Yes No Maybe So: Swallow

by Jason Adams

Swallow, the first feature film from director Carlo Mirabella-Davis and starring a transfixing Haley Bennett as a real housewife whose solitude gets the best of her, has been bouncing around all of the film festivals for the past year or so. And you knew it every time it hit a new one because you'd see that oh look, Haley Bennett won another acting award. Another trophy for the heap! I got to see the film at Tribeca last May where I reviewed it here, calling her "RIVETING." No really I did...

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Tribeca 2019: "Swallow"

Here's Jason Adams reporting from Tribeca once again...

I will only ever experience childbirth from the one side, and you know what? I'm good with that. All due credit to the mothers out there who manage to keep the world populated -- including my own, who was in labor with me for ten hours [shudder] -- but I'm thrown into a tizzy if I stub my toe. Some of the horror stories I've heard from female friends about the experience have turned my all of my reproductive organs into ash. 

I over-share all of this because this has always made me a prime sucker for pregnancy horror films. Rosemary's Baby, as I've covered here before, is my favorite film of all time. And we just got a doozy of a new take on this sub-genre with Swallow, writer-director Carlo Mirabella-Davis' fantastic new film starring a riveting Haley Bennett as an expectant mother whose isolation and surprise hesitancy spirals her down an unexpected path...

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C O N S I D E R - Favorite Actors of 2017, 3rd Qtr

With only three months of the year to go - eep! -- it's time to look back on the past three months for movies we saw from July through September (excluding films with firm release dates in the next three months). Herewith Nathaniel's 17 favorite male performances from the year's third quarter (plus first week of October to keep us up-to-date), divvied up into three categories.  (Movies with asterisks have not yet been released.)

Did these men speak to you with their turns? 

7 LEADING ACTORS

Daniel Gimenez Cacho as "Don Diego de Zama" in Zama*
One of my favorite Mexican actors. Though I found the film impenetrable, he's always strong.

Harris Dickinson as "Frankie" in Beach Rats
Here's to debuts that reveal both fully-formed star charisma and film-carrying craft

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