Andrea Thompson, Author at The Mary Sue

Andrea Thompson

(she/her) Andrea Thompson is a writer, editor, and film critic who is also the founder and director of the Film Girl Film Festival. She is a member of the Chicago Indie Critics and runs her own site, A Reel Of One's Own. She has no intention of becoming any less obsessed with cinema, comics, or nerdom in general.

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The Souvenir Part 2.

Honor Swinton Byrne Takes Back the Narrative in The Souvenir Part II

What writer-director Joanna Hogg demands above all is attention, and as another great filmmaker once suggested, love and attention just might be the same thing.

Film still from The Mad Women's Ball.

Review: Gaslighting Is Institutional in Mélanie Laurent’s The Mad Women’s Ball

Credit to Mélanie Laurent, who is continuing her directing career with The Mad Women’s Ball, because she knows when she should hold back

I'm your man trailer still with the two leads face to face.

Review: Dan Stevens Is an Android Dreamboat in I’m Your Man

Many films are outright desperate to speak to our times, but Maria Schrader’s Berlin-set sci-fi romcom I’m Your Man could genuinely lay claim to that and more.

Two girls embrace as they observe a shelter they've built in the woods in Celine Sciamma's Petite Maman.

Review: Don’t Go Looking for the Fire in Céline Sciamma’s New Film Petite Maman

For all Céline Sciamma’s massive talent and success, I imagine that her position in a post-Portrait of a Lady on Fire world isn’t always an enviable one. How do you follow up on a film so lavished with awards, audience appreciation, and near-universal acclaim?

Kristen Wiig as Barbara Minerva, a.k.a. Cheetah, in Wonder Woman 1984.

Wonder Woman 1984′s Cheetah Is All Wasted Potential and Bad Implications

Wonder Woman 1984 isn’t just one of the few superhero movies to have a female lead with the titular heroine, a.k.a. Diana Prince (Gal Gadot). Even in a market already saturated with superhero fare, it’s one of the few to feature a female supervillian. Even juicier—and, potentially, hilarious—is that it’s the Cheetah. How delicious to have a villain who is also a cat, often a symbol of femininity itself?

Alice Cullen smiles knowingly in Twilight.

Twilight Should Be Revamped … and Focus on the Real Heroine This Time

Another revamp of a popular franchise would be as groan-inducing as that pun if it weren’t for my belief that there is something to be gained by a fresh look if it puts the focus on one character who also happens to be one of the only reasons I found any joy in Twilight at all. That would be Alice Cullen.