Archive for category: Reviews

A happy-making bauble from John Carney, previously responsible for Once and Sing Street,” with which it shares a Dublin setting and charming, sensitive songs. Eve Hewson is the whole reason to watch, and it is a good one; she is brassy but not abrasive, pretty but real, and her three relationships–with her son, her ex-husband and her online guitar teacher–all bring rewards. The music, including Joni Mitchell singing “Both Sides Now,” is delightful; my only complaint was Netflix cutting off the final number in its “we-don’t-show-credits” zeal.

There is surprisingly little drama in this movie, perhaps because we knew the story but just as likely because the pacing is so s-l-o-w. After three hours forty minutes with no resolution, Martin Scorsese flips to a simulated radiocast to wrap things up, leaving his characters to meet their fates offstage. My other problem is Leonardo DiCaprio, a Scorsese favorite who leaves me cold. Here he plays someone who’s dumb as mud, at which he is neither convincing nor entertaining. In fact, the only laughs in the unmodulatedly grim narrative come when the audience reacts to a line that is just too much. Robert DeNiro seems to have been time-traveled from a Goodfellas film and is evil incarnate from scene one. Lily Gladstone is wonderful as Molly, although why she falls for DiCaprio’s Ernest is a mystery. As is Ernest’s instant mastery of the Osage tongue, given his obvious limitations. All the Indians are noble, which may be politically correct but adds to the dullness of the story. Scorsese seems to be in love with his movie-making, but here he needed an editor.

A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Loser. Leon is an aspiring author who is insecure and nerdy: he always wears long black pants, even to the beach. The movie is about how he navigates among four self-assured companions at a seaside retreat. Answer: not very well. The characters are well drawn and Paula Beer is a wonderful actress: when she smiles her eyes jump off the screen. This is a character study and not a major Christian Petzold, a la Barbara or Transit, but still a serious film.

Big–in themes, personalities, production values, cast, drama, historical significance and lessons for today. Three hours and I never looked at my watch. Christopher Nolan’s trademark nonlinear storytelling technique–confusing and distracting in Memento and Tenet, inter alia–works to heighten the tension in scenes with more conversation than action. With almost 80 named characters it can be a challenge to remember who is who, but Louisa Hall’s novel Trinity gave me a head start and the use of familiar actors like Matt Damon, Kenneth Branagh and Casey Affleck gave some comfort. The key to everything, of course, is Cillian Murphy’s portrayal of Oppenheimer, which is riveting but never showy. (Unfamiliar to me, Murphy is a Nolan regular and Irish!) His story is tragic, but the story of the atom bomb, and man’s place on the planet, is bigger.