Sacrifice

The attendees at an environmental conference/benefit in Greece seem more like the guests at an A-list Hollywood party than a serious intellectual summit. There’s actor Mike Tyler (Chris Evans), the oblivious star of numerous successful action movies, who’s now undergoing an existential crisis. He hopes to deliver a rousing speech demanding a real response to climate change, and to reset his brand in the process.

Braken (Vincent Cassel), a fusion of your least favourite billionaires, is present to muster support for a highly questionable deep-sea mining effort targeting essential minerals.

Complicating their efforts is Joan (Anya Taylor-Joy), the leader of a doomsday eco-cult. She and her acolytes are convinced the only way to prevent the catastrophic, world-ending eruption of the huge volcano burbling off the coast is to offer up suitably famous sacrifices.

Directed and co-written by Romain Gavras, Sacrifice features the same full-tilt pacing as his last feature, Athena. And it’s likely the timeliest, most energetic satire you’ll see this year. Sending up everything from desperate, phony celebrity activists, Stockholm syndrome, our obsession with wealth and fame, and our era’s insistence on embracing the most crackpot beliefs regardless of politics, the film also boasts a stacked cast including John Malkovich as Joan’s father, Salma Hayek Pinault as Mrs. Braken, and appearances by Ambika Mod and Charli xcx (also at this year's festival in Erupcja). At the same time, it calls into question our leaders’ — and our own — inability to make any significant personal sacrifices in the face of imminent disaster.

ROBYN CITIZEN