Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to do a high five! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about “Young Werther’s” study of complicated friendships, the end of life drama “The Room Next Door” and the audacious “Nickel Boys.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join CP24 to talk about the big movies hitting theatres and streaming this week, including “Young Werther’s” study of complicated friendships, the end of life drama “The Room Next Door,” the audacious “Nickel Boys” and the diamond heist movie “Den of Thieve 2: Pantera.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join the CTV NewsChannel to talk about “Young Werther’s” study of complicated friendships, the end of life drama “The Room Next Door,” the audacious “Nickel Boys” and the diamond heist movie “Den of Thieve 2: Pantera.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: “The Room Next Door,” the first English-language feature film from Spanish maestro Pedro Almodóvar, now playing in theatres, sees Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton play old friends brought together in a life-or-death situation.
CAST: Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore, John Turturro, Alessandro Nivola. Directed by Pedro Almodóvar.
REVIEW: Adapted from the novel “What Are You Going Through” by Sigrid Nunez, “The Room Next Door” is the story of two friends who lost track of one another when they became successful. Now a bestselling author, Ingrid (Julianne Moore) first met war correspondent Martha (Tilda Swinton) when they worked at the same magazine in the 1980s. As they found acclaim their paths diverged, with Martha always off on assignment and Ingrid making her home in Paris.
Decades later Ingrid is in New York when she hears that her old friend is undergoing an experimental treatment for cervical cancer. They meet and it’s like no time has passed.
They talk about old times; secrets are shared and then the bombshell. (MILD SPOILER AHEAD) Martha is ready to die but would like Ingrid to be there when it happens. Ingrid, whose latest book is about the fear of death is trepidatious and heartbroken but agrees. “It feels unnatural to me,” she says. “I can’t accept that something alive has to die.”
Essentially a two hander, there are several other characters, but it is the complicated, loving relationship between Ingrid and Martha that will linger in the memory. As they rekindle their relationship the sense that the clock is ticking hangs heavy over their scenes, and they make the most of every second.
Their reminiscences take on a certain weight, as Martha grapples with her legacy, as a writer and a mother, and Ingrid contemplates the legality of her involvement with her friend’s plan to take her own life. Their scenes are a masterfully performed emotional jumble of guilt, humor and regret.
“The Room Next Door” acknowledges the morality of the situation with compassion. The story, while bleak, manages to find a life affirming vibe, based on the interaction of the leads, as the movie winds through to the inevitable end.
“May December,” a new melodrama starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, and now streaming on Netflix, is a sorta-kinda retelling of the tabloid story of Mary Kay Letourneau, a Seattle school teacher sent to jail for having a sexual relationship with a sixth-grade student.
In the film, Portman is Elizabeth Berry, a television actress best known for playing a veterinarian on a show called “Nora’s Ark,” who travels to Savannah, Georgia to do research for what she hopes will be a breakout role in a gritty true crime drama.
She will portray on Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Moore), a thirty-six-year-old woman who had a sexual affair with a seventh grader. Caught having relations with the middle schooler in the stock room of the pet store where they both worked, Gracie did jail time, gave birth to the couple’s twins while behind bars, and now, twenty-four years later, lives with the grown-up Joe Yoo (Charles Melton), who is approximately the same age as her eldest son from her first marriage.
Notebook in hand, Elizabeth is a fly on the wall, logging the action like a student at a lecture as she learns about what makes Gracie and Joe tick. But as the couple prepares to become empty nesters as the twins depart for college, Elizabeth’s presence stirs up old ghosts that cause Gracie and Joe to relive the more sensational and troubled aspects of their lives. “She’s getting on my last nerve,” says Gracie. “She’s just everywhere I look.”
A mix of the dramatic and the mundane, “May December” is brought to life by the psychological interplay between Portman and Moore. For example, a make-up tutorial between Gracie and Elizabeth is a stunner. What could have been a TikTok style guide to applying lipstick and foundation becomes a tense transformation as Elizabeth comes one step closer to literally getting under Gracie’s skin. Elizabeth isn’t content with just taking notes, or wearing Gracie’s make-up, she wants to become Gracie.
It is method acting on a Talented Mr. Ripley level as the actress surrenders herself to the role. Portman is terrific, mimicking Moore in interesting, small ways, like adopting her lisp and during the make-up scene, physically resembling her in a truly uncanny way.
Moore has the showier role, playing a complicated woman who is confident in public, but prone to crying jags in private. Moore plays her with a combination of steeliness and vulnerability that can imbue a line like, “I don’t think we have enough hot dogs,” when accompanied by a dramatic music sting, with a deeper meaning that displays the A-type personality that lies at the core of the character.
Both hand in Oscar caliber performances, the kind of above the title work that gets attention, but it is Melton, as a man essentially tethered to Gracie for his entire life, who is most emotionally affecting. Elizabeth’s visit has forced him, reluctantly, to reassess his life and choices, and Melton’s understated, melancholic performance catches his quest for understanding. “This isn’t a story,” he says to Elizabeth. “It’s my life.”
“May December” is, I suppose, a satire of true crime and our fascination with tabloid criminality, of how the worst of human behavior can be exploited as entertainment, but mostly, it is a chance to watch a trio of great performances that draw us into this uneasy story.
The new Apple TV+ movie “Sharper,” starring Julianne Moore, Justice Smith and Sebastian Stan, is a story of love and lies, of swindles and avarice, of plot twists and, unfortunately, despite the zig-zaggy story, predictability.
The film opens with a rom-commy meet cute between book store clerk Tom (Smith) and Sandra (Briana Middleton), a student at NYU studying Redefining Radicalism the Rise of Black Feminism in American Literature. He asks her out for dinner, she demurs, but, like all good New York City romances, fate intervenes and they fall deeply in love.
But soon into the relationship it appears that Sandra isn’t as buttoned down as she first appears.
Welcome to the no-spoiler zone.
At this point director Benjamin Caron, best known for helming the acclaimed Benedict Cumberbatch “Sherlock” series, “The Crown” and “Andor,” goes episodic, breaking the film into sections to provide backstories for the characters and insight on their interconnecting relationships.
We meet Max (Stan), a shady character who always comes prepared with a quick line and a plan for parting some poor unsuspecting sucker with their hard-earned cash.
Moore and Lithgow play high society types Madeline and Richard. He is a self-made billionaire; she is a trophy wife with a troubled son.
Other chapters fill in Tom and Sandra’s comings-and-goings.
These seemingly unrelated characters are, of course, all closely related in a high stakes game of deception and duplicity where there will be big time winners and losers, cast aside to be forgotten about.
The film’s title refers to someone who is a gambling cheat or confidence man, and there is certainly enough of that on display, but taken in a different context, the story of “Sharper” isn’t as sharp as the literal meaning of the title might suggest. The structure is interesting, the characters compelling, if a little by-the book—there is the rich old man who falls for a beautiful younger women, the cold-as-ice conman and his emotional victims—but the multiple, crisscrossing con games on display aren’t clever enough by half to provide the payoff necessary for the movie to make an impression.
The script offers a few surprises (just don’t watch the trailer before watching the film) but the big game, the elaborate scams, feel a bit shopworn, especially if you’ve ever seen “The Sting.”
“Sharper’s” biggest con isn’t perpetrated by the characters, but by director Caron, who skillfully finds a way to string along the audience for almost two hours before leaving them empty handed in the finale.
“Dear Evan Hansen,” the big screen adaptation of the Tony Award winning Broadway musical, is a mixed bag. The coming-of-age story of a misunderstanding that takes on a life of its own, has moments of pure emotion but is often sidelined by clunky presentation.
Ben Platt reprises his Tony winning role as Evan Hansen, a high school outcast with a history of Social Anxiety Disorder. His loving-but-absent nurse mom (Julianne Moore) encourages him to put himself out there and meet new people, but his nerves always get the best of him. Even his only friend Jared (Nik Dodani, who provides much needed comic relief) makes it clear that he only speaks to Evan because their mothers are friends.
Evan’s therapist has him write daily Stuart “Doggone It, People Like Me!” Smiley style affirmations, letters addressed Dear Evan Hansen, followed by paragraphs of “Today is going to be a good day,” style declarations. When one of his letters is taken by troubled classmate Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan), Evan worries it will end up on-line, bringing humiliation and ridicule. Instead, the letter takes on a life in a way Evan could never have imagined when Connor dies by suicide.
Connor’s parents, Cynthia and Larry (Amy Adams and Danny Pino) find the note and assume it is Connor’s last words to his best friend. “He wrote it to you,” Cynthia says. “These the words he wanted to share with you.” It’s not true, of course. Evan barely knew Connor, but he goes along with it to make the parents feel better. “I’ve never seen anyone so sad,” Evan says of Cynthia.
The misunderstanding—OK, let’s call it a lie—grows as Evan becomes close to the Murphys, and even begins to fake evidence of his relationship with Connor. The parents want to learn about their son through Evan, and he likes the warmth of the family and he likes their daughter Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever) even more.
At a high school memorial for Connor, Evan’s speech (actually a song) inspires people, goes viral, and, for the Murphys, gives meaning to Connor’s short life. But Evan’s on-line popularity is short-lived when people start asking questions about his friendship with the dead boy.
The flashy staging of the Broadway era “Dear Evan Hansen” is gone, replaced by a stripped down, more naturalistic treatment. That works well for Dever, Moore, Amandla Stenberg who plays student council dynamo Alana and Adams, who is the movie’s heart and soul, all of whom hand in warm, authentic performances. The effectiveness of Platt’s work is sometimes undone with work that feels as though it belongs on a stage and not the more intimate medium of film. His embodiment of teenage angst, the hunched over shoulders and doleful eyes, plays to the back of the house, breaking
There is a long history of twenty-somethings playing high schoolers in movies, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Platt, at age twenty-seven, is just outside the window to effectively play his signature teenage character under the camera’s scrutiny. Occasionally his moony-eyed reveries, directed at Zoe, come across as creepy, not sweetly romantic.
Still, there are moments of undeniable power in “Dear Evan Hansen.” The transitions from dialogue to song aren’t always smooth, but the songs pack a punch. “Only Us,” Dever’s duet with Platt, understatedly plucks at the heartstrings and Stenberg’s “The Anonymous Ones,” a new song for the film, transcends the melodrama of the story with a beautiful recounting of the film’s themes of grief and loneliness. As it was on stage “You Will Be Found,” with the repeated line, “You are not alone,” is a show stopper.
It is a shame then, that a movie with potent moments ultimately feels like the titular character is guilty of exploiting Connor and his family. The movie acknowledges this, but it still doesn’t generate the kind of empathy for Evan necessary to make the film work on a deeper level.
It’s been almost two decades since the adventures of a Kiger Mustang stallion named Spirit were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron” lost to another spirited entry, “Spirited Away” from Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki, but spawned a cottage industry in the form of television shows and video games.
This weekend the headstrong horse goes on another feature length DreamWorks Animation adventure in “Spirit Untamed.” Now playing in theatres, it’s a re-imagined version of the television series “Spirit Riding Free.”
First some background.
Lucky Prescott’s (Isabela Merced) mother Milagro was a fearless horse trick rider from Miradero, a small town in America’s Wild West.
Milagro’s legend looms large in Lucky’s imagination, but she never got to know her. After her mother’s death, Lucky was raised on the East Coast by Aunt Cora (Julianne Moore), a straightlaced woman who struggled with his niece’s inherited wild side.
When Lucky pushes her luck too far, Aunt Cora decides the youngster needs stability in the form of her father, Jim (Jake Gyllenhaal) in the family home in sleepy little Miradero.
Life in the small town doesn’t sit well with Lucky until she meets her kindred spirit, a wild Mustang who shares her independent streak. The horse, Spirit, is the leader of a herd of wild stallions who become the target of animal poachers led by the evil Hendricks (Walton Goggins).
In an effort to save the horses from a life of captivity and hard labor Lucky recruits two local horseback riders, Abigail Stone (Mckenna Grace) and Pru Granger (Marsai Martin), and embarks on a rescue mission.
“Spirit Untamed” contains good messages about independence but also about being connected to a larger community. Lucky and Spirit are, well, spirited in their own ways but their true strength lies in their respect for the people and horses around them.
It is a simply told story of empowerment that doesn’t gallop over any new ground but, hackneyed though the message may be, it’s still an important one for younger viewers.
The big-eyed Margaret Keanesque character animation is nicely rendered, accompanied by energetic voice work, and should appeal to fans of the original. Younger viewers, who may not have been around when the original made a stir, could find parallels between this and the “How to Train Your Dragon” franchise.
With “Cruella” taking a dark turn, “Spirit Untamed” is the best family flick of the season.
In adapting “The Woman in the Window,” a new thriller starring Amy Adams, now streaming on Netflix, director Joe Wright borrows liberally from the Hitchcock playbook, paying visual tribute to everything from “Foreign Correspondent” and “Psycho” to “Vertigo” and, of course, “Rear Window.” There are so many Hitch lifts in the look of the movie it makes Brian DePalma’s myriad Hitchcock homages look like petty thievery.
Adams plays child psychologist Anna Fox who lives alone in a rambling brownstone on 124th Street in Manhattan. Agoraphobic, she gets panic attacks at the idea of going outside, let alone actually stepping over her front threshold to the big bad world. Her only regular contact with the outside comes with her weekly visit from her therapist (Tracy Letts) and a downstairs tenant (Wyatt Russell).
When her new neighbors from across the street drop by unexpectedly, she reluctantly lets teenager Ethan (Fred Hechinger) in for a get-to-know-you visit. A day or so later Jane (Julianne Moore) swings by to chat, ask nosy questions and have a glass of wine.
After the visits Anna becomes voyeuristically invested in their lives, watching them from the safety of her apartment as they go about their day to days lives, exposed by two large windows that showcase their living areas.
One night, after mixing wine with her anxiety medication, she witnesses what appears to be an ugly domestic dispute that turns fatal. Trouble is, no one believes the “drunken, pill popping, cat lady.”
Question is, did she really witness a murder or was it a hallucination?
Anna is a classic unreliable narrator, a character whose credibility is questioned at every step of the way. Adams keeps her interesting, bringing a human face to trauma, anxiety and grief. We’re never sure if what we’re seeing is filtered through a haze of medication or actually happening and while Wright finds flashy visual ways to portray this, it is Adams who connects emotionally.
There are moments of supercharged filmmaking in “The Woman in the Window” but the tonal shifts and pacing get in the way of making this edge of your seat viewing. Director Joe Wright brings his trademarked visual style to illustrate Anna’s anxiety. Unusual angles and lurid colours illustrate Anna’s disconnected moments, wide shots of her empty apartment represent her isolation. It’s effectively and inventively done, but the slack pacing sucks much of the energy out of the storytelling.
“The Woman in the Window” has moments that truly work but it is dulled by its deliberate pace, repetitive nature and typical confessional ending.
