Franz

Franz is a restless, jagged attempt to film Kafka from the inside out, and it only half succeeds.

Agnieszka Holland rejects the safe, linear biopic for a collage of timelines, direct-to-camera addresses, and crash zooms that oscillate between inspired and self-indulgent. Idan Weiss gives a sharply nervy Kafka, twitching between embarrassment, curiosity, and dread, and the film shines whenever it simply watches him navigate family, lovers, and the suffocating bureaucracy he'd later weaponize on the page.

Franz is a restless, jagged attempt to film Kafka from the inside out, and it only ha...