Tag: comedy

Review: ‘Polite Society,’ starring Priya Kansara and Ritu Arya

April 28, 2023

by Carla Hay

Priya Kansara and Ritu Arya in “Polite Society” (Photo by Parisa Taghizadeh/Focus Features)

“Polite Society”

Directed by Nida Manzoor

Culture Representation: Taking place in London, the comedy film “Polite Society” features a racially diverse cast of characters (South Asian, white and a few black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A teenage girl, who wants to become a stunt performer, tries to stop her older sister from getting married to a smooth-talking, wealthy man, who wants the couple to move to Singapore after the wedding. 

Culture Audience: “Polite Society” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching female-empowerment comedies, told from a multicultural perspective.

Nimra Bucha stars as Raheela and Priya Kansara in “Polite Society” (Photo by Parisa Taghizadeh/Focus Features)

“Polite Society” has fun with its absurdist take on action films. It makes clever commentary about modern feminism and how aspirational culture affects people. Nida Manzoor has sharp writing and directing in this well-cast movie with great comedic timing. It’s an impressive feature-film debut for Manzoor, who has TV directing credits for “Doctor Who” and “We Are Parts.” “Polite Society” had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

In “Polite Society” (which takes place in London), two intelligent sisters named Ria Khan (played by Priya Kansara) and Lena Khan (played by Ritu Arya) are feeling frustrated with their lives for different reasons. Ria, who’s about 16 years old, wants to be a stunt performer and is taking martial arts classes in preparation. Ria believes in herself when pursuing this goal, even though most people around her think that this goal in unattainable for her. Lena, who’s in her early-to-mid 20s, is enrolled in art school in the very beginning of the film, but she drops out of school because she doesn’t believe that she has the talent to become a successful artist.

Ria is very upset that Lena has dropped out of school because she thinks that Lena is a talented artist but just gave up too easily. Lena moves back into the family home and mopes around while she contemplates what she might want to do with her life. The parents of Ria and Lena are immigrants from Pakistan. Based on the language accents of the Khan family members, it’s implied that Ria and Lena were either born in the United Kingdom or have been raised in the United Kingdom from a very young age.

Ria and Lena live and experience British and Pakistani cultures. Even though Lena has dropped out of school and is unemployed, her traditional Pakistani parents aren’t as worried about Lena as they are about Ria. That’s because Lena’s accountant father Rafe (played by Jeff Mirza) and homemaker mother Fatima (played Shobu Kapoor) think that Lena can redeem herself by finding a husband, preferably someone who is affluent. Rafe and Fatima think Ria’s interest in being a stunt performer is an unrealistic dream and not very feminine.

Ria attends an elite private school, where her two best friends are classmates: feisty Clara (played by Seraphina Beh) and mild-mannered Alba (played by Ella Bruccoleri), who are the only people in Ria’s life who encourage Ria to pursue her goals of being a stunt performer. Ria also makes amateur stunt videos that she puts on social media. Lena sometimes does camera work for these videos.

One of Ria’s goals is to do an internship with Eunice Huthart, a longtime stunt performer/coordinator who has worked on several superhero films and other action flicks. “Polite Society” includes voiceover narration from Ria, including Ria reading aloud the fan mail that she sends to Eunice. You know where this part of the story is going, of course.

Early on in the movie, Ria’s mother scolds Ria by saying, “Do you think your father sends you to that school to be a stunt woman?” At Ria’s school, there’s a guidance counselor session where students are assigned internships, according to what a counselor decides would be the best career direction for each student. It’s something that should be discussed privately, but these evaluations are done in front of the entire classroom.

When it’s Ria’s turn to get her assignment, she tells the counselor Ms. Spence (played by Jenny Funnell) that she wants to be a stunt performer. Ms. Spence is dismissive of that career goal, because she thinks being a stunt performer isn’t a real job for women or even a real job in acting. Ms. Spence assigns Ria to be an intern to a medical doctor, even though Ria tells her she has no interest in this line of work. There are some racial undertones to this assignment because of the stereotype that children of Pakistani immigrants want to work in careers involving science, technology, engineering or mathematics.

A loudmouth bully named Kovacs (played by Shona Babayemi), who is a female classmate, predictably taunts Ria about Ria’s desire to be a stunt performer. Ria retorts by loudly reminding the class that Kovacs’ father was in prison for financial fraud. At one point in the movie, Ria and Kovacs get in a physical fight in a school library. It won’t be revealed who wins this fight, but it’s enough to say that the fight confirms to Ria that she shouldn’t give up on her goal to be a stunt performer.

Meanwhile, Fatima is seen having lunch with a small group of high-society Pakistani immigrant women. The “queen bee” of this group is wealthy widow Raheela Shah (played by Nimra Bucha), who loves to brag about her eligible bachelor son Salim Shah (played by Akshay Khanna), a doctor whose specialty is in genetics. Fatima comes from a lower-income household than those of the other women, and she somewhat desperately wants to fit in this group.

And now that Lena has a lot of time on her hands, Fatima thinks it would be a good idea to play matchmaker for Lena. It just so happens that Raheela has invited the Khan family to a party at her mansion. Salim (who is in his late 20s or early 30s) is at the party, and he’s surrounded by adoring women, who all look like they want to date him. However, Raheela has been telling all of her lady friends that Salim is very picky and rejects almost all the women whom Raheela introduces to him.

As soon as Lena arrives at the party and isn’t one of the women fawning over Salim, you just know he’s going to take an interest in her. Lena and Salim begin talking. When he asks her what she’s doing with her life, Salim seems impressed by Lena’s honesty when she tells him, “What do I do? I disappoint my parents.” And when Lena says that she’s taking some time to figure out what she wants to do with her life, Salim tells her: “I think it’s great that you’re allowing yourself to be working it out.”

Meanwhile, Ria doesn’t have a very good impression of Salim. At the party, Ria tells an acquaintaince named Jezah (played by Tia Dutt), who’s close to Ria’s age, what she thinks about Salim as soon as she sees him: “What a prick.” Jezah openly swoons about how handsome and rich Salim is and says to Ria: “I hear he’s quite nice.” Ria says in sarcastic response: “Biscuits are nice.”

Ria is bored at this party, so she goes wandering around the mansion. And she makes a discovery that further raises her suspicions: In a study room, she finds a desk with several individual photos of women on it. Lena is one of the women in these photos. It looks like someone is planning which women could possibly date Salim. This type of planned matchmaking is very common in South Asian cultures, but Ria thinks it’s offensive.

It’s already revealed in the trailer for “Polite Society” that Lena and Salim get engaged. It’s a whirlwind courtship where Salim proposed to Lena after they were dating for only one month. Ria, who vehemently disapproves of this relationship, gets even more upset when she finds out that Lena and Salim plan to move to Singapore after the wedding. Ria also thinks it’s alarming that Salim is a “mama’s boy” who seems overly attached to his mother.

The rest of “Polite Society” is about Ria’s schemes to stop the wedding by any means necessary. She enlists the help of Clara and Alba. And the three pals also get some assistance from an unlikely person. There’s a lot of slapstick comedy in “Polite Society” but also some emotional moments about family relationships.

“Polite Society” takes a satirical look at the lengths that some people might go to climb up a social ladder or to stroke their own egos. The movie is filled with examples of how several people want to be accepted by those who are rich and powerful, while those who are rich and powerful often want to make other people feel inferior. In the beginning of the movie, Lena likes to think of herself as bohemian and edgy, but even she gets caught up in the idea of being a pampered trophy wife who is the opposite of bohemian and edgy.

Even with all the jokes and over-the-top action scenes, “Polite Society” also depicts examples of how women and girls can be “gaslighted” into thinking that they’re “crazy” for pursuing certain goals or for trusting their gut instincts. Although much of the plot is about Ria trying to stop Lena from getting married, the movie isn’t anti-marriage. It’s against the idea that people, especially women, have to give up who they are, in order to fit into someone else’s idea of what a “perfect spouse” should be.

One of the reasons why “Polite Society” is so entertaining to watch is because of the believable chemistry between the cast members. Kansara and Arya are especially convincing as sisters who have a volatile relationship that still has a lot of love. Bucha has some standout moments as Raheela, who becomes Ria’s biggest nemesis in the story.

“Polite Society” doesn’t present Ria as always being correct. It would be very easy to portray Ria as a crusading feminist who has all the answers, but the movie doesn’t make that lazy mistake. Ria is realistically presented as a flawed human being. Ria can get obnoxious in trying to prove her point, because one of Ria’s flaws is that she thinks she is always right. And it causes an even bigger rift between Ria and Lena.

In the last third of “Polite Society,” there’s a plot development that some viewers might not like because they’ll think the movie is taking a sharp turn into science fiction. However, there are clear indications throughout the movie that this story is a heightened version of reality. It’s not easy to balance wacky comedy with serious commentary about how women and girls are constantly being dictated to about how they should look or act when living their lives. “Polite Society” handles this balance as skillfully as an agile stunt performer.

Ria makes some comments in the movie that are criticisms of patriarchy, but “Polite Society” is not a feminist film that’s about bashing men. It’s a movie that encourages tolerance for women’s choices in life. Some of those choices might be mistakes, but people should be given an opportunity to learn from those mistakes.

Ria has to learn that her way of approaching life might not work for other people. Ria’s first impulse is to “rescue” her sister Lena from a life that Ria thinks will make Lena unhappy, but does Lena really need Ria to tell Lena what should make Lena happy? These types of meaningful observations make “Polite Society” better than the average female-oriented action comedies, which often depict feminism as shallow scenarios instead of experiences that truly embody female empowerment.

Focus Features released “Polite Society” in U.S. cinemas on April 28, 2023.

Review: ‘Say I Do to Me,’ starring Sabrina Ng, Chan Kin-Long, Candy Lo, Mixon Wong, Yat Ning Chan and Jacky Tong Hoo-lin

April 25, 2023

by Carla Hay

Sabrina Ng in “Say I Do to Me” (Photo courtesy of Edko Films Ltd.)

“Say I Do to Me”

Directed by Kiwi Chow

Cantonese with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Hong Kong, the comedy film “Say I Do to Me” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A social media personality, who has crafted an image of being happily single, decides to stage a public wedding where she will marry herself, while she hides the fact that she has a boyfriend, who is jealous and insecure about her admirers who want to date her.

Culture Audience: “Say I Do to Me” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching a romantic comedy that goes off in different directions with many fake-looking scenes.

Chan Kin-Long and Sabrina Ng in “Say I Do to Me” (Photo courtesy of Edko Films Ltd.)

The comedy misfire “Say I Do to Me” ruins an interesting concept (a social media personality wants to marry herself in a public ceremony) with too many awkwardly staged scenarios and horrible dialogue. It’s trying to be cute but it’s all very annoying. The wedding ceremony is supposed to be the big climax to the movie. After all the buildup, the last 20 minutes of the film, which were supposed to be the best section of the film, is actually the worst. It’s just a mess that drags on for far too long.

Directed by Kiwi Chow, “Say I Do to Me” has several subplots that never really gel in a cohesive way. The story jumps from subplot to subplot, bringing up many questions that the movie never bothers to answer. It doesn’t help that the protagonist of “Say I Do to Me” is very flaky and not very interesting. And almost all of the characters are written and portrayed in such superficial and hollow ways, they seem more like caricatures than relatable people. “Say I Do to Me” director Chow co-wrote the movie’s disjointed screenplay with Frankie Wang-Kit Chung and Isis Tso Yin-Sin.

In “Say I Do to Me” (which takes place in Hong Kong), Ping Cheung (played by Sabrina Ng) is a semi-successful social media personality who is mainly on YouTube and Instagram. Ping, who is in her early 20s, has about 1 million followers on Instagram, but throughout the movie, it’s shown that Pink has hasn’t had much luck getting sponsors. In other words, she has a large audience but hasn’t found a way to make money from the social media platforms that she uses. And in this day and age, 1 million followers on Instagram, although commendable, is still a low number for someone who expects to get rich from social media.

Ping has made a name for herself by creating a media platform brand called Sologamy. The concept for Sologamy is to celebrate self-love and to be unapologetically single in a society that pressures people to get married or be in a committed romantic relationship. Publicly, Ping has an image of being a happily single and not currently dating anyone.

Privately, Ping has been dating Dickson (played by Chan Kin-Long), who is her live-in boyfriend. Ping and Dickson have known each other since they were in middle school. Dickson handles all the technical aspects of Ping’s social media accounts.

Even though Ping and Dickson are a “couple,” the movie oddly never shows Ping and Dickson having any romantic moments together throughout the story. It’s one of many things about “Say I Do to Me” that make it look like a phony and not well-made. In various parts of the movie, Dickson gets jealous when a few of Ping’s admirers start courting her. She has to pretend that she’s available, which infuriates Dickson even more.

The subplots involve the various entanglements that Ping has with people who are in and out of the movie in scenes that don’t flow well together. (In other words, the film editing is pretty bad.) Ping does some voiceover narration explaining who these people are, but some of these characters are still introduced in ways that might confuse some viewers.

Stephanie Cheung (played by Yat Ning Chan) is a rich and famous relative of Ping’s. Stephanie is 39 years old. And she calls herself Ping’s older sister. But surprise! Somehow, someone in Ping’s audience found out that Stephanie is really Ping’s mother. Ping then has to make an apologetic confession video to her audience.

The movie never gives an adequate explanation for why Stephanie insists on Ping acting like Stephanie like a sister instead of a mother. It’s also never explained how long Stephanie and Ping were lying about the true nature of ther family relationship. It’s implied that Stephanie has some mental health issues and is emotionally immature.

Stephanie treats marriage and divorce like redecorating. She’s been married and divorced six times. Stephanie also overshares too many details about her love life with Ping, which is one of the reasons Ping has tried to distance herself from Stephanie. Stephanie’s cavalier attitude toward marriage has also made Ping wary of getting married.

One day, Ping gets a promising invitation to meet with a potential sponsor. He’s a successful and handsome 30-year-old businessman named Charles Ko (played by Mixon Wong), who invites Ping to his office for an interview. It soon becomes obvious that Charles is romantically attracted to Ping. The problem is that Charles is dating one of his employees named Kitty (played by J. Lou), who is very jealous. Kitty is barely in the movie, and when she is, her scenes look very forced and clumsy.

Tsz “Daniel” Chun (played by Jacky Tong Hoo-lin) is a platonic friend of Ping’s but he is romantically attracted to her too. Daniel is nerdy and timid. He’s also a very religious Christian. Ping is a Christian too, but she’s not as devoted to praying and going to church as Daniel is. Ping employs Daniel to do part-time work for her, such as giving her car rides and doing errands. He eagerly accepts any offer to spend time with her.

Another admirer who wants to get close to Ping is Yi “Yee” Lok (played by Candy Lo), who owns a flower shop called Mona Lisa. Yee is a stranger who is an avid follower of Ping on social media. Yee and her devoted husband Kenneth (played by Gregory Wong) have been married for 20 years. Yee contacts Ping to meet her in person because Yee says she might want to sponsor Ping and possibly become her friend. Yee also has a big secret that she eventually confesses to Ping.

Speaking of friends, Ping is never shown having any close platonic friends besides Daniel. The movie never explains if Ping was always a loner type or if her social media obsession negatively affected her ability to make friends in the real world. “Say I Do to Me” has no character development for Ping. This very unfunny movie is just a series of poorly edited scenes that are filmed like scenes from a substandard sitcom.

Ping’s self-wedding day is supposed to be a major event for her, but she’s hardly seen planning it for most of the movie until a few hastily crammed-together scenes toward the end of the film. “Say I Do to Me” also goes off on a mishandled, weird tangent about Internet haters harassing Ping in person: These agitators are disguised as stuffed animals. And because Ping and Dickson do not have convincing romantic chemistry with each other, the stakes are non-existent in the Ping/Dickson relationship when Ping gets romantic attention from other people.

“Say I Do to Me” is the type of overstuffed film that tries to do too many things but ends up not saying or doing anything substantial. It could have been a hilarious story about the pitfalls of inventing a fake persona online, but the comedy and characters are completely bungled in this movie. The acting performances range from bland to barely watchable. Ironically, for a movie about someone who’s created a fake persona online, “Say I Do to Me” doesn’t look believable at all.

Edko Films Ltd. released “Say I Do to Me” in select U.S. cinemas on April 21, 2023. The movie was released in Hong Kong on January 26, 2023.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58obscQqc4c

Review: ‘Summoning Sylvia,’ starring Travis Coles, Frankie Grande, Troy Iwata, Noah J. Ricketts, Nicholas Logan, Veanne Cox and Michael Urie

April 23, 2023

by Carla Hay

Pictured clockwise, from left to right: Troy Iwata, Frankie Grande, Travis Coles and Noah J. Ricketts in “Summoning Sylvia” (Photo courtesy of The Horror Collective)

“Summoning Sylvia”

Directed by Wesley Taylor and Alex Wyse

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in upstate New York, the horror comedy film “Summoning Sylvia” features a cast of predominantly white characters (with two African Americans and one Asian) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Four gay male friends go to a remote house in the woods for a bachelor party, and they end up holding a séance to summon the spirit of the house’s original owner, who was accused of murdering her son in the early 20th century. 

Culture Audience: “Summoning Sylvia” will appeal primarily to people who like watching horror comedies that skillfully blend campiness with raunchiness.

Troy Iwata, Noah J. Ricketts, Travis Coles and Frankie Grande in “Summoning Sylvia” (Photo courtesy of The Horror Collective)

“Summoning Sylvia” is a sassy and hilarious séance comedy, told from a gay male perspective. Travis Coles and Frankie Grande are scene-stealing delights. The unpredictable jokes and gags make this film appealing to people who like comedy made for adults. And at a brisk total running time of 75 minutes, “Summoning Sylvia” is just the right length to prevent the movie from getting stale and repetitive.

Written and directed by Wesley Taylor and Alex Wyse, “Summoning Sylvia” takes place in an unnamed city in upstate New York. (The movie was actually filmed in New Jersey.) Four gay male friends in their mid-to-late 30s have gathered for what they hope will be a fun-filled bachelor party at a remote house in the woods. Of course, since this a horror comedy, the house has a sinister history that will cause some terror for these visitors.

The house is owned by someone named Frank (voiced by Wyse), who is never seen but who is heard over the phone. Frank has rented out house for the weekend to Reggie (played by Troy Iwata), the person in the group who has organized this party. Reggie is very meticulous and gets very uptight if things don’t go according to his plans. The bachelor party is a surprise for the grooms-to-be who are expected at the party.

The first groom-to-be to arrive at this gathering is Larry (played by Coles), who is a high-strung people pleaser. When his friends start bickering with each other, Larry is the one who nervously tries to keep the peace. Larry’s fiancé Jamie (played by Michael Urie) is about five or six years older than Larry. Jamie was supposed to be there at the same time as the rest of the group, but he calls Larry from his car to say he is running late because work obligations prevented him from leaving sooner.

Nico (played by Grande) is the most flamboyant and outspoken friend in the group. His fashion choices range from dressing like a grungy club kid to wearing bold makeup and androgynous clothes. Out of all these friends, Nico is the most superstitious and the one who’s most likely to believe in ghosts. He is also very confrontational with anyone he thinks is homophobic.

Kevin (played by Noah J. Ricketts) is the most laid-back of the friends. Reggie and Kevin have a crush on each other and don’t really know how to handle it. Kevin keeps hinting that they should be more than friends, but Reggie awkwardly avoids talking about it. Reggie is a bit of a control freak and probably wants to plan out any relationship that he might have instead of letting it happen naturally. If anything sexual is going to happen between Kevin and Reggie, then Kevin is more likely to make the first move.

During the phone conversation between engaged couple Jamie and Larry, an awkward topic comes up: Jamie has a brother named Harrison (played by Nicholas Logan), a military veteran who recently spent time in Kuwait. Harrison has briefly met Larry before, but Jamie thinks Larry and Harrison should get to know each other better before the wedding. Larry doesn’t feel comfortable around Harrison, but he wants to please Jamie. And so, Larry tells Jamie that Harrison can go to the party.

It’s an invitation that Larry immediately regrets. When Harrison arrives (wearing military camouflage gear), he’s stereotypically macho and homophobic. At first, Nico and Kevin think that Harrison might be a surprise stripper. Reggie is annoyed about this unannounced visit from Harrison. Reggie quips about Harrison, “The crew cut. The camo. What is he? A lesbian?”

There’s another concern that these friends have besides Harrison. Shortly before Harrison’s arrival, Reggie told the other pals that the house they’re staying at has a reputation for being haunted. Back in the early 20th century, the house’s original owner was a woman named Sylvia Lawrence. According to a local legend, Sylvia driven insane and murdered he son Phillip Lawrence (her only child) and buried his body somewhere on the estate.

After some snooping around the house, the four pals find some of Sylvia’s possessions, including items and clothing and photographs. Throughout the movie, there are visions of Sylvia (played by Leanne Voss) and Phillip (played by Camden Garcia) that might or might not be real. These visions eventually reveal what happened between Sylvia and Phillip that resulted in her being accused of killing her son Phillip.

It doesn’t take long for Nico to come up with the idea to have a séance to try to contact Sylvia and ask her what really happened the night she supposedly murdered her Phillip. Reggie is very skeptical about this idea and is reluctant to go through with the séance. Nico snaps at Reggie: “Bitch, do you know how many times I’ve seen ‘Wicked’? Fourteen times! So, do not question my devotion to the dak arts!”

Harrison shows up after the séance has begun. Many hijinks ensue. Nico and Harrison immediately clash with each other the most. However, people with enough life experience can see that Harrison might be homophobic on the outside, but Harrison might be secretly attracted to Nico, whom he sometimes misgenders as “she” and “her.” Harrison tries to act like he’s disgusted by being around these gay men, but he also seems fascinated with them.

“Summoning Sylvia” has plenty of snappy banter and amusing slapstick comedy that enliven the film. However, this comedy also has some social commentary about the divides that can exist between homophobes and the LGBTQ people who are the targets of homophobic hate. “Summoning Sylvia” ultimately triumphs because it’s not a movie that makes gay people the “victims.” It’s a memorable movie that makes gay people the heroes of their own stories.

The Horror Collective released “Summoning Sylvia” in select U.S. cinemas on March 31, 2023. The movie was released on digital and VOD on April 7, 2023.

Review: ‘Somewhere in Queens,’ starring Ray Romano, Laurie Metcalf, Jacob Ward, Sadie Stanley, Jennifer Esposito, Sebastian Maniscalco and Tony Lo Bianco

April 22, 2023

by Carla Hay

Cast members of “Somewhere in Queens” Pictured in back row, from left to right: Jon Manfrellotti, Franco Maicas, Adam Kaplan, Sebastian Maniscalco, Dierdre Friel and Jacob Ward. Pictured in front row, from left to right: June Gable, Tony Lo Bianco, Laurie Metcalf and Ray Romano (Photo by Mary Cybulski/Roadside Attractions)

“Somewhere in Queens”

Directed by Ray Romano

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City’s Queens borough and in Philadelphia, the comedy/drama film “Somewhere in Queens” features a cast of predominantly white characters (with a few African American, Latinos and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A married father deals with several issues in his large Italian American family, including trying to influence his teenage son on what the son will do after graduating from high school. 

Culture Audience: “Somewhere in Queens” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of filmmaker/star Ray Romano and dramedies about families experiencing life transitions.

Sadie Stanley and Jacob Ward in “Somewhere in Queens” (Photo by Mary Cybulski/Roadside Attractions)

“Somewhere in Queens” has a lot of expected characteristics of movies about large families who frequently bicker but ultimately have a lot of love and loyalty to each other. It’s a movie with realistic characters but very sitcom-like scenarios that are put into the context of a family drama. Laurie Metcalf is a standout in this entertaining movie directorial debut from Ray Romano. “Somewhere in Queens” had its world premiere at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival.

Romano has a background in stand-up comedy and is widely known for his starring role in the comedy series “Everybody Loves Raymond,” which was on the air from 1996 to 2005. He is one of the stars, producers and writers of “Somewhere in Queens,” which benefits greatly from comedic pacing that is naturalistic and doesn’t look forced or over-rehearsed. Romano co-wrote the “Somewhere in Queens” screenplay with Mark Stegemann, who’s written mostly for TV series (including “Scrubs” and “Preacher”) and who also makes his feature-film debut with “Somewhere in Queens.”

“Somewhere in Queens,” as the title says, takes place in New York City’s Queens borough, which is the borough that is more likely to have family houses with backyards, compared to the high-rise buildings that populate New York City’s Manhattan borough. It’s in Queens where the Russo family lives. This large Italian American clan is working-class and tight-knight, but sometimes has friction that threatens to unravel some of these family bonds.

Here are the members of the family who are featured in the story:

  • Leo Russo (played by Romano) works with his two brothers, his two nephews and his father in the family’s Russo Construction business. Leo often feels insecure because he’s never felt like he’s lived up to his father’s expectations.
  • Angela Russo (played by Metcalf) is Leo’s sarcastic and outspoken wife. She and Leo were sweethearts in high school and are each other’s first love.
  • Matthew “Sticks” Russo (played by Jacob Ward) is the only child of Leo and Angela. Sticks, who got his nickname because he is tall (6’2″) and thin, is quiet and introverted but he has a passion for playing basketball. In this movie, Sticks is in his last year of high school.
  • Dominic “Pops” Russo (played by Tony Lo Bianco) is the family’s no-nonsense patriarch who expects all of the men in his immediate family to work with him in the family’s construction business.
  • Mama Russo (played by June Gable) is Dominic’s wife, who doesn’t talk much, but she is very observant, and when she does say something, it’s usually important.
  • Petey Russo (played by Jon Manfrellotti) is Leo’s laid-back older brother, who is a never-married bachelor with no children.
  • Frank Russo (played by Sebastian Maniscalco) is Leo’s competitive and arrogant younger brother, who has had a longtime sibling rivalry with Leo. Frank is Dominic’s favorite child and is the son who is most likely to take over the family business when Dominic retires.
  • Luigi Russo (played by Franco Maicas) and Marco Russo (played by Adam Kaplan) are Frank’s two wisecracking sons, who are in their early 20s. (Luigi’s and Marco’s mother is mentioned but not seen in the film.)
  • Rosa Russo (played by Dierdre Friel) is Leo’s youngest sibling. Rosa is often teased by Frank for being a never-married bachelorette with no children. She is self-conscious about her weight and being unlucky in love. Her traditional parents see Rosa’s unmarried marital status as a stigma for a woman of a certain age, and they worry that Rosa will never get married and have children.

Several scenes in “Somewhere in Queens” take place at a local banquet hall called Versailles Palace, which is the type of place that is rented out for wedding receptions and family celebrations. It’s where the movie’s opening scene takes place, showing the Russo family attending the wedding reception of a newlywed couple named Louise and Sebastian. The Russos aren’t close to this couple, but apparently were invited to the wedding anyway.

A videographer (played by Lucas Owen) is going around the room to film guests giving short congratulations speeches for the newlyweds. Leo says in his awkward speech, “The best advice I can give to you is don’t hurt each other, if you can avoid it. God bless you, and God bless to all the children you’re going to make for all of America.” The videographer says in an unimpressed tone, “That was different.” Leo then asks the videographer to delete Leo’s recording.

Viewers will see more of Leo’s insecurities and neuroses throughout the movie. At work, he’s treated like an inferior employee by his father. It doesn’t help that Leo has a habit of showing up late for work and isn’t as skilled in construction as Frank is. Leo regrets being stuck in a job with family members who don’t completely respect him. He doesn’t want to quit because he knows how much of a rift it would cause in the family.

At home, Leo and Angela (who is a homemaker) have been having some issues in their marriage. Their sex life is practically non-existent. They don’t really argue a lot, but they’ve become somewhat emotionally distant from each other. And it has something do with Leo and Angela disagreeing about how she’s been handling a medical issue. Leo thinks that Angela should go to support group counseling, but independent-minded Angela thinks that she doesn’t need it. Angela’s medical issue is revealed later in the movie.

Like many middle-aged married couples who’ve raised children together, there comes a time when these couples will have an “empty nest,” with the children no longer living in the home. Angela in particular is dreading not having Sticks in the family home anymore. She thinks she has a few more years after Sticks graduates from high school, because he is expected to work in the family business and eventually get his own place when he can afford to do so. In the meantime, Leo and Angela are supportive parents who go to Sticks’ basketball games to cheer him on as a member of his school team, the Glendale Cougars.

One day, the Glendale Cougars narrowly lose a game (59-61 was the final score) that would have taken the team to the state finals. After the game, a basketball talent scout named Ben Parson (played by P.J. Byrne) notices that Leo is Sticks’ father, from the way that Leo and other Glendale Cougars fans are behaving during the game. Ben approaches Leo after the game and asks Leo what Sticks’ college plans are.

Leo says that Sticks has no plans to go to college because Sticks will be working in the family’s construction business. Ben is surprised and says that someone with Sticks’ basketball talent could easily get a basketball scholarship—maybe not at a top-tier basketball school, but at a mid-tier basketball school. Ben says he knows a recruiter at Drexel University in Philadelphia and can recommend Sticks to Drexel. Leo says he’ll think about it.

Leo does more than think about it. When he brings up the idea to the family, he gets a lot of resistance from almost everyone else in the family. Dominic and Frank think it’s not worth paying for a college degree that Sticks won’t need in their line of work. Angela is worried about Sticks moving away from New York, even though Philadelphia is only a two-hour drive away. Leo convinces Angela and Sticks to at least visit the Drexel campus with him to see what Drexel has to offer.

Meanwhile, around the same time that these college plans start to take shape for Sticks, he has fallen in love with an extroverted, intelligent and vivacious classmate named Dani Brooks (played by Sadie Stanley), who comes from an upper-middle-class family in the Queens neighborhood of Forest Hills. Dani is Sticks’ first girlfriend, and she’s a lot more experienced in dating than he is. Sticks doesn’t introduce Dani to his parents until after his school’s last basketball game of the season.

Angela is immediately annoyed that Sticks kept this relationship a secret for as long as he did. She also doesn’t trust Dani because she thinks Dani is the “heartbreaker” type. Still, Angela puts up a front of being welcoming and invites Dani over to a family dinner, where Dani gets a full view of what the Russo clan is like. It’s at this dinner that the family finds out that Dani is assertive, adventurous, and not afraid to disagree with people about her own firm beliefs. Dani is very opinionated in telling the family why she thinks it’s a good idea for Sticks to go to college.

Dani says her own plans after high school are to take a cross-country road trip by herself. She mentions that her parents want her to go to a university, preferably an Ivy League university, but Dani doesn’t think that getting a university education is the right decision for her at this time in her life. And she says that her father told her that he will only financially support her if she goes along with her parents’ wishes to got to a university. Dani, who has a part-time waitress job at a local diner, says she took the job to save up for money to buy the car that she wants to take on her road trip.

“Somewhere in Queens” then becomes about how Leo gets obsessed with what Sticks wants to do with his life after graduating from high school. Leo doesn’t want Sticks to have the same life and the same regrets that Leo has. Leo wants Sticks to explore the options that Leo never did. Leo is also excited about the possibility of his son being a college graduate. It’s not said out loud, but it’s obvious that Sticks would be the first person in his family to get a college degree, if he chooses to make that decision.

There are a few unexpected turns in the story that involve Leo crossing a boundary and doing some meddling-parent things that are downright creepy. It leads to some sitcom-ish scenarios that don’t look very realistic. “Somewhere in Queens” also has a subplot about Leo being attracted to a Russo Construction customer named Pamela Carmelo (played by Jennifer Esposito), a lonely widow who seems attracted to Leo too. The outcome of this flirtation is fairly predictable.

Romano’s direction of “Somewhere in Queens” moves the story along at a leisurely but engaging pace. As an actor in the movie, he’s doing a version of the neurotic father he played in “Everybody Loves Raymond,” so there are no real surprises in his performance. Metcalf has the best role in the movie, and she rises to the occasion by going through a myriad of emotions that are authentically portrayed and make Angela a completely believable character.

Angela is an overprotective mother who’s trying to appear strong but is really desperately holding on to the one thing (parenthood) that she feels she’s been good at in her life. She’s also feeling a sense of mortality because of her medical issue. It’s a different type of mid-life crisis than what Leo is experiencing. And it’s affected Leo and Angela’s marriage a lot more than they care to admit.

“Somewhere in Queens” also has very good performances from Ward and Stanley, because Sticks and Dani’s relationship is the catalyst for many things that happen in the movie. This teen romance is also very realistic in all of its ups and downs, especially when it comes to the issue of what will happen to the relationship after they graduate from high school. The character of Sticks is interesting because he’s a star of his school’s basketball team, but he isn’t the typical movie stereotype of a popular jock. Sticks is almost painfully shy, but Dani helps him come out of his shell and express his true feelings.

Above all, “Somewhere in Queens” succeeds in showing how people in the same family can discover in different ways what their own comfort levels or discomfort levels are, when it comes to self-esteem and family relationships. A trite movie would have made it look like the teenagers are the only ones who have a lot to learn. “Somewhere in Queens” shows in charming and poignant ways how there’s no age expiration date on learning self-acceptance and learning to accept people for who they really are.

Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions released “Somewhere in Queens” in U.S. cinemas on April 21, 2023.

Review: ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.,’ starring Rachel McAdams, Abby Ryder Fortson and Kathy Bates

April 20, 2023

by Carla Hay

Rachel McAdams and Abby Ryder Fortson in “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” (Photo by Dana Hawley/Lionsgate)

“Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret.”

Directed by Kelly Fremon Craig

Culture Representation: Taking place in 1970, in New Jersey and New York City, the comedy/drama film “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” (based on Judy Blume’s 1970 novel) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: In a period of time when Margaret Simon goes from 11 to 12 years old, she worries about making friends at her new school, reaching puberty, and dealing with family issues that have to do with her parents’ interfaith marriage. 

Culture Audience: “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” will appeal primarily to fans of the novel on which the movie is based and family-friendly movies about adolescent girls.

Abby Ryder Fortson, Amari Price, Elle Graham and Katherine Kupferer in “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” (Photo by Dana Hawley/Lionsgate)

Even though Judy Blume has authored many bestselling novel (most in the young adult genre), not many of these books have been made into feature films. The movie adaptation of Blume’s 1970 novel “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” is a delightful and faithful version of the beloved book. It’s not edgy, but it has accessible and well-done depictions of family angst, adolescent self-discovery and personal growth.

Written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig, the comedy/drama “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” has the benefit of a very talented cast that does justice to all the complex emotions that are described in the book. Because the story takes place in 1970, it recalls a simpler time in America, when children did not have to deal with the traumas of cyberbullying and school mass shootings. At the same time, children back then had less resources and less options on how to get information on issues about growing up. Despite the “quaint” aspects of the story, “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” still has relatable topics that are timeless, especially to girls and women.

The movie “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” begins with the title character Margaret Simon (played by Abby Ryder Fortson), who has no siblings, feeling uprooted and unsettled. Her father Herb Simon (played by Benny Safdie) has gotten a job promotion, so he and his wife Barbara Simon (played by Rachel McAdams), who is Margaret’s compassionate mother, have decided to move from their New York City apartment to a larger home in New Jersey. The move is only a less than 50 miles away, but it might as well be a long-distance move, as far as Margaret is concerned.

Margaret, who celebrates her 12 birthday during the course of the story, worries about leaving her current friends behind and whether or not she’ll make friends in her new school. The move also means that Margaret won’t be able to spend as much time with Herb’s widowed mother Sylvia Simon (played by Kathy Bates), who lives in New York City and has a close emotional bond to Margaret. Sylvia is the only grandparent in Margaret’s life.

It’s later revealed that Barbara’s parents (who are conservative Christians) disapproved of Barbara marrying Herb, just because Herb is Jewish. Barbara’s parents, who live in Ohio, practically disowned Barbara because of this difference in religion. Barbara has been estranged from her parents for years. As a result, Herb and Barbara have decided not to raise Margaret in any religion and have told Margaret that she can decide which religion (if any) she wants to choose when she’s an adult.

Margaret is worried about other things besides moving to a new place. Many of her female peers are starting to grow breasts and get their menstrual periods. Margaret hasn’t had those biological developments yets, and she’s terrified that she’ll be a considered a “freak” if she’s a late bloomer. Much of the story is about Margaret getting involved in some hijinks (and a lot of talking to God) about wanting to become biologically developed by the time she becomes a teenager.

The movie also prominently features Barbara’s self-discovery and coming to terms with her family issues. Because Herb is earning more money from his job promotion, Barbara has decided to give up her job as an art teacher and become a homemaker. It allows her to spend more time at home and notice more of what’s going on with Margaret, who goes back and forth between confiding in her mother and hiding her true feelings from her mother.

On the day that the Simon family moves into their New Jersey house, a talkative neighbor girl with bossy and elitist tendencies comes over unannounced and invites Margaret to play in the yard sprinklers with her. Nancy Wheeler (played by Elle Graham) considers herself to eb the “queen bee” of her small clique at the school that she and Margaret attend. Nancy invites Margaret into a “secret club” that includes two other students from the school: easygoing Janie Loomis (played by Amari Price) and slightly nerdy Gretchen Potter (played by Katherine Kupferer).

Margaret makes fast friends with this group of girls. But she finds out that being part of this “secret club” comes with a social price. One of the club’s “rules” is that all of the members have to tell each other very private things, such as which boys they have crushes on and when they get their menstrual periods. Nancy is also a catty gossip who spreads unfounded promiscuity rumors about a classmate named Laura Danker (played by Isol Young), who is taller than most of the students and has all the physical developments of a woman.

A lot of stories with these types of adolescent would make a lot of the conflicts center on rivalries to get the attention of boys. There’s a small subplot about Margaret seeming to have a mutual attraction to a “nice guy” classmate nickname Moose Freed (played by Aidan Wojtak-Hissong), who is a friend of Nancy’s bratty older brother Evan Wheeler (played by Landon Baxter). However, the movie is much more focused on the female bonding, such as the relationships that Margaret has with her new friends, as well as those with her mother Barbara and grandmother Sylvia.

If these female relationships are the heart of the story, Margaret’s evolving relationship with God is the soul of the story. Just like in the book, Margaret talks to God during moments when she feels the most hope, fear, confusion and joy. She has to reckon with her evolving feelings about religion when a teacher named Mr. Benedict (played by Echo Kellum) encourages her to choose religion as her subject for an assigned class project where the student can choose which topic to research.

Ryder Fortson gives an utterly charming performance in “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” She isn’t overly perky, not is she an insufferable grouch. She’s completely convincing as the Margaret character in the way that Blume depicted her in the book. McAdams and Bates also have standout moments in their roles as family matriarchs who are very different from each other but share a similar fierce love for Margaret.

The movie gets occasionally dull and repetitive. This story is not going to endear itself to anyone who will get tired of hearing Margaret mope about how her breasts aren’t growing as fast as she wants to them to grow. And there’s a useless subplot about Barbara volunteering for too many parent-teacher association committees that are overseen by Nancy’s mother Jan Wheeler (played by Kate MacCluggage), who likes to think of herself as the high-society maven of the mothers in the community. (Blume has a cameo in the movie as a dog-walking neighbor.) Jan ends up overloading Barbara with work.

“Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” is certainly told through the lens of middle-class privilege, because it’s about girls who go to summer camp and never have to worry about being homeless or not having enough to eat. If people want a dark and depressing movie about adolescents, this isn’t it. But “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” delivers what it intends in offering a wistful and nostalgic look at adolescent girlhood in early 1970s America but remaining relatable to anyone who goes though a journey of self-identity.

Lionsgate will release “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” in U.S. cinemas on April 28, 2023. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in select U.S. cinemas on April 19, 2023.

Review: ‘Ride On,’ starring Jackie Chan, Liu Haocun and Guo Qilin

April 15, 2023

by Carla Hay

Jackie Chan in “Ride On” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA and Shanghai Pictures)

“Ride On”

Directed by Larry Yang

Mandarin with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in various cities in China, the comedy/drama film “Devil’s Peak” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A has-been stunt man gets his beloved stunt horse taken away from him as part of a debt collection, and he fights to get the horse back with the help of his formerly estranged daughter and her attorney boyfriend. 

Culture Audience: “Ride On” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Jackie Chan and movies about close relationships between intelligent pet horses and their devoted owners.

Liu Haocun in “Ride On” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA and Shanghai Pictures)

“Ride On” is unapologetically sentimental, but it’s mushy in all the right places. This comedy/drama could have used better film editing, but people who like movies about lovable horses should find something to like about “Ride On.” Yes, it’s one of those movies where visual effects, animal tricks and strategic film editing make the horse act more “human” than a horse would in real life, but the horse in the movie is so charming, it’s easy to go along with this fairy-tale-like story.

Written and directed by Larry Yang, “Ride On” begins by showing that divorced, middle-aged Lao Luo Zilong (played by Jackie Chan), also known as Luo, is a longtime stunt performer who has recently fallen on hard times. Luo and his longtime stunt horse Red Hare aren’t working as much as they used to because many filmmakers are using digital visual effects, instead of practical effects, for their movie stunts. Luo has an “old school” mentality and stubbornly refuses to accept these changes in moviemaking. To make money, he tres to get tourists to pose for photos with him an Red Hare at the movie studio where he and he horse did a lot of stunt work.

Luo is heavily in debt for a few reasons other than not working as much as he used to work. Those other reasons are explained later in the movie. As a result of his debt, Luo has been living in a ramshackle barn with Red Hare. Luo has been in a dispute with a corporation called DY Capital that has won a lawsuit to seize Luo’s assets. One day, debt collectors arrive and take away Red Hare, despite Luo’s vigorous attempts to prevent them from removing his beloved horse.

Luo’s estranged daughter Xiao Bao (played by Liu Haocun), who is a law student her 20s, happens to see Luo on day in a pathetic situation where he is practically begging people to pose for photos with him and Red Hare. Bao has a lot of bitterness toward her father, who has been mostly out of her life since Bao’s parents split up when she was a child. Bao’s deceased mother passed away from an unnamed terminal illness. Flashbacks show that Luo was mostly an absentee dad because of his busy work schedule and because he was unreliable when it came to spending quality time with his mother.

Bao and her mother eventually didn’t really want him around because of Luo’s pattern of not keeping his promises. Luo’s visitations with Luo became filled with more tension and became less frequent as their estrangement grew. Luo has been so out of touch with what’s going on in Bao’s recent life, he’s surprised when she tells him that she’s has a boyfriend.

Bao’s boyfriend, who’s about the same age as he is, happens to be a fairly new attorney. His name is Lu Naihua, also known as Mickey (played by Guo Qilin), who is sweet and very nerdy. As a stunt man, Luo is athletic and not afraid of taking physical risks. Mickey is almost the opposite, so there are a few comical scenes of Luo teaching a fumbling Mickey how to do things such as martial arts and horse riding.

When Luo confides in Bao about his financial problems and how he wants to get Red Hare back, at first Bao wants nothing do with helping Luo. But then, she changes her mind and says that she and Mickey will help Lao. A video of Luo and Red Hare resisting the debt collectors goes viral on the Internet, and most of the public sides with Luo. DY Capital still fights to keep Red Hare, so the dispute ends up in court. All of this information is already revealed in the trailer for “Ride On.”

Even though Luo is broke, he has two loyal apprentices who become part of the shenanigans that ensue: goofy Yuanjie (played by Wu Jing) and his no-nonsense wife Yingzi (played by Joey Yung). The two spouses helped take care of Red Hare, so they care very attached to the horse too. The movie’s “villain” is He Xin (played by Yu Rongguang), the wealthy CEO of DY Capital.

“Ride On” could have taken any number of different narratives to get to the inevitable ending. The movie doesn’t show a lot of preparation for the courtroom battle over Red Hare. Instead, “Ride On” shows a lot of flashbacks of how the relationship developed over the years between Luo and Red Hare at almost the same time that Luo’s relationship with Bao was falling apart.

There’s a very poignant scene where Luo first saw Red Hare, who was born with a lung problems and a leg deformity and was expected to undergo euthanasia until Luo intervened. The bond between Luo and Red Hare was immediate. Luo personally helped Red Hare get physically rehabilitated and then trained as a stunt performer.

The movie has more impactful scenes of a younger Bao experiencing heartache over her strained relationship with her father, while Luo feels guilt and shame for not being able to be the father that he knows he should be. Bao and Luo’s relationship continues to go through ups and downs during the course of the movie, since they have a lot of issues that don’t go away after they’ve reconciled.

As adorable as many of the horse scenes are, “Ride On” stumbles when it comes to the flashback stunt scenes, which look very fake. (A lot of obvious visual effects were used for gravity-defying stunts.) The movie should have stuck more to realism in these stunt scenes, instead of making Red Hare look like some kind of superhero horse. It’s ironic that Ride On” relies so much on these stunt visual effects, which is the same kind of filmmaking that has put stunt performers such as Luo and Red Hare out of work. Shi Yanneng has a supporting role in “Ride On” as Dawei, a former protégé of Luo’s who tries to help Luo find stunt work in a new movie.

Because of the sometimes choppy film editing, the flashbacks don’t flow as smoothly as it could for the movie’s overall narrative. At a certain point, “Ride On” becomes too caught up in the flashbacks, and viewers will be wondering when the movie is going to get to the dispute between Luo and DY Capital over who will get to keep Red Hare. Some of Luo’s flashbacks are actually clips from Chan’s real-life past movies, which can be unnecessary distractions that take viewers out of this fictional story.

Despite its flaws, “Ride On” keeps a brisk pace and has balanced mix of comedy and drama. The cast members’ performances are good but not outstanding. It’s a mostly enjoyable film for people who want to see a positive story where a domesticated pet is treated like a member of a human family, and human family members find a new way to connect with each other.

Well Go USA released “Ride On” in select U.S. cinemas, and Shanghai Pictures released the movie in China on April 7, 2023.

Review: ‘Mafia Mamma,’ starring Toni Collette and Monica Bellucci

April 12, 2023

by Carla Hay

Monica Bellucci and Toni Collette in “Mafia Mamma” (Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street)

“Mafia Mamma”

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke

Culture Representation: Taking place in Italy and briefly in the Los Angeles area, the comedy/drama film “Mafia Mamma” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class, wealthy and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: An “empty nester” Italian American mother finds out that her recently deceased grandfather in Italy was a Mafia boss whose dying wish was for her to take over the family’s Mafia business in Italy. 

Culture Audience: “Mafia Mamma” will appeal primarily to fans of stars Toni Collette and Monica Bellucci, as well as anyone to doesn’t mind watching idiotic movies about the Italian Mafia.

Toni Collette and Giulio Corso in “Mafia Mamma” (Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street)

“Mafia Mamma” is an irritating mix of crude comedy and cloying drama failing on every single level. The filmmakers want to fool viewers into thinking that Toni Collette’s shrill and mindless Kristin character is supposed to exemplify “female empowerment.” Collette can usually be counted on to give good performances in even her worst movies. However, Collette (who is one of the producers of “Mafia Mamma”) does nothing but embarrass herself in this moronic and schlocky mess. The rest of the “Mafia Mamma” cast members give equally atrocious or forgettable performances, made worse by the misguided direction and awful screenplay.

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, “Mafia Mamma” was written by J. Michael Feldman and Debbie Jhoon, as if it were a stale and outdated movie from the 1980s. It’s the type of comedy/drama that Goldie Hawn might have made back then, when movie audiences were more receptive to seeing someone act like a ditzy blonde who’s thrown into uncomfortable situations while she shrieks, grimaces, and whines about how she doesn’t know how she ended up in these situations. To make things even worse, “Mafia Mamma” tries to pretend that it’s a “feminist” movie, when it’s actually the opposite of a feminist movie, because it makes the female characters in film look very shallow.

And let’s not get started on the utter stupidity of the concept that a powerful Mafia family in Italy would want a naïve and estranged relative, who doesn’t speak Italian, to suddenly take over the family’s Mafia empire in Italy. Even if viewers suspend their disbelief at this flimsy premise for “Mafia Mamma,” the cast members do a terrible job of selling this concept as entertaining. There’s a desperate tone to “Mafia Mamma” that’s very off-putting. It’s like being stuck in a room with people telling bad jokes that they know are bad, but they just ramp up the barrage of foolishness, because they want to convince you that being louder and sillier automatically means “funnier.”

“Mafia Mamma” begins with a scene showing the aftermath of a gun massacre somewhere on a street in Italy. A Mafia general named Bianca (played by Monica Bellucci), who has an ice-cold personality, walks among the dead bodies of men and snarls, “This means war.” She then spits on the ground. Viewers soon find out that Bianca works for the Balbano crime family. And one of the people killed in this massacre was family boss Giuseppe Balbano (Alessandro Bressanello), whose dying wish was for his American-raised granddaughter to take over the family’s Mafia activities, even though this granddaughter has no idea that her family in Italy is in the Mafia.

This granddaughter is pharmaceutical marketing executive Kristin Dorner (played by Collette), who is living in the Los Angeles area with her musician husband Paul Dorner (played by Tim Daish), who is a wannabe rock star in an obscure band. It’s explained later in the movie that Kristin was born in Italy, but she and her widowed mother moved to the United States when Kristin was too young to remember her father, who was Giuseppe’s only child.

Kristin has no siblings. Her mother has been deceased for an untold number of years. Kristin is an overprotective mother to her only child: a son named Domenick, nicknamed Nicky (played by Tommy Rodger), who is seen saying goodbye to his parents as he drives off with two buddies for his first year in college in Portland, Oregon.

Kristin works at a company called ICO Pharma, which is always looking for new drugs to market to the public. She is the only woman in the small group meetings at her job, where the marketing executives have to pitch ideas for new campaigns. Kristin’s boss Hank (played by Jay Natelle) is misogynistic, even though he goes to great lengths to try to make it look he’s not.

Hank is dismissive of Kristin’s ideas and treats her as inferior to the male employees. He over-praises the unoriginal ideas of his male subordinates Randy (played by Yonv Joseph) and Wayne (played by Mitch Salm), which include re-using ad campaign ideas that portray women as sex objects. When Kristin pitches an idea for medication that will give hair growth to balding men, Hank suggests that Kristin work instead on a campaign for Restylane (anti-aging fillers) for women. Kristin’s job at ICO Pharma plays a big role in an awkward slapstick scene and in a nonsensical subplot shown later in the movie.

Kristin not only feels undervalued at work, but she’s also feeling lonely and unappreciated at home. In addition to having “empty nest syndrome,” Kristin has a non-existent sex life. She and Paul have not had sex with each other in three years.

Kristin is about to have a very bad day that will change her life. First, she gets a call from Bianca telling her that Kristin’s paternal grandfather Giuseppe has died in Italy. Even though Kristin never knew him, Kristin still feels a sense of loss that she never got to know this deceased family member.

And then, Kristin gets another bombshell: She walks in on Paul having sex in his music room with a younger woman named Tracy (played by Claire Palazzo), who was Domenick’s high school guidance counselor. Kristin is naturally shocked. It’s one of the few scenes where Kristin gets upset but doesn’t start screeching. An apologetic Paul uses the opportunity to tell Kristin that he wants them to have an open marriage.

Kristin is next seen taking out her anger and frustration in boxing exercises at a gym. Her gym partner is her loud and foul-mouthed best friend Jenny (played by Sophia Nomvete), who is an attorney for ICO Pharma. Jenny suggests that Kristin go to Italy for Giuseppe’s funeral and use the trip as a chance to reclaim her sexuality. Jenny crudely compares it to Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2006 self-discovery travel memoir “Eat Pray Love,” by saying Kristin’s trip to Italy can be like “Eat Pray Fuck” for Kristin.

“Mafia Mamma” is so poorly written, it isn’t mentioned what Kristin has decided to do about her marriage until after she arrives in Italy. It turns out that she and Paul are separated, but there’s no mention of her filing for divorce. At any rate, Kristin considers herself to be completely single and available. She wants to make one of her fantasies come true by having a romance (or at least passionate sex) with a handsome and attentive Italian man who treats her well.

As soon as Kristin arrives at the airport, and she’s outside in the arrivals/pickup area, she happens to meet an attractive 34-year-old stranger named Lorenzo (played by Giulio Corso), another traveler who’s standing nearby. Lorenzo’s aunt Esmerelda (played by Dora Romano) has arrived to give Lorenzo a car ride, and she’s in a hurry for him to get in the car. However, Lorenzo finds enough time to quickly introduce himself to Kristin, flirt with her, and exchange phone numbers with her. Of course, it won’t be the last time that Kristin sees Lorenzo.

Bianca is Kristin’s main guide in Italy, but two goons who work for the Balbano family are also at Kristin’s service: jittery Aldo (played by Francesco Mastroianni) and quiet Dante (played by Alfonso Perugini), who later become Kristin’s bodyguards. Dante’s body size becomes the butt of some unfunny “fat” jokes in the movie, which frequently makes Dante more concerned about gorging on fattening food than doing his job properly.

At first, Kristin thinks the Balbano side of her family has gotten wealthy from the Balbano winery. However, during Giuseppe’s funeral procession, there’s a shootout that leaves several people dead. Kristin and her entourage barely escape with their lives. A shocked Kristin demands to know what’s going on. And it’s how she finds out that the Balbano family is a Mafia family. The main Mafia enemy of the Balbano family is the Romano family.

Bianca also shows Kristin a video statement that Giuseppe made that he only wanted Kristin to see after he died. In the video, Giuseppe says that his dying wish is for Kristin to take over the family’s Mafia business. This announcement enrages Giuseppe’s great-nephew Fabrizio (played by Eduardo Scarpetta), a dimwitted, tattooed thug who was expecting to be named the leader of the family. It just leads to witless scenes of a rivalry that Fabrizio has with Kristin.

Throughout the movie, Kristin is a fast-talking, nervous chatterbox trying to make people like her, or she’s a screaming ninny trying to get out of a nasty situation. The movie has expected scenes of bloody murder, but there’s some gross-out comedy involving vomit and defecation that look really stupid and childish in a movie that needed a darker edge. The “fish out of water” scenarios for clueless Kristin get tiresome very quickly.

Even though Bellucci shares top billing with Collette, the Bianca character isn’t in the movie as much as she could have been, thereby squandering an opportunity to make the developing friendship between “opposite personalities” Kristin and Bianca into something hilarious. Instead, the movie lazily uses Bellucci’s image as a “sex symbol” to drop major hints that Bianca might be sexually attracted to Kristin, but Bianca doesn’t act on it. It comes across as being a tease just for the sake of being a tease and adds nothing to the story. Bianca is ultimately a hollow character who reveals nothing about herself in this junkpile film.

“Mafia Mamma” also mishandles what could have been the most suspenseful part of the movie: the rivalry between the Balbano family and the Romano family. The Romanos are too generic and uninteresting. Carlo Romano (played by Giuseppe Zeno) is the family boss at one point in the story, but he’s not in the movie for very long. A high-ranking family member named Mammone Romano (played by Vincenzo Pirrotta) is barely in the movie and doesn’t make much of an impact.

“Mafia Mamma” is also a bloated film that tries to cram in too many ideas, most of which have inexcusable plot holes and just make everyone involved look like morons. Nothing about the story and characters in “Mafia Mamma” looks believable. The movie becomes too long and drawn-out as more ludicrious plot twists emerge. There’s such an overload of bad acting and horrible comedy in “Mafia Mamma,” it truly is a crime against cinema.

Bleecker Street will release “Mafia Mamma” in U.S. cinemas on April 14, 2023. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on May 2, 2023.

Review: ‘Renfield’ (2023), starring Nicholas Hoult and Nicolas Cage

April 11, 2023

by Carla Hay

Nicolas Cage and Nicholas Hoult in “Renfield” (Photo by Michele K. Short/Universal Pictures)

“Renfield” (2023)

Directed by Chris McKay

Culture Representation: Taking place in New Orleans, the horror comedy film “Renfield” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Asians, African Americans and Latinos) representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: A real-estate attorney, who has been forced to become an indentured servant procuring victims for vampire Count Dracula, finds himself involved in various hijinks with Dracula and a drug-smuggling gang. 

Culture Audience: “Renfield” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Nicolas Cage and over-the-top comedies about vampires.

Pictured in front: Adrian Martinez and Awkwafina in “Renfield” (Photo by Michele K. Short/Universal Pictures)

Nicolas Cage’s campy performance as Dracula is the best thing about “Renfield,” a horror comedy that sometimes gets a little too one-note and manic for its own good. The movie doesn’t take itself seriously, and neither should viewers. It’s not a movie for anyone who’s overly sensitive to graphic violence on screen, because there’s plenty of blood and gore, in case anyone forgot that “Renfield” is a vampire movie.

Directed by Chris McKay and written by Ryan Ridley, “Renfield” has a very simple concept that frequently gets muddled with the movie’s overreach in trying to do too much action and comedy at once. “Renfield” is supposed to be a satire of support-group culture and how therapy of co-dependence could be applied to someone who is a “familiar” (a servant of a vampire) trying to get out of a toxic relationship with a blood-sucking employer. However, there are subplots that get tangled in the mix that could have been presented in a more straightforward way.

In “Renfield,” Robert Montague Renfield (played by Nicholas Hoult) is a native of Great Britain who is living in the United States and working as a real-estate attorney. That’s how he met Dracula (played by Cage), who forced Renfield (a bachelor with no children) to become Dracula’s familiar. Renfield is tasked with finding murder victims for Dracula and cleaning up Dracula’s messes.

Dracula and Renfield move from city to city to avoid getting caught. In the beginning of “Renfield” (which has frequent narration by Renfield), Dracula and Renfield have settled in New Orleans. Most of “Renfield” is about a madcap feud involving Dracula, Renfield, mobster criminals and police. A drug-smuggling cartel, led by Bellafrancesca Lobo (played by Shohreh Aghdashloo, doing her best Mafia queen impersonation) ends up blaming Renfield for a stolen supply of drugs worth millions.

Meanwhile, Renfield attends a support group for people who are in unhealthy co-dependent relationships. The scenes with the support group meetings are hit and miss. A running gag that gets old quickly is that Renfield shows up and interrupts the meetings at very inconvenient times, usually when someone is in the middle of sharing their emotional pain with the group.

Also hit and miss is the subplot about budding romance between Renfield and a wisecracking New Orleans police officer named Rebecca Quincy (played by Awkwafina), who is trying to prove herself as worthy of her police badge, because her deceased father was a New Orleans police captain who was a well-respected local legend. Rebecca’s serious-minded sister Kate (played by Camille Chen) is an agent for the FBI. Rebecca and Kate have a sibling rivalry that is clumsily shoehorned into the story and is ultimately not essential to the overall plot.

Rebecca and Kate are the only ones who are living in a parent’s shadow. Bellafrancesca has made her bungling son Tedward “Teddy” Lobo (played by Ben Schwartz) her second-in-command. And he’s desperate to impress his mother, but he often fails miserably, because he’s such a buffoon. You can easily predict who will be in the movie’s biggest showdown toward the end.

Character development is not the strong point of “Renfield.” The main characters don’t have much depth, while the supporting characters aren’t too interesting and just exist in the movie to react to the antics or give a few unremarkable quips. Rebecca’s police supervisor Chris Marcos (played by Adrian Martinez) could have been a hilarious character, but he doesn’t get enough screen time to have an impact. The leader of the support group is a sensitive counselor named Mark (played by Brandon Scott Jones), who is written and portrayed as a character to be ridiculed for being a counselor who is immersed in political correctness.

There aren’t very many surprises in “Renfield,” but the movie can deliver some laughs for people who might like this type of entertainment. Hoult plays the “straight man” to Cage’s wacky Dracula. The movie has some dull reptition, but the overall pace of the movie is energetic. Renfield is a mixture of neurotic and empathetic, and Hoult is perfectly fine in this role, but the filmmakers made the mistake of naming the movie after this character. The real star of the show is unquestionably Dracula.

Universal Pictures will release “Renfield” in U.S. cinemas on April 14, 2023.

Review: ‘Showing Up’ (2023), starring Michelle Williams, Hong Chau, John Magaro, André Benjamin and Judd Hirsch

April 7, 2023

by Carla Hay

Michelle Williams and Hong Chau in “Showing Up” (Photo by Allyson Riggs/A24)

“Showing Up” (2023)

Directed by Kelly Reichardt

Culture Representation: Taking place in Portland, Oregon, the comedy/drama film “Showing Up” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: An introverted sculptor artist, who works for an arts college, must contend with a variety of challenges, including a difficult landlord, getting her art ready in time for an upcoming exhibit, her divorced parents and a troubled brother with mental health issues. 

Culture Audience: “Showing Up” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Michelle Williams, filmmaker Kelly Reichardt and realistic movies about neurotic people in quirky communities.

André Benjamin and Michelle Williams in “Showing Up” (Photo courtesy of A24)

“Showing Up” is right in line with writer/director Kelly Reichardt’s pattern of doing low-key movies about people who are emotionally stifled in some way. The last third movie is not as good as the rest of the film, but it’s still a watchable story. Viewers who are expecting “Showing Up” to have a lot of melodrama, suspenseful action or shocking surprises will be disappointed. In keeping with Reichardt’s filmmaking style, “Showing Up” is a movie about people going about their everyday lives and facing challenges that aren’t that unusual. “Showing Up” had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and also screened the 2022 New York Film Festival.

Reichardt co-wrote “Showing Up” with Jonathan Raymond after they originally wanted to do a biopic about Canadian artist Emily Carr (who died in 1945, at the age of 73), but Reichardt and Raymond abandoned the idea when they found out how famous Carr is in Canada. Instead, they made “Showing Up” a fictional film about a sculptor artist named Lizzy Carr (played by Michelle Williams), who is not famous and is living a quiet and unassuming life in Portland, Oregon.

Lizzy is a sculptor artist whose day job is working in administration at a small arts college. (The college scenes in “Showing Up” were filmed at now-defunct Oregon College of Art and Craft, which closed in 2019.) Lizzy is introverted and lives by herself. When she’s at home, she prefers to work on her art and doesn’t like being interrupted. Lizzy doesn’t get her art in gallery exhibits very often. And so, the upcoming gallery exhibit that she has is a very big deal for her.

Most of Lizzy’s sculptor pieces are the size of figurines and are often of people sculpted in ragged shapes. Lizzy wants to finish all of her art on time for this exhibit, but several things happen during the course of the story that prevent her for working on her art in the uninterrupted way that she would prefer. “Showing Up” is mostly about how she deals with these challenges, as well as what she learns about herself and her priorities.

In the beginning of the movie, Lizzy is dealing with one of those challenges: her landlord Jo (played by Hong Chau), who is also an artist. Jo has an annoying habit of ignoring or delaying Lizzy’s request to repair things in Lizzy’s rental home. (Jo lives nearby.) One of the movie’s early scenes shows Lizzy becoming irritated with Jo because Lizzy has no hot water for her shower, and Jo has once again been ignoring Lizzy’s requests to fix the shower.

Jo tells Lizzy that Lizzy can use Jo’s shower in the meantime. But that’s not the point. Lizzy is paying Jo rent to have working utilities in the home. Jo isn’t keeping her end of the deal as a landlord. Lizzy comments to Jo, “You’re not the only person with a deadline.” Jo’s replies, “I know, but I have two showers, which is in insane.”

Lizzy’s art in the movie was made in real life by Cynthia Lahti. Jo’s installation-sized art in the movie was made in real life by Michelle Segre. The sizes of art pieces are meant to reflect the different personalities of Lizzy and Jo. Lizzy is quiet and unassuming. Jo is extroverted and likes to call attention to herself.

Lizzy has some other issues in her life. Her mother Jean (played by Maryann Plunkett) is also her boss at work. Jean and Lizzy sometimes have disagreements that on the surface seem to be about work, but they’re really about unspoken resentments that Lizzy and Jean have toward each other. Jean thinks Lizzy is stubborn, while Lizzy thinks Jean is too demanding. Their conflicts aren’t major, but they’re enough to make the relationship slightly strained.

A lot of this mother-daughter friction has to do with how Lizzy has been affected by her parents’ divorce. Jean uses Lizzy as a go-between to communicate with Lizzy’s free-spirited father Bill (played by Judd Hirsch), who is very different from uptight and rigid Jean. Bill has let a random bohemian couple named Dorothy (played by Amanda Plummer) and Lee (played by Matt Malloy) live with Bill in his home, shortly after he met them. Dorothy and Lee, who are from Canada, say they’re just “visiting,” but they haven’t told Bill when they’ll be leaving.

Jean thinks that Bill is being taken advantage of by this couple, because she’s pretty sure these new housemates are not giving Bill any compensation for his hospitality. Because Jean is Bill’s ex-wife and no longer lives with him, she doesn’t have a say on how he lives his life. However, Jean is pressuring Lizzy to talk to Bill about his living arrangement with these two new housemates. Lizzy doesn’t really want to get involved, so she resents that her mother is trying to use her as a pawn.

Meanwhile, Lizzy has a younger brother named Sean (played by John Magaro), who’s been struggling with mental health issues, which have led to him being homeless at various times in his life. Jean is in deep denial about Sean’s mental health issues. Jean thinks Sean is a “genius” who doesn’t need psychiatric help, while Lizzy has a completely opposite opinion.

When Sean has a big scene in a certain part of the movie, “Showing Up” falters because it just looks like awkward slapstick comedy. “Showing Up” loses a lot of emotional resonance in this scene where the movie could have been had its strongest and most meaningful impact. And frankly, it seems like this mentally ill character is just used in the most negative, stereotypical ways, instead of treating this character as a well-rounded person.

Another wasted opportunity was in casting André Benjamin as Eric, Lizzy’s friendly co-worker who is a kiln master at the college. Benjamin shares headlining billing for this movie, but you wouldn’t know it, based it on how little screen time he has (less than 10 minutes) and how Eric ends up being a character who is completely inconsequential to any storyline in the movie. Quite frankly, Eric looks like a token character in “Showing Up,” as if the filmmakers wanted to show the audience: “Look, we gave an African American a speaking role the movie to make our cast look racially diverse.”

“Showing Up” also has a few subplots that might induce boredom with some viewers. Lizzy takes care of a wounded bird with a broken wing, after Jo finds the bird and hands off the responsibility of taking care of it to Lizzy. At least the wounded bird subplot (which is obvious symbolism for how Lizzy feels) actually has a purpose for the story—unlike a meandering and flimsy subplot about Lizzy and her co-workers having to accommodate an artist in residence named Marlene Heyman (played by Heather Lawless), who is diva-like and has many star-struck fans at the school.

“Showing Up” greatly benefits from having talented cast members (especially Williams and Chau), who make the movie’s characters believable when less-skilled cast members wouldn’t have been able to do the same thing. There have been many movies made about mopey male artists who’ve dedicated themselves so completely to their art, it’s affected their personal lives. Not many movies are made about this type of female artist, so viewers might have varying reactions to Lizzy’s less-than-charismatic personality. “Showing Up” is a well-acted story about the reality of most artists’ lives: far from glamorous, struggling in obscurity, and trying to be their definition of personal greatness.

A24 released “Showing Up” in select U.S. cinemas on April 7, 2023.

Review: ‘One True Loves’ (2023), starring Phillipa Soo, Simu Liu and Luke Bracey

April 6, 2023

by Carla Hay

Phillipa Soo and Simu Liu in “One True Loves” (Photo courtesy of The Avenue)

“One True Loves” (2023)

Directed by Andy Fickman

Culture Representation: Taking place in Massachusetts, Maine, and California, over the course of 17 years, the comedy/drama film “One True Loves” features a white and Asian cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Four years after her husband goes missing in a helicopter crash and is declared dead, a woman gets engaged to a man who was her best friend in childhood, but then the missing husband shows up and expects to continued his married life with the woman. 

Culture Audience: “One True Loves” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the book on which the movie is based, and will appeal to people who like very corny love stories where people act unrealistically.

Phillipa Soo and Luke Bracey in “One True Loves” (Photo courtesy of The Avenue)

“One True Loves” is a disappointing, missed opportunity to turn a popular book into a classic romantic comedy/drama movie. The principal cast members do their best in their attempts to make this story convincing, but they are undercut by screenwriting and direction that make this sappy film look like the cinematic equivalent of a cheap and often-unrealistic romance novel. The “One True Loves” movie (which is based on Taylor Jenkins Reid’s 2016 novel of the same name) fails to balance the comedy and drama, which results in the film having an off-kilter and awkward tone.

Directed by Andy Finkman, “One True Loves” has a screenplay co-written by Jenkins Reid and her husband, Alex J. Reid. A few elements of the movie’s story are based on Jenkins Reid’s own life. (She’s from Acton, Massachusetts, where most of the story takes place.) This movie is an example of how people who are too close to the source material sometimes aren’t the best people to adapt the source material into a movie screenplay. Although “One True Loves” has its charming moments, thanks largely to the talent of the principal cast members, so much of the movie looks too phony to have the intended impact.

Another problem with the “One True Loves” movie is the jumbled narrative. There are several flashbacks, and some of them aren’t very well-placed. In addition, the characters in the love triangle, who are supposed to be in their 30s for most of the movie, often act like the immature teenagers they are in a few of the movie’s flashbacks. It’s all very grating. And it further lowers the quality of what could have been a more meaningful and relatable film about adults.

“One True Love” begins with a flashback to a nighttime house party attended by high-school-age teenagers in Acton, Massachusetts. Emma Blair (played by Oona Yaffe) and her best friend Sam Lee (played by Phinehas Yoon) are standing by themselves and looking kind of like outcasts. Emma and Sam are in the backyard, near the swimming pool, where athletic and good-looking Jesse Lerner (played by Cooper van Grootel) is emerging from the pool. Jesse is a star of the school’s male swimming team.

Emma has a big crush on Jesse and is ogling his toned body as he walks out of the pool. It’s later revealed that Sam has been in love with Emma for years, but she has kept him in the “friend zone,” and he has been afraid to tell her his true romantic feelings. Sam sees Emma leering at Jesse. Sam responds by saying in a sulking voice, “It’s really not fair that he throws around his swimming skills at a party.”

The party gets broken up by police. Most of the teenagers scatter, but Emma and Jesse are arrested for underage drinking. At the police station, Jesse flirts a little with Emma, who is awestruck and flattered that he’s paying attention to her. It doesn’t take long for Emma to let Jesse know that she wants to date him. What happens in the Sam/Emma/Jesse love triangle then jumps back and forth in time in the movie.

The next thing that viewers see is 15 years after this party, Emma (played by Phillipa Soo) and Sam (played by Simu Liu) are living together and have gotten engaged. Emma and Sam are happily celebrating the engagement with a small family get-together at the home of Emma’s parents. Emma’s relatives at this gathering are her parents, her sister and her sister’s husband. Sam’s family members are not seen or mentioned in the film.

Emma’s parents—mild-mannered father Colin (played by Michael O’Keefe) and talkative mother Ann (played by Lauren Tom)—own a local bookstore called Blair Books. Now a retired couple, Emma’s parents have passed on operation of the bookstore to Emma and her sister Marie (played by Michaela Conlin), who has a Type-A, perfectionist personality. Marie and her quiet husband Michael (played Tom Everett Scott) have a daughter who’s about 6 or 7 years old named Sophie (played by Oceana Matsumoto), who happens to be deaf.

When Emma was a teenager, she told Jesse that she had no interest in taking over the family bookstore when her parents retire. She wanted to travel and see the world. Flashbacks show that after high school, Emma became a travel journalist, Jesse (played by Luke Bracey) became a travel photographer, and they worked together on adventurous travel assignments that took them around the world. They were blissfully in love, got married, and lived in Venice, California.

But then, a tragedy happened. Jesse was in a helicopter that crashed over the Pacific Ocean. There were three people in the helicopter, including the pilot. Jesse was the only person whose body wasn’t found after an extensive search. Jesse was eventually declared legally dead. Emma didn’t want to believe he was dead, but she gave up hope after practical-minded Marie convinced her to move on with her life.

A depressed Emma had a hard time coping with her grief. Flashbacks show that after years of not being in contact with Sam, she happened to see him in a music instrument store. Sam is now a music teacher at the same high school where he, Emma and Jesse were students. Sam and Emma reconnected, a romance began between them, and they got engaged. But four years after Jesse disappeared, Jesse has been found. Jesse comes back to Acton, and he’s expecting his marriage to Emma to continue in the way that it was.

All this timeline jumping does a disservice to the story in the movie, which answers some questions too late and doesn’t answer some questions at all. It isn’t shown until the last third of the movie how the romance developed between Sam and Emma. The courtship of Sam and Emma should have been in the movie much earlier, to give viewers better context for why she fell in love with him.

Because “One True Loves” shows too early in the movie that Sam and Emma have settled into a life where they got engaged, it makes it too easy to figure out how this movie is going to end. A better-written movie would have shown everything in chronological order. It would have made the movie more suspenseful and less obvious about what Emma’s choice will be. “One True Loves” tries to make up for this scrambled timeline by doing a lot of exposition regurgitation, where characters give verbal summaries of things that were already seen in flashbacks.

But there are other big problems with this movie. When Emma gets the call that Jesse has been found, her reaction looks completely phony. She doesn’t ask anything about how he was found, where he was for all these years, and if he’s okay. Yes, she could have been in shock, but these are the questions that someone would ask about a loved one who was missing for years and presumed dead. Viewers don’t find out where Jesse was for the past four years until it’s mentioned later in the movie: He was stranded on a deserted island.

Emma’s reunion with Jesse also looks fake. He’s dropped off at his parents’ house, with no mention of how Jesse was found or if he needed any medical treatment after being stuck on a deserted island for four years. Realistically, a bunch of media people are waiting outside the house. Jesse’s mother Francine (played by Beth Broderick), Jesse’s father Joe (played by Gary Hudson) and Emma are also outside, in anticipation of Jesse’s return.

But then, the scene looks unrealistic again when Emma and Jesse go inside his parents’ house. Jesse and Emma sob and hug, but she still doesn’t ask a lot of basic questions that someone would ask a spouse who’s been missing for four years. All the drippy emotions that are overloaded in this reunion scene would have had a better impact if the filmmakers put more realism in the movie.

And speaking of destroying realism, the filmmakers make Sam look pathetic in multiple scenes where he uses his orchestra class as a way to have personal therapy sessions for himself. Instead of teaching his students, he pours out his angst and insecurities over the decision that Emma has to make in choosing between him and Jesse. What’s so idiotic about these scenes is that Sam brushes off journalists who want to interview him because he says he’s a “private person,” but he inappropriately dumps details about his love life on his underage students, as if these students wouldn’t blab and gossip about it to other people.

Sam’s students egg him on, because they want to hear all the soap opera-ish details of this love triangle. And can you blame the students for doing that? No. It’s a distraction from doing any work in the classroom. It’s really up to the adult teacher in the classroom to set boundaries, but Sam doesn’t set those boundaries. He’s more concerned about getting as many people as possible to feel sorry for him and root for him. It’s supposed to be the “comedy” part of the movie, but it just looks weird and idiotic.

How bad are these classroom “therapy” scenes? When the school bell rings for the students to go to their next class, the students say that they want to stay and listen to more of Sam’s self-pitying sob stories. And he says they can stay. Eventually, some teachers are seen in the classroom because they want to listen to Sam’s sob stories too. It’s just more moronic filmmaking on display. “One True Loves” also has a very unfunny recurring gag about Sam’s cell phone getting cracked because he keeps throwing the phone in anger and frustration.

At no point in time does “One True Loves” show Sam, Jesse or Emma seeking professional counseling from adults or getting free support from their loved ones about this big disruption in their lives. Sam, Jesse and Emma also don’t seem to have any friends to turn to during this very unusual love triangle situation. And that detail doesn’t match up with the scene of Emma and Jesse’s wedding, where there were plenty of people in attendance, and presumably not all of them were family members.

Instead, what viewers will see in “One True Loves” are tedious scenes of Emma being “torn between two lovers” and feeling guilty about having to choose one over the other. The movie has some heartfelt scenes, such as when Emma and Jesse take a getaway trip to Maine at the remote cabin where they had their honeymoon. Soo and Bracey do some of their best acting in the movie in these Maine scenes. (“One True Loves” was actually filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina.)

The courtship scenes of Emma and Sam are cute, but very lightweight. Liu has potential as a romantic leading actor with very good comedic timing. He also has impressive singing and songwriting talent: He co-wrote and performed the movie’s end-credits ballad “Don’t.” It’s too bad that this movie makes the Sam character look like the most immature and most pitiful of the three characters in this love triangle.

Emma and Marie had an argumentative sibling rivalry when they were younger. This rivalry is mentioned several times but is never really given much depth, although there is an attempt in a flashback scene where Jesse has been missing for several weeks. Emma is in California, on a building rooftop near the Pacific Ocean, while she is using binoculars to look for Jesse. It’s the scene where Marie arrives and tells Emma to stop looking for Jesse because he’s probably dead.

Although this scene is meant to be the movie’s biggest heart-to-heart moment between Emma and Marie, observant viewers will be distracted by the questions that this scene brings up. Why does Emma think that using binoculars would be enough to search for Jesse in an ocean? And why does Emma think that she can see him from this particular rooftop? Emma tells Marie that because Jesse was a champion swimmer, if he’s alive, Emma is sure he’ll find a way to swim back to Emma.

Just because Emma is this stupid doesn’t mean that the filmmakers of “One True Loves” have to treat viewers as this stupid. The cast members can have as much charisma as they want, but when the filmmakers have such disrespect for the average viewer who would be interested in this type of movie, there’s no redeeming it or excusing it. “One True Loves” is like a suitor who tries to come across as romantic, but is in fact very pandering and condescending. People who value their time and intelligence just don’t need that in their lives.

The Avenue will release “One True Loves” in select U.S. cinemas on April 7, 2023. A one-night-only sneak preview was held in select U.S. cinemas on April 5, 2023. The movie will be released on digital on April 14, 2023, and on VOD on April 28, 2023.

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