“The Lobster” [Review]
The skewed-universe logic of Yorgos Lanthimos‘ terrific “Dogtooth” is expanded and transformed in “The Lobster,” but also crossbred with a sort of against-the-odds romanticism to yield a completely beguiling and often deadpan-hilarious cocktail of bizarre and brilliant. Detailing a society in which coupledom is mandated, on pain of being turned into an animal if you fail to pair off, it sees newly dumped David (Colin Farrell) trying manfully to obey the rules, until he fails and flees into the nearby forest only to discover that the no-coupling rule of the rebels is just as hard to adhere to, and just as dictatorially enforced. Co-starring Rachel Weisz, Léa Seydoux, Olivia Colman, Ben Whishaw and John C. Reilly, all of whom manage to get themselves onto Lanthimos’ bonkers wavelength (though Farrell remains the standout — if only for the moment where he hesitates having been asked to define his sexuality), it is split into two distinct halves, which gave some critics pause. But the halves are so clearly separate but complementary that, for us, that shows Lanthimos’ playfulness even on a meta, formal level: This is a film about twosomes, after all.
“Louder Than Bombs” [Review]
As huge fans of Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s earlier films “Reprise” and “Oslo, August 31st,” we were enormously amped for his English-language debut “Louder Than Bombs.” The film proved to be something of a curate’s egg, one that received a highly mixed response both at Cannes and on release this year, but also one that we love to bits. Novelistic and unruly, it follows the Reed family two years after the death of their matriarch (Isabelle Huppert), a war photographer who committed suicide, and the way they all cope, or fail to cope, with her passing. So far, so familiar, but Trier uses the set-up as springboard to jump through time, reality and memory, examining the wide-reaching ripples caused by a death, and the way in which the three Reed men (Gabriel Byrne, Jesse Eisenberg and Devin Druid) lie to themselves and each other about how they’re doing. It’s a fascinating puzzle box of a film, a proper work of art that doesn’t spoonfeed you easy answers, and it’s one of the most nourishing evenings we’ve had with a movie in a long while. A film that’ll only grow in estimation over time.
“Love & Friendship” [Review]
Such a perfect match of filmmaker and material is “Love & Friendship” that even those who resisted Whit Stillman’s earlier work — who found his wry, literate looks at class and social mores too arch and mannered — have found themselves being converted. That’s how good “Love & Friendship,” Stillman’s fifth feature and his first adaptation — in this case, of Jane Austen’s “Lady Susan” — is. But again, Stillman’s always been making contemporary versions of an Austen-esque comedy of manners: Adapting the writer has only just put his films into a more familiar context. Either way, it’s a delight to see the director’s work finding a significant audience: The film remains utterly his, while also suggesting an understanding of Austen that few movies can match. And watching Kate Beckinsale’s Lady Susan Vernon, in the performance of a career, plot to find matches for both herself and her daughter, among a very fine cast (including a scene-stealing Tom Bennett, sure to blow up after this), feels like watching the actress fulfill a potential that she seems to have neglected for some time. Even if you have a mortal fear of costume dramas, you should find something deeply pleasurable here.
“Maggie’s Plan” [Review]
Actress, screenwriter, novelist and director Rebecca Miller has never quite got the props that she’s deserved, despite a number of very good films including “Personal Velocity” and “The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee.” But her most accessible picture so far arrived this year with “Maggie’s Plan,” and what our Kevin called a “witty, observational and hilarious” film deserves to connect with people in a big way. Following a young, broody New Yorker (Greta Gerwig) who falls for an older professor (Ethan Hawke), and then later tries to reunite him with his wife (Julianne Moore), it’s lighter than most of Miller’s earlier work, but pleasingly so: a “richly complex dramedy that proves to be the rare picture that serves both halves of that genre description fully, equally, and satisfyingly.” The cast, also including Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph and Travis Fimmel, are all doing lovely work, but it’s Gerwig that’s again the standout, playing in a similar mode to her recent films with Noah Baumbach but with Miller’s own different and distinct rhythms. A grown-up romantic comedy that’s worth seeking out right now as an antidote to the blockbuster season.
“Midnight Special” [Review]
Jeff Nichols‘ low-key sci-fi parable perhaps underwhelmed those who went in hoping for the more overt Spielberg/Carpenter homage that was teased, but if you were in the market for a bruising, heartfelt and oddly cathartic story of fatherhood and unselfish parental love, you were in for a treat. A road movie powered by Nichols’ typically restrained intelligence purring away under the hood, the film boasts terrific performances across the board, especially from Michael Shannon and Kirsten Dunst as the “gifted” boy’s parents, Adam Driver in a brief but welcome cameo, and from Joel Edgerton as their dogged best friend. Fielding what is in many ways the opposite moral to a standard family drama (sometimes the only way to love someone right is to let them go, and to admit that just because you love them most doesn’t mean they belong to you), it’s a beautiful, sorrowful journey that our characters go on, and if the very ending of the film is slightly anticlimactic, and perhaps shows a little too much of what would have been better left to our imagination, the cumulative power of all that has come before is what really stays with you.