Nightbitch (2024)

Score: 3.5 / 5

Marielle Heller returns to the directorial stool for the first time since the pandemic with Nightbitch, a surprisingly thoughtful and funny riff on modern motherhood. After her sweet, somewhat funny, and deeply meditative A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and Can You Ever Forgive Me?, she has here herself adapted the source material from Rachel Yoder's 2021 novel. Though I've admittedly not read it, the book's buzz indicated to me that a film would be soon forthcoming, though I did not expect it in the form of a wide release direct to Hulu (or produced by Annapurna Pictures and distributed by Searchlight, but everything is changing these days). In her latest, Heller leans more into the darker nature of truth -- Truth, perhaps -- she has long explored in her films, eschewing the realism of her previous ventures to literalize a weirder, more fraught vision of motherhood than we tend to see in mainstream American film.

Amy Adams plays the titular mother -- named only Mother in the credits -- in yet another accomplished and layered performance that has proven her bona fides time and again. Mother has given up her career as an artist to be a stay-at-home mom for her two-year-old son while her husband is constantly away for work. Isolated and resentful, she regularly imagines lashing out at other people, even in passing at the grocery store, which is where we first meet her in a pseudo-fantasy as she meditates in haunting style the impossible pressures placed on her as a woman and a mother in today's society. Heller's screenplay (and, likely, Yoder's novel) takes great pains to articulate the issues involved and to not lean too far in any direction. Mother is clearly unhappy with her body since having a child, and she mentions having let herself go; she misses her career and tries to get it back while not remembering how she was the one determined fit to stay home; she wants to socialize, but she's simply different from the other young mothers and feels painfully awkward.

Amidst all this concern, Mother has one more issue to handle: she's turning into an animal.

Well, not literally. She mentions the title of the film early, in regard to herself, suggesting that by night she's a "bitch," meaning angry and aggressive and sexual and the kinds of things a mother "shouldn't" be. It also means, though, a female dog. Her teeth are starting to get pointy, she's growing patches of hair and the start of a tail, and she starts hunting other animals. In so doing, Adams offers some physical skills we haven't seen from her in a while, and while moments are played for light scares -- there is a Cronenbergian version of this that is straight-up body horror -- or for light laughs, it's clear these elements are metaphoric and only extant in Mother's opinion of and regard for herself.

Apart from its insightful and endearing screenplay, the film does really great technical work. Editor Anne McCabe deserves awards for so economically establishing a rhythm to the repetitive nature of Mother's life as a mother. Additionally, while Son is played by young twins, their performances are really lovely, to the extent we can judge a child for this; more appropriate for accolades here is the editor, who makes Son an endlessly lovable character. Again, there is a version of this film that reads more like The Babadook, making Son a monstrous horror that Mother is obligated to handle daily, and this wisely chooses a different path.

I wanted a clearer reference point to establish Mother's marriage with her husband (Scoot McNairy), because while their dynamic is believable, we are left wondering more about their backstory and their foundational moments -- such as who decided, and when, that she would be the parent at the cost of her career -- by film's end. I could have done without the extensive voiceover narration from Mother, which makes the film feel a bit more like a confessional or overt invitation for post-screening psychobabble discussion; seeing the changes she's undergoing and reading into Adams's wide-eyed reaction would be much more engaging for the audience if we weren't being told as much as we're being shown. Finally, I would have liked more understanding of their financial situation (they mention a nanny, for crying out loud), if only to cement the attempt at realism in the film.

Snippets of instantly believable -- and, surely, relatable for any parent -- scenes are highly effective in enhancing the darkly comedic aspects of parenthood on the brink. Whether you want to call it allegorical or magically realistic, the film leans into its unique weirdness and tonal positivity in ways that maybe aren't wholly groundbreaking (I think of the literalized version of Mother's scenario in Bitch, from 2017) but are never less than engrossing and endearing. I also really love that the film doesn't resort to cynicism or nihilism as the end means or goal for Mother. She doesn't leave the family, kill the child, emasculate the husband, burn down the house, or get institutionalized or imprisoned. Any of those were endings I was expecting. Instead, the film celebrates her efforts to establish herself as an agent of her own empowerment within the structure of her chosen life.

Disenchanted (2022)

Score: 1.5 / 5

The long-awaited and much-anticipated sequel to Disney's 2007 sleeper hit that became a cult classic (if Disney has such things) has finally arrived. Unfortunately, I rather wish it hadn't. Unlike the recent Strange World, which had clear reasons to exist and a vibrant, beating heart to share with audiences, Disenchanted is one of the most vapid and unnecessary viewing experiences I've had all year. The film starts with an annoying recap of Enchanted in cartoon style, narrated by Pip the squirrel, and then launches into an introductory sequence that sees Giselle (Amy Adams) and Robert (Patrick Dempsey) fleeing their apartment in NYC to live in the suburbs.

The first film worked best as a riff on NYC as a place "where there are no happy endings." This film tries to take that a step further with suburbia, but its commentary begins and ends in a single song about the move. Then when the real plot starts, they're basically already there, without any adventuring or navigating that transition. Robert's daughter Morgan (now played by a different actress, Gabriella Baldacchino) is a clichéd grumpy teenager, and the new baby Robert and Giselle have is barely seen and only really exists in order to move them from the city to Monroeville. Their "fixer upper" is actually quite lovely, but Monroeville isn't quite happy ever after territory either. Morgan and Giselle bicker constantly, and the busybody PTA leader Malvina (Maya Rudolph) isn't very hospitable.

Everything is a wreck in this movie, beginning with the screenplay, which simply cannot decide who should be the focus or why. Giselle decides to wish her new home could be more fairytale-esque, and so the next day they wake up in a magical, musical version of life. Malvina and her two henchwomen, meant to be the villains, are woefully flat and their attempts to be funny or menacing are mostly annoying. The King and Queen of Andalasia (James Marsden and Idina Menzel) arrive to see Giselle's new digs, and while it's nice to actually have Menzel sing in this film, the writers overcompensate by giving her multiple songs when she has almost nothing to do with the plot. Giselle's curse backfires a bit by slowly turning herself into a wicked stepmother, and really that's the only interesting part of this movie.

Amy Adams brings her considerable, venerable talents to this material and lifts it enough to make things watchable. And, truly, she's still very good. But she's bogged down at every single turn by weird casting choices around her, a uniquely uninspired screenplay, direction more excited by action and effects than any attention to story or character, and unbearably terrible songs. This last will probably earn me some flak, but Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz phoned in every single song in this film. None are catchy or memorable, and none are usable outside the film because every song makes constant references to characters and setting that are specific to this film alone. Maybe the only repeatable song here is "Love Power," which actually sucks as a standalone piece except that Menzel's awesome voice makes it chillingly beautiful.

I think there's something in here about the danger of making wishes, about the power of memory, about choosing your family and your path in life. But no thematic ideas are carried through to any kind of meaningful conclusion. It's just a mess of nice dancing, pretty singing, cool costumes, and relentless cheap effects. "Happily never after," indeed. If I could get my hands on Giselle's wishing wand, I'd wish this movie had never been made.

Dear Evan Hansen (2021)

Score: 3 / 5

One of the most troubling musicals ever produced -- after, what, maybe Carousel? -- Dear Evan Hansen has finally made it to the silver screen. As such, it's finally reaching a much wider audience than simply those of us who had listened to the soundtrack for the last four years or so. Of course, with each new project by composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (The Greatest Showman, La La Land, Aladdin), their fanbase has grown. But seeing the famed musical from top to bottom reveals that it's distinctly darker than their other works, and its story by Steven Levenson (Fosse/Verdon, the upcoming tick, tick...Boom!) is really, truly problematic. And not simply in the "that didn't age well" kind of cynically postmodern way; it grapples with intense and urgent issues before coming to a conclusion that, well, feels deeply unsatisfying. As the ending attempts to assuage any complicit guilt from the audience it also bravely faces the consequences of its own plot points. One has to wonder if the full presentation in such an accessible medium has influenced its less than warm critical and popular reception.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. In case you didn't already know, the film starts by introducing us to the title character, Evan, who is about to head off to school despite his debilitating social anxiety. We learn immediately that his mother, working a lot to support the two of them, is struggling to connect with Evan, but exhorts him to follow his therapist's advice and write letters to himself with attainable goals and words of encouragement. He wears a cast on his left arm, broken after falling from a tree in flashbacks presented to us ad nauseam during the film, although it's not until very late that -- SPOILER ALERT -- we learn that particular episode was in fact a suicide attempt brought on by Evan's equally debilitating depression. That revelation is the final emotional climax in a movie filled with similar twists of the knife. In case you weren't getting the idea, this is not a razzle-dazzle romp through high school.

In fact, and this is where I take some issue with Stephen Chbosky's adaptation of the musical, the film seems almost intent on making everything really fucking depressing for us as well as for the characters. With the exceptions of the opening number ("Waving Through a Window," one of the best songs in musical theatre in the last decade) and the letter-writing number ("Sincerely Me"), every song is despondent and sentimental, sickly both in emotional weight and in tempo. My indignation was piqued in the first few minutes because, even though "Waving" is a great opening number, the film cuts one of my favorite -- and notably upbeat -- songs entirely: "Anybody Have a Map," sung by the two mother characters. Similarly, nearer the climax, the film cuts "Good for You," a biting -- and also upbeat -- number that propels three distinct character choices in the stage musical.

Instead of including these numbers to help the momentum of the film, Chbosky just slices them in favor of lengthy dialogue scenes that feel, if possible, more morose and melodramatic than the songs. Even the two new musical inclusions, "The Anonymous Ones" (co-written with Amandla Stenberg, the actress who sings it) and "A Little Closer" are really slow and sad, far more about internalized character study than externalized character (or plot) development. Sacrificing story is just not a great model for any musical, especially one that has a lot of story to tell. The languid pace does more than just make the movie a bit of a sluggish experience: because each song is designed to pull at your tear ducts, I spent far too much of this overlong movie crying silently into my facemask. But, by the end of it, I felt less like I had experienced catharsis and more like I had been emotionally gaslighted.

And that's because -- as you might have gleaned from my first paragraph -- the screenplay is really, really weird. It forces us almost immediately to identify and empathize with Evan, through what we see as his weaknesses or flaws or relatability. Then we learn that he's not actually a great kid, and that his impulses are troubling; though it's clear he gets guilted or otherwise awkwardly shoehorned into making some of his bad decisions, the lies flow a little too freely. It's not a simple "yes" when the truth is "no," it's elaborate yarn-spinning, fable-fabricating, and it happens more than once. Soon enough, as a local tragedy spins into a spectacle -- and we really do have to question the overly dramatic response of the other school kids and townsfolk, who apparently never reached out to help before the tragedy -- Evan, caught in his lies, adeptly navigates tumultuous emotions for incredibly selfish personal gain. The tragedy, in which a relative stranger to Evan named Connor kills himself, leads Evan into Connor's family's home and hearts, until he finally lays claim to Connor's sister Zoe, a girl for whom he has been pining in silence.

The performances of the cast are uniformly excellent -- despite the screenplay's attempted hamstringing of the mothers, Amy Adams and Julianne Moore, who both steal their scenes -- and Ben Platt's awkward teenager persona, brilliantly translated from stage to screen, belies his breathtakingly angelic voice. What's interesting, though, is that on the surface, atop his layers of transformative makeup, he's actually quite grotesque. In a movie filled with profoundly flawed, human characters that could just as easily step into a scene from This is Us, Evan is so calculated and caricatured on a purely visual level, and so accomplished vocally, that he feels like he's from a totally different world. Moreover, Evan's devious methodology reveals him to be what we might loosely consider an antihero; we want him to succeed even as he fully deserves any comeuppance heading his way. Evan plays along with the public charade, gaining fame, family, and love he apparently always wanted and never got. All because a stranger, a high schooler, killed himself.

Honestly, if this same movie were presented to us in a different color scheme, let's say cooler and filled with greens or blues (the amber Hallmark-esque cinematography is unforgivably overwhelming), and if the score were occasionally in a minor key, it would probably feel like something akin to a thriller or black comedy. We'd recognize Evan for the troubled and troubling character he is, and fewer tears would fall as we inched closer to the end of our seats, waiting for him to snap. To be fair, Evan isn't the only heebie-jeebies-inducing person on screen; the film's climax begins when his friend Alanna (Stenberg), who has spearheaded the vigils and campaign to memorialize Connor, outright betrays Evan and publishes his most private letter to the world. Up to that point, she's easily the most decent person in town, and suddenly she destroys whatever sympathetic credibility she has. I mean, come on, who wrote this story, and why?

I'm going to have to do some looking for Levenson interviews to see exactly what the hell he was thinking when he wrote the book of this musical. I can only imagine the filmmakers here were trying to identify with young people struggling with mental health, but there is little direct attempt to honestly deal with those issues here. The depression and suicide elements have the opposite problem of !3 Reasons Why in that they are so vague as to be rendered almost irrelevant; the anxiety issues take center stage, and the characters do everything wrong regarding it. And the movie about emotional manipulation, itself structured manipulatively, can't quite wave through the window at us. It's beautiful and challenging and heartfelt, and those are great things. It'll make you cry, it'll make you cringe, and then it'll leave you reeling about what really happened to your heart. And that's just not my cuppa.

The Woman in the Window (2021)

 Score: 4.5 / 5

The story of the making of this movie is long and disheartening, but it has been told elsewhere. Now that it has finally arrived (on Netflix, unfortunately), it actually feels disturbingly timely after the last year of our lives. It's the story, based on the delightful novel by A.J. Finn (pseudonym of the disgraced and fascinating Dan Mallory), of an agoraphobic woman stuck in her large house alone for months on end. After new neighbors move in across the street, she takes up spying on them from afar, though we imagine she's done this before, and to other neighbors. But when she suddenly witnesses a murder through their front windows, her options for helping are limited; it doesn't help that she's about as unreliable a witness as they come. It's a Hitchcockian whodunit thriller for the age of quarantine, and it's about as magnificent as you could ask for.

To be fair, this won't be everyone's cuppa. It's not exactly the most fresh when it comes to its ideas, especially after so many other recent and similar stories from Gillian Flynn and Paula Hawkins. Even despite its incredible cast, including Brian Tyree Henry, Wyatt Russell, and Tracy Letts (who also penned the screenplay) in bit parts, some will find this movie trite, overwrought, and unrealistic. Some won't like the exaggerated performances of Amy Adams and Gary Oldman. Many won't like the whirling camera, frenetic editing, and garish color palette. But these things, and more, made this movie one of the most unexpectedly rewarding I've seen recently. I expect it'll be in my Top 10 movies of 2021.

"Tell me to go outside," Anna Fox (Adams) pleads on the phone with her ex-husband (Anthony Mackie). We gather early on that her agoraphobia manifests specifically as an inability to go outside; perhaps the opening shot, swirling through the blackness and dotted with white flecks -- stars? snow? dust? -- is a representation of her fears of, who knows, falling upward through an endless sky? Anna seems fine interacting with other people, even if their conversations border on the absurd. Her psychiatrist (Letts) comes to visit her, not the other way around, and her tenant in the basement (Russell) tends to show up unexpectedly but warmly. Letts's dialogue leans into the idiosyncracy of her character, effectively putting us squarely within her frame of reference even as it quickly establishes wit, pain, fear, and a certain sophistication of percussive rhythm. Even as we learn she is severely depressed and mentally disordered, she has not lost her sense of humor, sarcasm, or functionality. Well, at least when she's not binge-drinking her wine.

Production designer Kevin Thompson (The Girl on the Train, Birdman, Funny Games) seems to have gone a bit gonzo with Anna's house, resulting in a highly theatrical space of wide open, wood-paneled doorways leading deeper into the maze of her house. Clearly meant to represent Anna's mind, the house is one of those old urban townhouses, rising up three or four floors via a steep central staircase that circles upwards through wide landings; the kind that Chekhov would say exists for the sole purpose of letting someone, eventually, fall all the way down by movie's end. Impossibly tall windows, almost always curtained and shuttered, exaggerate the closed-in feeling of isolation and intentionally walled-off nature of Anna's situation. Each table and countertop is littered with half-empty bottles and sometimes randomly full glasses of wine, revealing to us her lies about curtailing alcohol consumption while on heavy medications.

Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Inside Llewyn Davis, Big Eyes) injects psychedelic colors and light through the huge house windows into Anna's home, and it was through this that the film began to make sense to me. His whirling, constantly moving camera forces us into the house, from its cavernous living quarters to its claustrophobic underbelly and corners. The house is lit differently in every scene, from electric blue to garish pinks and sickly green, as if the windows were sheets of stained glass. Some scenes are overlaid entirely, as one memorable one of Anna in bed bathed in a thick blood-red hue, much as we expect from 1970s giallo films. With that in mind, and because the film spends so much time forcing us into this aesthetic, I started to appreciate the incredibly hard -- and thankless, to a mass audience -- work director Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice, Atonement, Hanna, Anna Karenina, Darkest Hour) and his team were doing.

The movie is about watching people, as of course was the case with so many Hitchcock films. Almost entirely taking place within the house, its contained setting of place (and, relatively, of time) make this a fairly straightforward Greek drama, complete with a chorus of sorts in terms of Anna's internal monologue and the voiceover presence of her ex-husband (Anthony Mackie) on the phone. By the time characters start entering through the foreboding front door, including each member of the Russell family separately (patriarch Gary Oldman, wife Julianne Moore, and son Fred Hechinger), we suspect all is not well with this otherwise nuclear family. Often these outside characters are shot with comparatively "normal" lighting, sharply contrasting the heady pseudo-reality of Anna's consciousness. When characters appear together, or when Anna is watching one of her many classic noir DVDs (Dark Passage, Laura, Spellbound), the movie utilizes the famed De Palma technique of split-diopter shots to showcase Anna in extreme closeup, framed or even upstaged by the fictions swirling in her mind.

Are we any different, deriving pleasure from watching Anna's insular suffering? Wright seems intent on, yes, luring us into her world, but with such outlandish, uninhibited artistic expression I can't help but feel he's also forcing us to recognize our own tendency toward voyeurism. Especially given the last year of our lives, we've all come to feel in some ways that our homes are our fortresses, and our level of obsession with personal comfort has reached a cultural tipping point. Anna is perhaps a little too much like us, collectively, than we'd care to admit. As with any play, we're made to feel as if we are present there with the protagonist, and once her secrets are revealed to us, we feel betrayed, unable to trust our narrator/proxy any more, and it is by this point, near the climax of the film, that things go completely off the rails. In a good way. Sort of.

Some will decry the finale of this movie as rote, a typical and semi-expected ending that, while still disturbing and surprisingly violent, relies heavily on the tried and true. A home invader, a chase up the stairs, a bloody showdown on rain-swept roof. It's the sort of cathartic release a movie like this usually needs, and I found it delightfully wicked even as its excesses outweighed its substance. That said, I think we can finally fit this movie into its generic niche: camp. Wright and his team pumping cinematic reference after homage after stolen imagery doesn't cheapen the film; this technique enhances the film, turning it into a meditation on the power not only of historic film to shape our understanding of new works (and real life), but of the ways our memory of things we see can reshape our perception of the world around us. More to the point, it's the kind of camp whose excess is its pride and in its prideful corruption of "good taste." It's meant, in many ways, to be seen as "bad" even as it critiques our understanding of voyeuristic art as standard, acceptable, and tasteful.

In pirating familiar movies, stories, and images, Wright twists them and violates them, drawing keen attention to them and making their meaning glaringly clear, profane as it becomes. One of the first shots of the movie is an extreme close-up of an extreme slow-motion shot from Hitchcock's Rear Window, from which this movie (and its source material) repeatedly draws direct inspiration; James Stewart's horrified face -- in a context absolutely un-horrific -- foreshadows, of course, but more importantly sets up a disconnect, an artistic artifice of disassociation and collage. This theme is heightened, later, even by the story itself: after Anna thinks she sees the murder of her neighbor Jane Russell (Moore) by her husband Alistair Russell (Oldman), she is forcibly reintroduced to an uncanny double of the woman, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh. Jane Russell, of course, as the film later reminds us, is the name of the star of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and then there's Hitchcock and De Palma's famed use of doubling in mystery thrillers. These references are less about Wright stroking his own movie knowledge and more about deconstructing tropes and history, cutting-and-pasting an amalgamation dripping with ironic takes on genre, more like queer artists like Todd Haynes than anything resembling earnest arthouse fare.

From Wright, Delbonnel, Thompson, and Letts to even the ballsy, overwrought performances of the cast, everyone associated with this movie are making a strong, unspoken point of actively interrogating the tight bonds between pop culture and history, between art and life, and how none can exist without the others. It's a high-brow game they're playing, one that will certainly fly over the heads of most viewers watching from home. In fact, based on the scathing reviews of professionals and nobodies alike, I doubt many people at all found much to appreciate here. That seems less surprising than disappointing, as most people -- myself included -- assumed this would be cut from the same serious, bleak cloth as Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. But those reviewers are missing the simple fact that Wright's The Woman in the Window is a movie about those kinds of movies. It's a movie about our impressions of those kinds of movies, actually, and that even as cinephiles who think about these things, our impressions are as unreliable as the protagonists we love to watch.

Justice League (2021)

 Score: 5 / 5

It's the superhero movie event of our lives. Well, single event, as the final Avengers movies (as of this date) were split. It's the sort of gloriously indulgent, remarkably unsentimental, utterly transporting film that epics are made of. This is the new Ben-Hur or Ten Commandments, a continuous and almost unbearably lengthy drama that, while rooted in emotional and spiritual journeys, takes us to worlds we've never seen but now can clearly imagine. Four hours of graphic novel -- and characters of myth -- beautifully rendered in a sqaure (4:3-ish) aspect ratio that looks like panels of a comic book. Seen in IMAX, I can only imagine the transcendent sensation it provokes. And now all I want to do is see it in IMAX, preferably with an intermission.

There's a lot to be said about the road to this movie, and how it's been released, and why it exists at all, but there are far too many others talking about that. There's equally tons to be said about the implications of releasing auteurist visions like this, bucking studio trends, and even caving to mass fanbase pressure. Think of the collapse of the BBC's Sherlock, amongst others, and the revelation of Zack Snyder's newest film feels miraculous. But that's also a discussion for other people and places and times. But it bears noting that I certainly hope the supposed five-film arc Snyder had planned will come to pass with the success of this film. It leaves a lot to hope for, and I for one would be severely crushed if the majesty of this picture ended with itself.

But what of the movie itself? When compared to the 2017 theatrical version, clearly pumped out after Snyder's exit by a desperate studio and a particular director whose antics and style can be criticized elsewhere, this version is a wholly different film. I don't want to say "superior in every way," but it comes damn close to that dangerous descriptor. While I missed some of the awkward humor and forced action of the other Justice League, this one is consistently more organic even as it gives in to its superficial facade, perfecting the beautiful tableaus of battle and spectacle, and giving time and money to its computer-generated imagery. Its villains -- yes, now there are two! -- are gorgeous and tactile; its action sequences are the sort of balls-out insanity we expect from Snyder; its heroes are respected, even revered, rather than crudely used for cheap humor and cheers.

And while I liked the 2017 Justice League more than many others at the time of its release, this movie slapped me right in my opinions time and again upon my first viewing. Upon subsequent viewings (I've seen it now four times) I appreciate its marriage of subtlety and grandiosity more, its appreciation of delicate character development, its exquisite attention to detail and beauty, and its, well, Snyderisms. He's not a director I ever really valued much, and I probably still won't going forward, but I have to say his interpretation and vision for a DC movie universe will remain a favorite franchise of mine for a long time.

A consummate comic book movie, this Justice League is split into seven parts, each with titles and each feeling somewhat self-contained. Given the aspect ratio and digital artwork, and the rumors that this was meant to be a miniseries, I have to wonder if this was intentional, to evoke the serial editions of new comics. The action is easier to follow than in most similar genre movies, thankfully, and while some may still decry Snyder's comparative lack of humor, the deadpan quips and absurdism Snyder injects into this masterpiece makes the marathon sparkle with wit. Whereas many films of this ilk (MCU, I'm looking at you) exist to feed viewers exactly what they know they want, generating money without earning it and digging their studios deeper into fan loyalty hell, this movie is a unique vision by an unexpected auteur, who holds fast to his expression (feverishly radical as it is) despite clear and tempting opportunities not to.

All its characters are here, finally, given balanced screen time with strong individual arcs. Specifically, I needed more from Cyborg and this movie totally delivers. It also gives us Martian Manhunter, which heaven knows I pray we'll get to see in future films. And while the plot is essentially the same, now it feels earned and organic rather than forced and rushed. Moreover, plot is not what's driving this movie, something more superhero flicks would do well to emulate. It's worth noting, too, that both James Wan and Patty Jenkins have been quoted as basing their movies off Snyder's movie, not Whedon's. So what happens in this new movie is, really, the only thing that happens in this movie universe.

But I came, I stayed, and I will not stop preaching about the style here. Sure, the film is as fragmented as any superhero movie, and sure, it consistently skews left of expectations. It's so large and loud and busy that it makes even the wonderful and bloated Batman v Superman feel simple and sweet (and I loved the extended cut of that movie). It's a rush of pop art, with music and imagery and video games on its mind. It's fabulously excessive and gloriously escapist and troublingly incisive into the often unspoken psyche of superheroes. And it's the most -- well, it's the most. I love it. And now I think I'll go watch it again.

Hillbilly Elegy (2020)

Score: 3 / 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Justice League (2017)

Score: 3 / 5

I've said it before, but I feel a bit of a disconnect with these DC movies because I'm not a hardcore DC fan. So I have no scruples about specific characterizations or honoring classic comics. As movies, I have found Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman (the extended cut, because it's much improved), Suicide Squad, and Wonder Woman to be fabulously entertaining, if sometimes darker and heavier than I'd prefer (though Wonder Woman might be one of my favorite movies this year, period). I don't know that they're really "good" movies, but that's mostly subjective anyway. Zack Snyder has his issues as a filmmaker, and here we see him trying again; what I'm not sure about is the extent to which Joss Whedon remade parts of this film. You can certainly see his touch (by which I mean his ham-handed machinations).

And, as in other cases, I found Justice League to be fabulously entertaining. Batman and Wonder Woman (Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot) are trying to gather strength in the wake of Superman's (Henry Cavill) death. A new threat appears in Steppenwolf, leading an army of bug-men from portals that open above mystical power boxes. These "Mother Boxes", once combined, will apparently destroy Earth, something Steppenwolf has had experience doing, and he ruthlessly attacks Atlantis and Themyscira to collect the boxes hidden there. While he hunts for the third, the team slowly assembles, including self-loathing Cyborg (Ray Fisher), self-doubting Flash (Ezra Miller, as the film's comic relief), and hunky Aquaman (Jason Momoa). Even with their combined strength, they are determined to get more help, so they revive Superman (he's back, thank heaven) to aid them.

What's most interesting to me with this movie is that, at least to my mind, it tried really hard to make things feel like a comic book. A lot of the visuals have intensified colors, dynamic angles, and sometimes laughably poor special effects -- poor, that is, from a realistic perspective. But when you have Atlanteans and Amazons and aliens and cyborgs and metahumans battling oversized bug-people, how realistic can the effects be, really? Some moments unfortunately look like they were lifted directly from Snyder's other films, especially 300, for better or worse. I don't find any of that off-putting.

What I do find off-putting here is the screenplay. The first half of the film is laboriously episodic, almost as if the filmmakers are establishing exactly where commercial breaks will go when this starts airing on television. We lurch from character to character with little sequential logic, learning vague bits of their backstories and getting some grim foreshadowing before we jump to someone else somewhere else. I'm not sure exactly how the filmmakers could have done it better, what with 3 new protagonists to familiarize and get us to root for, plus all their respective secondary characters. And I'm not saying it's bad, just distracting.

Similarly, it feels at times like the writers were battling for control over the film. We have incredibly tense, dramatic moments with the Amazons or with the revived Superman and Lois, but then we have some really funny punchlines the likes of which we haven't seen in this franchise. It's as if the producers and writers decided to take people's complaints about Batman v Superman and try to do the exact opposite with this movie. We have comedy, we have a super simple plotline, we have only one villain, we have much more action and less moody-broody-ness. This is a prime example of how audience reaction can dictate franchise content; I will refrain from monologuing about artistic integrity. What I will mention is that, while the humor ends up a bit predictable and sometimes groan-inducing, there are some gems here. In one scene, Aquaman begins to emotionally discuss his feelings about the team before realizing he's sitting on Wonder Woman's truth-telling rope. In another, the Flash saves a Russian family and, trying to say "goodbye" to them, says "Dostoyevsky!"

Other than those issues -- which are more about preference than anything -- I fully enjoyed Justice League. Well, those, and the fact that the villain was pretty awful. Though voiced by the lovely Ciaran Hinds, Steppenwolf is a totally CGI character, and frankly, it's not great CGI. It's like Polar Express-level animation, which just doesn't fit. Add to that the character's single-minded ambitions and rhino-like fighting style, and you've got a flat megalomaniac who is apparently powerless without his killing axe. I was so much more invested in the almost-fight between the revived Superman and the rest of the Justice League than in any scene with Steppenwolf.

Be sure to stick around during and after the credits, folks. The mid-credits scene is very funny, and the post-credits scene made me angry, but you already know I don't like Jesse Eisenberg.

IMDb: Justice League

Nocturnal Animals (2016)

Score: 5 / 5

How would you feel if your ex-husband, estranged for many years, mails you a manuscript named after and dedicated to you? When Susan, chic art gallery owner, receives such a gift from Edward, a spark of hunger ignites in her eyes, thus beginning the film Nocturnal Animals. As she reads the manuscript, a surprisingly violent and nihilistic tale of a man losing his family and seeking vengeance, she becomes consumed. Her consciousness slipping from her, she remembers her own love story: young lovers rebelling against the constraints of her pious family, their marriage ending in secrecy and cruelty, her current husband's infidelities. Obsessing over the story, Susan seems to be rekindling her affections for Edward, apparently as he had intended. By the end, however, all is not as it seems, and the lessons of love won and lost are far from over.

Tom Ford's second directorial turn is intoxicating, a haunting vision of the damage two lonely people can wreak in the aftermath of love. Brimming with both style and substance, the film masters its complex tonal and structural design, and most of the credit is due to Ford himself. He forces us to witness several plotlines simultaneously, including the Susan's present dilemma (reading the manuscript), her romantic history (with her family, first husband, and current husband), and the fictional tale itself (starring a man too like her ex-husband for comfort). A result of these intimately edited strands, often visually intersecting in the same image, is that we aren't always sure what we are seeing. Ford expertly fuses fiction to reality, past to present, desire to repulsion, and as Macbeth might say, "present fears are less than horrible imaginings".

Ford once again stakes his claim as a master director, with as profound an eye for visual composition and sensual engagement as for storytelling and character psychology. Though the cast here is perhaps larger than the film's intimate premise might require, each player is kept firmly in their place and allowed to steal the screentime given them. Jake Gyllenhaal and Amy Adams, as the protagonists, begin behind the veneer of innocence and sweetness often attributed to them, and as the film continues their darker sensibilities creep through like needles until the veil has been torn asunder; by the end, they reveal themselves to be the monsters of the night the title suggests.

Similarly, the secondary players revel in their own nastinesses. On one hand we have finely dressed pillars of the community -- wealthy ex-debutante mother Laura Linney, detective searching for justice in an evil world Michael Shannon -- whose motivations and destinations are at once logical and cruel. On the other, we have grotesque figures -- edgy and eccentric Michael Sheen and Andrea Riseborough, brutal villain Aaron Taylor-Johnson -- whose presence pushes our protagonists into a deeper miasma of confused purpose and inverted identity.

Complemented by some of the best cinematography this year (from genius and personal favorite Seamus McGarvey, Anna Karenina, Wit, The Hours, Atonement, We Need to Talk About Kevin) and a chilling score (from Abel Korzeniowski, A Single Man, Penny Dreadful), the film exemplifies how great a film can be when each of its considerably talented artists are encouraged to do some of their best work. It's also an example of how fabulous it is to have a film that encourages the audience to think for themselves, rather than spelling everything out along the way.

For example, the opening credits have drawn some ire, and the somewhat ambiguous ending has raised criticism as well. The former features nude dancing women, obsese and mostly older, amidst varying degrees of costume and glitter. While some have criticized this as a provocative body-shaming gimmick, and it well may be when we contrast it with the remarkably toned physiques of the other actors in the movie, it deserves more than such a simple write-off. These women might be a kind of muse, a narrator warning us of the ugliness to come, or a defiant kind of chorus relishing in their bodily freedom. When we contrast those images -- which are revealed to be installations in Susan's new art exhibit -- with Susan's preoccupation with how her life is "supposed" to look and how unhappy that makes her, we see the dangers of cultural obsession with beauty standards. The women, so joyous in their dancing and so proud to be in their own skins, critique what we expect and arguably shame us for so objectifying them.

The ending is a bit less obvious, as it is primarily character-based. After the vaguely allegorical story (we're never quite convinced that Edward's fictional tale is entirely fictional, and its emotional odyssey is certainly directly translatable to his own despair) in which Edward's life is revealed to be full of substance but devoid of beauty, we are reminded that Susan's life is stylish and luxurious but devoid of meaning or purpose. Seeing Edward as finally coming into his own, Susan reflects on pushing him to finish a book and be more assertive and aggressive and how he has finally done that. Paradoxically, the manuscript's violence has strangely transferred into her own life: in the layered misogyny of her art exhibit, her ambivalence toward her coworkers and friends, increasingly violent artwork like arrow-pierced animals and the graphic "REVENGE" plastered on the wall before she breaks a friend's phone in which she sees a frightening specter. Have I convinced you yet? Edward's disturbing gift to her awakens the desire she once had for him, and she pursues him again. So, at the end, when he stands her up in the restaurant where she sips her cocktails in tortured isolation, is he rejecting her and forcing her to experience his own grief? Or was his book his declaration of independence from her influence, allowing him to ignore her superficial presence? Or was meeting her again too painful for him, resulting in his ending in a manner similar to that of his character's ending (going blind and killing himself, even maybe accidentally)? It's up for interpretation.

IMDb: Nocturnal Animals

Arrival (2016)

Score: 5 / 5

Arrival, based on the fabulous "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang, is the surprise of the year from visionary director Denis Villeneuve. By now, anything he does shouldn't be a surprise. Masquerading as a sci-fi blockbuster, the film is far more involved than you might expect. After several alien "shells" appear around the globe, the army enlists a linguist (Amy Adams) and a physicist (Jeremy Renner) to make contact with the occupants. In terms of plot, the film is straightforward: as the pair learns the alien language and attempts to discern their purpose on Earth, tensions around the globe escalate until violence breaks out. A breakthrough from the linguist prevents any carnage, however, and the aliens depart in peace.

Sound boring? Think again. The "breakthrough" in the alien language is more of a spiritual awakening in our linguist, wherein she glimpses the nature of the alien "Heptapods". Their language allows them to be in all times at once, rather than experiencing linear time. They reveal to her that, as she learns their language, she has begun to see the future, and that her free will may be exercised not by changing the future, but by adhering to it and learning from it. I can't say much more than that without spoiling the cinematic experience, but be aware that your tear ducts will get a full workout during the last twenty minutes.

Villeneuve, for all his subversive tendencies and cerebral wit, has outdone himself here. Taking the best parts of his previous work (the emotional heart of Prisoners, the dreamlike horrors and existential crisis of Enemy, and the climactic cinematography of Sicario), he fashions a startlingly cerebral film the likes of which I've not seen. I might compare it to a more beautiful version of Memento, in its non-linear structure and pacing. Actually, this film succeeds in every way that Interstellar failed, and if you saw that movie, you know exactly what I mean. There is no forced emotion here, and the nuances of Arrival are at least based in scientific and philosophic principles, whereas Interstellar goes for spectacle with little understanding of its own theoretical rules.

In his typically astonishing mastery of atmosphere, Villeneuve directs cinematographer Bradford Young (A Most Violent Year, Selma, Pawn Sacrifice) to the beautiful and strange, turning the plains of Montana into an ethereal vale of thick white fog. Long wideshots and graceful editing keep things grounded and picturesque, while moments of surrealism are accented by unweighted pans, not unlike in Gravity, that force us into a visual recognition of nonlinear storytelling. Notably, the scene when the humans enter the alien craft is the first time the camera becomes a character itself, and we watch in dizzying fashion as the scientists leap from their grounded lift to the walls of the vertical tunnel, and an artificial gravity anchors them. Much later, during the climax, our protagonist finds herself in the weightless, vertigo-inducing white mist where the Heptapods live, and the lack of distinguishable features forces us to similarly experience her ecstasy and enlightenment.

If you had told me my favorite movie of the fall would be about aliens, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and a strange hybrid of free will determinism, I would have laughed at you. But as we free-fall into Oscar season, I hope you take the time to see this one. It's solid sci-fi with minimal blockbuster crap, and a lot of heart to boot. Amy Adams perfectly plays as our haunted lead, and her usually Disneyfied princess smile is replaced with a tragic stare, and she shows us every subtlety in her character as she reclaims her past (her future? I don't know anymore) and declares her autonomous decision to continue living. What's better than smart, beautiful, feminist science fiction that sends your sensibilities on a postmodern trip while playing your heartstrings like a cello? Not much, my friends.

IMDb: Arrival

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

Score: 2.5 / 5

Maybe it's because I'm not much of a DC fan. Maybe it's because I don't particularly like Zack Snyder or Jesse Eisenberg. I hesitated even putting my thoughts into words because so many of my friends liked or hated this movie. And I can't get down on them for it, because I have my weak spots too.

I'll make this short and sweet: Batman v Superman didn't do overmuch for me. It's an operatic, grandiose vision of iconic heroes declaring themselves and decrying the other. In that way, it's appropriate to our current political field. But whereas our candidates are flinging mud and hoping to sound crazier than the others to raise social media buzz, these two hunks are slinging punches and buildings at each other. More collateral damage? You tell me.

What comes from the two-and-a-half hours of almost incoherent plot points and exposition is a ludicrous amount of animated effects that ultimately feel cheap and unnecessary. The smoke and mirrors are just that. The final half hour is particularly stupid, because after the titular drama finally reaches a climax, a bizarre monster pops in to make our heroes join forces to save the wasted city. And finally Gal Gadot appears as a glorious Wonder Woman. But by that time, I almost didn't care because my ass was falling asleep.

I'm not criticizing Henry Cavill or Ben Affleck. I thought they were both fine. I especially liked the suave sort of sophistication Affleck brought to Batman; it was something I haven't seen before, which I'm all about. Jeremy Irons and Laurence Fishburne should have been featured more, and Holly Hunter was wonderful. Really with a cast like this, you can't complain much, and they all seem to be properly moody. Jesse Eisenberg's antics were enough to thoroughly annoy, though, but what else is new?

What else can I say? Will I watch it again? Sure. But I'd rather spend my time digging into the Marvel universe. At least those films have a sense of clarity (well, besides the Ultron issues). And, more important, they're fun. They don't weigh themselves down will silly thematic bull about gods and men until they actually show us those things, and then they poke fun or kick some ass. I guess if I'm going to watch a superhero action movie, I'd rather watch one like that. That said, there's a time and place for brooding superheroes doing dark and morally ambiguous things, and this is it.

**ADDENDUM**

Having now seen the Extended Edition on Blu-Ray, I can definitively say I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It's still very dark, non-action-heavy (until the climax), and filled with complex characters and plotlines. But whereas the theatrical cut was borderline incoherent, now the drastic shifts and obvious plot holes have been smoothed over. I almost never felt ripped from a scene by forced editing or clumsy dialogue. This edition would cause me to re-score this movie as a 4.5 / 5.

IMDb: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Big Eyes (2014)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Big Eyes -- perhaps the one film this year of which I had no expectations because I didn't know it was happening -- is beautiful. It tells the real-life story of Margaret Keane, from her marriage to Walter Keane to their divorce and her personal and artistic independence. Offering commentary on a multitude of topics from classism and sexism to artistic integrity and commercial savvy, director Tim Burton departs from his familiar genre and instead proves his mad skills at making more traditional films. In fact, this marks the second of two Burton films I would ever choose to watch again, the first being Big Fish (2003). I've heard some argue that the film loses some of its steam when it returns to plot instead of exploring its thematic implications, but for a biographical drama to have so many thematic concerns at all, I was pleased with the balance Burton found.

Amy Adams succeeds yet again -- no surprise there -- playing our hero in this vibrant and charming excursion. Her own enormous eyes (often glossy with tears) are put to good use here, as she evolves from contentedly painting for herself to serving her controlling husband and ultimately to reclaiming her name and work as her own. Adams imbues incredible vulnerability into her role, and captivates in every moment. Christoph Waltz almost matches her energy as a manipulative and conniving business man, eager to make a family and determined to achieve commercial and social success. And when he loses his cool, a little over halfway through the film in a more recognizably Burton-esque scene, he is riveting as he maniacally aims lit matches at his wife and child.

In case you couldn't guess it, this film is sharply feminist. And not just because it follows a strong and talented leading character (blonde, feminine, and a mother, no less) in a year so far largely devoid of serious dramatic female roles. Burton -- and his writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski -- frames the film with sharp rhetoric and and a sensitive eye to Keane's plight. Sensitive, I might note, but not quite sentimental. He doesn't treat this as a romantic drama or a case study of marriage, but as a universal artistic issue and timeless feminist drama. The message of Big Eyes seems more effective because it is also a shameless crowd-pleaser, featuring vibrant colors and Burton's typically fantastic (in the literal sense of the word) directing style. There is also a really interesting disconnect between the eerily clean sets and the messy intangibles (interpersonal marital/family drama) that I'm not quite sure what to do with; and another between the sad big-eyed paintings and the apparently happy (bright, clean) visuals of the film.

IMDb: Big Eyes