Prison Movie Wives’ Black Heart Movie Diary: Best of 2024

This article appeared in the January 3, 2025 edition of The Film Comment Letter, our free weekly newsletter featuring original film criticism and writing. Sign up for the Letter here.

Imaginary (Jeff Wadlow, 2024)

Whatever your political affiliation, 2024 was a year full of anxiety, anger, sadness, fear, and strong core beliefs clashing head-on. It happened in the news, at workplaces, and behind the barbed-wire fences surrounding Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, where we are incarcerated.

The only respite for the Bedford Hills Movie Wives was to settle in, put aside the insanity of the world, and seek out solace on the silver screen. Here are our reviews of some of the cinematic escapes we experienced last year. Each film is rated using our own system of one to five “Black Hearts.”

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Jessica (DeWanda Wise) is trying to do right by her stepdaughters by moving in with them and their father into her childhood home. Within days, the younger girl, Alice (Pyper Braun), finds a teddy bear in the basement who ingratiatingly announces that he is her imaginary friend, Chauncey.

Jeff Wadlow’s latest thriller is a combination of childhood nostalgia and straight horror, as the reality sets in that not every imaginary friend is innocuous. Wise and Braun are a match made in casting heaven, as the story moves from sentimentality to fear to outright genre territory, ultimately concluding by affirming that the power of love is enough to save a family from destruction.

Watching Imaginary, I was taken back to my own childhood, when I clung tightly at bedtime to my imaginary friend and teddy bear named Teddy Roosevelt. I relied on T.R., as I called him, to protect me as I slept—I believed that he came to life at night, wielding a massive club twice his size to do battle with anything that went bump in the night.

Imaginary threads a difficult needle between blended-family drama and traditional Blumhouse horror. Watching this movie alone in the dark while snuggling with your favorite teddy… is something I would absolutely not recommend.

Rating: 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤  

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Based on the Tony-winning musical of the same name, which premiered in 2015, Dear Evan Hansen stars Ben Platt as Evan, a depressed 17-year-old who reluctantly lies about having been friends with Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan), a classmate who recently took his own life. The main theme of the movie is so heavy that it could be considered uncomfortable, but the infusion of music into the plot is seamless and adds a much-needed touch of levity.

That said, I was not impressed with the actors, and I was disappointed in much of the casting. I love Amy Adams, but she doesn’t fit the role of Cynthia, Connor’s grieving mother. With her natural bubbly personality shining through, Adams makes Cynthia seem less like a heartbroken mother and more like an aunt with a Peter Pan complex. Platt is fantastically awkward in the role of the title character. But at 27 years old, the actor seems much more mature than a high-school senior, which often makes his interactions with Connor’s sister, Zoe (youthful Kaitlyn Dever), seem a little weird. The most believable character in the film is Heidi Hansen, Evan’s mother, played by Julianne Moore. She has the look and energy of an exhausted single mom, and her relatively fragile connection to her son feels more authentic than Evan’s relationship with the Murphy family.

Dever is well-cast as Zoe, and she’s very natural in the role. Zoe is a significant factor in the plot, but she is not the center of the story, and the actress is careful to portray both her importance and her insignificance at the same time. Since the casting choices were my only major gripe, I still give this film 4.5 black hearts. Jess liked it, too—she bawled her eyes out… twice.

Rating: 🖤🖤🖤🖤1/2

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Two years after moving to San Francisco, Riley and her personified emotions—Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Tony Hale), and Disgust (Liza Lapira)—find themselves embarking on their biggest challenge yet: puberty. Joining them on the journey are new emotions Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), and Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos). As Riley navigates her way through a weekend hockey camp, Anxiety and the new group of emotions take over headquarters, kicking out Joy and the rest of the original team. Now the five stalwarts must travel through Riley’s mind, meeting interesting new characters along the way, and find a route back to headquarters before Riley is sent down a path of self-destruction.

I adored this film. There are countless clever examples of the inner workings of the teenage mind scattered throughout the story (I see you, Family Island!) that make Riley instantly relatable. For adults, this is a fun way to relive our own cringeworthy puberty years, while for the younger audience, it is a cute way to help them understand the changes that are going on in their bodies and temperaments, and to let them know they are not alone. My favorite thing about this movie is watching the emotions express their own wide range of feelings as they encounter new challenges. I did, however, find some redundancy with the plot of the first film: Joy repeats her mistake, and Anxiety copies it, by trying to maintain firm control of the console and develop Riley’s personality single-handedly.

Jess really enjoyed how the movie also explored the emotions of the people in Riley’s life, from her best friends to her mother (Diane Lane). She found herself deeply moved by the development of Riley’s personality from childhood innocence to a more adult self-awareness. Without a doubt, Inside Out 2 gets a solid five black hearts from me, even considering the issues with the plot. Haven’t we all repeated some of our past mistakes at some point? It doesn’t take away from the beauty, integrity, or simple joy of the film.

Rating: 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤  

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Sam (Lupita Nyong’o) is living out her final days with a terminal illness in a hospice care facility outside New York City, accompanied by her beloved service cat, Frodo, and loyal nurse and friend Reuben (Alex Wolff). She is conned into visiting the city for a day with the promise of a show and, more importantly, pizza. Little does she know that her “last, last trip” into the city will turn apocalyptic when NYC is invaded by extraterrestrial beings that are hypersensitive to sound. In a world of silence, terror, and unexpected friendship, Sam sets out to fulfill her last promise to herself: pizza.

Nyong’o delivers a poetic performance of wit, sarcasm, and aggression, portraying Sam’s terrifying reality masterfully. Could you remain silent when every fiber of your being is begging to scream in the face of a monster straight from the depths of your darkest imagination? Sam’s inner struggle with a lingering death collides with the imminent threat of perishing at the smallest creak of a misplaced footstep.

I am giving A Quiet Place: Day One four out of five black hearts because of the story’s inconsistencies surrounding the lethality of sound; at times, I was left wondering how a noise could be fatal one moment and not the next. Courtney thought Sam’s illness detracted from the powerful ending—and we both felt that Frodo was the real MVP.

Still, the movie was an interesting blend of horror, empathy, and humor. Sam’s unexpected friendship with Eric (Joseph Quinn), a law student whom she meets on her journey, shows the true meaning of human connection and compassion, while Frodo shows Sam companionship and love. I jumped, laughed, and even cried. This film is a beautiful display of humanity in an apocalyptic world.

Rating: 🖤🖤🖤🖤

Sara Kielly is a 35-year-old trans woman who is incarcerated at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in the Hudson Valley of New York State. Her work has appeared in Slate, New York Amsterdam News, Spotlong Review, and New York Focus.

Courtney McDonell is a 34-year-old woman currently incarcerated at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility who dreams of someday being an author. She’s also a certified cat lady.

Jessica Sims is a 29-year-old woman/squirrel/knitter incarcerated at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. She is a mother of two beautiful young ladies. She cries a lot… like A LOT.