Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins report from their first Cannes Film Festival experience, covering nine days of screenings, premieres, and the festival's unique culture. Fennessey attended for nine days while Dobbins joined for seven, experiencing everything from 8:30 AM press screenings to black-tie gala premieres.

The festival proved more crowded and tourist-heavy than expected, with the Côte d'Azur beach town attracting families and vacationers alongside the film industry. The hosts navigated multiple screening venues, from the main Palais theaters to smaller press rooms, experiencing the full spectrum of festival culture.

This year's competition featured established masters like Christian Mungiu, Asghar Farhadi, and Hirokazu Kore-eda, though many delivered films below their usual standards. The most exciting discoveries came from unexpected sources, including Jordan Firstman's debut feature and genre entries that challenged traditional Cannes sensibilities.

Jordan Firstman's Club Kid Emerges as Festival Standout

Club Kid, Jordan Firstman's debut feature in Un Certain Regard, surprised both hosts as potentially the festival's best film, quickly acquired by A24

Set in New York's club kid scene circa 2016, the film pivots from in-your-face comedy to sincere drama about parenthood and growing up in your early 30s

Producer Alex Coco, known for Sean Baker's films, helped develop the project, bringing independent film expertise to Firstman's vision

"It has as much in common with Kramer versus Kramer as it does with Requiem for a Dream" - Amanda on the film's unexpected emotional depth

Christian Mungiu's Fjord Tackles Cultural Integration

Fjord stars Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve as Romanian immigrants to Norway with five children, exploring progressive versus conservative cultural values

The film elicited strong reactions as "this year's Anatomy of a Fall," prompting immediate post-screening debates about cultural responsibility and child welfare

Stan shaved his head for the unglamorous role, speaking Romanian and portraying an extremely tightly wound religious patriarch

"It really feels like Christian Mungiu went on like a terrible two-week vacation in Norway" - Sean on the director's apparent inspiration

Hamaguchi's All of a Sudden Explores Elder Care and Capitalism

Ryusuke Hamaguchi's 196-minute epic about French elder care features a notorious 12-minute whiteboard sequence explaining capitalism

Virginia Efira plays a nursing home director who forms an intense friendship with theater director Tao Okamoto, transforming their community

"The movie does spend a lot of time specifically talking through the ideas... the memes will be amazing" - Sean on the didactic whiteboard scene

The film functions as both a how-to manual for elder care and a meditation on maintaining humanity within capitalist systems

James Gray's Paper Tiger Returns to Queens Crime Territory

Paper Tiger stars Adam Driver, Miles Teller, and Scarlett Johansson in a 1986 Queens-set crime thriller about two brothers and the Russian mafia

Driver delivers a phenomenal performance as a swashbuckling ex-cop businessman, potentially positioning him for Oscar consideration in supporting actor

The film draws heavily from Gray's previous works, functioning as "almost like a collage collusion of ideas he's been working on over a 30-plus year period"

Johansson's performance polarized viewers, with some calling it "Mom Drag" while others praised its authenticity to the Queens working-class milieu

Na Hong-jin's Hope Brings Alien Invasion Spectacle to Competition

Hope runs 2 hours 40 minutes as a Michael Bay-esque alien invasion thriller, featuring Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, and Taylor Russell in unexpected roles

The film opens with a 45-minute pre-CGI chase sequence that earned applause from the gala premiere audience, followed by Ho Young-jun's crowd-pleasing appearance

"It is hilarious that they put this in competition because it could not be further from a competition movie as we historically understand it" - Sean

Despite incredible production design and exhilarating action, the film suffers from poor monster CGI and excessive length that undermines its rollicking pace

Established Masters Deliver Disappointing Efforts

Asghar Farhadi's Parallel Tales, a French film with Isabelle Huppert and Vincent Cassel, proved boring despite its stellar cast and Kieslowski influences

Hirokazu Kore-eda's Sheep in the Box, about parents replacing their dead child with an AI robot, "felt like Kore-eda just did not know what to do with this idea"

Steven Soderbergh's John Lennon: The Last Interview was undermined by "Grok AI images" that looked like "what your mom or grandma would produce when typing into Sora"

The AI sequences in Soderbergh's documentary were "distracting and weird and feels way out of place and kind of torpedoed the movie"