QUO VADIS, AIDA?

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

Whither goest thou, Aida? asks the title of this film, and I can tell you right up front: nowhere good. This is an expertly crafted film about the senseless horrors of war, full stop. If you’re looking for a story about the resilience of hope, find another movie.

I don’t say that to be flip. It’s genuinely one of the best things about Quo Vadis, Aida?, in that writer-director Jasmila Zbanic takes an uncompromising look at the Bosnian war, and specifically, the Srebrenica Genocide at the hands of Serbian troops in 1995. This is a story full of tension, the kind that leaves you uneasy always, a specific suspense that comes with an increasing sense of dread. Things are not going to go well for these people.

In other words, it’s not a good time. Instead, this is a film that serves as a challenge to remember, and to acknowledge the extent of conflict around the globe. I thought a lot about the 1993 Steven Spielberg film Schindler’s List while watching this—there are many similarities. A key difference is that Qu Vadis, Aida? does not in any way present itself as “art.” There is no black and white cinematography here, no symbolic child in a red coat. This is straightforward drama, and a gripping one at that.

As is always the best choice when examining an event with complexity on this scale, Zbanic zeroes in on the a single character, and her experience through it. In this case it’s Aida (Jasna Djuricic), a UN translator working at a military base near the aforementioned Srebrenica, an East Bosnian town of around 2,500—that being roughly half of what it was some thirty years ago. The events of this film depict just a fraction of the more than eight thousand men and boys who were separated from the women and girls of the town and surrounding region, and then summarily executed in large groups. One scene in which a large group of men are locked into a gym-sized room is particularly haunting.

Almost none of this film is graphic or gruesome, which actually serves to deepen its impact. Many deaths do occur in the course of this small slice of the story being told, but through skillful cinematography and editing, no bloodshed is seen directly onscreen. The casual execution of the town’s mayor occurs on the other side of a wall. A serbian soldier casually steps over the body of a slain woman with bullet holes in her back. Considering how desensitized we are as viewers of violent action and crime films, spending our time instead focusing on the enduring fears of those still left alive is far more unsettling. Which, in this film, is as it should be.

The story follows Aida as she takes increasingly desperate action to protect her husband and two barely-grown sons. The opening shot of the film is on Adia’s face, and then the camera pans over to the other three men in her family, all sitting in their living room, staring silently. It is their last moment of peace before they flee to the UN base where fleeing Bosnians are meant to feel safe and protected, and Aida is tasked with translating the Dutch soldiers’ announcements and occasional negotiations.

Much of the film focuses on the Dutch military personnel manning this base, and how out of depth they are in this situation. Calls to leadership in the UN are frustratingly fruitless, even after a succession of failed promises to retaliate against the Serbs and protect the Bosnians from them. The base is massively overwhelmed with Bosnians forced out of Srebrenica after the Serbs overtake the town with tanks, several thousand taken inside and even more thousands crowded outside because there is no room left for them. This base is the setting of the vast majority of the film, as Aida tries desperately to find ways to get her family safely out of there.

And make no mistake: this is a difficult movie to watch. I actually think it best that you be warned, there really isn’t the happy ending that you’re used to. In a way, it’s a lesson we all need: the “inspirational” stories we love so much, of the people who triumph or escape—for every one of those, there are thousands of others whose fates are far different. I don’t know that I could convince many to watch this, or that among the Oscar nominees for Best International Feature, this one deserves the award far more than the likely winner, Another Round. But of course, middle-aged Danish men experimenting with light and steady drunkenness is a lot more appealing to viewers and Academy voters alike. Who watches a movie about genocide as a way to pass the time?

Well, I do. You should too. Quo Vadis, Aida? is an exquisitely constructed tale of real-life horror and loss. The script spends very little time on the ideology of the characters, with minor exceptions like when Serbian soldiers are calling the Bosnian women loaded onto buses “Muslim scum.” Beyond that, if you want to learn of the myriad nuances of the conflict, Google it. All that matters is that a military force with greater collective muscle engaged in genocide, and in this instance, this is what it looked like, You can take Aida’s circumstances and multiply them exponentially, but more importantly, be witness to the emotional agony of the individual. Quo Vadis, Aida? is unpleasant yet essential, and I won’t soon forget it.

Aida is tasked with offering hollow words of assurance.

Overall: A

TWO OF US

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

Two of Us is a hard movie to talk about without revealing too much, depending on what your definition of “spoiler” is. I guess I’ll say this up front: there are no mater plot twists. That is, unless you count what serves as the inciting incident in this case, which happens a little while into the movie (spoiler alert): one of the two main characters has a stroke.

What this movie has going for it, more than anything, is that its two protagonists are older women. The fact that they are a lesbian couple is incidental to the film’s value, even though their having been in the closet for decades is crucial to the plot.

In a sense, Two of Us (just called Deux in its original French) is about what kind of massive messes you can find yourself in when you keep your relationship a secret all your life. Martine and Barbara (Madeleine Girard and Nina Dorn) have known each other since childhood, since before Martine’s marriage and birth of her two children, and well after the death of her husband. Martine’s two grown children, Anne and Frédéric (Léa Drucker and Jérôme Varanfrain), look after her as best they can while also nursing varying levels of resentment toward her, particularly on the part of Frédéric. Neither of them know that Barbara has been living in the apartment across thehall from Martine for years, coming over to sleep in her bed every night.

Barbara is eager for Martine to come out to her family after all this time, and director and co-writer Filippo Meneghetti opts not to give us any backstory specific to why Martine is so hesitant. Barbara wants the two of them to retire together to Rome, the city in which they met, and in a scene that merely hints at the tensions to come, Martine braces for confession and then bails. I’d love to know why Martine has such a hard time with this, but then, it may be beside the point, except to say that situations like this often perpetuate themselves, making it that much more frightening to break out of the longer they last.

But, Martine’s stroke changes everything. There’s a lot that’s unique about this movie, and I do rather wish more were made in America that move in these sorts of directions. There’s a lot more tension here than one might expect first going in, creating a suspense of sorts, as Barbara sneaks into Martine’s apartment under under increasingly dangerous circumstances. She becomes entangled with a live-in caregiver who I think may be intended as a minor antagonist, but I just found myself feeling bad for her—even as I empathized with Barbara, who, in her desperation to get back into the arms of the love of her arts, engages in basic sabotage.

Furthermore, Martine’s children do not react to the revelation of their mother’s sexuality very well. It’s difficult to root for any of the characters in this film besides Martine and Barbara, but again, Meneghetti gives every one of them enough nuance to empathize with them. You totally understand why they do and say the things they do, even if it’s not the best choice they could have made. Finding out you’ve been lied to for twenty years can do that to you.

Two of Us is acutely effective as drama, and much of it feels like it might qualify as tragedy. But, never fear; I have a feeling Meneghetti is well aware of how tired we all are of gay tragedies in cinema. Things don’t end well for everyone in this story, and there remains something sad about all of the relationships in the end, but this movie still gives us what we want out of it. The satisfaction in its conclusion comes as a welcome relief. This is one example of a VOD title for which it’s worth paying the seven bucks

Nothing will keep them apart.

Overall: B+

NOTTURNO

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

I’m struggling to come up with more than one or two people I know who would have the interest in or the patience for Notturno, an unusually immersive documentary by Eritrean-born, Italian-American writer-director Gianfranco Rosi, which was filmed over three years in Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan and Lebanon. That still has little bearing on the likelihood of my recommending it.

It really depends on the style of documentary that interests you—assuming documentaries interest you to begin with. There are no talking heads in Notturno (which translates from Italian as “Nocturnal”), nor is there any real narrative arc to speak of. It’s more of a mosaic, or a pastiche, of a region. For me, it somewhat called to mind the incredible 1992 documentary Baraka, which stitched together images both beautiful and horrible from around the world. Notturno is similar, except that it focuses on one region, and is much quieter, most of it with no musical score.

The quiet nature of this film will make it a challenge for people with short attention spans. But losing oneself in it has its rewards, as there are indeed some truly memorably beautiful shots, whether it be a man quietly maneuvering marshes in a canoe at sunset, or even a camera fixed to the floor of a tank. I found myself wondering often about how these shots were set up. At the beginning, I had to remind myself this was indeed a documentary, as it does not often feel like one.

That said, much of it is very, very sad, a reflection of the dangers, horrors and hopelessness of many pockets of the Middle East, as has been the case for decades—a century. Centuries. Opening title cards give a very brief summary of how the region got to this state, specifically in the immediate aftermath of political lines drawn across the area after the first World War. Many shots feature regular people amongst the rubble of what would otherwise have been fairly modern buildings. I see those and wonder what photos there might be of those buildings when first constructed. When might that have been?

And this is another challenge for an international audience of people without a nuanced understanding of Middle Eastern history. It is impossible to decipher when we are seeing images of any of the four specific countries and regions the footage apparently covers. A lot of the footage is silent, subtitled dialogue featured sparingly. When it is used, it is certainly memorable. In the second scene, we see a woman grieving inside the hollowed-out building where her son was tortured and killed. Much later, and this is the worst, we are witness to a teacher having a conversation about the horrors perpetrated by ISIS when they were holding captive. Children hang drawings on the wall which depict scenes they have presumably been witness to, including dismemberments and beheadings.

The primary focus of Notturno is regular, everyday people, which means very little in the way of action, or immediate threat, is seen onscreen. In multiple scenes, whether it’s a couple smoking on an urban rooftop, a the guy in a marsh canoe, or a large family sleeping on couches and the floor in a living room, machine gun shots can be heard in the distance. I found myself thinking about the Black Lives Matter protests last year that were only blocks from my home, which devolved into countless examples of police overreach and brutality—many people I know wondered how safe I was, although my safety was never really at risk. Still, I became pretty desensitized to things like police flash bombs surprisingly quickly. Imagine if they were machine guns. Is it a similar thing for people in more genuinely dangerous area of the world? In come cases, the only choice is to go on with their everyday lives.

Notturno is available streaming on Hulu, so it’s pretty easily accessible, assuming you have a subscription to that particular platform. The best thing about it is its cinematography, making this an exceedingly rare case of a documentary film that I would have preferred seeing in a movie theater. Still, having seen it, it feels somewhat like something I can check off my list. It’s a bit of a bummer but it’s beautiful, and it is not lost on me the position of privilege from which I can make such an assessment.

Plenty of visual allegory to be found here.

Overall: B

NGHT OF THE KINGS

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

What a difference context makes. Night of Kings is a film that comes from Africa’s Ivory Coast, the history of which clearly informs a great deal of shorthand likely understood by viewers in that country. So much of this is so little known and understood by a white, American viewer like myself, it’s difficult to take a critical look at it in any truly meaningful way. The disparity here is vast and bordering on pathetic: I rarely have reason to consider the vastness of European colonization all across Africa (indeed, all of two African nations are widely considered never to have been colonized, and barely even in those cases), let alone the reason French is the primary language spoken in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s largest city. Here in the U.S., we naturally tend to focus our conceptions of colonization on the English. But of course the English weren’t the only ones to spread across the world this way, and French is spoken in many African countries, several of them with it as their official language.

I barely have an understanding of the French. It’s not that hard to understand how, even after a country manages independence, the colonizing language and culture can become part of a permanent mixture: this happens all over the world. Night of Kings is set in a prison isolated in the jungle of Ivory Coast, with its very own, specific culture within that broader context, itself seemingly very specific from a vastly outsider perspective. The story that unfolds is a story within a story, with allegorical elements that just inevitably flew over my head.

I do not say all this to dissuade anyone from watching the film. Perhaps the opposite, in fact: the more we see stuff like this, the more we retain, and the greater understanding we gain of the rich cultural diversity of our planet. And to be sure, there is still plenty here to understand; it’s not like a prison setting is some exotic idea. This place, called MACA (Maison d'Arrêt et de Correction d'Abidjan, or “Abdidjan House of Arrest and Correction”), functions as a prison only insofar as the inmates cannot get out. Otherwise, the rule themselves, and as we are informed at the beginning of the film, tradition dictates that when one leader gets too sick to “govern,” he must take his own life.

So: the current leader, named after the pirate Blackbeard (Steve Tientcheu) is indeed ill. He buys himself some time, however, by using another tradition, wherein the “red moon” dictates a storyteller must be chosen, who must stand in the middle of the entire prison population and entertain them with stories. Blackbeard chooses the young, brand new arrival, given the name Roman (Bakary Koné), who slowly realizes the gravity of his situation, and keeps the inmates rapt the entire night.

Roman’s storytelling takes up maybe half to two thirds of the film’s roughly ninety minute run time, and this is indeed where Night of the Kings gets the most interesting. The inmates crowd around him, at first skeptical of his weakly constructed tales, and later absorbed as he gets better at telling them. Writer-director Philippe Lacôte eventually cuts to the story being told as part of the very narrative of this film, but he does this sparingly. It’s a testament to his skill as a director and storyteller that even when he spends a lot of time with the camera on Roman, several of the inmates often reenacting his scenes right there as thought it’s an impromptu live play, Night of the Kings is no less compelling.

It seems worth noting that this movie was filmed in Ivory Coast, and with all of one single exception, has a quite large, all-Black cast. Indeed, they make up so much of the majority, and the story is so specific to this location, the script makes no mention of race whatsoever. Just one of the inmates is a white guy, somewhat older and balding, considered by the rest of the inmates to be “half mad.” He carries a chicken around and makes predictions like some kind of magical shaman. It’s hard to say whether this was deliberate, but considering the longstanding Hollywood trope of a minority person being relegated to some kind of supernatural position, this is an interesting reversal of the idea.

Differing factions of the prison population are on the brink of war, and Roman, by sheer fate, winds up playing a key role in whether or not order will prevail or chaos will reign. Night of the Kings works quite well even on a straightforward level, but has many layers of meaning that left me compelled to do some minor levels of research. With this movie, it seems the more you know, the richer the story—which, as the narrative cutaways to Roman’s story gets more elaborate, moves through blended genres from drama to straight up fantasy. Navigating this movie’s changing narrative landscape, even when I was lost, I felt guided.

The stories just keep getting better.

Overall: B+

BODY BROKERS

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

I really wanted Body Brokers to be better. The predatory drug addiction treatment industry is a subject ripe for examination, to be sure, and there is no doubt it could make for a very compelling film. Body Brokers just falls short of the mark.

Writer-director John Swab is transparently influenced by films like The Big Short, tackling a complex topic with snappy editing and voice-over narration by a self-consciously cool guy—in this case Vin (Frank Grillo, officially the hottest guy I have ever seen over the age of 55), the guy who basically runs the broad swindle at play here. He’s just one of many said guys, really: there are many millions to be made in this industry, as the film notes in Southern California alone (you can extrapolate to the entire country at will). Swab can’t seem to decide, however, which tone he wants to strike: the clever editing with fun graphics conveying numbers and data, or simply telling a straightforward story. He moves back and forth between the two, and under his direction, the latter actually works better.

Thus, Body Brokers would have worked better without all that snappy stuff, all of it clearly imitating other movies that did it better. There is an economy to the use of voice-over narration as well, but it comes at the expense of story depth.

The one strong suit is the performances, without which I might have gotten genuinely bored. But Jack Kilmer—Val Kilmer’s son, come to find out; no wonder there was something vaguely familiar about his face—not only proves up to the task, but gives a performance that is better than the mediocre script demands. The same could be said of Michael Kenneth Williams (The Wire, Lovecraft Country), who plays the seasoned “broker” named Wood, who finds Utah (Kilmer) in his home state of Ohio and somehow convinces him to catch a plane with him back to California for treatment.

Utah’s girlfriend, Opal (Alice Englert)—John Swab seems to have a penchant for distinctive names: Wood, Utah, Opal—at this point becomes surprisingly reasonable when she expresses distrust at Utah’s willingness to fly all the way out to the west coast with a stranger. Why would anyone do that? The desperation of an addict, maybe. Still, even for a movie that claims to be “based on true events,” I wonder how plausible that particular scenario is compared to, say, finding the plenty of addicts already in California. Does this guy really need to fly around the country to find hopeless junkies?

They certainly find them across the country, from call centers reaching out to targeted states with higher rates of addiction. But the scene in which this is depicted specifies how they are answering calls, from people where their late night commercials air in said targeted states. A bit too much of Body Brokers is contrived out of plot convenience.

To its credit, Body Brokers is still notably informative. I feel like I learned a lot, and the end title card noting that 15 people died of an overdose while I was watching this movie hit pretty hard. I love that the text then adds that people have been maintaining sobriety for years with the help of 12-step programs, and those don’t cost a cent. The people running these programs are not only using drug treatment centers so they can get funding from people’s insurance coverage (this movie cites the Affordable Health Care Act as a big part of this), they even literally pay addicts to keep coming back and filling their beds. This is money they often take and immediately use for drugs.

Over the course of the film, Utah goes through the program himself, miraculously becomes one of the very few for whom sobriety sticks, and when he learns of the corrupt nature of the program he just went through, he decides he wants a piece of that pie. Wood is his mentor throughout. I think Body Brokers may have worked better had there been any uncorruptable characters, but Wood’s attitude from the start is that these people will all be addicts no matter what happens so they might as well profit from it, and Utah’s entire arc is about how a young man who seems to have a conscience can be systematically turned by the presentation of wealth as a replacement for drug addiction. Some people who otherwise like this film might feel dissatisfied by its downbeat ending, but how it ends is actually one of its stronger points—as it’s making a valid point. It’s just making one in a way that doesn’t make for all that great a movie watching experience.

Did I mention Wood is also randomly an Angelino with a cowboy aesthetic?

Overall: B-

I'd Like to Thank the Academy

(And the nominees are . . .) It goes without saying but I'll say it again I guess, just for posterity, since many years from now it might not be as known just how often it was said by this point: This past year has been a weird one indeed, in virtually every context, and movies are no exception. There is little doubt that this year's crop of Acasdemy Award nominees would have looked much different had the year been "normal"—not least of which is the fact of an Academy Awards ceremony significantly delayed. Without a pandemic, the Academy Awards would already have happened a month and a half ago. Also without a pandemic, a whole slew of these movies would have actually been released last year, but instead were released this year, either moved completely to streaming or VOD platforms or released concurrently VOD and in very limited movie theaters, what few of them open only at limited capacity. I myself have not seen a film in a movie theater since February 2020. I took an unprecedented break from movie reviewing movies, for fully five months—seven months if you don't count the one movie I reviewed between February and September, Onward, which was relesed on Disney+ and was the first major release to become available that way. That said, an actually pretty typical cycle of Academy Awards hopefuls being released much later in the cycle still occurred, just, again, delayed: some still came out in the fall, but a bunch of them were released in the first couple months of 2021. This means that, with few exceptions, I still managed to review the vast majority of the films of note. The only glaring difference now is the absence of blockbusters, which were the only films that made real money at the box office anymore even before the pandemic, and those rarely became Oscar contenders anyway. Except maybe in the Visual Effects category—and, honestly, I would very much support adding a Best Stunts category as a means of bringing in more popular films. That's for future years, though. 2020 still set most of the huge blockbuster and franchise movies aside, making way for a lot of smaller but excellent movies that might not have gotten the same attention otherwise. Some of the multiple nominees announced this morning probably still qualify as such movies, most notably Promising Young Woman (5 nominations), probably Sound of Metal (6 nominations) and even the foreign film (2 nominations, including a rare one in the Best Director category). Honestly, this crop of nominations is maybe the most satisfying I have seen in many years; I can find no egregious omissions. I would have loved to see some love for Never Rarely Sometimes Always, the second-best film of 2020, but its absence here is hardly surprising, given how small and sad it is. And although several of the nominees are about social justice in many forms, no one right now is interested in anything dispiriting—and this is possibly the most diverse slate of nominations there has ever been. So, let's get started.
Actor in a Leading Role Riz Ahmed, The Sound of Metal
Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Anthony Hopkins, The Father
Gary Oldman, Mank
Steven Yeun, Minari WHO I THINK WILL WIN: Here we start right off with the biggest lock of them all: if Chadwick Boseman does not win this award, it will have to mean we have entered another dimension, maybe one in which he is still alive.
WHO I THINK SHOULD WIN: If Chadwick Boseman had not died tragically last year, I would likely say this is a toss-up between Riz Ahmed and Anthony Hopkins, both of whom were excellent in these movies—and, without Chadwick Boseman, Hopkins almost certainly would win this one. But, I cannot begrudge a well-deserved posthumous award for Boseman, who was also very good in this part, better even than the movie itself was.
WHO I THINK SHOULD NOT WIN: Gary Oldman. He is a great actor but he is far from the best thing about the otherwise excellent Mank. Not that we have anything to worry about here anyway. Oldman wouldn't win this award even in another dimension.
Actress in a Leading Role Viola Davis, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Andra Day, The United States vs. Billie Holiday
Vanessa Kirby, Pieces of a Woman
Frances McDormand, Nomadland
Carey Mulligan, Promising Young Woman WHO I THINK WILL WIN: The odds here have long been on Carey Mulligan.
WHO I THINK SHOULD WIN: Honestly this is a tough call. I have long thought Carey Mulligan was an underrated talent; maybe I would still choose her here.
WHO I THINK SHOULD NOT WIN: Vanessa Kirby was very good in Pieces of a Woman, but honestly, only especially so in that tour de force opening half-hour birth sequence. In the rest of the movie she's kind of just fine.
Actor in a Supporting Role Sacha Baron Cohen, The Trial of the Chicago 7
Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah
Leslie Odom, Jr., One Night in Miami...
Paul Raci, Sound of Metal
Lakeith Stanfield, Judas and the Black Messiah WHO I THINK WILL WIN: I think Daniel Kaluuya has the edge here.
WHO I THINK SHOULD WIN: Honestly, I was more impressed with LaKeith Stanfield's performance in Judas and the Black Messiah—although both of them were great. There's been some talk of so-called "category fraud" here, since both Kaluuya and Stanfield are the co-leads of that movie, but we all know neither would have stood a chance against Chadwick Boseman in the Best Actor category. I did just realize that, in all likelihood, this year both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor will be won by Black men. Has that ever happened in the same year before?
WHO I THINK SHOULD NOT WIN: I think Sacha Baron Cohen is a very good actor. His role as Borat really does not belong alongside the others listed here.
Actress in a Supporting Role Maria Bakalova, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Glenn Close, Hillbilly Elegy
Olivia Colman, The Father
Amanda Seyfried, Mank
Yuh-Jung Youn, Minari WHO I THINK WILL WIN: Apparently, right now Yuh-Jung Youn has the best odds, but this remains a very competetive category.
WHO I THINK SHOULD WIN: I would be delighted to see Yuh-Jung Youn win—Minari would absolutely not be the same, thoroughly wonderful film without her.
WHO I THINK SHOULD NOT WIN: I know we all want to see Glenn Close win an Oscar . . . someday. But, by all accounts: not for Hillbilly Elegy, which has been so critically derided I never even bothered watching it.
Animated Feature Film Onward
Over the Moon
A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon
Soul
Wolfwalkers WHO I THINK WILL WIN: This is a rare year in which I have only seen two of the animated features nominated. I still think Soul wil win.
WHO I THINK SHOULD WIN: I also think Soul . . . should win.
WHO I THINK SHOULD NOT WIN: Honestly? Even though Onward is the only other animated feature I saw out of these five, and it was also made by Disney's Pixar Studios, the movie was absolutely nowhere near on par with the excellence typically associated with the studio. By Pixar standards, it feels like leftovers, or an afterthought. There is little particularly memorable about it, especially alongside the stupendous Soul—which I've already watched twice.
Cinematography Judas and the Black Messiah, Sean Bobbitt
Mank, Erik Messerschmidt
News of the World, Dariusz Wolski
Nomadland, Joshua James Richards
The Trial of the Chicago 7, Phedon Papamichael WHO I THINK WILL WIN: Even though Mank managed to garner 10 nominations, I think this will be a case where a movie that got a bunch of nominations wins only a few of them. But, this is likely to be one of those few, as the cinematography is a huge psrt of what makes the movie great.
WHO I THINK SHOULD WIN: I would also vote for Mank here.
WHO I THINK SHOULD NOT WIN: The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a fine movie, but it is less deserving of this award than any of the other nominees.
Production Design The Father
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Mank
News of the World
Tenet WHO I THINK WILL WIN: This will either go to Ma Rainey's Black Bottom or Mank. Probably the latter.
WHO I THINK SHOULD WIN: I would also edge out with Mank here, just because Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, being an adaptation of a play, thus has far fewer sets to design.
WHO I THINK SHOULD NOT WIN: I honestly don't know why either The Father (which is very good) or Tenet (which is fine) were even nominated in this category.
Costume Design Emma, Alexandra Byrne
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Ann Roth
Mank, Trish Summerville
Mulan, Bina Daigeler
Pinnocchio, Massimo Cantini Parrini WHO I THINK WILL WIN: Again it's a race between Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Mank. I am rarely very accurate in Oscar predictions, but I'm going to go ahead and say Ma Rainey will win out in this one.
WHO I THINK SHOULD WIN: I have to admit that in this category, the aforementioned two flms are the only two of these five that I've even seen. What the hell is this new Pinocchio, anyway? A Guillermo del Toro film? How have I not even heard of it? Weird. Anyway, Emma might have a better shot if it had more nominations in other categories, but . . . it doesn't.
WHO I THINK SHOULD NOT WIN: I never saw Mulan either, and its costumes may even be great, but it's pretty well known now that the film, and its star, are problematic enough that there's not much reason to lavish it with Academy Awards.
Directing Thomas Vinterberg, Another Round
David Fincher, Mank
Lee Isaac Chung, Minari
Chloé Zhao, Nomadland
Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman WHO I THINK WILL WIN: I really think this is going to Chloé Zhao.
WHO I THINK SHOULD WIN: And, if there is any sense and justice across the Academy this year, they will do another Director/Picture split and give Best Director to Zhao and Best Picture to Minari.
WHO I THINK SHOULD NOT WIN: Another Round included here was one of the few genuine surprises among the nominees. And it's a fine film, but every other nominee here is more deserving.
Documentary Feature Collective, Alexander Nanau and Bianca Oana
Crip Camp, Nicole Newnham, Jim LeBrecht and Sara Bolder
The Mole Agent, Maite Alberdi and Marcela Santibáñez
My Octopus Teacher, Pippa Ehrlich, James Reed and Craig Foster
Time, Garrett Bradley, Lauren Domino and Kellen Quinn WHO I THINK WILL WIN: This is another tough call, especially this year when not a lot of documentary features generated much in the way of lasting buzz. But, it still seems that Time has the edge.
WHO I THINK SHOULD WIN: Which is as it should be! This may be the only Academy Award nomination it got, but I felt very strongly that Time, a truly extraordinary film that really transcends the documentary genre, was the best film of 2020.
WHO I THINK SHOULD NOT WIN: The only other movie I saw here was Crip Camp, and it was also very good, and showcased the extremely underrepresented disabled community and their civil rights history. I'd hardly call that one undeserving; I just think Time is a better movie. Having not seen the other three, I can't really comment here otherwise.
Film Editing The Father, Yorgos Lamprinos
Nomadland, Chloé Zhao
Promising Young Woman, Frédéric Thoraval
Sound of Metal, Mikkel E. G. Nielsen
The Trial of the Chicago 7, Alan Baumgarten WHO I THINK WILL WIN: Given its general frontrunner status on multiple levels, this will probably go to Nomadland.
WHO I THINK SHOULD WIN: I was so impressed with the editing in Sound of Metal, especially the sound editing but that would mean nothing without great editing otherwise, I would love to see that one win this.
WHO I THINK SHOULD NOT WIN: Again: The Trial of the Chicago 7, which is a fine movie, but its many Oscar nominations are kind of tipping it over into "overrated" territory.
Makeup and Hairstyling Emma
Hillbilly Elegy
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Mank
Pinocchio WHO I THINK WILL WIN: I think, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, maybe? It does have impressive makeup work, especially on Viola Davis.
WHO I THINK SHOULD WIN: I'm a little mystified as to why the hell Pinocchio was nominated in this category but not Promising Young Woman, whose makeup artists transformed Carey Mulligan into many impressive incarnations never seen in any of her other movies. She looks like a completely different person. Absent that film as an option here, even I'll have to go with Ma Rainey.
WHO I THINK SHOULD NOT WIN: Based on the critical reception, Hillbilly Elegy is probably best left a movie not called an "Oscar winner." It has no real chance here anyway.
Music (Original Score) Da 5 Bloods, Terence Blanchard
Mank, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
Minari, Emile Mosseri
News of the World, James Newton Howard
Soul, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste WHO I THINK WILL WIN: Soul.
WHO I THINK SHOULD WIN: Soul. No other movie turned my head the way this one did, with its incredible original score. I might watch it a third time just to hear Trent Reznor's delightfully ethereal music again.
WHO I THINK SHOULD NOT WIN: Anything that is not Soul.
Music (Original Song) "Fight for you," from Judas and the Black Messiah, Music by H.E.R. and Dernst Emile II; Lyric by H.E.R. and Tiara Thomas
"Hear My Voice," from The Trial of the Chicago 7, Music by Daniel Pemberton; Lyric by Daniel Pemberton and Celeste Waite
"Husavik," from Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, Music and Lyric by Savan Kotecha, Fat Max Gsus and Rickard Göransson
"Io Sì (Seen)," from The Life Ahead (La Vita Davanti a Se), Music by Diane Warren; Lyric by Diane Warren and Laura Pausini
"Speak Now," from One Night in Miami..., Music and Lyric by Leslie Odom, Jr. and Sam Ashworth WHO I THINK WILL WIN: I mean . . . who the hell knows?
WHO I THINK SHOULD WIN: Of these nominees, the only song I had heard before I was literally writing this was "Husavik" from Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, a surprisingly good song from a surprisingly fun movie. Having just checked out all of the other nominees, I think I actually like "Fight for You" from Judas and the Black Messiah best. Granted, there is a case to be made for keeping Best Song nominees limited to songs that are somehow actually tied into the film's actual narrative, and Leslie Odom Jr. both acts and sings in One Night in Miami... But, well, I still like "Fight for You" best.
WHO I THINK SHOULD NOT WIN: This is sort of unfair, but, to be perfectly honest, I like "Speak Now" the least of these songs.
Sound Greyhound
Mank
News of the World
Soul
Sound of Metal WHO I THINK WILL WIN: Sound of Metal, even with its great script and great acting, would truly not be the incredible film it is without its sound editing, which turns it into an immersive experience as the main character starts to lose his hearing. I have never been so focused on this category before—even as it becomes the first year in which the Academy combines Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. I think voters would agree with me, though—so much so that, were these still two different categories, Sound of Metal would justifiably win both of them.
WHO I THINK SHOULD WIN: How many times do I have to say "Sound of Metal"? Sheesh!
WHO I THINK SHOULD NOT WIN: I'm sure the sound in both Mank and News of the World is very good, but even Greyhound, a merely decent film, is more impressive on that front. That said, if Sound of Metal did not exist, I would want Soul to win this, even though it never would.
Visual Effects Love and Monsters
The Midnight Sky
Mulan
The One and Only Ivan
Tenet WHO I THINK WILL WIN: Given that Tenet is the single bona fide blockbuster actually released this past year, I think it stands to reason that movie will win this.
WHO I THINK SHOULD WIN: Tenet, I guess? It's the only one of these movies I have even seen—although The Midnight Sky has been on my list for some time, which means it now needs to move up on my priority list; it's easily accessible on Prime Video, after all. I had never even heard of Love and Monsters, but I guess I'll have to look into that too.
WHO I THINK SHOULD NOT WIN: The One and Only Ivan is a CGI talking animal movie about a gorilla named Ivan, available on Disney+. I gave it a look a few weeks back, just because I learned it was based on a gorilla who had lived in Tacoma (although I don't think the movie actually specifies that). In the opening shot, Ivan the gorilla speaks right into the camera, and I found it so instantly cornball-stupid that I turned it off in a matter of seconds. No thanks!
Writing (Adapted Screenplay) Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Screenplay by Sacha Baron Cohen & Anthony Hines & Dan Swimer & Peter Baynham & Erica Rivinoja & Dan Mazer & Jena Friedman & Lee Kern; Story by Sacha Baron Cohen & Anthony Hines & Dan Swimer & Nina Pedrad
The Father, Screenplay by Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller
Nomadland, Written for the screen by Chloé Zhao
One Night in Miami..., Screenplay by Kemp Powers
The White Tiger, Written for the screen by Ramin Bahrani WHO I THINK WILL WIN: This one has to be Nomadland, its adaptation of a nonfiction book, with several real people playing barely fictionalized versions of themselves, quite the unique accomplishment.
WHO I THINK SHOULD WIN: See above.
WHO I THINK SHOULD NOT WIN: The inclusion of Borat here is truly a mystery, given how much of the film was improvised. What the hell is it "adapted" from, anyway? The original script itself? I don't get it. Okay, apparently "the Academy considers all sequels to be adaptations." Huh? Okay, whatever.
Writing (Original Screenplay) Judas and the Black Messiah, Screenplay by Will Berson & Shaka King; Story by Will Berson & Shaka King and Kenny Lucas & Keith Lucas
Minari, Written by Lee Isaac Chung
Promising Young Woman, Written by Emerald Fennell
Sound of Metal, Screenplay by Darius Marder & Abraham Marder; Story by Darius Marder & Derek Cianfrance
The Trial of the Chicago 7, Written by Aaron Sorkin WHO I THINK WILL WIN: I think there's a fair chance this is the one Oscar The Trial of the Chicago 7 will actually win.
WHO I THINK SHOULD WIN: Absolutely: Minari. It's a uniquely American yet unparalleled story, written beautifully.
WHO I THINK SHOULD NOT WIN: I'd rather any of the others here win over The Trial of the Chicago 7, but that's okay, I guess I can still live with it winning.
Best motion picture of the year The Father
Judas and the Black Messiah
Mank
Minari
Nomadland
Promising Young Woman
Sound of Metal
The Trial of the Chicago 7 WHO I THINK WILL WIN: Nomadland has the slight edge here, but . . .
WHO I THINK SHOULD WIN: as I stated earlier, what I would love to see here is Nomadland winning for Best Director and Minari for Best Picture. I honestly think that would be the best and fairest outcome.
WHO I THINK SHOULD NOT WIN: I'm inclined to focus on two movies that are undeserving of this particular award: not just The Trial of the Chicago 7, but certainly Promising Young Woman, which has a lot of great things about it but also suffers from both plot and tonal inconsistencies. I'd rank The Father third from the bottom here, even though it also has a lot going for it. But, if we still allowed only five nominees in this category, those are likely the three that would have been edged out. Or at least they should be; I suppose a five-film set would probably have included The Trial of the Chicago 7 and edged out Sound of Metal, which would have been a travesty.
(Nominations for international feature, documentary short, animated short, and live action short were also announced, but I don't know enough about them to make any worthwhile observations.) The 93rd Academy Awards telecast will air on ABC Sunday, April 25 at 5 p.m. Pacific Time.

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