Drama | www.jaredmobarak.com

TIFF16 REVIEW: Indivisibili [Indivisible] [2016]

2016/09/232016/09/24 Jared Mobarak

“Can we at least see what’s possible?” It starts off so magically with conjoined twins Dasy (Angela Fontana) and Viola (Marianna Fontana) bringing hope and the word of God to the unfortunate souls languishing in poverty just north of Naples, Italy. They’re blissful when singing, eating up the attention and love from their parents Peppe (Massimiliano Rossi) and Titti (Antonia Truppo) despite our knowing that love is steeped in exploitation. This is the life these girls know. They have no computers or cellphones, their cut of the money goes to…

TIFF16 REVIEW: Bar Bahar [In Between] [2017]

2016/09/212017/05/01 Jared Mobarak

“Don’t let on that you know what you’re doing” It’s Tel Aviv in 2016 and the parties are wild. Drinking, dancing, snorting, kissing—it’s time for twenty-year olds to have fun and be alive. But whereas in America you’d get looks of jealousy at best or judgment at worst, culture dictates heavier consequences for three Palestinian women living in the Israeli metropolis. There’s the liberal party girl attorney (Mouna Hawa‘s Laila), Christian communist lesbian DJ (Sana Jammalieh‘s Salma), and devout Muslim computer science major Nour (Shaden Kanboura) all trying to embrace…

TIFF16 REVIEW: Kati Kati [2017]

2016/09/202016/12/31 Jared Mobarak

“You’re here because you’re dead” Most of cinema’s best films are those that do rather than explain. These works are created by artists wielding airtight concepts insofar as attaining their goal of delivering a specific, emotion-fueled message. Kenyan creative Mbithi Masya‘s feature debut Kati Kati is a perfect example of what can be made when the right resources are supplied to the right people. Tom Tykwer, Marie Stenmann-Tykwer, and their One Fine Day shingle (originally formed to facilitate year-round artistic opportunities for children in Nairobi) helped with the former while…

TIFF16 REVIEW: Bleed for This [2016]

2016/09/172016/09/19 Jared Mobarak

“Christ and elephants” There’s something about boxing movies that gets butts in seats regardless of so many being practically the same story. The formula almost always concerns some type of personal and professional redemption and Ben Younger‘s Bleed for This is no exception. Being a true telling of Vinny Pazienza’s (Miles Teller) arduous journey back into the ring after a near-fatal car crash severed his neck, however, means it possesses some substance beyond the old “washed up” bid for revenge against the press or a former coach/manager who’s now inexplicably…

TIFF16 REVIEW: Carrie Pilby [2017]

2016/09/172017/05/01 Jared Mobarak

“Don’t be such a child” The synopsis for Carrie Pilby can sound atrocious on paper. Most films utilizing an eighteen-year old Harvard graduate do so as periphery color because the trope lends itself to obnoxious pedantry and an unsympathetic notion of “first world problems.” Having your titular lead (played by Bel Powley) be that person is therefore a risky proposition. She’s an introvert bagging on society for willingly lowering their IQ to fit a cesspool of mediocrity despite making no attempt to engage or discover whether that assumption is true.…

REVIEW: Mr. Church [2016]

2016/09/162016/09/16 Jared Mobarak

“I learned to turn away from the sun and face the moon” If you didn’t know what you were getting into upon sitting down for Bruce Beresford‘s Mr. Church, you will following this onscreen text: “Inspired by a True Friendship.” The vagueness of this statement notwithstanding, the words ooze enough schmaltz to prepare you for the melodrama of death and miracles screenwriter Susan McMartin has concocted. Maybe she based it on a friendship she had with an adult male who become her father figure in a time of need or…

TIFF16 REVIEW: ’76 [2016]

2016/09/142016/09/15 Jared Mobarak

“Love has no boundaries” It appears my first foray into Nollywood (Nigerian cinema) was well selected being the latest from director Izu Ojukwu, one of the nation’s most ambitious artists. Add some heavy hitters in Ramsey Nouah, Rita Dominic, and Chidi Mokeme and ’76 delivers a wonderful sampler platter of the best talent this region has to offer. But don’t look at the genre and think Bollywood song and dance because Ojukwu’s film is a straightforward drama with historical significance and emotional gravitas. While it’s first and foremost a love…

TIFF16 REVIEW: Boys in the Trees [2016]

2016/09/112017/11/30 Jared Mobarak

“Can’t end a story without a dead body” We’ve all lost friends whether from naturally parting ways or an avoidable blow-up proving petty in hindsight. Age advances and tastes evolve—we don’t often think much of the phenomenon because they find peers more attuned to who they’ve become just like you. But sometimes the severed relationship carries with it pangs of guilt. Maybe the fracture was triggered by lame excuses like the concept of survival of the fittest, you joining your oppressors in order to stop being oppressed. Perhaps you cut…

TIFF16 REVIEW: A United Kingdom [2016]

2016/09/112016/12/05 Jared Mobarak

“I’ve never wanted anything like I want this” Who knew the power of love ultimately won independence for the democratic republic of Botswana? I sure didn’t. But this is the based on a true story film writer Guy Hibbert and director Amma Asante have delivered with A United Kingdom. It’s a tale of racial segregation, politically driven cowardice, and the heart prevailing over fear as two kindred spirits choose to write their own destinies. Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike) couldn’t know the London-based missionary event her sister dragged her to would…

TIFF16 REVIEW: Moonlight [2016]

2016/09/112019/05/07 Jared Mobarak

“Chiron and trouble always found a way” What’s it like to be a young boy on the drug-filled streets of Miami: without friends, without family, without hope? As cliques begin to feign superiority by ganging up on the weak to prove themselves hard enough for what’s coming, Chiron (Alex R. Hibbert)—or “Little” as they call him—can do nothing but struggle to survive. So who would have thought the one man to show kindness would be the king of the very drug holes his bullies seek to rise up within? In…

TIFF16 REVIEW: Snowden [2016]

2016/09/102016/09/20 Jared Mobarak

“Secrecy is security and security is victory” Remakes repackaging foreign films for American audiences are justifiable if done correctly. I’d hope our movie-going public would willingly read subtitles and experience the original artist’s vision, but we don’t live in a utopia. Dramatizing non-fiction work is equally acceptable in specific circumstances because a narrative built from talking head interviews is sometimes easier to parse and appreciate than those disparate accounts alone. Where I take umbrage with this trend is when Hollywood uses a documentary—an Oscar-winning documentary no less—and literally re-enacts it…