The Piano Lesson (2024): It’s a Family Affair

by Len Weiler

The new movie, The Piano Lesson, is a film adaptation of the playwright August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize winning stage drama of the same name, which originally premiered in 1987. The play is amazing and the new movie is damn good as well. Taking us into the heart of a 1930s African-American family as it  struggles with past demons and future aspirations, it is gripping, emotionally charged and thrillingly dramatic - while also nuanced, empathetic and sweet.   The Piano Lesson just opened in theaters and will soon be available for home viewing as well (see below). 

August Wilson dropped out of high school when he was sixteen. Nothing was handed to him. As a playwright, he was self-taught. And still, he produced some of the strongest, most enthralling, literate plays produced by any American in the twentieth century. All of his work contains echos of the racism that has always been part of the African American experience. But it encompasses so much more as well.    

Wilson wrote The Piano Lesson as part of a series of ten plays set in Wilson’s hometown of Pittsburgh, PA, which have become known his Pittsburgh Cycle – a.k.a. the Century Cycle, as each play has been set in a different decade of the 20th century - starting with the 1900s [i.e. the “oughts”] through the 1990s. The Piano Lesson is the fifth of these plays that Wilson wrote, but the fourth chronologically in the cycle, taking place in 1936. 

It is also the third picture in the cycle to be produced by Denzel Washington, following Fences (2016), in which Denzel also starred, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020). He plans to produce films based on each of the remaining seven plays in the cycle as well. Denzel does not appear in The Piano Lesson, but it is executive produced by his daughter Katia; directed by his youngest son Malcolm, who also co-wrote the screenplay; and stars his oldest son John David Washington [Tenet (2020), BlacKkKlansman (2018)]. So it is quite a family affair.  The Piano Lesson also stars Danielle Deadwyler [Station Eleven (2011-12), Till (2022)], Samuel L. Jackson [Pulp Fiction (1994), The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey (2022)] and Ray Fisher [Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021)]. 

The story takes place in a house owned by Doaker Charles (Jackson). His brother’s daughter Berniece Charles (Deadwyler) also resides there along with her eleven-year-old daughter Maretha [Skylar Aleece Smith], having moved to Pittsburgh from Mississippi a few years ago. In the parlor of the Doaker house is an old piano, also from Mississippi, which has been bound up tragically with the history of the Charles family since their ancestors were slaves there. 

Out of the blue one day, Berniece’s brother Boy Willie (J.D.Washington) and his friend Lymon (Fisher) show up unannounced at the Doaker house, with a truckload of watermelons they plan to sell in the city to get some cash. The other reason for their visit is the piano. 

Boy Willie, a cocksure motormouth if ever there was one, sees himself as practical and ambitious. He says he has an opportunity to buy what remains of the plantation where his ancestors were enslaved. Wouldn’t that be something? He’s just a sharecropper now, but as a landowner he’d be somebody.  And the land is just a start: with it, he can prosper, build-up some wealth and be his own man, self-sufficient. The thing is - Boy Willie needs to sell the piano to get the money. 

Berniece doesn’t see it that way. The piano is our heritage and our legacy, she says, a manifest connection to our past, defining who we are and will be. The Sutters - the Charles family's white enslavers back in the day, acquired that piano by selling off Berniece and Boy Willie’s grandparents. Sometime later, their great-grandfather carved images of his enslaved wife and family onto the piano as a remembrance. Later still, their father was murdered for stealing it from the Sutters. As the film’s promo declares: “Blood is a chord that resonates through time.” Keeping the piano in the family is more important than a pie in the sky scheme to buy some land in the racist South, Berniece says.  And she will not consent to sell it, no matter what Willie Boy thinks he can do with the money.  

Key historical events from 1911 Mississippi, which in the play are revealed exclusively via “present day” dialogue, are rendered via flashbacks in the movie, and there are a couple of scenes in a nightclub. But most of the action in The Piano Lesson takes place in Doaker’s house, mostly in the front parlor (where the piano resides), with a few scenes in the kitchen or  upstairs rooms; and there’s no mistaking that we're seeing a cinematic rendering of a play. So yes, it is “stagey” – but in a good way. Like having the best seats in the house at a theatrical production – one with terrific actors giving awesome performances. 

The consensus, with which I fully agree, is that Deadwyler’s is the most magnetic and brilliant, the emotional center of the film.  Whenever she’s around – which is most of the time - she is riveting.  I'm anticipating numerous nominations for best actress awards.  J.D. Washington is also great, but his character is difficult to like, so it takes awhile to appreciate what a good job the actor is doing. Fisher’s Lymon is a bit comical and also sweetly naïve. The other supporting players are solid as well.   

Denzel Washington has said of Wilson:  “His stories are specifically African American stories, But the themes are universal. Families, love, betrayal, whatever the theme is. [All] people relate to this.”  And he is right. While this is a movie with an exclusively Black ensemble – other than briefly in the 1911 segment, I can’t recall a single white face – it’s a movie for everyone. 

Wilson, looking back on his accomplishments, noted that hardship (which we all face one way or another) is the essence of all human drama. I especially like this quote: I once wrote this short story called ‘The Best Blues Singer In The World’, and it went like this – "The streets that Balboa walked were his own private ocean, And Balboa was drowning". End of story. That says it all. I've been rewriting that same story over and over again. All my plays are rewriting that same story. 

There is no body of water in The Piano Lesson (other than the truckload of melons), but there is the sense that drowning is a real possibility. Berniece is still grieving her dead husband. She recalls her mother grieving the brutal murder of her husband (Berniece and Boy Willie’s dad). Lyman really wants to connect with a good woman, but he doesn’t know how. He and Boy Willie only recently got out of the clink and both their future prospects are uncertain, to say the least.  The great depression has eased, but not by a lot. Life is tough.

And I haven’t even mentioned the ghosts. 

I strongly recommend The Piano Lesson. Great writing. Great performances. A boldly dramatic story. Strong direction. It’s just a very solid, absorbing, intelligent and entertaining picture.  

2 hours 5 minutes PG-13

Grade: A

Currently in select theaters nationwide. Begins streaming on Netflix on November 22, 2024.

Blitz (2024): Hope in a Hellish Situation

    by Len Weiler

Blitz was an intense bombing campaign by the Nazi Luftwaffe over roughly seven months between early September 1940 and mid-May 1941. Although industrial plants and port facilities were targeted, the majority of bombs were dropped indiscriminately on civilian areas most particularly in London, the British capital. More than a million houses were destroyed or damaged there, and tens of thousands were killed. It was not only deadly and destructive, but terrifying – particularly as the majority of bombing raids were conducted at night. The aim of these attacks was to demoralize the British people and their will to resist, hopefully taking the U.K. out of the war. This it failed to do. 

Far from cowing the Brits into submission and surrender, The Blitz accomplished the opposite: it inspired a widely felt, resolute attitude of perseverance and resistance. Broadly speaking this is what the new film Blitz is about. It’s not literally a true story, but it truthfully shows what living through the Blitz was like: how the lives of ordinary people in London were affected by the bombing, what it felt like for them, how they coped with the fear, the devastation and the uncertainty. Even without hearing Churchill’s powerful, patriotic speeches about defending to the death their native soil, fighting on the beaches, in the fields and the hills, in the streets, and never surrendering – we can see and feel the indomitable heart, fortitude and spirit of a people united. 

Blitz is a big budget production, with no scrimping on its depiction of the scope and horror of the bombings and the awful destruction it wrought; reproducing the scenes of thousands of citizens sheltering overnight every night on the platforms and even on the tracks of London’s deep Tube stations to escape the bombings; while also portraying the remarkable wartime camaraderie with which so many besieged Londoners endured what became their finest hour.

The picture works by focusing on a few characters with which we viewers can relate. The big-name star of Blitz is Saoirse Ronan, whose other 2024 film, The Outrun, is currently in theaters. See my recent review of that film HERE. In Blitz, Ronan plays Rita, a young mother of a 9-year-old son, George [Elliot Heffernan]. Rita and George live in London with Rita’s father/George’s grandfather Gerald (Paul Weller – the rock star singer-songwriter-musician). To protect her son from the manifest dangers of the Blitz, Rita – like hundreds of thousands of other parents of young children – reluctantly decides, over George’s strenuous objections, to send him off to the countryside under the evacuation program known as Operation Pied Piper. 

Their parting at a train station is strained, to say the least, with George outspokenly expressing his anger, as he runs away from her. Taunted by some other boys on the train because of his mixed heritage, he decides to jump ship and head back home, which – when the train slows down a bit – is just what he does. And just like that, we have a split narrative – one about Rita’s life in London under the Blitz, and one about George’s attempt to find his way back to London and his family. 

Rita’s experience is a mixed bag, reflecting how young folks coped with the war generally –  working at the factory, drinking and dancing (and even singing) at various waterholes in the evening, huddling in makeshift shelters during bombing raids, helping, if she can, at bombsites afterwards. Trying to keep her chin up … until she learns that her son did not arrive at his rural destination, having apparently jumped off the train along the way. Now she is frantic with worry and spends all her free time searching for him.       

Initially, young George does the most sensible thing. Knowing no other way to find his way back into London, he just follows the train track back the way it came. While the train had not travelled all that far by the time he chose to leave it, but it is already a completely unknown rural landscape he must initially navigate. In his favor, George is enterprising. Along the way, he meets several adults who offer assistance, the problem being that some turn out to be Dickensian characters, interested only in using him to help themselves – think Fagin’s evil gang in Oliver Twist - while, luckily, others really do want to help – among them the ARP officer Ife (Benjamin Clémentine). George’s journey home is by far the more compelling of the two strands of narrative. It’s like a well-done child’s adventure story. In fact, that’s just what it is, helped considerably by 11-year old Heffernan’s terrific debut performance. 

As Rita, Ronan does the best she can, but she has the tougher job. Although Rita serves as our guide to how Londoners are faring through the Blitz, Ronan is given neither the time nor the dramatic opportunity to really fill in her character.  Even Rita’s final scene of the film, which should have been especially evocative, comes across a bit flat and too rushed to properly register – as if Blitz had a two-hour time limit and the director, Steve McQueen, was afraid he’d run over.  (In fact, the stated run-time of the film is exactly 120 minutes.)

Nonetheless, Ronan's performance is solid and heartfelt, and so is the film itself.  One gets the sense that McQueen was aiming to make something great, however, and in that sense Blitz falls a little short. The individual stories are not uninteresting – my interest in the proceedings never waned as I was watching - but they’re not as fascinating or as compelling as they sought to be or ought to be.   

Blitz is McQueen’s sixth feature film, the first five being Hunger (2008) about IRA activist/martyr Bobby Sands, starring Michael Fassbender; Shame (2011) about a sex-addicted young man (Fassbender again), whose life tilts when his wayward sister (Carey Mulligan) decides to move in; 12 Years A Slave (2013) an adaptation of the slave narrative [memoir] by Solomon Northup, a free black man from upstate New York who was abducted and sold into slavery – nominated for nine Oscars and winner of three including Best Picture of the Year; Widows (2018) a revenge film about a heist, starring Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez Elizabeth Debecki, Cynthia Erivo, and Liam Neeson; and Occupied City (2023), an epic documentary about the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam in WW2 and the manifestation of the holocaust there. Then there is the award-winning anthology, Small Axe (2020), an anthology of five films – seven hours all-told – reflecting the real-life experiences of people in London’s West Indian community between 1969 and 1982. [Read my 2021 review.] All of these projects were well received critically, and all were profitable.

My point is that McQueen is an accomplished director, arguably a great one, with a remarkably varied filmography. It's almost always worthwhile to watch movies by good directors, and such is the case here. While Blitz may not be McQueen's absolute best movie, it is a darned good one and has plenty to offer: high production values, fascinating history, adventure, heroism, and solid entertainment. 

2 hours                                                    Rated PG-13 

Grade: B+

In theaters beginning Friday November 1, 2024. Streaming release date: November 22 on Apple TV+.

Conclave (2024): Holy(?) Fathers

by Len Weiler

This is the second of two movie reviews I’m publishing today about upcoming feature films that I was able to catch at last week’s Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF). This one is about Conclave, the previous one is a review of the new Sean Baker picture, Anora, which you can check out via the link HERE. These two movies were among my favorites at the festival, although they couldn’t be more different. I expect to review a few more favorites over the next two or three weeks.  

Conclave was the opening night film at MVFF. It’s directed by Edgar Berger, and stars a magnetic Ralph Fiennes. As the title suggests, it’s about a Roman Catholic conclave – the secretive, dramatic tradition-bound gathering of the world’s cardinals at the Vatican following the death of a pope, whose task it is to select his successor. The film is based on the 2016 novel by best-selling author Robert Harris [Fatherland (1992), Archangel (1998), Munich (2017)]. As an opening night film, it was wildly successful – everyone I spoke to at the festival quite liked it. As it turned out, Conclave won the MVFF Audience Favorite award. It’s opening in theaters soon (see below)

Berger is best known for having directed [and cowritten] 2022’s All Quiet On the Western Front, winner of four Oscars including Best International Film. [Read my February 2023 review HERE.]  In some ways the new film could not be more different than that one. 

All Quiet is a war movie and, more than most war pictures, spends much of its time depicting large scale battles and the nasty, fraught life of foot soldiers in the trenches - which is to say in the wide, war-torn outdoors. The film’s terrific cinematography is depressingly bleak – which (aside from the horrific subject matter) is largely due to its reliance on desaturated colors – pale grays, blues, and greens, chalky skin tones, and so forth.

By contrast, Conclave is mostly set in the sumptuous inner sanctum of the Vatican - every detail of the extravagant interior rich and extravagant. Over a hundred cardinals are gathered, dressed in gold brocaded cassocks of cardinal red or the occasional deep blue or purest white, with red zucchetti or white peaked mitres on their heads, and large bejeweled crosses hanging from their necks. They convene in a magnificent chamber with a high, elaborately frescoed ceilings, marbled walls, ruby or gold draperies, ornate furnishings,  and  ...  well, everything you’d expect of the Vatican.

The cardinals’ voting is by secret ballot. Until there is a super majority they must keep voting until they get one. Several cardinals – representing disparate ecclesiastic philosophies, nationalities  and temperaments – are ambitious for the job and the immense power over the world’s 1.3 billion adherents  that comes with it.  But none starts out with anything close to the votes needed. 

Fiennes is Cardinal Lawrence, dean of the cardinals. His job - to preside over and manage the conclave – is one he didn’t want and doesn’t like. As open senatorial style debate is not permitted, the fraught, high-pressure maneuvering between the various aspirants and their factions is pursued only when the group is not in session, in the shadows so to speak. There are intense rivalries, intrigues,  scandalous secrets or rumors of secrets, good guys and bad guys - depending on your point of view.  

The dour Lawrence finds himself, reluctantly, at the epicenter of all this.  His fortitude is tested as are his personal friendships and loyalties. The tightly woven plot quickly thickens, enriched with unexpected twists and turns and increasingly high tension and emotion. 

A completely engrossing and highly entertaining dramatic thriller, Conclave is well worth your time -beautiful, mysterious, thrilling, dark, quite surprising (even shocking) at times and a lot of fun. The movie features numerous excellent performances, not the least from Fiennes, who is superb. Also featured are Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow and Isabella Rossellini (as Sister Agnes, leader of the Vatican nuns). Lesser known in this country, but also excellent in key roles are Sergio Castellito,  Lucian Msamati, and Carlos Diehz, as a mysterious cardinal, largely unknown to the rest of the gathering.  

Conclave is likely to be nominated for bunches of awards come January. It is one of the richest and most satisfying movies of the year so far.  

2 hours Rated PG

Grade: A-

In theaters beginning 10/25/2024

Anora (2024): Hilarious and Poignant Alt-Fairy Tale

                                                                by Len Weiler

The Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF) is a great showcase for new world-class movies.  It screens scores of upcoming films, international and domestic, documentaries and narrative films, including many award-hopefuls expected to be released in the coming weeks and months. It’s also relatively low key and reasonably accessible. For me it has the additional advantage of being held in Marin County, California only about a forty-five minute drive from my home. The 2024 MVFF – which ran from October 3 through 13 - included films by great directors like Almodóvar, Edgar Berger, Sean Baker, Marielle Heller, and Steve McQueen, with stars like Amy Adams, Saoirse Ronin, Ralph Fiennes, John David Washington, Jude Law, and Zoe Zaldana.   

I was able to see fifteen of these films, of which I liked or loved thirteen – an excellent batting average. Today, because they are about to have their theatrical releases, I am publishing reviews of two of the best: Conclave and Anora.  I hope to review a few more of the movies I enjoyed over the coming weeks. Anora is the first of these to be released, so I’ll begin with that. 

Anora

Independent filmmaker Sean Beker’s latest movie, Anora, was a much-anticipated arrival at MVFF, having won the coveted top prize (Palm d’Or) at the Cannes Film Festival this past Spring. Baker’s last three films, Tangerine (2015), The Florida Project (2017), and Red Rocket (2021) were all critical favorites.  True to form only more so, Anora and its ascendent star,  Mikey Madison, have received a string of accolades from film critics world wide – like Peter Debruge in Variety [“Sparkles like the tinsel in its leading lady’s hair”], Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian [ “Amazing, full-throttle tragicomedy of romance, denial and betrayal … [and] a terrific performance from Madison”], Jessica Kiang in Sight and Sound [“By turns swoony, funny, panicky and sad, this is the director's most vivid creation yet.”] and Justin Chang in The New Yorker [“A strip-club Cinderella story - and a farce to be reckoned with”]. 

I’ll just start by saying that Anora is a smart, very funny, insightful, sensitive and thrilling film that I’ll not soon forget. And 25-year-old Mikey [Mikaela] Madison, as the title character, is a revelation. Madison is probably best known for her featured role as the teenage Max in the series Better Things, which ran from 2016 to 2022; and for her portrayal of the crazed, screaming would-be-killer Susan “Sadie” Atkins in the last segment of Once Upon A Time in Hollywood (2019). Madison is in every scene of Anora, and she’s the heart and soul of the picture. The best way to describe her phenomenal performance is, in a word, WOW!  It’s a real breakout performance by a rising star.

Anora is a modern-day fairy tale, albeit a twisted one. In the traditional story, Cinderella spends most of the tale trying to connect with a handsome Prince (and vice versa), thwarted at every turn by her wicked stepmother, until magic brings the two together and they marry, living happily thereafter - a union that was meant to be. Here, Anora, who goes by Ani, is a sex worker in a Brooklyn nightclub, cozying up to male customers, and giving lap dances for/to them in the VIP room.  There’s no wicked step-mom and moreover, Ani seems not to dislike her job, which she’s very good at.  The connection part happens early on when a wealthy young customer named Ivan (Mark Eidelshtein) falls head over heels for Ani. He’s not an actual prince, but he is the spoiled son of a hideously rich Russian family, which is about as close as a girl can get these days. But this is definitely NOT a relationship that was meant to be.

Ivan, also known as Vanya, is happy to spend barrels of cash on Ani, so she’s game. Plus, he is cute, fun-loving, and roughly her own age, unlike most of her clients, so she likes him. Soon, the action moves from the club to his fabulous mansion, and it’s party time all the time, with Ani raking in some big bucks all the while. When the besotted Ivan convinces a skeptical Ani that they should get married, they, along with Ivan’s posse, take a spur of the moment trip (private jet of course) to Vegas. It really seems like a fairy tale to Ani.

But before the ink has dried on the marriage certificate, the shit hits the fan. And it's what happens next that takes up most of the story. Word reaches Nicolai Zakharov and Galina Zakharov, Ivan’s oligarch parents in Moscow, and they, especially Galina [Darya Ekamasova], are not amused. 

Nor, for that matter are they bemused. Galya is on the case in an instant, ordering their Brooklyn fixer, Toros, to grab their dimwit son and his harlot, tear them asunder, and keep them – especially Ivan - under lock and key until they get there.  The Zakharovs head immediately to the airport.  The timing couldn’t be worse for Toros (Karren Karagullian) when he gets the call, which makes for an amusing moment as he awkwardly extracts himself from his regular gig as a priest to follow the masters’ orders. When he arrives at the Zakharov mansion with his henchman Igor [Yura Borisov - excellent] things immediately go awry, and the real madcap situations begin their accelerating progress downhill. To tell you any more would spoil the fun – and it is a lot of fun. It’s been described as tragicomic, but initially it’s the comedy that predominates. And much of Anora is an absolute hoot. 

This is a Sean Baker movie, which means it also has heart. As brassy and tough as Ani seems on the outside, as her fairytale world starts to crumble, we see how fragile and scared she is inside. Madison’s performance and Baker’s writing and direction are so great, that, as one scribe has put it (and I paraphrase, because I can’t recall who made the observation) – for the first half of the movie, despite what she does and her transactional view of the world; you can’t help but like Ani; but by the end you can’t help but love her. The end, in fact, is one of the sweetest and at the same time heartbreaking final moments of any film I’ve seen in a long time. You are likely to feel the same when you see it. As you should.

Pretty much all the actors here are quite good. These four, I think deserve special recognition: 22-year-old Mark Eidelschtein, as the unserious, unreliable but enthusiastic young sybarite Ivan/Vanya, is a great find; Karren Karagulian, a Sean Baker regular who has been in every Baker film since at least Tangerine, really hits his mark as Toros, the well-intentioned thuggish fixer; Darya Ekamasova, as Mrs. Zakharov, is a Russian “she who must be obeyed”; and especially Yura Borisov as Igor, who in trying to rein in a very angry and upset Ani, but can’t help but admire her moxie and her spirit. 

Anora has been compared favorably by some to Pretty Woman, the 1990 movie starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, also about a sex worker and a rich guy. That movie sugar-coated the reality of Roberts’ occupation, focusing instead on her romance with suave, handsome Gere.  Anora is grittier and despite being a comedy, feels way more authentic. If you are prudish, be forewarned that this movie does include some quite graphic (but not pornographic) nudity, especially in the first act, what with the lap dancing, etc. It’s not prurient, and it’s essential to understanding Ani, but it’s there.

To be honest, about one in four people that I met at MVFF did not care for Anora. But the other 75%, like me, really liked it.  In fact, Anora may be my favorite of the fifteen films I saw at the festival. It’s in the top three for sure. It is a film that sneaks up on you, despite the funny bits and the dramatic bits, with a sense of being unsentimentally real. It has something to say about class, sex and, by the end, about love. I’d call it a great picture.

2 hours 19 minutes                 Rated R

Grade: A

Opens in a few select theaters on October 18, 2024, a bit more widely on October 22, 2024, including San Francisco, and [according to Neon Films] “ Everywhere” in November. Check for dates and tickets in your area here.

The Outrun (2024): Saoirse Soars

by Len Weiler

I’ve been a fan and admirer of actress Saoirse Ronan since her starring role in Brooklyn (2015) – filmed when she was just twenty - and she’s been excellent in every leading role that I’ve seen her in since, including Lady Bird (2017) and Little Women (2019) and good in some supporting roles as well, like Ammonite (2020) and the silly Agatha Christie send-up  See How They Run (2022). She was also good as the teen protagonist back in 2011’s Hanna, and in a small but crucial role in Atonement (2007) as well. 

But in her new film, The Outrun, Ronan gives the most dynamic and perhaps best performance of her career – as a young woman named Rona trying to overcome an untethered alcoholic past and find a new life in sobriety. In virtually every scene of the movie, she is astonishing - spellbinding and thoroughly convincing. Through her character’s highest highs and lowest lows, her performance is one hundred percent committed, consistently vivid, luminous and - dare I say it- brilliant. Not that you can see this as a “Performance”.  As in all her best work, Ronan the actress is nowhere to be seen. We just see Rona. 

[Before I proceed, apologies to Ms Ronan for the title of this review. Although it looks cleverly alliterative, that is only because Saoirse looks like it would rhyme with “soars”; but it doesn’t. As we fans know, her name is pronounced sershuh, rhyming with inertia. I just couldn’t help myself.] 

The Outrun is a lightly fictionalized adaptation of the bestselling memoir by Amy Liptrot, who is credited as a co-writer of the screenplay along with the German director of the film Nora Fingscheidt. In other words – a largely true story. It’s set primarily in the remote, sparsely populated Orkney Islands of far Northern Scotland, as well as in London. The narrative is about and from the perspective of Rona. She’s a young Orcadian woman who has recently returned to Orkney after spending a decade in London, where she had gone for a university education and a bigger life than home offered.  Along the way, while she did get her degree (in biology), she was seduced by the party and drinking scene. She also fell in love with Daynin (Paapa Essiedu) a lovely man who loved her back. In the end, though, the downward spiral of alcohol addiction destroyed everything – her ambition, her employability, her relationship, her self-esteem. Eventually, after a violent intoxication-related assault, Rona got into rehab, then opted to leave the whole scene, and return home to start over.   

Films about recovery are not uncommon, of course, but those where the protagonist’s struggle against alcoholism or other addiction is the core of the story, rather than part of a family dysfunction tale or appended onto a police procedural or some other plot, are far fewer. Those where the central character is a young woman like Rona are rare.  And really good ones are rarer still. This is one of those.

[Spoiler alert: the following discussion reveals plot details. These facts will likely melt away before you see the film or will dissolve from your consciousness as soon as the movie gains your attention. But if you prefer to see The Outrun with a largely blank slate, you may wish to skip the next four or five paragraphs.]

It's a tricky business to build a movie character that, in the end, feels like a fully fleshed out, complex human being. In the director’s notes about The Outrun, Fingscheidt explains that with that goal in mind she structured the movie to tell Rona’s story in three interwoven layers. The first is the present, the here-and-now or what she calls the “Orkney-layer”. This is where we initially meet Rona. She’s living in town with her deeply religious mother Annie - Saskia Reeves  [Slow Horses (2022 –  2024)] while helping her bipolar father Andrew - Stephen Dillane [Kaos (2024); The Hours (2002)] - raise sheep on their small family farm nearby, where he lives in an old caravan. The rural Orkney landscape is peaceful and its coastline is spectacular. [Trivia note: several scenes were shot on the actual farm where Liptrot was raised.] But compared to London, the town is dull, there’s no nightlife, and Rona has no friends. Orkney is her Elba. Its emptiness only amplifies her loneliness and lack of direction. Rona thinks maybe she’ll head back to London in another few weeks or months – but to what?   

The second layer is the “London-layer” (seen as flashbacks) which, for a good chunk of the movie, shares nearly equal time with the “present” Orkney-layer.   Rona’s past experiences invade her thoughts frequently: brightly colored memories – from brief flashes to longer, dreamlike reminiscences of the good times: friends, parties, laughs, dancing, falling in love, tender moments with Daynin.  But over time, her recollections turn darker (think blue tinted near-monotone, as in a bad dream) to her heavy drinking and the spiraling descent to the bottom that followed.  

Fingscheidt also refers to a third interwoven aspect, which she calls the “Nerd-layer”.  It is a reflection of Rona’s interiority and innate curiosity, such as her interest in natural biology; in the myriad soulful seals she encounters all along the Orkney coast, and in Orcadian mythology.  In an early voiceover, for example, Rona tells of one local legend that, we later may realize, bears on her own story: the belief that people who have drowned turn into seal-like creatures called Selkies who come ashore during high tides, shedding their seal skins and cavorting joyfully, naked in the moonlight as beautiful people until dawn, then returning to the sea - so long as no humans see them.  If seen, however, they will remain stuck in human form, but always discontented. 

Rona’s nerd self is key to her connection with her bright but damaged dad; and explains her decision to seek a field job with the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) partway through the film. As Fingscheidt intended, it’s a distinguishing piece of Rona that helps us see her as a full person, rather than a “type”. 

Ultimately The Outrun, is about healing a broken life. For all the talk about it-takes-a-village, this ultimately must come from the self. It’s never easy.  As one character who has made the journey explains to Rona: over time, it gets less hard, but it’s always hard. While, of necessity, Rona’s path has been largely solitary, she eventually makes the radical choice to move to an even more isolated place, a small cabin on the Northernmost of the islands, Papay, where she can be truly alone, away from parental judgements and societal pressures or expectations, and self-dependent. 

Cinematically, her struggle is represented visually, audibly and symbolically by the ever-shifting environment in which she is living: the quiet solitude of the island’s treeless, grassy fields or a clear night’s wondrous snowfall, the ever-watchful bay seals on a calm day, the giant ocean waves loudly crashing against steep cliffs and rocky coastline on other days,  the timeworn, wind-carved sea stacks that rise hundred of feet above the surging waters, and the awesomely mighty gales, strong enough to cause the ground to tremble and boom beneath your feet.  This place - captured gorgeously and powerfully by award-winning cinematographer Yunus Roy Imer along with a fabulous sound department – is a major character in the movie and in Rona’s struggle to rediscover herself and, just as important, to appreciate the possibilities a sober life may bring.

Rona is not an archetype.  She’s much more than that – she’s a person that contains multitudes – which may be a cliché but is nonetheless true. We see her this way this, and by the end of The Outrun, Rona herself catches a glimpse of this truth and of the unfolding possibilities ahead.  This an upbeat, hopeful ending - one that has been earned.

It has also been earned by the film production. The lovely supporting performances and sure-footed direction have contributed. And it helps to remember that the character of Rona and her story are based on the very real life experiences of the book’s author / screenplay’s co-author – i.e. this is not make-believe.  Still, in the end, what I am left with is the recognition that this terrific portrait, which feels so credible and so true, owes a great deal to the remarkable Saoirse Ronan. I highly recommend The Outrun.

1 hour 58 minutes

Grade: A

Now playing only in theaters nationwide [opened Friday 10/4/2024], including in the SF Bay Area at  Landmark Opera Plaza and Metreon;  AMC Mercado in Santa Clara and most other AMCs Check HERE to find a theater near you 

Evil Does Not Exist (2023): Enigma in Paradise

by Len Weiler

Evil Does Not Exist is the latest feature film by Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi, his 15th. His previous picture, Drive My Car (2021) was a world-wide phenomenon - the one which put him on the short list of truly notable international auteurs. If you can tolerate a leisurely pace and uncomplicated plot, I recommend it.

Drive My Car was/is a low-key, three-hour long, voluptuously slow*, novelistic**, visually gorgeous, character driven movie centering on a grieving theatrical director and the unexpected bond he forms with the young woman assigned as his driver; a film that explores themes of – among many other things – grief, solitude, and emotional renewal. It was a surprisingly big hit with audiences and critics alike [with a 78% favorable audience rating, and an incredible 97% rating from critics on RottenTomato.com]. In addition to numerous nominations and awards on the film festival circuit, the movie won the Oscar in 2022 for best international feature film and also nominated for best picture of the year, best director, and best screenplay.                                                                [*Diego Semerene, Slant  **Justin Chang, LA Times]

Evil Does Not Exist is a much shorter film at just 104 minutes, yet still with Hamaguchi’s trademark slow pacing and focus on character, rather than action. His style here is in service of a quite different story and broader, more impersonal themes. Perhaps most notably, the movie has a different feel to it – more ominous and unsettling, even as it exalts the natural world. Unlike Drive My Car, which exist in a generally cosmopolitan milieu, Evil Does Not Exist is set largely in a rural community on the edge of a pristine forest. The forest, along with its streams and meadows, its flora and fauna, gets loads of screen time. It is the true star of the movie. Like Drive My Car, the new film has received strongly favorable critical reviews and several awards, including the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, and the award for Best Film at the London Film Festival.  

The human story pits the residents of the little village - a few thousand folks who depend on the natural world and try to live symbiotically with it – against those who see the arboreal landscape as nothing more than a commodity to be exploited for profit. This might suggest at first that the movie will be another of those pictures featuring eco-heroes vs eco-villains. That’s not what Hamaguchi primarily has in mind. 

The film opens with trees – an over four-minute tracking shot of the forest canopy, silhouetted against a cloud grey sky, as seen from the snow-covered ground far below, accompanied by a moody, atmospheric, somewhat ominous instrumental score by composer Eiko Ishibashi (who also composed the music for Drive My Car). Then the music suddenly cuts out, the camera shifts to ground level and we see a young girl, Hana, gazing upward, much like the camera had been, at the top of the trees looming above her. Eventually, she turns and walks along alone toward her home. 

Her dad is Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) a loner handyman-everyman living just inside the woods with Hana, his ten-year-old daughter. Takumi, the first adult character we meet in Evil Does Not Exist, makes his living in a variety of ways: scooping up clear spring water for an esteemed local udon shop, advising neighbors with his forest lore and deep practical knowledge, cutting and selling firewood. 

We hear the harsh, jarring noise of Takumi’s chainsaw through the trees before we actually see him, cutting logs into fireplace lengths. He is practiced and meticulous about this work. After awhile, he walks down to a special place along the nearby creek to gather the crystal clear water for the udon chef, fastidiously ladling it, cup by cup into large jugs. We watch Takumi performing these tasks for several minutes before we see another human being – an employee from the restaurant, who arrives to help with the water gathering. We’re over ten minutes into the film already, and theirs are the first spoken words. Surprisingly, while I was glad to move on at that point, I hadn’t gotten bored at all watching Takumi at work.  

Not long after, Evil Does Not Exist livens up with a tour de force scene introducing us to the town’s residents, humanizing them and recruiting our support for their concerns. It’s a town meeting to discuss a Tokyo company’s plans to build a glamping site on a nearby tract of forest land. Attending the meeting are two city-slicker reps for the developers - a young man, Takahashi, and a young woman, Mayuzumi – with a company powerpoint advertising what a boon the touristic camping site will be to the local economy. The two PR folks likely were expecting a bunch of provincial yokels, but the villagers, Takumi among them - while not antagonistic – turn out to be serious-minded people who raise thoughtful, critical questions. Like, for example, whether the planned location and inadequate capacity of the development’s sole septic tank will endanger the town’s water supply. Or its effect on the forest itself and its wildlife. Takahashi and Mayazumi don’t know anything about such technical details or much at all beyond their given pitch. Nor do they have any negotiating authority. At the end of the meeting, though, they promise to bring the community’s concerns to their bosses.

The bosses are not flexible about their plans in any meaningful way.  Even so, Takahashi and Mayazumi return to the town a short while later, hoping to engage Takumi as a consultant. Along the way – and this is one of the outstanding aspects of Hamaguchi’s filmmaking – we are given a chance to get to know these two a little better, only to discover that they are not one-dimensional corporate lackeys and, in fact, not particularly bad people at all. While certainly naïve, they are well intentioned young people just trying to do a job. The job - as they (and we) come to realize – sets them up as pawns in someone else’s sketchy business scheme. The fact that they were duped does not, however diminish their humanity. As the town meeting did for the local residents, the time we spend with Takahashi and Mayazumi serves to humanize them both in our eyes.

Evil Does Not Exist has a quiet power that grows over its 105 minutes. Throughout Hamaguchi encourages our empathy not just for the human characters in his film, but for the natural world in which the story is set.  David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter called it “a penetrating study of character and milieu.” Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian described it as “a realist film teetering on the edge of the uncanny.” One of the things that’s uncanny is the sense of personality attributed to nature itself. Another is the quiet suspense that feels tethered to nearly every scene. At some point, you may begin to wonder, as I did, where is this all going?

Everything in Evil Does Not Exist comes down to the surprisingly powerful, enigmatic last few minutes of the film.  Part of its power is the shock of its unexpectedness. It may piss you off or it may beguile you. Or both. Either way, it will be a conversation starter. 

1 hour 46 minutes         In Japanese with English subtitles

Grade: B+

Available to rent [ppv] on Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango at Home and other services

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

 by Len Weiler

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the sequel to the original Beetlejuice (1988), opened two weeks ago [Friday 9/6/24] and has been the top grossing film in the US every day since.  While moviegoers are eating it up, the critical consensus for the new picture is – well, there’s not much consensus:  On Rotten Tomatoes its critical score is a decent 77%, while the MetaCritic score is a pretty tepid 62.  David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter enthuses: “The zippy pacing, buoyant energy, and steady stream of laugh out loud moments hint at the joy Burton appears to have found in revisiting this world, and for anyone who loved the first movie, it's contagious.”  Meanwhile, Richard Lawson complains in Vanity Fair that: “[w]ith its limp humor, canned sentiment, and over-egged efforts to gross us out, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a waste of a good cast and a defacement of a classic film’s legacy.”

This is a comparison review of both movies.

The original Beetlejuice was the tenth biggest grossing movie of 1988. Made on a budget of about $12 million, it took in $75 million in ticket sales. It also became the mothership for a whole industry of Beetlejuice entertainments: an animated TV series (1989-1991), three video games (early 1990s) and Beetlejuice: The Musical, which opened on Broadway in April 2019  and ran for 11 months before the covid shutdown, then reemerged in 2022 to run for another 9 months.  The critical consensus on the original film was also mixed, but generally more positive than that for the new sequel - Rotten Tomatoes consensus rating: 83%; MetaCritic score: 71.

I recently saw Beetlejuice Beetlejuice at the local cineplex. I wasn’t exactly wowed. The new iteration isn’t terrible, but it isn’t terrific either. It seemed far less remarkable than my remembered impressions from back in the day when I saw the original. But that was over thirty years ago.  So I wondered - would Beetlejuice still seem superior to its sequel if I saw it now?  The simplest way to answer that question was to refresh my recollection by watching the 1988 original the very next day. (And yes, it is stream-able.)

Sometimes, watching a movie I liked a lot as a teen or young adult is disappointing. It is either distressingly dated or, even worse, far less clever, touching, or interesting than what I remembered – a reflection of my youthful naivety or inexperience, perhaps. But other times, thankfully, the experience is just the opposite. This was the case with the 1988 Beetlejuice, which holds up very well indeed despite the passage of decades.  That movie remains remarkably fresh, engaging and just plain fun. Despite tremendous advances in animation and special effects technology over the succeeding years, Beetlejuice comes across as newer, livelier, more whimsical and way funnier than the 2024 sequel.  

Why?  The simple truth is that Beetlejuice was groundbreaking; Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a retread. It’s trying harder to be faithful to its predecessor than to come up with anything new or reflective of the current era. While it’s true that some sequels are better than the original movies, that is neither the norm nor the case here. This stands to reason, when you think about it. Most sequels  are made within just a few years of the original; it's unusual for a sequel to come three and a half decades after the first picture; rarer still for the later film to be helmed by the same director as the first. And age makes a difference:  Tim Burton was 29 when he made Beetlejuice; now he’s 66.  In the late 80s, he was a whirlwind of energy and ideas and in his most fruitful creative period. Over a nine year period he made and released six of his best, most successful pictures:  Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985), Beetlejuice (1988), Batman (1989) - the Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson version, Edward Scissorhands (1990), Batman Returns (1992), and Ed Wood (1994). Can you name one film Burton has made in the last fifteen years that’s the equal of any of those in spirit, inventiveness or critical success?

Or, let’s compare the roster of actors and performances. Beetlejuice starred a young Alec Baldwin (29) and Geena Davis (31) as a deceased young couple who, as ghosts, are trying to preserve their dream house. Both Baldwin and Davis were up-and-comers at the time. For Baldwin it was his first starring role in a feature film; for Davis it was her second, after The Fly (1986) opposite Jeff Goldblum the year before. Thelma and Louise (1991), which made her famous, was still three years off. They are the protagonists of Beetlejuice – youthful, beautiful, eager, and very much alive on screen (even as ghosts). Neither they nor their characters play any part in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. 

In the 1988 movie, the ghosts of the recently deceased protagonists hope to scare off a crass couple who want to purchase and remodel their house. They unwittingly engage a ghost/demon who bills himself as an exorcist but is really a chaos agent. This is “Beetlejuice” - brilliantly and manically played by 35-year-old Michael Keaton. The buyers are the Deetzes: scheming, egomaniacal Delia [33-year-old Catherine Ohara (Home Alone, Schitt’s Creek)] and the rather non-descript Charles (Jeffrey Jones). Delia’s goth teenage daughter Lydia [Winona Ryder (then just 14)] is her opposite, and also the only living person who sees the ghosts and sympathizes with them. 

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was made and is set thirty-six years after the first movie. Although Beetlejuice is supposed to be ageless, he is again played by Keaton, who is still pretty good but whose age (now 71) is nevertheless showing.  Reminded me a bit of watching Robert DeNiro playing Frank Sheeran in The Irishman (2019), as a digitally de-aged 40-year-old chasing another guy and gingerly traversing an expanse of seaside rocks like the 75-year-old the actor really was.  Catherine Ohara (now 67) is back as Delia, similarly aged and in a much-diminished role; and her daughter Lydia (Ryder, now 50) has become the protagonist mom, albeit with the same goth hairdo she sported as a teen, now totally incongruous. As the modern Lydia, Ryder came across to me as stiff and confused – trying unsuccessfully to be two things at once – an adult version of goth teenage Lydia and a caring 50-year-old. mom herself. Lydia’s daughter Astrid [up and coming actress Jenna Ortega (21)] is, like her mother before her, an imperiled teen here. She is also the only significant character in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice - other than Beetlejuice himself (sort-of) – with any spark.       

Beetlejuice had an actual story arc, a crazily grotesque, outlandish yet playful one.  Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has a series of events strung together into a convoluted, tenuous “plot” that never coheres into what could fairly be called a story. It tries over-hard to be offbeat, but we notice the trying, so the product comes across as artificial and overly derivative.  

There is one bright spot to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, though:  

Speaking very generally, both films have a similar structure. And they both conclude with an elaborate, kitchy, Busby Berkeley-like treatment of a big song from a previous era. In Beetlejuice, it’s the fun, toe-tapping, 1961calypso hit Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora) by Harry Belafonte. Less lively, but way funnier is the extravagantly goofy send up in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice of the Jimmy Webb head scratcher MacArthur Park - the 1968 hit version sung by Richard Harris. This production number is a hoot - almost worth the price of admission. Even in 1968, the song was an anomaly, with its orchestral interludes and melodramatic delivery of the ludicrous lyrics - a ridiculously pompous joke of a song – even though it turned into a top 40 hit. 

    MacArthur's Park is melting in the dark 

    All the sweet, green icing flowing down

    Someone left the cake out in the rain

    I don't think that I can take it

    'Cause it took so long to bake it

    And I'll never have that recipe again

    Oh no!

Why is the rather mediocre Beetlejuice Beetlejuice such a hit?  I don’t know. But I’ll posit a few reasons anyway. Young moviegoers are one to two generations removed from the original Beetlejuice, and many may not have even seen it, so for them it is new.  Plus the younger crowd generally loves spectacle and special effects, and there’s a bunch of that stuff in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Also, there’s a dearth of big screen competition recently: the only truly competitive film recently has been Deadpool & Wolverine, released nearly two months before Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, so its box office has begun to fade (although it was still the third highest grossing film last week). Moreover, like I said earlier, this sequel is not terrible. And, obviously, there’s no accounting for taste, right?  

BeetleJuice (1988):

1 hour 32 minutes

Grade: A-

Available to stream free with a subscription to MAX [ or a Disney, Hulu MAX bundle]; available to  rent [pay per view] on many platforms, including Amazon and Apple TV.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024):

1 hour 45 minutes

Grade: B- 

 Currently widely available in theaters. 

32 Sounds (2023): Curious. Wondrous. Lovely.

by Len Weiler

“Experience a film like you’ve never heard before.”  So goes the tagline for the somewhat under-the-radar movie 32 Sounds. And it’s not a bad introduction to what, in my experience, is a film unlike any other.  For one thing, as the title suggests it is an exploration of sound – specifically its profound effect in and on our lives; and, as the tagline promises, the movie is quite an experience. 32 Sounds immerses you in its topic like no other movie.

First publicly screened at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, this documentary has since shown at numerous festivals, large and small. But it has never had a commercial theatrical run, as far as I can tell. In fact, given the limitations of speaker systems in most theaters, the film has been specifically designed for home viewing.  And, good news, it is stream-able on several platforms (see below). The best way to take in 32 Sounds, the director Sam Green tells us, is wearing headphones - which also means, for most of us, being alone.  

Part of the reason to isolate is so you can fully concentrate on and appreciate what you are hearing without  distractions. Another reason for the headphones in some instances is to emphasize how sound changes depending on our spatial relationship to the source, which is difficult to mimic on most speaker systems, but can work pretty well with headphones. Indeed, in some places in the film, the screen is blanked – to further focus your attention on the audio content and to best demonstrate the spatial aspect of noise. It's a wonder how – even with our eyes closed - we can not only discern which direction a sound is coming from but its proximity to us as well! 

Our ability to hear has practical advantages, to be sure. Top among them are aural communications like speech; as well as awareness of danger, whether from the growl of a predator, the rumble of oncoming vehicles, or from human enemies: the whoosh of an arrow, the explosions of gunfire, the clank of armor or the footsteps of an approaching army. But sound also enriches our lives in innumerable ways. Rhythm, music, a soothing voice, distant street sounds, snippets of a distant conversation, a crackling fireplace, and the sounds of nature: rain, leaves rustling in a breeze, a bubbling stream, birdsong, and on and on.    

We all know this, obviously, but 32 Sounds provides an opportunity to reflect on something absolutely marvelous that we typically take for granted much of the time. Not just the sounds themselves but our ears’ near miraculous ability to so perfectly translate the noises in the air into electrical signals that our brains just as miraculously can instantly translate and discern as train whistles, footsteps, cat purrs, a particular song or what have you.

Sam Green is an award-winning documentarian [The Weather Underground (2002), A Thousand Thoughts(2018)]. After a silly yet ingratiating opening scene with Green and his composer buddy JD Samson rehearsing an intro to the movie, we are presented with sound number one. Fittingly, it is the first sound a human embryo hears and that all of us heard in the womb. Green's soft voice invitingly narrates. Some sections of 32 Sounds, including that first sound, are sweetly evocative. Another early segment is evocative in a different, and even more poignant way; it’s the very last surviving moho bracatus – a now extinct Hawaiian bird species – recorded  futilely singing his mating call.  Another chapter includes a discussion of “ghost voices”, the voices of loved ones that are no longer with us - mom, dad, a favorite grandparent, an old friend – which we can still sort-of conjure up and almost, but not quite hear in our heads. There is a viscerally stimulating section devoted to the “80 cycle”: the deep throbbing bass sounds in music, that at full volume rattles windows, shakes the floor, and drives us to get up and dance our hearts out. I especially enjoyed a couple of segments featuring demonstrations, by Foley artist Joanna Fang, of the art of creating the sounds which are added to films post-production to enhance dramatic effects: punches, falling trees, gunshots, screeching tires, footsteps, you name it.   

All of this done with a light cinematic touch that has been described as poetic. I found 32 Sounds fascinating on many levels and always engaging.  I loved how personal it felt – largely thanks to the headphones but also the way Green seemed to be speaking directly to me one-on-one. Because the film does not have a single overarching narrative, it’s easy to watch it over two or three sessions, without reducing its impact or value. 

At its conclusion, 32 Sounds tells us that it was “inspired by Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993) by François Girard, which was in turn inspired by The Goldberg Variations by Johann Sebastian Bach (1741).” I’m not altogether sure why that’s of particular importance to us, but I do note that those works are also easily severable so that they, too, can be taken in over several sittings. Very convenient. Antecedents aside,  32 Sounds is an unusual, worthwhile, quite extraordinary experience. I don’t often do this, but to give you a little flavor, here’s a link to the movie’s trailer: 32 Sounds trailer

This is an interesting, life affirming film, and I encourage you to check it out.

1 hour 35 minutes

Grade: B+

Available free with a subscription to The Criterion Channel; or to rent on Amazon, AppleTV and other pay-per-view platforms