- I’m Not Going Anywhere: Twiggy and Sadie Frost on “Twiggy” (September 25, 2026)
In 1966, photographer Barry Lategan scheduled a test shoot: a model’s first-ever photo shoot, meant to market her to other photographers and brands. That model was 15-year-old Leslie Hornby, a slim, boyish girl with a pixie cut and penciled lashes, and those photos became some of the most recognizable fashion portraits ever taken.
Deemed “The Face of ’66,” Leslie would gain fame under her nickname, Twiggy, a name that to this day recalls shift dresses, charm, and the blueprint for what we recall as the decade’s signature makeup look. And now, sixty years after the year she possessed, director Sadie Frost unpacks and outlines Twiggy’s legacy, spotlighting her humble beginnings, rapid rise to stardom, tribulations as a young woman finding her agency and power (including that viral “gotcha” moment with Woody Allen), and the stage and screen career that followed.
Frost’s documentary is comprehensive, surveying Twiggy’s meteoric living legacy not just from the source but from the variety of women, industry professionals, and collaborators who have mined value from her example. For those who may know her image but not her person, or those who believe her career is limited to fashion alone, “Twiggy” will be an enlightening portrait of an icon. Twiggy and Frost spoke to RogerEbert.com about these topics and more.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How did you two first get connected?
Twiggy: We met originally 30-odd years ago in London through mutual friends. We knew each other enough to say hello, but we didn’t hang out or work together.
Sadie: But then, I made a documentary about Mary Quant and I was on Twiggy’s podcast to promote it.
Twiggy: I asked her when she was going to make another film because I loved “Quant” so much. She told me how much she loved doing the film because it was about the 60s and she was having fun with the research and wanted to do something else from that decade. And then she was like, “I should do you!” It wasn’t planned!
Sadie: A lot of people kind of sit around trying to think of their next move, but sitting in that podcast, I realized I wasn’t going to have a job the next day. *laughs* We had a conversation, but Twiggy was at first a bit hesitant.
Twiggy: I was a bit reticent because it’s a major thing to commit to having your life told in detail on a big screen. But on the other hand, I had thought over the years, “somebody is going to do it anyway,” so I’d like to be involved. I wanted it to be with someone I trusted. I love the fact that she’s a woman and has done all the things I’ve done: been a designer, actress, model, and in the public eye from a similar age. She understood.
Sadie: It’s about trust and respect. In working on the Mary Quant documentary for so long, she was very ailing, and I was dealing with her family to develop the film. This time I was working with someone who was very much here with me, and it was a balancing act: making the film I wanted while making sure Twiggy, her family, and the production company, were happy. You have to stick true to your values, and I wanted this to be a very celebratory and inspiring film.
When you mention Mary Quant, she was such a prominent figure in shaping the 1960s Mod scene and culture. In this film, Twiggy says she considered herself a Mod in her teen years. Your filmography almost feels like you’re crafting a filmic lineage of British female cultural icons. Is that part of your motivation?
Sadie: I think so. That time is fascinating for me because I was a baby and my mum and dad were sixteen when I was born, and they were Mods. I lived a very bohemian, reckless life in that world, and I wanted to take myself back. By making “Quant” and “Twiggy,” it feels like I’m there, revisiting my youth and getting to know characters that would’ve been there when I was a child. The funny thing was, I’ve got a few other documentaries with women after this that could be parallel and very exciting, but I didn’t want to go straight into making another about women. So now, I’ve made a documentary with Pete Townsend about Quadrophenia, which is all about Mods. So I must’ve been a Mod in a past life. It’s really culturally based around them and identity.
Twiggy: It was such an amazing movement. It was so huge in the UK. The clothing was so important, and I think that’s why I got so into fashion and designing. Having the right clothes was imperative.
Sadie: And I think this is good to do now that I’ve done it through two female lenses to do it through a male lens. It’s something completely different to do it in a world I’m not party to: a male headspace and mental health perspective.
Twiggy, as is the nature of being a model, actress, and public figure, your life has been immensely documented moment-to-moment for decades. What is it like to see all of it culminate in one project? Does it feel different to you?
Twiggy: When I’m living my life, I very rarely think about the past. I don’t think about the 60s. I’m always very much in the moment. I’m always thinking about what I’m doing next and what my project is right now. But when I actually saw the first cut, we both cried. It’s kind of peculiar and uplifting. And the sad moments come back when you see them on the big screen, obviously. You relive them. But Sadie did a remarkable job, and we still love each other!
Sadie: Yes, we never fell out! [laughing]
The ’60s was such a specific era culturally and socially, with the Youthquake and the pop culture British Invasion, but also politically. In many ways, it almost feels like a sister decade to ours. This documentary feels like it’s coming out in a parallel moment. With “Twiggy,” we’re reflecting on a life that took off amid all these shifts, and the fashion was shaped by those cultural contexts that the film also explores. It feels very tapped in to today; do you feel that as well?
Sadie: Yeah, I think so. I just finished “Quadrophenia” today and watched it all the way through. The big part in the ending is the current third wave of Mod revival. In London, there are all these amazing bands and girls that look like Twiggy when she was sixteen. I went to a lot of underground clubs, and people don’t have their phones out. I think it’s a backlash to what’s happened in the past 5-10 years.
And Twiggy, your signature look was one you created. You made your clothes, and the now iconic eye look was inspired by one of your rag dolls. What was it like to see your look popularized and made synonymous with an era?
Twiggy: Yeah! I created that makeup before I was even modeling. I was a grammar school girl, so we weren’t allowed makeup in school. It was a big no-no. On weekends, like all teenage girls, my friends and I would gather in one of our bedrooms and play with makeup. That’s where it all came about! I was allowed to wear it Saturday and Sunday, and off it came for the week. But then once I was discovered, those lines I drew under my eyes became known as “Twiggies.”
The film not only honors your status as a fashion icon, but also acknowledges that it only scratches the surface of your career. You found success on stage, in movies, and in music. What was it like transitioning out of modeling into those careers? And Sadie, how did you strike that balance in prioritizing the whole legacy over the more mainstream aspects of it?
Twiggy: Like modeling, I didn’t plan any of it. It’s about meeting people. I was as shocked as the rest of the world was when I became a model. If I had walked into an agency, they would’ve said “too small, too thin, wrong background,” and shut the door. I didn’t look like the models of the day, but in hindsight, that’s why it probably happened to me.
Sadie: But I think you either have it or you don’t. Of course you can work for it, but I think Twiggy was always meant to be discovered. She has a natural talent. She could sing, dance, and act even though she wasn’t trained. When people are trained, sometimes they all act like everyone else. Ken Russell said she was quite moldable, and he used that in “The Boy Friend.” That’s why she got two Golden Globes. Her career evolved, and opportunities came naturally for Twiggy.
Twiggy: It’s important that someone like Ken Russell, who at the time was the biggest director in England, cast me. I hadn’t planned to give up modeling, but Ken became a mentor, and he changed my life. One door opens another door. Tommy Tune was in “The Boy Friend” with me, then went back to New York, became a big theatre director, and cast me in “My One and Only” on Broadway in the ‘80s. It was something I never thought I could do, but he told me, “There’s no such thing as can’t. Pack your bags and get out to New York.” It was a massive hit; I was nominated for a Tony, and we ran for 18 months. It’s wonderful to have the right people believe in you and give you the courage to try and to work hard.
Sadie: You make the best of what you have. Life isn’t about sticking to the same thing. You can try other things even if some people criticize you for it. As a director, it was just important to show every aspect of Twiggy’s life. You can’t just do the bit you like. I had to be challenged to be flexible.
Through making this documentary, I’m curious if your feelings toward the idea of legacy have shifted. I wonder if it’s hard to see when you’re so up close to it, but this film is an exhibition of that.
Sadie: We just got to the Cleopatra offices, and they have the most amazing posters and T-shirts, and I was wrestling to the ground to get one. So that must show that Twiggy’s legacy is very alive today. Everyone is gonna want the T-shirt and poster, not just me. Her legacy is firm.
Twiggy: I’m not going anywhere.
- Two Perfect Films I Saw at TIFF 2026 (September 25, 2026)
It is rare to see a perfect film, let alone two back-to-back, but that is precisely what happened to me on the same day recently at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Both films were documentaries, which in this day and age can be as dramatic as any narrative feature. And these films—Barry Avrich’s “Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been” and William & David Greaves’ “Once Upon a Time in Harlem”—were uplifting in the way they brought to life key figures and moments in history that can show us a path forward. Let’s begin with the original Queen of Christmas…
Finally, Darlene Love is no longer twenty feet from stardom. She is now front and center on stage and in her own life. Like Morgan Neville’s “Twenty Feet From Stardom,” which earned the Best Documentary Oscar in 2013, Canadian director Barry Avrich puts a fully dimensional face on an artist whose voice holds an indelible place in our memories, even when it was left uncredited. I was once again reminded that a lot of the voices and harmonies I liked most in classic songs were because of the value added by backup singers. And in this instance an inordinate percent of those were sung by Darlene Love.
The documentary takes us through the history of Darlene Love under the tutelage of record producer Phil Spector. We learn that he deliberately kept her in the background because he didn’t want her singing talent to outshine his ability to produce the music. As far as he was concerned, the singers were fungible commodities. You could substitute one for the other and it wouldn’t matter. Spector’s premise was that it was his own brilliance in the layering of the wall of sound that created the hits. But then we hear such icons as Cher, Bruce Springsteen and Dionne Warwick, among others, singing Love’s praises and declaring her voice outstanding. And no one proclaims it better than Paul Shaffer, the Canadian musician and former Bandleader for the David Letterman show.
The scenes of Shaffer directing Darlene Love in her comeback tour are worth the price of admission. But what makes the film a must-see is its footage of Darlene herself, who at age 85, is as towering a life force as ever. In the film there are brief scenes of her going through her daily exercise paces on the treadmill and in the weight rooms. We know how the voice can change and weaken with age, so when I heard her on film singing so robustly, I just assumed the sound had been fortified. But then Ms Love came out live on stage! She wore a mini-skirt and platform heels to show off the fruits of all those workouts at the gym. And when she opened her mouth, her vocals came out rich and strong, age-be-damned. We understood her mantra of knowing where she’s going because she knows where she’s been. And we are all glad that she is back.
Whereas “Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been” peers through the eyes of a legend who is thankfully still with us, “Once Upon a Time in Harlem” brought me an experience that is as close to time travel as cinema can get. Just as Alan Elliott brought us breathtaking concert footage of Aretha Franklin in 2018’s “Amazing Grace,” originally shot by Sydney Pollack in 1972, David Greaves’s film ingeniously assembles 16mm reels that his father William (the visionary auteur whose credits include 1968’s “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One”) had shot in the same year. What they capture is astonishing: a high-spirited gathering of various iconic figures from the Harlem Renaissance invited by Greaves to the home of Duke Ellington. Among them are poets Arna Bontemps and Richard Bruce Nugent, painter Aaron Douglas, composer Eubie Blake, photographer James Van Der Zee, and Ida Mae Cullen, widow of the late poet Countee Cullen.
In Robert Daniels’ review written after the film’s Sundance premiere, he poetically noted how “we witness these legends grappling with what their legacy will be, especially with a younger militant generation who they feel are forgetting them. That angst, tension, and candidness grant these towering figures a grounded vulnerability. And as they begin to leave this room, walking toward antiquity, we want to remain and revisit their presence—living with them in an intellectual fairytale whose occurrence remains incredible and whose existence feels like a miracle.”
Daniels is right, you don’t just watch this film, it gives you the ethereal feeling of sitting in history. The film lovingly cuts between split screens of Romare Bearden and James Van Der Zee as they debate the importance of the Renaissance and then shows their actual paintings and photographs. Ida Mae Cullen insistently interrupts to make sure that her husband and his spot in highlighting the importance of Black and African history is not forgotten.
HERITAGE: BY COUNTEE CULLEN
What is Africa to me:Copper sun or scarlet sea,Jungle star or jungle track,Strong bronzed men, or regal blackWomen from whose loins I sprangWhen the birds of Eden sang?One three centuries removedFrom the scenes his fathers loved,Spicy grove, cinnamon tree,What is Africa to me?
I have only read Zora Neale Hurston’s books, but to hear these luminaries discuss how none of this would have been possible without her intervention is illuminating. And what a treat it is to see the wizened actor Leigh Whipper become animated as he recites from memory his lines from stage and poems. In the film he is older than most of the others at the gathering and he seems almost asleep. But when prodded to recite his lines he does so instantly and perfectly. It’s the sort of treasure that you want to share with as many people as possible.
I had the pleasure of interviewing William Greaves’ granddaughter, Liani Greaves, at Sandra Schulberg’s “Rescue Fest” in Los Angeles in December 2024. Schulberg is the founder of IndieCollect whose exalted mission is to locate and restore lost indie films from approximately 1950-2000. At Rescue Fest she presented a restored copy of William Greaves’ film “Nationtime,” the only film made about the 1972 National Black Political Convention held in Gary, Indiana. There, as in “Once Upon A Time in Harlem,” you get to see the immediacy and vibrancy of Greaves’ cinema verite style. Also participating at Rescue Fest was Mario Van Peebles who presented his father Melvin Van Peebles film “The Story of a Three-Day Pass.” And on Opening Night, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin presented John Bailey’s “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.”
It is so important to acknowledge these cinematic treasures. They not only educate and entertain us but seemingly open a portal into humanity itself.
- Watching “The Insider” in 2026: How Comparisons Compel Us to Protect Democracy (September 25, 2026)
After looking for a good whistleblower movie to watch with my almost-lawyer daughter, we settled on Michael Mann’s “The Insider” (1999). I have a soft spot for whistleblower movies, including “Serpico,” “Dark Waters,” “Official Secrets,” “Spotlight,” and “Snowden.” Their protagonists tend to be the closest thing we have to otherwise ordinary real-life superheroes fighting unstoppable forces. Despite being a quarter-century old, Mann’s film has remarkable timeliness as current forces seek to unravel well-established constitutional protections in our nation. We see it everywhere, including in the conflict at the core of CBS News today.
As is the case with most of Mann’s movies, it begins with the stars at work: Vincent (Tom Cruise in “Collateral”) tracks a person across the city while cab driver Max (Jamie Foxx) starts his shift. Neil (Robert De Niro in “Heat”), dressed as a paramedic, leads a heist.
In “The Insider,” blindfolded journalist Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) meets Ayatollah Husayn Fadlallah to open the film. Despite his skepticism over “pro-Zionist American media” and his demands for questions in advance, Bergman convinces him to agree to an interview about Hizbullah. With the current events of Israel, Iran, and Lebanon, this is as relevant now as it was then.
The story that follows centers on two men: Dr. Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe), a quiet man of science who loses his Louisville job at tobacco leader Brown & Williamson because of his hot temper and abrasive personality, and Bergman, an old-school journalist who is producing segments for our most respected news show, “60 Minutes,” investigating multiple stories at the same time.
As Wigand loses his job, Bergman reaches out to him on a different story. Persistent despite cold dismissals, Bergman figures out that Wigand hides something much more serious: the tobacco companies have been lying about the health detriments of their products. The companies knew not only that nicotine is poisonous and addictive, but they made cigarettes even more dangerous by adding ammonia to increase their potency.
Wigand sees himself as a serious Boy Scout. He asserts, “I honor agreements.” When his former employer, however, challenges his integrity by demanding he sign multiple nondisclosure agreements (NDAs), he transforms into a jilted lover, wanting revenge despite those agreements he claimed to honor. Bergman, however, honors one type of agreement, perhaps the most important for a journalist: loyalty to truthtellers, to whistleblowers, and to those vulnerable against inhuman institutions.
Dante Spinotti’s camera captures the two characters very differently. Wigand often feels like a character in a horror movie; Spinotti stays ultra-close on his face, distorting dimensions as he falls into deeper paranoia. On the other hand, Bergman exists in a different aesthetic, one in which he is one with nature. He confronts Wigand in a rainstorm, soon calming him, and even the precipitation. Such interactions—a terrified Wigand calling on a calm Bergman to stabilize both him and the film’s visual language—become the norm for their relationship. But it can’t stop what’s coming.
As Wigand loses his family, Bergman strategizes with his long-time team, comprise of a veterans and experts that includes fabled broadcaster Mike Wallace (Christopher Plummer), one of the last in a line of great journalists who were not afraid to confront risk-taking reporting. Some journalists today bypass this type of reporting in favor of the instant joy of reels, tweets, and influence. Who is today’s Cronkite, Murrow, Walters, or Wallace?
And consider “60 Minutes.” Was there a show in American television history as respected? While Wigand’s war is against the tobacco industry, whose leaders he calls “the Seven Dwarfs,” Bergman faces a war against his employers at CBS. The tobacco companies are so wealthy, and thus so powerful, that they could sue CBS so aggressively that they could soon own it. It didn’t help that CBS was facing a sale to Westinghouse.
Now, consider the contemporary plight of CBS News and “60 Minutes” in the 2020s. It is a textbook process of authoritarianism when an aspiring pharaoh seizes control of the important institutions of their society, including universities, banks, and the press. Our current aspiring world leader has seemingly done the same with excessive overtures toward the self-proclaimed “Magnificent Seven” tech leaders—Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Meta (Facebook), Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla—who drive the digital world.
He or his trusts made stock trades, purchasing numerous shares of such companies. A few of these CEOs accompanied Trump during his visit to China. While he applied tariffs to some products, he exempted others. It follows that Trump facilitated a purchase of TikTok’s US operations by American investors, including Larry Ellison, the head of Oracle. Ellison also purchased Paramount, which owns CBS News, placing Bari Weiss, who had no experience in broadcast journalism, in charge.
In the last year, the leadership of CBS News pulled a “60 Minutes” segment about the administration’s immigration policies, including a report about deportees being sent to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador. In my role as a Chaplain, I have spent more time than most people with victims of this policy and can confirm the obvious: the administration continues to deceive. Less than a year later, one of the program’s most prominent voices, a potential modern Bergman in Scott Pelley, was fired when he refused to kiss the ring.
Even in 1999, CBS modified the “60 Minutes” segment about Big Tobacco profiled in “The Insider.” At first, they removed Wigand’s interview. And, of all people, Wallace supported the decision.
The consequence is that they abandoned their star witness, as well as his trial. And even though Wallace changed his opinion, and even though they later aired the original segment, these events broke Bergman, just like the months under the new regime broke Pelley. While Wigand did attain the vindication he sought, Bergman decided that Wallace and “60 Minutes” crossed a line that could not be recovered: in essence, they made Bergman break his word.
I identify with Michael Mann’s universe. His films are often about two men: two monks dressed in the clothing of regular people. Here, we have men who are foils for each other, who are defined by their jobs, whose lives make them isolated, ascetic figures. They follow strict, idealistic codes of life. Likewise, part of the joy of his films is in the meticulous procedure, whether robbers study a bank, a hitman finds a target, a boxer trains for his toughest opponent, or journalists research a lead.
Maybe I am fond of whistleblower movies because, in my decades of community work, I have been exposed to mismanagement and misconduct that never cease to break me. I am no saint, I am no hero, and much of my work is in the profession of religion, so I die inside each time I come across the misconduct of a preacher or a leader. Each time, I feel it is vital to protect the victims. I don’t know that I watch these movies because I regard myself as a whistleblower, or that I need to share in the trauma of facing such a situation.
- Fantastic Fest 2026: Pathetic Fallacy, Upiro, Kick On, What Happened to Doris? (September 24, 2026)
Our final dispatch from this year’s Fantastic Fest is indicative of the remarkable range of the programming at the world’s best genre event: There’s a Spanish vampire movie, an Australian thriller, an American ghost story, and something almost indescribably built on dream logic. Three of them are worth a look when they get international release.
Let’s start with the best of the bunch, Adam Egypt Mortimer’s truly demented “Pathetic Fallacy,” a film inspired by the surreal horror visions of filmmakers like Nicolas Roeg, David Lynch, and Nicolas Winding Refn. It’s a work that defies explainer culture, unfolding like a nightmare one has while in the throes of unfathomable grief. Like “Lost Highway” or “Twin Peaks: The Return,” it doesn’t need to make practical sense as much as emotional sense, which allows Mortimer to craft a wildly unpredictable vision, one that’s set to new music by Johnny Jewel and star Scott Mescudi (aka Kid Cudi). To say that “Pathetic Fallacy” was like nothing else at Fantastic Fest would be an understatement. It’s like nothing else anywhere.
Cudi plays Asher, who has a meet-cute, romance, and tragedy in the first ten minutes of the film. The object of his affection is Iris (Jessica Rothe, in her third Fantastic Fest flick just this year), and her passing destroys Asher. Mortimer holds a scene in which she dies in Asher’s embrace a remarkably long time, her breathing getting shallower over about a full two minutes, one of the first signs that this is a filmmaker who isn’t scared to do things a little differently.
Before you know it, Asher has traveled to a mystical place known as Mount Samdi, a location that reportedly exists in between reality and fantasy, life and death. Mortimer takes him on an almost mythological journey, encountering monsters (like a serial killer played by Travis Fimmel), and even talking animals, including a spider voiced by Natasha Lyonne. Editor Vera Drew (“The People’s Joker”) spoke in the Q&A about likening Asher’s quest to that of a Disney character, except for the axe murders and nudity, of course. But talking rodents and people breaking into song? Very Disney.
“Pathetic Fallacy” is so brazenly original that its missteps are easily forgiven. It’s the kind of work that likely plays differently to its creator than its viewer, and that personal aspect can sometimes be distancing, resulting in a fantasy that’s going to be too weird for many. But sometimes art, especially genre art like the kind at Fantastic Fest, should be weird. It should be hard to unpack and predict and even explain to someone else in words. Like Lynch, Mortimer doesn’t hold your hand, challenging you to meet his undeniable vision halfway. It’s worth the effort.
More traditional chills unfold in the Spanish vampire thriller “Upiro,” a well-crafted piece of Gothic Horror reportedly based on an actual case recognized by the Catholic Church as vampirism. Writer Elena Munoz and director Oscar Martin use this story to unpack a film that’s also about gender roles in religion and the Age of Enlightenment. This moody film cleverly plays with issues of sexuality within the vampire myth, one that has been used to “explain” female desire for generations, but given a new, captivating twist here. In a Fantastic Fest of big names (Jessica Rothe times three!) and premieres from other fests (“Primetime,” “Victorian Psycho”), this was one of most-buzzed under-the-radar flicks.
Pauline Brisy is excellent as Ana, a novitiate at an isolated monastery in Spain in 1775. Her arrival seems to unearth something from the clay in this building, something seen watching the nuns from a malevolent POV, and eventually doing its bloodsucking under the cover of night. Martin films scenes of nuns being awoken in close-ups of their faces, a sucking sound coming from off camera as they convey something between pleasure and pain. One could read the scene as something the opposite of violent as Martin plays with the idea of a supernatural creature that leads to sexual awakening as much as immortal life.
This idea is taken even further when a Franciscan priest named Father Rubis (Diego Anido) comes to the monastery to figure out the root of the blood disease impacting these young women, and Ana, well, has an eye on him. Brisy, Anido, and others disappear into the fabric of this piece, one that feels truly transportive to a different time and place, an aesthetic enabled by top-notch production design and cinematography from Alberto Morago. “Upiro” sometimes feels a little longer than it should, but it reaches an unexpected final act with one terrifying reveal that stands among the best in the vampire genre in years.
Nick Kozakis’s “Kick On” made the double dip from TIFF’s Midnight Madness to Fantastic Fest, and it’s easy to see why it appealed to both programming teams. Early in the film, Kozakis actually has someone yell “Don’t do something stupid!” as a bar fight breaks out. This is a film about people “doing something stupid” over and over again to the point that most of them are dead.
The best way to describe it is if the Alfred Molina scene in “Boogie Nights” merged with the plot of “Green Room,” and all of it was bathed in intense, bloody make-up work. It’s one of those tense thrillers in which you wait to see exactly how it’s going to erupt into chaos, and Kozakis doesn’t hold back once it does, giving genre fans exactly what they want from a movie like this one. Some will argue that these characters are illogically stupid, but genre fans accept that kind of set-up when the pay-off is this viciously entertaining.
Like “Green Room,” the set-up is wonderfully simple: Four young people get booted from a bar and want to “kick on” to another party. These attractive Aussies find themselves in the lair of a Russian mobster named Ray (Nikolas Nikolaeff), an obvious lunatic who insists that they party with him instead of just buying their drugs and heading off into the night. Kozakis and his team put a lot of effort into designing and populating Ray’s space, as it’s pretty much the entire setting of the film. And, to the film’s benefit, they even drop in a few interesting characters around Ray, guys who will end more than mere soldiers for the bad guy.
The good guys are led by Eden (Markella Kavenagh), who makes the final dumb decision when she decides to steal some cash from the obviously unhinged Ray. Before you know it, Eden and her buddies are being beaten, attacked, and held prisoner for around 90 minutes.
Admittedly, Kozakis’s film turns into an exercise in style—we know almost nothing about anyone but Eden, who has a dying sister for whom she needs the cash, and Ray’s insecure role as the son of a famous crime lord—but it’s impressively rendered style, nonetheless. Yes, Saulnier’s obvious inspiration was better at finding ways to embed character beats into the non-stop action, but this movie has a slightly different goal—it’s far bloodier, playing almost like an “Evil Dead” movie in its bodily harm. It’s imperfect but also never boring, the kind of flick that works as well at midnight in Toronto as it does in Texas.
Sadly, there are large passages of “What Happened to Doris?” that qualify as boring, and it doesn’t really play well any time or any place. Nick Simon retells the story of Doris Bither, the reportedly true haunting that inspired “The Entity” over four decades ago, but he does so with too little veracity or personality, leading to a film that feels like little more than a “Conjuring” rip-off, and one that strands poor Heather Graham with direction that can’t get to a character that feels genuine. It may be a famous case, but it’s not a successful film.
Graham plays Bither, a single mother in Culver City who reported to experts at UCLA that she was being so aggressively haunted by a poltergeist that she claimed she had been sexually assaulted by one, and had the bruises on her body to prove it. Before you know it, a “Conjuring”-esque team of investigators are in the Bither apartment, including characters played by Marcus Coloma, Morgan Peter Brown, and Mimi Rogers, who is wasted in a part that’s basically just there to explain what might happening to Doris. She’s the answer to the title.
To be blunt, nothing in “What Happened to Doris?” feels like anything but actors on a set. There just hasn’t been enough effort put into the details to give it any texture, which means the scares and characters have no impact. Reading the Wikipedia page about the actual haunting is actually scarier.
- Netflix’s Reboot of “A Different World” Needs to Let Go of the Past (September 24, 2026)
“A Different World,” the Netflix reboot of the sitcom about life at the fictional Hillman College, spends too much time trying to be two things at once.
Like so many reboots, this version practically breaks a sweat attempting to appeal to the nostalgia surrounding the original, which aired on NBC from 1987 to 1993. Multiple characters from the first “Different World” return, most notably Dwayne Wayne (Kadeem Hardison) and Whitley Gilbert (Jasmine Guy), married Hillman alums who are recurring regulars in the Netflix iteration. References to specific episodes and moments abound. (Yes, Dwayne’s famous “Baby, please!” from the season five finale is mentioned more than once.) The same key spots on the Hillman campus, including Gilbert Hall, the women’s dorm named after Whitley’s wealthy family, and the Pit, the school cafeteria, remain central backdrops. The theme song is even the same, although it gets a soulful, slow, jammier spin via a performance by Brandy,
But this new “A Different World,” created by Felicia Pride, whose credits include “Queen Sugar” and “Bel-Air,” also wants to be its own distinct, contemporary thing. So what was once a traditional, three-camera sitcom is now a single-cam dramedy. The primary stars of the show are a bunch of young, impossibly attractive college students, some of whom have direct connections to figures from the first series. While its predecessor addressed the social issues of its time, including the HIV/AIDS crisis and the Rodney King verdict, this “Different World” seeks to do the same in 2026. One episode raises concerns about ICE; frustrations over the lack of federal funding for historically black colleges and universities like Hillman run throughout.
A Different World – Season 1. (L to R) Jordan Aaron Hall as Amir, Cornell Young IV as Shaquille, Chibuikem Uche as Kojo, Dasan Frazier as Xavier in Episode 108 of A Different World. Cr. ELI JOSHUA ADE/Netflix © 2026
Essentially, Pride and her team are trying to lay the outline of a new “Different World” on top of the first’s framework and hoping all the lines and edges sync up perfectly. But they don’t, quite, especially in the first half of the season. Like a college freshman, “A Different World” needs a semester—read: five episodes—to start to figure out its own identity. By the end of that first year, aka season one, it starts to gain more confidence. (Wondering where I learned to layer so many analogies into a single paragraph? That’s right: college!)
While Denise Huxtable (Lisa Bonet) was initially the main character starting college in the first “A Different World,” a spin-off of “The Cosby Show,” the protagonist this time is Deborah—pronounced with an emphasis on the “bor”—Wayne, daughter of Whitley and Dwayne. Played with low-key defiance by Tony Award winner Maleah Joi Moon, Deborah is financially privileged but academically challenged. Her family connections have guaranteed her a place at Hillman, coincidentally alongside her ex-boyfriend, Shaquille Johnson (Cornell Young IV), the school’s star quarterback and son of Dwayne’s BFF Ron Johnson (Darryl M. Bell), who also acts as his son’s overbearing manager.
Deborah and Shaquille are both entitled in certain ways. After skipping all of summer practice, Shaquille rolls up on campus in a sports car and expects to be able to start in the first game of the football season—his coach, played by Method Man, has some other ideas—while Deborah spouts off about her connections and maxes out her parents’ credit card. But the students who become part of their shared social circle don’t all come from cushy backgrounds. Deborah’s studious roommate Rashida (a charming and spirited Alijah Kai) is a Compton, California native who works at the Pit to put herself through school, while Andre (Jordan Aaron Hall) is attempting to get his life back on track after spending some time in juvie. Andre is also gay, a fact that his friends and the show treat with appropriate nonchalance.
The romantic entanglements of the main college-aged characters and, to a lesser extent, the adults, become more and more of a focus as the episodes progress, to the point where “A Different World” feels less like a coming-of-age comedy and more like a lightly steamy primetime soap. This might be less of a problem if the show didn’t constantly feel compelled to remind us of its roots by having figures from the original waltz into their kids’ dorm rooms or show up for campus events.
A Different World – Season 1. (L to R) Kadeem Hardison as Dwayne in Episode 105 of a Different World. Cr. Quantrell Colbert/Netflix © 2026
It makes sense that Whitley and Dwayne, separated and grappling with whether to divorce, are so front and center in Deborah’s life. Dwayne works at Hillman as the university’s provost and, later in the season, in a more prominent position, while Whitley proves to be the helicopter mom you always knew she would become if she ever had kids. (Perhaps because their relationship is so fraught, the chemistry between Guy and Hardison feels more forced than it should.)
But the parade of cameo appearances—there’s Jaleesa (Dawnn Lewis)! And Kimberly (Charnele Brown)! And Charmaine (Karen Malina White)! And Gina (Ajai Sanders)! And others that Netflix would prefer I not mention for spoiler reasons!—comes across mostly as fan service. To be clear: many “A Different World” fans will probably appreciate that service, which can be fun at times. But it also smacks of the dutiful.
Even though the NBC series sprang from “The Cosby Show,” it became a groundbreaking success in its own right as the first mainstream series to show what life looks like at an HBCU. It deserves to be remembered fondly and held up as a significant piece of television that paved the way for more recent depictions of college life like “grown-ish,” “Dear White People,” and “The Sex Lives of College Girls.” But too often, this “A Different World” feels so beholden to where it came from that it can’t quite break any new ground of its own.
All 10 episodes of season one were screened in advance for critics.
