Lizzie (2018)

Score: 3 / 5

It may be a minor cultural phenomenon, but the story of Lizzie Borden is one I knew almost nothing about. Beyond, of course, the little sing-song rhyme about her "whacks" with an axe.

The tale is one of the destruction of family life. Lizzie dwells in the house of her father Andrew (Jamey Sheridan) along with her sister Emma (Kim Dickens); Lizzie's stepmother Abby (Fiona Shaw) may not be the wicked figure of fairytales, but this is by no means a house of love or mirth. Andrew dominates his home in abusive fashion, a house that is haunted by vague threats from town, hinting that Andrew's public life is as destructive as his private life. The appearance of a new maid named Bridget sparks the action of the film.

A meek Irish immigrant, Bridget cares for the family, but after nursing Lizzie to health after a seizure connects most intimately with her. Kristen Stewart plays Bridget with surprising ability masked under layers of calculated mild-mannered-ness. Lizzie and Bridget begin a timid affair through notes and shared moments of quiet away from prying eyes and forceful hands. Their tenderness stands in stark contrast to Lizzie's waking life, as her father plans to disinherit his daughters and leave everything to Abby. And after Bridget's mother dies, Lizzie witnesses Andrew assaulting Bridget by night.

Chloe Sevigny, always excellent in her performances, has made a career of complex queer female characters and of being naked on screen. And her Lizzie Borden is no different, though here she understates the character so much that it's hard to read her. She's not quite crazy, but she's so cool and collected that she can hardly be fully sane. It's such a nuanced performance that the film hinges on it, and it mostly succeeds. The film itself, directed by Craig William Macneill, views the story with a similarly dispassionate air, allowing the proceedings to string along like an episode of Dateline. It could do with more dramatic flourish, but it's an interesting choice nonetheless.

Stoic as her performance is, Sevigny's empathy for Lizzie is as clear as the sense of impending doom around the star-crossed lovers. Regardless of the historicity of this film, Bryce Kass's screenplay makes a strong case for Lizzie's justification in her actions; assuming, of course, that she did the deed. It's a sort of OJ Simpson parallel, and when the film finally shows its climax -- later than it really happens -- it does it in an In Cold Blood style flashback that magnificently shows the calculated complexity of the murders. And, yes, Sevigny is naked. In our age of murder-by-the-minute on any given television crime procedural, it's refreshing to see this level of erotic, calculated, and stylized brutality.

Suspiria (2018)

Score: 5 / 5

As if taking a cue from mother!, Darren Aronofsky's magnum opus of madness, Luca Guadagnino has not only remade Suspiria with and for a new age of gods and monsters, but has indeed fashioned a unique cinematic experience determined to make you squirm.

Dario Argento's 1977 original served as a sort of watershed moment, an icon of Italian giallo that perfectly bridged the gap between supernatural horror and slasher aesthetic. Guadagnino has kept the essence of the story: A young woman arrives at a prestigious dance academy in Germany, assuming a recently vacated position and quickly rising in the company. As strange horrors plague the academy, though, the girls suspect their mentors of diabolical designs and research what has come to be known as the Three Mothers, Argento's creation of embodiments of evil, a mythology he explored in a trilogy of films.

Whether Guadagnino plans a similar trilogy remains a mystery, but I certainly hope he does. Not because they need remaking, but because his reimagining is here so bloody effective.

The original film sets itself up as an impressionistic fairytale, drenched in vibrant, abstract colors and deceptively simple in themes and plot. Not so here, where Guadagnino has stretched the film to two-and-a-half hours of almost mind-numbing complexity. With cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, he's drained the film of almost all its color, leaving us in a cold grayscale that forces us to meditate on what we don't see. Until, of course, the blood gushes; then we remember that this is the wicked stepsister of Argento's film.

Resituated in time and place, this movie takes place in 1977 Berlin, and though the anxieties this raises aren't explained to those of us who don't know our history, it is immediately clear that Berlin is host of deep cultural wounds that are not healed. Whereas Argento's film found a home in dreamy Freiburg (again with the fairytale bent), here we're smack-dab in a modern city, with chaos and molotov cocktails ruining the streets. We're initially introduced to Dr. Klemperer, a psychologist on whom the film hinges, and through him we read a keen sense of injustice and trauma that coldly underpins the proceedings. His wife, you see, disappeared when the Nazis took over.

On a more immediately accessible plane, though, the themes of sisterhood and motherhood remain strong in this new adaptation. Bolstered by strong performances across the board, the characters exist in a brutal world as fully formed psychological beings; their wheels are always turning, and the camera will often rest on their faces as they do nothing but think. Dakota Johnson leads here -- who knew she could really act? -- with astounding physical skill, dancing her way through numbers of increasing intensity. But it's Tilda Swinton who truly stars, taking on multiple characters as a chameleon and disappearing under layers of impossibly convincing makeup. Her Madame Blanc, matron of the dance, takes an immediate liking to Johnson's young heroine, and despite the deadly power-play at work in the academy, she rules all with patience and striking kindness.

Patience and kindness, that is, much like the film itself. Guadagnino has carefully calculated every breath of this film -- appropriate, as Suspiria refers to the "sighs" of pain -- to be slow and deliberate, drawing you in and forcing you to exist in the world it creates rather than simply watching. Along with entrancing music by Radiohead's Thom Yorke, the film's sound mixing and editing is designed to pop, creeping into your ears and under your skin for maximum effect. Nowhere is this more powerful than in an early scene -- the movie reveals its mystery early, so you can drown in the style instead of the story -- when Dakota Johnson dances in her audition. Every step and flex she makes assaults your ears, and you hear every pop, crack, and thud; this is amplified when we see that the dance is a form of violent magic that bends and breaks the body of another girl in the academy. Whereas the original film found pleasure in sudden stabs and gushing blood, here we are subjected to body horror of the highest caliber. Bones grinding and snapping have never been more visceral.

Apart from its skilled body horror, audiences wanting striking terror are in for a disappointment. While this film takes sadistic pleasure in pushing the female body to its limits and viewing urine and blood and bones, it's by no means meant to scare you. Instead, it exists and invites you to share in its uncanny chill, its deliciously subversive approach to anticlimactic horror, and its ultimately tragic sense of how very wrong humans can go. That's what struck me the most, during what is arguably the climax -- a scene that will satisfy even the bloodthirstiest gorehounds -- when what should be as gruesome and disgusting as Evil Dead or Carrie becomes elegiac and profoundly sad.

While this movie has plenty of disturbing sensory moments -- the best of the year -- its purpose lies under the skin, seeking to not only quicken your heart but also to pain it. This movie is a consummate work of art: a work about art (dance) that uses never-before-seen techniques to remaster the form of film itself, to make insightful commentary about the power of art in our broken lives and about broken art in our lives, and to make itself a new way of viewing not only a genre but our world. Breathe with Suspiria and allow its meditation on guilt, generational pain, the limits of the body and of memory, and of female fellowship to invade your heart. Breathe with Suspiria and it will take over your senses. Breathe with Suspiria and witness the awesome power of modern horror cinema.

Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018)

Score: 1.5 / 5

If anything could make another version of The Jungle Book special, memorable, or meaningful, motion capture wasn't it.

It seems an appropriate directorial debut for the undisputed master of motion capture Andy Serkis, whose technical and dramatic work on the Planet of the Apes franchise really deserved more award recognition. There's not really a way to get the story wrong, and much of it relies on special effects to stupefy the audience into a state of wonder. Leave it to Serkis to make the animals look uncannily like their all-star voice actor counterparts. You really haven't lived until you've seen Christian Bale's face covered in Bagheera's black fur, or Benedict Cumberbatch's crazy eyes popping out of Shere Khan's tigery visage.

But Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle is so much less than it could -- and should -- have been. Though its technical skill in realizing the animals is unquestionable, its delivery feels preoccupied with its own technicality. Faces and movement might be exactly right, but many of the other effects look cheap by comparison (notice scenes of intense action and of large numbers of animals; they are remarkably unfinished renderings). Moreover, Serkis demonstrates a surprising inability to direct the film, apart from his own area of expertise. The screenplay and editing seem aggressively at odds with each other while the movie never really shows us anything new or interesting to make it worthwhile. And, perhaps most importantly, the film tonally lurches in such intense swings that it never really coalesces into a finished product.

This film fatally suffers from its inability to make a case for existing. Partly due, no doubt, to Disney's The Jungle Book being filmed near the same time, and due to Mowgli being released on Netflix and not theatrically, this film was doomed to have a lesser impact. And yet its faults extend beyond those of circumstance. Serkis seems bent on telling a fresh, darker story without music and whimsy. His characters bleed -- more than you might expect -- and die in gruesome ways. This is not the movie to watch with impressionable young children on a Friday night. But Serkis fails to bring the film to a truly violent, visceral level; while it remains in appropriate for children, it's also not very appealing to adults seeking more brutal fare.

Finally -- and comparisons are often so unproductive -- The Jungle Book is just so much more effective and accomplished as a film. Its effects are impeccable, its sense of joy pure and infectious, its nostalgia combines perfectly with its innovations. Mowgli isn't forced to return to the man-village, doomed by some sickly essentialist ideas about what he was born as opposed to who he chooses to be. Rather, he remains with his friends and family in the jungle, a perfect ending to his character and his story that has never been told before. That's a reason to retell this story. Tell it differently, with a purpose that is relevant for the time and place.

The closest Mowgli gets to being relevant -- apart from casting Naomie Harris and Cate Blanchett -- is in its vague attempts at teasing out the complex political machinations of the jungle. By the time Mowgli is all but forced back to the man-village, the jungle has become a dark and anarchic place, ruled over by a vicious tyrant with bad hair, dramatic gesture, and a crazed gleam in his eye. He may not be Trump, but in case you didn't make the connection, Serkis puts a malnourished, dirty Mowgli in a cage for the villagers (and audience) to mock.

Save your time, and save your energy. Jon Favreau is making a Jungle Book sequel, and I cannot wait.

On Chesil Beach (2018)

Score: 2.5 / 5

Even without having read Ian McEwan's novel, I found On Chesil Beach to be a diverting, engaging, funny, heartbreaking, and ultimately cold look at failed romance.

It begins with such promise. A young couple, clearly in love, spending their honeymoon together on a picturesque beach. The flat landscape, shimmering with reflections of sunlight, hints at the transcendence the innocent soon-to-be lovers will experience on their first night together. After a lovely dinner brought to their suite, and some polite if awkward conversation, things get more heated. That is to say, their erotic desires are so constrained by propriety that they are unable to communicate effectively.

Our awareness of their plight is also disjointed -- purposely -- through use of intermittent flashback. We witness the newlyweds meeting after their respective graduations, quickly falling in love, and arranging their wedding. Their families are quite different -- hers is wealthy and offer her higher ambitions while his is humble, poor, and aggressively kind -- but don't seem especially opposed to the union. Instead, we begin to see the two as being in love but nearly incapable of being alone together. This is highlighted during their dinner, as their farcical servers nearly ruin the evening's ambiance. The two make small talk, reminisce, and basically fail to ever meet each other on the same plane.

In an age of cinematic sex so explicit it becomes embarrassing or laughable (Fifty Shades of Grey), it's almost refreshing to see a movie about how awkward sex can be. Even for a married heterosexual couple, constraints of polite society -- trickling down from a lack of relevant education to an inability to communicate about what each wants or doesn't -- can severely (and fatally) limit our capacity to function intimately. Of course, there are other issues involved in this particular story: Edward's romantic efforts are thwarted by his heightened sex drive, while Florence may or may not have been molested by her domineering father.

The climax should be a heartrending confrontation on the beach, as Florence offers to be a platonic wife and to let her husband sleep with whomever he wants and Edward all but screams that he only wants her. And while the film to this point is effectively split between tender drama and farcical romance, the climax reaches a cold plateau that can't quite reconcile the themes at work with the aesthetic of the film. Immediately after, we dive headfirst into a lengthy denouement -- thirteen years later -- that tries to wrap things up in melodramatic fashion. Florence has remarried, borne children, and become the musical success she always dreamed of; Edward's life has been ruined by the woman who said she was incapable of physical carnality.

Though I trust that Ian McEwan -- who adapted his own work here -- is expanding his dramatic vision of his original story, I couldn't help but feel that this ending was anti-dramatic. Perhaps that's his point -- it's all anti-climactic as well, deliberately -- but it drains the themes at work of their potency. Instead we're left with a Hallmark-worthy epilogue that makes you roll your eyes in exasperation rather than tragedy. And the old-age makeup is pretty awful too.

Billy Howle does his best work yet, though, as Edward. If for nothing else, watch this movie for his performance.

If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)

Score: 5 / 5

It's a nearly perfect film from the man who made last year's perfect film Moonlight. Barry Jenkins has done it again -- although, in my view, not quite as successfully -- with If Beale Street Could Talk, adapted from the James Baldwin novel.

Tish and Fonny are in trouble. Having been friends their whole lives, they eventually become lovers. Now she's pregnant with his child, but he's been framed for raping another woman. Tish must tell her truth to their families and plan how to support herself, her child, and Fonny's defense. Told in nonlinear episodes, the film weaves a mesmerizing tale of love through lovers, family, faith, and of course New York City.

Like his earlier film, Beale Street works best as a sensory exercise. Its impossibly beautiful score -- by composer Nicholas Britell -- sweeps your heart away while gorgeous photography of New York life -- by James Laxton -- steals your sight. Though the cinematography isn't as evocative as in Moonlight, here it does do well in focusing our attention on the human faces struggling for love. We're kept tight on various visages, daring us to investigate the souls of those whose lives we're intimately invading. It's exactly the kind of technique so alien to our culture of screens and speed and ironic distances; to be kept in often silent proximity with the windows to the soul of another human.

The screenplay here is a bit more articulate than in his earlier film, and while I didn't quite like it at first, it's hard to ignore the powerful voice of James Baldwin bleeding through. Further, while all the actors are uniformly doing excellent work -- they shine often when saying and doing nothing at all, only looking -- they manage to make the heightened dialogue sound not only normal but absolutely pure, wrapping their voices and our minds around weighty concepts and layers of meaning with each utterance.

The film's slow, melancholic visual and aural approach to storytelling may be too deliberate and cerebral for some, but it belies a surprisingly complex, detailed story. Timely and deeply disturbing, the romance set amidst contemporary race relations, gender dynamics, and grave injustice is also, at its core, a time-tested dramatic form in new trappings -- new color, if you will -- as a tale of pure hope in the face of evil society.

I personally didn't care for the intrusive use of stock photos depicting historical race relations, and I'm annoyed that Regina King didn't get more to work with in her role. Frankly the film didn't mean as much to me as the groundbreaking queer romance Moonlight did, but all these are just personal preferences. So while it's not my favorite example of the unbelievably beautiful craft of its director, Beale Street deserves all the praise in the world. Go see it. Go love it. Let the sounds and sights wash over you, and fall in love all over again. It's an amazing thing to experience.

On the Basis of Sex (2018)

Score: 4 / 5

There's really nothing special about On the Basis of Sex. It's a rote biopic depicting the early life of one Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who of course would go on to be iconic progressive voice in U.S. legal and judicial history. Shmaltzy and sentimental, the film capitalizes on its own senses of nostalgia and timeliness to lionize a woman who hardly needs any extra praise. Much like The Post last year, this feels like an awards grab -- though with considerably less technical skill -- for an audience who is already well-acquainted with its real-life counterpart.

There's really nothing special about the screenplay. We follow Ruth through Harvard Law School and her underdog status as a woman in the male-dominated program. We see her grin and bear it -- though not without her fiery brand of wit and scathing retorts -- and she buckles down to earn her own degree and help her husband. Later, they work together on a case that she's sure will topple "the whole damn system"...if, of course, they win. It's a classic tale of love and hard work and victory that feels nauseatingly like an origin story for a superhero. While there are stakes, we know every step of the journey before it appears on screen.

There's really nothing special about the performances. Felicity Jones brings her considerable talent to the fore -- she's really one of the best in her generation, in my opinion -- but she doesn't do much here we haven't seen her do before. Armie Hammer is his usual suave, intelligent, charming self, and while his supportive husband is a welcome sight (his character's position is usually a vile, chauvinistic sadist), he's not giving us much to chew on. Brief appearances by Sam Waterston as the primary villain and Kathy Bates as the revered mentor figure Dorothy Kenyon, while delightful, are nothing noteworthy.

There's really nothing special about the movie in general. But that's exactly why this movie works so well.

Nothing about it is larger than life. Its comfortable familiarity belies its strength of conviction and heart. It doesn't want to paint Ginsburg as a real person with dark sides and personal struggles, because it's too busy celebrating her magnificent achievements. It doesn't want to exhaust us with her lifelong story of heroic triumphs because it's too busy focusing on her landmark early win that launched her on her path to progress America into a new age of gender equality. It doesn't need all the technical skill to win awards because its simplicity and earnestness is more than enough to win hearts.

And check out Kesha's new song that plays during the closing credits. It's a gem.

Ben is Back (2018)

Score: 4 / 5

Much like Beautiful Boy this film deals with the brutal effects of drug addiction on family life. The former reveals itself lyrically, moving me to tears almost instantly and unrelenting throughout its duration, crafting a warm and emotional tapestry of pain and love that transcends its senses of place and time. It's the kind of film that is so necessary and timely -- and thoughtfully constructed -- that it becomes important, which is far more powerful than any discussion of "good" or even entertaining. Ben is Back is no less stunning, beautiful, moving, or important, but it differs in some really interesting ways.

Rolling up her driveway on Christmas Eve, Holly sees her son Ben waiting for them in the cold. Though she tells her younger children to stay put with fear in her voice, we clearly see the joy as she approaches him and embraces her son. We quickly learn the context: Ben has been in rehab for drug addiction (and, it seems, several crimes that are unmentioned) for some time and should not have been released yet. He tries to assure his mother and stepfather that his sponsor encouraged him to be home for Christmas. After all, family always brings out the best in us during the holidays. Right?

And this is where Lucas Hedges shines. As an actor, he's proven adept -- to a brilliant degree -- at playing the misunderstood lone wolf who hides his sensitivity beneath a veneer of earnest curiosity and mild-mannered strength. While his acting chops have not always risen to the occasion (Boy Erased), his personality on screen seems to be more effective than not in the roles he takes on. Here, he is pitch perfect as the guilt-ridden son who is maybe and probably still an addict. He gives us (helped by a damn rich screenplay) moments of doubt and fear and anger that made me constantly wonder if he was still using or not; his gift is that he never lets us not love him. We never want him to fail in his efforts, and by the end, Ben is our hero as much as he is his mother's.

And what a mother. Julia Roberts can do no wrong, and here she delves deep into troubled motherhood (she knew all about it in August: Osage County, but from the receiving end). Her haunted visage is forced not only to confront the horrors of knowing and not knowing her son, but also of navigating her strained family. Courtney B. Vance plays her new husband, skeptical of Ben's sincerity and overprotective of the family he's cultivated; Kathryn Newton plays Ben's sister, apparently fighting between reconnecting with her brother and maintaining the role of more-or-less perfect daughter. These fine folks are even more strained by the stress brought on by the holidays and their forced public appearances at church and the mall. It's a small town. Everyone knows everything, and the stares and whispers are only so tolerable.

What surprised me with this film, though, that sets it apart from others in its genre is that it becomes almost completely plot-driven in the second half. We almost don't care any more whether or not Ben has licked his addiction. Once their house is broken into and their dog abducted, Ben and Holly go on an adventure through the nighttime criminality of their Christmas-lit town. The camera is often a little too clear and flat; I wonder how much might have been filmed with a low-budget device or even smart devices, as the visuals often reminded me of Unsane. The seedy approach makes the film compelling if exploitative, and though the ending is arguably unrealistic -- exceeding the film's sense of stark reality -- Ben is Back boasts the rare ability to be at once entertaining and challenging.

Colette (2018)

Score: 5 / 5

It's the kind of star vehicle Keira Knightley thrives on, but that doesn't make it any less fabulous.

Knightley plays Colette, the titular novelist whose narrative voice frames the film. She introduces the story of a woman whose artistic passions and worldly proclivities have long been denied -- herself. Married off at a young age to influential Parisian writer "Willy", played by Dominic West, she quickly becomes acclimated to bohemian city life where she begins to experiment in writing and in love-making. That is, knowing her philandering husband is on the town and making money off the books she writes (as we know, women couldn't possibly have had their own names published), she decides to name quite a different kind of name for herself.

Colette is the kind of absorbing costume drama we all love, even those of you who say you don't. It's nearly impossible to resist the vibrant colors, exotic accents, erotic play of propriety, and stringed score. Even without the trappings so meticulously detailed, the story itself is intoxicating. This is exactly the kind of wonderfully feminist, queer, and artistic story that will never really get old. Colette's finding herself is our finding ourselves.

We've seen the story before, of course, and we will again. Thankfully, however, like Big Eyes and other recent examples, this film has a joyous ending. Despite its melancholic tribulations typical of any plot, here we have a queer woman who empowers herself absolutely, almost never wavering, and rises victorious above the greedy, stupid men who seek to suck her gifts and abilities dry. Taken in its entirety, Colette is a sumptuous feast for the senses, the intellect, and of course the heart. There's no disdain on my part. This is a great flick.

IMDb: Colette

Papillon (2018)

Score: 2.5 / 5

What a weird movie. It probably helped my appreciation for this film that I haven't seen the 1973 original -- or maybe not -- but I found it pleasantly diverting and endlessly frustrating, an altogether entertaining way to spend a mindless evening after work.

Papillon, so named for the butterfly tattoo on his chest, is a Parisian safecracker who is framed for murder and shipped off to a penal colony in French Guiana. It would seem that Papillon's innocence inspires him to endure, survive, and escape, but the problem with that: he's not innocent. Charlie Hunnam plays the character as a brutish thug with hopes for escape. There's no redemption for him, though his character is not necessarily a bad person. He immediately connects with a slim, awkward counterfeiter named Louis Dega, played by Rami Malek, though his initial reasoning is based on hearing that Dega is wealthy and connected. Protect him from the wolves, Papi knows, and he'll owe you later.

At this point, when traditionally the plot builds into adventure upon escape attempt upon grand violence, the film shifts into completely unexpected territory. True enough that the film is rather violent and even quite exciting, but I'd argue that the central point of the film is an unlikely romance between these two men. We're never shown anything erotic or flirtatious, but their striking intimacy is something at once disturbing and endearing. It's not wholly platonic, either, but complex due to their time, place, and incarceration. It's a sort of Beauty and the Beast tale, except that they're both prisoners, wherein they each endure hardship and suffering and separation but always manage to come back to each other.

Gorgeously shot and starring two strong lead performances, the film suffers considerably from a lack of compelling plot as well as any deep consideration of its weighty themes. We're tossed about from scene to scene, lengthy time passes in the blink of an eye, and what could (and probably should) have been a profound meditation on the souls of men in torment becomes an unwieldy adventure-drama that neither wallows in its torturous excesses nor leads to any transcendent sense of redemption or freedom or victory. In fact, the romance was so strong that by the end, I was begging Papi aloud not to leave sweet Dega alone on Devil's Island. (SPOILER ALERT) He did, and I was angry at him for it. That's not, I suspect, the filmmakers' intention.

It could have been a sort of Count of Monte Cristo-meets-Shawshank Redemption, and while I'm glad it's not terribly derivative, I can't help but wonder, "Why this movie, and why now?" The film does not offer any answers.

IMDb: Papillon

First Reformed (2018)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Paul Schrader is not everyone's cuppa. He's not usually my cuppa. And Ethan Hawke sure as shit ain't my cuppa. But First Reformed is one of the craziest, most involving and taxing films this year. You don't feel it coming, but when it hits, it hits hard.

It's very much a story and film by Schrader. It's about an angry man driven to do terrible things because of his perception of the world. Schrader's typically pious protagonist is here, indeed, a pastor (played by Hawke) of an empty, dying historical Dutch church in New York. It would seem that Pastor Toller's theological interests have had a part in the church's dwindling numbers of parishioners, and though his methods are unorthodox, he seeks to keep the church alive. He visits the nearby megachurch (called, blatantly, Abundant Life) to seek support from their pastor, played by a quiet and slightly menacing Cedric the Entertainer. Unfortunately, Abundant Life may not be rich in theological intrigue, but boasts wealth, youth, tradition, and its own history as a stop on the Underground Railroad. First Reformed just can't compete, which is why the larger church owns the smaller.

Just when I thought the film would be about Toller working to save his church and -- it is a Schrader film -- failing or possibly sacrificing himself to do so, we learn more about him. Turns out that Toller had encouraged his son to enlist in the military, only to have his son die in Iraq. Clearly struggling with this, Toller is approached by Mary (Amanda Seyfried), whose radical environmentalist husband needs counseling. Her husband wants her to get an abortion and seeks dangerous answers to stopping pollution and climate change. Upon their meeting, Toller is deeply influenced by the convictions of a man so passionate.

Guilt and fear, love and service brew together in this film into a holy mess of intellectualism. While there's not much to go on emotionally here, we are fed constant ideas of faith and desperation and pain and loss that haunt our minds far more than our hearts. Schrader has never been one for dynamic filmmaking nor movies that grapple our sensibilities. He films here in a monochromatic way, boxing us into a tight aspect ratio, lulling us into a sense of doldrums and boring passivity, before unveiling the horrors that come from deep theological curiosity, complacency, and the sudden spark that feeds radical fire.

Again, this won't be everyone's movie. But for people like me, who have an intense love-hate relationship with churches and want the good while agonizing over the bad, this movie rings terribly true. I found myself gasping at the blatant portraits of extremism being birthed in hallowed halls, clashing ideologies working to better the world and destroy our culture, and of course the tortured souls of those whose desires cannot be reconciled with beliefs before the very worst happens.

IMDb: First Reformed

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (2018)

Score: 3.5 / 5

In a year of men dealing with pretty intense therapeutic issues (Beautiful Boy, Boy Erased), Gus Van Sant's newest flick probably flew under your radar. And rightfully so, as its slyly humorous approach pales in comparison with those other films' gravitas. We follow in it -- the plot is not quite linear -- John Callahan as he struggles with alcoholism and his recent paralysis to become the noted controversial cartoonist. Oddly, the film seems to work against any notion of plot, almost deliberately blurring the lines of conventional narrative in order to force us to care about the characters.

Thankfully, this is one Gus Van Sant film in which he very much succeeds in this endeavor. Joaquin Phoenix (who, like his director here, is often either wholly likable or entirely unknowable) plays Callahan as almost too endearing, rendering the artist and commentator familiar and fun. His "everyman" approach works well for the character, whose real-life counterpart is apparently quite inflammatory, because it gets us to think about both behavioral problems and physical limitations that we may ignore, not understand, or take for granted. That's not dissimilar from many dramas involving disabilities or diseases, but here the focus is clearly on the human spirit as much as the body.

While some may argue that a lack of narrative structure makes the poignant observations and insights of this film feel like a random assortment of sentimental vignettes, I'd argue that it disturbs our conventional understanding of these tales and gets us to laugh along until something really surprises us. One of the biggest surprises for me was Jonah Hill as a most unlikely mentor for Callahan. He's an ex-alcoholic gay Christian and borderline hippie, living off inherited wealth and referring to God as "Chucky". Anachronistic (and maybe anarchistic) as the movie seems at times, Hill is a wonder to behold. His usual explosive, postmodern humor is so toned (and his appearance so caricatured) that he was almost as chameleonic as Phoenix usually is. His measured speech and perceptive character belie a warm heart that is as entrancing as the film itself.

That's not to say it's all comedy and sweetness. The film suffers in ways that, while perhaps not fatal, stopped me from giving myself over. Rooney Mara and Jack Black support the leads in roles that utterly waste their talents. Mara trips over her accent while Black is all but buried behind his mustache and villainous eyebrows. And as a biopic, the film utterly fails. I didn't learn a single thing about Callahan. The character could have been anyone, and as a drama been okay. Its determination to limit its scope to Callahan should have, in my opinion, had a purpose or point. Something that commented on, if not present culture (Callahan, after all, arguably represents a noteworthy shift in society from Reagan-era conservatism), then at least politics or society of its own time. Instead, we get a portrait of a man empowering himself and building a community of support. It's nice, but nothing new, important, or ultimately memorable.

Also, I made the mistake of doing some research. Apparently Robin Williams had initially been set to star. Imagine that movie for a bit, and it'll be much harder to praise this one.

IMDb: Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot

The Little Stranger (2018)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Dr. Faraday has been summoned to Hundreds Hall, an old mansion suffering from decay and neglect, to attend its inhabitants. A young housemaid seems terrified and complains of mysterious pains. The Ayres family -- aging mother and two adult children -- exist more than live in the house, though they strive to maintain a facade of aristocratic normalcy. As Faraday attempts to aid them, frightening and bizarre incidents increasingly occur as we simultaneously learn about the history of these characters.

Though Gothic films are few and far between, The Little Stranger makes a powerful case for the genre's lasting allure. It's a slow-boiler to be sure, and until a little girl is attacked by her sweet dog I wasn't sure this movie was going to be scary at all. Instead, it sets itself up like Agatha Christie's Crooked House, and I expected it to essentially be a psychological mystery-thriller until a murderous, explosive ending. Not so.

Hundreds Hall is haunted, there can be no doubt about that. It carries unmistakable trappings of ghostly activity, from creaking footsteps in empty rooms to servant bells ringing and doors violently shutting and shaking. Interestingly, these could all be explained away by more or less practical means; that is, we don't actually see any ghosts, nor do things pop out from dark corners as they might in Crimson Peak or The Woman in Black. Here we instead have something closer to The Haunting, wherein each spooky event could be paranormal and just as easily a manifestation of the psychological.

In an age where The Haunting of Hill House becomes a fabulous Netflix series, it's amazing we haven't seen more films like this. It requires patience, dedication, and watchfulness; it requires your full attention. You have to think about what's happening and why, you have to tie together characters and backstories and vague hints at what's happening just beyond the frame. It also plays with your expectations, luring you in with long shots you examine for ghosts that aren't there before switching to extreme close shots in which the lead players drift in and out of focus.

I don't want to spoil much more, because the beauty of this film lies in teasing out all its little significances. Literary in the best way, the film's characters do not steal the show so much as its weighty themes about trauma, wealth, sanity, family, love, and loss. And while Domhnall Gleeson tends to play eccentric, impotent male characters, do not underestimate him here as the seemingly-benevolent doctor. My pet theory -- SPOILER ALERT -- is that he is in fact responsible for the fall of the house of Ush- oops, I mean Hundreds Hall. Earlier in the film he makes a strange reference to the fracturing of conscious and subconscious self. Considered along with the repeated image of his breaking off a piece of plaster on a mirror, I can't shake the idea that his identity has spawned the malevolent spirit in the house. Think less Fantastic Beasts and more Beloved.

And while the ending more or less inspired my theory, it also made me want to instantly watch the movie again to keep unraveling the mystery. Unfortunately, the film is too long and slow and disturbing to actually watch again immediately, and so I'll suffer the haunting memory of it in the meantime. Lenny Abrahamson, you clever bastard.

IMDb: The Little Stranger

Vice (2018)

Score: 4 / 5

From the awesome writer/director of The Big Short (and lots of other things I refuse to watch), here comes a more somber, more understandable, and more ballsy second feature destined to score well in awards season.

Vice tells the story of Dick Cheney, from his troubled youth through his turns in the political spotlight -- or, rather, in the wings. The notoriously enigmatic Cheney is played by the no less enigmatic Christian Bale, an unexpected match made in heaven made believable by Bale's chameleonic performance. He grumbles and glares through the film, whether as an alcoholic Yale dropout or as (arguably) the most powerful vice president in U.S. history. Cheney's personal life is dramatized here -- for better or worse -- but something about it rings hauntingly true. This is not the Machiavellian tragedy of House of Cards, but it's damn close and all the more haunting because it really happened.

And while the story is a more conventional biopic than The Big Short, embracing dramedy in its depiction of real people and real moments in history, it features a few of the performative devices that made that previous film so memorable. This story is narrated by Kurt, an apparently fictional veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, who ends up providing Cheney's replacement heart at the end, in March 2012. It's this kind of dark irony that burns brightest here, not eliciting loud laughs but content with making the audience squirm. Who (or what) is really the object of humor here?

Further, unlike The Big Short, which required our fairly detailed knowledge about the housing crisis and complicated economic vocabulary, Vice works by inviting us into the private life of one of our most mysterious leaders. Whether true or not, we sit engrossed in seeing the man tick. We can view the film as a family tragedy, as Lynne Cheney (a magnificent Amy Adams) struggles to keep her power-mad husband and daughters together, one of whom is lesbian (Alison Pill) and the other who denounces same-sex marriage in her own power bid. We can view the film as an homage to a man who successfully played the system time and again, desperate for power and taking crisis after crisis as opportunities for personal gain. We can view the film as a hilarious portrait of a man doomed to love nothing so much as power and the damaging effect it has on the world that allowed him to take. Think that's too much? Check out the not-quite-explicit ways the film paints Cheney as indirectly responsible for the polarizing of American politics, the corruption of Trump's America, and of course the birth of ISIS.

Maybe I'm just not smart enough, but I had trouble figuring out when to laugh, groan, or shudder. Tonally the film felt fairly specific, but my limited knowledge (and awe at the lead players' performances) wasn't able to fully grasp the plodding pace or weighty themes. I expected a rollicking comedy and got a more intense biopic, which is lovely but of a decidedly different genre. The narrative devices and playfulness here are notably hostile, and I couldn't help but feel that the hostility was partly aimed at the audience. An amazing achievement, but one you really have to be prepared for.