It is a pleasure to enter the lush world of the French Riviera, albeit on the small TV screen, and to return to the world of French (Belgian) cinema, where the “action” is a series of conversations, with some (large) bare breasts thrown in. I was somehow reminded of Proust by this story of an innocent 16-year-old, a summer at the beach, observing and learning about sex and society. We get to know four people, and that’s enough.
Imagine the most demeaning job you can think of, despite the status of working as assistant (what used to be called “secretary”) to the ceo of a glamorous entertainment company. Then imagine a movie that consists entirely of living through one day in that job, exclusively from the assistant’s point of view. I kept waiting for something to happen, for the plot to kick in. But no, we just watched Julia Garner, looking drab in a drab outfit, endure one humiliation after another. That was it.
Wonderful performances by Jamie Foxx, Michael Jordan and Brie Larson make this a pleasure to watch. Even not having read the book, there were no surprises, and if the story were not true you’d criticize the screenwriter for a lack of imagination. But what’s wrong with a happy ending that makes you cry? And events since this movie came out in 2019 have only made the depicted injustices against Black lives more credible and relevant.
A must-see for all Andy Samberg fans, not so much for anyone else. OK, Cristin Milioti is pretty good, too. But the rest – plot, setting, secondary characters – is pretty puerile, a bad takeoff on Groundhog Day. The movie lurches from gag to gag, with no direction home.
We watched this in homage to a great American the day after he died. As a documentary, it wasn’t much: familiar clips of the civil rights struggle–still shocking and heartbreaking–mixed with contemporary film of Lewis greeting and hugging well-wishers, with about a fifty-year hole in the middle. The only new piece for me was a reference to his first race for Congress against Julian Bond, in which Bond expressed seemingly sincere disappointment at Lewis’s less than honorable campaign. The sole negative note in 90 minutes, I wish it would have been explained or explored some more, along with some of Lewis’s battles and stands during his Congressional career. The definitive film about John Lewis is yet to be made.
I have to admit I don’t know what this film was about, although Siri’s comparison to the previous film by Kore-eda, Shopkeepers, was apt: what constitutes a family. Ethan Hawke seemed to have stumbled in from Before Midnight, in which he was equally lost; the husband Pierre seemed left over from Boudu Saved from Drowning. The director appeared intent on making Catherine Deneuve as unappealing as possible (then why sell the film as a Deneuve vehicle?): heavy, chain-smoking, insecure and inconsiderate, perpetually frowning. Nor was the character of an aging actress remotely original. Juliette Binoche shone, as usual, and the young daughter was a breath of fresh air. But the personal relationships–which presumably was the motif of the film–weren’t convincing, and the plotting was desultory. The Binoche-Hawke family had ostensibly come from America for the publication of Deneuve’s memoirs, but there wasn’t even a publication party in sight.
This documentary is sort of like Normal People, except the people are unattractive, uninteresting, inarticulate and not erotically charged. Barbora is a better painter than interviewer and it’s never clear what she’s looking for or finding in Bertil, who was so drugged he can’t remember why he stole her painting or what he did with it. The only thing more puzzling than why someone made this film is how they did it.
What a relief, after watching soaps that have no ending (most recently, The Restaurant), to watch a 90-minute movie that has a premise and characters, develops them, builds dramatically and has a resolution – even if, as the opening credit warns us, it’s an “unsolved” mystery. Amy Ryan is sensational as the obsessed, albeit very flawed, mother who launches a crusade after her daughter, a young sex worker, goes missing. Gabriel Byrne, one of my favorite actors, is the beleaguered police commissioner in charge of the case, and the similarly wonderful Thomasin McKenzie is the remarkably stable sister of the victim. The film, by Serin’s first boss Liz Garbus, has a message, but it never gets in the way of the story. Her directorial flourishes are a bit obtrusive, but they add a big-budget gloss to low-budget sets and settings.
Planned Parenthood is the unsung hero of this wrenching story of 17-year-old Autumn Callahan, pregnant in Pennsylvania, who goes to New York City for an abortion. Sidney Flanigan plays Autumn as an awkward, affectless teen whose idea of conversation is “Whatever.” Her cousin who accompanies her has a bit more spirit, but there is a lot of quiet. Writer-director Eliza Hittman paints a picture so real, you feel it must be. Simple but bold, this movie touches a nerve.
There’s a lot of Kristen Stewart in this film, which is a pretty good thing, as well as a reminder that the U.S. Department of Justice has suffered from a political agenda in the past. The movie is based on a true story, which is its only reason – besides showcasing Stewart – for existing. If we didn’t know who Jean Seberg was, or how J. Edgar Hoover was using the FBI, I wouldn’t have thought much about the story, which was low on surprise and drama, and petered out at the end. In many respects, this reminded me of Judy, which had a more interesting supporting cast but less appealing star.
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