The leaves are changing color, the days are growing shorter, and the scent of pumpkin spice is wafting through the air, which can only mean one thing: Serious Movie Season is just around the corner.
Fall is the time for festivals where the films that may or may not be in contention for awards for the next six months begin to roll out — in Toronto, Venice, Telluride, and beyond.
While it may not have the glitzy profile of some of these other events, the Woodstock Film Festival has at least one distinct advantage: it’s in my neck of the woods. Last week I did some binge moviegoing at the festival, which has fast become one of my favorite fall rituals (along with picking out the fun-sized Twix bars from my kids’ trick-or-treat haul).
The event has a decidedly cozy, upstate feel. It’s the kind of gathering where you’ll see world-class actors, writers, and directors decked out in Patagonia rather than Prada. It’s also a great way to get ahead on the year’s Serious Movies before they hit theaters, catch some under-the-radar indie films and documentaries that may never get a wide theatrical release, and hear thoughtful panel conversations about the state of the industry.
This year’s program included numerous movies that wrestle with the frightening state of the world, while others address the human need to transcend the grimness of reality through art and creativity. The highlights of this year’s festival included multiple films about frustrated housewives losing the plot, a politically incendiary Russian noir, and a tearjerker for the ages.
Here are some movies I saw at Woodstock that will arrive in theaters in the coming months and are well worth your time (and money).
The Debut
Nobody does “seemingly average housewife who loses her shit” better than Julianne Moore, and she’s never done it better than in The Debut, a dark, absurdist comedy from writer-director Jesse Eisenberg. The Oscar-winner stars as Mona Friedman, an unassuming New Jersey mom whose humdrum existence is upended when she impulsively auditions for a community theater production of a musical called Nosy Neighbors. An almost empty-nester with a husband utterly indifferent to her existence, Mona longs for someone to pay attention to her, but is initially timid onstage.
With help from the show’s pompous director, Jerry Blankenbuehler (Paul Giamatti), she learns to lean into her role as Miss Danielle, the straight-talking super of a New York City apartment building. But she also gets carried away, going full Method and nearly “ruining her life to understand a thankless, tertiary character,” as Jerry puts it.
Moore is both hysterical and heartbreaking as a woman who will do anything to feel seen. I can’t imagine another actor who could handle the film’s very specific tone — surreal, campy, yet also sincere. At the Woodstock screening, editor Robert Nassau described The Debut as a combination of Waiting for Guffman, John Cassavetes’ Opening Night, and David Lynch. (It’s also a little reminiscent of Oh, Mary!, the sublimely silly Broadway hit that reimagines Mary Todd Lincoln as a frustrated cabaret star.)
The Debut is ultimately a love letter to acting and the sometimes self-destructive urge to deliver a convincing performance at any cost.
(In theaters December 11)
Minotaur
Set in late 2022, against the backdrop of Russia’s escalating war against Ukraine, Minotaur is a gripping Russian noir about power and corruption under Putin’s regime. Gleb (Dmitriy Mazurov) is the chief executive of a logistics company in a drab, unnamed town. If not quite an oligarch, he’s a local power broker who has clearly prospered under the current regime. His life is superficially perfect: he lives with his glamorous wife Galina (Iris Lebedeva) and teenage son in a pristine modernist house that looks like it belongs in the Russian equivalent of Dwell magazine, and dines out at expensive restaurants with his equally well-heeled friends. But Gleb’s rarefied bubble is punctured when, in quick succession, he discovers that his wife is having an affair and is ordered by the mayor to select employees who will be shipped off to fight in Ukraine. Tense and darkly funny, Minotaur succeeds as both a psychological thriller and a political critique.
The film, which was made in Latvia, comes from director Andrey Zvyagintsev, one of Russia’s most acclaimed filmmakers, who has been living in exile since 2021. Accepting a prize at the Cannes Film Festival in May, Zvyagintsev addressed Putin directly in his remarks: “Put an end to this carnage. The whole world is waiting for it.” In September, he was designated a “foreign agent” by the Russian government, a tactic the regime has used to silence its critics. Watch the film — and you’ll quickly understand why Putin considers Zvyagintsev such a threat.
(In theaters November 20)
The Liberation
For a very different kind of story about a New Jersey mom going through a crisis of identity, there’s The Liberation, starring Carrie Coon as Rita Cooper, a humble bank manager and married mother of two lured into a destructive women’s wellness cult in the early 1980s. Rita’s tightly wound facade masks a deep well of pain: she lost most of her family in the Holocaust, a trauma so profound she can’t talk about it without being overwhelmed by panic — that is, until she joins a women’s group led by the charismatic Ricky (Lily James). In The Liberation, Coon demonstrates why she’s the reigning queen of HBO, playing a complicated character with profound empathy without glossing over the anguish she causes her family.
Written and directed by Guy Nattiv, the story is deeply personal: Rita is based on the filmmaker’s grandmother, a Holocaust survivor who upended her life in similar ways. “What I see in Carrie and in my grandmother is how a strong, intelligent woman — how everyone — can get into a cult,” Nattiv said in a Q&A at the Woodstock Film Festival. “You don’t have to be naive to do that.”
(In theaters January 8)
Elsinore
For fans of Fleabag — and there are quite a few of us — Andrew Scott will forever be the Hot Priest. But Elsinore, in which he pulls off the challenging feat of playing a dying man giving the performance of a lifetime, could be the film that nabs him an Oscar nomination.
Directed by Simon Stone, the film tells the real-life story of Ian Charleson, the Scottish actor best known for his role in the Oscar-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire, who gave an acclaimed performance as Hamlet at the National Theatre in London a few months before dying of AIDS.
Elsinore introduces us to the actor at a stagnant point in his film career, eight years after Chariots of Fire. With the virus now symptomatic, he is acutely aware that, as he puts it, “time is running out for something to happen.” That something comes along when Daniel Day-Lewis drops out of Hamlet (due to “nervous exhaustion”). Against the advice of his compassionate but no-nonsense doctor (Olivia Colman), Charleson throws himself into the notoriously difficult role while also trying to keep his health status under wraps.
In less skilled hands, Elsinore might have been maudlin Oscar bait, but the film balances its sentimentality with plenty of mordant wit, insight into the complexities of being a gay actor in the 1980s, and loving nods to queer cultural icons like Ethel Merman. Bring some tissues and prepare to blubber — and to laugh a lot, too — in a dark room with strangers.
(In theaters November 20)
Union Town
It’s been more than 50 years since Barbara Kopple won an Academy Award for Harlan County, USA, her riveting documentary about coal miners striking in Kentucky. Union Town is a film that looks at the contemporary labor movement. Made over the course of three years, the film follows workers for UPS, Amazon, and bike-delivery apps in New York City, where more than 2.5 million packages and 500,000 meals are delivered every day by a workforce that consists largely of immigrants and people of color.
Kopple shows the grueling, sometimes life-threatening conditions they face on the job, as well as high-tech horrors like dehumanizing algorithms that can fire workers without explanation. The film chronicles the efforts of the Teamsters to negotiate a contract with UPS and Amazon workers as they attempt to organize despite intense opposition. It also shows how solidarity within the movement is essential — and how the powers-that-be count on division within the ranks to halt progress. Kopple, as always, has a keen eye for compelling characters, introducing us to memorable personalities like Chris Williamson, a fiery Teamsters leader, and William Medina, a Colombian immigrant and delivery driver fighting to improve working conditions for his fellow “deliveristas.”
At the Woodstock screening, Kopple said her producer suggested she make a film about the history of the labor movement. Instead, she proposed a documentary exploring “modern-day unionism — who these people are, what they’re fighting for, what are their dreams,” she said. “These are people that for so long have been silent. You don’t see them. It’s time they opened their mouths and said something.”
(Currently playing at festivals including DOC NYC and AFI Fest in LA. More info here.)
Meredith Blake is the culture columnist for The Contrarian.
