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A daughter’s memory of a vacation in Turkey is at the heart of Charlotte Wells’s astonishing and devastating debut feature.The relationship between a parent and a child is wired for heartbreak — a primal attachment headed for an inevitable double grief. Kids grow up and flee the nest. Parents die. It’s the natural order of things, calamitous even when no untimely tragedies intervene to amplify the pain.Such a tragedy does shadow “Aftersun,” the tender and devastating first feature from the 35-year-old Scottish director Charlotte Wells, but the power of the film comes from its embrace of the basic and universal fact of loss. It’s about a mostly happy experience — a father-daughter vacation in a resort town on the Turkish coast, with snorkeling excursions, hotel buffets and lazy hours by the pool — that ends in tears. Your tears.Eleven-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) and her father, Calum (Paul Mescal), are mostly too caught up in the delights and frustrations of the present to express much sorrow or anxiety, but they also seem aware that time is moving quickly. Sophie, on the edge of adolescence, is both hanging onto childhood and rushing toward maturity. Her eyes are always moving, scanning her surroundings for clues and portents.A young man himself — he’s about to turn 31 and is mistaken by a fellow tourist for Sophie’s older brother — Calum carries some weariness in his lithe frame. His boyish features are creased with worry. We don’t learn much about his history — Wells is not the kind of director to spoil delicate scenes with expository dialogue — but we’re aware that he and Sophie’s mother aren’t together. We can also infer some hard knocks and bad decisions in his past.Maybe in his future as well. One thing we do know about Calum — though it’s hard to say exactly how we come by this knowledge — is that he dies sometime after the vacation. From the very first scenes, the presence of camcorders and the absence of smartphones places the trip in the past. A grown-up Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall), who at 31 has a partner and a baby, is remembering those sun-dappled mornings and karaoke nights (she sang “Losing My Religion”) of 20 years before.It isn’t quite right to say that “Aftersun” takes place mostly in flashbacks. It also feels wrong to describe the adult Sophie’s harrowing visions of her father dancing in a strobe-lit nightclub — scenes that occasionally interrupt the Turkish idyll — as dreams. Wells is working in a more intuitive and oblique psychological register, the flow of her images attuned to the fluidity of Sophie’s consciousness, her narrative instincts following the logic of emotion rather than the mechanics of plot. The boundaries between memory and experience aren’t so much blurred as rendered moot. And by the end of the movie you understand why: because that’s how mourning works.“Aftersun” is as clear and literal as can be, following Sophie and Calum through ordinary tourist activities without much dramatic embellishment. There are moments that carry a hint of danger or unprocessed bad feeling — a misunderstanding about a lost diving mask, for example. Sophie sometimes tags along with a group of British teenagers, eavesdropping on their naughty banter and observing their horseplay with an eagerness that might make a watchful parent anxious. (She also flirts with a boy her own age, a fellow devotee of motorcycle-racing arcade games.) You might raise an eyebrow when Calum orders a third beer at dinner and wonder if he’s really mature enough to take care of his daughter on his own.Late in the film, Calum’s fecklessness and Sophie’s curiosity open the door to some scary possibilities. But “Aftersun” isn’t a child-in-peril melodrama, or a punitive fable of parental irresponsibility. Its structure emerges through a pattern of perceptions and moods. Sometimes Sophie and Calum quarrel, get on each other’s nerves or fail to connect. Sometimes they’re bored, sometimes silly, and sometimes they relax into an easy, almost wordless intimacy.Capturing the thick, complex reality of their bond — registering its quick, microscopic fluctuations and tracking its slow tectonic shifts — is Wells’s great achievement. And Mescal and Corio’s as well. They are so natural, so light and grave and particular, that they don’t seem to be acting at all.It’s hard to find a critical language to account for the delicacy and intimacy of this movie. This is partly because Wells, with the unaffected precision of a lyric poet, is very nearly reinventing the language of film, unlocking the medium’s often dormant potential to disclose inner worlds of consciousness and feeling. She and the director of photography, Gregory Oke, favor compositions that evoke the jerky anti-symmetry of amateur video. (Wells also incorporates camcorder footage shot from Sophie and Calum’s perspective.) This isn’t to say that there’s anything haphazard about the images, which weave a fabric as fine and coherent as the carpet Calum impulsively buys, even though he most likely can’t afford it.The rug is purchased at one of the rare moments when Sophie and Calum aren’t together, which is to say a moment that falls outside her memory even as it is part of her own story. Or rather, a piece of the story she and her father wrote together, which she has lived to tell.AftersunRated R. Some bad words and tough situations, but nothing a sensitive adolescent couldn’t handle. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters. More

Directed by Nina Menkes, the film is a distressingly prescriptive documentary aimed at unpacking the patriarchal ways of seeing that have dominated the history of cinema.Directed by Nina Menkes, “Brainwashed” is a distressingly prescriptive documentary aimed at unpacking the patriarchal ways of seeing that have dominated the history of cinema. It employs dozens of movie clips, ripped out of context, that supposedly demonstrate the predatory gaze of the camera and the various visual techniques used to objectify women performers, with Menkes herself occasionally on-screen, lecturing to an audience, laser pointer in hand. (The documentary was developed from a public presentation and a 2017 essay Menkes wrote.)The project feels out of step with the pioneering independent filmmaker’s previous work (“Queen of Diamonds,” “The Bloody Child”), which abounds in provocation, ambiguity and women characters who resist neat interpretation.A Bernard Herrmann-esque score (by Sharon Farber) pulses conspiratorially throughout the documentary, giving the sense that Menkes’s narration is revealing secret and sinister facts about the way cinema caters to male fantasy. It uses examples from beloved and acclaimed films like “Apocalypse Now,” “Do the Right Thing” and “Phantom Thread,” and, toward the end, it presents the apparently rare films in which women do have agency, namely ones directed by Menkes.“Brainwashed” features interviews with the film theorist Laura Mulvey and directors like Julie Dash, Eliza Hittman and Catherine Hardwicke, but, for Menkes, not all women are immune to the patriarchy’s spell, citing Julia Ducournau’s “Titane” and Maïmouna Doucouré’s “Cuties” as instances of internalized misogyny. These particular illustrations suggest that Menkes may not have watched the films, both of which attempt to critique a culture that hypersexualizes girls and women.In some respects, Menkes’s assessment isn’t inaccurate — indeed, some films very much want to make women look powerless and erotic, but that’s not a problem in and of itself. The historical regularity of these depictions is another thing, and that speaks to the larger problem of the industry’s gender inequality and its normalization of sexual assault, which “Brainwashed” rightly identifies but unconvincingly ties to the cinematic language it deconstructs. Limited to a mere pointing out of which kinds of images are empowering to women and which aren’t, the documentary ultimately does a disservice to the art form, feminist or otherwise.Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-PowerNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. In theaters. More

Ewan McGregor and Ethan Hawke struggle to dig themselves out of this dreary drama about damaged siblings reckoning with their father’s death.A movie that spends much of its time at a funeral home, a morgue and a grave site is unlikely to be a bundle of fun, but “Raymond & Ray” is a humdinger of hopelessness. Only the efforts of Ewan McGregor and, especially, Ethan Hawke, as the estranged half brothers of the title, save this doleful drama from sinking entirely into bathos.En route to bury the father they both loathed, the siblings strain to reconnect. Raymond (McGregor) is a sad-sack businessman on the precipice of his third divorce; Ray (Hawke) is a recovering addict and reclusive trumpet player. Both are deeply damaged, scrubbed of self-confidence and shying from emotional connection. Imagine their shock when conversations with their father’s circle of friends reveal a man they barely recognize from the womanizing abuser who raised them.These bones of a nuanced, even moving story are soon boiled into a watery stock of familial surprises and tragicomic setups. Some of these feel wearyingly forced, like the father leaving behind a spirited ex-lover (Maribel Verdú) and a wry nurse (Sophie Okonedo), each of whom connects with one of the brothers. Along with Vondie Curtis Hall, as the father’s snazzy pastor, Verdú and Okonedo bring warmth and life to the movie, yet their characters are little more than convenient romantic props and vectors of healing and wisdom — narrative devices to nudge the brothers forward.Written and directed by Rodrigo García, “Raymond & Ray” is a funeral-as-exorcism movie, as inert as the image of the detested parent, sprawled naked in his coffin — a man so carelessly cruel he gave both brothers the same name.Raymond & RayRated R for one nude woman and two broken men. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Watch on Apple TV+. More

The long-running horror anthology has a new installment.The problem with being buried alive, dramatically speaking, is that it’s hard for things to get worse. When screaming in a coffin, the sound of rain and dirt pitter-patting above, how do you raise the stakes?In “Suicide Bid,” one of the gooey, squirmy shorts in “V/H/S/99,” the solid fifth installment of the found footage anthology series, Johannes Roberts, its writer and director, finds a way. While not wildly original, his jack-in-the-box surprises are skillfully, tautly executed. If you have a taste for schlock with shocks, this works.When “The Blair Witch Project” popularized the found footage genre, the most maddening question in horror shifted from “Why did those fools go into that dark room?” to “Why don’t those idiots turn off the camera?” Rarely was there a great answer, but terror-addicts will overlook a lot of contrivances if you can scare or gross them out enough. While the “V/H/S” franchise has always been uneven, last year’s “V/H/S/94” was its best, featuring a cleverly shot entry in a funeral home by Simon Barrett and a giddily unnerving movie in the sewer movie by then-newcomer Chloe Okuno, whose latest feature “Watcher” has gotten raves.Building on that success, “V/H/S/99” smartly dispenses with the wraparound plot that was always the worst part of all its predecessors, but finds a creative if unnecessary connective tissue. The shorts are better tied together by how they subvert current 1990s nostalgia, digging into the darkest side of Y2K and Woodstock 99 and other cultural artifacts from the final decade of the last millennium.The director Maggie Levin sharply captures, skewers and celebrates the atmosphere of the Generation X indie music scene in “Shredding,” about a band that revisits the site of a concert disaster. In an idea so perfect it makes you wonder why you haven’t seen it before, “Ozzy’s Dungeon,” directed by Steven Ellison, a.k.a. Flying Lotus, explores the ugly undercurrents of the popular kids game show “Double Dare” where contestants were regularly humiliated by being splashed with colorful liquids (Steven Ogg is an ominously oily host). “Gawkers” performs a similar unpacking, but with “American Pie”-like comedies, but the creepy voyeurism of teenage boys receives a slithery comeuppance.These revenge stories move methodically from the familiar to the monstrous. They lean into gore, excess and, critically, smirking humor. A commitment to its staticky, period-appropriate aesthetic is the only thing its artists take deadly seriously. Sometimes, the playfulness tips over into goofy camp as in the final short “To Hell and Back,” whose title tells you the plot but whose vibe is amateurish haunted house. Still, in the right mood, even that can be dopey fun.V/H/S/99Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. Watch on Shudder. More

George Clooney and Julia Roberts take another dip into romantic comedy with this Bali-set film.“Ticket to Paradise,” the latest vacation romp from the filmmaker Ol Parker (who penned “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” and wrote and directed “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again”), is a screwball adventure that forgets to pack the laughs. Having made a mint off his picturesque travelogues of Jaipur and Greece, Parker — who never met a mosquito that wasn’t edited out in post — now concocts a fantasyland Bali where an American law school graduate named Lily (Kaitlyn Dever) falls in love with a dimpled kelp farmer (Maxime Bouttier) and agrees to marry him one month after he quite literally fishes her from the sea.The script by Parker and Daniel Pipski has scrubbed away any apprehensions concerning economics, education or class. (Lily’s intended, Gede, lives in a well-appointed beach hut filled with leather-bound books.) Nevertheless, Lily’s engagement proves to be the one thing able to unite her estranged parents David and Georgia (George Clooney and Julia Roberts), who hop on a plane to prevent the wedding. Any apprehensions the audience might have concerning the plot are confirmed during this flight sequence where the spiteful exes discover that not only are they stuck in the same seat row, but Georgia’s current boyfriend, a puppyish Frenchman (Lucas Bravo), is — surprise! — the pilot.Such contrivances (and the even more ludicrous ones to follow) could work if the comedy vibrated on the edge of mania, if Roberts had a jolt of Katharine Hepburn’s wackadoo electricity or if Clooney’s Clark Gable-esque grin allowed him to convincingly grab a spear and hunt a wild pig when he hasn’t eaten since lunch. But these stars are too aware that the film’s draw is simply seeing the two of them together. Roberts and Clooney wear their stature like sweatpants, rousing themselves to do little more than spit insults like competitive siblings. They’re selling their own comfortable rapport, not their characters’ romantic tension.When Parker needs to project that Roberts is steaming mad, he puts a clothes steamer in her hand so she can deliver her gripes between gusts of hot air. Dever, a major talent who will likely win her own Oscar someday, is too earnest to commit to inanity, while the marvelous Billie Lourd — the one cast member who can execute the tone — is squandered in a bit part where her sole personality trait is being drunk.Eventually, the film succumbs to the actors’ delusion that they’re in a sincere dramedy where people also conveniently get bitten by poisonous snakes. The score shifts from playful flutes to somber piano chords; the lighting remains golden, bathing the actors in an apricot glow at the expense of forcing half the movie to take place at sunrise or sunset.Locals know best whether Parker’s depiction of Balinese nuptials is accurate. (This critic is so far unable to confirm the rite where a bride taps her bare foot three times on a coconut.) The more authentic custom may be when David and Georgia resurrect their old college ritual: beer pong. It’s the film’s best scene as the soundtrack blasts House of Pain’s “Jump Around” at such a volume that there’s no emphasis on dialogue, only the visual delight of Julia Roberts and George Clooney goofing around.Ticket to ParadiseRated PG-13 for strong language and a mild suggestion of sexuality. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. In theaters. More

“My trans and nonbinary identity is the thing that I’m the most confident about in my life,” Mx. Swindell said.Name: Quintessa SwindellAge: 25Hometown: Virginia Beach, Va.Now Lives: In a loft in Downtown Los Angeles and a one-bedroom apartment in the East Village of Manhattan.Claim to Fame: Quintessa Swindell is a nonbinary trans actor who stars in DC’s “Black Adam,” a big-budget film in which Mx. Swindell plays Cyclone, a superhero who has the power to manipulate the wind. The film, which opens on Oct. 21 and also stars Dwayne Johnson, marks one of the first times that a transgender actor has been cast in a main role in a DC production. “My trans and nonbinary identity is the thing that I’m the most confident about in my life,” Mx. Swindell said. “Having that understanding and comfort has enabled me to progress through my life with way more ease than I ever had in the past.”Big Break: Raised by a single father in Virginia Beach, Mx. Swindell took theater classes at the Governor’s School for the Arts during high school as an outlet for personal growth. “Acting became therapy sessions because I was forced to translate bottled-up feelings into whatever scenes I was studying,” Mx. Swindell said.In 2015, Mx. Swindell moved to New York City to study theater at Marymount Manhattan, before dropping out two years later to pursue acting in Los Angeles. A former acting coach put Mx. Swindell in touch with Robert Myerow, a talent agent at the Gersh Agency, which led to roles in the 2018 film “Granada Nights” and, later, as a high school senior grappling with family issues on HBO’s “In Treatment.” “I’m always super-focused on how every performance or piece of work can be better than the last,” Mx. Swindell said.Mx. Swindell plays Cyclone in “Black Adam,” who has the power to manipulate the wind.Frank Masi/Warner Bros.Latest Project: Balancing comic-book blockbusters with independent films, Mx. Swindell also stars in “Master Gardener,” a philosophical thriller with Sigourney Weaver that premiered last month at the Venice Film Festival. (The New York Times critic Manohla Dargis called the film “an austere, beautiful, romantic, wordy, implausible and touchingly Utopian story of love, loneliness, violence and redemption.”) “When I met Sigourney, the first thing I thought was, ‘How am I possibly going to thank her for everything she has done?’” Mx. Swindell said.Mx. Swindell also stars in “Master Gardener,” a thriller with Sigourney Weaver that premiered at the Venice Film Festival.Jingyu Lin for The New York TimesNext Thing: Mx. Swindell is in the early stages of producing two films that “say something about the world we live in today.” One is “a movie about female dispatch riders during World War II.” The other is “about two female D.J. pioneers in London’s ‘second summer of love.’”Gender Performances: Mx. Swindell found New York City to be a wellspring for identity studies — not only in college classrooms, but at after-hours parties like Battle Hymn, where gender fluidity was flaunted and celebrated. “I was learning things in my gender-studies classes, and at the same time I was going out at night and seeing the very things I was learning about in the wild.” More

Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera.Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera. More

Despite the insider access, a documentary about the president’s first year in office is short on intriguing tidbits.With the even keel of an official chronicle, the documentary “Year One: A Political Odyssey,” by the director John Maggio, sets down an account of diplomacy during President Biden’s first 365-plus days in office. The selective overview is mostly recounted by administration officials, with the New York Times correspondent David E. Sanger acting as a valuable guide throughout.Underlining Biden’s international, alliance-building outlook, the focus is on efforts to reckon responsibly with the power plays of Russia, China and Afghanistan. Key figures including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary (but not Biden), sit down for sober interviews that feel like a well-sourced recap. Some crises are less frequently referenced now (the SolarWinds hack); others still loom (Russia’s war on Ukraine).We’re reminded that Biden took office in the still-shellshocked aftermath of Jan. 6, 2021, promising a vital return to normalcy and democracy after the presidency of Donald Trump. His Covid vaccination achievement was followed that summer by a one-two punch: the rise of coronavirus variants and the fall of Afghanistan. But the chaotic unfolding of events in Afghanistan yielded lessons for responding to the run-up of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Yet the movie is quiet on domestic policy apart from the pandemic, while covering several international summits. And despite the insider access, intriguing tidbits — like how leaks kept Sanger informed about U.S. intelligence on Russia — will be few to anyone who has been reading the news. The film’s skimping on economic and social issues echoes one description of Biden’s own messaging by some pundits: low-key to the point of obscuring the full picture of his efforts.Year One: A Political OdysseyNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes. Watch on HBO Max. More