THE PROTÉGÉ

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

There’s a lot to love about The Protégé. Or at least, there’s a lot for me to love about it. I have long loved women who kick ass, and historically we’ve been treated to far too few of them, although they have increased in frequency in recent years. But this one offers layers particularly unusual: the protagonist is not just a woman of color, but maybe most importantly, she’s in her forties. She’s a middle-aged woman who kicks ass! Sign me up!

Maggie Q, who plays the titular character (also known as Anna), is 42. Okay, so production wrapped late last year, when she was still 41, and it began in January—with a predictable several month delay due to COVID-19—so onscreen, she’s either 40 or 41. Not that I need to be obsessed about this, but the film never specifies her age; it only shows flashbacks to her childhood in Vietnam, with a young actress whose age I found difficult to determine. 15? 12? Whatever the age, the opening scene is a flashback to 1991, after which we are told it’s “thirty years later” (with no hint at a pandemic in the present-day setting).

Whatever the case, it’s great to see an action movie featuring a middle-aged heroine. Okay, sure, we’ve already seen the likes of Helen Mirren—in her seventies—in multiple movies literally kicking ass and/or wielding a gun. But there’s a novelty quality to those parts, which are all supporting. She’s also white: in The Protégé, Maggie Q is the middle-aged, Vietnamese protagonist. I have no idea how necessary it really is to note this, but Maggie Q herself is multiracial, having been born and raised in Honolulu by a Vietnamese mother and a white father. It’s nice, furthermore, that this same ethnic heritage is reflected in Anna’s parents in the flashback scenes.

I haven’t even yet mentioned the other principal parts, including the assassin for whom Anna is the protégé, Moody, played by Samuel L. Jackson. Moody celebrates his 70th birthday at one part in the story. And then there’s rival assassin Rembrandt, played by 69-year-old Michael Keaton. Everybody’s old! There’s even a notable supporting part featuring 62-year-old Robert Patric, the T2 Terminator himself. (Funny that the flashbacks here are set the same year as Terminator 2’s release.)

I do find myself wondering, much as I clearly loved it, whether the veteran status of so many of these actors will leave wide audiences largely uninterested. Reviews of The Protégé thus far are decidedly mixed, and although I went to see it the night before its published release date, I was still at a 6:00 p.m. showing and there were about five people in the theater. I mean, that was much more comfortable in the middle of the latest surge in COVID cases (combined with my being masked and vaccinated), but didn’t seem to bode well for the film’s box office prospects.

Well, whatever. I quite enjoyed this movie. Sure, the “boilerplate” criticisms are valid, but the performers have real chemistry, slightly less so between Maggie Q and Samuel L. Jackson versus the delightful shared scenes between her and Keaton. And the plot did have a couple of plot twists I did not see coming, especially considering the way the story is presented in the marketing materials. This applies both to Anna’s relationship with Moody as her mentor, and where her relationship goes with Rembrandt.

And, “boilerplate” or not, it’s refreshing to see a movie ease into its story, and its action sequences. I’m not against an action movie opening with a bang, but this one opens with intrigue, and prioritizes character over action. This achieve the intended effect of us really caring about what’s at stake when the action sequences begin, and thankfully director Martin Campbell shoots the action in ways both exciting and coherent. You merely have to wait a little bit for the action, and once the movie gets to it, it’s worth the wait.

Admittedly, there was a few moments when I did wish the writing were a little better. Occasionally, the plot takes a turn both corny and a little obvious, and ironic element for a movie about supposedly ingenious assassins. At the end of the day, it’s still just an action movie. True, it’s one that would be far more likely to be utterly forgettable if all of its leads were in their twenties and thirties. It really is the casting here that sets it apart, and makes The Protégé worth a watch.

It’s less typical than it looks.

Overall: B+

FREE GUY

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

Free Guy is unexceptional, but fun. In a way, it feels like a sign of some level of return to “normalcy,” with yet another ultimately generic action comedy available this weekend. What it comes to the options we have today in particular, it gets the job done. I was adequately entertained.

I suppose this relatively indifferent approach might seem unfair to the millions of gamers out there who are part of a gargantuan group to which I do not belong, and their possible delight in the many “easter eggs” and in-references Free Guy offers them. That, in itself, is fair. This movie was quite definitively not made for me. I still thought it looked fun, though. I am not impervious to the ample charms of Ryan Reynolds. That even I still managed to have a good time is very much to this movie’s credit.

I keep thinking about its visual component—not just the CGI, of which there is a lot, but its overall aesthetic. Most of the story takes place within the world of a video game, and the visuals very much fit the part. I mean, at least based on my limited knowledge of gaming; I haven’t played any video game (aside from, say, Solitaire or Words with Friends) with any regularity since 1989. Still, the visual palate of Free Guy, which is convincingly rendered, packed with detail, and overall just really busy, feels very much of its time. This means that ten or twenty years from now, it will still look just like video game design did in 2020. Will that make it seem dated, or more sort of “retro” in feel? I say this as though any notable number of people will be re-watching Free Guy in 2030 or 2040. This is really just a movie made for its present moment, but at least it succeeds in that aim.

Some of the concept elements are fairly refreshing. Reynolds plays the titular Guy, an NPC (“Non Player Character”) usually existing as background in a given video game, who becomes self-aware. Of course, this is hardly a new concept, but whenever computer programs became “alive” in movies of the past (Electric Dreams, Short Circuit, The Terminator), they did so either via magic or freak power surges, or due to the fabled “singularity.” In this case, Guy has become self-aware by design: an algorithmic program that is designed to learn and grow and evolve. I’m not saying this is necessarily any more plausible than outright magic, but given the rapid growth of AI technology, it’s a hell of a lot more believable.

Guy falls for a player, Millie (Killing Eve’s Jodi Comer), who is searching for proof inside the game that the billionaire owner of the game’s parent company (played with a simmering intensity, but not quite as consistently funny as he was clearly going for, by Taika Waitit) stole the original programming designed by her, in part with partner Keys (Joe Keery). Millie and Keys are longtime friends clearly destined to realize they are meant for each other.

The idea that finding this proof of theft necessitates movement through the world of the video game, as in movies like TRON, is patently ridiculous, of course. But with a movie like this, ridiculousness is the point. The sensory overload of the world inside the video game was often a bit much for me, but clearly designed to replicate the random chaos of a game in which players are tasked with robbing and murdering and blowing shit up. When Guy decides he’ll “level up” by becoming a popular hero and confiscating other players’ guns, the messaging isn’t all that subtle. But, neither does it get beat over your head; Free Guy is much more concerned with being an unchallenging entertainment than it is with being preachy.

Besides, Ryan Reynolds’s “aw shucks” innocence as a bank teller who just wants to be nice to everyone, with a wide-eyed and childlike sensibility, is kind of irresistible. Free Guy would not be half as entertaining as it is without his lead performance. The countless cameos, many of them quick voice-over work for other NPCs, are just icing on the cake. Also, there’s a climactic battle between Guy and an “upgraded” but unfinished and therefore far beefier yet dumber version of himself, in which they manage to throw in weapons and tools from other famous franchises. This is the kind of thing that could easily play as misguided and stupid, but in the capable hands of director Shawn Levy, it’s easy to get a kick out of it.

That’s the overall gist of Free Guy, really. It’s an easy way to get a kick out of something for a couple of hours. You won’t continue caring much after it’s over, but that doesn’t detract from the fun you’ve had in the moment.

The only world he ever knew . . . was not what he thought it was!

Overall: B

FRENCH EXIT

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

French Exit makes me long of the days when it was even possible for a movie to become a cult classic—or in this case, a gay cult classic. Not that there’s anything inherently gay or queer here—but, it could certainly be argued, it has a unique sort of camp sensibility. If this movie had come out, say, thirty years ago, it could easily have found its place alongside movies like Grey Gardens or What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Do people under the age of thirty even know what those movies are?

Now, there are just too many movies to choose from. There are even too many objectively good movies to choose from, one after the other, so a gem like French Exit easily slips through the cultural cracks. And I might even be hard pressed to call French Exit “objectively” great as a film. Plenty of it is uneven, and the actors’ over-enunciating takes some getting used to. But, this is the rare film where, if it’s for you—and god knows, this isn’t for everyone—you’ll be powerless to its pull. I just could not help but love this movie.

It took me a little while, too. In its first twenty minutes or so, I found myself drifting into my own thoughts, then distracted by what seemed like clunky dialogue. A scene in which Lucas Hedges speaks to Imogen Poots in quasi-deadpan tones that brought to mind a regional theater production in which the actors are trying too hard. But, then something magical happened, at around the 25-minute mark, when this movie completely turned me around on it. There are countless scenes in which, incredibly, it managed to be sort of . . . unhinged, but in a subtle way. How can any movie pull such a thing off? This one does it.

Hedges and Poots play would-be lovers Malcom and Susan, their intended engagement broken off indefinitely by Malcom’s eccentric (to say the least) mother, Frances—played by Michelle Pfeiffer, truly above all else, the reason to watch this movie. It must b said, however, that it’s not just her. Pfeiffer and Hedges are almost reliably wonderful in whatever part they play, but countless supporting players in this movie are also sheer delights. Take, for instance, Frences’s lonely neighbor after she moves to Paris to spend what little money she has left. Valerie Mahaffey plays Madame Reynard with a tightly wound comic sensibility that I just could not get enough of.

Did I mention a cat also plays prominently in the story? This movie would be utterly delightful even without “Small Frank,” whose wild significance to the plot I won’t spoil here, but to say his presence enhances the experience would be an understatement. Of course, that’s just so long as you can lose yourself in an odd movie like this, about a socially clueless widow and her grown son living in a friend’s Parisian apartment with little regard to how quickly the very last of their fortune is being whittled away. I’m not sure if “odd” is even the right word for it. This movie’s sensibility is somewhere in the space between “eccentric” and “quirky,” but with a decidedly dark bent to it. In other words, director Azazel Jacobs and writer Patrick DeWitt (adapting from his novel of the same name) somehow knew to make a movie custom made just for me.

Will you feel the same way? Odds are, probably not. But some of you might! I certainly want to share it, and I urge you to watch this film, currently available for about six dollars VOD.

And, sure, some of it makes no sense. Okay, maybe a lot of it. Its deceptively hilarious script makes up for a lot, such as how insanely easily Frances manages to “sneak” her cat through customs after she gets off the boat in France. Or the way Frances finds the fortune teller from the boat with the use of a Parisian private detective, and for reasons that never get adequately explained, they both wind up staying several nights with Frances and Malcolm in the same apartment. This movie is so much fun, you hardly care.

Still, it all comes back to Michelle Pfeiffer. Performances like this are what the word “iconic” was made for. That word is so overused it has lost all meaning, but Pfeiffer brings it full circle. I haven’t loved her so much in a movie since she played Catwoman nearly—let me check my notes—thirty years ago. This woman is a national treasure, she commands attention, and so does this charmingly peculiar movie.

You won’t believe how much you’ll love hanging out with these people.

Overall: B+

NINE DAYS

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

Depending on your level of patience for slow pacing, you might think the new film Nine Days feels like it lasts about that long.

This movie has a lot in it that’s ripe for discussion, but I do think how slow it is will be a challenge for most. It was reportedly a “Sundance Festival Favorite” last year, but let’s face it, few movies that qualify for such a distinction translate into widespread success outside the film festival context. This is that kind of movie. I can see it easily debated among academics, but calling that a great compliment is dubious at best.

Admittedly, Nine Days feels very thematically dense, and yet its themes largely flew over my head. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like it. I just found myself sometimes wondering what the point was. This is a film about “candidates” getting interviewed over the course of—you guesses it!—nine days to see which one of them gets to be born and live a rich life. I’m not sure it’s supposed to be reincarnation, per se; like many of its ideas, Nine Days lacks clarification there.

Only two of the characters are known for sure to have ever been alive before, including our protagonist, the interviewer, named Will (Winston Duke). When we are introduced to Will at the beginning of the film. he is spending a lot of time watching people on a wall full of old TV monitors, taking notes. It takes several minutes for us to piece together that he is watching the lives of his previous “selections.” He is particularly focused on one named Amanda, whose point of view is quite literally the opening shots of the film.

There’s a lot that writer-director Edson Oda does with the filmmaking here that could easily have fallen on its face, and yet works surprisingly well. Those TV monitors, each representing someone’s life living on Earth, is a point-of-view shot, as though we are looking out through their eyes from inside their head. One has to wonder how much of that footage was shot, because it is impressively assembled, and succeeds in its intended effect.

There’s never any explanation of exactly where it is that all these people are, although it’s clearly not the dimension we live in. Early on, a character asks if they are dead, and Will clarifies that it’s best not to think of it as dead or alive. What is it, then? I suppose this world, in an isolated house on a beach, is in some sense a kind of purgatory. Who is Will working for? There’s a guy named Kyo (Benedict Wong) who seems to serve as some level of overseer, although he functions really just as a companion, who usually just hangs out and is sometimes argumentative. We are meant to understand Kyo is someone who has never been alive.

Besides Wong, and Tony Hale as one of the “candidates,” the ensemble cast consists of mostly unrecognizable faces, which serves the story well. My struggle with that story is that I can’t quite figure out what it’s trying to say, unless I want to take it very literally and come away with a somewhat incongruous late sequence that’s all about not taking life’s precious moments for granted. Honestly, a lot of Nine Days feels like far more effort than necessary for the story being told. Why does the framing device have to be so complicated?

And yet, there is something uniquely soothing about its tone. I’m also impressed by its exclusively practical production. There are no special effects to speak of, aside from when candidates occasionally dissipate. Otherwise, it’s all done on set, including elaborate setups that Will constructs like a carpenter, to create “a moment” that candidates liked from all that TV monitor footage.

It must be said, also, that every single performance in this film is terrific. There’s a peculiar moment early on when Will tells one of the candidates that they are in a place where emotions are not felt as “deeply” as they get felt when one is alive. And yet, the characters themselves prove over time to be brimming with emotion, especially when faced with rejection, as only one of them will be selected for life. Oda does a good job of drawing multdimensional, nuanced and distinct personalities among then all, especially Emma (Zazie Beets), a wide-eyed innocent who confounds Will with her almost defiantly evasive answers to his questions.

His questions are very specific. Will presents candidates with scenarios and then asks them what they would do in that situation. The responses are both varied and plausible. Once the candidates are whittled down to two, one of them you see coming a mile away and the other is a bit more of a surprise. Nine Days does get a lot more compelling as it goes along, but it takes its sweet time getting there, as Will spends his days making old-school VCR recordings of moments in his previous selections’ lives, on actual videocassettes. I could never quite decide what to make of these peculiar design choices, with Will working with real-world technological tools but exclusively ones that are long outdated.

Such is the case with much of Nine Days: I don’t quite know what to make of it. Except that the acting is excellent. And maybe someone smarter than me could watch it and help me get a handle on precisely what it’s trying to say. Will goes through a distinct emotional arc of his own, second guessing himself after a tragic turn in Amanda’s life, and eventually has something akin to an emotional breakdown of his own, after being quite pointedly deadpan for a very long time. There are occasionally sudden bursts of emotion in this movie, but most of the time it moves on a very even keel, which if nothing else I have to admit, I found oddly comforting.

If you’re looking for meaning . . . maybe it’s here, maybe it isn’t.

Overall: B

THE SUICIDE SQUAD

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

I cannot deny it: The Suicide Squad exceeded my expectations. To be fair, that was not a difficult task, after the 2016 film Suicide Squad was so roundly panned by critics, combined with underperforming at the box office (if you want to call $300 million at the box office “underperforming”). I never even bothered to see that other film, as by all accounts it was a waste of time—disliked by critics and fans alike—but evidently it doesn’t matter, as The Suicide Squad can easily be considered a reboot, even though it’s all of five years later. This film does have two actor carry-overs from the previous one, though: Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn (now her third time portraying the character); and Viola Davis as specialist Amanda Waller, the woman who tasks the titular squad with what often turn out to be literal suicide missions.

Such is the case with the opening sequence of The Suicide Squad, which turns out to be quite the effective bait an switch. I won’t spoil anything more, except to say that with one major exception, the “squad” we get introduced to is very much a cheeky distraction. This proves from the start that James Gunn, who previously directed and co-wrote the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, was a great choice for this film, infusing it with the cleverly twisted humor it needed, at just the right amount. I might even say The Suicide Squad is by some measure better than both the Guardians films, as though they served as practice for hitting his stride here. This movie is one of the few truly creatively successful DC movies on all levels, silly in all the right ways and never being self-serious. This is a movie that understands how ridiculous it is.

And that, my friends, is how you make a good superhero movie. The editing and pacing are unusually well done, with a plot that unfolds in a way that keeps the story that stands on its own and, although the climactic sequence is still typically large in scale, it avoids the cliché of being about battling a global, intergalactic or universal threat. I mean, okay, there is a giant alien starfish that serves as a sort of acid trip version of Godzilla, and obviously that has global implications. But, the focus of the story remains local—on the fictional island of Corto Maltese, as it happens, a fun shoutout to the original 1989 Batman film (and previously in original Batman comics).

Gunn reportedly made the deliberate decision to use lesser-known supervillains to make up “The Suicide Squad,” another choice that only enhances the experience of this movie, without the distractions of Batman or even mentions of The Joker. In addition to Harley Quinn, Idris Elba as Bloodsport; John Cena as Peacemaker; Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag; David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man; Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher 2; and even Sylvester Stallone as the voce of the impressively CGI rendered King Shark, all make up a nice group of messy criminal misfits, granted time out of prison in order to pull off jobs others can’t do—and in some cases actually die trying.

I mean, a lot of people die in this movie. In one sequence, a well choreographed attack takes place in which the Squad winds up dispatching numerous people in all sorts of creative ways, almost as a competition, only to discover they had mistaken the wrong people for their enemies. This gets blithely gleaned over, but whatever; The Suicide Squad never pretends to have a solid moral core. It’s an exaggerated cartoon, its hyperviolence something in the school of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill movies. You’ll see a lot of blood and dismemberment. A quasi-humanoid shark picks up live people and eats them.

And, somehow . . . it’s delightful. I had a great fun watching this movie. The humor lands consistently, and there are no lulls in the narrative, no point that you might find yourself checking the time. It also has better CGI than it really could have gotten away with, just thanks to its smart script and winning performances—there’s a man-weasel character (called . . . Weasel) that is both disturbing to look at, and rendered with memorably intricate detail. I don’t know how dated the visuals of this film might look in ten years, but right now it’s far better than a lot of other effects-heavy contemporary films. Overall, The Suicide Squad is just a fun hang, with plenty of laughs and a uniquely compelling story, thanks in large part to its twisted silliness.

A bunch of dork criminals will win you over.

Overall: B+

THE GREEN KNIGHT

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B
Cinematography: A-
Editing: B-
Special Effects: A-

Where to start with The Green Knight? Judging by the film’s trailer, you might reasonably expect yet another overdone, Arthurian legend fantasy blockbuster, which was why I dismissed it out of hand when I first saw it. But then, I was swayed by the shockingly positive reviews, and decided it was apparently a must-see. In the end, I find it to be somewhere in between deserving of dismissal and “must-see.”

Ironically, I suspect I would like the movie a lot more were I to watch it one or two more times. I’m just not sure I want to do that. Also, one could reasonably ask: why should I have to see a movie multiple times in order to fully appreciate it? Whatever the case, I spent a majority of my time watching The Green Knight not having any idea what the fuck was going on.

I guess I could have read the source material, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, except that I missed that when it got passed around in the 14th century. Also, full disclosure, I’d had too much chai at an Indian restaurant last night, which kept me awake most of the night, and then I dosed off several times during this movie. In my defense, after I was afraid I was confused because I snoozed through something critical about the plot, the person I saw the movie with confessed he was confused by a fair amount of it as well. So it isn’t just me!

Also, if you go into this movie expecting action set pieces, or even the kind of spectacle typical of summer movies, you will be sorely disappointed. The Green Knight has a pace so measured, it takes probably half an hour before anything happens that truly snaps you to attention. It’s also very artful, packed with layered meaning and allegory that, let’s face it, mostly just flew right over my head. I have to give it credit for being pretty fantastically shot, though. This movie has a lot of unforgettable imagery in it. You just might find a beautiful image cutting through one of your yawns. I often felt like this might be the kind of movie Stanley Kubric would have made had he done a fantasy genre film.

There’s also the fact that the writer and director, David Lowery, was the same guy who did A Ghost Story in 2017—another movie that takes its sweet time in getting to a point where it wins you over. The Green Knight is more exciting than that one . . . marginally. They clearly share a lot of visual and tonal DNA, though, and if you had seen A Ghost Story before and know The Green Knight was by the same guy, you might think, Oh, I get it. Sort of. Maybe.

Let’s see if I can get the basic gist of the story. Sir Gawain (Dev Patel) steps up to the challenge of The Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) to “strike a blow” against him and take his axe, the deal being that exactly one year later, he will return to The Green Knight to receive the exact same blow in return. Gawain chops off the Green Knight’s head, then most of the movie chronicles his quest over the following year to the “Green Chapel” where this reciprocating blow is to take place.

Does Gawain think he’s outsmarted The Green Knight by chopping of his head? Fuck if I know. All I know is that what follows is Gawain in a successive series of vignettes as he encounters people, ghosts and creatures, including women giants and a fox you only learn can talk after a lot of otherwise silent screen time, in one brief verbal exchange. The Green Knight is apparently a human-tree hybrid, by the way. Instead of looking like the Ents from Lord of the Rings, he looks more like Guardians of the Galaxy’s Groot in his retirement years.

He’s a very big guy, by the way. Which means his axe is huge. Gawain is carrying that thing all over the place. I found it kind of distracting that the comparatively scrawny Dev Patel never once struggled to pick the thing up, often with one hand! Also I’m pretty sure there’s a scene in which Joel Edgerton makes a pass at him. This is after a scene in which Edgerton’s character basically offers a woman of his house to Gawain, and we are treated to a quick shot of a hand smeared with semen. That was different. I told you this was not your typical fantasy film, didn’t I? I’m convinced this is all about that director, David Lowery, honestly. He’s jerking his own sensibilities all over this movie.

None of this makes the movie bad, mind you. It does make it far less accessible to mainstream audiences than it might have been otherwise. Only a few people I know would be into this, and if your greatest passion is for CGI set pieces in Avengers movies, this one’s going to bore you to tears. The Green Knight didn’t bore me, it just . . . couldn’t quite reach me. I really wanted it to, however, and that’s something. It has a lot of darkly beautiful imagery to look at, a superficial level to its many layers I could not penetrate. Upon further reflection, once this is available streaming, I may indeed watch it again. At least then I’ll have a far better sense of what to expect, and—movie marketers, maybe take note here—that makes a huge difference.

I mean, I’m glad I didn’t have to live back then!

Overall: B

SUBLET

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

If you like movies that feature almost exclusively characters hanging out and talking, having interesting conversations, then Sublet is the kind of movie for you. That is, if you also find the contextualization of gay queer characters exploring Tel Avid compelling. That contextualization aside, if you’re not into “talky” movies, then this is one you’ll want to avoid. It’s all a matter of cinematic preference, really.

I quite enjoyed it. Sublet is directed and co-written by Eytan Fox, who has a history of exploring queer character in his films. He did the 2002 film Yassi & Jagger, a gay romance between two Israeli soldiers; he also directed the phenomenal film Walk on Water, about a bereft Israeli widower hit man who befriends a gay German tourist with the intent of gathering information about his Nazi war criminal grandfather, which wound up being my fourth-favorite film of 2005.

Fox is not especially prolific—he hasn’t directed a feature film since 2013—but he clearly has talent. That said, Sublet feels like a smaller film than some of his earlier works, at least in terms of production, theme, and ambition. That’s no major reflection on its quality; sometimes a story benefits a great deal from stripping down to simplicity. And even this film has its share of layers and nuance.

It’s the story of a short term relationship between men of two very different generations. We never learn the respective ages of Michael (John Benjamin Hickey), a New York Times travel writer visiting Tel Aviv for five days, and Tomer (Niv Nissim), the young man from whom he sublets his apartment and who winds up showing him around the city. But, we can find the ages of the actors, which are 57 and 27, respectively. That’s a thirty-year difference—an almost shockingly wide difference now that I consider it with actual numbers. It could be argued that the most impressive achievement of Sublet is that for most of its run time it depicts this relationship as platonic, until it isn’t. But it’s never creepy or especially salacious; in fact it’s surprisingly sweet. I can think of few, if any, other movies that manage to make such a relationship feel totally acceptable and natural.

Part of it is that the relationship is very brief, by design: Michael and Tomer only know each other for five days. Michael has a partner back in New York, and is processing a tragic event that occurred recently in their lives. Tomer actively avoids labels, which is why I hesitate to call him “gay” but he definitely qualifies as queer; he has idealistic ideas of living without any constraints of monogamy or even commitment. There’s a uniquely realized scene in which Tomer invites another young man over via “the Israeli Grindr,” as he puts it, “for both of us,” and ultimately it qualifies as the one sex scene in the film. It’s the kind of scenario in which one participant could easily be manipulating another, but it never comes across that way. At that point, though, Michael politely leaves the two younger men to each other, in that particular moment making the right decision.

Even this is a few days into Michael’s visit, his and Tomer’s connection developing organically. Fox introduces each day as the beginning of what becomes basically five chapters (“Day One,” etc). Tomer is intent on crashing on friends’ couches for the week, but Michael suggests he just stay at home and sleep on the couch, and in exchange Tomer will serve as his tour guide to see “the real” Tel Aviv for his travel piece.

As the story thus progressed, I was reminded of the Before Sunrise films, with such a focus on two characters forging a connection through a succession of intellectually stimulating conversations. The themes and topics covered in the Before Sunrise films are far denser than they are here, but it’s broadly the same idea. And in contrast to the Richard Linklater films, Eytan Fox throws in minority sexuality and cross-generational ideas and ideals. It makes for very compelling viewing, if you’re into that sort of thing.

I very much am. At times, the acting in Sublet feels slightly unrehearsed, but its well crafted script is its greatest strength. By the end, I was more moved than I might have expected to be at the start. That kind of pleasant surprise is always a welcome turn of events.

Sometimes it’s not so hard to bridge the gap.

Overall: B+

[available VOD, $4.99.}]

Advance: STILLWATER

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

I wonder how people who are actually conservative feel about it when they get depicted on the silver screen by actors we know to be liberal? I would imagine they approach it with deep cynicism. I often appreciate it when I see depictions of conservative people onscreen that seem to be nuanced, but for all I know the very type of people in the attempted depiction find it ridiculous at best and offensive at worst. God knows that’s how I would approach any famously right-wing actor depicting a liberal character. I’m not saying that’s a good thing, either. And when it comes to Stillwater, which I actually sincerely enjoyed, Matt Damon’s lead performance as an Oklahoman construction worker living temporarily in France often came across, even to me, as less an authentic portrayal than a guy cosplaying a Midwestern conservative.

At least the performance is understated. Damon certainly goes in a new direction here, as a man obsessed with getting the evidence necessary to exonerate his grown daughter serving prison time for murder, in Marseille.

There are shades of Amanda Knox here, obviously. If we want to say this is based on that story, it’s loosely based at best. “Inspired by” is probably more appropriate, with some expected themes of how Americans are viewed by Europeans. Damon’s character, Bill Baker, meets a woman named Virginie (Camille Cotton) and her little girl, Maya (an excellent Lilou Siauvaud), forging a close relationship with them after Virginie offers him help in translating as he goes in search of evidence. Even though he’s been told by lawyers that there is no hope for reopening his daughter’s case.

She’s been in prison five years already, one of the many unusual choices in storytelling here by writer-director Tom McCarthy (Spotlight). The truth of the circumstances that landed Allison in prison are meted out very sparingly, and never through any flashbacks—a wise choice, as it keeps us in the present-day of the storytelling. By the time the story starts here, Allison is already approaching probation, and is closer to release than she is to having been sentenced. As such, Stillwater becomes less of a mystery, although there remain elements of that, than a drama about how Bill and Amanda forge, maintain, or lose relationships in their lives.

The casting of Abigail Breslin, now 25, as Allison is an inspired choice. Matt Damon clearly immersed himself into the role of Bill with great effort, learning an Oklahoman accent, gaining weight. Breslin hardly had to do anything physical; she clearly fulfills the promise of her precocious performances as a little girl and has maintained her talent, which in contrast to Damon is the most memorable thing about her performance. That said, she has grown into a look that makes her a very convincingly progressive daughter of a stoic Midwestern man who prays before every meal.

There’s a lot to love about the relationship between these two in Stillwater. It has plenty of complications, but literally none of them have to do with her being a lesbian and his being conservative. in fact, he seems to accept her as who she is by default. Allison’s sexuality is really never brought up as any kind of “issue,” and in fact the overtly sociological details involve racism, and particularly anti-Muslim sentiment, in France. Bill, for his part, is a recovering addict, a guy who fucked up so many times as a father that Allison can’t trust him. They have other issues. People forget that liberal people, and decent conservative people, actually do exist in red states, and it’s nice to see a movie make the rare decision to reflect that. It’s even nicer to see a lesbian character for whom her sexuality is truly incidental, especially within this context.

I found myself surprisingly taken by the plotting of Stillwater, which takes no hard swings and yet makes many subtly subversive choices, particularly in contrast to typical storytelling in cinema. There is one turn of events involving Bill and a young man he considere a suspect, which gets a little close to the much more dramatic vigilantism in a movie like Prisoners (which took those hard swings, and was still a better movie). Bill gets himself in over his head in a way he would never plausibly get out of it in the real world, and then he gets a too-convenient pass, with some critical questions that are just left unanswered. In a way, that’s maybe the hard swing Stillwater should have taken, but still didn’t. This movie is otherwise too straightforward to say it has any genuine plot twists, but it does offer a solution to the central mystery that is comfortably unpredictable.

In any event, with Stillwater, the value is in the details, particularly with these Americans immersed in French culture, the people around them making their own assumptions about them. The reminisce about the media having been “ferocious” about Allison’s case. Arguably the most fascinating thing about this movie is that the whole story takes place in the aftermath of, rather than before or during, the most consequential event in these people’s lives. Somehow, it works.

An American in Paris.

Overall: B

Opens July 30.

PIG

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

Nicolas Cage has now been in movies for forty years. Some of his earlier roles are legitimately iconic: Raising Arizona, Moonstruck, his Academy Award-winning role in the incredibly depressing Leaving Las Vegas. How long has it been since he had a role as memorable as those? Arguably, the 2002 masterpiece Adaptation. Even that was nearly two decades ago.

I won’t pretend to be intimately familiar with Cage’s filmography since then. The man has more than fifty film credits in the past twenty years alone, and I have seen maybe ten of those. Cage has widely become known to be an active parody of himself in recent years, which has left me comparatively disinterested. Which is to say, I can’t really say with objective authority that his performance in Pig is his best in twenty years—since Adaptation. But, I still suspect it to be true.

And this is the thing about Pig. If you go just by the premise, you might think it fits perfectly into Nicolas Cage’s late-career gonzo trajectory. It’s about a recluse in the forests outside Portland, Oregon, who goes in search of the people who kidnapped his truffle pig. Anyone familiar with Cage’s recent output who hears that might quite understandably expect something weird and over the top. Instead, Pig defies expectations in just about every way imaginable.

In fact, the less you know about it going in, the better. So what can I say about it, then? I’m tempted to call it “John Wick with a pig” just as a misdirect. Except, I will tell you this movie is not an action movie. It’s very much a drama, shot lovingly both in and around Portland, with layered themes that prove unexpectedly moving. One would never judge from the opening scenes, in which Rob and his pig are hunting truffle mushrooms, that it would somehow lead to a riveting scene in a fine dining establishment with Rob convincing the chef that he’s wasting his life on things for which he has no passion. I may want to rewatch this movie just for that scene alone.

Also, perhaps: a bit of a heads up. The pig itself gets very little screen time. So if you love pigs, keep that in mind. But don’t fret, either: no violence against the pig (or any animal) is ever depicted. You might think for a bit that Rob might be the perpetrator of some violence, but there’s none of that either. There are just the two scenes in which Rob gets beaten pretty badly by other people.

And this leads me to my one peeve about this movie: Cage, as Rob, spends the entire run time of the film not just in the same grimy outfit, but with his face beaten and crusted over with blood. I had a hard time getting past that. Sure, Rob has been a recluse for so long he no longer gives a shit about his appearance or what people think of him. But, he doesn’t even want to wash the blood off his face, even while visiting high end restaurants? This would feel slightly more plausible if, say, the people he visits regularly said something about his hygiene. Surely he smells horrid. A young man who buys the truffle mushrooms from him asks in an early scene if Rob is sure he doesn’t want some kind of shower installed in his cabin, and he is later asked if he needs medical attention, but that’s it. I found this far more distracting than director and co-writer Michael Sarnoski surely intended.

And don’t get me wrong, Cage is still plenty weird in this movie. It’s just not in the ways you might expect—and it’s still possibly the most understated performance he’s ever given. (In the aforementioned scene Rob shares with a chef, it’s the other actor—David Knell—who truly shines.) It’s Cage’s restraint that truly impresses, although he does let slip one small outburst that serves as one of the few truly funny moments in the movie.

Overall, Pig is meditative, existential, a rumination on grief and loss. Every principal character in this film has lost a person dear to them, and have taken their lives in different directions that can still all be traced back to that loss. Eventually, Adam Arkin shows up, in a scene in which we see how food can be used as a tool to trigger specific emotions and memories.

In other words, the truffle pig is just a jumping-off point. An unorthodox one, to be sure, but it also serves its purpose, making Pig one of the most memorably unique films to come along in years.

Is the pig a metaphor? Let’s discuss over wine.

Overall: B+

ROADRUNNER: A FILM ABOUT ANTHONY BOURDAIN

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

My take on this Roadrunner documentary about Anthony Bourdain may be a little unexpected, or at least unusual. It starts with the event the film predictably ends with: his suicide. One of the many associates of Bourdain interviewed for the film comments on how celebrities who kill themselves inevitably wind up revered, given mural treatments and talked about “like they’re gods.” Director Morgan Neville then cuts right to, of course, a wall mural of Anthony Bourdain.

These sorts of artistic portraits of prominent cultural figures keep them at arms length, making it impossible to see them for who they really were. After seeing Roadrunner, which presumably aims to close that gap, I hardly feel like I have any greater grasp on who Bourdain really was. And, as someone with little interest in either cooking broadly speaking or particularly reality television, I barely knew who the man was to begin with.

It is indeed unfortunate that his suicide is now by far what Bourdain is best known for—something another interview subject mentions. It’s certainly the most pertinent thing I ever knew about him. Curiously, Neville spends the majority of the film just running through the bullet points of Bourdain’s increasingly famous career. I kept wondering when we might get some insight into whatever led to his suicide. The best I could glean is that in the end, the pressure of fame just became too much for him, but the film comes to no definitive conclusions.

It’s clear that Bourdain had many people who loved him. By many accounts, he became increasingly an erratic sort of asshole in the last few years. There is little doubt that he was a nuanced man. My personal issue here is that Roadrunner failed to paint a portrait of this man in a way that made him seem all that interesting to me.

And it’s not like it’s an impossible thing to do, even for someone like me with no connection to celebrity chefs. Just last week, after all, I rather enjoyed the documentary film Wolfgang, about Wolfgang Puck. That’s a guy who fashioned a career out of his greatest passion, and that is a joy to see no matter what the passion is for. Anthony Bourdain, by contrast, first made a name for himself by revealing salacious trade secrets in the 2000 memoir Kitchen Confidential, then later gained fame by eating a litany of exotic and bizarre foods around the globe in culinary themed travel reality series.

It’s clear that Bourdain meant a lot to a lot of people, but somehow I remain . . . unconvinced. I hold no particularly negative thoughts about him; by all accounts he was complicated, maybe a good man, someone who made mistakes, someone struggling with mental health. All these things are valid. But was he something special? If he was, this movie did not work hard enough to convince me of it.

That’s the clarifying element: it’s more about this film than it is about the man himself. There are many scenes presented without context—are they scenes, or outtakes maybe, from one of his TV series?—where Bourdain is having lunch at a restaurant, or visiting a museum, having a conversation we are clearly meant to take as illuminating for them or for us, or maybe both. But I could never lose sight of the fact that we are only seeing the footage because there were cameras around. When we see Bourdain meandering around a sunny villa somewhere in Europe, with voiceover discussing a period of social withdrawal or loneliness, we are actually seeing something in which he actually is around people: the camera crew.

There’s an element of contrivance in Roadrunner that doesn’t quite sit well with me, featuring all these “intimate” scenes that are by definition anything but. When we see footage of straightforward interviews with Bourdain’s friends, family and colleagues, and they break down crying, those are authentically emotional moments. Morgan Neville tries to present other, previously recorded footage in the same way, and it doesn’t work. It certainly doesn’t help that Neville also apparently “deepfaked” some of Bourdain’s voiceover narration, which makes the idea of authenticity feel muddled at best. (What he says in these lines are words he actually wrote; he just never was recorded saying them.) And sure, plenty of documentaries use voiceover narration reciting things a deceased subject of the film said or wrote, but it is typically very clear that we are not listening to a literal recording of the subject’s voice.

A lot of work went into this film otherwise, which I can respect. Plenty of people are also quite taken with the film (it has a score of 80 on MetaCritic), which I can also respect. The movie just didn’t do it for me.

You want to be force fed this stuff?

Overall: C+