Festival de Cannes 2025, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

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Sound of Falling by Mascha Schilinsky kicks off the race for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival 2025, followed by Two Prosecutors by Serguei Losnitza, while Tom Cruise achieved the impossible in The Final Reckoning by Christopher McQuarrie.

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The Final Reckoning: Opened yesterday with the screening of Partir un Jour by Amélie Bonnin, the 78th edition of the Festival de Cannes saw the official competition kick off with Sound of Falling, the second feature film by German director Mascha Schilinsky, and Two Prosecutors by Ukrainian filmmaker Serguei Losnitza. Screened out of competition, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning by Christopher McQuarrie made waves on the Croisette with its grandiose action scenes in a universe where, already, artificial intelligence (AI) seeks to sow chaos and desolation and destroy humanity.

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Mean global artificial intelligence

The Croisette was buzzing for the premiere of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the eighth part of the action saga presented out of competition at the 78th Festival de Cannes. Once again directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the craftsman behind the franchise’s resurgence, The Final Reckoning launches Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his IMF team into their most perilous mission to date against a powerful and enigmatic enemy capable of controlling global artificial intelligence. The stakes have never been higher, blurring the lines between physical and digital threats. The word “Final” in the title leaves a sense of closure; but Tom Cruise remains as brilliant and as dedicated to action as ever.

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Action and emotional depth

The entire cast, including Simon Pegg as Benji and Ving Rhames as Luther, as well as the newcomers to the saga Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff, delivered solid performances, adding layers to the complex plot. Grace, the character played by Hayley Atwell, made a strong impression, hinting at a dynamic and convincing addition to the IMF team. If the action and emotional depth are always breathtaking, the balance between the complex plot and the relentless action sequences seems to be a challenge for the film. It remains to be seen whether this complexity enhances or detracts from the overall film experience.

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Appropriate farewell, final chapter?

Ultimately, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning brings questions to Cannes. Is it an appropriate farewell or a final chapter for Ethan Hunt? The thrilling and emotionally rich film offers the intense experiences characteristic of the saga while also attempting to bring it to a close? The question of whether it manages to rank among the best films in the series will be the subject of much discussion upon its worldwide release. One thing is for sure: Tom Cruise and the IMF give it their all on screen!

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Sound of Falling, dreamlike whispers

Mascha Schilinsky was introduced to the public at the Berlinale in 2017 with her feature film Die Tochter (Dark Blue Girl). Her second feature film is a “women’s film” that takes us on an inner journey, exploring the meanders of memory, mourning, and the complexity of family ties with both a delicate and immersive approach. Four young girls in four different eras, Alma, Erika, Angelika, and Lenka, spend their adolescence in the same farmhouse in northern Germany. The house transforms over the century, but the echoes of the past languorously resonate between its walls. Despite the years that separate them, their lives seem to resonate with each other: Schilinsky unfolds a non-linear narrative, where the present and reminiscences intertwine in a work steeped in atmospheres, which remains rather personal.

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Powerful sensory universe

The title of the film takes on its full meaning in the way Schilinsky uses sound to instill its atmosphere. The director creates a powerful sensory universe, where silences weigh as much as the dialogues – rare and whispered. The cinematography, often bathed in melancholic sepia tones and subdued lighting, contributes to this dreamlike and introspective atmosphere. The frames are often static, contemplative, inviting the viewer to linger on the details, the fleeting expressions of faces, the textures of the places, all with impressive mastery and maturity. But the contemplative approach and fragmented narration of Sound of Falling, the languid pace, and the lack of precise explanations in the script require patience and a willingness to be carried away by the atmosphere and visual suggestions. Might not be suitable for all viewers…

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Chilling documentary

After My Joy, a road movie presented in Competition in 2010, Maïdan in Special Screening in 2014, and The Invasion, presented in Un Certain Regard in 2024, Serguei Loznitsa delivers a chilling documentary with Two Prosecutors. True to his rigorous approach and his use of often unpublished archives, the Ukrainian filmmaker immerses the viewer in the heart of two emblematic trials of Soviet history: the Moscow Trials of the 1930s and the Nuremberg Trials after World War II. Loznitsa weaves a powerful and unsettling narrative by focusing on the role and speeches of the lead prosecutors in these two major trials: Andrei Vyshinsky for the Stalinist trials and Robert H. Jackson for Nuremberg. Through their words, strategies, and confrontations, the film sheds light on the mechanisms of instrumentalized justice, relentless ideologies, and the colossal political stakes of these dark eras.

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Complexities and compromises

The strength of the film lies in its meticulous editing and lack of direct commentary. Loznitsa lets the images and words speak for themselves, confronting the viewer with Vychinski’s relentless rhetoric, orchestrating absurd accusations and coerced confessions in an atmosphere of palpable terror. In contrast, Jackson’s interventions at Nuremberg, while aiming to establish international justice in the face of Nazi crimes, also reveal the complexities and compromises inherent in such an event. Without seeking to establish a simplistic equivalence between the two trials, the work highlights the distinct historical contexts and the different objectives of each procedure. However, by juxtaposing them, Loznitsa raises fundamental questions about the nature of power, the manipulation of justice for political ends, and the fragility of the rule of law in the face of totalitarian ideologies.