HAMNET

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

The final sequence in Hamnet involves the staging of William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, with Shakespeare himself (Paul Mescal) playing the part of the Ghost, and Shakespeare’s wife, Agnes (Jessie Buckley), at the front of the floor crowd crunched right up against the stage, having made an unannounced visit to view the play. This is a scene with a lot of extras, thankfully none of them computer-generated, and the staging—if you’ll pardon the pun—is superb. It’s not often that even the performances of the extras in a scene is impressive, and this is a testament to the directing skill of Chloé Zhao (who also directed and co-wrote the Best Picture-winning 2020 film Nomadland). Agnes becomes deeply invested in the story unfolding onstage in front of her, but so does this entire crowd, who at one point take a subtle collective action as led by Agnes, which is one of the most moving moments in the film. We do not see any of William Shakespeare’s productions up until this point, and this sequence alone makes Hamnet worth seeing, and it’s worth waiting for.

It’s also worth noting that Zhao also co-wrote Hamnet, along with Maggie O’Farrell, author of the 2020 novel of the same name—and that this story runs with a lot of historical conjecture, such as the idea that Hamlet is at all directly tied to the death of Shakespeare’s one son: Hamnet. Indeed, we are told with an opening title card that in their time, the names “Hamnet” and “Hamlet” were virtually interchangeable. This film literalizes this notion when, upon first seeing the play start, Agnes shouts at the actors “Don’t you dare say my son’s name!”

As O’Farrell and Zhao tell it, The Tragedy of Hamlet ultimately served as a way for William and Agnes to come to an understanding regarding the grieving of their son. This is reportedly the product of speculation, but in the film, it is very effective. I cam to this film armed with tissues, and it did not disappoint on that front—although I will admit to expecting to weep a bit more than I did. I still wept plenty.

The focus of Hamnet is never truly on the title character, but on how his life and death of his parents, one of whom is arguably the most famous artist ever to live in the Western World. Long before any of the children are born—and there are three; an older daughter, Susanna (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), and a pair of fraternal twins, Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe) and Judith (Olivia Lynes)—the story focuses on the love story between William, and Agnes, the local orphaned child with a reputation for being a witch. Hamnet only leans slightly into the witchiness of Agnes, with her insistence that she can see visions by touching people’s hands, or her deep, generational connection to the forest. She even gives birth to Susanna by herself in the woods. This, of course, is well after William and Agnes secure their betrothal, in the face of certain lack of permission by either William’s parents or Agnes’s guardian, by simply getting pregnant.

I find myself wondering how these plot threads play out in the novel, as although the film clocks in at a quite-reasonable 125 minutes, some of these details felt a little bit rushed to me. Most notably, the contempt this couple’s parents or guardian have for their beloved, which seems to have dissipated on the part of William’s mother, Mary (Emily Watson), within a couple of scenes—as soon as the narrative jumps forward to the birth of Susanna. As for Agne’s stepmother, Joan (Justine Mitchell), we see her very briefly in only a few scenes, and when Agnes much later says to her very coldly, “You are not my mother, and you never were,” we have seen so little of Joan that the nastiness feels unearned.

The narrative also jumps forward from the twins’ infancy to their age at around ten, and we do not get a lot of time getting to know any of them, either—though we do get to know Hamnet himself slightly better than the others. Just enough, indeed, to get a sense of how much these children mean to their parents. Jessie Buckley’s performance of maternal grief is so stunningly visceral that I found myself wondering if she has children of her own (she has one), and Paul Mescal has kind of already made a career out of tortured interiority. These two do not express grief in the same way, and in this telling at least, it takes the writing of Hamlet to bring them back around to each other

Hamnet is more than anything a love story, and that is indeed where it shines. The performances are phenomenal, especially those of Buckley and Mescal, but really across the board—right down to the aforementioned extras in the theater watching Hamlet in the final sequence of the film. And although I’m sure it would help deepen the appreciation, you need not have a detailed knowledge of Shakespeare’s work to appreciate this story, or indeed even how Hamlet is used therein. Shakespeare himself was well known for writing “a play within a play,” which is effectively what is happening here—quite similarly using the play as subtext. By the end, though, it becomes the text, in a way deftly executed, so that even with the quibbles I had with the plotting, I felt emotionally cleansed.

Agnes is deeply moved, and so are we.

Overall: A-

SENTIMENTAL VALUE

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

Anyone with a thing for juicy family dramas should look no further than Sentimental Value, Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s follow-up to his similarly excellent The Worst Person in the World (2021). The person he cast in the starring role is also the same in both films: the wonderful Renate Reinsve, here playing Nora Borg, an accomplished stage actress in Oslo, where she lives in a home that has been in her family for generations.

If I had any minor nitpick about Sentimental Value, it would be how no one ever talks about the hugeness of this house, which appears to have three stories and an unspecified but certainly large number of rooms. The generational history is discussed as far back as Nora’s great great grandparents, but I don’t recall any family iteration being larger than a family of four: two parents and two kids. Clearly more recent generations aquired the house through inheritance; maybe earlier generations actually made it a multi-generational home? I kept wondering how the hell any of them kept it clean. None of these generations are shown with a housekeeper.

Surely it would make sense that such a house would be easier to afford in the era of World War II—today, in the United States at least, this house would have been converted into an apartment complex long ago. Granted, this is Norway, and a lot of things work differently there—although the simple tenets of capitalism infect every corner of the globe. And, to be sure: this house figures prominently in the plot of Sentimental Value, a beautiful repository for collective memory and generational trauma, from Nora’s grandmother’s Nazi imprisonment and subsequent suicide inside the house, to Nora and her sister Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, also excellent) witnessing the volatility of their parents’ marriage until their father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), leaves and spends the better part of the rest of their lives estranged from them.

Sentimental Value opens shortly after the death of Nora and Agnes’s mother, a character we really never get to know. This is about their relationship with their father, a once-famous director who has not made a film in 15 years. But, he has now written an incredible script, with the lead part tailor made for Nora, who wants nothing to do with it. Searching for other options, Gustav turns to an American actress he meets at a local film festival: Rachel Kemp, played by Elle Fanning in a really tricky part that she nails. Rachel is curious about the deep sadness of the suicidal character she’s playing, and Gustave has to tell her more than once that it’s not about his mother. Meanwhile, he asks Rachel to dye her hair the same color as Nora. (And incidentally, Elle Fanning and Renate Reinsve bear an uncanny resemblance. If not for the different accents, they could more believably play sisters than the sisters we actually see onscreen here.)

What Gustav has written is highly fictionalized but still has clear similarities to his own life and family—and this is where we return, yet again, to the house. Gustav wants to shoot the film in the family home. He also wants to use his young grandson, Erik (Øyvind Hesjedal Loven, the only cast member who is clearly not a practiced actor, just like the character), in the production—just like he once did Agnes, in a previous World War II-era film. Agnes was a great screen presence at the time, but did not pursue acting as a career as Nora did. Gustav, ever the undependable dad, complains of his dislike for live theater, and so never comes to Nora’s plays.

All of this comes together in a plot that is complex but never difficult to follow, and perhaps may even be a bit slowly paced for some viewers. It’s worth noting that although this is a family drama about two sisters with deep resentment toward their father, there are no histrionics here, no scene made for an Oscar clip. Where other movies of this sort go for familial cruelty, this one leans more heavily into a kind of benign neglect. There’s something about Stellan Skarsgård’s performance, though, that still elicits empathy. Few people can convey subtly tortured interiority like Stellan Skarsgård.

Gustav is a man who can’t help who he is, and doesn’t really know how to change—certainly not now at the age of 70. But, over time he uses this new script of his to convey how he has an uncanny understanding of Nora in particular, the daughter he wrote it for. In the end, it is through their art that they finally find a way to connect, and this is the subtle but very sweet note on which the story ends. Sentimental Value takes a sort of scenic route through its themes, never exactly a thrill of an experience but one with a finesse that stays with you.

A father-daughter relationship not quite like others you’ve seen.

Overall: A-

TRAIN DREAMS

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

Who knew that Train Dreams had such a connection to Spokane, Washington—the city where I grew up? Set mostly in the Idaho panhandle over decades starting in 1917, Robert Granier (Joel Edgerton) works mostly in the logging industry, but spends a short time on the Spokane International Railway, and he later takes the train for visits into Spokane. There is a brief sequence, very late in the film, of Robert walking the streets of downtown Spokane, passing old buildings I remember vividly from my teenage years. There’s a glimpse of the clocktower on the Review building, which has stood since 1891—somewhere in the vicinity of when Robert was born. The sequence is set in the 1960s, and Robert has a brief exchange with a woman on the street as they watch live footage of the Earth from outer space on a TV in a store window. The sequence also features a barely-seen glimpse of the 16-story Washington Trust Financial Center, which was not built until 1973, but I guess I’ll forgive the movie for that.

As is typical of film productions, most of the filming of Train Dreams was not quite where it was actually set. Aside from the brief excursion to Spokane, which is located about 22 miles from the state line with Idaho, all the scenes with Robert and his wife Gladys (Felicity Jones) are set in Idaho. There are many scenes of Robert working industry logging jobs far from home, but this still must be mostly in Idaho; we are told very early on that Robert never makes it further east than a few miles into Montana. These sequences feature deeply lush greenery that is very believable as Northern Idaho, where I have spent a lot of time. Nearly all of this film, however, was shot in Eastern Washington. The Inland Northwest is the Inland Northwest, I guess.

We get seldom enough film production oner here where I now live in Seattle; Spokane’s history with mainstream film is even spottier, with truly great films set there being rare indeed. Train Dreams represents a truly unusual circumstance in which I am jealous of their access to theatrical release: Train Dreams was just released today on Netflix, which was the only way I was able to watch it. As far as I can find, this film got no theatrical release in my local market at all. Netflix did their eternally frustrating thing with Oscar-worthy productions, giving it a limited release in order for it to qualify. I guess they took pity on Spokane, allowing locals to see it as it is best experienced: it’s currently playing there at the Magic Lantern Theatre.

And I do wish I could have seen this in a theater, it is so beautifully shot. Robert Grainier spends a lot of time onscreen doing timber industry jobs, mostly chopping down trees, and sometimes barely avoiding tragic ends from falling limbs or sometimes entire trees. Indeed he witnesses the deaths of other workers several times. The train of the title is somewhat misleading, given how much more time is spent with timber. But, during a job on the railroad, he witnesses the casual killing of a Chinese railroad worker, and this haunts him for the rest of his life, often in his dreams.

It should be noted that Train Dreams is very quiet, meditative, and a kind of gradual easing into sorrow. One might even spend some of the first half of the film wondering what the point is, as we simply see scenes from Robert’s younger days, the way he happens upon the woman he falls in love with without actively searching for her. They build a house together, Gladys raises chickens, and has their baby. I knew going in that Train Dreams is largely about grief—this seems to be a very popular motif in film of recent years—and that had to mean Robert was destined to lose his family. I kept wondering how it would happen and what level of horror would accompany it. This is, indeed, a turning point in the story with true horror from Robert’s point of view, especially with no definitive closure as to the specifics. I’ll just say that, at the very least, from the audience perspective, at least this particular loss is not the result of any human cruelty. It’s closer to the indifference of nature.

In any event, Robert is left alone, and director and co-writer Clint Bentley—who also directed and co-wrote last year’s spectacular Sing Sing—very effectively conveys a potent loneliness in this man, for basically the rest of the film. That is, until, for one brief moment, he experience a genuine moment of connection. It is brief indeed, but also spectacularly executed: it’s a deeply moving moment, and one that brought tears to my eyes without employing any of the typical “sad movie” tricks.

Train Dreams is the odd kind of movie that has a melancholic tone that somehow also has a comfort to it. In the wake of the horrid scene with the Chinese railroad worker, Robert regularly encounters people who offer him understanding and kindness. There are three such key characters as the story unfolds: an annoyingly talkative shirking but kind old man played by William H. Macy; a local Native shopkeeper who looks after Robert in his deepest throes of grief, played by Nathaniel Arcand; and a kind of hermit kindred spirit in a forestry worker played by Kerry Condon. In a scene where they share some tea and have an unusually heartfelt conversation, the forestry worker reveals she also recently lost her husband, and when Robert asks if he sounds crazy, she astutely notes that when something like this happens, nothing you do is crazy. At the end of this exchange, she observes that they are “just waiting to see what we’ve been left here for,” and that line has really stuck with me.

Robert does also encounter other people who treat him with callousness, particularly younger colleagues as he begins to realize he is aging out of the manual work of timber. Still, he lives his entire life as a quiet, stoic man who really never changes, except perhaps in that brief moment near the end. But sometimes it’s only a brief moment that can make all the difference, and it was indeed the moment that opened up my love for this quietly beautiful movie.

Robert keeps walking the path set out before him.

Overall: A-

IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT

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

I wonder if I’m over here on Weirdo Island, thinking about Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho while watching Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident? There is almost no thematic connection between these two films, although Psycho features a serial killer and It Was Just an Accident features a near-murder. What the two films have in common are their unusual narrative structure, particularly an opening, extended sequence leading us to think one person is the main character, only to find out it’s actually another person. Indeed, the first character is even attacked by the second.

We are first introduced to a nuclear family, driving through the night: a seemingly loving husband and father (Ebrahim Azizi) with his wife in the passenger seat and pop music-loving young daughter in the back seat. The cinematography is fascinating here, as it appears to be a simple mounting of the camera on the dashboard, and a lot happens in a single shot—including other cars passing, in one case with several barking dogs chasing in the other direction. Within moments, we hear the bump of an animal being hit, and the man stops the car, gets out, and investigates. The camera never shows the animal—this technique is repeated later in the film in a pointed way—but we do see bits of the man’s shadow, a view of city lights on the hills in the distance behind him, as he drags the animal out of the street. He returns to the car, and the little girl’s chipper attitude has soured. “You killed it,” she says. And the mother tries to console her. It was just an accident.

Shortly thereafter, this family’s car breaks down, and the man asks for help from men in a nearby home. This is where the perspective suddenly shifts, to another man, Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), who is hiding on the second level of the home, out of sight. Panache’s camera only ever sticks with Vahid for the rest of the film, and it’s quite a lot time before we have any idea why. This includes Vahid following the man back to his home, and following him the next day to the place his car is towed to for repair. In his own van, Vahid creeps up on him in the street, opens the passenger door hard against him, and then knocks him out with a shovel.

All of this is essentially the first act. What follows is an unsettling sort of road trip story, Vahid eventually gathering several more characters: Shiva (Mariam Afshari), a woman working as a wedding photographer; Goli and Ali (Hadis Pakbaten and Majid Panahi), the engaged couple getting their pictures taken; and Hamid (Mohamad Ali Elyashmehr), Shiva’s former partner. what is gradually revealed is that nearly all of these people, with the one exception of Ali, were once arrested by the Iranian regime, and tortured for months by a man with an identifiable limp due to a prosthetic leg named Eghbal—and they are all varying levels of convinced that the man we met at the start of the film is this man.

It may seem that I have revealed a lot of detail about this film, but believe it or not, that is all mostly the setup. It does take a good deal of time to get through, but it’s how we get here: the way Panahi, who also wrote the script, explores the psychological effects of a deeply oppressive and authoritarian regime. The man who might be Eghbal easily plants a seed of doubt in Vahid’s mind as to whether he’s got the right guy, which is why he goes on an odyssey of sorts, gathering acquaintances who had also been arrested in the hopes that they can confirm the man’s identity, even though they were all blindfolded the entire time they were held captive and never actually saw him. They heard him, they felt him, they smelled him. For some, the familiarity they find is not quite convincing enough. For others, it’s triggering to the point of instantaneous rage. For all of them, it’s maddening.

Eventually all of them are traveling the city in Vahid’s van, maybe-Eghbal’s drugged, bound and unconscious body locked in a trunk that is curiously the perfect size for a grown man. There’s a number of exterior, urban shots of this cast with said van, and I often wondered how this film was made. Much like the similarly excellent The Seed of the Sacred Fig, directed and written by Mohammad Rasoulof and opened earlier this year, this was filmed in secret in Iran. Indeed, Panahi and Rasoulof are just two of many artists who have been arrested in the past for speaking out against Iran’s authoritarian regime.

And the roving band of characters in It Was Just an Accident have many of their own conversations about it. They talk and they argue, they debate and they yell—often about the tension between desire for vengeance and what it means to become just as violent and cruel as your oppressors. Many of their exchanges bring to mind parallel points of view here at home in the United States. This is less a reflection of cross-cultural commentary than of universal tensions among different societies. We eventually find nearly all these characters pushed to the emotional brink in one way or another, and It Was Just an Accident proves sneakily unsettling in the end. Panahi often holds a shot for a very long time, always with purpose, and especially in the very last shot of the film, which calls into question whether Vahid did the right thing in the end, or indeed what the point of any of it was. This makes It Was Just an Accident sound pretty bleak, and I suppose it is. It also paints a vivid picture of what authoritarianism does to the regular people subjected to it.

Overall: A-

IF I HAD LEGS I'D KICK YOU

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

You don’t want to know what a childless man thinks about If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Not even an empathetic girly-man has thoughts of any true relevance, although that’s less because of the “girly” than still because of being childless. It’s possible no one of any gender who does not have children can truly relate to what’s going on in this movie. So why are you reading this, then? Go find a review by someone who actually knows what they’re talking about!

. . . Okay. Are they gone? It’s just us now. We can still talk about movie making, right? Maybe skip the wondering questions about how easily some people might be triggered by this movie, or how anyone who is easily triggered might want to steer clear of this movie? After all—trigger warning!—this movie features themes of both suicide and child abandonment (by multiple characters, no less). Oh, wait. I just put those questions right here. Crap!

Here’s what I can tell you with actual authority: If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is deeply stressful, from beginning to end. There have been many comparisons to Uncut Gems because they are apt: the main character is in every frame, and the camera’s point of view leads our desire, with increasing desperation, for this character to make anything but the bad, worst choice. In this case, it’s Linda, a married mother who is at the end of her rope as she cares for a sick child while her husband is away for work for weeks at a time.

Here is the most important thing you should know about this: Linda is played by Rose Byrne, who gives a breathtaking performance. She absolutely should be in the Best Actress Oscar conversation—and reportedly, thankfully, she is, for now at least. The challenge, maybe, is getting enough people to see this incredible film with its stunningly versatile lead actor. I think writer-director Mary Bronstein should also be in the Oscar conversation, but she is, alas, a lot less so.

I knew I was going to be into this movie from its opening sequence, in which Linda brings her child home, the child is first to notice flooding on the bathroom floor, and when Linda moves into another room to investigate, she sees water leaking through the ceiling—and then a giant hole suddenly bursts through, gushing water all over the room. The camera pulls into the darkness of the hole, until the screen goes black, except for some curved streaks of light that suggest an ultrasound. It’s very unclear whether this is actually a dream or not, and this is when the opening titles appear. And this was where I was immediately locked in: This is my kind of movie.

Bronstein makes a lot of stylistic choices that are both very unusual and work almost shockingly well. The child is never named, and until the very end, we never even see her, even though she is often in the scene, and we hear her. Like any normal child, she talks a great deal and nags her bedraggled mom about trivial things. It’s just that they also have conversations about when and how a tube will be removed, and how much food she needs to eat so she can gain enough weight for doctors to allow it to happen. We never learn the exact nature of the child’s health condition, except that it requires a great deal of maintenance by her mother, refilling bags of liquid and making sure machinery is beeping in ways that are not alarming.

Bronstein is on record about her choice to keep the child out of frame at all times: because this is Linda’s story and not the child’s, and because the natural instinct is always for the viewer to empathize with the child first, Bronstein doesn’t even give us that opportunity. Not only is the focus exclusively on Linda, but Byrne is shot frequently in uncomfortable close-ups. I have seen this technique many times in film, and I often kind of hate it. Here it works, because it underlines the claustrophobic feeling of Linda’s entire life. And this is one of the many amazing things about If I Had Legs I’d Kick You: not one other character is shown being empathetic toward her—not her husband (Christian Slater, the one casting choice that’s somewhat distracting, because after hearing him on several hostile phone calls you don’t actually see him until the end); not her doctor (played by Bronstein herself); not even her own therapist (a part Bronstein write specifically for Conan O’Brien, who accepted and gives a solid performance in his first-ever serious role). For the most part, they actually have good reason to be exasperated rather than empathetic with her. And yet, Bronstein has crafted a story with such delicate skill that we, as the viewer, cannot help but empathize with her.

And Linda does some very bad things. She makes bad choices, mostly because she can’t take the pressure anymore. That hole in her ceiling turns out not to be a dream, but a real incident that results in her having to live in a hotel with her daughter—in a unit with a thanklessly nice neighbor played by A$AP Rocky. Linda is herself a therapist, making the very odd choice of getting therapy treatment from a colleague at her own practice, and we see three different clients who all have problems that seem trivial compared to Linda’s. Or, maybe they aren’t—but this is how Linda is seeing them, which is not the best professional position to be in. One particular client (Danielle Macdonald) becomes the source of one of the many things that go terribly wrong for Linda.

It would seem the central theme of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is the inherent guilt of being a mother, particularly one who can never feel like she’s not underwater. Linda even says at one point, “I’m not supposed to be a mom!” We can tell she loves her daughter, but she also feels overwhelmed, and has no support network, although it’s hard to tell whether there might have been a network that she just sabotaged with her own behavior. The question is whether she’ll ultimately just give up, and there is a sequence in this film where that is harrowingly unclear. “I’ll be better” is something daughter and mother say to each other at different times, and it’s perhaps not an accident that they don’t say “I’ll get better.”

This is a film that ends on the kind of hopeful note that comes with a ton of baggage. I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time, and that’s a good thing. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You is constantly harrowing, sometimes darkly funny, heartbreaking and uniquely humane.

Rose Byrne gives arguably the best performance of her career.

Overall: A-

WEAPONS

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

Weapons is a tricky one, because its success relies so heavily on how little you know going in. How much can I tell you about it, then? About as much as the setup is revealed in the trailer: all but one student in a single third-grade class suddenly run out of their homes at the same time in the middle of the night, run out into the darkness, and no one has any idea where they went. The parents of these students are deeply suspicious of the class teacher, Justine (Julia Garner, perfectly cast), for little reason other than it’s the only thing they have to hold onto, the closest thing to a shred of sense. She is seemingly the only thing all these kids have in common.

I suppose you could argue that it’s strange this community is not equally suspicious of Alex (an exceedingly well-directed Cary Christopher), as he is just as much what these kids have in common as Julia is: he’s from their class, and he’s the only one that didn’t run out into the night. Of course, adults are far more likely to suspect other adults than a child, and while they might also have been suspicious of Alex’s parents, those two are . . . let’s say: incapacitated.

Such is the central mystery of Weapons, and one that remains a mystery for quite a long time in this movie: what made these children run away, and where did they go?

This is perhaps the perfect time to mention that Weapons was written and directed by Zach Creggor, the filmmaker behind the 2022 surprise hit Barbarian, which established him as a bold new voice in cinema. What Weapons proves is that he is far from a one-hit wonder. This is a movie that does everything right. It establishes a mystery, then unravels it before out eyes without ever once telegraphing what comes next. It doesn’t have the wild tonal shifts of Barbarian (one of the many things that made that movie such a delight), but it does provide a fair amount of laughs—just don’t expect them to come too soon. Creggor wants to put you through the paces of nervous tension first.

Horror has never been my favorite genre, but horror with a healthy dose of humor gets me a step closer. Weapons has been likened to a cross between Magnolia and Hereditary, which does reveal a little bit, in an abstract way: we get several chapters, each titled the name of the character being focused on, the first being the aforementioned Justine. Another is Alex, and yet another is Archer (Josh Brolin), a parent of one of the missing children. There’s also Paul (Alden Ehrenreich), a local cop; and James (Austin Abrams), a homeless addict who is given far more dimension than such a character is typically given in any movie, let alone a horror movie. Eventually we start to see how the narratives of all these characters intersect, which is where the Magnolia comparison comes in. The broader vibe otherwise can be inferred.

There is no allegory or metaphor to be found here; Weapons is simply a magnificently structured and cleverly written horror story, the kind that makes you remember how exhilarating it can be to go to the movies—especially with a crowd of people. I will admit I spent a lot of time with my hands over my face, and Creggor does employ several well-placed jump scares—something I usually hate. I have some mixed feelings about the multiple dream sequences, and in one of them the apparition of a giant machine gun in the sky feels a little on the nose (that sounds like something close to a spoiler, but believe me, it isn’t). Weapons clocks in at two hours and eight minutes, but to say there isn’t a dull moment is an understatement.

When it comes to the comparison to Hereditary, what I would clarify here is that Hereditary was much more unsettling than Weapons, which still succeeds at it to a degree. Weapons is far more thrilling, though, especially one it takes a decisive turn in the final act—which is where most of the humor also comes along. It’s also an incredible jolt of energy in a story that was already crackling, but it pivots from suspense to a beautifully executed sort of chaos.

Most critically, Zach Cregger shows admirable restraint. The final-act chaos is over just when you think you want more, but in a fully satisfying way. Nothing gets over-explained, or indeed in many ways explained at all. Amy Madigan suddenly shows up, and I won’t dare spoil in what capacity—only that she proves to be the wildest character of all. But whether it’s her or any of the other ensemble cast, they all feel like authentic people with dimension, even when they make you giggle (there’s one moment when Josh Broken delivers a perfectly executed “What the fuck!”).

I haven’t yet mentioned Benedict Wong as the school principal, Andrew, who also gets his own chapter. We don’t even realize for a while that he plays a gay man, and I was sort of taken with the scene in which he is grocery shopping with his partner, simultaneously trying to talk down a paranoid Justine on the phone while pointing at which cereal he prefers. I loved that Wong played his part straight (so to speak), while his partner is played by Clayton Farris with a perfect touch of effeminacy. The fates of both these characters is pretty wild in the end, but in neither case does it have anything to do with their sexuality. They are simply among a great many regular people caught in extraordinary circumstances.

I mean, they’re just caught in a movie, to be fair—but, in the best way. Weapons is not something you will soon forget, and will want to talk about at length, so long as it’s with someone else who has also seen it. No spoilers! Movies like this are why we love cinema.

Run, don’t walk, to the cinema to see this movie!

Overall: A-

MATERIALISTS

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

Materialists follows the expected beats of a romance. It goes where you expect it to go, because that is what audiences that go to movies like this come to see. It also slowly becomes much more than its genre trappings, revealing a depth that is probably much more than typical audiences bargained for. In some ways, it even subverts the genre, even as it adheres to its basic rules. We know who the protagonist is meant to be with, and we know who she will end up with.

The marketing makes Materialists seem much more typical a romantic film than it really is. Indeed, had anyone else written and directed it, I’d have taken one look at the trailer and said: “Bleh.” But this was made by Celine Song, who also wrote and directed last year’s sublime Past Lives. Materialists is the kind of sophomore effort that typically brings far more mainstream fare, and that is clearly what the marketers want you to think. But Celine Song smuggles in a shocking amount of cynicism and subtle commentary—on romantic cinema, and on romance itself. This remains unchanged even after the expected note of hopefulness it ends on.

Song’s approach is something I deeply respect. She can be counted on to do something different, as in the opening sequence, which features what we later learn to be the first two cave people who ever married. It’s a serene setting, we hear birds chirping, we see an exchange of flowers and tools. I had no idea what to expect, and kept wondering if something jarring was about to happen. Were they going suddenly get attacked by a bear? What? Instead, they simply lean their heads into each other tenderly, and then a hard cut to the title card, over modern-day New York City.

Lucy is a professional matchmaker with a string of proud successes, yet deliberately living her life as a single woman. To play this part, Song cast Dakota Johnson, an actor with talent and potential but who only really succeeds when paired with the right director. Celine Song could not be more right for her; she’s exceptionally well cast here. I was invested in Lucy as a character, even though she treats romance like “math” (a word she uses frequently) and has such an aversion to low income that she’s convinced herself she’s waiting for a filthy rich man to marry.

Enter Pedro Pascal, borderline overexposed at the moment, as Harry, who has earned millions in “private equity,” as he reveals to Lucy while hitting on her at his brother’s wedding, where the bride was also Lucy’s client. Implausibly—again with the typical story beats—Lucy also runs into her old boyfriend, John (Chris Evans), during her first conversation with Harry. Thus, much as in Past Lives, we get a love triangle of sorts, though it plays out much more differently.

There is still an unusually contemplative tone to Materialists, which I appreciated. There’s a real shallowness to Lucy’s approach to matchmaking, and this feels very deliberate, at times pointed. Lucy is very aware of her own shallowness and harbors a great deal of self-loathing. One of the many things I loved about this film is how there is no competition of jealousy between the two men. There is a minor twist to Harry’s arc, but it humanizes him rather than making him the villain. In fact, Song tells this story entirely from the point of view of the women in it—Lucy’s most of all, but also the others at her matchmaking firm (particularly her boss (Marin Ireland), and one client she’s struggling to find a match for (Zoe Winters).

Admittedly I have some mixed feelings about the subplot involving this client, Sophie, who gets assaulted by a man she was matched with by Lucy. This isn’t exactly a spoiler, because not only do we never see the assault onscreen—Lucy gets told about it after the fact—but Celine Song doesn’t even cast any actor to play him: we never once see him onscreen. This is a wise choice much more typical of a woman filmmaker, but I am also not sure how I feel about its inclusion as a subplot at all. Maybe it’s about the inherent dangers of the dating world, and the thoughtless ways they can be disregarded. On the other hand, Sophie herself is used as a plot device to reveal the kindness Lucy actually has deep inside her.

One wonders how much Celine Song herself even thought about these nuances, the way audiences could easily argue back and forth as to whether the film itself is cynical and materialistic, or if it’s a commentary on these things. Honestly, I just found myself deeply engaged with the story, between all three of these characters, largely because of Song’s phenomenally layered writing. It’s lovely to see Chris Evans again in a part that’s not Captain America, and it’s especially nice to see actual grown-up actors in a romance for grown-ups (Pascal, Evans, and Johnson are 50, 44, and 35, respectively—a pretty wide age rang in which the woman is predictably the youngest, sure, but even she’s now ten years past her Fifty Shades of Grey breakout).

In any case, I was taken in by the romance of Materialists, its effectiveness augmented by excellent writing, competent performances, and Shabier Kirchner’s cinematography, which is far more beautiful than a film like this has any need to be. But therein lie its success, with many parts of it being better than they need to be. Song is not cashing in here, she is sharing an authentic vision every bit as much as she did with her previous film. If I had to choose I’d pretty easily say Past Lives was better, even though I have given them both the same overall grade—but a film need only be judged in its own context, on its own merits. Materialists takes all the familiarities of the romance genre and enhances them.

This is one in which Dakota Johnson is actually good!

Overall: A-

A NICE INDIAN BOY

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

Full disclosure, it’s a bit more difficult for me to be objective in my assessment of A Nice Indian Boy than it is for most films. Setting aside the myth that true objectivity even exists, this is a film that really hits home for me: it’s about a white man who marries a South Asian man in an Indian wedding that’s made as gay as a traditional Indian wedding can be made. And, I am a white man who married a South Asian man in an Indian wedding as traditional as we could make it. Some of it was modified in ways it would have had to have been regardless of our sexuality: truly traditional Indian weddings last for days; ours lasted an afternoon. The same goes for the wedding that occurs in this movie, but which featured very specific, Hindu rituals that I performed in my own wedding to my husband.

It’s an unusual thing indeed, to see a film so steeped in South Asian culture, and yet even as a white guy, see so very much of my own experience reflected in it. A pretty significant subplot involves multiple characters’ love of the very famous 1995 Bollywood movie Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (translated as The Brave-Hearted Will Take the Bride), commonly abbreviated as “DDLJ”—and, very specifically, its signature song, “Ek Duke Ke Vaaste” (“For Each Other”). I have seen that film only once, myself; but that song has been a staple of my Hindi music playlists for a solid two decades. It has had a particularly nostalgic place in the hearts of South Asians the world over for thirty years that I could never access, but it also has a very particular nostalgic meaning to me personally.

A Nice Indian Boy does push the bounds of plausibility a tad, but therein lies the magic of movies, I suppose. Only once did I feel a bit dubious about the meet-cute setup between Naveen (Karan Soni) and Jay (Jonathan Groff), as they actually meet in a temple, Jay showing up to pray to the elephant god Ganesha, as though he were a natural practicing Hindu. But, not long after that, we learn that Jay, now orphaned due to his parents having been older when they took him in, was adopted by Hindu parents. So then, I though: okay, I guess I buy that.

Soni and Groff are well-cast and have clear chemistry, Soni as someone still struggling to overcome shame and embarrassment; Groff as someone self-assured after the heard-learned lessons of a youth spent in foster care before finding the parents who ultimately welcomed him home. I’d love to learn more about Groff’s unique experience, but the fact of his parents’ deaths makes it easier for the story at hand to focus on Naveen and his family.

A Nice Indian Boy is arguably more sweet and romantic than it is funny, although it is also plenty funny. I just wish I had known to bring in plenty of tissues—I cried a lot more than I expected to. It is perhaps to this movie’s greatest credit that all the tears were shed in response to touching and heartwarming turns of events, as opposed to anything sad or tragic. It is told in five chapters, starting with Naveen and Jay meeting and then going on a sweetly awkward first date. In a particularly well-executed scene at a bar, Jay surprises Naveen by admitting that he’s nervous. The special thing about Jay is his comfort with simply acknowledging such things, while Naveen still has much to learn on that front.

Naveen and Jay are very well rounded, flawed and adorable characters. But what truly makes A Nice Indian Boy special is the cast that rounds out Nareen’s family: his parents, Archit and Megha (Harish Patel and Zarna Gang), have had six years to come to terms with a son who is openly gay—so much so that, in fact, they spend a lot of time watching the gay cable channel—but, until now, no experience meeting one of his boyfriends. Naveen also has an older sister, Arundhathi (Sunita Mani), struggling with the loveless marriage her parents arranged and now resentful of how much more effort to be open minded her parents are being about their son than they seemed to have been when they married off their daughter.

It would be easy to make these characters one-note punch lines, but in all three cases, they bring a level of humanity not usually given to such supporting characters, particularly in romantic comedies—even good ones. These characters feel like real people, ones that you might meet in reality. Archit and Megha’s unusual acceptance of their gay son does not change that. These are simply loving parents who are making an effort, often stumbling adorably along the way. Archit in particular has a lovely arc in the story, never overtly judgmental of his son but with some clear discomfort, which feeds into Naveen’s discomfort with himself.

There is an on-again, off-again, on-again arc between Naveen and Jay that feels tied a little too neatly, but it’s the ensemble cast, including loving and colorful friends on both their parts, that really sells their story. There is real and believable development among all of the principal characters, concisely written by Eric Randall as adapted by the play of the same name by Madhuri Shekar. A Nice Indian Boy runs a brisk 96 minutes, which gives it a key thing in common with Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag (an otherwise very different movie—except that it’s also very romantic): it packs a lot into a lean runtime, without every feeling rushed.

I couldn’t tell you yet whether I will wind up seeing A Nice Indian Boy many more times, or if it will become a long-lasting favorite. It might. All I can tell you for certain is that I was deeply moved by it, on a very personal level, and I would recommend it to absolutely anyone. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll love it either way.

I don’t know if you’ll fall in love with this movie but I would encourage you to find out, because I sure did.

Overall: A-

BLACK BAG

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

Black Bag begins with an extended dinner party sequence, the kind of scene that usually happens much later in a movie. George (Michael Fassbender) and Kathryn (Cate Blanchett) have invited four colleagues over, because George has been warned that they are among five who could possibly be the source of a leak in the intelligence agency they all work for. As it happens, George has been informed that Kathryn also has both the motive and the capability.

This is the third Steven Soderbergh film in as many years to be written by David Koepp, and it’s the best one yet—Kimi (2022) had a production limited by covid restrictions, but still takes a sudden and very satisfying turn at the end; Presence, from earlier this year, had a fascinatingly novel premise limited by a story not fully fleshed out. No such limitations exist in Black Bag, which is all of 93 minutes long and still achieves what many spy series only aspire to, and in a fraction of the time.

And this brings me back to that dinner party. Through deft writing, skilled editing and solid performances all around, we learn a great deal about all six of the characters at that kitchen table in a very short amount of time. What could have been clunky exposition in someone else’s hands, Soderbergh and Koepp reveal key character details while also moving the story forward—all with just a group of people sitting around a dinner table. Granted, it does culminate in an act of violence which is, in context, both shocking and delightful. Soderbergh has a unique way of keeping us on our toes.

Black Bag’s suspense both starts and ends around that dinner table. In between, a lot of time is spent with all of these characters in the UK intelligence office where they all work, with only occasional scenes shot on location. The central mystery shifts and moves, but with an unusual grace, never a particular jolt of plot turn. George and Kathryn’s four colleagues are in two known romantic pairings as well, but over time we learn who’s been sleeping around with which of the others in the group. Ultimately, their actions serve as a test of George and Kathryn’s marriage—it’s telling that others in the group call them “psychos” because they put their devotion to each other above all else.

This is a story largely about trust, and the type of work that tests it. George and Kathryn aren’t the only couple who use the phrase “black bag” as code for something that is work-confidential, something they cannot talk about. Somehow, though, they are the only ones who manage to make it work—even as they get playful with it: “Would you lie to me?” George asks. “Only if I had to,” Kathryn replies.

Cate Blanchett is 55 years old, and she’s as luminous as ever—this time with long, luscious brown hair. Michael Fassbender is a bit younger, 47, and he’s had showier parts in other movies. But he and Blanchett have a crackling chemistry, the kind without which this film would instantly fall flat. It is unclear to us early on whether George has reason to suspect Kathryn, or if the source of the leak is among the other four characters. The evidence ebbs and flows, and so do our ideas of what’s actually going on between George and Kathryn.

Black Bag is intrigue at its finest, a feast of sleek production design as a backdrop for a mystery both complex and concise. Not a moment is wasted in this movie, which is so well done, it leaves you wondering why so many other similar movies dwell on their own plotting so pointlessly. There is an irony to this film in that, by not engaging in any pretense of self-importance, it achieves an unexpected excellence.

Blanchett and Fassbender teach us about trust in the face of suspicion.

Overall: A-

I'M STILL HERE

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

The more I think about I’m Still Here, the more impressed I become with it—and not just because Fernanda Torres, as the central character, Eunice Paiva, is easily the best thing about it. That’s the most obvious thing to be impressed by, actually. I found myself saying, a bit prematurely, that this movie was good but didn’t blow me away. But “blowing me away” is not what director Walter Salles is going for. He’s going for something far more subtle, something that succeeds in impressing those who pay attention to detail.

This is based on the true story of a wife and mother, and her five children, and their resilience in the face of a brutal dictatorship—specifically the military dictatorship in Brazil between the 1960s and the 1980s. And the word “brutal” is not used lightly here. It’s easily to imagine graphic violence when thinking of such things, but one of the many takeaways from I’m Still Here is that there are many forms of brutality. Some of them hide in plain sight, while society goes on as though everything is normal. Families still go to the beach, barely noticing military trucks driving by.

There’s a memorable quality to the editing in this film, as Salles initially immerses us in the Paiva family’s daily life, showing us a casually comfortable, happy marriage, and five kids clearly being given a great childhood. All of this changes in a matter of hours, when unfamiliar men show up at their door, and declare that “Congressman” Rubens Paiva (Selton Mello) must be taken in for questioning. Rubens has not been a Congressman for several years, and has even recently returned from exile after being ousted from his position, but the reference is pointed.

This is the last time anyone in that family sees Rubens, and I’m Still Here is the story of how the family left behind coped with this injustice. This includes both Eunice and one of her older daughters shortly thereafter being detained as well, questioned, pressured to identify other people in a binder of mugshots. Eunice is held for 12 days, the entire time having no idea what they’ve done with her daughter—who is sent home after only a day, but Eunice doesn’t know that. Meanwhile, she can overhear the torture of other detainees in other rooms.

There is a key moment in the sequence of scenes at the place Eunice has been taken, a young man, a guard, who escorts her from her cell to questioning and back. Just before her release, the young man says to her, “I want you to know, I don’t approve.” And that means what, exactly? This young man represents something far too few people think about: that terrible regimes thrive on the willing cooperation of people who “don’t approve.”

This whole experience, as well as years of experience thereafter, changes Eunice. She does everything she can to get the government to admit her husband was arrested, and accepts him as dead within a couple of years. She becomes a lawyer and an advocate. And most critically, she still insists on raising a happy family. When a local reporter comes to get a family photo and says the publisher asked for them to look more serious, Eunice refuses. All the kids giggle, she encourages it, and insists that they all smile for the photo. Eunice is an inspiring woman for many reasons, not least of which is her refusal to let anyone steal her joy—even as she still works tirelessly for justice.

I’m Still Here makes two unusually large time-jumps, first 25 years from 1971 to 1996; then another 18 years to 2014. Both of them function as epilogues of a sort, first when Eunice finally gets some closure, if not quite justice—the regime change is to her advantage, although it’s also noted how even when regimes change, the perpetrators of the worst crimes are far too often never held to account. The final sequence, in which little occurs beyond a portrait of how the extended family has grown to that point, Eunice is played not by Fernanda Torres, but by Torres’s real-life mother, Fernanda Montenegro—an accomplished actress in her own right, and who starred in Walter Salles’s previous film from 1998, Central Station.

With I’m Still Here, Salles has created something so straightforward that it doesn’t seem all that profound while watching it. But there is something ingenious about its construction, a subversive thread that is a indicator of the sinister nature of dictatorship, especially when daily life seems basically unchanged for anyone besides those directly affected. This is a film that could not possibly be more timely.

Don’t let the bastards get you down.