The Stranger (2022)

Score: 3.5 / 5

An intensive character study, The Stranger is one of those seemingly random Netflix releases that nobody hears about but absolutely should. It's an understated crime drama -- and it's Australian, which for me correlates to a certain excellence in the craft anyway -- of the sort that will almost certainly alienate anyone who loves true crime miniseries or podcasts. Those tend to be fast, wild, and filled with frisson; this one is pensive, patient, and haunting. It doesn't make its story easy to access, and it certainly doesn't feel rewarding or particularly satisfying. In fact, I'd compare its aesthetic more to a Denis Villeneuve film (like Prisoners), as it seems more concerned with atmosphere, character, and form than with plot or entertainment.

Sean Harris plays Henry Teague, who in the first scene meets someone on the bus who offers him a job opportunity. If he was played by Liam Neeson, you'd scoff and say we've already seen this story before; we know it's a true crime story, and we might assume he joins a "one last time" criminal enterprise to get enough money to finally escape. Not that we're given any details like that, but the film knows what we expect. Harris, being Harris, immediately imbues the character with a suspicious energy, facilitated effectively by his gravelly whisper of a voice and vacant, ghostly gaze. There are major wheels spinning behind that façade, but all we get is the impression of horror. That's why he's a different character than what Neeson might bring to the film. Neeson would be a hero. We're not sure about Harris.

Which is good, because (SPOILER ALERT) he's actually the villain. Not the antagonist, mind you, but still the villain. Henry Teague is a fictionalized version of the real-life main suspect of one of the most notorious missing person cases in Australia's history. By the time we find out -- some twenty minutes in -- that the people around him are undercover informants and investigators, we realize they've been hunting this guy for a while. The elaborate sting operation is headed by Mark Frame (Joel Edgerton), who poses as a criminal organizer in order to get Teague a job and then catch him red-handed. They're convinced he murdered a child, but a lack of evidence means they can't just arrest him. So they develop this false criminal underworld in order to lure Teague in, get him comfortable, and hope that he will confess to his crime or enact a new one they can book him for and then continue the investigation. Apparently this methodology is (or was) legal in Australia; I think it would not be in the US, but I haven't taken a civics or criminal justice class in many years!

For a police procedural, this does not fit the bill. It feels more like an arthouse film, one whose deliberate pacing makes it feel more like a waking nightmare than true crime. Occasional sharp edits cut into what amount to dream sequences or montages, and we're never quite sure if it's meant to convey a dissociative streak in Teague's mind or if it's insight into Frame's fracturing mind under the pressure of the investigation and befriending a child killer. Writer and director Thomas M. Wright skillfully tells the story unlike any other police procedural I've seen, and more than once I wanted to pull out a stopwatch just to calculate times of the long takes and sometimes the time between spoken lines. It's a quiet, calculated film meant to destabilize our awareness of genre conventions. And then there's the chilling score that drones on and sinks under your skin, much as it does for both the main characters, who (as you can see in the promotional poster below) are by design frighteningly similar in appearance. After all, your own reflection is your safest confidant, right? One wonders what Freud might make of this movie in terms of the uncanny.

Spencer (2021)

Score: 4.5 / 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Green Knight (2021)

 Score: 5 / 5

As dense and ambiguous as its source material, The Green Knight is a cinematic masterpiece. Writer/editor/producer/director David Lowery, whose work has never been less than visionary, this time turns his unique aesthetic on medieval legend to stunning effect. Lowery tends toward the folksy, shifting ghost stories (A Ghost Story) and fantasies about dragons (Pete's Dragon) into gritty, tangible dramas tinged with mythic tropes, set in vibrant, rural landscapes. His abilities are only heighted in this new film, as his focus on the Arthurian story smartly disregards the romanticism so often bound to the genre in art. Rather, he leans into the Romantic (specifically Dark Romantic) inclinations of the story, which feels much more historically accurate and believable than your typical Camelot fare.

An intimate epic -- the rarest kind -- of life, death, and the mess of what comes in-between, The Green Knight focuses tightly on its main character, whose name was interestingly excised from the title. Of course, the story is based on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the famously indecipherable 14th-century poem that bridged the gap between British storytelling and French chivalry. Perhaps reproduced most famously (and lastingly) by J.R.R. Tolkien, the tale notoriously eschews simple interpretation. Its characters, specific enough to be grounded and relatable, are surely meant to mean something, but the poem denies any easy allusion or allegory; it gives almost no hints to thematic insight or symbolic analogy. Taking his lead from this enigma that has been frustratingly studied for most of a millennium, Lowery seems to take lots of ideas from scholarly and artistic sources and simply says a resounding "YES" to all.

As such, the movie could have been a sort of "yes, and" improvisatorial mess. Instead, it's a "yes, and" of equally well-baked if somewhat inaccessible ideas, handled by a master storyteller at the top of his game.

And what a story it is. Sir Gawain, a young knight (played to devastating perfection by Dev Patel, who buffed up quite a bit, thank you very much), awakens in a brothel with his lover Essel (voluptuous and brilliant Alicia Vikander) before hurrying to court. It is Christmas Day, and King Arthur (Sean Harris) is celebrating in his darkened throne room with Queen Guinevere (Kate Dickie). He invites Gawain, his nephew to sit at his side; we get the impression Gawain is a relatively new knight and eager to please his uncle-king. Arthur seeks to know more about his nephew, and asks him for a story of the brave Sir Gawain; Gawain has none to give, for he has not yet proved his mettle at the Round Table. Thus begins a classic bildungsroman, the coming-of-age adventure that will make Gawain a man and, more important, a proper knight. Right?

With much of the movie, the answer is debatable. For indeed Gawain embarks on his trial shortly thereafter. Into the festive atmosphere walks the titular green knight, a terrifying figure with Ralph Ineson's demoniac voice, seeking a knight to play a game. Whatever harm a man causes the knight, he will repay "one year hence." Jumping up at the challenge, Gawain takes the knight's axe in hand and lops the knight's head clean off. Sure that this will earn him his manhood and honor, he nearly shits himself when the knight calmly picks up his head, which reminds the room of the deal, before riding off into the wilds. Is he a man yet, or will he be in a year? Is he a dead man walking, for surely he cannot survive a similar attack? What will his code of honor allow him to do in the next year? If superhero movies have taught us anything in the last two decades, it is that the choices we make in the interim make us noble, rather than any acts of valor in battle. What will Gawain do?

And without a breath of ado, Lowery skips the full year and we're back with Gawain as he prepares to go find the "Green Chapel" and face the Green Knight's doom. We aren't given any reason to think he has changed at all during the year, and so in his final days alive, we're treated to his journey. He won't learn many lessons -- at least not in the traditional, moral sense -- and he won't really meet many people. His slice of life, we might say, is far darker than your typical pilgrim's progress or odyssey. As he wanders through the British countryside, the world is shown to be far stranger and more complex than he (or we) are prepared to handle. Weird things, violent things happen and there is often no rhyme nor reason; at each step Gawain is tested, but are the tests of his knighthood, manhood, humanity, or simple existence? In one scene he might be assisting a ghost reclaim her head, and in another he's casually watching giants walk off into the fog. Each feels profound and significant, but they operate on entirely different thematic levels.

I could talk (and have, elsewhere) for hours about each scene, character, and special effect (of which there are remarkably few). We could discuss the thematic conceit of three, and how Lowery has added two original new mini-stories to lead up to the central story of the source material, the exchange of winnings in the Lord's house (featuring Joel Edgerton). We could talk about the talking fox, the cruel and unhinged scavenger (Barry Keoghan), deforestation and climate change, politics and the exchange between have and have-nots, ghosts and giants and women. We could talk about the gorgeous cinematography by Andrew Droz Palermo, the stunning costumes (I want that yellowish cloak!) by Malgosia Turzanska, and especially the haunting, screeching, churning music by Lowery's longtime composer Daniel Hart. We could talk about Sarita Choudhury's mesmerizing and much too-brief performance as Gawain's mother, Morgan le Fay, and the deconstructed vision of women in power a la Shakespearean tragedy. We could talk about the Lady's speech (also Alicia Vikander, in a genius choice of cast doubling) of what exactly the color green represents, which takes place during what could be the sexiest scene but which ends up being the most didactically illuminating and spiritually grounding interaction in the film. And we could gush for ages about the amazing, wordless 15-ish-minute climax, as Gawain's life-to-be flashes before his eyes.

But it would take books to fill it all. This is the kind of movie that will, certainly, engender some of the best scholarly film writing this year. But it's also the kind that will, by design, resist that very impetus. It's made to be talked about afterward, in our own private Round Tables, where everyone's insight, interpretation, and impressions matter. Lowery knows exactly what he's doing here, which is to say that he's comfortable making a consummate work of art through storytelling; it grows faster and -- dare I say -- greener as it takes root in the mind, grows into outside ideas informed by the experience, and eventually rots into a potent memory of colors, sounds, and images. Equally important, I think, are the ideas the film's structure and formal elements suggest but will likely never be articulated in most discussion circles, such as the passage of time revealing an innate judgment by nature on the failing human condition. (I note this based on one of the many shots in the film I simply cannot shake nor understand, when a bound and gagged Gawain lies on the forest floor as a spinning camera shows him decayed and dead before reversing and returning him to living flesh.)

So no, this isn't the most purely entertaining movie of the year, if you're entertained by simplicity or action. But it might be the smartest movie yet this year, in that it only makes any sense if you dedicate yourself to a subjective reflection on it. Does it turn its female characters into sex- or power-crazed witches, or are they proto-feminists exerting their will in a male-dominated world? Is Gawain so determined to be honorable that he's willing to die for it, or is it a performance of policed masculinity he pursues for his own satisfaction? Does the film's setting on Christmas suggest the adventure is a salvific allegory about hope and integrity, or is this a darkly pagan story about man's doomed place in nature? Can we see chivalry as a righteous code for civilization, or are we pushed to question its efficacy against the evils inherent in man? Again, we can really only say "yes, and" to these ideas as presented by Lowery and team. Because as Gawain learns, and we by proxy, the only value or meaning in the world is that which we ascribe to it.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)

Score: 4.5 / 5

This is one of those rare instances where a sequel is so amazing, it changes my opinion of the previous installment. Fallout is the fifth-act balls-to-the-wall, nonstop action, crazy complicated, knockout finale I wanted from Rogue Nation that we never got. Director Christopher McQuarrie returns as the first director to helm two Mission: Impossible films, and he proves his mettle not only in style and class and ingenuity (which he demonstrated almost ad nauseam in Rogue Nation) but with a level of insane action that, in my opinion, surpasses all that has come before in this franchise and in many others.

Fallout takes place not long after Rogue Nation with the splintering of the Syndicate and the capture of their leader, Solomon Lane. Now reorganized as the Apostles, the Syndicate remnant seek small, portable nuclear weapons in the form of plutonium spheres, which they acquire as a result of a botched mission by Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team. Well, I say "botched," but that just means Ethan did his usual thing where he saves someone he cares about (in this case, Ving Rhames's beloved Luther) instead of accomplishing the mission the easy way. It's this heart of gold that will make it difficult to swallow another character (or actor) leading one of these movies, God forbid the day should come.

Then again, this film introduces a few new characters who are at once welcome and prove themselves extremely capable to carry the mantle. This time we still have Simon Pegg's Benji and Alec Baldwin's director-turned-secretary Hunley and thank heaven we still have a glorious amount of Rebecca Ferguson's Ilsa Faust. But now we have a new CIA director in the form of Erica Sloane, played by a fierce and formidable Angela Bassett, who really should have been featured more. We also have my personal favorite addition: Henry Cavill as August Walker, a CIA assassin (I know, I know, it's just too great) sent to shadow Ethan's team and make sure they succeed. Not only is he dark and more than a tad frightening, but Cavill shrugs off the mantle of CG action and superheroic world-smashing to reveal his incredible ability to match Cruise for every punch, every jump, every bonkers stunt, and even supercede him in panache and -- forgive me -- hunky appeal. That's no small feat.

Oh, and I almost forgot. There's a magnificent little performance by one Vanessa Kirby of recent fame as the White Widow, an arms dealer in the black market. Her glassy wide eyes and charming-if-scary grin made me guess at her identity about two seconds before it was revealed: the daughter of Vanessa Redgrave's "Max" from the first Mission: Impossible. What a great addition to this picture. I just can't even.

The film itself is long; perhaps too long. Its action sequences drag on and get increasingly violent and spectacular. Each one feels like a climax, and so the film becomes a test of our endurance as well as that of its characters. Its plot features numerous subplots and technical dialogue that frankly I couldn't follow and didn't really want to. Of course, because of the nature of these films, I didn't really need to. It's like a roller coaster: You can analyze things and anticipate them and reason around them, but ultimately it'll still take you on the same track with the same feelings and sensations if you're only there for the thrill. That's the magic of this franchise.

Unfortunately, the film will not go down as my favorite Mission because of its bloated length, convoluted plot, and surprising lack of "spy" genre trappings. Its humor is also at a series low-point, not in terms of quality but simply because everything in this one is just so serious. Its charms are many but its comedy is light, which is totally fine except that it doesn't always feel like a Mission: Impossible so much as a straightforward, unattached action movie. Then again, it's a damn good action movie; certainly one of the best this year if not the last decade. The cinematography is stunning, the editing fierce, and the sound mixing breathtaking. And the stunts -- the stunts. I've never seen so many climactic, death-defying stunts in one movie that I actually cared about. The filmmakers keep outdoing themselves with lengthy takes and outrageous stunts that I started to feel overwhelmed.

What else can I say? I love this series and I loved this film. I hope there's three more coming down the line, and more still. That might truly by an impossible mission, but something tells me Tom Cruise is up for the challenge.

IMDb: Mission: Impossible - Fallout

Deliver Us From Evil (2014)

Score: 3.5 / 5

We've seen it all before. An uncomfortable opening that makes little or no sense. The promise of icky, not-so-subtle creepiness. Profuse (and often incorrect) religious exclamations, explanations, and imagery. Shaky camerawork and various bizarre sounds mixed in with the screaming. A woman or child in danger (both, if we're lucky). A good friend sacrificing himself. People popping out where they shouldn't, things popping out of people where they shouldn't.

If you have to guess whether it's demon possession movie, you should dunk your head in some holy water.

Deliver Us From Evil, the most recent release from director Scott Derrickson, hit cinemas last week. Fans may recognize his name, and for good reason: he has written and directed notables (and personal favorites) The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) and Sinister (2012). I was excited to hear about his new project, even though it claims to be based on a true story, and looked forward to seeing Eric Bana in a scary movie (and a tight black t-shirt).

Besides the bad taste its title leaves in your mouth, the film's plot may be too familiar to chill you this summer. You hardly have to know its premise to guess what evil we'll be delivered from, how it'll be done, and who'll make it out the other side. So if you only like films that keep you guessing and surprised, steer clear of this iceberg. But if you enjoy seeing a master of atmosphere kick around an old story and eke out some fresh sensations, give this movie a watch.

A shadowy, rainy Bronx becomes a great character in itself - one that Derrickson brilliantly highlighted but should have explored more. And inside the gritty city facades beats a palpable heart in the form of Bana's performance as NYPD officer Ralph Sarchie. Derrickson wrote an engaging if flat protagonist, but the character's bravado is complicated by Bana's sensitivity and dark gaze. Sarchie at first seems the ideal candidate to head a movie about urban demonic activity. Buff, a loving husband and father, buff, intelligent, good to his partner, buff - he is an intriguing hero, gifted with his own Spidey-sense, a "radar" of discernment. Hints at a man haunted by pain and suffering, however, pervade the screen from the first shot (that is, after the bizarre prologue).

It turns out that Sarchie is deeply troubled, resulting in a damaged home life and a loss of faith. Thankfully, Derrickson doesn't burden us with any extended didactic on faith or the nature of evil - besides one nicely-written scene between the cop and the priest. In fact, there is hardly a religious presence in the film until the exorcism scene itself. Typical of the possession movie's happy ending (The Exorcist (1973), The Rite (2011), and Derrickson's The Exorcism of Emily Rose), the ending tries to force-feed us a "message" of sorts, in which Sarchie (spoiler alert...but not really) reclaims his lost faith. If that's the story Derrickson wants to tell, I won't fight it, but I don't particularly like it. Especially with the film's title, which should have remained its original Beware the Night.

Though the film is testosterone-heavy, I found some fresh air in seeing that women were not the only victims of demonic assault. Too often in films men are tasked with incarcerating or killing possessed women, which certainly continues a dialogue about sexist historical medical/religious practices, but which does not provide new images for younger audiences. But the main "villain" here is a man (a balding man with lots o' blood), and though he does threaten women and children, they are not the objectified targets.

A surprising amount of violence and gore pervades the film, which adds to the gritty realism of the setting. Typical of Derrickson's work, not all the jump-scares are very jumpy or scary, but they all add to the atmospheric dread. The film would have benefitted from being about twenty minutes shorter, cutting some of the unnecessary lengthy close-ups of the second half. But for two hours of atmospheric chills, bloody bald guys, and Eric Bana fun, it's definitely worth a watch.

IMDb: Deliver Us From Evil