IndieWire’s “Screen Talk” co-hosts Anne Thompson and Ryan Lattanzio survey the fall festivals that were in this week’s episode. Both are back from their travels in Venice, Telluride, and Toronto and now look ahead to the New York Film Festival. (Stay tuned for details on IndieWire’s live “Screen Talk” taking place at Lincoln Center during NYFF, too.)
Anne has seen Halina Reijn’s “Babygirl,” which stars Nicole Kidman as a high-powered robotics executive who has an affair with a 25-year-old intern played by Harris Dickinson, so we catch up on that title here. Ryan, meanwhile, finally caught up with “All Quiet on the Western Front” Oscar winner Edward Berger’s papal thriller “Conclave”; it’s an entertaining throwback to the kinds of handsomely mounted midbudget Oscar movies the studios used to make. But with an edge this time thanks to some juicy twists.
We also both like Jon Watts’ caper comedy two-hander “Wolfs,” starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt. The movie would’ve done real business in theaters, we argue, with a serious commitment from Apple. Alas, it’s eking out space on limited screens for just one week (beginning today, September 20) before streaming on Apple TV+ on September 27 in a bid to enhance the company’s subscriber base.
But one movie we vastly disagreed on is Justin Kurzel’s “The Order” (out from Vertical Entertainment later this fall), starring Jude Law as an FBI guy infiltrating an Aryan brotherhood led by Nicholas Hoult. Anne argues the film is well-directed while Ryan says it feels too close to Kurzel’s previous material. As he wrote in his review, “Kurzel already depicted a radicalized killer the last time. And that other time. And the time before that.”
Watch the full episode above or listen to it below.
Screen Talk is produced by Azwan Badruzaman and available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify, and hosted by Megaphone. Browse previous episodes here, subscribe here, and be sure to let us know if you’d like to hear the hosts address specific issues in upcoming editions of Screen Talk.
