This is the second recommendation for the week of something from 2025 but I feel like I’m allowed as both have just emerged onto streaming services and both reviews were previously behind the Substack paywall, so many subscribers wouldn’t have been able to read them.
The weekend we saw Relay was also a weekend where we watched the new 4K disc of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (and you can read about that at the original post):
The Conversation turned out to be in conversation, if you like, with a film we did get to see in cinemas on Saturday, David Mackenzie’s Relay. Similarly occupied by secrets, surveillance, trust and betrayal, Relay’s first two-thirds is about as good as modern thrillers get. If your favourite bits of spy movies is the attention to detail of tradecraft, then you’ll be in clover like I was. The film’s title comes from the Tri-State Relay Service, a way for the hard-of-hearing to have telephone conversations involving a third party speaking and transcribing the conversation between two people. “Go ahead.”
Riz Ahmed’s secretive corporate fixer uses it to hide everything about his identity as he negotiates the return of sensitive documents that have been stolen by whistleblowers who subsequently get cold feet. Indeed, for the first half of the film he doesn’t have a single line of dialogue, suggesting he might be playing another deaf character, as he did when he blew us all away as the rock drummer in Sound of Metal (2019).
He’s engaged by a terrified Lily James, who is in possession of a report accusing her former genetic crop modifier employers of producing toxic wheat. They’ve been making threats and now she wants to return the report and make the whole problem go away. But, she knows what she knows, and Ahmed’s Ash has the only solution that can keep her safe. But keeping these dangerous secrets secret puts millions of others at risk — from poisonous food products to unsafe pharmaceuticals — and is starting to eat away at his own conscience.
The premise and execution of the first two acts is so good that it shouldn’t be surprising that the conclusion doesn’t quite measure up. Endings are hard. But Relay is still one of the tightest and most satisfying thrillers of the year.
Also in that new releases post from August last year: Ari Aster’s divisive Eddington (which I was squarely in the negative camp about) and Workmates which originally featured in the New Zealand International Film Festival that year and, therefore, was itself a bit of recycling.
Where to watch Relay
Aotearoa: Streaming on Neon or Prime Video
Australia, Canada, Ireland & UK: Streaming on Prime Video
India: Streaming on Lionsgate Play
USA: Streaming on Netflix
