Filmgoers who once wrote off the late-spring/early-summer film season as a wasteland of big-budget/minimum-attention-span fare should pay heed to a female-friendly lineup of directors at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Also note the burgeoning role played by Amazon Studios with award-season films. Asked about the abundance of entries from Amazon and Netflix at Cannes this year, a festival spokesperson noted tartly, "The festival is a laboratory." What follows is an overview of 10 intriguing new films from here and abroad.
The Beguiled SF's own Sofia Coppola puts her spin on an early-70s classic that featured the Dirty Harry team of Clint Eastwood and Don Siegel. The original, set in the Civil War South, had a wounded Eastwood brought to an all-girls school to recover. The presence of this handsome stranger stirs up sexual feelings among the female staff and students. Flash-forward, and Coppola's version features a top-drawer contemporary cast: Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst and Colin Farrell, who exclaims, "What have you done to me, you vengeful bitches?"
You Were Never Really Here Scottish director Lynne Ramsay returns with an Amazon Studios production headlining Joaquin Phoenix as a war veteran who strives to rescue a young woman from the clutches of a sex-trafficking ring. Ramsey has a well-earned rep as a maverick in a field where women still get far fewer shots at directing than men. YWNRH comes with an excellent pedigree, adapted by Ramsey from a Jonathan Ames novel.
Wonderstruck Veteran queer writer-director Todd Haynes (Carol) presents parallel tales: a young Midwestern lad's story from 50 years back runs alongside a New York girl's similar quest. Adapted by Brian Selznick from his novel, it's a NYC production with a huge ensemble: Amy Hargreaves, Michelle Williams, Julianne Moore, Tom Noonan, Oakes Fegley, Cory Michael Smith and John P. McGinty.
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) Veteran comedy director Noah Baumback uses an all-star cast (Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson) in a Netflix original production about an estranged family celebrating the artistic work of their father.
Okja Korea's Bong Joon-ho (with co-writer Jon Ronson) helms a Western cast (Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano, Tilda Swinton) in the story of a young girl who gambles her very existence to bar a large corporation from abducting her best friend, a giant animal named Okja.
In the Fade German director Fatih Akin tells a tale of revenge in the German-Turkish community starring Diane Kruger. An action-packed scene of a bomb explosion was shot in the famous red-light district of St Pauli.
Happy End Michael Haneke, whose Amour won the Oscar for best foreign film in 2013, directs this family drama set in Calais, with the European refugee crisis as a backdrop. Haneke is famous (or infamous) for films that take a misanthropic view.
Radiance Japanese director Naomi Kawase's film revolves around Misako, an enthusiastic writer of film voiceovers for the visually impaired. At a screening she encounters an aging photographer who is slowly losing his eyesight. His work provokes memories of her past. As a couple they learn to see the radiant world.
The Day After Korean director Hong Sang-soo tells the story of a man who runs into an old friend. He travels to a restaurant, drinks rice wine, and falls in with some film students. Drunk, he heads for his ex-girlfriend's house. His travels evolve into a Korean version of the Bill Murray/Harold Ramis classic Groundhog Day, its hero living the same day over and over again.
Jupiter's Moon Hungarian filmmaker Kornel Mundruczo's work will strike some as a metaphor for the world's refugee crisis. A young immigrant is shot while illegally crossing the border. Scared and in shock, the wounded man has the power to levitate. Tossed into a refugee camp, he is whisked out of the country by a doctor intent on taking advantage of his secret.