Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Kani Kusruti and Divya Prabha in ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT. Courtesy of Janus Films.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – another busy week, with new reviews of a highly acclaimed art film from India and a Claymation romp: All We Imagine as Light and Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. Plus, my first coverage of next weekend’s Noir City film festival, which I’ll be covering in person: NOIR CITY returns – with the spotlight on femmes fatale.

Next week: Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl and Pedro Almodovar’s much-awaited The Room Next Door, with Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore.

CURRENT MOVIES

  • Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • A Complete Unknown: a genius and his time. In theaters.
  • All We Imagine as Light: three women and a society that’s not on their side. In theaters.
  • Conclave: explosive secrets? in the Vatican?. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • A Real Pain: whose pain is it? In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • The Return: an ancient tale told thru a 21st Century lens. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl: another smart and charming romp. Netflix.
  • Blitz: one brave, resourceful kid amid the horrors. AppleTV.
  • The Outrun: facing herself without the bottle. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • The Remarkable Life of Ibelin: totally unexpected. Netflix.
  • Queer: forty-five minutes of fine romantic drama, and then the bizarre. In theaters.
  • You Are Not Me: a nightmare at mom and dad’s. Amazon, Fandango.
  • It’s Not Me: his life as an art film. Amazon, Fandango.
  • Lake George: when you know you’re not going to win. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Emilia Pérez: four women yearn amid Mexico’s drug violence. Netflix.
  • The Critic: who’s on top now? Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.

WATCH AT HOME

From my Best Movies of 2024:

  • Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • The Bikeriders: they ride, drink and fight, and yet we care. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Hit Man: who knew self-invention could be so fun? Netflix.
  • Challengers: three people and their desire. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • La Chimera: six genres for the price of one.  Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • In the Summers: they mature, he evolves. Amazon.
  • Ghostlight: a family saves itself, in iambic pentameter. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango (included).
  • The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed: is she going to be a loser? Amazon, AppleTV, Hulu.
  • Love Lies Bleeding: obsessions and impulses collide. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • I Saw the TV Glow: brimming with originality. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.

ON TV

Ed Norris, Jean Gillie and Herbert Rudley in DECOY.

On January 19, Turner Classic Movies presents the obscure, low-budget Decoy, which stands out out from the rest of film noir (and from much of cinema) for two elements. The first is the most hysterically evil femme fatale ever. The second is that the plot pivots on a preposterous premise – resurrecting an executed criminal to find out where he hid the loot.

Little known British actress Jean Gillie revels in her performance as the femme fatale, who is not only remorselessly murderous, but she’s sadistic as well. And she can even take pleasure in humiliating a man from her deathbed.

Decoy is not a very good film, but it moves so quickly, and its two major elements are so astoundingly outrageous, that it’s fun to watch. Decoy is not currently available to stream, so be sure to DVR it this week on TCM. It’s on my list of Overlooked Film Noir.

WALLACE & GROMIT: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL: another smart and charming romp

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Photo caption: Wallace and Gromit in WALLACE & GROMIT: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL. Courtesy of Netflix.

The Claymation romp Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is another smart and charming winner from Aardman Studio. If you haven’t met them yet, Wallace is a cheese-loving and socially clueless English inventor. Gromit is his longsuffering dog, who is the one with common sense. Their house is filled with Wallace’s Rube Goldbergesque contraptions.

Wallace often invents gadgets that are totally unnecessary. This time, Wallace, oblivious to how lovingly Gromit tends his English garden, invents a robotic gardening gnome. As they are coping with the inevitable resulting mayhem, they are targeted for revenge by an old nemesis, and things get really out of hand.

Years earlier, they had nabbed the chicken mastercriminal Feathers McGraw for a jewel heist. Now Feathers has escaped from prison and wants to get even. What happens in the fastmoving 82 minutes of Vengeance Most Fowl is very funny and very entertaining.

I’ve loved all the Aardman Studio films (except for Pirates! Band of Misfits, which was merely amusing). Vengeance Most Fowl is even funnier than the usual Aardman fare.

Netflix labels this as “for Kids”, and kids will enjoy it, but adults; will find it very funny, too; like any good children’s content, there are loads of references that will swoop over the heads of kids while the adults are cracking up.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is streaming on Netflix.

NOIR CITY returns – with the spotlight on femmes fatale

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Evelyn Keyes and John Payne in 99 RIVER STREET
Photo caption: Evelyn Keyes and John Payne in 99 RIVER STREET

The Noir City film fest, always one of the best Bay Area cinema experiences, returns January 24 and runs through February 2 at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland. This year’s program showcases the women of film noir – which femme is the most fatale?

Come to think about it, noir is the only movie genre that practically REQUIRES a pivotal female character. You can make a western, a comedy, a sci fi, a war movie or even, these days, a romance without any women on the screen. But not a noir.

Noir City is the annual festival of the Film Noir Foundation, spearheaded by its founder and president Eddie Muller. The Foundation preserves movies from the traditional noir period that would otherwise be lost. Noir City often plays newly restored films and hard-to-find movies. You know Eddie Muller from TCM’s Noir Alley, and he hosts Noir City in person, this year with his TCM colleague Alicia Malone.

Recent Noir City fests have introduced us to film noir from other countries and have sampled neo-noir. This year’s Noir City program goes back to the basics of American movies from the classic film noir period of the 1940s and 1950s. The program spans the genre, highlighting essential female performances, both famous and overlooked:

  • Out of the Past with Jane Greer manipulating Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas in her most celebrated Good Girl/Bad Girl role.
  • The Narrow Margin: Charles McGraw might be film noir’s toughest Tough Guy, but Marie Windsor gives him all the tough he can handle, and matches him snarl for snarl.
  • Murder, My Sweet, featuring the Queen of Noir, Claire Trevor.
  • Raw Deal, where Trevor and the underused Marcia Hunt form a ménage a noir with poor Dennis O’Keefe. Two for the price of one.
  • 99 River Street: Nobody could keep the guys guessing more than the alluring Evelyn Keyes.
  • Tension with Audrey Totter as the most dismissive, humiliating, cuckolding wife in film noir.
  • Cry Danger and the ultra rare Inferno, with Rhonda Fleming, arguably the most beautiful American movie star of all time. When Rhonda goes bad, it’s a real gut punch for the sap.
  • Caged, the prototype for Orange Is the New Black. Eleanor Parker was the one nominated for an Oscar, but Hope Emerson, in an obviously LGBTQ role, steals the movie.
  • Detour: Ann Savage as perhaps the most rapaciously predatory and unhinged of femme fatales. One of the few Hollywood films where the leading lady was intentionally de-glamorized with oily, stringy hair.

Thirteen films on the program will be projected in 35mm.

Marsha Hunt, Claire Trevor and Dennis O'Keefe in RAW DEAL
Marsha Hunt, Claire Trevor and Dennis O’Keefe in RAW DEAL

These titles from this year’s Noir City program are NOT available to stream, so Noir City is your best chance to see them: 

  • Hell’s Half Acre
  • The Sleeping City
  • Tension
  • Alias Nick Beale
  • The Long Wait
  • Raw Deal
  • Mary Ryan, Detective
  • My True Story
  • The Reckless Moment
  • Tomorrow Is Another Day
  • Cry Danger
  • Inferno

Next week, just as Noir City opens, I’ll be back to feature three Must See movies in the program. I’ve previously written about The Narrow Margin, 99 River Street, Raw Deal, Caged, Cry Danger, The Prowler and Murder, My Sweet in my Overlooked Noir feature. Check them out, along with my Overlooked Neo-noir.

Make your plans now. Review the program and buy tickets at Noir City. I’ll be there.

ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT: three women and a society that’s not on their side

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Photo caption: Kani Kusruti in ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT. Courtesy of Janus Films.

All We Imagine as Light, writer-director Payal Kapadia’s highly-praised first narrative feature, is the story of three women and their need to find fulfillment by casting off societal expectations. Kapadia introduces us to that society by immersing us in a contemporary Mumbai that is teeming with people who don’t each other, who speak a variety of languages, and who have come from some home village elsewhere.

Prabha (Kani Kusruti) is the highly proficient and respected supervising nurse at a Mumbai hospital. Prabha has a husband from an arranged marriage, who moved to Germany for work shortly after their wedding. Prabha doesn’t really know him, and she’s more in love with the idea of having a soul mate and life partner than she could possibly be with the guy himself, who has become more of an abstraction. He hasn’t called her in more than a year.

Still, she considers herself a married woman, and she comports herself as though her hubbie were putting on his slippers back at her apartment. . A gentle doctor at the hospital is sweet on her, but she won’t entertain the opportunity for a love match. A Western movie audience is thinking, “Move on, girl!“.

Prabha has taken a roommate, Anu (Divya Prabha), a peppy but immature and irresponsible student nurse. Anu spends every free moment sneaking around with her sweet boyfriend, in the mistaken belief that she is successfully hiding the relationship. Hher parents are insisting on an arranged marriage, and she knows that they would never accept her Muslim beau.

Prabha is friends with the hospital’s cook, Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam). Parvaty is a middle-aged widow who is being forced out of her shanty by high-rise developers. The most fun character in All We Imagine as Light, Parvaty is full of piss and vinegar. Seeking to finally secure a life, however impecunious, that she is in control of, Parvaty decides to move back to her seaside home village.

Prabha and Anu help Parvaty move her stuff. At the village, Prabha helps with an emergency on the beach and has a revelatory hallucination. How deeply you accept Prabha’s catharsis depends on how easily you accept magical realism in a movie.

The core of All We Imagine as Light is Prabha’s profound loneliness, even as she is living amid 22 million other people. Kapadia is also spotlighting and criticizing both traditional Indian society, where women don’t even control who they are married to, and the inequities of untempered capitalism.

All We Imagine as Light won the second prize at Cannes and is universally acclaimed by critics. The Indian film authorities failed to submit All We Imagine as Light for the Best International Film Oscar – which, given the reaction of the American film community, was a huge misfire.

The NYT’s Manohla Dargis, who picked All We Imagine as Light as her number one movie of 2024, wrote, “It’s the kind of modestly scaled and lightly plotted international movie — with characters who look and sound like real people, and whose waking hours are set to the pulse of life — that can get lost amid the year-end glut of Oscar-grubbing titles. ” That is undeniably true, and, although it’s a fine film, All We Imagine as Light didn’t make my list of Best Movies of 2024 (although six indies by other emerging female directors did).

I think that there’s a lot to Howard Hawks’s definition of a great movie – three great scenes and no bad ones“. There’s one great scene here, where Prabha is alone with a rice cooker her husband has sent her as a gift (without a note). Most people would also count the scene where she imagines her husband is present as a great scene. But, that’s it for me, and I really didn’t embrace the magical realism or the Anu character. And, at times, my mind wandered.

As much as I was underwhelmed by All We Imagine as Light, it is a authentic exploration of women seeking dignity and love where society stacks the deck against them.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Bob Dylan in PAT GARRETT AND BILY THE KID, coming up twice this week on Turner Classic Movies.

This has been a remarkably busy week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of a Bronze Age saga, a Spanish psychological horror movie and a darkly funny crime thriller: The Return, You Are Not Me and Lake George. You can now stream Anora at home – the film currently number one on my Best Movies of 2024, The current number two film, A Complete Unknown, is in theaters.

REMEMBRANCE

You may have read of the recent death of Jeff Baena, who wrote David O. Russell’s I Heart Huckabees, and wrote and directed The Little Hours and Spin Me Round, all offbeat and subversive comedies.

CURRENT MOVIES

  • Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • A Complete Unknown: a genius and his time. In theaters.
  • Conclave: explosive secrets? in the Vatican?. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • A Real Pain: whose pain is it? In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • The Return: an ancient tale told thru a 21st Century lens. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Blitz: one brave, resourceful kid amid the horrors. AppleTV.
  • The Outrun: facing herself without the bottle. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • The Remarkable Life of Ibelin: totally unexpected. Netflix.
  • Queer: forty-five minutes of fine romantic drama, and then the bizarre. In theaters.
  • You Are Not Me: a nightmare at mom and dad’s. Amazon, Fandango.
  • The Settlers: reckoning with the ugly past. MUBI.
  • It’s Not Me: his life as an art film. Amazon, Fandango.
  • Lake George: when you know you’re not going to win. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Emilia Pérez: four women yearn amid Mexico’s drug violence. Netflix.
  • The Critic: who’s on top now? Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.

WATCH AT HOME

From my Best Movies of 2024:

  • Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • The Bikeriders: they ride, drink and fight, and yet we care. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Hit Man: who knew self-invention could be so fun? Netflix.
  • Challengers: three people and their desire. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • La Chimera: six genres for the price of one.  Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • In the Summers: they mature, he evolves. Amazon.
  • Ghostlight: a family saves itself, in iambic pentameter. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango (included).
  • The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed: is she going to be a loser? Amazon, AppleTV, Hulu.
  • Love Lies Bleeding: obsessions and impulses collide. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • I Saw the TV Glow: brimming with originality. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.

ON TV

Kris Kristofferson and Bob Dylan in PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID

The culture is pervaded with Bob Dylan right now, which is probably why Turner Classic Movies is airing a rare Bob Dylan acting performance, not once, but TWICE – on January 12 and 14.

One of my very favorite films is the Sam Peckinpah 1973 Western Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, featuring James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson in the title roles. Dylan composed the music for the film, including Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, which perfectly underlines a heartbreaking scene with two greats of the Western genre, Slim Pickins and Katy Jurado. Dylan also holds his own in a small, mostly comedic, acting role.

Peckinpah takes us into a realistically dusty world of 1880s New Mexico and makes the story operatic in its sweep. Pat Garrett is a revisionist Western, with Billy representing the have-nots and his old pal Garrett hiring out to do the bidding of the capitalist one-percenters. It’s a near-great movie; if the unfortunate “Paco” story line were excised, it would rank among the greatest three or four Westerns of all time.

Pat Garrett also features the Peckinpah repertory company of Luke Askew, Strother Martin, L.Q. Jones, Gene Evans, Dub Taylor, Emilio Fernandez and, in one his most memorable roles, R.G. Armstrong. The stellar cast also features Harry Dean Stanton, Jason Robards, Elisha Cook Jr., Chill Wills, Richard Jaeckel, Jack Elam, Barry Sullivan, Jack Dodson (Howard Sprague in The Andy Griffin Show), Richard Bright (Al Neri in The Godfather), and Charles Martin Smith (Terry the Toad in American Graffiti).

Dylan starred in his only other narrative feature film, Hearts of Fire, in 1987. He did appear, uncredited, in Dennis Hopper’s Catchfire (1990). Three decades after Pat Garrett, Dylan won an Oscar for composing the theme for Wonder Boys.

LAKE GEORGE: when you know you’re not going to win

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Photo caption: Carrie Coon and Shea Whigham in LAKE GEORGE. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures & Magnolia Releasing.

As the comic neo-noir Lake George opens, the hangdog Don (Shea Whigham) has just been released from a ten-year stint in prison. He has no prospects and is coerced by the fearsome crime lord Armen (Glenn Fleshler) into taking a job he doesn’t want. Having done his stretch for a white collar crime, Don is decidedly non-violent (and unlucky). He would be the first to agree that he is the worst possible choice to pull off a murder-for-hire, but Armen and his henchman Hanout (Max Casella) insists, on pain of Don’s own life, that Don whack the boss’ girlfriend and business associate, Phyllis (Carrie Coon).

Don tracks down Phyllis, and, of course, things do not go according to plan. She convinces him to join her in stealing stashes of loot from Armen, and the two are off on an odd couple road trip.

Phyllis is much, much smarter and quicker-thinking than any of the men in this story. And she’s just as ruthless, too. She has an impressive gift of persuasion and can apparently manipulate anyone into anything. Imagine if Brigid O’Shaughnessy were a lot smarter than Sam Spade. Femme fatale, sociopath – that’s Phyllis.

Don, on the other hand, kno ws that he has been a loser and that he ain’t gonna win this time either. Even if he is not quickest, Don is by no means stupid. Don is smart enough to know that doing Phyllis’ bidding is unlikely to work out and that Phyllis is only out for herself and has zero loyalty to Don. That’s the core of Lake George – Don trudging along at Phyllis’ side because he can’t figure out any alternative.

Lake George is a character study, and it’s an acting showcase for Shea Whigham. Ever dazed by the Phyllis’ increasingly outrageous acts, Whigham’s Don seems to be squinting into a bright light as he ponders how he can possibly escape each situation with his life.

Whigham is one of those character actors who works a lot and is always memorable (The Gray Man, A Country Called Home, Boardwalk Empire, True Detective, The Wolf of Wall Street, American Hustle, Take Shelter). It’s great to see him get a lead role.

Coon has fun with Phyllis’ ever-bubbling self-interest and almost manic charm. It’s an interesting take on the femme fatale because she doesn’t sexually seduce Don. Her smarts and gift of gab are so effective that she doesn’t need to use her gams.

There is a massive plot twist near the end. Lake George was written and directed by prolific TV director Jeffrey Reiner, his first theatrical feature in 29 years.

My personal preference would be to make Lake George more noir by cutting the last minute. But it’s a mildly entertaining lark, and the wonderful character study by Whigham is the most compelling reason to watch it.

Lake George is now streaming on Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube and Fandango.

YOU ARE NOT ME: a nightmare at mom and dad’s

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Photo caption: Roser Tapias in YOU ARE NOT ME. Courtesy of Music Box Films.

In the Spanish psychological horror film You Are Not Me, Aitana (Roser Tapias) and her Brazilian partner Gabi (Yapoena Silva), with their adopted infant, show up early for Christmas at the Catalan home of Aitana’s affluent parents (Pilar Almeria and Alfred Pico). And Aitana seems to step into a nightmare. Or is it?

The first thing that rocks Aitana is her parents’ reaction. They don’t seem happy to see Aitana after many years, nor to meet her partner or their own first grandchild. They’re especially displeased that Aitana’s family has arrived on the eve of a dinner party they’ve planned, a special party that is not the usual family holiday get-together.

Why are the parents acting so inappropriately? Are they homophobic? Are they racist (the baby is black)? Are they still pissed off at Aitana? Aitana is headstrong and often tactless, and we learn that there’s some baggage; years before, the parents were hosting Aitana’s wedding to their ideal son-in-law, when Aitana, realizing she was a lesbian, suddenly ran away, leaving everyone in the lurch.

Aitana is also upset by the condition of her wheelchair-bound younger brother, Saul (Jorge Motos), whose degenerative disease is apparently getting worse.

But, what really sends Aitana over the edge is that her parents are fawning over a Romanian woman Aitana’s age, Nadia (Anna Kurikka). They have awarded Aitana’s room to Nadia, along with their affection and even Aitana’s wedding dress. When Aitana discovers evidence of Nadia’s dishonesty and even behavior that threatens Saul, the parents refuse to listen.

A scene from in YOU ARE NOT ME. Courtesy of Music Box Films.

Finally, there’s the parents’ formal dinner party, hosting several couples their age. The parents are meeting many of the guests, from several European countries, for the first time. The guests are unusually convivial (and horny). Although the guests are outwardly very traditional, they make what is a decidedly a creepy assemblage. Everything is conventional, but Aitana and the audience feel that something must be amiss.

You Are Not Me was co-written and co-directed by Marisa Crespo and Moisés Romera in their second feature film. It’s a well-directed film that benefits from a clever story that keeps the audience off-balance. Are these things really happening, or is Aitana imagining or dreaming them, or even hallucinating? Is Aitana just easily offended or is she paranoid or even schizophrenic? Her well-balanced partner Gabi is rolling with the punches and unintentionally gaslighting Aitana. By making Aitana so prickly, having her jet-lagged and then drunk, Crespo and Romera keep us wondering. And just when we think that the ending is outrageously cheesy, Crespo and Romera creep us out again.

You Are Not Me is streaming on Amazon and Fandango.

THE RETURN: an ancient tale told thru a 21st Century lens

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Photo caption: Ralph Fiennes in THE RETURN. Courtesy of Bleecker Street Media.

The Return brings 21st Century sensibilities to The Odyssey, a story that the ancient Homer told of an even more ancient time.

Odysseus is the king of of the island of Ithaca, and is known as the smartest of the great warrior kings who left their Greek homes for ten years to fight the Trojan War (Homer’s The Iliad). The Odyssey spans the ten years it takes Odysseus to return home, in which he pleases and displeases various Olympian gods, blinds and slaughters an assortment of monsters and shacks up with a witch-goddess and then a nymph. Most tellings of The Odyssey focus on those rip-roaring adventures. That’s the case with the delightful 1954 Kirk Douglas version, Ulysses, and the really bad 1997 miniseries with Armanda Assante and Greta Scacchi. (Christopher Nolan, in his first film after Oppenheimer, will release his version of The Odyssey later this year.)

The Return is based on the very end of The Odyssey, when a shipwrecked Odysseus (Ralph Fiennes) is finally cast upon the beach at Ithaca, and doesn’t like what he finds. His kingdom is overrun with suitors for his wife Penelope (Juliette Binoche). The suitors are demanding that Penelope, with Odysseus presumed dead after twenty years, marry one of them (and make the guy king).. They are a scummy lot, and Penelope is resisting with delaying tactics, but the pressure is overwhelming. The suitors are enjoying one big frat party, whoring and stripping the island’s economy of food and wine. Her son Telemachus (Charlie Plummer) is now a callow twenty-year-old, old enough to hate the situation, but too young to do anything about it. Can Odysseus set things right? Will he be accepted by his people? By the wife he hasn’t seen him for twenty years? By the son who doesn’t know him?

There’s no Poseidon and Athena, cyclops or sea monster in The Return. Director and co-writer Uberto Pasolini has stripped the mythology and supernatural out of the story to focus on human reactions to the consequences of our choices, to war and to abandonment.

What was not well-understood in Homer’s time is that even the glory of victory does not wash away away the emotional impacts of having experienced war. The Return’s Odysseus suffers from PTSD, no longer reveling in winning a war that slaughtered the civilians of Troy. He is feeling guilt for the war, for leading his Ithacan comrades to their deaths, and for abandoning Penelope, Telemachus and Ithaca for so many years. Sure, Penelope’s suitors are the direct cause of the current chaos, but the root is in Odysseus’ original decision to leave.

Similarly, Penelope has feelings that are intense and ambivalent. She doesn’t know whether to grieve the loss of her husband. She’s been single parenting for twenty years, running both a household and a kingdom. She’s worried about her son’s survival, given that his existence is inconvenient for the suitors. She’s stressed and weary, and the pressure from the suitors is pushing her over the edge. On the one hand, she yearns for the man she loves and wants Odysseus to come back and fix this mess. On the other, she resents whatever he’s been doing these past ten years (and with whom), and she feels the hurt of his original decision to go off to war.

I appreciated seeing Odysseus and Penelope through a 21st Century lens. The first encounter between the two is electrifying and emotionally rich. I did find their dialogue in the final scene to be stilted.

The Return is an acting showcase for Ralph Fiennes. This Odysseus, besides being emotionally tortured, must show the effects of two decades of suffering on a middle-aged man and also retain the combat skills of an ancient Special Ops warrior. In a remarkable performance, Fiennes pulls it off in spades.

I have to also mention that, at age 62, Fiennes is a remarkable physical specimen. He is so ripped that his extreme exploits at the film’s climax are entirely believable.

Juliette Binoche is similarly excellent as her Penelope feels determination, hopelessness, longing, resentment, anger and disgust, often at the same time.

Marwan Kenzari is really good as Antinous, by far the smartest and most manipulative of the suitors, the lone slick conniver amid a gang of thugs.

The Return is only the fourth film that Uberto Pasolini has directed in a quarter century. Hw was Oscar-nominated for the massive 1997 arthouse hit The Full Monty. He is not related to the groundbreaking filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, but he is the nephew of iconic director Luchino Visconti.

The Return is now streaming on Amazon, AppleTV and Fandango.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Elle Fanning and Timothée Chalamet in A COMPLETE UNKNOWN. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of A Complete Unknown, Queer and Jimmy Carter. Plus my year-end coverage:

  1. Best Movies of 2024
  2. Best (and worst) movie-going experiences of 2024
  3. 2024 Farewells: on the screen
  4. 2024 Farewells: behind the camera.

REMEMBRANCE

Olivia Hussey was only 15 when she began filming Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. Zeffirelli had decided to tell the story of impulsive, over-dramatic teenage love with actual teenage actors, and Hussey rewarded him with a rapturous and genuine performance. She worked with Zeffirelli again in the best-ever biblical epic, Jesus of Nazareth, as Mary, mother of Jesus.

CURRENT MOVIES

  • Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters.
  • A Complete Unknown: a genius and his time. In theaters.
  • Conclave: explosive secrets? in the Vatican?. In theaters.
  • Blitz: one brave, resourceful kid amid the horrors. AppleTV.
  • A Real Pain: whose pain is it? In theaters.
  • The Outrun: facing herself without the bottle. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandngo.
  • The Remarkable Life of Ibelin: totally unexpected. Netflix.
  • Queer: forty-five minutes of fine romantic drama, and then the bizarre. In theaters.
  • The Settlers: reckoning with the ugly past. MUBI.
  • Emilia Pérez: four women yearn amid Mexico’s drug violence. Netflix.
  • Chasing Chasing Amy: the origins of love, fictional and otherwise. In theaters.
  • Kneecap: sláinte! Amazon, AppleTV.
  • Will & Harper: old friends adjust. Netflix.

WATCH AT HOME

From my Best Movies of 2024 – So Far:

ON TV

Ann-Margret and Elvis Presley in VIA LAS VEGAS

OK, I’m not saying that Viva Las Vegas (Turner Classic Movies on January 8) is neither a good movie nor an overlooked one, but it’s tough to beat for sheer vibrancy and sexual chemistry. Virtually all Elvis Presley, movies had silly, barely visible plots contrived as an excuse for Elvis to perform a few songs and to canoodle with a pretty female. What’s different about Viva Las Vegas is that his co-star Ann-Margret had the musical talent and charisma to match up with Elvis; her dancing here is captivating. Ann-Margret has confirmed that she and Elvis enjoyed a torrid fling during the shoot, and their lustful passion is evident (meaning that Elvis didn’t need to rely on his acting skills to appear smitten). (BTW the one good Elvis movie was Kid Creole – check it out.)

Director George Sidney (nearing the end of a career making light-hearted musicals) seems so obsessed with Ann-Margret’s derriere, that you can play a drinking game on the extended, lingering shots of her walking away from the camera; don’t blame Sidney – nobody in Kiss Me Kate or Annie, Get Your Gun! was as overtly sexual as Ann-Margret.

Ann-Margret and Elvis Presley in VIA LAS VEGAS

QUEER: forty-five minutes of fine romantic drama, and then the bizarre

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Photo caption: Daniel Craig in QUEER. Courtesy of A24.

The first thing I need to tell you about Luca Guadagnino’s Queer is something that I knew beforehand but failed to internalize – it is based on a William S. Burroughs story, an autobiographical one at that. Had I been thinking about that, I wouldn’t have been so jarred when the film veered into the super trippy.

Queer starts off coloring within the lines of a character study and romantic drama. William Lee (Daniel Craig) is an American expat in 1950s Mexico City; a man of independent means, he is continually drinking and prowling for sex with younger men. He glimpses Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), a gorgeous American of ambiguous sexuality and is instantly infatuated; Lee begins a pursuit, and Eugene is hard to get, until he isn’t.

That’s the first act, which absorbed me. But it didn’t prepare me for the turgid second act, which is about opiate addiction nor the third act, which is about a search for psychedelics. That third act is bizarre, with some ripping moments.

Luca Guadagnino is known for visually striking, even delectable, movies; he and cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (also Call Me By Your Name and Challengers) oblige with plenty of Mexico City and Ecuadorian jungle eye candy, mostly shot in an Italian studio. There’s an especially wonderful dream sequence after Lee’s most extreme drunk night. This is the first Guadagnino movie I’ve seen with special effects, which are necessary in the hallucinatory third act.

But Queer is too long overall, especially the hallucination scene. The entire second act drags.

Daniel Craig’s acting ability was justifiably admired before he became such an iconic James Bond. Here, his Lee is so fascinated and yet mystified by Eugene. Lee is always off-balance when he can win Eugene’s company, but he can’t control him. Lee has attained a relationship, but it’s an asymmetric one.

If there’s any doubt that he is very comfortable putting James Bond behind him, that doubt is erased when we see Daniel Craig playing a character with semen glistening on his lips.

Craig also plays drunk very well – which many actors fail to do convincingly. He nails the various degrees, starting at the point where Lee fails to read the room correctly and acts cutesy when it isn’t funny. As Lee becomes more tipsy, Craig perfectly adds a slight sway to his gait, then a bigger one.

We have known Craig can act since The Mother (2003) and Layer Cake (2004), so Drew Starkey, who hadn’t yet had a memorable performance, is the real discovery here. Eugene is anything but demonstrative, and Starkey communicates all of Eugene’s interest in Lee and resistance to Lee, with his eyes and body.

Lesley Manville jumps off the screen in what must be the most bizarre portrayal in her storied career; at some point, she must have played one of the witches from Macbeth, but she looks more the part here, with greasy hair, darkened teeth and unhinged eyes, than she could have in any other production. Her performance is very, very strong.

Jason Schwartzman, playing one of Lee’s Mexico City expat buddies, is very funny every time he’s on the screen.

So, what do I think about Queer? Luca Guadagnino and his team are interesting and accomplished artists, Daniel Craig is an actor worthy of his stardom and it’s great to have a non-heterosexual romantic drama – BUT, the choice to hew so closely to Burroughs’ source material, along with some self-indulgent editing, condemns the second half of Queer to lose the audience (me, at least).