Culture Representation: Taking place in Turkey, the dramatic film “About Dry Grasses” features a cast if Turkish characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A bachelor, who is an art teacher at a middle school, gets into various entanglements related to his career and his personal life.
Culture Audience: “About Dry Grasses” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan and well-acted movies about adults who are disatisfied with their lives.
Merve Dizdar and Deniz Celiloğlu in “About Dry Grasses” (Photo courtesy of Sideshow and Janus Films)
“About Dry Grasses” will test the patience of anyone who doesn’t want to watch a talkative movie that’s a little more than three hours. However, this artsy drama is an interesting character study of a troubled teacher and his complex relationships. The movie has entwined storylines of how the teacher presents himself in different ways in his job and in his personal life, depending on whom he wants to manipulate or control.
Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, “About Dry Grasses” was co-written by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, his wife Ebru Ceylan and Akın Aksu. “About Dry Grasses” had its world premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where Merve Dizdar won the prize for Best Actress. The movie made the rounds at other film festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. “About Dry Grasses” was Turkey’s official selection to be considered for Best International Feature Film at the 2024 Academy Awards. The movie made the shortlist but ultimately did not get an Oscar nomination.
“About Dry Grasses” takes place mostly in the rural municipality of Incescu, Turkey. In 2022, the population of Incescu was a little more than 29,000 people. In the beginning of the movie, it’s winter in an unspecified year in the early 2020s. An art teacher named Samet (played by Deniz Celiloğlu), who has just returned from a trip, trudges through the snow to get back to his modest house that he shares with his roommate Kenan (played by Musab Ekici), who is currently unemployed.
Samet and Kenan are both never-married bachelors in mid-to-late 30s, with no children. When Samet returns home, Kenan tells him that Kenan’s father is in a hospital, and Kenan’s mother is upset because Kenan is still a bachelor with no known prospects of finding a wife. Kenan also says that’s he’s been trying to find a job, but when he interviewed for a job as a security staffer, Kenan was told that the employer would rather have a dog do the security work.
Samet, who is very self-absorbed, doesn’t really care about Kenan’s problems, but he pretends to listen to Kenan as if he cares. As Samet says many times throughout the story, Samet is miserable with small-town life in Incescu, and he wants to find a job in a much bigger city, preferably Istanbul, where he used to live. For the past four years, Samet has been teaching eighth graders at a middle school in Incescu.
When Samet returns to his school after his vacation, he gives a mirror as a gift to one of his students named Savim (played by Ece Bağcı), who is very happy to see Samet. Samet tells her that this mirror is something he bought for her when he was on his trip. From the beginning, something seems a little inappropriate about the way that Savim and Samet are interacting toward each other.
Savim is very giggly with Samet and has an obvious crush on him, but he is touchy-feely with her in an affectionate way that suggests he’s flirting with her too. As an adult teacher, Samet doesn’t seem to be setting professional boundaries between himself and Savim. The mirror gift to Savim is also a sign that he’s giving her special treatment.
When a student complains to Samet in his classroom that Samet is giving special treatment to Savim and Savim’s friends, Samet verbally lashes out at this observant student by insulting him. Throughout the movie, Samet shows that he can be very charming but also very vindictive. He has a nasty temper that flares up whenever someone gives him criticism that he doesn’t like. He can be emotionally cruel to his students or anyone who doesn’t do exactly what he expects them to do.
Kenan eventually gets a job at the school as a custodian. Kenan reports to the school’s live-in custodian named Tolga (played by Erdem Senocak), who is later revealed to be a bit of a gossip. Kenan is a good guy who thinks Samet is his best friend, but Kenan is slow to pick up on social cues and facial expressions to see how Samet might really feel. Kenan mistakenly believes that Samet is as honest as Kenan is.
Samet hangs out with Kenan because Samet wants to be the superior “alpha male” to Kenan’s “beta male.” This attitude is most evident when a certain woman comes into both of their lives. Her name is Nuray (played by Dizdar), and she is an English teacher at a bigger school where Samet would probably like to work.
Samet meets Nuray for the first time at her school’s cafeteria. It’s sort of like a blind date for both of them. Nuray, who happens to be disabled, is intelligent and witty. She lost her part of a leg to amputation during a suicide bomber attack. Nuray’s parents don’t know that she was involved in radical political activism that led to her being near this bomb.
Later, Kenan meets Nuray when Samet introduces the both of them to each other. Kenan and Nuray seem to like each other a lot and have instant chemistry together. However, jealous Samet can’t bear the thought of Kenan having a more successful love life. Things happen in this love triangle, where someone inevitably gets emotionally hurt.
It’s never said out loud in the movie, by Samet seems to have big secrets about why he ended up in Incescu. For example, “About Dry Grasses” doesn’t reveal why Samet moved from his preferred big city of Istanbul to live in the remote town of Incescu. Samet tells anyone who’ll listen that he doesn’t like small-town life.
It’s very easy to speculate that maybe Samet left Istanbul because he was running away from something. The movie leaves it up to interpretation, but it’s a logical guess that maybe Samet got involved in a scandal in Istanbul, considering how sneaky and dishonest Samet is revealed to be in this movie.
Meanwhile, the discovery of a love letter throws things into chaos for Samet. The movie shows whether or not he gets out of this predicament and the lengths that he will go to in those efforts to not get into trouble. “About Dry Grasses” has some scenes that are intriguing and suspenseful and other scenes that are just of long conversations (usually at a dinner table) of people talking about mostly mundane things.
Boredom might set in for some viewers during this lengthy movie, but what will probably keep people interested is to see what happens to Samet. How long will he continue to juggle the various sides of his personality? Dizdar gives a very skilled performance of someone who just might be a sociopath but is pretty good at hiding it from most people.
Samet also has a great deal of self-loathing. The movie gets its title from a line that he says near the end of the film whene he comments that dry grasses are “worthless, like my life.” Ironically, the person in the movie who is the first to see Samet for who he really is the one whose judgment is questioned the most. “About Dry Grasses” shows in effective ways how warning signs about a problematic person can be ignored because people don’t want to admit that they could be fooled by a manipulative liar.
Sideshow and Janus Films released “About Dry Grasses” in select U.S. cinemas on February 23, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Tokyo, the dramatic film “Perfect Days” features a predominantly Asian cast of characters (with a few white people and black people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: An elderly sanitation worker, who is a quiet loner, spends his days and nights trying to live a harmonious existence when he’s with other people, but he sometimes battles loneliness and being misunderstood.
Culture Audience: “Perfect Days” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in a “slice of life” movie that focuses on a specific individual.
Arisa Nakano and Kôji Yakusho in “Perfect Days” (Photo courtesy of Neon)
“Perfect Days” is a “slice of life” movie about an elderly sanitation worker who is a quiet loner. Viewer appreciation will rest entirely on whether or not this person is worth watching. For most people, the answer is “yes.” However, because “Perfect Days” is a slow-paced movie, it won’t have much appeal to viewers with short attention spans or those who have no interest in seeing this insularly focused movie about this type of person.
Directed by Wim Wenders (who co-wrote the “Perfect Days” screenplay with Takuma Takasaki), “Perfect Days” had its world premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where star Kôji Yakusho won the prize for Best Actor. The movie then made the rounds at numerous film festivals in 2023, including the Telluride Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. “Perfect Days” was nominated for Best International Feature Film for the 2024 Academy Awards.
Yakusho, who stars as “Perfect Days” protagonist Hirayama, gives the type of performance where he has to do a lot of acting with his facial expressions and body language, since Hirayama doesn’t talk at all for a great deal of the film. When he does talk, he does so sparingly, without saying his inner feelings out loud. It’s the type of performance that will make viewers want to know more about Hirayama—not in a way where the movie feels incomplete, but in a way that indicates there’s a lot more to Hirayama than he shows to the people he sees on a regular basis.
“Perfect Days” shows what amounts to about two weeks of Hirayama’s life. He works for a company called The Tokyo Toilet, and his job is to clean outdoor public toilets in Tokyo, where he lives. He is very responsible, prompt and thorough in his work. It doesn’t take long for viewers to see that Hirayama likes to keep his life uncomplicated and is happy with finding comfort in life’s simple pleasures.
Very little is known about Hirayama before this story takes place. What were his hopes and dreams when he was younger? Has he been married? Does he have children? What types of jobs did he have before his current job? Don’t expect answers to these questions, although because Hirayama lives alone and doesn’t mention having any children, it can be assumed that he’s a bachelor with no children.
A few things become apparent about Hirayama from his interactions with people. He’s kind, he’s generous, and he likes his daily routines. He has a pattern that he sticks to of going to his job, a local park for lunch, his favorite cafe and bar when he’s not working, and then going home. He likes listening to classic rock, reading, and taking outdoor photos. He keeps his photos neatly filed in boxes labeled according to the months that the photos were taken.
Hirayama shows his generosity by lending a co-worker in his 20s named Takashi (played by Tokio Emoto) some money so that Takashi can court a girlfriend named Aya (played by Aoi Yamada), whom Takashi wants desperately to impress. Takashi gets the money by whining to Hirayama that the Tokyo Toilet job doesn’t pay Takashi enough money to take Aya out on the dates that he thinks Aya deserves. At first, Takashi tried to persuade Hirayama to sell off a large part of Hirayama’s music collection (he has mostly cassettes and vinyl albums) to get the money, but Hirayama decides to just give Takashi the wanted cash instead. Takashi shows up late for work sometimes. When Hirayama has to pick up the slack for Takashi’s flakiness, Hirayama does so without complaining.
Music is a big part of “Perfect Days,” since Hirayama listens to classic rock from the 1960s and 1970s for enjoyment, and it becomes a way that he bonds with certain people in the movie. Patti Smith’s breakthrough 1975 album “Horses” is prominently featured in the story. Other music heard in the movie’s soundtrack (which is the soundtrack to Hirayama’s life) are songs such as Lou Reed’s plaintive 1972 ballad “Perfect Day,” Van Morrison’s classic 1967 love song “Brown Eyed Girl” and the Kinks’ 1966 jaunty hit “Sunny Afternoon.” There’s a scene in the movie where Aya asks Hirayama if she can find “Horses” on Spotify. He’s never heard of Spotify before and think it’s a physical retail store, because he doesn’t fully understand the concept of a digital streaming service.
A turning point in the story comes with the unexpected visit of Hirayama’s teenage niece Niko (played by Arisa Nakano), who shows up at Hirayama’s home because she’s having problems with her mother, who is Hirayama’s younger sister. This visit is a catalyst for Hirayama to look at his life from Niko’s perspective, and it opens up some old emotional wounds and certain feelings in Hirayama. “Perfect Days” is not a perfect movie, but it’s a wonderful example of a contemplative movie about someone who usually isn’t the main character of a movie and is the type of person who is often overlooked or forgotten in real life.
Neon released “Perfect Days” in New York City on November 10, 2023, with a wider expansion to more U.S. cinemas on February 9, 2024. The movie was released in Japan and other countries in 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in France, in 1889, the dramatic film “The Taste of Things” has an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A renowned chef and his longtime live-in cook are lovers, but she resists his attempts for them to have a more committed relationship.
Culture Audience: “The Taste of Things” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of stars Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel and movies about people who love to cook.
Juliette Binoche Benoît Magimel and Galatéa Bellugi in “The Taste of Things” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)
The slow-paced drama “The Taste of Things” isn’t for everyone, but it’s a mature story of what can happen when a famous chef tries to get his longtime personal cook to marry him. There’s plenty to like in this movie for romance fans and cuisine enthusiasts. The movie spends almost much as much time detailing the preparation of food as it does on showing how these two people live and love together.
Written and directed by Trân Anh Hùng, “The Taste of Things” is based on Marcel Rouff’s 1924 novel “La Vie et la Passion de Dodin-Bouffant, Gourmet,” which is French for “The Life and the Passion of Dodin-Bouffant, Gourmet.” “The Taste of Things” had its world premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where Trânwon the prize for Best Director. “The Tatse of Things” then made the rounds at several other film festivals in 2023, including the New York Film Festival, the BFI London Film Festival and AFI Fest. “The Taste of Things” was France’s official selection for the category of Best International Feature Film for the 2024 Academy Awards, but the movie didn’t get any Oscar nominations.
In “The Taste of Things” (which takes place in 1889, in France), Dodin Bouffant (played by Benoît Magimel) is a renowned chef and a middle-aged, never-married bachelor with no children. He has been in a sexual relationship with his live-in cook Eugénie Chatagne (played by Juliette Binoche), who is also middle-aged, never-married, and has no children. Eugénie has been Dodin’s live-in cook at his manor for the past 20 years.
Dodin and Eugénie love each other, but she doesn’t want to commit to marrying him. She tells Dodin that she’s happy with the way their relationship is. Eugénie has turned down Dodin’s marriage proposals multiple times.
Will persistent Dodin get Eugénie to change her mind? That’s the question that lingers for most of “The Taste of Things,” as the movie fills up its time with scenes of preparations and servings of elaborate multi-course meals. Dodin decides he’s going to cook for Eugénie as a way to show his love.
Dodin is also seen with a group of five affluent male friends in many social situations, including when he and these friends get invited to dine with the prince of Eurasia (played by Mhamed Arezki), who originally invited just Dodin, but Dodin insisted that his friends get invited too. Dodin’s five closest friends are Grimaud (played by Patrick d’Assumçao), Magot (played by Jan Hammenecker), Beaubois (played by Frédéric Fisbach), Augustin (played by Jean-Marc Roulot) and Rabaz (played by Emmanuel Salinger). Rabaz is the one who stands out the most because he is a compassionate and very busy doctor.
Eugénie has an assistant cook named Violette (played by Galatéa Bellugi), who’s in her 20s and is a very loyal employee. Near the beginning of the movie, Violette’s niece Pauline (played by Bonnie Chagneau-Ravoire), who’s about 11 or 12 years old, is at Dodin’s manor to visit and is introduced to Eugénie and Dodin. It isn’t long before Eugénie notices that Pauline is a prodigy in culinary arts, with extraordinary senses of taste and smell. Eugénie wants to formally teach Pauline how to be a chef but first must get permission from her parents.
“The Taste of Things” is not a movie that makes any grand or provocative statements about life. The story also holds very little surprises. A few scenes of Eugénie fainting and clutching her abdomen in pain are foreshadowings of what happens to her in the last third of the movie, which won’t be a shock to anyone who’s read “La Vie et la Passion de Dodin-Bouffant, Gourmet.”
The reliably engaging performances by Binoche and Magimel are worth watching in how they portray this bittersweet romance. Binoche and Magimel have easy chemistry with each other, since they were partners from 1998 to 2003 and have a daughter together named Hana, who was born in 1999. Magimel and Binoche also co-starred in the 1999 drama “Children of the Century.” The tone of “The Taste of Things” is quietly sensual, which is best appreciated by viewers who know that not all movies about romance have to be about messy breakups and predictable makeups.
IFC Films released “The Taste of Things” in select U.S. cinemas on February 9, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on February 14, 2024. The movie was released in France under the title “La Passion de Dodin Bouffant” on November 8, 2023. “The Taste of Things” will be released on digital and VOD on March 28, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in Tybee Island, Georgia, in 2015, the dramatic film “May December” features a white and Asian cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A famous actress is starring in a movie about a disgraced and formerly imprisoned sex offender, who seduced an underage co-worker and later married him, and the actress goes to the couple’s home to do research for the role.
Culture Audience: “May December” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Todd Haynes, and movies that put a fictional spin on real-life scandals.
Julianne Moore and Charles Melton in “May December” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)
“May December” is a very glossy psychological portrait of manipulation and exploitation, inspired by a real-life sex scandal. Although the principal cast members give above-average performances, it’s a slow-moving film with a fragmented story. Some viewers might see “May December” as a very dark comedy. However, the movie’s few comedic moments are in short spurts and then quickly fade into the background when “May December” becomes more concerned about making viewers increasingly uncomfortable with certain awful characters pretending to be better people than they really are.
Directed by Todd Haynes and written by Samy Burch, “May December” gets its title from the term “May December relationship,” to describe romances that have a big age gap between the partners. The younger partner is supposed to be in the spring of youth (as exemplified by the spring month of May), while the older partner is supposed to be closer to the end of life (as indicated by end-of-the-year month of December). “May December” had its world premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and made the rounds at other film festivals in 2023, including the New York Film Festival and the BFI London Film Festival.
In “May December,” the story’s scandal is based on the real-life relationship between Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau. In 1996, the year they got sexually involved with each other, Letourneau was a 34-year-old married mother of four children, and she was Fulaau’s schoolteacher in Burien, Washington. He was 12 years old.
Letourneau eventually served time in jail (in 1997) and in prison (from 1998 to 2004) for statutory rape and for violating the terms of her 1997 plea agreement, which had required her to stay away from a then-underage Fualaau. Her first husband divorced her in 1999. She gave birth to two daughters fathered by Fualaau. The first daughter was born in 1997, while Letourneau was awaiting her sentencing. The second daughter was born in 1998, when Letourneau was in prison. Letourneau and Fualaau got married in 2005, but they separated in 2019. Letourneau died of colorectal cancer in 2020, at the age of 58.
All of this background information is helpful to better understand the nuances in “May December.” In the movie, the character based on Letourneau is named Gracie Atherton-Yoo (played by Julianne Moore), while the Fualaau-based character is Joe Yoo (played by Charles Melton), who are living a quiet suburban life together as married parents in Tybee Island, Georgia. Elizabeth Berry (played by Natalie Portman) is a 36-year-old famous actress who is starring as Gracie in a made-for-TV movie. “May December” (which takes place in 2015, which is about 23 years after the scandal) shows what happens over the course of several days when Elizabeth goes to Tybee Island to do research for the role by visiting Gracie and Joe, as well as interviewing their friends, family and other people who know this notorious couple.
“May December” begins with a scene of Elizabeth in a Georgia hotel room as she gets ready to go to the Yoo home to meet Gracie and Joe for the first time. Meanwhile, Gracie and Joe are at their home, where they are preparing to welcome Elizabeth to a family cookout in their backyard. Gracie is in the kitchen making deviled eggs and a cake with her friend/neighbor Rhonda (played by Andrea Frankle), who is Gracie’s staunchest defender and supporter. It’s later revealed that Gracie has a home-based business where she makes cakes. Joe works in a hospital as a medical assistant.
Before Elizabeth arrives, Gracie tells Rhonda what she expects from Elizabeth: “All I ask is that she’s polite and not just sitting there with her sunglasses on.” And when Elizabeth and Gracie meet in a polite but slightly guarded way, Gracie tells Elizabeth: “I want you to tell the story right.” Elizabeth, who speaks in calm, measured tones, replies: “I want you to feel seen and known.”
In real life, Letourneau and Fualaau had two daughters. In “May December,” Gracie and Joe have two daughters and a son. Eldest child Honor (played by Piper Curda) is an outspoken college student living away from home, but she will soon be visiting to attend the high-school graduation of her younger twin siblings: insecure Mary (played by Elizabeth Yu) and rebellious Charlie (played by Gabriel Chun). Another member of the Yoo family is Joe’s widower father Joe Yoo Sr. (played by Kelvin Han Yee), a Korean immigrant who—just like his son Joe—chain smokes when he’s feeling stressed-out.
Over time, viewers see that Gracie likes to appear composed and in control in public and when Elizabeth is there observing. But in private and when Elizabeth isn’t there, Gracie is high-strung, very demanding and overly critical of other people. When things don’t go her way, Gracie loves to play the victim.
Gracie also treats Joe as someone whose only purpose in life is to make her happy. When Gracie has a tearful meltdown because a customer canceled an order for a cake that Gracie already made, Gracie expects Joe to comfort her like someone who needs to be comforted over the death of a loved one. And there are signs that Gracie has an undiagnosed mental illness, such as when Gracie insists to Joe in private that he was the one who seduced her when he was a child.
Another scene that shows how Gracie is a master manipulator is when she and Mary (with Elizabeth invited to observe) go shopping for Mary’s graduation dress. At a store’s dressing room, Mary tries on dresses. Mary’s first choice is a sleeveless dress, but Gracie doesn’t want Mary to wear a dress that will expose Mary’s arms. Mary gets annoyed with Gracie and firmly says that she’s getting the dress. However, Mary changes her mind when Gracie comments that other girls in the graduating class probably won’t wear sleeveless dresses because sleeveless dresses will make their arms look fat.
Over time, an unspoken rivalry develops between Gracie and Elizabeth, who is very aware that image-conscious Gracie is bothered by Elizabeth, who is going to play a younger version of Gracie. One of the movie’s most memorable scenes about this power struggle is when Elizabeth and Gracie are standing in front of a bathroom mirror in Gracie’s home while Gracie is putting on makeup. Rather than have Elizabeth mimic her, Gracie insists on putting the makeup on Elizabeth herself.
Joe is quiet, humble and unassuming. And at first, he seems to be in the background of Elizabeth’s thoughts as she puts most of her initial focus on studying Gracie. It should come as no surprise that the more that Gracie gushes about Joe to make it sound like they have a beautiful love story, the more that Elizabeth seems to get curious about Joe and takes more of an interest in him. Elizabeth flatters Joe and drops hints that he deserves a better life than the one that he has with control-freak Gracie. But does Elizabeth really care about Joe as a person, or does Elizaebth care more about immersing herself so much into Gracie’s life that she wants to replicate aspects of Gracie’s life?
Some of the people whom Elizabeth interviews for her research are Gracie’s ex-husband Tom Atherton (played by D.W. Moffett), who is now married to another woman; Gracie’s adult son Georgie Atherton (played by Cory Michael Smith), from her first marriage, who bitterly tells Elizabeth that Gracie ruined Georgie’s life; and Colin Henderson (played by Charles Green), the owner of the pet store where Joe worked as a kid and where Gracie was Joe’s supervisor. Observant viewers will notice that for all the interviews that Elizabeth does, she’s not very forthcoming about herself, until a very revealing scene where she makes a speaking appearance in Mary’s drama class and answers prying questions from a few of the students.
No one from Elizabeth’s personal life is seen in the movie, which is the movie’s way of showing how Elizabeth skillfully compartmentalizes her life. Elizabeth is shown briefly talking in phone conversations at her hotel with her fiancé and with the director of the movie where she stars as Gracie. In these conversations, she reveals herself even more to be a very driven and ambitious actress.
Elizabeth is also seen in the hotel room looking at video auditions of teenage boys who will be playing the role of Joe. These boys are supposed to be in their early teens, but Elizabeth remarks that they don’t look “sexy” enough, based on what Elizabeth has seen of Joe. But it’s a sign of a reality disconnect for Elizabeth, because the Joe she’s getting to know is an adult, not the child who was manipulated into an illegal sexual relationship with an adult.
“May December” presents Elizabeth as the central character, but the movie doesn’t always do a great job of balancing the perspectives of Gracie and Joe. There is almost nothing told about how Joe’s side of the family reacted to the scandal, or how Joe’s experiences as a child of an immigrant affected his outlook on life. His father seems to have accepted the marriage of Joe and Gracie, but was this acceptance easy, difficult, or somewhere in between? The movie never says and doesn’t seem to care.
Joe is only given two or three really good scenes that show he’s more than just a loyal “boy toy” husband. Those scenes arrive when awareness starts to sink in with Joe about how much of his childhood was robbed when Gracie chose to cross the line and have a sexual relationship with him when he was a child. It hits him the hardest when he sees Mary and Charlie graduating from high school. This graduation ceremony scene is when Joe fully understands that his children’s coming of age and starting new chapters in their lives as young adults are very different from what he experienced.
What “May December” also does very well is show how Elizabeth’s presence is the catalyst for Gracie and Joe to re-evaluate how they want to be perceived by others and how they perceive themselves. Gracie’s reaction is to “double down” on the narrative that she and Joe have a “fairytale love story.” Joe starts to have doubts and wonders if this “fairytale love story” he’s believed in for all these years was one big lie.
Meanwhile, on another level, “May December” is also a story about what happens when two predators meet and become competitive with each other—not just in how to interpret Gracie’s life but also in trying to prove who’s living a more “fulfilled” life. In that regard, the scenes where Elizabeth and Gracie are in the same room are fascinating to watch. Observant viewers will notice that Elizabeth’s “research” has a more profound effect on her than Elizabeth expects. This is demonstrated effectively in the movie’s final scene.
Portman and Moore are compelling to watch in “May December,” but the movie loses a bit of steam when it can’t really decide how much importance Gracie’s children and in-laws should have in the story. It’s never explained why Elizabeth talked to only one of Gracie’s children from Gracie’s first marriage and not the other children from Gracie’s first marriage. And the character of Joe Sr. seems like a “token” character, because the movie doesn’t seem concerned about how showing or telling how Gracie’s scandalous actions with Joe affected members of Joe’s family.
If “May December” is supposed to be a dark comedy, then it doesn’t quite succeed as a dark comedy or satire like director Gus Van Sant’s 1995 movie “To Die For,” starring Nicole Kidman and Joaquin Phoenix. “To Die For” succeeded in its comedic intentions as a movie version of a real-life scandal about an adult female teacher seducing an underage teenage student to commit a felony crime. As a psychological drama, “May December” excels in its intention to be an unsettling film about the human cost of treating people like pawns in a chess game.
Netflix released “May December” in select U.S. cinemas on November 17, 2023. The movie premiered on Netflix on December 1, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place from the 1970s to the 2020s, primarily in an unnamed rural part of Mississippi, the dramatic film “All Dirt Roads Taste of Saly” features an all-African American cast of characters representing the working-class.
Culture Clash: The story of a rural family struggling with poverty and grief in Mississippi is told across generations and mainly from the perspectives of the females in the family.
Culture Audience: “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching artistic and experimental movies about rural American families.
Sheila Atim and Kaylee Nicole Johnson in “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” (Photo by Jaclyn Martinez/A24)
As the title suggests, “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” is not going to appeal to everyone, it’s not entirely comfortable to experience, and it’s probably an acquired taste. It’s a cinematic poem that is best appreciated by viewers who are open to watching slow-paced movies that don’t follow a traditional narrative structure. This unique and atmospheric drama shows the connection between nature and a rural Mississippi family.
“All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” is the feature-film debut of writer/director Raven Jackson, who has a background as a poet and photographer. These talents are evident in the often-abstract way that the story is told in “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” and how this movie uses visuals to tell much of the story, which has very little dialogue. “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and made the rounds at other film festivals in 2023, including the New York Film Festival.
“All Dirt Roads of Salt” is told in non-chronological order and presented as pieces of a puzzle that challenges viewers to put these pieces together to see the bigger picture and the overall story. The rural Mississippi family who’s at the center of the movie is a tight-knit clan that has to cope with poverty, heartbreak and sudden tragedy. The family consists of spouses Evelyn (played by Sheila Atim) and Isaiah (played by Chris Chalk), who are happily married and live in a modest home with their daughters Mackenzie (nicknamed Mack) and Josie.
Mack (who was born in 1970) is about three years older than Josie. Mack is slightly rebellious and more outspoken than mild-mannered Josie. Kaylee Nicole Johnson has the role of Mack as a pre-teen. Charleen McClure, who makes her feature-film debut in “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” portrays Mack as a teenager and adult. Jayah Henry has the role of Josie as a pre-teen. Moses Ingram depicts Josie as a teenager and as an adult.
It’s not mentioned in the movie how the parents make money, but it’s clear that the family members get a lot of their food from the land where they live. The movie’s opening scene shows Isaiah patiently teaching Mack how to fish, while Josie watches nearby. Another scene shows Evelyn teaching Mack how to skin a fish. Isaiah and Evelyn are loving parents who are strict. At one point in the movie, Evelyn tells Mack, “Don’t speak until you’re spoke to.”
Evelyn and Mack also spend some mother/daughter time together by digging for clay dirt, which Evelyn puts in a shoebox. Some African Americans, especially in the Southern part of the U.S., follow a tradition of eating clay dirt, in order to commune with nature. This tradition originated in West Africa.
Because “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” does not tell this family’s story in a linear manner, it’s up to viewers to pay attention and figure out what this family’s story is. Without giving away too many details in this review, it’s enough to say that this family goes through many difficult challenges. In one scene, Isaiah and some local men frantically try to put out flames on the family home as it’s being burned, while the other family members stand by and watch with sadness and fear. (No reason is given in the movie for how or why this fire occurred.)
There’s also a death in the family that drastically changes the childhoods of Mack and Josie. Their maternal grandmother Betty (played by Jannie Hampton) comes to visit during this time of grief. Like many grandmothers, Betty is able to hold the family together and be a source of comfort during overwhelming sadness. Betty also tells Mack and Josie some family history that these grandchildren did not know.
As a teenager, Mack falls for a local teen named Wood (played by Preston McDowell), and they have a sweet romance. There are clues that their relationship has been on-again/off-again, because by the time they are young adults, Mack and Wood (played by Reginald Helms Jr.) are no longer a couple. Mack is pregnant with Wood’s child, but he is married to a woman named Rita, who is never seen in the movie.
Mack and Wood still have a love connection and find ways to see each other for romantic trysts. Wood tries to show that he wants to be in this baby’s life, but Mack knows that it’s unlikely that Wood will leave his wife for her. Mack’s decision about how the baby will be raised is shown in the movie.
“All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” has several scenes that take place outdoors in the woods, especially when it’s raining. The movie’s immersive cinematography (by Jomo Fray) and sound mixing are sensory experiences in this world. The sights and sounds of nature are meant to be intertwined with the human condition that’s presented in this movie.
When Mack gives birth to a daughter named Lily and tells Lily as a baby (played by Naomi Glenn), “You’re made of dirt. You know that?,” it’s not meant as an insult but as a way to tell her child the “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” philosophy of the life-death cycle. Lily (played by Robin Crudup) is later shown as a child who’s about 9 or 10 years old.
Because there isn’t much dialogue in “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” the cast members often have to act with their facial expressions and body language. The performances in the movie are capable, but not spectacular. “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” is not about showoff performances but about naturalistic “slice of life” snippets of this family. Mack, the character who gets the most screen time, is the only character who is shown from infancy (played by Mylee Shannon) to middle age (played by Zainab Jah).
Why is eating clay dirt a tradition for some people? By eating the dirt, people who believe in this tradition also believe that they can detect the health of the earth around them. If viewers are patient enough to watch “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” they can see how the movie artfully shows that the well-being of nature can transform over time and can be connected to how people can transform over time as human beings.
A24 released “All Dirt RoadsTaste of Salt” in select U.S. cinemas on November 3, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the United States, Europe, and the Dominican Republic, the dramatic film “The Killer” (based on the French graphic novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people and Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: An assassin goes on a revenge mission to find and kill the people who brutally attacked his live-in girlfriend during a home invasion.
Culture Audience: “The Killer” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of filmmaker David Fincher, star Michael Fassbender, and taut thrillers about assassins.
Michael Fassbender in “The Killer” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)
“The Killer” isn’t the best work from the stars and filmmakers of this somewhat predictable drama about an assassin who goes on a personal vendetta. However, the movie’s performances are above-average. The voiceover narration will get mixed reactions. Some viewers will find this constant narration to be a very annoying distraction, while other viewers won’t mind or will think the narration is one of the best aspects of the movie. “The Killer” had its world premiere at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival and its North American premiere at the 2023 New York Film Festival.
Directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker, “The Killer” is based on the 2018 French graphic novel of the same name, written by Alexis “Matz” Nolent and illustrated by Luc Jacamon. The movie plays out very much like a graphic novel, with listed chapters and simple dialogue. In the movie, the real name of the title character (played by Michael Fassbender) is never revealed. For the purposes of this review, this assassin will be referred to by the name is he has in the movie’s end credits: The Killer.
The Killer is an American who uses aliases that are the names of famous characters from American TV series. It’s an example of the movie’s wry comedy that the people he encounters don’t notice or don’t even know that the name he has is the same as a TV character. Among the fake names that he uses are Felix Unger and Oscar Madison (“The Odd Couple”), Archibald Bunker (“All in the Family”), Sam Malone (“Cheers”) and Lou Grant (“The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Lou Grant”).
Nothing is revealed about The Killer’s personal background before he became a murderer for hire. All that is really known is that The Killer is an elite assassin who is hired by wealthy people. He is considered among the “best of the best” because he’s very meticulous, he has a reputation for never making mistakes, and he has never been caught. But his error-free track record is about to change.
From the movie’s opening scene, viewers get a load of The Killer’s innermost thoughts through voiceover narration. These inner thoughts do not let up for the entire movie. It’s in contrast to the fact that The Killer doesn’t have a lot of scenes where he’s actually talking out loud. He spends a lot of time by himself and talks to people only when necessary.
The movie’s first 10 minutes show The Killer doing what is part of his assassin job: stalking his target and waiting for the right moment to commit the murder. This preparation requires discipline and the ability to tolerate waiting in one place for a long period of time. As The Killer explains in the beginning of the movie: “It’s amazing how physically exhausting it can be to do nothing.” He adds that if you can’t endure boredom, “this work is not for you.”
Well, there’s a lot more to being an assassin than the ability to endure boredom. It takes a certain lack of humanity to kill people for money. The Killer has this to say about his deadly job: “Popeye the Sailor said it best: ‘I am what I am.'” He then says, as if to justify that he’s just a cog in the wheel of sin and corruption: “I’m not exceptional. I’m just a part.” This particular statement carries weight, considering what he says at the very end of the movie.
The Killer says other things to indicate that he’s extremely jaded and emotionally disconnected from a lot of things. For example, he utters, “Luck isn’t real, nor is karma, nor is justice.” But then, he contradicts himself and says that people should consider themselves lucky if they never meet him.
In order to stalk his victims, The Killer has to stay at places close to where he can observe the target and the target’s routines. The Killer quips, “I used to book a lot through Airbnb. Not anymore. Those [Airbnb] Superhosts love their nanny cams.”
In the beginning of “The Killer,” he is shown in Paris at a high-rise hotel that is directly across from a stately home where he can clearly see inside the home. The home is where his target is and where The Killer is setting up his sniper gun to commit the murder. Inside the home, the target is a middle-aged man (played by Endre Hules) enjoying the company of a dominatrix (played by Monique Ganderton), who is just about to start their session.
The Killer takes aim and fires. And he shoots and kills the wrong person: the dominatrix. The middle-aged man reacts with shock. In a nearby room, a few servants hear the gunshot, go into the room, see the dead woman, and panic ensues. As soon as The Killer sees the mistake that he’s made, he quickly leaves the hotel and drives away, as police cars driving in the opposite direction toward the murder scene. Before he leaves the scene, The Killer says in a voiceover, “WWJWBD: What would John Wilkes Booth do?”
Shortly after this botched assassination, The Killer is in a phone conversation with a man named Claybourne (played by Arliss Howard), who hired The Killer for this murder. The client is furious with The Killer, who is shocked and embarrassed about this colossal mistake. It’s the first time The Killer has bungled an assassin job by murdering the wrong person. Claybourne hisses at The Killer that it’s too late to get another chance to kill the target: “The window of opportunity has closed.”
The Killer knows there will be severe consequences to him for this mistake. On a hunch, he rushes back to his home hideout in the Dominican Republic. The place has all the signs that a violent home invasion has recently taken place. Windows are shattered by gun bullets, indicating a forced entry. Items inside the home are smashed, shot up, or in other forms of disarray. There’s blood on the floor and walls. And his live-in girlfriend Magdala (played by Sophie Charlotte) is missing.
The Killer finds out that Magdala is in a local hospital. She’s been brutally attacked and is temporarily in a coma. Magdala’s brother Marcus (played by Emiliano Pernía) is also at the hospital. Marcus says to The Killer about the home invaders: “They came for you.” When Magdala regains consciousness, she tells The Killer that the two people who attacked her (a man and a woman) were not disguised and she can describe them.
Just like her brother Marcus, Magadala also seems to know what The Killer does for money and that the home invasion had something to do with The Killer’s deadly job. “I didn’t tell them anything,” she says to The Killer, as if she wants to assure him that she will stay loyal to him. The Killer knows this assault is revenge for his botched assassination. He feels guilty about it but he mostly feels very angry.
The rest of “The Killer” shows him on a vendetta to find the people who attacked Magdala and murder them. He has to use detective skills to find these attackers because he doesn’t have much information at the beginning of his investigation. His revenge mission takes him to different parts of North America and Europe. (“The Killer” was filmed in Paris, Illinois and the Dominican Republic.)
Some of the memorable people he encounters along the way are an international trade attorney named Edward Hodges (played by Charles Parnell); Edward’s administrative assistant Dolores (played by Kerry O’Malley); and nameless characters described in the movie’s end credits only as The Expert (played by Tilda Swinton) and The Brute (played by Sala Baker). During his revenge scheme, viewers will hear more of The Killer’s inner thoughts.
A life motto that The Killer keeps repeating are these sentences: “Forbid empathy. Empathy is weakness. Weakness is vulnerability.” One of the main concepts of The Killer is that he thought he could separate his personal feelings and his personal life from his job, but the attack on Magdala was a rude awakening on how his job could dangerously spill over into his personal life. And therefore, his perception of empathy as a “weakness” starts to change.
The Killer previously murdered people for money as a business transaction. Now, he’s on a murderous rampage for emotional reasons and pure revenge. The movie doesn’t try to have any moralistic preaching about which type of murder is more “noble” than the other. The movie hinges on Fassbender’s capable and somewhat fascinating performance, where he has to go from cold-blooded and aloof to someone who is so fired up with thoughts of revenge for a loved one, it becomes his obsession.
Even with all the good acting in “The Killer,” after a while, there are formulaic plot developments. It’s the type of movie that can be suspenseful yet have almost no surprises. Because the intentions of The Killer are very transparent, the only mystery is how he is going to find the elusive home invaders.
“The Killer” is very much a “focus on the present day” movie, since almost nothing is told about The Killer’s past or what might happen to him in the future. For example, the movie doesn’t put a lot of thought into what might happen if The Killer murders the home invaders, and people then try to get revenge him for those murders. Fincher’s directing of “The Killer” is efficient but not particularly imaginative. There’s plenty of physical violence in this movie, but the real story of “The Killer” is mostly about violence of the mind.
Netflix released “The Killer” in select U.S. cinemas on October 27, 2023. The movie will premiere on Netflix on November 10, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Poland, in 1943, the dramatic film “The Zone of Interest” (based loosely on the novel of the same name) features an all-white group of people representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Auschwitz concentration camp commandant/Nazi official Rudolf Höss and his family live with casual indifference near the concentration camp, where about 990,000 Jewish people were murdered during his reign of terror.
Culture Audience: “The Zone of Interest” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of filmmaker Jonathan Glazer and people who are interested in unconventional Holocaust movies.
Sandra Hüller (pictured at right) in “The Zone of Interest” (Photo courtesy of A24)
Most Holocaust movies are shown from the perspectives of the victims or the rescuers. “The Zone of Interest” is told from the perspective of a Nazi leader who thought his job of committing genocide on Jewish people was perfectly normal. It’s a different type of Holocaust movie because it shows with unflinching clarity how the shameful horrors of the Holocaust were casually accepted by Nazi families, such as those of commandant Rudolf Höss. Concentration camps were treated like factories.
Written and directed by Jonathan Glazer, “The Zone of Interest” had its world premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix Award (which is the equivalent of second place) and the FIPRESCI Prize. “The Zone of Interest” has since made the rounds at other films in 2023, including the Telluride Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, and the New York Film Festival. “The Zone of Interest” is loosely based on Martin Amis’ 2014 novel of the same name.
The title refers to the term “used by the Nazi SS to describe the 40-square-kilometer area immediately surrounding the Auschwitz concentration camp on the outskirts of Oświęcim, Poland,” according to the production notes for “The Zone of Interest.” Approximately 990,000 Jewish people died in Auschwitz, which existed from 1940 to 1945. In real life, Höss was the longest-serving commandant of Auschwitz from 1940 to 1943 and from 1944 to 1945. He was eventually convicted of war crimes in 1947, the year that he died at age 45 by an execution hanging.
“The Zone of Interest” takes place in 1943, before Rudolf (played by Christian Friedel) is transferred to another concentration camp. On the surface, “The Zone of Interest” looks like it’s just about the mundane activities of a family. But the movie intends to show how deceptively “normal” people who commit heinous crimes can look, especially when they are surrounded by family members. An early scene in the movie shows Rudolf having a carefree picnic with members of his family near a lake.
Rudolf’s family members who are shown in the movie include his moody wife Hedwig Höss (played by Sandra Hüller), who is kind and loving to her children but rude and demeaning to the family’s housekeepers. Rudolf and Hedwig have five children, ranging in ages from infancy to about 14 years old. They are son Claus Höss (played by Johann Karthaus); son Hans Höss (played by Luis Noah Witte); daughter Inge-Brigit Höss (played by Nele Ahrensmeier); daughter Heideraud Höss (played by Lili Falk) and baby daughter Annagret Höss (played by Anastazja Drobniak, Cecylia Pękala and Kalman Wilson).
Later, Hedwig’s mother Lina Hensel (played by Imogen Kogge) comes to visit. Hedwig tells Lina in a bragging tone of voice, “Rudi says I’m the queen of Auschwitz.” It’s one of a few scenes in the movie where the Nazi followers show their antisemitism like a badge of honor. A cliché movie would have had the Nazis constantly spewing verbal hatred of Jewish people. “The Zone of Interest” more accurately shows that evil bigots don’t often say their most heinous prejudicial thoughts out loud several times a day.
Most of the “The Zone of Interest” takes place in the medium-sized home of the Höss family, where they live close to the death camp known as Auschwitz. The movie was filmed in the same vicinity where the real Auschwitz existed. Rudolf and Hedwig have no problem with the idea that their family is living near a place dedicated to torturing and murdering innocent people. There’s a disturbing scene where the Höss house is shown in a wide shot on a very sunny day that looks perfect—except in the background are the unmistakable smoke fumes of gas chambers being operated at Auschwitz.
The Jewish victims of these atrocities are never seen on screen in “The Zone of Interest.” It’s the movie’s way of saying that when these Nazi perpetrators were at home, Jewish people were “out of sight, out of mind.” However, Rudolf can’t help but take remnants of his work into his home. In one scene, he’s hunched over a bathroom sink as he blows black ash out of his nose into the sink. In another bathroom scene, he carefully washes his penis out of view of his family, with the obvious implication that he committed the type of rape that leaves damning stains.
Another scene shows a close-up of Rudolf standing up at work with only his body in the screen frame. But in the background are the harrowing sounds of people screaming and gunshots. It’s left up to “The Zone of Interest” viewers to speculate what type of crimes against humanity were being committed out of view. Much of “The Zone of Interest” is filmed as if it’s a cinéma vérité-styled documentary about a “typical” family in Poland at this time.
During another scene in the movie, Hedwig is talking at a kitchen table with a few visiting female friends, who are engaging in some gossip. In the next room, Rudolf and some of his SS colleagues are seated at table with their own conversation that is much more sinister: They are discussing the best way to engineer and place gas chamber equipment.
The Nazi men also talk about gas chamber procedures: “burn, cool, unload, reload.” They discuss it as if they’re talking about a regular assembly line routine at a factory, not burning people to death, letting their dead bodies cool off, dumping the bodies, and then bringing in more innocent people to murder in a gas chamber. The Höss family dog is treated with more kindness and respect than these hateful bigots ever had for the Jewish people they slaughtered.
There’s another scene where Rudolf makes a phone call to berate someone into making sure that the lilac bushes at Auschwitz get special care. He makes a threat to say that anyone who makes the lilac bushes “bleed” will be punished. (In other words: “Don’t get any blood on the lilac bushes.”) The Höss family home has a beautiful backyard garden, where the flowers get more care than the people who are starved, tortured and murdered in Auschwitz. It’s another example of how Jewish people’s lives are disregarded by Adolf Hitler devotees such as Rudolf and Hedwig.
Many movies about the Holocaust would want to recreate these disgusting crimes. However, “The Zone of Interest” effectively shakes people up into remembering that the Holocaust was allowed to continue for as long as it did because it was considered a “normal” way of life for many non-Jewish people who chose to look the other way if they didn’t directly participate in this antisemitic genocide. It’s the movie’s reminder that the Holocaust didn’t happen suddenly but in increments. Jewish people were targeted, their rights were gradually taken away, and then they were left vulnerable to being harmed in the Holocaust.
Not everyone in the movie sides overtly sides with the Nazis. The Höss children seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that they are living next to an antisemitic murder facility, although it’s implied that their parents are teaching these children to hate Jewish people. The Höss family has two housekeepers in their late teens or early 20s: meek and passive Marta (played by Martyna Poznańska) gets most of Hedwig’s wrath, while sturdy and reliable Aniela (played by Zuzanna Kobiela) is quietly rebellious and secretly helps feed the starving Jewish people at the concentration camp.
At night, Aniela rides her bicycle to the concentration camp to drop off apples in the dirt where the laborers will find them. She also drops apples into the underground bunker prisons where many of the captured people are being held. Aniela knows which areas to go where she won’t be seen by the soldiers keeping guard. When she’s doing these secretive activities, the movie shows her in night vision-type lighting, as if she’s under secret surveillance by a camera with night vision.
Rudolf and Hedwig talk about things that seem ordinary and typical for people in a middle-class household. Hedwig mentions that she’d like him to take her to a spa in Italy. Rudolf is seen reading a children’s book to one of his daughters in bed. It’s not exactly the movie saying, “Nazis: They’re just like us,” but it’s the movie’s way of letting viewers know that people who believe in this extreme bigotry don’t look like monsters on the outside. They could be the harmless-looking people next door.
In a scene toward the end of movie, Rudolf is standing alone near a stairwell of a government building when he dry heaves and spits on the ground. It’s a scene reminiscent of near the end of the 2012 Oscar-nominated documentary “The Act of Killing,” in which former death squad leader Anwar Congo, who participated in the Indonesian mass killings of 1965 to 1966, begins uncontrollably dry wretching, as if he’s overwhelmed by the memories of what his atrocities looked like and smelled like. In “The Zone of Interest,” a present-day scene at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum shows some of the devastating museum displays that have evidence of the many lives lost in the Holocaust.
Friedel and Hüller give capable performances, but “The Zone of Interest” doesn’t have big, showoff acting for a reason: The point of the movie is not to be about scene-stealing dramatics or to have cartoonish villains. It’s about showing how extraordinary cruelty can be condoned in plain sight and be rendered “ordinary” by the people who enable it to happen.
A24 will release “The Zone of Interest” in select U.S. cinemas on December 8, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Europe and in Egypt, sometime in the 1890s, the fantasy/comedy/drama “Poor Things” (based on the novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Asians and black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A pregnant woman who committed suicide is re-animated from the dead by a scientist, who transplants her unborn child’s brain into her head, and she goes on journey of self-identity and exploring her sexuality, while most of the men she knows try to control her.
Culture Audience: “Poor Things” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of director Yorgos Lanthimos and star Emma Stone, as well as anyone interested in watching offbeat, sexually explicit and very artistic portrayals of human relationships.
Ramy Youssef and Willem Dafoe in “Poor Things” (Photo by Yorgos Lanthimos/Searchlight Pictures)
Bold and uncompromising in its vision, “Poor Things” is cinematic art at its finest. Emma Stone gives a tour-de-force performance in this enthralling and sometimes amusing story about power, control and independence in gender dynamics and female sexuality. Make no mistake: This movie is not for everyone. “Poor Things” isn’t appropriate viewing for people who are too young to watch or are easily offended by full-frontal nudity (male and female) in sex scenes. Many of the movie’s themes about personal freedoms versus society’s restrictions are meant to be thought-provoking, but some viewers won’t like the dark comedy or the way these themes are explored in sometimes unconventional ways.
“Poor Things” is the second movie collaboration between director/producer Yorgos Lanthimos, actress Stone and screenwriter Tony McNamara, after they previously collaborated on 2018’s “The Favourite.” Unlike “The Favourite,” which has an original screenplay, “Poor Things” is adapted from Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel of the same name. “Poor Things” had its world premiere at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival, where the movie won the festival’s highest prize: the Golden Lion, which is the equivalent of Best Picture for the festival. “Poor Things” had its North American premiere at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival and has made the rounds at other film festivals in 2023, including the New York Film Festival and the Zurich Film Festival.
The “Poor Things” movie takes the book’s original setting of Scotland and relocates it to London. The movie’s story is told in chapters, according to whichever city the protagonist happens to be at the time. This protagonist is Bella Baxter (played by Stone, one of the producers of “Poor Things”), a woman with a mysterious past and living in a re-animated body whose age does not match the much-younger brain that she has in her head. Viewers of “Poor Things” are taken on a journey of Bella’s transformation as her brain and cognitive abilities begin developing and maturing.
The movie’s opening scene shows Bella jumping off of a bridge to commit suicide. It’s later revealed that Bella was pregnant when she jumped off of the bridge. A deeply troubled and controlling scientist named Godwin Baxter (played by Willem Dafoe) has rescued her and brought her back to his secretive lab in his isolated London mansion. He decides he will re-animate this mystery woman and transplant the brain of her unborn baby into her head. Godwin (who wants to be called God) gives this re-animated woman the name Bella. The movie shows whether or not Bella ever finds out about her re-animated origins.
Bella’s intelligence and knowledge develop at a rapid pace, but she still starts off with the maturity and brain power of an infant child. The infancy stage of her brain is not shown in the movie. When viewers first see Bella eating at a dinner table, she has the body of a woman but the mannerisms of a human who’s about 2 or 3 years old. She can eat, sit up, and stand on her own, but her body movements are often uncoordinated. She eats food with her hands when most people would use utensils to eat the same food. Her vocabulary is also very simple.
Godwin has no interest in teaching Bella a lot of society’s norms and etiquette, because he intends to never let Bella far from his sight. Godwin knows that what he is dong with Bella is a highly unethical and illegal scientific experiment, so he wants to keep Bella a secret at all costs. (Godwin does other transplants of body parts on animals, as evidenced by the pets on his property, such as a goat with a duck’s head and a chicken with a pug dog’s head.) As Bella’s brain matures, she becomes more curious about the outside world, but Godwin forbids her from going into the populated part of the city. At first, Bella views Godwin as a protective parental figure, but then she starts to feel resentment and rebel against his domineering control of her life.
Bella doesn’t have basic manners that people are taught when they become old enough to speak. Her “no filter” dialogue and actions are supposed to be among the movie’s funniest or the most uncomfortable moments. Bella has “grown up” watching Godwin do autopsies on people, so she develops a fascination with the human body. Later, Bella shows inclinations that she wants to become a medical examiner.
When she discovers masturbation by inserting objects into her vagina, it awakens Bella’s sexuality and becomes the catalyst for many things that occur during the rest of the movie. Because she has not been taught what is right or wrong when it comes to sexual acts, Bella grabs the crotch (out of curiosity) of Godwin’s loyal housekeeper Mrs. Prim (played by Vicki Pepperdine) in front of Godwin, who at least has the decency to tell Bella that she can’t grab people’s crotches without their consent.
Mrs. Prim is one of the few people who know Godwin’s secret about Bella. Godwin soon lets someone else in on his secret: a village doctor named Max McCandles (played by Ramy Youssef), who is hired by Godwin to be his research assistant/protégé and is sworn to secrecy about this job. Max is a polite gentleman who is immediately awestruck and infatuated with Bella. Max treats her with kindness and respect.
Before Max acts on his romantic feelings for Bella, he asks Godwin if Godwin has a sexual interest in Bella. Godwin assures him that he sees himself only as a father figure to Bella. Godwin also confesses to Max that Godwin is sexually impotent and has a traumatic past of being sexually abused by Godwin’s father. Godwin also has severe facial scars that look like his face had been slashed. Godwin says his father was the one who mutilated him.
In his own twisted way, Godwin wants to create a perfect family by keeping them confined to his mansion. And so, he encourages Max to court Bella and gives Max his blessing to propose marriage to Bella—on one big condition: Max can’t leave the mansion either after he marries Bella. Max agrees to this demand.
During this tender and sometimes awkward courtship, a brash and arrogant visitor comes into the household and throws these marriage plans into disarray. He is an attorney named Duncan Wedderburn (played by Mark Ruffalo), who has come to visit because he has the legal contract that Max must sign for Max’s marriage to Bella. At this point, Bella doesn’t fully understand what love is about, but she understands lustful sexual desire and how it can often be a way that some people manipulate others.
Duncan, who is a playboy bachelor, finds Bella to be very attractive and makes lecherous sexual advances on her. He also loves to brag about what a great lover he is. When he finds out that Bella is yearning to explore the outside world, Duncan promises to whisk her away on an adventure trip through Europe, beginning with Lisbon, Portugal. Despite the objections of Godwin and the heartbreak of Max, she eagerly accepts Duncan’s offer and goes away with Duncan.
During this trip, Duncan and Bella have a sexual relationship, but it’s not a relationship based on mutual respect. Duncan treats Bella like a sexual plaything, while she acts like a student who’s eager to learn. And even though Bella wanted to escape the possessive control of Godwin, she finds out too late that Duncan is even more possessive than Godwin. Duncan flies into jealous rages if he thinks that Bella might be sexually interested in other men.
Bella’s journey also takes her to a cruise ship going to Alexandria, Egypt, where she experiences more attempts by Duncan to control her life. During this cruise ship excursion, Bella meets a middle-aged wealthy woman named Martha Von Kurtzroc (played by Hanna Schygulla) and her platonic younger companion Harry Astley (played by Jerrod Carmichael), who give Bella a new, open-minded perspective that women and men can be friends with no sex involved. Martha tells Bella that she’s been celibate for 20 years and is content with having a life with no sex, which is a mind-blowing concept to Bella, who has been led to believe by Duncan that a woman’s primary purpose in life is to sexually pleasure men.
That doesn’t mean that Bella is willing to give up sex, because she likes sex a lot and wants to learn as much about sex as she can. But by coming into contact with a more diverse group of people with various lifestyles, Bella becomes more aware that she has many more options than she ever thought she had. One thing that hasn’t changed about Bella is her innate resistance to being confined and being told what to do with her life.
When Bella and Duncan are in Paris, she makes a life-changing decision that is an assertion of who Bella wants to be as a person capable of being in control of her own life. In Paris, she meets and befriends a heavily tattooed brothel madam named Swiney (played by Kathryn Hunter) and a brothel sex worker named Toinette (played by Suzy Bemba), who pass no judgments on any of Bella’s life decisions. Paris is where Bella truly blossoms. She is no longer trapped in a childlike or teenage mindset but expressing herself as a fully formed adult in her intelligence and emotional maturity.
Back in London, Godwin has moved on to finding another young dead woman to re-animate and control. He names her Felicity (played by Margaret Qualley), but this time, Godwin purposely wants to keep her passive, so he gives Felicity a brain where she probably won’t be able to think as independently as Bella can think. Max is still Godwin’s assistant, because Max is pining over Bella and hopes she will return to London and possibly get back together with him. Meanwhile, a military general named Alfred “Alfie” Blessington (played Christopher Abbott) shows up in the last third of the movie and causes yet another major change in Bella’s life.
“Poor Things” is truly a visual feast filled with a potpourri of great acting. Stone takes on the role of Bella with pure gusto that never gets overly hammy but looks organic and genuine to the Bella character. Aside from the physical demands of this role, the emotional arc that Stone shows in Bella’s evolution is absolutely exceptional. Ruffalo, Dafoe and Youssef also give high-quality performances, while Newton makes a memorable impact in the short amount of screen time that she has the movie.
“Poor Things” will get inevitable comparisons to “Frankenstein,” but the biggest difference in each story’s re-animated character is that Dr. Frankenstein’s creation never has a brain that develops beyond a child-like level. Frankenstein’s monster also never has to deal with the minefield of sexual demands and discrimination that Bella experiences, simply because she’s a female. Even though “Poor Things” is not a horror story like “Frankenstein” is, “Poor Things” holds up a gilded mirror to society to show a different type of horror story: The problem of people trying to control and dictate what women do with their own bodies and with their own lives is not oppression that is stuck in the 1890s but is still very much going on today, with no end in sight.
Aside from the gender issues about sexuality, “Poor Things” has astute observations about gender issues and financial freedom. There comes a point in time when Bella finds out that men aren’t the only people who can choose what to do to make money. Bella also makes a big decision in Alexandria when she is confronted with the harsh realities of poverty and income inequality.
In “Poor Things,” the stunning cinematography by Robbie Ryan (who uses a lot of “fish eye” lens camera work), exquisite production design by Shona Heath and James Price, and the gorgeous costume design by Holly Waddington all give the movie the look of a fantastical Gothic Revival alternate universe that takes place in the 1890s but with touches of modern flair. It’s a world that sometimes looks like a picture book come to life. The movie bursts with sumptuous hues and settings that evoke an “Alice in Wonderland” for adults.
However, Bella’s story is not presented as a typical female-oriented fairy tale where her ultimate goal in life is to find someone to be her soul mate/love partner. She begins to understand that she doesn’t have to be dishonest about herself in order to please others. And if she happens to find true love, it’s only worth it when mutual respect is part of the relationship. “Poor Things” is a work of fiction, but it shows the realities of how society can be both vulgar and civil, how life can be filled with pleasure and pain. It’s a cinematic experience like no other and has cemented itself as one of the best movies ever made by this talented principal cast, crew and other filmmakers.
Searchlight Pictures will release “Poor Things” in U.S. cinemas on December 8, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place mostly in New York state, from the mid-1940s to the mid-1980s, the dramatic film “Maestro” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy in this biopic of mega-famous composer/orchestra conductor Leonard Bernstein.
Culture Clash: Bernstein led a double life as a semi-closeted queer man who had male lovers during his entire relationship with actress Felicia Montealegre, who knew about his true sexuality and was his wife from 1951 until her death from cancer in 1978.
Culture Audience: “Maestro” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Bernstein; stars Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan; and decades-spanning biopics, even if the movie looks like it’s trying too hard to win major awards.
Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan in “Maestro” (Photo by Jason McDonald/Netflix)
“Maestro” skillfully depicts the life of a fiery and mercurial music star, even if this very flawed protagonist will leave some viewers cold because of his unrelenting narcissism and selfishness depicted throughout the movie. In this Leonard Bernstein biopic, his musical talent is a very secondary part of the story, compared to his personal relationships. Some viewers won’t like the timeline jumping and small number of musical scenes, but the acting performances are stellar.
Directed by Bradley Cooper (who co-wrote the “Maestro” screenplay with Josh Singer), “Maestro” had its world premiere at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival and its North American premiere at the 2023 New York Film Festival. Cooper stars in “Maestro” as Bernstein, the influential and very famous composer/orchestra conductor, whose best-known work includes writing the music for “West Side Story” and being the longtime music director for the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Bernstein died in 1990, at the age of 72. For the purposes of this review, the real Leonard Bernstein is referred to as Bernstein, while the character of Leonard Bernstein in “Maestro” is referred to as Leonard.
“Maestro” is Cooper’s second movie as a director. He made his feature-film directorial debut with the 2018 remake of “A Star Is Born,” which is a far superior movie when it comes to authentic-looking scenes that grab people’s emotions and never let go. “Maestro” has all the characteristics of an “awards bait” movie (including Oscar-winning filmmakers Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese as producers), but many of the scenes look a little too staged. The movie’s jumpy timeline editing (the story is told in non-chronological order) gives “Maestro” a fidgety tone that might cause some viewers to lose interest by the time the movie is half-over.
“Maestro” (which takes place mostly in New York state) begins and ends with a scene taking place sometime in the 1980s, when Leonard is giving a recorded TV interview that is being filmed in what appears to be a library room in his home. The “Maestro” scenes that take place in the 1970s and 1980s are in color. Any scene taking place before the 1970s is in black and white. In the beginning of the movie, during this opening interview scene, a frail-looking Leonard plays a little bit of piano while he mumbles a few sentences. (This movie’s makeup and hairstyling are above-average, especially in the scenes with Leonard as an elderly man.)
The movie then suddenly flashes back to New York City to 1946, when Leonard wakes up in bed next to clarinetist David Oppenheim (played by Matt Bomer), his lover at the time. (There is no nudity in this movie.) Leonard (whose real name was Louis Bernstein) playfully slaps David on the rear end before jumping out of bed. At the time, Leonard was a young and famous composer/conductor on the rise in the music world, with lots of charm, confidence and enthusiasm. Leonard prefers to be called Lenny by people he knows or those whom he wants to know.
It isn’t long before social butterfly Leonard meets actress Felicia Montealegre (played by Carey Mulligan) at a party hosted by Claudio Arrau (played by Oscar Pavlo), who was Felicia’s piano instructor at the time. Felicia (who born in Costa Rica, and raised in Chile) is intelligent, witty and very self-assured. Felicia and Leonard have an instant connection expressed through flirting and banter. They soon begin dating, and he is very up front in telling her his secret: He’s also sexually attracted to men. Felicia doesn’t seem to have a problem with it because Leonard makes her happy, and he seems to genuinely love her—just not in the way that he loves men.
Leonard juggles his relationships with David and Felicia, until he decides to spend more time in a committed relationship with Felicia. When Leonard introduces Felicia to David for the first time, the eventually jilted David seems a little envious but not too bothered that Felicia has captured Leonard’s interest. Apparently, David is used to Leonard’s polyamorous ways. Felicia will never really gets used to it.
Someone who approves of Felicia is Leonard’s younger sister Shirley (played by Sarah Silverman), who is sarcastically funny and who knows about Leonard’s true sexuality. The movie depicts Shirley being at the same party where Felicia and Leonard met. Felicia and Shirley become genuine friends. Shirley and Felicia are close enough that Felicia confides in Shirley when she’s having marital problems with Leonard.
As an experienced actress in theater and television, Felicia has her own established career when she meets Leonard. As depicted in “Maestro,” Felicia’s American father Roy Elwood Cohn owns a performing arts theater where she and Leonard meet for dates. Leonard and Felicia have a quick courtship where she’s the one who brings up marriage to him first. “Let’s give it a whirl,” she smiles when they decide to get married. Leonard and Felicia get married in 1951. He was 33, while she was 29.
The movie then flashes forward to 37-year-old Leonard and 33-year-old Felicia as new parents to their first child, a daughter named Jamie. They would eventually have two more children: middle child Alexander (nicknamed Alex) and youngest child Nina. “Maestro” depicts Jamie (played as a teenager and young adult by Maya Hawke) as the child who has the closest bond to Leonard. She is curious and intelligent—just like her father.
Alex and Nina are barely in the movie. Brooklyn Rockett portrays Jamie as a child. Sam Nivola has the role of Alex as a teenager/young adult. Alexa Swinton is Nina as a teenager. Maybe the real-life Alex and Nina did not want to be featured prominently in the movie for privacy reasons. Whatever the reason is, Alex and Nina are sidelined characters with vague personalities.
When Jamie goes away to college, she is the one who asks Leonard if the gossip that she’s hearing about him is true. Jamie doesn’t come right and say what she’s heard, but Leonard knows she’s heard that he has affairs with men. Felicia has made Leonard promise never to tell their children the truth about his sexuality, so he lies to Jamie and says the gossip isn’t true, although he hesitates for a moment as if he’s on the verge of telling her the truth.
Don’t expect “Maestro” to show the inner workings of how some of Bernstein’s classics were made. There are really only two big performance scenes that show Leonard conducting an orchestra. They are masterfully filmed and impactful scenes, but then the movie goes right back to what the majority of the story is about: Leonard pursuing younger men, while Felicia tries and often fails to not be jealous.
The movie hints at but doesn’t explicitly show Leonard’s promiscuity. For example, there’s a scene where married Leonard has a pleasant conversation in a park with David and David’s wife, who have their newborn baby with them. Leonard leans in to talk to the baby and says, “Can I tell you a secret? I slept with both of your parents, but I’m reigning it in.”
The scene is played for laughs (David and his wife think that Leonard’s comment is funny), and it’s an effectively comedic moment in the movie. However, there are underlying issues with Leonard that are shown in this scene—namely, Leonard’s flippant attitude over his comment about “reigning it in” indicates that he knows his sexual antics are probably out of control and hurtful to people, but he doesn’t care enough to really stop the emotional pain he causes. His attitude is: “This is who I am. Deal with it.”
The male lover who becomes a constant companion to Leonard is Tommy Cothran (played by Gideon Glick), who was a music director at a San Francisco radio station when he met Leonard at a party in 1971. When they first meet, Leonard and Tommy flirt openly with each other in front of Felicia. And within minutes, Felicia sees Leonard and Tommy kissing in a hallway at the party. She walks away, looking hurt but not too surprised.
Later, when the relationship between Tommy and Leonard becomes more serious, Leonard insists that Tommy be treated like a member of the family. Tommy is frequently included in family activities, such as meals, trips and parties. When Tommy, Leonard and Felicia go on dates together, Felicia is the one who feels like the awkward third wheel.
At first, Felicia tries to act like she’s okay with this arrangement. But it eventually starts to bother her a lot. Felicia and Leonard have more arguments, and they decide to separate but never get divorced. The movie has hints that Leonard abused cocaine or was addicted to cocaine in the 1970s and 1980s. (Observant viewers will notice how sweaty-looking he is in his older years.)
Felicia asserting herself in her marriage and how she deals with her cancer diagnosis are among the best scenes in “Maestro.” Mulligan excels in these scenes that show Mulligan’s exceptional talent in portraying a wide range of emotions. It’s not an exaggeration to say that although the movie is called “Maestro” and it’s a Leonard Bernstein biopic, the soul of the movie is about Felicia.
Felicia also has some of the best lines in the movie. While arguing with Leonard about his deceitful double life (which she admits she’s enabled), she tells him: “There’s a saying in Chile: ‘Never stand underneath a bird that’s full of shit.’ I’ve been living under that bird for too long.” Later in the argument, Felicia makes this cutting remark to Leonard: “If you’re not careful, you’re going to die a lonely old queen.”
Meanwhile, self-absorbed Leonard utters mopey lines such as, “I feel like the world is on the verge of collapse.” It’s quite an ironic statement, when Leonard is constantly shown to be the one causing chaos in his own personal life. The problem with his attitude is that he acts as if he entitled to do what he wants because it feels good to him, even if it hurts other people. When confronted with the consequences of his actions, he acts as if everyone is uptight and wrong for not understanding him.
“Maestro” certainly is elevated by all the great talent in front of and behind the camera. However, after a while, the movie becomes a little too fixated on Leonard’s marital problems and his obsession with seducing men who are younger and less powerful than he is. (In a lecherous scene that takes place after he and Felicia have separated, Leonard is shown getting sexually involved with one his male students who is in Leonard’s orchestra class.) Cooper gives a very ambitious performance, but it all looks very calculated—a bright, polished sheen on a very troubled and complicated man.
Although technically proficient, “Maestro” needed to be more balanced in the story to show more of Leonard’s musical side. It’s like doing a feature-length biopic about a famous singer and only showing the singer perform two or three songs. The movie looks great, thanks to top-notch cinematography from Matthew Libatique, but the story is told like a book with its chapters slightly jumbled.
“Maestro” wants to have its cake and eat it too: It tries very hard to make it look like Felicia was the love of Leonard’s life, and yet he seemed to care more about making his lover Tommy happy. True love also does not inflict the type of suffering that Felicia endured in the marriage. Although she knew about Leonard’s sexuality before they got married, Felicia probably did not anticipate how his double life would be so painful to her and their children.
Bernstein certainly led a very full and accomplished life that deserves a biopic. And there are definitely plenty of reasons why “Maestro” should be seen by people, especially those who are inclined to watch biographical films about celebrities. Just don’t expect this movie to be completely cohesive or thorough in detailing major aspects of Bernstein’s life that aren’t about how his sexuality affected his personal relationships.
Netflix will release “Maestro” in select U.S. cinemas on November 22, 2023. The movie will premiere on Netflix on December 20, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the United States and in Germany, from 1959 to 1973, the dramatic film “Priscilla” (based on Priscilla Presley’s memoir “Elvis and Me”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: At 14 years old, Priscilla Beaulieu is courted by 24-year-old superstar Elvis Presley, and they get married when she is 21, but their relationship is plagued by his drug addiction, infidelity, and controlling tendencies.
Culture Audience: “Priscilla” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the Elvis Presley family and people who like artfully cinematic versions of memoirs.
Jacob Elordi and Cailee Spaeny in “Priscilla” (Photo courtesy of A24)
With quiet observations and volatile emotions, the biopic “Priscilla” compellingly shows the doomed relationship of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, who had a love affair that was tender and toxic. Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi give riveting performances as this ill-fated couple. “Priscilla” is based on Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir “Elvis and Me,” which at the time revealed many candid details about how suffocating this relationship was for her, even during the happy times, and why she finally had to break free and start a new life.
Written and directed by Sofia Coppola, “Priscilla” has the blessing of Priscilla Presley, who was married to Elvis from 1967 to 1973. (Priscilla is one of the executive producers of the movie.) Elvis died of a heart attack in 1977, when he was 42. “Priscilla” had its world premiere at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival, where Spaeny won the prize for Best Actress. “Priscilla” had its North American premiere at the 2023 New York Film Festival. The movie takes place from 1959 to 1973 (when Priscilla was 14 years old to 28 years old), with Spaeny skillfully portraying Priscilla in every scene.
Most people who are fans of Elvis already know the story of how Elvis and Priscilla met in 1959, at a party at Elvis’ rented home in Bad Nauheim, Germany. (“Priscilla” was actually filmed in Toronto.) The movie shows how Priscilla (born in New York City, raised in Texas) was living in Germany at the time with her mother Ann Beaulieu (played by Dagmara Dominczyk) and stepfather Paul Beaulieu (played by Ari Cohen), because Paul was a captain in the U.S. Air Force, and the family was stationed at a military base in Germany. At the time, Elvis was the biggest music superstar in the world, and he had been drafted into the U.S. Army.
Priscilla’s birth name was Priscilla Wagner. Her biological father, James Frederick Wagner, who was a pilot in the U.S. Navy, died in a plane crash when Priscilla was 6 months old. She was adopted by Paul Beaulieu after he married Priscilla’s mother. Priscilla’s maiden surname was then changed to Beaulieu. In real life, Priscilla had five younger half-siblings, but these siblings are barely in the movie. Everything is completely told from Priscilla’s perspective, from the beginning of her relationship with Elvis to their separation that eventually led to their 1973 divorce.
At the time that Elvis (a boisterous extrovert) and Priscilla (a quiet introvert) met, he was 24, and she was 14. What many movies and TV shows about Elvis often gloss over or try to excuse is the predatory way he pursued this child to go out on dates with him. Although Priscilla claims that Elvis always asked her parents’ permission to go out on dates with her when she was underage, the fact remains that their relationship while she was an underage teen was very inappropriate. “Priscilla” shows in no uncertain terms that the relationship has all the signs of a girl and her parents being “groomed” so that she could eventually be controlled and manipulated by an older lover. In this case, the older lover just happened to be rich and famous.
In “Priscilla,” this imbalance of power is shown right from the start. Elvis’ friend Terry West (played by Luke Humphrey), a military man in charge of booking the base’s entertainment, is the one who actually invited Priscilla to Elvis’ house party. Terry meets Priscilla when he sees Priscilla by herself at a diner on the military base, and he compliments her on how pretty she is before he invites her to Elvis’ party. It makes you wonder if Terry was asked by Elvis to specifically target underage teenage girls to “hang out” with Elvis at these parties, Priscilla’s parents certainly weren’t invited to this party.
The first instinct of Priscilla’s parents is to not allow her to go to the party. Terry assures Ann and Paul that Terry and his wife Carol West (played by Deanna Jarvis) will be chaperoning Priscilla the entire time that Priscilla is at the party. Of course, these chaperones aren’t with Priscilla the entire time, because Priscilla and Elvis have moments when they are alone together. In the movie, when Elvis finds out that Priscilla is only in ninth grade, he says to her, “You’re just a baby.”
Priscilla is naturally flattered by the attention, because she was already a fan of Elvis before they met each other. In one of their early conversations, she tells him that her favorite song is Elvis’ “Heartbreak Hotel.” Elvis likes what he sees and hears when he’s with Priscilla, who is starstruck and overwhelmed by being in Elvis’ presence. Priscilla will eventually see Elvis’ abusive and controlling side, including his nasty temper and his demands that her physical appearance be exactly how he dictates her to look. As Priscilla said in “Elvis and Me” about Elvis: “He was truly a master at manipulating people.”
By the time Priscilla is asked to go on a third date with Elvis, Paul requires that Elvis meet Paul and Ann in person first. Paul is the more skeptical and wary parent, who questions Elvis on why Elvis is pursuing underage Priscilla when Elvis could date women. Elvis tries to spin it as “companion” interest instead of a sexual interest, by telling Paul that he enjoys talking to Priscilla and that she’s “mature” for her age. Elvis also plays the sympathy card, by telling Ann and Paul that Priscilla has been helping him get over the death of his beloved mother, Gladys, who died of a heart attack in 1958. Elvis uses his fame and charm to eventually convince Ann and Paul that his only intentions are to take care of Priscilla like a young friend.
Of course, the relationship became more than friendly and not very innocent. The movie shows Elvis is the one who initiates the first kiss that he and Priscilla have together. And early on in the relationship, he introduces Priscilla to taking pills (uppers such as Dexedrine and downers such as Placidyl) that he was frequently ingesting as a way to cope with his hectic lifestyle. “Priscilla” does not try to excuse the fact that Elvis was knowingly drugging an underage person who didn’t have a prescription for those pills.
As depicted in the movie, Priscilla has no interest or curiosity in taking the pills the first time that Elvis orders her to take these pills. She only does it to please him. It eventually became a pattern in the relationship between Elvis and Priscilla. The movie implies that Priscilla eventually gets hooked on the pills, but her pill habit wasn’t severe enough for her to seek medical help. In “Elvis and Me,” Priscilla said that while she was married to Elvis, she eventually quit taking these types of pills on her own, but Elvis never quit.
In 1960, after Elvis left active duty in the U.S. Army, he went back to the United States. He stopped contacting Priscilla for all of 1960 and a great deal of 1961, while Priscilla pined for him and showed no interest in dating boys her own age. She was also aware of Elvis’ very busy love life that was covered in the media. This type of heartbreaking infatuation is shown with accurate clarity in “Priscilla,” which does a very good job of depicting how the lines can be blurred between fan worship and an unhealthy obsession. Priscilla believes that her connection to Elvis was real in the short time that they spent together, so she’s deeply hurt and confused over why he chooses not to keep in touch with her.
And so, in 1961, when Elvis calls Priscilla out of the blue to pick up right where they left off in their relationship, it’s no wonder that lovelorn Priscilla jumps at the chance. Now older and more assertive (but still under 18), Priscilla threatens to run away to wherever Elvis is if her parents won’t give her permission. Elvis summons Priscilla to Memphis, Tennessee, to visit him on a regular basis at his famous Graceland mansion.
By 1963, when she is 18 years old, Elvis has persuaded Priscilla to live with him at Graceland. Her parents are convinced it will be safe because Graceland is also the home of some of Elvis’ relatives, including Elvis’ father/business manager Vernon Presley (played by Tim Post) and Vernon’s mother Dodger Presley (played by Lynne Griffin), whose real name was Minnie Mae Hood Presley. While she’s in high school, Priscilla’s true relationship with Elvis isn’t officially confirmed to the media because of the scandal it would’ve created.
While out on dates with Elvis, she was presented as Elvis’ close friend, but most people were skeptical that the relationship was strictly platonic. In “Elvis and Me,” Priscilla also mentioned that Elvis used his money and clout to keep many of their dates secretive. For example, he would often rent out an entire movie theater after-hours for him, Priscilla and anyone else who was invited to watch his choice of movies.
The scenes where the adult Elvis is “seducing” underage Priscilla are supposed to be uncomfortable to watch, especially for people who don’t want the words “statutory rape” to be associated with Elvis. In Tennessee, 18 years old is the minimum age of consent to legally have sexual relations with an adult. This was also Tennessee law in the 1960s.
There’s a scene in “Priscilla” where adult Elvis tells underage Priscilla that he won’t have sexual intercourse with her, but “we can do other things.” In “Elvis and Me,” Priscilla admitted that she and Elvis started having sexual relations (which she called “lovemaking”) when she was 16. She claims that they didn’t have full sexual intercourse until their wedding night, when she was 21. Priscilla and Elvis got married on May 1, 1967, less than two weeks before Priscilla’s 22nd birthday.
“Priscilla” will get inevitable comparisons to the Oscar-nominated 2022 biopic “Elvis” (directed and co-written by Baz Luhrmann), but these two movies couldn’t be more different from each other. The bombastic spectacle “Elvis” was sanctioned by Elvis Presley Enterprises and is chock full of Elvis songs and dazzling performance scenes, but the movie doesn’t show Priscilla as anything but a side character, and the movie blocks out any references to legal issues regarding Elvis being sexually involved with an underage girl. The “Elvis” movie does not show how (according to Priscilla) Elvis coldly announced to her that he wanted a trial separation, when she was pregnant with daughter Lisa Marie in late 1967. The separation ended before Lisa Marie was born in February 1968.
“Priscilla,” which has a much lower budget than “Elvis,” is a quieter and more understated character study that is a more accurate depiction of what happened in the relationship between Elvis and Priscilla. Viewers should not expect to see big scenes of Elvis performing his songs in “Priscilla.” There are no Elvis songs in the “Priscilla” movie and only a few brief scenes of him performing on stage. Also noticeably absent in “Priscilla” is Elvis’ domineering manager Colonel Tom Parker, who is the narrator and one of the main characters in 2022’s “Elvis.”
One of the most effective things about “Priscilla” is how it depicts abusive relationships as often starting off as “fairy tale” type of romances. But there are usually warning signs. Early on in their dating relationship, Elvis forbids Priscilla from taking a part-time job at a clothing boutique, by telling her that she has to make this choice of what she wants in her life: “It’s either me or a career.” Long before Elvis and Priscilla are married, he expects her to be at his beck and call, while he doesn’t have to answer to her about any of his activities or life decisions. Elvis gets very angry when Priscilla asks questions about what he does when he’s away from her.
And when there are obvious signs that Elvis is cheating on Priscilla (his “Viva Las Vegas” co-star Ann-Margret is mentioned as Priscilla’s biggest rival), he tries to make Priscilla sound paranoid or imagining things when she brings up her infidelity suspicions to him. When the couple’s arguments get physical (there’s a scene where Elvis throws a chair at Priscilla, but the chair narrowly misses her; another scene shows Elvis harshly shoving Priscilla), Elvis does the typical abuser “love bombing” of making profuse apologies and promising that the abuse will never happen again. Elvis is shown as someone who was unpredictable, with a temper that could go from one extreme to another in a matter of minutes. There are enough good times to convince Priscilla to stay in the relationship longer than she should have, but the abuse never really leaves the relationship.
“Priscilla” has many scenes in the movie that are taken directly from “Elvis and Me,” often using some of the same lines of dialogue that are quoted in the book. For example, the movie recreates the section in the book where teenage Priscilla is desperate to get a good grade on a math test, in order to graduate from high school. And so, she convinces the straight-A female student sitting next her during the test to let Priscilla copy the answers on her test, with the implied promise that the other student will be invited to one of Elvis’ parties as a reward.
One of the many other experiences described in the “Elvis and Me” book that’s recreated in the “Priscilla” movie is when underage Priscilla visits Elvis at Graceland, sometime in 1961, when they had rekindled their dating relationship. During this visit, she is once again not accompanied by her parents when spending time with Elvis. Elvis tells Priscilla to take some pills. She goes into a deep sleep that she thinks lasts for a few hours. When she finally wakes up from her groggy stupor, Elvis tells her she’s been barely conscious for two days, and he refused to take her to a hospital. This is the type of disturbing experience that isn’t in most movies or TV shows about Elvis.
During the marriage of Priscilla and Elvis, they maintain a home at Graceland; at a ranch in Horn Lake, Mississippi; and at a mansion in the Los Angeles area. Elvis and Priscilla also spend a lot of time in Las Vegas, where Elvis had a concert residency at Las Vegas International Hotel, from 1969 to 1976. (The hotel’s name is now Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino.) Elvis and Priscilla share a fondness for certain animals as pets, particularly dogs and horses. A West Highland White Terrier (a gift from Elvis to Priscilla) becomes Priscilla’s constant companion in many scenes. In real life, this dog was a white poodle named Honey.
Elvis’ self-titled 1968 concert special on NBC (also known as the Elvis comeback special) is depicted as a triumphant and happy experience that Elvis and Priscilla watched on TV with members of their inner circle. Elvis would also host several parties and musical jam sessions. Unlike the 2022 “Elvis” movie, “Priscilla” does not have several depictions of other celebrities who knew Elvis. As shown in “Priscilla,” any good times that Elvis and Priscilla had also came with bad times that were the eventual undoing of this marriage.
In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, “Priscilla” shows that the glamorous sides of fame and fortune—such as shopping sprees, high-priced gifts and lavish trips—were just superficial things that did not impact the marriage of Elvis and Priscilla nearly as much as the abuse and disrespect that she suffered during the marriage. As seen in the movie, Priscilla can come home with shopping bags of expensive items, but when she’s at home, she goes back to being an oppressed wife whose husband makes restrictive demands on her or ignores her while he’s away enjoying the company of other women.
Priscilla is also constantly reminded that Elvis has more power than she ever will. When she is a teenage student, he visits the Catholic high school where Priscilla attends after she moved to Memphis. Some of the school’s nuns are star-struck and act like giddy schoolgirls when they ask to take photos with Elvis. When she is a married adult, Elvis refuses to let Priscilla to get a job or have any career interests. Long before they are married, he tells her as an underage child that her life has to revolve around him, in order for him to really love her and be in a relationship with her.
“Priscilla” also shows the painful loneliness that often comes with dating a busy celebrity. While in high school, Priscilla doesn’t have many friends. She’s considered “different” or “unapproachable” because she’s dating Elvis. She’s also predictably the subject of a lot of gossip and is told by Elvis not to mingle with people who could spread information about their relationship. Vernon also won’t allow Priscilla to bring any visitors to Graceland, where she was living during her last year in high school in 1963.
As an adult, Priscilla is frequently left alone while Elvis is touring or working on a movie. Elvis would often forbid her to visit him where he was working. And if she was allowed to visit him, she could only stay for a very short period of time. Priscilla often had to find out what Elvis was doing with other women in his free time by hearing about or seeing these antics in the media.
“Priscilla” shows that Priscilla has some female friends, but those friendships are briefly depicted in the movie as social friends, not close confidantes who know all the details about Priscilla’s misery in her marriage. It’s one of the few areas of the movie that is in direct contrast to Priscilla’s account in her “Elvis and Me” memoir. In the book, Priscilla details her close female friendships, particularly with Joan Esposito, the first wife of Elvis’ longtime tour manager Joe Esposito.
And sometimes, the loneliness that Priscilla experienced was when Elvis was physically there with her but emotionally far apart. The movie portrays Elvis’ mid-1960s obsession with various religions and philosophies in his quest to find the true meaning of life. Elvis’ hairstylist Larry (played R Austin Ball), based on the real Larry Geller, becomes a self-appointed spiritual guru for Elvis. Larry is the one encourages Elvis and Priscilla to take LSD for the first time. (In “Elvis and Me,” Priscilla said she and Elvis only took LSD once when they were a couple.) This “acid trip” is depicted in the movie, but not quite in the way that it’s described in “Elvis and Me.”
The movie portrays Priscilla’s eventual discontent over Elvis’ spiritual philosophy activities, because she felt it was ruining their marriage. In bed, she would try to be sexually intimate with him, but he would demand that she listen to him while he read spiritual and philosophical books out loud to her. By the mid-1960s, he was inviting people to have Bible studies at their Bel Air home. He would lead these Bible studies, which would last for hours per session. All the Bible study guests were young, adoring females, who would mutually flirt with Elvis, while Priscilla was usually in the same room.
Elvis’ notorious all-male entourage, nicknamed the Memphis Mafia, is depicted as mostly carousing “yes men.” Elvis and the Memphis Mafia leer and gawk at Priscilla when she is forced to make herself look sexy for them, such as trying on and modeling dresses for Elvis and his Memphis Mafia, while they give their opinions on how she looks. This judgmental leering has a sleazy factor when you consider that Priscilla is an underage teen in these scenes.
After Elvis and Priscilla become parents to daughter Lisa Marie, he spends even less time with his family. (Raine Monroe Boland as the role of Lisa Marie at age 3. Emily Mitchell has the role of Lisa Marie at age 5.) The smiling Presley family portraits during this time often masked a marriage that was fracturing and would eventually permanently break.
“Priscilla” doesn’t make Priscilla look saintly, but the movie could have been more honest in showing that Elvis wasn’t the only one who was unfaithful in their marriage. In “Elvis and Me,” Priscilla admitted she had an affair with her karate instructor Mike Stone in 1972, before she made the decision to leave Elvis. The “Priscilla” movie hints that Mike Stone (played by Evan Annisette) and Priscilla were sexually intimate, but the movie has no outright depiction or admission of this extramarital affair.
Overall, writer/director Coppola has a very impressive eye for detail and adds some artistic touches to this biopic. In the “Elvis and Me” book, Priscilla made a sarcastic joke about how her choice in dresses often had to be compatible with whichever gun she would be carrying. (Elvis liked giving her pistols as gifts.) In the movie, there’s a shot of three dresses displayed on a bed with different pistols lying on each dress, as if the pistols are clothing accessories. The cinematography, costume design and production design of “Priscilla” are all on point for this splendid-looking movie.
It’s truly fascinating to behold Spaeny’s ability to show the emotional range and evolution of Priscilla at all these different stages in Priscilla’s life, from childhood to adulthood. Elordi’s portrayal of Elvis as an outwardly confident but inwardly insecure superstar is also admirable in its nuances, even though Elvis doesn’t change as much as Priscilla does in this movie. Because “Priscilla” revolves so much around Priscilla and Elvis, everyone else is a side character with not much development.
Did Elvis and Priscilla have true love? Maybe. But it was also a very dysfunctional and unbalanced relationship where Elvis always wanted to control Priscilla. It was never the type of love where there was equal respect between the partners. Because “Elvis and Me” was published in 1985, and because “Priscilla” stays mostly faithful to the book, there isn’t any new information revealed in this movie. However, in the growing list of Elvis Presley-related movies, “Priscilla” is in a class by itself for celebrating someone in Elvis’ inner circle who had the courage to leave an unhealthy situation where many people would willingly stay because of the fame and money.
A24 will release “Priscilla” in select U.S. cinemas on October 27, 2023, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on November 3, 2023.
