Cannes Day 11: Finally, Some Awards

Also: Kelly Reichardt’s ‘70s caper debuts The post Cannes Day 11: Finally, Some Awards appeared first on TheWrap.

May 24, 2025 - 17:40

Yes, Cannes is still rolling. And no, the Palme d’Or winner has not been crowned (that’ll come later Saturday). Cannes has been going on for so long that “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning,” a film that screened early in the festival, is now playing on thousands of screens worldwide. But let’s get into the happenings before this year’s festival finally closes out.

Un Certain Regard Regarded

Everyone is always in a tizzy over what will get Cannes’ big award, the Palme d’Or, but just as interesting (perhaps more so) is the competition for the Un Certain Regard, which is run in parallel to the main competition. The goal of Un Certain Regard, which was introduced in 1998, is to give a spotlight to unusual films that take narrative or stylistic risks. And this year was no different.

This year’s top prize winner was “The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo,” described by our man on the ground as following “an 11-year-old girl growing up in the early 1980s in a queer family in a small Chilean mining town, where suspicion is growing over a mysterious disease that is rumored to be spread by glances between gay men.”

Simón Mesa Soto’s “A Poet” won the Jury Prize, the second-place award. The directing award went to Tarzan and Arab Nasser for “Once Upon a Time in Gaza,” while Cléo Diara and Frank Dillane won the performance prizes for “I Only Rest in the Storm” and “Urchin.” Writer-director Harry Lighton won the screenplay award for “Pillion.”

Several of the most high-profile Cannes debuts, all made my actors-turned-directors, were in competition for these prizes but came up short – Kristen Stewart’s “The Chronology of Water,” Scarlett Johansson’s “Eleanor the Great” and Harris Dickinson’s “Urchin.” But Cannes doesn’t love to shower one movie with a ton of awards, so look for these to show up in Saturday’s ceremony.

Kelly Reichardt Returns (And Not a Moment Too Soon)

Kelly Reichardt, the filmmaker behind “Wendy and Lucy,” “First Cow” and, most recently, “Showing Up,” has returned with a 1970s-set heist movie starring Josh O’Connor, Alana Haim and John Magaro (among others). It’s in competition for the Palme d’Or. And, true to form, it sounds absolutely wonderful.

Reviews are calling it her most accessible work to date, a shaggy dog tale of losers who plan an ambitious heist. But our critic was less enamored, calling “The Mastermind” “something of a mixed-bag,” with the director choosing to emulate the work of directors like Hal Ashby and Robert Altman, in her own distinct style. Throughout the film, our reviewer writes, Reichardt loses “her otherwise deft ability to dramatize political topics in the most natural of ways.”

But any new Reichardt movie is reason to celebrate, especially with this cast and topic.

Neon’s Buying Spree Continues

Perhaps the thought of their Palme d’Or-winning streak ending was enough to spook them, but Neon, which acquired and released the last five Cannes winners (including “Parasite” and last year’s eventual Oscar heavyweight “Anora”), has been on something of a buying spree.

Earlier this week they picked up period thriller “The Secret Agent” from Kleber Mendonça Filho and revenge movie “It Was Just An Accident” from Jafar Panahi, both of which are in the main competition. And now they’ve nabbed the rights to Oliver Laxe’s road movie “Sirât,” which was produced by none other than Pedro Almodóvar. The movie is about a group of strangers who meet at a rave and together go in search of a missing girl. According to our reviewer, it “opens with titles that describe the Sirât bridge as one that leads to paradise but is fiendishly difficult to cross without falling off into hell.” And it only gets bleaker from there.

Additionally, Neon debuted Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value,” Julia Ducournau’s “Alpha” in competition, Raoul Peck’s “Orwell: 2+2=5” and Michael Angelo Covino’s “Splitsville” starring Dakota Johnson and Adria Arjona, which Neon also produced, at the festival. Most got good-to-glowing reviews. Certainly there’s got to be a Palme d’Or winner in there somewhere – right? Right?

More Reviews

Somehow, in the midst of all of these acquisitions and awards, new movies are still screening.

Cannes stalwarts Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne returned to the festival this year with “Young Mothers,” which our critic described as concerning “five young single mothers who are navigating the perils of growing up in a tough world. It’s a film that doesn’t just set out to capture their day-to-day lives, but also explores how they find ways to support each other when nobody else will.” The film, which is in the main competition, is imperfect, according to our critic, but “manages to mostly stand on its own two feet and continue on through whatever stumbles it makes.” The Dardenne brothers are some of the few filmmakers who have won the Palme d’Or twice – first in 1999 for “Rosetta” and again in 2005 for “L’Enfant.” Could they go for a third? We’ll know soon enough.

There was also the debut of Lucio Castro’s “Drunken Noodles,” which our critic said was “an understated little drama that plays out in multiple parts in reverse over the course of a couple of summers,” one that “could easily feel like it would pass you by if you weren’t looking for it.” Part of the fun of going to a big, bustling international film festival like Cannes is having an open mind and allowing some of the smaller films to surprise and delight you. It sounds like “Drunken Noodles” did just that.

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