Review: Her Private Hell

Image courtesy of Neon.

It happens sometimes that talented filmmakers become too enamored with their style or obsessed with their fetishes and find themselves adrift. There are numerous directors who could be cited, some of whom eventually bounce back and others who never do.

This seems to be the conundrum for Nicolas Winding Refn, the Danish provocateur who was once the toast of the Cannes Film Festival but has in recent years been cranking out neon-lit fever dreams that are long on atmosphere but short in other departments.

I have championed some of Refn's films, most notably "Drive," the 2011 film that won him Best Director at Cannes and ended up in my top 10 of that decade. Prior to that stellar neo-noir, I was a fan of Refn's "Pusher" trilogy and "Bronson," and thought that his "Bleeder" and "Fear X" were underrated.

But he followed "Drive" up with "Only God Forgives," a grim and surreal gangster saga set in Japan that felt like a letdown, and "The Neon Demon," which was a slight improvement but once again favored style over substance. Unfortunately, his latest, "Her Private Hell," is his furthest delve into the trance-like zone in which his most recent films have been set. 

The film has some stunning imagery and a stellar score from the great Pino Donaggio, but these are both in the service of a story that is borderline nonsensical and performances that seem as if they are tuned in from another wavelength. 

There's the typical Refn stuff here - a complex mother figure, slow stylized violence, eyes being gouged, women who look like models, a hero clad in leather, and inspiration from David Lynch, Samurai, and Giallo films. But very little gels in a way that makes it a watchable film.

There's little point in trying to explain its plot, but I'll give it a shot: Elle (Sophie Hatcher) has a complex relationship with her father (Dougray Scott) and stepmother (Havana Rose Liu). At the film's beginning, she meets a young actress (Kristine Froseth) who says she is excited that the two of them will star in a movie together, though we never get a glimpse of that.

Meanwhile, a mysterious man known as Private K (Charles Melton) roams the foggy, neon-lit city where the film is set, brutally attacking Yazuka figures and searching for a demonic presence known as the Leatherman, who literally tears young women apart. Private K believes that the Leatherman stole his daughter from him some years before.

All of this material is presented as if it's the coolest thing you'll ever see. Characters speak lines as if they are disinterested whether they will register with the audience. Mostly, they come off as posturing. The Leatherman is described in a manner that is meant to strike fear in the heart, but the entire plot line involving this figure is ludicrous. How any plot strand in the film connects with another is beyond me.

Many of my favorite films could be described as strange or oblique, but it's all about how you present your material. Refn here appears to be nurturing his obsessions and stylistic trademarks, but seemingly without much concern as to whether it comes together and forms a movie that might engage an audience. 

He's a talented filmmaker - "Drive" remains one of my favorite films from the past decade, and his earlier work still holds up - but this is now the third film in a row in which he relies solely on style and mood to do the heavy lifting, but it ultimately provides very few rewards for sticking it out.

Review: The Odyssey

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" is an expensive looking art film that plays as an epic adventure - but also occasionally a horror movie - and is one of the most unique blockbusters of recent memory. It's the type of film that hardly gets made anymore in the sense that a major movie studio gave a renowned director the creative license to take a monumental work and transform it into his own personal vision.

Interestingly, the picture takes a fair amount of liberties, all of which not only do not detract from the picture, but instead add unique elements. For example, the Trojan Horse is mentioned briefly in Homer's epic poem, but it plays a major role in Nolan's film. Also, the character of Sinon (Elliot Page) plays a pivotal role in the movie, but is referenced in Virgil's "Aeneid," and not in the works of Homer.

Much has been made - and by all the worst people - about the casting in the film; for example, the casting of Page, a trans actor, as a fierce male warrior, Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy, John Leguizamo as Eumaeus, Zendaya as Athena, or Himesh Patel as Eurylochus. There are even a few Greeks with New York accents.

But these particular casting choices were made, most likely, because Nolan liked these particular actors, but also because while "The Odyssey" is set in ancient Greece, the director is saying that it belongs to all of us. One of its central themes is that, in the Greece of that time, all people should be welcomed in one's land and treated with dignity and respect because it is possible that they might be a god traveling in disguise. Those who oppose this universal law for power or money are considered villainous. 

The film unfolds non-sequentially, occasionally being told by Odysseus (Matt Damon), the great warrior who has led Agamemnon's (Benny Safdie) army to victory against Troy and then spent 20 years trying to get home, and sometimes from the perspective of Telemachus (Tom Holland), his son. The latter attempts to keep at bay the many suitors who are circling his mother, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), as she awaits her husband's return. The most sinister of these suitors is Antinous (Robert Pattinson), who once cheated the lottery system that would have forced him to accompany Odysseus on his voyage and instead got Sinon to take his place.

The film is full of stunning cinematography, incredibly staged battles, and unnerving scenes that often veer into horror territory - a frightening battle in a cave against The Cyclops, the nerve-wracking choice between Scylla and Charybdis, and Samantha Morton as a scene-stealing Circe, a witch who lures Odysseus' men in with food and then does some pretty nasty things to them.

Nolan is a filmmaker who is used to working on big canvases and his two most recent films - the remarkable "Oppenheimer" and this one - are his most successful epics. There are few filmmakers who can pull off a film of this size and scope, but Nolan does so here.

The picture is also filled with strong performances, some small but memorable (Morton, Page, Leguizamo, and Charlize Theron as the nymph Calypso) and others larger-than-life (Pattinson's sneering villain and Hathaway's distraught wife-in-waiting). But it's Damon who holds it all together in one of the best performances of his career. 

One of the film's more intriguing touches is that its hero isn't always that heroic - he stands by as his men loot and plunder small villages and, during one the most powerful scenes late in the picture, he describes to Penelope the horrors he saw during the Troy invasion, which included women and children being slaughtered by his men. Odysseus also occasionally makes decisions that lead to the death of his own men on the voyage home. 

This summer, so far, has produced two very strong movies from old masters - Steven Spielberg's "Disclosure Day" and this one. Typically, large-scale blockbuster movies don't rank that highly on my list of the year's best, and that's often because despite their abundance of spectacle, they are short on imagination. That cannot be said of Nolan's film (or Spielberg's) as they are absolutely bursting with it. This is one of the year's best.

Review: The Invite

Image courtesy of Annapurna Productions.

Imagine a much raunchier and funnier version of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and you'll mostly capture the vibe of "The Invite," which is Olivia Wilde's best outing as a director to date. The film is mostly a chamber piece, set in a San Francisco apartment over the course of an evening, in which a bickering couple portrayed by Seth Rogen and Wilde entertain their neighbors from upstairs, played by Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton, who are known for engaging in loud sex.

From the start, it's easy to tell that the evening will not go smoothly. Rogen's Joe has just gotten home from teaching at the small music conservatory where he goes through the motions of his job - he's a former musician who never made it and is seemingly bitter about his lot in life - and learns that Angela (Wilde) has planned a dinner with the neighbors since their daughter is spending the night away from home.

Joe is adamant about cancelling the dinner, and threatens to bring up the fact that the neighbors' epic bouts of sex make it hard for them to sleep. When the guests arrive, Joe and Angela are surprised at how normal they seem - Hawk (Norton) is a retired firefighter who now spends his time obsessing over his interests (he's an admirer of rugs and other home decor touches), while Pina (Cruz) is a psychologist whose work often includes sex-related issues (we learn at one point in the film that Joe and Angela's sex life has taken a turn for the worse over time).

It's not too long into the evening when Joe and Angela learn that Hawk and Pina's loud nocturnal activities are a little wilder than they imagined: The upstairs couple often hosts orgies. This piques the interest of their hosts, who ply them for details, seemingly living vicariously through their neighbors. Soon afterward, the plot takes an even nuttier turn that I won't divulge, but suffice it to say that the evening gets increasingly wilder as the pasts and interests of all the gathered come to the forefront.

The film's second half is much stronger than its first, which suffers a little from over-direction - the fights between Joe and Angela are dialed up to 11 in the film's early scenes and border on being cartoonish. 

But the film becomes increasingly funnier - Rogen's reactions throughout the picture to all that is going on around him are priceless, while Norton provides some great supporting comedic support -  and more emotionally resonant as the evening proceeds. Late in the film, Norton gives a great monologue about how he chose the name "Hawk" for himself, and the film's final scene suggests a possible reconciliation that is moving.

This is Wilde's third effort behind the camera. Her debut, "Booksmart," was a widely praised coming of age comedy that I liked well enough, but didn't think was as amazing as some others did. Her much-maligned sophomore effort, "Don't Worry Darling," was a visually stylish mess in which individual moments were greater than the sum of its parts. 

"The Invite" may be smaller in scale due to its sole location and smaller cast, but it's more assured, often very funny, and a showcase for its cast. It's a movie that observes its characters well and occasionally cracks a joke at their expense, but never judges them. And amid its almost nonstop barrage of laughs (once it really gets going), it occasionally surprises when its characters reveal something honest and true. 

Review: Young Washington

Image courtesy of Angel Studios.

A film about a founding father certainly beats spending a Fourth of July weekend listening to the current president rant and rave, calling his political opponents "communists," or attending the Great American State Fair, which has fewer participants than the Bounce House at your small town's weekend carnival.

"Young Washington" has been produced by Angel Studios, a company that primarily releases religious-themed movies - some not so bad ("American Underdog"), some not so great ("Jesus Revolution"), and some entirely dubious ("Sound of Freedom," which is on a list of movies alongside "Melania" that I refuse to watch).

This movie, which chronicles the early years of George Washington (William Franklyn-Miller), is probably the studio's most watchable film that I've experienced - which is not quite the same as saying it completely works. The picture is well shot - although I've read that it utilized AI in about 100 shots, which is indefensible - and it is has a solid cast that includes Ben Kingsley, Andy Serkis, and Mary-Louise Parker.

The film is, if nothing else, an interesting enough history lesson about what Washington was up to prior to becoming a leader in the American Revolution and the nation's first president. The picture primarily follows his days as a surveyor in the Ohio territory and his resulting conflicts with the French. It depicts both his ambition and his foibles, which at one point lead him to a devastating defeat by the French as he attempts to gain favor with the British. 

Franklyn-Miller does a decent job of capturing the young man's confidence without making him seem arrogant or cocky. His scenes with Kingsley, who portrays Robert Dinwiddie, are the film's best, while the sequences with Sally Fairfax (Mia Rodgers), whom he moons over, are not as effective.

For a film by a studio that mostly traffics in religious pictures, "Young Washington" has some surprisingly tense and well-made battle scenes, though the one in which Washington rides side saddle to avoid being shot would, perhaps, have been better left to a Roland Emmerich picture. The film also mostly sidesteps religious themes, that is, until the end when a Native American chief suggests that his men's inability to shoot Washington during a battle must be because he was some sort of Chosen One.

All in all, "Young Washington" isn't too bad - but I'd also argue that there's a better film to be made about the nation's first president. The film's dialogue is a little on the nose and often a bit on the melodramatic side, giving it the feel of a Hallmark or made-for-TV movie. But as I said before, it certainly beats tuning in to the current "celebration" of our nation's 250th anniversary. 

Review: Couture

Courtesy of Closer Media.

Alice Winocour's "Couture" observes a moment in the lives of three women who are all, in one form or fashion, taking part in Paris Fashion Week. Each has their own challenges, although some are more serious than others.

As we meet Angelina Jolie's Maxine, she is preparing to shoot a short film that will kick off Paris Fashion Week. A bigwig at Chanel is apparently a fan of Maxine's indie vampire movie - and she's on the precipice of getting her big break and directing something of a larger scale - and has invited her to shoot the fashion-related short.

But during her trip, she gets a call from her doctor back home, who tells her that a health screening in which she took part led to some concerns, and tells her she should get further testing done while in Paris. He recommends a friend, Hensen (Vincent Lindon), who breaks the news that she has an aggressive form of breast cancer. He recommends that she undergo an operation in Paris, promising that unlike other doctors he intends to try to salvage as much of her breast as possible, rather than do a full mastectomy. 

Elsewhere, a young model from Sudan named Ada (Anyier Anei) has just arrived in Paris and, we are told, will star in Maxine's film and be the lead model on the runway during the accompanying Paris Fashion Week event. She is a novice and soaks up all of the advice she is given from the models in the flat where she's crashing - they hail from China, France, and a variety of other places, although it's a Ukrainian model with whom Ada bonds, despite their rocky start.

Ada, once a pharmacy student in her home country, has lied to her father about why she's in Paris. Only her younger brother, who frequently tries to contact her via Facetime, knows the real purpose of her visit. Ada is open to the adventure she is undertaking, although she's not sure whether it's the right choice for her.

The film's third character is a makeup artist named Angele (Ella Rumpf) who longs to be a writer and is struggling with a book that she's trying to complete. The models appear to respect her and it's easy to see why - unlike others depicted here from the fashion world, she is supportive to those who sit in the chair as she applies makeup and she's full of good advice. However, the editor with whom she is working believes that her manuscript won't draw much interest outside of the fashion world.

"Couture" bounces back and forth between these three stories, all three of which are engrossing, although Angele's story is the one that receives the least amount of development. Jolie gives a soulful performance as Maxine, a woman whose time has come career-wise, but who is faced with the terrifying prospect of her failing health and can't think of a way to break the news to her daughter. Anei is also convincing as Ada, who is not yet confident about her abilities as a model and seems in a state of dazed wonder at the luminous city in which she finds herself.

If there are any problems with "Couture," it's that some of the storylines just slightly stretch credibility. For example, would Maxine's health situation be so dire that she would need to see a doctor and undergo an operation during the short period of time she's in Paris? Would Ada, a novice, really be the first model to come out on the runway during a Paris Fashion Week event? And a brief sexual encounter between Maxine and Anton (Louis Garrel), a colleague on the short film, seems to exist for no real reason.

But otherwise, this is an intriguing, well acted, and often moving film about the challenges of three women who are all involved, at least momentarily, in the same industry but who are very different in terms of background, history, and the stage of life at which they find themselves. There have been many films set inside the world of fashion, but "Couture" has a vibe that is different from most of the ones I can recall.

Review: Toy Story 5

Image courtesy of Pixar.

There have been several endings to the "Toy Story" movies where the series could logically end - but here we are with a fifth entry that is overall good, but a lesser entry of the bunch, albeit among the most topical. There are, I'm sure, other films of recent memory that have done a decent job of observing the older generation looking with apprehension at the younger generation - but I can't immediately think of any that capture it as aptly as this one.

Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) appear once again, but it's Jessie (Joan Cusack) who takes center stage in this latest entry. In the film, Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) is now 8 years old and having a difficult time making friends. She still plays with Jessie and her other toys, but seemingly feels left out when most of the other children spend much of their time on gadgets.

This doesn't go unnoticed by Jessie, Buzz, Woody, and the other toys. The film's humans are depicted as almost always being haloed by a glow coming from their devices, creating a sense of unease for the toys and, frankly, for anyone else who believes that the modern world is currently becoming digital to the point that almost everything else might soon be obsolete.

When Bonnie's parents purchase a device known as Lilypad (Greta Lee) for her, it instantly puts her in touch with a group chat of young girls her age. However, they smirk at her continuing to play with her toys, which in turn leads Bonnie to shove them aside for her new gadget. Jessie believes that she can help Bonnie by smuggling herself along during a sleepover at one of the new friend's houses, but this only makes things worse.

Lilypad proves to be a capable nemesis for Jessie and the gang, causing all sorts of problems for them at the mere push of a button. Later in the film, Jessie meets a group of outdated devices (led by Conan O'Brien's Smarty Pants) that teaches her that both she and her friends and some of these devices each have their purpose in Bonnie's life.

The "Toy Story" movies have been Pixar's longest running - and likely - most successful series. It's an interesting move to make Jessie the central character in this film - giving Woody, Buzz, and the rest of the gang supporting roles - and to focus on children's increased use of devices and decrease in other forms of play or activity. 

It creates a sense of unease when I see adults constantly plugged into devices, but even more chilling when I think of how entire generations are being raised on them. This picture utilizes this concept adroitly. 

While the "Toy Story" films have been high on quality during their 31-year run, this entry feels more in line with some of the other Pixar sequels - definitely still good, but not on par with the best of the animation studio's efforts. Earlier this year, on the other hand, I thought that "Hoppers" was the best Pixar movie I'd seen since 2020's underrated "Soul."

While some will no doubt argue that the film's central concept - that something is lost when most humans, including children, have their heads buried in screens all day - is old and fusty, I appreciated that the film ends on a note of encouraging children to engage in active play and use their imaginations. This would be a good film for parents to encourage their children to see.

Review: Disclosure Day

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

One of director Steven Spielberg's most common stylistic flourishes is a shot of someone looking up at something - whether it's a dinosaur in "Jurassic Park," a flying saucer in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," or a movie screen in "The Fabelmans" - in a state of wonder and awe. These days, most people spend their time looking down - at their cellular devices, mostly, in a zombified state - but Spielberg is in his latest film calling on us to change all that and once again become curious about our world and universe.

His latest film, "Disclosure Day," is about many things, some of which are relevant to our current lived experience: a lack of faith in the government (which certainly applies at the moment), the feeling that we are not being trusted by higher powers to obtain knowledge for ourselves and, therefore, being taught to fear the unknown, and a pervasive disconnectedness that is being driven by technology. It is also not circumstantial that the film's sinister government figures are keeping aliens in detention centers.

The film is about the empowerment, joy, and enlightening experience of being brought together with people of different walks of life for a communal experience. In the case of this film, it's the knowledge that we are not alone in the universe, though from Spielberg's perspective it could be simpler - experiencing the wonders of a movie with an audience.

The picture jumps right into the action, almost as if you've missed the first episode of a TV show. Daniel Kellner (Josh O'Connor) formerly worked for a top secret government agency known as Wardex, helping to keep information about extraterrestrial visits to Earth over the decades a secret. But after discovering some footage depicting torture and various other cover-ups, he goes on the lam as a whistleblower, working with a group of dissidents led by Hugo (Colman Domingo) to plan for the titular day when all will be revealed. 

The opening scene is at what appears to be a UFC fight - which is, thankfully, not being held on the White House lawn - where he is to trade a backpack full of sensitive material for his girlfriend, Jane (Eve Hewson), who is being held hostage by Wardex's sinister leader, Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth). 

Meanwhile, in Kansas City, a peppy weather woman, Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt), finds herself exhibiting unusual powers - speaking in languages she doesn't know, being able to read people's minds, and most alarmingly, eliciting a series of clicks and croaks during a broadcast. Her boyfriend (Wyatt Russell) appears to be at the end of his rope.

These various threads come together in imaginative ways - although if one couldn't be blamed for thinking that there's almost too much information being juggled during the film's first two-thirds - in the film's finale. 

The picture takes an interesting route for a summer blockbuster: The film's first two hours are an almost nonstop chase among the various parties, leading to some superb set pieces - a tense sequence involving a car and two trains that only Spielberg could pull off with such panache and another that takes a more humorous approach and involves the film's heroes eluding Wardex via a piece of alien technology that enables invisibility.

However, the film's final 30 minutes end on a note that is awe-inspiring - not because of another finely-executed set piece, but rather due to Spielberg's ability to bring together all of its narrative strands and themes - the need for connection in a disconnected world, the idea of empathy as strength and lies and fear-mongering as weakness, and the power of a unifying event - in a satisfying way.

Spielberg has long been a master of populist blockbuster filmmaking - "Jaws," the Indiana Jones movies, "E.T. the Extra Terrestrial" - but those larger-scale movies have been interspersed with great films of a more personal or historical nature - "Schindler's List," "Saving Private Ryan," and "The Fabelmans." 

With "Disclosure Day," he has utilized the tools of the former (aliens, impressive set pieces and chase scenes) to address concepts that one might have expected to be found in his films of a more - for lack of a better phrase - serious nature. The result is his best blockbuster film since "Minority Report."

As I'd mentioned earlier, many great directors have trademark shots that appear in many of their films, from Spike Lee's floating double dolly shot to the sinister Kubrick Glare. Considering the filmography of this particular director, Spielberg's shot of people looking up in awe and wonder is a fitting one. By the end of "Disclosure Day," I was one of them.