Content warning: brief mentions of fictional violence

I will preface this article with a disclaimer: I’m not a horror movie fan. I haven’t seen Obsession or The Shining or almost any other horror movie you could name. I don’t usually enjoy them. I do, however, like video games, and all of my self-granted authority to write on the recent Resident Evil movie adaptation — Resident Evil (2026), directed by Zach Cregger — comes from the fact that I have played the games and enjoyed them very much.

Cregger is a rising star in the horror cinema world, with previous hits like Barbarians (2022) and Weapons (2025) arriving to commercial and critical acclaim (from what I understand of the plot, “Resident Evil” would have been a good title for Weapons, but that’s just my opinion). But even with his experience, it was a risk for Cregger to take on adapting the Resident Evil games for the big screen, as no previous Resident Evil film adaptation had ever seen commercial or critical success among the game’s fanbase or wider audience.

The Resident Evil game franchise, developed by the company Capcom in 1996 is a survival-horror game franchise from Japan. It was originally named “Biohazard” in Japanese; that trademark wasn’t available in the US and the English name came from a company-wide naming contest. The classic game series largely follows the stories of various survivors of an out-of-control biological weapon developed by the shadowy Umbrella Corporation. Protagonists fight mutated and virus-infected organisms in post-urban environments ranging from police stations to ruined cities to supposedly abandoned mansions — all with limited resources (most crucially, ammunition). Cregger’s movie sidesteps a lot of the wider game lore and doesn’t follow the storyline of any one game, opting instead to amalgamate elements from different games across the series. The movie focuses on what’s at the very core of the franchise: the gory, science-gone-rogue body horror that defined its essential style and gave rise to the survival horror genre. This has allowed the Resident Evil movie to remain relatively accessible to the wider public while giving a nod to the game’s fanbase — a rarely-achieved balance.

Cregger’s risk has paid off. Resident Evil premiered in Los Angeles on September 15 and was released to the general public on September 18. At the time of writing, it has grossed $216 million globally through the box office alone, with opening weekend pulling in $108 million worldwide against the film’s $75 million production budget. It’s the first Resident Evil movie to cross the $100 million threshold domestically. The film was equally successful among critics and viewers, earning a 96 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the highest rated video-game-turned-movie adaptation ever. It garnered critical praise for the actors’ performances, its faithfulness to in-game elements, and its use of the fear factor.

The film kicks off with an opening shot of the main character from behind, invoking the perspective of a third-person video game. The audience is introduced to Bryan (Austin Abrams), a meek courier who delivers organs to hospitals. Bryan is contracted for double pay to deliver a high-priority package to the isolated Raccoon City, a task he uses to avoid a difficult conversation with his pregnant girlfriend. On his way into the city, however, he is waylaid by aggressive mutated beings… and so the nightmare begins.

Bryan isn’t an actual character in any of the games, but the fact that he is just an ordinary person makes him feel similar to most of the Resident Evil protagonists. Instead of featuring larger-than-life heroic characters, multiple games in the franchise, such as Resident Evil: Biohazard and Resident Evil: Village put the player into the position of regular people thrust into horrific scenarios. One of the major recurring characters across the game series, Leon S. Kennedy, starts out as a police rookie before becoming trained as a skilled federal agent.

The movie itself plays out much like a video game, and players of the franchise will catch several easter eggs. A scene in which Bryan explores rooms in a farmhouse is reminiscent of the Baker property in Resident Evil: Biohazard, and the overall feeling of the exploration mechanics occur in all of the games. His painstaking accumulation of bullets is a task all players are familiar with, and the inclusion of a
room with a typewriter is a nod to one of the old game save mechanisms in the original Resident Evil games. Other details include Bryan’s green courier box (resembling the healing kits in the games) and the voice message he records for his girlfriend (making reference to similar messages players can recover from deceased characters in the game’s environment).

Cinematographically, the film is also shot to mimic the feeling of playing the video games. The camera is often angled towards what Bryan is looking at through over-the-shoulder third-person shots, or creating tension through first-person perspectives (a fair amount of Resident Evil gamers play in VR; a friend of mine who tried it said he couldn’t bring himself to open the doors in the game). The soundtrack features ominous pulsing tones that reflect the unsettling scenes and environments, suggesting stress to the audience and intensifying the atmosphere of danger. The jumpscares, ever present in any horror media, are effective and well- executed. The movie is also unapologetic in its depiction of survival. Bryan is forced to make harrowing choices in his quest to deliver the package, including blowing the head off of a mutated child to defend his own life. As the movie goes on, Bryan faces progressively stronger and more dangerous enemies, and at one point exclaims, “I only use guns in video games… it’s confusing in real life!”

Abrams is phenomenal in his role. He embodies an appropriate level of sheer terror at his situation, mixed with disgust, disbelief, and an occasional comedic relief that brings much needed levity to the film. His facial expressions are particularly relatable and funny, especially when he displays shock at having done something ludicrous or encountering a new monster. The real stars of the movie, in a way, are the monsters: morbidly obese sewer dwellers, acid spewers, and otherwise mutated creatures. Some of the monsters are recognizable from the Resident Evil game titles, but most are new creations by creature-design legend Shane Mahan and his company Legacy Effects. Inspired by past game installments, they’re skilfully designed to inspire terror through their behaviour, movements, and most critically appearances, amping up the core body-horror element of Resident Evil to the maximum.

Thematically, the film’s main message is about how delaying change will only worsen the bill when it comes time to pay. But I didn’t go to a Resident Evil movie for its moral messaging, and I doubt anyone else did either. The movie isn’t meant as an analysis of community like Weapons is — here, narrative depth isn’t the point. Instead, the blend of action and progression with game-reminiscent cinematography produces a devoted love letter to one of the greatest game franchises of all time. In my opinion, the strongest meaning lies in the film’s title. What makes Resident Evil truly terrifying is that the title implies that what you’re dealing with isn’t some far-off threat, or abstract eldritch horror or magic. Titles like The Last of Us are bleak, while The Walking Dead gets straight to the point but sounds kind of funny, and It is ominous. The name makes it known that the threat is inside your house, so to speak, and emerging from the mundane, which raises the scare factor exponentially.

While avoiding spoilers, the conclusion of the movie — although paced alarmingly quickly to the point of feeling rushed — I found to be appropriate considering Bryan’s character and the elements of the games that Cregger chose to focus on. Of course, you’ll have to go and watch it yourself to form your own opinion on it. It also leaves the door open for a sequel, though no statements on that have been made. I personally think that ending the series with this most recent movie wouldn’t be a bad decision, but if other directors choose to follow in Cregger’s footsteps, some good could definitely come of it. The only way to find out is to keep playing.

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There is something particularly disturbing in hearing someone admit to celebrating acts of violence. Even more unsettling: learning that this same violence was treated as a routine aspect of military life. Directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, NAZA (2026) examines Israel’s genocide in Gaza through the testimonies of its very perpetrators. The particular success of the documentary, then, lies not only in what it reveals, but also in the shocking reality of who reveals it.

NAZA features interviews with 24 ex-Israeli soldiers and intelligence personnel, who confess their military experiences and explain the systems behind attacks on Gaza. While the interviewees remain anonymous — their faces are hidden in shadow and their voices have been altered to protect their identities — the accounts of violence which they share are painfully detailed. That the filmmakers allow the subjects to speak for themselves is also effective; their testimony tells a story more unsettling than any other narration could likely achieve.Then there ist he staging of the interviews themselves. Abraham chose to conduct his interviews on the rooftops of Tel Aviv, filming the shadowy participants against the backdrop of the illuminated city. The darkness of their admissions is thus foregrounded and unsettlingly contrasted by the bright, ordinary urban life which spreads out behind them. Perhaps the most horrifying moments come when former soldiers describe how little remorse they felt for their actions. Some recall celebrating attacks alongside their comrades. One interviewee remembers that “it was fun” and compares the experience to playing a video game. This comparison becomes even more disturbing when the film explains the meaning behind its title.

‘Naza’ is an Israeli military term referring to expected civilian casualties. As one former soldier explains, “You would not say ‘15 people have been killed,’ and certainly not ‘15 women and children have been killed.’ You say ‘15 Naza.’ Instead of acknowledging the deaths of civilians, the military terminology reduces them into an abstract quantity. This language turns the violent eradication ofentire families and communities intoroutine military procedure. The people being killed becomenumbers, obscuring the human consequences of military actions, even to those leading these attacks.

In a particularly poignant moment, one former soldier asks,“I still see theNazis as evil. But what does that mean I am?” His words reveal adisturbing contradiction between the condemnation of Nazi atrocities and the violence carried out against Palestinians. The Nazis are remembered for their cruel persecution, dehumanization, and the systematic murder of millions of people. Yet the soldier’s question forces him to confront the violence he took part in against another group of people. He questions the difference between the atrocities he condemns and his own actions. Another soldier is more blunt, and his confession is all the more horrifying. “Gaza is full of bodies,” he says “It’s not a grave, it’s a pit.”

Beyond the testimonies, one of NAZA’s most compelling features is its portrayal of Tel Aviv. Throughout the film, signs of Israeli propaganda appear in public spaces while people continue their daily lives. Businesses remain open, streets are busy, and ordinary routines continue, all the while the rooftop confessions speak of unthinkable violence. This creates an unsettling, almost uncanny feeling for the viewer; Palestinian suffering — less than a hundred kilometers away —is pushed aside in the public consciousness, but its ugly truth lurks in the shadows nonetheless. This contrast raises questions about collective responsibility, indifference, and the normalization of violence. While the interviews reveal military desensitization to violence, the footage of Tel Aviv asks viewers to consider the spread of these attitudes into the general populace.

NAZA also raises questions regarding testimony and credibility. Palestinian journalists have spent years documenting the destruction of Gaza, often while experiencing the very violence on which they are reporting. Many have been killed while doing their work. Yet their accounts have repeatedly been dismissed by Israeli officials. This is the most uncomfortable aspect of the documentary’s approach to portraying the violence in Gaza through the testimonies of Israeli soldiers; it is precisely through giving perpetrators of genocide a voice thatNAZA offers a perspective that isundeniably revealing. Unfortunately, it would seem that the words of those responsible for violence carry more weight than the words of those experiencing it.

Ultimately, NAZA invites a reflection in its viewers that extends far beyond the film’s final scenes. Through its unsettling personal approach, the work forces audiences to contend with questions of guilt, indoctrination, and perspective, as well as exposing horrifying truths of this continued genocide. The resulting film makes for an unsettling watch, but then again, if this were easy, such a work would not be needed in the first place.

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As Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Curry embodied a flamboyant, gender nonconforming character who defied conventional ideas of sexuality, masculinity, and self- respect. The film’s enduring cult following and its famous participatory midnight screenings have transformed it into more than a purely cinematic phenomenon: it has become a space where audiences continue to experiment with identity, celebrate their differences, and find community.

Parton’s influence, meanwhile, demonstrates how a mainstream icon can foster acceptance for the socially outcast through a different kind of cultural power. Rooted in country music and Southern traditions, she has time and time again chosen to use her wide-reaching appeal and gift for storytelling to bring LGBTQ+ experiences into the broader public consciousness. From writing and recording the original song “Travelin’ Thru” for Transamerica, a film centred around the exploration of transgender identity, to her unwavering public support for LGBTQ+ rights, Parton showed repeatedly throughout her career that compassion need not be constrained by such arbitrary divisions as who one is capable to love.

These two public personalities reveal how utilizing their massive cultural influence with deliberation can create transformational possibilities for people who rarely got to see themselves reflected with dignity in mainstream culture. Curry’s theatrical defiance makes space for experimentation, transformation, and the joy of refusing conventional labels; while Parton’s warmth, humour, and generosity demonstrate the power of extending that space through empathy and public advocacy. Neither legacy can be reduced to a single character, song, or statement — instead their significance lies in the ways their work continues to give audiences permission to envision lives and realities beyond any external expectation.

Tim Curry: The Power of Being Unapologetic

Few performances have become as inseparable from queer cultural history as Tim Curry’s in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. With glittering eyeshadow, towering platform heels, fishnet stockings, and an unapologetic appetite for pleasure, Curry transformed an unconventional sci-fi musical into a celebration of sexual liberation. Decades later, audiences still gather in theatres worldwide to recreate its scenes and sing along to its musical numbers. For LGBTQ+ audiences, Frank-N-Furter represented something rarely afforded to queer characters in mainstream entertainment: the leisure of extravagance. Curry’s legacy extends beyond a memorable performance — through Frank-N-Furter, he helped bring alternative expressions of gender and sexuality into the spotlight which challenged social norms. Adapted from Richard O’Brien’s 1973 stage musical, The Rocky Horror Picture Show follows wholesome American sweethearts Brad and Janet, whose encounter with the inhabitants of a mysterious mansion upends their conventional understanding of sexuality and desire.

At the centre of their surreal experience is Frank-N-Furter, a flamboyant scientist from the planet Transsexual whose androgynous appearance and uninhibited behaviour disrupt the couple’s carefully ordered world. The risk of taking on such a role was considerable. Frank-N-Furter required a bold performance, that of someone utterly unaffected by society’s traditional expectations of masculinity. Curry, however, was drawn to the challenge. Reflecting on the role, he explained being attracted to risk: “I would choose risky over anything. That’s the best way to be.” Although Brad and Janet technically occupy the roles of the protagonists, Frank-N-Furter commands the screen from the moment he first appears. His entrance and the ensuing performance of “Sweet Transvestite” establish a character who refuses to be diminished by convention. Curry plays him with a magnetic combination of theatricality, sensuality, humour, and a sense of danger making Frank-N-Furter simultaneously seductive and menacing. He does not merely challenge the rules — he makes breaking them look irresistible.

At the time of the film’s release, and for a few of the decades that followed, LGBTQ+ people were frequently relegated to limited or stereotypical portrayals in mainstream entertainment. The 1970s saw queer characters that would more often than not serve to provide comic relief, tragic storylines, or cautionary tales. Frank-N-Furter offered a striking alternative: a character whose gender expression and sexuality were central to the story, rather than details to be concealed. Through its camp aesthetics and exaggerated performances, Rocky Horror’s gleeful parody of existing sci-fi and horror conventions challenged audiences to reconsider the boundaries between masculinity and femininity; normalcy and deviance. Its irreverence managed to make challenging the tropes of the genre entertaining without stripping them of meaning.

Yet Frank-N-Furter is no straightforward hero. His story does not culminate in a celebration of any moral virtue, nor does his gender expression map neatly onto any single established LGBTQ+ identity. But that complexity is part of what makes Curry’s performance so compelling. Queer characters need not to be flawless in order to deserve representation. Allowing gender nonconforming characters to be morally ambiguous — even outright villainous — challenges the expectation that marginalized people must demonstrate some sort of exceptional goodness to justify their place on the silver screen. Frank-N-Furter’s outsize, monstrous exuberance can be read as a reflection of the historical association between queerness and deviance, but it can also be understood as a source of power. Rather than seeking acceptance by becoming “respectable,” Frank only ever takes pleasure in his
own excesses. His character invites audiences to consider whether being an outsider might be something more than a cause for shame. The film’s mantra, “Don’t dream it, be it,” distills that philosophy into a simple invitation: stop treating self- expression as an impossible fantasy…and begin embracing the person you want to become.

One of the most remarkable aspects of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, however, is the unique showgoing tradition that has developed around it. Screenings of Rocky Horror are rarely passive experiences: spectators often arrive in corsets, feather boas, leather jackets, formal gowns, and whatever else allows them to participate in the spectacle. They shout familiar lines, dance along, and watch live performers reenact the same scenes before the big screen. These gatherings have transformed a cult film into a living theatrical experience. For LGBTQ+ viewers, they can offer an opportunity to experiment with appearance and identity in an environment where unconventional self-expression is part of the celebration. O’Brien, the creator of Rocky Horror, has acknowledged the production’s impact on conversations about gender and sexuality. In an interview with The Guardian, he reflected on how the work had helped people feel less isolated, expressing gratitude for its wider social impact. More than five decades after its stage debut, Rocky Horror continues to demonstrate how a performance can challenge the most stringent of cultural expectations.

To reduce Curry’s career to a single role, however, would be to overlook the extraordinary range of his work. His performances demonstrate a particular gift for combining theatrical extravagance with mischievous humour. In Clue (1985), he cultivated an impeccable sense of comedic timing to the absurd and intrigue-driven murder mystery. As Pennywise in the 1990 television adaptation of Stephen King’s It, he brought to life a deeply unsettling villain whose lurking menace became unforgettable. He has also appeared as the Lord of Darkness in Legend, Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island, and the concierge in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Across these performances, Curry added a fantastical feeling of glee to characters who disrupt ordinary life, always making room for the strange, the excessive, and the unexpected. That same sensibility is what connects his broader career to the spirit of Rocky Horror: a willingness to find delight in what convention tells us to reject.

The world has changed considerably since The Rocky Horror Picture Show first reached audiences: LGBTQ+ representation in film has expanded, and conversations about gender identity and sexuality have become considerably more visible. Yet acceptance remains uneven across social and cultural fields, and the freedom for people to express themselves freely cannot be taken for granted. The film remains meaningful because it celebrates the refusal to be confined by expectations: Frank-N-Furter is excessive, and impossible to contain. He does not ask permission to occupy space — he simply arrives and commands all attention. Curry was the one who brought the character to life, with a performance that was as mischievous as it was subversive. His portrayal helped turn what could’ve been a merely provocative stage creation into an enduring cultural icon, inspiring generations to question the boundaries around gender, sexuality, and self-expression. Yet what makes Curry’s performance so enduring is not simply that it challenged conventional ideas of gender and sexuality, but that it made defying those expectations look liberating. To me, that is part of what makes his legacy so meaningful to queer audiences.

Dolly Parton: A Voice for Belonging

Dolly Parton occupies an unusual place in North American pop culture. A country music superstar known for her rhinestone-studded outfits, towering blonde wigs, and unmistakable voice, she has long appealed to audiences even far outside her genre. Among her most devoted fans are disproportionately many LGBTQ+ people, for whom the meaning of her work extends beyond her music. Parton’s appeal to queer audiences begins with her public persona: her exaggerated femininity and ‘camp’ have made her a favourite among drag performers, who frequently recreate her signature looks. Parton has largely embraced these impersonations — in her appearance on the cover of Out magazine in 1997, she acknowledged her established place in the queer culture.

However, the connection goes deeper than rhinestones and wigs. Parton has spoken about being judged for her appearance and background, experiences that according to her have informed her empathy for groups who are treated as outsiders. Her 1971 song, “Coat of Many Colors,” recounts how children mocked her for wearing a coat sewn by her mother from scraps of fabric. Rather than presenting the coat as a source of shame, Parton celebrated the love behind it. For LGBTQ+ listeners, the song’s emotional logic can resonate with the experiences of bullying and rejection all too common in their childhoods. Parton has connected her appeal to queer audiences with her own experiences of feeling different, allowing listeners to find personal meaning in a story that was not explicitly written about queer identity. Others of her songs have acquired similar significance through reinterpretation — “Jolene,” with its intense focus on another woman’s beauty, has inspired numerous queer readings into its lyrics. Meanwhile her 1991 song “Family” more directly acknowledges differences that can occur among one’s relatives, including sexual orientation, while affirming that familial belonging should not be contingent on any sort of conformity on the part of the individual.

When Parton made her transition from country music into film and television, it only expanded her cultural reach into the queer community. Her move to Los Angeles brought her into partnership with Sandy Gallin, an influential talent manager who was openly gay. Their professional relationship helped expand her career into mainstream entertainment, including major film roles. Her 1980 debut role in
9 to 5, in which she stars alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, follows three women confronting workplace sexism and an exploitative boss, contributing to her appeal among audiences — often queer ones — drawn to narratives of resistance. In 2005, she wrote and performed “Travelin’ Thru” for Transamerica, a film about a transgender woman travelling across the United States. The song received an Academy Award nomination, and Parton performed it at the 2006 Oscars, bringing a story centred on the transgender experience to one of the entertainment industry’s most visible stages. She also explored queer family relationships in her 2019 Netflix anthology series, Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings. One episode follows a gay couple navigating family secrets and rejection around a New Year’s Eve wedding. Its recognition from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) highlighted the value of incorporating LGBTQ+ relationships into mainstream storytelling. Above all, these projects demonstrate how Parton translated her cultural influence into opportunities to underline queer narratives, placing stories that might otherwise have remained at the margins before much wider audiences.

Her support for the queer community became particularly evident during the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, when gay men were faced with widespread stigma, discrimination, and public rejection. Her production company, Sandollar Productions, co-produced Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, the landmark 1989 documentary about the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. Her book editor, Elissa Altman, has also revealed that Parton privately covered the medical costs of a staff member’s gender transition in the 1990s. Her advocacy continued for decades: she spoke up in support of same-sex marriage in 2009 and voiced support for transgender people amid Tennessee’s passing of Bill 1, which banned gender-affirming medical care for minors as of July 1, 2023. Across the decades, her support for the LGBTQ+ community took on many different forms from public awareness campaigns to personal assistance. Her activism takes place within a broader philanthropic mission: in 1995, Parton established the Imagination Library, which distributes free books to young children in honour of her father who never learned to read. Following the devastating wildfires in Tennessee in 2016, she provided financial assistance to families who had lost their homes, as well as later contributing to COVID-19 vaccine research. It is clear that, for this star, compassion extended beyond words and into meaningful projects that directly affected people’s lives.

Parton’s relationship with LGBTQ+ audiences is particularly significant in the American South. For some, she represents a connection to the music, humour, and cultural traditions of home without requiring them to accept the prejudice that can accompany those traditions. Her influence has surfaced in legal debates over queer expression: in a ruling striking down a Texas law restricting drag performances, federal judge David Hittner cited Parton as an example of a mainstream entertainer whose flamboyant clothing and suggestive performances could potentially be restricted under an overly broad interpretation of the law. His reference illustrated the difficulty of regulating drag without also raising questions about artistic expression in mainstream entertainment. This example is particularly fitting for an artist whose public image has long played with the boundaries of femininity and theatrical exaggeration. Parton’s appearance is not merely decorative; it has become part of a cultural language that drag performers can reinterpret and that queer audiences can claim for themselves.

Parton’s significance lies in her ability to challenge prejudice without distancing herself from the culture that made her famous. Her career demonstrates that advocating for LGBTQ+ acceptance does not have to mean abandoning one’s roots. Through songs that invite reinterpretation, films that foreground LGBTQ+ experiences, and advocacy spanning the HIV/AIDS epidemic to contemporary debates over transgender rights, Parton has made queer acceptance part of a broader cultural conversation. The rhinestones and wigs may make Parton instantly recognizable, but her enduring influence comes from what she has accomplished with her visibility for those who lack a voice. For LGBTQ+ audiences in particular, her legacy continues to represent the possibility of making compassion a principle that transcends differences in identity, background, or belief. Though the impact of both Curry and Parton’s lives and careers will eventually belong to history, their art continues to invite new generations to dream boldly, express themselves with freedom, and build communities where difference is celebrated. Between Tim Curry’s theatrical defiance and Dolly Parton’s enduring compassion, these two cultural icons have helped generations of LGBTQ+ people embrace their identities, find community, and live unapologetically.

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Inspired by his friend Peter Knegt of QCC Toronto, founder Jeremie Romain has been running QCC Montreal since May 2024. The club first screened at the one-room Cinema Moderne in the Mile End before moving to the bigger Cinema du Parc as of November 2025. “I wanted to start something especially for queer cinema,” he explains in an interview with the Daily.

While programming has in the past included more contemporary titles, such as Mysterious Skin (2004) and 120 BPM (2017), Romain’s main focus for QCC is the history of queerness on screen. “It’s kind of a queer history course, if you will,” he says, “it’s about showing the firsts. [For example,] the first time a character was a known lesbian in a movie, and [was labelled as such].” Although, not everything is about overt queerness as history has not always welcomed an openly queer character on screen, of course. Romain is therefore equally interested in screening films with what he calls queer “sensibilities.” “When you look into it, and you read about the history of the people making movies, you can find out who was queer… and how [that] impacted their work.”

Equally, Romain admits that some representation has not aged well. “In a lot of stuff from the eighties and nineties, the representation is kind of problematic… but it was the first [of its kind] and it was groundbreaking at that time.” It is still “very important,” Romain thus believes, in showing “the history throughout the decades, [and] how stuff changed.”

Genre and tone must also be considered. “I like dramas and intense stuff,” he says, but admits that he’s consciously trying to strike a balance for QCC’s 2027 programming. He has more comedies planned for the upcoming year, for example. “I think the community, at least in Montreal, responds more to [comedies], and it’s just more fun for people… but I still think we need some of the dark [stuff] once in a while, to show the history.” Romain seems to have a quota of sorts to keep his selections varied. “I love to program at least one documentary, at least one film in black and white…not, obviously, all American movies,” he explains. “But there’s only twelve months in the year. I can’t hit everything, but I try to diversify [as much as] I can.”

Next month’s screening of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985) is both a nod to this comedy-loving audience Romain speaks of, and a choice of personal significance. “[Pee Wee Herman] is kind of the person who raised me,” he shares. “I watched those movies over and over again.” The film, he explains further, is an example of these aforementioned “sensibilities” which queer artists lend to their work. “The character [of Pee Wee Herman] isn’t queer,” explains Romain, “but the actor is… [and he has] a humour and a way of moving that I resonated with as a kid.”

It goes without saying that art and representation go, and have always gone, hand in hand, but Romain sees cinema as particularly well-suited to queer visibility and storytelling. “In terms of art and culture, I think cinema is kinda the thing where you can see yourself represented. For me, when I was growing up, [film] was my portal to culture. I’m from a really small town and that’s how… I saw that other types of people were out there.”

On the whole, Romain says that the reception to QCC has been positive. “When I started the club, I got so many messages, and everyone would [tell] me at the events, ‘Thank you so much for starting this, this was missing in Montreal.’” While the typical showing is a relatively low-key affair, QCC screenings have in the past featured live performances and Q&A sessions with the local queer community. A screening of Paris Is Burning (1990), for instance, included conversation with members of the Montreal ballroom scene. Romain also speaks highly of the audiences, who, apparently, sometimes hold discussions amongst themselves afterwards. “I always ask [if anyone] has seen this movie before, and it’s always fun when basically no one has seen it. That means they’re gonna be excited to talk about it after.”

Romain is also keen to highlight the posters present at all QCC screening, which are exclusively artist- commissioned and custom-made. “I try to pick artists [where] I see something [in their art] that could resonate with the movie I’m trying to book, and it always surprises me how well they turn out.” The posters are then sold at the screenings as a souvenir. “I like that there’s little pieces of this club that…live on elsewhere”.

This month, QCC is celebrating Halloween with a screening of the black-and-white horror cult classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane (1962). At the time of writing, 41 of 133 seats remain available. For now, Romain seems proud of the club, but is open to future growth. “I do still feel, even almost three years in, that there are a lot of people who don’t know about the Queer Cinema Club that would probably enjoy it. We’re not as known as we could be, slash should be.”

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane plays Thursday, October 29, 9pm at Cinema du Parc. You can find all of the upcoming QCC programming on their Instagram, @qccmtl.

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New York City is the City That Never Sleeps. Paris is the City of Light. Chicago is the Windy City. And, according to Chandler Levack’s Mile End Kicks (2025), Montreal is a City To Waste Away In, before maturing to the Big Kid City: Toronto.

I caught wind of this film in April 2026, a few months into my exchange semester in Melbourne, Australia. As a Montrealer born and raised, I took it upon myself to rave about my city to my peers on exchange who, if they knew anything about Montreal, labelled it “Canada’s French city.” I had hoped that a movie like Mile End Kicks could provide a nuanced, thought-provoking depiction of a city as unique as its namesake. It did not meet my expectations.

Mile End Kicks features Grace Pine (Barbie Ferreira), a music critic in her early twenties from Toronto who moves to Montreal to write a book on Alanis Morissette. She meets a cast of Canadians immersed in Mile End’s underground music scene. Set in 2011, the film presents a view of Montreal that both glorifies it as the only Canadian city where art can thrive, while also nullifying and reducing the city to drugs, parties, and rude French speakers. The movie misses the mark on what could have been a great way to break barriers between the Canadian anglophone and francophone worlds. Mile End Kicks uses Montreal as the backdrop to a mildly likeable protagonist’s foray into independence, simplistically reducing the city to a music scene built for Albertan male artists feigning tortured souls.

To its credit, the film accurately conveys the highs and lows of moving to a new city as a young person. Following my brief move to Melbourne, I am no stranger to embracing a city head on without fully grasping its culture. Grace is easily swayed by people who act like they know what they are doing. She holds the misconception that moving to a city known for being a centre of the arts, or a place to fall in love, means that every piece of her life will fall into place.

Archie (Devon Bostick), a Prince Edward Islander guitarist and Grace’s eventual love interest, declares Montreal the antithesis of Toronto, describing the two cities as youthfully creative and corporately bleak, respectively. Quebec’s metropolis is consistently reduced to a melting pot for free-spirited, artistic Canadians who will eventually desert it to return to what constitutes real life. However, by the end of the film, Archie consoles Grace by saying that all her tribulations in Montreal would have happened just the same if she had stayed in Toronto, ironically effacing the previously emphasized notion of Montreal’s singularity. Ultimately, since barely any aspect unique to Montreal itself was discussed throughout the film besides its so-called esotericism, I was ultimately led to wonder why the movie was even set here in the first place.

Grace’s grasp of Montreal is also coloured by her exposure to people from Quebec — only two of the main characters. Her roommate Madeleine (Juliette Gariépy) welcomes her to their Saint-Urbain apartment with open arms, a kindness she later takes for granted. While Grace does attempt to learn French, importantly highlighting the need to learn Quebec’s only official language, the film plays into stereotypes of Quebecois people being rude or unsavoury to English-speakers. From the get-go, Madeleine’s boyfriend Hugo (Robert Naylor), describes Grace, in French, as an “anglo” who is “colonizing” Quebec. An opportunity for productive dialogue is missed here, as Hugo’s prejudice against Grace is never addressed or corrected. Moreover, his disdain for her makes less sense when one considers that all his bandmates are also from other Canadian provinces.

Grace asks Archie why “French people,” (the conflation of French and francophone is not lost on me) hate her. He replies that they do not hate her, rather that they do not care about her, and goes on a tirade about needing to speak French to get a job. This scene could have been a learning moment, for Grace and for audiences alike, of the historical framework for such language laws. Instead, Archie’s pejorative attitude toward learning French in a French-speaking province adds fuel to the fire of longstanding misunderstandings. The film does little to ease, or even simply address, the depth of these century-old tensions.

There is a lack of contextualization for anything Montreal. Grace visits an iconic Montreal bagel shop, St-Viateur Bagel, which is oddly empty despite the usual hefty queue at the door. The shop fades into the background of the scene, and so the film misses a talking point regarding Montreal’s culinary history. The Mile End is a hub for young creatives, but the film seldom mentions that the neighbourhood was also built on and sustained by the immigration of Hasidic Jewish and Greek communities, to name a few. The characters scarcely mention any landmarks nor do they really discuss anything other than their own drama. Obviously, this movie is a coming-of-age one, but in spite of it being a film about Montreal, there isn’t a lot of the actual city in it.

For all my qualms with this non-Montreal Montreal, Grace’s time in the city is similar to many McGillians’ and other young adults’ experience. A common topic of conversation on the McGill Reddit page is that students from out of town fail to really leave the Plateau, Milton-Parc, and Mile End area. Young people are not necessarily to blame for this limitation. It’s only natural to want to stay in a safe and fun bubble. Still, there are so many other parts of Montreal to be explored and appreciated; like the centenary houses of Westmount or the crowded Beaubien Street restaurants of Rosemont. For those who live or choose to stay in Montreal, life goes on beyond dimly-lit basement concerts, hangovers, and bagel runs. This film starts and ends with the idea that Montreal is a sort of ahistorical fantasy land for young people to dream in before reality kicks in and they return to their hometowns.

My bone to pick with Mile End Kicks is not related to the plotlines of the movie, but the minimal spotlighting on what I think should have been of central focus: the city on which the whole movie is meant to be based. The movie may be an accurate survey of many young people’s move to a new city. Nonetheless, I left the film with the bad aftertaste of seeing an unsatisfactory depiction of my city, which is as complex as the people that make it up.

The post A (Not-So) Montreal Story appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The above vignette forms the opening scene from Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette, FX’s newest show that has quickly become a sensation. Speaking to the public’s enduring infatuation with the couple, it is now the platform’s most watched limited series to date, just a month after its release. The limited series tells the story of America’s reluctant “it couple” of the 1990s. Love Story curates the details of Kennedy Jr. and Bessette’s notoriously guarded relationship. Drawing from friends’ anecdotes and media footage we see Bessette fitting Kennedy Jr. for a suit in the Calvin Klein show room, to a proposal on a boat at Martha’s Vineyard, or a fight in Battery Park where Kennedy Jr. pulled off Bessette’s ring. This collage of moments is depicted in the show, with certain shots taking on the grainy quality and square framing of a ’90s era camera, making the restaging obvious of a moment captured by the press. Other production choices appeal to cultural memory, such as the costuming. The show’s crew went to pains to source archival pieces from Yohji Yamamoto and specific items like a green Valentino coat to evoke the image of Besette’s looks, as seen in paparazzi images.

With the series’ clever blending of fiction and reality, it’s easy to believe the iconic couple’s real relationship is finally being revealed. The chemistry between the two leads (Sarah Pidgeon and Paul Anthony Kelly), close-up shots, warm lighting, and the “behind closed doors” setting develops a captivating intimacy. After watching the first few episodes of the show, I had a feeling of hollowness I couldn’t place. Only to discover, I was mourning the couple’s death, over 25 years later.

The intense public investment which Love Story depends on and re-evokes was significant to Kennedy Jr. and Bessette’s relationship. The public’s adoration and collective grief for his father as well as a life in front of the cameras made John F. Kennedy Jr. America’s son, as well as its most coveted bachelor. Any woman Kennedy Jr. dated was held to high standards by the public. The same went for Bessette, who was put under intense scrutiny by the media. She had claimed the man who belonged to America, and these were the consequences.

Having never been in the public eye, Carolyn Bessette was different from all of the women Kennedy Jr. had previously dated. When the show begins, Kennedy Jr. is still dating actress Daryl Hannah. Hannah is adept at handling the paparazzi, as she poses for a few good pictures to get them to go away. This juxtaposes Bessette, who refuses to give any of herself away to the media. She’s the perfect enigma. Her style is the epitome of minimalism. There are only two clips of her voice that circulate online, each under two seconds long. Her attitude defied the public’s insistence on a stake in her relationship. The tabloids called her an “ice queen.”

As the couple’s relationship got more serious, so too did the American public’s investment. In Love Story, Bessette and Kennedy Jr. are swarmed and harassed by reporters who block the entrance to their apartment upon their return from their honeymoon. A few days later, the couple’s car is climbed on and surrounded by photographers, making them unable to drive away. More and more tabloids speculate about Bessette, commonly circulating rumours about a pregnancy based on her appearance. As a result of the intense media attention on the couple, the scope of Bessette’s world becomes smaller. She quit her job as publicist at Calvin Klein, and began to limit public appearances. Love Story imagines the press as anxiety-inducing for Bessette, with close-up shots of her fidgeting hands and slowed camera flashes across her worried face.

This is referenced in the show’s opening. Bessette is first seen being hounded by the media and nervously conforming her appearance to their expectations. Meanwhile, Kennedy Jr. is introduced on his way out of the offices of his magazine George. In contrast to Bessette, he confidently strides down the halls, undisturbed; followed only by his assistant. This immediately establishes the couple’s differing relationship with the media, showing it as particularly crippling for Bessette.

The aggression of the media in Love Story is particularly striking. In another scene, Bessette is pushed into a car door by a mob of reporters. If this is how Love Story sees the American media of the ’90s, then how does it see itself? This is a fine line for the show to walk. The vicious portrayal of the media invites recognition of Love Story itself as equally aggressive and intrusive. Not to mention, with questionable ethics. Despite providing narrative form and an empathetic lens, the show can be deemed as no less invasive than the ’90s tabloids it scrutinizes.

Love Story dramatizes the inner lives of a couple who were notoriously private, undoubtedly adding to the appeal. Its main character is Carolyn Bessette, a woman who never gave a public interview. However, the show often aligns the viewer with Bessette to develop pathos, focusing on her hesitation and nerves as she meets the Kennedy family and faces the paparazzi for the first time. Viewers are invited to identify with Bessette’s position as an outsider to the life of America’s royalty. “They feel like they know us,” says Jackie Kennedy in the show. Her and Kennedy Jr. sit in her apartment, reflecting on their relationship with the American public. Her statement is immediately uncanny, the show’s staging of this intimate conversation giving it a self-reflexive resonance.

A similar moment speaks to me. In the show’s seventh episode, “Obsession”, Bessette opens up to Kennedy Jr. about her struggles with media attention, admitting that it was much harder to handle than she had thought. Overcome with heaving sobs in Kennedy Jr.’s arms, Bessette relinquishes her strong exterior. It is one of the most heart-breaking and vulnerable moments of the show. As their apartment buzzer sounds, she cries out: “They won’t leave us alone.”

The post Another Doomed Love Story: The American Media & Carolyn Bessette appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Anya Kasuri, TVM President and Post-Credits Editor-in-Chief, attended the event dressed in a sparkling gown and touted the magazine’s sole physical copy. The magazine, which she co-founded alongside TVM’s graphics coordinator, Sascha Siddiqui, encourages authors to thoughtfully analyze their favourite films. Kasuri is in her third year, studying International Development with a double minor in Political Science and World Cinemas.

In an interview with The McGill Daily, Kasuri says, “Film is the medium that influences our everyday character and aspirations.” Not only does it influence you, it allows you to understand yourself: “Critiquing film is a social activity, an intellectual engagement, and at its core, is a self-assessment of your values and beliefs…the meaning you derive from it can be really telling of your character too. ”

Her favourite part of the magazine is the graphics: “[Unlike writing, graphics] provide visuals to cinema…to perfectly complement the [article’s] argument. Sascha [Siddiqui], our graphics coordinator, did an incredible job bridging the gap … When I saw the final [magazine] it was her creativity that grounded the writing back to its roots — an appreciation of cinema.”

“Films should always be critically analyzed this way. I feel like that’s a value that I’ve derived from my film classes, particularly with Professor Ara Osterweil,” she replied when asked about the vision behind the magazine. “The process of watching and experiencing a film is not only viewing it, then going home and going to sleep. It’s about watching it with your friends, watching other people, reacting, [and] hearing everyone’s reactions in the crowd. Afterward, [the experience is about] discussing it as you understand it — because when you come out of a movie, you’re not going to know exactly what you have to say; it’s not a fully fleshed-out thought. When you spend time discussing it, you learn more about it.”

The key difference, for Kasuri, between short- and long-form analysis lies in its depth: “[Long-form analysis] offers full fledged evaluations of films’ formal elements: cinematography, mise en scene, visual tone, colour palette, acting, narrative — being able to evaluate that in a longer form analysis lets you see each film individually…and its directors’ vision apart from one another because you get into the depths of each films’ elements’ meaning[s].” To conclude: “It’s a better, more engaging, intellectual, and educational alternative to short-form media.”

However, she notes that many people forget the core of analysis: what the film wants to be. “A lot of people misjudge pieces of media by applying the same expectations to all [of them]. It’s important to judge a film based on what it’s striving to be…they all have different standards of their visual language, their pacing, their acting, their sets,” said Kasuri.

I encountered Elena Degas at a bar table next to the DJ booth, listening intently to the live band. As TVM’s music composer, she wanted to “provide insight from a musical perspective.” Writing to the Daily, she highlighted how the score was integral to the story: “Sinners was by far the film that impacted me most from the last year, and I felt that it was special in the way that the score/music was so integral to the story and the conversations that were happening around the film.”

Degas got her start in film scoring when she watched Euphoria in 2019. The music was what made her love the show; she found that it could tell a poignant story on its own.

Her favourite part of the article she wrote for Post-Credits was her analysis of the use of blues at the centre of Sinners. It gives the viewer insight into the film’s characters and their struggles. Especially the song “Pick Poor Robin Clean,” demonstrates the turn from oppressed to oppressor in Remmick, an Irishman. It opens up a “space for a larger conversation about the history of predominately Black genres of music and how they’ve evolved and continue to live on today.”

From her article: “It is immediately following [the surreal montage] scene when the people in the juke joint are faced with the vampires, who dauntingly perform an upbeat, folk-inspired rendition of ‘Pick Poor Robin Clean’ for the group.” The song is “a blues song that [embodies] someone trying to survive by picking apart and taking everything they can from a dead robin.”

For Degas, “this jolly folk rendition exemplifies the white vampires’ inability to engage empathetically and thoughtfully with the community they are attempting to infiltrate, and recalls a common pattern in genres such as blues and jazz, in which white musicians have historically appropriated and overshadowed Black artists.” Remmick’s positionality is especially striking because of his Irish heritage and experience with colonialism. His desire to completely consume the music is shaped by a selfish desire to preserve it the way he was unable to with his own heritage. However, in doing so, he reproduces colonial violence, with music becoming a tangible symbol of culture.

TVM has allowed Degas to explore her passion for the soundscape of a movie: “Film is now one of the main cornerstones of my life, I have found a huge love for making music for films at TVM, and have found a great community of other film-lovers here; I now plan on attending film school next year for sound design in hopes of a career in film audio/music!”

McGill’s distinct lack of a creative arts programme is no secret. However, student initiatives like Post-Credits Magazine are working to allow student film lovers to think critically about the art they are passionate about.

TVM will be hosting its largest event of the year, FOKUS Film Festival on Thursday, March 26 at Cinema Du Parc. For more information, visit TVM at tvmtelevision.com or @tvm.television on Instagram.

The post TVM Reveals the First Issue of Post-Credits Magazine appeared first on The McGill Daily.

For clarity, “Shakespeare” will be used in reference to playwright William Shakespeare, William to the husband and Agnes will be referred to by her first name.

Inspired by Maggie O’Farrell’s novel of the same name, co- written and directed by Chloe Zhao, the film carries arrives carrying considerable weight. After receiving the Oscar for Best Actress for her role as Agnes Shakespeare, Jessie Buckley is all over the media. Critics have described her performance as “devastating” and called it a “radically feminine take on Shakespeare’s family life” — both of which are true. As Buckley said herself, the role offered her a chance to counter a common narrative about the playwright’s wife — that she had “kept [Shakespeare] back from his genius” — and instead to “give the full landscape of what it is to be a woman.” Despite an impressive performance from Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare, I am of the opinion that Buckley steals the show

Set in 16th-century Warwickshire, the story follows Agnes’ navigation of child loss, the shifting dynamics between parents, and both Agnes and William’s journeys traversing their grief, as William writes the play Hamlet about their deceased son. The film opens with a breathtaking shot: a dense forest canopy, an overhead camera slowly tracking down through the foliage to find Agnes positioned at the base, in a fetal position, alluding to Mother Nature. In this, motherhood immediately takes centre stage.

The costume design sustains this theme throughout the film. She is dressed almost entirely in red, set starkly against the dark greens of the forest and the navy blues of Shakespeare and the children. Colours in the film have symbolic messaging: the bedroom covers shift from orange to blue after Hamnet’s death, signifying the turn from familial joy to grief; and the boy himself wears both orange and blue in the scenes before he dies, subtly distinguishing him from his siblings. When Agnes appears in red again at the final reconciliation, it reads as something quietly triumphant. The cinematography by Łukasz Żal reinforces her centrality at every turn — from prolonged close-ups on her face, to wide shots that place her at the centre of the frame while William Shakespeare recedes behind her.

When William Shakespeare decides to move to London, Zhao makes a poignant directorial decision to keep the camera, and thus the story, with the family that stayed behind, framing Agnes’ encouragement as a genuine, costly sacrifice, rather than a passive acceptance

The two birthing scenes are extraordinary in their contrast. The first has Agnes alone in the forest, gripping the roots of a tree in her red dress, giving life as Mother Nature does: in solitude, and in pain. The second, set at home, is stripped of any musical score, the silence making it almost unbearable. The film’s treatment of motherhood is among its most striking qualities. The solidarity between women across generations receives equal care in its portrayal: Agnes’ stepmother’s support during the birth of the twins, the quiet “you can and you will,” and the flashbacks of Agnes as a child having lost losing her own mother to childbirth. Her cry “I want my mum” is one of the rawest lines in the film.

Shakespeare’s absence at the moment of Hamnet’s death is handled with the same weight: the later line, “you should’ve been there,” lands with quiet devastation. Furthermore, Jacobi Jupe, who plays young Hamnet, deserves serious recognition. The farewell scene between Hamnet and William is shot with remarkable composition: an expansive wide angle shot that almost divides the frame between them, both turning back to look at each other laughing, unwilling to leave after saying goodbye.

Hamnet’s death scene devastated the entire cinema. It is rendered with an almost expressionistic, poetic quality: the boy walking away into death, surrounded by painted trees that echo the forest of the movie’s opening scene, the circle of his life quietly closing. The line “I’ll be brave,” delivered with tears barely held back, by candlelight and with Max Richter’s score beneath it, is the film’s emotional peak.

There are moments that feel overly indulgent. The close-up staging of the “To be or not to be” soliloquy, although brilliantly performed by Mescal, disrupts the narrative momentum and feels like a gesture toward theatre enthusiasts rather than something the film has earned. It felt like an attempt to anchor this loose adaptation back to canonical Shakespeare. The final scene also overstays its welcome, the sustained violins drawing out emotion that has already been fully brought out.

As Peter Bradshaw has noted for The Guardian, “on one level, the narrative is a fallacious misreading,” relying heavily on a name coincidence that could be simply that. But he is equally right that it represents a “thrilling act of creative audacity, reaching back through the centuries to embrace Shakespeare and Agnes as human beings.” That is the film’s genuine achievement. It is a story about grief, parenthood and ultimately the unheard characters behind one of the most recognized plays ever written.

The post Review: Hamnet, The Retelling of a Lost Figure appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Make no mistake, fanfiction has always existed in mainstream spaces. More romance novels tha you might think are actually Rey/Kylo Ren fanfiction disguised by unsubtle name changes and superficial editing. Fifty Shades of Grey started off as a Twilight fanfiction. Even the Game Changers series (you might know it better as the books from which Heated Rivalry was adapted) is rumoured to have been a “stucky hockey au” [Marvel fanfiction of Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes]. The current problem comes from the shift away from bottom-up decision-making to top-down, from authors deciding to monetize their work to publishing corporations asking for it. Most of all, the problem is the visibility that comes with it, which opens up fandoms to potential outside threats, like angry authors or toxic
nternet users.

Capitalism…
The best thing about fanfiction is that it is a gift from the author to the reader. The first unspoken rule when entering online fandom communities is to respect and appreciate the work that is done. Fanfiction authors write for free in their own time, during their very (infamously so) busy lives. Maybe the story is bad, and the grammar non-existent; there might be no punctuation, or capital letters every three words, but it was written by someone who was passionate and experimenting, and it is frowned upon to criticize them for it.

To someone who has only experienced mainstream online spaces, smaller fandoms can be extremely welcoming. There is a reason for that, (weirdos sticking together if you want to be sappy, but, from a more cynical and realistic point of view): compensation — or the lack thereof. The basis for most of the discourse opposing disparaging comments is that fanfiction writing is a hobby shared out of the goodness of one’s heart. No one owes anyone anything, and one only needs to be kind in return. Yet now, a precedent has been set; money has entered the equation. If once is happenstance and twice a coincidence, it only needs to happen again for money to become enemy action, to become a pattern. And who knows how this new business model will impact the community’s ethos of mutual respect.

But, why are publishing companies picking up fanfiction? The answer — it might surprise you — is also money. Fanfiction, even scrubbed of every trace of the original world and characters, still offers the enormous advantage of a built-in audience, thus guaranteeing automatic return on investment. Fans familiar with the work will buy it, and people, morbidly curious, having heard of the story and its origins by word of mouth, will want to get a glimpse.

A risk for the Harry Potter fandom

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if the original author can no longer maintain plausible deniability about fandom activity, bad things happen. Although a lot of authors, such as George R. R. Martin, operate under a kind of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding fanfiction, others like Anne Rice are not so kind. The author of Interview with the Vampire is infamous in fandom circles for threatening to sue fanfiction writers and going so far as to send a cease-and-desist letter to Fanfiction.net, asking them to remove everything related to her work.

The risk of dragging Harry Potter fan-created content into the mainstream is that it might force a confrontation with the author. As of yet, there have been no such incidents, but how long will that peace last? There has rarely been a fandom with so much genuine, blinding hatred for the original author as the Harry Potter fandom. Most of the time, hate geared towards the original creators of works comes from disappointment with the source material: the ending of Game of Thrones, the blatant queer-baiting in Netflix’s Wednesday, or Veronica Mars’ entire fourth season. People hate the directors for the choices they made. Meanwhile, Harry Potter fans hate J.K. Rowling for personal and political reasons, and that hatred runs deep.

J.K. Rowling’s views about the LGBTQ+ community are very problematic, and if there is one thing to know about fandom, it is that it is queer. Writing fanfiction is not just teenage girls shipping male characters. It’s marginalized audiences reappropriating symbols and characters. It’s incorporating queer themes into originally cis heterosexual media, creating trans plotlines, and discussing internalized homophobia, intersectionality, and the intricacies of consent. Rowling has, historically and with great emphasis, denigrated such social issues. It raises concerns about her potential reaction to an army of fans who curse the ground she walks on. Will she continue to close her eyes and allow fandom communities to operate? That seems like a best-case scenario, but far from the only one. Rowling can decide to co-opt the more supportive and ‘acceptable’ branches of the movement, or even retaliate and wreak destruction on a scale only permissible to billionaires like herself.

Outsiders looking in
Original content creators, authors, and directors are not the only threat that heightened visibility brings to fandom. A more insidious, though no less dangerous one is judgmental internet users who feel entitled to fandom spaces, and refuse to adapt to these spaces’ rules and culture despite having chosen to enter them. Fandom spaces are being forcefully gentrified by individuals who refuse to interact with the more alternative parts of the community. Most people know that fandom is weird, but they don’t really understand it. How are you supposed to explain “Dead Dove, Do Not Eat” to someone who’s never heard of it before? People might like the cute couple or the hot, slightly-but-not-too-problematic relationships, but they might not necessarily be prepared for works that go beyond what is usually socially acceptable.

This is not new: it is happening – and has been for a while – to the fandom and LGBTQ+ communities as a whole. Who is the most relevant? The most marketable? Such debates arise as people discuss the inclusion (or exclusion) of more marginalized sub-groups. Hence, internal hierarchies are created and certain groups deemed ‘other’ by the broader community and audience. In queer circles, underground practices like BDSM get slapped with the label of “sexually deviant” and are excluded from some queer spaces they’d historically been a part of.

Fandoms — fanfiction maybe especially — are close to such subcultures and might face the same progressive sanitisation if shoved to the center stage. When something exists as a subculture, it is easy for it to be more diverse because everyone is equally threatened by the public majority. In recent times, fandoms have grown more visible and attractive; yet only certain facets of them are deemed appropriate to the mainstream public. This can have a negative impact on its internal dynamics, based on trust and respect, as newcomers become influenced by public discourse or are simply ignorant of the community’s culture. Hence, safe spaces previously designed for marginalized communities to exist and thrive are gentrified, becoming another pawn from which capitalist entities can profit.

The post The Gentrification of Online Fandom Spaces appeared first on The McGill Daily.

In class over the past few months, we have examined the backlash modern artists received for going against the grain — the “grain” being the expectations set by the Art Academy, the Salon where they would show their work, their audience, and, of course, critics. Modern artists like Manet, who portrayed purely modern scenes without conforming to the “grain,” provoked viewership fury. French critic of the time, Émile Zola, argued in an essay titled “Édouard Manet”, originally published in 1867, that public outrage simply reveals how tightly audiences cling to expectations of what art ought to resemble. The public, up until this point, had maintained neoclassical values in art: to flatter, narrate, and moralize. Manet refused all three of those familiar imperatives by producing art that felt uncomfortable and bluntly new — a choice that is now heavily applauded. True art, a point Zola returns to time and time again, does not come from a desire to conform to norms or follow the “grain” but from individual temperament and personal vision. 

Nearly two centuries later and across the Atlantic, my girlfriends and I visited the Cineplex on Rue Sainte Catherine to watch Emerald Fennell’s 2026 “Galentines” adaptation of “Wuthering Heights”. The reaction to the film was generally varied. Some praised it, while lovers of the novel jumped to Twitter and Reddit to vent their anger over yet another inaccurate adaptation. To give credit to these bibliophiles, Fennell abandons many of the themes that make this story so impactful by portraying a narrative based on her initial impression of the book as a 14-year-old girl. In depicting this youthful interpretation, Fennell centres the film around a glorified toxic romance between Catherine and Heathcliff. Frustrated viewers were appalled at Fennell’s tone-deafness in foregrounding obsessive love while sidestepping and softening the harsher themes of the novel, particularly those pertaining to Heathcliff’s racial marginalization and the systemic class violence in the setting. 

In reading tweets alleging the film’s negligence, just as I did in December when choosing my winter semester electives, I turned to modern art history. Two hundred years apart, both Manet and Fennell have something in common: they’ve both committed to their personal visions and rejected traditional expectations. Manet counters aesthetic norms and produces art that depicts the tensions of modern life in a way that is truthful to himself. Similarly, Fennell abandons the expectation that adaptations be reflective of their source material to create a film rooted in her own experience, a decision Zola might have applauded. Whether or not you enjoy or even “agree with” either of these artist’s work, they both made the choice to commit to their personal truths and abandon external expectations. In practicing artistic autonomy, they choose their own temperament as an anchor in their work. 

If these two artists are correct and individual temperament is the “True North” of art, it leads us to question: are there traditions or expectations that artists must uphold, or is personal vision all that truly matters? Between these contexts, “tradition” is understood very differently. For Manet, “traditions” are expectations set by the Art Academy surrounding what defines academically valid (and objectively good) art. For Fennell, “tradition” underlines the source material from which she draws her film: Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Both these artists abandon tradition in their works, making audiences question: where is the line drawn between artistic autonomy and deviations from tradition? 

In deviating from tradition, one can question the difference between innovation and avoidance. 

If artists do have a responsibility to uphold a certain tradition, both Manet and Fennell have failed to do so. Yet we celebrate Manet as a transformative turning point in modern art history. Why? In my opinion, it is because Manet’s work denies the comfort of ignorance and bluntly presents his audiences with uncomfortable social realities, forcing them to analyze their own lives through his work. In contrast, Fennell’s Wuthering Heights does exactly the opposite. While she also deviates from “tradition”, she does so by refusing to inherit the uncomfortable and darker themes of the novel. She allows her audiences to find comfort in the avoidance of difficult themes surrounding the intersection of violence, race, and class. If Manet makes audiences question how closely art should adhere to academic standards, Fennell forces them to question how much personal vision we are willing to accept in interpretations of classic narratives. 

In some cases, we respond well to moving away from tradition when artists depict their personal visions because it feels honest and revealing, confronting you with art rooted in social reality. This is what Manet did in pulling at the seams of academic art to reveal true modern life. On the other side of the coin, moving away from tradition can feel dishonest if viewers don’t feel it is rooted in these social truths — the very social truths that made Emily Brontë’s novel so impactful in the first place. 

Now, as I wrap up this article in my student apartment a few streets from campus, I have to conclude that this argument is somewhat of an open-ended question. I think that is because there is no universal line that separates avoidance from innovation in art. That line is unstable by design, and artists have always toed it by pushing their own personal vision forward while balancing a respect for tradition. Perhaps this tension is what produces great art. That being said, in my art history class, we are still marveling at Manet’s impact on the evolution of modern art two centuries later. But as I left the Cineplex on Sainte Catherine after seeing Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, I got the impression that this particular adaptation might not make it onto the syllabus of a film class in another two hundred years. 

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Emerald Fennell’s much anticipated “Wuthering Heights” has hit theaters just in time for Valentine’s Day. The film is based on the beloved novel by Emily Brontë, which tells the tale of Catherine Earnshaw, Heathcliff, and their families. Though this film is marketed as a romance, the original text is anything but that. It is a tragedy that unfolds due to classism, racism, and cyclical abuse. Though many filmmakers have attempted to translate these events from words into film, Brontë’s raw and incisive novel has been said to be “unfilmable.” Unfortunately, Fennell’s film proves to be no different in this regard. Starring Margot Robbie as Catherine and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, the film does have its strengths, such as the stunning cinematography of the English countryside and the surrealist and dreamlike sets. However, the film not only fails to do Brontë’s novel justice, but also completely disregards the story’s central conflicts and themes.

One of the most controversial aspects of the film is Jacob Elordi’s casting, which caused outrage on social media as audiences were rightfully upset about the whitewashing of Heathcliff’s character. Though Brontë never specifies his race in the book, she does describe Heathcliff as being “dark-skinned,” which causes him to be discriminated against and abused by Catherine’s brother, Hindley — a character noticeably absent from the film. The racism that Heathcliff faces leads to the start of the cycle of abuse within his and Catherine’s families, which is eventually dismantled by Catherine’s children and her nephew. Elordi being cast as Heathcliff not only takes a role away from actors of colour, but also erases one of the central and extremely pertinent conflicts in the story. Heathcliff has been known to be played by white actors — the only exception being Andrea Arnold’s adaptation in 2011 — yet it is still upsetting to see that nearly no progress has been made in the past century ever since filmmakers have been adapting Wuthering Heights for the screen.

In turn, the depth of Heathcliff’s character was diluted in Fennell’s film. Rather than being a victim of racially motivated discrimination who eventually torments those around him, he is boiled down to an archetypical sexy bad boy. Though he acts cruel at certain moments in the film, the sheer villainy of his character has been completely removed, rendering him incredibly underdeveloped. Instead of presenting a flawed and sometimes evil man who, despite his faults, is seen as an object of desire to Catherine, Fennell removes all of the complexity from his character in favour of making him a palatable love interest.

Wuthering Heights revolves around Catherine and Heathcliff’s torrid relationship, as it curses everyone around them, including their own children. Rather than presenting a doomed but passionate bond that lasts even beyond the grave, their relationship in the film is presented as nothing more than a typical enemies-to-lovers situation. Catherine and Heathcliff are friends as children, but are not very fond of each other as adults and are always arguing. However, after Catherine has a sexual awakening of sorts, the two suddenly cannot keep their hands off one another. Their supposed love for one another appears out of nowhere and is given no room for growth, making it seem like an afterthought instead of one of the story’s main threads.

Another disappointing aspect of the film was Fennell’s treatment of Isabella Linton, played by Alison Oliver. In the novel, Isabella marries Heathcliff, who takes her to live with him at Wuthering Heights. Isabella becomes a prisoner in Heathcliff’s house and is abused by him: he verbally threatens her, throws a knife at her, and kills her dog. Eventually, Isabella manages to escape the house, settling down far away from the dreary moors to raise her son alone.

In contrast, Fennell’s version of Isabella can be characterized as a weird girl, whose youthful naïveté leads her to marry Heathcliff even after he insists that he does not love her, will never love her, and will treat her horribly. Hence, it is not only uncomfortable to watch Isabella’s complacency in tolerating Heathcliff’s degradations but also trivializes the abuse she faced from him in the novel. The film presents her as willingly participating in this degradation, whereas the original text makes clear that Heathcliff’s treatment of her was abuse, not something she consented to. The romanticization — or rather the sexualization — of abuse in the film is vile to say the least, as it absolves Heathcliff of any wrongdoing and instead suggests that Isabella enjoys being dehumanized. Rather than accurately portraying the realities of abusive relationships, Fennell turns Isabella into Heathcliff’s lap dog, so that their relationship fits nicely into her oversexualized rendition of a brutally torturous tale.

The most important thing to know about Brontë’s work is that it is not an easily digestible story; it is gruesome, calamitous, and sickening. Her novel has long been considered a masterpiece due to its portrayal of racial Othering and exclusion in colonial England, the lasting effects of intergenerational abuse, and the link between obsession and violence. Conversely, Fennell’s adaptation is messy and watered down, all tied up in a pretty little bow that fails to mask its disingenuity.

Some may argue that the quotation marks around the film’s title suggest that it is merely an interpretation. However, Fennell’s film borrows too much from the source material to be thought of as anything other than an adaptation. As much as I tried to see this film as its own entity separate from the novel, at the end of the day it cannot be totally removed from the context of the original work. As hard as Fennell tried to depict Wuthering Heights in her own way, she missed the mark entirely, making a mockery of Brontë’s magnum opus.

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Something is in the air in the movie world, and it isn’t love. For decades, romantic comedies were a Hollywood staple, drawing audiences in to laugh, cry, and believe, even just for a couple hours, that love could conquer all. When Harry Met Sally, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Sleepless in Seattle, Love Actually; these movies did more than just entertain, they contributed to a genre of classics that is becoming relatively historic. 

There’s something about classic rom-coms that make us feel overwhelmingly comforted and happy. Viewers are transported to a dream-like reality: charming bookstores, cozy cafes, and picturesque city streets. Many of the aforementioned iconic rom-coms emerged in the 80s, 90s, and early 00s before the era of smartphones and social media, before the digital age reshaped meet-cutes from run-ins at grocery stores to matches on dating apps. Seeing as peak romance seemed to exist in movies at this time, was love somehow easier, or was life simply better before technology took over our lives? This is a question I find myself returning to often, along with a certain nostalgia for a lifestyle I never experienced. I think this is partly why that era of rom-coms is so widely loved. In many ways, they are windows into a version of life that no longer feels easily accessible. Whether or not the past was truly more romantic, these films offered audiences a vision of connection that felt warm, hopeful, and deeply human — qualities becoming increasingly rare in today’s cinematic landscape.

In contrast, recent additions to the romantic comedy genre have been wiped of this dreamy quality. Films like Anyone but You and Ticket to Paradise did achieve streaming popularity, yet few have embedded themselves into our long-term cultural memory in the way that earlier films did. Today’s romance movies often lean into the drama of it all, emphasizing emotional conflict, messy “situationships,” or the toxicity of modern dating rather than the hopeful escapism that once defined the genre. Visually, many share the now-familiar “Netflix lighting” making movies feel interchangeable and somewhat bland, contributing to the sense that these films lack the sparkle they once were admired for. 

These changes in production might reflect a change in audience preferences, indicating perhaps that people find cynicism more entertaining than romance itself. However, even more compelling is the question of whether these films simply reflect the realities of modern dating, where traditional grand gestures such as sending flowers in the mail, running through a city to confess love, or showing up unannounced to express one’s romantic feelings have become increasingly rare; or whether the media we consume is quietly steering audiences away from imagining romance in these ways at all. 

Theatrical rom-com releases have declined significantly, in part because the genre typically falls into the mid-budget category ($5-50 million) that studios now consider financially risky compared to blockbuster franchises. As fewer of these films are produced and promoted, their cultural influence also diminishes. What are the effects of this decline?

Rom-coms help keep classic romance alive and have historically functioned as social examples for courtship, modeling communication, vulnerability, and intentional actions. Audiences may therefore lose exposure to the emotional openness and thoughtful gestures that are the backbone of a healthy relationship. These are especially important for youth to internalise, as they lack romantic experience at a young age and might require models of healthy relationships outside of their immediate families. 

More simply, rom-coms are fun to watch. They’re the perfect thing to wind down to after a stressful day at school or work. While psychologically compelling romantic dramas can be entertaining at times, they just do not produce the same warm, cozy feeling. 

Psychological research on romantic media suggests that its influence is complex. Some scholars argue that romance films can reinforce unhealthy expectations, encouraging the belief that individuals are “incomplete” without a partner and even reinforcing stigma around being single. Others argue that romance movies are sometimes overly unrealistic, accelerating processes of emotional intimacy that in reality take much longer to develop or solving deeply-rooted problems that only years of therapy can fix. Melanie Maimon, a professor of psychology at Bryant University, explains that films tend to emphasize passionate love, dramatic confessions and intense attractions, while overlooking the quieter forms of love that actually sustain long-term partnerships. Rather than dramatics, long-lasting relationships are built instead on companionate love, defined by friendship, emotional support, and shared routines. Since these aspects of companionship are not deemed as cinematically interesting as passionate love and grand gestures are, audiences are often left with an incomplete picture of how relationships actually endure. 

At the same time, other research highlights the constructive potential of romantic storytelling. Many rom-com conflicts arise from miscommunication, showing how failure to properly express feelings can block connection and emphasizing how successful relationships require vulnerability. These movies have also historically gotten humans through difficult times, thriving during crises like the Great Depression and wartime as a reliable form of escapist entertainment. Romantic films act both as a key to a transportive world of relatable characters with easily identifiable struggles, and as a warm security blanket we can wrap ourselves in when we need comfort and/or a laugh. 

Rom-coms once gave audiences a place to believe in grand gestures, awkward meet-cutes, and the possibility that love may be just around the corner. Today, as the genre grows quieter, perhaps the real question is not whether the rom-com is dying, but whether we are ready to lose the kinds of stories that once reminded us, albeit a little cheesily, that love could be all we need. 

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The most recent addition to Rian Johnson’s Knives Out franchise, Wake Up Dead Man, shows Daniel Craig reprising his role as detective Benoit Blanc, who visits a neo-Gothic church where this film’s victim, Monsignor Wicks (Josh Brolin), was murdered. Like the two previous films, we are presented with an ensemble of characters who were close to the victim and were present at the time of his death. The ensemble consists of Father Jud (Josh O’Connor) as well as a small group of Wicks’ devoted supporters who remain by his side despite his extremist behaviour and off-putting nature.

Let’s begin with the positives. Films — especially murder mysteries — are only as strong as their characters. I believe that this film created two characters who were well-rounded; namely, Father Jud and Benoit Blanc.

Father Jud especially is a convincing suspect the entire duration of the film: a boxer turned priest who turned to religion after accidentally killing a man. He comes to the church to revitalize it, yet he immediately distrusts Wicks. The two men don’t get along, as Wicks leads aggressive church services that effectively scare away new parishioners. Father Jud recognizes Wicks’ flaws, as well as the church’s flaws, and is dedicated to changing how things are run, even if it means making an enemy of Wicks. When Jud is accused of murdering Wicks, he still does everything he can to help those around him. In one scene, he puts the investigation on hold to talk to a distressed woman, Louise (Bridget Everett), whose mother is dying. Rather than focus on clearing his name, Jud instead spends hours talking to Louise and praying for her mother. Despite his own troubles, Jud remains a caring man dedicated to being there for the people around him. He represents the ideal hospitality of the church, accepting everyone who walks through its doors and doing his best to remain patient despite the obstacles being thrown at him.

Similarly, Benoit Blanc was also given room to thrive, as shown through his relationship with religion that develops over the course of the film. At first, he cannot understand the benefits of a religion that has a history of exclusionary practices. As the film moves forward and Benoit works alongside Jud, he begins to understand why people turn to faith in difficult times. He is present for Jud’s conversation with Louise and becomes aware of how benevolent the members of the church can be to those in need. By the end of the film he is a believer: not in God, but in Father Jud and his caring nature.

Despite the film’s success in its development of characters such as Father Jud and Benoit, it is not as successful in its characterization of the rest of the ensemble. Potential suspects are not fully fleshed out , namely Vera (Kerry Washington) and Lee (Andrew Scott). The film spends so much time and energy on the protagonists that it cast aside many of its side characters, despite the fact that they too were suspects in the crime at hand and played by various famous actors.

Namely, Vera’s storyline is never properly handled or developed, even though she was one of the few who ended up speaking out against Wicks, condemning his harmful treatment of others. Despite the gravity of this, her rebellion does not go any further, and she is never convincingly portrayed as a possible suspect. Instead, after her brief moment of defiance, she retreats into herself and is shown alone in a dark room, smoking a cigarette. Vera sitting practically motionless in this scene seems indicative of how the writers seemed to give up on her character. Rather than playing an active role in the remainder of the story, she is left in the dark, with no other purpose but to stare off into the distance. She should have been given a more meaningful conclusion, or at least a more potent contribution to the events of the narrative. While she does receive fifteen minutes of relevance when condemning Wicks, her fall from the spotlight lasts the entire second half of the film.

Lee is another character whose story was ill-conceived from the start, with his role somehow even less significant than Vera’s. Viewers are told he is a failing author who is writing his comeback novel, which is basically the only thing we learn about him throughout the entire film. Every other time he is on screen, he either contributes very little to the plot or is doing unhinged and inexplicable things, like building a moat around his house. He is not close to Wicks, nor is he given any motive that would lead him to commit the murder. In short, he does not advance the narrative in any way and is not necessary to the story.

It seems like this film created more characters than needed and did not spend enough time developing equally significant character arcs for all of them. They simply threw together an ensemble for the sake of the plot without fleshing out many of the characters into the story. The murder mystery aspect of the film was not very compelling, since half of the suspects seemed to have no clear motive and their potential guilt was seemingly disregarded by the screenwriters themselves. As much as I adored this film, it could have either spent more time developing the characters or gotten rid of some of them altogether, therefore providing the audience with more convincing suspects and a balanced story.

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As one of North America’s leading documentary festivals, the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) seeks primarily to “promote and reflect on the most stimulating and diverse visions of documentary cinema.” Last year, the festival was held from November 19, 2025 and November 29, 2025. Their selections bring a newfound renewal of the audience’s relationship with the world and with documentary as an art form. On November 27 and November 29 RIDM screened Partition at the Cinémathèque Québecoise, in collaboration with Festival International Du Film Ethnographique Du Québec (FIFEQ).

Allan is an anthropologist by trade, who has worked for the duration of her professional and scholarly career with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. The focus of her work has been documenting histories of displacement and dispossession in the camps across Lebanon, focusing on the testimonies of first generation refugees, dating back to the Nakba.

Partition has been in the works for many years in collaboration in camps across Lebanon. At the time the footage was filmed, the British Empire shot a number of films to document their colonial operations. However, much of this footage is not quite clear, and the images do not appear to be originals. That is because Prof. Allan filmed the footage from her own laptop, shot from digitized archives. The videos were then edited alongside resistance songs and the voices of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon — culminating in a project that challenges colonial authority. 

Partition is not concerned with preserving a linear narrative. In true oral history fashion, it recalls over a century of occupation and displacement through the sounds of echoes and overlaying  perspectives. It was described by the festival as “an invitation to rewrite Palestinian history through a decolonial lens, reflecting on the logic of the colonial gaze and the image’s complicity in its development.”

Partition is the fruit of much beautiful and creative labour, with the editing initially taking place in Lebanon and ending in Canada. Mahmoud Zeidan, a Palestinian refugee residing in Ain-al-Helweh camp in Lebanon, was co-editor on this project. Zeidan and Allan also worked together to co-found the Nakba Archive project in 2002, which comprises over 1,100 hours of footage with first-generation Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Julian Flavin, associate director of Critical Media Lab (CML) at McGill University, worked closely with Professor Allan on Partition as the project’s sound designer. Finally, Lisa Stevenson, co-director of the CML, also played quite the role in the film’s making. 

On November 29th, it was revealed that Partition won the Grand Prix of the national competition at RIDM.

On January 19, The Daily sat with Professor Allan to know the woman behind the lens, and understand the documentary’s ultimate goal. 

This interview had been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Youmna El Halabi for the McGill Daily (MD): How did the idea come about to make the documentary in the first place?

Professor Diana Allan (DA): All my work as a filmmaker and as an anthropologist has focused on histories of dispossession and displacement and exile. In addition to testimonial work, I’ve also worked as an ethnographer for many years with Palestinian communities, also in [Tyre,] Beirut, mainly in [Palestinian refugee camp, Sabra and] Shatila in Beirut and in Jal al Bahr, [attending] one of these informal gatherings called the tajamua’at in the South. 

My work has also been about memory, about processes of memory, and ephemeral forms of memory; highlighting the kind of narratives that maybe don’t form part of these canonical narratives of displacement, but are to do with childhood and love and labor, that are maybe less politically resonant, but are very important. I’ve been very interested in the processes of memory, and how photographs shape it. So this film kind of grows out of that, and is about what it means to encounter a kind of colonial archive from your past, from which you’ve been denied access, and what it means to experience that past, re-experience it, and reinvest it with Palestinian history and experience.

So it’s really about re-temporizing the Nakba as something that has been going on for 100 years, not 78, and scrutinizing the role that the British have played. I guess also as a British scholar, and filmmaker, I am scrutinizing my own formation within this imperial imagery as a British citizen, and it has periodically come into my work, but in a very marginal way.

As a British citizen, Allan had to consider her own relationship to these histories of Palestinian dispossession, and the fundamental role that the British have played in this history, which is often forgotten. The Palestinian plight is normally considered to have begun with the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, often referred to as the Nakba, which means catastrophe in Arabic. However, Palestine has been under a nakba long before the established Israeli state, with British rule beginning in the 1910s.

MD: You mentioned that your work revolves a lot around memories and preserving memory. The movie is shot from the actual archives, and the zoom lens conveys that they are not original shots. How does the preservation of memory manifest in the way you chose to present the documentary? 

DA: Who do these histories belong to? Who do these materials belong to? These silent films were shot between 1917 and 1948 so I came across this collection sort of randomly. I’d heard that they’d just digitized their films. I came across this material that was amazing and revelationary to me in many different ways. When I contacted the archivist, and they quoted me a really exorbitant sum for use of this material, even after I’d explained that it was for an educational project — that it wasn’t for broadcast on television —  it was still exorbitant. At that point I was just like, I’m not paying a British government institution a huge amount of money to make a film about their dispossession of Palestinians. And one has to ask, well, who are these materials being preserved for? They should be preserved for stakeholder communities. 

This is a decolonial project. This is about bringing these histories back into contact with Palestinian communities. And so, I felt entirely justified in reclaiming them, exhuming them from this collection, and then bringing them back into circulation, bringing them back into relation with the people whose histories are being held in these collections. 

MD: How has winning the Grand Prix changed people’s perception and reception of the documentary? 

DA: It has made my work more visible to my colleagues, both in my own department and in the Faculty of Arts. They sent out a notice about the award in the arts newsletter, and that was very nice. The screening at the CML [on January 16] was really packed. Partition is the first fully-fledged film that has come out of the lab, in which a community of people who are working in film and sound is really being built. It was exciting to feel the force of that community and that kind of commitment.

—

Partition was more than just a documentary reclaiming Palestinian history. In a way, it works as a sort of epic, told through blurred images, and the enchanting voice of a woman singing Palestinian folkloric songs. While tragic in its reality, it is also a story on the importance of resilience and preservation of memory – and it is a must-watch.

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*Spoilers ahead!*

My 2026 New Year’s resolution is to read more books. While I love purchasing new ones, I decided that while home during winter break, I would gather the collection I had already bought but had never read and bring them back to McGill with me. One of those books was Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation, and I rang in 2026 while reading the story. 

When I started the book, the movie had just been released on Netflix, which further compelled me to read it quickly. People We Meet on Vacation was a well-anticipated film by Henry’s fans, and reached 17.2 million viewers in its release weekend. News of the book’s movie adaptation was announced in 2022, a year after its publication, and audiences were given a trailer in July 2025 to much buzz. However, after reading the book and, directly after, watching the film adaptation, it’s clear to me that the mixed reviews of fans and critics met by the latter were warranted.

A quick summary of the plot for those who are unfamiliar: Poppy Wright and Alex Nilsen, polar opposites, meet at the University of Chicago and grow to become best friends. Each summer, they go on a trip together, travelling to places like Squamish and New Orleans, and grow even closer. Two years before the story’s main events, on a trip to Croatia, something happened that caused them to separate for 2 years only to reunite for one more trip, which the story’s events center around. Would this summer allow them to work things out? A classic storyline. It was an entertaining read that gave me a break from the theory I’d been reading for my classes. 

To begin with my positive impressions of the film version of People We Meet on Vacation, I think that it is visually pleasing. The various gorgeous vacation spots, the bright colors, and the casting all contributed to a visually easy watch. The storyline on its own was interesting, but its utter differences from the book are the basis of my criticism for the film as an adaptation.

As a reader, I have a few strong opinions about the book itself. I personally believed the tension and yearning between the best friends was frustrating because it was so obvious to me they were in love with each other throughout the entire book. It’s annoying to think about the romantic partners they didn’t ever feel “right” with. How their failed relationships weren’t the wake-up calls needed to realize they  wanted each other the whole time. While I know that’s the whole point of the romance novel, I found it hard to fully grasp the idea they had been holding out on each other  for so long despite all of their history, physical, and emotional affection.

There are multiple inconsistencies between the book and the film. From specificities like the university the main duo attend, and the location of their wedding; to larger things like how it was a work trip in the film rather than a non-sponsored trip in the book that brought Poppy and Alex back together, as well as the fact that Croatia was not mentioned in the film, these differences impact one’s perception of the storyline. To go more in depth, readers of Henry’s book would know that Croatia was where Poppy and Alex first kissed, which caused their relationship to fall apart, hence the reason why the story even exists. It’s the event they avoid discussing during the entire summer. To take that away and reduce the plot to the events that take place in Tuscany is to remove crucial contexts and serious plot points from the original narrative.

Another detail being criticised by fans is the fact that Alex’s tumultuous background was neglected in the film. If a viewer hadn’t read the book, they would never know that his mother passed away during childbirth, and that he had to raise his brothers by himself while his father mourned the loss. They would also never know that he got a vasectomy because of Poppy’s pregnancy scare. These are all important to understand Alex’s character and the depth of his and Poppy’s emotional connection.

Henry was inspired by When Harry Met Sally (1989). While I do see the connections between both narratives, I didn’t feel the same while watching People We Meet on Vacation as I do when watching When Harry Met Sally. With the latter, I was satisfied with the couple’s long-awaited happy ending; with the former, I simply felt irritated and a little disappointed. The endings of both films are predictable, but even knowing what is going to happen, the development in People We Meet on Vacation wasn’t strong enough to make me feel relieved about their reconciliation. Viewers of the movie can understand that Poppy and Alex’s relationship is strong, but they are not as privy to its complex development as those who read the book. To cushion the blow, some critics believe that the story is better suited as a miniseries, which would give ample space for the development of the storyline and all characters. Meanwhile, the two-hour-long movie feels rushed, especially in comparison to the book.

People We Meet on Vacation can be considered a classic in the contemporary novel universe, and I enjoyed reading it for the most part. But after watching an attempted film adaptation, my feelings about the entire storyline are more mixed than ever. This review is not to take away from people’s enjoyment of the film; a viewer with a penchant for rom-coms who had never read the book would love the movie’s classic friends-to-lovers storyline. However, if you choose to immerse yourself in the People We Meet on Vacation universe, I recommend either reading the book or watching the movie, but not both. While the endings are the same, there are so many inconsistencies that either strengthen or diminish the plot, so it’s best to choose one version of the story and enjoy it.

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