Hello and welcome back to “What I Watched This Month.” You guessed it, this is where I review shows/movies I watched during the month. I am covering February this time so let’s jump right in. Potential spoilers are ahead, as usual.

Normal People 

Score: 9/10

This short Hulu miniseries follows our two protagonists, Connell and Marianne, as they enter and leave each other’s lives. It is a simple story about figuring out your life whilst you are young, yet at the same time balancing your relationships with those around you. The story although simple is brought to life by the lead actors Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones. Their performances portray the life of a young adult and how chaotic it is well in my opinion. Through their performances, our two characters come off as humans who are vulnerable and relatable.

Aftersun

Score: 10/10

If I have watched your movie four times in the span of four months, then you are doing something right. I already raved about Aftersun in last month’s edition, but my points still stand. Charlotte Wells is gifted by having such a great debut film. Frankie Corio and Paul Mescal are still stellar with their performances. They really do make what would be an otherwise simple movie into something so much more deep and complex. I mainly rewatched this because Mescal got nominated for lead performance at the Oscars. If you have not watched Aftersun, please do. At this point, it probably warrants its own article. 

Decision to Leave

Score: 7/10

Honestly, I was expecting more out of this, considering it’s from Park Chan-Wook, the same man behind Oldboy and Handmaiden, in addition to all the things I have heard about it. The film follows a detective investigating the death of a man. This leads to encounters with the man’s widow. Although strong, I feel like this should have been two separate movies. The movie does not balance its detective and romance stuff too well in my opinion. Both are strong in their own ways, but they both hinder each other. Besides that, everything else is pretty good. Strong performance and it is shot beautifully. Just the separate parts of the story feel just ok and both could have been made stronger if the story was focused on one instead of both. 

Waves

Score: 7/10

Waves is a very divisive movie — people hate it or they love it. I am slotted somewhere between both camps. It follows an African-American family with two teenage kids in suburban Florida. The film shows the struggles of each individual member of the family. We follow one sibling for around half the runtime. Then, we follow the other during the other half with the parents and each child’s individual relationships as supporting characters. During the midpoint, there is an unexpected, jarring tragedy. The pacing of the movie is a little weird. The soundtrack of Kanye, Kendrick, Tyler the Creator, Kid Cudi, Frank Ocean, Chance the Rapper, Radiohead, and Animal Collective is a strange choice. Really works in some scenes and throws off the entire mood of a scene in other instances. So, in conclusion, pacing and soundtrack are my big gripes but everything else is pretty decent. The performances are strong from our two leads Kelvin Harrison Jr’s Tyler and Taylor Russell’s Emily. The true stand-out however is Sterling K. Brown’s Ronald. His performance as the kid’s father shook me.

So yeah that’s it. I really did not watch a whole lot in February. Stuff that I also watched but did not put on here cause they are not finished are The Last of Us and Your Honor, Season Two. Last of Us will get its own series review. Anyways I will leave you with this shameless Letterboxd plug again https://letterboxd.com/RiskyDingo/.