A Sondheim musical rolls on screen

 

Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along premiered on Broadway in 1981. The show ran for a mere 16 performances, a shocking failure for any Sondheim work. The musical evidently evolved through the years, returning to the Broadway stage in 2023. In its new incarnation, Merrily received strongly positive reviews, earned four Tony Awards, and ran at Broadway's Hudson Theater for about a year. Now, the show's director, Maria Friedman, has offered a filmed version of the revamped musical. Still best known as the original Harry Potter, Daniel Radcliffe boosts name recognition in an energetic production. Radcliffe plays half of a showbiz duo, a lyricist whose career is linked to a successful composer played by Jonathan Groff. Based on a play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, Merrily tells its story in backward order, focusing mainly on Groff's character and two friends who have been with him from the start. In addition to Radcliffe, the trio of pals includes Lindsay Mendez, a critic who harbors a not-so-secret love for Groff’s Frank.  Aside from employing close-ups, Friedman highlights the energy of the stage production, filmed with an audience that can be heard applauding at the appropriate times. Friedman obtains strong performances from the principal cast and from Krystal Joy Brown, as the Broadway star who breaks up Groff's marriage to Beth (an equally good Katie Rose Clarke). Serving mostly as a filmed record of the Broadway hit, Merrily We Roll Along should appeal to Sondheim fans. Others may find its two-and-a-half-hour run time a bit taxing, and a segment that tries for political satire seems dated. Had Merrily We Roll Along not been made into a film, I probably never would have seen it. For people such as me that may be the film’s biggest virtue. 

Bob's Cinema Notebook: 'Jay Kelly' and 'Left-handed Girl'

A movie star with problems 

When I first read about Jay Kelly, I thought, “Who better to play aging movie star Jay Kelly than George Clooney? And for seasoning, why not cast Adam Sandler as Ron, Jay's devoted manager and longtime fixer? If the movie assesses the cost of stardom, so much the better.  But for me, director Noah Baumbach's latest proved a disappointing immersion in the life of a big-time star whose ambitions have marred the lives of others. Following a run-in with a roommate (Billy Crudup) from his early days in LA, Jay decides to bail on an upcoming feature and follow his college-bound daughter Daisy (Grace Edwards) to Europe. After years of prioritizing his career, Jay wants to strengthen his bond with Daisy, even if she’s not all that eager to reciprocate. Jay uses the offer of a career tribute in Tuscany as an excuse to make the trip. Jay's entourage (Laura Dern and Emily Mortimer are part of his traveling circus) dutifully tags along — until they've had enough. Clooney's relaxed, low-key stardom is outdone by Sandler, who scores as a devoted, slightly sad guy who realizes that his loyalty is a one-way street. Ron isn't entirely ungrateful, though: He knows that he’s built a life taking 15 percent of Jay’s earnings. Jay's oldest daughter (Riley Keough) turns up in scenes that expose the actor's parenting failures. When a star plays a star, it can put an unfair burden on both actor and audience to figure out where one begins and the other leaves off. That aside, I never felt as if I were being taken inside Hollywood but inside an idea for a movie that didn't match Baumbach's best work: For me, that would be  Marriage Story (2019), The Squid and the Whale (2005), and Frances Ha (2012).

Left-Handed Girl Gets it Right

Set in Taipei, Left-Handed Girl, a family drama full of twists and hidden agendas, operates on a welcome human scale. Single mom She-Fen (Janel Tsai) returns to Taipei with her two daughters after a long absence. The teenage I-Ann (Shih-Yuan Ma) bristles with adolescent anger. I-Jing (Nina Ye) --a cute five-year-old --  has already learned how to win others over. Mom works in a night market and struggles to make ends meet. To help with expenses, I-Ann dresses in a sexy outfit to hawk betel nuts for her young boss -- with whom she'll have a disastrous fling. Among I-Ann’s complaints: She fumes because her mother has agreed to pay for her ailing husband's funeral. He deserted the family a decade ago, leaving Mom with piles of debt. For her part, I-Jing begins a stealth career as a shoplifter, blaming her larceny on her cursed left hand. Her sourpuss of a grandfather (Akio Chen) filled her head with superstitions: The left hand is evil, he thinks. Almost everyone in the film hustles. Grandma (Xin-Yan Chao), for example, is caught up in a scheme involving immigrants. Just when it looks as if the plot will resolve neatly, director Shih-Ching Ching brings the characters to Grandma's 60th birthday party. There, emotional storms erupt, and shocking revelations emerge. Shot with iPhones, Left-Handed Girl teems with city life: You finish feeling as though you've learned something about how people -- especially those who struggle -- live in a bustling city where keeping one's head above water isn't easy.

An additional note:

*I love movies full of characters that feel as if they might exist off screen. Equally important, I admire movies that provide a real sense of how life is lived in a specific place. I'd put Left-Handed Girl in this category. The film has a plot, which, by necessity, means contrivance can’t totally be avoided. But the plot never overpowers the characters; the story feels like something they're living. To be clear, films such as this aren't the only kind that move me. But films that effectively embrace both individual and social realities hold a special place in my heart.

Two kinds of grief in 'Hamnet'

  Hamnet, director Chloe Zhao's adaptation of a 2020 novel by Maggie O'Farrell, takes us into the Elizabethan world where Shakespeare began both his career and domestic life. Perhaps to clarify matters about the title, we're immediately informed that in Shakespeare's day, the names Hamnet and Hamlet were interchangeable. 

  By necessity, Zhao's grief-laden movie (more to come on that) must be regarded as speculative. As the author of 38 plays, four long narrative poems, 154 Sonnets, and some shorter poems, it's no wonder that the English language's most famous author didn't have time to keep a diary.

  Zhao (Nomadland) builds her story around the marriage between Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and Agnes Hathaway (Jesse Buckley). The pivotal event arrives when the couple's 11-year-old son, Hamnet, is struck down by the plague, shifting the story toward Agnes's inconsolable grief and simmering resentment. 

   Busy establishing his theater, William wasn't around when Hamnet passed.

   On screen, the independent-minded Agnes embraces nature and considers herself inseparable from it. A pet hawk rests on her gloved forearm when summoned to feed. She spends so much time with trees, she might as well be moss-covered. 

   Communing with nature aside and writing with a quill pen aside, William and Agnes had time to have three children, a daughter (Bodhi Rae Breathhach) and twins (Olivia Lynes and Jacob Jupe). 

   Mescal's performance has both cheery and doom-struck aspects, but Zhao focuses more on Agnes, who carries most of the burden of child-rearing. Preoccupied with running The Globe in London, William left Agnes in Stratford. She insisted he go off and fulfill his destiny as a writer, but later came to resent his absence.

   I guess it's a new take, Shakespeare as the workaholic dad and absentee father. 

    Zhao makes the most of the wooded mysteries around Stratford, Agnes's leafy domain. Make what you will of Zhao's fondness for turning dark holes into a motif. Ah, the deep void, the gaping yaw in which undiscovered countries can be found, as Agnes puts it, echoing the line Shakespeare gave to Hamlet. 

    Hamlet, you'll remember,  referred to death as "the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns."

   Throughout, we're primed to expect problems. When we first meet William, he's working as a Latin tutor to pay off the debt his irresponsible, glove-making father had accumulated. The looming marriage between William and Agnes isn't greeted favorably by either family. Agnes's brother Bartholomew (Joe Alwyn) seems more sympathetic.

    So what is this movie trying to accomplish? 

    When Hamnet's death scene arrives, Zhao gives full vent to the agony of loss. Garments may be rend both on screen and off as Zhao contrasts two kinds of mourning: Agnes's, direct and visceral, and William's, expressed through writing, the arena in which he presumably could deal with it.

    Jupe's performance as a playful kid who's devoted to his twin sister augments the grief.

   In Zhao's finale, William takes on the role of the ghost of Hamlet's father in the first production of the play. Agnes becomes a vocally avid member of the audience, initially derisive but ultimately understanding that Will grasped the agonies poor Hamnet endured. Dying from the plague was a gruesome ordeal, reflected in the ghost's speech about being poisoned by his brother, Claudius, and recited by William during the movie's recreation of the performance of Hamlet on the Globe stage. 

    It's better written than anything in the movie.

    "The leprous distilment, whose effect

         Holds such an enmity with blood of man

         That swift as quicksilver it courses through

         The natural gates and alleys of the body,

         And with a sudden vigor it doth (posset)

         And curd, like eager droppings into milk

         The thin and wholesome blood."

     Did the death of Shakespeare's son really inspire Hamlet? Having seen a number of productions of Hamlet, I'm dubious. And it's impossible to watch Hamnet without constantly reminding ourselves of what Shakespeare was destined to become no matter how much Zhao grounds him in 16th century realities.

     That's a problem for any movie that brings Shakespeare into view; it must withstand suspicions that it is trying to gain prestige through association with greatness. Hamnet can't entirely dodge such doubts, but Zhao -- particularly in the movie's final scenes -- finds a startling immediacy in Buckley's unadorned grief, revealed finally without the embarrassment of artifice by an actress unafraid to walk out on a limb grown from unbearable pain.

    

    

    

 

An overloaded 'Knives Out' mystery

  A somber Catholic church in upstate New York provides a gloomy backdrop for writer/director Rian Johnson's third Knives Out movie, Wake Up Dead Man.

   Johnson, who also wrote the screenplay, immediately distinguishes his movie from its predecessors, introducing an unexpected character, a freshly ordained priest who's in trouble with his superiors.

  Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O'Connor) has anger-management issues. As punishment for socking a deacon, Father Jud is sentenced to clerical exile at the remote Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude parish.

    It's immediately clear that Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude has taken a bizarre turn. The church's crucifix has been removed from behind the altar, and its priest, Monsignor Jeffrey Wicks (Josh Brolin), quickly asserts himself as a power-hungry nut job.  Obsessive about confession, Wicks can't talk enough about his feverish bouts of masturbation.

   Wicks also preaches a gospel of fear. In his weekly sermons, he selects one parishioner for chastisement, gauging the success of his remarks by how quickly his intimidated victim heads for the door. 

    Although Wake Up Dead Man hosts strains of mordant comedy, it's also a mystery in which the characters become pawns in a game Johnson plays, one involving a tangled plot, excessive complications, and enough red herrings to stock a fishery.

    The parishioners, of course, become suspects after the mystery’s obligatory murder, which precedes the arrival of series savior Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), an ace sleuth who speaks with the lilting intonations of a southern gentleman.

     By the time Blanc arrives, a typically large gallery of actors has already elbowed its way into the proceedings: These include a doctor (Jeremy Renner), an attorney (Kerry Washington), a cellist (Cailee Spaeny) who no longer plays, a local politician (Daryl McCormack), and a struggling sci-fi author (Andrew Scott).

     We also meet the administrator (Glenn Close) in charge of the church’s business and the caretaker (Thomas Haden Church) who has pledged his devotion to her.

     In case the cast weren’t stuffed with enough names, Mila Kunis eventually turns up as a local sheriff who’s skeptical about Blanc’s deductive methods. 

      Fair to say, Johnson’s screenplay offers laughs throughout, and an able cast knows how to mine them, even when the targets loom large. 

      In a semi-serious turn, Johnson also gets some mileage out of the faith vs. reason tensions that develop between Jud and Blanc, who begin investigating the murder together.

     As the movie's most developed character, Jud valiantly tries to conquer his anger with love and compassion. He also struggles with guilt. A former boxer, he once killed a man in the ring.

      O’Connor gives a standout performance, although Johnson wisely provides Craig with a spotlight speech  during the movie’s finale. Blanc calls it his Damascus moment.

     Watching Wake Up Dead Man, you needn't go very far before bumping into another plot point. All of this rests on a foundation filled with plot and backstory, some of it involving a valuable jewel. 

      Call it a matter of taste, but I found some of the maneuvering tiresome, and the gaggle of idiosyncratic characters can become little more than pawns in a mystery game.

     Early on, Jeffrey Wright turns up as the sensible priest who assigns Father Jud to obscurity. Wright's appearance at the end reminded me how much I missed his presence and the character he plays.

     Johnson, who's often compared to Agatha Christie, clearly has mastered the form he has employed in a trilogy that began with Knives Out (2019) and continued with Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022).

     But clever as it can be, Johnson's latest sometimes drags through its two-hour and 24-minute run time, fighting headwinds created by the story's storm of complications.

    

      

       

      

Finding smiles in the afterlife

 The afterlife isn't a new subject for movies. Albert Brooks tried his hand at it in 1991 with Defending Your Life, and we've seen other big-screen journeys into the beyond. Consider Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), It's a Wonderful Life (1946)  Heaven Can Wait (1978) or the 1943 version, The Sixth Sense (1999), make your own list.

  Now, David Freyne (Dating Amber) plunges into the life to come with Eternity, a clever movie that's good in the setup, amusing in its midsection, and overextended in its final act. Generosity lands me on the positive side of the ledger.

  When Larry (Miles Teller) dies, he awakens in a crowded junction surrounded by faceless apartment buildings. He's  told that his understandable confusion will be addressed by his personal AC (Afterlife Coordinator). 

   If the late Larry immediately saw his reflection, he might not recognize himself. The recently departed arrive in the afterlife at the age at which they were the happiest during their lives. 

    They then must pick the place where they will spend eternity, choosing from an array of choices that are presented as if they were theme park attractions: Famine Free Ireland or Weimar World, a happy German romp that's free of Nazis. Those addicted to nicotine can choose cancer-free Smokers' World. Others prefer beaches or mountains.

    The catch: The choice, once made, is irrevocable. 

     No wonder, then, that Larry tells his AC (DaVine Joy Randolph) that he wants to defer his decision on where to spend eternity until the terminally ill wife he left behind (Elizabeth Olsen) arrives. He can't imagine eternity without her.

    The now youthful Larry -- he was in his 70s when he died -- tries to learn the ropes of afterlife living, if that's not too weird a contradiction in terms, but it doesn't take long for Olsen's Joan to turn up. 

    Larry's exhilarated until he learns that Joan's first husband, Luke (Callum Turner), a young man who was killed during the Korean War, has been waiting for her as well. Luke has spent 65 years pining for the woman he never had a chance to mature with.

   What's Joan to do?

   That's pretty much the movie.

   Freyne offers comedy and sentiment along the way while differentiating between two kinds of love. Luke represents heart-throb, head-over-heels ardor. Larry's more of an endurance guy; he understands what it takes to build a long marriage and raise two children.

    Temperamentally different, the two men find themselves at odds. Luke has charm; Larry indulges in cranky complaining.

    The supporting cast includes Olga Merediz in a nice turn as one of Joan's former friends. Her ideal happy age turns out to be 72, the time when she finally came out as gay. 

   A screenplay credited to Freyne and Pat Cunnae includes additional invention, notably a hall of mirrors in which each of the major characters watches key scenes from the past.

  Too bad, Freyne has trouble sticking the landing, which means that the film's charm runs out before the final credits roll.  Maybe it was inevitable that a film titled Eternity would have trouble ending.

    Films such as Eternity demand healthy suspensions of disbelief. Throughout, the dead are told that ironclad rules govern their choices. Trying to switch eternities, for example, will throw one into a never-ending void. But what's the good of rules if they can't occasionally be broken?

    Oh well, if Eternity has trouble letting go of these characters, so be it. There are enough smiles along the way to snuff out reservations. 

A very long 'Wicked' goodbye

 

   Fans probably will differ, but I've had enough. Four hours and 58 minutes of Wicked -- the popular play divided into two halves for the big screen -- is more than the material can easily support. 

  Sure, Ariana Grande as Glinda and Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba work with palpable commitment and fervor, and, yes, director John M. Chu and his crew haven't skimped on production value with sets that may be theme-park worthy.

  Still the finale, proves less than grand.

  I was lukewarm but respectful toward Wicked (2024), and, like most critics, I was impressed by Erivo's captivating performance. The first movie even ended with enough momentum to suggest that Wicked: For Good might outdo the first installment.

  Alas, For Good drags enough to tamp down some of the pleasure in watching Glinda, The Good Witch, and Elphaba, a.k.a., the Wicked Witch of the West, battle for the future of Oz. 

  Be assured, though, Elphaba retains her against-the-grain posture. She wants to expose the fraudulence of the storied Wizard, played here by Jeff Goldblum without benefit of much winking humor.

  The movie generates little doubt that the feuding Glinda and Elphaba will eventually acknowledge their lasting bond. Ergo, For Good feels as if it's working through two hours and 18 minutes of maneuvering to reach its inevitable conclusion.

   Some of the charm has faded. In this edition, the now subjugated animals of Oz have an unimpressive CGI aura. Supporting actors Marissa Bode, as Nessarose Thropp, and Ethan Slater, as Munchkin Boq, reach the screen in the flesh, but to limited avail.

   For Good treats the arrival of Dorothy as a marginal event, although it provides origin stories for Tin Man and Scarecrow, characters that figure in the plot, but don't have much dramatic or comic resonance.

    Fans already know that Grande and Erivo have the chops to sell popular tunes such as No Good Deed and For Good.  New songs include No Place Like Home and The Girl in the Bubble. They didn't leave me humming on the way out of the theater.

    Oops. I almost forgot. John Bailey returns as heartthrob Fiyero, whose fate involves straw and an unexpected (if you're unfamiliar with the material) shift in affections. 

    Michelle Yeoh reprises her role as Madame Morrible. Her one big scene stirs up a storm that could have found a home in a disaster movie.

     The Wicked phenomenon hinges on upsetting expectations created by familiarity with The Wizard of Oz: Glinda retains her bitchy qualities, the Wicked Witch earns our sympathy, and the story delivers a message about how lying, self-serving leaders can manipulate a gullible populace into compliance.

      Fan involvement with these characters may be strong enough to keep For Good's box office solid. Costumes and Wicked-inspired hairdos were in evidence at a preview screening, and it would be unfair to tag For Good as a flop. 

     As I've said, Grande and Erivo know how to hold the screen, and Chu created a few high points that had the audience applauding.

    But if I find myself looking at my watch during a film, I take it as a sign that I wasn't being transported into a world of enchantment -- no matter how much the movie seemed to be insisting on it.

       Oh well, I don't know if there are plans for a movie in which the once-frightening flying monkeys (yes, they return, too) assert their independence and conquer what's left of our rapidly foundering planet. Maybe they'd do a better job than we have.

Joachim Trier's complex family drama

 On the surface, Norwegian director Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value seems poised to tell a conventional family story. That might have happened had Trier not placed his characters against a backdrop that includes theater, film, and acting, a choice that deepens questions his film raises about the complicated nature of father/daughter relationships.

   Stellan Skarsgard brings a weary yet calculating quality to the role of Gustav Borg, a filmmaker trying to make one last great movie, a swan song he hopes will confirm his fading stature and solidify his legacy. He's the father of two daughters with whom he has become estranged.

   As Gustav's daughter, Nora, Renate Reinsve, who starred in Trier's The Worst Person in the World, plays an actress who could make Gustav's film soar. Unfortunately for him, she harbors too many resentments (many justifiable) to accept an offer to play the movie's lead.

   In the movie's third key performance, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas plays Nora's sister Agnes. Less embittered, Agnes has more tolerance for a father who basically abandoned his family and has only now returned to attend the funeral of his former wife.

   Gustav's reappearance may not be motivated by grief or sentiment. Due to a legal technicality, he owns the home in which his late wife raised his daughters. It's also where he plans to shoot his film.

   Temperamental and deeply neurotic, Nora is introduced in an alarming way. She's playing the main character in a reimagined version of a Chekhov play but finds excuse after excuse not to go on stage when cued. 

   Perhaps in an attempt to manipulate his reluctant daughter, Gustav casts Elle Fanning's Rachel Kemp, an American actress  to star in his film. She's bankable, but we get the feeling Gustav knows her casting is a mistake. 

  Reticent to the point of cruelty, Gustav offers little support as Kemp struggles to find her way into the role. Numerous rehearsal scenes highlight Kemp's inability to connect to the role she's been offered; but Fanning makes it clear that the talented, committed actress baldy needs guidance that Gustav refuses to supply. 

   And on another level, Gustav knows he's asking too much of Kemp. An alcoholic, he's capable of spewing drink-fueled sarcasm, but he's not mean enough to humiliate an actress who's trying.

   Gustav's film -- his first in 15 years -- isn't his first attempt to direct one of his daughters. He directed Lilleaas as a child in the movie that made him famous. She expressed no further interest in acting. He focused on her during the filming, but then deserted the family.

    To further complicate matters, Agnes is married with a child that Gustav relates to with affection he seldom showed his daughters. 

    Tender scenes between the sisters enrich the emotional environment, and Trier adds a historical dimension to the proceedings. Gustav grew in the home he now owns and where his mother was snatched by the Nazis, who tortured her during the War.  Gustav wants to tell his mother's story, although he insists that his film is not autobiographical. 

   It's clear from the outset that Gustav wants to reconcile with Nora. Perhaps the only way he knows how to do that is to direct her while letting her talent blossom, to give her a splendid showcase. Still, his attempt also reflects the self-absorption of an artist who's thinking about what's best for his movie.

    Sentimental Value has its comic moments but Trier, working from a screenplay he co-wrote with Eskil Vogt, has made a rewarding dramatic work, one that allows gifted actors to create characters of uncommon complexity.

An actor finds unusual work in Japan

 

 Some movies fit like old sweaters that are too comfortable to throw away. That’s how I felt about Rental Family, a movie starring Brendan Fraser as an unsuccessful American actor who has been living in Japan, where he hoped to develop a career. 

 It's not going well. After a decade of trying, Fraser's Phillip Vandarpleog's greatest accomplishment seems to be a toothpaste commercial. Hulking and, let’s say, chubby, Fraser’s Phillips Vandarpleog stands out wherever he travels, an instant misfit.

   Director Hikari (Beef) brings a novel twist to this soft-edged comedy. Unable to find work elsewhere, Vandarpleog — henceforth to be called Phillip — takes a job with a company called Rental Family.

  Evidently, such companies exist in Japan, catering to folks who wish to rent mourners for funerals, hire escorts for events, or serve in other surrogate capacities. Phillip’s first assignment involves appearing as a mourner at a funeral. 

      Amusingly, the dearly departed isn't dead. He just wanted to bask in the glow of all the faux eulogies.

      Phillip doesn't immediately realize that he's stumbled into a different kind of acting job. His new boss (Takehiro Hira) eagerly puts a positive spin on the work. It really helps people, he says. 

     More to the point, the agency needs a big white guy for specialty situations, one of which involves playing father to Mia  (Shannon Mahina Gorman), an 11-year-old mixed race girl whose single mother (Shino Shinozaki) wants to get her into an elite Tokyo private school.

       Much of the movie depends on Fraser, an Oscar winner for his performance in 2022's The Whale. Phillip's  a bit of a sad sack, but he has a good heart, and his relationship with Gorman’s Mia gets serious when she begins to accept him as her real father. Mom never tells her daughter the truth about what she's doing.

      For his part, Phillip begins to warm to his role as companion for hire, accepting jobs in which he marries a gay woman to help deceive her tradition-bound family. She plans to marry her real lover and move to Canada but doesn't want to shatter her parents. 

     Another episode receives more attention. To boost the ego of an aging actor (Akira Emoto), Phillip poses as an American journalist writing a definitive retrospective on the actor’s career.

      All of these encounters prove reasonably amusing and full of soft-pedaled sentiment.

       Phillip, of course, has his dejected moments.  During such times, he confides in a co-worker (Maria Yamamoto). Is this an ethical way to make money, or is it a form of exploitative fraud? How much does the movie really care?

      Fortunately, the screenplay — by Hikari and Stephen Blahut — refrains from romance. Phillip has a physically intimate relationship with a friendly "escort" with whom he talks about his life, even though she never forgets she's on the clock.

      It would be misleading to say that Rental Family brims with insights about identity and role-playing, but the movie passes in easy, formulaic way: Rental Family sets up Phillip's deceptions, adds a complicating twist that threatens exposure, garnishes its story with sprinklings of Japanese culture, and resolves matters without causing too much of a stir.

     In short: Enjoy it. Then go about your business.

    

       

Not the greatest story ever told

    

 

    When I first heard about The Carpenter's Son, I thought it was going to be a sacrilegious over-the-top horror movie anchored by another memorably outrageous performance from Nicholas Cage. 

     How could it not be with Cage playing The Father, a character clearly meant to evoke Joseph of Holy Family renown?

    The movie opens with a title card that suggests that director Lotfy Nathan has something different in mind. His story, we're told, has been adapted from the apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a book that deals with parts of Jesus's early life you won't find in the New Testament. 

    Those who see the movie will understand why a gospel that's not widely read by most Christians has been deemed heretical by Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox clergy.

   To begin with, The Carpenter is an agonized doubter about his son (Noah Jupe). Frustrated and desperate for answers, he wonders whether he's The Boy's "real" father. At one point, anger gets the best of him and he rants about how The Mother -- played  by rapper FKA Twigs - might have had sex with a Roman soldier and, therefore, became unclean.

    Twig and Cage seem don't look like they belong in the same movie, but only The Mother seems certain about The Boy's identity. The Boy himself seeks answers and is only beginning to understand that he has supernatural powers -- and I don't mean this in the superhero sense of the word.

     From the moment of his birth, The Boy faces danger. After a screaming birth scene, The Carpenter and The Mother take flight. The movie then leaps ahead to 15 AD. To avoid exposure, the Carpenter keeps moving his family around Egypt, finally settling in an eerie-looking village. A local merchant hires The Carpenter to carve an idol, a sure sign that something -- perhaps many things -- will go wrong.

    The heart of the movie involves The Boy's encounter with a village child called The Stranger (

Isla Johnston). We immediately know that The Stranger is Satan because Johnston has a fierce gaze and speaks with a beautiful British accent that's unlike any other in the movie. 

     If you see Johnston's work, you'll instantly know why director Baz Luhrmann cast her to play Joan of Arc in his upcoming Jehanne d'Arc. Even as the devil, there's something grounded yet spectral about his young actress.

     As played by Jupe, The Boy seems a bit of an adolescent misfit, although the story takes place long before anyone knew there was such a thing as adolescence. When The Boy has sleep-disrupting dreams about the crucifixion that awaits him, he wakes up screaming. His sometimes rambunctious behavior angers The Father, who frequently runs out of patience for the strange, preoccupied Boy.

     A creepy torture chamber -- crucifixions and other forms of horrible punishment -- can be found on the village's outskirts, adding a further disturbing note. Watch out for snakes.

     Lilith (Souheila Yacoub), a young woman who catches The Boy's attention (make of that what you will) suffers demonic possession and winds up in this doomed section of the village. We await The Boy's intervention.

     Can Satan lure The Boy away from his true calling, thus marking what might be deemed the First Temptation of Christ?

     I suppose you already know the answer, but this darkly hued, sometimes creepy, and determinedly strange movie is neither a horror movie nor a conventional piece of religious storytelling.

    The Carpenter's Son sets its story in a Manichaean world of light and darkness, but, in the end, I'm not sure what the movie captures -- other than a rare instance in Cage can't seem to find his footing, in which Twigs doesn't quite fit, and cosmic issues are supposed to vault over everything. 

      Whatever the movie had it mind, it's definitely not operating in the world as we know it, but that doesn't mean it's clear what world it's meant to occupy and, equally important, why it's taking us there. 

      

Running a too-familiar race

 

  A quarter of the way through The Running Man, a remake of an action-stuffed 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, I had to pinch myself. "Wait," I thought, "Isn't this November, and if so, why am I watching a movie that looks as if it should have been part of the summer action sweepstakes.

  This second adaptation of a 1982 Stephen King novel -- published under the name of Richard Bachman -- moves quickly, but not quickly enough to make us forget we've already seen movies about deadly game shows run by authoritarians interested in controlling the masses and reaping profits. Need I mention The Hunger Games?

   Director Edgar Wright (Baby Driver, Last Day in Soho) tells the story of a reality-based show broadcast by an evil corporation called The Network. If any of the movie's contestants survive the hunt, they win $1 billion, a sum purportedly worth risking one's life for in a society in which few are privileged.

    A buffed Glen Powell plays a husband and father with anger-management problems. Powell's Ben Richards keeps losing jobs because he flies off the handle while sticking up for underdogs at work. 

    Desperate to find care for his sick infant daughter and financial relief for his overworked wife (Jayme Lawson), Richards auditions for non-lethal TV game shows. He plans to avoid The Running Man, but Network head Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) talks him into competing in the deadly competition.

     From that point on, the movie is off and running, racing through one set piece after another while dragging along some overpacked thematic baggage behind it. 

     Let's get the message out of the way: All the Network cares about is ratings. If it needs killings to up the dramatic ante, it doesn't hesitate. The Network also uses doctored videos to turn the contestants into menaces who purportedly threaten the common good. The masses buy in.

      Set in a dystopian near future, The Running Man relies heavily on Powell, who may not have been the ideal choice for this kind of action movie. I don't mean that as insult. Powell was great in Top Gun: Maverick and in the dark comedy Hit Man, but a kick-ass star? I suppose the box-office will decide.

      In all, three contestants (Powell, Katy O'Brian and Martin Herlihy) compete, but it's hardly surprising that only the top-billed Powell remains standing through the escalating mayhem. McCone (Lee Pace), a masked Hunter, remains in dogged pursuit throughout.

    The move can feel pretty dogged itself. I'm talking structure, not pace. As he moves from New York to Boston, Richards receives help from friends and sympathizers. William H. Macy plays Molie, a guy who outfits Ben with armaments. Daniel Ezra portrays Bradley, a savvy guy who facilitates Richards' travels, and Michael Cera appears as a  well-equipped rebel with plans to fight the Hunters.

    Toward the end of the movie, Ben hijacks the car of a realtor (Emilia Jones), who believes he's the villainous fiend the Network claims him to be.

    It's tough to avoid cliches in this kind of movie. Colman Domingo portrays Bobby Thompson, the amped-up host of The Running Man, a showy role that doesn't offer much for Domingo to chew on.

      Aiming for the big finish, Wright concocts a dizzying  airborne showdown. By that time, I was wondering whether the movie hadn't fallen into a trap. If you don't have anything novel to say, try saying it louder.

      None of this is bad enough to condemn Running Man or good enough to praise it. The Running Man has the all-too-familiar markings of a movie that wants to be a summer blockbuster. But, as I said at the outset, this is November.

For the record ...

 

  Every week, the number of movies released threatens to become more unmanageable. Some films creep into the market where I work without opportunity for advance viewing. That makes the critics' job difficult. And given the onslaught of releases, particularly as the year draws to a close, playing catch-up can be daunting.

 So where am I going with this?

 I've been looking for a way to call attention to movies I believe deserve consideration, although I may not offer full reviews. I hate to see movies of interest fall through the cracks. 

  So, here are two movies I found worth my time and may well be worth yours.

  Let's begin with Nouvelle Vague, director Richard Linklater's movie about the making of Breathless, Jean-Luc Godard's groundbreaking 1960 movie. By 1960, the French New Wave had already broken on the shores of world cinema. Godard was late to chime in, but he made his presence felt.

  Beautifully filmed in black-and-white, Nouvelle Vague features Guillaume Marbeck as Godard, who was 29 when Breathless hit world screens, a little old to be a cinema enfant terrible, but still young enough to begin a career that lasted 70 years.

  Aubry Dullin portrays Breathless star Jean-Paul Belmondo, and Zoey Deutch appears as Jean Seberg, his co-star. 

  Nouvelle Vague reminds us of a time when audiences were discovering movies that felt fresh, invigorating, and full of promise. The future seemed open and expansive, as if something vital was happening -- not just in one movie but across the cinema board.

   And that's the key. We don't necessarily yearn for  something "new" at the movies. We yearn for something "fresh," movies that reignite our excitement by making cinema feel alive and putting us in touch with aesthetic sensibilities that awaken the senses, and -- in rare cases --point us toward truth.

Christy tells the story of Christy Martin, nee Christine Salters, a woman who boxed professionally from 1989 to 2012. A West Virginia native, Christy became known as "The Coal Miner's Daughter," which, in her case, was literally true. Her dad was a miner.

   Sydney Sweeney, who reportedly gained 30 pounds to play Christy, looks fiercely credible in the ring as a hard-punching boxer driven by fury and ambition.

  Christy's sexuality -- she's a lesbian -- gives the movie another focus, shedding light on her relationship with her trainer, Jim Martin (Ben Foster). Martin coerced Christy into marriage and took charge of her career, convincing her that no one else could help her advance.

   The movie charts Christy's rise in conventional ways, but  her relationship with her husband makes for an increasingly wrenching domestic drama, made all the more painful by the Svengali-like control Martin exerts over Christy and which culminates with a shocking display of violence.

   Sweeney and Foster are in fine form. Additionally, Merritt Wever gives a scalding performance as Christy's censorious mother, a woman more worried about public perception than her daughter's well-being. Similar kudos for Chad L. Coleman, who plays boxing promoter Don King, a man who could charm but who always lets those around him know who’s in charge.

A 'Predator' movie takes a fun turn

     

     Predator: Badlands, the latest film in a long running series that began in 1987, skillfully mixes actors and CGI, employing enough computer-generated imagery to make the movie look like a teeming helping of animated sci-fi. 

    CGI notwithstanding, Badlands has a refreshing human element that keeps the movie from turning into another exploitative gook-and-gore festival -- which is not to say that you won't find oozing substances or clangorous action.

    Oddly, the movie's humanity comes from an android. Elle Fanning, the movie's best addition, appears as Thia, an android who lost her legs in a violent encounter that precedes her introduction into the movie. Thia's head and torso become a major character. Even if you consider her half a character, she exerts an outsized influence on the proceedings.

      You don't need to be well-versed in Predator lore to know that Yautjas -- warriors with fangs and strict codes of honor -- will figure heavily in the story. 

      This time, a Yautja named Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) becomes the film's hero. Dek reluctantly joins Thia, who understandably wants to retrieve the lower part of her body. She also hopes to reunite with Tessa (also Fanning), the twin "synth" sister she idolizes.

       Thia's rediscovery of her legs, by the way, becomes a source of cartoonish amusement when the legs take on a life of their own.

        For much of the movie, Dek carries Thia around like a backpack while he schemes to avenge his brother Kwei (Michael Homick), a Yautja warrior who was murdered by their father (also Schuster-Koloamatangi). Kwei intervened to save Dek from his father's wrath, showing the kind of weakness the Yautja loathe. Who knew? The Yautja have daddy issues, too.

    Working from a screenplay by Patrick Aison, director Dan Trachtenberg, who also directed the 2022 Predator movie, Prey, creates exotic backdrops through which his characters wander. Watch out for deadly flora: plants with poisonous spikes, deadly vines, and seed pods that explode like grenades.

    The movie also adds a near-Disneyesque twinkle when a creature named Bud. Cute despite bad teeth, Bud joins Dek and Thia on their adventures, which involve Dek's quest to bring home the head of The Kalisk, a beast no warrior has ever defeated. It's an honorable Yautja ambition that's supposed to help Dek attain warrior status.

     Trachtenberg tweaks the plot in ways that challenge expectation and allow him to delver the movie's message -- albeit without too heavy a hand. Cooperation can be more effective than individual action and clans needn’t be defined only by blood. 

       The movie's finale and epilogue are satisfying and it only takes an hour and 55 minutes to reach the finish line. The movie's softer tone (for a Predator movie) and PG-13 rating may displease hardcore franchise fans. But Badlands is more fun than I expected. That's enough of an achievement for a franchise movie that doesn't feel like its only aim is to ride the coattails of its predecessors.

  

She's no stay-at-home wife

   Never timid, always willing to push toward extremes, and unflinching in her boldness, Scottish director Lynne Ramsay remains an unabashed risk taker. 

   In Die My Love, Ramsay adapts a 2012 novel by Ariana Harwicz, an Argentine writer who set her story in rural France. Working from a screenplay she wrote with Enda Walsh and Alice Birch, Ramsay moves the story to Montana and leaves it to Jennifer Lawrence to convey the complex inner life of new mom Grace, a bored, libidinous wife mired in postpartum depression.

    But don't mistake Die My Love for a disease-related TV movie. Lawrence and Ramsey stretch the story's metaphoric possibilities to the breaking point. Grace seems to embody a near-primal spirit that can't accommodate the life of a stay-at-home mom. Like a cat stalking prey, Grace crawls on all fours through the grass surrounding her house.

    As the movie progresses, Grace becomes both more volatile. At one point, she crashes through a plate glass window in the ramshackle home that she and her husband (Robert Pattinson) occupy, a shocking, rebellious eruption.

    Jackson's mother (Sissy Spacek) and his addled father (Nick Nolte) live nearby. As a wife who submitted to  convention, Spacek's Pam recognizes Grace's "craziness" as a powerful expression that deserves respect.

    Graphic sex scenes and nudity are on full display early on. Grace is a sexual being, but Jackson can't keep pace with his ravenous wife. Predictably, she winds up having sex with a biker (LaKeith Stanfield) who enters the movie as if he's casing the house where Grace and Jackson live.

     Did the movie need such a digression? Probably not.

     Ramsay fragments time, destroying chronological order. Frequently, we must recalibrate where in the story we might be. Ramsay allows parts of the movie to burst onto the screen, throwing scenes at us with an abandon that can mirror Grace's volatility.

     Grace's condition grows progressively more outlandish. At a social gathering, she takes off her clothes and jumps into a swimming pool where kids are playing. If you haven't already, you'll begin to wonder why no one has tried to deal with what seems like an obvious case of mental illness. 

      Ramsey tests us in the same way that she tests her characters. The baby's crying grates on our nerves. Ditto for the incessant barking of dog that Jackson brings home.

      I'll include a spoiler for those who'd rather not witness Grace taking a rifle from her mother-in-law's house, walking back to her home, and shooting the unfortunate dog, a creature that's evidently ill and neglected.

    Lawrence's purposefully erratic performance seems in sync with the movie's intentions. The world in which Grace finds herself can't accommodate her essential self. OK, that's vague, but it's as close as I can get.

    Pattinson's character makes less sense. With a multi-directional haircut and a sheepish demeanor, Jackson looks like a lost traveler in need of directions.

    The movie builds toward a finale that can be taken literally or metaphorically, but it's preceded by a kind of gentle detente between Jackson and Grace. Maybe he finally understands the woman he married.

     I had my reservations about Die My Love, but I can't finish without an addendum.

     I respect Ramsay's courage, something she displayed when she brought her 1999 movie Ratcatcher to the screen and continued in 2002 with Morvern Callar, which relied heavily on the work of Samantha Morton as another difficult character.

      Die My Love is Ramsay's first movie since 2018's You Were Never Really Here, which starred Joaquin Phoenix. I hope we don't have to wait another seven years for the next film.

      Whatever you think of Die My Love, you should know that Ramsay has a powerful voice, and isn't  afraid to raise it. Sometimes, I wondered why I was watching Grace unleash her furies, often in cruel ways. But if Ramsay and Lawrence set out to create a character too combustible for "normal'' life, they've succeeded. Like Grace, Ramsay refuses to be pigeonholed. That's a quality worthy of respect.

    

A small story with epic reach

 

  Director Clint Bentley takes on author Denis Johnson's Train Dreams, a 166-page novel that deals with large themes about the destruction of the American West, the trials of one tormented man, and his inability to make sense of tragic loss. 

  Perhaps to make Johnson's authorial voice part of the movie, Bentley makes heavy use of a narrator (Will Patton). Never intrusive, Patton's voice guides us through the story of Robert Granier (Joel Edgerton), a sturdy resident of the Pacific Northwest who ekes out a living as a logger.

   Logging takes Robert away from his wife, Gladys (Felicity Jones), and his infant daughter. He'd rather stay home, but money is scarce, and so are jobs.

   From the start, it's clear that Bentley and cinematographer Adolpho Veloso will celebrate the beauty of Northeast Washington, where the movie was filmed. Never purely decorative; the landscape and its trees have a near-hallowed quality. 

   For a time, Robert and Gladys live in a Western Eden, two people and a child in a small cabin Robert builds. All they want is to be together and live.

   Of course, there's no story in "just living." On a logging expedition, Robert becomes complicit in the death of a Chinese worker, hurled off a bridge by bigots who accuse the man of stealing. From that point on, Robert believes he's cursed. The events that follow suggest that he might be right.

    Principal among such catastrophes is a massive forest fire that consumes Robert's home, taking the lives of his wife and child. Robert was on his way home from a logging expedition when he saw smoke clouding the sky. He arrived too late to save his wife and daughter.

     Even in the early going, Bentley breaks the movie's bucolic moods with shots of trains sparking and roaring through the landscape. A recurrent train dream slices into Robert's sleep, an engine of destruction.

    The perils of logging come into sharper focus when Robert gathers around campfires with fellow loggers. These rough-hewn men include Apostle Frank (Paul Schneider) and Arn Peebles (William H. Macy). The men acknowledge the danger of their work: A falling branch can take its revenge on those who swing the axes. 

    Some of Robert's dreams evoke memories of his cherished domestic life.  Robert and his daughter share beautifully tender moments, and when Robert and Gladys are together, their love bubbles with laughter.

     A bearded Edgerton gives a solid performance as a man who, throughout most of the movie, knows little peace, but who also knows how to bear his troubles. He's a man of limited knowledge, but Edgerton suggests depths Robert can't quite grasp.

     Late in the film, Robert meets Claire (Kerry Condon), a widow who works as a lookout for forest fires. She lives in a tower that affords an overview of the territory Robert only has seen in pieces, and she expresses a deep and moving sympathy for Robert's plight. 

      The movie covers Robert's life from around 1917 to 1968. The scenes in the '60s struck me as  jarring, perhaps intentionally so. Robert's best days were lived before the frontier vanished. Still, there's a mood-breaking awkwardness to the these scenes I found difficult to digest.

      I also wondered what the film would have been had Bentley (Jockey, Sing Sing), working from a screenplay he wrote with Greg Kwedar, eliminated the narration and let Robert's journey grow and flow on its own. 

     Still, as I've said, Paton's narration can be viewed as part of the film's fabric, helping Bentley to play a trick that gives the movie its poignance: He takes a subject of epic scope and tells it in small strokes that mark the life of a man who'll never see how his life fits into the big picture. But, then, who among us ever will?

     

       

A psychiatrist at Nuremberg

 

  In Nuremberg, Director James Vanderbilt benefits from a trial that remains relevant and compelling 80 years after it captured the world's attention, the Nuremberg trials of 1945.

  The subject is not new to movies; Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) stands as one of the best-known dramas to deal with Nazi war criminals.

   Vanderbilt tells a real-life story that's less familiar, basing his movie on the experiences of Douglas M. Kelley, a lieutenant colonel assigned an unusual task. A psychiatrist by trade, Kelley was ordered to evaluate Nuremberg's prisoners, including Hermann Goring, Hitler's second in command.

   Meeting with Nazis in dank cells in a bombed-out city was no easy task. Though certain to be sentenced to death, Goring -- played by Russell Crowe -- remained calm and cunning. Crowe plays him as self-assured and arrogant, a man who believes that his inherent power can't be taken away by lesser mortals even in captivity. 

   Rami Malek portrays Kelley, an Army psychiatrist whose professional ethics are tested when the military asks him to provide "confidential" information that could be used to undermine Goring at trial.

    Eager to establish his reputation, the somewhat naive Kelley plans to write a book about his experiences at Nuremberg. Goring accuses the aspiring author of hitchhiking on the infamous reputations of high-ranking Nazis, principally Goring himself. Kelley knows Goring isn't entirely wrong about that.

  Kelley's book -- 22 Cells in Nuremberg -- details some of what occurred between Kelley and imprisoned members of the German high command. Kelley hoped to identify the cause of their evil. Surely, such horrendous crimes couldn't have been committed by ordinary men.

   The movie, however, isn't based on Kelley's book but on Jack El-Hai's The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Herman Goring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII. That's a long title, and it's matched by a two-hour and 28-minute movie that features Michael Shannon as Robert Jackson, the Supreme Court justice who believed the Nazis should be tried rather than summarily executed. Not everyone shared Jackson's views.

    As the movie unfolds, Kelley develops a relationship with Goring. The psychiatrist visited Goring's wife (Lotte Verbeek) and young daughter and treated them sympathetically. He brought Goring letters from his wife and seems shocked when he discovers the depths of Nazi depravity, a reaction that mirrors the way many felt immediately after the war.

    We don't get to know a great deal about Kelley, and Jackson receives less attention, although Vanderbilt deals with the political maneuvering required to ensure that the trial was more than the US versus the Nazis. He wanted it to seem as if the world was standing in judgment.

   As if to emphasize this point, Richard E. Grant portrays Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, a British deputy chief prosecutor who comes to Jackson's rescue when the American prosecutor is about to be bested by Goring during a tense moment of testimony.

    The movie's dramatic high point, the trial, includes real footage from Hitler's death camps, horrific no matter how many times we may have seen such images.

    Perhaps to add topical flair, Vanderbilt includes obvious dialogue about the dangers of power-hungry leaders and autocracy. It's as if he's underlining points that are ingrained in the story he's telling. They hardly needed elaboration. 

  I don't think Nuremberg is the great movie such a momentous subject requires. It can bog down in exposition that tends to be instructional, something on the order of Nuremberg 101.

   Still, Vanderbilt's conventional telling of the story is compelling when it needs to be. It also encourages thought about an observation that's not new to the movie or to anyone familiar with Hannah Arendt's oft-cited coverage of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, which occurred 16 years after Nuremberg, and gave rise to Arendt's key phrase, "the banality of evil."

    Search as one will, it's impossible to identify traits of malignant exceptionalism that lead ordinary men to such monstrous behavior. Not everyone agrees, but it's still worth pondering.

    A footnote: Goring escaped the noose, swallowing a cyanide capsule he had hidden from his captors shortly before he was to be hanged.*

*I've used the spelling of Goring used in the credits, but couldn't figure out how to add the umlaut over the "o" that German requires.