Betty (Barbara Auer) takes care of Laura (Paula Beer), a piano student, after she survives a car crash that kills her boyfriend in Miroirs No. 3. She lets her stay at her home and invites her estranged husband, Richard (Matthias Brandt) and son, Max (Enno Trebs), over. Writer/director Christian Petzold has made an understated and quietly moving  meditation on grief. He begins the film with the car crash; there's little to no first act or exposition that sets up the relationship between Laura and her boyfriend. Miraculously, Laura survives the crash with just a minor cut. Betty seems sad, depressed and lonely. Her faucet constantly drips, her dishwasher and one of her bicycles are both broken. When she tells Laura that she's inviting her husband and son over, she refers to them as "the men." They happen to work as mechanics, so they insist on fixing her faucet, dishwasher and bicycle. Very little happens in terms of plot, but there's a twist near the end that helps to add more emotional depth and to explain where Betty's sadness comes from. Interestingly, Laura and Max don't develop a romance, although they do flirt a little. This isn't a Hollywood film, after all. There's also some surprisingly lively use of music during a few scenes. Paula Beer and Barbara Auer give warm, nuanced and radiant performances that ground the film in humanism. They're both wonderfully natural actresses who get many chances to shine here. The unconventional ending feels abrupt, though, although it does leave some room for interpretation. At a running time of only 1 hour and 26 minutes,  Miroirs No. 3 opens TBA via 1-2 Special.

 

      After getting laid off from his job at a paper manufacturing company, Man-soo (Lee Byung-hun) sends his resume to a rival company and hatches a plan to kill the other employees competing with him for the position in No Other Choice. Writer/director Park Chan-wook and his co-writers, Don McKellar, Lee Kyoung-mi and Lee Ja-hye, have made a clunky, overlong and tedious dark comedy. The plot eventually loses steam and just becomes over-the-top, mean-spirited and exhausting while making it very hard to care for Man-soo. His wife, Lee Min (Son Ye-jin), seems more likable, but underdeveloped like most of the female characters. Does it sound funny to you when another woman sucks the venom out of a snakebite on Man-soon's leg while he FaceTimes his wife? concurrently? Or when the woman mistakenly tells him to raise his leg above his heart instead of lowering it below his heart? The attempts at comedy are more physical rather than any funny lines. There are also issues with the film's blend of tones because it's hard to take anything seriously when the plot seems so outrageous and preposterous almost like a satire, but with not enough bite. There have been better films that have tackled the issue of job loss in a family with more humor, wit and heart, i.e. Tokyo Sonata. Keep in mind that this won't be the film for you if you can't handle teeth porn---there's a scene involving teeth that will make you squeamish like in Bring Her Back. At a running time of 2 hours and 19 minutes, No Other Choice  opens in select theaters on December 25th, 2025 via MUBI.

Number of times I checked my watch: 3




 

      Jean-Luc Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) shoots Breathless in Nouvelle Vague. He casts Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch) and Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin) in the lead roles. Director Richard Linklater and screenwriters Holly Gent and Vincent Palmo have made a charming, breezy and amusing, but shallow and tedious homage to the French New Wave that overstays its welcome. All of the actors and actresses resemble the Golden Age actors and actresses that they portray as do the actors in the role of directors like Adrien Rouyard who plays François Truffaut. The stand-out, though, is Aubry Dullin who's Nouvelle Vague's MVP. Linklater shoots the film in black-and-white which adds to the authenticity, but beyond that, this probably would've worked better as a short. At 1 hour and 38 minutes, Nouvelle Vague opens at Angelika Film Center and The Paris Theatre via Netflix.

Number of times I checked my watch: 3




 

      Peter Hujar (Ben Whishaw), a photographer, has a conversation with his friend, Linda Rosencrantz (Rebecca Hall) in Peter Hujar's Day. The screenplay by writer/director Ira Sachs, set during December 1974 in NYC, is dull, monotonous and shallow. Even though the conversations between Peter and Linda actually occured back then, that doesn't make it interesting today. They talk about very trivial things that reveal too little about both of them. If you could imagine My Dinner with Andrew without the intellectual or emotional depth, it would look like this. It's slight, pointless, meandering and should've been a short because it overstays its welcome while dragging on and on without being even remotely cinematic. The performances by Ben Wishaw and Rebecca Hall are fine, though, but the screenplay doesn't give them enough to chew on which would've allowed them to shine. At a running time of 1 hour and 16 minutes, Peter Hujar's Day opens at Angelika Film Center on November 7th, 2025 via Janus Films and Sideshow.

Number of times I checked my watch: 4




 

       In The Secret Agent, Marcelo (Wagner Moura), a former teacher, gets more than he bargained for when he seeks refuge in Recife, Brazil while searching for his son.  Writer/director Kleber Mendonça Filho has made a slow-burning and overlong, but bold, visually stylish and refreshingly unpredictable political thriller set in 1977. The tonal shifts feel jarring at times as it veers into horror, dark comedy and even a little satire, but it all comes together in a way that makes it unique and unconventional. Filho doesn't bombard the audience with exposition and keeps many things a mystery, especially who the secret agents are and why are there some men trying to track down Marcelo and kill him? Wagner Moura anchors the film with his palpable charisma. The cinematography and production design are also superb while adding both style and substance. To be fair, The Secret Agent does begin to drag around the 2 hour mark, so it could've used tighter editing. At 2 hours and 38 minutes, The Secret Agent opens on November 26th, 2025 at Angelika Film Center via NEON.

Number of times I checked my watch: 3

      Luis (Sergi López) takes his young son, Esteban (Bruno Núñez Arjona), to search for his missing daughter, Mar, in the Moroccan desert in Sirāt. Writer/director Óliver Laxe and co-writer Santiago Fillol have made a mesmerizing and often exhilarating, but tedious and exhausting thriller. The beats don't land as strongly as they would have if the audience were to know more about Mar and why she disappeared. Exposition remains at a bare minimum. There are some twists that make the film more and more tragic, but those twists seem like plot devices in retrospect, especially after something happens to one of the characters. The filmmakers aren't interested in getting to know Luis or any of the ravers that he meets during his dangerous trek through the desert, so they all stay at a cold distance from the audience. Moreover, the use of music feels bizarre, heavy-handed and intrusive. That said, the cinematography and breathtaking desert landscape, which becomes a character in itself, are the film's major strengths. They add visual style, although that's not enough to compensate for the lack of substance. At 1 hour and 55 minutes, Sirāt opens on November 14th, 2025 at Angelika Film Center via NEON.

Number of times I checked my watch: 3




______________________________________________________