Skylar Savarin

Sundance Film Festival is one of the most influential film festivals today. Since its inception in 1978, its focus on promoting independent films has launched the careers of numerous high-profile directors, including Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson and James Wan. While I unfortunately couldn’t attend the festival in person, I was able to book online screenings of a few films, so here are my thoughts, from worst to best.

“Handling the Undead” is a Norwegian horror film from Thea Hvistendahl, and it follows three families whose lives start to unravel when their dead loved ones suddenly return. The film stars Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie (both from “The Worst Person in the World”) and is based on the novel of the same name by John Ajvide Lindqvist (“Let the Right One In”), who also wrote the film’s screenplay alongside Hvistendahl.

This film was, without a doubt, my most anticipated film of the entire festival, partially because of Reinsve and Lie but mostly due to Lindqvist. “Let the Right One In” is an incredible film and a deeply moving mix of horror and coming-of-age romance, so I hoped that “Handling the Undead” would have an equally effective hold over me.

However, I’m not sure if I got what I was looking for. Reinsve and Lie were as excellent as I had expected, and some disturbing moments were genuinely difficult to watch. But unfortunately, the film’s slow pace almost made me yearn for the credits. It also made me wonder if the film was conceived as a short film before being unnecessarily stretched to feature length. The film is only 97 minutes long, but it feels like it was over the 2-hour mark.

That being said, I do think that I enjoyed “Handling the Undead” overall. It’s well-made, and I had a visceral reaction to one scene, but overall it was just kind of boring.

“Handling the Undead” — 6/10

“A Real Pain” is the latest from writer, director and star Jesse Eisenberg (“The Social Network”). The comedy/drama follows cousins David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin, “Succession”) as they travel to Poland on a Holocaust tour in order to visit the home of their late grandmother.

While the screenplay felt very Oscar-baity at times, I thought “A Real Pain” was a mostly good movie. Culkin and Eisenberg are great, with some effective emotional beats and comedic elements. However, some moments insist on a certain emotion without letting the audience interpret the intent of the scene, which is frustrating considering that the film did occasionally make me emotional. Overall, I would still recommend it, and I think it’s a crowd-pleaser more than anything.

“A Real Pain” — 6/10

“Ponyboi” is an American thriller by director Esteban Arango and writer/star River Gallo. The film, based on Gallo’s short of the same name, follows an intersex sex worker who has to run from the mob after a drug deal goes wrong. The film also stars Dylan O’Brien (“Teen Wolf”), Victoria Pedretti (“You”) and Murray Bartlett (“The Last of Us”).

I went into this movie without any expectations and ended up watching a highly entertaining film with great performances and a solid sense of tension throughout. Gallo delivered a great lead performance, and their screenplay gave them a lot of room to shine. Not only that, but I hope that their work on the film will pave the way for more intersex actors and characters in the industry. The rest of the performances are also great, with O’Brien playing an excellent antagonist.

All in all, “Ponyboi” is a tense, emotional and occasionally heartwarming thriller that I thoroughly enjoyed.

“Ponyboi” — 8/10

But of the four films I watched, the best is easily “Black Box Diaries.” This Japanese documentary follows journalist/director Shiori Itō as she documents her fight for justice after being raped by prominent television journalist Noriyuki Yamaguchi.

This was probably the most difficult film to watch due to its subject matter, but Itō’s story needed to be told. Her directing is excellent, and there’s some great footage featured throughout, ranging from rage-inducing to genuinely sweet. The film also has a lot of information I didn’t really know about beforehand, such as Itō’s being the face of the #MeToo movement in Japan and the unfortunate fact that Yamaguchi was the biographer (and good friend) of then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

There’s a lot to discuss about “Black Box Diaries,” but I recommend that audiences seek it out when it gets a wide release. It’s an excellent documentary, and it’s currently my favorite movie of the year.

“Black Box Diaries” — 8/10