Film Picks: Thunderbolts*, European Union Film Festival, Cu Li Never Cries
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
(Clockwise from left) Minh Chau in Cu Li Never Cries; Wyatt Russell, Sebastian Stan, Hannah John-Kamen and David Harbour in Thunderbolts* and Ella Marie Haetta Isaksen in Let The River Flow.
PHOTOS: SQUARE EYES, THE WALT DISNEY CO, EUROPEAN UNION FILM FESTIVAL
Follow topic:
Thunderbolts* (PG13)
126 minutes, now showing
★★★★☆
A group of superheroes with spotty records and shady pasts – Yelena Belova/Black Widow (Florence Pugh), Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour), Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and John Walker/US Agent (Wyatt Russell) – unite reluctantly when faced with a threat posed by the Central Intelligence Agency director and industrialist Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus).
As the trailer suggests, this is a comedy centred on a team of misfits. What is surprising is the number and quality of the jokes, most of which stem from the team being painfully aware of their inability to do anything awesome.
Red Guardian, the former Soviet super soldier, is, aptly enough, a boisterous bear in human form, trying to bond with his wary adoptive daughter, the assassin Yelena. Their exchanges crackle with a tense energy.
Russell is striking as the disgraced former Captain America, now a glorified henchman for de Fontaine, played by Louis-Dreyfus in a role that will have fans of her political satire Veep (2012 to 2019) weep with joy. The actress brings such joie de vivre to the part, it becomes impossible to hate a woman who loves her job so much.
European Union Film Festival
One film to note at the 2025 edition is the Norwegian drama Let The River Flow (PG13, 2023, 124 minutes, screens on May 11, 5pm).
Winner of Best Film, Best Director and Best Supporting Actor at the Amanda Awards, Norway’s equivalent of the Oscars, in 2023, this historical drama is inspired by a true story.
Set in 1979, the story follows teacher Ester (Ella Marie Haetta Isaksen) as she moves to northern Norway for work. A member of the Sami indigenous group, she tries to conceal her ethnicity until she becomes drawn into a protest against a dam that would submerge a Sami village. The fight opens her eyes to a system with a bias against her community.
The European Film Festival is an annual event that showcases a curated selection of European films. Started in 1991, it is among the longest-running foreign film festivals here.
Where: The Projector at Cineleisure, 8 Grange Road euff.com.sg/tickets
MRT: Somerset
When: Till May 24
Admission: $16.50, with concessions available for Projector Fan Club members, full-time national servicemen and students
Info:
Cu Li Never Cries (NC16)
92 minutes, Oldham Theatre
The past and present mingle in this complex, atmospheric drama set in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Filmed in black and white, Cu Li Never Cries (2024) at first appears to be about an older woman, Mrs Nguyen (Minh Chau), coming to terms with the death of her estranged husband.
It emerges that she owns a pet, a pygmy slow loris called Cu Li, bequeathed to her by her late husband, whom she met in the then-East Germany while she was a migrant worker. Her niece’s (Ha Phuong) fiance, in an echo of Mrs Nguyen’s actions, plans to leave Vietnam for work. This choice, among others, opens fresh emotional wounds even as older ones refuse to heal.
This co-production by Vietnam, Singapore, France, the Philippines and Norway is Vietnamese director Pham Ngoc Lan’s feature debut. It won the GWFF Best First Feature Award at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival and the Best Picture Prize (International) at the 2024 Jeonju International Film Festival.
In a review, online critics’ group International Cinephile Society praises Minh Chau’s performance as the matriarch, adding that the film “combines the grit and candour of social realism with dreamlike existential ponderings, giving insights into the past, in how it influences and guides the present”.
Cu Li Never Cries is part of the Asian Film Archive’s Releases programme, featuring critically acclaimed films and festival favourites in contemporary Asian cinema.
Where: Oldham Theatre, National Archives of Singapore, 1 Canning Rise
MRT: City Hall/Bras Basah
When: May 4 to 23, various timings
Admission: $10 (general), $9 (concession)
Info: str.sg/vPjT
