A family story with gender twists

 Strong currents of gender fluidity run through Jimpa, a movie from Australian director Sophie Hyde. Relying on heavyweight casting centering on Olivia Colman and John Lithgow, Hyde tells a family story about characters struggling with multigenerational issues and fragmented family ties.

    Hannah (Colman) decides that her family should visit her gay father (Lithgow) who the family calls Jimpa. Jimpa and his former wife tried to make their marriage work in Australia, but Jimpa left Australia to become a gay activist in Amsterdam, where he has lived for years.

    Jimpa's grandchild, Frances (Aud Mason-Hyde), a nonbinary transgender 17-year-old, idolizes Grandpa, regarding him as a hero who fought for gay rights. Hannah decides it's time to expose her child to the kind of diverse "queer" community available in Amsterdam. It's almost as if she wants Frances to peruse a menu of gender options.

    Hyde takes the drama back and forth in time, including snippets that illuminate Hanna and Jimpa's backgrounds. 

    A charismatic gay man, Lithgow's Jimpa isn't entirely at ease with the younger queer generation: He struggles with pronouns and loathes bisexuality, deeming it a cover-up for the gayness he has fought so hard to bring into the open. Still, he has a generous attitude toward the grandchild he clearly loves. 

   Hyde creates an easy-going ambiance around Jimpa whose gay friends have known each other for years and who've lived through the AIDS plague. Jimpa is an AIDS-positive survivor, but a recent stroke has left his family worried about his future.

    Early on, Frances propose to live with Jimpa for a year, a choice Hannah greets with trepidation. Still, she does her best to negotiate emotionally volatile terrain while allowing Frances as much freedom as possible. 

    A filmmaker by trade, Hanna believes -- or wants to believe -- that it's possible to make a film without conflict. She's working on a film about her father.

    The third act turns into a bit of a "right-to-die" drama when Hannah's sister (Kate Box) shows up. She disagrees with Hannah about how to deal with Jimpa's physical decline.

      Gently assembled, Jimpa tackles difficult issues and avoids drawing harsh lines in the sand, but it never finds a solid core around which the confusion of its characters can swirl. That's another way of saying the movie can't quite decide whose story it's telling, or maybe it tries to tell too many, doing none of them full justice.

Horror among the elderly

 

If The Rule of Jenny Pen, a horror movie set in a nursing home, accomplishes anything, it's to convince us that John Lithgow can play an evil, sadistic villain. A tortured fellow who wanders through an elder care facility with a doll puppet on his right arm, Lithgow’s Dave turns the doll head into an ominous threat that might come crashing down on a vulnerable head. Director James Ashcroft focuses Dave’s cruel psychopathic tendencies on Stefan Mortensen (Geoffrey Rush), a judge who has been severely debilitated by a stroke. Arrogant and accustomed to getting his way, Stefan has difficulty accepting his new life in a wheelchair and limited use of his hands. He's been stripped of his power and doesn't like it. Ashcroft doesn't skimp when it comes to Dave's sadism; he pulls the catheter out of Stefan's roommate's body. He steals food from other residents and eats like a hog who hadn't found a place at the trough for years. Both Lithgow and Rush meet the story's challenges, but committed performances can't alleviate the feeling that the movie indulges in what can look like serial abuse of the elderly. And, yes, it's difficult to believe that the home's staff believes Stefan is fabricating. Ashcroft skillfully mounts some of the movie's wince-inducing bits, but when the movie reached its conclusion, I had little on which to reflect other than the sour aftertaste so much cruelty left.

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. 

 

‘Cabrini:’ an ode to determination

 

    I always feel a bit awkward reviewing movies about religious figures. Such movies can trigger a series of false assumptions on the part of readers.

   If a reviewer praises the movie, he or she can be seen as endorsing a particular set of spiritual assertions. Criticism, on the other hand, easily can be confused with rejection of someone's beliefs. 

   Moreover, the sincerity that marks most "religious" movies doesn't always equate with artistic success.

   Cabrini, a bio-pic about Frances Xavier Cabrini, occupies a middle ground, locating itself somewhere between inspirational fare and hardscrabble realism while trying to liberate itself from parochial constrictions.

   I don't know if Mother Cabrini, as she was widely known, viewed herself as a prototypical feminist  but the movie tends to treat her as one, an ambitious and determined woman battling long odds to achieve her vision. 

   Frances Xavier Cabrini arrived in the US in 1889 determined to care for New York's poor Sicilian immigrants while also aiming to expand her work into a global network of orphanages and hospitals. 

  Cristiana Dell'Anna plays the lead role, painting a portrait of a dedicated woman who challenges male authority: first the Pope (Giancarlo Giannini), and later a New York archbishop (David Morse) and the mayor of New York City (John Lithgow).

   Note: I used the word “woman” and not the word “nun.” That tells you something about the movie’s generalized approach.

   Director Alejandro Gomez Monteverde plops Mother Cabrini and her nuns into the squalor of New York's Five Points, a lower-east side neighborhood. 

  Driven by respiratory problems, Cabrini knew her body eventually would betray her. In the film, she works as if every day might be her last. 

  In New York, Cabrini takes orphans off the streets and provides refuge for a Five Points prostitute (Romana Maggiora Vergano) who's being brutalized by her pimp. 

    The dialogue sometimes has the ring of a rudimentary civics lesson. At one point, Cabrini talks about defending immigrants of all ethnicities; they're the future of America, etc.

  Aside from WASP prejudice, little mention is made of the social conditions that forced so many Italian immigrants into abject poverty.

   As an outsider, it struck me that the movie downplayed the spiritual/religious aspects of Cabrini's Catholicism, as well as the role religion played in the lives of the populations Cabrini served en route to becoming a saint in 1946, some 29 years after her death.

   It would be an exaggeration to think of Cabrini as a movie about a nun who becomes a feminist superhero, but you get the idea and, in this case, the moral of the story seems reducible to a bromide: Miracles are made by determination, hard work, and to use a decidedly non-Catholic word, chutzpah.

  

More big-screen con games

 

Contrived and not always credible, Sharper tells a story that drops con atop con. Although the movie's  structure -- focusing on five characters and introducing each one with a title card -- feels familiar, Sharper picks up steam when Julianne Moore shows up as a schemer with an eye for rich men. You'll have to wait for Moore's arrival because Justice Smith and Briana Middleton kick things off as young people who meet at the New York City bookstore run by Smith's Tom. Tom falls hard. But in true noir fashions, Middleton's Sandra isn't all that she seems. Secrecy and deception open a door for director Benjamin Caron, working from a screenplay by Brian Gatewood and Alessandra Tanaka, to twist the story into knots that aren't particularly difficult to untangle but still offer some fun. A solid cast earns its pay, including John Lithgow in a smaller role as a wealthy hedge fund manager who's dating Moore's Madeline. Middleton has a nice turn, initially telling Tom she's a graduate student working on her doctorate. Sebastian Stan takes on the role of Max, a master manipulator with a mean streak, and Moore adds smarts and sexual spice. At the heart of all the maneuvering: money -- billions in fact. You'll probably see the conclusion coming and the movie doesn't pack a gleeful Sting-like wallop. OK, so Sharper is no groundbreaker -- but it's always difficult, at least for me, to resist a movie about con artists that plays the game well enough to sustain interest, even if it's not a genre classic.

The women who toppled Roger Ailes

Bombshell tells a topical story about sexual harassment. A scattered movie has some impact.

Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, and Margot Robbie lead a #MeToo charge in Bombshell, a story about the ways in which the late Roger Ailes was toppled for abusing his power as the head of Fox News. Ailes not only gave the network its trademark rightward slant, but he also used his position to sexually harass some of the women who worked at Fox.

When Bombshell finally gets around to the serious business of watching Ailes dethroned, the movie makes an impact. Powerful men who use their positions as casting couches deserve to be scorned and Bombshell satisfyingly makes sure that Ailes gets his well-deserved comeuppance.

But Bombshell also is a mixed bag of a movie that swirls is way across the screen as if the ingredients have been put into a soda can and shaken. It’s part the story of Megyn Kelly (Theron) and her gradual disaffection with Aisles; it's part the story of an evangelical working girl (Robbie) who's sullied by the toxic Fox atmosphere and part the story of Gretchen Carlson (Kidman), the woman who sued Ailes for sexual harassment, beginning a series of disclosures that would finish Ailes’ career.

Theron makes Kelly a cool customer, highly capable and sensitive to political intrigue inside and outside the Fox empire. Having once been an Ailes target (she resisted), Kelly mixes control with ... well ... more control.

When we meet, Kidman's Carlson she's on the downside of ambition, on the verge of being banished to the afternoon TV dead zone. Carlson, however, was smart enough to know that if she planned to challenge Ailes, she better have evidence. She taped a year's worth of her conversations with him.

Make-up and impersonation combine to create plausibility as far as Kelly and Carlson are concerned, but there’s a double edge to this approach. So much work has gone into making the actresses look like the real-life characters they’re playing, it’s sometimes difficult not to confuse performance with mimicry. Theron’s acting is exceptional, but she has an unnatural look, something on the order of an anchor mannequin.

Robbie doesn’t have that problem because she’s playing a fictional character. Her Kayla Pospisil is taken underwing (and into the bed) by a lesbian producer (Kate McKinnon) on the Bill O'Reilly show.

The movie initially treats Kayla’s naivete (she's a fundamentalist Christian who seems comfortable in a same-sex dalliance) with straightforward amusement that's in keeping with the nutty spirit that director Jay Roach brings to the movie until he gets serious.

Bombshell begins with one of Kelly's career highlights, the night she asked then-candidate Donald Trump about his women problem at a debate of Republican candidates. After the debate, Trump famously responded by saying that Kelly had "blood coming out of her eyes, out of her wherever." The fight's on, and Kelly begins to feel the pressure.

Kelly eventually retreated, conducting what some saw as a conciliatory interview with Trump. Kelly's husband (Mark Duplass) criticizes his wife for going easy on Trump as she tried to negotiate the choppy waters of career and principle. She says she just wants to stop the flow of Tumper venom that has been directed her.

Swimming in a fat suit, Lithgow’s Ailes proves imposing but he doesn’t seem as in-the-know as we might expect. He comes across mostly as a right-wing pasha.

Ailes’ harassment MO emerges in a meeting between Kayla. Ailes insists that TV is a visual medium. It’s only fitting then that he asks Kayla to standup up and "give him a twirl" (a 360-degree spin) and then to hike her skirt until he’s satisfied that she’s air-worthy. It's obvious that Ailes is more interested in compliance than looks because the ambitious Kayla isn't what you'd call a modest dresser.

There's not much to the rest of the men at Fox. The actor who plays Chris Wallace (Marc Evan Jackson) doesn't look like him. And Richard Kind lands with a thud in a brief appearance as Rudi Giuliani. Look, I’ve seen Rudi Giuliani and ... well ... you know the rest of the statement.

Showing some much-needed gravitas, Malcolm McDowell makes a last-minute appearance as Rupert Murdoch, the ultimate owner of all things Fox.

Roach’s often breezy approach can work against the material. Big Short screenwriter Charles Randolph's screenplay can have a scattered, lightweight feel that takes the edge off what we're seeing.

I'm betting that the industry; i.e., Oscar voters, will find plenty to embrace about Bombshell. It may soothe consciences in a year when the rumbles of #MeToo haven’t settled. But it’s worth remembering that making a movie about sexual harassment isn’t the same as solving the problem. That’s a whole other story.

Intermittent amusement in ‘Late Night’

Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson team in a comedy about women in the world of late-night network TV.

In the new comedy Late Night, Emma Thompson portrays Katherine Newbury, the only woman host of a long-running late-night show that airs on network TV. Icy of temperament and cruel to her staff, Katherine is supposed to be a stand-up comic with a cutting delivery. Jokes aside, she tends to prefer serious guests to refugees from reality TV.

Katherine presides over a stable of male writers whom she believes may be letting her down. Her once-popular show is on its way to becoming an afterthought. The station's new head (Amy Ryan) already has made arrangements to replace Katherine with a comic (Ike Barinholtz) who happily wallows in the sort of crude material Katherine abhors.

What to do? The screenplay by Mindy Kaling (of TV's The Office and The Mindy Project) brings fresh blood to the rescue. Kaling portrays Molly Patel, a woman who works in a chemical plant but secretly dreams of becoming a comedy writer.

As part of a desperate attempt to diversify her staff, Katherine insists on hiring a female. Molly fills the bill and, even better, qualifies as a low-expectation hire. Molly's male counterparts believe the inexperienced wannabe will vanish quickly.

Of course, Molly won't be so easily dispatched. Turns out she has fresh ideas and isn't afraid to talk about them at writers' meetings over which Katherine presides without calling any of the contributors by name. She assigns them numbers.

Two strains of assertion drive the story. Can the old dog (Katherine) learn a few new tricks and can the newbie (Molly) become a legitimate presence in helping to engineer the transformation?

Underlying both of these questions is another imperative, the one that says, it's best to be yourself and allow the chips to fall where they may.

Katherine, who's supposed to be too smart for an era of dumbed-down TV, also qualifies as too unpleasant to win many off-camera fans. Her devoted and nearly invisible husband (John Lithgow) remains a loyal supporter. Thompson's performance doesn’t skimp on scorn for Katherine’s supposed inferiors while also suggesting that she knows her fastball has lost some of its zing.

Both likable and amusing, Kaling gives a performance that helps soften Katherine's sharp edges.

Among the writers, Reid Scott (Veep), Max Casella (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) and Hugh Dancy (of TV's Hannibal) make some impact. Dennis O'Hare portrays the show's besieged producer, a fellow with the unenviable job of soothing Katherine's ego and keeping the staff from withering under the glare of her imperious gaze.

All of this might have worked well enough save for a couple of problems -- not the least of which is that Thompson, a brilliant comic actress, never seems like someone who'd find her place on a stand-up stage. It's a crucial distinction: Comic acting and stand-up don't draw on the same skills.

Laughs are a matter of taste, I suppose. For me, Late Night provided intermittent amusement until it reaches its predictably affirming conclusion. So, another movie in which promise exceeds fulfillment? For me, yes.

A ruthless lobbyist takes on guns

Miss Sloane has hold of a strong topic, but squanders credibility.

Senate hearings, sex, a ruthless lobbyist and a vicious political fight over gun control.

Those are some of the ingredients that could have turned Miss Sloane into a butt-kicking political drama if only the movie had been able to pass the credibility test.

Jessica Chastain portrays Liz Sloane, a fast-talking, fast-thinking lobbyist who boosts her energy with a steady stream of pill-popping breaks. Let's put it this way: Sloane doesn't visit bathrooms simply to take care of bodily needs.

The movie opens with the apparently discredited Sloane testifying before a committee led by a reproachful senator (John Lithgow) who makes little attempt to conceal his disdain for her. As she faces a volley of questions, Sloane repeatedly takes the Fifth -- until anger gets the best of her, and she tells the committee what she really thinks.

She's doomed -- or is she?

The drama, which tells its story in flashbacks from that committee hearing, centers on gun control legislation. Early on, we learn that Sloane works for a top-ranked lobbying firm where she's earned a reputation as a perpetual winner.

The head of the agency (Sam Waterston) expects Sloane to help the firm win the business of a gun advocacy group that wants her to create a program designed to sway women to its cause.

Because she believes in background checks, Sloane balks. Not only that, but she goes to work for the other side.

How busy is Liz? Sloane periodically hooks up with a male escort named Forde (Jake Lacy). We're supposed to believe that an attractive, ambitious woman is so eager to avoid compromising personal ties that she's willing to pay for sex. What? This amazingly talented lobbyist, a woman who can't be out-calculated, isn't skillful enough to play bedroom games?

Jonathan Perera's screenplay alternates fast-paced, civics-lesson dialogue with plot twists that strain credibility.

Somewhere in my notes, I wrote that watching Miss Sloane was a bit like watching bad Aaron Sorkin -- or at least second-rate Sorkin.

It's hardly surprising that even when she's fighting for a righteous cause, Sloane remains ruthless. She's still willing to play dirty, in one instance throwing a subordinate (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) under the bus to boost her chances of winning.

As directed by John Madden (Shakespeare in Love, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), Miss Sloane suggests that something in Sloane's childhood may have helped turn her into the fastest rat in the rat race. We never learn what that might be.

Miss Sloane barrels along with a sense of faux urgency, right up until an ending that brings incredulity to a head-scratching crescendo.

Chastain is gifted enough to carry this kind of movie, but for a drama such as Miss Sloane to work, we must believe that it understands who really pulls the levers of national power.

Suffice it to say, in the political reality that dawned on Nov. 8, that may prove an uphill battle for even the most intrepid of screenwriters.

A couple -- but not under the same roof

New York State now allows gay marriage, but there can be unanticipated consequences -- at least according to Love is Strange, a movie in which John Lithgow and Alfred Molina play a long-established Manhattan couple.

The movie begins when Molina's George and Lithgow's Ben marry after 39 years of living together. Their friends and relatives are overjoyed that the two finally can accomplish what they should long ago have been able to do.

But there's a downside. George works as a music teacher at a Catholic high school that can't abide gay marriage. The school had been willing to overlook George's sexual preferences, but now that he's tied the knot, policy demands that he be dismissed.

This sets up a situation in which the two men face economic pressures that force them to sell their apartment. They come up short on cash, unable to buy (or even rent) another place.

So George and Ben split up for what they hope is a temporary period. George moves in with two gay police officers whose lifestyle runs against his staid grain. His roommates like to party.

Ben takes up residency with a nephew (Darren Burrows) and his wife (Marisa Tomei). He's forced to share a room with the couple's teen-age son (Charlie Tahan), a kid who's none to happy about having a roommate. We feel for Geroge, no one past the age of 60 ever should have to spend a night in a bunk bed.

It seemed to me that on a purely practical level, Ben and George could have found a better solution to their problem. They're offered one living arrangement out of town, but can't abide the thought of leaving New York City.

In pushing the couple apart, director Ira Sachs creates a situation in which the movie's early joy increasingly turns to annoyance.

Ben, in particular, drives Tomei's character a little crazy. She works at home, and has difficulty abiding Ben's constant chatter. Understandably, Ben's teen-age bunkmate would like to have his room back.

Everyone in Love is Strange basically operates out of good will, but cramped living situations can tax anyone's patience.

Molina and Lithgow are entirely believable as a couple that long ago worked out the kinks in their relationship and -- if life were fair -- would be coasting comfortably toward the finish line. George still would be inspiring young people, and Ben would be continuing his career as a painter.

Sachs doesn't drown the story in sentiment, but can't entirely free the narrative of dull spots, as well as a bit of repetition.

Still, George and Ben are genuine enough to keep us interested, as evidenced by the fact that Ben's constant chattering not only taxes the nerves of his nephew's wife, but ours, as well.

In this case, that should be considered a compliment, an attempt to keep the movie from becoming nothing more than a lopsided plea for sympathy.

This is 40 -- and it's pretty funny

Judd Apatow puts a toe into mature waters, but doesn't forget to bring along the laughs.

It takes a long time to get to her, but when the new Judd Apatow comedy, This is 40, arrives at a scene that's stolen by Melissa McCarthy, the humor suddenly becomes incendiary, foul-mouthed and very funny. Building on the crudeness she established in Bridesmaids, McCarthy scores big -- so big, in fact, that writer/director Apatow had the good sense to include one of her character's rants in an outtake.

But I digress, even before I begin.

In this mostly enjoyable outing, Apatow casts Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann (Apatow's real-life wife) as a husband and wife who also happen to be the self-absorbed parents of two daughters (Apatow's real daughters, Maude and Iris). Rudd's Pete runs a Los Angeles-based record company devoted to indulging his passion for '70s rock. Mann's Debbie owns an upscale boutique. And, yes, This is 40 represents a reunion for Rudd and Mann, both of whom appeared in Apatow's 2007 comedy, Knocked Up.

Of course, Pete and Debbie are way past knocked up. They're deeply ensconced in the grind of family life. Over the years, their relationship has lost a good deal of its romantic luster. Not surprisingly, Pete and Debbie have issues -- not the least of which revolves around the financial help Pete gives to his father (Albert Brooks), a likable freeloader who has started a new family.

A sharply funny Brooks -- who immediately raises the movie's comic ante -- plays an older man married to a younger woman and now grappling with three young children. Long on gall, Dad views any resistance by Pete as evidence of his son's selfishness. Never mind that Pete has financial troubles of his own.

Perhaps to balance things, Debbie's father (John Lithgow) enters the picture, as well. He's also married to a younger woman, and has been estranged from his daughter for years.

As the movie progresses, Lithgow's character sheds the bonds of caricature and becomes a real, flesh-and-blood father. Credit Apatow with mixing some expectedly crude humor (not all of it funny) with a few well-played scenes in which the writer/director makes a welcome journey into adult territory. Hey, at least he's putting a toe in deeper waters.

Unlike a comedy such as The Guilt Trip, This is 40 is no anemic two-hander. Apatow not only makes room for Brooks and Lithgow, but for Jason Siegel (as an overly confident physical trainer), Graham Parker (as a musician who can't sell any of his new recordings), Chris O'Dowd (as one of Pete's employees) and Megan Fox (as a woman who works in Debbie's boutique).

That's a decent amount of support for a comedy that aspires to be attuned to the debilitations of middle-age, many of them shockingly trivial. Pete is a little too fond of cupcakes. Debbie likes to sneak cigarettes. In this sun-splashed and mostly prosperous LA world, what could be more sinful than overeating or doing something that poses a direct threat to robust good health?

At 134 minutes, This is 40 probably overstays its welcome, and no one's likely to confuse it with Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage, which Apatow reportedly watched before making his movie. OK, so Apatow isn't making great art, but, then again, Bergman didn't get many laughs, either.