Spring Cleaning 2024 Movie Review Round-Up

June 12, 2024

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CREDIT: Amazon Prime Video

There are a handful of movies I saw in May that I haven’t shared any extended thoughts about yet, so here’s a Spring Cleaning-themed review roundup. Typically May is considered part of the summer movie season, but that leaves short shrift to the time of year when it actually is spring. If May 1-Labor Day is Summer Movie Season, and October-December is Fall Movie Season, and Thanksgiving-New Year’s is Holiday Movie Season, and January-February is Awards Holdovers/Winter Dumping Ground Season, well then, we really only March and April for Spring Movie Season, and a good chunk of March is spent fretting about the Oscars! So let’s give some love to the month with the best weather of the year (apologies to those of you with vernal allergies) and check in on the May spring movies.

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‘Eileen’ Contains Multitudes

November 30, 2023

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Come on, Eileen! (CREDIT: NEON)

Starring: Thomasin McKenzie, Anne Hathaway, Shea Wigham, Marin Ireland, Owen Teague

Director: William Oldroyd

Running Time: 98 Minutes

Rating: R for Masshole Behavior and a Sudden Violent Turn

Release Date: December 1, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Eileen Dunlop (Thomasin McKenzie) has a real going-nowhere job as a secretary at a juvenile prison in 1960s coastal Massachusetts. She lives with her alcoholic widowed father, Jim (Shea Wigham), who mostly berates her for not measuring up to her married sister. But her world is suddenly opened up by an exponential order of magnitude when she befriends the prison’s new resident psychologist, Rebecca (Anne Hathaway). There’s an undeniable frisson of romance as well, but Eileen is so enthralled by Rebecca mainly because she’s never encountered anyone so cosmopolitan. Their connection is deep and genuine, but a much darker story is lurking in plain sight

What Made an Impression?: Breaking Free: In the likes of Leave No Trace, Jojo Rabbit, Last Night in Soho, and well, pretty much everything she’s had a starring role in, Thomasin McKenzie has specialized in playing the most delicate of delicate creatures. And Eileen sure looks like she’s just the latest scarred entrant in this distinguished lineup. But she quickly demonstrates that she’s much more complicated than a standard-issue shrinking violet. Her self-assuredness was actually there all along, or at least it was present by the time that we meet her. She just needed the right spark to be set off.
Sapphic Thrills: What a joy it is to luxuriate in endlessly seductive dialogue! While it’s abundantly clear in their conversations just how smitten Eileen is with Rebecca, there’s also a hint that she’s somewhere in the middle of the Kinsey scale, as we also see her fantasizing about a male co-worker. So her romantic struggles thus far haven’t been for lack of bodies, but for want of wit and philosophy. Rebecca is just the right amount of individualistic and unapologetic to activate the same in Eileen. And the dialogue as a whole is just wonderfully ferocious throughout, coming courtesy of co-writers Luke Goebel and Ottessa Moshfegh (the latter of whom is adapting her own novel).
Here Comes the Twist: On Christmas Eve, Rebecca unexpectedly invites Eileen over for the evening. And she eagerly accepts. After all, her next best option is looking over her dad while his liver wastes away. At this point in the story, I was all ready for the two ladies to just toast to the baby Jesus as the credits roll, or maybe, if they’re feeling dangerous, to drive away together to somewhere that their love will be accepted. But then something much more unpredictable happens. I won’t say anything anymore, and honestly I’m worried I may have already said too much. But this was the moment for me that Eileen went from perfectly satisfying to astoundingly unforgettable. It might have been nice if the running time were 10 or 20 minutes longer to let this swerve breathe a little bit. Still, it’s a bracing and breathtaking conclusion to an unexpected thrill ride.

Eileen is Recommended If You Like: Carol, Lady MacBeth, Gone Girl

Grade: 4 out of 5 Martinis

Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Nicole Holofcener Re-Team for ‘You Hurt My Feelings,’ Which is Not for the Faint of Heart

May 24, 2023

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Will they hurt YOUR feelings? Let’s find out! (CREDIT: Jeong Park/A24)

Starring: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies, Michaela Watkins, Arian Moayed, Owen Teague, Jeannie Berlin, David Cross, Amber Tamblyn, Zach Cherry

Director: Nicole Holofcener

Running Time: 93 Minutes

Rating: R for Angry, Hurt, Occasionally Petty Adults Being Annoyed with Each Other

Release Date: May 26, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Don (Tobias Menzies) is a therapist with some crotchety patients who make him question his effectiveness. His wife Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a novelist and writing professor who’s struggling through her own neurotic insecurities. They’re close with her sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins) and Sarah’s husband Mark (Arian Moayed), who are basically a less prickly version of Don and Beth. There are also check-ins with Beth and Sarah’s kooky mom Georgia (Jeannie Berlin) and Don and Beth’s grown son Elliott (Owen Teague), but it all hinges on the inciting incident of Beth accidentally eavesdropping on Don criticizing her latest book. And then it all unravels from there!

What Made an Impression?: As everyone’s emotions reached a fever pitch in You Hurt My Feelings, I wanted to scream, “Free yourself of the Good/Bad Binary!” Beth is so unrelentingly attached to the idea that she needs her husband to genuinely like her artistic output. He offers her unconditional emotional support instead, but that rings hollow to her, even though Don makes a convincing case for the fact that he might just not be the right audience for her. Quite frankly, this is what so many people need to hear. When it comes to art and creativity, there is no such thing as Objectively Good or Objectively Good. (Or at least, there’s no way to know those platonic ideals with absolute certainty.)

This is all to say, writer-director Nicole Holofcener has crafted quite the anxiety-inducing viewing experience. There are plenty of keenly observed character dynamics at play here that I’m sure will produce laughs in anyone who’s receptive to them in the right way. But instead of chuckling, I discovered that my innards were tied up like a pretzel that threatened to morph into bloating and constipation. I don’t mean that as a criticism, but instead an illustration of one particular emotional response to a deeply personal creative work. I didn’t exactly enjoy watching You Hurt My Feelings, but I appreciate it, and Holofcener has my full support.

You Hurt My Feelings is Recommended If You Like: Reading bad reviews

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Feelings