The migration of filmmakers from the big screen to the small one is not a new phenomenon, but another team was formally inducted this weekend, with the Wachowskis’ Netflix series Sense8 making its debut. The duo join the ranks of others such as Steven Soderbergh, and they are far from the last ones, as Steve …
Shirin’s myriad interactions — with her parents, her brother, her friends, her co-workers, the young children she teaches “filmmaking” to, the random people she hooks up with — all feel convincing. That authenticity is sharpened rather than diluted by the sometimes heightened situations they find themselves in (a cartoonish square-off between two different filmmaking classes, smoking pot in public and losing track of a child). Though given fleeting screen time, they’re all human beings, fleshed out by the screenplay and the talents of the actors. And they all orbit around Akhavan’s often sympathetic, often cringe-inducing (sometimes simultaneously) lead. Trying to suss out identity issues may be shopworn indie film material, but not when delivered through a voice that hasn’t been given enough time to speak in cinema.