Caught Stealing takes place in New York’s Lower East Side in 1998. It’s a milieu that Darren Aronofsky knows well, as this is where he made Pi (1998), the imaginative feature that kickstarted his directorial career. Since that attention-grabbing debut, Aronofsky’s path has taken some unpredictable turns. One the one hand, he has established himself a filmmaker with a proven track record for directing actors to Oscar contention in modestly budgeted star vehicles like The Wrestler (2008), Black Swan (2010) and The Whale (2022), but he’s also been prone to taking wild leftfield swings in films like The Fountain (2006) and Mother! (2017); pictures that seemed designed to alienate as many audience members as they intrigued.
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne established their reputation through their intense portraits of individual protagonists, but after splitting focus between two characters in Tori and Lokita, they have now made their most expansive film yet. Young Mothers introduces us to a group of teens living in a shelter for young mothers and mothers-to-be, and it’s the brothers’ first true ensemble piece. It’s also one of their finest films.
