“Our story is set in the Brazil of 1977, a period of great mischief…” reads the opening epigram of The Secret Agent, as Armando Solimões (Wagner Moura) drives up to an isolated Esso station in a yellow Volkswagen Beetle. The corpse of a man killed trying to rob the place days earlier lies in the dirt nearby, covered by a hunk of cardboard. The local cops roll up before Armando can depart and harass him, presumably because he’s driving a Beetle and has a beard. Armando keeps his cool and continues on his way, Chicago’s “If You Leave Me Now” coming out his car’s speakers as he arrives in the northeastern city of Recife, where the chief of police is investigating a human leg discovered in the stomach of a dead shark.

That juxtaposition of realistic, politically pointed drama (Armando is in fact on the run) and surreal eruptions of genre continues for the entire lengthy but justified running time of director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s film, one of the front-runners for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Armando, using an alias, arrives at a safe house run by the venerable Dona Sebastiana (the wonderful Tânia Maria), where he meets a couple from Angola and a two-faced cat. Armando’s come to reclaim his young son, who lives in Recife with the boy’s cinema-owning grandfather, and leave the country. Meanwhile, to the tune of Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby,” a father-stepson hit man team embarks from São Paolo on his trail. And that’s just the first act. Anomalies to come include one of screen icon Udo Kier’s final film appearances and an utterly bonkers resurrection of that severed limb.

This is Mendonça’s fourth narrative feature, and first since 2019’s Bacurau, which also featured Kier and Maria and used cinematic tropes to illuminate a politically charged tale. The Secret Agent is more literal, but Mendonça, who began his career as a film critic, emphasizes the absurdity of life under an authoritarian regime through a few truly unhinged sequences. And when the pace threatens to become unduly languid, the film flashes back (to the origins of Armando’s predicament) and forward (to a pair of young researchers listening to surveillance tapes from the era) in time. It’s also a showcase for Moura, best known as Pablo Escobar in Netflix’s Narcos, who does a lot with a little and communicates as much in his silences as he does through dialogue. He brings gravitas without pretense to a role that could easily have come off as a trite stoic or a frustrating cipher.

Brazil’s right-wing governments declined to submit either of Mendonça’s previous two films, Bacurau and 2016’s Aquarius, for Oscar consideration after the director was publicly critical of their policies. The Secret Agent’s stamp of approval from President Lula’s administration reflects both a shift in Brazilian politics and the wider emergence of a distinctive talent. His first two (rarely-seen) features and a selection of his short films are available via Metrograph at Home. (Cinema 21)

Fans of the cult TV series Hannibal may be excited about the reunion of showrunner Bryan Fuller and star cannibal Mads Mikkelsen for Dust Bunny, but the film is closer in feel to Fuller’s earlier cult TV series Pushing Daisies. Darkly whimsical, visually bold, and sometimes frankly a bit much, it does feature a perfectly pitched performance from young Sophie Sloan as Aurora, a little girl who’s terrified of the monster under her bed, especially after it eats her parents. Aurora lives in Apartment 5A in a universe that’s like Tim Burton’s version of Big Trouble in Little China, and when she sees the Intriguing Stranger (Mikkelsen) in Apartment 5B battle an alleyful of bad guys one night, she decides to hire him to take out her nemesis. He’s a killer for hire with a nasty boss (Sigourney Weaver) and no time for fairy tales, but one who finds himself protecting the kid from both his own enemies (who he suspects really offed mom and dad) and, eventually, a monstrous lagomorph who makes Monty Python’s vorpal rabbit look like, well, a regular rabbit.

Directing his first feature, Fuller jumps in with both feet, attempting to construct a dreamscape universe that too often feels two-dimensional and green-screened. After a disorienting, nearly dialogue-free extended opening sequence, the rapport between Mikkelson and Sloan is the main drawing point, although David Dastmalchian (Late Night with the Devil) and Sheila Atim make the most of their gun-toting, cannon-fodder roles. It’s entirely possible this will become another entry in Fuller’s cult canon, but more likely it’ll be remembered as an instance of a storyteller playing with new toys who needs to get a few things out of their system. (multiple locations)

In La grazia, fictional Italian President Mariano De Santis (Toni Servillo) has entered the lame-duck portion of his term. A widowed, respected jurist whose sole confidante and trusted right hand is his dedicated daughter Dorotea (Anna Ferzetti), he has only a couple of pressing responsibilities during the six-month period before his successor is installed. Both, however, present life-or-death moral quandaries, especially in the context of De Santis’ (and his country’s) Catholicism. One dilemma is whether to sign a “death with dignity” euthanasia bill that has been passed by the legislature, the other concerns a pair of convicted murderers seeking presidential pardons. One of them is an unrepentant woman who killed her abusive longtime spouse in his sleep, the other a beloved schoolteacher convicted in the death of his terminally ill wife.

As De Santis wrestles with these conveniently schematic philosophical issues, he struggles with the stolid indecision that has earned him the nickname “Reinforced Concrete.” (It probably sounds cleverer in Italian.) A longtime loyal ally lobbies on behalf of one of the prisoners. The President’s favorite horse suffers a painful injury, but he hesitates to order it put down. A video call with an orbiting astronaut leads to a moment of the grace referenced in the film’s title, and which De Santis struggles to define. All the while, writer-director Paolo Sorrentino and his frequent collaborator Servillo (The Great Beauty, Il Divo) create a central character who’s more than just a mouthpiece for ethical debates. He listens to Italian rap on his headphones, and sneaks out for a smoke when his daughter’s not looking. And he’s increasingly obsessed with figuring who his deceased wife cheated on him with four decades earlier. Sorrentino recovers nicely from the disappointing Parthenope from earlier this year with a serious but human-scale portrait of a decent, learned man confronting both the relationship between law and morality and his own mortality and fallibility. (Living Room Theaters)

VOD/Streaming

Jay Kelly: George Clooney goes meta in Noah Baumbach’s ode to the lonely life of the modern American movie star. Following the death of his beloved mentor (Jim Broadbent) and an unpleasant encounter with an old friend (Bill Crudup), A-lister Jay Kelly (Clooney) heads to Europe to rendezvous with his grown daughter (Grace Edwards) and reluctantly attend a tribute at an Italian film festival. In his wake, Kelly’s agent (Adam Sandler) and publicist (Laura Dern) try to get the star back on track as he confronts the all-too-familiar actor’s realization that he’s spent his whole life being other people at the cost of his own identity. The whole thing, and everyone in it, is utterly watchable. How autobiographical it’s meant to be remains unclear, although Baumbach and co-writer Emily Mortimer reference their movie’s star in both his character’s sound-alike name and the highlight reel that plays when he eventually makes it to his lifetime achievement party. The irony, of course, is that this paean to the magic of Hollywood and the art of cinema received only a token theatrical release from Netflix and arrives on that service right after its plan to purchase Warner Brothers and potentially maim the American film industry as we know it was made public. (Netflix)

Wadd: The Life & Times of John C. Holmes: Fans of Boogie Nights (and, I suppose, fans of sleazy 1970s pornography) will want to seek out this previously hard-to-find documentary that tells the full story of the famously endowed performer who inspired Mark Wahlberg’s Dirk Diggler. Originally released in 1998, it features interviews with a wide array of characters from the adult film industry, including the reliably repellant Larry Flynt and Al Goldstein, as well as Holmes’ first wife Sharon and former Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan. This is a warts-and-all portrait, and some of the warts are especially ugly, as anyone familiar with Boogie Nights can probably guess. His abuse of 15-year-old Dawn Schiller, which included encouraging her addiction to drugs and alcohol, is more than enough to shatter the image of Holmes as a gawky, naïve sex machine. Holmes’ connection to the brutal 1981 Wonderland murders, dramatized in the 2003 film Wonderland with Val Kilmer as Holmes, while never proven, is detailed by Mike Sager, whose Rolling Stone articles were a basis for both Boogie Nights and Wonderland, and a baby-faced Paul Thomas Anderson offers his own insights on a figure whose legendary attributes helped launch the career that led to One Battle After Another. (On demand through major services)

Also this week

The Librarians: “Librarians unite to combat book banning, defending intellectual freedom on democracy’s frontlines amid unprecedented censorship in Texas, Florida, and beyond.” (Salem, 12/13; Tomorrow; 12/18)

Holiday Horror: A selection of seasonal short films emphasizing the dark side of the Yuletide. (Clinton, 12/13)

You Got Gold: Bonnie Raitt, Brandi Carlisle, Jason Isbell, Bob Weir, and many more pay tribute to John Prine in this tribute concert filmed at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium in October 2022. (Salem, 12/14 & 12/16)

Also opening

Ella McCay: “An idealistic young woman (Emma Mackey, Sex Education) juggles her family and work life in a comedy about the people you love and how to survive them.” Veteran writer-director James L. Brooks, whose last good film was 1997’s As Good as It Gets, enlists a star-studded cast including Jamie Lee Curtis, Woody Harrelson, Ayo Edebiri, and Albert Brooks. (multiple locations)

Not Without Hope: Zachary Levi and Josh Duhamel star in the true story of the 2009 boat accident that claimed the lives of two NFL players. Joe Carnahan directs. (Cascade, Movies on TV)

Silent Night, Deadly Night: “A child witnesses his parents’ murder by a man in a Santa suit. Years later, as an adult, he dons a Santa costume himself and embarks on a violent quest for retribution against those responsible for the traumatic event from his childhood.” (multiple locations)

Repertory

Friday 12/12

• Annie [1982] (Kiggins; also 12/16)
• Batman Returns [1992] (Academy; through 12/18; Tomorrow; 12/12 only)
• Darkman [1990] (Hollywood)
• Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas [2000] (multiple locations)
• Elf [2003] (Kiggins; through 12/17)
• Female Trouble [1974] (Academy; through 12/18)
• The Holdovers [2023] (Cinemagic; also 12/13, 12/16, & 12/23)
• Krampus [2015] (Cinemagic; also 12/14 & 12/17)
• Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence [1983] (Academy; through 12/18)
• The Muppet Christmas Carol [1992] (Kiggins; through 12/18)
• The Shining [1980] (Lloyd Cinemas, Cascade, Bridgeport Village; through 12/14)

Saturday 12/13

• Days of Being Wild [1990] (Hollywood; also 12/18)
• Home Alone [1990] (Tomorrow)
• In the Mood for Love [2000] (Hollywood; also 12/14)
• Love, Actually [2003] (Cinemagic; also 12/14, 12/15, & 12/22)
• The Triplets of Belleville [2003] (Salem)

Sunday 12/14

• 2046 [2004] (Hollywood; also 12/15)
• Belladonna of Sadness [1973] (Tomorrow)
• Paddington 2 [2017] (Cinemagic)
• Sense and Sensibility [1995] (multiple locations; also 12/16 & 12/17)

Monday 12/15

• Back to the Future [1985] (Cinemagic; also 12/20)
• Big Trouble in Little China [1986] (Clinton)

Tuesday 12/16

• Back to the Future Part II [1989] (Cinemagic; also 12/20)
• Psychotronic After School Christmas Special (Hollywood)
• They Live [1988] (Clinton)

Wednesday 12/17

• Battle Royale [2000] (Cinemagic; also 12/20)
• “Christmas in Space” (Hollywood; also 12/17)
• The Cat’s Mill: The Animation of Roze Stiebra (Clinton, Church of Film)

Thursday 12/18

• Backbeat [1994] (Clinton, with Sheryl Lee in attendance)
• Merry Christmas [1984] (Cinemagic)