A scene from the Korean steamy suspense drama HIDDEN FACE. Courtesy of Well Go USA
The subtitled Korean export HIDDEN FACE is marketed as a suspense tale, but it’s a just-shy-of-soft-core drama about a romantic triangle that takes a few bizarre turns among a very attractive cast. Song Seung-heon plays the new conductor of a prestigious symphony orchestra, who landed his plum gig largely because he married the rich-bitch daughter (Cho Yeo-jeong) of a strutting soap opera star (Park Ji-young, looking alarmingly like Eddie Izzard in drag mode) who fancies herself the star of every scenario, on or off-camera… and convinces others to bend to her will. She provides the elegant apartment in which the newlyweds reside, as well as being the orchestra’s main benefactor. Mega-clout all around, wielded shamelessly by a mega-Karen.
The wife’s bestie and fellow cellist (Park Ji-hyun) have a chat in which the former pouts that she’s not getting enough attention from her stony-faced hubby and decides to disappear, leaving an unlikely suicide note behind. That opens up two spots for the bestie – a chair in the orchestra, and a horizontal one in the marital bed. With that almost Hitchcockian setup, we initially wonder how she vanished – is she dead, or just testing how much people will miss the preening Princess? Then the plot veers sharply into DePalma territory once we learn where she went and how she got there. The steamy bits come from several trysts with surprisingly generous displays of nudity for an East Asian production. Those scenes are beautifully staged and scored, both artistically and erotically.
The reveals are rather over-the-top, but the female performances and gorgeous sets are so compelling that one may not care about the logic or logistics of it all; or the fact that the male lead is a virtually blank slate, readily manipulated by the latest woman to pull his chain (or other appendage). The script is adapted from a 2011 Spanish film, THE HIDDEN FACE, which I haven’t seen. But some descriptions indicate it’s even more lurid. Time to start looking for that guilty pleasure, too.
Regular readers know how many Korean action flicks I’ve praised in the past few years. This tossed salad of psychological issues and titillation makes me think I should expand my genre repertoire.
HIDDEN FACE, in Korean with English subtitles, debuts on digital formats from Well Go USA as of Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025.
Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie in BIG BOLD BEAUTIFUL JOURNEY. Courtesy of Sony
BIG BOLD BEAUTIFUL JOURNEY, from AFTER YANG director Kogonada, has two beautiful people, played by Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell, who meet at a wedding and then find themselves on an inexplicable, fantasy journey that leads through childhood memories and might lead to love. Big certainly describes the budget and high-quality production values for this romantic fantasy, and beautiful certainly describes the lush photography, scenery and colorful costumes but bold is another matter when it comes to the story itself. While there will be audiences who fall for this romance, for this reviewer, and many others, the title should have been more like “Big Boring Beautiful Hallmark Movie.” This contrived, leaden romance is one of those cases where the film feels longer, much longer, than it’s actual about two-hour running time.
It certainly is a beautiful film to look at, and it is stylishly and artistically shot. One cannot fault the cast, which includes Kevin Kline and Phoebe Waller-Bridge along with Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell in this fantasy tale. But the tale is very tall, and not entertaining or profound as it hopes to be, and admiring its beauty fades as the couple roll down the seemingly endless road.
The main characters are drawn to each other at the wedding but both have rocky romantic histories that make they hesitate. However, the film begins a bit earlier, when Colin Farrell’s character leaves his house in the big city to drive hundreds of miles to attend this wedding. Getting a late start, Colin Farrell’s character rushes down the street to his car, planning to drive there, only to find himself staring a “boot” attached to his tire. Luckily, he turns around to see a poster on a brick wall advertising a car rental, and decides to call. The car rental tucked away is in nondescript warehouse, which he has to be buzzed into. Inside, he sees two people at a table and exactly two cars at the far end of the space. The two people, played by Kevin Kline and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, ask him a series of questions as if he is auditioning for an acting part instead of renting a car, and then offer him only one car, a 1984 Saturn, take it or leave it. With little choice, he takes it.
If you find that intro enchanting, and have a particularly romantic bent, you may like this movie but my reaction was that it all felt very contrived and a bit stage-y, rather than magical. After this strange start, things are a big more rational of a bit but it eventually returns to this fantasy world with one foot in the realm of stage, as the two strangers embark on a journey conducted by the car’s GPS voice. Writing this now, it seems that all this could have easily been played for Monty Python-style laughs had the director chosen that, but instead, everything has a ponderous seriousness to it, with many more sentimental tears than laughs.
The car’s magical GPS directs them to stop at various points along the road, where they go through a series of doorways that lead to youthful memories. At each stop, they encounter a door, sometimes just a door in a frame, in the middle of nowhere. But when they go through it, both are transported back to one or the other’s childhood, with lessons to be learned and insights to be gathered.
However, the film does have a few rare moments of fun, such as Colin Farrell, transported back to high school in his adult form, singing and dancing in the school production of the musical “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” He’s surprisingly good, and enough so, that one might wish the movie would linger there a bit longer, instead of returning to its deadening slog. Alas, it doesn’t happen.
Yet despite the premise of a fantasy journey through memory to explore the chance of romance, there is a surprising lack of any believable romantic chemistry between these two leads. The film focuses more on hesitancy and fear, based on past experiences, than a longing for love. One gets the sense the characters are only trying to convince themselves that they can put up with the other. Hardly a “bold” romantic story of two people falling in love.
A big ambitious romance needs at least give audiences the feeling of passionate attraction between the two leads but that never develops here, for whatever reason. In fact, in the end, the film philosophizes that just being content with a partner is good enough. Not much big or bold in that, not matter how beautiful the film or the leads look.
BIG BOLD BEAUTIFUL JOURNEY opens Friday, Sept. 19, in theaters.
If you are going to remake a movie, the dark comedy THE ROSES is the way to do it. The dark comedy THE ROSES proves that there is a right way to do a remake, telling the same story but in a refreshingly different way. With biting British-style humor, Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman are the perfect couple, battling or not, in this love story gone wrong.
Based on the novel, “The War of the Roses,” the original 1989 comedy/thriller of the same name starred Michael Douglas and Kathlees Turner as a successful American couple whose marriage turns sour, and then some. In that version, the romance was pretty conventional but sparks flew and the dark comedy came to the fore once the battle was on. In this one, Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman play a quirky British couple relocated to the US early on, a pair of snarky, unique individuals with a biting sense of humor. We get more of a sense of their own weird, very British humor, and creative natures, with more humor and quirky romance before they head for divorce and a showdown over the house like the original.
Centered on a couple of creatives who share that same sense of stinging humor means comedy is at the forefront from the start, not just when the battle begins. Humor is a very personal thing, individual tastes vary, and styles of humor differ culture to culture. With this couple being British, it also means that one has to have an appreciation for British humor, if not an outright love of it. The humor style is very British, although it is fully accessible American audiences, and not loaded with unfamiliar British references. The fact that these two unique individuals are so creative and off-kilter means not everyone gets them, so meeting and falling for someone who truly does get them gives this marriage something extra, with a lot more romantic spark between them.
Although the film is set in the US, the style of humor is tongue-in-cheek, snarky British. The audience gets a quick preview of the couple’s style of humor (and the film’s) in an opening scene where they are getting couple’s counseling with an American therapist. The therapist has given them an assignment to write down ten things they like about the other but these snarky souls can’t help themselves, and the “ten things I like about you” go from back-handed to pure snark. After Ivy reads her list, Theo bursts out laughing, and they laughingly trade more insults, while the therapist looks on in horror. “It’s called repartee,” Theo says, rolling his eyes. The Brits think this verbal sparring is hilarious and normal, but the American therapist recoils and ends the session. If your reaction to that scene is more like the therapist’s, you might not find this film as hilarious as I did.
The humor is snarky but less dark that the original film, although these creative people know how to bring the crazy to the fight too. Because these two are so unfiltered and satiric, they (and we) know they are the kind of couple who are made for each other, and no one else will really do. That doesn’t mean that they don’t know how to fight. Strong-willed, neither wants to lose an argument, and with two such sharp-tongued people, there are bound to be sparks and spats, even if underneath they love each and know no one else will ever get them like the other does.
THE ROSES has one the best meet-cutes ever, when architect Theo (Benedict Cumberbatch) becomes frustrated during a company meeting in a restaurant and storms away from the group – and into the kitchen. There he comes face to face with chef Ivy (Olivia Colman). The two trade quips, then their dreams, lock eyes, and fall in love. Cumberbatch and Colman do this beautifully, fully believable, romantic and charmingly funny. It’s like watching classic screwball comedy, the kind that starred Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn, but with the personalities reversed.
Like in the original comedy, Theo and Ivy are financially successful couple but we get to see a lot more up-and-down of how they got there, which makes for a more interesting story. From the London meet-cute, we flash forward to the married couple living in California, in a modest house near a beach. Now with two kids, Ivy stays home to care the the kids, making fabulous meals for the family, while Theo pursues his architectural career. Worried that Ivy is feeling a bit unfulfilled, as her culinary efforts for the kids are getting more and more elaborate, Theo encourages her to open a little seafood restaurant in an old building nearby. She does, naming it, in her own style, “We’ve Got Crabs.” The crab shack draws only a handful of customers on the three days a week it is open (“Is it the name?” Theo wonders aloud, tongue-in-cheek), but Ivy is fine with that.
Two things happen to upset the dynamic in the marriage: a traumatic fail for Theo as he unveils a grand new building and Ivy’s crab shack getting a glowing review from a big city food critic. Suddenly the economic situation flips, as Theo, suddenly unemployed, decides to stay home with the kids while regrouping while Ivy concentrates on her suddenly successful restaurant. It’s supposed to be temporary, while Theo rebuilds his reputation and Ivy seizes an opportunity.
That shift provides the spark that leads to other changes, then conflict and resentments. The more money they have, thanks to Ivy’s widening success, the more tensions the couple have, as they are pulled in different directions. With two creative, competitive, sharp-tongued characters, sooner or later things will blow up.
Colman and Cumberbatch are absolutely marvelous in this film, with spot-on perfect verbal sparring and charmingly quirky romance. The characters are so alike, which is part of their problem, so compromise is hard. Director Jay Roach paces this growing battle perfectly, with more back-and-forth, on-and-off romance than the original, making the battle of the Roses feels fresh rather than like a retread. The humor is distinctly British and sharp, delivered by two of the most skilled professionals alive, making it both hilarious and a joy to watch. Jay Roach backs all that comic gold up with a perfect supporting cast, including Kate McKinnon and Andy Samburg, who are wonderful as the couple’s American best friends.
Writer Tony McNamara takes full advantage of the Brits in America situation, with plenty of fish-out-of-water, culture-clash humor and a bit of social commentary, especially in a hilarious scene at a shooting range.
Visually, the film is a delight as well. The film is beautifully shot by Florian Hoffmeister, highlighting the lovely California scenery, and appropriately showcasing the architecture. THE ROSES has some of the most tempting food photography I’ve seen, with one gorgeous plate or sculpted dessert after another. Another wow are the costumes Olivia Colman sports throughout, emphasizing her creative and unconventional spirit, so that one looks forward to seeing what creative outfit her Ivy will don in the next scene.
With the caveat that British humor isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, for those who enjoy that style of comedy,
THE ROSES is that rarest thing, a romantic comedy that is just an excellent film, and which hearkens back to the classic Hollywood era when romantic comedies were the best comedies. THE ROSES is the whole package, a dark romantic comedy that has plenty of comedy and romance before the mayhem begins, with a brilliantly matched lead couple, Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman, a perfectly-paced script with nearly non-stop laughs but lots of heart, wonderful supporting cast, gorgeous visuals, delightful costumes, and a perfect finish. It’s a film worth seeing more than once to laugh again, and proves that sometimes it is worth remaking a film. It also leads one to hope for more pairings between Cumberbatch and Colman.
THE ROSES opens in theaters on Friday, Aug. 29, 2025.
Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal in Celine Song’s MATERIALISTS. Photo credit: Atsushi Nishijima. Courtesy of A24
Does money matter in matters of love? Well, historically it has but if that is all that matters, then there is a problem. Dakota Johnson plays a modern matchmaker in New York City, working for a company that caters to affluent clients, in director/writer Celine Song’s in the romantic comedy MATERIALISTS. But MATERIALISTS is no typical rom-com but a smart, thought-provoking social commentary on love and materialism. Celine Song’s previous film, PAST LIVES, was a drama that thoughtfully and realistically explored how cultural differences and time impact romance, and the director turns that same insightful, honest style to a look at love and money through a more humorous but still thinking lens.
MATERIALISTS actually opens with a Stone Age man bringing flowers and useful tools to woo the cave woman of his dreams, an early materialist, but quickly flashes forward to present-day New York City, where matchmaker Lucy (Dakota Johnson) is strolling down the street when she spots a nice-looking, prosperous looking young man. She asks if he is single, and then gives him her business card, just in case he’s looking for the services of a high-end matchmaker.
He takes the card. This direct approach tactic works in part because Lucy is herself young and beautiful, but Lucy in not looking for love herself. In fact, she tells a co-worker that she is planning to stay single and “die alone” (a phrase we hear frequently throughout this film, and only an extremely rich man might tempt her to change her mind, revealing a hard-eyed materialist bent.
There is a lot of this materialist bent among her clients, who turn to this service to find candidates who match their criteria before taking a chance on falling in love. Lucy is successful at her job in part because she understands this and gently guides them to potential matches. Her job involves recruiting new clients like in that first scene, matching client’s backgrounds and interests, but also serving as a kind of therapist guiding them towards marriage. When a matchmaker at her firm, Adore, makes a match that results in marriage, the whole office celebrates the win.
Lucy has just made such as match, and of course she’s invited to the wedding. While she is pleased with the success and takes care of all her clients, some clients touch her more than others. Her current favorite client is Sophie (Zoe Winters), a sweet woman in her late 30s who has not yet found her perfect match. One thing Lucy likes about Sophie that she is realistic about potential matches, something not true for all her clients, some of whom have extensive wish-lists like they are ordering a custom-designed car instead of hoping to meet a romantic match.
Sophie has just come off a date the night before, and all sounds good from her end, but when Lucy calls the man she went out with declines a second date based on superficial things. Lucy has to both gently break this disappointing news to Sophie and find another date for her, which Lucy does with both skill and compassion, letting us see her warm heart and why she is so good at this job.
At the wedding of her successfully matched client, Lucy meets a man, Harry (Pedro Pascal), the brother of the groom, who is impressed with her success. Lucy offers her card and matchmaking services, but the brother already has a date already in mind – the matchmaker herself. Lucy tells her she ‘s not in the market, but agrees to see him, hoping to gain him as a client by convincing him she is not the match her needs.
While Lucy and Harry chat at the wedding, a server with the catering company walks up – her ex-boyfriend John (Chris Evans). She warmly embraces him and they agree to meet after the wedding to catch-up, before John goes back to work. Harry is taken aback a bit by the exchange but he doesn’t leave, and sets up a meeting with Lucy at a restaurant. A meeting to her, a date to Harry.
A flashback scene gives us the story of Lucy and John’s break-up, in which we learn he is a struggling actor, taking catering jobs between acting ones, and that his perpetually broke-ness is a big reason for their break-up.
Having set up this uneven romantic triangle, MATERIALISTS follows that romantic tale, as well as Lucy’s work with her clients and particularly that favorite client Sophie, and plot line that illustrates some of the downside and risks in this kind of arranged dating.
One of the strengths of MATERIALISTS is excellent dialog, which is remarkably insightful and realistic, as it was in Song’s previous film PAST LIVES. The well-written dialog helps lifts this film far above the usual romantic comedy, making it intelligent, honest and thought-provoking in a way you don’t expect in this genre. Not that MATERIALIST isn’t funny – it definitely is – but the humor is more sly, more satiric, and filled with social commentary on a society obsessed with the surface of things and people more that what is underneath.
A lot of the humor comes out how transactional everyone, or nearly everyone, is in their pursuit of the perfect love match. Some of this is both laugh-out-loud funny, and a bit chilling underneath, or even sad. Some clients try to game the system, with plastic surgery and other interventions, fudging facts, or comically ridiculous assessments of one’s own value in the dating “marketplace.” These things range from the silly to the sad, as the clients compete, as if love is a game where keeping score matters.
Dakota Johnson turns in what may be her best performance so far, as a woman who seems coolly in control of her own romantic life – mostly – yet is warm, human and soothing with her clients. She maintains this smooth, comforting surface most of the time, but dies eventually becoming exasperated with a few of clients with unrealistic expectations, reminding them they are looking for a human being, not ordering a custom car. Likewise, Pedro Pascal does well as the wealthy man who strews material temptations in the matchmaker’s path, while we remain unsure of the depth of his feelings, even if marriage is his stated goal. As John, Chris Evans continues to prove his skill as an actor, following up his amazing performance in A DIFFERENT MAN, with this thoughtful one, a man whose feelings aren’t in doubt but whose life seems a mess that he may not be able to fix.
The film does not directly mention traditional matchmaking, which many cultures have followed for generation, versus falling in love with someone unaided, and hopefully sharing values and dreams with them. But MATERIALISTS does explore some pitfalls of this modern form of matchmaking, where only a certain amount of information can be known about the character and background of potential matches, unlike the traditional form where, ideally, both parties are part of a community of which the matchmaker is also a part, and the depth of knowledge of each individual is much greater.
MATERIALISTS is a smart, pointedly-funny romantic comedy, with terrific dialog and a non-traditional plot, that offers a frank yet fascinating look at the ways of love, from a perspective where the practical and the magical need to be a certain balance to find true love and then true happiness.
MATERIALISTS opens in theaters on Friday, June 13, 2025.
Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller in THE GORGE. Courtesy of Apple TV+
Two elite sharpshooters-turned-assassins are hired separately for a secret mission to guard either side of a gorge that contains a mysterious threat in remote, secret location. On one side of the gorge is ex-Marine Levi (Miles Teller), hired by the U.S. Army, and on the other is Lithuanian assassin Drasa (Anya Taylor-Joy), hired by the Russians, in a secret agreement between the West and the East that has persisted since the early years of the Cold War. This unlikely agreement was made to contain a threat so deadly that both sides want it confined to this remote gorge, and this decades-long arrangement is so secret, even the U.S. Presidents were unaware of it. Each year, countries in the West and nations in the East send a new guard to man the tower on their side of the gorge. Those solitary guards patrol the heavily-weaponized edge of the gorge on their side, to make sure whatever is down there, stays down there. The guard on each side will be alone in their towers for a year, with only brief monthly radio contact with their employers. They are forbidden to have contact with each other.
In director Scott Derrickson’s dark sci-fi action thriller, we meet Drasa first, initially as she successfully kills a political target thought untouchable and then back in Lithuania, to visit her ex-KGB father Erikas (William Houston). Drasa and her father are very close, but her father now is dying of cancer. Facing the prospect of a long, painful illness, he tells her he will end his life on a certain date, Valentine’s Day, if he’s still alive. His death will sever Drasa’s one emotional support in the world, so she is understandably distraught.
We first meet Levi when he is summoned to report to Fort Bragg, where he meets with Bartholomew (Sigourney Weaver), who offers him this lonely year-long assignment, after determining he has no close ties that will notice he is missing.
Levi is put on a plane and drugged, so he has no idea where he is or how long he was in the air. A helicopter drops him at a remote, snowy mountain location near a border, with a map to travel the few kilometers to cross it. He has no idea where he is and little about the mission. Over the border, he meets up with the man he is replacing, J.D. (Sope Dirisu), a chatty British fellow who is very happy to have some human contact again. Levi has a manual that briefs him on the job, and gets a quick tour from J.D. before he goes off to his pick-up point.
That Levi and his counterpart across the gorge aren’t supposed to communicate made sense in the Cold War, but it makes less sense now. Anyway, it doesn’t last, with a rule-breaker Drasa using a big drawing pad to write messages to Levi. When he writes back to remind her of the rule, she replies that it’s her birthday and she’s going to do what she wants. The location of the gorge is cloaked so how are they going to know.
Thus starts their cross-gorge chats and budding relationship that follows. But it doesn’t take long before the mysterious threat contained so long in the gorge raises its ugly, gnarly head, and tries to climb out of the gorge. Lots of ugly, gnarly heads, actually.
The gorge turns out the be filled with strange looking zombie-like creatures, dubbed Hollow Men, who look like they merged with dead trees, a nice visual effect. The Hollow Men tag for them is a reference to a T.S. Elliot poem, and there are similar classical poetry references sprinkled throughout, which is a refreshing, unexpected touch in what is basically a sci-fi action adventure, with a romance thrown in.
Scott Derrickson does a nice job with the direction, keeping everything moving a good clip and keeping us focused on the characters instead of the script’s flaws. The direction and acting do a lot to compensate for the script’s logic flaws, although the film’s basic premise is intriguing.
Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy are very good together, with a natural chemistry as their characters bouncing quips off each other in a playful who-is-the-better shot one-upmanship competition. There is plenty of romantic chemistry too, so that when the confrontation with the things in the gorge heats up, as you know it will, they are ready to work as a team.
Another strength is the music, provided by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and nice moody, dark, atmospheric cinematography by Dan Laustsen. The sets and exterior shots, in Norway, all look great and the mystery in the gorge is original enough to be intriguing and full of possibilities.
Unfortunately, the script is kind of under-cooked, and something about the film feels like it was originally intended as a series but was hastily re-fashioned into a movie instead. It has more than a few puzzling missteps, like why would they need top assassins to patrol this heavily-weaponized gorge edge? What Levi and Drasa discover about the gorge is an intriguing yet the film doesn’t fully exploit its potential. There are other puzzlers. Levi and Drasa are well-matched as sharpshooters and skilled assassins yet it is always Drasa who loses things or leaves them behind, to create plot problems, or who stumbles into things and needs to be rescued, a sign of lazy writing. The action sequences are exciting and the effects are good but what gets them into those situations isn’t always the most original plot device.
However, the on-screen magic between Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy, plus Scott Derrickson’s perfectly-paced direction, keeping things focused on action and the central characters more than on those flaws, in a nice bit of cinematic sleigh of hand.
Overall, THE GORGE is an entertaining, fast-paced sci-action flick with an appealing couple at the center and plenty of action, plus enough of an original idea that it could have had a big screen release. As it is, you will have to go to your small screen to enjoy Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy trading quips and battling these woody zombies. For popcorn fun, you could do much worse.
Alice Lowe and Nick Frost in TIMESTALKER. Courtesy of Level 33 Entertainment
Alice Lowe has garnered a couple of dozen awards and nominations for her work on both sides of the camera, including some for this fantasy dramedy, TIMESTALKER, in which she wears the three main hats of writer, director and star. And wears them pretty well.
Lowe stars as Agnes, who lives a number of very different lives, from low-born in the 1600s, to rich and privileged in 1973, to middle class in more modern times. Her name and face remain the same, as do people playing a variety of roles in each of her incarnations. Nick Frost is a loutish husband in one and a stalker in another. Tanya Reynolds’ Meg may arise as a servant or friend in Agnes’ sequential rebirths; Jacob Anderson crops up in assorted supportive capacities. One constant is the emergence of a handsome guy named Alex (Aneurin Barnard), who is always her just-out-of-reach Mr. Right, regardless of how they meet. Only Agnes recalls those prior lives, and even then, only fitfully.
The premise allows all the principals to flaunt some range among their diverse incarnations. It also provides a generous diversity of sets and costumes, which probably ate up a larger-than-average percentage of the budget. Agnes’ personae may not always be particularly likable, but her vulnerability keeps the requisite empathy in place through all her changes. A few minor recurring elements also enhance the continuity from one Agnes to the next.
As actress and director, Lowe carries the ball quite capably. Her looks and bearing remind me of celebrated actress Olivia Colman (with whom she and Frost appeared in one of my all-time favorite comedies, 2007’s HOT FUZZ). The pace is good. The fact that the running time in each period varies considerably adds to the humor and suspense factors. She tosses in a few surreal touches, and occasional bits of comic gore for added liveliness. But Lowe’s script meanders somewhat in many of the segments, diluting its effectiveness. For all the frustrations she endures time after time, the lack of substance is unfortunate. There are some exemplary comic highlights, but not as many as the premise could have delivered.
If you don’t believe in reincarnation, this flick will not convince you it exists. I don’t believe in it, but know that in a previous life I did. (Sorry. Old joke I just had to recycle here. Impulse control is not one of my defining traits.) The final product is a pleasant bit of escapism that you can enjoy, as long as you’re not expecting “profound.”
TIMESTALKER opens in theaters and in digital formats on Friday, Feb. 14.
Mikey Madison as Ani and Mark Eydelshteyn as Ivan, in ANORA. Courtesy of NEON
Cannes’ Palme d’Or winner ANORA follows a Brooklyn exotic dancer who marries the son of a Russian oligarch and the wild series of events after the oligarch finds out and sets out to annul the marriage. Director Sean Baker wowed audiences with his breakout FLORIDA PROJECT, which told the story of little girl living in a Florida motel converted to cheap weekly rental apartments, but Baker’s other films, often sly comedies set in a world of sex workers and people at the lowest economic rung, are not for everyone. Although there is some of that in ANORA, this one is also a deeply human film about dreams and human connections that takes unexpected turns as it shifts from comedic to touchingly human drama.
Mikey Madison stars are Anora, a Russian American who goes by Ani and works as an exotic dancer at a upscale gentleman’s club in New York. Ani is a fun-loving young woman who parties with her friends from work but lives with her older sister in a tiny house situated under the elevated subway tracks. Ani speaks some Russian, because her beloved Russian grandmother never learned English, so her boss goes to her when a client asks for someone who speaks the language, pulling her off her meal break.
Grumbling, Ani nonetheless go to the table to entertain the young son of a Russian oligarch. Ivan Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn) speaks some English but is more comfortable with Russian, which Ani understands better than she speaks. The two seems to hit it off, partly because of the common language difficulties. Ivan tells her he is 21 but he looks, and acts, much younger. He also tells her his father is a billionaire arms dealer, a scary person, and he’s avoiding him in America. Very taken with Ani, he asks if he can see her outside work, and she agrees.
“Outside work” means sex for money, of course. Ani is very business-like about it but the young Russian heaps her with compliments and is more than willing to pay whatever she asks. The two actually have fun together, besides plenty of sex,, and Ivan asks Ani to be his “girlfriend” for a week, paid of course. They go to parties, hang out with his friends where she seems accepted as Ivan’s girlfriend.
On a trip to Las Vegas, he starts talking about getting married so he can stay in America. When he proposes to her, Ani scolds him, telling him not to kid about that kind of thing. He insists he means it, and they skip off to a little Vegas wedding chapel.
Both Ivan and Ani are euphoric after the wedding, and the film takes on a romantic tone as they seem very much a couple in love. Her new husband heaps praise, and furs and jewelry, on her, and the formerly cynical Ani changes her view of the world as she settles into life in Ivan’s mansion. She even talks of looking forward to meeting his parents, and imaging becoming part of the family they way she has already become part of his circle of friends.
But then the parents find out about the marriage, and they are outraged. The oligarch sends his American representative, an Armenian named Toros (Karren Karagulian), who is supposed to be keeping an eye on his son, to get the marriage annulled and straighten things out. To do that, Toros shows up at Ivan’s mansion (which really belongs to his parents), along with two more guys as muscle, his regular Armenian henchman Garnick (Armenian actor and comedian Vache Tovmaysan) and a new guy, a Russian named Igor (Yura Borisov, who was so excellent in the Finnish romantic drama COMPARTMENT NO. 6), just hired for this job. The trio all expect this to be an easy job but Ani quickly changes that, proving to be a fierce fighter, both objecting to suggestions they are not really married, to efforts to annul the marriage, and even insisting she meet her husband’s parents, her new in-laws. Everything descends into chaos and comedy as this little woman fights back furiously when the two guys brought along as muscle try to manhandle her, impressing particularly the Russian, Igor, a guy who is not looking to join the Armenians crime underworld, and later reveals a fondness for his immigrant grandma.
Stylishly shot and with a compelling pace, ANORA transforms again and again. A trio of thugs show up determined to carry out Ivan’s parents’ demand to break up the couple with an annulment but set off a shift to action and comedy, with a wild chase and plenty of plot twists, when the son goes on the run and the thugs hang onto Ani to find him. A film that starts out like a Cinderella story, morphs into a comic crime chase, but later into a human drama as people and circumstances continue to change.
As Ani proves a resourceful fighter and the thugs search for the runaway Russian son, the film leans into comedy but the characters are also evolving as those action scenes entertain us. Nothing is as straightforward as they, or the audience, thought. Ani in particular goes through self-reflection and changes, as her view of her world shifts again and dreams seem to evaporate. The changes are touching, sometimes heartbreaking, transforming the film into something different than we expected.
The final scene, beautifully acted by Mikey Madison and Borisov, is particularly powerful, and unexpected moment of searing human feeling, a scene that will stay with you and creates a final shift of the film, as Ani becomes Anora, who lingers in our mind.
Both the acting and the writing are strong in this surprising film, as director Sean Baker firmly steers the film, and the audience, though all its character and tonal shifts. The film’s early more comic sections are highly entertaining but it is the character transformation that stay with us, particularly as Ani, then Anora, goes though that moving ending scene that elevates the film into a new level of human feeling.
Sean Baker’s skill as a director is undeniable in all his films but turning that talent to this story about a young woman being transformed by experiences to reach a truer self is breathtaking. It is no mystery why this tale was a big winner at Cannes, or that ANORA has gone on to other awards buzz.
(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.
Haley Bennett as Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot, the widow Clicquot, in Thomas Napper’s WIDOW CLICQUOT. Photo Credit: Ash Stephens. Courtesy of Vertical
If you celebrate by drinking champagne, you have a French widow in the Napoleonic age to thank. And if you want the best, one of France’s top champagnes is Veuve Clicquot, a name that translates as “Widow Clicquot.” honoring the young widow who took over the family vineyard and winery she had run with her husband, and not only made it into one of the leading makers of the bubbly but also transforming the whole champagne industry.
WIDOW CLICQUOT is an English-language historical drama recounting the true story of that brilliant, innovative woman, Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot, known as “Grande Dame of Champagne,” who lived from 1777 to 1866. Haley Bennett plays Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot, the widow Clicquot, who not only made the Clicquot family’s champagne famous (with its distinctive yellow label) but who also invented pink champagne and created innovations that transformed the entire champagne industry itself. And all that in the time of Napoleon, when women had no rights and were forbidden to run a business – unless they were a widow continuing her husband’s business.
We first meet Barbe-Nicole as a newly widowed 28-year-old with a young daughter, as she fends off pressure from her well-meaning father-in-law Phillipe (Ben Miles) to sell the vineyard and winery to the neighboring Moet vineyard. But the widow is determined to run the vineyard and winery she and her late husband Francois (Tom Sturridge) had built together from the family business his father had turned over to him. She makes a deal with her father-in-law to let her try to run the winery and vineyard on her own for a limited amount of time, a deal he agrees to out of fondness for her but with the firm belief that no woman has the capacity to run a business, least of all this young widow.
With ground-breaking innovative ideas, the widow Clicquot tries to hold on to the dream she shared with Francois. The resourceful young widow quickly enlists the help of the talented salesman (Sam Riley) she and her husband had worked with, someone who was also a friend, to help her take the business to a new level. The gifted salesman – who traveled to sell the wine in various markets, a new idea at the time – takes the stunning new wines the widow makes straight to the top of society: the royal families of Europe.
The true story unfolds against the backdrop of the tumultuous age of Napoleon, with wars and all that followed. Director Thomas Napper’s lush period drama features all the lovely sets and costumes audiences could want, plus gorgeous visuals and a fine British cast, to complement this inspiring period biopic about one of the first women entrepreneurs in France. At a mere 90 minutes, the drama covers a lot of historical territory briskly. With the widow’s hard work, expertise with the vines and brilliant skill in experimenting with new wines, and the salesman’s tireless travel and his talent for marketing, something magical might take place – if nothing goes wrong. With weather and war as adversaries, it becomes a race between innovation and chance.
The story is full of unexpected twists and turns as the risk-taking widow determinedly improves her wine, despite setbacks and challenges of various kinds. Like most period dramas, there is a bit of romance too, in scenes that flashback to her life with Francois. Their marriage was arranged by their wine-making families but it turned into true love, and a partnership of equals, inspired by the humanist ideals of the age.
But these characters are more complex than in a standard period drama. While these flashbacks give a romantic touch, they soon turn more complex, adding a tragic dimension to this tale of one remarkable woman. Ultimately, the focus is on the accomplishments of this brilliant, determined woman more than on romance. Further both the widow and the wandering salesman are more complicated people than we might assume, while the father-in-law, fond as he is of his son’s widow, can’t escape his ideas about what women can do, something also true of the society of the time. There is plenty of risk and rule-breaking, which adds a layer of tension and suspense to the tale.
WIDOW CLIQUOT is an inspiring drama about a courageous real woman entrepreneur who faced more sexism and barriers than we could imagine yet achieved success through it all. Which deserves a toast with that bubbly wine she worked so hard to perfect.
(From left) Lily (Sasha Lane) and Tyler (Glen Powell) in TWISTERS, directed by Lee Isaac Chung. Courtesy of Universal Pictures
It’s summer, and tornadoes might be on the news and on your mind, so if a studio is releasing a disaster film with blockbuster hopes, tornadoes and storm-chasing are a good bet. There was just such a blockbuster hit back in the ’90s, TWISTER, starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton. TWISTERS, starring the rising star of the moment, Glen Powell, and the cute Daisy Edgar-Jones, is a kind of decedent of that action thrill ride, although not exactly a remake nor a sequel but a hybrid of both. Of course, the real star is the visual effects, many generations advanced from the original, with flying objects and terrifying, unpredictable power of tornadoes. In sequel and remake mad Hollywood, you have to wonder what took them so long
The original action thriller had Helen Hunt as a research meteorological scientist chasing storms and grant-funding and Bill Paxton as her estranged husband, a researcher turned weatherman who is done with storm-chasing, plus competition from a corporate weather research company headed by a former colleague. Directed, surprisingly, by Lee Isaac Chung, the Oscar-nominated writer-director of MINARI, TWISTERS has some echoes of that original film but no academic researchers this time and a very different romance in the story. Instead, we have a professional meteorologist, Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones) working with a private company and a tornado chaser Tyler Owens (from Texas, no less – Glen Powell), who meet on the windswept plains of Oklahoma. She isn’t there for academic research but to aid an old friend, Javi (Anthony Ramos) whose private weather research company is testing some new equipment and needs her expertise. The two have different reasons for being there, different style, different methods, different equipment, but both are there to chase tornadoes.
Glen Powell plays a showboat YouTube channel sensation, who along with his motley crew, chases tornadoes for their daredevil social media show, selling tee-shirts and trinkets along the way. Daisy Edgar-Jones is a professional in meteorology, now a respected figure working out of a high-tech office in New York, but once a storm-chasing Oklahoma graduate student, until a field test of her theory on how to “kill” a tornado goes tragically wrong, a traumatic experience that we see at the opening of the film.
But she is lured back to into the field, and her native Oklahoma, by an old friend who was part of the team helping her test her theory that day. The two have not seen each other for years but he reaches out to her for her expert help testing some new equipment for his weather-data collection business, providing precise, local data on tornadoes to his paying customers. We also get the sense that he has hope to reconnect with her in hopes of kindling romance.
The meteorologists gather in a field with other storm-chasers, some serious and others not, to watch the skies for a developing front with storm potential. YouTube star … and his wild crew pull in a red pickup truck and assorted dinged up vans with music blazing and hoots, drawing a crack from one in the crowd about rednecks from Arkansas.
Personally, I prefer more science in my science fiction (which this kind of is, since it deals in the science of weather and tornadoes), but there is little actual science in this remake/sequel. Kate’s old idea for stopping a tornado is pure fiction and there is a scene with an “eye” in a tornado (that’s hurricanes, not tornadoes, folks). But for most audiences, that won’t matter because they are just there for the FX, with are present in abundance – dazzling visual effects of the power of one of the most terrifying, dangerous forces in nature, the unpredictable tornado.
And you do get those visual jaw-droppers and a visceral thrill ride, although it takes awhile for the story to get started after the early terrifying sequence that shows why Kate is afraid to go back into the field of storm-chasing. After that flashback sequence, the film flashes forward to introduce characters in the present. We get some meet-cute scenes showing the differences between the free-wheeling Tyler and the more professional Kate, and to establish some of the differences between those chasing storms for data-collection and those chasing for thrills and social media likes.
Things really get underway as both sets of storm chasers are taking a break, with Tyler and Kate taking in a local rodeo. Things pick up quickly for the excitement and the storm effects, when a surprise night-time storm hits, sending everyone scrambling.
The effects in TWISTERS are truly thrilling, and massive things fly through the air (although no cows this time). The above sequence, and another awesome one with a movie screen, echo scenes in the original but everything is much bigger, and more impressive. However, audiences should note not to take advice from this film on what to do in a real tornado – heading for a movie auditorium is not the safe choice.
There is little science or accurate information about tornadoes in this one, and Kate’s theory on how to kill a tornado is pure fiction, but the tornado scenes do supply summer escapist thrills, if no practical advice. Also, the romance between the two leads never really takes off, unlike a number of truck and buildings, as there is little to no romantic chemistry between stars Daisy and Glen.
TWISTERS can provide some popcorn fun and summer thrills in the only safe way to encounter a tornado but movie fans hoping for a repeat of the emotional appeal of the original TWISTER likely will be disappointed, as this story is less involving. If you are just there for big visual effects, TWISTERS has thrill delights for you, particularly in a sequence in a movie theater.
