Drama

The Law According to Lidia Poët – Episode 1

  • Title: The Law According to Lidia Poët – Episode 1
  • IMDb: link

The Law According to Lidia Poët - Episode 1

Matilda De Angelis stars as Lidia Poët, the first modern female Italian lawyer who saw the laws changed to prevent her practicing on grounds women shouldn’t be allowed to practice. While barred from arguing her own cases, Poët continued in the profession working in her brother’s offices or relying on other male colleagues to argue her cases in court. The first episode of the series runs through the gamut of Lidia becoming a lawyer, seeing it stripped away on the basis of sex, and working to find a way to continue the profession and help out a sole client charged with the murder of a ballerina.

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Asteroid City

  • Title: Asteroid City
  • IMDb: link

Asteroid City

Writer/director Wes Anderson leans into his quirks and fancies in this 1950s live television production of a play set in the fictional town of Asteroid City. We learn very little about the actors themselves. While most of the events take place in the play itself, characters occasionally break the fourth wall revealing themselves to be the production’s actors and occasionally narration will stop to explain information about the play’s writer Conrad Earp (Edward Norton).

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Maestro

  • Title: Maestro
  • IMDb: link

Maestro

This study of the relationship between Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper, who also directs) and actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein (Carey Mulligan), gives us a peek at the woman behind America’s first great conductor, all the while keeping the Maestro firmly in the spotlight. The film’s first hour or so, much of it set in black and white, is often delightful with its playful and bawdy tone. Moving into middle age and the later years the film turns a bit mean and messy and eventually contemplative, focused on the hard realities of a complicated and  compromised relationship between the pair that was, nevertheless, built on a foundation of love.

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Past Lives

  • Title: Past Lives
  • IMDb: link

Past Lives

Writer/director Celine Song‘s Past Lives examines the haunting touch of love across time and distance. After introducing us to 12 year-old best friends Na Young (Moon Seung-ah) and Hae Sung (Leem Seung-min) on the verge of something more, Na Young’s family leaves South Korea for the United States, and we skip forward 12 years where Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) reconnects with Na Young now Nora (Greta Lee) over the Internet. Living on opposite sides of the globe, the two find their connection in place although the inability to physically connect becomes eventually too great and leads to another 12 year gap where the now married Nora is visited by Hae Sung in New York City.

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Nyad

  • Title: Nyad
  • IMDb: link

Nyad

Based on true events, Nyad offers the attempts of retired long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad (Annette Bening) who in her 60s became obsessed with completing the swim from Havana to Florida which she failed to accomplish in her 20s. While in many ways your typical sports drama featuring an athlete overcoming impossible odds, and driven (and haunted) by personal experience, the film’s story is elevated by the performances of Benning and by Jodie Foster who plays Diana’s best friend and coach throughout her multiple attempts to make history.

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