For Women Writers Week 2026 at RogerEbert.com, Alisha Mughal writes about Larry Fessenden’s Habit (USA, 1995). “Fessenden displays an immeasurable awareness of masculinity in his crafting of Sam, and a graceful sense of self in his carriage. Sam is so incredibly charming and fallible; he is smart and artsy, and he is also incredibly privileged. Sam’s privilege grants him the scope and luxury to make the choice to not think about himself—to be cruel in an easy sort of way, in a way that so many white men are. Fessenden doesn’t seem quite so intent on regurgitating patriarchal tropes as he does on criticizing them, showing them to be ill-suited vessels for lived reality, and by extension showing a need to expand or adapt critical theory to capture the concerns of artists who might not espouse patriarchal ideology; he seems, with Habit, more concerned with men who are monsters because they are men. Sam is scary, and he is so indelibly real.”

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