Spaceman (2024)

Score: 1 / 5

A lonely man on the fringes of the known universe, occupied mentally with memories of loved ones, turns his survival into an epic journey of cosmic comprehension. It's not a new narrative, and this movie turns Adam Sandler into the titular sad boy in space. Most of this type of film -- I'm currently thinking of First Man and Ad Astra, though Interstellar and The Martian and Solaris also fit the bill -- engages with elements of action, science fiction, or horror to remain engaging and relatable to the audience. Not so in Spaceman, in which Johan Renck (of the miniseries Chernobyl and episodes of many other series) focuses instead on his protagonist's state of mind.

Sandler's Czech cosmonaut, named Jakub, has been alone in space for six months already, en route to a cloud of dust near Jupiter. His ship is all but a wreck, and perhaps that's less a critique of the times or funding and more a literal representation of the real driving force in Jakub's life: his marriage. His pregnant wife Lenka (Carey Mulligan) seems to be giving him the cold shoulder, offering him radio silence in the vast reaches of space. He's still troubled by the death of his father, a Communist informant, when he was young, and seems to be a workaholic to the point of neglecting and abandoning Lenka when she miscarried. The production design and effects feel desperate for purpose, unfortunately, rendering what should be glorious shots of the galaxy inert and cheap, and offering us little to no insight into the character's experience or reality. No wonder he's in the dumps.

So when a giant spider suddenly appears in his vessel, Jakub is rightly terrified. But Hanus, as it calls itself (voiced unnervingly by Paul Dano), has no intention of harming him. Even in these moments, when we should be most concerned for Jakub, Sandler's uninterested and subdued performance reinforce what little we know about him -- namely that he isn't a likable guy -- and completely disconnect us from him. Anyone who knows me knows I hate spiders, but even I wanted Hanus to just eat him and put us all out of our misery. Alas, Hanus tells the truth and only speaks to Jakub in lengthy conversation, plying him to share his memories and experiences in the style of Socratic dialogue.

Flashbacks to dramatize Jakub's past filmed oddly -- I think meant to be what Hanus sees or imagines -- and edited so haphazardly as to confuse purpose and cohesion. Much like the vague, soporific dialogue (the number of times Mulligan intones something like "Where you go, I go" in Terrence Malick-esque voiceovers is annoying at best), these sequences serve mostly to slow down the already plodding film and offer little to no entertainment to the proceedings. It doesn't help that an actress of Mulligan's caliber is utterly wasted in this one-note role as it is written. In fact, the material is such a depressing slog that Hanus resorts to snacking on human treats just to keep its spirits up. The only other characters we get are brief, underwritten scenes with his physician and commissioner (Isabella Rossellini, here for some bizarre reason and woefully underused).

By film's end, we learn the Chopra cloud -- the reason for Jakub's journey -- is material left over from the beginning of the universe in which all time exists simultaneously. As he floats in it and mourns his disintegrating friend in the film's most visually disgusting flourish (as the melancholy music swells, jarringly), Jakub comes to the conclusion that all he wants is to be with his wife. It's a frustrating conclusion because there hasn't been a moment of the film in which that wasn't the case. So, apart from being able to articulate himself better -- maybe that's the point -- Jakub goes through no real development or growth. Despite all the arachnid's efforts at therapy, Jakub succeeds only in ruminating on his bitter childhood and current insecurities before deciding that, just as he pines when we first meet him, love matters to him most in the end, and the Scrooge-like epiphany that he still has time to fix his relationship with her. What an insipid waste.

Maestro (2023)

 Score: 4.5 / 5

A standard biopic is only boring if the filmmakers make it boring. And: “A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers.” With the overwhelmingly big team of Bradley Cooper, Steven Spielberg, and Martin Scorsese, there is nothing remotely boring about Maestro, a searing portrait of legendary composer Leonard Bernstein. Their goal, along with cowriter Josh Singer, is to dramatize the man behind the baton, as the film is far less interested in the music and career of its protagonist than it is in his private life. Which is what many will say of this film, likely with some disdain or scorn. But what they won't tell you is that this is the rare film that finds its fascination in the connection between Bernstein's music and his life, taking us from era to era and immersing us in his singular mind so that we can better understand his music through his life, and vice versa.

Your mileage on emotionally connecting to this film will vary, and to some extent that may be intentional. It's a brilliantly crafted screenplay, but hews close to tried-and-true patterns of biopic narrative, meaning its vast survey of Bernstein's life feels shallow more often than not, reliant more on plot than on our understanding of his character to push the story along. A useful comparison point here might be Tár, which very much uses character and theme to drive plot. If you like more or less standard stories in that regard, then, you might do fine with this film; if you want more heft, don't go into this one seeking deep insight into Bernstein's fascinating life.

On the other hand, the performances bring these characters to life beyond what the time-hopping vignettes and dialogue can provide. Bradley Cooper transforms into the beloved musical genius with the help of award-worthy prosthetics and makeup, and his characterization of the composer and conductor is never less than riveting. His electrifying delivery of Bernstein conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony No. 2 in 1973 will be studied by acting and music students alike and arrives at the climax of the film, partly due to his movement work, partly the fluid cinematography and subtly effective sound editing, and partly the final realization or apocalypse of Bernstein's life purpose writ large for us to relish. Opposite the maestro is his wife Felicia Montealegre, played by consistently fascinating Carey Mulligan, who seems determined not to let the character slip into a "woman behind the great man" character mold. Her delivery supersedes the screenplay, providing insight where the dialogue frustratingly fails: we never really hear her thoughts on her husband's numerous affairs with younger men, only see her guarded reactions on occasion and the rare icy rebuke when he gets "sloppy" with indiscretions.

Many scenes between husband and wife play a balancing act of bubbly passion and effortless chemistry -- including the scenes of their courtship, early in the film -- and much weightier joys and sorrows as they come to terms with the life they have and the other lives they sometimes want. Part of what makes their dynamic so absorbing is the stilted way they have to navigate their desires, based on the time period. Cooper's somewhat impregnable performance reads true to anyone who has lived closeted, though it does little to endear the character to audiences in 2024; thankfully we get some headway into the lighter side of Bernstein while he's with various men, especially Matt Bomer as a virtuoso clarinetist. A closer study of the film's editing might reveal -- I'm not sure, but it was my impression after a single viewing -- that the more intimate we are with Bernstein and the more intimate he is with someone, the editing slows down. I noticed this most clearly during some of his conflicts with Felicia, which seemed to boast more long takes.

Which leads us to my final point: despite the discourse about screenplay and acting, the best parts of Maestro are its technical aspects. Matthew Libatique's transcendent cinematography and Michelle Tesoro's editing brings the world to life in a metafictional way, performatively evoking the various time periods of this narrative with each decade that passes. The black-and-white boxy ratio of the '40s, the vivid Technicolor of the '60s, even the staging of certain scenes seems to mirror the eras visually. Some of the year's most authentic-looking costume and production design, too, makes this an eminently watchable experience of beauty. "Immersive" gets tossed around a lot these days, but Cooper does want to bring us into his world, something I realized early on during a feverish fever dream/dream ballet sequence of On the Town, which was the moment Cooper won me over.

Saltburn (2023)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Much like the tonal tightrope she mastered in her debut, Promising Young Woman, Saltburn is an aptly fitting sophomore feature for Emerald Fennell. As in that first film, this one doesn't really tread new ground; rather, it takes a familiar trope and turns it on its head. Previously, Fennell took the "rape revenge" arc and flipped the script, literally, turning the avenging angel into a self-sacrificing shell of a stalker and master manipulator. Now, in Saltburn, she takes the sociopathic class-climber and uses that lens to critique the wealthy elite and skewer their polite mannerisms that disguise cruelty and indifference.

Essentially -- and, surprisingly, without credit -- a reimagining of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley, this story takes place in the English countryside in the mid-aughts. This is crucial, both in terms of geographical location (the original heavily utilized a tour of exotic Italy to contrast with the titular character's struggles in New York City) and time period (when, in the 2000s, certain vicious anxieties about acceptance of gay adolescents were reaching a breaking point). These changes make quite a difference to both aesthetics and theming, making latent queerness explicit while also making the entire plot more believable for anyone not accustomed to vacationing in romantic Mediterranean locales. We can all understand the eccentricities of an aristocratic Oxford family in their manor, if only because we know about Downton Abbey and the eventual decline of such estates.

Few actors were a better choice for the lead here than Barry Keoghan, who has made quite a career for himself in the last seven years playing possibly dangerous creeps, weirdos who don't quite fit in and are almost certainly unreliable in the most violent way. Here as Oliver Quick, his chameleonic tendencies showcase Keoghan's range in new ways, as we see him subtly shift his mannerisms and voice in almost every scene, to better ingratiate himself to his scene partner and their version of acceptable or endearing behavior; in this way, his performance reminds me a lot of Michelle Williams in All the Money in the World but with a much nastier tone. But Oliver is not just a scary social climber, oh no: he's a scholarship student at Oxford, shunned for his perceived poverty and relative lack of social graces (although he is completely unreliable about his past, even if we weren't to be introduced to his family eventually). 

While it's never quite clear what exactly motivates Oliver, he soon notices Felix Catton, an impossibly beautiful upperclassman (in every sense) whose cool suavity and seductive popularity sets him worlds apart from Oliver's reality. It's unclear in their early scenes whether Oliver wants Felix as a friend, a lover, or a role model, but his obsession is apparent. It's clear he has a long game in mind when, after their creepy meet-cute (is "meet-creep" a thing yet?), Felix and Oliver develop an unexpected camaraderie that even Felix's friends decry as weird. Part of us wants to root for the hot, popular guy to chum it up with the gutter kid, because that's sweet; part of us wants them to fall in love because if Julia Roberts can do it, these queer kids should! But the bigger part of us knows this isn't healthy or normal, and Oliver's leechlike ambitions will cause many problems to come. Jacob Elordi is making quite a big splash in highbrow cinema lately between Euphoria, Priscilla, Deep Water (also a Highsmith story), and an upcoming Paul Schrader film, and he knowingly weaponizes his good looks and mellifluous voice to devastating effect for both us and Oliver.

When Felix invites Oliver to his home, Saltburn, for the summer holiday, the latent tensions and suspected manipulations come to fruition, making up the body of the film. As Felix introduces Oliver to the sprawling property and mansion, we also meet his various family members in increasingly hilarious ways. These people are the proverbially "stupid rich," from Richard E. Grant's sweetly infantile father ("Sir James," as if he could be a knight) and Rosamund Pike's deliciously glamorous and dubiously "woke" mother ("Elspeth," if you please) to Alison Oliver's stylishly dispossessed sister ("Venetia," the sole possible reference to Italy and also a literally depressed sinking city) and Archie Madekwe's refreshingly clear-eyed but desperate-to-be-included queer cousin Farleigh ("far" as the only non-nuclear family member and effectively masking his bitchy faux-superiority from the family on "lee"ward side of politeness). Oh, and then Carey Mulligan rejoins Fennell in the most outrageous supporting role here as "Poor Dear Pamela," a houseguest for no discernible reason or rhyme, who is blissfully unaware that she has overstayed her welcome, although it's also notably possible that Elspeth's professed lesbian fling of the past is in fact not so past and might very well be Pamela.

In case it all sounds like too much at this point, don't fret. It's not. It's a perfect blend of substance and style, a wickedly blasé take on roasting the upper class while also raising questions about those of us who idolize them. The wickedly mean-spiritedness of the film is always a little murky, and we're never quite sure if we should be laughing aloud or cringing in shame. Saltburn is always beautiful to behold, though, both due to its lavish production value and especially Linus Sandgren's suggestive cinematography. The filmmakers' presentation of their world starts fairly accessibly and formally, but by our actual introduction to Saltburn itself, even the camera and edits start to lean into the characters' own perceptions of reality, addled as they are with alcohol, drugs, lust, and confused emotional states. The film is lush until it becomes garish, the summer night's dream tipping ever more into nightmare. Evening gowns and suits notwithstanding, the most shocking moments of the film involve multiple bodily fluids and nakedness of a sort that reveal the gleeful evil at the heart of these characters and the film itself.

The ending, however, frustrates me to distraction. Fennell's slyly funny project, both sumptuous and insidious, is best when it is also provocative. The same was true of her debut feature. Little is more provocative than some ambiguity, some suspense, as any filmmaker of dark dramas and thrillers would tell you since at least Hitchcock's reign. But in the final, I don't know, fifteen minutes of the film, Fennell makes a disastrous blunder in depicting -- almost like dramatized flashbacks in a Dateline episode -- exact moments of Oliver's criminality. We see him calculate and orchestrate his initial meeting with Felix, supply Venetia with razors, ruin Farleigh's prospects, poison Felix after his rejection, and ultimately murder Elspeth. For all the empowering moments of deduction and suspicion Fennell has provided her audience, in the final moments she acts as though she didn't trust us at all, holding our hand and explaining every gruesome beat that made her film so grimly compelling. Leaving all those moments vague would have been infinitely more powerful -- haunting our minds during and after the viewing -- especially given the film's final sequence of Oliver dancing nude through the halls of Saltburn.

She Said (2022)

Score: 4 / 5

Another year, another Oscar-baiting journalism procedural. I don't say that as a critique, per se, and indeed I do love this sub-subgenre, but it seems that a major one with award-winning casts and writers shows up during awards season quite regularly. And as long as investigative reporters continue to capture our public consciousness with revelations about abuses of power and corruption, we'll have more A-list dramas like She Said. This one, from director Maria Schrader (Unorthodox on Netflix, which I cannot recommend highly enough) and writer Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Disobedience and Colette) tells the recent story of the downfall of Harvey Weinstein and the popularization of the #MeToo movement. More specifically, it's the story of the New York Times reporters who brought the situation to public light.

Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan play Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, respectively, who in 2017 receive a lead that actress Rose McGowan was sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein. Other names begin to circulate, including Gwyneth Paltrow and Ashley Judd, the latter of whom makes an appearance in the film playing herself. The reporters need more names and more details, but many of the women are unable to speak due to various NDAs or unwilling to be blacklisted in their careers. Weinstein was very well connected as an Indiewood producer at the top of his decades-long game.

What frustrates me about this particular film is that it isn't ever quite as interesting as I wanted it to be. Of course it's loaded with frustrations as a result of the challenges its characters must overcome to publish their story, and that's fine. But the screenplay isn't particularly keen on fleshing out all the legal intricacies of the investigation, and so several moments left me wishing for just a little more dialogue to understand the realities these reporters faced. I'd contrast this film's approach with that of The Report, which is so haunting to watch it feels like a thriller; I'd compare it, on the other hand, to Spotlight in that it sacrifices some of the pleasures and anxieties of suspense in order to more fully engage with the emotional journeys of the survivors whose stories need to be heard.

This makes for a much more emotional than cerebral film, as it forces us to sit with the characters and experience their testimonies head-on. It's an effective approach, in no small part because the #MeToo movement is so recent and so drastically changing the makeup of film business. It's also timely given the last presidential administration, the executive of which is played in this film by James Austin Johnson (the uncanny political impersonator and comedian from SNL) in a single scene in voiceover. Another movie about institutions enabling powerful and abusive men, victimized women being silenced, and then having it all flipped is just what we need right now. 

I love that the film's characters are almost all women. It's telling that the title embraces the important second half of the "he said/she said" dismissal that often arises in questions of sexual assault or harassment. Not unlike Ridley Scott showed us in The Last Duel, that particular idea of believing what the survivor says is crucial, and often ignored in male-dominated spaces. The two leads here are women dealing with female issues; Twohey struggles with postpartum depression while Kantor has two young children at home, and while they are supported well by their husbands and editors (including Andre Braugher), this case sends them both into a spiral due to its immeasurable implications. But the supporting cast, including Patricia Clarkson as another editor and Jennifer Ehle, Samantha Morton, and Angela Yeoh as survivors is all excellent just like the two leads.

Ultimately, it's inspiring to see, like in The Post, their persistence and integrity win the day in the end. It's annoying to know that there are so many people implicated by the crimes in this film (Weinstein certainly didn't do what he did in a vacuum); who exactly paid off all the hush monies and settlements isn't a matter this screenplay wanted to tackle. But then again, I'm perfectly fine with any movie that lionizes this kind of social justice and the importance of a free press in the real world.

The Dig (2021)

 Score: 3 / 5

Edith Pretty wants to dig. She lives with her young son Robert on a huge estate in Suffolk, in poor health, no doubt partially due to her nursing of her own father before his death, and her subsequent marriage leaving her a widow. But she's sure those mounds out on her property fields contain something interesting; her childhood interest in archaeology has piqued her adult interest in culture and history. No time like the present, either: it's 1939, as war in Europe began its march, and the fear of losing art and history was becoming palpably real. Carey Mulligan plays Ms. Pretty with all this left mostly unspoken, providing a depth of character with the grace of an English lady, someone whose past has scarred her but whose future she is determined to claim for herself.

She hires Basil Brown, an excavator and archaeologist working at Ipswich Museum to come unearth her mounds, which now that I say it, sounds much more sexual than this movie ever gets. Mr. Brown, a humble man with no formal education or financial pretense, arrives on the scene determined to work hard. Played by a typically eccentric and introverted Ralph Fiennes, he gives off the impression he learned from his father and grandfather and knows that their way is best. Honoring the past means honoring his own legacy too, right? But when Basil sees the property, his hopes teeter on doubt; the land has not been preserved, and these mounds have been scoured before. Between the considerable money Edith offers him and Robert's clear affection, viewing Basil as a father figure, he assembles a small team and starts digging.

The titular dig site reveals a wealth of treasure, ultimately known as the Sutton Hoo cemeteries. The Anglo-Saxon burial ship has been touted as one of the greatest archaeological finds in British history, predating the more common but similar Viking sites. After Edith and Basil, in a mesmerizing first act of the film, approach the same questions from totally different backgrounds, they (and we) are rewarded with the feeling of awe as the burial ship stands uncovered. Before long, eager authorities descend on the site, determined to assist and, of course, claim some fame. They bring with them ambition and drama, which starts to annoy Edith and Basil and carries the bulk of the middle of the film.

Simon Stone's drama is lovely to behold. Soft, warm, and tranquil, this is the kind of sentimental historical drama that, ten or twenty years ago, would have been produced by the Weinstein Company. Its strong performances, pervasive thematic underpinnings about art and history, and absorbing sense of place would have made it awards-bait in years past. But right now, after the last four years and during a pandemic, as those awards shows continue to be lambasted about their lack of diversity, The Dig feels distinctly out of place. Like the treasures unearthed by Edith and Basil, this relic is as beautiful as it is forgettably quaint. Even as it tries to peacefully and nicely hammer home the importance of this event and this find, it rarely manages to break free from its own quiet self-importance to make us care about it. Because of this event, we know Anglo-Saxons had culture and art, as one impassioned character declares in the film; this movie just wants to show us how that knowledge came to be known.

Which would still make for a nice movie, I suppose, except for all the silly drama that enters in the second half. Once outsiders pop in, Basil all but disappears and with him went the movie's heart. Vapid exchanges between strangers churn out drama faster than the mounds churn out gold. Ken Stott (The Hobbit trilogy) plays a famous archaeologist who wants to take the site from Basil's amateur hands. Johnny Flynn (Emma.) shows up as Edith's cousin Rory, who takes pictures of the dig. Stuart and Peggy (Ben Chaplin and Lily James) arrive to help, but they are both dissatisfied in their marriage; as Peggy and Rory grow closer together, Stuart seems too interested in a male colleague. Then Rory is summoned to the war effort. It's all a lot of drama that doesn't really have to do with anything, and it arrives far too late to be of any consequence to the film. Even the impending threat of the Blitz only marginally matters, adding the tiniest sense of urgency to the whole proceedings, making most of the romantic aspects of the second half merely irritating.

Promising Young Woman (2020)

 Score: 4.5 / 5

A devastating directorial (and feature film screenwriting) debut for Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman might be the most complex and ambitious movie I've seen all year. Aggressively undefinable by genre, it weaves its characters and plot through black comedy to revenge thriller, from coming of age drama to romantic comedy, and it does so effortlessly. I found myself repeatedly laughing aloud and then stifling gasps; sometimes even choking back laughs that weren't going to be welcome in the auditorium at large. It's an emotionally exhausting experience, one that is never less than hilarious or horrifying, sometimes within the same scene.

The opening scene sets things up perfectly. A group of young business men -- the kind who probably left undergrad from frat row within the last few years -- drinking at a bar begin to comment upon a young woman, clearly intoxicated to the point of losing consciousness, sitting alone in a compromising position on a red leather sofa. What begins as a sort of bizarre slut-shaming conversation shifts into them commenting on how pretty she is, and which of them should try to rouse her and hope for more than casual acquaintance. Finally one, the "nice guy" goes over to her and offers to help her leave. They can't find her phone, so he offers to order her pickup vehicle. In the car, his tactics change until he redirects the driver to his own apartment. Is he going to let her sleep on the sofa to make sure she's okay? Maybe, until he sits a little too close and puts his arm around her. Then it's on, and as he removes her panties, she rouses and confronts him, suddenly stone-cold sober and with a devilish glint in her eye. She's going to teach him a lesson about being a predator.

It's a brilliant premise, and the movie delivers time and again as Cassie, the young woman, apparently goes to bars and clubs with alarming frequency to enact the same scenario with other unsuspecting men. Fennell is working from a place of anger, turning it into productively painful scenes of "nice guys" revealing the dark side of sexist objectification and ignorance (willful, of course) of sexual consent. And just as things seem a bit too on-the-nose, Fennell pulls out the rug beneath us for a third-act twist that demolishes our hopes for a romantic comedy and pushes things into hardcore satire that will no doubt alienate some audience members.

But the movie is far more than just a black comedy, and it is held together by a magnificent Carey Mulligan doing some of her best work yet. Cassie is a tough role, one that could have easily been played for camp value, and Mulligan imbues her with so much inner conflict and pain, so much internalized guilt and externalized hatred, that she will, I expect, go on to become an icon of twenty-first century female characters. Mulligan is joined by a surprising but excellent cast firing on all fronts, including sudden scenes with Laverne Cox, Alison Brie, Alfred Molina, Connie Britton, Molly Shannon, Max Greenfield, Jennifer Coolidge, Clancy Brown, and Adam Brody. Everybody kills it, so to speak, following a brilliant supporting performance from Bo Burnham, whose casting in a particularly thankless role here is a stroke of genius.

In case you forget, by the third act twist, that this is all meant to be a bleak and damning comedy, Fennell keeps her visual style relatively light, slathering candy-colored hues across costumes, sets, and makeup. She pumps ironic and catchy tunes through the soundtrack -- I especially loved a sly inclusion of Britney Spears's "Toxic" just before the climax -- to keep us in that sweet spot between comfortable and on edge. And even when the film threatens to skim over real character development, motivation, exposition, or thematic depth, Fennell organically answers our questions, satisfies our sympathetic need for connection, and allows her film to breathe before jumping back into the meat of her thematic odyssey. It's a brilliant work, and I can't wait to see more.

I should note that the only reason I didn't award this movie a full five points is a result of the end. Some may love it, and I certainly like it as it is, but I do wish Cassie had a different conclusion to her own story. To say anything more would spoil it, but if you've seen it, I'd love to hear your thoughts! As vaguely as I can, I guess I just don't see the necessity of her exit strategy, and I think she could have accomplished her endgame without sacrificing too much. But maybe that's exactly the point.

Mudbound (2017)

Score: 4.5 / 5

I still haven't read Hillary Jordan's book, but Mudbound is a fascinating movie, especially since it has only been widely released on Netflix. In some ways I was hesitant to see it: There seems to be an awards-bait tendency to drop a "race" film in December, one that usually casts black people as slaves, maids, or the victims of lynchings. And, sure enough, this one isn't much different. But, like Loving and a few others recently, Mudbound complicates the usual tropes just enough to rise above expectations.

The story concerns two families, the Jacksons (black) and the McAllans (white). The McAllans get cheated into moving onto poor farmland, and they work the muddy ground alongside the Jacksons, who feel grateful to have land in a way their ancestors did not. The film creates magnificent parallels between the two families, especially in the mothers and sons: Carey Mulligan and Mary J Blige play the respective mothers who support but subtly challenge their subservient household positions, while Garrett Hedlund and Jason Mitchell play their sons who go off to war and return deeply changed. The white son, traumatized, bonds with the black son, who is confronted anew with violent racists he was free from in Europe, where he loved a white woman and fathered a son.

Nowhere is this made worse than in the character of Pappy, the McAllan patriarch, whose vile lines of dialogue spew racist baloney and white supremacy with every syllable, and whose gravelly voice immediately sets him up as a one-note villain who is almost more terrifying because of his simplicity. Of course, he's not the only monster in Jim Crow America, but the film smartly keeps things focused on the families.

I was most interested in the narration, a series of voiceovers from the main characters (except Pappy, thankfully) who alternate soliloquies, creating a chorus of voices. At first, I found this technique irritating and distracting, probably a translation of the book where such devices can propel the story, as it felt manipulative and disjointed. By the end, however, I understood its effort was to create a communal center of emotion. The tragedies of war and racism and violence affect all the characters differently, and their separate-but-together narrations enlighten the viewer to their more profound personal toll.

Which leads me to a final point. Mudbound has a lot of plot going on, and in fact, maybe too much. Lengthy parts of its over-two-hour run time set me to distraction simply because of scenes that do little more than create atmosphere and extraneous tension. Director Dee Rees, though, brilliantly centers her movie not on what is happening, exactly, but rather on whom it is happening. She gets amazing performances from her actors, some arrestingly good cinematography from Rachel Morrison, and a story that is more of a character study than anything else.

Take the sons, for instance. Jamie (white) and Ronsel (black), to help each other stay sane after the war, spend a lot of time together. But Jamie's swagger and provocative friendship with a black man reveal a deeper problem of white liberality. Both he and his mother, who are not explicitly racist like Pappy and Henry (the husband/father played by Jason Clarke), serve to benefit from the system of white supremacy and are protected by their skin color to the horrors they indirectly inflict on the Jacksons. It is because of Jamie's charisma and carelessness that (SPOILER ALERT) Ronsel gets abducted and tortured by the KKK near the end; Jamie's refusal to grasp the unfairness of their relationship results in him getting a bloody lip while Ronsel is forever silenced. In fact, seeing relationships like this reminded me of the brazen assault on casual racism in Get Out, and I think the two films would foster lively post-dinner conversation, in the right company.

There's a lot to unpack in this film, but what I was left with was the impression of deep complexity and emotional weight in the characters involved. The film uses thick contradictions to striking effect, making the viewer think about every moment. It's therefore exhausting to watch, a test of endurance and intelligence that I'm not sure I always passed. It will require further screenings. Moments of surprising tenderness and beauty, scenes of abject cruelty and horror, all combine in a picture of life that reminds us of the cost of injustice.

IMDb: Mudbound

Suffragette (2015)

Score: 4 / 5

If you, like I, saw some of the early advertisements for this movie, you probably avoided it for a while. A misguided photoshoot, you recall, for a particular Time Out article, featured in black-and-white coloring the four main actors in white t-shirts that read, "I'd rather be a rebel than a slave." Out of context, it's a troubling image that suggests slaves choose to be so, that only white women can be rebels or have the agency of choice, and that sexual injustice is historically the same as racial injustice. Furthermore, the film does not include so much as a passing reference to women of color advocating for suffrage in Britain at the time, such as prominent leader Sophia Duleep Singh, the Punjabi princess. Yet the film is not its marketing. Problematic and troubling as these choices were, Suffragette proves an effective movie with remarkably relevant messages.

This film, directed by Sarah Gavron (Brick Lane) and written by Abi Morgan (Shame, The Iron Lady), centers on a small group of working-class women in an isolated factory. As we saw in Detroit -- and in loads of historical films, actually, as The Patriot comes to mind -- it is unquestionably easier and usually more dramatically effective to explore a microcosm of some significant event than to survey an entire movement with too many characters and locations and times. This movie works so well because of its highly dramatized and somewhat fictionalized narrative. The real-life events were bigger than life, and so the specifics of the film are too. The whole thing may not be "true" but that doesn't mean the things it represents aren't.

Suffragette, as I said, follows a small group of factory women, specifically one Maud Watts played by Carey Mulligan. Seemingly by happenstance, she transitions from working on laundry to giving her testimony to parliament in an effort to gain the right to vote. Once denied that right, the women involved are beaten and jailed by the police, thus sowing the seeds of social justice in young Maud's heart. While she walks a dangerous personal line with her husband (Ben Whishaw), boss, neighbors, and coworkers, she finds friends who quickly band together and continue the civil disobedience. Joined by a cast of women soldiers including Anne-Marie Duff, Natalie Press, Romola Garai, and especially Helena Bonham Carter, these activists fearlessly fight the unjust law, brutal police (who knew force-feeding was so horrific to watch?), cruel husbands, and abusive employers. Jailed time and again, they paint a striking portrait of perseverance and desperation.

It's one of the best examinations in film of how and why activists can and often do turn violent to affect change: Their lives depend on it. Our expectations of early twentieth-century England are upturned by the fierce violence we witness. Gone are the strictures and finesse of Downton Abbey. Nowhere is the silly sweetness of Mrs. Banks, singing about being a "Sister Suffragette." This picture is filmed like a thriller, with a handheld camera that breaks any barrier between us and the action. Severe close-ups, thick atmosphere, and restricted vision keep things immediate and direct. Against a cold and bleak backdrop, the film highlights its own relevancy and declares its own burning anger. It's an urgent battle cry, one that will outrage you, work your tear ducts, and leave you breathless at its ending.

"I'd rather be a rebel than a slave," put back in its context, is the effective rallying cry of Emmeline Pankhurst, played by Meryl Streep. It's strange that she received such prominent billing for such a brief appearance (one scene, if I counted correctly). Pankhurst was, as history has determined, the iconic suffragist of the time, and so her appearance reminds us that the problems faced by our small band of heroines are reflective of the state of all women in Britain. Her presence, and the subsequent rioting, serves as a sort of turning point in Maud's character arc: Her firebrand style and oratory magic ignites a passion in Maud that radicalizes her and informs her behavior for the remainder of the film. It may not do quite the same for us, who know from history that Pankhurst's politics were not always so noble, but in the moment we understand how and why we would have gotten involved ourselves. Let us go forth and do likewise.

IMDb: Suffragette