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Crossroads (2002) [Review Re-View]
Originally released February 15, 2002:
When informed that her feature film debut was receiving shrieks of laughter during advanced screenings for critics, Britney Spears said she was glad because she never likes the same films the critics do. Well Ms. Not That Innocent, the truth hurts; you’re not a girl, not yet an actress. Crossroads is really the filmic adventures of Britney Spears and her ever-present navel. The navel should get second billing, but alas, we do not live in a society of equality for navels.
The film opens up with three 10-year-old best friends burying a box of wishes and dreams and promising to be bestest friends forever and ever. They make a pact to come back and dig up the box on the night of their high school graduation. Flash to the present and the word “bestest” isn’t what it used to be. Lucy (Britney Spears) has become the virginal nerd preparing to give her speech as valedictorian. Kit (Zoe Saldana) has become the haughty popular snob, obsessed over getting married ever since she got her first Bridal Barbie. Mimi (Taryn Manning) is pregnant and become the trailer trash girl that everyone sees fit to remind her of. Despite their growth apart they all do come together to reopen their box of dreams. Mimi informs the others that she plans to head to California to audition for a record deal in an open contest. Kit decides to use this opportunity to check up on her boyfriend at UCLA who has been strangely evasive. Lucy complains that by having her nose in a book her entire high school experience she never got to go to a football game or even “hang out.” Somewhere a small violin is playing. She decides to jump at this chance and possibly see her mother in Arizona, who ran out on Lucy and her father (Dan Akroyd) when she was only three. The wheels of their adventure are provided by guitar-playing mystery Ben (Anson Mount). He pilots them on their travels to the Pacific coast, though the girls think he might have killed someone, but oh well.
Crossroads is filled to the brim with every imaginable road trip cliché. The girls “open up” after getting drunk, have a scuffle in a bar, reap in the sights of nature, and perhaps create some sparks of romance with their hunky heartthrob of a driver. The car also inevitably breaks down and the girls have to find a way to scrape some quick cash together. They enter in a karaoke contest and Britney proceeds to sing Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock and Roll” with her two gal pals providing backup. But no, this isn’t the last time you’ll hear Ms. Brit sing. In an effort to pad as well as become a showcase for its star, Crossroads gives us many scenes of the girls just singing to the radio. Besides Jett, Shania Twain’s “Man I Feel Like a Woman” and Sheryl Crow’s “If It Makes You Happy” are also on the chopping block. You’ll also be accosted by the movie’s single “Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” several times, including one scene where Poet Britney is asked to share her poem and it ends up being the song’s lyrics.
Saldana (Center Stage) is not given much, as the attention is always centered on Britney, so she merely comes off like a token conceited character. Only Taryn Manning (crazy/beautiful) comes away with a little dignity. She gives Mimi a lot more heart than should be there and shows some honest reflections for her character. She also, coincidentally enough, looks like a dead ringer for Joan Jett with her black bangs.
Crossroads is nothing but a star vanity project for Spears, with some not-so-subliminal Pepsi product placement here and there. This was not a script looking for a lead; this was something Britney’s management team suited for her, and Crossroads is perfectly suited for Britney. It allows for many ogling periods of booty shaking. The majority of the film’s drama doesn’t even concern her, and when she does have to act, her scenes are cut short to help her when the real drama unfolds. The movie’s true intentions are revealed when Britney is shown in her pink underwear twice in the first 15 minutes.
Crossroads moves along on gratuitous skin shots of Spears half-naked body every 20 minutes until it reaches its torture chamber of a final act. In this very melodramatic period we get abandonment, date rape, infidelity, and even a miscarriage in one of the film’s most shameless plot devices. Of course none of these horrors matter, especially a psychologically damaging miscarriage, because Britney has to get to her BIG audition in order to perform, yep you guessed it, “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman.” She also has to wear what looks like kitchen drapes while she sings.
You’ll walk out of the theater wondering many things. Why does Britney wear pink in EVERY single scene she’s in? There’s even one scene where she changes from a pink top to another pink top and is FOLDING a third pink top into a suitcase. Are we to believe that Akroyd and Spears share some kind of genetics? In what high school would Britney be considered a nerd?
Hopefully Crossroads will be the pop princess’ last foray into film, but I strongly doubt this is the last we’ve seen of Britney Spears. Crossroads is a terrible girl-power trip. Only Spears’ target demographic will enjoy this melodramatic mess. Truly, the two largest groups that will see this film are adolescent girls and creepy older men who fawn after adolescent girls. Crossroads is exactly everything you’d expect.
Nate’s Grade: F
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WRITER REFLECTIONS 20 YEARS LATER
I’ve been waiting for this mea culpa for twenty years. In 2002, I saw Britney Spears’ movie debut, Crossroads, opening weekend with some friends with the chief purpose of seeing how bad it would be and tearing it to shreds for my collegiate newspaper. I graded it an F and sharpened my knives to eviscerate the star vanity project and everything it supposedly represented, eventually declaring it the worst film of 2002. Many years later, I have to wonder just exactly what was I so upset about with a middling road trip drama? What made this movie more deserving of a critical take-down than any other movie of that year? Had Spears not been its star, I doubt I would have expelled as much vitriol. So then the big question becomes, what did Britney Spears do to deserve so much ire from the 19-year-old version of myself? After some further reflection, I think I have some answers, and I’m glad I’ve had some significant growing up since then. I think it comes down to a personal animus blinding me as a critic, and this is something I’ve tried to push through and shed as I’ve gotten older and hopefully more experienced at evaluating art.
Flashback to the mid-to-late 1990s, and it was a golden time for fans of alternative rock, such as myself, bands that were cutting edge, audacious, and reaping the commercial rewards as well. MTV was filled with bizarre and exciting music videos from eclectic artists that were given an elevated platform. I grew my sense of self through my burgeoning musical taste, enveloping myself in the sounds of the Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, Tori Amos, and many more. And then the pop infusion began in 1997 with Hanson and really exploded with the emergence of the boy band craze and young pop stars like Spears and Christina Aguilera and others. Suddenly the music I was accustomed to, the music that to me was built on artistic integrity and depth, was being pushed aside for music that felt shallow and inferior, driven by exploiting the clean-cut physical beauty of the performers as compensation for substance. My younger self felt irritated that the music I considered to be genuine and revelatory was supplanted by bubblegum pop ditties. In my sophomore year of high school, for a Canterbury Tales group assignment, I co-wrote an epic quest for a strange band of characters to go to a Hanson concert and kill the three mop-headed brothers (I also had the collective pre-teen audience rise up and retaliate, killing our band of heroes). Looking back, there’s nothing new about any of this. Music has gone through many spells where pretty pop stars have coasted because of their looks and sex appeal. For whatever reasons, it felt personable, like an attack, and that is such a misplaced assessment on the winds of popularity.
I’ve tried to eliminate anything that feels like a personal attack from my film criticism, because at the end of the day it’s just a movie, and whether or not it works for me, and it may work for others, it’s still only a movie. It’s not like the filmmakers personally robbed me of anything other than my time, and as my friends will often chide me, I chose to watch these movies I knew would be almost certainly dubious entertainment options. I’ve re-read several past film reviews and winced as I found myself resorting to low blows or critiques about body appearance. My review of 2008’s The Hottie and the Nottie (for the record: not a good movie) was a glorified take-down of Paris Hilton and everything she supposedly represented, a prized vapidity. I deleted heavy portions of it, especially those shaming Hilton for her promiscuity. It made me ashamed. As I’ve grown, I’ve tried to focus solely on the art and story of each movie. If the performance was weak, it’s just a reflection of a bad performance and not a bad person deserving of some sort of misplaced score-settling by yet another angry random guy on the Internet.
That brings me back to the star of Crossroads, Britney Spears, who in the ensuing decades had the culture rally to her back as well as re-evaluate the treatment of the paparazzi-heavy targets of the 2000s. She was celebrated for her sexuality and demonized for it as well, again not exactly new in the realm of media. After so many years under the harsh scrutiny of the public spotlight, in 2007, Spears shaved her head, attacked a paparazzi car, and checked in for much-needed mental help, and in doing so essentially signed her life away for the next 14 years to her father, who had the final say over her finances and tour commitments and even whether or not Spears could have an IUD removed. She was finally released from her conservatorship after a groundswell of public support in 2021. She’s released many more albums, had a long-standing residency in Las Vegas, and has even talked about turning her struggle for agency into a big screen movie.
Crossroads is an odd concoction because of how many people went on to have robust careers. Chief among them is the credited screenwriter Shonda Rhimes who would become one of the preeminent TV power producers of the twenty-first century with Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and Bridgerton. Fans of Rhimes’ adult soaps might find recognizable traces of her plotting with the overly melodramatic third act of Crossroads. This was also one of the earliest movies for Zoe Saldana, an integral part of THREE high-profile, highly successful sci-fi series, Avatar (where she has blue skin), Guardians of the Galaxy (where she has green skin), and the J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek (natural skin). She was also in the first Pirates of the Caribbean just a year after Crossroads. Then there’s Taryn Manning who found memorable parts in 8 Mile, Hustle and Flow, before redefining her career as the memorable, and dental-deficient, Pensatucky on Orange is the New Black. Anson Mount would later go on to prominence in TV series like Hell on Wheels and Star Trek Discovery (less so Marvel’s Inhumans). Apparently many of the other actors in Crossroads agreed to sign on just to meet Spears, like Dan Akroyd, Kim Catrall, and Justin Long. Even Mount was hesitant until the urging of none other than Robert DeNiro, who read lines with Mount from the Crossroads script during their downtime on 2002’s City by the Sea (DeNiro reed Britney’s lines, which makes me wonder what he could have done in the lead).
Reading back over my original 2002 review, I actually think most if not all the criticisms of the movie still land. The movie is rife with road trip cliches. The third act is indeed a torture chamber that really tilts the drama into overdrive, though smartly places the workload on the abilities of Saldana and Manning. There is definitely an unsettling preoccupation with Spears’ sexuality with the film. I wrote, “The movie’s true intentions are revealed when Britney is shown in her pink underwear twice in the first 15 minutes,” and I can’t disagree. It’s an uncomfortable watch at points, not because anything on screen is so salacious or ribald (Spears in fact insisted on her character’s use of profanity to be stricken to maintain her image) but because of what it thinks its audience wants. I suppose there were thousands of teenage girls looking to someone famous like Britney Spears for inspiration, and the lesson of waiting until you feel comfortable with a partner, and it’s your choice, is worthy, but the primacy emphasis on Spears’ body feels wrong.
My concluding line in my review was meant to summarize my stance, indicating that Crossroads is “exactly what you expect it to be,” and in 2002 I guess that meant the worst of the worst. In 2022, that just means a familiar, formulaic road trip movie with lots of melodrama. Yes, it’s a star vehicle for Spears’ acting career and there are many opportunities for singing, but that doesn’t make it any worse than any other mediocre drama aimed at a teenage demographic. And in 2022, I can say that I appreciate the pop music of the 90s. There were some real top-notch ear worms there and they still stand up to this day, easily hum-able when they reappear on radio. Spears and her ilk did not get the full credit they deserve during their reign. Crossroads is, to excuse a forced metaphor, a sort of crossroads for myself as a critic, something I’ve tried to improve upon as I got older. Movies are good and bad. Their intentions might even be noble or prurient or purely driven by money, but they’re still only movies and not personal attacks. I’m sorry Ms. Spears for unfairly maligning you, your acting ability, and your movie. Crossroads is easily not the worst movie of 2002. It’s merely mediocre at best and undeserving of antipathy.
Re-View Grade: C
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Shut In (2022)
It’s easy to see the appeal of contained thrillers from a production standpoint, but I’ve always found them to be a fun, crafty thought exercise that I’ve often enjoyed playing along. I’ll rename them “survival thrillers” because I think that’s truer to what they encounter, whether it’s in a small, contained environment or whether they are simply a victim of unique circumstances. I enjoy watching a character analyze and attack a problem and find workable solutions. There’s a natural vehicle for satisfaction there, whether it’s Matt Damon learning how to farm on Mars, or Ryan Reynolds being buried alive in a coffin, or a group of teenagers stuck on a ski lift. It’s a fun scenario to try and solve, especially in the relative comfort of your own home. Given their success and general low-cost nature, it was only a matter of time before these kinds of thrillers would dominate indie direct-to-streaming cinema. I guess then I shouldn’t be that surprised the Christian movie market would want in too. Shut In is the first original film distributed by The Daily Wire, the subscription run by conservative political wunderkind Ben “debate me!” Shapiro. Shut In began as a 2019 Black List script, the list of the most liked unproduced screenplays, and at one point Jason Bateman was going to direct. From there, it’s now Ben Shapiro’s Godsploitation thriller, and it has its own virtues and sins.
Jessica Nash (Rainey Qualley) is doing her best with some of the worst circumstances. She’s got two young children, one still an infant, and scraping by for money. She’s a recovering meth addict and has inherited her grandmother’s home that she’s looking to sell. As she’s cleaning up the premises, she accidentally locks herself inside a pantry. Making matters worse is that her meth-addict ex-boyfriend Rob (Jake Horrowitz) and his no-good pedophile pal Sammy (Vincent Gallo) come around looking for a score. Jessica must use her wits, strength, and fortitude to escape the pantry, keep the dangerous men away from her children, and also reject the temptation of indulging in drugs as an escape for her mounting troubles.
From the vantage point of a survival thriller, Shut In makes more under its circumstances that I would have assumed but also, strangely, less with the personal stakes. Whenever developing a problem-solution story structure, you need to make sure the dots connect and there’s a natural progression of events. You’re stuck in a room, now what? Jessica benefits because she has a helper on the outside; however, that person is only a young child, and therefore unreliable and unable to firmly grasp multi-step instructions. This also allowed me to channel the main character’s frustrations as well, especially when she was asking her kid to find things like tools to better claw away at the door and floor. This gives her an outlet but another challenge as well because the child becomes a point of vulnerability. When Sammy comes back into the picture, his presence is immediately the priority, and Jessica needs to neutralize him or make sure he cannot reach her daughter on the other side of the door. Screenwriter Melanie Toast seems to understand that the predicament she devises runs into natural end points, so she throws in extra escalations, which then become the next challenge. It’s self-aware scripting, but it also runs the risk of the challenges feeling not as challenging and the movie feeling more episodic.
The most confounding plot point was how underplayed the drug addiction angle is. It’s part of her overall tragic past, and the movie hints about past sexual trauma as well to further haunt our lead’s dark “before time,” but we don’t ever really feel her trouble with staying clean. It’s more like the drugs represent her former life, the one with her ex who is still in the thrall of meth. We could have used maybe even a monologue of Jessica talking about the pull of drugs, how important they were to her before, and how she never liked the persons he was, perhaps the shame she feels for the things she had down previously for drugs, and her intent at redemption, all to the audience of the child she’s meaning to do better by. There’s an entire character arc worth of detail that can be unleashed to really provide better depth. When her ex tosses his three grams of meth into the pantry, it’s meant to be a significant temptation, but the movie never really plays this as a sufficient challenge. It would be as if the guy just tossed in a small packet of laundry powder for how much personal attention it’s given. There was a short moment where it looks like, with all hope lost, that Jessica might succumb, but for the far, far majority of the running time, this drug temptation is underplayed. If this Jessica wasn’t going to struggle over using drugs again, why not just have her toss them down the sink? It’s a curious mitigated plot point for something that seems more significant than presented.
This is also directed by D.J. Caruso, a man who was making big-budget Hollywood action movies in the early 2010s like Eagle Eye and I Am Number Four. This is likely the lowest budget Caruso has ever worked with, but he doesn’t make the movie feel visually dull. There’s way too much imagery with apples though, including apples rotting at their core (you get it?) and eventually Jessica peeling the brown from an apple and saying the rest is still plenty good (you get it?). It feels like the apple was a lazy visual symbol meant to appeal to its, presumably, more Christian-affiliated target audience (“You see, the apple… means… temptation”). The tension can be finely attuned especially when we’re trapped in the pantry with Jessica and having to rely upon the sound design to understand the looming threats. I wish Caruso had pulled back at more points. Later, Sammy holds Jessica’s kid hostage with a knife to her little throat, promising to kill her, while everyone is screaming so loudly that it almost feels like we’ve landed in farce. The exploitation thriller elements feel in conflict with the lighter Christian elements. The God parts feel almost tacked on, especially when Jessica doesn’t reveal anything about her own faith. Looking at a hanging cross and deciding not to do drugs does not count as sufficient integration.
This is also Vincent Gallo’s first film role in ten years. for a period in the late 1990s, Gallo was the toast of the indie film scene and then he burnt through all that collective good will (also credit The Brown Bunny making people question those earlier accolades). I’ll credit Gallo acting like a believable creep and a snarling threat. He’s the best actor in the movie, and he delivers enough in this do-nothing part that makes me wish he would act more often. Qualley (sister to Margaret Qualley, also the daughter of Andie MacDowell) is fine, though her Southern accent seems to get the better of her at parts. Her performance is more physical than emotional.
Shut In is a small movie likely intended for a small audience while it drafts off the genre formula of larger, more polished survival thrillers. It goes through stretches where it relatively works, stripped down to its bare genre essentials, and then moments where I wish more was going on viscerally and intellectually. That’s where the movie needed to open up its protagonist more substantially, give more consideration to her internal struggles rather than keeping everything strictly externalized. Her drug addiction and the immediate proximity of drugs needed to be much more a trial of will. If you’re stuck with characters in a confined space, you need to either use that time to make the character more intriguing and compelling or keep the obstacles coming. Shut In transitions with new obstacles to overcome, but it still doesn’t feel like enough for this 89-minute movie. It’s an acceptable genre entry but had more potential with its lead character and with its thrills. It settles too often, and there’s nothing godly about settling when you could have been an even mightier movie.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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They/Them/Us (2022)
Jon Sherman has been a film professor at Kenyon College in Ohio since 2010. He has sought to build up the Columbus, Ohio film community and has often guest lectured at various film screenings held in central Ohio. Sherman has some personal experience with Hollywood, writing and directing his 1996 breakout indie rom-com Breathing Room (starring Dan Futterman!), and then given an even bigger stage with the 2002 rom-com I’m with Lucy (with Monica Potter!). He may be an academic but that filmmaking itch never really goes away, and so that brings us to another Sherman rom-com, 2022’s They/Them/Us, which is available to be viewed nationally through digital release. It’s a charming, offbeat romance with a sweet sensibility and an unexpected kink.
Charlie (Joey Slotnick) is a middle-aged man starting his life over. He’s re-entered the dating scene after a recent divorce, he splits custody of his two teenage children with their mother, and the only job he could find as a film professor is at a conservative Christian university. Lisa (Amy Hargreaves) is a woman in her forties, a successful artist with full custody of her two children, one of whom has recently identified as non-binary (preferring “they/them” pronouns, hence the title). They meet online, have their first date, and are immediately smitten, enough so that Lisa bends her rules about not getting too attached too soon. Charlie and Lisa decide to combine their clans into one modern blended family, and the reunification is a messy and awkward process.
Given Sherman’s background as a film professor, you would hope that if anyone, when given the opportunity to make a feature film, could rise to the occasion, it should be somebody whose career rests upon the analysis of what makes movies work best. They/Them/Us succeeds as a relatively light-hearted rom-com and family drama with several nice moments. It’s hard to quantify, but you know better writing when you witness it, how characters interact and how witty the exchanges are and how much characterization they impart. Typically, a lesser writer will overstay their welcome or begin a scene before the importance. This can also be done to add unique character details, but often it’s a writer not knowing when to start and when to leave, a trait I’ve experienced so many times with Ohio-made indies. With Sherman’s scene writing, everything is to the point and moving, imparting the most important info or character detail, then chugging along. Early on, we establish Charlie as a man struggling to parent two surly teenagers and find someone special online. The fact that in the opening seconds he seems to be messaging two women who have BDSM kinks in their profile should be telling. After Charlie admonishes Danny for smoking pot in his house, he snatches the kid’s bong and runs upstairs, pacing and unsure of what to do next as his breathing calms and he focuses his attention to the bong in hand. Cut to Charlie smoking the bong to relax. It’s a quick, smart detail that demonstrates Charlie’s uncertainty on how to be the stable authority figure with his own dismissive children.
They/Them/Us is also a charming and sex positive romance between two middle-aged divorcees, a subject that rarely gets such big screen attention. The movie touches upon the challenges of modern dating when you’re not just dating a single individual but a person with attachments, about starting over later and finding a new life that will make appropriate space for you. Selecting a common dinner option can be its own minefield. It’s a perspective worthy of more attention by Hollywood. Beyond that angle, the movie is also surprisingly kinky for a “family comedy.” While unrated, They/Them/Us still exists in a more PG-13-friendly universe so it’s rather gentle when it explores the BDSM urges of Lisa. The movie is refreshingly free of judgements though has more than a few grand jokes drawn from Charlie’s squeamishness. He tries to throw himself into a more aggressive role, and Lisa asks him to pull her hair harder, and he says, “I’m sorry, I can’t. I’m a feminist.” I laughed out loud at that one. Another time, Charlie is attempting to spank Lisa and he keeps hesitating, finally admitting that it keeps bringing up unwanted and uncomfortable memories of spanking his unruly son as a child, something he still feels guilty over. In time, Charlie seeks out advice and instruction on how to be a better BDSM participant, and his educational process is a bit obvious, with more than a few easy gags (no pun intended), but it’s still one borne from a desire to better understand and fulfill his partner. It’s a sweet romance.
Slotnick (Twister, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) has been a staple of TV and movies for decades, a reliable “that guy” with overly neurotic tendencies. He’s a terrific put-upon dad and his age has only added more authenticity to Charlie’s harried struggle. He’s got a warmth to him that is easily conveyed during his brighter, kinder moments, and he’s also got a wellspring of awkward, cringe-inducing comedy as a middle-aged dad trying too hard to connect with a brood of teenagers and often flailing. When he’s genuinely happy, Slotnick genuinely wins you over. I think the vague details about Charlie’s dismissal from his previous professor job are a mistake. We’re told by his ex-wife, who inexplicably is still trying to get him back for the sake of the children, that a coed sent Charlie inappropriate texts. That topic is way too big not to clarify, and it’s also strange that Sherman and co-writer and partner Melissa Vogley Woods never come back to this as a conflict with his new relationship. It also seems like a natural point of conflict for keeping his new position at the Christian college and yet it’s glossed over (the resolution over that is laughably too tidy and convenient but keeping with the low stakes).
Hargreaves (13 Reasons Why, Homeland) is very enjoyable as the more experienced and confident half of this blended relationship. Lisa knows what she likes and is not ashamed, and she’s patient with Charlie as he attempts to reach her on her level. Hargreaves has a fun spirit to her that doesn’t veer into exploitation. It would be easy for Sherman to just write her as a fetish object for Charlie, but Lisa comes across as a real woman with her own desires and doubts and questions. There’s a scene where Lisa and Charlie are talking after their less-than-stellar first date with the combined family unit, and Lisa’s children are impatiently waiting by the locked car. “Come one, mom,” they whine. “You have the keys.” In mid-sentence, Hargreaves just hurls the car keys to her children and then continues her conversation with Charlie without missing a beat. It’s a defiant, petulant, lovely moment that keys the audience into her devotion to Charlie and her own character. I adored it.
Lexie Bean, as Maddie, and Jack Steiner as Danny, are both acting breakthroughs. Both of the actors are so natural and with a great poise and presence. Steiner has minimal acting experience but could easily headline a movie with the sly charisma and comic timing he displays. He even finds a way to enliven one of the least funny segments in comedies, the drug trip. Bean has notable, obvious talent that I regret that They/Them/Us doesn’t draw more upon.
There is one significant critique I do have with They/Them/Us and that’s that this all feels like a far better fit for a television series than as a single film. Rare do I come across a story engine that seems like it has the output to keep going, but that’s what we have here. There are three significant storylines that all would have benefited with far more time and development that a wider field of narrative writing would afford: 1) at its core, this is a story about a blended family and all the troubles and revelations and connections that come from two established families suddenly sharing spaces and lives, 2) Charlie working at a conservative Christian university and having to awkwardly pose as devout while hiding his true feelings, and 3) it’s a BDSM rom-com.
Taken as a whole, it’s easy to see how those storylines could form the backbone of a series-long narrative. Charlie’s facade at work could get more and more complex to carry on, and as his secret gets discovered, more desperate. He could also experiment more with wanting to become sexually adventurous for his partner. There could even be the question over whether he was having an affair when he was really just getting one-on-one instruction with a helpful dominatrix to educate himself. That might sound like a generic sitcom contrivance, but the script makes plenty of these kinds of conflicts and too-easy resolutions. When Maddie refuses to eat, Charlie sits with them, and within literal seconds Maddie is confessing a teacher is deliberately misgendering them and it hurts. Charlie’s solution is to get donuts, and it’s during his exchange with the drive-thru intercom that he makes a heartfelt stand about Maddie being non-binary and preferred pronouns, and then it’s like we’ve wrapped up that conflict in a bow. It’s so absurdly quick, and these characters have not had a conversation together before this, that we’ve seen, so its resolution feels so abrupt as to be arbitrary. That’s where a TV series would allow these characters and their inter-family drama to really take shape. An entire episode could be devoted to Charlie trying, and awkwardly failing, to bond with Maddie, finding a small triumph at the end that would feel better earned. This goes especially in the last twenty minutes when Danny’s drug problems get way too serious for the film’s tone. For most of its running time, They/Them/Her has such a low-stakes sense about all of its family drama, keeping things light and loose. It can’t quite make that leap to melodrama that encapsulates the end of the movie, a transition that doesn’t feel properly established.
When you’re dealing with human relationships, and with the battleground that a blended family would present, then squeezing everything into a measly 90 minutes feels like a disservice. At one point, Charlie and Lisa ask if they’re rushing things, going too fast, and they agree to move in together at the twenty-minute mark, but it’s almost like an admission to the audience about the movie. Everything is moving just too fast. We need the time to slow down, to really luxuriate in the awkwardness and unexpected connections, and the kind of narrative berths where each character can feel more fleshed out and less defined by a single note of distinction (the Non-Binary child, the Drug Problem child, the Sarcastic child, the Blame Shifter, etc.). I still enjoyed these characters and their interactions, but I would have enjoyed them even more with a larger scope to appreciate the depth and eccentricities of each person.
They/Them/Us is a rather wholesome movie that doesn’t feel like it’s talking down to its audience, judging its characters punitively, or overly sugar-coating their personal dilemmas. It’s not a particularly challenging movie but Sherman and his cohorts know what kind of movie they want to make. It’s technically proficient, assuredly low-budget but still professional in presentation. I often enjoyed the musical score by David Carbonara (Mad Men – what a get this guy was). While some subplots and conflicts are so swiftly and conveniently handled, the core of this charming movie remains its fractious, funny, and all too human relationships. When my biggest complaint stems from wanting more, more of these people, more of their adjustments and misunderstandings and triumphs, and more comic possibilities from a larger time frame of stories, then you’ve done something right with your 90 minutes of movie and clearly not everyone can accomplish even that.
Nate’s Grade: B
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CODA (2021)
Ruby Rossi (Emilia Jones) falls under the category of CODA, a Child Of a Deaf Adult. Her mother (Marlee Matlin) and father (Tony Kotsur) and her older brother (Daniel Durant) are all deaf, and she is the only member of her household with the ability to hear. She’s balancing working for her family on their fishing trawler, maintaining good grades in school, and possibly pursuing scholarships to enroll at a music and fine arts college for singing. Ruby’s music teacher agrees to train her because he believes in her potential, but Ruby has to worry that her dream is something that cannot be shared with the people she loves most, and how would they all get on without her?
The framework of CODA is familiar to anyone who has watched a coming-of-age story or family drama, but it’s the conviction and strength of character and sheer force of empathy that makes this movie a standout film for 2021. It’s based upon a 2014 French film, The Family Beller, and follows many of the same beats from other sentimental family dramas about sticking out in your family and society, chasing your dream, often in conflict with your family’s expectations, gaining that sense of inner strength and resolve, and mending differences in perspective with hard-fought and well-earned wisdom. It’s familiar, but that doesn’t mean under the right set of hands that it cannot still be resonant and emotionally gratifying. I do not hold the familiar formula against CODA, even as the family’s goal and her personal goal come into direct conflict in sometimes forced manners. That’s because the movie does an excellent job of establishing these people as characters, establishing the family dynamic as fraught but loving, and establishing a conflict that is direct and clear as far a major point of separation.
Ruby isn’t just the only member of her family who can hear, she’s also their vital lifeline to the outside world. She’s looked upon as the family interpreter, a position they cannot afford to pay for someone else’s services so the duties and responsibilities fall upon her. That’s so much pressure to bear for one teenage girl, knowing that she’s the link between her family’s poverty-treading existence and possibly breaking free into a larger hearing community. She feels ostracized and awkward within her own family and outside of her own family. To the rest of the school, she’s that “deaf family girl,” and it’s remarked that when she began high school she had an accent reminiscent of what deaf people can sound like, a point that her peers cruelly imitate. She worries she will forever be defined by her family’s disability even if she doesn’t share it. However, within her family, she feels ostracized because she’s different. She wonders if her mother wishes that she too were deaf, and during a heartfelt late-night talk, mom actually admits that upon her daughter’s birth she did feel disappointment when Ruby had hearing. While she knows sign language and has grown up with these loving figures, she’ll still always be the one who’s different, the one who hears the insults her family cannot.
The film does a remarkable effort about contextualizing Ruby’s fears and frustrations of being held captive in two different worlds, neither feeling fully accepted or whole, and that’s why her embarking on a personal dream that her family can never fully appreciate feels so significant. Part of Ruby might feel that singing is selfish, especially if it means limiting her family’s upward mobility by eliminating their unpaid interpreter, but it’s the thing that makes her most happy, a special gift that her family will be excluded from. There’s a wonderful moment toward the end of the movie where Ruby’s father asks her to sing to him, and he puts his hands along her shoulders and neck to feel the vibrations, and his awed and tear-stricken face is so moving, as he so desperately wants to indulge too in the beauty of his daughter’s voice. While occasionally the film goes overboard pounding these two conflicting paths into forced collision (family vs. self), the movie is personal with its big problems and personal with its big triumphs, making it transcend the trappings of formula.
Writer/director Sian Heder got her start on Orange is the New Black, and that TV series’ hallmark has been its enormous sense of empathy for its diverse characters. This is evident in Heder’s screenplay and her observational, detail-rich simple storytelling that immerses you in this world, so even while you recognize more familiar made-for-TV plot turns, the genuine authenticity makes the movie feel like its own unique story. Heder’s direction is delicate and places the attention squarely on her performers. There is one stylistic move late in the film when Ruby’s family comes to her choir recital in support. They look around for cues when to applaud, and their minds wander as they sign about other menial topics like grocery lists, and you understand why once Heder drops you into their perspective. For a minute, the sound disappears, and you’re left studying facial expressions for cues like them. While we can imagine being deaf, it’s another matter to experience it and try and understand.
The acting is another laudable merit for CODA. I personally want three Oscar nominations for this clan, Jones (Locke & Key) for Best Actress, Matlin (Children of a Lesser God) for Best Supporting Actress, and Kotsur (Wild Prairie Rose) for Best Supporting Actor. Over the course of nine months, Jones learned American Sign Language and how to sing, which is surprising because I would have said she has a natural talent with singing. Her performance, as well as Matlin and Kotsur, feel so real, so nuanced, and so natural, like we’ve plucked these people from real life and given them this platform. It’s the best credit you can give an actor, when they seemingly disappear into the character, and the character feels like a fully breathing, flesh-and-blood person. Even the small supporting roles are well cast, well acted, and contribute to the overall authenticity of the movie. Unlike the 2014 French original movie, all of the deaf members of the family are portrayed by actual deaf actors as well.
CODA was a sensation at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, with Apple Films buying the rights for $25 million dollars, and it’s easy to see why because it’s such a satisfying, enriching crowd-pleaser and legit tear-jerker. There were several points that had me tearing up, and then fully crying, because I was so emotionally engaged with the family, their struggles, and their triumphs and outpouring of love. You might be able to see where the movie is headed because its template is familiar and formulaic, but it’s the execution, the attention to detail, and the level of observational attention that elevates CODA and makes it so winning and so heartwarming.
Nate’s Grade: A
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Nightmare Alley (2021)
I’ve now watched both versions of Nightmare Alley, the 1947 movie and the 2021 Guillermo del Toro remake, and I guess I just shrug at both. Based upon the 1946 novel by Lindsay Gresham, we follow an ambitious yet troubled man, Stanton (Bradley Cooper), who finds refuge in a traveling carnival, mentors as a phony mentalist, and then uses his skills of manipulation to fleece the rich and privileged while possibly losing his own soul in the process. I kept watching this 150-minute movie and waiting for it to get better, to hit another level, and I had to keep asking, “Why isn’t this playing better for me?” It’s del Toro, an early twentieth-century freak show, a dashing of film noir, and a star-studded cast (Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, Rooney Mara, Toni Collette, David Strathairn), and all those enticing elements should coalesce into something special and dark and adult and transporting, like del Toro’s 2017 Best Picture-winning Shape of Water. However, for me it just feels so turgid and overly melodramatic. I wish the movie had stayed with the traveling carnival and the colorful weirdos that it ditches halfway through. I think it’s because the movie plays to your exact expectations. You expect it to be beautifully composed, and it is, with a flair for the grotesque, a del Toro specialty, and the beats of its film noir-heavy story with femme fatale and double crosses comes across so predictably but minus substantial depth to compensate. I kept waiting for the themes to deepen, to be a better reflection of ourselves, but it’s one man’s circular downfall that doesn’t play too tragic because he’s already an unrepentant scoundrel. Cooper also just seems too old for the part, especially when everyone refers to him as a “young chap.” You might not see a better looking movie from 2021. The cinematography, production design, costumes, and stylish panache that del Toro trades in are all present and glorious to behold. I just wish I could get more from Nightmare Alley besides an admiration for its framing and less about what is happening to the characters within such doting artistry.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) [Review Re-View]
Originally released January 25, 2002:
Call it swash without the buckle. While The Count of Monte Cristo does an adequate job of telling the Alexander Dumas story (heavily editing chapters and making the leads friends in this version) the whole experience feels very rote. The sword fighting scenes are nowhere what they were billed as and the direction is surprisingly lackluster. Only the actors allow this film to arise mediocrity particularly with a devious turn from Guy Pierce (Memento). Kevin Reynolds (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) directed this film and proves he doesn’t need Kevin Costner to screw something up. Somewhere Costner is laughing. Actually, somewhere Costner is likely crying in his beer wondering what happened to him. “I was the king of the cinema…”
Nate’s Grade: C+
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WRITER REFLECTIONS 20 YEARS LATER
I think 2002 is going to be my potential apology tour year when it comes to reviewing my initial film criticism of twenty years hence. The Count of Monte Cristo is my first entry for the new year and I already cringe re-reading my initial review. I think some of my early film reviews went overboard on snark, trying to establish a cool, chipper-than-thou attitude, but this was the early 2000s writing default for many. It was better to make quips, take some cheap shots, and sprinkle in some actual film criticism on top, and it’s a style of writing I’ve tried to grow out of as I’ve aged. I began writing film criticism back in 1999 as a means of expressing myself and showcasing my cinephile knowledge, and in many ways it was like learning to crack a puzzle, why a movie worked or didn’t work and what decisions lead to this eventual outcome. In some ways, early on, it was showing off and exploring my evolving writerly abilities, and sometimes that meant prioritizing cleverness over sincerity. I know I’m going to be reliving this with Crossroads but I’m reminded already with my first movie re-examination for the year 2002. So, to the filmmakers of The Count of Monte Cristo, on behalf of my then-19-year-old self, I apologize. Your movie is actually pretty good and, strangely, even makes some deviations from the book for the better.
Based upon the famous novel by Alexander Dumas (1802-1870), it’s a classic tale of vengeance and it’s plenty fun to watch because it feels like a movie that is giving you so many different turns at once. It’s almost structured like 30-minute episodes, and while being deemed “episodic” is usually regarded as a negative for a film story, I think this is an improvement. The beginning segment establishes how Edmond Dantes (Jim Caviezel) gets into trouble, and he might just be the biggest idiot in the world. The opening features him and his best pal, Fernand Mondego (Guy Pearce), seeking assistance for their ailing ship captain on the island of Elba during the time of Napoleon’s exile. Edmond agrees to deliver a letter from the deposed emperor to “an old friend” of his and then Edmond gets charged with treason in France. His shocked, incredulous response is absolutely hilarious (“What? Napoleon… USED me? I’m starting to rethink my whole appraisal of this man who tried to conquer the European continent.”). There’s a conspiracy by a government official to cover up his father being a Napoleon loyalist, the intended recipient of the letter, but it almost feels like Edmond deserves to be in jail for being this naively stupid. The first half hour sets up the villains, Edmond’s BFF betraying him to covet Edmond’s attractive wife, and the starting point for vengeance to be had. It’s economical storytelling and works well, and each thirty minutes feels like they are defined by a “very special guest star” who comes and goes.
The next thirty minutes explores Edmond’s life and routines in prison, lorded over by a cruel warden (Michael Wincott), and where he finds his mentor and salvation with an old priest, Abbe Faria (Richard Harris). Again, screenwriter Jay Wolpet efficiently establishes the routine, the passage of time, the means of how Edmond might escape, and his growing relationship and tutelage under a new unexpected friend. It’s kind of funny to watch old man Richard Harris (Gladiator) teach the considerably younger Caviezel how to sword fight, especially knowing that Harris would pass away later in 2002 at the age of 72. He needs the training because our first impression of this man is not favorable. Once Fernand betrays him, Edmond engages in what might be the most pathetic excuse for sword fighting I have ever seen. I know the classic character arc of starting inexperienced and weak and coming into experience and strength needs to be laid out, but man this guy just sucks. He runs around like a lame animal, crashing into furniture, meekly pushing glasses off a table and flopping like a soccer player trying to score a penalty card. However, the crucible of vengeance will temper this man into a dashing fighting machine. The prison segment establishes rules, develops a central antagonistic and mentor relationship, develops a prison break, and then provides Edmond with his first victory, first villain to topple, and shows his new cunning.
The next thirty minutes is almost a buddy movie between Edmond and Jacopo (Luis Guzman), the “best knife fighter in the world,” a smuggler whose life Edmond saves before joining the gang. Together they seek out the island of Monte Cristo, find a bountiful fortune thanks to Faria’s confiscated treasure map, and then Edmond reinvents himself as a mysterious count. He makes quite a flamboyant entrance, almost like a dapper nineteenth-century Great Gatsby, flaunting his extravagance and theatricality to make his mark with the upper social classes. His calculated social graces reminded me of any number of costume drama series that are predicated on operating within a rigid system of social manners and expectations. It’s about establishing his new reputation and working his way back into a position that he can tear apart whatever advantages Fernand has gotten used to. His former friend has married his wife, though he flaunts his infidelity, and he also is raising a son, Albert (Henry Cavill), that may or may not belong to Edmond. It’s through this son that Edmond sees his way back into the good graces of this family, staging a kidnapping and his rescue that gives him the standing he needs. Naturally, Edmond’s wife recognizes her former husband instantly, though he tries to deny her claims. This segment establishes the new normal, Edmond’s traps being set, and then it heads into its fitting climax.
Much of these plot points are from Dumas’ original novel, which is so tailor-made to make for an engaging adventure with a thirst for blood. It’s such a sturdy structure that provides satisfaction, as revenge stories often will; they are so easy to root for because it’s so utterly primal. There’s a reason there is an entire sub-genre of exploitation films is nothing but revenge (and yes, sadly, too often including rape as the inciting wrong to be avenged). It’s an easy hook for an audience to get onboard and root for. Wolpert’s adaptation makes some smart changes to better transform the story for the visual medium. By making Edmond and Fernand friends, it does make the betrayal feel even more bitter. Also, the means of vengeance is simply more engaging here. In the novel, Fernand’s bad deeds are exposed publicly and he’s humiliated and kills himself. He’s not even the final villain that Edmond gets vengeance upon. The 2002 movie improves a classic novel and makes the ending feel even more climactic. Watching a villain like Fernand just slink away would not be as satisfying as a finale (that’s not even the story’s finale). Wolpert, who is also credited with the screen story for the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, died very recently as of this writing, on January 3, 2022.
Director Kevin Reynolds was two movies removed from 1995’s Waterworld, an expensive post-apocalyptic action movie set mainly at sea, and a movie that does not deserve its disastrous reputation. It’s a pretty fun sci-fi action movie with a great Denis Hopper villain and plenty of splashy, big screen spectacle. It was turned into a longstanding and well-received Universal Studios stunt show if it’s any consolation. Reynolds hasn’t really made much of a career after the long shadow of a supposed costly flop (only two movies since Monte Cristo), but if Renny Harlin, he of the also super expensive, studio-killing flop Cutthroat Island, can continue churning out genre dreck, why can’t Reynolds? The man has a natural feel for big screen spectacle, and with 1991’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, he’s proven that he can capture traditional settings and make them feel in keeping with modern tastes, and he can capture futuristic settings while making them feel grounded.
I’m sorry, Mr. Reynolds, because you did not “screw something up” with this movie (fun fact: Reynolds was the screenwriter for Red Dawn). However fair or unfair, the man is defined by his relationship to Kevin Costner, most recently with the 2012 Hatfield and McCoys miniseries and beginning with 1985’s Fandango, which began as a student film that Costner lost out on a role for. None other than Steven Spielberg recruited Reynolds to make a feature version of his short.
It’s strange to go back to The Count of Monte Cristo because of Caviezel’s god and martyr complex. I’m speaking of his 2004 portrayal of Jesus in Mel Gibson’s biblically successful Passion of the Christ, but he’s gone even further now, fully adopting the QAnon conspiracy of a cabal of liberal elites harvesting the blood of children, possibly while trafficked in Wayfair furniture, for Satanic rituals. His persecution complex was already alive years ago, saying he was made a “pariah” in Hollywood after Passion of the Christ, despite its international success, and ignoring the fact he starred in a TV series on CBS that ran for five seasons. I guess that’s what he means when he stars in QAnon-related biopics that nobody wants to release (Sound of Freedom is slated to have been released in January 2022, but I cannot find any evidence this has happened). It’s just sad to recall an actor before they so thoroughly declared themselves to be dangerous and/or crazy, but I’m sure to those who knew him, these uncomfortable impulses and proclivities and conspiracy leanings were already there.
The best reason to watch The Count of Monte Cristo is the supporting cast. Pearce is delightfully wicked and enjoying himself. Harris has such weathered gravitas to him. Guzman is hilarious and his modern acting approach just does not fit with the overall vibe of the movie, but that disconnect is part of his amusement. Even Cavill is fun to watch, especially since he was only 18 years old at the time (Dagmara Dominczyk, who plays his mother, is only seven years older). You’ll see the early indications of the swagger and presence that will define him as a square-jawed leading man. The Count of Monte Cristo is a well made, exciting, and satisfying revenge thriller, as well as a smart adaptation of a classic work of literature that actively finds ways to improve upon it, insofar as a big screen movie. I’m sorry I was so snide twenty years ago (the Costner jab was an unnecessary cheap shot). It’s certainly swash, with the buckle, and deserves a better grade and better appraisal after all these years apart.
Re-View Grade: B
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The Worst Person in the World (2021)
Joachim Trier is a filmmaker that dazzled me with his debut feature Reprise, which I placed as my number three film of 2008. The Norwegian filmmaker has amassed a small collection of quirky, introspective, bohemian dramas exploring the growing pains of being young in Oslo. His movies tend to be deeply empathetic and refreshingly free of judgment, which then allows the audience to empathize with the characters even when they are failing or floundering in life and in love. In some ways, Trier’s open approach to building character over time reminds me of Richard Linklater, and it’s easy to find a loose thematic connection between Reprise, 2011’s Oslo, August 31st, and now this new movie, besides the same actors he returns to again and again. It’s more a humanist spirit that pervades the films, capturing life’s moments, big and small, that formatively alter who we are. The Worst Person in the World is a pretty straightforward character study of an impulsive, indecisive woman trying to live her life and having a challenging time of things.
Julie (Renate Reninsve) is a conundrum of a character. She’s far from the titular worst person in the world but she’s certainly flawed, a young woman in Oslo turning thirty without a clue about what she wants from life. She drifts from one job to another, one academic pursuit to another, and one man to another, growing restless whenever stability seems to be materializing. She’s the kind of person who is always looking ahead but unsure of where ahead even lies. At first her boyfriend Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie) seems alluring, a successful underground cartoonist known for his boundary-pushing work. But the man is fifteen years her senior and more eager to start a family than Julie is. Then one night she crashes a wedding and meets Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), a carefree barista, and they hit it off while trying not to cheat on their respective others. Julie keeps thinking about this other man, her other possibilities, and wonders what if.
Each of the twelve segments feels like a new version of herself Julie is trying on, feeling out the edges to see if it fits well. With each segment, we can learn a little bit more about her in different contexts. The format makes the moments feel like formative memories more than just scenes driving the story forward to the next. Often there are great leaps of time in between, and some segments are relatively short, like a few minutes. Some of them are comical, some of them are heavily sexual and/or sensual, and many of them are unrepentant for Julie. Then as the movie continues the chapters get longer, becoming more reflective and remorseful. Every now and then, Trier’s sense of style, something more explicitly pronounced in his earlier films, will seize the moment to better illustrate the internal life of Julie. When she’s making a significant choice to leave her current boyfriend, time literally stands still as she runs through streets and frozen pedestrians to leap into the arms of her new lover. When Julie is tripping on magic mushrooms, the depths of the world dip, and she’s in rapid free fall away from that same lover. My favorite stylistic flourish is when Julie is reflecting upon what she has accomplished by age 30 and how this compares to her mother, grandmother, and so on, going back to her deceased great-great-great grandmother, who died before getting to thirty as the average life expectancy of her era was tragically only 35 years old.
I think Julie represents a certain generational “buyer’s remorse/FOMO,” a restless spirit that is always thinking about what she doesn’t have as opposed to what she does have. This is evident in what we see in her romantic relationships. Each of the two suitors that Julie bounces between offers different experiences, one more akin to her carefree and aimless sensibility, and the other more focused, certain, and forward-looking. As she settles into a routine with one man, her restless nature kicks back in, and she starts thinking about what the other has to offer. It’s a constant push-and-pull that will sabotage any potential long-term romantic relationship. This leads to Julie making rash decisions, never really allowing herself to get comfortable, and hurting the people she cares about, even professes to love, and yet she’s far from hateable. She may even be relatable for some.
During the more morose final act, this is where the movie slows down and Julie perhaps realizes that settling down is not the same thing as settling. I say “perhaps” because I don’t know by the end if Julie has really changed as a person through these dozen chapters. I’d like to think so, hopeful that our experiences and challenges reset our nascent thinking and broaden our perception. By the end, Aksel has had some very dramatic and negative turns, forcing him to re-evaluate his limited time on this planet and his personal actions, always looking ahead when he wishes he had more appreciated the moment. He says he doesn’t want to live on through his art and would rather simply live in his apartment. It’s all too little by the time it comes to a finite end. He wishes he and Julie had never broken up, that they had raised children, and he simply had more time with the person he knew was the love of his life.
For Julie, this somber final stretch allows her to contemplate her own naivete and what drives her away from others, that no matter what career path she takes, what man she chooses to shack up with, what goal she prioritizes, that little will change unless she focuses on resolving her own internal issues and hangups first (if you guessed emotionally distant father, congrats and collect your prize). She’s so scared of missing out on something better, of being denied her true self, but in pursuing this aim at all costs, she’s missing out on other experiences that can be just as rewarding and fulfilling. Making a choice does not mean you are burdened with the unmet possibilities of the myriad of choices you did not make. It’s about committing to a person, a vision, a possible version of yourself, and giving it a real chance.
Much of this hinges on the shoulders of the lead actress, and Reinsve shows why she earned a Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival. Reinsve had a small supporting part in Trier’s Oslo, August 31st but is best known as a Norwegian theater star, and here she makes quite a lead film debut for herself. Looking like a dead ringer for a Nordic Dakota Johnson, Reinsve gets to showcase an impressive variety of emotions as a constantly evolving, self-sabotaging individual. At every point, she feels like a genuine human being, even as she’s losing interest in her current situation or lover, and even when she’s struggling you can appreciate how committed Reinsve is to being as honest and messy as Julie turns out to be. Another standout is Danielsen Lie (a constant in Trier’s films) who gets the biggest emotional arc and has the saddest moments. Aksel’s late epiphanies will hit but the character’s troublesome nature might blunt the depth.
I’m undecided whether the twelve-chapter (plus prologue and epilogue) structure of the narrative actually helps or hinders the impression of Julie. Some of these moments feel far less important than others, or examine a hobby or side-step that Julie takes before abandoning again. There’s a certain frustration that’s going to be inherent in watching a serial quitter. You might even yell at the screen to pick something, taking on the silent yet exhausted expression of Julie’s mother whenever she mentions her next life direction. The addition of an off-screen narrator that drops in and out for some wry commentary seems like something Trier should have committed to more to provide some observational distance with the on-screen antics or ditched entirely. The concluding epilogue is open-ended enough to allow the viewer to be pessimistic or optimistic; has Julie learned about herself enough to settle on a career and allow herself to be happy? Can she ever be happy? It’s enough to keep the viewer guessing, which is appropriate for the ambiguity of the characterization, but it misses out on feeling like an ending. It’s more a pause at this juncture of Julie’s life, and maybe that was the design all along. It’s not a journey of one continuous climb to self-actualization but a series of starts and stops and unfortunate missteps.
Julie is far from what The Worst Person in the World might lead you to believe. She’s confused and struggling and searching for what will eventually click, some sense of herself that rings true that finally gets her to stop and enjoy her present rather than fretting about what she may be missing. Ultimately, only focusing on what you do not have will never allow you to appreciate what you do, but life and learning is a process and everyone comes to these realizations from a different path, if they ever come to it. Trier’s movie is a little meandering, a little lopsided in structure, and I don’t quite know if the pathos is earned by the overly somber conclusion. It is another observational, funny, and occasionally melancholy tale from Trier, a filmmaker who still has deep feelings for his characters and their all-too human foibles.
Nate’s Grade: B
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The Hand of God (2021)
For writer/director Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar-winning 2013 film The Great Beauty, of which I was a great fan, I wrote: “It’s a bawdy, beautiful, and entertaining film but one that also takes its time, luxuriates in atmosphere… The film is far more free-floating and meditative … I felt like I could celebrate the absurdities and joys of life along with the people onscreen. It’s existential without being laboriously pretentious, and the comedy and stylish flourishes help anchor the entertainment.” Most of those words still apply to 2021’s autobiographical coming-of-age drama, The Hand of God, so why does it feel less appealing this time? We follow a young man in 1980s Naples and his large, boisterous, very Italian family. It’s a movie of moments, several extended vignettes, and it sadly doesn’t add up to much for me. I think that’s because the young protagonist is too blank to care about. He’s a surrogate for the filmmaker, but you never get a sense of his passions or interests or even personality. It’s a movie of people talking to and at him, so it’s hard to work up much emotion for his triumphs and perseverence. There are some memorable parts, like his awkward deflowering to an older woman, and a tragic turn halfway through that sneaks up on you. The life lessons are familiar for the well-trod territory, and the personal details of the era, the community, the 1982 World Cup (where we get the title from) feel richly realized as Sorrentino’s gauzy nostalgia. It’s just that Sorrentino’s ratio of interesting to ponderous moments has tilted into the negative this time. The Hand of God is overlong, free-floating, occasionally beautiful and frustratingly inaccessible.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Parallel Mothers (2021)
There is little else like a Pedro Almodóvar movie. The famed Spanish writer/director has been making movies since the 1980s and across an eclectic array of tones and genres. He can make a sexual farce, an unsettling thriller, a moving character-based drama, or a movie with elements of all three in harmony. Almodóvar has found ways to take some of the strangest story elements and make them feel real. Watch a movie like 2002’s Talk to Her, which he won his only (!) Oscar for, or 2011’s The Skin I Live In, or 2006’s Volver, and marvel at how seamlessly Almodóvar can combine any element, any genre, any twist, and turn it into genuine emotional pathos. He’s a witty man but rarely is he flippant, especially as he matured throughout the 1990s. He genuinely cares about his characters and treats their dramas as serious business no matter the content. Parallel Mothers is another example of Almodóvar, even in his seventies, operating at the top of his unique artistic capabilities. This is definitely one of the best movies of 2021. Find it when you can, dear reader.
Janis (Penelope Cruz) and Ana (Milena Smit) are both recent mothers in Madrid; Janis is pushing 40 and planned on having her first child, and Ana is in her late teens and her pregnancy was an accident. They share a hospital room, bond over their ordeal, and exchange phone numbers to keep in touch. Months later, both women are acclimating to the growing demands of motherhood, except for a gnawing doubt that has taken hold of Janis. Her boyfriend and the reported father of her baby, Arturo (Israel Elejalde), believes he is not the baby’s father and wants a DNA test. Janis is outraged, but the more she begins to think about it, the more she cannot let this nagging doubt go.
Parallel Mothers is an unpredictable drama that also has a surprising heft to it when it comes to emotional substance. When I read the premise of this movie, I erroneously thought it was going to be a two-hander of a story about two different mothers, one older and one younger, connecting over their new babies and sharing their experiences, hopes, and fears about raising a child at their respective ages. That is a fraction of the movie, but Almodóvar’s deft storytelling is refreshingly nuanced and unexpected. There were several turns in the movie where I audibly said, “Ohhhhh,” or, “Did not see that coming.” Instead of resting on his plot turns, Almodóvar makes sure that the aftermath is given its due time. I really appreciated that; here is a writer who knows throwing sensational elements or twists is not as important as focusing on how they affect the characters and narrative. When Janis begins to doubt whether her child is hers, that’s when Almodóvar is just getting started. There are several twists that are so well staged and developed, and each one brings added intensity and another chance to revise everything we know. I loved watching the movie because I genuinely could not anticipate where things would go next, and each additional turn was organic, meaningful, and would compound the guilt or fears of the main characters. It might seem like a soap opera when you distill all these outrageous elements to their essence, but Almodóvar has always excelled at taking the outrageous and making it sincere.
The movie explores motherhood but also generational connections and understanding the past to better understand the present. Janis and Ana have different though distant relationships to their mothers. For Janis, her mother died of a drug overdose at the age of 27 when she was only five years old. She was raised by her grandmother and has no picture of her biological father (the only thing she knows about him is that he was a Venezuelan drug dealer). By having a child, a goal she’s wanted to do for some time before 40, it allows her a chance of bringing her father’s genetics back into the world, to potentially see what he may look like, to bring back life that has been absent. It’s such a beautiful idea, and also articulated in 2009’s Away We Go to poignant effect. For Janis, having a child is a way for her to reconnect with her past, her parents she’s never known, and honor her grandmother. For Ana, her own mother left her when she was younger to purse her acting career, and now that she’s having a baby history is repeating as she’s once again leaving to tour with a theater show. Janis thought she knew who the father of her baby was, and insists she was only intimate with Arturo, but this ends up being another point of connection between the two mothers. Ana is unsure whom the father is of her child, though hopeful it’s a select person she had feelings for at the time. These babies mean different things for each woman but they both love them completely, no matter what devastation happens later. These beloved children are means of connecting to their past.
Another aspect that Almodóvar includes strengthened this movie as great for me, and initially it seemed like an odd fit until the thematic richness becomes realized. Before she was pregnant, Janis was determined to secure an exhumation of what is believed to be a mass grave in a small rural village from the Spanish Civil War and Francisco Franco’s regime. Using modern technology and careful attendants, they can uncover this crime of the past and provide closure and dignity to generations of family members still left with unanswered questions. The movie returns to this storyline again late, as if Almodóvar is putting a fine point on bringing home his message of reckoning with our past and the importance of uncovering painful truths. Janis and Arturo return to this small village and interview descendants about what they can remember about their departed loved ones, the men whose remains may be found. It’s such a sincere expression of empathy and generosity, and the short snippets of interviews allow the movie to broaden its scope, adding different mothers and daughters to the sphere and creating even more spokes of human connection. What Janis is doing is a legitimate kindness, an act she hopes to better understand her own history and family ties to the worst that her country had to offer under Franco. One villager recounts how her grandfather had to dig his own grave, then was sent home for the night, only to be reclaimed and never return the next day. “Why didn’t he run if given the chance?” Janis asks. The descendant relates he couldn’t be without his wife and daughter, even for a night, even if it meant his certain doom.
Cruz has never been better than when she’s collaborated with Almodóvar (2006’s Volver was her first Oscar nomination). She goes through some emotional wringers here, the details of which I will not spoil, but it is an understatement to say that Janis is presented with a very complicated scenario. Each scene, especially in the second half once Almodóvar’s box of twists has been unpacked, has so much conflicted emotion for Cruz to cycle through on her face, swallowing guilt and hope and desire and dread. She’s fully deserving of another Oscar nomination for her heartbreaking work with the messiest of material. Smit (The Girl in the Mirror) is a screen partner equal to the challenge but her character is more in the dark by narrative necessity.
I’m loath to reveal too much more when it comes to the potent central drama of Parallel Mothers, because it’s so well developed and so well performed that you should really experience it for yourself. Knowing ahead of time the added complexities won’t ruin the movie, but I had more appreciation for how Almodóvar was so nimbly able to keep upending my expectations and my sense of understanding as it pertained to the two mothers. It’s a delicate drama, nourishing with empathy and also heart-rending in the dread of what Janis may choose to do next. Thank you, filmmakers of the world, for lifting the 2021 year in cinema for me. Parallel Mothers is one of the best films you’ll see this year and an affecting examination on reconciliation.
Nate’s Grade: A
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The Novice (2021)
The Novice could be deemed “the Whiplash for rowing,” and that is it in a nutshell but it also distinguishes itself separately from that Oscar-winning 2014 indie. Debut writer/director Lauren Hadaway was actually on the sound editing team behind Whiplash, and that’s her area of expertise with over 40 credits, and right away you can tell her attention to details as far as filmmaking being an immersive experience for the viewer. It’s been nominated for five Independent Spirit Awards, including Beat Feature, Best Director, and Best Actress. It’s the little indie that could right now, though it also seems like the kind of well-received indie that gets forgotten around award season. That would be a shame, because while not quite at the level of Whiplash, this is a hypnotic and visceral and disturbing portrait of competitive obsession.
Alex Dall (Isabelle Furhman) is a freshman for her East Coast university. She joins the crew team with the goal of being the best. Her coaches encourage her competitive spirit but even they try and warn her to take it easier with her relentless training regiment. Nothing else matters to her.
You feel Hadaway’s background in sound design, how she uses it to disorient and produce a rhythm to her movie, the inhale and exhale of pushing one’s self to their physical limit. It’s accompanied by dizzying edits that feel completely matched by their auditory components (Hadaway also served as a co-editor). It’s frenetic and places you in the mindset of our protagonist, whose single desire is to be the best no matter what. That solitary focus blurs out the outside world, so when we get into trance-like states of close-ups, repetitive edits, and slow-motion extensions, we feel trapped inside her restless state of mind. One critic compared the training montages to the drug use montages from Requiem for a Dream, and this is completely accurate. Alex would never view herself as an addict but that’s precisely what she is. Her personal addiction is at winning, and winning at all costs and being the best.
In Whiplash, Miles Teller’s protagonist was a capable drummer that wanted to be excellent. He already had talent and was pushed to the brink by his monstrous teacher/drill sergeant/abusive father figure. Alex throws herself into unfamiliar situations. She is a physics major even though she doesn’t really like or understand the subject. She joins the rowing team even though she lacks any experience whatsoever. And yet, she still sets her sights on the near impossible. She doesn’t want to be the best freshman, and she doesn’t just want to join the varsity squad; she wants to break all the individual records as soon as possible for a team sport. A normal person would view these goals as unrealistic and potentially out of reach, but that’s the point for Alex. It’s the best or nothing, and her toxic win-at-all-costs mentality is even more toxic because she expects to win even in the most unlikely scenarios. It would be like never driving a car and expecting to win the Indy 500. That adds a different dynamic for Alex but it also makes her even more self-destructive and misanthropic.
The movie becomes a tale of obsession, a downward spiral much akin to an addiction narrative. Alex gradually cuts off all other parts of herself she deems to be a distraction. It’s only small moments where we try and catch a different definition of Alex, the version of her when she might allow herself to relax, but this feels like the “weak Alex” that she’s trying to snuff out, because there shall be no other version of Alex except the one in service to her goal. When she starts having a potential relationship with her T.A. (model Dilone), you think this might be the character’s off ramp, an opportunity for her to settle and realize something else that is meaningful, building an interpersonal relationship. It becomes another distraction to remove. This achieves the artistic vision of showing the mental and physical decline of Alex. Everything in the movie is likewise in service of serving Alex’s grueling goal. However, this also makes her a less dimensional character. If all we know about her is how obsessive she can become, then we’re left to pick up whatever other scraps we’re given to piece together a fuller understanding of her. Perhaps Hadaway doesn’t want any definition beyond Alex’s obsessions. It makes the character less complicated and by extension less compelling, but there is that rubbernecking quality of just watching to see how far she will go before reaching a breaking point. Maybe even death?
This movie would not work as mightily without the committed performance by Fuhrman (Orphan, The Hunger Games). She’s been working ever since she was a child but this is a breakthrough performance for the actress. The intensity of her performance is so conveyed that you might feel like you had a workout yourself. The actress gained ten pounds of muscle over the course of the punishing film experience and athletic training. I had to imagine the movie was shot linearly so they could trace her physical transformation, but I haven’t confirmed it.
Another sound area that greatly elevates the movie is the stirring score by Alex Weston (The Farewell). This is my favorite film score of 2021. It is haunting, moody, and appropriately frantic, with jangling strings and a propulsion that echoes its main character. It has an easy presence of sliding in and out, mimicking the pace of the compulsive training, and standout tracks include the motif “Training” and “Legs Body Arms” and “Seat Race.” Listen to it, folks. Weston has put together greatness and deserves far more recognition than he is being given.
The Novice could do worse than patterning itself after Whiplash, one of the best films of the last decade. What it lacks in originality and characterization it makes up for in execution, immersing the viewer in the insane obsessions of its lead character. Film has always been an empathetic medium and sometimes it’s a trip into the dark side of the human psyche. Why is Alex this way? It’s unknown. Will she ever break free from this toxic mentality? It’s unknown. Even the ending leaves you with enough ambiguity to wonder what Alex will do now. Is she fulfilled, has she had some important introspective breakthrough, or will she never be satisfied, always finding a new mountain to climb even as her body gets painted in bruises and scars? The Novice is an impressive film debut for Hadaway. It’s not the most in-depth movie from a substance standpoint, but the packaging, presentation, and style give it something extra special.
Nate’s Grade: B+
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