The 2 greatest movies I noticed at Sundance, and what might be two of the very best movies of 2025, couldn’t be extra totally different, an invigorating reminder of the breadth of cinema at one of the crucial necessary movie festivals on the earth.
The picture of the practice in Clint Bentley’s magical “Prepare Desires” is weighted with that means. It retains returning to our protagonist in his goals, often as a foreboding signal of distress to come back or a way of tension that’s tied to the dying he’s seen within the building of tracks throughout the nation. It additionally has weighted symbolism, a picture of each improvement and destruction on the identical time. A practice observe is progress that not solely usually got here with violent human dying in its building however required the slicing down of bushes that stood on this earth for hundreds of years. Because the attractive narration by Will Patton additionally makes clear, a practice observe guarantees one thing totally different round each nook, usually ties to historical past that way back handed. All of that is the inspiration for Bentley’s lyrical and luminous adaptation of the novella of the identical title by Denis Johnson, a movie that reached into my coronary heart and soul. Early within the movie, I might bodily really feel myself taking a deep breath, nearly like centering in a meditation class. It’s a movie you don’t simply watch; you breathe it in.
Joel Edgerton does his greatest movie work since “Loving” (and arguably ever) as Robert Grainier, a median man in the US after the flip of the final century. He has a beautiful spouse named Gladys (Felicity Jones) and an lovely daughter named Katie, however discovering work usually takes him removed from residence for months at a time. Bentley’s movie (co-written by Greg Kwedar of “Sing Sing” fame) could be very purposefully episodic, nearly like somebody remembering a number of the main and minor moments of their life because it nears its finish. The primary act alternates between encounters of Robert’s on a job and his too-brief instances at residence. On the rails, he meets memorable personalities like a demolition professional performed by William H. Macy, a veteran performed by John Diehl, a talker performed by Paul Schneider, and extra.
These scenes are each grounded and beautiful on the identical time, feeling tactile of their presentation however shot via with magic hour lighting and beautiful framing courtesy of Bentley and D.P. Adolpho Veloso, who additionally shot the director’s “Jockey.” To say that “Prepare Desires” is gorgeous can be an understatement. The movie has earned some comparisons to Malick, and it’s largely in that visible poetry that folks affiliate with him. I’m unsure the movie is really Malickian in construction, but it surely does have a visible language of man’s relationship to the pure world that remembers work like “The New World” and “The Tree of Life.” In discussing its continuous magnificence, I stated to a buddy, “Lubezki can be proud.” And it helps to have all this pure surprise offered underneath a wonderful rating by Bryce Dessner of The Nationwide.
“Prepare Desires” is the story of an strange life, a person who would in any other case by no means be the topic of nice fiction or artwork. Robert was a logger who suffered nice love and loss in his life. He was luckier than some who died younger; he was unluckier than some who died previous. Edgerton is outstanding, utilizing his subtly expressive face as one other visible factor in a movie that performs like portray as a lot as prose.
Everybody concerned is well-directed by Bentley to grasp the project. Jones offers the movie a much-needed heat; Macy is engagingly humorous; Kerry Condon seems late so as to add thematic depth to the ultimate act. She says one thing like, “The useless tree has as a lot to offer because the dwelling one.” It’s a commentary on a number of the ultimate photos of the movie and the cycle of life from dying into rebirth—a theme at a Sundance that was very a lot about loss and grief—but additionally concerning the very acts of logging that allowed practice journey throughout this nation. Males like Robert Grainier did that. And he’s extra such as you than you would possibly anticipate.
A really totally different movie but additionally one which works as an empathy machine unfolds in Eva Victor’s phenomenal “Sorry, Child,” simply the very best movie I’ve seen from this 12 months’s Sundance Dramatic Competitors—final 12 months too, and possibly the 12 months earlier than. This dramedy is a panoramic tonal tightrope, a film that blends hysterical comedy with deep trauma to current one thing that feels most of all true. It’s an announcement of a significant expertise in Victor, who wrote, directed, and stars in a movie that had folks gasping for air after its good conclusion. I don’t often touch upon viewers response at Sundance as a result of it may be a little bit exaggerated however the group behind me actually simply saved saying variations on “That was SO good” via all the credit, as in the event that they have been too speechless to say anything. They weren’t mistaken.
Victor performs Agnes, who we see at chronologically jumbled factors in her life over the previous few years. Because the movie opens in chapter titled “The Yr with the Child,” we meet her greatest buddy Lydie (Naomi Ackie), who’s coming to go to, and reveal that she is pregnant. Even opening with this chapter feels important to what Victor is trying to say with this excellent movie: Centering friendship as an alternative of the trauma that we’ll be taught formed an excessive amount of of Agnes’ life. The second chapter, which, once more, takes place earlier than the primary is titled “The Yr with the Dangerous Factor,” and it’s BAD, however Victor frames it so well, not solely refusing to current it on movie however refusing to permit it to outline Agnes or the film about her. Different chapters like “The Yr with the Good Sandwich” fill in a number of the formative occasions of Agnes’ twenties, introducing us to memorable characters performed by Lucas Hedges and John Carroll Lynch alongside the best way, each incredible. Hedges, particularly, hasn’t been this good since he labored with Lonergan.
As somebody who has been going to Sundance for 13 years now, I’ve seen a LOT of dramedies about folks making an attempt to outline themselves after trauma, however “Sorry, Child” stands aside by being true. It’s persistently character-driven, refusing to succumb to clichés by being actual to Agnes and people round her. One other factor concerning the typical “Sundance Film” is that they usually falter within the ultimate act, the hardest factor for a younger author. Victor doesn’t simply carry this one in for a stable touchdown, she’s crafted a ultimate act that I maintain pricey to my coronary heart. There are three scenes as “Sorry Child” is wrapping up—one with Lynch’s half, one in a bathtub, and the ultimate one within the movie—that simply construct on one another in a way that completely floored me. Nothing about “Sorry, Child” feels compelled or manufactured, to the diploma that the performers drift away and you are feeling such as you’re watching folks and love. And a little bit of your self too.
