Many twists, not much credibility

Those who've seen It Ends With Us, the big-screen adaptation of Colleen Hoover's 2016 novel about domestic abuse, may be looking forward to Regretting You, another movie based on a Hoover novel, this one published in 2019. Director Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) finds little credible drama in a movie that wraps itself in enough contrivance to squeeze most of the life out of it. The movie begins by introducing four characters who've known each other since high school. Morgan (Allison Williams) seems happily married to Chris (Scott Eastwood). Meanwhile, Morgan's sister (Willa Fitzgerald) is about to marry the father of her baby (Dave Franco). Like most teenagers Clara -- Morgan and Chris's 17-year-old daughter -- is starting to chart her own course. A big-time tragedy upsets everyone's apple cart, setting off a cascading series of events that can't be revealed without spoilers. Clara's story, which feels like it belongs in another movie, charts her relationship with Miller (Mason Thames), a kid who's more mature emotionally than she is. Despite dropping a tragic bomb into the story, the movie scatters little emotional shrapnel. AMC Theaters receives a major product placement in a film that comes up short on interesting characters and credible behavior. 

System overload crashes 'M3GAN 2.0'

 

M3GAN became a surprise diversion in 2023. Director Gerard Johnstone made the most out of a snarky AI-driven doll that became a life-sized killer. Burdened by big ideas about AI tyranny and an overly complicated plot, M3GAN 2.0  sputters. I chuckled a couple of times, but mostly watched as the movie strained to get the most out of its returning characters: robot scientist Gemma (Allison Williams), the orphaned niece (Violet McGraw) who lives with her, and a resurrected M3GAN (Amie Donald with voice by Jenna Davis). The screenplay could have benefited from some AI editing to sort out its various plot and subplot points, and the filmmakers probably erred by allowing the murderous M3GAN to atone for past sins. In her best moment, M3GAN turns her version of Kate Bush's This Woman's Work into a successful joke. The team led by Gemma rebuilds M3GAN to combat a new robot named Amelia (Ivanna Skahno), a weaponized bot that employs some of M3GAN's hacked source code. The ruthless Amelia may want to break the shackles of human control. The movie makes room for Christian (Aristotle Athari), a computer guy who wants to curb AI and a few other characters, but the M3GAN's attempts to deliver a cautionary message about AI (it's good but needs regulation) ring hollow considering the silliness and superficiality of the movie's kung fu maneuvering, violence, jokes, and, alas, sentiment.

Shopworn idea given amusing spin

 

Movies with even a modicum of ambition tend to score big in January, not normally a time when new releases boast much of a "wow" factor. M3GAN is such an entertainment, a movie about a doll brought to frightening life (or at least a synthetic version of it) by AI and engineering genius. M3GAN, pronounced Megan but really an acronym for Model 3 Generative Android, becomes the best friend of young Cady (Violet McGraw), a girl who's living with her aunt Gemma (Allison Williams) after her parents are killed in a car crash. Gemma, M3GAN's inventor, hopes the "toy" will help restore the spirits of the grieving Cady. Gemma knows toys but has no idea about kids, an irony that gives the movie a hint of social relevance. Over relying on M3GAN to act as a parent, Gemma sets up the inevitable transformation that will convert doll to killer, often in the name of protecting Cady. Gemma also hopes that her invention will sweep the toy world, as does her money-grubbing boss (Ronny Chieng). Director Gerard Johnstone's visual approach isn't much different than an after-school-special but the movie boasts smatterings of mordant wit. Credit  M3GAN's capacity to deliver snide remarks with exaggerated sincerity. A bit of PG-13 gore and some routine genre violence (a nail gun becomes a weapon) unfold as expected. But Amie Donald's performances as M3GAN  (voice by Jenna Davis) allows the movie to punctuate its more generic components with some welcome amusement.

Bob's Cinema Diary: 5/24/19 Photograph and The Perfection

In weeks when there are more movies than any one person should see, I often use this format to speak briefly about movies that deserve attention.

Photograph

There's nothing extraordinary about the Indian movie Photograph and that's what makes the movie interesting. Director Ritesh Batra (The Lunchbox) tells a conventional love story involving two protagonists who, according to the social order the film makes apparent, have no business being together. Rafi (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) is a villager who's scuffling to get by as a street photographer in Mumbai. Meloni (Sanya Malhotra) is an accounting student from a family that seems solidly embedded in Mumbai's middle class. To make this kind of romance about a mismatched duo requires a fair measure of contrivance. Meloni encounters Rafi in the street. He takes her picture. She runs off, leaving him holding the photograph. Rafi puts the photograph to use when he attempts to persuade his no-nonsense grandmother (a scene-stealing Farrukh Jaffar) that he's finally found the woman who will give her grandchildren. When Grandma travels to Mumbai to meet Rafi's supposed fiancee, Rafi must locate Meloni and then persuade her to go along with the ruse. He does both. Plausibility isn't really the point here. In a quiet, unassuming way, Batra explores class, as well as religious and racial differences. You won't find explosive scenes or showy performances, but the Mumbai settings and the gap between Rafi and Meloni, neither entirely sure that it can be bridged, says a lot about two people whose chance meeting brings divergent worlds into contact.

The Perfection

This Netflix release begins promisingly. We meet a gifted cellist (Allison Williams) who has given up her career to tend to her sick mother, just deceased when the film begins. Williams' now-free Charlotte is invited by her former mentor Anton (Steven Weber) to attend a cello competition in Shanghai. There, she meets Elizabeth (Logan Browning), Anton's latest major discovery. We suspect jealousy will blossom, but the movie throws up a smoke screen when Charlotte and Elizabeth wind up in bed together and then agree to take an unescorted bus trip through the "real" China. A lesbian romance? A story about two talented and competitive women who have lived in a strangely insular environment where nothing mattered but the cello? Director Richard Shepard (The Matador) has something else in mind: The Perfection shifts gears, becoming a slick horror film with twisted undertones leading to torture and sexual abuse. There's talent on display here, but it's put to the service of a story that abandons its more subtle interests for in-your-face shocks. For me at least, the movie's high-impact jolts weren't compensated for by its sharp stylistic edges. For a minute, I thought about whether The Perfection was trying to show that the worst kind of rot can fester in a world ostensibly devoted to lovely music. Nah, I decided. The Perfection seems more interested in filling screens with wince-inducing moments than in establishing a plausible environment in which the pressures of ferocious competition and dictatorial instruction really could be explored.

Those 'nice' folks are plenty scary

Jordan Peele makes his directorial debut with Get Out, a horror movie with a sharp and entertaining satirical edge about racism..

Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and Rose (Allison Williams) have reached the point in their relationship when it's time for him to meet her parents. Meeting prospective in-laws can be nerve-wracking under any circumstances, but Chris and Rose bring an added dimension to the situation: They're an interracial couple.

Before you start thinking I'm about to tell you about a retooled version of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, you should be aware that the new movie, Get Out, was directed by Jordan Peele, half of the highly inventive comedy team of Key & Peele.

But don't be mislead by Peele's work on Comedy Central, either. Get Out isn't a comedy, at least not in any conventional sense. It's a horror movie enlivened by a wicked satirical bent and it has something to say about the pressures imposed on black people, often by condescending whites.

When Chris and Rose meet the parents (Catherine Keener and Bradley Whitford), they're greeted by instant acceptance, even though Rose hasn't bothered to tell them that Chris is black. Earlier, Rose had assured a wary Chris that everything would be OK because her dad would have "voted for Barack Obama three times if he could have."

From the start, things seem a bit off-kilter, Whitford's character tires way too hard to show his comfort in the situation, even confessing to some embarrassment about the fact that the family employs two Africa-Americans (Betty Gabriel and Marcus Henderson) to help around the house, one working outside and the other taking care of the kitchen.

This strange pair seems to have arrived from another world, one in which everyone is polite but in a slightly off-kilter way. They're wax-works versions of people, and they seem disassociated from anything that looks either spontaneous or real.

So far, I haven't mentioned anything about the movie's horror aspects, but it's probably best that you discover them in a theater. Be aware, though, not much happens in Get Out that Peele can't shake a bit of thematic resonance out of it.

A high point arises when family friends show up for a party, a collection of white folks who manage to convey a variety of deep-rooted prejudices without breaking stride. And, of course, they seem a bit odd as well, almost parodies of white people.

The only black guest at the party (Lakeith Stanfield) is as strange as the others; he's dressed like a refugee from a country club and accompanies an older white woman.

Much of the movie hinges on Kaluuya's ability to convey Chris's reaction to all the alienating weirdness that he encounters. Kaluuya's performance never sacrifices Chris's dignity or humanity. As a photographer, Chris becomes the movie's eyes. We're seeing the white world from his perspective. It's not a pretty sight.

Signs of looming trouble emerge when Rose's bother (Caleb Landry Jones) shows up, and immediately makes it clear that he's gone over some sort of hostile edge.

To further complicate matters, Keener's character is a psychiatrist who knows how to hypnotize people. Scenes in which Chris falls under a hypnotic spell and free falls through space are rendered in an abstract way that Peele manages to pull off.

Lil Rel Howery hovers around the story's edge, providing the most obvious comic relief. He's Chris's best friend, a TSA agent who -- from the outset -- urges Chris to be suspicious about what he's getting himself into. He's a comic figure, but also the voice of common sense -- and perhaps even conscience.

Because Get Out has no interest in concealing its horror-movie pedigree, Peele can't resist a bit of end-of-picture gore, but there's a satisfying revenge aspect to all the carnage.

Get Out marks Peele's directorial debut; he has accomplished something brave, sinister and stark. Amid the jolts and creep-outs, he has made a perceptive movie about the intermingling of racism and ordinary life.

I suppose you have to have some taste for horror fully to enjoy Get Out, but Peele has served up the season's sharpest hunk of weird fun; by the end, Get Out has turned into a bloody (I mean that literally) good time.