Cyrus Cohen

In the opening minutes of D. Smith’s directorial debut Kokomo City, a trans sex worker called Liyah Mitchell recounts a story that is as harrowing as it is hilarious and heartfelt, it’s clear that this is going to be a different kind of trans documentary. In candid conversations across Atlanta and New York City, Smith turns her camera on four Black trans sex workers and allows them to guide the film. These women – Koko Da Doll, Dominique Silver, Daniella Carter, and the aforementioned Mitchell – invite us into their bedrooms as they discuss transition, sex, money, survival, liberation and much more, coming together to form a portrait of transness, sex work, and Black excellence that defies categorisation. It’s profoundly intimate, but don’t mistake its simplicity for a lack of substance. Each woman brings her whole self to the film, brimming with confidence, authenticity and power. There’s a unique mix of unflinching honesty and acute self-awareness in these women’s testimonies. At times, it feels like we’re witnessing private conversations between old friends, but the content of the discussions is more impactful than most PSAs.  But Smith’s interests or aims for the film do not stop at these women. She makes a point to include interviews with transamorous men, people who might be referred to as ‘chasers’ or ‘Johns’ in other contexts, to peel back the duelling layers of attraction and shame that often spiral into violence against Black trans women. The threat of violence is a

The kids are not alright. Or, at least, that’s one takeaway from Halina Reijn’s smart second feature Bodies Bodies Bodies. Over a stormy weekend in a suburban mansion, seven new and old friends (and frenemies) play a murder-mystery game. When one of them ends up dead, everyone is a potential suspect as paranoia and inebriation lead to revelations of secrets and lies. It may sound like a familiar premise but I guarantee you haven’t seen this movie before.  Somewhere between a slasher, a whodunnit and an R-rated teen comedy, Bodies Bodies Bodies skewers and satirises uber-rich Gen Z-ers: from their attempts to distance themselves from their privilege, to their slang and outsized egos. And while the verbiage involved in that criticism occasionally feels contrived, every word is carefully chosen so that the target of this satire is clear. And that target encompasses David (Pete Davidson), whose family owns the house, his actress girlfriend Emma (Chase Sui Wonders), vapid podcaster Alice (Rachel Sennott), her older boyfriend Greg (Lee Pace), mysterious Jordan (Myha'la Herrold), newly sober Sophie (Amandla Stenberg), and her shy girlfriend Bee (Borat 2 breakout Maria Bakalova), who struggles to connect with the wealthy group. The film zeroes in on the lessons the next generation of one percenters have learned from their parents, their peers and the internet: how to get what you want; how to garner sympathy; how to cast blame onto others; and how to survive even that comes at the pr

Four years after receiving an Oscar nomination as the steely Cyril Woodcock in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, Lesley Manville returns to the realm of ’50s high fashion with an exuberant, effervescent lead performance that flaunts her full comedic and dramatic range.  Adapting American novelist Paul Gallico’s 1958 novel ‘Mrs. ’Arris Goes to Paris,’ director Anthony Fabian and his co-writers fashion a whimsical retelling fit for the modern era, in which Manville plays a good-natured London maid who travels to the elitist ateliers of Paris in the hope of purchasing a Christian Dior gown. Any sense of triteness or materialism in that storyline quickly fades as Fabian and co impart their film with distinct emphasis on the invisible labour of women, solidarity between workers, and the importance of kindness. The scenes in Paris are set amid a strike by the city’s garbage workers; trash litters the street, not as a nuisance to Mrs Harris or her journey, but instead as a fitting symbol of the elite being challenged by collective organising. In the chic halls of Dior, a similar sentiment brews amongst staff as potential firings loom. In a side-plot, two characters, model Natasha (Alba Baptista) and accountant André (Lucas Bravo), directly invoke Sartre as they discuss the nature of being and whether one is defined by what they do or own. Mrs Harris herself exemplifies the film’s morals and message: the quality of one’s character will always matter more than status, wealth, or