Cinderella (2021)

Score: 2 / 5

Not that anyone was excited about another Cinderella story, but I was looking forward to this one. The story gets revived perennially for a reason, and musicals often worm their way into people's hearts. Add a fun and diverse cast, lots of pretty costumes and special effects, and make it available to stream? It's sure to be a good time!

But writer and director Kay Cannon (writer of Pitch Perfect) seems to have been swallowed by the beast she made here. Much like the live action remake Disney produced in 2015, this one suffers from lack of inspiration. There appears to be very little originality in its ideas, and the film flounders until it founders in a sea of its own purposelessness. Nothing is added to the characters that hasn't been added (and better) before, there are no narrative surprises, and even the jukebox-style music isn't a new lens for this story. What Cannon does exceptionally well is drive home the overwhelming spectacle and draw special attention to Ashley Wallen's (The Greatest Showman, Jingle Jangle, Ghost the Musical) exciting choreography.

Singer Camila Cabello plays Ella, and I just didn't get what she was doing. She looked pretty awful while singing, as if she's never lip-synced before, and her voice felt hopelessly filtered and doctored. Then again, I've never heard anything she's done before, so maybe that's just the way she sounds, which is unfortunate. Her acting was all over the place, no doubt due to the lackluster way she's treated by the screenplay. Cannon didn't give this character much of a reason to exist in yet another rendition. Drew Barrymore and Anne Hathaway had so much agency and inner complexity, Julie Andrews had a better voice, and Brandy had a better voice and shattered the diversity ceiling. Here, Ella's dreams of being a fashion designer and owning her own business feel a few decades late in tone and scope. While there are some suggestions of diversity in the casting of this film, it pretty much only goes skin-deep, so to speak, and doesn't affect much in terms of tone or theme.

Idina Menzel is one of the only good things in this movie, and we can certainly hope this will entice her to star in more live-action features. Playing Ella's stepmother with gusto, she dazzles in two solo numbers (including Madonna's "Material Girl") and is clearly having more fun than anyone else. The film even gives her a bit of sympathetic background, making her character infinitely more interesting than in Disney's aforementioned remake. Billy Porter also steps in for some fun as Ella's fabulous fairy godperson in shining gold folds, though he's sadly only in one scene. The rest of the cast is just weird, and for the most part don't get to do much: Pierce Brosnan and Minnie Driver are the angsty (and, discouragingly, aging) royals, and their proto-feminist daughter (Tallulah Greive) is the butt of more jokes than I was comfortable counting. James Corden even pops in awkwardly as one of Ella's mouse-turned-footman, which was just unpleasant. And then there's the prince, Nicholas Galitzine, looking very pretty and singing nicely in several songs, but whose character is somewhere between pitifully stupid and hopelessly spoiled for the entire movie.

There is some really great dancing in this movie, and the production design and gorgeous costumes make it a really lovely viewing experience. Just be sure to leave your brain at the door. The film's jukebox music is, for me at least, mostly forgettable because I either didn't know the songs or didn't particularly like their employment. For example, the prince's rendition of "Somebody to Love," while serviceable, left me bitter because Ella Enchanted already did that, and much better. The opening number features the townsfolk dancing to Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation," but there's not much social justice activity going on in this story. The screenplay can hardly even handle its own unbearably cheesy dialogue; I wondered more than once if it was aiming for camp, but by the end I realized the movie really does believe in its own superficial charm, which makes everyone's efforts to breathe life into their lines all the more pathetic. Case in point: the repeated comment about the prince getting spanked on his "tush-tush." Feel icky? Yeah. That's about right.

The Harder They Fall (2021)

Score: 5 / 5

What an absolute pleasure. I say this every time, but just when you think the Western is about to finally die off, someone brilliant jumps in to remind us of its potential fabulousness as a genre. Last year, it was News of the World, but this time it's a lot more fun. Plotted not unlike classics (I thought often of The Quick and the Dead, Unforgiven, The Magnificent Seven), this new story works its magic in presentation more than in content. Then again, perhaps its content is more important than that: to my knowledge, this is the only Western in which the principal cast entirely comprises Black people who are playing real-life Black historical figures. That in itself provides the film ample opportunities to shift the familiar narrative and reframe otherwise predictable beats, making this a brilliant and daring statement about reclaiming history, claiming a genre, and having a lot of fun doing it.

The first half of the film or so follows the gathering of a gang of sorts, oddballs teaming up for revenge against a worse gang led by Rufus Buck (Idris Elba). The imprisoned Buck was recently pardoned, so his gang (led by Regina King) kills the corrupt officers holding him and they gather at their former stronghold in Redwood City. Upon hearing news of his release, Nat Love (Jonathan Majors) and his gang embark on a mission to avenge his parents, whom Buck murdered in front of an 11-year-old Love. While these characters -- and many more, including Bass Reeves (Delroy Lindo), Stagecoach Mary (Zazie Beetz), Cherokee Bill (Lakeith Stanfield) -- were real, the plot of this movie is about as historical as the plot of Cowboys & Aliens. But that's its delight: its glorious absurdism, vibrant colors, kinetic action, and undeniable beauty only enhance the emotional weight of its story.

I hesitate to compare the early parts of this movie to Tarantino, because he's a terrible person who popularized (not created) a certain aesthetic, but that's the cultural shorthand we have right now. Director and writer and composer Jeymes Samuel brings brilliant eyes and ears to this film -- obviously a passion project -- repurposing standard visuals and tropes of the genre to make something endlessly fresh and exciting. Marrying outrageous humor and shocking violence, often with raucous music impeccably edited, Samuel uses wide shots and a few long shots to transport us to another world, one that really deserves to be on a huge screen with surround sound, not on a laptop or phone. He fills every moment, too, with layers of dense information, from costumes that themselves tell stories to areas of negative space in each frame that speak to the immensity of the wild west and the operatic feelings of its characters.

There's a lot to chew on in this movie, and I predict some great scholarly articles will be published soon about it. One of the most impressive things for me, though, was Samuel's delicious patience and deliberate pacing. For such a huge cast, he allows each character time to sit, reflect, and silently observe the world around them and think about what they are going to do; no character here is, really, a "good guy," and indeed each could be labeled an antihero or villain, but as Samuel balances the time between the Buck gang and the Love gang, we care about all of them, more or less. And that's saying a lot, especially in a movie equally concerned with bank robberies, a train robbery, brawls in saloons, gunfights in the streets, horses and chases, duels and standoffs. The fighting is mostly modern in style, which makes the action feel like a self-conscious pastiche even as it pulls you to the edge of your seat.

The psychologically complex characters and their balanced presentation make for a fascinating entry point into the themes that clearly inspired this project. There is no "good vs. evil" conflict in this escapade, only greed and revenge, various people attempting to assert their will over land and other people. By the second half of the film, Samuel delicately peels away the sensation of spectacle -- or at least its self-conscious aspects -- to tip us into believing the yarn he spins. The spectacle is still there, but the winking eye and jazz hands dissolve into earnest emotional melodrama. Thankfully, the main ideas aren't too typical of the genre, most likely due to the lack of a moustache-twirling villain, and so there is much consideration of family tragedy, domestic abuse, personal trauma and romantic aspirations. It's a really lovely way to surprise audiences who like Westerns but also like to think.

And then there's the wonderful layer of escapism and revisionism that Samuel lovingly lathers onto the film. His operatic ideas and vibrant presentation here make a unique space wherein viewers who are usually absent or maligned by Westerns can see themselves in one and experience it afresh in a way Samuel clearly enjoys. Racism and slavery aren't entirely removed from this movie, but they aren't the focus, and that very real history doesn't stop these characters from living life on their own terms, owning saloons, stables, and even towns. In creating this revised version of the wild west, Samuel turns his fever dream into sensory pleasures for Black people as well as anyone jaded by the genre.

Eternals (2021)

Score: 4.5 / 5    ***updated

It can't be easy to step into the most fanbase-established, well-financed, studio-overseen cinematic franchise of all time and make something that feels fresh. The standard of superhero movies has been long set, and while every year threatens to end the hype, somehow the MCU (and, in my unpopular opinion, Warner Brothers' DCEU) manages to keep things interesting and moving forward. But as some of the more popular parts in Marvel's roster age out -- or die out -- I've been wondering how newer and more obscure characters will be popularly appreciated and welcomed. I certainly didn't know anything about Shang-Chi going into his first feature, and I was blown away by it. Something similar happened recently to me in a screening of Eternals, about whom I knew only the barest of details.

Basically -- and I mean very -- the Eternals are the ten children of a Celestial named Arishem sent to Earth in 5000 BC to destroy the Deviants, invasive monsters who kill apex predators. They succeeded and lived as gods (literally) in ancient cultures before spreading out and trying to lead normal lives, helping in small ways as they are able. In the present, the Deviants reawakened after the Blip, and so the Eternals band together to learn why; unfortunately, the truth is much darker and more frightening than they could have imagined. It doesn't help that the Eternals, much like any family, harbor feelings of resentment, joy, love, and loss between them, which makes their reunion rife with drama. It all leads to a fun but underwhelming climax that feels about as fresh as last week's cake. Its visuals feel ripped from any number of apocalyptic movies, and the action is almost laughable. But by this point, you do care quite a bit about the characters, which carries you through to the end. That's not nothing, but it showcases what Zhao could have used more help doing.

I confess myself a little underwhelmed too by the mythology of this movie. While you can certainly watch it with enough basic information to go on, I could not help wishing for more. Which is a bit absurd, when you account for its two-and-a-half-hour runtime. For its huge cast of brand-new characters, its extensive world-building, and more veiled references to less-popular Marvel titles, it almost feels not long enough; I couldn't tell you a whole lot more about the "significance" of any of these characters within the franchise even after seeing the movie. It's more of a standalone flick than any other in the MCU, which I guess is a good thing until the ending and post-credits scenes had me scratching my head. In fact, apart from a couple references to Thanos and everyone returning after the Blip, this movie was uniquely self-sufficient until the last few scenes (and, I have to note, the end of this movie teases Blade, which provoked me to let out a loud, excited squeal in a packed, silent auditorium).

Director Chloé Zhao (Songs My Brothers Taught Me, The Rider, Nomadland) is a surprising and odd choice for this movie, based on her previous work. You can certainly see how she humanizes these characters and connects them to far-flung but very specific global and cultural locations; that's just something she's uncannily good at doing. That, along with finding perfect magic hour lighting in her landscape shots. Thankfully -- and I say this as someone who respects her eye and tone but generally dislikes her movies so far -- here her vision soars due to its intense, plot-driven structure. The credits indicate she helped with the screenplay, but I suspect it was others, largely, who brought franchise knowledge of the characters and plots as well as a sense of urgency and motivation. Many scenes are clear-cut with Zhao's easily recognizable eye for cool palettes, natural lighting, and relative stillness centered on a horizon; these are hugely important in introducing and establishing the enormous cast of characters in ways any screenplay would struggle to accommodate. On the other hand, when things do get expository, and messy plotwise, you can feel the pull of other artistic voices to "do the genre thing" and have more action, more cuts, brighter colors, louder sounds. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and the film is pretty darn coherent for all it's trying to do.

But it does make me wonder what would have happened if directors had swapped so that Eternals had the spectacle-oriented director Cate Shortland, and if Zhao had in turn directed Black Widow. I imagine a more character-driven focus with the latter, one rooted in time and place in a way that film, frankly, squandered in favor of admittedly brilliant action sequences. The former, however, would have embraced a bit more of the "wow" factor, turning the Eternals into full-on gods with all their magic on spectacular display, while sacrificing the existing film's determination to make the characters real people with a sense of age and belonging. Fruitless considerations, perhaps, but an interesting way to rethink how these iconic characters materialize in the public consciousness and how easily things might have been different.

I guess, in the broadest terms, I most liked the cast of this movie and the casting. Easily the most diverse group of performers yet in the MCU, they also play diversity in a way that does not feel forced or contrived. Salma Hayek plays the leader Ajak, Gemma Chan's Sersi is the protagonist of sorts, Lauren Ridloff plays the Deaf superhero Makkari, and Brian Tyree Henry's gay hero Phastos has a husband and son. Who else? Well, there's the hunky Richard Madden's Ikaris and equally hunky Kumail Nanjiani's Kingo, there's Lia McHugh as the androgynous and youthful Sprite, Don Lee as the strongest of them named Gilgamesh, and Barry Keoghan as the funny but creepy Druig (which totally checks out for him). Perhaps most interesting for me was Angelina Jolie as the warrior Thena; the way the film sensitively handles her mental illness is wonderfully refreshing. More surprising still, this marks what I think might be the first sex scene in a franchise literally built upon muscular models in tight outfits (I don't count Tony Stark falling off the bed with a reporter in Iron Man). It's nice to finally see some superheroes acting like real adults for a change, rather than just flirting or posing suggestively, and it adds a nice level of complexity to these characters in particular, due to their immortality and experience.

*** Upon a second viewing, I'm inclined to increase my rating for this movie. My concerns about the adaptation process and undercooked contextualization still hold, but this time I just wanted the movie to take me on an adventure. And I left the cinema this time with a profound sense of awe and warmth. This is, by far, the most theologically complex film in the MCU and possibly of 2021. Its entire premise questions humanity's relationship with the divine on a global scale rather than in culturally or religiously specific terms. The Eternals poke reverent fun at each other for being gods, historically, in the eyes of humans, and it's fascinating to see the way they (mostly) humbly shrug those titles off as cultures evolve. But then, right around the halfway point of the film, when the true stakes are revealed and apocalypse draws near, they band together to (SPOILER ALERT) stop a newborn Celestial. Essentially, they aim to kill a god, and it's viewed by the film as not only a good thing but as an imperative. It's fascinating and shocking -- less so due to a screenplay determined to not use the phrase "kill god" and by Zhao's wonderfully calm tone and pace -- and will surely lead to quality post-screening discussions.

Spencer (2021)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Pablo Larrain again dives deep into the psyche of a popular, tragic woman from real life in his latest fantasy-biopic Spencer. Much as with his previous film Jackie, this one takes several liberties with historical record; yet while some may hang up on these points, I find that they only increase the drama and our understanding of the real woman at the same time. You don't really get to know someone -- such as Princess Diana -- over the course of a single fraught Christmas holiday, so it is wise of the filmmakers to pack in as much drama as they are able. Yet this movie is by no means plot-driven or even plot-heavy. It works hard, rather, to situate our perspective within Diana's, forcing us to feel her state of mind and experience her pain rather than keep up with names and titles and situational strife.

Identifying itself as "a fable from a true tragedy," the film takes place over three days in December 1991, starting on Christmas Eve as the royal family prepares to spend the holidays at Sandringham House in Norfolk. As the staff clean the estate and prepare food (a la Downton Abbey in traditional, militaristic fashion), the family arrives with one exception. Diana, driving herself around the countryside, seems distracted and unwilling to arrive at the house until she runs into her friend, the head chef. She notes that her family's house is the abandoned neighboring estate, wondering absently how she could have been lost on these roads. In just this opening sequence, Larrain and writer Steven Knight quickly set up most of the conflicts the movie will explore: the disconnect between regimented perfection in royal affairs and Diana's own brand of style, the parts Diana has lost of herself in being grafted to royalty, and the unsustainable demands of expectation placed on her.

Kristen Stewart gives the best performance yet of her career as the title character, the title itself enhancing the film's exploration of Diana's life in terms of past and present. She mentions her family repeatedly as something separate from her current life, noting her former surname as a point of pride and joy. When she arrives at Sandringham, she is reunited with her two sons William and Harry, and Stewart immediately gives us the photogenic loveliness we all remember. Her transformation is profound, not only physically -- though her hair is absolutely perfect -- but vocally; her gestures, heavily lidded eyes, the musical lilt of her daydreamy phrases, everything feels at once endlessly researched and spontaneously organic. It's a haunting portrayal of a story that itself haunts our cultural recollections, perhaps because it never really felt like a complete story. Thankfully, Spencer does not try to dig into the tragedy of Diana's untimely death and the conspiracies around it; the tragedy this film attempts to humanize is that of her internal life away from the cameras.

Unfortunately, detractors of Stewart may not find much here to appreciate. While Stewart is a solid performer, no questions there, her ability to act is largely on par with her previous work. Which is to say, some people connect with it and some choose not to. This was, for me, her most grounded and realistic work yet, and that's largely because of the odd relationship both Stewart and Diana fostered, in their own ways, with the paparazzi. The similarities felt raw and emotional, so I was able to suspend my resistance and let Larrain's vision sweep me away into a film that, beyond Stewart, would never quite manage to work due to its focus. But that is to say nothing of its production design, which brilliantly transports us into the early '90s, or its gorgeous cinematography (all on film, not digital) by Claire Mathon (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) will surely be studied in classrooms. And then there's the haunting music by Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead (There Will Be Blood, The Master, Phantom Thread) that grows increasingly shrill and dissonant as Diana's mental state unravels.

So focused are we on Diana's perspective that most other characters have precious little screen time. Her sons and her dresser Maggie (Sally Hawkins) probably have the most, but this is seemingly because they are the closest emotionally to her. Her husband Prince Charles (Jack Farthing) is a cruel, monstrous presence whose verbal abuse to Diana reaches a heartrending climax in a game room as we see her silent physical reaction to his words. Thankfully, we know it wasn't long after this historical time period that they decided to end their union. He's not the only problem, though, as the household master, a former military officer played by an imposing Timothy Spall, is keeping a close watch on Diana. He has her curtains sewn to stop her from being seen by trespassing photographers; he follows her to the kitchen at night for a late snack; he places a book about Anne Boleyn in her room.

And here we must mention the dream sequences of this movie, in which we experience thick metaphors in dialogue and ethereal imagery collide. Anne Boleyn's ghostly presence seems a little heavy-handed, but it is effective in drawing our attention to the crucial attention royals pay to tradition and history, as it connects Diana with the doomed queen in that both had an adulterous husband seeking her permanent removal. Diana may seem to have it all, but the opulence is still a cage. An early scene that best sets up the ambiguous dreams features Diana ripping off her pearl necklace (given to her by her husband) and then eating the pearls with her pea soup, cracking her teeth and running out of the dining hall under the cold eyes of Queen Elizabeth II. It can all be interpreted in various ways, but the sensations of pain -- both literal and imagined -- are inescapable for her as well as for us. A favorite moment of the film takes place late (actually, in what might be its character climax), when Diana rebelliously visits her childhood home and then has a dizzying sequence of dancing in golden halls in several of her most famous real-life gowns. She looks happy and absent at the same time, a nearly perfect way for this film to remind us of the beauty and tragedy of fame, wealth, family, and the boundaries between personal and public life in the present and in future legacy.

Last Night in Soho (2021)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Ellie is stuck in the past. An aspiring fashion designer, she moves from Cornwall to London to study at the College of Fashion, but she can't quite fit in with her classmates or atrocious roommate Jocasta. Perhaps it's because she's poorer than they are and needs to pick up side jobs like working at a pub. Perhaps it's because her primary inspiration and obsession is music and habiliments of the Swinging Sixties. She's also fairly awkward around her peers, and tends to see her mother, a designer who killed herself many years before, in mirrors and windows. Rather than a scary ghost situation, this almost feels like a security blanket, letting Ellie feel connected to her heritage in a fast-moving, changing world. Too bad that heritage involves possible mental illness (mentioned briefly in the film's introduction as Ellie's psychic link to the emotional history of her environment) and suicide.

A little lost? Don't worry. At the start, it's a sort of whirlwind of color and sound and feelings, but that seems to be by intention, as director Edgar Wright is as concerned about music as about visuals. The soundtrack ceaselessly drops period bops that are mixed a little too loudly, forcing us into Ellie's headspace as she escapes the countryside and dives into a city awash with life. It's hard not to jive and strut along with her to the familiar hits, and a series of sharp edits amidst whirling camera shots moves everything along at a brisk pace. The film's frenetic opening scenes mellow out a bit in pace once Ellie leaves her uncomfortable dormitory in favor of a small studio flat near Soho, owned by an elderly, strict, but kind woman named Ms. Collins. 

This is when the movie really gets into its narrative groove (as opposed to its stylistic groove, which Wright establishes immediately, much more efficiently and confidently than most directors), as Ellie begins to dream of Sandie. Sandie is a young blonde woman from 1966 who wants to be a swinging singer, doing whatever it takes to make a name for herself "downtown," as we learn when she sings that famed Petula Clark song for an audition. But Ellie's dreams of making it big in the city and her dreams of Sandie blur together a little too quickly, until reality and fantasy are indistinguishable to her and us. Sandie appears to have been a real person, and something terrible happened to her.

There is a lot of pleasure for audiences to eat up in this movie, but the primary one for me -- apart from constantly wondering what stylized sensations Wright would throw at us next -- was its lead performers. Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit, Old, Leave No Trace) never really captured my attention much before, and frankly she didn't much here as Ellie, but I really liked her placement in counterpoint to Sandie. Anya Taylor-Joy's Sandie is a confident, daring, slightly desperate character who seduces everyone around her, including her nightly interloper Ellie. The shyness and anxiety of Ellie slowly peel away as she turns her hair blonde to match Sandie's. We often see the two turn into each other through sleight of camera, deviously clever tricks of the trade that repeatedly left me unsure exactly who I was watching. The two inform each other more than themselves, and its a masterful pairing of skills. And then of course there are the endless pleasures of Terence Stamp and Diana Rigg, in her magnificent final filmed performance.

Edgar Wright appears to have made a love letter to a time and place, but then burns it and gleefully warms his hands in its fire. As if saying that blind nostalgia is dangerous, he dares us to feel good before forcing us to confront the problems of our pleasure. Sure, you could read the film in terms of gender dynamics and toxic men, much as in his previous film, Baby Driver, and that's a strong supertext here, but I think there's a little more going on. Why else would he spend so much time forcing us to gaze at women who gaze right back at us? Or, at least, who gaze at themselves in mirrors and windows more than we do. It takes some expert production design and practical and special effects, to be sure, not to mention brilliant cinematography, but I don't think these established filmmakers need to masturbate their egos in front of us anymore. They're doing it, I expect, to make the film a reflection on our expectations of the types of movies he's referencing. Which is to say, both that of the Bildungsroman of young women in big cities and that of the psychological thriller/slasher made popular by people like Hitchcock and De Palma and Polanski.

Of course, the latter genre has lately been championed by other writers and filmmakers, especially in Gillian Flynn's body of work. But before women and feminists took over, the genre belonged solely to wealthy white men, and it's hard to separate this movie from those stylistically or in terms of content. It's a fertile feeding ground for scholarship, and I'm sure lots of good writing will come from Last Night in Soho. Less fertile, arguably, is the central plot of the film, which is largely predictable until its final nasty twist. For the most part, the film's villain (Matt Smith of Official Secrets, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Mapplethorpe) is less fearsome than hateful; more frightening are the ghosts Ellie increasingly sees, all of whom seem to be after her. It's an odd way to "do ghosts", but they are more like set dressing, kind of like in Crimson Peak. This is a deeply Gothic story, one that hinges on humans (specifically a young woman) grappling with past wrongs done in a house haunted by wicked men.

I can hardly wait to jump into this wild ride again. After all, "The light's so much brighter there. You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares."

Dune (2021)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Denis Villeneuve is my favorite director right now for a lot of reasons, and his films are all on my regular favorite lists. As he's moved into science fiction and major franchises, I've been slightly skeptical; not because he didn't knock Blade Runner 2049 out of the park, but because I've worried that studio oversight would limit his vision or shoehorn accessibility into his work. We've seen it happen before. And Villeneuve's latest, Dune, is only exacerbating my anxieties to that end because, while my exact concerns did not come to pass, it is easily my least favorite film from the genius.

As with any big franchise -- especially in this genre -- most discussion will revolve around the adaptation process. Frank Herbert's '60s groundbreaking novel and his five (?) sequels spawned an entire shared universe of interplanetary politics, economics, and war, and it was notoriously labeled as unfilmable after David Lynch's 1984 cinematic attempt. I've never read or seen anything about Dune, so this review will not engage with those concerns, but I'm aware enough of its sprawling world-building scope to understand that there is enough within the franchise to excite anyone interested in heady ideas of environmentally radical geopolitics, anti-capitalist exploitation, and unusually complex gender and racial dynamics that hinge on religious identity. In these respects, I'm planning to read Herbert's series in the coming months, if only to check it off my list. But this film did almost nothing to excite the prospect of more, and given the widespread praise of it, I'd like to reflect on why.

The plot is, I think, shockingly simple. In the distant future, a galactic emperor decrees that the powerful Atreides family will relocate and become the rulers of Arrakis, a desert planet. What seems a curse is complicated due to the presence of "spice," a unique natural resource only on Arrakis, which is crucial for space travel (and hallucinogenic trips) and therefore the most valuable element in their civilization. Making this move, the Atreides patriarch (the ever-handsome Oscar Isaac) realizes they are in the midst of a power play between the paranoid emperor and other dynastic families vying for wealth and influence, none more so than the villainous Harkonnens (and their patriarch, a deliciously wicked Stellan Skarsgard), who previously ruled Arrakis. As the family learns more about their new place in galactic geopolitics, they must fend off traitors; their son Paul (Timothee Chalamet) becomes a man and a messiah, seeing visions and exhibiting powers cultivated by his deeply religious, slightly witchy mother (Rebecca Ferguson), and connecting with the native population to mysterious ends.

As the title card for this film indicates, this is only "part one" of the story, which will reportedly conclude with a "part two," and so it is by no means a complete narrative. Its extensive work in world-building is nothing short of spectacular, and deserves to be seen (and heard, in a droning Hans Zimmer score that threatens to blow out speakers) on the biggest screen available. But its characters, largely archetypal, are much harder to parse because they simply do not go through standard dynamic developments. The closest we get is the callow (dare I say shallow? Sorry, I'm not a big Chalamet fan) Paul becoming a man, but as much as he learns about himself, his mystical gifts, and his place in the violent intrigue of this interstellar Game of Thrones, he ends the movie finally finding "the girl" he's been seeing in visions (Zendaya), which is about as trite a resolution as we could have gotten.

It's a thoroughly entertaining experience, and in Villeneuve's hands often feels like the sort of epic that will add it to fans' shelves alongside major movies from George Lucas, Peter Jackson, Christopher Nolan, Stanley Kubrick, and Ridley Scott. I especially liked that it is so (apparently intentionally) allegorical, and was probably one of (if not the) first in its genre to tap into Islam as a good thing, as well as a certain sensitive portrayal of ecoterrorism. The native people of Arrakis (the Fremen) appear to be modeled after Arab Muslims, and "spice" read to me as oil, which the alien invaders sweep in to take over and fund wars much like Westerners (and in Westerns, at that). I confess myself most confused not with the material itself, nor with its visionary spectacle, but with its technical delivery. The editing is all over the place, in my mind, and almost every time I was prepared to settle in and absorb a new frame -- each gorgeously, gloriously composed -- it would cut to another shot. This worked well during the action sequences, including any time sandworms attacked and flying through a sandstorm, but not so well in intimate scenes or any shots meant to inspire sensations of grandeur or even fear, such as the weird religious test of pain Paul goes through very early in the film.

Perhaps part of my ambivalence for this movie stems from a similar annoyance with other soft science fiction devices, specifically an over-reliance on original vocabulary. You may have already gathered as much, but this movie made very little sense to me because of its thick screenplay, which is comprehensible only if you can effectively remember and contextualize its many characters, organizations, and technologies after only hearing them briefly. I say "hearing," but that's the other major problem: I could barely understand most of the dialogue in this film. Much like last summer's Tenet, I expect I'll like (and comprehend) this movie a lot more when I can watch it with subtitles. The sound mixing is fine, but the editing should have been mindful of their audience, many of whom have no idea what's really going on here, and so need to be able to listen accurately and without driving us to distraction. I appreciated that the screenplay didn't make its exposition feel like exposition, but the flip side is that it took me a while to feel reasonably confident about anything going on.

Antlers (2021)

Score: 3.5 / 5

What a fascinating movie. It's been over a year and a half since its original release date, but finally Antlers is here. Featuring one of the most surprising team-ups I've yet seen, this movie is the result of collaboration between director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Out of the Furnace, Black Mass, Hostiles) and producer Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, Crimson Peak, The Shape of Water). Cooper's films usually take place in rural areas and deal with exceptionally sad people; del Toro's films usually combine reality with fantasy in macabre or grotesque ways. Together, here, they craft a gloomy story set in rural Oregon about the darkest sides of human nature, transporting us to lives lived in isolation and not-having. It's a wickedly beautiful movie to behold, and while its themes aren't as well articulated or even explored as some might like, I've found myself unable to think of much else since viewing it.

Adapted (along with Cooper) by writer Nick Antosca (NBC's Hannibal, Syfy's Channel Zero, and Netflix's Brand New Cherry Flavor) from his own short story, Antlers concerns a homecoming for an outcast and an out-coming of family secrets and trauma. Julia (Keri Russell) has returned, apparently recently, to her gloomy hometown, which clearly has fallen into disrepair after economic setbacks and is now riddled with drugs. Setting herself up as a teacher, she tries to reconnect with her brother Paul (Jesse Plemons), the stoic sheriff who seems keenly aware that his town is dying. Through their furtive dialogue and a few well-placed flashbacks, we gather that Julia had been abused as a child by their father; she now feels guilty for abandoning her brother years ago, and while her return was predicated on their father's death, Paul's own potential trauma remains open for interpretation. A west coast equivalent of the Midwest Rust Belt, the town has its share of other problems, though we will only focus on one in this story.

One of Julia's students, Lucas (Jeremy T. Thomas), checks all the boxes with which she's all too familiar. The quietest and oddest kid in her class, he's jumpy and skittish; when called on to share a story, he tells a dark and almost inappropriate tale, inspired by his own graphic hand-drawn pictures. Suspecting abuse at home, she takes an active interest in him, stalking Lucas through town and getting him ice cream to get him to open up. She learns his mother recently died and that Lucas and his brother are in their father Frank's custody, which everyone darkly seems to understand as a bad thing. We don't have a clear reason for this, but the filmmakers make it pretty clear that Frank is a drug dealer and user.

In fact, the film centers more on Lucas than on Julia, though Russell carries its dramatic heft. This is most clear in its opening sequence, which introduces us to Lucas and Frank, as Frank tells him to wait in the car as he finishes up work in the mine. The effective production design and cinematography by Florian Hoffmeister (Official Secrets, A Quiet Passion, Mortdecai, In Secret, The Deep Blue Sea, and AMC's The Terror, which bears remarkable similarities with this project) draw our attention sharply to the blue-collar atmosphere that has turned to waste as well as the profound darkness of this story's aesthetic. In their meth-cooking lab, Frank and his associate are attacked by something large and animalistic; a curious and concerned Lucas slowly makes his way inside to find his father before the scene ends. Later, we learn Frank is locked up upstairs in his own house, with Lucas trying to support and feed himself and his brother while caring for their father. As we've seen in del Toro's other works, real-life horror and supernatural darkness often fit uncannily well together, and Cooper's oeuvre has never been so rich with dramatic and thematic potential, in my opinion, than here.

Unfortunately, I don't think most of the themes here are mined to the best level of articulation, either visually or didactically. But this is a horror movie -- a creature feature, at that -- and simply surveying some of these ideas is a daring move. It would be easy to focus on the legend or myth (SPOILER: it's a wendigo), the possession aspect, or even the kills, but the filmmakers are more concerned with the drama between these characters and their pasts. Indeed, once Frank is unveiled as a monstrous beast, the movie reveals its true colors as well, and the second half of the movie lumbers into recognizable beats, scares, and violence. The focus, however, never strays from Julia's concern for Lucas, Paul's concern for Julia, or our concern for this group of children, young and old, fighting for survival against abusive parents and the trauma they inflict.

Antlers is not a feel-good movie. Bleak and shadowy in tone as well as imagery, there is almost no humor to break up the cruelty and pain. A talented supporting cast -- including Rory Cochrane, Amy Madigan, and Graham Greene -- pop in for a few lovely scenes, but they, like the leads, seem to be putting in a lot of work to make their minimal dialogue and presence feel natural and dynamic. It's the kind of thankless project A-listers do to prove their mettle -- in a project underwritten, almost determined to make their jobs challenging -- but goes largely ignored or forgotten by mass audiences. But if you're willing to get on its weighty wavelength, Antlers has boons to offer arthouse horror fans in its folktale storytelling, its attention to generational trauma and grief and addiction, its actors' performances and technical performativity, and its technical proficiency.