Writer and director Alex Garland maintains his impressive record of checking critics’ boxes following the reception of his hard-hitting movie Warfare, which at the time of writing has reached 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. Based on the real-life experiences of former U.S. Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza, who co-wrote and co-directed the film, Warfare follows in real time a Navy SEAL platoon venturing through insurgent territory and the relentless, nerve-shredding operation that unfolds there. Boasting a star-studded cast that includes Cosmo Jarvis (Shōgun), Will Poulter (The Bear), Joseph Quinn (Fantastic Four), and Noah Centineo (The Recruit), the film has been praised for its immense realism and relentless depiction of soldiers in battle, following on from his already hard-hitting drama, Civil War.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Garland is working in peak form and with dazzling technical command in what’s arguably his best film since his debut, Ex Machina.” The Times says, “This is a movie that’s as difficult to watch as it is to forget. It’s a sensory blitz, a percussive nightmare, and a relentless assault on the soul.” Meanwhile, MovieWeb says, “Warfare is a nuts-and-bolts account of ferocious combat, bloody, brutal, and terrifying. It is a visceral cinematic experience that will absolutely floor you.”

Movie Review

Tom Michell does not want to be here.

From the moment Michell arrives in Buenos Aires, Argentina—right at the outset of a military coup in the late 1970s–he makes this clear to anyone that will listen.

Hired to teach English at a male boarding school through a tenuous connection to the current headmaster, Michell spends more time with newspaper crosswords than teaching comma rules to his class.

After a few days, the military dictatorship claims control of the city, forcing the boys home. With their impromptu holiday, Michell and the school’s physics teacher travel to Uruguay looking for, in Michell’s words, a chance to “dance, drink, and meet a couple of nice ladies.”

Michell finds just what he was looking for. An evening of flirtation and dancing turns to a nice morning walk on the beach with a woman. But that lovely walk is marred when, in the sunrise, they encounter an oil slick covering the beach. And in that slick are the penguins. Dead, oil-soaked penguins.  

Only one penguin seems to have survived the catastrophe, and it’s barely alive, wiggling its beak and wings in the grime of the oil spill.

Michell’s curmudgeonly reply is to leave the penguin to die. “There’s nothing we can do…You can’t interfere with nature.”

But the woman’s not so inclined to walk on by. She demands they do something, and Tom (who is certainly interested in the woman, if not the penguin) finally agrees. They pick up the oiled penguin and sneak him into their hotel to clean him up.

But romance and oily penguins don’t mix well. Tom’s attempt at seduction quickly fails and the woman leaves him alone with the penguin.

Michell and the penguin stare at each other. They both seem to know he has a choice: One, Michell could try to dump the penguin back on the beach in Uruguay, leaving the bird to its fate. Or two, the teacher could somehow smuggle his new penguin friend through customs back to Argentina and onto campus and evade the strict “no pets” policy at the school.

For fans of animal-centered dramedies, it is not hard to guess what happens next.

But Michell and his penguin (whom he later affectionately names Juan Salvador), are both about to learn how much you really can change when nature interferes with you.

There have been countless movies about people heading back home after some time away and getting a less-than-friendly reception. Some of these characters are just searching for a little peace and quiet, like the ex-boxer, played by John Wayne, who returns to his Irish roots in John Ford’s classic The Quiet Man. And then there are those like Charlize Theron’s misanthropic writer in Young Adult, who blows back into her suburban hometown looking to stir up trouble.

One of the pleasures of Alain Guiraudie’s thriller Misericordia is that you’re never quite sure which camp its protagonist falls into. Jérémie, played by Félix Kysyl, is a man of about 30, and he’s hard to figure out — raffishly handsome, but with something cold and inscrutable in his blue-eyed gaze.

As the movie begins, he’s driving to a tiny French village called Saint-Martial, nestled in a hilly, densely wooded countryside where residents go on long walks and forage for mushrooms. Jérémie has come back for the funeral of his former employer, a baker, who’s just died at the age of 62.

Jérémie stays with the baker’s widow, Martine — she’s played by the great French actor Catherine Frot, and she’s open-hearted and welcoming, allowing Jérémie to stay on for a bit after the funeral. Rather less hospitable is her son, Vincent, who lives nearby with his wife and son, but drops by his mom’s house often, each time making it clear that Jérémie is overstaying his welcome. The two men have some unfinished business; they used to be friends, and there’s a homoerotic undercurrent to their thinly disguised hostility.

Whatever might have happened between Jérémie and Vincent is never spelled out. But what makes Misericordia so unsettling — and also so darkly funny — is its belief that we all walk around carrying our share of latent, inconvenient desires.

Guiraudie is a leading figure in European queer cinema who’s best known for his 2013 gay-cruising thriller, Stranger by the Lake. That movie was a tightly honed exercise in suspense; for all the sun-drenched nudity, it threw off an icy Hitchcockian chill. Since then, though, Guiraudie’s work has gotten looser, weirder and more brazenly out-there, cutting across boundaries in terms of tone, genre and sexuality. His films are full of gay, straight and often cross-generational romantic pairings — indeed, his fascination with May-December encounters may be the most taboo thing about his work.

In Misericordia, Jérémie has no shortage of potential lust objects; he flits from one erotic possibility to another with a callous lack of investment. He seems to have had a thing for his former boss. He hits on a burly older friend who violently rebuffs him — at least initially. There’s also a village priest skulking about, played by a hilarious Jacques Develay, who seems to know all Jérémie’s secrets — and harbors a few of his own.

Misericordia becomes a small-town murder mystery of sorts, complete with dead body, cover-up and police investigation. But this isn’t one of those puzzles where the truth comes tumbling out in a sudden flurry of flashbacks and revelations. Guiraudie doesn’t have much use for the past; he’s interested in how his characters respond in the here and now. Misericordia knows exactly what it’s doing and also seems to be making itself up as it goes along. It’s meticulous and smart, but it’s also spontaneous and alive.

The title is the Latin word for “mercy,” and as with so much here, it’s shrouded in ambiguity. Jérémie receives more than his share of compassion from others, like Martine, who is ludicrously patient with him, and the priest, who, in one example of the movie’s topsy-turvy moral logic, insists on confessing his sins to Jérémie.

Guiraudie himself grew up in a small town in southern France, and he clearly loves telling stories set against wild and evocative landscapes, where anything can happen. Jérémie is clearly drawn to this place, too. For all its impish humor, Misericordia turns out to be an entirely sincere portrait of a small town where bakeries, farms and a whole way of life are on the verge of disappearing. Perhaps making this movie was Guiraudie’s own small act of mercy — a reminder for Jérémie, and the rest of us, that sometimes, maybe you can go home again.