Aubrey Plaza (left) and Maisy Stella (right) as Elliott in My Old Ass.
Not long ago, and when it was first published in 2004, Philip Roth’s novel The plot against America might have seemed implausible. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t read it at the time. The story of the novel supposes that a Fascist, friend of Hitler, the aviator Charles Lindbergh was elected instead of FDR in 1940. To the horror of the Jewish community in particular and the anti-Fascist world. Brilliantly written, of course, but it could never happen, could it?
– John Simmons
I am currently reading and enjoying My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. My friend gifted it to me for my birthday alongside a book cover she had crocheted for me, white and pink with hearts. So far, the story follows the story of two girls growing up in Italy in the 1950s and their tumultuous experience of early childhood and adolescence and their influence on each other. This month I also went to the Museum of the Home, a free museum in Hoxton (London). I enjoyed looking at their Rooms Through Time, rooms that replicate textiles, décor, and ways of living in East London from the 1600s to speculative visions of a 2049 home. I particularly enjoyed reading the character descriptions that accompanied each room. They enabled you to imagine the tenants who would be occupying them and alongside props left in motion (e.g., trousers half ironed on an ironing board, crumpled bedsheets) really brought the rooms to life without the need to introduce physical people onto the scene.
– Anushka Shah
For the last couple of years I’ve been reviewing all the Oscar nominated films for 26 – reviewing, ranking, and predicting. It was a lovely process and a lovely thing to do, but when I sat down to write this year, I had a bit of a problem…
I didn’t like this year’s films very much.
I enjoyed Conclave and Anora, I was entranced by Dune, I thought A Complete Unknown was fine. But none of them would make even the upper half of my lists from previous years. So rather than a slightly sour-faced set of reviews, I thought I’d stick to one recommendation: the un-nominated (offputtingly-titled) My Old Ass.
Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza both play Elliott – an eighteen-year-old and her future self, who meet during a teenage mushroom trip and then retain a text relationship across the last few weeks before she leaves home. What starts as a very 2020s coming-of-age film quickly becomes a lovely meditation on connection and family, and on living for the moment. It’s a simple message beautifully presented, and it hasn’t made much of a ripple. But both actors are divinely watchable. (And it was Christopher Columbus’s film of the year too!)
– Max Parfitt