Cinema 2020: Best of the Year

Below are the ten most satisfying and memorable films I saw in 2020:

10. Portrait of a Lady on Fire A-  

This one is technically a 2019 film, having had a limited, Oscar-qualifying release in L.A. and New York last December, but who cares! 2020 has been all about throwing certain rules and norms of yesteryear out the window, right? Well, except that it still only got local release here in Seattle (and most of the rest of the country, in fact) in February, which means I likely would have included it in my 2020 top ten movies regardless. And why? Because it's such a uniquely beautiful and memorable, achingly romantic love story, it easily transcends the fact that it happens to be between two women, a portraitist and the young woman she's hired to paint. This is the kind of movie that seeps into you slowly, so it can take a while before you quite realize its true greatness, but this period piece from 18th-century France will stay with you for ages afterward. What I said then: In the midst of watching this film, I occasionally wondered what all the critical fuss has been about. Now that some time has allowed it to sink in, I find myself wondering if maybe it’s a masterpiece. 9. Small Axe: Mangrove A-   The first of three films in this "series of five films" by Steve McQueen that were actually released like a television series on Prime Video, but which McQueen regards as films and therefore so do I, even though most of them are not even standard feature length—escept for Mangrove, the first of them, which has a run time of 2 hours and 7 minutes. The entire presentation here blurs the line between "film" and "television," but the series in the aggregate makes for one of the most memorably great visual storytelling of the year, and three of them are great enough on their own merits to qualify for inclusion in my top ten movies of the year. The one thing all five of them have in common is that they examine the Black experience in Britain through modern history, focusing on West Indian or Caribbean immigrants and their descendants. Most, including Mangrove, are based on historical events, this one focusing on the trial of the "Mangrove Nine," the first court case to acknowledge anti-Black bias among British police forces. Mangrove is essentially split onto two parts, the first half focusing on the many unprovoked raids by police on the West Indian-run Mangrove restaurant and the resulting protests and riots, and the second half on the trial after nine key protesters were charged with inciting a riot. This is the movie Aaron Sorkin's The Trial of the Chicago Seven wished it could be, a gritty look at seldom-examined history but without the self-consciously snappy dialogue. What I said then: This is the kind of movie that illustrates what a long road it’s been and how far we still have to go, and as such commands attention. 8. David Byrne's American Utopia A-   For me, this was one of the biggest surprises, and delights, of the year: a planned theatrical release pivoted to HBO Max, Spike Lee directed this live performance of David Byrne's celebrated show on Broadway that began its limited run just last year. The set list is mostly Talking Heads songs, and I never owned any Talking Heads music, thus recognizing only one or two of the famous singles. And still, I was completely enraptured by this film, a true feast for the senses, an unforgettable treat for anyone who loves musical performance. Byrne is 67 years old in this performance, and his talent and showmanship are incredible. The show features just two professional dancers, also amazing, and a stunning band backing him up, all of them coalescing into a show unlike any other you've ever seen. What I said then: This show is a pure delight, from beginning to end—and I say that as someone who never much paid attention to The Talking Heads or David Byrne’s music. I can only imagine how delighted true, longtime fans would be, because this presentation is nearly flawless. 7. Small Axe: Education A-   Education is one of the three Small Axe "films" that clock in at only about an hour, but the most impressive thing about it is how concise Steve McQueen's filmmaking is: it ends, and you don't think too much about what might have been missing from the story. And this is a doozy of a story, with a young Black student in the London school system being among those targeted for being placed into an alternative, so-called "special" school for kids reported to be of low IQ, even though there is no real evidence of any lack of intelligence. It doesn't feel like an episode of television, and even at its short run time, it still feels like a film, in both content and presentation. McQueen is practically working miracles here, saying as much as any other skilled director could but in half the time. This is a story that will haunt you, considering the lost opportunities of so many kids like young Kingsley—but in Kingsley's case, at least, McQueen ends the story (and the entire Small Axe series, as this is the last of the five) with a real sense of hope, What I said then: Thankfully, McQueen (who co-wrote the script) doesn’t take the story in the expected direction, and things begin to turn around. It’s how that is done that makes this story compelling. Making maxium use of unusually little time, McQueen packs in a lot of information, especially about the racial biases of the British, who make wild assumptions about Black people’s, and especially West Indian people’s, intelligence. 6. Kajillionaire A-   Miranda July is a director who is not for everyone, the kind of filmmaker with a history of films written self-consciously with "quirky" characters. Her earlier films are memorable in their own way, but Kajilliomaire is both a departure and in a class of its own. The characters, a family of con artists consisting of Richard Jenkins, Debra Winger, and Evan Rachel Wood playing their young adult daughter (all of them excellent), are still odd—but they are also fully realized, multidimensional personalities. With a neatly constructed script, Kajillionaire offers both hilarity and moving sentiment, none of it contrived or corny. This is a film that is somehow both on its own plane of existence, and easily accessible. It did not get nearly the amount of attention it deserved. What I said then: Perhaps what I love most about Kajillionaire is how everything circles around and reveals itself to have a purpose, even the seemingly quirky stuff at the start. This movie starts off by fooling you into thinking it’s just like all the other self-consciously odd indie movies, and then stealthily reveals itself to be something with so much heart, it almost blindsides you with how moving it is. 5. Small Axe: Red, White and Blue A   Most critics seemed to feel Mangrove, the first of the Small Axe series, was the best of them. I don't deny it was excellent, but my personal favorite is Red, White and Blue—which runs about 80 minutes in length—Steve McQueen's telling of the story of Leroy Logan (John Boyega), the Black man who joined the London police force in an attempt to change its racist practices from the inside. This one features excellent performances and memorable cinematography, as Logan endures nonstop attempts by white cops to sabotage his efforts. Mangrove is the third in the five of these movies, all of which are good, but thematically, I felt this one did the best job of anchoring the entire series as a cohesive whole, even though they are still five distinctly different stories. What I said then: Leroy clearly doesn’t think of himself as a trailblazer per se, nor does this film call attention to that, but it’s what he is. He makes little headway in making the changes he set out to do in London policing, but his very existence makes it easier for another to come along after him and push things a little further along. This context is not discussed or presented at all in the film, in fact, but I sure thought about it. We watch his spirit getting slowly broken, but it’s on his shoulders on which those who follow him will be standing. Or did stand: this is based on a true story, after all. 4. Soul A   If you're looking for some spectacular escapist entertainment—but also with brains, though it never challenges—then this right here is the cream of the crop. Any film from 2020 that I rank higher than this, has some heavy shit in it—the kind of heavy shit people looking for a movie to watch often actively avoid. And even keeping in mind that Soul deals, at least in part, with death, this is still the movie for those people. It is Pixar at its finest—not to mention its most diverse—with the top-level writing, animation, humor and storytelling you come to expect from the studio. They've been around long enough now (25 years) to have a few offerings of comparative mediocrity, but this film is offering the best from everyone involved. What I said then: I have no critical notes on Soul. Only praise: this is among the most inventive, imaginative, clever works in the entire Pixar Animation canon, one of the best movies of the year, a crowd-pleaser if there ever was one but with so much depth and layered intention of meaning that it will almost certainly reap new rewards upon rewatching. I can’t wait to watch it again. 3. Sound of Metal A   Another one that deserves far more attention than it seems to have gotten, Sound of Metal impresses as much on a technical level as it does on a narrative level, the two meeting together in a way films rarely manage. When punk-metal band drummer Ruben (Riz Ahmed) suddenly loses his hearing, the sound editing instantly immerses us into his experience, offering a sound experience surprisingly similar to much of the action in the 2013 film Gravity—which is to say, where there is literally no sound (in this case, inside Ruben's head), there is also no sound on the film, just silence. Also confusion and obstinance, with Ruben moving first to a group home for deaf addicts—a particularly compelling bit of intersectionality examined by the movie—to his obsession with getting a "corrective" surgery he doesn't quite realize won't be the magic fix he's imagining. Packed with supporting actors who are actually deaf, Sound of Metal proves that inclusive casting is truly an asset to making a film great. What I said then: Films usually use music to tell their stories, often in manipulative ways. By contrast, in this movie, you hear a score, and a subtle one at that, maybe three percent of the time. What Marder does is use sound to tell his story, and if this film does not get an Oscar nomination for Sound Editing it will be a travesty. 2. Never Rarely Sometimes Always A   Okay, so some might feel a movie about a terrified teenager having to travel in secret across state lines in order to get an abortion is a bit of a downer. especially in the middle of a year as big of a downer as 2020. I wish it were easier to convince people to watch this movie, as it is so worth the time. This is probably the "smallest" movie on my list this year, written and directed with sensitivity and precision by Eliza Hittman, it's also quite justifiably one of the year's most critically acclaimed. This is a film that takes a politically polarizing topic and tells the story of someone directly affected by it, imbuing it with so much humanity and empathy, you might just think about it in a new way. What I said then: It’s strictly matter-of-fact from start to finish, which is the source of its greatness: this is the way of the world for many young girls with an unwanted pregnancy, and this is just one story of how that world must be navigated. A lot of it is very uncomfortable for the viewer, sometimes heartbreaking (particularly the scene to which the tile refers). 1. Time A+   This is the second year in a row I've topped my list with a documentary, and indeed, as much as I truly, dearly love all the other titles in my top ten list, if you could choose just one of the year's films that I would recommend, I beg of you, choose Time. This film is similar to Never Rarely Sometimes Always in one key way, which is its very human look at a polarizing issue—in this case, mass incarceration, and the disproportionate incarceration of Black people. But this is a story about tenacity, with Fox Rich, having been convicted of the same crime as her husband, is let out of prison far earlier, and she spends the next decade working on his release from a preposterous sixty-year sentence for bank robbery. Fox has many years' worth of home video footage of herself and her children as they are growing up without their father, which director Garrett Bradley seamlessly edits into the narrative, giving the film a visual consistency with black and white cinematography. Time is a truly rare documentary film that doubles as timeless art, making it one of the best films I have ever seen. What I said then: And yet, for a movie that could be truly, deeply depressing, the overall tone of Time is one of great uplift. It’s a work of art, and it ends in triumph. Its entire construction is a triumph.
. . . This is normally the place where I list the five worst films I saw this year, but having reviewed only half the usual number of movies I go to see in a typical year, I just didn't see movies that were all that bad. The worst grade I gave any movies—seven of them, in fact—was a C+ this year, and there just doesn't seem much point in highlighting those as part of a "worst-of" list, so I'm just going to skip that part this year.
Complete 2020 film review log: 1. 1/1 Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker B (2nd viewing)
2. 1/7 Knives Out B+ (2nd viewing)
3. 1/9 1917 A-
4. 1/12 Varda by Agnès B-
5. 1/17 Just Mercy B
6. 1/18 Les Misérables B+
7. 1/20 Bad Boys for Life C+
8. 1/26 Little Joe C+
9. 1/31 2020 Oscar Nominated Shorts: Animation B
10. 2/1 2020 Oscar Nominated Shorts: Live Action B+
11. 2/2 2020 Oscar Nominated Shorts: Documentary B+
12. 2/8 Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn C+
13. 2/13 Gretel & Hansel B
14. 2/16 Downhill B+
15. 2/21 Portrait of a Lady on Fire A-
16. 2/22 The Assistant B+
17. 2/23 The Photograph B+
18. 4/11 Onward B *
19. 9/5 I'm Thinking of Ending Things B *
20. 9/6 First Cow B+ *
21. 9/12 Never Rarely Sometimes Always A *
22. 9/17 The Way I See It B */**
23. 9/19 Devil All the Time B-
24. 9/25 Kajillionaire A- */**
25. 10/3 Dick Johnson Is Dead B+ *
26. 10/16 The Trial of the Chicago 7 B+ *
27. 10/17 Totally Under Control B+ *
28. 10/18 David Byrne's American Utopia A- *
29. 10/19 Time A+ *
30. 10/21 Rebecca C+ *
31. 10/22 The Witches B- *
32. 10/25 On the Rocks B *
33. 10/29 Greyhound B *
34. 11/5 Let Him Go B+ */**
35. 11/9 Come Away B- */**
36. 11/19 Uncle Frank B- */**
37. 11/20 Mangrove A- *
38. 11/21 The Personal History of David Copperfield B- *
39. 11/22 Run B+ *
40. 11/25 Happiest Season B+ *
41. 11/27 Lovers Rock B *
42. 11/29 The Nest B *
43. 12/2 Half Brothers C+ *
44. 12/3 Sound of Metal A *
45. 12/4 Red, White and Blue A *
46. 12/6 Mank A- *
47. 12/9 Bacurau B- *
48. 12/12 Alex Wheatle B *
49. 12/13 The Prom C+ *
50. 12/14 Let Them All Talk B+ *
51. 12/16 The Last Blockbuster B+ *
52. 12/18 Education A- *
53. 12/20 Ma Rainey's Black Bottom B+ *
54. 12/23 The Midnight Sky C+ *
55. 12/25 Wonder Woman 1984 B *
56. 12/26 Soul A * * Viewed streaming at home during COVID-19 lockdown
** Advanced screening

SOUL

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

I have no critical notes on Soul. Only praise: this is among the most inventive, imaginative, clever works in the entire Pixar Animation canon, one of the best movies of the year, a crowd-pleaser if there ever was one but with so much depth and layered intention of meaning that it will almost certainly reap new rewards upon rewatching. I can’t wait to watch it again. My love for this movie runs so immediate and so deep, the closest I can come up with as a complaint is that this is truly the first film I have seen all year that left me earnestly wishing I could have seen it in a theater.

Outside of the world of Pixar, its visuals are unparalleled. Multiple times I was transfixed, beginning the instant jazz musician Joe (Jamie Foxx) has an accident leaving his body in critical condition, and his soul untethered and confused, on an astral conveyor belt headed toward the giant white light of “The Great Beyond.” You might think this idea of near death might bring an unwelcome darkness or sadness, but there is nothing like the tragic introduction to Up here; Joe is merely walking down the street after landing the musician gig of his life (where a delightfully aloof but wise band leader is voiced by Angela Bassett), passing a series of comic near-misses before even the accident itself passes as a punch line.

And then, suddenly, Joe wakes up as the “soul” form of himself, a little blue ghost-like creature still recognizably similar to his human form. He rejects his apparent fate headed into The Great Beyond, falls into the astral depths and finds himself in a place called The Great Before. And this place is both far too complex to describe here—it really must be experienced—and the most imaginative rendering of abstract concepts since Pixar’s own, also-spectacular Inside Out (2015). It’s not often that the script is among the things that I am consciously impressed by the most in an animated feature, but Soul’s is one of them: shout out to Pete Docter and Kemp Powers (these two also co-directed), and co-writer Mike Jones, for writing such a uniquely thoughtful and sensitive story, which so directly addresses death without ever once bringing down the mood.

It is also relevant to note that co-director / co-writer Kemp Powers is a Black man, making him the first to direct a Pixar film, an essential element of this also being the first Pixar film with a Black protagonist. These are all fairly significant changes from Soul’s initial story incarnations, which at first had no connection to the Black community; it was when they decided Joe would be a jazz musician that they also decided he therefore should be a Black man. And all of this is simply to say, had they stuck with making “22,” the other soul companion to Joe for most of the film, the main protagonist as initially imagined, Soul would likely have been fine, perhaps even very good—but these changes clearly improved the story a great deal. It seems it’s a kind of happy accident that the film’s title thus takes on a double meaning, as do so many other things in the film.

“22,” the soul whose number-name indicates how long she has been in “The Great Before” before being passed on to Earth—the implication being she was merely the 22nd soul ever created—is voiced by Tina Fey, although that voice is explained to be “a hypothetical” and she could really use any voice she wants. But, she uses that of “a middle-aged white lady” because “it annoys people.” I can imagine that one, otherwise throwaway line might trigger a bit of white fragility in a few people, who could then blow it all out of proportion. To that I say: oh, well! Incidentally, the gag barely even works on me since it’s impossible for me to imagine Tina Fey’s regular speaking voice as annoying in any way, but then, I’m gay and programmed to love middle-aged women as a general rule.

Speaking of stereotypes, Soul conscientiously avoids them among its many characters of color, offering a cast of characters heretofore missing from the Pixar canon, and giving a whole new audience something both to relate to and be delighted by. This may even be the most diverse cast of any Pixar film, also featuring the voice talents of Daveed Diggs, Questlove, Phylicia Rashad, The It Crowd’s Richard Ayoade, Brazilian actress Alice Braga, New Zealand actress Rachel House (curiously, all the Great Before “staff” seem to have accents from the non-American British diaspora), and then a little out of left field, Graham Norton. And this is not to mention the brief cameo appearances by countless other recognizable voices, from the likes of June Squibb, Fortune Feimster, and more.

I was also struck by the music, something I do not often pay much attention to in a movie that is not a musical. Soul is filled with a lot of jazz, which usually does not much speak to me but I quite enjoyed it here, especially in context; I liked it enough that I may buy the soundtrack—but also because of the truly fantastic ethereal score that is heard in the “Great Beyond” and “Great Before” sequences, which, it turns out, were co-composed by Trent Reznor. I was taken by this score to an unusual degree, and it was one of countless details that only made the movie better.

And I haven’t even mentioned the humor, with which, in true Pixar style, Soul is packed to the gills. In many moments I was nearly moved to tears, just by the profundity of the concepts being examined, and still all around those moments I also laughed—a lot. There’s an extended sequence involving a human soul accidentally having been put into a cat, creating an environment and tone wildly different from that of “The Great Before,” and yet the different set pieces still complement each other perfectly, creating a whole film in which all the pieces fit together just right.

It’s doubly impressive that Docter and Powers are offering a story about people’s souls, without ever coming close to making it religious in any way. Instead, the overriding message is that of appreciating life itself, and especially as it pertains to our time on Earth—related lessons needing to be learned by both Joe, who is desperate to get back to his body and live the rest of his life in pursuit of his dreams (a desire more complicated than he realizes); and “22,” who is so contented with her existence in The Great Before that she’s been purposely failing all her tests for moving on to Earth, for thousands of years.

Soul truly has something to offer for everyone, a work of art in the grand tradition of Pixar, which is so beautiful to look at and so completely entertaining that it works for children on their level, without any need for them to catch its many truly complex concepts, which only enrich the text for the adults in the audience. If only I could have seen this one in a crowded theater . . . but, even as it is now, accessible via Disney+, Soul is truly a gift.

You kind of have to be there . . . but if you take the journey, you’ll be so glad you did.

Overall: A

WONDER WOMAN 1984

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

The majority of the events in the first Wonder Woman (2017) take place in 1918, which means the majority of the events in Wonder Woman 1984 are 66 years later. So, for me, the biggest burning question of this sequel is where we might go next: will the next installment, set roughly the same amount of time after that, be, say, Wonder Woman 2050? This seems relatively unlikely, but it sure would be fun. Or maybe producers of the next film will take a page from the Indiana Jones series and scrap linear timelines, setting the next story somewhere in between these two. Given the super-fun cameo that pops up in the credits, moving back to the seventies could also be a fun choice.

But, for now, 1984 is the year. Director and co-writer Patty Jenkins (who also did the first Wonder Woman) goes the typical route of making all world leaders fictional, but making it a period piece causes a bit of weird dissonance: the president is played by Stuart Milligan, but his character is never explicitly (or even indirectly) identified as Ronald Reagan. It’s basically this alternate history where all the major historical figures are different.

That wouldn’t matter so much, except that Jenkins really lays it on thick in earlier scenes when it comes to the mid-eighties aesthetic, introducing us to “present-day” Wonder Woman in a sequence set in the huge center atrium of a shopping mall. The 1980s gags come fast and furious for a good while, and then kind of disappear altogether, in favor of the inevitable onslaught of action. This all comes after an extended introductory sequence on Wonder Woman’s native island of Themyscira, just as had happened in the previous film, only this time the flashback sequence goes even further back in time, to her childhood. This allows us to see, once again, Robin Wright as Abtiope and Connie Nielsen as Hyppolyta, which is a kick, but nowhere near the thrill of the Themyscira sequence in the previous film.

This would suggest, especially in the early sequences of Wonder Woman 1984, a sense of diminishing returns typical of many sequels. But, this film makes up for that in other ways, producing a net result that makes it roughly as good a movie as its predecessor: which is to say, not great, but a nice bit of pure escapism entertainment. In another bit that’s typical of sequels, there are two supervillains facing off against our hero instead of one, and although they are still somewhat weak as characters, they remain better than how David Thewlis’s Sir Patrick villain previously faced off with her in a way that caused an eye-rolling amount of collateral damage.

This is what I like best about Wonder Woman 1984: although its climactic scenes do have a sense of global catastrophe, it’s more concerned with human connection than with literal destruction of the world. That said, although Pedo Pascal offers a compelling performance as Maxwell Lord, the villain who manages to use an ancient relic to turn himself into someone who can grant anyone their one greatest wish, I found Kristen Wiig’s Barbara Minerva character far more compelling (a bit less so once she fully transforms into “Cheetah”). This movie could have been both simplified and improved by focusing on just her as the villain, where Wonder Woman has a formidable foe with all the same abilities she has, but without putting the entire world (or the entire universe) at stake. The beats of these superhero story arcs are always so much the same, any genuine variance is absolutely welcome. Side note: if Cheetah is supposed to be “just like” Wonder Woman / Diana Prince in abilities, it makes little sense how Diana manages to weaken her in the end without doing the same to herself.

The aforementioned ancient relic is the McGuffin here, and as usual is a wildly oversimplified excuse for bestowing both power to characters and fuel for the plot. On the other hand, it also serves a a clever means for bringing back Chris Pine as Steve Trevor, which otherwise should have been impossible. Bringing him back again for any further sequels would truly be overkill so that seems unlikely, even in a superhero universe. For this time out, however, it’s fun to have him back, and also serves as a means for bringing Wonder Woman’s fabled invisible plane into play, almost miraculously without being corny about it. (Well, by superhero standards, anyway.)

Gal Godot remains absolutely the most interesting thing onscreen at all times, proving once again how well cast she is in the title role. She has a poise and grace well befitting the role, and even though these movies stil aren’t quite as good they could be, I do hope to see at least one more of them. I certainly don’t care about them being any part of a so-called “DC Universe,” and God knows both the Wonder Woman films are the only two in that “universe” (at least as conceived in the 21st century) that are even decent movies. Which is to say, Godot’s Wonder Woman has been a part of other films already, but I prefer to pretend those ones just don’t exist. It’s much more exciting to envision Wonder Woman with an eye on her own future.

Wonder Woman soars to . . . about the same height really.

Overall: B

THE MIDNIGHT SKY

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

This movie that is supposedly "Gravity meets The Revenant”—as director and star George Clooney has reportedly called it—turns out not to be anywhere near as good as either of those movies. Honestly, you’d be better served just rewatching one, or both, of them. Gravity can be rented on Prime Video right now for a whopping 99 cents; The Revenant for $3.99. In either case it would be a better value than watching The Midnight Sky on Netflix at no extra cost. Clooney would have been more accurate to describe this movie as “Low-rent Gravity and low-rent The Revenant, in alternating cycles.”

To be fair, The Midnight Sky is far from all bad; in fact, very few things about it are genuinely bad at all. It just comes together to a place of competent mediocrity. There’s nothing here that is exceptional, even with a few exciting sequences, some nice cinematography, and some good special effects. One memorable scene involves the loss of a lot of blood in zero gravity. Another has George Clooney barely escaping a trailer crashing through melting ice.

I have a lot of complaints, though. How about I begin with the worst: The Midnight Sky has objectively bad sound editing. Clooney cast Ethan Peck as a younger version of himself for a few flashbacks, but overdubbed Peck’s voice with a digitally altered version of his own voice. I only know it was altered to be a little higher because I read it; upon casual listen, to me, it just sounded like George Clooney’s voice, synced to match up with this clearly very different man’s lips. I found it persistently distracting.

And then there are the scenes with the flight crew, returning in a space ship from a surveyed planet that appears to be habitable, but many setbacks cause a delay in their discovery that Earth has been devastated and is nearly entirely covered in radiation, except for the poles. The scenes on this ship are where the Gravity comparisons come in, with a space walk sequence and at least two sequences traveling through asteroids that cause heavy damage. In sharp contrast to Gravity, which made unprecedented use of the total silence of space to augment the thrill of its space action sequences, The Midnight Sky goes the typical route of adding sound that would never be heard in exterior shots of the crashes against the space craft. Not only that, but in the space walk sequence where the astronauts are repairing damage from the first asteroid storm, sound effects are added that are similar to hearing machinery being controlled under water. It’s very odd.

I do find the story concept intriguing, except that I don’t understand why the script, written by Mark L. Smith (who also wrote The Revenant) as adapted from the novel Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton, refuses to tell us what has caused this global cataclysm. The opening titles, when we meet the solitary Augustine (Clooney) at an otherwise abandoned weather station in the Arctic, merely tell us it’s “Three weeks after the event.” Okay, thanks. I get the argument that what exactly devastated the planet is not relevant to the direct story at hand, except that having the characters never once refer to what actually happened is so lacking in realism, it’s yet another distraction.

The dialogue is also rathere simplistic for what seems to be at hand. I’m not saying the dialogue in a movie like this needs to be filled with techno-babble, but it would also be nice not to feel like the audience is being spoken down to. There are just many sense of balance which Clooney’s film could have relatively easily met, and in every sense it misses the mark.

At least the actors are amenable people with charisma and commanding screen presence. The crew on the returning space ship is made up of Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Kyle Chandler, Damián Bichir, and Tiffany Boone. I keep thinking about when this crew is recommended to turn right back to the world they are returning from, and “Do better this time.” Do better? With what? Five people? Were talking inbreeding within just a couple of generations.

The Midnight Sky does get relatively exciting, although it takes a forty minute preamble mostly focused on Augustine’s solitude to get there. That’s too much time to wait. I have a thing about finishing what I’ve started, but anyone else would be within their rights to give up and turn it off. This movie is often very pretty to look at, the performances are solid all around, and it even eventually gets to be both compelling and entertaining. This is all no thanks to any real logic in the story structure, simple-minded dialogue, inept use of sound, and recycled ideas. There’s a few good things to be found here, but it’s so weighed down by crap that it’s too much of a slog to find them. In short, this movie is far less than the sum of its parts.

I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

Overall: C+

MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM

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

It seems a bit inescapable that something, however slight, gets lost in the translation of a stage play to a film. and the same applies to Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. This is the second film adaptation of an August Wilson play, and much like Fences (2016) before it, it’s an incredible showcase for acting talent that almost certainly has greater impact on the stage, with hyper-polished dialogue that sounds a bit less natural than, say, finessed.

It could be argued that makes it better suited for home viewing, as virtually all films have been forced to be since March. There’s nothing in the visual style of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom that commands big-screen presentation; in fact, the several brief exterior shots featuring 1927 Chicago are rendered with effects that matches the standards of any given television show. Not that said visuals are anywhere near the point of this story anyway. As with any play, adapted for the screen or not, it’s all about the dialogue. Well, in this case, and the music: Ma Rainey sings a lot of the blues, and she does it very well.

Granted, Viola Davis is not doing her own singing in this film, but that does not detract from her performance, which I fear will get glossed over by the attention given to Chadwick Boseman as the upstart, would-be innovator trumpeter Levee, in his final performance prior to tragically passing of colon cancer this last August. The film is dedicated to him, and appropriately so; there is no denying the unique depths of cultural loss in the wake of his passing. His performance is also objectively excellent, as a man so frustrated with the cumulative oppressions of his life that his deep-seated anger creates near-enemies of his band mates, who would otherwise have been allies.

I still think Viola Davis, as the title character, deserves just as much attention, for how she practically disappears into the role of this woman who won’t take any shit from anyone—not the white men running the studio where their recording session is taking place, not the band mates themselves, not even the stuttering nephew she’s brought along with her. In her flapper dresses and charcoal makeup heavily smeared around her eyes, Davis looks far more like the actual Ma Rainey than like herself. Rainey is a Black woman in 1920s America who has enjoyed a measure of commercial success, and her general lack of good humor is clearly the result of years scraping together what modicum of power that success has afforded her. The sense that she isn’t afraid to use it, to do whatever she has to do to get her way, is something Viola Davis brings to every room she steps into in character.

As a side note, I should confess that it took me too long to realize what was going on with the young woman Ma Rainey also brings with her, alongside her nephew, who is apparently her young lover. But their relationship as presented here remains frustratingly vague. This does seem an unnecessary dilution of Ma Rainey’s well-documented sexuality.

The entire story takes place over the course of this one recording session, and nearly all of it takes place inside one of two rooms: the recording studio, or the rehearsal room downstairs. Ma Rainey spends most of her time upstairs, and there’s actually a bit more screen time given to the men in the band as they rehearse downstairs, Levee insisting the studio wants his updated version of Ma Rainey’s song, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” It’s this, among other things, that creates tension between Levee and the other men, who are by and large content to give Ma Rainey what she wants, probably because they know she’ll get it in the end regardless.

Director George C. Wolfe has packed many layers into this presentation of Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s adapted script, which clearly had many layers as an August Wilson play to begin with. All together, they are using the blues from the vantage points of both a few select characters and a certain moment in time, to convey the heaviness of American history, the generational trauma of oppression, and how is effects manifest in relationships between people you might otherwise expect to understand and empathize with each other. It’s easy to watch Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom without getting into the weeds of these many facets, and the film is still fully compelling on that superficial level, if for no other reason that the fantastic performances—which includes the supporting parts as well.

Digging deeper, however, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’s richness contains multitudes. Their impact is dampened slightly by the adaptive process, but that doesn’t make it any less worth your time. This is still a film that comes from a deep well of soul, which will in turn feed yours.

I want to see the dance you call the black bottom, I wanna learn that dance

Overall: B+

Small Axe: EDUCATION

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

It’s dumb to start with a personal hangup regarding presentational structure and blurring of narrative mediums, but I guess that’s what I’m doing. Because I must admit, I was rather disappointed to discover today’s installment of Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe” series of “five films,” as he has insisted on calling them—and thus I have regarded them as such—clocked in at merely one hour. This means that three of these so-called “films” have been only an hour or barely more than an hour, making them feel structurally much like television episodes, and had I known that from the start, I would have still watched them all, but with the mindset of television. Not regarding them all as films, I would not have reviewed them.

After the first film, Mangrove, clocked in at just over two hours, only the third film, Red, White and Blue, could even barely be considered “feature length,” at 80 minutes—a run time once reserved for animated features. I keep thinking of Black Mirror, which, though thematically a different thing entirely, was structurally very similar: a relatively small number of episodes per season, each of them a self-contained story, but a couple of them actually stretched toward 75 minutes. That was always regarded as a television show, right? Well, here’s the key difference: as great as many Black Mirror episodes were, Steve McQueen is in a class all his own. He’s redefining what visual storytelling even means, occupying the space between what “movie” and “TV” used to be.

And, as it happened, Red, White and Blue turned out to be the best of the five installments, in my view. And even though the other three titles, Lovers Rock, Alex Wheatle, and now Education all run at only roughly an hour, I find myself thinking Education is actually the second-best of the bunch. And there’s another argument to be had for these shorter run times: McQueen is incredibly efficient with our time. All of these films are so well constructed and edited, I think if movie theaters were actually open and I had gone to one to see even a one-hour title, I would have found it worth the effort. Granted, Red, White and Blue and Edcation would make spectacular companion pieces, at a combined run time of two hours and twenty minutes.

It must also be said, though, that “Small Axe” as a complete set of films is one of the greatest visual experiences of the year. Education serves as the perfect ending, about a young boy of (as usual in these films) West Indian descent who dreams of becoming an astronaut—the film starts with him in awe at a presentation in a planetarium, and ends with images of celestial bodies in space which, in context, turn out to be quite hopeful. This is also a relief, as so much of this film is about how the British education was not just failing the children of West Indian immigrants in the eighties, but outright targeting them to be set up for failure.

Kingsley (a fantastic Kenyah Sandy) has trouble reading, his working class parents are too busy to notice, and his teachers at school berate him for it. Instead of getting him the individual attention he needs to thrive, they convince his mother (Sharlene Whyte) he should be transferred to a so-called “special school,” under wildly misleading pretenses. In the first half of Education, I feared that this would be a story of a bright young buy robbed of his future because his parents are too busy to advocate for him. In the beginning, his mother has no patience and actually believes the transfer was a good idea just because he no longer seems to be causing trouble.

Thankfully, McQueen (who co-wrote the script) doesn’t take the story in the expected direction, and things begin to turn around. It’s how that is done that makes this story compelling. Making maxium use of unusually little time, McQueen packs in a lot of information, especially about the racial biases of the British, who make wild assumptions about Black people’s, and especially West Indian people’s, intelligence. These are immigrants who had all the same kinds of careers and intellectual pursuits back home as the white people take for granted here. I suppose if Education were missing anything—and this would apply to all five films, actually—it would be what made life in the Caribbean so much worse that even this is the better option.

Perhaps that is beside the point, and simply not the story Steve McQueen is telling. Instead, we see a mother, and indeed an entire family (including a father and an academically advanced older sister), awaken to Kingsley’s challenges and then come to his aide. There are two scenes in which Kingsley breaks down crying, and McQueen lingers on him sobbing for an uncomfortable length of time. It’s heartbreaking, but at least the second time it’s accompanied by much-needed familial support. It’s the turning of a corner.

That might just be what “Small Axe” is, collectively, as well: the turning of a corner. Nothing like this has ever been done before, presented in this way before, and it is eminently satisfying. What these films represent, the untold stories of people outside the chaivinist confines of America, is something the world needs more of.

You’ll never be so pleased to get an Education.

Overall: A-

THE LAST BLOCKBUSTER

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

There’s something endearingly wholesome and nostalgic about The Last Blockbuster, a feature length documentary ode to a bygone era that simultaneously celebrates the very last vestige of that era. Who knew there were any Blockbuster video stores left? Well, since 2019, there’s only been one. And of all places, it’s in Bend, Oregon.

I can still remember the Last Week Tonight with John Oliver bit where they sent Russell Crowe memorabilia to the Blockbuster still standing in Alaska, in a joke attempt at helping them keep business alive—which gets some attention in this film. At one point there were three Blockbusters still chugging along in Alaska, and now they are all closed. So where is the Russell Crowe memorabilia now? Bend, Oregon. Apparently it did not include the most notorious piece, his leather jockstrap from Cinderella Man, and I’m a little annoyed that they don’t bother to tell us why. (Side note: I just discovered that jockstrap has its own Wikipedia page.)

It remains unclear whether the memorabilia had any vital part in keeping business alive at the Bend, Oregon location, except to say that being the last Blockbuster has clearly kept business going, focusing a massive amount of media attention on the location. It is now filled with memorabilia and other fun things fans from around the world have mailed to them, and its very status as the last Blockbuster has afforded it a novelty status unlike anything the place experienced prior to 2019. Hence, a feature length documentary on the subject.

As it happens, director and writer Taylor Morden and Zeke Kamm are hometown locals from Bend. And they smartly focus on the store’s “Blockbuster Mom,” General Manager Sandi Harding, who has been there a decade and a half and counting. Harding is a huge part of what makes The Last Blockbuster work, exuding a uniquely maternal, friendly charisma that gives her a great screen presence. And after becoming seasoned at fielding literally hundreds of media requests, she’s very comfortable on camera and clearly become fairly media savvy.

And that’s all part of the many amusing ironies about this story, not least of which is the fact that the Blockbuster in Bend is the single place on the planet you can rent a physical copy of The Last Blockbuster. Everywhere else, you have no choice but to watch it on demand. Granted, that may very well not always be the case: this film doesn’t really acknowledge that the last Blockbuster isn’t also the last movie rental store of any kind; it’s just the last location of what was once a monopolistic corporate behemoth. Here in Seattle, for example, we still have one remaining location open of local institution Scarecrow Video. Where’s our documentary about The Last Scarecrow?

Honestly, many of the talking heads in The Last Blockbuster go a little overboard on their nostalgia trip, deliberately characterizing the loss of video stores as part of us losing our souls as a collective humanity. Okay guys, rein it in a little. Pandemic social distancing aside, we do still find other ways to have in-person conversations with people. It’s easy to root for this family-run business to keep going, but the rest of our lives elsewhere in the world has not exactly been denigrated by the absence of local Blockbuster stores.

That’s not to detract from how much fun The Last Blockbuster is, however—because it is really, really fun. It’s rare that a documentary film legitimately qualifies as “a feel good movie,” but this one absolutely does. It’s delightful from start to finish, just to experience the joy through the eyes of all these people who love the memory of going to a store to rent movies. These include director Kevin Smith, Say Anything costar Ione Skye, The O.C.’s Adam Brody, comedians Brian Bosehn and Ron Funches and Doug Benson, among others. It must be said though, that here Sandi Harding remains the star. Although Doug Benson being the one celebrity who flew to Bend just to walk through the store for the documentary cameras is arguably the most fun sequence.

I found myself thinking about how the crew of this film were just part of the same media frenzy they were covering, mostly in 2019, after they became “The Last Blockbuster” (and other regular people started traveling there from literally around the world just to see it) but before the COVID-19 global pandemic of 2020. There must be quite the contrast between the craziness of 2019 and the comparatively subdued 2020 existence of a store still surviving with curbside pickup and online merchandising. They could probably do an entire sequel just on how they stayed afloat in 2020.

In the meantime, you can watch this movie, available to rent on Google Play or Prime Video for a whopping four bucks, about how they survived the collapse of their parent corporation and wound up the last Blockbuster standing. It’s not so much a horror story about the end of an era as it is an inspirational tale of scrappy resilience with a smile in a friendly small city in Central Oregon. Watch it if you want a nice dose of warm fuzzies.

Sandi is the star of this show.

Overall: B+

LET THEM ALL TALK

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

If there’s any director with the ability to adapt to a rapidly changing film industry, it’s Steven Soderbergh, whose proliferation as a mainstream director is also unparalleled. He was adapting—and experimenting—long before the global pandemic of 2020, and doing so right up to it, with his latest film, Let Them All Talk. He’s been marching to the very specific beat of his own drum for so long, the results have been a bit spotty, but this one is worth a look.

If this were any other year, I wouldn’t even be reviewing this movie. Let Them All Talk was never intended for theatrical release, always part of Soderbergh’s 3-year deal with HBO. Indeed, even after reviving my reviews after a seven-month hiatus, I am now violating what had been my rule that I simply continue reviewing films that were intended for theatrical release and were forced to pivot to VOD and streaming platforms, or in other words, films that still qualify for Academy Awards. But now we live in a gray area, and as with Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe” series on Prime Video, I moved to reviewing films that had ever been seen in a theater at some point, even if it was at a film festival. Let Them All Talk doesn’t qualify by any of these measures, but you know what? Functionally speaking, it’s no different than any of the other film’s I’ve reviewed since September: it’s available to stream, was directed by a widely respected and long established director, and perhaps most notably, stars three iconic actors. In the very specific context of December 2020, I simply could not ignore this movie.

And I say that even though, to be sure, Let Them All Talk is not for everyone. Experimental in multiple ways of its own, Soderbergh shot the majority of it during a legitimate crossing of the Queen Mary 2 from New York to Southampton, England in the summer of last year. Real passengers were given the opportunity to be in the film as background extras. And most unusual of all, Deborah Eisenberg’s script only existed as an outline, otherwise completely improvised by the cast—even though it’s a drama.

This has a curious effect, in that the dialogue never feels in any way polished. To be honest, I think the script would have been improved with some polish, but there’s something compelling about this approach nonetheless. It lends the story a certain sort of grit, and makes the characters feel real in a way they almost never do, particularly when starring iconic actors. Soderbergh’s editing is rather skilled here, in how these improvised exchanges are cut together. It’s the plot that moves the story forward, far more than the dialogue, and yet I still found myself interested in what they had to say.

The stars in question are Meryl Streep as a rich, alienating, slightly distracted novelist, whose body of work is both high-minded and sparing. She invites two old and estranged college friends, played by Dianne Wiest and Candice Bergen, to join her on the transatlantic crossing. Resentments resurface and rebuilt, and they do come to a head, although none of them involve histrionics or even major drama. It’s all relatively quiet: no one ever screams or yells in this movie.

All three of these women are between the ages of 71 and 74, and it’s wonderful to see a film centered around not one, but three such women, proving with ease that they have stories that can be just as compelling as anyone’s. Two of the principal supporting characters are indeed younger: 24-year-old Lucas Hedges as Streep’s nephew she brings along; and 38-year-old Gemma Chan as Streep’s literary agent who has booked herself on the crossing in secret. And even though Hedges and Chan play characters forging their own sort of friendship on the sly as a subplot, they remain absolutely minor to the plot as compared to the three elder women.

It’s easy to imagine some viewers finding Let Them All Talk somewhat dull, even those who have nothing against this bevy of great actors. Some movies are electric with crackling dialogue, and this is not one of those. Soderbergh is dealing almost exclusively in subtleties here, and that’s really what endeared the film to me most. They all seem just about as relaxed as if they were merely taking a pleasure cruise that happened to have a film crew tagging along. Except these characters really have far greater emotional stakes going on than other people on board, and even if it’s not at all bumpy, it’s a pleasant diversion to be along for the ride.

Let Them All Talk is literally what Steven Soderbergh does, and then he skillfully molds and edits.

Overall: B+

THE PROM

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

Where do I even start with the beautiful hot mess that is The Prom? This is a film that never met a performance it couldn’t overdo, filled with “hot takes” that are glaringly obvious, a feature film that basically serves as en extended, reprise episode of Glee, right down to its director, Ryan Murphy. To be clear, this movie is deeply flawed. And I generally had a blast watching it.

There’s one key thing that is The Prom’s saving grace, such as there can possibly be one: the musical dance numbers. I know this is a radically low bar to clear, but at least this movie musical is better, on all fronts, than Cats. That movie’s best element was also its music, and even that was barely adequate. The vast majority of the songs, and their accompanying dance routines, are a genuine kick to watch in The Prom. As written by original Broadway play lyricist Chad Beguelin, the songs are rather witty, and I got a good number of laughs out of them. A couple of them are so on the nose, I could have lived without them, as in the Andrew Rannells number “Love Thy Neighbor,” a song about double standards in following the rules of the Bible. It’s catchy as all get out but tonally dated and preposterous.

And that’s the thing about The Prom: with some exceptions, when there are no songs being sung, the movie skates along the borders of dreadful. I suspect the stage production was far better and great fun to see; choosing Ryan Murphy to direct might have seemed to others a no-brainer but strikes me as totally misguided. The one consistent thing about all of that man’s projects is how wildly uneven they are: often enjoyable but usually in spite of needless flaws. From the very start, every actor delivers their lines as though a deliberate caricature of themselves. Anyone who is not a fan of musicals could easily cite this movie as exhibit A.

On the flip side, plenty of people who are fans of musicals will likely quite enjoy this movie. And certainly, any true lover of theater would quite understandably be moved by the whole package being delivered here. It’s hard not to argue, however, how wildly miscast this film is—and I’m not going to take the side of the countless people out there complaining about James Corden being cast in the part of a flamboyantly gay man. Sure, it would be better if they hired an actually-gay man to play this part, but Corden is otherwise fine: he’s performing it as written, and all things considered, he’s far more subtle about the flamboyance than he could have been.

What irritates me more is this trend of hiring huge stars for singing parts not because they are great singers, but merely because they are stars who happen to be able to carry a tune. Why does this movie in particular need Nicole Kidman and Meryl Streep? Streep is arguably the greatest actor alive today, and people act as though it’s so impressive that she can also sing. Except her singing ability, while serviceable, is hardly exceptional. But for some reason, she keeps getting cast over and over again in musicals. As for Kidman, she has far less prior experience with musicals, her most famous role in Moulin Rouge! notwithstanding. And her singing as a novelty in that film was part of the point. And granted, James Corden is nowhere near the same caliber as an actor, but he’s a merely adequate singer as well. Is it really so imperative to hire huge stars in a movie like this in order to sell it? Why can’t we get actual, Broadway-caliber performers in these parts? All three of them are saved only by the finesse of the songwriting itself.

So what about the story itself, then? Honestly, it’s corny as hell—which is, frankly, on brand of Ryan Murphy. A group of Broadway stars licking their wounds, after their musical Eleanor! (about Eleanor Roosevelt) flops, head to Indiana for a publicity stunt to improve their images after being labeled narcissists. They find out about a small town high school that is canceling their prom rather than be forced to let a young lesbian couple go to it, and they’ve got it in their heads that they can combat bigotry with their celebrity.

There’s actually some incisive satire to be mined there, most of which The Prom squanders. Murphy seems to want to have it both ways, weaving in the message that it’s naive to think you can solve deeply complex issues with simple minded solutions . . . and then the movie wraps up its conflicts with insanely oversimplified ideas, mostly devoid of nuance. It’s a classic sitcom trope, just stretched out over 130 minutes. That’s roughly half an hour longer than this movie ever needed to be, by the way, and that’s including its several largely irresistible musical sequences.

The thing is though, by and large, The Prom’s heart is in the right place. It feels a little lost to time, the kind of movie that could have become a beloved cult classic were it released twenty years ago. Alas, we are now so massively flooded with new content, it’s been ages since any movie had any hope of being a “cult” anything. The Prom has its narrow lane in the zeitgeist this week, to be replaced and forgotten within a matter of days.

And I won’t lie, I was won over by it—even by the over-the-top performances. To be fair, Jo Ellen Pellman has both talent and charisma to spare in the role of Ellen, the young lesbian in question; Ariana DeBose is lovely as her love interest as well. Still, even some of the smaller supporting parts are oddly miscast, such as Logan Riley as the head cheerleader, who is supposed to be a teenager, is actually 21, and looks at least 25. Somewhere along the line, I lost count of this movie’s many flaws, and almost came to find them endearing. There’s no escaping how much better The Prom would have been had countless better choices been made in its production and casting, or even the fact that it’s objectively not a good movie. But is it fun? I found it undeniably so.

Did I mention Tracey Ullman is also in this movie? Try to find her!

Overall: C+

Small Axe: ALEX WHEATLE

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

Alex Wheatle may be my least favorite in director Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe” collection, only in that I wanted more. This is yet another true story, this time about the young adult novelist Alex Wheatle, having grown up without his parents in a group home, and ultimately serving time in prison for participating in the 1981 Brixton Riot in South London.

I suppose it could be argued that McQueen deflty whittles down Wheatle’s story to its barest essence, presenting this installment of his so-called “Collection of Five Films” at a mere 66 minutes. That makes it the shortest installment thus far, ablbeit barely shorter than the second entry, Lovers Rock, which clocked in at 70 minutes. Lovers Rock as presented, however, with an aesthetic much like an extended music video, worked well with the shorter run time. Music also plays significantly in Alex Wheatle’s story, though not nearly to the same extent; regardless, the resulting effect is as though these two shorter entries serve more as a sort of interlude between the entries that are closer to feature length. (Mangrove and Red, White and Blue, both excellent, are 127 minutes and 80 minutes, respectively.)

As this “collection” goes on, with its weekly release of the next installment, really none of them near the feature length of the first, the more it does feel like an anthology series meant for television. I’ve been reviewing each of them so far, though; I can’t stop now! They’ll just have to stand as the shortest “films” I have ever reviewed.

And Alex Wheatle is a solid film on its own terms. It just feels lightly incomplete. Newcomer Sheyi Cole is well cast in the title role, serving a quasi-Citizen Kane narrative structure as he tells his story in flashbacks to his cell mate in prison. I’d love to see a version of this film with a second hour, which tells the story of how Wheatle finds success as a writer in the 21st century. Evidently, McQueen isn’t interested in that, although we do see by the end how he gains interest in other authors who clearly later become influences on his work.

Perhaps McQueen is attempting to avoid any kind of fatigue on the part of the viewer in regards to scenes depicting riots and uprisings—I don’t know—but he makes an interesting choice here, presenting the actual event of the 1981 Brixton Riot almost exclusively through still photos of it with voice-over narration. We then get brief scenes of Alex hiding from the police directly after the uprising, and then later getting arrested during a police raid on his building.

As with the other installments before it, the characters in this story have Jamaican heritage. This makes sense as part of this project clearly very personal to Steve McQueen, who is himself of Caribbean heritage—although, like Alex Wheatle, he was born British. Wheatle, in fact, after growing up in a mostly white home for boys and thus gets raised and conditioned in very British ways, finds himself in a Black neighborhood as a young adult where he has to learn how to speak and behave in ways that allow him to blend in. Early on, he naively addresses a police officer politely, sparking frustration among the would-be friends trying to teach him how to get by.

There’s a moment when we see Wheatle talking to his cell mate, and he says “It was always all about the music.” Oddly, Alex Wheatle the film is hardly the same: his experience as a budding young musician gets surprisingly little attention. If it wasn’t actually all about the music, why have him tell us that?

Still, Alex Wheatle is very well shot and well acted, and although I would hesitate to say this one works as a standalone piece anywhere near as well as the other films do, it does fit well into the big picture McQueen is attempting to represent in terms of the Black experience in Britain.

Alex has understandably had enough but I want more.

Overall: B