male student, a crime for which she went to jail and where she gave birth in prison. The pair had another child and eventually married when the boy reach adulthood although they divorced years later.

It is a tabloid tale that seems made for Todd Haynes. However, while the couple in the movie have a somewhat similar history, the movie’s story takes place twenty years after the infamous events, when the still-married couple are living a comfortable, quiet suburban life in a small island town near Savannah, Georgia. Gracie (Julianne Moore) and Joe (Charles Melton) are well-liked in the community which seems to have forgotten all about the scandal.

As the couple’s two younger children, boy and girl twins, are preparing for high school graduation, their quiet lives are interrupted by the arrival of a famous actress Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) who is there to research her role as Gracie in an upcoming movie about their infamous past. Hoping the film will put them in the best possible light, Gracie and Joe welcome Elizabeth into their home.

While Gracie is gracious and Elizabeth is polite, the two women have differing agendas: Gracie to keep the perfect surface her family presents to the world intact while Elizabeth gently tries to pry open any secrets hidden there. You know there must be some, which sets off a tense tango of conflicting purposes between the two women.

While some have called MAY DECEMBER a comedy, the overall tone of the film is tension and mystery, as the melodrama unfolds. As Elizabeth looks for ways to gain insights on the real Gracie and hidden details of the past, Gracie spackles over any cracks in the flawless facade they couple present to all.

There are plenty of hints of secrets and juicy tidbits but MAY DECEMBER actually promises more than it delivers on that end. What is does deliver, however, is a nice femme-centric battle of wills story. MAY DECEMBER sets up a tense pas-de-deux duel between these dual female leads, played brilliantly by Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, in this femme-centric story.

The duel between the two women has Portman and Moore playing off each other in a cat-and-mouse dance that is the film’s chief delight, particularly for those who are less enamored by Haynes’ overblown stylistic flourishes.

Still, fans of Todd Haynes’s films will find lots to please them, with dramatic twists (although what is revealed is no surprise) and swelling music to accompany them, and plenty of gossipy details in supporting characters, like Gracie’s ex-husband and children from her previous marriage, and particularly her troubled grown son. Repeatedly we are reminded that the actress Elizabeth, who will play the young Gracie, is closer in age to Joe now, as are Gracie’s grown children, and at times, Joe seems more like one of the kids as well. Gracie is by turns steely and in control, and little-girlish, particularly with Joe. Joe is opaque at first, a rock of reliability and maturity, but as Elizabeth searches for ways around Gracie’s walls, cracks in his front show up.

Not surprisingly, the film’s best scenes are between Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman, as they maintain a polite surface relationship while jockeying for position and advantage to achieve their own goals. Scenes reveal neither woman to be as nice as they want people to believe, to be cunning players in this game, and in some ways more alike than either wants to think they are. Portman in particular shines in her role, showing a darker side as the complex Elizabeth than we usually see. Both characters are capable of a certain ruthlessness to get what they want, which gives their scenes together a special chill.

MAY DECEMBER serves up a Todd Haynes soapy treat for his fans, and a wonderful acting pas-de-deux between Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore.

MAY DECEMBER opens Friday, Nov. 17, in theaters.

RATING: 2 out of 4 stars

MY NAME IS SARA – Review

Zuzanna Surowy as Sara/Manya, in MY NAME IS SARA. Courtesy of Strand Releasing

How many 13-year-olds have the self-discipline to pretend to be someone else for two years, without once revealing the truth even to those closest to her? MY NAME IS SARA is a tense historical survival drama that unfolds more like a thriller, which recounts the true story of 13-year-old Sara Goralnik who concealed her Jewish identity in Nazi-occupied Ukraine for two years, even from the Ukrainian Orthodox farmers with whom she is living.

There is a particularly timely element to this true story film as it is set in western Ukraine, part of which was in Poland when World War II started and part of which was in the Soviet Union, but all of which was occupied by Germany when the story takes place. The film not only tells Sara Goralnik’s harrowing personal story but gives us insights into the plight of Ukrainian farmers during the war, farmers who were brutalized and exploited by the occupying Nazis but also subject to raids from partisans hiding in the woods. As much as they might support the partisans goals in fighting the Nazis, the farmers faced starvation by repeated raids from both sides.

MY NAME IS SARA feels more like a thriller than a historical drama or biography, although it is also those. During World War II, many Jews tried to survive by posing as Christians, and fear of discovery gives such hidden identity stories an inherent tension, but MY NAME IS SARA is exceptional. Not only is young Sara hiding from the Nazis but she has to conceal her Jewish identify from the very family she is living with. The Ukrainian Orthodox Christian farming family is not helping her to hide – or at least not knowingly. In some ways, they were as much a threat to her safety as the Nazis occupying the nearby Ukrainian town, since they not only share their neighbors’ antisemitic attitudes but they were also driven by fear, as the Nazis brutally punish anyone sheltering Jewish refugees. The risk of discovery is ever-present and Sara has no one she can trust, yet must appear calm at all times, a challenge for anyone but all the more so for someone so young.

Sara (newcomer Zuzanna Surowy) and her family lived in Korets in the Poland when the Nazis invaded. Before the war, Korets had a large Jewish population that was well-integrated with the Polish Catholic and Orthodox Christian Ukrainian ones. As the film opens, Sara and her older brother Moishe (Konrad Cichon) are hiding in the woods, after fleeing the ghetto where their parents and two younger brothers are trapped. They are attempting to cross the border into the Soviet Union, an area the Nazis also occupy, with the goal of reaching a farm owned by an old non-Jewish woman that their parents have paid to shelter them. But as soon as they arrive, Moishe realizes they can’t stay, as the nervous woman is likely to betray them. “You would do better without me,” he tells his younger sister, noting that her appearance, with light-colored eyes and hair, makes it easier for her to pass as non-Jewish than his more obviously Jewish features do. The next morning, Sara makes the tough choice to leave while her brother sleeps.

After making her way through the woods, the hungry and tired Sara emerges in a field where an Ukrainian farmer, Ivan (Pawel Królikowski), and his son Grisha (Piotr Nerlewski) are working. She tells Ivan she is looking for work, that her name is Manya Romanchuk and she has run away from a troubled home life in Korets. The farmer eyes her with suspicion, then asks if she is Jewish, which she denies. He demands she make the sign of the cross herself as proof she is Christian. Satisfied with her response, the Ukrainians take her to the farm of Ivan’s brother Pavlo (Eryk Lubos) and his younger wife Nadya (Michalina Olszanska) where Sara can work as a nanny for their two young sons. At the farm, Sara is challenged again to prove she is not Jewish and, again, passes their tests, although her new employers still remain wary.

While Sara faces constant threat of discovery, she also learns things about her Ukrainian farmer employers that can help her. They hate the Nazi occupiers too, and are not so fond of the Russians, with memories of the Soviet famine of the 1930s lingering. She also learns that the husband and wife each have secrets, and each tries to enlist her support in their troubled marriage.

Director Steven Oritt ramps up the tension in this film in a series of nail-biting scenes, and the threat is always in our minds. The true-story is aided by the fact that Oritt interviewed the real Sara Goralnik Shapiro extensively before her death in 2018, information that David Himmelstein used in writing his script. As well as concealing her identity during the war, the real Sara also kept the secret of her war-time experience from her family until late in life. Although it is just being released now into theaters, the drama was made in 2019 with the support of Steven Spielberg’s USC Shoah Foundation and with the real Sara’s son, Mickey Shapiro, serving as executive producer. It has played several film festivals, including the 2020 Miami Jewish Film Festival, where it won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Film, and the 2019 Warsaw Jewish Film Festival, where it won the David Camera Grand Prix Award. Oritt has made a few documentaries but this is his dramatic feature film debut.

The film was shot on location in Poland with a Polish crew and with a Polish, German, Russian and Ukrainian cast, lending authenticity. It has lovely cinematography by Marian Prokop, who took advantage of the pretty, period Polish locations, aided by nice art direction. The acting is good, with young Zuzanna Surowy particularly impressive as Sara, particularly considering her lack of acting experience. Her still, sad face has a inherent underlying steel to it which serves the film well. Often when the character is asked a fraught question or faces a situation that threatens to expose her, Suwovy’s face remains still and unchanged for a beat, before she smiles and pretends to be pleased or cooperative, a choice that has the effect of making the viewer hold their breathe for a moment, increasing the tension more than one might expect. Director Oritt does a masterful job with keeping tension high overall, without ever wearing us out with the suspense.

As the story unfolds, what is most astonishing is Sara’s ability to pass as Ukrainian Orthodox Christian. Time and again, her employers test her, suspicious that she may be Jewish, asking her to cross herself, eat pork and even recite Christian prayers. Although we eventually learn the reason for her knowledge of Orthodox ways, we remain impressed that one so young can so coolly pull off the impersonation. Beyond the religious testing, there are other threats to expose her, including that the village she fled is not so far away, and she runs the risk she might encounter someone who knows her.

The film also periodically reminds us of the deadly price the Nazis imposed on those who did shelter Jews. When another Jewish girl turns up at the farm, Sara tries to help without giving herself away, another reminder of the constant danger she is in.

There is much to admire about this film but not all is perfect. Some of the exposition is unclear, and we are not entirely certain what is happening between Sara and Pavlo, although he is clearly attracted to her. The film also has the characters speak in English when they are presumably speaking in Ukrainian but uses subtitles for other languages, a choice that some viewers might find awkward.

All in all, MY NAME IS SARA is a worthy drama, an impressive true story of surviving the Holocaust, by a teen girl on her own, forced to conceal her identity and live by her wits, told with a thriller vibe, and shot on location with fine cinematography and acting.

MY NAME IS SARA, in English and Polish, German and Russian with English subtitles, opens Friday, Aug. 19, at Marcus Des Peres Cinema and other theaters.