The Sparrow in the Chimney

10/25/2024

To be blunt, I really dislike arthouse films that give the genre a bad name, yet writer-director Ramon Zürcher’s third feature outing regrettably does just that. This pretentious, meandering exercise in allegedly profound cinema falls flat shortly after it begins and never recovers, growing ever more pointless, unfocused and self-important as it unfolds. Set in the rural childhood home of two very different and quietly combative sisters (Maren Eggert, Britta Hammelstein), the film follows the events associated with a birthday celebration involving the siblings and their families. As the festivities (if they can be called that) begin to play out, however, it quickly becomes apparent that this party will go anything but smoothly given its cast of largely reprehensible characters, nearly all