Richard Lawson

2 weeks ago | vanityfair.com | Richard Lawson

Among the weirdest films to premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival is Spike Lee’s out-of-competition drama-thriller Highest 2 Lowest, the kind of idiosyncratic indulgence only a filmmaker of Lee’s stature is allowed. Lee’s film, a curious mash of tones and tempos, has such an odd cadence that it sometimes plays like it’s been translated from a mysterious foreign language. But this is indeed a homegrown film, even if it is adapted from a 1963 movie by Akira Kurosawa.

2 weeks ago | vanityfair.com | Richard Lawson

In the cold open of Wes Anderson’s new film, The Phoenician Scheme, we see a man blown in half by a bomb. A streak of bright red blood spatters on the wall above the lower half of his body, still buckled into its airplane seat. There has been mild violence in Anderson films before, and the director has often been blunt and dispassionate while doling out the fates of characters. But this moment feels like an escalation.

2 weeks ago | vanityfair.com | Richard Lawson

Let’s just get the inevitable out of the way. The new film Pillion, which premiered here at the Cannes Film Festival on May 18, is in some ways similar to last year’s Babygirl, a comedy-drama-romance about a dom-sub relationship. Pillion, from first-time feature director Harry Lighton, examines the same sort of coupling, from timid beginning to full-body commitment. But in comportment, tone, and intention, Pillion is otherwise wholly different from Babygirl.

2 weeks ago | vanityfair.com | Richard Lawson

The new film Die, My Love opens with snapshots of a flourishing relationship: a couple inspects their new home, which the man, Jackson (Robert Pattinson), has inherited from his late uncle. It’s in rural Montana, a far cry from New York City, where Jackson and Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) lived previously. They note the dirty floors, the rats scurrying upstairs. Though it’s a big change, they’re excited enough to christen the house in the way only two young and hungry lovers can.

2 weeks ago | vanityfair.com | Richard Lawson

There’s an old go-to gag about Hollywood ambition: an actor saying, “What I really want to do is direct.” It became a punchline for a reason—for all the actors who have become brilliant filmmakers, just as many have crashed and burned when stepping behind the camera. The Cannes Film Festival is littered with such tales of woe, from the noxious hubris of Sean Penn (The Last Face) to the irksome pretension of Ryan Gosling (Lost River).