Not sad exactly. Not fine either. Just flat -- like the signal is there but nothing is coming through. These films do not try to fix that. They sit in it with you, and occasionally something breaks through.
A man refuses all assistance from his daughter as he ages and, as he tries to make sense of his changing circumstances, he begins to doubt his loved ones, his own mind and even the fabric of his reality.
The pacing is slow enough to meet you where you are. It does not push for a reaction.
Does not demand feeling
Joe Gardner is a middle school teacher with a love for jazz music. After a successful audition at the Half Note Club, he suddenly gets into an accident that separates his soul from his body and is transported to the You Seminar, a center in which souls develop and gain passions before being transported to a newborn child. Joe must enlist help from the other souls-in-training, like 22, a soul who has spent eons in the You Seminar, in order to get back to Earth.
This film works for numbness because it does not demand feeling -- it creates the conditions for it.
Does not demand feeling
In the summer of 1983, a 17-year-old Elio spends his days in his family's villa in Italy. One day Oliver, a graduate student, arrives to assist Elio's father, a professor of Greco-Roman culture. Soon, Elio and Oliver discover a summer that will alter their lives forever.
The pacing is slow enough to meet you where you are. It does not push for a reaction.
Does not demand feeling
Joel Barish, heartbroken that his girlfriend underwent a procedure to erase him from her memory, decides to do the same. However, as he watches his memories of her fade away, he realises that he still loves her, and may be too late to correct his mistake.
The pacing is slow enough to meet you where you are. It does not push for a reaction.
Quietly present
Raised in a poverty-stricken slum, a 16-year-old girl named Starr now attends a suburban prep school. After she witnesses a police officer shoot her unarmed best friend, she's torn between her two very different worlds as she tries to speak her truth.
This film works for numbness because it does not demand feeling -- it creates the conditions for it.
Quietly present
Does not demand feeling
The silence is part of it. Let it be quiet.
From the moment she glimpses her idol at the stage door, Eve Harrington is determined to take the reins of power away from the great actress Margo Channing. Eve maneuvers her way into Margo's Broadway role, becomes a sensation and even causes turmoil in the lives of Margo's director boyfriend, her playwright and his wife. Only the cynical drama critic sees through Eve, admiring her audacity and perfect pattern of deceit.
The pacing is slow enough to meet you where you are. It does not push for a reaction.
Quietly present
Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand one another, without realising that they are falling in love through the post as each other's anonymous pen pal.
The pacing is slow enough to meet you where you are. It does not push for a reaction.
Does not demand feeling
Ruthless silver miner, turned oil prospector, Daniel Plainview, moves to oil-rich California. Using his son to project a trustworthy, family-man image, Plainview cons local landowners into selling him their valuable properties for a pittance. However, local preacher Eli Sunday suspects Plainview's motives and intentions, starting a slow-burning feud that threatens both their lives.
This film works for numbness because it does not demand feeling -- it creates the conditions for it.
Quietly present
After seven months have passed without a culprit in her daughter's murder case, Mildred Hayes makes a bold move, painting three signs leading into her town with a controversial message directed at Bill Willoughby, the town's revered chief of police. When his second-in-command Officer Jason Dixon, an immature mother's boy with a penchant for violence, gets involved, the battle between Mildred and Ebbing's law enforcement is only exacerbated.
This film works for numbness because it does not demand feeling -- it creates the conditions for it.
Does not demand feeling
Bobby Griffith was his mother's favorite son, the perfect all-American boy growing up under deeply religious influences in Walnut Creek, California. Bobby was also gay. Struggling with a conflict no one knew of, much less understood, Bobby finally came out to his family.
This film works for numbness because it does not demand feeling -- it creates the conditions for it.
Quietly present
The right film for the right state is a specific thing. These are specific.