The debate over box office tally size may be a non-starter as a buzzed-about biopic won’t likely recruit many butts onto its golden seats. An unflattering origin story preceding modern times of the 45th presidency of the United States, Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice (C) stars Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump and traces his ascendant real estate career and moral ambiguities in New York in the 1970s and 1980s. Maria Bakalova appears as his wife Ivana, but that’s not really much of a focus; instead the film centers around Trump’s synergy with notorious lawyer Roy Cohn, played by Jeremy Strong. Both Stan and Strong are solid in their roles, and the imprinting of guiding principles about the importance of winning and the loose definition of truth make for an interesting exchange; but the film is heavy handed and provides few insights surprising to anyone who even slightly follows politics. Stan has the moves and mannerisms down like a champ for his portrait of a con artist as a young man. The movie wants to be like an Omen prequel but gives off “movie of the week” vibes with a little bit of language and nudity thrown in to make it edgier. It’s a film with neither the rage about the polarizing politician nor an effective character study about the men in full. The film gives both Cohn and Trump short shrift given the oversized drama of their real ambitions and back stories. Despite relatively competent filmmaking, this movie that looks to factor “bigly” into mass consciousness doesn’t measure up to much.

The young man who came of age celebrating dead poets gracefully plumbs a tantalizing tortured prose department where a next gen Hawke memorably portrays a legendary artist as a young woman. Ethan Hawke co-writes and directs, and Maya Hawke plays iconoclast author Flannery O’Connor in the soulful conversation-starter Wildcat (A). Dutiful Catholic O’Connor’s short life in mid-century America is marked by an epic struggle between becoming a great writer and loving God sufficiently. The albatross of her perpetual quandary is exacerbated by being an increasingly isolated woman who bucks social norms and whose writing is unabashedly ahead of its time. Her drive to produce fascinating work, her grappling with physical disability and her subsequent return to provincial living are the trio of crucibles undergirding the film’s narrative. Maya Hawke is absolutely captivating in the demanding central performance and projects herself into multiple roles in her stories, so much so it becomes vexing at times to ascertain where reality ends and the fantasy of fiction begins. O’Connor doles out signature prickly quips and delves head-first into a peculiar fascination with confessional stories tracing the fault lines between faith, transgression and salvation amidst the grotesquerie of the American South. Vignettes include unsentimental encounters with terrible men including an ex-con (Levon Hawke), a nomad ne’er-do-well (Steve Zahn) and a conflicted Bible salesman (Cooper Hoffman). The standout supporting turn is by Laura Linney as the writer’s holier-than-thou mother, whose prejudices and pieties clash magnificently with her daughter’s defiant sensibilities. At times Felliniesque with its fantastical interlaced characters, each Baroque in their own way, against the gray and rust tones of the film’s Southern Gothic terrain, Ethan Hawke successfully mind melds his own fascination with life’s mystical mysteries with O’Connor’s catalogue of complexities. The film plays like a page-turning fever dream and is a testament to the ensemble and the central father-daughter talents behind this passion project. Whether you’re steeped in her lore already or the film’s smorgasbord of stories is your gateway drug, there’s loads to learn from this literary patron saint. This is truly a “star is born” cinematic high watermark moment for Maya Hawke who is mesmerizing on screen and particularly effective opposite the likes of Laura Linney, Liam Neeson, Rafael Cassal and Christine Dye. This curiosity-stoking film should prompt stampedes to the local library to unlock the pleasures of the O’Connorverse.