Sunita Mani Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘The Roses’ (2025), starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman, Andy Samberg, Allison Janney, Sunita Mani, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Demetriou, Zoë Chao and Kate McKinnon

August 25, 2025

by Carla Hay

Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman in “The Roses” (Photo by Jaap Buitendijk/Searchlight Pictures)

“The Roses” (2025)

Directed by Jay Roach

Culture Representation: Taking place in the San Francisco Bay Area and briefly in England, the comedy/drama film “The Roses” (a re-imagining of the 1989 film “The War of the Roses”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An architect husband and his chef wife, who are both British immigrants living in the United States, have a reversal of fortunes in their respective careers, which cause deep resentments and lead to a very bitter divorce.

Culture Audience: “The Roses” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, “The War of the Roses” movie and book, and viewers who like dark comedies with banter-filled dialogues about relationships.

Benedict Cumberbatch, Ncuti Gatwa, Olivia Colman, Kate McKinnon and Andy Samberg in “The Roses” (Photo by Jaap Buitendijk/Searchlight Pictures)

As a dark satire of divorce, “The Roses” plays it much safer than 1989’s “The War of the Roses.” This re-imagining takes a little too long to get to the main couple’s major conflicts. However, there’s enough witty banter to make the movie worth watching.

Directed by Jay Roach and written by Tony McNamara, “The Roses” is a different take on 1989’s “War of the Roses,” directed by Danny DeVito and starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. DeVito had a supporting actor role in “The War of the Roses,” which was adapted from Warren Adler’s 1981 book of the same name. Perhaps because there is more sensitivity in contemporary times about homicidal domestic violence (compared to how this issue was handled in the 1980s), the marital acts of rage in “The Roses” aren’t as extreme as they are in “The War of The Roses.”

Unlike the very American “War of the Roses” movie, “The Roses” is very much steeped in the mixtures of American and British cultures. Roach (who is American) and McNamara (who is Australian) make good use of the British couple at the center of the story having a British sense of dry wit. However, there’s not nearly enough in the movie about how British and American cultures can clash.

At times, viewers might wonder why “The Roses” is primarily set in the United States (specifically, the San Francisco Bay Area), because there’s almost nothing in the story that couldn’t have taken place in the central couple’s native England, where “The Roses” was actually filmed. The couple’s immigrant status is almost never mentioned in the movie.

“The Roses” begins by showing quarreling married couple Theo Rose (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) and Ivy Rose (played by Olivia Colman) in a marriage counseling session. Theo and Ivy are both strong-willed and quick-witted. The counselor asks Theo and Rose to list 10 things that they like about each other. Theo replies, “I’d rather live with her than a wolf.” Ivy responds, “He has arms.” Their comments get increasingly hostile and then turn into vicious insults.

The movie then goes in flashback mode to show how Theo and Ivy ended up at this point, and then continues to show their nasty divorce battle. Theo (an architect) and Ivy (a restaurant chef) met and started a quickie romance in their native England when both of their careers were on the rise. At the time, Theo had a higher income than Ivy, who was working in the kitchen at a hotel where he was having a business meeting. On the day that they met, Ivy told Theo that she was moving to the United States to pursue a career as a chef. Theo and Ivy use it as a reason have sex (in the kitchen cold room) within an hour of meeting each other.

Theo moved to America to be with Ivy. Theo and Ivy got married, and they settled in Mendocino, California, which is about 155 miles north of San Francisco. Their two children—fraternal twins Hattie and Roy—were born in the United States. Hattie is the more obedient child. (Delaney Quinn has the role of Hattie at 10 years old. Ollie Robinson is the character of Roy at 10 years old. Hala Finley portrays Hattie at 13 years old. Wells Rappaport depicts Roy at 13 years old.)

Theo got a job at a prestigious architecture firm, where he became a top employee. Ivy eventually quit her chef job to become a homemaker. For years, the Rose family had an idyllic life. When the twins are about 10 years old, Theo encourages Ivy to open her own restaurant, which she does. It’s called We’ve Got Crabs (a seafood eatery), which is only open a few days a week and does sluggish business at first.

Theo’s high-profile work on designing the East Bay Maritime Museum turns into a disaster when the museum’s roof (which had a giant ship sail on top) collapses during a major rainstorm and causes the rest of the building to collapse. The building collapse and Theo’s frantic reactions are filmed on bystander videos, which go viral. During this rainstorm, Ivy’s restaurant becomes crowded from people seeking shelter. One of the customers is an influential food critic named Sylvia (played by Caroline Partridge), from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Theo gets fired from his job on the same day that Ivy finds out that the food critic gave a rave review to We’ve Got Crabs. This review is the turning point for Ivy’s career, which has a meteoric rise that includes opening more We’ve Got Crabs locations. Ivy becomes rich and famous. Meanwhile, Theo’s career stalls, he becomes a homemaker, and his resentment and jealousy of Ivy begin to grow, as she becomes a busy, jet-setting workaholic who has less time for Theo and their children.

“The Roses” also shows how the different parenting styles of Theo (the disciplinarian parent) and Ivy (the lenient parent) also have a lot to do with their marital discord. For example, Theo wants Hattie and Roy to mimic his strictly healthy diet and pushes the twins to become champion athletic runners. Ivy, who smokes marijuana, makes decadent desserts for the twins to eat as late-night snacks, and she doesn’t care if the twins participate in sports.

“The Roses” has some supporting characters that bring some laughs, but this movie is mainly elevated by the believable chemistry between Cumberbatch and Colman. “The Roses” adds layers to the original “War of the Roses” movie with the addition of several new characters who are friends or colleagues of Theo and Ivy. All of these characters are American. Ivy and Theo don’t have any close British friends in the movie.

The movie’s purpose of these supporting characters is for Theo and Ivy to compare their lives to people who seem to be happier than Theo and Ivy. Needless to say, it’s a minefield of insecurities for almost everyone involved. By contrast, “The War of the Roses” main couple did not have multiple friends making commentary and giving advice about the couple’s problems.

Barry (played by Andy Samberg) is a “know it all” real-estate attorney who met Theo because of their jobs. Barry is married to Amy (played by Kate McKinnon), a self-described progressive feminist who lusts after Theo. Although Barry and Amy say they are open-minded about their own marriage, Amy sexually propositions Theo in a way that implies she doesn’t want Barry to find out that she wants to have sex with Theo. Even though Barry is not a divorce attorney, he ends up representing Theo in the divorce negotiations.

Rory (played by Jamie Demetriou) and Sally (played by Zoë Chao) are a married couple who are architect colleagues of Theo. Rory is smug and competitive with everyone, including Sally. Before Theo got fired, Theo was condescending to Sally too. But then, after Theo became an outcast in the architecture industry, Sally’s career begins to take off. And it makes Theo feel jealous.

We’ve Got Crabs employees Jane (played by Sunita Mani) and Jeffrey (played by Ncuti Gatwa), who are platonic friends, have been loyal staffers for Ivy from the beginning of her business, when Jane worked as a sous chef and Jeffrey was the head waiter at the restaurant chain’s first location. Ivy is a supportive and motivating boss, but even Jane and Jeffrey can see the changes in Ivy when success pumps up her ego. The stress of a bad marriage makes Ivy irritable and vindictive.

It’s a mixed bag to have all these supporting characters who were not in the “War of the Roses” book and movie. These supporting characters have some amusing lines of dialogue in capable performances, but the characters of Sally and Rory are not essential to the story. A supporting character who is essential is Ivy’s divorce attorney Eleanor (played by Allison Janney), who has barracuda-like skills in negotiations and brings her pet Rottweiler as a scare tactic in a negotiation meeting.

“The Roses” missed many opportunities to get more comedy out of the differences between British and American cultures. The closest that the movie comes to contrasting British and American cultures is a scene where Ivy and Theo go to a gun range with Barry, Amy, Rory and Sally. Theo and Ivy learn to use guns for the first time at this gun range. (Of course, you know where this gun use is going to go when the divorce gets ruthless.) The scene at the gun range has some slapstick elements, but there are much better scenes in the movie.

The meltdowns in the movie are symptoms of a larger, deep-rooted problem that can plague many marriages: In relentless pursuit of material success and having a perfect family image, spouses can often can be consumed by jealousy, they can neglect communication, and they can stop making an emotionally healthy relationship a top priority. “The Roses” might not be everyone’s cup of tea. But as a dramedy for adults, it’s entertaining enough in taking an acerbic and cautionary look at the effects that divorce can have on people’s lives.

Searchlight Pictures will release “The Roses” in U.S. cinemas on August 29, 2025. A sneak preview of the movie will be shown in U.S. cinemas on August 27, 2025.

Review: ‘A Nice Indian Boy,’ starring Karan Soni, Jonathan Groff, Sunita Mani, Zarna Garg, Harish Patel, Peter S. Kim and Sas Goldberg

April 28, 2025

by Carla Hay

“A Nice Indian Boy”

Directed by Roshan Sethi

Some language in Hindi with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Vancouver, the comedy/drama film “A Nice Indian Boy” (based on the play of the same name) features a predominantly Asian cast of characters (with a few white people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An Indian Canadian doctor, who is openly gay, meets and falls in love with an openly gay white photographer, and the doctor worries about commitment issues and whether or not his own parents will accept their interracial relationship.

Culture Audience: “A Nice Indian Boy” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in romantic comedies/dramas with likable characters dealing with LGBTQ relationships and family issues.

Harish Patel, Karan Soni, Zarna Garg and Sunita Mani in “A Nice Indian Boy” (Photo courtesy of Blue Harbor Entertainment)

“A Nice Indian Boy” follows the same formulas of romantic comedies where one person in a couple is more commitment-phobic than the other. However, this charming movie has a rare perspective of an interracial gay couple confronting family differences. If “A Nice Indian Boy” falls short on surprises, it more than makes up for it with a vibrant authenticity that can resonate with anyone who has experiences with adult relationships.

Directed by Roshan Sethi and written by Eric Randall, “A Nice Indian Boy” had its world premiere at the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival. The movie is based on Madhuri Shekar’s “A Nice Indian Boy” play that had a stint in Los Angeles in 2014. “A Nice Indian Boy” takes place in Vancouver, where the movie was filmed on location.

“A Nice Indian Boy” is told from the perspective of and narrated by 31-year-old Naveen Gavaskar (played by Karan Soni), an introverted and socially awkward doctor, who works at Karloff Memorial Hospital. Naveen is openly gay and looking for love, mostly on dating apps. The movie’s opening scene is a flashback to the lavish wedding of Naveen’s overachieving younger sister Arundhathi (played by Sunita Mani), who has seemingly found her ideal match in her husband Manish Rao (played by Sachin Sahel), who would go on to become an orthopedic surgeon.

In voiceover narration, Naveen says of this wedding: “I was 25 when my sister got married. This was the best day of my mother’s life” because his mother was proud that Arundhathi had married “a nice Indian boy.” Although Naveen is out of the closet to his family and close friends, a lot of the guests at the wedding don’t know that he is gay. And so, he has several people commenting to him at the wedding that he will be next to have a big Indian wedding, and they assume that he will be marrying a woman.

“Just one concern,” Naveen says in the voiceover. “What would it be like if I brought home a nice Indian boy?” Naveen’s family knows that he is gay. He just hasn’t introduced them to any of his boyfriends or lovers. It’s an emotional roadblock that Naveen has to covercome if he wants a serious and committed relationship.

Naveen’s mother Megha Gavaskar (played by Zarna Garg) is opinionated and has a tendency to be overbearing. For example, an early scene in the movie, Megha calls Naveen at his job to remind him to renew his AAA car insurance membership. Megha, tries hard to be a supportive parent to her gay son, but she admits she doesn’t know much about what to talk to him about. And so, she says things to Naveen such as she likes to watch Out TV and movies like the Oscar-winning “Milk,” a biopic about gay civil rights activist Harvey Milk, who was murdered in San Francisco in 1978.

Naveen’s father Archit Gavaskar (played by Harish Patel) is much quieter and more laid-back than Megha. However, he’s not so laid-back about Naveen’s sexuality. He’s uncomfortable talking to Naveen about Naveen being gay. Archit seems to have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when it comes to Naveen’s love life.

Archit and Megha had an arranged marriage, which affects their views on how their children should approach marriage. Although Megha says that spouses in arranged marriages can learn to love each other (or at least like each other), Megha seems bored and restless in her own marriage. Most of the time that she’s with Archit, she seems to be irritated by him.

That’s because Megha thinks Archit has gotten lazy in their relationship and believes that he takes her for granted. The more that Megha seems annoyed by Archit, the more he shuts down emotionally, which causes a cycle of frustration in their marriage. Observant viewers will notice as the movie goes on that Naveen is a lot like his father Archie in how he has difficulty expressing his emotions, while Arundhathi is a lot like her mother Megha by being very outspoken with her emotions.

“A Nice Indian Boy” is told in four chapters. Chapter 1 is titled “The Boy.” Chapter 2 is titled “The Love.” Chapter 3 is titled “The Family.” Chapter 4 is titled “The Music.” Most movies about gay men who introduce a boyfriend to family members for the first time have to do with anxieties over the whether or not the family will accept the boyfriends’ queerness. In “A Nice Indian Boy,” the anxieties have more to do with racial acceptance.

Naveen’s closest friend is his lively co-worker Paul (played by Peter S. Kim), who is also an openly gay doctor. Paul encourages Naveen to go out and meet more potential love partners in person at fun events instead of online. A comedic montage shows a lonely Naveen calling men he’s made contact in the past to try to reconnect and leaving a series of awkward voice mail messages.

One day, Naveen is praying at a Hindu temple when a good-looking man (played by Jonathan Groff), who’s in his 30s, sits down behind Naveen and prays too. Naveen barely glances at this stranger but seems to be aware that this man is physically attractive. It won’t be long before Naveen will see him again.

One day, the hospital employees are getting their photo portraits done. The photographer is a handsome and friendly frelancer named Jay Kurundkar (played by Jonathan Groff), who is much more open about his feelings than Naveen. Jay and Naveen are instantly attracted to each other. Jay asks Naveen out on a date, and Naveen nervously says yes.

During this first date, they see a movie and then go to a gay bar. Jay tells Naveen that Jay (who has no siblings) spent his early childhood in foster homes and was adopted by Indian parents, who are now decased because Jay’s adoptive parents adopted him much later in their lives. Jay also mentions that his favorite movie is the 1995 romantic Bollywood drama “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.”

Jay isn’t shy about being occasionally dorky, such as when he sings lines from “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge” to Naveen. Jay also vapes marijuana during the date and admits that he vapes when he’s nervous. This vaping results in a pivotal scene that affects Jay’s relationship with Naveen. Naveen is much more self-conscious and stoic during the date. Jay interprets it as Naveen not being very interested in him.

For example, Jay also opens up to Naveen about what Jay’s fantasy wedding would be like. He describes a big ceremony and reception with a lot of joy and choreographed dancing and at least one song from “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.” Naveen barely reacts out of nervousness, but Jay gets embarrassed because he thinks he might have turned off Naveen by talking about his dream wedding on their first date.

“A Nice Indian Boy” has some plot development clichés, but what the movie handles very well is the dialogue. This is not a movie where the would-be couple have an amazing first date. It’s not a completely terrible first date. It’s a realistic first date that shows two strangers trying to get to know each other better and doing their best not to make a bad impression on the other.

Jay eagerly brings Naveen into Jay’s world, by inviting Naveen to Jay’s photo gallery exhibit and by bringing Naveen to a house party, where Jay introduces Naveen to Jay’s supportive friends Billie (played by Sas Goldberg) and Neel (played by Sean Amsing). The problem is that Naveen is much more reluctant to bring Jay into Naveen’s world. Naveen keeps postponing the opportunity for Jay to meet Naveen’s family.

As already shown in the trailer for “A Nice Indian Boy,” Jay eventually does meet Naveen’s family. But that doesn’t mean it’s all smooth sailing from there, because Naveen’s parents expected him to have a partner with Indian heritage. And because the caste system is part of Indian culture, there’s some social-class snobbery from Naveen’s parents, who are disappointed that Jay has a job that has less stability and a much lower income than Naveen’s doctor job.

In addition to having appealing dialogue, “A Nice Indian Boy” has very entertaining performances from all the principal cast members. Naveen and Jay are an “opposites attract” couple, but it looks believable. Garg gives a standout performances as strong-willed matriarch Megha, who has a lot more sensitivity and vulnerability than she shows to most people.

The movie also shows in meaningful ways how the marriage experiences of Naveen’s parents and sister affect their perspectives and attitudes. Certain people in the family have to learn how to gracefully deal with disappointments when life doesn’t go exactly as planned. Rather than reducing the love story of Naveen and Jay to being a “will they or won’t they get married” dilemma, “A Nice Indian Boy” goes beyond the wedding issues and offers an adorable (but not too cutesy) tale of a family navigating changes without losing love for each other.

Blue Harbor Entertainment released “A Nice Indian Boy” in select U.S. cinemas on April 4, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on May 9, 2025.

Review: ‘Death of a Unicorn’ (2025), starring Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Will Poulter, Téa Leoni and Richard E. Grant

March 26, 2024

by Carla Hay

Jessica Hynes, Téa Leoni, Will Poulter, Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega and Anthony Carrigan in “Death of a Unicorn” (Photo by Murray Close/A24)

“Death of a Unicorn” (2025)

Directed by Alex Scharfman

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the fantasy/horror/comedy film “Death of a Unicorn” features a predominantly white group of people (with one Latina and two Asian people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: An attorney and his college-age daughter go on a weekend business retreat at the mansion of the rich family who employs the attorney, and they all fight for their lives when unicorns appear and go on a killing spree.

Culture Audience: “Death of a Unicorn” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and people who don’t mind watching empty and repetitive horror movies.

Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega in “Death of a Unicorn” (Photo by Balazs Goldi/A24)

“Death of a Unicorn” isn’t as scary or funny as this horror comedy thinks it is. The cast members give capable performances, but the movie sinks due to a weak script that doesn’t go beyond unicorns on a deadly rampage and tired clichés of wealthy villains. The unicorns are simply a gimmick to an over-used concept about rich and greedy people getting their come-uppance in a slasher flick.

Written and directed by Alex Scharfman, “Death of a Unicorn” is his feature-film directorial debut. Scharfman has previously been a producer of several other movies, including the horror films “Resurrection” (2022) and “House of Spoils” (2024). “Death of a Unicorn” had its world premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival.

Although “Death of a Unicorn” has a very talented cast, the movie is a collection and checklist of horror movie stereotypes. The story takes place in a remote wooded area in a unnamed U.S. city. (“Death of a Unicorn” was actually filmed in Hungary.) And every single character in the movie becomes a hollow parody at some point. It should come as no surprise how the movie uses the Final Girl horror stereotype.

The beginning of “Death of a Unicorn” shows widowed attorney Elliot (played by Paul Rudd) driving himself and his sullen college-student daughter Ridley (played by Jenna Ortega, in yet another role as a pouty young adult) on a road trip to this remote area for a weekend retreat at the mansion of the snooty and greedy Leopold family. Elliot works as a business attorney for the Leopolds, who made their fortune in a pharmaceutical business called Leopold Laboratories.

The mansion is located on the Leopold Wilderness Reserve in an expansive wooded area. Elliot tells Ridley what his agenda is for this trip: ingratiate himself into Leopolds’ inner circle so that he can be named to the Leopold corporation’s board of directors and earn enough money for Elliot and Ridley to be comfortable for the rest of their lives.

On the way to this mansion, Elliot and Ridley do some boring father/daughter squabbling, where Ridley tries to prove she’s anti-establishment by saying things such as, “Philanthropy is just reputation laundering for the oligarchy.” That’s about as “edgy” as the dialogue gets in this movie. Elliot and Ridley are both grieving over the death of Elliot’s wife/Ridley’s mother (played by Denise Delgado), but Elliot thinks Ridley should at some point not use this death as an excuse to be perpetually mopey and negative.

Elliot suddenly sneezes while driving, which causes him to temporarily take his eyes off of the road. He ends up hitting what he thinks is a deer because it’s about the size of a young deer. But when Elliot and Ridley get out of the car for a closer inspection of the injured animal on the road, they’re shocked to see that it’s not a deer. It’s a unicorn. And the unicorn’s blood is purple.

Aside from this initial shock, there’s no lengthy discussion between Elliot and Ridley about why unicorns exist. They act like it’s rare to see a unicorn but not completely bizarre. The movie apparently takes place in an alternate universe where seeing a unicorn isn’t enough to question one’s sanity.

The unicorn is injured severely enough that it looks unlikely to survive. Ridley touches the unicorn’s glowing horn and suddenly has a psychedelic-like experience where she’s in a pulsating, kaleidoscope-looking world that seems to have no time or space. Ridley gets snapped out of this trance when she sees Elliot take a tire iron and beat the unicorn for a “mercy killing” to put the animal out of its misery.

Ridley and Elliot do not leave the unicorn outside, which is what most people with common sense would do, especially since no one else saw the car accident or Elliot beating the dying animal. Instead, Ridley and Elliot put the unicorn in the back of the car and leave the animal uncovered. The movie doesn’t really show why they made this decision, but it’s implied that it was probably Elliot’s idea so he could figure out a way to cash in on the rarity of this unicorn.

There are three Leopold family members at this mansion: demanding patriarch Odell Leopold (played by Richard E. Grant), who has a terminal illness; shallow matriarch Belinda Leopold (played by Téa Leoni); and their spoiled bachelor son Shepard “Shep” Leopold (played by Will Poulter), who are all as pretentious and entitled as you think they will be in a movie that makes everyone a two-dimensional caricature. Belinda explains to Elliot and Ridley that there are very few staffers in the mansion because the Leopold family wants to keep Odell’s illness as private as possible.

The Leopold family’s sycophantic employees who are part of the story include a stern personal assistant named Shaw (played by Jessica Hynes) and a haughty British butler named Griff (played by Anthony Garrison), who has some of the best lines in a movie that doesn’t have a lot of great dialogue. Two scientists named Dr. Bhatia (played by Sunita Mani) and Dr. Song (played by Steve Park) become part of the story when they are recruited to figure out the mystery of the unicorn’s magical powers.

The unicorn’s magical powers are first discovered by Ridley in an awkwardly staged sequence. “Death of a Unicorn” is so sloppily written, Elliot tries to pretend to the Leopold family that nothing unusual happened to cause Elliot and Ridley to be tardy when they arrived at the mansion. And yet, there’s a unicorn in plain view in the back of Elliot’s car that’s parked in the driveway. The front of Eliot’s car is also noticeably damaged.

When Ridley and Elliot arrive at the mansion, Ridley has some of the unicorn’s purple blood on her face. Shepard points out to Ridley that she has something on her face. (There’s no explanation for why Elliot didn’t notice this blood first.) Ridley excuses herself to go to a bathroom to wipe off the blood. Shaw and Griff notice Ridley nervously looking out a window at the car, as Ridley as walking to the bathroom. And that’s when these two employees see what looks like a dead animal in the back of the car.

Inside the bathroom, Ridley wipes her face with a towel and notices that her acne has disappeared as soon as she touched her face with the parts of the towel that had the unicorn’s blood. That’s how she discovers that the unicorn’s blood has self-healing powers. She also deduces that when she touched the unicorn’s horn, some type of bond or connection was formed with the unicorn.

These healing powers won’t be a secret for very long. Elliot tells Ridley that he got some of the unicorn’s blood in his eyes when he bludgeoned it. Elliot soon discovers that he now has perfect vision and no longer needs to wear the eyeglasses that he was wearing when he arrived at the mansion. When he wears the eyeglasses, his vision becomes blurry. Elliot also had allergies that have now disappeared.

All the people at the mansion soon find out that the unicorn in the back of Elliot’s car is not really dead. The unicorn bursts out of the car, and all hell breaks loose. As already revealed in the synopsis for “Death of a Unicorn,” the unicorn is an infant. And its parents eventually come looking for it.

The rest of “Death of a Unicorn” clumsily tries to balance a storyline of the corrupt Leopolds trying to figure out how they can make huge amounts of money from this magical unicorn with a rushed-in storyline of the unicorn parents going on a rampage. The Leopolds become more ruthless and unhinged (including recovering drug addict Shepard going on a binge of snorting unicorn dust, like it’s cocaine) in trying to capture these unicorns, while everyone else does some version of trying to stay alive.

After a while, “Death of a Unicorn” just becomes another horror film with an unsurprising body count. The movie tries to shoehorn in a redemption arc for Elliot that just doesn’t ring true, considering Elliot aspired to be just as unscrupulous and elitist as the Leopolds. Ridley also goes through a sudden personality transformation that is not convincing, just so the movie can pander to horror stereotype that a Final Girl has to be likable and sympathetic. Even with the novelty of unicorns killing people in a horror movie, “Death of a Unicorn” doesn’t quite live up to its potential.

A24 will release “Death of a Unicorn” in U.S. cinemas on March 28, 2025. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on March 24, 2025.

Review: ‘Spirited’ (2022), starring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds

December 24, 2022

by Carla Hay

Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell in “Spirited” (Photo courtesy of Apple Studios)

“Spirited” (2022)

Directed by Sean Anders

Culture Representation: Taking place in Minnesota, New York City and briefly in Vancouver, the musical comedy film “Spirited” (a reimagining of “A Christmas Carol”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans, Asians and Latinos) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: The Ghost of Christmas Present is determined to redeem a corrupt media strategist who is considered irredeemable.

Culture Audience: “Spirited” will appeal primarily to fans of “A Christmas Carol,” musical comedies, and stars Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds.

Octavia Spencer in “Spirited” (Photo courtesy of Apple Studios)

“Spirited” revels in being a campy, musical reimagining of “A Christmas Carol,” the classic 1843 novella by Charles Dickens. The movie combines formulaic comedy with unexpected plot twists and catchy songs. The cast members also look like they’re having fun, which brings some enjoyment to watching. With a total running time of 127 minutes, “Spirited” has a sluggish middle section that somewhat drains the movie of its lively musical energy with too much dialogue. However, “Spirited” recovers in the last third of the movie, with a tone that is expected but plot developments that might surprise many viewers.

Directed by Sean Anders (who co-wrote the “Spirited” screenplay with John Morris), “Spirited” begins by showing the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come, also known as Yet-to-Come (played by Loren G. Woods and voiced by Tracy Morgan), who looks like a Grim Reaper. Yet-to-Come is haunting Ms. Karen Blansky (played by Rose Byrne) in a graveyard. She has apparently been a mean-spirited person, who is about to be punished by the ghost. Before the ghost plunges her underneath the ground, she begs for mercy and promises that she will not yell at the neighbors’ children any more.

Luckily for Karen, the ghost only wants to scare her into redeeming herself. Karen wakes up to find out that her life has been spared. And she decides to turn her life around and become a friendly person. She’s seen playing outdoor hockey with the neighborhood kids, using a round Christmas ornament instead of a hockey puck. Now that Karen has become a better person, time temporarily freezes, and several ghosts from the afterlife appear to sanction this redemption.

The Ghost of Christmas Present (played by Will Ferrell), also known as Present, says in a voiceover: “That’s what we do: We haunt someone, we change them into a better person, and we sing about it.” The ghosts then go back to their afterlife “headquarters” to celebrate this successful redemption. The other ghosts who work at the afterlife “headquarters” include the Ghost of Christmas Past (played by Sunita Mani), also known as Past, who is fun-loving and somewhat sarcastic, and ghost supervisor Marley (played by Patrick Page), who is a no-nonsense taskmaster.

Present has been dead since the 1800s and has spent the past 46 seasons redeeming people. A human-resources employee named Margot (played by Lily Sullivan) asks Present if he will ever retire and suggests that he should, but he’s not ready to retire. Present later reveals what he will get if he retires: a watch, a Sephora gift card, and a chance to go back to Earth and relive his life as a human.

One of the reasons why he doesn’t want to retire yet is that he has his sights set on redeeming what the ghosts call a “perp” (short for perpetrator): Someone who is their next target to haunt and possibly redeem. His name is Clint Briggs (played by Ryan Reynolds), the owner/president of Briggs Media Group, a consulting firm whose specialty is creating toxic controversy for publicity and profits.

Marley looks at the file on Clint and thinks that Clint is irredeemable and says it’s not worth trying to save Clint. Present vehemently disagrees and threatens to quit and retire if the group doesn’t try to redeem Clint. Marley reluctantly agrees because he doesn’t really want to lose this valuable ghost employee. Clint’s work has a worldwide influence, so Present believes that if Clint can be redeemed, the new and improved Clint can do good deeds that will have ripple effects around the world.

And so, this ghostly group travels to a hotel in Vancouver, where Clint is making a speaking appearance at a convention for the National Association of Christmas Tree Growers, who are worried about the rising popularity of artificial Christmas trees. Instead of telling these tree growers positive things that they want to hear, Clint gives a cynical lecture about how people prefer artificial Christmas trees because they are lazy and desperate. He also says that the Christmas tree growers need to sell not only the trees but also sell the idea that a real Christmas tree is about continuing Christmas traditions.

Clint has an executive vice president named Kimberly (played by Octavia Spencer), who is loyal to her boss but also morally conflicted about the dirty tricks that the company uses to get what Clint wants. The Briggs Media Group frequently ruins people’s reputations with smear campaigns. Kimberly will eventually reach a point where she will decide if she will continue with this type of work or not.

The ghosts have done a background check on Clint and found out that he grew up in Minnesota’s Minneapolis-St. Paul area, as the middle child of a single mother named Wendy (played by Jen Tullock), who is later revealed in a flashback to be an irresponsible alcoholic. Clint’s older sister Carrie (played by Andrea Anders), who was a single parent, died six years ago. It’s revealed in a flashback that Carrie decided to become a mother through a sperm donation.

Carrie’s daughter Wren (played by Marlow Barkley), who is now 13 or 14 years old, is being raised by Clint’s younger brother Owen (played by Joe Tippett), who is almost the opposite of Clint. Clint is clean-cut, wears business suits, and has an intense, competitive personality. Owen is long-haired, wears jeans and flannel shirts, and has a laid-back, mild-mannered personality.

A big part of the “Spirited” plot revolves around Wren wanting to be elected her president of her eighth-grade class. Her biggest rival in the campaign is a popular kid named Josh Hubbins (played by Maximillian Piazza), whose parents own a charitable, non-profit group that does an annual Christmas dinner event for homeless people. Wren asks Clint for help in her campaign.

And you can easily guess what happens next: Clint, with Kimberly’s help, finds “dirt” on Josh. Two years ago, Josh made a TikTok video where he insulted the Christmas dinner event for the homeless. Josh deleted the video two years ago, but Kimberly was able to find it. Kimberly has mixed feelings about using this video to ruin Josh’s reputation, but she gives this video to Wren anyway. Clint encourages Wren to make the video public when the time is right.

There are some other subplots in “Spirited” that get varying degrees of development. Clint is supposed to be haunted by Past, but her judgment is affected, because she thinks Clint is attractive and quickly develops a crush on him. Meanwhile, Present shows himself to Kimberly by accident, and they have a mutual attraction that Present doesn’t know how to handle because he’s afraid to tell Kimberly that he’s really a ghost.

In between, there are some very entertaining song-and-dance numbers, with the movie’s original songs written by Oscar-winning “La La Land” composers Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. The movie’s choreography (led by Chloe Arnold) is a very good complement to the peppy and frequently amusing original songs. No one should expect Ferrell, Reynolds and Spencer to be fantastic music artists, by they handle their musical performances with a lot of charisma and skilled emotional expressions.

Some of the original songs in the film include “Bringin’ Back Christmas,” “Tiny Ripple,” “The View From Here,” “Good Afternoon,” “The Story of Your Life,” “Do a Little Good,” “That Christmas Morning Feelin’.” Not all of the songs are meant to be comical or jolly. Spencer’s solo singing of “The View From Here” expresses Kimberly’s regretful contemplation that Kimberly got what she wanted in her career ambitions, but she worries that she could have lost her conscience in the process.

A running joke in the movie begins during a time-traveling segment going back to the 1820s, when the saying “Good afternoon” is supposed to be an insulting comment. The time traveling and flashbacks in “Spirited” aren’t always handled very smoothly. And the movie occasionally gets overstuffed with subplots, which leads the movie to go off on a few tangents that run a little too long before things get back on track. (Look for a very quick and amusing cameo from Judi Dench.)

One of the main reasons to watch “Spirited” is that the cast members have engaging chemistry with each other. Ferrell and Reynolds have a talented ability to deliver goofy comedy with some heartfelt moments, while Spencer and the other supporting cast members are also a compatible match in this ensemble. Unless someone watching “Spirited” is in a very bad mood, it’s the type of movie that can guarantee some laughs and good-enough entertainment that puts a unique spin on a Christmas classic.

Apple Studios released “Spirited” in select U.S. cinemas on November 11, 2022. The movie premiered in Apple TV+ on November 18, 2022.

Review: ‘Evil Eye’ (2020), starring Sarita Choudhury, Sunita Mani, Omar Maskati and Bernard White

October 13, 2020

by Carla Hay

Omar Maskati and Sunita Mani in “Evil Eye” (Photo by Alfonso Bresciani/Amazon Studios)

“Evil Eye” (2020)

Directed by Elan Dassani and Rajeev Dassani

Culture Representation: Taking place in New Orleans and Delhi, India, the horror film “Evil Eye” features a predominantly Indian cast (with a few white people) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A married, middle-aged mother, who experienced domestic abuse from an ex-boyfriend when she was younger, fears that her abuser has been reincarnated in the man whom her daughter is currently dating.

Culture Audience: “Evil Eye” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in horror movies that have characters and storylines focused on Indian culture and family generational issues.

Bernard White and Sarita Choudhury in “Evil Eye” (Photo by Alfonso Bresciani/Amazon Studios)

For better or worse, it’s become a cliché that a great deal of movies with predominantly Indian casts are about families preoccupied with the wedding or marriage of the young adults in the family. Most Indians who follow tradition have arranged marriages where members of the family play matchmaker. The horror film “Evil Eye” adds a cultural blend to this formula by having the story set in two places (the Indian city of Delhi and the American city of New Orleans) that represent the push-and-pull conflict of wanting to follow family tradition and wanting to lead a more modern, independent life. “Evil Eye” might disappoint people who are expecting more action scenes, but the movie is commendable as a sobering reflection on domestic abuse and parents’ fears that their children might be doomed to repeat the same mistakes that the parents made.

“Evil Eye” is part of Blumhouse Television’s “Welcome to the Blumhouse” series partnership with Prime Video to showcase horror/thriller movies directed by women and people of color. Directed by identical twins Elan Dassani and Rajeev Dassani, “Evil Eye” is based on the Audible Original production of the same name by Madhuri Shekar, who wrote the “Evil Eye” screenplay. The audible version of “Evil Eye” centered on a series of phone conversations between an Indian mother and her daughter over the mother’s worries about the daughter’s love life and when she’s going to get married.

The movie version of “Evil Eye” obviously goes beyond those phone conversations to actually show the two different worlds and outlooks on life that the mother and daughter have in the story. In the “Evil Eye” movie, Usha (played by Sarita Choudhury) is a happily married mother who is constantly pressuring her daughter Pallavi (played by Sunita Mani) to find a nice man to marry, preferably someone who is also of Indian heritage. Years ago, Usha and her laid-back and pragmatic husband Krishnan (played by Bernard White) immigrated from India to New Orleans, where they raised Pallavi, but the couple moved back to India some years ago because Krishnan (who’s a science professor) was offered a great job at a university.

Despite living so far apart, Usha and Pallavi communicate with each other on a regular basis. Lately though, their relationship has become strained because Pallavi thinks that Usha is putting too much pressure on her to get married. Pallavi is not opposed to the idea of getting married, but she’s not in a rush to find a husband and she would rather do it on her own terms.

Usha is heavily into astrology and the spirit world, which is a belief that Pallavi does not share. Krishnan is very scientific-minded, but he tolerates Usha’s superstitions with mild amusement. (For example, when Usha prays, she will say something like, “Protect my child from the Evil Eye so that she may be married.”) Krishnan also doesn’t interfere in the squabbles that Usha and Pallavi might have over Pallavi’s marital status. He tells his daughter that he’s proud of her no matter what.

Out of respect for her mother, Pallavi allows Usha to arrange for Pallavi to meet eligible Indian bachelors who are in the New Orleans area. One such bachelor (played by Satya Nikhil Polisetti) has recently moved from Houston to New Orleans. Pallavi agrees to meet him for a casual blind date at a café.

When Pallavi arrives at the café, she sees a handsome stranger in his late 20s or early 30s who’s seated at a nearby table. They make eye contact in the way that people do in movies where you know they’re going to end up being together. Pallavi’s date is more than an hour late, so Pallavi decides she’s not going to wait any longer and she gets up to leave.

The handsome stranger sees that Pallavi has been stood up for her date, and he goes over to her table and asks her if he can join her at her table. He introduces himself as Sandeep Patel, who works in the technology industry. The attraction between Pallavi and Sandeep (played by Omar Maskati) is immediate, and they end up staying at the café while they talk about their lives.

Sandeep tells her that his family also lives in India. He mentions that he used to run with a partier crowd in New York City. And he used to be engaged to a beauty contestant who was a runner-up for Miss India. Sandeep says that the relationship ended badly, and she attempted suicide after their breakup. “She wasn’t who I thought she was,” Sundeep comments morosely.

Pallavi and Sandeep inevitably begin dating each other. He’s romantic, attentive and seems like the perfect catch. He also has enough money where he buys sapphire earrings for Pallavi just one month after they begin dating each other. Pallavi politely declines the gift because she thinks it’s too much, too soon. She jokingly comments that Sandeep can give her the earrings when they get engaged.

Sandeep seems to have all of the qualities that Usha wants for Pallavi’s future husband. Pallavi thinks that Usha will be happy when she tells Usha the happy news that she’s been dating someone special and describes Sandeep in detail to her mother. However, Usha has reservations because she thinks Sandeep is too good to be true. And when Usha hears about the sapphire earrings, she feels even more alarmed.

It’s eventually revealed that when Usha was in college, she dated a fellow student, who ended up being very controlling and abusive to Usha, so she broke up with him. He took the breakup hard and began viciously stalking Usha until something happened to him to take him out of Usha’s life: He died by falling off of a bridge, not long before Pallavi was born. (The relationship is shown in flashbacks, with Nupur Charyalu as the young Usha and Asad Durrani as the ex-boyfriend, who does not have a name in the movie.)

And guess which gift this boyfriend gave Usha when they were together? Is it a coincidence that Sandeep wanted to give Pallavi sapphire earrings too? The more that Pallavi tells Usha about Sandeep, the more alarmed Usha becomes because Sandeep’s personality and the way that he courts Pallavi are strikingly similar to how Usha’s abusive ex-boyfriend was in the beginning of their relationship.

Meanwhile, the romance between Sandeep and Pallavi gets more serious when he asks her to move in with him and quit her boring office job so that she can pursue her dream of becoming a writer. Sandeep offers to pay all the expenses while she lives with him. Pallavi considers herself to be very independent, so she’s reluctant at first to accept this offer.

But the more Pallavi falls in love with Sandeep, the more she thinks it’s likely that she and Sandeep will get married, so she ends up moving into his large, upscale apartment. She also quits her job to work on a writing project that she’s always wanted to do. Usha isn’t pleased when she hears this news because she fears that Pallavi might be losing her identity and that Sandeep might be too controlling.

And now, it’s Pallavi’s turn to be upset because she thought that her mother would be happy that Pallavi is on track to get married to the man of Pallavi’s dreams. She argues with her mother and accuses Usha of being someone who will never be satisfied with the choices that Pallavi makes in her love life. But what Usha is really concerned about is her growing suspicion that Sandeep might be the reincarnation of Usha’s abusive ex-boyfriend.

Usha confides in her husband Krishnan about her fears, but he scoffs at her and thinks she’s being ridiculous. Usha is reluctant to tell Pallavi because doesn’t want to alienate her and she doesn’t want Pallavi to think that she’s crazy. But Usha’s inner turmoil and concerns about Sandeep become too much for her to bear, and eventually something is done about it in a dramatic way.

“Evil Eye” is not the type of horror movie where bad things happen to people every 15 minutes. Instead, it’s a no-frills thriller that mostly succeeds in presenting various dichotomies within a cohesive story that’s not cluttered with too many characters. There are the aforementioned dichotomies of Indian culture versus American culture; traditional marriage arrangements versus modern dating choices; and superstition versus science.

But there’s an underlying dichotomy that’s less obvious: how society viewed domestic abuse before the #MeToo movement versus how society has viewed domestic abuse since the #MeToo movement. Since the #MeToo movement, certain laws have been passed in many areas that give abuse survivors more chances to get justice. Abuse survivors are also getting more encouragement to share their stories as part of the healing process, whereas before the #MeToo movement, survivors were more likely to be shamed into silence.

This shaming is what Usha experiences—not just from society’s discomfort in dealing with abuse allegations, but also the shame she puts on herself. Usha mistakenly thinks she was somehow at fault for the abuse that was inflicted on her. And she still finds it difficult to talk about her abuse trauma to her own family members. It’s this unspoken communication barrier that affects Usha’s relationship with her daughter Pallavi, whom she fears might experience the same abuse that Usha went through when Usha was young.

As Usha, Choudhury gives a very nuanced portrayal of this inner conflict in how much of her past she wants to reveal to Pallavi. Mani is also very good in her role, although at times her Pallavi character seems a little bit underwritten. It would’ve helped if Pallavi had more of a backstory for her past relationships, so viewers would know if she’s the type to easily fall for smooth-talking charmers.

As for Maskati, his Sandeep character really does give off “too good to be true” vibes from the moment he appears on screen, so there really isn’t much to do with this character but play the “perfect guy who might have a dark secret.” Sandeep’s over-eagerness with the sapphire earrings gift is a big red flag that something is “off” with him. Therefore, people with enough experience in life and in watching horror movies know that it’s going to be a matter of time before Sandeep’s true nature is exposed.

However, “Evil Eye” directors Elan Dassani and Rajeev Dassani admirably keep the movie focused on the mother/daughter relationship instead of going down the predictable “it’s all about the boogeyman” route that so many other horror films take. The movie’s climactic scene is a little melodramatic and hokey, but “Evil Eye” capably and authentically depicts the cultural and familial conflicts that American children of Indian parents experience when they have to choose one way of life over another. At the heart of Usha’s and Pallavi’s conflicts with each other is their fear that one of them might lose respect for the other. And for many people, not having the respect of your family or a ruined relationship with a beloved family member is a lot scarier than any spirit that might come back from the dead.

Prime Video premiered “Evil Eye” on October 13, 2020.

Review: ‘Save Yourselves!,’ starring Sunita Mani and John Reynolds

October 2, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Save Yourselves!”

Directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in New York City and Crawford, New York’s Pine Bush area, the sci-fi horror comedy “Save Yourselves!” features a predominantly white cast (with a few people of Indian heritage and one African American) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: During a getaway trip in a remote area, a hipster couple in their 30s find out that the world is being invaded by strange, fuzzy alien creatures.

Culture Audience: “Save Yourselves!” will appeal primarily who like quirky comedies that poke fun at “hipster culture” and people’s addictions to technology.

What’s scarier: Going a week without plugging into any technology or having strange, fuzzy creatures suddenly invade the world? The live-in couple at the center of the sci-f-/horror comedy “Save Yourselves!” find out when they go on a getaway trip to a remote cabin to “unplug” from technology, only to discover that the world is being invaded by creatures from outer space. The offbeat humor works for most of the movie, even though the story might end too abruptly for many people’s tastes.

Written and directed by real-life couple Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, “Save Yourselves!” shines best when it realistically portrays the everyday ebbs and flows of a relatively happy couple’s relationship, even when they’re in the midst of some absurd chaos. Su (played by Sunita Mani) and Jack (played by John Reynolds) live together in New York City’s Brooklyn borough, and they’ve reached a crossroads in their relationship.

Su, who is 30, is thinking about starting a family with Jack. Jack, who is 34, tells Su that he’s not ready to become a parent yet because he often still feels like a kid himself. They both work in technology-related jobs and look and act like “hipsters”—young people who want to be socially conscious and trendy at the same time. They are also very connected to technology, since they’re constantly on their phones and they use tech devices like Alexa and Siri.

It’s not made clear in the movie how long Su and Jack have been dating each other, but Su wants to take their relationship to the next level by becoming parents. During an argument over this issue, Su yells at Jack, “My mom had three kids by the time she was my age! You’re 34. What are you doing?” It’s the kind of cutting remark that she seems to regret almost immediately as she says it.

Su is the person in the relationship who wants more order, stability and a planned-out way of doing things. Jack is more of a “go with the flow” type of person who is doesn’t get as upset as Su does if things don’t go according to plan. In the movie’s opening scene, Su and Jack have a minor squabble because Jack and used her laptop and erased all the tabs that she had set on the laptop.

After some back-and-forth bickering, he admits that he deleted the tabs, but not intentionally. He tells Su, “In this world, there are so many things that are more important.” He then apologizes: “I’m sorry for all the things you want me apologize for.”

But that isn’t good enough for Su, who demands that Jack verbally list all of the things he need to apologize for until Su is satisfied with what he says. It’s pretty clear from this scene that Su has the more dominant personality in the relationship. She’s not mean-spirited. She would just rather have things done her way.

Later that evening, Su and Jack attend a bachelor party for their gay friend Blake (played by John Early), who is seen briefly in the movie. At the party, Jack talks with the bartender named Raph, pronounced “raff” (played by Ben Sinclair), who tells Jack that he used to be an investment banker, but he gave it all up to travel around the world and work in a less-stressful job.

Raph also gives John a rock crystal that Raph says he got from Patagonia. According to Raph, the rock will help ease anger and stress. Raph also mentions that he has a cabin in upstate New York (in the city of Crawford’s Pine Bush area) that he uses as a getaway. Raph invites Jack to use the cabin whenever he feels like it.

This conversation with Raph idea sparks an idea in Jack to go on a getaway trip with Su and completely unplug from technology for a week. He thinks it would be an ideal way to connect with each other on a deeper emotional level as a couple, since they won’t be distracted by technology and their jobs. Su is willing to try the idea when Jack mentions that Raph’s cabin in the woods would be the perfect place to stay during their trip.

Shortly after Su and Jack call their respective workplaces to let them know that they will be gone for a week, Su’s job sends her a message to let her know that she’s been fired. Apparently, taking that amount of time off from work on short notice was not acceptable to the company. After Su gets over her initial shock, she comments to Jack about getting fired: “This is a good thing.”

Later, after it sinks in how her job loss will affect her financial security, Su starts to worry, but she still decides to go ahead with the getaway trip. Su is in constant contact with her demanding mother, who calls Su frequently and is never seen in the movie. (Zenobia Shroff is the voice of Su’s mother over the phone.) Su dreads telling her mother that she lost her job, so she decides she won’t tell her mother until after Su gets back from the trip.

Before they take their road trip to the cabin, Su and Jack both change their outgoing voice mail greetings to tell callers that Su and Jack will be gone for a week (from June 2 to June 9) and they will be completely disconnected from technology and won’t be checking or returning messages for the entire week. Jack and Su bring their phones with them, in case of an emergency, but they make a promise to each other not to look at their phones during the trip.

When they arrive at the large modern cabin, Su and Jack see a brown shaggy fuzz ball that’s the size of a bowling ball on the kitchen floor. They don’t touch the fuzz ball, but they assume it’s some kind of kitschy decoration, and they call the sphere object a “poof.” (Not the British slang term for a gay man but the term that people use for a poof ball.)

Because the main reason for the trip is to work on their relationship, Su and Jack do some self-help, couples-therapy emotional exercises, where they ask each other questions that are supposed to elicit deep or intimate answers. Jack is initially annoyed when Su admits that she got some of these self-help instructions from the Internet before they left for the trip, because he thinks that defeats the purpose of it being a trip that’s truly free of technology. But Su placates him by saying that she wrote down the self-help instructions by hand instead of printing them out.

Su has a big secret during this trip: She can’t resist checking messages on her phone. She finds out that her mother has called multiple times to talk about creatures that have been sighted all over New York City. Her mother says that some people initially thought the creatures were rats but the creatures are actually something else. Su doesn’t think anything of the messages and doesn’t say anything to Jack about what she heard from her mother.

Soon after their arrival, Su and Jack notice something strange: A bottle of vodka and a jar of alcohol in the kitchen that were full the night before are now empty, with a sticky substance on the outside of the containers. Su and Jack both know that they didn’t empty the containers. Who or what did empty those containers?

Su and Jack soon find out that the “poof” that they thought was harmless is one of several creatures from outer space that have invaded the world. The creatures consume ethanol, which explains the missing liquor. And these creatures attack by secreting a long, red umbilical cord-like appendage that can attach itself to objects and strangle or subdue people.

Jack and Su (who eventually tells Jack that she’s secretly checked messages on her phone) then try to find out what’s going on and attempt to escape from their environment when they find more “poofs” on the property. There are several mishaps (hint: gasoline contains ethanol) and some other desperate fleeing people whom Jack and Su encounter along the way.

“Save Yourselves!” takes some unexpected and wonderfully weird twists. It’s not a typical sci-fi movie because many of the scenarios are so original and because the movie blends so many other genres in the story, such as comedy, horror and even a little bit of drama. Viewers who dislike all things “hipster” should know that Su and Jack are not as annoying as you think they would be. Except for things such as they live in Brooklyn and they think a crystal rock is a cool gift, Su and Jack are very much like a lot of yuppie couples in romantic comedies.

Because the majority of the screen time shows Su and Jack alone together, Mani and Reynolds carry this movie with a lot of authentic charm. Their chemistry as a couple is very believable. Even in Jack and Su’s quiet moments together before the alien invasion (such as reading their phones on a sofa together or spending time in the kitchen together) look very naturalistic and ring very true. In this movie’s very small-numbered cast, Mani stands out with her wonderfully expressive face that conveys all the emotions that Su is feeling, while Reynolds shows a lot of talent in the scenes that involved slapstick comedy.

The madcap parts of the movie, when Su and Jack are trying to escape from the deadly aliens, are obviously meant to be funny. But “Save Yourselves!” also incorporates elements of tragicomedy very effectively. There’s a scene where Jack and Su check their messages and react with a mixture of dread and guilt when they find out that New York City has been evacuated and they were unaware how much their loved ones were in danger while Jack and Su had been relaxing at the cabin. (The voice of Jack’s mother is played by Amy Sedaris.)

“Save Yourselves!” starts out as a couple trying to survive their relationship and end up just trying to survive. A lot of strange and unexpected things happen along the way, but the story never gets so bizarre that most people can’t relate to it. Thanks to memorable performances by Mani and Reynolds, this movie is a ride worth taking as long as viewers don’t expect a conventional ending.

Bleecker Street released “Save Yourselves!” in select U.S. cinemas on October 2, 2020. The movie’s digital and VOD release date is October 6, 2020.