Day: May 16, 2025

Drowned Land was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2025! It had its showing on Friday, May 16th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle Premiere of this film! You an see my interview with the director, Colleen Thurston, here!

A Civil Action. Dark Waters. Films about lawyers going after corporations who have poisoned the water in communities and refuse to take action to fix it. Films where the little guy has to stand up to Mr. Moneybags, and well, it doesn’t go well. Sure, there is some success, but when compared to the extreme damage done to these communities, it gives a strong Pyrrhic victory vibes behind it.

So, what is the problem can be stopped at its source?

In Drowned Land, we head to Kiamichi River, where many natives in Oklahoma live, after being moved during the Trail of Tears. Not just Native Americans either, plenty of other folk use the valley and the river. But we have, like in those movies, a company who wants to come up and turn it into a hydroelectric dam, flooding parts, affecting the wildlife, and the residents both up and downstream in different amounts.

And this documentary is about the local residents coming together to put a stop to this. They don’t want it to be touched. They want to save it, and so they go to the hearing, with personal narratives, facts, science on their side, to see if they can prevent future tragedy from befalling upon their community.

And its not just about protecting beautiful sights, but hey, its a bonus. You know the beginning of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, where Earth apparently didn’t make the hearing to save itself, so it went kabloom? Well, apparently those meetings are useful. Splice with scenes of community members talking about the river, and museum visits and more, we get to see snippets of the two day hearing, where community members brought their voices and expertise to say why the dam should not be built.

And of course, the most surprising part about this, is they were successful.

For now.

Because this was not the first time it was attempted, and won’t be the last time, unless they can get legislature protecting the area forever. Which is the next goal. But holy shit, they won? Even if just a small step towards staying free from this construction, that is such a massive uplifting feeling. I have seen a lot of protest documentaries about constructions on native lands, and trying to stop corporation take over. I feel like the corporation always wins, and we see why everything is corrupt.

If anything, this documentary should be shown just to see that it can be done, it just takes a village working together.

But besides that, I am sad to say, the parts between the hearing just failed to keep my interest as much. I am a political and legal junkie, I would have loved it if the whole thing was just that one aspect myself. The human interest stuff, I get it, but it felt a little bit more like padding than anything else.

2 out of 4.

Four Mothers was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2025! It was the opening night film of the festival, on Thursday, May 15, and it was the Seattle Premiere of this film!

How many mothers is the right number of mothers to have? An average number has to be somewhere around 1 I imagine, but people sometimes have fewer, sometime they have more. But rarely do they have four. And thankfully, our lead doesn’t actually have four here either.

Edvard (James McArdle) is a romance novelist for the YA crowd. He is a gay man, and his books feature gay romance, but he thinks his writing is a bit better and more important than simple romance. Right now his book is set to come out in America, and it is getting strong buzz before it comes out. So he wants to really capitulate on the buzz and maybe earn him the success he always felt he deserved.

Unfortunately for Edvard, he also lives with his mother, Alma (Fionnula Flanagan), who doesn’t speak anymore and uses a tablet to speak instead. She is old, she is closed to death, and he is her caretaker. It does mean he has no social life and he is thinking about of leaving her in a home, just to give him some time to find that life success. But he is also a coward and doesn’t think he can do it.

Regardless, he is about to set up a US tour for his book when his two best friends, also gay and also caretaking their moms, decide to ditch their mothers on his door step so they can go to a big pride festival for a few days. And his therapist, older, in the same scenario, drops his mom off too. Oh look. Four moms! So now he has to juggle four older women, with different schedules and temperaments, while he is trying to do something great in his life at the same time. Hooray!

The other mothers are played by Dearbhla Molloy, Stella McCusker, and Paddy Glynn.

They are probably not watching porn here. I think we need more Irish films for sure. Such a small country, with a small population, but they got stories to say too, even if things get a little bit US centric with the plot line. (Damn United States, always butting in other countries stories…).

Anyways, I will say I liked this concept for a story. A struggling author of a niche topic, looking to get big, dealing with underrepresented groups could lead to a lot of things. And this is a caretaker story at the same time, and caretakers, despite being a pretty large group, are often underrepresented in media as well. Or, if they are represented it is usually more of a tragedy drama, than a comedy or uplifting drama. This falls into the latter category. And, because of that, I don’t think it is able to reach the lofty goals it aspires to be.

The stronger emotional moments I feel go away too quickly. For example, the father who is clearly not in the picture, and his story, is brought up and leads to conflict, but only in smaller amounts despite holding a lot of weight. The idea of a temporary home while he invoked on a 2-3 week US tour made a lot of sense, and the drama behind it felt…extra. It was a shame. The film didn’t seen to hint enough to find out why certain decisions were derisive, and I just felt bad for the main character most of the film.

The ending itself is exactly where someone would probably assume this movie landed. You know, knowing it is a comedy/drama instead of a tragedy/drama. So I wasn’t surprised when we arrived at the ending. But unfortunately the journey wasn’t fully worth it either.

All of that to say, I liked most of the main characters, including our main guy. I think the side stories of his life had a lot of heart behind them, and the acting from everyone was still top notch. But pleasant films aren’t always going to be the most exciting films.

2 out of 4.