friendship – We Are Movie Geeks

SORRY, BABY – Review

*Eva Victor as Agnes, in writer/director Eva Victor’s indie drama/comedy SORRY, BABY. Courtesy of A24.*

Offbeat independent drama/comedy SORRY, BABY accomplishes a rare feat, combining a smart, witty yet touching drama about recovery from trauma with a surprising dark humor and social commentary, while also offering a portrait of the power of true friendship. SORRY, BABY is a different kind of story about pain and healing, a portrait of a quirky, appealing woman named Agnes, who seems fine at work but secretly is stuck still struggling with the pain of a traumatic experience from her graduate student days, while everyone else has moved on. Ultimately, Agnes finds a way towards healing, with the help of her best friend, the only person who really gets her.

Eva Victor directs, wrote and stars in SORRY, BABY, her directorial debut film, which opened at Sundance to critical acclaim. While it finds dark humor in unexpected situations, SORRY, BABY also a drama that always feels honest and real, in that odd, strange way real life sometimes is. That realism is part of the appeal of SORRY, BABY and its tale of pain and healing in real life, seen through a dark humor lens.

When we first meet her, Agnes (Eva Victor) is an English professor at a small New England college but she is still grappling emotionally with a traumatic event that happened when she was a graduate student, where she was a star pupil recognized as a gifted writer. With a quirky, quiet, easy-going personality, the professor is well-liked by both students and colleagues, (apart from one jealous one), but her calm, stoic surface conceals a pain that few know about. Everyone has moved on after her traumatic assault but it still haunts her. Only her best friend Lydie (Naomi Ackie), who shares her offbeat sense of humor, really gets Agnes, and understands the depth of her hidden trauma. A visit from Lydie helps Eva recognize how stuck she is, prompting her to move towards healing.

Director/writer/star Eva Victor structures this drama/dark comedy beautifully, starting midway in the story and then flashing back and forward in chapters. SORRY, BABY is divided into chapters and it told out of sequence but does not leave us confused by the end. Starting in the middle lets us see how stuck Agnes is, while life and everyone else has moved on from the trauma that still haunts her. Agnes conceals her pain from her students and colleagues, but it is expressed in odd ways, like using her graduate thesis to paper her windows in place of curtains. The story is told in little chapters with oddball titles, where flashbacks let us see the cause of her pain, and the flash forwards let us see her progress towards healing, as life inevitable moves forward. It is quite an impressive first film, polished, moving and appealing, and one of the year’s best so far.

One of the magical aspects of this film is how it can take a serious scene and wring unexpected comedy from it, while revealing and mocking the false concern and hurtful behavior underneath the surface. After Agnes’ traumatic experience, she meets with representatives of her college, who make all the right concerned noises, while dodging responsibility and doing nothing helpful. It is both strikingly pointed commentary and darkly funny, and not the only scene that fits that description.

Part of the key to that, and the success of the film as a whole, is the cast, particularly Eva Victor and Naomi Ackie. As Agnes and Lydie, the pair are very funny and very believable as best friends who share a weird sense of humor that can’t be suppressed. After Agnes experiences her traumatic event, Lydie is her ever-present support, always there but often with a joke as she staunchly stands up for her friend, when she can’t speak for herself. The scenes where Lydie defends her less-assertive friend Agnes are often laugh-out-loud funny, in situations that are anything but humorous, while the scenes also offer very pointed commentary on how victims of assault are treated by in cookie-cutter fashion by institutions that should be helping.

The cast is strong throughout this indie film, and those excellent performances help this offbeat drama/comedy win us over. Eva Victor gives a splendid nuanced performance, revealing Agnes’s hidden pain in unconventional way, while she maintains a stoic if pleasant face to the world. Only Lydie really sees what is going on, as Agnes struggles with the pain she is stuck in, and Naomi Ackie delivers a winning performance as Agnes’ bestie Lydie.

Other cast members also excel, with Louis Cancelmi, Kelly McCormack and Lucas Hedges in supporting roles, dramatic and comic. All turn in well-crafted performances that support the narrative well, in both its serious or lighter moments.

SORRY, BABY is an unexpected delight, one of the year’s best so far, a unique film that is appealing and moving, offering an different approach to healing after trauma, and a tribute to the power of friendship.

SORRY, BABY opens in theaters Friday, Aug. 1, 2025.

RATING: 4 out of 4 stars

THE FRIEND – Review

Bill Murray and Naomi Watts star as best friends in THE FRIEND, a comedy-drama about a friend leaving his beloved pet, a Great Dane named Apollo, to his best friend. The friend didn’t let the bestie know about this plan, leaving the friend both grieving and trying to find a place for a dog that is not allowed in her no-pets apartment.

There even seems some doubt about whether that was really ever said out loud. But it is what the friend’s second ex-wife, who has the dog now, tells her he wanted. Naomi Watts plays Iris, the friend who is left the dog when her best friend Walter (Bill Murray) suddenly dies.

This smart, human comedy/drama is set in New York among writers, academics and literary types but it finds common ground with anyone who has lost a friend and maybe had to address the question of what to do with a pet left behind.

Naomi Watts and Bill Murray gives excellent, warm and funny performances as these two friends. THE FRIEND is based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Sigrid Nunez. It is skillfully directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, who also adapted the novel for the screen. The film also has a wonderful role for Ann Dowd, who plays Iris’ neighbor and friend Marjorie.

The death happens fairly early in the film but we do get a strong sense of their lives and their friendship before that, through many flashbacks to fill out the details, plus a pivotal fantasy sequence where Iris talks to her dead friend Walter about the dog and his death.

Iris, who teaches writing at a college, has been friends with Walter ever since she took his writing class back in college days. Walter is a bon vivant and a writer, a literary figure holding forth at intellectual dinner parties with various tales, including a magical one about finding this beautiful black-and-white Great Dane alone in a park when Walter was out jogging. The dog is poised on the crest of a hill, a perfect picture and Walter just has to approach him. The dog is friendly but has no collar and no micro-chip to identify his owner. Walter takes him into hi brownstone home and names him Apollo. This tale comes out in bits and pieces, in repeated tellings throughout the film, just like some friends might repeat favorite stories that are meaningful in their lives.

Walter may be devoted to his dog but he’s had three wives and numerous girlfriends over the years. He can be entertaining and wonderful, but he can also be irritating, with a sharp tongue and a tendency to always put himself in the best light. In short, your typically flawed human being.

When Walter suddenly dies, Iris and his friends gather for his memorial. There is a bit of an undercurrent of resentment towards Walter but they are there anyway. At the memorial, Iris reconnects with Walter’s first wife, Elaine (Carla Gugino), who was a friend who had been in that same class where Iris first met Walter. Second wife Barbara (Noma Dumezweni) gives the eulogy, while the third and current wife, now widow, Tuesday (Constance Wu) quietly dabs tears off to one side, surrounded by those consoling her. Barbara asks Iris to call her next week, for something important about Walter

The something important turns out to be the dog, Apollo (who gets a credit, played by a dog named Bing). Iris doesn’t want a dog (she’s a cat person) and besides, pets are not allowed in her rent-controlled apartment. Nonetheless, she gives in and brings the giant dog home, with reassurances from Barbara about how well behaved and well trained he is.

It’s not true, of course, which she learns as soon as she smuggles the dog into her apartment, and even before, when the dog balks at getting into the building’s tiny elevator, forcing them to take the stairs.

Inheriting a Great Dane might be a problem for anyone but in New York City, with rent-controlled apartments with no pets allowed rules, it is even more challenging. What’s more, unlike many cities, New York isn’t very pet-friendly, especially for a Great Dane. This isn’t a purse-sized pooch you could just smuggle in somewhere.

On top of that, Iris is supposed to be working on a book about Walter, based on his letters, that her publisher is eager to get out quickly. Walter’s grown daughter Val (Sarah Pidgeon), whom he just met recently, is supposed to be helping but the young Val is not as reliable as she could be.

Struggling to get it all done, Iris sometimes finds herself taking Apollo along on her errands. She is pretty indignant about the no-animals policies she encounters, and routinely expects the guards and doormen charged with enforcing those rules to make an exception for her. She is a bit entitled, and not above violating the rules. Surprisingly, she generally get away with this behavior, sometimes even getting an apology for doormen or front desk security whose job it is to enforce the rule for doing their jobs, rather than calls to security or the police.

Over the course of the film, Iris tries to find a new home for Apollo but mostly looks at Great Dane-only rescues, even signing up for a waiting list for one in Michigan. She does not seem as serious about finding a home for Apollo as she claims, despite what she says and the challenges of keeping him. At the same time, Apollo is clearly depressed and grieving, and his grieving even interferes with Iris’s own grief over the loss of the friend she could talk to endlessly over anything.

As Iris goes through the motions for finding a new home for Apollo, and copes with her apartment’s super, Hektor’s (Felix Solis) repeated reminders that he cannot be there, we see flashbacks of her friendship with Walter.

There is a lot that is very New York and very literary in this film, which will appeal to those of us who love New York and all things books, but it may wear eventually on those who don’t share those sentiments. However, late in the film, there is a turn, as Iris hits a crisis point, after she gets an eviction notice. That turning point opens the story up into a more universal tale of friendship, loss, and grieving, as well as revealing details about Walter and his death.

Even if the New York or academic/literary starts to wear, know you will be rewarded if you wait for this last chapter. No spoilers, but the last part is worth it, as the film opens up into something more universally human experience, perhaps even profound and something we are all likely to experience in some fashion at some point in life.

THE FRIEND opens Friday, Apr. 4, nationwide and at St. Louis area theaters Ronnie’s 20, St. Charles 18, Arnold 14, Town Square 12, and B & B Wentzville Tower 12

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars

LOREN & ROSE – Review

Jacqueline Bisset in LOREN & ROSE. Courtesy of Amazon Prime

The elegant, fascinating Jacqueline Bisset stars in LOREN & ROSE, as an aging star interviewing with a young filmmaker named Loren (Kelly Blatz) for a role in the filmmaker’s first feature film, after his first film, a short, became a hit on the film festival circuit. Loren is a fan of Rose (Bisset) but is unsure if he should cast her as the lead in his new film. Over appetizers at her favorite restaurant, and waited on by her favorite waiter, Rose charms young director Loren, and starts them on the path to friendship.

Jacqueline Bisset was a superstar in the early ’70s, appearing in a string of high-profile hits, including the Steve McQueen hit BULLIT and Francois Truffaut’s DAY FOR NIGHT, and worked with directors including John Huston, Roman Polanski and George Cukor and starred with Paul Newman, Nick Nolte, Kenneth Branagh and Jean-Paul Belmondo. She seemed to be everywhere for a while. But it has been awhile since we have seen her on the big screen.

LOREN & ROSE takes place in little sequences, over three courses at different times at the same beloved restaurant. There is a touch of MY DINNER WITH ANDRE in their wide-ranging conversations over a meal but the three courses at three different visits also follow the evolution of the relationship between this still vibrate star and the somewhat timid young gay director. There is a framing devise, about an estranged daughter organizing an auction of the star’s possession in the future, after her mysterious disappearance.

There have been a spate of these films featuring beautiful and talented stars of the past. Bisset certainly fits that description but her on-screen presence is more powerful than others. Charming, warm. and bold, Bisset casts her spell over the audience as surely as she does over the young director, with her soft, faint British accent and sharp wit. Bisset has lost none of her charm and even retains much of her good looks along with a feline grace when she moves.

The sequences in the restaurant let her showcase her talent as an actor, often underused in her youth when audiences were dazzled by her beauty.

Like those other films, LOREN & ROSE is clearly intended as a showcase for Bisset’s still-considerable talents. There are some parallels in the story to Bisset’s own life and career but its not a biopic. The parallels allow Bisset to speak to some of that past but mostly it allows her to play a magical, irresistible character, going through a number of life changes.

LOREN & ROSE is a simple, low-budget production that exists largely as a showcase for Bisset but it certainly does deliver on that goal. Bisset is very much a winning acting force here, going through a range of emotions as the story about a friendship between star and director shifts in each single-course meal – appetizer, main course and dessert – vignettes to the next.

The plot is thin but it is a joy to watch Bisset work, and hopefully this film will lead to more chances to see her work. If there is one of these great stars of the past featured in recent film who deserves a second chance and a new chapter to their career, it is Jacqueline Bisset. Fingers crossed that we’ll see her again before long.

LOREN & ROSE is available streaming starting Tuesday, Jan. 28, on Amazon Prime.

RATING: 2.5 out of 4 stars

NICKEL BOYS – Review

Artist-turned-director RaMell Ross’ beautiful, innovative, and moving adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel NICKEL BOYS is an immersive, emotional experience that uses a POV camera to put you into the first-person experience of two young Black boys, Elwood and Turner, and the bonds of friendship that grow between them after they meet at a Jim Crow-era reform school in Florida, a brutal place known as the Nickel Academy.

Although this is RaMell Ross’ first film, the artist’s directorial debut is strong, showing an unexpected mastery of cinematic art. NICKEL BOYS is a remarkable film, a moving human drama about childhood friendship in the Jim Crow South between two very different Black boys who nonetheless form a powerful bond. Scenes have a painterly beauty, unsurprisingly for this artist-turned-director, but Ross shows a firm hand in editing and pacing the film, rather than just indulging in visual beauty. The result is something magical, a dream-like experience of childhood friendship but set, with unblinking truth, in the horror of a Jim Crow reform school in the Deep South, as the early Civil Rights era dawns.

This first person POV approach seems a strange at first, as we never see our main character except in occasional reflections, but the technique creates a uniquely immersive feeling. The film stays with this technique throughout, although it switches the viewpoint to the other boy part way through, after the boys meet. The film repeats scenes just seen from one boy’s point-of-view, to show them from the other boy’s view, which creates insights and draws us even deeper into their world.

After a brief framing device scene with one of the now-grown boys, although we don’t know which one, the story begins with the childhood experience of Elwood Curtis, following him from early childhood. After the opening scene, the film truly begins its story with glimpses, through infant eyes, of Elwood Curtis’ earliest memories. The unusual childhood first-person point-of-view technique recalls the early scenes of TREE OF LIFE with the same magical feeling of the early life memories re-experienced. Set in Florida before the pre-Civil Rights era, we see events through child’s eyes, with fleeting glimpses of babyhood memories of parents, who quickly disappear and are replaced by scenes of loving care by his grandmother Hattie (a wonderful Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor ), who raised him. Young Elwood (Ethan Cole Sharp ) is a sweet, well-behaved and smart child who does well in school, and Hattie creates a warm, stable home for him, although they have little money. A teacher recognizes Elwood’s potential, and recommends him for a scholarship to a technical college. On a two-lane rural road has Elwood makes his way to the new school, something terrible happens. Through one youthful misstep, Elwood is sent to a harsh reform school in the Jim Crow Deep South, the Nickel Academy.

Director Ross makes the switch after the boys meet at the Nickel Academy. In a masterful stroke of cinematic technique, part of that experience at Nickel is told from the viewpoint of one boy, but it then spun around and retold from the viewpoint of the other boy. It is an emotionally powerful move, as well as a visually beautiful one, that brings us deeper into this close friendship and the inner lives of both boys.

When Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson) meet at Nickel, they couldn’t seem more different. Elwood is shy, bookish, and a bit sheltered, raised in a warm. supportive, stable home by his protective grandmother, while Turner is street-wise, toughed a bit by a hard-knock life, and poorly-educated. Yet the two boys find a common bond, with Turner drawn to Elwood’s knowledge, his very different loving family upbringing, and especially his stubborn refusal to yield his humanity and decency in this dark place despite it’s brutality. Elwood relies on Turner’s street-wise ways to help him survive and navigate the very unfamiliar waters of reform school life. The boys help each other, teach each other, and develop an unbreakable friendship.

The Nickel Academy houses both Black and white boys, but in separate and very different facilities, with very different treatment. The story takes place in the Jim Crow South but it is also against the backdrop of the dawning of the Civil Rights era.

Young Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson as Elwood and Turner, respectively, are excellent in their roles. But a standout performance is Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, in her supporting role as Elwood’s grandmother Hattie. As Hattie, she is Elwood’s rock and his only adult advocate in this harsh world. Although the reform school does its best to exclude her and keep her away from Elwood, she will not be deterred, in her relentless efforts to reach and help her beloved Elwood.

The photography is outstanding, making the most ordinary settings glow with unseen beauty. The editing and pacing is perfect, keeping the story moving but giving the actors the space to do their work and do it well.

The immersive period drama NICKEL BOYS is one of human warmth, heartbreaking and ultimately hope, with moving portraits of friendship and familial love that transcends time or place, while offering social commentary on a pivotal point in history. The story’s end has its shocks but it ends on a note of hope and healing for the future.

NICKEL BOYS opens Friday, Jan. 17, in theaters.

RATING: 4 out of 4 stars

AMERICA – Review

*(L-R) Yotam (Ofri Biterman), Iris (Oshrat Ingedashet) and Eli (Michael Moshonov) in AMERICA. Photo credit: Beta Cinema. Courtesy of Menemsha Films*

AMERICA, despite the title, is not set in the U.S. nor is it about America, Instead, it is a deeply human, moving, emotionally complex, intelligent Israeli drama an Israeli man who has lived in America for decades but returns after the death of his long-estranged father, to deal with the estate, and reconnects with some people from his past. Human relationships, and a different take on a love triangle, as the center of the fine drama/romance AMERICA, from the director of the international hit THE CAKEMAKER. Israeli writer/director Ofir Raul Graizer helmed both that excellent German drama and this new this Hebrew-language drama/romance, which feels like a kind of sequel in its similar emotional, poignant style.

AMERICA centers on an Israeli-born man, Eli (Michael Moshonov), who has lived in Chicago for ten years, since leaving Israel as a teenager. A one-time swimming champion, Eli now has made a life for himself in America as a swimming instructor, with no intention to even return to Israel, even changing his name to leave his past behind, But Eli is reluctantly compelled to return to Israel, in order to sort out the estate of his late father, from whom he was long estranged. The swimmer only intends to stay long enough to sell his father’s house in Tel Aviv and therefore settle the estate.

At his old house, Eli runs into an old neighbor by chance, Moti (Moni Moshonov), who is very glad to see him. The swimming instruction is pleased as well to see Moti, who was kind and even a kind of father-figure to Eli as a boy after his mother died and the boy struggled in his difficult relationship with his police chief father. The chance meeting leads Eli to reconnect with Moti’s son Yotam (Ofri Biterman), a childhood friend who shared his love of swimming, and to meet his friend’s fiancee, Iris (Oshrat Ingedashet), who has a flower shop in Jaffa which she runs with Yotam. Yotam no longer swims but helps Iris run her flower shop. Iris is estranged from her strict Moroccan family, much like Eli is estranged from his.

We catch a frisson of attraction between Eli and Iris but of course neither acts on it because of Yotam. A tragic accident changes everybody’s plans, creating a complicated situation for everyone.

Director Graizer uses beautiful, evocative locations and settings to deepen scenes and add to character. The flower shop that Iris runs is crowded with colorful blooms and green foliage, offering a lush, even sensual, setting around which much of the drama unfolds. It seems to symbolize life, and the setting particularly wrapping Iris in beauty and vibrant life. In one scene, the old friends drive out to remote location, a favorite swimming hole of their youth, and take a long trek through difficult, dry terrain to arrive at a beautiful waterfall and idyllic pool of water beneath it.

Like THE CAKEMAKER, the story is layered with details that gives it the feel of reality, and the people in it are complex in the way real people are. That depth of detail and layered character makes the film intriguing as well as unpredictable. We can guess some things that happen but we never know when some new twist, some surprise – good or bad – is lurking around the next corner. The sense of reality unfolding gives the film a kind of tension but also makes the characters wholly believable. We can’t resist being drawn into the lives of these interesting people.

The fine script is further boosted by an excellent cast, who create people we like, even if we don’t understand everything about them. As the story unfolds, dilemmas arise and complex ethical choices face them. The characters are forced to make choices, where the right path isn’t always clear.

This excellent drama is a follow-up, in a way, to the director’s previous one, THE CAKE MAKER, a hit film that also had complicated people in complicated situations with a romantic theme, but people we pull for. The script in both these films is superb, as is the work of the cast. This is the kind of intelligent, human storytelling fans of serious drama long for, yet AMERICA, like its predecessor, also delivers as an entertaining film.

AMERICA opened Friday, July 4, in select theaters and expands to additional cities on Friday, August 2.

RATING: 4 out of 4 stars

WE GROWN NOW – Review

In a touching portrait of childhood friendship, the child-focused WE GROWN NOW captures the magic and innocence of childhood, even one where the two inseparable friends, elementary-school age boys, are growing up in poverty in a housing project that later became infamous for violence and a symbol of urban decay, Chicago’s Cabrini-Green. But in the early 1990s, when this story is set, all that is still in the future although very much on the horizon. Like FLORIDA PROJECT, the story is told from a child point-of-view, as the boys play and explore their world with all the joy and curiosity of childhood.

The real appeal of this moving drama is in performances of the two young actors playing these friends, performances filled with believability and an inescapable appeal and charm. The story is largely told through their eyes, with childhood’s limited view of the world. Their housing complex is falling into physical decay yet the playground is still joyous and filled with children, and the boys are embraced by their loving, stable families, albeit financially-struggling ones.

Malik (Blake Cameron James) and Eric (Gian Knight Ramirez) are inseparable life-long friends, who are next-door neighbors in the Cabrini-Green housing project. The housing complex is filled with families, and many of the parents, like Malik’s mother Dolores (Jurnee Smollett) have grown up there, raised by her mother Anita (S. Epatha Merkerson) who moved to the then-new housing with her husband and daughter, fleeing the Jim Crow South with the Great Migration.

Although the buildings are falling into disrepair, with trash in hallways, a leaking faucet in their apartment that has gone un-repaired despite months of calls to maintenance, and empty apartments, there is family history there.

In an opening scene, the boys take an abandoned mattress from one such apartment, not to sleep on, but to use on the playground to practice their jumping. Another pair of abandoned mattresses in an empty apartment becomes a place for the boys to dream about the world, talk about the future, and imagine a starry sky overhead.

In fact, the boys’ apartments are neat, clean and well-kept homes. Both boys are being raised by single parents who work hard at low-paid jobs. Eric is being raised by his widower father along with his older sister while is being raised by his mother and grandmother. The stable, loving families, and the boys’ parents view of the housing complex as safe and familiar, allows the boys the freedom to play and roam with other children carefree. They attend the local school with other neighborhood children, another orderly, safe place, where they study and share.

Scenes in the playground, surrounded by children jumping rope and engaged in games, and classroom scenes, provide the setting for the boys’ conversations, which are remarkable in their naturalness and childhood charm. There are adventures too, one when they skip school to ride the train into the city and spend the day to the Art Institute and exploring other Chicago sites. Their carefree comfort with exploring their world echoes universal childhood impulses.

Director Minhal Baig grew up in Chicago although in a more prosperous neighborhood area than that of Cabrini-Green but she researched Cabrini Green and its history, and also interviewed people who lived there to build a more human, fuller picture of living there. Baig recalled her childhood view of her city being limited to the parts of it she experienced, from her neighborhood to downtown, and that same sense of childhood’s limited view suffuses WE GROWN NOW, which also reflects how young children like these two boys are largely at the mercy of the decisions of adults in their lives. This story is set at a time of change for Cabrini Green, as it falls into disrepair and the neighborhood around it becomes more dangerous and violent. WE GROWN NOW uses the parents’ personal stories to recap the history of the place, a housing project originally built for war veterans but which by the early 1990s was falling into disrepair, and eventually became a watch-word for urban decay by the time the last buildings were brought down in about 2011. The boys’ story is set at a time when as the neighborhood is changing, as the boys themselves are growing and changing, although they actually are far from grown by the film’s ends, just at a transition point that will impact their lives.

Director Baig incorporates a real event in 1992 in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood into this story, the death of a boy accidentally killed by a stray bullet while walking down the street. The event plays a role as a pivotal point in the film, with the boys attending the child’s funeral and then discussing life, death and wondering if there is an afterlife. Meanwhile, the sudden random act of violence jolts their parents, changing the adults’ view of a neighborhood they had thought of as safe, in which their children could be free to roam.

The sudden violence is combined with other changes that further alarm their parents. The housing complex becomes the focus of police, in the grip of the War On Drugs, who rouse all residents at 2am for complex-wide warrant-less searches for drugs, leaving apartments in disarray. There are new rules, along with new mandatory ID for residents, even small children, and intrusive security restrictions. The changing environment, and opportunity for a promotion, prompts hard decisions that threaten to separate the inseparable boys.

The focus on the two young friends, and their child-view world, makes this drama both magical and heartbreaking, as the world shifts around them. The young actors are so good in this film, and their believable bond so strong and so moving, that it gives the story about a specific place and time both a timelessness and universality, and a powerful emotional pull. As the film notes at its end, a place is really made of its people, and our memories of them.

WE GROWN NOW opens Friday, Apr. 26, in theaters.

RATING: 3.5 out of 4 stars

JULES – Review

*(L-R) Jane Curtin as Joyce, Harriet Harris as Sandy, Ben Kingsley as Milton and Jade Quon as Jules, in JULES. Courtesy of Bleecker Street*

A reclusive older man (Ben Kingsley), who has built his small-town daily routine around complaints about pedestrian safety at the town council meetings, has his routine upended when a flying saucer lands in his backyard, in director Marc Turtletaub’s dramedy JULES. Although sci fi is part of the premise, the real focus and strength of this whimsical, warm comedy JULES is an exploration of friendship in late life and aging generally, and the fine acting ensemble of Kingsley, Harriet Sansom Harris and Jane Curtin.

Milton (Kingsley) is more upset that the flying saucer took out his flower garden than he is surprised to find a spaceship in his backyard. With get-off-my-grass outrage, he calls the authorities to report the spaceship but gets the real world response you would expect: disbelief. They think the old guy is losing it. The thing is that is a kind of true, as Milton has been having memory problems, doing things like leaving his keys in the fridge, troubles he is hoping to conceal from his concerned daughter Denise (Zoë Winters).

Shortly after the flying saucer trashed the flowers, Milton is shocked to find an ailing alien (Jade Quon, made up like the usual Area 51 denizen) slumped on his patio. Moved by the alien’s pitiful, pleading gaze, Milton brings him/her/it inside, wrapping the creature in a blanket and setting the visitor on the couch. Milton offers his strange guest a plate with a selection of finger foods like cheese and crackers but the only things the visitor eats are the apple slices.

The creature doesn’t speak but seems very gentle, intuitive and cooperative – and a really good listener. Soon, Milton has a new routine, caring for the creature and then sitting on the couch, watching TV and chatting. He names the visitor Jules.

When Milton becomes even more reclusive than usual and starts buying lots of apples, it sparks the interest of two other seniors, also regular speakers at the city council meetings, Sandy (a wonderful Harriet Sansom Harris) and Joyce (Jane Curtin). Sandy decides to pay Milton a call, and is taken aback at seeing Jules. But she relaxes when Milton assures her the space visitor is harmless, even friendly. Not long after, Joyce, consumed by curiosity, also turns up at Milton’s door. Soon the threesome are inseparable – make that four.

Harriet Sansom Harris might not be a familiar name but you’ll likely recognize her face, and this role gives this talented actor a chance to shine. Director Marc Turtletaub (LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, THE FAREWELL), gives Harris a plum part, as her character is the key to drawing out the reserved Milton, as the three humans form friendships and bond with the mute but attentive and intuitive alien played by Jade Quon. Quon does a fine job in the part despite the challenge of playing a character with a mostly frozen face who is unable to speak.

Along with a message of the value of being a good listener and being open to someone from somewhere else, this well-meaning dramedy explores issues of social isolation and friendship in late life with humor and heart. It is just set within a sci-fi-fantasy tale about an off-world stranger who knows how to listen.

One reason Milton doesn’t talk about the alien in the room is that he is covering his memory problems, particularly around his caring daughter. He worries about being forced out of his nice home into a retirement community or assisted living. Rather than risk calling attention to his memory problems, Milton just stops talking about the flying saucer that ruined his garden and starts spending more time with the wounded alien that crawled out of it and curled up on his patio. When Sandy and Joyce join him, helping Jules becomes everyone’s project, as they share their feelings and inner thoughts.

The acting is very good and the ensemble scenes with Kingsley, Harris and Curtin are often hilarious, and definitely highlights. The bits between Kingsley’s Milton and Jade Quon’s mute space visitor are touching.

With a brisk 87 minute running time, the story is certainly creative but the movie is best when it is about relationships. Eventually, the outer space visitor Jules feels well enough to start repairs on the spaceship but the sci-fi story becomes increasingly wonky and improbable as it unfolds, particularly after feds looking for the spaceship show up. There is a weird bit of ick factor in the solution to fixing the ship, especially for pet owners. In contrast, the funny, warm and believable interpersonal interactions between the characters, and the way it touches on issues of social isolation and worries of aging is always strong, authentic and touching.

JULES is at its best when focused on interpersonal interactions, with the two women, the mute alien and with his daughter. Where the film falls short is in the sci-fi tale part, which doesn’t make entire sense and has a bit of business that pet owners are likely to find off-putting.

JULES opens Friday, August 11, at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Cinema and in other theaters nationally.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars

TIGER WITHIN – Review

*Margot Josefsohn as Casey and Ed Asner as Samuel, in TIGER WITHIN. Photo Courtesy of Menemsha Films*

In TIGER WITHIN, a Holocaust survivor (Ed Asner, in his final role) befriends a homeless teen (Margot Josefsohn) in Los Angeles in what might be the ’90s. Directed by Rafal Zielinski and written by Gina Wendkos, TIGER WITHIN is a well-intentioned film, touching on antisemitism, hatred, fear, and prejudices, and highlighting the power of forgiveness and kindness.

Those good intentions, plus Ed Asner in his last big screen role, has earned TIGER WITHIN a place in several Jewish film festivals. All that is in its favor but this rambling coming-of-age film is an up-and-down experience, a film that does not always know how best to convey its message and which it sometimes does awkwardly. At times, there is a feeling that the film is not well thought-out or focused, and there are other moments that are simply awkward, even a bit squirm-inducing. Yet, the film is often rescued by fine performances by Ed Asner and young Margot Josefsohn as the homeless girl, either in their own scenes or together. There are also moments of touching humanity, some surprisingly powerful, and the teen character at the center of the story in particular has the feel of a lived experience.

The story begins “somewhere in Ohio and sometime ago” (as the on-screen titles tell us), where Casey Miller (Margot Josefsohn) is a blonde-haired teenage girl who wears heavy makeup on her large blue eyes and dresses in punk/goth style black. Casey has bounced around to various schools as her single mother has struggled to get by, and Casey feels she has to fight to defend herself against everyone. Despite her hit-first defense strategy, we sense her vulnerability, her fear, and her loneliness.

The film illustrates Casey’s inner feelings, with little doodles, presumably hers, in the margins of the screen, and sometimes covering the whole image. The illustrations are one of the film’s more effective devices, both reminding us this is a very young person and giving us insights into the inner life she hides from the world, more effectively that voice-over or dialog might have done.

On her first day at her new school, Casey is passed a note from a boy bearing a rude, suggestive message, and she reacts angrily with a string of expletives. But it is Casey, not the boy, who goes to the principal’s office, where the principal comments on her history of rebellion as he pages through her thick file. No new start here.

Later at a party, Casey dances and a skin-head boy tags her black leather jacket with a swastika. She yells at him, but he assures her it means nothing, an explanation she seems to accept – shockingly.

At home, Casey and her mother clash over school. While her mother seems to care about her daughter, she has a history of not paying close attention to what Casey does at school or even if she actually goes. Angry Casey accuses her mother of caring more about her latest, and abusive, boyfriend, who is pressuring her mother to kick the girl out. Mom decides to send Casey to her father in California, a man who she has little contact with and who now has a wife and two daughters.

At the L.A. train station, Casey keeps out of sight when her father and family first arrive, and listens as the wife, who is not thrilled to take on this rebellious girl, complaining about her. Discouraged, the teen decides she is better off on the street, with the meager funds her mother gave her for the trip. As evening approaches, she hides in a cemetery – a Jewish one as it happens. It is there that elderly Samuel (Ed Asner) finds the girl in the jacket with a swastika, curled up asleep on a grave, when he comes to the cemetery for his daily visit to his wife’s grave. Why would he befriend such a girl? That we will find out.

Naturally, Casey is suspicious of Samuel and his motives but accepts his offer of a meal and then a shower, and after several missteps, his friendship. Samuel is endlessly patient, telling her about his life, his experience surviving the Holocaust, of his lost daughters and his late wife. Gently he answers her questions, consistently demonstrates kindness, and defends and helps her when she needs it.

We don’t know how old Casey is, and her hard manner and curse-laced speech suggests someone older but as the film progresses, we begin to suspect Casey is much younger than we assumed at first. That subtle shift comes along with the budding friendship, and her growing affection for the grandfatherly Samuel.

While the dialog is sometimes awkward, and some scenes are clumsy and heavy-handed in how they deal with the film’s messages, particularly antisemitism, those missteps are often redeemed by the performances of both Ed Asner and Margot Josefsohn. Their performances are alive with human warmth, and convincing connections. There are some scene that have the potential to go very wrong – as the only work the underage Casey can find, in those moments when she takes off on her own, is in a massage parlor, when she steadfastly refuses to provide any service except with her hand. A delicate approach is required but Canadian-born director Rafal Zielinski, who is Polish-Jewish and grew up in various countries, keeps things on the right path, although at times the script takes things close to an uncomfortable edge.

Samuel is a man with a sense of humor as well as justice, and Ed Asner does a nice job as crafting the character. He seems to endless patience for a teen who is very trying at first, even elusive but whom he comes to view as a surrogate granddaughter, while she grows emotionally under his unwavering emotional support. The more Asner’s Samuel pours unconditional positive regard and gentle encouragement towards the right path, the more Casey relaxes and transforms into who she really can be. He encourages her to find her true self, her tiger within.

While Samuel is Casey’s emotional rock, Asner looks very frail at times. It works for the character, but it also tugs at our heartstrings to watch him at times. The scenes with both Asner and Josefsohn as Casey are so good. due both to Asner’s skill but also to the actors’ chemistry with Margot Josefsohn, who may be an emerging talent. Hopefully she will go on to bigger things after this role, despite the film’s shortcomings.

THE TIGER WITHIN’s chief merit is its good intentions and the performances of Ed Asner and young Margot Josefsohn. While it is far from a perfect film, it’s message of hope, forgiveness and kindness, paired with those nice performances, make this sincerely well-meant little film worthwhile for the right audience.

TIGER WITHIN opens in select theaters and video-on-demand on multiple platforms on Friday, July 7.

RATING: 2.5 out of 4 stars

LANGUAGE LESSONS – Review

A surprise gift of Spanish lessons via Zoom launches the funny, charming, and touching LANGUAGE LESSONS, a comedy drama that soars on the magical performances of its two actors, Mark Duplass and Natalie Morales. Duplass and Morales co-wrote the script and Morales directed this surprising charmer where the characters only even interact on Zoom yet develop a strong bond of friendship. Duplass and Morales build such well-drawn, appealing characters, and the script is so steeped in humor and well written that, despite the Zoom call format and two languages, we can’t help but be drawn in, laugh delightedly, and then have our heartstrings tugged.

In this clever film, the two characters, who live in different countries, develop a friendship while only communicating via Zoom. LANGUAGE LESSONS begins with a surprise, when Spanish teacher Carino (Natalie Morales) contacts her newest student Adam (Mark Duplass) by Zoom to start his first lesson, only to find him barely awake, sipping his first cup of coffee and completely unaware that his husband Will (Desean Terry) has bought him Spanish lessons as birthday present. Two years of weekly lessons. Playful Will also failed to let the Spanish teacher, Carino, know it was a surprise, and he giggles joyously off screen at both the flustered student and teacher. Despite the rough start and Adam’s doubts about fitting weekly lessons into his rigidly-set morning routine, teacher and student agree to begin the next week.

Adam and Carino have very different lives – she’s a financial-struggling divorced woman in Costa Rica and he’s an affluent, married gay man in Oakland, California – yet they quickly hit it off. But when tragedy strikes, an unexpected bond is formed between them.

The pandemic created big challenges for filmmakers, and this is not the first pandemic-made film to incorporate Zoom. If you had too much Zoom already during the past year, your first impulse might be to run screaming from the room at such a prospect, but then you would miss out on a fast, smart, sparkling comedy, with two outstanding on-their-toes performers who generate a terrific chemistry on screen. This is the best use of Zoom in a film I’ve seen so far in a pandemic-made film. And the pandemic isn’t even part of the story, which takes place in some near contemporary but pre-pandemic time.

There is something refreshing about that too. You might think a movie where the characters only appear together with separate screens and speak a mix of Spanish and English would be challenging to watch. Far from it, LANGUAGE LESSONS is sparkling and smooth as glass, immediately launching into funny with rapid-fire dialog and Morales’ and Duplass’ mix of awkwardness and warmth.

LANGUAGE LESSONS isn’t a romantic comedy, as it is about a platonic friendship between a gay man and a straight woman, but it has many of the same beats as romantic comedy. Early on, tragedy strikes one of the pair, but as that character works through that experience, both the kindness of the other and their shared sense of the off-beat leads to both healing and humor.

The pair quickly discover that they share a playful sense of humor but have very different lives. He lives a comfortable affluent life of leisure in a gorgeous house with a large pool in Oakland, with his successful husband, who runs a dance troupe. She is far less affluent, struggling to make a living giving Spanish lessons on Zoom and teaching English at home in Costa Rica. He once spoke Spanish long ago, grew up poor, and traveled around before meeting his husband. She is divorced, also traveled, and once lived in the U.S. and is fully bilingual.

Morales proves to have the right touch as a director on this project. It feels like she and Duplass are having the best time, with the freedom and time to fully explore their characters and the growing friendship, and to play off each other, which is fun for the audience too.

Despite the restrictive format, the film never feels confined because there is so much going on with the actors. It is not visually static. as screens alternate between side by side and minimized, the characters move around their space in a natural way, and they take turns dominating the conversation. The lessons are practicing Spanish conversation, which also feels natural as they get to know each other, and the conversation is sprinkled with playful word gaffes, some slightly risque. He is the more talkative, outgoing character and she is more reserved, but her sharp mind and their shared sense of humor means they are evenly matched.

It feels a bit like listening in on two friends in a very lively, funny, interesting conversation. As story darkens and the relationship deepens between them, we are completely drawn in and our hearts can’t help but be touched by their experiences.

LANGUAGE LESSONS opens Friday, Sept. 10, at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac and select theaters nationally.

RATING: 3.5 out of 4 stars

FIRST COW – Review

*Orion Lee (left) as “King-Lu” and John Magaro (right) as “Cookie” in director Kelly Reichardt’s FIRST COW, released by A24 Films. Credit : Allyson Riggs / A24 Films*

Kelly Reichardt’s FIRST COW offers a tale of friendship and American dreams, set in a hardscrabble frontier outpost in early 19th century Oregon territory, place that is less a community than a microcosm of the flaws of capitalism carved out of a green, lush wilderness. Two friends, a quiet, gentle baker known as Cookie (John Magaro) and a talkative, ambitious Chinese immigrant named King-Lu (Orion Lee) hatch a scheme to sell baked goods made with milk pilfered from the area’s first and only cow, the property of the wealthy local bigwig, known as Chief Factor (an excellent Toby Jones), who rules the outpost like the British lord he fancies himself.

There is, of course, a cow, a beautiful brown pedigreed milk cow, the first cow in the territory reportedly but certainly the first at the outpost. Chief Factor intended to bring the cow, a bull and a calf from San Francisco but only the cow survived the trip. Reichardt shows the arrival of the cow in glowing light, as if it is a magical creature.

FIRST COW is a most engaging film, one that often feels like a fairy tale as it unfolds it’s simple tale but a film that deepens as it unfolds, thanks in large part to the wonderful performances by John Magaro and Orion Lee as the two friends at the center of the tale. The drama was set to debut in theaters in March, and had opened in some already, just as the coronavirus pandemic shut theaters down. Still, the film was already garnering awards buzz, and it is now getting a release on video-on-demand starting July 10.

Reichardt’s languid, contemplative, unconventional Western opens with a quote from William Blake, “the bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship,” and explores the bonds of friendship, the power of dreams and ambitions, and the flaws in the foundational American myths of capitalism. The film weaves its simple but irresistible tale around dual themes: male friendship and economics, creating an unforgettable tapestry .

Reichardt makes her points about economics subtly and indirectly, presenting the situation and leaving us to draw our own conclusions. She is more direct in painting the portrait of friendship, male bonding in particular, leaving the two leads to create a human warmth between these two appealing characters.

Kelly Reichardt is a master of indie film-making, but this is perhaps her most accessible and story-driven film. There are a number of parallels to her other films here, including an intimate focus, the Oregon setting, and a languid pace. Reichardt co-wrote the script with Jon Raymond, adapted from his novel “Half-Life.” The William Blake quote (which also opens the novel) brings to mind another quirky indie Western, Jim Jarmusch’s DEAD MAN (and in fact Gary Farmer has a small role in this film) but mostly there are numerous overlaps with Reichardt’s other films, such as CERTAIN WOMEN, WENDY AND LUCY, and the Western MEEKS CUTOFF.

The tale of friendship and life struggle strikes a special, deep chord. The film opens in the present, with a woman (Alia Shawkat) and her dog wandering across a partly wooded landscape, until the dog finds something: two human skeletons shallowly buried side-by-side. The film then shifts to the past, leaving us puzzled, although the meaning is made clear at the end of the film.

In the wild frontier of 1820s Oregon Territory, a man called Cookie Figowitz (John Magaro) is working for a rough crew of fur-trappers. The meat-hungry trappers are less impressed by Cookie’s considerable skills as a cook and baker than angry about his less-impressive skills as a hunter. A quiet, gentle soul, Cookie is happiest foraging alone in the forest for mushrooms and berries in the forest, where one day he comes across a naked man hiding under a bush. The naked man tells him he is being pursued but a group of Russians, and kind-hearted Cookie takes him in, feeding him and giving him shelter. It turns out that the man is not Native American as Cookie first assumed but a multi-lingual, well-educated Chinese immigrant adventurer named King-Lu (Orion Lee), seeking his fortune in the new territory. The two part ways but a a friendship is already taking root.

When the two meet again at the frontier trading post, their situation is reversed, and it is Cookie who is in dire straits after the fur-trappers fired him. It is King-Lu’s turn to offer Cookie food and shelter, in the form of an abandoned shack King-Lu is living in outside town. Spending time together, the friendship kindles and they share their stories and their dreams. Talkative King-Lu is ambitious, dreaming of striking it rich, while mild-mannered Cookie’s dreams are more modest, mostly a bakery where he can practice the trade he loves. King-Lu also has a bit of larceny in him, so when he learns about Cookie’s skill with baking, he hatches a plan to make money with that talent. All they need do is steal milk from that precious cow.

This is no small task as the cow is the closely-guarded prized possession of the town’s wealthy ruling power, a harsh man known as Chief Factor (Toby Jones), but they come up with a plan. Soon they are selling what they call “oily cakes,” a donut-like fritter that Cookie makes with the pilfered milk, served with a little wild honey. The treats are a huge hit, selling out daily and pressing the friends to make more.

When a dignitary known as the Captain (Scott Shepard) plans to visit, Chief Factor is desperate to impress him with his taste and sophistication, and instructs the baker to create a particularly delicate pastry as a show piece, putting the friends uncomfortably close to his scrutiny.

Yes, there is a comic element to this scheme but there is an ominous feeling as well as we also know this can’t last. However, mostly this is a quiet, thoughtful drama about personal individual struggles as well as a portrait of male friendship. and a study of the rhythms of daily life in this frontier town. Like other Reichert’s films, it has a languid pace, an intimate personal focus, and invites leaning-in, rather than the wide-open spaces and myth making of the typical Western.

The visual aspect is striking, with scenes tightly framed and a focus on small details, often of the natural world around them, rather than the usual grand vistas of Westerns. The images are often quite beautiful, skillfully shot by cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt.

The key to the film is the friendship at its heart. There is enormous charm in both of the characters and feeling of authenticity and human warmth in their unlikely friendship. As they spend time together, they share bits of their personal history, although Cookie is more forthcoming than King-Lu. Cookie was orphaned when his father died, after a life traveling around, but found a sense of home with the baker to whom he was apprenticed. We learn less about brainy, resourceful King-Lu, mostly that he ran away from home when he was young, but there are intriguing hints, like his obvious education. Yet there is his telling comment when he hears about the milk cow’s pedigree, that she has an even more illustrious family history than his own.

Both friends see the danger in what they are doing but deciding when to get out is hard – the temptation of “one more time” is powerful. King-Lu pushes to keep going a little longer, despite Cookie’s fears. King-Lu is burn with ambition, seeing great possibility in the wide-open new world and dreaming of setting himself up in San Francisco to pursue great wealth. The more cautious Cookie just wants a comfortable home, a life where he can practice his love of baking, and he sees the risk more clearly. The dynamic of their differing personalities and the bond of friendship that ties them keeps us involved.

The acting is superb, with Lee and Magaro working brilliantly together and crafting wonderful, memorable, layered characters. In fact the film is filled with remarkable, often odd and other fine performances here too. Toby Jones is powerful as Chief Factor, a brutal man who both egotisitcal and insecure. He resents being on the frontier, wrapping himself in what luxuries he can and acting like a feudal lord of a manor. He treats others callously and disdains the struggling residents of the town he rules. Rene Auberjonois, in his last role, plays the unsmiling, hawk-eyed unnamed man with a crow, charged with guarding the precious cow. Gary Farmer plays a local Native American leader whose wife, played by Sabrina Mary Morrison, serves as his translator. Her translation is sometimes comic but the characters serve to draw attention to the increasing marginalization of the Native peoples and other references to racism at the outpost. Reichert incorporates these details but never comments on them pointedly.

FIRST COW is an affecting, thoughtful bittersweet tale that warm us with its contemplative portrait of friendship while it chills us with its economic brutality. It is hard to describe but it has a hauntingly wonder to it that lingers, as does the haunting memory of its remarkable characters and their timeless human bond. FIRST COW is available on demand on various platforms starting July 10.

RATING: 4 out of 4 stars

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