Everyone needs a break now and then from the quotidian, which is why this week's recommendations from Up To Date's independent, foreign and documentary film critics are chock-full of characters attempting extraordinary things. Whether or not you follow in their footsteps is up to you, but their stories are sure to stretch your perspective and shift your paradigm.
Cynthia Haines
Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story, Not rated
- The relationship between a storyboard artist and film researcher makes for a refreshing break from the seedy Hollywood underbelly. A great film for those interested in the unsung, behind-the-scenes movie heroes who receive little to no credit.
Marie Curie: The Courage of Knowledge, Not rated
- Karolina Gruszka shines in this dramatic portrait of an unprecedented scientific firebrand whose professional success is met by a scandal-obsessed press corps and the endemic sexism of the early 1900s.
Menashe, PG
- After the death of his wife, an ultra-orthodox Jewish man must face down the prospect of making ends meet, maintaining his faith, and restoring his standing in a traditional community that doesn't allow him to raise a son by himself.
Steve Walker
Neither Wolf Nor Dog, Not rated
- Steven Lewis Simpson's picturesque and pungent drama addresses the cultural dysphoria that erupts between an elderly Native American, Dave Bald Eagle, who died recently at 97, and the white writer he entrusts with his story.
Marie Curie: The Courage of Knowledge, Not rated
- Though this French biopic of the two-time Nobel Prize-winning chemist is as dense as salt water, it effectively reveals the woman behind the science and the deeply ingrained gender bias among her peers.
Ingrid Goes West, R
- This sharply-etched black comedy about the hunt for truth and realness among virally obsessed, conveniently malleable millennials is wonderfully acted, especially by Aubrey Plaza as an outcast seeking inclusion.
