SYNOPSIS: In “His Three Daughters,” a new family drama now playing in select theatres before moving to Netflix on September 20, three estranged sisters—Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen and Natasha Lyonne—come together to look after their ailing father (Jay O. Sanders). As his health declines, past issues are confronted as they attempt to put their past issues, with him and with each other, behind them.
CAST: Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen, Rudy Galvan, Jose Febus, Jasmine Bracey, Jay O. Sanders, and Jovan Adepo. Written and directed by Azazel Jacobs.
REVIEW: Writer-director Azazel (“French Exit,” “The Lovers”) Jacobs infuses this story of estrangement and grief with tension, heartfelt emotion and bittersweet humor.
The dynamic between the siblings, the controlling Katie (Coon), stoner Rachel (Lyonne), who still lives in her father’s apartment and the free-spirited, Grateful Dead-loving Christina (Olsen), is colored by years of petty insults, misunderstandings and animosity.
The result is a movie that wonders aloud what connects the three very different people after their father is gone. How well do they know one another?
Turns out, they’re closer than they think. Despite the strain between them, Coon, Lyonne and Olsen find an unspoken lifetime of connection to draw from. They may be estranged, but there is a familial bond that binds them. It’s lovely, subtle work contained in the claustrophobic confines of a New York City apartment. The cramped space means they are on top of one another, forced to interact, and the movie is the better for it.
“His Three Daughters” is a raw and complicated chamber piece, one that allows its performances to engage fully with the material.
As their father’s health worsens, he becomes a nexus for their relationships in unexpected ways. “I keep waiting for the day you realize why you fight so much,” he says. It’s a heartbreaking and cathartic finale, but in its sorrow, it is a powerful statement on the healing power of love.
SYNOPSIS: “The Critic,” a new, melodramatic thriller starring Sir Ian McKellen, Gemma Arterton and Mark Strong, and now playing in theatres, sees a powerful London theater critic lure a struggling actress into a blackmail scheme.
CAST: Ian McKellen, Gemma Arterton, Mark Strong, Lesley Manville, Romola Garai, Ben Barnes, Alfred Enoch. Directed by Anand Tucker.
REVIEW: A tale of blackmail and revenge, set against the (somewhat) polite society of England, circa 1934, “The Critic” is a deceptively dark and grimy drama.
Handsomely mounted, with sumptuous period details, “The Critic” details mostly despicable people who hide their nefarious motivations behind an upper-class veneer.
Topflight performances from McKellen as a powerful theatre critic who’ll do anything to maintain his status, Arterton as a morally compromised actress and Stone as the nepobaby owner of a large newspaper, smooth over some of the rough patches in the movie’s storytelling.
Early on, actress Nina Land (Arterton) confronts the critic, Jimmy Erskine (McKellen), only to have her worst fears about her talent—or lack thereof—confirmed by the sharp-tongued writer. It’s a masterclass from McKellen in controlled cruelty and tells us most everything that we need to know about the unapologetic character. He’s an extravagant wordsmith, one who uses his words not only to entertain his readers, but to also eviscerate his enemies.
It’s a marvelous scene, sleek and caustic, that sets a tone that is, unfortunately, not continued throughout, despite the good performances. McKellen and Company are let down by a script that, time after time, falls for its basest impulses. Every dark turn, and there are many of them, pushes the story deeper into melodrama at the expense of interesting exchanges like the one detailed above.
“The Critic” slides by on the work of McKellen, Arterton, Strong and Lesley Manville, but doesn’t know how to use their performances to the story’s best advantage.
On the Saturday September 7, 2024 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we meet Barbara Adhiya. In her 20-year career as an editor with newswires CP/AP and Reuters, she says she never lost her hope and faith in humanity. Her new book as an editor, “Hope by Terry Fox,” is a testament that sentiment.
Through over 50 interviews with people throughout Terry’s life — ranging from his siblings, nurses, and coaches to volunteers during the Marathon of Hope —Barbara discovers how Terry was able to run a marathon a day. Through their stories, passages from Terry’s marathon journal, and over 200 photos and documents, Hope shows that with enough resilience, determination, humility, and support, ordinary people can do impossible things.
Then, we’ll meet Anne Allan, a theatre director, a producer, artistic director, and educator. Her career began as a classical dancer, training on scholarship at the Royal Ballet School in London, England. After becoming ballet mistress for London City Ballet, she was invited to become the private dance teacher to Her Royal Highness, Diana, Princess of Wales and did so for 9 years. She writes about that experience in her new book “Dancing with Diana.”
Each week on the nationally syndicated Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Chris Pratt, Elvis Costello, Baz Luhrmann, Martin Freeman, David Cronenberg, Mayim Bialik, The Kids in the Hall and many more!
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I sit in with NewsTalk 1010’s Jim Richards to talk about attending a screening of “The Apprentice,” then controversial film based on the early life of Donald Trump.
I chose the Toronto International Film Festival movie I am most excited to see for Toronto Star film critic Peter Howell’s annual TIFF round-up.
“‘The Shrouds’ revisits David Cronenberg’s go-to themes of body horror, invasive technology and paranoia in a film that promises to be a provocative and empathetic study of grief.” WILD CARD: “The Last Showgirl”
SYNOPSIS: In “The Front Room,” a new psychological horror film directed by Max and Sam Eggers, brothers of Robert Eggers, and now playing in theaters, a young couple is pushed to their emotional limit when they take in the husband’s ailing but demonically domineering mother.
CAST: Brandy Norwood (a.k.a. the mononymously famous R&B singer Brandy), Kathryn Hunter, Andrew Burnap, and Neal Huff. Directed by the Eggers Brothers.
REVIEW: “The Front Room,” based on the short story by Susan Hill, benefits from a bravura performance from Olivier Award winner Kathryn Hunter. As the mother-in-law from hell Solange, she is the catalyst for the growing sense of paranoia and fear that drapes over the proceedings.
Hunter, a virtuoso of physical performance, is, by times, frail, powerful and terrifying. She’s an unpredictable agent of chaos in her new home, and Hunter brings the spectrum of the character’s manipulative behavior to vivid life.
She is pure malevolence whose arsenal includes verbal abuse, guilt and even incontinence. Her presence changes everything in the house, proving that sometimes good deeds do, indeed, go unrewarded.
Hunter is the movie’s withered heart. Without her wicked performance, and the game of figuring out exactly what she is up to, you’re left with a horror riff on “Monster-In-Law.”
“The Front Room” tackles the price of obligation and the psychological stresses of parenthood, but it is Hunter who will grab and hold your attention.
SYNOPSIS: We first met Dean Murdoch (Paul Spence), the “Governor of Givin’er,” twenty-two years ago in the classic mockumentary “FUBAR.” “Deaner ‘89” sees the headbanger looking back at his life, revealing how he survived the 1980s and made a success of himself.
CAST: Paul Spence, Will Sasso, Mary Walsh, Kevin McDonald, Star Slade, Maddy Foley. Directed by Sam McGlynn.
REVIEW: Loud and proud, “Deaner ‘89” is an outlandish comedy, with, what must be one of the highest f-bomb to lines of dialogue ratios in film history, and yet it succeeds because of its heart, not just its humor.
Dean Murdoch, played by the forty-something Paul Spence from teen to adult, could easily have been a caricature of a devil horn flippin’, Dokken lovin’ metalhead, but Spence taps into something deeper. Dean is a devil horn flippin’, Dokken lovin’ metalhead, but he’s also rather sweet, positive and optimistic. The key to getting away with some of his more outlandish behavior is that ultimately, he’s a good guy and you root for him. Spence, who also wrote the script, ensures you laugh with him, not at him.
But “Deaner ‘89” is more than a small-town origin story. (FYI: We’ve been asked to point to out that it is not a “FUBAR” movie, nor is it connected to the “FUBAR” franchise.) Dean finds himself on a highway to hell, via heavy metal, shotgunned beers and decks of smokes, but the story is heightened by an examination of his recently uncovered, and life changing, Metis heritage. What begins as a story of small-town Canadian life becomes a larger story, flavored by the Sixties Scoop and anti-Indigenous racism.
Spence, who also wrote the script, never forgets this is a comedy. He weaves humor into every scene, but never settles for the easy joke. The funny stuff is situational, good naturedly riffing on the time frame and Dean’s aspirations of heavy metal glory. It’s part Canadian 80s nostalgia, part hero’s journey to a different life.
Twenty-two years after we first met the Deaner there’s still some juice to be squeezed from the character. “You’re never too old to start givin’er,” he says.
