The English director Mark Jenkin works a bit like a local artisan from another era. Filming in and around his native Cornwall, he shoots his pictures himself on a 16mm Bolex, the kind of camera that might have been used by film students decades ago and that produces tactile, slightly grainy images. He also edits the movies himself, and records his sound later, layering in dialogue and effects and music (sometimes composed by himself) with an austere, handcrafted precision. This gives Jenkin’s work a certain timelessness, as if it belongs to the past but not to any specific period of the past. True, such an old-fashioned approach could feel performative, like an unusually well executed Instagram filter. But Jenkin’s style ties directly to his subjects and his expressive philosophy. His latest, Rose of Nevada — which stars two name actors, Callum Turner and George MacKay, and opens in New York today after doing the festival rounds — has the beguiling simplicity of a fable and the captivating textures of a dream. It stays with you like an unexpected and unanswerable question.

Jenkin privileges atmosphere through the collection of minute, sometimes abstract details. Set in a sparsely populated and depressed fishing village, Rose of Nevada opens with the unexpected return of the empty boat of the title, thought lost decades ago. Its arrival is announced by close-ups of barnacles, of rusty edges on ancient metal, of curious plant growth and moldy, tangled coils of black rope, as if its return was just part of a broader natural order. The Rose of Nevada clearly has a tragic history, which perhaps explains the psychological paralysis of the few remaining townsfolk. But it’s here, and so it must set off on a new fishing voyage.

Joining the journey, almost as if they were pulled towards it, are Nick (MacKay), a downcast man who needs money and seems incapable of meeting his young family’s most basic needs, and a drifter, Liam (Turner), whom we first see running down a road as if he were fleeing something. Both men are alienated from their environs, though for different reasons: MacKay conveys Nick’s quiet awkwardness well, and Turner has a charming, freewheeling energy that suggests he’s up for anything. When they return from the fishing expedition, however, the two men find that they’ve transported back several decades in time, and they’re mistaken for — or rather, they appear to be inhabiting the bodies of — two young deckhands who died long ago. Now that it’s the 1990s again, the fishing village is thriving, its local pub crowded with people and blaring pop. Nick and Liam see the younger, happy versions of the broken townspeople they’d left behind. Liam (now known as Alan) suddenly has a family, and Nick (now known as Luke) suddenly has parents. It’s almost as if the young men have been offered to the harvest gods as a sacrifice. And it’s worked.

So, it’s a ghost story, and a time travel story, and a folk tale, and something of a kitchen sink drama, but it’s also none of these things, really, and that’s where Jenkin’s formal gambits come in. His filmmaking has a lovely, homespun directness. We can feel scenes and moments being constructed, which fixes our attention on seemingly simple exchanges. An example: Early on, we see Nick hand his daughter a candy. Other filmmakers might shoot such a scene in a quick, offhand manner to mask its emotional weight, but Jenkin goes in the opposite direction, shooting everything in relative close-up and cutting the action to both extend and clarify it: We see Nick pull the candy out of its box, we cut to the girl receiving the candy, we see his wife see the girl, we cut to the wife taking the candy, we cut to a close-up of her unwrapping it, we cut to the girl getting the candy back, and we see Nick’s response. On some level, this could be an introductory filmmaking exercise: a whole series of extremely deliberate shots and edits designed to show this man’s feeling of inadequacy. But within the general precision of Jenkin’s style, the moment doesn’t stand out. Instead, it’s one in a long line of specific, human moments through which he builds his narrative and conjures a mood.

Such straightforwardness give Rose of Nevada a fable-like quality: There’s no narration, but we feel the deliberate rhythms of the storytelling, the telling emphasis on certain details over others. But weirdly, it also has something of the opposite effect: The film’s intimacy and Jenkin’s attention to the elements (along with his fondness for elliptical, well-timed flash frames) lends everything an otherworldly aura. Despite the time travel premise, nobody’s running around looking for a time machine to take them back, nor are they wasting much time trying to figure out how the dynamics of time travel work. The writer-director lets the unexplainable remain unexplained, because he’s interested more in our emotional response to it. We watch how people interact with these transformed versions of Nick and Liam, and we watch Nick and Liam’s own disparate responses to this new world, to the competing philosophies of life that emerge from this bewitching film. Rose of Nevada’s power lies in its peculiarities.

Movie: Maa Inti Bangaaram
Rating: 2.5/5
Banner: Tralala Moving Pictures
Cast: Samantha, Gulshan Devaiah, Srinivas Gavireddy, Manjusha Mukkavilli, Diganth, Sreemukhi, Gautami, Anand, Lakshmi, Rachana, and others
Music Director: Santhosh Narayanan
DOP: Om Prakash
Editor: Dharmendra Kakarala
Producers: Raj Nidimoru, Samantha, Himank Reddy Duvvuru
Written by: Raj Nidimoru, Vasanth Maringanti
Directed by: BV Nandini Reddy
Release Date: June 19, 2026

Nearly three years after her last lead-role outing, Samantha returns to the big screen with “Maa Inti Bangaaram.” The film marks an important milestone in her career, serving as a comeback vehicle and also her first collaboration with husband Raj Nidimoru, who has co-produced the film and penned the story for this family action drama.

The big question is: has Samantha delivered a strong comeback with “Maa Inti Bangaaram”? Let’s find out.

Story
Swarna (Samantha) arrives with her husband at her in-laws’ village home to attend a family wedding. It is their first visit after marriage, as her husband had married her against his parents’ wishes.

Hoping to win over the family, Swarna settles into the household and tries to impress everyone, even seeking help from a friend for her cooking.

Just when she begins to feel accepted, trouble arrives. A group of men starts searching for her, determined to find out whether she is really Swarna or someone named Jhansi.

As the story unfolds, her hidden past comes to light. Years ago, she escaped from her mentor Karuna (Gulshan Devaiah) after discovering his true intentions. Since then, she has been living under different identities before eventually finding love and marrying her husband. Now, Karuna, who has completed a prison sentence, is back and determined to reclaim her at any cost.

Can Swarna protect herself and her newfound family from Karuna?

Performances
Samantha slips comfortably into the role. Despite returning to a lead role after nearly three years and overcoming health challenges, she retains her star presence and carries much of the film on her shoulders. While this may not rank among her best, she convincingly handles both the emotional and action-heavy portions, particularly in the second half.

Diganth plays her husband and delivers a decent performance, though the role offers him little scope. Gulshan Devaiah initially makes an impact as the antagonist, but the character gradually becomes routine, limiting his effectiveness.

Manjusha Mukkavilli gets a well-written supporting role and leaves a positive impression. Sreemukhi is adequate in her brief part.

Vennela Kishore appears in a cameo, while the rest of the cast performs within the requirements of their conventional roles.

Technical Aspects
Santosh Narayanan’s background score works reasonably well and elevates several scenes, especially in the latter half.

Cinematography is functional without offering any standout visuals. Production design serves the narrative adequately.

The film’s biggest technical shortcomings lie in its writing and editing. The dialogues rarely stand out, and the screenplay unfolds without enough surprises or dramatic highs.

A tighter edit and shorter runtime could have significantly improved the film’s overall impact.

Highlights
Samantha’s screen presence and performance
A few engaging moments in both halves
Some clever references

Drawbacks
Predictable screenplay
Unconvincing backstory
Lack of strong dramatic moments

Analysis
“Maa Inti Bangaram” is neither the emotional family drama audiences typically associate with Nandini Reddy nor the stylish action-driven narrative one expects from Raj Nidimoru’s storytelling sensibilities. Instead, it attempts to blend family drama with action, placing Samantha in a role usually reserved for a male commercial hero.

The basic premise feels familiar. Like many mainstream action films, it revolves around a protagonist whose troubled past threatens the peaceful life they have built. The difference here is that Samantha occupies the center of that narrative, taking on responsibilities and action beats traditionally assigned to male stars.

The first half unfolds largely as a family drama. Nandini Reddy focuses on the dynamics between the new daughter-in-law and her in-laws, presenting a series of domestic situations and emotional tests. The portions involving Samantha seeking help from her friend to impress the family with her cooking generate some humor and provide the film with a few enjoyable moments. Apart from these stretches, however, the narrative progresses at a measured pace.

The film gradually reveals why Jhansi became Swarna and why Karuna remains obsessed with finding her. While the backstory involving Naxalism provides the necessary motivation for the conflict, it never feels entirely convincing or emotionally compelling.

Once the central conflict is fully revealed by the interval, the film shifts gears. The second half becomes a straightforward battle between Swarna and the force threatening her family. While this creates a clear objective, it also reduces the scope for surprises.

A couple of scenes work reasonably well, and the climax action sequence inside the house provides some excitement, but the overall narrative goes on expected manner.

The film deserves credit for attempting something different within the commercial framework. Giving a female protagonist the kind of role usually written for male stars is a refreshing idea. Unfortunately, the execution lacks the emotional depth and dramatic strength needed to make the concept truly resonate.

Even the husband’s character feels somewhat artificial, functioning largely as a gender-reversed version of the supportive spouse often seen in hero-centric films.

Interestingly, some of the film’s most enjoyable moments come not from the action but from its lighter touches. References to older films, the creative use of the song “Mutyamantha Muddu,” and Samantha’s largely saree-clad appearance throughout the film, including during action sequences, add a distinctive flavor.

Ultimately, “Maa Inti Bangaram” attempts to merge family drama with female-led action. However, predictable storytelling and underdeveloped drama prevent it from reaching its full potential. The film remains watchable largely because of Samantha’s star appeal, but it never evolves into the engaging and emotionally satisfying experience it aspires to be. It makes an okay watch.

Bottomline: Not Pure Gold

For whatever reason, I never reviewed the first season of “Sugar,” which I’d stopped watching before its late-season big reveal — the detective (Colin Farrell as John Sugar) is an alien. Had that happened earlier in the story I might have hung on, but strictly as a production, I’d found its brand of neo-noir to be mannered, gimmicky, obvious, overdirected (by Fernando Meirelles, the Brazilian director of the fine “City of Men”) and, as you may have surmised, off-putting.

This is by way of announcing that the second season arrives Friday on Apple TV and that I like it very much. The stylistic eccentricities have been dialed back, including the use of old Hollywood film clips to reflect the action and possibly the thoughts of its main character, a cinephile from space, who is both practicing and enacting the work of a private detective. He reads American Cinematographer; he takes the Paramount studio tour, then takes it again.

One might navigate the new season without having watched the first, though at least reading an online synopsis. Sam Catlin (“Preacher”) has taken over as showrunner from series creator Mark Protosevich; the tone is lighter, the plot less perverse. Under new director of photography Marshall Adams, the camerawork, formerly too quirky by half — a mishmash of lenses and film stocks and canted angles — has settled down, as has the editing, enhancing the story by letting it breathe and staying out of the way of Farrell’s singular performance — the series’ distinguishing feature and warm heart.

For all his influences, Det. Sugar is the one character who can’t easily be traced back to an earlier model. As detectives go, he’s unusually sweet, optimistic, diplomatic, willing to give a villain a way out, closer to the Man Who Fell to Earth than to Sam Spade. He loves animals, and they love him.

Farrell, who also narrates in a soft voice, often wears a look of shy incomprehension, as if a beat behind in translating the world around him, a stranger in a strange land.

As aliens go, he is also something of a lightweight, demonstrating some mild telekinetic abilities (making a tennis ball float to entertain a pack of dogs, stirring the ice cubes in his drink) and the ability to speak any language, which underscores his empathetic nature. He makes friends with cab drivers, tour guides and security guards; as an “immigrant,” he appreciates immigrants. He’ll do the dishes for a woman too grief-stricken to attend to them, explain to a man who hates his own name that it’s a reference to Bogart’s character in “Casablanca” and a sign of his mother’s love. He can drink as much alcohol as he likes — his metabolism keeps him from getting drunk — which makes him indefatigable company in a bar, but he is horribly allergic to cinnamon. Remember that, if you’re ever forced to defend yourself from an ET.

Where classic noir detectives tend to be middle-class sorts a job or two ahead of losing their office, Sugar has a lot of money, whether saved up from earlier high-priced cases — his Season 1 client is a rich old man ripped from “The Big Sleep” — or piped down from space. He wears expensive suits, lives in a bungalow in a high-end Los Angeles hotel but also buys a house in the Hollywood Hills because its view allows him to spy on a dodgy character from Season 1; and drives a Nassau Blue 1966 convertible Corvette that he blithely parks in bad neighborhoods with the top down. When the car actually is stolen in this season’s opening episode, it brings him into contact with Val (Sasha Calle, Supergirl in “The Flash” movie), a spunky, punky petty criminal who negotiates its return and whom Sugar makes his assistant; I wouldn’t say Calle is underused, but I would have liked to see more of her.

Sugar came to Earth as part of a group of “thousands,” mixing among humans incognito just to observe them, for benign alien reasons, like Starship Enterprise on its five-year mission. (We get a flashback to Sugar’s first days on Earth, before he acquired the suits and the car and settled on a profession.) At the end of Season 1, their cover being blown, and humans being famously weird when it comes to extraterrestrials — you’ve seen the movies — they return home en masse, except for Sugar. He’s still working a missing persons case of his own, looking for his sister, hopefully alive, somewhere on the planet. And he’s becoming more of an Earthman — the dangers of assimilation are a specific Season 1 plot point. On top of that, like a lot of people, he just loves L.A.

Laura Donnelly as flirtatious Charlotte in “Sugar.”

(Jason LaVeris / Apple TV)

And then there’s Charlotte (Laura Donnelly), whom he meets in the bar of his hotel; it doesn’t take a degree in postwar genre fiction to recognize that there may be something fishy, perhaps “fatale,” about her. But like Sugar, we’re content to put that question off as long as possible, in the hopes that maybe this relationship will be as uncomplicated as we’d like it to be, and a tonic for Sugar’s loneliness. (He no longer has his dog, even.) He regularly gets on the subspace shortwave looking for any others of his kind left on Earth.

The new season will get around to that question, though the alien and earthly plot lines are kept on separate tracks. Most of the time “Sugar” functions as a straightforward compelling detective story, as the protagonist hunts for Ji Moon (Raymond Lee), the missing junkie brother of Danny Moon (Jin Ha), a talented young Korean American prizefighter on the first rung of the ladder to success. (Sugar is working pro bono, not needing the money but very much needing something to do.) It brings him into the orbit of drug dealers and crooked police officers and through an array of Southland locations, including the Beverly Center — finally, a good use for that place — Koreatown, the Vista Theater and the Huntington Gardens.

While there’s nothing particularly novel about that plot, it pulls you along, and the series as a whole is orchestrated to make one care about the characters and worry over their fates. Vivid minor characters — there are pro turns from Shea Whigham, Laura San Giacomo and Mireille Enos — make the story live. All in all, a good meal that leaves no bitter aftertaste.