Tag: drama

Review: ‘Together Together,’ starring Ed Helms and Patti Harrison

April 23, 2021

by Carla Hay

Ed Helms and Patti Harrison in “Together Together” (Photo by Tiffany Roohani/Bleecker Street)

“Together Together”

Directed by Nikole Beckwith

Culture Representation: Taking place in San Francisco, the dramedy film “Together Together” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Asians, Latinos and African Americans) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A middle-aged bachelor hires a surrogate to carry his first child, and the two sometimes have conflicts over his controlling and neurotic ways during the pregnancy.

Culture Audience: “Together Together” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in seeing a unique and sometimes comedic spin on society’s stereotypes of single fathers and surrogates.

Ed Helms and Patti Harrison in “Together Together” (Photo by Tiffany Roohani/Bleecker Street)

“Together Together” pokes fun at and exposes a lot of preconceptions that people might have of gender roles, when it comes to people who choose to start a family without a partner and what it means to be a pregnancy surrogate in this situation. Written and directed by Nikole Beckwith, the movie adeptly combines comedy and drama without reducing the characters to becoming punchlines or melodramatic caricatures. Patti Harrison stands out for her winning performance as a conflicted 26-year-old named Anna, who decides to become a pregnancy surrogate and finds out that she’s not the only person in the surrogacy arrangement who has to deal with gender biases.

That’s because Anna is a surrogate for someone who typically doesn’t hire a surrogate to become a first-time parent: a heterosexual, never-married bachelor in his 40s who isn’t waiting to find his soul mate/life partner to start a family. This 45-year-old bachelor is named Matt (played by Ed Helms), and he and Anna both live in San Francisco, which makes it easier for them to see each other during the pregnancy. However, living in the same city also makes it easier for neurotic Matt to try to meddle in Anna’s life and control how she lives during the pregnancy.

Matt has a well-meaning tone to his control-freak ways, so he’s not as irritating in the movie as he could be. And certainly, Helms is skilled at playing an awkward nerd to comedic effect, since he’s been typecast in doing this type of character for most of his on-screen roles. What makes “Together Together” so entertaining to watch is the chemistry between Harrison and Helms as Anna and Matt. At first, Matt and Anna appear to be a mismatch, but they end up finding that they have a lot in common when it comes to feeling like misfits in their own families.

“Together Together” begins with Matt (who is an app developer) interviewing Anna (who’s a coffee shop barista) for the surrogacy arrangement. The conversation is clearly uncomfortable for both of them, but they try to make the best out of the situation without offending the other person. Because most people watching “Together Together” already know that Anna was chosen for this surrogacy arrangement, the movie doesn’t waste time with contrivances such as Matt interviewing other candidates.

During the interview, Matt asks Anna: “Have you ever stolen anything?” Anna replies, “Pens.” Matt then asks, “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” Anna says, “That’s private.” His next question is, “Are you religious?” Her reply: “No. My family is, but we’re not close.”

When Matt asks Anna why she wants to be a pregnancy surrogate for him, Anna says, “This appeals to me because I know it’s not the best thing in the world to be alone.” As soon as she says it, Anna gets flustered because she knows that remark comes across as judgmental, so she apologizes profusely for making this potentially offensive remark and tries to clarify.

“I meant being alone isn’t a bad thing,” Anna comments. “I meant if family is important to someone, they should be able to make one. Plus, [I want] the money, not in a bad way. Putting a little karma in the bank never hurt anyone.” This back-and-forth mumblecore-like banter goes on for a few more minutes. And when it’s time for Anna to ask Matt any questions, she asks, “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” And then, the scene ends.

It sets the tone for the rest of the movie, which divides its screenplay’s three acts according to each trimester of Anna’s pregnancy. In case viewers don’t know, the movie literally spells it out in title cards: “First Trimester,” “Second Trimester” and “Third Trimester.” Various people come and go in the movie, but Anna and Matt remain the central focus.

As Matt and Anna get to know each other, so too does the audience. Matt finds out early on in their relationship that Anna gave birth to a child (she won’t say what gender) when she was was 17 or 18 years old. Anna dropped out of high school because of the pregnancy, and she gave the child up for adoption. It was a closed adoption, so she has no idea where the child is now or who adopted the child. And she doesn’t want to know.

Anna doesn’t want to know the gender of the child she’s carrying for Matt. And when her pregnancy starts to show, she also doesn’t want to tell people why she got pregnant and who the father is. Why all the secrecy?

It becomes obvious that Anna has unresolved issues about her first pregnancy because of how it affected her relationship with the rest of her family, which includes her parents and her sister, who are not seen in the movie. It’s inferred that her family members live in an unnamed U.S. state that’s far away from California. In her interview with Matt, Anna said that her parents are religious, so viewers can easily guess how Anna’s parents reacted to Anna being an unwed pregnant teenager.

Anna eventually reveals to Matt that her parents not only disapproved of her teen pregnancy but they also angrily disagreed with her decision to give the child up for adoption. Based on some other things that Anna says about her family, it seems as if her parents thought it would have been better for Anna or someone in their family to raise the child. Later in the movie, Anna gets a call from her mother that leads Anna to make a decision that Anna didn’t expect to make.

Matt incorrectly assumes that Anna is pro-life because she didn’t have an abortion for her teen pregnancy, but Anna tells him that she’s actually pro-choice. There are several instances where Matt goes out of his way to try to say “politically correct” things to make Anna feel more at ease (for example, he announces in a pregnancy meditation group that they’re both feminists), but many times he ends up saying something that makes things more awkward.

Anna says she eventually got her GED and a college associate’s degree, but one of the reasons why she wants the surrogacy fee money (the movie shows she got paid $15,000) is because she wants to get bachelor’s and master’s degrees in hospitality. She found a university in Vermont that will allow her to get these degrees on an accelerated basis. As for her love life, Anna’s most recent relationship was with a guy named Jason, and he broke up with her for reasons that aren’t revealed.

Unlike Anna, Matt is close to his family. His parents Marty (played by Fred Melamed) and Adele (played by Nora Dunn) got divorced and are now remarried to other people. Matt’s younger brother Jacob (played by Timm Sharp) and Jacob’s wife Liz (played by Bianca Lopez) have two daughters together under the age of 3. They all live in the San Francisco area, so they get to see each other on a regular basis.

Marty, Jacob and Liz are happy for Matt and his impending fatherhood, while Adele is suspicious and judgmental about the surrogacy arrangement. Marty’s wife Dana (played by Terri Hoyos) and Adele’s husband Carson (played by Tucker Smallwood) are also supportive of Matt’s parenthood by surrogate pregnancy. Anna eventually meets all of these family members. As for Matt’s love life, Matt tells Anna that he was in a relationship for eight years with a woman he thought he might marry and start a family with, but the relationship didn’t work out.

Matt and Anna have their first major conflict in the first trimester, when Matt finds out that Anna had sex with a guy named Bryce (played by Evan Jonigkeit), whom Anna describes as probably a fling. Matt shows a very old-fashioned and ignorant side to him when he acts shocked and outraged that Anna could have sex while pregnant. When Matt meets Bryce for the first time, it’s after Bryce spent the night with Anna. Matt blurts out to Bryce and Anna: “Did you guys just fuck?”

It’s so rude and so socially clueless. Matt’s harsh reaction to Anna having a sex life while pregnant predictably leads to an argument. And that leads to a scene in an obstetrician’s office where Matt has to have it explained to him that it’s generally safe for a pregnant woman to have sex, unless she’s been told by a doctor that she can’t have sex for medical reasons. Matt is presumably well-educated as someone who works in the tech industry, but he’s woefully ignorant about a woman’s anatomy during pregnancy.

Matt tries to bring up a clause in the surrogacy contract that prohibits Anna from engaging in dangerous acts while pregnant, with Matt saying that sexual intercourse can fall under that clause. However, Anna and their obstetrician Jean (played with scene-stealing sarcasm by Sufe Bradshaw) shut Matt down with his extremely uptight reactions to the idea that Anna can’t have a sex life while pregnant. Although Matt’s reaction is over-the-top, it’s the movie’s way of pointing out how some people have sexist attitudes by believing pregnant women’s sexual needs are supposed to disappear during pregnancy.

“Together Together” mines some pregnancy rituals for some laughs and satire about people’s attitudes about gender roles in parenthood. Matt and Anna attend a pregnancy mediation class, where the so-called open-minded teacher (who tries to look like a New Age guru) is condescending and judgmental when she finds out that Anna is a single woman who is a surrogate. And when people find out that Matt and Anna aren’t a couple, Matt gets more credit and praise than Anna for being committed to going to these classes.

In their separate surrogacy support group sessions (Anna is in a group for for women, Matt is in a group for men), Matt is the only man in his group who is unmarried or without a partner/co-parent. He gets surprised reactions, but they’re not as insulting as some of the things that Anna experiences. There are straight and gay couples represented in the sessions for the support groups, meditation and childbirth preparation classes that Anna and Matt attend. As for how Anna and Matt are able to spend so much time attending all these classes and counseling sessions, it’s implied in the movie that Matt works from home, and Anna’s job at the coffee shop is part-time.

Anna experiences other casual forms of sexism, when she notices that people treat her in a more dismissive or judgmental manner when they find out that her pregnancy is a surrogate pregnancy. But she notices that when people find out that Matt is a single man who hired a surrogate, people react by saying it’s very progressive and “brave.” The message is clear with people who have this attitude: There’s still a stigma attached to being a pregnant woman who’s not married or without a partner, compared to being a pregnant woman who’s married or who has a partner.

Anna also has to experience the rudeness of over-enthusiastic people who touch her pregnant belly without permission. And then, by her third trimester, there are the people who impolitely comment on how “big” Anna is. It’s the movie’s way of showing that some people are insensitive to the fact that pregnant women already know they’ve gained weight and they don’t need it pointed out to them in a body-shaming way, even if the commenter didn’t intend to be offensive. And then there are people (such as Matt’s mother Adele) who say that Anna must be that big because the baby is probably a boy.

Meanwhile, the gender discrimination that Matt experiences isn’t as embarrassing. After people get over the shock that he hired a surrogate and he wants to be a single father, they generally think that what he’s doing is somehow groundbreaking. It helps that he lives in a liberal city such as San Francisco. “Together Together” would have been a very different (and possibly more interesting) movie if Anna and Matt lived in an area that wasn’t so open-minded and accepting of their surrogacy arrangement.

Compared to Anna, Matt doesn’t have as many challenges during this pregnancy. One of Matt’s biggest “problems” is that he can’t find any advice books on being a single father who hires a surrogate, because most books about being a single father have to do with being widowed, divorced or fighting for child custody. Matt goes all-out in preparing for his child, including buying a book that gives in-depth analysis of every conceivable color to paint a baby’s bedroom and how each color might psychologically affect the child. And, as expected, because he’s kind of an obsessive control freak, Matt wants to monitor and judge everything that Anna is eating and drinking while she’s pregnant.

It’s implied that because of the traumatic experience that Anna had with her teen pregnancy, she doesn’t want to know the gender of the child she’s carrying for Matt. Matt wants to know the gender before the baby is born. And so, he and Anna argue a little about it during an ultrasound appointment. Meanwhile, obstetrician Jean witnesses a lot of this bickering and tries not to say out loud what she’s thinking, but it’s written all over her face.

Eventually, Matt decides that if he found out the gender, it would be too hard for him to keep it a secret, so he goes along with Anna’s wish for him to not find out until the baby is born. Matt also promises that he won’t tell Anna the gender of the child after she gives birth. Matt will be the one to name the child after the baby is born.

But while Anna is pregnant, they both agree that they should give the child a gender-neutral name. There’s a comical segment where Anna and Matt go through a series of names. They disagree on and reject several names until they eventually decide to call the unborn child Lamp.

In addition to their respective surrogacy support groups, Anna and Matt get surrogacy counseling from a non-judgmental therapist named Madeline (played by Tig Notaro), who doesn’t do much but listen to Anna and Matt’s neurotic rambling. Anna also confides in a sassy barista co-worker named Jules (played by Julio Torres), who is in his early 20s, openly queer (he dates men and women), and is apparently Anna’s closest friend. Jules is one of the few people whom Anna told that her pregnancy is a surrogate pregnancy and that Matt is the biological father. Jules, who is very opinionated, warns Anna about the complications of getting emotionally involved with Matt, whom Jules eyes suspiciously when Matt visits the coffee shop.

Anna and Matt’s initial discomfort with each other evolves into a deeper understanding of each other. In their own separate ways, they experience prejudice and misunderstandings from other people about their unusual surrogacy situation. And how they navigate their relationship, while coming to terms with how this surrogate pregnancy will change them, makes this movie work so well.

But as Anna and Matt become friends, Anna feels conflicted and confused over how attached she should become to someone who will be raising a child whom she doesn’t want to know. And when she attends a baby shower that Matt has thrown for himself (the party was Anna’s idea), Anna gets an eye-opening experience on how she’s perceived by the people he’s closest to in his life. Instead of the party guests remembering Anna’s name, they call her “the surrogate.” While Matt has people congratulating him at the party, she’s often ignored.

“Together Together” could have been a very gimmicky movie, but it’s held together by witty dialogue and truthful satires. One of the movie’s main intended takeaways is how much women bear the biggest brunt of indignities when it comes to pregnancies. And even though Anna and Matt end up becoming friends, there’s still an unbalanced power dynamic between them because he’s paying her to have his child and paying all of her pregnancy expenses.

When they hang out together, Matt is the one who usually decides what they do (they end up watching every episode of the sitcom “Friends”) and he sometimes acts like a know-it-all. He’s shocked that Anna knew very little about “Friends” before she met him. It’s as if Matt can’t take into account that a lot of people don’t really watch TV and are unaware of all the characters in popular TV shows. And so, he insists that he and Anna will watch every episode of “Friends.”

Anna is also acutely aware of the age difference between herself and Matt, who doesn’t seem to think their nearly 20-year-age gap is that big of a deal. (It’s probably because Matt is emotionally immature in a lot of ways.) This leads to Anna going into a monologue about Woody Allen that has to be seen in the movie to be believed. People will either laugh and/or cringe at this monologue.

“Together Together” has some sharp observations of how well-intentioned men, even those who think that they’re “feminists,” can still have patriarchal and possessive attitudes over pregnant women’s bodies. For example, Matt (who thinks he’s a progressive liberal) was quick to try to use his surrogate contract with Anna as a legal way to stop Anna from having sex while she was pregnant. Although he ultimately failed to police Anna’s sex life, the fact that he wanted to doesn’t make it any less alarming.

Ultimately, “Together Together,” like the title suggests, is not about a battle of the sexes. It shows with a lot of amusing charm how people in unusual pregnancy situations can overcome fears and prejudices, or at least cope in the best way that they can. And if an unexpected friendship can come out if it, that’s an added bonus.

Bleecker Street released “Together Together” in U.S. cinemas on April 23, 2021. The movie’s digital and VOD release date is on May 11, 2021.

Review: ‘Sugar Daddy’ (2021), starring Kelly McCormack, Colm Feore, Amanda Brugel, Ishan Davé, Aaron Ashmore, Kaniehtiio Horn, Nicholas Campbell and Hilary McCormack

April 23, 2021

by Carla Hay

Kelly McCormack in “Sugar Daddy” (Photo courtesy of Blue Fox Entertainment)

“Sugar Daddy” (2021)

Directed by Wendy Morgan

Culture Representation: Taking place in Toronto, the dramatic film “Sugar Daddy” features a predominantly white cast (with some black people, Asians and one native Mohawk) representing the middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A 25-year-old woman who’s a struggling musician begins working as an escort to older wealthy men, and she gets more emotionally affected than she thought she would.

Culture Audience: “Sugar Daddy” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in seeing realistic and somewhat unconventional portrayals of people caught between desperation and integrity.

Colm Feore and Kelly McCormack in “Sugar Daddy” (Photo courtesy of Blue Fox Entertainment)

“Sugar Daddy” isn’t Hollywood’s “Pretty Woman” fantasy of escort work. If people want to take a realistic trip inside the world of an unusual Canadian woman who becomes an escort, then get ready for Kelly McCormack’s tour-de-force performance in “Sugar Daddy.” The movie doesn’t force the usual sleazy stereotypes on viewers, nor does it push the over-used “hooker with a heart of gold” narrative.

Instead, “Sugar Daddy” is a revealing portrait of a 25-year-old aspiring music artist in Toronto who’s struggling not only with her finances but also with maintaining her dignity when the people around her frequently want to take her dignity away from her. The only thing about “Sugar Daddy” that doesn’t ring true is the movie’s title, because this film isn’t really about the men who hire the female protagonist to be their trophy companion. The movie is really about her trying to figure out who she is and what she’s willing to put up with in her life to be comfortable with herself.

McCormack not only stars in this dramatic film but she also wrote the “Sugar Daddy” screenplay, performed several of the soundtrack’s songs, and is one of the producers of the movie. “Sugar Daddy” was artfully directed by Wendy Morgan and has an all-female team of producers. Coincidence or not, it might be why “Sugar Daddy” is so authentic with its female perspective.

There are conversations and scenarios in this film that seem lifted directly from real life. McCormack confirms it in the “Sugar Daddy” production notes, where she says the movie was based on many real-life experiences that she’s had as a struggling artist, except that McCormack says, “I’ve never been paid to go out on a date.” She also comments in the production notes: “Writing this film became an escape hatch and the only clear path I saw before me to transfer the paternal power I gave away to the maternal power I could keep for myself. The process involved a lot of personal heat. I’ve written from happier places, but this was not one of them—it was a flammable excavation.”

In “Sugar Daddy,” McCormack plays the character of Darren Kessler, who has been living in Toronto for about five or six years, after moving to the big city from an unnamed suburb. Like many aspiring artists who make this type of move, she has dreams of being successful and acclaimed for her art. These dreams aren’t necessarily to become rich and famous, although that’s a goal of many wannabe entertainers. Viewers will get the impression that Darren at least wants to become a respected professional who gets paid enough for her art to live comfortably.

However, one of Darren’s biggest creative problems is that she’s still struggling to find her sound and voice as an artist. This confusion of who she is as an artist is demonstrated many times in the movie when Darren has a hard time explaining what type of music she performs when people ask her about her music. It’s shown in the film that she experiments with different sounds.

She’s a talented singer/musician who can perform in various genres. In one scene, she sings opera. In another scene, she sings traditional folk music, a cappella. In another scene, she plays music that can best be described as “noise pop.” However, she’s never shown performing in front of a live audience. It’s implied that Darren doesn’t have the confidence yet to showcase her new music in a live setting in front of a crowd.

Throughout the course of the story, as Darren writes more original songs, she starts to lean more toward doing avant-garde electronica music. Because her music isn’t easily marketable, it’s harder for her to get the record deal that she wants. One of the most true-to-life aspects of “Sugar Daddy” is how up-and-coming female artists in the music business are expected to have some kind of youthful sex appeal to be marketed or to get the attention of producers and executives who can help get them a record deal. It’s a very different experience from male artists, who aren’t as likely to be subjected to the same “sex appeal” standards as female artists.

Darren is a multi-instrumentalist who can’t seem figure out what type of instrument she wants to buy when she can afford to buy it. When she goes into a music store, she tries out keyboards, guitars and drums—none of which she can afford at the time, because like a lot of struggling artists, Darren is financially broke. At one point in the movie, after she starts to make money as an escort, the first instrument she buys is one that the music store owner (played by Brendan Canning) says is is very hard to learn how to play: a pedal steel guitar. That’s an indication of Darren’s personality: If she’s given a challenge, she’s not afraid to take it on.

How did Darren end up as an escort? In the beginning of the movie, Darren is seen working as a food server for a catering company. When she shows up at work one evening for a small, upscale cocktail party, she’s barely gotten there on time and has forgotten to bring nice shoes that complement the geisha-like work dress that she has to wear as her uniform at the party. All she has to wear on her feet are some scruffy athletic shoes. Darren remarks to her friend/co-worker Jenny (played by Kaniehtiio Horn) that she hopes that the party attendees (who seem to be wealthy business people) won’t notice what type of shoes she’s wearing.

In the kitchen during the party, Darren is seeing eating some of the leftover food quickly when people aren’t looking. Later, she sees a party guest named Sarah (played by Michelle Morgan) who used to work for the same catering company. This guest, who is in her late 20s or early 30s, is the date of a man who appears to be in his 60s.

In a private conversation that Darren and Sarah have at the party, Darren asks Sarah if she’s still working in the catering business. Sarah says no and explains that she’s there on a date with the older man. “But we’re not together,” Sarah hastily comments on her relationship to the man. “It’s just for tonight”

Sarah further explains: “It’s like a paid dating thing for rich, older men. It’s still just a ‘stand there and look pretty’ job, but it pays better and it’s a lot less work [than being a food server]. Anyway, it’s putting me through grad school.” Darren is intrigued by what she hears but doesn’t seem too interested in becoming a paid escort. She’ll change her mind when she gets desperate for money.

Toward the end of the party, when Darren sees all the leftover food in the kitchen, she puts a lot of the food in the backpack that she has with her. But just at that moment, her boss Edward (played by Noam Jenkins) walks in and sees the stolen food in the backpack. Based on what the boss says to her, it’s apparently not the first time that Darren has been caught stealing food, so she gets fired.

Darren has a roommate named Peter (played by Ishan Davé), who’s a Ph.D. student in sustainable urban planning. He’s a sensitive intellectual who can sometimes be socially awkward. Soon after losing her job, Darren tells Peter that she got fired and that she won’t be able to pay $200 for the next rent that’s due. (The movie doesn’t detail how Darren and Peter met.)

Peter is understanding but a little frustrated. Based on his reaction, it’s not the first time Darren couldn’t come up with her share of the rent. He makes certain comments throughout the story that make it clear that Darren has a hard time keeping a regular job. Peter gives some words of encouragement and tells Darren that she’ll probably find another job soon.

But she doesn’t. Darren looks for another job, but nothing pans out. And then, as a last resort, she goes to a website called Daddy Date and signs up to be available for hire as an escort. The next thing you know, she’s in a boutique, trying on ball gowns for a man in his late 60s or early 70s named Jim (played by Nicholas Campbell), who wants to buy her some dresses for possible future dates he can have with her. It’s shown in the movie that Darren charges $300 for a typical date.

Jim asks Darren if she would like to go to the opera with him sometime, and she mumbles something about how it depends on how much she’ll get paid for it. Jim is Darren’s first “sugar daddy” client. And he’s not a Hollywood fantasy of being movie-star handsome like Richard Gere in “Pretty Woman.” Jim is overweight, he’s got the type of splotchy face that indicates he’s probably got alcohol/drug abuse issues, and he’s old enough to be Darren’s grandfather.

At first, Jim acts as if he’s just a lonely, harmless guy who wants to be in the company of a younger woman. And at first, Darren is in denial when she thinks that she doesn’t have to do anything sexual on these dates. But, as “Sugar Daddy” realistically shows, when most people who use escort services pay for dates and give their dates gifts, these customers eventually expect to get something sexual out of these dates.

Jim shows signs that he’s not just lonely. He’s also mentally ill. And it should come as no surprise that he tries to lure Darren into situations that make her uncomfortable and could lead to sexual assault. For example, Jim tells Darren that they’re going to the opera on one of their dates. But instead, he drives her to a remote area and tries to get her high on marijuana. What happens after that will determine if Darren will see Jim again or not.

Darren has a more meaningful and emotional connection to another client named Gordon Pierce, a wealthy businessman in his 60s. Her first date with Gordon is at an upscale restaurant. Unlike Jim, Gordon seems genuinely interested in Darren as a person. At first, Darren uses the alias Dee on her escort dates, but over time, she opens up to Gordon enough that she tells him her real name.

Gordon, who is a bachelor who lives alone, eventually tells Darren that he has a daughter who’s around the same age as Darren is. During the first date that Gordon has with Darren, she tells him that she’s a college dropout and an aspiring singer/songwriter/musician . And he gives her this piece of advice that will come back to haunt her: “It’s important to know your value when you’re selling an intangible commodity, but I’m sure you understand that as a starving artist.”

During this dinner conversation, Darren and Gordon find out that they both tend to put their work above any personal relationships. Gordon essentially admits that he’s a workaholic who loves doing business. Darren says that she sometimes becomes so consumed with making music that she often feels as if nothing else matters.

Darren also briefly mentions her relationship history, by telling Gordon that she had a boyfriend who moved to Toronto to be with her. But the relationship didn’t work out because she fell out of love with him. Instead of breaking up with him, Darren says that she decided to become so difficult that he had no choice but to break up with her. And when he left, she says she felt relieved, not sad.

These are examples of how Darren is flawed and messy but also very realistic. She doesn’t have her life figured out, she makes mistakes along the way, and she can be self-centered. It might not be a formulaic Hollywood narrative for an “ingenue,” but neither is real life. During Gordon and Darren’s second date, which takes place at an art gallery, Gordon introduces Darren to his music industry friend Nancy (played by Amanda Brugel), whose interactions with Darren demonstrate assumptions and stereotypes that can be made about people in positions of power.

“Sugar Daddy” doesn’t tell Darren’s story in a smooth, straightforward manner. There are parts of the movie that abruptly skip back and forth, and viewers will have to speculate what happened in the time gaps that aren’t shown on screen. Darren’s family background is explained in this manner, just like a puzzle with pieces that remain missing.

In the beginning of the movie, Darren is seen attending a funeral in her suburban hometown. It’s never explained who died, but it’s implied that it’s a family member because Darren’s younger sister Rae (played by Hilary McCormack) and their mother Kathy (played by Paula Boudreau) are at the funeral. Darren’s parents split up years ago (it’s never specified when), and the divorce is still a painful topic. Kathy and Darren have a prickly relationship with each other.

While at her childhood home, Darren goes into someone’s room and decides to take lot of the vinyl albums that were in the room. Later, it’s revealed that the vinyl albums belonged to her father, who is still alive but estranged from Darren, Rae and Kathy. It’s also revealed that her father left the family and never bothered to pick up the albums from the house.

After the funeral, when Darren is ready to go back to Toronto, Darren’s mother Kathy notices that Darren is taking several of the vinyl albums with her. Kathy isn’t pleased about it, but Darren abruptly cuts off her mother who seems to want to argue about it. Kathy then asks Darren if she needs money, and Darren (who’s broke but too proud to tell her mother) adamantly says no to the offer. And Darren makes an exasperated noise when her mother says, “You can always ask your father for money.”

There’s more tension in the conversation when Kathy tells Darren: “When your sister comes to visit you for reading week, don’t let her get too drunk partying. She still has to study.” Darren snaps at her mother: “Is that what you think I do all the time?” Her mother replies, “I have no idea what you do.”

Back in Toronto, Darren’s roommate Peter knows exactly what she does. And her escort work becomes a problem for him because he’s in love with Darren. Whenever he tries to express his feelings to her, she puts him in the “friend zone.” For example, when Peter tells her that her singing woke him up the night before, she makes an apology.

But then he says while looking at her with a lovesick gaze, “To be honest, I wouldn’t be able to sleep unless I heard you singing.” Darren seems to want to ignore Peter’s obvious infatuation, so instead, she quickly pats him on the head like he’s a dog and says, “Aw, you’re so sweet,” before she walks quickly into her room.

Eventually, Peter’s unrequited feelings for Darren come out in resentful ways. On Darren’s birthday, she celebrates with Peter and a small group of about six other friends who have gathered at Darren and Peter’s apartment for a casual party. But it quickly turns into an angry argument when Peter deliberately mentions that Darren has been making money as an escort.

Darren immediately gets defensive and tells everyone that she doesn’t have sex with the men she gets paid to date. But the opinions in the group vary on whether or not what she does is really just a form of prostitution. It’s one of the best scenes in the movie because it realistically shows how people can have different opinions on what “escorting” really means and how the escorts should be judged. Not surprisingly, the paying clients are usually judged less harshly than the escorts.

The acting and dialogue in this scene are riveting to watch, because there’s also the undercurrent of what started this argument. Peter knew that revealing this information would embarrass Darren, but he did it to hurt her because she doesn’t want a romantic relationship with him. It’s speaks to the power dynamics that often occur when there’s sexual tension between two people and one person feels rejected by the other.

Meanwhile, although Darren wanted to keep her escort work a secret from her friends, once it’s out in the open, she doesn’t shy away from talking about it. It’s easy to see her mindset because she thinks that if she denied that she’s an escort, it would be like admitting that she’s doing something shameful. On the other hand, during this heated debate, she goes out of her way to deny that sexual activity will eventually be part of the expected transaction in this type of work.

And there’s also discussion about “obligation sex” in dating, when someone has sex with a date out of obligation, because of what the other person paid for on the date. And what about someone who has a lover who willingly pays all their bills? Is that a form of prostitution? Some of the people in the group think it is, while others don’t.

“Sugar Daddy” also realistically portrays the blurred lines that can occur when people mix business with sexual pleasure. It’s what happens with Darren and a casual acquaintance of hers named Angus (played by Aaron Ashmore), who’s a music producer. Darren knows that Angus is attracted to her, so there’s that unspoken tightrope that she has to navigate of how she can get Angus to help her without him expecting anything sexual in return.

About a year before this story takes place, Darren had promised Angus that she would give him a demo of her music, but she never did. But now that Darren has been making enough money, she’s been making demos and some provocative music videos in her home studio, so she’s feeling more confident about showcasing herself to possibly get a record deal. But how far will she go to get a record deal?

In her everyday life, Darren prefers to wear casual, baggy clothes. But “Sugar Daddy” subtly shows that it isn’t until Darren displays some sex appeal in her music videos that she begins to get attention for herself as an artist. She wears some of the glamorous dresses that Jim bought for her, and a few times she goes topless. At least one of these videos goes viral. “Sugar Daddy” devotes considerable screen time to showing Darren filming her self-made videos, which are essentially a reflection of Darren’s inner feelings at the time she makes these videos. (“Sugar Daddy” is the feature-film directorial debut of Morgan, who has a background in directing music videos.)

One night, Darren sees Angus at a bar, and he introduces her to an A&R representative named Jeffrey (played by Andy McQueen), who works for a record company called Bristow Records. When Angus tells Andy that Darren is a singer, Jeffrey invites her to a recording studio session that he and Angus are doing with a famous rapper. There’s a possibility that Darren will be asked to do guest vocals on one of the rapper’s songs. Darren is elated and thinks this could be her big break.

What happens in that recording studio is also one of the best scenes in the movie. It shows how women are treated in an environment where misogyny is not only expected, it’s also encouraged. It shows how female artists have to often choose between their integrity or career advancement that might involve doing art that’s degrading to women. And it shows the assumptions that people frequently have about the roles of women and men in the music industry.

It would be a very cliché thing to do to portray Darren as an enlightened feminist who knows exactly who she is and can stand up to people who try to take advantage of her. But the reality is for Darren and a lot of people like her, she often doesn’t think she has the power to say no in a situation where someone tells her to do something that makes her uncomfortable. And what if that person making those demands can also help in her career?

Darren also gets a rude awakening when she finds out that she isn’t as knowledgeable about who the real decision makers are at Bristow Records and the music business in general. She internalizes and sometimes acts out a lot of sexist stereotypes that people might have about women in the entertainment industry. And she finds out the hard way that things don’t always work out the way she wants if she mixes business with sexual pleasure.

Kelly McCormack’s performance as Darren is sometimes raw and sometimes rude, but always realistic. It’s a performance that demonstrates her considerable talents as an actress and singer. There’s a scene where Darren and her sister Rae sing a song over the phone to their mother (it’s mentioned that the sisters used to perform together) that’s a true standout in the movie.

Some parts of the “Sugar Daddy” screenplay could have been less meandering, but whatever minor flaws there are in the screenplay are outshone by the movie’s overall tone and presentation. Some of the dialogue and scenarios sizzle with so much authenticity, it feels like a lot of it happened in real life, but only the names of the people have been changed. The direction is solid, and the other cast members turn in good performances, but this movie wouldn’t work without Kelly McCormack’s unique vision in telling this story.

“Sugar Daddy” is not a movie that’s supposed to make viewers feel good about people who are worshipped just for having money or power. Nor is it a movie that tries to make Darren look like a helpless victim. It’s a movie that takes a very clear-eyed view of what it means to make certain decisions and how those decisions could affect people’s lives.

In “Sugar Daddy,” there are three themes presented as chapters in the story: “Timid,” “Joyous” and “Atrocious.” (“Timid, Joyous, Atrocious” is also the name of one of the movie’s soundtrack songs.) Those three words could describe aspects of Darren’s personality, as well as the way that she tries to become a professional artist. And what “Sugar Daddy” presents so effectively is that as long as there are “haves” and “have nots” in society, people’s attitudes toward money, power and how we value ourselves can indeed be timid, joyous and atrocious.

Blue Fox Entertainment released “Sugar Daddy” on digital and VOD on April 6, 2021.

Review: ‘Monday’ (2021), starring Sebastian Stan and Denise Gough

April 21, 2021

by Carla Hay

Denise Gough and Sebastian Stan in “Monday” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“Monday” (2021)

Directed by Argyris Papadimitropoulos

Some language in Greek with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Athens, Greece, the romantic drama “Monday” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A musician/party DJ and an immigration attorney, who are both American and in their 30s, meet in Greece, impulsively hook up with each other, and try to deal with problems in their relationship after they move in together.

Culture Audience: “Monday” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching the annoying shenanigans of a badly mismatched couple in an uneven, overly long movie that irritates more than it intrigues.

Sebastian Stan and Denise Gough in “Monday” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

If you’re in the mood to watch two American lovers in their mid-30s act like immature, self-absorbed partiers while living in Greece, in a shallow story that mostly goes nowhere, then feel free to waste about 115 minutes of your time watching this movie. The actors seem to be putting their best efforts forward to make their characters as realistic as possible, but it’s not enough to salvage “Monday,” which is bogged down by a meandering story filled with bad clichés that viewers might expect to see in a frat boy movie. “Monday” also needed better editing, because there are too many scenes that drag on repetitively.

Directed by Argyris Papadimitropoulos (who co-wrote the screenplay with Rob Hayes), “Monday” doesn’t tell a story as much as it strings together insufferable and often-dull scenes of a mismatched couple in Athens, Greece. It’s a movie about how two Americans meet in Greece, they quickly fall in lust with each other, and then they try to make their relationship work when they move in together after knowing each other for a few days. The biggest problem with “Monday” is that it’s more concerned with showing this couple’s antics instead of explaining why they ended up in this dysfunctional relationship.

The filmmakers of “Monday” might think the movie is “edgy” because it’s got full-frontal nudity (male and female), and it portrays people in their 30s acting like irresponsible brats in their early 20s. But “Monday” is just a series of rehashed stereotypes of any movie about young people who quickly hook up after they first meet. “Monday” director/co-writer Papadimitropoulos says in the movie’s production notes that the central couple’s relationship “is a very realistic take—maybe more than we can handle—on all relationships.” However, the “realism” that the movie is trying desperately to depict just comes across as very phony.

There’s even a “race to the airport” scene to stop someone from getting on a plane, which is an overused trope in movies about romance. It’s a trope that’s ripe for parody, but that “race to the airport” scene is in “Monday,” without any wit, irony or campy self-awareness. “Monday” has several of these types of lazy clichés littered throughout the film. Viewers who’ve seen enough of these types of movies will be constantly rolling their eyes at the cheesiness of it all.

The opening scene of “Monday” is a very “male gaze” trope of mostly attractive women (who might or might nor be intoxicated) dancing at a house party. The DJ at the party is named Mickey (played by Sebastian Stan), who is interrupted by the obnoxious party host Argyris (played by Yorgos Pirpassopoulos) because his friend Argyris wants to introduce someone to Mickey. Mickey is slightly annoyed at having to be pulled away from his work, but he obliges, because Agryis is technically his boss at this party.

Argyris (who is in his late 30s or early 40s) introduces Mickey (who is in his mid-30s) to a party guest named Chloe Gaines (played by Denise Gough), who’s also in her mid-30s but she mentions later in the movie that she’s older than Mickey. Before she meets Mickey, Chloe is seen drunkenly yelling into a phone to someone on the other line: “Fuck you, Christos!” It’s at this point in the movie that viewers can predict that Christos is her ex-boyfriend, and he’ll eventually show up in the movie. That’s because (cliché alert) movies like this always have at least one love triangle.

When Argyris introduces Chloe and Mickey to each other, he says it’s because they’re both American, as if that’s enough to make Chloe and Mickey compatible. In a very “only in a movie” scene, as soon as Chloe meets Mickey, she grabs him for a kiss, they start making out with each other, and they run out of the house together to have sex on a nearby beach. Meanwhile, Mickey seems to have forgotten all about the fact that he was in the midst of working as the party’s DJ.

The next morning, Mickey and Chloe wake up completely naked on the beach, and some families with young kids nearby express their shock and disgust. Someone has called the police on Mickey and Chloe for indecent exposure. Two cops (played by Michalis Laios and Mihalis Alexakis) are already at the beach when Mickey and Chloe wake up naked, so Mickey and Chloe get arrested and are hauled to a police station.

In the back of the police car, Mickey and Chloe introduce themselves to each other and tell each other their names for the first time. Yes, it’s that kind of movie. And apparently, Chloe and Mickey also forgot that that were already introduced to each other by Mickey’s friend Argyris.

At the small police station, the police chief (played by Giorgos Valais) on duty has this far-fetched reaction to the arrest: Once he hears that Mickey and Chloe are American, he asks, “Which basketball team do you support?” And he starts talking to them as if they’re having a conversation in a pub, not a police station. The police chief quickly lets them them go with no consequences and barely a warning.

Why? Because the filmmakers want viewers to think that when white Americans behave badly in other countries, it’s not only a privilege, it’s a right. At least that’s the attitude of Mickey and Chloe, as their boorishness gets a lot worse. Without giving away spoiler information about what happens later in the movie, it’s enough to say that this brush with Greek law enforcement won’t be the last time that Mickey and Chloe engage in illegal acts and have a run-in with the police in Greece.

The clichés continue about “irresponsible partiers in a movie.” Chloe finds out that she left her purse behind at the house where the party was held, so she asks Mickey for a ride back to the house. In the first of many signs that Mickey is floundering in his life, he has a motor scooter instead of a car. Chloe and Mickey go back to the house, but no one is there. Mickey calls Argyris to come back to the house so that Chloe can retrieve her purse.

The movie then has a somewhat dull stretch of Chloe and Mickey wandering around until she can get her purse. This self-centered couple actually spend some time asking questions about each other, but the information revealed is the bare minimum. It’s in this part of the movie that viewers will find out that Chloe is an immigration attorney who works on an independent contractor basis. She’s originally from the small town of Blanchester, Ohio, and has spent time living in Chicago. Chloe tells Mickey that she’s lived in Greece for the past 18 months, and she is moving back to Chicago in two days.

Mickey says that he’s originally from New Orleans, but he spent about 10 years living in New York City, where he was a musician in a band for an unnamed period of time. He’s been living in Greece for the past seven years. And he has a 6-year-old son named Hector, who lives nearby, but Mickey rarely sees Hector because Hector’s mother (Mickey’s ex-girlfriend Aspa Karas) had a falling out with Mickey. Mickey doesn’t go into details and will only say that trying to have a cordial relationship with Hector’s mother is a “work in progress.”

And during this “barely getting to know you” phase of their relationship, Mickey tries to persuade Chloe that she shouldn’t move back to the U.S. and that she should stay in Greece to be with him. Keep in mind, this is within 24 hours after they meet. Chloe hems and haws and acts offended that Mickey can be so presumptuous about what she wants and what will make her happy. But it’s not spoiler information to say that Chloe and Mickey end up living together, because their often-turbulent live-in relationship is about 80% of this movie.

“Monday” tries to fool audiences into thinking that Mickey and Chloe have a “love at first sight” romance, but any reasonable adult can see how the relationship is based mostly on sexual attraction, not true love. Mickey and Chloe say “I love you” to each other many times in the movie, but it doesn’t really appear to be that genuine. They’re saying it not because they mean it, but because they don’t want to be alone.

What made Chloe change her mind about living with Mickey? After Chloe and Mickey avoid jail time or any fines for indecent exposure, Chloe eventually gets her purse back, and she says what she thinks will be goodbye to Mickey. But then, that “race to the airport” scene happens, with Mickey running up to the metal detector area, just as Chloe has put her baggage on the conveyor belt.

Because Mickey isn’t a passenger with a ticket, a security officer is holding Mickey back as Mickey shouts at Chloe to get her attention. And the next thing you know, she’s moving in with Mickey. The only thing that’s slightly different about this moronic “race to the airport” scene is that it’s done fairly early on in the movie, instead of it being a typical climactic scene.

Part of the un-realism of “Monday” has to do with the huge gaps in Chloe and Mickey’s conversations before they move in together. Viewers never find out if Chloe or Mickey have ever been married or if they have any family members, except for Mickey’s son Hector. Chloe and Mickey are never shown asking each other these questions or talking about basic things people would want to find out about each other before they move in together as a couple. It’s one of many examples of how badly these characters are written.

And the entire time that Chloe knows Mickey in this story, she doesn’t seem curious to know anything about his son. She doesn’t even ask Mickey to see a photo of Hector. But there’s a whole section of the movie where Chloe tries to help Mickey get visitation rights to Hector. It’s all so “only in a movie” fake.

As for why the movie is called “Monday,” there’s a gimmick where many of the scenes start off with the word “Friday” in giant letters appearing on screen. The concept is that milestones in Chloe and Mickey’s relationship happen on a Friday. Chloe and Mickey met on a Friday. They also move in together on a Friday. You get the idea. And toward the end of the movie, something major is supposed to happen that will change Mickey and Chloe’s living situation. But that occasion (which won’t be revealed in this review) is scheduled to take place on a Monday.

Mickey lives in a two-bedroom condo that used to be owned by Argyris’ late grandmother, who had multiple properties that Argyris inherited. Argryis (who is Mickey’s closest friend) is weasel-like, crude and completely irritating. It’s implied that Argryis lives off of his family’s money because he doesn’t have a job, and his main priority is partying.

It’s easy to see why Mickey wants Argryis as a friend, because of all the perks that Mickey gets out of this relationship. It’s mentioned in the movie that Mickey gets to live rent-free in this condo. And as seen in the beginning of the movie, Mickey is hired to DJ at Argryis’ parties and can ditch the job whenever he feels like having sex with a stranger he just met at the party. The movie quickly fills up with examples of Mickey acting irresponsibly and facing no real punishment or consequences.

If people are wondering why Argyris has the same first name as the director of “Monday,” Papadimitropoulos explains it in the production notes: “The film was shot in places that I know like the back of my hand. The party where [Mickey and Chloe] meet is the same party I throw every year for my birthday. The beautiful island where they spend their first weekend together is the place I spent my last 25 summers and also the island I shot ‘Suntan’ on. Mickey lives in Kypseli—Greek for beehive—the bohemian and multicultural neighborhood of my youth. This is not only a cinematic game or an homage to places I love, it’s a way of making this feel even more personal.”

Personal? More like self-indulgent. Although “Monday” seems to have been inspired by Papadimitropoulos’ youthful memories, the arrested-development characters in the movie are just a little too old for their reckless antics to be considered endearing. It’s all actually quite pathetic.

Mickey hangs out with the type of men who think it’s funny to urinate or ejaculate in a woman’s drink without her knowledge, and then laugh when they tell her what she just drank. And since Chloe has no friends, Mickey’s friends become her friends. Most self-respecting adults would not want to be friends with people like Mickey and Chloe.

One of the more annoying aspects about “Monday” is how it wastes so much time on things that, at best, should have been deleted scenes. Chloe’s move-in day is a chore to watch, because viewers really won’t care about all the details of how Mickey got the truck to transport her furniture and other belongings. The movie spends at least 10 minutes explaining how Mickey got the truck. But apparently, that’s just an excuse to show Mickey and Chloe spontaneously pulling over on a street so that they can have sex in the back of the truck.

And viewers also won’t care to see an extensive segment showing how long it took to try to move Chloe’s favorite sofa into Mickey’s apartment. There’s visual repetition of Mickey and Chloe huffing and puffing while trying to move the sofa, and the sofa being dropped in frustration, because these dimwits refuse to accept that the sofa is too big to be carried up the narrow, winding staircase. (The building doesn’t have an elevator.)

Chloe whines about how it’s is her favorite sofa and she won’t abandon it. And yet, she apparently didn’t figure out early enough that the sofa was too big to be carried up the stairs. Instead, she wastes time trying to get someone to carry the sofa up the stairs, over and over. For an attorney, Chloe doesn’t have much common sense.

But then, later that day, after Chloe made such a big deal out of not wanting to get rid of her beloved sofa, she enthusiastically goes along when Mickey puts the sofa in the front of the building, he pours a bottle of liquor on the sofa, and lights the sofa on fire. This arson happens while Mickey has somehow gathered a lot of people to watch, like it’s some kind of bonfire party. And did we mention that he’s DJ’ing at this gathering too? It’s all just so stupid and contrived in this movie. The cops show up, but Mickey and Chloe run safely into their apartment with no consequences for committing this arson.

Mickey is fairly transparent about who he is, but “Monday” does a big disservice to the Chloe character by not giving her any depth or a real identity. She’s the one who makes the most sacrifices in this relationship, but the movie never gives any hints of why she has blown up her life to be in this dead-end relationship with Mickey. Chloe is given almost no backstory in this movie.

There are hints that Chloe is the type of person who worries about the future and likes to plan ahead. At one point in the movie, she says to Mickey if he ever asks himself, “What am I doing?” (As in, “What am I doing with my life?”)

Mickey flippantly says no, he never thinks that way. So what is Chloe doing with Mickey, who’s the epitome of an impetuous hedonist who only wants to live in the present? Opposites can attract, but there’s nothing in the movie that shows that these two have any real love for each other.

“Monday” tries to make it look like Chloe has somehow decided to get rid of her hangups after she’s met Mickey. But did she really? Viewers never find out what kind of person Chloe was before she met Mickey. There’s no indication of any past relationships she’s had, except with Christos (played by Andreas Konstantinou), who is depicted as a wealthy control freak.

Christos is not in the movie long enough to find out much about the relationship that Chloe had with him. Chloe doesn’t want to talk about Christos, and the movie doesn’t have flashbacks, but it’s inferred that she broke up with him. However, if Chloe ended the relationship with Christos because of his controlling nature, she’s jumped into another co-dependent relationship with Mickey. Most of what Chloe does in her relationship with Mickey is either cater to Mickey’s needs or enable his immaturity.

There are plenty of people whose careers are going well, but their personal lives are a mess. There are plenty of women who seem to have orderly lives but who have a pattern of going for “bad boys” who make their lives chaotic. Is Chloe that type of person? Viewers never find out. The filmmakers don’t want her to be a whole person. Her personality is essentially just a series of reactions to whatever Mickey says or does.

Based on things that are mentioned by people who know Mickey, it’s clear that he’s had an “I don’t want to grow up” attitude for a very long time, which explains a lot of things about how he lives his life. In one of the better-acted scenes in the movie, Chloe is sent by Mickey to have lunch with his ex-girlfriend Aspa (played by Elli Tringou), who is Hector’s mother, to discuss Mickey’s visitation rights for Hector. Aspa, who’s known Mickey longer than Chloe has, tries to burst Chloe’s bubble about Mickey, by warning her that Mickey is “a child.”

When Chloe speaks in glowing terms of how she and Mickey are in love, Aspa gives Chloe a reality check about Mickey’s selfishness. Aspa says that Hector speaks mostly Greek, but Mickey refuses to learn Greek and expects Hector to speak in English when Hector and Mickey communicate. Chloe brushes off this insightful information like a typical person in denial. Instead, Chloe chooses to think of Aspa as a bitter ex-girlfriend who’s jealous that Mickey has moved on to someone new.

It’s very telling that (1) Mickey would take the cowardly way out and not deal with the child visitation issue himself, by sending his new girlfriend to do the dirty work for him, and (2) Chloe was willing to do it. Can you say “doormat”? Later in the story, Chloe, not Mickey, comes up with the idea for them to learn a children’s song in Greek, as a way for Mickey to communicate with Hector in Greek.

The only indication that Mickey is making some attempt to be a caring father is that he has a room furnished for Hector, in case Hector comes to visit. Chloe knows that Aspa has denied visitation rights to Mickey, so Chloe volunteers to help Mickey with these legal issues, even though family law is not her specialty. In the meantime, Chloe wants to use Hector’s room to store some of her belongings. Mickey is very reluctant to allow it because of what the room represents. How this issue is resolved is an example of how awkwardly Chloe and Mickey have to navigate their relationship when they barely know each other.

While Mickey and Chloe are living together, Chloe decides to work from home until she finds office space. This arrangement turns out to be a hassle because Mickey, who makes some of his money by writing commercial jingle music, also works from home. Mickey’s home studio is in the living room, while Chloe’s “office” is in a room next door. It’s easy to predict some of the conflicts that arise.

There’s a tedious scene in the movie where Chloe and Mickey both have business meetings in their home with their respective clients at the same time. Not surprisingly, Mickey’s work involves playing music loudly, which disrupts the meeting that Chloe has with a man who wants to hire her for an immigration case. Mickey also gets into an argument with his client, who’s not happy with the music that Mickey created for the jingle. For some unknown reason, Argryis is in Mickey’s client meeting too, piping in with his opinions, even though Argryis doesn’t have a job and he has no discernable talent.

Chloe asks Mickey to keep the noise level down, but he barely does. Meanwhile, when Chloe finds out that the man she’s meeting with was referred to her by her ex-boyfriend Christos, she abruptly ends the meeting and tells this potential client that she can’t be his attorney. It’s easy to see that Chloe got upset as soon as Christos’ name was mentioned. Don’t expect this movie to give details on why Chloe and Christos broke up.

“Monday” gives a little bit more insight into Mickey’s past when his ex-bandmate Bastian (played by Dominique Tipper) shows up at Chloe and Mickey’s home, at Mickey’s invitation, because she’s in Greece to perform at a headlining show. Bastian is now a semi-famous solo artist who still lives in New York City. During their conversation, Bastian remarks to Mickey: “You’re not really happy unless you’re failing, and that’s why you left the band.”

It’s revealed that Mickey and Bastian used to be in a New York City-based band called Saint Claude. The band had a record deal and was doing pretty well, but Mickey quit toward the end of a successful tour. Mickey has some remorse, but not much. And it’s never explained why he quit, but it’s implied that he didn’t want to deal with any pressures that come with success. During her visit, Bastian tries to persuade Mickey to move back to the U.S. and work with her, but he immediately declines the offer.

After Bastian leaves, and Mickey and Chloe are lying in bed together, Chloe asks Mickey what Bastian meant by Mickey not being happy unless he’s failing. Mickey doesn’t really a straightforward answer, but he looks somewhat hurt and haunted, as if he knows that what Bastian said is entirely true. It’s one of the rare moments in the movie where someone shows some inkling of introspection.

But those moments are overshadowed by more shallowness and some drug-fueled antics. And, of course, there’s another cliché of a romantic drama that’s easy to predict the moment that Chloe is seen vomiting into a toilet in the middle of the day. And it’s not because she’s got a hangover.

Even without some of the insipid things that happen in this disjointed and wandering story, “Monday” fails on a very basic level of a romantic drama, by making the central couple so superficial. That doesn’t mean that they have to be likable. But viewers should feel like the couple can be relatable and that the romance is worth rooting for in some way, even if this duo is all wrong for each other. Chloe and Mickey’s romance is supposed to be the soul of this movie, but “Monday” is almost entirely soulless.

IFC Films released “Monday” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on April 16, 2021.

Review: ‘Another Round,’ starring Mads Mikkelsen, Lars Ranthe, Magnus Millang and Thomas Bo Larsen

April 18, 2021

by Carla Hay

Mads Mikkelsen in “Another Round” (Photo courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films)

“Another Round”

Directed by Thomas Vinterberg

Danish with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in Demark, the dramatic film “Another Round” features a predominantly white cast (with a few black people and South Asian people) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: Four middle-aged men, who are friends and teachers at the same high school, decide to drink more alcohol as an experiment, but they begin to abuse alcohol, which causes problems in their lives.

Culture Audience: “Another Round” will appeal primarily to people interested in watching well-acted and realistic movies about alcoholism and how people deal with mid-life crises.

Mads Mikkelsen, Lars Ranthe, Magnus Millang and Thomas Bo Larsen in “Another Round” (Photo courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films)

When there are movies about the culture of people who binge-drink alcohol in groups, the stories usually focus on young people who get into misadventures because of their drunken antics. The Danish dramatic film “Another Round” defies that stereotype with a compelling tale about four middle-aged men who become binge drinkers together. And these four pals find out how quickly their lives can be consumed by alcohol addiction.

Directed by Thomas Vinterberg (who co-wrote the screenplay with Tobias Lindholm), “Another Round” is more than just another mid-life crisis story. It’s a sharply observant commentary on what can happen when people are bored and unsatisfied with their lives, and they live in a society where heavy drinking is not only accepted, but it’s also encouraged. Anchored by exemplary performances from the primary actors, “Another Round” stands out as a highly unique film about the causes and effects of alcohol abuse.

That’s not to say that the filmmakers of “Another Round” have portrayed Denmark as a country with too many drunks. But it becomes clear from watching the film that the country has laws about drinking alcohol that are much more lenient than other countries. Denmark’s minimum legal age to drink alcohol in public is 18 years old, while children ages 17 and younger are legally able to drink alcohol in private settings, such as in homes.

It’s in this alcohol-permissive society that viewers meet the four friends who are at the center of the story. They all work as teachers in the same high school in an unnamed city in Demark. And they are all experiencing some kind of dissatisfaction with their lives, which leads them to make an unusual pact to drink enough to have at least a 0.05% alcohol level in their blood every day.

The four friends are:

  • Martin (played by Mads Mikkelsen), who is in his mid-50s, is a history teacher at the school. He and his wife Anika (played by Maria Bonnevie) have two sons together: Jonas (played by Magnus Sjørup) is about 16 or 17, while Kasper (played by Silas Cornelius Van) is about 14 or 15.
  • Tommy (played by Thomas Bo Larsen), who is in his late 50s, is a physical education teacher at the school, and he also is a soccer coach for children in the 8-to-10-year-old age range in elementary school. Tommy is a bachelor with no children.
  • Peter (played by Lars Ranthe), who is in his early 50s, is a music teacher at the school. He is also a bachelor with no children.
  • Nikolaj (played by Magnus Millang), who celebrates his 40th birthday in the movie, is a psychology teacher at the school. He and his wife Amalie (played by Helene Reingaard Neumann) have three sons under the age of 8 years old, including a newborn.

Why are these men going through a mid-life crisis?

Martin and Anika’s marriage has become cold and distant, which also describes how Martin currently feels about teaching. His sons and his students don’t seem to respect him very much, since they barely listen to him. Viewers will get the impression that Martin has been in the same job for years without a promotion.

And recently, Martin has come under criticism by several of his students and their parents, who have a meeting with Martin to pressure him to bring their children’s grades up in the history class, so that their children can get into the universities of their choice. The parents want to blame Martin for not being a better teacher, but he answers defensively that maybe the students who are floundering just aren’t paying attention in class: “It’s not easy to learn when you’ve got your head stuck in your phone.”

Tommy is getting close to retirement age and he doesn’t have much to show for it except for his elderly dog and a house where he feels lonely. Out of all of the four friends, Tommy seems to care the least about what other people will think about him. He can be fun-loving, but he has a grouchy side to him too.

Peter laments that he hasn’t found his true love yet. He also expresses regret that he isn’t a parent. And he feels sad that his students (whom he sees somewhat as his surrogate kids) seem to forget about him after they graduate. Peter is the one in the group who is most likely to be sensitive to his students’ needs and is willing to give them extra help outside of class hours. There’s a subplot in the movie about Peter taking an interest in counseling and advising an anxiety-prone student named Sebastian (played by Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt), who’s feeling pressure to pass a certain class or else he will be held back from graduating for another year.

Nikolaj is frustrated (and sleep-deprived) by the demands of being a father of three very young children, which means that he has less free time to himself. His two older sons (who are bedwetters) sleep in the same bed with Nikolaj, while his wife has recently been sleeping in the same bed as the baby. A few of the movie’s more comical scenes are about bedwetting moments at Nikolaj’s house. And when Nikolaj is drunk, it’s not always the kids who are urinating in the bed.

One evening, the four buddies have a fateful dinner at a restaurant to celebrate Nikolaj’s 40th birthday. Nikolaj admits that he should be happy with his life: He has a beautiful and healthy family, he likes his job, his wife comes from a wealthy family, and they live in a nice seafront house. However, Nikolaj feels somewhat “trapped” by his routine life.

During this dinner party, it’s brought up in the conversation that the school’s faculty have heard that Martin is under scrutiny by parents of his students for not being an effective-enough teacher. Martin’s eyes starts to well up with tears, and his friends comfort him and ask him what’s really bothering him. He confesses that his marriage has gotten stale, he feels lonely, his kids don’t appreciate him, and he thinks he could have accomplished much more in his life. When someone asks Martin if he’s thought about having an affair, Martin replies that he’s not interested in cheating on Anika.

“I don’t know how I ended up like this,” Martin says with a defeated tone of voice. Peter mentions that years ago, Martin was expected to become a research professor at a university, but it never happened. Peter asks Martin why he didn’t live up to that potential. Martin says that at the time, his children were young and he just didn’t apply to grad school to get a Ph.D.

It’s also mentioned during the dinner that Martin used to take jazz ballet lessons. Tommy says that Martin’s dancing was so good, that Martin could have passed as a professional dancer. Martin endures some good-natured teasing from his pals, who try to get him to show some jazz ballet dance moves at the dining table. Martin laughs but ultimately refuses. However, since all of them have been drinking alcohol at this dinner, their inhibitions are lowered, and Tommy and Peter get up and briefly give separate dances at the table.

It’s at this dinner that Nikolaj comes up with an idea that will be the catalyst for the rest of the story: He talks about the real-life theory of Norwegian philosopher/psychiatrist Finn Skårderud, who thinks that human beings are born with a blood deficiency of 0.05% alcohol. And therefore, it’s in people’s best interest to maintain at least 0.05% alcohol in their blood content every day. Skårderud believes that alcohol can generally make people more relaxed, more open to possibilities, and more creative.

Nikolaj suggests that they all try out this theory by drinking enough alcohol every day to have a constant blood alcohol content of at least 0.05%. They all go back to Nikolaj’s house to immediately begin testing the theory. Nikolaj goes to his computer to take notes, as if he’s taking this experiment seriously enough that he could write a research report about it. But over time, any “scientific research” that was intended quickly turns into excuses for the men to get drunk instead of tipsy.

That first night that they test the theory at Nikolaj’s place, he laces the drinks with absinthe. They all get “happy drunk” and have a good time. But the experiment requires that they drink during the day, which is something that Martin is uncomfortable with at first. They also have their own breathalyzers, and the movie has frequent on-screen indicators showing what their respective blood-alcohol levels are.

Eventually, all four men end up drinking while they’re on the job. They hide their liquor in the school’s gym depot that Tommy and only a few other school staffers have access to during regular school hours. It should come as no surprise that another school employee finds this secret stash of liquor. The movie shows what happens after this discovery.

At first, the four pals’ increased alcohol consumption seems to have positive effects. Martin becomes more confident and entertaining in his class. His enthusiasm is infectious to the point where he can get the entire class to laugh at his jokes. Martin and Anika also rekindle their love life, and it looks like the passion has returned to their marriage.

Tommy becomes a more jovial and motivational coach instead of being a grump with a tendency to give a lot of critiques. Peter comes up with more ideas to inspire his music students. Nikolaj also seems to be getting better results as a teacher, although he has the least number of movie scenes that show him as a teacher.

One day, Nikolaj is walking in the school hallway when he passes by Martin’s class and hears Martin’s students roaring with laughter at a joke that Martin told. Nikolaj looks surprised and a little envious. Not long after that, Nikolaj announces to the other three friends that all four of them should increase their blood-alcohol content as far as they can. It’s easy to guess what the results will be, but it’s no less riveting to watch.

“Another Round” takes place over the course of an academic school year (about nine months), and the movie shows how quickly alcohol abuse can turn into addiction. What started out as an experiment so that the men could gain confidence and creativity through alcohol turns into a dependency on alcohol where they start to lose control in major areas of their lives. Unlike their young students (who are shown binge drinking in the movie’s opening scene), the four middle-aged pals do not have the metabolism to bounce back as quickly from hangovers.

Their addiction to alcohol comes out in ways besides binge drinking. In their conversations, they start talking about famous drunks/alcoholics who excelled in their careers while they had a drinking problem. Martin and Nikolaj in particular like to come up with examples, as if to justify what they know is their own increasing addictions to alcohol. Ernest Hemingway and Winston Churchill are mentioned frequently in these discussions.

Martin also tries to ingratiate himself with his students during his class lectures, by mentioning alcohol binge drinking as an acceptable way to relax and be creative. He gets them to open up to the rest of the class about how much alcohol they drink on a weekly basis, and he doesn’t judge students who admit to excessive drinking. In fact, Martin jokes with them about their drinking habits.

And there’s a memorable scene where Martin asks the students which one of three unnamed political candidates they could vote for if they had the choice. He describes Candidate No. 1 as someone who has polio, drinks a lot, and cheats on his wife. Candidate No. 2 is an alcoholic who isn’t well-liked by his political peers and has already lost several elections. Candidate No. 3 almost never drinks, is kind to women, and has a reputation of being very focused on his job. Not surprisingly, the students say that they would vote for Candidate No. 3, until Martin reveals that Candidate No. 1 is Franklin D. Roosevelt, Candidate No. 2 is Winston Churchill, and Candidate No. 3 is Adolph Hitler.

In this scene where Martin points out that many powerful leaders were actually drunks, “Another Round” director Vinterberg shows a wry sense of humor by inserting some real-life video news montages or photos of world leaders drinking alcohol while on the job or appearing to be intoxicated in public. In photos, Angela Merkel is shown holding up a stein of beer; Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev are toasting each other with liquor. There’s also archival footage of Boris Yeltsin stumbling and slurring his words at government appearances.

“Another Round” realistically shows the highs and lows of what Martin, Peter, Tommy and Nikolaj experience as they have similar yet different reactions to their alcohol “experiment.” All of them get hooked on drinking alcohol every day, but two of the men want to quit the experiment after they see the negative effects of their alcohol dependency. Because the movie is mainly from Martin’s perspective, the movie gives the most screen time to how his alcohol addiction changes his life.

There are good times and bad times for all of the four friends. The alcohol makes them want to forget the bad times and create good times that they want to remember. However, the alcohol increasingly becomes the cause for the bad times. And that’s why the alcohol addiction (or any addiction) becomes a vicious cycle.

Mikkelsen’s fascinating portrayal of Martin is one that many viewers can find relatable, even without the alcohol addiction. It’s an outstanding performance of a character who sees himself as an “ordinary” person. One of the highlights of the film is a scene where Mikkelsen has to show a lot of impressive physical agility. What’s even more admirable is that Mikkelsen did not use any stunt/body doubles for this scene, according to the “Another Round” production notes.

“Another Round” doesn’t judge alcoholic behavior as much as it lays bare what attracts people to alcohol, how peer pressure plays a role in many alcohol addictions, and how people handle the problem of addiction differently, depending on the individual. The cinematography from Sturla Brandth Grøvlen adds realism to the movie, since the entire film was shot with hand-held cameras. Therefore, when Martin or some of the other characters are drunk, the camera sways along like an intoxicated person too, so viewers can almost experience what these characters are feeling in that particular scene.

What’s most authentic about “Another Round” is that it doesn’t follow a stereotypical narrative that movies tend to have when they’re about people who become alcoholics. Yes, the movie does show consequences to the reckless actions that happen because of alcohol intoxication. But even if something bad happens, it doesn’t necessarily make people want to suddenly stop drinking alcohol.

“Another Round” poses a lot of questions, knowing that there are no easy answers, because so much depends on the complexities of individuals. What’s the difference between a heavy drinker and an alcoholic? Can an alcoholic quit drinking without rehab or any counseling? At what point should someone get an “intervention”? Regardless of how people feel that about the ways that binge drinking and alcoholism are portrayed in “Another Round,” the movie succeeds in telling these characters’ stories in such an impactful way that it will make viewers think about these characters long after seeing the movie.

Samuel Goldwyn Films released “Another Round” in select U.S. cinemas on December 4, 2020, and on digital and VOD on December 18, 2020. The movie’s DVD release date was March 30, 2021. “Another Round” is also available for streaming on Hulu.

Review: ‘Moffie,’ starring Kai Luke Brummer, Ryan de Villiers, Matthew Vey, Stefan Vermaak and Hilton Pelser

April 17, 2021

by Carla Hay

Kai Luke Brummer and Ryan de Villiers in “Moffie” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“Moffie”

Directed by Oliver Hermanus

English, Dutch and Afrikaans with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place from 1981 to 1983 in South Africa, the dramatic film “Moffie” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) who are mostly in or connected to South African’s military.

Culture Clash: A closeted gay teenager in the South African army hides is sexuality from everyone except for a fellow soldier who forms an emotional connection with him.

Culture Audience: “Moffie” will appeal primarily to people interested in raw and sometimes hard-to-watch stories about apartheid-era South African culture and stories about closeted LGBTQ people.

Kai Luke Brummer in “Moffie” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“Moffie” unflinchingly but sometimes unevenly tells a story that’s rarely been told in a movie: What it was like to be a closeted gay white male teenage soldier in 1980s South Africa, where homosexuality was illegal at the time. The movie is an often-brutal portrayal of hatred, fear and violent bullying.

Therefore, people should know before watching “Moffie” that it’s a very triggering film for anyone who’s likely to have negative mental-health reactions to seeing these issues portrayed on screen. For people who can handle the harsh realities presented in the movie, “Moffie” might still be a hard film to watch, but its intention is to not gloss over the damage caused by homophobia and other bigotry.

Directed by South African filmmaker Oliver Hermanus, “Moffie” is based on André-Carl van der Merwe’s 2006 novel of the same title. The novel was inspired by van der Merwe’s own experiences as a closeted gay member of the South African military in the 1980s. “Moffie” director Hermanus and Jack Sidey co-wrote the adapted screenplay.

The word “moffie” is a derogatory Afrikaans term for a gay male. In the production notes for “Moffie,” Hermanus (who is openly gay) explains why he chose to keep this title for the movie: “Any gay man living in South Africa knows this word and has a relationship with it. It’s a weapon that has been used against us for so long. I felt a strong pull to exploring my own history with this word which ended up being a scene in the film and I think it was the want to denuclearize, reform this word that was at the heart of my decision to make this film.”

The story’s main character is Nicholas van der Swart (played by Kai Luke Brummer), a sensitive and kind 18-year-old who comes from a loving home in an unnamed South African city. Nicholas lives with his parents Peet van der Swart (played by Remano De Beer) and Suzie van der Swart (played by Barbara-Marié Immelman), who are very proud of their only child. However, Nicholas has a big secret that he hasn’t told anyone out of fear: He’s gay.

The story takes place from 1981 to 1983, during South Africa’s apartheid years, when the white citizens who were in the minority were in government power and made it legal to discriminate against anyone in South Africa was wasn’t white. Racial segregation was legal in South Africa in this apartheid era. During this time in the early 1980s, the South African military began operations to fight against Angola at the Angolan/South African border.

Angola was backed by the Soviet Union, and South Africa’s military attacks were ostensibly to fight against Communism. However, South Africa’s military operations in these Angolan conflicts were also used as excuses to slaughter innocent black people. In South Africa during this time, any white male over the age of 16 was required to serve in the military for at least two years.

The beginning of the film shows Nicholas and his family having a send-off party for him. During the party, Nicholas’ father Peet takes him aside and gives Nicholas a nudie magazine. Peet smirks as he tells his son that the magazine will help Nicholas get through the long stretches of time in the military when Nicholas won’t be in contact with any women. Nicholas takes the magazine and pretends to be pleased with this gift, even though he knows deep down he’s not going to use it in the way his father intended.

“Moffie” doesn’t get into specifics about how Nicholas personally felt about apartheid. He tends to be quiet and doesn’t express any political views during the story. When he sees racism firsthand, Nicholas does nothing to stop it.

For example, there’s a scene where some fellow army recruits harass and humiliate an elderly black man (played by Israel Ngqawuza), who’s waiting at a train station. The bigots use the “n” word and throw food that splatters all over the man. Nicholas watches this hate crime as if it’s something he’s used to seeing because this blatant racism is allowed in apartheid South Africa.

The expression on Nicholas’ face seems to suggest that he has empathy for the black man who’s the target of this hate, but Nicholas is outnumbered by his racist peers, and he feels powerless to say and do anything. It won’t be long before Nicholas will experience his own bullying, for a different reason. This movie’s scenes are often a barrage of toxic masculinity. But the point is to show that even with “white male privilege” in South Africa, some white men faced their own types of persecution if they were perceived to be effeminate or not heterosexual in any way.

The new recruits take a train together to boot camp. Nicholas shares a cabin with a young man who’s around the same age. His name is Michael Sachs (played by Matthew Vey), and he’s a lot more confident and outgoing than Nicholas. Nicholas and Michael become fast friends. Their friendship endures even through some of the most brutal hazing that these new soldiers have to endure as part of their military training.

On their first day of boot camp, the recruits are forced to strip to their underwear and are bullied into submission by the commanding officers. The commanding officers don’t hesitate to punch the recruits, shove their faces in dirt, and call them all sorts of vicious and derogatory names if the recruits don’t pass some real or imagined test of their compliance. A commanding officer named Sergeant Brand (played by Hilton Pelser) is the most sadistic and hate-filled of all the military officers at this boot camp.

In case it wasn’t clear how Sergeant Brand feels about certain subjects, he shouts to the new recruits that this army won’t tolerate Communism, laziness, homosexuality and anyone who shows sympathy to black people. (He uses derogatory terms for black people and gay people in this tirade.) Sergeant Brand also expresses his share of misogyny, as he frequently uses the “c” word (a gender slur against women that rhymes with stunt) to insult any recruit who does something to anger him.

The physical and verbal abuse doesn’t just come from the commanding officers. There’s plenty of it among the recruits. Anyone who is perceived as not fitting into macho heterosexual white Christian male standards becomes a target for the abuse. Nicholas, who comes from a sheltered environment, experiences culture shock and has to adapt quickly.

A recruit named Snyman (played by Wynand Ferreira) is the biggest bully among these new soldiers. When Snyman sees that Nicholas has brought a photo of his father with him, Snyman takes it as a sign that Nicholas has gay or “sissy” tendencies. Snyman steals the photo from Nicholas and taunts him.

Michael sticks up for Nicholas and calls Snyman a name. A brawl breaks out, but it’s eventually smoothed over when Nicholas offers his nudie magazine to Snyman in exchange for Snyman returning the photo of Nicholas’ father to Nicholas. However, Nicholas is now fully aware that he can’t show any signs of being gay to these homophobic bullies or else he could be in physical danger.

Nicholas also sees what happens when anyone in the South African military is suspected of being gay. One day, two recruits named Baxter (played by Cody Mountain) and Hilton (played by Luke Tyler) are forced to stand in front of everyone else, while the commanding officer hurls homophobic insults at them. Nicholas overhears from the other recruits that Baxter and Hilton were rumored to be caught kissing each other in a bathroom stall.

It’s also the first time that Nicholas hears about Ward 22, which is a psychiatric ward that military people are sent to if they are suspected of being gay. Based on how Ward 22 is talked about in this group of people, it’s worse than a prison. Baxter and Hilton soon disappear from the recruits’ living quarters. Everyone assumes that Baxter and Hilton have been sent to Ward 22 as punishment.

One very cold evening, when the recruits are training how to make and sleep in foxholes, Nicholas finds himself alone with a fellow recruit named Dylan Stassen (played by Ryan de Villiers), who is handsome and confident among his peers. Dylan notices that Nicholas is shivering, so he tells Nicholas that he can warm up next to him. At first Nicholas is hesitant, but when he sees that no one else is looking, he takes Dylan up on his offer.

Dylan and Nicholas lie next to each other in the foxhole in a platonic manner. But when they make steady eye contact, they know they’re attracted to each other. And so, when Dylan makes the first move and starts to caress Nicholas’ arm, Nicholas doesn’t pull away or tell him to stop. It’s too risky for Dylan and Nicholas to spend the night sleeping next to each other, but now they both know that there’s a sexual attraction between them.

Over time, Dylan and Nicholas keep their budding romance a secret. They go to such extremes that Dylan and Nicholas end up brawling with each other in a macho display to fit in with their peers. This knock-down, drag-out fight happens at the barracks when the recruits play a “spin the bottle” game that’s based on brawling, not kissing. If the bottle points to a person, that person has to fight someone.

When it’s unlucky Dylan’s turn to fight and pick a sparring partner, he’s reluctant and makes a half-hearted attempt with one of the recruits. Dylan is then taunted by some of the bullies in the group. But then, Nicholas then steps and challenges Dylan to the fight. Why would Nicholas do that?

The psychology behind this thinking is because the recruits are aware that Dylan and Nicholas have become closer, Nicholas is paranoid that people will suspect him and Dylan of being gay. And when Nicholas sees that Dylan is reluctant to fight someone and is possibly going to be labeled a “sissy” or “gay,” Nicholas over-compensates by being overly aggressive in his fight with Dylan. Dylan fights back just as hard, in self-defense and also because he’s angry over this attack from a friend.

Nicholas and Dylan’s fight is a turning point in their relationship, because it sends a clear message to Dylan that Nicholas is going to do whatever it takes to stay closeted in this environment. In private, Nicholas attempts to smooth things over with Dylan by asking him not to take the fight too personally. Dylan seems to understand, but something happens that will test Nicholas and Dylan’s relationship even more.

“Moffie” shows some combat scenes at the Angolan border, but most of the turmoil in the movie is about Nicholas coming to terms with his sexuality and the self-loathing that he has because he knows he’s living a lie. Nicholas is a stoic person who doesn’t open up to people easily. He’s the type of person who would rather blend in rather than stand out.

Not all of “Moffie” is depressing gloom and doom. The most light-hearted moments come when Nicholas spends time with Michael, who seems to have no idea that Nicholas is gay. (Nicholas hides his sexuality very well.) They like to joke around and sometimes trade mild insults with each other.

For example, one day, while they have some free time to hang out by themselves, Nicholas and Michael see some soldiers nearby walking robot-like in military line. Michael tells Nicholas, “Do me a favor. If I look that, shoot me in the head.” Nicholas replies, “Why should I? You know how to shoot!” Michael exclaims in response: “Bastard!”

Moffie also becomes friends with another recruit named Oscar Fourie (played by Stefan Vermaak), who’s even more outgoing and gregarious than Michael. But just like Michael, Oscar doesn’t suspect that Nicholas is gay. There’s a scene where all three pals hang out at a bar, where Michael and Oscar think that they all have the goal of finding women to flirt with or more. This scene is also a pivotal moment in the movie because of something that Moffie finds out in a conversation with Oscar.

“Moffie” doesn’t tell Nicholas’ story in a consistent manner. There are some parts of the movie that are a monotonous drag, while other parts of the movie have almost sensory overload with all the violent abuse. If the movie were a painting, it would be more like a mural instead of a portrait, with some parts more scattershot than others.

The one part of the movie that significantly shows Nicholas’ life before he enlisted in the military is a flashback scene where Nicholas, who’s about 15 or 16 years old, is spending some time with his parents at a public recreation area with a swimming pool. When Nicholas goes into the shower area, he stares at another naked teenager in a shower.

A man (played by Jaco van Niekerk) walks into the shower area, sees Nicholas staring at the naked teen, and immediately gets angry at Nicholas. He accuses Nicholas of being a sexual predator and drags him to the manager’s office to report Nicholas. The man lies and says that he also saw Nicholas masturbating while staring at another boy. Nicholas denies this accusation, while the man rants about how Nicholas should be thrown out and banned because his own sons and other boys are in the area. The angry father also says that he and his family regularly go to this recreational area and he threatens to boycott it if something isn’t done about Nicholas.

Nicholas’ parents find out what’s happening, which leads to the angry man getting into an argument with them. Nicholas’ father denies that Nicholas is gay or did anything as perverted as being a masturbating voyeur in a public shower area. The confrontation is bad enough that the man and Nicholas’ father get into a fist fight before his parents quickly decide to leave with Nicholas.

As humiliating as this experience must have been for Nicholas, the movie could have used more insight into other formative experiences that he had when coming to terms with his sexuality as a teenager. For example, what happened when Nicholas and his parents got home after the confrontation with the homophobic man? Most viewers could assume that they never talked about this incident again, but what if they did? What was said? And how did what his parent say to him in private affect how he viewed himself as a person?

There are huge, missing gaps in Nicholas’ personal history that needed more explanation. Did he ever date any girls out of peer pressure and to hide his sexuality? What are his interests outside of the military? Throughout much of the movie, Nicholas is really a blank slate of repressed emotions and a vague background.

Based on the way he interacts with Dylan, Nicholas has never been in love with a man before and is possibly a gay virgin. At one point in the story, Dylan gives Nicholas a light romantic kiss on the lips. It’s very likely that Dylan was the first man Nicholas ever kissed in a romantic way, but viewers will never find out.

On the plus side, Brummer gives a very good performance of a man who is going through silent agony and has to pretend to the world that he’s happy and well-adjusted. Because Nicholas isn’t much of a talker, his facial expressions and body language are the best ways that viewers who pay attention can figure out how he must be feeling inside. And because Brummer skillfully shows of these non-verbal cues, “Moffie” is often a heart-wrenching film to watch.

Writer/director Hermanus made very good casting choices in the movie, because all the cast members (who are a mix of professional actors and non-professional actors) are believable in their roles. Some people might gripe that “Moffie” doesn’t address issues of racism enough. However, the movie is told from the perspective a young white man in apartheid South Africa. When people aren’t the targets of racism, they tend not to think about it very much. In that regard, it’s absolutely realistic that Nicholas, considering who he is, would be more concerned about homophobia than racism.

If there is any throughline to this narrative, it’s that the people who tend to be homophobic also tend to be bigoted in other ways too, including when it comes to race and/or religion. Bullying and bigoted attacks can cause damage that’s not always visible. And that’s why even though some viewers of “Moffie” might not like how the movie ends, the ending is realistic of how people who’ve been wounded by bigotry have different ways of trying to heal.

IFC Films released “Moffie” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on April 9, 2021.

Review: ‘The Man Who Sold His Skin,’ starring Yahya Mahayni, Dea Liane, Koen De Bouw and Monica Bellucci

April 17, 2021

by Carla Hay

Koen De Bouw and Yahya Mahayni in “The Man Who Sold His Skin” (Photo courtesy of Tanit Films and Samuel Goldwyn Films)

“The Man Who Sold His Skin”

Directed by Kaouther Ben Hania

English, Arabic and French with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place from 2011 to 2013 in Syria, Lebanon, Belgium and Switzerland, the dramatic film “The Man Who Sold His Skin” features a cast of white and Arabic characters representing working-class refugees, the middle-class and the wealthy.

Culture Clash: A Syrian refugee agrees to be paid to have his back tattooed and to display himself as “living art,” but his contract with a rich and famous Belgian artist comes at a heavy price.

Culture Audience: “The Man Who Sold His Skin” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in seeing a compelling movie that shows an intersection between the art world and the world of war refugees.

Dea Liane, Yahya Mahayni and Monica Bellucci in “The Man Who Sold His Skin” (Photo courtesy of Tanit Films and Samuel Goldwyn Films)

“The Man Who Sold His Skin” is a fascinating mashup of a love story, social commentary on refugee issues, and a scornful indictment of the elitist world of high-priced and trendy art collecting. It’s a lot to pack into a 104-minute movie, but “The Man Who Sold His Skin” mostly succeeds in weaving everything together coherently. The last 20 minutes of the movie have some plot twists that are rushed, a little awkward, and require some suspension of disbelief. However, these very contrived plot developments don’t take away from the movie’s intention of showing how human lives can be valued and devalued.

Written and directed by Kaouther Ben Hania, “The Man Who Sold His Skin” is a fictional story inspired by a real-life experience that she had in 2012. Ben Hania says in the movie’s production notes: “The idea for ‘The Man Who Sold His Skin’ began germinating in my head in 2012. I was at the Louvre in Paris, which at the time was devoting a retrospective to Belgium artist Wim Delvoye. There I saw, in Napoleon III Apartments, Delvoye’s ‘Tim’ (2006 – 08), in which the artist had tattooed the back of Tim Steiner, who was sitting on an
armchair with his shirt off displaying Delvoye’s design.”

In “The Man Who Sold His Skin,” a Syrian refugee is the one who agrees to have a Belgian artist tattoo his back and display him as “living art.” The refugee does it for the money, but it comes at a huge cost to his dignity, emotional well-being and possibly his freedom. How did he end up in this situation? And can he get out of it? “The Man Who Sold His Skin” tells that story in way that will keep viewers riveted.

Sam Ali (played by Yahya Mahayni), who appears to be in his early-to-mid 30s, didn’t think he would end up as a Syrian prisoner and later a refugee. The movie begins in 2011, by showing flashbacks to Sam’s life before and after it was turned upside down by the Syrian civil war that started in March of that year. Before the war, Sam’s biggest problem was how to get his girlfriend Abeer Al-Khateeb (played by Dea Liane) to marry him when she hasn’t even told her family that they’re dating.

Sam and Abeer are shown riding on a train together. At first they’re sitting right next to each other. But the growing divisiveness in Syria is implied when Sam puts his arm around Abeer and she tells him to stop because she doesn’t know who else on the train might seem them together. “What if someone knows my family?” she asks Sam.

Sam obliges her request to not show public displays of affection. He even goes as far as moving to another seat that’s in the row next to the row where Abeer is sitting. As they continue their conversation, Sam asks Abeer why she’s never told her mother about him. She doesn’t really give an answer, but viewers can easily see that there’s some kind of class divide that has made Abeer ashamed or frightened to tell her family that she and Sam are dating each other.

And although it’s not said out loud, Abeer probably comes from a family that believes in arranged marriages, because it’s implied that Sam and Abeer are both Muslim. Sam somewhat nervously asks Abeer about a man she’s scheduled meeting the next day. Abeer tells Sam that this man works at the Syrian embassy in Belgium.

While they’re talking on the train, Abeer seem to feel badly about keeping her romance with Sam a secret. She somewhat bashfully tells him, “I love you.” Sam is so elated that Abeer said these words out loud to him in public, he reacts with over-the-top enthusiasm by getting up and telling everyone in the train car that he loves Abeer.

And then, Sam goes one step further and yells to everyone that he wants to marry her. Abeer is caught up in the excitement of Abeer’s shouting and hugging and appears to agree to his marriage proposal. Some of the people offer congratulations, and a man on the train is seen filming this spectacle on his phone.

But Sam and Abeer’s happiness together comes to a crashing halt. Somehow, Sam ends up in jail after the Syrian civil war has begun. The movie never shows the details over why Sam is in jail. And it also isn’t revealed how long after his marriage proposal to Abeer that Sam ended up incarcerated. However, it’s mentioned at one point in the movie that Sam was wrongfully imprisoned.

In Syrian jails, prisoners are allowed to have cats in their jail cells. Sam is shown with a young orange tabby cat as his only companion in his cell. He’s taken out of solitary confinement and then put in a crowded cell with about six to eight other men. The cat is seen several times in the movie as a symbol of the one constant in Sam’s life during this story’s approximately two-year period, which takes him on a turbulent personal journey in several countries.

It isn’t spoiler information to reveal that Sam escapes from prison, with help from someone on the outside. And the first place he goes after he escapes is to Abeer’s home. It’s implied that Sam and Abeer haven’t seen each other in several months. When she does seem him again, Sam is dirty, disheveled and desperate.

This isn’t going to be a happy reunion because while Sam was in jail, Abeer ended up dating the embassy worker whom she met the day after Sam proposed marriage to her. The embassy worker’s name is Ziad (played by Saad Lostan), and viewers will later see that he’s an arrogant, jealous and hot-tempered man. Sam knows that Abeer is now dating another man, which is why he’s somewhat humiliated to ask Abeer if Ziad can do anything to help Sam with his legal problems.

As Sam and Abeer are having this conversation outside of her house, Ziad comes out of the house to see what’s going on. It’s the first time that Ziad and Sam will meet, but it won’t be the last time that they see each other. The conversation is brief, but it’s clear that both men know about each other’s relationship with Abeer. Ziad is asked if there’s anything he can do to help Sam, but Ziad somewhat coldly and dismissively says that there’s nothing he can do because he works in foreign affairs.

Because Sam is a prison escapee, he knows that if he’s caught, he will face even worse punishment. And there’s also the problem of the escalating civil war in Syria, where Sam could be forced into combat. And so, he makes plans to be live with his sister (played by Najoua Zouhair) in Lebanon. Sam’s family members do not have names in this movie, perhaps as a way to put an emphasis on his isolation throughout most of the movie.

Sam’s sister smuggles Sam out of Syria in her car, and they arrive safely in Lebanon. And yes, that orange tabby cat is along for the ride. Sam’s mother (played by Darina Al Joundi) has stayed behind in Syria. Sam and his mother keep in contact by Skype conversations, which are shown in the movie.

One year after escaping from Syria, Sam is living in Lebanon, but he’s miserable. Abeer is now married to Ziad, and they both live in Belgium, where Ziad still works for the Syrian embassy. Sam and Abeer still keep in touch with each other through Skype conversations, which Abeer keeps a secret from Ziad for as long as possible.

Sam tries to keep a friendly and upbeat relationship with Abeer, but there’s still an unspoken love between them. Sam never says anything inappropriate to her, nor does he try to get her to cheat on Ziad. However, the fact that Abeer is keeping her communications with Sam a secret from Abeer means that she thinks there’s something to hide. In one scene, Ziad comes into the room while Abeer is talking to Sam by Skype, and Sam quickly moves away from the camera before Abeer eventually disconnects the conversation.

It weighs heavily on Sam that he can’t see Abeer. And so, he dreams of one day going to Belgium, since it’s highly unlikely she will ever go to Lebanon to visit him. In Lebanon, Sam works as a chicken sexer (a low-paying job where workers determine the gender of baby chickens, which are usually on an assembly line), but his real passion is art.

Sam and a fellow Syrian refugee named Hazem (played by Jan Dahdoh), who works with Sam at the chicken factory, spend some of their evenings by crashing party events for high-priced art. Their main purpose is to steal some of the catered food that’s on tables for the event guests. However, Sam also tries to look at the art on display since he appreciates fine art. Sometimes he’s with Hazem when he sneaks into these events, and sometimes he’s by himself.

Sam has various tricks for getting into these events when he’s not on the guest list. In one tactic, he waits in the lobby and pretends to be talking on the phone near some people who are on the guest list. When the people on the guest list have their names checked out and allowed entry, Sam casually walks next to them, as if he’s with these guests.

The tactic doesn’t really work at a certain party where Sam is by himself and has already been exposed that he’s a party crasher when the lobby attendants don’t see his name on the guest list. The lobby attendants have noticed that Sam has walked into the party with legitimate guests, so they alert security. Sam doesn’t get thrown out of the party because one of the hosts of the party named Soraya Waldy (played by Monica Bellucci) sees him and is intrigued.

Soraya immediately figures out that Sam is a Syrian refugee who’s there to steal food, and she decides that he’s harmless. Soraya takes charge, approaches Sam discreetly, and tells him if he can wait until the party is over, he’ll get a package of food that are leftovers. Sam’s pride is wounded and he tells Soraya, “Fuck you,” as he walks off into the bar area.

One of the men having drinks at the bar is a very rich and famous Belgian artist, but Sam doesn’t know it at first. The artist’s name is Jeffrey Godefroi (played by Koen De Bouw) and his art is on display at this event. Media outlets have called Jeffrey “the world’s most expensive living artist,” because each piece of his work is priced in the high millions.

Soraya is Jeffrey’s agent. She points out Sam, who doesn’t notice them, and tells Jeffrey: “He’s a Syrian refugee, and he’s a freeloader.” The next thing you know, Jeffrey is having a conversation at the bar with Sam.

Jeffrey offers to buy Sam a drink, and then Jeffrey slowly drops hints about who he is while trying to find out what Sam’s story is. First, Jeffrey says that he’s an artist from Belgium, but that he’s a little bit American. Sam is immediately interested because he wants to visit Abeer in Belgium.

Sam begins to opens up to Jeffrey by telling him that he has a girlfriend who lives in Belgium but they can’t see each other right now. Sam is vague about why, because he doesn’t want to tell Jeffrey that Abeer is married and Sam can’t afford to travel to Belgium. At this point, Jeffrey already knows that Sam is broke and desperate.

The conversation then takes a metaphorical turn when Jeffrey says that he can offer Sam a “flying carpet” to Belgium. Sam replies sarcastically, Do you think you’re a genie?” Jeffrey laughs and says, “Sometimes I think I’m [the demon] Mephistopheles.” Sam asks, “You want my soul?” Jeffrey replies, “I want your back.”

And so begins Sam’s turbulent experience in Jeffrey’s orbit and in the fickle world of wealthy art collectors looking for the next big thing. Jeffrey tells Sam that he wants to do an art project that pushes boundaries that Jeffrey has never pushed before: Jeffrey wants to tattoo someone’s entire back and then put that person on display as “living art” in Belgium. Jeffrey tells Sam he would be the perfect person for this project.

At first, Sam is reluctant because the contract requires that Sam has to be on display wherever Jeffrey thinks he should be. As payment, Jeffrey offers Sam one-third of the resale value that Jeffrey gets from selling this “living art” elaborate back tattoo as a traveling art project. Sam agrees to the deal and signs the contract.

The large back tattoo ends up being of a giant passport, because Sam’s story as a Syrian refugee is being used to sell Sam as “living art.” It reeks of exploitation, but Sam initially sees it as a “win-win” situation: He gets an all-expenses-paid trip to Belgium (where he stays at a five-star hotel), the country where Abeer lives, and he’ll be getting enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life, which he hopes will include Abeer.

To get around human trafficking laws, Jeffrey and Soraya have “donated” this art project to a Belgian museum. However, it’s implied that Jeffrey and Soraya have a back-room deal where they get some of the revenue from the museum’s ticket sales. The movie reveals whether or not any of that money ends up being paid to Sam as part of his agreed commission. Abeer lives in the Belgian capital of Brussels, and it’s implied (based on what happens later in the story) that the museum where Sam goes on display is also in or near Brussels.

Sam doesn’t want Abeer to know that he’s sold himself as an art exhibit. Instead, when he excitedly calls Abeer to tell her that he’s in Belgium on business, he lies by saying that he’s working as an assistant for a famous Belgian artist. Sam misleads Abeer into thinking that he does the usual work of an art assistant. Abeer and Sam begin chatting by Skype again, but she seems very afraid of meeting up with him in person. However, Abeer seems happy for Sam and his new career, because she knows how much he loves art.

There’s a bit of a plot hole when it comes to Abeer not knowing about the type of work that Sam is really doing for Jeffrey, but this plot hole can be explained away. The “living art” exhibit is big news in the Belgian media because of Jeffrey’s fame. Sam’s full name is also mentioned in the media reports.

However, viewers will have to assume that Abeer somehow never saw these media reports, because Sam is able to keep lying to Abeer about the nature of his job. It’s also implied that Abeer isn’t really interested in art and therefore this news about the exhibit wouldn’t be on her radar. However, the news is big enough that it draws the attention of human rights groups. There’s also a documentary filmmaker named Marc Sheen (played by Marc de Panda), who’s doing a documentary about this traveling exhibit

While Sam is in Belgium, he gets a visit at his hotel room from Adel Saadi (played by Husam Chadat), chair of the Organization of the Defense of Syrian Refugees. Adel warns Sam that he’s being exploited, and he offers his organization’s help in getting Sam out of this situation. Sam angrily responds that he if he wants to sell his own “back or ass,” that it’s no one else’s business. Sam then slams the door in Adel’s face.

The rest of “The Man Who Sold His Skin” is a topsy-turvy ride where Sam has to reckon with his choices and how these choices might affect the rest of his life. It’s enough to say that Sam underestimated the “traveling exhibit” part of his contract. Jeffrey and Soraya get greedier and find a way to “sell” Sam as an art display to a wealthy Swiss art collector named Christian Waltz (played by Patrick Albenque), who shows off Sam as if Sam is a well-paid-for trophy.

What about human trafficking laws? Soraya explains to someone in the movie that the Swiss government has more lenient laws than other countries when it comes to human trafficking. And so, it was legal to do this transaction in Switzerland, because it falls under the Swiss government’s definition of “art dealing.” Of course, being stuck in Switzerland is a problem for Sam because he wants to be in Belgium. However, Soraya and Jeffrey are willing to go to extremes to hold Sam to his contract.

It’s easy to see why “The Man Who Sold His Skin” has been getting awards recognition. It’s the first Tunisian-made film to be Oscar-nominated for Best International Feature. And at the 2020 Venice International Film Festival, Mahayni won the award for Best Actor, for his role in “The Man Who Sold His Skin.” Mahayni gives a complex and engrossing performance as a man who has escaped one oppressive environment to unknowingly jump into another oppressive environment. The movie’s other main cast members give commendable performances, but “The Man Who Sold His Skin” wouldn’t work as well without Mahayni’s authentic portrayal.

Without being preachy, “The Man Who Sold His Skin” offers blistering scrutiny of the different ways that refugees and other marginalized people can be taken advantage of by powerful and privileged people. And on another level, the movie is an incisive, almost satirical look at the world of high-priced art collecting and who gets to determine the value of art. When rich people get into bidding wars over art, who’s being manipulated and who really profits?

Writer/director Ben Hania infuses the movie with enough suspense to immerse viewers in this story. Some of the movie becomes a bit like a soap opera when it comes to the love triangle between Sam, Abeer and Ziad. However, any melodrama in the story doesn’t ruin the movie. Viewers will be rooting for protagonist Sam, who has his share of heartbreak in this story.

The plot’s main flaw is when a major player in the story does something that’s completely out of character, in order to have a pivotal plot development that seems designed to be more crowd-pleasing than realistic. The about-face in this person’s character just doesn’t ring true. However, if viewers are looking for a richly layered and unique movie about how the world of European art and the world of Syrian refugees can collide, then “The Man Who Sold His Skin” should meet or exceed most expectations.

Samuel Goldwyn Films released “The Man Who Sold His Skin” in New York City on April 2, 2021, and in Los Angeles on April 9, 2021. The movie’s U.S. release will expand to more cities over the next few weeks.

Review: ‘Six Minutes to Midnight,’ starring Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench

April 15, 2021

by Carla Hay

Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench in “Six Minutes to Midnight” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“Six Minutes to Midnight”

Directed by Andy Goddard

Culture Representation: Taking place in England in 1939, the spy drama “Six Minutes to Midnight” features an all-white cast of characters representing the middle-class and various government officials.

Culture Clash: On the brink of World War II, a German British spy poses as an English teacher at a boarding school in England for daughters of powerful German Nazis.

Culture Audience: “Six Minutes to Midnight” will appeal primarily to people interested in stories about spies who target Nazis, but the movie ineptly bungles what are supposed to be the most suspenseful parts of the story.

Carla Juri and Judi Dench in “Six Minutes to Midnight” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

Eddie Izzard and Judi Dench star in a movie about a spy who infiltrates a boarding school for Nazi teenage girls. What could possibly go wrong? In the case of the woefully misguided “Six Minutes to Midnight”—everything. The story’s “mystery villain” is revealed about halfway through the film, and the rest of the story consists of far-fetched chase scenes and shootouts.

The only realistic thing about “Six Minutes to Midnight” is that the story was inspired by the real-life Augusta-Victoria College, a prestigious independent boarding school for mostly teenage girls in the coastal town of Bexhill-on-Seas, England, which is Izzard’s hometown. Augusta-Victoria College existed from 1932 to 1939, and it enrolled German female students ranging in ages from 16 to 21. It was a school intended to foster good will between British and German cultures. The school’s students weren’t just any students though: They were the daughters of high-ranking Nazis.

According to the “Six Minutes to Midnight” production notes, Izzard was so intrigued by the history of Augusta-Victoria College, it inspired Izzard to want to do a movie about it. Andrew Goddard directed “Six Minutes to Midnight” from a screenplay that he wrote with Izzard and Celyn Jones. Izzard is also one of the producers of “Six Minutes to Midnight,” which comes across as a bit of a vanity project where Izzard wants to be a spy character who’s an action star, without the suave flair and dazzling stunts of James Bond.

Fair enough, but it’s unfortunate that Izzard was a major creator for this clumsily constructed movie. “Six Minutes to Midnight” also shamefully glosses over the horrors of Nazi evil and is instead more concerned with whether or not Augusta-Victoria College’s lonely spinster headmistress will be separated from her students, as war appears inevitable between Great Britain and Nazi Germany. By the end of the movie, viewers will learn almost next to nothing about Izzard’s Thomas Miller character, except that he sure likes to use the beach a lot as a hiding place.

“Six Minutes to Midnight,” which takes place over a period of less than a month, begins on August 15, 1939, in Bexhill-on-Sea. A middle-aged man who goes by the name of Wheatley (played by Nigel Lindsay) is in a classroom, as he frantically looks for something that’s in a hidden space behind one of the room’s book shelves. He takes out a small box and is visibly upset when he finds out that what he’s looking for isn’t there.

Viewers find out a short time later that this classroom is at Augusta-Victoria College, which is sprawled out on a large property near the beach. As a distraught Wheatley quickly rides off on a bicycle, he is being watched through an upper-room window by the school’s headmistress/principal Miss Rocholl (played by Dench), who’s got that hard-nosed “Don’t try to mess with me” look that Dench has for most of the characters she tends to play. Wheatley goes to a phone booth, where he makes a panicky phone call to an unidentified man.

“It’s missing!” Wheatley shouts. “Don’t you understand? They’ve taken it!” The man on the other line can be heard saying something about duty. Wheatley responds, “They know they’re being watched! I can’t go back!”

So now that it’s been established that Wheatley has been caught spying on Augusta-Victoria College, it’s kind of a no-brainer to figure out who sent him there. The person on the other line was guilt-tripping Wheatley about “duty.” And that just screams “service to the government.”

The fact that Wheatley is a government spy isn’t the mystery. The mystery is what happened to Wheatley, who is shown sitting at a table on a pier’s wooden deck after making his upsetting phone call. And then, the next thing you know, all that’s seen is that Wheatley is missing from the deck and his bowler hat is flying off in the wind. Did he disappear? Is he dead? Did he give his two weeks’ notice? Does anyone care?

Izzard’s Thomas Miller character comes into the picture soon afterward, when he interviews at Augusta-Victoria College, as a replacement for Wheatley. The school found Wheatley and Thomas through the same employment agency. Thomas is greeted in a friendly and upbeat manner by schoolteacher Ilse Keller (played by Carla Juri), who is Miss Rocholl’s trusted right-hand person.

What’s somewhat laughable about this badly made film is that even though there are only 20 students currently at this school, Ilse and Miss Rocholl are the only faculty members seen at Augusta-Victoria College. Where are the other employees? There isn’t even a janitor or caretaker in sight for this sizeable property.

Augusta-Victoria College is portrayed in the movie as a high-level finishing school for girls (they practice things such as poise and balance by walking with books on their heads), but there are no servants shown on the premises of this boarding school. After all, how can these Hitler youth practice a bigoted Nazi sense of superiority without “lowly” staffers to boss around? The main indication that the students are in a cult-like environment is when Ilse frequently takes the students to the nearby beach, where the students stand in military-like formations and move when she commands them to, like good little Stepford Nazis.

Thomas predictably gets hired at the school, so he’s technically the third faculty member shown in the movie. However, he doesn’t become a permanent staffer, because Miss Rocholl tells Thomas when she hires him that she wants to test him out on a trial basis first. In other words, he’s a temporary employee. This job interview takes place on August 21, 1939, which is six days after Wheatley has disappeared. By the time that the end of the story happens on September 3, 1939, Thomas will be long gone from his employment at Augusta-Victoria College.

In his job interview with Miss Rocholl, she is stern and judgmental. She asks Thomas about his personal life and finds out that he’s a bachelor with no children . When she asks him, “What sort of Englishman would accept a post teaching Herr Hitler’s legal German girls?” Thomas tells her that his father is German. And it’s convenient that he’s bilingual because Thomas has been hired as the school’s English teacher.

Miss Rocholl admits to Thomas that the school needed to hire someone on short notice because Thomas’ predecessor turned out to be “unreliable.” She adds, “My girls need order. Next week, we present them to the Anglo-German fellowship.” Thomas doesn’t bother to ask her what happened to his predecessor, because he already knows that Wheatley has disappeared. Thomas and the rest of the school will eventually find out what happened to Wheatley.

“Six Minutes to Midnight” has some filler and predictable scenes that always seem to be in movies where one of the main locations is a school for teenagers. There’s the stereotypical “mean girl”/queen bee student, whose name is Astrid (played Maria Dragus). And there’s the socially awkward outcast student, whose name is Gretel (played by Tijan Marei). The rest of the students are written with indistinguishable personalities. And most of the students do not have any speaking lines in the movie.

Astrid and Gretel are written as such extreme opposites that their characters are almost caricatures. Astrid is the outgoing popular student who excels in athletics and academics. Gretel is the shy misfit who’s smart but she doesn’t know how to swim, which is the main physical sport that the students have at the school. Gretel often spends time by herself while the other students participate in athletic and social activities.

Astrid is the type of person who will smile in someone’s face and then make insulting remarks behind that person’s back. That’s what she does to Thomas on his first day on the job at Augusta-Victoria College. Astrid is the first student to welcome him in the class, but later on, Thomas overhears Astrid telling another student with a smirk that Thomas wouldn’t be considered “man enough” for the Fuhrer, in other words, Adolf Hitler.

Meanwhile, Thomas establishes a bit of a rapport with bashful and sensitive Gretel, because he can relate to feeling like an outsider in this stuffy and elitist environment. He notices that Gretel is frequently shunned by her classmates, so he occasionally gives her little pep talks. But Thomas’ interactions with the students are not shown very much because he’s got an ulterior motive for being at this school. It isn’t long before Thomas is snooping around because he was sent to Augusta-Victoria College to find out what happened to Wheatley.

The movie makes subtle and not-so-subtle references to Augusta-Victoria College being a school that taught Nazi propaganda. Thomas finds an Augusta-Victoria College school crest embroidered on a patch, which has a lion flanked by the United Kingdom flag on one side and a Nazi swastika on the other. (This movie uses the real-life Augusta-Victoria College crest.)

One day, Thomas walks by a classroom and sees Miss Rocholl and the students listening to a Hitler speech on the radio. To his surprise, Miss Rocholl joins the students in a Nazi salute while they chant “Sieg Heil!” At that moment, Miss Rocholl and Thomas make eye contact, and she can sense his disgust.

Later, in a private meeting between Miss Rocholl and Thomas, she tries to justify her apparent allegiance to the Nazis. Miss Rocholl has this to say about joining in on the “Sieg Heil” chant: “It means ‘Hail Victory.’ That’s all … Why should we criticize a country that strives to be great?”

Miss Rocholl then tries to appeal to Thomas’ empathetic side by telling him: “These girls are my life. They give me hope. And that’s why I join in when they say, ‘Hail Victory.'” In another part of the story, Miss Rocholl says to Thomas that she wants to keep the girls as sheltered as possible from the outside world. Can you say “Nazi brainwashing school?”

And if it isn’t made clear enough that Augusta-Victoria College is a training ground for Hitler’s Nazi youth, there’s another scene where Thomas (who lurks quite a bit in the school hallways) walks by a classroom and sees Ilse pivoting a discussion with the students into an anti-Semitic lecture. Ilse starts off talking about how it’s hard to tell from appearances if someone is good or evil. Then she asks the students for examples of how to spot the differences between animals of the same species. And then she turns it into a discussion about how to find out the differences between Jews and Gentiles. The movie stops short of showing her going into details about how to identify Jewish people.

And what about Thomas’ spy mission? There are the predictable scenes of him hiding in places to eavesdrop on conversations. And don’t forget the formulaic scene of Thomas rifling through desk drawers and secretly photographing certain documents with a miniature camera that’s the same size as a modern-day flash drive.

The title of “Six Minutes to Midnight” comes from Thomas using the code 1154 (as in, 11:54 p.m.) to identify himself when he calls into spy headquarters. Technically, if he were using government time codes to signify “six minutes to midnight.” he should have used the digits 2354. But that’s the least of this movie’s problems with logic.

There’s also a fairly ludicrous scene of Thomas having a tension-filled meeting with his supervisor Colonel Smith (played David Schofield) at, of all places, a live comedy show. Let’s see: You’re an undercover spy who’s supposed to be having a secret conversation with your boss about a clandestine mission. And you think the best place to have this confidential conversation is in the audience of a show where you have to raise your voice in order to be heard because someone’s performing on stage while you’re talking. And you’re surrounded by people who could hear what you’re talking about in a theater that’s fairly dark, so you don’t really know who could be eavesdropping. Somewhere, James Bond is laughing at this spy sloppiness.

The very talented Jim Broadbent is in the cast of “Six Minutes to Midnight,” but he’s barely in the movie. His scenes last for less than 10 minutes, thereby squandering Broadbent’s talent. It’s another reason why “Six Minutes to Midnight” is foolish and annoying. Broadbent portrays a friendly man named Charlie, the owner of a private bus service called Charlie Bus Hire. It’s a small business that seems to have only one bus, and Charlie is the driver.

Thomas and Charlie cross paths a few times in the movie when Thomas needs a bus ride to wherever he needs to go. The government didn’t provide a car for Thomas while he was undercover for this assignment, presumably to make his teacher impersonation more believable. A low-paid teacher wasn’t supposed to be able to afford a car in those days.

Charlie is the type of small role that should have gone to a lesser renowned actor. An actor of Broadbent’s caliber should have been showcased more in this movie. It’s disappointing to see Broadbent, who is capable of better and more substantial work, in such a poorly written role that reduces him to some wisecracking jokes that don’t land well at all.

“Six Minutes to Midnight” really falls off the rails when Thomas goes on the run after being accused of a murder he didn’t commit. One of the characters ends up getting shot in front of Thomas one rainy night. Viewers get to see who the shooter is, but Thomas doesn’t see the killer because it was raining so hard and he was in a car when it happened.

After the murder, the shooter ran away and dropped the gun, with the intent to frame Thomas for the murder. And sure enough, Thomas ran out of the car and picked up the gun, right at the same moment that a police officer arrived to see Thomas with blood on his clothes and holding the murder weapon. What a coincidence.

James D’Arcy has the role of Captain Drey, the law enforcement officer who’s in charge of investigating the murder. Captain Drey doesn’t believe Thomas’ proclamations of innocence. Thomas and Captain Drey have the expected personality clashes. And you can easily predict how this murder is going to affect Thomas’ ability to stay undercover as a spy.

Izzard seems to be trying earnestly to be an action hero, but it’s just not believable in the context of how ridiculously many of the scenes are staged. The shootout scenes lack credibility because “Six Minutes to Midnight” is one of those movies where people spend more time talking while they’re aiming their guns than actually shooting their targets. And get used to aerial shots of Izzard running away on a beach, because there’s plenty of that repetition in the movie.

As for Dench and Juri, they’ve played the same types of characters in other movies before: Dench as the no-nonsense taskmaster, Juri as the helpful assistant/sidekick. The acting from the cast members isn’t terrible, but there’s nothing extraordinary or noteworthy about it either. The character of Thomas is very hollow and uninteresting. It’s kind of mind-boggling that Izzard (one of the screenplay co-writers) couldn’t come up with a better character for this starring role.

“Six Minutes to Midnight” director/co-writer Goddard puts some effort into making the scenes try to look artistic. The big showdown at the end of the movie takes place on a beach at night. Some flare guns are used in this scene, to visually stunning results. But those are just superficial effects. The actual confrontation with weapons in this scene ends up being very dull and anti-climactic.

“Six Minutes to Midnight” has an almost flippant and dismissive attitude about the disturbing genocide and other mayhem caused by Nazis. The movie only wants to address the Nazis’ destruction in vague, abstract terms. The characters in the movie don’t really talk about why the United Kingdom is headed toward war with Nazi Germany. Instead, it becomes all about whether or not Thomas can prove his innocence in the murder case and what’s going to happen to the Augusta-Victoria College students.

This movie didn’t have to be a history lesson, but it’s very off-putting that all these characters in “Six Minutes to Midnight” who work for the British government won’t even acknowledge the suffering of the people who are the targets of Nazi hate. It might have been the filmmakers’ way of showing how people were in denial or willing to enable Nazi atrocities. But it’s a weak excuse when most of the main characters in the story are not ignorant citizens and they know exactly why Great Britain is going to war with Nazi Germany.

Simply put: “Six Minutes to Midnight” gives a much higher priority in trying to make viewers care about the comfort and well-being of Nazi youth and their British teachers than it does in trying to make viewers care about the people whose lives were destroyed by Nazis. It’s a completely tone-deaf movie that couldn’t even deliver a suspenseful mystery story. And in the end, “Six Minutes to Midnight” is a time-wasting film where the main characters don’t seem to have any emotional growth because they’re all so emotionally barren from the start.

Review: ‘Voyagers,’ starring Tye Sheridan, Lily-Rose Depp, Fionn Whitehead and Colin Farrell

April 14, 2021

by Carla Hay

Lily-Rose Depp and Tye Sheridan in “Voyagers” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

“Voyagers”

Directed by Neil Burger

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in a spaceship from Earth, the sci-fi drama “Voyagers” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people, Asians and Latinos) who portray American scientists and crew members involved in exploring a new planet where human beings can possibly live.

Culture Clash: A power struggle erupts among the crew members, and it turns deadly.

Culture Audience: “Voyagers” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching derivative sci-fi movies that borrow heavily from dystopian young-adult novels with “survival of the fittest” themes.

Quintessa Swindell, Reda Elazouar, Fionn Whitehead, Archie Madekwe and Lou Llobel in “Voyagers” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

“Voyagers” is a disappointing space travel movie that’s the equivalent of being stuck on a pointless road trip with bickering 20-somethings from a bad soap opera. “Voyagers” is not an adventure story about exploring a new planet. The movie is really about a group of young people isolated on a spaceship in a bland ripoff of “Lord of the Flies.” The cast members’ overall serviceable performances can’t quite save “Voyagers” from the movie’s annoying “bait and switch” in its story, which has too many plot holes and not enough originality for it to be a truly enjoyable film.

Written and directed by Neil Burger, “Voyagers” begins with a captioned intro that explains why this space voyage is taking place: “As the Earth grows hotter, and drought and disease ravage the population, scientists look for a new planet—one that can support human life. In 2063, they find it. The human voyage to the planet will take 86 years.” Although the movie never says which government is spearheading this voyage, viewers can assume it’s the United States because all of the people involved have American accents.

Leading this experimental voyage is a scientist named Richard (played by Colin Farrell), who tells people in a meeting that the plan is to have 30 qualified crew members—all who were born and bred to live on a spaceship. These crew members (who were born from artificial insemination) will have a pre-determined number of children and grandchildren during this 86-year journey in outer space. During this time, these voyagers and their descendants are supposed to learn enough about this new planet to return to Earth and bring back this knowledge so that other humans from Earth can possibly start relocating to this new planet.

From the start, there are some major problems with the story. Richard is the only person who’s shown interacting with and educating the children who were selected to be born and and bred for this program. He has been involved in raising them since birth. The movie should have had more scientists and government officials involved in this training. Just because “Voyagers” is a low-budget independent film is no excuse for this lack of credibility. If you can afford Colin Farrell to be in your movie, you can afford to hire some more cast members to portray the people training the children.

The children, who are in the same age group, are first seen as 4-year-olds in a sterile spaceship simulation environment where they are solving puzzles on computers. Richard interacts with them while wearing a hazmat suit. He is kind and patient with the kids, who have deliberately been raised indoors their entire life. The reason for always keeping the children indoors is because if the kids knew what it was like to be outdoors on Earth, it could have negative effects on their mental health while they’re in outer space if they knew what they were missing on Earth.

There’s a scene early in the movie that completely contradicts what happens later in the story. During a teaching session, all of the kids are happy to see Richard when he enters the room. Most of the kids run up to him and hug him, and he hugs them back. But later in the story, when the children begin the voyage when they’re 24 years old, they act as if they’ve never expressed public displays of affection before. It doesn’t ring true at all, but it’s the basis for a huge turning point in the movie.

Richard, who is a bachelor with no kids of his own, has grown attached to these children. He’s so attached that he wants to go with them on this voyage. His supervisor Marianne Sancar (played by Veronica Falcón) is very reluctant to allow it. However, Richard tells her that he really won’t miss living on Earth at all. And the next thing you know, Richard is the only adult over the age of 30 who’s with the crew members who were bred for this voyage. Once Richard and the crew members live on the spaceship, he no longer has to wear a hazmat suit when he’s around them.

Here’s another problematic part of the story: No government would realistically allow a bunch of 24-year-olds who don’t have any life experience outside of a spaceship environment to be on their own to explore a new planet. It’s what would have happened if Richard had not insisted on going on this voyage too. Any scientific exploration like this one would require people who would know what it’s like to live on Earth (indoors and outdoors), to make informed decisions on whether or not a new planet could be inhabitable by human beings whose biology was wired to live on Earth through centuries of evolution. It’s basic science for any scientific exploration to have that comparison point.

The “bait” part of “Voyagers” starts off misleading viewers into thinking that these young people, who’ve been trained specifically to explore this new planet, will get to do this exploring in the movie. But no, here comes the “switch” part of the movie: “Voyagers” has absolutely zero screen time of these so-called explorers doing any exploring. It’s not really spoiler information to reveal this fact about “Voyagers.” It’s a fair warning to viewers that this so-called “new planet” is never seen in the movie. Instead, “Voyagers” is essentially a predictable and often-dull soap opera on a spaceship.

Out of the 30 young people who are the crew members, three are the main focus of the story. It’s telegraphed early on that these three are the main characters, in a scene with the future voyagers as 4-year-olds. They are the only three characters Richard is shown tucking into bed and calling them by their names when he says good night to them.

The three main characters at 24 years old are:

  • Christopher (played by Tye Sheridan), who is even-tempered and analytical.
  • Sela (played by Lily-Rose Depp), who is the group’s assertive and intelligent chief medical officer.
  • Zac (played by Fionn Whitehead), who is the group’s rebellious chief surveillance officer.

And because “Voyagers” is really a soap opera in space, you know what that means: love triangle. There are some other crew members whose personalities are given some notable screen time. They include:

  • Kai (played by Archie Madekwe), a mischief maker who likes breaking the rules.
  • Julie (played by Quintessa Swindell), a flirtatious engineer who has a mutual attraction to Kai.
  • Peter (played by Viveik Kalra), who becomes a rival to Kai for Julie’s affections.
  • Phoebe (played by Chanté Adams), who is the group member most likely to stick to the rules and protocol.
  • Edward (played by Isaac Hempstead Wright), a nerdy control room officer who’s the most “book smart” one in the group.
  • Anda (played by Madison Hu), a level-headed type who is good at negotiating.

All of the crew members except Richard are given a blue liquid called (unimaginatively) The Blue as part of their dining routine. Christopher finds out through some computer hacking that The Blue is really a drug that dulls human senses. It contains a toxin called T56j, which makes people docile and eliminates sexual desire and other sensual urges.

Zac is with Christopher when this information is discovered. Christopher then confronts Richard about it. Richard admits that The Blue is a medication that was given to the crew members to make them less likely to rebel or get distracted.

It’s also explained in the movie that the outer-space program doesn’t want the crew members to conceive children naturally. All conceptions are supposed to be by artificial insemination. It’s been pre-determined how many children and grandchildren each voyager will have, in order to prevent over-population.

Not surprisingly, it doesn’t sit too well with Christopher and Zac to find out that their lives have been strictly controlled and manipulated by being given The Blue drug without their knowledge and consent. They decide to stop taking The Blue. And eventually, Christopher and Zac tell some other crew members that The Blue is really a drug to keep them complacent. And, of course, the word gets out to everyone else, and they also stop drinking The Blue.

Remember that scene of the cute and cuddly kids running up to Richard and hugging him? Well, the filmmakers of “Voyagers” want people to forget that scene, because (plot hole alert) they want viewers to think that these kids have now grown up to be people who don’t know what it’s like to express affection. It’s unclear how long the voyagers were taking The Blue, but it doesn’t matter because it’s not a drug that causes amnesia where they would forget childhood memories.

There’s a scene on the spaceship where Christopher sees Richard and Sela talking, and Richard has his hand affectionately on Sela’s shoulder, like a father would for a daughter. Christopher gets a little freaked out and acts as if Richard is one step away from being a sexual predator because Christopher can’t believe that someone is actually touching Sela in this way. When Christopher asks Sela in private if there’s anything inappropriate going on between her and Richard, she denies it, but Christopher doesn’t look completely convinced. It’s all just sloppy and contradictory screenwriting.

Keep in mind, these voyagers are the same people who, when they were children, were jumping up and hugging Richard and letting him tuck them into bed. It’s quite an unrealistic stretch that Christopher, now in his 20s, would suddenly act like he’s never seen Richard touch Sela in a fatherly way before, when Richard is essentially the only father these kids have ever known. By the way, this movie never shows the young voyagers being curious about who their biological parents are, even though Christopher mentions in a conversation that they’ve inherited physical and personality traits from their unknown parents.

After certain characters in “Voyagers” stop taking The Blue, the movie makes a big deal of showing them acting out as they lose their inhibitions. For Zac, that means a touch can’t just be a touch. When he touches Sela’s face affectionately, it quickly turns into fondling her breasts without consent. Zac and Christopher suddenly get the urge to wrestle each other a lot. And there are multiple scenes of the crew members running playfully through hallways, as if they’ve never done it before in their lives.

Through a series of circumstances, the voyagers also learn about violence. And the rest of the movie plays out as predictably as you think it would. Christopher and Zac go from being friends to being bitter enemies. And in true “Lord of the Flies” fashion, people take sides, and there’s a battle over who’s going to be in power.

And what about the mission to explore this new planet? That gets lost in the arguing and fights that take up almost all of the last third of the movie. And there’s some nonsense about a possible alien that’s invaded the ship, which is a fear that Zac uses to manipulate people to do what he wants.

While all of this childish drama is going on, no one seems to be operating the spaceship. It must be on auto-pilot, just like this formulaic, substandard sci-fi flick is on auto-pilot for almost its entire duration. Out of all the actors portraying the young voyagers, Whitehead seems to be the one having the most fun (probably because he’s playing a villain role), and he smirks it up to the hilt.

Unfortunately, the scenes in the movie where the voyagers have been taking The Blue drug require them to talk in almost-robotic monotones. And so, there are long stretches of “Voyagers” that are quite boring because the actors are supposed to be portraying “numb” people. Richard is the only character on the spaceship who maintains a strong sense of lucid humanity, but the power structure ends up changing on the spaceship, so Richard isn’t in the movie as much as some viewers might think he would be.

The cinematography and visual effects for “Voyagers” aren’t terrible but they’re not outstanding either. The movie’s production design for the spaceship isn’t entirely convincing. The interior rooms often just look like a shiny and sterile cafeteria, office building or lounge space. There aren’t many exterior scenes in the movie because the voyagers spend more time quarreling or goofing off inside than actually working outside.

You know that “Voyagers” is a terrible sci-fi movie because it cares so little about this mission to explore a new planet. Not once do any of the voyagers talk about any hopes or fears that they have about what they might find on this new planet. You’d think that people who were raised to be these pioneering explorers would be curious. But no, not in this movie. “Voyagers,” just like the space mission in the movie, was badly conceived from the start and should have been aborted.

Lionsgate released “Voyagers” in U.S. cinemas on April 9, 2021.

Review: ‘Enforcement,’ starring Simon Sears, Jacob Lohmann and Tarek Zayat

April 10, 2021

by Carla Hay

Simon Sears, Jacob Lohmann and Tarek Zayat in “Enforcement” (Photo by Tine
Harden/Magnet Releasing)

“Enforcement”  

Directed by Anders Ølholm and Frederik Louis Hviid

Danish, Arabic and English with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Copenhagen, Denmark, the dramatic film “Enforcement” features a cast of white people and Arabic people representing the middle-class and working-class.

Culture Clash: During racial riots over police brutality, two white police officers are stuck in a predominantly Arabic/Muslim neighborhood after arresting an Arabic teenager for vandalism.

Culture Audience: “Enforcement” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in gritty dramas that explore issues of race and police brutality, even if some of the movie’s situations are too contrived to be entirely realistic.

Simon Sears, Jacob Lohmann and Tarek Zayat in “Enforcement” (Photo by Jacob Møller/Magnet Releasing)

“Enforcement” turns up the suspense and melodramatic moments in a tale of how prejudice and police brutality affect people in Copenhagen, Denmark. The movie mostly succeeds because of realistic portrayals of racism’s damage and because of the actors’ impressive performances. What isn’t so realistic is the movie’s plot: Two white cops in Copenhagen are stuck in a racial riot for hours without any backup.

Written and directed by Anders Ølholm and Frederik Louis Hviid, “Enforcement” was formerly titled “Shorta,” which is the Arabic word for “police.” The movie is told from the cops’ perspectives, since viewers will find out more about their personal lives and feelings than the personal lives and feelings of the Arabic/Muslim people who are the targets of racial profiling and police brutality in this story. “Enforcement” shows what happens when two white Danish cops find themselves way outside of their comfort zone, in a situation where they’re in the racial minority and aren’t in the type of control that they’re used to having.

The movie takes some simplistic shortcuts in trying to find some healing among the racial/ethnic hatred that’s portrayed in this story. And that’s why “Enforcement” isn’t completely convincing in how it depicts law enforcement’s response to an uprising from people pushing back against police racism. “Enforcement” is essentially a chase movie about a “worst case scenario” for cops when they lose their power and authority in their jurisdiction because they’re being hunted and are outnumbered by angry rioters. It’s a situation that could happen in real life, but not to the extreme where two cops in a big city are completely abandoned by their colleagues during a riot.

It’s not spoiler information for this movie, because it’s the basis of what happens for most the story. In reality, the nation’s military and other federal law enforcement would get involved if the local police were overwhelmed during a riot. And so, viewers will have to suspend some disbelief that the two cops in this story have to fend for themselves for hours while they’re trapped in a neighborhood that’s under siege.

The two cops who are at the center of the story are Jens Høyer (played by Simon Sears) and Mike Andersen (played by Jacob Lohmann), two police partners who have opposite personalities. You know where this is going, of course: One is a “good cop,” and the other is a “bad cop.” Jens is the quiet and sensitive “good cop,” who is happily married and respectful of women. Mike is the loudmouthed and aggressive “bad cop” who is a bigot and cheats on his wife. Mike is about 10 to 15 years older than Jens.

In the beginning of the movie, Copenhagen is in upheaval over a police brutality case: An unarmed 19-year-old black Muslim named Talib Ben Hassi was strangled by two cops named Kofoed and Poulsen, who put the teenager in a chokehold while trying to detain him. During this assault, which was caught on video, the teenager shouted, “I can’t breathe!”

Ben Hassi is now in a coma in a hospital’s intensive care unit. The cops involved in the incident have been placed on a leave of absence while the Copenhagen police’s internal affairs department investigates. The controversy has caused riots and arrests in the city.

The center of the civil unrest is in Copenhagen’s low-income Svalegården neighborhood, which is where the Ben Hassi family lives. Svalegården has a large population of Muslim people of color. The cops in the movie repeatedly refer to Svalegården as a “ghetto.”

It’s established early in the movie that Mike is going to cause problems. A female colleague named Rønning (played by Josephine Park) has a conversation with Jens before they head into a staff meeting. Jens will be partnered for the first time with Mike, who has a reputation for being a racist and sexist bully. Rønning doesn’t hold back in telling Jens what she thinks of Mike, by saying that she’d rather “blow my brains out” than work with Mike as a cop partner.

During the staff meeting, their boss Captain Hedegaard (played by Michael Brostrup) tells the assembled cops to stay clear of Svalegården because an increased police presence will just agitate the people there even more. But of course, there would be no “Enforcement” movie if Mike and Jens followed those orders. Jens and Mike find out the hard way how much their captain meant when he said that he didn’t want send any more police into Svalegården.

During Jens and Mike’s first day together as cop partners, Mike doesn’t waste time trying to dig into Jens’ personal life to try to get a read on him. While they’re driving in their squad car (with “alpha male” Mike as the driver), Mike asks Jens if he’s married and has children. Jens says he’s married but doesn’t have children. Mike says he’s married with kids and then makes a derogatory comment about their female colleague Rønning by asking Jens if Jens has had sex with Rønning yet. (Mike uses cruder terms than what’s described here.)

Jens replies that Rønning is a former trainee of his and that it would be inappropriate to have sex with her. Mike replies: “That makes it even hotter: a bit of student/teacher action.” Mike also makes it clear that he has no qualms about cheating on his wife. As Mike and Jens patrol the streets in their squad car, Mike lets it be known that he thinks the cops in the Ben Hassi case should be completely exonerated. Mike also spews some bigoted comments about gypsies to make it obvious that he’s prejudiced against people who aren’t white.

Jens feels pressure to impress Mike, knowing that he’s stuck with Mike, and Mike has seniority over Jens. Jens tells Mike a story about how he accidentally set off a box of grenades at a police department where he previously worked. The building was evacuated, but people forgot for a few hours that there were two gypsies left behind in the lockup area. When they found the gypsies, they were terrified out of their minds. Mike and Jens laugh about this story, with Mike commenting about how funny it must have been to see that the gypsies had soiled themselves from fear.

It’s in this scene that viewers get the first indication that although Jens is the “good cop,” he’s willing to go along with what he thinks Mike wants, even if it means pretending that he might be as prone to corruption as Mike is. (This relationship might remind people of the cop characters that Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke portrayed in the 2001 movie “Training Day.”) A great deal of “Enforcement” is about answering this question: Is it possible for Jens to do the right thing when he’s faced with an ethical dilemma?

While on patrol duty, Jens and Mike follow a Mercedes-Benz E-Class that’s registered to a suspected criminal named Hamza Alfarsi. They follow the car into Svalegården, despite being given orders to steer clear of the neighborhood. Jens is a little hesitant about being in Svalegården, but since Mike is in the driver’s seat, Jens has no choice but to go along.

To no one’s surprise, Mike’s motivation for following the car is so he can see if there’s a way to harass the Arabic people who are in the car. Mike tries these intimidation tactics when he follows the car to a house and orders the people in the car to get out. However, Mike is soon surrounded by some Arabic men, and he backs off when he sees that someone is filming him with a phone.

Mike doesn’t say it loud, but viewers of this movie can tell that he’s infuriated about being embarrassed in front of Jens for this failed harassment attempt. And so, it’s easy to predict that Mike doesn’t want to leave Svalegården until he’s taken his anger out on other Arabs whom he wants to arrest. But before that happens, the two cops stop by a local boxing gym, where Mike does some more ego posturing, to show Jens that Mike is well-known in the neighborhood.

The gym is run by a man named Sami (played by Dulfi Al-Jabouri), who seems to tolerate Mike because he doesn’t want to get on Mike’s vengeful side. The movie makes a point of showing that someone has graffitied “Die Pigs” on one of the gym walls. In the gym are two teenagers named Iza (played by Issa Khattab) and Daniel (played by Abdelmalik Dhaflaoui), who are about 16 or 17 years old. Iza tells Sami that he wants to be a Big Brother (as in the Big Brothers mentor program), but Sami tells Iza that he isn’t old enough yet. It won’t be the last time that Iza and Daniel are seen in this movie.

Jens and Mike then go outside, where Mike spots his next Arab target. He detains a teenager named Amos Al-Shami (played by Tarek Zayat) to harass him, even though the teenager isn’t doing anything wrong. Amos is about 18 or 19 years old. Mike wants to provoke the teen into doing something that would be grounds for arrest.

After demanding to see Amos’ photo ID, Mike asks for the last four digits of the Amos’ Social Security number. Amos refuses. Knowing his rights, Amos takes out his phone and starts filming this harassment. This act of self-protection seems to anger Mike even more. Meanwhile, Jens is standing by in case things turn violent. Some other teenagers, who are not too far away, are witnessing the harassment. Although the other teens can’t hear the conversation, they can see what’s going on.

Mike humiliates Amos with an illegal strip search, by ordering Amos to take off his trousers. Amos complies out of fear of being arrested, During the strip search. Amos remains stoic and calm, with a demeanor that seems to silently say, “You can’t break me.” Amos certainly has more dignity than the racist cop who abuses his power to bully people. The teens watching this harassment begin shouting at and jeering at the cops. Mike eventually backs off because the entire incident is being recorded on video and he feels that he has sufficiently embarrassed Amos.

As Jens and Mike drive off in their squad car, someone throws a cup of milkshake on the windshield of the car. (The movie never shows who was the culprit.) The teenagers scatter as the cops give chase, and Amos is the one who’s caught. Mike and Jens quickly arrest Amos for vandalism, but Amos protests and says he wasn’t the one who threw the milkshake.

The word soon rapidly spreads in Svalegården that another Muslim of color has been harassed by white cops. And that brings out an angry mob of mostly young Muslim men. The mob doesn’t come out all at once, but Jens and Mike quickly figure out that they’re not safe in this neighborhood.

And something happens to Jens and Mike’s squad car so that they can’t escape in the car. Eventually, Jens and Mike have to replace their police clothing items with civilian clothes, so that they aren’t recognizable as police officers. And to the dismay of these two cops, they call for backup and are told that their police department won’t send anyone to help them because it’s too dangerous.

There are some twists and turns to the story (some that are more predictable than others), which keeps the film moving with a tension-filled pace. Jens, Mike and Amos (who’s still in police custody) spend a lot of the movie just trying to stay alive. Although Jens appears to be the main protagonist at the beginning of the movie, there’s an entire section in the last third of the movie where Mike is the focal point after he and Jens get separated in the chaos.

Amos lives with his single mother Abia (played by Özlem Saglanmak) and his 5-year-old sister Amira (played by Lara Aksoy) in an apartment building. As day turns into night and Amos still hasn’t come home, there are scenes of a worried Abia wondering where Amos is, when she knows that there are riots going on and she’s fearing the worst. Amos hasn’t been answering his cell phone. It’s shown in the movie what happened to his phone. And for obvious reasons, Abia doesn’t call the police to report her son missing.

Aside from the expected shootouts and chase scenes, the real intrigue of “Enforcement” is in how Mike, Jens and Amos navigate the changing dynamics of their relationship as the story goes on and how race plays a role. Although it might be easy to assume that Mike and Jens should have let Amos go so that the cops could focus on defending themselves, Mike and Jens actually need Amos for protection. The cops know that the rioters are less likely to attack the cops if they have a person of color with them.

The cops begin to understand that, under these circumstances, their “white privilege” is actually a detriment that could cost them their lives. “Enforcement” isn’t subtle at all with this message. The movie shows in various ways how a racist cop like Mike, who’s become accustomed to getting away with inflicting terror on people because of their race, is now getting a taste of his own medicine. Jens, who represents white people who enable white racists, also learns some very hard lessons on what it’s like to be targeted for race-based violence.

The performances of Sears, Lohmann and Zayat get the majority of screen time. All three actors carry the movie quite well, even when some scenarios look over-dramatic. As filmmakers, Ølholm and Hviid show a knack for telling this story in a compelling way that doesn’t tie up all loose ends with a pleasant and pretty bow. “Enforcement” takes place in a 24-hour period, but the movie is clear with its message that systemic racism doesn’t go away after a night of rioting.

Magnolia Pictures’ Magnet Releasing released “Enforcement” in select U.S. cinemas and on demand on March 19, 2021.

Review: ‘Dolphin Island,’ starring Peter Woodward, Tyler Jade Nixon, Dionne Lea, Bob Bledsoe, David Raizor, Annette Lovrien Duncan and Aaron Burrows

April 7, 2021

by Carla Hay

Tyler Jade Nixon in “Dolphin Island” (Photo courtesy of Entertainment Squad)

“Dolphin Island”

Directed by Mike Disa

Culture Representation: Taking place in the Bahamas, the family drama film “Dolphin Island” features a racially diverse cast of characters (white and black) representing the middle-class and upper-middle-class.

Culture Clash: A British paternal grandfather, who has custody of his orphaned American teenage granddaughter, lives with her on a boat in the Bahamas, but the teenager’s maternal grandparents from New York City don’t approve of her living situation and want custody of her. 

Culture Audience: “Dolphin Island” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in sentimental family-oriented entertainment, but the movie’s substandard acting and overly sappy screenplay will be too low-quality for many people’s tastes.

Peter Woodward and Tyler Jade Nixon in “Dolphin Island” (Photo courtesy of Entertainment Squad)

The filmmakers of “Dolphin Island” clearly intended to make this drama a family-friendly story. However, the movie has too much unrealistic corniness, sloppy predictability and terrible acting for it to be recommended to anyone looking for passably good, memorable entertainment. “Dolphin Island” is as formulaic as can be, but it’s made worse by the insipid dialogue and awkward performances by many of the cast members.

“Dolphin Island” was directed by Mike Disa, who co-wrote the movie’s screenplay with Shaked Berenson and Rolfe Kanefsky. The movie takes place in the Bahamas. And if nothing else, at least people will see some nice Caribbean scenery. But right away, the movie has a sheen of phoniness in the opening scene on an island pier, which features the local people acting way too upbeat and chipper, as if they’re in an infomercial for Bahamas tourism. You almost except them to break out into song, like a Disney musical.

British native Jonah Coleridge (played by Peter Woodward) has been living in the Bahamas for the past 10 years with his 14-year-old granddaughter Annabel (played by Tyler Jade Nixon) on a small house boat/fishing vessel that he owns. Annabel is homeschooled, and Jonah makes a living by giving boat tours around the island. Annabel’s parents were marine biologists who died 10 years earlier in a diving accident. Jonah’s son was Annabel’s father.

Annabel’s parents co-founded a non-profit wildlife research and conservation center, which is still open for business. However, it’s mentioned that business has slowed down because of the most recent hurricane. Annabel loves animals and ocean life, so it’s hinted that she probably wants to follow in her parents’ footsteps and possibly work at the wildlife center someday.

Jonah is currently a bachelor. His first marriage ended in divorce. His second and most recent wife is now deceased. After Annabel’s parents died, Jonah moved to the Bahamas to take permanent custody of Annabel because he didn’t want to disrupt her life by having her move to another country. And he also fell in love with the Bahamas.

The opening scene of “Dolphin Island” is intended to show that despite their family tragedy, Jonah and Annabel have managed to have a pretty blissful life together. And since this movie is called “Dolphin Island,” you just know that there’s going to be a cute dolphin that does tricks in the movie. Her name is Mitzy, and Annabel considers Mitzy to be her best friend.

Jonah and Annabel adore each other. And as they walk through the pier, which has local businesses nearby, everyone greets each other with smiles, waves and friendly banter. It’s all a big lovefest where everyone gets along with each other. Well, gosh golly gee willikers, isn’t that sweet?

Too bad some of this good cheer is ruined by embarrassingly bad lines of dialogue. Jonah, who likes to smile a lot, declares about Annabel and Mitzy: “Every day is a good day, as long I have my two girls!” When Annabel stops to talk to a couple of the local men lounging at the pier, she foists a corny joke on them: “Where does a fish keep money? In a river bank!”

This is going to be an excruciating stay on Dolphin Island because the bad dialogue gets worse. Annabel and Jonah have a near-perfect life in paradise. What could possibly go wrong?

The first sign that things are amiss comes when a teenage boy, who’s around Annabel’s age, pickpockets a wallet from an unsuspecting tourist. As soon as the boy has the wallet, he turns around and pretends that the wallet fell out of the tourist’s pocket and plays the role of a Good Samaritan who’s returning the wallet. It’s a well-known scam where the con artist hopes that the wallet owner will offer a reward for the “found” wallet. And it works, because the tourist gives the teenager some cash as a thank you.

The next time that the pickpocket pulls this con game on another tourist, Annabel sees it happening not too far away, and the boy notices that Annabel has witnessed him committing this crime. She shakes her head in disapproval and points at the boy silently to indicate that he needs to confess immediately. The boy sheepishly tells the tourist that the wallet wasn’t lost but that he actually stole it. The tourist accepts the boy’s apology.

One of the things that’s problematic about this whole scenario is its racist overtone. The teenage pickpocket is black and the tourists are white. When viewers find out who the pickpocket is, it’s obvious that there was no reason to portray him in the movie as a criminal. Movies and TV shows have already oversaturated people with negative stereotypes of young black men as criminals. It’s disappointing that a supposedly wholesome movie like “Dolphin Island” has pandered to this damaging and racist stereotype for no good reason.

It turns out (and this isn’t spoiler information) that the teenage boy is new to the area. His name is Mateo Rolle (played by Aaron Burrows), and he’s not a poor and desperate street kid. He lives with his divorced mother in a loving, middle-class home. The movie gives no explanation for why he was pickpocketing people. It’s a horrible way to introduce a character who happens to be black by making it look like this person is a criminal.

The movie also makes it look like Mateo’s “crime spree” ended only because Annabel stopped it, which is the filmmakers’ way of making Annabel (who is white) look more virtuous than Mateo. The racist subtext is pretty obvious. At any rate, now that Mateo has been shamed and has shown remorse, he and Annabel start talking and quickly end up becoming friends. Because that’s what happens in a corny movie like this one.

Meanwhile, Annabel is going to have more to worry about than busting teenage pickpockets. A child protective services worker named Desaray Rolle (played by Dionna Lea) from the Freeport Social Services Department has shown up on Jonah’s boat to let him know that she’s investigating him, due to a complaint that was filed about the living conditions he has for Annabel. Desaray says she’s taken over for the previous case worker who passed away.

Jonah is immediately defensive and argumentative. He makes a bad impression on Desaray, who is skeptical of Jonah’s proclamations that Annabel is living in a safe and loving environment. It doesn’t help that Desaray sees some local men napping on chairs nearby on the pier, with some beer bottles near the chairs. Desaray assumes that these men are passed out drunk and that Annabel is living among a bunch of degenerate partiers.

Desaray tells Jonah that she thinks Jonah is a “beach bum … I should know. I was married to one!” Even if viewers didn’t know Desaray and Mateo’s last name was the same, the way that Desaray and Mateo are introduced in the story makes it pretty obvious that they are both related, in order to create come more dramatic tension. Eventually, it’s revealed that Desaray is Mateo’s mother. And so now, Annabel has found out that her new friend/potential boyfriend Mateo has a mother who has the power to determine if Jonah is an unfit guardian or not.

Who filed the complaint to investigate Jonah for how he’s raising Annabel? Jonah finds out when he gets a visit from a sleazy lawyer named Robert Carbunkle (played by Bob Bledsoe), who tells Jonah that he’s the attorney for the people who filed the complaint: Annabel’s well-to-do maternal grandparents Samuel Williams (played by David Raizor) and Sheryl Williams (played by Annette Lovrien Duncan), who live in New York City. Samuel and Sheryl, who haven’t seen Annabel in 10 years, have decided that they miss Annabel, and they want her to live with them in New York.

Robert offers Jonah a sizeable amount of money to give up custody of Annabel to the other grandparents. An infuriated Jonah immediately turns down the offer. And it’s during this heated discussion that viewers find out, when Jonah tells Robert, that before Annabel’s parents were married, Samuel tried to bribe Jonah’s son to break up with Samuel’s daughter because Samuel didn’t approve of the relationship. Jonah’s son refused the offer. And when Samuel’s daughter found out about the bribe offer, she remained estranged from her parents until she died. Samuel and Sheryl last saw Annabel at the funeral for Annabel’s parents.

Of course, this custody battle turns into a war. Samuel and Sheryl eventually arrive in the Bahamas for legal proceedings. A lot of what the judge will decide depends on what Desaray puts in her evaluation report. But Jonah has already said and done a lot to alienate Desaray, even though the way that Jonah and Desaray met just screams “meet cute moment,” where people who dislike each other when they first meet end up being attracted to each other.

Samuel is more ruthless about the custody fight than Sheryl is because Samuel thinks he can buy his way into getting whatever he wants. Annabel and Jonah don’t want to be separated from each other, so there are tears and meltdowns aplenty. The acting from most of the cast members is just plain amateurish, with many of the actors going too over-the-top with melodramatics. Woodward has moments where he shows he has more talent than the other actors, but he too eventually sinks into the quagmire of mawkishness.

People who have seen enough of this type of formulaic mush can easily figure out what happens for the rest of the story. The last third of the movie has an almost-laughable “race against time” chase scene in the water, because we can’t forget that the dolphin has to be useful in this schlocky film. If you’re going to visit “Dolphin Island,” just know you’ll be stuck neck-deep in silly schmaltz that will leave you cringing.

Entertainment Squad released “Dolphin Island” on digital and VOD on March 2, 2021.

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