Aside from a film festival actually programmed and run by the critics in my professional organization, the Chicago International Film Festival holds the hometown key to my heart. Its 59th edition, Chicago International Film Festival 2023, kicks off on October 11 and retains both its in-person and virtual hub – an increasing rarity for festivals as they rush to recover from the pandemic’s worst effects. If you live in the Midwest, there’s no better chance to catch festival films from around the world ahead of the awards race.
Running from October 11 – 22, Chicago International Film Festival 2023 offers over 100 feature films in its program (and 60 shorts for those looking for the next big thing), all starting with an opening night block party outside the Music Box Theatre before the screening of Minhal Baig’s We Grown Now. That film leads a program featuring movies from heavy hitters like Raoul Peck, Jeff Nichols, Wim Wenders, David Fincher and Hayao Miyazaki. It also features the directorial debut of local actor/barfly Michael Shannon, Eric LaRue. There’s a little something for everyone, without losing that Chicago flavor.
If you’re like me, you’re a little hesitant to globetrot between Venice, Toronto, Cannes and New York just to see the best movies of the year. But Chicagoans can rest easy, because Chicago International Film Festival 2023 has brought so many certified bangers home. We’ve already reviewed some of the movies on offer at those aforementioned festivals, and we’ll be reviewing others in more detail as the fest rolls out, but we had to highlight a handful that should be immediate additions to your watchlist.
These aren’t all the films at Chicago International Film Festival 2023, and you can find a list of their full program here, but here are 10 films you shouldn’t miss:
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
Raven Jackson’s debut feature, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, has a southern sense of memory that I adore. It’s not that the coming-of-age film—which ambles around Mississippi, dipping its fingers into the sun-warmed river of time—is full of particulars. At least, not like that usually means. There aren’t any Whataburgers or Ward’s, no recognizable football teams or radio-favorite needledrops. In fact, the movie is so poetic as to be nearly faceless, which means it could apply to so many of us. But it’s all specific to its central force. An opening moment sees young Mack (Kaylee Nicole Johnson) fishing with her father. It’s quiet, simple. Slow enough to allow memories of my own dad taking me fishing to bubble to the surface of my consciousness. The delicacy and patience, the youthful aggravation tainting the natural sensations all around. The film encourages this kind of dual awareness, where you hold both this movie’s memories and your own in your mind, and asks for the same kind of patience and quiet dedication as a parent on a fishing trip. If you assent, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is endlessly rewarding, a tactile sense-memory tapestry of all the things that matter. All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt announces a confident, arresting new artist who’s willing to lean on more experimental techniques and structures to arrive at the honesty she seeks. Raven Jackson’s created a beautifully specific ode to a life fully lived, which helps make it an elegant instrument of subjectivity. Like the water from which it draws so much thematic meaning, its fluid motion and form can contort to fit whatever experiences you’ve encountered, whatever events you dread, whatever hopes you still nurture. And it’s all so closely observed you can almost reach out and touch it.–Jacob Oller
All of Us Strangers
In All of Us Strangers, Haigh makes clear that loneliness need not confine itself to physically desolate landscapes. The solitary, melancholy Adam (Andrew Scott) seems reasonably well-off, though he insists to his neighbor Harry (Paul Mescal) that he’s not a particularly rich or famous type of writer. Still, he can afford a nice apartment in a London high-rise where, still, he feels removed from the world. For the moment, he and Harry appear to be the only tenants in the new building, and Adam’s job does afford him the ability to spend his days at home, alone. He only meets Harry when the younger man knocks on his door in a flirtatious, drunken stupor, assuming (correctly) that Adam is also gay. Adam is working on a screenplay inspired by his childhood years, which has him thinking about one likely reason contributing to his loneliness: His parents both died in a car crash when he was only 12. Seeking to reconnect with his roots, Adam is drawn back to his old neighborhood, a train ride away from London, and is surprised yet somehow not exactly shocked at what he eventually finds: His father (Jamie Bell) and mother (Claire Foy), living in their old house, just as he remembers it. He is aware of the strangeness, and so are his parents; they understand that they have not been with Adam all these years, and that their renewed time with him may be limited, subject to disappear at any moment. The reunited family tries not to focus on this, instead having tea and catching up with Adam’s adult life. Are his parents ghosts? Transposed memories? Hallucinations generated with unusual calm and rationality? Haigh, adapting a 1987 novel just called Strangers, does not commit to one particular explanation – even when it seems like maybe he has. Yet All of Us Strangers doesn’t have the watery, wishy-washy quality of the more precious strains of magical realism. In its way, it is as clear-eyed and upfront as it needs to be. The performances are note perfect, as they must be with such a small cast. For all its open-heartedness, All of Us Strangers doesn’t peddle easy uplift. The movie suggests that loneliness, isolation or ostracization – whether created by circumstance or intolerance – don’t heal like normal physical wounds, and that all the time in the world given over to that process wouldn’t necessarily feel like enough. A lot of movies attempt to replicate the experience of a dream; this one situates itself right on the edge, whether ecstatic or delirious or stricken, of waking up.–Jesse Hassenger
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
Radu Jude’s literalized mouthful Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World depicts, perhaps, the most accurate representation of the dystopia we live in, and the supposed impending dystopia that we’re in the process of arriving at. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World largely centers on a day in the life of young Romanian woman Angela (Ilinca Manolache), an overworked, underpaid film production assistant, driving around Bucharest to cast for a work accident film. The film has been commissioned by a major company obviously attempting to cover the tracks left by lax safety precautions for their workers, fronted by a suit named Doris Goethe (Nina Hoss)—funnily, a direct relation to the influential German writer. Between meetings, Angela films intentionally provocative and popular TikToks playing the character of an Andrew Tate wannabe named Bóbita. Throughout the black-and-white cinematography of the present day, where we follow Angela around and find ourselves lulled to sleep by the rhythmic movements of her hands on the steering wheel and the changing gears, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World slips in and out of the story of another Angela: The 1981 Romanian film Angela Goes On. Directed by Lucian Bratu, the older film chronicles the seemingly humdrum routine of the eponymous woman (played by Dorina Lazar) working as a taxi driver. But it was, at the time, a quietly subversive work depicting the reality of life under poverty, having been made during the oppressive and censoring regime of Communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu. Jude considers the films of both Angelas in conversation with one another: Two films about two women doing similar jobs during drastically different political periods in the same country. Jude even slows down parts of the older film for audiences to catch what the Romanian censors at the time did not. Jude’s film is hypnotic, patient and playful, bending the rules of filmmaking, overlaying fiction on top of fiction, blending mixed media—even interjecting a surprise and charming cameo from notorious German director Uwe Boll, whom Angela convinces to appear in one of her Bóbita TikToks while he shoots an inane green screen action sequence on a backlot. In the reality depicted by Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, the world will not end with a whimper or a bang, but as work accident victims idle, filming an insurance video in the rain; while the crew bickers among themselves; while the film’s PA risks crashing their car due to loss of sleep out on field work; while young people make TikToks displaying a tenuous grasp on the concept of satire; while nothing is being done to improve the lives of the people who still very much live on this planet.–Brianna Zigler
Four Daughters
Like Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up, Robert Greene’s Kate Plays Christine, and Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal, Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters takes place at the confluence of two rivers: Fiction and documentary. The subjects of this hybrid film are Olfa, a Tunisian mother of four girls, and the teenage Eya and Tayssir, the youngest two of her daughters. Ben Hania fills the gaping silhouette of the mysteriously absent other pair—Ghofrane and Rahma—with two actors (Nour Karoui and Ichraq Matar), as well as a stand-in for Olfa herself (Tunisian megastar Hend Sabri). Together, the actors (including one man, Majd Mastoura, who plays a variety of male figures in Olfa’s life) re-enact significant moments in the women’s lives in an attempt to therapeutically exorcize their grief and anger. The film is a rehearsal with no end performance in sight, the process being the point. The result is astonishing emotional rigor, particularly from Eya and Tayssir. Forced to endure hardships both new and familiar to their mother—who unquestioningly believes one of her motherly duties is to inflict the same pain on her children that marred her own life—the girls are remarkably unafraid to hold Olfa to account. The conceit at the heart of the film is a brilliant one, because it dissolves all of the interpersonal barriers that might have prevented its subjects from total honesty. Four Daughters is a fascinating, gripping watch for the depth and candor with which it explores these women’s fraught bonds. Rather than dilute the truth, then, the use of mirrored performances has an intensifying, clarifying effect on their original subjects—one so acute that it even unnerves some of the actors.–Farah Cheded
The Holdovers
Alexander Payne takes us back to school in order to satirize the larger American political landscape in The Holdovers, but his once-acidic tone has undoubtedly taken a shift toward the sincere since newcomer Reese Witherspoon first hit our screens as know-it-all Tracy Flick in Election nearly 25 years ago. Now, with the early 1970s-set holiday drama The Holdovers, his indictment of the American Dream may burn more slowly, but the gut punch Payne packs is no less severe, so long as you aren’t put off by a healthy dose of nostalgia. Stinky, sweaty, disgruntled Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti with a lazy eye), a hardass Ancient Civilizations professor who makes no attempt to hide how much he despises his “vulgar” students, is put in charge of babysitting the students whose parents don’t want to deal with them over the Christmas holiday break. “And I thought all the Nazis had left for Argentina,” quips the smartass leader of the gang, Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), when Paul harshly disciplines the boys for fighting. Angus and Paul are not alone, as they are joined by Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the head of the school cafeteria, who recently lost her beloved son Curtis, himself a Barton alum, in the Vietnam war. If this sounds like the trappings of an “unlikely family of outsiders finds understanding during the holidays” kind of movie, it’s because that’s exactly what The Holdovers is. Neither Payne nor screenwriter David Hemingson are afraid to lean into the romantic notion that three disparate people with vastly different circumstances can briefly come together as a family, especially during Christmastime, for Christ’s sake. All three of the protagonists are hiding deeply held secrets and desires that are slowly revealed over the course of their time together, to the point that they truly come to rely on each other for trustworthy companionship. All of this is only plausible thanks to Hemingson’s well-developed screenplay, strong performances from all three leads and The Holdovers’ refined, cozy vibe. The syrupy soundtrack and softly glowing photography set the snug tone. If Election is a shot of tequila, The Holdovers is a slow succession of sips of bourbon that you don’t realize have affected your spatial awareness until you get out of your armchair.—Katarina Docalovich
May December
Partway through Todd Haynes’ May December, actor Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) is asked how she chooses her roles by a group of high school drama students. Elizabeth is in town to research her upcoming lead role in a ripped-from-the-tabloids independent movie, a part she hopes will be statement enough to eclipse the work she’s currently recognized for (playing a veterinarian on a show called Norah’s Ark, just one of screenwriter Samy Burch’s winky little jokes about the biz). Her next part is decidedly not as family friendly: Elizabeth is set to play Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore), a former teacher who made the news 20 years ago for having a sexual relationship with and subsequently marrying one of her seventh-grade students, Joe (Charles Melton). May December offers up a tantalizingly ambiguous answer to the question posed during that drama class visit. As she insinuates herself into the Atherton-Yoos’ life—tagging along with Gracie and her daughter Mary (Elizabeth Yu) as they shop for prom dresses, taking notes on the makeup brands Gracie uses, shadowing Joe at work—we begin to wonder whether Elizabeth’s devotion to the role comes only from a desperate desire to be taken seriously as an actor, or if there’s something deeper and darker lurking within. Burch’s script—and Portman’s brilliantly cryptic performance—keep these possibilities balanced on a fine edge. We’re never completely sure if Elizabeth is just going ultra-Method when, for example, she complains that the boys auditioning for the part of young Joe aren’t “sexy enough,” or when she visits the pet shop stockroom where the couple were first discovered and simulates the sexual encounter that led to Gracie’s arrest. The disturbing possibility that the two women are secretly more alike than Elizabeth lets on only grows when she talks to the drama students about sex scenes—telling them that, sometimes, the acting is in pretending she’s not enjoying them. That smudging of the line between Gracie and Elizabeth physically manifests in the gradual converging of their appearances in cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt’s inspired Bergman-esque images. May December is a film of great tonal delicacy, as Haynes, Burch and their actors delicately modulate the film between high camp and twisted psychological drama. Pulling off such a seemingly incongruous blend of sensationalism and sincere thoughtfulness is no easy task, but writer and director miraculously find a way to ease the tension between style and substance—and, what’s more, manage to deliver wry commentary on the way we consume scandals at the same time.–Farah Cheded
Monster
For the first time since his debut film, Hirokazu Kore-eda has directed a film without writing its screenplay. Though Kore-eda is an accomplished director of children (just watch Shoplifters), perhaps he thought Yuji Sakamoto was better equipped to handle the perspective-shifting, expectation-defying drama of Monster. A movie inherently connected to the presumptions of guilt and shame that can linger lastingly in all cultures, but especially in Japanese culture — and one intent on undermining this deep-seated dedication to first impressions — Monster combats our least generous impulses with constant, detailed empathy. Compassion cascades down Monster‘s ever-complicating narrative like a downpour, sweeping us along gullies carved out by controlled performances from child actors Sōya Kurokawa and Hinata Hiiragi. We’re submerged under the fragile piano and mournful horns of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s final score. We know that the film’s premise, that a teacher is abusing a fifth-grade student, is too simple and too cruel to be all that meets the eye, but the brutally tear-jerking truth that follows is nearly as relentless. Even if the story is more nuanced than it at first appears, some of its melodramatic leanings can be just as blunt as the assumptions it refutes. Monster, surprising yet never quite delicate enough, makes you realize that those who hide under the bed (or in the closet) were driven there.–Jacob Oller
Poor Things
Yorgos Lanthimos’ off-kilter, pastel-drenched Poor Things opens with static shots of silken embroidery. It is hard to ascertain the images themselves, threaded so neatly in a near-identical gray. But the slippery, elusive texture is integral to the film, which weaves together something thick and rich with detail. What follows is narrow in its focus and big and engulfing in its scale: The story of a young woman who must overcome the experiments enacted against her while embracing her changing body and irrepressible urges. As such, this adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s book of the same name is difficult to summarize, loosely following Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) as she grows to embrace adulthood despite the overbearing tutelage of her de facto father God (Willem Dafoe). Once introduced to the dashing and cocky Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), Bella recognizes the pitfalls of her sheltered life and endeavors to travel around the world, experiencing life anew before marrying her father’s sweet and bumbling assistant Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef). It picks up on many of the themes the director has concerned himself with, digging into the ways in which people will torture one another rather than accept the pain that lies dormant in their past, unwittingly exacting an interpersonal cost. Lying in the genre gulf between science fiction and straightforward drama, Poor Things also finds time to unleash Stone’s ability as a physical comedian, building a sticky, entrancing bodily language that lives somewhere between twitchy, childlike enthusiasm and mystical knowingness. She wanders through their eclectic family home with an unsteady gait, crashing into delicately hung porcelain displays and cackling rather than cowering at the destruction which follows. It is a deliciously amoral journey, the kind that has already secured Lanthimos ample praise over the course of his career. But this is perhaps the filmmaker’s most garish and confident endeavor, using Bella’s naïve perspective to design a world so heightened that it exists somewhere between a nightmare and a dream. It will satisfy fans of Lanthimos’ previous work and perhaps win over new viewers who are desperate to engage in the kind of coming-of-age stories that propel the genre forward.–Anna McKibbin
Raging Grace
Joy (Max Eigenmann) is a Filipino immigrant living in England, doing her best to carve out a life with her mischievous daughter Joy (Jaeden Paige Boadilla) while scraping together enough funds to legitimize her permanent residency in the U.K. It’s a hard life, one in which Grace and Joy often get by through squatting in the upscale homes Joy cleans while their owners are out of town. Just when her resources begin to run out, Joy gets a call that might change everything, a request which sends her to an elegant country estate where a wealthy man (David Hayman) is slowly dying in the care of his niece Katherine (Leanne Best). With concerns of her own to attend to, Katherine offers Joy the job of cleaning the massive house and caring for her ailing uncle, with a healthy under-the-table payday on offer. Joy takes the job, sneaks Grace into the house, and gets to work, unaware that something much more grim than a dying man is lurking inside. Writer/director Paris Zarcilla clearly knows these kinds of stories and how to play by their spooky rules, delivering the Gothic goods with a deft hand, but he also never forgets that he’s making a modern story about two people just trying to make a life for themselves in a world that would rather push them into a corner. While the threats of the story emerge out of the Gothic tradition, the key tension of the film comes from the mother and daughter bond at its core. Because of this, Eigenmann and Boadilla are tasked with some intense emotional heavy lifting, and both rise to meet the challenge. Our desire to care for them and for their success as a family in a hostile world, only heightens the atmospheric dread hanging heavy over the whole story, and boosts our interest in what might happen next. In that way, even the occasional stumble works in Raging Grace‘s favor, making it a satisfying and remarkable debut from a new horror voice.–Matthew Jackson
The Taste of Things
While ASMR is most heavily associated with the pleasures of sound, it would be nothing without the aesthetics. The way a cake spatula smooths a dollop of buttery frosting; the way egg noodles gleam under a coating of soy sauce. It might sound reductive to compare Vietnamese-French director Trần Anh Hùng’s lyrical work with a social media fad, but there is now an entire micro-industry dedicated to the way human beings have always lusted after the sensual impressions of food, an idea which is as much in conversation within The Taste of Things as that of the romance between its two leads. If there were no plot at all, The Taste of Things could still very easily coast on the visual and auditory pleasures of its subject: The culinary arts, to which Trần’s camera and microphone dedicate sumptuous displays of rich textures and decadent sizzles of in-process cookery, much of it spearheaded by veteran kitchen cook Eugénie (Juliette Binoche). Taking place in late 19th century France at the estate of the so-called “Napoleon of Culinary Arts” Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel), The Taste of Things focuses on its residents. For Dodin and Eugénie, cooking is an erotic, romantic, intimate act. After the first meal of the film is enjoyed by Dodin and some colleagues, they all bemoan Eugénie’s welcome yet absent company at their dinner. Eugénie assures them she is speaking to them through her food. While Eugénie prepares a lavish spread for Dodin and his friends, she momentarily loses herself, seemingly to the understandable exhaustion that comes with dancing and careening through a hot kitchen. DP Jonathan Ricquebourg glides the camera around Eugénie and co., giving the banquet preparation a sense of precise choreography akin to ballet, all the way to the angle at which a wooden spoon slips through a pan of rich, creamy sauce. Throughout the narrative’s drama, the chemistry between Binoche and Magimel is as palpable as the food that their characters prepare together. And while the film remains free of explicit sex or nudity (though, one scene cheekily parallels Binoche’s nude silhouette with the curvature of a poached pear), the insinuations and implications carried by the appearance, sound and intent behind the cooking are far more sensuous. The Taste of Things is abundantly, if maybe overwhelmingly, accessible; it’s not particularly challenging to watch a film that’s quite literally as gratifying as a home-cooked meal.–Brianna Zigler
Jacob Oller is Movies Editor at Paste Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter at @jacoboller.
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