Good Grief (2024)

Score: 2 / 5

Marc and Oliver have been husbands for many years, and we meet them at a cozy, upper class Christmas party in London shortly before Oliver departs early to travel to Paris and is suddenly killed in a car accident. So begins Good Grief a marginally humorous drama about, as you'd expect, grieving the loss of one's longtime partner. It seems especially interested in the psychology of learning, through the grieving process, that one's partner may in fact be someone one hardly knows. Not in a creepy, erotic thriller or domestic invasion way, but rather the simple fact that some people keep secrets, and some people are very good at doing so. So when Marc reads a letter from Oliver a year after his husband's death and learns that Oliver was having an affair, his reeling emotional state spurs him on to make some rash, understandable, and "funny" decisions.

Dan Levy, who wrote and directed this material, also stars as Marc, and while he's never less than a riveting onscreen presence, here I daresay he tried juggling too many things at once. Perhaps flying solo as a creative artist so soon after the wild successes of Schitt's Creek is too much for Levy, but his material here is so unwieldy and unfocused and undynamic that you have to wish someone else had offered some workshopping or editing to his drafts and shoots. What we thought was such a specific, refined, and insightful voice in the hit comedy series has foundered elsewhere, and in this directorial debut, he's barely treading water. What purports to be a sensitive thematic study of loss loses itself in a mired mess of rabbit-trail plotlines, unnecessary globetrotting (read: flaunting of privilege), and boorish, even nasty behavior that the film itself tries to excuse.

The strongest elements of this film are in its casting, as Levy's chemistry with costars Ruth Negga and Himesh Patel is endlessly watchable. They play Marc's best friends Sophie and Thomas, respectively, who accompany him to Paris to visit the apartment Oliver was secretly leasing to carry on his affair. In fact, it was to this apartment Oliver was headed the night he died, the night he left the letter for Marc revealing his infidelity. Sophie and Thomas have troubles of their own, but their unconditional love for Marc is really beautiful, if overly convenient for the purpose of this story. The gimmick that they'd just up and travel internationally for funsies without any actual rationale wears thin quickly, but they're likable enough that we go along for the ride, too.

Levy's attempt at an ode to chosen family is equally thickly written, with Marc identifying himself multiple times as both an orphan and a widower (I should note that, early on, we learn Marc shied away from fully grieving his mother by starting his relationship with Oliver). But apart from their clear affection for each other, we don't really get much insight into who Sophie and Thomas are as characters, making each little tidbit feels like a profound revelation, which is arguably evidence of shallow writing. Probably because they're mostly used as mirrors for Marc and for letting us hear more insight into his whole deal. Similarly, there's a new love interest that materializes so abruptly, it's as if the film is screaming at us to not be sad because it knows how to do the rom-com schtick. So it's not a total waste of time -- I don't think Negga is ever a waste of time -- but it's certainly forgettable and disappointingly dull.

Passing (2021)

Score: 5 / 5

The movie begins with Irene, sitting alone in a hotel dining room in broad daylight. The sun streaming in lights up her white dress and white hat like an angelic robe and halo. A few furtive looks around her -- the camera subtly switches to her perspective a few times -- reveals that this is almost certainly an establishment for whites only, as the only other patrons are indeed pale. Irene herself has fairly light skin, and the gorgeous and dangerous black-and-white cinematography makes it particularly difficult to determine hue gradations. The camera does linger on Irene for a while, studying her incognito face with her dark hair and dark eyes barely visible beneath the brim of her lacy hat.

As the lengthy, almost wordless introduction to the film continues, the camera again uses Irene's perspective to survey the room. Is Irene, as the title suggests, a woman of color passing as white? It seems likely, even if you don't know the excellent performer to be Tessa Thompson. As she gazes at the white women in the sparsely populated restaurant, she locks in on one in particular. The shot lingers far too long as the other woman returns her stare. They recognize each other, but how? Or perhaps are they simply recognizing in each other a similar secret? It's an intoxicating scene, helped by intelligent editing, and one that effectively sets up the film to follow. This movie may be about words and ideas, but it's much more about lived experience.

Irene, we soon gather, only passes for white on occasion, when it might be especially beneficial to her, or when she just needs a brief escape from her life as a Black woman in Harlem in the 1920s. The other woman, Clare, does it much more frequently. In fact, as Irene's former classmate tells her, Clare is so light-skinned that she was able to marry a white man and live acting as a white woman. Played by the brilliant Ruth Negga, Clare seems hungry for the life of being authentically Black, having hidden her true self behind layers of conventional white mannerisms, speech patterns, and behaviors. But now, reconnecting with her old friend over their secrets and their history, Clare tries to hitch a ride on Irene's coattails into Black Harlem culture for the explicit purpose -- she says later in the film, before a dance -- "to see Negroes." Much as the Black men stare at this light-skinned flapper, Clare stares right back, drinking in the vibrant exclusivity of Black jazz nightlife. In these scenes, which make up most of the middle of the film, Clare shares a lot with Hugh (Bill Camp), a white writer who is nominally an ally to Irene and the Negro Welfare League, but who attends to watch the party like a child watching Sunday morning cartoons.

She's a mysterious character -- much like Irene, actually -- and we're meant to discover her bit by bit along with the protagonist. Is Irene's husband Brian (Andre Holland) in awe of Clare like the other men, or is his attention more intimate or lustful? Does Clare truly enjoy the privileged life of acting white, and if so, is she only using Irene to exert her own false sense of control over her secret identity? Perhaps the most arresting scenes involve the film's stand-in for a villain, Clare's racist husband John (Alexander Skarsgård). In his introductory scene, he is fooled into thinking both Clare and Irene are white; in his perceived safe space, he reveals his monstrous pet name for his wife, "Nig," earned as a result of her "getting darker and darker every year." The subtle reactions of the women in this scene -- and in the whole film -- constitute a masterclass of screen acting. Will Irene out her friend? What will be John's reaction?

That Passing, with all its impossibly complex themes and worrisome ideas, is Rebecca Hall's debut as director will never not blow my mind. It's an astonishing, confident, and nuanced work that brought to my mind similar films of split, shared, and conflicted racial identity such as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, BlacKkKlansman, and of course both versions of Imitation of Life. With its heavy material, Hall is deliberate in her choices and pacing, which might sacrifice the attention of some viewers. But if you tap into its ebb and flow, the third act of the film will pull you out like a riptide and leave you breathless. It's a faithful adaptation of its source material that is also faithful to a modern audience; its gorgeous presentation in black and white the only heavy-handed artistic choice (one that I fully, enthusiastically support) in what is otherwise the most contemplative and thoughtful chamber piece in a year full of cinematic bombast.

Ad Astra (2019)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Take the emotional and cerebral heft of Solaris and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Add the thrilling and technical brilliance of Gravity and First Man. Mix in some spiritual magic in the form of Interstellar. Then thread through these elements the plot of Heart of Darkness, and you'll find something that resembles director James Gray's newest film. When a movie wears its influences so blatantly, it's hard not to use their titles. But Ad Astra is a remarkable gem in that it very much carves its own niche in this series of major names.

In our future, Earth is struck by random power surges to devastating effect. The source, we quickly learn, is the Lima Project: a space mission sent to Neptune to search for extraterrestrial life beyond our solar system, from which no news had been received for sixteen years. U.S. Space Command sends astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) to investigate and make contact with the Lima Project, as his father -- the leader of the Lima Project -- may still be alive and on board. The intense foreshadowing suggests (and later, it is confirmed) that the father is in fact the cause of these catastrophic surges, and he must be stopped.

It's an awesome space adventure, filled with scenes of thrills and chills. We have moon pirates, predatory research baboons, antimatter cannons and nuclear bombs, and of course the ever-present wonder of space. Replete with awesome visuals, the film is utterly transportive, showcasing the vastness and unpredictability of the dark unknown we've grown familiar with. Space, Ad Astra seeks to remind us, is not the same we've seen in a galaxy far, far away or populated by Norse gods and ragtag guardians. The dangers are real, and none more so than the incredible isolation and loneliness suffered by those who attempt to navigate its depths.

And it is here that I most fell in love with this movie. Sure, it might feel plodding and pretentious, but I found it ethereal and haunting. Much like this year's earlier High Life, we're taken on a ride through the galaxy, yes, but also through a man's heart as he attempts to locate and reconnect with his father, who may be a planetary terrorist. He also seeks reconciliation with his estranged wife and with his own soul, battered as it has been by setbacks, workaholism, and a seeming inability to connect with anything but his fascination with space (read: not being around other people). Brad Pitt's unlikely powerhouse performance reminds us why he's enshrined as a top-shelf actor, as he so deeply internalizes every single emotional and mental beat of this mostly wordless screenplay. His narrative voiceovers betray nothing of his heart, and he intones his cryptic sentences like the dirge they promise.

Meditative, thrilling, and beautiful, this marks what may be a career-best-yet for James Gray, and flexes his muscles beyond the crime dramas he's helmed before. While it won't appease many space-minded sci-fi fans who want Star Trek-level answers to "Who else is out there?" or even Alien-level warnings of "What else is out there?", Ad Astra nevertheless manages a final sequence wholly unique in the genre, embracing a common and commonly unspoken theory about the universe at once more chilling and more hopeful than any I can recall in recent film history: We are, always and ultimately, alone.