Director: Gary Dauberman
Writers: Gary Dauberman, Stephen King
Stars: Lewis Pullman, Spencer Treat Clark, Pilou Asbæk

Synopsis: Author Ben Mears returns to his childhood home of Jerusalem’s Lot in search of inspiration for his next book only to discover his hometown is being preyed upon by a bloodthirsty vampire.

We’re just a month shy of celebrating the 50th anniversary of what many believe to be Stephen King’s quintessential novel: ‘Salem’s Lot. Only his second published novel, King obviously went on to write many inarguable classics. He may have a handful of novels that are better than this one, but as far as encapsulating everything that makes a King story a King story, there’s no better place to look than in the sleepy town that time and mapmakers forgot. Which makes it all the more fascinating that Gary Dauberman’s film of the same name is the first feature film adaptation of this story. There have been adaptations of course: the legendary 1979 two-part television miniseries directed by Tobe Hooper, and a lesser received 2004 two-part television miniseries with an admittedly stacked cast. But here we are now. Half a century later, a film version is ready to be released for the world. Only instead of a celebratory affair, Dauberman’s film sat on a shelf for just over 2 years as its release kept getting pushed back. After a premiere at the 2024 Beyond Fest, it will be released on Max… for better or for worse. Going into this with a ton of excitement, ‘Salem’s Lot left me, more than anything, confused at what it was aiming to achieve.

First and foremost, what’s most exciting about ‘Salem’s Lot, and King in general, is that his usage of genre is often a means to an end. Of course, he is massively talented at scaring practically anybody on Earth. And he has a clear love for genre. But more often than not, King novels also become timeless because of the drama he is able to mine out of such primal fears. Through the horror, his stories grapple with the impact addiction has on families. The pains of growing up feeling different from those around us. In the case of ‘Salem’s Lot, the vampires present can take the form of anything really. They merely serve as a warning for those who choose to live in denial of the issues in the world at large. The titular town of this story is merely a microcosm for the world. And thus, the essential nature of ‘Salem’s Lot reveals itself. This is a story that hinges on two major factors: if the vampires can scare us enough, and more importantly, if the very soul of the town and all its inhabitants feels at stake. Unfortunately, Dauberman’s film never really manages to live up to either. And it’s difficult to imagine where it all went wrong, although it becomes more apparent in the third act of this film. But starting off, ‘Salem’s Lot  begins with potential, which makes the end result all the more frustrating.

Author Ben Mears (Lewis Pullman) travels back to his childhood town of Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine in search of inspiration. Not only that, he’s hoping to rediscover integral parts of himself long pushed down in the wake of a tragedy that took his parents at a young age. At its very core, in the case of Ben’s motivations, ‘Salem’s Lot is a story focused on the importance of acceptance. It’s looking at the cards being dealt our way and making the best of the hand before folding too early. It’s in the hubris of thinking parts of our lives can be ignored and cast aside that the horror of ‘Salem’s Lot feeds off of. Now, Ben Mears is a great vessel for an audience member. But as written earlier, the town itself is what matters most. And at first, it appears Dauberman is cognizant of that. We meet quite the range of eclectic residents fairly early on. As Ben first arrives in town, they’re all clearly intrigued at the notion somebody new, or at least unseen for a very long time, has planted roots in their town. Dauberman frames this series of establishing shots in a manner full of exciting potential. Rather than follow Ben along the roads of the Lot, the camera instead follows him through the insides of various shops and homes. It’s a fairly effective way to translate that all these various locations will matter in some capacity. This is doubled down upon when Ben meets Susan Norton (Makenzie Leigh).

There’s a very bumbling charm to the way Ben and Susan interact with one another. With clear chemistry, the two “end up” on a date at the local drive-in. And again, Dauberman appears to set up for the audience just how important the various residents of town might be to the structure of the story. From a spot overlooking the entire audience, Susan details a handful of anecdotes about the people living around her just through sheer instinct. You immediately get the sense she knows this town and its people like the back of her hand. The reason being is that nothing much ever goes on in it and the drama in their lives is fairly cyclical. Unfortunately, this feels like the last time Dauberman ever really delves deeply into the town itself. There’s occasionally glimpses, but for the most part, ‘Salem’s Lot then descends into rather cheap scares. But that’s not to say some of the moments designed to haunt viewers aren’t well-executed.

Take, for example, the inciting incident pulled straight from the pages of the source material. A young boy is kidnapped. It’s an inherently frightening dilemma. And the way Dauberman captures it honestly borders on beauty. That is, as beautiful as something so horrific can be displayed. As the sun is rapidly setting (a motif that will be frequented given the nature of vampires, yet not outright revealed as of yet), two young brothers hustle through the woods. Bathed in complete shadow, all we can see are the pitch-black silhouettes of trees and the brothers themselves. The sky is practically tri-colored, and you’ll find yourself as hypnotized as one of the victims of a vampire in the film. It’s a mesmerizing sequence. While Dauberman may not even attempt to replicate one of the most iconic horror images of all time later on in the film, you can feel the determination here to mark his own territory from a different sequence of the novel. It’s exciting stuff, and not the only time he will lean very heavily into the atmospheric tension that can be mined in such a story. Unfortunately, those glimpses don’t feel like enough to sustain the lack of genuine horror missing throughout the rest of the film.

But of course, a King story wouldn’t be complete without complete madness capping it all off. The chaos many King novels end on is often full of carnage, and in the biggest departure from the novel, Dauberman’s ‘Salem’s Lot at least nails this change with a wild climax. While the emotional arc of the film may not be felt at all, mainly due to how unnoticed and seemingly inconsequential the passage of time is conveyed, it’s a ton of fun. To avoid revealing anything major, it’s a sequence full of thrill with a genuine ticking clock. At the very least, it lets audiences walk out on the high of a tense sequence captured with cinematic glee. The film may leave much to be desired when all is said and done, but of the countless King adaptations that exist, this ends up somewhere right in the middle of it all. And there are worse fates!

‘Salem’s Lot will be released on Max starting October 3 after celebrating its world premiere at the 2024 edition of Beyond Fest.

Grade: D+

Director: Natalie Erika James
Writers: Natalie Erika James, Christian White, Skylar James
Stars: Julia Garner, Dianne Weist, Jim Sturgess

Synopsis: A struggling dancer finds herself drawn into dark forces by a peculiar couple promising her fame.

“It’s the role of a lifetime.” 

In 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby, Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) has a brief conversation with a young woman named Terry (Victoria Vetri) in the laundry of the Bramford building. It’s a brief exchange. Terry discusses how lucky she is to be there – picked off the sidewalk by Roman and Minnie Castevet (Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon) after falling on hard times and addiction. According to Terry they are “the best people in the world, bar none,” and she “would be dead now if it wasn’t for them… or in jail.” Terry is wearing a three-hundred-year-old necklace, one that Rosemary will later be gifted. The next time the audience sees Terry she is a body on the pavement.

Natalie Erika James’ Apartment 7A imagines Terry Gionoffrio (Julia Garner) as a complete character, one in a line of many young women who preceded Rosemary as a potential mother for the antichrist. Terry herself is one in a line of many young women in New York City looking for her big break on Broadway. A talented dancer, she’s striving to have her name in lights, but her career is curtailed after a bone crunching fall during a performance of “Kiss Me Kate.” From a soaring chaîné to an operating theatre to a painkiller addiction – Terry limps her way through multiple unsuccessful auditions with only her best friend Annie Leung (Marli Siu) keeping a gentle and supportive watchful eye over her. 

Terry auditions for a role in “The Pale Hook” where the director Leo Watts (Andrew Buchan) is told that she is, infamously, “The girl who fell.” Terry explains that it was a mistake that will never happen again, and Watts asks her what the step was that caused the injury. She tells him and he makes her repeat it until her injury is on full display. She tells him, and famous producer Alan Marchland (Jim Sturgess) that she will do the chaîné all day, if necessary, as there is nothing she won’t do to get back on the stage. Marchland having extracted that her background is in slaughterhouse farming in Hazard, Nebraska tells her to get on the ground and act like a pig. Terry tells him her limit is humiliation and refuses.

Defeated and in extreme pain after the audition, Terry takes three painkillers and ices her foot. Annie suggests that “Being on stage isn’t worth this,” – “Oh, Annie, of course it is,” Terry replies. She came to New York to follow her dream, and nothing will get in her way. She makes the decision to follow Marchland to his home, the looming German Renaissance style Bramford building. Extremely disoriented from the large pill dose, Terry ends up vomiting and near passed out on the sidewalk, where, as was established in Rosemary’s Baby, she is picked up by Roman and Minnie Castevet (Kevin McNally and Dianne Wiest). 

Terry awakens the next morning in Apartment 7A, the home of the Castevets. They’re kindly, although Minnie is on the eccentric side, and inform her that they can tell she needs help – as they are rich and childless and can tell Terry has a special spark, they’d like to offer her an adjoining apartment rent free. “It’s not the fall that matters, it’s what you do afterwards that counts” says Minnie. They like getting young women back on their feet, the girl that was there before her was escaping an abusive relationship and now she’s moved on. Also, they heard that she’d like to meet up with Alan Marchland which is bound to happen because “all the neighbors are very friendly.” Terry is a touch sceptical at the too good to be true offer, but she’s been mooching off Annie for four months and the Bramford is on the Upper West Side. An agreement is made with the ‘cost’ to be worked out later.

Terry is somewhere between a shrewd operator and hopelessly naïve. When she is packing her few belongings, she tells Annie who is concerned about her moving in with strangers that she’s willing to “play the damsel in distress” for a huge apartment and it’s time for her to get herself together. Just as Annie wouldn’t return to London, Terry isn’t going to return to Nebraska (for deeper reasons than giving up stardom). 

The Bramford is luxurious accommodation for Terry but stuck in time. There is something oppressive about it. There are no sounds from the street but the building moans as if it is a living organism. Her dreams are disturbed, and she feels observed. Minnie and Roman walk in and out of her apartment, always with a pleasant excuse, but Terry is aware she will have to draw boundaries. She finds the dance shoe of the previous tenant, Joan Cubuski, and Minnie’s story changes from the one she originally told as she throws it in the trash. Minnie asks her if she is free for drinks at 9pm – this time it won’t be in apartment 7A.

Alan Marchand’s apartment is the only spark of modernity she’s seen in the building. He’s fascinated by the “girl who fell” becoming the “girl who lives downstairs.” “I didn’t pick you for such a fighter,” he says. Between drinks and discussions of “The Pale Hook” written by Adrian Marcado – and the first ‘musical’ produced in American (a riff on “The Black Hook” which was indeed an early musical about a devil-like creature) Marchand flirts and wants to know what fuels Terry’s passion for dance. Dance, she explains, is how she dealt with the death of her mother and the mental demise of her father, her escape: “All I had to do was move my body in a certain way and everything bad would go away. It’s the only time I feel in control.” Marchand proposes a toast to “Body and soul,” and Terry, reeling and drugged, experiences her “Rosemary on the boat” dream.

Apartment 7A comes to life in every dance scene – the choreographed rape of Terry to “(You Gotta Have) Heart” with its male Busby Berkeley styled geometrics and sequined Satan is mesmerizing and horrifying. Minnie and Roman sit as observers on an upper stage at a kitchen table while Marchand strips her to her showgirl sequins and waltzes her into blackness where she is the star of a hideous routine strapped to a mattress.

When she awakens in the morning, naked in Marchand’s bed, she remembers nothing. He laughs that she really can’t hold her drinks and maybe he should be offended. As she begins to protest, he cuts her off telling her it was a one-off thing, and she should get herself cleaned up as she’s in the chorus.

Rehearsals are a mixture of joy and shame for Terry. She’s reunited with Annie, and she’s back on track to working – but she’s still lagging with her injury which causes the lead, Vera (Rosy McEwen) to viciously snarl, “You’re the girl who fell. If you’re going to sleep your way into the show at least have the talent to back it up.” Annie tells Terry to ignore it, but it’s hard to ignore the bruises and deep scratches on her inner thighs. There is nothing she is willing to say. When she finds out she is pregnant she must make an active choice, although Minnie doesn’t see that Terry has a choice – after all that has been done for her, and all that will be done for her, providing a child for the Castevets is both gratitude and a guarantee of fame.

Terry is a fundamentally different character to Rosemary. Where Rosemary was aching for stable domesticity and motherhood, Terry rejects motherhood itself as something horrifying. Terry Gionoffrio isn’t above a small hustle to get her name on the marquee, but her body is her currency as a dancer. Mrs. Lily Gardenia’s (Tina Gray) ointment cured her foot and made it possible for her to dance properly again, and that’s what she has been doing. Pregnancy – no matter how supported by her “new family” – is anathema to her ambition.

The dark secrets of the Bramford reveal themselves through distorted visions and arcane discoveries. Mrs. Gardenia attacks her trying to put an end to things before falling into a coma. Terry’s body is wracked with pain and the shadows pulling at her in nightmares are waking visions. Her terror is partly rooted in how much she is responsible for what is happening, and what has happened, to her. James’ script written in conjunction with Christian White and Skylar James uses the genre of psychological and supernatural horror to reflect how victims of rape and abuse struggle with defining if they are to blame for what they went through.

Apartment 7A is an incredibly slick production. The choreography by Ashley Wallen and Lukas McFarlane is stunning showing the grit and precision of the dancers. The production design and cinematography by Simon Bowles and Arnau Valls Colomer bring to life the 1965 of Rosemary’s Baby without skipping a beat. The Bramford with its never-ending uncanny spaces make it seem like it has spread poisonous roots throughout Manhattan. 

The standout performance by Julia Garner cannot be underestimated. To make Terry Gionoffrio a Broadway hopeful, Garner had to learn how to dance and sing (it is all her own work). More than that, Garner needed to embody someone for whom ambition is dangerous and is both a source of strength and vulnerability. Dianne Wiest’s Minnie is less Ruth Gordon’s gaudy and vulgar nosy parker, and more outright antagonist. The interactions between Garner and Wiest are loaded with unspoken tension. Minnie is sweet when she notes Terry’s gratitude, or when the young woman treats her like a surrogate mother – but that sweetness can turn on a dime especially when Minnie’s jealousy surrounding Terry’s youth comes to the foreground. 

Natalie Erika James is a strong director, and she brings something distinct to Apartment 7A which distinguishes it as more than a too-late-down-the-line prequel to a masterpiece. Terry’s point of view is larger than her woman in peril situation. It encompasses how easily replaced young women are. She glances fleetingly at a beautiful young hopeful getting off a bus in Manhattan with her suitcases. Is she going to be the star if Terry isn’t? The photograph of her predecessor Joan (possibly a photograph of Victoria Vetri) reinforces to Terry how easily a young woman can be disposed of, and no one notices. 1965 saw the burgeoning of the women’s movement and a sexual frankness in America – but misogyny remained king. 

Apartment 7A is a good tension filled and claustrophobic horror film, but it is also an excellent piece of work on bodily autonomy and how the ambitious and driven woman was deemed aberrant and easily corruptible. While not equalling the 1968 film nor Natalie Erika James’ extraordinary debut feature Relic, Apartment 7A proves the devil is not the only evil women need to fear.

Grade: B

Director: Azazel Jacobs
Writer: Azazel Jacobs
Stars: Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen

Synopsis: This tense, touching, and funny portrait of family dynamics follows three estranged sisters as they converge in a New York apartment to care for their ailing father and try to mend their own broken relationship with one another.

Every so often, a film comes along that delivers a profoundly poignant punch, lingering with you long after it’s over. His Three Daughters is that film—a beautifully complicated slice of sour family drama with a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel that few can truly experience. You know the feeling: that moment when you have so much to say to a loved one on their deathbed. You convince yourself you’re helping them when, deep down, you secretly long for them to comfort you as they pass away and let you know everything is going to be alright. 

This moment in Netflix’s His Three Daughters cuts through all the family angst, resentment, and uncomfortable silences, the ones you hope will wash away before your time is up—because nothing is more precious than time.

Very few films resonate as deeply and meaningfully as His Three Daughters. This chamber drama owes much to French Exit’s Azazel Jacobs’ exceptional script and its knockout cast. The film stars Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen, and Natasha Lyonne as the three daughters of Vincent (an outstanding Jay O. Sanders), who is in the final stages of cancer and receiving at-home hospice care.

Jacobs paints a straightforward picture, stripping away most of the melodrama surrounding the realities of Vincent’s hospice care. Coon plays Katie, the eldest sibling, who is accustomed to taking on the parent role and wants everything in order, including a Do Not Resuscitate order. Wisely, the film handles this mainly in the abstract, as Vincent is not “alert enough to sign one.”

For instance, “accidents” can happen with too much medication, or there may be delays in calling paramedics, allowing nature to take its course. Rudy Galvan portrays Angel, the hospice doctor, with a strange yet compelling mix of empathy and bluntness. This rubs Katie the wrong way, while Olsen’s Christina, a former free spirit with kids at home, appreciates it. 

Olsen portrays Christina with middle-child ambiguity, which becomes especially effective when she is finally pushed to her limits. Then there’s the third daughter, the youngest, who appears to be an irresponsible screw-up but is the invisible shoulder no one seems to realize they are leaning on. Lyonne plays Rachel, a pot-smoking betting pro who loves a good three-team parlay as much as a fat blunt with a Snoop Dogg stamp of approval. 

Katie walks all over her, but Rachel has learned to stay quiet and not rock the boat—a common trait for a sibling who has felt like an outsider with her sisters her entire life. Jovan Adepo plays Benjy (Fences, The 3 Body Problem), Rachel’s boyfriend, who encourages her to stand up for herself. As the film progresses into the second and third acts, sparks fly, and words leave their marks. 

While I wish Azazel’s script had more hidden revelations, I came to appreciate how he refuses to pander to melodrama. Each argument concludes with subtle nonconformity and no easy answers. Not every family fight will end with both parties understanding each other. In fact, unlike his pretentious previous film, the filmmaker now seems to understand that each will more likely refuse to see the other’s side. 

All three actresses are revelations in their roles. However, for me, Coon is exceptional here, delivering a much more intricate and complex portrayal that conveys prickly, abrasive alienation alongside a hint of vulnerability. However, when it comes to showstoppers, everyone stand and allow long-time actor Jay O. Sanders to take a bow. His catatonic Vincent performs a jaw-dropping monologue portrayed with a man’s visceral and anxious vulnerability, knowing his last moments are upon him.This final scene, and Sanders’s Oscar-worthy supporting turn, is ultimately therapeutic and one of the most healing you will see in recent memory. His Three Daughters illustrates that accepting death is just as important as living it, and no moment should be wasted.

Grade: A

Director: Josh Cooley
Writers: Eric Pearson, Andrew Barrer, Gabriel Ferrari
Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson

Synopsis: The untold origin story of Optimus Prime and Megatron, better known as sworn enemies, but once were friends bonded like brothers who changed the fate of Cybertron forever.

The consensus around another Transformers movie wasn’t remarkable, with many people, including myself, questioning how much more retconning this franchise could take. This property has been trying to capture a high that led to multiple hundred million dollar box office returns and turned Michael Bay into a household name. However, starting in 2018 with Bumblebee, Paramount decided to step away from Bay as a director and was immediately rewarded with what many consider one of the best films of the entire franchise. The box office numbers remained, and the quality rose; even 2023’s Rise of the Beasts received a higher Rotten Tomato critic score than all but the original Transformers when it came to the Bay era of the franchise.

While the success was there, something kept these films from fully flourishing into a franchise with staying power, and similar to franchises like Jurassic Park, whether it be the lack of freedom or the liberties storytellers have to take to make this whole thing not as confusing, the post-Bay era of Transformers just hasn’t been able to carve out a path that works for them. However, the Bay films are primarily how the current generation sees Transformers. Before them was The Transformers, a Saturday morning cartoon in syndication. For many people who grew up in the ‘80s and ’90s, Transformers didn’t include real people on Earth surrounded by explosions and egregious product placement—it was animation. With Transformers One, this franchise doesn’t just go back to its animated roots; it starts over, ultimately cutting any ties this new film series has to any product that came before, and in doing so, revs up the engines, creating a film that feels both nostalgic and original at the same time.

Transformers One is aptly titled as both a restart to the series, outside of whatever is going on with the live-action films, but also in the context of the story as it begins far before the Autobot vs. Decepticon war, back when Optimus Prime and Megatron were friends, hell, even back before Optimus Prime and Megatron had their names. At this point, and for most of the film, they are Orion Pax (Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (Bryan Tyree Henry), two bots without cogs who cannot transform and are stuck working in the mines trying to harvest the energy of Cybertron. Since the Quintessons arrived and the Primes, aside from Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm), disappeared, the planet of Cybertron stopped producing the energy it needed in abundance, forcing the Transformers to go underground and dig for whatever energy they could find. However, Orion Pax isn’t content with being a miner his whole life and does anything he can to look for clues to find the Matrix of Leadership, a lost cog that also serves as a conduit for Primus’s power, the same power that grants Cybertron its energy. The Matrix of Leadership was lost during the battle with the Quintessons and has been searched for by Sentinel Prime ever since, always coming up empty-handed. Orion Pax and D-16, with the help of Elita-1 (Scarlett Johansson) and B-127 (Keegan-Michael Key), set out to find the Matrix of Leadership. When they discover things on the surface aren’t as they seem, loyalties and friendships are tested.

Director Josh Cooley’s debut feature wasn’t a small one, as he took on Toy Story 4. While I wasn’t a fan of Toy Story 4 and where the story took those characters, the direction was never once an issue. Cooley, whose resume is pretty astounding, proves in his sophomore feature that his vision can be effectively carried out. Hardly wasting any time in the hour and forty-four-minute runtime, Cooley catapults from one action sequence to the next, keeping the pace up and the engagement high. Having the freedom to determine where and how these more than well-known characters come to be can be as tricky as it is imaginative. Cooley effectively lets the story’s visuals take the reins, resulting in some exhilarating action sequences and clever uses of motion blurring that, even though there was nothing too game-changing, was able to look visually fantastic.

Just because the visual style helps tell the story doesn’t mean the script is lacking in any way. Screenwriters Eric Pearson, Andrew Barrer, and Gabriel Ferrari, who have all worked mostly on Marvel projects in the past, come together to give Transformers fans something they’ve never seen. The friendship between Orion Pax and D-16 felt real, and the fallout, while never tear jerking, still maintained an emotional feel. The way Transformers One is laid out highlights the nostalgia as, for the most part, the joy from watching the film is reminiscent of the Saturday morning cartoons. I’m not old enough to remember the original The Transformers series, but I remember what it was like waking up and heading to my TV with no school and no plans. That’s how this movie feels, and the script’s pacing helps embellish that.

The voice acting from a loaded cast of A-listers didn’t hurt either. Bryan Tyree Henry, Keegan-Michael Key, and, of course, Scarlett Johansson are both convincing in their roles, as well as funny and sinister. It’s no surprise that Johansson was able to step up to the plate, but Henry and Key both managed to do more than just show up, which is all you can ask for from someone not trained in voice acting. Even so, it’s clear that Chris Hemsworth was the standout. Thanks to the Bay films, Peter Cullen’s voice has become synonymous with Optimus Prime; however, in Transformers One, Chris Hemsworth gives this character a more personal feel. There is stoicism but also wonder and a desire to achieve more. Hemsworth can match Cullen’s low growl while providing a new take on the character. 

There was also an undertone to the story that I found fascinating throughout. Maybe it’s because we’re a little over a month from a presidential election, but specific ideas surrounding the role of governmental rule, blind following, and false Primes struck a chord. Ideas floated around discussing a person’s role and if they were always destined for a specific future, thanks to the lack of help from their leaders. It also tackled what it means to lead, a timely and effective segway into future Autobot vs. Decepticon battles, providing more understanding of why characters like Megatron (or D-16) feel the way they do about the rule of Cybertron. These underlying themes aren’t what ultimately drives the film, but they do help it to be as good as it is. Both children new to this world and parents looking to understand their own will be able to gravitate towards some aspect meaningfully. It isn’t an innovative look at this topic, but it serves as an exciting pot stirrer if you allow yourself the time to sit with it.
Ultimately, though, Transformers One works with engaging animation, intense voice work, and a story that doesn’t waste many moments while also, even if just slightly, actually having something to say. It’s not a groundbreaking or game-changing animated adaptation/retelling like Spider-Verse, but it doesn’t have to be; it also never tries to be. Similar to the animated series that came before, Transformers One feels nostalgic, like a Saturday morning in front of the television, just a little more cinematic as well.

Grade: B+

Director: Ellen Kuras
Writers: Liz Hannah, Marion Hume, John Collee
Stars: Kate Winslet, Alexander Skarsgård, Andy Samberg

Synopsis: The story of American photographer Lee Miller, a fashion model who became an acclaimed war correspondent for Vogue magazine during World War II.

Well, we are back with the biopics. It never seems to end, does it? I’m not saying that you cannot make a good biographical film, but it seems to be more and more evasive over time. Could Lee be the exception? It certainly seems like a possibility given the background. A movie starring Kate Winslet about a model turned fashion photographer turned war journalist? And during WWII, when enemies were simple and straightforward?  There was certainly a real chance that this would rise above its basic station.

But, alas, it was not to be. Lee suffers from all of the negatives that you think of when biopics come to mind. It errs from nearly the beginning. The script’s structure (from Liz Hannah, Marion Hume, John Collee) makes a fatal error of framing her story through an interview with her as a much older woman. So, there is a bit of a double whammy; a faulty framing device, paired with old age makeup. It’s not so much that it is poorly designed, it’s that it is wholly unnecessary. There are a myriad of ways that one could frame this story. The only positive is that it provides a way to show Lee Miller’s work in photographic form. Sadly, it also tries to add dramatic heft that lands with a distinct thud. 

Given the director, it is not surprising that there are some visual choices that absolutely lift the film out of any doldrums that these choices create. This may be Ellen Kuras’s first narrative directorial effort, but she has been a standout cinematographer for years (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Summer of Sam, I Shot Andy Warhol), and she brings her obvious talent to Lee. Her choice to show us a view from inside Miller’s camera on numerous occasions always works and never overstays its welcome. 

Additionally, the film’s production design, from Gemma Jackson, should be lauded. It constantly feels genuine, as if we have wandered into the late 1930s along with Lee. In moments when she travels into Nazi Germany, with her compatriot, Davey Scherman, there is a visceral reality to the swastika’s and the imagined stench of corpses on a stalled train. Unfortunately, these sequences (leading up to her most famous photo), feel a bit rushed because her life could fill about five films. And this is yet another standard biopic problem that Lee trips over; too much story, not enough time. 

The performances are a bit of a mixed bag, but luckily Winslet is more than up to the task of portraying a complicated, strong woman who should be more of a household name. Samberg is shockingly capable in a dramatic role, but many of the other supporting characters leave much to be desired. Her main love interest, Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgård) starts off strong, just as their relationship does, but as he continues to take up space on the screen, and his accent slips into oblivion, we are practically begging Lee to move on and out. 

Besides Davey, the most impactful and effective relationship is between Lee and Audrey Withers (Andrea Riseborough), her editor at Vogue Magazine. She is a lovely foil for Lee, as she both encourages her and gives a kind voice to the limitations that women face, even in female-focused industries. In a scene late in the movie, which gives Winslet a chance to finally have an explosive moment, it is Riseborough’s pleading that rings through her rage. It is a small but powerful evocation of the importance of Miller’s work from maybe her one true friend and confidant. Frankly, all of the other relationships, featuring known actors such as Noémie Merlant and Marion Cotillard seem to only exist for Lee to engage in frivolity and later, feel sadness about. These do not appear to be actual relationships or bear resemblance to real people. Again, the script tries to stuff everything into a two hour movie that would be better served to either limit itself or expand into some kind of limited miniseries.

Lee is not a bad movie, but it is an annoyingly middling one. It is a waste of a few good performances and of a visually gifted filmmaker. Kuras and Winslet clearly have passion for the story of Lee Miller, but a variety of missteps keep us all even further away from a difficult, interesting, important, and powerful woman. 

Grade: C

Director: Susanna Fogel
Writer: Kerry Howley
Stars: Emilia Jones, Connie Britton, Zach Galifianakis

Synopsis: Winner is a brilliant young misfit from Texas who finds her morals challenged while serving in the U.S. Air Force and working as an NSA contractor.

“Based on reality”

There is one clear winner in Susanna Fogel’s unsteady biopic of whistleblower Reality Winner, and that is Emilia Jones. Without Jones’ commitment to, at the very least, physically embodying the contradictory woman at the film’s center, there is little chance the tonally bizarre Winner could work at all.

Winner is the kind of biographical film where “truthiness” (to quote Stephen Colbert) is employed for entertainment and narrative reasoning. The script, written by journalist Kerry Howley based on her interviews with Reality Winner and turned into the article ‘Who is Reality Winner,’ can’t decide if it wants to be a comedy, a drama, a character study, or a critique of the political milieu which saw Winner heavily punished under the espionage act. Think Adam McKay indulging in his “Have you noticed what a mess America is?” satires over the tense and more illuminating Reality by Tina Satter.

Fogler employs a near constant voice over by Jones which is often unnecessary and downright cringeworthy at times. The voice over begins the film with a kind of “So, you might be wondering how I got here,” device where Reality defines the moment as a nine-year-old when she became a ‘person of interest’ to the government. It wasn’t the moment after hearing from her father Ron (Zach Galifianakis) about puppy farming at a pet store when she released all the puppies on her sister Brittany’s birthday. It was a few days after that, on 9/11, when she watched with her family as the Twin Towers fell. Later, she asked her dad why people didn’t speak with the hijackers. “If we could communicate better, we wouldn’t have as many wars.” Reality decided to learn Arabic.

Flash forward to Reality as a senior in a Texan high school. She’s rebel coded with her pink dyed hair and Amnesty International t-shirts. An Air Force recruiter presents at her school and Reality corrects him in Pashto about some patriotic “fact” he presents. She piques his interest, and he tries to get her to enlist. It’s a no go as Reality wants to study at Texas A&M with an aim to go into humanitarian aid. Her sister, Brittany (Kathryn Newton), is already in college. Her mom, Billie (Connie Britton), is a social welfare worker and the sole income for the family. Ron has a surfeit of degrees but hasn’t had a job. He’s also popping painkillers on a regular basis. He’s still Reality’s hero and political guide. When he finds out she has decided to enlist because she was contacted by a woman claiming that she will do mostly interpretation for humanitarian reasons, he is disappointed but trusts she will do the right thing.

The film doesn’t spend a lot of time with Reality in basic training – it shows her learning Farsi and Dari and not being selected after her training to go overseas as a translator but rather as a cryptolinguist monitoring communications for terrorist activity. In Maryland’s Fort Meade, Reality proves to be one of the more skilled translators. More than her friend Kaylee (Shannon Berry), with whom she bonds as there aren’t that many other women around. When she’s not picking up terrorist activity leading to remote drone strikes, she’s exercising to excess in her CrossFit gym, volunteering, and donating to various charities. Reality is being worn down by the deaths she feels she’s complicit in and begins making mental deals with herself; if she can run a certain number of miles in a specific time then what she did saved more lives than it took. If she can do a punishing number of sit ups, they were all bad people.

Feeling isolated and missing home, she goes to a bar where she meets Andre (Danny Ramirez) who works there part time to make enough money to get into veterinarian school. He knows her from the gym, and they strike up a conversation which leads to Reality perhaps spilling more secrets than she should about her work. They have a good-natured flirtation, but Reality tells him she doesn’t date. Eventually, after spending time together, including dognapping a neglected animal freezing in the Maryland winter, they begin a live-in relationship. Life isn’t perfect for Reality, but it’s more normal than she’s accustomed to. When her tenure with the Airforce is finally over, she can either follow Andre to another state while he attends college or do what she always wanted – become a part of a volunteer program for people living in poverty. She chooses to follow her own path.

Back in Texas, life has changed significantly for the rest of the Winner family. Brittany marries the very conservative Taylor (Sam Duke) who has disapproved of Reality from their first meeting. Ron’s drinking and painkiller addiction has gotten out of hand and Billie is filing for divorce. Ron is defeated, knowing he will probably never write his philosophical book – but his legacy is Reality. Reality is furious with her mother and Brittany for turning their backs on him. 

The program she thought she was hired for, Friends Across the World NGO, turns her down because she doesn’t have a college education – and despite all her years of community volunteering, her time in the army doesn’t count as formal education. Reality muses in voice over that “The United States makes it hard to help people. It makes it easier to hurt people,” linking how billion-dollar corporations pass down money to doctors to prescribe their painkillers but no-one does anything for the people who become addicted to them – leading to Ron and his failing health and increasing lack of coherence.

Ron has a heart condition and no health insurance, and Reality does the one thing she didn’t think she’d do. She becomes an NSA contractor to pay for his care. This is where, bombarded by Fox News on the office television, Reality finds evidence of Russian interreference in the election (via hacking voting machines) which claimed Trump the President. She decides that it is in the best interest of the people that they know. A belief which is cemented when her father after suffering congestive heart failure tells her in the hospital that despite her working for the NSA, “You’re still you, you can still do some damage. You’ve always known what your hills are.” That hill is printing out the documents, getting them past security in her pantyhose, and sending them to The Interceptor.

The film then goes through the FBI turning up at her home, the bail application, her remand to custody where she is subjected to “Diesel Therapy” and put in solitary, the trial and the sentencing. She receives the longest sentence in U.S. history for leaking documents. “What can I say? I like to win,” the narration quips.

Considering the seriousness of the subject matter – especially once Reality is caught for what she did and the near torture she endured in the lead up to her trial – Winner is confounding in its insistence on using so much sarcastic comedy and droll dialogue. Fogel suggests that Reality has a form of OCD (there is a book in her luggage about it, and the constant mental bargaining) but she doesn’t follow through on it. There are hints of Reality’s bulimia, but she vomits during times of extreme stress, not habitually. The target on Reality’s back is made clear during the trial and Billie’s subsequent fight for her daughter, but there is always a wisecrack somewhere that Kerry Howley inserts that doesn’t land. Reality comes off as painfully naïve under all the righteous bravado.

As to the “truthiness” of the film – so much of it is made up that “Based on reality” with either and uppercase or lower-case R is apt. Andre didn’t exist. Ron and Billie divorced when Reality was eight. Reality travelling overseas was never brought up. The fact that her stepfather raised her is wiped completely from the work. The deathbed speech didn’t happen. Reality Winner is more libertarian than bleeding heart lefty, but that’s also something Fogel’s film avoids. There was no need to fabricate large parts of the film as what actually occurred is fascinating on its own terms.

Emilia Jones and Zach Galifianakis are excellent, especially in their scenes together and keep the film from tumbling into blather. Emilia Jones particularly shines even when she’s given slight material. Connie Britton is a strong as Reality’s stoic mother, and Kathryn Newton is good in a cast-against-type role as Brittany. Danny Ramirez, too, is solid as the charming and supportive Andre.

Reality spends a lot of time talking about her name and how it’s the only thing people will really remember her for. The news story was eventually published by The Interceptor but, by the time it was, America was already in complete distraction mode. Susanna Fogel’s film isn’t going to do a great deal to bring Reality Winner back into the public consciousness because the Reality Winner of the film is an oblique character; there are too many versions of Reality, and they don’t gel. “Where would I be if I didn’t think so much? If I wasn’t such a pain in the ass? If I didn’t have to say something?” the voiceover asks at the end. It’s a hard question to answer.

Winner has some excellent scenes and sections but forced humor undermines the gut-punch sections. One suspects Susanna Fogel doesn’t want the audience to ask, “Was Reality always unhinged, or was she worn down by trauma from dealing with the Military Industrial Complex?” She certainly doesn’t want the audience to question her bravery in taking the classified documents – but Winner (not by design) does murky the waters. 

People wondered how a Pokémon loving, yoga practicing, gun toting, vegetarian, CrossFit obsessed young veteran became a whistleblower and object warning to the American people. After Winner they’ll still be wondering. Winner struggles with the serio-comic tone chosen by Susanna Fogel and Reality Winner doesn’t feel real.

Grade: C