Two reporters dig for an important story

   

 She Said, the story of how two The New York Times reporters exposed the abusive conduct of Harvey Weinstein, effectively dramatizes the ins and outs of reporting a big story in which sources are reluctant to talk and the target of the investigation wields significant power. 

    As the co-founder and the public face of Miramax, Weinstein was a major player in the world of movies, a producer of influence that he evidently used to help those whom he favored and thwart those he didn't.

    For some women, the side of the equation on which they landed depended on how they responded to Weinstein's sexual advances, some made in startlingly crude and even criminal fashion.

    Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan) and Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) revealed that Weinstein, now serving a 23-year prison sentence for rape and sexual assault, had been settling sexual abuse cases with women for years, silencing them with restrictive non-disclosure agreements.

       Mulligan's Twohey seems the more aggressive of the two, more seasoned in pitfalls of pre-#MeToo harassment. Early on, we learn that Twohey wrote stories about women who had things to say about Donald Trump’s behavior. She was dejected when the stories appeared to change nothing.

       Kazan's Kantor gives the movie a steady beat. Despite discouragement, Kantor persists and she shows that reporters can respect the sensibilities of those with whom they deal. Better yet, her concern never seems like an ingratiating journalistic ploy.

      Brief references are made to the home life of each of the women. Husbands aren't upset that their wives are working feverishly, as often happens in such movies. Both women deal with the demands of motherhood. But the movie’s focus remains on the work required to nail the story.

      Of the supporting performances, the always interesting Patricia Clarkson proves an unsurprising standout as a Times editor. Samantha Morton makes a strong impression as Zelda Perkins, a woman who once served as a personal assistant to Weinstein. Ashley Judd plays herself, a prominent show business figure who ultimately went public about Weinstein.  Jennifer Ehle has a nice turn as Laura Madden, a woman who was battling breast cancer when she told her Weinstein story.

     Andre Braugher is convincing as Times editor Dean Baquet, particularly in a couple of scenes depicting terse conversations with Weinstein who tried to derail the story.

     Dramatizing the grunt work of journalism isn't easy. At times, it almost looks as if Schrader has made a movie about cell phone calls -- calls that awaken the women from sound sleeps, calls while walking in parks, calls while walking with husbands, calls that disrupt meetings, and on and on.

      I'm not sure how the problem could have been resolved; besides, the story and its detail have more to do with the movie's success than cinematic flair. 

     We only see Weinstein (an actor) from the back in one scene near the end of the movie but we're made to understand the power that he used to impose himself on women, many of them young and naive.  Schrader includes a real phone call between Weinstein and Ambra Gutierrez, an Italian model, but she wisely creates no scenes in which we see Weinstein committing his crimes.

     That doesn't mean that Weinstein's presence isn't felt throughout. With help from enablers, he abused his position and got away with it -- until some of the women he harmed and two determined reporters helped bring his misdeeds to light.

The Coens sing a weird ballad

Six short films make for a mixed bag in the Ballad of Buster Scruggs

The Coen brothers (Joel and Ethan) tackle the West in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, a six-part anthology of short films in which breathtaking visual acuity couples with a morbid sense of humor and western mythology gives way to chilly existential horror. The six films -- united because they're presented as part of a book in which they're bound -- suggest crossbreeding between lurid western pulp and tales told around a campfire.

Not all of the episodes are successful and, sorry to say, stretches of the movie are duller than you might expect from the Coens. But this is a Coen brothers film and, as such, demands some attention from those who've been following the Coens since the days of Blood Simple, some 24 years ago.

In the first episode, Tim Blake Nelson plays the title character, a singing cowboy with an aggressively cheerful manner. Nelson's Buster Scruggs is also a killer who guns people down between songs. One of the movie's best episodes, this one also serves as an announcement that the Coens are hell-bent on replacing the Wild, Wild West with the Weird, Weird West.

Other chapters in the Ceon's rueful book include a story about hanging starring James Franco and a bizarre riff on wagon-train movies that focuses on a woman (Zoe Kazan) traveling west to start a new life but meeting with a sorry fate.

Then there's Meal Ticket, the story of a traveling showman (Liam Neeson) who goes from town to town with a legless, armless man called Hamilton, the Wingless Thrush (Harry Melling). Neeson's character sets Hamilton on the stage where he recites Shelley, Shakespeare and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address to increasingly sparse audiences. Hamilton's career soon will be undermined by an unlikely new entertainer.

Tom Waits portrays a lone prospector who strikes gold but must fend off trouble.

The final chapter of this blood-stained book takes place on a stagecoach where Saul Rubinek (as a Frenchman), Tyne Daly (as a rigidly upright woman), Chelcie Ross (as the always-necessary bearded old trapper), and Brendan Gleeson (as a passenger who sings a sad song) take their weird ride toward ... well ... you'll have to see the movie to discover where they all wind up.

The Coens have fun with the movie's language, which is florid and overdone, the formal-sounding speech of characters aspiring to -- but not always attaining -- eloquence.

For all the Coens wit and wiliness, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs sometimes feels caught in the pages of the book that serves as its framing device, a dusty volume that may be a sorrowful lament for a world that has been mortally wounded and has nothing left to do but stagger toward the grave.

Creative as The Ballad of Buster Scruggs can be, I'm looking forward to seeing the Coens turn the page.

A topical rom-com that works

In The Big Sick, a young Pakistani aspires to be a comic and finds himself in a challenging relationship.

He's an ethnic Pakistani who's trying to make it in the world of stand-up comedy. That's a tall enough order for anybody, but Kumail also must deal with constant nagging from his family. Mom and Dad want him to marry a nice Muslim woman, have children and solidify his relationship to the Pakistani community, a group consisting largely of recent arrivals to the US.

Kumail (Kumail Nanjiani) has other ideas. He does his best to resist the women that his mother invites over every time he shows up for dinner. He keeps photos of these possible brides in a cigar box in his apartment, claiming to have no interest in living the life his family wants for him.

But Kumail's assimilationist values are put to the test when he meets a white woman and their relationship begins to click.

In most rom-coms that might be the whole story. Not so, The Big Sick, a pleasing and provocative comedy that forces its main character to admit that he lacks the gumption to pursue a love interest that could jeopardize his relationship with his family.

When his new girlfriend (Zoe Kazan) learns that Kumail isn't willing to go the distance with her, she walks out on him.

But that's not the end of the story, either. The screenplay -- written by Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon, Nanjiani's real-life wife -- includes an ingenious plot twist. Kazan's Emily falls ill and is put into a medically induced coma.

Emily's illness brings Kumail into contact with Emily's understandably anxious parents (Holly Hunter and Ray Romano). The irony is obvious, but still painful. Kumail was afraid to introduce Emily to his parents (Anupam Kher and Zenobia Shroff). Suddenly, he's deeply involved with Emily's parents.

Both sets of parents are quite good. Kher and Shroff are insistent about their Pakistani roots without entirely giving way to caricature. Hunter and Romano are especially sharp as an apparently mismatched pair. She's rural; he's a city guy. Somehow, they've managed to negotiate the difficult pathways of a long marriage.

Nanjiani makes for an easy-going film presence. He can be funny without constantly resorting to shtick, and Kazan serves up a winning mixture of eccentricity and strength.

Additional color is added by real-life comics Bo Burnham, Aidy Bryant and Kurt Braunohler; they play a trio of aspiring comedians who perform at the Chicago comedy club where Kumail, who earns his keep as an Uber driver, spends most of his spare time.

Obviously, putting a major character into a coma pushes the movie toward the dire side of things. Even so, Nanjiani doesn't overplay Emily's life-and-death drama or the agonizing ordeal her parents suffer through. He trusts us to understand the seriousness of the situation.

Co-writing the screenplay and starring in the movie must have been enough for Nanjiani who turns the directing chores over to Michael Showalter (Hello, My Name Is Doris). Showalter keeps the movie humming along nicely.

Vella Lovell has a nice turn as the one woman who might well entice Kumail away from his relationship with Emily. Not only would Lovell's character satisfy Kumail's parents, she's engaging enough to make us wonder exactly why Kumail remains stuck on Emily, who may never emerge from her coma.

But love is love, and there's not much to be done about it.

At its best, The Big Sick is one of those increasingly rare movies that works the way a romantic comedy should.

Nanjiani also has his finger on a brand of ethnic and religious tribalism that feels both current and rooted in the American experience. Although no one will accuse Nanjiani of writing a treatise, he deals with identity issues that resemble those faced by numerous generations of immigrants.

In this case: How can a Pakistani-born Muslim integrate into a new country and still honor his heritage?

My only complaint about the movie involves its protracted ending -- or should I say several endings. But that doesn't diminish the credit Nanjiani deserves for having taken a genial and entertaining leap into the multicultural melting pot.

Stay for the end credits, which feature photos of the real people on whom Nanjiani has based the characters with whom we've just spent one hour and 59 minutes. Clearly, The Big Sick has its roots in autobiography -- which, after all, may be the basis of some of our best comedies.

In "Ruby,'' he finds his gem

Romantic comedy with charm -- and a bit of intelligence, too

It's a common enough experience. Hungry for romance, we fall in love with our dreamy idea of a person rather than with the more complex flesh-and-blood version. This familiar scenario usually leads to disappointment because -- no matter how committed we are to our fantasies -- reality has a way of kicking them to the curb.

The new romantic comedy -- Ruby Sparks -- carries such a situation to imaginative, amusing extremes: Calvin (Paul Dano) is a young Los Angeles-based novelist whose career has stalled after a smashing debut. Nothing breaks the logjam of Calvin's block until he begins writing about a young woman named Ruby Sparks: For Calvin, Ruby becomes both a character and a muse.

It's just here that the movie takes its defining twist.

To Calvin's surprise, Ruby (Zoe Kazan) suddenly becomes real. She turns up in Calvin's kitchen, acting as if her presence is the most natural thing in the world. After his initial shock, Calvin gradually comes to accept the fact that one his creations has made the transition from the typed page to real life.

Is Calvin crazy? Not at all. Other people see Ruby, too.

Kazan, who wrote the screenplay, sprinkles no magic dust over her fantastical premise. Ruby appears. That's it. We're asked to live with it, just as Calvin is.

A variety of off-camera relationships add extra spice to a romance that doesn't so much bend our minds as divert them for most of the movie's 104 minutes: The directing team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine) are married. Dano and Kazan have been a couple for five years. Feel free to speculate about the effect of all this interpersonal calculus as you follow Dano's Calvin on his romantic adventures.

The idiosyncratic Dano portrays a young man who isn't always sure he wants topple the walls of isolation that surround him. More than most young actors, Dano excels at conveying the debilities of a fragile psyche.

Kazan, on the other hand, has just the right balancing charm to play Calvin's dream girl, a 26-year-old painter from Ohio, who -- of course -- doesn't know that she's a fictional creation.

Most of the people in Calvin's life are happy that he's finally been able to connect with someone. Calvin's brother (Chris Messina) applauds Calvin's situation. Who wouldn't want a woman who could be made to fulfill any desire simply by having her author write it? It should be pointed out that although Calvin's authorial command over Ruby eventually gets a bit out of hand, it takes no kinky directions.

As the story develops, Calvin introduces Ruby to his mother (Annette Bening), an aging hippie who lives with a sculptor (Antonio Banderas). Bening and Banderas are playing cliches, but seem to have fun with them. Elliot Gould shows up as Calvin's shrink, but the movie works best as a two-hander between Dano and Kazan.

Although the screenplay eventually pushes into some dark corners -- which Dano is more than capable of exploring -- Ruby Sparks mostly keeps its strange and whimsical premise well within normal reach. And if you're up for it, the movie even has something to say about the appeal and perils of trying to control the one you love.