What -- if anything -- 'Melania' reveals

    Yes, I’ve seen it. And, no, I probably don’t need tell you what I’m talking about.

    By any critical standards I’m familiar with, I’ll tell you that Melania isn’t much of a documentary; it's more like a plush Life Styles of the Rich and Famous episode that bleeds into a chorus of booming triumphalism centering on Trump’s inauguration. The movie covers 20 days preceding Trump's second ascendance to the Oval Office.

    Because Melania produced the film, it’s fair to assume that it tells a story that she wanted to tell. It's no off-the-rack effort but one that gives her a well-appointed showcase. This is the version of Melania she wants viewers to see. And, yes, it’s a pretty picture, life under glass.

    To begin with, the movie introduces the Slovenian-born former model as a detail-oriented arbiter of taste when it comes to fashion, a collar that’s too low or a dress that’s not tight enough in the right places. She doesn't put on clothes; she's dressed by others.

    The early parts of the film focus on matters such as Melania’s plans for the pre-inaugural dinner and for moving back into the White House. She’s shown talking to designers, event planners, and others who play a role in realizing a vision she sees as her own. It’s as if she’s creating a fantasy of elegant abundance.

    Her vision seems grounded in style, not conviction, or maybe it's a case of style becoming conviction. 

     Given the film’s plush trappings — none of it to my taste — it feels fair to say that the tone can be nearly imperial, or someone's idea of what that might be. Caviar served in a gold-colored egg at a dinner stands as one emblem of frivolous indulgence. 

   Given the ornate quality of Trump’s apartment in Manhattan’s Trump Tower, where some of the movie takes place, it’s difficult not to think that Melania is  aiming for a 21st century Versailles vibe.

     Wherever she finds herself, Melania demonstrates a thorough lack of informality. Her towering heels and high-beam smile are treated as statements. Should she venture outside, I wondered whether the wind would be allowed to touch her hair.

     The only person who seems to have escaped a glamor makeover is Aviva Siegel, a former Israeli hostage, who meets with Melania in hopes that the incoming Trump administration will help free her husband, still a captive at the time.

     At 55, Melania’s face, often seen in close-ups, reveals little. We never see the kind of casual grimace or winking expression that might have made her more relatable, the sort of things you’d find in a film less obviously dedicated to image buffing. 

     Or maybe what we see is the real Melania, which might be even more disconcerting.

      The movie reminded me of a professor of mine who once said that the subscribers to high-end yachting magazines were not the people who could afford to buy yachts. They were folks who wanted to dream, to peep behind the curtain that separates the coolers-on-the-beach crowd from the those with real money.

     Causes? There are a few. Melania says that she’s dedicated to helping children, and we see her Zoom calling Brigitte Macron, wife of the French president, to ask for support. She meets in person with Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan to discuss issues. Her concerns are broadly expressed, online bullying of kids, for example. 

    What we don’t see is Melania rubbing elbows with kids who need help or visiting facilities where such help is offered. 

    Melania attends Jimmy Carter’s funeral with the incoming president but spends most of the time delivering a voice-over narration about the pain of losing her mother. Carter’s funeral occurred on the one-year anniversary of Melania’s mother’s death, so she’s understandably motivated to remember her mom. But didn't Carter or the grief his family might be experiencing deserve a passing nod?

      Trump? Remember him? 

      He’s a supporting player until the end when the film bathes him triumphal light. To me, Trump, who habitually pumps a clenched fist as a sign of victory, looks out of place in Melania's vision. He jokes about leaving a big tip for workers at Blair House, where he and Melania spend the night before the inauguration. He breaks out his smile when he's posing for group photos, as if responding to a cue.

      The use of pop music by director Brett Ratner (songs ranging from the obvious YMCA, to James Brown’s It’s a Man’s World, to Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean, to Aretha Franklin’s version of Amazing Grace) struck me as self-conscious needle drops designed to goose an often dull film to life.

      Lip service is paid to American ideals such as individual rights, but the film doesn’t feel small "d'' democratic. It creates an impenetrable world. 

     Increasingly arduous at one hour and 43 minutes, Melania felt to me as if it were unfolding in an alternate reality, one in which Melania is always ready for her close-ups, where people travel only in motorcades or private jets, where St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York closes so Melania can light a candle for her mother, and where life takes on the  polished sheen of a coffee-table book. Whatever you do, don't spill coffee on the pages that have been strategically left open to create whatever impression Ratner wants to convey.

     All presidents and First Ladies do some role-playing when it comes to presenting themselves as ordinary people, plain folks who'd be happy to put their feet up in your living room. That may be another kind of sham, but I prefer it to this helping of helping of gold-plated pomp.

     Enough. The one thing the film inspired me to do was to move on having already spent enough time considering Melania and her vision.*

*I struggled with myself about whether even to see the film, which wasn't screened in advance for critics. My reluctance derived from some of the same reasons I avoid most faith-based movies. They're not made for me, and they're likely to appeal to people who don't distinguish between criticism of the movie and criticism of their faith. I plunged ahead because Melania wound up being widely reviewed and because it became a news story. And, yes, I'm aware that it occasioned a snark festival of major proportions. A movie made by a public figure about herself isn't like other films, and I know of no one who expected that the movie’s self-serving veil would be lifted for objectivity or insightful perspective. Melania wasn’t going to trip over those high heels. But I saw the film and reacted to it as best I could. That's all I knew how to do.

No paradise on this tropical island

 Avoiding almost all suggestions of glamor, Rachel McAdams headlines director Sam Raimi's Send Help, a boldly entertaining mashup of horror, comedy, and survival adventure. 

 Raimi (The Evil Dead and three Spider-Man movies) begins by introducing McAdams' Linda to a rotten rich-kid boss (Dylan O'Brien). O’Brien’s Bradley has taken over the company where Linda works after the death of his father, the previous CEO. There goes the promotion Linda had been promised.

    Despite rejecting her for a VP job, Bradley invites Linda to join his boys-only executive team on a private flight to Bangkok. She's supposed to crunch numbers for an impending merger while the men guzzle champagne and make fun of her.

    To augment Linda' s torment, the men watch a tape one of them found online. It's Linda's audition for Survivor, a show she watches religiously. The video cracks them up, but not for long. The private jet comes apart in a vividly presented crash sequence, and, lo, boss and Linda are stranded on a desert island in the Gulf of Thailand. The others — so obnoxious we hardly care — don't survive the crash.

   On the island, the script flips. The injured Bradley finds himself dependent on Linda, whose survival skills are real. Hungry for protein, she kills a wild boar (CGI), an encounter that leaves her splattered with the beast’s flesh and blood, not the last time the movie happily challenges those who might be squeamish.

   It's clear that this is the moment Linda was made for. She's finally getting a chance to exact revenge on a world that scorned her for eating tuna fish sandwiches at her desk (too smelly) and making no attempt to elevate her fashion style: office frump. Why wouldn't Linda want payback for humiliations inflicted by a boss who finds her repulsive?

    From the start, Raimi commits to a movie that takes a variety of surprising turns while bypassing sentiment. At times, Bradley and Linda seem to be coexisting but sinister twists await. Their relationship has a seesaw quality, friendly, then hostile.

   The movie itself proves canny: Sure, it includes some devilish behavior and sometimes revels in its twisted ways. I found it hard not to laugh at a scene involving projectile vomiting. But Raimi smartly wraps the story in a glossy, mainstream package that can be inviting, even reassuring. It's almost as if Raimi doesn't want the movie to tumble into a niche ditch.

    Some of the movie's reveals won't surprise seasoned viewers, but Raimi concludes with a sly  crowd-pleasing coda that serves as a giddy exclamation point to all that preceded it. Makes sense, Raimi concocts an upbeat ending for a movie that might have been unbearable had it taken itself more seriously.

A boy's time travel adventure

French illustrator Ugo Bienvenu's Arco tells an  environmentally conscious story that follows 10-year-old Arco through a time-travel trip. Arco leaves a calm, futuristic world, heading backward into a more turbulent 2075. The story follows a basic adventure arc: Arco (Juliano Krue Valdi) has yet to turn 12, the age at which time travel is allowed. Sensing he may have gotten more than he bargained for, Arco tries to return home. Once he arrives in the past, Arco meets Iris (Romy Fay), a girl who becomes his companion and helpmate. Natalie Portman, one of the movie's producers, Mark Ruffalo, and Will Ferrell provide additional voice work, but the movie's real star is Bienvenu, whose imaginative creations include bubble shields that protect the suburban neighborhoods of 2075 from toxic fumes and raging fires. Iris's parents are so busy working, they rely on holographic figures to interact with their kids. A robot named Mikki handles the family's parenting chores. Despite environmental threats, Arco's overall mood lacks the caustic sting of many futuristic adventures. Nominated for an Oscar in the animated-feature category, the film -- Bienvenu's first -- layers emotion into the relationship between Arco and Iris, which anchors the story in the language of more conventional animated efforts. Still, a high level of craftsmanship bolsters Bienvenu's efforts, adding plenty of artistic uplift.

Statham strikes again in 'Shelter'

    Jason Statham has become a brand. The British actor has become so associated with tough-guy action that some fans refer to his movies without mentioning titles. A Statham picture is good enough, as someone at a preview screening described the phenomenon.

   Shelter, Statham's latest, finds him playing a bearded loner who lives in an abandoned lighthouse on a tiny rock pile of an island in the Scottish Hebrides. Statham's Michael Mason drinks vodka, wanders about with his dog, and plays chess games with himself. 

   If you know Statham movies, you can bet he'll soon be on the move.

   A series of early contrivances put Statham's Mason on the run with 13-year-old Jesse (Bodhi Rae Breathnach). Circumstances make him the girl's lone protector.  

   A former Special Forces assassin, Mason was part of a super-secret group called Black Kite. When Mason refused to assassinate a good guy, he went into hiding. An agency ally with computer skills (Daniel Mays) hacked the system and faked Mason's death. But the moment Mason leaves the island, his foes will know he's still alive. He'll become a target, and one with "baggage," as he puts it. 

    The baggage, of course, is Jesse, who found herself on the island when her uncle's boat stopped to deliver supplies. She nearly drowned trying to leave, but Mason saved her. The uncle didn't survive a vicious storm that sank his boat.

   The supporting cast includes Bill Nighy as Manafort, Mason's former boss and the man who most wants him eliminated. Naomi Ackie, who plays an uncorrupted MI6 officer.  Harriet Walter takes a turn as the British Prime Minister, a character as crooked as Nighy's Manafort. 

  Waugh (Angel Has Fallen, Greenland, and Greenland 2: Migration) loads the screen with fights, gunplay, and assorted examples of genre violence that build up the movie's prodigious body count.

   I guess you could say that Statham and Breathnach give the movie some heart, but relentless action rules with Mason adhering to the school of heroism that says little, fires many bullets, and proves inventive with anything that's available to be used as a weapon. When an industrial-strength chain fells one of Mason's foes, much of the audience applauded.

   Nothing much else to add here, other than to reinforce the notion that Shelter demonstrates its competence at delivering what's expected of it -- if not much more.

    

Suspicion overwhelms a psychiatrist

 

   Speaking fluent French, Jodie Foster plays an American-born psychiatrist embroiled in a mystery set in Paris, the city where she lives and works. Directed by Rebecca Zlotowski, A Private Life strikes many seductively smart notes as it follows Foster's Lilian Steiner, a character whose inner life becomes increasingly apparent to us -- if not always to her.

   Emotionally controlled and guarded, Lilian suspects that one of her patients (Virginie Efira) was murdered by her husband (Mathieu Amalric). Could Lilian's suspicions be a cover for her inability to listen carefully? Did she miss something vital about Efira's Paula, whose death was ruled a suicide?

     As she explores the possibility of foul play, Lilian begins an atypical journey — at least for her: She begins playing detective, eventually enlisting help from her ex-husband (Daniel Auteuil). Maybe the truth can't be discovered on a psychiatrist's couch.

    A well-paired Auteuil and Foster sometimes seem to be playing a farce, revealing themselves to be rank amateurs when it comes to solving crimes.

    It's not always easy to determine what Zlotowski has in mind as she mixes thriller tones, comedy, serious drama, and at times, absurdity. 

    At one point, for example, Lilian -- not a likely person to believe in reincarnation -- spins a wild fantasy about her grown son's former life as a Nazi supporter during World War II, an odd display of imagination considering that Lilian and all the members of her immediate family are Jewish. 

    Lilian's loss of control becomes apparent early. After learning of her patient's death, she begins to shed tears. She visits Auteuil's Gabriel; conveniently, he's an ophthalmologist. Gabriel's ability to help people see (literally) contrasts with Lilian’s ability to apply the same skill -- at least metaphorically.

    An encounter with a hypnotist (Sophie Guillemin) makes for a diverting scene. Lilian tries hypnotism to cure her of the involuntary tears that roll down her face. It’s inaccurate to call it “crying” because Lilian’s tears seem disconnected from any emotional state.

    Lilian learned about the hypnotist from an irate patient (Noam Morgensztern), who insists that he's wasted money on therapy after the hypnotist helped him stop smoking with one visit. So much for eight years of analysis, not the only swipe the movie takes at Freudian psychoanalysis.

    Working from a screenplay she co-wrote with Anne Berest and Gaelle Mace, Zlotowski adds an element that points to Lilian's ability to wall herself off from her patients. She records all her sessions on an outdated mini-disc system, allowing the discs to do the work of note-taking and perhaps dulling her attention.

    It's wonderful to see Auteuil (Manon of the Springs and Jean de Florette) as a devoted former husband who never totally lost his love for his wife. He creates a character who handles himself with wit and intelligence. Foster and Auteuil generate appealing chemistry as they flirt with the idea of renewing their characters' relationship. 

   A Private Life stands as a bit of an oddity, a film that's alternately involving, amusing, and, at times, confounding in its attempts to play in so many different registers. The movie's complexity can become a puzzle that feels unsolved, but Zlotowski, Foster, and a distinctive supporting cast create pieces that amuse, intrigue, and keep the story percolating.

A five-year-old's heartbreaking story

  

  Whatever you think about what has happened and is happening in Gaza, you'd do well to consider The Voice of Hind Rajab, Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania's dramatic reenactment of the true story of a five-year-old girl who was trapped in a car in the midst of fighting.

  Hind Rajab and members of her family -- an aunt, uncle, and cousins -- had been trying to escape Gaza City when their vehicle was hit by tank shells during operations that took place in January of 2024. 

    For much of her ordeal, Hind -- surrounded by a total of six already dead relatives -- was on the phone with volunteers at the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, the organization that aids people in need of emergency medical services and other forms of assistance. 

  Hania wisely focuses on the call center where volunteers, often frustrated and angry, try to reassure Hind. The film makes no attempt to reconstruct what happened in the car, relying on the often plaintive voice of a frightened five-year-old to convey the emotional impact of what's happening.

  The complexity of organizing a rescue was no simple task. Red Crescent workers had to consider whether ambulance drivers had a reasonable chance of surviving in a war zone. An ambulance was eight minutes away from Hind, but time meant less than the battlefield obstacles the ambulance drivers would face. 

   Attendant bureaucratic issues involving the need for Israeli approval for the ambulance to enter a combat zone added another level of anxiety. Moreover, the volunteers don't always agree on the most effective way to proceed.

  Recordings of Hind's phone call were posted online almost immediately after she was stranded. Her story received considerable media attention, so it's hardly a spoiler to say that the movie reaches a heartbreaking conclusion for her and for the two paramedics who tried to save her.

  Although Hania's movie takes place in one setting, it's deftly assembled, and a strong cast recreates the intense efforts of harried volunteers who remind us that innocence, even that of a child, offers no protection from the violence of war. 

The Voice of Hind Rajab has been nominated for an Oscar in the best international feature category along with Sirat, The Secret Agent, It Was Just an Accident, and Sentimental Value.

'Mercy': Lost in a digital daze

   In the movie Mercy, Rebecca Ferguson portrays a character named Judge Maddox, an AI creation that operates with algorithmic rigidity.

   Mercy benefits from a bit of topicality as it tries to determine whether AI is capable of gathering data, assessing facts, and determining the probability of guilt or innocence faster and better than any jury could. 

    Considering its attempts to be thematically weighty, it's disappointing that Mercy quickly devolves into one more scattershot thriller. A potentially rich premise becomes an excuse for a fragmented, digitally enriched collection of familiar plot elements and intermittent action.

    Shackled to a chair throughout most of the movie, Chris Pratt plays Chris Raven, a Los Angeles cop accused of murdering his wife (Annabelle Wallis). Given 90 minutes to prove his innocence, Raven has access to all the information Mercy, the movie's digital justice system, has gathered.

    Aside from an understandable desire to avoid execution after his 90 minutes expire, Raven wants to convince his teenage daughter (Kylie Rogers) that he didn't murder her mother.

    Director Timur Bekmambetov, working from a screenplay by Marco van Belle, uses Raven's agitated inquiries to weave his way through segments that provide hurried tours of Raven's troubled marriage, his alcoholism, and his troubles with anger management. 

     The plot also loads up on red herrings, introducing the possibility of massive damage thanks to stolen chemicals, a potential bomb attack, and the revenge-seeking suspects who populate an overly complicated plot.

    Mercy unfolds in a near future that includes flying motorcycles and assorted techno junk. A crime-riddled Los Angeles has been divided into sectors where the city's law-abiding residents are separated from those who might threaten them. Just what we needed, more dystopia.

     Watching the immobilized Pratt act from a chair from which Raven sees the judge and the projections the system shows him eventually becomes repetitive. Most of the time, Raven seems to be sifting through evidence to prove his innocence. It almost feels as if he's watching the same movie we are -- only he squirms more than we do.

    Themes about the oppositional struggle between AI and humans are swallowed by a plot that relies on a surfeit of twists that feel arbitrarily introduced during the movie's third act, which suggests that maybe humanity and AI can coexist.

    Neither gut instinct nor logical rigor is required to conclude that Mercy, which moves quickly through its 100-minute running time, squanders its chance to be taken seriously.

         

A grieving academic and a hawk

    In H is for Hawk, Claire Foy plays a grieving woman who adopts a goshawk as a way of reconnecting with nature, and, just as important, avoid a return to the normalcy of life before her father's sudden death.

    Director Philippa Lowthorpe bases her movie on a well-recieved memoir by Helen Macdonald. Lowthorpe's story requires Foy's Helen, an academic studying and teaching at Cambridge, to spend much of the movie carrying the hawk while wearing a cumbersome protective glove. 

   When the hawk, though tethered to Helen's arm, flaps her wings, a sense of nature's uncontrollability becomes palpably present. Hawks are natural-born hunters, and much of the movie involves Helen's attempts to allow the bird, which she names Mabel, to hunt before returning to its perch on her arm.

   I've read that bird specialists were used and that numerous hawks were employed for the filming, but that doesn't make the feat any less impressive. Maybe it's just my skittishness, but I felt a sense of imminent danger, as if the hawk might strike at any moment. 

    Added emotional weight derives from Helen's slide into a severe depression that cuts her off from her academic life and turns her into a bit of a recluse. She shares her apartment with Mabel. Her Cambridge colleagues don't always approve. Some are indifferent. Some do their best to indulge her passion.

   Helen understands that goshawks aren't affectionate creatures. Still, she develops a connection, perhaps one-sided, with the bird. 

    Wisely, Foy makes little attempt to ingratiate herself with viewers. The movie's warmth is generated in large part by Brendan Gleeson, who appears in flashbacks as Helen's idiosyncratic news photographer father. His love for his daughter includes chiding humor and acceptance. Clearly, the two operate on the same wavelength.

   A strong supporting cast includes Lindsay Duncan as Helen's mother, Josh Dylan as her brother, and Denise Gough as Helen's devoted friend.  

    And, of course, there's Mabel. 

   Lowthorpe captures the liberating beauty of Mable in flight, but never loses sight of the fact that the relationship between Mable and Helen contains an element of unease. That edginess allows the movie to sidestep any sentiment that might have undermined the sense of irreparable loss, which the movie ably captures and sustains.

 

A three-part take on family relations

 

  Director Jim Jarmusch's Father Mother Sister Brother offers a trio of short films, each with the texture and open-ended quality of a carefully crafted short story. 

   Avoiding big events and shocking plot twists, Jarmusch smartly explores situations that invite us to consider the unseen past that informs nearly every moment. 

  Jarmusch begins in New Jersey, where two siblings (Adam Driver and Mayim Bialik) visit their widowed father (Tom Waits), who lives in an isolated home at the end of a dirt road.

   Little is said, but much is suggested. Awkwardness prevails.

   Dad, for example, has a sizable collection of serious books but doesn’t seem particularly interested in ideas. Dad's house is disheveled, suggesting Dad isn't financially flush. Driver's Jeff has sent Dad money. Bialik's Emily once sent funds. When her husband objected, she stopped.

   Jarmusch saves a revealing flourish for the end, and we begin to sense a theme: Family ties persist, but it's unclear how much anyone ever knows anyone else. We feel the strain of situations in which everyone seems a bit trapped by the roles they think they should be playing, or maybe they use these roles as a method of concealment.

  That idea carries into the next episode, which takes place in Dublin. Charlotte Rampling portrays a successful author who's about to be visited by her two daughters (Cate Blanchett and Vicky Krieps). Once a year, they all gather for tea, a ritual the three seem to approach warily. Still, they do as expected.

   A woman of precise expression, Mom has carefully organized the table with carefully arranged small  cakes. We sense she may have been a mother who held her kids to high standards, the kind that result either in intimidation or rebellion. 

   Again the conversations are strained, the performances, revealing. Blanchett's Timothea appears timid and insecure; Krieps' Lilith behaves more freely, yet she lies about her accomplishments and relationships. 

   The last episode takes place in Paris. The discomfort of the previous episodes gives way to a more natural flow. Billy (Luka Sabbat) and Skye (Indya Moore) play twins who meet in Paris after their parents die in a plane crash. 

   Dad was flying a small plane in the Azores. Billy wonders if their parents might have survived had Mom been at the controls instead of Dad. Clearly, the twins have ideas about their parents' personalities. Whatever caused the crash, we sense that Mom and Dad approached life as adventurers.

    Billy and Skye have been apart for a while, but they know each other in the way only twins can. They're relaxed in each other's company, freely expressing affection.

    But did they know their late parents? Mom was white; Dad was Black. The twins let us know that their parents had a penchant for being unconventional, but they're seem to be talking about style. They were, after all, a couple who left the US for what they may have seen as the freedom of Paris.

   We also learn that Billy cleared the apartment where the twins grew up before Skye's arrival: The  mementos of the past have been sent to storage, perhaps to be forgotten. When the twins visit the apartment, it's empty. The emptiness feels poignant.

   Rich in subtexts that illuminate the gap between parents and their adult children, each episode includes a touch that's repeated throughout. Among them: mentions of Rolex watches (real or fake) or use of the British idiomatic phrase "Bob's your uncle," which means something like, "Well, that's that." 

   Father Mother Sister Brother begins with Anika Henderson's rendition of the song, Spooky, a great mood setter for a movie that serves as a welcome antidote for the frenetic rush that characterizes so many current movies, even the good ones. 

   Jarmusch, who hasn't made a film since 2019's The Dead Don't Die, doesn't hurry or dot every "i." He doesn't hide behind ambiguities but leaves it to us to search for the complicated history that underlies each of the movie's mini-dramas.