7 October 2026
DIGGER ****
This is a love-it or hate-it movie. Tom Cruise has gone out on a limb this time, for he’s not playing his usual big hero, movie-star role, but rather digging into a character-actor part and doing it with great panache. He’s done it before, in such films as “Rainman”, “The Last Samurai” and “Collateral”.
And what better director to collaborate with than the fearless, multi-awarding-winning Mexican master, Alejandro González Iñárritu, who has under his belt such works as “Babel” with Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt, “Biutiful” with Javier Bardem, and “The Revenant” with Leonardo DiCaprio.
In this satirical black comedy, Cruise portrays an eccentric oil billionaire whose company creates an international ecological disaster which he tries to control, along with his buddy, the U.S. President, played by a first-rate John Goodman. There’s also an essential scientist trying to bring some reason into the whole catastrophe, played by a brilliantly mad Riz Ahmed. German actress Sandra Hüller, who is in everything these days, plays his half-sister without a trace of her Teutonic accent. And there are even tender moments with his great love, his emaciated, dying cat.
This is a misunderstood masterpiece that goes through many moods and sequences that literally shout the truths about our endangered future and our duplicitous leaders. Various scenes often resemble frantic, comedic moments of early Wes Anderson films, bits of Dr. Strangelove or even moments of Shakespeare. Cruise’s wild speech to a European Parliament is absolutely shattering in its veracity and actuality. And it’s all done in a whirlwind of decor changes that will have you enthused and astounded at its audacity.
Unfortunately this very worthy film has done badly at the box office due to negative critiques, and the masses who want shiny heroes.
This work is like the paintings of such masters as Van Gogh or Modigliani, who were only fully appreciated later in their time. You’ll see. Dare to go against the critics!
MINOTAUR ***1/2 (vo Russian)
A married couple and their son are the cream of the crop of Russian society. They have a state-of-the-art home, the husband runs a successful firm, though many of his male employees are leaving because of fears about the war in Ukraine. His beautiful wife lives a married role that is becoming stifling for her. She takes a young lover, and he becomes suspicious.
The power of this film, by Russian dissident director Andrey Zvyagintsez – a favourite at Cannes, and winner of this year’s Cannes Grand Prix – is in the slow realisation that this is not only a romantic noir thriller, but also a film about the quiet corruption of the elite, who must endure the government’s edicts. For there is the survival of his company, the infidelity of his wife, and the list he must make of 150 of his employees to be recruited for the ongoing war. A devastating moment in his life that he needs to resolve and control.
The discreet evolution of these diverse events has the steady hand of Zvyagintsev, which he has shown in his previous works such as “Leviathan” and “Loveless”, both top award-winners at various festivals. Darkly sublime.
NAZA *** (vo Hebrew, French and English subtitles at The Scala in GE and Pathé Galeries in Lausanne)
Two Israeli directors, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, have managed to bring out the truths of what has been happening in the annihilation and destruction of Gaza and its people. Most of the documentary takes place at night, on rooftops over Tel Aviv, through interviews with anonymous military personnel who tell of their experiences over the past three years, since the brutal Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 when 1200 Israelis were killed and more than 250 hostages were taken to Gaza.
Various camouflaged men on these dark rooftops describe their military jobs: identifying members of Hamas through their phones, and then killing them and their families by automated drones and airstrikes supported by AI. They say that the innocent civilians that are eliminated are called “Naza”, a Hebrew military acronym for ‘collateral damage’.
The conversations are repetitive and often cold. At times they even say it was like a game they were winning. Others compare what they are doing to the Nazi era, knowing how awful it is, yet seeing it as a part of an entrenched system of hating the enemy.
All the while we are looking at the fine apartment towers of Tel Aviv at night and peering into the windows of secure apartments, with people living normal lives. It feels banal and ironic. In a rare segment, one of these men admits that what they do is genocide – planned and executed both specifically and randomly, in the thousands.
At the end of the film, they write that more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, with more bombings continuing.
When the documentary was first shown at the Venice film festival, it apparently received a standing ovation of more than twenty minutes and won the Special Jury Prize. Here, at the Grütli, in the packed hall, there was only silence.
The message of Abraham and Szor is important, but the form of the documentary is less convincing, due to its arbitrary editing and redundancy, despite its short length of 80 minutes. The 3 stars are for its significance, not for its cinematic quality.
Just a few weeks ago Gideon Levy, the liberal, humanist Israeli journalist for the Haaretz newspaper, was here in Geneva for a two-hour Q&A, reporting the same tragic, untenable news, for both Palestinians and Israelis. His disclosures had a stronger effect.
THE SOCIAL RECKONING **1/2
In 2010, David Fincher made the exciting film “The Social Network” about the beginnings of Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg. It was written by Aaron Sorkin, the talented screenwriter of “The West Wing”, “A Few Good Men” and “Charlie Wilson’s War”, among other gems.
Sorkin has now completed the Zuckerberg saga with this film, which he has also directed. It covers the real findings of the Wall Street Journal reporter, Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White), and his exposé series, titled “The Facebook Files” that were published in 2021. It is a harrowing coverage of Zuckerberg’s (played by Jeremy Strong) character and endless power, with the help of the whistleblower, Frances Haugen, who was a Facebook employee.
Despite good acting and important revelations about the corruption behind the scenes at Facebook/Meta, and its nefarious methods of affecting young people and connecting them to extremist sites, the film feels too heavy in technical jargon and jumps through the years somewhat haphazardly. It is, however, a necessary watch.
VERITY **
This is a glossy, Hollywood thriller that feels like a showcase for the two lovelies that are also its producers – Anne Hathaway and Dakota Johnson.
It’s about the two writers and the husband of one of them – the eternal triangle. Too slick, heartless and obvious – wait until it comes to your TV screen.
Superb **** Very Good *** Good ** Mediocre * Miserable – no stars
By Neptune
Neptune Ravar Ingwersen reviews film extensively for publications in Switzerland. She views 4 to 8 films a week and her aim is to sort the wheat from the chaff for readers.
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