Sunday, 1 February 2026
I keep mentioning wanting to change up the format of these but not doing that… I don’t know exactly what I want to do, clearly. The responses this month are more personally reflective than I go for, if not in amount then at least in terms of intention. I’m not sure if I like it from a reviewing perspective, but I like it from a writing perspective. I’ll figure it out at some point.
The Housemaid (2025, dir. Paul Feig)
The Housmaid is a 2025 psychological thriller based on a book of the same title by Freida McFadden. It follows Millie Calloway (Sydney Sweeney), a young woman recently released from prison and in search of a job as a housemaid. She is hired by Nina Winchester (Amanda Seyfried) to work for her and her husband Andrew (Brandon Sklenar), though quickly reveals she is not the kind, frazzled woman she appears to be. As conflict rises between Millie, Nina, and Andrew, it seems like just about everyone in this household harbors a dark secret…
This was not the movie I wanted to go see in cinemas the weekend I saw this, but I was convinced to go see it. I knew little of it, aside that it stars Amanda Seyfried, who I’ve liked since I was a teenager just getting into movies, and that I couldn’t remember the name for my life (a careful look at my film & television page will reveal that I watched The Handmaiden a couple days before this, which explains most of the confusion). These are relatively unimportant details, but I have little else to say about this movie aside from that it was an enjoyable theatrical experience. The crowd was really into it, which makes all the difference much of the time. The movie itself was just fine.
As far as thrillers go, it felt very standard, but I felt as though there were moments where I could see the novel peeking through. I’d never heard of Freida McFadden until a wave of posts about her about a week after I saw this movie, and the pieces sort of fell into place. There’s this quality to some book to film adaptations, where you can sort of parse out how the story was told initially. It’s less a reflection of an interesting artistic decision and more a semi-cool party trick to guess, “The book was written in this character’s perspective,” and be correct. That wasn’t the particular case with this film, so to be more particular: there is this moment in the film, once Nina has left the house and drives away in her car, that we return to once the twist has been revealed, showing the events leading up to those in the film from her perspective. It gave me an idea of how the book revealed these aspects, that I have not confirmed and don’t intend to, and that maybe didn’t work exactly as intended in the film. Namely, the twist and reveal. It wasn’t so much a matter of pacing or foreshadowing, but the interpretation of Nina’s goal. It felt less like a plan she devised and more like a curse or prophecy she was fulfilling. Not literally, of course.
At the end of the day, my main barrier to loving this movie was these strange details that made the world feel just slightly off without being mysterious or intriguing. We see them elsewhere—the competing voice overs implemented at unnecessary moments, the excessive number of times Millie was shocked at Nina’s cruelty, the shoehorned-in character Enzo, the unexplored aspects of social interactions outside the household, primarily with the “PTA bitches” (not my word). These mostly fade away by the final act of the film, once the twists are all revealed and the pace picks way up. Admittedly, part of this was the sheer excitement of the crowd I saw this with, but the climactic bit at the end was genuinely fun to watch. Ultimately this movie could’ve used some tidying up and intensifying the mystery and tension. It’s definitely a case of “everybody here has a secret,” but that tension was not felt until the very end.
Agatha All Along (2024, created by Jac Schaeffer)
Agatha All Along is a Marvel television show in which a group of witches of different skills (Kathryn Hahn, Joe Locke, Sasheer Zamata, Ali Ahn, Patti LuPone, Aubrey Plaza, Debra Jo Rupp) journey down a fabled “witches road,” reaching the end of which promises them a new level of power. They are faced with unique challenges for each member of their new coven that they must work together to solve and surpass.
For the last couple months, this urge has come over me, this insatiable need for a particular kind of thing. To some extent, it’s always present. I’ve established on here my occasional enjoyment of cringe comedy and fondness for annoying women characters. If you’re particularly devout, you may even notice I tend to speak on shows and such of dubious quality very highly and there is good reason for all of this. I find it’s critical to being a fan of any artform to enjoy the less polished stuff. Whether it’s because it’s amateur or has a lower budget or fewer resources or whatever the reason may be— finding that sweet spot of what makes something compelling or effective despite constraints or particularities, is important to both understanding the media you’re looking at and creating a genuine admiration for it. There’s a lot more I can say about that and to be frank, it’s not the most relevant here. The examples I shared for the sort of thing I’m talking about are admittedly optimistic and forgiving. When you have something like this show, a part of the talked-to-death MCU that I already was not a fan of long before everyone wasn’t a fan, those pitfalls of amateur and budget constraints aren’t relevant. Rather, you’re working with a body of work that’s over-exposed, over- and under-developed, filled with nonsensical cameo after nonsensical cameo that, despite what ardent fans and haters alike argue, cannot disguise basic and boring storytelling that does not change in clarity regardless of whether or not you know who a character is. So going in, I was not a fan. In fact, I was going in with the intention of watching something shitty, compounded by my general disinterest in superheroes and witches and ensemble fantasy casts each with different powers. But honestly, I didn’t hate it.
I’m not going to pretend like I was charmed by its secret depths or the relief that it doesn’t include countless cameos (although that all it took to understand it was the sitcom episodes of Wandavision and knowledge of a frequently memed moment from the show, was certainly a welcome quality). No, this show was actually perfectly fine. But it scratched that itch of mine to watch something just so. Nerdy, I guess? It’s like this slightly-too-perfect of ensemble cast of witches, and we get roughly an episode to explore each of them and their flaws or backstories. There’s this decade/genre thing half-carried over from the show it’s spun off from, but it’s unevenly applied, so it more rotates aesthetics with limited consistency. The characters feel straight out of that era of fantasy monster-of-the-week television where every plot is lifted from a comic book (and thus I presume comic books, but I don’t know enough of them to be sure), although I found the episode plots considerably more innovative and serialized than I’m used to with that. Even when we broke from that format and indeed the framing format of the witches on this magical road, we stayed in this tone.
I wrote the actual review part with shocking concision (I didn’t take many notes), so I’ll leave you with a particular favorite moment. It was after one of the main characters learns of a bombshell backstory the show has been hinting at for most of the runtime by this point, and his boyfriend (who was present at that moment), texts along the lines of, “That was crazy!” It sure was.
People We Meet on Vacation (2026, dir. Brett Haley)
People We Meet on Vacation is a 2026 romantic comedy film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Emily Henry. It follows Poppy (Emily Bader), a writer disillusioned with her jetsetting lifestyle, and her old friend Alex (Tom Blyth), who she has recently fallen out with. Alternating between scenes of the past and their current reconnection in Barcelona for Alex’s brother’s wedding, the film details their love story from first meeting to eventual coupling.
Indeed the film lives up to the high bar of its genre as it impressively manages to be both romantic and funny. Much of this is to the credit of Emily Bader, whose performance as Poppy gives dignity and humor to annoying women everywhere. So I’m already primed to like this movie with Bader’s charm, but it works elsewhere as well—mainly the silly cast of characters and the flashbacks to different moments in Poppy and Alex’s past. This movie is pretty lengthy, and while it doesn’t exactly feel short, it does make every moment of its runtime fun and engaging.
As for the romance, I liked the couple together for the most part but ended up really disliking Alex. I’m always going to at the very least raise an eyebrow to this sort of ending, although I think it… more or less works with the character we’ve established until that point. I go back and forth every time I’ve tried to write this review. Ultimately, it’s just fine. Poppy’s struggle with her career gives it credibility, the chemistry between the leads makes up for it, but the lack of Alex’s character exploration and even gaps in Poppy’s, were quite distracting. I’ve heard murmurations of a vasectomy plotline for Alex that I imagine gave him more depth and, at least in hearing about it, made their relationship more mutual in some ways. My issue was less Poppy’s arc with regards to the ending, and more Alex’s. He changed some, but damn if I didn’t want to see them compromise on their living situation. Mainly this is just a personal taste thing; in other movies it’s more egregious, and genre baggage can be legitimate, but for this film it was… whatever. It didn’t ruin an otherwise fun film for me, but clearly it was nonetheless distracting.
Agatha Christie's Seven Dials (2026, dir. Chris Sweeney)
Agatha Christie's Seven Dials is a 2026 limited series based on Agatha Christie’s novel The Seven Dials Mystery. It primarily follows Bundle (Mia McKenna-Bruce), a plucky young lady, who attempts to solve the death of her lover with the help of her friends Ronny (Nabhaan Rizwan) and Jimmy (Edward Bluemel), and much to the chagrin of Superintendent Battle (Martin Freeman).
I’ve decided with this limited series that while I like mysteries, I find that I’m always wanting for something slightly different, slightly more. I hoped, for an episode, that this would be that one. There’s this lovely worldbuilding in the first episode that hints at a rich and interesting backstory. It’s not a mystery itself, but there’s a camaraderie between this group of friends and associates that is truly captivating. The occasionally interesting sets and always lovely costumes contribute to this time capsule feeling, that we are seeing but a moment in the world and these characters’ lives. However, as the mystery/conspiracy is revealed, and thus many of those characters are no longer present, it loses all that charm with little else to make up for it.
The reason I included that slash mark is that there is simultaneously a mystery and conspiracy going on, partially in the form of a secret society. The issue is the lack of definition of these things. The mystery is pretty clear at first, but the method of investigation is atypical and lacking in a clear-cut structure, which makes the pacing hard to grasp and the tension lose any weight. The conspiracy is overlain atop the mystery—relevant, but certainly not the whole picture. Only it’s ill-defined, introducing a secret society in a world that feels small and empty the more time we spend in it. All that charming chemistry between these old friends is lost, replaced with a generic foreboding sense that is never truly rewarded.
Without spoiling the whole mystery/conspiracy—not that you’d need me to do it if you watch even a single episode—I will simply say that it once again eschews the typical mystery format for a series of heartfelt and entirely undeserved emotional reveals. Roughly the entirety of the third and final episode is dedicated to this, such that there is once again a dissolving of tension, only now there’s also a sort of strange and sudden and inconsistent emotionality present. Perhaps my expectations were too high after the first episode, but I was thoroughly disappointed by where the plot went. It definitely attempted to retain that sense of intrigue and worldly expanse present with this old friend group, but pivoted in terms of content and thus brought itself into a tone I rarely ever like: epicness.
Rental Family (2026, dir. Hikari)
Rental Family is a 2025 comedy drama that follows Phillip (Brendan Fraser) as an American actor working in Japan. Disillusioned by his current career trajectory, he begins to work for a company in which he and his coworkers (Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Kimura Bun) act as stand-ins for people’s loved ones. Primarily, he works as the father of a young girl (Shannon Mahina Gorman) and an interviewer/friend of an elderly actor (Akira Emoto).
I was anticipating this movie for so long. I missed it theaters, but I was finally able to watch it this month and… It was not everything I’d hoped for. Don’t get me wrong, it was still a good movie. But I wanted to love it, to cry. Instead, I found it a bit saccharine and underdeveloped in some ways.
The movie was technically proficient and worked well, but at times the timing was a bit strange. Not so much in terms of pacing, but the speed with which we moved on from characters and characters experienced shifts. Phillip, for example, goes from feeling wary of the concept of the business to participating whole-heartedly in this lie to this little girl. I would’ve loved to see a more gradual or specific shift, and I think that would’ve made the ending more impactful. Other moments were also underdeveloped, namely Kikuo’s story, which was performed beautifully and placed at a good spot in the story, but the content of which felt a bit random. That is, we didn’t really know too much about his personal life, so the reveal was underwhelming. Aiko in particular was such a stand-out character to me, as she pretty quickly revealed one of the most interesting perspectives in the film. But where her story ended up felt distant from that initial impression of her. I could say this about quite a few other characters, if not all of them. In the end, while the beats and performances worked, there was a missing connective tissue between these moments.
I found the movie to be an enjoyable watch, just not as moving as I would like. It had a writerly tone and style of the dialogue, especially the shifting between Japanese and English, which was nice. However, precision in that aspect highlighted the gaps elsewhere.
Love Lies Bleeding (2024, dir. Rose Glass)
Love Lies Bleeding is a romantic thriller about two young women, Lou (Kristen Stewart) and Jackie (Katy O’Brian) who begin seeing each other after an encounter at the gym Lou works at. As a result of some steroids Jackie takes for bodybuilding, she gets in a violent altercation with Lou’s sister’s abusive husband, that causes his death. The movie unfolds into a fantastic journey for these two women to find their way back to each other.
What a film! This is easily my favorite movie of the year so far. It was a blast to watch. I knew nothing of this movie aside that it is about body building and is vaguely a Frankenstein story (too true & always a favorite of mine). And it exceeded every expectation. Rose Glass knows tension and conflict—there was in every scene a palpable curiosity for some part of the story, be it the romance or the crime or the family drama or the strange steroid effects.
I am literally obsessed with the cinematography and lighting and general visual style. The lighting is what got me most, though. It’s stunning—sexy and otherworldly and utterly captivating. It works by taking light sources in the environment and pushing them to their extremes. Not that I dislike an artistic, imprecise light source, but this gave it such a sense of grounded place. Even in the rest of the production design, the setting taking on these geometric angles, giving a real feel of the desert and this out-of-time feeling despite the clear period. It somehow manages specificity with fantasy, with underlying secrets on the fringes of each scene.
This movie is just about everything I was looking for at the time, and I’m so excited to check out Glass’ other projects in the near future. It lost cohesion in the third act, but had such a strong build up that I was fine with it.