The Lost City of Z

Filmmaker James Gray (Little Odessa, Festival 1995) returns with this long-awaited adaptation of David Grann’s bestseller, which traces the stranger-than-fiction history of Percy Fawcett (Sons of Anarchy’s Charlie Hunnam), an English officer circa the early 20th century with a disgraced family name and stillborn social aspirations. A new assignment from the army, however, promises a shot at redemption: travel to South America and chart the outer edges of Bolivia. With his trusty sidekick Henry Costin (Robert Pattinson) in tow, Fawcett travels up the Amazon and wards off hunger, piranha attacks, and restless arrow-launching natives. Once he’s completed his mission, the major is ready to return home to his wife (Sienna Miller) and his family. Then a tribesman takes him further into the jungle, where Fawcett finds what he believes is evidence of a long-lost civilization. And for the next few decades, his determination to track down this primitive society will cost him his reputation, his standing among his fellow explorers, and much more. Part Herzogian exploration of Mother Nature’s heart of darkness, part Kipling-esque ripping yarn, and part widescreen epic, The Lost City of Z drops viewers into Victorian England’s aristocratic backrooms, the bloody battlefields of WWI, and the deepest, lushest corners of the rainforest. But what distinguishes this epic is how it puts the audience right in the mouth of madness, as it follows one man’s descent down the rabbit hole of an obsession one muddy step at a time. Anchored by a surefooted performance from Hunnam and Gray’s meticulous attention to detail, it’s a stunning example of following an elusive quest to the ends of the Earth and back again. —David Fear