
This is one of those weeks where the movie gods have showered upon us a diverse assortment of notable flicks, with the only real connecting thread being that at least three of them feature surprising work from three different female stars: Cate Blanchett, Anna Kendrick, and Florence Pugh.
We may as well start with the one the dares to cast Blanchett as the Prime Minster of Germany and have her share the screen with a human brain the size of a hatchback. Rumours takes place during a summit meeting of the leaders of the G7 industrialized nations: Germany (Blanchett), the U.S. (Charles Dance), the U.K. (Nikki Amuka-Bird), France (Denis Ménochet), Japan (Takehiro Hira), Italy (Rolando Rovello), and Canada (Roy Dupuis). They’ve gathered at an isolated German chateau to compose a preliminary statement addressing some unspecified current crisis. Typical G7 stuff, essentially. In the first scene, the group is treated to a view of an unearthed, castrated bog body, which their guide tells them is possibly a leader that was killed by dissatisfied followers. This is what’s known as foreshadowing.
Ensconced in an even more isolated gazebo, the septet set to work, and initially you feel as if you’re in for a sly satire on ineffectual diplomats and their petty human foibles. (For instance, there’s something of a love, or at least lust, triangle between Canada, the U.K., and Germany.) But things get very weird very quickly. France runs off after some windblown papers and returns panicked and muddy. A request for more wine goes unanswered, and investigation reveals that the chateau is dark and abandoned. In fact, they are truly alone and must embark on a treacherous nighttime odyssey through the nearby forest in search of civilization, if any is to be found.
These seven characters in search of a preliminary statement aren’t meant to represent particular politicians or ideologies, but to at least allude to general cultural tropes: the French prime minister is corpulent and self-important; the Italian has little slices of salumi tucked in his jacket pocket for snacks, etc. The most fleshed-out are Blanchett, with her skin-deep steeliness; Dance’s American president, who’s grown tired of his role on the world stage; and Dupuis’s moody, manbunned Canuck. (Come to think of it, there is a certain Trudeau fils vibe about him…)
During their trek, they come across the previously mentioned outsized cerebrum, as well as some more bog bodies engaged in…some sort of…ritual…around a fire. They also bump into Alicia Vikander, playing a Swedish diplomat who spews apocalyptic warnings the rest of the group can barely understand. Rumours is at its best when it’s at its most confounding, almost sympathizing with these useless, pompous dorks as their world goes crazy around them. As it approaches its finale, thing become disappointingly literal, but it’s still an audacious, dark-humored treat with a surfeit of style.
That should come as no surprise since the movie is co-directed by Guy Maddin, the Winnipeg-based auteur behind offbeat, yet heartfelt, films such as The Saddest Music in the World and The Forbidden Room. This is Maddin’s first directing work on an original feature since 2011, and he’s credited alongside frequent collaborators, and brothers, Evan and Galen Johnson. Visually, Rumours is much more conventional than the analog, hand-cranked, tinted-silent-movie vibe that’s been a Maddin trademark. It makes sense in the context of a contemporary setting and an engagement, however obliquely, with real-world politics, that are also largely new for the filmmaker. It’s not as if he hasn’t said true and vital things about the human condition in his prior, more idiosyncratic efforts, but one takeaway here might be that the world has gotten so cataclysmic that even Guy Maddin wants us to get our heads out of some aesthetic dreamscape and pay attention. (Regal Fox Tower, Living Room Theaters, Salem Cinema, and other locations)
ALSO OPENING 10/18
Woman of the Hour: This is why women choose the bear. In 1978, an aspiring actor named Cheryl Bradshaw appeared on the popular game show (and reality-show precursor) The Dating Game. Little did she know that one of the three bachelors she was charged with selecting among was Rodney Alcala, who at that point had committed at least two murders, been arrested for one, appeared on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, and done time (twice!) for child molestation. So much for the patriarchy’s background-check acumen. This harrowing true story has been brought to gripping life by star Anna Kendrick, who also demonstrates a sure hand and strong visual sense in her directorial debut.
With her sharp, chipper demeanor, Kendrick has always excelled at portraying determined women who are underestimated as just a pretty face. As such, she’s perfect to play Bradshaw, who’s on the verge of leaving L.A. and her acting dream behind when her agent gets her a spot on The Dating Game. (Wait, so those weren’t just ordinary, random bachelorettes?) She rightfully stiffens at all the cheese she encounters at the studio, including unctuous host Ed (Tony Hale, who’s excessive cartoonishness is one of the movie’s few false notes). It’s noteworthy that the host character is named Ed, perhaps to avoid any flak from the estate of actual host Jim Lange.
Provided with questions to ask (Wait, so the bachelorettes weren’t even coming up with their own questions?), Cheryl, bored with the insipid ritual, deviates from the script, and the only male contestant who deviates from the banal in his responses is Alcala, effectively played as an oddly charismatic creep by Daniel Zovatto. At the end of the show, she selects him, and if you want to know how that turned out, you either need to see the movie or go to Wikipedia. But the aura of menace is real, thanks to Kendrick’s decision to open the film with a re-enactment of the murder of Cornelia Crilley at Alcala’s hands in 1971. Throughout, Kendrick refuses to shy away from depicting the sadistic acts of this proto-incel monster, which not only makes plain his evil but creates layers of tension during the scenes depicting the filming of the episode and what comes after. Don’t go to Wikipedia, see the movie, if that wasn’t obvious before now. (Streaming on Netflix)
We Live in Time: Movies about young loves confronted with terminal illness will always stand in the shadow of 1970’s Love Story, in which Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw taught us that “love means never having to say you’re sorry.” That may, in fact, be terrible advice, but the trope of a beautiful young woman succumbing to a disease that only makes her beautiful the sicker she gets presents challenges to a 21st-century filmmaker. Luckily, screenwriter Nick Payne and director John Crowley are mostly up to the task with this swoonfest starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh.
The trick to this iteration is that events unfold, as the title implies, in nonlinear order. Right away, we see Almut (Pugh), a rising star chef married to Tobias (Garfield) receive a serious cancer diagnosis, which prompts her to wonder whether forgoing treatment would grant them six great months instead of twelve terrible ones. From there, things move backwards to their meeting (a rather egregious “meet cute”) and courtship, and forward to their lives as parents to a young daughter. There aren’t any explicit timestamps, since the movie counts on you to figure out, based largely on Pugh’s belly size and/or hairstyle, where exactly in time we are living at any given moment.
This format gives the stars (the movie is for all intents and purposes a two-hander) the opportunity to play the same characters at different stages of a relationship, but perhaps with the audience’s awareness of those characters’ futures in mind. They run with it, giving performances that tug at the heartstrings while remaining recognizably human—an argument in the early stages of their relationship about whether children are in their future has a particular rawness. And, of course, there’s a certain frisson in seeing two members of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (a former Peter Parker and the current Black Widow) getting it on.
For all this, We Live in Time doesn’t rise to a tragic climax quite as bracing as you’d hope. Part of that is undoubtedly due to the scrambled chronology, since we know early on how, in some ways, things will end up. There’s also an excessive third-act focus on Almut’s death-defying efforts to participate in a global culinary competition that feels tacked-on. While it could have been a equitable juxtaposition to Gaspar Noe’s 2002 reverse-chronology ode to the entropic principle Irreversible, Pugh and Garfield elevate this potentially trite melodrama to an affecting look at love in the face of mortality. (multiple theaters)
Exhibiting Forgiveness: Visual artist Titus Kaphar makes his filmmaking debut with this drama about Black generational trauma and the power of creativity to heal. Tarrell (André Holland), a painter on the brink of widespread success, has a comfortable life with his musician wife Aisha (Andra Day) and their young son. But when Tarrell’s estranged, ex-addict father, La’Ron (John Earl Jelks) re-enters his life, he reacts with nothing but disdain for the man who never was much of a dad.
The broad outlines of this domestic reconciliation scenario are overly familiar, including the (refreshingly mild) references to Christian belief as the only path to forgiveness or redemption. But Holland, who was so great a few years back on The Knick, turns Tarrell from a Black male cliché into a fully-fleshed-out man struggling to do the right thing for himself and his family. The most complex figure is Tarrell’s mother, Joyce (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), who suffered at La’Ron’s hands but admits to her son that she still loves him.
Kaphar, as much as Kendrick, demonstrates a sure vision as a newcomer to film directing. In both cases, the urge to create an auteurist stamp is resisted, and the result is a confidently made film that relies on its story and its performances to carry the day. (multiple locations; also screens on November 15 at the Tomorrow Theater with Kaphar in attendance.)
Smile 2: What does it say about a country when the top box office draws on consecutive weekends each feature a homicidal clown? Post-graduate degrees have been conferred for less compelling topics. In any case, following the underwhelming Joker: Folie a Deux and the, by all appearances, reprehensible Terrifier 3, this weekend’s number one film is likely to be this sequel to the 2022 horror hit. If so, that would definitely be an improvement.
In a pleasant surprise, writer-director Parker Finn follows up his breakthrough with another effort that puts an unexpected protagonist at the heart of a story about much more than evil spirits and creepy grins. Pop icon Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) is preparing to reemerge into the public eye following injuries sustained in a car accident that killed her actor boyfriend, and the ensuing stint in rehab. She can’t get a Vicodin prescription because of her history of abuse, so she visits a drug dealer. When he commits brutal suicide in front of her, those who’ve seen the first film will know she’s in for a rough go of it.
While Skye endures a series of realistic hallucinations that threaten her sanity, she’s also preparing for her upcoming, redemptive world tour. And her assertive stage mother (Rosemarie DeWitt) is reluctant to take her increasingly unhinged-seeming complaints seriously. Skye, who seems modeled mostly after Miley Cyrus, wants only to overcome her sordid past, and Scott does an incredible job of both killing it in rehearsals and making you actually feel sorry for a privileged white girl who’s getting a second chance that 99% of people wouldn’t get.
Other than a pre-credit scene with no apparent connection to the rest of the movie, this is a self-contained sequel, which is a relief. I have no desire to get entwined in the lore of the Smileverse. Finn uses extreme gore sparingly, at least prior to the final act, which makes for that rare thing: a studio horror sequel that’s actually worth its weight in blood. (multiple locations)
I Will Never Leave You Alone: Richard (Kenneth Trujillo) has just been released from prison after serving six years for involuntary manslaughter. Desperate for work, he agrees to stay in a long-empty home in order to demonstrate that it is unhaunted, contrary to local legend, before it is put on the market. He’s not allowed to leave for a week, on punishment of a parole violation and a return to prison. But wait! It gets more improbable. The first thing Rich does, before even entering the place, is dig up a creepy doll from beneath a tree in the yard and take it in. From that bad-idea trifecta comes a surprisingly effective low-budget chiller, in which Rich is forced to confront both the property’s unsavory history and his own complicity in the events that led to the deaths of his wife and child and his conviction. Some of the creature effects are a bit cheesy, but Trujillo, playing a man who has lost the power of speech, carries the story. (available on demand on various digital platforms)
ALSO THIS WEEK
The Fall: The Indian filmmaker Tarsem Singh burst onto the scene in the 2000s with a pair of visually extravagant films, the Jennifer Lopez-starring gonzo thriller The Cell (2000) and its 2006 follow-up, in which an injured silent-era stuntman (Lee Pace) relates a series of epic adventure stories to a young girl. As we witness her version of what he relates, the difference between the two becomes more and more apparent. As a mediation on the nature of storytelling, or as an eye-popping indulgence of baroque costuming and gorgeous location shooting (which took place over four years and in 24 different countries), or both, it’s a unique cinematic achievement, and one that has been brought back into view after years of inaccessibility (copies of the 2008 Blu-ray release regularly sell for over $150 online). Tarsem has yet to return to these artistic heights, but if there’s any film worth seeing on a big screen this weekend, it’s this one. (Cinema 21, Friday & Saturday 10/18 & 10/19)
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