Great dancers, like great actors, escape into the skins of others. Unlike (most) actors, those skins may be lower mammalian in nature. Polina (Anastasia Shevtsova), the title character in Valérie Müller and Angelin Preljocaj’s affecting coming-of-age story, dances through a sundry animal kingdom. A close-up sequence of her pointe shoes mid-rehearsal conjures a horse kicking, … [Read more...]
‘I Do … Until I Don’t’ a step back for triple threat Bell
It’s worth remembering that triple-threat writer-director-actor Lake Bell’s first feature, the justly lauded In a World …, was essentially an antique polished with a contemporary sheen. As smart and original as the film was, it conjured a culture of competitive movie-trailer voice-over artists that no longer exists, as the business of film promotion has long jettisoned this … [Read more...]
‘Trip to Spain’ offers more drama along with duo’s brilliant banter
By now, you should know what to expect from Michael Winterbottom’s Trip franchise — namely the consumption of rapier repartee and haute cuisine in privileged places, 86ing the suspense, romance and action that provide structure to most entertainment product. For three television series turned films, the director has sent versions of his convivial, real-life stars, Steve … [Read more...]
Documentary-style approach helps ‘Menashe’ connect
Menashe is a redemption song in a minor key, played perhaps on a weathered shofar. A simple, somnolent story set in the cloistered subset of a subset, this documentary-style drama is almost guaranteed a niche audience. But moviegoers willing to expand their horizons might discover a humanist character study that transcends the restrictions of its milieu. That environment is … [Read more...]
‘Amnesia’: Healing, memory and the Holocaust
There’s something ineffably Hitchcockian about the setup of Barbet Schroeder’s Amnesia. It’s set in 1990 on the breathtaking coastline of Ibiza, where sixty-something Martha Sagell (Marthe Keller) occupies a sprawling property disconnected from much of society. The interiors contain more secrets than material goods. The walls throb with the unspoken and the repressed, starting … [Read more...]
In ’47 Meters Down,’ an overzealous cage match with terror
When pretty white girls are marooned in Mexico, things rarely end well. At least that’s the impression you get from watching too much horror cinema or Nancy Grace. In an agonizing example of the former, Lisa (Mandy Moore) and her sister Kate (Claire Holt), the suffering couple at the center of 47 Meters Down, decide to spruce up their south-of-the-border getaway by cage-diving … [Read more...]
‘It Comes at Night’ gives paranoia a grim, powerful thrust
In most genres, "it" is a benign pronoun. In horror, it is a manifestation of the indescribable — your worst nightmares incarnate. In Stephen King’s It, which will finally lurk onto the big screen in September, the title being is a clownlike manifestation of the inner demons of childhood. Larry Cohen’s cult curio It’s Alive! interpreted the pronoun more directly: That’s the … [Read more...]
‘Wonder Woman’: An honest-to-gods feminist superhero
The superhero origin story is the most durably familiar of the comic-book tent pole narratives. Even the best ones spin off the same formula: The naïve title character discovers her powers, trains exhaustively, learns the power-hungry ways of mortals, and grows virtually indestructible until she finally meets her match against an arch-villain bent on world domination. The final … [Read more...]
Punches in pedestrian ‘Chuck’ rarely land
The road of the almost famous is paved with frustration, resentment, anxiety and, for a certain type of self-destructive personality, awfully bad behavior. That’s the lasting takeaway of Chuck, an otherwise pedestrian biopic of the former heavyweight boxer Chuck Wepner. A New Jersey pugilist known around his community for his “dirty” style in the ring and his loose blood … [Read more...]
‘The Wall’: War and mind games, in a tight space
The Wall is as lean and economical as a war movie can be. There is one location, no musical score and three speaking parts, only two of which come from actors that appear onscreen. The film is 81 minutes, and it feels like it — a refreshing break from the increasing bloat of studio actioners. Set in a tumbleweedy, post-“Mission Accomplished” Iraqi oilfield in 2007, The Wall … [Read more...]