For his bracing first feature, The Blow (La Frappe), writer-director Julien Gaspar-Oliveri chose a subject so bleak, many filmmakers wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. And yet this raw and grippingly honest incest drama manages to find a bit of light in the darkness, showing how it’s possible to live with the traumas of sexual abuse. Feverishly performed by newcomer Diego Murgia, who stars alongside César award winner Bastien Bouillon, Gaspar-Oliveri’s moving debut reveals that he’s not only a talented director to watch, but one who’s unafraid to tackle tough scenarios.

The Blow focuses on a disarmingly troubled young man, Enzo (Murgia), who tries so hard to find affection in the eyes of his dad, Anthony (Bouillon), he’s willing to ignore the worst thing a father could ever do to his own son. Enzo spends much of the film in a crushing state of denial, hoping against hope that love will somehow emerge from this mess. He’s so vulnerable that you can’t help feeling his pain — even when he winds up inflicting that pain on others.

Per the press notes, Gaspar-Oliveri (who co-created the successful high school series, Those Who Blush) partially based the story (co-written with Claudia Bottino) on his own life, which seems evident given the emotional authenticity of his characters. Murgia’s portrayal of Enzo is the movie’s breakthrough performance, although Romane Fringeli, who plays the 19-year-old’s abrasive older sister, Carla, is also a standout. Bouillon, meanwhile, continues a string of strong turns (including in The Birthday Party, which screened in Cannes’ main competition this year) that began back in 2022 with Dominik Moll’s thriller The Night of the 12th.

The opening scene, lensed by Martin Rit in grainy close-ups, shows Enzo and Carla carelessly sleeping in bed together, their bodies subtly rising and falling with each breath. It seems like a blissful moment between the two siblings, who share a tight if volatile bond. But as the film progresses and we learn more about their childhood, that scene takes on a very different meaning: one in which proximity can breed both affection and contempt.

With no parents in the picture and Carla moving out to a college dorm, Enzo’s whole life seems to be in front of him. It helps that he has a burgeoning and very loving relationship with new girlfriend Laura (Héloïse Volle), whose parents run a go-kart track that seems to be the main source of entertainment in their working-class suburb of Marseille.

But the state of independence Enzo has achieved at such a young age is broken when his dad returns home after a five-year stint in prison. A scene in which the two discuss Anthony’s future with a parole officer underlines to what extent Enzo has become the man of the household, hiring his own father to help sell kitchen appliances at local flea markets.

Bouillon creates a charming if menacing presence from the get-go, portraying Anthony as a father who’s been out of the loop for too long with regards to both family and civilian life, yet still wants to be in charge. In one sequence foreshadowing what’s to come, Enzo hides in a closet while his dad brings a woman home from the bar, witnessing some awkward and then off-putting sexual behavior. A latter scene in which the boy climbs in bed with Anthony reveals much worse, although it takes Gaspar-Oliveri a while to explain what exactly went down in the past.

What’s most moving about The Blow — whose French title can mean both a physical hit and a young hoodlum — is the way it charts Enzo’s gradual awakening from a kid who’s still too attached to his father, mostly for terrible reasons, to an adult who finally steps back and sees the truth, at which point the trauma is so overwhelming that it takes over. This happens during several explosive scenes in which Enzo lashes out at those who truly love him (his girlfriend; his sister, who wants nothing to do with their dad), searching in vain for someone to quell the suffering.

Murgia is a revelation here, playing a loose cannon who’s also deeply wounded, like a battered dog occasionally showing his teeth and sometimes biting those who feed him. The early moments in the drama, when Enzo is trying his best to please Anthony after he gets out of jail, offering to cook dinner or lending him a few bucks, will just about break your heart. Because deep down, Enzo knows that by getting closer to his dad, he’s also getting further away from his own recovery. It’s the constant push and pull between trauma and salvation that makes The Blow such a powerful experience.

LOS ANGELES, May 28 (UPI) — Power Ballad, in select theaters Friday, introduces several provocative themes about creativity and the music industry. Unfortunately, it only pays them lip service and leaves many important ones on the table.

Rick Power (Paul Rudd) is the lead singer of an Irish wedding band who loses the party crowd when he plays his own originals from his U.S. touring days. At one wedding, the bride invites her childhood friend, former boy band singer Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas).

After singing a duet at the wedding, Danny and Rick spend the night together jamming in Danny’s room. Danny even leaves Rick a generous parting gift, though his promise that Rick can get in touch with him through his managers seems empty.

When Danny’s manager, Mac (Jack Reynor) rejects his new solo submissions, Danny records “How to Write a Song (Without You)” which Rick played for him during their night in Ireland. Rick finds out when he hears it in the mall six months later.

This raises poignant questions about authorship. Rick wrote the song but never recorded it. Danny recorded it and made it a hit, but claimed authorship.

The script by John Carney and Peter McDonald goes into thorough detail about how Rick cannot establish a record of writing the song prior to meeting Danny. He has no demos, never shared it with his wedding band, and even his wife (Marcella Plunkett) and daughter (Beth Fallon) can’t remember it out of all the music he’s played in the house.

It’s less surprising that Mac shuts down Rick’s claim and threatens legal retaliation, which a humble Irish wedding singer could never afford to battle. What’s more surprising is which obvious questions Carney and McDonald never think to ask.

Danny got a hit out of “How to Write a Song (Without You).” He can ride that for a bit but what is he going to do when he has to write another and all he’s got are the same trite songs the label rejected before?

Mac and Danny allude to an EP he released that included “How to Write a Song” but we don’t hear any of the other tracks. What B-sides did Mac accept to justify a tour off one hit single?

Danny tells his girlfriend (Havana Rose Liu) that he wrote the song for her. Not only does she never find out, question or appear again in the film, she also doesn’t find out when he later takes two groupies to the hot tub.

Instead, Power Ballad seems more invested in mocking Rick for claiming he had a hand in a hit. It must be hard to live with the song ubiquitous everywhere he goes, and especially when a married couple requests he perform it for them. It seems particularly heartless when Rick’s wife and daughter mock him for it. That they don’t believe he wrote it suggests far deeper conflict in that family, but the film never gets into that either.

Rick also lashes out too hard when he’s defensive. It becomes uncharacteristically bitter for a John Carney movie.

The ultimate confrontation between Rick and Danny is unsatisfying. Their jam session was genuine, two musicians bonding over the art when Rick does not care about Danny’s celebrity.

By the time they meet again, Danny’s arc is reductively “hurt people hurt people.” He’s insecure, and boy, would it have been interesting to see him put to the test to follow up “How to Write a Song” by… writing another song.

It also strains credulity that “How to Write a Song (Without You)” is the comeback hit for Danny. It’s fine but not notably better than his other demos.

Begin Again and Sing Street had original music that sounded like it could sell albums on its own. Once literally became a Broadway musical. By Power Ballad, we’ve got a song less catchy than fictional movie songs like “That Thing You Do” or “Way Back Into Love” from Music & Lyrics.

The film does contrast Rick’s heartfelt performance with Danny’s poser version. A sold out Madison Square Garden doesn’t know the difference, but the viewer of Power Ballad does.

Other bright spots are sporadic and disjointed. Jonas takes some gentle jabs at boy band music. They’d land harder if his character ultimately did man up.

They do portray diverse weddings. Fortunately, LGBTQ unions get screen time along with more heteronormative ones.

A nightmare visualizes Rick’s real insecurities comically. Rick and bandmate Sandy (McDonald) perpetuate a cute scheme to get past security, and their actual “in” with Danny was legitimately established previously. Sandy choosing music over a party girl hitting on him is endearing.

Carney’s earlier movies were genuinely uplifting and inspiring even with their share of heartbreaks. His film about struggling to regain earlier inspiration ultimately faces the same very dilemma and blows it like the movie’s antagonist does.

Lionsgate will release Power Ballad nationwide June 5.

Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.

BY WYATT ALLISON

In 1976, Dustin Hoffman was the star of a film called Marathon Man, that followed a hotshot Columbia grad embroiled in a plot through his brother, with an evil Nazi war dentist played by the stage/screen legend Laurence Olivier. The film is regarded as one of the best examples of a 1970s paranoia-thriller. Now, 50 years removed from 1976, comes Tuner – a film directed by Oscar award winning documentarian Daniel Roher — also with Dustin Hoffman — that plays like something a little bit mysterious but intriguing, as you see its title on a summer night theater marquee.

Tuner follows Niki White (Leo Woodall), a talented piano tuner with a unique and meticulous auditory condition. As he trails New York City’s streets, hallowed concert halls, and brownstone neighborhoods with his blunt and charismatic mentor Harry Horowitz (Dustin Hoffman), Niki encounters a rotating cast of clients, including Ruthie (Havana Rose Liu), a keen piano student who challenges his moral complexity.

When security contractor Uri (Lior Raz) learns Niki’s hypersensitive hearing is worth more for cracking safes than for opening Yamahas, he offers Niki a dangerous opportunity that could help Harry and his devoted wife Marla (Tony Award–winner Tovah Feldshuh) manage their suffocating medical debt.

As Niki is drawn deeper into the criminal underworld with Uri and his crew, his relationship with Ruthie is threatened, entangling him in a dangerous side hustle that gives his life some unfortunate obstacles.

I caught Tuner back in September of last year at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it really brought the house down. The slick, watchable cadence of this old-fashioned thriller is read like the box of an elevated frozen pizza — perhaps Rao’s? You know exactly what you’re getting into, and chances are you’ll be fairly satisfied and full by the time for dessert.

Director Roher won the Best Documentary Oscar for Navalny, a 2022 film about the poisoning of Russian journalist Alexei Navalny — who was critical about the government and leadership of Vladimir Putin. In Roher’s first narrative film, his guerilla-esque foundation is seen plenty as Tuner unfolds a lot like a documentary. The camera feels invisible, and each character plays off one another to a natural degree.

For Leo Woodall, the performance as Niki is carefully crafted and another entry into the “sad boy” with a talent gauntlet. His hearing gift is utterly believable, and coupled with the exceptional sound design, it’s hard not to find yourself right with Niki as he cracks safes and tries to get the girl. It’s a performance that any young actor should be bidding for, since genre thrillers like this tend to have a longer lifespan in the zeitgeist.

Black Bear Pictures, the independent film distributor behind Christy, could really use a hit. Much like Tuner, the studio is a great example of why more risks should be taken on smaller budget films with some recognizable faces in it. In a theatrical setting that can be clouded out by blockbuster, IP-driven filmmaking, Tuner is something worth seeing on a Friday night at the movies.

Tuner
Directed by Daniel Roher
Regal Downtown West
Released on Friday, May 29, 2026

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