(Click on film's title to read SK's original review.)
Away from Her. Textured in human spirit, this account of the approach of Alzheimer's to the wife in a devoted couple is far from clinical. Julie Christie is the wife, Gordon Pinsent is her husband. Sara Polley's adaptation of an Alice Munro story, directed by Polley, fulfills a memorable film. (Reviewed 05.21.07)
Day Night Day Night. An intelligently weird study of a young woman being trained to be a suicide bomber in New York. No politics, no religion, the concentration is on interior states of mind and feeling. Directed by Julia Lotkev. (06.04.07)
I Have Never Forgotten You: The Life and Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal. The title presents the film. After four and a half years in German concentration camps, Wiesenthal spent the rest of his life trying to bring some of the Nazi monsters to justice. Richard Trank has made a gripping documentary about an appealing man. (06.04.07)
The Valet. Francis Veber not only writes and directs French farce, he is high priest of the genre. His latest, through not his friskiest, has a plot that only he could devise. A rich man hires a stooge as fake lover of his mistress in order to persuade his wife that the mustress is not his. Ho, shall we say, ho. (06.04.07)
--SK
By Stanley Kauffmann