In Paris, Texas, Travis has been absent from his son’s life for an extended period of time. When he does eventually come back, the film allows his absence to be interpreted through grief, guilt, and sacrifice. He reunites his son Hunter with Jane, then removes himself from their lives. The outcome allows for a narrative around atonement. While recognizing that Travis is complex and caused harm, the audience is encouraged to see him as a lost and dysfunctional man on the path to redemption who is capable of doing the right thing. Yet, in The Lost Daughter, Leda also leaves her children for years and returns later. However, her return is not seen as noble, and her actions are not cleanly resolved. Instead, the film allows the audience to sit with her resentment and guilt. Because she is a mother and her story is not easily digestible with a happy outcome, her choice reads more easily as evidence that she is a bad person. The comparison does not imply that Leda and Travis’s circumstances are identical, and it absolutely does not erase the harm they perpetrated against their children; however, it does reveal how differently we assign moral weight. Travis’s final act changes how we interpret his past, while Leda is denied the same retroactive absolution. The outcome does not change the fact that both parents left; it does, however, change the story we tell about what that choice means.

Moral Luck is not a complete framework; it rather exposes a problem of how we assign blame and judgements to people’s characters. A more widely known school of thought is consequentialism, which suggests that an action’s morality is determined by its consequences. A consequentialist might argue that Travis’s final choice produces more good for Hunter and therefore carries more moral weight. But moral luck complicates this idea: does a positive outcome inherently transform the morality of his previous actions because it ended up okay, or does the film just make us think it does? A utilitarian framework would expand this question further; utilitarianism suggests that the most ethical action is the one that creates the most overall good and the least overall suffering. From this perspective, Travis’s abandonment must not just be weighed by the effect on his son but also on the effect on Walt and Anne, who take on the emotional and logistical responsibility of raising him. Even if Travis’s final act produces some good, a utilitarian would posit that you have to weigh all the well-being and suffering involved before determining the morality.

Ultimately, moral luck does not ask us to ignore harm or absolve people of responsibility for the choices they make. Travis’s absence harms Hunter, Walt, and Anne, and Leda’s absence harms her children. Consequentialism is useful because it reminds us that those effects matter: morality cannot be reduced to intention alone when other people are left to carry real pain, labor, and loss. However, moral luck asks us to be cautious about turning harm into a permanent verdict on someone’s character. Paris, Texas and The Lost Daughter reveal that audiences do not judge parental abandonment neutrally. Travis is offered a redemptive outcome that allows his pain to become sacrifice, while Leda’s desire to leave remains more difficult to forgive. The difference is not simply what either parent did, but whose pain the film makes legible, whose return produces a satisfying outcome, and who is allowed to be complicated without being reduced to a bad person.

Meet the Author: Cailey Davern

I graduated from DePaul University with a Degree in Communications and Media (Go Blue Demons!). I currently work at a NYC-based Marketing Agency as a Social Media Lead who runs the social accounts for Non-Profit clients. I currently reside in the Chicago suburbs and live with my cat, Harley, who is 3. I love all things vintage fashion, music, and movies. I am an avid reader, and I love books adapted into movies and short series. In my free time, I enjoy thrifting, collecting vinyl, going to live shows, spending time with friends, and watching movies!

Letterbox’d: https://boxd.it/auB2T

Postcards from the Edge is a semi-autobiographical story written by Carrie Fisher, adapted from her novel, starring Meryl Streep as Suzanne Vale, a struggling Hollywood actress recovering from addiction after a cocaine overdose and a brief rehab stint, attempting to rebuild her life and career in the midst of confronting the toxic relationships, her dysfunctional mother, and the chaos of Hollywood culture that has defined her life. She works in an industry that depends on performance, appearance, and the ability to remain entertaining even while suffering. Her personal pain is constantly filtered through professional expectations. The film is a raw depiction of the realities of drug addiction and the complex relationships that often live alongside it. In this film, sobriety isn’t a fix-all to Suzanne’s problem; it is the catalyst that forces her to recognize and cope with the patterns in her own life as she learns to reconcile the disconnect between herself and the world around her. Suzanne’s journey is unpredictable and a bit messy, but it highlights the reality of recovery as unglamorous, a reclamation of identity through establishing boundaries and recognizing her own needs, creating distance without completley eradicating the relationships between her and the people and places that previously defined her. The film is relatable, funny, raw, and deeply human, teaching us that consistency and healing are built through the gradual act of learning how to live with yourself without continuing to disappear inside of the pain.

Party Girl (1995) by Daisy von Scherler Mayer

In the 1995 film Party Girl, starring the iconic Parker Posey as Mary, a young New Yorker who’s deeply interested in the city's underground club scene, throwing parties, nightlife, and not much else. After Mary is arrested for selling tickets to an illegal underground rave, her godmother bails her out and offers her a job as a librarian to repay the bail money. Mary struggles to acclimate to the serious and rather dull environment of her latest job, with demanding patrons, a stressful organizational system, and demanding professional standards. Eventually, she learns the Dewey Decimal System and becomes more invested in the work. Through success at her new job, she discovers that she is more than just a party girl, and that she is, in fact, intelligent, capable, and genuinely suited for the job. At this point, her lifestyle and friendships begin to clash with her new identity, as those around her fail to adapt their perception of her, keeping her attached to her old way of life. Mary develops a relationship with Mustafa, a Lebanese street vendor who was a teacher in his home country, and has hopes of becoming a teacher again in America. The relationship forces Mary to confront her selfishness and the ways her lack of direction affects the people around her. The film is a fabulous coming-of-age story about a young woman discovering that growing up does not require sacrificing pleasure or style, but rather learning to channel that creative energy into something productive and beneficial.

Dolores Claiborne (1995) by Taylor Hackford

Dolores Claiborne is perhaps one of the more underrated 90’s feminist films, adapted from Stephen King’s novel of the same name. Dolores is a cleaning woman for a wealthy older woman, Vera Donovan, but when Vera is found dead at the bottom of her staircase, Dolores becomes the prime suspect. The investigation is motivated primarily by Dolores's reputation after continued suspicions surrounding the events of her abusive husband’s death almost twenty years prior. After her arrest, Dolores reunites with her estranged daughter, who holds resentment towards her mother for the trauma of her childhood. The two women must confront the pain of the past and reconcile the years of domestic abuse. Through a series of flashbacks, it’s revealed the torture her husband put her through, the harsh and demanding workload from Vera, and the hard choices Dolores made to protect herself and her daughter. The reality surrounding her husband’s death emerges more clearly and becomes intertwined with Selena’s fragmented memories of her childhood. Dolores must battle not only the legal situation she is in but fight to convince her daughter that she tried to protect her. At the center of the film is the complicated relationship between Dolores and Selena, shaped by years of silence, misunderstanding, sacrifice, and the lasting effects of abuse. As the circumstances of both deaths are revealed, the film develops into a psychological mystery about survival and the complicated choices people make when the system fails to protect them.

First Wives Club (1996) by Hugh Wilson

The First Wives Club follows Annie MacDuggan Paradis, Brenda Morelli Cushman, and Elise Elliot Atchison, three former college friends who reunite after the death of their friend Cynthia. Years earlier, the four women had promised to remain close, but time and the struggles of adulthood cause them to inevitably drift apart. Cynthia’s death by suicide, following her husband’s decision to leave her for a younger woman, forces Annie, Brenda, and Elise to reconsider their own lives and the sacrifices they have made for their marriages. Each woman is dealing with a husband who has abandoned or devalued her. United by their anger and shared sense of betrayal, the women create the First Wives Club and begin planning revenge against their husbands. Using their personal strengths to uncover various financial and professional misconduct and disturb the relationships their husbands have formed with younger women. Allowing them to reclaim power from men who mistreated them for so many years. When the revenge is successful, the women are confronted with the question of whether they simply want to punish the men who hurt them or build something meaningful from their shared experience. Rather than keeping the money they got from their mission, the three friends establish the Cynthia Swann Griffin Crisis Center for Women in memory of their late friend. Transforming their effort from one of personal gain to collective advancement. The film celebrates women refusing to make themselves smaller as they age and finding happiness through friendship, community, and living on their own terms.

Clockwatchers (1997) by Jill Sprecher

Clockwatchers (1997), written and directed by Jill Sprecher, follows an unsure young woman named Iris, who begins working as a temporary employee at a large credit company. As a temp, Iris is expected to perform the office’s administrative work while remaining nearly invisible within it. Iris soon befriends three other temporary workers who each respond differently to their unstable position. Although their personalities and goals differ, the women form a friendship through their shared understanding that they are viewed as menial laborers rather than actual members of the workplace. The four women spend their breaks together, joke about their coworkers, and create a small social world within an office that otherwise refuses to acknowledge them. Their friendship gives Iris a temporary sense of identity and belonging. However, things start to change when little things start disappearing from employees’ desks. As the investigation heats up, the four women begin to separate as one; Margaret, the most outspoken, is accused of the thefts. However, she is innocent, yet Iris finds out too late to prevent her from being fired, which reveals how the system views workers with temporary statuses and an unwillingness to conform to corporate standards. By the end of the film, Iris has become a permanent employee, but this apparent success feels empty. While she now has her own desk and a recognized place within the company, she also feels more isolated and struggles with her complicity in the system that previously made her feel invisible and targeted her friend.

Practical Magic (1998) by Griffin Dunne

One of the most iconic 90’s films, Practical Magic, follows sisters Sally and Gillian Owens, descendants of a long line of witches who have a history of being misunderstood by their community. Raised by their eccentric aunts, the sisters grow up surrounded by both magic and curses, specifically one that states any man an Owens woman truly loves is destined to die. Terrified of the curse, Sally casts a spell that will allow her to fall in love with only one man, one she believes doesn’t exist, with the hope of never experiencing love at all. Sally does eventually settle down, marries, and has two daughters. She attempts to build an ordinary life away from magic, but after the family curse takes her husband, she returns to her childhood home and attempts to protect her daughters from both grief and the supernatural legacy she has spent years trying to reject. Gillian takes a different approach, leaving home to pursue a less traditional life life but her desire turns dangerous when she becomes involved with Jimmy Angelov, a violently abusive man. The sisters attempt to team up and escape Jimmy, but their confrontation ends in his accidental death. Panicked, they use dark magic to bring him back to life, only to discover that he has returned as something more terrifying than before. The sisters must then avoid the police, embrace the perspective of love, and allow themselves to heal in different ways. The film explores inherited trauma contrasted with inherited courage. Ultimately, the film suggests that the curse is broken not by avoiding love in totality, but by embracing relationships and connection while confronting our shame.

Meet the Author: Cailey Davern

I graduated from DePaul University with a Degree in Communications and Media (Go Blue Demons!). I currently work at a NYC-based Marketing Agency as a Social Media Lead who runs the social accounts for Non-Profit clients. I currently reside in the Chicago suburbs and live with my cat, Harley, who is 3. I love all things vintage fashion, music, and movies. I am an avid reader, and I love books adapted into movies and short series. In my free time, I enjoy thrifting, collecting vinyl, going to live shows, spending time with friends, and watching movies!

Letterbox’d: https://boxd.it/auB2T

Historically, women have always been creators, even when they weren't recognized as artists. Confined by patriarchal structures that limited their access to public and professional life, many women documented their worlds through letters, journals, and diaries. Their voices were rarely centered, but they were always present, writing for audiences they would never meet, preserving perspectives that history often overlooked.

And yet still today, despite our claims of progress, the film industry itself remains overwhelmingly male. The paper Beyond the Spotlight: Unveiling the Gender Bias Curtain in Movie Reviews found that 72% of first-billed actors, 91% of first directors, and 86% of first writers were men. Women remain underrepresented in the creative positions that shape what stories get told in the first place. And when women do get a voice, that voice is often met with intense misogyny from viewers and critics alike.

One study published in The Strategic Management Journal found that female-led films receive lower audience ratings on average than male-led films. Not only that, audiences disagree more about the quality of those films, creating greater polarization. In most cases, female-led films also earn less at the box office. According to the researchers quoted by Maryland Today, “The differences could be ideologically driven. Some male reviewers’ ratings may not reflect their belief about the quality of the product at all. They don’t like the idea of it.”

The Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film’s Thumbs Down 2018 report found that men make up about two-thirds of American film reviewers and publish over 70% of all reviews. The report also revealed notable differences in reviewing patterns. Female critics were more likely to review films with female protagonists and films directed by women. They also rated movies featuring female protagonists significantly higher on average than male critics did, 74% compared with 62%. Interestingly, both groups rated films with male protagonists much more similarly.

The aforementioned Beyond the Spotlight: Unveiling the Gender Bias Curtain in Movie Reviews suggests, “films with predominantly female casts received 44% more benevolent sexism and a staggering 149% more hostile sexism in movie reviews than films dominated by male casts. These patterns remained consistent across genres, suggesting the bias isn’t about horror, comedy, drama, or action. It’s about gender itself.” The review below gives a stark example of just that.

Francis Ha

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These reviews highlight a dramatic difference between the way one individual woman and one individual man feel regarding the film Frances Ha by Noah Baumbach. However, these two reviews highlight a greater theme: oftentimes, women-led films are judged based on whether audiences find their characters relatable or morally acceptable, whereas male-led films can portray unlikable, flawed, and morally grey characters without those traits dictating the quality of the film. The first reviewer asks, “What is this film trying to say?”, whereas the second asks, "Do I personally find these people likable?” The first review is more interpretive, treating the film as an emotional experience and considering what it communicates about relationships and identity as compared to the second reviewer, whose critique shifts attention away from the film's artistic goals and toward his frustration with the personalities on screen. Even going as far as to describe them as ‘killable’, highlighting the inherent misogyny in the review, suggesting not liking a women denotes her as more worthy of death? I’m sure, to some degree it hyperbolic, but it points out a glaringly obvious problem in film reviews, which is men’s general disdain towards women they choose not to understand.

Sorry, Baby

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These reviews also highlight the previously mentioned misogyny in reivews; James views the characters as a product meant to satisfy him. Because they don't immediately please him, he dismisses them entirely. Instead of seeing Agnes (the protagonist) suffering, grief, or complex personality as intentional aspects of the narrative, the reviewer treats these traits as barriers that prevent the film from succeeding. The woman’s review accepts discomfort as part of the film’s purpose, while the man’s review interprets that discomfort as a failure of the character or the story. The disagreement ultimately reveals not only different preferences, but different standards for how audiences are willing to engage with flawed (and I use that lightly) female characters.

Thelma & Louise

Both reviewers frame the film as politically dangerous because it challenges traditional gender dynamics. Ralph Novak's review is rooted in the assumption that depicting men negatively is equivalent to sexism against men. His conclusion that the film is a "female chauvinist sow of a film" that "trashes men" reframes the narrative away from the violence and harassment experienced by Thelma and Louise and instead centers male victimhood. John Leo's review escalates this rhetoric even further by characterizing the film as containing "an explicit fascist theme" and calling it a "paean to transformative violence." Rather than interpreting the protagonists' violent actions as desperate responses to repeated experiences of sexual violence, institutional failure, and the absence of meaningful justice, Leo casts the film as extremist political propaganda.

In the paper, Manic Pixie Dream Politics: A Focus on Postfeminist Muses, author Nicole Vincent writes that women in media are often utilized for male pleasure or to use as a catalyst for male self-realization; when a film like Frances Ha & Sorry, Baby, which focuses entirely on internal female dynamics, some male viewers feel alienated. Laura Mulvey’s concept of the male gaze argues that film frequently asserts women as objects to be looked at rather than subjects whose perspectives are to be recognized. When female characters take up spaces traditionally reserved for men, such as being unsure and emotionally complex, they challenge this narrative and often receive greater criticism from audiences, specifically those who percieve women as existing in relation to men.

Eagly and Karau’s Role Congruity Theory (2002) argues that individuals may face hostility when diverting from expected gender norms. Within this framework, women are typically associated with being community-oriented, possessing traits such as kindness, selflessness, warmth, and emotional supportiveness. When a character is a woman and rejects these expectations by exhibiting traits generally associated with men, like being self-focused, ambitious, flawed, or emotionally complicated, they can be subject to more criticism from viewers. Further research, in the paper It’s Not About Him, But It Might Still Be: Applying the Stereotype Content Model to Male Characters in Female-Led Films, suggests that male audiences respond negatively to women who display traits associated with independence, authority, or self-prioritization, which highlights that these characters are not judged by their artistic merit or complexity, but rather their ability to conform to societal standards surrounding gender.

Psychologically, audiences use gender norms and expectations to shape their interpretation of female behavior. Sociologically, these expectations are reinforced through institutions, in this case, film- where male experiences have throughout time been positioned as primary and female experiences as secondary. As a result, women characters who exist outside traditional gender roles often face criticism not because they lack complexity, but because they challenge the social expectations placed upon them.

So while it may appear on the surface that female-led and directed movies are truly not as well-made as male-led and directed movies, it actually is indicitive of a much deeper systemic issue in which male audiences and critics alike attach a movie’s quality to the likability and usefulness of female characters, rather than exploring the complex internal world of women. Male characters are not just allowed but supported in being complicated, unsure, and morally grey; one example of this is Marty Supreme. A woman character (despite this being based on a real person) could NEVER get away with the things Marty did. Women, even fictitiously, to men, represent all women, and the stereotypes and expectations placed on us in real life are often projected onto characters that represent the vast spectrum of what it means to be a woman.

Female-led and directed films are an essential perspective, telling stories of underrepresented communities throughout history. But the world looks at their stories with disdain if they aren’t perfect; women are not allowed to be human, which indicates a deeper psychological issue related to patriarchy and control. Men attempt to make women more docile by using aggressive misogyny against female characters, which indicates how real woman who posses these traits may be perceived and treated in the real world. I think a lot of people want to believe they are influenced by bias, but the inability to relate to or understand complex female characters, which turns into sexism in reviews and criticisms, does affect the way real-world women are treated. Feminist scholars argue that media criticism both reflects and reinforces broader cultural expectations about gender. When critics repeatedly characterize morally complex female protagonists as unlikeable or excessive while celebrating similarly flawed male protagonists as psychologically rich, they contribute to cultural narratives that police women's acceptable behavior. Although media criticism alone does not determine how women are treated, it participates in a larger system of gender norms that shapes public attitudes toward women's anger, ambition, and moral complexity.

Meet the Author: Cailey Davern

I graduated from DePaul University with a Degree in Communications and Media (Go Blue Demons!). I currently work at a NYC-based Marketing Agency as a Social Media Lead who runs the social accounts for Non-Profit clients. I currently reside in the Chicago suburbs and live with my cat, Harley, who is 3. I love all things vintage fashion, music, and movies. I am an avid reader, and I love books adapted into movies and short series. In my free time, I enjoy thrifting, collecting vinyl, going to live shows, spending time with friends, and watching movies!

Letterbox’d: https://boxd.it/auB2T

Sources:

Bray, Sierra, Olivia González, and Natalie Jonckheere. “‘Like a Boss’ or Just Bossy? How Audiences Across Age and Gender Evaluate Counterstereotypical Women on Television.” International Journal of Communication, vol. 14, 2020, pp. 5128–5149. International Journal of Communication article

Huang, Yuxin, et al. “Beyond the Spotlight: Unveiling the Gender Bias Curtain in Movie Reviews.” Scientific Reports, vol. 15, 2025, article 1799, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-83727-5.

Kuhl, Alyssa. It’s Not About Him, But It Might Still Be: Applying the Stereotype Content Model to Male Characters in Female-Led Films. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2026. Master’s thesis. VTechWorks, https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/c355fe32-2556-47ad-9091-38c1fa80b4a1/content

Lauzen, Martha M. Thumbs Down 2018: Film Critics and Gender, and Why It Matters. Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, San Diego State University, 2018, https://womenintvfilm.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/2018_Thumbs_Down_Report.pdf

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen, vol. 16, no. 3, 1975, pp. 6–18.

Shih, Karen. “Study: Gender Bias Leads to Lower-Rated Female Films.” Maryland Today, University of Maryland, 8 Mar. 2024, https://today.umd.edu/study-gender-bias-leads-to-lower-rated-female-films

Stroube, Bryan K., and David M. Waguespack. “Status and Consensus: Heterogeneity in Audience Evaluations of Female- versus Male-Lead Films.” Strategic Management Journal, vol. 45, no. 5, 2024, pp. 994–1024. Wiley Online Library, https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3575

Yahoo Movies Contributors. “‘Thelma & Louise’ at 25: In 1991, A Mix of Rave Reviews and Critics Sent Over the Edge.”Yahoo Entertainment, 24 May 2016, https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/thelma-louise-at-25-in-1991-a-mix-of-rave-154537927.htm

Vincent, Nicole A. “Manic Pixie Dream Politics: A Focus on Postfeminist Muses.” CLA Journal, vol. 8, 2020, pp. 57–75. University of Central Arkansas, https://uca.edu/cahss/files/2020/07/05-Vincent-CLA-2020.pdf

In the 1980’s, thrillers felt metaphysical, like evil was some separate entity that possessed or overcame humanity, whereas 1990’s thrillers flipped the script and held the mirror up to humanity, asking us to reflect on the humanity that exists besides evil. The Silence of the Lambs, in all regards, is an institutional nightmare. Calice isn’t fighting some sort of inhumane being; rather, she is navigating a patriarchal system while attempting to profile true evil. The terror of Hannibal Lecter and Buffalo Bill doesn’t stem from some sort of cosmic power, but rather their ability to blend into the system, function every day as seemingly normal people, with absolute horror lying just beneath the surface.

Safe (1995) by Alex Nepomniaschy

Todd Haynes takes the all-American housewife, the idyllic suburban lifestyle, and turns it into a waking nightmare. Carol is the picture-perfect housewife, who suddenly develops a seemingly random yet completley debilitating illness. The brutality of the film is how her pristine environment suffocates her while the people around her continue to pathologize her suffering. A woman pushed to the brink, held captive in a life defined by oppressive, unattainable, and patriarchal standards. Safe weaponized the homegrown comforts, criticizing the systemic abuse of women through a society designed to gaslight women into believing they are crazy for not being fulfilled under patriarchy.

Se7en (1995) by David Fincher

If The Silence of the Lambs introduced institutional disillusionment, Se7en breaks that concept down to its core. Two detectives investigate a killer who models his crimes after the seven deadly sins. The detectives function as the classic good cop, bad cop, while attempting to use logic, books, and standard police work to solve problems in a world that is fundamentally flawed, where true evil exists. The end continues to be one of the most devastating moments in film because it provides commentary on how the system cannot save you. The most depraved slasher on earth isn’t hiding somewhere in a dark alleyway. It’s the dark potential waiting inside our own subconscious, waiting for the perfect moment to make us participate in the evil we so wholly condemn.

Primal Fear (1996) by Gregory Hoblit

In the 80’s, the killer hiding behind a mask was popularized, and often, the climax of the movie occurs during the unmasking in the final frame. Primal fear translates this concept into a psychological courtroom game. The legendary twist doesn’t just unmask the killer; it reveals the levels of psychological manipulation required to make a killer in the shape of a victim. It proves that the most terrifying mask is worn by a person who understands psychology and the system to the degree that they can use performance to present their narrative in a way that is so convincing that justice is never truly served.

Fight Club (1999) by David Fincher

Fight Club follows a nameless, insomniac, corporate narrator whose soul-crushing, uninspired life drives him to total psychological unraveling. With a non-linear narrative timeline, the film allows you into the broken subconscious of a man whose reality we are presented, which isn’t quite what it appears to be. Fight Club criticizes 90’s consumerism and argues that the stress to withstand the pressures of capatalism will eventually cause the mind to fracture to some degree, just to feel something real. Fight Club proved that the most dangerous weapon isn’t a blade or a gun, it is the mind driven to total psychological breakdown by the mundanity of our environment.

Eyes Wide Shut (1999) by Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick closed out the decade with his final film, one that completley breaks down the perception of the American marriage. When Alice (Nicole Kidman) confesses a simple, unacted sexual fantasy, it triggers an obsessive, internal panic in her husband Bill (Tom Cruise) that completely shatters his reality. His subsequent journey through secret, masked societal underworlds operates like a slowed slasher sequence. The threat isn’t necessarily physical, but more so the terrifying realization that the elite of society, and the relationships within them, are just masked, anonymous transactional systems waiting to brutaly erase anyone who steps out of line.

Meet the Author: Cailey Davern

I graduated from DePaul University with a Degree in Communications and Media (Go Blue Demons!). I currently work at a NYC-based Marketing Agency as a Social Media Lead who runs the social accounts for Non-Profit clients. I currently reside in the Chicago suburbs and live with my cat, Harley, who is 3. I love all things vintage fashion, music, and movies. I am an avid reader, and I love books adapted into movies and short series. In my free time, I enjoy thrifting, collecting vinyl, going to live shows, spending time with friends, and watching movies!

Letterbox’d: https://boxd.it/auB2T

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” -William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Prisoners (2013) by Denis Villeneuve

Genre: Science Psychological Thriller + Crime Mystery

Themes: Moral Ambiguity, Revenge, & Faith

Letterbox’d Score: 4.3/5 | My Rating: 4.5/5 | Where to watch: Prime Video

How does the stress of trauma lead to morally ambiguous choices, and when confronted with unquestionably evil acts, how does our faith in something greater stand the test? When Keller Dover’s daughter, Joy, alongside her friend Ann, goes missing on Thanksgiving Day. As Detective Loki (Jake Gyllenhaal) leads the official investigation, the only major lead they have is a mysterious RV spotted on their street just before the kidnappings. The main suspect? Alex Jones, a mentally disabled teenager who was the person last known to be driving the RV that was seen parked on their street, however, the case stalls when the police release Alex due to a lack of evidence. As Dover’s faith in the police dissipates, he begins to take matters into his own hands, kidnapping Alex, holding him hostage for days on end, and attempting to torture a confession out of him. The film explores the cycle of suffering and how, when pain is inflicted upon us, we lose our sense of control, and often we knowingly or unknowingly inflict it back onto others to regain that control. It examines the relationship between trauma and religion, and how, when faced with suffering, we often tend to fall back on religion. When religion doesn’t solve the problem or lessen the pain, we often feel a greater sense of loss, not just in what happened, but in the fact that we begged our God for an answer or for the pain to go away, and no one answered. What remains is the silence of unheard prayer? And how does morality dissolve under the pressure of the unknown, especially when the situation is dire?

Anatomy of a Fall (2023) by Justine Triet

Genre: Legal Drama, Psychological Thriller, and Mystery/Crime

Themes: Subjectivity of Perception, The Unknowable Quality of Truth, Complex Relationships.

Letterbox’d Score: 4.1/5 | My Rating: 4.5/5 | Where to watch: Netflix

Truth can appear ambiguous when other people’s percpetion dictate what the reality of a situation is. In Anatomy of a Fall, Sandra Voyter’s (Sandra Hüller) husband is found dead in the snow outside their house in France under suspicious circumstances she is accused of his murder. From there, the mystery starts to reveal itself, when minor details such as blood splatter patterns don’t quite add up, the police grow more and more suspicious of Sandra, becoming convinced that she was behind an illustrious murder plot on her husband. Suspecting contempt and resentment in the relationship, the police attempt to paint Sandra as a manipulative, cold, and controlling wife, suggesting that she pushed her husband out the window in a cold-blooded attempt to murder him, which succeeded. However, Sandra’s team argues that Samual’s death was a suicide, brought on by clinical depression and pervasive jealousy, which resulted in him orchestrating his own death to frame his wife in one final act of manipulation to ruin her life as he felt she did to his. The film is intentionally ambiguous, allowing the viewer to determine how they percieve the truth, but the reality is, no evidence is outright pointed at Sandra. The film critiques traditional gender roles and the way the court system, goverment, and society as a whole demonize women who defy those roles and expectations. Sandra is more than put on trial; her life is dissected, her morality and character questioned, and her sexuality used as a scapegoat to demonize her as an unfit mother and neglectful wife. Proving how women’s guilt is often determined by the percpetion of their personality, rather than by undeniable facts.

Nightcrawler (2014) by Dan Gilroy

Genre: Science Neo-noir Psychological Thriller

Themes: Ambition vs Obsession, Media Ethics, and Capitalism.

Letterbox’d Score: 4.0/5 | My Rating: 4.5/5 | Where to watch: Tubi + Prime Video

Step into the mind of a deeply unwell budding sociopath and his descent into obsession-driven madness. This film allows you to step into the mind of an opportunist masochist, Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal), who finds himself entranced by the lucrative world of Los Angeles’s freelance crime videography and journalism. An aimless drifter surviving on conning and stealing his way through the world, until one night he witnesses a ‘Nightcrawler’ in action, a freelance journalist filming a crime scene to sell to the media and turn a profit. He then flips a bike to afford a police scanner and a camera. He then sells his first crime footage to a local news station, which is desperate for views. They agree to run Bloom’s grissley recording. Following Nina’s news anchor philosophy, ‘If it bleeds, it leads, “ encourages Bloom to explore his brutal impulse to exploit moments of suffering and pain for profit. Bloom devolves into a crime-driven obsession, where nothing is off limits, and his desire to capture macabre scenes comes above all else, even human life. Bloom is willing to do anything to ensure he gets his shot. Throughout the film, we get insight into how explotative the media industry can be and see how it relies on morally bankrupt individuals to do the dirty work of the news organization. Lou’s sociopathic relentlessness has been encouraged, even rewarded, by the media. It warns that sociopathic men are often touted as accomplished under capatalism, despite how they find success through moral bankruptcy.

Meet the Author: Cailey Davern

I graduated from DePaul University with a Degree in Communications and Media (Go Blue Demons!). I currently work at a NYC-based Marketing Agency as a Social Media Lead who runs the social accounts for Non-Profit clients. I currently reside in the Chicago suburbs and live with my cat, Harley, who is 3. I love all things vintage fashion, music, and movies. I am an avid reader, and I love books adapted into movies and short series. In my free time, I enjoy thrifting, collecting vinyl, going to live shows, spending time with friends, and watching movies!

Letterbox’d: https://boxd.it/auB2T

Black Swan (2010) by Darren Aronofsky

The story of deeply unwell Nina (Natalie Portman), who is a Ballerina for a high-intensity New York City Ballet Company, when she is chosen for the role of Prima Ballerina in Swan Lake. The ballet depicts a battle between good and evil, and the role requires embodying both the vulnerable white swan and the deceptive black swan. The combination of pressure to perform from her predatory, abusive, and demanding director (Vincent Cassel) alongside the intense rivalry she feels with understudy Lily (Mila Kunis), all while under the control of her mother (Erica Sayers), and the sexual and psychological exploitation she endures at her hands, triggers Nina’s descent into madness. The film explores Nina’s psychological unraveling, characterized by extreme paranoia and visual hallucinations that result in acts of self-harm, as she attempts to integrate two distinct, fragmented personalities that begin to emerge more distinctly as she delves more deeply into her role.

Francis Ha (2012) by Noah Baumbach

Francis Ha is a black and white film that follows Frances (Greta Gerwig), a 27-year-old living her dream life in New York, sharing a Brooklyn apartment with her best friend Sophie while working as an apprentice at a dance studio. Seemingly overnight, Francis’s life begins to change in ways she’s completley unprepared for. Sophie abruptly announces she’s moving to an expensive Tribeca apartment with another friend, and she is cut from the studio’s Christmas show, creating a precarious financial situation. Francis becomes desperate, lonely, and increasingly dysfunctional as she navigates her late 20’s. She approaches a quarter-life crisis as a result of unstable housing, career hardship, and the end of a long-term codependent friendship. Throughout the film, Francis attempts to reconcile the pressure of not knowing who she is or what the future will look like for her. The film encourages us to accept that life unfolds at its own pace for everyone, and often the idealized version we have in our mind about what our life should look like doesn’t quite play out, and that’s okay. A story about finding yourself amongst the chaos of now, and choosing to hold yourself with grace, creating a home for yourself within yourself.

The Outrun (2024) by Nora Fingscheidt

This film is heartbreaking, raw, and honest. Retelling two non-linear stories simultaneously: Rona, a Biology graduate student in London struggling with alcohol addiction, watching her life slowly fall apart, and Rona, after the collapse, in recovery, fresh out of rehab, and returning to her hometown of the Orkney Islands in Scotland. There she lives with her staunchly religious mother while working on her bipolar father’s farm. Oscillating between past and present shots, we meet a fragmented version of Rona, seen through her own eyes, as she attempts to reconcile with her past. Deeply connected to her homeland, Rona often uses stories in Scottish folklore as a metaphor for her own suffering, a pain that is more than individual; it’s ancestral. This film is such a beautiful portrayal of hope after significant loss, a story of finding yourself in a place you’ve become a stranger to and remembering the pieces of yourself you left there.

Lady Bird (2017) by Greta Gerwig

Lady Bird follows a dysfunctional, artistic, and strong-willed 17-year-old Christine who goes by the chosen name of ‘Lady Bird’, attending a Catholic high school in Sacramento with dreams that extend far beyond the boundaries of her hometown. Lady Bird joins a theater program with her best friend Julie (Beanie Feldstein where she feels jealous about how talented Julie is, while simultaneously developing a romantic relationship with fellow actor Danny (Lucas Hedges). The two break up, and Lady Bird meets a new guy, Kyle (Timothée Chalamet), at the coffee shop job her mother insisted she get. During the relationship, Lady Bird finds herself neglecting her long-time friendship with Julie and focusing on new friendships. She continues to struggle in her relationship with her mother, who is cold and judgmental as a result of their worsening financial situation and the upcoming college application season. The film explores complicated family dynamics, identity, and how sometimes it takes leaving the people and places that made us to realize their profound effect on our lives.

Sorry, Baby (2025) by Eva Victor

This film is told in a non-linear fashion, cutting between the past and the present to tell the story of a woman, Anges (Eva Victor), a graduate student pursuing higher academia, as she navigates life after being assaulted by her advisor. Anges leans on her best friend for support in the aftermath of the assault as she seeks healing in small but meaningful ways, like caring for a stray cat, having honest conversations with strangers, and a low-stakes friends with benefits situation with her neighbor. Yet while everyone in Anges’s life, including Lydia, seems to be moving forward, she feels stuck in the past, not able to reconcile the pain and lack of support she experienced. The film highlights how healing isn’t linear, and that sometimes life isn’t about thriving, it’s just about surviving, and that’s okay too. Eva finds small victories in tiny kindness that remind her life is worth living and that to heal, she has to confront the past, not run from it, even when it hurts.

Silver Linings Playbook (2012) by David O. Russell

Silver Linings Playbook (2010) is the story of Pat Solatano (Bradley Cooper), a man who was recently released from a court-ordered institutionalization after assaulting his wife’s affair partner, leading to being diagnosed with Bipolar diorder. He’s released and is still in the midst of a major manic episode, watching his life slowly fall apart. In an attempt to repair his broken life, he moves back in with his parents in Pennsylvania, where he meets the equally unwell Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a young widow who agrees to help him win his wife back, despite the restraining order against him. As part of the agreement, Pat participates in a dance competition as Tiffany’s dance partner. The film follows the misadventures of the two as they train for the dance competition and attempt to restore Pat’s relationship with his ex-wife, while, despite all odds, forming a deep and meaningful bond. Every character in this film is complex and deeply flawed, yet on the path to recovery, finding hope in the chaos of the unknown and daring to experience love after intense loss.

Dead Poets Society (1989) by Peter Weir

The film follows an unconventional new teacher, John Keating (Robbin Williams), at Welton Academy, a boarding school in Vermont, a school that highly values tradition, discipline, honor, and excellence. He encourages students to take risks and fosters meaningful relationships with them through unique methods, such as ripping the introduction out of their poetry textbooks to teach them that poetry shouldn’t be overanalyzed or methodical, standing on desks to get them thinking about perspective, and walking in the courtyard to give an active and visual example of how easy it is to fall into conformity. The students, being moved by their teacher, investigate old yearbooks to gather more information on him, stumbling across a mysterious group called the ‘Dead Poets Society.’ Described by Keating as a rebellious group that studied poetry in a cave, the students are inspired to revive the group, growing their passion for literature and bonding the boys together. While they continue to study poetry and follow the advice of Keating to ‘‘suck the marrow out of life and ‘live extraordinarily,’ the boys navigate growing up and finding themselves despite parental authority. The ending is heartbreaking, but the story is touching, highlighting the importance of strong male role models for young men and the impact of freedom of thought on developing minds.

Sentimental Value (2025) by Joachim Trier

After the death of their mother, two sisters, Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), come together at their family home in Oslo, where they reconnect with their renowned director father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), who left the family in pursuit of his career aspirations, which were ultimately successful but deeply hurt his daughters. As a result of the reunion, Gustav wants to make a film in the girl’s childhood home about his childhood and his mother’s suicide, offering the main role to Nora, who works as an actor. Nora declines, and Gustav replaces her with an American actress, Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning), who slowly begins to take on both physical and emotional characteristics of Nora; the boundaries between the actress and this complicated family begin to blur. The film focuses on how art can be used to both inflict pain and heal it, and how generational trauma impacts family dynamics. Emphasizing the silent understandings in small moments of reconciliation rather than absolute forgiveness.

I Used to be Funny (2023) by Ally Pankiw

This film is about a young stand-up comedian and nanny in Toronto, Canada, Sam (Rachel Sennott), who is struggling to navigate the aftermath of a sexual assault perpetrated by the father of the girl she nannied for. After receiving a five-year prison sentence, the daughter, Brooke, goes missing. The film cuts between past and present, contrasting the difference between Sam before and after the assault. Now suffering from PTSD, Sam struggles to navigate everyday life and finds herself isolated, not working, and miserable, not knowing how to imagine a life after what happened to her while also attempting to locate Brooke and bring her home safely. Sam attempts to revive her Comeday career, a male-dominated field, while carrying the stigma of living through the public backlash of the trial and the assault itself. The film investigates the relationship between trauma and identity and how survivors navigate a world that doesn’t make space for them.

Girl Interrupted (1999) by James Mangold

Girl Interrupted tells the story of a young woman, Susanna Kaysen (Winona Ryder), institutionalized at Claymoore psychiatric hospital in 1967, for a suicide attempt related to symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder. There, she befriends a budding young sociopath, Lisa Rowe (Angelina Jolie), who recruits Susanna and Daisy, another girl at the hospital who struggles with OCD and self-harming, to run away together. There, Lisa’s abusive and antisocial behaviors become starkly clear, and the disconnect between them and witnessing the suffering she apathetically inflicts on others motivates Susanna to return to the hospital and take recovery seriously. However, Lisa is eventually apprehended and brought back to the hospital, and Lisa must face her again after witnessing her unusually cruel treatment of Daisy. The movie ends on a positive note, showing that despite the pain and suffering of life not going as expected, we always find a way forward. Life goes on either with or without us, and we must embrace hope and build a life worth fighting for.

Beautiful Boy (2018) Felix Van Groeningen

The film follows the complicated relationship between a father, David (Steve Carell), and his methamphetamine addicted son, Nic (Timothée Chalamet). When Nic goes missing, he’s found with clear signs of drug abuse and is sent to rehab for recovery. He appears to be getting better and is transferred to a halfway house, where again he goes missing and starts using again, only to end up back in rehab. After a brief stint of sobriety, Nic manages to gain the trust of his parents, and they agree he should leave for college, where his addiction follows him, leading to chronic heroin use. His behavior becomes increasingly erratic as he steals from his family to fund his addiction, leading to a strain on the relationship with his father. David eventually realizes he alone can’t save his son, and Nic comes to accept his addiction and recognizes he lacks control and that he truly needs help. At the end, we meet Nic a year into sobriety, pointing at hope for the future while still highlighting the non-linear cycle of recovery. The film tells the story of becoming someone your family doesn’t recognize and the process of fighting for your own survival against a disease that wants you dead.

Parachute (2023) by Brittany Snow

Parachute, starring Courtney Eaton and Thomas Mann, is a Romantic Drama that follows a young woman, Riley, after she leaves the hospital for an eating disorder and her tumultuous, codependent relationship with a young man, Ethan, whom she meets the night she is released. The film’s strength is the storytelling, capturing the reality of being unwell with the accuracy that only someone who’s experienced it firsthand could. Riley is a reminder that struggling sometimes causes us to inflict the hate we feel towards ourselves onto others, forcing them to suffer alongside us. As they say, misery loves company. Riley, who is lying to her therapist about her recovery, attempts to allow herself to be loved, yet her disorder causes her not to see herself or reality clearly. There’s a push and pull between wanting to give and receive love, but only under the conditions of which she feels deserving, which complicates her relationship with Thomas and her eating disorder, triggering significant episodes. The debut film by Brittany Snow perfectly captures being a young, unwell woman who is grappling with the idea of being unlovable and too much, while hurting the people closest to her in the process of trying to cope.

Little Miss Sunshine (2006) by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton

This film follows the dysfunctional Hoover family on a road trip in a VW van from New Mexico to California to enter the youngest daughter, Olive (Abigail Breslin), into a beauty pageant. The family, filled with complex characters: Sheryl (Toni Collette), an overworked mother, Richard (Greg Kinnear), a job-insecure father, Dwayne (Paul Dano) and angsty teenager, Frank (Steve Carell), their suicidal uncle, and Grandpa Edwin (Alan Arkin), a heroin addict. Throughout the trip, the family encounters unforeseen obstacles and must learn to lean on each other through tough times. When grandpa Edwin dies on the way to the pagent, the family steals the body from the hospital, packs him in the van, and proceeds to California. The family arrives at the pageant and realizes Olive is much different than her peers. To prevent embarrassment, the family joins her for a quirky, choreographed dance, choosing to support her rather than conform to the pageant standards. Together, they embrace their individuality and realize it’s better to lose authentically than to win superficially, highlighting that suffering informs personal growth, and it’s better to try and fail than to do nothing at all. A hopeful, heartwarming tale of a complicated family overcoming their dysfunction to find home in each other, no matter the distance between them.

Meet the Author: Cailey Davern

I graduated from DePaul University with a Degree in Communications and Media (Go Blue Demons!). I currently work at a NYC-based Marketing Agency as a Social Media Lead who runs the social accounts for Non-Profit clients. I currently reside in the Chicago suburbs and live with my cat, Harley, who is 3. I love all things vintage fashion, music, and movies. I am an avid reader, and I love books adapted into movies and short series. In my free time, I enjoy thrifting, collecting vinyl, going to live shows, spending time with friends, and watching movies!

Letterbox’d: https://boxd.it/auB2T

A note: Joy is radical resistance under Fascism, considering the state of the political system in America and its effect on the world; allowing yourself moments of pleasure is political. Engaging critically with art is a form of protest, and supporting underrepresented filmmakers, actors, and stories is an active opposition to the violence, fear, and suffering that this administration has institutionalized.

In the month of April, I found myself drawn to films with both complex characters that capture feelings I can’t exactly explain and films that create a heightened emotional experience, and allow me to tap into my own insecurities, fears, and pain. Seeking identity in a world of chaos feels impossible some days, but art breaks down barriers that disconnect us from ourselves and allows us to almost view ourselves in the third person. I watched 32 films, with 6 rewatches and 26 first-time viewings. Here’s a quick review of all 32 movies in order. View full diary & reviews on Letterbox’d.

Previously reviewed (also included in this month’s watches): The Outrun (2024), Gone Girl (2014), Coherence (2014), Shutter Island (2010), Primal Fear (1999), and Parachute (2024). Read the full article here.

6 Notable Watches:

Donnie Darko (2001) by Richard Kelly

Genre: Science Fiction & Psychological Thriller

Themes: Fate vs Free Will, Teenage Alienation & Suffering, & Self-Sacrifice

Letterbox’d Score: 4.0/5 | My Rating: 5/5 | Where to watch: Tubi, Hulu, Disney+

This film is about a schizophrenic teenager, Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal), who begins to experience hallucinations of a strange-looking rabbit named Frank. Late one night, Frank appears, and Donnie follows him outside, where Frank delivers a prophecy that the world will end in 28 days. While Donnie is having this episode, an engine on a plane fails, crashing into his house and hitting Donnie’s room. The only reason he survived that night was due to his interaction with Frank. As the date for the end of the world draws nearer, Donnie becomes increasingly detached and paranoid. Under the guidance of Frank, he begins acting irrationally, flooding his school and burning down a stranger’s house. But every time he acts out, there is an unexpected, positive result. According to source material, Donnie acts as a receiving point for messages from a parallel universe that has split from the original timeline. His actions under Frank’s instructions are to repair the timeline, while he doesn’t seem to understand his role fully, he trusts Frank. Without giving away the ending, the movie grapples with free will vs predetermination. The question is, are we following some sort of path already laid out for us, or choosing which way to go? Many percieve the film to be a metaphor for living with mental illness, feeling isolated, seeing things other people don’t, and trying to find meaning despite suffering. Whether Frank is real or not almost doesn’t matter; the reality is that Donnie experiences this as real, and so it is real.

Se7en (1995) by David Fincher

Genre: Neo-noir, Psychological Crime Thriller

Themes: Moral apathy, The Seven Deadly Sins, & Retribution

Letterbox’d Score: 4.4/5 | My Rating: 4.5/5 | Where to watch: Amazon Prime for $3.99

If you know me, you know I’m a HUGE David Fincher fan; no one does Thrillers better, and Se7en is no exception. In this film, an unnamed serial killer, addressed only as John Doe, commits a series of gruesome murders that represent the seven deadly sins, in nature of murder and the victims themselves. The film focuses on the concept of moral decline, as, according to Christian theology, the killer, John Doe, sees himself as a sort of performance artist with murder as his medium, holding a mirror up to society and reflecting on the way that people have become desensitized to sin. He believes the only way to address it is brutal violence, extreme enough to shock people out of their apathy. The two detectives investigating the case, William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and David Mills (Brad Pitt), become pawns in John Doe’s performance. After the first 5 murders, he turns himself in covered in blood. He then admits to two more murders. As a part of a deal, he requests that he take only Detective Mills and Somerset to the location of the last two bodies, and if they agree, his insanity plea is taken off the table, meaning he wouldn’t be able to be institutionalized and possibly released. The end of the movie is a MASSIVE twist, but it involves making a case that all people are susceptible to evil under the right conditions and highlights the struggle between fighting for a better world or being consumed by it.

Moonlight (2016) by Barry Jenkins

Genre: Indie Arthouse, LGBTQ+ Romantic Drama

Themes: Identity, Sexuality, and Masculinity

Letterbox’d Score: 4.2/5 | My Rating: 5/5 | Where to watch: Hulu

This movie takes place over three distinct chapters, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. It follows the life of a young boy named Chiron, nicknamed ‘little,’ and his struggle with sexuality, identity, and a complicated upbringing. Chiron’s life is filled with difficulty and uncertainty. He grew up without a father figure, but a local drug dealer, Juan, sort of became that for him. As he gets older, he struggles with being bullied, his complicated relationship with his friend Kevin, whom he developed feelings for, and his mother’s drug addiction. One day, Kevin is pressured at school into violently attacking Chiron at school, leaving Chiron completley confused and even more traumatized. As a result, he attacks the bully and is arrested. The arrest is a pivotal moment for Chiron, leading to his withdrawal from life and a descent into extreme repression and denial of self. As an adult, Chiron follows Juan and becomes a drug dealer, adopting an outwardly tough persona. There is a conflict between who Chiron is and the persona he constructed to survive his extreme circumstances. At the end of the film, Kevin and Chiron reconnect, and that’s when we see childhood Chiron resurface, and he can connect emotionally to the part of himself he no longer allows himself to be. The ending is both intense and ambiguous, open to interpretation. Nonetheless, moving me to tears. A beautiful film, one I highly recommend.

The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) by Anthony Minghella

“We've got obsessions. All you ever think about are sick ideas involving me, involving you.” 'Obsessions by Marina

Genre: Neo-noir, Crime Drama, & Psychological Thriller

Themes: Identity, Obsession, and Desire

Letterbox’d Score: 3.9/5 | My Rating: 4/5 | Where to watch: Paramount+

Tom Ripley walked so Patrick Bateman could run.

I found myself really intrigued by this film. What’s so psychologically fascinating about Tom is that he is a young and budding sociopath who believes he’s entitled to live a life that’s unattainable to him. Coming from a poverty-stricken background, he has a deep and dark desire to attain wealth and success, even if he has to do the unthinkable to get it. He quickly became obsessed with the idea of other people’s lives and being someone other than himself. The lengths he goes to occupy a life that is not his own are a masterclass in psychological manipulation. He becomes entangled in a world he doesn’t understand, performing for people he doesn’t relate to, but his desire to be something compels him into a sociopathic tirade, which results in identity theft, police confrontations, and multiple murders. The movie tackles how, just because you can become someone else, doesn’t mean it’s real, and in the search for something more, compulsive desire and obsession can lead to the total dissolution of self. In that process, what is lost can never be regained.

The Florida Project (2017) by Sean Baker

Genre: Indie, Slice of Life Drama

Themes: Childhood Innocence & Friendship, Systemic Neglect, and Poverty

Letterbox’d Score: 4.1/5 | My Rating: 4.5/5 | Where to watch: Amazon Prime $3.99

This film follows a group of children living in poverty over the course of a summer. The film is shown mostly from the perspective of a 6-year-old girl named Moonee, who lives with her Mom Halley in a motel just outside Disney World in Florida. Monnee and her friends spend their days playing and exploring the surrounding area. In her eyes, life is full of magic, and there is so much beauty in the world. In contrast, her mother, Halley, is struggling to survive, unable to maintain constant work, she desperately turns to sex work to make money, putting her at odds with the motel owner and fellow residents. Without giving away the ending, the film is about how social systems neglect and fail the most vulnerable populations, and the contrast between the reality of poverty and the fantasy created at Disney, both existing so closely together but never really touching. It speaks to the way children, as long as they're loved, see the world with so much joy and whimsy, even when the world around them is falling apart.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020) by Eliza Hittman

Genre: Indie Neorealist Drama

Themes: Coming-of-age, Relationships, and Reproductive rights.

Letterbox’d Score: 4.0/5 | My Rating: 4.0/5 | Where to watch: Amazon Prime $3.99

Always Rarely, Sometimes Never is a brutally honest depiction of the abuse young women face and the consequences of living in a society that doesn’t value bodily autonomy. Seventeen-year-old Autumn (Talia Ryder) suspects she’s pregnant and goes to a Crisis Pregnancy Center to confirm, which they do; when she asks about her options, she is then shown an anti-abortion video. They tell her she can’t get an abortion in Pennsylvania without parental consent, so she tries to induce a miscarriage by taking pills and punching herself in the stomach. When that fails, she and her cousin Skylar steal cash from the grocery store where they work and take a bus to New York to get the abortion. The rest of the story follows Autumn and Skylar in New York, attempting to get an abortion, which is more complicated than originally expected. During the abortion intake, Autumn admits to being abused and sexually assaulted, although she likely would not have characterized it as such before the worker stated it. The clinic worker appears to have been the first adult to ask her about how she was being treated, and help her to see that it’s not right. The film is quiet, focusing on the moment between moments and allowing for the silence to fill the screen, emphasizing moments of trauma, systemic neglect, fear, and isolation. The film doesn’t have overwhelming drama or a complicated plot, but more intimate moments in waiting rooms, filling out forms, and conversations with staff at clinics, highlighting the feeling of being young and alone in a largely apathetic system. It’s not supposed to be cinematically overwhelming, but it is extremely heavy.

Honorable Mention:

Sharp Objects (Mini Series) by Jean-Marc Vallée.

Genre: Psychological Crime Thriller

Themes: Toxic Mothers, Self-harm, Childhood Trauma

Letterbox’d Score: 4.3/5 | My Rating: 5/5 | Where to watch: HBO Max

This short series is INCREDIBLE, nearly identical to the book (which I had finished right before watching). Camille (Amy Adams), a Chicago native who works at a suburban newspaper, was recently released from the hospital for self-harm. Her first assignment back on the job? To return to her hometown in Windgap, Missouri, and cover the investigation of two local murders. There she reconnects with her estranged mother, Adora (Patricia Clarkson), and half-sister Amma, which brings up old wounds and causes her to examine her toxic relationship, and throughout that process, she finds herself identifying with the victims and questioning her upbringing.

Meet the Author: Cailey Davern

I graduated from DePaul University with a Degree in Communications and Media (Go Blue Demons!). I currently work at a NYC-based Marketing Agency as a Social Media Lead who runs the social accounts for Non-Profit clients. I currently reside in the Chicago suburbs and live with my cat, Harley, who is 3. I love all things vintage fashion, music, and movies. I am an avid reader, and I love books adapted into movies and short series. In my free time, I enjoy thrifting, collecting vinyl, going to live shows, spending time with friends, and watching movies!

Letterbox’d: https://boxd.it/auB2T

The Outrun (2024) by Nora Fingscheidt

“In grandiose moments, high on fresh air and freedom on the hill, I study my personal geology. My body is a continent. I grind my teeth in my sleep like tectonic plates. And when I blink, the Sun flickers. My breath pushes the clouds across the sky, and the waves roll into the shore in time with my beating heart. The islands’ headlands rise above the sea like my limbs in the bathtub. My freckles are famous landmarks, and my tears are rivers. Lightning strikes every time I sneeze. And when I orgasm, there’s an earthquake.”

Genre: Arthouse/Indie, Biographical, Drama

Themes: Alcohol Addiction, Recovery, & Coming home

Letterbox’d Score: 3.7/5 | My Rating: 5/5 | Where to watch: Netflix

This film is heartbreaking, raw, and honest. Retelling two non-linear stories simultaneously: Rona, a Biology graduate student in London struggling with alcohol addiction, watching her life slowly fall apart, and Rona, after the collapse, in recovery, fresh out of rehab, and returning to her hometown of the Orkney Islands in Scotland. There she lives with her staunchly religious mother while working on her bipolar father’s farm. Oscillating between past and present shots, we meet a fragmented version of Rona, seen through her own eyes, as she attempts to reconcile with her past. Deeply connected to her homeland, Rona often uses stories in Scottish folklore as a metaphor for her own suffering, a pain that is more than individual; it’s ancestral. This film is such a beautiful portrayal of hope after significant loss, a story of finding yourself in a place you’ve become a stranger to and remembering the pieces of yourself you left there.

Gone Girl (2014) by David Fincher

“Which would be worse - to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?”

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Themes: Deception, Marriage, and Public Perception

Letterbox’d Score: 4.1/5 | My Rating: 5/5 | Where to watch: Amazon Prime

Gone Girl (2012) is a psychological thriller novel by Gillian Flynn, adapted into a 2014 film directed by David Fincher, one of the most unsettling portrayals of psychological manipulation in modern storytelling. What I find most fascinating about this film is Amy’s presentation as an unreliable narrator. Amy’s parents wrote and published the childhood of an imagined daughter for themselves. “Amazing Amy” is literature, and “Actual Amy” is the disappointing reality. Amy, as a result of this, often treats real life and real people as if they’re fictional. She doesn’t care about how the consequences of her actions affect others, because they aren’t important to the story she’s telling herself. The way she sees her crime as a game and herself as the gamemaker, determining the fate of herself and everyone else involved, without questioning the consequences. The film explores false perceptions and the lengths we go to curate a perception of ourselves that is considered desirable to others, denying the reality of the wholeness of self. Both Amy and Nick display tendencies of narcissism in their relationship, both bearing false witness to the person the other wants them to be, creating false, idealized concepts of self. Amy, lacking her own sense of self, became what Nick wanted her to be, and she faults him for not doing the same for her, for cheating, for destroying the perception of their idealized relationship, causing the open wound to bleed out. The story becomes a study of control, illustrating not just the consequences of betrayal, but the extreme lengths someone might go to reclaim agency in a life that feels unmoored, forcing the audience to question morality, empathy, and the reliability of perception itself.

Coherence (2013) by James Ward Byrkit

“So, listen to this. This is what he’s written. “There is another theory: that two states continue to exist... separate and decoherent from each other, each creating a new branch of reality... based on the two outcomes. Quantum decoherence ensures that the different outcomes... have no interaction with each other.”

Genre: Indie, Sci-Fi, Psychological Thriller

Themes: Multiplicity, Parallel realities, The fluidity of identity

Letterbox’d Score: 3.7/5 | My Rating: 4.5/5 | Where to watch: Peacock

What makes Coherence so incredibly compelling is the exploration of philosopher John Locke’s conceptions of the self, who says identity is not inherently fixed, intrinsic, or stable. During a dinner party, a comet passes, causing a warp in time and space that results in a Schrodinger’s Cat situation for the guests, as they realize there is another version of themselves also having a dinner party at the same time on the same plane of existence. The film grapples with the idea that ‘self’ as we know it, and what is self, if not our consistent, linear understanding of the passage of time, our memory, behavior, and environment. When those barriers are disrupted, our characters find out their sense of self is not as stable as they believe it to be. They must confront themselves, as themselves. Leading them to see themselves as their own moral failings. The group becomes increasingly paranoid, and they begin to question if perhaps they are the ‘dark versions’ of their dopelgangers. The film explores the lengths we go to preserve our sense of self and asks the question, " Is morality relative or absolute? If you like philosophy or conceptual science, this movie is for you.

Shutter Island (1996) by Martin Scorsese

“Which would be worse - to live as a monster, or to die as a good man?”

Genre: Neo-noir Psychological Thriller with a Massive Twist

Themes: The limitations of sanity, the subjectivity of truth, and the ethical boundaries of treatment.

Letterbox’d Score: 4.2/5 | My Rating: 5/5 | Where to watch: Amazon Prime

This movie both horrified and completley shocked me through out it’s entirety. Our story begins post-WW2 with U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) as they visit a remote island hospital for the criminally insane, Shutter Island, in Boston Harbor. Their mission is to solve the disappearance of a patient, Rachel Solando, who vanished from a locked room. Already suspicious, Teddy starts to believe the hospital may be engaging in unethical experiments on patients, such as medication and lobotomies. Throughout the investigation, Teddy becomes increasingly more paranoid, and he begins to experience severe migraines, hallucinations, and dreams of his dead wife. All of which begins to blur the line between reality and delusion, inhibiting the investigation. Teddy then meets the returned missing woman, Rachel, who mistakes him for her dead husband. This experience only makes Teddy more paranoid. When searching for his partner near some rocks her comes across the ‘real’ missing Rachel, who then tells him that she was a psychiatrist at Ashecliffe who was forcibly committed after discovering the doctors were performing horrific experiments to perfect mind control. She warns Teddy that the hospital is drugging him through his food and cigarettes to induce hallucinations and make him appear insane. He leaves on the brink of a breakdown, consumed by paranoia. He becomes convinced that the lighthouse on the island is the site of the lobotomies and that he has to rescue his partner from there. As not to spoil the ending, this is where my review stops. I did not see the end coming at all. I was blown away. Thus far, my favorite Scorsese film.

Primal Fear (1996) by Gregory Hoblit

“Why gamble with money when you can gamble with people's lives? That was a joke. All right, I'll tell you. I believe in the notion that people are innocent until proven guilty. I believe in that notion because I choose to believe in the basic goodness of people. I choose to believe that not all crimes are committed by bad people. And I try to understand that some very, very good people do some very bad things.”

Genre: Psychological Thriller with a Massive Twist and Courtroom/Legal drama

Themes: Systemic Abuse, Moral Ambiguity, and The Manipulation of Truth

Letterbox’d Score: 4.1/5 | My Rating: 5/5 | Where to watch: Amazon Prime

This film explores an interesting theme: What is the purpose of truth if real justice will never be served? Throughout the film, the infamous local lawyer Martin Vail decides to take the case of a young man, Aaron Stampler, accused of killing the town’s beloved Archbishop Richard Rushman. But it comes with the cost of facing his former partner in court, Janet Venable, who will be the prosecuting attorney. Throughout the film, Aaron Stampler admits to experiencing blackouts throughout his life and vehemently claims that he did not kill the Archbishop. Martin says he doesn’t care if he did or didn’t, but he’s going to help him. As Martin begins interviewing Aaron, he splits, and an alternate identity comes forward with a different voice, demeanor, and perspective. Aaron is diagnosed with multiple personality disorder and goes into court with a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Throughout the investigation, the archbishop’s crimes against children were revealed, specifically crimes against Aaron that were notably covered up by the Church and the local police. Martin feels that Aaron may have killed the Archbishop due to the forced abuse he endured at his hands, but Aaron denies it. Aaron attacks someone during court, the jury is thrown out, and he is found not guilty by reason of insanity. But yet, it’s still not over. The biggest twist of the movie comes at the end, which I will not reveal here. The movie suggests that Aaron may have rightfully killed an abuser while being abused, even if he is ‘crazy’. Was he wrong? If no one else was going to stop it, was it wrong for him to break the law? Primal Fear challenges us: if the system fails to protect the vulnerable, is breaking the law ever defensible? And more unsettlingly—what if the truth itself isn’t enough to deliver justice? Watch the film to find out!

Parachute (2023) by Brittany Snow

“You only like being fucked by things that hate you as much as you hate yourself.” & “I love you. And you deserve to be so happy. But I’m keeping you from getting better. I need you to just let me let you go, okay?”

Genre: Indie, Romance, Drama

Themes: Mental Health, Codependency, Complex Relationships

Letterbox’d Score: 3.7/5 | My Rating: 4/5 | Where to watch: Peacock

Parachute, starring Courtney Eaton and Thomas Mann, is a Romantic Drama that follows a young woman, Riley, after she leaves the hospital for an eating disorder and her tumultuous, codependent relationship with a young man, Ethan, whom she meets the night she is released. The film’s strength is the storytelling, capturing the reality of being unwell with the accuracy that only someone who’s experienced it firsthand could. Riley is a reminder that struggling sometimes causes us to inflict the hate we feel towards ourselves onto others, forcing them to suffer alongside us. As they say, misery loves company. Riley, who is lying to her therapist about her recovery, attempts to allow herself to be loved, yet her disorder causes her not to see herself or reality clearly. There’s a push and pull between wanting to give and receive love, but only under the conditions of which she feels deserving, which complicates her relationship with Thomas and her eating disorder, triggering significant episodes. The debut film by Brittany Snow perfectly captures being a young, unwell woman who is grappling with the idea of being unlovable and too much, while hurting the people closest to her in the process of trying to cope.

Meet the Author: Cailey Davern

I graduated from DePaul University with a Degree in Communications and Media (Go Blue Demons!). I currently work at a NYC-based Marketing Agency as a Social Media Lead who runs the social accounts for Non-Profit clients. I currently reside in the Chicago suburbs and live with my cat, Harley, who is 3. I love all things vintage fashion, music, and movies. I am an avid reader, and I love books adapted into movies and short series. In my free time, I enjoy thrifting, collecting vinyl, going to live shows, spending time with friends, and watching movies!

Letterbox’d: https://boxd.it/auB2T