Dust Bunny, 2025.

Written and Directed by Bryan Fuller.
Starring Sophie Sloan, Mads Mikkelsen, Sigourney Weaver, David Dastmalchian, Rebecca Henderson, Sheila Atim, and Nóra Trokán.

SYNOPSIS:

An eight-year-old girl asks her scheming neighbor for help in killing the monster under her bed that she thinks ate her family.

As far as cinematic metaphors go, the idea of monsters as hitmen from the perspective of an eight-year-old girl is rather inspired. It also works since writer/director Bryan Fuller doesn’t stop at just the idea, but also grounds Dust Bunny in a fantasy-lite world that keeps viewers on their toes, wondering what is real and what is magical, even when we begin to suspect where the filmmaker will inevitably go with the answers.

Similarly, the script is also whimsical, sometimes rhymes, and peppered with humor that brings to mind a children’s fairytale. Everything about Bryan Fuller’s narrative vision is so confidently and imaginatively realized that it also doesn’t matter that he doesn’t necessarily have the financial backing to ensure the CGI is top-of-the-line, although it is serviceable for the material.

Terrified of the monster under her bed (a monstrously oversized dust bunny), Aurora’s (Sophie Sloan) parents naturally assume she is fibbing and that her fears are the result of a hyperactive imagination. Her parents are murdered offscreen, though, by something, and given that much of the film is from her perspective, that is accomplished through special-effects-driven moving floorboards and destruction. The monster also seems to come out only when someone touches the floor (which no one believes Aurora about), meaning the now-orphaned girl moves around her house in a makeshift boat. This also means that this is not the first time monsters have gotten her parents.

One night, Aurora notices a stranger (credited as Intriguing Neighbor and played by regular Bryan Fuller collaborator, the endlessly engaging no matter the role, Mads Mikkelsen, here in what is tonally a riff on Leon the Professional by way of Guillermo del Toro) sneaking around and trying to remain undetected, seemingly focused on something with great purpose. It turns out the man is an assassin of monsters, taking down a multi-eyed dragon in Chinatown during what appears to be a highly festive celebration of the Chinese New Year. Naturally, Aurora gets the idea to send over an envelope of money, hiring him to kill the monster under her bed. The neighbor (who is amusingly always being corrected for pronouncing Aurora as “Erora”) insists that he doesn’t kill monsters. Meanwhile, Aurora assures him she knows what she saw.

Working with his handler, Laverne (Sigourney Weaver), the neighboring assassin can deduce that whoever killed Aurora’s parents got the wrong apartment number and had meant to kill him. Much more cold-blooded and straight to the point, she also encourages him to get rid of the girl since she knows his face. However, this violent hitman also has a soft spot and takes it upon himself to inquire into the girl’s life and to offer protection, feeling responsible for the death of her parents.

The film also works so well as a two-hander that it can be occasionally frustrating, and it doesn’t quite work whenever the story incorporates smaller supporting players into the mix (these scenes also come across as padding to fill time). There also isn’t much concern about fleshing out this assassination world or the types of clients the neighbor is generally tasked with taking out.

By the time another group of hitmen, led by underappreciated character actor David Dastmalchian, enters the picture, Bryan Fuller is ready to fully merge reality and fantasy into an exciting piece of cleanly shot, wondrous action. Dust Bunny relies heavily on its central metaphor but is elevated by the charm of its lead performances and their interplay. Sure, there isn’t much here regarding depth, but that’s more than made up for with the imagination on hand.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder

Along with Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, Melissa McCarthy is one of those performers who’s been on “Saturday Night Live” so many times, as a host or making extremely memorable guest appearances, that it’s easy to forget she wasn’t an actual cast member.

McCarthy sure could have been, as she demonstrated again in her sixth time as host, where she showed off her incredible commitment to comedic bits. She has a knack for heightening moments and introducing characters that range from sad, weird loners to shifty and overconfident schemers. Even when McCarthy is simply portraying a heightened version of herself, as in this episode’s monologue, she’s apt to fling herself over a piano bench or introduce a new talent, namely “mouth horn” (more on that in a bit).

As reliable a comic force as McCarthy can be, she can still be held back by weak writing, as has happened a few times in past appearances. In this episode, she benefited from coming off a strong cold open featuring Colin Jost as aggressive Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and a funny monologue to launch into a trio of sketches that were as great as any she’s done on the show before, despite a few instances of her microphone sounding muffled.

She played a clingy woman who latches on to a supermarket worker (Jeremy Culhane) handing out cheese samples, a seemingly friendly elderly neighbor who goes to extremes to show her friendship to a 12-year-old boy, and a terrible UPS employee caught misbehaving on someone’s doorbell camera.

Things got a little bumpier after “Weekend Update” with sketches that pushed McCarthy back to supporting roles, like one that featured Andrew Dismukes as an overly sensitive Sunday supper host and one about moms who play truth or dare for the first time (it gets sexual very quickly). These were fine, but didn’t take advantage of McCarthy’s skills as much and felt like they could have been done any other week.

Later on, things improved when McCarthy played the mayor of Cousin Planet in a very silly music video from Jane Wickline and Veronika Slowikowska, and one half of a New York City couple (with Bowen Yang) showing off their kitschy holiday decorations for Spectrum News NY1.

McCarthy is a comedic national treasure and when she’s allowed to fire on all cylinders on “SNL,” as she was in a few of the night’s sketches, there’s nothing like it.

Musical guest Dijon performed “HIGHER!” and “Baby!/Another Baby!” Before the goodbyes, a title card honored Craig Kellem, a producer on the first season of “Saturday Night Live” who died this week.

This week’s cold open brought back Jost as Hegseth in a White House press conference. Jost played him as a petulant, energy drink-chugging bully, who starts by asking the assembled reporters, “Where are the fatties?” Referencing the U.S. attacks on sea vessels in Venezuela, he told the reporters, “Pretend I’m a random fishing boat and fire away.” Matt Gaetz (Sarah Sherman) was among the reporters, showing up to ask if the U.S. was intercepting all illegal things being transported across borders, or just drugs. Hegseth made pop culture references in his responses, including invoking “6-7” and singing some of the famous “Animaniacs” nations of the world song. A sleepy President Trump (James Austin Johnson) seated near Hegseth woke up from a sexy dream about New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani to remind us that the “fog of war” only comes up when people are trying to hide war crimes before napping again. “We gotta get him to another MRI before he wakes up,” Hegseth said.

In her monologue, McCarthy kicked off Christmas season on “SNL” by showing off her talent for “mouth horn,” a kind of humming/blowing/beatboxing of songs like “Carol of the Bells.” She got a lot of snow dumped on her and fought with cast member Marcello Hernández as he tried to move a piano across the stage. Dejected, McCarthy was joined by Kenan Thompson, whom she called “Santa Kenan” before cast members came on stage to close it out with “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” with McCarthy mouth horning the song.

Best sketch of the night: Firing of the worst UPS employee is USPS’s gain

McCarthy plays Donna, a UPS delivery driver who has been hurling packages on a customer’s porch, opening up boxes and even squatting to relieve herself until it’s dark, all revealed in a series of security videos. Donna’s denials, her attempts to scoot out of the meeting with UPS managers (Mikey Day and Ashley Padilla), her fake fainting and her tenacity in chewing on paper while Day tries to pull it from her mouth were all excellent. So much so that Day, who has worked with McCarthy since her days at The Groundlings, starts to break character and hold back laughs, something extremely rare for him.

Also good: Cousins don’t even exist in July

You could make a strong argument that the video about the vengeful elderly woman and the supermarket sketches were better showcases for McCarthy, but there’s something catchy and true about this low-fi video that considers where cousins go when you don’t see them during the holidays. It turns out they live on Cousin Planet where family secrets are revealed and every conversation is catching up. The first rule is that cousins shouldn’t hook up, but the second rule is that the first rule is flexible. This video is funny, weird and a great showcase for featured players Wickline and Slowikowska.

‘Weekend Update’ winner: That’s it, drunk raccoon, you’re cut off

Ben Sherman was entertaining as Lance, a redhead who was badly sunburned on vacation (he even brought a ginger boys’ choir), but it was tough to top Sarah Sherman’s all-over-the-desk portrayal of the drunk racoon that went viral after being found passed out in a Virginia liquor store. Sherman asked “Update” co-presenter Jost if they’d hooked up the night before and kept propositioning him (“I’ll ride your head like a Davy Crockett hat”) while also abusing him (“Quiet, piggy!”). The guest bit benefited from a nice use of cuts to black and white to show Sherman as a raccoon caught on a Ring camera.

A Private Life, 2025.

Directed by Rebecca Zlotowski.
Starring Jodie Foster, Daniel Auteuil, Virginie Efira, Mathieu Amalric, Vincent Lacoste, Luàna Bajrami, Noam Morgensztern, Sophie Guillemin, Frederick Wiseman, Aurore Clément, Irène Jacob, Park Ji-Min, Jean Chevalier, Emma Ravier, Scott Agnesi Delapierre, and Lucas Bleger.

SYNOPSIS:

The renowned psychiatrist Lilian Steiner mounts a private investigation into the death of one of her patients, whom she is convinced has been murdered.

The first order of business here is to note that the so-called renowned psychiatrist Lilian Steiner is French, meaning that Jodie Foster speaks French throughout the majority of co-writer/director Rebecca Zlotowski’s mystery A Private Life. Her accent and handling of the language are also impressive, and that alone is a reason to check out the film. It also must be mentioned that Lilian isn’t precisely a psychiatrist fully attentive to her patients; if anything, she seems bored by them, which is perhaps part of the reason why her mind concocts a riddle to solve within her recordings when a patient, Paula Cohen-Solal (Virginie Efira), turns up dead.

One of Lilian’s patients also shows up hostile, demanding that their sessions be finished as he has found a hypnotist capable of curing his vices (smoking) in a limited time. This also piques her curiosity and brings her to that same hypnotist, where, even though she is condescending and dismissive of the entire concept, she finds herself falling under a spell that could hold clues to uncovering the murderer. With that said, it’s as much a film about Lilian questioning her purpose and the methods deployed regarding her line of work as it is a crafty, twisty puzzle box to solve.

Divorced from her husband, Lillan gets roped into helping Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil), who gets roped into her bumbling around, which inevitably leads to discussions about their failed love life. Similarly, Lillan also has a fractured relationship with her grown son, Julian (Vincent Lacoste), now a parent himself, with the running joke that whenever she stops by, the baby wakes up and starts crying profusely. Her personal life is rife with confusion, and her professional life is a bore, pushing her further and further into a mystery that might solely be in her head.

Not to give too much away, but there probably wouldn’t be a movie if there was absolutely nothing to solve here. Naturally, A Private Life has plenty of suspects that crop up from the tapes Lilian plays back to herself, searching for something that will point her in the right direction. It turns out that Paula also led a dysfunctional family life, but, more concerning, it could also be a suicide potentially aided by Lilian herself, once accidentally prescribing the wrong dosage of medicine. With the way some of those recordings are shot and presented in a hazy, hypnotic flashback form, complete with close-ups of Paula lying down on the couch, one also begins to wonder if there is a psychosexual angle at play here.

It shouldn’t be any surprise that A Private Life (co-written by Anne Berest, in collaboration with Gaëlle Macé) is also aggressively silly while cycling through every potential suspect, and that, even if there are clear answers here, the narrative is less about what happened and more about and more proper, present method of conducting therapy. The message the film ultimately lands on there isn’t entirely convincing. To be fair, everything involving the hypnotism is also quite absurd and strains credulity. However, it doesn’t take away from the fact that this is still an entertaining mystery with some compelling character work and an engrossing, controlled spiral of a performance from Jodie Foster.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist

Originally published December 6, 2025. Updated December 7, 2025.