Sundance Review: Sinéad O’Connor Documentary ‘Nothing Compares’

Most kids wouldn’t want to endure high school twice, although there are some who would no doubt prefer to remain there forever. Brandon Lee (no, not the late actor son of Bruce Lee) chose a third path by re-enrolling when he was 32 years old and getting away with it, at least for a while. How it all happened is whimsically recounted in My Old School, a clever, amusing and rather slight account of a Scottish misfit’s most irregular education. Or, as Woody Allen used to describe himself, it’s “thin but fun.”

In his review of the film, TheWrap’s Steve Pond wrote “‘Nothing Compares’ is a movie that is both timely and curiously out of time. It’s a potent film that explores the roots of the brilliant but troubled Irish singer, who’s been back in the news recently with the suicide of her teenage son and her own hospitalization, but it also turns her recent years into an afterthought, bypassing many of the highs and lows that led her here over the last two decades.”“Nothing Compares” is produced by Eleanor Emptage and Michael Mallie for Tara Films (UK) and Ard Mhacha Productions (Ireland), and presented by Field of Vision.

EXCLUSIVE: Numerous broadcasters and streamers vied for it, but Deadline hears that Showtime is in exclusive negotiations for the worldwide rights to Nothing Compares, the Sundance buzz title documentary about the provocative life of Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor.

Utama (Our Home) is precisely the sort of discovery that justifies film festivals and makes them useful: a small, hitherto unheard-of work from an out-of-the-way country that grabs you from the opening minutes and afterwards makes you want to tell your friends they’ve got a real treat to look forward to. A rare Bolivian entry in a major festival, this Sundance World Dramatic Competition title and feature debut by Alejandro Loayza Grisi is gorgeously made and brings to life a backwater existence in a distant land with skill and assurance.

Alexei Navalny, Russia’s highest-profile opposition figure, perennial thorn in Putin’s side and currently a guest in state prison, gets a vigorous up-close-and-personal look in this eventful, fest-moving, never-a-dull-moment documentary from Daniel Roher. A collaboration between HBO Max and CNN Films, Navalny, provides a sustained look at a good-looking, articulate and seemingly unafraid family man who came very close to being murdered on August 20, 2020 by what were quite clearly politically hired killers. The privileged access provides the opportunity for an international public to get a handle on a driven personality who consistently said things very few others are willing to risk. Anyone who follows contemporary international politics will eat it up.

Grieving Sinéad O'Connor has revealed the sweet way she's remembering her late son Shane following his funeral last week.Taking to Twitter, the Irish musician revealed that she has a permanent place set at the table for the 17 year old, who was reported to have gone missing from hospital before his tragic death earlier this month. Sinéad, 55, wrote: “Am staying with my best girlfriend. Been with her since the funeral.

Things have not been going well for Emily. Some of it is just terrible luck.

Albeit beautifully shot and made tolerable by the warm presence of Carla Juri in the leading role, blood is a frustratingly indulgent study of emotional recovery after the loss of a loved one. This fourth feature by Bradley Rust Gray is splendidly appointed with locations in Japan and Iceland and an appreciation of emotional openness expressed by all the characters. All the same, the mostly short scenes of recent widow Chloe handling her grief day by day possess little compelling drama and are handicapped by a scruffy Japanese male lead who just doesn’t match up with his appealing female counterpart in any credible way. As with the director’s previous work, you come out of it wondering who this film was made for.

Writer-director Jamie Dack has expanded her widely admired 2018 short film Palm Trees and Power Lines into a considerably more thorny and disturbing feature of the same title. Shot verité style on the most banal possible locations, the film, which is making its world premiere in the U.S. Dramatic Competition section of the Sundance Film Festival, takes an unvarnished look at an environment that is arid both literally and figuratively, one in which young people seem to be given precious little guidance or structure by family or society. Dack doesn’t explicitly editorialize but makes acutely clear the vulnerability of adolescents left too much to their own devices at a formative age.

In 2009, when I was in the Air Force and stationed in Germany, I traveled to Berlin on New Year’s Eve to celebrate. As my friends and I were getting turnt up in the bar, I came out as a lesbian. The moment was random and unprovoked. I shared the news with all my friends and had a dope night ringing in the 2010s, but panic set in when I woke up the next day. I’m 27 years old and a lesbian: what do I do now? 

Attempting to remake a classic film is never an easy assignment. Especially when said classic is as revered as Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 drama “Ikiru.” Director Oliver Hermanus and screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro could have placed the story in contemporary times, making a new version more palatable for some critics, but instead, set it in the exact same era only interchanging London for Tokyo.

Kanye’s demands for the final cut on Jeen-yuhs makes its Sundance premiere all the more fascinating.

Equipped with a hazy aesthetic and archival footage galore, “Nothing Compares,” Kathryn Ferguson’s documentary about the early stardom of controversial singer-songwriter Sinéad O’Connor, celebrates the Irish artist’s commitment to shattering industry trends but ultimately fails to break away from traditionalism itself. “Nothing Compares” presents O’Connor as a pioneer, an artist whose foremost rationale for pursuing a career in music resided in her desire to craft art for the sake of social reform by way of personal catharsis.

With a promising start with his first film Shithouse for which he starred, directed and wrote and won the Grand Jury Narrative Prize at SXSW, Cooper Raiff looms now also to be one of the breakouts of this year’s Sundance Film Festival where Cha Cha Real Smooth, his small but splendid second film for which he performs the same triple threat duties debuted Sunday as part of the Dramatic Competition lineup. I can only imagine if the festival had managed to be in person as originally planned rather than virtual in this Omicron-stricken year it would be met with a massive standing ovation. Raiff is bound to become an indie darling as if further proof was needed, but Cha Cha Real Smooth cements him as the real deal both in front of and behind the camera.

The film had its premiere in the U.S. Dramatic Competition lineup at the Sundance Film Festival.

Apparently it is the season to celebrate the iconic marriage and professional relationship of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Aaron Sorkin wrote and directed a penetrating, funny, revealing, and ultimately moving film, Being The Ricardos which covers a lot of ground in the Lucy/Desi world using dramatic license to place several real events in their lives all in the course of one week of production on I Love Lucy. Although starring Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem as the iconic pair, it felt quite real and actually was as you discover watching Amy Poehler’s marvelous love letter to their lives and times in Lucy And Desi, which like Ricardos will be available on Amazon Prime, the perfect companion piece to Sorkin’s film, and a compelling documentary portrait all on its own.

Rarely has a filmmaker kept his central character at such a distance as writer-director Ricky D’Ambrose does in The Cathedral. This is clearly an autobiographical work in some very important ways, and no doubt a purging of some demons as well. And yet the kid here, whose life the film follows from birth to his acceptance at college, has very few lines of dialogue and for the most part remains a cipher. All the same, this is a penetrating look at childhood that, distinctively, focuses more than anything on the foibles and shortcomings of the child’s parents, particularly his father.

Virgino and Sisa live what most people would consider a very simple life. They raise and care for Lamas in the Bolivian highlands keeping the traditions of their Quechua people alive.

The primary simultaneous imbalance and blessing of W. Kamau Bell’s We Need To Talk About Cosby is that even with a running time of four-hours, it’s clear by the end there’s still a lot more to say about the ex-convicted sex offender who was once America’s Dad.

Have you ever sensed something is off in your life, and you see the signs but ignore them? Surely, that’s happened to everyone at one time or another. But have those ‘signs’ ever become so surreal and visceral you’re not sure what’s real and what’s reality? That is the core dilemma of Nikyatu Jusu’s horror drama Nanny. The film stars Anna Diop (Titans) as Aisha, a Senegalese immigrant who experiences wild and violent visions she can’t decipher. This is Jusu’s feature film debut competing in the Sundance U.S. Dramatic category.