Movie review by Greg Carlson

There is no rule demanding that our main characters be good human beings. Paul Newman’s Hud Bannon? A charming, selfish snake. Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle? A ticking time bomb. Jason Schwartzman’s Max Fischer? A conniving, immature pest. And now we can add Timothée Chalamet’s mid-twentieth century table tennis hustler Marty Mauser to the list of folks we would likely cross the street to avoid should we have the misfortune to encounter them in our real lives. “Marty Supreme” lands on Christmas. Its somewhat protracted two-and-a-half-hour length leaves plenty of time at the cinema to digest your stuffing, potatoes and cranberry sauce, even if the story keeps up a breathless pace by staying in the higher gears.

Josh Safdie, directing without brother Benny for the first time since 2008 (Benny also went solo earlier this year with biopic “The Smashing Machine”), conjures up a handsome and frequently exhilarating cinematic universe with the help of longtime collaborator Ronald Bronstein as co-writer/co-editor, legendary production designer Jack Fisk, and the superb cinematographer Darius Khondji. Khondji photographed “Uncut Gems” for the Safdies and both movies pump and pulsate and rocket us forward in sync with the head-spinning reversals of fortune taking place in their narratives. The look and feel of “Marty Supreme” lives up to its title.

It might not be fair to the movie, but Chalamet’s vigorous and self-congratulatory Oscar campaigning frequently comes across as eerily similar to the self-assured personality of the character he plays. He fared better on the road after his portrayal of Bob Dylan in last year’s “A Complete Unknown,” but the press has been more harsh this time around, recycling some quotations from an interview in which Chalamet verbalized that he doesn’t want audiences – or himself – to take his “top level” performances “for granted.” Safdie clearly loves actors and faces. Chalamet is joined by a wonderfully Dick Tracy-esque gallery of mostly male mugs; Gwyneth Paltrow is one of the few women with any sustained dialogue of substance.

“Marty Supreme” begins in New York City in 1952, where we first encounter the youthful protagonist as a smooth-talking shoe salesman eager to have adulterous stockroom sex with pal Rachel (Odessa A’zion). The result of that furtive liaison immediately manifests as a sperm-meets-egg sequence in the tradition of old 16mm education films, “Look Who’s Talking,” and Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer.” The music of the latter arrives just a bit later, when “I Have the Touch” is enlisted as one of the movie’s choice needle-drops. Like Sofia Coppola’s synth and post-punk selections for “Marie Antoinette,” Safdie also embraces anachronstic incongruities. Public Image Ltd.’s “The Order of Death,” Alphaville staple “Forever Young,” and New Order’s “The Perfect Kiss” are among the picks included alongside more period-appropriate tunes.

The biggest swing, though, is surely the placement of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” the durable, four-decade-strong hosanna that continues to transcend its overuse (Safdie wrote the scene with the song in mind). Plenty of Gen X cinephiles old enough to have memorized “Real Genius” will quickly point out that no movie will ever top the way Martha Coolidge’s 1985 classic incorporated the signature Tears for Fears track. And no matter the filmmaker’s intentions, audiences may be divided regarding the extent to which the chronically unapologetic Marty earns any kind of redemption or sympathy by the time we hear those instantly recognizable opening notes.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The brilliant film essayist and documentarian Raoul Peck tackles the looming shadow of contemporary American and international totalitarianism in “Orwell: 2+2=5.” Following a May debut at Cannes and a fall theatrical release, the troubling and worthwhile movie is now available to rent from the major streaming services. Meticulously researched and exactingly visualized, Peck’s critique would reverberate even more like a desperate and impassioned cri de cœur were it not for the sober text and matter-of-fact clarity of George Orwell’s own words. From personal letters and diary entries to the instantly recognizable propaganda of authoritarian Newspeak, the famous English author’s ideas (narrated by Damian Lewis) are no longer warning us against the possibility of Big Brother. Big Brother is already here.

“Orwell: 2+2=5” is not quite as stimulating or satisfying as Peck’s 2016 masterwork “I Am Not Your Negro,” but the film easily belongs on this year’s list of finest nonfiction features. Peck rotates among a few categories of visuals, incorporating photographs of Orwell (the movie was made in cooperation with the Orwell estate) to develop one thread that primarily communicates the biographical outline taking the young writer, christened Eric Arthur Blair, from his 1903 birth in Motihari, India to the Isle of Jura in Scotland, where he finished “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” his most famous novel. In 1950, shortly following the book’s publication, Orwell died in London of tuberculosis complications.

Peck’s most urgent focus, however, is not a chronological life history. A few critics have argued that the film downplays or even ignores Orwell’s misogyny, homophobia and classist snobbery, but Peck should be credited for articulating how some of the writer’s shortcomings and blind spots became essential for self-reflection. For example, Peck uses Orwell’s line “In order to hate imperialism, you have got to be part of it” as a concise way of explaining how “inferior” white Brits could, as colonialists, feel superior to the indigenous population under the rule of the Crown.

Of the media translations of “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” Peck cuts frequently to clips from Michael Radford’s solid feature, released in the titular year and starring John Hurt as Winston, Richard Burton as O’Brien and Suzanna Hamilton as Julia. Michael Anderson’s 1956 version, which uses the numerical title “1984,” as well as the 1954 BBC “Sunday-Night Play” television adaptation with Peter Cushing, also accompany several scenes. “Animal Farm” pops in and out as well, with Peck making efficient use of Ralph Steadman’s unforgettable illustrations in strategically-placed instances. Well-designed motion graphics are frequently put into play, including a sequence on censorship and book-banning. Central sections tackle the real-world analogues to “War is peace,” “Freedom is slavery,” and “Ignorance is strength.”

Throughout, Peck incisively connects the dots between Orwell’s ominous and prophetic treatment of nationalism, the erosion of privacy, the surveillance state, the cult of personality, and the construction of narratives in which objective truth vanishes under the noxious cloud of frequently repeated lies. It will come as no surprise that the director adds the current leader of the United States to a lengthy list of fascist and quasi-fascist dictators and strongmen. Trump’s own comments contradict reality at a fatiguing rate. Given the man’s decades-long ability to slip any meaningful accountability, “Orwell: 2+2=5” paints a picture as bleak and despairing as life in Oceania.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Cinephiles who fell in love early with Chloe Zhao’s remarkable moviemaking gifts will point to the blend of unpolished performances, raw emotion and stunning visuals on display in “Songs My Brothers Taught Me” and “The Rider.” Those two features laid the groundwork that earned Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress Oscars for mainstream breakthrough “Nomadland” and then the odd and polarizing Marvel superhero entry “Eternals.” Zhao’s latest, a much-anticipated award-season buzz magnet adapting Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 prize-winner “Hamnet” with stars Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, doesn’t quite attain the indie vibes of the first two movies, but its positive reception will undoubtedly occasion sighs of relief from Zhao and her team.

Zhao adapted the novel with author O’Farrell, and the co-screenwriters ditch the book’s achronological dual-time period structure for a deliberately sequential narrative focused on domestic tragedy over the transmission and devastation of the plague. An imaginative and imagined story detailing the impact of love and death on the family of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway (renamed Agnes in book and film), “Hamnet” uses the premature loss of the couple’s 11-year-old son as the catalyst and foundation for the core themes and timeless language of the enduring play. In addition to its tearjerking examination of parental grief, “Hamnet” also situates Agnes in the central role, a move that in Justin Chang’s estimation makes some space for at least a partial “feminist corrective to the myth of male genius.”

Because the awesome power of Will’s writing ultimately redeems the frequently absent and often irresponsible father in the eyes of his spouse (in a final act sequence that requires tissues for even the most stoic viewers), “Hamnet” doesn’t fully connect or land all of its gender-specific critiques. Even so, Buckley is phenomenal while expressing her despair that William was not around when he could have/should have been. The headline for Chang’s review in “The New Yorker” rhetorically asks, “‘Hamnet’ feels elemental, but is it just highly effective grief porn?” I would argue the unfairness of that loaded charge; it doesn’t take a bard to know that theater patrons are well-prepared, even eager, to grapple with tragedy.

The worst nightmare of every parent may be at the heart of the drama, but Zhao has fine instincts for showing other long arcs of human experience. The immediate physical attraction between Shakespeare and Agnes is a rapid and forward courtship of steamy kisses. Lust gives way to the realities and responsibilities of children. In this gear, Buckley takes charge, expressing a desperate and palpable rage at the imbalance in her marriage. Zhao conveys how these sacrifices made by Agnes on behalf of her increasingly successful partner compound. It may be the late 16th century, but many viewers will easily recognize and relate.

On the “Critics at Large” podcast, Vinson Cunningham said, “‘Hamlet’ has never not been popular, right? It’s been in production almost constantly since it was written over 400 years ago. And in that time it’s undergone all manner of revisions, updates, adaptations, re-imagining. ‘Hamlet’ to me is all about how the common difficulties of life, grief, betrayal, loneliness, [and] indecision strike each of us with a unique and particular pain.” Without stating it directly, Cunningham is making a strong argument on behalf of O’Farrell’s fantasized historical fiction. Shakespeare’s text is as durable as it is elastic – not every interpretation will appeal to every aficionado, as you like it or don’t. But I’m happy they exist.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” continues to make an award-season push for recognition as it expands to additional screens following its initial premiere in May at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was awarded the Grand Prix. Both longtime and more recent fans of the filmmaker will be dazzled by Trier’s command of the cinematic medium. The auteur, writing again with longtime collaborator Eskil Vogt, locates the sweet spot between image-driven storytelling and the intense, dialogue-rich melodrama embodied by a dream cast populated by familiar regulars as well as fresh newcomers to Trier’s cinematic universe. Some followers may prefer the new offering, which shifts focus from a single central character to a multigenerational family saga.

In the kind of arts-and-crafts metanarrative that propelled the likes of Fellini’s “8 ½” (1963) and Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” (2004), “Sentimental Value” introduces viewers to Stellan Skarsgård’s aging film director Gustav Borg, whose surname deliberately matches the one bestowed by Ingmar Bergman on his “Wild Strawberries” protagonist Isak. Gustav, who left his young family years ago, has now circled back to adult daughters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) following the death of their mother. Looming even larger as an actual site of connection is the family home, a spacious Oslo classic still legally owned by Gustav.

Gustav announces his eyebrow-raising plan to shoot a semiautobiographical feature using the house as the principal location. He also offers the lead role – partly based on Gustav’s mother – to Nora, who wants absolutely nothing to do with the production. Nora’s own success as a performer on television and live theatre is quintessential Trier/Vogt: she is introduced in a tour de force sequence tracking a demonic attack of stage fright that sparks with exquisitely excruciating suspense. The mysterious source of Nora’s self-doubt later becomes apparent as we see her in all kinds of painful conversations with Gustav. Neither can easily mend or reconcile personal feelings of abandonment or their family-business competition.

Since Nora sticks to her guns in the unwavering refusal to work with her father, Gustav (mis)casts Hollywood starlet Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) in the part. Communicating all sorts of entertaining inside-baseball allusions to the contemporary landscape of movie financing and distribution – Gustav’s film is being bankrolled at least in part by Netflix – Trier strikes a balance between the Bergman-esque trauma of the Borg family dynamics and a breezier and more humorous examination of life behind the scenes. Fanning rises to the occasion in a demanding role that requires a level of openness and naivete balanced with the willingness to seek deeper connections through character research that Gustav can’t help but mock.

We also learn that when she was a child, Agnes appeared in one of Gustav’s best-received movies (Trier treats us to a clip of the film at a retrospective screening). Now, he wants the son of Agnes, his grandchild, to act in his new movie. The request troubles Agnes, who long ago made the conscious choice to leave behind show business for life as an academic. In one hilarious moment, Gustav inappropriately gives copies of “The Piano Teacher” and “Irreversible” to his pre-teen grandson, a cheeky nod to Trier’s own unrelenting cinephilia. Little touches like these place “Sentimental Value” in the company of “The Worst Person in the World.” And even though the 2021 film is superior, Trier adds another enthralling title to his filmography.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Japanese director Hikari, born in Osaka and originally named Mitsuyo Miyazaki, is poised for a significant stateside breakthrough with “Rental Family,” the new film she co-wrote with Stephen Blahut. Already generating some limited (and possibly wishful) Oscar nomination buzz for lead Brendan Fraser, “Rental Family” joins “The Phoenician Scheme,” “One Battle After Another,” and “Sentimental Value” in a curious group of recent movies dealing to one degree or another with father-daughter relationships. In the film, Fraser plays a Tokyo-based actor who takes a gig at an agency that provides services to clients in need of real-life support. I was previously aware of the phenomenon of paid mourners, one kind of “rental performance” example illustrated in the movie, but Fraser’s Phillip Vandarploeug gets in over his head when he agrees to pose as the previously absent father of a little girl.

From start to finish, Hikari’s direction is unhurried. “Rental Family” spends considerable time laying out the expectations for Phillip’s new roles, giving the viewer an opportunity to make the same adjustments experienced by the character to the unusual new direction in his chosen occupation. In one scenario, Phillip steps in as the groom of a secret lesbian. In another, Phillip hangs out with a lonely man, playing videogames and helping tidy up his apartment. In yet another, Phillip assumes the guise of a journalist writing a career retrospective of an aging actor struggling with dementia. That last thread will become nearly as vital to the plot as Phillip’s most demanding role yet: pretending to be the dad that Mia Kawasaki (Shannon Mahina Gorman) has never known.

Mia’s mother Hitomi (Shino Shinozaki) reaches out to Rental Family agency owner Shinji (Takehiro Hira) to help enlist an American to step in as the other parent of her hāfu child with the ultimate goal of securing Mia’s admission to a prestigious boarding school. Films from within and outside Japan have tackled the prejudice and derision faced by mixed-race offspring. Others don’t focus on genetics as a plot driver (see: the title character “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension,” Edna Mode in “The Incredibles,” and Quentin Tarantino’s O-Ren Ishii). Hikari alludes to Mia being bullied, but generally speaking, “Rental Family” joins the ethos of the aforementioned films.

One might imagine that Hikari would draw more deeply on her own acting background to unpack and excavate a variety of psychological layers that swirl around the ethical considerations of constructing an imaginary identity for an unwitting “scene” partner. While the majority of those who hire someone from Rental Family are fully aware of the artifice, several are in the dark. The movie goes out of its way to explain why Hitomi lies to Mia, but some opportunities are definitely missed. On the plus side, Hikari and Blahut make space for a few satisfying surprises involving both Shinji and Phillip’s agency coworker Aiko (Mari Yamamoto).

For the most part, however, Fraser’s warmth and affability does the heavy lifting when “Rental Family” plays safe and predictable, which is nearly the whole of the running time. More often than not, Hikari sands off the sharp edges, resulting in an overall experience more akin to the programming found on the Hallmark Channel than the searing, penetrating depth of Ryusuke Hamaguchi or Hirokazu Koreeda. Even so, “Rental Family” smartly avoids the easy fallback of Phillip’s status as a hulking gaijin/gaikokujin to make any pronouncements about cultural difference versus the universal qualities of love and family – blood or chosen.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

In “Hedda,” Nia DaCosta’s bold adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s celebrated 1891 play, the filmmaker reunites with longtime collaborator Tessa Thompson, who starred in DaCosta’s directorial debut “Little Woods” (screened, among other places, in the Fargo Film Festival). DaCosta makes several audacious alterations to the original text, switching the setting from Kristiania (Oslo) to 1950s England. The writer-director also centralizes a queer reading, swapping the gender of Ibsen’s Eilert Lövborg. Now Eileen Lövborg and played by a fiercely good Nina Hoss, the implicit becomes explicit in a stormy and broken lesbian relationship that triggers tragedy.

In Ibsen, the alcohol-soaked party during which Lövborg’s manuscript comes into George Tesman’s possession happens offstage, but DaCosta’s masterstroke is to build almost the entirety of the action around an increasingly feverish soiree held at the grand (and unaffordable) home of the newly married Tesman and Hedda. The manuscript, co-written by Eileen and current lover Thea Clifton (Imogen Poots), continues to function as a perfect MacGuffin, representing the direct threat to George’s more permanent employment as a university professor and to Hedda’s iron-willed sense of self. Additionally, the swirling, roiling waves of the evening blowout buoy the comings and goings of key supporting characters, including Judge Roland Brack (Nicholas Pinnock), who leverages his own power in an increasingly coercive clandestine affair with Hedda.

DaCosta primarily filmed “Hedda” at Flintham Hall in Nottinghamshire, and the opulent estate is every inch as captivating as the Northamptonshire’s Drayton House in Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn” or the Debenham House in West Kensington that Joseph Losey used in “Secret Ceremony.” Alongside the vision of production designer Cara Brower, the film’s art direction, set decoration and costume design combine as a formidable force. For fans and admirers of filmmaking that incorporates a stunning location as a character in its own right, “Hedda” offers nonstop visual riches. Cinematographer Sean Bobbitt’s roaming camera never strays too far from Hedda and her manipulative scheming.

Ibsen’s famous creation is an opportunity for any performer to deliver a tour-de-force, and Thompson joins a venerated shortlist of Hedda Gabler’s finest interpreters. DaCosta imagines this particular Hedda as a complex antiheroine and Thompson fearlessly embraces her with no limit to the pettiness, cruelty, ruthlessness, and rancor that erupt from the ashes of a frustrated and broken heart. Like the most satisfying Heddas, Thompson knows exactly how to communicate the complaint that she needs to be recognized with a singular identity independent of being her father’s daughter or her husband’s wife.

Despite key limitations corresponding to the privilege of its author and the time and place in which it was originally conceived, “Hedda Gabler” has been a sturdy site of feminist interpretation and reinterpretation. The play has led academics to ponder everything from suicide and unfulfilled desire to the rejection of patriarchal ideology to “female masculinity” and gender performativity to Hedda’s suitability for motherhood and on and on. One theory that has refused to go away is the suggestion that Hedda is afraid of sex. In an excellent 2016 essay by Jenny Björklund, the scholar rejects that reductive reading. DaCosta and Thompson, rather emphatically, do as well. Their Hedda is as hot as a pistol.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Scottish moviemaker Lynne Ramsay adds the fifth feature to her filmography with “Die My Love,” an adaptation of Argentine writer Ariana Harwicz’s 2012 novel. Co-written by Ramsay, Enda Walsh and Alice Birch, the movie eavesdrops on the unraveling of a young woman struggling to adjust to life following the acquisition of a new husband, a new home, and a new baby. Jennifer Lawrence, in an expectedly committed performance, plays the tellingly named Grace, whose crushing loneliness and palpable discontent mark every minute of the film’s two hours. Robert Pattinson is Grace’s husband Jackson. Sissy Spacek, LaKeith Stanfield and Nick Nolte appear in smaller supporting roles.

Since her brilliant 1999 debut “Ratcatcher,” Ramsay has demonstrated a remarkable gift for visual storytelling. “Ratcatcher” remains Ramsay’s only original screenplay to date. All four of her subsequent films have been based on books. Ramsay ditches Harwicz’s first-person narration, resisting any temptation to integrate voiceover that might have offered different access to Grace’s experiences or a more intimate and subjective point of view. Not everyone will respond favorably to Ramsay’s rather fearless allegiance to this arm’s-length portrait of her protagonist’s misery. In the director’s stylebook, showing and not telling is taken to the extreme, even to the Bressonian extent that an abundance of scènes nécessaires/scènes à faire are withheld.

For those who choose to tune in to the wavelength on which Lawrence and Ramsay operate, “Die My Love” can yield some spectacular epiphanies. It is certainly fair to claim that the raw clay from which this tale is sculpted takes the shape of a particular kind of hopelessness and terror linked to postpartum depression/postpartum psychosis. But that does not mean the movie is strictly about that phenomenon. “Die My Love” fights against reductive readings at each step, investing in the routines and repetitions described by Harwicz as opposed to a more conventional movie-melodrama rendering. Jumps in time also contribute to the feeling of disorientation.

Postpartum depression has been the subject of fiction and documentary, from the bleak comedy of Jason Reitman’s “Tully” to controversial takes like Amy Koppelman’s “A Mouthful of Air” and the advocacy of Jamielyn Lippman’s “When the Bough Breaks.” The best companion piece to “Die My Love,” however, is Elizabeth Sankey’s essay film “Witches,” a bracing and innovative feminist argument that makes an intriguing connection between what I originally described as “centuries of cultural expectations revolving around motherhood [that] have taken an unfair toll on women” and the iconography and mythology of witchcraft. Side by side, “Witches” and “Die My Love” complement one another.

In his negative review, Richard Brody takes Ramsay to task, writing that “The movie both sensationalizes those [postpartum depression] dangers and subordinates them to a general, social-existential vision of women’s frustrations and subjugations in marriage.” I would argue that Ramsay knows exactly what she’s doing, even if the result doesn’t aim to please. While Brody laments the absence of any scene in which Grace’s baby is placed in genuine danger – he refers to the newborn as “the implausible eye of the storm” – I think the director’s choice in this regard is inspired. The dread and anxiety we conjure from the steady thud of Grace’s actions are on point.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

As a reflection on our perilous political landscape, “Bugonia,” from the ever curious and boundary-stretching auteur Yorgos Lanthimos, joins several other 2025 releases that have something to say about a deeply divided populace and the fine line between order and chaos. Landing somewhere between “One Battle After Another” and “Eddington” on the “both sides are bad” spectrum, “Bugonia” is smaller in scale than either of those movies, even if its ideas are equally intriguing. One of the producers of “Bugonia” is Ari Aster, who cast frequent Lanthimos collaborator Emma Stone in a thankless and arguably insulting role in his “Eddington.” Stone is on much firmer footing here, adding another wild, even astonishing performance to her filmography.

Along with Stone, who portrays high-powered, take-no-prisoners pharma/chem CEO Michelle Fuller, Jesse Plemons re-teams with his “Kinds of Kindness” pals as Teddy Gatz, an angry and frustrated conspiracy theorist whose mother’s illness and coma he blames on Fuller and her profits-over-people practices. Along with his neurodivergent cousin Don (Aidan Delbis), Teddy kidnaps Michelle. When she regains consciousness in the basement of the rural home shared by her abductors, Michelle – now covered in an antihistamine cream and with her head shaved – is informed by Teddy that he believes she is an extraterrestrial from the Andromeda galaxy who has terrible plans for the humans of Earth.

This set-up, which featured prominently in the film’s trailer, gives two electrifying actors a nifty sandbox to practice their craft and show off their chops. Stone and Plemons are compelling, shifting effortlessly between the worst and the most humane aspects of Fuller and Gatz. A great deal of the action is slow-burn magic (occasionally reminiscent of the otherworldly magnetism of Lanthimos breakthrough “Dogtooth”) in which Teddy, smarter than he initially appears, struggles to keep pace with the steel-nerved Michelle, who somehow manages to be intimidating and nearly in control even though she is the one tied up and held against her will.

Stone and Plemons have the lion’s share of big scenes and dialogue, but Delbis is terrific in a key role. Even though the viewer assumes that Don is willing to go along with Teddy’s plans without challenge, he surprises us more than once with insights not within the grasp of his relative and closest companion. Lanthimos also escalates narrative tension with the introduction of Casey (Stavros Halkias), a local law enforcement officer whose grim personal history with Teddy colors their exchanges during the Fuller disappearance investigation. Halkias, known for his sharp stand-up crowd work and provocative podcast commentary, notches another outstanding turn here, following his hysterical and fearless role in last year’s underseen “Let’s Start a Cult,” which he co-wrote.

The script for “Bugonia” was written by Will Tracy as an adaptation of the South Korean film “Save the Green Planet!” That 2003 movie’s director Jang Joon-hwan was originally attached to the English language remake prior to Lanthimos coming to the helm. Not to be confused with its floral homonym, “Bugonia” refers to the ancient folk practice built on the myth that bees spontaneously generate from the flesh of dead cows. Teddy’s work as a beekeeper is one of a small handful of clues regarding the title’s connection to the thematic subtext known only to Lanthimos in full form. For the rest of us, “Bugonia” is an often wondrous and frequently inexplicable cosmic trip ready to delight anyone willing to tune in to its peculiar wavelength.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Noémie Merlant, working from a script she wrote with Pauline Munier and her “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” collaborator Celine Sciamma, directs herself in “The Balconettes” (the clever/cheeky English-language retitling of the original French “Les femmes au balcon”). An antic and frantic feminist horror-comedy thriller, “The Balconettes” nods to Hitchcock’s classic “Rear Window” by way of Pedro Almodovar’s many candy-colored visions of women on the edge. The movie begins with a tantalizing prologue in which a harried and victimized spouse named Denise (Nadege Beausson-Diagne) reaches a domestic breaking point that ends with the sharp edge of a dustpan connecting with the back of her awful husband’s cranium. The incident serves as an omen and a warning.

Denise’s apartment neighbor Nicole (Sanda Codreanu) is a writer whose imagination will soon kick into high gear and stay there. Frustrated and horny, Nicole works on her craft in what appears to be a largely worthless online group workshop with a paid “mentor,” even though the adventures about to unfold should offer more than enough inspiration for dynamic storytelling. Nicole’s roommate Ruby (Souheila Yacoub) is a free-spirited camgirl whose morning-after canoodling with a pair of lovers points to an appetite for polyamory in sync with the expressive pasties, mesh tops, piercings, and stick-on rhinestones that draw attention from online clients and those encountering her in the real-world.

Merlant’s sweaty Elise soon arrives from Paris to join her pals in Marseilles. An aspiring actor initially decked out like Marilyn Monroe, Elise struggles to communicate with Paul (Christophe Montenez), her drip of a husband who cannot leave her alone or respect her personal space and her physical body. Throughout all of the expository set-up, “The Balconettes” shows an abiding interest in the gender-specific power dynamics that soon take up the principal plotline. Following a sexual assault that unites the trio in a farcical and outré mission to dispose of the deceased rapist’s corpse, Merlant elects to spin several plates at once.

While there is no doubt that Merlant could have used some of Sciamma’s more sophisticated filmmaking skills in the execution of the movie, “The Balconettes” digs into its world with considerable audacity. If we can suspend enough disbelief to accept that the women would make the questionable decision to not call the police, other threads make just as much narrative sense – even when Merlant fails to fully engage or drill down. For example, Nicole is pestered by visions of the ghosts of abusive men in an intriguing premise for a writer seeking her voice. It’s a strong enough idea to support more prominent exploration.

Overall, Merlant’s “see what sticks” approach strikes enough satisfying notes to recommend the film, culminating with some body-positive, free-the-nipple energy that struts proudly through the denouement . Visual expressions of sweltering heat waves invoking mercury-busting emotional intensity have been a filmmaking staple for decades. Think of the perspiration on display in “Lawrence of Arabia,” “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “Cool Hand Luke,” “Body Heat,” “Do the Right Thing,” “Barton Fink,” and “Rear Window.” “The Balconettes” doesn’t reach the same rewatchability of any of those titles, but you’ll still want to mop your brow.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Now available on Amazon Prime following its world premiere last month as the opening night selection of the Toronto International Film Festival’s golden anniversary, “John Candy: I Like Me” is a heartfelt and star-studded appreciation of the late actor, who died in 1994 at the age of 43. The movie’s director is actor/filmmaker Colin Hanks, and his connections prove most valuable in attracting a phenomenal gallery of household-name talent who worked with and admired Candy from the very beginning to the very end. In a savvy maneuver to confront the anticipated (and inevitable) accusations of a hagiographic anointing of Saint John, the movie starts with Sahara-dry and predictably hilarious Bill Murray, who later cites an instance of his friend “milking” a scene in a show they did together as evidence of Candy at his worst.

Along with Murray, many others testify to Candy’s decency, graciousness and largesse as much as his seemingly effortless on-camera skill. Players who shared his orbit include some of the biggest and best names in comedy: Dan Aykroyd, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Andrea Martin, Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, Martin Short, Mel Brooks, Dave Thomas, Conan O’Brien and Macaulay Culkin are among those who pay respects with remembrances that Candy faithful will be thrilled to hear. “I Like Me” is not a critical biography, but each time Hanks makes space for Candy’s fellow pros to describe their favorite characters and bits, the movie takes flight.

Along with that famous fraternity, Hanks talks to Candy’s wife Rosemary and their adult children Christopher and Jennifer to fashion a behind-the-scenes thread that thematically links Candy’s premature death to the loss of his own father Sidney, who died at the age of 35 on John’s fifth birthday. The filmmaker strives for the right balance of commentary on Candy’s physical size, especially as related to the implications that eating, drinking and smoking functioned as coping mechanisms for his insecurities and fears. Rosemary points out that when John lost weight, studio executives would pressure him to stay big. O’Brien captures the essence of that downside: “This industry is very unhealthy for people-pleasers.”

Hanks covers Candy’s entrepreneurial ambitions by unpacking the actor’s ownership stake in the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts, a chapter which also dovetails with a motif regarding the close identification that fellow countrymen felt with Candy as proud Canadians. The film’s title derives from what is arguably Candy’s signature performance in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” for writer/director John Hughes, yet another close friend. Culkin argues that even though people tend to think first of Molly Ringwald, Candy – who was in more films written, produced, and/or directed by Hughes than any other performer – was that filmmaker’s ultimate representative.

In strategically selected spots, Hanks includes footage of Candy’s memorial service, highlighting Catherine O’Hara’s moving tribute and audio of Dan Aykroyd’s beautiful encomium, in which Candy’s “allied professional, creative brother and fellow Canadian” remembers a “titan of a gentle, golden man” in what is surely one of the most stirring eulogies I have ever heard. If space permitted, I wouldn’t hesitate to reprint the entire text, in which Aykroyd eloquently describes Candy as “magnificent of visage, eyes and frame,” and ultimately “the sweetest, most generous person ever known to me.” I urge you to locate and listen to the entire thing. I additionally hope that we will all be so fortunate to have someone as munificent in our own lives.