Culture Representation: Taking place in Skopje, North Macedonia, the dramatic film “Housekeeping for Beginners” features a white and Romani cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A social worker, who is a closeted lesbian and is the head of a household of other LGBTQ adults, tries to find a way to keep her “found family” together after she has to raise the two underage daughters of her deceased lover.
Culture Audience: “Housekeeping for Beginners” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching well-acted dramas about “found families” with mostly LGBTQ people as the main characters.
Mia Mustafa in “Housekeeping for Beginners” (Photo courtesy of Focus Features)
“Housekeeping for Beginners” is a “slice of life” film that doesn’t pretend to have all the answers about family life. Filled with emotions that are raw, tender and often repressed, this unusual drama offers a realistic look at a “found family” of LGBTQ people in North Macedonia. The mostly improvised acting performances are stellar, even when the story sometimes wanders.
Written and directed by Goran Stolevski (a filmmaker who is originally from North Macedonia and currently lives in Australia), “Housekeeping for Beginners” had its world premiere at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Queer Lion Award, a prize for LGBTQ movies. “Housekeeping for Beginners” was also North Macedonia’s offical selection for the Best International Feature Film category for the 2024 Academy Awards.
In “Housekeeping for Beginners” (which takes place in Skopje, North Macedonia), a social worker named Dita (played by Anamaria Marinca) is the head of her household. Dita is also a closeted lesbian to almost everyone outside of her household, which has become a safe haven for other LGBTQ people who have been rejected by their biological families. Dita is generous enough to not charge rent to any of the adults in her household.
In the beginning of the movie, there are eight people living in the household, and they will soon be joined by a ninth person. Dita (who is usually calm and level-headed) is living with her lover Suada (played by Alina Șerban), who has an acerbic and sometimes volatile personality. Suada has two daughters from two different deadbeat dads: daughter Vanesa (played by Mia Mustafi) is about 16 or 17 years old, while daughter Mia (played by Dżada Selim) is about 5 or 6 years old.
It’s later mentioned in the movie that the father of Vanesa was a drug addict who died of an overdose. Mia’s father is a drug dealer with a prison record and has not been involved in Mia’s life at all. Dita (whose father is a member of North Macedonia’s Parliament) met Suada because Suada was part of a social worker case that Dita had. Dita (who is originally from the low-income Shutka neighborhood) and her children are Roma. These differences in ethnicities and social classes are often issues in their family.
Also in the household is Dita’s longtime friend Toni (played by Vladimir Tintor), who is openly gay and who works as a medical assistant in a hospital. There are also three queer young women living in the household: Elena (played by Sara Klimoska), Teuta (played by Ajshe Useini) and Flora (played by Rozafë Çelaj), whose personalities are somewhat vague in this movie. It’s a house filled with camaraderie, love and the usual family tensions. But within a short period of time, things will drastically change.
The household gets an unexpected addition in the beginning of the movie: a 19 year-old gay Roma man named Ali (played by Samson Selim, who is Dżada Selim’s father in real life), who spent the night with Toni and doesn’t want to leave. Toni and Ali met on a gay dating app. Mia takes an instant liking to Ali. However, Dita and Suada are very wary of Ali because they meet him under awkward circumstances when Toni left Ali to look after Suada’s daughters.
Suada has pancreatic cancer, which has reached the terminal stage. Dita doesn’t see herself as a maternal type, but Suada insists that Dita take care of Vanesa and Mia after Suada dies. Suada’s death (which is already revealed in the “Housekeeping for Beginners” trailer) happens about 35 minutes into this 107-minute movie.
Complicating matters, North Macedonia does not have laws that allow same-sex marriages or openly gay people to adopt children . Dita is determined to keep her promise to Suada to have the family stay together, so Dita goes to extreme lengths to do it, including coming up with the idea to have Toni marry her. Meanwhile, Vanesa starts to rebel and threatens to run away from home.
“Housekeeping for Beginners” shows the emotional fallout of this pressure-cooker situation, as various family members experience grief and discontent over their lives. The movie doesn’t get preachy about discrimination against LGBTQ people, but it shows in unflinching ways how this discrimination can damage people and relationships. “Housekeeping for Beginners” is at its best when it demonstrates how family plays an important role in shaping people’s identities and loyalties, but family does not have to be defined by biology.
Focus Features will release “Housekeeping for Beginners” in select U.S. cinemas on April 5, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in New Mexico (and briefly in Las Vegas), the dramatic film “Love Lies Bleeding” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latin people and African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.
Culture Clash: A gym employee and an aspiring professional bodybuilder meet, fall in love, and get involve in deadly criminal activities.
Culture Audience: “Love Lies Bleeding” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Kristen Stewart and intense movies about outlaw lovers.
Ed Harris in “Love Lies Bleeding” (Photo courtesy of A24)
Gritty and suspenseful, “Love Lies Bleeding” is a rollercoaster ride of a crime drama that has unexpected moments of fantasy and horror, along with a co-dependent love story between two women. The outcome of this love story is intended to be as impactful as the results of all the murder and mayhem that take place in this intense thriller. It’s a well-acted and artfully made film about desperation, revenge and the lengths that people will go to in order to fulfill ambitions or protect loved ones.
Directed by Rose Glass, “Love Lies Bleeding” was co-written by Glass and Weronika Tofilska. The movie had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. “Love Lies Bleeding” is the second feature film from Glass, who made her feature-film directorial debut with the 2020 horror movie “Saint Maud,” a story about a fanatically religious and mentally ill woman.
There are some elements in “Love Lies Bleeding” that are similar to “Saint Maud,” particularly when twisted horror-like hallucinations of a main character seem to come to life. However, both movies are very different from each other overall. “Love Lies Bleeding” is not for people who are easily offended by bloody gore or explicit sexual content. “Love Lies Bleeding” is an above-average noir thriller that brings some unique twists to what’s usually seen in movies about outlaw lovers.
“Love Lies Bleeding” takes place in 1988, mostly in an unnamed small city in New Mexico, where the movie was filmed. The movie’s opening scene is at a grungy local fitness studio called Crater Gym, where gym employee Louise “Lou” Langston (played by Kristen Stewart) does menial tasks, such as attending to customers and doing janitorial duties. A co-worker named Daisy (played by Anna Baryshnikov) has an obvious crush on Lou and tries to get Lou to go on a date with her, but Lou politely rejects Daisy’s advances.
Lou, who is in her early 30s, is an introverted loner who is a chronic smoker and lives with a cat. She’s the type of person who will listen to anti-smoking audio recordings, perhaps as a way to try to quit smoking or as an ironic way of rebelling against what the recordings are saying. During the course of the movie, more of Lou’s background and her family are revealed.
Lou’s father Lou Langston (played by Ed Harris), also known as Lou Sr., is a scummy and ruthless crime lord who lives in a mansion and owns a gun club as a way to launder money. Lou’s mother has been missing for the past 12 years. Lou won’t come right out and admit it, but she’s pretty sure that her mother is dead, and she suspects her father had something to do with this disappearance. Lou is estranged from her father for this reason and many other reasons.
Lou is closest to her older sister Beth (played by Jena Malone), a married mother of three sons. Lou despises Beth’s husband JJ (played by Dave Franco), because JJ is very abusive (physically and emotionally) to Beth, who won’t get help for this problem out of fear and loyalty to JJ. JJ works at Lou Sr.’s gun club and is involved in Lou Sr.’s criminal activities.
One day, a stranger comes to town who will capture Lou’s attention and Lou’s heart. Her name is Jackie (played by Katy O’Brian), an aspiring professional bodybuilder, who has arrived from Oklahoma. Jackie, who is also in her 30s, is passing through New Mexico on the way to a bodybuilder competition in Las Vegas. She visits Crater Gym to work out. And it’s at Crater Gym where Lou first sees Jackie and has an instant attraction to her.
Before Lou and Jackie meet, Jackie has a sexual hookup with JJ in his car because she heard that JJ works at a gun club and hopes that he can help her get a job there. Sure enough, after their sexual encounter, when Jackie asks JJ if there are any job openings where he works, he gives her a business card and says yes and tells her that he’ll put in a good word for her. At the gun club, JJ introduces Jackie to Lou Sr., who hires her as a waitress, because she says she doesn’t like being around guns.
Shortly after Lou and Jackie meet and flirt with each other at the gym, they become lovers. Jackie soon shows herself to be a skilled hustler, because she charms Lou into letting Jackie temporarily live with Lou until Jackie goes to Las Vegas. Lou is not happy at all when she finds out that Jackie is working at the gun club. She comes right out and tells Lou that Lou’s father is a “psycho,” but she says that Jackie is free to work wherever she wants.
Jackie tells Lou a little bit about her background. Jackie says she was adopted at age 13, and she used to be a “fat kid,” who was bullied. Jackie also hints that she is estranged from her family when she says she doesn’t really have anyone who supports her bodybuilder dreams—a fact confirmed in a later scene when Jackie calls her adoptive mother. More details eventually emerge about Jackie’s troubled past.
Lou finds out that Jackie and JJ hooked up after JJ tells Lou about it during an argument that he has with Lou. When Lou angrily confronts Jackie about it, Jackie (who says she is bisexual) admits to hooking up with JJ. Jackie is able to smooth things over with Lou, because Jackie says that the sex with JJ was meaningless and only happened because she used JJ to get a job. Jackie also reminds Lou that she hooked up with JJ before Jackie met Lou.
Even though Lou is a quiet introvert and Jackie is a talkative extrovert, they both know without saying it out loud that they are both emotionally damaged from family problems. It’s a big reason why they are attracted to each other but also why they develop a dangerous co-dependent relationship. Soon after they become lovers, Lou offers Jackie free steroids, which Jackie is reluctant to take, but she gives in to Lou’s pressure to let Lou inject Jackie with the steroids. Jackie then becomes hooked on using steroids.
It’s hinted that Jackie’s steroid abuse could be the cause of Jackie’s hallucinations where her muscles become abnormally enlarged and she sees herself as turning into the size of the Incredible Hulk. There are other hallucinations she has that are pure grotesque horror. But observant viewers will notice that Jackie’s steroid abuse might not be the only reason for her delusions, as she appears to have some type of undiagnosed mental illness.
It’s enough to say that Jackie and Lou get caught up in murder and desperate cover-ups. Even before this happened, Lou was already on edge because two FBI agents working together—one named William O’Riley (played by Orion Carrington) and one named Dave (played by Matthew Blood-Smyth)—have her under surveillance. FBI agent O’Riley approaches Lou at the gym to question her about her father and her mother. Lou says she no longer speaks to her father and has no information about where her mother is.
“Love Lies Bleeding” has a lot of familiar storytelling about crime, betrayals and revenge. However, it’s not very often that these stories are told in movies from the perspectives of queer women characters, one of whom happens to be a bodybuilder. Lou and Jackie go to many extremes out of an underlying desperation and unhappiness that they have about their lives. There are clues about this discontent throughout the movie, such as when Lou seems to enviously admire Jackie for traveling to Las Vegas by herself, because Lou has never been anywhere outside of her small city. Jackie has convinced herself that becoming a rich and famous bodybuilder will make her own life happy and fulfilled.
Stewart has made a career out of playing fidgety and insecure characters. She gives one of her better performances as this type of character in “Love Lies Bleeding.” O’Brian has the harder and more complex role as Jackie, who will keep viewers guessing about how “good” or “bad” Jackie really is. Harris, Franco and Malone handle their roles capably, although their respective characters in “Love Lies Bleeding” are not very well-developed. Baryshnikov doesn’t have a lot of screen time, but she skillfully portrays Daisy, who is not as ditsy as she first appears to be.
“Love Lies Bleeding” has a few things that require suspension of disbelief. For example, if Lou Sr. is such a powerful crime lord, then there would be more than just two FBI agents snooping around. But this factual flaw can be overlooked because “Love Lies Bleeding” is a low-budget movie and the story is focused more on the relationship between Lou and Jackie than on any law enforcement investigating any crimes. “Love Lies Bleeding” doesn’t pass judgment on all the awful and cruel things that happen in the movie, but instead invites viewers to ponder if all of this destruction is worth it in the name of love.
A24 released “Love Lies Bleeding” in select U.S. cinemas on March 8, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on March 15, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City and in Maine, the comedy/drama film “Problemista” features a racially diverse cast of characters (Latin, white, African American and Asian) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: Cartisano, who died of a heart attack in 2019, at the age of 63, was sued several times and had many allegations that his camps illegally abused the children who were forced to be there.
Culture Audience: “Hell Camp: Teen Nightmare” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in documentaries that show how abuse and exploitation are excused or covered up, but some questions remain unanswered by the end of the movie.
RZA and Greta Lee in “Problemista” (Photo by Jon Pack/A24)
“Problemista” has enough quirky charm to keep most viewers interested in what will happen next. It’s a unique comedy/drama about an aspiring toy designer from El Salvador, his immigration issues in New York City, and his eccentric artist boss. It’s not a spectacularly great movie, but it has entertaining and memorable moments for viewers who are interested in watching slightly weird independent films about artistic people. “Problemista” has some sci-fi elements that come to the forefront near the end of the movie.
Written and directed by Julio Torres, “Problemista” had its world premiere at the 2023 SXSW Film & TV Festival. Torres also stars in the movie as protagonist Alejandro Martinez, who was born and raised in El Salvador, by his single mother Dolores (played by Catalina Saavedra). Now in his 20s, Alejandro has been living in New York City, and working at low-paying jobs while trying to fulfill his goal of becoming a toy designer. His dream job would be to work at Hasbro, the company known for numerous popular toy brands, including G.I. Joe, Transformers, My Little Pony and Mr. Potato Head.
Isabella Rossellini is the movie’s unnamed voiceover narrator, who explains in the beginning of the film: “This is the story of Alejandro. His mother was an artist. And he was a project. She gave him everything, so he wished for everything. “Problemista” has occasional flashbacks to Alejandro’s childhood in El Salvador, with the flashbacks looking like Alejandro lived in a whimsical, playground-like fantasy land. In these flashbacks, Logan J. Alarcon-Poucel has the role of Alejandro as a boy.
Alejandro’s fantastical childhood memories are in stark contrast to his current realities: He lives in a small, drab apartment and is struggling to pay his bills with a job he doesn’t like. In the beginning of the movie, Alejandro gets a low-level job at a company called Freeze Corp., which is in the business of freezing the bodies of people who want to be unfrozen and resurrected in the future. Alejandro soon gets fired from Freeze Corp. for accidentally unplugging a backup generator.
Alejando is in the United States on a work visa, which means he can legally stay in the U.S. if he has an employer as a sponsor. He seeks guidance from an immigration attorney named Khalil (played by Laith Nakli), who has his own law practice. Khalil has some grim news for Alejandro: If Alejandro doesn’t find a work sponsor in one month, then Alejandro will be in danger of being deported. In the meantime, Alejandro has to find a way to make some fast cash because his rent and other bills are due.
It just so happens that a demanding, fast-talking and quick-tempered artist named Elizabeth Ascencio (played by Tilda Swinton) is looking for a freelance assistant. Elizabeth crossed paths with Alejandro because her husband Bobby (who is a painter artist) is a customer of Freeze Corp., a company that Elizabeth does not like. And so, when she hears that Alejandro was fired from Freeze Corp., Elizabeth hires Alejandro to be her assistant.
Elizabeth is unpleasantly neurotic, argumentative and difficult. A great deal of the movie is about the uneasy work relationship that Alejandro and Elizabeth have with each other. Alejandro has a “fake it ’til you make it” attitude about the job, such as when he pretends to Elizabeth that he knows how to use FileMaker Pro software on a computer, and he has to go to certain lengths to cover up this lie.
Bobby (who makes paintings of eggs) wants to do a gallery exhibit called “13 Eggs.” Elizabeth tells Alejando that she will be Alejandro’s work sponsor if Alejandro successfully helps her pitch this exhibit to a gallery. And so, there’s a long stretch of the movie where Alejandro has to track down all of Bobby’s paintings (some of which were given away or sold) for this exhibit.
Elizabeth and Bobby (who have homes in New York City and Maine) have an unconventional marriage, not just because of their age difference (she’s about 10 years older than he is) but also because they also have an open marriage and they don’t spend a lot of time together. She tells Alejandro that she and Bobby fell in love with each other because they are both people “who feel misunderstood.” Even though Bobby and Elizabeth have an open marriage, there are still jealousy issues. Elizabeth doesn’t like that Bobby has gotten very close to a woman named Dalia Park (played by Greta Lee), who is one of Bobby’s most promising students.
“Problemista” also shows some of Alejandro’s life when he’s not working. He gets a roommate named Bingham (played by James Scully), who likes to party. Alejandro doesn’t have a love interest in the movie, but it’s shown that he is gay or queer. Alejandro can’t get paid for his assistant job until Elizabeth officially becomes his work sponsor. When he runs low on money, he resorts to a desperate way to make some cash.
One of the movie’s quirks is showing fantasy sequences involving a character named Craigslist (played by Larry Owens), who appears to Alejandro in hallucinations that make Craigslist look like he’s in a disco nightclub or drag-queen ballroom. Craigslist gives advice and pep talks to Alejandro when Alejandro is feeling doubt and fear. Even though Alejandro is in his 20s, Alejandro often looks and acts like an insecure teenager. He has tendency to dress like a high school student, including wearing a backpack. He shuffles when he walks, and he often stammers in conversations with people.
“Problemista” has some pacing and tonal issues when the movie has an awkward balance of comedy and drama. The story also gets a little repetitive in showing Elizabeth’s negative outbursts and ranting. However, the performances in the movie (especially from Torres and Swinton) are compelling. And “Problemista” shows with compassion and some grittiness what it looks like to be a lonely immigrant with visa problems in America. It’s a life that is often lived in quiet desperation but gets to live out loud in a movie like “Problemista.”
A24 released “Problemista” in select U.S. cinemas on March 1, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on March 8, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in Canada, the comedy/drama film “Fitting In” (which is semi-autobiographical story from writer/director Molly McGlynn) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans and Latinos) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A 16-year-old girl finds out that she has a rare gynecological condition called MRKH syndrome, where she can’t menstruate or conceive children, and she struggles with how to tell people who might be friends or intimate partners.
Culture Audience: “Fitting In” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Maddie Ziegler and movies that take an empathetic look at reproductive issues that are rarely depicted in movies.
Maddie Ziegler and Ki Griffin in “Fitting In” (Photo courtesy of Blue Fox Entertainment)
The narrative of “Fitting In” occasionally wanders, but this comedy/drama has convincing performances in this coming-of-age story of a 16-year-old girl with a rare gynecological condition. It’s a unique movie with familiar views of teenage life. Because the movie’s story is based partially on the real-life experiences of “Fitting In” writer/director Molly McGlynn, “Fitting In” has a tone of authenticity that is complemented by the movie’s talented cast members.
“Fitting In” had its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. McGlynn is a Canadian filmmaker. “Fitting In” takes place in an unnamed Canadian city and was actually filmed in Sudbury, Ontario. Although the movie takes place in Canada, it has situations and themes that are relatable to many cultures and the growing pains that teenagers experience.
“Fitting In” begins and ends with a scene of 16-year-old girl named Lindy (played by Maddie Ziegler) masturbating on her bed in her bedroom. By the end of the movie, she’s not quite the same person that she was in the beginning of the movie. That’s because by the end of the movie, she has already gotten the life-changing news that she has MRKH syndrome, a rare gynecological condition. Lindy has ovaries but no uterus, no cervix, and her vaginal canal is very stunted. She was born this way.
In the beginning of the movie, Lindy (who is an only child living with he divorced mother) thinks that she’s a typical teenager with typical teenage issues. She has a crush on a charismatic classmate named Adam (played by D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), who is a popular athlete at their high school. Lindy, who is a virgin when the story begins, isn’t quite sure how much Adam likes her or is attracted to her, but he has definitely noticed her. In fact, when Lindy is first seen masturbating in the movie, she’s having a fantasy that she and Adam are having sex.
Lindy has a talkative best friend named Vivian (played by Djouliet Amara), who is gossipy about what other students are doing in their love lives. One day, Lindy and Vivian are talking about Adam and his most recent ex-girlfriend, who is another student named Karina. Lindy wonders out loud if Adam and Karina had sex when they were a couple. Vivian days that Adam and Karnina most likely had sex and Karina “does anal.”
Vivian and Lindy are both rising-star athletes on their school’s track team. Lindy has a harmless crush on their track coach, whose name is Coach Mike (played by Dennis Andres), a tattooed guy in his 30s. Lindy’s identity at school is wrapped up in being on the track team, but her outlook on life and who she is will change after she finds out that she has MRKH syndrome
Lindy hasn’t begun menstruating yet, but she thinks it’s because she’s late bloomer. She’s still embarrassed about not getting her menstrual period when it seems like all of her teenage girl peers have already developed in this way. Lindy pretends to Vivian and anyone else who might notice that Lindy has a menstrual cycle.
Lindy and Vivian happen to be in a drugstore together when they meet a classmate named Jax (played by Ki Griffin), who identifies as non-binary and uses the pronouns “they” and “them.” Jax is androgynous-looking and happens to be intersex, which means that Jax was born with male and female genital characteristics. Over time, Lindy and Jax get to know each other better. The movies shows whether or not Lindy and Jax confide in each other about their unusual biological conditions.
Meanwhile, a large part of “Fitting In” is about the sometimes-tense relationship between Lindy and her mother Rita (played by Emily Hampshire), a therapist who works from home and often does sessions with her clients through online videoconferencing. When Lindy and Rita argue, it’s usually because Lindy thinks Rita is being too meddling, while Rita thinks Lindy is being too standoffish with Rita. Lindy’s father abandoned Rita and Lindy when Lindy was very young, and he is no longer in their lives. Rita is neurotic and insecure about a lot of things: dating as a single mother, being rejected, and dealing with past trauma from her childhood.
Rita mentions that her own mother was difficult and “crazy,” which is why Rita tries so hard to have a good relationship with Lindy. Rita is in a situation that many mothers of teenage girls experience: As the teenage daughter approaches adulthood, the mother wants to have a balance of being an authoritative parent and being an understanding friend. It’s a balance that is often uneasy and often comes with misunderstandings and conflicts, as the teenage daughter wants more independence from a parent.
When Lindy tells Rita that Lindy still hasn’t developed a menstrual cycle, Rita immediately arranges for Lindy to go to a gynecologist named Dr. Aranda (played by Rhoslynne Bugay), who is professional and informative. Lindy and Rita find out at the same time in the doctor’s office that Lindy has MRKH syndrome. Rita bursts into tears. Lindy is in shock and is initially confused, until the knowledge starts to sink in that Lindy can never get pregnant or give birth.
“Fitting In” shows the fluidity of Lindy’s dating experiences, as three people end up getting sexually close to Lindy in various ways: Adam; a mild-mannered, fast-food worker named Chad (played by Dale Whibley); and Jax. “Fitting In” is mostly about Lindy’s journey in the weeks after she finds out about having MRKH syndrome. She goes through a myriad of emotions that Ziegler expresses realisitically. The supporting cast members, especially Hampshire, Woon-A-Tai and Griffin also handle their roles with aplomb.
Aside from issues about her reproductive health, Lindy’s diagnosis MRKH syndrome also affects her sexual health. She is given medical dildos by a nurse named Lisa (played by Emma Hunter), who tells Lindy that it will take about three to 18 months of using these dildos to create a vaginal opening that looks “normal.” Lisa tactlessly tells Lindy about using these dildos to make Lindy’s vagina bigger: “You’re an athlete, right? Think of it like training or vagina boot camp.” Lindy also has visits with another gynecologist named Dr. Doheny (played by Michael Therriault), who is less compassionate than Lisa.
“Fitting In” has typical scenes of teenage parties, where some of the drama happens in Lindy’s love life. She also has an awkward experience when her gynecologist recommends that she go to a support-group meeting for people who identify as LGBTQIA2S+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex, asexual, or two-spirit), where Jax is a regular attendee. Lindy grapples with shame, defiance, anger and acceptance about her condition. Ultimately, “Fitting In” tells a sometimes-serious, sometimes-amusing story that allows viewers to think about how much or if reproductive organs should define the essence of who people are.
Blue Fox Entertainment released “Fitting In” in select U.S. cinemas on February 2, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in December 1999, in various states on the East Coast of the United States, the comedy film “Drive-Away Dolls” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Asians, African Americans and Latinos) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: Two lesbian best friends go on a road trip from Philadelphia to Tallahassee, Florida, and find out that they are being chased by criminals who want some things that are in the two friends’ rental car.
Culture Audience: “Drive-Away Dolls” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Ethan Coen and comedies about road trips or lesbians.
Colman Domingo, C.J. Wilson and Joey Slotnick in “Drive-Away Dolls” (Photo by Wilson Webb/Working Title/Focus Features)
Neither terrible nor great, “Drive-Away Dolls” can have some appeal to viewers who are open to raunchy road-trip comedies that have lesbians as the central characters. The wacky tone is off-kilter, but the dialogue and characters are snappy and memorable. The “Drive-Away Dolls” filmmakers have said that it’s intended to be a B-movie (in other words, kind of trashy and kind of goofy), so people won’t have any expectations that “Drive-Away Dolls” is aspiring to be award-winning art.
Directed by Ethan Coen, “Drive-Away Dolls” is his first movie as a solo director since he ended his filmmaking partnership with his older brother Joel Coen. Together, the Coen Brothers’ specialty was making often-violent movies about offbeat characters, with their most-lauded achievement being the 2007 Oscar-winning drama “No Country for Old Men.” Other well-known movies in the Coen Brothers’ filmography include 1996’s crime drama “Fargo,” 1998’s stoner comedy “The Big Lebowski,” 2000’s prisoner escapee thriller “O Brother, Where Are Thou?” and the 2010 remake of the Western “True Grit.”
“Drive-Away Dolls” isn’t nearly as good as the above-named films, but it does have some quirky charm. (The word “quirky” is an over-used description for a Coen movie simply because it describes so many Coen movies.) The trick is how in how much quirkiness can be put into a movie before it becomes very irritating. “Drive-Away Dolls” comes dangerously close to being a constant barrage of quirkiness for the sake of trying to look unconventional. However, the movie takes a turn toward the end that is very conventional, so don’t expect any major plot twists.
Ethan Coen and his wife Tricia Cooke co-wrote the “Drive-Away Dolls” screenplay and are two of the movie’s producers. Cooke identifies as openly queer (as she says in the movie’s production notes and in many interviews), but the movie sometimes looks like it’s treating its lesbian characters (who are all young, under the age of 30) as caricatures. How would “Drive-Away Dolls” be if it had been written by young lesbians instead of a middle-aged husband and wife? We’ll never know, but some of the scenes with sexual activities just seem to be in the movie in a self-conscious way, as if to say: “Look at how progressive we are with these lesbian scenes.”
The racy sexual content can’t quite cover up the obvious: “Drive-Away Dolls” is essentially using the same formula that many road-trip movies have with two people as the central characters: The two people, who usually have opposite personalities, bicker with each other and bond with each other, as they face various obstacles on the way to their destination. If there’s a possibility of romance between the two people, one of the people in this relationship denies or resists the attraction.
In “Drive-Away Dolls,” the two argumentative travel partners are lesbian best friends in Philadelphia—brash and horny Jamie Dobbs (played by Margaret Qualley) and uptight and prudish Marian Pulabi (played by Geraldine Viswanathan)—who go on a road trip together to visit Marian’s aunt in Tallahassee, Florida. Jamie wasn’t officially invited by this aunt, but Jamie persuaded Marian to let Jamie go on this trip. Marian tries to dissuade Jamie from going by saying the visit will probably be boring because Marian’s aunt is a birder who is very conservative. Viewers soon learn that once Jamie has put her mind to getting something, she goes after it with gusto.
Jamie is what some people might call a “sexual free spirit” and what other people might call “promiscuous.” It’s the reason why Jamie’s most recent heartbroken girlfriend Suzanne “Sukie” Singelman, a Philadelphia police officer, has broken up with live-in lover Jamie, who admittedly has a hard time with being monogamous. Early on in the movie is a sex scene between Jamie and a woman named Carla (played by Annie Gonzalez) that has partial nudity but leaves very little doubt about what’s going on in the bed.
Jamie is so well-known at a local lesbian nightclub called Sugar’n’Spice, there’s a scene where she gets in front of a cheering audience to show off some souvenirs of her sexual exploits. Also in the crowd are Marian and Carla, who mildly scolds Marian for being at the club in a business suit. Marian’s excuse is that she just came from her office job and she’s not interested in “peddling her wares” at this pickup joint. Meanwhile, Sukie is so incensed at Jamie’s bragging antics on stage, Sukie storms up to Jamie and punches her.
Sukie has ordered Jamie to move out of the apartment. When Jamie arrives with Marian to pick up Jamie’s belongings, Sukie is trying to unfasten the bolts of a dildo that has been bolted to the lower half of a wall. This sex toy was a gift from Jamie, but Sukie angrily says that she doesn’t want it anymore. It’s intended to be a funny scene in “Drive-Away Dolls,” but if this type of thing doesn’t make you laugh, then “Drive-Away Dolls” is not the movie for you.
Sukie and Jamie also have a pet Chihuahua named Alice that Sukie doesn’t like, but Jamie is reluctant to take the dog because Jamie knows how irresponsible Jamie is. This dog isn’t used for a comedy gimmick as much as you might think it could be. Feeling some break-up blues, Jamie convinces Marian to let Jamie go on this road trip with Marian to Tallahassee.
The very first scene of “Drive-Away Dolls” shows something that is the catalyst for the danger that Jamie and Marian encounter on this trip. A man calling himself Santos (played by Pedro Pascal), but who is listed in the movie’s end credits as The Collector, is sitting by himself at a darkly lit Italian restaurant called Cicero’s and is waiting nervously for someone who doesn’t show up. Santos is clutching a silver metal briefcase. As he leaves the restaurant, he finds out too late that his waiter (played by Gordon MacDonald) was really an assassin, who followed Santos into an alley and killed him in a very gruesome way.
What happened to Santos’ body and the briefcase? And what’s in that briefcase? Those questions are answered in the movie. It’s enough to say that Marian and Jamie go to a car rental place owned by a shifty-looking man named Curlie (played by Bill Camp), who hears that the two women are going to Tallahassee. Curlie knows exactly what car he’s going to give them: an aquamarine blue Dodge Aries.
Not long after Marian and Jamie drive off, three criminals show up expecting to rent this Dodge Aries, and “Tallahassee” was their code word to get the car. There are certain things in the car’s trunk that these thugs want. After Curlie tells them all he knows about the travelers who rented the car, Curlie gets savagely assaulted for the mistake of renting the car to these unsuspecting women.
The three criminals who are on the hunt for Jamie and Marian are a cold and calculating killer called The Chief (played by Colman Domingo), an impatient hothead named Flint (played by C.J. Wilson) and a dorky henchman named Arliss (played by Joey Slotnick), who all work for a mysterious boss who is later revealed in the movie. The Chief, Flint and Arliss start their chase by going to the apartment of Sukie, who was listed as the emergency contact person for Jamie and Marian’s car rental.
“Drive-Away Dolls” stretches out the “opposites attract” schtick between Marian and Jamie for as far as it can go. Marian is horrified when Jamie immediately defaces the car with this graffiti message on the trunk: “Love is a sleigh ride to hell.” Jamie is horrified when Marian admits that she’s been celibate for three years, ever since Marian’s breakup from her ex-girlfriend Donna. During their road trip, Jamie wants to have fun at lesbian bars and pick up sex partners, while Marian would rather sit in bed at night and read a book. The movie makes a big deal out of the fact that Marian is reading Henry James’ “The Europeans” during this trip.
“Drive-Away Dolls” also has psychedelic-looking interludes that feature brief, uncredited appearances by Miley Cyrus as a hippie woman from the 1960s. Her character’s name is later revealed in the movie. The name has a connection to a famous real-life 1960s groupie who died in 2022. If you watch all of the movie’s end credits, you’ll see a caption that shows “Drive-Away Dolls” is dedicated to this real-life groupie.
Fans of Matt Damon (who plays a politically conservative U.S. senator from Florida named Gary Channel) and fans of Pascal should know that the screen time for Pascal and Damon in “Drive-Away Dolls” is limited to less than 10 minutes each, even though Pascal and Damon share top billing in the movie. It’s a “bait and switch” that will turn off some viewers who might be fooled into thinking that Pascal and Damon have a lot of screen time in the movie.
“Drive-Away Dolls” has fun with being campy, but some scenes are kind of useless. For example, Jamie and Marian encounter a traveling all-female soccer team whose members look like they’re in their late teens. Jamie and Marian end up in a hotel room with the team and their young coach, while they all take turns making out with each other.
Everyone on the soccer team is queer? Really? It looks so unrealistic and gratutitous, just for the sake of having a scene showing young women making out with each other in the same room. And what happened to Marian being so uptight? (She’s not drunk in this scene, so intoxication isn’t an excuse.) This is the type of scene that could have been edited out of the movie, and it would have made no difference to the overall story.
Qualley’s acting in “Drive-Away Dolls” looks like she’s trying to mimic the blunt-talking, verbose style of Mattie Ross, the precocious teen character played by Hailee Steinfeld in 2010’s “True Grit.” There’s a clipped, galloping pace to the way they talk that is not unlike the pace of a Kentucky Derby race horse and comes complete with a Southern twang. Jamie is originally from Texas, but her thick Southern accent (which doesn’t sound completely convincing in Qualley’s performance) and Jamie’s personal history with the South aren’t fully explained, considering that the movie makes insulting comments about Florida.
Qualley looks like she’s trying too hard to be funny as Jamie, while Viswanathan has a more naturalistic (and better) comedic style as Marian, who can say more with a few cynical eye rolls than Jamie can say with any of her motormouth rambling. Jamie’s dialogue can be hilarious at times, but it’s very stagy, much like a lot of the comedy in “Drive-Away Dolls.” All the movie’s supporting characters are not developed enough to have full personalities. Just like a slightly rusty car, “Drive-Away Dolls” is a comedy that spurts and lurches and takes a while to rev up, but it eventually can take you on a path that goes where it’s expected to go.
Focus Features released “Drive-Away Dolls” in U.S. cinemas on February 23, 2024. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on March 12, 2024. “Drive-Away Dolls” will be released on Peacock on April 12, 2024, and on Blu-ray on April 23, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in outer space, the sci-fi drama film “I.S.S.” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with one multiracial person) portraying astronauts from the United States and Russia.
Culture Clash: While on the International Space Station in outer space, three American astronauts and three Russian astronauts find out that an apocalyptic war is happening on Earth between the United States and Russia.
Culture Audience: “I.S.S.” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Ariana DeBose and sci-fi thrillers about astronauts dealing with a crisis in outer space.
Masha Mashkova, John Gallagher Jr. and Costa Ronin in “I.S.S.” (Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street)
With a low budget and a simple concept, “I.S.S.” has no aspirations to be a classic sci-fi thriller. After a slow start, “I.S.S.” gets more interesting when it’s about personal and national loyalty dilemmas among Russian and American astronauts stuck on a ship in outer space during an unexpected war between their respective nations. Because this is a science-fiction movie, some suspension of disbelief is required. There’s enough tension to keep viewers interested in seeing what will happen next, although the movie could have had a much stronger ending.
Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite and written by Nick Shafir, “I.S.S.” had its world premiere at the 2023 Tribeca Festival. “I.S.S.” is the feature-film debut for screenwriter Shafir, whose approach to this subject matter is very easy to understand but might be too trite for some viewers. The movie’s entire story takes place in outer space but was actually filmed in North Carolina. The year that the story takes place is not mentioned.
The title “I.S.S.” is an acronym for International Space Station. As explained in captions during the movie’s introduction: “The International Space Station (ISS) served as a symbol of the United States and Russian collaboration after the Cold War. The ISS is primarily used as a research facility, where the crew makes advancements in medicine, technology and space exploration. Today, both American astronauts and Russian cosmonauts are living on board the ISS.”
There are only six people in the movie’s entire cast of characters, who are evenly split among Americans and Russians. The Americans are commander Gordon Barrett (played by Chris Messina), emotionally reserved Kira Foster (played by Ariana DeBose) and talkative Christian Campbell (played by John Gallagher Jr.), who is a divorced father with two underage daughters. The Russians are efficient Alexey Pulov (played by Pilou Asbæk), his emotionally aloof brother Nicholai Pulov (played by Costa Ronin) and fun-loving Weronika Vetrov (played by Masha Mashkova), who sometimes goes by the nickname Nika.
Here’s where some suspension of disbelief is necessary for this movie: The first thing that some viewers might ask themselves is: “Why would Russia and the United States only have three astronauts each for such an important ISS mission?” The answer: “Because ‘I.S.S.’ is a low-budget movie.” The movie depicts all six of these space travelers as being confined to a certain part of the station, which is intended to make the movie’s interior settings look claustrophobic.
Kira is the story’s main protagonist. Kira and Alexey are both biological engineers working on a “top secret” project for their respective countries. They both share a workspace. Kira uses mice for her lab experiments. Observant viewers will notice how these mice are parallel symbols of what eventually happens to the humans in the story.
Near the beginning of the movie, Kira and Christian are by themselves, until the other four space travelers join them. Gordon introduces Alexey, Nicholai and Weronika to his colleagues. Everyone is friendly and in good spirits. The Russians begin playing the Scorpions’ 1990 hit song “Wind of Change” and begin singing along.
Alexey mentions how much an anthem the song is for Russians who were affected by the Cold War ending. However, all six of the space travelers agree that ISS is not the place where they want to talk about politics. All of this camaraderie and good cheer do not last when these ISS explorers find out something terrible: While looking down on Earth, they see large glowing spots, indicating that nuclear weapons have been detonated.
Soon after that, the ship loses all communication with Earth, except for some text messages that Gordon first sees on a computer screen in the station: “The ISS has been deemed a priority foothold. All U.S. citizens are to abort all order and experiments. You new objective is to take control of the ISS.” (This information was already revealed in the movie’s trailer.)
After some initial confusion, the Americans deduce that Russia must have attacked the United States, and an apocalyptic war is happening on Earth. Do the Russians on board the ship know this information? And will the Americans stay loyal to their Russian comrades on the ship, or will the Americans follow U.S. government orders and bring the apparent war inside the ship?
The answers to these questions are really what hold “I.S.S.” together, because most of the characters in the movie do not enough character development for viewers to feel like they really know these characters by the end of the movie. Very little is told the personal lives of these ISS travelers. The Russians in the movie have no backstories at all.
In a candid conversation with Gordon, Kira tells him the reason why she became a biological engineer. She says it’s because when she was a child, her terminally ill father died because he was on a waiting list for an organ transplant. Kira comments, “I made it my goal to find an easier way to manufacture what people needed.”
Kira also tells Gordon that she’s a lesbian or queer woman who wants to remain single and focused on work for now, because her ex-fiancée cheated on her and Kira is not ready to get in another love relationship. Later, it’s revealed that Gordon and Weronika have been having a flirtation or casual fling, which has no major bearing on the movie’s plot. As for Alexey and Nicholai, “I.S.S.” missed an opportunity to tell an interesting story about these two family members who are working together.
“I.S.S.” skimps on the details about what the personal stakes are for the people on the ISS to get back home safely to loved ones. However, the movie does reveal certain other information about why it’s very urgent for the ISS inhabitants to get back to Earth, against the odds and at great risk during the destruction that is happening on Earth. The question then becomes: “Who out of these six people will survive when they inevitably turn against each other?”
“I.S.S.” has competent acting for a story that occasionally stumbles with some of the science- fiction aspects that don’t always look convincing. The visual effects are solid, considering the movie’s low budget. There’s a predictability to some of the action scenes, but “I.S.S.” will keep viewers guessing (up until a certain point) about who on the ship is being honest and who is not. The movie’s ending won’t satisfy viewers who want clearly defined answers, but the ending is meant to show that there are no easy answers when it comes to human nature and being in outer space during an apocalyptic war on Earth.
Bleecker Street released “I.S.S.” in U.S. cinemas on January 19, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Georgia and in Tennessee, from 1909 to 1947, the musical “The Color Purple” (which is inspired by Alice Walker’s 1982 novel of the same name) features a predominantly African American group of characters (with some white people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: An oppressed woman named Celie endures horrific abuse and a forced separation from her beloved sister, but she meets certain people who change her outlook on life.
Culture Audience: In addition to appealing to the obvious target audience of fans of “The Color Purple” book and its various adaptations, the movie musical version of “The Color Purple” will appeal primarily to fans of the movie’s headliners and filmmakers, as well as to people who don’t mind watching musicals that shows extremes in human emotions.
Colman Domingo in “The Color Purple” (Photo by Ser Baffo/Warner Bros. Pictures)
The movie musical “The Color Purple” creatively blends emotional highs and lows in this glitzier version of the book and the 1985 dramatic movie. More comedy and joy balance out the trauma and abuse, but the overall theme of resilience remains the same. Some fans of Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple” novel and some fans of director Steven Spielberg’s 1985 “The Color Purple” movie might not warm to this movie musical if they’re offended by the thought of putting song-and-dance numbers in the most upsetting parts of the story, or if they don’t like how the musical alters key parts of the original story in the novel, including the ending. However, fans of the “The Color Purple” stage musical will be pleased by how the 2023 version of “The Color Purple” is faithful to the stage musical while bringing a vibrant cinematic life of its own.
Directed by Blitz Bazawule and written by Marcus Gardley, the 2023 movie musical version of “The Color Purple” astutely depicts the movie’s most fantastical and elaborate production designs as being manifestations of the imagination of protagonist Celie (played by Fantasia Barrino) during moments in her life when she’s dreaming of escaping from her grim circumstances. It’s a manifestation that is ideal for the visual medium of cinema, which has the benefit of film editing that a stage production does not.
The Tony-winning “The Color Purple” stage musical had its first Broadway run from 2005 to 2008; has gone through various touring incarnations; and experienced a successful Broadway revival from 2015 to 2017. Barrino played the role of Celie on Broadway from 2006 to 2007. Marsha Norman wrote the book for the stage musical, whose music and lyrics were written by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray. The songs range from expressing the depths of despair of a mother who has a child taken a way from her (“Somebody Gonna Love You”); the defiant declaration of not putting up with abuse (“Hell No”); the sultry seduction of adults freely expressing their sexuality (“Push Da Button”); and the triumph of independence and self-acceptance (“I’m Here”).
What “The Color Purple” stage musical and movies have in common are the involvement of Oprah Winfrey and Quincy Jones. Jones was a producer and composer for the 1985 “The Color Purple” movie, and he continued in the role of producer for the stage musical and the 2023 “The Color Purple” movie. Winfrey made her Oscar-nominated movie debut as an actress in 1985’s “The Color Purple,” and she’s a producer of the stage musical and the 2023 “The Color Purple” movie. Spielberg is a producer of “The Color Purple” movies, while Scott Sanders is a producer of “The Color Purple” stage musical and the 2023 version of “The Color Purple.”
“The Color Purple” movie musical (which takes place in Georgia and Tennessee) begins in 1909 in an unnamed rural area of Georgia, where 14-year-old Celie Harris (played by Phylicia Pearl Mpasi) has given birth to her second child: a son. Celie’s father Alfonso (played by Deon Cole) snatches the child away and cruelly tells Celie that she will never see this child again. He did the same thing when Celie gave birth to her first child, who was a daughter. Both pregnancies resulted from Alfonso raping Celie. It’s implied that Alfonso sold both children to be illegally adopted.
The only happiness that Celie experiences in her life is from her close relationship with her younger sister Nettie (played by Halle Bailey), who is very protective of the more insecure Celie. Nettie is the person who teaches Celie to read. They spend hours reading together, often in a tree, where they can’t be seen by their horrible father.
Alfonso isn’t done selling members of his family. A widower farmer named Albert “Mister” Johnson (played by Colman Domingo) is an abusive bully who is looking for a new wife. He insists that most people call him Mister. Mister is attracted to Nettie, but Alphonso will only allow Mister to marry Celie, who is sold into this marriage by her father when Celie is 18 years old. Barrino portrays Celie as an adult. The rest of the movie shows what happens to Celie through a period of time spanning to 1947.
In the first year of Mister and Celie’s miserable marriage, he lets Nettie live in the same household. But when Nettie rejects Mister’s sexual advances, he evicts her from the house and tells her that she can never come back. This forced separation scene isn’t as heart-wrenching as how it was in the 1985 “The Color Purple” movie, but it’s still one of the more emotionally difficult scenes to watch. Nettie promises to write to Celie every day, but Mister intercepts the letters because he tells fearful Celie (who has been beaten into submission by Mister) that he is the only person in the household who is allowed to handle the mail.
During the worst parts of Celie’s life, she meets certain people who have different effects on how she sees herself and others. Shug Avery (played by Taraji P. Henson) is a Memphis-based jazz and blues singer, who is open about her fluid sexuality. Shug is considered the “morally wayward” daughter of Reverend Avery (played by David Alan Grier), the leader of the local church attended by African American people in Celie’s area.
Mister has been in love with Shug for years. He acts like a giddy schoolboy, every time she visits the area. However, she treats him more like a sexual plaything, and she refuses Mister’s wish to make him her only lover. Mister and Shug openly carry on an affair when she’s visiting. What Shug doesn’t expect is to befriend Celie, who sees life from an entirely new perspective when she gets to know confident and sassy Shug. The connection between Celie and Shug goes beyond friendship into sexual intimacy.
Harpo Jackson (played by Corey Hawkins) is Mister’s sensitive adult son, who falls in love, marries, and starts a family with a feisty and outspoken woman named Sofia (played by Danielle Brooks), who doesn’t hesitate to get involved in physical brawls if anyone tries to pick a fight with her. The marriage of easygoing Harpo and domineering Sofia goes through ups and downs. At one point, they break up, and Harpo moves on to having a live-in girlfriend named Squeak (played by H.E.R.), who gets caught in the middle of the volatile relationship between Sofia and Harpo.
With a cast this talented and with breathtaking musical numbers (including dazzling choreography from Fatima Robinson), it’s hard to go wrong in this musical version of “The Color Purple.” This version of the story puts more emphasis on the “sisterhood” of Celie, Shug and Sofia, compared to the original story that makes Celie much more of a loner character much longer in the story. All three women have their own trials and tribulations in a society that expects them to allow their lives to be dictated and controlled by men.
Barrino, Henson and Brooks are standouts in their own right in this movie. Barrino’s Celie is often downtrodden but never completely pathetic, as she maintain her dignity during all much emotional and physical abuse that is inflicted on her. Barrino depicts Celie with slightly more intelligence than Whoopi Goldberg’s Oscar-nominated portrayal of Celie in 1985’s “The Color Purple.” (A plot development in the last third of the movie shows Celie getting a life.
Henson puts a more comedic and lively spin on Shug, who has more comeback quips than Margaret Avery’s more understated, Oscar-nominated version of Shug in 1985’s “The Color Purple.” Henson’s Shug (especially during the musical numbers) is bold, brash and not at all interested in being subtle. In this movie, Shug’s signature song “Push Da Button” is every bit the decadent extravaganza that is should be.
Brooks, who had the Tony-nominated role of Sofia in the Broadway revival of “The Color Purple,” is a scene stealer not just with her acting but also with her powerhouse singing. She’s arguably the strongest vocalist in this entire cast. Beyond the vocal theatrics, Brooks brings a swagger to the role of Sofia, whereas Winfrey’s version of Sofia had more stomping. Sofia is lovably flawed with a fiery temper that gets easily triggered, because she’s lived her life constantly being on the defensive from personal attacks.
The original “The Color Purple” novel and movie got some criticism for its portrayal of African American men as being either abusive or wishy-washy. In this version of “The Color Purple,” Mister is not depicted as an irredeemable villain. There are glimpses of his vulnerability, such as his fear of his cantankerous and misogynistic father Ol’ Mister (played by Louis Gossett Jr.), who scolds Mister for not being controlling enough of Celie.
Some viewers might have a problem with a certain turning point in Mister’s story arc that’s very different from the novel, but the intention seems to be to make Mister more human and less of a one-dimensional villain. Domingo as Mister handles this balancing act with considerable skill. The father/son relationship between Mister and Harpo is explored in more depth in addressing issues of how toxic masculinity can be passed down in a family for generations, unless someone in the family is willing to stop the cycle.
Even in settings where many of the characters live in poverty, “The Color Purple” is rich in its depiction of African American culture at this particular time in this region of the United States. The scenes that take place in Celie’s imagination are entirely consistent with how Celie dreams about how her life could be more glamorous and happier than it really is. An inspired set design shows Celie giving Shug a bath, while the bathtub revolves on a giant gramophone turntable.
“The Color Purple” can certainly spark debate about whether or not the world needs another version of Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. And there are definitely worthy discussions to be had about why so many “awards bait” movies centered on African Americans have a lot of violence, poverty and/or trauma. But for what it is in depicting a specific group of African Americans during a time in American history before the U.S. civil rights movement, this version of “The Color Purple” is a worthy adaptation that gives each of the principal characters clear and distinctive personalities and varied ways to better understand who they are.
Warner Bros. Pictures will release “The Color Purple” in U.S. cinemas on December 25, 2023. UPDATE: The movie will be released on digital and VOD on January 16, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in 1987, in El Paso, Texas, and in Chicago, the dramatic film “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” (based on the 2012 novel of the same name) features a predominantly Latin cast of characters (with some white people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: When a 16-year-old brooding loner meets a teenage boy of the same age who has an opposite personality, they become unlikely friends that could turn into something more, but one of the teens is afraid to admit this romantic attraction.
Culture Audience: “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching well-acted coming-of-age dramas told from a queer perspective.
Reese Gonzales and Max Pelayo in “Artistotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” (Photo courtesy of Blue Fox Entertainment)
“Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” isn’t just another “opposites attract” movie. The engaging and realistic performances by Max Pelayo and Reese Gonzales keep things interesting in this self-identity teen drama when the story starts to wander and get unfocused. The ending is predictable, but the journey to get there is worth watching.
Written and directed by Aitch Alberto, “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” is based on Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s 2012 novel of the same name. The movie had its world premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival. It’s an emotionally authentic story about friendship and young love that happens to also be about coming to terms with someone’s true sexuality.
The movie, which takes place in 1987, begins in El Paso, Texas. That’s where 16-year-old Aristotle “Ari” Mendoza (played by Pelayo) lives with his parents. Ari’s father Jaime Mendoza (played by Eugenio Derbez, one of the movie’s producers) is a mailman. Ari’s mother Liliana Mendoza (played by Veronica Falcón) appears to be a homemaker. Ari is a student at Austin Public High School, where he is a quiet and introverted loner.
Ari has a brother who’s about 10 years older named Bernardo, who is in prison. Bernardo went to prison when Ari was too young (about 5 years old) to know what happened. Ari’s parents have refused to tell Ari why Bernardo is in prison because it’s a shameful secret. The only thing that Ari knows is that Bernardo is in prison for a violent crime.
There’s a scene early on in the movie where Ari and Liliana are in the kitchen in their family home. She gets upset when Ari jokes that he’s going to join a gang. “I’m Mexican,” Ari says. “Isn’t that what we do?”
In the beginning of the movie, Ari says in a voiceover: “One summer night, I fell asleep, hoping the night would be different when I woke up. In the morning, I opened my eyes, and the world was the same.” However, that summer, Ari would meet someone special, and both of ther lives would never be the same.
That special someone is Dante Quintana (played by Gonzales), who meets Ari for the first time when they happen to be at the same public swimming pool. Dante offers to teach Ari to swim when he notices Ari struggling a little bit in the pool. Ari is too proud to ask for a lot of help, but he and Dante strike up a conversation. It’s not that hard to do because Dante is very friendly and talkative.
The conversation turns into a genuine friendship, despite Dante and Ari having opposite personalities and different family backgrounds. Dante’s father Sam Quintana (played by Kevin Alejandro) is a university professor. Dante’s mother Soledad Quintana (played by Eva Longoria) is sophisticated and very open-minded. Dante (who is an only child) mentions at one point in the movie that he has Mexican heritage because of his mother’s side of the family.
Ari’s and Dante’s bedrooms are also a study in contrasts. Ari’s room is small and uncluttered, with nothing hanging on the walls. Dante’s room is large, cluttered and messy. Each of their rooms is a reflection of how they live their lives. Ari is guarded and doesn’t easily reveal himself to a lot of people. Dante, who doesn’t really care if people think he’s a little weird, lives his life exuberantly.
Ari and Dante eventually meet each other’s parents. When Dante meets Ari’s parents for the first time, he gives them a book of Mexican art. Dante says that it was Dante’s father’s idea to give this gift. Dante is the type of person who likes artsy independent films, while Ari likes more mainstream entertainment. Ari looks like he could be a heartthrob athlete. Dante looks like he could be a sensitive intellectual.
Dante and Ari’s close friendship continues after their summer break is over and the new school year begins. Dante is new to the school, so Ari has to be the one to tell him to steer clear of the school’s chief gossip Gina Navarro (played by Isabella Gomez) and her equally nosy sidekick Susie Byrd (played by Hanani Taylor), who both immediately notice how close Dante and Ari are. As far as Ari is concerned, he wants everyone to think that he’s heterosexual and that his seemingly unlikely friendship with Dante is strictly platonic.
Ari becomes so close to Dante and Dante’s parents, they all go on a camping trip together. It’s during this trip that Ari and Dante look through a telescope. Dante tells Ari, “Someday, I’m going to discover all the secrets of the universe.”
The friendship of Dante and Ari is put to the test when Dante drops some surprising news: Dante’s father accepted a year-long visiting professor job at the University of Chicago. The middle section of the movie shows what happens when Dante is in Chicago and Ari is in El Paso. Dante writes letters to Ari, and they both go on dates with girls who are about the same age.
Ari’s would-be love interest is a schoolmate named Elena Tellez (played by Luna Blaise), who makes the first move in flirting with Ari. As for Dante, it’s obvious that Dante is not entirely comfortable being romantic with girls, and he’s been in love with Ari all along. And what about Ari? The rest of the movie is about whether or not Ari can express his true feelings, which are confusing to him and which he often denies.
“Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” has some parts of the story that are somewhat mundane and somewhat melodramatic. Because it takes less time for Dante to express his true feelings, the last third of the movie becomes an extended “guessing game” of what Ari will do when he finds out that Dante has romantic feelings for him. The direction of the movie is solid, but the pacing of the film could have been better.
However, because of the talented cast in “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe,” viewers will get a good sense of what the characters are feeling from different angles. Although the focus of the story is on Ari and Dante, their parents’ perspectives are also given importance and show why Ari and Dante both have different ways of coming to terms with their respective sexualities. There’s plenty of teen angst in the movie, but what viewers will most remember is that it’s a story about living your truth, even when being honest about who you are and who you love can be painful.
Blue Fox Entertainment released “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” in select U.S. cinemas on September 8, 2023. The movie was released on digital and VOD on November 14, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in 1964 in an unnamed city in Massachusetts, the dramatic film “Eileen” (based on the 2015 novel of the same film) features a cast of predominantly white characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A shy administrative assistant at a juvenile detention center becomes enamored with a newly hired psychiatrist at the same job, and the two women do their own kind of pushback on what society expects from women.
Culture Audience: “Eileen” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the book on which the movie is based, and movies about repression and mental illness that take an unexpected turn.
Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway in “Eileen” (Photo courtesy of Neon)
Much like the movie’s namesake, “Eileen” appears to be going one way and then goes in a very different direction. The cast members’ intriguing performances are the main reason to watch this psychological drama, which takes a very dark turn near the end. The movie is weakened by a vague ending that doesn’t give the closure and answers that were given in the book.
Directed by William Oldroyd, “Eileen” is based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s 2015 novel of the same name. Moshfegh and Luke Goebel co-wrote the adapted screenplay for “Eileen.” The movie had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.
“Eileen” takes place during a bitterly cold winter in 1964, in an unnamed Massachusetts city not far from Boston. (“Eileen” was actually filmed in New York and New Jersey.) Eileen Dunlop (played by Thomasin McKenzie) is a 24-year-old bachelorette, who lives a dreary existence with her alcoholic, widower father Jim Dunlop (played by Shea Whigham), who is a former police chief. In addition to his alcoholism, there are indications that Jim has an undiagnosed mental illness.
Jim is verbally and physically abusive to Eileen, who is miserable living with her father, but she can’t afford to move out of the house. Eileen doesn’t report the abuse because she knows that Jim still has friends in the local police force. As the story goes on, it becomes clear that Eileen has a co-dependent, love/hate relationship with her father. She hates his abuse, but she also wants to feel needed, because he depends on her to take care of him.
Eileen has an older sister named Joanne, who is married and hasn’t come by to visit in quite some time. Jim tells Eileen in no uncertain terms that Joanne is his favorite child. During one of Jim’s many drunken rants, he tells Eileen that he wishes that Eileen were as organized as Joanne is. There are hints that Jim probably sexually abused Joanne as a child, which would explain why Joanne is keeping her distance from him as an adult.
For the past three or four years, Eileen has been working as a secretary/administrative assistant at Moorehead, a boys’ juvenile detention center, which is essentially a prison. It’s mentioned at one point in the movie that Eileen is a college dropout. At her job, Eileen isn’t very well-liked by the other secretaries in the office, because she’s quiet and keeps mostly to herself. Mrs. Murray (played by Siobhan Fallon Hogan) and Mrs. Stevens (played by Tonye Patano) are the two of the nosy co-workers who speak in gossipy and condescending tones to Eileen.
The beginning of the movie shows that Eileen is very introverted, but she’s not as prim and proper as she appears to the outside world. Eileen is kind of a kinky voyeur: She puts ice down her underwear after watching a couple’s makeout session in a nearby parked car. Eileen’s love life is non-existent, but she has vivid sexual fantasies about having sex with a Moorehead guard named Randy (played by Owen Teague), who’s about the same age as Eileen.
However, someone else on the job arouses Eileen’s sexual interest even more than Randy. Her name is Rebecca St. John (played by Anne Hathaway), who is Moorehead’s newly hired prison psychologist. Eileen is entranced with Rebecca from the moment that she meets this new co-worker. Rebecca, who is originally from New York City, looks and acts more like a glamorous movie star than a psychologist.
At one point, Rebecca tells Eileen that although she’s had plenty of boyfriends, she’s never been married. Rebecca says her dating relationships are “just for fun” and never last. Rebecca comes across as a progressive (she believes that psychedelic drugs should be used as therapy) and independent (she say she loves living by herself), which is the opposite of the conservative and stifling lifestyle that Eileen feels she is being pressured to live.
Eileen is infatuated with Rebecca’s sophisticated ways and seems to be fascinated with everything that Rebecca does. Rebecca notices this admiration and makes an effort to befriend Eileen, who is very flattered by the attention and the compliments that she gets from Rebecca. It’s obvious that Eileen wants her relationship with Rebecca to be more than a friendship, but does Rebecca feels the same way?
One day, Eileen notices Rebecca having a counseling session with an inmate named Lee Polk (played by Sam Nivola) and his mother, who is identified in the movie only as Mrs. Polk (played by Marin Ireland). Lee is in prison for murdering his father by stabbing him to death in the father’s bed. The father was a police officer who worked in the same police department as Eileen’s father Jim.
Eileen can see the counseling session through glass windows, but she can’t hear what’s being said behind closed doors. However, Eileen knows that the session ended badly because Mrs. Polk storms out and shouts, “Filthy, nasty boy!” Meanwhile, Lee smirks in reaction to seeing his mother upset.
Shortly after the session ends, Rebecca asks Eileen if she thinks Mrs. Polk is an angry woman. Eileen doesn’t know enough about Mrs. Polk to give an opinion either way. However, Eileen tells Rebecca that she thinks Lee is intelligent and that he doesn’t seem like the type to be a cold-blooded murderer.
A turning point in Eileen’s relationship with Rebecca happens when Rebecca asks Eileen to go with her to a local bar. Rebecca says it’s because she’s new to the area and wants to meet more new people. But as far as Eileen is concerned (based on how excitedly she gets ready for this meet-up), Rebecca has asked her on a date. At the bar, Rebecca will only dance with Eileen and literally shoves a man away who tries to cut in on Rebecca and Eileen dancing together.
One of the strengths of “Eileen” is how all of the principal cast members make their characters very believable. Even when not much is happening in certain scenes, the performances of McKenzie and Hathaway make viewers wonder what Eileen and Rebecca might be really thinking, compared to what they’re saying out loud. That’s an example of the compelling acting in this movie.
Viewers who don’t know what’s in the “Eileen” book or don’t know what happens in the last third of the movie probably won’t see the plot twist coming. The “Eileen” book is told from the perspective of a middle-aged Eileen looking back on her life. The “Eileen” movie does not give that retrospective context and therefore brings up questions that remain unanswered by the end of the film. However, the movie has an impeccable buildup to its most suspenseful moments, even if the ending won’t be as satisfying as some viewers hope it will be.
Neon released “Eileen” in select U.S. cinemas on December 1, 2023, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on December 8, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City in 2017 (and briefly in 1996), the horror film “Dear David” (based on a real Internet story that went viral) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Latin people, and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A comic artist who works for BuzzFeed believes that he is being haunted by a ghost named David, and he chronicles his experiences in messages on Twitter.
Culture Audience: “Dear David” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching mindless and incoherent horror movies with annoying characters.
Jarrett Siddall in “Dear David” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)
“Dear David” is what happens when misguided filmmakers think a social media fad story can be made into a movie that a lot of people weren’t asking for in the first place. This pointless horror flick is boring, jumbled, and a complete waste of time. “Dear David” is based on true events from 2017, when a BuzzFeed comic artist named Adam Ellis went on Twitter to detail his supposed encounters with a murderous ghost named David. BuzzFeed Studios is one of the production companies behind this forgettable flop movie.
Directed by John McPhail and written by Mike Van Waes, “Dear David” is the first feature film for Van Waes. The “Dear David” screenplay is the weakest link in this terrible movie, but it’s certainly not the only reason why “Dear David” is a complete failure on every level. What viewers will see are monotonous and repetitive scenes of protagonist Adam Ellis (played by Augustus Prew) having nightmarish visions that he’s not sure are real or part of his imagination.
The beginning of this movie shows this introductory statement: “In 2017, Adam Ellis began documenting a series of strange encounters that were happening in his apartment, He posted them on Twitter, and these ‘Dear David’ posts became a viral sensation. The following is based on those true events.”
If you believe that “on Twitter” and “true events” are automatically synonymous, then perhaps you’d like to think that Twitter owner Elon Musk can buy the Brooklyn Bridge too. Hauntings that were fabricated to make people famous have been around much longer than social media existed. You only need to look at the proliferation of paranormal-themed TV shows and Web series to see that plenty of people are trying find fame and fortune from “investigating” hauntings.
And so, the motives of Adam Ellis are obviously suspect from the start. In real life, Ellis has been open about his mental health issues, which might or might not have played a role in his ghostly sightings. The fact that BuzzFeed cashed in on an employee’s admittedly shaky mental health by making this awful movie makes “Dear David” even more repulsive.
“Dear David” begins in New York City in 1996, a year when the Internet was fairly new to the world. A reclusive loner boy named David Johnson (played by Cameron Nicoll), who’s 10 years old, spends a lot of time using the Internet on a computer in the basement of his family home. David’s mother is worried about his Internet activities. David’s father has the opposite opinion: He thinks that the Internet is a sensation that will take over the world.
An early scene in the movie shows David getting cyberbullied in a chat room by an anonymous person, who sends David a message calling David a “loser.” David writes back, “Why are you so mean?” The harasser answers, “Why don’t you kill yourself?”
The movie then fast-forwards to 2017. At BuzzFeed headquarters in New York City, Adam is a comic artist who’s not doing very well on the job. He’s distracted by Internet harassers who insult his work. Adam’s annoying boss Bryce (played by Justin Long, in a quick cameo) hints that Adam could be fired if Adam doesn’t get a larger audience for Adam’s work. Bryce says that Adam has “relatable” content, but Adam’s audience reach is “kind of lame.”
Adam has two writer co-workers whose desks are right next to his. Evelyn (played by Andrea Bang) is Adam’s closest friend at work and one of the few people he trusts will be supportive of him when things in his life get weird. Norris (played by Tricia Black) is phony and very competitive. Norris is the type of person who tries too hard to impress the boss while making passive-aggressive digs at her co-workers.
“Dear David” spends quite a bit of time on Adam’s relationship with his boyfriend Kyle Sanchez (played by René Escobar Jr.), who is loving and loyal but getting impatient and feels somewhat hurt that Adam is not ready to introduce Kyle to Adam’s mother. (The movie never says what happened to Adam’s father.) There’s also some other drama about how Adam hasn’t come out as gay to everyone in his life.
Who is the ghost that’s causing the terror in the movie? Two unlucky teens named Kevin (played by Seth Murchison) and James (played by Ethan Hwang) find out when they use false identities to go on the Internet to play pranks on people. An example of the pranks is Kevin and James pretending to be attractive young women looking for dates with men, and when they get men to be interested, Kevin and James reveal that they are really underage boys and shame the men for being perverts.
One day, someone on the Internet named David falls for one of their pranks. David doesn’t think it’s funny and tells Kevin and James that they are both going to die. During their contentious online conversation, David warns Kevin and James that when people first talk to David online, they can only ask David two questions.
It should come as no surprise that one of the teens breaks this rule and asks more than two questions. One of the questions Kevin asks is: “How am I going to die?” David answers, “Alone, afraid, and wetting your bed.” You can easily guess what happens to Kevin in this dreadfully predictable movie.
Adam also encounters David online, but David torments Adam much longer than David’s usual victims. After doing some research, Adam is convinced that the David who’s been contacting him on the Internet and who’s attacking him in these haunting visions is the ghost of a boy named David, who had a tragic story. Take a wild guess which David that is. The ghost who is haunting Adam appears to be an adult version of David (played by Jarrett Siddall), who doesn’t look very menacing and looks more like psychiatric facility patient who needs to brush his teeth.
“Dear David” could’ve had so many interesting things to say about cyberbullying and ghost hauntings, but the movie doesn’t know what to do with these narratives and just makes everything a mess. The acting performances are subpar for the movie’s characters, who are hollow, irritating or both. The overall direction for “Dear David” is sloppy and unfocused. Because the foundation of “Dear David” is a weak and gimmicky Internet story that briefly went viral, that foundation sinks quickly into a cesspool of cinematic muck where stupid horror movies are quickly forgotten.
Lionsgate released “Dear David” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on October 13, 2023.
