Story: A quiet child named Amélie grows up in Japan, barely reacting to the world until a small moment begins to pull her into it. As she slowly becomes aware of people and emotions, she starts to understand life through experiences.Review: Oscar-nominated in the Best Animated Feature category, ‘Little Amélie or The Character of Rain’ is a gentle film that draws you in with its simplicity and honesty. It does not rely on tricks or dramatic moments to grab your attention. The story trusts itself completely and moves at its own pace with quiet confidence. The film feels calm and still, giving each scene time instead of rushing ahead. At times, it may seem like very little is happening, but that is when you realise it wants you to slow down and stay in the moment. Set in Japan, it follows a French family from Belgium with a sense of warmth and care. There are moments when it may feel like the film is holding back, but there is also something real in the way it avoids rushing or explaining everything. Beneath its soft surface, there is a deeply philosophical and thoughtful layer that reflects on life in a simple and honest way.The story follows Amélie (voiced by Loise Charpentier), a young Belgian child growing up in Japan, who spends the early part of her life in a strange, distant state. She barely reacts to the world around her and seems lost in her own space. Her parents, especially her mother, try to reach out to her in simple ways, hoping to see some response. Things begin to change when her grandmother arrives from Belgium and tries to bond with baby Amélie, and the offering of a piece of white Belgian chocolate makes all the difference. Around the same time, we meet Nishio San, the gentle caregiver, who becomes an important part of her daily life. The white Belgian chocolate becomes a turning point in the film, and from that moment, Amélie begins to respond to people and her surroundings, as if she is discovering everything for the first time.The way the film opts to showcase Amélie’s inner world stays with you. It does not explain her thoughts in a clear or direct way. Instead, it lets you sit inside her perspective, even when it feels distant or hard to read. The animation plays a big role here. It has a soft, almost calming quality, like a memory that keeps changing shape. Some moments feel very personal, while there are also sequences that may test your patience. There are stretches where the film stays on a plot point a little longer than expected, and you might find your attention slipping. At the same time, when it works, it really works. It brilliantly captures small feelings that are tough to put into words, and that is not something many films manage to do.The voice performances match this tone well. The actor voicing Amélie keeps things very minimal, which suits the character. There is very little need for long dialogue in this film, as the performance is carried more through tone and the way the moments play out. The voices of her parents and Nishio San bring warmth into the film and give it some emotional grounding. They feel natural, like people you might actually know, rather than characters trying to make a strong impression. Absolutely nothing feels forced in the film, and that helps the film stay believable even when it moves into more abstract spaces.‘Little Amélie or The Character of Rain’ leaves an impression in a quiet and unexpected way. It is thoughtful and gentle, though there are moments where it may feel a bit too soft or even repetitive. The mixed reactions around it make sense because it speaks in a very specific tone and sticks to it. It asks you to meet it halfway, to be patient and open to its rhythm. That may not work for everyone, but if you do connect with it, the film stays with you as a simple and sincere look at how a person slowly begins to understand the world.

Melvin Edwards, a sculptor best known for abstract steel works that illustrated the history and resistance of African Americans, died March 30 at his Baltimore home. He was 88.

His death was confirmed by Alexander Gray Associates, the gallery that represents him.

Edwards rose to prominence in 1963 with the first works of what would become his most notable series, “Lynch Fragments.” A collection of small, wall-mounted sculptures, he combined fragments of found and recycled steel and welded them into forms of chains, sharp tools, barbed wire and other metal objects.

The series spans several decades, drawing inspiration from racial violence during the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, his personal relationship to Africa, people in his own community and across the African diaspora.

Over the years, Edwards made more than 300 “Lynch Fragments.”

Recurring materials in his works held layered meanings. Barbed wire served as a symbol of violence and oppression, but also of agriculture, cultivation and survival.

“Melvin was somebody who looked at multiple dimensions of any situation or person,” said Alexander Gray, a gallery owner and close personal friend of Edwards. “He really looked at the world, not through any kind of binary lens, but through a personal lens that was respectful of other people’s perspective.”

Born May 4, 1937, in Houston, the eldest of four children, Edwards grew up surrounded by racial segregation. As a child, he took drawing classes and visited museums, and he also played football.

“The world that I came from was American racism, segregation. I may have been young, but I paid attention,” Edwards said in an introduction to “Lynch Fragments” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

His artistic career began while studying art on a football scholarship at USC, where he met and was mentored by Hungarian painter Francis de Erdely. Edwards’ L.A. roots were critical to his identity as an artist. Here, he began experimenting with welded steel, which became his primary medium.

After moving to New York City in 1967, he became, in 1970, the first African American sculptor to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Throughout his career, Edwards remained committed to public art, creating sculptures for universities, public housing projects and museums around the world.

Those who knew him described him as overwhelmingly positive, which shaped both his work and his relationships.

“Melvin’s community of artists was remarkable because it spanned the globe. You could spin a globe, land anywhere, say the name of the country or the city, and he would know three people there, minimum,” said Gray. “He could recall a conversation he had with a person 35 years ago without any hesitation. He had an incredible constellation of people that he was surrounded by.”

The Drama is a psychological horror film masquerading as a romcom. From the jump, something feels a little off about the “meet-cute.” At a coffee shop, Charlie (Robert Pattinson) sees Emma (Zendaya) reading a novel (The Damage by Harper Ellison, a truly excellent fake title and author). Taken with her, he does a quick google search of the book and approaches her.

“I love that book,” he says.

She ignores him. All of a sudden, he feels like all eyes in the coffee shop are on him, judging him for this hapless pick-up attempt. Time seems to freeze.

Finally, she removes her single earbud and looks at him. She explains that she’s deaf in one ear and had no idea he was even talking to her. They decide to have a do-over, a cute practice that is repeated throughout their romance. He sits back down and tries again.

Later, over dinner, he continues the ruse when she asks him for his thoughts on the ending of the novel.

“Is she dead?” Emma asks.

“Um, yeah, I think she’s dead,” Charlie says.

“And what about the mirrors?”

“Uh…the mirrors?…I think they’re, um, metaphors,” he sputters.

She stares at him, quizzically, until he finally comes clean: He hasn’t read the book. He just wanted to talk to her.

That lie, while seemingly innocent, was actually pretty dark: He wooed her under false pretenses, pretending to be something he wasn’t. Not necessarily a dealbreaker, but a red flag to be sure. What else would he lie about to get his way?

But here’s the thing: This film isn’t actually about Emma’s safety or whether or not Charlie can be trusted. It’s the opposite. You see, Charlie has told a tiny lie. Emma has been hiding a whopper.

IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BE SPOILED COME BACK AND READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW AFTER YOU’VE SEEN THE FILM!

Okay, so Emma and Charlie get engaged. They’re in love—and they’re happily planning their wedding. Over a tasting dinner of mushroom risotto and too much wine with Charlie’s best man, Mike (Mamoudou Athie) and his wife, Emma’s maid of honor, Rachel (Alana Haim), they play an ill-advised game of “What is the worst thing you’ve ever done?” (I can’t emphasis enough how much you should never play this game.)

They go around the table, admitting some genuinely messed up things, until they get to Emma, who is quite drunk at this point.

“I planned a school shooting,” she says.

Charlie laughs nervously.

Then, with mounting horror, everyone around the table realizes she’s serious.

“I didn’t do it, of course,” Emma says quickly. But the damage has been done.

It’s Rachel, played with exquisite haughtiness by Haim, who storms away in disgust. As far as she’s concerned, Emma is canceled. The wedding is obviously off. And a freaked out Mike essentially agrees with her.

It’s up to Charlie to navigate his conflicting emotions. In the wedding speech he was writing, he extols Emma’s unimpeachable character, but now he thinks, does he ever know her? (There’s a wonderful scene where he begins editing out words like “kindness” and “empathy” in the speech.) He can’t reconcile the woman he thinks he is marrying with a person who would plan such an evil act.

So yes, The Drama is about the impossibility of really knowing someone. And I like the idea of a romcom morphing into a kind of “hell is other people” horror film.

But something about this film really put me off. It’s reminiscent of Tár, a film I actually loved that nonetheless had one glaring flaw. As we know, most so-called “geniuses” who get away with sexual predation are men, but Tár dared to ask the question: What if it was a woman? Flipping that paradigm seemed like provocativeness for its own sake.

It’s worse with The Drama, mostly because it’s not nearly the film Tár is. The majority of school shooters are boys. More specifically, white boys. Why on earth have a movie about a Black woman who considered such violence?

The answer is simple: It’s to center Charlie’s dilemma, his pain, his confusion. I knew without even checking that the film had been written by a man, writer/director Kristopher Borgli (Dream Scenario). The film is entirely from Charlie’s perspective as he drives himself slightly mad with uncertainty.

Pattinson, who burst on the scene playing a heartthrob vampire, has spent the rest of his career trying to undo that fact. He specializes in men on the verge of a nervous breakdown—I feel like I’ve almost never seen him in a film where he doesn’t twitch and sweat—so this is right in his wheelhouse. He’s good at playing Charlie’s increased agitation. Should he go through with the wedding or not?

The ever-captivating Zendaya has the trickier part because her inner life is intentionally opaque—that’s part of the puzzle of the film. We’re supposed to at least entertain the notion that Emma could actually be psychopath, not just a woman who had a troubled adolescence who briefly lost her way.

Zendaya does the best she can with this cryptic character, but I found the whole premise of The Drama off-putting.

Yes, the otherness of our lovers is rich material to mine. But the shock value of this film overpowered its ideas. (It’s like that old fashion insult: “You’re not wearing the jacket. The jacket is wearing you.”) By embracing an outlier and taking the premise to such an extreme, the film lost its grip—both on reality and my interest.