way to watch a good movie. I have a very surreal memory of that movie and want to watch it again in the way a movie should be watched. I like Paul Mescal too. I regret missing him on stage earlier this year as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. He won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in London for this role and the production transferred to the Brooklyn Academy of Music here in Brooklyn. It was a sold out limited run. I want to catch up with him in Normal People. I read the novel but haven’t seen the miniseries yet.
I saw The Lost Daughter when it was first released. I was particularly interested to see Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut. She picked a very good story, and the casting is brilliant. Olivia Coleman did obsession so well. And like you, I really like Jessie Buckley. I didn’t know at the time that it was based on an EF book — I’m not sure I even knew who she was at the time — but I wish I had read the book first. I probably won’t go back and read it now, but I did finally get my hands on My Brilliant Friend and I am loving it.
I’m a big fan of Elena Ferrante’s writing. Most recently I read her The Lying Life of Adults. Netflix did a miniseries based on it that I want to watch. HBO’s production of My Brillliant Friend is some of the best TV I’ve ever seen. I think Maggie Gyllenhaal did a great job with The Lost Daughter.
The Brutalist is such a strange film. My initial reaction was that it is too long, and maybe it is, but at this point I’m not sure what I would cut. It haunted me for weeks, not because of any particular story element or theme (and it sure covered a lot of ground there) but because of the imagery and sound design which, imo, is why it won all the awards. It’s not like anything I have ever seen. It might make more sense if you could hang it in an art gallery, if that makes sense. And of course it didn’t hurt that it may be the best work of Adrien Brody’s career.
I didn’t hate it and I don’t regret watching it. Maybe it was a victim of overhype for me. I felt like I was supposed to love it but I didn’t.
