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 Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018)

Score: 4.5 / 5

You can almost feel the Coen brothers in their writing room. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is far from their most polished work, but it's a masterclass in screenwriting and a damn fun way to spend two hours.

"The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" is just the opening salvo here, an optimistic and gleefully violent short starring Tim Blake Nelson, Willie Watson, and Clancy Brown. This film, you see, is an anthology. Collected here in a lovely book that includes "Other Tales of the Wild West" are five additional stories that explore various elements of misadventure on the frontier. Scruggs is probably my favorite, as Nelson's quirky comedy is just so damn infectious, but each segment has its particular charms of beauty, humor, and violence. The other tales include (in order of my preference):

"The Mortal Remains" -- five strangers (including Tyne Daly and Brendan Gleeson) share a nighttime stagecoach ride to an uncertain destination, uncomfortably discussing differing philosophies. Features bounty hunters and magnificent dialogue.
"Meal Ticket" -- a manager (Liam Neeson) struggles to find a paying audience for his traveling show: an orator (Harry Melling) with no arms or legs who recites famous speeches from memory. Features a chicken that can count.
"Near Algodones" -- a cowboy (James Franco) robs a bank and faces perpetual death, having underestimated the elderly banker (Stephen Root) and vigilante posse (Ralph Ineson). Features a Comanche raiding party and scalping.
"All Gold Canyon" -- an old prospector (Tom Waits) hunts for gold in an Edenic valley, unaware that he is being watched by nature and a criminal. Features gorgeous photography.
"The Gal Who Got Rattled" -- Alice (Zoe Kazan) travels on the Oregon Trail to find a new life; after escaping a prearranged marriage, she learns to find love (Bill Heck) and take control of her own life to the very end. Features a dog and surprisingly moving romance.

While I expected a more satirical view of the Wild West, I'm far more impressed with the film as it is. Satire is useful, but it's been done in this context and not often successfully. But this film is never predictable; rather like a miniseries, we jump between episodes just when they begin to lose steam. It's some of the most creative world-building we've seen from the duo yet. Ultimately, it's a delicious excuse to view the world from the Coens' unique perspective: bizarre, macabre, violent, and with more genuine wit than you could kick your spurs at.

The Monster (2016)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Lizzy has had enough of her mother. During her times in Kathy's custody, she finds herself a victim of alcohol-fueled abuse and a nurse, cleaning up afterward and caring for sloppy mommy. We see episodic scenes from their life together that range from borderline tolerance to unmitigated loathing, when Kathy's intoxicated rage manifests in verbal and physical violence. A central scene comes to mind, in which Kathy lets out a string of expletives (August: Osage County-style) at Lizzy in the driveway before getting in her car and abandoning the child. At the beginning of this movie, however, it seems the two have reached a breaking point, and a hungover Kathy drives Lizzy home to her dad, for what may be a final time.

The family drama seems to come to a head when their car breaks down on a lonely stretch of forested road. Of course the deep of night and intermittent rainfall restricts the duo from exiting the vehicle, and their uncomfortable situation feels more oppressive by the second. The slow-drip of toxicity between the two is sure to reach a blistering climax. But just when we think we've pegged Kathy as the titular monster, the shadows beyond the headlights take on a sinister shape.

Writer/director Bryan Bertino (you may remember his seminal creation The Strangers in 2008) once again shows off his mad skills in The Monster, and though it falls short of his breakthrough film, this one is a beast of a different color. Deceptively simple, it marries isolation thriller with monster horror in a grim, meditative family drama that utilizes the narrative of myth or urban legend. It's "about" the survival of mother and daughter. It's "about" the nature of monstrosity in a postmodern world, where even those who come to help (a repair mechanic and an EMT team) are collateral damage. It's "about" feminist refusal to be victimized. It's "about" the monstrous effects of alcoholism.

Too many claims? Try again. It's not any old breakdown that stops our ladies' progress on the road: Their car strikes a wolf. How many times does that happen in fiction? Rocks, logs, nails, deer, cows, sure, but a wolf? Actually, I can only think of wolves stopping young women as living predators in extensions of the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Hell, even last week's Beauty and the Beast is a prime example of that. And while the wolf here fulfills its function in stopping the girls' journey in the woods, they also almost immediately kill it. A subtle subversion, but an important one. The wolf serves yet another purpose beyond plot and theme: foreshadowing. Its presence suggests a greater predator in the forest, one that might have left the deep wounds on its torso, and one that might return for dinner.

It's not a lengthy movie, but Bertino milks the suspense for every last chill. Much like our experience in The Blair Witch Project, we begin to see the monster well before it appears in every shadow and behind the atmospheric veil. When it does at last venture into the light, we see a beast that looks vaguely like Alien, its shiny, leathery skin stretched batlike between its muscled limbs and a nightmarish head riddled with enormous teeth. It's a grimy regurgitation of Kathy's alcoholism, a foul specter that is unmistakably an incarnation of brutish overindulgence.

Of course it's a blatant symbol for the monster Kathy must face to restore her bond with Lizzy, but before you criticize the heavyhanded storytelling, most cinematic horror does correspond to reality. Do your homework. More specifically here, the case could be made that the monster is little more than an extension of Kathy's psyche, a manifestation of the evil in the woods of her life preventing a loving connection with her family. Like in The Babadook or It Follows, like in The Brood or even The Exorcist, we are left questioning the parallels. Is the monster (visible or invisible, external or internal) a literal product of the characters' turmoil, a symbolic examination of the sins in question, or an unrelated external form of evil that incites the drama of the film? Could it be all in one? One might wonder if it even matters, but the lens through which we view any movie will change our interpretation of it as well as our reaction to it.

Zoe Kazan plays mother dear, and her performance is an awesome display of her talent. Bertino's screenplay daringly challenges our suppositions about addiction's power over even the primal bond between mother and daughter. More impressive, he's willing to work with Kazan to make Kathy just a terrible person. As a raging boozehound and old-fashioned scream queen, she electrifies the screen with her presence. Incredibly, she avoids playing into the extensive symbolism of the film, imbuing her character with gritty realism and grounded vulnerability. Bertino's daring screenplay depicts Kathy as a terrible person. Kazan ultimately plays a harrowing journey of truth, fighting for the life of her child in a fierce crawl to redemption against horrific odds. Earlier scenes of cruelty and hatred are switched for heartrending love as Kathy and Lizzy take turns protecting and comforting each other. Ella Ballentine is no less fabulous as the fierce Lizzy, wise and brave, unafraid of confrontation and determined to stand up for herself and eventually her mother.

Of course, it's also pretty cool that even when The Monster is thrilling and chilling us -- it's far more a mood piece than a rip-roar scare-fest -- it affirms its characters' humanity and our own investment in their redemption.

IMDb: The Monster