A coal man's troubled conscience

   

   A  drama of tormented conscience, Small Things Like These cloaks a tough-minded story in the somber light of a forbidding Irish winter. In his first screen performances since his Oscar-winning turn in Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy directs his energies inward to play Bill Furlong, a family man who earns his living delivering coal to locals in the small town of New Ross.

   Bill lives modestly with his wife (Eileen Walsh) and five daughters. By nature an observer, Bill eventually learns what's happening at the local convent, the place that houses both the town's Catholic school and one of Ireland's notorious Magdalene laundries, now-defunct institutions where abused unwed mothers provided unpaid labor.

    A perfectly cast Murphy concentrates a growing sense of anguish in Bill's beneficent face as awareness of what transpires in the laundry takes its toll. At the end of each day's work, Bill scrubs his hands vigorously, a hard scrapple metaphor for trying to wash away sights that can't be unseen. 

      Set in 1989 during the week before Christmas, Small Things Like These employs flashbacks to shed light on Bill's past, a mixture of small disappointments and substantial grief. One Christmas, Bill’s mother gave him a hot water bottle instead of the jigsaw puzzle he wanted, but Bill’s real torment comes from knowing that his unwed single mother, who died young, barely escaped the Magdalene laundries.

      Bill’s sensitivities were nourished by a woman (Michelle Fairley) who took Bill and his teenage mom underwing. Among other things, Fairley's Mrs. Wilson helped Bill develop an enduring taste for Dickens, an author who knew how to drown a story in a sea of troubles.

     The plot conspires to bring Bill’s adult conscience to a boil when a young woman (Zara Devlin) who has been exiled to the laundry’s coal shed asks for help. Bill is moved but doesn’t know what to do.

      The head nun (a terrific Emily Watson as Sister Mary) knows Bill has penetrated the convent’s "secret." She tries to salve Bill's conscience with a fat Christmas bonus. 

     Aware that money always presents a problem for her struggling family, Bill's wife encourages him to go along to get along. The town has spent years ignoring the laundry. No one wants to upset the prevailing order.

       Mielants and screenwriter Enda Walsh aren't interested in big emotional effects. Spare as it is poignant, Small Things Like These turns a novel by Claire Keegan into a revealing big-screen story about one man who wrestles with the price of denial in a dreary town where most consider it wise to keep their eyes averted and their mouths shut.

Liam Neeson plays an aging thug

 

It's been more than a minute since I bothered with a Liam Neeson movie. In films such as Nonstop and Taken, Neeson proved a reliable action star. His movies tended to mire him in formula, the reluctant savior who eventually kicks ass. I’d had enough — until now. I decided to check on Neeson with Absolution, a thriller about a former boxer who spent most of his post-ring life toiling as a gangster for a Massachusetts drug boss (Ron Perlman). Looking grey as a New England fog, Neeson's character suffers from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which means he's losing his memory -- and sometimes his temper. Dreary and depressing, Absolution includes scenes in which the boxer hallucinates about being on a boat, finds a bit of tenderness from a woman (Yolanda Ross), and tries to reconcile with his estranged daughter (Frankie Shaw) and his grandson (Terrence Pulliam). Eventually, Neeson's character is forced to seek absolution for sins of violence and family neglect through an explosive outburst in which he attempts to right his many wrongs. Neeson turns down his star wattage and looks forlorn as a man on the cusp of death; he creates a real character, but director Hans Petter Moland, who directed Neeson in 2019's Cold Pursuit, keeps the movie on a slow track, steering it into territory that feels more dispiriting than driven.

The wild ride of ‘Emilia Perez’

 

     Hints of mad surrealism blow through Emilia Perez, a film from French director Jacques Audiard that stars Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, and transgender actress Karla Sofía Gascón.  

     The central conceit of Audiard's story shouldn't work at all. The story's animating twist involves a brutal Mexican drug lord (Gascon) who makes a late-life decision to -- brace yourself -- become a woman. 

    Clearly, Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone) has something bold in mind, and he creates an intoxicating hybrid, a musical drama full of stylized flare and operatic emotion.  

   The story begins by introducing us to Saldana's Rita, a whip-smart attorney who plays second fiddle to her less than competent male boss. Unhappy with her status and income, Rita's ready for a change.

   A macho drug lord who's also a husband and loving father, Gascon's Manitas Del Monte contacts Rita and asks her to arrange for his disappearance, an ironic request in light of Manitas' role in "disappearing" others. 

   Once taken for dead, Manitas will complete his gender transition, a process he's already begun with a regimen of hormones.

   After accepting Manitas’ offer, Rita faces a myriad of problems. Manitas' children and wife (Gomez) must believe that he's dead and their financial futures must be secured. Rita also must make Manitas' new life plausible and possible.

   Filmed mostly in a Paris studio, employs sets that take us to Mexico City, London, Bangkok, and Switzerland.  Emilia Perez becomes a high-speed, cinematic ferris wheel that knocks us off our bearings. In a way, the movie is about the sense of disorientation it breeds.

   In addition to being well paid for her services, Rita  becomes part of the world created by the newly emerged Emilia Perez as the movie explores a provocative question: Can Emilia shed the criminality that scarred Manhitas' soul? Can his insides be reborn along with his transformed exterior?

   A skeptical Israeli doctor (Mark Ivanir) performs the surgery that changes Manitas' identity. Initially, Manitas’ move seems like an extreme way to evade capture. But, no, Manitas sincerely wants to become the person he believes he was born to be.  

   Performing musical numbers with angular acuity, Saldana commands the movie until Emilia emerges. She claims to be a cousin of Manitas' who insisted that she care for his family should anything happen to him. Unrecognizable to Manitas' former wife and two children, "Aunt" Emilia still knows how to be the center of any environment in which she finds herself.

    Eventually, Emilia moves the family to a beautiful home in Mexico City where the film broadens its scope. Emilia, who dotes on the children, dedicates  her life to locating the bodies of people who have been murdered by the cartels. 

      Stability, if not a happy ending, seems to loom but Gomez's Jessi has passions of her own: She yearns to restart a relationship with Gustavo (Edgar Ramirez), a guy with whom she once had a torrid affair. 

    The movie was shot in a studio in Paris with Audiard employing sets that are supposed to be located in Mexico City, London, Bangkok, and Switzerland. Audiard can't solve all the structural issues raised by so many disparate pieces, but there's a plus side here, as well.

     Different elements bump into one another in ways that reinforce the movie's insistence on charting its own course. Tunes by Camille Dalmais and Clement Ducol bring propulsive energy to a movie that doesn't so much bend genre conventions as ignore them.

     Saldana and Gomez give striking performances, but the movie belongs to Gascon, who embodies a character in desperate need of resolving gender and moral contradictions. 

    It's a copout, I suppose, to say that Emilia Perez isn't for everyone, but it's worth noting that the movie divided audiences when it premiered at last May's Cannes Film Festival. I understand those who found the movie somewhat indigestible and wondered whether it could have used more musical numbers.

   But for me, Audiard's audacious approach trumped many of the movie's problems. Audiard asks us to take a wild ride with him. Why not be adventurous and take the dare?

What happens 'Here?' Not much

   Watching the new movie Here, I felt as if I were peering into a diorama devoted to mundane helpings of Americana. Set mostly in a single room and spanning a variety of eras, Here's narrow focus seems intended to open wide vistas of life in different eras.

   But the movie sacrifices depth for an artificial sense of breadth as it delivers a series of domestic scenes, many featuring Tom Hanks and Robin Wright as husband and wife.

    Director Robert Zemeckis, who directed Hanks and Wright in Forest Gump, uses AI to de-age or age many of the characters as he tires to deliver meaningful moments in the lives of successive owners of the same house.

    OK, but was it necessary to show how the site on which the movie's modest home was built looked during prehistoric times? And did Zemeckis need to acknowledge a time before the arrival of settlers?

   The movie includes segments in which a Native American couple falls in love in a wooded setting so idyllic I half expected Bambi to nuzzle up against one of them.

   The movie's parade of vignettes features a full menu of ordinary events: births, deaths, marriages, divorce, Thanksgiving dinners, and Christmas celebrations, all of which serve as signposts that, I guess, are intended to encourage a sense of unfolding lives. Add a few cultural shifts and a bit of nostalgic set decoration and you've got the idea, a tableau of American life.

  Based on a 2014 graphic novel by Richard McGuire, Here mostly concentrates on Wright and Hanks, who play Richard and Margaret, a couple who meet as 17-year-olds during the 1950s. Economic concerns and Margaret's unexpected pregnancy force the couple to move in with Richard's parents, a hard-drinking dad (Paul Bettany) and a devoted mom (Kelly Reilly). 

    Scenes of the house's other occupants come and go, appearing as if they were someone else's memories. During the early 1900s, we meet Pauline (Michelle Dockery), who occupies the home with her pilot husband (Gwilym Lee). She fears flying will kill him.

   During the 1920s, Leo (David Fynn) and Stella (Ophelia Lovibond) take over. They like to drink and party and remain oblivious to anything that might resemble a problem. Leo invents a recliner that catapults the twosome into the upper economic rungs.

   To show what happens once Richard and Margaret move away, we meet a Black family (Nicholas Pinnock, Nikkie Amuka-Bird, and Cache Vanderpuye) that offers a glimpse of life in the 21st century.

     Lest the proceedings be swamped with greeting-card sentiment, the movie introduces a slew of unrealized dreams. Bettany's character fails to advance on his job. Hanks' Richard abandons his artistic aspirations to sell insurance, and Wright's Margaret feels stifled by living with her in-laws. She once hoped to go to law school.

    Eric Roth's screenplay tackles serious themes but they come off as obvious signposts: Problems unfold as if on schedule, and the movie’s deep focus images draw unneeded attention to themselves, as does a stationary camera that turns the screen into a near-theatrical space.

     Even with the introduction of a case of Alzheimer's, Here proves less maudlin than I expected, but that doesn't mean Zemeckis resists all schmaltz, and some scenes  -- notably those involving Benjamin Franklin (Keith Bartlett) and his son William (Daniel Betts) -- become distractingly silly.

   Zemeckis seems to be aiming for something poignant, meaningful, and broadly appealing, but, for me, Here had about as much emotional impact as a bouquet of artificial flowers. When you sort it all out, there's too little “there” in Here.

A sex worker's dizzying journey

   

 I’ve been reading about Anora ever since the movie won the Palm d'Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and began catapulting its way around the festival circuit. My initial anticipation was sparked not only by an award but by the movie’s pedigree. Anora is the work of Sean Baker,  a director whose The Florida Project I admired for its specificity and down-to-earth credibility. 

  Baker’s interests tend to be married to narrow forms of realism that resonate beyond each movie’s carefully chosen setting. His movies are about specific places -- Los Angeles in Tangerine -- but they're also about characters who struggle with chaotic forms of living -- the transgender sex worker in the same movie.

     In Anora, Baker immerses himself in Brighton Beach, a Brooklyn enclave defined by its community of Russian emigres and business people. If that description makes it sound as if Baker plans to chart an inspirational course through immigration issues,  think again.

    Baker builds his movie around an American-born woman who works in a nightclub that specializes in lap dances, some held in private VIP rooms.

    In what rightly has been described as a breakthrough performance, Mikey Madison plays Anora, a woman who’d like to escape the sex-worker grind. Ambition aside, Anora does her job with convincing enthusiasm. She’s not embarrassed by her work and has learned how to sell herself.

     The story’s pivotal event occurs when Anora meets Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), a 21-year-old Russian club patron who’s goofy and  immature. As it turns out, Ivan is also the son of a powerful Russian oligarch. Happy to pay for sex, he’s so taken with Anora — who calls herself Ani — that he offers to pay her $15,000 to spend a week him. They’ll party, take drugs, have sex, and party some more.

      Ably created by Eydelshteyn as a kid who's nothing but loose ends, Ivan lives in a beautifully appointed modern home in a gated community. His ocean view offers a stark contrast to Ani’s apartment. She and her sister share a dingy flat next to subway tracks where trains rumble their insult past smudged windows. Ani needs the money, does her sex duties willingly, and enjoys her new exposure to the high life. 

      Early on, the movie feels like a giddy party that includes a major bash at Ivan’s home, trips to upscale clubs, romps on the beaches of Coney Island, and a stay at a luxurious Las Vegas hotel where Ivan is a regular customer. The characters take a deep dive into what seems to be an inexhaustible supply of drugs. 

       We're not sure what to make of it when Ivan proposes and the couple hurries through a Las Vegas wedding. Suddenly, Ani is living the dream, much to the envy of at least one of her former co-workers.

       We wait for the fall of the other shoe, the hard kick that will shatter Ani’s dreams, but Baker is too shrewd to crash the gates of formula. Instead, he turns Anora into a near-hysterical comedy, bringing a farcical tone to the increasingly wild proceedings.

     A time bomb ticks beneath the story’s surface. Ivan’s disapproving parents are about to arrive in New York to nullify their notoriously irresponsible son's marriage.  

     Enter a cohort of subservient family employees who, with Ani in tow, must locate the fleeing Ivan. He runs off without Ani at the suggestion that he’s about to be transported back to Russia. Sans Ivan, there can be no annulment.

       Included in this gaggle are an Armenian (Karen Karagulian) who works as the loyal family fixer and two henchmen (Vache Tovmasyan and Yura Borisov).  Hired as the muscle of the group, Borisov's Igor has a disarming soulful quality that throws us off guard.

       The Brighton bumblers fail to take Ani’s toughness into account. A scene in Ivan’s apartment turns into an explosive comic brawl in which Ani holds her own. Baker allows the scene to play out as the mayhem spirals out of control. 

        Eventually, Ivan’s father (Aleksey Serebryakov) and mother (Daryl Ekamasova) arrive in New York to retrieve their wayward son. Ivan's no-nonsense, steely mom makes no bones about asserting her authority. Ani isn't impressed. 

       Madison handles her role with bold confidence. She ignites sparks of humanity that keep Ani from becoming a caricature, and Baker continues his exploration of boisterous nihilistic situations that resist easy compartmentalization.

       Anora brings us into a tipsy, fascinating, ethnically specific world where Brooklyn funk and obscene amounts of money create an intoxicating mix that can be funny, bitter, and impressively true to itself. 

     

A semi-amusing helping of 'Venom'

    Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is still walking around with a creature incorporated into his body, a symbiotic alien that lives in harmony with its biological human host. By the time of the third installment of Venom: The Last Dance begins, the character of Venom has become a reliable sidekick who provides straight-man Brock with comic jabs. Venom also uses his superpowers to help Brock confront enemies. 

   So what else is up with the finale of this purported trilogy?  

    I’ll give you the short-form answer:

-- Venom: The Last Dance may be more enjoyable than its two predecessors, not a great achievement, but ...

-- Amusing scenes crop up when Brock encounters a wandering hippie family led by a guitar-playing dad (Rhys Ifans). The movie makes good use of Cat Stevens’s Wild World and even better use of David Bowie’s Space Oddity. -- Knull, the self-proclaimed "god of the void,"  introduces the story by informing us of his need for the codex, a MacGuffin that will release him from imprisonment. Any time I hear the word “codex,” my eyes glaze over. Last Dance earns no exemption.

-- At one point, Brock finds himself riding with Venom outside a jet that's bound for New York. And you thought your airline experience was bad.

-- Here's a discovery: Venom, the symbiote, likes to dance. In this case, he takes the floor with Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu), a character who has appeared in all the alien movies and who this time turns up playing the slots in Las Vegas. The song: Dancing Queen.

-- Chiwetel Ejiofor again adds seriousness as General Taylor, a solider who doesn’t like symbiotes. Seriousness in a movie such as this is like water polo in the Sahara. Misplaced.

-- Juno Temple joins the cast as a scientist who’s interested in befriending and studying symbiotes. Temple doesn’t have much to do. Perhaps she’s warming up for future movies.

-- Stephen Graham, who appeared in the previous Venom movie, is now a symbiote who’s being studied at a top secret military facility.

-- Kelly Marcel makes her directorial debut. She also wrote the screenplay, as well the screenplays for two previous Venom movies.

    -- Did I mention that creatures called Xenophages turn up? Not into fine dining, they try to feast on symbiotes. 

    -- The movie eventually loads up on action and turns sentimental about the relationship between Venom and the Brock. It didn't strike much of an emotional chord with me, but then I had no great fondness for the first two movies.

   If you’ve never tapped into this corner of Marvel world, you may want to sit Dance out. If you’re a fan, you’ll probably find a reasonably amusing conclusion to the trilogy.  

 And if you’re just interested in movie culture, you may want to know that more Venom movies probably loom -- even if Hardy takes a pass.

A look at the art of Alfred Hitchcock

Along with lots of others, I regard Alfred Hitchcock as one of cinema’s greatest directors, a wry genius who  merged the art of cinema with storytelling mastery. Few directors could match Hitchcock’s facility for filming interior spaces. Although he supposedly didn’t revere actors, he obtained great performances from Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Henry Fonda, and more.  The documentary My Name is Alfred Hitchcock quickly establishes itself as essential viewing for movie fans. Director Mark Cousins uses a novel idea to good advantage. Hitchcock, actually an unseen Alistair McGowan in a pitch-perfect impression, narrates the film with mischievous wit and intelligence. Cousins’ documentary includes clips from early films such as The Ring, as well as scenes from Vertigo, Spellbound, The Wrong Man, and Psycho. Cousins divides the movie into six sections: escape, desire, loneliness, time, fulfillment, and height. I’m not going to detail the analysis Cousins provides, but if you want to know how the great movie magician made his magic, My Name is Alfred Hitchcock will show you. Cousins relied on his knowledge of Hitchcock to create the illusion that Hitchcock was letting us in on his secrets -- and it works. My Name is Alfred Hitchcock makes a well-seasoned addition to the Hitchcock canon and an invitation to again return to Hitchcock's filmography.

Intrigue during a papal conclave

  It's hardly a surprise to watch a movie in which the selection of a new pope bristles with intrigue, personal ambition, and conflicting agendas, crosscurrents made more potent by their connection to ardently held beliefs. After all, cardinals are people, too.

   Basing his movie on a novel by Robert Harris, director Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front) slowly develops the movie's political maneuvering as conflict emerges between those who want to keep the Church on a liberal track and those who yearn for the rigidity of the past.

   Berger pays meticulous attention to detail and relies heavily on a terrific set of performances. As dean of the College of Cardinals, Ralph Fiennes' Cardinal Lawrence has been assigned the unenviable task of running the fractious conclave at which a pope will be elected.  Election requires a two-thirds majority.

  The role fits Fiennes, an actor capable of great precision,  perfectly. A man of balance, Lawrence sides with the liberals but tries to maintain neutrality. To add further complication, he's also in the midst of a personal crisis of faith. He also must fight off his own candidacy for a job he insists he doesn't want. Others are more transparent. 

    Other key players are Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci), an opponent of the constrictions of traditionalism, and  Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), a churchman who's unsettled by the rise of Third World cardinals. Tedesco wants the papacy returned to Italy -- with him as pope, of course. 

   Other cardinals include the Nigerian Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), an early frontrunner who, if elected, would become the first Black pontiff. Cardinal Tremblay (John Lithgow), a popular American, has his eye on the papal throne and makes no bones about it.

    Gradually, Cardinal Benitez from Kabul (Carlos Diehz) becomes a dark horse, an unknown who was a last-minute appointment by the late pope.     

    Essentially a movie about cloistered men, Conclave features Isabella Rossellini as Sister Agnes, a nun who reluctantly insinuates herself into the proceedings.

    Berger creates the same kind of interest found in the novel: We try to guess who'll emerge as the Church's leader. 

   Credit Berger and his team for creating first-class atmospherics -- both in terms of the movie's edgy score and a secluded church environment dominated by the proscribed behavior of ritual and majesty. 

    I had read Harris' novel and viewed its ending as more of a provocative punch line than a satisfying conclusion. The movie, which adheres closely to the novel,  has the same politically charged ending (no fair telling), and the third act tends to go a little over-the-top.

    By the end, the screenplay (by Harris and Peter Straughan) has expanded its thematic reach to a near  breaking point, but Conclave remains one of the most crisply acted and involving ensemble pieces of the year. 

 

John and Yoko go daytime

In 1972, I was living in New York City. I had a job and a family, and I didn’t have much time for daytime TV. If I ever knew, I’d forgotten that in February of that same year, John Lennon and Yoko Ono spent a week as the principal guests and co-hosts of the Mike Douglas Show, a popular daytime program that originated in Philadelphia. The documentary Daytime Revolution chronicles that week, highlighting how John and Yoko used the show to cast light on what then was dubbed  “the counterculture.” Guests, selected by John and Yoko, included Jerry Rubin, Bobby Seale, and Ralph Nader. At times, the documentary plays like a greatest hits version of the early 70s counterculture that includes segments in which Chuck Berry — the show’s highlight guest — not only performs Memphis, Tennessee with John but provides unlikely help with a bit on macrobiotic cooking. Hey, seeing is believing. Directed by Erik Nelson, the one-hour and 48-minute documentary can feel oddly dated, which is another way of saying it reflects the odd juxtapositions that sometimes cropped up during the 1970s. Douglas, who sang with an easy-listening voice and who conducted his show with non-confrontational ease, still feels like a strange pairing with John and Yoko. Contemporary interviews offer perspective as Daytime Revolution cements its status as a cultural curio. And, yes, it's moving to watch John, who was 31 at the time, sing Imagination.