Rebuilding

 

Writer/director Max Walker-Silverman

director with Kali Reis and Josh O'Connor

actress Kali Reis

REBUILDING           B+                                                                                                        USA  (96 mi)  2025  d: Max Walker-Silverman

Film is an act of imagination.  It is the bright light in a dark room.  So I made this film because only through imagining a better world can we hope for one.  And only through hoping for a better world can we fight for one.  I made this film because if loss must be an ongoing ingredient of our lives, as it must, then care and healing and rebirth must be, too.                    —Writer/director Max Walker-Silverman, “Rebuilding” Reminds Us to Seek the Balm of Community 

From the maker of 2022 Top Ten List #8 A Love Song, this opens up a window into a rarely seen world in this critically praised, quiet, and empathetic little indie gem starring versatile British actor Josh O’Connor (5 major roles in the last 18 months) as Dusty, a humble Colorado cattle rancher navigating life in a temporary FEMA trailer park (timely in an unfortunate way, coinciding with the real wildfires that devastated parts of Southern California) after his home and extensive ranch territory that have been in his family for generations are completely destroyed by a horrific wildfire that consumes thousands of acres.  Premiering at Sundance in the same year as Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams (2025), which this resembles (neither was awarded any prizes), yet that film garnered all the attention, fueled, perhaps by the money from Netflix, causing this film to get lost, flying completely under the radar with no promotional fanfare, though it actually offers greater depth and more profound emotional resiliency.  Delicate and tender, this is the kind of film that only independent American cinema can offer, far more naturalistic than his earlier effort, reminiscent of Chloé Zhao’s 2021 #5 Film of the Year Nomadland (2020) in terms of its depiction of America and its vast panoramic landscapes, accentuating the plight of marginalized people in the wake of tragedy, where sadness and personal struggles are largely overshadowed by the immense presence of the natural world.  O’Connor is excellent in a subdued and understated performance as Dusty, a reserved, overly polite, and grief-stricken man of few words, whose self-reliance and independence seem to have isolated him from others, especially his loved ones, as he’s a man with too much pride to ever ask anyone for help, yet his actions speak loudly, essentially revealing that when you’ve lost everything, what you’ve got left are friends, family, and a surrounding community, who are not to be underestimated, as they mean everything.  Patient and slow-paced, mostly told though Dusty’s perspective, a cowboy who wonders who and what he is if he’s not a rancher, this is a gently humanist story, set in southern Colorado, where it’s times like these that make you revaluate what’s really important in your life, as it may not be the same things that mattered before the fire.  The sheer devastation of losing everything changes things, as you no longer have the comfortable rhythm of your daily support system in place, starting the day milking the cows, bailing hay, feeding the livestock, herding cattle, and mending fences, as the sparse life in a FEMA trailer is totally different, where everything is reduced to the bare essentials.  He thinks he might seek work during the calving season at his cousin’s farm in Montana, 500 miles away, until he realizes how much his daughter is attached to him.  Working with former NYU film school classmates, production designer Juliana Barreto Barreto and co-editor Ramzi Bashour, though his closest collaborator is cinematographer Alfonso Herrera Salcedo, exquisitely shot in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, the largest alpine valley in the world, where going months without rain make it a tinderbox ready to explode, but we never see the fire, only the aftermath, though we do see an opening abstract montage of floating embers carried by the winds.  Beautifully establishing a not so ordinary sense of place, with a sparse script written by the Telluride native director featuring dialogue that sounds organic, as there are no villains, and there’s not an ounce of melodrama, accentuating the kinds of figures rarely seen in films, as the relationship between humans and nature, between all natural things, must fluctuate, ebb and flow, leaving us open to change, as loss is universal, where sometimes it takes a calamity to realize what we have.  

Deeply rooted in the human experience, based on his own personal ordeal of watching his grandmother’s house burn down in a wildfire in 2020, this American cowboy movie is a character and performance-driven film featuring a Greek chorus collection of offbeat characters driven from their homes, “not real neighbors,” as described by Dusty, where these inhabitants from closely assembled trailers could be anybody, where the initial focus is not on them but on Dusty reconnecting with his family, including his firm but fair ex-wife Ruby (Meghann Fahy from Christopher Landon’s Drop, 2025), her strong-willed mother Bess (Amy Madigan), and his estranged 9-year old daughter, Callie-Rose (Lily LaTorre, an Australian with a perfect American accent), who is mature beyond her years, offering an eye-opening performance, stealing literally every scene she’s in while also winning our hearts in one of the great child performances.  Despite being divorced, they maintain close relations, even though Ruby has moved on to a new husband, Robbie (Sam Engbring), with an openly sensible plan to mutually share raising their daughter.  In a lot of small mountain communities, families are scattered and far away, making it inhospitable for the elderly, and those who move there are often leaving home intentionally, so kids are cared for by a lot of unofficial aunts and uncles.  Natural disasters from floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, fires, tornadoes, and earthquakes are going to be part of our lives forever, where after such staggering loss, things don’t come back as they were, from the places that define us, but are instead reinvented, with this film focusing on the subsequent healing, reminiscent of the much larger scale Amish barn-raising sequence in Peter Weir’s WITNESS (1985), WITNESS Barn Raising Scene MOVIE 1985 YouTube (6:22), which is nothing less than exhilarating.  With no work to keep him busy, this catastrophe opens a window of opportunity for Dusty to reconnect and spend more time with Callie-Rose, bringing her out to the new homesite, where he hasn’t even unpacked the cardboard boxes in his trailer, yet she immediately finds companionship with one of the other kids, as they literally live off a deserted highway in the middle of wide open spaces where no other structure can be seen for miles.  While it’s a primitive environment, with no running water, the closeness of the trailers all huddled together resembles the era of Westerns when wagon trains did the same thing in order to offer protection from Indian attacks.  But here what stands out is that they have no one to rely upon except themselves, responsible for cooking and feeding each other, sharing meals and companionship, helping out with needed home repairs, exploring ideas of home and family, and our memories of both, developing all the attributes of a close-knit community, routinely looking out for one another in a reflection of human decency, discovering deep emotion through simple moments of connection between characters, where authenticity is the film’s greatest strength, a reflection of the prevalent use of non-professionals (everyone but one in the FEMA group).  The initially shy and reticent Dusty seems to hide his eyes under his cowboy hat, bashfully avoiding contact with others, yet still he projects strength, despite everything falling apart underneath him, making a strong impression on his daughter, who has never gotten to spend a lot of time with her Dad and looks up to him perhaps more than she should, REBUILDING I Reborn I Bleecker Street YouTube (2:08), yet she is immediately accepted by the group, no questions asked, making her feel right at home. 

This film is not a disaster movie, but a tender look at humanity’s ability to rebuild through togetherness, a film that is grounded in themes of loss, open skies, and the kinds of people Hollywood often overlooks.  In the minds of this ragtag group of displaced neighbors is just what comes next, as the housing is only temporary, so they’ll have to figure out how to move on to the next step in their lives, which is a concern for everyone, as their lives have been uprooted and placed in limbo, surrounded by the emptiness of a wide-open landscape.  In what resembles the middle of nowhere, completely vulnerable to the elements, they figure out their day-to-day routines, but it’s hard to see beyond that.  Banks refuse to offer loans, as there is nothing left to borrow against, with everything of value destroyed in the fire, where it will be another eight to ten years before his pastureland will again produce enough grass for livestock farming, making it all but impossible to begin again anytime soon.  Needing a phone or computer to process their applications for federal assistance, or for Callie-Rose to do her homework, a library is the only place for these rural residents to access Wi-Fi, with sporadic cars or trucks seen parked nearby, but they close early from funding cuts, so at night Dusty takes Callie-Rose there so she can read books on her tablet while lying in the back of his truck in the parking lot, Rebuilding Exclusive Movie Clip - You Live Here (2025) YouTube (1:01).  Her choice of reading material leans towards the fantastical, allowing her imagination to soar from Scott Emerson’s The Magic Boots, which is beautifully integrated into the social realist aesthetic.  One of the standout scenes is watching the two girls stick the interior walls of the trailer with countless glow-in-the-dark stars, then extinguish the light and sit with an equally astonished Dusty under an endless starry sky, a small gesture that carries enormous emotional weight.  The exquisite acoustic guitar score by Jake Xerxes Fussell and James Elkington, coming from the John Fahey folk roots tradition, figures prominently, like Jake Xerxes Fussell & James Elkington - Mountain Time ... YouTube (2:21), with the John Prine song Kurt Vile - "How Lucky" with John Prine (Official Audio) YouTube (3:23) eloquently infused into the narrative, becoming a sort of theme song for Dusty.  In the end, what matters most are the welcoming personal connections, which only reveal themselves over time, with earth mother Mali (Kali Reis, a mixed Indigenous and Cape Verdean actress, also a former American and World Champion boxer), who lost her husband to the fire, becoming the heart and soul of this new community, taking everyone under her wing, where they’re free to be whoever they choose, including an elderly lesbian couple, a biracial couple, an affable plumber, a barely seen hermit-like man who rarely leaves his trailer, where older men especially drift from self-reliance into solitude, while others are much more socially connected in their day-to-day lives, with Dusty and Callie-Rose not only accepted, but embraced.  The structure of the film slowly builds from an isolated emptiness, seemingly having nothing, to an awareness of why they want to stay, as they feel an inter-generational connection to the land and don’t want to have to start a new life elsewhere, while also exposing recognizable friendships, where they’re all in the same boat, as they come to realize these fragile connections matter.  With no easy answers, this is the kind of film that sneaks up on you, handled with great restraint rather than exploitation, leaving a profound emotional imprint, with a surprising and unexpectedly touching finale that only accentuates the tenuous and fleeting nature of our lives, as healing happens not in isolation, but through shared human connections, where a reimagined future must come from within, becoming a stark meditation on hope and resilience.      

2025 Top Ten List #4 Hamnet

 

Director Chloé Zhao

actress Jessie Buckley

the director and cinematographer with the two leads

author Maggie O'Farrell

Shakespeare and wife Anne Hathaway

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HAMNET                   A-                                                                                                        USA  Great Britain  (125 mi)  2025  d: Chloé Zhao

We know very little about Shakespeare, but we know even less about Agnes.                             —Maggie O’Farrell, Hamnet

A Shakespearean film that places the beloved author off to the sidelines and instead focuses largely upon his wife Agnes, whose feminine consciousness and domestic existence has been diminished and disrespected throughout history, as the infamous fame of her husband largely overshadows her considerable influence, yet not much is known about her, a marginal figure of literary history suddenly thrust into the middle of the action, though in 2007 feminist academic Germaine Greer wrote a book entitled Shakespeare’s Wife, which serves as a breeding ground for the film’s premise.  Adapted from the 2020 historical fiction novel by Irish author Maggie O’Farrell, it tells the story of a young boy, a twin who grows up in Stratford, as his mother Agnes stays at home while his father is away in London, writing plays and becoming famous, yet this is the imagined story of William Shakespeare’s young son Hamnet, who died completely unexpectedly at the age of 11, most likely from the bubonic plague, a tragedy of epic proportions that may have led to the outpouring of emotions in the play Hamlet, written around 1600, literally bringing him back to life, and serving as his fitting epitaph.  His brief and precious life was more significant than literary historians suppose, as in those days, the names Hamnet and Hamlet were interchangeable, one and the same, adding a different twist to Shakespeare’s legacy.  According to literary critic Harold Bloom, Hamlet is the birth of modern consciousness, and the cornerstone of the human self, representing an unparalleled depth of human complexity, viewing Hamlet as the most significant work of Western literature, Bloom on Hamlet.pdf.  When we attend a performance of Hamlet, or read it for ourselves, it becomes clear that Hamlet is a character who transcends the play, with Shakespeare addressing what he might have hoped for his young son Hamnet, a child on the verge of manhood, imagining what he might have become, endowing him with the best virtues of both a hero and a dreamer, where he is viewed as both hard and soft, cruel and gentle, also brutal and angelic, yet the profound effect this character has on our lives in indisputable.  Turning his young life into a film, providing a fictional backstory, is a unique interpretation, and one that resonates with modern audiences, with stellar performances bringing intimacy to a captivating story that could easily have been a distant period drama, like so many we’ve seen before, but Zhao builds a naturalistic story supported by a tactile, sensory visualization reminiscent of Terrence Malick, where fog, wind, rain, and the rustling of the leaves all seem to resonate, while also spending fleeting moments with the characters, focusing on people society often overlooks, where empathy is a core aspect of all her films, allowing viewers to become familiar and internalize their human characteristics, which supersedes any developing plot points.  What makes this film special is its rhythmic form, as Zhao allows the film to breathe, yet at its core, this is a film about the emergence of art, and how greatness often emerges from devastating personal loss. 

Some of the notable adaptations of Shakespeare to the screen are Laurence Olivier’s Oscar-winning HAMLET (1948), Grigori Kozintsev’s HAMLET (1964), Kenneth Branagh’s HAMLET (1996), Orson Welles’ MACBETH (1948), Akira Kurosawa’s Macbethian adaptation, THRONE OF BLOOD (1957), along with Béla Tarr’s made-for-television MACBETH (1983), Justin Kurzel’s MACBETH (2015), and Joel Coen’s 2022 Top Ten List #5 The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021), Orson Welles’ OTHELLO (1951), Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s JULIUS CAESAR (1953), Laurence Olivier’s RICHARD III (1955), Robert Wise’s Oscar-winning adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story (1961), Franco Zeffirelli’s ROMEO AND JULIET (1968), Baz Luhrmann’s ROMEO + JULIET (1996), Orson Welles’ amalgamation of scenes from various Shakespeare plays Chimes at Midnight (Campanadas a Medianoche) (1966), Gus van Sant’s Henry IV Pt. I adaptation, My Own Private Idaho (1991), Franco Zeffirelli’s THE TAMING OF THE SHREW (1967), Peter Brook’s KING LEAR (1971), Grigori Kozintsev’s KING LEAR (1971), Akira Kurosawa’s King Lear adaptation, RAN (1985), Jean-Luc Godard’s KING LEAR (1987), Woody Allen’s A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982), Julie Taymor’s A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM (2015), Paul Mazursky’s THE TEMPEST (1982), Kenneth Branagh’s HENRY V (1989) and MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (1993), Josh Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing (2012), Ian McKellen’s RICHARD III (1995), Trevor Nunn’s TWELFTH NIGHT (1996), Kenneth Branagh’s LOVE’S LABOURS LOST (2000) and AS YOU LIKE IT (2006), Michael Radford’s THE MERCHANT OF VENICE (2004), and Ralph Fiennes’ CORIOLANUS (2011), though the most famous may be John Madden’s amusing, Oscar-winning, behind-the-scenes reimagining of the genesis of Romeo and Juliet in SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE (1998).  Of all these versions, this is the only one to exclusively feature Agnes, with William (the name Shakespeare is only mentioned at the very end, and never mentioned in the book) playing more of a background role, basically flipping the switch on what we’re used to seeing, offering a female perspective, directed by an immigrant Chinese-American filmmaker, Chloé Zhao, a graduate of NYU’s prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, becoming the first woman of color to receive an Academy Award for Best Director with 2021 #5 Film of the Year Nomadland (2020).  Her earlier semi-Western films, Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015) and 2018 Top Ten Film List #1 The Rider, were both shot on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, journeys of self-discovery shot in the American West, delving into rarely explored strata of American society.  With this film, Zhao has created something that is wrenchingly sad, an elegiac remembrance of a lost child, which is easily one of the most difficult tragedies for anyone to experience, as all that hope and promise of a new life is cut short, never to materialize, but Shakespeare essentially memorializes this tragedy of grief and loss into one of the greatest works of art, inducing a cathartic theatrical experience, reminding us of the resilience of love and memory. 

Set in the shadow of the Protestant Reformation, adapted by Zhao in collaboration with Maggie O’Farrell, eloquently scored by the incomparable Max Richter, Of the undiscovered country (From The Original Motion Picture ... YouTube (5:22), the film opens with a written prologue from Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt that reveals, “Hamnet and Hamlet are in fact the same name, entirely interchangeable in Stratford records in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.”  Opening in a deeply wooded, bucolic setting (shot in Gloucestershire’s Forest), Agnes (Jessie Buckley from Charlie Kaufman’s I'm Thinking of Ending Things in 2020) is an almost mythical figure, a farmer’s daughter more at home in the forest than with her family, where she has an abusive father, finding refuge in the silence and solitary world of nature, seen attracting a flying hawk to her gloved hand, developing a spiritual closeness to all the plants and animals, proficient in the herbal qualities of various plants for medicinal purposes, where she’s something of a local healer, but she’s equally capable of reading people’s hands, sensing things before they happen while discovering their undetected emotional truths.  As the heart of the movie, her fiery Oscar-worthy performance is raw, physical, and demanding, which can be showy at times, but excels in quiet restraint, choosing contemplation over drama, where much of what’s so convincing about her is expressed through close-ups without uttering a single word.  Lurking in the nearby vicinity, William (Paul Mescal) is a Latin tutor to a classroom of uninterested students, but he’s taken by what he sees out the window, which is the figure of Agnes, so he follows her to a nearby barn.  Following a brief kiss, she urges him to stay away, not wishing to add to the local gossip that considers her an outcast, the daughter of a forest witch (an outgrowth of paganism), yet she’s proud of her ability to concoct healing potions, which seems to define what she’s about, as she’s a complex woman, an unapologetically, unconventional spirit who intuitively sees the world differently than the rest of us, HAMNET - "When We Kiss" Official Clip YouTube (53 seconds).  Seeing that firsthand, the more introverted William is intrigued, following her to a nearby cave, where she convinces him to tell her a story.  He significantly chooses the heartbreaking legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, one of the great love stories from Greek mythology.  Having captured her attention, she grabs hold of his hand, foretelling that his future will be something great, while she sees herself dying with two children.  Enamored with each other, they passionately make love, resulting in her pregnancy.  Her parents angrily banish her from their household, forced to seek refuge in the attic of William’s family, who are less than enthused, but they hastily marry, with most of the film taking place in the Shakespeare home in rural Stratford-upon-Avon, as Agnes has her first child alone in the woods, which is where William and her supportive younger brother Bartholomew (Joe Alwyn) find her, discovering they are both doing well.   

Another holiday release that critics are raving about, though some may feel the big moments of grief, especially the screeching and the crying, are demonstrably supercharged, and while that may be true, there’s also a maturity here demonstrated in the cinematic restraint that separates what this film brings to the screen, a place where love, grief, and art all converge.  Elegantly and beautifully shot by Łukasz Żal, from Pawel Pawlikowski’s 2014 Top Ten List #2 Ida (2013) and Cold War (Zimna wojna) (2018), also Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest (2023), using mobile cameras, natural light, and a constant fusion between landscape, human presence, and time, this film takes its time getting started, as it’s a slow build where you get to know these characters and follow their journey, but once it kicks in, it packs an emotional wallop.  Settling into domestic life, their commitment never wavers, but it’s clear William is struggling balancing home life with his writing career, so he is urged to move to London where he can immerse himself in the theater community.  As a result, he is gone for prolonged periods of time working on his plays, causing a strain on their relationship, leaving Agnes to raise her family alone, which she does impeccably.  What’s interesting is the way Zhao weaves the DNA of his writing from their family experiences, which are woven into the film so naturally that they feel organic, like William jotting down lines from Romeo and Juliet following their first kiss.  Both William and Agnes come from abusive fathers, as he is seen standing up to his father, a glove maker who forcibly tries to prevent him from leaving a room of manual labor, calling him “useless,” striking him several times, but William strikes back, claiming he will never tolerate that abuse again.  Both seem to have channeled this kind of injurious patriarchal harm into creative outlets, where she has a mysterious connection to nature, while he is a penniless but aspiring writer with a destiny to become arguably the greatest writer in all of history.  With another birth on the way, this time William’s mother Mary (Emily Watson) restrains Agnes from venturing into the woods, giving birth to twins, a boy, Hamnet, followed by a girl Judith who is presumably born stillborn, but miraculously comes back to life.  The kids are very close, especially the twins, who often fool people, even their father, by dressing as each other, where among the more delightful early scenes is watching them enthusiastically portray the witches scene from Macbeth to the awe of their parents, a beautiful blend of the innocence of childhood with the dramatic power of what Shakespeare would become, which is emphasized further when Hamnet dreams of playing a swordfight scene in one of his father’s plays, HAMNET - "What Do You Wish To Do" Official Clip YouTube (1:13).  But William has to return to London to work on his new play, lovingly saying his warm goodbyes to Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe), HAMNET - "I Have To Go" Official Clip YouTube (1:00). 

Things take a tragic turn when Judith becomes afflicted by the plague, growing sick and feverish, with Hamnet providing comfort, even crawling into bed with her when it’s clear she may be lost, but by morning she has a miraculous recovery, only to discover Hamnet is dead, a fate that in the 16th century was tragically common, affecting about a third of all children in England before the age of ten.  The effect is immediate, as the parents are inconsolable with grief.  Agnes is filled with anger that William was not there for him when it happened, forcing her to bear that monumental loss alone, where her raw grief is not interpreted but feels immersive, literally swallowing her up whole, while also losing her ability to predict the future anymore, as something is broken between them.  Finding themselves lost, struggling to find purpose, each processes their grief differently, with William reciting Hamlet’s To be or not to be soliloquy on the banks of the Thames, with suicidal thoughts about throwing himself into the river.  Some may find this too melodramatic or overwrought, but the truth is losing a child is a distinct and awful kind of grief, which this film recognizes.  “What is given may be taken away at any time,” Mary says at one point, quietly ruminating on the deaths of her own daughters.  Mary provides Agnes with a flyer about William’s upcoming play in London entitled The Tragedy of Hamlet, which sends her into a furor about invoking his name, while William grows frustrated with his actors while rehearsing the play, trying to instill more passion into their performances.  Agnes and Bartholomew secretly attend the first performance of Hamlet at the massive open-air Globe Theatre in London, still outraged at the name of the play, yet these final few scenes are among the most dramatically powerful sequences in recent memory, as it’s all read on her face, angry and indignant at first, but as she slowly realizes it’s like an intimate love letter written exclusively for her, that anger turns to sheer amazement, likely seeing a play literally for the very first time.  Seeing her son onstage reborn into the character of Hamlet is beautifully portrayed by none other than the real-life older brother, Noah Jupe, cast to look like her late son, exactly the same age Hamnet would have been, had he lived, whose scintillating swordplay onstage is simply thrilling to see through the eyes of his mother.  William himself plays the ghost of Hamlet’s father, talking from beyond the grave to his son, speaking the final line of the novel, “Remember me,” evoking emotions so profoundly moving and emotionally devastating that audiences can’t help but react, especially reliving Hamlet’s tragic death onstage, with Agnes, standing right in front of the stage, reaching out to his hand (followed by others, miraculously shown in an overhead shot), briefly seeing the son she always imagined, smiling for the first time since his death, and finally seeing her husband in a new light, with transcendent music by Max Richter successfully moving across earthly realms to the “undiscovered country” of other side, Max Richter - On The Nature Of Daylight (Official Video) YouTube (6:36), which is exactly what this music was meant to convey.  It’s an astonishing moment and a brilliant piece of communal cinema that is provoking extreme emotional reactions, yet deserving all the accolades.  Group crying goes back to Homer and the Greeks, as Odysseus and Achilles wept openly with their men, viewing it as a fundamental aspect of the human experience.  This is a film where you can feel the pain manifest in the theater, literally transporting viewers into a different sentient space, becoming a meditative experience about love and the creative power of remembering, also the redemptive power of live theater.  By grounding one of literature’s greatest tragedies in domestic life, Zhao offers something rare, a Shakespeare story that feels deeply human, rooted in authenticity and emotional truth.