Tag: drama

Review: ‘Two of Us’ (2020), starring Barbara Sukowa and Martine Chevallier

February 7, 2021

by Carla Hay

Martine Chevallier and Barbara Sukowa in “Two of Us” (Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)

“Two of Us” (2020)

Directed by Filippo Meneghetti

French with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in France, the dramatic film “Two of Us” features an all-white cast of characters representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: Two elderly women who have been longtime secret lovers have different ideas on when to make their romance public, and then one of them has a stroke that takes the relationship in another direction.

Culture Audience: “Two of Us” will appeal primarily to people are interested in compelling dramas that deal with issues of LGBTQ people who are afraid to reveal their sexual identities and issues about health care for elderly people.

Léa Drucker and Martine Chevallier in “Two of Us” (Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)

The French dramatic film “Two of Us” shines an emotionally powerful light on an issue that’s almost never covered in mainstream films: What happens when LGBTQ partners have a health crisis that needs caregiver aid, but one partner has no legal right to care for the other? The issue becomes more complicated when the couple’s romance has been kept a secret and the ailing partner wants to keep the relationship “in the closet.”

“Two of Us” is the first feature film from writer/director Filippo Meneghetti, who shows a knack for telling this story in an artful and respectful way. There are a few unexpected twists and turns in the movie, but it’s also a film that is entirely believable. Thanks to an intriguing screenplay and convincing performances from the cast members, “Two of Us” touches on universal themes about the freedom to love openly and how that freedom is often restricted by bigotry and fear. It’s no wonder that “Two of Us” was France’s entry for the 2021 Academy Awards.

“Two of Us” tells the story of retirees Nina Dorn (played by Barbara Sukowa) and Madeleine Girard (played by Martine Chevallier), who live across the hall from each other in an apartment building in an unnamed city in France. To the people they know, Nina and Madeleine seem to be platonic neighbors. But in reality, Nina and Madeleine (whom Nina has affectionately nicknamed Mado) have been secret lovers for about 20 years.

Madeleine is a native of France, while Nina is originally from Germany. It’s revealed later in the story that Nina used to be a tour guide in various countries, and it’s implied that Nina met Madeleine this way. Madeleine is a widow whose husband has been dead for a few years, so Madeleine is now the only owner of her apartment.

It’s mentioned more than once in the film that Madeleine’s marriage was an unhappy one, and her late husband was abusive to her emotionally and possibly physically. But now that Madeleine’s husband is dead, she and Nina are free to have sleepovers at each other’s place. They have keys to each other’s apartment.

Nina is the one who usually goes to Madeleine’s apartment, where in one of the early scenes of the movie, they have a lovers’ tryst that shows their passion for each other hasn’t dwindled. In another scene, Madeleine and Nina slow dance closely to the love song “Chariot (Sul Mio Curro),” which is their favorite song as a couple. It’s a song that they like to play to get in a good mood.

Madeleine and her late husband have two children, who are now in their 30s: daughter Anne (played by Léa Drucker) and son Frédéric (played by Jérôme Varanfrain), who visit Madeleine on a regular basis. Anne has a son named Théo (played by Augustin Reynes), who’s about 10 or 11 years old. Madeleine is much closer to Anne than she is to Frédéric, who seems to resent Madeleine because he suspects that Madeleine was unfaithful in her marriage.

Anne is a stylist at a hair salon, and so she’s naturally her mother’s hair stylist too. When Ann does her mother’s hair, it’s their time to catch up on “girl talk.” Anne thinks that she and her mother have the type of relationship where they can tell each other anything. But it won’t be long before Anne finds out that there’s a lot she didn’t know about her mother.

In the beginning of “Two of Us,” Madeleine and Nina are blissfully happy but have reached a crossroads in their relationship. Nina has been bringing up the idea for them to move to Rome and get a place together. Madeleine is more cautious about that idea, but she has agreed to sell the apartment and to finally tell her family about the true nature of her relationship with Nina.

There is very little revealed about Nina’s background. She doesn’t mention having any family members or former lovers. It’s implied that Nina left everything behind in Germany to move to France. Nina is a lot more comfortable with the idea of living openly as a lesbian, but Madeleine is the one who’s resistant to “come out of the closet” because Madeleine is afraid that her children will be upset and reject her.

One day, Madeleine has a prospective buyer come over to look at the apartment. (Apparently, Madeleine is acting as her own real-estate agent, since no agent is seen or mentioned every time she discusses selling the apartment with anyone.) The prospective buyer is a professional-looking man in his 30s named Mr. Brémond (played by Hervé Sogne), who makes an offer of €250,000 to buy the apartment.

Nina plays the part of a nosy neighbor who invites herself over when Madeleine is showing the apartment to Mr. Brémond. Nina’s tells Mr. Brémond that she and Madeleine are friends and her apartment layout and size are identical to Madeleine’s apartment, so Nina says she’s curious about what a prospective buyer would think. Privately, Nina has told Madeleine that she’s saved up enough money for it to be realistic for them to move Rome. Nina’s dream is to live near the Tiber River.

While all of these plans are going on, Madeleine has a small birthday celebration in her home with just her children Anne and Frédéric and grandson Théo. It’s here that Madeleine plans to tell her family that she and Nina are lovers and that they plan to move to another country together. But Madeleine can’t bring herself to tell them. The celebration hits a sour note when the subject turns to Madeleine’s late husband, and Frédéric angrily tells Madeleine that she couldn’t wait until her husband died.

The next day, Nina asks Madeleine with anticipation how Madeleine’s family took the news. “They agreed,” Madeleine tells Nina. It’s a lie of course. And Nina inevitably finds out when she happens to see Mr. Brémond outside the apartment building, and he tells her that Madeleine changed her mind about selling the apartment.

Just at that moment, Madeleine is looking out her apartment window and sees Nina talking to Mr. Brémond. She quickly goes outside to try to diffuse the emotional explosion that’s about to happen. But it’s too late.

Nina furiously confronts Madeleine about her lies and says she can’t take hiding their relationship anymore. Nina then asks Mr. Brémond if he has a problem with two “old lesbians.” A flustered and embarrassed Mr. Brémond says no. Nina then rips into Madeleine some more and ends the argument by calling Madeleine “pathetic” before Nina storms off.

The next day, Nina is over at Madeleine’s place when she notices an unattended frying pan that’s lit on the stove. She senses that something is wrong and looks for Madeleine in the apartment. The next thing you know, an ambulance is called to take Madeleine to a hospital.

Nina and Anne go to the hospital, but since Nina isn’t considered a family member, she can only wait to find out what happened from Anne. In the waiting area, Anne tells Nina that Madeleine had a stroke and the prognosis isn’t good. Although Madeleine is in stable condition, the doctors say it’s unlikely that Madeleine will be able to speak again.

It’s devastating news. And Nina gets even more distraught when she finds out that Anne and Peter have hired a live-in caretaker named Muriel (played by Muriel Bénazéraf), who firmly declines Nina’s offers to help Muriel look after Madeleine. Muriel is also very strict about when Nina can come over to visit Madeleine, by limiting the visiting hours only to during the day. At this point, Muriel and Anne have no idea that Nina has a key to Madeleine’s apartment.

The first time that Nina tries to visit Madeleine when she comes from from the hospital, Muriel tells Nina to come back at 8:30 the next morning. Nina can’t wait that long though, so she sneaks into the apartment while Muriel is asleep. Nina rushes to Madeleine’s side and tells her that she’s sorry for the insulting argument that she had with Madeleine. Unfortunately, Madeleine stares ahead and gives no indication that she’s aware of what Nina is saying or even knows who Nina is.

The movie then shows a forlorn Nina sitting in her apartment the next morning and waiting for the clock to get to 8:30. Nina is careful about appearing too over-eager because Muriel and later Anne begin to show signs that they’re suspicious of Nina. They think it’s odd that Nina shows a little too much interest in being around Madeleine.

Now that Nina can no longer come and go whenever she wants into Madeleine’s apartment, Nina has to decide how she’s going to handle being able to see Madeleine on a daily basis. Nina’s comes up with two options in her plan: win over Muriel or try to get Muriel fired. In the limited time that Nina now spends with Madeleine, she notices that Madeleine seems to be aware of her presence and her physical abilities seem to improve.

Aside from the pressing matter of how much Madeleine can be rehabilitated, there’s the lingering question of how much longer Nina and Madeleine’s relationship can be kept a secret. Nina knows that Madeleine wasn’t ready to tell her family, but should Nina make the decision for her, now that Madeleine can’t speak? And would the family negatively react if they found out the truth?

Madeleine has her stroke about 25 minutes into this 95-minute film, so the rest of the movie really shifts to Nina’s perspective. Her turmoil is compounded by the fact that she has no one she can turn to for help, since Nina and Madeleine really kept their secret love affair only to themselves. It’s enough to drive anyone a little crazy. And there are some things that Nina does that indicate she might be slipping close to that edge.

“Two of Us” has a some melodrama, but not enough to take away from the emotional sincerity of the film. It’s a somber meditation that shows how homophobia can often affect LGBTQ partners from living openly and legally being able to take care of each other if someone in the relationship needs round-the-clock caregiving. From Nina’s perspective, her heartbreak also comes from wondering if the woman she loves is gone forever, because Madeleine can no longer speak and no longer has the personality she used to have.

Sukowa anchors the film with a quiet intensity that takes viewers through Nina’s emotional nightmare and increasing desperation. And although Chevallier’s Madeleine character is a stroke patient for most of the movie, she delivers an impressive performance where she must act primarily with her eyes when Madeleine becomes otherwise physically incapacitated. Before the stroke, Nina seemed to be more the more mysterious one in the relationship since her personal history is very vague. But by the end of the movie, Nina is the character that viewers will end up feeling like they know better, for obvious reasons.

“Two of Us” writer/director Meneghetti doesn’t make any preachy judgments on what happens in the movie. Anne and Nina end up clashing with each other over decisions on how to handle Madeleine’s rehabilitation, but the movie doesn’t try to be heavy-handed about who’s right and who’s wrong. People can see both sides of the argument and find reasons to see why each woman believes strongly that she knows what’s best for Madeleine. In its own heartbreaking way, “Two of Us” is an example of how true love can endure, but it’s better when that love can be expressed openly and honestly.

Magnolia Pictures released “Two of Us” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and on VOD on February 5, 2021. The movie was released in France and other countries in 2020.

Review: ‘Mass’ (2021), starring Martha Plimpton, Jason Isaacs, Ann Dowd and Reed Birney

February 6, 2021

by Carla Hay

Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton and Breeda Wool in “Mass” (Photo by Ryan Jackson-Healy)

“Mass”

Directed by Fran Kanz

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the dramatic film “Mass” features an almost all-white cast (with one African American) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: Two men and two women, who have a tragedy in common, gather in a church meeting room to air out their differences.

Culture Audience: “Mass” will appeal primarily to people interested in dialogue-heavy movies about grief, mental illness and coping with the violent death of a loved one.

Ann Dowd and Reed Birney in “Mass” (Photo by Ryan Jackson-Healy)

The title of the movie “Mass” can have a double meeting. On the one hand, the movie, which takes entirely at or near an Episcopal church, can refer to the religious ceremony called a mass. On the other hand, it could refer to the deadly mass shooting that has directly affected two men and two women, who have gathered at an Episcopal church in an unnamed U.S. city to have a difficult meeting about this tragedy. (The movie was actually filmed in Hailey, Idaho, but almost all of the movie’s scenes take place indoors.) Fran Kanz, who is known as an actor in the 2012 horror flick “The Cabin in the Woods” and the sci-fi TV series “JourneyQuest,” makes an impressive debut as a feature-film director in “Mass,” a movie which he also wrote. “Mass” had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.

“Mass” is a very well-written and intense film that relies entirely on the actors to make or break the authenticity in this gripping story. The movie centers on four people who have a painful discussion about a tragedy that has left them emotionally broken and damaged. Before these four people meet at the church, the story unfolds in layers, as viewers see a church office manager named Judy (played by Breeda Wool) nervously preparing for these visitors to gather in a room that has been reserved specifically for this meeting.

Judy asks a college-age assistant named Anthony (played by Kagen Albright) to help her get the room ready. Soon, a woman named Kendra (played by Michelle N. Carter) arrives to inspect the room and make sure that it’s appropriate for the meeting. Kendra seems to have been the one to choose the church as a meeting place. Judy is eager to please Kendra, who looks over the room in a business-like and no-nonsense manner.

The first clue that this meeting is about a traumatic, violent incident is when Kendra notices some stained-glass hanging decorations on the windows. Red is one of the decorations’ main colors. And from a distance, the red could look like bloodstains. Judy notices it too, and anxiously explains to Kendra that these stained-class decorations were made by some of the church kids. Judy says that the decorations could be removed before the visitors for the meeting get there. Kendra says it isn’t necessary.

Kendra is obviously the meeting’s facilitator, but she tells Judy that she will not be in the room during the meeting, in order to give the people in the meeting their privacy. It’s another clue that the meeting is of a very sensitive and confidential nature. Is Kendra a social worker? A counselor? Someone else? It’s never really made clear what her occupation is, but in the brief time that she’s on screen, Kendra seems to have the role of someone who is supposed to remain neutral in something that seems to be controversial.

Who are the people who will be participating in this tension-filled meeting? The married couple that viewers see first are Gail and Jay Perry, who drove down from an unnamed city for this gathering. Gail (played by Martha Plimpton) and Jay (played by Jason Isaacs), who are in their 50s, drive up to the church and park their car outside. However, Gail gets nervous and tells Jay to drive away so she can have more time to brace herself for this meeting.

They park near a fenced field that has a red ribbon tied to the fence. The camera lingers on the ribbon. It’s an obvious sign that this was the site of a makeshift memorial. Who died and why are these four people meeting? All the clues are there: A violent death, a makeshift memorial, two couples having an emotional discussion together for the very first time.

Gail feels ready to go back to the church. And when Gail and Jay go back to the church, they are greeted warmly by Judy and Kendra. Based on Judy’s comments, she’s not so eager to meet the other two people who arrive next, although when they do arrive she has a forced, polite smile. The other two visitors are a divorced couple in their 60s. It’s obvious that they’re no longer together when they arrive separately and aren’t seen wearing wedding rings.

Former spouses Richard (played by Reed Birney) and Linda (played by Ann Dowd) haven’t seen each other in a while. Richard no longer lives in the area, because he said that he traveled by plane for this somber occasion. Later, he says he won’t be staying in the area for the rest of the day. Richard gives the impression that he’s a busy businessman, while the career backgrounds of Gail, Jay and Linda are never revealed. At one point in the story, Richard says that he isn’t religious, so meeting in a church is outside of his comfort zone.

Linda has brought a bouquet of wild flowers, which she offers to Gail as a gift. Gail declines to take the flowers but later changes her mind in order to not create any further tension. It’s another clue about where the hard feelings are between these four people. After some awkward small talk is exchanged, Kendra and Judy show Gail, Jay, Linda and Richard to the meeting room and leave the four visitors there to talk. Kendra says before she leaves them together, “I’m hopeful that we think this was a good thing to do by the time we leave here today.”

And that’s when the movie starts to peel back the layers of turmoil and trauma that have led to this excruciating meeting. It won’t be revealed in this review who died and who committed the mass murder. But it’s enough to say that those details come out in bits and pieces. And then the floodgates open with the blame, anger, sadness and confusion over how the murders could have been prevented.

What makes “Mass” so outstanding is that there isn’t a single line of dialogue or action that looks or sounds phony. Because 80% of the movie takes place in this one room, “Mass” could very much be a play. It’s not an easy film to watch for anyone who is very sensitive to the topic of mass murder. However, “Mass” presents an excellent story that looks at this type of tragedy from various perspectives of loved ones who are left behind.

All four of the main actors give stellar performances. However, Plimpton and Dowd shine the most because their characters Gail and Linda express their emotions more freely than the men do. “Mass” is also a raw look at different ways that people grieve and try to make sense of a senseless crime. And it’s also a realistic portrayal of survivor guilt and how people who didn’t cause the crime can still feel responsible for it.

Kanz’s directing style is as minimalist as his writing style is rich with naturalistic language. It’s a combination that works for the movie’s setting. And the movie greatly benefits from being well-cast with actors who never strike a false note with their characters. “Mass” is a movie that will linger in people’s memories long after they watch it. And it will be a story that will come to mind when people think about how mass murders cause untold traumas that don’t necessarily make headlines.

UPDATE: Bleecker Street will release “Mass” in select U.S. cinemas on October 8, 2021.

Review: ‘Supernova’ (2021), starring Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci

February 5, 2021

by Carla Hay

Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci in “Supernova” (Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street)

“Supernova”

Directed by Harry Macqueen

Culture Representation: Taking place in unnamed locations in England, the dramatic film “Supernova” features an all-white cast representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: Two middle-aged men (one British, one American), who have been love partners for about 20 years, have very different ways of coping when one of them gets early-onset dementia.

Culture Audience: “Supernova” will appeal primarily to people who like well-acted and understated dramas about how loved ones cope with a health crisis.

Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth in “Supernova” (Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street)

The dramatic film “Supernova” deftly and admirably avoids a cloying and melodramatic tone that “disease of the week” TV-movies tend to have. Instead, this thoughtfully made movie (written and directed by Harry Macqueen) dispenses with syrupy sentimentality and realistically captures the gradual heartbreak of two love partners who must come to terms with one of the partner’s early-onset dementia. Thanks to emotionally authentic performances from Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci, “Supernova” doesn’t have a lot of flash but it has a lot of heart.

“Supernova,” which takes place in unnamed locations in England, features a road trip during a large section of the movie. However, don’t expect this road trip be a madcap adventure. The trip is somewhat tense, occasionally somber and peppered with occasional jokes that come as a distraction for the two middle-aged lovers who are on this trek. Therefore, the pace of “Supernova” might be a little to slow for some viewers, but there’s a reason for a lot of the emotional weight that these two partners are feeling.

In the beginning of the movie, Sam (played by Firth) and Tusker (played by Tucci) are shown in their Autotrail Cheyenne RV camper, as they drive in scenic areas of England. They have some mild bickering that’s not unusual for couples who’ve been together for a long time. Tusker wants Sam to drive faster, while Sam thinks his driving is just fine.

Tusker wants to change the music that’s playing in the car. And later, Tusker gripes that the female voice on the GPS “sounds like Margaret fucking Thatcher.” If Tusker seems cranky, he has good reason to be: He has dementia, and this trip is a vacation to help ease the stress of this medical problem.

It’s never stated if Sam and Tusker are officially married, but they wear wedding rings. Sam is British and a classical pianist, while Tusker is American and a novelist. They’ve been together for about 20 years. It’s revealed later in the movie that Tusker moved to England to be with Sam, but it’s not clear how they met. Tusker and Sam have their dog Ruby with them on this road trip.

During the course of the movie, it’s clear that Tusker and Sam love each other deeply, but they have different ways of coping with Tusker’s dementia. Sam, who is more of a serious-minded introvert, tends to keep his feelings to himself and plans to retire so that he can become Tusker’s full-time caretaker. Tusker, who is more of a fun-loving extrovert, hates the idea of Sam retiring because Tusker doesn’t want to think of himself as a burden. However, Tusker is more realistic about how much his personality will change from the dementia, while Sam is in denial and tries to fool himself into thinking that Tusker’s personality won’t change.

Sam and Tusker also disagree on how Tusker should medically treat his dementia. Sam is more open to using prescribed medication, while Tusker doesn’t want to take any medication at all. During their road trip, Sam finds out that Tusker had secretly removed Tusker’s pills that Sam had packed for the trip and deliberately left the pills at their home.

Sam is upset about Tusker not having the pills, but Tusker adamantly says: “I don’t want them … They remind me that I’m ill. And I don’t want that. Not right now.” Meanwhile, Sam worries that Tusker refusing to take the medication will make the dementia worse at a faster rate. Tusker wants to block out those concerns and just live his life the best way that he can.

It’s not stated how long it’s been since Tusker got his diagnosis, but he mentions more than once that in about six months, it’s very likely that he won’t remember the identities of the people in his life. It terrifies Tusker, but he’s more willing than Sam to talk openly about this mental deterioration. Sam wants to change the subject every time Tusker wants to talk about it.

There are also signs that Tusker is already becoming forgetful. In an early road trip scene, Sam wakes up in bed to find that Tusker isn’t there. Sam frantically drives until he finds Tusker calmly out standing near a road with their dog Ruby and seemingly unaware of the panic he’s caused. Sam hugs Tusker in a way that they both know that Tusker is losing his faculties and they feel powerless to stop it.

Despite this depressing health problem, Tusker tries to keep his sense of humor intact. While he and Sam are at a diner during their road trip, Tusker plays a harmless prank on the waitress by telling her different ways that she can get Sam’s autograph. The waitress doesn’t know who Sam is or why he might be “famous,” but she doesn’t want to be rude. She’s perplexed and doesn’t quite know how to respond, so she just nods her head vaguely.

As the waitress walks away, Sam mildly scolds Tusker for confusing the waitress and tells Tusker that it’s time to retire the prank because it doesn’t work half of the time. Tusker chuckles and says he likes this prank precisely because it does work half of the time. This back-and-forth banter is affectionate and shows that despite these minor irritations, this couple has a loving relationship.

During their road trip, Sam and Tusker visit Sam’s sister Lilly (played by Pippa Haywood), Lilly’s husband Clive (played by Peter Macqueen) and Lilly and Clive’s daughter Charlotte (played by Nina Marlin), who’s about 7 or 8 years old. Lilly and Clive apparently live in the house where Lilly and Sam grew up.

In another realistic “slice of life” couples scene, Sam and Tusker briefly disagree about where they’re going to sleep while visiting. Lilly says that they can sleep in the bedroom that Sam had as a child, while Sam doesn’t like that idea and offers to sleep in the camper. Tusker doesn’t want to sleep in the camper and convinces Sam that they should sleep in the bedroom, which is decorated in the same way that Sam had it before he moved away from home. The bed is barely big enough for two people, and Sam accidentally has a mild fall out of the cramped bed. It’s played for laughs.

Sam and Tusker keep each other amused by making tape recordings of each other’s conversations. They role play as if they’re doing an interview for a radio broadcast. Tusker says during one of these taping sessions: “Welcoming to Dementia Hour on BBC Four.” Tusker asks Sam, “How has it been for you?”

Sam replies, “It has its moments.” Tusker then says, “If you had one wish in the world, what would it be.” Sam responds, “I wish this holiday wouldn’t end. And you?” Tusker says in an affectionately exasperated voice, “I wish I didn’t have this thing [dementia], idiot!”

Unbeknownst to Sam and Tusker, Lilly and Clive have planned a surprise dinner party for them with several of Sam’s and Tusker’s friends. It’s at this dinner party that Sam sees more uncomfortable signs that Tusker’s condition has worsened. Tusker is about to read a speech, but he can’t do it because of the dementia. Instead, he asks Sam to read it.

It’s one of the best scenes in the movie because it shows Sam trying not to lose control of his emotions while he reads Tusker’s words of love and loyalty, while Tusker is trying not to look embarrassed that he couldn’t read his own speech. In the beautifully written speech, Tusker says about Sam: “He’s the best thing that ever happened to me, and I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

Outside during this evening party, Tusker shares his knowledge of astronomy with Charlotte. He points to the stars in the sky and tells her about the life span of a star: “When the body gets really old, it runs out of fuel, and it explodes like a firework. And when that star has died, it becomes really, really bright and shoots out all this stuff … And eventually, all that stuff travels over years and years … and it’s eventually what makes us.”

This supernova description, which obviously inspired the movie’s title, is a metaphor for how Tusker wants to live out his last days and what he hopes his legacy will be. Earlier in the movie, there’s another scene where Tusker and Sam look at a celestial map on their camper ceiling and Tusker points out the stars on the map. It’s one of many glimpses into how this couple had been living a relatively quiet and stable life together until the dementia diagnosis changed everything, but Sam and Tusker are still trying to hold on to a sense of normalcy.

When Lilly and Tusker have a private conversation together at the party, he tells her how the dementia is affecting his relationship with Sam. “You know what the hard part is?” Tusker comments. “You’re not supposed to mourn someone while they’re still alive.” Lilly replies, “You’re still you, Tusker. You’re still the guy he fell in love with.” Tusker says ruefully, “No, I’m not. I just look like him.”

During the party, one of the friends named Tim (played by James Dreyfus) tells Sam privately that Tusker confided in Tim that Tusker can no longer write with a pen and paper. Later, when Sam and Tusker get home, Sam discovers that it’s true: Sam looks through Tusker’s journals and finds that the most recent journal entries are illegible scribbles.

And later, Sam finds something else that is heartbreaking and devastating. It leads to Sam and Tusker having a reckoning and being forced to confront each other on how they’re going to prepare for Tusker’s worsening dementia. And that includes having the difficult conversation over what to do if Tusker has to be put in an assisted care facility.

“Supernova” could easily have been a stage play because of how the dialogue is written, but the story benefits from being a cinematic version. Cinematographer Dick Pope perfectly captures the scenic outdoor locations during the road trip. These wooded areas and mountain-surrounded lakes provide a great counterbalance of tranquility to the slowly building storm in Sam and Tusker’s relationship.

Writer/director Macqueen brings a simple intimacy to the movie that might disappoint people looking for showboat-ish dramatic scenes, but it actually works better that this movie isn’t so heavy-handed with its difficult subject matter. And unlike a lot of movies about someone facing a medical crises, “Supernova” doesn’t have any scenes in a hospital, clinic or doctor’s office. It’s another reason why the movie isn’t as weepy as it could have been, although there are some definite tearjerking moments.

Firth and Tucci, who are longtime friends in real life, have a natural and easy chemistry with each other that suits the respectful nature of Sam and Tusker’s relationship. Sam and Tusker are affectionate with each other, but their romance is relatively reserved and doesn’t have a lot of over-the-top passion. Tusker might want to go out in a blaze of glory like a supernova, but he and Sam have the type of enduring love that’s more like the steady light of the sun.

Bleecker Street released “Supernova” in select U.S. cinemas on January 29, 2021. The movie’s digital/VOD release date is February 16, 2021.

Review: ‘Judas and the Black Messiah,’ starring Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield

February 1, 2021

by Carla Hay

LaKeith Stanfield (in front) and Daniel Kaluuya (in back) in “Judas and the Black Messiah” (Photo by Glenn Wilson/Warner Bros. Pictures)

“Judas and the Black Messiah”

Directed by Shaka King

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in Chicago in 1968 and 1969, the drama “Judas and the Black Messiah” features a predominately African American cast (with some white people and Latinos) representing people involved in the civil rights movement and law enforcement.

Culture Clash: The Black Panther Party, including Illinois chapter chairman Fred Hampton, was the target of FBI investigations that included hiring an African American paid informant named Bill O’Neal to infiltrate the Black Panther Party to help the FBI bring down Hampton and his colleagues.

Culture Audience: “Judas and the Black Messiah” will appeal primarily to people interested in movies about the civil rights movement for African Americans.

LaKeith Stanfield and Jesse Plemons in “Judas and the Black Messiah” (Photo by Glenn Wilson/Warner Bros. Pictures)

“Judas and the Black Messiah,” which is based on true events, mostly succeeds as presenting a rousing and riveting depiction of a troubling side of the U.S. civil rights movement that is rarely seen as the central plot of a movie: How African Americans were used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to betray African American civil rights leaders who were labeled as “troublemakers” by the FBI. It’s a necessary and sometimes uncomfortable examination of specific people in the late 1960s history of the civil rights movement, even though “Judas and the Black Messiah” has some awards-bait dramatics that were obviously manufactured for the movie.

Directed by Shaka King (who co-wrote the screenplay with Will Berson), “Judas and the Black Messiah” shows two very different sides of the African American experience with the civil rights movement. On the one side is the urgent activism embodied by Fred Hampton, the chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. On the other side, is the passive political apathy of William “Bill” O’Neal, a car thief who was lured into betraying the Black Panthers by being a paid confidential informant for the FBI, in exchange for the FBI keeping O’Neal out of prison for his past crimes, such as car theft and impersonating a FBI agent.

“Judas and the Black Messiah,” which takes place primarily in Chicago, is told from perspective of O’Neal (played by LaKeith Stanfield), but Hampton (played by Daniel Kaluuya) is most definitely portrayed as the heroic soul of the movie. In real life, Hampton and O’Neal were in their early 20s when this movie takes place from late 1968 to late 1969. Thankfully, the filmmakers chose “Judas and the Black Messiah” as the movie’s title, instead of the movie’s original and very misleading title “Jesus Was My Homeboy.” Jesus is not a major theme in this movie at all.

The term “black messiah” refers to then-FBI director J. Edgar Hoover’s fear that the civil rights movement would gain momentum under a powerful and charismatic leader. For a while, that leader was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK), until he was brutally assassinated on April 4, 1968. “Judas and the Black Messiah” starts off in late 1968, when the civil rights movement became increasingly fractured by ideological divides between those who wanted to follow MLK’s non-violence philosophy and those such as the Black Panthers, who wanted to follow a more left-wing-leaning “any means necessary” philosophy, even if those means included violence.

Hoover has been depicted in various ways in movies and television, but in “Judas and the Black Messiah,” there’s no doubt that Hoover (played by Martin Sheen, in prosthetic makeup) is the movie’s chief villain. In an early scene in the movie, Hoover is presumably at FBI headquarters as he addresses an auditorium full of FBI agents (all white men, as Hoover reportedly preferred), with an oversized projection screen that looks a little too ahead of its time, as if he’s giving a TED Talk. This is supposed to be 1968, not 2018. It’s one of a few details that don’t ring true in the movie.

During this FBI assembly, Hoover sneers, “The Black Panthers are the single greatest threat to our national security. Our counterintelligence program must prevent the rise of a black messiah among their midst, one with the potential to unite Communists, the anti-war and the new left movements.” A photo of Hampton then appears on the giant projection screen, to make it clear that Hampton is now one of the FBI’s main targets.

Meanwhile, O’Neal is shown being a small-time car thief with an unusual method of operation: He impersonates a FBI agent (including having a fake badge) and pretends to arrest someone for having a stolen car. He looks for potential victims, by at least finding out their names and what kind of car they have, so the fake arrest can look real. And he chooses people who are probably into illegal activities and aren’t likely to go to the police when the theft victims find out they’ve been tricked. It’s implied that all of O’Neal’s theft victims are black, since he knows he’d have very little chance of getting away with this FBi impersonation stunt if he tried it on white people.

What usually happens during this fake FBI arrest is that O’Neal gets the handcuffed person’s car keys and steals that person’s car. Except when viewers first see O’Neal in this movie, that plan backfires in a bad way. O’Neal walks into a bar while some men are playing pool and tries to arrest one of them, but this stranger resists being handcuffed. The “arrestee” has a few friends who also try to stop the detainment. They’re all immediately suspicious of this “arrest” and chase after O’Neal in the car.

One of the friends jumps on the car roof with a knife and starts stabbing through the roof and ends up stabbing O’Neal. The injuries aren’t serious, but they’re enough for this car theft to be completely botched. O’Neal barely manages to get away from the angry group when he’s pulled over by police.

The movie then fast-forwards to O’Neal in a meeting with the FBI special agent who will be the one to lure O’Neal into the FBI sting: Roy Mitchell (played by Jesse Plemons), an ambitious smooth talker who asks O’Neal why he impersonated a FBI agent for a car theft. O’Neal replies, “A badge is scarier than a gun.”

Mitchell then asks O’Neal how he felt about the assassinations of MLK and Malcolm X. O’Neal replies that he was a “little bit” upset over MLK’s murder and he didn’t give much thought to Malcolm X’s murder. It’s at this point that Mitchell knows that O’Neal doesn’t care much about politics or the civil rights movement, and therefore O’Neal can be easily manipulated into being an informant.

First, Mitchell says that the only way that O’Neal can avoid prison is to work as an informant for the FBI. Whenever O’Neal starts to express doubts about being an informant (and this happens several times throughout the story), Mitchell tells O’Neal that the Black Panthers aren’t much different from the Ku Klux Klan, because Mitchell says both are radical, unpatriotic groups that want to divide people by their races and overthrow the U.S. government.

It doesn’t take long for O’Neal to infiltrate the Black Panther Party in Chicago and gain the trust of Hampton, who makes O’Neal the head of security. Hampton is a smart and magnetic leader who is respected by other party members because he often shows through words and deeds that the cause he’s fighting for isn’t about his ego but is about the people and future generations. Unlike other Black Power leaders, who wanted to keep black people separate from people of other races, Hampton embraced alliances with like-minded people of other races.

Hampton is credited with creating the Rainbow Coalition in 1969, which aimed to unite other anti-establishment groups for shared causes. It was a concept that was met with some resistance from the separatist Black Panthers, but because this is a movie, the Rainbow Coalition’s origins are a little too oversimplified and streamlined. One minute, Hampton and some other Black Panthers are showing up uninvited to meetings by the Young Patriots (a group of working-class white people) and the Young Lords (a group of Puerto Ricans) and making themselves known as unexpected allies. The next minute, Hampton is leading a Rainbow Coalition rally with members of the Black Panthers, the Young Patriots and the Young Lords in attendance.

The movie also shows how Hampton spearheaded the alignment of the Black Panthers with a Chicago-based African American gang called the Crowns, in order for the Black Panthers to have access to weapons and armed security backup. And what do you know, one of the Crowns just happens to be someone who was in that group that chased after O’Neal in that botched car theft. There’s a very “movie moment” when O’Neal is sure this guy is going to remember him, thereby making O’Neal more paranoid that his cover will be blown.

Some of the other Black Panther Party members who are featured in the movie include Jimmy Palmer (played by Ashton Sanders), Jake Winters (played by Algee Smith), Judy Harmon (played by Dominique Thorn) and Deborah Johnson (played by Dominique Fishback), a wide-eyed student who is in awe of Hampton and ends up becoming his girlfriend. In real life, Johnson is now known as Akua Njeri, and she gave birth to Fred Hampton Jr. in December 1969. Njeri and Hampton Jr. both were consultants on “Judas and the Black Messiah.”

Of course, in any movie that involves spying, there are double crosses and constant questions about loyalty, honesty and who can be trusted. The movie ramps up the tension not only outside the Black Panther Party but also within it. “Judas and the Black Messiah” also raises thought-provoking questions that will make people wonder about the prices that people pay for freedom, however freedom might be defined by individuals. And when there are informants or spies who are paid to betray, to what extent should they be branded as the “enemy”?

“Judas and the Black Messiah” has undoubtedly powerful performances by Kaluuya as Hampton and Stanfield as O’Neal. Kaluuya has the flashier role that will get more attention, mainly because there’s no ambiguity about his purpose in the film: depicting Hampton as a civil rights hero. In the few times Hampton was depicted in scripted projects before “Judas and the Black Messiah” was made, Hampton was usually a marginal character who didn’t have much depth, such as in the Netflix 2020 movie “The Trial of the Chicago 7.”

In “Judas and the Black Messiah,” Hampton is a larger-than-life personality who gets the big speeches, the leadership position at rallies, and the martyrdom when he lands in prison at the height of his power. Hampton’s biggest showcase speech scene comes after he’s released from prison and gets a hero’s welcome during a Black Panther rally in Chicago. After leading the crowd to chant, “I am a revolutionary!” several times in the speech, he declares poetically: “You can murder a liberator, but you can’t murder liberation! You can murder a revolutionary, but you can’t murder a revolution! You can murder a freedom fighter, but you can’t murder freedom!”

Stanfield has the more difficult and nuanced role as the conflicted and duplicitous O’Neal. On the one hand, O’Neal knows he’s a traitor. On the other hand, O’Neal is portrayed as someone who genuinely became friends with many people in the Black Panther Party, but he felt powerless to stop the informant deal that he made with the FBI. There are times when O’Neal shows so much loyalty to the Black Panthers that FBI agent Mitchell doubts whose side O’Neal is really on.

“Judas and the Black Messiah” doesn’t let O’Neal completely off the hook for his betrayal, but the movie gives the impression that his decisions were not about the money but about his fear of going to prison if he didn’t comply with what the FBI wanted. In real life, O’Neal gave only one TV interview about his Black Panther/FBI informant experience. It was in 1989, in an interview for the PBS show “Eyes on the Prize 2,” which aired the interview on January 15, 1990. Clips of this interview are recreated in the movie.

The performances in “Judas and the Black Messiah” are impactful and deserving of high praise. Where the movie falters is in some of the scenarios depicting the interactions between O’Neal and his FBI contact Mitchell. In the movie, Mitchell deliberately kept O’Neal’s identity a secret from most his FBI colleagues. (Hoover knew though.) Therefore, it doesn’t make sense that the movie shows O’Neal and Mitchell openly meeting several times in upscale restaurants, where O’Neal is obviously the only black person there as a dining patron. It wouldn’t have been hard for the movie’s screenwriters to keep all of the meetings between O’Neal and Mitchell in less public places.

O’Neal’s wardrobe gets a little more stylish as he starts to make more money from the FBI. But in the beginning, O’Neal definitely stands out in these restaurants because he’s dressed inappropriately (too casual) for these kinds of dining establishments. If you were to believe this movie, in 1969 Chicago, a black man in “street clothes” can walk into an upscale restaurant where all the other patrons are white, sit down, have dinner with a white man in a suit, and no one notices, stares or questions why this inappropriately dressed black man is there. Things like that would’ve definitely gotten noticed in the real world. And this scenario is not exactly O’Neal and Mitchell keeping their relationship undercover or incognito.

Another “only in a movie” contrivance is in a scene where a despondent O’Neal ends up in a bar, where a woman shows a romantic interest in him after she rejects a fur-coat-wearing motormouth at a nearby barstool. The rejected man (played by Lil Rel Howery), who is identified only as Wayne in the movie’s end credits, is a stranger to O’Neal, but Wayne drops hints that he knows that O’Neal is working for the FBI.

O’Neal, who is already feeling very uneasy, follows Wayne out to Wayne’s car and demands to know who he is. The movie, with anxiety-filled music building to a crescendo, then has Wayne reveal something that’s meant to shock O’Neal and the audience. It’s highly doubtful this confrontation ever happened in real life, but fans of the Oscar-winning 2017 horror movie “Get Out” will be happy to see “Get Out” co-stars Kaluuya, Stanfield and Howery reunited as cast members for “Judas and the Black Messiah.”

As the only women with significant speaking roles in the movie, Fishback (as Hampton’s girlfriend Johnson) and Thorne (as Black Panther member Harmon) show considerable talent, although this is definitely a male-dominated film. Johnson’s character evolves from being a star-stuck fangirl of Hampton to being a loyal romantic partner to being a strong-willed expectant mother, who can’t help but feel impending heartbreak and doom when she hears Hampton give a speech saying that he will probably die for his people. Thorne’s Harmon is a badass who can get down and dirty in fight scenes just like the men do, such as in a tension-filled shootout between the Chicago Police Department and the Black Panthers.

The flaws in the movie’s screenplay are outweighed by the significant talent of the cast members and the ability of director King to maintain a suspenseful edge. Even though many people watching this movie might already know what happened to Hampton and O’Neal in real life, “Judas and the Black Messiah” triumphs in capturing the essence of this era of the civil rights movement in America. There might be fabricated “only in a movie” moments, but the film authentically conveys the passion and necessity for civil rights.

Warner Bros. Pictures will release “Judas and the Black Messiah” in U.S. cinemas and on HBO Max on February 12, 2021.

Review: ‘Brothers by Blood,’ starring Matthias Schoenaerts, Joel Kinnaman, Maika Monroe, Paul Schneider and Ryan Phillippe

January 31, 2021

by Carla Hay

Matthias Schoenaerts and Joel Kinnaman in “Brothers by Blood” (Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment)

“Brothers by Blood”

Directed by Jérémie Guez

Culture Representation: Taking place in Philadelphia, the crime drama “Brothers by Blood” features an almost all-white cast (with a few Latinos) representing the working-class, the middle-class and the criminal underground.

Culture Clash: Two cousins who work for the Irish mobsters in Philadelphia have their loyalties tested due to family secrets and involvement with Italian mobsters.

Culture Audience: “Brothers by Blood” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching generic and tedious movies about “thug life.”

Ryan Phillippe and Felix Scott in “Brothers by Blood” (Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment)

“Brothers by Blood” makes a half-hearted attempt to be a compelling crime drama, but the movie still ends up being formulaic and forgettable. It’s one of those mobster movies where two family members have an up-and-down relationship that propels much of what happens in the story. The problem is that all of the characters in the movie are derivative of other characters in much-better mafia films. “Brothers by Blood” is essentially a cheap wannabe Martin Scorsese gangster film.

Written and directed by Jérémie Guez, “Brothers by Blood” is based on Peter Dexter’s novel “Brotherly Love.” The original title of the movie was “The Sound of Philadelphia” (the city where the movie is based), and it’s easy to see why the title was changed, because “The Sound of Philadelphia” could mislead people into thinking it’s a music-oriented movie. Philadelphia is nicknamed the City of Brotherly Love, but the only love in this movie is tainted by brutal crimes and paranoia about betrayal.

The two main characters in “Brothers by Blood” are cousins Peter (played by Matthias Schoenaerts) and Michael (played by Joel Kinnaman), who own a small construction business that’s really a money-laundering front for the illegal work that the cousins do for the Irish mafia in Philadelphia. Peter is the introverted, level-headed cousin, while Michael is the extroverted, hot-headed cousin. Crime dramas often have a cliché of opposite personalities who have to work together and often clash with each other. “Blood Brothers” leans into this cliché hard enough to the point of over-reliance and stifling any depth for other parts of the story.

It’s very easy to see where this movie is going to go, once it’s established that Michael has a tendency to make impulsive and dumb decisions. About 70% of “Brothers by Blood” is a monotonous plot repetition of Michael doing idiotic things, while Peter tries to smooth things over and clean up Michael’s mess. Most of the movie takes place in 2016, but there are several flashbacks to Peter’s and Michael’s childhood, shown from Peter’s perspective.

Michael is impulsive and erratic, but Peter isn’t exactly mentally stable either. The opening scene shows that Peter has suicidal tendencies. In this nighttime scene, Michael and Peter are on the rooftop of one of their construction sites and listening to a friend drone on about a proctology exam that he recently had. (Yes, it’s that kind of movie.)

Peter steps onto the edge of the roof and suddenly jumps. Michael and the friend race to the street and see that Peter has landed in a very large pile of garbage and hasn’t been physically hurt. While their buddy is freaking out, Peter offers no explanation for why he jumped, while Michael says nonchalantly about Peter’s disturbing jump: “He does that all the time.”

It’s shown early in the movie that Michael and Peter have shady dealings with a local councilman named Taylor (played by Tim Ahern), who tells the cousins that he’s under ethical scrutiny for hiring six of his relatives, so he had to cut these family members loose from his employment. Taylor asks Michael and Peter to find jobs for these relatives at Michael and Peter’s construction company, even if these relatives aren’t qualified. During this office meeting with Taylor, a Republican presidential debate is shown on TV, and Michael predicts that Donald Trump is going to win the election.

One night, Peter and Michael end up drinking at a restaurant/bar owned by their friend Jimmy (played by Paul Schneider), who confides in Peter that he borrowed a lot of money from Michael to keep Jimmy’s business afloat. Peter tells Jimmy it’s a mistake to be in debt to Michael, but Jimmy is too drunk at the moment to heed any warnings. It’s later revealed that Michael has his own money problems that will get the cousins into trouble.

While they’re at the bar, Jimmy introduces his younger sister Grace (played by Maika Monroe) to Peter and Michael. She’s recently arrived from out of town, and Jimmy has given her a job as a bartender. Michael immediately flirts with Grace. However, Peter and Grace eye each other in a way that it’s obvious that these two will end up together in some way later in the movie.

“Brothers by Blood” also has poorly written subplots about Peter’s and Michael’s business interests aside from their construction company and thugging around with mobsters. Peter wants to possibly invest in boxing. He goes to a local boxing gym, where his acquaintance Carlos (played by Carlos Schram) is training a promising young boxer named Ryan (played by Tarek Hamite), who is living with Carlos because Ryan’s father is a “crackhead,” according to Carlos.

Michael is more interested in investing in horse racing. He’s bought a horse for $80,000, with the hope that the horse can be trained into becoming a champion. But something happens with Michael’s horse-racing investment, and how he handles it shows how much he’s an out-of-control loose cannon. In another scene in the movie, Michael can’t stand the thought of Peter being successful at anything without him, so Michael makes their hanger-on friend Leonard, nicknamed Lenny (played by James Nelson-Joyce), box Ryan in the ring. Lenny quickly and soundly gets beaten by Ryan, and that defeat aggravates Michael, who holds grudges.

Because of some debts and double-crossing, Michael has managed to anger the Italian mafia in Philadelphia. And so, a goon named Bono (played by Antoni Corone) from the Italian mafia has a threatening meeting with Peter and warns him that the Italian mafia will come after the cousins unless Peter kills Michael. Peter tells Bono that he won’t kill Michael. The rest of the story is about how much danger these two cousins get themselves into, as Michael continues with his screw-ups and some people inevitably get hurt or killed.

“Brothers by Blood” has frequent flashbacks to Peter’s childhood. It’s revealed that his seemingly happy life went on a downward spiral when he was 8 years old (Nicholas Crovetti portrays Peter as a boy) and witnessed his younger sister (played by Grace Bilik) accidentally get killed when she ran out into the street and was hit by a car. The car’s driver was a cop named Victor Kopec (played by Michael McFadden), who lives nearby. And Peter’s ill-tempered father Charley (played by Ryan Philippe) vows revenge.

A childhood flashback shows that Peter’s life gets even worse when his grieving mother has a nervous breakdown and she’s put in a psychiatric hospital, which is talked about but not shown in the movie. Peter’s father Charley is obsessed with getting revenge on Victor. Michael’s father Phil (played by Felix Scott), who is Charley’s brother, vehemently disagrees with Charley’s plan to murder Victor, because Charley and Phil are already involved with the Irish mafia. If Charley becomes a cop killer, it could cause problems for the brothers, not only with the police but also with the mafia.

Like a lot of derivative mobster flicks, “Brothers by Blood” limits the female characters in very sexist and shallow ways. Grace is the only female character with a significant speaking role in the film, and she’s really just there to be a potential love interest for Peter. Writer/director Guez has such little regard for Peter’s sister (whose death is the catalyst for a lot of the family drama) that he didn’t even give her a name in the story. In the end credits, she’s only labeled “Little Girl.” And Peter’s mother is reduced to being a nameless, background character who’s briefly shown sobbing over the death of her daughter.

Despite solid performances from Schoenaerts and Phillippe, “Brothers by Blood” could be called “Brothers by Boredom,” since this so-called gangster film has a lot of dull talk and not much action. Too much of the movie is about Michael being a swaggering fool and pulling guns on people, while Peter just stands around looking embarrassed and occasionally steps in to stop Michael from making things worse. We get it. These cousins are dysfunctionally co-dependent.

Peter’s childhood flashbacks are more interesting than the storyline with the adult Peter and adult Michael, because the flashbacks give some insight into how and why Michael and Peter ended up being so close. Their family experienced more tragedy besides the death of Peter’s sister. But this backstory isn’t enough to save “Brothers by Blood” from being a hollow and drab movie with a completely predictable ending.

Vertical Entertainment released “Brothers by Blood” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on January 22, 2021.

Review: ‘The Little Things’ (2021), starring Denzel Washington, Rami Malek and Jared Leto

January 29, 2021

by Carla Hay

Rami Malek, Jared Leto and Denzel Washington in “The Little Things” (Photo by Nicola Goode/Warner Bros. Pictures)

“The Little Things”

Directed by John Lee Hancock

Culture Representation: Taking place in California in 1990, the crime drama “The Little Things” features a predominantly white cast (with some African Americans, Latinos and Asians) representing the middle-class and the working-class.

Culture Clash: Two police detectives with contrasting backgrounds team up to find a serial killer.

Culture Audience: “The Little Things” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching slow-paced and dull crime movies that waste the considerable talent of the starring cast members.

Denzel Washington and Rami Malek in “The Little Things” (Photo by Nicola Goode/Warner Bros. Pictures)

Take three Oscar-winning actors and put them in a crime thriller written and directed by filmmaker who has a solid track record of making crowd-pleasers. What could possibly go wrong? When it comes to the disappointing crime drama “The Little Things,” it’s not so much what went wrong but what should have gone right. Written and directed by John Lee Hancock (whose best-known movie is 2009’s “The Blind Side”), “The Little Things” ultimately fails to be exciting or innovative, considering that it stars the very talented Academy Award winners Denzel Washington, Rami Malek and Jared Leto.

Almost everything about “The Little Things” has been done before in other movies and done much better. There are key parts of the movie that will definitely get comparisons to director David Fincher’s 1995 classic “Seven,” written by Andrew Kevin Walker and starring Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey. The irony is that “The Little Things” was written by Hancock back in the early 1990s, before “Seven” (a far superior film) was released.

There are some noticeable similarities in both movies. “Seven” and “The Little Things” are about two cops (one middle-aged, one younger) who team up to hunt down a serial killer. The prime suspect is a mysterious creep who leads them in a cat-and-mouse styled investigation where he keeps them guessing about crucial aspects of the killing spree. (Freeman and Pitt were the cops in “Seven,” while Spacey was the suspected serial killer.)

In “The Little Things,” which takes place over a few days in October 1990, Washington plays the more experienced and older cop named Joe “Deke” Deacon, while Malek is the younger cop named Jim “Jimmy” Baxter. Leto has the role of a sleazy loner named Albert Sparma, who becomes the prime suspect in a string of murders of young women in Southern California. Unfortunately, there’s so much about the story that’s unimaginative and sluggishly paced that there’s very little suspense throughout the story.

The opening scene of “The Little Things” looks like something out of a formulaic horror movie: A young woman is driving by herself at night on a deserted road somewhere in the Los Angeles area. She gets tailgated and then chased by a mysterious driver. She panics and drives off of the road to a diner, whose outside lights are on, but she finds out too late that the diner is closed and no one is there. She runs off into a desert area, and the mystery stalker gives chase on foot. Luckily, she’s able to run back out onto the road and flags down a passing truck in order to get rescued.

Viewers later find out that her name is Tina Salvatore (played by Sofia Vassilieva), and police think that she narrowly escaped from a serial killer who has been targeting young women and stabbing them to death. However, most of the murder victims have been prostitutes, and Tina doesn’t fit that profile. She didn’t even get a good look at the guy who tried to kill her and never heard him talk, so the chances are slim to none that Tina can identify this criminal. Tina, just like most of the female characters in this film, is essentially sidelined. Except for a brief scene later in the movie, this key witness is never seen again.

The women with speaking roles in this movie only serve one of three purposes: to be a crime victim; a current or former love interest; or someone who is subservient to men. These one-dimensional characters include Jimmy’s dutiful and adoring wife Ana (played by Isabel Arraiza); Deke’s ex-wife Marsha (played by Judith Scott), who works as a medical examiner and does whatever Deke asks her to do; and Los Angeles police detective Jamie Estrada (played by Natalie Morales), who follows the lead of her male colleagues and has a very thankless role in the investigation.

Deke is a deputy who works in the Kern County Sheriff Department, which is about 133 miles north of Los Angeles. It’s a much more rural area than Los Angeles, where Deke used to work as a sergeant in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s homicide department until he left under a cloud of bad circumstances. While investigating this serial killer, Deke was suspended and had what’s described by a former colleague as a dangerous, stress-related emotional “meltdown.” He also had a heart attack.

Deke’s abrupt departure from the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department caused some hard feelings from his former co-workers there. One of them is Deke’s former boss Carl Farris (played by Terry Kinney), the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s homicide captain who ended up replacing Deke with Jimmy. Carl describes Deke’s exit from the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department as Deke being “run out” of the department, while Deke describes it as choosing to leave on his own.

It just so happens that Deke has to go back to the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department to pick up evidence for a robbery case that he’s working on in Kern County. And what do you know, one of the first people Deke meets when he goes back to the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department is Jimmy, who’s annoyed that Deke’s truck is blocking Jimmy’s parking space. It’s not exactly a “meet cute” moment, but people who won’t know anything about this movie before watching it can immediately tell from this scene that Deke and Jimmy will end up spending a lot of time together.

Deke finds out there’s going to be a delay in getting the evidence he needs, so his former boss Carl sarcastically tells Deke he can kill some time by catching up with his former colleagues. One of the few people in the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department who’s still willing to be cordial to Deke is a detective named Sal Rizoli (played by Chris Bauer), who tells Deke over a meal at a diner that things just aren’t the same since Deke left the department. Sal says that the current department employees are “a bunch of nancies” who’ve “got no soul” and the department head honchos have “weeded all the heart out of the place.” Sal describes Jimmy as a “good cop, a college boy, a bit of a holy roller.”

Jimmy and Deke couldn’t have more different lifestyles. Deke is a divorced father of two adult daughters, and he lives by himself in a small, ramshackle house out in the desert. Jimmy is happily married with two young daughters, and he lives in a comfortably middle-class and well-kept home. Deke is not religious and is very jaded about life. Jimmy is supposedly religious and “by the book,” but this shoddily written movie doesn’t really show proof of that, because Jimmy ends up breaking all kinds of laws in his obsessive quest to solve the murders and arrest Albert.

Through a series of implausible circumstances, Jimmy invites Deke to help him investigate the murders, even though Deke is only supposed to be in town for a few days and the cases are out of Deke’s jurisdiction. The evidence that Deke is supposed to bring back to Kern County for an upcoming court case ends up being completely ignored in the rest of the story. That’s how bad this movie is.

Albert becomes a prime suspect because he works for a small-business appliance store that was called to repair a refrigerator in a young woman’s apartment. She ended up getting slaughtered on the day that Albert was supposed to be there for the repair appointment. And so, Deke and Jimmy immediately zero in on oddball Albert after some snooping around at his seedy apartment building. He’s also on their radar because eight years ago, Albert confessed to one of the murders and knew certain details that the killer would know, but he wasn’t held responsible for the murder because he had an alibi when the crime happened.

“The Little Things” wants to keep viewers guessing over whether Albert is the serial killer or if he’s just a mentally ill person who wants the police to think that he’s the culprit. There are too many plot holes to mention, including how the movie never explains how in a large urban area such as Los Angeles, the police are so sure that all of these murders are being done by the same person. In “Seven,” the serial killer left very specific clues so that law enforcement knew the same person was committing the murders. In “The Little Things,” there is no such proof.

Instead, the movie is more concerned about showing the over-used crime movie trope of the “world-weary cop” partnered with the “eager-beaver cop” and how their personalities clash before they learn to work together for the same cause. What Jimmy and Deke have in common is that they’re both obsessed with finding the killer. Getting back on this serial killer case also seems to trigger something disturbing in Deke, because he starts to hallucinate seeing the dead women come to life in his dumpy motel room and in other places. And Deke talks to the corpses. Yes, it’s that kind of movie.

Washington does a passable job of playing Deke as a cynical and emotionally wounded cop who’s haunted by his past, but “The Little Things” is a very forgettable entry to his impressive body of work. Malek is stuck playing a generic character who makes an implausible switch from being stringent and uptight to being a rogue cop who breaks the law with Deke. Among other law violations, Jimmy acts as a lookout/getaway driver when Deke intrudes in Albert’s apartment, while Albert is away, to look for and possibly steal evidence. Any cop or good screenwriter would know that this illegal break-in would make the evidence inadmissible in court, but it’s in this ludicrous movie anyway.

Leto makes the most effort to bring some unpredictability and nuance to his Albert character, but his performance is hindered by the substandard screenplay that doesn’t give Albert much to do except act like a weird scumbag and annoy Deke and Jimmy. And if these “detectives” are so great, why haven’t they investigated Albert’s activities over time to possibly tie him to the murders? Doing a couple of stakeouts just wouldn’t pass muster in the real world of homicide detective work.

“The Little Things” wants viewers to believe that these murders can be solved at lightning-fast speed during the few days that Deke is in Los Angeles. But ironically, the film moves at a sluggish and mind-numbing pace. It doesn’t help that the dialogue is often cringeworthy too. At one point, Jimmy tells Deke when they have one of their personality clashes: “If you piss on my leg and call it rain, we’re through.”

The movie gets its title because Deke has a mantra that “the little things” count in an investigation, and criminals often get caught because of “the little things” they do when they make mistakes. In other words, Deke is one of those cops who believes in the old saying, “The devil is in the details.” Unfortunately, “The Little Things” is very careless with details, and a more appropriate title for the movie is “The Big Plot Holes.”

Warner Bros. Pictures released “The Little Things” in U.S. cinemas and on HBO Max on January 29, 2021.

Review: ‘CODA,’ starring Emilia Jones, Troy Kotsur, Marlee Matlin, Daniel Durant, Eugenio Derbez, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo and Amy Forsyth

January 28, 2021

by Carla Hay

Emilia Jones in “CODA” (Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute)

“CODA”

Directed by Siân Heder

Culture Representation: Taking place in the Massachusetts cities of Gloucester and Boston, the comedy/drama “CODA” features a predominantly white cast (with some Latinos, Asians and African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A teenage girl, who has the ability to hear, while her immediate family members (mother, father and brother) are deaf, has to decide if she will stay in the family fishing business or go to Berklee College of Music to pursue a singing career.

Culture Audience: “CODA” will appeal primarily to people who like heartwarming movies about families and pursuing dreams while realistically addressing the challenges and prejudices faced by people in the disabled community.

Amy Forsyth, Daniel Durant, Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur in “CODA” (Photo courtesy of Sundance Institute)

“CODA” is an acronym for “child of deaf adult(s)”, but the word could have a double meaning if it applies to the musical term “coda,” which means a passage that brings a composition to an end. It’s a fitting analogy, because music and the rite of passage of deciding what to do with one’s life after high school are major themes in this well-acted and memorable film about a teenager and her deaf family. Capably written and directed by Siân Heder, “CODA” is an American remake of the 2014 French film “La Famille Bélier,” which translates to “The Bélier Family” in English. “CODA” had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and should prove to be a notable milestone in American cinema in representation of deaf people, as well as a breakout role for star Emilia Jones.

In “CODA,” Jones plays the central character, Ruby Rossi, a teenager in Gloucester, Massachusetts, who’s in her last year of high school and has spent almost her entire life being a translator for her deaf family members: father Frank (played by Troy Kotsur), mother Jackie (played by Marlee Matlin) and older bother Leo (played by Daniel Durant), who appears to be in his early 20s. Deafness is a genetic trait in the family, except for Ruby, who was born with hearing abilities.

Fishing is the Rossi family business, and Ruby usually accompanies Frank and Leo on the family boat Angela + Rose for their fishing expeditions. Frank is a laid-back hippie type, while Leo is a generally good guy but he can be quick-tempered. Jackie is the type of woman who doesn’t want to be a frumpy matron. She still wants to be vibrant and sexy, and she likes to remind her family that she once won the Yankee Miss Pageant. Because they all depend on Ruby for interactions with hearing people, they all have a co-dependent relationship with each that will reach a crossroads during this story.

The movie opens with Ruby, Frank and Leo on one of their fishing excursions. And it’s here that viewers see from the beginning that Ruby loves singing and music. She’s belting out Etta James’ “Something’s Got a Hold Me” as it plays on a tiny transistor radio. Ruby isn’t shy about singing in front of her family, but she’s definitely self-conscious about people who can hear her sing and possibly judge her singing abilities.

Because Ruby is a translator for her family to communicate with the hearing world, she knows the prejudice that her deaf loved ones can get from bigoted people who think deaf people are automatically less intelligent than hearing people. Therefore, Ruby is very protective and assertive in negotiating prices when the family has to sell fish. Their biggest customer is a local business called Salgado’s Seafood Company, whose owner Tony Salgado (played by John Fiore) and his employees often try to lowball the Rossi family when negotiating purchase prices for the Rossi’s fish. Ruby isn’t afraid to speak up and demand high prices so people won’t take advantage of the family.

At Gloucester High School, Ruby isn’t as self-confident. She’s quiet and keeps mostly to herself. And Ruby is perceived as a misfit, who gets taunted by some of the school’s “mean girls” for not conforming to what their idea of “cool” is. For example, when Ruby is in the school hallway near her locker, a group of these snobs walk by her and one of them snipes in a disgusted tone of voice, “Do you smell fish?” Later, when Ruby’s parents pick her up from school, she’s mortified that her father is loudly playing rap music, because the other kids react by smirking and laughing at Ruby and her parents.

Ruby’s only real friend at school is a brash flirt named Gertie (played by Amy Forsyth), who cares more about dating guys (usually much older men) than she cares about being part of a stuck-up girls’ clique. While waiting in line to sign up for after-school activities, Gertie is surprised that Ruby has chosen the school choir. “You’re already socially challenged enough around here,” Gertie says sarcastically. Ruby is undeterred and tells Gertie nonchalantly, “I sing all the time.”

During auditions for the school choir, the choir leader Bernardo Villalobos (played by Eugenio Derbez), who likes his students to call him Mr. V, lets it be know that he’s a fussy yet sassy taskmaster who won’t tolerate anything less than excellence. He plays the piano to accompany the singers during choir rehearsals.

To determine their singing range, he quips, “Let’s see if you’re a soprano, an alto or watched too many episodes of ‘Glee.'” The students audition by each singing “Happy Birthday.” But when it’s Ruby’s turn, she panics and runs out of the room.

On another day, a sheepish Ruby returns to the classroom when Mr. V is alone. She wants another chance to audition, but he’s skeptical that she has what it takes to sing in front of an audience. She opens up to him about how she was scared during the first audition because she’s self-conscious about her voice. She tells him that when she was younger, she was teased a lot for her speaking voice, because she sounded like a deaf person.

Mr. V seems to show a glimmer of empathy when he realizes that Ruby is the student with the deaf family who’s apparently talked about a lot in school. He sees that Ruby has a passion for singing, but she doesn’t quite know how to express it yet. Mr. V tells Ruby, “There are plenty of pretty voices with nothing to say. Do you have something to say?”

When Ruby says “yes,” Mr. V then tells her “I’ll see you in class.” The odd thing about this scene is that Ruby never actually sings anything before Mr. V tells her she can be in the class. She could’ve been a horrible singer, and he just gave her easy acceptance into the choir that he takes very seriously. But there would be no “CODA” movie if Ruby had no singing talent.

And there’s another reason why Ruby wants to be in this singing group: She has a crush on a fellow classmate named Miles Patterson (played by Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), who’s also in the choir. Miles has the type of pleasant pretty-boy persona that gives the impression that he’s a sensitive and romantic type. Ruby is too shy to do anything about her crush on Miles, so she has to settle for furtive glances at Miles when she sees him at school.

The next time that Ruby sings in front of the choir, the students are rehearsing Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.” Mr. V also has them do breathing exercises where the students have to inhale and exhale as if they’re various-sized dogs. These unorthodox exercises seem to boost Ruby’s confidence, so when it comes time for her to do a solo, she belts out “Let’s Get It On” as if she’s a soulful R&B singer.

Mr. V and the other students are impressed with Ruby’s singing talent. And because Miles sees this other side to Ruby, a spark of admiration for her starts to become evident. And you know what that means for a movie like this one.

And what do you know, Mr. V just happens to select Ruby and Miles to perform what’s supposed to be a show-stopping duet at the choir’s big recital, which will be shown later in the story. He tells them that they have to sing Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s “You’re All I Need to Get By,” so that means that Ruby and Miles have to spend time together rehearsing their duet. How convenient.

During one of those rehearsals at Ruby’s home, she’s mortified when she and Miles hear the sounds of Ruby’s parents having sex in a nearby room. It’s one of the funnier scenes in the movie. Her parents stop what they’re doing and try to be cool about it by forcing a “let’s be mature about this and talk about what happened” moment with Ruby and Miles in their living room. It just makes Ruby even more embarrassed.

Frank and Jackie have a happy marriage, but it’s come under strain due to financial problems in the family business. In one scene, Ruby eavesdrops on an argument that Frank and Jackie have because one of Jackie’s credit cards was declined. Jackie suggests that Frank sell their boat to pay off their debts, but he’s vehemently against the idea because fishing has been in his family for generations, and he says he doesn’t know how to do anything else with his life.

Meanwhile, there’s a subplot about Gertie being attracted to Leo. When Gertie tells Ruby about it, Ruby tells Gertie that Leo is off-limits because Ruby hates the idea of her best friend dating her brother. When Gertie asks Ruby how to tell someone in sign language that she wants to hook up for sex, Ruby instead shows her how to to sign the words, “I have herpes.” Gertie doesn’t know that though, so Leo gets quite a surprise when Gertie tells him that in sign language.

“CODA” has several comedic moments, but there’s also some emotional drama too. The Rossi family business goes through a big change where Ruby is needed more than ever to help out with the business. And then, Mr. V offers to privately tutor Ruby. He also wants to recommend her for the prestigious Berklee College of Music, his alma mater. It should come as no surprise that these demands on her time eventually cause conflicts.

The more Ruby starts to feel her confidence and identity blossoming because of her singing talent, the more she’s pulled back into family obligations. Jackie gives Ruby more of a guilt trip about it than Frank does, while Leo thinks that Ruby should pursue her singing dreams. And, of course, Ruby must eventually make a choice.

“CODA” benefits from impressive performances from the main cast members, with Jones excelling in her very authentic portrayal of a teenager on the cusp of adulthood. Kotsur, Matlin and Durant give fine portrayals of family members who often feel like “outsiders” in the hearing world. But in their own family, this trio’s deafness gives them a bond that unintentionally makes Ruby feel like an outsider.

Derbez and his often-flamboyant Mr. V character isn’t a one-note clown, since the character shows some emotional depth when he mentions how being a Mexican immigrant shaped his outlook on life. He also has a snappy comeback during an argument with Ruby when she suggests that he’s a failure because he’s a teacher instead of a professional musician. Forsyth is also quite good in her portrayal of Gertie, but Gertie’s confident character isn’t given much screen time, other than to just show up as a counterpoint to Ruby’s more hesitant personality.

“CODA” tends to rely a bit too much on “TV-movie-of-the-week” type of montages to further the story. And there are a few too-cutesy moments when Mr. V. gives Ruby some kind of pep talk, and Ruby just suddenly transforms from wishy-washy and insecure to someone who sings like a seasoned pro. This effect that Mr. V has on Ruby is played almost like he’s a hypnotist who can snap his fingers and make Ruby believe what he tells her, and then she can sing right on cue in the way he wants her to sing. It’s a little too much of a “movie moment” and should have been filmed in a more natural way.

The “CODA” song soundtrack will delight fans of pop, rock and R&B music from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Some of the other songs that are prominently in the movie that are sung by cast members include Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” the Kiki Dee Band’s “I’ve Got the Music in Me” and David Bowie’s “Starman.” There’s also a rousing sequence set to the Clash’s version of “I Fought the Law.”

This is not a movie that wants to be trendy, but instead it leans heavily toward trying to look and sound classic. In other words, “CODA” won’t look embarrassingly dated a few years after the movie is released. With breezy charm and some unabashed sentimentality, “CODA” also gives a valuable perspective of a family affected by deafness. However, this movies speaks to universal truths that self-doubt, not a physical disability, is often the biggest obstacle that people have to overcome in pursuing a dream.

UPDATE: Apple TV+ will release “CODA” in U.S. cinemas and on Apple TV+ on August 13, 2021. The film will get a limited re-release of free screenings in U.S. and London cinemas from February 25 to February 27, 2022.

Review: ‘Our Friend,’ starring Casey Affleck, Dakota Johnson and Jason Segel

January 22, 2021

by Carla Hay

Dakota Johnson and Casey Affleck in “Our Friend” (Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions/Gravitas Ventures)

“Our Friend”

Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Culture Representation: Taking place from 2000 to 2014 in Fairhope, Alabama; New Orleans; and briefly in Pakistan, the dramatic film “Our Friend” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the middle-class and working-class.

Culture Clash: A married couple and their male best friend go through ups and downs in their relationship, especially after the wife gets ovarian cancer and the best friend temporarily moves in the family home to help the spouses take care of their two young daughters.

Culture Audience: “Our Friend” will appeal primarily to people interested in emotionally authentic, dramatic movies about loyal friendships and how cancer affects relationships.

Isabella Kai, Jason Segel and Violet McGraw in “Our Friend” (Photo courtesy of Roadside Attractions/Gravitas Ventures)

The tearjerker drama “Our Friend,” which is inspired by a true story, departs from the usual formula of a family coping with cancer. When someone in a family has this disease, cancer dramas usually focus on how a spouse, parent or child is dealing with it. Those aspects are definitely in “Our Friend,” but there’s also the unusual component of a male best friend moving into the family household to be a nurturing supporter. Thanks to heartfelt performances from the main cast members, “Our Friend” is a genuine and relatable film, despite being the type of drama where it’s easy to predict exactly how it’s going to end.

Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite and written by Brad Ingelsby, “Our Friend” is based on a 2015 Esquire magazine essay titled “The Friend,” written by journalist Matt Teague. (“The Friend” was the original title for this movie.) In this deeply personal article, he described the generosity of Dane Faucheux, the longtime best friend of Matt and his wife Nicole Teague. After Nicole was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, Dane (who was a bachelor at the time) put his life on hold in New Orleans to temporarily move in with the couple in Fairhope, Alabama, to help them take care of their household and the couple’s two young daughters Molly and Evangeline, nicknamed Evie.

The movie “Our Friend” expands on that essay by jumping back and forth in time to show how the friendship between Matt, Nicole and Dane evolved over 14 years, including the highs, lows and everything in between. The movie’s story spans from the year 2000 (when the three of them met) to the year 2014, when Nicole’s cancer was at its worst. The cinematic version of the story avoids a lot of nauseating details that are in the Esquire essay about bodily functions of a cancer patient. Instead, the movie focuses on showing this intense friendship from the individual perspectives of Matt, Nicole and Dane.

Nicole and Dane met each other while living in New Orleans in their early 20s, when she was one of the stars of a local musical theater production and he was a lighting operator in the crew. Nicole is open-hearted, compassionate and the type of person whom a lot of people feel like could be their best friend. Dane is socially awkward and somewhat introverted but an overall good guy who has some immaturity issues.

In the movie, Nicole was already married to Matt when she met Dane, who didn’t know that Nicole was married when he asked Nicole out on a date. Dane’s courtship mistake is never shown in the movie, but it’s mentioned in conversations. Once Nicole told Dane about her marital status, they were able to overcome this minor embarrassment and became good friends. Dane and Nicole are comfortable enough with each other that talk about their love lives with each other.

Dane is thoughtful and generous (he gives homemade mix CDs to Nicole), and he and Nicole love to talk about music, even when they agree to disagree. She thinks Led Zeppelin is “the greatest band ever,” while he doesn’t really care for Led Zeppelin. The Led Zeppelin reference in the movie is significant because two of Led Zeppelin’s original songs—”Ramble On” and “Going to California”—are used in emotional montage scenes in “Our Friend.”

By making Nicole an actress who loves musical theater, “Our Friend” gives Johnson a chance to showcase her singing skills, which are very good but not outstanding. Johnson sings two songs in the movie: “Hands All Hands Around” (from the musical “Quilters”) and a cover version of the Grateful Dead’s “If I Had the World to Give.” Johnson also did some singing in her 2020 movie “The High Note,” so maybe this is her way of demonstrating that she wants to be a professional singer too.

One day, Dane asks for Nicole’s advice about how to approach a theater co-worker named Charlotte (played by Denée Benton) whom he wants to ask out on a date. Unbeknownst to him, Charlotte isn’t attracted to Dane and has already been dating the theater’s stage manager named Aaron (played by Jake Owen). Minutes after Dane confides in Nicole that he’s going to ask Charlotte on a date, Charlotte tells Nicole in a private conversation that she suspects that Dane has a crush on her but Charlotte isn’t interested in dating Dane. It’s one of many examples in the movie that show how Nicole is a trusted confidante to many people in her life and she knows how to make people feel special.

Of course, Dane eventually finds out that Charlotte and Aaron are dating. Dane mopes about it for a little bit when he sees Charlotte and Aaron showing some heavy public displays of affection at a bar on the night that Nicole introduces Matt to Dane. The first time Matt and Dane meet, it’s at this bar, and Dane makes an apology to Matt for asking Nicole out on a date. Matt tells Dane not to worry about it and says that he has no hard feelings.

While Dane watches Charlotte and Aaron from a distance at the bar, Dane seem to takes their coupling way more personally than he should. He grumbles to Nicole and Matt that Charlotte seems to be rubbing her feelings for Aaron in Dane’s face. It’s a sign (one of many) that one of Dane’s flaws is that he can be emotionally insecure and overly needy.

As the movie skips back and forth in time, it’s eventually shown that Charlotte and Aaron have gotten married and have two children together. Charlotte and Nicole remain very close friends, even after Matt and Nicole move to Fairhope. Matt and Nicole relocated to Fairhope so that Nicole could be close to her parents. The parents of Matt and Nicole parents are never seen in the movie. After Nicole finds out that she has cancer in 2012, Matt tells Dane that Nicole has been afraid to tell her parents about the cancer diagnosis.

By the time that Nicole and Matt are living in Fairhope during her cancer ordeal, it’s shown in the movie that their daughter Molly (played by Isabella Kai) is about 11 or 12 years old, while their daughter Evie played by Violet McGraw) is about 5 or 6 years old. Molly is sometimes moody and quick-tempered, while Evie is generally a happy-go-lucky kid. Molly’s personality is more like Matt’s, while Evie is more like Nicole.

Over the years, it’s apparent that Aaron likes to make snide, condescending comments about Dane to other people whenever Dane isn’t around to defend himself. Aaron always makes digs about Dane working in dead-end jobs (such as a sales clerk at an athletic clothing store) and Dane not seeming to have an career goals or any real direction in life. Dane (who has a goofy sense of humor) has tried to be a stand-up comedian, but these dreams never really go anywhere, mainly because he just isn’t that talented. However, when Dane practices his stand-up routine for Nicole, she politely laughs at his corny jokes, and it makes him feel good.

Dave has financial problems, to the point where he’s sometimes temporarily homeless and has to stay at friends’ places or has to move back home with his parents, and he seems unsure of his purpose in life. B y contrast, Matt’s career as a journalist is flourishing. One of Matt’s first jobs was as a reporter at the New Orleans Times-Picayune, where he felt stifled and bored with covering fluffy local news. Matt’s real goal is to be a globetrotting journalist, where he gets to cover what he calls “important” news, such as wars and politics, that can make a big difference in people’s lives.

Matt gets his wish and his career is thriving as a freelancer covering war news for publications such as The New York Times and The Atlantic. But all that traveling has taken a toll on his marriage to Nicole. In 2008, while Matt is on assignment in Pakistan, he and Nicole have an argument on the phone because he took an assignment to go to Libya without discussing it with Nicole first.

Matt doesn’t think that he did anything wrong, because he says that the family needs the money. Nicole, who’s now a homemaker, tells Matt that she feels like she’s a “single parent” and complains to him: “I feel like I married a war correspondent, not a journalist.”

Matt goes home for a few days before he has to go to Libya. And he gets unsolicited advice from Dane to not take the assignment in Libya and stay with the family. This leads to an argument between Matt and Dane where Dane points out Matt’s personality flaws, while Matt insults Dane for having a directionless life with no real career.

Because the movie’s timeline is not in chronological order, viewers have to piece together the ebbs and flows of the friendship between Matt, Nicole and Dane. There are hints that Dane struggles with his mental health, especially in an extended scene taking place in 2010 that shows Dane abruptly packing up and leaving his parents’ house so he can go camping by himself in remote Southwest canyons. Before he leaves, Dane’s older brother Davey (played by Richard Speight Jr.) asks Dane if Dane is having one of his “episodes.”

During this solitary excursion, Dane meets a friendly German camper named Teresa (played by Gwendoline Christie), who’s also traveling by herself. Teresa asks Dane to join her on her hikes. Dane is standoffish at first, but Teresa insists on hanging out with Dane, and he eventually warms up to her a little bit. Teresa senses that Dane is deeply troubled and unhappy with his life, so she shares with him a very personal experience that changes his perspective. It’s one of the better scenes in the movie, proving that not all of the emotional gravitas in “Our Friend” has to do with Nicole’s cancer diagnosis.

However, “Our Friend” is still very much a cancer movie. There’s the heart-wrenching scene showing Matt and Nicole deciding how they are going to break the news to their children that Nicole is going to die from cancer. There’s the predictable scene where Nicole makes a “bucket list” of things she wants to do before she dies, with Matt and Dane frantically trying to make some of the more difficult things on the list (such as being grand marshal of the next Mardi Gras parade) come true for Nicole. And then there are the expected scenes of Nicole having medication-related meltdowns.

The Teague family members also have the misfortune of their beloved pet pug Gracie being diagnosed with cancer around the same time that Nicole gets sick with cancer. While Matt spends time with Nicole in the hospital, Dane has the task of taking Gracie to the veterinarian, who tells Dane that it’s best if the terminally ill dog undergoes euthanasia. Dane, who is not the owner of the dog, is put in the awkward position of having to represent the Teague family when the dog is permanently put to sleep. Dane also has to tell Molly and Evie the bad news about Gracie’s death, because Matt and Nicole are too preoccupied in the hospital.

During all of this cancer drama, Dane gets some pushback and criticism for deciding to move in with Matt and Nicole. At the time of Nicole’s cancer diagnosis, Dane was living in New Orleans and had been dating a baker named Kat (played by Marielle Scott) for about a year. Dane and Kat’s relationship has progressed to the point where Kat has given him spare keys to her home.

At first, Kat was fine with Dane going to visit the Teagues in Fairhope (which is about 160 miles away from New Orleans), as a show of support for the family. But the visits became longer and longer, until Dane eventually moved in with the Teagues. And Kat wasn’t so okay with that decision. Aaron also makes snarky comments to the Teagues’ circle of friends about Dane being a freeloader, until Matt eventually puts Aaron in his place for being such an unrelenting jerk about Dane.

The movie also shows that Matt and Nicole have other challenges in their lives besides her cancer. Before she was diagnosed with cancer, their marriage hit a rough patch due to issues over jealousy and infidelity. And before and during Nicole’s cancer crisis, Molly was feeling resentment toward Matt because of his long absences from home. Molly sometimes lashes out at Matt and makes it clear that she thinks Nicole is a much better parent than Matt is.

The biggest noticeable flaw about “Our Friend” is there seems to be a gender double standard in how the three main characters physically age in the movie. Nicole looks like she’s barely aged throughout the entire movie, even though the story takes place over the course of 14 years. It’s a contrast to how Matt and Dane age over the years, particularly with their hair. In the early years of the friendship, Segel wears a wig to make Dane look younger, while in the later years, he sports his natural receding hairline. Likewise, Affleck’s natural gray hair is seen in the later years of the friendship.

This discrepancy has a lot to do with the fact that in real life, Johnson is 14 years younger than Affleck, and she’s nine years younger than Segel. The real Nicole, Matt and Dane were much closer to each other in age. This movie’s unwillingness to show a woman aging over 14 years and casting a much-younger female co-star as the love interest of the leading male actor are part of bigger age discrimination issues that make it harder for actresses over the age of 35 to be cast as a love interest to someone who’s close to their age.

And when Nicole has cancer, the physical damages from cancer are barely shown. There’s the typical “dark circles under the eyes” look with makeup, as well as mentions of Nicole’s hair falling out because of chemotherapy. (At various times, she wears a headband or a wig.)

But the movie could have used a little more realism in showing the devastating physical toll that cancer can take. More often than not in the cancer scenes, the movie makes Nicole just look like she’s hung over from a wild night of partying, instead of looking like a real cancer patient who’s deep in chemotherapy. It’s not as if Johnson had to lose a scary amount of weight to look like a convincing cancer patient, but more could have been done with makeup and/or visual effects to make it look more realistic that her character was dying of cancer.

However, the filmmakers (including film editor Colin Patton) should get a lot of credit for taking the non-chronological scenes and making everything into a cohesive story that’s easy to understand. “Our Friend” is not the type of movie that can be watched while distracted by something else, because the year that a sequence takes place is shown on the screen to guide viewers. People watching this movie have to pay attention to these milestone year indicators to get the full scope of the story.

“Our Friend” is a well-cast movie where all the actors do convincing portrayals of the emotions expressed in the movie. (Cherry Jones has a small but important role as a hospice nurse named Faith Pruett.) As much as the movie is about Matt and Nicole’s marriage, it’s also very much about the friendship between Matt, Nicole and Dane.

Even though Nicole and Dane were friends before Dane and Matt knew each other, Nicole and Dane’s friendship starts to wane a little bit, the more debilitated with cancer she becomes. There’s a noticeable brotherly bond that develops between Matt and Dane, especially when they have to face the reality of life without Nicole. It doesn’t diminish Nicole’s role in the film, but it realistically shows how relationships can change when people have to prepare for the end of a loved one’s life. “Our Friend” is not an easy film to watch for anyone who hates to think about dying from cancer, but the sadness in the movie is balanced out by the joy of having true love from family and friends.

Roadside Attractions and Gravitas Ventures released “Our Friend” in U.S. cinemas, on January 22, 2021, the same date that Universal Pictures Home Entertainment released the movie on digital and VOD.

Review: ‘Enola Holmes,’ starring Millie Bobby Brown, Sam Claflin, Henry Cavill and Helena Bonham Carter

January 17, 2021

by Carla Hay

Henry Cavill, Millie Bobby Brown and Sam Claflin in “Enola Holmes” (Photo by Robert Viglaski/Legendary/Netflix)

“Enola Holmes”

Directed by Harry Bradbeer

Culture Representation: Taking place in England in 1884, the dramatic mystery thriller “Enola Holmes” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class, wealthy and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: Sherlock Holmes’ teenage sister Enola Holmes, who is determined to outsmart Sherlock and solve the mystery of their missing mother, ends up getting entangled in another mystery of a teenage lord who is the target of an assassination plot.

Culture Audience: “Enola Holmes” will appeal primarily to fans of Sherlock Holmes and the stars of this movie, as well as to people who are interested in a feminist-leaning perspective on mystery stories.

Millie Bobby Brown and Helena Bonham Carter in “Enola Holmes” (Photo by Alex Bailey/Legendary/Netflix)

“Enola Holmes” vibrantly does justice to the mystery book series for which it is named, thanks to a splendid cast and a twist-filled, engaging adventure that will leave viewers wanting more “Enola Holmes” movies. There’s a lot to like about this cinematic adaption of the book “The Case of the Missing Marquess: An Enola Holmes Mystery,” written by Nancy Springer as part of the “Enola Holmes” mystery book series. The “Enola Holmes” movie (directed by Harry Bradbeer and written by Jack Thorne) offers a dashing and often socially conscious interpretation of what it would be like to be a female teenage sleuth in 1880s England while navigating a patriarchal society that constantly underestimates her or tries to undermine her.

In the movie, Enola Holmes (played Millie Bobby Brown, who is one of the producers of “Enola Holmes”) is trying to establish her identity as a detective, apart from her older brother Sherlock Holmes, who’s a famous detective. Enola has been raised by her eccentric, non-conformist widowed mother named Eudoria (played by Helena Bonham Carter, mostly in flashbacks), who has taught Enola not to let her gender prevent her from learning things that have been traditionally male-dominated, such as math, science and martial arts. Eudoria has been enthusiastically training and homeschooling Enola in these male-dominated fields.

The words “feminist” and “free-thinking” are never said in the movie, but it’s a life outlook that Eudoria is teaching Enola to have. The movie takes place in 1884 England, and by this particular society’s standards, Enola is considered a bit of a “wild child” because she’s not very interested in traditionally feminine things or looking prim and proper. For example, Enola often wears her long hair in a way that was considered very un-ladylike at the time: by letting her hair loose and without pinning it up or wearing a hat.

Throughout the movie, Enola talks directly to the audience, as if she’s letting viewers into her own private thoughts. It’s a creative decision that works well in the movie, for the most part, especially when it comes to showing Enola’s comedic sarcasm. However, there are times when this “breaking the fourth wall” technique gets a tad grating because it disrupts the flow of a scene and takes viewers, however briefly, out of the scene’s intended tone.

On Enola’s 16th birthday, Eudoria mysteriously disappears with no indication of where she has gone. Enola, who has a very close relationship with Eudoria, suspects that Eudoria has not been kidnapped. Eudoria was very private and liked to keep secrets. Enola is determined to find her mother and get to the truth.

But before she can start investigating, Enola (who is the youngest of three children) is horrified when she’s told that because of Eudoria’s disappearance, Enola now has to be in the custody of one of her older bachelor brothers: middle child Sherlock Holmes or eldest child Mycroft Holmes, who are both about twice the age of Enola. Sherlock and Mycroft left home when Enola was very young and never really visited. Therefore, she barely knows them.

In fact, Sherlock and Mycroft haven’t seen Enola since she was a prepubescent child. When she goes to meet Mycroft and Sherlock at the train station, they don’t even recognize Enola at first. In a private meeting that Mycroft and Sherlock had before reuniting with Enola, Mycroft (who is greedy, bossy and very snobbish) agreed to take custody of Enola because he has an ulterior motive: He wants possession of the house where Enola grew up, in case their mother has permanently vanished.

Sherlock (who is even-tempered, analytical and usually compassionate) is somewhat relieved that he won’t have the responsibility of taking care of Enola. His true love is his detective work, and taking care of a rebellious teenage sister doesn’t fit into his lifestyle. Mycroft doesn’t really want to have Enola live with him either, so he immediately makes plans to send her to a boarding school. The school is headed by an uptight middle-aged spinster named Miss Harrison (played by Fiona Shaw), who is infatuated with Mycroft and will do anything he asks her to do.

Mycroft makes it clear to Enola that he doesn’t respect Enola or the way that their mother raised Enola. It’s revealed later in the movie that Mycroft was cruel to their mother, which is one of the reasons why Eudoria didn’t seem to mind that she hadn’t seen him for years. Mycroft mentions the difficulty of finding a boarding school that won’t consider Enola a “complete failure.” Mycroft adds, “With Miss Harrison’s help, we’ll make [Enola] acceptable to society.”

Enola’s first meeting with Miss Harrison doesn’t go well at all. Enola defiantly tells her, “I don’t need to go to your ridiculous school!” In return, Miss Harrison slaps Enola in the face. Enola pleads with Sherlock to live with him, but he tells Enola that the matter is out of his hands because Mycroft is now the legal guardian of Enola.

Sherlock is Enola’s idol (she keeps newspaper clippings of all his cases), but she also feels competitive with Sherlock to solve the mystery of their mother’s disappearance before he does. Just like Sherlock, Enola is smarter than the average person, but she has more obstacles than Sherlock at being taken seriously because she has three strikes against her in this society: She’s female, she’s underage, and she’s a non-conformist.

In a flashback memory, Eudoria tells Enola: “There are two paths you can take, Enola: yours or the path others choose for you.” It’s a philosophy that Enola takes to heart. And more often than not, Enola trusts her own instincts, even if things don’t always work out the way that she planned. Luckily, Enola is a quick thinker who can come up with alternative solutions when she finds herself in a jam.

In a candid conversation, Sherlock tells Enola what she already suspected: There must be a very important reason for their mother’s disappearance, which seems to have been staged by Eudoria. Enola can’t solve the mystery while confined at a boarding school, so she runs away from home before she can be taken to the boarding school. Before she leaves, Enola finds some clues left by her mother that lead to a large stash of cash that Enola takes with her because it will come in handy during her investigation.

Enola disguises herself as a boy and sneaks onto a train. While in her private passenger car, Enola is surprised to find another runaway, who’s been hiding in a travel bag stowed in the car. He’s a boy around her age named Viscount Tewkesbury, the Marquis of Basilwhether (played by Louis Partridge), who has left home because he says his relatives are too controlling.

Enola immediately wants nothing to do with Tewkesbury, which means that later on in the movie he’ll become her love interest, in that “I like you but I’m going to pretend that I don’t” kind of way. She doesn’t have much time to kick him out of her train quarters because a sinister-looking man, whose name is later revealed to be Linthorn (played by Burn Gorman), has followed and ambushed Tewkesbury and tries to throw him out of the moving train. (And like a true villain in stories like this, Linthorn wears a derby/bowler hat.) Enola comes to the rescue of Linthorn and saves his life. The two teens jump off the train and immediately run away together, even though they don’t really know where they are.

During their time on the run, Enola and Tewkesbury get to know each other, and they find out that they have some things in common, besides not wanting to be under the control of bossy relatives. Enola and Tewkesbury both have fathers who have died. They both are resisting being “sent away” by relatives in restrictive environments. Enola doesn’t want to go to boarding school, while Tewkesbury doesn’t want to give in to his relatives’ demands that he enroll in the army. The two teens have also been following the news of about the Representation of the People Act 1884 (also known as the Third Reform Act), which proposes the expansion of voting rights to more citizens and which Parliament will decide on in an upcoming vote.

The beginning of a romantic spark between Enola and Tewkesbury is evident when Enola decides that Tewkesbury’s hair needs to be cut, so she cuts it for him. She acts as if she’s too independent to think about dating boys, but it’s easy to see that she’s growing fond of Tewkesbury and doesn’t want to admit it to him or to herself. Enola wants to solve the mystery of what happened to her mother, and she thinks dating someone would be too much of a distraction.

Tewkesbury and Enola eventually go their separate ways when Tewkesbury changes his mind about being a runaway and decides to go back home. He lives on a lavish estate with his widowed mother Lady Tewkesbury (played by Hattie Morahan); his paternal uncle Sir Whimbrel Tewkesbury (played by David Bamber); and his paternal grandmother called the Dowager (played by Frances de la Tour). Enola decides to move on and go to London. Even though Enola and Tewkesbury amicably part ways, it won’t be the last time they see each other in the story.

Enola has been declared a runaway, so she has to dodge the authorities. Mycroft has enlisted the help of a Scotland Yard inspector named Lestrade (played by Adeel Akhtar) to track down Enola. Mycroft feels angry, humiliated and insulted that his teenage sister was able to slip out of his custody. During her time on the run, Enola also comes across a female jiu jitsu class led by an instructor named Edith (who Susan Wokoma), who knows Eudoria and provides Enola with some valuable information, as well as a crash course in jiu jitsu.

Most of the charm of “Enola Holmes” can be credited to Brown and her spirited and charismatic performance of this intrepid sleuth. Enola is no shrinking violet, as she can get down and dirty in some fight scenes. However, the violence is tame enough that “Enola Holmes” can be considered a family-friendly film that adults and kids over the age of 7 can enjoy. The movie’s production design and costume design are on point, as are other technical elements such as cinematography, musical score and the stunt/action scenes.

“Enola Holmes” at times gets a little too heavy-handed with its feminist messages by making feminism look like it’s anti-men, based on some snide male-bashing comments that Enola makes in the movie. True feminism isn’t about being demeaning to men; it’s about believing in gender equality. Let’s hope that in future “Enola Holmes” movies (and you know there will be sequels), the filmmakers have Enola espouse more of the true gender equality spirit of feminism, because Enola doesn’t need to have a negative attitude toward men to be a good feminist.

There are enough twists and turns in the movie to please fans of mystery detective stories. Cavill’s Sherlock Holmes isn’t as intense as the character has been portrayed in other movies, but that’s because this Sherlock Holmes is at the beginning of his illustrious career. Claflin’s portrayal of Mycroft Holmes is fairly standard as a selfish villain, and it’s pretty obvious that Mycroft is a symbol for oppressive patriarchy. The supporting actors all do good jobs in rounding out this well-cast ensemble.

Overall, director Bradbeer keeps a brisk pace and infuses some modern-ish elements to the story (such as the female jiu jitsu class) to lighten up some of the stuffiness that would have dragged down this 123-minute movie if it strictly adhered to replicating everything about the real 1884 England. Purists can watch documentaries for that type of historical realism. “Enola Holmes” is what it is: good, fun escapism.

Netflix premiered “Enola Holmes” on September 23, 2020.

Review: ‘Farewell Amor,’ starring Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, Zainab Jah and Jayme Lawson

January 17, 2021

by Carla Hay

Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine, Zainab Jah and Jayme Lawson in “Farewell Amor” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“Farewell Amor”

Directed by Ekwa Msangi

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the dramatic film “Farewell Amor” features a predominantly black cast of characters (with some white people and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: An Angolan immigrant in New York City is reunited with his wife and teenage daughter after spending 17 years apart from them.

Culture Audience: “Farewell Amor” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in immigrant stories that are rarely told about how family members who haven’t lived together other in several years suddenly have to adjust to living together again.

Jayme Lawson, Zainab Jah and Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine in “Farewell Amor” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

Can a family be put back together successfully after 17 years apart? That’s the question at the center of the multifaceted and emotional drama “Farewell Amor,” which tells the story from the perspectives of the three main characters: a husband, a wife and their teenage daughter. Written and directed by Ekwa Msangi in a spare but effective style, “Farewell Amor” shows the complications that can ensue when a family’s long-awaited reunion doesn’t necessarily equal instant happiness. It’s an aspect of the immigrant experience that’s rarely depicted in movies that are made in America.

“Farewell Amor” takes place in New York City’s Brooklyn borough, where Angolan immigrant Walter Santos (played by Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine) lives. Walter has been living in the United States for the past 17 years, after fleeing from war-torn Angola. He had to leave behind his wife Esther and baby daughter Sylvia, who both eventually relocated to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Although Walter has kept in touch over the years, he has not been in the same room as his wife and daughter for all those years. He never gave up on trying to bring them to the United States as legal immigrants. The movie has no flashbacks to this part of the family’s life, but the information is revealed in conversations.

The movie begins with Walter, Esther (played by Zainab Jah) and a now 17-year-old Sylvia (played by Jayme Lawson) reuniting at the airport and greeting each other with joyful hugs. But how long will that joy last? The movie creatively shows the perspective of each character in segments, with each segment beginning with the airport reunion.

Walter’s segment is shown first, followed by Sylvia’s and then Esther’s. Some scenes are repeated, but from the point of view of the person whose perspective is depicted. Other scenes are unique to a segment and help fill in some of the blanks. What the viewers get is a richly layered portrait about a family trying to live together again, but not being able to avoid the awkward realities and emotionally fraught impact of how this long separation has changed them individually.

Walter works as a taxi driver, and he lives in a one-bedroom apartment. He’s a mild-mannered man who’s happily made room for his wife and daughter, even though the living space will be cramped with three people living there. When Esther and Sylvia arrive at the apartment for the first time, Walter has thoughtfully prepared dinner for them. Esther is impressed and asks Walter who taught him to cook. Walter makes a vague reply that people can learn to cook with the will to learn and the right resources.

Walter has a secret that he doesn’t tell his wife and daughter when they settle into the apartment: He had a live-in girlfriend named Linda (played by Nana Mensah), a hospital nurse who moved out and broke up with Walter when she found out that Esther and Sylvia were coming back into Walter’s life. It’s later revealed that Linda knew all along about Esther and Sylvia. But because it took so long for their immigration to be approved, Walter moved on with his life, he met Linda, they fell in love, and started a life together.

Linda was living in the apartment long enough to have her mail delivered there. And when Esther sees an envelope of mail with Linda’s name on it, she asks Walter about it. He quickly makes an excuse that it’s mail that’s been delivered to the wrong address. Meanwhile, Walter notices during that first reunion meal with Esther and Sylvia that a strong-willed and outspoken Esther insists on giving a fervent prayer before eating.

Walter asks Esther when she became so religious, and she replies that it was after she and Sylvia moved to Tanzinia and they received refugee help from church members there. Esther isn’t just religious. She’s fanatically religious, to the point where she thinks dancing is sinful and she is against the idea of Sylvia dating, even though Sylvia is old enough to date.

And that’s a problem for Sylvia, who loves to dance. Sylvia can be quiet and introverted, but dancing is her creative outlet where she lets her personality shine the most. At her school in New York City, Sylvia is treated like an immigrant misfit, but she catches the eye of an attractive fellow student named Devin “DJ” Jamison (played by Marcus Scribner), who strikes up a conversation with a shy Sylvia when they’re waiting together at the same bus stop. DJ notices Sylvia practicing some dance moves, and he tells her about a local hip-hop dance contest where the grand prize is $1,000.

Sylvia eagerly enters the contest, even though she knows that her mother will greatly disapprove. By contrast, Walter has no problem with Sylvia being interested in dancing because he likes dancing too. Walter encourages Sylvia to pursue her dance dreams and doesn’t try to stop her when she tells him about the dance contest. Walter is so supportive of Sylvia that he wants to watch Sylvia and cheer her on when she’s in the contest. Sylvia and DJ gradually spend more time together, and their mutual attraction to each other grows.

Esther is very religious, but she’s not a complete prude, since she’s eager to resume her sex life with Walter, and she wants it to be passionate. She tells him during their first night together after being reunited that she hasn’t been with any other man since their separation. Walter doesn’t reply with a similar comment about remaining faithful. The expression on Esther’s face shows that she’s noticed this omitted statement of fidelity from Walter, but she wants to put any thoughts out of her mind that Walter might have been unfaithful, because she wants to get back to being a “normal” husband and wife.

However, their sexual intimacy is awkward, and Walter seems preoccupied with other thoughts. Esther can’t help but notice, and her suspicions deepen about Walter having another woman in his life. Walter sees Linda a few more times during the story, in situations that won’t be described in this review. But it’s enough to say that Sylvia has a chance encounter with Linda, and something happens that makes Sylvia also suspect that Linda was her father’s mistress.

The movie also shows that the breakup with Linda has deeply affected Walter. At a time when he should be happy to be reunited with his family, he’s secretly pining over Linda. He makes an attempt to see if he can still continue his relationship with Linda on the side. There’s a pivotal scene where Linda tells him what her decision is.

Walter is not religious and he’s uncomfortable with how religion has seemed to take over Esther’s life. Esther is so devoted to her church back in Tanzania that she still wants to tithe and send the money back to the church. And that’s a problem, because in New York, Esther hasn’t found a job yet and the family is on a very tight budget. Guess whose money Esther thinks should be tithed now that she and Walter back together?

Meanwhile, Esther meets a friendly neighbor named Nzingha (played by Joie Lee), who lives on the same floor. Nzingha invites Esther to go grocery shopping with her. They begin talking about the neighborhood, and Nzingha seems open to showing Esther around and helping her adjust to life in America. However, when Esther asks Nzingha if she knows if a woman named Linda used to live in the apartment where Walter and the family now live, Nzingha casually avoids answering the question.

Although “Farewell Amor” could have turned into a soap opera, the movie doesn’t fall into the trap of being an overly melodramatic film. The movie is at its strongest in authentically showing little things that depict the gradual and sometimes painful realization that this family reunion in America isn’t quite the harmonious fantasy that all three of these family members thought it would be. As disappointment sets in, viewers can see the emotional toll it takes on each family member.

There’s a scene of Sylvia texting with her best friend Neema in Africa, and Neema thinks that Sylvia is living a glamorous life in New York. In reality, Sylvia’s life is anything but glamorous but she’s too embarrassed to admit it. And that’s probably because Sylvia had those same illusions of having an exciting life in America before she moved to America and found out it isn’t always what’s depicted on TV and in movies.

Meanwhile, it’s revealed at one point in the story that Walter and Esther met in college, where he was studying journalism and she was studying social sciences. But in America, Walter is a taxi driver and Esther is unemployed. It’s a depiction of the harsh reality that many immigrants experience in America, where they can’t benefit from the education that they earned in their native countries, usually because of language barriers and/or immigrant discrimination. Walter, Esther and Sylvia all speak very good English, but it’s implied that they’ll have uphill battles in the workforce from employers who might consider an education in Africa as “inferior.”

And even though the family is back together and living in the same household, each perspective of Walter, Sylvia and Esther shows that they are isolated in their own ways from each other. Walter had a secret life that he’s terrified of his wife and daughter discovering. Sylvia, who wants more independence as a teenager, is torn between the strict parent (Esther) who raised her and the more lenient parent Walter) whom she doesn’t really know. Esther’s religious fanaticism has caused a certain level of alienation from her husband and child.

“Farewell Amor” is an impressive feature-film debut from Masangi, who weaves the perspectives of these three different family members together in a very cohesive and compelling way. The movie resolves certain issues a little too quickly, but there’s enough emotional authenticity portrayed by the three main actors to carry the film. The family members in this story are African, but their immigrant experience of fleeing a war-torn country and trying to build a life together after years apart can speak to an untold number of people who’ve been through the same difficulties or feel empathy for those who have.

IFC Films released “Farewell Amor” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on December 11, 2020.

Copyright 2017-2024 Culture Mix
CULTURE MIX