Little Fish is an exquisite, searing film that follows its own rousing metaphors with visuals and story to match, sewing all of these little pieces together, flipping back and forth through them like old Polaroids, hanging them up as the bigger picture comes more and more into heartbreaking realization — then it repeats with merciless emotional impact, the characters’ relationship/intricacies/small details/memories/dynamics complicating, layering, growing more intimate, more endearing, more devastating, as you follow them back and forth between moments, as it all decays, as they cling to the past that inevitably fades; their lives unraveling piece by piece by memory, the realism bottled in the cinematography, sloshing like an ocean with a message, all the poetry visualized and blotting out, slowly, slowly, slowly, melting into the soundtrack, long agonizing notes of grief that hold, waiting, the narration fitting, unforced, entering into the perspective, into the relentless internal storm — “I haven’t forgotten how you feel” — it hovers — “When your disaster is everyone’s disaster, how do you grieve?” — seeps into you, stains, then reverses — changes, grieves, settles, releases, let go — you’re gone.
Yes, this review is one sentence. One very long, very improper sentence. But this review is my therapy. My coping mechanism for too affecting poetry. I’m not crying, you’re crying.
Okay, maybe it’s Eye Sweat.
Probably one of the best romance movies I’ve ever experienced. (Experience: A term used to express severe cinematic satisfaction and intense jealousy for it not being my own idea on paper, then screen.)
It’s subtle, artsy, intimate, and impressively timely. The story of a couple in a world gradually losing their pasts in a pandemic of memory loss. It was surprisingly written and filmed right before our own real pandemic started, and in some ways, in some of its moments, it mirrors our own crisis with remarkable foresight.
A film that gets our year to a very hopeful cinematic beginning. And one that will melt you like an ice cube on a burner. Liquification is imminent.
Parent guide: At least two dozen F-words, maybe more — a lot of kissing, but none very provocative — a less than subtle “romantic” suggestion that doesn’t end up leading anywhere.