Here (Bas Devos, 2023). This is a lovely film that is in no hurry whatsoever. If someone made the argument that it was too small and contemplative, I wouldn’t agree but would have to concede that I could see where they were coming from. The slender plot follows Stefan (Stefan Gota), an immigrant construction worker in Belgium. He’s on the verge of returning to his home country of Romania when he meets a young scientist (Liyo Gong) who is studying moss. Director Bas Devos parcels out the film’s scenes patiently and with great restraint. The emotions are never heightened. They are resonant, though. Working a trio of credited cinematographers, Devos assembles a film of artfully framed, exquisitely intimate shots. Here is a film that is lived with as much as watched. The final beat of the work relies on a perfect, precise bit of acting from Gong that is a little marvel. It’s all the more impressive knowing that Gong predominately worked as a film editor prior to Devos convincing her to take this leading role.

The Housemaid (Paul Feig, 2025). Adapted from a bestseller by Freida McFadden, The Housemaid is good, trashy fun that’s nicely directed by Paul Feig. For all its unseemly charms, it would have probably benefited from Feig shaving at least fifteen minutes off the runtime. The pacing is lopsided: The set-up flies by, which makes some of the payoff feel needlessly lengthy by comparison. The protagonist is Millie Calloway (Sydney Sweeney), a young woman desperate to secure a job and keep it. After what feels like a failed interview, she’s brought on as live-in hired help by Nina Winchester (Amanda Seyfried), a wealthy woman with a distractible, handsome husband (Brandon Sklenar). Millie hears whispered rumors about the family and is worn ragged by Nina’s erratic demands. There are twists aplenty, and Feig deploys them with a joyful showmanship. Seyfried is a delight to watch in her role. She absolutely tears in the potboiler luridness of it all and outpaces the other actors by a good distance.

Ingrid Goes West (Matt Spicer, 2017). Ingrid Thorburn (Aubrey Plaza) is a painfully lonely, emotionally disturbed woman who is mired in grief over the death of her mother, leading her to seek human connection in a reckless, delusional manner. She becomes obsessed with Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen), a West Coast influencer. Ingrid impulsively moves to California to be closer to Taylor. In short order, Ingrid proceeds to stalk Taylor and insinuate herself into the social media star’s life. There’s just a tinge of satire to this dark comedy, but Ingrid Goes West mainly uses parasocial need as a jumping off point for a character study about a damaged person. Plaza is strong in the lead role, and O’Shea Jackson Jr. is surprisingly good playing a regular guy who gets drawn into her orbit. Jackson’s character is also emblematic of the film’s main flaw. His implausible acceptance of Ingrid’s escalating extreme behavior is continually required to keep the plot going, and that’s hardly the only instance of narrative necessity superseding believability.