1970s

It was today I realised that this and The Other Guys are different films. Cleverly written, sharply directed, and Gosling is, as ever, a delight. Keith David and Kim Basinger perhaps a little wasted.

Uses each of its 160 minutes. Digressions into folklore, a severed leg inside a shark, Jaws, Carnival, yet it’s compelling throughout. Moura anchors the sprawl with a fantastic performance. The real achievement is textural: the 1970s Recife of the dictatorship years is rendered so completely, with all the grain, the cars, the sweat-damp collars, the paranoid zoom-ins that you’d hope for. You’d believe it was unearthed from a vault rather than shot last year.

Watched on Monday December 29, 2025.

Very understated, terrific score. Josh O’Connor is great: he plays a greedy, stupid and increasingly desperate character very well. Would have been nice to have seen more of Alana Haim and Gaby Hoffman.

The leads are terrific: so natural it feels effortless. And the production is immaculate, as always with PTA. But it still plays like a string of fascinating vignettes rather than a fully great film. The stakes stay too low, the runtime feels too long… though I have to admit, I liked it more this time. Half a star bump.