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The Woman in the Window

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In The Woman in the Window, Amy Adams plays Anna, an agorophobic-asexual-alcoholic child psychologist who’s life turns into a weak copy of Rear Window.  The movie mainly exists as a device to persecute and torture Amy Adams’s character.  If you enjoyed seeing Adams essentially repeat her character from Sharp Objects, you may enjoy this movie.  As it stands, the movie doesn’t let her take any pleasure from her voyeurism, and instead repeatedly punishes Anna for her transgressions, past and present.  She’s Joan of Arc with a telephoto lens.  Not recommended.

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The Truffle Hunters

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The Truffle Hunters ostensibly is a documentary about several (very) old men who look for the rare white truffle in the Piedmont region of northern Italy.  Every scene is framed and captured with the skill of Italian Master.  The movie is not your typical documentary, however.  It does not explain why truffles grow where they do, or how the truffle hunters find them.  Those are trade secrets that the hunters will take with them to the grave.  Instead, the movie is an affectionate  character study of the men whose profession remains untouched by time or technological progress.  And if you love dogs, this movie is a must-see.  Highly recommended.

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Things Heard & Seen

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Things Heard & Seen is an unwieldy amalgamation of two genres: disintegrating marriage and haunted house.  While both elements of this surf-and-turf narrative are mildly interesting on their own, the combination of the two ultimately is not rewarding, with one cheapening the impact of the other.  Further confusing things is the ending, which applies a #MeTo, “sisterhood of the ghosts” resolution as a way of justifying the misery that compromises almost all of the movie’s runtime.  The ending is as bizarre as it sounds, and must be seen to be believed.  In spite of all that, and the fact that I don’t recommend watching this movie, I can’t entirely dismiss it, either.

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Another Round

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The story of four middle-aged men in Denmark who decide to engage in a psychological experiment: to see whether living life slightly tipsy makes them better teachers.  Their teaching actually improves, and they confirm that having a drink (or two) helps to put one’s troubles aside temporarily and live and in the moment (surprise, surprise).  Their personal lives take some unexpected turns, however.  Just like with car performance, your life on alcohol may vary.  For the characters in this movie, it’s a choice between soberly dealing with depression and regret on a daily basis, or letting yourself be free enough to let loose and dance.  Highly recommended (unless you’re a teetotaler).

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The Unholy

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The Unholy is a throwback to horror movies from the Seventies, like The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror.  Its present day inspiration would be the Conjuring movies, with their focus on normal, everyday people confronting evil from a Christian perspective.  Unlike the Conjuring movies, The Unholy takes a more humanistic approach for most of its running time, focusing more on the characters trying to understand the mysterious events happening around them and less on evil beings and bombastic displays of satanic power. Its message of mistaking evil for the divine is a timely one. Recommended.

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Come Play

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“Once you take Larry’s hand, you’ll never be alone again.”

Misunderstood Monsters

Come Play is a very effective low-fi scare movie.  The movie is the first I’ve seen where the haunted is portrayed as autistic.  Oliver is a young autistic boy who has unwittingly attracted the attention of Larry, a ghoul from another dimension.  Larry wants Oliver to be his friend, and creates a picture book that, when someone reads it to the end, allows Larry to cross over into our world.  As Horror movie hooks go, the one used by Come Play is as incredulous as any other.  What elevates this movie above others is its excellent pacing, realistic direction and solid acting.  Similar to Insidious and Lights Out, what you don’t see is scarier than what you actually see.  Highly recommended.

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Lupin (Netflix)

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Lupin stars Omar Sy as Assane Diop, a Senegalese immigrant in France who models his life on the twentieth century thief Arsène Lupin. Known as the “gentleman burgler”, Assane has a gift as a chameleon, able to change his appearance and slip into various roles with ease whenever necessary. The sudden reappearance of a necklace that lead to his father’s incarceration and death spurs Assane to both steal it and prove his father’s innocence. Sy has charm to spare, the various heists are exciting to watch and every episode feels like a feature film. Lupin also addresses the racism that lead to the death of Assane’s father, and that he still deals with in modern France twenty five years later. Lupin is solidly entertaining, with a message that is as deftly delivered as it is timely. Highly recommended.

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The Courier

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The Courier is a well made and well acted cold war spy movie, but it doesn’t make the impact that it should.  Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Greville Wynne, an everyman recruited by the CIA and MI6 to act as a courier for a high-level contact within the GRU.  I appreciated the production values used to recreate Sixties London and Moscow.  Several performances, including those by Rachel Brosnahan as a CIA agent and Merab Ninidze as spy Oleg Penkovsky stand out. The movie becomes affecting when both heroes are in prison, but before then, it’s a very slow boil.  Lightly recommended.

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