Tag: movies

Articles about movies

Review: ‘Mili’ (2022), starring Janhvi Kapoor, Sunny Kaushal and Manoj Pahwa

November 13, 2022

by Carla Hay

Janhvi Kapoor in “Mili” (Photo courtesy of Zee Studios)

“Mili” (2022)

Directed by Mathukutty Xavier

Hindi with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Dehradun, India, the dramatic film “Mili” features an all-Indian cast representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A few days before she is supposed to move to Canada for a nursing job, a 24-year-old woman, who has recently become estranged from her widower father, gets accidentally trapped in the freezer room of the fast-food restaurant where she works. 

Culture Audience: “Mili” will appeal primarily to people interested in watching suspenseful survival thrillers with meaningful messages about love and trust.

Manohar Teli, Rajesh Jais, Manoj Pahwa and Sunny Kaushal in “Mili” (Photo courtesy of Zee Studios)

“Mili” is a capable 2022 Hindi remake of the 2019 Malayalam film “Helen,” which are both dramas about a young woman who accidentally gets trapped in a restaurant’s freezer room. “Mili” takes its time to get to the suspenseful part of the movie, but it’s worth the wait. The acting performances are very good, while the movie’s editing and musical score skillfully increase the tension. “Mili” is the type of film where viewers will probably be able to predict how everything is going to end, but the movie has enough twists and turns to keep audiences on edge to see what will happen next.

Directed by Mathukutty Xavier and written by Ritesh Shah, “Mili” takes place in Dehradun, India, where 24-year-old Mili Naudiyal (played by Janhvi Kapoor) lives with her widower father Niranjan Naudiyal (played by Manoj Pahwa), who works as an insurance agent. (“Mili” was actually filmed in Dehradun and Mumbai.) Mili is an only child who is a graduate of nursing school. She works part-time as a cashier at a fast-food restaurant named Doon’s Kitchen (which is located inside a shopping mall), and she attends International English Language Testing System (IELTS) classes.

Mili is learning English because she wants move to Canada, where she plans to continue her nursing training and find a job as a nurse. In the beginning of the movie, Mili has already made up her mind to move to Canada, where nurses are paid a much higher salary than what Mili could earn as a nurse in India. Niranjan is not happy about Mili’s decision to move to another country so far away, but there’s nothing he can really do about it. Mili says if she stayed in India, she wouldn’t earn enough money to get herself out of her student loan debt in a reasonable period of time.

Mili’s mother died when Mili was a very young child, and her father has not remarried. And so, Mili has spent most of her life living in a household with just herself and her father. Mili and Niranjan have a very close and loving father/daughter relationship overall. The only things they disagree about are where Mili will live (her father wants her to live close to him in India) and Niranjan’s habit of smoking cigarettes. Mili sternly lectures him that he needs to quit smoking for his health, but Niranjan sometimes sneaks in some smoking when he thinks Mili won’t find out.

Mili has been keeping her own secret from Niranjan that will put their relationship to the test: Mili has been dating a guy who’s unemployed, has a history of violence, and is from a different caste. His name is Sameer Kumar (played by Sunny Kaushal), and he’s about 10 years older than Mili. Sameer and Mili met at a hospital where she worked when Sameer was admitted to the hospital for injuries he sustained during a fight. Mili hasn’t told her father about Sameer because she knows that her father wouldn’t approve of her dating Sameer.

Mili and Sameer’s relationship has been turbulent with arguments that don’t turn violent, but it’s implied that these arguments are emotionally hurtful enough that Mili is on the verge of breaking up with Sameer. In the beginning of the movie, Sameer begs Mili to forgive him for something that he did that happened before this story takes place. Mili refuses to forgive Sameer and doesn’t really want to talk to him.

Sameer shows signs of having a nasty temper when he happens to see Mili walking down a street, and he notices that a rickshaw driver (played by Lovekush Kundu) has whistled at Mili. An enraged Sameer lunges at the rickshaw driver and roughs him up after Mili has walked away. Sameer yells at the driver that the woman he was whistling at is Sameer’s girlfriend and that the driver is being disrespectful when he whistles at women in that way.

Sameer’s attack isn’t enough to severely injure the driver, but it’s enough to cause intimidation to the driver, who fearfully says that he’s sorry and backs away from Sameer. This assault will make viewers wonder how much of a loose cannon Sameer is and if he can be trusted. Mili and some other people throughout the movie have those same doubts. Is Sameer going to redeem himself?

Sameer is so desperate for Mili’s forgiveness that he shows up at Doon’s Kitchen while she’s working and demands to talk to her. Sameer won’t leave until she gives him a chance to show her how sorry he is for whatever caused the argument. Eventually, Mili relents and agrees to talk to Sameer, who knows that Mili is going to move to Canada in the near future. Sameer has some news of his own: He got a job in Delhi, and he will be moving there the following night.

It’s a shock to Mili, but she figures that Sameer’s relocation is for the best, since they were close to breaking up, and they were going to be living a long distance from each other anyway. Mili agrees to Sameer’s invitation to go on one last date with him before he leaves the next night to go to Delhi. After her work shift ends, Mili and Sameer go on his motorcycle to a local nightclub/bar, where they both drink some alcohol and stay out very late. Sameer drinks more alcohol than Mili does and probably shouldn’t be operating any vehicle when they both leave the bar. Sameer offers Mili a ride back to her home.

But trouble comes when Sameer and Mili are riding on the motorcycle and are stopped on the street by an aggressive police sub-inspector named Satish Rawat (played by Anurag Arora), who rudely asks them why they are out on the street so late at night. From the beginning, Satish’s attitude is that he wants to find a reason to detain or arrest Sameer and Mili. Satish begins to interrogate them, by asking their names, where they came from, and where they’re going.

Satish scolds Mili by telling her that he thinks she’s a “loose woman” who shouldn’t be on the back of a man’s motorcycle so late at night. As soon as Satish finds out that Mili and Sameer just left a nightclub/bar, he demands that Sameer take a breathalyzer test. Sameer fails the test, so he and Mili are quickly detained and taken to the police station where Satish works.

Mili feels humiliated and even more ashamed when her father has to come to the police station to pick her up. Mili won’t be facing any criminal charges, but Sameer will likely be charged with driving while intoxicated. When Niranjan arrives at the police station and finds out what happened, it’s how he also finds out that Mili has been dating Sameer. Before Mili and her father leave the police station, Satish lectures Niranjan and Mili for not doing a better background check on Sameer, who gets bailed out of jail later.

Naranjan is so angry at Mili that he stops talking to her. Mili begs for his forgiveness but he completely shuns her. Feeling hurt, rejected and isolated, Mili goes to work the next evening at Doon’s Kitchen, where she is working the last shift for the night. Her cranky boss Sudheer Malkoti (played by Vikram Kochhar), who is distracted by his marital problems, reprimanded her a few days earlier, when he blamed Mili and another employee for letting 10 boxes of food get destroyed by an undetected rat in the stock room.

After the restaurant is closed for the night, Mili clocks out and is about to leave the restaurant when two co-workers named Ladoo (played by Raghav Binani) and Vipul (played by Deepak Simwal) suddenly show up with some boxes of frozen food. Vipul and Ladoo ask her to help them, because Ladoo and Vipul forgot to put these boxes in the freezer earlier. Ladoo and Vipul don’t want Doon’s Kitchen manager Sudheer to know that they were late in delivering the boxes, so Ladoo and Vipul ask Mili to carry the boxes herself into the freezer room (which is in the back of the restaurant), and she reluctantly agrees.

Ladoo and Vipul then clock out and leave the restaurant, while Sudheer is in another part of the restaurant. When Sudheer goes into his office, he sees on his computer that all of the employees have clocked out for the day, so he thinks he’s alone in the restaurant. Unbeknownst to him, Mili is in the freezer room. She has left the freezer room door slightly open, but not wide enough for Sudheer to see her inside the room.

Sudheer sees the door is slightly open, looks annoyed that an employee left the door open, and shuts and locks the freezer room door behind him. He then locks up the restaurant, and he leaves to go home for the night. Mili is now trapped in the freezer room and is completely alone in the restaurant.

And unfortunately, Mili left her phone and her purse in another room outside the locked freezer. The freezer room does not have an emergency alarm or a way to be unlocked from the inside. Mili is also wearing a short-sleeved shirt. And the temperature will eventually drop to freezing temperatures that can cause hypothermia and eventually death if she doesn’t get out of the room in time.

Mili’s entrapment in the freezer room doesn’t happen until about 45 minutes into this 127-minute movie. For some viewers, that might be too long for the movie to become suspenseful. And some scenes in Mili’s backstory weren’t really important and could have been cut from the movie. However, it was necessary to show what Mili’s life was like before she went through this ordeal, in order to understand other things that happen in the desperate search to find her.

When Niranjan sees that Mili has not come home when she was expected, he immediately tries to find out what happened. Niranjan knows that Mili is a very responsible person who sticks to a routine. He knows something is very wrong about why Mili didn’t come home that night without contacting him and because she’s not replying to his phone messages.

Sameer was on a bus to Delhi that night, but just by coincidence, he changed his mind and got off the bus. When he finds out that Mili has gone missing, he helps in the search, but he falls under suspicion for her disappearance. Sameer is eventually asked why he didn’t go to Delhi that night, and he says it’s because he changed his mind about taking the job there.

Doon’s Kitchen manager Sudheer is questioned about Mili’s whereabouts, but he insists that Mili left the restaurant because he saw that she had clocked out for the night. It’s why the people looking for Mili think she might be somewhere else during this frantic search. Certan prejudices that people had before Mili disappeared end up complicating matters and actually make things worse by causing mistrust and miscommunication.

In addition to Niranjan and Sameer, other people who help in looking for Mili are her best friend Hasleen (played by Hasleen Kaur), who also works at Doon’s Kitchen; Niranjan’s friend/neighbor Mohan Chachu (played by Rajesh Jais); an unnamed shopping-mall security guard (played by Niranjan Asrani); police inspector Ravi Prasad (played by Sanjay Suri), who is Satish’s immediate supervisor; and police officer Mukesh Singh (played by Manohar Teli), who is as compassionate as his sub-inspector boss Satish is cold-hearted. Rather than helping the investigation, Satish hinders it in many ways because of his selfishness, incompetence and personal biases.

“Mili” (which is being advertised as “based on true events”) can get melodramatic at times, but the movie never strays too far from reality. Kapoor’s empathetic portrayal of Mili anchors the film in a convincing way that will make audiences completely root for Mili in her fight for survival. All of the other cast members give solid performances in their roles.

The movie’s musical score by Oscar-winning “Slumdog Millionaire” composer A.R. Rahman is a tremendous asset in immersing viewers of “Mili” into every emotion felt by the principal characters. Even with a somewhat slow start, “Mili” ends up delivering an overall entertaining thrill ride that will certainly make people think twice about walking into a freezer room without safety precautions.

Zee Studios released “Mili” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on November 4, 2022.

Review: ‘Good Night Oppy,’ starring Steve Squyres, Rob Manning, Doug Ellison, Jennifer Trosper, Kobie Boykins, Vandi Verman and Bekah Sosland-Siegfriedt

November 12, 2022

by Carla Hay

A digital recreation of the robotic rover Opportunity in “Good Night Oppy” (Image courtesy of Prime Video/Amazon Content Services)

“Good Night Oppy”

Directed by Ryan White

Culture Representation: Taking place in California and Florida and on Mars, the documentary film “Good Night Oppy” features a predominantly white group of people (with some black people and one person of Indian heritage), who are current and former NASA employees, discussing the journey of two identical roving robots—one named Spirit, the other named Opportunity—that NASA sent on a mission to explore Mars, in a journey that began in 2004.

Culture Clash: Spirit had frequent technical problems and other obstacles, while Opportunity (nicknamed Oppy) survived and thrived much longer than most people expected.

Culture Audience: “Good Night Oppy” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in documentaries about space exploration and overcoming seemngly impossible odds.

NASA employeees in “Good Night Oppy” (Image courtesy of Prime Video/Amazon Content Services)

“Good Night Oppy” informs, entertains, and gets people emotional about robot exploration on Mars. This impressive documentary is a perfect example of how science and technology are much more meaningful when they don’t lose their humanity. One of the best things about “Good Night Oppy” is that people don’t need to have any knowledge about outer-space exploration to enjoy the movie. People who don’t think they have any interest in this topic will probably be surprised by how engaging “Good Night Oppy” can be in telling this unique story.

Directed by Ryan White, “Good Night Oppy” had its world premiere at the 2022 Telluride Film Festival in Colorado. The documentary is told entirely from the perspectives of the NASA team members who were involved the journey of two physically identical robots named Spirit and Opportunity (nicknamed Oppy) that were sent to Mars (also known as “the red planet”) for an exploration mission. “Good Night Oppy” uses visual effects to recreate much of what Spirit and Opportunity saw and experienced on Mars. The movie also features many of the actual photos of Mars that the twins sent back to Earth, as well as archival footage of what was happening on Earth during this journey.

At first glance, it might seem like “Good Night Oppy” is a very one-sided documentary because it interviews only people connected to NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration). However, by the end of the movie, it’s obvious that it would have been a mistake for the “Good Night Oppy” filmmakers to overstuff the documentary with too many interviews of people who didn’t have direct knowledge of this history-making Mars exploration. The current and former NASA employees who tell this story have intimate details that no outside expert would be able to tell in such an informed way.

Even before this exploration of Mars began in January 2004, it was a long and often-frustrating road to get there. Steve Squryes, the principal scientist of the project, said that for about 10 years, beginning in the mid-1980s, NASA rejected his proposals about having robots explore Mars and doing things such as send images and other information about Mars back to Earth. When one of Squryes’ proposals was finally accepted, it took several more years for the robots to be designed and built up to NASA standards. Finally, the robots were ready to be sent to Mars in 2003.

Much of this work was done by NASA’s Mars Program at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. It’s explained in the documentary that an ideal window of opportunity to send a robotic rover to Mars comes along once every 26 months. Ashley Stroupe, a rover driver responsible for the movements of NASA’s rovers on Mars, comments: “The overall goal of the Mars program has been the question of, ‘Did Mars actually have life?'”

Two special robots named Spirit and Opportunity were about to find out and let people on Earth know what was discovered. Spirit and Opportunity are described as robotic rovers that were built as identical twins, but they ended having very different “personalities” and experiences on Mars. Both rovers were given the female gender when assigning their pronouns.

Each rover was 5’2″, which is the average height of a human being. But that’s as far as the similarities went to how much the rovers physically resembled human beings. Atshitey Trebi-Ollennu, a robotics engineer, explains in the documentary that the rovers’ arms were designed to have “multiple instruments to take measurements and microscopic images, like a Swiss Army knife.” Each rover also had six wheels for movement on the ground.

From the beginning, Spirit was the one who ran into the most problems. Spirit failed the first major test, while Opportunity passed the same test. As camera operations engineer Doug Ellison says in the documentary, “Even before they left this planet, Spirit was troublesome. Opportunity was Little Miss Perfect.”

Eventually, the twins were ready for their trip to Mars with their launch at Kennedy Space Center on Florida’s Merritt Island. Spirit launched on June 10, 2003, and landed on Mars on January 3, 2004. Opportunity launched on July 7, 2003, and landed on Mars on January 24, 2004.

Due to extreme weather conditions on Mars and any unforeseen events, the rovers were expected to last about 90 days on Mars. Spirit and Opportunity lasted much longer than 90 days. And one of them lasted even longer than most of the NASA scientists and engineers even thought was possible. (How long Spirit and Opportunity lasted will not be revealed in this review, so as not to spoil this information for people who don’t know and want to find out when watching “Good Night Oppy.”)

The documentary mentions that NASA’s Mars program team would make bets on if either, both or neither of the robots would still be functioning the following year. During every bet, Squyres admits he always pessimistically predicted that Spirit and Opportunity would not make it to the following year, in order to be prepared for this disappointment. But contrast, lead systems engineer Rob Manning says that he always optimistically predicted that Spirit and Opportunity would survive through the following year.

Spirit and Opportunity landed on two very different parts of Mars, affecting each rover’s journey. Spirit landed in Gusev Crater, experienced freezing temperatures that would kill any human being, and had several malfunctions and setbacks along the way. By contrast, Opportunity landed in a small crater in the Meridiani plains, she traveled in much more moderate temperatures, and she had malfunctions that were minor, compared to Spirit’s malfunctions.

Mission manager Jennifer Trosper quips in the documentary, “Oppy was at the equator, like the vacation spot of Mars.” Earlier in the documentary, Trosper comments on why people on Earth put so much effort into outer-space travel: “Something I think we all wonder about as we look up into the night sky is if we’re really alone in this universe. And trying to understand that is one of the great mysteries we have.”

One of the main priorities of this mission was to see if Mars had any evidence of water that would be drinkable to people on Earth. Spirit’s exploration found no evidence of water on Mars. By contrast, Opportunity found evidence that there used to be water on Mars, when hematite was seen in her landing space. It’s explained in the documentary that the water from hematite had qualities like battery acid, but it was still water nonetheless. Oppy would later make an even bigger discovery related to water on Mars.

In other words, Oppy became the “star” rover of this mission, but that didn’t mean that people inside and outside of NASA didn’t get emotionally attached to both rovers. There were nerve-wracking moments when the twins experienced the same problems at different times—signals that got lost, tornado-like winds that forced the mission control team to temporarily shut the rovers down to save on battery energy, and emergency reboots that were never guaranteed to work.

“Good Night Oppy” gives a riveting behind-the-scenes look at the anxiety, joy, fear, sadness and hope that went into this mission. The movie also shows and tells in easy-to-understand details how Spirit and Opportunity were controlled by the team on Earth, and how these two rovers were given autonomy to make their own decisions.

Vandi Verma, one of the rover drivers, explains what was like to operate a rover: “It’s not like regular driving, because it takes four to 20 minutes for a signal to reach Mars. We send the commands, we go off and sleep. And the rover will execute the drive that day. And by the time the drive is done, we come back and get the results and start the planning.”

Spirit and Opportunity also had “diaries” during their journey, which are intermittently narrated in “Good Night Oppy” by Angela Bassett. The narration gives a very calm and authoritative human voice to the thought processes and actions of rovers that weren’t humans but who acted like living beings capable of making their own decisions. It’s no wonder that people got so emotionally attached to Spirit and Opportunity.

Ellison comments, “Yeah, it’s a robot, but through this robot, we’re on this incredible adventure together, and she becomes a family member.” Squyres describes how he felt when the robots he dreamed about and planned for all those years were finally completed and ready to go to Mars: “To say it’s like a child being born is to trivialize parenthood, but it sort of feels like that.” Mechanical engineer Kobie Boykins comes right out and says that Spirit and Opportunity were like his “babies,” and when they went to Mars, it was similar to how a parent feels when a child grows up and leaves home to live somewhere else.

“Good Night Oppy” does a very good job of giving the interviews a personal touch, by letting each person interviewed talk a little bit about how and why they became passionate about outer-space exploration. Boykins mentions that when he was a kid, “Star Trek: The Next Generation” character Geordi La Forge (played by LeVar Burton) was a huge inspiration for him. Trosper’s father used to work on space missiles, and she credits him with encouraging her to pursue her dream of having a NASA career at a time when many girls and women were told that technology-related work at NASA was a man’s job. Trebi-Ollennu, who is originally from Ghana, talks about his earliest memory of being interested in engineering came from his childhood, when he was fascinated by how a radio works.

Planetary protection engineer Moogega Cooper says that when she was a child, she entered NASA’s contest to name the twin rovers before the rovers were sent to Mars. She chose the names Romulus and Remus, the twin sons of the god Mars from Roman mythology. Deputy project scientist Abigail Freeman was one of the 16 high school students from around the world who were chosen to be in the mission control room when Oppy’s first images of Mars were sent to Earth. Years, later Freeman would be working in NASA’s Mars program as a scientist.

Some of the interviewees talk about the parallels between what Spirit and Opportunity experienced and what was going on in their own personal lives. Verma says that she was pregnant with twins during part of the time that she spent as a rover driver during the mission. Flight director Bekah Sosland-Siegfriedt, who says that Opportunity was the reason why she wanted to become a space engineer, shares a poignant story of how her grandmother was living with Alzheimer’s disease at the same time that Opportunity was getting older and losing her memory.

In addition to having stunning visual images and heartfelt stories, “Good Night Oppy” makes excellent use of music, with an emotionally stirring score by Blake Neely and some well-chosen soundtrack song choices. One of the rituals during the mission was a morning wakeup song that usually fit the plan (or intended plan) of the day. Songs like The B-52’s “Roam,” ABBA’s “S.O.S.” and Billie Holiday’s “I’ll Be Seeing You” are featured prominently in some of the documentary’s pivotal scenes.

“Good Night Oppy” has all of the elements of a better-than-average documentary and excels in areas where similar documentaries might stumble. “Good Night Oppy” can educate people without being a boring or condescending lecture. It tells a story that involves some of the highest levels of science, but they’re described in ways that people of many different backgrounds and ages can relate to and understand. And, most importantly, “Good Night Oppy” shows that inspiration, camaraderie and possibilities can have no borders and can extend well beyond planet Earth.

Amazon Studios released “Good Night Oppy” in select U.S. cinemas on November 4, 2022. Prime Video will premiere the movie on November 23, 2022.

Review: ‘The Fabelmans,’ starring Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, Gabriel LaBelle and Judd Hirsch

November 11, 2022

by Carla Hay

Gabriel LaBelle, Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Keeley Karsten, Julia Butters and Sophia Kopera in “The Fabelmans” (Photo by Merie Weismiller Wallace/Universal Pictures)

“The Fabelmans”

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Culture Representation: Taking place from 1952 to 1965, in New Jersey, Arizona, and California, the dramatic film “The Fabelmans” (inspired by director Steven Spielberg’s own youth) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latinos) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Sammy Fabelman’s parents have contrasting opinions about his childhood dream to become a movie director, and his home life becomes turbulent when he finds out an emotionally painful secret. 

Culture Audience: “The Fabelmans” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Spielberg and anyone interested in coming-of-age stories about famous filmmakers.

Gabriel LaBelle in “The Fabelmans” (Photo by Merie Weismiller Wallace/Universal Pictures)

Steven Spielberg tells a very personal story of his youth in “The Fabelmans,” a drama that’s a partial biopic and a therapeutic life analysis. The movie’s overly long run time drags it down, but Michelle Williams gives a transcendent performance as the mother of the fictional version of Spielberg. “The Fabelmans” (which clocks in at 151 minutes) is yet another story about a young person who ends up going to Hollywood to pursue a dream. But in this case, the young person turned out to be the Oscar-winning Spielberg, who is frequently lauded as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.

Spielberg directed “The Fabelmans” and co-wrote the movie’s screenplay with Tony Kushner. Spielberg and Kushner previously collaborated on the 2021 remake of “West Side Story,” 2012’s “Lincoln” and 2005’s “Munich.” Spielberg has made a wide variety of films, but many of his movies—especially the ones having to do with outer-space creatures, such as 1977’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” 1982’s “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” and 2005’s “War of the Worlds” remake—have a few themes in common, such as people dealing with fractured families and/or families in conflict because one person in the family is determined to pursue a particular goal against tremendous odds. In “The Fabelmans,” there are no outer-space creatures, but protagonist Sammy Fabelman (a fictional character based on the real-life Spielberg) often feels like he’s a proverbial alien in his own family.

“The Fabelmans” begins in New Jersey, on January 10, 1952. Sammy is 5 years old (played by Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord), and his parents have taken him to the movies to see director Cecil B. DeMille’s circus drama “The Greatest Show on Earth,” starring Betty Hutton, Cornel Wilde, Charlton Heston, Dorothy Lamour, Gloria Grahame and James Stewart. Before they go into the move theater, Sammy’s mother Mitzi Fabelman (played by Williams) and Sammy’s father Burt Fabelman (played by Paul Dano) assure a fearful Sammy that the people who will look like giants on the big screen are just images from the movie. Sammy doesn’t know it yet, but seeing this movie will change his life.

This moviegoing scene in “The Fabelmans” also establishes from the beginning how Mitzi and Burt have two different parenting styles and contrasting outlooks on life. Burt, who is a computer engineer, tries to explain to Sammy the technical aspects of how a movie projector beams images on the screen and how a human brain processes those images. Mitzi, who is an on-again/off-again professional pianist for radio, explains movies to Sammy this way: “They’re like dreams.” In other words, Burt views life like a scientist, while Mitzi views life like an artist.

It’s later mentioned in the movie that young Sammy has anxiety and is prone to panic attacks. But since he’s a child in the 1950s, when people usually didn’t seek psychiatric care for this medical condition, Sammy doesn’t get therapy in his childhood for his anxiety. The person in his family who is most likely to calm him down is his mother Mitzi, who has mental health struggles of her own. She is the person in the family who is most likely to understand Sammy.

Sitting between his parents while watching “The Greatest Show on Earth,” Sammy is in awe and slightly afraid of what he’s seeing on the big screen. He is particularly impacted by the movie’s train-wreck scene. In this scene, a criminal who has just robbed a circus train, which is stopped on the tracks, drives his car onto the tracks to frantically stop another circus train traveling right behind the first train. His plan doesn’t work, and the second train plows into his car and the first train, causing death and some of the wild circus animals to escape.

After Sammy gets home, his parents notice that he’s become obsessed with trains. As a Hanukkah gift, Sammy’s father gives him a train set. The other members of the Fabelman household are Sammy’s younger sisters Reggie Fabelman (played by Birdie Borria) and Natalie Fabelman (played by Alina Brace).

It isn’t long before Sammy is recreating the train wreck that he saw in “The Greatest Show on Earth.” Burt gets angry because he thinks Sammy isn’t respecting the toy train and is trying to ruin it, so he temporarily takes the train set away from Sammy as punishment. He orders Sammy not to simulate a train wreck when he plays with the toy train.

“I need to see them crash,” Sammy tells his parents to explain why he likes making the train crash into a toy car. Mitzi understands why Sammy has a fascination with creating a train wreck and explains it to Burt that it’s because Sammy wants control over the train. Burt doesn’t care to understand and just thinks Sammy is being a spoiled brat.

One night, after Sammy has gotten his toy train back, Mitzi takes him into the room where the train set is. She tells Sammy that he can crash the train one more time, but they will secretly use Burt’s film camera to film everything, so Sammy can watch the train wreck over and over without actually crashing the train. Mitzi tells Sammy that this film will be their little secret.

Of course, this film is the start of Sammy’s lifelong passion to become a filmmaker. By the following year, in 1953, the Fabelmans have a new addition to the family: a baby named Lisa. Burt gets a job working as a manager at General Electric (GE) in Phoenix, Arizona. Mitzi is supportive of the move, as long as Burt can get his best friend/co-worker Bennie Loewy (played by Seth Rogen) a job at GE too. It’s mentioned several times in the movie that Burt is an exceptional engineer and a computer visionary, while Bennie is an average employee who owes much of his career to getting help from Burt.

The Fabelman kids often call Burt’s best friend Uncle Bennie, even though Bennie isn’t biologically related to them. During a Fabelman family dinner, observant viewers will notice other dynamics in Bennie’s relationship to the Fabelmans. Bennie is a friendly jokester who likes to play harmless pranks and make people laugh, especially Mitzi.

Burt’s outspoken, widowed mother Hadassah Fabelman (played by Jeannie Berlin), who is a frequent visitor in the household, isn’t too fond of Bennie. Hadassah notices how Bennie and Mitzi have a playful banter with each other. Mitzi’s widowed mother Tina Schildkraut (played by Robin Bartlett), who is much more laid-back than Hadassah, doesn’t talk much and only has a few scenes in the movie.

Burt is mild-mannered, nerdy and slow to pick up on body language and social cues to figure out how people are really feeling. He’s a classic introvert who is more likely to consider facts when making a decision. Mitzi is impulsive, moody and very attuned to people’s unsaid thoughts. Mitzi is a classic extrovert, who is more likely to consider feelings when making a decision. Burt prefers to avoid confrontations. Mitzi isn’t afraid of confrontations and will often cause them.

It’s also implied that Mitzi has an undiagnosed mental illness, which is presented in “The Fabelmans” as looking a lot like bipolar disorder. In a scene that takes place in 1953, before the family moves from New Jersey to Arizona, a tornado strikes the area where the Fabelmans live. Instead of wanting to stay safe in their house or a secure shelter, like most people would, Mitzi spontaneously decides to take Sammy, Natalie and Reggie with her in the family car to drive toward the tornado so that they can get a closer look at it. (Mitzi at least has the sense to leave baby Lisa behind with Burt.)

Mitzi makes this decision so quickly, Burt doesn’t have time to stop her, and his protests are ignored. The kids are too young to understand that Mitzi could be putting them in danger, because she acts like this is a fun joy ride. As they get closer to the tornado and the rain storm gets worse, Mitzi stops the car, and the reality sinks in that this isn’t an adventure trip after all. She begins to cry but still pretends to the children that everything is just fine as she dejectedly drives home. You don’t have to be a psychiatrist to see that this incident looks like a manic episode from a person with bipolar disorder.

It’s no secret that in real life, Spielberg’s parents got divorced when he was a teenager. Spielberg has also been open about the reason why they got divorced. He talked about it in director Susan Lacy’s 2017 documentary “Spielberg,” as well as in some interviews that he’s given over the years. But the reason why is parents got divorced will be a surprise to many people who watch “The Fabelmans” for the first time, so those details won’t be revealed in this review.

However, it’s enough to say that by the time the family moves to Phoenix, the cracks in the marriage are already starting to show. “The Fabelmans” then fast-forwards to the family’s life in Arizona during the early-to-mid-1960s. Sammy is now a blossoming teenage filmmaker (played by Gabriel LaBelle), who makes short films (mostly Westerns) with his schoolmates and members of his Boy Scout troop. Sammy gets a lot of praise and admiration from most people around him for his filmmaking. Bennie is in Arizona too, working at GE with Burt and often accompanying the Fabelmans on family gatherings.

After some initial skepticism, Sammy’s father Burt eventually becomes impressed with Sammy’s talent for filmmaking, but Burt is not entirely convinced that filmmaking is a good career choice for Sammy. He often tells Sammy to pursue a more “practical” profession. Burt also keeps calling Sammy’s filmmaking a “hobby,” and Sammy is offended by Burt not taking Sammy’s filmmaking seriously as a future career. By contrast, Mitzi is Sammy’s first and biggest filmmaking fan, and she never wavers or has doubts in encouraging Sammy to become a filmmaker.

Reggie (played by Julia Butters), who’s about two or three years younger than Sammy, is intelligent, assertive and opinionated. She’s also the sister who has the closest emotional bond to Sammy, and he values her opinion. (Reggie is based on Spielberg’s real-sister Anne, who became a screenwriter.) For example, while Steven is editing his short films, he sometimes shows Nancy early cuts of the films and asks her what she thinks.

Natalie (played by Keeley Karsten), who’s about four years younger than Sammy, is a polite and obedient kid. She’s based on Steven Spielberg’s middle sister Sue, who’s actually seven years younger than he is. Sammy’s youngest sister Lisa (played by Sophia Kopera), who’s six years younger than Sammy, doesn’t have much of a personality in the movie at all. (Lisa is based on Steven Spielberg’s youngest sister Nancy, who’s actually 10 years younger than he is.)

With the Fabelman kids at an age where they are all now in school, Mitzi begins to take up professional piano playing for radio again. The family members (with Bennie) often gather in their living room to watch Mitzi practice. Burt is reluctant to give any criticism to Mitzi, while Bennie is more forthright and isn’t afraid to tell Mitzi what he thinks.

There’s a telling scene where Mitzi’s long fingernails cause a clacking noise when she plays the piano. Burt denies there’s anything wrong with that, but Bennie says it’s going to be a problem for radio listeners to hear this clacking noise during Mitzi’s piano playing. Mitzi takes pride in her long, well-manicured fingernails and doesn’t want to cut them. She eventually relents when Bennie and some of the kids playfully tackle her, and Bennie cuts her nails.

One of the most memorable sequences in “The Fabelmans” is a fateful camping trip that the family takes while living in Arizona. Everything is going well. Everyone seems to be happy. Sammy is filming everything that he can during this trip.

One night during a campfire, Mitzi spontaneously decides to do a ballet dance in front of Burt, Bennie, Sammy and Reggie while she’s wearing a thin-fabric nightgown. Sammy is filming it, of course. In order to get better lighting, Bennie turns on the headlights of a car parked nearby. The bright lights essentially cause Mitzi’s nightgown to become see-through, and it’s obviously she’s completely naked underneath the gown.

Reggie is mortified, and she runs up to her mother to tell her discreetly that everyone can see through Mitzi’s nightgown. Mitzi ignores her and keeps dancing, while Reggie pleads for her mother to stop. Mitzi keeps dancing, while an annoyed Reggie runs away and says that everyone there is crazy.

Mitzi’s only audience is now Bennie, Burt and Sammy, who keeps the camera focused on Mitzi. All of them are looking at Mitzi, almost as if they’re in a trance. Their fascination with her is for different reasons, which can all be seen on the expressions on their faces. Sammy being in awe isn’t incestuous, although it does come across as a little creepy that he’s staring at his mother’s nearly naked body.

This scene shows that Sammy is so enthralled with his filmmaking and what he’s getting on camera, it’s almost as if he forgot that the woman in the see-through gown in front of him is his own mother. When Mitzi ends the dance, she looks at everyone staring at her with a expression of satisfaction but also a tinge of sadness. Later, when the family looks at the footage, Mitzi praises Sammy by telling him, “You really see me.”

Another pivotal sequence in “The Fabelmans” happens when Mitzi’s uncle Boris (played by Judd Hirsch) shows up at the Fabelmans’ home in Phoenix for a surprise visit. This visit happens after Mitzi had a nightmarish dream that her mother Tina (Boris’ sister) called Mitzi to warn her that something was coming. According to Mitzi, Boris used to bully Tina when Tina was a child, and Mitzi grew up in fear of him too. And so, when Boris arrives at the home, Mitzi greets him with a lot of apprehension, but she eventually relaxes when she sees that Boris is nice to her and her family.

Boris, who is now an elderly man, spent much of his life as a lion trainer in the circus. He has a personality that is eccentric and “in your face.” He’s a raconteur who likes to tell stories about himself, and he has a voice that compels people to pay attention to him. In other words, it’s impossible to ignore Boris when he’s in a room.

When Boris finds out that Sammy is an aspiring filmmaker, he begins to give Sammy advice on what to expect in life if Sammy wants to be an artist. Sammy doesn’t see the connection between being an artist and a circus lion trainer, until Boris explains that there’s no art in putting your head in a lion, but there’s an art in keeping the lion from biting your head while in a lion’s mouth.

Boris warns Sammy that artists will have always have a tug of war between art and family. He also tells Sammy that being an artist also means often being very lonely. Sammy is both awed and intimidated by Boris, especially after Boris puts Sammy in headlock in an awkward way to show Sammy to remember that physical pain every time Sammy has to suffer as an artist.

The last third of “The Fabelmans” could have been its own movie because of all the things that happen. In this part of the film, the Fabelmans move once again—this time to California’s Santa Clara County, because Burt has gotten a major job offer to work for IBM. Mitzi and Sammy (who is in his last year of high school) are very unhappy with this move, and the family starts to crumble over various things. Unlike their life in Arizona, where they lived near several other Jewish families, the Fabelmans are the only Jewish family in their California neighborhood.

At school, Sammy is a misfit loner who gets bullied by the school’s star athletes, led by a conceited pretty boy named Logan Hall (played by Sam Rechner), who is also in his last year of high school. Logan has a weaselly sidekick named Chad Thomas (played by Oakes Fegley), who openly hates Jewish people. Sammy experiences some cruel antisemitism from Chad, Logan and other students who stand by and laugh when Sammy gets bullied for being Jewish.

Sammy also gets caught up in some drama between Logan’s girlfriend Claudia Denning (played by Isabelle Kusman) and Logan. It leads to Sammy getting to closer to Claudia and Claudia’s best friend Monica Sherwood (played by Chloe East), who is a self-described Jesus freak. Monica is fascinated by Sammy being Jewish, so her interest in him is a combination of teenage lust and a desire to turn him on to Christianity.

The last third of “The Fabelmans” is the best part of the movie, but it’s also the messiest. It mostly chronicles Sammy’s last year in high school in California, and it offers a glimpse into his life after high school. (Real-life filmmaker David Lynch has a noteworthy cameo as legendary filmmaker John Ford.) Sammy’s life after high school and during college is so truncated, it’s obvious to viewers that a significant part of the story is missing, to the detriment of the movie, which is already too long. In other words, this story should have been a miniseries, not a feature-length film.

However, there’s no denying that “The Fabelmans” does a stellar job of depicting Sammy coming to terms with the fantasies that he escapes to in filmmaking and the harsh realities of life. The movie also skillfully shows that the two most impactful relationships that Sammy had in his youth are Sammy’s relationship with filmmaking and Sammy’s relationship with his mother. The reasons for the family unraveling are heartbreaking but very realistic.

And it’s why Williams is such a standout in a very talented cast. Her portrayal of Mitzi is far from stereotypical and shows many depths and layers to this complicated person. Mitzi has wonderful qualities as well as damaging flaws. Williams makes this character a full, authentic human being, not just someone reciting lines and emoting on screen.

The other principal cast members do well in their roles. Dano is convincing in playing a character who represses a lot of emotions and denies a lot of problems until it’s too late. LaBelle also turns in an admirable performance, considering it’s not easy for any actor to know that he’s playing a young version of Steven Spielberg. Rogen is perfectly fine as family friend Bennie, but this character doesn’t have a lot of screen time, and Rogen (who’s mostly known as a comedic actor) has had better roles to show his dramatic abilities.

“The Fabelmans” is a specific story but it’s also universal to anyone who can relate to pursuing dreams, even when people doubt that certain goals can be accomplished. The movie’s tone has a middle-class American sheen to it that will get some criticism for glossing over a lot of American society problems in the 1950s and 1960s that still exist today. Antisemitism is part of the story, but racism, sexism, poverty and other social ills are completely erased in this movie.

This omission of any of society’s problems outside of Sammy’s limited world in the 1950s and 1960s speaks to how his young life had its share of turmoil, but it was still in a certain “bubble” where he was blissfully unaware or chose to ignore a lot of society’s problems that weren’t about him. It’s a blind spot that many people carry throughout their lives, but “The Fabelmans” offers no real or meaningful introspection about that blind spot.

“The Fabelmans” had its world premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, where the movie won the People’s Choice Award, which is the festival’s top prize. Even with any accolades that this movie receives, when people look back on Steven Spielberg’s most beloved films, “The Fabelmans” won’t be at the top of the list for most people. However long-winded this movie can be, it still showcases Spielberg’s talent for telling emotionally genuine stories about families, as well as expressing why people fall in love with filmmaking.

Universal Pictures released “The Fabelmans” in select U.S. cinemas on November 11, 2022, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on November 23, 2022.

Review: ‘Double XL,’ starring Sonakshi Sinha, Huma Qureshi, Zaheer Iqbal and Mahat Raghavendra

November 10, 2022

by Carla Hay

Sonakshi Sinha and Huma Qureshi in “Double XL” (Photo courtesy of T-Series Films)

“Double XL”

Directed by Satram Ramani

Hindi with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in India and in London, the comedy/drama film “Double XL” features a predominantly Indian cast (with some white people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Two plus-sized women in their 30s—one who’s an aspiring sportscaster, the other who’s an aspiring fashion designer—become fast friends in London, where they are pursuing their dreams but experience discrimination because of their body sizes. 

Culture Audience: “Double XL” will appeal primarily to people interested in movies centered on plus-sized women and issues about weight discrimination, but the movie mishandles those issues with far-fetched situations and sappy solutions.

Huma Qureshi, Zaheer Iqbal, Mahat Raghavendra and Sonakshi Sinha in “Double XL” (Photo courtesy of T-Series Films)

“Double XL” wants to preach about body positivity and female empowerment, but this inept dramedy is overloaded with witless clichés and irksome performances. Weight prejudices and low self-esteem are used as silly gimmicks in many unrealistic scenarios. Instead of making women look independent and capable of handling their own career decisions, “Double XL” sends a very contradictory and socially backwards message that women need love interests who can help women with their careers.

Directed by Satram Ramani, “Double XL” had the potential to be a good movie, based on the overall concept: Two plus-sized women meet by chance, quickly become friends, and encourage each other to pursue their career dreams, despite being discriminated against because of their weight. “Double XL” is pretending to be that type of female-empowerment movie. But it’s really a messy junkpile of bad rom-com platitudes pushing the misgyonistic belief that men have to set examples for women on how to be confident and make the right decisions.

“Double XL” (with an uninspired screenplay written by Mudassar Aziz and Sasha Singh) is just another lazy and outdated movie that follows an over-used formula of women acting like whiny ditzes until they have male love interests who come to their rescue and help make their dreams come true. The women scream, cry or pout when things don’t go their way. Their male companions are the voices of reason who give pep talks to the women to help boost the women’s self-esteem and give them advice about their careers.

It should absolutely be applauded when people are emotionally supportive of each other and help each other with their careers. But when a movie defines it along gender lines, as one gender being “smarter” (intellectually and emotionally) than another gender, that’s when it’s sexist and problematic. People who have the misfortune of watching “Double XL” will see that the women in the movie are always seeking advice and help from men, but men don’t seek advice or help from women. And that’s why “Double XL” is a fake feminist film.

“Double XL” begins with the biggest stereotype of stereotypical romantic comedies: A woman having a fantasy about meeing a handsome Prince Charming. In this opening scene, Rajshri Trivedi (played by Huma Qureshi) is in her bed, dreaming about being at a fancy gala, where cricket star Shikhar Dhawan (playing a version of himself) sees her and asks her to dance. Her dream is interrupted by the shrieking of her demanding mother (played by Alka Kaushal), who is in the room and ordering Rajshri to wake up.

Rajshri, who is in her mid-30s, lives with her parents and paternal grandmother (played by Shobha Khote) in the rural town of Meerut, India. Rajshri’s father (played by Kanwaljeet Singh) is passive and quiet—the complete opposite of his wife. Rajshri’s mother is the worst stereotype of an angry and pushy mother who demands that her daughter should be a wife and mother by a certain age. And if the daughter can’t meet this demand, she will be considered a failure.

Rajshri knows that she’s not ready to get married at this point in her life, but her mother won’t listen to her and insists on matchmaking for Rajshri. Needless to say, Rajshri has not found a good match with any of the suitors who are introduced to her. The movie shows her having an awkward “date” with a guy named Tito, who is visiting the Trivedi home in a matchmaking setup from Rajshri’s mother.

When Rajshri asks Tito what his dreams and goals are, he says he wants to open a ball bearing shop. Rajshri tells Tito that she wants to be a TV sportscaster (cricket is her favorite sport), and she shows him some test sportscasting videos that she wrote and directed herself. Tito then tactfully tells Rajshri that he’s not attracted to her body size. And then, he bluntly tells her that if she wants to be a TV sportscaster, “you’ll have to lose weight for that too, because the rest of the world is an idiot like me.”

Meanwhile, in New Delhi, another plus-sized woman in her 30s is in a clothing store, where she’s trying on a blouse that’s size XL. She’s an aspiring fashion designer named Saira Khanna (played by Sonakshi Sinha), who is very outspoken about her opinions. Sara wears a lip ring and has green streaks in her hair, so she doesn’t look like a traditional fashion designer. Her tacky choice of clothes that she wears is also questionable for someone who wants to be taken seriously as a fashion designer, but that’s a whole other issue.

The blouse that she’s trying on is too small for her arm area, which causes the blouse to rip. Saira is infuriated because she thinks any blouse labeled size XL should automatically fit her. She marches over to the store’s sales clerk, tells him why the blouse ripped, and she yells at the sales clerk for mislabeling the blouse as XL. Saira also refuses to pay for the ripped blouse because she says that it’s the store’s fault that the blouse didn’t fit her.

It’s misplaced anger, because more than likely it was the blouse’s manufacturer, not the store, that mislabeled the blouse. As an aspiring fashion designer, Saira should know that, but this movie makes the leading female characters look very ignorant about the industries where they want to have professional careers. Saira lectures the store clerk about how she’s a fashion designer, and she would never label a blouse as XL if it’s too small for her to wear. The store clerk sheepishly says he’s sorry and admits that maybe the blouse size was mislabeled.

After going on that ill-tempered rant, Saira gets some good news at home: A company is interested in investing in her work so that she can possibly start her own fashion label. She has to go to London for this job opportunity, and she accepts this offer with no hesitation.

Saira is next seen at a house party while she’s still in India. Her boyfriend Viren (played by Danish Pandor) is also at the party, and she can’t wait to find him to tell him the good news. While he’s in another area of the house, Saira overhears a younger woman named Nomi (played by Isha Dhillon) cattily tells some female friends that Viren is just using Saira for money and sex, and that Saira can’t get a better man because of Saira’s physical appearance. Saira looks hurt by these remarks, but she doesn’t let Nomi know she overheard this insult.

Saira has a best friend named Meera (played by Dolly Singh), who doesn’t approve of Viren and thinks Saira should break up with him. At the party, Saira finds Viren and tells him the good news about the job opportunity in London. He is very happy for her and congratulates her. But Saira looks like she’s secretly bothered about what she heard Nomi say about her.

Meanwhile, in Meerut, Rajshri can no longer take the pressure from her mother to find a husband. During a heated argument, Rajshri finally tells her meddling mother that she wants to have a career as a TV sportscaster, and she’s going to pursue this career in London. Her mother thinks it’s a foolish dream.

But they both make a compromise and a bet with each other: If Rajshri can accomplish her goal of becoming a professional sportscaster within a year, then her mother will stop pressuring Rajshri to get married. If Rajshri can’t accomplish this goal within a year, then Rajshri has to move back to India and let her mother find a husband for Rajshri.

Saira and Rajshri both end up in London, but they don’t meet each other immediately. Saira has an older brother (played by Sachin Shroff) who lives in London, so she stays with him while she’s there. Rajshri is staying with her married aunt named Rolie Mausi (played by Swati Tarar), who welcomes Rajshri with open arms.

As soon as viewers find out that Saira has a best friend who doesn’t like or trust Saira’s boyfriend, it should come as no surprise what happens next. Saira has to end her trip to London sooner than she expected. When she’s back in India, she goes over to Viren’s home for an unannounced visit. He looks very surprised to see her and is reluctant to let her inside.

Saira insists on going inside and is suspicious about why Viren is nervous. He tells her nothing is wrong, but she goes from room to room, to find out if Viren is hiding anything from her. And sure enough: A woman is hiding outside on the bedroom balcony, wearing nothing but a blanket. This no-longer-secret lover is Nomi, the woman from the party who was insulting Saira.

Saira predictably has a screeching meltdown, while Viren tries to appease her. His lies and pleas don’t work. Saira, who thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with Viren, breaks up with him. And then she says out loud that she should’ve listened to what her best friend Meera said about Viren.

Saira goes back to London, where she is rejected to be the director of a fashion travelogue because of her physical appearance. Around the same time, Rajshri goes on an open audition to be a sportscaster, but she’s also rejected because of her body size. It also doesn’t help that Rajshri doesn’t dress like a professional sportscaster during a job interview but dresses more like she’s a frumpy schoolteacher or a nanny.

After these rejections, Saira and Rajshri end up sobbing in the same public restroom. They tell each other why they’re crying and find out that they’ve both experienced discrimination because of their body sizes. And just like that, Saira and Rajshri decide that they’re going to become friends who will help each other fulfill their career dreams.

Saira’s brother works at a TV station, so that’s how Saira meets mild-mannered Srikanth Sreevardhan (played by Mahat Raghavendra), a camera operator who is Tamil and barely fluent in Hindi. Saira has decided to do a video fashion shoot of her fashion designs, so Srikanth has been recommended to her as the camera operator. Srikanth has a co-worker friend named Zorawar Rahmani (played by Zaheer Iqbal), nicknamed Zo, a line producer who is a hyper and talkative partier. Srikanth and Zorawar are both bachelors who don’t have girlfriends.

Even though “Double XL” is ostensibly about Saira and Rajshri helping each other, all the big breaks they get are only because of actions taken by their new male companions. Rajshri unrealistically gets to interview real-life, retired cricket star Kapil Dev (playing himself in the movie) because Zorawar set up the interview. “Double XL” makes a point of mentioning that it was Zorawar’s idea for Rajshri to do the interview, and he took the initiative to arrange for the interview to happen, so that he could give Rajshri a pleasant surprise.

But this accomplishment is tainted, because in order to get the interview, Zorawar lied and said that Rajshri operates an orphanage for 150 children. Kapil thinks he’s doing an interview for a charity. This interview (which is not on TV but recorded for Rajshri’s intended demo reel) becomes the source of some ridiculous hijinks that complicate Rajshri’s sportscaster dreams.

Meanwhile, the storyline about Saira’s fashion career becomes a time-wasting drag where her biggest “challenge” is filming models on the streets of London without a permit. She only chooses slender models for her first fashion shoots. And then, Saira has an “a-ha moment” that you know is coming as soon as the movie had that scene with Saira getting angry about trying on a size XL blouse that was too small for her.

“Double XL” is very lopsided in presenting the storylines of Saira and Rajshri, because Rajshri’s storyline takes up the bulk of the anxiety-ridden “drama” in the movie. Saira has a lot more self-confidence than Rajshri has. Saira’s career struggles aren’t as bleak, because she has a talent to create things on her own and just has to find enough people to buy her designs. Fashion designers (unless they are also models) are not judged as harshly for their physical appearance as people whose job is to be in front of a camera.

By contrast, Rajshri’s TV career goal is entirely dependent on being a hired by a mainstream media company that will judge her on how she looks, including her body size. And there’s also the matter of Rajshri being from a rural area and getting used to living in a big city. Saira has been a resident of a big city for a long time, so her adjustment to being in London is a lot easier than Rajshri’s adjustment. The movie has plenty of moments where Rajshri is depicted as a naïve “country bumpkin.”

With “Double XL” focusing almost all of the career problems and self-confidence issues on Rajshri, Saira’s storyline looks less significant in comparison. The biggest thing that Saira does for Rajshri in her career is predictably give her a fashion makeover. But what does Rajshri really do for Saira’s career? Not much, except tag along at her fashion shoots because Saira asked her.

Because’s Saira’s storyline become so uninteresting and limp—literally limp, because Saira sprains her ankle during a photo shoot—”Double XL tries to spice it up by making Saira annoyed with Zorawar and his irresponsible ways. And when a formulaic movie like “Double XL” has two unmarried people of the opposite sex who get irritated with each other but have to spend a lot of time together, you know where everything is going with this contrived relationship.

Rajshri is so caught up in trying to get a job as a TV sportscaster, she doesn’t notice that Srikanth has quietly become attracted to her. He opens up to Rajshri that his dream is to become a feature-film director. Srikanth says that his father encouraged this dream but didn’t live long enough to see Srikanth fulfill this goal. Srikanth eventually makes a huge move to show his affection and admiration for Rajshri.

One of the major problems with “Double XL” is that the characters are more like caricatures. Viewers with enough life experience and common sense will have a hard time connecting to the four main “Double XL” characters, who all are very immature for their ages. They act more like people in their early-to-mid-20s rather than in their 30s. Rajshri’s storyline is much worse than Saira’s because of all the “only in a movie” fakeness in her plot developments.

Rajshri is also hopelessly ignorant about how the sportscasting industry really works. “Double XL” tries to make this ignorance look like Rajshri is just a sweet, innocent ingenue. But in reality, her ignorance makes her look unprofessional and undeserving of all the lucky breaks that she expects to rapidly come her way, just because she’s in London.

Rajshri gives up too easily, but Srikanth is there to tell her all the right things and improve her confidence. Rajshri knows that her body size could be an obstacle to getting certain jobs, but the movie makes Rajshri use her body size as a self-defeating crutch/excuse for every single failure that she has in life. After a while, this self-pity becomes pathetic. Rather than portraying Rajshri as enterprising and clever, “Double XL” makes her into a “damsel in distress” who needs a man to rescue her—in other words, the opposite of female empowerment.

The movie’s dialogue is very trite and mostly not very funny at all. The acting isn’t much better, although Sinha (as Saira) fares the best out of all the principal cast members when it comes to comedic timing and delivering her lines in a way that tries to look natural. All of the other characters in the movie are either too bland or too obnoxious.

“Double XL” has predictable scenes of Saira and Rajshri complaining to each other about how society can body shame women, especially women who are plus-sized. And what do Saira and Rajshri do to further wallow in their misery? They go to a fast-food place and order as much junk food as they can on the menu.

It’s supposed to be an act of defiance, but what are they trying to prove? No one else in the movie cares that Saira and Rajshri want to binge on junk food. This gluttony scene is the type of “comedy” that “Double XL” is desperately trying to convince viewers is funny, but it’s really a thinly veiled mockery of plus-sized women. “Double XL” gets worse as it goes along until it eventually becomes a thinly veiled mockery of real female empowerment.

T-Series Films released “Double XL” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on November 4, 2022.

Review: ‘Remember’ (2022), starring Lee Sung-min and Nam Joo-hyuk

November 9, 2022

by Carla Hay

Lee Sung-min and Nam Joo-hyuk in “Remember” (Photo courtesy of 815 Pictures)

“Remember” (2022)

Directed by Lee Il-hyung

Korean with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in South Korea, the action film “Remember” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: An 80-year-old man with a brain tumor and early-onset Alzheimer’s disease acts out a murderous revenge plan that he wants to complete before he dies. 

Culture Audience: “Remember” will appeal primarily to people interested in watching suspense thrillers about vendettas.

Lee Sung-min in “Remember” (Photo courtesy of 815 Pictures)

Some aspects of the action flick “Remember” are entirely predictable, but it’s still a suspenseful thrill ride with better-than-average acting. This story about revenge and terminal illness brings some freshness to its familiar ideas. “Remember” also has some commentary about the fallouts of colonialism and war, and how those repercussions can pass on through generations.

Written and directed by Lee Il-hyung, “Remember” (which takes place in an unnamed city in South Korea) is told from the perspective of 80-year-old Han Pil-Joo (played by Lee Sung-min), nicknamed Freddie, who at first seems to be a mild-mannered, friendly senior citizen. He works as a server at a T.G.I.F. restaurant. During the Christmas holiday season, he dresses up as Santa Claus and entertains the customers.

Pil-joo’s closest friend at his job is a cook in his 20s named In-gyu (played by Nam Joo-hyuk), who sees Pil-joo as a grandfather figure. In-gyu, a bachelor who lives alone, looks up to Pil-joo and sees Pil-joo as someone whom he can turn to for advice. During the course of the story, Pil-joo and In-gyu get caught up in a dangerous and deadly conspiracy where their trust in each other is tested.

Pil-joo has some big secrets that are eventually revealed in different parts of the story. As already shown in the movie’s trailer, one of his secrets is that he’s dying of a terminal illness: He has a brain tumor and early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. The other secret (also revealed in the “Remember” trailer) is that he has a plan to murder several people, one by one, as part of a revenge plan.

Pil-joo begins his revenge plan after his wife dies in a hospital from an unnamed illness. He has a secret collection of newspaper clippings and other information related to this revenge plan. Pil-joo is a veteran of the Vietnam War, but his vendetta has to do with Japan’s colonization of Korea from 1910 and 1945.

Why is Pil-Joo out for revenge? During Japan’s takeover of Korea, his family suffered devastating consequences. His father (a farmer in Yangju) was framed for a crime, arrested, tortured, and died while in custody. Pil-joo’s mother had a mental breakdown and was put in a psychiatric facility, where she died. Pil-joo’s brother was deceived by a friend and sentenced to a labor camp, where he died while working in a mine. Pil-joo’s sister was forced to be a sex slave for Japanese soldiers, and she eventually committed suicide.

Before he carries out his planned executions, Pil-joo films himself making a video stating that he has a brain tumor and Alzheimer’s disease. He also makes a statement explaining that the people he will murder are the people responsible for destroying his family. All of the people he wants to murder are elderly men who were directly involved in betraying or causing the downfall of Pil-joo’s now-deceased parents and siblings.

Because of his declining health, Pil-joo enlists an unsuspecting accomplice to these murders: his restaurant co-worker In-gyu. Pil-joo tells In-gyu that he will pay In-gyu to drive Pil-joo to certain locations, because Pil-joo says that he let his own driver’s license expire. Pil-joo also says that he has a “bucket list” of people he wants to visit before he dies.

The car they use isn’t exactly an anonymous-looking vehicle: It’s a red Porsche. It’s a somewhat ridiculous part of the movie that Pil-joo wants his getaway car to be something that’s easily identifiable. However, the movie gives somewhat of a plausible explanation.

When In-gyu asks how Pil-joo was able to afford a Porsche, Pil-joo says that the Porsche is actually an unregistered vehicle that can’t be traced back to him. In-gyu doesn’t ask why the vehicle is unregistered. In-gyu is just happy to be able to drive a Porsche.

The trailer for “Remember” already shows that Pil-joo carries out some of the killings, and In-gyu discovers the real reason why Pil-joo hired him to be Pil-joo’s driver. By the time that In-gyu finds out that he’s been an accomplice to murder, he’s in too deep. The police announce to the media that they have a blurry surveillance camera video and an eyewitness sighting of a young man at one of the murder scenes, so In-gyu becomes paranoid about being blamed for the murder because he fits the description.

In-gyu begs Pil-joo to turn himself in to the police, but Pil-joo refuses to do that until he kills everyone on his hit list. He assures In-gyu that when he turns himself in for the murders, he will do everything possible to not let In-gyu be blamed for the crimes. Pil-joo promises that he will tell the authorities that In-gyu was forced to help Pil-joo commit these murders. In-gyu has a big secret of his own that Pil-joo gets involved with and makes both In-gyu and Pil-joo a possible target to be killed.

Hot on the trail of solving these murders is a police detective named Kang Young-sik (played by Jung Man-sik), who is a smart and formidable opponent to Pil-joo. A retired and respected military veteran named Kim Chi-duk (played by Park Geun-hyung) is the biggest target on Pil-joo’s hit list. Pil-joo wants to save that murder for last.

What “Remember” lacks in originality it makes up for with a lot of tension-filled action and believable performances from the principal cast members. The movie puts forth questions about how sympathetic Pil-joo should really be, just because he’s elderly and dying. Lee’s portrayal of Pil-joo adeptly occupies that gray area of being neither a complete hero nor a complete villain.

Nam also gives a convincing performance as In-gyu, who becomes confused and terrified for most of the movie, but who is often Pil-joo’s only moral compass. “Remember” is not just a mindless film that shows people getting murdered. The movie also offers thoughtful messages about the emotional cost of holding grudges and how people who act out deadly revenge plans are usually hurting themselves too.

815 Pictures released “Remember” in select U.S. cinemas on November 4, 2022. The movie was released in South Korea on October 26, 2022.

Review: ‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,’ starring Letitia Wright, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Angela Bassett, Tenoch Huerta Mejía, Winston Duke and Martin Freeman

November 8, 2022

by Carla Hay

Letitia Wright in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios)

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”

Directed by Ryan Coogler

Some language in French and Yucatec with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of Earth, the superhero action film “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” features a racially diverse cast of characters (black, Latino and white) representing the working-class, middle-class and royalty.

Culture Clash: After the death of King T’Challa, the fictional African nation of Wakanda becomes under siege from various factions, including the secret underwater kingdom of Talokan, that want Wakanda’s help in obtaining the precious metal vibranium. 

Culture Audience: “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the “Black Panther” franchise, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and superhero movies that include multiculturalism issues.

Tenoch Huerta Mejía in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios)

In more ways than one, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” shows how healing from a tragedy can turn into a triumph. This top-notch sequel to 2018’s “Black Panther” is an epic story of grief, loyalty, greed and the resilience of the human spirit. “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” should more than satisfy fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and will inspire repeat viewings. Do people need to see “Black Panther” before seeing “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”? No, but it certainly helps, especially in understanding the backgrounds of the characters who have the most poignant moments in this sequel.

Directed by Ryan Coogler (who co-wrote the “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” screenplay with Joe Robert Cole), “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” puts the women of the fictional African nation of Wakanda in the front and center of a story that also pays respectful tribute to Wakanda’s deceased King T’Challa, played by Chadwick Boseman in 2018’s “Black Panther.” Coogler directed and co-wrote (with Cole) the first “Black Panther” movie, which helps in keeping a consistent tone for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”

The beginning of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” shows King T’Challa’s younger sister Princess Shuri (played by Letitia Wright) frantically trying to find a medical solution to save T’Challa, who is dying from an unnamed illness. (Boseman tragically died of colon cancer in 2020. He was 43.) All of Shuri’s efforts don’t work, and T’Challa passes away.

The people of Wakanda have an elaborate funeral for T’Challa that includes mourning his death and celebrating his life. Everyone is dressed in white for this event. At the end of the funeral, T’Challa’s casket floats up into the sky. As explained in the first “Black Panther” movie and in Marvel’s “Black Panther” comic books, Wakanda is a self-sufficient nation that is somewhat of a utopia and where supernatural things can occur. Wakanda is protected by an all-female army called the Dora Milaje.

One year after T’Challa’s death, Shuri and her mother Queen Ramonda (played by Angela Bassett) are grieving, but Shuri has had a more diffcult time trying to move on with her life. Shuri is a genius scientist who blames herself for not being able to find a medical cure that could have saved T’Challa. Much of Shuri’s storyline in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” has to do with Shuri’s grief and other traumatic things she experiences in the movie.

Meanwhile, Queen Ramonda has to contend with pressure from different entities that want Wakanda’s help in finding vibranium, a rare metal that has the power to harness kinetic energy. An early scene in the movie shows a regal and confident Ramonda at a United Nations meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, one year after T’Challa’s death. During this meeting with world leaders, Ramonda is told that the United States is disappointed that Wakanda has not shared resources in the quest to find vibranium.

However, Wakanda (a self-sufficient nation that is somewhat of a utopia) has a policy not to get involved in other nations’ politics, and Ramonda reiterates that fact. She also has members of Dora Milaje bring in some captives: several men who tried to invade one of Wakanda’s member facilities that handles vibranium. A flashback shows how members of the Dora Milaje captured these invaders. Ramonda’s sternly tells the assembled officials that she knows that a member state of the United Nations was probably behind this attack, and this capture serves as an “olive branch” warning for this attack not to happen on Wakanda again.

Meanwhile, a U.S. ship in the Atlantic Ocean has been looking for vibranium underwater. The ship then experiences something unexpected and bizarre. Crew members of the ship seem to go into a daze and start jumping off of the ship to their death. And then, a group of blue-skinned people rise out of the ocean and attack the ship. The attackers’ leader is dressed like a Mayan king and has wings on his feet that allow him to fly. Viewers later find out that his name is Namor (played Tenoch Huerta Mejía), and he’s the ruler of Talokan, a hidden nation under the sea.

One evening, back in Wakanda, Ramonda and Shuri have a heart-to-heart talk on a beach. Ramonda is concerned about Shuri’s emotional well-being because Shuri seems to be deeply depressed. Shuri tries to brush off her mother’s concerns. Ramonda says she has a secret about T’Challa that she wants to tell Shuri. But just as she’s about to tell Shuri, Namor appears out of the water.

Namor is not there to pay a friendly visit. He essentially tells Ramonda and Shuri that Talokan needs Wakanda’s help to defend themselves from extinction and to get vibranium. If Wakanda refuses to help, Talokan will declare war on the world, and Wakanda will be Talokan’s first target. A stunned Ramonda tells Namor that Wakanda does not get involved in other people’s wars and refuses to give in to his demand. Namor leaves and ominously says that he will return in one week.

Meanwhile, CIA operative Everett K. Ross (played by Martin Freeman) reprises his role from 2018’s “Black Panther.” Everett is an ally to Wakanda but he gets into conflicts about it with higher-ranking agent Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus), who is pressuring Wakanda to cooperate with the U.S. government to find vibranium. Valentina (who communicates with a brittle, sarcastic tone) has another, more personal connection to Everett that is revealed in the movie.

Also reprising their roles from “Blank Panther” are Okoye (played by Danai Gurira), the courageous leader of the Dora Milaje; Ayo (played by Florence Kasumba), a powerful enforcer of the Dora Milaje; M’Baku (played by Winston Duke), the leader of Jabariland, Wakanda’s isolated region known for its snow and mountains; and Nakia (played by Lupita Nyong’o), who is the best spy in Wakanda’s history and T’Challa’s former love partner. New to the Dora Milaje team is Aneka (played by Michaela Coel), a high-ranking member.

During the course of the story, Shuri and Okoye travel to Haiti, where viewers find out that Nakia has been living for the past six years. In Haiti, Nakia has been working as a teacher of children in elementary school. Shuri and Okoye have to plead with Nakia to come back to Wakanda to help them, but Nakia is very reluctant to go back. Why did Nakia leave Wakanda? And why is Nakia reluctant to go back? Those questions are answered in the movie.

Wakanda also has another ally, who finds herself involved in this brewing war through no choice of her own. Her name is Riri Williams (played by Dominique Thorne), a brilliant 19-year-old MIT student and aspiring scientist. Riri and Shuri are thrown together in circumstances where they have to learn to work together. Riri is sometimes overwhelmed by the danger that comes her way, but she can be counted on to come up with helpful ideas. She has a sassy personality that is the comic relief in the movie.

Meanwhile, Namor has been assembling his own troops to prepare for war. His two main sidekicks are Talokan’s strongest warrior Attuma (played by Alex Livinalli) and Talokan’s most fearless warrior Namora (played by Mabel Cadena), who have unwavering loyalty to Talokan and their leader, Namor. At one point in the movie, viewers find out more about Talokan and Namor’s backstory to explain why he is on such a brutal revenge mission.

“Black Panther” won Academy Awards for its production design (led by Hannah Beachler) and its costume design (led by Ruth E. Carter), with Beachler and Carter both leading the same teams for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” The production design for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is even more elaborate and awe-inspiring, particularly in how Talokan was designed. (It looks like an underwater Mayan paradise inspired by Atlantis.) The costume design for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is also Oscar-worthy, although many of the Dora Milaje costumes are understandably the same or similar to as they were in “Black Panther.”

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” has better visual effects than “Black Panther.” The cinematography is also an improvement over the first “Black Panther” movie, particularly when it comes to the scenes in Talokan and some of the camera angles during the fight scenes. Every action sequence looks believable, given the characters’ superpowers. But all of these dazzling components to the film would be wasted if the story wasn’t compelling and the acting performances weren’t up to par.

Shuri becomes the heart and soul of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” as she comes to terms with T’Challa’s death; faces doubts and moral dilemmas about where he should put her loyalties; and sometimes clashes with her strong-willed mother Ramonda on decision to make about Wakanda’s future. Wright gives a standout performance in having to convey a wide myriad of emotions of someone who is the heir to the throne but has inner and exterior conflicts about her leadership, while living in the shadow of T’Challa and his legacy.

Bassett is also noteworthy in her performance as Romanda, who has to find a way to reconcile her pain with a possible new direction for Wakanda. Huerta Mejía a gives solid performance as the movie’s villain, who is alternately stoic and filled with rage. Namor isn’t the most fearsome villain of the MCU, but his backstory will make viewers see that underneath his anger is a lot of personal pain and pride for his people.

Because of the real-life death of Boseman, there are expected tearjerking moments when the movie shows flashbacks of T’Challa. There’s also the brief return of another major character from the first “Black Panther” movie, with the character appearing to Shuri in a vision. A mid-credits scene (there is no end-credits scene) in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” shines a bright light of hope for the future of Wakanda, but it’s with a bittersweet tone that T’Challa is immensely beloved and will always be missed.

Marvel Studios will release “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” in U.S. cinemas on November 11, 2022.

Review: ‘Emergency Declaration,’ starring Song Kang-ho, Lee Byung-hun, Jeon Do-yeon, Kim Nam-gil, Yim Si-wan, Kim So-jin and Park Hae-joon

November 7, 2022

by Carla Hay

Yim Si-wan in “Emergency Declaration” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)

“Emergency Declaration”

Directed by Han Jae-rim

Korean with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place mostly on a plane flight from South Korea to Hawaii, the action film “Emergency Declaration” features an all-Asian cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A plane carrying about 150 passengers about gets hijacked by a mysterious stranger and has to make an emergency landing. 

Culture Audience: “Emergency Declaration” will appeal primarily to people interested in watching suspenseful movies about airplane crises.

Song Kang-ho in “Emergency Declaration” (Photo courtesy of Well Go USA)

“Emergency Declaration” does not do anything groundbreaking in its depiction of an airplane hijacking, but this action flick delivers plenty of suspense to make it memorable. The movie’s acting performances are also worth seeing. The scenarios portrayed in the movie are so harrowing, people who have a fear of flying will probably be even more afraid after seeing “Emergency Declaration.” The movie’s total running time is about two hours and 20 minutes, but it doesn’t feel that long, because the pace doesn’t drag.

Written and directed by Han Jae-rim, “Emergency Declaration” (which had its world premiere at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in France) follows an expected formula for plane hijacking movies. Some of the passengers are first seen in the airport before boarding the plane. There’s at least one person on board the plane who’s acting suspiciously because their plan is to hijack the plane. And then all hell breaks loose.

In “Emergency Declaration,” the ill-fated airplane flight is Sky Korea Airlines Flight 501, going from Seoul to Hawaii. The plane is carrying 150 passengers. Two of these passengers are Park Jae-hyuk (played by Lee Byung-hun) and his daughter Soo-min (played by Kim Bo-min), who’s about 9 or 10 years old and has skin eczema. (Her skin condition becomes an issue later in the story.)

At the airport, a man in his mid-30s, who viewers later find out is named Ryu Jin-seok (played by Yim Si-wan, also known as Im Si-wan and Siwan), approaches a ticket agent at Sky Korea Airlines to buy a ticket. “I want to go someplace where a lot of people go,” he tells the female agent. She suggests Hawaii and tells him that the next plane to Hawaii is leaving on Flight 501.

Jin-seok asks the ticket agent how many people are on the flight. When the ticket agent tells him that she doesn’t have the authority to tell him that information, he looks annoyed and walks away. And then, Jin-seok walks back to the ticket agent and coldly tells her: “For God’s sake, don’t smile like that. You look like a whore.”

In a private area at the airport, Jin-seok places a vial underneath his right arm by cutting his arm and sewing in the vial. His hateful remark to the ticket agent already showed that he’s a nasty person. But once he sews a vial into his arm, you just know that this passenger will probably be up to no good with that vial when he gets on the plane.

Meanwhile, a police detective in his 50s named Gu In-ho (played by Song Kang-ho) has been scheduled to be on this flight with his wife Gu Hye-yoon (played by Woo Mi-hwa), because the spouses are taking a vacation. However, In-ho has to cancel being on the flight because he’s suddenly called to be at work for an emergency: A man uploaded a video threatening to hijack a South Korean plane that day. Hye-yoon decides she will take the trip by herself.

In the waiting area before boarding the flight, protective father Jae-hyuk notices that Jin-seok has been staring at Jae-hyuk and his daughter Soo-min. Jin-seok begins asking Jae-hyuk personal questions, such as where they are going and if Jae-hyuk is married. Jae-hyuk says that they’re going to Hawaii, but he’s starting to feel uneasy around this nosy stranger.

Jin-seok starts asking more personal questions. Jae-hyuk gets so uncomfortable, he eventually snaps at Jin-seok and tells him to mind his own business. Jin-seok then decides to buy a one-way ticket to Hawaii on Sky Korea Airlines Flight 501. In the X-ray area before boarding the flight, Jin-seok has an inhaler that’s detected. He tells the security employees that he has an inhaler for asthma.

Meanwhile, police have burst into an apartment and found the bloody corpse of a man encased in plastic. The initial cause of death is determined to be poisoning. This man was apparently killed by the same poison that killed some rats in a glass tank nearby. It won’t come as too much of a surprise that this death has something to do with what happens on Sky Korea Airlines Flight 501.

On the flight, Jae-hyuk is unsettled when he sees that Jin-seok is on the same plane, which eventually takes off for its destination. He tells a flight attendant about the uncomfortable encounter that he and Soo-min had with Jin-seok, and that this stranger could be a suspicious passenger. Jae-hyuk feels even more uneasy when he sees Jin-seok put something under Jin-seok’s armpit.

When Jae-hyuk reports this suspicious act to a flight attendant, Jin-seok denies that he did anything wrong. Jin-seok also says that he’s a scientist on his way to a convention in Hawaii. But, of course, Jin-seok is not the harmless passenger he pretends to be. And you can easily guess what happens next.

The rest of “Emergency Declaration” shows the chaos that ensues when Jin-seok takes the plane hostage. He’s not armed with a gun, but he has another weapon that causes damage to people on the plane. In-ho becomes the police detective who gets involved in the rescue mission, which is obviously very personal for him because his wife is on the plane.

Other people on the ground who are involved in the rescue mission are transport minister Kim Sook-hee (played by Jeon Do-yeon) and a presidential crisis management center chief named Tae-su (played by Park Hae-joon), who try to assist the plane in making an emergency landing, in addition yo trying to negotiate with the hostage taker. On the plane, a co-pilot named Choi Hyun-soo (played by Kim Nam-gil) and a flight attendant named Hee-jin (played by Kim So-jin) are the main people who try to keep the plane passengers as calm as possible, which is no easy task because there is some death on this plane.

In addition to the nerve-racking action that takes place in the movie, there’s the mystery of Jin-seok and why he decided to hijack this plane. This mystery unfolds during the story and the answers are eventually revealed. The movie drops major clues before Jin-seok took the plane hostage, so observant viewers probably won’t be surprised when his secrets are revealed.

However, the revelation is still compelling enough, because it explains why there is such an urgent “race against time” aspect to the story. The performances by Song and Yim stand out because they are written to be the most obvious opponents in this crisis and therefore have the most emotional depth. It’s a classic “good versus evil” plot, but Jin-seok’s motivations for his heinous crimes are explained enough so that he’s not portrayed as just a shallow villain who wants to kill people.

The editing and cinematography of “Emergency Declaration” are so well-done, some viewers will feel like they’re experiencing the terror along with the passengers, as well as the anxiety of the rescuers on the ground. The movie’s storyline doesn’t offer a lot of surprises. However, “Emergency Declaration” will make viewers think more about why this type of hijacking occurs in real life and to look for any warning signs to possibly prevent it.

Well Go USA released “Emergency Declaration” in select U.S. cinemas on August 12, 2022. The movie was released in South Korea on January 22, 2022. “Emergency Declaration” is set for release on digital, VOD, Blu-ray and DVD on November 29, 2022.

Review: ‘Gandhada Gudi: Journey of a True Hero,’ starring Puneeth Rajkumar and Amoghavarsha

November 6, 2022

by Carla Hay

Amoghavarsha and Puneeth Rajkumar in “Gandhada Gudi: Journey of a True Hero” (Photo courtesy of PRK Productions)

“Gandhada Gudi: Journey of a True Hero”

Directed by Amoghavarsha

Kannada with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in India, the documentary film “Gandhada Gudi: Journey of a True Hero” features actor Puneeth Rajkuma and director Amoghavarsha visiting several animal reserves to experience the wonders of nature.

Culture Clash: Rajkuma, who is used to be in urban environments, sometimes expresses concerns about safety when in jungle settings with wild animals that can kill humans. 

Culture Audience: “Gandhada Gudi: Journey of a True Hero” will appeal primarily to people interested in documentaries about animal wildlife and seeing the last movie that Rajkuma filmed before his 2021 death at the age of 46.

Puneeth Rajkumar in “Gandhada Gudi: Journey of a True Hero” (Photo courtesy of PRK Productions)

“Gandhada Gudi: Journey of a True Hero” is an uplifting and joyful film but there’s a bittersweet tone that hangs over it because one of the stars of the movie passed away before the film was released. This nature documentary that has stunning cinematography is also a fitting tribute to actor Puneeth Rajkumar. The movie poignantly shows how he fulfilled his lifelong wishes of seeing tigers and elephants up-close before his untimely 2021 death of a heart attack at the age of 46.

Longtime nature documentarian Amoghavarsha directed “Gandhada Gudi: Journey of a True Hero” and is a tour guide/companion to Rajkumar during this journey where they visit several animal reserves throughout India. They got to places such as Nagarohole Tiger Reserve and BRT Tiger Reserve in Kanarkata, as well as Netrani Island, where they go deep-sea diving and camping in the forest. Amoghavarsha and Rajkumar also interact with the reserve employees and other local people.

The documentary includes some archival footage of Rajkumar as a child with his father Dr. Rajkumar, who was also a movie star. Dr. Rajkumar starred in the 1973 film “Gandhada Gudi,” in which he portrayed a forest officer who wants to protect the environment. Rajkumar says that his father loved that movie. “Gandhada Gudi: Journey of a True Hero” also shows Rajkumar visiting the house where he was born.

While at the PRT Tiger Reserve, Rajkumar expresses concern about elephants that are kept in a fenced-in area instead of roaming free. He wants to know if the elephants are being treated well. And even though Rajkumar is assured that the elephants are treated well, he isn’t convinced until he goes up to the elephants himself to see their physical condition and how they behave around humans. An adorable scene is when he pets a mother and a child elephant and feeds them grass.

“Gandhada Gudi: Journey of a True Hero,” which has enchanting and beautiful cinematography from Pratheek Shetty, might not be as impressive to viewers who are expecting more suspense and action. However, what makes the movie extra-appealing is seeing the joy and wonder in Rajkumar when he reacts to his surroundings and the animals who are in close proximity. (Rajkumar and Amoghavarsha are shown taking a lot of photos during this journey.) The movie has a message about not taking life for granted, and Rajkumar’s tragic passing just makes this message all the potent.

PRK Productions released “Gandhada Gudi: Journey of a True Hero” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on October 28, 2022.

Review: ‘Facing Monsters,’ starring Kerby Brown

November 6, 2022

by Carla Hay

Kerby Brown in “Facing Monsters” (Photo courtesy of Level 33 Entertainment)

“Facing Monsters”

Directed by Bentley Dean

Culture Representation: Taking place in Australia, the documentary film “Facing Monsters” features an all-white group of people discussing Australian “slab wave” surfer Kerby Brown, with the documentary having a lot of showing footage of him doing daredevil surfing.

Culture Clash: Members of Brown’s family have concerns about the dangers of him surfing as he gets older and more vulnerable to physical injuries. 

Culture Audience: “Facing Monsters” will appeal primarily to people interested in surfing movies or movies about athletes who have to face decisions on when they’ll retire.

Kerby Brown in “Facing Monsters” (Photo courtesy of Level 33 Entertainment)

The documentary “Facing Monsters” adeptly balances the story of Australian surfer Kerby Brown with captivating footage of his talent and candid confessions about his private life. The movie’s title refers to monster surf waves and Brown’s personal demons. You don’t have to know anything about surfing and you don’t have be a fan of surfing to appreciate this memorable movie.

Directed by Bentley Dean, “Facing Monsters” (which was filmed entirely in Australia) isn’t a comprehensive biography that delves into Brown’s entire life. His childhood, teenage years and young adulthood (he was born and raised in western Australia) are mentioned but not explored in depth. Instead, “Facing Monsters” focuses primarily on a period of about one year in Brown’s life, when he was at a crossroads about deciding how much longer he was going to continue the dangerous sport of “slab wave” surfing. At the time of filming “Facing Monsters” in 2020, Brown was 36 or 37.

“Slab wave” surfing is known as one of the riskiest forms of surfing, because it’s about riding a “slab wave”—a wave that is very thick, as opposed to very tall. Because of this thickness, a “slab wave” can much deadlier than a tall wave, if it crashes on a surfer. It’s this element of danger that’s a big part of the thrill for surf enthusiasts such as Brown.

His younger brother Cortney Brown is his best friend and constant companion on surfing excursions. When the two brothers go out on the waves together, Cortney often drives the boat or jet ski when Kerby and his surfboard need to be dragged by a rope. In the documentary, Kerby describes Cortney as “the best brother … He’s my wing man, my partner in crime.”

Not everyone in his family is enamored with the brothers’ surfing activities. Kerby’s father Glenn Brown, who is a crayfish fisherman, comes right out and says that he gets nervous every time Kerby and Cortney go to certain areas that are considered highly dangerous for surfers. The movie begins with footage of the brothers surfing in Gabagaba, in the midwest coast of Australia. Glenn comments that he doesn’t like this area for his sons to surf. Every time that his sons go to the area, Glenn says he feels like it’s “like going to their funeral.”

When Glenn was young, he was a musician who frequently wasn’t home because of his travels. And so, Glenn missed out on seeing Kerby develop a passion for surfing when Kerby was a child. “I regret it deeply,” Glenn says in the documentary. Kerby’s mother Nola Brown seems supportive of her sons’ surfing activities, but she has less screen time than Glenn and doesn’t say much in this documentary.

Early on in the documentary, Kerby says in a voiceover: “The ocean is where I go to peace and a place where I belong. It’s where I feel free. Without that connection, I don’t feel like I’m the person I’m supposed to be. I lose that balance. It’s where I feel most alive.”

As a young adult, Kerby says that he tried competitive surfing to make a living, but he gave it up because he didn’t like the rules and politics of entering competitions. Instead, Kerby made a name for himself as an independent daredevil surfer who made money through sponsorships. Kerby says that he knew from an early age that he was never meant to have an office job. When he can’t get money for surfing, Kerby often takes work where he can be near the ocean, such as oil-rig jobs.

Kerby also talks about what is often an obsession for surfers: finding and riding the biggest wave they can possibly find. “Facing Monsters” follows him on this quest. Cortney talks about Kerby getting many surfing injuries and still going out on the waves after barely recovering from those injuries. Kerby describes how it feels to be crushed by an ocean wave: “It’s like your skull is in a vice. You can’t black out.” Cortney comments, “It’s an addiction, really, surfing these kinds of waves.”

Speaking of addiction, Kerby opens up about the period of time in his life when he was addicted to drugs and alcohol. He says his addictions were at their worst when he didn’t have surfing to keep him occupied. His on-again/off-again girlfriend Nicole Jardine comments in the documentary about Kerby’s self-destruction: “That was hard to watch. I’m not his mother. I’m his partner. He had to make better choices.”

Kerby had moved to Perth to be with Jardine. And he says he cleaned up his life after the birth of his and Jardine’s first child: a son named Phoenix, who was born in 2012 or 2013. The couple also has a daughter named Sahara, who was born in 2017 or 2018. Phoenix and Sahara are both shown in the documentary. And not surprisingly, Phoenix shows signs that he’s picked up an enthusiasm for surfing.

Jardine has mixed emotions about Kerby’s surfing passion. She thinks his type of surfing is “dangerous” but “uplifting” and “positive.” It goes without saying that she would rather have Kerby surfing for his own peace of mind than damaging himself through drugs and alcohol.

Kerby says his determination to chase the biggest monster waves in Australia was the main reason why he decided to move from Perth to Wadandi Boodja, which is known for having some of the biggest monster waves in Australia. Kerby says moving away from his brother was “the hardest decision I ever had to make.” The brothers still have a very close bond, and when they’re together, they inevitable surf together.

“Facing Monsters” shows a fateful surfing trip that Kerby and Kortney took to Waudaarn, on the southern coast of Western Australia. Before this trip, Kerby is shown saying goodbye and giving hugs to Jardine and Sahara. Jardine looks worried bur accepting of the fact that there’s nothing anyone can do when Kerby has his mind made to go surfing in a dangerous area.

Kerby says in a voiceover, “There’s a huge fear of not coming home to my family and not being there for my kids. I really don’t want to have those thoughts going through my head while I’m trying to do what I do. I don’t see what I’m doing as a reckless thing anymore. I try to be calculated with it.”

Despite the best intentions and all of his surfing experiences, Kerby gets an enormous setback on this surfing trip. This setback is briefly glimpsed near the beginning of the documentary, which circles back to this harrowing moment in the last third of the film. The remaining part of the movie chronicles how Kerby overcame this obstacle. Kerby’s father Glenn wrote a song about this experience called “World’s Been Changed,” which Glenn performs in the documentary.

“Facing Monsters” wisely took the approach of not having a lot of talking-head interviews and lets a lot of the surfing footage speak for itself. Outside of Kerby’s immediate family, the only other people featured in the documentary are his surfing pals Rit Rayner and Chris Shanahan, as well as Cortney’s girlfriend Imogen Caldwell. The documentary is about Kerby, but a great deal of the story is also about the brotherly bond of Kerby and Cortney.

One of the best aspects of “Facing Monsters” is the gorgeous cinematography by Rick Rifici. Viewers will feel as if they are almost going through a virtual-reality experience of being right there on the waves. It’s an exhilarating feeling that should be seen on the biggest screen possible.

The movie also has some other artistic touches, such as opening with a striking aerial shot of Kerby lying face up in body of water that is salmon pink. This artistic shot is shown again in the movie when Kerby has his setback in Waudaarn, in order to contrast the high and lows of surfing. “Facing Monsters” stands out for having numerous majestic scenes of powerful ocean waves. However, the movie wouldn’t be as compelling without showing the strengths of human resilience and following a life passion when facing obstacles.

Level 33 Entertainment released “Facing Monsters” in select U.S. cinemas on October 14, 2022. The movie is set for release on digital and VOD on November 15, 2022. “Facing Monsters” was released in Australia on March 10, 2022.

Review: ‘InHospitable,’ starring Vicki Arnett, Beth McCracken, Evie Bodick, Chelsa Wagner, Erin Ninehouser, Maurice Arnett and Natasha Lindstrom

November 5, 2022

by Carla Hay

Beth McCracken (center, in white shirt) in “InHospitable” (Photo courtesy of Abramorama)

“InHospitable”

Directed by Sandra Alvarez

Culture Representation: Filmed in 2019 and 2020, in Pennsylvania and Atlanta, the documentary “InHospitable” features a predominantly white group of people (with some African Americans, Latinos and Asians), who are healthcare experts or hospital patients, discussing how profit-oriented business decisions from hospitals can be detrimental to the health care of patients.

Culture Clash: The documentary tells the personal stories of some patients in Pennsylvania who were affected by a business feud between healthcare companies University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and Highmark.

Culture Audience: “InHospitable” will primarily appeal to people who are interested in behind-the-scenes revelations of how hospitals actively play a role in the rising costs of healthcare in the United States.

Vicki Arnett in “InHospitable” (Photo courtesy of Abramorama)

“InHospitable” is an unsettling but necessary warning to anyone concerned about U.S. health care. This enlightening documentary shows what can happen when non-profit hospitals act like greedy corporations that care more about profits than patients. Although “InHospitable” focuses on a healthcare problem in the Pittsburgh/western Pennsylvania area, the documentary makes it clear that this is a problem that can happen to any region of the United States and can affect millions of people.

Directed by Sandra Alvarez, “InHospitable,” which was filmed in 2019 and 2020, puts a spotlight on a business feud between healthcare companies University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and Highmark. Both are non-profit groups that generate millions in profits every year. UPMC and Highmark own and operate hospitals and have their own insurance companies. UPMC is the largest employer in Pennsylvania.

In 2013, Highmark made a big move to compete with the virtual monopoly that UPMC had in the hospital business in Pennsylvania: Highmark made a $1 billion purchase of West Penn Allegheny Health System, thereby greatly increasing the number of hospitals that Highmark owned in Pennsylvania. In response, UPMC announced that it would no longer accept patients who had Highmark health insurance. This decision caused tremendous turmoil for Highmark-insured patients being treated at UPMC hospitals but couldn’t afford any other health insurance. And so, in 2014, Pennsylvania’s governor and state attorney intervened and negotiated a five-year contract, which was also called a “consent decree,” that had UPMC and Highmark essentially agree to not to deny health care to each other’s patients.

“InHospitable” mostly chronicles the months leading up to July 2019, when the contract was due to expire. Untold numbers of Highmark-insured patients treated at UPMC hospitals were starting to panic over losing their healthcare services at UPMC. Grassroots groups began to have town hall meetings and protests to bring attention to this healthcare crisis and demand that lawmakers and healthcare company officials do something about it.

The documentary focuses on three middle-aged people in particular who were affected by this healthcare crisis and participated in this activism. All of them had Highmark insurance but received healthcare from UPMC. The three activists who are featured prominently in “InHospitable” are:

  • Vicki Arnett (a nurse who worked for UPMC), the caregiver of her husband Maurice Arnett, a patient with cancer of the liver and colon.
  • Evie Bodick, a patient who says she had breast cancer and lung cancer twice and has a pacemaker.
  • Beth McCracken, a patient with a rare form of cancer that has caused her face to have partial paralysis.

The health insurance situation got so bad for Vicki and Maurice Arnett, the closest cancer treatment center they could find that would take their Highmark insurance was in Atlanta. The documentary shows the couple going to Atlanta for an appointment at Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Vicki mentions that although the couple had to pay for the travel expenses out of their limited budget, the overall cost would have been higher if Maurice had to get the cancer treatment outside of the Highmark insurance network.

Bodick mentions that she has five different doctors at UPMC, and to change these doctors would be detrimental to her recovery. In a documentary interview, Bodick says at one point in her life, she was given just six months to live, but she defied those expectations, because she said the UPMC doctors helped save her life. Bodick wants to do whatever it takes to keep those doctors with the Highmark insurance that she has.

McCracken says that if she can’t use her Highmark insurance at UPMC, her insurance premium would be six times higher and her deductible would be 20 times higher than the amount that she has to pay through her Highmark insurance. McCracken says in a documentary interview: “My fight to maintain my health care has robbed me of the strength to care for my health … We should not have to choose between bankruptcy and health care.”

“InHospitable” explains through interviews with experts and statistical data why this problem exists. The documentary includes a brief history of how the U.S. hospital industry has evolved. There are three types of hospitals in the U.S.: non-profit hospitals (which are the majority, at 56.5%, according to 2019 stats from the American Hospital Association); for-profit hospitals (24.9%); and government-owned hospitals (18.6%). Non-profit hospitals have tax-exempt status on many things, under the condition that they give certain services to underprivileged people, like a charity is supposed to do.

Several healthcare economists who are interviewed in the documentary say that the problem is that non-profit hospitals get very little government regulation on how they spend their money. Non-profit hospitals are starting to act more like for-profit corporations, such as buying up the competition and forcing a near-monopoly of hospital health care in some areas. When a money-making group doesn’t have much competition, the tendency is to charge more money to the customers (in this case, the patients), who see the higher costs through an increase in insurance fees.

In other words, gone are the days when most hospitals were small charities. “This is a big, big business,” says Martin Graynor, a healthcare economist at Carnegie Mellon University. Graynor says that part of the reason why hospitals have become bigger and more expensive is because of technology, as hospitals compete to have the latest and most hi-tech equipment, which could affect their hospital ratings. Georgia State University’s Center for Law, Healthy and Safety director Erin Fuse Brown offers another explanation: “Hospital consolidation is the number-one driver of rising prices.”

The U.S. healthcare industry makes billions in profits. Darrell Gaskin, a healthcare economist at Johns Hopkins University, comments on how non-profits changed their business models: “What used to be a cost center now becomes a revenue and profit center.” But at what cost?

The documentary (which includes some eye-catching animation to illustrate the health industry issues) shows that although the United States spends more on health care per person than any other developed country in the world, a person’s life expectancy in the U.S. is the lowest (about 77 years old) for any developed country in the world. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) statistics from 2019, which are cited in the documentary, the U.S. spends about $10,586 per person per year on health care, compared to the second-highest spending country: Germany, which spends about $5,986 (in U.S. dollars) per person per year.

The implication is that people who benefit the most from health care in the U.S. are those who can afford the increasing costs. Everyone else might not get the health care that they need, which could explain the lower life expectancy. Either way, the cost-to-benefit ratio is still alarming if the results are lower life expectancies. “InHospitable” shows through real people’s stories how health insurance should be not be a business game played by greedy hospitals, because the very real consequences are that people will die if they can’t get the health care that they need if they can’t afford it.

Emily Gee, a healthcare economist for the Center of American Progress, says in the documentary: “Pittsburgh is a great example of what happens when most of the health insurance and resources get locked up into two competing firms. And I think these companies have less and less accountability.”

How did hospitals get so much unchecked power? Fuse Brown says, “Healthcare systems escape a lot of scrutiny because they are very politically powerful.” Federal Trade Commission commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter comments, “Whenever we’re talking about political power and political influence, we cannot ignore the way our extremely broken campaign finance system affects decision making.” The documentary includes a statistic from a 2019 report from the Center for Responsive Politics that the U.S. healthcare industry spent $603 million in 2019 in U.S. political lobbying—more than any other industry.

What does that mean for the average person who’s experiencing a damaging problem such as having their health insurance no longer accepted by the place where they need to get medical treatment? “InHospitable” shows what several grassroots activists and their supporters did about the UPMC/Highmark problem in Pennsylvania in 2019. This footage is at the heart of the film.

In addition to having town hall meetings and peaceful protest rallies to persuade UPMC and Highmark to not let the two companies’ “consent decree” expire, activists enlisted the support of politician allies, such as Allegheny County controller Chelsa Wagner and Pennsylvania state representative Sara Innamorato, Summer Lee and Ed Gaines. “InHospitable” includes footage of these citizens meeting with lawmakers in the Pennsylvania state capital of Harrisburg. The documentary also shows other people who helped bring attention to this problem, including Pennsylvania Health Access Network patient advocate Erin Ninehouser and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Natasha Lindstrom.

“InHospitable” brings up the issue of racial and socioeconomic inequalities in U.S. healthcare, by mentioning how UPMC shut down its only hospital in Pittsburgh’s Braddock borough (which is populated by mostly African Americans, many of them low-income) in 2009. UMPC’s official reason for the shutdown was that the hospital wasn’t making enough money, which contradicts the main purpose of a non-profit. However, UPMC opened up a new hospital called UPMC East in a more affluent, mostly white neighborhood at a cost that was higher than it would have cost to keep UPMC’s Braddock hospital open.

Chuck Grassley, a U.S. Senator from Iowa, comments in the documentary: “The I.R.S. ought to be policing whether the non-profit organizations are really being non-profit, and are they carrying out the responsibilities under non-profit [laws].” Zack Cooper, a healthcare economist at Yale University, says that most healthcare economists believe many of these healthcare affordiability problems would be better solved if the U.S. government had better regulation of non-profit hospital finances.

In the meantime, “InHospitable” gives a very powerful chronicle of how everyday people in western Pennsylvania stood up for their rights against what seemed like big-business odds stacked against them. Vicki Arnett and Bodick are particularly passionate and outspoken when they speak to a crowd. If the documentary singles out any “villain,” it’s Jeffrey Ronoff, the CEO of UPMC. Bodick doesn’t mince words by saying that much of the UPMC problem with Highmark was caused “by his greed … This is a nightmare for people.” Ronoff declined to be interviewed for “InHospitable,” but the documentary includes some archival video clips of interviews that he did in 2009 and 2015.

An epilogue in “InHospitable” mentions that major non-profit healthcare groups—including UPMC, Highmark and the American Hospital Association (AHA) declined or did not respond to requests to participate in the documentary. AHA referred the “InHospitable” filmmakers to Charles River Associates, a consulting firm hired by the AHA to conduct a study on hospital consolidation. Charles River Associates executives Monica Noether and Sean May, who are interviewed in the documentary, say that consolidation exists to lower costs. But “InHospitable” questions if those lower costs are actually passed down to the patients.

The documentary also mentions that after hospital consolidations, the hospital’s non-management employees typically experience salaries decreases. (By contrast, upper-management employees at non-profit hospitals usually experience salary increases after hospital consolidations.) One of the highlights of the film is footage from a protest outside UPMC Montefiore over these lower wages and UPMC’s Highmark insurance ban. Another standout part of the documentary shows how protestors peacefully demanded to attend a UPMC Montefiore board meeting, even when officials decided at the last moment that only those who RSVP’ed would be able to attend.

Other people interviewed or featured in the documentary include medical doctor Elisabeth Rosenthal, author of “An American Sickness”; medical doctor Robert Pearl, former CEO of the Permanente Group; Ginny Bell, who is McCracken’s wife; Joe Bodick, who is Evie Bodick’s husband; Braddock resident/documentarian Tony Buba; Pat Busu, former White House advisor/co-founder of Doctor on Demand; cardiologist Dale Owen, CEO of Tyron Medical Partners; UPMC Presbyterian adminstrative assistant Nila Payton; medical doctor Farzad Mostashari, CEO and primary care expert at Aledade.

Sadly, one of the patients in “InHospitable” did not live to see this documentary released. Maurice Arnett passed away on May 8, 2020, at the age of 54. As much information that “InHospitable” packs in about the healthcare industry, the documentary never loses sight of the real people who are directly affected by healthcare industry problems.

“InHospitable” includes the outcome of the UPMC/Highmark conflict in 2019, and has additional footage from 2020 that addresses the COVID-19 pandemic. However, do not mistake “InHospitable” as a documentary that will become outdated, because it is a foreshadowing of what more people in America will experience if more hospitals make health insurance become a hindrance, not a help, to people who need health care.

Abramorama released “InHospitable” in select U.S. cinemas on September 30, 2022.

Copyright 2017-2024 Culture Mix
CULTURE MIX