Review: ‘Morbius,’ starring Jared Leto

March 30, 2022

by Carla Hay

Jared Leto in “Morbius” (Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures)

“Morbius”

Directed by Daniel Espinosa

Culture Representation: Taking place mostly in the New York City metropolitan area (and briefly in Costa Rica, Greece and Sweden), the horror/action film “Morbius” features a cast of predominantly white characters (with some African Americans and Latinos) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A brilliant but illness-plagued biochemist named Dr. Michael Morbius finds the cure to diseases and death, but it comes at a price of becoming a superpowered vampire who craves human blood. 

Culture Audience: “Morbius” will appeal primarily to people interested in movies adapted from Marvel comic books, but the movie’s weak screenplay ultimately lowers the quality of this already-mediocre film.

Jared Leto and Adria Arjona in “Morbius” (Photo by Jay Maidment/Columbia Pictures)

“Morbius” works better as a horror movie than as a vampire superhero origin story that’s supposed to have a place in the “Spider-Man” franchise. “Morbius” has too many plot holes and not enough personality for it to ever be considered a classic superhero film. In fact, “Morbius” recycles so many familiar vampire clichés and action battle scenes, viewers will feel like they’ve already seen the movie before it even ends.

And so, what’s a stereotypical movie to do when it doesn’t have a lot of new ideas to offer? It usually has to rely on the charisma of the cast members to engage viewers in a way that will make audiences feel personally invested in what happens to the characters. But that charisma is mostly lacking in “Morbius,” which has a very talented cast that is limited by uninspired dialogue that renders their characters as nothing more than generic and hollow. “Morbius” was directed by Daniel Espinosa and written by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless.

That’s not to say that “Morbius” is a complete waste of time. The movie’s visual effects, although not spectacular, still get the job done well enough that they look convincing in most parts of the film. And the acting isn’t terrible. The performances in “Morbius” just are not up to the memorable standards they could be for audiences who have become used to superhero movies where the main characters have strong and distinctive personalities.

Even as an origin story, “Morbius” falls flat. Dr. Michael Morbius (played by Jared Leto), a brilliant biochemist, is first seen in Costa Rica with a team of people, as he entices a cave full of bats out of the cave, by taking a knife and using it to slice the palm of his hand with a superficial wound that draws blood. Considering that bats wouldn’t just swarm out of a cave because they saw or smelled a human being’s bleeding hand, this scene is supposed to show these are no ordinary bats. They’re vampire bats.

“Morbius” then abruptly cuts to a flashback that takes place 25 years earlier in Greece. Michael (played by Charlie Shotwell), at the age of about 12 or 13, is in a children’s ward of a hospital when he gets a shy new roommate who’s about the same age. The newcomer’s name is Lucien Crown (played by Joseph Esson), although Michael insists on calling him Milo. This new roommate quickly goes along with being called by this new name, with the implication being that he’s got self-esteem issues and is desperate for a new identity. Milo uses crutches to walk and needs a machine to help him breathe.

The two boys have health problems that mostly confine them to their rooms, so they know what it’s like to feel like outcasts. From their hospital window, Michael and Milo can see bratty schoolboys, who are about the same age, taunting them for having health issues. Milo asks Michael after one of these tauntings: “What would you do if you could be normal for just one hour?” Michael curtly answers, “I don’t think about it.”

Milo and Michael become fast friends, with Michael being the more assertive and confident of the two. Michael tells Milo that they’re both in this hospital because they have the same blood disease and because “there’s something missing from our DNA,” so they are undergoing experiments. A scientist named Dr. Emil Nicholas (played by Jared Harris) is the leader of these experiments.

Dr. Nicholas is kind and paternal to Michael and Milo. Where are these boys’ parents or other family members? The movie never answers that question. However, people familiar with Morbius from Marvel Comics already know that Milo comes from a wealthy family, while Morbius was raised by a single mother. The Morbius in this movie never talks about his family or anything else about his background.

One day, Michael saves Milo’s life. When Milo’s breathing machine malfunctions, and Milo loses consciousness, Michael is able to quickly solve the problem. He fixes the machine by removing a tiny spring of coiled wire. Dr. Nicholas is so impressed with Michael’s problem-solving skills, he tells Michael that Michael will be sent to a school for gifted children.

Before Michael leaves, he writes a letter to Milo in which he promises that they will see each other again. Soon after Michael leaves, Milo is outside and being harassed by some of the bullies who have found Milo carrying this letter. The harassment turns into an assault that’s halted when Dr. Nicholas comes to Milo’s rescue.

The movie then flash-forwards to the present day. An adult Dr. Morbius is on stage in Sweden and about to receive the Nobel Prize. At this point in his life, he uses arm braces to walk. While a Nobel Prize official makes an introductory speech, it’s mentioned that Morbius was a prodigy who completed his doctorate at the age of 19. Viewers never get to see what happens next, but it’s described in the next scene.

“Morbius” then makes an abrupt time shift once again. He’s now back in New York City, where he lives. Morbius works at a hospital and has built a scientific lab on a cargo ship, where he can do his top-secret experiments. While attending to a patient—a girl named Anna (played by Zaris-Angel Hator), who’s about 9 or 10 years old—she says to him, “I can’t believe you dissed the king and queen of Sweden.” Morbius then makes an anti-monarchist comment in response.

What happened on the way to Morbius getting a Nobel Prize? A newspaper headline reveals that he refused the prize, after going to all the trouble of being at the ceremony. This was a missed opportunity for the filmmakers to show Morbius having an irreverent, maybe mischievous side that made Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of Tony Stark/Iron Man so fun to watch for many fans of superhero movies. Unfortunately, what happened on that Nobel Prize stage stayed on that Nobel Prize stage, only to leave it up to viewers’ imagination what kind of uproar Morbius caused at that event.

Morbius’ closest colleague is Dr. Martine Bancroft (played by Adria Arjona), who is more cautious than Morbius is, when it comes to his radical experiments. She warns him that she knows he’s doing experiments that mix good DNA and bad DNA, and he could lose his medical license if authorities found out. Morbius is undeterred by Martine’s concerns. Martine later becomes Morbius’ obvious potential love interest, even though Leto and Arjona have little to no romantic chemistry together.

Meanwhile, Morbius’ former childhood friend Milo (played by Matt Smith) and Dr. Nicholas are both in New York City too. Milo (who is now a flashy extrovert, in contrast to how introverted he was as a child) is eager to get the same serum that Morbius has been working on to cure them both of their blood diseases. Morbius tells Milo that he can’t have any of the serum until Morbius tests it on himself first. You know where this is going, of course.

Because “Morbius” is a comic-book movie, viewers have to suspend disbelief that within this hospital, Morbius works in a lab with a large cylindrical cage full of bats. It’s implied that these are the same bats that Morbius got in Costa Rica. Morbius wants to see if he can solve his health problems by infusing his DNA with bat DNA in a serum, so that Morbius can not only eliminate his illnesses, he can also possibly live forever. Try to read that without laughing.

A trial test on a mouse proves to be successful. And the next thing you know, Morbius and Martine are on the cargo ship off of the coast of Long Island, so she can inject him with the serum. Why have the lab on a cargo ship, which is out in the open and would put it on the radar of the U.S. Coast Guard or other entities that monitor sea vessels? Don’t expect an answer for that either.

It’s all just a way for Morbius to end up killing people when the serum experiment goes very wrong, and he finds out that he has become a homicidal vampire who craves human blood. A massacre ensues that leaves eight people dead on the ship, with Morbius and Martine as the only survivors. Martine’s injuries (she was knocked down by one of the ship’s crew members) leave her recovering in a hospital. It won’t be the last time she gets seriously injured in this movie.

Meanwhile, the formerly sickly-looking Morbius finds out he’s now healthy with an athletic physique and superpowers, but he’s also a vampire who now craves human blood. Morbius is horrified and deeply ashamed of what he’s become, and he wants to make things right by trying to reverse the serum. However, he’s the main suspect in the cargo ship massacre, so he goes into hiding. And where does this fugitive go when authorities are looking for him? Right back to his workplace, where no one seems to notice that he no longer has to use braces to walk.

Two agents from the FBI are hot on Morbius’ trail: Simon Stroud (played by Tyrese Gibson) and Alberto Ramirez (played by Al Madrigal), whose names are not Mutt and Jeff, even though they act like Mutt and Jeff stereotypes. Agent Stroud is the stoic, no-nonsense type. Agent Ramirez is the goofy, nervous type. Agents Stroud and Ramirez are assigned to the FBI’s Department of Enhanced Individuals.

That’s why these FBI agents don’t really seem shocked when Morbius is brought in for questioning, and he starts to partially transform into a vampire right in front of them. Agent Ramirez brings holy water to protect himself in this interrogation, while Agent Stroud somewhat scoffs at Agent Ramirez’s fear of vampires. It’s enough to say that Morbius’ stint in a detention center is short-lived, and he goes on the run again.

The rest of “Morbius” is essentially a “vampire on the loose” story, with the FBI trying to capture Morbius, who gets blamed for some more vampire murders that he did not commit. The movie falters in how certain fights involving Morbius (such as a major brawl that happens in a subway station) are treated as everyday occurrences and certainly not investigated adequately by law enforcement that has launched a massive manhunt (or is it vampire hunt?) for Morbius. But viewers can’t really take this “massive manhunt” seriously when Agents Stroud and Ramirez are the only FBI officials who seem to be available to show up and investigate the vampire crime scenes.

The action sequences in “Morbius” liven up an otherwise dull storyline that lacks originality. Smith seems to be having some campy fun in his role as the adult Milo. Leto has done much better work elsewhere, although “Morbius” certainly isn’t his worst movie. The rest of the cast members are serviceable in their average roles.

Two mid-credits scenes tease Morbius’ involvement with a character who was in 2017’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming.” Who this character is not a secret, but it won’t be mentioned in this review anyway, so as not to spoil the surprise for viewers who don’t know. Spider-Man and Venom both get briefly mentioned in “Morbius.” It’s enough to say, based on what the underwhelming “Morbius” has to offer, any future “Morbius” movies—just like many other superhero movies—might have to rely on Spider-Man to bring more excitement to the story.

Columbia Pictures will release “Morbius” in U.S. cinemas on April 1, 2022.

Review: ‘John and the Hole,’ starring Charlie Shotwell, Michael C. Hall, Jennifer Ehle and Taissa Farmiga

August 21, 2021

by Carla Hay

Charlie Shotwell in “John and the Hole” (Photo by Paul Özgür/IFC Films)

John and the Hole”

Directed by Pascual Sisto

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the dramatic film “John and the Hole” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A 13-year-old boy drugs and abducts his mother, father and older teenage sister, so that he can keep them captive in a bunker on a nearby property. 

Culture Audience: “John and the Hole” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching strange and baffling dramas about teenagers who commit disturbing crimes.

Michael C. Hall, Taissa Farmiga and Jennifer Ehle in “John and the Hole” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

The rambling and pretentious drama “John and the Hole” raises more questions than it answers about a teenage boy who holds his family members hostage in an underground bunker. If the point of the movie was to show what a teenage sociopath looks like, then congratulations. Mission accomplished. If the goal was to present a meaningful story, then this movie is a failure.

Directed by Pascual Sisto and written by Nicolás Giacobone, “John and the Hole” is a sluggishly paced film that’s meant to be a psychological portrait of the emotionally detached teenager who commits this crime. Once it’s established that the teen troublemaker is a sociopath, “John and the Hole” doesn’t have much to say. The majority of the movie is about how he gives his family no explanation for why he’s holding them captive, and he lies to people to cover up his family’s disappearance.

Without giving away any spoiler information, it’s enough to say that viewers will be very disappointed if they might be expecting some kind of insightful ending to this story. There’s also an unnecessary subplot involving a single mother and her 12-year-old daughter who do not know this family and have nothing do with the crime. Don’t expect any clues on how or why this teen sociopath ended up this way. The characters in this movie have no backstories.

John Shea (played by Charlie Shotwell) is a 13-year-old who lives in a sleek, upper-middle-class home with his father Brad (played by Michael C. Hall), mother Anna (played by Jennifer Ehle) and sister Laurie (played by Taissa Farmiga), who’s about 16 or 17 years old. The house is in a wooded area that’s somewhat isolated. On the surface, they seem like a typical American family with a comfortable lifestyle in an unnamed U.S. city. (“John and the Hole” was actually filmed in Massachusetts.)

But the “normalcy” is all a façade, at least when it comes to John. He’s a quiet and introverted loner, but that doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous. The beginning of the movie tries to make it look like John is slightly behind in learning development, compared to his peers. The opening scene is of John in a classroom being asked by a teacher (played by Pamela Jayne Morgan) what the square root of 125 is. John repeats, “I don’t know,” until he gets the correct answer.

At home, John is using his toy drone in the woods when it gets stuck in a tree. When he climbs the tree to reach the drone, it accidentally falls into an area of the woods that he can’t reach. During this attempt to get his drone back, John notices a partially finished underground bunker that looks like construction on it has been abandoned. There’s nothing inside this bunker but walls. The bunker is about 20 feet deep and is about the size of a medium-sized shed.

When John goes home, he somewhat nonchalantly tells his father Brad that he lost the drone. Brad is annoyed and disappointed, but he doesn’t seem too surprised. John mentions the underground bunker and asks his parents if they know anything about it. John’s mother Anna mentions hearing that the land owner ran out of money to finish the bunker and/or the construction permit expired. She also explains to John that bunkers are where people want to live in case of emergencies.

Laurie and John seem to have a typical sibling relationship. They argue sometimes, such as when John keeps bouncing a tennis ball off of a ceiling, and he ignores Laurie’s request for him to stop. They get into a little scuffle when Laurie takes the tennis ball away.

It’s mentioned later in the movie that Brad has put John in a tennis program, with the hope that John will become a star player. John has been training for the “qualies” (a tennis term for qualifying rounds), which will determine if John can qualify to compete in state-level tennis tournaments. After holding his family members captive in the bunker, John uses this tennis training as an excuse for why he’s the only person who’s stayed behind in the house when certain adults show up to look for his absent family members.

There are no signs that John is in an abusive home. It’s implied throughout the story that he was probably born with sociopathic tendencies. What John does in the movie goes beyond what an underage teenager would do to try to be in a house for days without parental supervision. John isn’t as intellectually underdeveloped as he first seems to be. He’s actually a cunning manipulator.

In fact, as soon as John finds out about the bunker, there’s a very big clue that he meticulously planned how to force his family into the bunker. However, what he didn’t plan very well was how to deal with any inquiring adults who would want to know where John’s parents and sister are. His lies often seem like he hastily thought them up, almost like he was so fixated on holding his family captive that he didn’t think much about how people who see the family on a regular basis would get suspicious of not seeing Brad, Anna and Laurie for several days.

The first red flag that something is off-kilter about John is when he drugs the family’s unsuspecting, middle-aged gardener Charles (played by Lucien Spellman), who sometimes goes by the name Charlie, by spiking a glass of lemonade that John gives to Charles. It’s not mentioned what type of medication was used, but it’s a sedative that’s so powerful that it causes Charles to lose consciousness. Charles is a friendly employee and there’s no reason for John to hate Charles. John is just using Charles as a test.

Somehow (it’s never shown how), John is able to put Charles in a wheelbarrow. Charles is of average height and has a somewhat stocky build, which means that he would be too heavy for a scrawny 13-year-old boy to carry on his own. Like many other things in this poorly written movie, “John and the Hole” skips over logical details. Viewers will find out later in the story what happened to Charles.

John uses the same drugging method to secretly incapacitate his parents and sister while they’re asleep. It’s implied that he put the drug in their food or drinks at dinner. The movie shows John dragging their unconscious bodies out of their bedrooms. But after that, it doesn’t show how he was able to get their bodies inside the bunker without breaking any of their bones.

The only way to get in and out of the bunker is by climbing on something tall enough to reach the surface (such as a ladder) or by being lifted. The bunker has no sharp incline where people can slide or climb in and out. Anyone who jumps into the bunker is at risk of getting injured on the hard surface of the floor. Sure, John could’ve used a wheelbarrow to dump his family members into the bunker, but that would also mean they would sustain major injuries when they hit the floor.

How this physically slight 13-year-old got three adult-sized people into this deep hole without any injuries is a major plot hole (no pun intended) that the movie never addresses. The movie just shows Brad, Anna and Laurie waking up in the bunker and being confused over what happened. At first, they think it’s the work of an intruder and they’re fearful of what happened to John.

But when they find out that John is the culprit, the parents are shocked, but Laurie isn’t. She says that she’s always suspected that John hates them. John ignores their pleas to get them out of the bunker or to call for help. He throws food and water down to them, but not on a regular basis. At different points in the movie, he even cooks risotto for them and throws down some blankets when the weather gets cold, as if he thinks he’s being very generous. John never says why he’s keeping them captive.

Of course, John’s parents and sister do the best they can to get themselves out of this horrible situation. They try to climb on each other’s backs, to make a human ladder, but the three of them aren’t tall enough to reach the surface. They also try yelling for help, but the bunker is in a very remote part of the woods. It’s very unlikely that anyone will pass through that area, except for John, who is the only person on the outside who knows that they’re in the bunker.

The rest of the movie, until the last 10 minutes, shows how John lies to people to cover up for why his parents and sister are not around and why they aren’t returning phone calls and messages. John stops going to school, and no one from his school tries to find out why. The movie also doesn’t explain why no one from Laurie’s school or Brad’s job tries to find out why Laurie and Brad aren’t there. These are just more examples of how badly conceived and ridiculous ths movie is.

It’s unclear if Anna is a homemaker or has a job outside the home. The first person to notice that Anna is missing is her good friend Paula (played by Tamara Hickey), who stops by the house because she and Anna were supposed to go an event together. Paula is upset because it’s out of character for Anna to make them tardy for an event where people are expecting them.

John’s lie—which he never wavers from every time someone asks him where his family is—is to say that his parents and sister had to abruptly leave because Anna’s father had a heart attack, is in a coma, and isn’t expected to live much longer. John explains that the family had to travel out of the area for this family emergency, and that they decided to leave John behind so he wouldn’t miss his tennis training.

John also tells Paula that it’s unlikely that his mother will call her because Anna is just too stressed out. Does that sound believable to you? Paula seems a little suspicious of this story, but she doesn’t really question it until the days go on and she still hasn’t gotten a phone call from Anna, despite leaving many messages.

Meanwhile, John drives one of the family’s cars to withdraw cash from an ATM (by using his parents’ bank card) and to buy things that he wants. He also gets lonely and invites an online friend over to the home, so that they can meet in person for the first time. The friend, who’s about the same age as John, is named Peter (played by Ben O’Brien), and he’s told the same story about why John is alone in the house.

John drives Peter in the family car multiple times, such as when they go to a store and when John goes to a bank ATM to get more cash. Peter doesn’t seem the least bit concerned that John (who definitely does not look old enough to drive) will be caught illegally driving. It’s just more ridiculousness on display. Peter’s parents are barely mentioned, but apparently, he has the type of freedom where he can just go over to a stranger’s home to spend the night whenever he wants, without his parents wanting to know where he’s going and who will be with him.

At John’s house, Peter and John spend time playing video games, goofing around, and doing a dangerous underwater experiment in the house’s swimming pool. They each try to hold the other down underwater for as long as possible. At one point, it looks like John might actually drown Peter.

There’s another part to this movie which is supposed to be artsy, but it just comes across as nonsensical. Before John’s parents and sister are shown waking up in the bunker, the movie shows a 12-year-old girl named Lily (played by Samantha LeBretton) asking her mother Gloria (played by Georgia Lyman) to tell her a story called “John and the Hole.” Who are Lily and Gloria? Don’t expect to this movie to give any clear answers.

As time goes on, it becomes harder for John to keep his secret. His tennis instructor (played by Elijah Ungvary) gets a little suspicious when John offers to pay the latest fee in cash. The instructor refuses to take the money because he says he’s used to getting paid by check. And when Paula comes back to the house to check on John, he acts clingy and bizarre by asking her to spend the night with him. It’s not the type of thing that Paula will easily overlook.

In the beginning of the movie, Laurie mentions her boyfriend named Josh. She appears to be having a hot romance with him because she wants to spend as much time with him as possible. However, not once does Josh appear in the story. Even if John wanted to impersonate Laurie by using her phone to text Josh, it still doesn’t explain how this boyfriend wouldn’t be suspicious that he hadn’t heard his girlfriend’s voice in more than a week.

In order for a movie about a sociopath to have some type of impact, viewers need to have more information than just a series of scenes where the sociopath acts weird and secretive. John and his family are not shown in any significant way, except for what happens when he keeps them captive. It’s not the actors’ fault, because they seem to be doing the best that that can with this very unimaginative and limiting screenplay. Shotwell shows talent in playing a teenager who seems to be emotionally defective, but John has absolutely no charm or wit to suggest that he can keep up a long-term charade like a skilled sociopath.

While John’s parents and sister are trapped in the bunker, they mostly complain about their discomfort (they’re underfed and they can’t take showers), and they sometimes bicker with each other. They make a minimal effort to try to figure out what could have caused John to commit such a heinous act. The only clue that Anna can come up with is that John once asked her what it was like to be an adult. Anna says that her answer was that it was just like being a kid, but with responsibilities.

That’s still not a good-enough explanation. Lots of underage kids would like to be home alone without adult supervision. That doesn’t mean they’re going to keep their family members in captivity. How John’s family deals with this problem is supposed to be this movie’s commentary on the denial that family members can have when they have a loved one who is mentally unstable or a sociopath. However, the way that this movie presents everything is as empty as John’s soul.

IFC Films released “John and the Hole” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on August 6, 2021.

Review: ‘The Nest’ (2020), starring Jude Law and Carrie Coon

November 27, 2020

by Carla Hay

Carrie Coon and Jude Law (center) in “The Nest” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“The Nest” (2020)

Directed by Sean Durkin

Culture Representation: Taking place in 1986 in the United Kingdom and briefly in New York state, the dramatic film “The Nest” features an almost all-white cast of characters (with a few Indians) representing the middle-class, working-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A British businessman and his American wife experience upheavals in their marriage when they move from New York to England so that he can pursue his dream of starting his own consulting firm for commodities brokering.

Culture Audience: “The Nest” will appeal primarily to people who like well-acted arthouse dramas that explore issues about marital relationships, social classes and how wealth is perceived as a status symbol.

Carrie Coon and Jude Law in “The Nest” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

On the surface, “The Nest” is a drama about an upwardly mobile married couple whose lives are frequently upended by the businessman husband’s restlessness to relocate when he finds new opportunities to make more money. Underneath the surface—and what becomes more apparent as the glossy sheen of their seemingly idyllic existence starts to wear off—”The Nest” is really about a power struggle within this marriage. Written and directed by Sean Durkin, “The Nest” features stellar performances from Jude Law and Carrie Coon as the couple at the center of this simmering turmoil and how these two spouses are forced to reckon with some messy and uncomfortable truths.

At the beginning of “The Nest,” which takes place in 1986, married couple Rory O’Hara (played by Law) and Allison O’Hara (played by Coon) seem to have a “perfect” life in New York state. Rory, who’s originally from England, works for a commodities brokerage firm. Allison, who’s a New York native, works for a place that does horse training. They both seem to be happily married and they live in a comfortably upper-middle-class suburban home with their two children: 10-year-old son Benjamin, nicknamed Ben (played by Charlie Shotwell) and daughter Samantha, nicknamed Sam (played by Oona Roche), who is about 16 or 17 years old.

Sam is Allison’s daughter from a previous relationship, so Rory is Sam’s stepfather. Sam calls Rory by his first name, instead of calling him her father. Sam’s biological father is not seen or mentioned in this story. Ben and Sam were both born in the United States and have never lived in another country before.

There are signs that perhaps because Sam is not Rory’s biological child, Rory doesn’t feel as close to Sam as he does to Ben. Rory is a very attentive father to Ben and will spend time doing things like playing soccer with Ben and his friends. That doesn’t mean that Sam is close to her mother either. Unlike the very obedient Ben, Sam is showing signs of teenage rebellion that will come out in a big way later in the story.

Rory is a very doting and loving husband and father overall, but there are some obvious indications that Rory wants to be a very dominant patriarch in this family. One day, Rory tells Allison that he thinks they should move back to his native England because he’s found an opportunity to make more money. Rory’s former boss/mentor Arthur Davis, who owns his own London-based commodities firm named Davis Trading, has offered Rory an opportunity to start his own consulting firm, with Arthur as the primary investor.

But first, Arthur wants Rory to come back to working for Davis Trading so that Arthur (who is nearing retirement age) can be reassured that he will be making the right investment when Rory is ready to strike out on his own. Allison is very reluctant to move because the family has relocated four times in the past 10 years, and where they are currently living in New York state is close to where Allison’s parents live. However, Rory tells Allison: “Things have dried up here … This is a chance to make some real money again.”

Throughout the movie, viewers will see a pattern to Rory’s overly confident sales skills: He manipulates people into thinking that they’re less-than-smart if they don’t go along with his ideas. He plays into people’s “fear of missing out” on a great opportunity, even if deep down he isn’t sure himself if what he’s selling is worthwhile. Rory likes to take risks, which can be an asset in his line of work. But he doesn’t always investigate all the pros and cons of taking that risk. And that short-sightedness can be a detriment to his line of work.

Allison eventually agrees to Rory’s plan because he makes her think that she’s not “visionary” enough if she can’t see that he should seize this opportunity that he wants to give their family more wealth. He also sells her on the idea to move because he tells her that he will be making enough money for her to eventually have her own horse-training business. The children have no choice but to accept their parents’ decision to move to England. They’re not thrilled about it but they’re not upset to the point where anyone is throwing tantrums or having crying fits.

Before they move to England, there’s a very telling scene where Allison spends time at her parents’ home. Allison and her mother (played by Wendy Crewson) have a prickly relationship where they don’t really get along with each other, but they still love each other. Allison is almost sad to be leaving behind her parents to move to England, but she doesn’t really want to admit it too much.

Allison confides in her mother (who doesn’t have a name in the movie) about how she feels about this sudden move to England: “Something doesn’t feel right, Mom.” Allison’s mother replies, “It’s not your job to worry. You leave that to your husband.” Allison responds, “It scares me that you actually think that … I’m not the difficult one here.”

Although the “husband always knows best” mentality is not one that Allison is willing to always believe in theory, it becomes clear that in reality, her marriage has become a manifestation of that belief, whether she likes it or not. Rory has always been the one to decide their financial destiny and when and where they are going to move. He’s the type of husband who insists that he will take care of paying the bills and the wife doesn’t need to know all the details.

In essence, Allison has given Rory a lot of power and trust in their financial future. But this move to England will open her eyes in more ways than one. At first, the move to England goes smoothly. The children seem to quickly get over their fear and sadness about leaving their previous life behind and starting over in a new country when they see the stately (yet slightly shabby) centuries-old mansion that Rory has rented for the family. Rory signed a one-year lease with the option to own.

The mansion is in Surrey, about 30 miles from London: close enough to commute but far enough from the crime and noise of a big city. Allison thinks the mansion is too big for their family, but Rory reassures her that they can afford it. It’s another sign that Allison lets Rory make big decisions without her, since it’s obvious that he signed the lease on the home without even discussing it with Allison first.

The mansion needs some remodeling, but Rory assures Allison that they can afford whatever needs to be done. And best of all for Allison, the mansion has a farm that’s large enough for her beloved horse Richmond. Rory has thoughtfully paid to have the horse shipped from the United States to the family’s new home in England. Rory has also enrolled the children in the best private schools he could find in the area, and he doesn’t make them forget it.

At work, Arthur (played by Michael Culkin) treats Rory like a wayward son who has come back to the fold. Rory and Arthur have some discussions about how working in America has changed Rory to think of bigger and better possibilities. Since Rory achieved the American Dream when he lived in the United States, he tells Arthur that what he learned from that experience can only be an asset to Davis Trading, which Rory believes might be stuck in an old and stodgy British way of thinking.

Rory is eager to impress everyone around him by giving off airs of being a wealthy and successful businessman. Rory has a tendency to boast about his accomplishments and how wealthy he supposedly is. Rory tells Arthur and some business colleagues that he and Allison are keeping a penthouse in New York, and they might get a pied-à-terre in London’s Mayfair district, in addition to the mansion they have in Surrey. Rory also tends to name-drop a lot and very much wants to be considered one of England’s elite businessman.

There are signs that Allison isn’t completely comfortable with the snooty social circles that Rory wants to be a part of, now that he’s working with Arthur again. At a formal dinner party at a grand estate, Arthur’s socialite wife Patricia (played by Annabel Leventon) introduces Rory and Allison as “Mr. and Mrs. Rory O’Hara.” Allison makes a point of telling her that she would like to be introduced as Allison, not as “Mrs. Rory O’Hara.” Later, when Rory and Allison are at their home, Allison tells Roy that things were much easier in America because they could be more relaxed in social settings, compared to their new lifestyle in Great Britain.

Rory didn’t come back to work for Davis Trading to do boring, small-time deals. He tells Arthur that he’s found a Chicago-based firm that wants to merge with a London-based firm. Rory insists that this firm is a great match for Davis Trading and that it’s time for Arthur to sell the company. It would mean that most of Davis Trading employees will be laid off when the American firm takes over, but Rory doesn’t care because he’s already figured out that his commission for brokering this deal will make him very rich.

Arthur agrees to look over the details of this deal. And later, he tells Rory that he’ll probably do the merger as Rory suggested. Plans are set in motion, and Rory is eager to celebrate. He tells a reliable co-worker named Steve (played by Adeel Akhtar), who is his closest confidant at the firm, about this great news.

But at home, things aren’t so great. The cracks in Rory’s façade begin to show when Allison finds out that the contract workers hired to do remodeling on the family’s new home are refusing to do any more work unless they are paid for the work that they already did. Through a phone conversation with the workers’ supervisor, Allison discovers that Rory paid by a check that bounced, and Rory didn’t follow through on his promise to make things right by paying the workers with a legitimate check. Allison gets even more of a shock when she contacts the bank and finds out that she and Rory only have £600 in their joint account.

When Allison confronts Rory, she’s understandably furious. He reassures her that their financial problems will go away because he’s expecting a huge payday. He doesn’t tell her the details, but he insists that she shouldn’t worry. For a while, Allison is part of this denial state of mind too. Her children hear Allison and Rory arguing, but Allison keeps denying that anything is wrong when the kids (especially sensitive and intuitive Ben) ask her to tell her what’s wrong.

As the weeks stretch on and Rory’s big payday keeps getting delayed, the tensions mount in Allison and Rory’s marriage. It reaches a point where he has to ask her to loan him some money from a secret stash of cash that Allison has for emergencies. Allison has lost so much trust in Rory that when she goes to retrieve the cash, she makes him wait in the hallway so he won’t be able to see where she’s hidden it.

One of the best scenes in the movie is shortly after Rory has told Allison that she has nothing to worry about after she discovers they only have £600 in their joint bank account. They go out to a fancy restaurant and she tests him by saying that if they have nothing to worry about, then she can order whatever she wants on the menu. She proceeds to order some high-priced items before Rory stops her. The looks on their faces say it all: Allison is disgusted, Rory is exposed for being a liar, and Allison has now decided she wants more control in this marriage.

The remainder of “The Nest” shows exactly what happens when this marriage becomes a power struggle between someone who wants to continue to live in a fantasy world and someone who wants to deal with reality. Rory’s family background is also revealed, and it explains why he acts the way that he does and why his self-esteem is so wrapped up in becoming rich. And caught in the crossfire are the children Sam and Ben and even Allison’s horse Richmond.

Through it all, Law and Coon give absolutely impressive and realistic performances as people who have to deal with the false public image they put forth to the world versus the harsh reality of who they truly are. Durkin’s solid direction and engaging screenplay are the spark match to this slow-burn movie, but Law’s and Coon’s performances are what give this movie its real fire. The moody cinematography by Mátyás Erdély is also used to great emotional effect, particularly with the darkly lit Surrey mansion, which is a reflection of the shadowy secrets that this family wants to keep. Even though “The Nest” is set in the 1980s, it’s a cautionary tale that is timeless and relevant as long as people commit desperate acts of deception.

IFC Films released “The Nest” in select U.S. cinemas on September 18, 2020, and on digital and VOD on November 17, 2020.

Review: ‘Troop Zero,’ starring Viola Davis, Mckenna Grace, Jim Gaffigan, Mike Epps and Allison Janney

January 17, 2020

by Carla Hay

Troop Zero
Allison Janney and Viola Davis in “Troop Zero” (Photo by Curtis Bonds Baker)

“Troop Zero”

Directed by Bert & Bertie

Culture Representation: Taking place in 1977, the family-friendly comedy “Troop Zero” has predominantly white American characters (with some representation of African Americans and Latinos) from the middle and lower classes of a rural, conservative community in the U.S. state of Georgia.

Culture Clash: The movie’s plot revolves around a talent competition for middle-school Birdie Scouts, with one rival troop comprised of “popular girls” and another rival troop comprised of “social outcasts.”

Culture Audience: “Troop Zero” will appeal primarily to people who like adorable, slightly kooky comedies about student angst and self-identity.

Mckenna Grace in “Troop Zero” (Photo by Curtis Bonds Baker)

In a comedy film, a cranky adult reluctantly takes on a group of pre-teen misfits to coach them in a high-stakes competition where the team will be ridiculed underdogs. Is it 1977’s “The Bad News Bears” or 1992’s “The Mighty Ducks”? No, in this case, it’s 2020’s “Troop Zero,” a decidedly different take on a familiar plot outline.

“Troop Zero,” which is set in 1977 rural Georgia, is certainly a throwback to those films from a bygone era when smartphones and social media didn’t dominate kids’ lives. The main differences between most films of this kind and “Troop Zero” is that for “Troop Zero,” the story is told from the perspective of a girl; the adult leader of the misfit group is a woman; and the movie was written and directed by women.

Directed by female duo Bert & Bertie and written by Oscar-nominated “Beasts of the Southern Wild” co-writer Lucy Alibar, “Troop Zero” has a cute and quirky charm that comes primarily from Christmas Flint (played by Mckenna Grace), an adolescent girl who’s obsessed with outer space and who’s still grieving over the death of her mother from the previous year. The opening scene of the movie shows Christmas trying to contact outer-space aliens with flashlight signals.

Christmas lives with her father, Ramsey Flint (played by Jim Gaffigan), a defense attorney who’s constantly having financial problems because he has many clients who can’t or won’t pay him, and he has a hard time saying no to people he thinks need his help. Ramsey’s assistant/office manager is Miss Raylene (played by Viola Davis), who’s the closest to a maternal figure that Christmas has in her life, even if Miss Raylene says she doesn’t particularly like being around children. “Little girls give me the creeps,” Miss Raylene says in one scene. “You can’t him them no more. They changed the laws.”

Ramsey’s best friend Dwayne (played by Mike Epps) is a fellow Vietnam War veteran who’s suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Back in 1977, there wasn’t a name for PTSD, so they usually called it being “shell-shocked.” Dwayne is the love interest of Miss Raylene, who’s had her heart broken in her past. She reveals the details in the movie, and it explains why she has such a hard exterior.

Viewers see early on in the film that Christmas is an outcast at her school not only because a lot of students think she’s weird, but also because her father’s financially precarious situation has branded the Flints as “poor trash” by the snobs in the community. Her best friend is Joseph (played by Charlie Shotwell), an androgynous, flamboyant child who might be gay, but the movie hints that Joseph is either gender-fluid or non-binary, because various characters in the movie keep saying that they don’t know if Joseph is a boy or a girl. And since this movie takes place in 1977, there weren’t specific terms for people who might not have a cisgender identity.

Some of the social rejection that Christmas experiences stings her a little bit, but she’s mostly content to do her own thing and hang out with Joseph. She’s not really concerned about being well-liked and joining groups until she finds out that there’s a national talent competition for Birdie Scouts where the winning scout troop will get to have their voices recorded on NASA’s Golden Record, thereby becoming part of space history.

With no way of being accepted by the established Birdie Scout troops in the area, Christmas decides to start her own Birdie Scout troop. The style-minded Joseph (who likes to wear dresses and loves David Bowie) is immediately up for the challenge and is the first recruit to this new troop. Christmas also ends up convincing these other kids to join the troop: Ann-Claire (played by Bella Higginbotham), an eyepatch-wearing nervous and shy girl who’s devoted to Christianity; Hell-No (played by Milan Ray), the school’s loudmouth bully; and Smash (played Johanna Colón), who’s practically mute and likes to destroy things when she gets angry—a lot like the Incredible Hulk. The Birdie Scout troops have numbers for their names, so Christmas chooses “zero” as the name for her troop, since “zero” can also mean infinity.

The Birdie Scouts of the school are under the supervision of Crystal Massey (played by Allison Janney), the school principal whom the students have nicknamed Nasty Massey. She’s the type of uptight and stern principal we’ve seen many times before in movies, but Janney brings a touch of humanity to the role to convey that Principal Massey must be a pathetic and lonely person for her to take so much pleasure in making life miserable for other people. (On a side note, fans of “The Help” movie should delight in seeing “The Help” co-stars Davis and Janney reunited on screen.)

Principal Massey is already counting on her favorite Birdie Scout troop, Troop Five, to win the competition. Troop Five is the group of popular girls in the school—the types who are cheerleaders, “A”-grade students, and from the communities’ socially prominent families. (The Troop Five members are also stuck-up mean girls.) But to Principal Massey’s horror, Troop Zero qualifies to become a real troop to enter the competition, as long as Troop Zero gets an adult leader. Miss Raylene completely resists the idea at first, but she eventually gives in to Christmas’ relentless pleas for Miss Raylene to become Troop Zero’s adult leader.

Another big challenge that Troop Zero faces is to raise enough money for the competition’s entry fees. They do so by selling cookies from door to door and by offering pop-up beauty salon services to local women. (Joseph is thrilled to be the troop’s best hair stylist.) One of the baking sessions ends up in a predictable food fight when members of Troop Five crash the session.

The hairstyles and clothes aren’t the only indications that this movie takes place in the 1970s. In one scene in the movie, as one of the required Birdie Scout challenges, Miss Raylene leaves the members of Troop Zero alone to camp out overnight in the woods. That’s not the kind of thing that adults could get away with nowadays. (We have to assume that the parents thought that the kids would be safe with Miss Raylene, but she ends up ditching the children to fend for themselves.)

Her reason for the abandonment is to build character and courage for the troop. It’s the kind of scene that’s cringeworthy to watch for anyone who would never do that to defenseless kids, but since this movie is supposed to be a comedy, you can almost hear the filmmakers make this excuse: “Hey, it was the ’70s!”

Speaking of the ’70s, there’s something very old-school about this kind of film with the basic plot about student angst and “misfits versus the popular ones,” but “Troop Zero” has a modern sensibility by including child characters who wouldn’t be in movies that were made back in the 1970s. (Joseph is a perfect example.)

The precocious and determined Christmas is also ahead of her time, since she has no hesitation about her goals to join NASA and go into outer space. It’s a dream that people around her discourage her from having, because the naysayers tell her that being an astronaut is a “man’s job.” And what happens during Troop Zero’s talent routine during the competition is something that wouldn’t have been in a children’s movie that was made back in the 1970s.

“Troop Zero,” which had its world premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, is not just a movie that will appeal to girls or women. It has a message of self-acceptance and how to overcome obstacles that can resonate with a wide variety of people, if you don’t mind sitting through the retro vibe and familiarity of it all.

Amazon Prime Video premiered “Troop Zero” on January 17, 2020.

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