Five minutes into Beth de Araújo's new thriller Josephine, I felt sick to my stomach. By the end, I knew it was essential viewing.
The synopsis gives little away. When an eight-year-old girl (Mason Reeves in her debut role) witnesses a crime in Golden Gate Park, the psychological fallout shakes her entire family to their core. Entering with such little knowledge, I was not prepared for what I was about to witness. The shock of the plot and its crescendoing unravelling neatly parallels Josephine's unexpected encounter with this brutal crime.
Unflinching portrayal of violence
Araujo does not try to shield the viewer from the horrors she's determined to explore. In Josephine is a vessel for the loss of innocence, the shattering of girlhood and the intimate portrayal of that moment of consciousness every child goes through – whether remembered or not – when we discover that bad exists in the world that we may well come up against. For no one is this more true than girls, whose illusions of safety are snatched away from them far too soon as they become more and more aware of the patriarchy and its pervasive presence in every facet of life.
Reeves is a revelation as our eponymous heroine whose young mind must confront this trauma in a through-the-looking-glass moment that lands like a gut punch. She embodies her role with such a deft touch you can hardly tell where Reeves ends, and Josephine begins. Her star-making performance is made all the more astonishing as we watch her go toe-to-toe with industry greats Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan, who play Josephine's mother and father.
Nuanced characters elevate the film
What elevates this movie to a generational standout is the nuance imbued into every character, flawed, imperfect, fallible but, ultimately, achingly human with every breath. After a slew of lighter projects, Tatum reminds us that he is more than capable of commanding a room and, more importantly, the audience with a portrayal of a loving father whose rage ebbs and flows like a swelling tide. The evolving dynamic between Tatum and Reeves is bittersweet to watch as a manifesto on both the preciousness and precarity of the father-daughter relationship in a world hostile to girls and women. It's also a much-needed indictment of all the ways male fury is normalised in a home, whether through shouting, the threat of violence or even something as 'benign' as condescension.
Balancing this, Chan holds her own as a mother grieving the death of her baby girl, now hardened by the cruelty of humanity and her and Reeves' relationship runs in poignant contrast to Tatum. Most of all, it was touching to see how lost the parents were as they tried to make sense of all the ways their daughter has been profoundly changed by her experiences.
Grounded drama with a vital message
In one scene in which we see the ripples of this trauma play out between the young family of three trying to wade their way through the black fog and into a lighter future, the tension reaches a heart-pounding climax. Despite the melodrama of the situation, perhaps this movie's greatest strength is that it manages to stay grounded throughout with a realistic-enough depiction of young life thrown into chaos.
There's no denying Josephine is nauseating, devastating viewing, but its message has never been more important. This is a moving, unique movie that will render you speechless with its central performances from Gemma Chan, Mason Reeves and Channing Tatum. It is an urgent story for the times we live in.
Josephine premieres at London Film Festival on October 13, 2026. It releases in UK cinemas on November 20, 2026.
