Damned Scribbling Women

Movies: Little Women

Louisa May Alcott's beloved novel, Little Women, is more complex and insightful than many folks give it credit for. A basic interpretation of the text is that it's a domestic story of four sisters who grow up during the Civil War and learn moral lessons at the feet of their loving mother, Marmee, and eventually all fall in love and marry (except for poor Beth who is too pure for this world). The novel could easily be read as saccharine, preachy, and anti-feminist (there are also numerous occasions in the novel where a women is lectured to by a man: the sordid stories Jo writes to earn a living are bluntly criticized by Professor Bhaer, and Meg is lectured by Laurie when she becomes too involved in fussy outfits and mindless small talk at Sally's debutante ball). Not exactly a "you go girl" book, right?

Wellllll...

Louisa May Alcott was, for one thing, a very forward-thinking woman for her time. Raised by transcendentalist parents in Concord, Massachusetts, Alcott advocated for the abolition of slavery and for women's suffrage. She never married. She, like her heroine and fictional doppelgänger, Jo March, wrote sordid stories to pay the bills. It is impossible to read Little Women without considering the author's life and moral values and how they play a role in the plot. For one thing, Jo March is a women who is willing to face a life of loneliness and near-poverty to feed her passion for writing and be true to herself. There's even an interpretation--which I made up, but also probably others have figured out as well--that Jo is queer. Her adamance that she'll never marry, and the words she uses when she turn's down Laurie's marriage proposal (I'm paraphrasing, but something to the effect of "I wish I loved you the way you love me") suggests that she can't love men in that way. Of course, we all know she ends up with Bhaer, but there's plenty to suggest that if Alcott had her druthers, she would have let Jo become the "spinster" she was destined to be (perhaps in a "Boston marriage" with another woman?).

Gillian Armstrong's 1994 film adaptation of Little Women remains one of the most beloved films, well, probably ever. It's a movie that made my dad cry, you guys. So one might ask why Greta Gerwig had to go and fix something that ain't broke. Well, because good stories deserve retelling. And good directors and actors can make an old story feel fresh and uncover new feelings toward a story many of us know by heart. After all, Armstrong's version of Little Women was the fifth film adaptation of the story. So people bitching about another remake should really consider: what if the adaptations had stopped before Armstrong's masterpiece?

Gerwig makes a couple big changes to the plot structure. For one, she begins the story not at the beginning ("Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents!") but in the middle, when Jo (Saoirse Ronan, excellent as always) is living in a New York City boarding house and writing. The framing of the story is that Jo is called back to her home in Concord after Beth (Elizabeth Scanlen) takes a turn for the worse). The plot hopscotches back and forth between past and present.

Gerwig makes the controversial decision to keep all the same actors between the "older" scenes and "newer" ones. This is actually a decision that took away from the film. For example, in the "earlier" scenes, Amy is supposed to be 13 years old. Florence Pugh, an amazing talent, plays Amy. Anyone who has seen Pugh act knows that this bitch ain't 13 years old--she has a notably husky voice for one thing. The Armstrong version basically did the same thing, but Armstrong had two different actresses play Amy since her character has the most dramatic jump in age between the older and newer scenes (in the sense that Amy goes from the cusp of pubescence into adulthood, whereas Jo and Meg go from late teens to adulthood). That said, I love Florence Pugh and I thought she was excellent in the role.

I also liked Gerwig's decision to cast Timothee Chalamet and Louis Garrel as Lauie Laurence and Frederich Bhaer, respectively. Chalamet's Laurie is the right age for the character, who is about the same age as Jo. He is playful, goofy, and--often--conceited. Chalamet, who is an unbelievable talent, hits all the right notes to play the "fuckboy next door", as one review put it. Laurie is a very imperfect man. He is rich, yet is annoyed with riches. He is educated, yet chooses to live life adrift. He loves the March girls, yet he mansplains at them quite a bit. But there is no reason for the film to shy away from showing Laurie to be a product of his time and upbringing--it also reveals why he is a better match for Amy, who is very similar to Laurie in her vanity and desire for/understanding of the finer things in life than for Jo, who genuinely doesn't care about those same things.

And I liked Louis Garrel as Bhaer because he's closer in age to Jo than Gabriel Byrne was to Winona Ryder and he plays Bhaer as quiet and notably foreign--a stranger in the strange land of America. He is a good match for Jo, who needs a strong man of few words to absorb her frenetic energy. Jo needs someone willing to not fight her for the spotlight (as Laurie would have done)--and Bhaer, the introverted intellectual, is just the man to let her shine in her quirkiness.

But Gerwig's version even teases with a bit of "did they or didn't they", at the end of movie--lightly suggesting that maybe Jo *didn't* end up with Bhaer, but "wrote" the ending for her character in her novel to appease her publisher (Me? I think they end up together. But I'm a romantic at heart).

As for Jo March--wow, I have rarely felt kinship to a character as I did to her, in this adaptation specifically. Jo's whole deal is that she remains true to herself, her feelings, and her passions even when it seems the world is punishing her for it. I'm a woman who sometimes worries that my choices, my politics, and my opinions have alienated me from whole swathes of people. My refrain in life has been "I want to be loud and opinionated and assertive...and I want everyone to like me". It's a hard lesson to learn that you sometimes can't be liked by all, and also be unapologetically yourself. When Jo has a heart-to-heart with her mother about knowing that women have brains and souls and are meant for more than just love, yet she is lonely and wants to be loved--I felt that in my bones, y'all. I totally understand her. To be a feminist, to be adamant that women are not just playthings and accessories for men, yet to also want romantic love like anyone else, is a real tightrope walk. And I think that's why I root for Jo and Bhaer at the end because I want Jo to have everything she wants: a school, a book, AND a lover. Of all the heroines in all the great works of literature, who is more deserving than the fiery, uncompromising, hair-selling, ink-stained Jo March?

So, I guess what I'm saying is that Little Women (both the book and this movie) has some flaws, but it remains a powerful story of sisterhood, family, community, passion, and virtue--not virtue in the modern, Christian sense, but virtue in the sense of finding the balance of staying true to yourself, while being flexible enough to change, grow, and do right by those you love.

Grade: A

Slice of the Pie

Movie: Knives Out

Believe the hype: Rian Johnson's Agatha Christie-esque murder mystery Knives Out is as fun, clever, and star-studded as you've heard. If you're sick of reboots, remakes, sequels, and Star Wars, Knives Out might just be the ticket to escape movie-going boredom.

Christopher Plummer plays Harlen Thrombey, a celebrated and extremely wealthy mystery novelist. The morning after his 85th birthday party, his housekeeper Fran (Edi Patterson, hilarious in a small role) finds the old man dead in his study: he slit his throat the night before.

Seems like a straightforward suicide to Detective Elliot (Lakeith Stanfield), but the appearance of private investigator and southern gentleman Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) suggests something else is going on. Blanc doesn't even know who hired him: he simply received a directive to investigate Thrombey's death and an envelope of cash a couple days after the alleged suicide. As Blanc begins to dig into the Thrombey family dynamics, it appears that nearly everyone has a motive to off the old man--except for Thrombey's loyal nurse, Marta (Ana de Armas), who--conveniently for Blanc--has a very strange quirk: she pukes when she tells a lie.

Blanc insists that Marta work with him to discover whether or not Thrombey really killed himself, or if something is, as Blanc states, "afoot".

To reveal the motives of the different Thrombey family members would be to spoil the plot (or bore those who have already seen it), so I'll hold off on that. I will say Knives Out worked really well for me because 1) it wasn't too difficult to follow (I struggle with "heist" movies for this very reason), 2) it actually fooled me (I predicted one ending and, well, was wrong), and 3) it was funny and entertaining as fuck--mostly due to the talented ensemble cast. Starring everyone from Jamie Lee Curtis to Toni Collette to Michael Shannon, the sheer volume of talent is overwhelming. And everyone fits into their role like a hand in a glove, even when playing against type. For example, Chris Evans--Captain America himself--is a standout as Ransom, the douche-y, wildly entitled grandson of Thrombey. His pretty boy looks serve him well in the role of a man who has looks, smarts, and money but is a total waste of a human being.

Speaking of entitlement, Knives Out contains a not-so-hidden commentary on America's current (and shameful) treatment of immigrants. Marta is an immigrant (the family keeps messing up where she's from--some say Ecuador, others say Uruguay) and is told time and again that she is "like family" to the Thrombey's...but when the shit hits the fan, it's clear that she is less of a family member to them than Thrombey's dogs are. Knives Out rubs the audience's face in rich, white, American hypocrisy--various family members keep insisting that they "built something from nothing" when it's clear they've been given a huge assist from grandpa. Compare that to Marta, who truly is trying to build a home for herself and her mother from almost literally nothing. Conservatives will probably go apeshit over this movie, if they even deign to see something other than a God's Not Dead sequel and I couldn't be happier about that since anti-immigration conservatives are loathsome racists who deserve to have their seed wiped from the earth. Vote blue in 2020, kids!

I'll end by saying: go see Knives Out. Despite the fact that an old man dies a violent death, it's a lighthearted, hilarious, fun movie that will have you guessing and leave you smiling.

Grade: B+

Dressed to Kill

Movie: In Fabric

No director pays beautiful homage to giallo films like Peter Strickland. Since I first saw his masterpiece, The Duke of Burgundy, I have been obsessed with his films. Strickland sets his stories in vague locations and times. For example, The Duke of Burgundy appears to take place somewhere in Europe, sometime in the late 1960s...however, the world it occupies has no men and no children. As in, men and children don't exist. In building such a world, the Strickland jolts us from our comfort zone and gives us no cultural markers on which to rely. The Duke of Burgundy focuses on two women in a Dominant/submissive relationship...but can we call them lesbians if men don't exist? Can we call it a Dom/sub relationship if, as it appears in the film, all the people in this movie are in such relationships?

Strickland's latest horror/comedy, In Fabric, is just as timeless but even stranger than The Duke of Burgundy. The movie is about killer dress that seems to do the bidding of a coven of witches who live in the basement of a department store. So right off the bat, I'm like: 1) weird and 2) wow, this reminds me a LOT of the OG giallo film, Suspiria. The cinematography and music pay direct homage to Dario Argento's classic horror tale of a ballet school run by witches.

Shelia Woolchapel (Marianne Jean-Baptiste, giving the film a much-needed straight man to react to all this weirdness) is divorced, in her 50s, living with her ungrateful son, Vince (Jaygann Ayeh), and his hyper-sexual girlfriend, Gwen (Gwendoline Christie...yes, Brienne of Tarth). She is lonely and frustrated. She puts a personal ad in the newspaper and, when she has a date on the books, goes to Dentley & Soper's department store to find a new dress. And find one she does: in "artery red", the dress is a size smaller than Shelia's measurements, yet fits perfectly (Sisterhood of the Traveling Killer Dress?). Never mind the fact that it gives Sheila a nasty rash right away.

Meanwhile, the ladies who work at the department store wash an anatomically correct mannequin in the basement while some old dude looks on and masturbates. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Other weird shit happens: the dress makes Sheila's washing machine "go bananas". A dog attacks the dress and rips it, but then later that evening...the dress is no longer ripped (!!!). The dress watches Gwen and Vince have kinky sex and then attacks Gwen. The dress slinks down a staircase. If this all sounds ridiculous, well... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Eventually, the dress makes its way to a new owner: Reg Speaks (Leo Bill), a chinless washing-machine repair man who is having a stag party to celebrate his upcoming nuptials to Babs (Haley Squires). His friends force him to put on the dress as part of the fun and games of stag night. Later, Babs finds the dress and puts it on. It fits both her and Reg perfectly, despite different body types. And they both come to tragic ends.

In Fabric is...to put it mildly...not for everyone. It's weird even by my standards and I like weird movies. It is dreamlike and artsy and sexual, but not in a sexy way. There is a lot of shit that goes unexplained--like, who are the women in the basement of the department store? Who is the man who jacks off to a mannequin? Why a killer dress? Is this all a metaphor for capitalism run amok? Who knows! When I say In Fabric is dreamlike, I literally mean that it is very much like being in a dream: there are familiar objects, places, and events, but they are all a little off. For example, Sheila works at a bank (very normal) where she is chastised by her bosses for not having a "meaningful" enough handshake (wut). Sheila's son, Vince, has the hairdo and clothes of a young man living in 2019, but everything else in Sheila's part of the film looks like the late 1970s. Everything is familiar yet confoundingly strange--just like a dream. The timeline doesn't make sense either--just like a dream. And symbolism, color, and sound are more important than plot--just like in a dream.

So, I recommend this movie to cinephiles, especially those who like Peter Strickland. Most other viewers may find themselves out of their depth. Unlike the killer dress itself, this movie won't fit everyone.

Grade: B+

Non-Toxic Masculinity

Movies: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

It's no wonder two films about Fred Rogers have come out over the past couple years. In these deeply troubling times where anger and fear have sucked in even the gentlest souls, we are collectively aching for a person who represents something even greater and more profound than the life he lived.

Fred Rogers, it has been said, was no saint. But goddamn if he wasn't close. The Presbyterian minister-turned children's television host seemed to be equal parts therapist, artist, pastor, and social worker. His goal on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was to help children manage their emotions in healthy ways. To do this, he listened to children and cared about what they cared about. He validated all their emotions and explained techniques to express those emotions outwardly without hurting others.

After we saw A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, my friend and I discussed the similarities in how Rogers lived his life and Buddhist practice. Fred Rogers prayed and meditated daily, he swam laps, he wrote letters to people. He wasn't naturally just a good person--he practiced at being kind. That's the key term: practice. Much like there is a difference between taking a yoga class and having a yoga practice, there is a difference between a random act of kindness and having a kindness practice.

But, ironically, Beautiful Day isn't actually about Fred Rogers--it's about Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys), a writer for Esquire magazine whose boss charges him with writing a piece on Fred Rogers for the "Heroes" issue. Vogel finds this absurd since he considers himself both a hard-hitting investigative journalist and also a cranky cynic. Turns out, he needs this assignment very much.

Estranged from his father, Jerry (Chris Cooper), and newly a father himself, Lloyd appears to be on the verge of some kind of breakdown. His anger, cynicism, and coldness have driven him for years--but now his father is trying to get back into his life, and his infant son needs a role model. The angry Lloyd is no longer acceptable. And when he starts talking to Fred Rogers, someone actually listens to him and validates his feelings.

Of course, Rogers is played by perhaps the kindest public figure currently alive, Tom Hanks. Although Hanks eventually blends in to the role of Rogers, you never for one moment forget you're watching Tom Hanks. But maybe it doesn't really matter. In fact, maybe it's fitting that such a beloved actor portrays such a beloved man--it almost feels symbolic and intentional, a double-dose of kindness in one character.

Beautiful Day walks a fine line between genuine and overly sincere, and it doesn't always fall on the right side of the line--but that doesn't take away from the moments of grace than inhabit the film. There's a scene where Rogers asks Lloyd to have a moment of silence with him before a meal, and the scene plays out in real time with Hanks looking into the camera directly for a few moments. The people sitting behind me laughed uncomfortably at this and I wish they hadn't, because as cheesy as it was, it was also effective.

The film, directed by Marielle Heller (a fantastically talented director), is a perfect companion piece to last year's Won't You Be My Neighbor? The latter, a documentary about Rogers' life, is the better film and I legit bawled during it. It's better, in my opinion, because it uses a lot of footage from the show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood which clearly demonstrates Rogers' way of talking with children about everything from disabilities to war. But Beautiful Day expands Fred Rogers' philosophy outward and shows how even the most cynical among us have the ability to soften, to forgive, and to allow ourselves to feel emotions that we so desperately want to avoid. That's another connection between Buddhism and Rogersism: not avoiding emotions like sadness and anger, but actually feeling them. It's terrifying, but it's necessary in order to not let your emotions control you.

I myself have been going through dark times since, hmm, I'd say mid-2016 (I wonder why??), and I fully empathize with Vogel's character (a stand-in for the real writer of the Esquire article, Tom Junod). Not in terms of the exact challenges Vogel faces, but in terms of his bottomless pit of anger. I understand what it is to be angry, because I am often very angry. I'm a bit of an odd duck because I'm also very optimistic, friendly, and emotionally intelligent...except when I'm not, of course. But I think my anger comes from a place of giving a shit--about other people, about myself, and about the world. And when you care, you become vulnerable. And anger feels better than despair.

So what I'm saying is that when I'm not seeking out catharsis in the form of movies like Hereditary and Midsommar, which match my internal scream, I seek out innocence, wholesomeness, and kindness. I seek out warm blankets and my mother's hand tickling my back. I avoid people who match my sarcasm and cynicism and try to find people who encourage my kind side. I seek out movies like this one, because I, like everyone else, need balance and sincerity. Too much sincerity and I roll my eyes, but too little and shrivel in the cold. So wait until a very cold day and go see A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which will warm your soul right up.

Grade: B 

Amazon Prime Binge

Movies: High Life, Lake Mungo, First Reformed

Catching up on some movies available on streaming...

High Life

Claire Denis' science-fiction film about a group of criminals serving as guinea pigs for experiments in space is...a lot. The film opens with a single man, Monte (Robert Pattinson), and a baby alone on a spaceship and flashes back and forth between how they got there and where they are now. Basically, Monte is part of a crew of criminals who were serving life sentences on earth and were offered the chance to go to outer space to search for a renewable source of energy as an alternative to their sentences.

What they didn't sign up for is a doctor on board (Juliette Binoche) who is obsessed with reproductive technology and is constantly impregnating the female crew against their wishes. Also, there's this thing called the "fuck box"--basically, a mastubatorium where crew go to jerk off. I have a lot of issues with the fuck box (for example, the fuck box has a dildo attached to a padded seat...and that's all. I mean, I don't judge others for how they get off, but personally, I'd be pretty disappointed if I went into a fuck box and that was all that was in there).

High Life is a weird and, in my opinion, pretty pointless movie. I guess you could make the argument that it shows how once a person has a child, they are able to face anything in spite of insurmountable odds, or that human connection is stronger than anything in the universe. But really I think this movie is just about the fuck box.

Grade: C

Lake Mungo

Lake Mungo is an inventive, Blair Witch style horror film that expertly winds the audience up, scares them, relieves them, and then scares the fuck out of them again.

Filmed in documentary style, Lake Mungo is about a 16 year old girl, Alice Palmer, who drowns during a family holiday in Australia. Not long after the girl is buried, weird things start happening around the house: noises, doors opening and closing on their own...typical spooky shit. The Palmer family believe they are being haunted by their daughter's ghost. And when they set up cameras around the house, they find what appears to be evidence of a haunting.

But of course, there's to the footage than meets the eye...

Lake Mungo genuinely scared me, which is a rare feat. There are some Paranormal Activity-type jump scares where the audience is forced to watch grainy footage *knowing* that something spooky is going to happen, but not when or in which corner of the screen. This is an incredibly effective technique because you can't look away, but you know you're about to jump out of your seat. There's a particularly effective scare near the end of the film that made me scream (which, in turn, scared the fuck outta my cat).

Lake Mungo was a wonderful little surprise and it stuck with me days after. Highly recommended for horror buffs.

Grade: A-

First Reformed

Directed by Paul Schrader, First Reformed is an incredibly powerful and beautiful film about faith, hope, and despair. Ethan Hawke, doing great work here, plays Reverend Toller, the pastor at a "tourist church" called First Reformed. Very few people actually attend services at the church, but the 250 year old building is kept open as a tourist attraction and is soon to be the location of a reconsecration ceremony overseen by the pastor of a local megachurch called Abundant Life Ministries. Cedric Kyles (better known as Cedric the Entertainer) plays Pastor Jeffers and serves as a nice contrast to Hawke's Toller. Where Toller is nearly as self-abnegating as a monk (with the exception for his fondness for booze), Jeffers is charismatic, friendly, and knows how to make money.

One day, a couple shows up at First Reformed. Mary (Amanda Seyfried) and Michael (Phillip Ettinger) are going through a tough time--Michael is an environmental activist who is losing hope in the future of the earth every day. Mary is pregnant, and Michael wants her to get an abortion because he believes it is wrong to bring a child into a world soon to be plunged into chaos. Mary urges Toller to speak to her husband, but in doing so, Toller begins to question his own faith and his own sense of right and wrong.

I'll leave it at that, though there is MUCH more to the plot. First Reformed asks a lot of questions, from the relatively small (should you support a church that receives money from possibly corrupt businessmen?) to the enormously huge (Is it a sin to bring a child into a dying world? Will God forgive us for what we've done to His creation? How does one go on when there appears to be no hope?). You don't need to be a religious person to grapple with these questions because, as Toller points out, the "blackness" within the human soul has always been there and is in us all.

First Reformed is more art than entertainment, though I found it incredibly compelling and immediately wanted to watch it a second time once it was over. Highly recommended for people who like a little existential philosophy with their movies.

Grade: A

The Naz-Twee Party

Movies: Jojo Rabbit

Man, I really wanted to like this one. The concept of a 10 year old German boy who wants to be an upstanding member of the Hitler youth during the final days of the Third Reich and whose imaginary friend is der Fuhrer himself, played with childlike whimsy by Taika Waititi (who also directed the film), sounds like it could be delightfully edgy and satirical in the tradition of Chaplin's The Great Dictator and Brooks' The Producers. Alas, Jojo Rabbit doesn't know what it wants to be. It's both not edgy enough and too dark at the same time. It's both too saccharine to be about as serious a subject as Nazi Germany and too upsetting to commit fully to its heartwarming anti-hate message. It tries to be everything to everyone and ends up being nothing to no one.

The opening sequence of Jojo is by far the strongest part of the film: young Jojo is putting on his Hitler youth attire with pride while Waititi-as-Adolf psyches him up, encouraging him to "Heil me! You can heil better than that!" leading Jojo to run through the streets screaming "Heil Hitler" with the exuberance only a 10 year old can muster. He then goes to a training camp where Sam Rockwell (a highlight of the movie) plays Captain Klenzendorf, a one-eyed, heavy-drinking former soldier who has been demoted to training children and couldn't give a fuck. Rebel Wilson and Alfie Allen play Captain K's lackeys.

The training camp part of the film was genuinely funny--imagine Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom but with children burning books, playing with grenades, and learning that Jews have scales and forked tongues. Now, I know this might sound incredibly disgusting and upsetting, but I hope if you choose to see this movie you understand that Waititi is *mocking* Nazis, not endorsing them. I mean, it's pretty fucking clear, but if you don't find Nazis and Hitler funny at all, you'd best skip this film.

The clearly satirical portions of the film are the strongest...but instead of sticking to straightforward comedy, Waititi introduces drama in the form of a Jewish girl living in Jojo's attic. Turns out, Jojo's mom, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson, whom I've decided I don't like), is part of the resistance. As Jojo begins to develop a friendship with Elsa (played by Thomasin McKenzie) he--get this--realizes that Jews are people too.

Here's my issue with Jojo Rabbit: I didn't buy the sweet, maudlin aspects of the film. There are a ton of scenes with Jojo and his mama, just playing and dancing and being sweet. It didn't match the earlier scenes in the movie. And then, partway through, there is a twist that is absolutely devastating and just seemed really fucking out of place. The tone is all over the goddamn place: Is this movie Life is Beautiful? Is it Inglourious Basterds? PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK THIS MOVIE IS?!

I can tell you that Jojo Rabbit's greatest sin is that for long lengths of the film, it is simply boring. There are entire portions that go by with no jokes, or really terrible jokes. There are also weirdly lazy stereotypes. For example, it is heavily suggested that Captain K. and Alfie Allen's Finkel are gay (the gay Nazi stereotype is as old as, well, the original Nazi party). So many talents are wasted here. Rebel Wilson is reduced to a fat fraulein role. There's honestly not nearly enough of Waititi's imaginary Hitler.

However, I do appreciate that Waititi took a chance on a project that is unusual and risky. I personally feel that he did not hit the mark, but the thing about Jojo Rabbit is that a lot of people *love* it. You might be one of those people! I'm glad I saw it because I didn't know which side I'd fall on and now I know.

So I'm going to give Jojo Rabbit a solid, semi-respectable C grade. It has its moments. Overall, I didn't like it that much and would not watch again, but I can see how others would enjoy the film more than me.

Grade: C

Water Water Everywhere

Movies: The Lighthouse

Robert Eggers' The Lighthouse is a difficult film to write a review about because the plot is pretty simple: a man goes absolutely apeshit in a lighthouse.

But this movie is so much more than that too. Eggers follows up his first film, the much beloved The VVitch, with another atmospheric, often difficult to understand (literally--I really would have appreciated subtitles) semi-horror story that just shrouds the audience in dread from start to finish. Filmed in rich black and white and at a 1:33 aspect ratio, The Lighthouse feels like a relic of cinema past.

Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson are Thomas Wake and Ephraim Winslow, respectively. For four weeks Winslow is to be under the tutelage of Wake, learning to be a wikie (lighthouse keeper), before he is assigned his own post. Wake gives Winslow all the back-breaking, shitty (literally) chores and generally treats Winslow like an indentured servant and Winslow puts up with it. This *is* the 1890s after all, and there aren't a ton of options for work. But over the weeks, the two men grow closer and develop a fondness for one another.

That is, until a storm hits the "rock" they're stuck on. Winslow is due to be fetched from his post and when the boat to retrieve him never arrives, seagull poo hits the fan very quickly.

The first hour of the film sets up the hierarchy between Winslow and Wake nicely, while the final 40 minutes effectively destroy any and all sense of hierarchy, rules, logic, and grasp on reality. There's a turning point in the film when Wake mentions rations to Winslow and Winslow replies "it's only been one day" (as in, one day since the boat that was supposed to ferry him away failed to show up). Wake chillingly replies that they've been stuck for weeks past the boat's due date and he's sick of Winslow's willful ignorance of that fact.

Things get more intense and more insane from there on out. The film is from Winslow's perspective but he's a hella unreliable narrator. He goes from a quiet, slightly annoyed lad to a raging lunatic, fantasizing about mermaid vaginas and confessing to watching a friend die at his previous post and only wanting a cigarette after.

Did I say "mermaid vagina"? The Lighthouse, in addition to being spooky and batshit insane, is also very funny, with fart jokes and jack-off jokes galore. The grandiose banter between the old salt and the pup are the stuff Oscar clips are made of as well.

This is just a good movie, guys, The visuals are stunning--the black and white imagery with shadows playing on Dafoe and Pattinson's haunted faces is mesmerizing. The acting is insanely good. Dafoe is a known quantity as a crusty ol' stereotype come to life and Pattinson once again proves he is no longer Edward Cullen in this terrifying and electric role.

My personal theory about this movie is that The Lighthouse is either purgatory or Hell. Given Pattison's sins revealed partway through the film, as well as the fudging of linear time, it makes sense that this place is a place of punishment for this man.

My advice is to not think too much and just see the movie and appreciate it for its beauty and weirdness. Like The VVitch, The Lighthouse is not an easy film to watch, but it's a worthwhile one.

Grade: A-

Shake Your Money Maker

Movies: Hustlers

Hustlers is a female-written and directed (Lorene Scafaria) film that centers on women in the sex work industry (stripping, specifically). Based on a true story, which was captured in the an article titled "The Hustlers of Scores" by Jessica Pressler, Hustlers is about a small group of strippers who started drugging the men they danced for and running up their credit cards in order to give themselves a bigger payday.

It was very refreshing to see a film with well-known female actresses (Jennifer Lopez, Constance Wu, and Julia Stiles--with cameos by Cardi B and Lizzo, among others) and basically no recognizable male actors. How often does that happen!? Similarly, the movie is ethnically diverse out the wazoo and presents the women (and their criminal actions) as complicated and three-dimensional. Hustlers has its feminist bona fides for sure.

The movie is also just plain fun, with a bangin' soundtrack, sexy stripteases, and women drugging and stealing from rich, white guys. This movie is the lovechild of Magic Mike and Robin Hood.

But the film is careful to never fully condone the actions of the women involved in the scam. It *explains* their actions, but it also shows the consequences, both practical (having to haul a nude, passed out man into a Hummer) and emotional (having to deal with a crying man begging for his money back over the phone). And anyone who read the article above knows how the story ends.

Hustlers focuses on Destiny, played by Constance Wu. The film opens in 2007. Destiny is a stripper at a well-heeled club called "Moves" in New York City, but she is still learning the ropes. An older, wiser stripper, Ramona (a radiant boss bitch Jennifer Lopez), takes Destiny under her wing and--in my favorite scene of the film--shows her a variety of moves on the poll. The two bond very quickly and make bank. After all, it's 2007 and the economy is great. What could possibly go wrong?

A whole bunch, actually. For one, the recession hits in late 2008, and the rich dudes who frequent the club start drying up. I guess, given the stock market, they decide to spend their money on their dumb wives and kids or whatever. Then, Destiny gets pregnant. After she has her baby, she dumps her boyfriend and struggles to find work. She decides to go back to stripping even though she'd really prefer not to. However, one benefit of going back to the club is that she reunites with Ramona, who is as hot and successful as ever--and who has come up with a scheme to make a lot of money real fast.

The plan: chat up a rich-looking dude at a bar and get him drunk (be sure to surreptitiously throw your drink over your shoulder while he drinks so you remain sober and clear-headed). Then, the other girls (Ramona has recruited two other women--Mercedes [Keke Palmer] and Annabelle [Lili Reinhart]--to be part of the scheme) will show up and convince the dude to take them to Moves to hang out in the champagne room. At some point in the evening, one of the girls will slip a mixture of MDMA and ketamine into the dude's drink--the drug is meant to make the guy both suggestible, but also impair his memory. Once at the club, they "get permission" from the guy to borrow his credit card to pay for drinks, and essentially empty out his bank account.

The ethical reasoning behind this scam is that because these men are so wealthy, they'll barely miss that $10,000 from their bank account. Besides, the women tell themselves, these men are pigs. They're the 1%. Misogynists. Pervs. They asked for it.

Ah man, my heart rate is up just thinking about how these women fucked over these rich assholes. Eat the fuckin' rich, amirite? This is a better solution than the guillotine, amirite? Well, sadly, life isn't a feminist fairytale and, eventually, the women get caught. Surprisingly, their sentences are pretty light--Ramona, the ringleader, doesn't even serve jail time, just 5 years probation. Destiny takes a plea deal.

Hustlers is about two things: female relationships and the American Dream. And it considers the limits of both. In many ways, these women were only doing to men what the men were doing to others--stealing other peoples' money to make themselves rich. It's not like Wall Street traders and investment bankers are angels--they do shady, barely legal (if not flat-out illegal) shit all the time. And they get away with it because they are at the top of the food chain. Although the women's actions were indeed illegal and indeed hurt some (relatively) innocent people, it's hard to blame them for just trying to get by in a tough world that values getting bread by any means necessary. Likewise, the movie looks at relationships between women--the good and the bad. Ramona and Destiny's friendship is complex--they have a bit of a mother/daughter (or teacher/student) dynamic, and also a girl crush dynamic, and, eventually, a frenemies dynamic. Their friendship can't withstand Ramona's hubris.

Hustlers is a fun movie with a complex moral center. It really is like the first Magic Mike movie, which was a tale about relationships between men hiding underneath a line-up of sculpted man-ass. Likewise, this movie serves up Britney Spears and stripper poles alongside some truly difficult questions about how people are supposed to survive during times of economic crisis. And also, the concept of wealth and privilege--maybe some people deserve to have money taken from them if they don't willingly put it back into society where it could go to people who need it more.

Grade: B+

Strap You Hands 'Cross These Engines

Movies: Blinded by the Light

In 2002, Gurinder Chadha directed Bend It Like Beckham, which became an arthouse hit. Audiences loved the comedy to be found in an Indian girl living in the UK and straddling both the traditional world of her Asian parents and the modern world of her English peers. By the end of the film, her strict parents have come to understand and admire Jess's (Parminder Nagra) talent on the soccer field and Jess, in turn, has a new level of respect for her hand-working parents.

Blinded by the Light, also directed by Chadha, follows nearly the exact same formula, with sadly diminishing returns. The film follow Javed (Viveik Kalra), a 16 year old Pakistani kid living 1987 Britain. Javed loves to write, especially poetry, but his super old-school dad finds no value in writing. He expects Javed to work and hand over his wages (the backdrop of Margaret Thatcher's recession-plagued Britain is one of the best aspects of the film) to help support the family, and also prepare to enter college--not to follow his passions, but so that he can get a good job and eventually marry (a woman his father will choose, naturally).

Like Jess, Javed is stuck between two worlds. His English peers try hard to get him to rebel a little: they invite him to parties and encourage his writing. But Javed is, generally speaking, a meek and obedient young man. That is, until his Sikh buddy from school gets him turned on to the Boss.

Hearing the music of Bruce Springsteen for the first time is no less than a revelation for Javed. Springsteen's music, which is basically about "getting out this dump", speaks to him in a way nothing else has before. It's not long before he becomes obsessed.



On the one hand, Javed's newfound passion ignites his writing, gives him the courage to ask out a girl in his class, and lets him push back against his father's strict rules. On the other hand, Javed becomes kind of a dick. He makes fun of his best friend from childhood for listening to synth music, demands that an article about his love of the Boss be published in the school newspaper, and even leaves in the middle of his sister's wedding celebration to buy tix to see Springsteen.


But by the end of the movie, all is well--he wins a prize for his Springsteen essay and his parents come to see him read it and he ends up improvising a little speech about how Springsteen and his dad would get each other--they both came from poor backgrounds and worked hard to succeed. Javed makes up with his friend, gets into the college program of his choice (for writing, NOT economics as his dad prefers), and has a new level of respect for his hard-working parents.

Sounds familiar, right? Blinded by the Light almost feels like Chadha plagiarized her own work--even down to a pivotal scene that takes place during a character's sister's wedding. Both Jess and Javed's parents are pretty two-dimensional: they are strict, no-nonsense first generation immigrants who have secret hearts of gold underneath their old-school exteriors.

Blinded by the Light feels like a movie the should have come out 15 years ago. There's even a throwaway line about how people in America are less racist/more open to different cultures than Britain than made me chuckle darkly. The optimism in the film feels practically naive. Granted, it's a PG-13, family-friendly film. It's a safe, comforting popcorn movie where *hard work* actually gets you where you want to go. But to me, it felt too by-the-numbers.

My mom loves Bruce Springsteen, and fans of his music will greatly appreciate the film (which is inspired by a true story, by the way. There are pics of the real Javed with Springsteen at the end). There are definitely some joyous moments, as when Javed, Roops--Javed's Springsteen-obsessed pal, and Eliza--Javed's girlfriend, run through the town singing "Born to Run". "Born to Run" is a fucking great song. But it's not enough to save the movie from its cheesy, cringe-y moments.

Overall, imma give Blinded by the Light a B-. It's not a bad movie, and it definitely tugs your heart strings. But it feels so similar to Chadha's previous (and better) work that there is a touch of disappointment in how predictable it is. Families, those looking for a comforting, happy flick, and fans of the Boss will likely enjoy it more than I did.

Grade: B-

Boring Stories to Tell in the Dark

Movies: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Y'all, I am sad to report that Andre Ovredal's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, based on the beloved books by Alvin Schwartz is boorrrrrrring.

Now. This may just be because I am a horror veteran who has an *extremely* high tolerance for spookiness. But I don't think that's it. It may be that this film is a mere PG-13, but I don't think that's it either, because Insidious, one of the scariest movies of all time is PG-13 too. I just think SSTTITD is not a good movie.

SSTTITD takes place in 1968. On Halloween, horror fan Stella, her friends Auggie and Chuck, and drifter Ramon break into a "haunted" house that belonged to the Bellows' family. The family was infamous for supposedly locking away their daughter, Sarah, who liked to write scary stories. Stella discovers Sarah's hand-written book of scary stories and takes it with her.

After reading a story written about the town bully, Tommy, and realizing it coincides with Tommy's real-life disappearance (the story in question is "Harold", which fans of the book will recognize as the story with the killer scarecrow), Stella figures out that Sarah is still writing stories from beyond the grave that actually result in people's deaths. This is confirmed when her friend Auggie falls prey to a story in which a corpse is looking for his missing toe (which Auggie has accidentally eaten in a stew).

From there, Stella and Ramon try to figure out exactly how to get Sarah to stop killing from beyond the grave. The movie is a slog that I barely have the patience to explain. Fans of the books will recognize one of the most iconic images from Alvin Schwartz's books during the sequence where Chuck is hunted down by an obese, pale, stringy-haired ghoul in "The Dream"--one of the only truly scary scenes in the entire film.

The film comes to...a conclusion. Stella is able to confront Sarah and convince her to stop writing her stories, But Auggie and Chuck remain missing, which sucks because neither character did anything to deserve their fate (unlike the bully Tommy). So,  a scary movie with a central theme of justice doesn't actually...give our characters justice in the end. What a waste.

While Alvin Schwartz's books remain absolutely iconic, especially with the original illustrations by Stephen Gammell, the movie based on these books is aggressively mediocre. There's no way around it: save your money and buy a copy of the original books, which are still sure to give you a tingle and raise the hairs on your neck.

Grade: D

Of Cults and Cowboys

Movies: Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood

Quentin Tarantino is a director I love to hate (or hate to love?). He's an asshole in real life, having put Uma Thurman in a situation on the set of Kill Bill where she nearly became paralyzed and having defended Roman Polanski on Howard Stern in 2003 suggesting that Polanski's rape of a drugged 13 year old was consensual sex (he has since apologized for saying this, but I don't buy it).

People often ask if one can separate art from artist, and I suppose it's possible, but if you actually watch/read art by assholes and predators, their sickness sometimes seeps through the screen or book. Consider Woody Allen's obsession with younger actresses and "May/December romances" and Louis CK's jokes about men being sexually out of control. Art, it seems, imitates life.

While I have given Tarantino many passes because he is, I believe, a truly great director, it is becoming increasingly difficult to watch his work and not see his misogynist and racist beliefs play out in front of you. While Tarantino has always reveled in violence and shocking the audience, his recent work (everything post-Inglourious Basterds, I'd argue) is becoming less interesting and truly provocative and more and more "edgelord".

All this said, his talent as a storyteller as well as his ability to really set the scene and submerge the audience in time and place (Los Angeles in 1969 in this case) is still top notch. I liked Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, but I didn't love it. Not the way I loved Inglourious Basterds, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and Kill Bill Vol. 1.

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood has a story at the center and a story on the periphery and in the final act of the film the two stories meet (yes, this review will have spoilers, but I'll put a warning beforehand). The central story is that of Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio, bringing his excellent acting game)--a middle-aged actor who still drinks like he's in his 20's and has moved on from his glory days as the hero of a TV Western, Bounty Law, to playing "the heavy" in various shows and movies which, as Dalton's agent (played by Al Pacino) warns, is not a good idea because it gives the spotlight to younger, upcoming actors in the hero role and subtly encourages viewers to hate Rick.

Rick whines that he is officially a "has been" to his stunt double, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt, playing an alpha male in all the worst and best ways here). While Dalton still has a career, as well as a nice car (that he can't drive since he had his license revoked after too many DUIs) and a beautiful home on Cielo Drive, right next to Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski, Booth has a shitty car and shitty trailer where he lives with his pitbull and eats mac n' cheese out of a box every night. While one might feel bad for Booth and the way Dalton takes advantage of him, Booth is a loose cannon. He's a man who doesn't shy away from a fistfight (even against Bruce Lee) and is said to have killed his wife and gotten away with it.

While Dalton is trying to get his shit together on set, Booth picks up a young, flirty hippie chick (played by Margaret Qualley) and drives her "home" to the Spahn Ranch where he discovers dozens of skinny, dirty hippie girls living in squalor. This is where the two stories meet, and where history meets fiction. The Spahn Ranch was a real place where members of the Manson Family camped out in the months leading up to their infamous murders. Booth interacts with real-life Manson Family cult members Tex Watson and Squeaky Fromme (played by Austin Butler and Dakota Fanning, respectively) as well as 80-year-old, blind-as-a bat-George Spahn (Bruce Dern), the owner of the ranch. He also beats the shit out of a hippie. It was at this point when I started to realize what was going to happen at the end of the film...

Warning! Spoilers ahead!

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If you've seen Inglourious Basterds, you know that half the fun of the film is its historical revision in which a group of Jewish Americans machine gun and burn a bunch of Nazis to death (in fact, one of Rick Dalton's films, The 14 Fists of McCluskey, pays homage to IG). At some point in Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood I realized that ol' QT was going to pull the same stunt again. And I was weirdly dreading it. Sure enough, in *this* timeline of 1969 Los Angeles, three Manson Family members break into Rick Dalton's home on Cielo Drive instead of the neighbors, where a very pregnant Sharon Tate is hanging out with friends. Unfortunately for Tex, Sadie, and Patricia, Cliff Booth is hanging out, having just smoked a cigarette dipped in acid, with his pitbull, Randy (or Brandy? I didn't quite catch the 'bull's name).

After a few witty remarks, Tarantino-style, Booth sics the dog on Tex and throws a can of dog food at Sadie's face. A fight ensues in which Brad Pitt beats the ever-loving shit out of a teenage girl and a dog mauls a bunch of people. But it's not over! That same girl stumbles outside and into Dalton's swimming pool, freaking out Dalton who is drunk as a skunk. He goes and grabs his flamethrower and torches the girl (like ya do). Once all three Manson hippies are dead, Cliff ends up going to the hospital and Dalton wanders over to the Tate-Polanski residence where he is invited inside to hang out. Ob-la-dee, ob-la-dah, life goes on, wah.

So here is where I have my issues with this movie. I get that these hippies, including the teenage girls, are "the bad guys" who in actuality brutally murdered a 8-months pregnant woman and four of her friends. So why didn't I feel the same elation as when a Jewish "inglourious basterd" machine-gunned Hitler in the face? Maybe because seeing a Jewish adult male kill a Nazi is more fun and cathartic than seeing a grown-ass man smash a young girl's face against a telephone until it's a bloody pulp? Maybe because I thought it was disrespectful to the memory of Sharon Tate? Maybe because I *know* Quentin Tarantino is a misogynist, so having the alpha male "win", even against a bad person, doesn't feel right knowing the sentiment behind it.

The movie seems to say "if there were any justice in the world, jacked, white men like Brad Pitt would be putting women, skinny long-haired dudes, and Asians and Mexicans in their place where they belong" (there's also a scene where Cliff Booth nearly defeats Bruce Lee in a fight). And I'm not alone in thinking that. It's not just me, the humorless feminist.

At the same time, the movie--and that scene in particular--still has QT's signature sick humor. The audience was laughing, me along with them. But what was lacking in me was a sense of satisfaction. This violence didn't seem "earned". It just seemed...gross and cheap.

***

End Spoilers!

So how to grade this movie? At 2 hours and 40 minutes, it was overly long and not much happened. But it was funny and well-acted and the dialogue was good. I'm going to give it a B. It's not close to being Tarantino's best, but I can't actually say it was a "bad movie". I just wish Tarantino would use his considerable talent and vision for something truly interesting and provocative. At the rate he's going, he will be Rick Dalton eventually--a sad, old drunk yelling at himself in the mirror of a makeup trailer.

Grade: B

PS: yes, there are FEET

Black Belt in Toxic Masculinity

Movies: The Art of Self-Defense

Riley Stearns' The Art of Self-Defense is a movie that was barely on my radar, until I read this article (which contains spoilers) on Slate. In this case, spoiling the movie actually intrigued me enough to watch it.

It's an odd little movie that is a rather bleak dark comedy. It's one of those movies where everyone speaks very robotically, with flat affect--like a Wes Anderson movie or Napoleon Dynamite, only with a lot more violence (aside for dog lovers: DON'T SEE THIS MOVIE).

Jesse Eisenberg plays a typical Eisenbergian character--a severely beta male, if such a thing exists. His character, Casey, is a 35 year old bachelor who lives alone with his dachshund and works in accounting. One night when he goes out to buy some dog food, he is chased down and beaten to a pulp by some anonymous people on motorcycles. Casey survives and, in his quest to regain a sense of safety, wanders into a karate class lead by a man who goes by Sensei (Alessandro Nivola, doing great work here).

Casey joins up as the new white belt and quickly advances to yellow belt. After some prodding by Sensei, he admits that the reason he started classes is because he is afraid of everything, including other men. "I want to be what intimidates me" he confesses. Sensei invites him to join the "night class", which is basically Fight Club. The students are allowed to beat the shit out of each other, the only rule being "no guns" since "guns are for the weak".

Although clearly in over his head, Casey starts coming to night class. He begins to observe Sensei's blatant misogyny when the only female student, Anna (Imogene Poots), is not given the black belt she clearly deserves while another male classmate, Thomas, is allowed to advance over her, despite being not as good a fighter as her. Sensei bluntly tells Casey, "I realized that Anna being female would always stand in the way of her becoming male." Additionally, Sensei encourages Casey to pick up more masculine hobbies and interests: instead of learning French (Casey is a Francophile), Sensei tells him to learn German. Instead of listening to adult contemporary music, Sensei tells him to listen to metal. In his quest to become more of a violent, alpha male, Casey does as Sensei's instructs....until a shocking secret is revealed.

*Stop here if you want to avoid spoilers!*

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***

Casey finds out that it was Sensei himself, and his students, who beat him up and put him in the hospital. In fact, they would have killed him if it were not for Anna who pretended to hear sirens and lead the group away before they could finish him off. Additionally, the male student who was promoted to black belt over Anna broke into Casey's house and killed his dog. Casey finds all of this out after *he* is taken along on a motorcycle ride and encouraged to beat up an unsuspecting victim.

After making this discovery, Casey plots out a simple, yet effective plan for revenge. He challenges Sensei to "an unarmed fight to the death". Sensei agrees. As soon as the fight commences, Casey pulls out a gun and shoots Sensei in the head. Later that evening, at night class, he sics his new dog (a German Shepherd gifted to him by Sensei) on Thomas, the asshole who killed his last dog. Casey promotes Anna to the head of the class, and he himself takes his proper place as the lowest member of the night class.

Obviously, if you're not prepared for it, The Art of Self-Defense goes from "quirky dark comedy" to "violent pitch-black comedy" real quick. And anyone who has ever taken karate knows that basically the whole point of it is to AVOID violence (let alone murder) in the first place. But that seems to be the point Stearns is trying to make here--poking fun at the culture of toxic masculinity. While Casey is indeed a timid weirdo, he's also a good person and a person who understands justice and fairness. Sensei (real name: Leslie. He makes fun of Casey for having a "feminine" name and his name is Leslie!) is using martial arts to express his violent urges and calling it "masculinity". Likewise, our culture has allowed male violence, sexual and physical, to go...perhaps not "unchecked"...but to fly under the radar as "boys will be boys" and "that's just how men are". The Art of Self-Defense just takes toxic masculinity to an extreme. It also shows how futile and how much of a performance it is by having Casey break "the rules" and straight up shoot Sensei in the head. He tells Sensei's dead body "You might say that using a gun makes me weak, and maybe it does. But you are dead and I am alive, so I would argue that *you* are the weaker man". Male bluster only goes so far and it ends up eating its own tail.

The Art of Self-Defense is overall a decent film. It's not incredibly profound, but it's entertaining and ballsy in a certain way. I could have done without the affected robot voices--I felt like Stearns used the flat, blunt way of speaking as an almost protective measure against getting too close to the characters. Would have been interesting if he had allowed us to be more emotionally invested in them by fleshing them out into *real* people instead of caricatures.

Grade: B

Blood Rites

Movies: Midsommar

There is so much I want to say about Ari Aster's sophomore film Midsommar, but I'll just start by saying that the director's follow-up to last summer's gut-wrenching horror film Hereditary proves that Aster is not a one-hit wonder and is indeed a masterful filmmaker and storyteller who understands that grief and loss are just as scary as ghosts and cults.

I'll do a quick spoiler-free review first, followed by a more in-depth review after a warning so that folks who want to go in with a relatively blank slate will be able to do so.

Midsommar opens in winter. Dani (Florence Pugh in a phenomenal performance) is a college student with a boyfriend, Christian (Jack Reynor, appropriately groan-inducing in the shitty boyfriend role), who is planning to break up with her. But before he pulls the plug, Dani receives some devastating news which makes it nearly impossible for Christian to dump her, so the two continue on in the most depressing relationship of all time.

Flash forward to summer. Dani finds out that Christian is planning on taking a multi-week trip to Sweden to witness a once in a lifetime midsummer celebration (literally once in a lifetime, as the celebration only takes place every 90 years) taking place at the ancestral commune of his grad school friend, Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren). Along for the trip is anthropology student Josh (William Jackson Harper, aka Chidi from The Good Place) and annoying horndog Mark (Will Poulter). Upset that Christian failed to inform her about this trip, Dani invites herself along and no one is reasonably able to say no, given that she is still reeling from her loss.

The trips seems to start out well. Pelle's home is idyllic, with fresh-faced Swedes wearing all white and offering booze (and drugs, among the younger set), fresh fruit, and smiles to the Americans. Because they're in a northern part of Sweden, the sun basically doesn't set and the days are bright and hot.

While everyone seems welcoming and kind, there are small things that unsettle Dani and, eventually, other outsiders including two young adults from London whom Pelle's brother, Ingmar, invited. While Josh is fascinated by the culture and customs, Mark is chasing Swedish pussy, and Pelle is loving being home, Dani and Christian's relationship begins to unravel, especially after some of the rituals during the nine-day celebration begin to get, well, bloody.

I'll stop there and point out, as a warning to sensitive viewers, the violence in Midsommar is limited to a few key scenes...oh, but those scenes. They are NOT for the faint of heart. Read my spoiler review below if you want to hear the (literally) gory details. That said, Midsommar is not "scary" in the way Hereditary was or the way typical horror films generally are. There aren't jump scares. There isn't anything supernatural. The movie is long (2 hours and 20 minutes) so the horror is more of the unsettling, slow burn variety. If you could handle Get Out, you can probably handle Midsommar.

And it's completely worth it. While Midsommar is ostensibly about a cult whose rituals go too far, it's really about grief and how loss can completely gut us and leave us feeling unmoored. It's also about what makes a family. Is it blood? Or is it, as Pelle puts it in one scene where he has a private moment with Dani, about feeling "held". For all the strange and violent rites the Harga (the name of the people/commune in the film) indulge in, they also seem to understand the importance of supporting their fellow commune members and feeling/releasing emotions.  Perhaps what would be a trip to hell for one person is a homecoming for another.

Grade: A+

***

Spoiler-filled review! Ye be warned!

Just as in Hereditary, Ari Aster weaves unimaginable grief into the tapestry of this film. Where Annie Graham loses her mother and then, in a grotesque freak accident, her daughter in Hereditary, Dani loses her entire family--mom, dad, and sister--in one fell swoop after her bipolar sister commits suicide (and brings her parents along) by allowing carbon monoxide from the family's cars to flood their house at night.

[It's important to note that Midsommar could be viewed as abelist not only because of its portrayal of a bipolar person as someone unstable to the point of committing murder-suicide, but also because of a disabled character who is considered a prophet by the commune. However, the latter is no accident and Aster has said as much. Here's an article with more info. I didn't find the abelism worth throwing the whole movie out, but others may feel differently.]

Dani's agonizing screams of grief as Christian holds and rocks her parallel the heartbreaking scene of Annie (played by the wonderful Toni Collette) moaning and rocking on the floor while her husband holds her after she discovers that her daughter has been decapitated. Aster has a flair for both gruesome death scenes and capturing what the depths of grief actually look like.

Additionally, Aster understands how acute grief transforms into a throbbing, numbing depression. 6 months after losing her family, Dani is--to put it mildly--not well. That Christian would plan a month-long trip without telling her says all we need to know about this asshole. To be fair, neither one of them seems happy in the relationship, but rather than ending things and helping Dani find additional support systems, as a decent person would do, he stays with her and resents her and takes her for granted at every turn.

Dani's depression is contrasted against the backdrop of never-ending sunshine of Sweden. Halsingland is gorgeous: tall grass, colorful flowers, asymmetrical buildings, and beautiful (if bizarre) artwork adorn the commune. There has been much discussion of the runes that Aster plants all over the film like tiny Easter eggs. Surely a place so beautiful filled with people so generous and kind couldn't be a haven for ritualized violence....could it? LOL OF COURSE IT IS.

I'll come right out and get to the "scene" in question. Pelle informs his friends that they will be witnessing a very special ritual--an attestupa--as part of the midsummer celebration. When he says this, booksmart Josh (William Jackson Harper is extremely good in this role, by the way) has a knowing look on his face, while Dani and Christian beg for more details (Pelle says "you really have to see it for yourself"). As soon as two elderly people are seated at the head of the table for the meal that commences the ritual, I knew what the fuck was up, even if our characters were slow on the uptake. Haven't these people seen the movie North before? Sure enough, after the meal, the elders are taken up to a high cliff, where they cut their hands and wipe their blood on some runes...and then throw themselves to their death. This scene is filmed in stomach-churning detail, with crushed skulls, legs pointing in the wrong direction, and loose eyeballs. While Dani and Christian are quietly horrified (horndog Mark misses the spectacle since he was taking a nap), Connie and Simon, a couple from London, are disgusted and outraged, screaming "what the fuck is wrong with you people". They are inconsolable even after the matriarch of the commune explains that the Harga see life as a cycle and ritual suicide as a gift a person can give to the community.

Unsurprisingly, witnessing two violent suicides is not conducive to Dani's healing. She plans to leave, but before she can, she overhears Connie freaking out upon finding out that Simon left for the train station without her. "He wouldn't do that!" she cries. "He wouldn't leave without telling me anything!". Hmm...indeed. And it's not long before Connie is "driven to the train station" (wink wink, Connie and Simon don't actually leave the commune, wink wink) herself. So, due to fear and also due to the fact that the Harga increase their efforts to befriend her, Dani stays.

What's interesting about Midsommar is just how much of a sneakily feminist film it is. While the women of the commune do stereotypical "women's work" such as cooking, they also appear to have a lot of power--especially over the rituals (ok, ok, human sacrifices). The women of the commune are also very supportive of one another, sharing in one another's grief and joy. When Dani participates in a Maypole dance where she is crowned May Queen, the other young women embrace her as family. And Dani, who has lost her family of birth, can't resist the gentle, insistent pull of the Harga to bring her in as "new blood".

Speaking of blood, while all this May Queen stuff is going on, Christian is drugged and all but forced into a mating ritual with a young woman, Maja, from the commune. The Harga see it as an opportunity to get new blood into the gene pool of the commune. Christian is a means to an end--surrounded by naked women (including Maja's mom--awkward) who grunt and groan along with Maja until they tell Christian to finish and unceremoniously push him off the girl once his manly duty is done. Unfortunately for Christian, Dani spies on him during this ceremony, which finally breaks any ties or good will left between them.

Poor Christian. After he discovers the dead bodies of Josh (killed for his greedy attempt to photograph a sacred book he was explicitly told not to), Mark (killed for being an idiot who literally pisses on the ashes of the commune's dead), and Simon (killed for trying to get out), he is poisoned with a paralyzing solution and wheeled out for the final, and most important ritual: the sacrificing of nine humans--four "new bloods" (Josh, Mark, Connie, and Simon), four Harga (the two elders plus two volunteers) and one additional person to be chosen by...dun dun!...the May Queen herself. And let's just say that Dani isn't ready to forgive and forget. She is, however, ready to see any remaining ties to her previous life literally burn to the fucking ground. Christian is sewn into a bear's skin and placed in a barn with the other sacrifices, both living and dead, and burned alive, as Dani looks on with an expression of, not glee exactly, but of righteousness. She has found her new home.

End of movie. Oh man, and I didn't even get to Reuben, the prophet with a deformed face who is the product of intentional inbreeding! Aster said in an interview that Reuben is a symbol of "things happening in Sweden right now that are echoes of the things that happened in the second World War" (I'm guessing he's talking about eugenics and white supremacy. Sweden isn't notable for its diversity). I'm not sure I fully buy this--Reuben is so poorly sketched out that he seems more of a red herring designed to spook people in the trailer than anything else. But Midsommar is a layered movie, so I'm not unwilling to believe that he served a greater purpose. It's also not lost on me that all three characters of color (Josh, Connie, and Simon) end up dead. I *do not* believe this was an accident. I think it was an intentional choice on Aster's part to show that while the commune may be welcoming to outsiders, it's only going to accept "pure blood" (i.e. whiiiite people) into its fold.

Midsommar was, to me, just such a pleasure to experience. In addition to the wonderful performances, beautiful cinematography, and spooky suspense, it just has so much to say about grief, family, cultural relativism, gender politics, and more. Some reviews have called it slow and derivative, but I never wanted it to end and I haven't seen a movie do exactly what Aster does in this one. It is definitely inspired by other films (The Wicker Man, The Shining, even a little The Silence of the Lambs is thrown in there), but I found it to be original, masterful, and satisfying.

Grade: A+

One Minute Reviews

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When a Man Negs a Woman

Movies: The Souvenir

Joanna Hogg's coming-of-age drama The Souvenir is a strange, quiet movie. I saw the preview some months ago and was intrigued even though I couldn't figure out what the movie was supposed to be about other than a tumultuous relationship between a young man and woman.

And it is about that, albeit with a twist (which will be revealed below, so spoiler alert). But it is also about a young woman, Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne--Tilda Swinton's daughter), who is emerging from a cocoon of privilege and severe naivete´ and blossoming into an artist.

The time period of The Souvenir is the early 1980s in England. Julie is in film school and being supported by her rich parents (real-life mom Tilda Swinton plays Julie's mom). She meets Anthony (Tom Burke) at a party and the two start meeting regularly for lunch and champagne. Anthony is the ultimate rich, arrogant preppie. He wears Tucker Carlson bowties and slyly undermines Julie's ambitions and opinions. But he hides a pretty intense secret of his own.

During a dinner at home with a pair of mutual friends, when Anthony is in another room, Julie's friend casually calls Anthony a "habitual heroin user" as he is puzzling out how Julie and Anthony know each other. Julie is struck silent, and this revelation informs the rest of the events of the movie, especially when Julie comes home to find all of her jewelry and film equipment missing and Anthony claiming that they were robbed. Her willingness to believe him is both cringeworthy and understandable. A 24 year old girl in love is going to hard-pressed to believe that not only would her boyfriend steal all her shit to feed his drug habit, but that he would do so and then lie so blatantly to her, as if she's that stupid. It's almost less insulting to her intelligence to believe him.

And so The Souvenir goes. Anthony acts like an ass while denying his drug problem, then can't hide it, then disappears, then reappears claiming he is fine, then relapses. All while Julie is puzzling out film school and what filmmaking means to her.

Words I could use to describe this film are "frustrating", "insufferable", "pretentious", "repetitive", and "boring". But despite its difficulties and almost stubborn unwillingness to be a likable or accessible film, I admired it because it was honest about how relationships really work. It's also honest about the human ability to lie to ourselves and others. Julie isn't foolish and she isn't weak, she's simply inexperienced. And because of that inexperience, she lets herself be influenced by a man who is arrogant and attractive in his arrogance. I have been Julie. I have been a young woman who is attracted to art, beauty, and arrogant men. Haven't we all been Julie, to some degree or another?

The inevitable conclusion of The Souvenir is almost annoying in it's clean resolution. Julie is free of Anthony and able to fully pursue her work, all the more wise for having had a borderline emotionally abusive relationship. And while that is what I wanted for her character, it's too neat a resolution for all the messiness and pent-up emotions that came before it. The Souvenir might be the most British film I've ever watched: despite everything--the drugs, the stealing, the sex, the fights--there is never truly an explosion of emotions. Maybe that's one benefit American have over the English: we're willing to scream and cry when it is warranted.

The Souvenir is like a museum: beautiful, curated, clean, elegant, and ultimately cold and frictionless. It's an imperfect, yet poignant film that feels like it only scratches the surface of a more interesting film lying underneath.

Grade: C