“April” is a gripping, hard-to-watch film about a doctor caught in the sexist crosshairs of a no-win situation.
Nick Schager
Feb. 2 2025
A naked inhuman creature stands in the inky dark. Its skin wrinkled, its flesh-covered face devoid of eyes, a nose, or a mouth, and its breaths heavy and rhythmic. It slowly turns and walks away to the unrelated (or is it?) sound of laughing children.
April provides no context for this monstrous opening vision, nor for the ensuing images of rain pelting the ground and an unseen figure wading through waist-deep water, the lush treetops reflected in its surface. Yet over the course of its tale, these sights come to resonate as surrealistic manifestations of the anguish and alienation of its central character—and, by extension, her many countrywomen.