Tag: LGBTQ

Review: ‘Saltburn,’ starring Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, Alison Oliver and Archie Madekwe

November 17, 2023

by Carla Hay

Barry Keoghan in “Saltburn” (Photo courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios)

“Saltburn”

Directed by Emerald Fennell

Culture Representation: Taking place in England, mostly in 2006, the comedy/drama film “Saltburn” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A mysterious Oxford University student becomes infatuated with his rich male classmate, who invites him to spend the summer with him at his family’s sprawling estate, where mind games and chaos ensue. 

Culture Audience: “Saltburn” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and movies that skewer the upper class of society.

Jacob Elordi in “Saltburn” (Photo courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios)

“Saltburn” seems inspired by “Brideshead Revisited” and “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” with a touch of “Absolutely Fabulous. “Although not as great as these inspirations, “Saltburn” has memorable performances and eye-catching scenes. The ending has a major plot hole. This plot hole might be easily overlooked during the sequence of events that are meant to shock viewers, but it’s a plot hole that nearly ruins what could have been a completely believable conclusion. Hint: “Saltburn” ignores the fact that coroners exist.

Written and directed by Emerald Fennell, “Saltburn” is her second feature film as a writer/director, following her 2020 feature-film directorial debut, “Promising Young Woman,” which won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. “Saltburn” has many recycled plot points from other movies, so “Saltburn” is not really all that original, but it does have some scenes that are fairly unique. “Saltburn” had its world premiere at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival.

“Saltburn” (which takes place mostly in 2006) begins by showing the arrival of a new student at Oxford University in England: Oliver Quick (played by Barry Keoghan) has joined the graduating Class of 2006 sometime in December 2005, close to the Christmas holiday season. Oliver is a loner who is the type of overachieving student who will read every book on a professor’s recommended list, even though he doesn’t have to do all that work.

One of the first people Oliver meets at Oxford is one of his roommates: Michael Gavey (played by Ewan Mitchell), who wants to be Oliver’s friend and is even nerdier and more socially awkward than Oliver is. Michael is the type of dork who will bark out demands that Oliver prove his knowledge of answers to random questions that Michael verbally throws at him. Michael likes to feel intellectually superior to almost everyone, even though he secretly craves acceptance from the popular students in the school.

The most popular clique in the class is led by a wealthy heartthrob named Felix Catton (played by Jacob Elordi), who uses his good looks and charm to get whatever he wants. The Catton family’s opulent and sprawling estate is called Saltburn. The other students in Felix’s clique are also affluent and/or come from prominent families.

The opening scene of “Saltburn” shows Oliver saying, “I wasn’t in love with him. I loved him, of course, Everyone loved him … I protected him … But was I in love with him?” Before he answers that question, the movie shows Oliver’s arrival at Oxford.

The “him” in Oliver’s opening monologue is Felix, of course. Oliver seems instantly infatuated with Felix the moment that he sees Felix. Oliver admires Felix from afar, until one day, Oliver is riding his bike on campus, when he sees Felix looking dejected as Felix is sitting near a tree-lined bikeway path. Oliver stops and asks Felix what’s wrong. Felix says that his bicycle has a flat tire.

Felix explains that he’s already late for a class, which is too far away for him to walk in order not to miss most of the class session. Oliver generously lets Felix borrow Oliver’s bike. A grateful Felix later invites Oliver to hang out with Felix and his inner circle at a local pub. It’s the beginning of a friendship between Felix and Oliver, who quickly shuns Michael after Oliver is accepted into Felix’s clique. Michael isn’t too happy about this rejection and later makes some hilarious cutting remarks to Oliver about Oliver’s social climbing.

Someone who also isn’t happy about Oliver joining the group is Felix’s American cousin Farleigh Start (played by Archie Madekwe), who sees Oliver as a socially inferior interloper. Farleigh already had a grudge against Oliver, who embarrassed Farleigh in front of one of their teachers named Professor Ware (played Reece Shearsmith), when Oliver showed he knew more than Farleigh about the topic of discussion.

However, Farleigh still has some clout with the professor, who confesses that Farleigh’s mother (a famous actress named Fredrika Start, who’s never seen in the movie) was his crush when he and Fredrika were students at Oxford. People who watch “Saltburn” shouldn’t miss the first 15 minutes of the movie, which quickly explains the backstories of Farleigh and Oliver, who end up having a rivalry over Felix’s attention.

Farleigh’s mother moved to the United States, where Farleigh was born and raised. She had some kind of mental breakdown and has financial problems, so she sent Farleigh to live at Saltburn, because her brother is Sir James Catton (played by Richard E. Grant), who is Felix’s father. Farleigh’s father is not in Farleigh’s life. It’s mentioned Farleigh has been expelled from many schools for getting sexually involved with male teachers. Farleigh feels a lot of resentment and shame for having to ask his uncle James for money.

As for Oliver, the word has gotten around to many students at the school that he’s on a scholarship. Oliver tells people that he is an only child, and his estranged parents are heavily involved in drugs. According to Oliver, his father is a drug dealer who’s been in and out of prison. His mother is a drug addict and an alcoholic. Oliver hints that he experienced a lot of abuse and trauma in his childhood. Oliver makes it clear that he wants nothing to do with his parents.

“Saltburn” breezes by the academic year to show the graduation of Oxford’s Class of 2006. With no immediate plans after graduation, Felix invites Oliver to stay for the summer with the Catton family at Saltburn. The best parts of the movie take place at Saltburn, which is not only a playground for the family’s indulgences but also a prison of bottled-up resentments, sexual manipulation, and psychological warfare. Oliver gets swept up in it all.

The other members of the Catton family at Saltburn are Felix’s self-centered and vapid mother Elspeth Catton (played by Rosamund Pike) and Felix’s jaded and insecure late-teens sister Venetia Catton (played by Alison Oliver), who have some of the best lines in the movie. Elspeth is the type of person who will smile and pretend that her insults are compliments. Venetia, who has an eating disorder, is both rebellious and needy.

All of the Catton family members don’t do much at Saltburn except smoke, drink, eat lavish meals, lounge around, and have parties. When the younger members of the family play tennis, they wear tuxedos and party clothes. The family has a longtime butler named Duncan (played by Paul Rhys), whose “stiff upper lip” mannerisms suggest that he’s heard and seen a lot of unmentionable things at Saltburn, but he is loyally discreet.

Carey Mulligan (the star of “Promising Young Woman”) has a small supporting role in “Saltburn” as Elspeth’s tattooed friend Pamela, who is staying at Saltburn after getting out of drug rehab. Pamela has overstayed her welcome, but Elspeth won’t come right out and tell Pamela to leave. The snappy rapport between redhead Pamela and blonde Elspeth will remind “Absolutely Fabulous” sitcom fans of the rapport between “Absolutely Fabulous” substance-abusing fashionista friends Edina “Eddie” Monsoon (the redhead) and Patricia “Patsy” Stone (the blonde).

“Saltburn” unpeels the layers of Oliver, who at first seems in awe and somewhat overwhelmed to be in the presence of the Catton family’s wealth. Slowly but surely, it’s revealed that there’s a lot more to Oliver than what he first appeared to be. And there are some things he does in the movie (especially those involving bodily fluids) that are intended to make viewers uncomfortable.

Keoghan gives a fascinating performance as Oliver, who is quite the chameleon. Madekwe is compelling in his depiction of the very snarky Farleigh, Oliver’s main adversary. Pike and Oliver are also standouts for their portrayals of a mother and daughter who are caught between smug vanity and crippling self-doubt. Look beneath the physically attractive surfaces of Elspeth and Venetia, and you’ll see two women who hate that their worth is defined by how they look and how much wealth they have.

Elordi is also quite good in his role as Felix, who is shallow but is a less-toxic member of the Catton family. “Saltburn” plays with viewers’ expectations of whether or not ladies’ man Felix will acknowledge Oliver’s obvious infatuation with Felix. And if so, what will be done about it? And what if Oliver gets rejected?

“Saltburn” has some stunning cinematography (by Linus Sandgren) that alternates between bright hues of idyllic luxury and the shadowy darkness of secrets and decadence. The movie’s production design and costume design are also noteworthy. “Saltburn” has some intense emotional scenes that are well-acted with clever dialogue.

Where “Saltburn” stumbles the most is in the last 20 minutes of the movie, which will be divisive to viewers. The concluding part of “Saltburn” is very suspenseful, but when answers to mysteries are finally revealed, they are rushed through the story and just create more questions that the movie never bothers to answer. Still, there’s no denying that the cast members’ performances are worth watching. And the movie’s flaws are outnumbered by the areas where “Saltburn” excels.

Amazon MGM Studios released “Saltburn” in select U.S. cinemas on November 17, 2023, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on November 22, 2023. Prime Video will premiere “Saltburn” on December 22, 2023.

Review: ‘Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project,’ starring Nikki Giovanni

November 11, 2023

by Carla Hay

Nikki Giovanni in “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” (Photo courtesy of HBO)

“Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project”

Directed by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson

Culture Representation: This biographical documentary film of activist/poet Nikki Giovanni features her first-person perspective, as well as commentary from African Americans and white people who are connected to her in some way.

Culture Clash: Giovanni, an outspoken critic of white supremacist racism, discusses overcoming an abusive background, family conflicts and resistance to her activism.

Culture Audience: “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching documentaries about unusual political activists.

Nikki Giovanni in “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” (Photo courtesy of HBO)

“Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” is a journey into a unique life and perspective that might not be for everyone, but it stands firm in its authenticity. This documentary about poet/activist Nikki Giovanni is bold and somewhat unconventional, just like Giovanni. The movie evokes outer space travel as an apt metaphor for how ideas and influences can transcend boundaries.

Directed by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Documentary. The movie is told almost entirely from the perspective of Giovanni, with narration of some of her poems by actress Taraji P. Henson. The movie has the expected mix of archival footage and interviews conducted exclusively for the documnetary. However, “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” has added elements of atmospheric scenes of outer space, since Giovanni talks a lot about space travel and Mars.

The movie opens with a quote from Giovanni, “The trip to Mars can only be understood through black Americans.” If that sentence intrigues you, then this documentary might be your type of movie. Giovanni says in the documentary’s opening remark: “I don’t remember a lot of things, but a lot of things I don’t remember, I don’t choose to remember. I remember what’s important, and I make up the rest. That’s what storytelling is all about.”

In voiceover narration, Henson can be heard saying a line from Giovanni’s writing: “I think I’ll run away with the ants and live on Mars.” In another voiceover, Giovanni says: “I’m a big fan of black women, because in our blood is space travel, because we come from a known through an unknown. And that’s all that space travel is. If anybody can find what’s out there in the darkness, it’s black women.”

During a public Q&A with journalist/writer Touré, to promote her 2017 non-fiction book “A Good Cry: What We Learn From Tears and Laughter,” Giovanni comments on the enslaved black female slaves who were kidnapped in Africa and forced to live an enslaved life in the United States, where they were often raped by their white enslavers: “Being forced to have sex with aliens, whatever they put in us, we held it, and then we birthed it, and then we named it, and then we loved it. Why wouldn’t we do that on Mars?”

Giovanni was born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni on June 7, 1943 in Knoxville, Tennessee, but spent much of her childhood living in Ohio. Sometime in her childhood, she was given the nickname Nikki. Her parents Yolande Cornelia Sr. and Jones “Gus” Giovanni (who were sweethearts at Knoxville College) worked in public schools. Nikki graduated from Fisk University in Nashville in 1967. She has been a professor of writing and literature at Virginia Tech since 1987.

Nikki first came to national prominence as part of the Black Power movement that rose in the late 1960s. The documentary includes many archival clips of her appearances on TV shows, including “Soul!,” where she was a frequent guest. “Going to Mars” has has footage of several of Nikki’s speaking appearances, including at the 2016 Afropunk festival.

She also gets candid about her parents’ volatile marriage and says that her father often beat up her mother. Nikki says in a voiceover: “It was a stormy relationship at various points, but we know that deprivation gives us stormy relationships.” Later, she is shown saying during a WHYY radio interview about how she felt about her abusive father at the time she lived with him: “It was clear I was going to have to kill him, or else I’d have to move.”

Nikki’s complicated emotions about race and gender includes admitting to her prejudices. In a “Soul!” interview she did in 1971 with writer/poet James Baldwin, when she was at the height of her Black Power fame, she confessed that her biases were affecting her personal life: “I don’t like white people, and I’m afraid of black men. What do you do? That’s a cycle. And that’s unfortunate, because I need love.”

Nikki found love with her wife Virginia Fowler, who recruited Nikki to work at Virginia Tech. The two women are both cancer survivors: Nikki battled lung cancer in the 1990s. Fowler is recovering from lung cancer and breast cancer. Fowler talks a little bit about her cancer journey, but Nikki doesn’t really discuss her own cancer experiences in the documentary.

Nikki’s selective memory is also shown when someone named Tom calls her to ask Nikki to discuss her time at an unnamed magazine, but she declines to be interviewed. Nikki says it’s because she had a seizure and “doesn’t remember much.” She also chooses not to go into details about the relationship that resulted in the birth of her only child Thomas Govanni, who was born in 1969, and she raised him as a single mother.

Nikki doesn’t talk about the turbulent relationship that she’s had with Thomas, but Fowler comments that Nikki and Thomas were estranged for a number of years and have since reconciled. Thomas and his daughter Kai Giovanni appear briefly in the documentary, which shows Kai going to Nikki’s house for the first time.

Perhaps the biggest drawback of this documentary is that the most candid comments from Nikki are not things she said in exclusive interviews for the documentary but things she talked about in archival clips. Much credit should be given to the documentary’s research and editing teams for including a lot of this rarely seen footage. The documentary’s editing artfully weaves outer-space footage with the rest of the footage so that viewers feel like they are taken on a cosmic journey through Nikki’s life.

Most of the documentary’s original footage of Nikki consists of her at her home (such as a scene of her doing some gardening), hanging out with friends such as performer Novella Nelson, or making public speaking appearances. The most vulnerable that Nikki gets in the documentary is toward the end, when she copes with the grief over the death of her beloved aunt Agnes, who passed away at age 94. The documentary shows Nikki getting the news of the death and later speaking at Agnes’ funeral. Nikki comments during a moment that she is now the oldest living person in her family.

Nikki’s outlook on life can be summed up in two of her speaking appearances that are featured in the documentary. In a Q&A at the Apollo Theater with educator/actress Johnetta Cole, Nikki says: “I honestly think the most important word for me is ‘duty.’ … Our people have a great history, and it’s our duty to tell that story.” At another speaking appearance at a library in front of children, Nikki (who has written several children’s books) says: “I’m very fortunate that I just don’t care what people think about me.”

HBO released “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” in select U.S. cinemas on November 3, 2023. HBO and Max will premiere the movie on January 8, 2024.

Review: ‘Medusa Deluxe,’ starring Anita-Joy Uwajeh, Clare Perkins, Darrell D’Silva, Debris Stevenson, Harriet Webb, Heider Ali, Kae Alexander, Kayla Meikle, Lilit Lesser and Luke Pasqualino

October 23, 2023

by Carla Hay

Clare Perkins and Lilit Lesser in “Medusa Deluxe” (Photo by Robbie Ryan/A24)

“Medusa Deluxe”

Directed by Thomas Hardiman

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in England, the comedy/drama film “Medusa Deluxe” features a racially diverse (white, black, Latin and Asian) cast of characters portraying the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Hairstylists and their associates, who are preparing for a hairstyling competition, try to solve the mystery of who recently murdered a nearby salon owner.

Culture Audience: “Medusa Deluxe” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching offbeat murder mysteries with unusual characters.

Darrell D’Silva in “Medusa Deluxe” (Photo by Robbie Ryan/A24)

“Medusa Deluxe” is an ambitious and interesting but erratic murder mystery happening during a hairstyling contest. This frenetic dramedy would have worked better as a stage play. The characters are memorable though. The best scenes outshine any flaws. “Medusa Deluxe” made the rounds at several film festivals in 2022, including the Locarno Film Festival, where “Medusa Deluxe” had its world premiere. The film is acerbic, often weird, and filmed like it takes place in a neon-lit underground nightclub, where the amateur sleuths are neurotic hairdressers and their associates.

“Medusa Deluxe” is the feature-film debut of writer/director Thomas Hardiman. The movie is definitely not intended to have the same appeal as blockbuster films. It’s the type of quirky independent film where after the first 15 minutes, viewers will either be intrigued enough to want to watch more or will be turned off completely. Some of the characters talk in thick British accents (without English-language subtitles) and use a lot of British slang, so it might be difficult for some viewers to understand certain parts of the movie’s dialogue.

Filmed as if it’s in real time, “Medusa Deluxe” begins in a hair salon, just a few hours before the contest is set to begin. The movie takes place in an unnamed city in England. The people in the salon are abuzz about the death of a rival salon owner named Mosca (played by John Alan Roberts, shown in flashbacks), whose salon is nearby. Mosca had a particularly gruesome murder: He was scalped. No one in the salon seems to know exactly when Mosca was murdered, but they assume (based on what they’ve heard about the condition of his body), the murdered happened in the past 24 hours.

The people in the salon are waiting for investigating police to arrive to interview them. The hairstylist who is the loudest and most volatile in this group is salon worker Cleve (played by Clare Perkins), who is paranoid and superstitious about how this murder will affect her life and her chances in the upcoming contest. Cleve says that her father told her, “Evil will triumph” and “They follow me, dead people.”

Cleve had a tension-filled relationship with Mosca. She tells a story about hitting him over the head once with a shampoo bottle. What Cleve doesn’t say out loud right away but is pretty obvious is that because of her known history of conflicts with Mosca, she might become the prime suspect in his murder. Cleve can’t hide her nervousness about what she will say when the police arrive.

Also in the salon is hairstylist Kendra (played by Harriet Webb), who is another person who doesn’t get along well with Cleve. There’s been some gossip that Kendra and Mosca were conspiring to fix the contest so that Kendra would win. Not surprisingly, Cleve is furious about it. But does that mean Kendra killed Mosca to keep him quiet?

Another hair stylist is Divine (played by Kayla Meikle), who spreads gossip and misinformation, not necessarily to be malicious but because she likes to act as if she knows more than other people do. Three female models who are getting their hair styled for the contest are Timba (played by Anita-Joy Uwajeh), Angie (played by Lilit Lesser) and Etsy (played by Debris Stevenson), whose personalities aren’t as forceful as the hairstylists. Timba is the one who found Mosca’s body. Etsy starts to become suspicious of Kendra.

Some other characters might or might not be persons of interest in this murder. Mosca’s live-in boyfriend Angel (played by Luke Pasqualino), a very flamboyant Colombian immigrant, shows up and makes it known to everyone how much he is grieving. Mosca and Angel have an infant son named Pablo, whom Angel carries around with him, because apparently Angel couldn’t find a babysitter.

It turns out that Mosca was having a secret affair with a man named Rene (played by Darrell D’Silva), the director of a regional hairstyling competition who bankrolled Mosca’s salon. And that revelation adds more potential suspects to the list. Could Rene or Angel be the murderer? There’s also a socially awkward security guard named Gac (played by Heider Ali), who lurks about and seems to want to become friends with Rene.

“Medusa Deluxe” is often a cacophony of arguments, suspicions and resentments that erupt between this group of people. Although they want to know who killed Mosca, the hairstyling contest isn’t far from their minds. No one wants to drop out of the contest because of the murder.

Some of the fun in watching “Medusa Deluxe” is seeing the wild hairstyles that are being created for the contest. The styling of the hair is treated like avant-garde works of art, with wiring and extra materials infused in the hair to achieve the illusion that the hair is some type of art sculpture. (“The bigger, the better” is apparently one of the standards.)

The acting performances in “Medusa Deluxe” are adequate, with the exception of Pasqualino, whose over-the-top mugging for the camera looks amateurish and quickly gets annoying in how it becomes a shallow stereotype of gay men. However, “Medusa Deluxe” is unusual enough to hold the interest of people who don’t mind watching a bunch of unconventional people trying to solve a mystery while under the pressure of being in an upcoming contest that can affect their careers. The answer to the mystery isn’t too surprising, but there are a few clever surprises along the way.

A24 released “Medusa Deluxe” in select U.S. cinemas, digital and VOD on August 11, 2023.

Review: ‘Dicks: The Musical,’ starring Aaron Jackson, Josh Sharp, Megan Mullally, Nathan Lane, Megan Thee Stallion and Bowen Yang

October 21, 2023

by Carla Hay

Pictured clockwise, from upper left: Nathan Lane, Josh Sharp, Aaron Jackson and Megan Mullally in “Dicks: The Musical” (Photo by Justin Lubin/A24)

“Dicks: The Musical”

Directed by Larry Charles

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the musical comedy film “Dicks: The Musical” (based on the stage show “Fucking Identical Twins”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people, Latin people and Asians) portraying the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Two sexist and egotistical salesmen, who are rivals at the same company, find out that they’re identical twins, and they go on a quest to reunite their divorced parents, one of whom is living life as a gay person.

Culture Audience: “Dicks: The Musical” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the stage production on which this movie is based; the movie’s headlining stars; and comedy musicals that don’t have much to offer but gimmicky raunchiness.

Megan Thee Stallion, Josh Sharp, Aaron Jackson in “Dicks: The Musical” (Photo by Justin Lubin/A24)

“Dicks: The Musical” isn’t as clever and funny as it thinks it is. A better movie would have been about Megan Thee Stallion’s scene-stealing Gloria Masters character. The film makes a terrible pivot into glorifying the crime of incest. Incest is never okay. Worst of all, this abrupt change into an incest story is unnecessary and reeks of a desperate way to create shock value as a gimmick, not because it makes sense to the story.

Directed by Larry Charles, “Dicks: The Musical” is based on the stage show “Fucking Identical Twins,” which was the original title of the movie before it was changed to a title that’s more marketable and less offensive. Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson (two alumni of the comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade) are the writers and title characters of “Fucking Identical Twins,” which started out as an Upright Citizens Brigade sketch. Sharp and Jackson are also the writers and stars of “Dicks: The Musical.”

You can tell that “Dicks: The Musical” is based on a comedy sketch, because the very flimsy and simplistic plot gets repetitive and dull in too many sections, in order to fill up the time for a feature-length movie. There are only a few standout musical moments. Most of the songs are trite and forgettable. Jackson, Sharp and Karl Saint Lucy co-wrote the songs, with Marius de Vries (the producer of the movie’s soundtrack) also sharing co-songwriting credit on some of the tunes. “Dicks: The Musical” had its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.

The identical twins at the center of the story are Craig Tittle (played by Sharp) and Trevor Brock (played by Jackson), two hard-driving, very competitive and extremely rude salesmen. In the very beginning of the movie, bachelors Craig and Trevor have known each other for a while but have no idea that they are brothers. The “joke” is that Craig and Trevor don’t look identical at all.

Craig (the uptight brother) and Trevor (the flamboyant brother) work for the same vacuum company and are fierce rivals at their job, which rewards the employee with the highest sales revenue. Craig and Trevor also happen to live next door to each other in New York City. The story is narrated by God (played by Bowen Yang), who is portrayed as a sarcastic gossipper who sees and knows everything.

Trevor and Craig both consider themselves to be politically conservative “alpha males” who are the best at everything they do. They are also homophobic and sexist, because they think heterosexual, cisgender men are superior to everyone else. How awful are Craig and Trevor? They’re nasty to pregnant women and don’t hesitate to do things like push a pregnant woman out of the way if she’s hailing the same taxi.

Craig was raised by a single father. Trevor was raised by a single mother. Through a series of events, Craig and Trevor find out that they are long-lost identical twins whose parents divorced when Craig and Trevor were too young to remember their parents being married. Craig and Trevor’s parents cut each other out of their lives completely after the divorce and did not make themselves known to whichever twin son wasn’t in their custody. Craig and Trevor were raised to be believe that whichever parent raised them was widowed.

Trevor and Craig think there’s a social stigma if their parents are divorced. Craig and Trevor agree to temporarily put aside their brotherly feuding, in order to reunite their parents, with the hope that their parents will remarry. (The filmmakers of “Dicks: The Musical” openly acknowledge that “The Parent Trap” is an inspiration for this part of the story.) Craig and Trevor decide to disguise themselves as each other when they visit whichever parent didn’t raise them.

When Craig (disguised as Trevor) meets his mother Evelyn (played by Megan Mullally) for the first time, he finds out that she’s a lisping eccentric who lives alone and doesn’t have a vagina, because the vagina has separated from her body and can fly like a bird. (Evelyn’s flying vagina is used as a sight gag multiple times in the movie.) When Trevor (disguised as Craig) meets his father Harris (played by Nathan Lane) for the first time, he finds out that Harris has been living alone as a gay man.

Harris has two pet creatures in a cage called the Sewer Boys, who are about the size of squirrels and are described in the movie’s production notes as coming from “the bowels of New York’s septic system” and looking like “rat demons.” The Sewer Boys (who can stand up and have human-like hands) don’t speak human languages but mostly grunt, mumble and hiss. One is named Backpack (voiced by Tom Kenny), and the other is named Whisper (voiced by Frank Todaro), but their personalities are indistinguishable from each other.

Just like a bird parent, Harris feeds the Sewer Boys with food that he chews in his mouth and spits into their mouths. (Harris usually misses the mouth target.) It’s a sight gag that’s over-used and yet another example of how this movie runs ideas into the ground with too much repetition. The rest of “Dicks: The Musical” is an occasionally hyper but mostly empty tottering of weak nonsense, where each scene tries to outdo the previous scene by becoming increasingly bizarre. The problem is that not much of it is very amusing.

Gloria is the vulgar-talking, crude-thinking, ultra-feminist supervisor of Craig and Trevor. She likes to pit employees aganst each other and only cares about two things in her job: bossing people around (sometimes with physical violence) and making as much money as possible for the company with her sales team. One of the few highlights of “Dicks: The Musical” is Gloria’s solo musical number “Out Alpha the Alpha,” which is hilarious in its filthy adult language as much as it is well-choreographed.

Gloria and God are two of the most interesting characters in the movie, but they get less than 15 minutes of screen time each in this 86-minute movie. Evelyn and Harris are also much more entertaining than their sons Craig and Trevor. Mullally and Lane portray these parental characters with a lot of gusto, but the dialogue and songs written for them become irritating after a while. (Mullally’s husband Nick Offerman has a cameo in the movie as a politically conservative activist named Steve Chaney.) Viewers are mostly stuck watching the witless and boring antics of one-dimensional Craig and Trevor, as they occasionally warble mediocre musical songs.

“Dicks: The Musical” is clearly a case of two guys who created hollow characters for themselves and then surrounded these characters with silly distractions that they want to pass off as a “movie plot” and fool people into thinking that it’s “edgy” comedy. Foul language or provocative topics can be part of comedy that pushes boundaries. But when a movie tries to push the idea (such as in the horrendous closing song “All Love Is Love”) that something is wrong with you if you don’t celebrate incest and bestiality, then it has crossed the point of no return into being pretentious garbage.

A24 released “Dicks: The Musical” in select U.S. cinemas on October 6, 2023, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on October 20, 2023. A sing-along version of “Dicks: The Musical” will have a one-week release in U.S. cinemas on October 27, 2023. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on November 10, 2023.

Review: ‘Maestro’ (2023), starring Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan

October 7, 2023

by Carla Hay

Bradley Cooper in “Maestro” (Photo by Jason McDonald/Netflix)

“Maestro” (2023)

Directed by Bradley Cooper

Culture Representation: Taking place mostly in New York state, from the mid-1940s to the mid-1980s, the dramatic film “Maestro” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy in this biopic of mega-famous composer/orchestra conductor Leonard Bernstein.

Culture Clash: Bernstein led a double life as a semi-closeted queer man who had male lovers during his entire relationship with actress Felicia Montealegre, who knew about his true sexuality and was his wife from 1951 until her death from cancer in 1978. 

Culture Audience: “Maestro” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Bernstein; stars Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan; and decades-spanning biopics, even if the movie looks like it’s trying too hard to win major awards.

Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan in “Maestro” (Photo by Jason McDonald/Netflix)

“Maestro” skillfully depicts the life of a fiery and mercurial music star, even if this very flawed protagonist will leave some viewers cold because of his unrelenting narcissism and selfishness depicted throughout the movie. In this Leonard Bernstein biopic, his musical talent is a very secondary part of the story, compared to his personal relationships. Some viewers won’t like the timeline jumping and small number of musical scenes, but the acting performances are stellar.

Directed by Bradley Cooper (who co-wrote the “Maestro” screenplay with Josh Singer), “Maestro” had its world premiere at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival and its North American premiere at the 2023 New York Film Festival. Cooper stars in “Maestro” as Bernstein, the influential and very famous composer/orchestra conductor, whose best-known work includes writing the music for “West Side Story” and being the longtime music director for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Bernstein died in 1990, at the age of 72. For the purposes of this review, the real Leonard Bernstein is referred to as Bernstein, while the character of Leonard Bernstein in “Maestro” is referred to as Leonard.

“Maestro” is Cooper’s second movie as a director. He made his feature-film directorial debut with the 2018 remake of “A Star Is Born,” which is a far superior movie when it comes to authentic-looking scenes that grab people’s emotions and never let go. “Maestro” has all the characteristics of an “awards bait” movie (including Oscar-winning filmmakers Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese as producers), but many of the scenes look a little too staged. The movie’s jumpy timeline editing (the story is told in non-chronological order) gives “Maestro” a fidgety tone that might cause some viewers to lose interest by the time the movie is half-over.

“Maestro” (which takes place mostly in New York state) begins and ends with a scene taking place sometime in the 1980s, when Leonard is giving a recorded TV interview that is being filmed in what appears to be a library room in his home. The “Maestro” scenes that take place in the 1970s and 1980s are in color. Any scene taking place before the 1970s is in black and white. In the beginning of the movie, during this opening interview scene, a frail-looking Leonard plays a little bit of piano while he mumbles a few sentences. (This movie’s makeup and hairstyling are above-average, especially in the scenes with Leonard as an elderly man.)

The movie then suddenly flashes back to New York City to 1946, when Leonard wakes up in bed next to clarinetist David Oppenheim (played by Matt Bomer), his lover at the time. (There is no nudity in this movie.) Leonard (whose real name was Louis Bernstein) playfully slaps David on the rear end before jumping out of bed. At the time, Leonard was a young and famous composer/conductor on the rise in the music world, with lots of charm, confidence and enthusiasm. Leonard prefers to be called Lenny by people he knows or those whom he wants to know.

It isn’t long before social butterfly Leonard meets actress Felicia Montealegre (played by Carey Mulligan) at a party hosted by Claudio Arrau (played by Oscar Pavlo), who was Felicia’s piano instructor at the time. Felicia (who born in Costa Rica, and raised in Chile) is intelligent, witty and very self-assured. Felicia and Leonard have an instant connection expressed through flirting and banter. They soon begin dating, and he is very up front in telling her his secret: He’s also sexually attracted to men. Felicia doesn’t seem to have a problem with it because Leonard makes her happy, and he seems to genuinely love her—just not in the way that he loves men.

Leonard juggles his relationships with David and Felicia, until he decides to spend more time in a committed relationship with Felicia. When Leonard introduces Felicia to David for the first time, the eventually jilted David seems a little envious but not too bothered that Felicia has captured Leonard’s interest. Apparently, David is used to Leonard’s polyamorous ways. Felicia will never really gets used to it.

Someone who approves of Felicia is Leonard’s younger sister Shirley (played by Sarah Silverman), who is sarcastically funny and who knows about Leonard’s true sexuality. The movie depicts Shirley being at the same party where Felicia and Leonard met. Felicia and Shirley become genuine friends. Shirley and Felicia are close enough that Felicia confides in Shirley when she’s having marital problems with Leonard.

As an experienced actress in theater and television, Felicia has her own established career when she meets Leonard. As depicted in “Maestro,” Felicia’s American father Roy Elwood Cohn owns a performing arts theater where she and Leonard meet for dates. Leonard and Felicia have a quick courtship where she’s the one who brings up marriage to him first. “Let’s give it a whirl,” she smiles when they decide to get married. Leonard and Felicia get married in 1951. He was 33, while she was 29.

The movie then flashes forward to 37-year-old Leonard and 33-year-old Felicia as new parents to their first child, a daughter named Jamie. They would eventually have two more children: middle child Alexander (nicknamed Alex) and youngest child Nina. “Maestro” depicts Jamie (played as a teenager and young adult by Maya Hawke) as the child who has the closest bond to Leonard. She is curious and intelligent—just like her father.

Alex and Nina are barely in the movie. Brooklyn Rockett portrays Jamie as a child. Sam Nivola has the role of Alex as a teenager/young adult. Alexa Swinton is Nina as a teenager. Maybe the real-life Alex and Nina did not want to be featured prominently in the movie for privacy reasons. Whatever the reason is, Alex and Nina are sidelined characters with vague personalities.

When Jamie goes away to college, she is the one who asks Leonard if the gossip that she’s hearing about him is true. Jamie doesn’t come right and say what she’s heard, but Leonard knows she’s heard that he has affairs with men. Felicia has made Leonard promise never to tell their children the truth about his sexuality, so he lies to Jamie and says the gossip isn’t true, although he hesitates for a moment as if he’s on the verge of telling her the truth.

Don’t expect “Maestro” to show the inner workings of how some of Bernstein’s classics were made. There are really only two big performance scenes that show Leonard conducting an orchestra. They are masterfully filmed and impactful scenes, but then the movie goes right back to what the majority of the story is about: Leonard pursuing younger men, while Felicia tries and often fails to not be jealous.

The movie hints at but doesn’t explicitly show Leonard’s promiscuity. For example, there’s a scene where married Leonard has a pleasant conversation in a park with David and David’s wife, who have their newborn baby with them. Leonard leans in to talk to the baby and says, “Can I tell you a secret? I slept with both of your parents, but I’m reigning it in.”

The scene is played for laughs (David and his wife think that Leonard’s comment is funny), and it’s an effectively comedic moment in the movie. However, there are underlying issues with Leonard that are shown in this scene—namely, Leonard’s flippant attitude over his comment about “reigning it in” indicates that he knows his sexual antics are probably out of control and hurtful to people, but he doesn’t care enough to really stop the emotional pain he causes. His attitude is: “This is who I am. Deal with it.”

The male lover who becomes a constant companion to Leonard is Tommy Cothran (played by Gideon Glick), who was a music director at a San Francisco radio station when he met Leonard at a party in 1971. When they first meet, Leonard and Tommy flirt openly with each other in front of Felicia. And within minutes, Felicia sees Leonard and Tommy kissing in a hallway at the party. She walks away, looking hurt but not too surprised.

Later, when the relationship between Tommy and Leonard becomes more serious, Leonard insists that Tommy be treated like a member of the family. Tommy is frequently included in family activities, such as meals, trips and parties. When Tommy, Leonard and Felicia go on dates together, Felicia is the one who feels like the awkward third wheel.

At first, Felicia tries to act like she’s okay with this arrangement. But it eventually starts to bother her a lot. Felicia and Leonard have more arguments, and they decide to separate but never get divorced. The movie has hints that Leonard abused cocaine or was addicted to cocaine in the 1970s and 1980s. (Observant viewers will notice how sweaty-looking he is in his older years.)

Felicia asserting herself in her marriage and how she deals with her cancer diagnosis are among the best scenes in “Maestro.” Mulligan excels in these scenes that show Mulligan’s exceptional talent in portraying a wide range of emotions. It’s not an exaggeration to say that although the movie is called “Maestro” and it’s a Leonard Bernstein biopic, the soul of the movie is about Felicia.

Felicia also has some of the best lines in the movie. While arguing with Leonard about his deceitful double life (which she admits she’s enabled), she tells him: “There’s a saying in Chile: ‘Never stand underneath a bird that’s full of shit.’ I’ve been living under that bird for too long.” Later in the argument, Felicia makes this cutting remark to Leonard: “If you’re not careful, you’re going to die a lonely old queen.”

Meanwhile, self-absorbed Leonard utters mopey lines such as, “I feel like the world is on the verge of collapse.” It’s quite an ironic statement, when Leonard is constantly shown to be the one causing chaos in his own personal life. The problem with his attitude is that he acts as if he entitled to do what he wants because it feels good to him, even if it hurts other people. When confronted with the consequences of his actions, he acts as if everyone is uptight and wrong for not understanding him.

“Maestro” certainly is elevated by all the great talent in front of and behind the camera. However, after a while, the movie becomes a little too fixated on Leonard’s marital problems and his obsession with seducing men who are younger and less powerful than he is. (In a lecherous scene that takes place after he and Felicia have separated, Leonard is shown getting sexually involved with one his male students who is in Leonard’s orchestra class.) Cooper gives a very ambitious performance, but it all looks very calculated—a bright, polished sheen on a very troubled and complicated man.

Although technically proficient, “Maestro” needed to be more balanced in the story to show more of Leonard’s musical side. It’s like doing a feature-length biopic about a famous singer and only showing the singer perform two or three songs. The movie looks great, thanks to top-notch cinematography from Matthew Libatique, but the story is told like a book with its chapters slightly jumbled.

“Maestro” wants to have its cake and eat it too: It tries very hard to make it look like Felicia was the love of Leonard’s life, and yet he seemed to care more about making his lover Tommy happy. True love also does not inflict the type of suffering that Felicia endured in the marriage. Although she knew about Leonard’s sexuality before they got married, Felicia probably did not anticipate how his double life would be so painful to her and their children.

Bernstein certainly led a very full and accomplished life that deserves a biopic. And there are definitely plenty of reasons why “Maestro” should be seen by people, especially those who are inclined to watch biographical films about celebrities. Just don’t expect this movie to be completely cohesive or thorough in detailing major aspects of Bernstein’s life that aren’t about how his sexuality affected his personal relationships.

Netflix will release “Maestro” in select U.S. cinemas on November 22, 2023. The movie will premiere on Netflix on December 20, 2023.

Review: ‘Anatomy of a Fall’ (2023), starring Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado Graner, Antoine Reinartz, Samuel Theis, Jehnny Beth and Camille Rutherford

October 2, 2023

by Carla Hay

Sandra Hüller and Swann Arlaud in “Anatomy of a Fall” (Photo courtesy of Neon)

“Anatomy of a Fall” (2023)

Directed by Justine Triet

French with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in France, the dramatic film “Anatomy of a Fall” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A famous novelist, who is a German immigrant, is accused of murdering her husband, who fell out of a third-floor window in their home. 

Culture Audience: “Anatomy of a Fall” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching well-acted psychological thrillers and courtroom dramas.

Milo Machado Graner in “Anatomy of a Fall” (Photo courtesy of Neon)

“Anatomy of a Fall” is an above-average mystery thriller that will leave people guessing about the answer to the mystery. The movie is a little too long, but the courtroom scenes are riveting. “Anatomy of a Fall” had its world premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where the movie won the Palme d’Or, the festival’s top prize.

Directed by Justine Triet (who co-wrote the “Anatomy of a Fall” screenplay with Arthur Harari), “Anatomy of a Fall” is a sprawling movie with a total running time of 152 minutes. The film achieves a tricky balance of spending a lot of time exploring the psyche of the story’s protagonist while still giving viewers the feeling that the protagonist is still too mysterious to completely know. This inscrutability is why the ending of the movie is effective but will be unsettling to viewers who want clear and undeniable answers at the end the story.

“Anatomy of a Fall” begins by showing a fateful day in the life of an affluent family living in a fairly remote French Alps chalet near Grenoble, France. The family has been living in this chalet for about one year. Early on in the story, one of the family members will die on the house’s property.

Sandra Voyter (played by Sandra Hüller) is a German immigrant who is a well-known, successful novelist. Her husband Samuel Maleski (played by Samuel Theis) is a university professor who is an aspiring writer. Their 11-year-old son Daniel (played by Milo Machado Graner) is visually impaired because his optic nerves became permanently damaged after he was accidentally hit by a motorcycle when he was younger. Daniel isn’t completely blind but his vision very limited.

The day starts off in a fairly normal manner. It’s winter, so there is snow all around, but the day is sunny and clear. Sandra is being interviewed in the family home by a graduate student journalist named Zoé Solidor (played by Camille Rutherford), who is a star-struck fan of Sandra.

During the interview, Sandra gets annoyed because Samuel is in the third-floor attic and is playing music that is loud enough to be heard in the room where the interview is taking place. An irritated Sandra loudly tells Samuel to turn down the music more than once before he finally does so. The song that he’s playing is Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band’s cover version of 50 Cent’s 2003 song “P.I.M.P.,” which is played several times later in the courtroom scenes.

After Zoé leaves, Daniel comes back from a walk with his guide dog, a Border Collie named Snoop. (The dog’s name is real life is Messi.) To his horror, Daniel finds the dead body of Samuel on the ground outside the home. It appears that Samuel has fallen out of the attic window of the house. Was it an accident, suicide or murder?

Those are the questions that continue to swirl when Sandra becomes a person of interest when the investigation into the death begins. Sandra claims she was taking a nap at the time that Samuel fell out of the window. About an hour into the nap, she heard Daniel scream when he found Samuel’s body.

She also tells investigators and her defense attorney Vincent Renzi (played by Swann Arlaud) that she thinks Samuel’s death was an accident. Vincent tells Sandra, “Nobody is going to believe that. I don’t believe that.”

An autopsy reveals that Samuel had a severe blow to his head before he died, but the cause of death is ruled as inconclusive. Sandra then changes her theory of how Samuel died by saying that he could have committed suicide. She tells authorities and Vincent that she remembers that about six months earlier, she found Samuel unconscious in a puddle of his vomit because he had taken an intentional overdose of sleeping pills.

Sandra, who admits she was the only other person in the house when Samuel died, becomes the only suspect. She’s arrested for murder, indicted, and then goes on trial, one year after Samuel’s death. Sandra pleads not guilty. Her defense is that the blow to Samuel’s head probably came from a small wooden shed located directly beneath the window, with the theory being that Samuel hit his head on the shed during the fall, before he fell on the ground. However, there was no DNA found on the roof of the shed.

Vincent tells Sandra early on when they begin working together that he doesn’t know if she’s guilty or not guilty, but he expects her to be honest with him. As time goes on, people find out that Sandra has many secrets. She’s often dishonest and rude, which affects her credibility and likability. But is she guilty of murdering Samuel?

One of the truths that come out during the trial is that Samuel and Sandra had a troubled marriage before he died. Sandra and Samuel met when they were both living in London, and he had just become a university professor. Their relationship revolved around “intellectual stimulation, even at the expense of everything else,” says Sandra.

Samuel and Sandra had a volatile marriage that got worse after Samuel convinced Sandra to move from London back to his native France. Sandra tells Vincent in a private conversation that she was very happy in London. She bitterly says of the decision to move to France: “I left my shithole in Germany to live in his shithole.” Sandra tells Vincent that Samuel was a frustrated and wannabe novelist who couldn’t finish a manuscript and was jealous of her success as a published author.

Sandra, who is openly bisexual, is described in the movie as being very seductive and alluring when she wants to be. She admits that she had sexual relationships outside the marriage, including an affair with a woman. Samuel knew about these affairs. According to Sandra, he wasn’t happy about the infidelity, but he tolerated it.

More suspicion falls on Sandra when it’s revealed that Samuel secretly made an audio recording of a violent argument that he and Sandra had the day before he died. The recording is played in court, but it’s difficult to tell from the recording who initiated the violence. At the time of Samuel’s death, Sandra had a bruise on her elbow. She says she got the bruise from accidentally bumping into a kitchen counter at her home.

One of the more memorable aspects of “Anatomy of a Fall” is how this entire ordeal affects Daniel. After the death of Samuel, introverted Daniel becomes very depressed to the point where it’s difficult for him to get out of bed. He’s assigned a child therapist named Marge Berger (played by Jehnny Beth), who is compassionate and tries to remain as neutral as possible with Daniel about what she thinks about Sandra.

As time goes on in the trial, the prosecutor (played by Antoine Reinartz) and the media seem determined to place the marriage of Sandra and Samuel on trial too. Sandra is also judged for not being a stereotypical image of a warm-hearted, nurturing and virtuous mother. It’s the movie’s way of observing how society can judge mothers who are on trial for murder.

Sandra is not cruel, but she is certainly a complicated person. The movie leaves it up to viewers to decide how manipulative she might or might not be. Hüller gives a masterful performance as someone who thinks she’s smarter than the average person and has little to no patience with anyone who doesn’t agree with her point of view. Graner gives a standout performance as vulnerable Daniel, who might have some secrets of his own.

“Anatomy of a Fall” has well-written courtroom scenes that will keep viewers interested in what will happen next. There’s also a point in the movie where it looks like Sandra and Vincent look like they’re attracted to each other. Will they act on this attraction? And is Sandra faking this attraction to manipulate Vincent? It’s a testament to the excellent writing and performances in “Anatomy of a Fall” that the movie raises many questions but the answers are not always predictable or simple.

Neon will release “Anatomy of a Fall” in select U.S. cinemas on October 13, 2023. The movie will be released on digital an VOD on December 22, 2023.

Review: ‘All of Us Strangers,’ starring Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell, and Claire Foy

September 29, 2023

by Carla Hay

Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal in “All of Us Strangers” (Photo by Parisa Taghizadeh/Searchlight Pictures)

“All of Us Strangers”

Directed by Andrew Haigh

Culture Representation: Taking place in England, in 2017, the sci-fi drama film “All of Us Strangers” (based on the novel “Strangers”) features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A man, who was orphaned at the age of 11 when his parents died in a car accident, goes back to his childhood home to visit the ghosts of his parents, around the same time that he begins dating another man who lives in the same apartment building. 

Culture Audience: “All of Us Strangers” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners; the novel on which the movie is based; and uniquely told love stories.

Jamie Bell, Andrew Scott (with back facing camera) and Claire Foy in “All of Us Strangers” (Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures)

“All of Us Strangers” is literally a haunting meditation on grief over the death of loved ones. This well-acted drama might be too slow-paced for some viewers, but the movie’s themes and performances are worth watching. Some of it gets repetitive though.

Written and directed by Andrew Haigh, “All of Us Strangers” is based on Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel of the same name. The movie’s present-day scenes takes place in 2017, but there are also some flashbacks taking place in 1987. It’s a moody and mysterious film that unpeels in layers until its emotionally powerful conclusion. “All of Us Strangers” had its world premiere at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival before showing at the 2023 New York Film Festival and the 2023 BFI London Film Festival.

In the present-day scenes, an openly gay screenwriter in his early 40s named Adam (played by Andrew Scott) is living by himself in a sleek high-rise apartment complex in London. Viewers will eventually notice that no one else seems to live in the building except Adam and a neighbor named Harry (played by Paul Mescal), another gay or queer bachelor who lives by himself. Harry, who is about 15 years younger than Adam, makes the first flirtatious move when introducing himself to Adam.

This apartment building could have previously been a hotel, because it has a common hotel feature of windows that can’t open, in order to prevent people from jumping or falling out of the windows. “How do you cope?” Harry asks Adam about the isolation of living in the building. As time goes on, viewers will see that the building is a symbol of being in emotional confinement.

At first, introverted Adam is polite but aloof with Harry. Adam has his guard up and doesn’t seem too interested in getting to know Harry better. But then, when Harry shows up at Adam’s door one day, Harry persuades Adam to let him into the apartment. Harry shows signs that he’s interested in Adam sexually and then comes right out and asks Adam if Adam is queer. The answer is yes.

Adam seems hesitant about starting a sexual relationship with Harry, who is more confident and forthight about what he wants. During their first date, which is at Adam’s apartment, Harry and Adam smoke some marijuana together. And once again, Harry makes the first move, and they become lovers. That’s only part of the story.

Adam has a secret: He has been taking train trips to the suburbs to go back to his childhood home to visit the ghosts of his dead parents (played by Jamie Bell and Claire Foy), who passed away in a car accident in 1987, when Adam was 11 years old. (This is not spoiler information, since it’s a big part of the movie.) Adam’s parents have the same physical appearance of how they looked in the year that they died, except his parents know that they are dead and are seeing the adult Adam, who has no siblings.

Much of “All of Us Strangers” is about Adam juggling his present-day life and escaping back to his past at his childhood home, where he wants to hold on to the memories of his parents and communicate with them, even if he knows that they are dead. Viewers must ponder if Adam has psychic abilities, or if he’s mentally ill and is imagining it all. As the romance between Adam and Harry heats up and they become closer, Adam has to decide if he will tell Harry his secret or not.

“All of Us Strangers” is the type of movie that is more about emotions than about a step-by-step plot. Through conversations that Adam has with his parents and Harry, viewers find out that Adam was a loner when he was a kid. He was bullied as a child for being effeminate. His bullies were other schoolkids who suspected that Adam was gay.

Adam’s parents, especially his father, are not hatefully homophobic, but they don’t quite know how to handle having a gay son when adult Adam comes out as gay to them. (Adam tells his mother first, and she tells Adam’s father.) Adam was also overweight as a kid. As an adult, Adam tells Harry, “When you’re fat, they don’t ask you why you don’t have a girlfriend.”

As for Harry, the only thing that he reveals about his family is that he has a brother who just got married and a sister who has a child. Harry tells Adam that Harry’s parents accept that Harry is gay, but “I don’t go home much. It’s inevitable, really.” The flashback scenes of Adam as a boy (played by Carter John Grout) show happy experiences, such as Adam and his parents at Christmas time.

However, Adam also has sad memories of his childhood. One of the more touching scenes in the film is when Adam and his father have a heart-to-heart talk about what the father remembers about the times when Adam would be in his room crying because of how Adam was bullied at school. It’s a scene that speaks volumes about how parents of LGBTQ+ children sometimes unwittingly cause emotional damage by being in denial about their children’s sexual/gender identities.

Adding to the 1980s atmosphere for much of the movie, “All of Us Strangers” has a very good soundtrack, with multiple songs from Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Fine Young Cannibals. (Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s 1984 hit “The Power of Love” is played during the movie’s tearjerking finale.) The production design for the movie is also stellar, contrasting the somewhat austere and imposing modern building of Adam’s present-day life with the cozy clutter of Adam’s childhood home.

Because of the small number of people in the movie’s cast, “All of Us Strangers” gives enough room for character development, even if the plot of the movie is fairly simple. Scott does a fine job of portraying Adam, who is a bundle of repressed emotional baggage. Mescal has roguish charm as Harry, who gets Adam to see life in a way that is more hopeful of the future.

Foy’s portrayal of Adam’s mother is realistic in her curiosity of how Adam’s life turned out as an adult. Bell shows a balance of parental strength and quiet remorse as Adam’s father, who is emotionally conflicted about Adam being gay. One of the admirable things about “All of Us Strangers” is that it doesn’t just ask if Adam can move on from his past. It also asks if his parents can move on from the past too.

Most of all, “All of Us Strangers” is a worthy depiction of how grief is a process that has ebbs and flows. Grief can keep people stuck in a certain debilitating mindset, or it can be a painful journey to personal growth and healing. People who don’t know how the movie will end might be surprised by a certain turn in the story, but it’s an example of how love can endure even in the midst of unexpected loss and struggles.

Searchlight Pictures will release “All of Us Strangers” in select U.S. cinemas on December 22, 2023.

Review: ‘My Animal’ (2023), starring Bobbi Salvör Menuez, Amandla Stenberg, Heidi von Palleske, Cory Lipman, Charles F. Halpenny, Harrison W. Halpenny and Stephen McHattie

September 24, 2023

by Carla Hay

Amandla Stenberg and Bobbi Salvör Menuez in “My Animal” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Global Content Distribution)

“My Animal” (2023)

Directed by Jacqueline Castel

Culture Representation: Taking place in Ontario, Canada, the horror film “My Animal” has a nearly all-white cast of characters (with one biracial person) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A woman in her late teens, who is secretly a werewolf, has a sexual awakening as a lesbian and gets into a love triangle with the woman she wants to be her lover.

Culture Audience: “My Animal” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in LGBTQ-themed horror movies, but don’t expect there to be much of an interesting story.

Amandla Stenberg and Bobbi Salvör Menuez in “My Animal” (Photo courtesy of Paramount Global Content Distribution)

“My Animal” tries and fails to be an edgy werewolf movie. The plot is clumsy, boring, and unimaginative. The acting performances are very uneven. Almost nothing about this horror movie is actually scary or intriguing. The movie’s plot seems more like an outline than a truly cinematic story. “

Directed by Jacqueline Castel (her feature-film debut) and written by Jae Matthews, “My Animal” had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. The movie was filmed on location in the Canadian province of Ontario. At times, “My Animal” doesn’t even seem like a horror movie because so much of it is a lukewarm and repetitive story about a love triangle.

In “My Animal,” introverted Heather (played by Bobbi Salvör Menuez) is a semi-closeted lesbian She is about 18 or 19 years old and has dreams of becoming a professional hockey player. Her room is covered with posters and pictures of female bodybuilders. In case is isn’t clear that Heather has a thing for female athletes, there’s a scene early in the movie that shows Heather masturbating while watching female wrestlers on TV.

Heather lives with her divorced mother Patti (played by Heidi von Palleske) and Heather’s identical twin brothers Cooper (played by Charles F. Halpenny) and Hardy (played by Harrison W. Halpenny), who are about 14 or 15 years old. The children’s estranged father Henry (played Stephen McHattie) is not involved in raising them. It’s implied that he’s a deadbeat dad.

“My Animal” shows viewers from the very beginning of the movie that Heather as a big secret: She’s a werewolf, which she inherited from her father. In the movie’s opening scene, a full moon is out an night. Heather hunches down on all fours as her nose starts bleeding, and then she runs out of the house. Patti goes out and looks for Heather in the snowy woods, but then Patti is attacked by a wild animal.

It’s not hard to know that this wild animal is Heather as a werewolf, because Patti is next seen in bed recovering from her injuries and has a scar on the right side of her body. Heather tucks Patti into bed and doesn’t talk about what happened in the attack. Other than being a werewolf, Heather leads a boring and empty life where she has no friends and she’s not school or working

Someone soon catches the interest of Heather: an extroverted woman who’s around the same age named Jonine, nicknamed Johnnie (played by Amandla Stenberg), who is an aspiring professional ice skater. Heather first sees Johnnie stealing beer at a corner convenience store. They make eye contact but don’t say anything to each other, and Heather doesn’t try to stop Johnnie from shoplifting.

After this theft, Johnnie gets in a car with her 28-year-old boyfriend Rick (played by Cory Lipman), who is a local baseball star. He’s also a hoodlum with a bad temper who’s been banned from the corner convenience store because he once tried to rob it. There’s another scene in the movie where Rick gets thrown out of a casino for being threatening and belligerent.

It’s already revealed in the trailer for “My Animal” that Heather and Johnnie become lovers. However, it’s a secretive affair because Johnnie doesn’t want to break up with Rick and doesn’t want him to find out that she’s been cheating on him. This tedious love triangle drags on in the movie until you know exactly what’s going to happen because Rick is a jerk and Heather is a werewolf.

Not much is revealed about Heather’s and Johnnie’s personal backstories. Johnnie mentions to Heather that Johnnie’s mother died by suicide. Heather’s mother Patti is addicted to alcohol and often climbs into Heather’s bed and urinates on herself. Johnnie’s father knows that Heather and Johnnie are sexually involved with each other, and he doesn’t approve. The acting in “My Animal” is nothing special.

As for the werewolf part of the story, the movie doesn’t do a very good job of making it interesting. Everything is utterly predictable and told with a lackluster tone. There’s a lot of cinematography that bathes the scenes in red light, but that’s not enough to make a horror movie terrifying. The ending of “My Animal” is so bland and anti-climactic, it makes this unimpressive movie even more forgettable than it should have been.

Review: ‘Afire,’ starring Thomas Schubert, Paula Beer, Langston Uibel, Enno Trebs and Matthias Brandt

August 28, 2023

by Carla Hay

Thomas Schubert, Paula Beer, Langston Uibel and Enno Trebs in “Afire” (Photo courtesy of Sideshow and Janus Films)

“Afire”

Directed by Christian Petzold

German with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in in Germany near the Baltic Sea, the dramatic film “Afire” features a nearly all-white cast of characters (with one black person) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A book author with writer’s block and his photographer friend share a remote vacation house together and meet two strangers who alter their lives, as a forest fire is in danger of getting close to their house.

Culture Audience: “Afire” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching character-driven movies about blurred boundaries in relationships.

Thomas Schubert in “Afire” (Photo courtesy of Sideshow and Janus Films)

The moody and atmospheric drama “Afire” won’t captivate all viewers. However, this quietly intense film can find an appreciative audience with people who enjoy character studies where the cast members skillfully express spoken and unspoken dialogue. “Afire” also examines the repercussions and regrets of not expressing true emotions.

Written and directed by Christian Petzold, “Afire” had its world premiere at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Silver Bear (second place) prize in the grand jury competition. The movie takes place in Germany, near the coast of the Baltic Sea. A beach property is the main location for the story. Although the movie has a relatively small number of people in its cast, “Afire” packs in some big emotions in the story.

“Afire” begins by showing book author Leon (played by Thomas Schubert) and his photographer friend Felix (played by Langston Uibel) traveling to the vacation house of Felix’s family. Felix’s father, who died six years earlier, used to own the house, which is now owned by Felix’s mother, who is never seen in the movie. It’s mentioned at some point in the movie that Felix and Leon are not only friends but they’ve also worked together on projects.

Leon (who is moody and standoffish) and Felix (who is friendly and outgoing) have very different outlooks to this getaway trip in this fairly remote area. Leon hopes that the isolated area will help him concentrate on finishing his upcoming novel, which he is calling “Club Sandwich.” Felix just wants to relax and have as much fun as possible.

There is a forest fire happening in the distance, but it’s not expected to get too close to the area where Leon and Felix are staying. The two friends experience a more immediate problem: Felix’s car runs out of gas, 12 kilometers away from the house, but they’re able to walk to the house with their luggage, with the assumption that the car can be dealt with later.

When Leon and Felix arrive at the house, it’s in disarray. The beds are unmade, and clothes are strewn everywhere. Felix then announces some news that Leon doesn’t want to hear: They won’t be living by themselves in this house. Felix explains that a Russian immigrant named Nadja will be staying there too.

Nadja is the niece of a coworker who works with Felix’s mother. Nadja is staying there as a favor because she’s working in the area by selling ice cream from an ice cream stand. Leon is slightly irritated when he finds out a third person will be living there. Leon insists on having his own room in this two-bedroom house so he can have peace and quiet to work on his book. The bedrooms are right next to each other.

Felix thinks that Nadja should have her own bedroom, while Leon and Felix can share the other bedroom. They both agree that either of them has the option to sleep on the living room couch if one of them needs the room all to himself at night, such as if an overnight guest is staying in the bedroom. Felix also suggests that if things get too noisy in the house, then Leon can always sleep under the pergola outside.

At first, Nadja (played by Paula Beer) is a mysterious presence who seems to come and go without any consistent schedule. She doesn’t have a car, so she travels by bicycle. Leon doesn’t meet Nadja until 24 minutes into this 102-minute movie. However, Leon is aware of Nadja’s presence long before he meets her in person. That’s because Nadja has been bringing a lover back to the house at night and loudly having sex with him.

The sex noises are loud enough that Leon can hear everything in the bedroom next door, so he tries to sleep on the living room couch, where he can still hear the commotion. Leon says out loud to himself, “I’m beginning to hate that woman.” And one night, when it happens again, he decides to sleep uncomfortably outside under the pergola. The next morning, he finds out that he has several bug bites.

Nadja’s lover is a local lifeguard who works at the nearest beach. His name is Devid (played by Enno Trebs), and he becomes a frequent guest at the house. When Leon and Nadja finally meet in person, they have an awkward but cordial conversation. She’s aware that Leon is annoyed by her loud sex noises interrupting his sleep, so she makes an apology and adds, “It won’t happen again.”

Although the first conversation between Leon and Nadja is uncomfortable for both of them, there is underlying sexual tension between them. Nadja and Devid have a casual, non-monogamous sexual relationship. Nadja does not want to describe Devid as her boyfriend, and they are not possessive of each other. Eventually, the sexual dynamics between Leon, Felix, Nadja and Devid start to change when it becomes obvious that Devid and Felix are sexually attracted to each other.

Leon has other worries besides whether or not Nadja finds him attractive. Leon’s book publisher Helmut (played by Matthias Brandt) is going to visit Leon at the house to read what Leon has written so far for Leon’s book manuscript. Apparently, Helmut and Leon don’t want to use email for this task. Leon is very apprehensive about this visit, because he’s afraid that Helmut won’t like what Leon has written so far.

“Afire” shows how all these tensions and fears permeate the interactions of the four people in this social group, especially with Leon, who has the movie’s main perspective. Leon doesn’t say it out loud, but he’s insecure about his physical appearance. His body language with Nadja indicates that he thinks she’s out of his league, when it comes to how physically attractive he is, so he overcompensates by trying to come across as a brooding and pompous intellectual.

As for the budding romance between Devid and Felix, it bothers Leon at first, because Leon apparently didn’t know that Felix is queer. By contrast, Nadja doesn’t seem bothered at all that Devid has become sexually interested in Felix. She shrugs it off as if it’s no big deal that Devid has lost interest in her sexually, and she acts as if her feelings aren’t hurt. This nonchalance intrigues Leon, who thinks there might be a chance that Nadja could develop an interest in Leon. Nadja is flirtatious with Leon but doesn’t give him much indication on which direction she wants to take her relationship with him.

“Afire” will keep viewers guessing on where the story is headed and what will happen to these characters. All of the cast members give good performances, but Schubert and Beer carry most of the emotional weight of the movie, since Leon and Nadja’s relationship anchors the story. It’s a movie that slowly sneaks up on viewers to deliver a stirring and poignant impact.

Sideshow and Janus Films released “Afire” in select U.S. cinemas on July 14, 2023.

Review: ‘Shiva Baby’ (2021), starring Rachel Sennott, Molly Gordon, Polly Draper, Danny Deferrari, Fred Melamed and Dianna Agron

August 25, 2023

by Carla Hay

Molly Gordon and Rachel Sennott in “Shiva Baby” (Photo courtesy of Utopia)

“Shiva Baby” (2021)

Directed by Emma Seligman

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York state, the comedy/drama film “Shiva Baby” features an all-white cast of characters representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A bisexual college student, who secretly makes money as a sex worker for male clients, finds herself in uncomfortable situations when she, her parents, her ex-girlfriend, a sex customer and his wife all end up at the same post-funeral reception. 

Culture Audience: “Shiva Baby” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of sarcastic and well-acted movies about people who have secret lives.

Dianna Agron and Danny Deferrari in “Shiva Baby” (Photo courtesy of Utopia)

“Shiva Baby” seamlessly blends hilarious comedy and sobering drama in this incisive story of a college student forced to reckon with secrets and lies during a tension-filled shiva reception. It’s a stellar feature film debut from writer/director Emma Seligman. The movie authentically represents American Jewish culture (almost every character in the movie is Jewish), which is a big part of the story, but the essential elements of the plot could have been about people in many other cultures.

Seligman is also one of the producers of “Shiva Baby,” which was selected to have its world premiere at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival, but the event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Jury prizes were still given for the event. “Shiva Baby” went on to win the John Cassavetes Award at the 2022 Film Independent Spirit Awards, presented to the creative team of a film with a production budget of less than $500,000. (The John Cassavetes Award’s qualifying amount has since been changed to a movie production budget of less than $1 million.)

“Shiva Baby” is based on Seligman’s 2018 short film of the same name that she made when she was a student at New York University. Rachel Sennott, another NYU alum, stars in both “Shiva Baby” films, which get their title from the fact that the story takes place primarily at a shiva reception, and the protagonist is a college student who feels like her parents still treat her like a baby. Both movies were filmed on location in New York state.

In the “Shiva Baby” feature film, Sennott portrays bisexual Danielle, who’s in her early 20s and in her last year at an unnamed university in New York City. Danielle comes from a middle-class family (the movie never mentions how her parents make money), where she is the only child of her parents. Danielle’s life is revealed in bits and pieces in the movie until a portrait emerges of a deeply insecure woman who’s been lying to people about many things in her life. What “Shiva Baby” viewers first find out about Danielle isn’t necessarily the truth about her.

The movie’s opening scene shows Danielle and a man in his mid-to-late 30s having sex at his apartment in New York City. Viewers don’t find out until a little later in the movie that his name is Max Beckett (played by Danny Deferrari), and he’s also been keeping secrets. Max has been giving money to Danielle in a “sexual arrangement” relationship. Some people in this line of work might call Max a “sugar daddy,” but the reality is that he’s a sex customer.

Danielle has told Max that she needs the money to pay for her tuition at Columbia University Law School, where she says she is currently a student. Max seems a little jealous of other men whom Danielle might be seeing for the same type of arrangement. “How are you going to get through law school if you’re screwing around with these guys?” Max asks. Danielle doesn’t give a direct answer, but she makes sure to get the cash that she wants from Max before she leaves.

Danielle will soon have a lot more to deal with than nosy questions from Max when she attends a shiva reception later that day. Her parents call Danielle to remind her to attend the funeral of someone whom Danielle didn’t even know. The funeral is on Long Island, where her parents live, and Danielle has to ask her parents what the name is of the person who died. The deceased person has a very distant connection to Danielle’s family and is described as the sister of the second wife of someone’s uncle.

Danielle’s mother Debbie (played by Polly Draper) is very talkative, uptight and domineering. Danielle’s father Joel (played by Fred Melamed) is sensitive, gentle and easygoing. Debbie, who doesn’t like to talk about Danielle being bisexual, has been pressuring Danielle to find a nice Jewish guy to marry. Debbie wants to think Danielle’s bisexuality is just an “experimental” phase that has ended for Danielle.

Danielle skips the funeral but she meets up with her parents after the funeral at the shiva reception taking place at the middle-class house of a relative of the deceased person. Danielle is taken aback because one of the first people she sees is her ex-lover Maya (played by Molly Gordon), who has known Danielle since they were kids. Maya is also an only child of her parents. Danielle asks her parents, “Why is Maya here?” Debbie warns Danielle, “No funny business with Maya.”

The rest of the movie takes place at this reception, which becomes an increasingly volatile minefield of emotions, as the scandalous secrets of Danielle and other people are in danger of being exposed. Throughout “Shiva Baby,” Danielle is seen going to the buffet table to grab something to eat, or she finds some wine to gulp, which is the movie’s way of showing how Danielle uses food and alcohol as a way to cope with the stress she’s experiencing at this gathering.

Danielle’s issues with food are brought up in other ways that hint that she might have an eating disorder as part of her personal history. At this reception, multiple people (including Danielle’s mother) comment to Danielle about how much weight she has lost. It’s mentioned later in the movie that when she was younger, Danielle was considered to be “chubby,” but she lost a lot of weight during her college years. Debbie quips to Danielle about Danielle’s physical appearance: “You look like Gyneth Paltrow on food stamps—and not in a good way.”

Also at this reception are Maya’s mother Katherine (played by Glynis Bell), who is a very judgmental gossip. Just like Danielle’s mother Debbie, Katherine is aware of but chooses not to discuss the fact that Danielle and Maya used to be lovers. Katherine also seems to think that Maya will eventually settle down with a husband.

At this party, Danielle is asked several times by various people if she’s dating anyone and what her plans are after graduation. Danielle is honest about not currently being involved in a serious romance, but she gives people different or vague answers about her post-graduation plans. It should come as no surprise that Danielle and Maya have unresolved feelings for each other. Maya, who is a confident overachiever, is more likely than Danielle to be truthful about her feelings.

Even though Danielle wants to be independent and find a job on her own, her mother Debbie constantly asks people to help Danielle find a job after she graduates. It’s later revealed that Danielle’s parents are paying for all her expenses and have access to her bank account records. Danielle has been lying to her parents about the money she gets through sex work. She tells her parents that she gets the money from babysitting.

Maya isn’t the only guest whom Danielle is surprised to see at this reception. Danielle is even more shocked to see Max there. Max has a big secret that he’s been keeping from Danielle, but she finds out his secret at this gathering: Max is married and has an 18-month-old daughter. And he might not be the one paying for the apartment where Max and Danielle have been having their trysts. Danielle also finds out at this reception that Max used to work for her father years ago.

Max’s wife and daughter arrive later at the reception. Max’s wife Kim Beckett (played by Dianna Agron), an elegant blonde, is described by some of the reception’s gossips as a “shiksa” (a somewhat derogatory word for a non-Jewish woman), who’s a successful entrepreneur with multiple businesses and who earns a lot more money than Max. Kim works from home so that she can take care of daughter Rose (played by Edgar Harmanci), whose frequent crying in the movie is used as one of the things that causes Danielle to become more anxious.

Although “Shiva Baby” is mainly about Danielle’s worlds colliding at this shiva reception, Max and (to a certain extent) Maya have their own secrets and role playing that they do at this gathering. In a desperate bid to assert her sexual attractiveness, Danielle goes in a bathroom at the house, impulsively takes a topless photo of herself using her phone, and sends the photo to Max. You can imagine what might happen next.

“Shiva Baby” has a lot of dialogue that crackles with underlying resentments and hard feelings, as bitter rivalries and jealousies play out but are disguised by small talk that has a forced pleasantness. This dialogue wouldn’t work as well if “Shiva Baby” did not have these very talented cast members acting out the dialogue in realistic ways, especially in portraying how people often say one thing but are thinking the complete opposite. “Shiva Baby” composer Ariel Marx’s tension-infused music perfectly conveys in the movie how Danielle feels like she’s in a pressure cooker that could explode at any moment.

Sennott shines in this starring role as the moody and complex Danielle, who finds herself in way over her head when she sees the horrifying reality that her lies aren’t as harmless as she thinks they’ve been. Draper is also a standout in the cast and has some of the funniest lines of dialogue in “Shiva Baby” as Danielle’s overbearing but well-meaning mother. When Danielle accuses Debbie of not being able to see queerness (also known as “gaydar”), Debbie snaps in response: “Excuse me, I lived through New York in the ’80s. My gaydar is as strong as a bull!”

Agron and Gordon are especially good at portraying people who are in love with someone who’s fickle and a habitual liar, but these betrayed lovers are willing to risk getting hurt to have that person’s love. Deferrari is also quite skilfull in his performance of a cheating husband who’s terrified of being exposed and trying to keep his composure. Melamed’s Joel character is one of the few in the movie who does not put on airs. Joel is genuine about who he is, but he mistakenly thinks everyone is like that too, so he fails to see clues of deception that are all around him.

“Shiva Baby” has a few slapstick comedy moments that involve mishaps and accidents at the party. But the movie is laser-sharp in how it takes aim at people who put on fake appearances of having a great life when they might actually be very insecure, miserable and jealous of other people who are happy. “Shiva Baby” isn’t cynical about love. Rather, this very memorable movie is ultimately a poignant depiction of how true love can be found when people are willing to show their true selves to each other.

Utopia released “Shiva Baby” in select U.S. cinemas and on digital and VOD on April 2, 2021. “Shiva Baby” became available on HBO, Max, Mubi, Blu-ray and DVD in July 2021. Utopia re-released “Shiva Baby” in select U.S. cinemas on August 4, 2023.

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