‘Naked Singularity’: Film Review | San Francisco 2021 David Rooney
Sergio De La Pava’s PEN prize-winning debut novel,
A Naked Singularity, is a messy, maximalist slab of stream-of-consciousness prose in which the main storyline is a perfect crime, wrapped in digressions on countless subjects, among them astrophysics, philosophy, boxing and the deeply flawed American justice system. Screenwriter Chase Palmer, best known for adapting Stephen King’s
It, tackles this challenging source material with verve in his first feature as director, which premieres as the opener of the San Francisco Film Festival. It’s a slick package and reasonably entertaining, but the indefinite article of the book’s title is not the only thing lost.
John Boyega in Naked Singularity
Engrossing, but not singular enough to be memorable.
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John Boyega plays a New York public defender drawn into a dangerous heist in this crime thriller adapted from Sergio De La Pava s novel, also starring Olivia Cooke and Bill Skarsgård.
Sergio De La Pava s PEN prize-winning debut novel,
A Naked Singularity, is a messy, maximalist slab of stream-of-consciousness prose in which the main storyline is a perfect crime, wrapped in digressions on countless subjects, among them astrophysics, philosophy, boxing and the deeply flawed American justice system. Screenwriter Chase Palmer, best known for adapting Stephen King s
El Planeta Review: A Mother and Daughter Go Broke in Style in an Appealingly Offbeat Comedy El Planeta Review: A Mother and Daughter Go Broke in Style in an Appealingly Offbeat Comedy
In Amalia Ulman s peculiar but poignant debut feature, the director casts herself opposite her own mother with surprising success.
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Running time: Running time: 82 MIN.
Courtesy of Holgas Meow Pictures/Sundance
Holed up in a cold, poky apartment in the faded Spanish coastal town of Gijón, fashion student Leo and her single mother Maria are living way beyond their means, but don’t tell them that: They’d prefer to think of it as their means simply not having caught up with them. There’s a fine, even invisible, line between dignity and denial in “El Planeta,” a fine-grained portrait of everyday poverty amid the lingering wreckage of the global financial crisis. Yet this pithy, distinctive debut feature from artist-turned-filmmaker Amalia Ulman eschews ki