Playing at this year’s London Film Festival, as well as closing out the 20th anniversary edition of Cardiff’s Iris Prize. Black Church Bay is a tense drama set in a small Welsh village, centred on school teacher Barry (Tom Cullen), who is leading a double life. When an intimate encounter with a younger man, Jasper […]
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The organisers of the Iris Prize LGBTQ+ Film Festival – celebrating global stories and Cardiff charm are thrilled to announce that the winner of the Iris Prize Best British Short Film Award sponsored by Film4 and Pinewood Studios is Darius Shu, for Molly. Darius produced Queer Parivaar, which won Best British Short at Iris Prize 2022 […]
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Images courtesy of the Woodstock Film Festival
After an opening montage of news clips set to the overused one-hit wonder needle drop of “Spirit in the Sky” by Norman Greenbaum blends the highs and lows of dancing Presidents, destructive protests, and random messianic imagery, The Plea commences to genuflect in the direction of Sidney Lumet. Bathed in soft black-and-white cinematography by DP Tinx Chan (Starring Jerry as Himself), twelve jurors assemble in a room, scrolling through their phones, pacing idly, and venting frustrations before the devices are collected. They’ve all met, but this is their first chance to deliberate or, better yet, argue, and it starts almost immediately. Their names are their juror numbers rather than what’s written on their IDs.
Even so, the stereotypes and archetypes arrive in a hurry, dominated initially by the quarrelsome middle-aged Juror #1, played by The Plea’s co-director and co-writer Dean Imperial (TV’s Godfather of Harlem). He’s your classic “it’s a free country” asshole who’s already stirring shit and rubbing people the wrong way. Once the bailiff (steady TV actress April Matthis) arrives with shouted calls to simmer down and focus on the judge’s order that this case before them be decided unanimously and according to the law, you wonder how this cornucopia of banalities is ever going to agree anytime soon.
As that uncomfortable and daunting feeling creeps into place, a sizable truth about this film and the jury-centric movies its following becomes clear when the doors are locked. There’s a two-headed monster for these types of proceedings: figuring out the case or figuring out the people voting on the ruling. The Plea, as it presents its path of scenes, tips its hand as to its preferred answer to that proverbial question.
LESSON #1: THE PARTICULARS OF THE CASE AT HAND— Start with The Plea’s case. An unseen defendant, an IVF technician at a fertility clinic, is being tried for twelve counts of murder for spilling a tray of a dozen fertilized embryos that ceased to be viable. Even if the jury considers this act an accident, manslaughter charges are still possible. At the heart of the case is the interpretation of the embryos, technically called EUPs (extra-uterine persons), and the legal definition of “personhood.” The voting divide among the sequestered greatly mirrors the contentious gulf between conservative pro-life defenders and those more staunchly pro-choice.
LESSON #2: FIGURING OUT THE PEOPLE— Because of the temperature of those topics, The Plea leans on figuring out the people. The most vocal not-guilty/non-personhood proponent is Juror #7 (Antoinette Crowe-Legacy of Passing), a pushy woman willing to stand, shout, and curse to show her dominance on this issue. Her common opponent is her neighboring Juror #8 (Stir of Echoes star Kathryn Erbe), an older, calm woman who sums up all decisions as “God’s will.” Caught in the middle is everyone else—including the sullen widower, Juror #12 (Dennis Boutsikaris of *batteries not included and Better Call Saul), the panic-attack-prone Juror #5 (Trieu Tran of Altered Carbon), the deaf young lady, Juror #6 (Millicent Simmonds of the A Quiet Place series, this movie’s biggest casting get), and the movie star within their midst, Juror #2 (Outer Banks’s Jason Alan Carvell)---and the gay jury foreman, Juror #10, played by the other co-director/co-writer and editor Zach LeBeau, trying in vain to keep the peace. Curiously, to a degree, yet matching Lesson #2’s course of action, more than half of The Plea follows these people outside of the deliberation room.
Coyly paired in hotel rooms (like the ardent Christian with the incensed Gen-Z atheist and the gay guy with the misogynist) and allowed to congregate at the baobab tree that is the hotel bar manned by the lone bartender (The Wire’s Gbenga Akinnagbe) after each complete day, the ensemble lets their characters’ hair down in these unlocked moments. The assigned quota of liquid courage bends moral judgments, ignites more politics, blurs boundaries, and closes generation gaps in a host of interesting and telling conversations and encounters that become the pinnacle moments of the collected performances. This large group of actors is given wonderful latitude to extract unique depth from their assigned tropes and lanes. Two headturners from this downtime are the aggressive flirts of Juror #2 (Danny DeFerrari of Oppenheimer) and Juror #9 (Starlit Diner’s Carolina Gutierrez), who also hold the position as The Plea’s second loudest and meanest of their gender in the room, after Juror #1 and Juror #7.
Without a doubt, this hypothetical premise in The Plea is a fascinating clash of ideals, even before considering the particular people weighing the verdict. The pendulum swaying between the debate of what constitutes being alive is as precarious as the wavering strength of sacredness towards jury duty itself, and all the buzzwords, labels, and derogatory terms are lashed. Their first vote is 7 to 5 in favor of guilty/personhood, showing they have a long way to go. Add in the chasm represented by wildly different measures of reasonable doubt, and The Plea can press more hot-button talking points than Buddy the Elf hitting floor numbers in an Empire State Building elevator.
The Plea labels itself as a “comedy noir” within the courtroom subgenre, though, other than a few witty retorts and comeback burns, there are very few laughs. Sure, the bailiff comes in loud, and the scope of this fictional case is grandiose, which can create rub-your-nose-in-it satire between the altruistic and the merciful. However, other than one character briefly acknowledging the unshown media circus out the window, Zach LeBeau, Dean Imperial, and the third contributing writer, Scott Organ (What Comes Around), keep everything on the tremors of group dynamics rumbling one step further than the usual behind-the-scenes setting of a jury room. There’s shrewd wisdom in that call, because, like this film’s second lesson, that’s plenty and that’s where the real intrigue is. While the overarching rhetoric is scintillating and probably deserves more time in actual deliberations, The Plea found the right territory to explore in this all-hands-on-deck indie standout.
LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#1438)
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Released: 23 October 2026 Director: Travis Knight Starring: Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Awkwafina, Angela Bassett, Jake Johnson, Charlie Day, Jemaine Clement, Tom Waits, Maya Erskine, Tantoo Cardinal, Richard E. Grant, Len Cariou, Blythe Danner, Rob Delaney & Arthur Knight Every year, we get one animated feature that pushes the boundaries […]
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Images courtesy of Amazon/MGM Studios and Amazon Prime Content Services.
LESSON #1: SUBTLE TITLING— The title of director Rachel Morrison’s new romantic drama, Love of Your Life, debuting on Amazon Prime, subtly announces the film’s central theme through two of the simplest grammatical nuances. Not beginning with a declarative “The” suggests people, under any number of circumstances, may experience more than one impactful chapter of romance in their lives. Even more delicately, there’s the use of the second-person possessive determiner “Your” instead of the first-person adjective “My.” That could imply the amount of adoration being experienced may not completely feel like one’s own. Label that a serious prophecy hidden right in the title.
Love of Your Life begins with a “Meet-Cute” between a 26-year-old hospital nurse named Maya (The Substance’s Margaret Qualley) and the Ph.D. student, Charlie (Gabriel Basso of Hillbilly Elegy), who is selling her an old nightstand for refurbishment via Facebook Marketplace. Immediately smitten, he asks her out on a date, and she obliges, beginning a lovely and spirited courtship of exploring interests and being each other’s decompression partners from their professions. Time-hopping to the next year in labeled chapters matching Maya’s age, the two have become a cohabiting long-term relationship, joined by a shared bestie named Jason (Patrick Schwarzenegger of TV’s The White Lotus) always along for the youthful adventures and supportive encouragement.
LESSON #2: BRINGING FAMILY TO A FAMILY-LESS PERSON— In their second year together, Charlie and Maya discover a key difference in confidence between them as they approach the topic of marriage and becoming parents someday. Charlie grew up as the adopted son of a stable Cape Cod family (headed by the wonderful Catherine Keener and current Digger ensemble member Corey Johnson), whereas Maya is the product of a one-night stand who has and holds no family attachments. With that lack of history or upbringing and matching that opening lede of “your” versus “my,” Maya never feels fully comfortable around Charlie’s family. Attaching her personal journey to another’s often feels unnatural, borrowed, or out of place. While her character comes to welcome the chance to join a legitimate family, Qualley plays this existence with tremendous apprehension.
Nevertheless, the lovebirds pull off a surprise wedding in their apartment during a monsoon storm that has family and friends sweating from the power outage and partying with candles lit. While this could all fit in the present day, Love of Your Life, through a glance of the couple watching a TV news story, announces that this 27th year of Maya’s is 2020 and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, changing the entire gravity of the setting. Charlie is an immunocompromised asthmatic, and Maya gets it the worst as an overwhelmed nurse. When a crushing tragedy suddenly strikes, the screenplay of Julia Cox (Nyad) leaps to “thirty-one,” revealing a drastically changed Maya—traveling in Portugal, smoking cigarettes, and working remotely with telehealth clients.
LESSON #3: FLEEING GRIEF— The jump in time shows Maya with all the behaviors of a person fleeing grief. She has withdrawn from previous material and personal attachments. Emotional numbness has her drifting through drunken stupors and one-night stands. It may look like what one soon-to-be important presence—a new traveling British suitor named Felix, and played by red-hot Lanterns star Aaron Pierre—will call “solitary hedonism,” but it’s a destructive course of failing self-care after several layers of trauma. This inability of Maya to grieve and create stable connections with new and established people becomes the weight of Love of Your Life.
LESSON #4: SEARCHING FOR THE RIGHT THING TO SAY—In a thicker script, Love of Your Life would be filled with stump speeches and one-sided monologues that pour emotions out by the bucketful. Instead, the shared sentiments struggle as much as the psyche. Morrison’s film is relatably filled with a collection of blemished characters so desperately searching for the right thing to say because, in many instances, there are no perfect words that fit, heal, or propel the difficult moments folks are going through. That’s not an imperfection of a weak dialogue, but rather the reality of the given situations at hand. The challenges, even with their grimness, feel tangible and appropriate to the drama. Nevertheless, bring the tissues.
Heavily established by her edgy resume in other genres, Love of Your Life is Margaret Qualley proving romance is within her acting arsenal as a rising star. Every actor worth their salt should put a movie like this on their resume to show their range. Qualley’s performance is shaped by a wringer of hopeful happiness, stubborn mistakes, worrisome terror, and fragile remorse. Her balance act of resolve elevates this walkabout journey higher than the typical, inescapable feeling-sorry-for-herself doldrums we’ve seen before in movies about mourning. Also, other than the scourge of COVID and Maya’s self-destructive habits, this is, pleasantly, a villain-less picture boosted by its luscious travelogue jaunts of location shooting and two alluring beaus in Gabriel Basso and Aaron Pierre, who bring entirely different levels of appeal to our leading woman.
Love of Your Life proves that there’s always room for a good weeper at the movies. We, as the audience, attach ourselves to figures we love quickly, and process the acceleration of missing them when they are taken away. Watching fictional proxies go through recognizable pain can help viewers reflect, consider, prepare, or push through their own, in classic “what would you do?” fashion. Maybe we’re the type to stay and not run away like Maya, but a good crusher with sweep like Love of Your Life reminds you of what you have and what is possible. As Felix chooses to remember, “This was something.”
LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#1437)
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Released: 16 October 2026 Director: Januel Mercado/Joel Crawford Starring: Liza Soberano, H.E.R, Dave Franco, Lea Salonga Film animation is most certainly living in a post Into the Spiderverse world. Since 2018 when the hugely popular superhero blockbuster burst onto screens with its breathtaking creative vision, the bar has been raised. That’s not to say animation […]
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Photo by Andre Frueh on Unsplash
Searching for a favourite TV series can take longer than choosing what to watch. A familiar title may lead to short clips, similarly named productions or listings that cover only part of the programme. For viewers looking to revisit a particular series, identifying the right edition is an essential first step.
Digital TV collections provide another option for building a personal viewing library. From long-running soap operas to detective stories, musical dramas and westerns, there are many directions a collection can take.
For viewers drawn to interconnected characters and stories that unfold across many episodes, soap operas are a natural starting point.
Explore the digital collection listings for Sunset Beach, Knots Landing and Falcon Crest. Each offers a different starting point for fans of relationships, family conflict and continuing drama.
With lengthy programmes, the collection details deserve particular attention. Check the listed seasons and episode coverage rather than assuming every edition contains the same selection. If you are returning to a series midway through its story, confirm that the episodes you need are included.
A personal TV archive can bring together very different viewing interests.
The collection page for B. J. and the Bear is a starting point for viewers searching for the trucking-adventure series. Those interested in performance and musical drama can explore Fame, while western enthusiasts can review the available Bonanza collection.
Searching with the production year or a familiar actor can help distinguish the programme you remember from another work with a similar title. This is especially useful when a title has also been used for a film, adaptation or later production.
For viewers whose interests lean toward investigations, mystery and science fiction, The X-Files offers another direction for a digital collection.
As with any programme spanning multiple seasons, review the contents of the specific edition before purchasing. The series name identifies what you are looking for; the product details establish what you will receive.
These titles are part of the wider digital catalogue at TvSeriesArchive, which spans more than 1,300 TV series collections. Visitors can explore categories including drama, crime, sitcoms, westerns, animation and science fiction, or search directly for a programme.
Before choosing a collection, confirm its production details, listed seasons and episodes, language, picture-quality description and digital delivery arrangements. Ask about anything that is unclear before placing an order.
Start with a series you already want to revisit, then explore related genres and titles. Whether your next choice is Sunset Beach, Fame, Bonanza or The X-Files, a carefully selected digital collection can become part of a personal archive built around your own viewing tastes.
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