Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

Score: 2.5 / 5

The Rise of Skywalker, the end of a beloved multi-generation saga of folks who love the Skywalkers in a galaxy far, far away, is a muddied mess of fan service and forced nostalgia that sacrifices the joy and ingenuity that makes Star Wars great. It is often blatantly reactionary, repeatedly attempting to comment on and even undo the magnificent strides of its game-changing predecessor, The Last Jedi. Instead of allowing artistic integrity or even quality storytelling to rule the day, Episode IX retreats to a sense of cringeworthy sentimentality and often downright sloppy craft to produce a film that means well but ultimately reveals dangerous ideological impulses.

The plot is pretty bewildering, and all amounts to just about nothing. We begin with the opening scrawl, telling us that a broadcast message has announced the return of Emperor Palpatine. To determine the truth, Kylo Ren mows down soldiers on Mustafar and retrieves a Sith artifact called a Wayfinder. Guess what it does? He finds his way, then, to a mysterious planet called Exegol, where he encounters the decrepit old man. Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid doing wonderful things again) reveals that he is the architect of everything that has happened, including creating Snoke and initiating the First Order. Fittingly, he unleashes the Final Order, a legion of new Star Destroyers each with the power to destroy planets (Death Star tech again, because we clearly haven't had enough of all that).

Then we get tossed into a chase as we follow our heroes Poe and Finn on their mission to deliver new intel to the Resistance: the same damn info we've already got twice by this point. Rey, honing her Jedi skills under Leia's guidance, joins them and they embark to yet another new desert planet to find Lando, who supposedly can help them. After a mini-adventure, they discover a Sith dagger that tells the location of -- guess what? -- another Wayfinder to help them find their way. But then they go to a snowy planet to get a mechanical device from apparently the only person in the galaxy with one, then they use that device to crack the Sith dagger code and travel to another moon of Endor where the wreckage from the second Death Star fell. In the ruins, Rey finds her way. Excuse me, I meant she finds another Wayfinder to help her find her way.

The whole affair is laughably bizarre and confusing at this point, and they still planet-hop at least three more times before the movie ends. Though some may have criticized The Last Jedi for having such a straightforward "chase in space" and an odd but thematically crucial side-plot to Canto Bight, I would take that any day over this nonsense. The Wayfinders are MacGuffins by definition, and would be interesting as such if we had other things going on like character development, world-building, or even fun action. Consider for comparison Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which plotwise is very similar to this: we didn't mind the weirdness of needing a drawing of a key to get the key to open a chest we had to find in order to stab the thump-thump and save the oceans because there was so much quality character development, humor, drama, mythmaking, and generally awesome storytelling.

Instead of those things, we often get the opposite. Much like in Lucas's original trilogy, we get very little -- if any -- understanding of secondary characters or locations. Keri Russell appears (sort of, we only hear her voice and see her eyes) for a hot second, as does Naomi Ackie. Dominic Monaghan shows up in a couple scenes for some reason. Richard E. Grant plays a new First Order (Final Order? Who knows) commander, which is thankfully about all we need to know. All these folks and more are suddenly introduced and just as suddenly ignored. As if the cast wasn't big enough.

Rose Tico, the most exciting new character since Poe, is basically unwritten in this movie. Two new female characters are put in for the sole purpose -- I defy you to give me one shred of evidence to the contrary -- of proving there is absolutely "no homo" between Finn and Poe. Finn doesn't even get a fitting arc, after all his amazing development in the previous two episodes, and he is here relegated to being a stock action hero. There's a truly baffling twist from General Hux. And while seeing Billy Dee Williams again as Lando is fun, he does so unbelievably little in this movie I'd have preferred him to not even show up. Maz Kanata shows up for like three scenes, and yet we still have absolutely no idea who or what she is, what she does, why she's important, or really anything interesting at all.

Most cruelly, Rey is here revealed to be as flat and boring a character as ever I suspected. Just when things were getting really cool in The Last Jedi, when we learn she is completely self-made, even in the Force, and that she came from unremarkable parents, The Rise of Skywalker has to screw it all up. Lo and behold, the granddaughter of Palpatine. Don't get me wrong, I think that's freakin' awesome. But when the main character has been set up as a pretty great feminist icon (remember the way she took control of every situation in The Force Awakens?), it should be artistically criminal to suddenly pull back the curtain and reveal that she is only what men make her to be. In this movie especially, she is stripped of any agency. Her story, her actions, even her identity are forced on her time and again by men. Even in her rare moments of strength, she is seeking answers, advice, and labels for herself from men.

And then there's Leia, whose presence in this film is just unfortunate from top to bottom. Granted, the filmmakers had an impossibly hard job on their hands after Carrie Fisher's untimely death, especially since it seems clear that Leia was supposed to be the last O.G. hero standing. But I can't help but wonder if they should have just killed her off in the opening crawl of this new movie, because her scenes are so deeply uncomfortable. Her presence makes me think of the uncanny valley, and her image is often drenched in so many aggressively drawn visual effects that she doesn't always look real. The scenes in which she's featured -- sometimes made up of deleted scenes from the other films, sometimes simply shot behind her and using a body double -- are disjointed at best, often with dialogue so vague it makes no sense.

Apart from the plot and characters, I can't help but shake what I read as the film's core ideological problem. The film essentially suggests that, if we put this into context, Hitler survived and resurfaced 30+ years later to join forces with the Soviets and turn the Cold War into an apocalypse. That's fine, I guess, except that this film attempts to cultivate nostalgia from the original generation of fans, which is annoying even if it makes sense from a business perspective. The problem is that it's a generation that has twice allowed a Palpatine-like war criminal and egomaniac to take control (George W. Bush and Donald Trump, respectively) and, each time, failed to rise up and challenge him. How about instead of stroking those egos and making that generation feel so safe, we try confronting them with the realities of their sociopolitical choices and its fallout for subsequent generations?

I don't want to belabor the point any longer, but I was just so utterly disappointed in The Rise of Skywalker. It spends too much time retconning the previous movie, which might be the only work of consummate art in the entire franchise. This tendency dissolves any cohesion in the sequel trilogy, making the episodes incoherent at best and conflicting at worst. These anti-developments in this final chapter result in denying the sequel trilogy its own artistic reasons for existence, unless you count the considerable interest in visual effects, which feels rather masturbatory for Disney at this point.

Bombshell (2019)

Score: 4.5 / 5

His latest film plays less like a historical drama and more like a thriller. Turning his incisive aesthetic away from his earlier political interests, director Jay Roach (Recount, Game Change, All the Way) here teams up with The Big Short writer Charles Randolph to deliver a searing indictment of the sexual abuse scandal that rocked Fox News. It's almost hard to remember, but the accusations against Roger Ailes made headlines more than a year before Weinstein's disgrace and the #MeToo movement. In many respects, Bombshell presents itself as a sort of origin story, and its filmmakers bring into sharp focus the changing culture of media and the unspeakable tensions it creates internally.

We begin with Megyn Kelly leading us through the halls of the national Fox News studio. It's a lengthy sequence that features Kelly speaking directly to us through the camera, narrating the front lines of conservative news generation and execution. But she's also in the scene, communicating with her peers and coworkers, seemingly comfortable and amiable in a friendly, almost familial environment. But in furtive glances and occasionally clenched tones of voice, we are keenly aware that this is a cutthroat occupation, one we've seen before in movies about the media, and that the insularity and self-righteousness of Fox News will only make the proceedings more fraught.

I'm sorry, did I say Megyn Kelly? I think I meant to say Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly. It's almost impossible to differentiate the two here, so complete is Theron's transformation. Thanks to some Oscar-worthy prosthetics, the actors of Bombshell look a lot like their counterparts, including Theron and a gobsmackingly brilliant John Lithhow as the monstrous Ailes. But in no other film of 2019 have I seen such a chameleonic performance as Theron. I often and consistently forgot Kelly wasn't just playing herself, as Theron's stilted, measured voice flawlessly replicates those of her real-life character counterpart. Theron's miraculous performance also has incredible emotional intelligence, allowing the icy and calculated Kelly to become accessible and even sympathetic. Knowing what we know now about her time at Fox gives her opening walkthrough scene an eerie undercurrent; it's meant to be sprightly and fun, but we know her discussion of survival and success is rooted in very real trauma. She makes Kelly's unique brand of beauty and brutality make sense.

Thankfully, the actors are brilliant across the board, and the enormous ensemble cast all fill their roles well. It can't have been easy to represent so many familiar faces, voices, and personalities, but there isn't a moment in the film where you're distanced by a performance as you wonder who that person is supposed to be. The only time I was taken aback was when, after several shots and lines of dialogue, I finally realized that Allison Janney was onscreen as Susan Estrich, Ailes's lawyer. Most fascinating to me, though, is Margot Robbie as Kayla, a fictional character who appears to be made as a sort of composite of several women who all fell prey to Ailes. The always reliable Robbie delivers an emotional knockout performance and is nowhere more effective than in a disturbing early scene as Ailes watches her turn and pull up her skirt so he can see her legs. Television is a visual medium, as he says, and he wants to make sure she has the goods.

Jay Roach's attention to detail and infectious sense of urgency combined with Charles Randolph's ability to make complex stories palatable and entertaining make Bombshell endlessly watchable. Occasionally it feels like an extended episode of an office sitcom, other times it feels like a manifesto against workplace harassment, and still other times it feels like an ensemble thriller. At times I wanted the dialogue to go a little deeper, to have some more intimate understanding of these characters and the office politics. The film leaves unanswered several questions for me, including my most burning question: Why on earth would all these women -- especially Kate McKinnon playing a lesbian friend of Robbie's -- have chosen to work at Fox? It's hard to imagine they didn't know what they were getting into. But then again, that sounds dangerously close to blaming the victims, something the film staunchly guards itself against.

Its balancing act of humor and thrills looks easy, so well have the artists done their job, and within only a few minutes the movie made me laugh out loud, gasp in shock, and even leak a tear. This is intellectually and emotionally brutal filmmaking at every level, and even though you know the story it tells, every moment feels fresh and surprising. There is some discussion of Trump, who makes appearances via stock footage, and the film would be decidedly incomplete without his inclusion. I felt torn about this, though, as I wanted either more intelligent discussion about him or perhaps a little less; as it is, he's basically there for context, and I found the lack of anger toward Trump made the general anger of this film feel occasionally flaccid. But Bombshell quickly became one of my favorite movies this year because, as McKinnon advises the newbie journalist, Fox News aims to "frighten, titillate", and this film repurposes that methodology to devastating effect.

Richard Jewell (2019)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Atlanta, 1996. The Georgia summer heat isn't bothering the thousands of people who descended on the Olympic games and assorted festivities. During one concert at Centennial Park, a pipe bomb explodes, killing two people and injuring a hundred more. A frantic hunt for the bomber begins, but a clear suspect takes center stage: Richard Jewell, the security guard who found the bomb.

But Richard Jewell doesn't begin here. The introduction to this film starts earlier, following its protagonist through a bustling office where he works as a custodian. Shortly after, we see that he has become a security guard at a college. His tough work ethic doesn't always jive with his coworkers or the people he serves; he is mocked for being overweight and for having lofty ambitions (he considers himself law enforcement, on par with police officers). He is fired after multiple complaints from students of him overstepping boundaries and abusing the power of his position; he views this as him going above and beyond the call of duty, but the dean simply asks him if he'll resign or if he needs to be fired. It's pitiful in the awkward way where we are made to understand his predicament even though he is clearly in the wrong. But it's awkward viewing because we know the director and we know he is using this introduction to lionize someone who might not entirely deserve it.

If you know the story at all, things get more familiar from here on out. After moving in with his mother, Richard gets a job working security for the Olympics in Atlanta. Once he alerts the authorities about a suspicious bag -- they initially mock him for being so pretentious, only to discover three pipe bombs inside -- he works hard and fast to make a perimeter before the explosion. His heroic action makes him the center of attention, and before he can go home he is swept up in the media spotlight, interviewed by Katie Couric herself. But as the FBI begin to investigate, he becomes their primary suspect. He certainly fits the psychological profile.

Despite Clint Eastwood's heavy-handed storytelling, which seems to only get more problematic as he continues pumping out movies, the film manages to keep its emotional manipulations in check by focusing so tightly on the relative uniqueness of its characters. Unlike the broad stereotyping in Sully, for example, a lot of the characters here are not really representative of their professions, and so they aren't really painted as "good guys" or "bad guys." Jon Hamm, for example, and Olivia Wilde are painted pretty clearly as the antagonists (FBI agent and media reporter, respectively), but their characters are a little too specific and too layered to represent their power structures. Wilde is especially fascinating in a sure-to-be criticized role as a desperate reporter who jumps to wild conclusions and exchanges sex for information.

But the movie belongs firmly to Paul Walter Hauser, Kathy Bates, and Sam Rockwell as Jewell, his mother, and their lawyer. The three of them play off each other beautifully, crafting a moving relationship that bends under each new blow by the media and the government without breaking. And while most artists in Trump's America are doing well to vindicate the free press, this film does the difficult -- and, thankfully, mostly tasteful -- job of showing what negative effects can happen when the news jumps to conclusions. Eastwood isn't lampooning the FBI or press here, though I was certain he would, and he does a fair job showing how irritating his main character can be and why he was, somewhat rightfully, suspected. But Eastwood seems more interested in showing how the tone of the news and the disdain of the investigators ruined Richard Jewell's life, along with the repulsive popular interest and mob mentality of the public who wanted him to fry.

Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)

Score: 4 / 5

A rare case of the welcome sequel, the second (or, rather, third?) Jumanji does indeed take us to the next level. It's pretty standard stuff, much like the first, and pulls out the typical stops for sequels: bigger, louder, with more eye-popping visuals than you can shake a stick at. Yet this movie also manages to stay fresh, interesting, hilarious, and surprisingly moving. And as you might have predicted, there is a mid-credits scene that confirms there will, indeed, be another installment for those who seek to find a way to leave their world behind.

The Next Level begins a few years after the previous film, as our quartet of heroes have returned to the real world empowered and successful. They've all learned their life lessons, that is, except Spencer (Alex Wolff), whose miserable transition to college and disintegrated relationship with Martha has left him feeling weak and alone. He returns home for winter break and reassembles the broken pieces of the Jumanji game before getting sucked in again. When his friends discover his disappearance, they enter the game again to rescue him. But a few fresh surprises await them.

Because of the game's damage, it ability to suck players in seems random, as are the avatars each player embodies. And so begins a magnificent series of scenes depicting the actors we love playing new characters, perhaps nowhere more brilliantly than in Jack Black's Dr. Oberon. When the characters discover pools of water that can switch avatars, we're treated to a sort of body-snatcher comedy sketch that allows the actors some great room to show their skills. Similarly, due to the game's dangerous unpredictability, it also sucks in a few extra players, such as Alex Vreeke (Nick Jonas/Colin Hanks), Spencer's grandfather Danny DeVito, and DeVito's estranged business partner Danny Glover (both of whom have character names that I can't remember and don't really matter).

Soon enough, the whole team is "Welcomed to the Jungle" along with their new comrades, and attempts to channel the essences of the two Dannys make up the primary shtick that carries the film. By the time this gimmick gets a little old, we're thrown into some dazzling action sequences including an ostrich stampede and a mandrill assault on swinging rope bridges. We're introduced, moreover, not only to the jungle but to a desert and a snowy mountain peak; the production design is nothing short of stunning, as are the visual effects. Though this film's Big Bad -- Jurgen the Brutal, played by Rory McCann -- is neither as fun nor iconic as Bobby Cannavale's in the prior picture, it doesn't need to be. We're not here for the villain or the plot; we're here for laughter, adventure, and heart-warming character development, and The Next Level delivers these in spades.

Ophelia (2019)

Score: 4 / 5

The movie begins with the iconic image of the helpless, doomed mad girl, drowning while floating in the river. But, in voiceover from actress Daisy Ridley, the Ophelia of this film tells us we'll hear a different story: her story. Helped by a smart script and a great ensemble, Ophelia reimagines Shakespeare's Hamlet to tell the story of the misunderstood love interest who became a casualty to patriarchal strife. Though it's no work of artistic genius, the film works hard to make a case for its heroine, allowing her intelligence, gumption, and wit to give her the agency to change Denmark, but to escape the slaughter unscathed.

Anyone who finds Hamlet (the character) dramatically inert will be happy to know this story moves along at a faster pace, thanks to the agency exhibited by Ophelia. The film begins with the young girl making a witty first impression on Queen Gertrude, who is impressed enough to grant the child a place in her entourage. In a screenplay that will invariably be scrutinized next to Shakespeare's original language -- of which this film shares none -- it's pretty remarkable that writer Semi Chellas didn't even try to piggyback, instead crafting a tone and rhythm all her own. This dialogue is riddled with wordplay but keeps itself familiar and relevant, as if determined to empower young literary minds when screened in high school English classes.

But be warned that this is not a simple retelling from a different perspective. This story includes multiple episodes utterly absent from Hamlet, though arguably they indicate an odd attempt to contextualize this tale within a nonexistent Shakespearean fictional universe. The big change comes in the form of a witch, played by Naomi Watts, for whom Ophelia is courier of a magic potion for Queen Gertrude (also Naomi Watts); it seems the queen is so desperate to hang on to her own youth and beauty that she will resort to magic and, yes, the love of a husband's brother in order to maintain it. This complication of her character could be read as making her more complicit in the rottenness of Elsinore. Magic mirror on the wall, and so forth.

While Ophelia and Gertrude are stealing our attention, it's important to note that Hamlet and Claudius have important -- and importantly diminished -- roles as well. Claudius is veritably creepy here, clearly dangerous and wicked, whereas the original flirts with his ambiguity for the play's first two acts. Hamlet, though, is a dutiful and often romanticized character, and their affair turns into a sort of Danish Romeo and Juliet situation; he effectively sacrifices himself to cleanse the castle, while Ophelia escapes the madness alone and finally free. They plan their takedown of Elsinore early on, making even Hamlet's nunnery speech into a coded plea for her to escape while she can. In rewritten moments like this, the film especially shines.

And even if you're not here for the gendered politics (shame on you!), the film boasts enough eye-popping, sumptuous costume drama to keep you enthralled. Plus, we've got some gorgeous location cinematography and sound mixing that bring a haunting duality to the warm, sunlit outdoors and the echoing, chilly castle interior. There's not much not to like about all this, though I found myself wanting a bit more of just about everything.

Freaks (2019)

Score: 2.5 / 5

Freaks is a strange movie, and one that really should be watched without any prior knowledge. So if you want to learn its secrets firsthand and without expectation or disappointment, stop reading now.

We begin inside a closed-up house, reminiscent of The Walking Dead or Bird Box, in which a father (Emile Hirsch) teaches his daughter Chloe (Lexy Kolker) how to lie in a speech to be delivered if she's ever caught. We don't know what's outside, and neither does Chloe. We assume it's a sort of post-apocalyptic world, but the father does occasionally go outside for supplies with no visible protection or weapons. But in her few moments of isolation, she peeps through to the sunlit outside and seems enamored by what she sees, especially an ice cream truck driven by Mr. Snowcone himself. Soon she sneaks out to the ice cream truck, and Mr. Snowcone (Bruce Dern) takes her on a ride away from her house.

It's a chilling start, all the more so because we have no idea what's happening, why the secretive dialogue, or who to trust. Is the father being protective, or is he abusing her? Is Mr. Snowcone a kindly old man, a dangerous predator, or something even worse? And what exactly is happening in this strange world in which people's eyes sometimes bleed? Turns out, it's a world like you might see in X-Men, where certain individuals are born with, shall we say, uncanny powers to read minds, turn invisible, or fly. These individuals are known even by the government as "freaks" whose eyes bleed if they overexert their powers, and they are accused in the media of running loose as illegal citizens and hiding in plain sight, slapping us in the face with the real-life relevance of the immigration crisis.

The film is remarkably difficult to swallow, especially since we learn everything with -- and filtered by -- the young girl at its heart. People explain their world and powers in ways she might understand, though we are well aware there's always more going on than they say. And, possibly because of her age, things aren't always clearly happening in reality versus in her head, and almost everything is sentimentalized despite the film's attempts at grit and violence. But once all the players are on the screen and the board is set for a final sequence, I found myself utterly distractable, predicting each step in the otherwise rote plotline, wishing all the fuss amounted to more. The mutants -- or whatever they are -- are far better characters than superheroes, and so their powers are largely pointless apart from getting between plot points. I'd rather watch X-Men.

Luce (2019)

Score: 3.5 / 5

It's the sort of character-heavy drama you go see live theatre for. It's essentially a chamber piece for a handful of talented actors to bounce off each other. Their material: half a dozen hot-topic sociopolitical issues that are as timely as they are timeless. And while, as a film, everything feels a little diluted here, the screenplay seems determined to help you feel as connected to these characters as you would in the same room, breathing the same air. It's an admirable project, one that most compares to last year's The Seagull in style and efficacy.

Kelvin Harrison Jr. steals the movie as the leading player, the titular Luce. He was adopted, we learn, by white Americans and rescued from being a child soldier in Eritrea, since which time he has apparently gone through lots of psychotherapy. Now a star student and star athlete, loved by everyone at his high school, he is a sort of poster child for the American Dream. He's the valedictorian, and we see him delivering moving speeches to his classmates and mentors. He's also far smarter than lots of folks give him credit for, and he too has a dark side; Luce's secrets take his community by storm when they are revealed, and his vengeful fantasy has only just begun.

At least, that's one way to read the film. Another way is as a damning indictment of older folks -- "okay, boomers" -- who are too obsessed with labels and ideologies to see the real people they're categorizing. Luce is a lot of great things, but that doesn't make him a great person. And so when Harriet Wilson, one of his teachers (played by Octavia Spencer), finds one of his papers disturbing, she immediately voices her concerns. To be fair, the assignment is a bit problematic, and someone as smart as Luce would surely jump at the opportunity to stretch his own perspective in writing it. But Ms. Wilson takes things pretty far in order to intercept what she sees as Luce's dangerous interests, searching his locker under ethically ambiguous pretenses and getting his mother (Naomi Watts) involved.

The film deals with largely unspoken ideas, and it gets more complicated when a central motif of the screenplay is that of coded language. At one point, during a parent-teacher conference that looks more like an intervention, Luce -- ever the diplomat -- calls Ms. Wilson "strict" or something to that effect when what he really means is "bitch," which even his father is aware enough to sense. And we feel the same way: she is a strict teacher, which is good, but she also overstepped her bounds and violated Luce's privacy. Then again, as much as I think we are meant to identify/sympathize with Luce, it's never quite clear whether he is too smart and more than a little sociopathic. He certainly has great answers to the adults' questions, answers that sound pre-planned and quite convenient. And it seems unlikely that someone so smart and well-liked would allow himself to be put in such compromising situations. Plus, there's that final shot, which features Luce running toward the camera with a look of completely unreadable hostility.

And for all I loved about this movie, there is enough potentially problematic material that I'm not sure anyone should watch this movie unless they're prepared for some really tough questions about representation, socially responsible storytelling, and the balance between artistic purpose and artistic integrity. For example, Ms. Wilson's mentally ill sister appears in a couple scenes and is brutally exploited in one, for seemingly little reason except to round out part of Ms. Wilson's character and invite the topic of mental illness. Similarly, one of Luce's friends -- and his sometime girlfriend, we learn -- Stephanie Kim was sexually molested by other high school boys before Luce saved her, and now she's basically a tool for the film to briefly touch on the #MeToo movement. And of course there's Luce's parents, who are dangerously close to being iconic white saviors; in one of his speeches, Luce proudly tells the story of how they named him "Luce" because they couldn't pronounce his African name. It's nauseating, and probably indicative of Luce's ulterior motives, but I think it's intentionally so.

The problem is, it's not clear what the filmmakers are really saying about these issues, other than simply introducing them as topics for debate. And I'm not sure that's enough for a quality film.

Black Christmas (2019)

Score: 1.5 / 5

The first thing you need to know about the newest iteration of Black Christmas is that it shares almost nothing with the earlier versions. In each, a handful of sorority sisters try to make their holiday break merry while being stalked and murdered in their own house. That's where the similarities stop. While the 1974 original and 2006 remake feature the deranged killer Billy (at least, we assume that's him), whose strange obsessions result in festive bloodshed, this new version completely tears away from this tradition. We are now dealing with a cult of masked and robed men, a fraternity seeking to put campus women "back in line." Sure, some of the murders feel vaguely similar, especially the initial icicle stabbing, but by the halfway point we know full well who the killers are, their motives, and their M.O., and so the familiarity is forced out.

The second thing you need to know about the new flick is that it is not a Christmas movie. I mean, it takes place during holiday break, but the holiday setting and decor is purely incidental. What this Black Christmas is is a renewed salvo of the gender-based war on male-dominated horror movies (something I wasn't really sure we were in, but writer/director Sophia Takal apparently thinks otherwise). The frat brothers, led by a misogynistic professor (Cary Elwes) at historically sexist Hawthorne College (and yes, Takal, you did just alienate your literary audience members with the misreading of Scarlet Letter), have discovered black magic and a way to let their founder possess them. It's a cheap and surprisingly stupid ploy to pull, one that lessens the imminent threat of rape culture and gender-based violence on college campuses. These boys are capable of evil all on their own, without adding the bizarre and unspecific dark arts to the mix.

The third thing you need to know about the new flick is that the first half is actually quite entertaining. While the movie's scares aren't generally effective, the comedy and drama are utterly engrossing. Rapid-fire dialogue reveal the woke girls' complete disdain for the boys on their campus, building the culture of Hawthorne College didactically while distinguishing girls based on their experiences. One has a dutifully respectful boyfriend who is quite content supporting these women. One seems happy to flirt boys and leave them cold, knowing they're all trash. One was raped at a frat party recently. They pull together some really strong scenes of sisterhood-building and even perform a hardcore anti-rape version of "Up on the Rooftop" in front of the rapist frat boys in skimpy holiday outfits. It's all quite empowering, until it's suddenly not; that is, when they're home and the boys attack.

The final thing you need to know about this movie is that it's one of the biggest disappointments this year. I loved the dialogue in the early scenes, and I would rewatch these scenes again happily. It's the movie's abysmal payoff I can't stand. By the big middle-of-the-movie turn, consisting of cultish robed murderers invading the sorority house, I had completely checked out. It stopped being a feminist college movie and started being a schlocky slasher with little to no artistic purpose or merit and the gall to be intellectually insulting to boot.

Dark Waters (2019)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Todd Haynes has done it again. Nobody would have thought he'd jump into a legal thriller, much less one about the DuPont poisoning scandal in West Virginia. But here it is, one of the best pictures of the year.

Mark Ruffalo stars as Robert Bilott, an Ohio attorney who stumbles upon a troubling problem in the foothills of Parkersburg, West Virginia: cows are becoming mad, getting sick, and dying en masse. The farmer whose cows have been plagued is convinced that DuPont is dumping chemical waste nearby, and even though Bilott's firm represents the chemical manufacturer, he cannot shake the feeling that something is horribly wrong. This protagonist is a more or less typical Haynes character study in that he is an outsider looking for belonging and purpose and ends up in way over his head. His timid, almost turtle-like demeanor belies a fiercely obsessive intellectual bent, and Bilott quickly becomes, as the headline said, "The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare."

Ruffalo here proves his mettle in the kind of "everyman" role that James Stewart thrived on, an awkward but unshakably decent man determined to do the right thing. And in a case like this, the right thing will prove to dominate the rest of his life, much to the chagrin of his wife, the woefully underused but always reliably excellent Anne Hathaway (who really should have played opposite Cate Blanchett in Carol, but that's another rant). It's one thing, after all, to prove wrongdoing. It's quite another to prove intent and lasting damages for such a long period of time and, as we learn, over so much global ground.

Because, thrilling as the film often is, its earnest delivery of corporate-sponsored destruction of lives and property is ongoing, making questions of our own health and complicity requisite topics of conversation for post-screening reflection. While the film pulls at our patience -- the story spans decades, friends -- writers Mario Correa (I don't know of him) and Matthew Michael Carnahan (Lions for Lambs, State of Play) do their best to keep the important parts in, balancing crucial plot development with key character turning points, making the film remarkably intimate and vast at once. It can all get pretty thick and heavy, and Haynes wades into surprisingly dark water here (forgive me). Thankfully, the righteous anger of Dark Waters comes with a strange optimism: even this little guy could take on the big business. The film allows Bilott the platform to help laypeople like me understand how this disaster could have happened, how and why it's been covered up for so long, and of course how it's possible -- indeed, our duty -- to resist.

I was left with cold sweat and a warm feeling in my heart despite the agony of viewing, but I was also left with the burning question of why on earth Haynes decided this story would fit into his body of work. But as I reflected on his early film Safe, in which Julianne Moore develops a mysterious illness to everything around her, I recognized Haynes's sense of paranoia and invisible stressors that loom over the proceedings. And as I thought of Far From Heaven, I wondered if Haynes was drawing a parallel from that picture's depiction of racism/sexism/homophobia and in this film finally highlighting economic status and class as similarly dangerous social constructs that alienate victims and disenfranchise individuals most at risk. And, of course, Haynes controls his art with a sure hand and remarkably insightful eye, making even the slightest of focus shifts sing with purpose and injecting electrified tension into each emotional beat between actors. This movie is a masterclass in directorial artistic integrity, and it's also a damn important story to see on screen.

Queen & Slim (2019)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Few films have harnessed the power of myth as efficiently or effectively as Queen & Slim. It feeds off the tradition of cinematic folktales while it repurposes those tropes to craft a fresh and compelling story that, for all its specificity and alarming cultural relevance, becomes an epic in its own right.

Its title characters are never actually referred to by their nicknames in the film. In fact, their real names are unknown until quite late, thanks to the news reports about them. All we know, when the movie begins, is that "he" and "she" are having an incredibly awkward first date. She is a defense attorney who had a bad day and didn't want to eat alone; he is a little too forward and eager with her, and he masticates loudly. We can tell this is their first date and their last date: his license plate says TRUSTGOD and he prays before he eats, but he's happy to suggest they continue their evening together at home. She is cold as ice, wearing a full white outfit, and content to shut him down repeatedly.

Things suddenly take a worst-case scenario turn as he is driving her home. They get pulled over by a cop for "driving erratically" and, despite their initial compliance with his clearly antagonistic racism, things get heated. When she gets out of the car to record the evil cop on her phone, his trigger-happy finger blows up the night with violence. But it is our two leads who survive the encounter, killing the cop in a moment of glorious self-defense. But Queen (I guess we can call her that?) makes the insightful claim that they will be hung out to dry by the law, not vindicated. I personally found this to be the single moment that infuriated me; the evidence at the scene should surely exonerate the two from persecution. But they decide to run, and so the legend of Queen and Slim is born.

The two leads -- Daniel Kaluuya and newcomer Jodie Turner-Smith -- drive the film magnificently both in terms of acting talent and literally, as the film turns Green Book on its head. This is a road picture, one fraught with life-and-death peril, from Ohio to Florida. Our protagonists flee to the Deep South, planning to somehow cross the big water to Cuba and live there together. Despite the change in cardinal direction, the film becomes fascinatingly analogous to an Underground Railroad. Queen and Slim have become national sensations, sparking protests and riots against police brutality, and wherever they go people recognize them, hiding them when necessary and helping them travel to a hope for freedom.

The police are never far behind, and not all black folk are sympathetic to their action or what they have come to stand for. But therein lies the film's amazing ability to make an archetypal story -- a modern odyssey -- with archetypal characters who are relentlessly their own individuals. Queen and Slim are black, sure, but they are fully fleshed characters who, the film seems determined to hammer into our heads, do not represent and can not represent all black people. They are not icons, they are not intending any of the social phenomenon that they become. But by being unapologetically themselves, they are mythic.

Moreover, it's crucial to note that Queen and Slim are not criminals. Her uncle, one of their railroad conductors, you might say, calls them the "black Bonnie and Clyde" half-jokingly, and the new and police clearly have them painted as ruthless cop killers. But their only alleged crime initially is in self-defense; there is no reason to be shot when you are pulled over for swerving once and you have no illegal substances or weapons in your possession. Their later crimes are a matter of survival, such as stealing a couple cars and gas. And, thrilling as the film is, it resides almost exclusively in moments that are not action-packed or even violent; rather, we spend most of the two-hour-plus runtime in relative silence, breathing with our protagonists and experiencing the beauty of the U.S. heartland with them.

First-time director Melina Matsoukas does some amazing work to this end, dwelling with her characters and letting us in on their sensory experience. She interposes bits of context and exposition, often including brief moments of violence, usually in terms of radio or television. Sometimes these jumps or juxtapositions feel a bit forced, sometimes a bit bizarre, but they make sense the more you give yourself over to her vision. Often awkward conversations tread an engrossing line between sensationalistic, morose, and absurdly funny, and I found it to be at once more lifelike and more profound than if the script detailed lengthy, poetic passages in heightened language. This is an earnest film, an artistic film. This is a film that buttresses its anger with tragedy, combines its dirge with its call to action, and celebrates the simple fact -- a fact that has come under assault as political propaganda by those who choose to not understand -- that black lives matter.

21 Bridges (2019)

Score: 2.5 / 5

I suppose it's a lot to ask for these days: a police action thriller not based on real life that is made honest-to-goodness for a movie theater and not for an hour of weeknight television. The beginning of this movie suggests grand things. A young Andre Davis attends the funeral of his father, a NYPD officer murdered while on duty; a monochromatic sea of black under an overcast rain shower before the police fire their weapons in his honor. As an adult, Andre has become a renowned officer in his own right, and quickly is assigned to the latest case.

The economy of this film is admirable in many ways (apart from its terrible title). Because of his recent credits, Chadwick Boseman doesn't need much introduction for us to believe he's a total badass. Because of the introduction, we know the story's gravity without so much as a single word of dialogue. Because of the casting choices, including JK Simmons as the cop captain and Sienna Miller as the narc detective, we're keenly aware that Andre's skin color puts him in a somewhat dangerous environment at work, even when he's not chasing down criminals.

Unfortunately, the actual plot of the film is disappointingly straightforward and simple. There's not a single twist I didn't see coming by the end of the inciting incident. Basically, after the funeral, we get the crime: Taylor Kitsch and Stephan James (I think they had character names, but nobody cares) break into a winery after hours to steal 30 kilos of cocaine from the . We already have questions, like "why the hell are these small-time drug thieves armed as if they're heading to war?" and "is this how bougie restaurants in big city downtowns stay in business?" But suddenly everything goes awry. They discover at least ten times the amount of cocaine, and then an entire squad of police show up for seemingly no reason. The two criminals shoot their way out, murdering a bunch of cops along the way, and embark on an odyssey through a New York City night.

It's not hard to guess that these cops are dirty, and that before the end of his chase Andre will be fighting street thugs along with more cops than he'd like to count. What's interesting about this movie is that everyone is written more or less sympathetically. The thieves and cop killers are desperate for money just as much as the cops whose wives are sick or whose kids need to go to school. Andre gets put into several hard places to hold people responsible for the evil things they do, proving himself smarter and faster and more principled than all of them. While the film doesn't try to take us on a roller coaster of plot twists and shocks, it asks us to consider the heavy moral weight Andre puts on each decision he makes as one of the only people with integrity in the whole movie.

Then again, for such a short film, I'd have preferred more story and characterization than all these chases on foot and by car, shootouts, and bullets-flying standoffs.

The Perfection (2019)

Score: 2.5 / 5

What a weird movie.

It's set up as a sort of All About Eve thing without the psycho-biddy undercurrents of similar horror films. It quickly becomes apparent, through the subject matter and early scenes, that we have a more psychotic artistic bent a la Black Swan or Whiplash. Then enters the intense body horror, the cultish art school, and the sudden threat of child rape, and you just don't know what to do with it all. It's too much muchness, I say, and all of it meaning nothing.

We begin with Charlotte, played by the skilled Allison Williams, a talented cellist who reconnects with her former mentor Anton. After her abrupt exit from Anton's music academy -- I say academy, but we don't see more than one student at a time -- to care for her mother, Charlotte was seemingly replaced by a new star pupil, Lizzie (Logan Browning). These two ladies become judges along with Anton and the faculty members Theis, Geoffrey, and Anton's wife Paloma in a competition to recruit new young musicians in Shanghai. Tension between Lizzie and Charlotte is palpable, but we aren't sure if it's jealousy, awe, or sexual desire.

Turns out, it's all of the above. The women become quick friends (with benefits) and embark on a bus trip tour through China. After a night of partying, Lizzie is clearly sick. In this sequence, we are drawn into the sensory world of their plight. She repeats her expressions of pain ad nauseam, literally, but nobody on the bus speaks English. The bus driver won't stop; they're in the middle of nowhere and he seems to be in a hurry. The music rises in pitch and volume. It would almost be funny if it weren't so terrifying. Just as I started to feel like I might get sick from watching, Lizzie vomits. And things get really crazy.

I'm going to try not to spoil too much of the plot itself, because part of the joy -- if joy is the right word -- of this film is letting it take you on some truly bizarre twists. After what feels like the end of a short film or television episode, director Richard Shepherd literally rewinds the film back several scenes, and then we revisit the entire sequence but with key moments filled in that completely change the narrative and characters involved. This happens later too, though the gimmick simply isn't effective after that first shock. We begin to expect that things won't make sense until they suddenly do via flashback, which is a cheap ploy to keep your audience paying attention.

Speaking of cheap ploys, the film is so over-the-top -- while still being reasonably grounded -- that I found it hard to take much of anything seriously. I wondered more than once if this movie is meant to be camp, especially given its grotesque ending. While the argument could be convincingly made that the film's excesses are its thematic significance, and the narrative's general plotlessness make this possible, I found that the film was working too hard to push buttons. Arguing its camp sensibility isn't really my interest here, because it's also a really difficult film to watch. The threat of rape and the underlying theme of child abuse as basic conceptual plot points make this entire affair really awful, not to mention that its leads can only overcome their trauma and brainwashing by brutalizing each other.

It's just hard to justify the artistic merit of a film that so blatantly pushes the message that rape-revenge is possible once you've butchered your body and all but conjoined with another victim.

The Aeronauts (2019)

Score: 4.5 / 5

It would be easy, in our age of alien invasions and intergalactic wars and superheroes that fly, to forget some of the most basic horrors of our world. Namely, that of the vast expanse of the sky. There's something at once comforting and terrifying in our atmosphere, as it sustains life within its strangely limited reach into the void. But we so often are limited in film to focusing either on terrestrial great heights (mountains, skyscrapers) or space itself; if we find ourselves in the in-between places of clouds and weather, it's almost exclusively within the confines of technology (an airplane). Rarely are we subjected to the great unknown of the sky, the one thing science can only marginally predict and never control.

But in the hands of such a detail-oriented artist as Tom Harper, air travel indeed becomes nothing less than horrifying. The Aeronauts tells a historical fantasy tale of two individuals sailing into the upper atmosphere: one an adventurer, one a scientist, each hoping to prove something. The scientist, historical figure James Glaisher, is played by Eddie Redmayne, and it is his intention to study meteorology in the atmosphere. The adventurer, Amelia Rennes, is a fictitious composite figure of famous balloonists played by Felicity Jones, and her struggle to overcome trauma provides the story's emotional weight. Together, the two embark on an amazing journey to the highest reaches of the atmosphere; it quickly becomes, however, a thrilling fight for survival.

The introduction consists of Amelia and James taking off in their balloon in front of a crowd of spectators. Through flashbacks, we see segments of their lives before this event, including James's attempts to gain respect for his theories about predicting the weather and Amelia's ill-fated balloon trip that ended with the tragic death of her husband. But the meat of this film takes place up in the air, as they ascend, shattering the height record while putting their lives at risk time and again. Sudden storms, freezing temperatures, and lack of oxygen threaten them as they continue to rise, along with their own egos. But the battle-of-the-sexes seemingly set up by the introduction quickly gives way to a profoundly human story about the risks we take to learn more about our place in this world.

To that end, the existential horror of being isolated in a death-defying basket tens of thousands of feet in the air hits home hard. Thanks to some amazing visual effects and stunning cinematography, The Aeronauts feels a bit like Life of Pi or Gravity in its glorification of earthly beauty. Sweeping vistas and sunlit clouds seem to be painted on the screen as if it were to be hung in a gallery, and even the scary stuff is dreamily gorgeous. But the film never lets us forget that the basket and balloon are not particularly safe, and there's always a clear understanding that a single wrong move will end in death. Its beauty pairs well with its danger, making The Aeronauts one of the most delightful and transcendent surprises of the year.

Trial by Fire (2019)

Score: 2.5 / 5

Based on the galvanizing New Yorker article of the same name, Trial by Fire plays much like an op-ed manifesto against the death penalty. And for good reason. The story concerns Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed by the state of Texas in 2004 for the deaths of his three children over a decade earlier. The devastating and controversial story is pretty straightforward here, as we follow Willingham through his trial, incarceration, and sentencing. As a sort of parallel, we see a playwright named Elizabeth Gilbert who grows attached to the accused man and fights for his vindication.

The movie makes the most sense when the two leads share a scene. Jack O'Connell and Laura Dern play expertly off each other, and their watery eyes seem ready-made to search for hope and humanity in each other. I found Gilbert's story the more interesting of the two dramatized here simply because I was less familiar with it, and Dern is firing on all fronts in what amounts to a performative polemic. Gilbert entered the prison system as a volunteer pen pal; soon she meets Willingham face to face and discovers a man she is sure is innocent. Her friends and others suggest more than once she's in it for prurient purposes -- who can forget the women chasing after Ted Bundy and Charles Manson? -- but she remains steadfast and intentional.

It's a fascinating story, but this film never quite manages to ignite itself. The characters seem realistic and deep, and of course the injustice of it all is incendiary, but director Edward Zwick here offers little to no sense of style for the proceedings. The workmanlike film lumbers onward to its well-known conclusion with scarcely enough dramatic energy to inspire hope or much interest. Perhaps this is partly intentional, as a sort of dirge for criminal reform or, more classically, some kind of tragic call to action. And while I'm glad writer Geoffrey S. Fletcher seems to stick to the New Yorker article fairly closely, I can't help but want to read it again. I remember reading it made me feel excited, scared, horrified, and righteously angry. This movie just made me feel sad.

The Irishman (2019)

Score: 0.5 / 5

I hate this movie. And I hate that it lasts over three and a half hours.

I hate the pretense that made this movie. I hate that you can't even talk about it without referencing others in the genre, which is to say the genre of Scorsese crime films. I hate that this film by definition can only exist in context of other lengthy, expansive, self-indulgent movies about organized crime. I hate the woeful predictability of the whole affair, which starts with the titular protagonist in a nursing home describing his career as a Mafia hitman. I hate that, as he jokes about what must be the film's alternate title ("I heard you paint houses," the only on-screen text) and how it refers to blowing brains out, he also makes a meta-commentary on needing to relieve your bladder before the story really gets underway. I hate that the film lasts over three and a half hours.

I hate the digital de-aging of the actors, which made this one of Scorsese's most ludicrously expensive movies. I hate the way De Niro plays Frank Sheeran, a WWII veteran-turned-hitman and absolute sociopath, who is supposed to be a thirtysomething killer for most of the movie; his face might look young, but the 76-year-old actor can't make his body look like anything but a stiff board and his voice has the gravelly edge of age he can't disguise as gruff testosterone anymore. I hate the way the CGI faces mold into the actors' real faces in an artificially bright way, making them look like corpses fresh from the mortician or like watery reflections that haven't quite settled yet. I hate that the film lasts over three and a half hours.

I hate the Botox-infused false faces of old men playing young men, which feels like a distinctly unspoken problem in the wake of so many vitriolic discussions of accurate Hollywood representation of subjects. I hate the way the de-aging technology stole roles from younger actors like Leo DiCaprio, when De Niro himself played a younger Marlon Brando in the second Godfather. I hate that it unforgivably distracted from an amazing performance by Al Pacino. I hate that the film so abuses Anna Paquin as Sheeran's daughter, utilizing her for probably half a dozen scenes and giving her half as many lines as that. I hate that the wives are discarded and Paquin's role is solely to judge her father for his failures. I hate that these criticisms remind me that I criticized Tarantino for sidelining Margot Robbie in his big feature this year and that Scorsese has publicly called for another similar artist's freedom (a character in that Tarantino flick) to return to the USA despite that man's convictions for rape. And I hate that the film lasts over three and a half hours.

I hate that the film uses Sheeran -- who is by essence unreliable as a narrator -- to craft a sort of bizarre Tarantino-esque, Forrest Gumpian revision of history that suggests the Mafia elected Kennedy and then killed him, to say nothing of the other attempts at bizarre fictional historicity the film hints at. I hate that the film seems to call back to, or even bookend, earlier movies like Goodfellas, Mean Streets, and Casino, but fails to set itself up as a unique work or even one that matters in comparison. I hate that this film at once leans into its lament for ageing and tries so hard to erase its aged stars; near the end, Sheeran makes friends with a visiting priest who prays with him, "Help us see ourselves as you see us," in a cruel critique in which Scorsese himself must have missed the irony. And I hate that this film lasts over three and a half hours.

I hate that the movie is such a step backward for Scorsese, who chose not to continue his streak of amazing, fresh, unique movies (Hugo, Silence, The Aviator) and chose instead to retread old ground long left, rightly, to rot. I hate that the film's themes of human mortality and moral decay in age are undercut by the sad performative reality of his presentation that age is inevitable and even attempts to stop or rewind can only make things worse. I hate that Scorsese seems to think he can perform the magic to this effect when the whole story seems hell-bent on delivering a profoundly human story; then why not give us real humans instead of these CGI Frankenstein creatures? I hate that this film turns Scorsese's disdain for Marvel movies back onto himself, arguably helping to justify claims that he's the Hollywood Old Guard, passing into the sunset with irrelevance and, more horrifying, desperation to not become obsolete. And I hate that this movie lasted over three and a half hours.

Them That Follow (2019)

Score: 4 / 5

For some, snake-handling churches might just be an urban legend. But for those of us who know they exist, Them That Follow paints an eerie portrait of the realities of this fringe religious community. It's a belief system -- usually based in a speaking-in-tongues Pentecostal congregation -- that dares its practitioners to handle the devil's pets in order to prove their faith. After all, God is stronger than nature, and will surely deliver them from the venom of rattlesnakes. But maybe not from their own hubris, or stupidity.

We are immediately introduced to Mara, played by Alice Englert, the daughter of the town preacher. I say "town", but this remote community lost in the mountains of Appalachia scarcely resembles anything you might call incorporated. Mara is being courted by Garret (Lewis Pullman), but we're never quite sure if he really wants her or if he just wants to get closer to her father Lemuel (Walton Goggins). Lemuel uses his religious fervor to hold sway over the town, and fiercely guards his church and its serpentine secrets. This controlling environment quickly becomes hostile as we learn Mara is pregnant.

But this is the kind of story that can only go from bad to worse. The father of her child-to-be, Augie (Thomas Mann), is an ex-member of the church, and so is a sort of social outcast. Before Mara can be given to Garret, her virginity needs to be ascertained by Hope Slaughter (a lovely name, don't you think, played by the equally lovely Olivia Colman), the mother of Augie, who at once understands the girl's situation. Hope intends to keep Mara's secret, but shames Augie into repentance. Augie returns to the church, no doubt to make things easier for Mara and everyone, but Lemuel sees an opportunity to strike.

The film feels like an indie adaptation of a documentary or expose, and uses its setting, lighting, and design to claustrophobic effect. The "hollers" of this community are dark, heavily wooded and home to messes of deadly snakes. They frame the ramshackle buildings like a Dark Romantic proscenium, indicating that all is not well with the spiritual health of the land, and so the physical appearance suffers as a result. As Macbeth would say, light thickens, and the oppressive church structure and home interiors become increasingly menacing. The effect of these techniques is to close in around the viewer, helping us feel as trapped as Mara.

And, because of the blatant gravity of these elements, we also dread the inevitable, which makes the film almost unbearably monotonous. While this is no doubt intentional, it is also not a result of the screenplay, which could have used more than a little help. The seriousness of this film denies the possibility of even passing dry humor and never dips into black comedy, and so it is a mostly joyless affair. Even Winter's Bone had the emotional awareness of itself to include some bleak moments of absurd fun. Not so here, where the film asks us to peer into profound horror without ever actually taking us there. Thankfully, the writing/directing team are more visually skilled than narratively, so we feel the horror without being consciously aware of it.

As a final note, this movie won me over because, although it threatens a sort of hicksploitation (it fits better than redneck-sploitation), it never quite reaches that point. Instead, it becomes a sort of dirge for the poor and uneducated in oppressive rural America before its explosive climax. After wondering the whole film whether Mara will succumb to Lemuel or Garret or both, she rises above her situation royally and rescues herself and Augie -- poor, sweet Augie -- nonverbally declaring her family and home to be morally bankrupt. It's an unexpectedly positive turn at the end of the story that makes you feel slightly less icky about the whole affair.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019)

Score: 2.5 / 5

It's a dangerous business, dear reader, to expect something too specific from a movie. With a title like Where'd You Go, Bernadette, I was so sure this would be a delightful romp of a global mystery. A sort of spectacular fantasy mix of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Eat, Pray, Love that features a disappearing mother and her trail of clues for her daughter to follow, leading to a place of fulfillment and healing for both. And, in a way, that's what this movie is, except that it's completely tonally different, stretching out the melodrama while cutting the mystery woefully short.

Bernadette (Cate Blanchett) is a loner. Reclusive physically and emotionally, she hides in her large, somewhat unkempt house, only comfortable when she's working on some kind of project. We learn, after some time and an unwieldy (but quite funny) expository device, that Bernadette is a world-renowned architect. After a professional setback -- her environmentally-friendly magnus opus gets bulldozed by a competitor, provoked by Bernadette's pride -- she cuts herself off. She doesn't seem to be agoraphobic so much as misanthropic, deliberately making herself unlikable in her limited interactions with real people. Her disdain and eccentricities play off each other as she recedes into her own mind, going so far as to trusting even menial household chores to an Indian personal assistant named Manjula who actually lives in India.

It would all make for a fascinating character study and star vehicle for Blanchett if there wasn't a half-baked plot to go along with it all. Her daughter Bee, having received excellent grades, asks her parents to take her to Antarctica on a vacation. And this is where the film really threatened to derail for me (unfortunate, as this is the first scene) because it frames the whole thing immediately as rich people problems. How many kids are allowed "anything they want" as a result of getting good grades? And how many of them choose to go to Antarctica -- nearly impossible logistically, not to mention legally -- only to have their parents casually discuss it before acquiescing? It's a pretty tone-deaf approach to a story arguably about empowerment and fulfillment.

Bernadette's gauche social hostility gets her in trouble with her neighbors and her husband, but it also gets her into trouble with her audience. I think the blame here must go to director Richard Linklater, who doesn't seem able to bridge the gap between his protagonist's strangeness and her charm. He's out of his element here, playing off Bernadette's hilarious inability to function while showcasing her as a sassy elitist whose casual racism and brilliant neighborly antagonism are forgivable because of her supposed story arc. See, being a mother changes you, the movie seems to say. Bernadette gave up her artistic and professional passions for her family, which apparently has resulted in festering resentment and debilitating anxieties. So in order to reconnect with herself, she has to leave her family and go to the ends of the earth.

It's a weird piece, and one that could open up fascinating conversations about gender, wealth, and artistic integrity. But will it? I'd say not, as the generic film hardly brings enough attention to itself to warrant much discussion. It doesn't even feel like a Linklater film and has very little visual style except in the climactic "intervention" scene. That and the overused "Time After Time" song suggest to me that Linklater didn't really know what he himself wanted out of this movie. We're left with a mostly inaccessible story about privileged people behaving badly in a lackluster film that can't quite muster the courage to do what Bernadette did: something.

After the Wedding (2019)

Score: 1.5 / 5

I've been waiting to watch this year's star-studded soap for some time, and a holiday weekend pushed me right in. There's always at least one -- an glamorous vehicle for major stars to do the easy crap usually offered on daytime networks -- and this year it boasts Michelle Williams and Julianne Moore. What's not to like, right? Turns out there's a lot to be desired in the latest from Bart Freundlich, who is apparently married to Julianne Moore, but I've never seen any of his other films. And now I probably won't.

Isabel (Williams) is the American founder and manager of an orphanage in India; we meet her as she travels to New York to meet Theresa (Moore), a potential major donor to her cause. Isabel seems more than a little anxious at having to leave her chosen home, and more than a little annoyed at having to justify Theresa's charitable giving. The film feels too pristine, too rich; the kind of bourgeois arthouse film that a wealthy film student might have made for his thesis. Everything is soft light, shining surfaces, tastefully simple decor; most of the film takes place in rich people's houses and offices where panoramic views through floor-to-ceiling glass reveal cityscapes or private estates. Make no mistake, this is a movie about sad rich white people who try to do the right thing but can't quite manage to escape themselves.

There's not much plot, but the film is determined to eke a few gasps from you on its way to an underwhelming climax. Structured much like a soap opera, the story works through revelations and confrontations to reveal that Isabel was once in love with Theresa's husband Oscar (Billy Crudup) and that together they had a daughter. Isabel, not ready to be a mother, gave her child up for adoption and left for India; Oscar fell in love with his baby and kept her, named her Grace, and didn't tell Isabel of these changes in his life. Theresa became a mother to Grace, and the weekend of Isabel's arrival is of course the weekend of Grace's wedding. On top of it all, Theresa has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and has a few months to live.

I think somewhere in all this mess could have been a moving story about motherhood; Isabel is ironically a great foster mother to many dozens (if not hundreds) of children in India, and Theresa has clearly been a good mother to her non-biological daughter. In the same vein, it could have been a biting critique of the demands we put on mothers, and how even an unfit mother, once given a time and place to enact motherhood on her own terms, can far exceed our societal expectations. Unfortunately, these are not thematic concerns with this film, and actually motherhood itself is largely invisible here, betrayed by a surprising lack of interaction between either mother and Grace.

Another lens on this film might reveal the disturbing ways rich people commodify and control the lives of people they deem beneath themselves. Theresa summons Isabel to a place she intentionally left and all but forces her to beg for this large donation. But because it's in the name of charity, we're supposed to go along with it? Similarly, Isabel's seeming generosity towards Indian children is bankrupt when she's faced with her former lover and alienated daughter, and she is suddenly ferociously selfish. The film becomes a sort of catfight between the three leads over secrets and lies, but it's all done in such a Hallmark style that we never see much of the fighting itself. The scene cuts right before the climactic arguments and resumes shortly afterward, debilitating any emotional response the film might possibly elicit.

Isn't It Romantic (2019)

Score: 4 / 5

Natalie is an Australian architect living in New York and hates romantic comedies, a genre she seems to blame for -- and use in -- her romantic self-sabotage and general low esteem. Rebel Wilson is an Australian artist who has made her name in feel-good satirical comedy. The two here are a match made in rom-com heaven, Isn't It Romantic, the kind of tastefully pleasant, quietly brilliant film that appears early in the year and then everyone forgets about until the next romantic holiday season. Not that there are many of those. But this one has a few surprises up its sleeve.

When the cynical Natalie gets knocked out by accident, she wakes into a fantasy world in which she is the star of a romantic comedy. That means her female coworker is her enemy (though they are, in reality, close friends), her boss is her lover (though he really doesn't know who she is). That means her male coworker is as lucky in love as she is (though she really has a crush on him) and her grumpy neighbor suddenly becomes her flamboyantly gay best friend. That means NYC streets smell sweet and the gross realities of her life have been glossed over with flowers and spring colors. That means people periodically burst into song, have makeovers in minutes, and have little or no need for money. That means Tom Ellis is your doctor and you can meet Priyanka Chopra on the street.

Our leading lady herself is on fire here. Her usual brassy, sassy self takes center stage here, and Wilson takes it and runs with it. Ready for whatever life throws her way, she steps into a role whose name and occupation seem more artificial than Wilson herself. In fact, I wonder if the writers should have just made a meta movie about Wilson. As it is, though, Wilson doesn't do exactly as we expect; that is, she doesn't always go for gold with whatever life -- or, in this case, a fantasy -- takes her. Instead, she allows for several moments of pure deadpan delivery and, dare I say it, relatively quiet reflection that allow her to deepen her own emotional resonance as a viable person instead of a caricature.

And the film, helmed by Todd Strauss-Schulson, thankfully doesn't wear out its welcome. Intelligent enough to keep its high concept shtick to a tight hour-and-a-half, it keeps itself moving. It also never once flirts with cynicism or cruelty, which too often metafictional humor uses to stay relevant. Technically, the film relies on tropes and tricks of the genre and is thus loaded with references to staples like Pretty Woman, When Harry Met Sally, and My Best Friend's Wedding. Tonally, I'd compare it to the first half of Disney's Enchanted, especially in its lighthearted attempt to draw attention to itself as a fantasy, and of course its spontaneous musical number. With the flattering lights and soft glow of romance, the brazen humor and good nature of its leads, Isn't It Romantic is, for me, the surprise feel-good movie of the year. And with its message of empowerment and self-help to acceptance and love, it also has just enough smarts to make you want to go back for more.

American Woman (2019)

Score: 3 / 5

Who knew Sienna Miller could carry a movie? She was awesome in The Girl, but to my knowledge she hasn't starred in a solo leading role yet in her cinematic career. And while American Woman gives her plenty to work with, it also doesn't do her many favors, which is why its powerful emotional resonance belongs entirely to Miller's powerful performance.

Though its terrible title suggests a sprawling, generic story, American Woman is a remarkably small film. It's a deep character study that sacrifices plot cohesion and thematic heft in its intimate portrait of a woman on the brink. That woman, 30- or 40-something Debra, lives in rust-belt Pennsylvania in the early millennium with her daughter Bridget and (it's incredible, but) infant grandson Jesse. Debra lives across the street from her sister (Christina Hendricks) and her family, with whom she shares a loving but not quite mutually supportive relationship. Her single mother status doesn't stop Debra from trying to be happy between working and dating men who aren't very good to or for her. But she shows herself to be a capable and reliable mother and grandmother.

Until, that is, disaster strikes. After watching Jesse one night while Bridget goes on a date with her baby daddy, Debra is awoken by Jesse's cries. Bridget hasn't come home. She interrogates the boy, who claims his innocence, and Bridget's friend, who were apparently the last people to see Bridget before she walked home. With little information to go on, she calls the police, but the case goes cold quickly. Debra's life spirals out of control as she descends to near-madness; suddenly raising an infant, and dealing with her grief and confusion, she is forced to reckon with her own mother and sister while trying to support herself. Her personal desires are put at risk, and her relationships with men deteriorate, including one unfaithful man she confronts in front of his wife. She unsuccessfully attempts suicide.

But, just as I was wondering if this would be a crime thriller like Prisoners, the movie jumps ahead in time to show Debra raising Jesse not as an infant but as a young boy. She's still having trouble with men and with her family, but she is cultivating a tentative friendship with Jesse's father, who seems to be getting his own life together. We jump ahead yet again, as she finally begins dating a good guy named Chris (Aaron Paul) and they try building a life together. But, we suspect rightfully, even this won't end well.

So the Debra saga becomes more of an odyssey of a single mother's life when put into an unthinkable situation. Its lack of temporal unity, if you want to get Aristotelian, threatens the drama of the film because we only get snippets of Debra's life. This is not Rabbit Hole, which though not necessarily taking place in one day manages to feel emotionally cohesive. We begin to feel stretched -- much like Debra -- between her interactions with toxic people and her attempts to reclaim her own life. To this point, the production design is quietly astonishing, as we immediately understand Debra's changing reality due to her subtler makeup and hairstyles, her ever-so-slightly more mature home decor, and even a believably beautiful home improvement I most noticed in her kitchen. It's those little "lived-in" details that no doubt helped Miller's performance.

But the movie is all hers, and her lack of pretense shows me that she probably didn't know it, or care. She's just endlessly delivering on all fronts, and it's an awesome feat. When we finally resolve the mystery of Bridget's disappearance -- and rest assured that we do -- Miller's cathartic delivery is so stunning it moved me to tears even as I was wondering why. That shows her power in a film that has precious little strength on its own.

Knives Out (2019)

Score: 5 / 5

In what may well be my most anticipated movie of the year, Rian Johnson has crafted a thoroughly entertaining murder mystery. Wealthy crime novelist and patriarch Harlan Thrombey invited his entire family to his 85th birthday party; the movie begins the next morning when his housekeeper finds him dead. In our age of cynical, satirical, metafictional commentary on genre, Johnson here refuses to let his highly original film exhaust itself in this vein. Rather, he imbues it with so much heart and timely social commentary -- while still keeping up the humor and thrills -- that it never feels predictable or derivative.

I'll do my best not to spoil much of the mystery, but even with some basic knowledge of the plot, it's hard to really predict what will happen. Not because it's a huge secret; quite the opposite, because we know full well whodunnit by the halfway point, and we are also highly suspicious of the villain. What?, I hear you ask, but yes indeed -- the killer and the prime suspect and the villain are all in fact very different people. That is just the first of Johnson's brilliant moves to make his murder mystery unique. Johnson gives Agatha Christie a run for her money here; while I personally prefer Christie's ability to let all her characters shine independently, Johnson here is so invested in his leading character that the others are more an ensemble than distinct personalities.

That said, I think we can safely discuss the characters. They're all delightfully suspicious, and divided into three groups, each headed by one of Thrombey's children. The eldest, Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), is a real estate mogul with a racist husband (Don Johnson) who complains about immigrants before quoting Hamilton and a spoiled playboy-with-a-nihilistic-streak son Ransom (a rather unhinged Chris Evans). The youngest, Walt (Michael Shannon), runs dear old dad's publishing company but can't quite make it on his own, even with the dubious support of his wife Donna (Riki Lindhome) and Nazi-sympathizing Internet troll of a son Jacob (Jaeden Martell). Widow Joni (Toni Collette), daughter-in-law to the patriarch, is a self-help lifestyle guru who self-helps herself through the Thrombey finances with a social activist daughter named Meg (Katherine Langford).

The family almost certainly did the deed, but there's also the housekeeper Fran who sees more than she should. There's old man Thrombey's mother, who is mostly still and silent, and whose age is utterly unknown even to her descendants. And, most importantly, there's the old man's nurse Marta (Ana de Armas), to whom the film primarily belongs. Marta was Harlan's confidant and caregiver, and now she harbors a dark secret but cannot tell lies -- her body is an inevitable lie detector under pain of regurgitation -- and so ends up bound to the investigation into her charge's death. It is her apparent purity and empathy that steals the movie; indeed, it arguably fuels much of the convoluted plot. When private detective Benoit Blanc (a delicious Daniel Craig) with his drawling southern accent enters the scene, he beelines for her and loops her in immediately.

While the whodunnit aspect is initially set up as the driving interest for us, by the halfway point that is no longer the primary mystery; it quickly becomes more of a howdunnit or even a whydunnit, which is what makes Knives Out so endlessly fresh. Sure, its roots are deep in the delicious ensemble murder mystery genre, but it quickly evolves into something else entirely, something that honors its tradition while consistently carving out its own niche. I personally expected more style than the film delivered, but I was pleasantly surprised that the substance far outpaced my expectations. The hows and whys become the dynamic interest, and the denouement is less "Aha!" than "Ohh, wow..." and that is a pretty amazing thing.

But, as a final note, it's the film's social commentary that makes this movie important in 2019. It's got a similar flavor to Get Out or Beatriz at Dinner in that it takes as center focus a young, brown-skinned immigrant woman who has to navigate a greedy, duplicitous white family whose love and acceptance of her turn immediately when their family fortune is at stake. They can't remember what South American country she came from, and don't really care that she's working to help keep her own family safe. By the film's final scene, Johnson lays down his cards with two or three of the best shots in the movie and one of the best closing images we've seen on screen all year. It's hilarious and twisted and utterly delicious, and perfectly captures the attitude of the whole movie.