2 Movies Like Only the River Flows (2023)

La Chimera is often meandering. Scenes flitter about and move at different paces, resembling dreams more than they do reality, but they’re hardly trivial. Just the opposite, they enchant you with their beauty and confront you with deep, existential questions that haunt you long after the film’s run. You won’t find obvious answers here though, and you might even leave more perplexed than when you began. But that is the beauty of a film like La Chimera, it cracks you open to different realms and possibilities.

Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

Actor: Agnese Graziani, Alba Rohrwacher, Alessandro Genovesi, Carol Duarte, Elisabetta Perotto, Francesca Carrain, Gian Piero Capretto, Giuliano Mantovani, Isabella Rossellini, Josh O'Connor, Julia Vella, Lou Roy-Lecollinet, Luca Chikovani, Maria Alexandra Lungu, Milutin Dapčević, Piero Crucitti, Ramona Fiorini, Sofia Stangherlin, Vincenzo Nemolato, Yle Vianello

Director: Alice Rohrwacher

Rating: NR

While named as a “how-to”, How to Have Sex is less of an instruction manual, and more of a collection of summer break moments presented as is. At the start, when Tara, Em, and Skye run to the freezing ocean water, the film seemed like it would have all the nostalgic coming-of-age moments that they would remember forever. But as the film progresses, and the girls meet other teenagers at the resort, there’s an eerie, foreboding feel that starts to build up, with every beer bottle, with every whisper, and with every insinuation Tara receives. And rather than preach about consent, writer-director Molly Manning Walker makes them fumble around without the concept of it, the same way teens tend to do, making it much more potent than a cautionary tale.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Anna Antoniades, Daisy Jelley, Eilidh Loan, Elliot Warren, Enva Lewis, Eric Manaka, Guy Lewis, Lara Peake, Mia McKenna-Bruce, Samuel Bottomley, Shaun Thomas

Director: Molly Manning Walker

Rating: NR

2 Movies Like Only the River Flows (2023)

1. La Chimera, 2023

2. How to Have Sex, 2023