Tag: divorced

Rebuilding

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 13 April 2026
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Director – Max Walker-Silverman – 2025 – US – Cert. PG – 96m

****

A divorced man whose home has been destroyed by a forest fire begins to reconnect with his pre-teenage daughter – out in UK cinemas on Friday, April 17th

This opens with an image of red hot embers rising and falling a black night sky. A couple of brief, opening, expository shots is all we are shown of the tragedy, but it’s enough: much of the remainder of the narrative takes place against a backdrop of leafless, tall, burned trees, an area of likely great former beauty now reduced to desolation. This is not the cinema of big budget disaster scenarios with no-holds barred pyrotechnic effects: it’s something altogether much lower key and quieter, an exploration of the effect of natural disasters on the lives of those people who survive them.

The fire has destroyed the 20 acres of property on the edge of the forest where Dusty (Josh O’Connor from The History of Sound, Oliver Hermanus, 2025; Mothering Sunday, Eva Husson, 2017; God’s Own Country, Francis Lee, 2017) lives, an area of outstanding natural beauty. He sells off his surviving livestock at an auction, then calls in on his ex-wife Ruby (Meghann Fahy from The White Lotus, TV series, 2022) who lives in the nearby town with their pre-teen daughter Callie-Rose (Lily LaTorre) and his mother-in-law Bess (Amy Madigan from Weapons, Zach Cregger, 2025; Pollock, Ed Harris, 2000; Field of Dreams, Phil Alden Robinson, 1989).… Read the rest

Tags a small plant, Amy Madigan, area of outstanding natural beauty, auction, bake-outs, belongings, brush, burned, camaraderie, car park, David Bright, desolation, divorced, divorced man, door, drama, electronic tablet, everyday, ex-wife, familiarity, Federal Emergency Management Agency, fellow survivors, FEMA, forest fire fathers and daughters, former beauty, glow in the dark, glow in the dark stars, home, home cooking, home destroyed, homeless, homework, interior trailer walls, into town, introverted, isolated rural dwellings, job well done, Josh O’Connor, Kali Reis, leafless, library, library car park, Lily LaTorre, livestock, Max Walker-Silverman, Meghann Fahy, mother-in-law, natural disaster, neighbours, notice to vacate, ordinary, paint the trailer, pink notes, porch, post-crisis, privacy, Rebuilding, red hot embers rising, school, self-reliance, sell off, shared experience, stars, storybook, survival, survivors, tablet, thrown together, tragedy, trailer, trailer home, trailer park, transcendence, transcendent, transformation of a home, trees, wifi, wooden steps

Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Agent
of Happiness

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 12 July 2024
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of Happiness
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Directors – Arun Bhattarai, Dorottya Zurbó – 2023 – Bhutan, Hungary – 94m

****

A civil servant travels around Bhutan assessing individual people’s happiness even as his personal life begs the questions whether he, himself, is truly happy – out in UK cinemas on Friday, July 12th

Judging by the opening montage of cloudy and hilly scenery here, Bhutan may not be the sunniest place on the planet, but it looks fabulously beautiful. In their house, a fortysomething man clips and files his mother’s fingernails. He puts on his uniform (which includes a traditional type of robe), says goodbye to her, and goes out to work. He has a job as one of 75 agents who travel the kingdom conducting surveys assessing people’s happiness. We will only lean his name fortysomething minutes into the film.

The surveys have 148 questions and nine categories. The King of Bhutan has instigated a Happiness Index, to measure Gross National Happiness (GNH), which serves as the basis of future policy to improve his subjects’ lot and make them as happy as they can be.

The agent and his colleague drive around in his car meeting people and asking them the questions. At the end of each interview, a chart overlays the image of the person (sometimes it’s more than one family member) showing marks from one to ten for each category, plus another mark for their overall Happiness Level.… Read the rest

Tags 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, agent, Amber Gurung. Architect, Arun Bhattarai, assess, Australia, bathing, Bhutan, chart, citizenship, community, conducting surveys, conversation, couple, divorced, Dorottya Zurbó, drink, ethnic minorities, family, gender identity, GNH, Gross National Happiness, happiness, Happiness Index, Happiness Level, how many cows, Hungary, indigenous, interview, king, married, measure, motorcycle, nature, Nepali, nightclub, passport, personal life, PÖFF, PÖFF 2024, PÖFF 28, policy, politics, professional class, public baths, questions, racism, seeing each other, singer, soothsayer, study, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2024, three wives, travesty of justice

Features Live Action Movies

After the Storm
(Umi Yori
Mo Mada Fukaku,
海よりもまだ深く,
lit. Even Deeper
Than The Sea)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 15 February 2023
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(Umi Yori
Mo Mada Fukaku,
海よりもまだ深く,
lit. Even Deeper
Than The Sea)

Director – Hirokazu Kore-eda – 2016 – Japan – Cert. PG – 118m

***

Ryota Shinoda (Hiroshi Abe) juggles child-care issues as a divorced father working for a detective agency which spies on clients’ spouses. A published writer with a single, acclaimed novel to his name, he has a minor gambling problem. Like the wife in I Wish, his ex Kyoko (Yoko Maki) thinks he was too obsessed with his art to spend enough time doing a proper job to provide the wherewithal to look after their family. His gambling scarcely helps.… [Read the full review at All The Anime]

Originally reviewed for All The Anime as part of Arrow’s Family Values Blu-ray box set which includes I Wish (2011), Like Father, Like Son (2013) and After the Storm (2016). Also available to rent on Amazon UK, BFI Player and Curzon Home Cinema.

Trailer – After the Storm (2016):