"When I think of works that felt like they truly belonged to 2025, I can't help but think about Park Chan-wook's No Other Choice, a violent action-comedy-tragedy-thriller about a family man who gets fired from the paper mill to which he's devoted much of his life. The loss devastates him, and we soon realize that his self-image as a provider was keeping all sorts of dark impulses at bay, and without his job, his family may well be destroyed."
"As I watched it at the Venice Film Festival this year, Park's picture sent several unnervingly recognizable, zeitgeisty chills up my spine (and it wasn't simply because I was sitting in a room full of potentially homicidal colleagues in a declining industry). But amazingly, No Other Choice is based (faithfully) on a 1997 Donald Westlake novel, previously filmed by the great Costa-Gavras in 2005 (to whom Park's film is dedicated)."
2025 film output combined commercial turbulence with striking individual works. Several notable titles surfaced from Warner Bros., including Mickey 17, One Battle After Another, and Sinners, even as streaming platforms shifted industry power. Time and cultural moments recurred across decades, exemplified by Park Chan-wook's No Other Choice, which adapts a 1997 Donald Westlake novel and nods to Costa-Gavras's 2005 film. No Other Choice follows a fired paper-mill worker whose identity as provider collapses, unleashing violent impulses that drive him to target competitors. The film's long development and historical lineage underscore how cinematic moments can persist across generations.
Read at Slate Magazine
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