The smart, funny and insightful, “American Fiction,” winner of this year’s Toronto Film Festival People’s Choice Award, is a satire that sees Jeffrey Wright as an exasperated novelist who confronts racial stereotypes by writing a book that forces him to balance hypocrisy with selling out.
An adaptation of Percival Everett’s 2001 novel “Erasure,” the film stars Wright as Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, an author and English Lit professor frustrated that his publisher rejects his latest work as not being “Black enough,” while another book, “We Lives in da Ghetto” by Sintara Golden (Issa Rae), is heralded by critics as a modern masterpiece.
As Monk struggles personally—his brother Cliff (an excellent Sterling K. Brown) is experiencing a massive life shift while his mother Agnes (Leslie Uggams) is in decline, and will soon need a care home, which the family cannot afford—his professional life turns upside down.
“Monk,” says his agent Arthur (John Ortiz), “your books are good, but they’re not popular. Editors want a Black book.”
“They have a Black book,” says Monk. “I’m Black and it’s my book.”
Angry, on a whim he bangs out “My Pafology,” a satire of Golden’s book under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh. Filled with tired and reductive stereotypes of gang violence and broken homes, his gag novel becomes a publishing sensation, receiving an offer of a $750,000 advance and huge marketing campaign.
Monk is the only person, it seems, who gets the joke. “It’s the most lucrative joke you’ve ever told,” says Arthur.
It may have started as a joke, but Monk needs the money. If he accepts the offer, however, does that mean he’s perpetuating tropes that play into what he regards as “Black trauma porn”?
“American Fiction” finds sharp humor in identity politics, perception and culture wars. Serious in its message but playful in tone, it can cut to the quick. In one scene, Monk and Golden, the only two Black jurors on a literary panel, are castigated to by the white judges to “hear Black voices.” It is one of the film’s funniest scenes, but the performative nature of the sentiment is all too realistic.
As Monk, we see Wright in a different sort of role. Given the chance to flex his rarely-used comedy muscles, he excels, playing up his curmudgeonly character’s conundrum to maximum effect. It’s bittersweet. As he watches the fictious Stagg R. Leigh’s book become successful. It confirms his feelings about the biases of the publishing industry. He reacts with a mix of outrage and humor. It’s a bravura work that hopefully means it won’t take thirty years to give Wright another leading role in a theatrical release.
Giving Wright a run for his money is Brown who steals every scene he’s in. His character Cliff is a mess, pushing personal boundaries as a man coming out of the closet and building a new life. Like Wright, Sterling creates a character that gets laughs, but the laughs aren’t shallow, they come from a deep well of pain and Cliff’s lived experience.
Director Cord Jefferson’s “American Fiction” asks why stereotypes of Black trauma are so prevalent in entertainment by not so subtly satirizing the process and the people who create the limited view of Black life in books and on screens. It is insightful but never forgets to entertain.
Those expecting “Barbie,” the new battle-of-the-sexes fantasy starring Margot Robbie as the titular doll, to be a two-hour advertisement for Mattel may be shocked to discover that it is actually an esoteric movie about what it means to be human. It’s Existential Crisis Barbie!
“Since the beginning of time,” intones narrator Helen Mirren, “since the first little girl ever existed, there have been dolls. But the dolls were always and forever baby dolls, until…” Barbie came along.
By design, the blonde plastic doll with arched feet and optimistic outlook, first introduced in 1959, could be and do anything. “Thanks to Barbie, all problems of inequity and feminism have been solved.”
At least that’s what “stereotypical” Barbie (Robbie) believes.
She lives in the fluorescent Barbieland, a feminine nirvana where “every day is the best day ever. So was yesterday, and so is tomorrow, and every day from now until forever.”
Barbies, like Robbie’s Barbie, and doctor Barbie (Hari Nef), Barbie with a Nobel Prize in physics (Emma Mackey), mermaid Barbie (Dua Lipa), Supreme Court Justice Barbie (Ana Cruz Kayne), president Barbie (Issa Rae), among many others, live in Dreamhouses, without a care in the world.
Along for the ride are Barbie’s platonic friends, the Kens (played by Kinglsey Ben-Adir, Scott Evans, Simu Liu, and Ncuti Gatwa). Barbie may have a great day every day, but lovesick Beach Ken (Ryan Gosling), only has a great day when Barbie looks at him.
It’s mostly all sunshine and dance parties in the candy-colored Barbieland, but lately Barbie is troubled. “Do you ever think about dying?” she wonders aloud.
Just as disturbing, after a fall, her arched feet, perfectly suited to the extra high heels she always wears, have gone flat. “Some things have happened that might be related,” she says. “Cold shower. Falling off my roof. And my heels are on the ground.”
Turns out, there is a rift in the time and space continuum between the doll and the real world. Barbieland’s elder, Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon), advises Barbie that the only way to resolve her creeping ennui is to visit to the real world and find the little girl who is playing with her. The two are inexplicably intertwined. If the girl is sad, it could be rubbing off on Barbie.
“I’ll be back in no time with perfect feet,” she says, “and it will be like nothing happened.”
Transported to Venice Beach, the real world isn’t exactly what Barbie, and Ken who eagerly tagged along, expected. “No one rests until that Barbie is back in the box,” orders the Mattel CEO (Will Ferrell).
Unlike the doll that inspired the movie, “Barbie” has a big, beating heart. A study in what it means to be alive, to be a woman, feminism, patriarchy and toxic masculinity, it is a hilarious and humanist social satire that may win a world record for the use of the word “patriarchy” on film.
Director Greta Gerwig, who co-wrote the script along with Noah “The Squid and the Whale” Baumbach, takes a maximalist approach in creating Barbie’s thermonuclearly pink world. It’s a perky and playful take on her life, like a Barbie Dreamhome brought to magical life. It leans heavily into Mattel lore and is sure to stoke feelings of nostalgia for Barbie-heads. “I’m the Barbie you think of when someone says ‘Barbie,’” she says.
But as Barbie leaves behind the superficial life she knew before, her head fills with something unfamiliar; a flood of feelings. Her exposure to subjugation and objectification in a world opposite of the feminist utopia of Barbieland—“Basically everything men do in your world,” she says, “women do in mine.”—has a profound effect on her self-identification. She may still dress like “Hot Skatin’ Barbie” but her outlook has changed, she now craves meaning in her life, to understand who she really is.
Robbie brings breathes life into Barbie’s journey in a fully committed performance that is often as hilarious as it heartfelt. In a more comedic role, Gosling steals the picture as Ken, a soppy, dim-witted guy whose exploration of misogyny takes up much of the film’s last half.
“Barbie” is not your typical summer blockbuster, or your regular toy-based movie. It is both those things, of course, but it somehow finds a way to push back and be its own plastic and political thing. It has both style and substance, and while its story may get overactive and muddled in its last reel, Gerwig’s point of view on gender roles and the way that women are treated in society pulls few punches.
After sitting through all two-and-a-quarter hours of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” the latest animated adventure of the universe jumping superhero, your spidey senses won’t be the only thing left tingling.
A wild pop culture pastiche of visual styles that jumps off the screen in ways that will give your eyeballs a Charles Atlas style workout, it is a full-body experience on the big screen.
Gwen Stacy (voice of Hailee Steinfeld) and Miles Morales (voice of Shameik Moore) return from 2018’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” Both are he off-spring of police officers, and both have secret identities as Spider-Woman and Spider-Man, respectively.
When Gwen becomes estranged from her father, she disappears into the Spider-Verse, a series of connected but independent universes, each with its own brand of Spider-People. As The Spot (voice of Jason Schwartzman), a villain covered in portals that allow him to transport from place to place, threatens to shred the very fabric of the Multi-Verse, Gwen and Miles go interdimensional to fight the new threat.
There they find Spider-HQ, sore of a Quantico for all various and sundry Spider-Folks, like Spider-Woman (voice of Issa Rae), Spider-Punk (voice of Daniel Kaluuya) and alpha arachnid Miguel O’Hara (voice of Oscar Isaac). When Mile inadvertently disrupts the Spider-Verse he learns an important lesson about the sacrifice required to be a Spider-Man.
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” is a spider web of Marvel mythology, relationship drama, action and some very funny moments, combined with extraordinary, state-of-the-art visuals. In the action scenes, co-directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers and Justin K. Thompson pull out all the stops to create a singular experience that has more to do with the anarchic spirit of the original comic books than the recent spate of superhero movies. Stylish and frenetic, the action scenes are so colourful they often look like an artist’s paint-palette exploded on the screen.
When the film isn’t in motion, it takes the time to explore the relationships between parents and kids, with the added twist of superheroes trying to figure out their place in the world (or should that be worlds?), while trying to navigate their teens. It adds themes of loneliness, responsibility vs. obligation and having autonomy over one’s own life. Through Gwen and Miles, and a heaping helping of action, the importance of writing one’s own life story is the focus of the story.
Ultimately, the success of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” isn’t simply about the eye-popping nature of the visuals or the humour or the emotional aspect of the story. All are great, but what makes it special is that it feels fresh. It’s a superhero movie, with all the world saving tropes you expect, but it feels more like a comic book come to life than most, if any, other superhero flick.
“Vengeance,” a new satire playing in theatres, written, directed and starring “The Office” actor B.J. Novak, mixes-and-matches social commentary, the opioid epidemic and social divides, in a story that plays like a murder mystery wrapped around a journey of self-discovery.
Novak plays New York City writer Ben Manalowitz, a shallow, self-absorbed, know-it-all who wants to host an important podcast that will make sense of America and its current state of divide. “I don’t just want to write,” he says pompously. “I want to have a voice.”
When an unknown number pops up on his phone in the middle of the night, it sets him on the path to finding his voice as a weepy caller gives him the “bad news” that his girlfriend has died.
Girlfriend? Which one?
Turns out it was Abilene (Lio Tipton), one of several women he dated at the same time. The family believes they were in love but Ben has to look up her photo to put a face to the name.
Abbey’s good-old-boy brother Ty (Boyd Holbrook) insists Ben come to the funeral in West Texas. “I can’t do this,” Ben says. “None of us can do this,” says the grief-stricken Ty, “and face the future alone.”
Reluctantly Ben agrees to travel to West Texas and even gets roped into speaking at the funeral. “I wish I had known her better,” he says, looking at a picture of her and a guitar. “I wish I had spent more time with her. She loved music and will always be a song in our hearts.”
On the drive back from the funeral, Ty drops a bomb. “Abbey didn’t just die,” he says. “She was murdered. And we’re going to avenge her death.”
Why not just call the police? “In Texas we don’t call 911.”
Ben says, “As a personal boundary, I don’t avenge deaths. I don’t live in a Liam Neeson movie,” but a lightbulb goes off. This is the story he has been looking for.
He agrees to investigate Abilene’s death in the form of a true crime podcast. “This isn’t a story for everyone,” he says. “It’s a story about the need for vengeance.”
Working with his New York based editor (Issa Rae) to shape the story, his investigation leads him into murky territory, both personally and professionally.
The film’s title suggests a blood-speckled search for retribution but “Vengeance” is more interested in provocation than payback. Abilene’s death is the engine that drives the story, but it’s also a McGuffin, an ultimately not important detail in the overall scheme of things. Novak is more interested in our preconceptions about each other in the great red-state/blue-state divide, and how those biases color the way we behave.
It’s a heady backdrop for a neo-western noir, and it starts strong as fish-out-of-water Ben slowly realizes there is life outside his tiny bubble. Ben is a satire of east coast arrogance, looking down on anyone who dares to live outside the borders of New York City. As he digs into Abilene’s passing, investigating if she was murdered or took an accidental overdose, he begins to place old prejudices aside and actually becomes less insufferable. He is pointed in a new direction as his moral compass leads him to wonder if his own caddish behavior may have played a role in Abilene’s fate and, with the podcast, if he is exploiting her family.
Unfortunately, it is also at this point that the film begins to crumble under the weight of broad MAGA characterizations and juicy droplets of pop psychology doublespeak like “everything is everything so everything is nothing.”
As the story splinters off into a satire of true crime podcasts and social media in general, it gets mired in its own philosophies and the fleet-footed pacing of the early sections slows, dragged to a stop by a muddle of ideas.
“Vengeance” is an ambitious movie that bites off a bit more than it can easily chew and digest, but provides enough laughs and intrigue to be worth a look.
“The Lovebirds,” a new comedy starring Kumail Nanjiani and Issa Rae debuting on Netflix this week, belongs to a very specific sub-genre of rom com. Like “Date Night” and “Game Night” it’s the story of a rocky romance rescued by one wild night on the town.
Nanjiani and Rae are Jibran and Leilani, a couple we meet on their first date. It’s all sunshine and roses (and some day-drinking) until we cut to four years later. The genial tone of the first date is gone, replaced by endless bickering about how he can’t make up his mind about which restaurant to go to and even “The Amazing Race,” a show he’s never seen. “I don’t need to get hit by a truck to know it would suck,” he says.
On the drive to a dinner party, things come to a head. “I feel like I’m one page of the book,” he says, “but you’re reading a magazine.“ Just as a petty spat leads them to the brink of a break-up they unwittingly become involved in a crime when their car is commandeered by someone claiming to be a cop (Paul Sparks) and then used to brutally run over and kill a bicycle courier.
Afraid the police won’t believe their version of events, the couple leave the scene of the crime, determined to take matters into their own hands and figure out who the bad guy is. Plunged into world that makes their relationship woes look tame by comparison, the couple uncover clues and rekindle their romance. “This is like ‘The Amazing Race,’” she says, “except with dead people.”
“The Lovebirds” is a rom com, or maybe it’s better to call it a rom crime? Either way, it mixes affection, funnies and felonies in one package that rests solely on the shoulders of its two charismatic stars. Their Fred and Ethel style bickering, which supplies much of the film’s enjoyment, doesn’t feel mean-spirited or contrived. Just the banter between two people who may have forgotten what they liked about one another to begin with. Nanjiani and Rae bring the comedic chops to make us laugh and the magnetism to keep us onside when the action ramps up and grows more and more extreme. “We couldn’t figure out our relationship,” he says. “Do you think we can figure out a murder?”
“The Lovebirds” works best when it has an edge, less so (and you knew this was coming) when romance is reborn. The (NOT A SPOILER! IT MAY HAVE VIOLENCE BUT IT IS STILL A ROM COM) conventional ending is a predictable but happy way to put a bow on the story.
