Critic's Notebook

Got the Routine

Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
One for the Road (2021)

By MARTIN TSAI

Although Thailand boasts a vibrant film scene, an American would never know it. It’s been a full decade since homegrown Thai box-office successes like “The Iron Ladies” and the Tony Jaa chopsocky reached cinemas on these shores. White gatekeeping on the festival circuit ensures that only filmmakers who shamelessly pander to Westerners will be let in, and architects behind the so-called Thai New Wave understand the gambit well.

Misbegotten Identity

Melissa Lukenbaugh/A24

MOVIE REVIEW
Minari (2021)

By MARTIN TSAI

When the trailer of “Minari” telegraphs the tragedy that will eventually befall a Korean immigrant family taking root in 1980s rural Arkansas, the specter of racism flashes across the mind. It just makes too much sense in that setting, even if it’s also decidedly trite. Fortunately, the dreaded bigotry in this semiautobiography of writer-director Lee Isaac Chung only rears its ugly head in the form of borderline microaggressive ignorance.

The story of one man’s stubborn pursuit of the American dream, exemplified by Jacob (Steven Yeun) growing Korean produce in the Ozarks with the naïve hope of supplying ethnic grocers in Texas, also emanates contrivance despite the fresh Asian-American angle. Thankfully, “Minari” isn’t entirely about that, either.

Cultural Movement

Jack Mitchell/Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
Ailey (2021)

By SARAH MANVEL

This documentary about the life of choreographer Alvin Ailey, who created world-standard dance pieces while still in his 20s, combines archive footage, modern talking-head interviews and rehearsal room footage of the present Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater dancers at work to make clear the legacy he left behind. Masters of modern American dance, including Carmen De Lavallade and Bill T. Jones, explain the nature of his work, the impact it had on international audiences, including an overwhelming reception in Australia and a night of 30 curtain calls in Moscow. But Jamila Wignot’s film has two serious problems, one with the life and one with the work, that hamstring the film.

Baby Mama Drama

Tiffany Roohani/Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
Together Together (2021)

By SARAH MANVEL

It is not a truth universally acknowledged that a single man, in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a child. And yet Matt (Ed Helms) can’t help himself. He is the 40-something creator of a successful dating app which has given him the fortune to purchase not only the egg from an unnamed donor, but also the services of a surrogate. He chooses 26-year-old Anna (Patti Harrison) for reasons that shortly become clear: She is the only person in San Francisco lonelier than him.

Under the Skin

Edu Grau/Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
Passing (2021)

By SARAH MANVEL

The four main actors are some of the best-looking currently working, more importantly with the acting skill to render dialogue basically unnecessary, and yet “Passing” is a bore. It should have been a tense domestic horror, since the plot revolves around a life-threatening, decades-long lie. On a sweltering day in Irene (Tessa Thompson) escapes the New York City heat in a cool hotel lobby where she spots Claire (Ruth Negga), whom she hasn’t seen since high school. Claire brings her up to her room, where they order a teapot of whiskey – this is during Prohibition – and start chatting, until Claire’s husband John (Alexander Skarsgård) interrupts. Three things become immediately clear: Claire is living as a white woman, the proudly racist John has no idea that his wife is black, and while Irene doesn’t normally pass for white herself, she can should she so choose.

Doing the Trick

Nanu Segal/Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
Marvelous and the Black Hole (2021)

By SARAH MANVEL

Teenage anger and teenage coping mechanisms finally get their due in this sensitive and charming film about how a girl learns how to live with her grief. There are no villains in the movie other than everyone’s pain. Thirteen-year-old Sammy (Miya Cech) is acting out so much about her mother’s death that by the end of the school year her father Angus (Leonardo Nam) has had it. To give her summer some focus, he forcibly enrolls Sammy in community college classes, through which she meets Margot (Rhea Perlman), a children’s magician and the Maude to Sammy’s Harold. The requirements of the course compel Sammy to seek out Margot’s help, and the relationship that slowly springs up between them is a blessing to them both.

2020 Hindsight

Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
In the Same Breath (2021)

By MARTIN TSAI

Wang Nanfu’s “In the Same Breath” succeeds only as a bracing critique of Chinese censorship, because it spectacularly fails as a documentary on its purported subject, Covid-19. The film puts so much emphasis on the Chinese government’s initial denial and subsequent iron-fisted management of the pandemic, that its juxtapositions with the West’s misinformation and lack of response and containment feel like a disingenuous afterthought.

Social Distancing

Asterlight/Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
Searchers (2021)

By SARAH MANVEL

It’s such a good idea that you can’t believe no one thought of it before. People face the camera, looking at dating profiles on the app of their choice, and discuss them with the film crew who controls the scroll, a friend over their shoulder, or both. If messages are dictated, the crew type them and up and send them; if messages are received, they are analyzed together. The pandemic is apparent – “Searchers” was shot last summer in New York City, and the interviews are intercut with street scenes of P.D.A. by people wearing masks – but also not the point, since dating is impossible no matter where or when you are.

Desperate Housewives

Vlad Cioplea/Sundance Institute

MOVIE REVIEW
The World to Come (2021)

By SARAH MANVEL

Why are so many movies about lesbians historical dramas? For the same reason there are so few movies about writers: Modern lesbianism isn’t cinematic. Nowadays, if a woman is unhappily married, she can just get divorced; she won't starve to death. If someone wants to experiment with their sexuality, it’s no big deal. And if a woman is unsure whether or not she is attracted to the new neighbor lady, she can look up the language she needs to articulate it online. That kind of drama is almost entirely internal, and emotional, which on film is about as interesting as watching a critic write a review.

But back in the day real life had no such easy assists. In 1856, in upstate New York, farmwives were hemmed in by their daily round of chores and responsibilities. The loneliness and isolation is baked into the daily bread. For the marriage of Abigail (Katherine Waterston) and Dyer (Casey Affleck), there is the added complication of grief. As the opening sequence establishes, their only daughter recently died of diphtheria, and they are both staggering in circles of pain and misery, capable of daily survival but little more. But then the large farm down the lane is rented out to a new couple, Finney (Christopher Abbott) and Tallie (Vanessa Kirby). The women notice each other, and the men notice them noticing.

People to the Power

Glen Wilson/Warner Brothers

MOVIE REVIEW
Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)

By MARTIN TSAI

“Judas and the Black Messiah” – which retells F.B.I. informant Bill O’Neal’s (LaKeith Stanfield) ascension within the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1968 leading up to the bureau’s assassination of chapter chairman, Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), the following year – often feels like a companion piece to Spike Lee’s 2018 “BlacKkKlansman.”