Contemporary 2026 – The Magnificent 60s

Reminders of Him (2026) **** – Seen at the Cinema

Author Colleen Hoover pulls a fast one on admirers of It Ends with Us (2024) and Regretting You (2025). Audiences had come to expect sophisticated romances that played to feminist mores. While there’s certainly romance involved, it’s more about ex-con Kenna (Maika Monroe) trying to re-connect with the daughter Diem (Zoe Kosovic) she lost after being imprisoned. The situation is complicated because she was jailed for killing her fiancé Scotty (Rudy Pankow) in a car accident while under the influence. You can picture the scene: “Hi, Diem, meet your mother…she killed your father.”

I liked this film instantly because within five scenes it had set out its dramatic stall. Kenna gets out of a taxi taking her to Laramie, Wyoming, to rip out of the ground a makeshift cross marking where Scotty died. She can’t get a job because she ticks the “previous conviction” box in a job application. She is sent to a discount store to try there but a flashback reveals the meet-cute with Scotty who was driving an orange-painted truck. Another man, Ledger (Tyriq Withers) owner of a local bar, takes Diem for school. In the bar she flirts with Ledger until noting his truck she realizes this is her dead fiance’s best friend, whom she’d never met, because during her short courtship with Scotty, Ledger was off trying to make his career in football.

Kenna’s realistic enough but driven by a sliver of romanticism that ends in a relationship with Diem. There’s nothing but obstacles in the way, Ledger for one, who has occasion to physically remove her from temptation, which curdles their growing relationship. The still-grieving grandparents Grace (Lauren Graham) and Patrick (Bradley Whitford) fear Kenna might kidnap the girl and that eventually drives a wedge between them and Ledger, to whom they had grown incredibly close.

Everything about this is slow-burn. And there’s not an ounce of tear-jerking either. Kenna does not cry herself to sleep, doesn’t stand hidden under a tree or peek through a hedge or hover at a school gate trying to catch a glimpse of Diem. She doesn’t complain life’s unfair. Lacking a bed in her miserly accommodation, she sleeps on the couch, and is reduced to bagging groceries for a living.

There’s none of the usual misery memoir beats, nor does it take some miraculous piece of derring-do (saving Diem from drowning or a fire or from being knocked down in the street or – screenwriters have come up with worse – preventing her being kidnapped by someone else) to achieve a breakthrough. Nor is she baited in the street nor run out of town by people furious that she killed the well-liked Scotty.

Slow and contemplative would hardly be the best tone for a contemporary romance, and that takes a long time to get going thanks to the various complications. Resolution is provided with something of a get-out-of-jail-free car. As well as the DUI, Kenna was convicted for leaving the scene of the accident while (unknownst to her) her fiancé was still alive. The accident had occurred in a remote area and she had walked such a distance to get help and was herself in poor shape after the crash that she fell asleep in a barn only to discover Scotty had survived the accident only to die later.

In the old days you’d have called this a woman’s picture, but that category seems to have been taken over the excessively emotional Hamnet or Wuthering Heights, so it’s fairer to just class it as a more than decent picture for adults.

Both Maika Monroe (Longlegs, 2024) and Tariq Withers (Him, 2025) underplay to the benefit of the movie and there are interesting roles for Lauren Graham (Bad Santa, 2003), Bradley Whitford (The Handmaid’s Tale, 2018-2025) and Monika Myers in her debut. Directed with commendable restraint by Vanessa Caswill (Love at First Sight, 2023) from a screenplay by Hoover and producer Lauren Levine.

Like Regretting You, it’s not going to be a blockbuster, but quietly rewarding just the same.

Splitsville (2026) ** Seen at the Cinema

Might have worked back in the day when you could have enlisted the likes of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau whose grouchy sniping sparked The Odd Couple (1968) and Grumpy Old Men (1993). At a pinch might have stood a chance with Will Ferrell (Anchorman, 2004) and Vince Vaughn (The Wedding Crashers, 2005) and others of similar ilk, who might be oiks but had some charm. Starring writer-director Michael Angela Covino (The Climb, 2019) and his writing partner Kyle Marvin (The Climb) as the male leads, this has no chance at all, especially as this pair are responsible for the whole mess.

Theoretically, Dakota Johnson (Madame Web, 2024) is the star but given she only acts with her lips and not her eyes, it’s not much of a step-up. Whenever the narrative gets in trouble, which is most of the time, the movie resorts to the crudest kind of slapstick fights where furniture only exists to be broken and windows and even goldfish tanks to be smashed.

The odd thing is this might have worked a treat if the perspective had shifted from the out-of-their-league Carey (Kyle Marvin) and Paul (Michael Angelo Corvino) to their glossy, sexy, partners, Julie (Dakota Johnson) and Ashley (Adria Arjona). The casting looks like wishful thinking in the first place, the nerds snaring gorgeous women, but what really sinks the project as we learn as the movie progresses is that the feminist attitudes of the women are a bad thing, and that their inclination to take on multiple partners outside their marriages, with the tacit approval of their husbands, and the independence inherently expressed, should not be celebrated and that the sooner the errant women come to appreciate their faithful men the better – at least that’s what the happy ending says.

I only laughed out loud once and that was a crude bit. I’m not sure if Kyle Marvin has it written into his contract, or is taking advantage of his position as a co-writer, that his large schlong gets a good few outings – though maybe this is a modern ironic twist in that it’s the naked male rather than the naked female we see in the shower – but it was the appearance of his privates in an embarrassing situation that got the laugh.

The story is bonkers. Lively Ashley wants a divorce because her dull teacher husband isn’t sexually imaginative. He scuttles off to hunker down with best friend Paul, a millionaire property developer, and wife Julie only to discover they have an open marriage, of which he takes advantage, only to find that he has crossed a line with Paul. Meanwhile, Ashley has taken up with nay number of ripped hunks, that Carey accommodates, so desperate is he to maintain any kind of relationship with her. For some reason – narrative insanity perhaps – all of Ashley’s lovers take the same approach, once dumped they can’t bear to leave their apartment and Carey, being the accommodating sort, ends up cooking and cleaning for them all.

When Ashley’s business goes bust and he’s imprisoned for fraud, he determines to turn over a new leaf and that might work except that’s a fraud. He’s got no reason to turn over a new leaf since, apparently, he only went along with the open marriage idea to placate his wife and has been faithful all the time. Given the already shaky premise, this makes the edifice tumble along with Ashley’s revelation that she’s realized just how much better Carey is suited for her than all her other men. There’s a ramshackle climax where various people conspire to make other people jealous in the hope of winning back their true love. Naturally, this goes all slapstick – by this point you’re wondering if there’s anything left to break.

Three questions are left dangling: what attracted Dakota Johnson to the script given she’s got so little to do; why the movie took such an old-fashioned tack instead of one where the faithful have to work out how to hold onto their unfaithful free-spirited women; and how this was greenlit in the first place.

It’s the kind of movie that appears promising and you think it’s going to improve as it goes along. I was foolish enough to believe it would. The couple next to me gave up after three-quarters of an hour.

Crime 101 (2026) **** – Seen at the Cinema

Bloated films have become a modern curse with “visionary” filmmakers indulged because studio executives can’t rein them in. But in the best films length plays a significant role. It provides an opportunity for depth and complexity, and to tell a tale from more than one angle. Nobody balked at The Housemaid (2025), ostensibly a tad overlong for a thriller at 131 minutes, but the time was exceptionally well used and the movie cleaned up, $350 million worldwide and counting, the hit of the year so far in terms of budget vs gross.

Crime 101 isn’t going to get anywhere near those figures but deserves to because despite its length (140 minutes) it’s remarkably lean. It reminds me of the spare pictures Walter Hill (The Driver, 1978) used to make where narrative rather than emotion was the key. Here, there are three flawed characters who you are desperate to learn more about but writer-director Bart Layton (American Animals, 2018) keeps such audience desire at bay while seducing us with a complex tale. Action, too, is limited, so be warned.

Jewel thief Davis (Chris Hemsworth) is too clever to get tangled up in action, clearly aware that shoot-outs can get messy and lead to unnecessary entanglement. He tends to commit his robberies off-site, while diamonds are being couriered to customers. He has no commitments, buys sex, lives in apartments that would be almost avant-garde in their simplicity, no proof that anyone lived in them at all.

And he’s very human. For a criminal he’s mightily spooked when a job nearly goes awry and he receives a very slight gunshot wound, not the kind to need treatment. Maybe his guard is down because when he meets up with publicist Maya (Monica Barbaro) he strikes up an awkward relationship, refusing to reveal a single thing about his life, and not having the smarts to invent one.

You might term that complication number one because she’s too contemporary a woman to be hooked by a mysterious stranger and the more she wants to know about him, the more defensive he becomes. This isn’t a major plot point because you get the impression he’s been there before and walked away long before complication set in. But I’m just telling you because that’s the tone of the film, no big emotional blow-ups or confessions, just the heart kept very much under control. Stoicism, if you like, the guiding principal.

When Davis passes on committing another robbery so soon, his fence Money (Nick Nolte) hands the job to the unpredictable bike-riding Ormon (Barry Keoghan). So Davis has to look elsewhere for a score and alights upon disgruntled insurance broker Sharon (Halle Berry), a singleton for career purposes you guess, who relies on self-help tapes to get her going in the morning, passed over for promotion once too often. Despite initially knocking him back, her fury at her smug employers brings her to the table.

And this would shape up as a twist on The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) except that Davis already has someone on his tail, cuckolded cop Lou (Mark Ruffalo), in the process of splitting with his wife, but getting heat from his boss because he’s convinced a string of jewel heists are the work of one man, when the department has already collared people for some of them. Eventually, for not playing the game over a crooked cop, Lou is stood down, but that leaves him free to take on the thief in his own way.

In between keeping tabs on Ormon and realizing that he has a cop on his tail, and that his newfound girlfriend is about to dump him, Davis continues trying to fleece $11 million from billionaire Steven Monroe (Tate Donovan), half in the cash necessary to pay for the illegally imported jewels.

But by now, beaten senseless by Ormon, Sharon also discovers that, like Davis, her courage is not up to the task, and spills the beans to the cop who puts into place a clever plan that would probably work except Ormon is ready to break up the party.

Although rewarding in its own way, the ending jarred somewhat, the incorruptible cop giving in to temptation, and letting the other suspects get off scot free. But in an era of tough and bloody twists it was an unexpected way to finish.

The three principals are excellent – Chris Hemsworth (Thor: Love and Thunder, 2022) proving he has the stillness and acting chops that makes the big stars great, a rumpled Mark Ruffalo (Now You See Me, Now You Don’t, 2025) making the most of a terrific part and Halle Berry (The Union, 2024) putting in a shift as a flawed woman – but Barry Keoghan (Saltburn, 2023) overacts so just as well the director mitigated his presence by sticking him under a biker helmet for most of the picture.

A well-measured hugely enjoyable show from Layton. A thriller for thinking adults.

Mercy (2025) *

I’m trying to think of any actor who could carry off the central premise of this picture which is to chunter on for the best part of 90 minutes while remaining seated and staring straight at the camera. I saw this on the fourth day of its opening weekend at my local multiplex and the public had already spoken – it had already been relegated to a 30-seater screen. I can’t believe how it managed to top the U.S. box office charts. Least of all how anybody considered this a candidate for Imax or 3D.

Let me say it again. An actor sits in a chair for the best part of 90 minutes and talks straight to the camera. You what? Is this some new arthouse sensation? Some reimagining of Fred Zinnemann’s western classic High Noon (1952) what with the clock ticking away on screen?

Nope, it’s just the dumbest of dumb ideas. Usually, this kind of picture is buried in the first week of December and doesn’t try to come out all-marketing-guns-blazing in mid-January when audiences might be hoping for a breakout sleeper akin to The Housemaid (2025).

Set aside the nonsensical right-wing satire of the Robocop (1987) variety – “guilty until proved innocent” – and the drone-style helicopters and the mobile-phone style footage of chases and whatnot with a 30-ton truck barreling through Los Angeles and you’re still left with some guy stuck in a chair droning on for 90 minutes straight to camera.

Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) is strapped to a chair facing AI Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson) with 90 minutes to explain why he should not be executed for killing his wife Nicole (Annabelle Raven). Chris is an alcoholic cop and his main claim to fame is that he was the first guy to put away a criminal, David Robb, under a new Minority Report-type system of law enforcement where sentencing for violent crime is immediate and without all the boring bits involving a jury. The judge isn’t quite judge, jury and executioner, but comes closes because once the clock stops ticking the suspect is immediately killed via a sonic blast, whatever that is.

So, basically, without being able to move more than an eyebrow, the cop has to scour all sorts of electronic media to put together the jigsaw surrounding his wife’s murder. He discovers she’s been having an affair and there’s something dodgy going on at her work involving stolen chemicals, the kind that could be used to manufacture a bomb. Chris calls in partner Jaq (Kali Reis) to help with the detection.

Would you believe it, turns out Chris’s AA sponsor Rob Nelson (Chris Sullivan) has built a bomb and now hijacks the truck, kidnapping Chris’s daughter Britt (Kylie Rogers) for good measure, determined to blow up the court building (which bear in mind primarily holds AI characters) and get revenge on Chris for putting away Rob’s brother (yeah, the different surnames had you fooled, didn’t they?).

Naturally, it’s all going to be down to police corruption. So that’s the end of the new-look sci-fi legal system. And it’s a dead end for a picture that had nothing going for it.

So, what could have been a relatively acceptable low-level action picture without an ounce of originality – the cop would have fled justice and tried to prove his innocence while on the run (easy!) – is turned into a monstrous mess. It just makes no sense to have the main character stuck on his backside talking to the camera for what seems like forever, with that dumb clock ticking in the corner of the screen, while all the action is shown on postage-stamp images as if viewed through a mobile phone.

Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, 2023) isn’t the most animated of actors, anyway, though I doubt if even Tom Hanks could have carried this off, and Rebecca Ferguson (Dune: Part Two, 2024) often appears too robotic for her own good anyway.

Timur Bekmambetov (Ben-Hur, 2016) directs from a screenplay by Marco van Belle (Arthur and Merlin, 2015).

So you’d be inclined to point the finger at them, but, in reality, you’d be asking who the heck at Amazon/MGM greenlit this shambles.

Mercy!

Rental Family (2025) *** – Seen at the Cinema

Gaming the system takes on a new meaning in this unlikely hybrid. What sets out to be a hard satire of the rigidity of Japanese culture is compromised by the need to turn it into a feel-good dramedy courtesy of importing American sometime star Brendan Fraser. There’s an awful trade-off here and I think the film suffers as a result of the compromise. I’m no big fan of movies that arrive in my multiplex courtesy of picking up accolades at a film festival, but, as it happened, I only saw print ads for this after I had seen it at a Secret Screening” so had no idea it had actually come via film festivals.

Take the Yank, Brendan Fraser at his puppy-dog best, out of the equation and concentrate on either his boss Shinji (Takehiro Hira) or colleague Aiko (Maru Yamamoto) and you would as easily have come to the same emotionally satisfying conclusion. Sold as a hard-edged indigenous Japanese satire I think it would easily broken out of the arthouse ghetto.

Apart from anything else it’s been, out of desperation I guess, sold as a kind of Mrs Doubtfire, imposter bonding with a young child, but in fact that’s a small part of the overall story, and in trying to make it the central element, goes off-piste.

Let me tell you what a rental family is, in case you are as unfamiliar with the term as I was. Apparently – I looked this up – this phenomenon arrived in Japanese culture in the 1980s and there are about 300 companies currently employing in selling human fraud to various clients.

So if, for example, you are gay but are fearful of denying your parents the opportunity to see you settled in a traditional male/female marriage, then you simply hire a husband for the day of the wedding and then once the ceremony is over you go back to your true love. Or, if, for example, you’d really like to experience your own funeral you can hire an actor to play a corpse while you listen to the nice things people say about you. Or if you want to keep your father, a retired famous actor, think he hasn’t been forgotten you hire an actor to play a reporter to provide him with the adoration you think he deserves.

Or, should you be a single mother and think that will prevent your daughter getting into the school of your choice you simply hire an actor to play the daughter’s long-lost father. That’s taking the helicopter parent to an extreme, I’d say. Still, in between playing all his other roles, which include befriending a geek who likes to visit strip clubs, the aforesaid American actor Philip (Brendan Fraser) drops into the life of the appealing daughter and does the kind of things dads do with young children, hardly much of a stretch since this child is nowhere near the kind of parent-hater she’d be when she hit her teens.

Not much thought has gone into what the idea of the extremely brief appearance of a fake dad will do to a vulnerable child, but hey-ho, that gives Philip the chance to fill the kid in on the realities of life. “Adults lie,” he states crassly and the kid is so desperate to have a dad, she’ll go for a fake one, and doesn’t hate him any more for his cruel deception.

There are some other sections I didn’t really understand. Shinji’s specialty appeared to playing a boss who reduced aberrant employees to gibbering wrecks. It wasn’t clear if this was some kind of fetish – a person who wanted to be screamed at – or a dress rehearsal for an employee who would have to grovel before his employers for embezzlement or somesuch. And it’s not entirely clear why Aiko has to don a blonde wig and sit in a bar and wait for a woman to come in and whack her across the face – a proper slap, one that leaves a bruise – for stealing away (supposedly) her husband.

And it beggars belief that Philip would become so enmeshed in his role of reporter that he would agree to accompany the old actor on a two-day cross-country journey to some shack in the middle of nowhere where the old fella grew up, clearly forgetting that the old fellow’s daughter would be going out of her mind with worry.

But take Philip out of the equation and there’s far more dramatic nuggets as the supporting cast do more than enough to satisfy emotional demand. You might wonder why – except for filling in the time and offering a contrast to Philip’s lonely existence – we are given a glimpse of Shinji’s home life, where his happy wife greets him with a beer and a lovely meal and he can set his son’s troubled mind to rest. But in easily the best scene in the film, we discover wife and son are fakes, that Shinji is living the kind of fantasy he sells.

Structurally, Philip is presented as our window on this odd world. But it jars when he’s seen as putting it right – white savior and all that – and also when you consider he has his own fantasy, paying for love by the hour.

Directed by Hikari (37 Seconds, 2019) who shared screenplay credits with debutant Stephen Blahut.

On oddity for sure, the satire works but the feel-good is limp.

This hasn’t been released yet in Japan – though it premiered some months back at the Tokyo International Film Festival – which has, confusingly, the same acronym as the Toronto International Film Festival, so don’t mix up your TIFFs – and I’d be interested to know how it was received by the public there.