Hunting bears
2021 · 10m · Reino Unido
Directed by Jason Ruddy
Genres: drama
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
As Alzheimer's tests the bond between two brothers, a devoted caregiver faces emotional wear in the forest of his childhood, leading to a moving clash of emotions and a sincere struggle to connect.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's a competent grief story—exactly the kind of Sundance-circuit emotional wallop that everyone expects from a brothers-and-Alzheimer's premise, which is precisely why it doesn't interest me; there's no formal risk, no weird angle that makes you reconsider what this story could be.
Ruddy understands the classical restraint required for this material: the forest becomes a formally controlled mirror for interior dissolution, and the editing resists sentimentality by letting silences do the emotional work—this is a film conscious of its own place in the landscape drama tradition.
The sound design choice to let the forest ambience gradually overwhelm dialogue rather than undercut it is what transforms this from generic caregiver-fatigue into something genuinely unsettling—a small production decision that reframes the entire emotional architecture.