The abstinence-only strictures of the Catholic Church take on the rising hormones of a 16-year-old naif in this indie charmer of a movie, and guess who wins? Natalia Dyer is perfect and perfectly believable as a teen. The hypocrisy and absurdity of Catholic sex “education” may be a tad over the top, but it’s a favorite target of mine, hence the mockery was quite enjoyable. The movie looked like it cost about $100,000 to make, but was missing nothing.
A nostalgic, surprisingly grainy look back at the presidency of one of the most decent humans to hold the position, at a time when we’re watching someone at the opposite end of that spectrum. Other than telling us that Jimmy Carter liked rock’n’roll, as well as country, jazz and classical music, there wasn’t much point to this picture. Modern-day interviews with Bob Dylan, Jimmy Buffett, Gregg Allman, Garth Brooks and others were uniformly unremarkable. And Jimmy, himself, was no Barry Gibb.
An earnest effort at a feel-good romance, which felt like it was made during the era it depicted, 1957-62, not necessarily a good thing, but with the pleasing difference that almost all the characters were Black and discrimination was at most a minor issue. The acting was a bit obvious and the story was predictable, with some major implausibilities. These were nice people to hang with and the music was good, but there was little emotional connection and nothing stuck. (PS: it may have been unfair to watch this alongside Small Axe, a stronger period study of Black life, where the people and their situations feel more real.)
The second installment of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe, Lovers Rock was a disappointment. Unlike The Mangrove, it had almost no story and just as little context. The acting was convincing and I’m sure there were dance parties that looked and felt just like that in West London in 1980 (I read). Maybe it was convincing as a celebration of Black bodies and Black joy, but just as maybe you had to be there.
A short story of a movie (unlike, say, Kelly Reichardt’s earlier period Western, Meek’s Cutoff), which tries to absorb us into the gentle friendship between a sweet but slow trail cook and a more ambitious Chinese frontier entrepreneur. Their business of selling dolly-cakes could also be read as a metaphor for American capitalism: the drive for profit fuels ingenuity and responds to consumer demand, but the flip side is greed, which leads to bending the rules and corner-cutting (see, e.g., Boeing and the 737, or Volkswagen and the diesel engine). The film was beautifully photographed and no doubt would be far more stunning on a big screen. On TV, the setting was as small as the story.
Finally, a serious movie. And I mean, serious. Beautifully photographed empty landscapes of the American West set a metaphorical scene for the bleak nomadic life of the widowed, childless Fern, living in a van, subsisting on minimum-wage temporary jobs when she can find them, meeting other nomads but resisting any close connections. I can’t say I understood Frances McDormand’s character or related to her lifestyle or life choices, but the questions her story raised, such as the meaning of life, came through profoundly.
Not fun. Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman play characters that are so unremittingly unpleasant you almost don’t want them onscreen, and the usually reliable Jeremy Shamos is just as bad–that is, sickly fawning–in the other direction. The movie comes across as a play: e.g., stop the action while a character tells his life story. The final five minutes shock the movie to life, but by then it is too late and the dramatic points feel unearned.
Exhilarating. The story combines George Floyd and the Chicago 7 in 1970 London, and I was stunned at the end to learn it was also based on a true story. Steve McQueen creates a foreign world–a community of Caribbean immigrants in Notting Hill–and populates it with people we believe in and come to care deeply about. The triumph of hard-working, disadvantaged Blacks over an ingrained, abusive, and in some cases rotten, system of white privilege makes for stirring drama, while the reggae soundtrack keeps things just joyful enough to pull you through it. I only hope that the next four installments of Small Axe make me feel as good.
I have no idea what someone not familiar with the titular book would think of this scrapbook of moments culled from its pages, but maybe there isn’t such a one who would be watching. As it is, we are left to compare the movie’s impersonations of the memorable characters, from Uriah Heep to Mr. Micawber to Mr. Dick, with our own mental impressions, whether formed from reading, from Phiz illustrations or, most likely, from the 1935 film with W.C. Fields, Basil Rathbone and Edna May Oliver. Interestingly, the least memorable figure is David himself, which helps make Dev Patel’s surprise casting the most satisfying role in this production. The story itself is presented with little narrative thrust or integrity, producing no emotional response in the viewer. And the casting is disconcerting–not because it includes Blacks, Indians and Asians, but because, for instance, the muddle-headed Mr. Dick is played by Hugh Laurie, who always comes off as the most intelligent person on screen.
Everything you need to know about one of my favorite groups in less than two hours, this documentary was loving but not fawning, with samples of their best songs (out of the 1,000 they wrote). Archival footage was mixed in good proportion with current interviews, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the Greek-god looks of Barry Gibb. Not innovators or, therefore, critics’ darlings, the Bee Gees followed musical trends–specifically, the Beatles and disco–but their catchy tunes and beautiful three-part harmonies made one overlook lyrics that were banal or even nonsensical. The less depth, in the music and this movie, the better.
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