NO HARD FEELINGS

Directing: B+
Acting: A-
Writing: B
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

I’m a little mystified by the decidedly mixed reviews for No Hard Feelings, a modern take on the sex comedy that, I felt. did a solid job on updating the genre. Granted, the premise is both utterly ridiculous and a little cringey: a 32-year-old woman (Jennifer Lawrence) is hired by the parents of a 19-year-old young man (Andrew Barth Feldman) to date him and bring him out of his shell as preparation for college. I wouldn’t necessarily begrudge anyone unable to get past that as a setup. Pun intended.

The thing is, No Hard Feelings actually manages to transcend any potential cringe factors, and winds up being surprisingly sweet—in addition to being consistently funny. Now, it’s not hilarious, and I can’t say it has the rewatchable factor of, say, the 2019 comedy Booksmart, which I think may be the funniest movie of the past five years. I hesitate to call it “lacking” in humor, though, especially given its high-caliber performances that rival any drama.

I also feel compelled to stress that No Hard Feelings is definitively better than its trailer might have suggested. When I first saw the trailer, I was cautiously optimistic at best, but fully ready to be disappointed by this movie. I wasn’t at all.

It’s really rare that a comedy manages to showcase a performer’s broad range of talents. Jennifer Lawrence is as good here as she’s been in anything, and Andrew Barth Feldman is a delightful discovery. Both of them have competent control of nuances you would never expect to find in a movie like this.

The history of film is also rife with examples of actors playing far younger than they actually are—Jennifer Lawrence herself was catapulted to superstardom in the 2012 adaptation of The Hunger Games, playing a sixteen-year-old at the age of 22. Lawrence is now 32 years old, and that is also the age of her character, Maddie. Andrew Barth Feldman is all of 21 years old, 20 when the movie was filmed, and he plays 19-year-old Percy. There’s something refreshing about that, in addition to the flipping of the historic script, with onscreen couples featuring a man far older than the woman.

Somehwat miraculously, No Hard Feelings never gets creepy, or even particularly weird. I told someone before going to see this movie that I was seeing a “raunchy comedy,” and it really isn’t even that. It’s barely even a sex comedy. It’s really about two very different people, at very different points in their lives, finding surprisingly genuine moments of connection.

Of course, “creepy” is not the same as awkward—and this movie has awkwardness to spare. But, it is never once disingenuous, and it is always fun and entertaining. Although I do have to say: there’s a bit of a running joke about Maddie’s friends, who are expecting a baby, not really liking the homemade baby crib mobile Maddie crafts for them, out of an umbrella and dangling surf boards. I thought it was a really sweet gesture that they should have genuinely appreciated—especially as these friends are surfers—but, whatever!

No Hard Feelings is about people making misguided decisions. I suppose the very premise of this movie could be regarded as one, except that the characters in the movie actually develop in satisfying ways. I suppose Percy being this intense recluse who then quite easily starts talking to peers kind of out of nowhere is a possible target for nitpicking. I didn’t care so much, because wherever the material falters—and it only ever does to minor degrees—the acting and the chemistry onscreen elevates it. I had just as much fun as I wanted at this movie and I think others will too.

Jennifer Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman are awkward in all the right ways.

Overall: B+

ASTEROID CITY

Directing: A-
Acting: B+
Writing: B+
Cinematography: A-
Editing: B+
Special Effects: B+

My feelings about Wes Anderson Films, it turns out, have been pretty consistent over the years. I have reviewed every feature film he has directed since 2004, of which there are now eight, and of those I have given five B-pluses (Fantastic Mr. Fox; Moonrise Kingdom, probably still my favorite; The Grand Budapest Hotel, his biggest commercial success; Isle of Dogs; and—spoiler alert!—Asteroid City) and three solid Bs (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou; The Darjeeling Limited; The French Dispatch). I can barely remember his first three films that came before I began posting reviews (Bottle Rocket; Rushmore; perennial favorite The Royal Tenenbaums) but could probably stand to go back and revisit them.

It would seem, then, that my feelings about Wes Anderson rarely wavers, except that in my mind, a difference between a B-plus movie and a solid-B movie is a difference between one I would recommend to others and one I would not (but which I was still happy to have seen myself). One could argue, that’s a crucial difference. And by that standard, his last film, The French Dispatch, was a bit of a dip for him, for the first time since five movies (and fourteen years) earlier.

Furthermore, the ones I enjoy the most, I enjoy for different reasons—in spite of the increasingly rigid “diorama” visual style Anderson adopts. Over time, his movies have gotten more visually dazzling, somewhat at the expense of substance; I found Moonrise Kingdom to be exceptional by that measure—and I feel the same about Asteroid City, which is, thematically, very different from anything else he’s ever done. And while the visual style is absolutely recognizable, it’s a tad more self-referential, and has a visual motif unlike any other, being set in a tiny town (the namesake of the film, as well as the play being staged in the film) in the middle of the desert. You might not expect the two-dimensional backdrops of cacti and mountains to work within the duration of the story, but it really does.

More importantly, Asteroid City is like an artisan ice cream sundae, with layered delights. I have to admit, with its Russian nesting doll-like structure, a movie of a TV program presenting a stage play with occasional interludes featuring the director and the actors both in and out of character, all of it dealing with subtle thematic nuances never made straightforward, some of this movie went over my head. I didn’t seem to care, as I was utterly charmed by it. I almost always enjoy Wes Anderson films, but this may be the first one I finished by immediately thinking: I’d really like to watch this again. I’m convinced I would get even more out of it.

There’s another unique quality to Asteroid City that seems tailor-made for me: its quite literally otherworldly elements. I would never known to have expected this, but it turns out Wes Anderson and an extra-terrestrial make for a perfect marriage, at least in tone. There’s even a needle-drop reference to the 1996 Tim Burton classic Mars Attacks!, with Slim Whitman’s 1952 yodeling “Indian Love Song,” and I naively wondered if I was the only one who clocked it (I wasn’t). Mars Attacks! is far wilder than Asteroid City, although by some measures Asteroid City is far wilder than any other Wes Anderson film, and it occurs to me that these two movies would make a truly great double feature.

And by the way, Asteroid City skates on a fairly even path of mild comic amusement, while also moving between genuine poignancy and a good number of laugh-out-loud moments. It isn’t just charming, and it isn’t just surprisingly moving at times, as this tiny desert town, famous for its ancient asteroid in the sand of a giant crater, is locked down under quarantine after an alien visit. If you look deep enough, in its own way, Asteroid City is Wes Anderson’s answer to other directors’ late-career cinema contemplations like The Irishman or Roma or Belfast or The Fabelmans. It’s just that with Anderson, who is 54, it is maybe more of a mid-career contemplation, and also far less straightforward of one. He’s got time to expand on his existential questions, but for now, Asteroid City is the perfect fit for them.

It’s almost beside the point that, as usual, Wes Anderson’s new film is so stacked with stars it almost defies the imagination. The ones most worth mentioning are Anderson stalwart Jason Schwartzman, the protagonist as both a recently widowed father of three finally breaking the news of his wife’s death to his children and the actor who plays him; Scarlett Johansson as a movie star (and the actor who plays her) passing through town; and Tom Hanks, new to the Anderson-verse but well cast and well integrated, as Schwartzman’s emotionally distant father-in-law.

Also worth mentioning are Jake Ryan (previously seen in the phenomenal Eighth Grade and Anderson’s own Moonrise Kingdom) as Schwartzman’s eldest child, and especially real-life triplets Ella Faris, Gracie Faris, and Willan Faris who play his three little girls, their characters with fantastic names I won’t spoil here. I will tell you that in the movie they provide some welcome chaotic unpredictability, and are insistent that they are witches and vampires. These girls alone may have been my favorite part of the movie, and this is a movie with countless things to love.

I can’t mention everyone else in this movie as there are just too many to name, but I want to shout out Tilda Swinton, furthering her long line of unrecognizability in film roles; and Bryan Cranston, who serves as on-screen narrator and occasionally delightful meta-commentator on the transition between “TV show” and “play.”

As always, though, the real star of any Wes Anderson film is the production design, which nearly makes whoever plays the parts immaterial. There is an appropriately otherworldly quality to the visuals here, even as it’s all set on desert land: there are real, working cars on actual roads, but with old-school painted landscape backdrops and artificial landscape props, creating a slight dissonance with the idea that we are supposedly watching a live broadcast of a play, as it blends real-world elements with the artificial, including the most Wes Anderson rendering of a mushroom cloud that could ever be rendered.

And yet, through all of this, even with the pointedly deadpan delivery across every single one of the countless actors (except those truly delightful, energetic little witch girls), Anderson somehow makes you feel a sense of human connection, breaking through the emotional inertness. It’s the contextualization that matters, and even when Asteroid City gets bonkers, it’s all contextualization. This is the reason I expect the experience to deepen in richness with multiple viewings.

Jason Schwartzman and Tom Hanks, making the kinds of connections only Wes Anderson can make.

Overall: B+

SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE

Directing: A-
Acting: A-
Writing: B+
Cinematography: A-
Editing: A-
Animation: A+
Special Effects: A-

Some movies take a while to make clear they are great. Some take a few scenes, a few minutes, for it to sink in that you are watching something special. Once every few years, sometimes even a lot longer, a movie comes along that confidently announces it stands apart as of its opening frame.

The fact that Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is one of those movies is just one of many reasons why I love it. A movie this good that’s a sequel skirts the edges of astonishment. Would it be hyperbole to utter this film title in the same breath as The Empire Strikes Back? The Godfather Part II? Maybe. Time will tell. Right now, I am sorely tempted. I mean, I just did it.

I had been deeply impressed with this film’s predecessor, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse when it was released in 2018. It blew me away, and a film so skillfully nuanced, funny, entertaining and beautiful that was both a superhero movie and an animated feature almost defied belief. To say it exceeded expectations would be an understatement. What’s even more amazing is that there’s a strong argument to be made that Across the Spider-Verse is even better.

Its three-person writing team has only one in common with the first film (Phil Lord), and its three-person directing team is entirely new (including Soul co-director Kemp Powers). By definition, they still have to explore the endless possibilities of the wildly overused “multiverse” concept, but these animated films about it not only find almost shockingly clever angles with it, but actually improve with their own iterations. Somehow the convoluted plot mechanics actually make more sense this time around.

And they take their time with it: this movie is 140 minutes long—a record for an animated film—and it doesn’t even finish the story. I’m being careful not to spoil plot details here, but I do think it’s useful to know that the original title for this film was indeed officially Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Part 1. Now they’ve dropped the Part 1 and the next installment will be called Beyond the Spider-Verse. It remains a part 1, though: with tons of story left to go, the film ends with a comic-book style caption: To Be Continued. It was an entertaining experience being in a theater full of people who did not already know to expect this. It was a unique combination of sounds that emitted out of the crowd.

And I cannot stress this enough: those minutes truly fly by. Like its predecessor, the animation is a sight to behold, that being the only consistency across different and distinct animation styles depending on the dimension we’re in. My favorite is the dimension the film opens in—after thrillingly rendered, animated title sequences that flip through dimension styles even through the many production company logos—which is the one home to “Spider-Gwen” (Hailey Steinfeld). The animation itself responds to characters’ emotional states, the colors of their environment flowing in waves away from them like water color paint.

Every style of animation is beautiful, though, an impressive feat given the many different, wildly differing styles, many of them clear visual references to literal comic book drawing and painting styles. This is the kind of literalization in adaptation that movies like this need, giving it a visual depth that augments the incisively written script. The spectacular action sequences are almost incidental, even as they serve the story rather than the other way around, and we become deeply emotionally invested in the relationships—particularly those between the title character, Miles Morales (Shameik Moore, reprising the role even though he’s aged five years whereas teenage Miles is only supposed to be a year older—Moore was in his twenties either way) and his parents (Luna Lauren Vélez and Brian Tyree Henry, both fantastic); also Gwen Stacey and her father (Shea Whigham, voicing a man beautifully drawn). And, of course, Miles and Gwen, whose romantic potential remains a question, whether or not they will be dimension-crossed lovers.

I even liked the villain better this time around, given the knowingly on-the-nose name of “The Spot,” and voiced by Jason Schwartzman. Due to an accident with an Alchemax collider, he’s been rendered a white body with black spots, all of which can be used as portals. The Spider-Verse films are never content with keeping things simple, though, and an alternate dimension Spider-Man from 2099 (Oscar Isaac) seem to exist in a gray area between heroism and villainy.

Across the Spider-Verse reportedly has settings in six different dimensions, but there are channel-surf-like movements through many more, most of which are delightful surprises that I won’t spoil. I simply have to mention my favorite, however, even though few others will care about it as much as I do: “Mumbattan,” which basically splices together Mumnai with Manhattan, and features an Indian Spider-Man named Pavitr Prabhakar (Karan Soni, previously featured in the Deadpool films). Once Miles, Gwen, Spider-Man 2099 and yet another dimensional badass Spider-Woman (Issa Rae) who has her own motorcycle enter the Mumbattan dimension, we are treated to an extended sequence with both fantastic action and a lot of very funny gags that should land well with South Asians. (This is some excellently integrated content for potential international audiences.)

There is an incredible number of characters in this film, apparently some 240 of them, a whole bunch of them in a spectacularly funny and entertaining action sequences featuring seemingly infinite versions of Spider-People (or in multiple cases, Spider-Animals). The humor and gags in this movie come at such an unusually fast and steady clip, I am eager to see it again just to see what I missed the first time around. And this is in the same movie that had me so deeply absorbed in its story and its characters that I actually got misty-eyed. It can be hard to trust any assertion that a movie has everything you could possibly want and more, but in this case, you can take that to the bank. The movie’s producers almost certainly will. This movie is a truly amazing specimen of cinematic craft.

There is simply nothing not to love about this movie.

Overall: A-

YOU HURT MY FEELINGS

Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B

The most impressive thing about You Hurt My Feelings is the relative insignificance of its central conflict, and how compelling, warm, fun and charming it is in spite of that.

To be fair, the conflict is not insignificant to the characters, or particularly Beth, as played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Beth is an author, has published a modestly successful memoir and has been working on a novel for the past two years, which she has given, draft after draft, to her husband to read. Her husband, Don, is played in a perfectly cast Tobias Menzies—who, incidentally, is 49 years old, as compared to Louis-Dreyfus at 62. His being younger than her is mentioned in the film, although they don’t say by how much; Julia Louis-Dreyfus still looks so fantastic that they could have played characters the same age.

And there is a lot of insecurity at play in the story here, although really none of it has anything to do with age—with the exception of Don’s vanity coming to the fore over wrinkles around his eyes. The “big issue” at play, actually, is the discovery that Don has been telling Beth all along that he loves her novel. But, she overhears him confessing to a friend that he doesn’t like it at all, and this leaves her spinning.

As written and directed by Nicole Holofcener, who previously directed Julia Louis-Dreyfus in the lovely Enough Said (2013), You Hurt My Feelings is concerned about much more than this lie that a husband tells his wife out of love and compassion but still winds up hurting her. It’s just the greatest example of a fairly common theme among all the characters, which is basically what morally gray things we do in what we consider to be the best interests of the people we love.

These things apply also to Beth’s sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins) and her husband Mark (Arian Moayed), respectively an interior decorator and a struggling actor. Ditto Beth and Don’s 23-year-old son Eliot (Owen Teague), who is also an aspiring writer and winds up offering some perspective on Beth’s neuroses at just the right time.

I really enjoyed all of these aspects of You Hurt My Feelings. For once, an engaging movie that’s not about something vital or possibly fatal—no one’s world is either literally or even figuratively falling apart, even if it does feel like it for a brief period. These are just normal, everyday—okay, white and upper-middle-class and by some standards maybe even wealthy—people, having fairly regular, everyday interpersonal problems. The magic here is in the telling of the story, with the unique touch by Holofcener.

Back in 2023, I called Enough Said “Simple and Charming.” Maybe that is just Nicole Holofcener’s brand, because the exact same can be said of You Hurt My Feelings. This one does deftly weave together a lot of seemingly disparate narrative threads, such as Don struggling to feel effective in his career as a therapist. This allows some fun guest stars, such as David Cross and Amber Tamblyn as a married couple incapable of getting along.

In the end, everyone comes to terms with whatever relatively minor issue they’re dealing with. Along the way, it’s just a joy to hang out with these people; Julia Louis-Dreyfus remains a consummate performer, particularly of comedy. And this film has its fair share of laughs, delivering truly everything that you could want or expect from it.

Tobias Menzies and Julia Louis-Dreyfus are confronted by some hard—but also funny—truths: which is to say, white lies.

Overall: B+

SIFF Advance: THEATER CAMP

Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

Theater Camp seems to pick up where Christopher Guest left off—and, I mean, where he left off with his last great movie, A Mighty Wind, in 2003. His 2006 film For Your Consideration aside, Guest hasn’t been in top form in a solid twenty years. In that wake, countless imitators have come and gone.

Somewhat astonishingly, first-time feature co-directors Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman have come along with a film worthy of the comparison. It also fantastically updates the charming but flawed precepts of the film Camp, which was also released in 2003, was also about a theater camp, and incidentally costarred a then-18-year-old Anna Kendrick.

Who knows which of the many, incredibly talented children in Theater Camp will similarly become stars in the near future? The cast this time is rightfully much more diverse, right down to the straight theater kid who has two dads. And the characters this time are not saddled with a plot about backstabbing competitiveness. The central conflict here has very little to do with interpersonal conflict, as the characters—teachers and kids alike—exist in a sort of utopia of sorts, one by all accounts very similar to those remembered by drama kids today. Instead, Theater Camp is much more about finding success through making the best of very limited resources.

The more I think about this movie, the more fond of it I become. There’s something about the storytelling, that is sweet without being sticky, heartwarming without being overly sentimental. It’s not just that these varyingly eccentric kids exist in a world that allows them to be their whole, authentic selves. It’s that, in the world of this movie, there isn’t even any particular novelty in that. It’s just what these kids—and their teachers—know.

And none of this is to say that Theater Camp doesn’t lean into the humor of “theater types.” It very much does so, but it’s always with a loving humor, a clear fondness for its subjects. One of my favorite things is how this extends to the camp founder’s grown son, Troy (Jimmy Tatro, who could easily pass for Ike Barinholtz’s younger brother), one of two key straight male characters. When his mother, Joan (Amy Sedaris, criminally underused) falls into a coma, Troy must step in and take on her duties. Even with Troy characterized as a “bro” type vlogger who comes in largely clueless, he is never characterized as the enemy—which, honestly, is refreshing. Instead, he’s merely a fish out of water, trying to find his bearings, stumbling on his way toward attempts to keep the camp afloat. He is met with some resistance, but in a way that makes us feel for him.

And that is perhaps the most delightful part of Theater Camp: it has a huge, ensemble cast of characters who are wildly different from each other, the one key thing they have in common being a love of theater. And every single one of them is likable—even, somehow, the director of the neighboring camp who is keen on taking over theirs.

The cast also prominently features Ben Platt, and co-director Molly Gordon, as teachers at the camp who play a gay man and his straight-woman best friend who attended this same camp as kids, and now compose an original play every year. This year their play is about the life of the play’s founder, which cleverly winds up touching Troy in subtly inventive ways.

Through this play-within-a-movie, we get a film that itself is technically not a musical, and yet we are treated to plenty of incredibly catchy, original musical numbers. If musicals aren’t your thing, then Theater Camp won’t be or you. But if you have any kind of appreciation for theater at all, and particularly the lovably odd personalities that inhabit that world, then you will be utterly charmed by this film.

You’ll be delighted by everyone in this movie. End of discussion!

Overall: B+

SIFF Advance: THE MATTACHINE FAMILY

Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: A-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

Prominently featured in The Mattachine Family, as a narrative symbol, are the Mattachine Steps in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, dedicated in 2012 to the Mattachine Society in memory of Harry Hay, who cofounded the gay rights group that preceded the Stonewall Riots by 19 years. In the film, we see a couple of shots of the sign posted by the staircase, both of them too quick to retain its text fully: The Mattachine Steps - Harry Hay founded the Mattachine Society on this hillside on November 11, 1950. Hay died in 2002 at the age of 90; 2012 would have marked his 100th birthday.

As our protagonist, Thomas (Nico Tortorella) and his lesbian best friend (Schitt’s Creek’s Emily Hampshire) are hiking up a hill to these steps, it is pointedly noted that the Mattachine Society advocated for White queer people. At another moment, though, Thomas’s voiceover narration ponders the chosen family of his husband, Oscar (Juan Pablo Di Pace), and their close friends, and how seventy years ago, they would have called themselves a “society.”

Hene the title The Mattachine Family, which is to be taken both figuratively and literally: the plot focuses on Thomas and Oscar’s evolving notions of actually raising a child. They’ve spent a year fostering a child to whom they have become very attached, and now are grieving the loss after the child has been reunited with his mother—pointedly, a mother who is doing well and clearly the right place for the child. The question, then, is whether to move forward with similar efforts that might result in a repeat of the same kinds of heartbreak.

The Mattachine Family is clearly a deeply personal film, largely autobiographical as told by director Andy Vallentine, who co-wrote the script with real-life partner Danny Vallentine. The two are also parents, and all of this makes me a little self-conscious about picking at the film’s contrivances. Such things are arguably part of the point, though: what movie made in Hollywood—independent or otherwise—doesn’t have its contrivances? This one just happens to have not just an organically diverse cast, but actually tells a story heretofore not depicted onscreen. This film may not be a grand masterpiece, but how notable it is still can’t quite be overstated, especially as it breezily normalizes the very kind of family many across the country are now actively working to criminalize.

Fundamentally, The Mattachine Family is about a long-term, committed couple grappling with diverging convictions about whether raising a child is the right decision for them. Instead of the more typical love story about whether two people are right for each other, this one is about how ideas of family planning test the very strength of a long-established relationship.

Watching this film, I was struck by its relative wholesomeness that exists concurrent with frank depictions of gay sexuality. It’s not lost on me that the so-called “frankness” would not necessarily register the same way if this were about a straight couple thinking about adopting a child. The key here is in how the film stands apart, just by virtue of it being a same-sex couple. Mind you, Thomas and Oscar are a long-term, monogamous couple. They’re even married.

There are some, and I don’t necessarily agree with them, who might argue that they represent the heteronormativity of “acceptable” ideas of same-sex relationships. They do have a more, let’s say, “free spirited” close friend (Jake Choi), who cheerfully talks about hopes for a threesome with his date. And it’s not like there is any moral obligation to make Thomas and Oscar more promiscuous just to remove them from notions of heteronormativity—especially if their marriage reflects the same truth of the film’s storytellers.

It’s sort of odd when a film that’s plotted in a fairly formulaic way still feels definitively like progress. The one genuine surprise was the gay father Thomas meets (Hacks’s Carl Clemons-Hopkins), who I really thought was being telegraphed as a potential source of infidelity—and then the story goes in another direction. Side note: that character’s lesbian coparent is played by none other than Heather Matarazzo, of Welcome to the Dollhouse fame, and she’s delightful as a “mommy influencer.”

Which is to say, The Mattachine Family isn’t all heavy moral dilemmas and drama. It has plenty of humor, giving it an overall very welcoming vibe. From start to finish, it invites you in, to feel what its characters are going through, to empathize with and to root for them, and the Valentines’ writing and direction make it easy to do so.

One man’s society is another man’s family.

Overall: B+

BEAU IS AFRAID

Directing: B-
Acting: B+
Writing: C
Cinematography: B+
Editing: C+

I suppose, given enough time. every great director disappoints us eventually. Does Ari Aster getting there with unusual swiftness—on his third feature film, only five years after his first—pull him back out of that designation? I would say no; at least not until we see what he brings us next. Hopefully with a shorter runtime than fully three hours. And less wild self-indulgence.

I’m coming on strong right out of the gate here, and I don’t want to mislead: the biggest thing that makes Beau is Afraid a disappointment is in comparison to Aster’s previous, far superior works, Hereditary (2018) and MidSommar (2019). I didn’t hate Beau Is Afraid, although I cannot think of one person I would recommend it to.

Which is to say, I didn’t love it either. I’d say it’s a mixed bag, except that’s not even the experience of it in the moment. One thing Ari Aster remains consistent with is maintaining a particular tone, and for lack of a better phrase, this film’s tone can best be described as “panic attack.” For three hours, I feel compelled to remind you.

Beau is Afraid is constructed entirely from the title character’s perspective, as played by Joaquin Phoenix (as a pretty dumpy looking, middle-aged man), all of it as though we exist inside his perpetual state of panic. There is no detour into naturalism or realism here; it’s all pretty surreal—from the very start, which must be the first birthing sequence I have ever seen filmed from the perspective of the baby, what he sees, inside the womb and then out. From then on, every single sequence—ultimately going on a journey from surprising place to surprising place, in the broad form of The Odyssey—is a depiction of what Beau fears is going to happen.

Eventually we get clues into where these fears come from, with a few detours into flashback from his childhood, usually in one of multiple states of unconsciousness between locations. Memory is definitively unreliable, which Beau Is Afraid never explicitly states but seems to know, and god knows any vision borne of fear has no root in reality. And this is all we ever see. With that in mind, it should be noted that Beau’s wildly guilt-tripping mother (Patti LuPone) may be less a classic cinema cliché than a simple exaggeration of Beau’s own mind—as is, presumably, absolutely every single thing we see onscreen. But to what degree are audiences considering this?

I kept waiting for a hard cut to reality that never came. Unless: maybe the first scene with Beau at his therapist’s office is the only thing that actually happens? Aster pointedly cuts to the therapist (Stephen McKinley Henderson) picking up his notebook and writing the word guilty. Everything we see after that is a panicked manifestation of that, from the chaotic dangers of city streets outside his derelict apartment building, to the couple (Nathan Lane and Amy Ryan) who hit him with their car and then nurse him back to health in the bedroom of their resentful teenage daughter (Kylie Rogers), to the truly wild turn after the long-delayed consummation of a relationship with a childhood quasi-sweetheart (Parker Posey). These are just a few quick examples; I could go on.

The only real tonal shift that occurs is at the performance of an outdoor play in the forest, where Beau suddenly sees himself on the set, and it turns into a surreal animation sequence, featuring voiceover narration as we see him go on a truncated version of basically this same odyssey, to the point where we watch him grow old. This sequence gets into things like the question of how he could wind up in a tearful reunion with three now-grown sons if he was a virgin . . . and this was where Beau Is Afraid really lost me. And, then: the only hard-cut back to where the sequence began: we’re back with Beau in the audience of the play, standing up, bewildered. Much like I was.

Beau Is Afraid is clearly ripe for analysis, and I suspect I would gain deeper and deeper appreciation for it with multiple viewings. But who the hell wants to do that? This is three straight hours of chaos, fear and stress. And it’s admittedly very well executed, particularly the cinematography (Pawel Pogorzelski, who also shot Aster’s two previous feature films) and the acting. Aster is an auteur who quickly made a name for himself, and the famous faces in smaller parts in this film are clear indicators of how many actors want to work with him: others include Richard Kind and Bill Hader. The only thing that makes rational sense to me is that all these actors read the script and then said, “I can’t make heads or tails of this. But whatever, it’s Ari Aster!”

I must admit, there are many moments in Beau Is Afraid that will stick with me for a while. That’s kind of his thing. On the upside, in contrast to his other films which were more clearly within the horror genre, this one has nothing gruesome in it. Although it does eventually feature a giant monster penis.

Once it finally sunk in that the narrative would never revert to any other separate “reality,” I began to wonder if we were meant to believe everything we saw onscreen was actually happening. That may have been by design. But, then there would be characters supposed to have been dispatched one moment, suddenly appearing again the next. We are clearly never meant to trust the narrative in Beau Is Afraid, which is an expression of one man’s waking nightmare, taking all the twists and turns that happen in the mind of anyone who is just perpetually terrified.

For all I know, Beau Is Afraid will resonate more with people who are clinically diagnosed with anxiety, of various types. Does that mean they would like it? That, I imagine, is an entirely different question.

Everything is as bad as you think or so you think

Overall: B-

ARE YOU THERE, GOD? IT'S ME, MARGARET.

Directing: A-
Acting: A-
Writing: A-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

It’s a bit ironic that Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret is the most “godly” film I have truly enjoyed since I actually considered myself religious, over two and a half decades ago—and yet, it’s also quite pointedly neutral on religion. The trailers before the film advertised so many “inspirational” films about the power of faith, I almost began to get worried. Thankfully, I already knew how critically acclaimed this movie is. Frankly, without knowing that, I’d never have had any interest.

I suppose I might have, had I ever read the widely and long beloved “middle-grade novel” by Judy Blume. But, unlike the vast majority of the people reviewing this movie and comparing it favorably to the source material, I have not. I did not even realize, until seeing this film, how much of a massive pop culture blind spot it really was for me. When the eleven-year-old girls started chanting, “We must! We must! We must increase our bust!”, it brought back memories of my mother playing around, and reciting the same chant when I was a teenager. I never had any idea that it was a reference to a pop culture touchstone originally published in 1970 (when my mother was 18, incidentally).

Which is to say, I can only judge this film on its own merits—the only way any film should be judged, even if it’s been adapted from a beloved novel. I really couldn’t tell you how great an “adaptation” it is. I can only tell you that it stands firmly on its own, that this would be an objectively wonderful film even if it were released exactly as is without the novel ever having been published. The only disappointing thing about it is how it was never made earlier.

It could be argued that nothing is more important in film than tone—not just establishing tone, but nailing it, and maintaining it. This has to be the greatest compliment that can be given to Kelly Fremon Craig (The Edge of Seventeen), the 42-year-old director who also co-wrote the script with the now-85-year-old Judy Blume. The tone here is so singular, in fact, that I struggle with the words to define it. Dramedy with a touch of sweetness, I suppose?

Movies like this typically have an uncomfortable sort of earnestness, or are too treacly. Neither is the case here. It’s not even especially nostalgic in tone, even though it’s clearly pleasing many audiences who are nostalgic about the novel. Its tone is fairly matter-of-fact and straightforward, which effectively makes it feel like how good it really is sneaks up on you.

The decision to set the film in the year in which the book was published (1970) was both crucial and correct. Eleven-year-old Margaret spends so much time speaking directly to God, much of it praying for relatably trivial things like a successful party or for her breasts to finally grow in, her innocence just wouldn’t play as well in the present-day, with kids wildly worldly, informed, sophisticated and even cynical by comparison. Yes, even at age eleven. Margaret’s rites of passage may be universal, but they get greater purity in the telling without the distractions of modern trappings.

Margaret is played by Abby Ryder Fortson, who is 15 now but was 13 during production, playing 11. I want to single her out as a phenomenal youmg performer, but I was particularly stuck by the performances of all the kids in this movie. They’re all so good, it’s a bit stunning. There once was a time when child actors were so reliably stilted on film, it was easy to assume getting great, nuanced acting out of children was impossible. I don’t know what changed, casting tactics or directing styles or what, but those days are clearly over. Bad child acting is actually the exception these days, and Are You There, God? is like the poster film for the new era.

But I haven’t even gotten to what is my favorite thing about this movie, and that is the specificity of a young girl “becoming a woman”—without trauma. Margaret is neither ignorant about nor afraid of getting her period; on the contrary, she’s eager and excited about it. She and her friends chat openly about it. She has a perfectly healthy relationship with her mother (a well-cast Rachel McAdams) with whom she can talk about it all openly: her desire to get a bra, the inevitable moment when her period comes. I can’t speak to the common experiences of women and girls with these things in reality, obviously, but I certainly know how these things are typically depicted onscreen. This film stands apart.

And sure, there’s drama here, but none of it is tied directly to a young girl’s body changing in ways that are predictable yet feel unpredictable. Instead, the drama is about the lessons learned in kindness and friendship—particularly between girls—and, somewhat pointedly, the tensions between different religions.

The religious aspect fascinates me, and I had to look up the plot of the book to see if it was as significant there (it was). Margaret prays frequently to a god she doesn’t know how to categorize—which, clearly, is an intentional theme—because her parents have deliberately chosen not to raise her with any faith. Her parents, her mother having been raised by conservative Christian parents and her father (Benny Safdie) have been raised by Jewish ones, are both so disillusioned with their religion that they think the’ve done Margaret a favor, but it leaves Margaret feeling somewhat aimless.

With the exception of hardline extremists from either side, these explorations of religion make Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. a movie with unusually broad appeal, particularly in an era with increasingly niche tastes. This is a movie that can easily entertain the pious and the atheist alike. It might work only slightly better than either on the agnostic. There’s a sequence in which Margaret’s estranged grandparents make a surprise visit, and her paternal grandmother (Kathy Bates, an always welcome presence) also shows up, the resulting tension erupting into an argument that is the most contrived moment in the film, a little too neatly resolved.

Not that it has to be anything different, given that this film’s real target audience would be kids around Margaret’s age, or maybe just a tad older, with some experiences behind them to make Margaret more relatable. That is clearly the power of this story, though, and the beauty of stories about adolescents that work this well: it doesn’t matter how old you are, if you can remember being that age, it really hits home.

Spoiler alert! They aren’t just reading it for the articles!

Overall: A-

POLITE SOCIETY

Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+

If you’re looking for an uber-specific niche interest in your moviegoing entertainment, look no further than Polite Society, which fuses Bollywood with martial arts as performed by Brits of South Asian descent. It’s west-meets-east-meets-further-east-meets-west again.

And I had a great time. I suppose I should also be clear: this movie is cheesy as hell, to a degree that I made a conscious decision to look past. Sometimes, it’s downright cartoonish.

This is clearly intentional on the part of writer-director Nida Manzoor, in a feature film debut she isn’t taking any more seriously than she wants us to. Don’t get me wrong—she also plainly wanted to do a good job. But, the job she had at hand was farcical, and for the most part it succeeds on that front. The performances are winning; the action and choreography are delightful. I just would have liked the plotting to be a bit more clever.

At least there is believable love and affection between sisters Ria (Priya Kansara) and Lena (Ritu Arya), who both not only have unusually creative dreams for themselves, but they also have parents who indulge them far more than any of their parents’ peers do their own children. Ria is the youngest, still in high school, making YouTube videos of the moves she learns in martial arts class as she dreams of becoming a stuntwoman. Lena, the eldest, has dropped out of high school because she’s convinced herself she isn’t talented enough.

With Lena’s life adrift and without direction, she gets easily lured into a quasi-arranged marriage with handsome Salim (Akshay Khanna), who has an uncomfortably intimate relationship with his cartoonishly villainous mother, Raheela (Nimra Bucha). Much of Polite Society is spent with Ria plotting to break up this engagement between Salim and her sister, in increasingly ridiculous ways—including a sequence in which not only Ria, but one of her two schoolmates infiltrates Salim’s gym dressed as a man. (In one memorable shot, we see a bunch of naked butts in a locker room.)

This is real “Looney Tunes” stuff, which is where Polite Society slightly stumbles, as it relies on cheesy physical gags as opposed to wit. What makes it worth giving into the utter silliness, however, is when Nida Manzoor kicks it up a notch with at least one choreographed wedding dance lip syncing to a Bollywood song (where Ria found the time to rehearse with several backup dancers is unclear), and multiple sequences with martial arts choreography usually reserved for straight up action movies, but here featuring women in beautifully colorful saris. Seeing all these martial arts moves combined with flowing scarves and swirling dresses is a memorably charming touch.

Ria’s consistent practice in her martial arts class provides a plausible explanation for her skill—as well as her struggles, particularly with a spin kick—or, more accurately, “Chekov’s spin kick,” which we see her fail at several times early on. Lena proves to be equally competent at fighting, though, and we see less of anything to explain that. And of course, through most of the film, Ria is outmatched by Raheela, but Raheela is such a cartoon villain that having her be great at everything—until she ultimately gets bested—is practically mandatory.

I guess you could say: I wanted to feel the vibe with Polite Society more than I really did, at least on average. There’s some potential there that doesn’t quite get met. I’m always down with silliness, but I like it better when married with cleverness, which this film has a bit of, but it skirts the line between cleverness and cheesy tropes a bit too much of the time.

It wouldn’t be nearly as good as it still manages to be without the actors, though. It’s fun to watch Nimra Bucha chew up the scenery, and Priya Kansara and Ritu Arya have great chemistry as sisters. Best of all—and this remains an important point, something that makes Polite Society stand out in the best way—this is a movie about women, about sisterhood, directed, written, and shot by women. There are also men in key crew roles (most notably editor Robbie Morrison), but many of the key roles behind the scenes are filled by women, and nearly all the roles onscreen are women. The only real exceptions are Ria’s father, who is only in a few scenes; and Salim, who is given far less depth as a character than any of the many women surrounding him.

Which is to say, there’s a lot to delight in what Polite Society has to offer. It’s also largely mindless, yet well executed fun. Which people of all genders have the right to do! Not everything has to be a masterpiece; in fact, most things don’t. And this one is certainly unique, which is the greatest thing it has going for it.

Sisters are kicking it for themselves.

Overall: B

RENFIELD

Directing: C
Acting: C-
Writing: C-
Cinematography: C+
Editing: C-

Renfield goes from zero to a hundred in about five minutes. That may not be much for a car, but for a a movie, it’s a bit much. It took me about another five minutes to lose my patience with it.

Nicolas Cage has basically made a career of phoning it in, which is ironic for an actor of his proven talents. The guys clearly likes to work, and he gets work plenty, having become one of the most prolific actors alive. I’m not convinced, however, that at this stage in his career he’s much interested in being challenged. In virtually every role, it’s like the director just points his camera at him and lets him do whatever he wants. I’m sure that’s plenty fun for him. For the rest of us, it’s a mixed bag at best.

Here he plays Dracula, in a comedy-horror that leans on the gore for its humor, much like last month’s Cocaine Bear did. The crucial differences are that Cocaine Bear had better dialogue—albeit not by a wide margin—and, perhaps more importantly, better pacing. That movie actually knew how to built tension, ridiculous though it may have been. Renfield just dives right into the wild action sequences, making it more manic than anything else. This movie feels more cocaine-fueled than Cocaine Bear did.

The protagonist, narrator, and title character is Dracula’s “familiar,” or his centuries-old slave, here played by Nicholas Hoult. Somehow he winds up becoming friends with a local New Orleans police officer played by Awkafina, as the only cop in the city who isn’t corrupt. I wonder how the City of New Orleans feels about this depiction.

In director Chris McKay’s version of this story, Renfield gains “a tiny fraction” of Dracula’s power by . . . eating bugs. At first I thought they had to be some kind of special bugs, but no, they can be any average bug. This would include the ants from a young boy’s ant farm. Renfield eats an insect, and suddenly he has superhuman powers.

The script for this movie feels like something no one bothered to proofread. To make matters worse, the editor and makeup artists were evidently entirely unconcerned with continuitiy. Renfield can fight off a whole crowd of attackers, literally make them explode in a fountain of blood and guts, and then emerge without any of it all over him, or even on him at all.

The most disappointing thing about Renfield is that is premise is actually compelling: Renfield is learning he is in a codependent relationship with Dracula, and must figure out how to break free of it—after a ridiculous amount of cartoonish violence, of course. This movie has a few amusing moments, but they almost feel like accidents. It’s not just that I want to write it off as dumb, because even a dumb movie can be well made in the right hands. This movie, on the other hand, is bereft of wit.

There’s a certain infectiousness to how much fun everyone is clearly having, I suppose. There’s even clear intent in how cartoonish it is. And yet: it’s just way too cartoonish, every plot point so wildly contrived it’s genuinely annoying, a complete waste of Shohreh Aghdashloo and Ben Schwartz as local mafia villains, who are so devoid of nuance they literally talk about how much they love violence and evil.

I’m sure some people will be entertained by Renfield. Those people have no standards and no taste. Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh. A more generous read on this movie would be that it’s an homage to mediocrity. The run time is merely 93 minutes and I was more than ready for it to be over after thirty. Why couldn’t they hire whoever cut the trailer to edit the movie? The trailer was far more entertaining, even upon repeat viewings. That is the trick with trailers, though: to dress up a bad movie as something you want to see. It worked on me. I guess you can take this as fair warning: don’t bother with this inept and rote attempt at subverting genre,

Nicolas Cage chews up the scenery, his costars, and any chance of wit.

Overall: C-