– TIFF Dispatch –
by Jason Bailey | Crooked Marquee | September 11, 2025
So few films — even indies, even festival favorites — are willing to take the risk of tinkering with standard storytelling techniques, with the ways in which a movie moves from one scene to another, chronologically and stylistically.
I’ve enjoyed every film Raoul Peck has made since I Am Not Your Negro, my favorite film (documentary or narrative) of 2016, while quietly wondering if he had another one that great in him. With Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5, he proves, unquestionably, that he does. It’s the follow-up film most like Negro, again spotlighting the work of a timeless author solely by his words, accompanied by images from both the times that inspired them and the current political moment that they may as well be commenting on. But one can forgive him for repeating himself, since he does it so effectively.
The subject, obviously, is George Orwell, an author whose ideas and terminology seem to only grow more relevant with time, yet are often carelessly deployed by those who don’t understand them, or even to mean the opposite of what he intended (ironically enough). It’s impeccably assembled, using everything from film adaptations of his novels to contemporary war footage and acts of political violence (Mr. Trump, as you can imagine, gets plenty of screen time) to illustrate such undeniable notions as “The very concept of objective truth is fading out in this world.” By the time he’s giving us pointed examples of newspeak in 2025, it’s clear that Peck has made the movie of the moment. “All that matters has already been written,” Orwell is quoted as writing early in the film, and by the time it’s repeated at the end, it’s a real you can say that again moment.
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