By John Corrado

New releases for the week of October 6th, 2023.

Theatrical Releases:

The Exorcist: Believer (Wide Release): This legacy sequel to the late William Friedkin’s 1973 classic finds director David Gordon Green setting his sights on revamping another iconic horror movie after completing his Halloween trilogy last year. The film stars Leslie Odom Jr. as the father of one of the girls who gets possessed (there are two this time), and sees the return of Ellen Burstyn. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve been curious about this one for a while. The reviews are surprisingly pretty abysmal (it’s currently at 20% on Rotten Tomatoes), but as someone who enjoyed Green’s Halloween trilogy (yes, even last year’s divisive Halloween Ends), I’m still planning to check it out.

The Royal Hotel (Limited Release): Kitty Green’s follow up to her simmering #MeToo drama The Assistant is a loose adaptation of the 2016 documentary Hotel Coolgardie. The film follows two young women (The Assistant‘s Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick) who run out of money on vacation and take jobs at a backwater bar in Australia, where they face increasing harassment from the locals. Despite its overly abrupt ending and too short running time, this is a well-acted and unsettling film, with Green doing a good job of building tension by establishing a strong sense of place. (TIFF 2023 Review)

Relax, I’m From the Future (Limited Release): Rhys Darby stars in this Canadian time travel comedy as Casper, a hapless time time traveller who lands in the 2020s and teams up with an apathetic young woman (Gabrielle Graham) to make money and possibly save the world. The feature debut of writer-director Luke Higginson, fleshing out his 2013 short film of the same name, this is a fun sci-if comedy buoyed by Darby’s delightful comic performance that also has some deeper ideas on its mind. I enjoyed this one. (Full Review)

She Came to Me (Limited Release): In this overly ambitious latest from New York writer-director Rebecca Miller (Maggie’s Plan), Peter Dinklage stars as an opera composer facing down writer’s block, who ends up in entangled in a love triangle with his psychiatrist wife (Anne Hathaway) and a tugboat operator (Marisa Tomei). As I wrote in my review, this “is an absurd, operatic melodrama that takes the bones of a romantic comedy and remixes it into a sort of soap opera.” Miller struggles to find the right tone and the film is narratively all over the place, but I’ll admit this is also somewhat of an interesting misfire. (Full Review)

Strange Way of Life (TIFF Bell Lightbox): This English-language short from Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar is an enjoyable queer Western starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal that serves as his “answer” to Brokeback Mountain. Shot in Spain, the short features the usual popping Almodóvar colours, as well as sizzling chemistry between the two leading men. At only 31 minutes, it almost feels like the first act of a longer movie, but the note that Almodóvar chooses to end on is a fitting one. It’s playing in theatres with Almodóvar’s 2020 short The Human Voice. (Full Review)

More Releases: The Burial (TIFF Bell Lightbox), The Blind (Limited), Joan Baez I Am A Noise (Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema), Black Barbie (Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema)

Streaming Releases:

Passages (MUBI): After its run in theatres over the summer, this latest from director Ira Sachs (Little Men, Love is Strange) is now streaming on MUBI. It’s a brisk, exciting relationship drama, that works thanks to engaging performances from Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw and Adèle Exarchopoulos, who respectively star as an arrogant young filmmaker, his cuckolded husband, and the young female teacher he has an affair with. (Full Review)

More Releases: Haunted Mansion (Disney+), Fair Play (Netflix), Beckham (Netflix), Lupin: Part 3 (Netflix)