Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make your bed. Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the biopic “Michael,” the grounded fairy tale “The Bearded Girl” and the action thriller “Fuze.”
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SYNOPSIS: The story of a young woman looking to make a break from family traditions, “The Bearded Girl” is a coming-of-age tale about rejecting conformity while finding a place in the world.
CAST: Anwen O’Driscoll, Jessica Paré, Skylar Radzion. Directed by Jody Wilson.
REVIEW: Charmingly off kilter, “The Bearded Girl” sees Anwen O’Driscoll as 88th-generation bearded woman Cleo Nightingale. Like her mother, the strong-willed Lady Andre (Jessica Paré), and all the women in her family, she’s destined to become a sword-swallowing circus performer and take over the reins of the family carnival.
“People need leaders,” Lady Andre tells her. “And like it or not, you’re the next one in line.”
Trouble is, Cleo feels lost. “I don’t feel right,” she says. Her mother isn’t interested in her ideas to modernize their show, and she’s tired of feeling like a “freak.” Rebelling against her family’s traditions, she shaves her beard, leaves the circus and her mother behind in search of a “normal” life.
“Do you think it’s going to be easier out there,” Lady Andre asks. “That you’ll be able to find yourself a new life?”
As Cleo navigates life outside the family and her first romance with a young guy named Blaze (Keenan Tracey), her absence puts the circus and everything her mother has worked for in jeopardy.
Set in a heightened world that feels separated from real life by 180 degrees, “The Bearded Girl” is a fairy tale that deals with real life issues of self-acceptance, legacy and rebellion in delightful, heartfelt ways. But, despite the unusual backdrop, it feels grounded because instead of playing up the absurdity of a community of bearded women living and working in their own carnival compound, it digs into relatable issues.
As Cleo attempts to make her mark in the world, she comes to realize that embracing who she really is will be the ticket to happiness. It’s a lovely message in a movie that accentuates living life on your own terms.
“The Bearded Girl” isn’t a movie for the whole family, there’s some language and Lady Andre smokes up a storm, but as young-adult-and-up entertainment, it has its own unique voice and low-key appeal.
In “Come Away,” now on VOD, Julia Sarah Stone plays Sarah, a young woman with a sleeping problem. A teen runaway, she splits her time between crashing at her friend Zoe (Tedra Rogers) and sleeping in the park. No matter where she lays her head she never gets enough sleep. Terrible nightmares keep her awake, leaving her on the brink of exhaustion all the time. No amount of coffee can keep her eyes open, and she’s even started dozing off in class, earning jeers from her classmates.
Tired of waking up tired, she signs on for a month-long university sleep experiment. Not only will it provide a comfortable place to sleep every night but she’ll also make some money acting as a guinea pig for a team of graduate students, including Jeremy (Landon Liboiron) and the mysterious Dr. Meyer (Christopher Heatherington). Outfitted with futuristic looking head gear, she settles in each night and at first she feels more rested than before. But as the experiment goes on the nightmares take hold, opening up a terrifying window into her psyche as she begins to wonder what the point of the science project actually is. “I think your science project is f***ing me up,” she says.
If you are someone whose worst nightmare is waking up next to someone who says, “I had the weirdest dream last night,” and proceeds to tell you all about, “Come True” might not be your cup of Ambien. If, however, the existential horror of a mind run amok during sleep fascinates you, then seek it out.
Director Anthony Scott Burns takes an icy, voyeuristic approach to the material, staging scenes of nightmarish terror and the clinical reaction to the patient’s deepest thoughts with an aloofness that relies on atmospherics to create the film’s uneasy vibe. It is ethereally effective, particularly when coupled with Burns’ eerie composed score.
The dreamscape scares are cerebral. Imagine if David Cronenberg had directed “Nightmare on Elm Street” instead of Wes Craven and you’ll get the idea, but the film is let down by an ending that doesn’t do what came before it justice.
