Writer/director Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident (A-) traces a chance encounter at a body shop between two men in modern Iran who may or may not share fraught history; and as other characters enter the fray too, memories of the background between the two primary men become even more blurry. This is like a heist movie without the bounty: as the band gets together, the pieces of a political puzzle coalesce. Vahid Mobasseri is the standout main character, and viewers get to watch his vacillation over remembrances and feel his penchant for vengeance against an oppressor. Expect vigorous debates and revelations and sparse use of artifice like musical score. Panahi, who has risked his life and liberty for his anti-regime filmmaking, gets a stellar auteur showcase with this movie. It comes together beautifully in the final passages and is sure to spark discussion.
Amanda Seyfried has been an unconventional film presence throughout her career and sinks her everything into the controversial title subject of Mona Fastvold’s historical epic The Testament of Ann Lee (B+). The actress elevates her every screen sequence as a 16th century pioneer of The Shakers religion, from awakening to ascent to persecution and more. The film explores fascinating areas of faith, mysticism, sexuality, independence, modernity and grief in mighty measures. Like their collaboration on The Brutalist, Fastvold co-wrote the film with Brady Corbet, but this time she directs – and she is well suited to the material. It’s an oddity for sure, with full-fledged musical moments and peculiar twists and turns. William Rexer’s cinematography is solid, although the music is a bit repetitive and the narration sometimes cloying. Fastvold and Seyfried take their tale to the limits and inject tremendous kinetic energy into what could have been straightforward and staid. It’s not for every palette but it’s more risky and twisty than your average religious drama.
Despite a promising premise, Hikari’s Rental Family (C) proves an undercooked and overly sentimental bunch of hokum. Brendan Fraser plays an American commercial and character actor working in Japan who is recruited by an unusual talent agency to portray fictional people in real life to compensate for something that’s missing. He’s like an emotional support animal to upend family dynamics. Whether it’s the single mother who needs him to play the long-lost dad to help her daughter get into a private school or the single and struggling bachelorette in need of a convenient and compensated groom to prove to her parents she’s suitably settled, the film is episodic and oddly clinical. Some of these matches offer more than each bargains for as the actor learns more about himself and the culture in which he’s engulfed. Although likable enough, Fraser plays his character at a distant low simmer, and the escapades are neither subtle nor arch enough to much entertain. It’s all rather restrained and predictable. As a meditation on loneliness, it succeeds in spurts, but it’s also tied in too tidy a package to expose much below the surface.
This is the film that finally answers the question, “If a tree falls down in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?” In this case, it makes both a sound and a statement. Gorgeously shot, gingerly paced and sneakily profound, Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams (A) stars Joel Edgerton as a logger, railroad worker and hermit in the early 20th century whose life might not have been outwardly remarkable but proves deeply worthy of examination as a universal allegory for the human plight on earth. The movie confronts time and modernity and observes how the human animal responds to stimuli and reacts across a lifetime. Judicious narration by William Patton evokes both the folksy language of the source novella from which this work is adapted and also that of a nature documentary as we watch Edgerton’s man of few words and even fewer outside influences process love, remorse and so much more within the confines of a sparse story. Adolph Veleso’s lush cinematography does a lot of the film’s heavy lifting, with natural wonders such as luminous sunsets, kaleidoscopic forest fires and gurgling river currents, punctuating lyrical passages with a free flow of landscapes and dreamscapes. Bryce Dessner of rock band The National provides a lovely, ethereal soundtrack to the proceedings. In small but critical parts of the ecosystem on display, an affecting ensemble including Kerry Condon and William H. Macy makes an indelible imprint, their tiny explosions inciting rousing ripple effects opposite the endearing Edgerton. This memory piece is film as poetry, worth a watch and a washing over you. Bentley channels the cinematic pioneer of this form, Terrence Malick, in effervescent use of natural settings to paint an impressionistic human portrait. The movie’s omniscient, elegiac beauty makes for one of the singular cinematic experiences of the year.
Director Jon M. Chu’s hat trick seemed to be nimbly splitting a Broadway musical’s two acts into a double whammy of film spectaculars. Trouble is, the first film was packed with confectionary creativity and a veritable bandstand of bops, so stretching this half adaptation into a sprawling opus simply enhanced the delight. The second installment is as empty as the antagonist wizard’s promises, padding a paltry batch of dirges and a virtually choreography-free display with most of the characters distant, deceitful and depressed. So it may bill itself as Wicked: For Good (C+), but it’s definitely not nearly as good. Much of the sequel replaces its signature girl power with Dynasty-style lady slaps, shoulder pads, back-biting, in-fighting and wedding cliffhangers. The witches and lovers who were once dancing through life and defying gravity seem generally bored this time around. Even the CGI animals are pretty much over the bull-shiz. Both Ariana Grande’s Glinda and Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba get new Stephen Schwartz songs which are showstoppers only in the way they stop the film dead in its tracks (Erivo doesn’t even get to finish her subpar number). Much time has passed since the origin story for this origin story, and a bunch of characters seem to now be behaving badly to help fill in the nightmarish narrative between the witches’ time at school and Dorothy’s house dropping into the scene. The formerly spry Jonathan Bailey gets little to do this time around; and Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum are dreadful double-threats in both the acting and singing departments as a pair of insipid villains. The Fiyero/Elpheba pop anthem “As Long as You’re Mine” and the Glinda/Elphaba ballad “For Good” are the only good musical numbers in the mix. Those who haven’t seen the stage show may enjoy some of the surprising backstories to the yellow brick roadies, but most of the magic goes up in smoke. Grande makes the most of her character in what is otherwise a much more grim fairy tale this time around.
Rose Byrne plays a beleaguered mom in Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (C-), but its protracted, insistent vibe of showing the horrors of motherhood will likely prove an endurance test for audiences in the process. Bronstein makes some big swings such as never actually showing the main character’s daughter, instead representing her as a shrieking off-screen nuisance. Then there are the all-too-obvious allegories like a gaping hole in the ceiling of their residence, where endless water flows forth. Byrne is committed to her role and acting her heart out of all the maternal madness in the threadbare plot. It’s a lot of heavy acting and heavy-handedness adding up to not much. The film erodes its own summons to empathy with each passing frame, and even Conan O’Brien playing a counselor can’t cushion the film’s blunt force. In some ways it’s the Reefer Madness of movies about deciding to have a kid, and yet it’s unclear if that’s even the point it’s trying to make.
Nobody loves wordplay more than the duo of director Richard Linklater and his male muse Ethan Hawke, except perhaps the guy they’re lionizing in their new film, stage lyricist Lorenz Hart, evoked by sharp screenwriter Robert Kaplow, whose rapier wit, poison pen and pathos echo through insular hallways inhabited by this underrated legend of internal rhymes. All nestled in the confines of a 1943 Broadway tavern, Blue Moon (B+) is both a jewel box of wistful nostalgia and a tragic murder ballad inflicted by a lonely man on himself. While lifelong friend and collaborator composer Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) toasts the triumph of his “Oklahoma!” opening night with collaborator Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney), Rodgers’ former lyricist Hart (Ethan Hawke) is hosting a pity party, holding court, stargazing and navel gazing through a descent into drunken self-reflection. Hart’s tumbler is both half full and half empty as he chews the Sardi’s scenery with equal parts relish and rage. Hawke’s transformation into Hart is no less than the performance of the year; the cocksure Reality Bites dude bites back at the world as a wisp of an older man, withered, weathered and worn by both a career abridged by alcoholism and the recognition he is unloved. This is a sensational showpiece with many layers including sustained nuance and transformational prosthetics. The film is a glorified stage play with a proscenium like a requiem and multiple dialogue duets, affecting and humorous soliloquies and blocking wizardry to mildly open up the story. As marvelous as Hawke is, he gets a wonderful ensemble with whom to spar: Scott is strong as a serious straight-shooter still in awe of his declining collaborator; Bobby Cannavale is a fun foil as the bartender; and Margaret Qualley is luminous as an art student stand-in for the promise of youth. Following Nouvelle Vague, Linklater has crafted another tribute to artistic life, and Hawke as Hart is a beguiling tour guide to this double-edged underworld of roleplaying. Like Hart’s popular songs, the title tune plus “Funny Valentine,” “Isn’t It Romantic?” and “Falling in Love with Love,” the film is blissfully out of step with its era and evokes bittersweet feelings more timeless than immediately recognized in one’s lifetime. Linklater and Hawke rescue and revive Hart in this sungular work which is as “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” as can be.
The contemporary archetype of “The Karen” is the chilling centerpiece of Geeta Gandbhir’s documentary The Perfect Neighbor (B), tracing the killing of Ajike Owens in Florida and exposes the perils of the “Stand Your Ground” policies allowing the use of force when faced with perceived imminent danger. The film is told almost primarily through police bodycam footage in a cross section of a neighborhood, exploring the series of disputes that led to the murder. The antagonist is the most fascinating character, unhinged and selective in her subversive statements, and the narrative is intriguing as the heated situation between this character and those around her boils to tragedy and then to a quest by the collective neighbors for justice. The repetitive format doesn’t leave lots of room for variety in terms of the look and feel of the shots, but Gandbhir sure knows when to punctuate the proceedings with bursts of revealing dialogue or even a hot pursuit. The real kids in the film are also compelling to witness as they react to very good and very bad adults from their playful vantage points. The form is nearly as fascinating as the story itself and succeeds overall as a cautionary tale.
Folks on polar opposites of debates these days find themselves talking over and past one another with such gusto and conviction, that one individual could perceive an enemy is actually an alien invader. Few forces of nature can burst these righteous, respective belief bubbles. The Yorgos Lanthimos-directed Bugonia (C+) centers on two conspiracy-obsessed men (Jesse Plemons and newcomer Aidan Delbis) who kidnap the smooth-talking CEO of a major pharma company (Emma Stone) after they become convinced her corporation’s products have hurt their family and that she’s also, naturally, an extraterrestrial intent on destroying Earth. This odd allegory continually blends an amusing talkiness with fantastical elements, which makes for a confounding and sometimes curious tone. The script largely fail to rise to the level of the filmmaker’s ambitions, but the performances are phenomenally unhinged. Plemons blithely inhabits his bonkers persona, utterly committed to his provocative role as shaggy myth-monger. Stone is on a tricky high-wire act trying to convince her captor to compromise; in her knowing nuances, she showcases why she is one of the most fascinating and nuanced actresses working today. The film has many intriguing passages and a rousing score by Jerskin Fendrix, but it’s ultimately a triumph of acting over cogent storytelling.
A discomforting topic in an obtuse format unfocused on any single character for long, punctuated with ambiguous outcomes, seems a formula for frustration; and yet Kathryn Bigelow imprints her signature hyper-realism with panache onto a fictional but not far-fetched situation, and the result – A House of Dynamite (B+) – is an intense, often riveting political think piece. Instead of a straight-up doomsday clock thriller, it is divided into three acts depicting the same critical moments of escalating activity as an unattributed nuclear missile careens toward the American homeland. The only edge-of-your-seat part is the first act from the White House situation room POV featuring an effective Rebecca Ferguson, who pulls viewers directly into the propulsive real-time plot. The remaining acts center on less interesting characters, a gruff general and an early-term commander-in-chief, embodied well by Tracy Letts and Idris Elba, respectively. These second and third parts pull back the microscope and introduce different degrees of decision making into the narrative, allowing viewers multiple portals for determining how they would react if faced with a similar scenario. These acts of subsequent diminishing intensity admittedly let some air out of the story momentum but not out of the argument against mutually-assured annihilation. Bigelow peppers in matter-of-fact moments of daily life to heighten the realism and emotion, which is helpful except in at least one location laden with heavy-handed symbolism. Viewers can’t help but confront the nuclear issue and how one would respond after viewing many competent and well-trained characters struggle under the spotlight of real impending terror. Noah Oppenheim’s script offers no easy answers. Volker Bertelmann’s stirring score is a standout feature. In total it’s a flawed but vital conversation-starter movie.
Indie auteur Richard Linklater sets the table for a French New Wave banquet complete with dishy performances, select servings of asides, a main course with temporal tastings, napkin scrawls as spontaneous cues and signature jump-cutlery in a tasty treat for cinephiles, Nouvelle Vague (A-). Expect to sleuth diligently on the Netflix menu come November for this obscure bonbon, a subtitled 4:3 aspect ratio black and white tribute to the rebel filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard as chronicled through the ragtag production of his unconventional and groundbreaking first feature film, 1960’s Breathless. Guillaume Marbeck is wonderful as the obstinate, improvisational iconoclast Godard, pioneering an on-the-fly guerrilla style; and Zoey Deutch is a sublime standout as his film’s glamorous leading lady Jean Seberg, often aghast at her helmer’s terse techniques. Among a delightful largely unknown supporting cast of real people behind a turning point in world cinema, Matthieu Penchinat is a hoot as accommodating and towering cinematographer Raoul Coutard whom, at one point on the shoot, hides in a tiny wagon to capture Parisian street crowds of accidental extras. This dramedy deftly covers the landmark high-flying act of Godard’s 20-day film shoot, complete with frustrated crews and producers and ample helpings of wit and wisdom. Linklater’s approach is that of admiration rather than mimicry or experimentation, although only a modern director this creative would conceive the go-for-broke concept and film it so elegantly in the French language. It’s madcap and maddening at times but a fun ride for those who care to hop onboard. The pace isn’t exactly breathless. The director overuses famous quotes as convenient stand-ins for more original dialogue. And some characters could have used more development. But the placemaking and insights are first-rate, with find crafts all around carrying on a grand tradition. It’s a film about the tempestuousness of artistry and the effect of timing in invention; and like Ed Wood and The Disaster Artist before it, serves up its own distinctive and layered souflee.
Film review YouTube personality turned writer/director/producer Chris Stuckmann’s Shelby Oaks (C) gets points for chutzpah; it’s one thing to critique others’ movies and another thing altogether to conceive of and mobilize for one’s own full debut motion picture production. The film does a good job setting up the premise of a missing paranormal/occult documentary crew last seen alive in a rural region known mainly for an abandoned amusement park and jail. Seemingly the scene is set and the mixed media atmosphere established for a deep dive into what happened. Camille Sullivan plays the protagonist, older sister of the missing blond at the center of the mystery; neither she nor other incidental characters (the venerable Keith David among them) have the script or the presence to pull off anything too out of the ordinary from the proceedings. Both the derivative procedural and supernatural elements don’t break any new ground, and the ending is rushed. It shows promise more than mastery in terms of sustained suspense, What could have been radical or revolutionary is mostly merely routine.
