“Leave the World Behind,” a new end of the world drama starring Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali and Myha’la, now streaming on Netflix, is a strange tale of how people become friends in trying times and the power of the sitcom “Friends.”
Based on the 2020 novel by Rumaan Alam, the movie sees Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke as A-type Amanda and go-with-the-flow Clay, New Yorkers and parents to teenagers Rose (Farrah Mackenzie) and Archie (Charlie Evans). On a whim Amanda rents a luxury weekend retreat in Long Island, to get away from the stresses of the city.
“I figured if I made the reservation and packed our bags,” Amanda says, “it would eliminate most of the reasons to say no.”
They arrive to find a beautiful modernist home waiting for them, complete with interesting art, a lavish gift basket and an inviting pool in the backyard. It’s a paradise, although Rose, who has been binging “Friends” online, is annoyed that the spotty wi fi is preventing her from watching the last episode of the series. But that’s nothing that some fresh air and a dip in the pool can’t fix.
“Oh, this is nice,” Clay says. “The kids look so happy.”
Later that night, after dinner with lots of wine and well after nightfall, the doorbell rings. “Get a bat,” says the edgy Amanda. At the door are strangers G.H. Scott (Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha’la), who apologize for stopping by so late. “We were driving back to the city,” G.H. says, “then something happened.”
G.H. owns the home, and wants to spend the night in safety with his daughter. Turns out there is a blackout, or something happening in the city. With no internet, radio or television service, there is no way to know for sure what is going on. Amanda is immediately suspicious.
“Something is happening,” she says. “I don’t trust them.”
But, as strange things begin to happen, trust becomes essential if they are to survive.
Despite its luxurious trappings, “Leave the World Behind” is as bleak as any movie we are likely to see this year. It’s a “Twilight Zonesque” story that comments not only on societal collapse, but our reaction to it, and, as usual, the human aspect is the monstrous part. The idea of a cyberattack is scary enough, but the aftermath, the ripple effect of how humanity deals with implosion, is truly terrifying. While there are some scenes that approach action—planes dropping from the sky, an oil tanker that runs aground, and aspects of nature gone wild—this is a psychological drama with very high stakes.
After a slow start, director Sam Esmail heaps on the tension, ensuring the audience and the characters are on an equal plane. We don’t know anything more than they do, so we speculate along with them. It’s a clever ploy to draw the viewer into the story, to personalize the situation, and make us wonder what we would do in a similar situation.
An edgy score by composer Mac Quayle adds to the feeling of unease, but it is the performances that drive it home. It’s a character study in how these audience proxies respond, whether it is with racism, violence, greed or down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories.
Roberts plays against type, edgy and racist, a coiled spring ready to unwind at any moment. Amanda wears her biases on her sleeve, seemingly unaware of the power of her words. She’s oblivious to her micro and macro aggressions, a misanthrope who excuses her behaviour with a simple mantra: “I hate people.” Plus, the look on her face when G.H. calls the couple’s Brooklyn N.Y. neighborhood is “affordable” is a highlight.
The script offers more subtlety to Hawke. Ruth says he looks like the kind of guy things come easily to. But when he is faced with real crisis, he is forced to make an extraordinary confession: “I am a useless man.” In finely tuned work, Hawke calibrates the performance, allowing desperation to sink in bit by bit until there is nothing left but fear and helplessness.
The movie really finds its feet, however, when G.H. Scott and Ruth emerge. Their appearance sets the action in motion, and introduces the film’s two most interesting characters.
G.H. is a bit of a man of mystery. Suave and obviously very wealthy, he has a gravitas that makes him an oasis of calm, but as the story progresses, it’s clear he knows more than he is letting on. He’s the only character who seems to understand the big picture, and is the conduit by which the movie fully explores the issues of technology’s stranglehold on the world, trust, race, class and international intrigue. Ali pulls off a neat trick, giving G.H. warmth and empathy, while building tension with the character’s fundamental unknowability.
The two daughters, Ruth and Rose are polar opposites. As Ruth, Myha’la is spirited, unwilling to put up with Amanda’s passive aggressive prejudice, while Mackenzie is a wide-eyed innocent, more concerned with what happens to Rachel and Ross on her favorite show, than the collapse of society.
The film tackles many big subjects, but is most compelling when it zeroes in on the interpersonal interactions between the two families, set against the backdrop of a divided America.
“Leave the World Behind” is an elegant post-apocalyptic film that asks far more questions than it answers. It is thought provoking, but the ending (which I loved) may leave some viewers wishing for more.
Nuptial disruption has played a major role in Julia Roberts’s career. From “The Runaway Bride” to “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” making a walk down the aisle for Roberts is no walk in the park and should be its own sub-genre on her IMDB page.
After a layoff of almost twenty-five years, she’s back at it, attempting fresh matrimonial mayhem in “Ticket to Paradise,” a new rom com co-starring George Clooney, and now playing in theatres.
Roberts and Clooney are Georgia and David, college sweethearts whose short-lived marriage dissolved into acrimony two decades ago. “When it started out,” David says, “it was unreal, then it got real.”
On the odd time they see one another they make the Bickersons look like a happy, loving couple.
The only good thing that came out of their time together is daughter Lily (Kaitlyn Dever), a twenty-something who abandons her promising law career in Chicago to marry Balinese seaweed farmer Gede (Maxime Bouttier). “It’s like I looked up for thew first time and realized everything I ever wanted was right in front of me,” Lily says.
Despite their differences, the only thing Georgia and David agree on is that Lily is making a misake. “I won’t let her throw her life away,” says Georgia on the flight to Bali. “We need to trick her into dumping him.”
You don’t need a degree in advanced scriptology to know where “Ticket to Paradise” is headed. Firstly, it’s a rom, com, which always guarantee a happy ending. Secondly, it’s called “Ticket to Paradise,” not “Ticket to Misery.” But, no matter. Good rom coms should offer an interesting journey on the way to the predetermined ending, and that’s exactly what Clooney and Company do.
This is a good-natured romantic comedy that exists to showcase the considerable charisma of its leads. Roberts and Clooney have great chemistry and use every trick in their collective book to sell their snappy banter and screwball comedy.
“Ticket to Paradise” isn’t destined to become a classic, but it is a diverting watch, kind of like a cinematic equivalent to a beach read.
“Ben is Back,” starring Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges as mother and son, is a film about addiction, trust and love.
It’s Christmastime in a small bedroom New York community. The church Christmas concert is looming and Holly and Neal Burns (Roberts and Courtney B. Vance) and their kids teenager Ivy (Kathryn Newton), little ones Lacey and Liam (Mia Fowler and Jakari Fraser) are rehearsed and ready. They arrive home after church to a surprise, Holly’s oldest son Ben (Hedges), sitting on the front step, on leave from his Sober Living house in the city. “I thought there was no way my counsellor would go for this,” he says, “but he did. That’s how good I’m doing.” Despite having left a trail of scorched earth behind him he looks good. Sober for seventy-seven days—“I just want to get to 78.”—he’s up a few pounds, has colour in his face and talks about living his life with “rigorous honesty.”
Still, Holly hides all the medication and jewellery in the house. Neal is welcoming but reticent. Ben’s drug taking has ruined several Christmases and the last time he was home he was found strung out, overdosed on the stairs with a needle in his arm. “I’m confused,” Neal says. “Everyone knows it’s in your best interest not to be home yet. There are too many triggers here for you.”
The town certainly has a lot of ghosts for Ben. Hooked on painkillers after a routine accident as a kid, he became a small time drug dealer and user, a teen who may or may not have been responsible for the OD death of his school friend Maggie. But Ben insists all is well, he does a drug test for his mom and attends the Christmas Eve concert with the family.
The past catches up with Ben and the family when they come home to find the house trashed and their beloved dog stolen. “This can’t be happening,” Ivy says. “Not again.” Ben isn’t sure who is responsible—“There were so many people it could be,” he says.—but is determined to find out. “You’re all still scared of me,” he says. “That’s the last thing I want to make you feel.” With Holly he confronts his past, journeying into the dark underbelly of his former suburban town to find the dog and test the bond of mother and son.
“Ben is Back” works best as a family drama of how addiction impacts loved ones. Cute though the dog may be, it works less so when it introduces the hunt for the lost canine. The dramatic tension is kept alive and well by carefully calibrated performances from Roberts and Hedges.
As Holly, Roberts moves away from the persona she has spent a career crafting. On the surface Holly is precise, a suburban soccer mom who will only buy organic cranberries and who changes the Christmas ornaments because the old ones, Ivy says, “didn’t fit the current aesthetic.“ Underneath though is a woman teetering on the edge, someone who believes in Ben despite having been disappointed so many times in the past. “This time will be different,” she says. “You’ll see.” It’s co-dependency and a mother’s unconditional love wrapped up in one complicated package.
Hedges is a roiling mix of self loathing—“ If you really knew me you’d be done with me.”—and hope. He’s a dark soul, tormented by what he has done and still vulnerable to falling back into the life that haunts him. Ben is revealed slowly and perhaps his most telling statement, the line that makes us question everything that has happened, comes late in the movie. “You can’t trust addicts,” he says to Holly. “All they do is lie.”
“Ben is Back” paints a compelling picture of addiction but is almost undone by a silly plot twist that threatens to turn the movie into a thriller, diluting its effectiveness. Luckily strong work from Roberts, Hedges and Newton keep it grounded.
The all-animated Smurfs: The Lost Village aims to reintroduce the little blue creatures of Smurf Village to a new generation. It’s the first time more than one female Smurf exists in the community.
Featuring the voices of Demi Lovato, Joe Manganiello and Michelle Rodriguez, it trades on its inherent cute factor and nostalgia for much of its appeal. There are some good messages for kids woven in and the animation is relentlessly adorable but is there anything here for anyone over the age of five?
In what may be the most adult plotline in Smurf history, it’s a hero’s journey, a character’s search for purpose. It’s Joseph Conrad via Smurf Village. Smurfette’s Heart of Darkness.
As voiced by Lovato, Smurfette ponders her place in the world. All the other perky pint-sized blue creatures have descriptive names — Clumsy Smurf (Jack McBrayer), Jokey Smurf (Gabriel Iglasias) and Baker Smurf (Gordon Ramsey) — but what exactly, she wonders, is ‘ette’ supposed to mean?
Smurf aficionados will know she is the only female Smurf, created by wizard Gargamel to sow the seeds of jealousy in Smurf Village. With the help of Papa Smurf she became a beacon of sweetness-and-light and the love interest of Smurfs everywhere.
That’s quite a backstory and her quest for purpose is certainly noble, even if her beginnings weren’t. The character was first introduced in Franco-Belgian comics magazine Spirou in 1966 as a marketing tool. According to writer Hal Erickson the comely Smurfette was created as a means to “bow to merchandising dictates” and “appeal to little girl toy consumers.”
It worked and in the decades that followed Smurfette became the most sought after toy from Smurf Village.
The Smurfs are big business, in addition to this weekend’s big screen animated feature, the “three apples tall” characters have been translated into 30 languages (en français: Les Schtroumpfs, in Dutch: De Smurfen) to create an estimated worth of $4 billion, but not all Smurf related marketing has been successful.
Remember Smurf-Berry Crunch? At the height of 1980s Smurf mania Post Cereal released a sugary breakfast cereal they claimed tasted, “like crunchy Smurf Berries… In berry red and Smurfy blue.” To ensure the Smurfiest experience possible Post added little blue corn puff berries laden with food colouring to the mix.
Unfortunately the blue additives weren’t easily digestible by the body, leading alarmed parents to report cases of blue and strange coloured poop after breakfast time. According to poopreport.com, “when metabolized in sufficient quantity, the blue dye combines with bile,” to form a rainbow effect at potty time. The problem was fixed with the release of Smurf Magic Berries, which contained smurfberries made of yellow corn puffs and marshmallows.
For Jack Black Smurf-Berry Crunch also brings back some bad memories. The Kung Fu Panda actor remembers his second professional gig, a breakfast food commercial. “Being in a Smurf-Berry Crunch cereal ad and being pulled along in a red wagon…?” he says, too humiliated to finish the sentence. “My stock plummeted at school.”
I was a bit too cynical to buy into the North American Smurf craze of the 1980s — they were so popular one writer called them “kiddie cocaine” — but now in 2017 I see them as something other than an hour-and-a-half advertisement for Smurfs Are Us.
The new incarnation is a sweet kids movie designed for little ones but with just enough grown-up material to keep parents interested.
The new all Smurf, all-animated movie may be the most adult take on the pint sized blue creatures ever. “Smurfs: The Lost Village” is a hero’s journey, a character in search of a purpose. It’s Joseph Conrad via Smurf Village. Smurfette’s “Heart of Darkness.”
Smurf fans know she is the only female Smurf, created by wizard Gargamel (Rainn Wilson) from a lump of clay to sow the seeds of jealousy in Smurf Village. With the help of Papa Smurf (Mandy Patinkin) she transformed, becoming a beacon of sweetness-and-light and the love interest of Smurfs everywhere.
The new story finds Smurfette voiced by Demi Lovato and pondering her place in the world. All the other perky pint sized blue creatures have descriptive names—Clumsy Smurf (Jack McBrayer), Jokey Smurf (Gabriel Iglasias) and Baker Smurf (Gordon Ramsey)—but what exactly, she wonders, is ‘ette’ supposed to mean?
Her quest of self-discovery leads to the Forbidden Forest where, for the first time, she sees others just like her, girl Smurfs with names like Smurfstorm (Michelle Rodriguez), Smurfwillow (Julia Roberts) and Smurfblossom (Ellie Kemper).
Unfortunately Gargamel, on the hunt for fresh Smurfs to drain of their essence so he can become the most powerful wizard in the world, takes note and makes a plan to invade this previously uncharted Smurf settlement. “If it wasn’t for you,” Gargamel cackles to Smurfette, “I wouldn’t have known about those other Smurfs!” With the help of Clumsy, the bespectacled Brainy (Danny Pudi) and strongman Hefty (Joe Manganiello) the plucky Smurfette sets off to sound warning bells.
First though, the little blue ones must navigate the perils of the Forbidden Forest, a colourful place where the flora and fauna are have minds of their own and aren’t happy to receive visitors. “Nice forest, nice flowers,” says Hefty. “Not nice flowers!” In the inevitable showdown between our heroes, the new Smurfs of the Lost Village and Gargamel, someone shouts, “Smurfette, why did you do this to us?” Gargamel’s chilling response? “Because it was her purpose.”
There’s that word again, purpose. It’s at the heart of Smurfette’s journey. Is she a pseudo-Smurf, a former lump of clay masquerading as part of the tribe? Of course not. The story is one long set up for a feel good message about being anything you want to be and defying labels placed upon you by other people.
Along the way there is loads of gently paced action for young viewers, silly jokes and lots of ear-wormy songs.
“30 Rock’s” Jack McBrayer naturally has the Smurfiest voice of all the Smurfs in Smurfdom but is supported by playful work from Wilson, Kemper, Manganiello and Lovato.
“Smurfs: The Lost Village” may have an adult subtext but unless a surfing pun—“Let’s go smurfboarding!”—cracks you up few over the age of fifteen will find the journey particularly engrossing. This is first and foremost a kid’s movie without the pop culture references that sometime add a layer of maturity to keep things interesting for parents. Older folks might want to put the kids to be and watch this as a drinking game. Do a shot every time one of the characters says the word “Smurf” and you’ll be blue in the face in no time.
George Clooney is a rare breed, a one-name film star. Mention “George” and everyone knows who you’re talking about.
He’s headlined a handful of films dating all the way back to when there was a Clinton in the White House that raked in north of $100 million. Since leaving the television show ER in 1999, he’s released two movies a year on average, including this weekend’s Money Monster, a thriller about the host of a financial advice show held hostage on live TV by an investor who lost everything.
Some of his films have been successful, others not, but it’s clear Clooney doesn’t aspire to be a blockbuster star. Perhaps it’s because George is, as Time called him, “the last movie star,” that he appears determined to smash what that kind of stardom means. By lending his name to offbeat movies he deconstructs the mechanism of superstardom.
George steers his career toward character driven pieces, often at the expense of giant box office numbers. And while the fabric of his fame may fray around the edges from time to time — he’s as susceptible to box office vagaries as anyone — he stays busy, winning Oscars, producing movies like August: Osage County and acting as pitchman for everyone from Fiat to Martini vermouth.
“I’m very aware of the fact that if not for a Thursday night time slot on ER, I wouldn’t have this career,” he once said, “so I’m going to push the limits as much as I can.”
From kid flicks to period dramas and political satire Clooney has done just that.
Loosely based on a Roald Dahl story, the stop-motion animated Fantastic Mr. Fox sees Clooney as a smooth-talking fox that returns to a life of crime after buying a tree house he can’t afford. Clooney brings charm, wit and warmth to an unpredictable character, smooth one minute, a wild animal the next.
Clooney also starred in The Good German, a tribute to 1940s cinema shot with technology from the golden age of Hollywood — the same lenses, the same atmospheric lighting, the same rat-a-tat-tat style of dialogue, the same everything. It’s a retro-looking film made with twenty-first century creative freedom. Clooney, as an American military journalist covering the Potsdam Conference in post-war Berlin, and co-star Cate Blanchett look like golden age movie stars but behave more like Brat Packers.
Strangest of all is The Men Who Stare at Goats, the best movie with the worst name on Clooney’s resume. He plays a psychic soldier in this screwball satire about the state of modern warfare. Its an absurdist film, filled with memorable images — Clooney staring down a goat, enlisted men doing the Watusi and a montage of Jeff Bridges embarking on a journey of enlightenment — where no joke is too broad or too barbed.
George is so artistically eclectic he even disowns one of his biggest hits. “I always apologize for Batman!” he says of the ludicrous Batman & Robin.
George Clooney looks like the kind of guy you could trust. Older, experienced, he seems trustworthy, brimming with advice you could take to the bank. I mean, if you’d buy Nespresso coffee because he told you to, why wouldn’t you take financial guidance as well? A new movie, “Money Monster,” uses that quality, Clooney’s charisma, as the cornerstone of a thriller about misplaced trust, mislaid money and attempted murder.
Clooney is Lee Gates, a loudmouth financial advisor who bellows about investing in stocks and saving for retirement on a live television show called “Money Monster.” Think “Mad Money with Jim Cramer” with just enough details changed to avoid lawsuits and you get the idea. Gates is a self-styled Wiz of Wall Street, a financial shock jock who starts each of his shows with a wild dance number.
Just as his Friday night broadcast is getting underway Kyle Budwell (Jack O’Connell), a jilted investor invades the studio and takes Gates, his crew, and producer Patty (Julia Roberts) hostage live on air. “Turn those cameras back on I’m going to shoot him in his head!” He trusted the TV oracle only to lose everything when a high-frequency trading company Gates endorsed called Ibis Clear Capital lost $800 million overnight, tanking the stock market. Kyle is convinced that Wall Street banks are stealing our money and our country and Gates is the emblem of the theft. “I may be the one with the gun,” he says, “but I’m not the criminal here.”
In real time over the next hour Gates learns the human cost of his actions as Kyle as the cameras broadcast every minute to a worldwide audience of millions.
Like the volatile stock market Gates chronicles on his fictional show, “Money Monster’s” story takes many unexpected twist and turns. Unexpected and, as the story unfolds, preposterous. Unable to decide whether it is an exposé of Wall Street’s dirty dealings—much of it breathes the same air as “The Big Short” minus the bubble baths and Anthony Bourdain—a humanist thriller or a comment on the remove we feel watching tragedy through a screen—“If Lee survives we got to get him on the show,” chirps one chat show host watching the action on a monitor—it blends all its ideas into a mushy concoction that is neither one thing or the other. Director Jodie Foster relies on clichés to move the story forward rather than trusting the ideas and rich vein of social commentary that could have been mined from the material. You can’t help but wonder what Sidney Lumet might have done with the same story.
Clooney does the best he can with a script that forces him to behave like a caricature. He’s believable as the cocky on-air host, less so when he has to transform that character into a vulnerable, real human being.
Roberts is trapped in a control room, barking orders through a headset for most of the film, bringing whatever charm there is to be had from a part that is essentially a conduit for information and she tries to unravel the film’s core “where did the money go?” mystery.
The third part of the triumvirate, O’Connell, plays confused/mad quite well, but again is saddled with a role that is dragged down with repetition.
Some of the supporting actors fare a little better, particularly Caitriona Balfe as the CCO who wants to do the right thing, if only she knew what the right thing was and Christopher Denham as a producer who will do anything to please Gates.
“This isn’t good Lee,” Patti says about the action unfolding in the studio. She could have been talking about “Money Monster,” a movie that feels like a missed opportunity to mix intimate life and death drama with an indictment of the wheelers and dealers who play hardball with our money.
Richard talks Cannes and Xavier Dolan with the Canadian Press.
“I think he’s got probably a pretty good shot certainly at being taken seriously as a contender, even thought he’s up against the who’s who of international filmmakers like Ken Loach, Pedro Almodovar, Paul Verhoeven, Sean Penn,” says Toronto-based film reviewer Richard Crouse.
“There are a lot of people here that are working at a very high level, but I’d suggest that Xavier Dolan is working at just as high a level.”
