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In "The Loneliest Planet," an engaged couple takes a backpacking hike over the beautiful but rugged trails of the Caucasus Mountains in the central European republic of Georgia. Midway on their trek, I was reminded of advice I once heard: "Never marry anyone without first taking a three-day bus trip with them."

Not much was clear to me about Alex ( Gael Garcia Bernal) and Nica ( Hani Furstenberg ): not where they're from, or how they met, or what paths they're taking in life, or even why they decided to make this hike. It's not a dangerous mountain adventure, more of a long slog, which seems all the longer to us because the writer-director, Julia Loktev , likes to pull back for a long shot and simply watch them plodding for long periods.

They've hired a local named Dato ( Bidzina Gujabidze ) to guide them. English is the only language they have in common, although Alex and Nica speak it with different accents, and Dato speaks it hardly at all. They hired Dato in a village near the start of their walk, after enduring one of those vaguely ominous evenings in a tavern where the visiting foreigners attract a lot of scrutiny. A bearded local guy looms over Nica and asks her to dance, and the other bearded local guys study Alex to see how he feels about this. Alex smiles like a good sport, although that isn't how he's feeling at the moment.

On the trail, things seem idyllic for a while, as the couple chatter and flirt. Nica, somewhat younger than Alex, has one of those Michelle Williams faces that projects niceness and vulnerability. What does Dato see, and what does he think of it? Two men and a woman, miles from anywhere. Will it all come down to that?

Dato tries to be friendly, making unintelligible small talk so murky that while listening even we smile as if trying to be good sports. There is an extremely alarming encounter with a group of heavily armed people, perhaps members of an outlawed political group, that finally ends with the most ominous member relaxing and hugging Alex, as if forgiving him for being himself.

Other events unfold, perhaps unremarkable in themselves, but accumulating into psychic baggage they must add to their backpacks. None of this is punched up dramatically; Loktev's favorite visual is the long shot; she likes indistinct night scenes and often arranges the characters in widely spaced groupings. We understand things are happening under the surface.

All of this grows tiresome. We're given no particular reason at the outset of "The Loneliest Planet" to care about these people, our interest doesn't grow along the way, the landscape grows repetitive, the director's approach is aggressively minimalist, and if you ask me, this romance was not made in heaven.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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The Loneliest Planet (2012)

113 minutes

Gael Garcia Bernal as Alex

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Bidzina Gujabidze as Dato

Written and directed by

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Masculinity Crisis In The Caucasus Mountains

Mark Jenkins

An engaged couple (Gael Garcia Bernal and Hani Furstenberg) backpacks through the Caucasus Mountains with their guide (Bidzina Gujabidze), but their bond is soon tested by fate. IFC Films hide caption

The Loneliest Planet

Director: Julia Loktev
Genre: Thriller
Running Time: 113 minutes

With: Hani Furstenberg, Gael Garcia Bernal, Bidzina Gujabidze

The backpacking protagonists of The Loneliest Planet are experienced world travelers, but also wide-eyed kids. Nica (Hani Furstenberg) and Alex (Gael Garcia Bernal) have recently arrived in the foothills of Georgia's Caucasus Mountains, where they frolic with local children. Even what we see of the couple's lovemaking is mostly horseplay.

Something serious will happen after Nica and Alex hire a guide, Dato (Bidzina Gujabidze), and begin to ascend into the treeless heights. But writer-director Julia Loktev, a Russian-born American, is a stalwart minimalist. She doesn't oversell the movie's moment of crisis or the largely wordless reassessment that follows it.

Set at a hiker's pace, the film is as slow and naturalistic as any by Meek's Cutoff director Kelly Reichardt. It includes improvised dialogue and nonprofessional performers. (Gujabidze is a well-known Georgian mountaineer with no previous acting experience.) Yet the story is carefully constructed, with moments that seem offhand initially, but are later revealed as crucial.

In the very first shot, a naked and soapy Nica jumps up and down to stay warm while she waits for Alex to bring some warm water to rinse off. "Sorry, sorry, sorry," he says as he arrives. Later, when Alex fails Nica more dramatically, he won't be able to find even such a simple word to apologize.

Not long after Nica's cold shower, the two travelers see a ball soar over a wall. They throw it back, only to have it return; this is repeated again and again. Someone is playing with them, but they don't know who it is — and whether the game is innocent or not. This, too, presages later events.

Nica and Alex are not the only ones who lack basic information. Loktev doesn't tell the audience much about her main characters and declines to subtitle the supporting players' Georgian dialogue. Occasionally, the locals refer to the backpackers as "American," but Bernal is clearly a native Spanish speaker. (Bernal is Mexican, while Furstenburg is a New Yorker who's done most of her acting in Israel.)

Nica and Alex enjoy their vacation, unaware of the troubles that wait for them down the road. IFC Films hide caption

Nica and Alex enjoy their vacation, unaware of the troubles that wait for them down the road.

The film was shot with digital cameras outfitted with vintage Russian lenses, which provide the soft-focus look common to Soviet-era cinema. Other aspects of the movie's style are more experimental. Loktev punctuates the action with several real-time, fixed-position long shots in which the trio trudges from one side of the frame to the other; these are scored to Richard Skelton's folkloric music. Most of the other scenes are shot with hand-held camera and feature only ambient sound.

In a different sort of movie, this low-key approach might be a setup for a shattering moment. But The Loneliest Planet 's central event is fleeting, and its significance ambiguous. The incident could be said to undermine Alex's masculinity. Yet the movie, adapted from a Tom Bissell short story ("Expensive Trips Nowhere") that traces its basic plot to Ernest Hemingway's 1936 "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," occurs in a very different world than Hemingway's. Nica is not a delicate flower who must be protected; she's just as much an adventurer as Alex.

"As a woman, I'm not so clear on what I expect from a man," Loktev notes, and her film reflects this ambiguity. That may frustrate viewers who prefer more explicit developments and more definitive answers. But The Loneliest Planet does have a quiet power, which is amplified by the movie's rugged landscape. A mountain range is an apt locale for the tale of a man who's suddenly, startlingly informed that he can't control the world around him.

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The loneliest planet: film review.

Gael Garcia Bernal and Nani Furstenberg star as adventurers in the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia in Russian-born, Colorado-raised writer/director Julia Loktev's analysis of a relationship imperilled by communication breakdowns.

By THR Staff

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LOCARNO — A very old story is updated to the trans-globalized 21st century in The Loneliest Planet , the slow-burning, distinctive second feature from Russian-born, Colorado-raised writer/director Julia Loktev following 2006’s well-received Day Night Day Night . Widely regarded as one of the more notable films in a generally underwhelming Locarno competition, the Caucasus-set three-hander, while quite demanding festival fare, has some limited commercial prospects thanks to the presence of Mexico’s international art-house heartthrob Gael Garcia Bernal in one of the small handful of speaking parts. Not that there’s very much dialogue in this steadily taxing analysis of a relationship imperilled by communication breakdowns.

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The Loneliest Planet Reviews

...this one has its share of feisty clinches...

Full Review | Jun 18, 2020

A far cry from the limitlessness of experimenta and the deliberately jarring and abrasive aesthetic of the avant-garde, Loktev's visual style fits with an atypical narrative mode.

Full Review | Jan 30, 2019

Benefitting greatly from a fearless performance from Furstenberg, unexpected jolts of humor along the way and Loktev's keen ability to capture the overwhelming power of nature, whether geological or human.

Full Review | Jan 8, 2019

As with all films, there's a degree of artifice here, but [director Julia] Loktev makes her achievement look almost effortless.

Full Review | Feb 22, 2018

A triumphantly visual movie, The Loneliest Planet develops an interplay between freedom and confinement.

Full Review | May 3, 2016

You have to see The Loneliest Planet, for it is one of those works that prepares you for life, that make you wary, alive and responsible, and which ... well, you'll never forget it.

Full Review | Jun 17, 2013

Writer/director Julia Loktev, a New York filmmaker born in Russia, skilfully uses stillness and the vastness of the Caucasus Mountains to frame her trio of characters in psychological quicksand.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 12, 2013

Frankly, I've greatly enjoyed discussing the film, whereas I merely tolerated the experience of actually watching it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 7, 2013

Audiences used to actively engaging with cinema will find much to relish about The Loneliest Planet.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 24, 2013

Scoring a popular hit on the film festival circuit, director Julia Loktev elicits superb performances from a minimal cast.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Mar 24, 2013

This load of tediously existential nonsense from writer/director Julia Loktev has been bizarrely celebrated as a profound artistic and feminist (?) statement, but make no mistake: it's ridiculously wannabe-cerebral codswallop.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 21, 2013

...simmering just beneath its quiet, beautiful surface are endless questions to do with relationships and trust, and how they're tied to our expectations regarding masculinity.

Full Review | Mar 21, 2013

Although short stories usually make terrific source material for films, in this case the adaptation suggests that this is not one of those instances

Full Review | Mar 15, 2013

Curiosity triggers our interest at first, but eventually, the tedious nature of the drawn-out exposition is akin to watching grass grow

An elliptical, often baffling relationships drama about trust and reconciliation

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Feb 26, 2013

An exceptionally thorny and pleasing little behavioral study.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jan 16, 2013

This is one of those films where very little happens very slowly, but there are a couple of dramatic scenes which change the complexion of the film.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jan 1, 2013

Loktev's persistent use of long takes with little dialogue renders it a repetitive exercise that's more pretentious than profound.

Full Review | Dec 10, 2012

With Brontes' camera sometimes right up in their faces, the actors create an intense intimacy that's a thrill to experience. They also share a palpable sexual chemistry that fires up this drama.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 8, 2012

An intriguing film, that has a sense of poignancy, sparse dialogue and offers a deep suspicion of love if it's untested.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Nov 29, 2012

The Loneliest Planet

When two hipsters go on a guided camping expedition in the Caucasus Mountains, an incident tears a rift between them in "The Loneliest Planet," writer-helmer Julia Loktev's powerful, exquisitely lensed third feature.

By Leslie Felperin

Leslie Felperin

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When two hipsters go on a guided camping expedition in the Caucasus Mountains, an incident tears a rift between them in “ The Loneliest Planet ,” writer-helmer Julia Loktev’s powerful, exquisitely lensed third feature. As with her previous film, “Day Night Day Night,” Loktev withholds vital information here about her characters’ inner thoughts, a strategy that will provoke passionate arguments over post-screening drinks, perhaps enhancing word of mouth. More commercially viable than “Day Night,” especially given its spectacular use of locations and the presence of star Gael Garcia Bernal , pic should trek around the fest circuit and pitch camp with specialty distributors.

Practically no backstory is provided about protagonists Alex (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Nica (Gotham-born, Israel-based thesp Hani Furstenberg), but what’s clear is that they’re seasoned travelers who pride themselves, perhaps a little smugly, on roughing it in countries off the usual tourist track. Clearly, they’re also besotted with each other, evinced in scenes of them canoodling, frisking like puppies or making love in low-lit, odd-angled shots.

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After haggling in a local burg for a guide, they retain the services of Dato (real mountaineer Bidzina Gujabidze) to steer them through the extraordinary, grass-clad mountains of the Khevi region. Much of the pic’s first hour unspools through continuous handheld shots of the threesome trudging along with backpacks, telling stories when they’re not silently concentrating on navigating treacherous terrain. At regular interludes, long-distance shots observe them dwarfed by the landscape as Richard Skelton’s haunting, rhythmic, ethnically inflected score intones in the background.

An encounter on the trail turns into a near-life-threatening test of manhood that Alex arguably fails. Thereafter, none of the characters discuss what happened, but it casts a profound pall over the adventure, shifting allegiances and sympathies among the threesome. Auds are bound to differ over how to interpret the turning point and its consequences, while those who know the source material, a short story called “Expensive Trips Nowhere” by Tom Bissell, might quibble that Loktev’s recasting the couple as younger lovers weakens the psychological credibility of Alex’s actions. But other viewers may recognize a core emotional truth about how deeply travel tests relationships, how a single instinctive action can shift the ground irrevocably between people, and how no words can make things right.

The realism is enhanced by nuanced, semi-improvised perfs from Bernal and Furstenberg. The way they silently project Alex and Nica’s anger, disappointment and the faint rekindling of affection later on impresses just as much as their willingness to take physical risks. Loktev’s muscular, distinctive helming percussively deploys repetition and shock cuts (she also takes a co-editing credit) that’s of a piece with “Day Night Day Night” and her docu “Moment of Impact.”

However, it’s the craftsmanship of Chilean lenser Inti Briones, who has worked with Raul Ruiz and Cristian Jimenez , that really steals the show here. Using a Red camera rigged to carry Soviet Lomo prime lenses that lend a Slavic softness to the proceedings, Briones makes the landscape look both achingly romantic and malevolent, offering nowhere to hide in this treeless expanse.

U.S.-Germany

Production: A Parts and Labor, Flying Moon production in association with Wild Invention in co-production with ZDF Das Kleine Fernsehspiel, in cooperation with Arte, with support from Hessen Invest Film. (International sales: the Match Factory, Cologne.) Produced by Jay Van Hoy, Lars Knudsen, Helge Albers, Marie Therese Guirgis. Executive producers, Shelby Alan Brown, Gregory Shockro, Dallas M. Brennan, Rabinber Sira, Chris Gilligan, Hunter Gray. Directed, written by Julia Loktev, based on the short story "Expensive Trips Nowhere" by Tom Bissell.
Crew: Camera (color, HD-to-35mm), Inti Briones; editor, Michael Taylor, Loktev; music, Richard Skelton; production designer, Rabiah Troncelliti; art director, Elina Shahnazarova; costume designer, Troncelliti; sound, Michel Kloefkorn; sound designer, Martin Hernandez; supervising sound editor, Hernandez; re-recording mixers, Chris Johnston, Mark Hernandez; line producer, Jana Sardlishvili; associate producers, Roshanak Behesht Nedjad, Tao Hong; assistant director, Zaza Rusadze. Reviewed at Locarno Film Festival (competing), Aug. 10, 2011. Running time: 113 MIN.
With: With: Gael Garcia Bernal, Hani Furstenberg, Bidzina Gujabidze. (English, Georgian, Spanish dialogue)

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Movie Review: The Loneliest Planet (2011)

Howard Schumann
Movie Reviews
No responses
--> March 14, 2013

If, as the famous line from “ Love Story ” says, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” then Alex (Gael García Bernal) and Nica (Hani Furstenberg), a young couple engaged to be married in a few months, are on the right track. Summer vacationing in the Caucasus Mountains in the Republic of Georgia, Julia Loktev’s slow-paced but haunting film, The Loneliest Planet , follows the pair as they trek across the wilderness with back-packs on their shoulders. Based on the short story by Tom Bissell, “Expensive Trips Nowhere” which had its roots in an Ernest Hemingway story called “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” it is a thought-provoking film that has moments of brilliance, but its strict adherence to minimalism and the emotional distance it creates can be a barrier to full engagement.

Using minimal dialogue, meaning is conveyed mostly by images, silences and sound; the sound of rocks crunching, of water falling, of footsteps walking, at times aided by the lovely music of English composer Richard Skelton. Ironically, it is an exceedingly intimate film yet, as photographed by Chilean Inti Briones, yet it has a sense of a vast and empty, almost alien space that makes it look indeed like the loneliest planet. In the first frame, we hear a constant banging without knowing the source until we see the naked red-haired Nica bouncing up and down in a washbasin looking as if she’s freezing. Soon the bearded Alex hurriedly throws a bucket of warm water on her.

We do not learn anything about the characters other than what is apparent in their immediate surroundings and the fact that they are lovers. The first part of The Loneliest Planet is mostly playful as Nica and Alex make their way through the mountains or stop in the villages, having sex and drinking, conjugating verbs in Spanish, doing stand-on-your-head exercises, or rolling down a hill. Hiking across unknown territory in a country where you cannot speak the language — a fate common to most world travelers — can be daunting and often requires a guide. At one of their village stops, Alex and Nica hire a local guide named Dato (Bidzina Gujabidze, a real-life mountaineer), who speaks halting English and is not averse to telling dubious stories with racial overtones.

Loktev utilizes a documentary-type approach, concentrating on the everyday and the banal, yet there is an uneasy feeling that something unanticipated is going to happen. Around the mid-point of the film, as a result of Alex’s thoughtless reaction to a threatening event, the dynamic of the relationship shifts. Sullen looking and uncommunicative, they walk either in front or behind one another. Neither Alex nor Nica talk about the incident presumably out of embarrassment, or because they do not know what to say, seemingly confused about what just happened and what it means for their relationship.

The Loneliest Planet (2011) by The Critical Movie Critics

Headstands!

The event seems to be saying, as suggested by the director, that traditional gender roles are still important. In an interview, Loktev states, “The film reaffirms very traditional gender roles. They’re hiking a mountain. That’s a place where traditional gender roles would show, I’d think. It reaffirms those traditional roles. That for me is the contradiction, for me personally. That I think of myself as a feminist, but I catch myself where I want a man to be a man. I want a man to be a real man.” The meaning of the critical event, however, is very much open to interpretation. Loktev relates that, at a showing, she heard two people sitting next to each other in the theater who saw it as two very different movies.

One said that the incident in the film is something no couple can ever recover from, while the other one asked, “What’s the big deal?” This only underscores the point that Nica, though she could have interpreted the incident in several different ways, decides that what occurred was significant without confirming her judgment with the person most involved or attempting to see the other person’s point of view, a primer of what does not work in relationships. If, as Werner Erhard put it, love is accepting someone the way that they are and the way they are not, then The Loneliest Planet , for all its remarkable qualities, in my view sends the wrong message and misses the opportunity for an important teachable moment.

Tagged: hiking , introspection , marriage

I am a retired father of two living with my wife in Vancouver, B.C. who has had a lifelong interest in the arts.

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The Loneliest Planet

4 out of 5 stars
Recommended

Time Out says

Adjust to the deliberate rhythms of this hiking movie—set on the lush slopes of Georgia’s Caucasus Mountains—and the psychological payoff stings like a blister. Our characters are engaged lovers, still in the throes of puppyish dotage: Alex (Gael García Bernal) and Nica (Hani Furstenberg, a real find) evidently pride themselves on roughing it, eschewing fancy digs for bathing in unheated water and scrabbling over boulders. They smile at the locals with a minimum of chat, sneak off to paw at each other, and at one point, play an impromptu game of volleyball with an unseen stranger on the other side of a backyard wall. A quiet, authoritative guide, Dato (real-life mountaineer Bidzina Gujabidze), leads them deep within the countryside. The camera pulls away as the trio progresses, stride by stride, existing fully within the moment.

There’s a reason for all of this, so pardon the coyness that forbids me from describing a split-second incident on the trail that changes everything. What could possibly go wrong between two people who are so intimately connected? In the widening eyes of Alex, we suddenly see a weakness, a failure of masculinity (Bernal’s forte), and nothing is ever the same. Brooklyn director Julia Loktev likes to strip things down to the bone; her previous feature, Day Night Day Night (2006), managed to find its way into the cryptic head of a sullen Times Square suicide bomber. Her movies are journeys that arrive at a test of will, and she’s seemingly more interested in failures of nerve than successes. (Hers is a kind of anti-action filmmaking.) Still, the trek goes on for Alex and Nica. The warmhearted couple we’ve come to know would surely be able to talk this rift out, but maybe they weren’t that couple to begin with.

Follow Joshua Rothkopf on Twitter: @joshrothkopf

Release Details

Duration: 113 mins

Cast and crew

Director: Julia Loktev
Gael García Bernal
Hani Furstenberg
Bidzina Gujabidze

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The Loneliest Planet Review

An elliptical, often baffling relationships drama about trust and reconciliation..

For long stretches of the film not a lot happens

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The Loneliest Planet | Review

Two lovers hiking — Oh damn did that just happen? — We’ll call it ‘Event’

In 1960, Psycho invented the phenomenon of ‘hyped secrecy,’ which drove the masses to cinematheques worldwide so they could know what all those coy bastards were alluding to in their cryptic post-screening cinegasms. Few films have been able to achieve such a level of intrigue after its release (although The Sixth Sense comes close). Usually, itâ€™s the result of a clever twist that changes our perception of a character’s motives, or sometimes it’s a (rare) satisfactory resolution to a nagging question (what the hell does “Rosebud” mean !), and they’ll almost always be found in either the horror, thriller, or crime genres. Julia Loktev’s third film The Loneliest Planet – a mellow drama cum melodrama – is structured solely and entirely around an ‘event’ at its halfway point that entirely reconfigures how we read the film. It’s such a boldly sly move that, along with her masterfully spare sophomore film Day Night Day Night , Loktev has effectively situated herself as the twenty-first century’s (M)inimalist heir to Hitchcock.

Opening up with a horrifying shot of a human (initially the sex is unclear), naked and soapy, jumping up and down compulsively, Loktev grips us from the get-go. Unsure of where the acclaimed event actually occurred in the film, but only sure that one exists, it’s easy to believe that that was it (it isn’t). Nonetheless, it’s a striking and unsettling intro that easily disturbs the remainder of the pre-game half of the film, which is deceptively banal. A couple, comprised of Alex (Gael GarcÃa Bernal) and Nica (Hani Furstenberg), is on vacation, hiking through the hilly landscape of Georgia. Alex is multilingual, so many of their filler conversations are about translations and verb conjugations; they also walk a lot. Long, chapter-dividing shots show the the pair and their guide, Dato (non-actor Bidzina Gujabidze), in long shot, crossing from frame-left to frame-right, recalling the languid strolls in Meek’s Cutoff – this decade’s other minimal walk-a-thon.

Beginning here, there is a certain awareness for captial ‘M’ Minimalism littered throughout the film, possibly a conscious allusion on Loktev’s part to situate herself with that bygone milieu. The aforementioned long shots are very precisely framed so that the hills dissect the compositions into abstract geometries (a bit like Kiarostamiâ€™s zig-zags, actually). There isn’t anything as manufactured as a Robert Smithson land sculpture, nor as rigid as GÃ¼nter Fruhtrunk’s brand of Geometric Abstraction, but these guys are certainly evoked. Loktev also calls for a specific form of repetition in her dialgoue that brings to mind Minimalist music, specifically Philip Glass (and even more, his epic opera Einstein On the Beach . At one point, Alex and Nica are doing handstands together, both counting aloud – apparently as a playful competition – and their counting creates a Glass-esque layering of numbers. Later, in the film’s funniest moment, a session of pedagogical language training (communication is a big theme in this movie) in which Alex and Nica try to teach Dato to say the phrase “Bitch on the Beach” (note the reference to the opera title) results in a bit of phasing when the trio repeat the line again and again on top of each other.

This is all before that thing that happens, the ‘Event’ we shall not name, which creates an explosion of ideas in its own right. Suddenly, The Loneliest Planet takes shape as a study on instinct vs. acquired mannerisms. What is companionship, what is it for, and what roles do we all play in each other’s survival? These broader questions inform the rupture of a relationship, and expose the fragility of the tissue that links two partners. It’s the stuff of every quarrel – when the veil of unity is lifted and both partners are reminded that they are individuals, that there are certain things that we all are damned to experience alone. It’s an alienating feeling, for sure, and is probably why this half of the film has been so divisive. Sure, there are some nagging rough edges, like some heavy-handed moments (the river crossing) where Loktev oversells her themes. Bernal, as well, is still a flat actor with limited range, and it brings the level of affect down slightly in the home stretch (especially in relation to the superb turn by Furstenberg). However, this is a film of ideas, and they’re expertly designed to ricochet in our minds long after the tents are packed up.

Reviewed on September 13th at the 2011 Toronto Int. Film Festival – Visions Programme

Rating 4 stars

Blake Williams is an avant-garde filmmaker born in Houston, currently living and working in Toronto. He recently entered the PhD program at University of Toronto's Cinema Studies Institute, and has screened his video work at TIFF (2011 & '12), Tribeca (2013), Images Festival (2012), Jihlava (2012), and the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley. Blake has contributed to IONCINEMA.com's coverage for film festivals such as Cannes, TIFF, and Hot Docs. Top Films From Contemporary Film Auteurs: Almodóvar (Talk to Her), Coen Bros. (Fargo), Dardennes (Rosetta), Haneke (Code Unknown), Hsiao-Hsien (Flight of the Red Balloon), Kar-wai (Happy Together), Kiarostami (Where is the Friend's Home?), Lynch (INLAND EMPIRE), Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs), Van Sant (Last Days), Von Trier (The Idiots)

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The loneliest planet.

Directed by Julia Loktev

Backpacking in the Caucasus Mountains, walking for hours, an engaged couple and their tour guide trade anecdotes and play games to pass the time, until a momentary misstep, that takes only two or three seconds, changes everything.

Hani Furstenberg Gael García Bernal Bidzina Gujabidze Tali Pitakhelauri Tako Pitakhelauri Ani Kushashvili Amiran Gudrshauri

Director Director

Julia Loktev

Producers Producers

Lars Knudsen Jay Van Hoy Marie Therese Guirgis Helge Albers

Writer Writer

Cinematography cinematography.

Inti Briones

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

Chris Gilligan Rabinder Sira Dallas Brennan

Composer Composer

Richard Skelton

Flying Moon Filmproduktion GmbH Parts & Labor Van Hoy/Knudsen Productions Wild Invention Arte

USA Germany

Primary Language

Spoken languages.

English Georgian Spanish

Releases by Date

10 aug 2011, 11 oct 2011, 15 oct 2011, 20 nov 2011, 29 jan 2012, 04 feb 2012, 23 mar 2012, 03 may 2012, 16 jun 2012, 25 may 2012, 25 oct 2012, 08 nov 2012, 03 jan 2013, 23 may 2013, 01 nov 2013, 27 apr 2021, releases by country.

Digital Cinobo

Netherlands

Russian federation, switzerland.

Premiere 12

113 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Chip ★★★★ 12

Nothing happens for an hour. Then one thing happens and someone makes a knee jerk reaction. Then one no one talks about either the thing that happened or the the reaction to what happened. Hard to say since no one's talking. Then nothing happens for another hour until there's an awkward moment. Then nothing happens at the end. I was riveted.

Review by Scott Renshaw ★★★★½

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

It wasn't until the closing credits that I had any idea this was based on a short story, but my response was "of course it was;" I could easily imagine this being a Raymond Carver creation. There's something fundamentally different about the way short stories deal with character-building and "incident," and Loktev has such an instinctive sense for conveying those differences. In any other version of this story, we're going to get plenty of early hints about his character that lead us like breadcrumbs to The Thing Alex Eventually Does, and we're certainly not going to learn more about the life and back-story of the supporting guide character than we do about either of our ostensible protagonists. But this isn't…

Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★½

"The French philosopher Camus used to tell himself quietly to 'live to the point of tears,' not as a call for maudlin sentimentality, but as an invitation to the deep privilege of belonging and the way belonging affects us, shapes us and breaks our heart at a fundamental level." - David Whyte

Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★★½ 3

[reviewed from AFI 2011]

Second go. Feared I might find the first half a little get-to-the-Incident enervating this time, but Loktev has an uncanny knack—also on display in Day Night Day Night —for making the eventless eventful, mostly via attention to arresting details that are unusual without being "quirky." (I was about to note that the "chimpanzee" headstand arguably crosses that line, but then suddenly suspected that that's an actual alternative to e.g. "Mississippi" somewhere or other, and sure enough . Headstand itself's still a bit cute, though.) And I remain in awe of the high-wire act that constitutes the aftermath, in which any and all discussion of what happened gets postponed until after the credits roll—a stunt that only works…

Review by shookone ★★★★½

there is a lot to like here: the characters. the sensibility for the moments. the soulful landscape. the naturalism. the setting leaves you a lot of room for reflection. in a way, it feels like what the film wants is pretty much up to you.

it is about this one gesture though. the one, that can change the setting and tone between two people. humans may be intrigued to think love is the naturalistic gift from a transcendent power, and - snap! - one moment later everything seems so off, damaged, left in an awkward space. once so close, our protagonists stay alone in the moment of truth. the film takes 120 minutes to just show this tiny momentum. but…

Review by Tony (tectactoe) ★★★★½ 3

Knew relatively little about this going into it and had absolutely no idea there’d be Something That Happens ; became hypnotized by Loktev’s flair for this type of languid minimalism that just hangs and hangs and hangs without ever growing enervating or boring or otherwise uninteresting. (For a while I thought, “I guess nothing really ‘happens’ in this movie, eh?” and I was mostly okay with that.) In this domain it reminded me of e.g. GERRY—the environment serving as a beautiful but ultimately scary beast, breathtaking in its natural construction but frightening when you reflect on its ability to dwarf its contents (viz. humans). Whereas GERRY slowly wrung its humans dry by steadily upping the torsion, THE LONELIEST PLANET…

Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★★½

[TIFF '11 drive-by]

She could've called this one Together Alone Together Alone , though I suppose that would make her project a little too blatant. First half once again slightly numbing (by design), though there's far more tension inherent in this scenario since we have no idea when to hunker down, or even why; it's also pleasurably disarming to witness lovers genuinely enjoying each other's company for such an uninterrupted stretch, even if there are hints (right from that surreal opening shot) of willful obliviousness; to say nothing of what I hereby dub the Trudge Effect, in which characters' movement through a constantly shifting landscape somehow magically forestalls boredom no matter how little is otherwise happening. Then comes the Event,…

Review by james💫 ★★ 4

i only watched this for Gael García Bernal

Review by Jules 🌸 ★★★ 2

Life is good. But good life is better.

The Loneliest Planet is a very slow, ambiguous and contemplative movie that, from my point of view, explores the deterioration of a relationship. Not much really happens at first, a couple wanders through the mountains with a tour guide accompanying them... but then something happens and they start to distance themselves from the other. I think what The Loneliest Planet is about is how trust can be lost so quickly and how coexistence makes you realize the flaws of a person. The rough edges of their relation are not shown explicitly first, but they can be noticed when they avoid talking to each other, or look away; and even though they love each other and try to save their romance, now there are irreconcilable differences.

Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★½ 3

The visuals, beautiful. The story, ugly. A hopeless film, and also a brilliant one.

Edit: after a few hours rest, I have reflected a bit on the final few scenes of this film, and found something to hope for.

Review by Grégoire Canvel ★★★★★

Some day I will show this to a girlfriend and she will either hate it and we will break up or she will love it, engage in a dialogue about our own relationship compared to the one in the movie, and we will also break up. Julia, please make more movies so I can self-sabotage future hypothetical relationships thx

Review by Sin ✊🏿 ★ 2

This movie is far too narratively shallow and "artsy" for my personal tastes insofar as the director's unbearable snail-paced, overindulgent cinematography, camerawork, and editing choices.

It's unforgivable that it took this movie fifty fucking minutes to "start" and get to something remotely related to narrative substance beyond a smorgasbord of gratuitously drawn out establishing shots and random, mundane interactions between a couple and their guide as they hike the Caucasus Mountains.

The first 50mins could've easily been truncated to 15-18 mins, and all of the protracted mundane bullshit and stylistic spectacle that follows this 50min point could've been greatly trimmed - that is, assuming the movie was interested in narrative substance. It isn't. Which is why I hated it.

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The Loneliest Planet (2011)

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The Loneliest Planet (2011)

The loneliest planet.

Alex (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Nica (Hani Furstenberg) are young, in love and engaged to be married. The summer before their wedding, they are backpacking in the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia. The couple hire a local guide to lead them on a camping trek, and the three set off into a stunning wilderness, a landscape that is both overwhelmingly open and frighteningly closed. Walking for hours, they trade anecdotes, play games to pass the time of moving through space. And then, a momentary misstep, a gesture that takes only two or three seconds, a gesture that's over almost as soon as it begins. But once it is done, it can't be undone. Once it is done, it threatens to undo everything the couple believed about each other and about themselves.

The Loneliest Planet Clip [Exclusive]

Gael Garcia Bernal and Hani Furstenberg star as a couple who have a life-changing experience while on vacation in director Julia Loktev's thriller.

The Loneliest Planet Trailer

Julia Loktev directs Gael Garcia Bernal in this thriller about a young couple who have a life-changing experience while on vacation

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Planet of the Apes Movies, Ranked

It’s hard to believe, but there was a time when movie sequels were a rarity. In the first half of the 20th century, film serials — episodic movies that were more of a precursor to television episodes than films — like Fantomas , The Masked Marvel , and Flash Gordon , were popular forms of entertainment. Proper sequels were typically reserved for the mystery genre, in which movies like Charlie Chan and The Thin Man took their detective skills all over the world. There was little precedent for sequels in 1968, when Planet of the Apes came along. But Apes defied logic: Spawning a remarkable four sequels in the 1970s alone, it became one of the first blockbuster franchises.

Planet of the Apes set itself apart by taking science fiction — a genre dominated at the time by giant-monster B-movies — in a more nuanced and contemplative direction. Setting aside the impressive spectacle onscreen (the prosthetic ape makeup still feels revolutionary), Planet of the Apes is deeply concerned with the very natural human fear that there is always someone bigger, stronger, and faster out there to replace us. So many of the qualities of today’s blockbusters — namely people triumphing over evil and good old-fashioned American optimism — are nowhere to be found in these films. No matter how much the budgets dwindled, the Apes movies are some of the most anxious, fraught, and downright pessimistic that blockbuster cinema has to offer. And while the newer entries into the Apes franchise certainly amp up the action and visual effects, they too share the anxiety-ridden, fearful DNA that made the first series so memorable.

As we’re set to return to the world of Apes once again with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, we’ve ranked every Planet of the Apes film, from chimpan-A to chimpanzee .

10. Planet of the Apes (2001)

The only film in the Apes franchise that’s a complete disaster from start to finish. It begins not unlike the 1968 original: with astronaut Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg) crash-landing on a planet run by apes. But in a sharp departure, the enslaved humans can speak, which makes you wonder how they’ve become subservient to the primates. It’s that kind of inattention to detail that plagues 2001’s Planet of the Apes , which chugs through laborious dialogue and lazy storytelling. (For all the egregious choices this movie makes, giving the female apes human hair is the most unsettling.) Tim Burton seemed an ideal choice for an Apes reimagining, but none of his curiosity is on display here. It’s as if nobody involved understood what made the original franchise so interesting, and despite a genuinely intriguing ending, we can be grateful a sequel was never green-lit.

9. Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)

With Battle , the original Planet of the Apes saga ends not with a bang but a whimper. In this once-harmonious society, apes turn against one another as leader Caesar (Roddy McDowall) is challenged by Aldo (Claude Akins), a bloodthirsty gorilla general. Tension builds steadily for the first hour, but the film runs out of steam when the long-awaited fight finally arrives. The budget cuts feel particularly obvious here, as the climax looks more like a schoolyard brawl than the large-scale battle it’s going for. The later films in the original Apes series struggle with creating a compelling human element, and the humans in Battle are painfully one-note. It lacks much of the intellectual curiosity and striking pessimism that define the other Apes movies. Time hasn’t been kind to Battle , as it is essentially a low-rate version of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes .

8. Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

The sequel to the first Planet of the Apes film had just half the budget of the original, resulting in a considerably sparser planet. Oddly, a great deal of Beneath feels like a retreading of what audiences saw in the first movie, moving Charlton Heston’s Taylor to a supporting role. He’s replaced by Brent (James Franciscus, who looks alarmingly similar to Heston), an astronaut on a mission to find Taylor. It’s hard to see Beneath as anything but a bargain-bin version of the original — until its final act brings to light so much of the political intrigue and philosophy that fueled Planet of the Apes . Made at a time when the threat of nuclear war was a hot-button issue, Beneath winds up being an effective exploration of those anxieties, bringing society’s worst fears to reality and delivering the most shocking and pessimistic conclusion in the history of the franchise.

7. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)

The longest entry in the Apes franchise (145 minutes) also takes the longest to establish itself: Many generations after the events of War for the Planet of the Apes , Noa (Owen Teague), an engaging new protagonist, and his clan are captured by Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), an ape whose ruthlessness is matched only by his thirst for knowledge. Kingdom offers solid, satisfying entertainment. The visual effects are the best they’ve ever been; it’s easy to get lost in the ape’s individual hair follicles, and the water effects are outstanding. The movie is full of interesting scenes and dynamic action but lacks a real breakout moment that has defined so many of the other films in the Apes universe. Still, it’s good big-screen fun, and its idea of the importance of collective action rather than a typical chosen-one narrative is exciting. Director Wes Ball handles this new world well, but by the end Kingdom feels more like a variation on a familiar theme than a bold new direction.

6. Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)

Again fighting a stripped-back budget, director J. Lee Thompson does a great job disguising the lack of funds in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes . Set in 1991, apes are now little more than human servants after a plague wiped out the global population of cats and dogs. But Caesar (Roddy McDowall), son of the previous films’ Zira (Kim Hunter) and Cornelius (also McDowall), unites the apes against human tyranny. Its political allegory is potent, and the claustrophobic sets and expressive lighting do well to mask some of the more questionable-looking apes, but Caesar and his close allies still look terrific. The original theatrical ending feels antithetical to the rest of the movie, so it’s worth seeking out the director’s cut, which has a far more faithful conclusion; it’s on the Blu-ray release.

5. Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)

After the failure of 2001’s reimagining, Apes found far steadier footing a decade later in Rise of the Planet of the Apes . Much of the film takes place in a facility where scientists experiment on apes to try and cure Alzheimer’s. When the drug ALZ-112 begins to have adverse effects on the apes, scientist Will (James Franco) takes baby ape Caesar (Andy Serkis), who begins exhibiting signs of increased intelligence, under his wing. Rise is an enticing and emotionally resonant reboot of Planet of the Apes with motion-capture technology implemented so exquisitely you’d think the technology was invented purely for this franchise. As the first film in a planned trilogy, Rise spends a lot of time establishing its universe rather than thriving in it, and its human characters are largely one-note, but the bond between Caesar and Will is one of the more emotionally satisfying relationships in all of Apedom.

4. Escape From the Planet of the Apes (1971)

It took some finagling to continue the Planet of the Apes franchise as Beneath made it impossible to move the timeline forward. Escape From the Planet of the Apes is easily the most unique entry in the series, reversing the human-out-of-water scenario of the first two films by bringing beloved apes Zira and Cornelius back to contemporary Earth. Surprisingly, they’re met with adoration rather than hatred, though one government official isn’t so sure. Oscar winner Kim Hunter brings tremendous humanity to Zira, and it’s easy to see why the humans take to her and Cornelius so warmly. On the surface, it’s the most lighthearted of any Apes film — and easily the funniest. But Escape never forgets its roots, delivering a thoughtful exploration of how cruelty and fear of the unknown can infect and infest.

3. War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

The Apes go biblical in the bleakest iteration of the franchise since Beneath . After an attempt to find a new sanctuary goes awry, Caesar and the apes find themselves in a brutal work camp run by the spine-chillingly creepy Colonel (Woody Harrelson). Both Rise and Dawn look outstanding, but War pushes motion-capture technology to giddy new highs. It’s the most action-driven of any Apes film while never losing sight of the characters and politics that drive the franchise — and it’s all amplified by Michael Giacchino’s heart-pounding score. War for the Planet of the Apes affirms Caesar is one of the great characters of 21st-century cinema: Serkis delivers what should have been an Oscar-winning performance as Caesar, a character trying to negotiate his desire to lead the apes to harmony with a newfound vengeful bloodlust. Steve Zahn’s Bad Ape feels more like studio interference trying to prevent War from being too bleak than a real character, but the film is still a masterful conclusion to a brilliant and underappreciated trilogy.

2. Planet of the Apes (1968)

The film that started it all. Astronaut Taylor’s (Heston) spaceship lands on a mysterious planet thousands of years into the future only to discover that humans are primitive while the apes run society. Franklin J. Schaffner’s timeless classic almost feels like an anti-blockbuster in its slow, methodical nature. The world-building is stellar, and the makeup and effects are phenomenal; it looks better than the 2001 reboot. Action, while thrilling, occurs rarely. Planet of the Apes is far more interested in the interspecies dynamics of people and apes and the intricacies of ape society — particularly how the presence of Taylor, a speaking, competent human, challenges everything the apes know. Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans) is a terrific anti-hero, an orangutan conflicted by his desire for truth and a need to keep the society of apes thriving. It can occasionally get a little too caught up in specifics that it feels slightly repetitive, but the twist ending and unforgettable final shot are some of the most impactful in all of cinema.

1. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

A simian-flu outbreak has taken over the entire planet, decimating the human population. It has been two years since Caesar and the apes have even seen a human — which quickly changes when a group of humans seeks access to a dam to give its ailing community power. Dawn has the best balance of human and ape characters, and director Matt Reeves thrives in the film’s ambiguity: Both the apes and humans are desperate, and the lines between good and evil are at their most compellingly blurred. The action is outstanding, and the visual effects are groundbreaking, but it’s all designed to serve a character-driven epic. The quiet yet profound orangutan Maurice is as lovable as Koba, the villainous ape who betrays his fellow simians, is detestable, and Serkis’s Caesar stands as the film’s MVP. As far as big-blockbuster entertainment goes, Dawn is practically perfect, and it’s the film’s sense of morality — overwhelmed by darkness but ultimately hopeful — that makes it so exhilarating.

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Cast & crew

Janet Planet

In rural Western Massachusetts, 11-year-old Lacy spends the summer of 1991 at home, enthralled by her own imagination and the attention of her mother, Janet. As the months pass, three visito... Read all In rural Western Massachusetts, 11-year-old Lacy spends the summer of 1991 at home, enthralled by her own imagination and the attention of her mother, Janet. As the months pass, three visitors enter their orbit, all captivated by Janet. In rural Western Massachusetts, 11-year-old Lacy spends the summer of 1991 at home, enthralled by her own imagination and the attention of her mother, Janet. As the months pass, three visitors enter their orbit, all captivated by Janet.

Annie Baker
Zoe Ziegler
Luke Philip Bosco
June Walker Grossman
14 Critic reviews
84 Metascore
1 nomination

Male Counselor
(as Luke Bosco)

Performer 1
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Performer 4
Performer 5

Contra Dance Caller
Person at End
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Trivia Director Annie Baker and star Julianne Nicholson grew up in the same area, which is also where the film takes place. Neither of them knew this about each other until a random conversation.
Soundtracks The Littlest Worm Performed by Zoe Ziegler, Luke Bosco, and June Walker Grossman

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Runtime 1 hour 53 minutes

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Review: Rocking Out, and Falling in Love, in ‘The Lonely Few’

Lauren Patten and Taylor Iman Jones star in an achingly romantic, softly sexy new musical by Rachel Bonds and Zoe Sarnak.

Share full article

Two women are singing into a microphone and playing guitars in a scene from “The Lonely Few.”

By Laura Collins-Hughes

Of all the juke joints in all the towns in all the South, Amy had to walk into Paul’s.

OK, yes, he invited her. A musician with a touch of fame, whom he’s known since she was a child, she’s stopping in for a visit on a break from her solo tour.

For Lila, the frontwoman of the local band that’s playing the bar that night, the world shifts permanently when Amy glides in, trailing all the glamour and cool of a life so much bolder than anything Lila has ever lived.

“Great set,” Amy tells her afterward. And when Lila bashfully shrugs off the compliment, Amy repeats it. “No, really — great set,” she says, her words unambiguously flirtatious. The chemistry between these two is instant, and profound. As soon as they sing together, so is the harmony.

“The Lonely Few,” the achingly romantic, softly sexy, genuinely rocking new musical by Rachel Bonds (“ Jonah ”) and Zoe Sarnak at MCC Theater , is Lila and Amy’s love story. The telling of it gives us more of Lila’s world than of Amy’s, though — the same way that the 1999 rom-com “Notting Hill” is grounded more in the world of the ordinary bookseller than of the movie star who wanders in and claims his heart.

Meticulously directed by Trip Cullman and Ellenore Scott, “The Lonely Few” is beautifully cast, and it has an absolute ace in its Lila: Lauren Patten, bringing the full-voiced ferocity that she unleashed in “ Jagged Little Pill ” — and won a Tony Award for — and the endearing awkwardness that she lent to “ The Wolves ,” alongside a vulnerability that could just about break you.

In Lila’s tiny Kentucky hometown, music-making is the passion she gets up to when she isn’t working her grocery store job with her bassist and best friend, Dylan (Damon Daunno), or keeping an anxious eye on her brother, Adam (Peter Mark Kendall), whose drinking is out of control.

Her life is gritty and messy and small. Once Amy (Taylor Iman Jones) comes along, Lila is a little ashamed of that, and of her inability to escape to something better — maybe in a place where the fact of her sexuality isn’t met with averted eyes.

“God, I wouldn’t be able to breathe,” Amy says, though of course she recognizes the feeling. Her songwriting hit is a wistful breakup tune called “She,” about her ex-wife, that made it big only when a man recorded it.

Amy’s tour, as it happens, is on pause; her opening act bailed, and she needs to find a new one. Sensing talent as well as a spark, she enlists Lila and her band, the Lonely Few — which also includes Paul (Thomas Silcott), on drums, and JJ (Helen J Shen), on keyboard — to join her for the rest of the tour.

On the road, romance ensues, and so do family complications: Lila’s fretful guilt as Adam spirals without her, still grieving their mother’s death; Amy’s enduring anger that when Paul — the drummer who was her stepdad long ago — left her alcoholic mother, back in New Orleans, he left her, too.

With a habit of cutting people out of her life, Amy is more of a loner than Lila, but each of them has constructed a carapace. The question is whether they are brave enough to shed them for each other.

This intimate, tightly woven musical envelops the audience: with Sibyl Wickersheimer’s wraparound set, which seats some of the crowd in the bar; Adam Honoré’s rock-show lighting, whose beams touch all of us; and the pulse of the songs, which we feel in our bodies — the hard-driving numbers and the quiet ones, too. (Music direction is by Myrna Conn, leading a mostly offstage four-piece band. Sound design, worryingly muddy at first, is by Jonathan Deans and Mike Tracey.)

It might seem for a while that Daunno, a Tony nominee in 2019 for Daniel Fish’s “ Oklahoma! ” revival, is being squandered in a too-small role. But each of the men gets a number in which he demonstrates the depth of his affection — Dylan and Adam for Lila, Paul for Amy — and each of the actors smashes it. Daunno’s tender reprise of “Waking Up Thirty,” a song about surrendering to dead-end, small-town American life, is devastating.

Seen in an earlier, longer version last year in Los Angeles with a partially different cast, this intermissionless show is constitutionally unsentimental. Ever-present in Bonds’s book and Sarnak’s lyrics is a knowledge of the craggy complexity of life and relationships, and the ways that pain can forestall possibility. Still, “The Lonely Few” puts up a fight against such bleakness.

Over in a corner of the bar is an untouched piano, lurking like a gun in Chekhov. When someone at last sits down to play it, watch out. That’s the cue for one of the scariest human emotions: hope.

The Lonely Few Through June 2 at MCC Theater, Manhattan; mcctheater.org . Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes.

Hollywood’s Most Pessimistic Blockbuster Franchise

The Planet of the Apes movies keep evolving—for the better.

film strip showing silhouette of apes growing larger

In 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes , the intelligent chimpanzee Caesar (played by Andy Serkis) bellows “No!” at one of his captors before striking him across the face. Despite the scene’s inevitability—the film’s title alone is a spoiler—Caesar’s defiance arrives as a shock. He becomes, for a moment, genuinely awesome to behold, at once inspiring and terrifying. Even the apes around him seem uncertain at first whether to cheer him on or cower in fear.

A scene of a character surprising others by speaking has appeared again and again throughout the series, each a suspenseful callback to a pivotal moment from the original 1968 film, which spawned a run of B movies through the 1970s. But Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes , the latest entry in the rebooted franchise that began with Rise , makes the twist land like a punch line. When a seemingly feral human calmly asserts that she has a name , she does so after the two apes accompanying her have just been discussing how she can’t possibly speak. Both of them go slack-jawed in response to her words, freezing comically. One of them, an orangutan, drops his possessions.

As with any other big-budget franchise, the rebooted Planet of the Apes films have their hallmarks: epic ape-human showdowns, superb motion-capture performances, disarmingly soulful orangutans. (I’d do anything for sweet Maurice .) Unlike most ongoing blockbuster series, however, the recent Apes films are rather grim in tone; ape domination can’t happen without the humans being defeated, after all, in this case by a virus accidentally created in a lab that made simian test subjects intelligent and humans less so. The spectacle, too, looks little like typical popcorn fare: There are no tricked-out cars being driven, no superheroes taking flight, no movie stars pulling off death-defying stunts .

Yet the rebooted franchise is now four films in, with Kingdom crossing $200 million globally at the box office in its first two weekends, becoming the fourth-highest-grossing film of the year. Audiences apparently can’t quit Apes , and it’s easy to see why. This is the rare series that can shape-shift with particular agility from one film to the next, dependent not on delivering more spectacular set pieces but rather on exploring headier ideas from different angles. Speech is an act of defiance in one entry; in another, it’s a humorous revelation. The films are, to varying degrees of success, big-budget thought exercises, poring over the same fundamental questions: What is the true value of humanity? Is intelligence something to be welcomed—or feared?

Trying to figure out answers to such questions from the perspective of the apes makes even the most formulaic story beats feel fresh. The apes have their own hierarchy, beliefs, and customs, some of them derived from humans—making the apes an unpredictable yet oddly familiar observer of Homo sapiens behavior. In 2014’s Dawn , their intelligence and similarities to humans allowed for profound interspecies connection while unlocking a buried hatred in the simian antagonist, Koba (Toby Kebbell). In 2017’s War , Caesar’s brilliance helped him guide his fellow apes to freedom, but not before it led him down a path of nearly self-destructive revenge. These movies posit that the intelligence and humanity gained by the apes led to both betterment and corruption, a journey to enlightenment paralleling our own. By watching them try to build a utopian society, we’re essentially watching an anthropological dissection of ourselves.

Read: 17 indie films you must see in 2024

Over and over, the films illustrate how the laws the apes attempt to follow are vulnerable to cruelty and misinterpretation. Caesar declared that “ape not kill ape,” yet he broke his own rule in Dawn and became haunted by his actions in War . “Knowledge is power” is another tenet of simian society—it’s scrawled on a wall in the ape settlement seen in Dawn —but Koba’s discovery of human weapons led to suspicion, misunderstanding, and eventual carnage. Kingdom sharply interrogates Caesar’s greatest principle established in Rise , that “apes together strong.” Set hundreds of years after Caesar’s death, the film examines how important historical figures can become abstracted into myth over time, to be misrepresented by some and entirely forgotten by others. Its villain, an ape who calls himself Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), contorts Caesar’s rally cry by kidnapping other clans of apes so they’ll be organized under his authoritarian rule.

The Apes franchise, then, captures the way humanity’s worst impulses overwhelm its best intentions. Greed in Rise , violence in Dawn , oppression in War , dishonesty in Kingdom —these are bleak themes, not the stuff of summer tentpoles. And yet, these films succeed because they toe the line between sci-fi thrills and mournful seriousness. The premise of talking apes remains absurd, but the moral conundrums they encounter hold weight. When that balance is achieved, a film like Dawn —still the best of the rebooted franchise—emerges.

Kingdom is less effective at striking that balance. The film follows a set of new ape characters led by the youthful Noa (Owen Teague), and it runs long, at nearly two and a half hours, with a rushed third act that returns to a spacefaring plot thread left hanging since Rise . William H. Macy, as a fatalistic human held captive by Proximus Caesar, is underused. And although the visual splendor of postapocalyptic Earth remains stunning and the motion-capture performances remarkably realistic, Proximus Caesar is a disappointingly shallow villain compared with what the franchise previously achieved in Koba.

Still, Kingdom takes an admirably risky swing by examining the franchise’s ongoing, deeply pessimistic themes through the lens of a coming-of-age story. Noa is young—much younger than the Caesar seen in Dawn and War —and still idealistic. His beliefs have largely been untouched by humans, most of whom have deteriorated over generations of infected populations to become primitive and feral, and he grew up not knowing that Caesar existed. By the end of the film, he’s not setting out to start a new coalition of apes or to assert his dominance; he’s merely rebuilding his home. As such, Kingdom hints that Noa’s journey may look quite different from Caesar’s, even if he faces the same problems Caesar once did. Ideas evolve just as much as a species’ biology, the film suggests. And so too, it seems, can entire blockbuster franchises.

Screen Rant

Atlas rotten tomatoes score debuts as one of jennifer lopez’s worst-rated movies ever.

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Atlas Review: Jennifer Lopez’s New Netflix Movie Gets Science Fiction Totally Wrong

Atlas ending & ai twist explained, there's only 1 way netflix could make me want to watch another atlas movie.

Atlas debuts to only 8% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The sci-fi film is only 2% away from being the worst-rated movie of Jennifer Lopez's career.
Atlas ' poor reception continues an unfortunate trend for Netflix when it comes to blockbuster-style action movies.

Atlas ' Rotten Tomatoes score is in, and the Jennifer Lopez movie earns one of the lowest scores of her career. Directed by Brad Peyton, Atlas stars Lopez as Atlas Shepherd , a data analyst who teams with an AI in order to face off against a rogue robot determined to wipe out humanity. The sci-fi action film marks Lopez's latest collaboration with Netflix after her 2023 hit, The Mother.

Atlas has now debuted on Rotten Tomatoes with a lackluster score of only 8% with 25 reviews, as of this writing. This score is likely to fluctuate as more reviews are added, but it makes the film the second-lowest-rated movie of Lopez's acting career after 2003's Gigli . The audience score for Atlas , however, is a more respectable 71%.

Atlas Continues An Unfortunate Netflix Trend

Recent action blockbusters from the streamer haven't delivered.

Atlas ' negative reviews aren't really an outlier when it comes to a certain kind of Netflix action movie. While the streamer has released some acclaimed films from celebrated filmmakers, some of its big-budget action fare has struggled to make much of an impact . Red Notice , for example, represents one of Netflix's most expensive movies ever made, but the film has only 37% on Rotten Tomatoes. The Red Notice reviews criticize the film for its cheap-looking visuals, bland characters, and predictable plotting.

Last year's Heart of Stone starring Gal Gadot largely suffered from the same problems. The movie was a big investment, but it has unexciting action sequences and very little depth; it doesn't really have anything to say about anything. Similarly, The Gray Man 's reviews were mixed at best and, like Red Notice , this film cost about $200 million. While a big viewership hit, the movie struggles to ascend beyond just feeling somewhat generic and disposable.

There are outliers, of course. Netflix's two Extraction movies, for example, have been of higher quality than their contemporaries (and also cheaper to make). But even Lopez's previous movie for the streamer, The Mother , only has a 43% on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience scores for a lot of the above-mentioned films aren't overly negative, however, suggesting there is enjoyment to be found for some viewers, but Atlas certainly seems like further proof that Netflix has a quality problem when it comes to its blockbuster-style action films.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes

Atlas (2024)

Atlas is a 2024 Netflix original movie starring Jennifer Lopez as Atlas Shepherd. Atlas, a data analyst who doesn't trust AI, who sets out to recover a rogue robot. But when things don't go according to plan, she is forced to trust AI in order to save humanity.

Review: Stuffed with in-jokes for parents, ‘The Garfield Movie’ isn’t a cat-astrophe

A shocked dog and a puffed-up cat have an confrontation.

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Since 1978, cartoonist Jim Davis has explored the quotidian dramas of pet ownership via the daily travails of beleaguered Jon Arbuckle, his eager dog, Odie, and the titular tubby orange tabby, Garfield. If the comic strip (the most widely syndicated in the world) is the weekly sitcom version of their story, then “The Garfield Movie,” the latest effort to bring Garfield to the big screen, is the oversized action-adventure film, replete with references and comparisons to Tom Cruise.

Those Cruise-inspired Easter eggs are laid not necessarily for kids but for the adults who have accompanied them to the theater, such as when the score references “Mission: Impossible” while an ox named Otto, voiced by Ving Rhames (who plays Cruise’s techie Luther in the action franchise), lays out the plan for a heist. Later, a triumphant climax featuring airborne food-delivery drones offers the chance for a bit of the “Top Gun” theme while Garfield (voiced by Chris Pratt) brags that he does his own stunts , “just like Tom Cruise.”

The line is a bit of over-emphasis that this is the big, thrilling version of Garfield, not a “Jeanne Dielman” -style study of domestic life. In fact, after a quick framing device that shows us Garfield’s heartstring-tugging history as a starving stray kitten who encounters Jon at an Italian restaurant, the film speeds through a quick montage of our favorite Garfield tropes: He loves lasagna, hates Mondays, torments Jon and manipulates Odie.

We know him, we love him: Garfield’s unique characteristics have been printed on coffee mugs for years. Now, on to the high-stakes and highly contrived plot. Garfield and Odie are kidnapped by a couple of thuggish pups, Nolan ( Bowen Yang ) and Roland (Brett Goldstein), who are working for a Persian cat named Jinx (Hannah Waddingham). She wants them to collaborate with Garfield’s deadbeat dad, Vic (Samuel L. Jackson), on a milk heist as revenge for the time she did in the pound after a scheme she and Vic pulled.

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The heist plot allows for the action, adventure and suspense to come into play, as well as the aforementioned Tom Cruise references, along with nods to film noir and early silent films (there are a lot of sequences set on trains). There’s even a “Rashomon”-like flashback as we see Garfield’s childhood abandonment from Vic’s perspective, changing the way we understand how Garfield found himself alone in that alley that night. The heist may make up the majority of the story, but it’s merely a means by which an estranged father and son can escape the emotional prison of masculinity and express their feelings to each other.

“The Garfield Movie,” directed by Mark Dindal and written by Paul A. Kaplan, Mark Torgove and David Reynolds, may sport a deep knowledge of film history to delight cinephile parents, but it is still a kiddie movie and comes with the same zany, harried energy one might expect from such a project. The aesthetic hews closer to the look of the comic strip than the CGI/live-action abomination of the two Garfield movies of the early aughts, which is on trend with other animated films that embrace an illustrated style, though this is less edgy than some recent examples (the “Spider-verse” movies, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” ).

Bill Murray voiced the rusty, rotund feline in “Garfield: The Movie” (2004) and “Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties” (2006) in his dry, laconic manner, and Pratt does a fine job taking over vocal duties. Harvey Guillén offers his voice for Odie’s noises and the rest of the voice cast (Nicholas Hoult as Jon, Cecily Strong as a Midwestern security guard named Marge) round out their world.

Though the film is formulaic and somewhat annoyingly energetic, it’s cute and irreverent enough, and manages to bridge the generation gap, offering up a kid-friendly flick that can keep adults somewhat entertained for the duration, proving that even after all these years, Garfield’s still got it.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

'The Garfield Movie'

Rating: PG, for action/peril and mild thematic elements Running time: 1 hour, 41 minutes Playing: In wide release

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L-r, APRIL O'NEIL, MIKEY, RAPH, DONNIE and LEO in PARAMOUNT PICTURES and NICKELODEON MOVIES Present A POINT GREY Production "TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM"

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Cole, Carolyn –– B582002172Z.1 NEW YORK, NEW YORK––APRIL 3, 2012–– Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock has a new film titled "Comic Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope," which centers on the annual Sand Diego pop culture expo.(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)

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‎The Loneliest Planet (2011) directed by Julia Loktev • Reviews, film
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The Loneliest Planet

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The Loneliest Planet movie review (2012)
The long, long walk home. In "The Loneliest Planet," an engaged couple takes a backpacking hike over the beautiful but rugged trails of the Caucasus Mountains in the central European republic of Georgia. Midway on their trek, I was reminded of advice I once heard: "Never marry anyone without first taking a three-day bus trip with them."
The Loneliest Planet
J. Hoberman Tablet A triumphantly visual movie, The Loneliest Planet develops an interplay between freedom and confinement. May 3, 2016 Full Review David Thomson The New Republic You have to see ...
Movie Review
The Loneliest Planet. Director: Julia Loktev. Genre: Thriller. Running Time: 113 minutes. Not rated. With: Hani Furstenberg, Gael Garcia Bernal, Bidzina Gujabidze. The backpacking protagonists of ...
Review: 'The Loneliest Planet' is a revealing journey
By Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times Film Critic. Oct. 25, 2012 12 AM PT. In "The Loneliest Planet," the faces and bodies of the adventurous couple at the center of the film's journey do most ...
The Loneliest Planet: Film Review
The Loneliest Planet: Film Review. Gael Garcia Bernal and Nani Furstenberg star as adventurers in the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia in Russian-born, Colorado-raised writer/director Julia Loktev's ...
The Loneliest Planet
The Loneliest Planet is a colossal bore that doesn't offer any real payoff of any sort. Yes, the scenery is nice and the film goes to great lengths to accurately depict the ways in which people are unable of communicating with one another, but the bottom line is that this movie doesn't have very much to say and yet it takes an extremely long time to do so.
The Loneliest Planet
Audiences used to actively engaging with cinema will find much to relish about The Loneliest Planet. Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 24, 2013. Scoring a popular hit on the film festival ...
'The Loneliest Planet,' Directed by Julia Loktev
The Loneliest Planet. Directed by Julia Loktev. Thriller. Not Rated. 1h 53m. By A.O. Scott. Oct. 25, 2012. We never learn very much about Alex and Nica, the young couple (played by Gael García ...
The Loneliest Planet
The Loneliest Planet is a 2011 American drama thriller film written and directed by Julia Loktev, based on the short story Expensive Trips Nowhere by Tom Bissell, published in his collection God Lives in St. Petersburg. Starring Gael García Bernal and Hani Furstenberg, the film follows a young couple who travel with a local guide through a twisted backpacking trip across the Georgian wilderness.
The Loneliest Planet
The Loneliest Planet When two hipsters go on a guided camping expedition in the Caucasus Mountains, an incident tears a rift between them in "The Loneliest Planet," writer-helmer Julia Loktev's ...
Movie Review: The Loneliest Planet (2011)
If, as Werner Erhard put it, love is accepting someone the way that they are and the way they are not, then The Loneliest Planet, for all its remarkable qualities, in my view sends the wrong message and misses the opportunity for an important teachable moment. Critical Movie Critic Rating: 4. Movie Review: The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013)
The Loneliest Planet (2011)
The Loneliest Planet: Directed by Julia Loktev. With Hani Furstenberg, Gael García Bernal, Bidzina Gujabidze, Tali Pitakhelauri. An engaged couple's backpacking trip in the Caucasus Mountains is derailed by a single misstep that threatens to undo everything the pair believed about each other and about themselves.
The Loneliest Planet 2011, directed by Julia Loktev
Adjust to the deliberate rhythms of this hiking movie—set on the lush slopes of Georgia's Caucasus Mountains—and the psychological payoff stings like a blister.
The Loneliest Planet Review
The Loneliest Planet Review An elliptical, often baffling relationships drama about trust and reconciliation. Engaged couple Alex and Nica set off with a guide on a backpacking trek across the ...
The Loneliest Planet (2011)
6/10. Quite Saifying, But a Bit of a Let Down. luke-eberhardt 13 August 2012. "The Loneliest Planet" is about an American couple on holiday in Eastern Europe, Georgia accompanied by a guide they befriend. They face some hardships and determinations, almost like a pilgrimage.
The Loneliest Planet
The Loneliest Planet. Details: 2011, Rest of the world, 113 mins. Direction: Julia Loktev. ... Latest reviews. Noah review â 'a preposterous but endearingly unhinged epic'
The Loneliest Planet
The Loneliest Planet | Review. ... thriller, or crime genres. Julia Loktev's third film The Loneliest Planet - a mellow drama cum melodrama ... (communication is a big theme in this movie) in which Alex and Nica try to teach Dato to say the phrase "Bitch on the Beach" (note the reference to the opera title) results in a bit of phasing ...
‎The Loneliest Planet (2011) directed by Julia Loktev • Reviews, film
84/100 [reviewed from AFI 2011] Second go. Feared I might find the first half a little get-to-the-Incident enervating this time, but Loktev has an uncanny knack—also on display in Day Night Day Night—for making the eventless eventful, mostly via attention to arresting details that are unusual without being "quirky."(I was about to note that the "chimpanzee" headstand arguably crosses that ...
The Loneliest Planet Official Trailer #1 (2012)
Subscribe to TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/sxaw6hSubscribe to COMINGSOON: http://bit.ly/H2vZUnThe Loneliest Planet Official Trailer #1 (2012) - Gael Garcia Bernal ...
The Loneliest Planet
The Loneliest Planet. This week's films. Reviews in chronological order (Total 0 reviews) ... Klondike, The Trip to Italy, Endeavour and Monkey Planet 'Get your arse out, mate'
The Loneliest Planet
The Loneliest Planet. 2012 • 113 minutes. 2.8star. 9 reviews. ... Ratings and reviews aren't verified info_outline. arrow_forward. Ratings and reviews aren't verified info_outline. 2.8. 9 reviews. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. Kim Garian. more_vert. Flag inappropriate; August 28, 2019. Good use of cinematography, but other than that, this movie had very ...
The Loneliest Planet (2011)
If I describe Julia Loktev's second feature, The Loneliest Planet, as having some of the absolutely best shots of people walking that I have ever seen in a motion picture, I fancy that I have both demonstrated what is the general shape of the movie's appeal, while also demonstrating why that appeal is undoubtedly limited to a tiny and self-selecting audience.
The Loneliest Planet (2011)
Summary. Alex (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Nica (Hani Furstenberg) are young, in love and engaged to be married. The summer before their wedding, they are backpacking in the Caucasus Mountains in ...
The Best 'Planet of the Apes' Movies, Ranked
Both Rise and Dawn look outstanding, but War pushes motion-capture technology to giddy new highs. It's the most action-driven of any Apes film while never losing sight of the characters and ...
Janet Planet (2023)
Janet Planet: Directed by Annie Baker. With Zoe Ziegler, Luke Philip Bosco, June Walker Grossman, Abby Harri. In rural Western Massachusetts, 11-year-old Lacy spends the summer of 1991 at home, enthralled by her own imagination and the attention of her mother, Janet. As the months pass, three visitors enter their orbit, all captivated by Janet.
Review: Rocking Out, and Falling in Love, in 'The Lonely Few'
Amy's tour, as it happens, is on pause; her opening act bailed, and she needs to find a new one. Sensing talent as well as a spark, she enlists Lila and her band, the Lonely Few — which also ...
Hollywood's Most Pessimistic Blockbuster Franchise
The Planet of the Apes movies keep evolving—for the better. By Shirley Li. Illustration by Ben Kothe / The Atlantic. May 21, 2024. Share. Save. In 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the ...
Atlas Rotten Tomatoes Score Debuts As One Of Jennifer Lopez's Worst
Atlas' Rotten Tomatoes score is in, and the Jennifer Lopez movie earns one of the lowest scores of her career.Directed by Brad Peyton, Atlas stars Lopez as Atlas Shepherd, a data analyst who teams with an AI in order to face off against a rogue robot determined to wipe out humanity.The sci-fi action film marks Lopez's latest collaboration with Netflix after her 2023 hit, The Mother.
'The Garfield Movie' review: Bristling with in-jokes, action
Review: Stuffed with in-jokes for parents, 'The Garfield Movie' isn't a cat-astrophe. A scene from "The Garfield Movie.". Since 1978, cartoonist Jim Davis has explored the quotidian ...

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The Loneliest Planet (2011)

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The Loneliest Planet (2011)