KATHY GRIFFIN: A HELL OF A STORY

Directing: B
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B
Editing: B-

As a general rule with these reviews I write, as has been the case ever since I began posting them in late 2004, I would only write them for movies I have seen in a theatre in their original theatrical release. The documentary / comedy special Kathy Griffin: A Hell of a Story is kind of a different beast, or at least a middle-ground one: I did indeed see this in a theatre, but only as a one-time-only Fathom Events screening. It doesn’t matter what I say about it, you won’t have any opportunity to go to a theatre to see for yourself.

In the end, it hardly matters. Presumably this standup movie will eventually be available some other way soon enough, if not streaming then available digitally somewhere for purchase. And the only relevant information there is for a reader right now is this: if you’re a Kathy Griffin fan, you’ll likely have a great time watching this. If not, you won’t be missing anything by skipping it. And that last part is not even directed at the deranged Trump supporters who have sent her countless death threats; their propensity to either ignore or hate-watch her goes without saying. I’m even talking about the neutral observer, who might even agree that she was given a raw deal. Kathy Griffin: A Hell of a Story is straight up fan service, through and through.

The film features a long prologue that lasts maybe twenty minutes, itself much more of a short documentary about Kathy Griffin and her career immediately following her infamous 2017 photo holding up a fake, bloody Donald Trump head. It depicts Griffin’s world tour she took when she could not book any U.S. gigs, and frankly, this portion of the film is insanely contrived.

It pains me to have to say this. I count myself among Kathy Grffin’s longtime, loyal fans, and that’s what makes the beginning of this film all the more disappointing. This is a woman who has never made any bones about the hustle that has always been her career, and I still respect her for it; I don’t fault her for milking everything she can for all it’s worth. But there are moments here that just plain feel disingenuous. Does she really need to turn the camera on herself when she’s supposed to be emotionally at rock bottom? Does she not realize that when a move she makes is transparently in the service of a money-making venture, the “emotion” on display rather loses its impact?

Griffin occasionally has her boyfriend holding the camera, talking behind it. In one scene, she’s broken down crying, apparently on an airplane between cities, and he consoles her from behind the camera. It’s entirely possible what he says to her was not rehearsed — or at least the product of being directed — but, his delivery sure makes it sound like it was.

I did not realize as I watched this that most of it was just a film of one of Kathy Griffin’s standup theater gigs, basically a film version of yet another one of her record-breaking number of standup specials. Watching this extended documentary prologue, I expected most of the whole movie to be this, perhaps intercut with clips of her stage performance. I really began to worry about how good this movie was really going to be. The overall quality — the cinematography, the editing in particular — is really not of the caliber of a theatrically released film. It immediately became apparent why this was a one-time-only theatrical presentation. It would have been far more appropriate on cable, but of course Griffin mentions at every opportunity how she still has no bidders for TV standup specials anymore.

But! Much to my relief, the documentary portion ends, and A Hell of a Story moves into straightforward standup footage of a performance at a single, Santa Monica venue, and in Griffin’s own, spectacularly singular way, she does just that: tell a hell of a story. And she does it incredibly well.

The “standup special” portion of the film is a hard turn from the documentary stuff, where Griffin may be much more obviously rehearsed, but now in her element, she comes across as genuine. She’s also very funny, and she gets into all manner of detail about all the crazy shit that’s happened to her. It’s this part, which lasts much longer, which makes it required viewing for the loyal Kathy Griffin fan. She is a comic whose many signature traits include rambling, and yet she always manages to circle back to the point or the story at hand. Her complete set is a lot more structured than it might seem at first glance.

She even gets into a significant bit about hanging out in Sydney with Stevie Nicks — a star I have personally long idolized — and Chrissie Hynde. It’s one of the most delightful stories she tells, among many delightful stories included here. It does include bits about Stevie Nicks being among the few people to come to her defense, as a whole lot of this show does — and it’s well known how far more people Kathy Griffin thought were her friends either abandoned her or actually went out of their way to twist the knife.

Kathy Griffin is transparently a born performer, and it’s plain to see the stage is where she is meant to be. Hopefully it will continue to be for decades to come — even though she’s already 58 years old at the time of this recording. It’s genuinely a joy to watch her doing both what she loves and what she does best, which is making people laugh through observations of the ridiculousness of our world. When it comes to A Hell of a Story, though, what she clearly is not born to be is a documentarian. Or perhaps to be more fair, director Troy Miller isn’t. This film starts like a TV special lower-mid-level quality, with some things onscreen that are strangely suspect. Thankfully, getting through it is well worth the wait, because the complete standup show that follows, for anyone who has gone out of their way to watch it, is something that truly delivers everything you could want from it.

I say this with love, Kathy: stick to what you’re good at.

Overall: B-

SWORD OF TRUST

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

You could barely say Sword of Trust had a script that was “written” — the cast was merely given a basic outline of the story, presumably with its pertinent plot points, and then they were left to improvise all the lines. That leaves this film more of a feat of editing than anything else, really. One wonders what other, completely different movies could have been cut together with the unused footage.

This approach is a departure for director Lynn Shelton, who has a history of sensitive handling of potentially problematic premises: Humpday (2009); Your Sister’s Sister (2012); Outside In (2017). Shelton’s past films have generally been dramas, in some cases dramedies, but Sword of Trust, in which she hands off the task of dialogue to a quartet of skilled comic actors, is the first I have seen that is a straightforward comedy. Her other films have been serious stories with funny stuff in them; this one is a funny story with serious subtexts.

I won’t mislead, you, though — I would not call Sword of Trust “uproarious.” I would call it . . . consistently funny. Certainly a worthwhile amusement. You won’t be laughing your ass off, but you will find yourself entertained.

The main cast of four is mostly focused on Mel, the Birmingham, Alabama pawn shop owner played by Marc Maron, in his first lead role in a feature film. Maron’s and Shelton’s professional relationship has developed rather organically over the past few years, after she appeared on his WTF with Marc Maron podcast in 2015. She directed a couple episodes of his quasi-autobiographical show Maron in 2016; then directed his Too Real comedy special in 2017. Turns out, they work quite well together, as Sword of Trust best illustrates.

Seasoned comics have to be good at improvising, adapting material to sometimes unpredictable circumstances, and Maron is up to the task. The same goes for the others in the film with him: John Bass as Nathaniel, his gullible pawn shop employee; and Michaela Watkins and Jillian Bell as lesbian couple Mary and Cynthia, who come into the shop looking to sell a Civil War-era sword willed to Cynthia by her grandfather.

Where things get interesting is the personal letter written to Cynthia by her grandfather apparently during his last years when his mind was going, given all the details of the sword’s supposed story that he is inconsistent about; and the supposed “authenticating documents” accompanying it. The claim is that the documents “prove” the South actually won the Civil War, thereby increasing the artifact’s value.

Never mind the preposterousness of such a claim. Are we all living in some alternate reality today where the Southern states are the poorest and least educated, then? But as Sword of Trust shows, rational thinking is never the purview of people with such beliefs, as Nathanial illustrates with his “convincing” evidence that the Earth is flat.

That aside, after some tentative approaches to each other, in the end Mel, Mary and Cynthia all decide to work together on selling the sword to the highest bidder. What follows is a sort of low-rent, American South version of “secret society” shenanigans, including a moving truck ride to an undisclosed location in the country to meet the buyer (played by a perfectly cast Dan Bakkedahl).

And although directed by Lynn Shelton and co-written by her and Mike O’Brien, Sword of Trust has Maron’s DNA all over it, starting with the entire score being credited to him, snippets of his blues guitar riffing just like those he does to close out his podcast episodes. They are a perfect match for this story, as it turns out. A lot of character details come lifted directly from his own life, as well: a Jewish guy originally from New Mexico; a recovering alcoholic now sober for many years. A minor subplot involves an ex girlfriend still struggling to stay off drugs who keeps coming around asking for loans, played by Shelton herself.

Movies so reliant on improvisation rarely work as well as Sword of Trust does. I find myself wondering who cut the trailer to this movie, because it is clearly not the same person who cut the movie itself. The trailer sets up expectations that are, if not exactly low, are midlevel at best. The film itself creates a solid story that features dialogue that doesn’t feel improvised. There is both a consistency and a depth to these characters that indicates a high level of talent and skill for all involved. It just works, in a way storytelling on an improv stage never does. That is arguably faint praise, but this is still a group of artists and entertainers at the top of their game.

Who would you trust with your sword?

Overall: B+

THE THIRD WIFE

Directing: A
Acting: A
Writing: A
Cinematography: A
Editing: A

When it comes to patriarchy, it seems it’s just the same shit, different day — and different place.

The Third Wife has a unique point of view for American audiences in particular. It’s one thing to get a window into other cultures through foreign films, and another for that film to be a period piece. Sure, there are history buffs with a working knowledge of history around the world. But this one gets pretty specific: late-nineteenth-century Vietnam. And although that country has a more recent history quite obviously inextricably linked to that of the United States, such events were far from even a glimmer on the horizon for the Vietnamese, say, 125 or 150 years ago.

The opening title card introduces us to May (Nguyen Phuong Tra My), a young woman — to us, a child — who has become the third wife to “a wealthy land owner.” And this is indeed her story, skipping how she was chosen to be wed to this man and starting with the beginning of her married life. The custom of displaying her bloody sheet on her wedding night for all of her community to see, evidently, was widespread the world over. All the movies I have seen depicting this custom prior to this have been western, or Eastern European.

Written and directed by Ash Mayfair, who is herself Vietnamese, The Third Wife is quite deceptively serene in its storytelling, from its gorgeous cinematography depicting rural 19th-century Vietnam, to the quiet delivery of the dialogue and action. Only in rare cases do the proceedings get overtly dramatic, and they are always brief. This is a depiction of a quiet way of life, and it seems that is the point: the way girls and women fit into this society is not just something everyone is resigned to. It’s literally all they know.

Some details are only heartbreaking in retrospect, and regarded by many with neutrality at the time. Mayfair includes a subplot wherein it’s a young man who is devastated to be expected to marry a girl chosen for him, when he is in love with another. And here, even when it’s the man who breaks from tradition and accepted moral codes, it is the girl who gets blamed an punished: her father refuses to take her back, and asks her what she did to keep the man from wanting to touch her.

But his reasons are obvious but unspoken. May is herself only fourteen, learning the ways of her wealthy yet still repressed life as she goes along, and spends much of the story pregnant. This other girl is even younger. Her age is never stated, but she hardly looks older than ten. The man, himself young but still much older than her, is quite understandably not even interested. The girl attempts to undress for him on their wedding night and he barks at her to stop.

Mayfair treats her characters, to a person, with unusual empathy. It does not feel pointed that none of the men in this story are villainized, only that it was unnecessary. The men, by and large, are acting according to cultural strictures, just as the women and girls are. No one here is depicted as especially malicious. The caning of a young man who impregnated a woman out of wedlock is not so much a conscious evil as it is simply part of the rules. This is a society of people who lead otherwise peaceful lives, albeit in a deceiving way, given the subtle cancer that is sexism the world over.

It’s hard not to love Mayfair’s choice of perspective here. This is not the story of men who oppress, but rather the story of women who are barely even aware of the oppressive society in which they live. As such, The Third Wife features all of about three male speaking parts, and their combined dialogue is very limited. The husband to the three wives in question, who form a sort of sisterhood amongst themselves, is barely heard talking at all.

I can think of nothing negative to say about The Third Wife. I can think of nothing wrong with it — even though it caused some controversy in Vietnam itself, which pulled it from local release. One might have some ambivalence about the age of the lead actor, who was only 13 years old during shooting. I did not learn that particular detail until after seeing the movie, during which I did wonder how old she was — never thinking she could be that young. This may make little difference to some, but by all accounts the young actor is a precocious one, with a nuanced understanding of the script, and even though she was involved in some “intimate” scenes, none of them were outright sex scenes and none involved nudity. Well, now that I think about it, there is one scene in which she french kisses one of the other wives, who is much older than her. Any sane person would feel ambivalent about that at best.

I have no idea how much leeway to give cultural differences here. If nothing else, there is some comfort in the director having been a woman, with a clear vision of the story she was telling and an intricate understanding of the sexual politics involved. How appropriate was Nguyen Phuong Tra My for this part, then? That’s hard to say. I’m choosing to separate that knowledge from the final product onscreen, which is sublime in its presentation. It’s too bad its local theatrical run is limited to three days, and ends tomorrow. Its quiet, melancholy beauty is certainly best appreciated on the big screen.

A girl arguably too young for the part plays a girl too young to be married.

Overall: A

ONCE UPON A TIME ... IN HOLLYWOOD

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

People who have already seen Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood keep talking about “all the think pieces” that will inevitably follow. Does that mean this has to be a “think piece”?

That depends on how you look at it, I suppose. I mean, I do have questions. For instance, do we really need to see Brad Pitt bashing a young woman’s face against a mantelpiece so many times? 25 years into his career, is there a point at which we tire of his long-evident obsession with ultraviolence? Does it really make much difference that the women beaten to a pulp in this movie are murderous “Manson Family” members?

Ironically, well into the second half of this film, I found myself marveling at the apparently total lack of violence in it. It really seemed to be only about a fading movie star, Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his best friend / stunt double, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), struggling with the waning of their careers in golden-age, 1969 Hollywood, and both Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and a bunch of the Manson Family (including . . . wait, is that Lena Dunham??) intersecting with their lives in increasingly creepy ways.

But fear not! Or have some appropriate fear, depending on your point of view. This movie, after spanning the length of a standard full-length film (Tarantino films are never short), takes a turn. It seems relatively mild at first, when Cliff Booth beats up a “hippie” who has slashed his car’s tire. Up to this point, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood seems mostly just to be a remarkably slavish ode to Old Hollywood.

And I mean “remarkably” even by Tarantino standards. His films have always been in one way or another an ode to a certain type of cinema he loved growing up, usually quite pointedly focused on genre. In this one, the set designs are a sight to behold. This is a guy who always had an unparalleled attention to detail, but it is particularly focused here, given how many scenes are on meticulously recreated late-sixties television and movie sets.

That said, this is a movie made for cinephiles. Tarantino loyalists are likely to be pleased as well — they certainly won’t give a shit about its so-called “think piece” potential. (That’s not necessarily a compliment.) This film also engages in a sort of revisionist history quite similar to that in Inglourious Basterds (2009), which offers a level of intrigue all its own to certain audiences.

But the casual moviegoer? Even the casual movie fan? I’m not sure the rest of the world will have as much patience for this. Tarantino’s last film, The Hateful Eight (2015) clocked in at a labored three hours and seven minutes, and then became his third-least successful movie — quite the come-down after Django Unchained (2012), his second-most successful movie (after Pulp Fiction). Shooting scenes in many fantastic overhead crane shots will not, for many, much make up for how very, very long Tarantino consistently keeps each of his scenes going with hardly anything happening in them. As ever, the man is almost defiantly self-indulgent in his film making.

The thing is, a strong argument could be made for it all being justified. Dubious storytelling choices notwithstanding, Quentin Tarantino now sits comfortably in the position of American director with a body of work that cannot be denied or ignored, a man far more influential than most, who literally changed film making even in the context of cinematic homage. His entire filmography will therefore be scrutinized for decades to come, right alongside Stanley Kubrick or Orson Welles. I don’t know that anyone will ever in their right mind claim Tarantino to be in the same class as such directors, but he certainly rivals them in cultural impact. And that meas, inevitably, Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood is a part of that.

And plenty of it presents itself as such. There is no question that this is the work of a seasoned, assured, masterful director. I’m less inclined to use such descriptors for him as a writer. And, yes, even aside from the shocking sequence of violence near the end, there are really no female characters to be found with any strength or depth — not even Sharon Tate, who barely even has any lines. I’m not sure the film should be judged for that alone, though; there is clear intention to how every character is used, even the minor ones, which include Emile Hirsch as Sharon Tate’s husband; Al Pacino as a bespectacled Hollywood agent; and Bruce Dern as an old man being used by the Manson family. Sharon Tate herself is presented as a hopeful, perhaps naive, young woman with a promising acting career ahead of her, albeit with the retrospect complications of being married to Roman Polanski (uh oh, more “think piece-iness”!). Here fate here only reveals it to be surprising as soon as you think again about it. There’s a stealth quality to how Tarantino uses her, which perhaps many who complain about the under-use of female characters are missing.

And I am not inherently anti- any story that focuses on male characters, incidentally. The issue at hand is simply getting more female stories told, as told by women. That just isn’t this particular movie, which is about two incredibly close (but never homoerotic! — unless you want to stretch and count that “carry his load” line) best friends. I simply also admit to being uncomfortable with the time and energy put into how two would-be murderesses get beaten and torn to a bloody pulp — because it goes far past the point of serving the story. And if there is anyone interested in overkill, it is Quentin Tarantino.

There’s a lot of greatness to this movie, from the production design to the lead performances, which make it well worth seeing for many different people for varying reasons. If there is anything to Tarantino’s later work that distinguishes it from his early output, however, it is that his early stuff was eminently re-watchable. These days, his movies still impress in many ways, leave you feeling like they were worth seeing, but that there is little reason ever to see them again, at least outside of an academic film workshop.

I mean . . . at least Brad Pitt is still the hottest 55-year-old around.

Overall: B

THE LION KING

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

One might easily argue that a 2019 CG remake of The Lion King is both pointless and redundant, after a 1994 original animated film that at the time became the fourth-most successful movie ever; a 1997 Broadway musical version that continues to run to this day and is the highest grossing Broadway production ever; and even a 2011 re-release of the original animated film in 3D so skillfully applied it actually enhanced the experience.

I went in to this new Lion King with every expectation that it would be . . . okay. For me, that counts as a heavy dose of skepticism. As it happens, this new movie easily justifies its own existence.

And I say this as someone who would still say the original was superior, and even that the 2011 3D version is superior. It’s rare that 3D impresses me, but that one did; I gave it a solid A. That 2011 release genuinely amazed me.

I did not see the current release in 3D, which is an option. Maybe it’s fine; I can tell you it’s a great movie even without it. This is director John Favreau’s second CG treatment of a classic Disney property after The Jungle Book (2016), which I also very much enjoyed, and The Lion King is even more impressive in its environmental renderings. The Jungle Book had a live-action boy at the center of it, but the thing that makes The Lion King stand apart is that it looks very much like live action, but is technically an entirely animated film. In its own way, this movie genuinely amazed me as well.

It’s almost shocking how well it works. We’re talking about a story whose characters are all talking animals, rendered more realistically than anything you’ve ever seen out of actual live action. In traditional animation, talking animals are expected; they can easily be given more relatable, human-like emotions and expressions. This animal kingdom is sort of like watching a wildlife documentary except the animals are caught up in Shakespearean drama — literally: the story is basically Hamlet with lions. In any case, this unusual combination might cause a bit of cognitive dissonance for some.

I’ve already heard the many reasons people have for being disappointed with this movie, really none of which do I agree with. I have a theory that anyone who loved the animated feature as a child but chooses to reject this film just grew old and uptight and needs to pull the animated stick out of their ass. Really, this is like the natural evolution of animation as a genre, and it’s the perfect kind of story for it. There is very little “uncanny valley” effect here.

I will say this. The effects in this movie are stunning. That does not mean they’re guaranteed to age well. It’s still relying on computers to render the picture of human imagination, and it still has limits that date it in ways traditional animation can’t be. Animated classics remain as beautiful today as they were at their time of release, from Bambi to Sleeping Beauty to The Little Mermaid to The Lion King. Another twenty years from now, the original Lion King will look as good as it ever did; the 2019 version certainly won’t. Special effects technology will improve to the point where you can’t decipher the difference between it and live footage, in which case, what’s the point? Well, getting the animal characters to talk, I suppose.

But, we’re talking about right now, and right now The Lion King is absolutely worth the time and effort, particularly to be seen in a movie theater. The story is nearly identical to the original film — even a good majority of the shots are — but there is true magic in seeing it rendered this way. In the first half of the film, when young Simba (voiced by JD McCrary) and young Nala (Shahadi Wright Joseph) are lion cubs, they are almost unbearably adorable. If you’re a cat lover at all, you will love this movie.

I do tend to insist that movies should be judged on their own merits, but that assertion works better for film adaptations of novels than for remakes. The original Lion King is still out there and still beloved, after all, with unforgettable voice work by the likes of Whoopy Goldberg, Cheech Marin, Jeremy Irons and more. In the current iteration, the only voice used again is that of James Earl Jones as Mufasa. Jeremy Irons was deliciously evil as the villain brother Scar, now voiced by Chiwetel Ejiofor. The delivery now lacks a certain punch, but it’s also appropriate. In this photorealistic version of the animal kingdom, it comes with a natural subtlety that actually works better for it. Ejiofor still effectively makes the character his own.

And it must be noted that this film is not without its own fun and humor, particularly with John Oliver voicing Zazu the Puffin; a charmingly gruff Seth Rogen as Pumbaa the warthog; and Billy Eichner, so delightful as Pumbaa’s meerkate best friend that he might be the greatest highlight of the movie. The rest of the cast includes Keegan Michael-Key and Eric André as hyenas; Amy Sedaris as a guinea fowl; Elfre Woodard as Simba’s mother Sarabi; and Simba and Nala as grown lions are voiced by Donald Glover and Beyoncé. Glover and Beyoncé don’t especially stand out in their speaking parts, but they certainly serve their purpose as vital characters — and God knows, Beyoncé’s singing voice is always a welcome addition.

And yes, there’s that — not only do these animals talk, but they sing. So what? They did in The Jungle Book too, and in both cases, somehow, it works, even with these songs all being lifted directly from the original film (with one new track by Beyoncé). I did think about this: how well does 2019’s The Lion King play to people who, by some miracle, actually have never seen the original? In spite of the fact that these animals sing solely because the original exists, and this certainly would never been a musical film otherwise, I would still say it likely plays quite well to anyone coming to the story for the first time. In fact, this movie is overall so well executed, it’s entirely conceivable that anyone seeing thei version first would prefer it to the original. And there wouldn’t be anything wrong with that!

There’s a lot to say about The Lion King — clearly, as I’ve already said about 1100 words about it. This is one case where I am mystified by the mixed reviews, but entirely unsurprised by the box office success. The criticism people have is almost exclusively nitpicky, borne of people overprotective of their own childhood memories. This movie exceeded my expectations on every level, gripping me with its drama in spite of how familiar it was, and otherwise left me with a constant smile on my face.

The rightful rulers of their world.

Overall: A-

DIAMANTINO

Directing: B-
Acting: B-
Writing: C-
Cinematography: B
Editing: B
Special Effects: C

Try to imagine how a movie gets to this point: A disgraced star soccer player, who has grown breasts, is approached by a young woman he thinks of as his adopted refugee son, who reveals her own breasts hidden under bandage wrap. This is when said soccer player, who, and I cannot stress this enough, had thought of the woman as his son, is seduced by her, and then they “make love,” even though Diamantino has heretofore been presented as a man with an otherwise empty, childlike brain that is completely sexless.

Wait, what? Conceivably someone with more capable skill than co-writer-director duo Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt could have brought us to this point in a way that was at all satisfying or at least made some sense. This team doesn’t quite make it, always presenting a story that merely flirts with making sense, that’s somewhere two steps to the left of innocently bizarro fun.

And that kind of “fun” seems to be what Diamantino is going for. Instead, it tackles disparate topical issues by examining them, and mixing them, in vaguely uncomfortable ways. It starts innocently enough, introducing us to Diamantino (Carloto Cotta, nailing the “dumb jock” look) on the soccer field, playing in the World Cup for Portgual (from which this movie comes), getting “in the zone” by imagining he is surrounded by giant fluffy puppies moving through a pink mist that looks sort of like viscous cotton candy.

But, he misses a penalty kick and thereby loses Portugal’s chance at the World Cup title. In the wake of this, he decides he wants to give up soccer, and after he helps his father take some refugees of a raft onto his yacht, he sets his sights on adopting a refugee child. This guy is presented as so dumb, when discussing this on a nationally televised interview and asked where he might adopt a child from, he replies, “Anywhere! Maybe Canada.”

Suspected by the government of laundering money, a lesbian couple who work for the Portuguese Secret Service pose as a nun and the aforementioned refugee boy. They make this deal in an empty underground garage, because of course, that’s where nuns frequent. Then again, Diamantino is just a lovable idiot, after all.

I haven’t even mentioned his evil twin sisters yet. They are awful from the moment they first appear onscreen, and never in a fun way. All you can do is actively hate these women. They treat Diamantino, as well as their father, like shit; they are insanely entitled “rich bitches” (which they use as the password for their joint computer account, on a computer they share with their brother, like all spoiled rich kids, right?); who spent a lot of time literally screaming at people in unison for no particularly good reason. They are such awful characters they nearly make the movie unbearable on their own.

Somehow, Diamantino has gotten this far without ever developing a mean bone in his body, oblivious to getting duped at every corner, to the point where his sisters sell him out to experiments meant to clone him to make an entire new national soccer team. The aim? To replicate his “genius” on the field (aside from that last mistake, I guess) to the point of whipping up Portuguese nationalism, with the ultimate aim of “making Portugal great again” and leaving the European Union. That’s right: all of this is in service of a broader plot point about the evils of nationalism. The people who run these experiments, which Diamantino has been led to believe are “physicals” — he does find them weird, at least — are like bad carbon copies of Bond villains.

As over the top as it is, Diamantino as a film seems to think it’s being subtle with its “topicality.” Instead, it uses themes of ethnic tensions and sexuality in vaguely dubious ways. It can’t seem to decide between a “white savior” complex, a crisis of conscience, and its uniquely bizarre take on gender-bending. It does not engender much faith that it could tackle any one of those things, should the focus be narrowed down, with much finesse.

I can’t help but wonder how this movie plays to Poruguese audiences. To be fair, there is a clear undercurrent of satire that quite possibly works better in cultural context. Some of it is easier to pick up, such as Diamantino’s omnipresent underwear campaign, on billboards and such. But again, Diamantino is prestented as completely sexless, except for the one point where, to put it bluntly, he fucks the woman he thought was his son. The rest of the movie is so platonic in its explorations of everything about him that, even when a later fantasy sequence features him nude on the soccer field with the giant fluffy puppies, it is in no way erotic. He’s just like an overgrown, little boy.

And I just don’t get it. Maybe this entire movie is genius and I just don’t have the IQ for it. Otherwise, it’s a rare example where I am more in line with the befuddled audiences than the other critics who have surprisingly quite liked it. It’s the audience interest that really matters, though, and no one in the U.S. is really rushing out to see this movie. They don’t need to, and just trust me, neither do you.

A man who can use a little self-reflection.

Overall: C+

THE FAREWELL

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

I guess there are two things a movie needs these days to be successful, even if it’s only an independent or foreign film. It’s not enough just to be good — it has to be marketed well too. The people over at A24 Films seem to know what they’re doing: last weekend, The Farewell managed the year’s highest per-screen average to date, even higher than Avengers: Endgame. Granted, last weekend The Farewell only played on four theatres. But it’s clearly a strategy that worked: several publications ran stories about it. People on pop culture podcasts talked about it.

I fully expected the 6 p.m. showing I went to at The Egyptian Theatre on Seattle’s Capitol Hill might be sold out. I pre-purchased my ticket last night for that very reason, and arrived twenty minutes early. In the end, the house was not sold out, but it must have been at least 80% full. I found myself wondering if it might have been even fuller if not for the Capitol Hill Block Party going on all of one block away.

The hope, clearly, is that The Farewell can rely on word of mouth, so here I am telling you about it. Honestly, I’m not convinced the film quite lives up to the expectation. I grabbed three napkins on the way in, fully expecting a massive tear jerker. I only wiped away a couple of tears.

But it’s a matter of perspective, I suppose. I’m just a white guy in America whose only window into Chinese culture is precisely movies like these. As the opening title card says, it’s “based on an actual lie” — the typical practice of Chinese families not to tell a terminally ill family member that they are sick. In this version of the story, written and directed by Lulu Wang, it’s the family matriarch, the grandmother they all call “Nai Nai” (Shuzhen Zhao, who is wonderful, in her sole acting role). She has cancer and is given three months to live.

Although maybe three quarters of the dialogue is in Chinese, The Farewell is actually an American production, presumably with an eye for both American and Chinese audiences. That bridge comes in the form of the central character, Nai Nai’s granddaughter who has lived in the U.S. since she was little, Billi, played by Awkwafina in a breakout performance. Awkwafina managed to shine as well in movies like Crazy Rich Asians and Ocean’s Eight, but those were “cool, fun” supporting parts, often quite funny. Here is a dramatic role which, although very much part of an ensemble cast, is the central character around whom the story revolves. We start and end with Billi, following her from New York City to Changchun, China and back, watching her as a very Americanized young woman struggling with this choice made by her extended family. In one scene, she notes that in America this would be illegal.

The family schedules a wedding for Billi’s one cousin, Hao Hao, and his Japanese wife, as a means of getting all of the family back together one last time with Nai Nai. Hao Hao lives in Japan because his father long ago moved him there, after all; Billi’s parents have themselves lived in the U.S. for many decades. But this wedding is the one area where Lulu Wang’s storytelling gets a little awkward, as both Hao Hao and his wife are barely utilized — as members of a relatively small extended family, it would have made sense to give them a bit more dimension as characters. Instead, Chen Han as Hao Hao doesn’t even have an audibly spoken line until what feels like halfway through the movie. Aio Mizuhara, as his wife who only speaks Japanese and does not speak or understand Chinese, never gets any lines at all, but for a brief scene in which she and Hao Hao sing a song together. It’s a little odd, given the extended sequence at a wedding everyone is pretending to be in their honor.

But if some of the supporting parts are not as fleshed out as they could have been, the relationships between Billi and Nai Nai, and also between Billi and her parents (Tzi Ma as the father with a sporadic drinking problem; Diana Lin as the mother who has a strained history with her mother-in-law; both actors are great), are as compelling as you could ask for. Nai Nai also has a sister (Hong Lu, also her only acting credit), who also has few lines even though she’s the one spearheading the secret. The whole scenario is deeply fascinating and poses a valid philosophical question. If this were an option for you, to keep their own terminal illness a secret from your own mother or grandmother, would you do it?

There is a certain difficulty in assessing a film like this for me, being so completely removed from the culture from which its premise comes. It seems entirely possible it would speak to people with Chinese families in a completely different way, and perhaps speaks most directly to American children of Chinese immigrants. The Farewell is genuinely moving, regardless of such nuances. It may not have made me cry as much as I expected it to, but perhaps that just means it makes the refreshing choice of avoiding emotional manipulation.

In fact, by and large this film is rather understated and subtle, which works very much in its favor. It’s quiet and contemplative, aided in large part by Awkwafina’s restrained performance. Its polished cinematography and tight editing conspire to make this a story, full of as much heart and humor as there is sadness, easy to fall into.

A family that lies together . . . won’t have to cry together?

Overall: B+

TONI MORRISON: THE PIECES I AM

Directing: A
Writing: A
Cinematography: A-
Editing: A

Here I am, writing a review of a movie about a massively well-known, globally respected novelist whose books I have never read. Not a single one of them.

What I can still tell you with authority is that the film, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, directed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, is excellent. Some might even call it perfection. If not perfection, then certainly revelatory. I don’t think I have ever watched a movie before that made me think, Why the fuck have I never read any of her books? We all have cultural blind spots; I won’t exactly feel bad about that. I will still acknowledge this is a big one for me.

Also: reading the work of a brilliant author is one thing. Getting to know her as a uniquely self-actualized person is quite another — so much as can be done in a two-hour run time, anyway. Morrison is a strikingly intelligent woman, clearly as sharp as she’s ever been, at her current age of 88 years. I wonder how much of that is just practice, decades of exercising the muscles of her intellect? She talks about how she is “smartest” in the early morning hours, and has little interest or ability in writing after noon. Keeping that up must be a great exercise.

One need not have read her work to see how, when Toni Morrison leaves this earth, a great void will be left in her wake — and yet, in contrast to many other people for whom the same could be said, that void will be largely mitigated by her body of work, which is widely beloved (no pun intended).

Morrison, having sat down for multiple long interviews for this film, proves to be a dynamic screen presence. She only has to sit and speak, and she commands attention, all confidence, sincerity and warmth in equal measure, someone quick to express joy while at the same time capable of tapping into deep wells of pain. This is a woman who lacks humility only because she doesn’t need it. There is no particular arrogance in her demeanor; she simply sits comfortably in the knowledge of her skill and talent. She even says in an archived interview from the time of her 1993 win for the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature, “I’m a good writer.” It’s impossible to resent that level of ease of self. Would that more people learned from how she leads by example. The world would be full of happier people.

Watching this movie felt like having my mind cracked open. Admittedly, it did occur to me how naive it could be to allow such grandiose impressions of a person to be made by just one movie, which can easily be edited to make anyone seem in countless ways different than they actually are. Still, it’s easy to trust this impression. The singular energy emitted by Morrison onscreen is not easily faked, and many archival clips reveal it to have been consistent.

As for potential interest in her body of work examined by the film, there is something to be said for the notion of greater specificity evoking greater universality of feeling and empathy. Plenty of widely respected friends and associates are also interviewed (Angela Davis, Fran Lebowitz, Russell Banks, Oprah Winfrey, and several others), they come from varied backgrounds, and Morrison’s unprecedented narrative focus on black women in fiction moved them all in equal measure.

And it’s not like I had never heard of Tori Morrison, mind you. I can still remember when the movie adaptation of the novel Beloved became Oprah Winfrey’s passion project in the late nineties, more than a decade after the book’s initial publication. I actually did see that movie, and I recall easily imagining how the novel was likely the better medium for such a story. A novel, by all accounts beautifully written, could never have the distraction of an actor far too famous to disappear into any role.

There is no doubt in my mind that Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am will delight fans of the novelist — who, I learned from this film, spent the years spanning the publication of her first few books also working full time as an editor at a publishing house, promoting the works of other black women (including the autobiography of Angela Davis), while also raising two sons on her own. Based on my personal experience, it’s just as affecting to those who have never read anything by her, and will render them eager to start. All I have left to decide is which of her novels I should begin with.

An extraordinary woman with an enduring talent.

Overall: A

HALSTON

Directing: B-
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B
Editing: B

It’s a curious exercise, watching a film that clearly expects sympathy for a rich man with ridiculously lavish spending habits.

Full disclosure, I’m not sure I even know who Roy Halston Frowick was before seeing this movie, which merely looked compelling to me when seeing the trailer. I could count on one hand the number of fashion designers I know by name. My fashion choices are limited to Christmas gifts from family, thrift stores, and bankrupt department store liquidation sales. Funny that one of those department stores currently rumored to be on the brink of bankruptcy, JCPenney, was once part of Halston’s first failed business venture, when he attempted to take his brand mainstream in the early eighties and it tarnished his brand with all other high-end fashion retailers.

In writer-director Frédérik Tcheng’s telling of the story of the Halston company being taken over after an acquisition by Esmark Inc., Tcheng brings in many people close to Halston to lament the plummeting amount of control over what had once been his own company. These include several models who once worked for him, a couple of his secretaries, his niece he hired to work for him, even his best friend Liza Minnelli. A couple of them mention an executive from International Playtex (also owned by Esmark) who was brought in to be a new managing director of Halston. One of the interview subjects literally refuses to say his name.

Well, you know what? The guy’s name was Carl Epstein, and based on his interviews for this movie as well as the choices he made regarding Halston Enterprises at the time, I am a fan. Halston’s close friends and family clearly, and okay understandably, resent Epstein for being so intricately involved in Halston’s ultimate downfall. But so far as I can tell, Halston’s personal downfall was really his own doing. This was a man who was not used to anyone saying no to him, and the in comes someone who says, hey wait a minute, you can’t spend a hundred grand just to fly your entire staff to an event abroad, or have your dinners flown on a private jet from New York City to Montauk. Not when you’re not actually in a position to afford these things, anyway, and you’re not even the one truly in control of the company besides.

These things are just common sense. I don’t feel bad about some insanely rich fashion designer, who doesn’t realize his tastes ultimately far exceed his income, being told he can’t keep blowing through cash at the same rate anymore. This movie seems to think I should, and I beg to differ.

Therein lies the underlying issue with Halston, which honestly could have worked harder to make me sympathize with this guy. I have no doubt it actually could have been done. Halston was a gay man born in Des Moines, Iowa in the 1930s who died of AIDS in 1990 at the age of 57, on the day of that year’s Academy Awards ceremony. Surely that context informed how his personality developed, coming into riches and fame from humble beginnings and in the end having at least some level of struggle with substance abuse.

I want to know more about that. And Tcheng touches on it, with a brief interlude showing a fascinating old clip of paranoid propaganda about homosexuals and showing negative-film footage (to protect identities) of gay men on a beach, doing literally nothing more salacious than being a little swishy. Footage of Halston included in this film reveals him to have been refined and sophisticated, and also a little effeminate. What was it like growing up for him? What did his parents, his siblings think about him when he was a child? What were his personal relationships like and how do they fit into his getting HIV, and when was he even diagnosed? Halston can’t be bothered with any of these questions, even though they would make for a far more compelling film.

Instead, the arc of the story here is mostly focused on Halston’s rise and fall as a superstar businessman with a taste for excess both in ridiculous business expenses and in entertainment, hanging out with Andy Warhol and Elizabeth Taylor at Studio 54. And plenty of this actually is fascinating, if less personal. It’s just that Tcheng leaves so much out it’s difficult to get emotionally invested in an obsessive (and apparently sometimes bullying) member of the one percent struggling with becoming less rich.

Overall: B-

WILD ROSE

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

When it comes to movies about musicians and their music, you’ll be hard pressed to find any better than Wild Rose. This movie is better than Rocketman, certainly better than Bohemian Rhapsody, arguably even better than A Star Is Born. The travesty is that Wild Rose flies under the radar compared to those films — so far under the radar, in fact, in effect there is no radar at all. And this one is better executed, more deeply emotionally affecting, than all three of those others put together.

And I say this as someone who is not particularly a country music fan, regarding a movie about a young, single mother (Jessie Buckley, fantastic) dreaming of leaving her hometown of Glasgow, Scotland for Nashville, Tennessee to try making it in the country music business. Rose-Lynn is clearly talented (as is Jessie Buckley), but the basic arc of this story, unlike most stories like it, is that she must realize her own naiveté.

Rose-Lynn is just getting out of a year in jail when the movie starts, and we soon learn she is in her twenties and has two children, who have been staying with their grandmother (Julie Walters, always a welcome presence). She remains singularly focused on her Nashville dreams, to the detriment of her relationship with her young children, as well as with her exasperated mother. Rose-Lynn soon finds work as a housekeeper for a relatively well-off woman (Sophie Okonedo), to whom Rose-Lynn lies about having any children, during which they develop a friendship.

The first time Rose-Lynn cleans Susannah’s house, and Susannah pops out for a while and leaves Rose-Lynn alone, we see Rose-Lynn immediately snooping around the rooms, even stealing a glass of some of her liquor. In most other movies, this would be a bit of “Chekhov’s gun” forecasting: surely this will come back to her, and she’ll get caught somehow. But in this case, it’s the first of many examples of the story not quite going in the direction you expect.

Rose-Lynn finds support for her career in unexpected places, most of them home-grown when she’s far too obsessed with visiting Nashville — where, as Wild Rose soon enough makes perfectly clear, trying to launch a career from obscurity is about as easy as a nobody moving to Los Angeles to become a movie star.

And indeed, given her circumstances, Rose-Lynn spends much of the movie being pretty selfish. So much so that I actually began to wonder about it: Will there come a point where I am comfortable rooting for her? Especially to Jessie Buckley’s credit, Rose-Lynn is compelling as a character from the start. And, her story arc is not just satisfying, but is peppered with pretty fantastic country music along the way, including a few original compositions.

Wild Rose is the rare film about a musician trying to make it, with as much concern for well-rounded characters as it has for great music. Most other films that might otherwise be compared to it have a much more singular focus on a rise and fall, and in some cases redemptive rise again, of some tortured artist. In this case, Rose-Lynn rarely makes the obvious choice, and the film is all the better for it. It has its own kind of triumph in the end, but it’s very much on its own terms. Besides, how often do you get a Scottish film about country music? Just this once, as far as we know — and director Tom Harper, and especially Jessie Buckley, knock it out of the park.

Jessie Buckley shines.

Overall: A-