STRAY

Directing: B
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B
Editing: B-

I did something new today, something that felt like a random generator of a new movie to watch even though it wasn’t really: I went to review aggregate website metactitic.com, filtered it to the year 2021, and viewed 2021 film titles (released thus far) sorted in order of the best-reviewed films. Then, I decided, I would watch the highest-ranked film I had not yet already seen, that was either available on a streaming service, or available VOD at a reasonable price. That was how I landed on Stray, today ranked 12th of the list. There are many titles ranked higher that sound very intriguing or promising, but, I do not yet have access to them—either because they are available only in theaters, which I will not return to at least until after I get vaccinated for COVID-19, or because they aren’t available at all, not yet in any general release in theaters or streaming in any form. There weren’t even any ranked higher that were available VOD at the annoyingly high price of $19.99; Stray was just the first, “best” choice, at least according to this source.

And this is how we discover that we don’t want to rely on a single source for movie recommendations—even if said source itself relies on many other sources. First of all, only 11 reviews have yet been collected for this film, which can be misleading: it’s a lot easier to gain a score of 84 when there aren’t as many reviews. Also, I didn’t read any of the reviews. I just decided the concept sounded interesting, I would check it out, and why not since the run time is all of 72 minutes?

It would seem that the Turkish people are just as fond of their stray dogs as they are their stray cats. As a cat person, it should come as no surprise that I found myself far more engaged by that previous film, amazingly now five years old, about the countless stray cats that populate the city of Istanbul, and its population’s enduring affection for them. Maybe someone should do a documentary that’s not so focused on just one species of animal; what’s with the segregation? Kedi never said anything, really, about the stray dogs of Istanbul; judging from Stray, you might think the city is mostly full of stray dogs, with only the occasional meandering cat they suddenly decide they need to chase. Clearly both films are about the city’s affection for stray animals of all kinds. Will we get a documentary film about wild bunnies across the city next? I hope not, I fucking hate bunnies.

I don’t hate dogs, though—I did actually pay to see this movie, after all. And although plenty of other dogs are seen in the course of the film, unlike Kedi’s broad focus on the existence of stray cats all over, Stray picks a specific three dogs to focus on, each of which even have names given to them. In one case there is a group of construction workers at a work site with a fondness for a nearby pack of dogs, and particularly an adorable puppy, which in turn gets affectionately snatched away by homeless teen Syrian refugees.

I’m not sure how much patience a lot of people might have for Stray, even people who really love dogs. There is no plot of any kind, no story to speak of, just a sort of surveillance for a while, of these three particular dogs. There is some memorable imagery, though. One dog lounging on the street, between a train moving one direction and vehicle traffic moving the other direction on the other side of him. He’s a very chill dog in the literal middle of hustle and bustle. Another sequence features a women’s march, in the middle of which two dogs start to mate, and a few of the marching young women joke at the male dog: “Ask her first!” The closing shot is of a dog quietly howling along to an amplified prayer call from a nearby mosque, and I must admit, something about it, to at least a minor degree, was moving.

A clear intent of director Elizabeth Lo is to depict how these dogs interact with the citizens of Istanbul, how affectionate and kind they are to these animals that most other places in the world would just be considered pests. We get snippets of the human conversations, subtitled because it is in Turkish or Arabic, even as the camera always stays at the level of the dogs even when people are around. Every several minutes, the footage switches to a black screen with white titles, either about Turkish history with animals, or ancient quotes that refer to dogs. After centuries of campaigns to exterminate these stray animals, it is now illegal in Turkey to kill or even capture them.

So, Stray is a small glimpse into that world. When it comes to how satisfying you find it as a viewing experience, results may vary.

Facing life’s challenges as they race forward.

Overall: B-

COMING 2 AMERICA

Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

Let’s face it, when it comes to Eddie Murphy’s record in film roles over the past twenty years, to call it spotty is to be generous. Many would argue that extends even further back into a good portion of the nineties, but at lest in that era he managed films that consistently struck a chord with wide audiences. After voicing Donkey in Shrek (2001) and then again three more times (with diminishing returns), he kind of coasted, with a couple notable exceptions: an Oscar-nominated supporting turn in the very good Dreamgirls (2006), and a comeback of sorts in Dolemite Is My Name (2019).

So one could be forgiven for having low expectations of a sequel to one of his early comedy classics from the eighties, 32 years in the making. It’s not that such a long wait guarantees a bad movie; Blade Runner 2049 (35-year gap) and Mary Poppins Returns (54-year gap) worked out all right, to varying degrees. And trafficking more in nostalgia than anything else is always a tricky proposition—how quickly will the new installment be forgotten, as compared to the original?

The minor miracle of Coming 2 America is that, for the most part, it works surprisingly well. Sure, a whole lot of it serves merely as callbacks to gags from the 1988 film, but director Craig Brewer (who also directed Dolemite Is My Name) and a team of six credited script writers—usually a bad sign—add plenty of modern flourishes and goofy punchlines to keep it entertaining, moving at a steady clip.

The primary goal of this movie is apparently just to be goofy, silly fun, just like its predecessor was. By that standard, it’s wildly successful. I’ve seen plenty of “better”—and, in some senses, less problematic—comedies that still did not succeed in making me laugh with the same frequency. There’s something infectiously joyous about this film’s fun-loving sensibility, even as you begin to see some cracks in its construction.

Coming 2 America makes an effort to update the dated themes of the 1988 original for a world that has changed in many ways, with varying results. The original had been rated R and this one is PG-13, and that is no detriment at all; the only difference now is it doesn’t bother with needlessly excessive profanity and pointlessly gratuitous nudity. In fact, some of the gags of the first film predicated on sexist and patriarchal foundations are here turned on their head.

It is a bit of an irony, though, that while this film quite deliberately brings several strong female characters into the fold, including Prince Akeem’s three warrior-trained daughters, the plot revolves around a male character. Lavelle Junson (a very handsome Jermaine Fowler) is discovered to be Akeem’s “illegitimate” son, who must be located by Akeem in Queens and brought back to be the male heir to the throne of Zamunda. The lesson of women being just as capable rulers as man is very much a part of this plot. but it’s still Lavelle’s story, which provides an excuse for Akeem (Murphy) and his trusted sidekick Semmi (Arsenio Hall) to return to America.

Given that Lavelle comes back to Africa with his mother (an always entertaining Leslie Jones) and uncle (an always entertaining Tracy Morgan) to discover his fairy-tale riches, a good majority of the film takes place in the fictional country of Zamunda. (Side note: it’s a fair point to note that what Black Panther is lauded for, presenting Wakanda as a self-sufficient African country ruled by its own people and flourishing on its own terms, is something Coming to America did first, three decades prior.) Only two sequences, both relatively brief, take place in America—specifically New York City—just long enough for us to encounter many of the same comic supporting characters also played by both Murphy and Hall, including the old men in a Queens barber shop who by any sense of logic should have died ages ago, but in this world evidently haven’t aged a day.

Keeping most of the action in Zamunda, however, is what makes Coming 2 America more interesting. My favorite part is Wesley Snipes as not the villain per se, but certainly the antagonist: the father of the arranged bride abandoned by Akeem in the first film, intent on marrying off his daughter to Lavelle in a truly archaic means of brokering peace between countries. (Some things, this movie doesn’t quite keep up to speed with the times. The same goes for its well-meaning but inconsistent approach to gender issues, including two gags in reference to gender identity which, while not overtly mean spirited, are also misguided and certainly unnecessary.) Snipes gives perhaps the best performance in the film, making it the most fun and entertaining whenever he is onscreen. His comic talents are too seldom coaxed out of him.

In spite of some minor writing missteps, Coming 2 America still somehow winds up being much more fun than just about anyone might have expected it to be. Reviews have been predictably mixed, but surprisingly, the critical consensus on this one is still slightly higher than that of the first film. It brings back a lot of the minor characters from the first film, without them ever feeling shoehorned in, which is an impressive feat in its own right; the film features countless more cameos even on top of that. There’s a lot of delicate balancing going on here, which means it could easily have been a genuine disaster. In the end, I found myself thinking I would not have minded seeing this one in theaters were they open; no one expects this to be a masterpiece, and it’s just too buoyantly good-humored to be a disappointment on any real level. This movie simply doesn’t bother to take itself seriously, succeeding at goofy fun without ever getting too deep into hokiness or sentimentalism. Call it “mostly harmless”—I had a good time.

A visit to familiar territory that’s better than you suspect.

Overall: B

THE FATHER

Directing: B+
Acting: A-
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B+
Editing: A-

If you have or have had a close loved one who suffered from some form of dementia, The Father would very well be on some level triggering. If you fear such a fate in your own future (as I do; few things frighten me more), it could be horrifying. This film is ostensibly a drama, but to many it could be considered a true nightmare.

It scared the hell out of me, anyway—because this is not your run-of-the-mill story about severe memory loss. We’ve seen a bunch of those (and I’ve reviewed two just within the past month), but never before has the point of view been wholly within the mind of the person experiencing memory loss.

This calls for some very skilled editing, reflective of how Anthony (Anthony Hopkins) keeps finding his memories mixed together. The Father can be a little confusing, until you realize what writer-director Florian Zeller is doing here. Anthony sporadically does not recognize the people in his life, most notably his daughter Anne (Olivia Colman), and when that occurs, another actor stands in for the character. Thankfully, this happens only a few times, although the first occurrence is so early in the film that at first the only understandable reaction is Wait, what?

The people Anthony sees in this way wind up actually being other characters who do exist in his life, just in other contexts that he is conflating with each other: an assisted living nurse, or his son-in-law. Perhaps this revelation could be regarded as a sort of spoiler, but I think it’s better for you to know what you’re getting into with The Father. The construction of this narrative, which is not at all linear, is very complex, but even though Anthony can never quite keep them straight, by the end the viewer is able to put the pieces together. Honestly, if this film deserves any Oscar nomination, it would be for Best Editing. Zeller based this on his own 2012 French play of the same name (Le Père), and I keep wondering how this was done as a live performance onstage.

In a small irony, The Father was filmed in 2019, before anyone had any idea a film like this would be perfect for production under current pandemic restrictions: the cast is quite small, with only six principal characters, and merely another three ever even seen onscreen. The vast majority of screen time is taken by Hopkins and Colman, of course, but then three different caretakers and a son-in-law serve as the people Anthony keeps confusing with each other. But, given the state of his memory, one scene will run into the next even though the actual events may have taken place years apart, or he might find that the scene that just ended somehow just starts over again. In some sense, it’s like Memento for the senile.

Except it’s more than just senility at play here, of course. I already have a long history of a screwy memory—but I do always know where I am, and who is with me. Anthony loses his watch and is convinced a caretaker has stolen it. He’s obsessed with the changes in his flat, and his insistence that he won’t leave it, and we learn at the same time that he does that he’s not actually in his own flat at all: he’s in some other living situation, or yet another one again.

Given that we learn pertinent and relevant details at the same time Anthony does, I do wonder about the few scenes, particularly with Anne, that take place outside of his presence. Is that also meant to be part of his imagination? His assumptions of what she’s doing or saying? These scenes still always start or end with Anthony as a part of them, and they often start where a previous one ended, only with certain odd details changed, like paper grocery sacks instead of plastic.

The net effect of all this is both profoundly sad and terrifying. Movies about dementia tend to focus exclusively on the sad part, but The Father is just as concerned with how the person experiencing it feels like they’re descending into madness, giving the viewer a real taste of that experience. I’m not even sure Zeller meant for it to be so frightening, and maybe it won’t be for other viewers. Results may vary, but the experience of watching this movie seriously gave me the creeps.

Anthony Hopkins plays Anthony (so named because Zeller wrote the part exclusively for him) as a man who veers between irritability, confusion, and rage. You can see a man who must have once been quite the charmer by nature, but now every direction he turns, no matter how long what he sees has actually been there, is a surprise. Olivia Colman plays Anne as a middle-aged woman trying too hard to take care of her father herself, until necessity becomes more pressing than her guilt. And her performance should not be discarded, considering the nuances of what may or may not just be imagined, or certainly confused, by Anthony.

In any event, The Father is a trip, and a unique one at that. It’s such a singular experience, it certainly won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. I couldn’t even say it was mine, exactly, but its craftsmanship still left me impressed.

Reassurances are small comfort when you can’t remember them.

Overall: B+

NEWS OF THE WORLD

Directing: B+
Acting: B
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

News of the World has an unusual concept: Tom Hanks is Captain Kidd—the sixth time in his film career he’s played a captain—a man who travels through post-Civil War Texas, reading newspaper articles to local townsfolk for meager sums. Talk about finding a niche, quite specific to time and place. Kidd really does move from local to international: he reads articles from the town or county he’s in, then moves on to “federal” news, which is predictably scoffed at by Texas locals. We never actually see him read an article from outside the country, although we do get a shot of The Times of India (side note: that publication was founded in 1838, making it 27 years old at the time of this story), just to show he really does carry around “news of the world.”

That’s just part of Kidd’s backstory, though, and how he comes across young Johanna, stranded in the road in the wreckage of a carriage whose driver was a Black man now lynched. She was in mid-transport, being taken from where the Kiowa family that had earlier kidnapped her were themselves killed. As a woman who later manages to speak to her in the Kiowa language notes, “She’s been orphaned twice over.”

And here, relatively quickly, we get into what leaves me with mixed feelings at best about News of the World: Texas in 1865 is deeply fertile ground when it comes to America’s many-layered, heinous history with nonwhite people, much of which is either mostly ignored or pushed to the periphery in a story centered around white characters. Texas in 1865 was less than twenty years from the Mexican-American War; it was the very year in which the last of the enslaved people of the South were finally emancipated in Texas; and was in the thick of ongoing theft of land from indigenous people. It is in this context that News of the World somehow sidesteps deeply historical news of this one region, in which not a single Mexican person is seen, not a single Black person appears as a character, and all of one scene features any Native Americans onscreen, none of whom have any lines either.

The end credits do offer thanks to the Kiowa for “guidance” in the making of this film, so I guess it gets one point for taking them on as consultants. I find myself wondering what Native American critics might think of this film, and as it turns out, results may vary—as in this review, which clocked something I should have but didn’t: the scene in which Johanna eats like a slob and smears food all over her face is offensively stereotypical to Native Americans, who do not eat in such a manner. (Could we argue that this is also due to Johanna being so young? Given the actor is about 12, that seems a bit of a stretch; she’s not a toddler, and what’s more, she’s depicted as otherwise very smart.) On the other hand, that reviewer seems to like the movie beyond that and otherwise has no major complaints.

Johanna is played by Helena Zengel, an excellent young actress from Germany, which lends her some authenticity on that front, at least: the family Johanna comes from are German immigrants. Nevertheless, it seems odd that a whole lot of the Kiowa language is spoken in News of the World, nearly all of it by a little white girl—the only brief exception being a white woman.

Setting all of that aside (and I’m not convinced you should set it all aside, clearly), the story it tells about Captain Kidd and Johanna, and their journey south across treacherous Texas terrain toward San Antonio, is still a compelling one. And, to its credit, the only villainous characters they contend with in the course of the story are other Texans, most notably three men intent on snatching Johanna for themselves. They even follow Kidd and Johanna out into the desert and into rocky hills, in which a very well staged gun battle ensues.

News of the World has plenty of drama and effective tension, even if none of it actually has anything to do with that title, which itself feels like an odd misdirect. It’s nicely shot with beautiful desert vistas; well edited into a concise two hour run time, gently paced without ever losing the viewer’s interest; and directed by Paul Greengrass (who also directed Hanks in Captain Phillips; this is the first Western for both of them) with an assured hand and a surprisingly hopeful note in the end. I found myself suitably absorbed by it, and in spite of my many criticisms would not go so far as to say it’s a bad movie. The story it actually tells is a good one; it just misses a whole lot of opportunities that gradually reveal themselves in retrospect.

Let’s take a scenic road trip right through multiple missed opportunities!

Overall: B

LAND

Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: A-
Editing: B+

It didn’t occur to me until the credits were rolling that Land could have more meaning as a title than just the literal one. How intentional was that, I wonder? Things like that in movies are rarely a coincidence. In this case, Edee (Robin Wright) has moved into an abandoned cabin high in the mountains of Wyoming, to live through the grief of the loss of her family in absolute solitude. She has to learn to live off her new land, from gardening to hunting—but, this is also how she “lands” after the disorientation of her monumental loss. A little on the nose? Maybe.

For the first third or so of the movie, Land is mostly Edee on her own. If feels somewhat similar to a movie like the Robert Redford film All Is Lost (2013), which features only Redford onscreen in the entirety of the film’s run time. The key difference is that film is about a man learning of the hopelessness of his isolation on a wrecked sailboat in the middle of the ocean, and in Land Edee learns how to survive.

The Land script could have gone the All Is Lost direction, and in fact for a while it does. There is a moment when Edee basically gives up, and utters one of the more poignant lines in the film: “This isn’t working.” It’s not just that she is ill equipped to live off the grid as intended, but it’s also not taking her beyond her grief as she had hoped. And in the middle of her first winter, she collapses inside her freezing cabin and remains there, laying on the floor, until she happens to be discovered by a guy out hunting.

This is where Land makes the choice to go in a more hopeful direction, and makes it a slightly more uplifting movie—although to be clear, a whole lot of the movie has a gently melancholy tone, even as it is packed with truly gorgeous shots of the Wyoming mountains, over multiple seasons. Fall, winter spring: it’s all gorgeous. I would almost recommend this movie just for the cinematography. (It’s released on VOD today, but at the top-tier $19.99 price; I would also recommend waiting the requisite few weeks until the price drops to around six bucks.)

The man who discovers Edee is Miguel (Demián Bichir), who with the help of his nurse friend Alawa (Sarah Dawn Pledge), spends several days nursing her back to health—but only within her cabin, as Edee refuses to be taken to the hospital. Over time she develops an acquaintance with Miguel, once she reluctantly agrees to his offer to teach her how to hunt and trap animals. It’s a very gradual process over months, but this turns into a friendship, and thus veers Land away from being a movie focused exclusively on one person. Even through all of this, Edee still insists on otherwise total isolation, asking Miguel not to tell her any news of the outside world, which he respects.

Land is thus a film about grief, and about the healing powers of time, with a beautiful backdrop of nature. Robin Wright is not only playing an unusual part for her, but she is also the director of the film, an impressively strong feature directorial debut. The circumstances of Edee’s grief and loss could not be more different from current real-world concerns (although they are unfortunately common to how the world was before the pandemic, and likely will be again after it ends), but it may still be that this is the perfect time for it. Grief is relatable no matter what causes it, and Land could be in some part cathartic for anyone going through it.

Or hell, for anyone who just needs a good cry, it could be just the thing. Land isn’t what I would call a major tearjerker, but it did make me cry. There’s no question this movie won’t be for everyone—reviews have been somewhat mixed—but it worked for me. Even in its melancholy, Robin Wright’s screen presence has a soothing quality to it. It’s an effective ode to both those we have lost and those who make us want to keep living.

Another day on the mountain.

Overall: B+

THE WOLF OF SNOW HOLLOW

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

The Wolf of Snow Hollow is the kind of movie you realize leaves far too many questions unanswered the longer you think about it. That doesn’t make it any less enjoyable, really; it just means you have to let go of nitpicks if you want it to work. I had fun watching this movie, and don’t even mind having paid six bucks to watch it (it’s currently only available on VOD). It’s entertaining for what it is, and a perfectly brisk diversion for its brief, 84-minute run time (closer to 80 minutes when not counting the credits).

Written and directed by Jim Cummings, he also stars as John, the deadbeat, alcoholic dad who also works as the Sheriff in this tiny Utah mountain town whose local economy is tied to the skiing industry. He has an irritable ex-wife whose existence in this story is brief and incidental, and a 17-year-old daughter (Chloe East) who feels increasingly disconnected from him. His dad (Robert Forster in his final film role) is also a local policeman, who is in denial about his declining health and ability to do the job. Evidently the most understanding person in his life is fellow Detective Julia Robson (Riki Lindhome, always a welcome presence), who is also about the only person in the town who sides with John in his conviction that the cause of some sudden and gruesome murders is not a werewolf.

This essentially becomes the central mystery of the film itself: is the perpetrator a giant werewolf? Is this a genuinely supernatural story, or is it not? The editing and cinematography, when it comes to the “wolf attacks,” are pretty clever in retrospect, once this central question is answered. And although that question does get answered definitively, and I have no interest in spoiling it here, I still can’t decide whether or not I am disappointed in the answer.

That answer does tie back into the unanswered questions, however. A lot of The Wolf of Snow Hollow really tests suspension of disbelief. On the other hand, no one watches a movie about wolf-man attacks for its realism. Still, one thing I simply cannot let go is that in this movie there is a full moon two nights in a row. That does not happen! On the other hand, given the historical reasoning for murders happening during a full moon being the light making it easier to get the job done, one way off from a full moon will presumably do the trick just as well. Also, this movie has no consistent sense of time anyway, as so many attacks happen on so many full moons and you never get any sense of a month having passed. Which brings us back to my original point: just go with it.

Besides, in this case, what might make you want to watch this movie is its rather snarky sense of humor. John in particular is comically belligerent, even if his alcoholism moves into some fairly sad areas. This movie thus lacks a certain amount of tonal consistency, where in one scene it seems to take itself seriously and then the next it’s utterly preposterous. I got a few good chuckles out of it, though. And for a little horror-comedy like this, it also provides two or three authentic jump scares. That said, The Wolf of Snow Hollow is neither particularly funny nor particularly frightening; instead it moves between amusing and serviceably suspenseful.

It should still be given due credit, given its meager budget of $2 million. Jim Cummings stretches those dollars beyond expectations, making it a bit more like a little movie that could. It looks great, it delivers on what it promises, and wraps things up nicely. You could certainly do worse with eighty minutes.

Look if you want to succeed and gruesome killing you need some light.

Overall: B

MINARI

Directing: A
Acting: A-
Writing: A
Cinematography: A-
Editing: A

Minari is a minor miracle of a movie, something unlike anything else you have ever watched, and yet no less an American story than any other American film. It’s a incredibly specific story that focuses on one family of Korean immigrants attempting to start a farm in Arkansas, and still a reflection of the very story of countless setters who were an integral part of what made this country what it is. It’s a story of struggle and rebirth, of hope borne of adversity, an example of the American dream that shows it’s not as simple as this country wants to tell itself.

It certainly shows that the American dream has many faces, brought in from places all over the world: America is made of immigrants and always has been. In this case, it is largely inspired by the memories of writer-director Lee Isaac Chung’s own childhood—hence its setting in the 1980s—and it is so well constructed, all of its threads so beautifully woven together, it is easily one of the best films of the year.

One of my favorite things about it is how it effortlessly avoids clichés or stereotypes. And I don’t just mean in regards to the Korean-American family at the story’s center; this applies every bit as much to the locals in the rural part of Arkansas this family moves to. There’s a certain irony to the likelihood that if this movie were written and directed by yet another white guy out of Hollywood, it would have depicted the Arkansas natives into caricatures. Chung treats every one of his characters with respect and humanity, even the crazy-religious man (Will Patton) hired by Jacob (Steven Yeun) to help on his Korean vegetable farm. This is a guy who spontaneously breaks out into speaking in tongues, whose Sunday “church” involves dragging a crucifix down a long road every weekend—someone the local white kids make fun of. Chung presents this man matter-of-factly, even as Jacob occasionally has his patience tested by his antics, and never plays him for laughs.

There’s something perfect about the timing of this movie’s release (currently only available on VOD), in the midst of a spike in anti-Asian violence. You might expect to see racism as part of Jacob and his family’s struggles in Arkansas, but that is not at all a part of this story—suggesting it was also not much of Chung’s real-life family’s story either. No doubt it was present, but it’s not the point of this particular story, nor does it have to be part of the story of every ethnic minority’s family. Instead, Minari is simply about the hope and bravery of the immigrant experience, the idea of coming to America for a better life than was offered in their native land, and the challenge of making their way in a new and entirely different land. Basically, the story of every immigrant since before the birth of this country—and this offers a framework for easy empathy. Minari tells a story so tender, and moving, and sad, and funny, it’s impossible to think of these people as “other.” They are every bit as American as any of us.

The performances are excellent all around, with Steven Yeun as Jacob and Yeri Han as Monica, a married couple whose relationship is tested by the decision to uproot their lives in California, where they could not keep up with the pacing demands of a job sexing chickens. They buy a mobile home in a large tract of land which Jacob converts into a farm. It must be said, however, that the performances of their two children, Noel Cho as Anne and Alan S. Kim as little David, is astonishing. It’s always impressive when child actors are found who are not overly precious or precocious, and these kids have a naturalistic screen presence that makes them irresistible. Alan S. Kim, at seven years old, is almost unbearably adorable, but he doesn’t just skate by on his looks. He’s a talented little actor.

And all that’s without yet even mentioning Yuh-jung Youn as Soonja, the grandmother who comes to live with them and give lonely Monica some company and assistance with the kids. David keeps telling her “You’re not a real grandma” because she doesn’t do the expected grandmotherly duties like bake cookies and has a foul mouth, but it’s because of these things that she might be my favorite character.

As you might expect, certain tragedies befall this family, but never in the ways you might fear or think you can predict. I spent a fair amount of Minari particularly afraid that something really horrible would happen and turn it into a major tear jerker, but as it turns out this isn’t really that kind of movie. It’s not really any kind of movie—it has that in common with Nomadland: these movies could not be more different from each other, yet they are fundamentally their own thing, and yet both are also quintessentially American. They yield the floor to certain populations not typically given voice in American cinema, a sad irony indeed. But Minari is rich with detailed specifics of experience, beautifully shot in lush Southern wilderness, a window into lives that are steeped in both Korean and American tradition. And that blending of tradition is the case for all of us if we just go back enough generations.

“Minari,” by the way, is a water celery, an easily grown Korean vegetable that Soonja grows on the banks of a nearby creek after spreading seeds there. The more you think about Minari the film, the more you consider how much of it can be regarded as metaphor, such as in this case, putting down roots in a new place. By the end of this family’s story, they are collectively a phoenix rising from literal ashes, symbols of perseverance against the odds. It’s a beautiful meditation on the resilience of humanity and the strength of collective resolve.

Hope will be tested and it will win.

Overall: A

ANOTHER ROUND

Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B-
Editing: A-

Talk about ethical gray areas. It’s nearly impossible to imagine Another Round being made as the same movie by an American director, about American characters. Every culture has its own rather specific history with alcohol, after all, and this film’s original title in Danish was Druk, which essentially translates to Drunk, or if you plug it into Google Translate, it comes up as Binge Drinking. And here in the States, changing the title to Another Round feels a little like sanitizing the subject matter.

The basic concept is this: four middle aged men, all friends who are teachers at a high school, take it upon themselves to become both researchers and subjects in an alcohol-related “experiment”: Norwegian psychiatrist Finn Skårderud theorized that having a constant level of alcohol in your system—specifically, a Blood Alcohol Concentration of 0.05%—leaves you more creative and relaxed. These four men, discussing it over a 40th birthday dinner, decide they will put the theory to the test. Martin (Mads Mikkelsen), the primary protagonist of the film, is hesitant at first, but realizing his life is very much in a rut, ultimately decides to go along.

They create certain rules. Perhaps most amazingly, they drink only during the day, leaving themselves time in the evenings to sober up in order to be “refreshed” the next day—which means starting in the mornings and maintaining their 0.05% BAC right through their work days. At a high school.

This being an international feature, one of the many interesting things to consider here is the differing attitude toward alcohol consumption from one society to another. In Demmark the legal BAC limit for drinking and driving is 0.05%, as compared to 0.08% in the United States—and yet, in Denmark the legal drinking age is 16. (This does get nuanced; they can purchase beer or wine at 16, but must be 18 to drink in restaurants and bars, or to purchase liquor—still lower than the U.S. age of 21.) Another Round doesn’t get into the weeds about this stuff, given it’s made for a Danish audience already well familiar. But these are important distinctions for international audiences, particularly those from the United States, as is the average overall alcohol consumption in Denmark, which does get some reference in the script. Martin’s wife, at one point, says to him, “I couldn’t care less if you drink with your friends. This entire country drinks like maniacs anyway.”

And this seems to be essentially what director and co-writer Thomas Vinterberg seems to be getting at, although his film is never particularly judgmental about alcohol consumption. The basic message seems to be “everything in moderation,” and the idea of moderation is where this “social experiment” goes off the rails. It takes some time to get there, though, and curiously, Another Round is bookended by opening and ending sequences that feature excessive public drinking, in both cases presented as joyous, jubilant occasions.

Granted, the opening sequence features a minor incident of drinking school kids going a bit too far, raising concerns among the high school faculty. The immediate consensus among the staff, in response to any ideas of limiting the binge drinking, much of which is tied very deeply with local tradition, basically amounts to “good luck with that.” And shortly thereafter, the aforementioned four friends make their decision to conduct this social experiment. What effects might there be on their professional and social lives? We get occasional title cards with short notes from a prospective “research paper,” along with regular updates on where exactly their BAC level is. They are so mindful of the details and control of this experiment—which inevitably gets sloppy, whether they want it to or not—that they buy home breathalizer gadgets, so they can take regular readings on themselves.

Where a story like this goes is very much dependent on context, however, and the fact that these characters are all written as high school teachers is likely no accident. This creates a kind of risk that would not be present at other jobs, such as the possibility of students getting their hands on their teachers’ alcohol, in some cases by accident, in others on purpose. One of the teachers not only suggests a stressed out kid take a couple of shots to calm himself before a test, but he even provides it. Another Round never depicts any consequences for this, or even makes any kind of judgment call about it. There’s something you won’t see in American films.

That said, Another Round absolutely does take all four of these characters into a space of consequences, just as a result of indefinite day drinking, with varying degrees of severity. “Professional and social negative effects,” as the verbiage in the ongoing “paper” puts it. Marriages are put to the test, and one of them slips over the threshold into alcoholism. What I like about this movie’s approach is that it doesn’t bother being declarative in any way that applies to all people: this doesn’t turn everyone into an alcoholic, but rather, perhaps, unveils those who are more susceptible to that path.

The pacing of Another Round is slower than we are generally used to in the U.S., but I found the editing to be exactly as it should be; the only technical aspect I found occasionally distracting was the exclusively handheld cinematography. If you find the concept itself compelling, then I would consider it worth watching—the complicating factor there being that it’s not on any streaming service but only available at the moment to purchase on VOD; I paid $6.99 to watch it on Prime Video, and although I would not have considered it worth any more than that, I think it’s a fair price. It’s easy to imagine that other opinions on that will vary.

From an American perspective, it’s the cultural differences, as well as where cultural norms parallel, that make this movie more compelling. There’s also the ever-present contextualization of the pandemic: Another Round proved to be a cinema sensation in its native Denmark, even with theaters at 50% capacity. It had its biggest domestic box office its opening weekend in seven years, but how much of that was just because of how few other new movies there were to choose from at the time? I was very impressed by this film, but there is no universe in which it would be a runaway success in the States. This is why recommending it in the U.S. feels like it might need certain caveats. If you’re someone who enjoys foreign films, who doesn’t mind reading subtitles, who doesn’t need the plot to unfold at breakneck speed, then it’s worth a look.

Mads and friends: about to get maintenance drunk.

Overall: B+

THE UNITED STATES VS. BILLIE HOLIDAY

Directing: B-
Acting: B+
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B-
Editing: B-
Music: A-

There’s a moment in The United States vs. Billie Holiday, maybe two thirds of the way through, in which the camera closes in on the face of star Andra Day, playing the title character, singing her signature song “Strange Fruit.” We see her perform the entire song—three haunting verses about the lynching of Black people in 1930s America—while she never breaks eye contact with us, the viewers. The scene has an unforgettably confrontational power to it, much as Billie Holiday herself had in the era, as she insisted on singing the song live in spite of government pressure not to do so.

If only the rest of the movie had that kind of power. This latest offering by director Lee Daniels is a little too preoccupied with sporadic artistic flourishes that make little sense, editing meant to resemble really old stock footage at distractingly inconsistent moments, and cinematography that briefly slips into black and white for only a few seconds at a time. Almost as if it’s a trick to fit more into the film’s already-long 130 minutes, in the second half we get several montage sequences that seem only to serve as narrative shortcuts.

A biopic is always better when it focuses on one specific time or one specific element of a person’s life—this was precisely what kept Lee Daniels’s 2013 film The Butler from quite achieving greatness. The United States vs. Billie Holiday, however, attempts to have it both ways, narrowing focus on that song “Strange Fruit,” but still covering her life through two different decades.

The end result is something that lacks focus or narrative cohesion, with Daniels’s gaze into Holiday’s life often turning away from the specificity of that song. The U.S. government is obsessed with silencing her by any means necessary—a frequent theme in films of the past year or so, reflecting an unfortunately frequent theme of the U.S. government for decades—and they often use Holiday’s heroine addiction against her. In some cases they literally framed her, couching their actions in the “war on drugs,” illustrating how very old that naive and misguided notion really is. This might have made a better film if it were more explicitly about that exploitation, but instead it’s a film that doesn’t quite know what it wants to be about. All of these things are worthy of attention in film, but they also need a dramatic center.

If anything makes The United States vs. Billie Holiday worth the time, though, it’s Andra Day, in her first starring role, in which she also songs a bunch of Billie Holiday songs incredibly well. The film would be truly dull affair without her in it, as she’s the only character given much in the way of nuance, all the other parts being too small to allow for performance to rise above Suzan Lori-Parks’s relatively aimless script. Holiday moves from one relationship with an abusive man to another, the most complicated being that with FBI agent Jimmy Fletcher (Moonlight’s Trevante Rhodes), the one you could argue was the least directly abusive but still doesn’t treat her right.

Fletcher, as it happens, is one of multiple supporting characters who are fictionalized. There’s nothing inherently bad about that, as it depends on how it’s done. For instance, The United States vs. Billie Holiday is also given a loose structure that barely holds together, wherein the story is told in flashback from a radio interview Holiday is giving to “Reginald Lord Devine,” also fictional, played by Leslie Jordan with a wig of curly white hair with so much body that at first I thought the character was supposed to be an old lady. The movie only returns to this interview so infrequently that you nearly forget that’s where we started, and it leaves you wondering why they bothered with the conceit at all.

The great Natasha Lyonne also appears as Tallulah Bankhead, with whom Holiday was romantically involved. Lyonne is only in a few scenes, and although I would not suggest that more white people need to be included in a Black person’s story, it seems odd to cast Lyonne in this part if her talents are just going to be underused. Someone else needs to give Natasha Lyonne better roles, in other movies. If nothing else, Daniels could have delved deeper into Holiday’s open bisexuality, as it exists here exclusively as yet another thing for the government to attempt using against her.

That said, The United States vs. Billie Holiday had every chance to be better, and it just overall slightly misses the mark. It tells a story that is too broad when so much of Billie Holiday’s story requires pointed focus, but at least it has a memorable performance at its center. Here’s hoping this jump starts Andra Day’s career, and she gets starring roles in better movies herself.

Just hearing her sing is the best thing.

Overall: B-

THE MAURITANIAN

Directing: B-
Acting: B+
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B
Editing: B-

The Mauritanian has the potential to enrage, for all the right reasons, and for some reason it refuses to go the distance, unfolding with a kind of caution that seems designed to placate viewers who might otherwise think it goes “too far.” And who needs that kind of blandness? There’s a lot of talent at play here, particularly onscreen, and somehow director Kevin Macdonald turns it into something that might be moderately impressive for a standard cable original movie, but falls short of meeting the standards of cinema.

Oh sure, I’m being a bit of a film snob about this. That doesn’t change how much better this movie could have been, yet doesn’t bother to be. It’s the true story of Mohamedou Ould Salahi, a Mauritanian man who was detained in his home country on suspicion of involvement in the 9/11 terrorist plots, and then held at Guantanamo Bay without charge for 14 years.

And this man’s story should infuriate anyone who claims to hold what are supposedly American ideals. Part of my disappointment with The Mauritanian is how little it actually leans into the outrageousness of his treatment—and, by extension, the treatment of countless other detainees in that facility. This film leans hard on this injustice, and offers a window into the unbelievable inhumanity of it. But, offering a window also counts as holding back, lest it make viewers too uncomfortable. I’m not saying a movie like this should subject us to overlong sequences of explicit torture, but it certainly shouldn’t coddle its audience with kid gloves either.

I spent most of my time watching this movie thinking one of two things. First, the dialogue and plotting are trite and contrived enough to be borderline insulting to its subjects, especially given the story it’s telling. Second, the horrors it touches on are widely known to be the tip of the iceberg, eliciting flashbacks to the fury unleashed by the George W. Bush administration. These are the things conveniently forgotten by those who blithely said “Bush doesn’t seem so bad now” after a Trump presidency. Specifically military policies under Bush were every bit as horrible as the worst things perpetrated by those working for Trump. And, by the way: it should not be ignored that Mohamedou was kept detained for another seven years after he won his case, thanks to appeal by the Obama administration.

The Mauritanian barely touches on these things, opting instead to focus on Mohamedou’s legal defense and telling one man’s story. That’s a respectable enough approach, when the movie isn’t too scared of truly challenging its viewers. The very subject here is challenging, so why be so tentative about getting to the heart of the matter?

If anything elevates The Mauritanian, it’s the performances. Tahar Rahim is excellent in the title role, making it almost possible to ignore the transparently formulaic nature of his lines. Jodie Foster is a welcome presence as his activist lawyer Nancy Hollander (also a real person); Benedict Cumberbatch is impressively Southern as prosecutor Stuart Couch; and Shailene Woodley is honestly somewhat wasted as Hollander’s assistant on the case. But, Rahim is easily the best thing in this movie, indicating a capacity for joy and passion even in the face of nearly hopeless circumstances—that being one thing the film has not contrived, as evidenced by footage of the real Mohamedou during the end credits.

I just wish the movie overall had more guts. It’s a strange irony for a movie whose characters are profiles in courage to have virtually none of its own. Mohamedou Ould Slahi published a best-selling memoir about his time at Guantanamo Bay, and there is little doubt that his own account was far more memorable to its audience than this movie could ever hope to be.

Get ready for moderate disappointment.

Overall: B-