The Woman In The Yard (2025)

Another film that gives you a title that is all you need to know about it, The Woman In The Yard is all about, well, a woman in the yard. She's not up to anything. She doesn't help to cut the grass and tidy up the area. She doesn't set up a stall and start some unexpected yard sale. She just sits there, covered by a dark shroud, and causing some upset for Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler) and her two children (played by Peyton Jackson and Estella Kahiha). And they were already upset by the kicks and punches delivered upon them by life.

It's been a few years now since Jaume Collet-Serra helmed a film that was properly good (although I am very much aware that most people liked Jungle Cruise a lot less than I did), he seems to do one every five years or so that allows him to retain the goodwill of most film fans, and this isn't one of his better features. He's not helped by a screenplay from Sam Stefanak that makes it painfully obvious that this is his feature debut. The required atmosphere isn't established well enough, nor is it maintained throughout the runtime, and the third act is the kind of "oh look, aren't we being clever?" nonsense that will have most viewers rolling their eyes. There's a good idea for a short film here, but it's overstretched to 88 minutes.

Despite not being given great material to work with, Deadwyler does well enough in the lead role. She's given decent support from Jackson and Kahiha, as well as Russell Hornsby (playing David, who appears in a number of flashbacks), and Okwui Okpokwasili is allowed to sit there and emanate menace as the titular woman. It's a real shame that all of these performances are mired in a film so undeserving of them, despite the assumed best intentions of all involved. 

This wants to use the horror movie trappings to explore grief and mental health, in a way that has been managed so successfully by other titles I could point you toward right now, but it forgets to deliver enough substance. We don't really get to know the characters before the woman in the yard appears, there's a disappointing lack of full-blooded horror to make up for what it lacks elsewhere, and the third act shows a real lack of confidence and clarity as the film-makers try to tie everything up neatly before the end credits roll.

I wanted this to be much better, particularly for Deadwyler. Every unfolding minute just made me feel worse and worse though, knowing that I was wasting my time with something that was competently made, from a technical standpoint, but ultimately weak. It also doesn't feel like it makes the point that it really wants to make, certainly not with any weight behind it anyway. A lot of the individual elements are far from terrible, but everything is put together to create a finished product that feels amateurish and completely mishandled.

4/10

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I Saw The TV Glow (2024)

While I wasn't as big a fan of We're All Going To The World's Fair as some people, there was no doubt that writer-director Jane Schoenbrun had put forward a case for them being well worth keeping an eye on. A unique and intriguing new voice, I was keen to see what they would do for their second narrative feature (and I should also remember to head back and check out A Self-Induced Hallucination, a documentary about the very real horror and tragedy stemming from the internet legend of the Slender Man). I Saw The TV Glow is a huge step up, in my view, and shows a film-maker who is using their platform to deliver impressively unique thematic content wrapped up in some familiar genre trappings.

Ostensibly the tale of Owen (Justice Smith) and Maddy (Jack Haven) forming and navigating a friendship that is then interrupted by one of them being absent for a number of years, this is also about people being strongly attached to a TV show that speaks to them, bonding with others over that shared interest, and then looking back on everything with an adult perspective that shows it in a slightly different light. It's also about the "egg crack", according to Schoenbrun, which is a term given to the moment in the life of a trans individual when they realise that their exterior body doesn't align with their gender identity.

Schoenbrun does a very good line in subtle and unnerving horror, easily creating and maintaining an atmosphere that will have many viewers sitting uncomfortably (or, as mentioned just above, seeing their own past or present discomfort and pain presented in a way not often seen onscreen). Allowing the plot to focus on something that so many of us can identify with, that TV show you found at the time in your life when you needed it most, one that felt as if it was speaking directly to you, allows it to have that paradoxical kind of specificity that also seems universal. Some people will feel as if this is uncanny in how it captures their feelings, but everyone should at least take something meaningful away from it.

Smith and Haven are both very good in the lead roles, but it's the former who will linger in your mind long after the credits have rolled, thanks to a third act that allows for one of the most heart-breaking and raw depictions of despair I have seen in a long time. Fred Durst is effective in his supporting role (playing Owen's father), and the casting of Amber Benson is a double bonus, considering how good she is onscreen and how she was a part of the beloved cast of Buffy The Vampire Slayer (a major influence on the film, and the fictional show within it).

I watched a full movie here, something with a real journey and emotional arc for the characters, but I also fell under a spell. The visuals, the music, the building sense of oppression, it all made me think back to those nights when I was young and sometimes feeling lost within the familiar surroundings of my own bedroom. I Saw The TV Glow is disorientating and discombobulating in a way that is impressively unique and powerful. It gave me the feeling that I was hoping to get from Skinamarink, and I don't know if anyone else will read this and understand what I mean.  

How do you release a full-blooded primal scream when your own body is working to keep you gagged? That's what I keep wondering when I think about I Saw The TV Glow. And I think about it more often than I think about many of the other movies I have watched throughout the past year.

8/10

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Netflix And Chill: Carry-On (2024)

Taron Egerton plays Etahn Kopek, a young TSA agent who ends up having a very difficult shift in a busy airport on Christmas Eve. It's all thanks to a mysterious stranger (Jason Bateman) who ends up threatening Kopek to let a piece of luggage through the security system that really shouldn't be anywhere near an airport. Kopek doesn't want to co-operate, of course, but there's also another villain (Theo Rossi) keeping an eye on his pregnant partner, Nora (Sofia Carson). Meanwhile, one detective (Elena Cole, played by Danielle Deadwyler) senses something unusual about the latest case she is working on, and her investigation may eventually lead her to the same airport where our hero is desperately trying to stall for time.

Sometimes I watch a film and have such a strong reaction to it (whether positive or negative) that looking around online to see myself being very much in the minority makes me wonder if I missed something major. Despite what many others may tell you, Carry-On is awful, and not often in a fun way. I've seen people praise it as a throwback to simple action thrillers of the '90s, but that is just being rude to the simple action thrillers of the '90s. I've also seen people go on about how it's just a bit of fun that allows viewers to switch their brain off and enjoy the ride. There's switching your brain off and then there's being placed into an induced-coma to stop you asking too many questions. This film would have to do the latter to be considered anything more than an insulting mess.

Let's start with that dire script, written by T. J. Fixman, who unsurprisingly has a history made up of various Ratchet & Clank projects, as well as one other videogame. I don't always mind films that set everything up in entirely obvious ways, offering a comforting familiarity with how predictable it all is, but there's no finesse here at all. Even worse, there's absolutely no attempt to make things feel plausible. The main plan is silly enough, once you think about it for more than a moment, but would be perfectly fine if the rest of the film didn't try to find a breaking point for anyone suspending their disbelief. Want to warn your loved one about a potential sniper threatening their life? Do it in front of the biggest set of windows possible, as opposed to a backroom that has already been described as a total blindspot earlier on in the film. We're told many times at the start of the movie how busy the airport will be on this particular day, which doesn't seem to matter when people are looking for other airport staff or members of the security team. And let's not even waste energy rolling eyes at how amazingly quiet the airport car park becomes when someone is being chased by a van, and then a gun-toting killer who vacates said van. Those are just the "highlights", but you get the idea. None of the dialogue feels natural and flowing, and everyone is hampered by the silliness of the central idea.

As for director Jaume Collet-Serra, he represses any of his style and skill to deliver something that simply sits alongside numerous other "identi-kit" features paid for by Netflix. Okay, he no longer always shows off the eye he had while making the likes of House Of Wax and Orphan, but I defy anyone to watch this without credits and then name him as the director. 

I wish I could say that the cast at least work to improve the material, but they don't. Egerton is someone I normally enjoy watching onscreen, but he has to spend a lot of his screentime here responding to a voice speaking to him via an earpiece. How does he show his worry and stress? A twitchy left eye. It's distractingly overdone, and he isn't helped by the fact that his character has to wade further into the waters of implausibility than anyone else. Bateman is decent, but not entirely convincing as the manipulative criminal mastermind. Carson and Deadwyler are both slightly underused (although Deadwyler ends up involved in what is arguably the worst sequence in the film, an eye-wateringly bad stunt sequence involving cars soundtracked to "Last Christmas" on the radio), Rossi never feels as competent as he should, and everyone else, from Logan Marshall-Green and Dean Norris to Sinqua Walls and Curtiss Cook, is completely wasted.

I liked some of the very end scenes, but even that felt like some small consolation after expecting another twist that didn't happen. I wasn't just unhappy as the end credits rolled, I was bloody annoyed at once again being won over by a trailer for a film that turned out to be, while harmless and fairly inoffensive, another slick and empty waste of time (for both myself and those involved in making it).

4/10

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Till (2022)

I am not sure why I have recently decided to put myself through the emotional wringer. I think it just happens during the time of year that is labelled “awards season”, forcing me to go out of my way to watch movies that I hope will be worthwhile, even as I worry about feeling drained by the time the end credits roll.

As much as I like to avoid spoilers, Till is based on a real incident that eventually, decades later, led to the creation of a law named after young Emmet Till. So I am going to specify that incident. Now. Here is your last chance to look away, if you have so far remained unaware of the case of Emmett Till.

Emmett Till was an African American boy who was abducted, tortured, and lynched for offending a Whyte woman in Mississippi. He was fourteen years old. It was sadly obvious from the outset that the jury would vote one way when the case went to court, but that didn’t stop Emmett’s mother from campaigning for change, for some good to come out of the horrendous murder of her baby boy.

Directed by Chinonye Chukwu, who is someone new to me (although I really want to see her previous feature, Clemency), this is a film that uses a factual event to underline how dangerous and unwelcoming many parts of the USA can be to black people. It may be a period piece, but seeing how slowly anything changes, and seeing parallels in the news today to show how many things have stayed the same, makes it horribly relevant. It is a potent reminder of how the imbalance in modern society has been set up over decades and centuries of prejudice and abuse.

Chukwu also worked on the script, alongside Michael Reilly and Keith Beauchamp (the latter having also directed a documentary on Emmett Till back in 2005), and the focus stays on the death of Emmett, and the subsequent court case. That’s a smart move, allowing viewers to see the butterfly effect of Emmett’s death, and providing a valuable opportunity to show the real courage of those who decided to speak up in the face of overwhelming odds, and risking their own lives to do so.

The cast all do their bit to elevate the material, and I will now be keeping my eyes peeled for whatever a couple of them do next. Jalynn Hall is as lovely as he needs to be in the role of young Emmett, his more childish moments all the more poignant while we await his fate. Whoopi Goldberg does good work in the role of a caring grandmother, and Frankie Faison, Sean Patrick Thomas, Tosin Cole, and John Douglas Thompson are a number of different men who play varyingly important roles in the life of Emmett and/or his mother. Haley Bennett is the woman who claims that young Emmett mistreated her, and she is duly viewed as a major villain by those who know the truth of the matter. I have omitted one notable name, and that is Danielle Deadwyler, in the role of Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. Deadwyler is consistently great here, often remaining composed, determined, and mindful of the perception of onlookers while others start to have doubts about the path they are set on. There’s one display of grief here that is heart-wrenching, and it is that moment that made me determined to watch more work from Deadwyler, who gives the kind of powerful performance that should affect everyone who sees it.

Till works exactly how it is supposed to work, and I think that is at least partly tied to the fact that it presupposes viewers having knowledge of how things play out. Highly recommended, and it should be mandatory viewing for idiots who say “all lives matter”, conveniently forgetting the slavery, abuse, legal wranglings, and deaths that brought us to the here and now.

8/10

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