There’s always something of a melancholy tinge to Thanksgiving, an unspoken, primal awareness not only that this is one final bacchanal before the privations of winter set in, but that gratitude can’t really exist without the experience of grief. The things and the people we feel most thankful for are too often the ones that are no longer with us. Perhaps that helps explain why several new films this Thanksgiving season center on loss and how to move on from it. There’s Hamnet, the tearjerking tale of William Shakespeare’s grief over the death of his young son, expected to be on year-end best-of lists (although sadly not yet seen by yours truly). But there’s also a more uplifting, Hollywood-style take on mortality in the A24 release Eternity.

It’s hard to tell an upbeat story about death without some sort of afterlife, and Eternity falls squarely in the tradition of Defending Your Life, Heaven Can Wait, and even Beetlejuice, depicting heaven (or its equivalent) as a comforting but disappointing extension of earthly existence, complete with bureaucracy, individual identity, and emotional variety. When elderly Larry (Barry Primus) dies after choking on a pretzel, he awakens as young Larry (Miles Teller) in a purgatorial transfer station of sorts, where his Afterlife Coordinator (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) explains that he will get to spend the rest of time in a bespoke paradise of his choice. The catch: no takebacks, because whatever deity makes the rules isn’t, like, that omnipotent, so if you want to share immortality with someone still living, you need to hang around in limbo until they die. The good news (?): Larry’s widow Joan (Betty Buckley, then Elizabeth Olsen) succumbs to her cancer before long, and the long-married couple are overjoyed to be reunited. The bad news: Joan’s first husband, Luke (Callum Turner, Masters of the Air), who was killed in the Korean War, has been waiting for her ever since.

Since the notion of permanent polyamory or timeless throupling isn’t in this film’s playbook, Joan is given one week to decide whether she prefers the company of the man she was married to for 67 years or the one she never had the opportunity to spend her life with. As romcom concepts go, it’s original enough to support the various supernatural set pieces and agonized banter in the screenplay by Pat Cunnane and David Freyne, who also directed. It’s not good for much more than that. Teller and Olsen are well-matched as actors who operate at a reserve and almost actively resist audience empathy, making it impossible to root for either of them, individually or as a couple. And though it tries its best to wring pathos from its no-win romantic triangle, the fact remains that these folks are either cursed or blessed with eternal consciousness, so the petty concerns of the human heart will, in a few millennia, be the least of their worries. (Wide release)

Grief of a more earthbound, crushing sort inhabits nearly every frame of The Thing with Feathers, which stars Benedict Cumberbatch in his less enjoyable, treacly mode as the widowed father of two young boys. As he stumbles through the days and weeks following his wife’s apparently sudden, unexpected, and violent death, he’s visited by the figure of a human-sized crow with the voice of David Thewlis. The crow taunts him plainly at times, and at others issues cryptic aphorisms, while the boys (Henry and Richard Boxall) threaten to spiral out of control with their dad so checked out. Writer-director Dylan Southern’s first narrative feature is adapted from Max Porter’s celebrated 2015 book (itself of course riffing on Dickinson), which drew praise for its unconventional mélange of verse, short prose passages, and illustrations. It’s an unfilmable book, really, and Southern can’t be faulted for failing to devise a cinematic analogue to Porter’s creative use of negative page space and sparse, haunting poetry. He can be faulted for thinking it was possible, though, and for altering one narrative detail in the book, that the grieving husband is a Ted Hughes scholar and the crow a reference to Hughes’ collection of the same name. Instead, Cumberbatch’s character is a graphic novelist whose drawings inspire and reflect the corvine figure, but he remains too blurry of a figure, more embodied emotion than actual human. And it’s not helpful that one of 2024’s best films, Tuesday, was also about a raspy-voiced, oversized avian visitor helping an overwhelmed adult to process their bereavement. (City Center, Vancouver Mall, Movies on TV)

It’s not Josh O’Connor’s fault that he’s been in four films released in the last several weeks, of course. And fortunately, he’s a talented and distinct enough presence that he’s not provoking early-2000s Jude Law levels of overexposure. But still, after his deep and affecting work in The History of Sound and The Mastermind, Rebuilding can’t help but seem like a minor work. Which isn’t to say it really is minor, just that writer-director Max Walker-Silverman operates in a low-key register that gives his film authenticity but can sometimes blunt its drama. It’s a story about climate refugees, even if that’s not what they might call themselves. Colorado rancher Dusty (O’Connor), having lost his home in a wildfire, takes up residence, if you can call it that, at a FEMA shelter composed of ramshackle camper vans. His ex-wife (Meghann Fahy) and her mother (Amy Madigan, far more restrained than in Weapons) try to help him emotionally cope with the loss of his entire lifestyle, and he starts spending more time with his young daughter (Lily LaTorre). But for Dusty something’s gone and it’s not coming back, and O’Connor skillfully navigates this typical (but not stereotypical) American man’s stoic but deeply felt realization of that fact. Walker-Silverman, who grew up in Colorado, opens a window onto an underseen population, one ignored by a system that sees nothing to gain from it, much as Nomadland did. Acknowledging the role of climate change in increasing the number of displaced, desperate Americans, which Rebuilding does without resorting to disaster scenes or trauma porn, matters as well. (Regal Fox Tower, Salem Cinema, Cascade)

WTO/99: To compensate for the primal awareness alluded to above, Thanksgiving in today’s society also christens a paradoxical, monthlong celebration of consumption, with a veneer of generosity to keep it respectable. It was 26 Holiday Shopping Seasons ago when the World Trade Organization held its annual get-together in Seattle, met by thousands of nonviolent demonstrators who disrupted the proceedings, communicated their message, and were eventually tear-gassed for their troubles. Of course, it’s not that simple (right?). This expertly assembled collage of footage from the streets, local newscasts, and other archival sources provides a riveting hour-by-hour record of a confrontation that takes on more historical significance the farther we get from it. The movie has the pace and the stakes of a thriller, and captures both local and global perspectives on what went down. The WTO protests and the response to them arguably established a new paradigm for civil unrest, one we’re still living in, that reflects both the increased militarization of police departments and the window-smashing escalations of small numbers of provocateurs. And the issues being protested then are the same issues plaguing efforts toward economic justice today, in case you thought it was all about the tear gas. (Sunday 11/30, Clinton; director Ian Bell in attendance)

Also this week

Playing with Fire: An Ecosexual Emergency: “When a firestorm rips through their redwood forest home, two artist-activists—Beth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle—emerge with a powerful message of love, resilience, and ecological hope, guided by a relationship with their magical peacock.” (Saturday 11/29, Tomorrow, directors in attendance)

The Doors: When You’re Strange: Director Tom Dicillo’s 2009 documentary, narrated by Johnny Depp, gets a re-release to commemorate the band’s 60th anniversary. (Thursday 12/4 & Saturday 12/6, multiple locations)

2025 Fungi Film Fest: The sixth annual cinematic “celebration of mushrooms and mycelium” features 16 short films from eight countries. (Thursday 12/4 & Sunday 12/7, Cinema 21)

Motion by Marie Menken: “Left to the margins and footnotes of the history of experimental filmmaking, Marie Menken not only played a key role in influencing the better known names of the practice—Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas, Kenneth Anger, Andy Warhol, amongst other successful men—but more importantly made some of the most spectacular, playful, and erratic films of her time.” Eight of her films will be screened. (Thursday 12/4, Hollywood; on 16mm)

Also opening

Hamnet: “A powerful story of love and loss that inspired the creation of Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece, Hamlet.” (Cinema 21, Bridgeport Village)

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery: “Benoit Blanc returns for his most dangerous case yet”. (Living Room, Oak Grove, Sandy, Battle Ground, Salem)

Zootopia 2: “Brave rabbit cop Judy Hopps and her friend, the fox Nick Wilde, team up again to crack a new case, the most perilous and intricate of their careers.” (wide release)

Repertory

Friday 11/28

• Blood Rage [1987] (Hollywood [Vault of Horror])
• Edward Scissorhands [1990] (Tomorrow)
• The Godfather [1972] (Academy; through 12/3)
• Jurassic Park [1993] (Cinema 21; also 11/29)
• The Maltese Falcon [1941] (Academy; through 12/3)
• The Princess Bride [1987]
• Shrek [2001] (Academy; through 12/3)
• Skweezy Jibbs Makes a Movie [2025] (Clinton)

Saturday 11/29

• Annie Hall [1977] (Hollywood, on 35mm)
• The Muppet Movie [1979] (Tomorrow)
• No Other Land [2024] (Clinton)
• Remember the Night [1940] (Cinema 21)
• RRR [2022] (Hollywood)
• Stop Making Sense [1984] (Hollywood)
• Trust [1990] (5th Avenue; also 11/30)

Sunday 11/30

• The Donn of Tiki [2025] (Hollywood)
• Drugstore Cowboy [1989] (Hollywood, on 35mm)
• Earth’s Greatest Enemy [2025] (Clinton)
• Twinless [2025] (Tomorrow)

Monday 12/1

• Assault on Precinct 13 [1976] (Clinton)
• The Nightmare Before Christmas [1993] (Hollywood)

Tuesday 12/2

• Cocaine Crabs from Outer Space [2022] (Salem)
• Halloween [1978] (Clinton)

Wednesday 12/3

• Dial Code Santa Claus [1989] (Hollywood)

Thursday 12/4

• Angel Dust [1994] (Clinton [Blessings Movie Night]; with live improvised score
• Wedding Crashers [2005] (multiple locations; also 12/11)