Some language in German and Italian with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place mostly in 1838 Germany, the horror film “Nosferatu” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A vampire demon named Count Orlok targets a young woman to be his bride.
Culture Audience: “Nosferatu” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Robert Eggers, and artfully made horror movies that have more haunting images than storytelling suspense.
Nicholas Hoult in “Nosferatu” (Photo by Aidan Monaghan/ Focus Features)
Artsy filmmaker Robert Eggers’ somewhat overhyped version of “Nosferatu” delivers the expected grotesque and macabre in this vampire movie that tends to drag with repetition. The acting and visuals are better than the screenplay. It’s the type of movie that takes much too long to get to showing the villain doing what was announced at the beginning of the movie. At 133 minutes long, some parts of “Nosferatu” didn’t need to be in the film at all.
Written and directed by Eggers, this version of “Nosferatu” was inspired by the classic 1922 German silent horror film “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror,” directed by Henrik Galeen. This 1922 movie was inspired by Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula,” which is used as a template for basically any horror story where there is a male vampire with the title of count or some other royal title. Eggers’ version of “Nosferatu” doesn’t really do anything groundbreaking, but it does have some very unique imagery that will stay in viewers’ memories.
“Nosferatu” begins by showing a young German woman Ellen (played by Lily Rose-Depp) having a nightmare that she is the bride of vampire and is succumbing to his sexual advances. She wakes up from this horrific dream. The movie then fast forwards “several years later,” to 1838, in an unnamed part of Germany, that is later revealed to be the Baltic region of Germany. (“Nosferatu” was actually filmed in the Czech Republic.)
Ellen is now a newlywed named Ellen Hutter, whose husband Thomas Hutter (played by Nicholas Hoult) is an estate agent. Thomas is loving and attentive, but he is in debt and looking for a way to earn more money. Ellen wants to start a family with Thomas, but he would rather wait until he is more financially stable.
It just so happens that Thomas’ boss Herr Knock (played by Simon McBurney) has an offer that Thomas can’t refuse: Go to Transylvania and get the wealthy Count Orlok (played by Bill Skarsgård) as a client. Herr Knock tells Thomas: “Secure the count, and you will secure your position in the firm.” Herr Knock also says that Count Orlok, who is “too ill” to travel, has insisted that an agent visit Count Orlok “in the flesh.” Thomas needs this type of job promotion, so he takes the assignment with almost no hesitation.
The assignment requires a trip away from home for about six weeks. Thomas stays with Friedrich Harding (played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his wife Anna Harding (played by Emma Corrin), who are happily married with two daughters: Louise Harding (played by Milena Konstantinova), who’s about 6 or 7, and Clara Harding (played by Adéla Hesová), who’s about 4 or 5.
Friedrich is a wealthy ship merchant. Anna is pregnant with their third child. Their family doctor and trusted friend Dr. Wilhelm Sievers (played by Ralph Ineson) plays an important part in the story, when Ellen eventually comes to stay with the Harding family too, and all hell starts to break loose in the last third of the movie.
“Nosferatu” doesn’t waste time in telling Count Orlokf’s primary goal: It’s revealed within the first 15 minutes of the movie that ever since Ellen was a child, she’s been having dreams of this mysterious vampire hunting her down so he can take her as his bride. The main flaw with “Nosferatu” is that it takes an almost excruciatingly long time in the movie for Count Orlok to even begin this hunt, even though it doesn’t take long for Count Orlok to come into contact with Ellen’s husband Thomas. It should come as no surprise that Thomas’s visit to Count Orlok is a setup to get Thomas into Count Orlok’s lair.
“Nosferatu” excels when it comes to setting up scenes with great atmosphere. The production design, costume design and cinematography are top-notch. But the dialogue is a little clunky, simplistic and at times unintentionally comedic.
And there are many times a viewer might wonder, “Where is Count Orlok? Ellen isn’t that hard to find. Does he need a map?” The movie tends to over-rely on jump scare scenes where it’s revealed that was shown was really someone having a nightmare. But then, the movie also hints this nightmare could have been a sleepwalking episode.
“Nosferatu” is at its best in scenes with eccentric Professor Albin Eberhart von Franz (played by Willem Dafoe), an occult expert who is recruited by Dr. Sievers to help investigate some of the chaos that’s happening. For a long time, Friedrich remains staunchly skeptical that there are supernatural reasons for Ellen’s visions and other terrible things that start happening in the household. And you can easily predict what can happen to a skeptical character in a supernatural horror movie.
Dafoe’s performance as kooky Professor Eberhart livens up an otherwise relentlessly dour movie that could have used better character development. One of the more memorable lines that Professor Eberhart says is, “I’ve seen things in this world that would make Isaac Newton crawl back into the womb.” Depp and Hoult handle dramatic scenes quite well, but there’s not much more to the characters of Ellen and Thomas than this couple being targeted victims of Count Orlok. Skarsgård is effectively sinister as Count Orlok, who isn’t in the movie as often as you might think for a film where Count Orlok is the chief villain.
“Nosferatu” also has a few plot holes and unanswered questions. For example, one of the main characters gets feasted on by Count Orlok, but several days later, that vampire victim never shows signs of becoming a real vampire, such as having vampire cravings and being vulnerable in sunlight. The climax/showdown for the movie is also a bit weak and will make viewers wonder, “Why didn’t the characters do something like this sooner?” Despite these flaws, “Nosferatu” is still better than the average vampire movie. Just don’t expect any clever surprises or characters that are completely developed.
Focus Features will release “Nosferatu” in U.S. cinemas on December 25, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, on October 11, 1975, the comedy film “Saturday Night” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: In the 90 minutes leading up to sketch comedy/variety series “Saturday Night Live” debuting on NBC, the cast and crew experience various mishaps, conflicts and setbacks.
Culture Audience: “Saturday Night” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, “Saturday Night Live” and large ensemble films with a talented cast.
Pictured standing in the front row, from left to right: Ella Hunt, Kim Matula, Cooper Hoffman, Rachel Sennott, Lamorne Morris, Josh Brener and Gabriel LaBelle in “Saturday Night” (Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures)
Whether people like or dislike the live sketch comedy/variety TV series “Saturday Night Live,” there’s no denying it’s become an American institution in pop culture. Much like the real “Saturday Night Live,” this comedic film about “SNL’s” TV premiere is hit and miss with its jokes, full of manic energy that sometimes fizzles. However, the performances are entertaining to watch, with many transcending mere impersonations. The movie’s scenarios veer into ridiculous sitcom territory, but much of the dialogue is snappy, if at times a little too contrived-sounding.
Directed by Jason Reitman (who co-wrote the “Saturday Night” screenplay with Gil Kenan), “Saturday Night” had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. The movie takes place in the frantic 90 minutes before the New York City-based weekly series debuted at 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time on NBC on Saturday, October 11, 1975. Viewers will have to keep up with the intense flurry of activities and numerous cast members who populate the movie. Obviously, people who are familiar with who was in the original “Saturday Night Live” cast will have the most appreciation for this semi-factual re-enactment of the show’s series premiere.
Much of what’s in “Saturday Night” is obviously exaggerated for the movie, but there are other parts of the movie that look toned down, especially when it comes to the notorious drinking and drugging that took place behind the scenes. There are some references to people taking illegal drugs (cocaine snorting, spiking someone’s marijuana joint with an animal tranquilizer), but they’re very tame references, compared to the reported realities of the backstage debauchery and addictions. For example, “Saturday Night Live” creator/showrunner Lorne Michaels (played by Gabriel LaBelle) isn’t even shown smoking a cigarette or drinking coffee during his clearly sleep-deprived, stressed-out state of being as several things go wrong before the show goes on the air.
Curiously, John Belushi (played by Matt Wood) and Gilda Radner (played by Ella Hunt), who were widely considered to be the most talented and funniest members of the original “Saturday Night Live” cast, are treated like supporting characters in “Saturday Night.” Instead, the “Saturday Night” movie gives most of the cast-member screen time to smirking playboy Chevy Chase (played by Cory Michael Smith) and fast-talking Canadian wisecracker Dan Aykroyd (played by a Dylan O’Brien, doing a spot-on portrayal), who happens to openly be having an affair with Lorne’s wife: “Saturday Night Live” writer Rosie Shuster (played by Rachel Sennott), a hard-working and sarcastic feminist. Lorne knows about the affair, but he’s more concerned with launching “Saturday Night Live.”
Through conversations in the movie, viewers find out that Lorne and Rosie (who’ve been married for eight years at this point) have an unconventional, open marriage that is more like a business arrangement. What they have in common is a passionate belief that “Saturday Night Live” will be a success, even though the odds were stacked against this show that starred a then-unknown group of comedians in their 20s. The background on the relationship between Rosie and Lorne is Lorne and Rosie started off as friends, he fell more in love with her than she fell in love with him, and it seems like they got married because Lorne kept pursuing Rosie, and she finally gave in to his persistence.
“Saturday Night” begins by showing Lorne anxiously going outside of Rockefeller Center in Manhattan (where the “Saturday Night Live” studio is) to look for a special guest he wants to have on the show’s first episode: a then-unknown eccentric comedian named Andy Kaufman (played by Nicholas Braun), who emerges from a cab, much to Lorne’s relief. Lorne has also ordered a pet llama to be in this episode. Why? Because he can.
Meanwhile, Lorne gets nervous when he notices an NBC page (played by Finn Wolfhard), who’s handing out flyers on the street to invite people to be in the studio audience, isn’t having much luck. Almost everyone whom this page approaches doesn’t seem interested in going to see an unknown show at 11:30 p.m., even if it’s going to be on national TV. Inside the studio, various mishaps and meltdowns happen. A lighting rig falls down from a ceiling and narrowly misses injuring people. The show’s only trained lighting director quits in disgust.
Lorne is under pressure to cut the length of some of the sketches, but he refuses to do it. Various cast members trick the very unhip, middle-aged script supervisor Joan Carbunkle (played by Catherine Curtin) into keeping racy slang in the script, such as “golden showers” and “clam digger,” by lying to her with fake definitions for these terms. John throws a fit and disappears because he doesn’t want to wear a bee costume. Mild-mannered puppeteer Jim Henson (also played by Braun, who’s better in his portrayal of Henson than as Kaufman) defensively worries that “Saturday Night Live” won’t take his Muppets seriously.
Drug-addled guest comedian George Carlin (played by Matthew Rhys) storms off the set because he thinks he’s too good for the show. Lorne frantically tries to find someone who can be the new lighting director as the clock keeps ticking toward showtime. (And there’s literally a time stamp showing the time at various parts of the movie.) Musical guest Janis Ian (played by Naomi McPherson) is one of the few people on the show’s first episode who isn’t depicted as a complainer or someone who causes problems.
The other original “Saturday Night Live” cast members who are portrayed in the movie are laid-back Jane Curtin (played by Kim Matula); neurotic Laraine Newman (played by Emily Fairn); and frustrated Garrett Morris (played by Lamorne Morris, no relation), a Juilliard graduate who goes through a range of emotions when it dawns on him that he’s being treated like a token black person who is deliberately being sidelined and not given much to do. Garrett repeatedly asks no one in particular why he’s just being expected to stand around and not do much, in a tone that suggests he knows exactly why, but he doesn’t want to say the word “racism” out loud. Garrett is never asked for any comedic input and instead has to show his comedic talent when he jokes around during rehearsals with musical guest Billy Preston (played by Jon Batiste), the only other black person in the movie who gets a significant speaking role.
Also featured in the movie is Dick Ebersol (played by Cooper Hoffman), NBC’s director of weekend late night programming, who is Lorne’s closest business confidant and the person credited with helping Lorne develop “Saturday Night Live.” Years later, Ebersol would become an executive producer of “Saturday Night Live” (from 1981 to 1985) and chairman of NBC Sports (from 1998 to 2011). Lorne is an ambitious dreamer, while Dick is more of practical realist. Dick is the one who tells Lorne that NBC executives are expecting that “Saturday Night Live” will fail because the show is being used as a pawn in contract renegotiations with “Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson, who wants reruns of his “Tonight Show” episodes to air in the time slot that “Saturday Night Live” has.
One of those NBC executives who thinks “Saturday Night Live” will be a flop is NBC talent chief Dave Tebet (played by Willem Dafoe), a ruthless cynic who lurks around and makes cutting remarks about how the show is being run by people who don’t really know what they’re doing. Dave isn’t completely wrong. Lorne is like an inexperienced fire chief who has to lead a team putting out one fire after another, even before the fire engine can leave the station. Dave is also on edge because he’s invited several executives from local NBC affiliate stations to watch the debut of this unproven new show.
“Saturday Night” has brief depictions of people who would end up becoming longtime associates of “Saturday Night Live”: musical director Paul Shaffer (played by Paul Rust); announcer Don Pardo (played by Brian Welch); writer Alan Zweibel (played by Josh Brener); writer/actor and eventual “Saturday Night” Live cast mate (and later disgraced politician) Al Franken (played by Taylor Gray); and writer/actor Tom Davis (played by Mcabe Gregg), who was one-half of the Franken & Davis duo on “Saturday Night Live.” These appearances are fleeting and only seem to be there to check some boxes in the long list of people that the “Saturday Night” filmmakers wanted to include in the movie.
As overcrowded as “Saturday Night” is with its ensemble cast, the movie is at its best when there is snappy dialogue between two or three people. One of the funniest scenes in the film is when guest star Milton Berle (played by a scene-stealing J.K. Simmons) trades very hostile insults with Chevy when Milton begins flirting with Chevy’s fiancée Jacqueline Carlin (played by Kaia Gerber), who is the latest of many wannabe actress girlfriends whom Chevy insists should be hired to work with him. Chevy calls Milton an old has-been. Milton calls Chevy an irrelevant nobody. And then, elderly Milton (nicknamed Uncle Milty) does something that’s even more shocking and outrageous than anything that the young rebels in the “Saturday Night Live” cast would do.
LaBelle’s magnetic portrayal of Lorne is a combination of cocky and idealistic—someone who forges ahead with his visionary goals, even when Dick tells him that NBC executives have set up “Saturday Night Live” to fail. Under pressure, Lorne is willing to entertain ideas that other people tell him won’t work at all. And all these years later, when the Emmy-winning “Saturday Night Live” has lasted longer than most TV shows that will ever exist, it’s easy to see who has the last laugh. Nicknamed as the show for the “Not Ready for Prime Time Players” of television, “Saturday Night Live” has become the very “insider” establishment that these TV outsiders used to sneer at and mock.
As much as “Saturday Night” seems to be a love letter to the first version of “Saturday Night Live,” it’s a love letter that has some blind spots that lower the quality of the movie. The movie portrays but doesn’t have a critical look at how women and people of color are treated as inferior to white men in the business of comedy. The female characters in the movie are literally supporting characters, who are depicted as catering to the needs and whims of whatever the men are deciding.
For example, instead of showing anything about why Gilda Radner was the type of brilliant comedian who could create unique characters, Gilda’s biggest moment in the movie is when she persuades a petulant John (who’s hiding out at the Rockefeller Center ice skating rink) to come back to the “Saturday Night Live” set and wear the bee costume that he hates. Instead of showing why Gilda was a talented comedian in her own right who would become in real life one of the breakout stars of “Saturday Night Live,” she is relegated to being a quasi-therapist to John.
Laraine’s big moment comes when she opens a long coat to reveal she’s wearing a bikini. Jane is so bland and generic, she doesn’t make much of an impression, and she’s still in the role of being a helper to the men on the show. To put it bluntly: The men in “Saturday Night” get the best lines, the most memorable character personalities and the most attention.
Rosie is the only female character who is depicted as having a full life (the movie shows or tells nothing about the female “Saturday Night Live” cast members’ personal lives), but the movie repeatedly points out that Rosie is in a position of authority because she’s married to Lorne. Rosie is supposed to be one of the top writers on the staff, but the biggest decision she is shown making is whether or not she should use her maiden surname or Lorne’s last name for her surname on the “Saturday Night Live” credits. As one of the top writers on the show, she is never shown making any real writing decisions when the first episode gets shaken up with various revisions on short notice.
In real life, “Saturday Night Live” has also had a very problematic history when it comes to race and racism. The “Saturday Night” movie rightly points out that Garrett Morris was used as a token (he was the only person of color in the original “Saturday Night Live” cast), but the movie’s approach to this uncomfortable subject matter is a bit timid. Garrett makes a thinly veiled diatribe (cloaked in a comedy bit) against white supremacist racism when he jokes that he wants to kill white people. Garrett gets all the white people in the room to laugh at this joke, but then it’s back to business as usual, and Garrett is mostly ignored.
Women of color in the “Saturday Night Live” world of 1975, as in this movie, just simply don’t exist as valuable team members and aren’t considered important enough to be included as decision makers in this world. Because as much as “Saturday Night” wants to portray this ragtag group of “outsiders” as the “rebel underdogs,” within that group of “rebel underdogs,” the sociopolitical hierarchy was the same as the establishment they wanted to rail against: White men get to have almost all of the power, and everyone else has whatever the white men will decide they’ll have.
Reitman and Kenan have previously collaborated on 2021’s “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” and 2024’s “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.” The “Ghostbusters” franchise was co-created by Aykroyd, who has starred in most of the “Ghostbusters” movies with Bill Murray, another “Saturday Night Live” alum. “Ghostbusters” co-creator Harold Ramis was the third main star of the franchise, while Ernie Hudson (just like Garrett Morris) was treated as an inferior sidekick, even though Hudson was an official Ghostbuster too. Jason Reitman’s father Ivan Reitman directed the first two “Ghostbusters” movies and was a producer of all the “Ghostbusters” movies until his death in 2022, at the age of 75.
“Saturday Night” has some of the same problems that “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” has: In its eagerness to cover a lot of bases in fan service, it gets overstuffed and unfocused when trying to show off how many quipping (and sometimes annoying) characters it can cram into a movie. However, “Saturday Night” has the advantage of having main characters as people who became celebrities in real life, so viewers already know what to expect from a lot of these characters. “Saturday Night” is a zippy and sometimes-messy nostalgia piece that is like a series of sketches rather than a comprehensive overview of what went into the launch of “Saturday Night Live.” As long as viewers don’t expect to see an in-depth history of “Saturday Night Live” in this movie, it works just fine as a film that’s somewhere in between lightweight and substantial.
Columbia Pictures released “Saturday Night” in select U.S. cinemas on September 27, 2024, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on October 4 and October 11, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional city of Winter River, Connecticut, the fantasy film “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (a sequel to the 1988 movie “Beetlejuice”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latinos and some African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: Troublemaking and wisecracking demon Beetlejuice returns from captivity to stop the wedding of his would-be bride Lydia Deetz, a psychic who can see ghosts, while Lydia tries to repair her strained relationship with her daughter, and Beetlejuice is being hunted by his vengeful former bride.
Culture Audience: “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the the first “Beetlejuice” movie, the movie’s headliners, director Tim Burton, and anyone who likes watching high-energy movies that are comedic supernatural stories.
Catherine O’Hara, Jenna Ortega, Winona Ryder and Justin Theroux in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (Photo by Parisa Taghizadeh/Warner Bros. Pictures)
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” comes very close to being overstuffed with subplots, but they all tie together in the end. This flawed but energetic sequel to 1988’s “Beetlejuice” has enough supernatural fun to charm new fans and existing fans. Do viewers need to see the first “Beetlejuice” movie to understand “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”? No, but it certainly helps, especially in noticing many of the references to the first “Beetlejuice” movie that are in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” These references (also known as Easter eggs) can be considered shameless fan servicing, but most sequels of hit movies are guilty of pandering to die-hard fans.
Directed by Tim Burton, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” was written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who are both collaborators with Burton on Netflix’s “Addams Family” spinoff series “Wednesday.” Michael McDowell and Warren Skaaren wrote the first “Beetlejuice” movie, which was directed by Burton. Neither movie is perfect, but both movies have appeal to people who like movies that combine Gothic sensibilities with goofy comedy. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” has many more characters (almost too many) compared to the first “Beetlejuice” movie, but the visual effects in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” are a vast improvement over the cringeworthy and tacky visual effects in “Beetlejuice.” The makeup in Beetlejuice” was superb though, which is why the movie won an Oscar for Best Makeup.
The original “Beetlejuice” movie has a simple plot: The ghosts of a married couple named Adam Maitland (played by Alec Baldwin) and Barbara Maitland (played by Geena Davis) try to get rid of the wealthy new family who have moved into and renovated the Maitlands’ former house in the fictional city of Winter River, Connecticut. The house’s new residents are former real estate developer Charles Deetz (played by Jeffrey Jones); his pretentious sculptor/conceptual artist wife Delia Deetz; and their Goth psychic teenage daughter Lydia Deetz (played by Winona Ryder), who is the only one in the family who can see ghosts.
The house is isolated and sits on a hilltop, which is why there are no neighbors who notice the strange activity taking place in the house. The Maitlands reluctantly enlist a troublemaking and wisecracking ghost demon named Betelgeuse (played by Michael Keaton) to try to get rid of the Deetz family. Betelgeuse becomes enamored with Lydia and wants to marry her. Betelgeuse (who lived and died as a human sometime in the 1300s) appears when his name is said three times in a row. There’s an entirely different discussion that could be had about how inappropriate it is for Betelgeuse to marry an underage teen, but it underscores how much of a creep Betelgeuse is and how he comes from an era when it was considered normal to marry someone who is 15 or 16 years old.
In “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” Lydia (also played by Ryder) is now a single mother who is the famous host of TV series called “Ghost House With Lydia Deetz,” where she helps people who say they have haunted houses. It’s mentioned that Lydia has been a professional psychic for the past 15 years. Lydia is a pill-popping neurotic who has been dating her manager Rory (played by Justin Theroux), who is an obviously slimy manipulator pretending to be sensitive and caring. Rory not only enables Lydia’s drug abuse, but he also encourages it.
Lydia uses pills to cope with her personal life being a mess. She barely speaks to her parents. Lydia also doesn’t have much of a relationship with her teenage daughter Astrid (played by Jenna Ortega, star of “Wednesday”), who is bitter because Astrid thinks Lydia cares more about her career than Lydia cares about Astrid. Lydia was separated from Astrid’s father Richard (played by Santiago Cabrera) when Richard died in a drowning accident.
Astrid, who is about 16 or 17, is a student at a boarding school, where Astrid is a loner who is treated like an outsider freak because of what Lydia does for a living. There’s a scene where some “mean girls” have vandalized Astrid’s room by putting up a paper ghost in the room that says “Boo.” Astrid is highly intellgent and well-read, but she has a lot of anger toward Lydia. Astrid thinks Lydia is a fraud because Lydia cannot see the ghost of Astrid’s father Richard.
One day, Lydia gets a frantic phone call from her mother Delia, who tells her to come to Winter River immediately. That’s how Lydia finds out that her father Charles died. His plane crashed over the South Pacific, and he was killed by a shark. In real life, “Beetlejuice” co-star Jones, who played Charles, got arrested in 2002 for child porn. Jones is now a registered sex offender, which is probably why he wasn’t asked to be in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which uses animation, visual effects and archival footage of Jones to depict Charles in the movie.
Lydia feels uncomfortable with returning to Winter River, because it brings back bad memories of Betelgeuse, whose name is now spelled Beetlejuice in this sequel. (“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” was actually filmed in the United Kingdom, Vermont and Massachusetts.) Astrid and Rory also go to Winter River to attend Charles’ funeral. Delia and Astrid don’t really know each other but they do have one thing in common: They both despise Rory.
To the horror of Delia and Astrid, Rory uses Charles’ memorial service to propose marriage to Lydia—and he wants to get married in Winter River on Halloween, which is two days after this marriage proposal. Father Damien (played by Burn Gorman), the priest to led the funeral service, has been enlisted to officiate at the wedding. Lydia wants more time to think about Rory’s marriage proposal. However, Rory makes her feel guilty, so she reluctantly agrees to this hasty wedding. Lydia is also seeing some indications that Beetlejuice might be coming back into her life.
Meanwhile, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” explains from the beginning that Beetlejuice has been trapped in an afterlife purgatory. In his previous life (when he was alive), he was a grave robber who married a femme fatale named Delores (played by Monica Bellucci), the leader of a soul-sucking cult. Beetlejuice left Delores, but the ghost of Delores wants to get back together with Beetlejuice by any means necessary to marry him. An early scene in the movie shows Delores putting her sliced body back together, with her restored body in stitches.
Beetlejuice has several mute minions with shrunken heads who wear the same type of striped suit that he does. His most loyal and rusted minion is named Bob. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” has a lot of scenes with these minions that might remind people of how the “Despicable Me” animated movies use their own minion characters for anti-hero/supervillain Gru.
One of the biggest comedic gags in the “Beetlejuice” movies is an afterlife waiting room, where recently deceased people wait to get checked in to travel to heaven, hell or somewhere in between. The ghosts appear exactly as how they looked when they died, which means many of these ghosts are mutilated or deformed if they died gruesome deaths. Near the beginning of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” Danny DeVito has a quick cameo as an unnamed janitor in this afterlife waiting area.
It’s in this waiting area, there’s an Afterlife Crimes Unit led by a pompous ghost named Wolf Jackson (played by Willem Dafoe), who was an actor when he was alive. Wolf was an actor who was best known for playing a police detective named Frank Hardballed. As a ghost, Wolf still likes to pretend that he’s a real cop. He takes it upon himself to lead team that is looking for Delores, the chief suspect in a spree of murders where people’s souls have been sucked out of them.
And there’s even more going on in this plot: After Lydia accepts Rory’s marriage proposal, a disgusted Astrid storms off on her bicycle. Astrid accidentally crashes through a fence and tumbles into a backyard tree. The tree has a treehouse, where teenage Jeremy Frazier (played by Arthur Conti) happens to be when Astrid has her bike accident.
You know what happens next: Jeremy and Astrid, who are both about the same age and are intellectual loners, have an immediate attraction to each other. But what will happen to their relationship if Astrid is only going to be in Winter River for a few days? There are some twists and turns in “Beetlejuice” which have some surprises that are more unpredictable than others.
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” has some nostalgic references to the first “Beetlejuice” movie. The Handbook for the Recently Deceased is once again a pivotal part of the plot. Miss Shannon’s School for Girls, which was seen at the end of “Beetlejuice,” has a much more prominent role in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” Little Jane Butterfield (played by Rachel Mittelman), the pre-teen daughter of nosy real-estate agent Jane Butterfield (played by Annie McEnroe) in “Beetlejuice,” is now all grown up in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” The adult Jane Butterfield Jr. (played by Amy Nuttall) is also a real-estate agent.
Music also plays a big role in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which has “Beetlejuice” composer Danny Elfman returning for the franchise’s jaunty score music. In “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” there’s a soul train where people in the waiting area dance like they’re in a “Soul Train” episode from the 1970s. There are mostly African American people (many with Afro hairstyles) in these soul train scenes, which might or might not be taken a certain way depending on how much viewers know about “Soul Train” in the 1970s.
Songs from Harry Belafonte’s 1956 “Calypso” album—most notably the hit tune “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)”—are prominently featured in the original “Beetlejuice” and can be heard again in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” But the song that gets its big moment in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” is “MacArthur Park,” which was a hit (separately) for Richard Harris in 1968 and Donna Summer in 1978. Also look for a comedic moment featuring Richard Marx’s 1989 hit “Right Here Waiting.”
Keaton, Ryder and O’Hara all give very good performances in reprising their “Beetlejuice” roles. In “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” Ryder has the most challenging task of the three original “Beetlejuice” stars because her Lydia character has changed the most from the original “Beetlejuice” movie. Lydia is now a complicated adult with more emotional baggage than what the teenage Lydia character had. Much of the movie relies on Lydia’s reactions to a lot of the mayhem that takes place. Ryder’s performance as Lydia (who gets the most screen time in the movie) could be annoying to some or entertaining to others, but she is always compelling to watch in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” Keaton’s Beetlejuice is essentially the same, while O’Hara’s Delia is even more cartoonish than in the original “Beetlejuice” movie.
Ortega and Theroux are perfectly fine in their roles, but they’re both doing versions of other characters that they’ve already done on screen: the pouting teen character for Ortega, the two-faced liar character for Theroux. The “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” filmmakers made the right decision to have Delores say as little as possible because Bellucci has a limited acting range compared to other stars in the “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” cast, although she looks fabulous as Delores, who could pass for an evil cousin of Morticia Addams. Dafoe hams it up as the buffoonish Wolf, who is the most unnecessary new character in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” at times seems a little too self-satisfied with all of the different subplots that are sometimes left to dangle and are left hanging while another subplot comes along as a distraction. The mischievious rogue Beetlejuice is also not in the movie as much as some viewers might expect from a film named after this character. Overall, if viewers have any curiosity about “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” it’s best to see the original “Beetlejuice” movie first and then enjoy the somewhat wild and bumpy ride that is “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”
Warner Bros. Pictures will release “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” in U.S. cinemas on September 6, 2024. The movie was released in several countries outside the U.S. and had sneak preview screenings in U.S. cinemas on September 4, 2024.
Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of Louisiana, the comedy/drama film “Kinds of Kindness” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: Various people seek satisfaction in their lives but experience conflicts in this offbeat, three-story anthology.
Culture Audience: “Kinds of Kindness” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and movies that are often strange but are well-acted.
Margaret Qualley, Jesse Plemons and Willem Dafoe in “Kinds of Kindness” (Photo by Atsushi Nishijima/Searchlight Pictures)
It’s weird and not always wonderful, but “Kinds of Kindness” has committed performances from the cast members in this unpredictable anthology film. This acerbic comedy/drama cuttingly explores the dark sides of power, control and manipulation. Several scenes in “Kinds of Kindness” are deliberately off-putting and intended to make people squirm with discomfort.
For example, there’s a scene where a woman is drugged without her knowledge and consent, and then she is raped while she’s unconscious. (The sexual assault is not shown in graphic detail.) There’s another scene that shows animal cruelty. (A disclaimer in the movie’s end credits says that no animals were harmed while making the film.) In other words, “Kinds of Kindness” is not a family-oriented film that’s supposed to have mass appeal.
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (who co-wrote “Kinds of Kindness” with Efthimis Filippou), “Kinds of Kindness” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where “Kinds of Kindness” co-star Jesse Plemons won the award for Best Actor. This anthology movie is told as three different stories, all taking place in Louisiana, where “Kinds of Kindness” was filmed on location. Lanthimos is known for making offbeat movies about people doing very unpleasant things to each other. Most of his movies also depict polyamory and/or sexual fluidity. “Kinds of Kindness” is more extreme and less straightforward than Lanthimos’ Oscar-winning films “The Favourite” and “Poor Things.” Some cast members from “The Favourite” and “Poor Things” are also in “Kinds of Kindness.”
In “Kinds of Kindness,” the three stories have these titles, shown in this order: “The Death of R.M.F.,” “R.M.F. Is Flying” and “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich.” (R.M.F. is a mysterious character played by Yorgos Stefanakos in all three stories.) All three stories feature the other main actors portraying different characters in each story. Emma Stone, Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Joe Alwyn and Mamoudou Athie are the rotating star cast members in each story. Stone and Plemons get the most screen time. Hunter Schafer has a small role in “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich.”
Each story takes its time to reveal the motives of the central protagonists. Keeping the viewers guessing in this way has benefits and limitations. Viewers who have short attention spans will quickly grow tired of “Kinds of Kindness” because of all the guessing games that the movie has in revealing bits and pieces of each story. Many times, viewers will be asking themselves, “Where is this story going?” If you dislike how the first story plays out, then chances are you won’t like the rest of the movie either.
“The Death of R.M.F.”
Hong Chau and Jesse Plemons in “Kinds of Kindness” (Photo by Atsushi Nishijima/Searchlight Pictures)
In “The Death of R.M.F.,” Robert Fletcher (played by Plemons) and his wife Sarah (played by Chau) are a seemingly regular middle-class couple. Sarah and Robert have no children, but they have been trying to start a family. Sarah has gotten pregnant several times but lost all of the pregnancies.
Robert works for a company in an unnamed industry. It’s an office job where Robert is expected to wear business attire. Robert’s boss is Raymond (played by Dafoe), who is a demanding tyrant. Robert and Raymond have been in each other’s lives for about 10 years.
It soon becomes apparent that Raymond wants complete control over certain people in his life. For example, Raymond dictates what Robert and Sarah can eat and when the couple can have sex. Raymond also tells Robert that Robert needs to gain a few more pounds. Raymond expects Robert to confirm every day that Robert has followed Raymond’s orders. Robert willingly complies.
However, there’s one demand from Raymond that Robert has a problem carrying out: Raymond has ordered Robert to kill someone by crashing Robert’s car into the other person’s car. Raymond insists that this car crash has been arranged by a suicidal person whose car will be hit by Robert’s car. Robert is supposed to get a description of the car and the crash victim in advance.
Robert is very reluctant to follow this order from Raymond. Near the beginning of the movie, R.M.F. is shown as someone who’s in another car that Robert crashes into with his car. The fate of R.M.F. is shown in this story. Meanwhile, Raymond’s willing accomplice in these bizarre suicide arrangements is his lover Vivian (played by Qualley), who has been put in charge of meeting with the future car crash victims and asking them to pose for photos that she sends to Raymond for his approval.
It’s soon revealed that Robert is also sexually involved with Raymond, who expects to have complete control over Robert, Vivian and other people. Raymond sometimes gives rare collectibles to manipulate people into thinking that he likes them. In the beginning of the story, Raymond has gifted to Robert and Sarah a tennis racket that was smashed by John McEnroe in 1984.
Alwyn has a cameo as a collectibles appraiser who meets with Raymond. Athie is briefly seen in this story as a character named Will, who also works for Raymond. Stone has the role of a lonely bachelorette named Rita, whom Robert asks on a date after Robert sees that Raymond is also dating Rita.
“R.M.F. Is Flying”
Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons in in “Kinds of Kindness” (Photo by Atsushi Nishijima/Searchlight Pictures)
In “R.M.F. Is Flying,” Daniel (played by Plemons) and Neil (played by Athie) are best friends and police officers who work together. Daniel and his wife Liz (played by Stone) are very close to Neil and his wife Martha (played by Qualley) and spend a lot of time at each other’s houses. The two couples are so close, it’s eventually revealed that they are swingers who have foursome orgies with each other that they record on video.
In the beginning of this story, Liz (who is a marine biologist explorer) has been missing during a deep-sea exploration trip. However, Liz has been found on a remote island and has been rescued by helicopter. When she arrives home after a brief stay in a hospital, Daniel notices that Liz has a hard time putting on her shoes, because her feet seem slightly bigger than her shoes. Liz says her feet must be swollen.
Other things happen (as shown in the story) that convince Daniel that the person who was rescued and claims to be his wife Liz is an imposter. Is Daniel imagining things or is he correct? Liz’s father George (played by Dafoe) disapproves of how Daniel has been acting cold and distant to Liz, ever since the rescue. Chao has the role of George’s supportive wife Sharon. Alywn appears in the movie in a brief role as a defiant and intoxicated passenger in a car that gets pulled over by Daniel for reckless driving.
“R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich”
Emma Stone in “Kinds of Kindness” (Photo by Yorgos Lanthimos/Searchlight Pictures)
In “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich,” Emily (played by Stone) and Andrew (played by Plemons) are on an intense search for a woman who saved Emily’s life when Emily almost drowned in a swimming pool. At first, Emily and Andrew seem like they’re a couple. But it’s eventually revealed they’re in some kind of polyamorous sex cult led by a domineering guru named Omi (played by Dafoe), who decides which people in the cult will have sex with Omi and when. A mother named AKA (played by Chau) has a certain “tastemaker” role in the cult.
Emily is literally a hard-driving person: She speeds, careens and skids around in a dark purple Dodge Challenger, as if she’s in a demolition derby race. Emily is rude and impatient in her obsessive search. The reason for the search has to do with special powers that she thinks her rescuer has.
Qualley portrays identical twins Rebecca and Ruth in this story. Schafer has a small role as a woman named Anna, who is examined by Emily in a hospital and is quickly rejected as not being the woman whom Emily is seeking. Alwyn portrays Joseph, Emily’s estranged husband, who has custody of their unnamed daughter (played by Merah Benoit), who’s about 7 or 8 years old. Athie has the role of an unnamed morgue nurse.
Of these three stories, “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich” is the most memorable and the most disturbing. It’s also sure to be the most divisive part of “Kinds of Kindness” because of the way it depicts spiritual beliefs and sex in the context of a cult. The main reason to keep watching is to find out what happens in the story’s mystery.
Because “Kinds of Kindness” has two stories in this movie where Dafoe portrays a leader who controls other people’s sex lives, “Kinds of Kindness” seems to be repeating itself in this way, which is to the movie’s detriment. Some of the movie’s bizarre scenes can be amusing, while other weirdness is just plain irritating and serves no other purpose but to show something weird. The cinematography (by Robbie Ryan) gives “Kinds of Kindness” a compelling modern noir tone.
The cast members’ performances make much of the movie more interesting. Stone excels in portraying three very different characters. The other cast members also capably handle their roles. Plemons’ three characters (Robert, Daniel and Andrew) all have loss of control as a major part of their stories, so his “Kinds of Kindness” characters are not as varied as Stone’s characters in this movie.
Viewers of “Kinds of Kindness” should not go into this movie expecting to see charming characters who are easy to like. The movie goes out of its way to have characters who are unlikable or are sometimes difficult to watch. “Kinds of Kindness” is like sushi smothered in wasabi. Many people won’t be able to tolerate the parts that sting, but there are other parts that go down easier and have more substance if people are curious to see how everything ends.
Searchlight Pictures will release “Kinds of Kindness” in select U.S. cinemas on June 21, 2024.
Available in the original Japanese version (with English subtitles) or in a dubbed English-language version.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Japan, mostly in 1944, the animated film “The Boy and the Heron” features a cast of Japanese human and animal characters representing the working-class, middle-class and royalty.
Culture Clash: A lonely adolescent boy, who’s grieving over the accidental death of his mother, befriends a half-heron/half-man, who leads the boy to fantastical world inside a mysterious tower, where he encounters past versions of various people and a power-hungry group of parakeets.
Culture Audience: “The Boy and the Heron” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki and time-traveling anime movies that can be enjoyed by various generations.
Himi in “The Boy and the Heron” (Image courtesy of GKIDS)
“The Boy and the Heron” artfully blends heavy issues of grief with the escapism of a thrilling adventure. It’s a beautifully told and moving story that is as much about being a legacy to departed loved ones as it is about establishing one’s own identity. “The Boy and the Heron” had its North American premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.
Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, “The Boy and the Heron” is inspired by but not connected to Genzaburō Yoshin’s 1937 novel “How Do You Live?,” which is the Japanese title of the movie. “The Boy and the Heron” has elements of Miyazaki’s childhood in the movie, which has an original screenplay. Miyazaki (who won an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for 2001’s “Spirited Away”) has been synonymous with among the best of what Japanese animation company Studio Ghibli has to offer. “The Boy and the Heron” ends a 10-year gap between Miyazaki’s movies. His previous movie was 2013’s Oscar-nominated “The Wind Rises.”
“The Boy and the Heron” begins with a tragedy. In 1943, in Tokyo during the Pacific War, 12-year-old Mahito Maki is woken up from his sleep to the sound of chaos. His businessman father Shoichi Maki tells him that the hospital where Mahito’s mother Himi works is on fire. The hospital and the fire can be seen from the Maki family home. Mahito (who is an only child at this point) wants to go with his father to the hospital to help save Maki, but Shoichi insists that Mahito stay at home. Unfortunately, Maki does not survive the fire. It’s implied that the fire was caused by a bomb during this war.
The following year, 13-year-old Mahito and Shoichi move to Grey Heron Mansion, in an unnamed city in the countryside. Shoichi, who owns an ammunition factory near the estate, is now married to Himi’s younger sister Natsuko, who is described as a look-alike to Himi. The first time that Mahito meets Natsuko, he finds out that she is pregnant with his younger sibling. It’s a lot to take in for introverted Mahito, who is deep in grief over his mother’s death.
The mansion has seven elderly maids, who dote on Mahito and often work together in a pack. The maids’ names are Kiriko, Aiko, Izumi, Eriko, Utako, Oyuki, and Kazuko. Kiriko is the unofficial leader of the maids. She is often stoic and less talkative than the other maids in the group. Natsuko and all of the maids treat Mahito with kindness. Shoichi is a caring father, but he is very preoccupied with his work.
One day, Mahito notices that a grey heron has flown up to him, as if to try to get his attention. Mahito is told that his grey heron has lived on the property for quite some time. The grey heron will visit Mahito more times over the next several days.
Shortly after moving to this new home, Mahito goes exploring in the estate’s wooded area. He finds a tower that is somewhat sealed off, but Mahito finds a way to peek inside. He’s later told by Natsuko that the tower was built by her granduncle, who had a mental breakdown and disappeared. However, this granduncle left behind a book of his writings. Natsuko also tells Mahito that when Himi was a child, Himi disappeared for a year, but reappeared a year later with no memory of having been gone.
Quiet and shy Mahito has a hard time making friends with other students at his school. The students mostly ignore him or give him hostile stares. Out of frustration and to get out of going to school, Mahito hits himself on the head with a rock. It causes him to bleed profusely. Mahito tells people that he fell down, but his father Shoichi doesn’t believe Mahito. Shoichi thinks that Mahito was assaulted by a bully and is determined to find out who it is.
While Mahito is recovering from his injuries, he gets an unusual visit from the grey heron, who flies to Mahito’s window and squawks, “Mahito, save me!” The heron tells Mahito that Mahito’s mother is still alive and living in the tower. Around the same time, Natsuko goes missing. Through a series of events, Mahito, the heron and Kiriko find themselves trapped in the tower, which is actually a magical place inside that has past versions of some of the people whom Mahito knows.
The grey heron also reveals himself to be half-pelican, half-man, who can wear the pelican part of his body like a costume. It’s best not to go into further details in this review, but it’s enough to say that the story in “The Boy and the Heron” also features pelicans, a parakeet kingdom, and beings called warawara that look like white-colored stars and have a purpose that’s connected to life forces. Some of the scenes in this movie are visually stunning and very immersive.
The voices of “The Boy and the Heron” characters are portrayed by different cast members, depending on the version of the movie. The original Japanese version (with English subtitles) has Soma Santoki as Mahito, Masaki Suda as the Grey Heron, Takuya Kimura as Soichi, Yoshino Kimura as Natsuko, Kô Shibasaki as Kiriko, Aimyon as Himi, Jun Kunimura as the Parakeet King and Kaoru Kobayashi as a wise old pelican. There’s also a U.S. version, with the dialogue dubbed in English, that has Luca Padovan as Mahito, Robert Pattinson as the Grey Heron, Christian Bale as Soichi, Gemma Chan as Natsuko, Florence Pugh as Kiriko, Karen Fukuhara as Himi, Dave Bautista as the Parakeet King and Willem Dafoe as a wise old pelican.
“The Boy and the Heron” explores themes of life, death, and what it might mean to change one’s destiny by going back in time and possibly doing things differently. There are also some sociopolitical observations about how much control people should give leaders over who lives and who dies, as well as some obvious (but not preachy) commentary about the dangers of damaging the environment. There’s a point in the story where Mahito has to decide how much he is going to make his grief control a big decision that he has to make.
The movie has some well-animated and suspenseful action scenes and gives each of the main characters a distinct personality. The voice actors also give very good but not outstanding performances. With so many animated movies stuck in a formulaic rut, “The Boy and the Heron” can be a viable option for people looking for a well-made and entertaining animated film that also has meaningful messages about humanity’s connections to other creatures, the environment, and the life cycles that are unique to all.
GKIDS released “The Boy and the Heron” in select U.S. cinemas on November 24, 2023, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on December 8, 2023. The movie was released in Japan on July 14, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Europe and in Egypt, sometime in the 1890s, the fantasy/comedy/drama “Poor Things” (based on the novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Asians and black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A pregnant woman who committed suicide is re-animated from the dead by a scientist, who transplants her unborn child’s brain into her head, and she goes on journey of self-identity and exploring her sexuality, while most of the men she knows try to control her.
Culture Audience: “Poor Things” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of director Yorgos Lanthimos and star Emma Stone, as well as anyone interested in watching offbeat, sexually explicit and very artistic portrayals of human relationships.
Ramy Youssef and Willem Dafoe in “Poor Things” (Photo by Yorgos Lanthimos/Searchlight Pictures)
Bold and uncompromising in its vision, “Poor Things” is cinematic art at its finest. Emma Stone gives a tour-de-force performance in this enthralling and sometimes amusing story about power, control and independence in gender dynamics and female sexuality. Make no mistake: This movie is not for everyone. “Poor Things” isn’t appropriate viewing for people who are too young to watch or are easily offended by full-frontal nudity (male and female) in sex scenes. Many of the movie’s themes about personal freedoms versus society’s restrictions are meant to be thought-provoking, but some viewers won’t like the dark comedy or the way these themes are explored in sometimes unconventional ways.
“Poor Things” is the second movie collaboration between director/producer Yorgos Lanthimos, actress Stone and screenwriter Tony McNamara, after they previously collaborated on 2018’s “The Favourite.” Unlike “The Favourite,” which has an original screenplay, “Poor Things” is adapted from Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel of the same name. “Poor Things” had its world premiere at the 2023 Venice International Film Festival, where the movie won the festival’s highest prize: the Golden Lion, which is the equivalent of Best Picture for the festival. “Poor Things” had its North American premiere at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival and has made the rounds at other film festivals in 2023, including the New York Film Festival and the Zurich Film Festival.
The “Poor Things” movie takes the book’s original setting of Scotland and relocates it to London. The movie’s story is told in chapters, according to whichever city the protagonist happens to be at the time. This protagonist is Bella Baxter (played by Stone, one of the producers of “Poor Things”), a woman with a mysterious past and living in a re-animated body whose age does not match the much-younger brain that she has in her head. Viewers of “Poor Things” are taken on a journey of Bella’s transformation as her brain and cognitive abilities begin developing and maturing.
The movie’s opening scene shows Bella jumping off of a bridge to commit suicide. It’s later revealed that Bella was pregnant when she jumped off of the bridge. A deeply troubled and controlling scientist named Godwin Baxter (played by Willem Dafoe) has rescued her and brought her back to his secretive lab in his isolated London mansion. He decides he will re-animate this mystery woman and transplant the brain of her unborn baby into her head. Godwin (who wants to be called God) gives this re-animated woman the name Bella. The movie shows whether or not Bella ever finds out about her re-animated origins.
Bella’s intelligence and knowledge develop at a rapid pace, but she still starts off with the maturity and brain power of an infant child. The infancy stage of her brain is not shown in the movie. When viewers first see Bella eating at a dinner table, she has the body of a woman but the mannerisms of a human who’s about 2 or 3 years old. She can eat, sit up, and stand on her own, but her body movements are often uncoordinated. She eats food with her hands when most people would use utensils to eat the same food. Her vocabulary is also very simple.
Godwin has no interest in teaching Bella a lot of society’s norms and etiquette, because he intends to never let Bella far from his sight. Godwin knows that what he is dong with Bella is a highly unethical and illegal scientific experiment, so he wants to keep Bella a secret at all costs. (Godwin does other transplants of body parts on animals, as evidenced by the pets on his property, such as a goat with a duck’s head and a chicken with a pug dog’s head.) As Bella’s brain matures, she becomes more curious about the outside world, but Godwin forbids her from going into the populated part of the city. At first, Bella views Godwin as a protective parental figure, but then she starts to feel resentment and rebel against his domineering control of her life.
Bella doesn’t have basic manners that people are taught when they become old enough to speak. Her “no filter” dialogue and actions are supposed to be among the movie’s funniest or the most uncomfortable moments. Bella has “grown up” watching Godwin do autopsies on people, so she develops a fascination with the human body. Later, Bella shows inclinations that she wants to become a medical examiner.
When she discovers masturbation by inserting objects into her vagina, it awakens Bella’s sexuality and becomes the catalyst for many things that occur during the rest of the movie. Because she has not been taught what is right or wrong when it comes to sexual acts, Bella grabs the crotch (out of curiosity) of Godwin’s loyal housekeeper Mrs. Prim (played by Vicki Pepperdine) in front of Godwin, who at least has the decency to tell Bella that she can’t grab people’s crotches without their consent.
Mrs. Prim is one of the few people who know Godwin’s secret about Bella. Godwin soon lets someone else in on his secret: a village doctor named Max McCandles (played by Ramy Youssef), who is hired by Godwin to be his research assistant/protégé and is sworn to secrecy about this job. Max is a polite gentleman who is immediately awestruck and infatuated with Bella. Max treats her with kindness and respect.
Before Max acts on his romantic feelings for Bella, he asks Godwin if Godwin has a sexual interest in Bella. Godwin assures him that he sees himself only as a father figure to Bella. Godwin also confesses to Max that Godwin is sexually impotent and has a traumatic past of being sexually abused by Godwin’s father. Godwin also has severe facial scars that look like his face had been slashed. Godwin says his father was the one who mutilated him.
In his own twisted way, Godwin wants to create a perfect family by keeping them confined to his mansion. And so, he encourages Max to court Bella and gives Max his blessing to propose marriage to Bella—on one big condition: Max can’t leave the mansion either after he marries Bella. Max agrees to this demand.
During this tender and sometimes awkward courtship, a brash and arrogant visitor comes into the household and throws these marriage plans into disarray. He is an attorney named Duncan Wedderburn (played by Mark Ruffalo), who has come to visit because he has the legal contract that Max must sign for Max’s marriage to Bella. At this point, Bella doesn’t fully understand what love is about, but she understands lustful sexual desire and how it can often be a way that some people manipulate others.
Duncan, who is a playboy bachelor, finds Bella to be very attractive and makes lecherous sexual advances on her. He also loves to brag about what a great lover he is. When he finds out that Bella is yearning to explore the outside world, Duncan promises to whisk her away on an adventure trip through Europe, beginning with Lisbon, Portugal. Despite the objections of Godwin and the heartbreak of Max, she eagerly accepts Duncan’s offer and goes away with Duncan.
During this trip, Duncan and Bella have a sexual relationship, but it’s not a relationship based on mutual respect. Duncan treats Bella like a sexual plaything, while she acts like a student who’s eager to learn. And even though Bella wanted to escape the possessive control of Godwin, she finds out too late that Duncan is even more possessive than Godwin. Duncan flies into jealous rages if he thinks that Bella might be sexually interested in other men.
Bella’s journey also takes her to a cruise ship going to Alexandria, Egypt, where she experiences more attempts by Duncan to control her life. During this cruise ship excursion, Bella meets a middle-aged wealthy woman named Martha Von Kurtzroc (played by Hanna Schygulla) and her platonic younger companion Harry Astley (played by Jerrod Carmichael), who give Bella a new, open-minded perspective that women and men can be friends with no sex involved. Martha tells Bella that she’s been celibate for 20 years and is content with having a life with no sex, which is a mind-blowing concept to Bella, who has been led to believe by Duncan that a woman’s primary purpose in life is to sexually pleasure men.
That doesn’t mean that Bella is willing to give up sex, because she likes sex a lot and wants to learn as much about sex as she can. But by coming into contact with a more diverse group of people with various lifestyles, Bella becomes more aware that she has many more options than she ever thought she had. One thing that hasn’t changed about Bella is her innate resistance to being confined and being told what to do with her life.
When Bella and Duncan are in Paris, she makes a life-changing decision that is an assertion of who Bella wants to be as a person capable of being in control of her own life. In Paris, she meets and befriends a heavily tattooed brothel madam named Swiney (played by Kathryn Hunter) and a brothel sex worker named Toinette (played by Suzy Bemba), who pass no judgments on any of Bella’s life decisions. Paris is where Bella truly blossoms. She is no longer trapped in a childlike or teenage mindset but expressing herself as a fully formed adult in her intelligence and emotional maturity.
Back in London, Godwin has moved on to finding another young dead woman to re-animate and control. He names her Felicity (played by Margaret Qualley), but this time, Godwin purposely wants to keep her passive, so he gives Felicity a brain where she probably won’t be able to think as independently as Bella can think. Max is still Godwin’s assistant, because Max is pining over Bella and hopes she will return to London and possibly get back together with him. Meanwhile, a military general named Alfred “Alfie” Blessington (played Christopher Abbott) shows up in the last third of the movie and causes yet another major change in Bella’s life.
“Poor Things” is truly a visual feast filled with a potpourri of great acting. Stone takes on the role of Bella with pure gusto that never gets overly hammy but looks organic and genuine to the Bella character. Aside from the physical demands of this role, the emotional arc that Stone shows in Bella’s evolution is absolutely exceptional. Ruffalo, Dafoe and Youssef also give high-quality performances, while Newton makes a memorable impact in the short amount of screen time that she has the movie.
“Poor Things” will get inevitable comparisons to “Frankenstein,” but the biggest difference in each story’s re-animated character is that Dr. Frankenstein’s creation never has a brain that develops beyond a child-like level. Frankenstein’s monster also never has to deal with the minefield of sexual demands and discrimination that Bella experiences, simply because she’s a female. Even though “Poor Things” is not a horror story like “Frankenstein” is, “Poor Things” holds up a gilded mirror to society to show a different type of horror story: The problem of people trying to control and dictate what women do with their own bodies and with their own lives is not oppression that is stuck in the 1890s but is still very much going on today, with no end in sight.
Aside from the gender issues about sexuality, “Poor Things” has astute observations about gender issues and financial freedom. There comes a point in time when Bella finds out that men aren’t the only people who can choose what to do to make money. Bella also makes a big decision in Alexandria when she is confronted with the harsh realities of poverty and income inequality.
In “Poor Things,” the stunning cinematography by Robbie Ryan (who uses a lot of “fish eye” lens camera work), exquisite production design by Shona Heath and James Price, and the gorgeous costume design by Holly Waddington all give the movie the look of a fantastical Gothic Revival alternate universe that takes place in the 1890s but with touches of modern flair. It’s a world that sometimes looks like a picture book come to life. The movie bursts with sumptuous hues and settings that evoke an “Alice in Wonderland” for adults.
However, Bella’s story is not presented as a typical female-oriented fairy tale where her ultimate goal in life is to find someone to be her soul mate/love partner. She begins to understand that she doesn’t have to be dishonest about herself in order to please others. And if she happens to find true love, it’s only worth it when mutual respect is part of the relationship. “Poor Things” is a work of fiction, but it shows the realities of how society can be both vulgar and civil, how life can be filled with pleasure and pain. It’s a cinematic experience like no other and has cemented itself as one of the best movies ever made by this talented principal cast, crew and other filmmakers.
Searchlight Pictures will release “Poor Things” in U.S. cinemas on December 8, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in 1955, in the U.S. Southwest and in New York City, the comedy film “Asteroid City” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Latinos) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Told as a stage play within a TV show, “Asteroid City” tells the story of how a small town reacts to a visit from an outer-space alien.
Culture Audience: “Asteroid City” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of filmmaker Wes Anderson and comedies with intentionally quirky characters and sometimes bizarre scenarios.
Scarlett Johansson in “Asteroid City” (Photo courtesy of Pop. 87 Productions/Focus Features)
“Asteroid City” is exactly what you think a Wes Anderson movie is about how people react to seeing an outer-space alien. The comedy is hit or miss. Anderson’s recent movies seem like they’re competing with each other to have the most celebrity cameos. “Asteroid City” (which was directed by Anderson) had its world premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. Anderson co-wrote the “Asteroid City” screenplay with Roman Coppola, who is a cousin of Jason Schwartzman, one of the stars of the film.
“Asteroid City,” which is set in 1955, is told as a play within a TV show. All it means is that it’s an excuse to add more stars to the already star-studded cast. Overstuffing the movie with famous cast members can actually be detriment when most of these characters remain underdeveloped. And it will just lead to disappointment for the fans of the cast members (many of whom could easily headline films on their own) when they find out that the screen time of many of these celebrities is barely enough to be in a short film.
The constant parade of stars also seems like showboating from Anderson and the other “Asteroid City” filmmakers, as if to prove that all of these famous people are so in awe of Anderson, they’d be willing to do even the tiniest role in one of his movies. It certainly might explain why Margot Robbie has an utterly useless role as an unnamed actress/wife in “Asteroid City,” where all she does in the movie is talk for a few minutes in a forgettable conversation. “Asteroid City” makes good use of its principal cast members, but gets bogged down by all the distracting celebrity cameos.
The movie begins with black-and-white footage of a nameless TV host (played by Bryan Cranston) explaining that viewers will be getting a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a play called “Asteroid City.” The play is written in New York City by playwright Conrad Earp (played by Edward Norton), while the ensemble cast is led by Jones Hall (played Schwartzman) and Mercedes Ford (played by Scarlett Johansson). This behind-the-scenes footage is in black and white (as it would be in television in 1955), but the scenes with the play are in bright Technicolor-inspired lighting that would have been standard with movies released in 1955.
Schubert Green (played by Adrien Brody) is the play’s director. Polly (played by Hong Chau) is Schubert’s assistant. Saltzburg Keitel (played by Willem Dafoe) has a classroom that is used as rehearsal space for the play. All three of these characters are seen in short interludes and don’t add much to the overall story.
Asteroid City is in an unnamed state in the U.S. Southwest. In the “Asteroid City” play, a war photographer named Augustine “Augie” Steenbeck (also played by Schwartzman) is a recent widower. He is on a road trip by car to Asteroid City, a very small Southwestern town (population: 87), where the biggest attractions are a large meteor crater and a celestial observatory nearby. Augie is traveling with his 14-year-old son Woodrow Steenbeck (played by Jake Ryan) and triplet daughters Andromeda (played by Ella Faris), Pandora (played by Gracie Faris) and Cassiopeia (played by Willan Faris), who are about 7 or 8 years old.
The Steenbeck family is going to Asteroid City for the weekend celebration of Asteroid Day, commemorating September 27, 3007 B.C., when the Arid Plains meteorite crashed on Earth. Woodrow is also set to get a prize as one of the five winners of the Junior Stargazer Space Cadet Awards, given to young people who are aspiring astronomers. However, Augie’s car breaks down in Asteroid City. A unnamed, bumbling mechanic (played by Matt Dillon) is the nearest person who can fix the car.
After Augie finds out that he and his children are stuck in Asteroid City, Augie calls his stern father-in-law Stanley Zak (played by Tom Hanks) to ask Stanley to pick up the kids because “the car exploded.” Stanley is reluctant to come to the rescue of his stranded son-in-law and grandchildren because Stanley thinks that Augie needs to take responsibility for the kids. Stanley is annoyed that Augie has not told the children that the children’s mother (who was Stanley’s daughter) died three weeks ago.
It’s mentioned in the movie that she died from a unnamed illness. Eventually, Augie awkwardly tells the children about their mother’s death. He also tells them that she has been cremated. Her ashes are in a plastic bowl that Augie has with him. And as soon as cremated ashes of a loved one are shown in a comedy, you just know that something is going to happen to those ashes in a comedic part of the plot.
Meanwhile, this small town is about to get a much bigger temporary population when more visitors arrive. These other guests include famous actress Midge Campbell (played by Johansson), who (by her own admission) is vain and selfish. She is in Asteroid City because her teenage daughter Dinah (played by Grace Edwards) is one of the recpients of the Junior Stargazer Space Cadet Award. It’s mentioned that Midge has two younger children from her marriage to her second ex-husband
Also in Asteroid City is country musician Montana (played by Rupert Friend) and his band. Montana dresses like a cowboy and seems to be attracted to a schoolteacher in her 20s named June (played by Maya Hawke), who has arriveed by school bus with a class of 10 students, who are each 8 years old. Montana and June, like many of these supporting characters, have no real bearing on the outcome of the story.
Other visitors to Asteroid City who are very extraneous characters include egotistical businessman JJ (played by Liev Schrieber) and his mild-mannered teenage son Clifford (played by Aristou Meehan), who only seem to be in the movie to show that Augie and Woodward aren’t the only characters in “Asteroid City” who have father/son tensions. Clifford is one of the award recipients.
Other unnecessary characters are Sandy (played by Hope Davis) and her teenage daughter Shelly (played by Sophia Lillis), who are only memorable for wearing matching Girl Scout-type uniforms. Shelly is also one of the award recipients. It makes no difference to the movie’s story if there were three, four or five teens getting these awards.
Another parent-teen duo in “Asteroid City” are scientist Roger (played by Stephen Park) and his overachieving son Ricky (played by Ethan Josh Lee), who has somewhat of a rivalry with Woodrow about who knows the most about astronomy. Ricky is actually essential to the plot, since he makes a certain decision regarding the outer-space alien. Ricky’s decision has an effect on other plot developments. Meanwhile, Woodrow and Dinah have a growing attraction to each other.
Steve Carell is in the movie for less than five minutes as the manager of Asteroid City’s only motel. The observatory is run by Dr. Hickenlooper (played Tilda Swinton), who us the expected eccentric character that Swinton always to plays in Anderson’s movies. A crater meteorite that’s the size of a softball is one of the prized possessions on display at the observatory.
A very by-the-book military officer named General Grif Gibson (played by Jeffrey Wright) is in Asteroid City to lead the Asteroid Day festivities, which includes a tour of the observatory, a picnic supper, the viewing of the Astronomical Ellipses, and the awarding of the annual Hickenlooper Scholarship. General Gibson has a trusted, unnamed aide-de-camp (played by Tony Revolori), who is just a rehash of the “eager young man” roles that Revolori has played in other Wes Anderson movies.
The first half of “Asteroid City” is a string of vignettes where the characters are quirky and often blurt out things in a tactless way that’s supposed to be amusing. Augie and Midge are the most “no filter” of these characters. And so, it should come as no surprise that they become attracted to each other. It’s just like a Wes Anderson movie for two single parents to be attracted to each other at the same time the parents’ two teenage kids are attracted to each other.
“Asteroid City” doesn’t get really interesting or amusing until the arrival of the space alien, which is filmed like it would be for a stage production. The reactions to this space alien are the movie’s commentaries on greed and exploitation in society. There’s nothing wrong with any of the performances by the cast members. But it says a lot that “Asteroid City,” which is filled with talented people (many of whom are Oscar winners and Oscar nominees), doesn’t have an Oscar-worthy performance in the bunch. The movie’s production design is impeccable, but “Asteroid City” is a comedy that’s more enamored with the setup of jokes rather than the jokes themselves.
Focus Features released “Asteroid City” in select U.S. cinemas on June 16, 2023, with a wider expansion to more U.S. cinemas on June 23, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the dramatic film “Inside” features a nearly all-white cast of characters (with one Latino) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A burglar breaks into a wealthy man’s penthouse to steal valuable art, and he is trapped inside by a malfunctioning security system.
Culture Audience: “Inside” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Willem Dafoe and people who don’t mind watching slow-paced psychological dramas with good acting.
Willem Dafoe In “Inside” (Photo by Wolfgang Ennenbach/Focus Features)
“Inside” would’ve been better as a short film. However, Willem Dafoe gives an acting performance worth watching for people who don’t have short attention spans. Don’t expect much action in this drama. This movie is a psychological portrait of confinement.
Directed by Vasilis Katsoupis and written by Ben Hopkins, “Inside” takes place entirely in an upscale New York City penthouse. (The movie was actually filmed on a soundstage in Cologne, Germany.) “Inside” had its world premiere at the 2023 Berlin International Film Festival. Dafoe is the only person with an on-camera speaking role in the movie. If you know that information in advance, then you’ll either be interested or not interested in watching “Inside.”
The beginning of “Inside” has a voiceover monologue from art thief Nemo, the character played by Dafoe. In the monologue, Nemo says: “When I was a kid, a teacher asked what are the three things I would save from my house if it were on fire.” I answered, ‘A sketchbook, my AC/DC album and my cat Groucho.'”
He continues, “I didn’t say. ‘My parents or sister.’ Most of the other kids did [mention family members]. Does that make me a bad person? My cat died. I lent the AC/DC album to a guy named Kojo, and I never saw it again. But the sketchbook, I kept. Cats die. Music fades. But art is for keeps.”
That’s about all the information that viewers will get about Nemo’s background. He is next shown breaking into a New York City penthouse, where the occupants are not home. Nemo is there to steal specific pieces of valuable art, especially a self-portrait painting of the penthouse’s owner, whose name is never mentioned in the movie.
Another portrait painting of the owner hangs in the living room, with this particular portrait showing the owner (played by Gene Bervoets), who is a middle-aged man with white hair, and his daughter (played by Ava von Voigt), who looks about 12 or 13 years old. There are clues that this owner is a well-known artist, besides his valuable self-portrait. Nemo finds photos in the home of the penthouse owner with high-society people at fancy gala events.
Nemo communicates by walkie talkie with a cohort who’s not in the building but identifies himself as Number 3 (voiced by Andrew Blumenthal), who is directing Nemo on which art pieces are the top priorities to steal. Number 3 says that the owner’s self-portrait painting is the most important art that needs to be taken in this heist, because this painting is worth $3 million. Nemo takes some other paintings and a sculpture, but he can’t find the self-portrait painting. This heist has been timed so that Nemo is supposed to steal what he came to steal and leave in a matter of 10 minutes or less.
But something goes horribly wrong for Nemo. The security access code that Number 3 gives him to leave the penthouse undetected doesn’t work. Instead, the security system triggers an alarm, with a computerized voice repeating loudly, “System malfunction.” And then, all of the doors and windows in the penthouse are locked shut from the outside. Nemo is now trapped in the penthouse.
Nemo frantically tells Number 3 what just happened and asks for help. However, Number 3 is in a panic too. He tells Nemo: “I don’t know what to do, man. I’m sorry. You’re on your own. Over and out.”
Nemo has no idea if anyone heard the alarm or not. (The penthouse’s walls are and doors are very thick.) However, Nemo doesn’t want to wait around to find out if police or the building’s security are on their way to catch him during this burglary. He tries to break a window, but the windows are shatter-proof. But even if he were able to break a glass, he’s also at the top of a high-rise building in a penthouse that doesn’t have a fire escape staircase outside any windows.
One of the first things that Nemo does is find the wiring that leads to the alarm system. He cuts it so that there is no more noise. After a while, when it becomes obvious that no one heard the alarm, Nemo relaxes a little and looks inside the refrigerator, which is equipped with artificial intelligence technology that speaks. A somewhat amusing gag in the movie is that the refrigerator also plays Los Del Rio’s 1993 novelty hit “Macarena” at random times when the refrigerator is opened.
The penthouse has enough food and drinks for Nemo. After he drinks everything in the refrigerator, Nemo uses a garden sprinkler (the penthouse has an indoor garden) or tap water for liquid sustenance. But there’s another problem: The heating inside the penthouse has been turned up from the security malfunction. The temperature reaches up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Nemo finds out that the adjustment equipment for the indoor heating system isn’t working. And so, there are several scenes where sweaty Nemo tries to solve that problem.
The penthouse has surveillance video equipment with video monitors that look out into various parts of the building. Nemo can see the doorman station in the front lobby, a back stairwell, and inside one of the building’s elevators. A building housekeeper dressed in a maid’s uniform is shown taking her lunch breaks in the stairwell. Nemo knows her name is Jasmine (played by Eliza Stuyck), and he knows the names of a few other people in the building when he sees them on the surveillance monitors. It’s an indication that Nemo either cased the place very well before the heist, or he might have met these people before in some capacity.
Viewers will have to speculate why this penthouse’s owner was targeted for this theft. However, there are some clues that Nemo is an architect who’s a frustrated artist and who is jealous of this penthouse owner. Nemo has a sketchbook with him that he uses during the time he is trapped. He also seems very knowledgeable about how buildings are structured. And early on in the movie, Nemo looks at a painting of the owner on the wall while Nemo holds a medallion that he’s wearing as a necklace. Nemo sneers at the painting and says, “I’ve got a Pritzker Prize. What the fuck have you done?”
Because “Inside” is all about Nemo being isolated, there isn’t much talking throughout the movie. Nemo occasionally mutters things out loud. And as loneliess starts to set in, he begins to talk out loud to himself more often. Nemo tries to contact Number 3 by walkie talkie multiple times, but he gets no answer. Eventually, the walkie talkie battery goes dead. Nemo also texts an unnamed person to try to help him, but he gets no reply.
“Inside” has a few plot holes, some of which have logical explanations while others do not. The first question that some viewers might ask is: “Isn’t a good alarm system supposed to alert law enforcement?” A possible explanation is that the alarm system malfunctioned (as stated in the beginning of the movie), so the law enforcement alert part of the alarm system didn’t work.
What’s hard to believe is that Nemo stays trapped in the penthouse for “months,” without anyone going to the penthouse and finding him there, according to the production notes for “Inside.” It’s very unlikely that someone with the penthouse owner’s wealth would not have anyone checking in on the penthouse for that long period of time, even if it’s just to water the plants. A better and more believable narrative for the film would have been to have Nemo trapped for a week or two at the most.
That would still be enough time to have what happens in the movie: The reality starts to sink in with Nemo that no one really cares about him. And it really messes with his mind. He is trapped in a luxury penthouse with material things worth a lot of money, but the irony is that Nemo doesn’t have what every non-hermit human being needs: some kind of meaningful connection with other people. For all intents and purposes, the penthouse (which has excellent production design by Thorsten Sabel) has become a gilded cage for Nemo. Even though “Inside” is not Dafoe’s best movie, he is still riveting to watch in this performance.
“Inside” is not going to please viewers who think that the movie should have more suspense or subplots. A predictable storyline would have been for Nemo to use the surveillance equipment as a way to entertain himself. Instead, the movie shows Nemo’s mental deterioration as a way to invite viewers to think about what they would do if they were trapped in a luxury home with no one to talk to for weeks on end, and no way to escape unless someone came to the rescue. “Inside” is a thoughtful but long-winded story that puts into perspective what really matters in life, when so many people in society perceive material wealth to be the key to happiness.
Focus Features released “Inside” in select U.S. cinemas on March 17, 2023.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Northern and Eastern Europe, from the years 894 to approximately 919, the fantasy action film “The Northman” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and royalty.
Culture Clash: In this Viking version of “Hamlet,” an exiled prince seeks to avenge the murder of his father, who was killed by the father’s brother.
Culture Audience: “The Northman” will appeal primarily to fans of the movie’s all-star cast, filmmaker Robert Eggers and Viking stories that are gory but realistically violent.
Oscar Novak, Ethan Hawke and Nicole Kidman in “The Northman” (Photo by Aidan Monaghan/Focus Features)
Brutally violent but artistically stunning, “The Northman” brings harsh realism and dreamy mythology to this Viking story that inspired William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” It cannot be said enough times as a warning: “The Northman” is not for viewers who are easily offended by on-screen depictions of bloody gore and sadistic violence. There are scenes in this movie that can best be described as downright filthy—and not just because these scenes have people covered in dirt, blood and other grime. There’s a filth of the mind that plagues many of the characters in “The Northman,” where murder, rape, torture and other assaults are a way of life to conquer and subjugate others.
American filmmaker Robert Eggers has made a career out of exploring the dark side of humanity in the movies that he writes and directs. His feature films—beginning with 2015’s “The Witch” and 2019’s “The Lighthouse”—have a rare combination of taking place in an otherworldly atmosphere while depicting people and events as if they are historically accurate. “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse” are defined by elements of horror, while “The Northman” (Eggers’ third feature film, which he co-wrote with Sjón) can be defined by elements of tragedy. “The Northman” is also a movie about Vikings, vengeance and violence.
Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” play was itself based on the medieval Scandinavian legend of Amleth, the story of a prince who vows to get deadly revenge for the murder of his father, who was betrayed and killed by the father’s brother. “The Northman” weaves into the story aspects of Scandinavian folklore, the occult and the effects of hallucinogenic drugs. The end result is an immersive cinematic experience that is both menacing and magical.
“The Northman” begins in the year 894, on the fictitious Scottish island kingdom of Hrafnsey, which is close to Orkney Island and Shetland Island. Hrafnsey is ruled by King Aurvandil War-Raven (played by Ethan Hawke), a confident leader who has just returned to the land after about three months away from home. King Aurvandil has a happy family life with his wife Queen Gudrún (played by Nicole Kidman) and their son Amleth (played by Oscar Novak), who’s about 10 or 11 years old when the story begins.
“The Lighthouse” co-star Willem Dafoe has a small role in “The Northman” as a court jester named Heimir the Fool. King Aurvandil is amused by Heimir’s talents, while the king’s jealous younger brother Fjölnir (played by Claes Bang) is dismissive and condescending to Heimir. The scene with the brothers’ two very different reactions to Heimir are meant to show their contrasting personalities and how they interact with people.
King Aurvandil is fixated on the idea that Amleth should be ready to lead Hrafnsey, because the king has a premonition that he will die soon. Aurvandil does not know when he will die, but he is certain of how he will die: “I must die by the sword. I will die in honor,” he says. Gudrún doesn’t like to hear Aurvandil talk this way, and she insists that Amleth is too young to learn about royal adult responsibilities. Nevertheless, Aurvandil and Amleth do a male-bonding ritual around a campfire together, where a shaman leads the father and son to enact various wolf mannerisms while proving that they’re still human.
Although the king is beloved by many of his subjects, there is a cabal of people waiting to betray him. Leading this traitorous group is Fjölnir, who is cruel, power-mad and ruthless. One day, when King Aurvandil and Amleth are spending some father-son time in a forest, Fjölnir and about a dozen of his cronies ambush the king and viciously murder him, while Amleth witnesses everything.
Amleth manages to hide and escape, but not before using a knife to cut off the nose of a brute named Finnr (played by Eldar Skar), who later lies to everyone by saying that he killed Amleth. For the rest of the movie, Finnr is known as Finnr the Nose-Stub. Amleth runs back home, only to find out that Fjölnir and his gang are plundering the land, invading homes, and letting everyone know that the king is dead and Fjölnir is now in charge. One of the last things that a terrified Amleth sees before he runs away from Hrafnsey is his mother being kidnapped by Fjölnir’s cronies.
The movie then fast-forwards about 20 years later. Amleth (played by Alexander Skarsgård) is now a strapping, angry man, who has joined a group of marauding killers hired to help conquer villages in Eastern Europe. Those who are not killed in these villages are held captive as slaves. “The Northman” has several of these invasion scenes that are not for the faint of heart. Amleth has become extremely jaded and callous in all the violence and murders he commits as a berserker warrior.
However, Amleth soon has a vision of a mystic named Seeress (played by Björk), who reminds Amleth that his immediate purpose in life is to avenge his father’s death. This sets Amleth on a path to disguise himself as a slave and go on a slave ship heading to Iceland. It’s on this ship that he meets Olga of the Birch Forest (played by Anya Taylor-Joy, the breakout star of “The Witch”), an enslaved Slavic devotee of the mystic arts. In other words, Olga is a witch. Amleth and Olga have a mutual attraction to each other that goes exactly where you think it’s going to go.
Amleth is going to Iceland, because it’s where Fjölnir has now settled with Amleth’s mother Gudrún, who is now Fjölnir’s wife. Fjölnir and Gudrún have two sons together: brash young adult Thórir the Proud (played by Gustav Lindh) and obedient pre-teen Gunnar (played by Elliot Rose), who have been brought up in a life of royal privilege. For all of his flaws and evil deeds, Fjölnir loves his sons immensely and will do anything to protect them. Considering how Gudrún ended up with Fjölnir, she is treated just like a trophy wife.
“The Northman” often has simplistic and cliché dialogue, but the cast members’ performances are mostly convincing. Skarsgård and Bang have a great deal of physicality in their roles as Amleth and Fjölnir, which play out in the expected “protagonist versus antagonist” ways. What they both bring to these characters is an added level of emotional depth that becomes more compelling when this nephew and uncle, who are sworn enemies, actually have something in common: their love of family as their biggest emotional vulnerability.
Kidman struggles with sticking to the same accent (sometimes she sounds Scottish, Nordic, Icelandic or various combinations of all three), but her overall performance as Gudrún is riveting, because Gudrún is the most complicated character in the story. Taylor-Joy is perfectly cast as the cunning and (literally) bewitching Olga. The rest of the cast members are serviceable in their roles.
Aside from the disturbing violence, “The Northman” will leave an impact on viewers because of how it creates a world caught in between medieval truths and timeless mythology. There are haunting and compelling scenes involving pagan rituals, ascending into heavenly spaces, and transforming someone’s interior body into some kind of mystical realm, with entrails snaking around like winding tree branches. “The Northman” also has more than a few nods to psychedelia, including Olga’s psychedelic mushrooms that are used as a weapon in this family feud.
“The Northman” greatly benefits from the almost-hypnotic cinematography of Jarin Blaschke, a longtime collaborator of Eggers. Whether or not people enjoy Eggers’ movies (which sometimes drag with slow pacing), there’s no denying that these films have top-notch cinematography. Viewers who can withstand the relentless onslaught of violence in “The Northman” can also appreciate that even amid the murder and mayhem, there are still glimmers of hope for humanity.
Focus Features will release “The Northman” in U.S. cinemas on April 22, 2022.
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the superhero action film “Spider-Man: No Way Home” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: After 17-year-old Peter Parker has been exposed as the alter ego of Spider-Man, he enlists the help of mystical superhero Doctor Strange to make people forget this secret identity, but Doctor Strange’s spell brings several allies and enemies back from various dimensions of the Spider-Verse.
Culture Audience: Besides appealing to the obvious target audience of comic book movie fans, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” will appeal primarily to people who like nostalgia-filled superhero movies and who are fans of this movie’s star-studded cast.
Tom Holland and Alfred Molina) in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures)
Just like an artist’s greatest-hits box set offered to fans who already own every album by the artist, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” is best appreciated by people who’ve already seen all the previous “Spider-Man” movies. It’s filled with insider jokes that will either delight or annoy viewers, depending on how familiar they are with the cinematic Spider-Verse. Simply put: “Spider-Man: No Way Home” is an epic superhero feast for fans, but it should not be the first “Spider-Man” movie that people should see. There are too many references to other Spider-Man movies that came before “Spider-Man: No Way Home” that just won’t connect very well with people who have not seen enough of the previous “Spider-Man” movies.
Fortunately for the blockbuster “Spider-Man” movie franchise (which launched with 2002’s “Spider-Man,” starring Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker/Spider-Man), most people who watch “Spider-Man: No Way Home” will have already seen at least one previous “Spider-Man” movie. Maguire also starred in 2004’s “Spider-Man 2” and 2007’s “Spider-Man 3.” Andrew Garfield starred as Peter Parker/Spider-Man in two of the reboot movies: 2012’s “The Amazing Spider-Man” and 2014’s “The Amazing Spider-Man 2.” Another “Spider-Man” movie reboot series began with Tom Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, starting with 2017’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” and continuing with 2019’s “Spider-Man: Far From Home” and 2021’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”
“Spider-Man: No Way Home” is the third “Spider-Man” movie directed by Jon Watts and co-written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, the same writer/director team behind 2019’s “Spider-Man: Far From Home.” There were six screenwriters (including Watts, McKenna and Sommers) for 2017’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” which was also directed by Watts. The trio of Watts, McKenna and Sommers for three consecutive “Spider-Man” movies has been beneficial to the quality of the filmmaking.
Each “Spider-Man” film that this trio has worked on truly does feel connected to each other, compared to other franchise films where different directors and writers often change the tone of the sequels, and therefore the sequels feel disconnected. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” also makes several references to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), which Spider-Man/Peter Parker (as portrayed by Holland) was a big part of, in his alliance with the Avengers. It’s another reason why it’s better to see previous Marvel-related movies with Spider-Man in it before seeing “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”
Because Spider-Man is Marvel Comics’ most popular character, you’d have to be completely shut off from pop culture to not at least know a few things about Spider-Man, such as he got his agility superpowers by accidentally being bit by a radioactive spider. Just like many superheroes, Peter is an orphan: His parents died in a plane crash, so he was raised by an aunt and an uncle. Even with knowledge of these basic facts about Peter Parker/Spider-Man, it really is best to see all or most of the previous “Spider-Man” films, because the jokes will be funnier, and the surprises will be sweeter.
Speaking of surprises, the vast majority of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” has spoiler information. However, it’s enough to give a summary of what to expect in the first 30 minutes of this 148-minute film without revealing any surprises. The beginning of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” picks up right where “Spider-Man: Far From Home” left off: Peter Parker—an intelligent and compassionate 17-year-old student who lives in New York City’s Queens borough—has been exposed as the secret alter ego of superhero Spider-Man. The culprit who exposed him was the villain Mysterio (played by Jake Gyllenhaal), who’s seen briefly in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” in the opening scene that shows the aftermath of this exposé.
All hell breaks loose, because Mysterio has twisted things to make it look like Spider-Man is a villain, not a hero. Peter and his girlfriend MJ (played by Zendaya) are caught in the middle of a crowded New York City street when Peter’s Spider-Man identity is exposed. And the backlash is immediate. Before getting into any harmful physical danger, Spider-Man puts his superhero skills to good use by whisking himself and MJ to safety.
However, the Department of Damage Control quickly detains Peter, MJ, Peter’s best friend Ned Leeds (played by Jacob Batalon) and Peter’s aunt May Parker (played by Marisa Tomei) for questioning. And who shows up to give some legal advice? Attorney/blind superhero Matt Murdock, also known as Daredevil (played by Charlie Cox), who makes a very brief cameo. Matt says, “I don’t think any of the charges will stick. Things will get even worse. There’s still the court of public opinion.”
There’s not enough evidence to hold Peter and his loved ones in the interrogation rooms, so they go back home and ponder their next move. But how long can they stay safe, when people know where Peter lives and where he goes to school? Spider-Man has been branded as a troublemaker by certain people, such as fear-mongering journalist-turned-conspiracy theorist J. Jonah Jameson (played by J.K. Simmons), who no longer works as the editor of the Daily Planet newspaper. Jameson is now anchoring TheDailyPlanet.net, a 24-hour news streaming service.
However, Spider-Man is still a hero or an anti-hero to many more people. When Peter goes back to school the next day, he’s treated like a celebrity. Students surround him to take photos and videos with their phones. Faculty members fawn over him. Conceited and bullying student Flash Thompson (played by Tony Revolori), one of Peter’s nuisances at school, tries to latch on to Peter’s newfound fame by now claiming to be Peter’s best friend. Flash has already written a tell-all memoir to cash in on Peter’s celebrity status.
Peter, MJ (whose real name is Michelle Jones) and Ned are in their last year at Midtown School of Science and Technology. They have plans to go to the prestigious Massachusetts Institution of Technology (MIT) together after they graduate from high school. But due to their high-profile brush with the law, the three pals are worried about their chances of getting into MIT.
This hoped-for MIT enrollment becomes the motivation for Peter to go to fellow New York City-based superhero Doctor Strange (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) to ask for his help. Peter wants Doctor Strange to cast a spell so that people will forget that Peter is really Spider-Man. Doctor Strange is reluctant, but he gives in to Peter’s pleading. As Doctor Strange is casting his Spell of Forgetting, Peter interrupts several times to tell Doctor Strange to exempt some of Peter’s loved ones (such as MJ, Ned and May) from the spell.
Doctor Strange is extremely annoyed, so he cuts the spell short and is able to contain the spell’s powers in a cube-sized box. But some damage has already been done: The spell has opened the multi-verse where anyone who knows who Peter Parker can be summoned and go to the dimension where Peter is. And some of these individuals are villains from past “Spider-Man” movies. Doctor Strange gives Peter/Spider-Man the task of capturing these villains to imprison them in Doctor Strange’s dungeon that looks like a combination of a high-tech jail and a mystical crypt.
The return of some of these villains has already been announced through official publicity and marketing materials released for “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” so it’s not spoiler information. These villains are:
Norman Osborn/Green Goblin (played by Willem Dafoe), from 2002’s “Spider-Man”
Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus, also known as Doc Ock (played by Alfred Molina), from 2004’s “Spider-Man 2”
Flint Marko/Sandman (played by Thomas Haden Church), from 2007’s “Spider-Man 3”
Dr. Curt Connors/The Lizard (played by Rhys Ifans), from 2012’s “The Amazing Spider-Man”
Max Dillon/Electro (played by Jamie Foxx), from 2014’s “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”
“Spider-Man: No Way Home” has some other surprises, some of which have already been leaked to the public, but won’t be revealed in this review. A few other non-surprise characters in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” include Doctor Strange’s portal-traveling sidekick Wong (played by Benedict Wong), as well as Harold “Happy” Hogan (played by Jon Favreau), Tony Stark/Iron Man’s loyal driver who is now taken on minder duties for Peter. In “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” Happy and May had a fling that ended. Happy fell in love with May and wanted a more serious romance with her, so he is still nursing a broken heart about it in “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”
The movie’s action sequences are among the most memorable in “Spider-Man” movie history, in large part because of the return of so many characters from the past. A lengthy part of the movie that takes place on the Statue of Liberty will be talked about by fans for years. Because so much of “Spider-Man” relies heavily on people knowing the history of this movie franchise to fully understand the plot developments and a lot of the dialogue, “Spider-Man: No Way Home” will probably be a “love it or hate it” film.
The movie’s mid-credits scene directly correlates to the mid-credits scene for 2021’s “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.” And the end-credits scene for “Spider-Man: No Way Home” features a glimpse into the world of Doctor Strange. People should know by now that movies with Marvel characters have mid-credits scenes and/or end-credits scenes that are essentially teasers for an upcoming Marvel superhero movie or TV series.
“Spider-Man: No Way Home” has some wisecracking that seems a little too self-congratulatory, but those smug moments are balanced out with some heartfelt emotional scenes. And all the jumping around from one universe dimension to the next might be a little too confusing to viewers who are new to the Spider-Verse. Some people might accuse “Spider-Man: No Way Home” of overstuffing the movie with too much nostalgic stunt casting as gimmicks. However, die-hard fans of the franchise will be utterly thrilled by seeing these familiar characters and will be fully engaged in finding out what happens to them in this very entertaining superhero adventure.
Columbia Pictures will release “Spider-Man: No Way Home” in U.S. cinemas on December 17, 2021.
