Review: The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar

Image courtesy of Netflix.

The first of four short films - although the closest to be a feature in terms of running time - getting released this week that are directed by Wes Anderson and based on the work of author Roald Dahl, "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar" is the second of the director's triumphs this year, even if the superior "Asteroid City" is the obvious highlight.

The picture's format is the typical jewel-box style of film for which Anderson has become known, and while the story starts off as being one about a cynical character, there's a gentleness that creeps into the proceedings and, by the end, we realize that "Henry Sugar" is a fable of sorts.

As it starts, Ralph Fiennes portrays Dahl, who makes brief mention of how he gets started on writing a story, although he claims that the one to which we are privy here is a true one. Benedict Cumberbatch takes over as the titular character. He and all of the other characters in the film speak directly into the camera, often telling the story, rather than playing it out.

Henry Sugar discovers a book in a library in which he learns of a man (Ben Kingsley) who has trained himself to see without the use of his eyes. Having studied the ways of an influential yogi, Kingsley's character tells two stunned doctors (Dev Patel and Richard Ayoade) how he spent years learning how to focus his mind on one thing - in this case, a candle flame - and how this enabled him to be able to see objects in his path, even when his eyes are closed. The doctors are amazed when they test the man, and this turns out to be true.

Sugar, at first a cynic, finds inspiration in the text, and begins his own journey toward obtaining this rare gift, which he intends to use to cheat at card games in casinos. However, the splendors he amasses as a result are not satisfying for him, so he throws his earnings off his balcony to those on the street below, and decides thenceforth to earn money through cheating for nobler purposes - in this case, opening hospitals for sick children.

At about 38 minutes, "Henry Sugar" is a slight entry in Anderson's oeuvre, and it's not nearly as rich as the recent "Asteroid City," a film that left me pondering for days after seeing it before I decided to see it again. At the same time, it's not a trifle and it manages to yield an effective tale about conscientiousness and human capacity for growth in its relatively short running time. Anderson is set to release three much shorter films based on Dahl's work throughout the week on Netflix. So far, he's off to a good start.

Review: Dumb Money

Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

Yet another in a slate of movies in recent years about the failings of capitalism and Wall Street, "Dumb Money" is just as confusing as "The Big Short" for those unfamiliar with the workings of the stock market and investment lingo. It's not quite as engrossing as Adam McKay's film, but it's bolstered by a strong lead performance by Paul Dano and a bunch of supporting actors getting the most out of their smaller roles.

The film follows the phenomenon that occurred a few years ago during the so-called "short squeeze" involving a mostly unknown Reddit user who led a group of mostly lower- and middle-class Americans to invest in GameStop.

From what I understand, larger hedge funds make large amounts of money from the failure of companies, betting that they will not survive and essentially profiting off the misery of those who lose their jobs. When Keith Gill (Dano), operating under the name "Roaring Kitty," convinced his online - and mostly young - followers to invest in GameStop, it caused the stock to skyrocket. 

Gill became a multi-millionaire, but held onto the stock rather than selling and, in turn, his followers did the same. This resulted in the loss of billions for some top hedge fund operators, leading to a day-trading company known as RobinHood colluding with a hedge fund owner to halt stock trading, thereby causing some investors to be cheated. Congressional hearings followed.

Those in Gill's orbit include his wife Caroline (Shailene Woodley) and brother Kevin (Pete Davidson, who gets many of the film's funniest lines), while his online acolytes include a Pittsburgh nurse (America Ferrera, having some kind of renaissance this year), a low-wage GameStop employee (Anthony Ramos), and two college students (Talia Ryder and Myha'la Herrold). The hedge fund owner is played by Seth Rogen, while Nick Offerman portrays the sinister Ken Griffin, Vincent D'Onofrio is Steve Cohen, and Sebastian Stan plays RobinHood operator Vlad Tenev.

Each of these actors bring their characters fully to life - even though Woodley and D'Onofrio's characters are, perhaps, given the least to do. Davidson provides solid comic relief, while Dano has more than a few poignant moments as the man who has decided to be David to Wall Street's Goliath. Tenev and Rogen are in bumbling sleazeball mode while Offerman's portrayal of Griffin is icy and chilling. Ferrera and Ramos provide solid work as the lower class citizens who are struggling and hoping to see their investments grow, only to be wounded by a corrupt system.

The film isn't without its flaws. The picture sets up the story as a group of rich, entitled Wall Street types against various iterations of the little guy, and this is mostly effective. However, the film - which is set during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic - has an often odd view toward the use of masks. Early in the film, we see the Wall Streeters often sitting unmasked, while their servants are all donning facial coverings. This effectively shows a power imbalance. However, during a later sequence, a GameStop manager (Dane DeHaan) - who essentially lives and dies by corporate's rules - continually tells Ramos' character to put his mask back on, and this act is portrayed as an indignity against a low-wage worker, even though - in this case - the manager is right.

Most of the film's music cues are profane songs of recent years - such as Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion's "WAP," among others that cover similar, sexually explicit themes (additionally, the two college students frequently use the word referring to a woman's anatomy when referring to Dano's "Roaring Kitty"). As the owner of at least one Lil Kim and a few Too Short albums, I have no objection to the songs themselves or the reference by the students, but their frequent inclusion appears to be a stylistic choice, although it provides nothing in the way of commentary on this particular story. 

Music can often be employed to great effect in movies to comment on the action or provide context or backdrop. While the music here was popular during the moment in which the action is set, it does little to comment on the story and, as a result, comes off as distracting.

Regardless, "Dumb Money" works the same miracle as "The Big Short" and some of the other solid films in this subgenre - it makes the shenanigans of Wall Street both entertaining and interesting, taking subject matter that is ultimately kind of depressing and presenting it in a lively, engaging manner. The picture is filled with strong performances and it captures that feeling of triumph in the small victories a group of determined people can achieve when taking on the system.

Review: A Haunting In Venice

Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox.

"A Haunting in Venice," the third entry in actor-director Kenneth Branagh's Hercule Poirot series, is a stylishly-shot but somewhat languorous murder mystery that is based on Agatha Christie's "Hallowe'en Party." Venice has always been a great spot for filming thrillers - look no further than Nicolas Roeg's deeply unsettling "Don't Look Now" - and Branagh and company get maximum usage out of that city's bridges and canals.

The film is based on one of Christie's lesser-known novels - whereas the first two were adaptations of the classic mysteries "Murder on the Orient Express" and "Death on the Nile" - which is a benefit to audiences who might not necessarily know the outcome this time around. This third Poirot mystery also includes a hint of the supernatural, which was not present in the previous entries.

This time around, Poirot is lured out of retirement by a pal, mystery writer Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), to attend a seance held by a psychic (Michelle Yeoh) whom Oliver wants to expose as a charlatan, although she's seemingly convinced by that woman's ability to commune with the dead. The scene is an old Venetian house where a mother named Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly) previously lost her daughter, possibly to murder.

As usual, a Who's Who of suspects abound - Oliver, the psychic, a dedicated nanny (Camille Cottin), Rowena's ex-husband (Kyle Allen), a doctor who looked after the deceased girl (Jamie Dornan), the doctor's young son (Jude Hill, of "Belfast"), two Romanian war refugee teens (Ali Khan and Emma Laird), and an ex-cop (Fernando Piloni).

Shortly into the psychic's performance, Poirot exposes her as a fraud but then a murder occurs and Poirot - in the same fashion as the other films of this series - locks everyone into the house until he can figure out who the murderer is. Then another murder occurs. Throughout the course of the investigation, Poirot must also reconcile what appears to be a supernatural presence in the house with his lack of belief in ghosts or any sort of afterlife.

While the first two Poirot films were more familiar - and less prone to surprises for those who already knew how they culminated - they were also more engrossing. "A Haunting in Venice" is stylish and the film's camerawork is reminiscent of the work of Orson Welles, from dutch tilt angles to deep-focus shots and close-ups of significant objects. There's even a screeching cockatoo, for those familiar with "Citizen Kane." In other words, the film looks great.

The mystery itself is a little less compelling this time around, perhaps because its denouement is seemingly pulled from nowhere. Even though I had a feeling that the character who is eventually unmasked as the murderer might have been guilty, there aren't many clues this time around as to why - as opposed to the previous Poirot entries - and the reason for their misdeeds, while understandable in the context of the picture, feels random.

"A Haunting in Venice" is my least favorite of the three Poirot movies - whereas most other reviewers gave middling reviews to "Death on the Nile," which I preferred - but it's still an often enjoyable whodunnit with a cast of great actors and some haunting photography. It may not have a whopper of a finale like "Orient Express," but it's well made and the film's best moments once again involve Poirot considering how he views the world and philosophical manners in light of his latest case. As a piece of escapist entertainment, it provides some modest pleasures.

Review: The Good Mother

Image courtesy of Vertical Entertainment.

There's a better movie hiding somewhere within "The Good Mother," a dramatic thriller directed by Miles Joris-Peyrafitte that is centered around the opioid crisis. In fact, glimpses of that movie can be seen during the first half of the picture, which is set in Albany and focuses on an alcoholic journalist named Marissa (Hilary Swank), who learns from her son, Toby (Jack Reynor), a cop, that her other son has been shot to death in what appears to be a drug-related crime.

Although upset by this tragic turn of events, both Toby and Marissa appear to have been resigned to such a fate for Michael, a once-aspiring baseball player who became hooked on opioids at a young age after suffering a sports injury. At the funeral, Marissa slaps Michael's girlfriend - Paige (Olivia Cooke) - because she blames her for the drug habits shared between the younger woman and Michael, but feels guilty after learning that Paige is pregnant.

Shortly thereafter, Paige discovers a large stash of a drug known as "Mother's Milk" in her apartment, and two men break into the apartment to seemingly get their hands on it. Paige escapes and gives the drugs to Toby, who says he believes that a mutual friend of Michael and Paige - Ducky (Hopper Penn) - might have been responsible not only for the drug stash, but also Michael's death.

While Marissa is on a break from work - her editor seems to continually suggest she should be taking time off - she and Paige begin nosing around and doing their own detective work. Marissa suggests that she might use whatever she finds for an article, although there are only a few instances in which she attempts to interview anyone. There's a particularly harrowing sequence during which another woman recounts how she lost her daughter to drugs during a group counseling session - and, unfortunately, we never hear from this character again.

In fact, the second half of the film becomes more of a mystery - and one in which a major plot twist changes the film's entire trajectory. For starters, the twist is one that I saw coming - but it's also one that detracts from the film's somber take on the opioid crisis (the picture is set in 2016 during the height of the crisis) because the twist is somewhat outlandish and mostly unexplained, and it threatens to suck the air out of the rest of the film.

At the film's end, Marissa bangs out a long article in which she relays her own personal struggles with the opioid crisis and how it affected her family - but as I'd mentioned, she appears to do little in the way of interviews and research, and seems to be winging it. The film's ending is left open to interpretation in terms of whether Marissa will actually get the article published, for reasons I won't divulge here.

Swank does her best with the role, but similar to the characters portrayed by Reynor and Cooke, her character is underwritten. Only Karen Aldridge's mother character - who delivers the monologue during the group session - leaves much of an impression. Had the film focused on her struggles - or given Swank's character challenges that didn't involve over-the-top plot twists, "The Good Mother" might have been better. As such, it's atmospheric - the streets of Albany are well utilized for this particular story - and watchable, but uneven.

supposedly journalist but not interviewing anyone - but then bangs out story at end

plot twist a little silly

Review: Bottoms

Image courtesy of Orion Pictures.

There are occasions when I feel slightly old when watching a movie or TV show about younger characters, especially those inhabiting the present day and age; it's naturally easier to relate to period piece coming of age stories when one grew up during the periods in which the story is taking place. Needless to say, the first third of Emma Seligman's oddball high school comedy "Bottoms" made me feel a little on the aged side (full disclosure: I turned 46 this week).

Then, about 30 minutes into the picture - which is a peculiar blend of your typical high school comedy with "Fight Club" and "Heathers" - I began to warm to it. I'm still not entirely sure the whole thing works, but there was enough there to grab my attention and mostly keep it.

Although the film takes place in your typical high school setting, there's something off about this world, as if everything is exaggerated to an obviously over-the-top extent. For example, the high school football team leads the school in a chant about how horny they are during pep rallies, teachers and students use profane language in discussion with one another about everyday topics, and the two lead characters - PJ (Rachel Sennot, star of Seligman's other film, "Shiva Baby") and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) - are referred to by homophobic slurs (both characters are gay) when called to the principal's office over the loudspeaker. 

In other words, everything's just a little off in "Bottoms." And there's never any explanation as to why this is - you either just accept it or you don't. At first, the film's tone veers between being quirky and grating, but once you become accustomed to it, there are a fair share of laughs to be had.

Without getting too far into the details as to why this happens, PJ and Josie start a self defense class for the school's young women, although it's really more of a fight club where they punch each other out with great enthusiasm. The ulterior motive for starting the club is to attract the attention of their crushes - cheerleaders Brittany (Kaia Gerberg) for PJ and Isabel (Havana Rose Liu), who is dating the school's obnoxious and easily frazzled super jock, for Josie.

There's no need to go too far into the plot details here, but while "Bottoms" follows some typical high school movie beats (the fight club becomes popular before losing credibility with the school population, and both PJ and Josie win the trust of their crushes, only to have their plan backfire), it is also bizarre on a level rarely seen in these types of films - and that's before the bloody finale involving a fight between the club and a rival football team's players.

"Bottoms" doesn't always work. It's a little slow to get going at first, and while I appreciated the commentary on sexual assault, police inaction, and misogyny, and found it refreshing to see old tropes being given such an unusual spin, I'm not sure the film ultimately knows what it wants to say about the numerous timely topics it riffs on. As such, "Bottoms" is an unusual and often enjoyably transgressive coming of age story, even if it's not completely successful.