The Girl and the Spider
59th New York Film Festival
September 24 - October 10, 2021
A minor-key symphony of inscrutable glances and irresolvable tensions, the Zürcher brothers’ alternately droll and melancholy film charts a few days in the lives of two young people on the verge of change: Lisa, who is in the process of moving into a new apartment, and her current roommate, Mara, who’s staying behind.
Ends Thursday!
Everything is in its right place, yet nothing is ever what or where it seems in this alternately droll and melancholy new film from the Zürcher brothers, whose The Strange Little Cat was one of the most striking and original debut features of recent years. Their latest charts a few days in the lives of two young people on the verge of change: Lisa (Liliane Amuat), who is in the process of moving into a new apartment, and her current roommate, Mara (Henriette Confurius), who’s staying behind. Though its setup is simple, the film—and the ambiguous relationship between the women—is anything but. The architectural precision of the filmmaking belies the inchoate longings and desires that appear to course through Lisa and Mara, as well as the various characters who come in and out of their homes. The Girl and the Spider is a minor-key symphony of inscrutable glances and irresolvable tensions. A Cinema Guild release. An NYFF59 Main Slate selection.
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Introducing Matinee Pricing! All tickets are $10 for screenings before 3pm.
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The film demands and rewards repeat viewings; it’s different, and more entrancing, every time.
—Ben Kenigsberg, The New York Times
An extraordinarily patient, emotionally probing, deeply moving film that engages with and profoundly understands the complexities of life.
—Christopher Schobert, The Film Stage
A film of poetic abstractions and ellipses... consistently fascinating in its unrepentant coyness.
—Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire
Deliciously ambiguous... doubly fascinating.
—Peter Debruge, Variety
With unassuming humor and quiet command of a self-built cinematic language, the Zürchers continue to be that rarest of things: a genre of one.
—Jordan Cronk, MUBI Notebook
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