Searchlight Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
Empire of Light (2022)
At a certain point, blockbuster filmmakers must get bored. If you have, over the course of your career, demonstrated that you can handle both small budgets and colossal ones, high romance and shooty-action stuff, talky teenagers and morose adults, then what mountains are there left to climb? If you’re Sam Mendes, you direct your own screenplay and call it “Empire of Light.” It’s a love letter to cinema, of course; while he might be winning a bet he made with himself he’s still career-minded enough to keep his pet project in awards consideration. But while he was at it, Mr. Mendes decided to give cinematographer Roger Deakins a few tough marks to hit as well (backlit night fireworks, lamplit rooms at sunrise and the inside of a projectionist’s booth are just three examples). The irritating thing is that Mr. Mendes and Mr. Deakins are so skilled they could have succeeded blindfolded. They are two of current cinema’s greatest auteurs, who know how to stage an image in a way that elevates the plot. “Empire of Light” is so casually gorgeous it’s easy to overlook its flaws.
Continue reading “No Netflix, No Chill” »
Courtesy of TIFF
MOVIE REVIEW
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
When was the last time a movie was so thoroughly, unashamedly, fun? Rian Johnson might have had “Star Wars” unjustifiably taken away from him, but never has anyone needed a major franchise less. Not when he can, with no visible strain on his part and all the support in the world (including a world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival), casually set up a better one of his own. “Glass Onion” is a flawless delight; and it’s crystal clear Mr. Johnson is only getting started.
Continue reading “Killer Instinct” »
Universal Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
Ticket to Paradise (2022)
As an advertisement for modern parenting, “Ticket to Paradise” is a terrific argument for abortion on demand. Instead, it’s meant to be that dying art, the romantic comedy. While on holiday in Bali with best friend Wren (Billie Lourd), recent law grad Lily (Kaitlyn Dever) meets local man Gede (pronounced G’day, and played by Maxime Bouttier) and almost immediately they decide to get married. But the movie doesn’t care about them. Their relationship only exists to spite Lily’s parents, who have been bitterly divorced for decades. Instead the romance and the comedy are meant to be found in whether David (George Clooney) and Georgia (Julia Roberts) will be able to set aside their mutual loathing and work together to prevent the wedding. How comedic! How romantic!
Continue reading “The Parent Trap” »
Sony Pictures Classics
MOVIE REVIEW
Carmen (2022)
Robert De Niro once answered a question about his career by saying “The talent is the choices.” Whether or not Paul Mescal knows that quote, it’s advice he has taken to heart. After the television show “Normal People” captured everyone’s imaginations in early lockdown, both he and his costar Daisy Edgar-Jones were given the freedom to choose what they wanted to do next, an incredible position for any actor in their early 20s to be in. While Ms. Edgar-Jones has gone for unusual rom-coms and more standard courtroom dramas, Mr. Mescal has proved himself willing to experiment, and push beyond the comfort zone a lot of actors on the rise have.
Continue reading “Modern-Day Gypsy” »
Pathé UK
MOVIE REVIEW
Allelujah (2022)
“Allelujah” is the worst of both worlds: It’s a pro-socialized-healthcare polemic that manages to condemn publicly funded medicine; and it’s an expertly made piece of racist trash. It beggars belief how writer Alan Bennett (a beloved British institution, who has been at the heart of the light-comedy scene through his diaries and plays for more than 60 years) and director Richard Eyre, who got a knighthood for his services to drama nearly a quarter-century ago, got it so wrong. And it’s not just that what they meant as a love letter for the National Health Service turned into a rallying cry for its own destruction. It’s that perhaps, in service to drama, they chose to make a movie that can’t tell the difference between mother’s milk and morphine.
Continue reading “A Hospital on Life Support” »
Courtesy of TIFF
MOVIE REVIEW
The Good Nurse (2022)
The main topic of “The Good Nurse,” which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, is healthcare under capitalism, while its subtext is the power of kindness. It’s important to make that explicit since there’s a worrying recent trend for audiences to interpret “based on a true story” to mean that what is shown on screen is exactly as things happened in real life. There is no longer tolerance for changes to serve a cinematic purpose (such as the third child in “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”) or in order to simplify complicated plots (such as when multiple characters are combined into one in almost any film). Netflix has pushed this “based on a true story” to new limits, by having the subject of the brand-new “A Friend of the Family” appear at the start to assure us it exists with her blessing. There is some argument for this – if someone made a movie about my life while I was still alive to see it, you had better believe I’d expect all my irritating opinions to be respected by the filmmakers. But there is also a strong case for a better understanding about the blurred lines inherent in any retelling – life is messy and complicated, and sometimes sanding the edges makes for a better story. On a less philosophical level, a better understanding of how fiction handles the truth would also cut down on spoilers, and more easily enable us to examine a piece of art on its own terms. Nothing is ever only about itself; there’s always subtext. “The Good Nurse” is also a Netflix film, and also based on a true story, but writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns (a Brit, ie someone from a nation with socialized healthcare) and director Tobias Lindholm (a Dane, also from a nation with socialized healthcare) are uninterested in sensationalizing suffering. For once we have a movie which minimizes its depiction of pain.
Continue reading “Nurse-ry Crimes” »
Courtesy of TIFF
MOVIE REVIEW
Daughter of Rage (2022)
A swarm of kids on a Nicaraguan landfill approach as an ambulance opens its back doors and hurls out what are clearly bags of medical waste. The kids pounce, and to their delight discover that one of the bags contains body parts. As they begin a mock fight with some amputated arms, one of them shouts, “The dead are here!” For a grim opener, you could hardly do better, though “Daughter of Rage” is not a macabre horror story. It’s just a run-of-the-mill horror story, about what poverty does to an 11-year-old girl whose mother cannot protect her.
Continue reading “Life in the Dumps” »
Courtesy of TIFF
MOVIE REVIEW
Ever Deadly (2022)
Tanya Tagaq is a well-known name in Canada, and this documentary about her life and work, which had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and which she codirected with Chelsea McMullan, takes that a little too much for granted. Ms. Tagaq is a poet – excerpts from her book “Split Tooth” are read in voiceover over anatomically correct animated drawings by Inuk artist Shuvinai Ashoona. However she is mainly known as a singer – a throat singer, to be precise. The movie begins with a display of traditional Inuit throat singing, which is always a duet, in which Ms. Tagaq and Laakkuluk Williams Bathory appear to be passing the same breath back and forth as they vocalize. But the core of the film in a concert performance of Ms. Tagaq’s contemporary throat singing, in which she is backed by a three-piece band as she takes over a concert hall by appearing to harmonize with herself.
Continue reading “Spirit of the North” »
Courtesy of TIFF
MOVIE REVIEW
Pray for Our Sinners (2022)
At the world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, director Sinead O’Shea expressed anxiety about how “Pray for Our Sinners” will be received in Ireland, specifically in her hometown of Navan, where the documentary was made and is set. This is not only because of the consequences it might have for her personally – her sister works at the elementary school at its center, for a start – but also because of the cultural sensitivity which still surrounds its subject. It is no longer a secret that the Catholic Church in Ireland was a brutal master, which used extreme social control as well as violence to maintain its power and run Irish society to its own ends. But what is still secret is how some people were able to defy the church at the height of its power, mostly through hidden methods. Ms. O’Shea frames this narrative of revelation through a modern, American-style lens, one of power and resistance. This is an unusual framing in Irish culture, which tends to take abuse of power as a given, defiance as something to be proud of, but above all, “whatever you say, say nothing.” The reason for this framing is Ms. O’Shea’s embarrassment at growing up under the shadow of some local heroes without any idea they were there. It is an excellent demonstration of how the personal is political.
Continue reading “No Refuge in Holy Mother Church” »
Courtesy of TIFF
MOVIE REVIEW
This Place (2022)
“This Place” is a sweet but slight movie that does itself no favors with the generic title. Its explorations of what it means to be Canadian – more accurately, a person who happens to be growing up in Canada who is neither white nor straight – hold a great deal of interest. That’s hampered by the fact that director V. T. Nayani, who cowrote the script with fast-rising star Devery Jacobs and Golshan Abdmoulaie (who also has a small part), has a sophomoric outlook. That’s not to say “This Place” is puerile, far from it. It’s only exactly what you would expect – a little narcissistic, a little exhausting – about 21-year-olds with complicated daddy issues. Of course there’s a lot of innate sympathy for any coming-of-age story. But how charming you find it usually depends on how much about life you’ve worked out for yourself.
Continue reading “Paternity Test” »