Film picks: Hirokazu Kore-eda showcase, Reality, The Flash
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In Like Father, Like Son, Masaharu Fukuyama (left) and Machiko Ono play parents who discover that their son might have been switched at birth.
PHOTO: THE PROJECTOR
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Like Father, Like Son – The Families Of Kore-eda Film Showcase
Families in Japanese film-maker Hirokazu Kore-eda’s stories are put into situations that expose truths about affection, duty and sacrifice.
In the drama Like Father, Like Son (2013, PG, 121 minutes), two fathers are tested to see if love can withstand questions of paternity and the stigma of lowered social class.
Tokyo architect Ryota (Masaharu Fukuyama) is proud of the status he, his wife Midori (Machiko Ono) and six-year-old son Keita have attained. When a blood test reveals that Keita might have been switched at birth, Ryota has to make a difficult choice.
The film, Kore-eda’s ninth dramatic feature as director, earned a Palme d’Or nomination at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as a Jury Prize at the same event.
The showcase paves the way for Kore-eda’s latest film, Monster, which opens on June 22. Other films in the showcase include Our Little Sister (2015), the French-language drama The Truth (2020) and Shoplifters (2018).
Where: The Projector, 05-00 Golden Mile Tower, 6001 Beach Road theprojector.sg/films-and-events/like-father-like-son
MRT: Nicoll Highway/Lavender
When: June 18, 5pm; June 24, 5pm; July 5, 8pm
Admission: From $10.50 for standard tickets
Info:
Reality (PG13)
Sydney Sweeney in Reality.
PHOTO: HBO GO
82 minutes, available on HBO Go, 4 stars
In 2017, United States military contractor Reality Winner was arrested for leaking to the media a classified file confirming Russian interference in the 2016 presidential elections, and sentenced to five years in prison for treason.
This tense and transfixing three-character chamber drama with Sydney Sweeney portraying the real-life whistleblower re-enacts her interrogation under two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents using dialogue pulled word-for-word from the taped transcript.
Award-winning playwright and director Tina Satter, in adapting her 2019 verbatim theatre piece Is This A Room, attempts no political editorialising.
Her clinical precision heightens the eerie hyper-reality as Winner gradually comes to accept the game is up and her world is over, and Sweeney, from the HBO series Euphoria (2019 to present), is a revelation.
The Flash (PG13)
When tragedy strikes, The Flash he uses his superspeed to travel back in time to alter events and save everyone.
PHOTO: WARNER BROS PICTURES
144 minutes, now showing, 4 stars
When tragedy strikes Barry Allen/The Flash’s (Ezra Miller) family, he uses his superspeed to travel back in time to alter events and save everyone. But his meddling brings unexpected consequences.
There are a dozen reasons this superhero movie is superior to any of those released in recent months, but to start the list in no particular order, one reason is the way story information is revealed.
Director Andy Muschietti – who helmed the It horror movies (2017 and 2019) – trusts his audience, a quality few film-makers in the Marvel or DC Comics universes possess.
Take Batman/Bruce Wayne, for example. As played by Michael Keaton – the fact that he reprises his role from the 1989 and 1992 films has been known for months through the trailer, so this is not a spoiler – Batman, as he exists in Barry’s altered timeline, is a strangely purposeless man. Without once talking about his feelings, Wayne reveals his troubled inner state through his eyes and voice.
