Breaking the Cycle review – meet the charismatic Thai politician striving to change his country’s history

Gripping documentary examines the Future Forward Party’s unprecedented 2019 election result, and its leader’s aim to break Thailand’s repeated military coups With his disarming good looks, pro-democracy activist and businessman Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit resembles an actor rather than a typical Thai politician. Heir to the country’s largest car manufacturer, he is blessed not only with personable charisma but also inexhaustible funds. His stunning rise into public consciousness is the beating heart of Aekaphong Saransate and Thanakrit Duangmaneeporn’s debut film, a thrilling documentary about an extraordinary political campaign that shook a nation. As founder of the progressive Future Forward Party (FFP), Juangroongruangkit’s central message cut through the noise of electoral politics: secure a brighter future by correcting the wrongs of the past. Since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932, Thailand has undergone a never-ending cycle of military takeovers, including 12 coups. Dur...

A Good Person review – Zach Braff’s tale of self-healing is excruciatingly ersatz

Writer/director Braff takes Florence Pugh’s ‘good person who has done a bad thing’ on an contrived journey towards self-forgiveness

In his dual capacity as writer and director, Zach Braff here puts us through an ordeal of excruciating contrived nonsense: a masturbatory Calvary of ersatz empathy and emotional wellness. The film goes on a long, long indie-acoustic healing journey towards indie-acoustic self-forgiveness after Florence Pugh’s Allison accidentally kills her fiance’s sister and husband while driving them in her car, having taken her eyes off the road to look at her phone.

Allison breaks up with her fiance, spirals into OxyContin addiction and alcoholism and then finds herself at 12-step meetings with her fiance’s grieving old dad and AA veteran Daniel, played by Morgan Freeman, who with heartsinking inevitability delivers a sonorous voiceover of cute wisdom over the opening scene. Daniel spends a lot of time tinkering with his model railway and its hand-painted tiny human figures, a controllable mini-universe where there is no pain, you see.

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