I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres and streaming including the musical psychological drama “Joker: Folie à Deux,” the comedy bio “Saturday Night” and the drama “White Bird.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to do a two step! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the musical psychological drama “Joker: Folie à Deux,” the comedy bio “Saturday Night” and the drama “White Bird.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: While recounting her life as a fugitive in Nazi-occupied France, hiding in the barn of a classmate, a grandmother (Helen Mirren) gives her troubled grandson a lesson in the importance of kindness and compassion.
CAST: R. J. Palacio, Ariella Glaser, Orlando Schwerdt, Bryce Gheisar, Gillian Anderson, Helen Mirren. Directed by Marc Forster.
REVIEW: “White Bird” wears its heart on its sleeve. An elegant retelling of Grandmère Sara’s story, which originated as a 2019 graphic novel of the same name by R. J. Palacio, it is an earnest testament to the power of imagination and kindness to overcome wickedness.
It’s a Holocaust story told from the point of view of two young people, Sara Blum (as played by Ariella Glaser) who is separated from her parents when the Nazi take over their town, and Julien Beaumier (Orlando Schwerdt) a compassionate youngster with polio who rescues her and hides her away in his parent’s barn. Their bravery in the face of events they can barely understand, let alone control, is moving as this pair of innocents are forced to grow up very quickly.
It’s in the other stuff that the film reveals its origins in young adult literature.
There are several scenes of brutality and violence as the Nazis invade the village and abduct young Jewish students, but director Marc Forster hasn’t made a war film. Instead, he’s made a plea to choose kindness over hatred set against the backdrop of World War II.
The result is a retrained, gently paced character driven tale in need of more urgency.
Forster does a good job of displaying how small gestures can remind us of our humanity in troubled times, but he allows thew cinematic aspects of the storytelling—for example, Sara and Julien’s imaginary travels as an antidote to the world around them—to slow the movie to a crawl.
Much of it looks lovely, and, as an act of kindness, those scenes are on theme, but the flights of fancy plod along, taking away from the more dramatic elements the story has to offer. Danger should hang over every second of Sara’s life, and yet, aside from a scene or two, here is no real sense of peril.
“White Bird” contains potent and timely “Vive l’humanité” messages about compassion—although they are expressed by French villagers, who, by and large, sound like posh BBC broadcasters—and is occasionally touching but doesn’t hit hard enough.
I’ll be reviewing three movies this week, everything from a musical maniac and the birth of a comedy institution to a grandmother with a story of her childhood.
In “Joker: Folie à Deux,” the new sorta-kind musical staring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, and now playing in theatres, failed comedian Arthur Fleck is incarcerated at Arkham State Hospital awaiting trial for his crimes as Joker. While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur not only stumbles upon true love, but also finds the music that’s always been inside him.
In “Saturday Night,” a new show business biography now playing in theatres, tensions run high as producer Lorne Michaels and a not ready for prime time troupe of young comedians and writers prepare for the first broadcast of “Saturday Night Live” on Oct. 11, 1975.
In “White Bird,” a new World War II family drama, now playing on theatres, a youngster named Julian is visited by his grandmother, played by Helen Mirren, and is transformed by the story of her attempts to escape Nazi-occupied France during World War II.
