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Brisbane Film Critics Select 'One Battle After Another' As Best Of 2025
- Details
- Written by Matthew Toomey
Since 2011, I have been pulling together a list of the best movies of the year according to the Brisbane-based critics who I run into regularly at preview screenings. Films to have topped prior year lists have been Drive in 2011, Argo in 2012, Gravity in 2013, Boyhood in 2014, Mad Max: Fury Road in 2015, La La Land in 2016, Get Out in 2017, The Favourite in 2018, Parasite in 2019, Nomadland in 2020, Nine Days in 2021, and The Banshees of Inisherin in 2022, and Oppenheimer in 2023, and The Substance in 2024.
To come up with an overall top 10, I’ve used a simple points system and applied it to the list of each critic. It is as follows:
- 3 points for the top film on each list.
- 2 points for the films ranked between 2nd and 5th on each list.
- 1 point for the films ranked between 6th and 10th on each list.
If two films finished on the same score, the film that appeared on the greater number of top 10 lists is ranked higher (as an indication of wider approval). If that's the same, it goes to an average of the individual rankings of each film.
The 10 list includes movies released in Australian cinemas and also those made available on streaming platforms.
There was a clear winner in 2025 – Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another. Of the 13 Brisbane critics surveyed, everyone had it on their top 10 list with 5 of them naming it as the #1 film of the year.
It’s been a terrific year for non-franchise horror movies, and the other podium finishers fell into that genre – Sinners and Weapons. They’ve become two of the most talked about movies on social media in 2025 with a combined global box-office haul of almost $1 billion AUD.
Thanks to a 3-way tie for 10th place, a total of 12 movies featured in the final list.
Released in Australia back in January, two Oscar winning dramas from last year’s awards season being selected – The Brutalist and Conclave.
A bumper crop of low-budget independent films came out of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and three of them earned a spot on the top 10 list. Each featured a great lead performance – Rose Byrne in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Dylan O’Brien in Twinless and Eva Victor in Sorry, Baby.
The top foreign language film was Norway’s Sentimental Value which won the Grand Prix at Cannes and could feature in upcoming Academy Award nominations.
The final films making the cut added spice with their varied genres – the intense war flick Warfare, the dark comedy Bugonia, and the romantic comedy Eternity.
On that note, here are the top 10 movies of 2025 according to Brisbane critics…
Brisbane Film Critics - Top 10 of 2025
1. One Battle After Another
2 Sinners
3 Weapons
4. The Brutalist
5. Buognia
6. Conclave
7. Warfare
8. If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
8. Sentimental Value
10. Eternity
10. Sorry, Baby
10. Twinless
You can view a table of all the votes and final scores by clicking here.
A big thanks to all who submitted their lists. If you're a Brisbane critic would like to contribute in future years, please reach out to me on social media.
You can check out information on all the Brisbane critics (along with their choices for the best and worst of 2025) below.
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Matthew Toomey | Top 10 Films: | |
| 1. | Sing Sing |
| 2. | Twinless |
| 3. | The Brutalist |
| 4. | Weapons |
| 5. | Bring Her Back |
| 6. | The Long Walk |
| 7. | Warfare |
| 8. | The Last Journey |
| 9. | One Battle After Another |
| 10. | Sentimental Value |
| Best Australian Film: | |
| Bring Her Back | |
| Best Animated Film: | |
| Flow | |
| Best Documentary: | |
| The Last Journey | |
| Best Performance: | |
| Dylan O'Brien (Twinless) | |
| Worst Film: | |
| Bride Hard | |
| Most Surprised To Enjoy: | |
| Thunderbolts* | |
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Sarah Ward | Top 10 Films: | |
| 1. | One Battle After Another |
| 2. | Die My Love |
| 3. | Sorry, Baby |
| 4. | Frankenstein |
| 5. | April |
| 6. | 28 Years Later |
| 7. | The Mastermind |
| 8. | Sing Sing |
| 9. | Sentimental Value |
| 10. | Sinners |
| Best Australian Film: | |
| Inside | |
| Best Animated Film: | |
| Flow | |
| Best Documentary: | |
| Black Box Diaries | |
| Best Performance: | |
| Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I'd Kick You) | |
| Worst Film: | |
| Hurry Up Tomorrow | |
| Most Surprised To Enjoy: | |
| The Accountant 2 | |
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Garry Williams| Top 10 Films: | |
| 1. | Kokuho |
| 2. | Conclave |
| 3. | One Battle After Another |
| 4. | Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery |
| 5. | I'm Still Here |
| 6. | Sinners |
| 7. | Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning |
| 8. | A Complete Unknown |
| 9. | Bugonia |
| 10. | Eddington |
| Best Australian Film: | |
| The Correspondent | |
| Best Animated Film: | |
| Zootopia 2 | |
| Best Documentary: | |
| Riefenstahl | |
| Best Performance: | |
| Ryo Yoshizawa (Kokuho) | |
| Worst Film: | |
| Regretting You | |
| Most Surprised To Enjoy: | |
| Predator: Badlands | |
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Peter Gray| Top 10 Films: | |
| 1. | Sinners |
| 2. | Weapons |
| 3. | Twinless |
| 4. | Kiss of the Spider Woman |
| 5. | Eternity |
| 6. | The Brutalist |
| 7. | Nosferatu |
| 8. | If I Had Legs I'd Kick You |
| 9. | Bugonia |
| 10. | One Battle After Another |
| Best Australian Film: | |
| Together | |
| Best Animated Film: | |
| Predator: Killer of Killers | |
| Best Documentary: | |
| Until the Sky Falls Quiete | |
| Best Performance: | |
| Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I'd Kick You) | |
| Worst Film: | |
| Smurfs | |
| Most Surprised To Enjoy: | |
| A Minecraft Movie | |
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Ella Donald| Top 10 Films: | |
| 1. | One Battle After Another |
| 2. | The Brutalist |
| 3. | Sentimental Value |
| 4. | If I Had Legs I'd Kick You |
| 5. | Roofman |
| 6. | Bob Trevino Likes It |
| 7. | Conclave |
| 8. | 28 Years Later |
| 9. | I'm Still Here |
| 10. | Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning |
| Best Australian Film: | |
| Lesbian Space Princess | |
| Best Animated Film: | |
| Lesbian Space Princess | |
| Best Documentary: | |
| Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery | |
| Best Performance: | |
| Anapela Polataivao (Tinā) | |
| Most Surprised To Enjoy: | |
| Drop | |
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Rob Hudson| Top 10 Films: | |
| 1. | One Battle After Another |
| 2. | A Big Bold Beautiful Journey |
| 3. | Conclave |
| 4. | Sinners |
| 5. | Bugonia |
| 6. | Eddington |
| 7. | Companion |
| 8. | Black Bag |
| 9. | Weapons |
| 10. | Predator: Badlands |
| Best Australian Film: | |
| Inside | |
| Best Animated Film: | |
| Predator: Killer of Killers | |
| Best Documentary: | |
| Becoming Led Zeppelin | |
| Best Performance: | |
| Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another) | |
| Worst Film: | |
| Play Date | |
| Most Surprised To Enjoy: | |
| Predator: Badlands | |
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Baz McAlister| Top 10 Films: | |
| 1. | Weapons |
| 2. | Bugonia |
| 3. | 28 Years Later |
| 4. | Sinners |
| 5. | Sisu 2: Road to Revenge |
| 6. | Predator: Badlands |
| 7. | One Battle After Another |
| 8. | The Ballad of Wallis Island |
| 9. | The Surfer |
| 10. | The Long Walk |
| Best Australian Film: | |
| Bring Her Back | |
| Best Animated Film: | |
| Predator: Killer of Killers | |
| Best Documentary: | |
| Grand Theft Hamlet | |
| Best Performance: | |
| Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons (Bugonia) | |
| Worst Film: | |
| War of the Worlds | |
| Most Surprised To Enjoy: | |
| Dangerous Animals | |
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Nick L'Barrow| Top 10 Films: | |
| 1. | Sinners |
| 2. | Weapons |
| 3. | The Brutalist |
| 4. | Bring Her Back |
| 5. | Nosferatu |
| 6. | The Life of Chuck |
| 7. | One Battle After Another |
| 8. | Warfare |
| 9. | Nuremberg |
| 10. | Twinless |
| Best Australian Film: | |
| Dangerous Animals | |
| Best Animated Film: | |
| The Bad Guys 2 | |
| Best Documentary: | |
| Mistress Dispeller | |
| Best Performance: | |
| Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I'd Kick You) | |
| Worst Film: | |
| Ella McCay | |
| Most Surprised To Enjoy: | |
| Freakier Friday | |
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Jacob Richardson| Top 10 Films: | |
| 1. | Conclave |
| 2. | One Battle After Another |
| 3. | F1 |
| 4. | Warfare |
| 5. | The Brutalist |
| 6. | Rental Family |
| 7. | El 47 |
| 8. | Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery |
| 9. | Caught Stealing |
| 10. | I'm Still Here |
| Best Australian Film: | |
| The Aegean (have to, given I made it) | |
| Best Animated Film: | |
| Zootopia 2 | |
| Best Documentary: | |
| The Perfect Neighbour | |
| Best Performance: | |
| Ralph Fiennes (Conclave) | |
| Worst Film: | |
| Regretting You | |
| Most Surprised To Enjoy: | |
| Freakier Friday | |
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Ashlee Pradella| Top 10 Films: | |
| 1. | Sinners |
| 2. | One Battle After Another |
| 3. | Frankenstein |
| 4. | Eternity |
| 5. | Splitsville |
| 6. | Sorry, Baby |
| 7. | Good Fortune |
| 8. | Anaconda |
| 9. | Superman |
| 10. | The Ugly Stepsister |
| Best Australian Film: | |
| Bring Her Back | |
| Best Animated Film: | |
| KPop Demon Hunters | |
| Best Documentary: | |
| The Age of Disclosure | |
| Best Performance: | |
| Michael B. Jordan (Sinners) | |
| Worst Film: | |
| A Big Bold Beautiful Journey | |
| Most Surprised To Enjoy: | |
| Train Dreams | |
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Richard Houlihan| Top 10 Films: | |
| 1. | One Battle After Another |
| 2. | Sentimental Value |
| 3. | Sorry, Baby |
| 4. | Bugonia |
| 5. | Warfare |
| 6. | If I Had Legs I'd Kick You |
| 7. | Weapons |
| 8. | The Materialists |
| 9. | Companion |
| 10. | Black Bag |
| Best Australian Film: | |
| Bring Her Back | |
| Best Animated Film: | |
| Flow | |
| Best Documentary: | |
| I Like Me: John Candy | |
| Best Performance: | |
| Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein) and Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I'd Kick You) | |
| Worst Film: | |
| War of the Worlds | |
| Most Surprised To Enjoy: | |
| Sorry, Baby and The Housemaid | |
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Mike Gambaro| Top 10 Films: | |
| 1. | Superman |
| 2. | One Battle After Another |
| 3. | Caught Stealing |
| 4. | Weapons |
| 5. | Sinners |
| 6. | Rental Family |
| 7. | Eternity |
| 8. | Freakier Friday |
| 9. | Avatar: Fire and Ash |
| 10. | Thunderbolts* |
| Best Australian Film: | |
| Bring Her Back | |
| Best Animated Film: | |
| Looney Tunes: The Day the Earth Blew Up | |
| Best Documentary: | |
| Pee-Wee as Himself | |
| Best Performance: | |
| Amy Madigan (Weapons) | |
| Worst Film: | |
| A Big Bold Beautiful Journey | |
| Most Surprised To Enjoy: | |
| Caught Stealing | |
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Adam Roboczi| Top 10 Films: | |
| 1. | One Battle After Another |
| 2. | Weapons |
| 3. | Sinners |
| 4. | If I Had Legs I'd Kick You |
| 5. | Lurker |
| 6. | Train Dreams |
| 7. | Flow |
| 8. | The Brutalist |
| 9. | Bugonia |
| 10. | Warfare |
| Best Australian Film: | |
| Bring Her Back | |
| Best Animated Film: | |
| Flow | |
| Best Documentary: | |
| Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk | |
| Best Performance: | |
| Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I'd Kick You) | |
| Worst Film: | |
| Bride Hard | |
| Most Surprised To Enjoy: | |
| KPop Demon Hunters | |
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Matt's Top 10 Movies of 2025
- Details
- Written by Matthew Toomey
Time flies. This will be the 30th time I've put togther a list of the top 10 movies of the year. What began as a simple pleasure while working at a video store in 1996 has become a lifelong passion. You can see my lists from the past three decades by clickng here.
I had the chance to share the list on ABC Brisbane breakfast radio with hosts Craig Zonca and Loretta Ryan but in case you missed it, here it is. I saw 199 new cinema releases in 2025 and, as always, it's tough to narrow it down to a top 10.
Honourable mentions, which I couldn't quite squeeze into the list, go to Presence, Train Dreams, I’m Still Here, Hard Truths, Flow, Small Things Like These, Universal Language, Thunderbolts, Two Prosecutors, Relay.
On that note, here's my top 10 for 2025!!!
10. Sentimental Value (out Dec 26) is an affecting Norwegian film about a dad, who has always prioritised work ahead of his kids, now trying to reconcile with his two grown daughters. It features interesting, non-cliched characters that are further bolstered by great performances. Something to say about family, legacy, art, and homes.
9. One Battle After Another (out Sep 25) is the latest from director Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) and is an hilarious misadventure reminiscent of a Coen Brothers movie. The characters have distinctive quirks, the story is batshit crazy, and humour is spread throughout. The expansive cast, headlined by Oscar winners Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn, all tap into their comedic talents. Wild, random entertainment!
8. The Last Journey (out Feb 27) feels like a movie which is impossible to dislike. It's a Swedish documentary about a middle-aged son who takes his 80-year-old father on a road trip to France to help reinvigorate his passion for life. Plenty to think about!
7. Warfare (out Apr 17) is a powerful war film based on the experiences of a U.S. Navy SEAL on a particular mission in November 2006 as part of the Iraq War. The piercing scream of a wounded solider is forever imprinted in my brain. I could feel his pain!
6. The Long Walk (out Sep 11) is based on a Stephen King horror novel and is the story of young men in a winner-take-all walking contest where they must maintain a 3 mile an hour pace or be executed. It's already a great premise but the superb performances of the cast make it an affecting tale of friendship. Beautifully directed (characters are constantly moving obviously), this is not a film you'll easily forget.
5. Bring Her Back (out May 29) is not a movie you’ll soon forget – because of both its disturbing content and its directorial brilliance. It’s centred on two siblings placed in a foster home after a tragic event. Australian brothers Danny and Michael Philippou (Talk to Me) have created a movie which induces anxiety from start to finish. The performances are fantastic and I cared deeply for the two kids.
4. Weapons (out Aug 7) holds your attention from start to finish and is not a film you'll easily forget. Creatively told from six different perspectives, it's a horror-thriller about 17 children from the same class at elementary school who all go missing in the middle of the night. Great characters, great performances, great direction, great ending.
3. The Brutalist (out Jan 23) is a 3 ½ hour epic set in 1950s Philadelphia about a Hungarian-Jewish immigrant architect (Adrien Brody) in pursuit of the "American Dream". This is a sensational film. The characters are multi-dimensional (both heroic and flawed) and the themes are as relevant today as they've ever been.
2. Twinless (out Oct 23) is exceptional. A brilliant dark comedy about two young men who become friends... but their connection is based on a mountain of lies. There are moments of hilarious, insightful wit and there are moments where characters extricate themselves from tricky situations. A wild, riotous journey which won the Audience Award for dramatic features at the Sundance Film Festival.
1. Sing Sing (out Jan 16) is a brilliant drama based on the true story of a theatre group established inside a maximum-security prison. With a cast featuring many ex-cons who were part of the programs, it's a moving tale about the way "art" can provide hope and friendships.
Interview - Director Michael Cristofer on 'The Great Lillian Hall'
- Details
- Written by Matthew Toomey
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The Great Lillian Hall is about to be released in Australian cinemas and I had the chance to speak to Tony Award winning director Michael Cristofer about the project…
Matt: I'm talking today with Michael Christopher, director of the Great Lillian Hall. How's things?
Michael: Things are good. I have friends who insist on doing plays and so I’m here in London to see them.
Matt: Speaking of which, it's Tony Awards season on Broadway in New York. As a Tony winner yourself, where do you keep your Tony Award?
Michael: It's in the TV room on the shelf. We actually used it in The Great Lillian Hall. We used my Tony Award along with another one from producer Bruce Cohen. We packed up all our awards and brought them down to Atlanta and put them on the set. It’s the most useful it’s been since I won it.
Matt: Let’s talk about the film and start with Jessica Lange. We don't see a lot of her on the big screen these days. How did you pitch the project to her and get her on board?
Michael: Jessica and I have known each other for maybe 30 years. We were involved one of the worst pictures ever made. It starred Jessica Lange, Gwyneth Paltrow, Nina Foch, and Hal Holbrook and I was called in to do some writing to fix it. I can't even tell you the name because they changed it so many times (Hush). I obviously failed because nothing good came of that movie.
Sometimes you bond more strongly on a bad film than a good one, and that was the case here. We became good friends, but we have never worked together since. We talked about different things over the years and then this script came along. It was loosely based on a famous stage actress in New York who I also knew.
One of my first jobs was in 1969. I got a job to do a two-character play with this actress and, basically, I stood on the stage and listened while she talked. That was pretty much the whole part. She and I became friends, and we stayed close for a long time. At the end of her life, she did slip into dementia. She and I were on stage together once and she had a bad episode. She had deteriorated so badly that we had to help her off stage.
Anyway, this script was floating around based on her life, but it was a very sad one. I said if I do this, I don't want to do another sad movie about slipping into dementia because it's been done and it's been done well. I therefore moved opening night to be the end of the story as opposed to the aftermath that followed. Jessica and I wanted to make a movie about courage in the face of dementia.
Almost everybody on the film was touched by someone who was dealing with this disease and we when I was struggling to get financing, I said I want to make the Masterpiece Theatre version of Rocky, and it got me the money. In the in the face of mortality, how do you keep going? How do you fight to maintain who you are when something is taking away bits of who you are. What is that struggle like? There is triumph in it even though you know the end is coming.
Matt: It's a fantastic cast, but there's one actress I want to ask about. I didn't know much about Cindy Hogan before the film. She steals every scene as the producer who tells it as it is and knows the show is in strife as much as anyone. What can you tell me about her?
Michael: She's so wonderful. Like every film of this kind, we were strapped for cash, and I begged people to do it for no money. I knew Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Pierce Brosnan and Lily Rabe who were the film’s core, but I didn’t have any more money to hire people when we shot the film in Atlanta. There was this terrific casting director, Jennifer Fox, and she found Cindy Hogan and you're absolutely right. She brought such weight and authenticity to that part as did Michael Rose who played Lillian’s husband. We found them in Atlanta and they were a godsend.
Matt: I wanted to ask about the husband character. Some fantastic films have been made about dementia and while we see Lillian flubbing lines, an interesting layer is the way the film weaves her late husband into an increasingly blurry mindset. Can you talk me through that element and how you chose to depict it on screen?
Michael: Well, this is a very specific kind of dementia called Lewy body dementia. The delusions feel real to the patient. They could be in bed having a normal sounding conversation with people they see sitting on the edge of the bed. They see people, they see things, they hear things, and for them it looks absolutely like reality and so that's how we did it.
Matt: I liked the pace of the film. I think a reason for that is the “making of” interviews that are woven throughout the film – often with the dialogue from those overlapping with the footage from certain events. Was that always in the script?
Michael: No and it's funny because I've always used that. The first film I directed was called Gia starring Angelina Jolie. It made a bit more sense in that film because she had passed away and people were talking about her. I have an affinity for that technique. If you go back to Francois Truffaut, he would sometimes break the “fourth wall” and have people talk to the camera. I've used him as an excuse to keep doing it.
I love actors and I could spend a whole day putting a camera on an actor and just having them talk. Just have them do speeches and ask them questions. Making this film, I always knew I was going to interview Jessica and I added that to the script right away. Since I was set up that way, I started pulling in the other actors and quickly writing them speeches. It’s revelatory and it helps the actor relax into their character, even if we don’t use it in the film.
Matt: I'll finish up by asking if there’s anything you're working on at the moment? What might we see from you next?
Michael: While we were working, Pierce Brosnan mentioned he’d read an old script of mine called Fade Out and he asked what had happened to it. I said it’s still hanging around and now we’re going to try to do it. It's a half thriller, half art film about an ageing director film director who is having trouble differentiating what is real and what is a movie. He suspects his wife is being unfaithful, but he doesn’t know if he’s seeing real things or whether it’s a movie in his head.
Interview - Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson on 'The Last Journey'
- Details
- Written by Matthew Toomey
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The Last Journey has become the highest grossing documentary in Swedish history and while they were recently touring Australia, I had the chance to sit down with directors Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson about their wonderful project…
Matt: Have you guys been to Australia before?
Fredrik: Once in the late 1990s, but I was recuperating from a week of heavy partying in Thailand, so it wasn't the best experience. It was a semi joyful experience back then, but now it's, uh, I enjoy it even more.
Matt: This is such a beautiful film. I’d describe it as one that’s almost impossible to dislike.
Filip: Wow that should be on the poster. Can we use it as a blurb?
Matt: You’re more than welcome to! It’s been a big success in Sweden. Was there a moment when you realized this was going to connect with audiences and become as popular as it did?
Filip: At first, we were truly petrified. You invest so much time and so many feelings in trying to create something that will hopefully resonate with an audience, but you never know. We’ve done movies and TV shows before, but this is by far the best response we've ever had.
Fredrik: At the premiere there was so much love in the room. Now of course you have family and friends there so it's going to be a little tainted, but we've had premieres before where you can almost feel like you're in the “spin zone” and people are telling you what they expect you to want to hear. For this film, the applause at the end when we reached the microphone to say thank you, it was a really special atmosphere.
Matt: The way we approach old age – it’s such an interesting subject matter for a film and there’s a lot to reflect on watching a movie like this. Did you learn a lot yourselves as part of the filmmaking process?
Filip: Yes, because this started out as just me wanting to do a trip with my dad to cheer him up. I wouldn't I was naive, but I wanted my old dad back and I was thinking that could happen. It later dawned on me that even though he's another guy now, this is the version of him I should enjoy because it’s also an interesting chapter of his life and my life and there’s a lot of beauty to that. I think we all fear getting old as well, right?
Matt: The old home movies from Lars’s retirement are a nice touch – as they show him as more zestful with a desire to travel. It feels like the perfect material to open the film with but I’m guessing you had no idea how useful it would be when you shot it back in 2008?
Fredrik: Filip told me his dad was going to retire and asked to borrow a camera. I can't remember the details, but he just wanted to, save that for later in life, I guess. When we started planning this trip and I asked “didn't you film the day he went into retirement?” and then we looked at the footage and it was heartbreaking because he's so optimistic about what this third age in his life will bring and the contrast to what actually happened when he lost his context of being a teacher every day is just staggering.
Filip: It was so obvious. Fredrik looked at that material before me. He said brace yourself before you look at it. I think that's something people can resonate with as well. You see someone on the day of retirement talking about the “troisième âge” which is a French expression for the third age where they go “I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. I'm really gonna enjoy not having to go to my job every day.” When you cut to who he is now, it's very sad and devastating but I also think it's quite common.
Matt: I have to ask an obvious question to Filip – what was your dad’s reaction when he saw it for the first time?
Filip: I'm going to leave that to Fredrik.
Fredrik: I called Phillip two weeks before the premiere and asked “you have shown the film to your parents, right?” because that's very important. He put his life in our hands, and I know Filip well enough to know when he starts formulating a lie. It's like a word salad comes out of his mouth and he's mumbling, but it amounted to him saying, “well, you know, I tried to show the film to my parents, but my mother kept talking, so I had to abort the whole thing.”
So I, Fredrik, had to call his mother and say “did Filip really try to show the film to you?” and they were “oh, that's nonsense, we have seen nothing!” I then showed it to them and Filip’s dad watched it intently for 90 minutes and then he turned to me and said “this movie has class.” He was very happy.
Filip: I think it was surprised by the “bigness” of the film because he's treated as someone who had this prominent career and who was famous and successful. In the end, he's just a regular guy and that was also something we did intentionally.
Fredrik: Even though it's a documentary, it plays like a feature biopic about a person who nobody knows but it's worth telling the story of.
Matt: It’s an important father-son road trip but at the same time, you’re also trying to make something which can work as a movie. How much of the “script”, if we can call it that, was planned in advance as opposed to just letting things happen?
Filip: We’ve done some scripted stuff as well but this what we love doing. We had this idea of a road trip but then asked questions like should Fredrik be on camera as well? Now, it comes off as a very reasonable decision because he's great and comes off as a very good friend. Change is not something we embrace that often in life, especially when it's about something so sad and complicated as getting older. Fredrik has seen me in denial for many years when I talk about my dad.
Fredrik: When you're planning a documentary film, it's like being a mad professor in a laboratory. You throw a lot of ingredients in and hope something will happen. This was “okay, can we bring Lars’ zest for life back by going on this trip down to the south of France to a place he used to love and remind him of what makes life worth living and then played by ear?”
We then wanted to stage a few things that were near and dear to him. He loves when French people argue in traffic so Filip asked me, can we make that happen somehow? I immediately said we can do that with actors but only if we let the audience in on it because it needs to be honest.
Filip: We also knew we wanted to make an original film. It’s devastating and funny, but it was important for us also to not to gravitate towards clichés. Fredrik sometimes calls this film Eat Pray Love for smart people. If we went down the cliché path, we could have gone to different vineyards for example. When I remember my dad at his happiest, it was when he experienced the French temper, or when he was standing on that balcony in the small apartment we rented telling stories about Harry Belafonte… stores that are not even that good. Those scenes add a much-needed originality to the film.
I think we all have our own family lore where you have the romanticised stories your dad or mom told you every year, and when you see your parents, you're like, “okay here we go again…. now he's going tell that story.”
Matt: An important theme in the film is getting out of your comfort zone and exploring other countries and other cultures. There’s somewhat of a push against that at the moment and I’ve read about some locals in European countries complaining about overtourism. Did you encounter any of that as part of your travels?
Fredrik: Not really. The fun part is if you travel in an old vintage Renault 4 from 1971, everybody is happy to see you and people are waving.
Filip: It's almost like an animated Pixar film. It's a Pixar friendly car!
Fredrik: I think people realize that you're going to the south of France to show that area was paradise to him. That was an advantage for us and it’s not like we were doing investigative journalism.
Filip: It’s not only us, but people in general give too much to the French. The French don't oppose tourism. They're already self-confident and so they're like “of course he wants to come to France.” With that debate in Europe, I think it's more the Brits coming to Ibiza and just getting smashed for 3 months and people going “get them out of here.”
Matt: I felt for sure the Renault would break down, but it actually held up really well?
Fredrik: Well, it didn't really. In so many films, like Little Miss Sunshine, where there is a fun old car, it always breaks down. So, we said it needs to break down in a completely original way for us to show it on camera otherwise it would have been predictable. There were a few small mishaps, but we cut them out because that's what people expect.
Matt: Filip, how is your dad doing right now? Does he have any more plans to travel?
Filip: I hope so but in the end I make the bigger journey in this film than he does. He truly enjoyed this trip, and he left the recliner that became a symbol for a life that had stopped in some ways. We took him out of that chair, and I think he wants to do things again, but at the same time, you can't reverse time. I can't sit here and say “oh, he's a completely different person.” He's not.
I ask him “are you happy now… look at the success of this film?” He then says “you always ask me to look so happy… maybe I'm happy on the inside” and you know, I think that's probably the truth. I think he's very proud. It's not like he's having a lot of fun and doing crazy things, but I do believe this meant a lot for him, and he is happier.