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‘Kate’ Review: Lost in Assassination

Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays a vengeful contract killer in this predictable thriller.

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By Teo Bugbee

The thriller “Kate” is an undistinguished action film that makes a hero of a hit woman. Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), guided by her wily handler, Varrick (Woody Harrelson), has been a professional since adolescence. Her only rule is to never kill in front of a child. Naturally — this being a relatively unimaginative plot — Kate betrays her principles within the first five minutes of the movie, murdering a yakuza gang member in front of his daughter.

The fallout for Kate proves worse than a mere breach of assassin’s creed. She learns that her victim’s gang has targeted her, slipping her a fatal dose of polonium. She has 24 hours to live before radiation destroys her body, and in that time, she is determined to get her revenge. But the only person who knows where she can find the shadowy leader of the gang that wants her dead is Ani (Miku Martineau), the child who witnessed her father’s slaughter.

The film takes place in Japan, and the director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan tries to use the setting to inject a shot of style into the largely routine story. There are neon cars, Kabuki theater performances and as many murders committed with samurai swords and katanas as there are with guns. The movie presents an eye-catching fantasy of a candy-colored Japanese underworld. But the exoticism feels as cheap as a whiff of a green tea and musk cologne called Tokyo wafting over a department store counter. Even Winstead, stoic in her fashionably boyish haircut, looks bored.

Kate Rated R for graphic violence, brief gore, and brief sexuality. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. Watch on Netflix.

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Mary elizabeth winstead in netflix’s ‘kate’: film review.

The action drama revolves around an elite assassin who's left with one day to live after being poisoned, and decides to spend her final hours hunting down the person who wants her dead.

By Angie Han

Television Critic

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Ostensibly, Netflix’s Kate is a brand-new movie based on an original concept. It’s not a remake or a reboot or an extension of a franchise; it’s not based on real events nor adapted from existing source materials.

But you’ve seen Kate before in other movies, which a cynic might suspect is exactly the idea: It feels like a title cooked up by the Netflix algorithm solely for the purpose of populating a Because You Watched row. (It is actually directed by a human, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan.) It’s a little bit Extraction , a little bit Gunpowder Milkshake . Its Japanophile aesthetic aims for the grit of Blade Runner but falls closer to the empty gloss of Ghost in the Shell . Even the title character feels like an extension of star Mary Elizabeth Winstead ‘s other vengeful assassin character from Birds of Prey .

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Release date: Friday, Sept. 10

Cast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Miku Martineau, Woody Harrelson

Director: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan

Screenwriter: Umair Aleem

All these familiar elements come together to form a movie that’s fitfully entertaining. If its bloody fistfights feel sluggish in comparison to the balletic grace of John Wick , well, there are worse action movies to crib from than John Wick . If its car chase feels too obviously CG even by the standards of a Fast & Furious movie, well, the vrooms and screeches still scratch a certain lizard-brain itch. But Kate wears its influences like borrowed clothes, never quite managing to develop a style or voice that feels wholly its own.

Umair Aleem’s script is so predictable that it’s possible to map out the entire final act based on the first two minutes of the movie and the plot synopsis. The spoiler-free version is this: Kate is an elite American assassin operating in Tokyo, who wakes up after a botched job to discover she’s been poisoned. She has roughly one day left to live, which she chooses to spend hunting down and enacting revenge on her killers — with unexpected assistance in the form of Ani (Miku Martineau), the teen daughter of one of Kate’s recent targets. (No points for guessing whether they’ll form an unconvincing emotional bond over their respective tragic backstories.)

Winstead’s no-nonsense aura serves her well as Kate, a strong, silent type whose only concession to whimsy is an obsession with a particular brand of soft drink. And she certainly looks the part of the badass heroine, at least in slo-mo. A late scene in which she struts into a lobby, sneering behind enormous sunglasses, a dangling cigarette and layers upon layers of blood and bruises, feels like ideal GIF fodder. But she’s handily upstaged the moment a character with an actual personality shows up — Jojima, a yakuza hitman played with rock star élan by real-life rock star Miyavi. First introduced in a silk Versace robe enjoying an at-home fish pedicure, Jojima makes Kate feel, for a moment, exactly as stylish and silly as it should be.

Alas, Jojima doesn’t stick around long. Without him, Kate is largely an endless onslaught of mostly interchangeable yakuza goons hurtling through stereotypically Japanese settings: a bathhouse, a kabuki performance, an outdoor market awash in neon. When a Japanese character complains that Westerners “gorge on cultures they don’t understand,” it’s hard not to wonder what movie he thinks he’s in, seeing as Kate ends up being yet another movie that sees the country as little more than an exotic backdrop for its white characters. (Even Ani, a local, is set apart from her Japanese crime family by virtue of being half-white.)

But such superficiality is par for the course for Kate . If the film has a defining moment, it’s not any of the cool parts where Kate shoots bad guys, or the sentimental parts where she’s bonding with her young charge, or the wannabe-meaningful parts where she’s receiving wisdom from an old Japanese gangster. (“Death is a beginning,” he remarks sagely.) It’s the instant when she pauses in the middle of an urgent mission to cut her own hair over a bathroom sink.

Kate’s not trying to disguise herself. Her hair’s not in the way. She’s not especially vain, as far as we know, and she’s definitely short on time. She doesn’t even look that different afterward. Nevertheless, she gives herself a trim, and fluffs it while studying herself in the mirror, because the self-administered haircut is cinematic shorthand for a woman taking charge of her own life, and that’s what Kate hopes to convey Kate is doing — never mind that the scene makes no sense in context. It’s the movie equivalent of copying someone else’s homework and forgetting to change the name on top. The film’s mimicry might be deft enough to pass muster here and there. But it doesn’t take an eagle eye to notice that Kate ‘s got few ideas of its own.

Full credits

Distributor: Netflix Production company: 87North Cast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Tadanobu Asano, Miyavi, Michiel Huisman, Miku Martineau, Jun Kunimura, Woody Harrelson Director: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan Screenwriter: Umair Aleem Producers: Bryan Unkeless, Kelly McCormick, Patrick Newall Executive producers: David Leitch, Scott Morgan Director of photography: Lyle Vincent Production designer: Dominic Watkins Costume designer: Audrey Fisher Editor: Sandra Montiel, Elisabet Ronaldsdóttir Music: Nathan Barr Casting director: Jenny Jue Stunt coordinator: Jonathan Eusebio VFX supervisor: Audrey Fisher

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• DVD & Streaming
• Action/Adventure

Content Caution

In Theaters

• Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Kate; Woody Harrelson as Varrick; Miku Patricia Martineau as Ani; Jun Kunimura as Kijima; Tadanobu Asano as Renji

Home Release Date

• September 10, 2021
• Cedric Nicolas-Troyan

Distributor

Movie review.

Kate is a killer.

Yeah, you could say she has killer good looks, but she’s actually a straight-up killer. Trained by her mentor and father-figure, Varrick, she started in the assassination biz when she was just a young girl—right after her parents were both murdered—and has been going strong ever since.

Of course, now that she’s in her 30s, Kate’s kinda thinking that she’s been a part of this deadly circus a bit too long. She hasn’t had a life of her own. She’s been “managed” and “handled,” but never really lived. And after a recent Osaka, Japan, mission, involving a target with his daughter standing right next to him, Kate has finally made up her mind to leave.

Kate may be an assassin. But she’s always had one rule of her own. One simple rule: no kids! But now her handlers have pushed her to break that boundary. So, Kate’s quitting. She’s agreed to one last hit, but after that she’s out.

Varrick eyes her when she tells him of her plans and asks what she could possibly want from this “real life” she keeps talking about. “Family, kids, picket fence, dogs, suburbs?” he wonders. “Yeah, something like that,” she replies.

Before Kate can finish her job and follow through on her plans, however, something unexpected happens. After a casual fling with a guy she meets at her hotel bar, she ends up poisoned. But it’s not food poisoning or maybe a bottle of wine gone bad. No, she finds she’s suffering from accelerated ARS: acute radiation syndrome.

She’s somehow been targeted with Polonium 204, a radioactive substance that there’s no coming back from. And after she staggers up from unconsciousness, the hospital doc says she has about a day left to live. “But don’t worry,” he tells her. “We’ll make you as comfortable as possible.”

Kate isn’t worried about comfort, though. She wants answers. Was this poisoning a blowback from her last job? Is it a hit from another secretive organization? Something even more personal? She’s got 24 hours to find out who wants her dead and why. And she’s got 20-plus years of experience and skills to help her find and rip out every answer she wants.

When she finds what she needs, then someone—or a lot of someones —will die for what they’ve taken from her.

Kate wanted a real life. Now she’s going to dole out some bloody death.

Positive Elements

The one positive in this story of violence and death is the fact that Kate wants to embrace a happy and contented life. For her, that involves the possibility of settling down and having a family.

Kate later meets a teen girl named Ani who’s connected to the Kijima clan, a Yakuza gang that Kate’s trying to infiltrate. The two connect. Kate sees some part of the family she’s longed for in Ani. And Ani, in turn, sees Kate as a representation of the tough and resilient mother she never knew.

Kate also takes steps to protect Ani and to keep her separate from the violence that’s taking place. “You’re young. You have time to forget,” she tells the girl.

Spiritual Elements

Sexual & romantic content.

Kate hooks up with a guy she meets at a bar. They go back to her room to have sex. We see the two kissing, undressing and caressing on the bed before the camera cuts away. She’s wearing her underwear, and he’s shirtless.

There’s more male skin bared in this pic than female. Kate walks through a bathhouse filled with naked men, for instance. They’re covered only with loin cloths. Several other men in the film strip off shirts or robes to bare their upper bodies.

Violent Content

This film prides itself on its blood, gore and violence. Throughout the course of her encounters with large, angry Yakuza gang members, Kate gets pummeled with fists; battered with various weapons and solid objects; thrown, kicked, stabbed and shot over and over again.

Her physical form and features become more and more bloodied and torn after each successive conflict—including heavily bleeding scalp wounds; a bloody, pounded-out pupil; a wound in her cheek opened by slowly pressed-in scissor blades; and scores of nasty bruises and scars on her shoulders, arms and upper body. (She removes her bloody shirt, for instance, to stitch up an open knife wound on her waist, which reveals dark purple bruising all over her torso.)

On top of all that the radiation poisoning also impacts Kate, giving her nose bleeds and causing her to regularly spit up quantities of blood and bile.

The men Kate attacks, however, all receive the worst of it. We see throats vividly slashed and left gushing. Bullets blow out neks and heads. Swords impale and gut men. Heads are lopped off. Kate uses knifes to stab eyes, as well as  and jam up through chins and out noses.

We see a number of victims with their skulls split open by either bullets or heavy objects. Legs and arms are snapped sideways in the midst of battle. One guy gets killed by a defibrillator zap to his temples. A man is pushed face-first into a red-hot grill. Someone is electrocuted after falling onto live electric wires. And several men are used as human meat shields before being shot point-blank in the face and discarded.

In all of the group conflicts, there are at least a few victims left writhing and moaning, some with gut shots, others with profusely bleeding wounds.

Crude or Profane Language

There are about 25 f-words and a dozen s-words mixed into the script  with a handful of uses each of “a–hole,” “b–ch” and “b–tard.” “Whore” is spit out once as is a misuse of God’s name.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Lots of different people smoke throughout the film, including Kate. Kate drinks wine in a couple different scenes. And it’s implied that she’s poisoned through a bottle of wine. There are others drinking in a bar setting. While in the hospital, Kate holds a doctor at gunpoint and gets five syringes filled with a powerful stimulant. She injects herself at various points in the film to counteract the physically debilitating effects of her radiation poisoning.

Other noteworthy Elements

Kate vomits repeatedly from the effect of her poisoning and removes teeth due to her toxicity as well. Several men disdain Ani’s mixed Japanese and gaijin heritage. Someone calls her a “half-race b–ch.”

There’s a Hollywood movie trend these days to demonstrate the industry’s progressively modern bona fides by casting a female lead in your typical hard-hitting actioner. It’s often as believable as tossing an average movie reviewer into an MMA ring and expecting a keyboard-jockey win.

That said, star Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s blend of pretty and gritty can almost make you believe that stereotype anyway. You almost swallow the idea that she could be poisoned with radioactive material; jacked up with stimulants; battered repeatedly about the face, head and upper body; shot once or twice; and still be ready to take on a room full of Yakuza thugs after a bloody spit and a gore-encrusted squint. Like I said: Almost.

Of course, there’s more than just believing when it comes to the kind of pulp violence shown here. To get into this pic, you have to kinda enjoy seeing a woman being pounded, stabbed and bloodily abused for 90 minutes. And then you’ll also have to revel in all her muscled, male attackers being rent and ripped in turn as the titular heroine pokes blades in eyes, blows out throats, mercilessly rams sharp objects up through jaws and pops heads like so many gory soap bubbles. You’ve gotta really dig this movie’s stylized ballet of butchery to make it to end credits.

Oh, and you shouldn’t have any queasiness about really nasty language either. Because Kate doesn’t hold back when it comes to noxiously profane spews. Even from its teen stars.

So, keep all of that in mind when you’re perusing the newest movie stream offerings. And if you decide you’d prefer something less blood-spewing and misogynistic you could choose, oh, just about anything other than Kate .

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

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Movie Review – Kate (2021)

September 4, 2021 by Robert Kojder

Kate , 2021.

Directed by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan. Starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Miku Martineau, Woody Harrelson, Tadanobu Asano, Michiel Huisman, Jun Kunimura, Miyavi, Amelia Crouch, Ava Caryofyllis, Mari Yamamoto, and Kayuza Tanabe.

A female assassin has 24 hours to get vengeance on her murderer before she dies.

Already at a disadvantage for having a cookie-cutter script of Japanese crime and betrayal, Kate (as a character and a movie from director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan) is also saddled with a contrived plot set up that makes no logical sense on the part of the Yakuza villains. As retribution for picking off high-ranking numbers one by one as a career assassin, Kate (played with resilient ferocity by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is tricked into consuming a poison that will slowly kill her over 24 hours. If I were involved with the Yakuza and wanted a lethal lifetime killer dead through poisoning, I wouldn’t choose a specific kind that allows more than enough time for her to figure out what’s happening and enact her own revenge before crossing over another life.

It would also be possible to overlook such a nonsensical plot device if Kate was going for preposterous and bonkers chaos (something like Crank ), but here is a story much more grounded into this lifestyle she never had a choice of joining in the first place. Kate’s handler is a man named Varrick (a seemingly bored Woody Harrelson). He is also her family, bringing her into the fold and raising her as a guardian following some tragic incident with her biological parents. The details aren’t dived into, and they don’t need to be, as it’s clear that Varrick is an opportunistic molder of killers, preying on vulnerable and lost souls. Nevertheless, they trust each other and forge a path for themselves with him as her mentor and surrogate father.

It becomes apparent that the quickest way to the Yakuza leader (Jun Kunimura) is through his niece Ani (newcomer Miku Patricia Martineau, succeeding at foul-mouthed and rebellious spunk). Her father is also the man Kate murdered ten months ago with a rifle from afar right in front of Ani’s eyes. Anyway, they reveal themselves to find Ani dispensable, halfheartedly coming to her rescue. It grants the gaijin (foreigner) the opportunity to kill lots of evil Yakuza henchmen with an assortment of headshots and violent stabbings, sometimes set to Japanese pop music or surrounded by neon Tokyo lights. The final stretch also sees a bloodied and battered Kate (the makeup work done on Mary Elizabeth Winstead, presenting someone sicker and more bruised after nearly every scene is one of the only bright spots here) wearing a Japanese cat T-shirt, so the film is undoubtedly taking advantage of its setting but unquestionably in a hollow way.

Of course, even with its twist of a Western villain (something that’s easy to see coming from the beginning of the movie), Kate is still a misguided white savior action piece punctuating every sequence of stylized combat (a couple of the fights here are impressive) with an awkward feeling. Beyond that, nearly every plot point here (the script comes courtesy of Netflix’s Extraction writer Umair Aleem, which explains a lot about the negatives here) is basic and predictable. I don’t consider myself that skilled or prideful when figuring out plot beats ahead of time, but I had nearly all of Kate figured out within the first 15 minutes or so, which is a telling and overwhelming sign of laziness in the script department.

That’s frustrating because there are some amusing and resonant back-and-forth dialogue exchanges between Kate and Ani, with the latter coming to terms with her family tossing her aside while simultaneously and misguidedly finding a role model in the assassin protecting her, under the impression that Kate marches to her own drum and answers to no one when in reality her whole life was stolen. The shootouts and bone-breaking hand-to-hand combat are also visceral with nice visual flourishes (there are plenty of rotating camera perspectives, overhead shots, and blood splattering all over pristine white surfaces), and Mary Elizabeth Winstead assuredly puts in the work to make those sequences believably hard-hitting and moderately exciting. There is just also no way any of that could ever be enough to mitigate such a bare-bones, formulaic, dry, and ill-advised story.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check  here  for new reviews, follow my  Twitter  or  Letterboxd , or email me at [email protected]

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Kate Parent Guide

The plot twist is predictable but the movie's action sequences are riveting, so that's some compensation..

Netflix: Kate is dead woman walking. Although she's a skilled assassin, a failure on her last mission left her fatally poisoned. She only has 14 hours left...plenty of time for revenge.

Release date September 10, 2021

Run Time: 106 minutes

Get Content Details

The guide to our grades, parent movie review by keith hawkes.

Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has been trained since childhood to be one of the most effective and dangerous assassins in the world. Now working in Japan, she’s become involved with the Yakuza (Japanese organized crime). Under orders from her trainer, Varrick (Woody Harrelson), Kate takes out a leading figure in one of the more notorious Japanese gangs. In retaliation, she’s poisoned with a rare isotope of polonium. With only 24 hours left to live, Kate plots her revenge, but there’s one little problem: She still doesn’t know who’s responsible. And the only person who might know is Ani (Miku Martineau), the daughter of her last target. The clock is ticking…

As a certifiable film snob, I do sometimes get caught up in the minutiae of a film – an inability to see the forest for the trees. This is one of those fun action flicks that focuses so little on the trees, you don’t have a choice but to enjoy the forest. Believe it or not, that’s a good thing. If I’m here for big dumb action fun, directors really don’t need to spend all that much time explaining character backstories to me. Just start shooting.

The action is easily the highlight of the film. Mary Elizabeth Winstead brings a kind of confidence and screen presence that I don’t recall seeing since Sigourney Weaver, and it’s wonderful to watch. Ignoring repeated grisly injuries (and the ongoing effects of severe radiation sickness), Kate kicks a disproportionate amount of Yakuza backside all around the neon-lit streets. It’s hard not to have fun with that.

As with most action thrillers, the major issue here is violence. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody killed with defibrillator paddles to the head before. There’s also the usual deluge of shootings and stabbings, moreso here because of the apparent tendency of Japanese gangsters to carry large knives. Apart from the gore, there’s one very brief sex scene and a healthy smattering of profanity. This isn’t rated “R” for nothing, folks. But that doesn’t mean adult genre fans can’t have a good time – just don’t try any of this at home.

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Keith hawkes, watch the trailer for kate.

Kate Rating & Content Info

Why is Kate rated R? Kate is rated R by the MPAA for strong bloody violence and language throughout.

Violence: People are frequently shot, stabbed, beaten, and cut. Notable incidents include people being poisoned with polonium, killed with defibrillator paddles being applied to the head, and one decapitation. Sexual Content: There is one brief sex scene which contains neither graphic detail nor nudity. Profanity:   There are 31 sexual expletives and 14 scatological terms, along with occasional uses of mild profanities and terms of deity, both in English and Japanese. Alcohol / Drug Use: Adult characters are seen drinking socially. The protagonist is seen taking powerful prescription drugs to counteract poisoning.

Page last updated February 24, 2022

Kate Parents' Guide

What is polonium? How has it been used in the real world? What have the consequences of its use been? What kind of risks does it pose to others?

Related home video titles:

There have been a lot of female assassin movies lately, including The Protégé , Gunpowder Milkshake , Atomic Blonde , Pixie , Anna , Birds of Prey , Vanquish , and The Rhythm Section . Other assassin thrillers include John Wick (and of course, John Wick Chapter Two and John Wick Chapter Three: Parabellum ), The Bourne Identity , The Bourne Supremacy , The Bourne Ultimatum , The Virtuoso , and The Equalizer .

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Kate: Movie Review

In all honesty, the expectations when first watching Kate were kind of low since it almost appeared to be a movie that would lean heavily into a feminist-type of story that would portray all men as scum and every woman as strong and powerful characters that didn’t need men. So, part of that came true, but not all of it thankfully since Kate is a badass without any question and Mary Elizabeth Winstead turned in a performance that was kind of like a lot of others that she’s given, but definitely more hardcore. The whole deal with Kate is that she was taken in by Varrick, played by Woody Harrelson, who felt shady to begin with, but also like he might have escaped the whole mentor turned enemy role. If you weren’t already aware, there are spoilers ahead, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet, look away or keep reading, it’s all the same to me. But the movie was one that felt like it would disappoint if one went into it with high expectations, especially since movies with female leads that people believe in can go either way, kind of like any movie. 

Those that thought this would be a blockbuster might be a little bit disappointed, but perhaps not since it was a good action movie without any question, and Winstead did put on a show that was great enough to be called worthy of watching. From the moment Kate gets to work one can see that she’s a professional but she’s not so cold-hearted that she doesn’t care about others. The fact that there’s a kid in her line of sight when she has eyes on her target is enough to make her pause, which means that she’s not so cold-blooded that she’s going to shoot first and never worry about the repercussions. But she does complete the job, which then leads to what she hopes will be the last job, and there’s where things get a little too predictable even as they get a little better. 

One great thing about this movie is that Kate isn’t some sort of superhero type individual and she’s not the indestructible hired killer that other movies might portray. This is something that’s been getting better and better over the years even as some movies have clung to the idea that the main character is invincible until they need to show some sort of weakness just to remind people that they are human. Some might want to argue that ingesting an element that can burn you up from the inside might kill you quicker than this, but that could be what the goal was, to make Kate appear to be running on sheer determination to do the right thing and to get her revenge. In doing so she had to eventually accept the aid of the person she’d been trying to kill in the first place, and by the time she finally gets to him, after running through one Yakuza goon after another, she’s been through the grinder and it’s kind of obvious. But the sheer amount of determination she continues to run on almost drains out of her completely when she discovers that it was Varrick, her own mentor and handler, that was behind her ‘retirement’. 

Along with another member of the Yakuza that plotted to overthrow the man she’d tried to kill, Kate was being tossed aside in favor of a new protege that Varrick would take under his wing, the young girl, Ani, that she eventually did her best to save. Being the niece of the man she’d tried to kill, Ani was a high-value target and someone that the other Yakuza members tried to snuff out along the way, but due to Kate’s unrelenting will and deadly skill set, she and Ani managed to find their way to the young girl’s uncle, where Kate was nearly ended. To make a long story short she did get her revenge on Varrick, as she even placed her final shot right where he’d instructed her in a flashback. Shooting him in the stomach so she could watch him die was pretty brutal, but it was efficient and it was well-deserved. 

Overall, this movie was pretty good thanks to the action and the predictable way that Kate, who spoke of wanting to retire after her final job, was betrayed by the one person in the world she trusted. The delivery method was interesting since it was essentially a suicide mission for the guy that shared a bottle of wine with her before they had sex, especially since one would think that Varrick would have done it himself. Of course, that might have been too easy, and could have altered the story a little too much. But when all is said and done this was a fun movie to watch. 

A lover of great stories and epic tales, Tom is a fan of old and new-school ideas. As a novelist and a screenwriter, he enjoys promoting one story or another. With 18k+ articles and 40 novels written, Tom knows a little something about storytelling.

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WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Kate , now streaming on Netflix.

In Netflix's Kate , the title character (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is on a revenge mission against the Yakuza . After killing one of their generals, Kentaro (Byron Bishop), Kate got poisoned as she tried to finish off the head, Kijima (Jun Kunimura), only to discover she was manipulated. Her boss, Varrick (Woody Harrelson), was working with the Yakuza traitor, Renji (Tadanobu Asano), on a coup, not knowing Kate would protect Kentaro's daughter, Ani (Miku Patricia Martineau).

This leads to a bloody finale as Kate finds an unexpected ally to help settle old debts.

RELATED: Yakuza Princess: Masumi Unpacks Akemi's Destiny

Kijima Joins Kate's Mission

Varrick eventually breaks the truth to Ani, who shoots Kate point blank in the head. Varrick takes the teen and heads off to mold her into his new assassin, knowing she'd need a father figure. However, Ani's a terrible shot so Kate lives, but the poison (polonium-204) coursing through her veins outside the Hottazaka mansion is killing her.

Luckily, Kijima arrives as Kate didn't kill him moments before, all out of honor and respect. It was her way of atoning for being a puppet, and thankfully, the Yakuza boss finds one of the syringes she's been using to pump meds in her to keep going. They then join forces to take the deadly alliance out as Kijima wants his clan's name and niece back, while Kate wants vengeance for what Varrick did.

The Big Beheading

Varrick's angry that Renji set Kate up to be poisoned as the handler thought he could stop her from retirement. After all, Kate grew disillusioned due to her PTSD from knowing Ani saw Kentaro die. Renji doesn't care, though, as he's all about cleaning up the job so nothing traces back to him. However, things get wild at Renji's loft as Kate arrives with Kijima's army.

Kijima's soldiers shoot up the place, allowing Kate and Kijima to get to where their enemies are. Varrick leaves Renji to fend for his own, culminating in Kijima finding his colleague and tossing him a samurai sword. They have a showdown but while Renji mouths off about being younger and stronger, Kijimi slices him up and beheads him in seconds, proving that experience counts.

RELATED: Yakuza Princess Misses Its Chance to Be a Unique Action Movie With a Distinct Style

Kate Sacrifices Everything

The final fight focuses on Kate after she shoots a bloody path to Varrick. She's pissed that he's holding Ani hostage at gunpoint , knowing Ani wants to get to Kate after discovering how she was tricked into killing Ani's dad. In the climactic shootout, Kate and Varrick both shoot each other in the stomach once, which ties into the lesson Varrick taught her: a gut shot is a slow death and means that it's personal.

Varrick bleeds out and dies on a chair, while Ani, in tears, cradles Kate's dying body. The serum's wearing off but Kate's comfortable, knowing Kijima will now take care of Ani as he professed regret earlier over ignoring her due to her mom not being Japanese.

Kate also takes solace looking at a giant neon cat outside. It ties into the jersey she has on, which Ani got her. That moment midway in the film was one one of the few times Kate experienced true happiness and a genuine sense of family. It seems like this memory grants her a happy death, with tears coming from her eyes as her heart finally gives out.

To see Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Woody Harrelson face off, Kate is now streaming on Netflix.

KEEP READING: The Protégé's Bizarre Central Romance Is Its Best Element

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Home » Movies » Kate Movie Review – Is There Any Substance to This Style?

Kate Movie Review – Is There Any Substance to This Style?

What would you do if you knew that you only had a day left to live? Most of us would probably want to spend time with our loved ones. Maybe we want to apologize for any wrongdoings or go and see our favorite place one last time. But when you’re an assassin, that last day can come much sooner than anticipated. And the way that you spend it is a lot less poetic. In our spoiler-free review of the latest Netflix movie, Kate , we’ll see how the titular character feels about her last day.

Kate  Movie Review – Mary Elizabeth Winstead Is In Control

Sticking to their promise to release a new movie every week in 2021 , Netflix’s latest addition is Kate . Led by a confident Mary Elizabeth Winstead, we follow a well-trained assassin who is forever changed by a mission that doesn’t go according to plan. While following a hit in Osaka, Kate must make the quick decision to kill her mark and leave behind a child for a witness. This had been her one rule when killing, and her handler (Woody Harrelson’s Varrick) couldn’t meet it. Months later, she’s still affected by the aftermath and asks for retirement.

Retiring is hard enough as it is, but it’s far more troublesome when you’re an assassin. You know too much and have worked with too many people to run from. But Varrick seems like a nice enough fella and gives Kate one last job: take out the man in charge of the most important family in Tokyo, who also happens to be the brother of Kate’s earlier and traumatic kill.

When Kate fails to hit her target thanks to a surprising health scare, she realizes that she has been poisoned by what was supposed to be a one-night stand. Her killer has picked something strong enough to take her out quickly, and she has, at most, 24 hours to live. What comes next is a manhunt through the city as she seeks revenge on the people responsible for her poisoning.

Does  Kate  Have A Successful Mission In Making A Good Movie?

It’s easy for action flicks to fall into the trap of style over substance, and this film definitely has a lot of the former. Much of this is thanks to director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan. Nicolas-Troyan is best known not for his direction but his visual effects. He has worked on the effects for films including Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and Snow White and the Huntsman , the latter of which earned him a nomination for Best Visual Effects at the Oscars.

For  Kate , placing the story in Tokyo is its biggest win. This allows for phenomenal street visuals, including a neon pink car chase. The action is alluring, and watching Kate’s flashy but competent fighting style is worth the time spent streaming the film.

But what about the substance?  John Wick  does revenge perfectly by giving us enough anger to hope for his success. This film tries to find a similar heart at the center of it all, pairing Kate with the child whose father she killed in front of her. And sure, we want her to finish her plan. Who would wish failure on somebody with only hours left to live? But despite its proximity to winning us over, the film only manages to walk the line between substance and style.

The minor failure by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan is not giving his audience enough faith to piece things together on our own.  Kate  could have thrived on its badass revenge tale alone. Or it could have fully leaned into its emotional backstories and desires for change. Instead, we’re forcibly told what we should care about, rather than coming to the conclusion on our own.

Is Winstead Going To Be The Next Action Star?

Over here at Comic Years, we’ve loved Mary Elizabeth Winstead for ages. She shined in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World . Her role in  10 Cloverfield Lane  was thrilling. And more recently, she pulled us in with her turn at playing The Huntress in 2020’s  Birds of Prey . She has shown that she’s ready to shine bright in any genre, but her back-to-back roles playing deadly fighters have highlighted a niche for the actress.

It is easy to forget about the supporting roles in this film, thanks to how much focus it has on the face of the film. Woody Harrelson plays something that we’ve seen him do multiple times, and his acting is average, at best. Miku Patricia Martineau, a newcomer to the acting scene, delights in the role of Ani. Her naivety to action and desire to be the center of attention perfectly contrasts with Kate’s wisdom and need to get things done.

Our Review Of  Kate  Is Only Slightly Above Average, But It’s Enough For Netflix

There have been plenty of incredible Netflix originals in the past. From Marriage Story to Roma , the streamer has proven its feature film chops. But its 52 new movies in a year has clearly put some strain on their success ratio. Films like  Beckett have failed, despite their best efforts. Others, like  He’s All That , have turned into memes on Tik Tok .

Compared to recent failures,  Kate  does more than cut it for our Netflix standards. It’s fun, intriguing, and worth watching at home. It might have looked better on the big screen, but this is one that we’re more than happy to stay home and stream.

Readers, do you agree with our review of  Kate ? You can stream it on Netflix now!

Featured image via Netflix.

Meghan Hale is the kind of movie lover that has a "must watch" that is a mile long... and growing. When she isn't talking about the latest film and television news she is writing one of her many in-process novels, screaming film trivia at anybody who will listen, and working as a mental health care professional. Follow her on Twitter @meghanrhale for some fun theories and live reactions to all things entertainment.

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Kate & Leopold

“Kate & Leopold” is a preposterous time-travel romance in which the third Duke of Albany leaves the New York of 1876 and arrives in the New York of Meg Ryan . Well, of course it’s preposterous: Time travel involves so many paradoxes that it is wise, in a romantic comedy like this, to simply ignore them. The movie is not really about time travel anyway, but about elegant British manners vs. American slobbiness. Like the heroine of one of those romance novels her best friend reads, our gal Meg is swept off her feet by a wealthy and titled English lord.

Ryan plays Kate, who works in market research and is responsible for promoting products of dubious value. She’s dating Stuart ( Liev Schreiber ), a half-loony inventor who discovers an opening in the matrix of time, jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge, finds himself in 1876–and returns with his own great-great-grandfather, Leopold, duke of Albany ( Hugh Jackman ).

It is inevitable that Kate will overcome her lukewarm affection for Stuart and fall in love with the dashing Englishman (even though the first time she sees him in military costume, she thinks he’s dressed as Sgt. Pepper). Meg Ryan does this sort of thing about as well as it can possibly be done, and after “ Sleepless in Seattle ” and “ You've Got Mail ,” here is another ingenious plot that teases us with the possibility that true love will fail, while winking that, of course, it will prevail.

“Kate & Leopold” wisely does not depend on the mechanics of the developing romance for its humor. Instead, it uses its fish-out-of-water plot to show Leopold as a proper, well-behaved English aristocrat, astonished by what he finds in modern Manhattan. He’s struck not so much by the traffic and the skyscrapers as by the manners. Walking a dog, he’s asked by a cop if he plans to scoop the poop, and draws himself to his full height to intone: “Are you suggesting, madam, there exists a law compelling gentlemen to lay hold of canine bowel movements?” Both Leopold and his descendant, Stuart, are inventor types. Leopold, we learn, designed the Brooklyn Bridge and invented the elevator. Stuart not only discovered the portal in time, but had enough confidence in his calculations to jump off the bridge and trust that it would open for him. Why he lands on his feet instead of falling to his death in the 1876 river is a question the movie prudently ignores.

The movie, directed by James Mangold (“ Heavy ,” “Girl Interrupted”) and written by Mangold and Steven Rogers , has some droll scenes after Kate enlists Leopold to appear in a TV commercial for Farmer’s Bounty, a low-calorie spread. Leopold’s accent and his sincere conviction are perfect, and the spot goes well until he actually tastes the product, and compares it to saddle soap or raw suet: “It’s revolting!” Kate tries to calm him: “It’s diet. It’s supposed to taste awful.” One of the reasons the movie works is because we like the goodness of the characters; it’s wise, I think, to let Schreiber get over his romantic disappointment as quickly as possible, and become a co-conspirator for love. (Apart from any other reason, Stuart knows that unless Albany returns to 1876 and starts a family, Stuart will never exist.) We know there will be scenes where Kate the practical and cynical girl is swept off her feet by old-fashioned romance, and there are: a candlelit rooftop dinner, and a moment when Leopold tucks her in, she asks him to stay, and he does, in full uniform.

I have here a precautionary message from Will Shank of Toronto, Ontario, who writes that before I review “Kate & Leopold” there are a couple of things I should know: “Prince Leopold, the duke of Albany, was a hemophiliac and, although he has been described as daring and high-spirited, would not have been foolish enough to participate in the dangerous stunts seen in the trailer. He was sickly all his life and his mother, Queen Victoria, expressed surprise that he lived long enough to be married and have a child. Also, Victoria and her children spoke German among themselves, not English. People who knew them related that when they did speak English, it was with a strong German accent.” Thanks, Will. The next time I meet James Mangold, I’ll ask him why he didn’t make “Kate & Leopold” the story of a hemophiliac with a German accent who was afraid to jump off bridges. Sounds like a movie we are all waiting to see.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

• Meg Ryan as Kate
• Breckin Meyer as Charlie
• Philip Bosco as Otis
• Bradley Whitford as J.J. Camden
• Hugh Jackman as Leopold
• Liev Schreiber as Stuart
• Natasha Lyonne as Darci

Directed by

• James Mangold
• Steven Rogers

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"Unpleasant and Unsatisfying"

What You Need To Know:

Miscellaneous Immorality: Very strong miscellaneous immorality includes lying, betrayal and corruption are shown as the heroine’s “handler” is revealed to be a ruthlessly evil man who’s welcomed into the Japanese mafia, or yakuza, title character takes revenge against her boss who poisoned her, and disturbing scenes of the man teaching the heroine how to fight, kill and shoot while she’s still a young girl.

More Detail:

KATE is the umpteenth variation of some recent movies where female assassins have to be more brutal than men ever would be while exacting revenge for a wrong. KATE is a nasty, nihilistic piece of work with lots of strong foul language, graphic violence, some strong lewd content, and other immoral content. It follows fellow Netflix movies like GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE and Amazon’s JOLT in creating utterly unlikable “heroines” who exist solely to kill others. In the case of KATE, it results in a dispiriting mess of a movie that’s completely unsatisfying.

Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is a female assassin who works for a mysterious man named Varrick (Woody Harrelson), who also trained her how to fight, shoot and kill since he abruptly took over her care in childhood. She kicks off things on assignment in Osaka, Japan, where she is to perform a hit on a Yakuza leader that Varrick and his clients have been pursuing for seven months.

She makes the kill but is shaken by the fact that the man’s teenage daughter Ani (Miku Patricia Martineau) is right there next to him, thus breaking her and Varrick’s one rule: to never kill when children are around. Ten months later, she’s assigned to kill the grand leader of the Yakuza, who’s also related to Ani, and finds that she’s suddenly feeling extremely ill after drinking something that Varrick told her to chug.

Kate learns she’s been doublecrossed by her mentor, as she staggers into a hospital only to find out that she has acute radiation poisoning, since her drink was radioactive. She’s given just 24 hours to live, during which time she sets out to finish her assignment but also to get revenge on Varrick by killing him before she dies. Since Ani is also related to the elder Yakuza man, Kate takes her under her wing in what is at first a contentious relationship but becomes a begrudging friendship in Kate’s waning hours.

Will she find Varrick and exact her revenge? And more importantly will Kate ever show enough human emotions for viewers to care?

KATE is almost completely made up of killing people in as bloody a fashion as possible, alternating with verbal sniping between the hitwoman and the foul-mouthed, annoying Ani and downbeat mumbling between Kate and Ani, Kate and Varrick and Kate and the elderly Yakuza. There are several stretches that are Japanese dialogue with subtitles, but they are so mumbled that the scenes prove annoying to follow even with the translation.

Winstead is a rising star who generally does good work in films (particularly 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE and SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD), but here Kate is so poorly underwritten and one-dimensional that Winstead has nothing to in the script to create the character. Ani is a shrill annoyance from start to finish, and Harrelson can play this kind of role in his sleep by now (and possibly did here).

This trend toward hyperviolent films starring women has a disturbing undertone that goes against God’s natural order, where females are supposed to be a greater nurturing force than men. So, seeing a woman just slice, dice, pummel, and blast people as if they’re chunks of meat is not only unpleasant, but probably damaging to the spirit.

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The Holiday

Amanda lives in LA and is a movie trailer editor. Iris lives in Surrey and is a journalist. The two decide to swap houses for two weeks at Christmas - both trying to forget their troubled lo... Read all Amanda lives in LA and is a movie trailer editor. Iris lives in Surrey and is a journalist. The two decide to swap houses for two weeks at Christmas - both trying to forget their troubled love lives, until love finds them anyways. Amanda lives in LA and is a movie trailer editor. Iris lives in Surrey and is a journalist. The two decide to swap houses for two weeks at Christmas - both trying to forget their troubled love lives, until love finds them anyways.

• Nancy Meyers
• Kate Winslet
• Cameron Diaz
• 746 User reviews
• 98 Critic reviews
• 52 Metascore
• 2 wins & 12 nominations

Top cast 73

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• (as Odette Yustman)
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Did you know

• Trivia Miles's ( Jack Black ) studio setup, seen in the opening scene, with keyboard, monitors, sound modules, etc., was copied directly from the studio of Hans Zimmer , who composed the score for the film.
• Goofs When Arthur asks Iris where she is from in England, she answers: Surrey; Arthur then says that Carey Grant came from Surrey which Iris confirms. This is wrong as Cary Grant came from and was born in Bristol, England.

Arthur Abbott : You know what I've been asking myself all night?

Iris : What? Why I'm bothering you with all these questions?

Arthur Abbott : I'm wondering why a beautiful girl like you would go to a strangers' house for their Christmas Vacation, and on top of that spend Saturday night with an old cock-up like me.

Iris : Well, I just wanted to get away from all the people I see all the time!...

[Arthur looks at her incredulously]

Iris : Well, not all the people... one person. I wanted to get away from one... guy.

Iris : An ex-boyfriend who just got engaged and forgot to tell me.

Arthur Abbott : So, he's a schmuck.

Iris : As a matter of fact, he is... a huge schmuck. How did you know?

Arthur Abbott : He let you go. This is not a hard one to figure out. Iris, in the movies we have leading ladies and we have the best friend. You, I can tell, are a leading lady, but for some reason you are behaving like the best friend.

Iris : You're so right. You're supposed to be the leading lady of your own life, for god's sake! Arthur, I've been going to a therapist for three years, and she's never explained anything to me that well. That was brilliant. Brutal, but brilliant.

• Connections Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Blood Diamond/Turistas/The Nativity Story/10 Items or Less/Sweetland (2006)
• Soundtracks Last Christmas Written by George Michael Performed by Wham! Courtesy of Columbia Records and Sony BMG Music Entertainment (UK) Ltd. By arrangement with Sony BMG Music Entertainment

User reviews 746

• Dec 5, 2006
• How long is The Holiday? Powered by Alexa
• December 8, 2006 (United States)
• United States
• United International Pictures (Germany)
• Nơi Tình Yêu Bắt Đầu
• Shere, Surrey, England, UK (village)
• Columbia Pictures
• Universal Pictures
• Relativity Media
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $85,000,000 (estimated)
• $63,224,849
• $12,778,913
• Dec 10, 2006
• $205,891,960

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 16 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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William & kate.

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 1 Review
• Kids Say 0 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Cheesy biopic of royal love story is superficial fun.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that William & Kate is a Lifetime biopic about the courtship of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. It features some light kissing, cutaways that presume sex, enthusiastic college drinking, and some real news footage of Princess Diana's mangled car after the crash. It takes…

Why Age 13+?

Some kissing between William and Kate; sneaking into each other's bedrooms l

"Bitch," "shag."

College students drink enthusiastically in numerous scenes at bars, clubs, their

News footage of Princess Diana's mangled car after the crash; a group of hun

Any Positive Content?

Marrying for love; compromising for those you love; patience; good things come t

Characters are positive, well-intentioned, good people, though some are portraye

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Some kissing between William and Kate; sneaking into each other's bedrooms late at night; crotch shots of Kate as she exits cars by paparazzi; a joke about dropping drawers and mooning; William and Kate shown in bed with each other, clothed; Kate does a fashion show in see-through lingerie, bra and panties visible; men discuss a woman being hot; a guy explains why another guy needs a wingman, to address the number of girls who want to "shag" him.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

College students drink enthusiastically in numerous scenes at bars, clubs, their flats, and parties. They pop champagne, have a glass of wine in the bathtub, and sometimes refer to "drinking themselves silly." No one is shown excessively inebriated or ill. A guy is passed out shirtless on a couch after a party.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

News footage of Princess Diana's mangled car after the crash; a group of hunters fires a few shots at birds.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Marrying for love; compromising for those you love; patience; good things come to those who wait.

Positive Role Models

Characters are positive, well-intentioned, good people, though some are portrayed as shallow and judgmental. Most characters are affluent 20-somethings trying to enjoy themselves and their wealth, shown without a great deal of complexity.

Parents need to know that William & Kate is a Lifetime biopic about the courtship of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. It features some light kissing, cutaways that presume sex, enthusiastic college drinking, and some real news footage of Princess Diana's mangled car after the crash. It takes the future royal couple through their days at university, living together in a flat, later courtship, and eventual marriage. It's not a particularly stellar piece of cinematic work, but it's an amusing, if cheesy, guess at the trajectory of the couple's path to the altar. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (1)

Based on 1 parent review

What's the Story?

Prince William (Nico Evers-Swindell) and Catherine Middleton (Camilla Luddington) are a married royal couple, but it wasn't always so. See how they met at university, became friends as flatmates in London, and navigated their relationship under the scrutiny of the press as they made their way to the altar.

Is It Any Good?

There should be enough here to please fans of the royal couple. The love story between Catherine Middleton and Prince William is often referred to as a fairy tale, but WILLIAM & KATE puts them constantly in each other's lives by such ordinary circumstance that it's hard to see it as very difficult, as if Middleton already had the money and poise to fit right into Prince William's royal life. Still, she's a regular person, and he's a royal, so there's plenty that fascinates in imagining how this relationship got off the ground. Though it's hard to believe some of the details of this love affair -- a particularly bad karaoke performance seems dubious, and Kate being so instantly and intuitively welcomed by Prince Charles does, too -- this is a fun, vicarious, cheesy look at the two's eight-year courtship.

It does raise some interesting questions about how a supposedly ordinary (although, let's be clear, still rich) woman could wed a prince so easily and posits that she played a long game well, waiting it out and enduring a lot of scrutiny to get there. But in the end it stays in the shallow end, and unfortunately we don't get much insight into their real lives or thoughts (how could we?), nor do we have any better sense of the real obstacles the relationship might've faced from the royal family. Instead, think of it as a very unimaginative take on what may have happened but perhaps the closest take we could get outside the tabloids. There's frequent college-appropriate drinking and a little kissing and innuendo, as well as the famous lingerie show, but nothing too steamy for teens. That said, it's probably too boring for younger kids.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the depiction of the couple's relationship. Do you think the movie seems realistic? What works about it, and what doesn't?

How does the film portray the media scrutiny that is part of royal life? Do you think it's accurate?

How is class treated in the film? Do you think people from different class backgrounds can have a happy marriage? Were William and Kate's lives really so different?

Movie Details

• On DVD or streaming : April 18, 2011
• Cast : Camilla Luddington , Ben Cross , Nico Evers-Swindell
• Director : Mark Rosman
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Lifetime
• Genre : Romance
• Topics : History
• Run time : 87 minutes
• MPAA rating : NR
• MPAA explanation : TV-14
• Last updated : September 1, 2023

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‘Martha’ Review: R.J. Cutler Lifts the Lid on All the Good (and Bad) Things About Martha Stewart

Kate erbland, editorial director.

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As Cutler holds on Stewart, she has to break the silence, giving just a smidge more away with each passing word. Consider a moment in the film ‘s first act, as Stewart begins to unpack what led to the dissolution of her marriage to college sweetheart Andy Stewart: a defiant and clearly still very angry Martha initially offers some advice for the women out there, telling them if their husbands step out on them, leave them, full stop , and always regard them as the “piece of shit” they are. But, Cutler implores, didn’t Martha cheat on Andy before he cheated on her? No!, Martha says. But Andy told the director that. Well, Martha shakes it off, that was different. Was it really ? To Stewart, it was.

It’s an instructive moment, teasing the ways in which Stewart sees the world and her place within it: there are her rules, and then there are the rules she can break. If nothing else, audience members will walk away from “Martha” with a far greater understanding of Stewart — of all the “good things,” in her parlance, and plenty of the bad — and equal admiration and unease of what that all adds up to.

But she’s Martha. And in this world, her spin on being “perfectly perfect” was both rewarded and damned. Cutler’s challenge? Selling that complexity with an even hand. Despite only showing Stewart in the hot seat, Cutler and his team have assembled a wide swath of other talking heads (well, talking voices ) to round out her story. Many of them, unsurprisingly enough, see some of her greatest joy and deepest tragedies in different terms that Stewart does. Early on, Stewart walks us through her childhood, punctuated by a tough-talking father who taught the kids how to garden (mostly, they needed to grow their own food, because as ambitious as the guy was, he wasn’t very good at his actual job), a memory Stewart looks back on fondly and her siblings all remember as being nearly abusive. This dichotomy sets the stage for what’s to come.

“Martha” premiered at the 2024 Telluride Film Festival. Netflix will release it at a later date.

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