Treat Your ‘Companion’ Right

February 4, 2025

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , 1 Comment

The Face of Companionship (CREDIT: Warner Bros. Pictures/Screenshot)

Starring: Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage, Megan Suri, Harvey Guillén, Rupert Friend

Director: Drew Hancock

Running Time: 97 Minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: January 31, 2025 (Theaters)

We all need a companion (or several), but what if our real-life companions were like the companions in the 2025 movie Companion? Alternatively, what if we were the companions? I suspect the world would have a lot more empathy if everybody had to spend at least a year working a companion job. (I’m playing a little coy in this review in an effort to avoid spoilers.) Anyway, now that I’ve seen Companion, I promise to follow best practices in how I treat my companions. I hope I was doing this adequately already, but now I’ll make sure to audit myself.

Grade: 12 Mods out of 15 Warranties

‘It Lives Inside,’ Which is to Say: A Relentless Indian Demon Comes to High School

September 21, 2023

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

TFW It lives inside… (CREDIT: NEON/Screenshot)

Starring: Megan Suri, Neeru Bajwa, Mohana Krishnan, Vik Sahay, Betty Gabriel, Gage Marsh, Beatrice Kitsos

Director: Bishal Dutta

Running Time: 99 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Demonic Lacerations

Release Date: September 22, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Samidha (Megan Suri) has been losing touch with her Indian heritage, but it hasn’t been losing touch with her. She’s drifted apart from her friend Tamira (Mohana Krishnan), who seems to have completely lost touch with reality. While holding tightly to a jar containing something foreboding, she desperately turns to Sam for help, while insisting that the spirits their family told them about when they were kids are actually real. Then she inexplicably disappears, leaving Sam to be beset by the same demon, known as a Pishach. It looks like she’s doomed to repeat the same fate as Tamira. But there’s some hope, as she has that example to learn from, and she can also seek support from a trusted teacher (Betty Gabriel), as well as her parents (Neeru Bajwa and Vik Sahay), if she can manage not to be completely estranged from them.

What Made an Impression?: Coming-of-Age Metaphor: Don’t we all feel like we’re being pursued by an immortal demon during our teenage years? Maybe not everyone would describe that transitional period with that precise description, but there’s a reason why this stage of life is so perennially ripe for metaphor. There had yet to be a mainstream American film featuring Hindu demons to get that point across (at least not that I’m aware of), so writer/director Bishal Dutta went ahead and corrected that little oversight. It was a fresh call, and I’m sure I’m not the only horror fan who will appreciate the invigoration.

Good Grub: Ultimately, It Lives Inside contends that the best way to keep a Pishach at bay is a strongly bonded community, particularly one that regularly makes time for actually sitting down for dinner. Throughout the film, Sam’s mom Poorna constantly chastises her for not showing up on the days when they gather with friends and family to celebrate their culture. It’s a straightforward, unsurprising espousal of values, but it definitely hits its target. And it’s all underscored by a message that a family that eats together will survive together. You can practically see the demon-fighting powers during the culinary close-ups. Overall, It Lives Inside keeps its ambitions tight and focused, as it pulls off its simple, small-scale goals.

It Lives Inside is Recommended If You Like: Learning how to be a better child to your parent, or a better parent to your child

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Pishachs

‘Missing’ Delivers Yet Another Screenlife Winner

January 17, 2023

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Not Pictured: The People Who Are Missing (CREDIT: Screen Gems)

Starring: Storm Reid, Nia Long, Ken Leung, Joaquim de Almeida, Amy Landecker, Daniel Henney, Tim Griffin, Megan Suri

Directors: Nick Johnson and Will Merrick

Running Time: 111 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Over-the-Top Ragers and Implied Disturbing Violence

Release Date: January 20, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: 18-year-old June Allen (Storm Reid) sure is ready to make her way to college so that she doesn’t have to keep constantly rolling her eyes at her mom Grace (Nia Long). She’ll get to preview that independence for about a week as Mom goes on vacation to Colombia with her new boyfriend Kevin (Ken Leung, aka Miles from Lost). She proceeds to throw a nonstop, knockout rager but ultimately manages to schlep it over to LAX just in time to pick up Grace and Kevin upon their return back to the States. But then they’re nowhere to be found!

So to track them down, June enlists the help of an FBI agent (Daniel Henney), her mom’s lawyer (Amy Landecker), and a random guy on the ground in Colombia (Joaquim de Almeida). Over the course of the investigation, some rather surprising tidbits about Grace and Kevin’s pasts begin to emerge, and we see this all unfold on laptops, cell phones, and other modern Internet-connected screen devices.

What Made an Impression?: Is screenlife the best genre ever?!!! It’s a fairly young cinematic style, but it’s been producing hit after hit after hit. Unfriended was excellent! Unfriended: Dark Web took the scares to another level! Searching delivered the thrills in spades! And now we’ve got Missing serving as a standalone sequel to Searching, with a fresh story that maintains the same investigative approach and also the same gerund titling strategy. Neither Missing nor Searching has a plot that absolutely demands confining its action to screens, but that approach nevertheless keeps everything focused. And I think that’s a huge reason (perhaps even the hugest reason) why this subgenre has delivered so consistently. There are some cheats here and there in which the action spreads beyond the computer, but for the most part, the creative restraints fuel creative triumphs.

The undeniable fun of Missing is derived from its series of status quo-altering revelations, each one more gobsmacking than the rest. Pretty much everyone connected to the disappearance has their devastating secrets, and each one is calibrated for maximum audience satisfaction. I wonder if everything would still hang together on a repeat viewing, but even if the strings do start to show, that doesn’t change how effective the initial delivery is. This is a fine-tuned, well-oiled puzzle. You might be able to see greasy residue on some of the pieces, but that’s only evidence of all the essential attention to detail.

Missing is Recommended If You Like: Searching, Cable true crime docs, Online how-to guides

Grade: 4 out of 5 Windows