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Zola, The Lost Daughter and other titles to watch this weekend

A film inspired by a Twitter thread, an offbeat Georgian romance, and some other weekend viewing recommendations

Olivia Colman and (right) Dakota Johnson in ‘The Lost Daughter’
Olivia Colman and (right) Dakota Johnson in ‘The Lost Daughter’

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The Lost Daughter (Netflix)

Maggie Gyllenhaal makes her directorial debut with this adaptation. It's a brittle triumph, as we wrote. “Colman, her face registering five kinds of pain at any given moment, is astonishing—and so are Jessie Buckley, scarily unhappy as the younger Leda, the deft, sympathetic Johnson, Sarsgaard in a sly turn, Ed Harris, Paul Mescal. But The Lost Daughter is so much more than an acting showcase, the kind of film that’s created to support the kinds of performances that win Oscars. Gyllenhaal finds a unique tone—intimate, caustically funny, startlingly sensual. Her camera moves right in, so close to the body at times that we can’t tell what we are looking at for a few seconds. Louvart brings the same erotic charge she did to Beach Rats, the immediacy complemented by the shard-like narrative flow assembled by editor Affonso Gonçalves.”

Dream Horse (Netflix)

"I need something to look forward to when I get up in the morning. To remind me things can change," says Jan Vokes (Toni Collette), who lives in this dreary, small Welsh town, working two jobs. Her husband Brian (Owen Teale)—"but you can call me Daisy"—who is out of work, spends his day in front of the telly. Based on a true story and dramatisation of the documentary Dark Horse (2015), Jan forms a collective to help raise and train a racehorse, called Dream Alliance. Dream, the underdog, starts winning against the big boys but then meets with an accident. Instead of putting him down, Jan chooses to rehabilitate him. Dream goes on to win the Welsh Grand National.—Nipa Charagi

What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (MUBI)

This film by Georgian writer-director Alexandre Koberidze premiered at the Berlin Film Festival last year. It's an offbeat romance about a pharmacist and a football player who, scheduled to meet for a date, awake magically transformed, and unable to recognise each other.

Zola (Netflix)

Janicza Bravo’s black comedy is the first film to be inspired by a Twitter thread—by one A’Ziah ‘Zola’ King, who recounted a rollercoaster weekend in Florida. We wrote in our review: “What sets the film apart is the treatment, keeping social media posts at the centre without ever using speech bubbles or chat boxes. But the characters speak short, sharp lines. Pings, the whistles of a new tweet (subtly underlining King’s original tweet from the 2015 thread), chimes of likes in the background act as a reminder of the origins of this story.”

Vicky and her Mystery (Netflix)

In this French film, Stéphane Dutel (Vincent Elbaz) moves to a remote area in the Cantal region along with his eight-year-old daughter Victoria (Shanna Keil) after his wife's death. Father and daughter start to heal and bond with the arrival of a puppy Mystère—"a gift from the forest"—in their lives. Turns out Mystère is not a dog but a wolf. The farmers in the region are up in arms against wolves as their livestock is under attack. Mystère is a gentle creature but Vicky realises he's not safe living with them.—NC

 

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