Movie reviews of Filipe Freitas

It’s a shame that, despite a flawless characterization, the storytelling sometimes gets stranded in dispensable details and unlikely resolutions. Review

Even discreet and imbued with some strangeness, The Box still digs its own path within this particular drama subgenre. It caused me to ponder on the nature of each human being by making simple emotions complex, and complex questions impossible to answer. Review

This admirable aesthetic sense coupled with the cultural and climate change subjects makes Utama one of those films that, holding steadfast to its realism, sticks with you till the very end. Review

Lindon is just perfect; we see him and we believe it. His performance is well supplemented by TV and radio journalist Marie Drucker as a cold and intransigent boss. A successful first theatrical appearance for her. Another World is another product of Brizé’s mature social observation. Review

The direction of Andrew Dominik has some flashes of inspiration but is not to die for, while the script portrays the star almost as a dumb, without penetrating the woman's heart. Review

The film carries a mechanical melancholy that becomes trivial after a while. By looking deeper into the author's approach, it’s not impossible to find a certain artlessness in his work. Review

As subtle and delicate as an affectionate embrace, this is a beautiful film, whose story provides a heartbreaking insight into the different roles people may have in one’s life. Review

Unidentified is exactly like its protagonist: too serious to make us laugh, and too laughable to be taken seriously. A strong sense of incredulity grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go. The result, an attempted mixture of adrenaline, madness and despair, never managed to keep me on the edge of my seat. Review

Disseminating helplessness and dread in the last minutes, at the sound of an ethereal Requiem composed by Sune Kolster, this dismal film will teach you to never trust strangers. Review

With a tone that teeters between delicate and affected, this fantasy drama has no claws to be of more than passing interest. Basically, it fails to achieve what it tries to claim: the power of a deeply engaging narrative. Review

LaBute sacrificed the narrative and characters in the name of a few formal coups, making House of Darkness a painfully unnecessary experience. Review

God’s Country plays a minimalist pitch and puts all the emphasis on tone to achieve a sort of hypnotic enchantment. The message and feelings are there, and the picture plays more like a poignant indie drama rather than a rural western-style epic. Review

Pearl felt more confessional than disturbing, occasionally managing to give us the chills, like in a scene where Pearl chases her next prey with an axe in her hand. It’s a shame that the script doesn’t unpack more of these moments for the actress who co-wrote the script with West. Review

In her feature debut, Gaysorn Thavat knits the drama with serious and sobering observation, whereas the script by Sophie Henderson had some margin to improve. Review

Between the comic and the monstrous, the final scenes are the best. But, again, everyone seems too cool in the face of evil, a relatively frustrating glimpse of what the whole film could have been. Review

The stirring beauty of Graf’s drama comes from the genuine feelings transmitted by the leads, who, together with the editor Claudia Wolscht, contribute to the furiously cinematic outcome. Review

If you like your crime thrillers slightly smoked with fraught anxiety, then you should be able to commune with this film at a satisfactory level. Review

You will feel some suffocation among the tension and friction, and the result can be slightly disturbing in its forthrightness. Review

Overflowing with naturalistic dialogues, this touching and comical film also presents cheerfully colored images and an unremitting low pressure in the narrative that contributes to the tenderness of the outcome. Review

This fiction paints an eccentric and sensitive portrait of the family, and goes deeper than what it seems. But there’s a strong sense of deja-vu along the way, especially regarding the tone. Review

His originality here is the clarity in the filmmaking, even dealing with multiple layers and complex temporal shifts in the story. He meets his goal with an incredible eye for detail and the help of awesome leading actors. Review

Honk for Jesus has painful truths in it, but even eschewing the sort of cynical, tasteless jokes that a project of this nature would naturally attract, it would need some ingenious twists besides the obvious to succeed. What it lacks in vision, it narrowly makes up for with entertainment. Review

We are always a little off and the emotion suggested is totally fake as all the actors lack charisma. The banality of the dialogues and the unnatural hysteria is what really scared me, while its malfunctioning mechanics failed to cause anything other than a severe headache. Reduced to its miserable insignificance, Bodies Bodies Bodies is instantly forgotten. Review

Halfway through, the film spirals into a decrescendo of plot arcs that make it repetitive. Incapable of claiming an original identity, this is, nonetheless, a finely crafted picture where family values and the courage to revert an erroneous decision are present. Review