Director: Pulkit
Writers: Jyotsana Nath, Pulkit
Stars: Bhumi Pednekar, Sanjay Mishra, Aditya Srivastava

Synopsis: Revolves around the journey of an unwavering woman’s quest to seek justice and her perseverance in getting a heinous crime to light.

The role of a journalist, or their mission, has been heavily debated over the years. Should they objectively report the news or involve themselves in a story to hold the people in power accountable? In Bhakshak, Vaishali Singh (Bhumi Pednekar) wants to do the latter after she receives a tip from her source that a government-funded shelter home has been engaging in the abuse (and murder) of young girls. The police know what is happening but do not intervene, as the man who runs the home, Bansi Sahu (Aditya Srivastava), has several government officials and police officers in his pockets. 

As Vaishali learns more about what’s going on, she wants to bring this story to light to expose all the figures involved, but her family thinks it’s a futile – and dangerous – effort. Her news channel barely gets any views, and Sahu immediately targets family members to shut her up. However, Vaishali never backs down despite these intimidation tactics, even when her brother-in-law gets severely injured and wants to investigate the story as deeply as she can so the truth can be uncovered to the public and the people responsible for these heinous crimes are behind bars. 

This causes a division in her family, with plenty of one-dimensional dialogue scenes attempting to give emotional stakes to the proceedings. Her family is more concerned about Vaishali’s husband than her quest for the truth and would rather she procreate before it’s too late. Yeah, instead of attempting to save young girls from extreme abuse, her family’s focus is on Vaishali having kids. However, she immediately claps back with one hell of an impassioned monologue, in which she reverses the situation and asks her family, what if she was stuck in a home with no way out and was forced to sell her body to Sahu just to survive? It’s at that moment when Vaishali’s quest for objectivity leaves her mind, as it has now become a life-or-death situation for her and the girls who are still being abused by the men and women who run the shelter. 

Produced by Gauri Khan and Gaurav Verma, Bhakshak asks timely questions about journalism’s purpose in society, especially in a country where corruption runs rampant. And while its flaws stick out like a sore thumb, the importance of a film like this cannot be overstated. Director Pulkit doesn’t shy away from showing harrowing moments of abuse either. While nothing explicit is shown on screen, the agonizing screams from its victims are enough to make your stomach churn. 

Perhaps the antagonists are stretched out to be as one-note as possible, but Srivastava’s portrayal of Sahu is terrifying in and of itself. He posits himself as a calm and patient man who has done a lot for the community, which is what he continuously says to Vaishali, only for his darker side to reveal itself as the camera observes him in the shelter, making innocent girls beg for their lives as he beats them with a belt and rapes them. Vaishali sees right through Sahu’s calm demeanor and fake smile and will stop at nothing until his entire operation shuts down. 

However, it will prove far more complex than she initially thought, especially when she learns that Mithilesh Sinha (Chittaranjan Tripathy), who works for the Child Welfare Association, is a key player in Sahu’s operation, paid off to tamper with files and bring anyone who escaped from the shelter back into Sahu’s hands. The corruption is even deeper when government officials deliberately ignore taking action at Sahu, but some things will have to change once Vaishali publicizes their involvement. 

The best parts of Bhakshak are when Pulkit observes Vaishali believing in the transformative power of journalism as a vehicle for truth to be conveyed since the ones in power don’t want it to come out. In that sense, journalism is treated here as a watchdog for democracy, which many scholars believe is its primary function (Rasmus Kleis Nielsen disagrees, but that’s a story for another time). Pulkit treats it as such and gives its central figure enough time to shine so that the truth comes out naturally when all the pieces are laid out. 

As such, Pednekar gives a career-defining performance after a streak of lousy turns. Her plentiful monologues as she gradually gives more proof to the public are confidently delivered, and the film’s bravura sequence in which she begs Indians to fight for what’s right and stand up against oppressors is as timely of a message as ever. This arc is the only reason Bhakshak is worth watching — showing the lengths a journalist has to go for the truth, especially in a climate where trust in the media is at an all-time low, and users turn to angrier, less truthful depictions of society. 

Against all odds, Vaishali shows how transformative journalism can be, especially when used against corrupt governments who would rather fill their pockets with dirty money than bring these criminals to justice. It’s a tale as old as time but one whose message needs to be reaffirmed in an era when journalism faces more challenges than ever. Journalism is a deeply human activity in which its best pieces humanize its subjects in a way that no one else can. Vaishali not only brings out the truth of a corrupt system but also humanizes the ones who have been oppressed and abused for years when nothing has been done. As a result, the victims saved by Vaishali’s journalistic activities are the real heroes of the story, the ones we must remember when the full picture of this story is revealed. 

Through this figure of a truth-seeking Vaishali, Pednekar reminds us all why journalism must – and will – survive. 

Grade: B

Director: Emma Westenberg
Writers: Vera Bulder, Ruby Caster, Elle Malan
Stars: Ewan McGregor, Clara McGregor, Jake Weary

Synopsis: A father takes his estranged daughter on a road trip in an effort to get her out of trouble. Along the way they meet all types of strangers, as their strained relationship is put to the test.

Emma Westenberg’s New Mexico set drama Bleeding Love is, at times, too raw to not feel that it is a deeply personal story for Clara McGregor and her father Ewan McGregor. Both actors have spoken openly about their issues with addiction. Ewan became an alcoholic after starring as Renton in Trainspotting in 1996. Clara was heavily medicated for anxiety disorders. Clara publicly denounced her father for divorcing her mother and starting a new family with a younger actor. The issues of abandonment, addiction, and resentment fuel Turbo’s (or Daughter – Clara McGregor) deep distrust of her father. She almost died of an overdose earlier in the day when Father (Ewan McGregor) convinces her to go from San Diego to Santa Fe to meet a man who might be interested in exhibiting her art.

The screenwriters, including Ruby Caster, Vera Bulder, Elle Malan, and Clara McGregor waste no time setting up the fractured dynamics between Daughter and Father. Daughter is listening to “I’m Yer Dad,” by Grlwood and ignoring every effort Father is making to communicate with her. She stares out the window, sickly and sweaty. She makes Father pull over so she can pee and then runs off into the desert. Where she was planning to escape to is irrelevant. There is nothing for miles. She just doesn’t want to be with her father.

The opening circles back to Ewan McGregor’s breakout role as Renton in Trainspotting. One thing Renton did a lot of in that film was running. Here, as a man playing someone in his late forties, he is chasing after his daughter – aged twenty. It is a reminder that there is a generation who saw Renton and his escapades as something almost cool before it lurched into inevitable tragedy. The question the film asks is if Daughter, who is now faster than Father, is going to end up a statistic to drug abuse. And just how much of her predilection for addictive behavior came directly from the alcoholic man who walked out on her when she was a child?

Bleeding Love has the gritty realism of someone hitting rock bottom and trying to ignore the fact that they have. But it also has a hazy fairy tale quality. From the flashbacks to young Turbo (Devyn McDowell) and the perceived fun that a child has with a reckless parent, to the odd assortment of people Father and Daughter meet on the road. Some are magical helpers, and some are big bad wolves. Westenberg’s flashbacks have a distinct Florida Project feel. 

Father has rebuilt his life via AA and is doing everything he can to help daughter rebuild hers. Yet, daughter has no reason to trust him. Why should she? For his part, Father has to do more than say sorry; he has to prove he does love the child he abandoned. No easy task because a ‘mea culpa’ doesn’t suffice when he has been gone for her formative years. He can be as good humored and concerned as he likes in Daughter’s eyes – but nothing fixes the fact he now has a new family with a son who he reads bedtime stories to. Something that she didn’t get in her chaotic childhood.

Westenberg uses New Mexico to her advantage. Christopher Ripley’s cinematography captures the beauty and the strangeness of the state. Deserts, dive bars, strip malls, abandoned spaces, bizarre themed motels, and collectives made by people living on the fringe of society. A busted tire means Father and Daughter are picked up by a gun-toting astrologist tow-truck driver. Elsie (Kim Zimmer) takes her to her found and actual family of generous people living mostly off grid. Daughter meets Kip (Jake Weary, who in real life is Kim Zimmer’s son) who is dressed as a party clown and tries to seduce him to get booze and drugs. The hapless guy is half smitten by Daughter, but also intimidated. He doesn’t realize she’s underage and is ill prepared for the blowback he gets from Father.

A gift of a pumpkin gets handed on to a truck stop sex worker, Tommy (Vera Bulder) who helps when Daughter is bitten by a spider on the side of the road. In a glitter filled moment, Father and Daughter watch Tommy perform in the headlights. Tommy is going to get out of town and be a playwright and actor – she’s headed for New York City and the boulevard of broken dreams. Maybe Daughter can provide her art for the background sets to her plays? Maybe Tommy will make it… maybe Father and Daughter will too.

Another encounter which happens after Daughter realizes that Father is not taking her to meet a gallery owner, but instead is driving her to rehab is with a feral drug addict and his partner (Travis Hammer and Eve Kozikowski). Eli and Kentucky fill her full of dangerous drugs and dump her on the road. Father desperately searches for her in bars. While Daughter spins out of control in one scene the cross fade has a bartender putting a shot of liquor in front of Father. Is it possible they will both be overcome by their vices?

Music is the one point where the good memories exist for Father and Daughter. They joyously sing Leona Lewis’ ‘Bleeding Love’ (which doubles as the title of the film, which was originally called You Sing Loud, I Sing Louder). ‘Seabird’ by the Alessi Brothers is another key work. Ewan McGregor is not only a distinguished dramatic and comedic talent – he is also a well-known song and dance man. The connection Father and Daughter through music is essential. It’s unfiltered joy and pain.

Clara McGregor is a captivating screen presence and her natural chemistry with Ewan is palpable. The script takes decided and quite funny digs at Ewan – the presumption that Father and Daughter are actually a couple by many characters is quite pointed. Bleeding Love is obviously fiction – but the elements of emotional truth will resonate with many fathers and daughters. People have to take responsibility for their lives and the damage they caused and are causing. 

Eventually Father has to give Daughter the keys to her own life – a decision which is built out of a tenuous trust on both their behalf. Father admits the damage he has done: “Things start to slip away. I was acting like a child, but I had a child,” he says in an impromptu AA meeting. He is speaking directly to his daughter. Daughter has to admit that she is indeed an addict, and that she can’t stop anytime she likes.

Bleeding Love is an accomplished first feature. There are moments where it can be a bit heavy handed with the metaphors, and like its protagonists it is not without flaws. However, it is ultimately a work about redemption and trust. “You are like me. But better. I love you more,” is inscribed in Father’s diary which he gives to Daughter. A road trip across New Mexico and the space trail with added Roswell weirdness. A fairy tale. An extended apology. An act of forgiveness. Bleeding Love is a calling card for both Clara McGregor and Emma Westenberg. 

Grade: B-

Director: Laura Chinn
Writer: Laura Chinn
Stars: Nico Parker, Laura Linney, Woody Harrelson

Synopsis: While caring for her brother along with her audacious mother, a teenager strikes up a friendship with an eccentric activist who is protesting one of the most landmark medical cases of all time.

The film Suncoast made its debut at Sundance last month and had a short turnaround on Hulu a few weeks later. The movie is a semi-autobiographical tale of its writer and director, Lauren Chinn. She has written a story about her experiences helping raise her brother, who was stricken with a terminal illness. The story is emotionally raw while combining the type of coming-of-age narrative that is empathetic and unafraid to strip away the sugarcoating from the mother-daughter relationship.

Nico Parker (Dumbo) plays Doris, the character inspired by a small window of her high school life. Doris is a loner, socially awkward, and, unfortunately, has no friends. That’s not because she’s a bad kid. She has been cut off from the rest of the world because she is helping take care of her brother, Max, who has brain cancer. The tumor has taken over his body, and he can no longer speak or move. (It appears that he may have a condition known as aphasia.)

As a result, in order to pay the medical bills and send Doris to a better school, her forthright mother, Kristine (Laura Linney), works seven days a week. However, Max’s degenerative disease is progressing to the point where he needs all-day care at a facility called Suncoast, a hospice facility in town. Kristine, overcome with guilt, decides to sleep in the same room as Max so he won’t be alone. The move is devastating to Doris. However, she begins to form new friendships, inviting a group of “cool” kids to her home because her mother no longer lives there.

Chinn’s movie embraces the modern trope of friends forming a support system around Doris, which is refreshing. What’s nice about the script is that these kids act like dumb teenagers but are considerate enough not to dismiss Doris’s situation callously. The other support comes from a man Doris meets at Suncoast, Paul (Woody Harrelson). The character acts as a temporary surrogate parent, guiding her through complex thoughts even if Doris doesn’t want to hear them.

Now, the character of Paul may be based on someone or a composite of a couple of characters from Chinn’s life. However, the relationship is inappropriate for various obvious reasons. A teenage girl hanging out with an adult male nearly four times her age without parental consent is borderline negligent. We also consider this a storytelling device to move the plot along and highlight how consumed Kristine is by ignoring her other child’s emotional needs—you have never seen a teenager want to be needed by a parent more.

In a striking scene, when Doris tells her mother she’s her child too, Linney is cold and flippant, snorting at such a remark. Linney can create a character detached from being mindful of the people she has left in her life, which is maddening and also sad. Doris then becomes an evolving character by slowing coming to grips with othechild’Chinn’s time limit. There are several scenes like that in Chinn’s semi-autobiographical tale, including a jaw-dropping one where Kristine harshly pretends Max is about to pass to get her daughter to come home after sneaking out to be with her friends.

The point of Suncoast is that you have a child like Doris who is achingly trying to be seen. By anyone, really. It’s hard to argue with a script inspired by actual events, but Suncoast doesn’t recognize how much Doris is a child in crisis. One of the reasons I have issues with biographical films is that a filmmaker who is the subject has a brutally unfiltered view of others (like Kristine), and the author, in turn, will show a filtered view of themselves. Essentially, deep insights into childhood isolation, loneliness, and depression are largely ignored.
And that’s fine, to a degree. Suncoast’s tale about a mother and daughter’s relationship that a thread has held onto for years can be emotionally raw at times, perhaps using too many film cliches to keep the story moving. However, Linney’s performance, which evolves from an emotional wrecking ball to a cocoon of warm reassurance, has a beautiful candor. Overall, Chinn’s film hits the right notes when the story counts, and her coming-of-age can resonate with her audience.

Grade: B-

Director: Jee-woon Kim
Writers: Jee-woon Kim, Yeon-Shick Shin
Stars: Park Jeong-su, Krystal Jung, Oh Jung-se

Synopsis: Described as an experimental and genre-defying drama shot entirely on sound stages in support of a film-within-a-film narrative.s.

Cobweb can easily be viewed as another exercise in filmmakers’ self-importance in the world around them. And on the surface, it can be. However, as Jee-woon Kim’s black comedy unfolds, the filmmaker’s subversive film experience begins to poke fun at the establishment while simultaneously challenging the establishment about why truth is essential in any entertainment art form. Kim’s South Korean tale of obsession is a darkly funny and skillfully crafted work of meta-cinema.

The story follows Kim (Parasite’s Song Kang-ho), a director obsessed with finishing his current film. The director’s career has been on a downward slope since his acclaimed movie, which was made after the death of his mentor. The production company funding his project is under strict budgetary restrictions and also under the eye of the South Korean government’s censorship program (known as “The Korean Motion Picture Promotion Corporation,” created by President Park Chung Hee, known as the authoritarian Yusin System).

The movie, AKA Cobweb, is finished, but suddenly, a reworked ending develops inside his head, and he asks for two more days. The company’s owner, the widow of his mentor, Chairwoman Baek (Jang Young-Nam), refuses to give Kim extra time. In part, her staff is also worried about how the government may react to such a daring ending. That’s until the daughter of his late mentor and co-owner, Shim (Jeon Yeo-been), a staunch supporter of Kim, reads the rewritten ending and thinks it’s a masterpiece. She grants the days while Baek is out of town.

Kim’s script works because of the supporting characters he draws, one of the best ensembles you may see this year. There is Kang (Oh Jung-se), a Hallyuwood star who never met an actress he shared the screen with but didn’t sleep with, even though he’s married. He gets Yu-rim (Krystal Jung) pregnant and smothers her, to her dismay, when she only cares about returning to being the star of her K-drama. Some of the movie’s best scenes are between Jung’s Yu-rim and Yeo-been’s Shim, who have a legendary feud, while the latter acts like a tyrant to keep the cast in line.

Kim’s Cobweb isn’t a composite of a group of directors but obviously of himself. His obsession offers a dark (sometimes playful) commentary on filmmaking. You learn a lot about the process from the film. In particular, the third act’s climax is how the scene would be shot in one glorious tracking shot. Almost all the actors are offered their moments to shine comedically. In particular, Young-Nam and Yeo-been have often hilarious deadpan deliveries. 

Cobweb will remind you of films like Black Bear and Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) in the way you may question what’s real or not. (Kim has several compelling scenes from his film shot in stunning black and white.) Also, there is an obsession with an artist’s vision. What was striking is how Kim’s film puts truth on trial in Cobweb, which is revealed in the film’s highly entertaining third act. For example, someone like Shim could not possibly be an actor, and Yu-rim could find truth in her character, even in salacious scenes.  While, by the end, showing the subversive veracity of what truth means to the central figures themselves. 

That makes Cobweb a story of redemption seen through the eyes of Song Kang-ho’s interpretation of Kim’s moral and professional character. The film is a filmmaker’s journey of self-discovery and reinvention of themselves. 

Grade: A

Director: Zelda Williams
Writer: Diablo Cody
Stars: Kathryn Newton, Cole Sprouse, Liza Soberano

Synopsis: A coming of RAGE love story about a teenager and her crush, who happens to be a corpse. After a set of horrific circumstances bring him back to life, the two embark on a journey to find love, happiness – and a few missing body parts.

It’s hard to describe the feeling you get leaving the theater after watching Lisa Frankenstein. There’s a hodge podge of emotions. You’ll find yourself grossed out, confused, strangely melancholy, and in stitches at the wackiness that hit you like a strange dream. Is Lisa Frankenstein perfect? In parts, yes, but as a whole it feels a little too much like chopped up pieces sewn into a new form.

The film is a little slow to get going. With director Zelda Williams’ flair for dreaminess, we sort of get trapped in a state of not knowing how we should feel about certain characters or situations. Much of LisaFrankenstein plays like a fantasy sequence, even with its own fantasy sequences within. It was hard not to wonder if a theory can be developed, like the famous Ferris Bueller’s Day Off theory*, that everything after Lisa gets a shock from a faulty tanning bed is all in her head. This script by Diablo Cody is not as snappy as some of her previous films. It has some excellent laughs, but it lacks some of the bite she’s known for, possibly because of an effort to make this a more accessible PG-13. Where the script really struggles is in the overall story.

Lisa Frankenstein is a mishmash of genres sewn together. While it’s a horror comedy, it also fits into the subgenre of coming of age, with direct homage to ’80s teen films of the John Hughes variety and 19th century love stories a la Jane Austen. None of these really quite connect and they fail to spark something truly supernatural. Though, once the film leans into its strangeness, it takes on something extraordinarily enjoyable.

Especially Kathryn Newton’s exceptional performance as Lisa. Her performance has several different layers to it from her grief over her mother, her anger at her father remarrying so soon, and angst at switching schools just before senior year. She takes every change in circumstance and weaves some beautiful magic from it, releasing Lisa from her cocoon of insecurity into a terrific goth butterfly. It’s just a nerdy girl coming into her own. Newton is matched perfectly by the physical performance of Cole Sprouse as The Creature. Sprouse can communicate so much with a look and a grunt which is as impressive as it is entertaining to watch.

There’s a beautiful alchemy in the craft of the film that keeps the audience engaged. Meagan McLaughlin’s costumes from The Creature’s band tees and blazers to Lisa’s incredible goth outfits are stellar. They bring the characters to life in new ways. The same goes for production designer Mark Worthington, art director Michelle C. Harmon, and set decorator Andrew W. Bowfinger’s teams creating a cemetery to swoon over, superb fantasy sequences on practical sets and some truly amazing ‘80s interiors. Praise to the makeup and hairstyling teams, as well, for a superior job on The Creature’s different states of decay as well as the fabulous period hair.

Lisa Frankenstein, when put under the microscope, is a little lacking. The nuts and bolts are there, but the product seems only partially finished. It could be that the film needs a couple of viewings before it really sinks in. It’s thoroughly enjoyable in spite of its flaws and it will make you appreciate REO Speedwagon’s “Can’t Fight This Feeling” in an entirely new way. See it with a bunch of people because the crowd reaction is almost as enjoyable as the film.

*The Ferris Bueller’s Day Off theory is that when the camera zooms in on Ferris’ friend Cameron’s face at the Art Institute of Chicago, Cameron has a small break with reality and we enter Cameron’s fantasy for the rest of the film.

Grade: B

Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green
Writers: Terence Winter, Frank E. Flowers, Zach Baylin
Stars: Kingsley Ben-Adir, James Norton, Lashana Lynch

Synopsis: The story of how reggae icon Bob Marley overcame adversity, and the journey behind his revolutionary music.

Biographical films are always slippery. There is sometimes a sweet spot where a director can give a meaningful cinematic version of the subject. There are other times when so many details of someone’s life are alluded to but not discussed to retain the perceived integrity of the people involved. Then there is the biographical picture which just jots down key points and makes a lot of the “facts” up. And then, there is the biographical film where the audience feels like they need Wikipedia just to understand what is going on. Unfortunately, Reinaldo Marcus Green’s Bob Marley: One Love is a mix of every category except for the one it should be in – the sweet spot.

Opening with some facts such as Bob Marley was born in 1945 in the Saint Ann Parish in Jamaica, was raised by a single mother, grew up in the hardscrabble area Trenchtown in Kingston. Despite his struggles, by 1976 he was the most famous Jamaican music artist in the world. The film loops back to his early childhood on a plantation with his white British father who left his mother; his teen years where he meets and falls in love with both music, Rastafari, and Alfarita Anderson (later known as Rita Marley), his evolving music career, and the pivotal shooting before the Smile Jamaica concert which made him decide he had to flee Jamaica for the safety of family, friends, and to protect his own life.

Robert Nesta Marley is played by three actors – primarily the regularly excellent Kingsley Ben-Adir. However, there is a mostly wordless child version who leans on his mother’s chest, runs out of a can fire chasing or being chased by a man in British colonial garb. The teen version of Bob has conversations with Alfarita in Trenchtown after his mother has emigrated to the United States. They both feel they are in some ways orphans – they both love to express themselves through music. They become enraptured by the teachings of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie I and Jamaican politician, Marcus Garvey.

Beyond the short prelude, the audience is thrust into Bob Marley’s life just before the day of the 56 Hope Road shooting on December 3rd, 1976. Bob gets up early. Runs with his friends and fellow Wailers, plays football with them. Has his kids Ziggy and Stephen with him. Gunshots can be heard all around. Kingston is a controlled city and Jamaica was declared to be in a state of emergency in January 1976 by Prime Minister Michael Manley. Violence is everywhere while two parties are struggling for political control. Bob is interviewed by world journalists about the Smile Jamaica concert, ostensibly organized by Manley’s People’s National Party to help usher in a kind of peace in the region.

Reinaldo Marcus Green and his extended list of screenwriters use the early part of the film up to, and including, the shooting to do a massive information dump. We see Bob as the family man, interacting with his children and his wife, Rita (Lashana Lynch). We see Bob the musician and patois speaking Rastafari inspiration to the people of Jamaica. We see Bob interact with his Wailers and jam with them. And we meet his friend and manager Chris Blackwell (James Norton). They are celebrating during the evening at the large house on Hope Road when a group of young men, more than likely sent by Manley’s opposition Edward Seaga, break in and shoot four people. Included in those four are Rita who was shot in the head, Don Taylor, Louis Griffths, and of course Bob. “Is Seaga men! Dem come fi kill Bob!” someone yells in the chaos. 

The most indelible piece of acting Ben-Adir does in the film is when he looks into the eyes of the young shooter. At first, it is almost a warm welcome when he sees the youth, then the realization that the boy has a gun in his hand. That realization registers not as fear but profound disappointment verging on empathy. In that one small exchange, the film has perhaps said everything that needed to be said about the hope for peace which Marley held and his general goodwill to people.

No one is fatally wounded – but the bullets are still bullets, and Rita especially is lucky to have escaped with her life. Two days later, Bob has organized his exit from Jamaica. He is sending Rita and the children to his mother in America, and he will go to London with any of the Wailers prepared to follow him. Two days later he also plays the Smile Jamaica concert beginning his set with ‘War’, his song set to the proclamation of Haile Selassie. After the shooting and the Smile Jamaica concert Bob Marley: One Love just falls into a lot of labored tropes.

Bob is depressed. Bob is disconnected. England is a safer refuge. He goes to see The Clash: which acknowledges the rise of Ska – but also the white nationalist skinheads also around. White coppers are still racist, and he gets put in prison for marijuana. Bob becomes less depressed when making his most famous album “Exodus” (which according to the film was inspired by the “Theme from Exodus” by Ernest Gold written for the 1958 Preminger epic). Bob is cheating on Rita. Bob is the chief who everyone listens to. Bob notices that people around him aren’t acting ethically. Bob flashes back to the shooting, his formative years, his childhood. 

“Exodus” becomes a world-wide smash and Bob Marley and the Wailers tour all over Europe being greeted with champagne by Royalty and politicians. Yet he both longs to return to Jamaica and dreads it. He becomes violent with Don Taylor. Rita tells him, “This is not the way,” and yells at him for his flaws which are almost all justified in the film.

There is a prestigious amount of talent in the film. Both Lynch and Ben-Adir are doing their very best with the material they are given, and both make one feel like they understand Marley’s music. The understanding of Marley’s music comes down to the fact that many of the Wailers are played by children of the original members. Almost all of them are musicians. For the concert performance, Stephen Marley takes on Ben-Adir’s vocals. Do a quick rundown of the cast and it includes Micheal Ward, Ben Gandolfini, and Tosin Cole. Anna-Sharé Blake, Naomi Cowan appear as the other I-Threes along with Lynch.

Bob Marley: One Love is very much a family affair – and perhaps that is what hampers the film the most. Few films can do an adequate cradle to the grave portrait of any artist with a career as influential and important as Bob Marley’s. It is also nigh on impossible to explain everything that was going on in Jamaica not only at the time, but right back to its colonized history. If the audience wants to know anything concrete about Marley they are consistently blocked by vagueness and proclamations by other characters about his greatness. Hence when we see that the man on the horse in the pith helmet isn’t his Norval Marley, but Haile Selassie offering the ten-year-old boy his hand in friendship and fatherhood; the gesture which is supposed to be filled with power and mental liberation for Bob, is just confusing.

Bob Marley: One Love is buoyed by the performances when it slows down long enough for the audience to absorb them. Kingsley Ben-Adir does some outstanding work as Marley – inhabiting his accent, his mannerisms, and stage presence. Likewise, Lashana Lynch, herself of Jamaican background is wonderful as Rita when she actually has a chance to act. James Norton is often doing solid but unnoticed work as an actor. 

Despite everything Reinaldo Marcus Green does to lend veracity to the film, including shooting on location in Jamaica and the Hope Street mansion, and the addition of reputable musicians, Bob Marley: One Love is overwhelmed by shallow artifice. Those who know little about the icon, peace activist, pan-African symbol, and one of the most important musicians of the twentieth-century will emerge from the film feeling not much wiser. For fans, the film is flimsy and overly metaphorical. Bob Marley: One Love claims to be the apogee of understanding who Bob Marley was in encompassing his complexity – yet it is both rote and confounding. Bob Marley deserves better, as does the audience.

Grade: D

Director: Barbara Kulcsar
Writer: Petra Biondina Volpe
Stars: Esther Gemsch, Stefan Kurt, Ueli Jäggi

Synopsis: A retired couple is getting ready to enjoy their life as pensioners on a cruise trip through the Mediterranean. The spouses end up going on separate journeys of self-discovery and finding unexpected ways of how to spend their golden years.

There is a certain tendency amongst particular groups to sneer at the “grey-rinse” comedy. Especially if that comedy is written about people of a certain middle-class and relatively affluent background. Barbara Kulcsar’s Golden Years is precisely the kind of film that will raise those hackles because a journey of self-(re)discovery for privileged white Swiss people is ultimately going to be read as unimportant fluff. What this reading elides is that we are all on the inevitable march towards death. Some of us are most certainly in a better position to cope with it than others, but it is coming, no matter what. It’s highly unlikely that Barbara Kulcsar and screenwriter Petra Biondina Volpe are making a film with universal appeal. However, they are making one with a particular appeal and charm.

The film begins twice. In the first scene we see Alice (Esther Gemsch) grimacing in a dance class for seniors. The next scene is her husband, Peter (Stefan Kurt) at his low-key retirement party. He’s sixty-five and he can stop working. His job isn’t even going to be filled. He’s redundant in so many senses of the word. He steps outside and lets the red party balloon float off into the sky. Here’s to the “bright horizons” of his future.

Alice and Peter have been married for over forty years. They have two adult children, Susanne (Isabelle Barth) and Julian (Martin Vischer). Susanne is eyeing her parents’ large house for herself and her family as she has decided they don’t need all that space now they are old. Julian doesn’t want the house as he’s happy(ish) living a more bohemian permanently single life elsewhere. The siblings bicker perhaps more than their parents do. Yet, there is a sense that Alice and Peter have little in common except the familiarity of a pair of comfortable shoes. 

Alice believes that now Peter finally has leisure time, and she is no longer bringing up a family, it’s the moment to reinvigorate their relationship. Whereas Peter really just wants to do nothing much at all. They both believe they’ve earned something from life and each other but what that actually is, neither can properly articulate.

The sudden exercise-related death of Alice’s best friend Magali (Elvira Plüss) puts them both into a form of crisis mode. Peter suddenly becomes a fitness fanatic and Alice discovers an entire life Magali was hiding from her milquetoast husband, Heinz (Ueli Jäggi). Magali had a secret lover named Claude in Toulouse for fifteen years. Peter’s goal is to extend his life (“What for?” Alice asks), and hers it to find something as passionate as whatever was going on between Magali and her once yearly lover.

A cruise ship holiday through the Mediterranean crystallizes just how far apart they have drifted in love and life philosophy. Peter is more interested in early morning workouts with accidental third-wheel, Heinz, than he is in sex with Alice. Alice meets Michi (Gundi Ellert) a divorced woman from Basel who tells her that she finally feels free to do what she wants – her deliberate unfettering somewhat shocks Alice, but also intrigues her.

A luxury cruise might seem like the least auspicious place for a radical marriage breakdown – but in a way it makes perfect sense. Everyone on board is told to have “fun” – all their material needs are catered for. They just have to sit back and relax and enjoy the ride. So, Alice essentially jumps ship in Marseilles to go on her own journey which will eventually lead her to Toulouse where she can tell the mysterious Claude that Magali has passed away. Peter can’t believe Alice would ever do something that reckless without first consulting him and immediately flies into tantrums and panic-based hypochondria. Realizing he can’t get the ship to stay in port to find Alice (a real the world doesn’t stop just because you want it to moment for him), he eventually flies home with his new “wife” figure, Heinz.

Alice’s journey is very much her down the rabbit hole experience where she comes across a bunch of colorful characters. She meets some mushroom dosing grey nomads, buys new dresses because she just feels like it. Gets admired by men and women alike. Gets lost and found by a series of people. She finally reaches Claude and the revelation of who Claude actually is both shocks and satisfies her. It might not be at all shocking for the viewer, but for Alice and her quiet and restrained existence, it’s a rewiring of what she thought was possible in life.

On the home front, Peter moves into a cozy domesticity with Heinz. Essentially, he replaces Alice with a man who seems as uncomplicated, if a little morose. His daughter Susanne is having a nervous breakdown and is drinking too much and arguing in front of her kids who know what’s going on better than Peter does.

When Alice finally returns to her home she finds she doesn’t have one. Peter has thrown her out for leaving him on the cruise. Susanne doesn’t want to deal with her because she thinks Alice was selfish for leaving Peter. Only Julian has some sense of what is happening to his mother and takes her in, but even that won’t work with his Tinder Hook-up lifestyle. At some point, everyone is going to have to sit down and work stuff out.

There is of course a whiff of “first world boomer problems” in the film. Yet, the humor and general good-naturedness of the film mostly overcomes its flaws. Barbara Kulcsar is pointing out that love and working out life is difficult for every generation. No one is truly settled and sorted out as long as they’re alive. Their levels of fiscal ease may vary; but when one is looking at the so called “last stretch of life” in their sixties, Mary Oliver’s poetic question “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” comes into play.

Golden Years is breezy, silly, and often frustrating. It commits to its more serious themes through comedy and sometimes that lets it down. Barbara Kulcsar’s “senior comedy” does have enough unpretentious pathos to allow the audience to connect with characters who seem insufferable. As Mary Oliver wrote, “Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?”

Grade: B-

Director: Robert Connolly
Writers: Robert Connolly, Jane Harper
Stars: Eric Bana, Anna Torv, Jacqueline McKenzie, Deborra-Lee Furness, Robin McLeavy, Sisi Stringer, Richard Roxburgh

Synopsis: Five women participate in a hiking retreat but only four come out the other side. Federal agents Aaron Falk and Carmen Cooper head into the mountains hoping to find their informant still alive.

The huge Australian box office success of Robert Connolly’s The Dry is, to excuse the pun, due to optimal clear sky conditions. The primary reason it was a money maker for Screen Australia was timing. Australia was in between various COVID lockdowns. Many major overseas releases had been rescheduled. It was based on Jane Harper’s bestselling novel which spoke to the impact of climate change on a rural community after the in real life Australia had suffered devastating bushfires in 2019. And finally, it starred one of Australia’s most bankable and likeable stars, Eric Bana as the detective Aaron Falk.

Prefacing why The Dry was a homegrown hit is not devaluing the film which is a solid piece of Outback Noir (sometimes termed “yeah, noir” based on idiomatic Australian language usage). 

It followed a familiar formula. Big city detective returns to hometown to attend a funeral and gets caught up in what could be related cases. One coming straight from his guilt ridden past. With two timelines working through the film, Falk as a teenager when his girlfriend drowned in a local swimming hole, and Falk as an adult, when, due to drought, the entire riverbed is dry, and the small farming community is a tinderbox waiting to ignite.

The setting of rural Victoria did as much storytelling as Falk did detecting. Unravelling his past and the present of the town he left behind. The psychological state of a mostly office bound Federal police detective working in financial crime needs to have something to anchor it. Remorse and redemption were Falk’s motivations.

Cut to 2024 and a strike which delayed the Australian release of Force of Nature: The Dry 2 and we are witnessing a perfect storm of why the film is not going to garner as much attention. Before one even looks at the quality of the film, which in no manner matches the first, there are too many other movies it’s up against. People are investing their attention in potential major awards contenders.

Context aside, Force of Nature: The Dry 2  is simply not as compelling nor competent as its predecessor. Falk’s role in Harper’s novel is functional, not particularly personal. He’s there to find an asset he’s been pushing to help bring down a corporate money laundering scheme.

Aaron Falk is back in his high-rise office in Melbourne. He receives a distressed call from Alice Russell (Anna Torv) who is acting as his informant against BaileyTennants, a conglomerate run by Jill Bailey (Deborra-Lee Furness) and her sneeringly arrogant husband Dan (Richard Roxburgh). The company has been using charitable donations to clean money from organized crime.

A corporate retreat for BaileyTennants employees in the Giralong Ranges (fictional) in the Victorian Alpine region becomes fraught when four of the women hiking through the dense winter forests are found traumatized but alive, but Alice is not with them. No one can genuinely say they know exactly where she is.

Falk and his partner Carmen Cooper (Jacqueline McKenzie) join in the search for Alice as she was carrying vital data taken the morning of the retreat. The local police force doesn’t appreciate the Feds stepping in, especially as they appear to be glorified forensic accounts. It’s up to Falk and Cooper to work out what happened during the hiking trip where the group went missing for days in order to possibly find Alice alive before a storm front sets in.

Time is of the essence for Falk and Cooper as they question the four women who made it back to the luxury accommodations. Jill, younger siblings and new employees Bree and Beth McKenzie (Lucy Ansell and Sisi Stringer), and Alice’s childhood friend and co-worker Lauren Shaw (Robin McLeavy). Before everyone can lawyer up, something that Daniel reminds Falk he might want to consider before questioning his wife and himself; Aaron and Carmen have to get clues as to Alice’s possible whereabouts from four confused and dissembling women with conflicting stories.

By rights, Aaron Falks should be the least interesting character in the mystery. However, Robert Connolly working in conjunction with Jane Harper, realized that one of the biggest draw cards for the franchise is Eric Bana. Interspersed with the present timeline is a thinly excused hunt for the very likely deceased serial killer Martin Kovac who was active in the area years ago. The local copper Sergeant King (Kenneth Radley) is more invested in finding Kovac’s base of operations; a shack where the women sheltered one night, as he is with finding Alice. Relatives of the dead are searching for the bodies of those who were lost.

Connolly and Harper decide this is a good opportunity to make the case a part of Falk’s past. Flashing back to years ago when he, as a child, was hiking with his parents in the same area. A momentary distraction on behalf of Aaron led to both he and his father Erik (Jeremy Lindsay-Taylor) losing sight of Aaron’s mother Jennifer (Ash Ricardo). She vanishes, possibly at the hands of Kovac and Aaron along with Erik searching for her for days.

Four timelines begin to emerge. The present-day search for Alice. The lead up to Alice agreeing to work with Falk and Cooper, and why. Aaron’s childhood, and the most interesting which is what happened during the hike.

Alice more than likely is already dead in the present – something for personal reasons Falk refuses to accept. The audience needs to know what happened over those days where the “Executive Adventures” hike went terribly wrong for the quintet of women so they can find a possible murderer.

According to Jill, Alice was meant to attend the team building exercise because she was a workplace bully. Something both Beth and Bree can attest to. Lauren seems so deeply disconnected and traumatized that she just stands atop a waterfall staring into the distance. She defends her friend. After all, Alice got her the job and covered for her when she was making mistakes during her divorce. Their daughters Margot (Ingrid Torelli) and Rebecca (Matilda May Pawsey) attend the same exclusive Grammar school. 

“Executive Adventures” tour guide and organiser Ian Chase (Tony Briggs) explains that everything was business as usual when he sent the five out. They had everything they needed for their hike. Supplies were set out. They had a map and compass. They made it to the first checkpoint where they were greeted with luxury hampers and drinks. Plus, the men from BaileyTennants who were doing their own version of the hike and met up with them on the first evening.

The theme, which should revolve around five women going into feral survival mode akin to Lord of the Flies, gets watered down to a “a bunch of incremental bad decisions led them to get lost,” both in the past and present. As the curtain is pulled back on what occurred, the focus is on decisions each woman makes. Going down the wrong path by presuming they are reading the map correctly, only to wind up lost. Jill berates Alice for being too harsh on Bree who was guiding them and tells her it’s symptomatic of her bullying. The confrontation leads to more mistakes happening. The map is lost. Lauren almost drowns. Beth and Bree start to distrust each other due to Beth’s past as an addict. Jill has presumed Alice is having an affair with Dan. Lauren remains mostly passive until she realizes Alice not only has a phone, but she’s planning on abandoning them all.  Yet somewhere in all of that there is a strange kumbaya moment where they sit and talk about stars, life, and love.

Jill with her fake thick and fashionable brows is the kind of woman for whom a lack of luxury is anathema. Lauren simply drifts and tries unsuccessfully to be a peacemaker. No one really cares what she thinks. The siblings aren’t strangers to difficult situations; but they’ve never been lost in a seemingly endless forest where roots can trip you, the ground is uneven, the canopy of trees rarely allows light, and it’s sodden and freezing. Only Alice seems to have a plan and that’s “my way or the highway.”

The sheen of civility is what has kept BaileyTennants from being fully investigated before. The company’s multiple donations to charitable funds is what makes them near untouchable. The parallel is that civility only works in controlled environments. There’s nothing controlled about “the force of nature that reveals us all,” when you are lost in a forest and no one is searching for you.

There is precious little to engage with beyond Andrew Commis’ cinematography of the region and a smattering of effective set pieces. Mostly this comes down to the uneven drip feeding of essential information to make the plot seem plausibly tense. 

Aaron Falk already had his trauma, redemption, and hero moments in The Dry. Rehashing the same ground for Force of Nature is a mistake. No one really wondered all that much about Jennifer Falk, so it wasn’t necessary to insert her into the place specific backstory. 

It is okay for the film to admit Aaron’s just a serious, somewhat damaged man with no outside life and a sense of empathy. It isn’t necessary to relegate his partner Carmen to a “We will get it no matter who it hurts, they’re all guilty of something” foil to make Falk more human. He doesn’t have to be the film’s most righteous feminist. Women can, and do, behave badly to each other. Psychological bullying is a specialty. Violence can happen between the “girls and ladies.” Privilege and social class aren’t erased by “sisterhood.”

What Force of Nature excels at is showing another side of the Australian landscape. Already the outback noir has its definitive detective in Jay Swan created by Ivan Sen. Ray Lawrence (Jindabyne) and Cate Shortland (Somersault) gave us versions of the Snowy Mountains. We have seen beaches and tropical locations more times than it is possible to list. But the inherently eerie, and at times deeply dangerous, winter forest doesn’t often get a big budget film to showcase it. 

Force of Nature: The Dry 2 mostly limps along as a mystery because it doesn’t decide where the audience should look. Usually, some obfuscation is what makes a mystery compelling. A few red herrings, and people with enough motive to want someone gone. Instead, the audience is given a stoic sad sack “hero” detective who resembles supermarket white bread. It’s a shame because Eric Bana is generally a fantastic actor. So are two Australian screen icons Jacqueline McKenzie and Deborra-Lee Furness. Richard Roxburgh’s performance seems to be just “We need a slightly extended cameo by a big name who can do menacing.” At least Anna Torv is given some gristle to chew and she dominates every scene she’s in with her changeable demeanour. It is also good to see Robin McLeavy on the big screen again after her breakout performance in Tasmanian horror comedy The Loved Ones from 2009. Sisi Stringer is a cast stand out. Her twitchy, guilt ridden Beth is the best performance outside of Torv’s.

If the thematic idea of the film is that the force of nature forces us to reveal our true natures is to work, then more time is needed to be given to the people central to the mystery. Force of Nature: The Dry 2 jettisons character backgrounds to the point where the audience is working overtime to infer meaning and proper motivation. It renders the work featureless and lacking teeth. Aaron Falk is neither the hero the film needs, nor deserves because there aren’t clearly enough defined villains except corrupt capitalism and keeping up appearances. A more apropos title would be Sodden: The Dry 2.

Grade: C

Director: Matthew Vaughn
Writer: Jason Fuchs
Stars: Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell

Synopsis: A reclusive author who writes espionage novels about a secret agent and a global spy syndicate realizes the plot of the new book she’s writing starts to mirror real-world events, in real time.

I imagine that during the studio pitch, director Matthew Vaughn and scribe Jason Fuchs sold Argylle as a fun spy adventure with twists at every turn. I’m almost certain that the words “spectacular,” “stunning,” and “remarkable” were never uttered and were intentionally left out because there is simply nothing surprising about any of the curveballs it tries to throw at the audience. Any spy cliche or trope you can think of, Argylle has it in spades. The result is a jam-packed film overstuffed with so much utter nonsense that you could call it an attack on the senses with diphenhydramine.

And that’s a shame because anyone who loves a good spy novel or movie should love Argylle. You have a great cast where Bryce Dallas Howard plays a socially reclusive author, Elly Conway, who spends too much time with her cat, Argylle, and not enough trying to find someone to share her life with. That’s her mother (the irreplaceable Catherine O’Hara) talking, who also adds the fifth book in the Agent Argylle series, which doesn’t have an ending that will appease her fans. However, her novels have hit too close to home.

At least, that’s what a stranger on a train named Aiden (Sam Rockwell) tells her before defending her against a couple of dozen armed assassins. Confusingly, Howard’s Elly keeps trying to run away from Aiden, the one man not trying to kill her, but we will get into that later. Aiden helps her escape and then tells her about a secret rogue organization called The Division, led by Director Ritter (Bryan Cranston), who wants to abduct Elly (and not her cat) to find out how she unwittingly knows so much about their dirty deeds that she puts to paper.

The film slogs along at 134 minutes. To put that in perspective, that’s on par with the last three of the Fast & Furious franchise, and some of the things that happen in Argylle are just as ludicrous. It’s hard to tell you just how much that’s true with facts because we cannot ruin it with spoilers. As much as I try to keep things cautious, most of this involves laying parallel narratives with Elly’s previous four Argylle novels, the current one she is trying to write, and the real-life mystery that places it all together. Frankly, Fuchs’s script thinks it’s smarter than it is.

Much of the film’s plot relies on red herrings or implausible common-sense connections. Not to mention the endless montages of a one-note joke comparing Henry Cavill’s Argylle to Sam Rockwell’s Aiden. When the film makes its big reveals, it’s more of a cheap trick where, if you look back, significant character decisions feel like filler and vain attempts to move the story forward. Vaughn tries to distract most of this with big names, handsome faces, the charm of its leads, and a cute cat. And to his credit, he nearly does.

Rockwell brings the type of mixed lunacy and folksy charm that has made him a household name. I could see the pairing of Henry Cavill and John Cena in a real-life buddy action comedy. I will admit the film’s best scene, involving a ridiculously goofy song and dance ballet of bullets, did put a wicked grin on my face. It’s so out of place but so entertaining that I almost forgave everything that came before it. 

Samuel L. Jackson’s cameo is a head-scratcher. He plays a former head of the CIA with a man cave filled with sports memorabilia, a ticker for stocks and sports betting, and a movie-sized screen for espionage and Lakers games. Personally, I was hoping this was Jackson’s real-life office, and he made the filmmakers bring the cameras to his doorstep in a power move built off his legendary Hollywood swagger and gravitas.

And that’s how distracted I was with the relentless onslaught of Hollywood nothingness that Argylle is (or maybe that’s just my crippling case of ADHD). Even the final scene and mid-credits scene are head-scratching. While I enjoyed the endless charm of Rockwell, you’ll be asking yourself, “Who cares?” until the final credits roll.

Grade: D+