No hero worship in this 'Robin Hood'

 There's revisionism, and then there's revisionism writ so large that its undermining of expectation becomes a distraction. 

  That's how I felt about director Michael Sarnoski's The Death of Robin Hood, a movie that shreds the Robin Hood myth while asking us to acknowledge the gulf between reality and the stories we tell to mask its brutalities. Five minutes into the unrelieved grimness Sarnoski creates, and you may  find yourself hoping for a bit of illusion.

    Sarnoski, who directed Nicolas Cage as an isolated former chef in Pig, again takes us to a place where possibilities for redemption seem remote, perhaps impossible. This Robin Hood, played by a bearded, grizzled Hugh Jackman, insists that all the stories told about him are fabrications. He sees himself as a thief who terrorized people and killed for the fun of it, more criminal than lovable rogue.

    Sarnoski and cinematographer Pat Scola keep the movie's palette dark and grim, so much so that when sunlight appears, we realize we've lost touch with any form of warmth. Also missing is the verdant foliage of Sherwood Forest. Robin and the other characters are consigned to mud-caked struggles staged on rocky, forbidding landscapes. 

    A tone of brutal realism paves the way for a slender story that introduces us to Little John (Bill Skarsgard). A man devoted to Robin, John has been thwarted in his attempt to lead a normal life with a wife and kids. Margaret (Faith Delaney), one of John's children will figure in the plot when, late in the picture, she looks to Robin for help.

     To hide themselves from foes, Robin and Little John assume aliases. Robin becomes Randolph. Little John tried to lead a straight life as Edward.

    As it turns out, Robin's rampant carnage has left him with a string of revenge seekers, most of them relatives of those he viciously dispatched. In an early battle to recover John's home from invading outlaws,  Robin is badly wounded. 

    After the mayhem, Little John deposits Robin at an island priory and pretty much disappears from the movie.  Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer), a woman with healing powers, presides over the priory where displaced folks seem to have gathered. 

    The spiritual glow of Comer's character reinforces the notion that there's more at stake for Robin than flesh wounds.  He has so damaged his soul that cruelty no longer makes an impression on him. A damaged leg has left him a dead man limping.

      At the priory, Robin also meets a leper (Murray Bartlett), who seems to have a preternatural understanding of Robin's struggle. Struggle may be too strong a word because Jackman makes it seem as if Robin already knows that he's doomed himself. He has slaughtered his own humanity.

      Sarnoski, who also wrote the screenplay, can't embed all his themes in a dramatically evolving way. They sometimes protrude in dialogue like arrows fired by Robin into his victims' heads.  

     Of course, we know where the movie is headed. Sarnoski stages Robin's death scene with poetic gravity and hints of grace. No spoiler here. It would have been the ultimate cheat if Robin didn't die in a movie entitled The Death of Robin Hood.

     Late-picture attempts to show a growing attachment between Robin and Margaret arrive in a low-key fashion that dims optimism for any huge turnaround. As much as possible, Robin responds, helping to make a bow for the child and teaching her how to skin small animals. 

    He also makes an unexpected choice with regard to a  young man (Noah Jupe) who turns up at the priori, looking to avenge the killings inflicted by Robin and Little John on his family during another display of unholy wrath.

    The movie treats its cutthroat Robin with a bit of ambiguity at the end, but for most of the movie, a resigned Robin twists impassively on the spit on which his soul roasts.

    Robin's self-awareness precludes the kind of inner struggle that might have given the movie more spark.  Robin knows he's doomed from the start, a man consumed by a life without conscience, constraint, or compassion. 

     So rather than a drama about a man reckoning with his history, the movie becomes a lugubrious dirge for a man who never was a hero, as well as for the myths that we consume to dull the edges of our own troubling encounters with reality.

    That's a potentially rich idea, but there's monotony in Sarnoski's unrelenting bleakness. Sarnoski tries so hard to give the movie thematic depth that his characters are imprisoned by the concepts the movie considers. This Robin Hood is so defeated by the weight of his past, he might as well be wrapped in a shroud.

      

    

      

A renewed 'Toy Story 5' pleases

 

  Toy Story 5 manages to keep Pixar's animated franchise from slipping into irrelevance, no small feat considering the first Toy Story movie appeared 31 years ago. 

  This edition renews the franchise by expanding the role of cowgirl heroine Jessie (Joan Cusack) and also presenting her with a love interest, Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen). It’s not too early to think about wedding gifts.

  A comforting story arc again underscores the assertion that beloved toys provide kids with much-needed emotional support. Shy girl Bonnie (Scarlett Spears), a veteran of films three and four, doesn’t know how to make friends, partly because she's stuck in the stage where Jessie remains a big part of her world.

  To make the movie more topical, Pixar's latest pits toys against tablets, old-school playthings vs. electronic devices that dominate kids' attention and encourage solitary play. 

   Directors McKenna Harris and Andrew Stanton, the duo that also wrote the screenplay, argue that toys can become the building blocks of world-creating experiences that kids can share.

   The time,Woody (Tom Hanks) does supporting duty while Greta Lee gives voice to a pivotal new character,  Lilypad, a frog-shaped device that's supposed to open the gateway for Bonnie to become more attuned to present trends. 

    To further up the ante, the screenplay adds a brigade of Buzz Lightyears and a variety of new characters, notably Smarty Pants (Conan O'Brien), a tablet whose name defines him. 

     Now, this being Pixar, don't expect all-out war; it hardly qualifies as a spoiler to tell you that the tech toys eventually learn to play nice with their retro predecessors. Detente looms.

     Before that can happen, the push to bring Bonnie into a new high-tech world forces Jessie again to deal with abandonment issues, another franchise favorite.

     Her first owner ditched her. But Jessie has enough spunk and agency — not to mention the help of a few plot twists — to arrive at the home of Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris), a girl who appreciates toys and shares Jessie's love of imagination. 

      Blaze also collects toy horses, a lucky break because the horses gallop into the third act, and Jessie's devoted steed, Bullseye, accompanies her on her adventures. Blaze’s friendship with Bonnie will bring like-minded kids together.

   Much is made of the way toys, even favorites, often wind up in storage as children age. Higher-tech toys fare no better as they hurtle toward their own fast-approaching expiration dates.

    The moral:  Kids change as they grow, and toys of all kinds meet them at just the right moment.

   I'm not sure there's a right moment for more Toy Story sequels, but the aim here might have something to do with hooking a new generation of viewers. This helping of Toy Story feels pitched toward younger audiences. If I were to guess, I'd say 12 might be the upper limit.

    But there's nothing that will pain the adults who accompany kids, and Toy Story 5 earns its place as a surprisingly pleasing addition to the franchise.

     

                                                                                                                                         

    

This martial arts movie kicks butt

 I can't say I've been eagerly hoping for another martial arts movie. After a string of John Wick movies, I thought I'd had enough. It didn't take long, though, for me to get caught up in the preposterously exaggerated action of The Furious, a movie that begins by telling us that it's set "somewhere in South East Asia." That may sound generic, but so what? The precise location doesn't matter because The Furious isn’t about geography, it’s about punch-and-kick action. A threadbare plot -- children are kidnapped and trafficked by sneering villains -- becomes a launch pad for what amounts to a nonstop helping of fighting. Director Kenji Tanigaki, who did some of the design work for John Wick: Chapter 4, has a field day as he follows Wang Wei (Xie Miao), a mute handyman who tries to rescue his kidnapped daughter. Eventually, Wang Wei teams with Navin (Joe Taslim), a husband who's investigating the disappearance of his wife, a journalist who tried to expose the kidnappers. Marked by inventive fight choreography, and outsized villains, The Furious offers an opportunity to delight in the ways that Tanigaki ups the ante with each successive fight.  For the record, Xie, who appeared in Jet Li movies as a child, practices Wushu style martial arts. Taslim focuses on Judo and once belonged to the Indonesian National Judo Team. OK, those aren't Actors Studio credentials, but both of these stars are masters of the art of acrobatic showmanship the movie boldly displays. Ouch!

Aliens visit Spielberg again

 

 In a recent interview, Steven Spielberg said that if anyone deserves to have a close encounter with aliens, it’s him. Who, after all, has done more to prompt interest in extraterrestrial visitors with big-screen movies that lend a magical aura to the notion that Earth already has hosted interplanetary guests? For me, Close Encounters of the Third Kind leads Spielberg's alien-picture pack.

    But Spielberg is not a philosopher or, as far as I know, a geek who’s in love with astrophysics; he’s an entertainer and storyteller who operates in the old Hollywood tradition, using his considerable prowess to serve up gripping narratives that have mass appeal. At his best, Spielberg delivers pop-cultural implants that can buoy fatigued spirits.

    This brings us to Disclosure Day, Spielberg’s latest foray into alien visitation, this one brimming with a message that aliens — seen but not freshly imagined — are healers who come to Earth to spread a conciliatory message.    

    The movie tells us that the human capacity for empathy has more to do with evolutionary progress than brute force. We've forgotten how to listen to one another, to feel one another's sorrows. Precisely why alien life forms would want to offer their help to beleaguered earthlings remains unclear.

   There’s little point in arguing against Spielberg’s case, advanced with obviousness in David Koepp's screenplay. But Disclosure Day is more than a lecture; it's a scattered collection of intrigue-laden bits that sing a familiar song: A corporate/military cabal tries to stifle individuals who want to spread the truth about alien visitations. They've been happening since the last century and maybe even before that  -- or so the movie says.

     It’s instructive to note that I’m writing more about Spielberg than about the characters in Disclosure Day. That may be because, aside from Emily Blunt’s portrayal of an aspiring TV journalist who feels stuck in a weather person’s job — the characters tend to be the kind of archetypal figures a schematic story needs.

    The list includes the scowling corporate boss (Colin Firth) of Wardex, the company that insists humanity must be protected from knowledge of alien visitors lest chaos erupt. Math whiz Danny (Josh O’Connor) defects from 

Wardex, having realized that knowledge about aliens belongs to everyone.

    Tag-along characters include Danny's girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson), a former novitiate who left convent life. Jane thinks Danny must be stopped because the truth might undermine faith in God, thus rendering life meaningless for believers. Jane conveniently presents an opportunity for Spielberg to accomplish a feat that has eluded others; the melding of science and faith.

     Faith puts man in the center of God’s gaze on Earth, but who’s to say that that gaze isn’t wider than the faithful presume? Put another way, maybe God made ET, too.

    The faults in Disclosure Day are not with the film’s making, but with a screenplay that’s bound to ideas expressed with a heavy hand and which tamp down the movie's sense of mystery. 

    Sometimes, the film seems to rehash familiar Spielberg tropes. Blunt’s Margaret and O’Connor’s Daniel are deeply influenced by signature events from their youths, childhood in Margaret’s case. They've been touched (or perhaps selected) by aliens as possible carriers of the messages. Both Danny and Margaret are being driven by forces they don't understand, but which they feel compelled to follow, shades of the character Richard Dreyfuss played in Close Encounters.

     Early in Margaret’s hectic Kansas City life as a weather forecaster, a cardinal flies through the window of the loft she shares with her partner (Wyatt Russell ). Margaret’s capabilities are transformed. She can speak languages she never studied. Equally important, she can enter the minds of strangers, grasping their feelings with uncanny accuracy. 

   A scene in which Margaret applies her new skills when pulled over by a cop brilliantly brings the matter to life. Delivering dialogue at breakneck speed, Blunt makes the whole business credible. Margaret's abilities go public during a TV broadcast in which she begins speaking in strange clicks. Her colleagues think she's lost it. We take it as a sign that she’s channeling an alien language. 

    The movie’s design features a hand-held alien device Wardex has snagged; it allows people to appear in different places at the same time and to penetrate and manipulate others. Never mind how it works; it also can turn on power when generators are shut down, a universal remote of sorts.

    The dangers of unwanted intrusions are obvious, which partly explains why Wardex renegade Hugo (Colman Domingo) has organized a clandestine opposition to the company and why Danny made off with evidence of horrible abuse of aliens and other solid proofs that of earthly alien existence. Humanity has been deceived.

      Hugo and his team even reconstruct Margaret's childhood home so that she can reconnect with a signature event in her childhood, cloaking the whole business with a bit of pop psychology, something about returning home before being able to move forward.

     Spielberg’s magic touch can be felt sporadically, but too much of Disclosure Day functions as a sci-fi procedural that espouses lofty ideas about how humanity might save itself from conflict, one of which simmers in the background as tensions between the US and Russia mount.

     Don't get the wrong impression. Disclosure is far from awful. It's just not up to Spielberg's best. Spielberg’s undeniable skills are well displayed. Blunt’s performance has a distinctive edge. And, if nothing else, skeptics can giggle quietly, if by the end, they haven't been convinced to take the whole business seriously.

      So, yes, greatness eludes Disclosure, and for all its supposed weighty themes, the best thing about it involves a mismatched battle between a red car and a speeding train. We're talking down-to-earth action that makes the pulse pound in ways the movie's headier aspects don't. Spielberg’s skill at concocting this action wowed me more than the movie's benevolent aliens.

Bob's Cinema Diary: 'Unidentified' and 'The Currents'

Two new movies deal with women struggling on their own -- albeit with very different issues. The Saudi movie Unidentified focuses on Noelle, a woman who lost a child shortly after its birth, a tragedy that colors everything that follows. Made in Argentina, The Currents takes us into a middle-class milieu where a fashion designer's life seems to be coming apart at the seams. Both movies are deliberately paced, but each illuminates the life of a woman trying to cope (or not) with very different social circumstances.

Unidentified

In Unidentified, Saudi director Haifaa al-Mansour (Wadjda) follows a newly divorced woman (Mila Al-Zahrani) as she searches for the killer of a young woman who, early in the movie, turns up dead. A fan of crime podcasts, Al-Zahrani's Noelle feels wronged by her ex-husband, who -- after the loss of their child shortly after its birth -- declared his intention to take a second wife. Presenting herself as a seeker of justice, Noelle drives and owns a car, a bit of business we take for granted but couldn't have been part of a Saudi movie before 2018, the year Saudi women were first allowed to obtain driver's licenses. Defying the men who run the police station, Noelle begins to function like a detective. Her search eventually brings her into contact with the victim's mother (Fatima Alsharif), a well-heeled woman who's unwilling to identify her daughter's body lest her family be humiliated. The young woman might have been on her way to a meet a man, a taboo in this patriarchal setting. The movie plods here and there, but as a peek into the way Saudi society deals with gender, Unidentified proves eye-opening. Don't be misled, though. Al-Mansour doesn't preach; her film qualifies as a low-key thriller that includes the kind of bracing twists, you probably won't see coming.

The Currents

Alienation isn't easy to film, but director Milagros Mumenthaler brings a high-level of artistry to the task in The Currents, a movie about a fashion designer (Isabel Aime Gonzalez-Sola) who -- early on -- attempts to commit suicide in Switzerland, where she's traveled to receive an award. A wife and mother, Gonzalez-Sola's Lina returns to Argentina but can't seem to re-connect with her husband (Esteban Bigliardi) and her five-year-old daughter (Emma Fayo Duarte). Lina, who never seems present in her life, becomes the elusive centerpiece of a movie that relies heavily on Gonzalez-Sola's ability to convey the ambiguity of Lina's detachment. The Currents might have been titled Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and Mumenthaler's sly splashes of color reminded me of Pedro Almodovar's work. So what's up with Lina? We don't really know, and Mumenthaler keeps it that way, avoiding a single explanation for the way in which Lina floats through her life. There's much to be gleaned from The Currents, which slowly discloses bits of backstory, including a late-picture introduction to Lina's eccentric mother. But don't expect a big reveal. Some will find Mumenthaler's slowly paced movie trying, but a character who may not fully understand her inner life is made intriguing by a director whose imagery can reflect the deep and mysterious richness of lived moments. 

Rock stardom on a shaky foundation

  Irish director John Carney has created a filmography rooted in his love for music. Carney's first hit, Once, reached screens in 2007 with a story about two unlikely partners who made music together. Carney, who followed with other films that fit his mold, now delivers Power Ballad, which feels familiar but dips its toe into the world of rock stardom.

   Paul Rudd plays Rick Powers, a once rising rock star who settled in Ireland, married Rachel (Marcella Plunkett), and raised a daughter (Beth Fallon) who's now a teenager. 

    As his dreams of stardom faded, Rick supported himself as a singer and guitarist with Bride and Groove, a band that specializes in wedding parties. Bride and Grove works from a popular hit list, doing energetic covers of songs meant to keep a dance floor hopping.

     On one such gig, Rick meets Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas), a young singer who made it big with a boy band and who's trying to launch a solo career. Danny  happens to be a guest at the wedding, and Rick and Danny spend a post-party evening jamming and talking about writing songs. Rick shares one of his songs, How to Write a Song Without You.

     The movie then leaps ahead. Danny has returned to the US, where his agent (Jack Reynor) informs him that only a breakthrough tune will establish his independence and maintain the standard of living he achieved as a boy-band phenom.

     Danny writes a bridge to How to Write a Song and steals the rest. Before you can say, "Of course it's a major hit," the song becomes a major hit, and Danny regains his stardom.

     When Rick discovers that his tune has become popular, he tumbles into a mixture of depression, self-loathing, and, yes, satisfaction -- at last, one of his tunes has connected with a large audience.

    Power Ballad expands on Rudd's affable persona, allowing Rudd to turn Rick into a manic guy who's obsessed with getting his due. Rick even enlists a bandmate (Paul Reid) to travel to the US to confront Danny. Mostly, Rick wants Danny to confirm that he stole  the song. Rick has no proof of authorship, and no one believes his claim.

    Too formula-averse to turn Rick into an unalloyed hero, Carney also refuses to turn the undeniably talented Danny into a pop-star jerk. Self-doubt undermines Rick's quest for recognition, and Danny wrestles with his conscience. Should he explain what happened and get on with it? His manager dissuades him.

     The long-awaited face-off between Rick and Danny takes place in a hot tub at one of Danny's LA parties, an over-the-top crescendo that feels silly and strained.

      Of course, there's plenty of music and a near-overexposure of the film's signature tune. Carney's at his best when the film operates in the minor key of the wedding band, a group that, aside from Rick, has accepted its role as a party band.   

      Carney also makes sure to acknowledge his respect for  people who make music regardless of their circumstances. A street musician, seen a couple of times, underscores the idea that music belongs to everyone.       

       Building toward a crowd-pleasing coda, Power Ballad qualifies as an anomaly, an upbeat drama about the downside of dreams, as well as an ode to the power of song. Rudd does his own singing, and Jonas, a member of the Jonas Brothers, a pop-rock band that split up in 2013 and reunited six years later, knows this turf.

       Whatever the movie's weaknesses, one thing remains clear: Carney still fuels his work with an infectious love for music and the people who make it. 

'Tuner': A caper movie with heart

    In Tuner, Leo Woodall plays Niki, a piano tuner who suffers from hyperacusis, a disorder that can turn everyday noises into deafening roars. Woodall's character works with Harry Horowitz (Dustin Hoffman), the owner of a tuning business who reminisces about the jazz greats that inspired his love of music. 

    Director Daniel Roher (Navalny and The AI Doc) captures the ease with which Woodall and Hoffman relate -- Hoffman not shying away from Harry's encroaching dementia, and Woodall displaying affection for and patience with Harry.

   Once a gifted pianist, Niki's hearing disorder disrupted his budding career. Harry knows that Niki can play and constantly begs him for a sample of his work. Apparently content with his current life, Niki treats Harry and his wife (Tovah Feldshuh) as family. 

     The movie's plot hinges on a discovery: When he removes the ear plugs that keep his disorder under control, Niki's hearing is so keen that he can crack safes by listening for the clicks that reveal the combination. He demonstrates the skill while trying to open the home safe in which Harry, who has forgotten the combination, keeps his hearing aids.

     The caper elements begin when, Niki, on a tuning job at an upscale home, meets Uri (Lior Raz), a charismatic but shady figure. Uri runs a security business but steals from his clients. He says he concentrates on small, valuable items the very wealthy won't miss. He wants Niki to crack safes for him. 

     By this time, Harry has been hospitalized, medical bills are mounting, and Niki needs a major infusion of cash to help. Reluctantly, he begins working for Uri.

     Then, there's romance. While on another tuning job, Niki meets Ruthie (Havanah Rose Liu), an aspiring composer who gradually appreciates and falls for Niki. Ruthie hopes to earn an apprenticeship with a famous composer (Jean Reno), and it's easy to see why she falls for Niki, a sensitive young man who seems to have been blessed with good-guy genes.

      Niki's disorder and the movie's interest in music offer opportunities for creative sound design with Roher and his team effectively conveying the impact Niki's disorder has on him.

      We know that Niki's criminal pursuits will eventually clash with his basic decency and with Ruthie's belief in him. When that happens, the  movie moves into rougher, more wobbly territory, and Roher, who wrote the movie's screenplay with Robert Ramsey, winds up with too many loose ends to tie up before the story concludes.

     Tuner can't quite go the distance as an engaging caper movie. But the movie is warmed by a cast -- most notably Woodall -- that makes for a winning combination of talent, story, and heart.

‘Backrooms’ isn't about making sense

   Backrooms, an addition to the growing list of self-consciously inventive horror movies, arrives with a pedigree that may impress aficionados. Produced by horror masters James Wan and Osgood Perkins, the movie also features performances by actors with hefty resumes: Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve. 

  A bit about the movie's background: It springs from a movement called "creepypasta,'' i.e., horror stories posted and shared on the internet. Director Kane Parsons, now 20, began uploading Backrooms episodes in 2022, expanding  a previous "creepypasta" concept into 22 short films.

   I learned this from Googling and had no exposure to Backrooms before I saw Parsons' movie. I say this because Parsons' movie may have more appeal to those familiar with his online work than I am.

  On one hand, Backrooms can be seen as a creative immersion in a liminal world composed of endless rooms. Liminal worlds, by the way, are currently big in horror, bland, sometimes transitional locations that resonate with eerie emptiness.

   Set during the 1990s, Backrooms slips easily into its  off-kilter tale, partly because of the aural atmosphere the film creates, a mixture of unintelligible voices and synth music by Edo Van Breemen and Parsons.

    The movie has a story of sorts, which Parsons shows us is being watched by ill-defined researchers,  a conceit that adds more cause for apprehension. 

   Ejiofor plays Clark, a furniture store owner whose life is headed in the wrong direction. His wife recently left him, and Clark has been unable to launch his desired career as an architect.

    To get on the right track, Clark visits Mary (Reinsve), a therapist he hopes will open new doors for him. She's written a book conveniently titled The Window Within. 

    Displaced from his home, Clark has been relegated to sleeping in his store. He also appears as a peg-legged pirate in awful commercials made by one of his employees (Finn Bennett). We never see any customers in Cap'n Clark's Ottoman Empire, one more ploy that augments the sense of vacancy that permeates Backrooms -- absence that's meant to be felt.

    When Clark discovers a portal in the store's basement, he enters a weird alternate reality. Upon returning to "normal," he shares his discovery  with his therapist, who probably thinks he's delusional.

     To convince a skeptical Mary that his experience was "real," Clark convinces Bennett's Bobby and another employee (Lukita Maxwell) to pass through the portal with him. Clark wants Bobby to film their trippy experience so that he can prove the existence of the rooms that both frighten and attract him.

      It doesn't take long for Mary to visit the store, find the portal, and enter the weird dimension in which Clark has lost himself.

     Working from a screenplay by Will Soodik, Parsons includes flashbacks to Mary's childhood with a paranoid mother. Her childhood home was demolished by developers leaving only a shard, a handprint she saved from the rubble of a concrete driveway. It will come in handy.

    Parsons offers a variety of surreal sights: piles of discarded furniture, a stop sign with the word "stop" spelled backwards, and glimpses of figures who make us suspect that the place is occupied and dangerous.

     Parsons excels at alternate-reality building: rooms full of wall-to-wall carpeting and yellow walls, and, eventually, figures with distorted features. Are we seeing funhouse reflections of the reality of Clark and Mary's lives? Maybe.

      Not surprisingly, we're primed for the big reveal that will make sense of everything we've been watching. The movie, which functions as an inventive tease, has little interest in tidying up after itself, offering only the notion that we trap ourselves in behaviors we keep repeating, no matter how many times they lead us nowhere.

       Neither Ejiofor nor Reinsve has much to develop. Mostly, they react to the movie's increasingly alienating atmospherics. Mark Duplass turns up in a role that seems as if it's going to provide the explanation we've been waiting for, but his character doesn't seem to know much about what's happening,  either. 

        Blood and gore are in short supply, and some of the movie's twisted jokes, expressionless human figures whose insides can be scooped out and eaten, feel as if they've popped out of nowhere.

      There's talent on display in Backrooms, notably Danny Vermette's creative production design, but the found-footage quality and art-horror atmospherics only take the movie so far. Ambiguity  isn't a fatal flaw, but Backrooms begins to feel repetitive as it crawls inside our heads.

      Backrooms works like a maze. Homes and offices are creepy. Lives are empty. Something's always missing. Some will find all this intriguing. Others may just want out. 

     My reaction was mixed. I appreciated Parsons' willingness to experiment and was disappointed that the characters often play second fiddle to so many half-baked ideas that suggest more than the film is  able (or perhaps willing) to realize.

Intriguing story buoys 'Pressure'

  On June 6, 1944, the Allied invasion of Normandy launched the brutal series of battles that brought Hitler’s ambitions in Western Europe to a halt. The movie Pressure deals with the 72 hours leading up to the momentous D-Day invasion.

  Director Anthony Maras, focuses on a part of the story that sounds prosaic but proves essential to Allied success, an accurate weather forecast.

    Pressure delivers a dramatized version of events that unfolded at Allied headquarters in Southwick House, Hampshire, relying on sharpening tensions between a low-key but obstinate Royal Air Force meteorologist (Andrew Scott) and a brash American meteorologist (Chris Messina). 

    Messina's Irving Krick, who had enormous successes predicting the weather during the North African campaign, relied on analog charts, arguing that the weather would be fine on June 5th, the original D-Day date.  

    Scott’s James Stagg rejected Krick's approach. He surveyed many locations in the North Atlantic to discover what he considered the requisite conditions for a mission-wrecking storm. Later, Stagg identified a brief window in which the beaches could be stormed. 

     Following Stagg's advice, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Force, delayed the mission by a day.

    Working from a screenplay he co-wrote with David Haig, who also wrote the play on which the movie is based, Maras concentrates mostly on Stagg, an officer whose wife is on the brink of delivering their first child when he's ordered to join Eisenhower's command. 

   As Eisenhower, Brendan Fraser doesn't exactly become an Ike lookalike, even with make-up that gives him a bald pate. Still, Fraser conveys the pressure Eisenhower felt about obtaining a definitive forecast.

     To complicate matters, Eisenhower was being pressured by British Field Marshal Montgomery (Damian Lewis) to proceed as planned, lest the invasion be jeopardized, scuttling chances for an Allied victory.

    Pressure takes some liberties with the historical record, as it transforms an abstract theme (differing  approaches to weather forecasting) into a high-stakes conflict.

     Both Scott (subdued, focused, and intense) and Messina (confident to a fault) do their best to incorporate the essence of opposing personalities, but Pressure can be more informative than exciting, a re-enactment with added dramatic flourishes. 

      Beyond that, the drama unfolds in programmatic fashion, building toward the expectedly tense encounters between men whose advice will affect the war’s outcome. Well and good, but turning disagreements about the weather into a clash of styles (American vs. British) feels a bit inflated. 

     A bit of emotional leavening is added by Kerry Condon, whose Kay Summersby functions as an aide and confidant to the troubled Eisenhower; Summersby provides the steadying hand for Ike, who's tormented by the failure of a preparatory operation in which GIs died.

       In sum, Pressure benefits from a story that may be unfamiliar to contemporary audiences. It may not be a great wartime drama, but it shows how a decision based on technical expertise can alter the course of history.  Think of it as a historical footnote without which the sweeping main drama depicted in many other movies could not have unfolded.