Director: Bradley Cooper
Writers: Bradley Cooper, Will Arnett, Mark Chappell
Stars: Will Arnett, Laura Dern, Andra Day, Bradley Cooper

Synopsis: As their marriage quietly unravels, Alex faces middle age and an impending divorce, seeking new purpose in the New York comedy scene while Tess confronts the sacrifices she made for their family—forcing them to navigate co-parenting, identity, and whether love can take a new form.

The Novaks have found themselves at a crossroads, though perhaps a more fitting phrase would be that they’ve reached the end of their line. Alex (Will Arnett) and Tess (Laura Dern) have been together for 20-some-odd years, and have a 10-year-old set of “Irish twins” to show for their efforts, but the verve that once existed within their union is gone. Tess is tired of Alex’s detached emptiness; Alex is tired of Tess being tired. There is love here, to be sure, something that is especially clear when the two wait for the former’s train back to the (probably) Westchester home in which they’ve raised their boys (and dogs) on an MTA platform, splitting an edible to pass the time and ease the tension. They board the train together, only realizing amidst a fit of laughter that Alex isn’t meant to be joining her; he’s headed back to the apartment he’s renting in the city as the two navigate their separation, and though he knowingly sprints off of the subway car, Tess wants to make sure he’s in a good headspace. “Are you going to be okay?” she asks through the glass. Alex stays silent, if just for a moment. “I’m gonna be okay,” he shouts back through a forced smile and a voice crack. “I’ll be okay.”

The naked eye will be able to spot that Alex is performing for the sake of his now-ex-ish wife, the mother of his children, the woman with whom he imagined he’d grow old. Not only is that a very natural response for a depressed human being – to hide their true feelings for the sake of another’s – it’s also an appropriate thing for a main character in a Bradley Cooper film to be doing. The act of performance is a central tenet of the filmmaker’s oeuvre; the exploration of presentation, i.e. whether or not the presenter is wearing a mask, putting on a brave face, or merely playing a character. In the case of Alex Novak, his act is a bit of all three. It also takes place on a terrain that he knows nothing about, least of all how to find his footing on its bumpy edges.

So sets the basic stand-up-comedy-set stage for Cooper’s third effort as a writer-director, the exceptionally funny and soulful Is This Thing On?, where said stage serves as both a therapeutic realm and a terrifying one. It’s not a trade Alex – a mid to late-40s guy who works in finance, if we’re to believe him from the one time he ever references it in the film – has ever thought to try until needing a drink and not wanting to pay the nearby bar’s $15 cover. (Who would?) When the bouncer informs Alex that he can avoid being gouged for the price of two decent bodega B.E.C.s by putting his name down for open mic night, he jumps at the chance and unknowingly finds a safe haven, one that dulls all of the outside noise he’s been battling while never staying all that quiet… unless he bombs, of course.

And while he’s hardly worth writing home about the first time around, he’s not half-bad, either, which leads to him coming back again for more. The casting of Arnett in this part would require a viewer to suspend their disbelief if not for his career-best performance, one that is equal parts convincing, frequently heartbreaking, and genuinely funny, both despite Alex’s best efforts and because of them. Described by a friend as someone who “was always the funniest guy in the room” adds up with what we see from Alex routine-wise, because we have all had our own funniest guys in the room yet would likely never encourage them to beg for a slot at the Comedy Cellar. Alex – a character Cooper, Arnett, and Mark Chappell based on the true story of the English comedian John Bishop, who gets a story-by credit here – operates on a different wavelength, though, one that works in his favor though would feasibly curse someone else’s. His painful honesty passes for humor in the beginning; by the time he eventually hits his stride, his truth has become his most reliable tool.  

That Alex doesn’t initially tell anyone about his new hobby complicates matters a touch, regardless of the fact that, once he does share the news of his newfound passion with others, he assures them that it’s not a professional pursuit. That he tells everyone except for Tess – including his kids, his parents (Christine Ebersole and Ciarán Hinds), and his best friend (Cooper) – is the real quagmire, a gamble that could either pay off in grand fashion or blow up mere inches from his face. The authenticity and improvisational quality that persists throughout Cooper, Arnett, and Chappell’s script allows for a sense of sustained unpredictability to exist inside a film that could have very easily been telegraphed and sentimental for the sake of a few sniffles. It helps that Arnett and Dern are both terrific here, not just as ex-lovers but as frustrated co-parents and confused not-quite-divorcees. Perhaps Cooper – who is three-for-three in this critic’s book, for the record – was always meant to be making others do the work rather than placing the heaviest performatory burden on his own shoulders. 

Then again, it’s no coincidence that Cooper takes a step back from the centerfold and acts as a supporting character in this film, an apt choice for the path the story takes, but also for a filmmaker who has been synonymous with and defined by the showiness of his previous efforts both in direction and performance. In A Star Is Born, he played the alcoholic/addict rocker Jackson Maine, a dying star himself who tends to destroy everything in his way, from urine-stained public appearances to relationships with his paramour (Lady Gaga) and his manager/half-brother (Sam Elliott). His turn as Leonard Bernstein in Maestro — the worst film ever made according to Film Twitter but a triumph in the real world — spoke for itself, and not just because of the voice and the nose. His part here is perhaps the film’s funniest in a very pointed sense, but it’s quite nice to see him loosen up enough to play a guy who is literally only ever referred to as “Balls.” He’s also the first to express disappointment at Alex’s enjoyment of performing, given that “Balls” is an actor and appreciated Alex’s tendency to be the friend group’s “settler,” a funny nod if you really want to read into Cooper’s decision to play director here more than star. 

Fittingly, Is This Thing On? is a film Cooper would sooner characterize as being about a “mid-life catharsis” than a “mid-life crisis,” and though both work well as descriptors, the former takes the cake, as watching Alex perform his way through Manhattan’s underground comedy scene never feels like gazing upon a rat inside a maze. His predicament is a discomforting one, but Alex doesn’t ever seem all that out of place in these clubs, on stage or off. The only time the film ever (regrettably) veers into  a territory that one would consider “obvious” and/or “expository” is in a late-film sequence that shouldn’t be spoiled, yet it both offers Arnett a key emotional showcase and deploys Matthew Libatique’s cinematographic style so beautifully – a constant throughout, captured in a picture-perfect 1.66:1 aspect ratio so as to maintain proximity to his performer’s faces rather than the audience watching them – that it’s hard to care that it seems to have been pulled from an entirely different movie altogether.

Then again, it’s worth remembering that we should all be afforded the opportunity to explode every once and a while, and Is This Thing On? is sure to tap the mic on that front while exploring emotional exorcism through a unique and lived-in vein that we don’t often see in films that aren’t comedy specials disguised as movies. It depicts the stage as a portal to rediscovery, a way for the dying soul of a man to come back to life with every ounce of laughter; it is the best medicine, after all. More than that, it’s the kind of film that Cooper has already been making – stories about adults who lose their way and must deal with trials of varying severity in an effort to find it again – but pared back a touch, and thus into a more intimate register. Such restraint allows the film to examine one’s discomfort not with performance, but with how love – as Queen and David Bowie sang – “dares you to change our way of caring about ourselves.” In many ways, that has also been a tenet of the Bradley Cooper directorial experiment all along. No wonder his sweetest, smartest movie yet is the one to drop the mic on the subject.

Is This Thing On? world premiered as the Closing Night selection at the 63rd New York Film Festival. Searchlight Pictures will release the film in theaters on December 19.

Grade: B+

Director: Harry Lighton
Writers: Harry Lighton, Adam Mars-Jones
Stars: Alexander Skarsgård, Harry Melling, Lesley Sharp

Synopsis: A directionless man is swept off his feet when an enigmatic, impossibly handsome biker takes him on as his submissive.

What does the figure of a biker symbolize? Hyper-masculinity and rebelliousness are the first descriptors that come to mind. Every time you see a biker or a motorcycle group in a film, you think about trouble and impending danger. That is how most movies typically portray them. But there are better descriptors that encapsulate the image of a biker: freedom, loyalty, and a shared identity. A motorcycle gang is inseparable; they all head towards the same route without borders. Their identity is forged through the open road — a symbol of brotherhood and resistance against conformity; with each mile they travel, they become an act of defiance and unity. These descriptions align with the themes and character dynamics showcased in Harry Lighton’s directorial debut, Pillion (screening at the 2025 New York Film Festival in the Spotlight section). Lighton reclaims the biker’s image from macho rebellion to queer vulnerability.

Lighton’s Pillion, based on Adam Mars-Jones’ 2020 novel ‘Box Hill,’ tells the story of vulnerability and power dynamics in modern queer relationships through the eyes of a lonely, feeble young man and his life-changing encounter with an alpha-dominant biker. Its title is aptly chosen, as the word refers to the passenger seat behind a motorcycle; the metaphors already pile up with just a single word. There have already been quite a handful of stories about bikers and the struggles of finding authentic desire and personal growth–Kenneth Anger’s provocative and influential short Scorpio Rising, as well as the underseen 1964 film from Sidney J. Furie called The Leather Boys. However, these particular portraits do not delve deeper into the internal and external resilience that comes with opening oneself to intimacy. That’s where Pillion separates itself from the rest. It expands on that step-by-step process that comes with finding yourself.

The Mars-Jones source material is set in the 1970s and has a higher focus on the AIDS crisis that was occurring at the time. To change the story to a contemporary setting, Lighton had to reimagine it, to some degree, to depict the struggles queer men face today. It is a challenging task to undertake, nearly rewriting a work to recontextualize scenarios with a contemporary worldview. In this change, there is a lack of solidity, which occurs when Lighton holds back on the complexity of the characters while performing the tonal balancing act of being stark or light-hearted. However, due to its leading pair being pitch-perfect with one another, and Lighton’s boldness leading to authentic depictions of the subculture he’s depicting, Pillion becomes a rather meaningful picture, with a few quirks that don’t crack the film’s sturdy backbone. 

The two figures at the center of this erotic ballet are Colin (Harry Melling), a lonely young singer desperate for someone to hold, and Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), the ring-leader of a gay motorcycle club. The first time we meet Colin, he’s doing a vocal performance at a local bar, which makes his date head towards the exit. The embarrassment on Colin’s face says it all, and a reek of desperation oozes from his pores. The image of him sitting all alone at a bar, with Melling’s facial expressions revealing his feelings on the inside, shows us that this isn’t the first time he has been in that situation. Pain lingers through the soul, as drink flows down his body. That’s until Ray pops into the picture, where one Christmas Eve night outing shapes the course of Colin’s life. 

From a choir boy to a submissive sexual treat for Ray, Colin finds something he didn’t know he wanted in a package he wouldn’t have dared to approach. But time curses the two, and Colin demands judgment in that controlling relationship, challenging the restrictions put upon him by the dominant Ray. He seeks to have a say on this bond, which helps Colin slowly forge his identity through retaliation. This isn’t the first time Harry Melling plays a character who falls in love with a biker, and this devotion causes a complete shift in his being. In Amanda Kramer’s campy and leather-bound Please Baby Please, Melling plays Arthur, a reserved man with inner sorrow who encounters a greaser gang as he heads home with his wife. Rather than beating them to a pulp, they taunt them. This teasing leaves a mark on the two tight-knit individuals to the point where they question their respective identities and loyalties.

Kramer has consistently explored liberation, personal freedom, and desires in her cinema, employing a highly stylized and campy approach. In that sense, Please Baby Please and Pillion are pretty different, as Lighton is not keen on utilizing splashes of neon lighting and colorful tints to play with the film’s themes. His direction is more stale visually, although it features well-framed shots that effectively convey the emotional and romantic physicality between the leading pair. However, even though one is more tame in terms of sexual elements and the other goes full-frontal, the two films are connected by Melling, who offers an excellent performance in both, and their themes of self-love. While I prefer Kramer’s, as her work is more playful, cine-literate, and creative, Pillion still has quite a few tricks up its sleeve that help its story have an impact.

Nods of comedy and light-heartedness are placed amongst highly erotic sex scenes in Pillion to both shock and create sympathy for Collin as he finds his true self. These scenes help the saddening aspects on the backend of the film feel more striking than provocative. Its melancholy might be slight–not utilized enough to create a wounding, long-lasting effect–yet the film’s heart lies in the right place, without ever needing to play melodramatic beats to conjure faux reactions. There were moments where the comedy stood out like a sore thumb and took me out of the film. Nevertheless, what continued to drive my interest from Pillion is Lighton’s depiction of the gay motorcycle club and the submissive-dominant relationships, which is where the film gets most of its personality and uniqueness. 

Lighton wants to create authenticity of a subculture he doesn’t know much about by having people from it to help him dive into it with sincerity and attentiveness. Cinematic liberties are taken to make the narrative move along, just like any other feature, yet it is all done with genuine interest rather than disrespect. He ensures that there isn’t an “exoticism” with the subculture, or an exploitative edge that ridicules it. For some reason, William Friedkin’s Cruising comes to mind. The 1980s thriller starring Al Pacino received significant backlash from the gay community because of its portrayal of the New York gay leather scene, which included tons of hardcore sex scenes, most of them cut from the original print by the studio. Lighton also delves into the hardcore, although he doesn’t go bar for bar with Friedkin in Cruising. 

Many perceived it as harmful and exploitative, leading to protests during filming and its theatrical release. Although the film has an authenticity, as Friedkin shot it at the actual bars with people who attended them, there is an outsider’s lens from the production that causes a loss of genuineness, which I, as a fan of Friedkin’s work and the film, find disconcerting. We never connect with the members of the New York leather scene; we only see them at the bars doing highly sexual acts. Meanwhile, Lighton does the opposite. He wants us to empathize and understand them thoroughly. And that is what I admire most about the film. While other directors in the past might have treated this scene with a judgmental or stereotypical eye, Lighton protects those who gave him entry into that world by treating them with respect. This is why Pillion, even with its tonal foibles, is bold and daring; especially in today’s cinema, this is a rarity.

Grade: B-

Director: Nia DaCosta
Writers: Henrik Ibsen, Nia DaCosta
Stars: Tessa Thompson, Nina Hoss, Imogen Poots

Synopsis: Henrik Ibsen’s renowned stage drama from 1891 is reimagined in an epic and emotional way.

Henrik Ibsen’s play “Hedda Gabler” is a work that, since its premiere in 1891, has been regarded as one of the finest works of literature ever written, and a masterpiece that ranks among Ibsen’s finest works. Hedda Gabler has been adapted to screen multiple times, with its most notable adaptation so far being the 1975 movie directed by Trevor Nunn, which earned Glenda Jackson an Oscar nomination for Best Actress. In 2025, Nia DaCosta (Candyman, The Marvels) takes on the material and puts her own spin on it, reformatting the story in some fascinating ways.

Hedda (Tessa Thompson) is a free-spirited, gun-loving, and unexpected woman–much to some people’s chagrin–who is feeling bored in life and uninterested in her marriage to George Tesman (Tom Bateman)–decides to host a massive party at her home and invite a whole slew of friends, colleagues, and highly established people. Things take a turn when Eileen Lovborg (Nina Hoss) arrives at the party with her recently finished manuscript that, if published, could take a post that George is gunning for. As the night progresses, the two women lock horns as they confront each other about their past and their potential future, while Hedda also works to orchestrate the events that take place in order to get on top and emerge victorious, no matter how many bridges she burns along the way.

From the movie’s opening minutes, Hedda establishes this version’s titular character in a more unpredictable manner, and one that keeps challenging the social dynamics in place in 1950s England. When Hedda enters a room, she wants all eyes on her and wants to make sure everything plays out exactly how she wants, having some power over the conversations and also making people do things that they would never do so they could appear less powerful. From the outset, some of Hedda’s actions seem manipulative–and some indeed are, particularly a suggestion she makes to one character in the later part of the movie–but there is a complexity to her method, and understanding that it comes from a place of helplessness and silence, in a time when women were given way less agency and attention. It results in a far more feminist take on Ibsen’s play, one that displays the multitudes of Hedda Gabler, the good and the bad, and Tessa Thompson is extraordinary in the role, commanding the screen in practically every frame of the movie’s runtime and delivering perhaps the finest performance of her career.

Hedda’s mannerisms and inflections are often minute, only giving the audience the briefest of glimpses into her psyche, and Thompson excels at making every such minute count. The most we see Hedda ever shaky in her approach is with Eileen, as a past love between them often peeks through their conversations and confrontations. Nina Hoss is equally incredible in the movie, countering Thompson’s calculated Hedda more often than not, and adds to the emotional intensity buried within Hedda’s schemes, while also consistently challenged when she tries to escape her past and who she once was in Hedda’s life. Eileen’s manuscript is a study that could usurp everything George has built, and seeing that play out in moments where his vulnerability is also exposed leads to solid work from Tom Bateman as well. Not to be missed is Imogen Poots as Thea Clifton, who is right in the middle of the entire pressure cooker of a situation building between Hedda and Eileen, and also incredibly effective in playing someone who often represents the audience’s reactions to some of the plot developments.

Much of Hedda is built on DaCosta’s effective direction, moving at a mostly brisk pace with the dialogue delivered often keeping events limited to rooms within the large estate and the party’s proceedings, with some standout sequences to anchor it like a dancing moment where Hedda makes an entire room move along to the live band playing “It’s Oh So Quiet.” While it does still sometimes fall into that trap of feeling a lot more like a stage play than a motion picture (similar to some other plays brought to life on screen previously), it remains dynamic enough to create a solid big screen experience. Backed by a fantastic, even eerie score from Hildur Gudnadottir and Sean Bobbitt’s terrific cinematography, Hedda is also a technical marvel, with a booming sound design that makes every shocking moment or gunshot have a resounding effect.

Despite all these pros, however, what holds Hedda back a bit is some of its underdeveloped conflicts, particularly some subplots involving other people in Hedda’s life who exist only to add some more drama to the proceedings. As a result, some of the ideas and themes that the movie is playing around with get a bit muddled towards the final act, which somewhat rushes itself to the climax. The movie also occasionally drags in the middle, as more and more yarn is spun by Hedda in her elaborate planning of the night’s proceedings, and not always landing exactly what she is thinking in those moments where she decides to do something drastic about Eileen’s position. By the end however, DaCosta does succeed in creating a morally complex and ethically fascinating character study of a complex and fascinating woman who has been analyzed and studied for years, and brings out enough incredible work from the actors and crew involved to make up for some of the shortcomings.

Grade: B+

Director: Kent Jones
Writer: Samy Burch
Stars: Willem Dafoe, Greta Lee, Edmund Donovan

Synopsis: A long time ago, Ed Saxberger wrote a book of poetry that no one ever cared about. When a group of young artists rediscover his work, he must reassess his genius. The wild card in the group is Gloria, a talented and mercurial theatre actress who toys with affections and who is all set to be admired by Saxberger.

Filmmakers like Hong Sang-soo and Jean-luc Godard have enjoyed a long-running embarrassment of riches at the hands of the New York Film Festival selection committee, to the point where it could feasibly be called those international filmmakers’ home away from home. Kent Jones, on the other hand, is experiencing a singular triumph, that of premiering (in North America, at least) a film at the festival he once ran. From 2013 to 2019, the former critic/Martin Scorsese video archivist/actively-working documentarian had a hand in selecting its prestigious titles; his second narrative feature, Late Fame, is now among the selected. 

It could feasibly be considered a wild conflict of interest if Jones’ film wasn’t such a scintillating commentary on the haughtiest side of New York City’s art scene, a portion of which tends to wander about the Lincoln Center-adjacent area on the Upper West Side with paperbacks tucked in their back pockets and Mubi and/or New Yorker tote bags thrown over their shoulders. They don’t have jobs as much as they have interests that they’d sooner dub “callings” than “hobbies;” they say they read and write all day, eager to create something profound, but you never see them doing anything aside from talking amongst themselves and consuming copious amounts of green tea. (If the day is really dragging, they might opt for an espresso, or a martini, but never the trendy combination of the two.) They obsess about 45-year old writings because the new stuff doesn’t speak to them the same way the words of people who “really lived” do. They posture; rarely do they publish.

This sketch was admittedly painted with a broad brush, but in Jones and May December screenwriter Samy Burch’s view, this is the exact sort of group that is worth exploring. In Late Fame, they’re known as the “Enthusiasm Society,” and when we say “known,” we mean “they call themselves that.” Their self-appointed leader, Meyers (Edmund Donovan), wears turtlenecks as though another kind of shirt has yet to be invented. The rest of the group ranges in mood, from plucky and eager to learn (Luca Padovan’s Winn) to knowing everything there has ever been to know (Clay Singer’s Brussard). Gloria (a hammy, delightful Greta Lee, stealing the show from the entire ensemble) is an actress and the crew’s lone female companion, though it’s safe to assume that this is because her own circle grew tired of her theatrics before they even started rehearsals. 

The odd man out is Eduard Saxberger (Willem Dafoe), because of course it is, and of course it’s spelled with a “u,” not a “w.” Now a postal worker, he was a poet who once published a book called “Way Past Go,” but it was quickly forgotten, and so, too, was his faith in the craft. In many ways, he represents the ideal discovery for Meyers and company, a man who keeps old copies of The Village Voice in a cardboard box like childhood sports trophies, a collection that any other mortal would have tucked away in a storage unit decades ago, but he pulls it out every now and again to reminisce. He’s so much the ideal that, in an instant that disrupts Ed’s menial existence – one involving frequent visits to a dive bar that has his order ready at the same time every day and houses patrons who know him by name – they rope him into their circle with the promise of belated regard, adoration, and a dash of hope for the reignition of his more creative past life. Call it engagement, call it love, or call it late fame. Just don’t call it a sure thing.

Jones’ film tends to be exactly that, though, principally due to the world Burch builds for the filmmaker to bring about on-screen. Late Fame’s Manhattan is familiar enough while also maintaining a specificity that will attract the attention of those who possess a cursory familiarity with its makeup, and perhaps especially to those who are quick to roll their eyes at it. It’s populated by people who are more likely to celebrate those who dropped out of college to pursue the life of a struggling artist more than they merely acknowledge those who procured a Master’s degree and went on to major success. The former is the more romantic route, after all, and the tribulations that clutter its path are ones who make the man a more established champion, the lack of an expansive body of work be damned. 

Said appreciation for mystique – a desire for questions more than answers – does inhibit the “Enthusiastics” from ever really evolving beyond caricaturistic vessels carrying a stereotypical view of literature and the craft of creation through what is otherwise a clever, thoughtful dramedy. But the groundedness with which Dafoe portrays Saxberger more than makes up for it. Like his character, this is an actor that simultaneously belongs in everything yet sticks out like a sore thumb whenever he appears. And this  is precisely what makes him so brilliant.

That’s a far-too-simplistic way to describe one of film’s most prominent, beloved, and uber-gifted performers, one who has been pumping out his signature chameleonic mastery for so long that he’s been able to play both Jesus Christ and Vincent van Gogh, and make them feel like inventions pulled directly from his diaries. To say that Dafoe is “great” in a film, Late Fame included, is to say that he appears in it, and one almost wishes he was starring in one that wasn’t so eager to make his journey back into a world that idolizes him so obvious, its beats appearing in high definition from a mile away. His character is as “real,” simply put, as Mary Kay Place’s titular character from Jones’ 2019 narrative debut, Diane, a gutting indie about family in which a woman’s life becomes unrecognizable as she attempts to piece together wreckage her addicted son has left for her to piece together. 

Ed Saxberger might be more comfortable operating as a secondary character in that film, one where he can be the version of himself he’s dedicated the back half of his years to playing. But what works most in Late Fame’s favor is its commitment to that discomfort, and the fact that, when read at face value, it’s a film about what we come to realize about ourselves when we’re asked to peer into a past that’s less safe than the present. It could be read as a film about the cost of our dreams, the roads less traveled, or even the act of making films after once critiquing them and selecting them for participation in a major fall festival. Or, maybe, it’s just about art: What it gives us when we’re making it, takes away when we stop, and continues to provide as we consume it from afar, no matter how ardently we subconsciously long to return to the beautiful chaos that it produced.

Late Fame screened in the Main Slate at the 63rd New York Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.

Grade: B

Director: Richard Linklater
Writer: Robert Kaplow
Stars: Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale

Synopsis: Tells the story of Lorenz Hart’s struggles with alcoholism and mental health as he tries to save face during the opening of “Oklahoma!”.

How lucky are we as audiences that we get two Richard Linklater films releasing in 2025? This output is quite fitting considering the first of the two films, Blue Moon, is all about duality and the multitudes contained within us as people. It’s evident in the freewheeling nature of Nouvelle Vague versus the chamber-piece format of Blue Moon. And the thematic ideas about duality are made quite clear via the pair of opposing quotes used to open Blue Moon, celebrating its New York premiere at the 63rd New York Film Festival. Of Lorenz Hart (a transcendent Ethan Hawke), Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney) described the songwriter as “alert and dynamic and fun to be around.” On the other side, Mabel Mercer considered him “the saddest person to be around.” It’s a stark duality to create the entire baseline of the film around. This conflict is felt even more by the fact that Linklater opens his film with abject tragedy: that of the legendary Hart’s lonely death, shot in a cold, dark alleyway full of trash. With its depiction comes a sad irony to wash over everything that follows. It creates tragic undertones which permeate through a film occurring entirely during a celebratory event. For Blue Moon then jumps back seven months in time, to March 31, 1943: the opening night of “Oklahoma!” on Broadway.

The arrival of this landmark musical signifies a joyous time for countless individuals involved with the show. It’s also a moment in history of which the reverberations from its impact are still being felt. But for Hart, the night couldn’t be going any worse, and the musical certainly isn’t helping his spirits. So off he goes before curtain call to the bar where the afterparty is being held. It’s in this setting that the chamber-piece film truly begins. In many ways, it’s a perfect fit within Linklater’s classic hangout film tempo. After all, Blue Moon primarily sees Hart fraternizing amongst the familiar faces of the bar he very clearly frequents. Yet the warm embrace of living in a specific moment commonly found in Linklater’s hangouts like Dazed and Confused or Everybody Wants Some!! isn’t as present as it typically is. Mind you, the warmth stemming from an attention to period details are both visible on the screen and baked into Robert Kaplow’s script. But this is a hangout film spurned on by a tragic driving force: Hart is simply seeking solace from the emotions which currently haunt him. There’s a veil of pain thrown over this extended “hangout.”

Lucky for audiences, Hawke is delivering a fully committed performance which allows him a ton of space to play within. Yes, Hart is a tragic figure in Blue Moon. But he’s also a bit of an entertaining scoundrel. 90% of the film’s runtime must be devoted to Hart’s blathering about his thoughts on theater, the state of the music business, sexual conquests, random anecdotes, and more. One might think a character like him haunting the local bartender would become frustratingly overbearing at a point. And while he may be a bit much, that’s deliberate. The charm within his behavior is part of what unlocks this character. There’s a poetic elegance to Hawke’s character that, even when he’s fully deriding something, you can’t help but be equally shocked and impressed at the way he goes about conveying his opinions. The script, delivered by Hawke, becomes something that’s both beautiful and crass. Before Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) ever even arrives at his own party, the clashing dualities of Hart and Blue Moon feel like such fun magic on the big screen. It’s only upon Scott and Hawke finally coming face-to-face that Linklater’s film takes on an entirely new emotional weight.

Rodgers enters the bar to thunderous acclaim and celebratory remarks. Everybody wants to get a word in, and for a moment, Hart remains alarmingly silent for the first time thus far; make no mistake, it’s merely a brief pause for what’s to come. After all his remarks bashing “Oklahoma!,” Hart steps in with such lovely praise for both Rodgers and Hammerstein. The bitterness read across his face stings. Despite his intentions of hiding it, Hart isn’t as great an actor as Hawke is. It makes for many comedic interactions, of which this film has several, despite the deeply sad context the jokes are stemming from. We never find ourselves laughing at Hart, but the more time spent with him, the more our laughs become somewhat pitiful. The central conflict of Blue Moon is one never directly stated between the two opposing forces. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t painfully obvious, causing an intentional rift in what should be a hangout among old friends. For Hart, he never reveals his true feelings to Rodgers. But the man has no issue tossing veiled insults in the direction of his now more successful (and younger) creative partner. In Rodgers, his frustrations with Hart come from a place of worry and care. Scott’s performance is so touching in this regard. As he captures the excitement of a man about to be on top of the world, there’s a sad desperation in his eye as he is looking back and offering a hand desperately needed to lift up a friend and a mentor. 

Nearly everybody in Blue Moon sees the spiral Hart is experiencing. Most, like Eddie the bartender (Bobby Cannavale) or E.B. White (Patrick Kennedy), merely lend an ear or company alongside the chance for a free drink. Rodgers is the only one who, initially through nudges and later through shoves, makes any verbal attempt to get through to Hart. He takes action where all else believe they don’t have a place in this story. It’s what makes Scott’s place in this film all the more heartwarming amongst all its tragedy. Rodgers holds back his true feelings, and these attempts can be seen plain as day, as he understands that Hart needs somebody to catch him rather than explain all the reasons why he’s flailing towards rock bottom. Despite the fracture between the two artists, the friendship depicted is one of simple beauty. “Art waits for you,” says a character at one point in the film; unfortunately, life doesn’t. It flies beyond our control with no care for our pain and sorrow. But it does provide us with people to share those experiences alongside in order to ease that pain. Hart is a deeply frustrating individual, but Rodgers’ pleading to provide help and displays of generous encouragement to a friend in need is as touching and beautiful a depiction of friendship as anything is. In the end, Blue Moon depicts both a heartwarming friendship and a tragic breakup. It’s a hangout that seems doomed from the very start. Hart is a man torturing himself with everything he doesn’t, or simply can never, have. Hawke holds so much pain in his face, yet he’s such an endearing and charming performer that you’re left smiling throughout. Blue Moon is both celebratory and funereal, and how Linklater balances the two clashing tones so effortlessly reaffirms why he’s one of the all-time great filmmakers.

Blue Moon celebrated its New York premiere at the 63rd New York Film Festival as part of the Spotlight section.

Grade: B+

Director: Raoul Peck
Writer: Raoul Peck
Stars: Damian Lewis

Synopsis: The ultimate and comprehensive documentary film about the exceptional writer George Orwell.

On the surface, Raoul Peck’s Orwell 2+2 = 5 seems like a denser prospect from the documentary filmmaker who gave us the incredibly complex, Oscar-nominated I Am Not Your Negro in 2016. A documentary on one of the most prophetic figures in the history of literature seems like a daunting task, especially when there’s so much material in his archives to choose from. His most well-known work, “1984,” was adapted into a litany of movies and has been analyzed in various ways, with some even using its language to describe what is happening now, in an era where totalitarianism is making a comeback and mass manipulation, through oligarchic control of the media space and on social media itself, has fractured a society to the point of no return. 

Of course, Peck will undoubtedly discuss the rise of current-day fascism, from Donald Trump to Giorgia Meloni, and even alt-right discourse within media itself, from Tucker Carlson to Éric Zemmour and Mathieu Bock-Côté. In the movie’s most powerful montage, Peck parallels Hitler’s rise before the Second World War with the current increase in fascist rhetoric and gestures – from Elon Musk’s Nazi salute to the enthusiastic support of a brainwashed crowd as Javier Milei says, “We grab the bull by the horns!” All of it is interlinked through Orwell’s own writing, mostly in his personal journals, narrated by actor Damian Lewis. 

We “meet” Orwell as he knows full well tuberculosis will consume him, and he tries to write as much as possible on his observations before he disappears. As Peck plays clips from the multiple adaptations of 1984, mainly from Michael Anderson and Michael Radford, while also not forgetting the impact Animal Farm had in popular culture, the filmmaker starts to get really ambitious and begins to discuss how his view of the world, in 1948, rings even truer today than when he wrote his literary masterpiece. It’s a lot to take in  – and some of it doesn’t work – but the message in how we are doomed to repeat our own mistakes in electing war-hungry despots who sell a message of peace, but only want to destroy the very fabric of society for their own monetary gains, is heard loud and clear. 

No Orwell portrait is complete without an analysis of “newspeak,” a term he invented in 1984 to describe controlled language and grammar that would limit a person’s ability to think. There are multiple modern-day examples of such a term that he illustrates. Yet, the most glaring one of them all is linked to how several gubernatorial bodies use precise language to appease the population that what they are doing to another nation – or country – is morally correct, when they are, in reality, committing war crimes. The movie doesn’t shy away from breaking the propaganda that multiple governments have fed the media – and the public – to justify their atrocities in Ukraine and Gaza, going so far as to deconstruct Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s “newspeak.” 

While public opinion is slowly shifting on what is currently occurring in Gaza, the terms used by despotic leaders to carefully tell the public that they need their support to decimate an entire population are frightening. Orwell undoubtedly played a large part in “waking up” society to what their leaders don’t want to know. It’s hard to turn a blind eye to what is happening in Ukraine and Gaza. However, dissonance between the total condemnation of Russia’s actions towards Ukraine, while the United States government blindly supported everything Israel was doing, made society even more divided, because, as Peck describes, Netanyahu was able to successfully weaponize the term “antisemitism” to “silence critics of Israeli military action,” while many journalists – and citizens – had justifiable criticisms on their handling of the October 7th attack that was not at all antisemitic. 

“Newspeak” thus becomes the primary word Peck will employ to discuss Orwell’s view of the world, and how it relates to the enshittification of modern-day society, through the prism of social media apps turning us into bitter, cynical individuals, and the rise of generative AI slop that prevents any ounce of human emotion and creativity. Students now openly brag about using ChatGPT to complete their school assignments instead of thinking for themselves, and the popularity of AI-generated “art” has diminished a society that once took pride in having creativity as its only weapon against all forms of control. Our minds are ours to keep, and no machine can take away our desire to create. 

Yet, as the film shows, the rise of AI poses a threat to the very notions of “creativity” and “individual thought.” To illustrate his point, however, Peck will employ many generative AI images created for the movie, which gives many sections of Orwell 2+2 = 5 a somewhat hypocritical posture. “AI-generated” songs are also used during a section where, to transition from one segment to the next, Peck will fill the runtime with a succession of AI-generated content, as the images become further distorted. Using AI to make a point against AI seems counterproductive, though Radu Jude is also doing this in his version of Dracula (that I have not seen, but will soon), which probably means that more and more auteurs will do the same. 

Will this “wake up” AI-obsessed idiots that this “technology” (if we can call it that) serves no purpose, when it comes to art and critical thought? There are purposeful uses, such as in science, to develop vaccines and other potential medical treatments at a faster pace, but most of the CEOs who are investing heavily in artificial intelligence aren’t interested in that. Not because they don’t want to cure cancer, but because they want to fill their pockets as quickly as possible. Curing disease takes time, even with AI. Creating “art” does not. What’s more profitable in the short term? And what does this kill?

When you answer these questions, you’re likely going to come up with the same conclusion as everyone else. I won’t dare reveal it, but the prospects of this world getting any better, through its social and political lens, are relatively low. You probably knew that society is screwed before you saw Orwell 2+2 = 5. Yet, after viewing Peck’s documentary, which contains an extraordinary lucidity in its line of thinking, through the words of a real prophet, you’re definitely never going to think otherwise again.

Grade: B