'Alpha' Review: A Maddening, Boldly Original Look at Overcoming Trauma
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If you’re wondering what you’re getting into with Alpha , consider that subversive director Julia Ducournau's previous film — 2021's Palme d’Or winner Titane — featured a woman having sex with a Cadillac. Here, the Paris-born auteur moves slightly in the opposite direction, delivering something a notch lower on the Ducournau Scale of Transgression. It's still as maddening as it is riveting, but she operates in a more meditative, melancholy register in telling a story about familial trauma as filtered through the AIDS crisis of the ’80s and ’90s.
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'Alpha' Review: A Maddening, Boldly Original Look at Overcoming Trauma By Mark Keizer Published Mar 23, 2026, 2:02 PM EDT Mark is a long-time film critic and member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association . He's previously written film reviews for publications such as Variety , A.V. Club, Boxoffice Magazine, Cinegods and L.A. CityBeat. Mark also co-hosted the long-running Digigods podcast as well as the live-streaming film review show, Stupid for Movies. Mark is also an Emmy nominated Executive Producer. He was Executive Producer of Discovery's Josh Gates Tonight, as well as Seasons 5 and 6 of Comedy Central’s The Man Show, co-hosted by Joe Rogan. Before that Mark was Executive Producer of New Media at E! Entertaiment Television and Segment Producer for the Howard Stern Interview and the Roseanne talk show. Having been born in New York, Mark is also a lifelong New York Mets fan. Condolences are welcome. Sign in to your MovieWeb account If you’re wondering what you’re getting into with Alpha , consider that subversive director Julia Ducournau's previous film — 2021's Palme d’Or winner Titane — featured a woman having sex with a Cadillac. Here, the Paris-born auteur moves slightly in the opposite direction, delivering something a notch lower on the Ducournau Scale of Transgression. It's still as maddening as it is riveting, but she operates in a more meditative, melancholy register in telling a story about familial trauma as filtered through the AIDS crisis of the ’80s and ’90s. Getting to the crux of the issue in any of Ducournau’s three feature-length films is a heavy lift. Her visual maximalism is always pointed inward, so the violence, body horror, and visual flights of dark, twisted fancy often bury whatever the hell it is she’s trying to say. Alpha suffers from this to such a degree that, at this point, being simultaneously moved and exasperated by a Ducournau film is simply part of the deal. If she is going to work this ha...
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