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.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

A carefully crafted and intensely observant fictionalization of writer-director Joanna Hogg’s experiences once upon a time in film school in the early 1980s, “The Souvenir” is essential viewing for devoted cinephiles. Semi-autobiography may be an appropriate descriptor for the movie, but “The Souvenir,” which collected the World Cinema Dramatic Prize at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, should not be confined to a lone category like memoir. Hogg’s wide embrace folds around the frequently considered ideas of the artist’s journey, but “The Souvenir” also explores the emotional maturation of a young woman in a difficult romantic relationship with a high-functioning addict. 

Hogg’s onscreen proxy Julie is portrayed by Honor Swinton Byrne in her first featured role — and it’s a memorable, breakout performance. Julie’s affluence, privilege, and comfort is represented in several ways but principally communicated in brief scenes in which she taps her mother Rosalind (Tilda Swinton, real life mom of Swinton Byrne and a longtime friend of the director) for cash infusions that more often than not fund older boyfriend Anthony’s (Tom Burke) habits as much as the movie gear, film stock, and other school-related expenses Julie needs to pursue her evolving moviemaking vision. 

Hogg appreciates subtlety, and one of the great joys of “The Souvenir” is the way in which the viewer is invited to participate in the small intimacies experienced by Julie. The result is that we feel our way through the narrative alongside the protagonist, discovering the good and the not so good in concert with her. This technique of hiding all kinds of valuable information in plain sight — but just a bit left of center or in the background — can feel like the most empowering kind of storytelling for those comfortable with the nuance and ambiguity of an open-ended text.

The restraint with which Hogg conducts the proceedings may turn off viewers accustomed to the blunt, direct streamlining of plot beats in most films, but there’s no denying that the director’s orientation toward the discovery of transcendent moments within the quotidian aligns with Robert Bresson’s respect for quietude, stillness, and introspection. That said, “The Souvenir” breathes and behaves cinematically. It is far from just pictures of people talking. The spaces between the dialogue, when the violence of political strife or the attitudes of professors and fellow students may be inferred, draw us in.  

As a particular kind of bildungsroman, “The Souvenir” is also supremely sensual. Hogg’s stylish sojourn to Venice is tactile in its eroticism, even as we know the toxic mismatch of Julie and Anthony will inevitably lead to one heartbreak or another. The filmmaker dramatizes concrete components of the heroine’s progress, especially when they come with a steep cost, and the result is that we stretch and grow along with Julie. Additionally, Hogg shot in sequence, with much improvisation, including but not limited to work on a carefully constructed apartment set. Cinematographer David Raedecker captured images on digital and motion picture stocks to get specific textures and grain. Admirers of “The Souvenir” may continue their celebrations. A sequel is currently in production. 

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Arthouse sensibilities converge with a major star (having a major year) and elite visual effects in James Gray’s “Ad Astra,” a movie poised to earn the filmmaker his best notices to date in a career spanning 25 years. Set in a near future where space travel to outposts on the moon and Mars functions with the charmless tedium of our contemporary airlines, astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) is tapped to participate in a curious mission: reach out with a message to his previously presumed-dead dad H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones). A legendary pioneer of space exploration and the leader of the extraterrestrial/intelligent life-seeking Lima Project, Clifford is now a prime suspect in a series of mysterious and devastating energy surges.

Roy, whose thoughts we often hear in voiceover, undertakes a harrowing journey of some 2.7 billion miles, experiencing along the way challenges both physical and mental. Gray successfully engages in some creative world-building, and one of the most rewarding aspects of “Ad Astra” is the confident manner in which the filmmaker alternates between Roy’s intimate, introspective headspace and the intensity of turning-point encounters of action. Several of the latter, including an imaginative lunar surface buggy chase and a confrontation with a pair of research animals, worm into the viewer’s brain, unlikely to fade anytime soon.

Regardless of the extent to which one is smitten with the religious allegory and father-son thematic, “Ad Astra” looks absolutely gorgeous. Courtesy of master cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema’s eye and commitment to creative problem-solving, the movie boasts a lengthy list of stunning visual choices. Primarily originated on motion picture film, “Ad Astra” approaches its otherworldliness via practical and realistic decision-making. In a variety of situations, Van Hoytema deploys everything from slightly higher shooting speeds of 32 to 36 frames per second to a dual rig containing one infrared and one 35mm camera to custom-built, coating-free lenses.

For all the wizardry, however, Gray keeps us close to the turmoil and anxiety experienced by Roy. Pitt, in what might be a career-best performance, could find himself on the Academy’s list of Best Actor nominees for the movies of 2019. The actor does expert work opposite a series of worthy scene partners that includes Donald Sutherland, Ruth Negga, and Jones, but his finest scenes in the film unfold when he isolated and alone. Whether at the controls of a craft, answering psychological evaluation questions, or reflecting with no small amount of regret on personal failures and disappointments, Roy’s calm exterior conceals the emotions men are required by society to keep hidden.

Even though the broad strokes of Gray’s screenplay, co-written with Ethan Gross, suggest a variation on the quest for a rogue, Kurtz-like “emissary of pity, and science, and progress” as imagined in Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” and Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now,” Gray’s film — like all serious-minded science fiction cinema that blends existential philosophy with feats of technical effects photography — invites comparison to Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.” While the 1968 masterwork remains the gold standard, the evolution of the art form has sparked a renaissance of eye and brain candy. “Ad Astra” joins the likes of “Gravity” and “Interstellar” — photographed, respectively, by Emmanuel Lubezki and van Hoytema — as one of Kubrick’s starchildren.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Based on “The Hustlers at Scores,” Jessica Pressler’s 2015 “New York Magazine” article, Lorene Scafaria’s “Hustlers” dives headfirst into the world of sex work through the eyes of the women who make a living at it. Shaping her narrative around the complexities of female friendship and the pressures wrought by the financial crisis of 2008, Scafaria — who also wrote the screenplay — convincingly paints a psychologically resonant portrait that allows the viewer a seat on the inside looking out, as opposed to the more common depictions of movie stripping as framed by and for the pleasure of heterosexual males. 

While the movie’s trailer and one-sheet suggest a deep-bench ensemble that includes pop hyphenates Lizzo and Cardi B, Scafaria focuses primarily on the dynamic between Constance Wu’s struggling single mom Dorothy/Destiny and Jennifer Lopez’s seasoned mama bear pole-veteran Ramona Vega. The colors of that relationship provide the highs and lows of the movie’s emotional landscape; Ramona’s calculating business acumen often gets in the way of Dorothy’s moral compass once the gears start turning. In this capacity, the point-of-view ultimately resides with Dorothy on her journey from neophyte to master in control (of herself if not her circumstances).  

A Scorsese-esque pair of sequences tracking Dorothy first through the labyrinth of a neon-lit, booze-soaked club and later as she rushes past judgemental mothers to drop her daughter at school indicate Scafaria’s directorial flair. At times, “Hustlers” embraces the music video mythology of prurient gaze-invitation — an amusing cameo by Usher as his 2008 self sets up a bump-and-grind, slow-motion, make-it-rain tableau while “Love in This Club” underscores the action. But the men in the movie are always a means to an end, a collective prop representing first a kind of gross entitlement and then later an all-too-easy mark, ready to be separated from significant amounts of cash. 

The key soundtrack cues, selected and placed for maximum impact by the director, represent another point of comparison with Scorsese, who has long been a master of matching the perfect song to the right moment. Scafaria’s pair of classic Janet Jackson cuts, “Control” and “Miss You Much,” function as thematic bookends. Fiona Apple’s “Criminal,” which has become something of a stripping staple, introduces us to a commanding Ramona. Perhaps the most Scorsese-like sequence, which evokes the “Layla (Piano Exit)” body montage in “Goodfellas,” is a tour de force reckoning backed by Lorde’s “Royals.”

The con-artistry that precedes that moment places “Hustlers” in the company of other movies that have examined facets of the economic crash of 2008, most obviously “The Big Short,” as Adam McKay is one of the producers of Scafaria’s film. But the particulars of “Hustlers,” especially in terms of the movie’s commitment to working women telling the story and working women being the story, distinguishes it from the others. A framing device utilizing Julia Stiles’ journalist as interlocutor, confessor, interrogator, and listener not only provides Scafaria with the means to organize chronological jumps in the timeline, it serves as a reflection and reminder of Scafaria’s own presence as moviemaker. 

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Marketed as “The Banana Splits Movie” even though the only onscreen titles stick with “The Banana Splits,” Danishka Esterhazy’s bottom-shelf slasher flick marks the first R-rated adaptation of a Hanna-Barbera property since the dawn of the brand more than 60 years ago. A brazen attempt to cash in on the curiosity of audience members old enough to have enjoyed any of the 31 episodes of “The Banana Splits Adventure Hour” that debuted on NBC in 1968 and stretched until 1982 in syndicated reruns, the formulaic shocker is dispiritingly unintelligent and devoid of creative choices that might have successfully capitalized on the intriguing crossover of nostalgia-driven kiddie variety entertainment and the gruesome, Fangoria-ready prosthetic makeup and effects the movie offers in lieu of any characters motivated by logic or in possession of rich inner lives. 

Positioned as a metanarrative in which the Snorky-obsessed Harley (Finlay Wotjak-Hissong) celebrates his birthday with tickets to a Banana Splits taping, the principal plot sticks with a flaccid variation on the Old Dark House formula. Harley and his family, including devoted mom Beth (Dani Kind), impatient pop Mitch (Steve Williams), and sullen older half-brother Austin (Romeo Carere), are joined by Harley’s classmate Zoe (Maria Nash) as members of the live studio audience. Harley’s unfortunate timing coincides with the impending cancellation of the series — which has, in the movie’s universe, been running continuously for decades even though the single shabby set appears to have been stripped to its most barren look. 

Esterhazy’s direction is consistently flat and uninspired given the nonstop opportunities for twisted weirdness, but the failure of the film can be pinned almost entirely on the sawdust-packed script by Jed Elinoff and Scott Thomas (which has also taken plenty of heat for similarities to “Five Nights at Freddy’s”). The list of grievances is lengthy, but the nadir has to be the self-sabotage stitched into the furry personae of the Splits themselves. By imagining Fleegle, Drooper, Bingo, and Snorky as computer-programmed automatons instead of costumed actors, the viewer constantly wonders why none of the show’s superfans ever notice, question, or comment on it.

Homicidal maniacs concealed within markers of childhood joy, fun, and comfort are a longstanding narrative tradition stretching at least as far back as the delectable house of candy and confections in the Hansel and Gretel folktale popularized by the Brothers Grimm in 1812. Earlier this year, a remake/reboot of “Child’s Play” — a far more satisfying experience than “The Banana Splits Movie,” by the way — traded on the very same themes. There is something wonderfully chaotic and subversive about the concept of TV show friends turned upside down, even if William Hanna and Joseph Barbera would certainly have detested the idea of the goofy animal rockers as flame, blade, and mallet-wielding monsters.   

One expects to see continued genre flipping, crossovers, and mashups in coming years as the corporate ownership of dormant but copyrighted media franchises offers the promise of a low-risk financial return-on-investment via some built-in consumer recognition. Many Hanna-Barbera properties, now owned by Time Warner, have received the treatment in comic book form since 2016, when DC launched the Hanna-Barbera Beyond concept attempting to freshen and update legacy characters including Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, Fred Flintstone, Scooby-Doo, and others. The adjunct DC Meets Hanna-Barbera series, with inspired pairings like Aquaman and Jabberjaw, Superman and Top Cat, and Green Lantern and Huckleberry Hound, has one more remix you might like to investigate: the Banana Splits are recruited to rescue the Suicide Squad.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The Radio Silence creative team that includes directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett and producer Chad Villella mark a career highlight with “Ready or Not,” a rollicking horror-comedy that happens to be Fox Searchlight’s widest release to date. The movie’s thematic elasticity — which many critics peg as a timely critique of Trump-era, one-percenter avarice — plays to multiple audiences. Politics, however, don’t need to stand in the way of the film’s breathless race through the preposterous scenario so alluringly and successfully teased by the trailer. 

As a high-concept bonbon for genre lovers, the deadly game-play strategies of “Ready or Not” occupy the familiar territory of humans as hunted prey in literature and film. From “The Most Dangerous Game” to “The Purge,” the sickening thought of people stalking people as sport is more often than not attended by authorial observations on class, privilege, and power. The directors address each of those three in the twisty adventure of Samara Weaving’s deliberately-named Grace, a young woman of modest means about to marry into the obscenely wealthy Le Domas family, which built its fortune on card and board games.       

Suspension of disbelief is required, by us and by Grace on her wedding night. Tradition requires her participation in an unusual Le Domas initiation ritual. Comically trading on the ripe trope of coitus interruptus, which doubles, along with Grace’s white lace wedding dress, as a symbolic acknowledgement of our heroine’s “purity,” groom Alex (Mark O’Brien) grumpily and reluctantly goes along with the expectations. Grace, of course, draws the one card that triggers a life and death version of hide and seek: she will attempt to conceal herself from her new in-laws until dawn while they in turn attempt to locate and kill her, armed with an assortment of rifles, axes, shotguns, crossbows, and pistols.  

The universal experience of the durable children’s pastime translates effortlessly to audience identification with the protagonist, and the filmmakers make sensational use of the endless rooms, hidden passageways, staircases, dumbwaiters, corridors, and grounds of the opulent estate (played by a few Toronto-area locations) occupied by the members of the off-kilter clan. As a kind of grown-up “Clue” in reverse, complete with the tribute appearance of a pepper-box revolver, “Ready or Not” also lays out a motley assortment of Colonel Mustard and Mrs. Peacock-worthy opponents hell-bent on dispatching Grace prior to sun-up. 

As Grace copes with her horrifying crucible, the stages of her new personhood are symbolized by the increasingly sorry state of her gown. The dirtier and bloodier and more torn it becomes, the more you like her. She’s a smaller-scale cinematic little sister to Beatrix Kiddo. This year has already seen a bounty of entertaining and thought-provoking horror. “Midsommar” and “Us,” superior films that feature intriguing similarities to “Ready or Not” are just two of them. While all three have moments of humor, “Ready or Not” sprints along with a deliberate tonal playfulness that mitigates the kind of alarmism that led to Universal’s suspension of Craig Zobel’s “The Hunt” in response to another one or two of America’s never-ending supply of mass shootings.  

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Based on a memoir by journalist and superfan Sarfraz Manzoor, the inoffensive music-themed bildungsroman “Blinded by the Light” licenses the songs of Bruce Springsteen to communicate the growing pains shaping the life of 16-year-old Javed Khan (Viveik Kalra) in late-1980s Great Britain. Javed, whose mother and father came to England from Pakistan in search of opportunity, contend with the genre’s familiar parental roles: exaggerated disdain for the “rebel” attitudes of their offspring and an unrealistic expectation for obedience at odds with the realities of being a teenager struggling to find a place in the world and a sense of identity. 

Directed and co-written by veteran filmmaker Gurinder Chadha, best known in the United States for “Bend It Like Beckham” and “Bride and Prejudice,” the new movie extends Chadha’s thematic interest in the lives of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent who must navigate the challenges of the liminal space between their old world and their new one. The Thatcher-era setting of “Blinded by the Light” allows Chadha to draw parallels to the right-leaning, contemporary political landscape. The Khan family, based in Luton and barely making ends meet with unstable work at the local auto plant and home sewing jobs, suffers all kinds of racist humiliation.

Frustrated by the seemingly unfair demands of his father and the threats of local National Front and Nazi punks, Javed’s eyes and ears are enlightened by the sounds of “the Boss of Us All” when Sikh schoolmate Roops (a charismatic Aaron Phagura) shares his cherished cassette tapes. Javed is transfixed by the honesty of what he hears, instantly relating to the themes of struggle both economic and romantic. The otherwise unlikely positioning of New Jersey’s beloved son as a hero to Javed, a Pakistani teen from England, provides the film with its hook; the subtitle on some editions of Manzoor’s 2007 book “Greetings from Bury Park” is “Race. Religion. Rock ‘n’ Roll.”      

Chadha cultivates a wholesome, old-fashioned tone that more often than not pushes the movie into territory that might (un)charitably be tagged as a big screen version of the Hallmark Hall of Fame ethos. Javed’s kind, caring, and supportive teacher Ms. Clay (Hayley Atwell) encourages her student to believe in himself as a writer. A taciturn, neighborhood World War II veteran delivers an unexpected message. Javed’s bubbly, supportive crush Eliza (Nell Williams) is as available and desirable as any Manic Pixie Dream Girl, though she at least pursues her own justice-focused political activism. There’s even a heartfelt school assembly speech with lump-in-the-throat, off-script declarations of truth.

Springsteen fans will appreciate the ways in which Chadha uses tracks like “Born to Run,” “Badlands” and “Prove It All Night” to argue for the transcendental, emotional punch of great songs as universe-altering touchstones. Manzoor has said, like all of us have felt about one artist or another, “This is my life. He’s actually singing about my life.” In some scenes, lyrics are represented as bold, oversized motion graphics — the text swimming around the physical spaces occupied by the protagonist. Choices like this one will not endear the movie to the cynical, but the cynical are not Chadha’s intended target.  

Movie review by Greg Carlson

A dispiriting negative critical consensus and the worst opening numbers to date for Melissa McCarthy and Tiffany Haddish nailed shut the coffin lid of Andrea Berloff’s directorial debut “The Kitchen,” which the veteran, Oscar-nominated screenwriter adapted from the Vertigo series of the same name. The disappointing reaction to the story of a trio of mob wives who successfully run an organized crime operation in New York in the late 1970s is not particularly surprising. The month of August has long been pegged as a theatrical dumping ground of sorts, as all kinds of content limps into cinemas with low expectations.

“The Kitchen,” reminiscent of writer-director Steve McQueen’s 2018 “Widows” (itself based on a 1983 British TV series), may not deserve such a hasty dismissal. Berloff’s observations of human behavior through individual motivations credibly delineate the protagonists. McCarthy’s Kathy Brennan, mother to two young kids, discovers a perverse knack for patching leaks and putting people to work. Haddish’s Ruby O’Carroll seeks to upend the racist humiliation she suffers as a non-Irish outsider. Elisabeth Moss’ Claire Walsh emerges as the most interesting of the group. Physically and emotionally tormented and victimized for years by her brutal husband, his temporary removal awakens in Claire a twisted penchant for the kind of violence on display in “The Godfather,” “Pulp Fiction,” and “Eastern Promises.”

The title’s geographic shorthand also deliberately evokes the regressive expectations for the three central women: by creating opportunity for themselves in the absence of their incarcerated spouses, the domestic homemaking role of the subservient helpmeet gives way to the surprising skill with which the wives quickly outperform their husbands in the heat of Hell’s Kitchen. Berloff’s presentation of the awakenings of the women is visualized through the common tropes of the wise guy milieu, and that choice enhances the subtext. The filmmaker uses the period setting to comment on a range of still-relevant contemporary inequities faced by the marginalized (and delivers at least one solid diss to Trump for good measure).       

One of the likely reasons for the film’s woes extends to the casting of McCarthy and Haddish in predominantly straight, non-comic roles. Given the marketing of the movie, audiences may have expected lighter content and tone than the grim and gritty results that unfold onscreen. To compound matters, Berloff embraces the same kind of black, gallows humor so readily incorporated in the mafia worlds of Martin Scorsese and David Chase. Flashes of startling bloodshed and the mechanics of post-mortem disposal, signatures of “Goodfellas” and Tim Van Patten’s legendary “Whoever Did This” in the fourth season of “The Sopranos,” are regular features in “The Kitchen.”  

Claire proves a quick study under Domhnall Gleeson’s Gabriel, a livewire assassin whose tenderness toward his pupil is just one example of the curious and welcome ways in which Berloff colorfully imagines the male inhabitants of this world. See also Bill Camp’s winking turn as a Brooklyn-based boss curious to observe how the fortunes of the women play out. “The Kitchen” fares so much better when read as a kind of self-aware metanarrative of the gangster film, and an examination of Berloff’s construction of the men — ranging from the selfish blindness of the status quo-embracing husbands to the tradition-respecting working stiffs of the local union — is one argument for why this rare, female-helmed genre piece deserves a second look.