A Rainy Day in New York (2020)

 Score: 0.5 / 5

Woody Allen's latest flick (well, the most recently released to mass audiences) is, for me, among his most disappointing. He rarely wins me over completely, and I tend to scorn the most beloved entries in his filmography. But A Rainy Day in New York is unbearably vapid, the sort of mindless and joyless bilge he prolifically churns out once every two or three years for no discernible reason other than slapping his name on something.

The story is the same as any other bloodless rom-com: a young college couple go to New York City to spend a weekend together. One has an interview booked with a famous filmmaker, the other is tagging along hoping to make the weekend especially romantic. Through misadventures and miscommunication, the two drift apart and have to come to terms with their burgeoning incompatibility. There's nothing new or special about it, and though Allen has handled trashy material like this before, here he seems completely incapable of finding or doing anything interesting with it.

Timothée Chalamet appears to do his best Woody Allen impression -- as all Allen leading men do (or are forced to do) when the director himself stays off screen -- stammering through his uppity turns of phrase as a character named, no joke, Gatsby Welles. If his affected acting doesn't bother you, the privileged and directionless character he plays will. Gatsby wants to charm his girlfriend and plans drinks and museum trips with the money he won playing poker; her unexpectedly busy schedule unhappily gives him some free time, which he uses to meet his awful brother and his fiancee, and Selena Gomez (playing some girl, but really it's just Selena) who is the younger sister of a former girlfriend and with whom he has harbored a mutual crush. Grossed out yet? Hang on to something, because by the "climax" of the flick, he feels inspired to crash his domineering socialite mother (Cherry Jones) while accompanied by a sex worker.

His girlfriend Ashleigh, played by the usually winning Elle Fanning, is a daring but dewy-eyed flake of a person, ditsy when she should be in control. Meeting the morose filmmaker (Liev Schrieber) and his collaborator (Jude Law), she makes an impression on them that feels creepier than it should be, in light of the #MeToo controversies surrounding its production and distribution. By the time she meets a famous actor (Diego Luna), we're keenly aware her future with Gatsby is in jeopardy, and for good reasons. But having so many attractive men fawn over her only makes her more incomprehensible. Then again, the end of the film ends more happily for Gatsby than Ashleigh, arguably, and so whatever might have empowered her character is utterly stripped from her by Allen, who by this point is revealed to be the self-servicing worm we suspected at the start of the movie.

The only decent things about this movie are as follows: Diego Luna is really pretty, Cherry Jones is always a pleasure to watch work (and she is given one pretty solid scene to shine through), and Vittorio Storaro's cinematography is quite lovely to experience. He makes the movie feel dreamlike and romantic in the way classic Hollywood romances were. Too bad Allen had to ruin it all with terrible direction and a musty waste of a screenplay.

Let Them All Talk (2020)

 Score: 4.5 / 5

Let Them All Talk is an oddly prescient film in several ways. Filmed over two weeks with an impossibly skimpy budget -- Meryl Streep has gone on the record saying she was paid twenty-five cents for her performance -- its production is an act of sheer rebellion, really more an experimental performance art piece than a proper movie. Its cast of, what, seven or eight people performed with key moments scripted, but most of their dialogue was, supposedly, improvised. Director Steven Soderbergh himself served also as cinematographer and editor. There is no costumer or makeup artist, as the actors dressed themselves, no special effects, no set or production design. The film was shot aboard the RMS Queen Mary 2 using totally natural (or, at least, natural to the ocean liner) light. Other than his camera, Soderbergh reportedly only used sound equipment. 

Apart from it taking place on an ocean liner (thankfully not a cruise ship), the movie's tiny crew, cast, and budget might suggest a way forward for studios and indie filmmakers hurting after a year with COVID.

There's a lot to unpack here, but we should start with what story there is. Plot, in this product, seems to have been inspired by Deborah Eisenberg at the outset, forgotten about during filming, and then revisited during the editing stage. Alice Hughes (Streep) is a Pultizer-winning novelist working on a new book, which many people suspect might be a follow up to her most famous book published decades earlier. Upon learning she is receiving a prestigious award in the UK, she books tickets on the QM2 for herself, her nephew Tyler (Lucas Hedges), and her two university friends Roberta (Candice Bergen) and Susan (Dianne Wiest). Alice and her old chums have fallen out of touch, and their invitation comes as a mild surprise to all. But Alice's success as a writer has in fact damaged her relationships, and as her motives are unknown to all, the characters meet for a trip that will change their lives. Or, rather, that might. We don't really know. Rather unlike most of Soderbergh's plot-heavy projects, here he truly does "let them all talk", apparently hoping to make something of it. And, because he's him, he does.

Leisurely and soporific, this movie will not please everyone. Despite amazing performances from all cast members -- even a strange role for Gemma Chan as Alice's agent, who is secretly tailing Alice for news on her new manuscript -- the real star of this movie could be said to be the ship itself. Each scene takes place somewhere new on the boat, showcasing it for its glory and beauty even as we start to feel, like the characters, more and more constrained and trapped. It's not a claustrophobic sensation, but one in which the artifice offers only limited comfort, and the sweeping vistas of tranquil blue sea and sky belie the frustrating interpersonal cat-and-mouse games amidships. For all the calming colors and first-class elegance, Alice is having trouble overcoming her writer's block. Susan, a Seattle lawyer for domestic abuse cases, is happy to be on vacation; Roberta, a Dallas retail worker selling lingerie in a department store, is desperate to meet a wealthy, handsome stranger. The central dynamic here, though, is the slowly revealed resentment between the women: Roberta feels that Alice pirated her life story, turning it into fame and fortune for her own uses before leaving her friends in the dust. Could this voyage be a place to right that wrong, or a way for Alice to collect material for her sequel?

My favorite scene takes place during a public talk Alice gives on the ship. In a darkened theatre, Alice discusses her work in heightened language, describing quality literature (arguably discussing her own by proxy) as a sort of spiritual realm where writers and readers can commune; the camera cuts suddenly from a glowing view of an "iconic" Alice to her trio of guests in the dark, who are clearly aware that she in fact betrayed Roberta's trust and preyed on her for professional sustenance. They've already discussed amongst themselves that Alice sounds different and talks differently than she did in university; of course, we all change over time, but they mean that she thinks more highly of herself, and is putting on an artistic act, perhaps to feel worthy of her fame. Her act is shown for what it is when another passenger on the ship appears: a prolific, famous, rich writer of genre books named Kelvin Kranz introduces himself to Alice and the others. The ladies very much admire him, but Alice considers his work to be "Styrofoam" and akin to "jigsaw puzzles" in structure. It's all about the creation of stories, and Soderbergh himself is a third counterpoint to Alice and Kelvin.

This distinction is easy to grasp, and the ironies start to multiply; Soderbergh works hard to literalize the paradoxes, though, and his own multiple names on the crew list may be justified by this thematic concern, as we've discussed in his visual approach here. What plot he assembled in the cutting room may be understated to a fault, it is also as psychologically complex as a slow-burning puzzle and only really works because we fully understand each character in play. We don't fully understand Alice, and in fact we cannot help but judge her multiple times and ways over the course of the film. While she is arguably the protagonist, we are only within her perspective briefly near the end, and it is frankly a baffling sequence the movie would have done well to cut. We never really understand the motives of anyone, their goals, their reservations, their resentments. We never know the subject of Alice's new book. We never learn the full history of these women, or really anything about Tyler. In fact, one might say the characters only exist in any "real" way inasmuch as they interact with each other. Their relationships are the edges of puzzle pieces, and the movie traces those as it puts them together.

And isn't that just how a cruise goes? In any conference center or theatre or ocean liner (or Downton Abbey, for that matter), the "backstage" is meant to be invisible. The interior, the secret mechanism, the truth of functionality is that which is hidden, that which once seen disturbs the fantasy. I thought of this during the one scene when someone -- Alice, of all people -- wanders into a service corridor, where she is promptly escorted out by a staff member. She has wandered into a rare space that is not her own, and its coolly professional workaround stands in stark contrast to the messy relationship she created with her friends. Unfortunately, there's not much to be done about it by her or by us. Soderbergh seems content to just let them all talk, even if it's not anything you can really talk about.

The Prom (2020)

 Score: 5 / 5

The most rousing musical comedy in at least five years has arrived to save us from 2020!

When four washed-up actors on Broadway decide to become relevant again, they naturally take to Twitter to determine a cause worthy of their beneficence. Upon discovering that a rural PTA cancelled prom in protest of a lesbian girl named Emma requesting attendance, they gather their glamor and descend upon a small town in Indiana. Intent on starting a fight for tolerance, they are dismayed that the locals don't appreciate their "zazz" and end up making things worse for Emma. It's not exactly a new tale, and nothing about it is meant to be particularly fresh. But a timeless story is here remade in high fashion with genuine heart, making The Prom one of the best movies of this wretched year.

Ryan Murphy (God's gift to the gays, or perhaps vice versa) helms this prestigious film adapted from the recent Broadway musical by the same writers. It's certainly apparent he's learned a lot since his Glee days, and here the high school musical vibes are less frenetic and more fantastic; that's to say nothing negative about his earlier groundbreaking series, just that he's not recycling old tricks. Murphy's work here reminds me of some other movies that have magnified or even changed the scope and aesthetic of their corresponding stage shows (specifically thinking of Chicago) in that he's not really changing much -- and actually keeping a surprising amount of source material intact -- just adding flair and fantasy elements to heighten the experience. He seems to take his aesthetic inspiration here from recent movie musicals Burlesque and The Greatest Showman in terms of pace, glitter, lights, and emotional beats.

And the show itself is damn good, for having appeared quite suddenly in 2018 on the Great White Way and not doing all that great in only ten months. It's a classic, and not in the oxymoronic "instant classic" sense; it follows the lead of feel-good musical comedies of Charles Strouse or Menken and Ashman, repurposing standard songs (jazz, tango, chorus, anthem) and mashing them into a vaudevillian pastiche. Yes, I'm thinking of Hairspray. Music aside, the story sounds horribly kitsch if you simply describe it, and we (I mean I) tend to feel jaded when confronted with something so beautifully and effectively simple.

Its beguiling good humor and incredibly fast sensibility, though, almost immediately allayed my initial skepticism. The movie is in the best possible hands, and its cast fully commits as much as its production team. Meryl Streep is her usual, impossibly brilliant self, and manages somehow to be even more interesting in the still, quiet moments than in her fiery songs and dance breaks. Nicole Kidman reminds us all that she hasn't aged in decades and deserves so much more spotlight than she ever gets due to her immense talents of voice and body. Andrew Rannells and Keegan-Michael Key (how ridiculously handsome are they?) each deliver slightly understated supporting performances that still steal their respective scenes, and even Kerry Washington has fun and sounds great in her brief moments. James Corden, whatever the gays might say, nails this performance and proves for the first time in many years that he is actually a very talented actor as well as singer.

And then there's the two young women at the emotional heart of this movie and each delivers above and beyond, remarkable in a film with so many huge names. And while I might wish the story were more nuanced and complicated, and that some of the songs hadn't been shortened for time, The Prom is everything we could have wanted and more. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if future (read: post-pandemic) productions of The Prom take primary inspiration from Murphy's movie. This is the candy-colored, flame and flair, razzle-dazzled, glorious kind of movie musical we all want, and it's the kind we all need right now.

The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)

 Score: 5 / 5

"The whole world is watching!"

Aaron Sorkin's latest movie is an astounding project, on par with so many of his pieces in terms of wit, beauty, and urgency. It is also, now, very possibly my favorite of his films (closely contending with Steve Jobs) simply as a result of its massive scope and thrilling timeliness. Manifesting the best of his work, The Trial of the Chicago 7 teaches as it dramatizes, assembling an amazing cast and letting each major player have glorious moments in the spotlight, and cuts through difficult ideological and historical complexities even as it entertains. Molly's Game was a solid directorial debut, but here is Sorkin at his finest, both as writer and burgeoning director, and it deserved so much more than a Netflix premiere.

The film's prologue features stock news footage from the '60s, quickly and efficiently painting the scene: the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and King, President Johnson increasing the draft for an increasingly unpopular war in Vietnam, and the looming Democratic National Convention in Chicago to find a successor to JFK, as Johnson would not campaign again. These scenes are interspersed with the main characters of our story, eight young men leading or representing various liberal factions, as they prepare to head to the Windy City to participate in the convention. We suddenly skip to five months later, when all eight have been arrested for conspiracy to incite rioting. Which, of course, happened in August 1968.

Apart from these eight central characters, we're quickly introduced to their legal counsel, including Joseph Gordon-Levitt as lead prosecutor and Mark Rylance as attorney for seven of the eight defendants. The film, as you might have guessed, closely follows the trial and highlights the absurd length of time taken to determine justice; justice, unfortunately, is not the goal here, and it is often repeated that the publicly scrutinized trial is a political farce. Sorkin seems hell-bent to paint it in all its complex enormity but without too much razzle-dazzle we might expect from a Chicago courtroom musical. At key points, he allows flashbacks so that we can see the various outbreaks of violence that comprised the convention protests and riots; it is in these scenes that we see perhaps most clearly the urgency of Sorkin's screenplay, as the corrupt police force engages in brutal and illegal behaviors against the protestors.

Indeed, the timeliness of this film was surely why it was released when it was, on Netflix in mid-October, just as bills against protests gain support in various legislatures and the country was on the brink of its most important election in many years. The incredible Frank Langella graces the screen as the villainous judge Julius Hoffman, the kind of juicy role he always deserves and rarely gets, a Trumpian character at once terrifying and eminently watchable; he is only clearly evil in the moments when his incompetence fractures. And, given the turmoil of the DNC in 2016, our political climate is definitely ready to revisit this most infamous of debacles in popular sovereignty.

All the actors are giving masterclasses here, all the more so because they are actively supporting each other in this massive movie. Sorkin displays his incomparable ability to make even frantic, emotionally charged, intellectually intricate dialogue sound beautiful, but he also caters dialogue to the characters he's created. Even if it's at times weird that the "Yippies" (played by a delightful Jeremy Strong and Sacha Baron Cohen, who I liked for the first time in a movie) speak in such a polished manner, the actors uniformly make Sorkin's instantly recognizable style palatable and believable. Mark Rylance deserves perhaps the most credit, as he allows brief pauses each time before he speaks, allowing us to believe his lines are actually not scripted.

The beats pile up quickly, and it's hard sometimes to gauge where the facts morph into fiction. But, while he is attempting to teach us parts of history, Sorkin is more interested in the ideas and feelings involved for us in 2020. So even if he doesn't get all the facts exactly right, the sensation of the story he's telling is no less harrowing for its dramatization. More importantly, it's not really trying to teach us any clear moral lesson, a tendency Sorkin often flirts with; rather, he's showing us the dangerous theatricality in the courtroom and the internal war the U.S. government waged on its own citizens, and one key way that war was handled by some of the most outspoken, irreverent, and idealistic young people of the times. It's a story for us, for now, and in that, it is one of the best movies this year.

Greyhound (2020)

 Score: 2.5 / 5

I'm a sucker for war movies, and the latest in that vein was meant to be released theatrically. It became one of the first major pictures to be released during the pandemic digitally, and frankly I think audiences are a bit handicapped when it comes to appreciating something clearly designed to be experienced on a large screen with surround sound. And yet its incredibly short running time and streamlined narrative probably work better for people streaming stories into their living rooms, and so Greyhound may prove more popular at large than it was with me.

Tom Hanks, who has repeatedly proven himself Hollywood's most prolific and intelligent WWII historian, stars as his typical American hero; that is, the kind of humble everyman whose perseverance and wisdom and hope make him a hero. Here, he plays Commander Ernest Krause, leading a convoy of thirty-something ships from America to England. His warship, the one codenamed "Greyhound," is an escort, and the movie begins when they enter the "Black Pit", an area in the middle Atlantic where the ships are too remote to be assisted by Allied planes. This is Krause's first wartime command, and despite his obvious qualification, Hanks shows us the anxiety and determination his character without "doing" much of anything. Hanks has long been a master of acting shorthand, and it helps that he often plays the same type of character. We won't tire of it, yet, because heaven knows we need more encouraging images of heroes who don't wear capes or tights in this ago of bloated superhero flicks.

But this is no character drama, and the entire movie rotates on its plot, a series of cat-and-mouse chases and skirmishes that effectively encapsulate the Battle of the Atlantic, a war-long effort between German U-boats and Allied forces that has rarely been dramatized on screen. This partly may be because there weren't climactic points to this conflict, as it was more of an open wound, hemorrhaging thousands of lives; it is also surely because until recently, movie technology just couldn't accommodate war movies about submarines in a dynamic way.

Inasmuch as he can, Hanks -- also the writer here -- shows off his understanding of the language of the time, working hard to include as many naval terms and period soldierly jargon as he can. In fact, I'd bet someone in the navy (especially someone who served in the world war or shortly thereafter) would appreciate the authenticity of this verbal world Hanks has crafted far more than a layperson like myself. But, as the film never quite dives into the character of Krause, or indeed any character, and focuses so much on the technical aspects of maritime warfare, we start to appreciate the streamlined quality in a way we might like a History Channel documentary. The problem with this is that the onus of the film must then be placed on plot or spectacle, neither of which the film gets quite right.

Repetitive in a not-quite entertaining way, the grayscale shots of churning ocean waves littered with battleships and periscopes only rarely manage to arrest our visual attention, even as things quickly heat up between explosive conflicts. Swooping camera flybys barely allow us a clear picture of what exactly is happening on the open seas, which may be a valid storytelling choice but does not carry aesthetic heft. As the droning score and monochromatic images continue, and the paranoia of what may be just under the water's edge keeps us frantically looking at the horizon, I wondered if the film is in fact hampered by its own technical prowess. Wouldn't this story have been better served intimately, claustrophobically, without the bird's-eye views that give us frequent breaths of air and effectively distance us from the drama? Then again, "story" is a stretch here, and the movie's economy of time pushes it through the fight to the end, when we realize we were pleasantly distracted but never really moved.

Hillbilly Elegy (2020)

Score: 3 / 5

One of the most polarizing books of the decade, J.D. Vance's memoir Hillbilly Elegy was published the summer before the 2016 election and gained surprising momentum when it became apparent Donald Trump would step into the presidency. Book clubs ate it up and it was added to syllabi in classrooms and seminars all over the country; it hit the top of the New York Times bestseller list in August of that year, and again in January. Many people took it as a gospel account of how and why poorer, working-class white people came out in droves to vote red, and exactly how powerful the invisible masses of Rust Belt Americana could be, given proper motivation. It seemed to explain a culture alien to large areas of the continental U.S. in ways that slyly slid around more clearly controversial topics like race and shied away from definitive political ideology. And in its seductive pathos, it raised more than a few hackles from Appalachians; in its alluring ethos, it inspired ire and scorn from those disillusioned by its championing of the American Dream.

How do you turn a book like this into a film? Well, first you hire a director known for tackling controversial topics like The Da Vinci Code and who has carved a place for himself as a strong and prolific "American" filmmaker; it helps that Ron Howard's introduction to popular culture came through the Andy Griffith Show. Then you hire Vanessa Taylor as a screenwriter whose brief list of accomplished work is gobsmackingly varied (Hope Springs, Aladdin, The Shape of Water, and Game of Thrones). Finally, you cast two of the biggest names in acting to lead the film in roles that, to a reader, might be a tad surprising as main characters.

The memoir primarily works, as you might guess, as an elegy: it paints a picture of a dying or even dead Appalachia, autopsying it to analyze social rot, and generally condemning a region for not saving itself even as Vance mourns the circumstances that brought his family and friends low. Debates rage about the author's use of circular logic, his dubious claims of authority in making his conclusions, and his gross use of broad generalizations based on limited and fairly privileged personal experience. But I don't want to spend too much time critiquing the book here, because the movie ultimately doesn't share a lot of what makes the book so damned controversial.

Indeed, Howard and Taylor have adapted Hillbilly Elegy in ways that, while not necessarily surprising in terms of narrative, definitely change the rhetorical impact on its audience. Cutting out many of Vance's masturbatory passages describing his feelings about everything from chicken decapitation to Japanese crotch rockets, the film takes as its focus the journey that young, precocious JD (I'll refer to JD as the dramatized character, Vance as the real-life author) undergoes. Yes, this is a bildungsroman in the worst way, and we can scarcely deny the power of poverty porn in contemporary storytelling. We are all guilty of indulging to some extent, and JD's journey from a muddy swimming hole in Kentucky through decaying Ohio suburbs and finally to the pristine halls of Yale can quietly win over even the most guarded viewer.

This may be partly due to the eminent wonder of our two leading women, both of whom are popularly recognized for their socially and politically left-leaning work. Amy Adams, increasingly playing nuanced and thankless roles to magnificent effect, plays Bev, JD's mother, who would sound like a shoehorned welfare queen trope if I described her. Bev's drug abuse has made her an unreliable and ineffective mother, despite her strong beliefs about family duty and loyalty; no matter how old JD gets, his mother will constantly haunt his steps, invariably drawing his mind to the dangers awaiting him if he does not overcome his past. An almost unrecognizable Glenn Close, on the other hand, plays Mamaw, JD's maternal grandmother, letting out her full acting powers on a character that appears to be a caricature to anyone not familiar with Appalachian culture; those of us with experience will recognize the character immediately, and Close's powerhouse performance can then be seen as the force of nature it is. Without sacrificing her beliefs or values, Mamaw has almost single-handedly taken it upon herself to make life better for her grandchildren, raising them far from their ancestral home and instilling values to help them succeed in a world that would otherwise ignore their existence.

In case you couldn't tell, this movie is almost impossible to discuss without bearing lots of personal baggage, but decrying it without seeing it -- without trying to understand what it's doing -- is intellectually lazy and, I'd argue, deeply damaging to the art and the people it purports to represent. I've seen countless people call this movie offensive and inaccurate because that's what they've heard about the book. This movie is not the book. The closest it comes is in its plot, writ large, which dramatizes the sort of "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" upward climb that comprises the American Dream. And while that is of course a dangerous story to praise, I do think this movie invites more complex discussions about why the American Dream myth is problematic than we've had, culturally, in many years.

My major takeaways from the film were two amazing performances of characters so rarely seen in movies, a story of two amazing women and their impact on a troubled young man, and the stereotypically inspiring story of what you can do to better your life and the lives of your family if you have the opportunity. Its sense of place is authentic and infectious. Its sense of hope and trauma and joy and sorrow is more or less universal, even if the specifics sorely limit its actual scope. The film, wisely, avoids making any sweeping statements about the political or social makeup of impoverished Rust Belt blue-collar Republicans; in avoiding these troubling tendencies by Vance, Howard and Taylor have nonverbally and gracefully dismissed many of his published conclusions.

I would have preferred this film, however, to more actively engage the inherent absurdity of some of the elements it dramatizes. This may have given the film a clearer aesthetic and given it a purpose for existing (beyond being a Hallmark-level emotional journey from family trauma to self-help). Often during the film, I felt the urge to guffaw or even laugh aloud, but choked it down, feeling that it would be inappropriate of me, though I spent the formative years of my young adulthood in southern West Virginia and knew full well what was so funny and relatable about the portrayed drama. Like other movies about such a specific demographic, it can be difficult to know when, as an audience, we are appropriating their humor or appreciating it, laughing with them or laughing at them. My mind immediately goes to Lee Daniels's Precious or the transgressive works of John Waters, the kind of postmodern gothic that flirts with exploitation even as it revels in its unique power. That aesthetic would have been a more fascinating approach, for me, carrying more ideological possibilities and complexity.

Relic (2020)

Score: 4.5 / 5

The camera slowly zooms in on an urn, illuminated on a mantel by pulsing multicolored lights. Death has visited this house before we know anything about it, and not even the nostalgic, warm glow of Christmas can deny the macabre chill we feel right away. Suddenly cutting to half a year later, we learn through exposition that the urn contains the ashes of Edna's husband. The elderly widow recently disappeared from her remote country home in Australia, so we join her daughter Kay and granddaughter Sam as they travel from Melbourne to the home. The house is locked from the inside, but there's no sign of granny here; the camera lingers over dusty household artifacts, a stained-glass window, waxy residue from Edna's candle making, relics of her life that seem to be housed in a dusty, tenebrous museum.

The first act of Relic works incredibly hard and indelibly well at evoking foreboding, an aesthetic choice increasingly popular in horror movies these days. The thick atmosphere of this Gothic house serves as a grim backdrop to the family drama that is all too familiar. Edna appears to be suffering from dementia. Sticky notes litter the house with sometimes functional, sometimes cryptic notes: one demands, "DON'T FOLLOW IT" a la Amityville, and it proves the apparent bewilderment of a disintegrating mind. Kay tells the police about the prior Christmas when Edna flooded the house, about lapses in memory, about the hoarding in her bedroom; the police search the woods and find nothing. Meanwhile, Kay is disturbed by the bowl of rotting fruit on the table and the spots of black mold all over the house.

When Edna suddenly appears in the kitchen, the movie shifts from a chilly creeper to a slow burn. The dynamics of these leading women propel us through act two: the three generations living under the same roof reveal certain strains and affections that are not always what we expect. Edna (Robyn Nevin) was clearly a proud and strong woman -- still is, at least emotionally -- and it seems to have somewhat alienated her daughter Kay (Emily Mortimer) even as it has endeared the distanced and less scarred Sam (Bella Heathcote). Concerned for Edna's well-being, Kay and Sam elect to stay for a time, even as it already apparent to us that Edna needs to be placed in assisted living. Kay must know better though, and even looking at potential new homes for her mother is exhausting and apparently shameful. She's in for a long, tough trial of willpower. Anyone who has lived with or cared for someone with dementia or Alzheimer's knows, and will surely connect instantly with this movie's shorthand for the deeply troubling issues that ensue. For example, Edna seems occasionally frightened, saying the house seems larger and unfamiliar since her husband's death, exactly the sensation described by many a widow or widower.

Of course, being a horror movie, the real horror is buttressed and contrasted with a secondary horror, and it is around the halfway mark that we realize there may be a more sentient malevolence in this house than dementia. What's endlessly fascinating about Relic, though, is the lengths to which it refuses to give solid answers or explanations about the supernatural elements at work here, or even if anything paranormal is happening at all. First-time feature film director Natalie Erika James increasingly allows for the weird to happen, but there's no concrete evidence for any of it; paired as it is with a story of mental illness and aging, the film staunchly frustrates arguments to define the haunting. She suggests a demonic or ghostly presence, even showing it once quite clearly, even as our perspective begins to warp like Edna's has. By the third act, we are as lost as the three women in the labyrinthine hallways of this house that grows and shrinks, twists and turns beyond rationality, time, or space.

Is it real? Definitely, if by "real" we mean consequential for the characters and for our own experience. An inciting incident is teased at one point, suggesting that an unhinged great-grandfather's cottage on the property may have transferred madness (or more literal demons) to the house via the stained-glass window; I took this to symbolize the past returning to haunt the present rather than a portal for spirits, but I suppose that's up for interpretation. The problem is that if you want to lean into the ghostly side of things, you'll wind up horribly frustrated. Though James -- no doubt influenced by her Japanese heritage -- leans heavily into J-horror tropes of a rotting house and sickly, pallid bodies in a shadowy void, there are precious few scares until the surprisingly violent climax of this movie. The plot never really amounts to much here, but the character drama spins suddenly into psychological horror when the house comes alive, more or less claiming what is left of Edna and turning the finale into a home invasion thriller that had a baby with spiritual possession.

It might be difficult to swallow on purely psychological terms, but emotionally, even the finale feeds into the allegory, spectacularly dramatizing the violence and cruelty these degenerative mental illnesses cause on those we love the most. And somewhere between the emotional gut-punches, uncompromisingly beautiful and cerebral aesthetic, and downright terrifying revelations, Relic is one of the most surprising and satisfying movies this year. Hopefully it manages to reach a wider market -- it helps, surely, that Jake Gyllenhaal and the Russo brothers produced it -- so that James can make more amazing movies!

The Witches (2020)

 Score: 3.5 / 5

If there was any major filmmaker out there who decided a remake of The Witches should happen and who had the technical, deeply disturbing, and contagious sense of fun required for it, it would be Robert Zemeckis. His varied and always surprising filmography often marries the fantastic to the macabre, the uncanny to the fetishistic, and his control of the slim boundary between the delightful and terrifying plays out best on the largest screen in town. Unfortunately, his newest vision was released in October, just as people were ready to celebrate holidays and COVID-19 was keeping things too dangerous to venture outside, and so it premiered on the rather exclusive streaming service HBO Max. Thank goodness for free trials!

To briefly summarize the plot, for the unfamiliar: A young unnamed boy, orphaned, moves in with his grandmother and casually runs into a witch. She immediately believes him and tells him about a secret society of witches, wicked fiends who look normal apart from their gloves, wigs, and squared shoes; these accoutrements disguise their monstrous appearance. But once a witch discovers a child, the child is perpetually in danger, and so the boy and his grandmother leave home to hide out at a nearby hotel. But soon after the Grand High Witch shows up there to lead a conference, unveiling their plan to use a potion -- hidden in candy around the world -- to turn children into mice. Before he can warn anyone else, the boy is caught and mouse-ified and spends the rest of the film trying to stay alive and thwart the witches.

It's a cute enough premise, but as with all adaptations of Roald Dahl's work, it requires certain understandings going in, or else viewers may become hopelessly frustrated. The 1983 novel has been previously adapted to film, in 1990 by Nicolas Roeg, and it has yet to be fully satisfying as a story. After a clever and interesting setup, some chilling exposition, and an early centerpiece that is camp heaven, the story peters out into odd chases, bewildering chance encounters, unfulfilled intrigue, and ultimately an ending that is so deeply uncomfortable that each movie has attempted to change it, unsuccessfully each time. Add to it the hotly debated misogyny and racism claims against Dahl's work and the whole concept becomes generally unpleasant.

Which is, surely, why Zemeckis assembled a team of stars to create this new version, even if the reasons for doing so are difficult to determine. Co-written by Guillermo del Toro, whose work with dark fantasy seems remarkably fitting here (and let's all take a minute to thank Hollywood for keeping Tim Burton away from this project), this movie transplants the plot from '80s England/Norway to '60s Alabama and makes the boy and his grandmother Black. There's more than a hint that this may be partly inspired by Lovecraft Country and the general social trauma of the past four years, especially when the grandmother, Agatha (played by Octavia Spencer doing what she does best), takes her grandson, named Charlie here, to a nearby hotel. Its large white façade feel reminiscent of a plantation, and grandmother's assertion that "witches only prey on the poor" feels a little too on-the-nose in these surroundings. When the well-dressed women arrive at the hotel's private ballroom for their meeting of the International Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, shifting from suffragettes to pro-life Republicans to something not unlike Nazis, and discuss turning children into mice to be "sqvashed", the allusions pile up faster than you can keep count.

But there is no denying the sheer watchability and enjoyability of this movie, and I look forward to seeing it again. Anne Hathaway goes for broke here, with a balls-out performance that often feels like it's in a different movie altogether. Much like Angelica Huston in the previous film, Hathaway is clearly having fun camping up her performance and giving so much energy that even when her face splits into a shark-toothed Glasgow smile you see her more than the layers of effects; her thickly ambiguous and theatrical accent tosses in rolling Norse "r" sounds to honor the source, but more than once I wondered if her vaguely eastern European voice was inspired by our own current first lady. "Be best," I wanted her to purr in the moments she wasn't screaming with diabolic ecstasy. She is brilliant even when others are overshadowed (Stanley Tucci), underserved by the script (at least Spencer gets to sing and dance to the oldies), or simply in a movie they just don't belong in (Kristin Chenoweth, I love you, but why are you voicing this mouse like a Southern belle?).

As with many Zemeckis films, he's less interested here in engaging in any Big Ideas. He all but ignores the potentially anti-Semitic theme of blood libel, despite making the witches even more human and therefore more evil than in Roeg's version, sidelines sexist conception of the witches themselves, and barely verbalizes any of the racial tension on screen that he himself created for this picture. Rather, he prefers letting these many issues exist visually, running rampant but small like the mice through his story that is ultimately meant to be funny, thrilling, and scary. Rather like Dahl's prose, in fact. Frankly I don't have a problem with that in itself, but I'd have liked to see Zemeckis and del Toro dramatically rework the story to make some kind of point. Not that a point is necessary, but the similarity of this flick to Roeg's thirty years ago does give me some consternation. They could have restructured the basic plot into anything, and frankly they both have more than enough imagination to do it.

Freaky (2020)

 Score: 4.5 / 5

Christopher Landon nails another feature, this one a deliciously wicked follow-up to Happy Death Day. Instead of being trapped in the "Groundhog Day" of her untimely and brutal murder, this time Landon's heroine finds herself trapped in the body of her murderer. Built and billed as a sort of Freaky Friday homage, Freaky skillfully sidesteps its inherent pitfalls and ends up sticking the landing almost every beat of its 100-minute runtime. And it has a fabulous soundtrack.

Bullied high schooler Millie (Kathryn Newton) performs as the ridiculous Blissfield Valley mascot during their homecoming football game. As she anxiously waits for her ride home afterward, she is attacked by the Blissfield Butcher -- a sort of suburban legend of a serial killer -- who killed four teens the night before. He stabs her with a knife from his previous crime scene, but before he can finish the job, he is chased off by Millie's older sister, a police officer. But the ancient dagger has magic properties, and by morning Millie realizes she is stuck in the Butcher's body. So, naturally, she goes to school.

Perhaps the funniest sequence in the film takes place within the school, as Millie (trapped in Vince Vaughn's body) wanders the halls looking for her best friends Nyla and Josh. Of course, their fight-and-flight response is riotously funny -- "You're black! I'm gay! We are so dead!" -- but Millie convinces them of the switcheroo just in time for them to confront the Butcher. Unfortunately, by this time, the killer has already killed two other people (both of whom are, interestingly, Millie's enemies) and has learned that in his innocent new body he is utterly free from suspicion in his crimes. He shrieks for help and then calmly turns toward new victims as the heroes flee the school guards.

With the Butcher becoming a mounting threat -- and the bodies piling up, casting more suspicion on Millie -- the three heroes have to research the dagger and how to reverse its effects while planning ways to stop the killer. And they have until midnight to complete the ritual. The clock is ticking, and the film never lags a single beat. But, as Landon masterfully does, the scares never overcome the heart of the story, and Millie learns valuable lessons about inner strength, dealing with her anxiety and awkwardness, and taking pride in being different and an outsider. It sounds trite when spelled out like this, but it's remarkably effective in this rollicking, violent comedy that rarely stops to ask for logic or explanations. It helps, too, that the two leading actors are doing some eye-popping, ballsy work (Vaughn hasn't shown this delicious side of himself before, except in Psycho and Brawl in Cell Block 99, and Newton makes a case for herself as a young and badass new action movie star) and are supported by enthusiastic secondary players, including Misha Osherovich, one of the few non-binary actors in such a prominent role in a mainstream movie.

Come Play (2020)

Score: 2.5 / 5

It's hard for me to feel jaded about any theatrical release this year, simply because I've missed going to the cinema so much. Come Play is one of those releases that, when not in a pandemic, I'd have been annoyed with and possibly even disliked. Not that there's really anything wrong with it formally, mind, nor is it ever less than absorbing during its 100-minute runtime. That's the magic of horror films for me, at least for the most part; I'd rather watch a slow, silly, or stupid horror movie than a comedy or romance any day because of pure adrenaline-fueled wonder at what might happen next. Plus, fear is a deliciously underappreciated sensation.

Young Oliver, a nonverbal autistic boy, primarily uses his smartphone to communicate with others, which has made him the victim of bullying by his classmates. His parents, both of whom are actually pretty darn good parents, are on the verge of splitting up. One night, Oliver opens a mysterious new app called "Misunderstood Monsters", which is apparently a digital picture book. Despite nightmarish drawings of a figure the book calls Larry -- the images seem inspired by Stephen Gammell's illustrations for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, if that helps you visualize something a child should absolutely not be seeing -- Oliver reads until he gets too spooked. Larry just wants a friend, the book says, and poor Oliver does too.

As it is, Come Play fits into a subgenre of horror preoccupied with the relationships of children to monstrosity: from James Whale's Frankenstein to The Babadook, the perennial dark fantasy of children being drawn to that which should terrify us. Could it be that they haven't learned to fear that which society hates? Could it be that they are uniquely susceptible to diabolic charms? A lack of answers helps the genre function in a culture that so worships youth and childhood as symbols of life and a future. This movie also belongs, in terms of adaptive form, to a sub-subgenre of flicks in recent years inspired by successful short films. This one, based on writer/director Jacob Chase's short "Larry", in many ways takes its cue from Andres Muschietti's Mama or David F. Sandberg's Lights Out. 

As in those, the best sequences are those in which the short is directly transposed into a centerpiece of the film. Here that means the father, working his lonely shift as a parking lot monitor, is surrounded by dark, open spaces in which shadows looks more scary than the void. However, I found the basic premise of this particular movie difficult to rationalize, as Larry increasingly tries to enter the real world, apparently able to move and manifest as a result of electrical devices and currents. If the movie were so interested in the monstrosity that is (or can be) the abuse of devices with black mirrors, I'm surprised that this flick was so determined to make Larry supernatural and corporeal. And then there's the bullying of Oliver, which makes up a significant part of the early plot but utterly vanishes by the halfway point.

Where this particular movie succeeds is in its masterful control of terror. This is a jumpscare factory, a veritable haunted house of boogeymen, lights flickering, doors and furniture moving on their own. A particularly, nastily effective scene involves Oliver and his bullying "friends" trapped in a sleepover together as they use their tablet to look for Larry in the house. By the time Larry indeed physically manifests in the house -- a la the Crooked Man from The Conjuring 2 -- we're suitably scared and ready for a showdown. And this one does not disappoint in terms of action and continued scares. Unfortunately, its logic begins to unravel in the final sequences, to the point that what should be an emotional climax felt cheap, cruel, and unearned to me.