Author: Andres Kabel

The Lincoln Lawyer continues streaming’s love of the fertile mystery book series of Michael Connelly. Featuring Manuel Garcia-Rulfo charming as the swashbuckling LA defense attorney battling crooks and corruption (with a competent backing character cast), the start of the franchise was taut and elegant. The first season was electric (see my review), capturing Connelly’s magic. Season 2 (review) was nearly as compelling. Season 3 (review) was worthy viewing but already one could see the passion seeping away. And—you can almost feel my tears—Season 4 finds itself (using a cricket term) rolling the wrist. In this series, Mickey Haller is in jail for murder and is baffled in his battle to secure his innocence. The season, like the preceding ones, is long and leisurely with ten episodes, but if the early seasons used the generous time spread to develop the characters, in Season 4, the middle episodes crawl and the acting intensity slumps. The finale over the final two episodes valiantly seeks to restore tension but it is all too late. Murder mystery afficionados might well retain affection for Haller in this season, but for me, The Lincoln Lawyer should now be closed off.

One would think the contested ownership of a wartime photograph would hardly compel but experienced American filmmaker Bao Nguyen thought otherwise and the result is The Stringer: The Man Who Took the Photo, a strangely riveting documentary. The crux of the film is that June 1972 photo itself, the harrowing shot of a naked Vietnamese girl running down a country street with skin blistering off due to a napalm attack. Using evidence painstakingly gathered over years and artfully presenting his case through interviews, Nguyen claims the iconic photo, which helped end the Vietnam War, was accredited to an Associated Press staffer (who ended up receiving a Pulitzer Prize and countless accolades), when it should have been accorded to a South Vietnamese “stringer,” a camera man for day-by-day hire. This assertion, tremendously controversial, is investigated and analyzed in tense scenes and the film quickly becomes a “Sampson versus Goliath” challenge. Witnesses are assembled in different countries, a firm analyzes in excruciating detail who was where down that dusty Vietnamese road, and questions of use and abuse of local wartime labor are pursued. It is a heady brew and The Stringer should fascinate anyone with any remote interest in recent history.

Maggie O’Farrell’s acclaimed 2020 novel, Hamnet, was a visceral, searing examination of grief, based on the foggy details of the death of Shakespeare’s son by that name. I had heard that the movie Hamnet, directed by Chloé Zhao based upon a script co-written by her and O’Farrell, had by necessity recast the book’s plot (in particular, upping the presence of Shakespeare himself, who in the novel is never named), so I was chary when I went to our local cinema. I should have realized I was in safe, compassionate hands, for the film, while markedly different in plot arc (especially the climactic scene), retains the core of the novel. It is, in essence, the story of Shakespeare’s wife (called Agnes here) and the boy Hamnet. Both are brilliantly portrayed (by Jessie Buckley and Jacobi Jupe respectively), and Paul Mescal is riveting as thespian Will, riven by grief. Lukasz Zal’s cinematography and the many directorial scenic choices are sublime. That final scene I mentioned, which marries grief recovery to theatrical genius, grips and grips. Undoubtedly one of the most powerful films of 2026, Hamnet should be required viewing.

What does a poet do after receiving a cancer death sentence? In the case of Andrea Gibson, a brilliant performance poet, the process of grieving and adjusting is beautifully presented by documentary filmmaker Ryan White in Come See Me in the Good Light. The gentle movie lingers over cancer treatment, blood test revelations, ordinary days, musings, and long loving discussions with fellow poet and partner, Megan (“Meg”) Falley. Avoiding sentimentality but diving into Gibson’s exploration of the fears and joys of final moments, the film travels at a clip toward the end (although we never see the very last days of Gibson, who died eight months ago). The core of Come See Me in the Good Light is a breathtaking last performance to a packed crowd, an exultant paean to love. I was moved, dear reader, moved and transported somewhere richer, and so will you be. You too might decide to adopt Gibson’s advice: “Everything you’re feeling now, call it love.”

A Japanese actor turned director, Hikari writes and directs Rental House, a low-key Tokyo drama showcasing the rejuvenation of actor Brendan Fraser. Fraser plays a bumbling, affable actor who joins a company which hires out actors to impersonate real people: a crowd at a wedding, a fake apologist lover, imaginary family. This is a Japanese phenomenon that we rarely encounter in the west and it offers Fraser the chance to spar with delicate issues as he pretends to be a young girl’s father in order to secure a good school; pretends to interview a famous actor to assist with dementia; and pretends to marry a girl so she can leave the country with her parents satisfied. The movie is delightfully shot across the panoply of Tokyo, along its train lines and highways, and down its oh-so-atmospheric laneways. Flirting with sentimentality but never succumbing, Rental House is a genuine tearjerker that, for once, works, by tapping our emotions as they should be tapped.

What an odd yet compelling and moving streaming series Severance is! Its premise is very much the sort of thing legendary sci-fi author Philip K. Dick would have dreamed up: a corporation (Lumon) offers a brain operation whereby your work self and your at-home self live separate lives. The four main characters of the show form a strange administrative team in the bowels of Lumon’s atmospheric headquarters, corridor after corridor of gleaming white passageways. Macro Data Refining mysteriously and intuitively collect different numbers on a screen and “refine” them into collective pots. Like Dick’s novels, the show is a thriller tackling significant topics around the existential schisms of the four heroes. The brilliant lead role by Adam Scott, playing the very different “innie” Mark S and “outie” Mark Scout, stands out, but stellar performances pour in from Britt Lower, Zach Cherry, and John Turturro as Mark S’s work colleagues; Tramell Tillman and Patricia Arquette excel in villainous roles. Season 1 set out the weird world of the severed workers and exposed key mysteries. Season 2 is a rollercoaster of tension as Lumon’s dastardly plans reach for fruition while the “innies” (and one “outie”) strive for clarity and, perhaps, freedom. The cinematography is spellbinding, the music is wonderful, and the script and dialogue are first rate. Watch both seasons of Severance, rejoice in modern cinematic perfection, and pine for Season 3!

Created by brilliant screenwriter/filmmaker Vince Gilligan, nine-episode Pluribus offers a sci-fi scenario that will deter some viewers but hopefully entrance others. Very much anchored by a superb star turn by Rhea Seehorn as romance writer Carol Sturka, the show posits that Carol finds herself one of a couple of handfuls of humans not turned into seemingly blissed-out, hivemind-connect, now billions strong and forced to accommodate the immune. The first episode is flat-out bananas, as Carol experiences a wave of conversions into happy zombies while the love of her life dies. Irascible, unstoppable, and profane, Carol embarks on a mission to return the world to sanity. This type of show hinges on its screenplay and direction, and both of them never miss a beat as Carol’s quest flails and flounders. Visually stunning and brilliantly paced, Pluribus needs few actors other than crowd extras and bit players (such as most of the other immune people from around the world), but Seehorn’s acting is complemented by fine performances by Karolina Wydra (as Carol’s “chaperone” from the infected) and Carlos-Manuel Vesga (as an uncompromising immune Paraguayan). Interesting issues such as ethics, freedom, and agency are explored with poise. All in all, Pluribus is a hoot and Season 2 cannot arrive fast enough.