Luce

Tense and keeps you guessing, but somehow the stakes never seem so high as to justify the level of intensity. Great performances, great dialogue, and thought provoking racial commentary make it worth seeing though.

**_A slightly repetitive, but nonetheless fascinating societal drama that rewards concentration_** >_One of my key concerns with_ Luce_, and intertwined with exploring identity, is exploring power – who has it, who doesn't, and how our institutions uphold the rigid systems of power that disadvantage certain demographics. So much of the dialogue in our culture right now is about confronting systems of power that disenfranchise women, the LGBTQIA community, people of colour, people with disabilities, and a myriad of other marginalised groups. Luce explores how life can be experienced by those_…

Kelvin Harrison Jnr treads the line between perfect student and perfect demon with some aplomb in this film. Naomi Watts and Tim Roth also provide a credible set of parents facing problems with both their (adopted) son and with their own relationship. Octavia Spencer stands out too - but I have to say, I don't find there to be much cohesion here. Certainly, the threads address issues of racial and gender stereotyping, but they don't intertwine in any particularly convincing way. I had to make quite a number of assumptions to make any sense of the ending - perhaps that was the plan - but it…

Defying simple categorization, the film unfolds with the menace of a horror movie while remaining a character-driven drama. This slow-burn thriller relies on explosive dialogue and ambiguous expressions rather than action, keeping the audience uneasy and guessing until the final frame. Parents be well advised that this movie contains nudity involving a scene in which Marsha Stephanie Blake's hairy vagina is shown at length when she strips nude in public.