Take one iambic pentameter for your sadness, and call me in the morning. Set in the Elizabethan era, Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet (C) depicts two parents grieving the loss of a child in very different ways. Jessie Buckley offers a raw and harrowing reaction; and Paul Mescal, who plays William Shakespeare, addresses his sadness more obliquely through the presentation of a tragic stage play far away from the domestic despair. Despite Zhao’s penchant for painterly and geometric imagery, there’s not a whole lot going here: sequences of courtship, pregnancy, illness, loss and reaction play out in slow dollops. It’s a far better showcase for Buckley, doing very fine work here, than Mescal, who just doesn’t seem as ensconced in the devastation. The strained chemistry between the central pair doesn’t help; thus the final act, moving for many, rang like artificial Oscar bait. It’s a bitter quill with few breakaways or takeaways.
Nobody loves wordplay more than the duo of director Richard Linklater and his male muse Ethan Hawke, except perhaps the guy they’re lionizing in their new film, stage lyricist Lorenz Hart, evoked by sharp screenwriter Robert Kaplow, whose rapier wit, poison pen and pathos echo through insular hallways inhabited by this underrated legend of internal rhymes. All nestled in the confines of a 1943 Broadway tavern, Blue Moon (B+) is both a jewel box of wistful nostalgia and a tragic murder ballad inflicted by a lonely man on himself. While lifelong friend and collaborator composer Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) toasts the triumph of his “Oklahoma!” opening night with collaborator Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney), Rodgers’ former lyricist Hart (Ethan Hawke) is hosting a pity party, holding court, stargazing and navel gazing through a descent into drunken self-reflection. Hart’s tumbler is both half full and half empty as he chews the Sardi’s scenery with equal parts relish and rage. Hawke’s transformation into Hart is no less than the performance of the year; the cocksure Reality Bites dude bites back at the world as a wisp of an older man, withered, weathered and worn by both a career abridged by alcoholism and the recognition he is unloved. This is a sensational showpiece with many layers including sustained nuance and transformational prosthetics. The film is a glorified stage play with a proscenium like a requiem and multiple dialogue duets, affecting and humorous soliloquies and blocking wizardry to mildly open up the story. As marvelous as Hawke is, he gets a wonderful ensemble with whom to spar: Scott is strong as a serious straight-shooter still in awe of his declining collaborator; Bobby Cannavale is a fun foil as the bartender; and Margaret Qualley is luminous as an art student stand-in for the promise of youth. Following Nouvelle Vague, Linklater has crafted another tribute to artistic life, and Hawke as Hart is a beguiling tour guide to this double-edged underworld of roleplaying. Like Hart’s popular songs, the title tune plus “Funny Valentine,” “Isn’t It Romantic?” and “Falling in Love with Love,” the film is blissfully out of step with its era and evokes bittersweet feelings more timeless than immediately recognized in one’s lifetime. Linklater and Hawke rescue and revive Hart in this sungular work which is as “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” as can be.
A discomforting topic in an obtuse format unfocused on any single character for long, punctuated with ambiguous outcomes, seems a formula for frustration; and yet Kathryn Bigelow imprints her signature hyperrealism with panache onto a fictional but not far-fetched situation, and the result – A House of Dynamite (B+) – is an intense, often riveting political think piece. Instead of a straight-up doomsday clock thriller, it is divided into three acts depicting the same critical moments of escalating activity as an unattributed nuclear missile careens toward the American homeland. The only edge-of-your-seat part is the first act from the White House situation room POV featuring an effective Rebecca Ferguson, who pulls viewers directly into the propulsive real-time plot. The remaining acts center on less interesting characters, a gruff general and an early-term commander-in-chief, embodied well by Tracy Letts and Idris Elba, respectively. These second and third parts pull back the microscope and introduce different degrees of decision making into the narrative, allowing viewers multiple portals for determining how they would react if faced with a similar scenario. These acts of subsequent diminishing intensity admittedly let some air out of the story momentum but not out of the argument against mutually-assured annihilation. Bigelow peppers in matter-of-fact moments of daily life to heighten the realism and emotion, which is helpful except in at least one location laden with heavy-handed symbolism. Viewers can’t help but confront the nuclear issue and how one would respond after viewing many competent and well-trained characters struggle under the spotlight of real impending terror. Noah Oppenheim’s script offers no easy answers. Volker Bertelmann’s stirring score is a standout feature. In total it’s a flawed but vital conversation-starter movie.
Hollywood of late is so dead-set against presenting a typical “Behind the Music” style biopic treatment of its legends that it often feels like tough medicine is being administered instead of rousing entertainment, and this modern elixir of choice leveraged to tackle the subject of Bruce Springsteen is fittingly far from formulaic. Writer/director Scott Cooper’s Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere (B) is a provocative glimpse at a time period of deep introspection for the Americana pop music purveyor; and while this epoch for reflection and stripped-down creation makes for a stimulating intellectual exercise, it doesn’t always pop off the screen with accompanying bombast. Jeremy Allen White is a sly, snug choice for the title role, as his brooding character endeavors to exorcise the demons of an abusive childhood and finds himself a bit paralyzed by the notion of superstardom while transitioning from bar shows to arena tours. The plot centers around Bruce’s relentless self-recording of demos for the album Nebraska, comprised of personal fever dream confessions, folksy remembrances and intimate rock fable tone poems a far cry from the pop crossover juggernauts of his most popular “Born in the USA” era. Cooper’s film is fully committed to the artist’s evocation of his most raw and direct personal statements and tracing his singular obsession with placing the artifacts of his youth in their proper place. The movie deals with mental health struggles, which White handles deftly. And there are mere moments of fan service with only a few tunes covered in their entirety. The talented Odessa Young is wonderfully endearing as love interest Faye, although her lively contributions are somewhat dismissed, a more rotation around an Atlantic City boardwalk carousel, amidst the songwriter’s overall cycle of moodiness. Jeremy Strong and Paul Walter Hauser are effective in small parts as the manager/producer and recording engineer, respectively, who help the Boss be his best. The film is best in its moments of heightened emotion. It needed more music, though, as White channels the gravel-throated crooner with stirring authenticity. The film is overall a unique glimpse into the man and musician and gives a rather full picture of his emotional landscape even as it may leave many fans wanting more.
One of culture’s most enduring pop duos occupies an often fascinating double bill in Guillermo del Toro’s idiosyncratic retelling of classic gothic horror fantasy, marked by exploration of self-loathing and shared identity. The august director’s expansive Netflix adaptation of Frankenstein (B), is divided in half, focused at first on narcissistic Dr. Victor Frankenstein, played by Oscar Isaac, displaying epic rage, and then following the sapient creature’s perspective, embodied by Jacob Elordi, often more pensive and philosophical as he grapples with the dysphoria and isolation imbued in his cobbled together reanimated body. The presentation in two chapters, each from a different man’s POV, is almost too on the nose about the identity of the real monster. Call it ego then emo. The first half about ambition and scientific ethics is very much alive, with a very committed Isaac energized by experimentation, with grand production design and some grisly effects, plus some spry scene work opposite Christoph Waltz, a hoot as a curious benefactor. Horror staple Mia Goth is intriguing in her arrival but underused in this section, sidelined as the father figure tale takes full center stage. Chapter two largely tackles societal rejection through Elordi at the center and not fitting in very well; but this part of the tale is a letdown, downplaying action for more interior case study that just doesn’t pulse the same way as the preceding passages. The creature is a sympathetic character, born this way and yearning for answers, but the aesthetics and plot don’t do him any favors in emoting and connecting through the pancaked prosthetics to the audience. The towering Elordi looks the part, for sure, but his character just doesn’t land with intended gravitas. The directorial choice of how all this is framed drains life out of the film rather than amplify the intrigue. The film’s crafts are roundly impressive, ranging from Kate Hawley’s distinctive costumes to Alexandre Desplat’s lyrical score. There’s lots of good creative work here; it’s just put together in ways that don’t always elevate the familiar into the fantastic. For the two-chapter Netflix mentality, it’s one part binge, one part cringe and most parts a thing of beauty.
Translating a stage musical based on a non-musical movie back into a film musical is a tricky translation (musicalized movies of The Little Shop of Horrors, Hairspray and The Color Purple largely worked, while 2005’s The Producers was a slog). The 2025 film Kiss of the Spider Woman (C+), directed by Bill Condon and based on the original Oscar-winning 1985 movie and its 1993 Kander & Ebb Broadway musical adaptation, suffers from awkward pacing, tonal dissonance and, ironically, an inert staginess. The premise, that an odd couple of Argentine political prisoners bond over a parallel tale of a classic movie star in an iconic double role including the titular character embodied by Jennifer Lopez. Tonatiuh and Diego Luna are terrific as the inmates, doing their best possible acting in a format conceit that can’t quite figure out if the prison-set framing device is the central story or the Technicolor film-within-the-film actually is. Lopez acquits herself admirably with good singing and excellent dancing – and style for days – but still her work is a bit distant. Plus the musical numbers, sometimes inventively realized, don’t often move the narrative forward. Strangely some of the film’s final act sequences reflect Condon’s aim, but the movie fails to fully come together for much of its duration. Art direction and costumes are strong. Alas the potential for razzle dazzle here proves as dim as its likely awards prospects.
Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson has honed a singular cottage filmmaking industry lending a sympathetic gaze to insular groups such as the denizens of the Hollywood hills, religious cultists, oil tycoons and fashion house provocateurs. Now he leverages the lives of an interlocking series of domestic terrorists to make points about humanity and society, with mixed and sometimes muddled results. His One Battle After Another (B-) explores the notion of passing along to a next generation an uncanny revolutionary spirit via the explosive relationship of American vigilantes played by Teyana Taylor and Leonardo DiCaprio and their teenage offspring played by newcomer Chase Infiniti. In modern times, DiCaprio’s character is regularly killing a few brain cells, but he’s also a protective father living off the grid who gets pulled into a propulsive powder-keg when a villain from the past (a white supremacist military man played by Sean Penn) threatens his beloved daughter. Anderson’s kinetic visual style is well-suited to a series of action set pieces traversing cramped immigrant camps and hideaways, the wide desert canvas of hilly highways and the parkour of it all with escapes atop and across city rooftops. The movie’s story and script are lacking, and the characterizations lose focus amidst the progressive acts of chaos. The film’s long running time, seemingly enough space to adequately explore its characters, strangely sidelines and shortchanges members of its otherwise fascinating family. Penn actually gets the showiest part, but even the choices he makes in portraying this quirky character don’t always make complete sense. The film is frisky and funniest when featuring DiCaprio’s misanthropic humor as his character forgets passwords and chides those easily triggered. Despite some grace notes in the final act, Anderson doesn’t fully sell his thesis, and his hot takes aren’t even pointed enough to provide direct allegory for contemporary times. This loose adaptation of the novel Vineland is either an overlong lark or a short shrift to characters needing more developing. It’s sometimes PTA’s perpetual prattle that keeps happening again and again.
This is a movie in which acting itself is a combat sport. Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt offer transformative performances, but it’s not always clear to what end in Benny Safdie’s real-life mixed martial arts fighting origin story The Smashing Machine (C+). Johnson plays MMA fighter Mark Kerr at the plateau of career success while simultaneously fighting painkiller addiction and a toxic marriage. It’s a film of very few surprises. Safdie’s watchful camera traces the pugilistic protagonist through globetrotting sports adventures and intimate domestic drama sequences, all the while artfully showcasing the man’s bombast and vulnerability. Emily Blunt is feral in her role as the spouse competing for his attention versus the sport itself. She chews whatever scenery her husband isn’t smashing; it’s a bit like another universe is calling and wants her performance back. Ryan Bader as Kerr’s longtime friend and fellow fighter actually comes across most interesting in the mix with empathetic Everyman appeal. It’s refreshing to see Johnson try a more overtly dramatic role on for size, and he acquits himself admirably on the journey, fully inhabiting a real guy seemingly very different from his own persona. Alas the film’s story doesn’t fully deliver on what clearly fascinated its makers, and no amount of artifice can conceal it’s just not all that interesting. In fact, at its most indulgent moments, the film feels a bit fabricated for awards season clip reels. See 2011’s Warrior for a more absorbing and nuanced take on the drama which can be harvested from the MMA.
Call it a self-help book on film for becoming a man. It may be based on one of Stephen King’s earliest writings from 1979, but the grim dystopian domestic future of Francis Lawrence’s The Long Walk (B+) now feels like it could be happening in today’s America a few weeks or months from now, with lessons of utmost consequence. The fleeting facade of wistful young male life gets full anthropological examination here, prescient in a week characterized by cauldrons of vengeance, violence, chasms of disagreement and debate about forgiveness, martyrdom and legacy playing out in real time on everyone’s feeds, cable news and conversations. The story goes like this: Each year a group of 50 fresh-faced young men take part in a televised walking contest across a stark, abandoned U.S. highway, marching continuously or else they’ll be individually executed, until only one remains. The film zeroes in on one of these consorts making their mostly futile trek. Although undoubtedly an allegory for a Vietnam War platoon when written, the reverse-purge survival of the fittest events depicted in the film, set in totalitarian times, reveal a stunningly diverse set of behaviors about male bonding, toxicity and both hopeless and hopeful life philosophies not so far removed from young male life in the evolving experiment of today. Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson are flat-out phenomenal as the dual protagonists who become best friends on the journey; they provide indelible characterizations and much of the heart and humor in an otherwise brutal environment along the intersection of Pier Paolo Pasolini and the Marquis de Sade. There are such shades here of King’s own The Shawshank Redemption (unexpected venue for spiritual dialogue) and the Lawrence-directed The Hunger Games (lottery ticket with human stakes), it’s no wonder the source material and director were so lock-stepped. Mark Hamill is nearly unrecognizable as a ubiquitous hybrid TV host/drill sergeant who is chilling but underdeveloped in his blissful menace. The film opts to be very graphic in its parade of cranium kills, and candid in its language and depiction of anatomical challenges along the journey, almost daring audiences to turn a wincing eye from the horrors of the propulsive proceedings. The very nature of the film being told in what amounts to near perpetual motion makes for a singular experience of naturalistic moviemaking. Many details about the story’s exact time and location are left to the imagination, a la Civil War, a curious choice sometimes freeing and equally often perplexing. Evoking the literate and pop culturally attuned characters of The Outsiders or Stand by Me, there’s a feeling this talented ensemble is recognizing its place in a Mark Twain meets Aldous Huxley universe, or even Biblical end times, grasping for the meaning of it all. It’s a very tough watch but thoughtful and rewarding to those on its wavelength. There are universal takeaways and truths in what feels both contemporary and bygone. For all of its chilling carnage, this sturdy dying-of-age film reveals glimmers of hope about how people can attune personal outlook to approach every next step with purpose.
From discordant opening sequences to a transcendent finale, the Spike Lee’s latest operates in an auspicious plane as “most improved Joint.” Highest 2 Lowest (B-), playing in select theatres before streaming on Apple+, is Lee’s neo-noir remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 High and Low, and Lee makes the story completely his own with contemporary themes about public image, wealth and morality. The director appears to have a lot on his mind, including how to spend one’s time making art and impacting society; there are artifacts throughout the protagonist’s home and world showcasing the giants of history on whose shoulders its characters stand. The plot is centered on a charismatic but stoic music mogul played by Denzel Washington, with small parts for his wife (Ilfenesh Hadera) and his chauffeur/henchman (Jeffrey Wright), who get much less to do. Together this trio confronts double-crosses in ways that feel at first overly melodramatic and ultimately cathartic. The ensemble also includes music artists ASAP Rocky and Ice Spice creating original characters plus basketballer Rick Fox, actors Rosie Perez and Anthony Ramos and pianist Eddie Palmieri inexplicably playing themselves. The film’s first act leans too much into subversive symbolism with sparse characters posed and juxtaposed against a towering NYC/Brooklyn borderland and an all-too-perfect family underscored by a fussy score. The Howard Drossin music massively improves and makes better sense as the film moves into more kinetic action; it’s soon downright rousing. There’s lots to recommend for viewers who hang in there for the full parable, not the least of which is another towering and nuanced performance by Washington. The parts of the film which are twisty are nifty; other lumpy portions work in circulative spurts. It’s esoteric, genre-defying and largely entertaining with a narrative examining modern anxieties and legacy.
For his latest neo-Western fantasia fixated on uncompromising characters maneuvering the tripwires and powder kegs of modern life, Ari Aster dusts up a flurry of ideas and then leaves his audience largely befuddled! The nervy politically-charged dark comedy Eddington (C-) rolls the clock back just a few short years to the opening months of pandemic lockdown in his titular fictional New Mexico town, and a whole lot of story subsequently goes down. Aster finds ample horror in the built-in anxieties of the darkest echo chambers even as many of his ambitious storytelling conventions often fall by the wayside. Joaquin Phoenix as the mask-eschewing sheriff and Pedro Pascal as the by-the-books mayor appear destined for an epic showdown, but largely the writer/director squanders his setup with characters all dressed up with nowhere to go. Phoenix, whose lawman is festooned with iconic holster and inhaler, is entrusted with another in his pantheon of eccentric characters; and although he’s consistently enjoyable to watch, the plot around this very flawed antihero splinters into such a madcap and preposterous series of detours, it simply can’t hold its thesis. Intriguing bit parts by Emma Stone and Austin Butler enliven subplots served like a sentence diagrammed into infinity. The film ultimately proves reductive, as flimsy as a facemask drooping below one’s nose. It’s often as if Aster doesn’t mind punishing his audience and leaving them perplexed, and the cavalcade of ideas he presents rarely coalesce into clarity of purpose. The collaboration between Aster and his cinematographer Darius Khondji is one of the movie’s highlight, though, creating widescreen vistas blending the everyday with the surreal to evoke contemporary anxieties and isolation, all the while depicting mobile devices as weapons to disarm and cancel one another. There’s gallows humor aplenty and a series of snarky surprises for those who can endure the full expanse of Aster’s fever dream of a presentation, but his brand of satire lacks subtlety and unfortunately his enterprise often careens from daring to drudgery. It’s urban sprawl on a small scale and a near-miss in a sometimes frustrating auteur’s catalogue.
Director Joseph Kosinski generally elevates the saga of another aging maverick with a need for speed in the polished sports adventure F1 (B+) set amidst the globetrotting Grand Prix of the Formula One World Championship, with its glam characters connected at the hip to the fastest regulated road-course racing cars on earth. Brad Pitt is an American pro driver on the last leg of a rough and tumble history recruited by an old friend and now team owner played by Javier Bardem as a last ditch effort to elevate his struggling franchise; and with the help of Irish actress Kerry Condon as the team’s technical director and British actor Damson Idris as a cocky rookie, they’re off to the races. The movie makes the motorsport majestic on screen, buoyed by the strength of this charismatic acting quartet and especially Pitt’s casual, grizzled grace. Character development by quip service and plot conflicts as largely obligatory obstacles rarely sideline Kosinski’s kinetic placemaking marked by wide open, brisk and bustling raceway vistas. This summer tentpole is an exercise in stargazing, lifted in all cases by the quality of the ensemble and film crafts including clutch cinematography by Claudio Miranda and spirited music by Hans Zimmer, as the flick’s flimsy contours hardly support its ample running time. But as an immersive action experience, it’s a lowkey lark, a technical tour de force to be reckoned with for fans of the charming movie star, a game director and the conventions of the racing genre.
