Pictured from left to right: Barb (voiced by Regina Hall), Flying Dutchman (voiced by Mark Hamill), SpongeBob SquarePants (voiced by Tom Kenny), Mr. Krabs (voiced by Clancy Brown), Squidward (voiced by Rodger Bumpass), Gary (voiced by Tom Kenny) and Patrick Star (voiced by Bill Fagerbakke) in “The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants” (Image courtesy of Paramount Animation/Nickelodeon/Paramount Pictures)
Culture Representation: Taking place in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom and other underwater areas, the animated film “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants” (the fourth SpongeBob SquarePants-starring movie in “SpongeBob Square Pants” franchise) features talking animals, talking objects and one human character.
Culture Clash: Desperate to prove that he is strong and brave, SpongeBob Square Pants asks a mysterious Flying Dutchman pirate to train him on how to swashbuckle, but the Flying Dutchman as a nefarious agenda of his own.
Culture Audience: “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the “SpongeBob SquarePants” franchise and cute but not outstanding animated films.
JK Fishlips (George Lopez), SpongeBob SquarePants (Tom Kenny) and Flying Dutchman (Mark Hamill) in The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants from Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon.
“The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants” takes some inspiration from the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies for the “SpongeBob SquarePants” franchise’s fourth movie starring earnest “good guy” SpongeBob SquarePants. This movie sequel is lightweight, predictable, and adequately entertaining for people who want to see family-friendly animation that has a pirate adventure. It works as a stand-alone film for people unfamiliar with the “SpongeBob SquarePants” franchise.
Directed by Derek Drymon, “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants” is based on Nickelodeon’s long-running “SpongeBob SquarePants” TV series, which features an array of characters who live in an underwater city called Bikini Bottom. SpongeBob (voiced by Tom Kenny) is literally a sponge. He’s a fry cook at a fast-food restaurant called the Krusty Krab. Squidward (voiced by Rodger Bumpass), a cranky and pretentious squid, also works at the Krusty Krab.
The beginning of “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants” shows a pirate narrator (voiced by Clancy Brown) telling the story of the movie’s chief villain—a pirate named the Flying Dutchman (played by Mark Hamill), who became trapped underwater by an unlucky curse. Even though the Flying Dutchman has supernatural powers, he can only be released from the curse by a “precious youth with an innocent mind.” The curse will be fully lifted by sunset of the day that curse is unlocked. The curse will then pass on to the being who unlocks the curse and will turn that next unlucky being into a ghost.
The Flying Dutchman, who is human, mostly appears as a ghost in this movie. The Flying Dutchman character first appeared in 1999’s “Squidward the Unfriendly Ghost” episode in the “SpongeBob Square Pants” series. In the 2006 film “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” the Flying Dutchman is the name of a ghost ship whose captain is a tentacled villain named Davy Jones. The name Davy Jones has significance during a scene where some of SpongBob’s associates go looking for him at a high school.
Meanwhile, in Bikini Bottom, SpongeBob excitedly tells his best friend—an emotionally immature starfish named Patrick Star voiced by Bill Fagerbakke)—that SpongeBob is grown to the size of 36 clams, about one clam taller than SpongeBob used to be. SpongeBob says this growth spurt means that SpongeBob’s wise pet sea snail Gary (also voiced by Kenny) doesn’t have to be re-homed. To celebrate, SpongeBob and Patrick go to an amusement park, where the most terrifying ride is a pirate themed roller coaster called Ship Wreck.
SpongeBob and Patrick go to Krusty Krab owner Mr. Eugene Krabs (also voiced by Brown), very materialistic and greedy crab, because Mr. Krabs promised them that he would ride on this roller coaster with SpongeBob. Mr. Krabs then tells a story about he sailed with the Flying Dutchman and earned a swashbuckling certificate, which he shows to SpongeBob. When SpongeBob says he wants to be a swashbuckler too, Mr. Krabs says he doesn’t think SpongeBob is ready.
SpongeBob is determined to prove Mr. Krabs wrong. SpongeBob accidentally loses Mr. Krabs’ swashbuckling certificate inside a horizontal air vent. SpongeBob thinks going through this air vent and finding this certificate will be the perfect opportunity to prove that SpongeBob has what it takes to be considered brave and strong.
Accompanied by Patrick, SpongeBob goes through the air vent. Patrick and SpongeBob find themselves in what they find out later is the lair of a trapped Flying Dutchman, who is imprisoned in a bubble. SpongeBob finds and blows a pipe horn that sets the Flying Dutchman free.
The Flying Dutchman can immediately see that SpongeBob is the “precious youth with an innocent mind” that the Flying Dutchman needs to permanently break the curse When SpongeBob mentions that he wants the Flying Dutchman to train SpongeBob to be a swashbuckler, the Flying Dutchman readily agrees to train him. What the Flying Dutchman doesn’t tell SpongeBob is that the Flying Dutchman is just using SpongeBob to permanently the curse from the Flying Dutchman, and the curse will then be passed on to SpongeBob, who would turn into a ghost.
The Flying Dutchman has a pirate sidekick named Barb (voiced by Regina Hall), who is sarcastic and sassy but very loyal to the Flying Dutchman. In order to reverse the curse, the Flying Dutchman plans to take SpongeBob to Challenge Cove, where a series of physical challenges must be met to advance to the next level, just like a video game. Patrick tags along, but the Flying Dutchman has no use for Patrick and thinks Patrick is a nuisance.
Back in Bikini Bottom, SpongeBob and Patrick are declared missing. Mr. Krabs, Squidward and Gary go on the hunt to find SpongeBob and Patrick. Their hunt takes them to Bikini Bottom High School, where they encounter a dodgeball class lead by a shark named Coach Tuna (voiced by Tom Wilson) and find some hallway lockers that set them on a path to getting closer to finding SpongeBob and Patrick.
Like most animated films from major studios, “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants” has celebrity voice cast members who have cameo roles. George Lopez voices the character of JK Fishlips, a cynical and controlling movie-studio executive. Isis “Ice Spice” Gaston has the role of a ticket taker at the amusement park.
“The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants” is a very hyperactive movie that breezes through Challenge Cove challenges in a montage that seems meant for people who have very short attention spans. The banter between the characters is what you might expect from this type of movie. There are some enjoyable slapstick gags, while the verbal jokes are intentionally hokey. The animation’s visuals are sufficiently appealing.
Hamill’s campy villain performance is a highlight of the movie. However, when the Flying Dutchman appears as a giant, this character might be a little too scary for children under the age of 6. “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants” won’t be considered the best “SpongeBob SquarePants” movie, but it’s not the worst either. If you’re not an avid fan of the “SpongeBob SquarePants” franchise, then expect nothing more that a slightly amusing animated film that’s somewhat forgettable but easy to watch.
Paramount Pictures released “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants” in U.S. cinemas on December 19, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional city of Dylan, North Carolina, in 2024 and 2025 (with flashbacks to 2007), the dramatic film “Regretting You” (based on the novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Asian people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A recent widow finds out that her husband and her sister, who died in a car crash together, were having an affair with each other, and the widow’s teenage daughter rebels against her by dating a fellow student against her mother’s wishes.
Culture Audience: “Regretting You” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the book on which the movie is based, and corny melodramas about “difficult” romances.
Allison Williams and Dave Franco in “Regretting You” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)
“Regretting You” is the cinematic equivalent of an overstuffed Baked Alaska. Even with a talented cast, this drama’s tone is too sugary for the subject matter of finding love during grief. A soap-opera-length story is crammed into a feature-length film. The last 15 minutes of the movie are especially horrible at how the movie glosses over and neatly wraps up difficult traumas and messy life transitions.
Directed by Josh Boone and written by Susan McMartin, “Regretting You” is adapted from Colleen Hoover’s 2019 novel of the same name. The movie takes place in the fictional small city of Dylan, North Carolina. (Dylan’s population is a little more than 38,000 people.) “Regretting You” was actually filmed in the Georgia cities of Atlanta and Decatur. Even though most of the characters in the movie grew up in North Carolina, no one in this movie’s cast sounds like they’re from North Carolina. It’s not the only thing in the movie that looks phony.
“Regretting You” begins with a flashback to 2007, when two high-school couples go on a double date to a beach party. Traditional “good girl” Morgan Davidson (played by Allison Williams) and her free-spirited younger sister Jenny Davidson (played by Willa Fitzgerald) are at the party with their respective boyfriends. Morgan’s boyfriend is confident and popular Chris Grant (played by Scott Eastwood), while Jenny’s boyfriend is quiet and slightly nerdy Jonah Sullivan (played by Dave Franco), who is secretly in love with Morgan. Chris, Morgan and Jonah are in their last year of high school, while Jenny is either in her second or third year of high school.
Morgan seems to be aware that she and Jenny have ended up with boyfriends who have personalities that are the opposites of who Morgan and Jenny are. Morgan says so when she jokingly asks Jonah, “How did we end up with our opposites?” Chris is a little bit rude to Morgan when he tells her that he likes her better when she’s drunk. At this party, there’s something else that’s occupying Morgan’s thoughts that’s bigger than Chris’ disrepectful remark. Before going to the party, Morgan took a home pregnancy test and found out that she’s pregnant.
“Regretting You” then fast-forwards 17 years later to 2024. Morgan (whose last name is now Grant) and Chris are now the married parents of 16-year-old Clara Grant (played by Mckenna Grace), who wants to become an actress. The movie never really shows Clara making much of an effort to be an actress, exept for a few brief clips of her reciting lines. Conversations in the movie reveal that Morgan and Chris got married not long after they found out that Morgan was pregnant.
Meanwhile, Jonah is now a teacher at Dylan High School, his alma mater. After he graduated from high school, Jonah moved away and cut off contact with his friends from high school. When Jonah’s father died, Jonah came back to Dylan to attend the funeral.
Jonah and Jenny reconnected at the funeral, they had a sexual encounter, and she got pregnant with their infant son Elijah from that encounter. (The role of baby Elijah is played by twins William Burnham Simmons and Ryan Conner Simmons.) Jonah and Jenny began dating again after this unplanned pregnancy. Jonah moved back to Dylan, he and Jenny moved in together, and they have recently gotten engaged.
The present-day scenes begin with these family members gathered for Morgan’s birthday party, except for Clara, who is running late. Clara is driving on a road when she sees Miller Adams (played by Mason Thames), the schoolmate she’s had a crush on for quite some time. Miller is in on the side of the road and holding a Dylan city limit sign. He indicates that he’s looking for a car ride, so Clara stops.
Miller explains that he needs help moving the sign because his favorite pizza place won’t deliver outside Dylan’s city limits. Miller lives just right outside of Dylan, so he’s been moving the city limit sign so that pizza can get delivered to the house where Dylan lives with his widower grandfather Hank Adams Sr. (played by Clancy Brown), who has some respiratory-related health issues. (Hank is seen wearing oxygen tubes.) It’s later revealed that Hank has cancer.
Clara is secretly thrilled that she’s talking to Miller, who seems to like her too. Miller has a girlfriend named Shelby, who graduated from their high school the year before. Shelby is never seen in the movie, but she frequently calls Miller to check up on him because she’s a nagging and jealous girlfriend. Miller and Clara mildly flirt with each other while pretending that they’re not romantically attracted to each other. And you know what that eventually means in a movie like “Regretting You.”
During their conversation in the car, Clara (who is a high-achieving student) finds out that Miller (who is an average student) is an aspiring filmmaker. Clara tells him that she wants to be an actress, but Clara’s mother Morgan thinks that Clara should choose a more stable career. Clara says that she applied to a drama school anyway because she wants to go to this school instead of a regular university. Clara encourages Miller to pursue his filmmaking dreams.
Clara tells Miller she’s in a hurry to get to her mother’s birthday party. During this sign relocation, one of Clara’s flip-flop shoes accidentally falls into some mud. After they finish what they set out to do with the city limit sign, Miller asks Clara to give him a car ride back to his place. He introduces her to his grandfather and gives her $10 to buy a new set of flip-flops. After Clara leaves, she’s elated to see that Miller has started following her on social media.
Morgan is annoyed that Clara is late to the party. Morgan is also concerned that Clara was with Miller because Miller’s father Hank Adams Jr. is in prison for drug dealing. Miller’s mother died when Miller was a child. Miller is a student of Jonah, who assures Morgan that Miller is a good kid. Morgan isn’t entirely convinced and wants Clara to date someone who comes from a family that doesn’t have the stigma of having a convicted criminal in the family.
Morgan quickly forgives Clara now that the family is all together for the birthday party. It seems like a picture-perfect party, but things are not always what they appear to be. Clara’s relationship with Morgan is somewhat strained because she thinks Morgan is too strict and controlling. Clara confides in Jenny more than Morgan about Clara’s personal life. Clara also feels emotionally closer to her father Chris than with Morgan.
As already revealed in the “Regretting You” trailer, tragedy strikes the family shortly after this birthday party. Chris and Jenny are killed in a car accident where Chris was driving. Jenny and Chris had lied to their family members, by saying they would be at their respective jobs at the time of the accident. The fact that Chris and Jenny were in the same car at the time of the accident is an indication that they were having an affair.
Jonah and Morgan later find proof of this affair. At first, Morgan is more in denial about it than Jonah is, but they both eventually accept the awful truth. Morgan is afraid of Clara finding out this scandalous secret, so she and Jonah agree not to tell Clara. Meanwhile, Clara and Miller get emotionally closer to each other. Jonah and Morgan also become closer, as Jonah encourages Morgan to revive her career aspirations to be an interior designer.
“Regretting You” is a movie that has no suspense whatsoever about what’s going to happen. (The movie’s trailer gives away almost the entire plot.) And although the principal cast members do the best they can, the screenplay they have to work with meanders and stumbles in many places.
The movie’s comic relief usually comes with the character of Clara’s best friend Lexie (played by scene-stealer Sam Morelos), who is more worldly than virgin Clara. Lexie has some one-liners that are laugh-out-loud funny. Other lines of dialogue from other characters are unintentionally funny because they’re so corny and cringeworthy. The movie clumsily struggles to blend the joys of new romance with the sadness of grief.
One of the biggest failings of “Regretting You” is how it makes the grieving process so trivial and overshadowed, in service of having four people rush into romances not long after the deaths of Chris and Jenny. In real life, there’s no official timeline on how long it should take to grieve the death of a loved one, but it seems like the movie’s priorities are warped. For example, later in the movie, Clara gets more upset about being grounded by Morgan than Clara is upset about losing her father and her aunt: the two people whom Clara admired most in life.
The movie has a sappy teen romance that’s forced into a story where family grief becomes just another sidelined plot device. Even worse is how “Regretting You” handles the changing relationship between Morgan and Jonah. This is the type of movie where certain people decide that they’re in love with each other after kissing each other for the first time. It all looks so fake, no matter how much the cast members try to be convincing. (Grace and Franco fare the best in their acting performances.) “Regretting You” is ultimately more interested in schmaltz than substance and has many questionable and eye-rolling choices that oversimplify what would be a painful mess in the real world.
Paramount Pictures will release “Regretting You” in U.S. cinemas on October 24, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on November 25, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in 1969 (and briefly in 1974) in Philadelphia, the dramatic film “Audrey’s Children” (based on true events) features a predominantly white group of people (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: Dr. Audrey Evans, a chief oncologist who works at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, has conflicts with her peers and superiors over her radical idea of how to give a new treatment to people with cancer.
Culture Audience: “Audrey’s Children” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching dramatic movies about medical breakthroughs that are based on true stories.
Jimmi Simpson and Natalie Dormer in “Audrey’s Children” (Photo courtesy of Blue Harbor Entertainment)
“Audrey’s Children” can get formulaic and clunky in telling the true story of Dr. Audrey Evans, a diligent oncologist whose unorthodox ideas led to breakthroughs in medical treatments for cancer. However, this drama’s performances and story are compelling. The movie is not a full biopic because it covers mostly just one year in the life of Evans, who died in 2022, at the age of 97. The movie mostly takes place in 1969, which was a pivotal year for Evans and oncology medicine.
Directed by Ami Canaan Mann and written by Julia Fisher Farbman, “Audrey’s Children” had its world premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Festival, where the movie won the Tribeca X Award for Best Feature. “Audrey’s Children” begins in 1969, by showing a scene at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, also known as CHOP. Dr. Audrey Evans (played by Natalie Dormer), an immigrant from England, is showing a young girl who’s a cancer patient that she has nothing to fear from a radiology machine that needs to be used on her for a test. (For the purposes of this review, the real people are referred to be their last names, while the characters in the movie are referred to by their first names.)
To show the girl that she won’t be harmed, Audrey has brough a rabbit from the hospital’s test lab and uses the machine on the rabbit to prove that the rabbit won’t be harmed. Dr. Brian Faust (played by Brandon Micheal Hall), an eager learner who is Audrey’s resident physician, speaks to her in the hallway after this demonstration. Brian tactfully reminds Audrey that rabbits are not allowed in the patient’s quarters. Audrey’s response is to cheerfully tell Brian to bring the rabbit back to the lab. As far as Audrey is concerned, this rule was broken for a greater good.
This scene sets the tone of what’s to come in how Audrey handles what she wants to do to make progress in her research and do what she thinks is best for her patients, even if she breaks rules and gets resistance from her colleagues. The movie soon shows that Audrey (a bachelorette with no children) is someone whose life revolves around her work. She was recruited to join the hospital as chief of oncology, a leadership position that women rarely had at the time. Audrey has impeccable credentials, but her style of working and communication clash with others who want to do things in a stricter, more traditional manner.
At home, where she lives by herself, Audrey is shown to be a little bit of an eccentric. She has a stuffed lamb that she talks to like it’s a little kid. When she practices a speech in front of the lamb, she says how she’ll change her speech: “I’ll be less oncologist-y.” she then kisses the lamb and puts it back on the shelf.
Audrey has a soft spot for animals and children. For example, she insists that the animals in her lab get treated with kindness and respect. Her child patients all get compassion and doting care from her, which is in contrast to the no-nonsense and stubborn way that she often interacts with her work colleagues. There’s a scene in the movie where she’s training some resident doctors on how to give injects to lab animals. One of the doctors giggles at her method. Audrey immediately and coldly dismisses him from the lab for the day.
Audrey’s insistence on doing things in the way she wants is also on display in the scene where she first meets Dr. Dan D’Angio (played by Jimmi Simpson), a radiation oncologist who also does research at the hospital. Dan meets Audrey for the first time when he finds her sitting at a desk in his office, with her feet up on the table, as she’s reading his mail. It’s downright rude for Audrey to do this, and she brushes off Dan’s comment that it’s illegal to open and read other people’s mail.
Audrey is unflustered when she gives criticism to Dan about his treatment diagnoses. She also comments that the hospital’s waiting room is “dreary.” She says how she thinks the waiting room’s ambience could be improved: “An aviary would do wonders.”
She delivers these cutting remarks in a way that is perky yet sassy and blunt. Dan is taken aback by his strong-willed woman. And although they have conflicts throughout the story because rule-following Dan wants to do everything “by the book,” Audrey and Dan end up becoming close allies.
Audrey wants to try what was a radical idea at the time: combination chemotherapy, which would mix approved medicine in low doses with radiation chemotherapy. This method, also called a staging system, has proven to be effective in treating leukemia. But at the time, it was an untested method for treating neuroblastoma, a type of cancer that starts in early nerve cells called neuroblasts.
Audrey is excited about this research and tells her supervisor Dr. C. Everett Koop (played by Clancy Brown), who is CHOP’s surgeon-in-chief (and who would later become U.S. Surgeon General from 1982 to 1989), that she can’t wait to get started on the research. However, Everett tells her it will take about one year for her research application to be approved. Audrey tells him that she and her patients don’t have time to wait one year. You know where all of this is going, of course.
The movie sometimes has scenes that look very contrived and probably didn’t happen in real life. For example, there’s a scene where Audrey tries to convince Everett to approve her research as he is swimming laps in an indoor pool. In order to get his attention, Audrey jumps into the pool while wearing her work clothes. Everett agrees to look at her preliminary study results but tells her she has a two-week deadline.
Meanwhile, Audrey takes on an additional crusade that doesn’t have to do with scientific research. She notices that families of CHOP’s cancer patients often have to travel from out of the area so that the child patients can get the cancer treatment or clinical trials. These family members often have to cut the treatment short and have the patient discharged because they can no longer afford the cost of staying in hotels. And so, Audrey goes on a fundraising mission to buy places where family members of these patients can stay for free. Her efforts lead her to become a co-founder of Ronald McDonald House Charities.
“Audrey’s Children” sometimes clumsily balances these two crusades that Audrey juggles at the same time. A lot of it looks very “only in a movie” simplistic because it’s presented in the movie as Audrey being the only person with the unwavering driving force to get things done. She gets help from Dan, Brian and Dr. Laurie Naiman (played by Jeff Panzarella), who works at the rival Keystone General Hospital. Audrey is presented as the only one who doesn’t doubt her plans.
Audrey sees the benefit of hospitals working together in advancing cancer research instead of trying to be competitive with each other for a research breakthrough. Everett and CHOP’s board of directors don’t see it that way, as Audrey flaunts the rules about doing research that wasn’t approved by her supervisors. It all leads to an inevitable showdown.
In every story like this, there’s a villain. And in “Audrey’s Children,” the villain is Dr. Jeremy Lewis (played by Ben Chase), a jealous doctor at CHOP who tries to turn Everett, Dan and other colleagues against Audrey by calling her an attention-seeking troublemaker. Jeremy is a sneaky gossip who does everything he can to get Audrey suspended or fired. Jeremy also tries to persuade Everett and others that the sponsorship money that Audrey obtained for her research could be put to better use for other research.
Part of Audrey’s charitable generosity starts in her own home. She invites a young single mother named Kate Watson (played by Evelyn Giovine) from Tennessee to stay in Audrey’s home for free while Kate’s baby son Charlie Watson (played by Dominic Sacchetti) gets cancer treatment at CHOP. Charlie is one of the patients who becomes part of Audrey’s combination chemotherapy trial. However, Kate can’t stay at Audrey’s place for an extended period of time, so it motivates Audrey even more to get temporary housing for families in need.
Audrey also becomes emotionally attached to a cancer patient named Mia McAlister (played by Julianna Layne), a 7-year-old girl with neuroblastoma. Her parents Alvin McAllister (played by J.P. Edwards) and Rita McAlister (played by Kat Murphy) agree to have Mia undergo Audrey’s unauthorized clinical trials for the combination chemotherapy. There’s really no suspense on what the outcome will be because a movie wouldn’t be made of this story if it didn’t have the expected outcome.
“Audrey’s Children” show some of the sexist barriers that Audrey came up against in her quest. For example, she successfully convinced a cranky home owner to sell his house to the hospital after he insisted that he meet her husband. Audrey had Brian pretend to be her husband. But when Audrey goes to a bank to apply for a mortgage, she finds out she can’t get a mortgage without a man to co-sign on ownership of the house.
Dormer gives an admirable performance in showing how Audrey is an unstoppable force of nature, even when she gets discouraging setbacks and opposition. The supporting cast members are very capable in their roles. There’s noticeable chemistry between Audrey and Dan, but he’s married, so they keep things strictly professional in this story. The movie has an epilogue that tells what happened in real life to the story’s main characters. “Audrey’s Children,” although not a perfect or surprising movie, can appeal to many types of viewers and is inspiring in all the right ways.
Blue Harbor Entertainment released “Audrey’s Children” in select U.S. cinemas on March 28, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on May 6, 2025.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Los Angeles, the comedy film “Poolman” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: An apartment complex’s swimming pool cleaner, who is working on an environmental documentary about Los Angeles, investigates a corruption scheme involving a city council president and a property developer.
Culture Audience: “Poolman” will appeal primarily to people are fans of the movie’s headliners and don’t mind watching a time-wasting and poorly made movie.
Chris Pine in “Poolman” (Photo courtesy of Vertical)
“Poolman” is like a flimsy and faulty floating device that’s full of holes and quickly sinks due to its sheer incompetence. This comedy noir mystery is very unamusing and incoherent. Everyone involved should be embarrassed.
“Poolman” is the feature-film directorial debut of actor Chris Pine, who stars in the movie and co-wrote (with Ian Gotler) the abysmal screenplay. “Poolman” (which takes place in Los Angeles, where the movie was filmed on location) is clearly inspired by the Oscar-winning 1974 noir mystery “Chinatown,” starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. However, “Poolman” removes all of the good filmmaking qualities that make “Chinatown” a classic. “Poolman” had its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, which clearly chose this movie because of Pine’s fame, not because of the low quality of the film.
In “Poolman,” Darren Barrenman (played by Pine) is a long-haired, scruffy, wannabe documentarian who has a day job as the swimming pool cleaner for a shabby motel-like apartment complex called the Tahitian Tiki. Darren (who is the only employee of his Awesome Aquatics business) lives in a small trailer that is awkwardly located on the side of the Tahitian Tiki’s swimming pool. Darren is dating Tahitian Tiki manager Susan Kerkovich (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh), but their relationship seems to be stuck in a rut. Darren and Susan have boring conversations that go nowhere, such as when they are in bed and talk about how the owner of their favorite chicken restaurant has recently died.
Darren has an obsession with real-life environmental activist Erin Brockovich, so he is seen typing (on a typewriter) a letter to her every day. These letters, which are read out loud in voiceovers, are quite pathetic because Darren sounds like a jilted ex-lover in these letters, even though he has apparently never met Brockovich. Darren wants to make an important environmental documentary about Los Angeles and is against any property development that might harm the environment. One of the reasons why he’s directing this documentary is so he can impress Brockovich.
Darren has three friends who are helping him with this documentary: Diane Esplinade (played by Annette Bening), who seems to be a producer, constantly rambles about New Age self-care gibberish. Jack Denisoff (played by Danny DeVito) is a cinematographer, who often likes to talk about his glory days working as a television director. Wayne (played by John Ortiz), who is a production assistant, is described as Darren’s “best friend” and a “union analyst.”
“Poolman” is so poorly written, it isn’t made immediately clear what type of relationship Diane and Jack have with emotionally immature Darren. When Diane and Jack are first seen with Darren in the movie, Diane and Jack act like they are Darren’s parents, not his documentary co-worker/friends. Darren’s relationship with “best friend” Wayne is also strange, with no backstory.
Darren makes himself a nuisance at Los Angeles City Council meetings to protest anything that he thinks will harm the environment. Darren is very suspicious of an upcoming property development called the Very Venice Housing Project. At one of these meetings, Darren is ranting about an environmental study that he has completed. The president of the Los Angeles City Council is Stephen Toronkowski (played by Stephen Tobolowsky), who sees that Darren is attempting a filibuster, so he orders Darren to stop.
A bailiff named Reggie (played by Aflamu Johnson) tries to stop Darren, but Darren assaults Reggie. Darren is arrested, but he is bailed out of jail by June Del Rey (played by DeWanda Wise), who dresses and acts like she thinks she’s in a 1940s noir film. June tells Darren that she’s Stephen’s new executive assistant and says she needs Darren’s help in exposing Stephen as a corrupt politician. Darren has a romantic attraction to June that never looks believable in this dreadful movie.
Meanwhile, Darren’s investigation involves a wealthy property developer named Theodore “Teddy” Hollandaise (played by Clancy Brown), the CEO of Big Dutch Group, the company behind the Very Venice Housing Project. There’s also another rich mogul named William Van Patterson (played by Ray Wise), who becomes part of the story. Darren and his documentary film pals get involved in amateurish and bumbling spying on suspicious characters.
Everything in “Poolman” is sloppily conceived and clumsily executed. Bening does the best that she can in a terribly written role, while the other cast members’ performances are mediocre-to-horrible. Pine constantly mugs for the camera and smirks in ways that quickly become irritating, as Darren shows how much of a moronic “investigator” he can be.
The secrets and surprise “reveals” for some of the characters just add to the movie’s idiocy. There are plenty of low-budget, independent movies that are of low quality, but “Poolman” didn’t have to be this bad, considering the well-known talent involved. All of that talent is wasted and goes down the drain quicker than obnoxious poolman Darren can empty a pool.
Vertical released “Poolman” in select U.S. cinemas on May 10, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the Los Angeles area, the comedy/drama film “Scrambled” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Latin people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A 34-year-old free-spirited bachelorette, who has no idea if she will ever find a life partner or if she’ll ever be ready to be a parent, decides to freeze her eggs anyway while she still looks for love.
Culture Audience: “Scrambled” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in comedies about dating and fertility issues.
Leah McKendrick in “Scrambled” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)
Even though “Scrambled” occasionally stumbles into a cliché sitcom tone about a bachelorette in her 30s who’s unhappy in her love life, this adult-oriented comedy has entertaining performances in this story about a single woman who wants to freeze her eggs. “Scrambled” was very obviously influenced by HBO’s 1998 to 2004 comedy series “Sex and the City” (with frank talk and explicit scenes about sex), but “Scrambled” is more of a tribute than a ripoff. Just like in “Sex and the City,” the narrator is a single, liberated woman in her 30s with a messy life of failed romances with ex-boyfriends, financial instability, and the nagging feeling that she should have her life figured out by now.
“Sex and the City” and “Scrambled” also drew inspiration from real-life people. Carrie Bradshaw, the main protagonist of “Sex and the City,” lives in New York City and is a sex columnist. The Carrie Bradshaw character is based on real-life writer Candace Bushnell. Leah McKendrick is the writer, director and star of “Scrambled,” where she portrays main protagonist Nellie Robinson, a Los Angeles-based jewelry designer who works from home and who experiences fertility issues that McKendrick experienced in real life. McKendrick makes an impressive feature-film directorial debut with “Scrambled,” which had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film & TV Festival.
“Scrambled” begins with a somewhat stereotypical setting for a movie about a lovelorn bachelorette: a wedding where she is a bridesmaid. Nellie, who is 34, is at the wedding of her best friend Sheila (played by Ego Nwodim) and wants to make a grand entrance with her date Conor (played by Henry Zebrowski), because she tells Conor it’s a tradition that’s expected of her, as someone who ends up being a bridesmaid at many weddings. In the movie’s opening scene, which takes place before the wedding ceremony begins, Nellie is shown debating with Conor about what type of dance they should start with at the wedding reception. She nixes the idea of doing the Running Man, but Nellie says that recreating iconic dance scenes from “Grease” or “Dirty Dancing” could still be in the realm of possibility.
Nellie goes to check on Sheila in a dressing room and sees that Sheila is a nervous wreck. Sheila babbles to Nellie about Sheila’s groom-to-be Ron (played by Max Adler), by asking this hypothetical question: “Would you fuck Ron for the rest of your life?” It’s Sheila’s way of asking if Nellie thinks Sheila is making the right decision to marry Ron and stay faithful to him. Like a good friend, Nellie says, “Yes.”
Sheila then rambles on to Nellie about how she and Nellie always thought that they weren’t the marrying type, and now here they are on Sheila’s wedding day. Sheila then asks Nellie if Nellie has some cocaine because Sheila wants to do some cocaine before the ceremony. Sheila nearly has a meltdown when Nellie says she doesn’t have any drugs. But then, Nellie remembers she might have some molly. Nellie and Sheila take the molly together—until Sheila abruptly announces that she’s pregnant, and then Nellie orders her to spit out the pill.
This scene sets the tone for the rest of “Scrambled,” which is revels in its raunchiness and crudeness in ways to make viewers laugh. At the wedding, Nellie is very stoned on the molly, but during the reception she gets a sobering lecture from an older friend named Monroe (played by June Diane Raphael), whose time in the movie is brief (less than 10 minutes) but it’s one of the funniest scenes in the movie. Monroe and Nellie are sitting at the same table when Nellie gushes to Monroe about how Nellie considers Monroe to be her “idol,” because Monroe seems to “have it all” as a wife, mother, and the owner of a successful business.
Monroe has brought her only child—a daughter named Zofia (played by Everly Taylor)—to the wedding. Zofia, who’s an energetic child and about 5 or 6 years old, was born when Monroe was in her early 40s, after Monroe went through in vitro fertilization treatments to get pregnant. Monroe then gives a raw and candid confession that although she loves being parent, the process of conceiving and giving birth was hellish for her. (She says it in a way that’s a lot cruder than that.) Monroe spent $50,000 on IVF treatments and says if she had to do it all over again, she would’ve frozen her eggs when she was younger and would’ve had a surrogate for the pregnancy.
Monroe also asks Nellie how her love life is, and Nellie responds that she’s single and actively dating: “It’s a smorgasbord. I’m seeing everyone.” Monroe then looks at Nellie sympathetically and says, “I know you because I was you. And so, the next time you’ve just boned some hot bartender with an app idea, and you’re sitting in his bathroom, staring at his shower encrusted with pubes and that fucking “Fight Club”/”Reservoir Dogs”/”Scarface” poster, I want you to remember my face.”
Monroe adds when she comments on men not having an age limit for conceiving children: “They can be in never never land, never growing up, never aging. But these eggs, those huevos rancheros? They are [aging], those eggs are!” When Monroe asks Nellie how old she is, and Nellie tells her 34, Monroe slaps Nellie on the face, and tells her not to admit that she’s older than 33. Monroe then sternly warns Nellie: “Freeze those eggs!”
After Monroe leaves the table, Nellie makes eye contact with a “hot bartender”(played by Matt Pascua) at the wedding reception and gets a drink from him. She and the bartender end up going back to his place, where they have sex. And sure enough, this bartender is working on app idea that he thinks will make him rich. He’s also got a messy bathroom with a “Scarface” poster hanging up on the wall.
It’s enough to be a wake-up call for Nellie that she’s should be focusing on finding Mr. Right instead of Mr. Right Now. (Something else happens at the bartender’s place, which won’t be revealed in this review, because it’s a sexual encounter mishap that’s supposed to be a sexually explicit comedic moment in the movie.) Nellie knows that there’s no guarantee that she will end up with a life partner/soul mate, and she doesn’t know if or when she’ll be ready to be a parent, but she decides to take Monroe’s advice and freeze her eggs anyway.
Weddings and baby showers are predictable scenarios in comedies that show how never-married women with no children are made to feel inadequate or uncomfortable by certain people who think women aren’t complete people unless they are mothers. “Scrambled” is no different. At a baby shower, Nellie is apparently the only woman there who isn’t a mother or in a committed relationship. When she announces that she’s freezing her eggs, the other women’s overall reaction is to congratulate her but they think she should save her excitement for when she becomes a “real parent.”
The reaction of Nellie’s sexist and narrow-minded father Richard Robinson (played by Clancy Brown) is even more negative. When Nellie tells her parents and brother during a family dinner that she’s freezing her eggs, Richard thinks it’s “voodoo science,” and women should conceive children the “natural” way. Richard is the type of parent who asks Nellie things such as “Where are my grandkids?,” but he doesn’t make those demands of his bachelor son Jesse Robinson (played by Andrew Santino), who’s at least five years older than Nellie.
Jesse is a pompous attorney who lets it be known to Nellie that he thinks she’s a pathetic mess when it comes to her life. Nellie, whose specialty is making butterfly earrings that she sells online, barely makes enough money to pay her bills. Meanwhile, Jesse is the type of cretin who makes misogynistic remarks (just like his father) and brags about being rich.
“Scrambled” has several “family dinner” scenes where Nellie argues with Richard and/or Jesse. Richard’s mild-mannered wife Sonja (played by Laura Cerón), an immigrant who speaks Spanish and English, tries to keep the peace when Richard and their son Jesse have conflicts with Nellie. Things get even more awkward between Nellie and Jesse when she reluctantly asks him to lend her the $8,000 she needs for her egg-harvesting procedures, which are not covered by her health insurance.
Early on in the movie, Nellie makes a remark that women are like avocados when it comes to women’s fertility: There’s a limited tme when they’re considered “ripe,” and then they are considered shriveled-up and useless. This avocado comparison becomes a running joke in the movie, as Nellie keeps checking the insides of avocados to see if they are still ripe and useful.
There’s also a very “Sex and the City”-type long stretch of the movie, when lonely Nellie reaches out to some ex-lovers in a desperate attempt to see if any romantic sparks can be rekindled with any of them. You can easily predict how these “reunions” turn out to be. “Magic Mike” alum Adam Rodriguez, who is one of the headliners of “Scrambled,” portrays Sterling Morales, one of Nellie’s ex-lovers, but Rodriguez’s screen time in “Scrambled” is less than five minutes. Nellie’s most recent serious relationship was with a slightly older man named Shawn (played by Harry Shum Jr.), who is mentioned frequently in the movie. “Scrambled” reveals the reason why Shawn and Nellie broke up and whether or not they get back together.
“Scrambled” works as well as it does because of the engaging screenplay and the very good comedic timing of the cast members. McKendrick has also crafted memorable characters who have mostly realistic flaws and foibles, although her tactless OB/GYN doctor (played by Feodor Chin) is meant to be a hilarious caricature of how doctors can sometimes be unprofessional. There’s a very poignant moment in the movie involving Nellie and her elderly neighbor Parveen (played by Vee Kumari), whom Nellie thinks is uptight and silently judgmental about Nellie’s sex life. Nellie might not be relatable to every woman, but “Scrambled” succeeds in showing that Nellie goes through universally relatable experiences that all reasonably responsible adults go through in making major life decisions that will affect people’s futures.
Lionsgate released “Scrambled” in U.S. cinemas on February 2, 2024. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on March 1, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of the United States, from 2020 to 2021, the comedy/drama film “Dumb Money” (based on true events) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans, Latinos and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Keith Gill, an insurance analyst and amateur stock-market adviser, becomes an Internet sensation with a cult-like following under his online alias Roaring Kitty, when he becomes a passionate advocate of buying stocks in the video game retail company GameStop, leading to a massive upheaval in the billionaire-owned hedge funds that want GameStop to fail.
Culture Audience: “Dumb Money” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and stories about financial underdogs who take on corporate giants.
Nick Offerman and Seth Rogen in “Dumb Money” (Photo by Lacey Terrell/Columbia Pictures)
The slick comedy/drama “Dumb Money” takes a little too long to get to the best parts of this story of financial underdogs versus billionaire corporate bullies, but it’s still a mostly entertaining ride with a talented cast. Some of the characters are very underdeveloped, while other characters are unnecessary distractions. People who are interested in finance and computer technology will enjoy and understand “Dumb Money” the most. “Dumb Money” might get compared to 2015’s “The Big Short” and 2010’s “The Social Network,” but “Dumb Money” isn’t as outstanding as those two Oscar-winning films.
Directed by Craig Gillespie, “Dumb Money” had its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. This “Dumb Money” feature film is not to be confused with filmmaker Ryan Garry’s 2021 short narrative film “Dumb Money,” which is based on the same subject matter of the GameStop stock phenomenon that disrupted Wall Street’s stock market. From 2021 to 2023, there have been at least seven documentaries about the same subject. The “Dumb Money” short film has an entirely different cast and crew from the “Dumb Money” feature film. Gillespie (the director of 2017’s “I, Tonya” and an executive producer/director of 2022’s “Pam & Tommy” miniseries) has a style that blends intense drama and satirical comedy, even when based on true stories.
The “Dumb Money” feature film’s screenplay—which was co-written by former Wall Street Journal reporters Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo—is based on Ben Mezrich’s 2021 non-fiction book “The Anti-Social Network: The GameStop Short Squeeze and the Ragtag Group of Amateur Traders That Brought Wall Street to Its Knees.” Mezrich also wrote the 2009 non-fiction book “The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, a Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal,” which was adapted into Aaron Sorkin’s Oscar-winning screenplay for “The Social Network.” Identical twin brothers Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss, who famously sued Facebook to get more of Facebook’s profits (as depicted in director David Fincher’s “The Social Network”), are two of the executive producers of the “Dumb Money” feature film.
If “The Social Network” and filmmaker Adam McKay’s “The Big Short” are mentioned in comparison to “Dumb Money,” that’s because “Dumb Money” has many similarities in how it approaches a complex story of financial wheeling and dealing with many players on different levels. The overarching theme of all three of these movies is that greedy corporate types are villains who don’t hesitate to crush the hopes, dreams and finances of “underdogs” who dare to challenge them. The title of “Dumb Money” comes from the term that arrogant rich people in the financial sector use for non-wealthy people who invest in the stock market. A more polite term used for non-wealthy investors are “retail investors.”
The “Dumb Money” feature film is based on the true story of a phenomenon that happened from 2020 to 2021, when the video game retailer GameStop suddenly went from being on the verge of going out of business to became a red-hot stock investment, because of a surge of working-class and middle-class people who decided to invest in GameStop stock. This massive interest in GameStop stock was based largely on the advice of an Internet media personality using the alias Roaring Kitty. It also caused a panic among wealthy Wall Street investors who did not know how to handle this unexpected grassroots movement.
In real life, Roaring Kitty was a middle-class, self-described computer geek in his 30s named Paul Gill (played by Paul Dano), whose day job at the time was working as an analyst/financial educator for insurance corporation MassMutual. He did his stock-market videos and Internet chatting on his own time at his home. Because of the unexpected success of GameStop stock, many billionaire-owned hedge funds that were betting on GameStop stock to fail (a practice known as “shorting” or “short-selling” a stock) experienced financial meltdowns. “Dumb Money” is an occasionally convoluted play-by-play of what happened during this stock-market war that led to a U.S. Congressional hearing and federal investigations.
The movie’s principal characters have the same names as the real people, while some of the supporting characters are fabricated and are partially based on real people. (For the purposes of this review, the real people will be referred to by their last names, while the characters in the movie will be referred to by their first names.) Many of Gill’s real-life quirks are also portrayed in the movie. He liked to wear headbands (especially a red hedband) and T-shirts with kittens on the front of the shirts.
In the “Dumb Money” feature film, Keith is living in Brockton, Massachusetts, with his supportive wife Caroline Gill (played by Shailene Woodley) and their infant daughter (played by Leyla Eden and Mason Eden), who doesn’t have a name in the movie. (“Dumb Money” was actually filmed in New Jersey.) Keith has invested the couple’s entire life savings ($33,000) in GameStop. Most people who know about this investment think that Keith has made a reckless and foolish decision. Caroline is skeptical and nervous about the decision. But ultimately, she stands by Keith’s firm belief that GameStop investing could make them enough money, possibly millions of dollars, for them to retire early.
The movie shows that Keith’s online persona as Roaring Kitty (which he used on online platforms such as YouTube and on a Reddit subforum called WallStreetBets) didn’t start out being popular. In the beginning he had a very small audience, many of whom ridiculed him. However, his enthusiasm for GameStop was infectious. Over time, his following grew to thousands of enthusiastic fans who eagerly listened to Keith’s stock-market advice. In order to legally protect himself, Keith had disclaimers about how he was not a licensed stock broker, and his information about GameStop was for entertainment purposes only.
Keith’s other immediate family members, who all live nearby, are mother Elaine Gill (played by Kate Burton), a retired registered nurse; father Steve Gill (played by Clancy Brown), a retired truck driver; and Keith’s younger brother Kevin (played by Pete Davdison), a stoner who has trouble holding on to a steady job. In the movie, Kevin is working in a low-paying job as a food delivery person and is living with his parents. Kevin’s only purpose in the movie is to be comic relief, since he’s not involved in any of Keith’s stock-market shenanigans. Keith’s parents don’t find out about what Keith is doing in the stock market until he tells them some big news.
The Gill family is grieving over the death of Elaine’s and Steve’s other child: Sarah Elizabeth Gill, who died of COVID-19 in 2020, at the age of 43. Keith doesn’t like to talk about Sarah’s death, but there are a few scenes in the movie that show how her death has had a profound effect on him. It’s implied that Keith’s grief over his sister’s death is the fuel behind Keith’s willingness to risk his entire fortune and reputation on GameStop stock. Many people who experience the loss of a loved one often react with extreme “you only live once” decisions.
And because the movie’s story takes place during the height of the COVD-19 pandemic, there are several verbal and non-verbal references to the pandemic in “Dumb Money.” Observant viewers will notice that in the movie, the characters who tend to wear COVID-19 masks are either required to wear the masks as part of their jobs or are in precarious financial situations where they can’t afford to miss out on work if they get infected with COVID-19. There’s also an underlying implication that people being in COVID-19 quarantines or lockdowns resulted in more people spending time at home online, which might be one of the plausible reasons why the GameStop stock phenomenon happened so quickly.
“Dumb Money” opens with a scene taking place in 2020, showing one of the “villains” of the story panicking because he sees that GameStop stock is on the rise. Gabe Plotkin (played by Seth Rogen), the CEO of hedge fund Melvin Capital, is at his mansion in California, when he calls his fellow billionaire crony Ken Griffin (played by Nick Offerman), who’s relaxing at a Four Seasons Resort in Florida. During the conversation, Gabe tries not to show how frightened he is by this upward trend in GameStop stock, while he puts on a front in assuring Ken that Gabe has everything under control. Gabe wants to get Ken’s reaction to the rise in GameStop stock value. Ken doesn’t seem too worried at all. Viewers will later find out why.
The movie then does a flashback to three months earlier, when GameStop’s stock was valued at only $3.85 per share. Keith is shown doing his Roaring Kitty activities on the Internet, while other characters are introduced as eventual followers of Keith/Roaring Kitty. Every time a stock market player is shown on camera, the movie has a caption next to that person’s head that shows the person’s net worth at the time they are shown on screen. All of Keith’s followers who are depicted in “Dumb Money” are fictional versions of real people and are portrayed as having financial struggles before investing in GameStop.
In the city of Pittbsurgh, Jenny (played by America Ferrera) is a divorced mother of two sons, who look like they’re about 8 to 10 years old. It’s briefly mentioned in the movie that Jenny’s ex-husband abandoned the family. Jenny is financially broke (when she’s first seen in the movie, her net worth is a deficit of more than $5,000) and works as a nurse at Pittsburgh Presbyterian Hospital. She becomes obsessed with Roaring Kitty’s videos, and eventually invests in GameStop. Jenny gets repeated warnings and admonishments from her sassy, openly gay best friend/co-worker Chris (played by Larry Owens), who thinks she’s making a big mistake with this investment. Chris frequently advises Jenny to sell all of her GameStop stock.
In the city of Detroit, Marcos Garcia (played by Anthony Ramos) is a low-paid and under-appreciated cashier at a GameStop store. Marcos is also financially broke. His net worth is only $136 when he’s first seen in the story, and he’s denied a request to get an advance on his next paycheck. Marcos’ boss Brad (played by Dane DeHaan) treats Marcos in a condescending and dismissive manner, especially after he finds out that Marcos has invested in GameStop.
At the University of Texas in Austin, two students meet during a drinking game at a party and eventually become lovers. Their names are Harmony Williams (played by Talia Ryder) and Riri (played by Myha’la Herrold), whose sexual chemistry with each other can be seen as soon as Riri is told to put her hand down Harmony’s pants because of a dare during the drinking game. During this first conversation, Harmony tells Riri that she’s thinking about investing in GameStop stock because Harmony has become a fan of Roaring Kitty. Eventually, Harmony and Riri (who each has thousands of dollars in student-loan debt) invest their money in GameStop stock. Harmony has a scowling, unnamed roommate (played by Andrea Simons), whose annoyance with this romance is used as an occasional joke in the movie.
All of these financial underdogs express various levels of anger and motivation to fight back against what they believe to be a rigged stock market that was designed to make the rich get richer, and non-wealthy people to be at a disadvantage. After Harmony and Riri become intimate partners, Harmony tells Riri that her father used to be the general manager of a Costco-like retailer called Shopco, but he lost his job, his pension and much of his life savings. Harmony says it’s because he was a victim of a corporate raiding firm that bought Shopco to purposely bankrupt the company, in order to benefit the people who were short-selling Shopco stock.
Real-life billionaire investor Steve Cohen (played by Vincent D’Onofrio) is another player in the GameStop stock-market war depicted in “Dumb Money,” although this character is shown intermittently and doesn’t get nearly as much screen time as billionaires Gabe and Ken. Gabe is portayed as a tone-deaf partier who likes to spend lavishly and doesn’t really think about all the lives he’s ruining by short-selling stock. Ken is depicted as a cold manipulator who is very much aware of the lives he’s ruining, but he just doesn’t care.
And in this billionaire clique, it’s very much portrayed as a “boys’ club.” The only woman connected to this clique who has a significant speaking role (and it’s still a small role) is Gabe’s wife Yaara Plotkin (played by Olivia Thirlby), a “trophy wife” type. The only purpose she’s given in this movie is to worry about whether or not Gabe is making enough money so that she can maintain the lifestyle to which she has become accustomed. There are no female stockbrokers or female hedge fund leaders who are depicted as characters in this movie.
Two other characters who have pivotal roles in the GameStop stock-market war are the co-founders of the Robinhood app: Vlad Tenev (played by Sebastian Stan) and Baiju Bhatt (played by Rushi Kota), who marketed Robinhood as an app where ordinary people could buy and sell stocks for free. In the movie, Robinhood users include Jenny, Marcos, Harmony and Riri. Vlad and Baiji, who are both in their 30s, are “tech bro” stereotypes of being arrogant big talkers of start-up companies. Vlad is portrayed as the more corrupt person in this greedy and ambitious duo.
The first half of “Dumb Money” clips along at a fairly uneven pace where characters are quickly introduced, and then the movie slows down to show aspects of each character’s personal lives. “Dumb Money’ spends way too much time on Kevin, who didn’t need as much screen time as he gets, considering he had no part in the GameStop stock war. Keith was a star track runner in high school, so “Dumb Money” has multiple scenes of Keith jogging on a residential street or running on a local school’s track (sometimes with Kevin) as a way to relieve stress.
The second half of the movie is an improvement, as it gets into the conflicts created during the GameStop stock war. Still, there might be some “Dumb Money” viewers who will feel disconnected because of the movie’s first half, which can be perceived as a blur of people talking stock market jargon and Internet slang. If you’re the type of person who could care less about the intersections of technology and commerce, and if you will probably never read a Wall Street Journal article or Reddit forum in your life, then “Dumb Money” is not the movie for you.
Dano is an actor who can be counted on to deliver top-notch performances in his projects. He has made a career out of doing characters who are eccentric outsiders, so he’s not doing anything that’s very new or groundbreaking in “Dumb Money.” Still, Dano’s portrayal of Keith holds this movie together, when some scenes tend to be a little pointless (for example, there’s a scene where Jenny somewhat flirts with a guy she meets at a gas station) or completely unnecessary (any scene that shows what Kevin does when he’s not with Keith). The character of Caroline isn’t given much to do but be a stereotypical “worried wife” character.
For all of its flaws, “Dumb Money” still has enough that’s enjoyable to watch, regardless of how much viewers know about what happened in real life. A lot of the credit should go to the “Dumb Money” cast members, who admirably do as much as they can with the dialogue that they have, even if some of their characters are very underwritten. Toward the end of the movie, before the inevitable epilogue with updates of what happened in real life, there’s some archival footage of the real-life people who were involved in this stock-market war. Some of what they said was recreated in “Dumb Money,” which might be a based on a true story, but it’s not immersive enough to make you forget that you’re watching actors saying scripted lines on screen.
Columbia Pictures will release “Dumb Money” in select U.S. cinemas on September 15, 2023, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on September 22, 2023, and September 29, 2023.
Some language in French, Japanese, German and Russian with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in the United States, France, Japan and Germany, the action film “John Wick: Chapter 4” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Asians and African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class, wealthy and criminal underground.
Culture Clash: Notorious mercenary John Wick fights several opponents in various countries, in order to be released from his servitude punishment from the High Table, a council of 12 crime lords who oversee the underworld’s most powerful criminal groups.
Culture Audience: “John Wick: Chapter 4” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the “John Wick” franchise, star Keanu Reeves, and action-packed movies that can get very violent.
Donnie Yen, Bill Skarsgård and Marko Zaror in “John Wick: Chapter 4” (Photo by Murray Close/Lionsgate)
“John Wick: Chapter 4” is the most stunning and stylish-looking of the “John Wick” movies. Elaborate fight scenes are the movie’s biggest assets, but there’s also plenty of suspense, well-placed comedy and a meaningful story of humanity at the heart of this ultra-violent movie. “John Wick: Chapter 4” is an ending chapter of this franchise, but an end-credits scene in the movie hints that the saga will continue in another storyline.
Directed by Chad Stahelski, “John Wick: Chapter 4” was written by Shay Hatten and Michael Finch. The movie had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film & TV Festival. It’s an epic movie (with a total running time of 169 minutes) that is filled with adrenalin-pumping action that is never boring but can be overwhelming or offensive for people who have a low tolerance for violence in movies. At this point, most people who want to see a “John Wick” movie already that “John Wick” movies have a lot murders and mayhem. Everyone else should be prepared for ths onslaught.
It’s not necessary to see the previous “John Wick” movies, but it helps give better context to some of the relationships in the movie. The plot of “John Wick: Chapter 4” is fairly simple: Notorious mercenary John Wick (played by Keanu Reeves) fights several opponents in various countries, in order to be released from his servitude punishment from the High Table, a council of 12 crime lords who oversee the underworld’s most powerful criminal groups. The current leader of the table is a ruthless sadist named Marquis (played by Bill Skarsgård), who is based in Paris. Even among these criminals, there are rules and codes of conduct that must be followed.
John’s quest leads him from his native United States to various other countries, including Japan, France and Germany. Some of his allies can turn into enemies, while some of his enemies can turn into allies. The characters he encounters include Winston (played Ian McShane), owner of the Continental Hotel in New York City; Continental Hotel concierge Charon (played by Lance Reddick, who died on March 17, 2023, one week before the release date of “John Wick: Chapter 4”); and Bowery King (played by Laurence Fishburne), leader of the Soup Kitchen, a New York City-based underworld intelligence network that is disguised as a homeless shelter.
In “John Wick: Chapter 4,” John has two hit men who have been hired to kill him: blind assassin Caine (played by Donnie Yen) and bounty hunter Tracker (played by Shamier Anderson), who is accompanied by his loyal German Shepherd. While in Japan, John interacts with Shimazu (played by Hiroyuki Sanada), the manager of the Continental Hotel in Osaka, as well as Shimazu’s daughter Akira (played by Rina Sawayama), who is a high-ranking manager at the hotel. Also in the movie are a Russian mafia princess named Katia (played by Natalia Tena); Chidi (played by Marko Zaror), who is Marquis’ second-in-command henchman; and Harbinger (played by Clancy Brown), who is a high-ranking member of the High Table.
Visually, “John Wick: Chapter 4” is the most vibrant of the “John Wick” movies. Dan Laustsen’s exquisite cinematography has gorgeously rich hues and eye-popping camera angles. Some critics might argue that this movie makes violence took glamorous, but there’s no denying that “John Wick: Chapter 4” is an achievement in visual arts for action films. And let’s be clear: The movie has no ambiguity in rooting for who the “good” characters are.
“John Wick: Chapter 4” takes on many qualities of a comic book come to life, such as the way that word fonts look on screen, how the action scenes are choreographed, and the manner in which some of the villains are portrayed. (And to its detriment, “John Wick: Chapter 4” has very simplistic dialogue, similar to a comic book.) Scott Adkins plays a German crime boss named Killa (the leader of the High Table’s German operations), who is a character that looks like he was inspired by the Kingpin villain in Marvel Comics. Killa is a massive thug who wears a business suit and has gold-plated front teeth. You can imagine how those gold teeth will be used as comic relief in one of the fight scenes.
“John Wick: Chapter 4” certainly has some very cartoonish violence. However, the violence gets much more realistic in the last third of the movie. There’s an unusual and somewhat comedic action sequence involving a long flight of stairs that is sure to be one of the most memorable aspects of “John Wick: Chapter 4.” And the last 15 minutes of the movie just might make some viewers cry. “John Wick: Chapter 4” goes beyond what typical action movies do by not just offering unique fight scenes but also stirring up complex emotions for the main characters in ways that can be unexpected.
Lionsgate will release “John Wick: Chapter 4” in U.S. cinemas on March 24, 2023.
Pictured clockwise, from left to right: Sandy Cheeks (voiced by Carolyn Lawrence), Patrick Star (voiced by Bill Fagerbakke), Plankton (voiced by Doug Lawrence), SpongeBob (voiced by Tom Kenny), Gary (on top of SpongeBob’s head) and Mr. Krabs (voiced by Clancy Brown) in “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run” (Image courtesy of Paramount Animation)
Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional, underwater places of Bikini Bottom and the Lost City of Atlantic City, the live-action/animated film “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run” features a predominantly white voice cast (with some African Americans, Asians and Latinos) in a comedic adventure story that’s part of the SpongeBob SquarePants franchise.
Culture Clash: SpongeBob SquarePants and his neighbor Patrick Star go on a mission to rescue SpongeBob’s best friend/pet snail Gary, which is being held captive by an egotistical overlord named King Poseidon.
Culture Audience: “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the SpongeBob SquarePants franchise and people who like family-friendly animation that can be enjoyed by various generations.
King Poseidon (voiced by Matt Berry) in “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run” (Image courtesy of Paramount Animation
As the first computer-generated imagery (CGI) animated movie in the SpongeBob SquarePants franchise, “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run” is an exuberant and eye-catching adventure that makes up for some predictable moments with just enough unexpected zaniness to make it worth watching for anyone who appreciates earnestly goofy animation. It’s not necessary to see any episodes of the long-running Nickelodeon animated series “SpongeBob SquarePants” or its spinoff movies (“Sponge on the Run” is the third one in the film series) to enjoy the movie, although it certainly provides some better context for some of the relationships in the movie.
“The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run” has several scenes that are flashbacks to some of the characters’ childhoods. It’s an obvious promotion for “Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years,” the prequel spinoff “SpongeBob” TV series that launches on Paramount+ (formerly known as CBS All Access) on the same day that “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run” is available on the streaming service. “Kamp Koral” focuses on what some of the main characters did as children at Kamp Koral, and “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run” gives a sense of what people can get expect from this spinoff TV series.
Written and directed by Tim Hill, “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run” is the first “SpongeBob” movie to be released since the 2018 death of SpongeBob SquarePants creator Stephen Hillenburg, who died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) at the age of 57. The movie has a dedication to Hillenburg before the end credits. Compared to 2004’s “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie” and 2015’s “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water,” there’s a slightly wackier vibe to “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run,” thanks in large part to an amusing featured role from Keanu Reeves.
Things in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom are what SpongeBob fans can expect: SpongeBob SquarePants (voiced by Tom Kenny), the cheerfully upbeat sponge protagonist, is still working as a fry cook at a fast-food restaurant called the Krusty Krab, which is owned by his cranky Scottish boss Mr. Krabs (voiced by Clancy Brown). The pessimistic Squidward Tentacles (voiced by Rodger Bumpass) also works at the Krusty Krab. The tiny green copepod named Plankton (voiced by Mr. Lawrence) and his computer wife Karen (played by Jill Talley) are still scheming to get the secret recipe formula for the Kristy Krab’s Krabby Patty burgers, in order to boost Plankton and Karen’s failing rival restaurant the Chum Bucket.
This time, there’s a new challenge: SpongeBob’s best friend/pet snail Gary (also voiced by Kenny, who makes Gary sound like a cat) is stolen by Plankton, who gives Gary to the vain and tyrannical King Poseidon (voiced by Matt Berry) because the king uses snail slime to keep his face looking youthful. King Poseidon ran out of snails and offered a reward to anyone who could provide him with a useful snail. Plankton sees that offer as an opportunity to try to get in the king’s good graces and get revenge on SpongeBob. King Poseidon lives at Poseidon Palace, which is located in the Lost City of Atlantic City.
What follows is a madcap trek that involves SpongeBob and his amiable starfish neighbor Patrick Star (voiced by Bill Fagerbakke) going on a mission to find and rescue Gary. Along the way, they end up in a Western ghost town, where they have some off-the-wall encounters with flesh-eating zombie pirates (portrayed by live actors), a rapping gambler (played by Snoop Dogg) and a villainous zombie cowboy called El Diablo (played by Danny Trejo). But some of the funniest scenes in the movie are with a giant, advice-giving tumbleweed named Sage that rolls into SpongeBob and Patrick’s lives when they first arrive in the ghost town. Sage is a tumbleweed with a talking head of Reeves inside the center.
Also part of these antics is a new automated computer robot named Otto (voiced by Awkwafina), which the brainy squirrel Sandy Cheeks (voiced by Carolyn Lawrence) has given as a gift to Mr. Krabs. However, Mr. Krabs quickly gets annoyed with Otto and throws the robot away. Otto ends up becoming a crucial part of how the story develops.
The movie also has some cameos of celebrities playing a version of themselves as underwater animated characters that work at a nightclub in the Lost City of Atlantic City. Tiffany Haddish appears briefly on stage as a wisecracking fish that’s a stand-up comedian named Tiffany Haddock. Jazz saxophonist Kenny G plays a plant called Kelpy G, which does a smooth jazz version of “My Heart Will Go On,” the theme from the 1997 movie “Titanic.” It’s a somewhat subversive song choice, considering “Titanic” is a disaster movie where most of the characters end up drowning in the ocean.
There are some other endearingly oddball and unexpected choices in the movie, such as a criminal trial that takes place at the nightclub. The King Poseidon character plays with masculine and feminine stereotypes, by blurring the lines between obsessions with machismo and obsessions with beauty products. It’s why King Poseidon is not a typical villain in an animated film.
“The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run” clearly knows its audience well, since it’s made for kids as well as adults. “SpongeBob SquarePants” has been on the air since 1999; therefore, many of the kids who grew up watching the show now have children of their own. It explains the inclusion of Reeves, Snoop Dogg, Kenny G and Danny Trejo as cameos, since these stars’ pop culture significance have a different meaning to people who are old enough remember the 1990s and early 2000s.
The movie’s very retro music soundtrack is definitely geared more to adults, with rock and pop tunes from the late 20th century, such as Foghat’s “Slow Ride,” Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again” and Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca.” Weezer has two songs on the soundtrack: “It’s Always Summer in Bikini Bottom” and a cover version of a-ha’s “Take on Me” and the original song Also on the soundtrack is the Flaming Lips’ “Snail: I’m Avail.”
Mikros did the movie’s vivid CGI and animation, which is not as outstanding as a Pixar movie, but it’s better than most CGI animated films. Writer/director Hill moves things along at a brisk-enough pace, even though it’s very easy to know how the movie is going to end. “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run” imparts a lot of positive messages of self-acceptance, but the characters have enough foibles and flaws to make the jokes relatable to viewers. Watch this movie if you like animated films and you’re up for an energetic diversion that might make you want more “SpongeBob” movies, regardless of how familiar or unfamiliar you might be with the franchise.
Paramount Pictures’ Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Movies will release “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run” on Paramount+ on March 4, 2021, the same date that Paramount Home Entertainment releases the movie on VOD. The movie was released in Canada in 2020.
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the dramedy film “Promising Young Woman” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the middle-class.
Culture Clash: A woman who dropped out of medical school because of a past trauma takes out her anger on unsuspecting people who are directly or indirectly related to this trauma.
Culture Audience: “Promising Young Woman” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in a dark comedic twist on revenge stories.
Carey Mulligan and Bo Burnham in “Promising Young Woman” (Photo by Merie Weismiller Wallace/Focus Features)
It would be easy to assume that “Promising You Woman” is an angry feminist film where a woman pretends to be very drunk at different nightclubs, entices predatory men into trying to take advantage of her sexually, and then humiliates them when she reveals that she’s not drunk and that she just wanted to expose how these supposedly “nice” guys aren’t so nice after all. That’s what happens for a great deal of the movie and what’s shown in the movie’s trailer. But “Promising Young Woman” is not what it first appears to be, just like the movie’s central character Cassandra “Cassie” Thomas (played by Carey Mulligan), the smart but deeply troubled woman who’s hell-bent on a personal agenda for these potentially dangerous sexual games.
“Promising Young Woman” is the first feature film written and directed by Emerald Fennell, a multitalented entertainer who is also an actress. (Fennell portrays Camilla Parker Bowles in Netflix’s “The Crown” series and has an uncredited cameo in “Promising Young Woman” as a makeup tutorial YouTuber.) The story of “Promising Young Woman” takes place in an unnamed U.S. city that could represent any middle-class American suburb. As the story unfolds, viewers find out that Cassie was a talented student in medical school at the fictional Forrest Union University, when she abruptly dropped out because of something traumatic that still haunts her.
When this story takes place, it’s been seven years since Cassie has dropped out of medical school. She turns 30 years old during the course of this story, but it seems as if she doesn’t want to celebrate this milestone birthday or even be reminded of it. That’s because her life is stuck in a rut. It’s implied that Cassie has issues affecting her mental health.
By day, she works in a small coffee shop that’s owned by her sassy boss Gail (played by Laverne Cox), who doesn’t judge Cassie (who’s a sarcastic loner), except in believing that Cassie should be more optimistic about love and dating. Cassie is an only child who still lives with her parents Susan (played by Jennifer Coolidge) and Stanley (played by Clancy Brown), who are worried about Cassie’s life being at a standstill.
Susan is more vocally upset over it than Stanley is, because on Cassie’s 30th birthday (which Cassie claims to have forgotten, but her parents haven’t), Susan yells at Cassie in a moment of anger: “You don’t have any boyfriends! You don’t have any friends!” Cassie’s favorite color is pink, and the way her bedroom is decorated indicates that a big part of herself doesn’t want to grow up.
Stanley is more compassionate and accepting than Susan is about their daughter. He refuses to say any harsh words to Cassie and tries to encourage her to be the best person she can be. However, for Cassie’s 30th birthday, her parents give her a pink suitcase, as a not-so-subtle way of telling her that they really would like her to move out and get her own place.
At night, Cassie has a secret life of going to nightclubs and pretending to be so drunk that she can barely stand or remember her name. A man at the nightclub usually approaches her, with the pretense of being a “gentleman” who will “take care of her,” and escorts her back to his place. He inevitably tries to have sex with Cassie, who will protest and say no, but he will persist and maybe start to remove some of her clothing. Cassie will then shock him by revealing that she’s not drunk at all and that he can’t have sex with her.
Depending on the situation, Cassie will usually humiliate the guy by letting him know that he almost raped her. He usually reacts with surprise over being caught, denial over being labeled as a sexual abuser, and almost always anger by accusing Cassie of “tricking” or “trapping” him. Cassie then goes home and records each incident in a journal, by checking off each encounter with hangman numerical symbols. (These numerical symbols are shown in pink coloring at pivotal points in the story.)
In the beginning of the movie, Cassie is seen playing this game in two separate incidents: First, it’s with a guy named Jerry (played by Adam Brody), who is egged on by the pals he’s with at the nightclub to take advantage of her. Cassie also plays this game with a cocaine-snorting nerdy creep named Neil (played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who tries to blame his predatory actions on the cocaine.
Why is Cassie putting herself in these situations? She’s not an undercover cop trying to bust potential rapists. She’s acting out her own type of justice for something involving a sexual assault that happened when she was in medical school. It’s eventually revealed in the movie who was assaulted, what happened and who was responsible.
While Cassie is leading this double life, a customer comes into the coffee shop one day, and he changes Cassie’s outlook on possibly opening up her heart to romance. A former medical school classmate named Ryan (played by Bo Burnham), who is now a pediatric surgeon, is very surprised to see Cassie working in a coffee shop because he thought she would be doing something more prestigious with her life. Ryan immediately stammers and makes a profuse apology to Cassie when he realizes that he had a very condescending reaction to her job.
When Cassie asks him if he wants milk in his coffee, Ryan says, “You can spit in it. I deserve it.” Cassie obliges and spits in his coffee, which Ryan then drinks. It sets the tone for the rest of the relationship, where Ryan is awkward and eager to impress Cassie, while she is coolly sarcastic and hard to read about what she might be really feeling. Ryan tells Cassie that he’s had a crush on her since medical school. He asks her out on a date. She ignores his attempts to court her, until she says yes.
Cassie and Ryan’s budding romance has a dark cloud over it though. Cassie has become secretly consumed with the news that a former medical school classmate named Al Monroe is getting married. She finds out about the upcoming wedding on social media. Al Monroe’s name seems to trigger Cassie on a path that leads to her reliving the trauma she experienced in medical school.
Cassie had a best friend at the time named Nina Fisher, whom she knew since childhood, and they were like sisters to each other. Nina’s name is often brought up in the story in relation to Cassie’s experiences in medical school. Nina and Cassie had the type of friendship where people described Cassie and Nina as “inseparable.”
Some other people from Cassie’s past are in the story, including Madison McPhee (played by Alison Brie), who was a close friend of Cassie and Nina. All three of them were in medical school at the same university. Cassie also visits Nina’s mother Mrs. Fisher (played by Molly Shannon), Forrest Union University’s Dean Elizabeth Walker (played by Connie Britton) and an attorney named Jordan (played by Alfred Molina).
“Promising Young Woman” has moments of being a dramatic thriller (when it comes to Cassie’s nocturnal activities) and a romantic comedy (when it comes to Cassie and Ryan’s relationship), but it becomes clear as the story goes on that the overall tone of the story is a dark satire of how society often handles the complicated issues of sexual assault. The movie shows in realistic ways that women can be just as cruel as men when it comes to blaming and shaming victims of sexual assault.
It’s important to point that out because “Promising Young Woman” is not a man-bashing movie. Rather, the movie accurately shows how people can often blur the lines of what constitutes a sexual assault when intoxication from drugs or alcohol is involved in the incident. Was there consent given because inhibitions were lowered due to intoxication, or was consent taken away because someone wasn’t thinking clearly due to intoxication?
There’s also a culture of complicity and denial when someone accused of sexual assault has a certain “respectable” public image and is considered to be “too nice” to ever be the type of person who would commit this crime. At the same time, in most countries, the law is to consider someone innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. At what point should an accused person be judged by public opinion when that person hasn’t been arrested or convicted of the crime? There are no easy answers in many cases.
And what about people who witness a crime but do nothing about it? How guilty are they and how harshly should they be judged? Those are questions that will make this movie’s viewers think about all the past and present actions of certain characters, as “Promising Young Woman” reveals more of Cassie’s background and how it’s linked to certain people in the story.
“Promising Young Woman” has some interesting soundtrack music choices that successfully demonstrate the dichotomous lifestyle and mindset of Cassie. Two dance-pop songs in particular are put to great use in separate scenes. Britney Spears’ 2003 hit “Toxic” is heard when Cassie goes on the prowl in a pivotal part of the movie. Paris Hilton’s 2006 hit “Stars Are Blind” is heard when Cassie and Ryan playfully stroll through a drugstore and act like teenagers as they sing along to the song when it’s playing over the drugstore loudspeakers.
“Toxic” and “Stars Are Blind” are clever song choices, because of the pop culture context and how it relates to Cassie’s character. Spears and Hilton, who used to be close friends, had “party girl” images when these songs were released. (Spears had her notorious meltdown a few years after “Toxic” was a hit.) Both songs were released during Cassie’s teenage years, when Spears and Hilton probably would’ve made big impressions on Cassie and Nina, who was Cassie’s best friend from childhood.
“Stars Are Blind” and “Toxic” at first seem to be lightweight pop songs, but the lyrics have deeper meaning in the context of this story. As the public now knows, the fun-loving party image presented by Hilton and Spears during their tabloid heyday masked deep-seated emotional problems. It would be easy to speculate that these songs also represent the turbulent emotional journey that Cassie has been on too. She might have imagined as a teenager when these songs were hits that she would also be a fun-loving party girl in her 20s, but her carefree spirit was shattered and she’s been left with disillusionment and broken dreams.
Mulligan gives a memorable and effective performance as Cassie, who doesn’t see herself as a heroine as much as an emotionally damaged crusader. Burnham also shows a certain nuance in his role as the “nice guy” who’s able to thaw Cassie’s cynical heart. The story unfolds in layers, and there are some unexpected twists that upend the usual expectations that viewers might have for movies that cover issues related to sexual assault.
The fact that “Promising Young Woman” is bold enough to approach the subject matter in a satirical tone without making it an offensive mockery of sexual assault is an unusual and tricky feat. Is it an empowering feminist film? Is it too dark to be enjoyable, or is it too comical to be taken seriously? The best thing about the movie is that regardless of how it’s interpreted, it will make an unforgettable impact on people who watch it.
Focus Features released “Promising Young Woman” in U.S. cinemas on December 25, 2020. The movie is set for release on VOD on January 15, 2021; on digital on March 2, 2021; and on Blu-ray and DVD on March 16, 2021.
