Tag: reviews

Review: ‘Kompromat,’ starring Gilles Lellouche and Joanna Kulig

April 8, 2023

by Carla Hay

Gilles Lellouche (center) in “Kompromat” (Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing)

“Kompromat”

Directed by Jérôme Salle

Russian and French with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Russia and Estonia, the dramatic film “Kompromat” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A French diplomat living in Russia is falsely accused of child sex abuse, and he breaks out of jail to go into hiding and possibly try to prove his innocence. 

Culture Audience: “Kompromat” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching political thrillers, even if these thrillers stretch the bounds of credibility.

Joanna Kulig in “Kompromat” (Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing)

“Kompromat” delivers great suspense, and it benefits from an absorbing lead performance from Gilles Lellouche, but the movie becomes more far-fetched as it goes along. It weakens the intended message that everything in this drama could happen in real life. “Kompromat” is supposed to be “based on a true story,” but what mostly rings true is the conspiracy aspect of the story, not what happens after the main character escapes from prison. His prison escape is already revealed in the “Kompromat” trailer.

Directed by Jérôme Salle (who co-wrote the “Kompromat” screenplay with Caryl Ferey), “Kompromat” has a title that is the Russian word for documents used to destroy someone’s reputation. In the case of this story, the person whose reputation is destroyed is a French diplomat living in Irkutsk, Russia. His name is Mathieu Roussel (played by Lellouche), and he works as the director of the French Alliance, which is a cultural exchange between France and other countries. Some sections of “Kompromat” are told in flashbacks, so viewers have to put pieces of the narrative puzzle together.

Part of Mathieu’s job is promote French culture in Siberia, Russia. In the beginning of the story, Mathieu is well-respected by his colleagues, which include a woman named Michèle (played by Judith Henry), who is the cultural attaché at the French Embassy in Russia. Mathieu is shown giving a well-received speech, where he thanks Andrei Ivanovich (played by Mikhail Safronov), who is the equivalent to being Mathieu’s Russian counterpart. Mathieu is sought-after by the media, because a TV network wants to interview him.

As for his personal life, Mathieu and his wife Alice Roussel (played by Elisa Lasowski) have had a somewhat cold and distant relationship lately. Their marriage has become strained because Alice didn’t want to relocate from France to Russia. Alice really wants to move back to France, but Mathieu likes how things are going with his job in Russia.

Mathieu thinks the problems in their marriage aren’t serious enough where he and Alice will separate. Alice and Mathieu are both devoted parents to a daughter named Rose (played by Olivia Malahieude), who’s about 5 or 6 years old. The spouses also have a nanny named Julia (played by Larisa Kalpokaite), who works part-time for the family.

Mathieu makes a fateful decision to bring a French experimental performing arts show to a big Russian theater. There’s a homoerotic aspect to the show, when two shirtless men dance on stage and then kiss passionately. Even though there are only adults in the audience, Mathieu underestimates how conservative Russia is when it comes to public homosexuality. There are noticeable uncomfortable and disgusted reactions from several members of the audience. A few people walk out of the venue after seeing these two men kiss each other.

Mathieu knows this performance was not as well-received as he hoped it would be. He goes to a nightclub and gets drunk. One of the people he sees in the club is a young woman he was briefly introduced to in the venue’s foyer before the performance. Her name is Svetlana (played by Joanna Kulig), who works as a French-language teacher for the French Alliance.

Svetlana and Mathieu do some flirty dancing with each other at the nightclub. Someone at the nightclub who notices this flirtation is Dmitri Rostov (played by Mikhail Gorevoy, also known as Mikhail Gor), who has a brief conversation with Mathieu, by asking him if Mathieu thinks Svetlana is pretty. “Do you know her?” Mathieu asks.

Mathieu doesn’t find out until much later that Dmitri is Svetlana’s father-in-law. Svetlana is in a very unhappy marriage to Dmitiri’s abusive and insecure son Sasha Rostov (played by Daniil Vorobyov), who is an alcoholic. Sasha frequently accuses Svetlana of cheating on him. Dmitri and Sasha are in the same line of work, which is later revealed in the movie and which will have a direct effect on what happens to Mathieu and Svetlana.

Shortly after this performance and nightclub encounter, that’s when Mathieu’s troubles start. He is suddenly arrested without warning at his home, in front of Rose and Julia the nanny. In a police interrogation room, where Mathieu is handcuffed to a chair, he is told that he has been arrested for distributing child pornography and for sexually molesting Rose. Mathieu is in shock and vigorously denies the charges. “It’s impossible,” he says when told what he’s been accused of doing.

Mathieu gets put in a jail without bail and without being able to speak to an attorney right away. He’s in a jail cell with about 10 other men. One of the men, who is the obvious bully leader, demands that Mathieu tell him why Mathieu was arrested. Mathieu is smart enough to know that people arrested for sex crimes against children get the worst abuse in prison, so Mathieu lies and says he doesn’t know why he was arrested.

The inmate thug tells Mathieu: “There are three categories of men here: Men we respect, men we beat, and men we fuck.” The bully also warns Mathieu that there are ways to find out why Mathieu was arrested. Of course, the other inmates find out why Mathieu was arrested, which leads to scenes of Mathieu getting brutally attacked and humiliated.

With Michèle’s help, Mathieu gets a well-respected attorney named Mr. Borodin (played by Aleksey Gorbunov), who tells Mathieu some very bad news: The Russian government has framed Mathieu with false documents and has already decided that Mathieu will get 10 to 15 years in prison. This is information that’s also revealed in the “Kompromat” trailer, which shows about 80% of the movie’s plot.

A shocked Mathieu gets even more disturbing news when he finds out it wasn’t just the controversial homoerotic dance performance that got him in trouble with the Russian government. Someone very close to Mathieu betrayed him, in order to get him out of the way and fulfill a specific agenda. After Mathieu finds out about this betrayal, he doesn’t think he has anything left to lose, so he escapes from jail before going to trial. This jail escape is a plot development that’s also revealed in the “Kompromat” trailer.

The “Kompromat” trailer also reveals that Mathieu gets help from Svetlana in going on the run from law enforcement. Also shown in the trailer are some pivotal fight scenes that really should have been left out of the trailer. And so, if anyone sees the “Kompromat” trailer before watching “Kompromat,” then many things that should have been surprises have already been revealed.

The only things that the “Kompromat” trailer don’t reveal about the movie are (1) whether or not Mathieu gets captured after he goes on the run and (2) whether or not Mathieu and Svetlana become romantic involved with each other. The last third of the movie has some hard-to-believe occurences. For example, Svetlana is suspected of helping Mathieu, but she’s never put under the type of surveillance that she would get in real life. This lack of credibility doesn’t ruin the movie, but it does make the end of the film look phony.

However, there are many parts of “Kompromat” that are very realistic and harrowing, thereby making up for the flaws in the movie. Lellouche gives the type of engaging performance that makes it easy to root for Mathieu to get out of his nightmare situation and reunite with his loved ones. And if this movie is “based a true story,” then it’s based on an untold number of people who’ve been the victims of real-life kompromat situations.

Kulig as Svetlana also performs well in the movie, but Svetlana’s storyline has a very noticeable contradiction to lowers the movie’s credibility: Svetlana’s husband and father-in-law are controlling and have ways of spying on her, but Svetlana can also can slip away for extensive periods of time to travel with Mathieu for long distances. The ending of “Kompromat” looks like a compromise for the sake of an expected formula. But at that point in “Kompromat,” viewers should know that the movie has traded in realism for a heightened version of reality, in order to ramp up the action and suspense.

Magnet Releasing released “Kompromat” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on January 27, 2023.

Review: ‘Last Sentinel,’ starring Kate Bosworth, Lucien Laviscount, Thomas Kretschmann and Martin McCann

April 8, 2023

by Carla Hay

Lucien Laviscount and Kate Bosworth in “Last Sentinel” (Photo courtesy of Vertical)

“Last Sentinel”

Directed by Tanel Toom

Culture Representation: Taking place in an apocalyptic future on a ship in an unnamed ocean, the sci-fi drama film “Last Sentinel” features a nearly all-white cast of characters (with one black/biracial person) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: After an environmental crisis has devastated Earth, four military personnel are stranded at an outpost in the ocean and have conflicts over if or when to leave the outpost. 

Culture Audience: “Last Sentinel” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching dull and illogical apocalyptic movies.

Martin McCann and Lucien Laviscount in “Last Sentinel” (Photo courtesy of Vertical)

“Last Sentinel” is a dreary slog of a movie about four quarreling military people stranded on an outpost in the ocean. This lackluster drama has a thin plot that gets dragged out and tangled up in a lot of nonsense. The majority of the film is tedious repetition of these four people arguing about if or when they should leave the outpost. Viewers will learn very little about these characters and their lives by the end of the movie.

Directed by Tanel Toom and written by Malachi Smyth, “Last Sentinel” is a movie that looks like it would have been better off as a short film. It’s obvious that the filmmakers ran of out ideas of how to make “Last Sentinel” suspenseful, and they just reverted back to having more scenes of the characters arguing. It’s lazy filmmaking, because that screen time could have been used to give viewers more information about the backstories of each of these characters, in order to explain the characters’ motivations and to get viewers to care about these characters.

An on-screen written introduction to “Last Sentinel” explains that the movie takes place in an unidentified future when climate change has devastated Earth and left most of the planet flooded. Most of the human population is now dead. “Survival is a constant fight for land and resources,” the statement reads. A military outpost, consisting of a lookout tower and a mid-sized cargo ship, is stationed in an unnamed ocean. The four people at this outpost signed up to be there for two years.

The two-year period is now over, and they are expecting to go home. (The movie never mentions where “home” is for any of these characters.) These military people have been patiently waiting for other military personnel to arrive who will replace them at this outpost. This expected “relief crew” is now three months overdue.

These are the four sentinels at this outpost:

  • Cassidy (played by Kate Bosworth), a corporal who is American, is the one who is most likely to use the communication equipment on the ship.
  • Sullivan, nicknamed Sully (played by Lucien Laviscount), is an American, and he does a lot of the fishing and exploring for this team. Cassidy helps with gathering food too.
  • Richard Baines, nicknamed Baines (played by Martin McCann), is Scottish and the ship’s chief engineer.
  • Henrichs (played by Thomas Kretschmann), a sergeant with a German accent, is the leader of the team.

Sullivan and Baines are the most anxious of the four to leave the outpost and go home. Henrichs is a stern taskmaster who remains adamant that they can’t leave the outpost until the relief crew shows up to replace them. Cassidy vacillates back and forth about staying at the outpost or leaving. Sullivan and Cassidy are semi-secret lovers, but Sullivan seems to have more romantic feelings for Cassidy than she does for him. Baines is a hothead/loose cannon with a shady past, but he’s not the only one with secrets.

The communications equipment on the ship is faulty, since no one is answering the messages that they send out. The team gets messages that the relief crew already arrived, but there is no sign of this crew. (“Last Sentinel” is not a horror movie with a supernatural element.) Meanwhile, viewers have to sit through idiotic lines of dialogue, such as Cassidy saying: “The only way to un-fuck the world is to wipe out humans.”

The acting in “Last Sentinel” isn’t anything special, although Laviscount (who is British in real life) and McCann (who is from Northern Ireland) do pretty good jobs of having language accents that are different from their real ethnicities. “Last Sentinel” truly wastes a lot of time with meaningless scenes that do little to further the story. By the time a “reveal” happens near the end of the film, it just raises more questions that “Last Sentinel” never bothers to answer.

During this entire long-winded movie that last nearly two hours, it’s never explained what these four people were supposed to be doing for two years on this outpost in the middle of the ocean. In the beginning of the movie, it’s mentioned that these four sentinels are nearly out of food, and their recent fishing attempts have come up empty. The possibility of starving to death is unrealistically never mentioned again, as these four dimwits waste time arguing and pointing guns at each other. There doesn’t seem to be any good reason for this terribly boring and ridiculous movie to exist, unless someone with insomnia wants to use it as an effective way to fall asleep.

Vertical released “Last Sentinel” in select U.S. cinemas on March 24, 2023.

Review: ‘His Only Son,’ starring Nicolas Mouawad, Sara Seyed, Edaan Moskowitz, Ottavio Taddei and Nicolai Perez

April 7, 2023

by Carla Hay

Edaan Moskowitz and Nicolas Mouawad in “His Only Son” (Photo courtesy of Angel Studios)

“His Only Son”

Directed by David Helling

Culture Representation: Taking place in ancient Canaan and Moriah, the dramatic film “His Only Son” features a white, Middle Eastern and Egyptian cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class from Judeo-Christian teachings.

Culture Clash: Religious prophet Abraham travels to Moriah after he gets a command from God to prove his loyalty by sacrificing the life of Abraham’s son Isaac. 

Culture Audience: “His Only Son” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in faith-based movies that are dramatic movie versions of religious teachings.

Nicolas Mouawad and Edaan Moskowitz in “His Only Son” (Photo courtesy of Angel Studios)

“His Only Son” is a worthy, low-budget drama about religious figure Abraham, when he was called by God to make his greatest sacrifice: the life of his son. The depiction of Abraham’s troubled marriage gives this reverent movie some grit. “His Only Son” is a mixed bag, with some acting performances and technical aspects that are better than other acting performances and technical aspects in the movie. However, viewers who are inclined to watch faith-based films will probably find a lot to like about this earnest movie.

Written and directed by David Helling, “His Only Son” is truly a passion project, since Helling decided to become a filmmaker so he could make this movie and other movies about religious figures from the Christian Bible. Helling has said the production budget for “His Only Son” was only $250,000. That low budget can be seen in the movie’s hairstyling (wigs and fake beards that look cheap) and the small number of locations and cast members in the film. However, the movie’s cinematography is often striking, visually creative, and on par with movies that have production costs that are 100 times higher than what it cost to make “His Only Son.”

People who already know the story of Abraham’s journey from his land of Canaan (where he is the leader) to Moriah to sacrifice his son Isaac won’t find any surprises in “His Only Son,” regarding the outcome of this journey. The movie also has faithful depictions of the Judeo-Christian teachings of Abraham frequently having visions where he communicates with God and gets commands and prophecies from God. What might surprise people is how the movie portrays how all of these visions took a serious toll on Abraham’s marriage.

“His Only Son” frequently shows flashbacks of Abraham’s life while Abraham (played by Nicolas Mouawad) goes on the journey to Moriah with Isaac and two other young men from Canaan: loyal Kelzar (played by Ottavio Taddei) and skeptical Eshcolam (played by Nicolai Perez, also know as Reji Lukai). Kelzar is son of Abraham’s chief servant Eliezer (played by Luis Fernandez-Gil), who offered Kelzar to be a part of this travel group.

The trip to Moriah takes three days by walking. “His Only Son” has a subplot about this group facing a moral dilemma concerning a severely wounded man (played by Matthew Dorio) and his kidnapped young adult daughter (played by Alexandria Lior), who have been attacked by four marauders (played by Kevin Kapellas, Steve Judkins, Nathan Tetreault and Mario Dagget). “His Only Son” doesn’t make too much of a detour in this subplot, but it seems like it was put in the movie to fill up time and so the story would have some action-oriented suspense.

The flashbacks to Abraham’s life go as far as back 40 years before he took this journey to Moriah. Abraham has been having visions of God (played by Daniel da Silva), who promised Abraham that he would rule over Canaan and pass on this legacy to his children. The problem is that Abraham’s wife Sarah (played Sara Seyed) has spent several years of their marriage trying to get pregnant, to no avail. Canaan’s barren land has made the couple’s financial future very insecure. And so, at Sarah’s urging, Abraham and Sarah move to Egypt for more fruitful land.

As the years go by and Sarah still appears to be infertile, she becomes tired of Abraham telling her to be patient. Abraham repeatedly reminds Sarah that God told Abraham that Abraham would have a son. Sarah begins to panic when she approaches the age range when most women are menopausal. She thinks the prophecy that Abraham will have a son is God’s way of saying that Abraham will have a child with another woman, so she offers her maid Hagar (played by Eta Pico) to be Abraham’s other “wife.”

Sarah regrets the decision after Hagar gets pregnant. Sarah is angry and ashamed, because she thinks that she has lost respect from Hagar and others in the community who know about this arrangement. Sarah verbally lashes out at Abraham for accepting Sarah’s insistent offer to get another woman pregnant so that Abraham can have an heir. Abraham isn’t wrong when he reminds Sarah that it was all her idea for him to impregnant Hagar, because Sarah lost faith that Sarah would get pregnant.

It’s not spoiler information to say that Sarah gets pregnant and gives birth to Isaac. It’s necessary to mention that information in this review because “His Only Son” mishandles the subplot about Hagar getting pregnant. Hagar and her pregnancy are not seen or mentioned in the movie again after Sarah gives birth to Isaac. It’s a plot hole that ignores the religious teaching that Hagar gave birth to Abraham’s first son Ishmael, who lived to a very old age. Therefore, it’s not entirely accurate to name this movie “His Only Son.”

As the Abraham character, Mouawad gives a solid performance in portraying someone with strong faith that still gets tested. Seyed’s depiction of Sarah can get a tad too melodramatic, but she’s a scene stealer who grounds the movie in the realism that it would not be easy to be married to a prophet who claims to have a direct line of communication with God. It’s also refreshing that “His Only Son” does not portray all of the women in the film as passive or subservient to men (as many Bible-oriented movies tend to do), since Sarah has a very strong-willed and opionionated personality. The rest of the cast members are serviceable in their roles.

“His Only Son” occasionally plods along at a dull pace. And some of the dialogue is terribly simplistic. However, the main characters are compelling, and the movie does a very good job of showing people’s different perspectives of what it means to have “faith in God.” Helling also admirably didn’t try to make these characters sound British or American (another historical inaccuracy that many Bible-based movies have) and instead had the characters in “His Only Son” talk with historically accurate Hebrew or Egyptian accents. It’s a movie that certainly makes the most out of its low budget and delivers a capable story about one of the most lauded religious figures of all time.

Angel Studios released “His Only Son” in U.S. cinemas on March 31, 2023.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35SO8kOW7Ro

Review: ‘Showing Up’ (2023), starring Michelle Williams, Hong Chau, John Magaro, André Benjamin and Judd Hirsch

April 7, 2023

by Carla Hay

Michelle Williams and Hong Chau in “Showing Up” (Photo by Allyson Riggs/A24)

“Showing Up” (2023)

Directed by Kelly Reichardt

Culture Representation: Taking place in Portland, Oregon, the comedy/drama film “Showing Up” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: An introverted sculptor artist, who works for an arts college, must contend with a variety of challenges, including a difficult landlord, getting her art ready in time for an upcoming exhibit, her divorced parents and a troubled brother with mental health issues. 

Culture Audience: “Showing Up” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Michelle Williams, filmmaker Kelly Reichardt and realistic movies about neurotic people in quirky communities.

André Benjamin and Michelle Williams in “Showing Up” (Photo courtesy of A24)

“Showing Up” is right in line with writer/director Kelly Reichardt’s pattern of doing low-key movies about people who are emotionally stifled in some way. The last third movie is not as good as the rest of the film, but it’s still a watchable story. Viewers who are expecting “Showing Up” to have a lot of melodrama, suspenseful action or shocking surprises will be disappointed. In keeping with Reichardt’s filmmaking style, “Showing Up” is a movie about people going about their everyday lives and facing challenges that aren’t that unusual. “Showing Up” had its world premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and also screened the 2022 New York Film Festival.

Reichardt co-wrote “Showing Up” with Jonathan Raymond after they originally wanted to do a biopic about Canadian artist Emily Carr (who died in 1945, at the age of 73), but Reichardt and Raymond abandoned the idea when they found out how famous Carr is in Canada. Instead, they made “Showing Up” a fictional film about a sculptor artist named Lizzy Carr (played by Michelle Williams), who is not famous and is living a quiet and unassuming life in Portland, Oregon.

Lizzy is a sculptor artist whose day job is working in administration at a small arts college. (The college scenes in “Showing Up” were filmed at now-defunct Oregon College of Art and Craft, which closed in 2019.) Lizzy is introverted and lives by herself. When she’s at home, she prefers to work on her art and doesn’t like being interrupted. Lizzy doesn’t get her art in gallery exhibits very often. And so, the upcoming gallery exhibit that she has is a very big deal for her.

Most of Lizzy’s sculptor pieces are the size of figurines and are often of people sculpted in ragged shapes. Lizzy wants to finish all of her art on time for this exhibit, but several things happen during the course of the story that prevent her for working on her art in the uninterrupted way that she would prefer. “Showing Up” is mostly about how she deals with these challenges, as well as what she learns about herself and her priorities.

In the beginning of the movie, Lizzy is dealing with one of those challenges: her landlord Jo (played by Hong Chau), who is also an artist. Jo has an annoying habit of ignoring or delaying Lizzy’s request to repair things in Lizzy’s rental home. (Jo lives nearby.) One of the movie’s early scenes shows Lizzy becoming irritated with Jo because Lizzy has no hot water for her shower, and Jo has once again been ignoring Lizzy’s requests to fix the shower.

Jo tells Lizzy that Lizzy can use Jo’s shower in the meantime. But that’s not the point. Lizzy is paying Jo rent to have working utilities in the home. Jo isn’t keeping her end of the deal as a landlord. Lizzy comments to Jo, “You’re not the only person with a deadline.” Jo’s replies, “I know, but I have two showers, which is in insane.”

Lizzy’s art in the movie was made in real life by Cynthia Lahti. Jo’s installation-sized art in the movie was made in real life by Michelle Segre. The sizes of art pieces are meant to reflect the different personalities of Lizzy and Jo. Lizzy is quiet and unassuming. Jo is extroverted and likes to call attention to herself.

Lizzy has some other issues in her life. Her mother Jean (played by Maryann Plunkett) is also her boss at work. Jean and Lizzy sometimes have disagreements that on the surface seem to be about work, but they’re really about unspoken resentments that Lizzy and Jean have toward each other. Jean thinks Lizzy is stubborn, while Lizzy thinks Jean is too demanding. Their conflicts aren’t major, but they’re enough to make the relationship slightly strained.

A lot of this mother-daughter friction has to do with how Lizzy has been affected by her parents’ divorce. Jean uses Lizzy as a go-between to communicate with Lizzy’s free-spirited father Bill (played by Judd Hirsch), who is very different from uptight and rigid Jean. Bill has let a random bohemian couple named Dorothy (played by Amanda Plummer) and Lee (played by Matt Malloy) live with Bill in his home, shortly after he met them. Dorothy and Lee, who are from Canada, say they’re just “visiting,” but they haven’t told Bill when they’ll be leaving.

Jean thinks that Bill is being taken advantage of by this couple, because she’s pretty sure these new housemates are not giving Bill any compensation for his hospitality. Because Jean is Bill’s ex-wife and no longer lives with him, she doesn’t have a say on how he lives his life. However, Jean is pressuring Lizzy to talk to Bill about his living arrangement with these two new housemates. Lizzy doesn’t really want to get involved, so she resents that her mother is trying to use her as a pawn.

Meanwhile, Lizzy has a younger brother named Sean (played by John Magaro), who’s been struggling with mental health issues, which have led to him being homeless at various times in his life. Jean is in deep denial about Sean’s mental health issues. Jean thinks Sean is a “genius” who doesn’t need psychiatric help, while Lizzy has a completely opposite opinion.

When Sean has a big scene in a certain part of the movie, “Showing Up” falters because it just looks like awkward slapstick comedy. “Showing Up” loses a lot of emotional resonance in this scene where the movie could have been had its strongest and most meaningful impact. And frankly, it seems like this mentally ill character is just used in the most negative, stereotypical ways, instead of treating this character as a well-rounded person.

Another wasted opportunity was in casting André Benjamin as Eric, Lizzy’s friendly co-worker who is a kiln master at the college. Benjamin shares headlining billing for this movie, but you wouldn’t know it, based it on how little screen time he has (less than 10 minutes) and how Eric ends up being a character who is completely inconsequential to any storyline in the movie. Quite frankly, Eric looks like a token character in “Showing Up,” as if the filmmakers wanted to show the audience: “Look, we gave an African American a speaking role the movie to make our cast look racially diverse.”

“Showing Up” also has a few subplots that might induce boredom with some viewers. Lizzy takes care of a wounded bird with a broken wing, after Jo finds the bird and hands off the responsibility of taking care of it to Lizzy. At least the wounded bird subplot (which is obvious symbolism for how Lizzy feels) actually has a purpose for the story—unlike a meandering and flimsy subplot about Lizzy and her co-workers having to accommodate an artist in residence named Marlene Heyman (played by Heather Lawless), who is diva-like and has many star-struck fans at the school.

“Showing Up” greatly benefits from having talented cast members (especially Williams and Chau), who make the movie’s characters believable when less-skilled cast members wouldn’t have been able to do the same thing. There have been many movies made about mopey male artists who’ve dedicated themselves so completely to their art, it’s affected their personal lives. Not many movies are made about this type of female artist, so viewers might have varying reactions to Lizzy’s less-than-charismatic personality. “Showing Up” is a well-acted story about the reality of most artists’ lives: far from glamorous, struggling in obscurity, and trying to be their definition of personal greatness.

A24 released “Showing Up” in select U.S. cinemas on April 7, 2023.

Review: ‘Malum’ (2023), starring Jessica Sula, Eric Olson, Chaney Morrow and Candice Coke

April 6, 2023

by Carla Hay

Jessica Sula in “Malum” (Photo courtesy of Welcome Villain Films)

“Malum” (2023)

Directed by Anthony DiBlasi

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional U.S. city of Lanford, the horror film “Malum” (a reimagining of the 2015 horror film “Last Shift”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A rookie police officer with a tragic family background is assigned to be the only cop on duty during the last shift of a decommissioned police station that appears to be haunted. 

Culture Audience: “Malum” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of “Last Shift” and horror movies about cults and prisons.

Jessica Sula in “Malum” (Photo courtesy of Welcome Villain Films)

“Malum” is not very original, it can get repetitive, and some of the acting is amateurish from the supporting cast members. However, the movie excels at some terrific horror visuals, and the lead performances carry the movie during its weaker moments. “Malum” is a slightly inferior reimagining of the horror movie “Last Shift,” which was released in 2015. The ending of “Malum” is much more predictable than “Last Shift,” but there are unique jump scares and story elements in “Malum” that are improvements from “Last Shift.”

“Malum” and “Last Shift” were both directed by Anthony DiBlasi and written by DiBlasi and Scott Poiley. Both movies have the same concept: a rookie female cop is working the last shift inside a decommissioned prison that is haunted. However, certain aspects of both movies are different from each other. In “Malum” (which takes place in the fictional U.S. city of Lanford), the rookie cop has the same name as the “Last Shift” rookie cop: Jessica Loren. In “Malum,” Jessica Loren is played by Jessica Sula.

“Last Shift” begins with a “found footage” scene of a Charles Manson-like cult murdering young women who have been kidnapped. Viewers later find out that this was a cult known as the Farm Cult, who lived on a remote farm. The cult’s leader was a sadistic maniac named John Malum (played by Chaney Morrow), who was arrested for the murders, along with several other members of the cult.

The police officer who led this group arrest of the Farm Cult was 52-year-old Captain Will Loren (played by Eric Olson), who is hailed as a local hero. But in the beginning of the movie, Will is shown at the Lanford Police Department committing a heinous crime: He murders two other police officers with a shotgun before using the same shotgun to committ suicide.

One year later, Will’s daughter Jessica is shown visiting Will’s grave. Someone shows up at the graveyard who is an unwelcome visitor to Jessica: her mother Diane (played by Candice Coke), who is very unhappy that Jessica has decided to become a police officer. Jessica and Diane have an argument over her career choice and other issues that have been going on longer than before Will died. Diane is an alcoholic, and Jessica (who calls Diane by her first name) blames Diane for Jessica’s unhappy childhood.

Jessica’s very first night shift job as a police officer is to work the very last shift at the decommissioned Lanford Police Department station. A new Lanford Police Department station has already been built and is open. It’s where almost all of the Lanford Police Department staff works. On this particular night, members of the Farm Cult who weren’t arrested have been wreaking havoc around the city, so members of the Lanford Police Department have been busy responding to the chaos.

Before Jessica begins her shift at the decommissioned police station, she gets a very hostile reaction from police officer Grip Cohen (played by Britt George), who is the only other cop in the station when she arrives to take over the work shift. Before he leaves for the night, Grip yells and curses at Jessica, in an attempt to intimidate her. He gets even angrier when he finds out that she is Will’s daughter. Grip asks Jessica what she’s doing working at this police department, and she says she just wants to work as a cop.

The rest of “Malum” shows Jessica having strange and terrifying encounters at the police station. She think she’s alone in the building. But is she really alone? And through it all, Jessica keeps getting harassing phone calls from women who seem to be members of the Farm Cult, because they keep using the Farm Cult’s names for a police officer: “pig” or “piggy.” Eventually, Jessica looks through her father’s former locker and finds something that helps solve some of the lingering mysteries that have haunted her and other people in Lanford.

One of the biggest questions that viewers ask whenever there’s a horror movie about a person or people getting attacked in a haunted place is: “Why don’t they just leave?” In “Malum,” the reason why Jessica stays is because she is determined to prove to people like Grip that she has what it takes to be a brave police officer. She also knows that several people want her to quit the police department, because of what her father did, and she does not want to give her naysayers the satisfaction of having her quit.

Jessica does not excuse the murders that her father committed, but she wholeheartedly believes that there could be a sinister explanation for why he did what he did, since he had no previous indications of ever being mentally ill or inclined to murder. The revelations in “Malum” aren’t too surprising. And the repetition of Jessica seeing terrifying visions and getting threatening phone calls can get a little tedious. However, Sula gives a very compelling performance that makes “Malum” an effective horror thriller for viewers who have the tolerance to see gruesome, blood-drenched scenes.

Welcome Villain Films released “Malum” in select U.S. cinemas on March 31, 2023. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on May 16, 2023.

Review: ‘One True Loves’ (2023), starring Phillipa Soo, Simu Liu and Luke Bracey

April 6, 2023

by Carla Hay

Phillipa Soo and Simu Liu in “One True Loves” (Photo courtesy of The Avenue)

“One True Loves” (2023)

Directed by Andy Fickman

Culture Representation: Taking place in Massachusetts, Maine, and California, over the course of 17 years, the comedy/drama film “One True Loves” features a white and Asian cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Four years after her husband goes missing in a helicopter crash and is declared dead, a woman gets engaged to a man who was her best friend in childhood, but then the missing husband shows up and expects to continued his married life with the woman. 

Culture Audience: “One True Loves” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the book on which the movie is based, and will appeal to people who like very corny love stories where people act unrealistically.

Phillipa Soo and Luke Bracey in “One True Loves” (Photo courtesy of The Avenue)

“One True Loves” is a disappointing, missed opportunity to turn a popular book into a classic romantic comedy/drama movie. The principal cast members do their best in their attempts to make this story convincing, but they are undercut by screenwriting and direction that make this sappy film look like the cinematic equivalent of a cheap and often-unrealistic romance novel. The “One True Loves” movie (which is based on Taylor Jenkins Reid’s 2016 novel of the same name) fails to balance the comedy and drama, which results in the film having an off-kilter and awkward tone.

Directed by Andy Finkman, “One True Loves” has a screenplay co-written by Jenkins Reid and her husband, Alex J. Reid. A few elements of the movie’s story are based on Jenkins Reid’s own life. (She’s from Acton, Massachusetts, where most of the story takes place.) This movie is an example of how people who are too close to the source material sometimes aren’t the best people to adapt the source material into a movie screenplay. Although “One True Loves” has its charming moments, thanks largely to the talent of the principal cast members, so much of the movie looks too phony to have the intended impact.

Another problem with the “One True Loves” movie is the jumbled narrative. There are several flashbacks, and some of them aren’t very well-placed. In addition, the characters in the love triangle, who are supposed to be in their 30s for most of the movie, often act like the immature teenagers they are in a few of the movie’s flashbacks. It’s all very grating. And it further lowers the quality of what could have been a more meaningful and relatable film about adults.

“One True Love” begins with a flashback to a nighttime house party attended by high-school-age teenagers in Acton, Massachusetts. Emma Blair (played by Oona Yaffe) and her best friend Sam Lee (played by Phinehas Yoon) are standing by themselves and looking kind of like outcasts. Emma and Sam are in the backyard, near the swimming pool, where athletic and good-looking Jesse Lerner (played by Cooper van Grootel) is emerging from the pool. Jesse is a star of the school’s male swimming team.

Emma has a big crush on Jesse and is ogling his toned body as he walks out of the pool. It’s later revealed that Sam has been in love with Emma for years, but she has kept him in the “friend zone,” and he has been afraid to tell her his true romantic feelings. Sam sees Emma leering at Jesse. Sam responds by saying in a sulking voice, “It’s really not fair that he throws around his swimming skills at a party.”

The party gets broken up by police. Most of the teenagers scatter, but Emma and Jesse are arrested for underage drinking. At the police station, Jesse flirts a little with Emma, who is awestruck and flattered that he’s paying attention to her. It doesn’t take long for Emma to let Jesse know that she wants to date him. What happens in the Sam/Emma/Jesse love triangle then jumps back and forth in time in the movie.

The next thing that viewers see is 15 years after this party, Emma (played by Phillipa Soo) and Sam (played by Simu Liu) are living together and have gotten engaged. Emma and Sam are happily celebrating the engagement with a small family get-together at the home of Emma’s parents. Emma’s relatives at this gathering are her parents, her sister and her sister’s husband. Sam’s family members are not seen or mentioned in the film.

Emma’s parents—mild-mannered father Colin (played by Michael O’Keefe) and talkative mother Ann (played by Lauren Tom)—own a local bookstore called Blair Books. Now a retired couple, Emma’s parents have passed on operation of the bookstore to Emma and her sister Marie (played by Michaela Conlin), who has a Type-A, perfectionist personality. Marie and her quiet husband Michael (played Tom Everett Scott) have a daughter who’s about 6 or 7 years old named Sophie (played by Oceana Matsumoto), who happens to be deaf.

When Emma was a teenager, she told Jesse that she had no interest in taking over the family bookstore when her parents retire. She wanted to travel and see the world. Flashbacks show that after high school, Emma became a travel journalist, Jesse (played by Luke Bracey) became a travel photographer, and they worked together on adventurous travel assignments that took them around the world. They were blissfully in love, got married, and lived in Venice, California.

But then, a tragedy happened. Jesse was in a helicopter that crashed over the Pacific Ocean. There were three people in the helicopter, including the pilot. Jesse was the only person whose body wasn’t found after an extensive search. Jesse was eventually declared legally dead. Emma didn’t want to believe he was dead, but she gave up hope after practical-minded Marie convinced her to move on with her life.

A depressed Emma had a hard time coping with her grief. Flashbacks show that after years of not being in contact with Sam, she happened to see him in a music instrument store. Sam is now a music teacher at the same high school where he, Emma and Jesse were students. Sam and Emma reconnected, a romance began between them, and they got engaged. But four years after Jesse disappeared, Jesse has been found. Jesse comes back to Acton, and he’s expecting his marriage to Emma to continue in the way that it was.

All this timeline jumping does a disservice to the story in the movie, which answers some questions too late and doesn’t answer some questions at all. It isn’t shown until the last third of the movie how the romance developed between Sam and Emma. The courtship of Sam and Emma should have been in the movie much earlier, to give viewers better context for why she fell in love with him.

Because “One True Loves” shows too early in the movie that Sam and Emma have settled into a life where they got engaged, it makes it too easy to figure out how this movie is going to end. A better-written movie would have shown everything in chronological order. It would have made the movie more suspenseful and less obvious about what Emma’s choice will be. “One True Loves” tries to make up for this scrambled timeline by doing a lot of exposition regurgitation, where characters give verbal summaries of things that were already seen in flashbacks.

But there are other big problems with this movie. When Emma gets the call that Jesse has been found, her reaction looks completely phony. She doesn’t ask anything about how he was found, where he was for all these years, and if he’s okay. Yes, she could have been in shock, but these are the questions that someone would ask about a loved one who was missing for years and presumed dead. Viewers don’t find out where Jesse was for the past four years until it’s mentioned later in the movie: He was stranded on a deserted island.

Emma’s reunion with Jesse also looks fake. He’s dropped off at his parents’ house, with no mention of how Jesse was found or if he needed any medical treatment after being stuck on a deserted island for four years. Realistically, a bunch of media people are waiting outside the house. Jesse’s mother Francine (played by Beth Broderick), Jesse’s father Joe (played by Gary Hudson) and Emma are also outside, in anticipation of Jesse’s return.

But then, the scene looks unrealistic again when Emma and Jesse go inside his parents’ house. Jesse and Emma sob and hug, but she still doesn’t ask a lot of basic questions that someone would ask a spouse who’s been missing for four years. All the drippy emotions that are overloaded in this reunion scene would have had a better impact if the filmmakers put more realism in the movie.

And speaking of destroying realism, the filmmakers make Sam look pathetic in multiple scenes where he uses his orchestra class as a way to have personal therapy sessions for himself. Instead of teaching his students, he pours out his angst and insecurities over the decision that Emma has to make in choosing between him and Jesse. What’s so idiotic about these scenes is that Sam brushes off journalists who want to interview him because he says he’s a “private person,” but he inappropriately dumps details about his love life on his underage students, as if these students wouldn’t blab and gossip about it to other people.

Sam’s students egg him on, because they want to hear all the soap opera-ish details of this love triangle. And can you blame the students for doing that? No. It’s a distraction from doing any work in the classroom. It’s really up to the adult teacher in the classroom to set boundaries, but Sam doesn’t set those boundaries. He’s more concerned about getting as many people as possible to feel sorry for him and root for him. It’s supposed to be the “comedy” part of the movie, but it just looks weird and idiotic.

How bad are these classroom “therapy” scenes? When the school bell rings for the students to go to their next class, the students say that they want to stay and listen to more of Sam’s self-pitying sob stories. And he says they can stay. Eventually, some teachers are seen in the classroom because they want to listen to Sam’s sob stories too. It’s just more moronic filmmaking on display. “One True Loves” also has a very unfunny recurring gag about Sam’s cell phone getting cracked because he keeps throwing the phone in anger and frustration.

At no point in time does “One True Loves” show Sam, Jesse or Emma seeking professional counseling from adults or getting free support from their loved ones about this big disruption in their lives. Sam, Jesse and Emma also don’t seem to have any friends to turn to during this very unusual love triangle situation. And that detail doesn’t match up with the scene of Emma and Jesse’s wedding, where there were plenty of people in attendance, and presumably not all of them were family members.

Instead, what viewers will see in “One True Loves” are tedious scenes of Emma being “torn between two lovers” and feeling guilty about having to choose one over the other. The movie has some heartfelt scenes, such as when Emma and Jesse take a getaway trip to Maine at the remote cabin where they had their honeymoon. Soo and Bracey do some of their best acting in the movie in these Maine scenes. (“One True Loves” was actually filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina.)

The courtship scenes of Emma and Sam are cute, but very lightweight. Liu has potential as a romantic leading actor with very good comedic timing. He also has impressive singing and songwriting talent: He co-wrote and performed the movie’s end-credits ballad “Don’t.” It’s too bad that this movie makes the Sam character look like the most immature and most pitiful of the three characters in this love triangle.

Emma and Marie had an argumentative sibling rivalry when they were younger. This rivalry is mentioned several times but is never really given much depth, although there is an attempt in a flashback scene where Jesse has been missing for several weeks. Emma is in California, on a building rooftop near the Pacific Ocean, while she is using binoculars to look for Jesse. It’s the scene where Marie arrives and tells Emma to stop looking for Jesse because he’s probably dead.

Although this scene is meant to be the movie’s biggest heart-to-heart moment between Emma and Marie, observant viewers will be distracted by the questions that this scene brings up. Why does Emma think that using binoculars would be enough to search for Jesse in an ocean? And why does Emma think that she can see him from this particular rooftop? Emma tells Marie that because Jesse was a champion swimmer, if he’s alive, Emma is sure he’ll find a way to swim back to Emma.

Just because Emma is this stupid doesn’t mean that the filmmakers of “One True Loves” have to treat viewers as this stupid. The cast members can have as much charisma as they want, but when the filmmakers have such disrespect for the average viewer who would be interested in this type of movie, there’s no redeeming it or excusing it. “One True Loves” is like a suitor who tries to come across as romantic, but is in fact very pandering and condescending. People who value their time and intelligence just don’t need that in their lives.

The Avenue will release “One True Loves” in select U.S. cinemas on April 7, 2023. A one-night-only sneak preview was held in select U.S. cinemas on April 5, 2023. The movie will be released on digital on April 14, 2023, and on VOD on April 28, 2023.

Review: ‘Dasara’ (2023), starring Nani, Keerthy Suresh, Dheekshith Shetty, Shine Tom Chacko, Samuthirakani and Sai Kumar

April 5, 2023

by Carla Hay

Pictured in front: Dheekshith Shetty and Nani in “Dasara” (Photo courtesy of AA Films)

“Dasara” (2023)

Directed by Srikanth Odela

Telugu with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Veerlapally, India, mostly in 2009 (and briefly in 1995 and 2016), the action film “Dasara” features an all-Indian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: In a city plagued by alcoholism, a thief experiences a love triangle with not only his best friend but also with a ruthless politician. 

Culture Audience: “Dasara” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching epic love stories and have a high tolerance for action scenes that are brutally violent.

Keerthy Suresh in “Dasara” (Photo courtesy of AA Films)

“Dasara” uses a lot of familiar techiques in over-the-top action movies about love triangles and vengeful family members. However, the acting performances are better than most movies in this genre. The movie’s story also maintains suspense and intrigue.

Srikanth Odela makes his feature-film directorial debut with “Dasara,” a highly energetic and occasionally ridiculous saga that touches on serious issues of alcoholism, political corruption and domestic violence. Odela co-wrote the “Dasara” screenplay with Vamsi Krishna P., Jella Srinath and Arjuna Paturi. The movie has some stunning visuals, but the violence might be too intense or offensive for some viewers.

In “Dasara,” which takes place mostly in 2009, Dharani (played by Nani) and his best friend Siddham Suryam, nicknamed Suri (played by Dheekshith Shetty) are unemployed troublemakers in the village of Veerlapally, India. Dharani and Suri steal coal for money. The two pals hang out with other scoundrels, who also steal and get into brawls.

Dharani and a local teacher named Vennela (played by Keerthy Suresh) have known each other since childhood. Dharani (who comes from a lower-caste family) has been in love with Vennela for many years, but she just sees him as a platonic friend. Vennela is actually in love with Suri, who comes from an upper-caste family. Predictably, Vennela’s mother (played by Jhansi) would rather have Vennela marry Suri.

Veerlapally is a village plagued by alcoholism. Many women in the village have spouses or partners who are violent alcoholics. The central pub in the village is called Silk Bar. And whoever owns Silk Bar has the most power in Veerlapally. The way that customers are served by the Silk Bar is a reflection of the caste system: The upper-caste people are served inside, while the lower-caste people must stay outside in order to be served.

“Dasara” has a subplot about two stepbrothers who are competing with each other for control of Veerlapally. Shivanna (played by Samuthirakani) is considered to be the upstanding citizen, while Rajanna (played by Sai Kumar) has a reputation for being corrupt. These sibling rivals compete against each other by forming different political parties. Shivanna wins an election to be the leader of Veerlapally, but Rajanna bitterly contests the election.

The rest of “Dasara” shows how Dharani and Suri get swept up in this vicious political power struggle. Rajanna as a son named Chinna Nambi (played by Shine Tom Chacko), who’s a lot worse than Rajanna. It’s enough to say that Chinna Nambi becomes an enemy of Dharani. Chinna Nambi’s long-suffering wife (played by Shamna Kasim) has a pivotal role in the movie.

With a total running time of 156 minutes, “Dasara” takes too long to tell a story that could have easily been told in a movie with a total running time of 120 minutes or less. However, the film moves at such a brisk pace, the long running time doesn’t make “Dasara” a tedious movie to watch. “Dasara” balances the very graphic violence with some comedy and sentimentality. It’s not a great film on any level, but it’s of a slightly higher quality than the formulaic and soulless action junk that gets churned out by movie studios on a regular basis.

AA Films released “Dasara” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on March 30, 2023.

Review: ‘Bheed,’ starring Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Dia Mirza, Ashutosh Rana, Pankaj Kapur, Kritika Kamra and Aditya Shrivastav

April 5, 2023

by Carla Hay

Rajkummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar in “Bheed” (Photo courtesy of Reliance Entertainment)

“Bheed”

Directed by Anubhav Sinha

Hindi with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in Tejpura, India, in March 2020, the dramatic film “Bheed” (inspired by real events) features an all-South Asian cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: After the Indian government shuts down its state borders during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, several working-class migrants try to go home, but caste systems play a role in who will get to cross those borders. 

Culture Audience: “Bheed” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching realistic dramas about how the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns affected people in India.

Kritika Kamra in “Bheed” (Photo courtesy of Reliance Entertainment)

“Bheed” offers a realistic and sometimes alarming look at how social class structures and prejudices can affect people in a crisis. It’s a rare COVID-19 pandemic drama that isn’t crassly exploitative of this deadly pandemic. In fact, it can be argued that the movie is fairly restrained in showing all the true horrors that occurred when thousands of people in India were stranded, abused and/or killed when the Indian government ordered a 21-day shutdown of state borders within India, beginning on March 24, 2020.

Directed by Anubhav Sinha (who co-wrote the movie’s screenplay with (Saumya Tiwari and Sonali Jain), “Bheed” has fictional characters, but the scenarios in the movie are very accurate to what was shown and reported in the news media. “Bheed” means “divided crowd” in Hindi. And the divisions are mostly cast divisions. The movie was artfully filmed in black and white, as if to give this story a more timeless look and to put an emphasis on how bleak these conditions were.

“Bheed” has a central protagonist who is supposed to be the “hero” of the story, but the movie is told from various perspectives. All of the principal cast members in “Bheed” give very good performances in telling this story that can resonate among many different cultures. It’s a stark reminder of how a pandemic can bring out the best and the worst in people.

In “Bheed,” police inspector Surya Kumar Singh Tikas (played by Rajkummar Rao) has recently been promoted. And his first day in his new position just happens to be the day he is put in charge of a police checkpoint in Tejpura, India, on March 24, 2020. That was the day that the Indian government sealed state borders within, in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. It was a controversial decision because it left thousands of people stranded, with those who weren’t able to afford food, shelter and transportation suffering the most.

The pandemic lockdowns shut down several business that left working-class migrants out of a job. With no work available, many tried to go back home but were prevented from doing so at the border. These sealed borders caused traffic jams, chaos and an increase in criminal activities. Many of these migrants walked hundreds of miles foot. Nearly 9,000 people were reported killed by sleeping or passing out from exhaustion on train tracks and getting run over by trains. An untold number of people died from police brutality and other crimes.

Surya is someone who knows all too well how people from lower castes are often mistreated. His family is from a lower caste, and he admits to a few of his co-workers that his father changed the family’s last name to Singh to hide this lower-caste status. Surya is in a loving relationship with Dr. Renu Sharma (played by Bhumi Pednekar), who works at a local hospital. They are engaged to be married, but Surya knows that Renu’s father doesn’t approve of their relationship because of Surya’s lower caste. Renu’s father is pressuring her to wed someone else in an arranged marriage.

“Bheed” shows several people who come into contact with Surya in some way during the ordeals that are shown in the movie. Ramadeen “Ram” Singh (played by Aditya Shrivastav) is a nasty-tempered subordinate of Surya. Ram doesn’t even try to hide his prejudice against people who are very poor. His bad temper comes out in horrific ways through unwarranted police brutality. Surya is disgusted by Ram and his brutal tactics and stops him as often as he can. but Surya can’t be everywhere at once.

An unnamed girl who’s about 14 or 15 years old (played by Aditi Subedi) is one of the migrants who has been prevented from crossing the border. She works as a maid and sometimes sell jewelry. She is traveling with her alcoholic father (played by Omkar Das Manikpuri), who frequently steals her money to by alcohol.

This father and daughter were traveling with several other migrants who were killed when they fell asleep on train tracks. The only transportation that this father and daughter can afford is by bicycle. But in an act of desperation, the two of them make the dangerous decision to be smuggled with other migrants inside a concrete mixer.

Balram Trivedi (played by Pankaj Kapur) comes from an upper caste, and he works as a security employee who is transporting several adults and children by bus. Because of his upper caste, Balram is very arrogant and thinks the border rules should not apply to him. He tries in vain to talk the border officials to let him pass through the border. Later, when his passengers are desperate for food and water, he rejects food offered by some Muslim strangers because he erroneously blames Muslims for spreading COVID-19.

Geetanjali (played by Dia Mirza) is an affluent woman is insists on crossing the border because she wants to be with her underage daughter. Geetanjali is in a custody battle for this child with her estranged husband. And she wants to get to the daughter before her husband does. It’s not exactly a “life or death” reason, but Geetanjali feels entitled to cross the border because she’s used to getting her way. She treats her compassionate driver Kanhaiya (played by Sushil Pandey) like a lowly servant.

Vidhi Prabhakar (played by Kritika Kamra) is a TV journalist who is reporting on the scene with two camera operators: Nasir (played by Dhawal Pandey) and Raghu (played by Karan Pandit), who have very different personalities. Nasir is more likely to affected by the suffering that he sees around him, while Raghu is fascinated by it and sees it as an opportunity to get exclusive news footage. Vidhi tries to remain calm and professional, but she eventually gets angry at Raghu’s flippant attitude and scolds him about how they shouldn’t let their privileged lives be an excuse to treat the people they are reporting about as less than human.

“Bheed” shows how some of the upper-caste people try to bribe or make threats to the border patrol officer. An appropriately named pushy upper-caste man named Pushpesh (played Yogesh Pandey) tries to use the name of a family member, whom he says is a high-placed government official, as a way for the border officials to make an exception for Pushpesh. That tactic doesn’t work either. Under the command of Surya, the police officers stand their ground in not letting people through, but things inevitably get violent, as tempers flare and people get even more desperate to cross the border.

Renu is working as an emergency doctor nearby, but she occasionally sees Surya on duty when she has to arrives in an ambulance to respond to people who need emergency care. Of course, adding to the tension is the paranoia that anyone in this crowded area could be infected with COVID-19. People who cough or sneeze are treated like potential killers. “Bheed” also shows how false information quickly spreads on social media. (Facebook is given the name Fakebook in the movie.)

“Bheed” ramps up the tension in very effective ways to show how people from different backgrounds and with different agendas can react to the same crisis. And no one is really safe—not even the police officers in charge. The movie could have taken a very fake-looking turn at one point in a climactic scene. However, “Bheed” shows in no uncertain terms that that what’s in this unforgettable movie only represents a small fraction of the untold numbers of people in real life who experienced this nightmare of being stranded at the border during a deadly pandemic.

Reliance Entertainment released “Bheed” in select U.S. cinemas and in India on March 24, 2023.

Review: ‘Paint’ (2023), starring Owen Wilson, Michaela Watkins, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Ciara Renée, Lucy Freyer, Lusia Strus and Stephen Root

April 4, 2023

by Carla Hay

Owen Wilson in “Paint” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“Paint” (2023)

Directed by Brit McAdams

Culture Representation: Taking place in Burlington, Vermont, the comedy film “Paint” (very loosely inspired by real-life TV personality Bob Ross) features a cast of predominantly white characters (with some African Americans and Latinos) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Painter artist Carl Nargle, who has become semi-famous for making paintings on live television, has to reckon with his messy love life and a younger painter who has been hired to be his rival at the TV station where they work. 

Culture Audience: “Paint” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Ross and star Owen Wilson, but this rambling and unfunny movie is a “bait and switch” ripoff that goes off on weird and unwelcome tangents that have nothing to do with Ross.

Lucy Freyer, Owen Wilson, Stephen Root and Michaela Watkins in “Paint” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

“Paint” is one of the worst “bait and switch” movies of the year. A more accurate title for this dreadful dud would be “Like Watching Paint Dry.” That’s what it feels like to endure this listless and vapid comedy that fools people into thinking that it’s going to be a witty satire of Bob Ross. It’s really a bizarre mess.

Everything in the marketing of “Paint” gives the impression that the movie is supposed to about a Bob Ross-like character and a parody of how his talent and fame affect his life. But in the end, the only things resembling Ross in “Paint” are the character’s job, clothing and hairstyle. That’s why “Paint” is such a fraudulent film. The movie becomes a tedious repetition of the main character having problems with his female co-workers, as he sulks and frets about becoming a has-been.

As many people already know, Ross became famous for painting nature landscape portraits, often in real time on TV. He was the star/creator of the PBS TV series “The Joy of Painting,” which was on the air from 1983 to 1994. Ross had a soothing voice and gentle mannerisms that were both adored by his fans and insultingly mocked by his critics. Ross was also known for his 1970s hairstyle and clothing, but he wore this outdated look as if he didn’t care what people thought about it. Ross died of lymphoma in 1995, at the age of 52.

“Paint” (written and directed by Brit McAdams) certainly had the potential to take a smart and creative approach to a TV personality whose off-camera life was unknown to the vast majority of his audience. The movie looks like a series of badly written sketches strung together with the misguided assumption that just because the cast members are making mugging facial expressions for the camera, it’s automatically supposed to be funny. One of the biggest problems with “Paint” is that it’s filled with too many half-baked ideas that will leave viewers wondering: “What was the point of that scene? Where is this movie going? When is this garbage going to end?”

Owen Wilson portrays Carl Nargle, a painter artist who does paintings (mostly nature landscape portraits) live on TV, in a show that he stars in on the PBS TV affiliate in Burlington, Vermont. Therefore, unlike the real-life Ross, Carl’s fame has peaked as a local TV personality, not as a national or international TV personality. (“Paint” was actually filmed in New York state.)

The name of Carl’s show is “Paint With Carl Nargle.” Carl’s signature sign-off line is “Thanks for going to a special place with me.”He’s the type of painter who will give names to the things in nature that he paints, such as calling a blackberry bush Miss Marcy, or a naming a tree Arthur the Evergreen.

A montage in the beginning of the movie shows that Carl’s loyal audience includes senior citizens at a retirement home; lonely middle-aged women; and scruffy men who watch Carl’s show while they hang out at a bar. Carl’s dream is to have at least one of his paintings on display at the Burlington Museum of Art. Carl is stuck in the 1970s (including driving a 1970s van), but this movie is supposed to take place in the early 2020s.

Carl’s boss is a dishonest sleazebag named Tony (played by Stephen Root), who is the general manager of the TV station. Tony is the type of person who will insult people to their faces and then try to convince them it was a compliment. Tony is worried about the station’s declining ratings and tight budget. Carl is the most famous person who works at the TV station, but Carl’s ratings have also been sliding. Carl doesn’t think he’s replaceable, but Tony has other ideas.

Meanwhile, viewers quickly find out that Carl has a long history of getting romantically involved with his female co-workers. Tony’s assistant is Katherine (played by Michaela Watkins), who had a love affair with Tony more than 15 years ago, but their romance ended badly for both of them. As shown in flashbacks, after he became “famous,” Tony started to neglect Katherine. She cheated on Carl with a Vermont Mountain Express delivery guy (played by Ryan Gaul), in a one-time encounter. Carl then cheated on Katherine by having a short-lived fling with a co-worker named Wendy (played by Wendi McLendon-Covey), who is still bitter that Carl dumped her.

Wendy still works at the TV station, where she’s some type of producer for Carl’s show. Katherine has recently given notice to Tony that she’s quitting because she accepted a job offer to be the assistant to the general manager of the PBS TV affiliate in Albany, New York. Katherine seems to have mixed feelings about leaving Burlington. As the movie shows in several maudlin scenes, Katherine and Carl have not had closure over their relationship. Carl is still pining over Katherine, who shows signs that she’s still in love with him too.

A co-worker named Jenna (played by Lucy Freyer), who’s young enough to be Carl’s daughter, is very star-struck by him. One of the most cringeworthy aspects of the movie is how Jenna fawns over Carl and tries to seduce him. It’s supposed to be wry commentary on how Carl, who looks like a dork and has a limp personality, can still get young, attractive women to be interested in him because he has a little bit of fame. However, in “Paint,” it just comes across as looking creepy, awkward and misogynistic.

In fact, the way that all of the women are portrayed in “Paint” is creepy, awkward and misogynistic. There’s a scene where Carl is supposed to be interviewed by a young reporter named Alexandra Moore (played by Elizabeth Loyacano), who works for the Burlington Bonnet newspaper. It’s just an excuse for the movie to have Tony hurl some sexist remarks at her, and for Carl to assume that Alexandra wants to have sex with him as part of her interview.

The movie’s main storyline is a huge misfire. Tony hires a young painter to become direct competition to Carl. Her name is Ambrosia Long (played by Ciara Renée), who is another awestruck fan of Carl’s. Tony hires Ambrosia partly out of desperation and partly out of revenge, because Carl rejected Tony’s idea for Carl expand “Paint With Carl Nagle” from one hour to two consecutive hours. Carl thinks that if he started “cranking out” more paintings per year, it would decrease the value of his art.

Ambrosia is supposed to be everything that Carl is not: young, hip and edgy. She gets her own show. And as far as Carl is concerned, the competition is on to see if he or Ambrosia can get higher ratings. Ambrosia starts off being a little too edgy for this PBS audience, since her first painting is of a UFO spaceship spewing blood on a tree stump. This is the type of bad idea that “Paint” wants to pass off as “funny.” “Paint” also goes off on a tangent about Ambrosia being sexually attracted to Katherine and trying to seduce her.

Some other characters in the movie go in and out of the story, just to be punch lines that fall flat. One of them is Dr. Bradford Lenihan (played by Michael Pemberton), the elitist curator of the Burlington Museum of Art. Another one is Carl’s eccentric co-worker Beverly (played by Lusia Strus), who comes across as someone who could pass for Jennifer Coolidge’s drunk cousin, if Coolidge were playing an empty and uninteresting person. And there’s also one of Carl’s “superfans” named Mary (played by Sonia Darmei Lopes), who likes to paint the same things as Carl when she watches him on TV.

Renée tries to give some spark to her Ambrosia character, but the performance looks out of place with the performances of the rest of the principal cast members, who all look very bored. Viewers will be even more bored. There isn’t even that much painting in the movie. Carl is so self-absorbed and whiny, he quickly becomes irritating. Even if Carl is attractive to some people because of his fame, it’s obvious those are people who don’t have to spend much time with him.

“Paint” could have gone in an interesting direction if it had some type of focus on what kind of movie it wanted to be and what it wanted the story to say. Instead, “Paint” (just like a certain scene in the movie) is splattered all over the place, with too many scenes that go nowhere and a drab story that tries to pass off “incoherent” as “amusing.” Viewers will learn very little about the characters in this wretched movie, except that viewers will know by the end of “Paint,” they won’t care to see these characters ever again.

IFC Films will release “Paint” in U.S. cinemas on April 7, 2023. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on May 23, 2023.

Review: ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie,’ starring the voices of Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jack Black, Seth Rogen, Keegan-Michael Key and Fred Armisen

April 4, 2023

by Carla Hay

Toad (voiced by Keegan-Michael Key), Mario (voiced by Chris Pratt), Donkey Kong (voiced by Seth Rogen) and Princess Peach (voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy) in “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (Image courtesy of Illumination Entertainment and Universal Pictures)

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie”

Directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, and in the fictional Mushroom Kingdom and the Dark Lands, the animated film “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (based on Nintendo’s “Super Mario Bros.” games) features a cast of characters that are humans and talking creatures.

Culture Clash: Bumbling brother plumbers Mario and Luigi are unexpectedly transported to a magical world, where Luigi is captured by an evil turtle, and Mario teams up with various allies (including a feisty princess) to try to rescue Luigi. 

Culture Audience: Besides appealing to the obvious target audience of “Super Mario Bros.” franchise fans, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching animated films that have simple and amusing plots.

Luigi (voiced by Charlie Day) and Bowser (voiced by Jack Black) in “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (Image courtesy of Illumination Entertainment and Universal Pictures)

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” is entirely predictable but still entertaining, thanks to its playful comedy, appealing visuals and talented voice cast. Jack Black is a scene stealer as turtle villain Bowser. You don’t have to know anything about Nintendo’s “Super Mario Bros.” games in order to enjoy this movie. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” is the very definition of an undemanding crowd pleaser that can appeal to a variety of age groups.

Directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (written by Matthew Fogel) is an origin story of what is obviously planned to be a series of movies. The beginning of the film shows a battle in a magical world where a king and his army defending the royal palace from an invader. Fans of the “Super Mario Bros.” games will know who these characters are already. The movie later shows these characters again in more detail.

Back on Earth, viewers see two brothers who are plumbers. Confident older brother Mario (voiced by Chris Pratt) and his neurotic younger brother Luigi (voice by Charlie Day) have recently launched a plumbing business together in their hometown of New York City, where they are based in the Brooklyn borough. The brothers have proudly filmed a TV commercial for their new business. They have spent their life savings on this commercial.

Not everyone is impressed with this commercial. At a local diner, a wrecking crew employee named Spike (voiced by Sebastian Maniscalco) makes fun of the commercial. Luigi says defensively, “It’s not a commercial. It’s cinema.” Spike also thinks it was foolish for Mario and Luigi to quit their day jobs to start this new business.

The brothers have a large family that includes their father (voiced by Charles Martinet), their mother (voiced by Jessica DiCicco), the brothers’ Uncle Tony (voiced by Rino Romano) and the brothers’ Uncle Arthur (voiced by John DiMaggio), and not all of these relatives are supportive of the brothers’ new business venture. (Martinet does the voices of Mario and Luigi in the “Super Mario Bros.” video games.) During a family meal at a dining table, Mario and Luigi have to endure some taunting, especially from their uncles, who think that the brothers’ plumbing business will fail. The brothers’ mother is supportive though.

“The Super Mario Brothers Movie” shows the brothers going on their first plumbing job since their new business opened. It’s a house call to fix a leaking bathroom sink faucet. And the job is a disaster, involving a major mishap with an unfriendly dog named Francis. By the time the brothers leave the home, the sink hasn’t been fixed and the home has a lot of damage to it.

Not long after this plumbing fiasco, the brothers see on the local TV news that parts of Brooklyn have been flooded because a major water main has broken. Mario and Luigi rush to the scene to see if they can help. The brothers end up in a giant underground tunnel and unexpectedly get whisked through a portal that transports the brothers to a magical world.

However, the brothers land in different places in this magical world. Mario lands in the Mushroom Kingdom, which s populated by inanimate giant mushrooms and small talking mushrooms, all with polka dots. The talking mushrooms are called Toads, Mushroom People or Mushrooms. Luigi lands in a desolate forest area called the Dark Lands, full of dead trees. Luigi is soon abducted by the movie’s chief villain: a spike-wearing giant turtle named Bowser (voiced by Black), who wants to take over the Mushroom Kingdom and marry Princess Peach (voiced by Anya Taylor-Joy), the human ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom.

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” includes Mario finding his way around the Mushroom Kingdom with the help of a friendly mushroom named Toad (voiced by Keegan-Michael Key), who is Princess Peach’s loyal attendant. Some hijinks ensue when Mario is perceived as an untrustworthy intruder by certain people in the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario eventually meets the princess, who has her own story of how she ended up in the Mushroom Kingdom.

In addition to rescuing Luigi, the heroes of the story also have to fight off an invasion from Bowser and his army, which includes Kamek (voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson), who is Bowser’s menacing and most dutiful henchman. Along the way, Princess Peach and Pario have to convince the powerful Kong army of primates from the Jungle Kingdom to help defeat Bowser. That’s how Mario meets the king Cranky Kong (voiced by Fred Armisen) and his immature son Donkey Kong (voiced by Seth Rogen), who is a powerful but goofy warrior.

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” has enough touches of dark comedy to keep it from being annoyingly overloaded with juvenile jokes. Making a cameo in the movie is the cyan Luma character named Lumalee (voiced by Juliet Jelenic), who has a star-shaped, flame-like physical appearance that makes her look like she’s a cute and upbeat character, but she spews a lot of pessimistic comments that unnerve those who are around her. Bowser has a secret desire to be a heavy metal rocker who can belt out power ballads, so there are a few hilarious scenes showing him privately singing corny love songs that he wrote for Princess Peach while playing the piano.

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” leans heavily into nostalgia for the 1980s, because Nintendo’s “Super Mario Bros.” games were launched in that decade. Most of the movie’s prominently placed pop songs are from the 1980s. They include Beastie Boys’ “No Sleep Till Brooklyn,” a-ha’s “Take on Me” and Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero.” Brian Tyler’s competent musical score for “The “Super Mario Bros. Movie” keeps things moving along at a zippy pace with some nods to 1980s-inspired synth music.

The movie’s visuals have all the characteristics of above-average animation using modern technology, but the designs and hues of the characters and locations are throwbacks to 1980s animation and the original Nintendo “Super Mario” games. All of it is proof that any movie version of the “Super Mario” video games is better as animation, rather than as a live-action movie. (The less said about 1993’s awful live-action “Super Mario Bros.” movie, the better.)

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” has a well-cast ensemble, with everyone doing their parts to be engaging in their performances. As the chief villain Bowser, Black is the standout performer, because he gives this villain a larger-than-life personality that will make viewers anticipate what Bowser will say and do next. There’s also a part of the story where Bowser shows he’s not just a two-dimensional antagonist: He really is kind of lovelorn over Princess Peach.

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” isn’t without flaws. The movie has a world where there are very few female characters. Princess Peach is the only female character in the movie with a prominent speaking role. There’s really no good excuse for why the filmmakers couldn’t create more than one female character to have significant roles in the adventure parts of the story. Some viewers might also dislike how brothers Mario and Luigi are not together for the vast majority of the movie.

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” has a very formulaic story that is watchable because the characters have their share of charm. The movie has a mid-credits scene featuring Bowser and an end-credits scene that hints at what a sequel’s plot might be. There are no real surprises at all to “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which does not reinvent anything from the Nintendo games, and it’s not a groundbreaking animated film. For fans who have been anticipating this movie, think of it as the cinematic equivalent of comfort food for “Super Mario Bros.” enthusiasts and people who want to see lightweight, escapist animation.

Universal Pictures will release “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” in U.S. cinemas on April 5, 2023.

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