There has never been a sports drama with this level of adversity. Set against a background of war-torn Syria, “The Swimmers,” now streaming on Netflix, tells the incredible and true story of Yusra and Sara Mardini, sisters who fled Damascus to find a new life and a chance at competing in the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics.
The harrowing story of survival, that includes a dangerous voyage in a small lifeboat packed with refugees across the Mediterranean Sea, is inspiring, even if it gives into to its more conventional nature in the third act.
The story begins with a tightly knit family living in Damascus as the Syrian civil war brews around them. Father Ezzat (Ali Suliman), once a professional swimmer, has passed his love of the sport to his daughters Sara (Manal Issa) and Yusra (Nathalie Issa). Both have talent, but Yusra has the drive to be a champion. Both sisters dream of competing in the Olympics, but the ever-escalating war makes that goal unattainable.
After a bomb lands too-close-for-comfort, the sisters make the difficult decision to leave behind the only life they’ve ever known and seek asylum in Germany. Accompanied by their cousin Nizar (Ahmed Malek) they begin a perilous journey that will hopefully lead to the Olympics.
The sisters’ story is, by turns, heartwarming, suspenseful and traumatic. It becomes more of a traditional sports movie, à la “Rocky,” near the end, but until that point director Sally El-Hosaini tells the true story of resilience with sensitivity and visual aplomb.
Unforgettable shots of a bomb landing in a swimming pool or a beach, littered with tens-of-thousands of discarded lifejackets left behind by migrants on their way to a new future, speak loudly to a worldwide refugee crisis and are worth the price of admission.
“She Said,” a new film about the New York Times reporters Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) and Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) and their Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of the sexual misconduct perpetrated by Harvey Weinstein, breathes the same air as other newsroom procedurals like “The Post” and “Spotlight.”
Based on the 2019 book by Twohey and Kantor, the movie begins with Twohey’s investigations into sexual assault allegations against presidential candidate Donald Trump and FOX TV commentator Bill O’Reilly. The success of those stories, which cost O’Reilly his lucrative television gig, led to a further investigation of abuse and institutional misogyny in the film business, specifically involving film producer Weinstein.
Working in tandem with Kantor, Twohey begins sorting through sexual abuse claims from Hollywood actresses like Rose McGowan (voice of Kelly McQuail) and Ashley Judd (as herself).
“If that can happen to Hollywood actresses,” Twohey says, “who else is it happening to?”
“She Said” follows their month’s long investigation, from the unwillingness of victims to go on the record for fear of repercussions and legal maneuvering to death threats and harassment.
“You have to imagine that every call you make is being recorded and you’re being followed,” warns New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet (Andre Braugher).
The story behind the story that rocked Hollywood is a boots-on-the-ground journalism movie. Director Maria Schrader and screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz walk us through the uncovering of information, the dead-ends, the back-and-forth with reluctant sources in a slow-and-steady fashion. It’s a detailed portrait of the daily grind journalists go through to ensure accuracy and fairness.
Unfortunately, because this #MeToo story lived at the very center of popular discourse at the time and beyond, “She Said’s” efforts to document the making of the story contain very few surprises.
On an emotional level, however, the recollections of Weinstein’s victims, former assistant Zelda Perkins (Samantha Morton) and Rowena Chiu (Angela Yeoh), are as devastating as former Weinstein Co. Board Member Lance Maerov’s (Sean Cullen) comment—”Are you sure that this isn’t just young women who want to sleep with a movie producer to get ahead?” is maddening.
Schrader never sensationalizes “She Said,” but her retelling of the victimization of the powerless and Weinstein’s criminal behaviour is buoyed by some interesting choices, including using real audio of model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez and Weinstein as he tries to coerce her into joining him in his hotel suite. As the camera floats down a fancy hotel hallway, Schrader allows the tape to play to skin crawling effect. It is that level of detail and raw storytelling that captures the true horror of the case against Weinstein.
“Father Stu,” a new, inspirational Mark Wahlberg movie, now playing in theatres, is the unlikely, but true, story of a potty-mouthed, rough ‘n tumble boxer whose road to redemption begins with a detour into the Catholic Church.
When we first meet Stuart Long (Wahlberg), he’s an amateur boxer with visions of the big time. He’s good, but not good enough to go pro, as his mother (Jacki Weaver) likes to point out. “Don’t be careless with your life,” she says. “You’re the age when most people pack it in.”
He’s an angry guy. Angry at his deadbeat father (Mel Gibson). Angry at his little brother who died young. Angry at himself and the world.
He’s a nasty drunk with a hair trigger temper, but when a medical condition forces him to retire from the ring, he sets his eyes on Hollywood. “I’ll cash in on my face,” he says. “Not my fists.”
A smooth talker, he manages to get a job at a grocery store where he hopes to meet actors and directors who will give him a gig. Instead, he meets Carmen (Teresa Ruiz) a devote Catholic who reluctantly begins dating the unpolished Stu, but only if he gets baptized. She is, as a friend says, “as Catholic as the cross itself.”
His road to redemption begins as he helps Carmen teach Sunday School. His plain-spoken way is a hit with the kids, Carmen and even her strict father but it takes a drunken motorcycle accident for Stu to literally see the light and devote himself to the church. “God saved me to show there is a reason why I’m here,” he says as he tells Carmen of his intention to become a priest.
In a life filled with dramatic turns, there is one more in store for Stu. One that may prevent him from realizing his dream of becoming a priest. “God is all about fighting the odds,” he says, “of having the strength to endure a difficult life.”
“Father Stu” has inspiration to spare. It is a movie about religion’s power to heal and motivate, which will have many saying “Amen,” but the story’s execution resembles a movie of the week, with predictable plot points and an accelerated timeline that packs too much into too little time.
Even at two hours, the pacing is jagged as director and writer Rosalind Ross attempts to cover as many facets of Stu’s personality as possible. She takes the adage “everything happens for a reason” to an extreme and, as such, the movie feels rushed on some scenes, too leisurely in others, but rarely gives us the deep insight that would make Stu’s motivations resonate.
Wahlberg, who also produced the film after hearing Stu’s story during dinner with a group of priests, undergoes an extreme transformation to play the character—and I don’t mean his ridiculous moustache. His charisma shines through the weight and make-up and it is in these scenes that he elevates Stu from the cartoonish bad boy of the movie’s first half, into a compelling character. It’s too bad, that Ross attempts to tie up some of the loose story threads just as the personal story really finds its humanity.
“Father Stu” is being released around Easter, so given its subject matter and messages, it would appear to be a movie for the whole family, but be warned, Stu’s language is authentic, i.e. pretty raunchy throughout the film’s running time.
“Father Stu” is a movie about change, about overcoming obstacles and living with purpose. Good messages all, it’s just too bad they are tied up in a clumsy movie.
“Being the Ricardos,” the new Aaron Sorkin directed look at the most famous television couple of the 1950s, in theaters this weekend and on Prime Video December 21, is a character study that examines one very bad week on the sitcom set of “I Love Lucy.”
In 1953 “I Love Lucy” was watched by 60 million people a week. The show was so popular that department stores had to change their hours. The big box stores used to stay open late on Mondays but switched to Thursdays because no one shopped on Monday nights while Lucy, Desi, Fred and Ethel were on.
Real life couple Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, played in the film by Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem, are television’s biggest stars as they prepare to shoot episode four of their second season. Tension hangs heavy over the set, the result of two news stories about the couple.
First is Confidential Magazine, a sleazy tabloid that specializes in scandal and exposé journalism, who accuses Desi of having an affair in a lurid article titled “Desi’s Wild Night Out.” More damningly, another report suggests Lucy is a communist, under investigation by the FBI and the House Un-American Activities Committee.
The accusation against Desi causes trouble at home but even a whiff of communism around Lucy could lead to a stink that could ruin both their careers. The Hollywood blacklist looms.
“You and me have been through worse than this,” Desi says reassuringly.
“Have we?” she asks.
“No.”
Set up like a pseudo-documentary, modern day talking heads keep the story moving forward while flashbacks flesh out the action. We learn about how the couple met, their volatile relationship—”They were either tearing each other’s clothes off,” says writer Madelyn Pugh (Linda Lavin), “or tearing one another’s heads off.”—and how the show and Lucy’s perfectionism are more than just a professional concern. “I Love Lucy” was the glue that held her marriage together, especially during troubled times.
It can be tricky portraying familiar figures on screen. Through endless re-runs Lucille Ball’s face and comedy are iconic, but Kidman and Bardem, wisely chose not to do imitations of the stars. They have the mannerisms and a passing resemblance to Lucy and Desi but this is about character not caricature. For the most part this is a backstage drama, and wisely stays away from restaging scenes from “I Love Lucy” that are burned into people’s imaginations. What we get instead are interpretations of these characters that corral their collective charisma, hot tempers and talent.
What emerges is a scattershot portrait of fame, creative control and the power of the press. Sorkin juggles a lot of moving parts, but by the time the end credits roll it’s difficult to know exactly what point he is trying to make. Ball is given the credit she deserves as a trailblazer and Arnaz’s business acumen is celebrated, but the other, colliding plot points feel cobbled together. Any one of them—the communism scare, Desi’s alleged infidelity, Lucy’s pregnancy or the cast in-fighting—could have sufficed as a compelling backdrop to the Lucy and Desi story. Instead, the movie feels overstuffed.
“Being the Ricardos” does justice to the legacy of its subjects, and features pages of Sorkin’s trademarked snappy dialogue, but splinters off in too many directions to be truly effective.
Like all good sports films “King Richard,” the crowd-pleasing look at the early life of tennis superstars Venus (Saniyya Sidney) and Serena Williams (Demi Singleton), isn’t really about the sport. Sure, the action builds toward the climatic 1994 tennis match that made Venus a household name, but it is more about the back-and-forth between the family members than it is about batting a ball back-and-forth.
Exec-produced by Venus and Serena, “King Richard” begins with a plan and determination.
Compton, California parents Richard Williams (Will Smith) and Oracene “Brandy” Price (Aunjanue Ellis) are raising their five daughters with love, discipline and a plan. Tunde (Mikayla LaShae Bartholomew), Isha (Danielle Lawson) and Lyndrea (Layla Crawford) are all successful students in school, top of their class, but the film focusses on Venus and Serena, the tennis prodigies and subjects of Richard’s 78-page plan. It’s a bulky document written before their births, that lays out the steps to personal and professional success on the tennis court.
Richard’s mantra is, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.”
He is tireless in his devotion to Venus and Serena, training the pre-teens on a neighborhood court as if they were already playing at a professional level. The odds are stacked against them—the chances of one family producing this kind of genius, Richard is told, is like one family producing two Mozarts—but their talent, nurtured by both Richard and Oracene, and an unwavering allegiance to the plan, point them in the direction of Wimbledon and beyond.
“I think you might have the next Michael Jordan on your hands,” says tennis coach Rick Macci.
“No,” Richard replies, “I got two.”
“King Richard” may be the most inspiration movie of the year. Maybe ever. There is uplift in almost every frame. From Richard’s unswerving support for all his children and Oracene’s ability to always know the right thing to say, to Venus and Serena’s journey to the top in a sport typically dominated by white people, the movie exists in a tidal wave of heart-warming emotion.
It is occasionally cloying but Smith, in a career best performance, finds the complexities in Richard’s character. To call him single-minded is an understatement. “You are the most stubborn man I ever met,” says Paul Cohen (Tony Goldwyn), “and I coach John McEnroe.”
In real life the press asked aloud if Richard was a dreamer or a huckster, but the film digs deeper to reveal a man whose worldview was formed by childhood trauma. He wants his kids to have the childhood he never did, one filled with love, achievement and safety. Some of his most baffling decisions, in terms of the advancement of their careers, are rooted in his desire to protect his daughters, not exploit them.
When Venus wants to go pro at age 14, he tells her that decision is about more than the game. She will be representing “every little Black girl on earth,” he says, and he wants to protect her from that burden for as long as he can.
Smith is both cocky and vulnerable in the role, using his trademarked charisma in a different way. His usual swager is gone, replaced by determination and obstinance, and it’s a fascinating character study.
Smith is surrounded by a terrific cast whose naturalistic performances set the tone for this family drama.
“King Richard” doesn’t reinvent the film biopic wheel. Characters still make big pronouncements like, “Forget Ali and Frazier. If she wins this will be the biggest upset in the history of sports,” and it follows a linear path, but the indelible message of the power of family resonates.
Two years ago, the documentary “Amazing Grace” showcased Aretha Franklin remarkable 1972 two-night stand at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. It’s a soul stirring window into Franklin’s vocal ability as she caresses and stretches the notes of the songs to maximum effect.
A new film, “Respect,” starring Jennifer Hudson and now playing in theatres, broadens the scope, detailing Franklin’s life from her beginnings, singing in her father’s church, to the height of her fame.
We first meet Aretha as a ten-year-old (Sky Dakota Turner) phenom, blessed with a beautiful voice. “You have a talent,” her Baptist minister father Clarence (Forest Whitaker) says, “they call genius.” She’s ten, says a friend, but her voice is going on thirty. Her guiding light is mother Barbara (Audra McDonald), who tells her, “Singing in sacred and you shouldn’t do it because somebody wants you to. What’s important is that you are treated with dignity and respect.”
Despite that advice, her father controls every aspect of her life. Using his connections, Rev. Franklin secures a recording contact with music producer John Hammond (Tate Donovan) at Columbia Records. Four low-selling albums of jazz and blues standards follow as she struggles to find her voice on vinyl.
The climb to the top of the charts came with advice from a legend, Dinah Washington (Mary J. Blige), who told her, “Honey, find the songs that move you. Until you do that, you ain’t going nowhere,” and a new manager (and love interest) in the form of Ted White (Marlon Wayans). Taking the career reigns from Franklin’s father, White breaks ranks with Columbia, and gets a new record deal and a new sound with producer Jerry Wexler (Marc Maron).
As Franklin becomes known as the Queen of Soul, she and White struggle with personal demons that threaten to sidetrack her rise to superstardom.
First and foremost, “Respect” is a tribute to the genius of Aretha Franklin and the talent of Jennifer Hudson. Franklin left an indelible mark on several generation and styles of music, and her life’s work is well represented here, from her roots in the church, to her genre-bending chart toppers and the civil rights activism that defined her life off stage.
Hudson is given ample opportunity to showcase Franklin’s vocal stylings, and does so with a voice that sounds heaven sent. As a rousing jukebox musical “Respect” succeeds spectacularly well.
It’s in the telling of Franklin’s life that the movie hits a few sour notes. There is a lot of ground to cover, from alcoholism and racism to sexism and becoming pregnant at the age of 12, it’s a complicated story told in fits and starts, wedged between musical numbers.
The film’s early scenes, featuring the wonderful Skye Dakota Turner as the ten-year-old “Ree,” are nicely developed and paint a vivid picture of Franklin’s young life. It’s when “Respect” adopts the Wikipedia bullet point approach to quickly cover a lot of ground that the movie loses some of its dramatic thrust.
“Respect” skims the surface of a long, interesting life—the story ends rather abruptly in 1972 with the recording of Franklin’s landmark “Amazing Grace” gospel album—but presents a rousing tribute to Franklin’s lifeblood, the music.
“The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” the new film about the turbulent life of jazz singer Billie Holiday from director Lee Daniels and now on digital, is a showcase for its star Andra Day.
Day, in her first leading role, plays Holiday not just as a jazz and swing icon, but also as a
Civil Rights symbol, a woman persecuted by a racist federal government. “Strange Fruit,” her signature song, and musical protest of the lynching of Black Americans, was called a “musical starting gun for this so-called civil rights movement,” by a government office determined to silence her.
Using a framing device of a late career radio interview, hosted by a casually racist journalist (Leslie Jordan), the story quickly moves to flashback to reveal a campaign of terror launched against Lady Day because the feds were uncomfortable with the lyrics to “Strange Fruit.” The song, according to the g-men, is incendiary, a declaration of war, unamerican. “This jazz music is the devil’s work,” says Harry Anslinger (Garrett Hedlund), commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. “That’s why this Holiday’s woman got to be stopped.”
The film follows the dirty tricks used to harass and harness the singer. Her popularity made it near impossible for the government to prevent her from singing, but well aware of her reliance on opioids, Anslinger focus on her drug use.
Based in part on the book “Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs” by Johann Hari, “United States Vs. Billie Holiday” isn’t simply a show business biopic. The details of Holiday’s life are well documented and presented, from the troubled relationships and fluid sexuality to the drug use and soul searching that seemed to fuel her transcendent talent. But this is a dual story. Daniels dovetails the story of a troubled life with the governmental interference that made Holiday one of the first victims of the war on drugs.
But of all the relationships seen in the movie, it’s the bond Holiday had with her music that is most revealing. She understood the efforts of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to destroy her went far beyond putting her body in jail, they were trying to take something far more precious from her. “They want me to stop singing what’s in my soul,” she says. Muzzling her voice wasn’t about keeping her quiet, it was about taking what she meant to herself and others away. That “Strange Fruit” is still sung to this day, long after the war on drugs has been declared a failure is a triumph of Holiday’s spirit, even though that may be cold comfort to her fans and community. “Your grandkids will be singing ‘Strange Fruit,’” she says to the agents who harassed her on her deathbed.
Uniformly nice performances support Day in her striking lead debut. Vocally she’s a ringer for the late singer but the performance goes beyond mimicry to unveil the hurt that fueled Holiday’s personal and professional life.
“The United States vs. Billie Holiday” is an ambitious movie that delivers more than a standard biopic.
The most surprising thing about “Judas and the Black Messiah,” now playing in select theatres, is that it took 51 years to bring Black Panther Party chairman Fred Hampton’s story to the screen.
In 1969 the charismatic Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) was shot in his bed during a state-sanctioned predawn raid conducted by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, the Chicago Police Department and the FBI. Director Shaka King vividly details how and why he met his premature end.
The story begins when career criminal William O’Neal’s (Lakeith Stanfield) plan to impersonate an FBI agent in order to brazenly steal a car goes awry. He winds up beaten, in the hands of Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons), an actual agent who offers him a deal. Either do one-and-a-half years for stealing the car and another five for impersonating an officer or go undercover and infiltrate the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers. He chooses freedom in exchange for supplying details on the comings-and goings of deputy chairman Hampton and his girlfriend, revolutionary Deborah Johnson (Dominique Fishback). Rising to the trusted position of security captain O’Neal is torn between loyalty to Hampton’s revolutionary ideas and self-interest, i.e., the deal he made to stay out of prison. “Imagine what they would do if they found out their security captain was a rat,” says Mitchell.
As the title suggests “Judas and the Black Messiah” is a story of epic betrayal. King carefully fits the puzzle pieces together to create a complex picture of its characters.
Stanfield, who has been handing in strong performances in films like “Selma,” “Get Out” and “Sorry to Bother You” hits a career high here. His take on O’Neal portrays the conflict of a man who took a dangerous and deadly road to salvation, only to discover he was in way over his head. There’s a complexity to Stanfield’s work as he breathes life into his conflicted character. In real life, years after the events portrayed in the film, O’Neal said of his legacy, “I think I’ll let history speak for me.” History may judge him, call him a Judas, but Stanfield doesn’t. Instead, he helps us understand O’Neal’s bad decisions.
Kaluuya unfolds Hampton as much more than a title. History records him as the assassinated Chairman of the Black Panthers, but “Judas and the Black Messiah” remembers him as a captivating speaker who rallied people for his cause as he established free breakfast programs and negotiated a détente between rival gangs. Kaluuya’s work jumps off the screen, with show stopping speeches and emotional scenes he brings Hampton off the pages of the history books with a well-rounded, fiery performance.
The vivid performances, including Fishback who brings depth to a supporting character, reel you in. King takes the time to let us get to know Hampton and O’Neal, which makes the deadly dance they engage in, leading up to the violent climax, all the more emotionally shocking.
Set more than fifty years ago “Judas and the Black Messiah” feels timely. Many of the issues at play in the story are still hot button topics today. The work Hampton began continues because, as he once said, “you can kill the revolutionary but not the revolution.”
William Randolph Hearst and Orson Welles will forever be connected in our imagination courtesy of “Citizen Kane.” In the film, often regarded as one of the best ever made, Welles plays a thinly veiled version of newspaper magnate Hearst as self-absorbed, power-mad and wounded. “Mank,” a new film directed by David Fincher and streaming on Netflix on December 4, isn’t a making-of story about the film, but more the unmaking of its screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman).
Former drama critic, playwright, columnist and Algonquin Round Table wit. Mankiewicz moved to Hollywood with the promise of a contract and a career. Heading west from New York, he quickly found himself working steadily ghost-writing films. As his reputation grew, so did his bank account. “Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots,” he telegraphed to writer Ben Hecht. Known as a hard drinker and inveterate gambler, when we first meet him in “Mank,” he’s bandaged up from a recent, drunken car accident. Welles (Tom Burke) and John Houseman (Sam Troughton) have sent the writer to a ranch in the sunbaked Mojave Desert to dry out with the help of a German nurse (Monika Grossman) and a secretary (Lily Collins), and work on the script for what will become “Citizen Kane.”
At one point in the film Mankiewicz says, “You cannot capture a man’s entire life in two hours. All you can hope is to leave the impression of one.” Fincher, working from a script penned by his late father, columnist Jack, supplies a vivid snapshot of a man from a particular point of view.
Shot in luscious black and white, the story is told on a broken time line, à la “Citizen Kane,” as the action springs back and forth between the past and the present. Oldman, as Mankiewicz, staggers through the movie causing a scene at a costume dinner party at Hearst’s San Simeon estate and platonically courting his friend, movie star Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried), who also happens to be Hearst’s mistress. He’s poured into bed by his long-suffering wife (Tuppence Middleton) and goes to war with Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard), professionally and politically– “If I ever go to the electric chair,” he says of Mayer, “I’d like him to be sitting in my lap.”—while ignoring potentially career saving advice from his brother (Tom Pelphrey). Each vignette adds DNA to the portrait, as his disillusionment with Hollywood, politics and power grows by the moment. “Every moment of my life is treacherous,” Mank says.
Oldman plays Mankiewicz as a sharp wit who has grown tired of the world he inhabits. Drink, as his brother Joe says, has made him the “court jester” of Hollywood, a man whose genius is squandered in pursuit of booze and a sure bet at the racetrack. There’s a mischievousness to the performance that is tempered by the profound sadness of someone who sees their genius reduced to doing creative work for hire. His script for “Citizen Kane,” which was supposed to be credited solely to Welles, earned him an Oscar and may have been his last chance to speak his truth to power. “Write hard,” he says. “Aim low.”
Oldman is suitably ragged and ribald, bringing a lesser known historical figure to bawdy life but it is Seyfried who almost steals the show. As Marion Davies he is the epitome of old Hollywood glamour but behind the sequins and wide eyes is a deep well of intelligence that Seyfried slyly imbues into her character. When she and Oldman are side-by-side, the movie sings.
In many ways “Mank” echoes “Citizen Kane.” In structure, in its fragmented storytelling approach and its luscious recreation of the period but as a portrait of a man it feels lesser than. Mank is an engaging character but the depth that Kane plumbed to portray the character is missing. It succeeds as a look at power and its corrosive effects but as a character study its colorful but feels slightly under inflated.
