Hope & George review this week’s new releases: Spider-Man: Brand New Day, I Want Your Sex, Nightborn, Son of Sara: Volume 1, and The Withering!
Her Business
Due West
by Rachel Willis
Director Evan Miller focuses his attention on a desperate Woman in his first feature film, Due West.
Co-writing with Hardy Janson, Miller opens the film by letting the camera rest on a solitary woman standing outside a quiet bar. This unnamed Woman (Adrianne Palicki) smokes, taps her foot nervously against the wall, and waits for a text that tells her she will need $700 by tomorrow.
It’s not much to go on, but it’s clear from the tension that bleeds from every gesture and expression from the Woman that this is a steep sum of money. And money she desperately needs.
It’s hard not to be hooked as we follow her from moment to moment. Even as two bar patrons shoot the shit with a female bartender, our gaze never strays from our protagonist for long. When she re-enters the bar, her anxious body language belies the smile on her face.
Though not explicitly stated, it’s easy to figure out why the Woman needs the money. The sum, the cryptic texts, and the command to text from a burner phone when she reaches her destination speak to a procedure recently made illegal in many states after a certain, damaging Supreme Court ruling.
The film’s dialogue, at times, is stunning. It brings with it snatches of backstory, life lived in a small town in West Texas, where the people know your business whether you want them to or not. Especially when you don’t want them to. Sadly, there are also times when it leaves subtlety behind – to the film’s detriment.
The second half of the film is when it starts to fall apart. Though our sympathy lies with the protagonist, as we learn more of her story, as she makes certain choices, judgment bleeds into the film. It ends up making a statement that there is a “right” type of situation when a certain procedure is justified. Whether intentional or not, it’s a harmful choice for a film to make when women deserve the right to care regardless of the why.
Wait a Minute, Baby
Son of Sara
by Hope Madden
It’s hard to do something new with the “pregnant with Satan’s baby” formula. There are only so many ways it can go, and you can’t hope to unseat Rosemary’s Baby. But writer/director Houston Bone and a game cast breathe weird life in this oft-told tale.
Sara (Chloe Van Landschoot) is very pregnant. Overdue, huge, and constantly vomiting, she’s ready to be done. Her devoted girlfriend Carol (Tymika Tafari) takes good care of her. Still, Sara’s definitely not entirely OK.
She runs into Troy (Garrett Hnatiuk), the pre-Carol fling and baby daddy, and feels strangely compelled to take him up on his offer of dinner. Back at his house. Out in the middle of nowhere. With his mom (Jane Moffat).
While moments of Act 1 smack of cliché —certainly that package of bloody ground chuck in the refrigerator—Bone’s script and his actors’ talent, plus Sara’s convincing pregnant state, keep you invested.
Bone gives his cast breathing room, never rushing a scene, always lingering just long enough for someone to be intriguing. That could be Hnatiuk’s awkwardly seductive dancing, Tafari’s disdainful glare, Moffat’s contemptuous sneer, or Landschoot’s childlike gesturing. The chemistry between and among the actors is top notch, and the way they inhabit their characters ensures even formulaic scenes feel unusual and fresh.
Son of Sara is not a spendy affair, but it rarely feels trapped by its budget. Bone and crew make great use of what funds they do have, and the filmmaker’s instinct for relationship-driven humor and discomfort overcome nearly every cinematic setback.
Even if a few beats buckle under familiarity, the underlying change in theme quietly upends a status quo expectation in enormously enjoyable ways. Son of Sara has an F-you quality to it that doesn’t draw attention to itself and is all the more satisfying for it. It’s fun, tightly constructed, compellingly performed horror and you’re out in under 90 minutes. What do you have to lose?
Carnal College
I Want Your Sex
by George Wolf
Even when a Gregg Araki film does not work for me at all (hello, Kaboom), I’m interested in his next move. Whatever he’s up to, you can make a safe bet it will be audacious, horny and pretty damn fearless.
I Want Your Sex is all that and a bag of charming.
Cooper Hoffman is a damn delight as Elliot, an affable, mop-headed goofball who’s thrilled to get a job working for Neo-pop artist Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde, fantastically self-absorbed smoke show). Erika deals in frank sexuality, and waits a full week before giving her new assistant a no-nonsense, carnal proposition.
What’s Elliot to do? Yes, the studious Minerva (Charli XCX) is his girlfriend, but to her sex is an uninteresting chore, so….it’s DTF time!
Erika gets a new sexual muse, and Elliot gets to broaden his, ahem, horizons in various kinky ways. Though co-workers Vikktor and Zap (Daveed Diggs and Mason Gooding, respectively letter perfect) consistently roll their eyes at Elliot’s naïveté, he’s pretty okay with Erika’s benefits package.
That is, until there’s blood, a body, and two detectives (Margaret Cho, Johnny Knoxville) wanting answers.
Araki, who also co-writes with Karley Sciortino, crafts much of the film as a mystery told via shifting timelines. But each step in the Elliot/Erika relationship is so engaging you forget there are two cops ready to pop in with more questions. They can wait a hot minute, because Araki and company are having too much fun with this neon-colored tapestry of sexual mores, hipster sweat shops, Harold Robbins novels and penis rugs, all wrapped around frisky exclamations and hilariously droll asides.
Hoffman and Wilde are a down and dirty joy together, and their natural, committed chemistry gives the film a sweet, dare I say even sentimental layer I wasn’t expecting.
I was expecting the sexcapades, and all the usual Araki flourishes. But even while pushing all of these fetish boundaries, I Want Your Sex may be his most accessible film. And most thoroughly enjoyable.
Night, Mommy
Nightborn
by Hope Madden
Finnish filmmaker Hanna Bergholm (Hatching) once again explores horrific maternal themes with Nightborn. Don’t confuse it with Neil Blomkamp’s soulless AI short film. This is not that.
Bergholm’s film stumbles into a classic Finnish folktale. Saga (Seidi Haarla) and her husband Jon (Rupert Grint) move to her grandmother’s old, long vacant home deep in the forest. Gran was a bit of an eccentric. She kept old junk—tractors, machinery, wire—around the property because the creatures in the woods hated cold iron.
What a nut!
Saga and Jon settle in to reclaim the cabin from the encroaching woods and to start their family. Jon is immediately besotted with little Christian regardless of how hairy he is. Saga can’t seem to bond with him, although she does try to find her place as a mother, first by asserting that his name is Kuura.
Bergholm’s film, co-written with Hatching writing partner Ilja Rautsi, takes us deep into a post-partum nightmare. While the film is far less original than Hatching, examining maternal horror from the mother’s perspective gives the film dimension.
Haarla looks and acts the part perfectly. Bergholm and Haarla work together to bend your expectations and sympathies. There is something wrong with this child and we’re as frustrated as Saga with the way she’s dismissed as being depressed and exhausted. The next minute, we see Saga as a narcissist whose personality disorder is now on display because she can’t find love in her heart for her baby. Then, clearly Saga is just delirious and exhausted and suffering from post-partum, all issues exacerbated by society’s demand that motherhood is precious and perfect.
Nightborn weaves these likelihoods without asking us to turn against anyone. The film empathizes with Saga, even when her behavior does seem too prickly. Likewise, we’re never asked to hate Jon—a good thing because Grint is endlessly sympathetic as a man who wants desperately to be a good dad and husband.
Though Nightborn is not perfect—the creature and baby effects leave a bit to be desired—its exploration is fascinating. Never tidy, never patronizing, but not quickly forgiving, the film embraces what’s monstrous in us. It’s not the complete success of Hatching, but it’s a vivid nightmare worth your time.
Good Sized Potatoes
Spider-Man: Brand New Day
by George Wolf
Looks like our boy has gone and grown up. It happens.
When Tom Holland stepped into the Spider-Man suit nearly a decade ago now (!), he was 21 but looked 15, which was perfect. Peter Parker was a kid again, and that fact alone grounded the new franchise with a freshness and naïveté that was utterly charming.
It also gave the young man and his super alter ego plenty of room to grow. Spider-Man: Brand New Day raises the stakes with both familiarity and surprise, delivering a more adult-themed adventure that will thrill , satisfy and occasionally frustrate.
Peter has settled into his life as a friendly neighborhood hero, helping Detective DeWolff (Liza Colon-Zayas) bust bad guys even as she advises him to take some time off and quit being married to his job as a super friend. But, of course, the work takes his mind off of the fact that girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and BFF Ned (Jacob Batalon) don’t even know him anymore.
And much like plenty of Superheroes before him, Peter begins to show sides of himself that even he doesn’t recognize. Severe headaches grow more frequent, and parts of his high-tech spider suit begin to malfunction as a very dangerous, and very elusive new villain emerges. And just when Peter needs to know who he can trust, everyone from Frank Castle/Punisher (Jon Bernthal) to Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) to a couple other recognizable names I won’t mention may have conflicting loyalties.
Director Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Short Term 12, Just Mercy) takes the franchise helm from Jon Watts, providing a winning pace and engaging visual style. After some well-placed nods to the youthful Spider-Verse aesthetic early on, Cretton buoys the maturation of the character with a more streamlined, focused approached to some really terrific action sequences. And while plenty of the CGI is appropriately super, Hulk’s facial features seem to have taken a curious step back.
Franchise screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers return, giving credible weight to the introduction of themes that should be plenty familiar to superhero fans. Yes, some of the dialog banter lands as a bit forced and the humor is understandably downplayed this time out, but a few good moments of laughter find their mark – including a turn of the phrase “meager potatoes” which I now plan to work into daily conversation.
Holland still provides the heroic anchor, and he’s just so good with this character it appears effortless. His chemistry with Zendaya (duh) and Batalon is warm and real, and he makes Peter’s journey to becoming his own hero an organic and rewarding one. He’s still friendly, but now there’s a sense of loss and inner turmoil that makes the victories more sweet and well-earned. With Brand New Day, calling him Spider-Man doesn’t feel like a kid playing dress up anymore.
And those are good-sized potatoes.
Screening Room: Motor City, Hadestown, Her Private Hell & More
This week, Hope & George review Her Private Hell, Hadestown: The Musical, Motor City, The Dink, Cruel Hands, and What Tomorrow Brings, PLUS News & Notes with The Schlocketeer Daniel Baldwin!
Shut Up and Plot Your Revenge
Motor City
by George Wolf
Man, if you can hang with Motor City for about an hour and fifteen minutes, you’ll get one damn fine action sequence. Suddenly violent, increasingly bloody and eventually downright grisly, it’s an impressively choreographed and well shot set piece.
It’s also curious, considering the film surrounding it is a pretty tedious exercise in navigating a needless hurdle of its own making. And needle-dropping some sweet 70s hits.
The theme is simple enough: revenge. Ex-con John Miller (Alan Ritchson) is on probation and trying to toe the line in 1977 Detroit. He pops the question to his honey Sophia (Shailene Woodley) and things are looking up. But then Sophia’s gangster ex-boyfriend Reynolds (Ben Foster) frames John with a staged drug bust, and back to the slammer he goes.
So how does director Potsy Ponciroli (Old Henry) refresh the familiar idea from writer Chad St. John? By crafting Motor City as a nearly dialog-free thriller propelled by mood and music.
That “nearly” is the first curious bump in John’s long road to payback.
The few bits of dialog that are here just end up drawing attention to how hard the film is trying to get credit for telling most of this story without words. And it just isn’t necessary. Scenes that should naturally have organic conversation do not, and the strain of keeping the silent device intact is just too obvious.
I mean, do it or don’t. Since there is some dialog, Ponciroli’s commitment to visual storytelling ends up feeling more gimmicky and forced.
Foster and Woodley are customarily fine, Ritchson continues to show raw talent and real charisma, and Pablo Schreiber makes a perfectly menacing henchman. The soundtrack choices from Jack White (who also has a cameo) are on point, too, which helps keep the boredom at bay when the story just takes too long getting down to business.
And though revealing just what derails the finale would be too much of a spoiler, the result is anticlimactic and just plain silly.
But man, that one elevator scene shows just how much action potential is wasted in Motor City.
Dill With It
The Dink
by Hope Madden
I was cautiously optimistic about The Dink, Josh Greenbaum’s feature that pits the elegant sport of tennis against goofy good time of pickle ball. It seemed like a funny concept.
Jake Johnson plays one-time tennis phenom Dustin Boyd, also known as the Hammer because that was the name his dad (Ed Harris) gave him as a kid due to his incredible serve. But now, rolling through his 40s in his 1998 Dodge LeSabre and working at his dad’s country club as the junior tennis instructor, the Hammer’s hitting some hard times.
As luck would have it, Dad has hatched a plan to rid the club of the goofy menace that is pickle ball. Does it involve a tournament, one pickle baller vs one tennis player? Will the Hammer somehow screw up his opportunity to be that tournament tennis pro? Will he somehow find himself falling for pickle ball?
I’m not saying, but if you’ve ever seen either a sports film or a comedy, you may be able to guess. No, Sean Clements’s script doesn’t feel terribly fresh, but the sort of Dodgeball meets Caddyshack concept is immediately appealing.
Lower your expectations and you might enjoy the movie.
Johnson’s built a career on the likeable goof character, and he’s as endearingly off-putting here as anywhere. Greenbaum surrounds him with solid support. Harris, obviously, but the ensemble teems with comic talent: Mary Steenburgen, Patton Oswalt, Ben Stiller, Chris Parnell, and even more veterans in cameos.
The Dink opens on its funniest scene, of the Hammer and his sidekick bestie (Aaron Chen) regaling two unimpressed kids with tales of their instructor’s youthful glory. Both kids (Indiana Elle and Cayden Romero) are dry, droll comic gold.
Everything after that is formula broken occasionally by random comedy bits. Stiller’s doctor is preoccupied with the “stickyhoney” dating app. Oswalt’s pickle ball advocate wastes a lot of tiny paper cups. John McEnroe brings his own concessions. Nothing is laugh-out-loud funny, but all the silliness is delivered by such pros that you chuckle regardless.
The Dink doesn’t rank among the great sports comedies, surely, but you’ll crack a smile.
Better Together
What Tomorrow Brings
by Rachel Willis
After her mother leaves, Clara is forced to take care of her little sister in director Matt Englebert’s feature, What Tomorrow Brings.
Clara (Joely Englebert, who is also credited as a writer) is used to caring for Ruby (Phoebe Englebert, another co-writer). Even before her mother left, Clara’s dying father charged her with putting Ruby first, telling Clara her mother “wasn’t as strong” as Clara. Though Clara has fond memories of her father, the parent in me cringed to watch him put that burden on her.
The film’s present-day story is framed by voice-over narration in the form of Clara’s diary entries. Through these, we’re told rather than shown how she feels while shouldering the weight of caring for her sister alone.
The movie has some genuinely touching moments, but too often, those moments flounder under the weight of unnatural dialogue. The young actors struggle delivering such artificial lines.
The film’s tender heart and moments of true emotion manage to sparkle through the rough dialogue and some bizarre turns. This is due in part to the strength of the film’s youngest actor, Phoebe. She excels throughout, crafting Ruby as the film’s most believable character. Ruby’s moments of fear, heartbreak and joy are when the film’s emotion truly shines.
Though Clara anchors the film as its center, Joely never quite conveys the depth of anxiety the character feels. Nor is she quite able to show us how deeply she cares for her sister (despite their real-life relationship).
Directing, Matt glosses over the sisters’ hardships in favor of several montages that try to draw us into their sisterly bond. It doesn’t work.
Unfortunately, What Tomorrow Brings shies away from anything too intense or raw. This means that when the film reaches its climax, the turn feels unearned.
It’s too bad, because this is a movie that wants you to focus on hope, found family, and faith. Those are worthy themes, but when they come too easily, they don’t hold any weight.
