Critic's Notebook

Miss Me Deadly

Sabrina Lantos/2018 Tribeca Film Festival

MOVIE REVIEW
State Like Sleep (2019)

By M. TSAI

Writer-director Meredith Danluck attempts to put a feminine spin on the tired noir genre with “State Like Sleep,” with Katherine Waterston’s character, Katherine, obsessing over the mysterious death of her celebrity ex husband (Michael Huisman) and getting tangled in a dangerous web of secrets.

Moonlite

Tayarisha Poe/2018 Tribeca Film Festival

MOVIE REVIEW
We the Animals (2018)

By M. TSAI

Based on Justin Torres’s eponymous novel, “We the Animals” recounts the coming-of-age of a Puerto Rican child amid his parents’ turbulent relationship and his own budding (homo)sexuality.

Residential Evil

Haut et Court

MOVIE REVIEW
The Night Eats the World (2018)

By M. TSAI

Based on a novel by Martin Page under the nom de plume Pit Agarmen, “The Night Eats the World” imagines a zombiepocalypse as akin to one hundred days of solitude.

The Kids Aren't All Right

Hillary Spera/2018 Tribeca Film Festival

MOVIE REVIEW
Duck Butter (2018)

By M. TSAI

In some ways, “Duck Butter” feels like the lesbian take on “Chuck & Buck.” The fact that Miguel Arteta directed both notwithstanding, each seems to revolve around the warped sense of love and romance and the arrested emotional development shared by some members of the LGBTQ community – perhaps for being sheltered through puberty.

Necessity Is the Mother of Invention

Focus Features

MOVIE REVIEW
Tully (2018)

By M. TSAI

Screenwriter Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman's third collaboration (and their second with an ostensibly unglamorous Charlize Theron), "Tully" continues charting the messy womanhood for which the duo's heroines are always woefully unprepared. Ms. Theron plays Marlo, who has her hands full tending to the screaming fits of three tykes while her genial husband, Drew (Ron Livingston), occupies himself with work and video games. Marlo's enviably well-to-do brother, Craig (Mark Duplass), offers to hire a night nanny to help lighten her load. Though initially too haughty to accept, Marlo soon surrenders to his goodwill. The eponymous nanny, played by Mackenzie Davis, turns out too good to be true.