Movie review by Greg Carlson

Jennifer Kent’s “The Nightingale” will not attract the same cult following or breadth of widespread fan devotion as “The Babadook,” but her latest marks significant progress in the filmmaker’s command of story and cinematic language. Harrowing, painful, and — for those viewers who walked out of festival screenings — unrelentingly bleak, “The Nightingale” draws from a number of inspired sources in Kent’s original tale of Irish convict Clare Carroll (Aisling Franciosi). The movie might be categorized as a rape-revenge odyssey, but unlike its exploitation kin, “The Nightingale” carefully examines the nightmare of colonialist oppression, misogyny, and racism with a steady, measured, and unblinking gaze.

Set in Australia’s Tasmania in 1825 during the period when the island was more commonly known as Van Diemen’s Land, “The Nightingale” efficiently communicates the impossible situation of Clare — twenty-one, married to another convict, and the mother of an infant daughter. Bound to humiliating servitude under the eye and thumb of British Lieutenant Hawkins (Sam Claflin), the young woman begs the officer to sign the overdue release papers that will free her and husband Aidan. At the start of the movie, our heroine sings to a group of hard-drinking, leering soldiers in a haunting moment that echoes the conclusion of Stanley Kubrick’s “Paths of Glory.”

We realize she’s caught between those men and the “protection” of Hawkins, who uses his position and rank to bully and rape. What follows is a stomach-turning sequence of events that sets up a physical and emotional journey as Clare seeks to confront her tormentor, who has left with a small number of companions to secure a promotion at the nearest post. Clare hires an indigenous guide who uses the English name Billy (Baykali Ganambarr) to help her track Hawkins. Billy’s own feelings about the British occupiers correspond to Clare’s, but the two have a long way to go to establish the unlikeliest of alliances.

While comparisons have been made between “The Nightingale” and “The Revenant” — extensive exterior settings, the beautiful but unforgiving natural world, and the levels of brutality and violence on display — Kent’s movie is spiritually closest to Jim Jarmusch’s acid Western masterpiece “Dead Man.” Parallels to Nicolas Roeg’s “Walkabout” cannot be discounted, but the intersection of cultures experienced by Kent’s two principal characters matches closely the movements of Johnny Depp’s William Blake and Gary Farmer’s Nobody.

In his monograph on “Dead Man,” Jonathan Rosenbaum devotes a section to Jarmusch’s use of violence. Comparing and contrasting the ways in which onscreen violence in Jarmusch’s films, particularly “Dead Man” and “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai,” embody the opposing poles of gracelessness and grace, Rosenbaum writes of the former title, “Every time someone fires a gun at someone else in this film, the gesture is awkward, unheroic, pathetic; it’s an act that leaves a mess and is deprived of any pretense at existential purity…” He could just as easily be describing Kent’s approach in “The Nightingale.”

Just like Nobody in “Dead Man,” Billy can speak English as a result of being kidnapped as a child. He may not utter a comic catchphrase like the colorful epithet-laced refrain delivered with perfection by Farmer, but his observations of white people are no less critical, no less perceptive, and no less skeptical. The horrorshow dystopia encountered by Clare and Billy burns images of genocidal atrocities into their brains and ours, linking the historical landscapes and grisly pasts of Jarmusch’s America and Kent’s Australia.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The politics of race in contemporary America inform the text and subtext of “Queen & Slim,” a vivid feature debut from music video director Melina Matsoukas. Described so often in “The Player”-style shorthand as “Bonnie and Clyde meets Black Lives Matter” that the tag unfairly deflates some of the character-based nuance surrounding the love-on-the-run tragedy of the central duo, Matsoukas’ stylish road movie should be destined for cult status as an object of cool. Unlike the famous Depression-era outlaws, Queen and Slim elude authorities following an act of self-defense; during a traffic stop gone sideways they miraculously avoid becoming another statistic in the ledger of killer cops punishing unarmed Black victims.

Before the audience gets to the confrontation with the hotheaded officer played by Sturgill Simpson, Matsoukas teases out a seductive and unhurried prologue. The film’s opening scene — a Tinder date, crackling with anticipation, that takes place in a greasy spoon  — introduces controlled attorney Angela Johnson/Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) and God-fearing Ernest Hines/Slim (Daniel Kaluuya). Their conversation, with words carefully-chosen by both parties, touches on attitudes about romance and loneliness, among other things. When one makes a good point, the other says, “touche.”

Like so many visuals-first commercial makers, Matsoukas freely references a dazzling range of popular culture. From Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight” to Ernie Barnes’ “The Sugar Shack” to Colin Tilley’s “Alright” for Kendrick Lamar and A. G. Rojas’ “Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck)” for Run the Jewels, “Queen & Slim” makes the most of its intersections. The score, by Devonte Hynes, is predictably fantastic. Karen Murphy’s production design finds an ideal companion in the costuming by Shiona Turini, particularly following a visit to the home of Queen’s Uncle Earl (Bokeem Woodbine, stealing everything he plays and then some), where the fugitives are reborn via hiding-in-plain-sight fashion makeovers and a fresh set of wheels.

In the road movie, the central odyssey of the traveler is marked by a series of single-scene encounters. Some result in setbacks, some reveal unlikely helpers, and all contribute to the education, spiritual growth, and maturation of the protagonist or protagonists. Matsoukas plays a distinct variation on Joseph Campbell’s articulation of the hero’s journey, regularly surprising Angela and Ernest along with the viewer. Several interactions introduce curious threshold guardians, and Lena Waithe’s screenplay, from a story she developed with James Frey, aims for a bold statement about solidarity and community.

The dreamlike space in which Queen and Slim elude not just law officers but an entire system designed to disadvantage and criminalize is where Matsoukas deliberately chooses to defy logic. Not all viewers or critics have bought into the moments that function as symbolic “gifts of the goddess” to keep the hero and heroine afloat, but it is through those unbelievable twists of fate and conscious decisions that one of the movie’s strengths unfolds its wings. Angelica Jade Bastien nails it, writing, “In a world and a country that is built on Black suffering, is it not radical to find happiness wherever you can?” The desperate need to locate hope and light and maybe even love where those things are in short supply recommends “Queen & Slim,” especially at a time of frustration and division.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Of the three feature films directed by Marielle Heller, all of which are based in one way or another on biographical source material, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” is the least successful. But that opinion doesn’t mean her newest work is a bust; the movie’s curiosity about the blurry lines between childhood innocence and grown-up cynicism rhymes with similar themes in “The Diary of a Teenage Girl.” And the exploration of authenticity and role-playing, central to “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” lives in all three movies. Despite misperceptions that “Neighborhood” is a biopic of beatific children’s television host and icon of kindness Fred McFeely Rogers, Heller makes the bold choice to cast the famous personality as a supporting player in the story of another.

Mister Rogers probably would have supported the decision.

“Neighborhood” is inspired by journalist Tom Junod’s 1998 “Esquire” cover story “Can You Say … Hero?,” although Heller’s film, written by Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster, only loosely commits to fact-based storytelling. Instead, the filmmaker invites us to visit someplace parallel to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe to participate in a cathartic Mister Rogers experience expressly designed for adults, or those who might have forgotten what it is like to see the world through the eyes of a very young person. In this sense, Heller’s movie is perhaps more aligned with Rogers’ 1978 series “Old Friends … New Friends” than with the more famous and familiar “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

The central Junod-esque protagonist, christened Lloyd Vogel, is played by Matthew Rhys. Rhys occupies the unenviable position of portraying the Ebenezer Scrooge-like writer as a wounded and distrustful pessimist with serious daddy issues. Vogel’s reputation precedes  him, and we discover that Rogers is the only candidate on a list of subjects willing to be profiled by the sharp-edged Lloyd. One need not even watch the trailer (“Lloyd, please don’t ruin my childhood”) to guess that the skeptic will be a believer before the end credits. Rogers, we already know even if Vogel has yet to learn, isn’t capable of faking anything.

Who is going to argue with the casting of Tom Hanks? Even so, the reason I don’t care for most fictionalized biopics lies in the imitation of one well-known person by another. No matter how flattering the inhabitation or the mimicry, my mind wanders to the “real thing.” Morgan Neville’s documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” with the genuine article front and center for the duration of the show, is more transcendent and transformative than Heller’s experiment, despite Hanks’ skillfulness, the facsimile of Rogers’ signature sweaters, and the replica sets rebuilt at Pittsburgh’s WQED, with studio footage captured on vintage Ikegami television cameras.

The music, including Rogers’ own beautiful compositions, factors significantly alongside a rather lovely complementary score by the director’s brother Nate Heller. Some tear-jerking, nearly obligatory Nick Drake and Cat Stevens, going to town like a waterworks insurance policy, also makes the soundtrack. Cameo appearances by several Rogers family members, friends, and collaborators will be spotted by sharp-eyed fans. Whimsical miniatures and shifting aspect ratios further evoke the oddity of the earnest Rogers and his limitless interest in the well-being of others. Heller even embraces some of the master’s own techniques honoring presence, patience, and quietude — including a nod to a legendary 1972 episode and Rogers’ brilliant “gift of a silent minute” to think about those who have helped us and “loved us into being.”

Movie review by Greg Carlson

“Parasite” will be the top-grossing foreign language film at the 2019 American box office, and deservedly so. Joon-ho Bong’s most satisfying and accomplished movie since “Mother” in 2009, “Parasite” is the first Korean film to win the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or. A perfectly-tuned, midnight-black fairy tale of two families — one wealthy, one struggling — Bong’s story treats poverty, class, and class warfare in parallel brushstrokes to the literal upstairs/downstairs and aboveground/underground picture painted by Jordan Peele in “Us.” The two movies would make a terrific double feature.

A deceptively simple infiltration plot explains the choice of title, as one by one, the brother, sister, mother and father of the just-scraping-by Kim family enter the employ of the wealthy Parks. The initial trick, of course, is that the Parks don’t know that any of the Kims are related to one another. Bong does Hitchcock proud by nudging us at first toward a sympathetic impression of the manipulators, convincing the viewer to excuse the violations of honesty and ethics in part because of the wide gulf between the haves and the have-nots. To Bong’s great credit, however, a dynamic begins to unfold that complicates any black and white stereotyping of rich and poor.

Bong is also a master builder in the specialties of composition and atmosphere, and one of the visual delights of “Parasite” is a study in contrasts framed by the massive windows in the two featured dwellings. The cluttered, garden-level rooms inhabited by the members of the Kim family look out past a clothesline of drying socks into a dirty street where a stumbling drunkard often relieves himself in full view. At the impossibly clean, architect-designed Park house, the living room also faces a huge glass wall, but this one observes the manicured lawn and sculpted hedge of a private backyard. Both of those giant rectangles are like movie screens, and what they reveal to the characters is as entertaining as any cinema.

Bong has many delicious surprises in store, and along the way stuffs “Parasite” with scenes that add wonderful little twists to well-worn tropes. Characters quickly scurry and scramble under beds and tables to avoid detection, and we hold our breath and remain perfectly still in solidarity with the hidden. In one such bravura moment, a horny Dong-ik Park (Sun-kyun Lee) initiates some hilariously specific carnal contact with wife Yeon-kyo (Yeo-jeong Cho) on the sofa while son Da-song (Hyeon-jun Jung) camps just outside in a tipi. Bong ratchets up the fear of getting caught by doubling it, and then tripling it, with some gonzo “Mission: Impossible” flair.

Like the Master of Suspense before him, Bong effortlessly blends the horrific and the comic en route to the icebox talk that has us questioning our own attitudes and beliefs through the unanswered mysteries of the story. The ridiculousness of the Kims folding pizza delivery boxes to make ends meet while a chemical spray of insecticide fogs them with “free extermination” contrasts sharply with the shocking events that will later release so much tension (and the toilet that will release so much sewage). Despite an overwhelmingly positive critical response to the movie, some writers have taken Bong to task, ala Todd Phillips’ “Joker,” for making a simplistic faux-cautionary tale that cloaks aspirational fantasy in the guise of a more rebellious takedown of capitalism. Fortunately, “Parasite” is sophisticated enough to support more nuanced interpretations.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Nearly forty years after Stanley Kubrick’s classic horror film conjured thousands of nightmares, director Mike Flanagan wakes up belated sequel “Doctor Sleep,” the strongest work of his promising career. Smartly striking a balance between the iconic status of Kubrick’s sound and vision and the Stephen King signatures that spread out to connect many people, places, and things — as seen, for example, in Andy Muschietti’s sprawling telling of “It” — Flanagan threads the needle to please more than one group of emotionally-invested followers. The filmmaker also wrote the screenplay, and despite significant changes to the story told in the novel, he honors the spirit of King’s spirits as well as Kubrick’s restless demons.

King is nothing if not handy with the clever moniker, and the title of the book and the movie refers to the macabre nickname of the now grown-up Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor), an alcoholic with some daddy issues and serious PTSD. The adventure, however, is shared by two key protagonists. Arguably, the most important character is Abra Stone (Kyliegh Curran), a girl with the same kind of supernatural “shining” gifts as Dan. The powerful penpals form a bond through psychic communication while a dangerous gang of scream-eating, pain-drinking, vampire-like predators known as the True Knot draws ever closer. In a weird way, Flanagan might have inadvertently made the best X-Men movie to date.

The True Knot is led by seductive child-killer Rose the Hat, and she is played by the wonderful Rebecca Ferguson as a rather spectacular mashup of Kiefer Sutherland’s Lost Boy David and Mathilda May’s relentless “Lifeforce” essence-drainer — with a dash of Anne Rice and at least a hint of Lena Olin’s fellow bohemian in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” Like all appealing villains, Rose manages to project enough familiar longing for the viewer to be able to relate to her desire to live, even if we don’t condone her evil means. Ferguson just about walks off with the whole works.

King’s longtime disdain for Kubrick’s brilliant film is the stuff of horror movie legend, and a number of pieces have already outlined the careful manner in which Flanagan honors both entities (as well as the less essential, three-episode, 1997 ABC miniseries). Cinematically speaking, Kubrick’s genius and influence persist. Rodney Ascher’s documentary “Room 237” is must-watch, film geek, conspiracy theory territory. In a big red valentine from Steven Spielberg, “Ready Player One” swapped out the “Blade Runner” sim of the novel for a thrilling Overlook dark ride. And just this year, the Pixar team squeezed several references into, of all things, “Toy Story 4.”

Flanagan always does his homework, and our return visit to the scariest hotel in Colorado is a wonderland of reconstruction. When Rose gazes upon those gushing elevator doors, her face lights up with awe, a smile curling her lips. Many viewers will share that look. Hallorann, Wendy, Jack, the Grady twins, and many more remind us why it’s so hard to quit roaming those halls — Danny Lloyd even makes a cameo appearance — and why Flanagan reconfigured King canon to make his version. That “Doctor Sleep” doesn’t in any way detract from or diminish the 1980 masterwork is a genuine compliment.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Fans of Robert Eggers’ brilliant feature debut “The Witch” have been waiting impatiently for “The Lighthouse,” and while the filmmaker decidedly avoids any kind of sophomore slide, the new movie will probably not attract the widespread fervor and devotion bestowed upon Black Phillip, Thomasin, and company. In “The Witch,” Eggers applied dialect evoking 1630s New England, and “The Lighthouse” follows suit with some wonderfully inscrutable 19th century nautical nonsense. Brother Max Eggers co-wrote the screenplay, and a note in the end crawl acknowledges the variety of sources for the idiosyncratic vocabulary of Willem Dafoe’s Thomas Wake and Robert Pattinson’s Ephraim Winslow, the tortured souls whose sanity starts to leak at the coastal Maine location of the title.

While “The Witch” included well-placed smatterings of macabre humor, “The Lighthouse” will play as an outright comedy for many. The change in tone turns out to be Eggers’ finest trick, freeing the filmmaker from expectations to stick with the formula of serious, mounting dread. Fully committed, Dafoe and Pattinson are terrific fun together. The former’s Wake is an absolutely delightful caricature of every pipe-chomping, pop-eyed sea dog from Ahab to Horatio McCallister, and the latter’s “timber man” Winslow slow-boils to perfection at each new indignity and humiliation leveled at him by his superstitious, flatulent boss.

I certainly won’t be the only observer to wonder whether Eggers should be publicly thanking Guy Maddin for having already concocted the ultimate hallucinatory, black-and-white, silent film-inspired, lighthouse-set fever dream of mania and madness, but I gotta spill my beans: “The Lighthouse” owes a deep, seagull-fouled cistern of gratitude to “Brand upon the Brain!” (2006). In a perfect world, some future programmer will set up a double feature and invite guests to attend in costume. Additional influences already identified by Eggers and others include Herman Melville (obviously), Ingmar Bergman, Fritz Lang, G. W. Pabst, Jean Epstein, Jean Gremillon, and Sarah Orne Jewett. It’s a deep bench.

“The Lighthouse” explores several classic themes of maritime literature: the burden of isolation from community, the dynamics of a complex superior/subordinate relationship, and the homoerotic impulses common to spheres from which females are excluded. The path connecting sexual fantasy and any-port-in-a-storm actuality is beautifully blurry. Both men express themselves in several ways as carnal creatures, and Ephraim’s vigorous, animalistic masturbation while fondling his hand-carved mermaid fetish is one of many ways Eggers expresses an almost tactile fascination with fluids. Spittle, vomit, fecal waste, and tears (from within) join nature’s lashes of rain and seawater (from without) as a constant threat to order and equilibrium.

“The Witch” may be the superior film, but “The Lighthouse” sees Eggers growing by leaps and bounds as a storyteller and visual stylist. The squarish frame magnifies the escalating emotional tension. Inky details and shadings of grayscale are intensified with the application of a custom orthochromatic filter. Dreamlike imagery hovers in the liminal passageway between ecstatic religious/mythological iconography and literal nightmare visions. Eggers is a major talent, and “The Lighthouse” — like his feature debut — inspires much conversation and invites multiple viewings.

As the story unfolds, Eggers almost effortlessly conveys our curiosities about the veil separating the corporeal and the ethereal. It doesn’t matter whether the film’s many supernatural encounters exist only in the imaginations of the lighthouse keepers. If we were in their place, Eggers argues, wouldn’t we also be as attracted to the dazzling illumination flooding from the Fresnel prisms in that tower’s carefully-guarded lantern room?

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Ten years later, Ruben Fleischer returns to the apocalyptic landscape of his funny, fresh, and winning feature debut “Zombieland,” but the “Double Tap” fails to live up to the quality of the inaugural outing. The principal quartet of performers — three Oscar nominees and one winner — are game, but the screenplay by Dave Callaham and original writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, leaves Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), Wichita (Emma Stone), Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), and Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) stuck in a familiar loop. Despite the warmed-up leftovers, the movie manages to locate a few bright spots, and none are more appealing than Zoey Deutch. As pink-loving, mall-dwelling moron Madison, Deutch manages the near impossible: she adds empathy and wit to what would otherwise be a broad stereotype.

The first “Zombieland” based much of its successful formula on self-awareness, and the sequel continues in that vein. Logic, however, is another matter entirely. Does it make sense that Wichita and Little Rock would pull up stakes and abruptly forge ahead on their own (making off with Tallahassee’s custom ride no less)? If belief is to be suspended, the now-grown younger sister seeks her first taste of romance while Wichita flees from a marriage proposal and the stale routine she shares with the safe and predictable Columbus. The couple’s bed barely has time to get cold before convenient placeholder Madison arrives to keep Columbus company.

The ensuing triangle mimics many of the tried and true conventions of the 1930s screwball comedy, especially its interest in the complications and/or love-and-hate riffs played out in classics like “Trouble in Paradise” and “Libeled Lady.” It may be a stretch to link a contemporary zombie trifle to the work of Lubitsch and Conway, but Deutch and Stone deliver their respective jabs with arch comic timing that often channels originators like Jean Harlow, Miriam Hopkins, and Myrna Loy. Some of the most entertaining scenes in “Double Tap” capitalize on Eisenberg’s hangdog expressions of guilt. Breslin, meanwhile, is treated as an afterthought. Separated from the core group, she disappears for long stretches.

In 2009, “Zombieland” already owed something significant to “Shaun of the Dead,” and the appearance in “Double Tap” of Luke Wilson and Thomas Middleditch as dead ringers for Tallahassee and Columbus ranks among the movie’s least inspired choices. Even worse is the inexplicable decision to set some of the action at the White House without even a trace of the kind of political satire that should have been centralized. Harrelson’s “nut up or shut up” barbarian so readily suggests a kind of Second Amendment MAGA parody that “Double Tap” practically begs for some kind of pertinent commentary that never materializes.

Most curious of all, “Double Tap” spends more time ignoring the clear and present danger of the undead to focus on the rambling road trip undertaken to retrieve Little Rock from a neo-hippie enclave called Babylon (pronounced Baby Lon by Madison). The safe haven is run by nitwits who inexplicably melt down any gun that makes it to the front gate. We are told that a new strain of resilient zombie poses a grave threat, and we witness one shoot-’em-up set piece to visualize that risk, but “Double Tap” is unconcerned with reanimated corpses until it reaches the expected conclusion.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Julia Hart’s “Fast Color” moved quickly and too quietly from South by Southwest debut to skinny theatrical engagements via Lionsgate’s Codeblack to home video. Several articles have already lamented the disappointing 77K box office take, wondering how such an intelligent spin on the indie superhero genre failed to make a bigger splash with viewers. Whatever the reason, the movie deserves a close look, especially from fans of kindred spirit Jeff Nichols, whose “Take Shelter” and “Midnight Special” operate in some of the same thematic territory as “Fast Color.” A series based on the film is currently being developed for Amazon.

Despite the frequently-appended superhero tag, the movie, which Hart co-wrote with spouse and “La La Land” producer Jordan Horowitz, is not a cape-and-tights adventure. Instead, it shares similarities with other realistically-grounded “what if?” stories like “Chronicle” and “Brightburn,” exploring a world in which people with supernatural abilities attempt to cope with the ramifications of their often terrifying powers. But “Fast Color” is also a heartfelt family saga, a melodrama about mothers and daughters, and an essay on race, class and the environmental state of the planet.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays Ruth, a young woman on the run from federal authorities and scientists who seek to contain and study — and possibly harness — her extraordinary but frighteningly hard-to-control resources. Afraid of her own strength, Ruth secures herself with rope to minimize the impact of frequent seizures that manifest as earthquakes. Hart carefully parcels out information to the curious viewer. Are these miraculous capacities somehow linked to the crippling, 8-year-long drought that has disrupted life as we currently know it? Soon, Ruth will make her way home to her mother Bo (Lorraine Toussaint) and her daughter Lila (Saniyya Sidney).

The dystopian milieu is less convincingly communicated than the sticky family ties. The scarcity of fresh water, with echoes of  everything from “Chinatown” to “Tank Girl,” has propelled many tales of present and future nightmares. Hart uses this element to set up a key moment of high drama as well as to comment on the fragility that accompanies real-life food insecurity. The breadth of the X-Men-esque command of physical objects is visually striking, and Hart alludes to “The Day the Earth Stood Still” in a smooth homage. The computer-generated effects — as promised by the title — are imaginative, inventive and chromatically dazzling.

Cast members bring warmth and empathy to their roles. David Strathairn is a welcome presence in a key supporting part. Christopher Denham, playing a researcher pursuing Ruth, starts stronger than he finishes, but that is a function of the script’s agenda more than any fault of the actor. The modest production budget turns out to be a real asset, as the rural settings (the film was shot in New Mexico) ground the action in dusty, recognizable reality. X-Ray Spex lovers will appreciate the prominent use of the title track from the legendary punk landmark “Germfree Adolescents.” That song and Nina Simone’s “New World Coming” resonate with feminist affirmation and Black pride, and the lyrics to both adroitly comment on the unfolding story.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Admirers of previous television and film incarnations of Charles Addams’ legendary collection of macabre icons have another variation to contemplate, but the computer-animated feature from “Sausage Party” directors Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan fails to measure up to either the 1960s ABC series or the pair of Barry Sonnenfeld-directed features released in the early 1990s. Certainly, the new movie could be much worse, but very little of Addams’ brilliant satire is on display. The most devoted fans will appreciate the authenticity of the character design, which sticks closely to the look of the classic illustrations. The Nitrogen Studios tech, however, is a far cry from state-of-the-art Pixar, and the too-cheerful palette never properly evokes the monochromatic washes of Addams’ single-panel masterworks.

A prologue origin story takes the viewer from the old country wedding of Gomez (Oscar Isaac) and Morticia (Charlize Theron) to the New Jersey mansion — here a derelict hospital for the criminally insane — where the couple decides to settle down and raise a family. The imposing keep overlooks planned community Assimilation, a suburban collection of model homes built by HGTV-style cable host Margeaux Needler (Allison Janney). It is unclear why Needler never noticed the hulking structure before she decided to invest in real estate, and the filmmakers use her as a shrill and unpleasant antagonist in a toothless variation on the classic “the Addams encounter a square” plotline that inevitably points to a timely lesson about the value of tolerance in a xenophobic society.

One of the movie’s primary threads treats the bar mitzvah-like rite of passage identified as the “Sabre Mazurka,” an anxiety-producing test for son Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard). To the shock and horror of many townspeople, a small army of Addams clan members descends on the vanilla development to witness Pugsley’s special day, and the script uses the occasion to queue up the arrival of It, performed by Snoop Dogg in a slight spin on the character’s traditionally modulated gibberish. Using the simplified spelling introduced in the 1991 feature instead of the traditional “Cousin Itt,” the filmmakers mostly ignore the popular figure once he has emerged from his custom lowrider. The participation of Snoop, who also contributes to the track “My Family” along with Migos and Karol G, evokes the kitsch factor of the MC Hammer crossover “Addams Groove.” I hope that some enterprising scholar is at work on a thesis deconstructing the relationship of hip-hop to the Addams Family.

Unsurprisingly, the misadventures of the Chloe Grace Moretz-voiced Wednesday provide the movie’s most promising ideas, even if they don’t stick the landing. As full of woe as Christina Ricci’s incarnation, our morose heroine infiltrates the local junior high school in a kind of sociological experiment to observe the curiosities of the “normal” citizens and mean girls down the hill. Wednesday’s behavior worries Morticia, and the matriarch’s subsequent distress suggests that the mother-daughter relationship will be comprehensively addressed. It isn’t. The movie misses yet another golden opportunity when Wednesday befriends Needler’s daughter Parker (Elsie Fisher, stuck with dialogue a long way from “Eighth Grade”). Even when the two are briefly locked in a room together, the film can’t be bothered to give them the kind of revealing heart-to-heart that would add some much-needed depth and dimension.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Birmingham, Alabama-set “Sword of Trust” is filmmaker Lynn Shelton’s first feature to be located outside the Pacific Northwest, and the change of scenery results in what might be the writer-director’s most satisfying movie to date. Sharing screenplay credit with “Saturday Night Live” writing veteran Mike O’Brien, Shelton continues to encourage the improvisational work of her cast members. That approach can often backfire, but the impressive skills of the ensemble turn the droll tale of a curious Civil War-era artifact into a comic showcase for principals Jillian Bell (having a career-best year), Marc Maron, Michaela Watkins, and Jon Bass.

Maron’s Mel is the proprietor of a pawn shop staffed by himself and dim-bulb, web-surfing underling Nathaniel (Bass). They meet Mary (Watkins) and Cynthia (Bell) when the two women offer for sale an antique military cutlass that soon comes to be known as a “prover item” — a relic that fuels revisionist fantasies in which the Confederacy defeated the Union in the “War of Northern Aggression.” How do modern-day rebels account for all the history written in books and the realities of day-to-day existence? Conspiracy theories giving credence to hidden powers in a clandestine, deep state government, of course. Nathaniel only needs a few minutes on the internet to find a buyer willing to pay a handsome fee for the sword.

Shelton convincingly alternates between the absurd misadventures of the core quartet and the well-observed moments of confessional pathos during which the audience sees the characters as humans doing their best to get along in the world (and maybe capture a little happiness along the way). The director plays Mel’s ex-girlfriend Deirdre, and a fleeting interaction between the two sets up a poignant monologue that takes place in the back of a van, when Mel describes his past struggles with addiction. The heartfelt humanity of bits like that one, as well as equally intimate information shared by Mary and Cynthia, adds a welcome layer of depth to the otherwise ridiculous journey.

Along with the four main personalities, Shelton uses her supporting players to wonderful advantage. Dan Bakkedahl makes off with his scenes as the initially frightening leader of the organization promoting the cockamamie beliefs of Old South victory and superiority. Just as fun is Toby Huss as the aptly named Hog Jaws, the emissary dispatched as the go-between during the convoluted transaction. Along with Zeke and Jake (Timothy Paul and Whitmer Thomas), another dopey duo of treasure hunters eager to acquire the blade, Shelton smartly mines the subtext to reflect the partisan fractures in the contemporary American electorate.

The routinely hilarious wordplay keeps viewers smiling, but “Sword of Trust” paints a picture of the troubling political undercurrents in the state of our Donald Trump-era (dis)union. None of the good ol’ boys caught up in the fanciful onscreen truther nonsense sport red “Make America Great Again” ballcaps, but Shelton not-so-subtly codes these folks as, at best, misguided red-state morons. At their worst, the potentially violent fanatics imply support for the kind of white-supremacy and nationalism encouraged by Trump’s “very fine people on both sides” claim following the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.