This Is a Movie Review: With ‘Disobedience,’ the Rachels Weisz and McAdams Seek Love in an Orthodox Place

April 26, 2018

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CREDIT: Bleecker Street

This review was originally posted on News Cult in April 2018.

Starring: Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, Alessandro Nivola

Director: Sebastián Lelio

Running Time: 114 Minutes

Rating: R for Bodily Fluid Swapping

Release Date: April 27, 2018 (Limited)

It’s nice when a movie like Disobedience, which looks like it is on a one-way track to a depressing conclusion, actually manages to have a happy ending. Now, “happy ending” might be a bit of a stretch, as it does not wrap up with the most joyous of notes, but the main characters do have decent prospects for the future, thus managing a note of hope I was nowhere near expecting.

Ronit Krushka (Rachel Weisz) is a photographer living in New York who returns to the insular Orthodox Jewish community in London where she grew up to attend the funeral of her rabbi father, a pillar of the community. While there, sparks re-emerge between her and Esti Kuperman (Rachel McAdams), a childhood friend and clearly much more. Disobedience then is a close relative to Brokeback Mountain, as it is a gay love story negotiated within an oppressively culturally conservative community, but whereas Brokeback’s arc is tragic, Disobedience manages to be about resolution and compromise.

While the Orthodox Judaism of this film is hardly open-minded to the prospect of a lesbian couple, there are other traditional ideas that manage to be more insidiously oppressive. It feels like a bigger scandal that a woman would choose to be childless or abandon her home than for her to fall in love with another woman. Thus, Ronit bears the brunt of the ostracization, whereas Esti, who has married a man and made a steady living as a schoolteacher, maintains cordiality and respect despite her orientation being something close to an open secret. Esti’s husband Dovid (Alessandro Nivola) knows the truth about her, and he embodies the idea implied by the community that if you are a woman and you have an affair with another woman, it will be more or less ignored so long as you get married and have sex once a week and at least try to have a baby. Disobedience is smart about recognizing that while romance and its attendant passions are important, there are other fundamentals to life that are worth focusing on.

This is a drab film, with characters endlessly dressed in black or other dark tones. Surely that is partly to due with mourning the loss of a loved one, but you get the sense that this is how this community always dresses. Perhaps they are taking a cue from the perpetually rainy weather of their hometown. Even the brunette Esti wears a wig of a darker shade. While these outfits strike me as painfully passionless, much of the community wear them well. Esti can make them work to a certain extent, while Ronit is clearly uncomfortable throughout. This is a story about whether the two of them can meet in the middle, and being surprisingly okay with it when they cannot quite get there.

Disobedience is Recommended If You Like: Brokeback Mountain, Doomed (But Not That Doomed) Romances, Portrayals of Orthodox Life

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Orthodoxies

This Is a Movie Review: A Wrinkle in Time

April 22, 2018

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CREDIT: Disney

I certainly enjoyed Ava DuVernay’s spin on A Wrinkle in Time, though I am a little disappointed it does not reach the level of blockbuster classic that I hoped it would. I think much of that has to do with its too-low-calorie mix of epic and low-key. Sure, Meg travels a great interdimensional distance to save her father from a dark entity threatening the entire universe, but she does so over just the course of an afternoon. That relative speed is part of the hook, sure, but it should not feel so speedy. It really would have been beneficial to more deeply explore the effects of tessering on Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace.

There are a lot of wonderful design elements and sufficiently creepy moments, but much of those do not feel terribly specific to what this particular film is trying to say. Perhaps the scariest sequence is the disturbingly harmonious cul-de-sac on Camazotz, but that is not really preying on any unique Murry family fears; the fight at hand is not really one against suburban conformity. As for the supposedly weightless bromides of inspiration and self-confidence, I do not find them terribly off-putting, but they certainly could have benefited from the offbeat verve that Zach Galifianakis naturally taps into as the Happy Medium.

I give A Wrinkle in Time 3 Happy’s out of 5 IT’s.

This Is a Movie Review: ‘I Feel Pretty’ Mines Humor and Self-Confidence Out of Cognitive Dissonance

April 19, 2018

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CREDIT: Mark Schafer/STX Films

This review was originally posted on News Cult in April 2018.

Starring: Amy Schumer, Rory Scovel, Michelle Williams, Aidy Bryant, Busy Philipps, Lauren Hutton, Tom Hopper, Emily Ratajkowski, Adrian Martinez

Directors: Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein

Running Time: 110 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Strategically Filmed Nudity

Release Date: April 20, 2018

A friend who accompanied me to the I Feel Pretty screening remarked afterwards that Amy Schumer was the wrong fit for the lead role and that an actual plus-size actress like Nicole Byer or Aidy Bryant (who plays one of Schumer’s close friends) would have made more sense. Her point is salient, for while Schumer does not have a supermodel’s stereotypical rail-thin body, she is hardly anywhere near obese. But this movie, in which a cosmetics company employee suddenly starts believing that she is transcendentally beautiful, is about perception more than reality. What it requires in the lead then is someone with a body that can both convincingly cause self-esteem issues and be stunningly attractive. That is to say, it could be anybody, and that is the underlying message. I Feel Pretty is not about a fat girl who starts to believe that she is skinny, but rather, it is about someone with low self-esteem who transforms into the most self-assured woman ever.

Writing/directing duo Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein take their cues from the likes of Big (even featuring clips from that 1988 Tom Hanks classic to make the connection even more obvious), as Renee (Schumer) wishes at a fountain that she can be one of the beautiful people that commands the attention of any room she walks into. The next day at SoulCycle she gets knocked out after hitting her head, and when she comes to, she looks in the mirror, and voilà! Her wish has come true, and she proceeds to admire and shamelessly caress all her assets. But here’s the kicker: her appearance has not changed, and there is no indication that she is hallucinating an idealized version of herself. The audience sees the same body she has had the whole time, and presumably that is what Renee sees, too. It is only how she sees it that has changed.

I Feel Pretty walks an unceasing tightrope, as it is built on a foundation of cognitive dissonance. Schumer has to play a character who is insane enough that she has a sort of inverted body dysmorphia but not so insane that she cannot function in society. (Appropriately enough, one of the biggest laugh lines comes from her being assured that her company offers plenty of mental health services.) She gets away with it by maintaining a relaxed energy befitting the self-confidence she achieves. And besides, while constant confusion may not be the best formula for logic, it is a perfect formula for laughter, as the brain attempts to make sense of the nonsense of self-discovery.

Much of the humor derives from the reactions of those around Renee. Her best friends Vivian (Bryant) and Jane (Busy Philipps) humor her assurances of “It really is me” while subtly worrying that she has lost her mind. As for those who meet her after her “change,” Rory Scovel, as Renee’s love interest, and Michelle Williams and Lauren Hutton, as her co-workers, get a lot of comedic mileage out of just looking on in stunned amazement at this truly singular woman in their presence. What they are responding to has almost nothing to do with her body and everything to do with her self-assurance. (Williams, for her part, is unforgettable in her affectation of a breathy baby-doll voice that is supposedly her character’s natural way of speaking.)

The story falters a bit in the middle for the sake of fitting into the genre’s typical denouement. Renee initially remains as nice as she always been after her transformation, but after a taste of life on the other side, she starts displaying some casual cruelty that feels less like a natural regression and more a betrayal of character consistency. These conflicts lead to some sweet resolutions, but they are not quite satisfying enough to make the means of getting to that point easy to stomach.

I Feel Pretty’s message that self-confidence and self-acceptance are the keys to success and happiness is no great revelation, but that does not make it any less true or not worth repeating. But I am left wondering: would it have resonated more if the lead had a less normative body type? From a business standpoint, it would be positive if more starring roles went to those who are plus-size, queer, trans, and/or people of color. But the point is that self-confidence and self-doubt are both available to everyone, no matter how traditionally attractive they are or are not. So theoretically the lead of I Feel Pretty could have been anyone, but in practice it had to be one person. At least there is a genuine invocation of inclusivity with a conclusive speech. It is the sort of speech that has been co-opted to sell cosmetic products (both within and outside the film), but it is nonetheless worth holding onto its positivity and running with it.

I Feel Pretty is Recommended If You Like: Big, Laughing While Being Confused, Finding the Inspiration to Achieve Your Dreams

Grade: 4 out of 5 Diffusion Lines

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Rampage’ is Big, Big, Big, Very Big

April 13, 2018

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CREDIT: Warner Bros.

This review was originally posted on News Cult in April 2018.

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Malin Åkerman, Jake Lacy, Joe Manganiello

Director: Brad Peyton

Running Time: 107 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Pummeling and Devouring by Mutated Animals, Frighteningly Evocative Urban Destruction, and Crude Gorilla Hand Gestures

Release Date: April 13, 2018

If you subscribe to the belief that bigger is better in cinema, then you ought to head straight to Rampage. Its entire premise is: what if three already fairly large animals became gigantic? The main focus is on our good buddy George, an albino silverback gorilla who knows sign language. He hooks up with a grey wolf that “weirdos on the Internet” have dubbed “Ralph,” as well as a crocodile who goes by Lizzie. The three of them have been mutated by a mysterious gas that fell from the sky. In addition to blowing them up, it has given them abilities typical of other species. It is a bit like the hybridization in Annihilation, but much less nightmarish and internally disruptive.

There is a lot of time devoted to explaining that the mutations are the result of developments in CRISPR genetic editing technology. Some cursory research on my part reveals that early research into CRISPR was happening in the mid-’80s, coincidentally around the same time that the first entry in the Rampage video game series (on which the film is based) was released. It can sometimes be helpful to ground a creature feature with real science, but in this case it is beside the point. We’re just here to see George, Ralph, and Lizzie let loose, and what is appreciated is that there are only three of them, because if the mutations had gotten even more out of hand, this could have all just been a cacophonous mess.

Tasked with wrangling these huge creatures are some actors both literally and metaphorically big. Who else could be the human star of Rampage besides Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who is reliably big when it comes to muscles, charisma, and box office results? Lending him a hand is a government agent played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who, though a tall man himself, is certainly not quite as large as Johnson. But as the “asshole looking out for other assholes,” he knows just how big and vibrant a supporting performance in this type of film needs to be. And rounding out the cast’s bigness are Malin Åkerman and Jake Lacy as a sniveling brother-sister villainous duo. Their experience in comedy has trained them well for just how to calibrate their broadness. Lacy especially, constantly with a sandwich or Pop-Tart in hand, is bound to get you chuckling with his pouty face.

The climax, in which the mutant trio tears apart Chicago, is filled with stunningly big and bold decisions. The onscreen deaths are somewhat alarmingly violent, though not unexpectedly so. But when we get to a skyscraper collapse that evokes the Twin Towers falling on 9/11, the film scrambles through about 100 different tones. These outsize decisions are consistent with Rampage’s entire approach, but they are liable to leave you unable to process quite what is happening. Bigger is not always better. Sometimes you need to take a step back and ask yourself if a certain choice is really a good decision, but Rampage never lets its foot off the gas.

Rampage is Recommended If You Like: Godzilla, King Kong, Godzilla vs. King Kong, Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Gorilla Middle Fingers

This Is a Movie Review: A Classic Game Turns Deadly in the Sloppy But Intermittently Effective ‘Truth or Dare’

April 11, 2018

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CREDIT: Peter Iovino/Universal Pictures

This review was originally posted on News Cult in April 2018.

Starring: Lucy Hale, Tyler Posey, Violett Beane, Hayden Szeto, Landon Liboiron, Nolan Gerard Funk, Sophia Ali, Sam Lerner, Aurora Perrineau

Director: Jeff Wadlow

Running Time: 100 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Douchey College Behavior, Serious Alcoholism, Disturbing Secrets, Freaky Images, Sudden Broken Bones and Gunfire, and One Quick Sex Scene

Release Date: April 13, 2018

It takes a while for Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare to really get going. At first it’s just about a group of college friends hanging out in Mexico on spring break, which is fair enough because these movies are often about attractive young people whose lives get upended by some ancient curse. But you would think there would be a little more foreboding about the dangers to come. Instead, we get the most banal opening credits sequence in a good long while, which is effectively just a social media vacation slideshow that is livened up in no way at all with genre signifiers. At least the first third gives us Ronnie (The Goldbergs’ Sam Lerner), the ultimate parody of a fratty interloper, who delivers beautiful poetry like, “I can’t say no to shots. Everyone knows that.”

Thankfully director Jeff Wadlow and his fellow screenwriters figure out how to make their premise truly unsettling about halfway through. The stakes of the titular game, cursed by a demonic presence, are literally life-or-death: tell the truth, or you die; complete your dare, or you die. Trouble is, the challenges can be just as lethal as the consequences. When these kids are not told to literally kill someone, they are asked to reveal secrets that might drive their friends to kill themselves. There are Final Destination-style dynamics of victims being picked off one by one here, but the methods used to terrorize them are uniquely effective. This is the horror of confronting painful secrets that can lead to irreparable rifts between loved ones. On top of that, there is the creepy signature visual effect involving faces contorted into uncanny valley-style bulging eyes and unnaturally stretched-lips smiles.

While it is appreciably unsettling, Truth or Dare could have taken more care to grapple with its morality. It confronts the eternal dilemma of choosing between saving a small group of loved ones and a larger group of strangers, as well as the conflict between self-interest versus protecting others who may not be deserving of such care. Olivia (Lucy Hale) is both the narrative and moral center. She gives money to the homeless and professes that she would save the larger group, while dealing with her own feelings for the boyfriend of her best friend, who is constantly cheating on him. This all leads to an ending that is undeniably devastating that but might just betray the message that Olivia has attempted to demonstrate throughout. It is fine when a horror flick ends on a sour note, but it is not exactly playing fair when it is such a stark departure from what has come before.

Truth or Dare is Recommended If You Like: It Follows But Wish It Were More Like Traditional Friday Night Multiplex Horror (For Good and For Ill), The Ring, Final Destination

Grade: 3 out of 5 Creepy Smiles

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Borg vs McEnroe’ Serves Up an Electrifyingly Tense Two-Biopics-in-One

April 11, 2018

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CREDIT: Julie Vrabelova/Neon

This review was originally posted on News Cult in April 2018.

Starring: Sverrir Gudnason, Shia LaBeouf, Stella Skarsgård, Tuva Novotny

Director: Janus Metz Pederson

Running Time: 107 Minutes

Rating: R for the F-Bombs of Athletic Frustration and Incidental Nudity

Release Date: April 13, 2018

A study in contrasts often makes for both thrilling athletics and fascinating cinema. Thus it makes sense that we now have a film chronicling the 1980 Wimbledon men’s final between the Swedish Björn Borg and the American John McEnroe, considered by many to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, tennis matches of all time. It is surprising, perhaps, that it has taken decades for Borg vs McEnroe to happen, though that is perhaps attributable to tennis not being as marquee as other sports. But it is also good that we have had to wait, as it has given us time to digest the moment. The end result is appropriately internationally flavored, with a Danish director, production support from multiple countries, and only about two cast members well-known in America.

As a major tennis fan, I can’t help but think about how dramatically different Borg vs McEnroe would have gone if today’s officiating technology were available. The Hawk-Eye system used at many tournaments is an exceptionally efficient method for confirming whether or not balls have landed in or out of bounds. Had it been around 40 years ago, it could have prevented McEnroe from developing his hothead reputation, much of which came from his disputes with the umpires about supposedly blown calls. He could have been vindicated, though perhaps he would have found something else to complain about. But because it all went down as it did, B v M sets up its titular rivalry in terms that could be an alternate title: “Ice-Borg vs. Superbrat.”

Instead of a traditional dramatization of a rivalry, Borg vs McEnore is really more a concurrent double biopic. The buildup over the course of the tournament to the championship match is interspersed with flashbacks that paint both competitors as outsiders fighting their way into a game that has historically been elitist and dismissive of outsiders. Borg (who displays a temper on par with McEnroe’s in his teenage years) is treated with insults by the sport’s upper crust; though he is embraced by fans after winning the four prior Wimbledons in a row, he still maintains a resolve of doing things his own way. McEnroe is the upstart attempting to break through, showing little concern for decorum at the tournament where it is valued more than anywhere else, and he is met with the boos to match his impishness. As Borg, Sverrir Gudnason is not asked to do much besides remain still and calm outside of the tennis scenes, but there is a world of action taking place within his eyes. Shia LaBeouf does not try to mimic McEnroe’s voice, but he does deploy his similar propensity for asshole outbursts.

B v M’s filmmaking techniques are unique among most sports biopics, and are practically avant-garde when compared to typical live televised athletics. Rarely does the camera focus merely on the ball landing on the court, one of the most essential aspects of the game, instead criss-crossing between the reactions of the two players as well as key figures in the stands. The editing is often frenetic, suggesting the whirlwind of emotions and pressure Borg and McEnroe are digesting throughout. The journey ends on a note of profound respect, their twinned stories appropriately subsumed within each other, leading into the expected epilogue that hits harder and deeper than most.

Borg vs McEnroe is Recommended If You Like: The filmmaking of Triumph of the Will, Rivalry Friendships

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Epic Tiebreaks

This Is a Movie Review: ‘The Rider’ Presents a Cowboy Who Cannot Imagine Life Outside the Rodeo

April 9, 2018

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CREDIT: Sony Pictures Classics

This review was originally published on News Cult in April 2018.

Starring: Brady Jandreau, Tim Jandreau, Lilly Jandreau, Cat Clifford, Lane Scott

Director: Chloé Zhao

Running Time: 105 Minutes

Rating: R for Mumbled Cowboy Profanity

Release Date: April 13, 2018 (Limited)

I’m not too familiar with the South Dakota rodeo scene, and I’m guessing that before she wrote and directed The Rider, Chloé Zhao wasn’t too familiar with it either. I make that assumption based on the fact that she grew up in China, a country that, as far as I know, is not noted for its rodeo culture. But if I had no idea about her background, I would have guessed that she in fact had grown up in the scene that her film portrays. The production notes recount how she immersed herself in the world of a group of Lakota cowboys, and that is clear from the results on screen. This is intimate, realist cinema, gently revealing profundity within a boy, his horses, and the land.

As Brady Blackburn, Lakota cowboy Brady Jandreau essentially plays himself: a rising rodeo star whose career is cut short, possibly permanently, by a fall that leaves him with a nasty head injury. (The entire cast basically themselves, in fact.) This makes his story more reflective than he ever intended his life to be, as he reckons with the consequences of not defining himself beyond anything other than a rodeo rider. If he is fundamentally a rider, but he cannot ride, then how can he even be? Many of the film’s shots are Jandreau looking off into the distance, as he delivers a perfectly fine example of face acting.

Where I think The Rider ultimately sets itself apart is its treatment of economic reality. Because Brady must give up the rodeo, he is forced to take a job as a grocery store stock boy. But this is not, as one might expect, cause for humiliation or depression. Ultimately the message of the film, at least as Brady is concerned, is: don’t give up. Any setback is an opportunity for him to keep his head up. Foolhardy though he may be, every decision he makes is so that he can get closer to getting back on the horse. When horses suffer an injury as debilitating as Brady’s, they are put to death out of mercy. Brady’s single-mindedness almost makes you wonder if that should also be an option for humans. But it is also inspiring to behold someone so sure about himself. Mostly, it is heartening to see someone’s story treated with such thorough, deep respect.

The Rider is Recommended If You Like: Realist cinema

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Ten Gallon Hats

This Is a Movie Review: The Death of Stalin

April 6, 2018

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CREDIT: IFC Films

When it comes right down to it, people are just people. This is the thought I have when watching the scene in The Death of Stalin in which a group of officials bumblingly drop the body of the dying Soviet Premier onto a bed. No matter how despotic things get, we are still beholden to our embarrassing physical realities. Alas, when the film starts to regularly show people shot in the head without a second thought, it is hard to remain Zen about the situation.

I saw Death of Stalin at the Alamo Drafthouse, and the pre-show programming included parts of the Monty Python’s Flying Circus episode “The Cycling Tour,” which features Michael Palin bungling his way into being the target of a Russian firing squad, who famously misfire at him from only a few feet away. As I prefer my gallows humor with plenty of goofiness, “The Cycling Tour” is definitely more comfort food for me than The Death of Stalin. That is not to say the latter is unsuccessful. I see what Armando Iannucci is doing, I acknowledge that he has met his goals, I laugh where I can, and then I move on, newly grateful that I live in a society that is not quite so dangerous as 1950s USSR.

I give The Death of Stalin 4 Impossible Promises out of 5 Buggings.

This Is a Movie Review: Three Teenage Girls Make a Sex Pact, But It is the Parents of ‘Blockers’ Who Are Behaving Badly

April 5, 2018

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CREDIT: Quantrell D. Colbert/Universal Pictures

This review was originally posted on News Cult in April 2018.

Starring: Leslie Mann, John Cena, Ike Barinholtz, Kathryn Newton, Geraldine Viswanathan, Gideon Adlon

Director: Kay Cannon

Running Time: 102 Minutes

Rating: R for Girls Talking About Sex Without Any Shame, Butt Chugging and the Like, and a Concerning Amount of Drug Use

Release Date: April 6, 2018

What to do with a movie that has a really great message but that plays fast-and-loose with any sense of realism? You take the good, you take the bad – the facts of life! I didn’t go into this meaning to name-check a classic ’80s TV theme song, but as it popped into my head, it just felt remarkably right. At its core, and at its best, Blockers emphasizes the fact that teenage girls have sexual desires and treats that truth as matter-of-factly as it deserves to be treated. This isn’t some “girls can be gross, too!” twist on a “boys will be boys” classic. The sex here approached with maturity and it is often romantic. Any grossness in Blockers is due to insecurity or lapses in plausibility.

Have sex pacts ever occurred in real life? If so, I hope they are as supportive and sweetly motivated as the one in Blockers. On the occasion of her senior prom, Julie (Kathryn Newton) announces to her lifelong friends Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan) and Sam (Gideon Adlon) her intention to lose her virginity tonight to her boyfriend. Sensing an opportunity for a shared anniversary, Kayla and Sam declare that they are in as well. They may not be in as serious a relationship as Julie is, but they’ve got guys who they like well enough and who have the necessary equipment. But when Julie’s mom Lisa (Leslie Mann), Kayla’s dad Mitch (John Cena), and Sam’s dad Hunter (Ike Barinholtz) catch wind of the pact, they are not going to stand idly by as their girls become women.

It is distressing that these parents have such regressively protective attitudes, though it is encouraging that they are presented as the ones so clearly in the wrong. And what’s more, their motivations are more complicated than not trusting their daughters. Lisa is a single mom who has raised Julie alone her whole life. She is struggling through deep-seated separation anxiety, worrying that Julie getting closer to her boyfriend means she will attend college thousands of miles away, which means that she could disappear forever. Director Kay Cannon and her team of screenwriters handle this unflinchingly, and I wish they would have devoted even more time to it. Hunter, meanwhile, knows that Sam is gay and is worried that her friends are forcing her to do something she doesn’t really want to do. Originally introduced as a deadbeat screw-up, he ends up coming off as the most open-minded of the trio, though the film does lose focus a bit on that tack for the sake of gags. Mitch is really the only one who comes as the stereotypically overprotective parent, and though Cena does imbue him with a fair amount of sweetness, he feels out of place in what the film is ultimately saying.

Blockers’ message that teenage girls should be allowed to make their own sexual decisions, especially if they are with boys (or otherwise) who they like and respect, is indisputably valuable. While it may be underlined a little too obviously, perhaps it is a message that needs to be repeated. It is also heartening to see a group of supportive teenage female friends on screen. Julie, Kayla, and Sam have their stark differences, but their loyalty runs deep. That well of positivity offsets a bit the parents’ surplus of bad behavior, which stretches the bounds of credulity a bit too much. Seriously, Blockers, you’re plenty funny without having to resort to butt chugging beer. That is to say, this is a movie that is much more sure-footed when it comes to romance (somehow making licorice the perfect food for declaring love) than when it swerves into the territory of illegal behavior.

Blockers is Recommended If You Like: Superbad and other Judd Apatow productions, particularly if they feature insecure parents, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Clueless

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Sex Pacts

This Is a Movie Review: Only the Most Hardened of Souls Should Trek Into the Stylistic Bloodbath of ‘You Were Never Really Here’

April 2, 2018

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CREDIT: Amazon Studios

This review was originally published on News Cult in April 2018.

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Ekaterina Samsonov, Alex Manette, John Doman, Judith Roberts

Director: Lynne Ramsay

Running Time: 89 Minutes

Rating: R for In-Your-Face Bloody Violence, Some Disturbing Behavior, and a Little Bit of Nudity

Release Date: April 6, 2018 (Limited)

As my moviegoing has evolved over the years, I have come to appreciate, even love, films that are more sensory experiences than narrative adventures. But that positivity does not extend to Lynne Ramsay’s latest, You Were Never Really Here. Joaquin Phoenix stars as Joe, a combat veteran suffering from PTSD, and the film seems to have adapted his mental state. The editing is jarring and cacophonous, which is an effective stylistic choice, but after a while it becomes exhausting.

Joe makes his living now as a specialist in the field of rescuing young girls from trafficking. His latest assignment is Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov), a state senator’s daughter who he seems to have a spiritual connection with, or at least that is how it plays out in this film’s dreamy environment. He saves her, but then they get separated, then a conspiracy that I cannot begin to make sense of is uncovered, people get shot in the head, he saves her again, more people get shot in the head. It is all a bloody mess, both literally and metaphorically. We the audience are all stuck in this with no room to breathe, just like Joe with his face under a plastic bag in the opening shot.

I appreciate the thoroughness and relentlessness that Ramsay has applied to this experience, but she is on a frequency that I am just not on. Phoenix reliably gives the kind of intense performance that makes you worried about his mental health, and that only adds to the despair. There is no grappling with the oppressiveness, nor is there much in the way of relief. The final scene does provide a notable exception, though, as it at first appears to underscore the endlessness of the violence, but it then pulls off a trick to suggest that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel.

You Were Never Really Here is Recommended If You Like: Jacob’s Ladder, Stylization above all else

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 PTSD Flashbacks

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