Following her justly acclaimed documentaries (The Mole Agent, The Eternal Memory) that play like dramas and a scripted feature inspired by actual events (In Her Place), Chilean director Maite Alberdi continues to blur, smudge and gleefully mess with the lines between fiction and fact in her latest, the by-turns highly comical and then suddenly moving A Child of My Own (Un hijo propio).

Revolving around a news story from the early 2000s that brings Alberdi north of the equator for her first Mexican-set feature, Child layers interviews with the actual participants in this strange tale with a scripted and performed re-enactment of the events. But don’t worry, this is nothing like the tacky reconstructions one often sees in made-for-TV docs to break up the monotony of talking heads telling the story, thanks in part to Alberdi’s deft narrative footwork. It helps that the cast is led by the immensely engaging Ana Celeste Montalvo Peña, who stars as Alejandra, a young hospital administrator who fakes a pregnancy and takes drastic measures to assuage her intense maternal longings. And also shut up all the pesky relatives who keep asking her about when she and husband Arturo (Armando Espitia) are going to start a family of their own.

Recalling Kitty Green’s darker but similarly genre-tweaking doc Casting JonBenet, this starts with a flurry of edits showing different actors trying out for the role of Alejandra, nicknamed Ale, our complicated protagonist. Montalvo Peña’s audition gets across in just a few minutes Ale’s distinctive blend of perk, pluck and pastel-pink girlishness spiked with a generous dollop of disassociated delusionality. From there, the film goes into a mostly straightforwardly chronological account of how Ale and later Arturo get into the desperate situation they eventually find themselves in.

As (staged) footage unfurls of Ale and Arturo dancing at their wedding to “Unchained Melody” (we get to see the real thing later on), Ale explains how even at this, what should have been the happiest moment of her life, she sensed that Arturo’s mother didn’t think Ale was good enough for her son. A sly freeze frame reveals a scowling mother-in-law (Ángeles Cruz), looking very grumpy indeed. The confetti has barely settled before the extended family of aunties and cousins start asking when they’re going to produce a child. Unfortunately, poor Ale has two miscarriages in short succession, and eventually an OB-GYN at the hospital where Ale works warns her that she may never carry a child to full term.  

Just after a third pregnancy also miscarries, Ale meets a young woman named Mayra in a hospital waiting room and the two get talking. A single mother of one child already and due around the time that Ale would have had her baby, Mayra is unhappily pregnant. She’s come to the hospital seeking an abortion, although she’d prefer to “give [the baby] away rather than throw it away.” Ale suggests that Mayra passes over her baby to her when the time comes, and Mayra implausibly agrees.

To keep the deception going, Ale starts eating for two, piling on the pounds, fortunately carrying a lot of her new extra weight in her midsection. Concerned that Arturo might figure out she’s not knocked up, she puts him off when he tries to get conjugal in bed (it could be bad for the baby, she says) and insists he doesn’t have to come to any of her pre-natal check-ups at the hospital. Armed with marabou-feather festooned pens, an in-depth knowledge of the hospital’s procedures and familiarity with staff on many wards, she manages to fake a hospital record for herself, obtain a fake ultrasound picture and generally keep the whole deception going until it all falls apart in a matter of days.

To reveal what happens exactly would spoil the film’s several canny surprises, but it’s worth noting that we get to spend considerable time in the last half hour with the real Ale and Arturo — at least enough time to appreciate how well the actors inhabited the characters. And yet there remains an ineffable quality, especially in Ale — a placid dreamy blankness, inimitable, touching in its naiveté, and a tragic flaw all at once.

DP Sergio Armstrong and his team ensure that the candy-colored palette pops just enough to suggest we’re not quite in the realm of reality at times, while frequent overhead shots and odd angles enhance the sense of discombobulation. Nevertheless, the documentary footage also has a polished sheen to it, minimizing the separation between fact and fiction in a way that feels respectful of the subjects, putting them on the same level as the dramatis personae.  

A bad case of the baby blues turns into a gory fight for survival in Nightborn (Yön Lapsi), Finnish writer-director Hanna Bergholm’s worthy follow-up to her well-received 2022 debut, Hatching.

Like that movie, which combined horror and fantasy tropes with f***ed-up family dynamics, the director’s second feature focuses on a couple in the aftermath of their child’s birth — an already anxiety-ridden event that’s compounded many times over by the fact that their baby boy is some kind of bloodsucking abomination of nature.

Or is he? Part of what makes Nightborn both stomach-churning and thought-provoking is how all the crazy stuff happening is just a slightly — okay, substantially — exaggerated version of the reality so many first-time parents face. The movie’s many metaphors are certainly on the nose, which can feel a bit redundant once we get the gist of it. But Bergholm has a deft, darkly comic touch that turns classic child-rearing moments (breastfeeding, a baby’s first steps, a dinner session in a highchair) into gross-out sequences that make you want to laugh and cringe at the same time.

There’s plenty of sordid irony from the get-go as we watch expecting couple Saga (Seida Haarla) and Jon (Rupert Grint) drive down a twisting forest road toward their isolated country home, which is run-down, abandoned and ripe for plenty of horror hijinks. Saga is Finnish and Jon is British, which means they mostly communicate in English (a convenient trick to lend the film international appeal). It also means that Jon feels a bit out of place in a strange land where even stranger things start happening once they settle in.

Bergholm, who co-wrote the script with Ilja Rautsi, establishes a tone that’s both unsettling and outrageous, especially when she match-cuts from an orgasm scene to a birth scene, the baby popping out in a nasty close-up that leaves Jon drenched in blood. Things get much freakier when Saga learns that her little tot is covered in body hair, then tries to breastfeed “it” — she refuses to call it “him” — and nearly loses a nipple.

The couple has clearly created a monster. And yet, part of what makes Nightborn so fun and compelling is that they might just be overreacting to the insanity a baby brings into the life of any new parent, especially when it refuses to sleep and cries all day long. “Your boy is perfectly healthy,” a pediatrician tells them, offering scant comfort when their child, who Saga has christened with the weird mystical name of Kuura, starts precociously sitting up and eventually walking, while also developing a taste for blood.

“It just takes and takes and takes,” Saga shouts during one of her many overtired freak-outs, speaking a truth that lots of debuting mothers have to reckon with. And yet, she can’t help developing a growing attachment to Kuura, especially when it comes to their mutual attraction to the spooky forest surrounding their abode. It turns out Saga has much more in common with her monster baby then she thinks. Meanwhile, Jon finds himself in the same position as so many dads who, at some point, realize they’re a bit of a third wheel beside the inseparable duo of mother and child.

The director cleverly dishes out these double meanings from start to finish, fusing the parental experience with tons of gore, hysteria, visual gags and occasional jump scares.  A particular standout is a “here comes the airplane” feeding scene that completely flies off the rails, revealing to what extent the happy household has been turned upside-down.

There are a few other freakish laugh-out-loud moments, although there are also times when the metaphor Bergholm keeps hammering into our skulls becomes repetitive. Her sense of humor is what often saves the day, with stars Haarla (Compartment No. 6) and Grint (who played Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter films) truly unafraid to do some batshit crazy things on screen, including fighting at one point over their baby’s blood snack.

The craft level of Nightborn is also a plus, whether it’s the fairytale-like lensing of Pietari Peltola, the creepy living spaces of Kari Kankaanpää’s sets, or the combination of puppets and CGI that turn Kuura into a wicked little cutie whom we hardly ever see in the daylight.

In fact, it’s never fully clear what kind of creature the baby even is: a vampire? A troll? A killer garden gnome? But that also seems to be the point. Kuura is every new parent’s fear wrapped into one tiny package — wailing day and night, refusing to eat or sleep, making you want to rethink your family planning and reach for that box of contraceptives.

Story: The courtroom drama follows a teacher, Parima (Kani Kusruti), who is brutally gang raped while returning home, and her lawyer Raavi’s (Taapsee Pannu) fight for justice. Beyond the horrific crime, it explores themes such as vigilantism, patriarchy, systemic corruption, and societal apathy that normalises sexual assault and crimes against women.Review: Director Anubhav Sinha’s title denotes the approximate number of rapes that take place each day in India — around 80. The film does not allow the viewer to sit comfortably with this statistic. Every 20 minutes, a reminder flashes on screen that another assault has occurred somewhere in the country during the film’s runtime. Alongside the alarming figure, the legal drama unsettles with its unflinching portrayal of how cruel society can be toward survivors.After Parima is violated, her male students joke about it in WhatsApp groups, while her husband Vinay (Zeeshan Ayyub) is pressured by his family to drop the case to “save honour.” Police corruption sabotages the investigation, victim-blaming becomes routine, and the accused display chilling apathy. They turn the crime into a game, with the loser buying beer; two of the four swap scarves in court to match their outfits, and one heads to a disco to party. Each culprit has a sister, girlfriend, or daughter — an irony the narrative quietly underscores.Parallelly, the story examines vigilantism through the rise of a ‘Chhatri Man,’ who begins targeting these rapists when the system fails. The film logically dissects the dangers of trial by media and mob justice. One of its most powerful moments sees Raavi’s face smeared with black ink by an irate supporter after she publicly speaks against vigilante justice. The success of any courtroom drama rests on the strength of its arguments and verbal sparring, and writer Gaurav Solanki delivers some of the sharpest exchanges through Raavi. Among the most heartrending sequences are her impassioned references to real cases, from infants assaulted to minors abusing an 80-year-old woman.Though hard-hitting, the narrative resists melodrama, making it more thought-provoking than sensational. It adopts a forward-looking stance through the children who appear during the proceedings, suggesting the need to sensitise the next generation. This is portrayed through the moving relationship between Vinay and his son, Dhruv. When Dhruv visits Parima in the hospital, Vinay quietly admits that the aftermath will follow them home anyway; there is no shielding a child from such a reality. Besides the legal battle, the narrative also has plot twists that will shake you to the core.Taapsee Pannu leads from the front here, embodying frustration, empathy, and even dry humour with finesse. Kani Kusruti is outstanding as a survivor attempting to rebuild her life. Revathy brings gravitas as the presiding judge, while Kumud Mishra leaves a mark with his layered performance. Zeeshan Ayyub’s restraint is moving.For its poignant storytelling, hard-hitting narrative, and fine performances, and to fully absorb the message it delivers, Assi deserves to be experienced in a theatre.