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.  

Casey Wasserman, the embattled mogul who is the face of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, is preparing to sell his talent agency, a stunning fall for a leading figure in the world of sports and music.

In a memo to his staff Friday, Wasserman acknowledged his appearance in a recently released batch of documents related to the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his companion and accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, had “become a distraction.”

Wasserman wrote in his memo he was “heartbroken that my brief contact with them 23 years ago has caused you, this company, and its clients so much hardship over the past days and weeks.”

Representatives for Wasserman did not immediately return requests for comment.

“I’m deeply sorry that my past personal mistakes have caused you so much discomfort,” Wasserman wrote to his staff. “It’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to the clients and partners we represent so vigorously and care so deeply about.”

Wasserman’s decision to unload the business he founded more than two decades ago represents a remarkable reversal for the mogul, who built up one of the most successful sports and music agencies in Hollywood.

He is one of the first major figures in entertainment to be forced out over their Epstein associations after the release of a massive trove of documents in late January. U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi sparred with lawmakers earlier this week over the Justice Department’s handling of the records, which has become a major political issue for the Trump administration. The scandal has roiled Washington, with continuing demands that the Justice Department release all documents related to the Epstein case.

Following in the footsteps of his grandfather, Lew Wasserman — a Hollywood titan who transformed the studio MCA into a powerhouse that acquired Universal Pictures — Casey launched his talent and marketing agency in 2002.

The timing was fortuitous: Sports media was soaring, and athletes increasingly were celebrities.

Wasserman expanded his business through a series of savvy acquisitions. He built the company’s music division after buying the agency Paradigm in 2021.

To help finance his company’s rapid growth, Wasserman brought in private equity firm Providence Equity Partners, which took a stake in his company in 2022.

A year later, his agency absorbed the boutique management firm Brillstein Entertainment, which has long represented Brad Pitt and Adam Sandler, along with its television production firm, which had production credits on such shows as “The Sopranos” and “Just Shoot Me!”

Today, the Wasserman firm has about 4,000 employees and a deep roster of talent. It represents major musical acts including Coldplay, Kendrick Lamar, Ed Sheeran and Tyler, the Creator.

The agency’s sports division represents women’s soccer star Alex Morgan, WNBA players Paige Bueckers, Breanna Stewart and Brittney Griner, NBA player Klay Thompson and swimmer Katie Ledecky.

But Wasserman faced mounting pressure from within his company to step down following disclosure of the sexually charged emails with Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021.

Over the last two weeks, artists including Chappell Roan and athletes such as soccer star Abby Wambach announced they would leave Wasserman’s eponymous Los Angeles-based talent agency.

“I know what I know, and I am following my gut and my values,” Wambach wrote on Instagram. “I will not participate in any business arrangement under his leadership… He should leave, so more people like me don’t have to.”

Talent and agents were said to be furious over Wasserman’s past communications with Maxwell, and had planned to quit if he remained, creating turmoil inside the company, sources told The Times earlier this week.

Some insiders speculated that Wasserman would cleave off his music division — which faced much more internal pressure from agents and public criticism from artists — and keep his long-standing sports agency as he leads LA28. Yet his associations with Epstein and Maxwell proved untenable for him at his namesake company.

Wasserman told his staff that Mike Watts, a longtime company executive, would assume day-to-day management of the firm while he begins the process of selling it.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Wasserman’s staff memo.

Wasserman plans to stay in his position leading the LA28 Olympic Committee, which has stood by him.

In a recent statement, LA28 noted that the emails with Maxwell were sent following a humanitarian mission to Africa years “before Mr. Wasserman or the public knew of Epstein and Maxwell’s deplorable crimes… This was his single interaction with Epstein.”

“The Executive Committee of the Board has determined that based on these facts, as well as the strong leadership he has exhibited over the past ten years, Mr. Wasserman should continue to lead LA28 and deliver a safe and successful Games,” LA28 concluded.

The messages to Maxwell were part of a massive trove of Epstein-related documents made public by the Department of Justice late last month.

In them, Wasserman wrote to Maxwell, who is now serving a lengthy prison sentence for sex trafficking of minors, “I thought we would start at that place that you know of, and then continue the massage concept into your bed … and then again in the morning … not sure if or when we would stop.”

She responded: “Umm — all that rubbing — are you sure you can take it? The thought frankly is leaving me a little breathless. There are a few spots that apparently drive a man wild — I suppose I could practise them on you and you could let me know if they work or not?”

Wasserman released a statement saying: “I deeply regret my correspondence with Ghislaine Maxwell which took place over two decades ago, long before her horrific crimes came to light. I never had a personal or business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. As is well documented, I went on a humanitarian trip as part of a delegation with the Clinton Foundation in 2002 on the Epstein plane. I am terribly sorry for having any association with either of them.”

After the disclosures of the Epstein documents in recent months, lawyers, art museum executives, a former U.K. ambassador, Slovakia’s national security advisor and other prominent officials have resigned, apologized or stepped back from high positions. Britain’s King Charles III stripped his brother Andrew of his prince title and position in the royal family.

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.