There are some tall people who look regular-sized until you see them in person. Pete Davidson is not one of those people. He looks like a stretched out human—all arms and legs and torso. (Well, I suppose we’re all all arms and legs and torso, but Davidson is somehow more so.) With his hooded eyes and thick lips, he’s handsome, in an offbeat way, but also, undeniably goofy looking. And because he’s so skinny and long, he’s a walking sight gag, something director Judd Apatow leans into in The King of Staten Island. (Note how many scenes he’s shown stooping down to walk with a small child.)

Davidson, who plays a fictionalized version of himself named Scott, is the ultimate man-child. Since his father, a firefighter, died when he was 7, he’s been depressed, listless, self-pitying. He spends most of his free time getting high with his buddies in the basement. He dreams of being a tattoo artist, but he isn’t particularly good at it yet—understandably, few of his friends are willing to let him practice on them. He also has Crohn’s disease, also true of Davidson. (In one scene, he goes into vivid detail about the gastrointestinal condition, much to the consternation of his companions. “Just trying to spread awareness,” he shrugs.)

Scott lives with his mother, a nurse named Margie (Marisa Tomei, ever lovely), who reluctantly enables his apathy. His younger sister (Maude Apatow), who is way more mature than he is, is heading off to college. Now he and Margie are on their own—a prospect neither of them particularly relishes.

The film’s action takes off when a 9-year-old boy named Harold stumbles upon Scott and his friends on the beach. Harold asks Scott to give him a tattoo of The Punisher. Only one of Scott’s friends strongly objects: “He’s just a kid!” The others are so high or bored or stupid, they don’t see the problem. It’s a funny/cringy scene—he’s not really going to do it…oh shit, he’s really going to do it—ending, inevitably, with the little boy screaming in pain and horror and bolting. Scott had only managed to ink one line.

Later that day, Harold’s father, Ray (Bill Burr)—a bald guy with a ginger mustache as thick as his New York accent—turns up at Scott’s house, accusing him of mutilating his son. Margie is sufficiently mortified and offers to pay for the laser removal. Eventually, Ray takes a shining to Margie and asks her out. Turns out, he’s a firefighter, just like Scott’s late dad. This doesn’t sit well with Scott. It’s possible, indeed probable, that he would’ve hated any man who romanced his mother—but the fact that Ray is a fireman infuriates him. He thinks it’s bizarre and creepy and a cruel thing to do to him: Scott has a theory that no firefighter should have a kid. The work is too dangerous. If they die, they leave the kid on his own. It’s heartless.

So The King of Staten Island is about Scott coming to grips with his father’s death, through the avatar of Ray. Ray, it turns out, is a good guy, a real sweetheart, although certainly a flawed human, just like the rest of us. Scott blindly hates him. The evolution of their relationship isn’t rushed or overly sentimentalized—it’s the heart of the film and actually quite touching.

Not everything works. Scott has a girlfriend of sorts, Kelsey (Bel Powley), whom he sleeps with on the regular but won’t commit to—he thinks he’s too damaged for her. I enjoyed the rapport between Scott and Kelsey, and her mission to make Staten Island—“the only place New Jersey looks down on”—the next hotspot, is a cute gag, but the relationship feels like a throwaway, particularly considering the prominence it gets in the film’s final act.

Apatow’s films are often accused of being too long—and, at two hours and 17 minutes, The King of Staten Island is no exception. I appreciate Apatow’s unrushed, companionable rhythms. But there’s an entire 15-minute set piece in the film—it involves a failed caper with Scott’s buddies—that could’ve been completely cut out. It’s a deus ex machina, an excuse to leave Scott in a predicament that drives the plot. And frankly, it’s lazy screenwriting.

That said, I enjoyed The King of Staten Island, and its deeply humane exploration of Scott’s lifelong rut. We root for Scott, even when he’s being a royal pain the ass, because he’s a good guy, who has been dealt a bad hand in life. The jury is out on whether or not Davidson is a good actor—or just good at playing himself. But he’s quite affecting here. In general, I think the world doesn’t need another movie about a man-child learning to grow up. But I found myself caring about this particular man-child, despite myself.

The King of Staten Island is available on VOD starting Friday, June 12.

The vulnerability of women—all women, but particularly those who are pretty, young, and poor—is brought into sharp focus in Eliza Hittman’s grimly powerful Never Rarely Sometimes Always.

When we first meet 17-year-old Autumn (Sidney Flanigan), she’s on stage at a high school talent show. She’s playing the guitar and singing—there’s lots of tremulous emotion in her voice. From the audience, a boy coughs out the word “Slut!” and the crowd breaks into titters. Autumn pauses, somehow finding the strength to collect herself and continue.

Later, at a pizza restaurant, where Autumn’s stepfather chastises her for being sullen, another boy makes eyes at her. But he’s not being charming or bashful. He crudely simulates oral sex, trying to get a rise out of her.

At the supermarket where Autumn and her best friend Skylar (Talia Ryder) work, the skeevy manager makes remarks about what eye candy the two of them are. One customer flirts with Skylar and then seems to get aggressive when she turns down his invitation to a party.

Everywhere Autumn and Skylar turn, there are predators and threats, men who want something from them or simply see them as objects or playthings.

When Autumn suspects she might be pregnant, she goes to a local testing center, where they administer a drug store pregnancy test. They tell her she’s 10 weeks pregnant—and then tell her what a blessing it is. The center, it turns out, is nothing more than a pretense to show young women anti-choice propaganda and convince them to keep their babies.

When she gets home, Autumn downs a bottle of Vitamin C and pounds her stomach relentlessly, in a failed attempt to induce an abortion. Later, she Googles abortion centers in Pennsylvania and discovers that to get one, you need parental sign off.

That’s when she and Skylar (Talia Ryder) decide to head to Manhattan, where a minor can get an abortion without a parent’s permission. They steal money from the supermarket’s till, don hoodies, drag a giant suitcase, and take a bus into the city.

From there, Never Rarely Sometimes Always becomes a story of survival, resourcefulness, and friendship as the two girls navigate two days in the city with no place to stay and very little money. It’s downright Dickensian.

In some ways, Autumn is her own worst enemy. When she finds out the bad news—she’s 18 weeks pregnant, not 10 as she thought—the kind social worker assigned to her case asks if she needs a place to stay. (The 18 week procedure involves two appointments on two separate days.)

Autumn lies and says she’s good. The world has taught her to be self-sufficient, to assume the worst of people, to never be vulnerable. The wonderful Flanigan plays her with a steely determination that is all the more moving on those rare occasions when Autumn does break down.

The girls are on their own. Autumn and Skylar are so naïve they don’t seem to even know about youth hostels. First, they try to sleep in the bus station, but get kicked out. Then they try to sleep on the subway, but when a man begins masturbating in front of them, they bolt. They end up in an all-night arcade and a convenience store that sells Chinese dim sum (only in New York). Mixed in with the fear and danger is just the slightest bit of adventure.

Not all the men in Never Rarely Sometimes Always are threats. On the bus they meet Jasper (Theodore Pellerin), a city kid who takes a liking to Skylar and tries to goad the two friends to come downtown with him to a club. They say no, but call him the next day when they need money. He’s not a bad kid except for in the way all teenage boys can be casually cruel—he only pays attention to Skylar and basically ignores Autumn; he keeps insisting they join him “downtown.” When he does finally loan them money—easily withdrawing it from an ATM—he makes out with Skylar as a reward. In his mind, it’s romantic; in hers, it’s strictly transactional. In one of the film’s best scenes, as she kisses him, leaning against a pole in the subway, Autumn holds her hand in solidarity. They two friends can’t see each other—they’re on opposite sides of the pole—but they’re ineffably connected.

Eliza Hittman has made three films about teenage sexuality, longing, and alienation (the other two are It Felt Like Love and Beach Rats) and they’ve all been wonderful—understated, closely observed, deeply evocative. One thing she’s not? Sentimental. I kept waiting for a moment when Autumn would embrace Skylar, thank her being such a good friend, for being her ride or die. The closest thing we get is that scene in the subway. Two friends, fingers interlocked, in a gesture that says, “I got you.”

Never Rarely Sometimes Always is now available On Demand.

Does anyone give better struggle face than Elisabeth Moss? The actress expertly suffers her way through Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale and she once again puts her uncannily expressive talents to use in The Invisible Man.

As the film opens, it’s the middle of the night and Cecilia (Moss) is lying next to her lover in a sleek but eerily remote mansion. She gently moves his hand off of her, so as not to awaken him. Is she merely being considerate? It soon becomes clear that she’s not just getting up for a bathroom run—she’s escaping the house and has been planning it for a while. An overnight bag is already packed and at the ready, she knows the codes to all the security cameras, and she’s even drugged her boyfriend, Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), with diazepam. This scene perfectly sets up the tone of the film as she tiptoes around the mansion, trying to not make any noise, casting furtive glances at the one video feed of Adrian asleep in his bed. We feel the creeping tension and dread with each step.

She does eventually escape—but not before awakening the dog and triggering the car alarm—and although she’s out, she’s still traumatized by her abusive past. She’s staying at the home of her sister’s studly cop boyfriend (Aldis Hodge) and his college-bound daughter (Storm Reid), but she’s reluctant to set foot outside (a run to the mailbox constitutes a small triumph). When it’s reported that Adrian is dead by suicide, everyone, including her sister (Harriet Dyer), expects her to snap out of it, go back to normal. But she can’t shake the feeling that a control freak like Adrian is never really gone. Eventually, she starts to feel his presence around the house—a smell, a sensation—and director Leigh Whannell (who also wrote the neatly efficient script) has great fun playing with things like indented seat cushions and an extra human breath wafting into a cold night.

The Invisible Man is one of those great, “everyone thinks she’s crazy but we know she’s not” movies and the frustrations (and stakes) keep mounting as the film goes on. Whannell often shoots from the point of view of the invisible Adrian to heighten the fear factor. You’re not being paranoid if you really are being watched.

It honestly makes sense to update The Invisible Man, not just because of the sure-why-not technology that Adrian employs to render himself invisible (he’s described as a “world leader in the field of optics” lol), but because the film has clear echoes of the #MeToo movement. Cecilia is every woman who has been stalked and controlled by an abusive and vengeful partner. But remember—there’s another face that Elisabeth Moss has proven to be good at: table-turning, ass-kicking revenge face. Will she get her chance to wield it here? Watch and find out.

Like many of you, I’ve had have a hard time grasping how the people who worked with Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein turned a blind eye to his many alleged crimes. How is that no one turned him in to the police or wrote a scathing exposé or staged a walkout? The quietly incendiary indie The Assistant sheds some light on the kind of workspace that could lead to such a culture of silence.

The film executive that our heroine, Jane (Julia Garner), works for is not Harvey Weinstein, per se, but he’s essentially modeled after the Miramax/Weinstein Co. titan. Tellingly, he’s never seen, but his presence looms malevolently over the entire movie.

As an assistant, Jane’s job is to get coffee, Xerox and bind scripts, make travel arrangements, and the like. She comes in early, before anyone else arrives, and tidies up the big boss’ office. She finds an earring under the couch and discreetly removes it.

Her desk is directly outside the mogul’s office, along with two other production assistants who manage to live in fear of their all-powerful boss and also acquit themselves with the kind of cocky jocularity that comes with knowing you have one of the best jobs in the business. They downplay or make jokes about the mogul’s sexual transgressions—“Never sit on the couch” they crack. They also treat Jane like a paeon. One of the young men throws balled up pieces of paper at her whenever he wants to get her attention. He also forces Jane to deal with an angry mistress of the mogul’s on the phone, which will eventually enrage the boss. (The other production assistant, in a burst of noblesse oblige, tries to help Jane construct a letter of apology. Be sure to mention how much you appreciate the opportunity to work here, he reminds her.)

The mogul’s anger is quick, profligate, and indiscriminate. He’s an abuser. The key is to get him to focus his rage on somebody else, preferably a woman.

It’s not all men who work in the office, but mostly men. And the women, it seems, have become hardened. They act like men themselves—intolerant of any behavior that is perceived as weak.

The film, which mostly concerns itself with the quotidian details of Jane’s day, pivots a bit when the mogul’s new assistant arrives from Idaho. She’s pretty and impossibly young. She was a cater waitress at an event the mogul attended in Sun Valley and the mogul took a liking to her. She arrives at the office bursting with youthful naivete and excitement. It’s Jane’s job to put her up at a nice hotel near the office.

Afraid for this girl, Jane goes to see the company’s HR director, Wilcock (a wonderfully unctuous Matthew Macfadyen). I won’t tell you exactly what transpires in that scene—the best in the film—but suffice it to say that the subtle look of pain on Garner’s face when Jane realizes that Wilcock’s mission is to protect the company, not its employees, is devastating.

One thing I wish the film gave us more of: Jane’s personality beyond that of a hard-working and put upon assistant. We see that she has integrity, when she goes to Wilcock. And we see her eyes well up with tears—or flash with rage—when she witnesses injustice. But she’s a bit of a cipher, a symbol of the kind of young woman who might learn to keep her head down in an environment like this. It’s an intentional choice by writer/director Kitty Green, but in my book, a bit more specificity to her character would’ve taken the film to the next level.

What the film does make clear, however, is that everyone is in survival mode at this studio. They’re so busy not pissing off the boss, keeping their jobs, passing unsavory tasks onto underlings, they lose themselves in the process. They all know what a great opportunity this is. So they ignore (or in some cases laugh off) his crimes, do the work, and let the monster run free.

Two days from now, Joaquin Phoenix will likely win an Oscar for his depiction of the Joker in Todd Phillips’ lugubrious take on the super villain’s origin story. So, for your consideration, I give you Margot Robbie in Birds of Prey, a performance that is no less inventive and committed, but way more fun.

Robbie plays the notorious Harley Quinn. Her origin story goes like this: At one point a respected psychiatrist, she falls for her patient, the Joker, then falls (literally) into a vat of radioactive goo, and emerges a punkish anarchist with pigtails, hot pants, and zero you-know-whats to give. Does she have any actual super powers? Nothing notable, although she seemingly has more strength and speed than the average person (at least in one scene, that speed is fueled by the giant pile of cocaine she collides with). But her greatest superpower, I suppose, is her absolute embrace of chaos. The crazier things get, the happier she seems.

In the past, Harley has largely been defined by her love of Joker, so Birds of Prey has a pretty fun concept: What happens when Harley and Joker break up? Well, for one, she’s even more manic than usual. But also, the protection he provided her evaporates. She suddenly has several targets on her back. Each new character is introduced by the “grievance” they have with Harley. Suffice it to say she has a knack for pissing people off.

Robbie is having an absolute blast playing this character, an unholy combination of Alex from A Clockwork Orange and Cindy Brady. One minute she’s wreaking havoc on a nightclub—breaking a sexist creep’s legs, puking into a stranger’s purse—the next minute she’s giggling in front of cartoons and kissing her pet hyena. And, occasionally, as she’s glitter bombing a police station or blowing up a chemical plant, she’ll stop to dispense some long-dormant, dimly accessed bit of psychological wisdom. (“Psychologically speaking, vengeance rarely brings the catharsis we hope for.”)

But she’s not the only ass-kicking female in this movie. Harley will eventually end up with a squad, of sorts. There’s detective Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), fast on the heels of the evil smoothie, Roman Sionis (Ewan McGregor), but never getting credit for her work (that always goes to her male partner). Then there’s deadpan super assassin Helena Bertinelli (Mary Elizabeth Winstead)—she prefers “the Huntress”—who wields a crossbow like a champ and whose ninja-like ways impress the livewire Harley. There’s the tweenage pickpocket Cassandra (Ella Jay Basco). Finally, there’s Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell, in a star-making performance), a beauty with a killer set of lungs who more-or-less operates a resistance from within Sionis’ deadly organization.

Birds of Prey is directed by a woman—Cathy Yan—and it shows. Before you jump to conclusions, it has nothing to do with the amount of action or violence—both are eye-popping and plentiful. But each of its female anti-heroines has her own agency. Although they are all sexy, their sexuality is never exploited. They are not defined by the men in their lives. And although they are technically criminals (Montoya notwithstanding), they ultimately have a shared humanity that makes them natural, if reluctant, allies.

Kinetic, silly, candy-colored, and hyperviolent, Birds of Prey is a serious treat for fans of comic book films. But it wouldn’t work without the equal parts goofy, hilarious, and unhinged performance of its lead. I’ll be back at the end of the year to remind Oscar voters just how great she is.

There are some films that emphasize the moral murkiness, the absurdity, and the ultimate pointlessness of war. Sam Mendes’s World War I drama, 1917, isn’t that kind of film. It’s more of an earnest “they really were the best of lads, weren’t they?” type deal (the lads in this case are British, not American) and it is concerned largely with myth building and moral absolutes. In that sense, although the film employs a contemporary trick—it creates the uncanny illusion that it was all shot in one continuous take, which evokes a “you are here” sensation—it can accurately be described as old-fashioned. Still, it makes an undeniable case for itself. Corny, for sure. But also exciting, poetic, epic, and stirring. And it has just enough cynicism around the edges to make the whole thing palatable to this war skeptic.

As the film starts, two young soldiers, Will Schofield (George MacKay) and Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman), are dozing off and dreaming about the end of the war, which they hope is imminent. They are awakened rather rudely by another soldier, who tells Blake he’s been summoned by the General. He instructs Blake to “pick a man” and follow him. Naturally, he picks Schofield.

In the captain’s barracks, General Erinmore (Colin Firth) gravely tells them their assignment. The 2^nd Battalion is about to attack the Germans, whom they believe to have retreated. In fact, the Germans are lying in wait—it’s a trap. As all communications have been knocked out, the only way to get this news to the Battalion is on foot. As for why he chose Blake? His lieutenant brother is a member of the 2^nd Battalion. If they get there in time, they’ll be saving not just 1,600 soldiers, but his brother’s life.

Blake, hearing this news, is eager to get going, but Schofield hesitates. Shouldn’t they wait until nightfall? Wouldn’t that be more prudent? But Blake has a full head of steam. Time is of the essence and his urgency to get to his brother overpowers his fear. Reluctantly, Schofield concedes. The camera follows them as they make their way through the narrow trenches to get the front lines, shoving people, who bark at them that they’re going the wrong way. More than any other film I’ve seen, 1917 emphasizes how narrow, crowded, and uncomfortable trenches were, with people often sleeping standing up or waiting, fearfully, for their marching orders.

Eventually, they reach the barracks of Lieutenant Leslie (Andrew “Hot Priest” Scott), who’s supposed to send them off. Leslie is a world-weary, jaded man—one of the film’s token cynics—who thinks the boys have been sent on a suicide mission. He assures them that, although they’ll almost certainly die, they’ll get a medal for their efforts. “Nothing like a scrap of ribbon to cheer up a widow,” he says, with grim gallows humor. He gives them flares to shoot in the unlikely event they make it through “No Man’s Land” (advising them to throw the flares back if they’ve been shot—they’re expensive) and bids them good bye.

No Man’s Land is a muddy field filled with blind pits, barbed wire, rotting corpses of soldiers and horses alike—essentially hell on earth. But they make it through (not before Schofield punctures his hand on some of that barbed wire). This, of course, is only the first of many dangerous fields they’ll have to traverse.

Mendes films the first half of the film like a kind of immersive and highly sensory adventure and buddy film. We’re right there with Schofield and Blake, feeling their fear, their adrenaline, their dogged determination to fulfill their mission. Schofield allows himself one moment of self pity: “Why in God’s name did you have to choose me?” he moans at one point. But for the most part, he’s a brave and loyal friend and soldier. Blake is the more garrulous of the two, always telling stories (about a man whose ear was bitten off by a rat; about his mother’s cherry orchards back home), trying to keep their spirits up. Mendes emphasizes their rosy-cheeked youth—neither appears to even shave yet—and their essential decency.

The action is swift and heart-pounding. One minute they’re in a trip-wired German barracks, one minute they’re dodging a downed fighter plane. One character tumbles into a dangerous waterfall. At every corner, a German sniper might be waiting to kill them.

So yeah, about that moral absolutism. There is one token moment where our heroes see a photo of a German soldier’s children pinned to a bedpost—you see? they have families and loved ones, too!—but for the most part, Germans are evil bastards without a modicum of decency who shoot first and ask questions later.

Both young leads are wonderful but relatively unknown (although I’ve been a fan of MacKay’s since Captain Fantastic) so Mendes packs the film with high-profile cameos. On top of the aforementioned Firth and Scott, we have appearances by Mark Strong, Richard Madden, and Benedict Cumberbatch, all excellent. It’s Strong who acknowledges one dark aspect of war. “Some men just want to fight,” his Captain Smith tells Schofield. His words prove to be prophetic.

1917 is dedicated to Sam Mendes’s grandfather, who fought in the war and “who told us stories,” which probably explains the corniness. There are moments when the film slows down to appreciate something graceful or elegiac—sporadic bursts of fire illuminating the ruins of a blown out church, a woman sheltering an abandoned infant, a group of soldiers listening to a man singing a plaintive English folk song in the woods. It would all be unbearably corny if it weren’t so damn beautiful.

War is hell, Mendes argues, but it sure brought out the best in our lads.

I confess that when I heard that Greta Gerwig was doing a new adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, my first reaction was: Why? After all, the Gillian Armstrong adaption with Winona Ryder came out in 1994 which was—la, la, la I can’t hear you—a mere 25 years ago. Okay, so that actually is more than a generation ago, but I loved that adaptation. Winona, at that time the coolest girl in the world, was a sassy and appealing Jo. Claire Danes, the star of my then-favorite show (My So-Called Life), was the beautifully doomed Beth, and the dreamboat du jour Christian Bale (yes, our most method-y of method actors was once a teen idol) was an irresistible Laurie. Heck, I’m even a big enough person to admit that Susan Sarandon made for a warm and wise Marmee.

So I asked myself, is this new adaptation necessary? Turns out, yes. For one thing, it’s clear that Gerwig loves the source material in a bone-deep way. One can practically see the yellowed-with-age, dog-eared, much underlined paperback that Gerwig no doubt carried with her at all times as a young girl. Indeed, she loves it so much, she’s able to mess with its timeline, in a way that feels faithful to the source material and adds new depth and dimension to the plot. Also, the film feels urgent, a word not often associated with the book, without sacrificing any of its lit-by-the-fireplace glow.

It starts, as it always does, with Jo, and I can’t imagine a better Jo than Saoirse Ronan, one of our best actors. Her Jo is smart, loving, quick-tempered, stubborn, and most importantly frustrated—in a visceral sort of way—with the status of women in society. The character of Jo is usually depicted as plucky—and she’s certainly that here—but she’s almost mournful, too, so profoundly aware of life’s inequality that it feels like an ache. As Marmee, Laura Dern portrays motherhood itself as a healing and loving force of nature but she also allows a little of her character’s frustration to bubble to the surface. “I’m angry all the time,” she admits to Jo (who, if not Marmee’s favorite daughter, is certainly the one she understands and empathizes with the most)—and it’s a bit of shock. But, of course, a woman as intelligent and capable as Marmee is would be a little angry. She simply learned to channel that anger into something decent and true.

Rising star Florence Pugh makes for an excellent Amy—funny, bratty, and, as always, smarter than she looks—but I confess I found her a bit ungainly as a 12 year old. I preferred Armstrong’s strategy of casting two actresses as Amy; who can forget a young Kirsten Dunst moaning over her life-ruining lack of limes? Still, Pugh is so amusing as the younger incarnation of Amy it’s hard to really get bent out of shape over this. And Timothée Chalamet is the perfect Laurie. Gerwig had the good sense to expand his role: We see him as a lovesick boy nearly swooning with longing for Jo. (Chalamet, as he proved in Call Me By Your Name, gives good swoon.) And later, he’s convincing as a louche and dissolute young man, heartbroken and in need of saving. The cast is rounded out by an excellent Chris Cooper as the sad Mr. Laurence, whose spirit is rekindled by the joie de vivre emanating from family next door. And, of course, there’s Meryl Streep, who makes for a deliciously unsentimental and prickly Aunt March.

Now about that timeline: Gerwig starts with Jo in New York, pursuing a writing career and having already met the mysterious Friedrich Bhaer (Louis Garrel, too good-looking for the part IMO), then toggles back and forth between her childhood and adulthood. This mostly works famously, especially when she adds a meta device where Jo interacts with an amused and skeptical publisher (the ever welcome Tracy Letts) who will eventually publish her novel. But sometimes the dual timeline can be a bit confusing (pro tip: Pay close attention to Jo’s haircut).

A few more quibbles: As Meg, the bird-like Emma Watson is miscast as Jo’s older sister. And the film indulges in a few too many anachronisms (“You’re on fire,” Bhaer says to Jo, when the edge of her skirt grazes the fireplace. “Thank you,” she replies.) Along those lines, New York-era Jo dresses a bit more like Diane Keaton in Annie Hall than a character in a 19^th century novel.

But mostly, it feels magical, like a Christmas gift. What Gerwig proves is that you don’t need to be slavishly faithful to a text. If you love a book deeply enough, if you’ve truly internalized its spirit and meaning, you can riff on it in such a way that makes it feel fresh without betraying its essence. As Gerwig makes clear, Little Women is almost as relevant today as it was when it was published 150 years ago. What a meaningful tribute to a beloved work of art.

There’s a famous scene in the film Erin Brockovich—which, like, Dark Waters is about a greedy corporation knowingly poisoning drinking water in a rural community—where our smart and sassy working class heroine played by Julia Roberts is confronting a room full of suits. “By the way,” she says pointedly. “We had that water brought in special you folks.”

It’s a show stopper of a moment, as the lawyers get a little green around the gills and put down their glasses.

You won’t see any moments like that in Dark Waters.

The film isn’t boring, per se, but it is serious-minded, almost to a fault. It stubbornly eschews crowd pleasing theatrics. It doesn’t pander. It leaves big moments (the receipt of a fat settlement check; a death in the family) off camera. It’s the rare American film that trusts in both the intelligence and patience of its audience.

In some ways, the film’s sober tone matches the personality of its protagonist. Mark Ruffalo, who also executive produced, plays the real life corporate lawyer Robert Bilott. One day, a farmer named Wilbur Tennant (remarkable Bill Camp, who deserves Oscar consideration) shows up at his offices in Cincinnati. He explains that DuPont is poisoning his livestock and he has videos to prove it. Bilott is baffled. “I’m a corporate defense attorney,” he explains. “I defend chemical companies.” “Well, now you can defend me,” Wilbur says stubbornly.

Turns out, Wilbur is an acquaintance of Bilott’s grandmother—who also lives in West Virginia, where Bilott himself was raised—so out of a sense of duty, he follows up (he’s also able to throw in a visit to grandma while he’s at it). He’s shocked by what he sees: sick cows staggering around with open wounds and a big field essentially serving as a cow graveyard. Naively, he believes that if he tells DuPont executive Phil Donnelly (a wonderfully unctuous Victor Garber), the matter will be cleared up. Donnelly feigns concern but does nothing. Bilott continues to look into the matter and the more he learns, the more horrified he becomes. It seems DuPont is not just poisoning cattle, but the community of Parkersburg’s drinking water as well, all to make their wildly popular Teflon products.

Of course, trying to take on a corporation as massive as DuPont requires money, time—more than a decade as the film underscores—and support. And Bilott gets that support from an unlikely source: his own law firm. Yes, there are many at the firm who want Bilott to drop the case (it’s particularly irritating to the partners because they were hoping to go after DuPont . . . as a client), but Bilott’s boss (Tim Robbins) mostly has his back. Corporate lawyers may get a bad rap, he explains, but even they draw the line at poisoning small town America.

There’s another source of resistance—and a surprising one at that: the residents of Parkersburg themselves. Many of them work for DuPont. Causing DuPont to pay off massive law suits, or possibly even shut down their chemical plant, could cause them their livelihoods. Here, the film shows how corporate America has us all in its grips.

And yet Bilott doggedly does the right thing—digging through the hundreds of boxes of data that DuPont dumped on him in discovery, interviewing scientists, and visiting community members. It takes a toll on his life. He becomes obsessed. His patient wife, played by Anne Hathaway, gets frustrated. Hathaway is given a fairly substantial part, as such things go, but make no mistake, it’s still the supportive wife role. (One of the many reasons I adore Erin Brockovich is because the supportive “wife” is played by Aaron Eckhart.)

Ruffalo plays Bilett as a mild-mannered man, not prone to histrionics. Don’t expect a lot of grandstanding in this film. He’s a put your head down, purse your lips, and get the job done sort of guy. Ruffalo is good in the role, but in keeping with the rest of the film, he dials down his charisma a lot. (If you’re looking for charisma, Bill Pullman provides it in abundance, but his role as a courtly but savvy trial lawyer is woefully small.)

Dark Waters is directed by Todd Haynes, a director I love to the point of hero-worship. But this is not an auteurist film by his usual standards. It’s an exceptionally made procedural with an urgent, earnest anti-corporate message. Everyone who made the film cares deeply—and it shows. I almost feel guilty for preferring Erin Brockovich. Sometimes I just like a little more movie in my movie.

Divorce is sad. It’s especially sad when there are kids involved, but it’s sad no matter what: two people who once loved each other, who committed to each other, who built a life together, realizing they just can’t do it anymore. And it’s fairly easy to convey this sadness in a film: Show the two protagonists as a happy couple—maybe include their meet-cute, his teary-eyed first glance at her walking down the aisle, the joyful birth of their child—and then show the aftermath of that broken bond. But Noah Baumbach does something with a higher degree of difficulty in Marriage Story. When we first meet Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and Charlie (Adam Driver), they are describing what they love about each other (“She is a mother who plays”; “He cries easily in movies”), but it’s an exercise in a mediator’s office. They’ve already split up. The marriage is over.

It didn’t end in a dramatic fashion. Yes, there was an affair (his) but by that point, the relationship was already broken. They simply realized they couldn’t make it work any longer.

At a young age, Nicole, who grew up in Hollywood with an actress mother, made a teen movie that hit it big (a la Fast Times at Ridgemont High? Baumbach was once married to the actress Jennifer Jason Leigh). She could’ve stayed in L.A., been a screen actress, but instead she went to an avant-garde theater production where she fell in love with the hulking actor on stage. It turns out he was also the director. His name was Charlie.

She moved to New York and her life became subsumed by his. Not in the traditional, staying-home-to-raise-the-child way—they were both good, involved parents to their young son Henry (Azhy Robertson)—but she joined his theater troupe, became his actress muse. And one day she looked up and realized she was a New Yorker, in an apartment decorated in his taste, living a life that he had dreamed of, but she hadn’t. So they separated.

Nicole goes to LA to film a pilot and hires a feminist lawyer Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern) who more than lightly encourages her to lean in and get what’s hers. She presents the most unsavory version of Charlie to Nicole. Meanwhile, Charlie first visits his own shark of a lawyer (Ray Liotta) but thinks he’s too aggressive (not to mention too expensive) so instead he settles for the mild-mannered, slightly doddering Bert Spitz (Alan Alda). He thinks the divorce will be simple. Two people who once really loved each other, amicably splitting up their lives. On a visit to LA, he goes to the house of Nicole’s mother (Julie Hagerty), where Nicole and Charlie have been staying, and you can tell he’s comfortable there. He reaches into the fridge and grabs a roast chicken. He greets Nicole’s mother by swinging her around. Little does he know that he’s about to be served divorce papers by Nicole’s nervous sister (MerrittWeaver). Turns out, Nicole is planning on staying in Hollywood and keeping Henry with her.

The divorce gets bitter. Charlie dumps Bert Spitz and goes back to the shark. Both Charlie and Nicole seem confused, overwhelmed by what’s happening, swept up in something beyond their control. Can they remember the love they once shared—maybe still share—to get through this together?

Although sadness permeates the film, Marriage Story can be quite funny. There’s a particularly amusing set piece involving a hellish visit from an inscrutable woman hired by the court to observe Charlie’s parenting. Everything that can go wrong does. But of course, even this funny episode is imbued with sadness. He’s screwing things up. He could lose his son.

Both actors are beyond tremendous here. There’s a scene in Nora Fanshaw’s office where Nicole just talks about her life, her marriage, her regrets. It feels like a wonderful monologue in a play. The camera mostly stays trained on Johannson’s face—with its elfin beauty, its lit-from-within glow—and she’s mesmerizing. Driver is her equal. Tears, as we’ve been reminded, come to Charlie easily. But Driver makes him even more pathetic when he’s not crying, just looking crumpled and defeated and baffled.

Marriage Story has been compared to Kramer Vs. Kramer (a film I love and will defend ’til the end of time) and it certainly pays explicit homage to that classic. (There’s a funny fakeout where Charlie holds out his arms and Henry goes running right past him; the reverse of a similar scene in Kramer.) But of course, as always, Baumbach is most influenced by Woody Allen (sorry). He makes Woody Allen-esque films about self-aware, artsy, voluble upper-middle-class New Yorkers. His films aren’t as funny as Woody’s, but they’re deeper. Woody Allen films are famously all 98 minutes long. Marriage Story’s running time is 2 hours and 17 minutes. But it earns that time. We get to know Nicole and Charlie, get to care about them, get to mourn what they’ve lost. Divorce is ugly. This film about a particular divorce, however, is quite beautiful.

Marriage Story opens on Thanksgiving at the Parkway Theatre.

When I found out that Tom Hanks had been hired to play Mr. Rogers in the new film, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, I marveled at the perfection of the casting. While Hanks doesn’t actually look much like the famous children’s TV star, he has something more important than superficial resemblance—like Rogers, he exudes decency, empathy, and compassion. Like Rogers, he makes being a good man look effortless.

Of course, being a good man was not effortless for Fred Rogers—he worked at it, every day—and that’s one of the themes of this often touching, occasionally frustrating film.

Matthew Rhys (of The Americans fame) plays Lloyd Vogel, a stand-in for famous Esquire journalist Tom Junod, who is assigned to write a story on Rogers for the magazine’s 1998 Heroes issue. (His editor is played by Christine Lahti, a laughable choice since, as far as I know, there has never been a female editor of Esquire). Vogel is going through some issues of his own—he is a new father, and having a hard time adjusting to the lifestyle change that represents—basically, he makes his attorney wife (Susan Kelechi Watson) do most of the work. He’s estranged from and still very angry at his own father (Chris Cooper), for reasons that will eventually come clear. He mopes around the house and office. In short, he’s a cynical, dark, wounded guy. Exactly the kind of guy Mr. Rogers loves, according to his manager.

So Vogel tromps off to Pittsburgh and gets to watch Mr. Rogers do his thing, including interacting with a child on set. At first, the child is unruly and his sheepish parents keep apologizing for his bad behavior. But Mr. Rogers keeps addressing the boy in that calm, steady voice of us—asking him questions, engaging him, until the boy envelops Rogers in a hug.

Vogel, watching from the sidelines, is both impressed and skeptical. He wonders if Rogers is full of shit. He must be, right? No one could possibly be that decent.

The best parts of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood are the scenes between Vogel and Rogers, especially their interviews. Vogel keeps trying to get Rogers to open up, but he’s clearly not comfortable talking about himself. Oftentimes, Rogers will acknowledge the sensitivity or insightfulness of the question, without actually answering it. Even more frequently, he’ll turn around the question and try to get Vogel to share things with him—about being a father, about his own father, about his childhood.

Vogel is slightly annoyed by this—but resistance is futile. When Mr. Rogers stares at you with those limpid, caring eyes, you eventually spill your guts.

What I like about this is that it serves two purposes: It shows how Rogers’ genuine empathy has a soothing effect. But it also demonstrates that Rogers was likely a pain in the ass to interview.

I can’t say enough about Hanks’ performance here. I read Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s interview with Hanks in The New York Times, where he repeatedly reminds us that he is not Rogers, he’s very much acting. Indeed. To play Rogers, Hanks slows down his voice and affect. There was a stillness, a minimalism to Rogers’ bearing that Hanks captures perfectly. He also absolutely nails the way Rogers conducted himself on air—staring at the camera, as he explained, as though he were looking into the eyes of one particular child.

What I’m about to say might be a little controversial, but I also think Hanks captures the fact that there was something a little creepy, or at least uncanny, about Rogers: a brilliant adult who nonetheless behaved in a child-like way, who feigned guilelessness, who spent all of his public life physically caring. If nothing else, Rogers’ placid, attentive presence was a little unnerving—and Rhys does a great job of showing how Vogel tried, and mostly failed, to navigate it.

There are, however, a few things about the film I didn’t love. If you hadn’t told me that the director was a woman—Marielle Heller, responsible for the great The Diary of a Teenage Girl and one of my favorite films of last year, Can You Ever Forgive Me?—I would’ve assumed it was a guy. Because you see, Vogel is kind of a jerk. That’s fine, jerks are interesting subject matter. But everyone in the film is always propping him up, supporting him, loving him—including several women—when what he really needs is a swift kick in the ass. In that sense, the film comes dangerously close to the “great man” theory of bad behavior. Vogel is a brilliant writer, therefore, we are to put up with his pugilistic tendencies, his neglect of his wife and infant son, his all-consuming selfishness. Everyone, even Mr. Rogers (especially Mr. Rogers) works very hard to heal him.

My other gripe with the film is that it sags a bit when Rogers isn’t on screen. The film focuses a lot on the relationship between Vogel and his father, Jerry, and, frankly, I just didn’t care about them, at least partly because the Jerry Vogel character is written so broadly (the first time we meet him, he’s at a wedding and drunk). He never seems to have an interesting interior life.

Still, for a film that I occasionally resisted, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood sure made me cry a lot. That scene on the subway in the trailer when the kids sing to Mr. Rogers? It’s even longer and more moving than I expected. And then there’s a final gesture—a bit of sign language that Rogers taught Vogel—that wrecked me. Apparently, it’s not just Lloyd Vogel who needs a little Mr. Rogers in his life. I do, too.

There’s a scene toward the end of Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman where Robert De Niro’s teamster-turned-mafia-hit-man Frank Sheeran, now a feeble old man in a nursing home, is looking at an old picture of his daughter with Jimmy Hoffa.

“Who’s that?” says an indulgent nurse. When he tells her it’s Hoffa, she claims to know who he is, but she’s clearly faking it.

There was a time, only a few decades earlier, when the Teamsters president was one of the most famous people alive, second perhaps only to the President of the United States. Now he’s just a dead old man in a fading picture.

The irony is resonant. If you’ve been following film news lately, you’ll know that Scorsese, the filmmaker whose bravado and machismo once made him a kind of rock star of auteurs, is in a bit of a feud with fans of Marvel films. Scorsese called those films amusement park rides—entertainments, but not works of art. In response, Marvel fans basically called him out of touch and irrelevant. They “Okay, Boomer”-ed him.

It happens to us all, Scorsese reminds us. We live, we fight for the things we believe in—some petty, some important—we rage against the dying of the light, but eventually we all end up as some dead guy in a fading photograph. One thing’s for sure, with The Irishman, Scorsese has resoundingly proven that he’s not dead yet.

The story focuses on De Niro’s Frank, who is essentially beholden to two father figures. There’s Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci), the sensible and competent mob boss who took a shining to young Frank when he was still just a truck driver and groomed him to be a hit man (or, in the film’s parlance, a “painter of houses”). And then there’s Al Pacino’s Hoffa, the colorful Teamsters president who also took Frank under his wing. In his own way, Frank loved both men—he particularly hero worshipped Hoffa—but he was hardly a sentimental man. A WWII vet, he was used to following orders and asking few questions. Frank himself was capable of extreme violence—especially if you crossed his family—but he was also a circumspect, solid, reliable man. That’s why both Bufalino and Hoffa liked having him as their deputy.

The problem occurs when Hoffa runs afoul of the mob and Frank has to attempt to negotiate both worlds. At some point, he knows he might have to choose.

Much has been said about The Irishman’s three and a half hour length. Is it indulgent? Bloated? Self important? For me, the film’s length seems just right. One thing about Scorsese: A lesser filmmaker might try to trim the alleged fat, take away the film’s detours and grace notes. But those grace notes—like a lively argument about just how late is insultingly late (Hoffa was notorious for not suffering tardiness) and an ongoing gag about a man self conscious about his big ears—are some of the best parts of the film. Scorsese knows how to wield humor, humanizing details, and digressions to keep the film lively.

Of course, it helps to have three of the greatest actors of our time anchoring the proceedings. Yes, having Pacino and De Niro play Irishmen is a bit of a stretch—they are, after all, the quintessential Italian American actors—but when you have a chance to cast Pacino and De Niro in your film you do it. De Niro’s Frank is a steady, cautious, quietly observant man—a survivor, who takes a transactional approach to all the unsavory thing he is asked to do. Pacino’s Hoffa is garrulous, vainglorious, eccentric—you can see how he so easily led men with his powerful charisma and how his own vanity led to his downfall. (In this case, Pacino’s notorious scenery chewing seems to perfectly serve the character.) As for Pesci, where ya been man? It’s wonderful that Scorsese was able to lure the fiercely private actor out of semi-retirement for this part. He’s playing a bit against type—Bufalino is not hot-headed nor ridiculous, but rather a wise and even compassionate leader (insofar as a man who routinely orders murders can be compassionate). Like Hoffa, he has his quirks—while Hoffa loves ice cream sundaes and, as mentioned, disdains lateness, Bufalino can’t stand to be around smokers so much that he has Frank pull over on a road trip every few minutes so their wives can light up.

While Frank tries to be Switzerland when it comes to the feud between his two mentors, another member of his family has picked sides. His daughter Peggy (played as a watchful child by Lucy Gallina and as a scornful adult by Anna Paquin) adores Hoffa and can’t stand Bufalino. She knows who he is, or has a general sense, and she particularly hates his influence over her father. Naturally, Bufalino goes out of his way to win her over, unsuccessfully, and his glowering hurt and anger over this is just another one of those perfect grace notes.

There’s another way that the film’s three and half hour runtime works in its favor. The film is ultimately about the passage of time—about powerful men who become old and irrelevant. Because he uses actors as familiar as Pacino, De Niro, and Pesci, we can’t help but to feel the pangs of our own mortality watching them. Wow, they look…old. And the film plays with the timeline—jumping from the distant past to the near past to the present. Yes, the film’s famous de-aging technique is pretty impressive—De Niro may not actually look like his young self, but he convincing looks like a young Frank—but I was equally impressed by the film’s aging makeup. Frank narrates the film from that nursing home and, with his thin hair, oversized glasses, and uselessly protruding belly under a velvet tracksuit, he looks exactly as I’d imagine an 80ish Frank would look.

There is something undeniably elegiac about The Irishman. Scorsese is clearly reflecting on his own career, his own legacy of making great films about not-so-great men. But unlike Hoffa (and Frank and Bufalino, who are both based on real people), Scorsese has put vital works of art into this world. Long after he’s gone—and, dare I say, long after most of those Marvel films are forgotten—he will still be remembered as one the greatest filmmakers of this, or any, time.

The Irishman opens Friday, November 15 at the Landmark Theatre Harbor East and streams on Netflix beginning November 27.

Editor’s Note: The following review contains some spoilers for Last Christmas. Read with caution. (I mean, I don’t spoil the whole thing. I’m not a monster…it just depends on how spoiler averse you are.)

Pulling off a twist in a film is an art form. In a perfect execution, the clues were there all along—tiny breadcrumbs that we could’ve followed, if only we’d been astute enough—but we missed them. But in Last Christmas, the clues are not so much breadcrumbs as enormous blinking signposts. People literally guessed the twist off the trailer. I can’t tell if writer Emma Thompson and director Paul Feig think we’re dumb. Or if they figure we’ll see the film because of the twist.

Look, it’s no mystery why anyone would attempt to make a Christmas film (or song or TV show). Strike a chord with the public and you’ll be rolling in those royalty checks for life. (For all her wealth and success, Mariah Carey probably makes more money off of “All I Want For Christmas is You” than any of her other songs combined.) The Christmas Industrial Complex is real, y’all.

So I can see how all the pieces came together for Last Christmas: A Christmas setting (our heroine works as an “elf” at a store that sells enormous quantities of Christmas kitsch), the irresistible music of George Michael, in particular his big Christmas smash, “Last Christmas,” comely rising stars Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding, and an extremely explicit message of loving your fellow man (and kicking Brexit to the curb). And yet…Last Christmas feels ill-conceived from the start.

It starts with the chemistry between those aforementioned beautiful stars—or lack thereof. It’s not even the actors’ faults. Golding’s Tom is a man of mystery, not so much wooing Kate (Clarke), our sitcom wreck of heroine (she sleeps around, eats too many burgers, can’t find a place to stay, is adorably clumsy, etc), as encouraging her to embrace her second chance at life (she is the recipient of a heart transplant). He dances around London like a modern-day Gene Kelly, always telling Kate to “look up” and notice the city’s secret birds and gargoyles and architectural wonders. He disappears for long stretches of time. He doesn’t want to sleep with her. He’s a manic pixie dream celibate.

When the trailer for the film came out, Twitter immediately guessed what Tom’s deal was and, while I won’t ruin it here, suffice it to say, they pretty much nailed it. But the film’s twist actively works against the film, because Tom’s “deal” is the very thing that keeps him and Kate apart.

As for the rest of the film, everything is presented in such a way as to squeeze out maximum “awwwws.” Kate’s boss at the Christmas kitsch shop, nicknamed Santa (Michelle Yeoh) is a gruff woman who gives Kate grief while secretly having maternal affection for her. Santa is wooed by a man who is dumbstruck at the very sight of her and lurks outside the shop waiting for a glimpse of his beloved. (This is meant to be charming, but is actually kind of creepy.) Encouraged by Tom, Kate begins to volunteer at the local homeless shelter—a place where all the homeless are clean and grateful and twinkly-eyed. Kate’s problems in her Croatian family—an overbearing mother (Emma Thompson), a father who is tired of his wife, a sister who is gay but afraid to tell her parents—can all be neatly resolved in a happy Christmas pageant montage at the end. I will admit that Thompson’s mother, who sings off-key Yugoslavian dirges at inopportune times, is the funniest part of the film, but still not funny enough to make up for this dud of a script (sorry, Emma).

Last Christmas tries so darn hard to warm everybody’s heart and get us in the Christmas spirit. The film is so well intentioned, it’s impossible to hate. You don’t want to give it a bad review so much as rap it on the nose with a rolled up newspaper.

There’s been lots of chatter lately about the relative merits of the superhero movie. I can’t say it’s my favorite genre, but I’ll make an exception for real life superheroes like Harriet Tubman.

To be sure, Kasi Lemmons’ biopic of the legendary Underground Railroad conductor is strictly in a mythologizing mood. But so what? Few Americans deserve the kind of hagiography that Tubman receives here. In some ways, it would be impossible to overstate how brave, important, and singular a figure she was.

When we first meet Harriet (Cynthia Erivo) on a farm in Dorchester County, MD, you don’t see any of this coming. She’s a slave, who goes by the first name of Minty. Her husband (Zackary Momoh) and father (Clarke Peters) are both free men, but their freedom seems precarious. Her mother and siblings are still slaves (a lawyer’s letter demanding that they be released from their bondage, as per a previous arrangement, is unceremoniously ripped up).

Harriet prays for her master’s death—and it comes, the first indication that the film really does see her as a prophet of sorts, bestowed with extraordinary gifts. (The film takes the fact that Harriet can see the future and communicate with God as canon.) But this doesn’t free her. She still has the master’s self-pitying wife and mean-spirited son Gideon (British actor Joe Alwyn, distractingly handsome and dandyish in the role) to contend with. Gideon saw Harriet praying for his father’s death, so he decides to sell her. That’s when she knows she must escape to the north, where black men and women can live free.

This, of course, will prove to be the first of many trips Harriet makes to the north and back—and each plays out like an edge of your seat adventure film, with terrifyingly high stakes. In this first escape, Harriet is being pursued by men on horseback and bloodhounds. When they find her, she’s standing at the precipice of a rapid river. This is when she makes the now famous declaration, “I’m going to be free or die,” and off she jumps.

There are more perils along the way until she makes it to Philadelphia. In a remarkable scene, she finds herself in the center of this bustling city, stunned by the black men and women who are walking free. A friendly stranger tells her to stand tall. There’s nothing to hide from here.

In Philly, she’s introduced to William Still (Leslie Odom Jr.), who has dedicated his life to helping and documenting the stories of slaves. He’s incredulous when he discovers that Harriet has made this journey on her own. It won’t be the last time he underestimates her. William takes Harriet to the boarding house run by the beautiful, uncommonly dignified Marie Buchanan (Janelle Monaé), who immediately comes to admire and love her new charge.

We revisit Harriet a year later and see her as a new woman—no longer meek in any way, but indeed, standing tall and in her power. This is when she decides she must return to Maryland to free her husband and siblings. She gets so good at freeing slaves she becomes a folklore like figure, called Moses. And some slave owners, refusing to believe that they are being outwitted by a black man (they assume she’s a man, of course), speculate that she’s an abolitionist in black face.

I can’t overstate how great Erivo is in this role, as we watch Harriet evolve from a scared (if determined) slave to a free woman whose passionate faith in God and herself inspires a movement. Erivo doesn’t deify Tubman—she can be stubborn, dour, and even bullying—but she depicts her in all her fierceness, righteousness, and glory.

Yes, the film is a straightforward biopic that will certainly be shown in high school history classes for generations to come. I’m fine with that. This kind of American history deserves a film like this. And lest you think the film is exaggerating Harriet Tubman’s bravery and accomplishments, please remember that she was a conductor of the Underground Railroad, the first woman to lead an armed expedition into war, a Union spy, an abolitionist, and a leading supporter of women’s suffrage. If that’s not a superhero, I don’t know who is.

My favorite thing about Jojo Rabbit is that it actually could’ve been career suicide for writer/director Taika Waititi. I mean, can you imagine him describing his ambitions to loved ones: “I’m going to direct a film about a little Nazi who is so obsessed with the Third Reich, he conjures up a fun-loving Hitler as an imaginary playmate. And the best part? I’m going to play Hitler!” His friends would tell him to bury the idea, never mention it again, and possibly seek professional help.

And yet, not only did Waititi go forth and make his strange little movie, it has ended up being one of the funniest, slyest, and most unexpectedly humane films of the year.

It’s important to understand that while Jojo Rabbit is told through the eyes of young Jojo (the rosy cheeked, mop-topped Roman Griffin Davis, who specializes in wide-eyed incredulity), it’s really a story about a mother’s love. And what a formidable mother she is. As played by Scarlett Johansson, Jojo’s mom, Rosie, is a colorful and unique figure—kind but firm, fashionable but practical, playful but unsentimental. When Jojo gets mildly disfigured in an unfortunate grenade incident (one of the ongoing gags of the film is that people keep telling him how hideous he looks; he’s actually as adorable as ever), she pushes him out the door and orders him to go about his day. What’s he going to do, live a life of fear? But the most crucial thing about Rosie is that she accepts her son’s fanaticism at least partly because it protects him. While she herself is a war resister, she wants Jojo to know as little about her activities as possible. Still, she gently leads him toward a more compassionate life. “What did they do?” Jojo asks, confronting bodies who have been hung by the Gestapo in the center of town. “What they could,” she replies grimly.

The film’s major turning point comes when Jojo finds that his mother is hiding a Jewish girl (excellent Thomasin McKenzie)—a teenager named Elsa, roughly the same age as his late sister—in the family attic. At first, Jojo searches for horns and fears that Elsa will try to control his mind. Eventually, he grows fond of her and she becomes his first true crush (depicted, charmingly, as actual butterflies fluttering in his stomach).

Because, you see, Jojo is truly a good boy and a gentle soul. We know this right away, when he refuses to snap the neck of the rabbit he is ordered to kill by a taunting Nazi camp instructor, and we see it as he grows closer to Elsa. His mother knows this too, and that’s why she has faith he’ll grow out of his Hitler-worshipping phase.

Jojo Rabbit looks amazing—with extraordinary costume and set design and a Wes Anderson-esque mise en scene. It’s also filled with colorful and delightful supporting characters—from Sam Rockwell as a jaded, gay Nazi who conceives of flamboyant military uniforms in his spare time and simply can’t wait for the damn war to be over and Archie Yates as Yorki, Jojo’s best friend, a good, if somewhat sad-sack chubby kid who has joined the ranks of the Nazi Youth mostly because he wants to fit in.

I should be clear: Yes, some of the Nazi characters are funny, even appealing. But Waititi doesn’t downplay the horrors of the Nazi regime. It’s clear that Elsa’s parents have been exterminated. We see those bodies hanging in the streets (and later, much worse). A few of the instructors at the Nazi camp are vicious warmongers. There’s no ambiguity here: Nazis bad. Resisters good.

You’ll note that I haven’t yet mentioned Waititi’s Hitler—and that’s by design. Ironically, he’s my least favorite part of the film. At first—once you get over the initial shock, that is—the imaginary Hitler friend is a hoot: a game, manic, cheerful playmate who encourages Jojo to be the bestest, bravest Nazi Youth he can be. But eventually, he begins to feel like a gimmick—an irritating disruption you kind of wish would go away. Even Waititi seems to grasp that, as his Hitler appears less and less as the film goes on. On the other hand, Hitler’s presence is responsible for one of the best deployments of an F-Bomb in a movie I’ve ever heard. Yes, such profanity is generally verboten in a kid-friendly film like this, but in this one case, I’ll make an exception.

Jojo Rabbit opens this Friday, November 1, at the Charles Theatre in Baltimore.

Upstairs/downstairs has been a common theme in literature and film, documenting the tension between those who dwell in the fancy mansions and those who serve them. The masterful Korean director Bong Joon Ho has taken this concept to soaring new heights (and shocking depths) in his latest film, Parasite, a spellbinding social satire and thriller.

The Kim family live in a squalid basement apartment in the city. They eat junk food, scrounge for any money they can make, and have to perch in one small corner of the room (also their bathroom), phones raised in the air, to steal WiFi from a neighboring coffee shop (that is, when their phones have not been turned off).

One day, the Kim son, Ki-woo (Woo-sik Choi), is visited by Min, a college-attending friend of his, who makes an intriguing proposal: While Min studies abroad, Ki-woo can take over his job teaching English to the daughter of the very wealthy Park family. Ki-Woo wonders why Min doesn’t just ask one of his college buddies to do it? Min confesses that he’s in love with the Park daughter and trusts only his good friend to spend so much time with her.

So, with the help of his Photoshop-savvy sister, Ki-jung (So-dam Park), Ki-woo forges a fake diploma and makes his way to the Park residence, a stunning, modern home with floor-to-ceiling windows, a coolly minimalist aesthetic, and sweeping vistas. (There are three yapping dogs who pee indoors—the evidence is quickly disposed of by the maid—because rich people always seem to have those.) Ki-woo tries not to look overly impressed.

He meets the pretty and somewhat scatterbrained Mrs. Park (Yeo-yeong Jo), who leads him upstairs to her shy daughter (Ji-so Jung), who is immediately smitten by her new tutor. He returns the feelings, seemingly forgetting, or not caring about, the implied contract he made with Min.

Then there’s an apparently fortuitous twist of fate: Turns out there is another Park child who needs a tutor, the young Da-song (Hyun-jun Jung), a dreamy, artistic, overly fussed over boy, whom the family believes suffers from seizures. Thinking on his feet, Ki-woo says he might know someone—a friend of a friend’s cousin—who is an art teacher and art therapist. Should he put them in touch? Of course, he’s actually thinking of his languorous, cigarette smoking sister, who shows up to her interview acting like she owns the place.

You can see where it’s going from here—well, for a while, at least. The Kim family slowly begins to take over the household. The father, Ki-taek (Kang-ho Song), becomes the chauffeur to the slick Mr. Park (Sun-kyun Lee) and the mother (Hye-jin Jang) becomes the maid. Of course, to get these jobs, they need to find sneaky ways to get rid of the previous employees—the efficient maid (Jeong-eun Lee) is particuarly embedded, having lived in the house since before the Parks moved in—and we begin to understand that desperation can make people both resourceful and devious.

This is one of the things I loved so much about the film. The Kim family aren’t depicted as saints—we root for them because we like them (they’re a tight knit, darkly humorous bunch), not because their poverty bestows upon them any kind of purity. Likewise, the Park family are not evil. In fact, for much of the film they seem like very appealing people—wealthy but kind (“they’re nice because they’re rich,” Mrs. Kim grumbles)—simply unbothered by any pedestrian concerns. But later, as we get to know them more, we see that they wear their privilege a bit too comfortably. They seem to assume that anyone who is poor suffers from a failure of hygiene —and possibly morality. What begins as an employment bonanza turns into a kettle of simmering resentments, as the Kims begin to grok the way the Parks perceive them. And that’s when the real fun starts.

Parasite is stuffed with everything—gorgeous architecture, beautiful people, shocking violence, ingenious twists, wicked humor, and clear-eyed social commentary. The upstairs/downstairs conflict is a tale as old as time, but Bong Joon Ho puts all kinds of delicious and devilish new spins on it. Of course, with his title, he makes you think—who are the real parasites: the poor who glom onto the rich or the rich who heedlessly take from the poor? What’s more, aren’t we all parasites in a way, as we attempt to elevate (or keep) our status in society? The ubiquity of the phone in the film—it’s a way to plot schemes, get jobs, communicate surreptitiously, and at one point is literally wielded as a weapon—makes this very much a work of our time. Parasite is a stone-cold 21st-century classic.

Pedro Almodóvar started his career making eye-popping works of delectable camp, then eased into a period of rich, female-focused melodrama. I’ve loved it all. But his latest film is something none of his previous works have been: It’s quiet, bordering on subdued. The director is in a reflective mode. The film is clearly at least partly autobiographical.

The Pedro stand-in here is his longtime collaborator Antonio Banderas, who was sex on legs when Almodóvar first cast him in Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! and is now convincingly playing Salvador Mallo, a 60ish auteur in the twilight of his life and career. Banderas is styled to look a bit like his director—a grey beard; a mop of unruly waves—and he reportedly even wears some of Almodóvar’s actual clothes (pajama-style silk shirts and jewel-toned blazers). He is still, in case any of you were concerned, a babe.

Salvador hasn’t made a film in years, because he is beset by a series of physical ailments—migraines, back pain, asthma, and mysterious choking fits. He’s also depressed. (In that great human paradox, he’s depressed because he no longer works and he no longer works because he’s depressed.)

The thing that sets off the action of the plot is a revival of one of his earlier films, Sabor. “It’s apparently become a classic now,” he says, dryly.

The filming of Sabor was a charged experience that resulted in a permanent rupture in his friendship with its leading man, Alberto (Asier Etxeandia). Having recently revisited the film, Salvador realizes he was perhaps too hard on Alberto. He thinks a perfect way to mend that fence would be to invite him to the reissue’s premiere.

Salvador goes to visit Alberto, a straggly-haired aging rocker type, who reluctantly lets him in and immediately begins smoking heroin. Much to Alberto’s surprise, Salvador asks if he can have some.

What follows, I must say, is the most blasé
film about heroin addiction I’ve ever seen. Salvador does, indeed, become mildly hooked on the substance, but this is treated as a minor plot point, yet another symptom of his general weariness.

Meanwhile, he’s been thinking a lot about his childhood, especially his beautiful, beloved mother (Penélope Cruz). In some of the film’s best scenes, we see young Salvador (Asier Flores) as a dreamy, precocious child, who adores music and cinema. The family was so poor they had to live in underground cave houses, carved out of stucco and stone (there are no windows, but there is a “courtyard” of sorts, with a skylight). Salvador’s mother does everything in her power to make this hovel homey. And prepubescent Salvador is also finding himself preoccupied with the sensitive, hunky young workman he is teaching to read. That young man inspires Salvador’s first intense stirrings of erotic longing.

The film, which pivots back and forth between contemporary times and scenes from Salvador’s childhood, is mostly about how adult Salvador, through a series of minor and major events, eventually gets his artistic groove back.

As Salvador, Banderas gives his most confident, mature performance to date. Nine out of ten times, when an actor plays an addict, they seem to be gunning for an Oscar. But Banderas’ still, melancholy work is precisely what makes his performance so special (he did, indeed, win Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival). He never overdoes it; he allows himself to depict a man overcome by ennui.

Still, much as I admired Banderas’ performance, and both the film’s striking beauty and its soul-baring honesty, I almost found that ennui too oppressive. It’s a film about artistic inertia that comes dangerously close to feeling inert itself. It’s interesting that Almodóvar’s most personal film is also his most subdued. My films are flamboyant, he seems to be saying, but I am not.

I have a theory about things like low-fat ice cream or tofurky. They only taste good if you don’t compare them directly to the real deal. That’s the case with Renee Zellweger’s vocals in the new Judy Garland biopic, Judy. The filmmakers—director Rupert Goold and screenwriter Tom Edge (the film is based off the Peter Quilter stageplay, End of the Rainbow)—have argued that since this was late period Garland, after one drug overdose and a tracheotomy, Zellweger could at least approximate the icon’s fading voice. And, after first watching the film, I agreed. Then I dug up a YouTube video of Garland singing around that same time. Big mistake. Garland is a once-in-a-generation vocal talent. Turns out, even bad Garland is great Garland.

Still, there’s lots to recommend about Zellweger’s performance. She captures Garland’s jaded, world-weary manner; the sadness that permeated even her happiest moments; and the injured little girl that still lived inside her. With her tom-boyish bob, whippet-thin frame, and fabulous ’60s wardrobe—cowl neck shift dresses and gold lamé pantsuits—she looks the part. And in performance, she channels Garland—not just the blowsy way she moved about the stage, but the raw emotion she poured into her songs. Still, I really recommend avoiding all Garland recordings for at least two (2) full weeks after seeing the performance.

As for the film, it’s a mixed bag. I appreciate the fact that it doesn’t go for the Wikipedia version of Garland’s life. It mostly focuses on the final stage of her career—a desperately-needed 1968 engagement at London’s Talk of the Town theater (Garland was broke and all the American gigs had dried up)—with flashbacks to her horrible, oppressive experience as a child star (Louis B. Mayer comes across as an abusive, Harvey Weinstein-adjacent creep). Garland has only taken the gig as a last gasp attempt to retain custody of her two youngest children. In London, she’s surrounded by people, most notably Mickey Deans (Finn Wittrock), the slightly sleazy young American businessman whom she regrettably agrees to marry; Burt (Royce Peterson), the gentle bandleader who adores her but is wary of her evident decline; and Rosalyn Wilder (Jessie Buckley), the officious young woman assigned to be her minder during her stay in London. But these relationships aren’t particularly fleshed out. The relationship with Rosalyn, in particular, could’ve been the heart of the film—especially since Judy is longing to be back in the U.S. with her kids—but it’s curiously uninvolving. Mostly Rosalyn cleans up Judy’s messes and stares at her with a look of stoic disappointment.

The best scenes of the film—fleeting as they may be—involve a middle-aged gay couple, Stan (Andy Nyman) and Dan (Daniel Cerqueira,) who are Judy superfans and attend as many of her shows as possible. One late night, as they are the only two waiting for her by the stage door, she signs their programs and, much to their astonishment, asks if they want to grab dinner. Since it’s past midnight, nothing is open and they end up back in the couple’s flat, where they eat runny eggs, sing songs, and reminisce. I found the profound joy and disbelief on Stan’s face—and the couple’s enduring loyalty to the singer despite her troubles—to be quite moving.

But much of Judy feels a little inert. Maybe it’s almost too laser-focused on this one particular, sad chapter of Garland’s career. The film gets a little repetitive (performance, meltdown, repeat). It’s more than worth seeing for Zellweger’s performance, though. She may not sing like Judy but she can definitely act like her.

A debate has broken out on social media as to whether or not Lorene Scafaria’s new film, Hustlers, is feminist. So let me get that out of the way first: Of course Hustlers is feminist. It’s a film written and directed by a woman, starring a cast of women, based on a New York magazine article by a woman (Jessica Pressler), and it focuses on women reclaiming their power (albeit illegally) in an arena—strip clubs and champagne rooms—where they are often exploited or worse.

But frankly, it’s the wrong question to ask. Here are the real questions: Is the film entertaining? Wildly so. Is it the best star-vehicle Jennifer Lopez has had in years, possibly ever? Totally. Is it a celebration of female friendship, badassery, and resilience? You’re damn right it is.

Constance Wu plays Destiny, a new employee at a New York strip club that caters to a Wall Street clientele. At first she doesn’t quite know how to work the room, until she spies club veteran Ramona (Lopez) doing her thing and is mesmerized. Who wouldn’t be? This is the greatest female entrance on film since a besotted Bradley Cooper laid eyes on Lady Gaga singing “La Vie En Rose” in last year’s A Star is Born.

At 50, Lopez still looks like a golden goddess, and she draws expertly upon her dance background, spinning on the pole, doing aerial splits, and smacking her platform shoes emphatically against the stage. I was, to borrow a phrase, fully gagged. Her Ramona takes Destiny under her wing, because that’s who Ramona is (later, it will be a source of friction between the two women, as Ramona can’t help but to take in strays). Never before has Lopez’s combination of sexual magnetism and maternal warmth been used to better effect. (Ramona is, in fact, a single mother. She describes the lengths mothers will go to protect their children as a “mental illness.”) Under Ramona’s tutelage, Destiny—who is trying to make enough money to pay off her grandmother’s debts—gets good at her job. She learns how to recognize which Wall Street guys are real players and which are wannabes (hint: Look at their shoes). She learns how to give them what they want—but not all of what they want. And she learns how to encourage them to rack up charges on their platinum cards.

Destiny becomes friends with the other women at the club, including Keke Palmer, Cardi B (a natural!), and Lili Reinhart. (My beloved Lizzo has a brief cameo—and even plays the flute!). The great Mercedes Ruehl (where ya been, lady?) is on hand as a kind of den mother the girls call “mama.” Everything is going swimmingly until the stock market crashes and the good times stop rolling. All the women try to get “real” jobs—the glamorous Ramona improbably ends up at an Old Navy—but the pay is ridiculously low and, what’s more, they have no power in big box America. In the strip club, they were the ones in control.

At this point, their old club still exists, but it’s gotten seedier, uglier. But still, as we know, while lots of Wall Street dudes lost their jobs after the stock market crash, some of the biggest players managed to stay rich—and even get richer. These are the men that Ramona decides to target—luring them first into the club’s private rooms, then later hotel suites (so the clubs can’t get a cut), drugging them just enough so that they forget everything, and stealing money from their credit cards. She recruits Destiny and some of the old crew to help her.

Hustlers has the structure of many similar crime films: the wide-eyed apprentice seduced by the charismatic gang leader, the specific details of the con, the heady days of happiness and prosperity (in this case, fortified by a giddy dose of girl power), and the inevitable fall. It even has a Scorsese-esque narration, courtesy of an interview a journalist (Julia Stiles) does with Destiny. Director Scafaria is a master at all this, wielding a montage scene like a scalpel, injecting the film with the perfect combination of humor, heart, cynicism, wish fulfillment, and sex, all bolstered by Lopez’s career-defining performance. Hustlers is the mashup of Showgirls, Goodfellas, and The Big Short that we never knew we needed. Rejoice! Movies are good again.

I actually like the first incarnation of Brittany (Jillian Bell) that we meet in Brittany Runs a Marathon. She’s always trying to make people laugh by cracking inappropriate jokes, loves animals, and parties like a rock star. But the problem is, she doesn’t like herself. She’s overweight, has a dead-end job as an usher at a playhouse, doesn’t have a boyfriend (although she’s prone to humiliating, faceless hookups at bars), and her Instagram-famous roomie (Alice Lee) basically uses her to feel better about herself. Then two things converge to change the course of her life: A kindly, but firm doctor tells her that she needs to lose weight to improve her health. (“I feel like you totally missed the point of those Dove ads,” Brittany quips.) And a wealthy, fitness-forward neighbor, Catherine (Michaela Watkins), takes an interest in her.

At first, Brittany resists Catherine’s overtures of friendship, mistaking them for a kind of noblesse oblige. The truth is, Catherine is going through some troubles of her own (a divorce and a custody battle for her two children) and could use an ally. One of the many things Brittany learns over the course of this film—a kind of ode to self-help that manages to avoid all the treacly pitfalls of the genre—is that when people want to help you, let them. It’ll make you both feel better.

In an attempt to start getting healthy, Brittany goes to a gym where she gags over the price of a membership. (“You do know that people can run outside?” she sputters.) So she reluctantly laces up a pair of Chucks (they’ll be replaced soon by actual running shoes) and starts to run, dodging ubiquitous pedestrians in annoyance (among other things, Brittany Runs a Marathon is a great New York City film). When Catherine sees her, she invites Brittany to join her running group, which is where she meets Seth (Micah Stock), a fellow running novice who pants alongside her. The three of them make a pact to train for the NYC Marathon.

There’s also a boy (Utkarsh Ambudkar)­—a squatter at a rich couple’s home where both he and Brittany are pet-sitting—that she might have romantic feelings for. But Brittany is used to deflecting affection and putting up walls to protect herself from getting hurt. Can she lower her guard enough to really let him in?

If you’re worried that Brittany Runs a Marathon is a film about a woman who loses weight and therefore improves her life, don’t be. Yes, that’s part of it, but not the biggest part. The movie, which is loosely based on a true story, is really about learning to love yourself and finding a community of people who truly support you. That being said, Bell underwent a rather remarkable transformation for the role—losing 40 pounds to correspond with Brittany’s weight loss. The deadpan actress had already proved her comedic chops in such films as 22 Jump Street and Rough Night—and she is, unsurprisingly, hilarious here. What is surprising is how touching she is. Indeed, I was briefly afraid that Brittany was going to lose her whipsmart sense of humor once she became self-actualized, as if her humor were strictly a defense mechanism and not an innate (and winning) part of her personality. But by the end, she’s funny and healthy. Huzzah! I started Brittany Runs a Marathon laughing my ass off. By the end, I was laughing and in tears, fully invested in Brittany’s journey—as both a runner and a person

On Twitter, I posed the question, “If you’re not a big Bruce Springsteen fan will you still like Blinded by the Light?”

Okay, before you all attack me, I know. Not loving Bruce Springsteen is downright un-American. And don’t get me wrong—it’s not like I actively dislike the guy. It’s just that his brand of earnest, angsty, Rust-Belt rock doesn’t move me. When I was a kid, I was more of an Elvis Costello kind of girl. I liked his verbal dexterity and outsized sense of irony. And here’s the another thing about Bruce: Those epic, three-hour-plus concerts he’s so lauded for? The thought of those actually gives me anxiety. I don’t like to do ANYTHING for three hours. What if I have to pee?

So, with that in mind, I went to see Gurinda Chadha’s new film and I can officially report this: No, you don’t have to be a Bruce fan to enjoy Blinded by the Light . . .but it helps.

The story takes place in 1987, where a Pakistani teenager named Javed (Viveik Kalra), living in a small English town, feels misunderstood. This, of course, has been true of all teenage boys in perpetuity, but it’s particularly true of Javed, a writer and dreamer being raised in a strict Pakistani home, where children are expected to be hardworking and dutiful and not express themselves in any meaningful way. He also has to deal with the neo-Nazis who populate the town, taunting Javed and painting hateful graffiti on the homes of Pakistani families. On top of all that, his father (Kulvinder Ghir) has lost his job at the local factory and is having no luck finding work. (His mother, a seamstress, has to work long hours to help make ends meet.)

It’s in the midst of all this that Javed discovers the Boss­—a Sikh classmate (Aaron Phagura) who is soon to become Javed’s good friend, slides him a couple of cassette tapes. Javed listens to them and he’s hooked. Bruce becomes his obsession—his world. He lines his bedroom with Bruce posters, begins to dress like Bruce, and writes long essays expressing his devotion to the Jersey singer.

On the one hand, Blinded by the Light is about the transformative power of art—the way a certain musician, in this case, can feed your soul, make you feel seen, and inspire your own creative life.

On the other, Blinded by the Light is very much about, well, Bruce. Springsteen’s lyrics often flash on the screen, there are fanciful (and in some cases, fantastical) music numbers set to Springsteen songs, and Javed pretty much talks about Bruce nonstop.

So let’s just say it helps if you love the Boss.

Much of the film plays out in a predictable, if charming, way. I was particularly interested in the dynamics of the Pakistani home, especially against the backdrop of this neo-Nazi threat. In one of the film’s most affecting scenes, Javed and his father visit neighbors who have to put a plastic runner in their vestibule because the neighborhood boys keeps urinating on their doorstep. The neighbors are sheepish and embarrassed, dismissing this hateful behavior as though it doesn’t bother them. In another great scene, Javed’s younger sister takes him to a day party—a makeshift disco of sorts and a rare opportunity for the local Pakistani kids to let their hair down and have fun, since their parents won’t let them go out at night (Javed even takes off the Bruce-playing headphones permanently affixed to his head to enjoy his culture’s music). That’s the kind of specificity I look for in a film, but there’s not as much of it as I would like. Instead, there are clichés: The kindly, pretty teacher (Hayley Atwell) who encourages Javed’s writing, the rebellious girl who catches Javed’s eye, the stern father, and patient, long-suffering mother, etc.

Also, I think Javed is a little selfish? At one point, he earns some money at the local paper and uses it to buy himself Springsteen tickets. And this while his mother is slaving away over a sewing machine and his family is counting every penny. This is fine: selfish characters are interesting! But I don’t think we’re supposed to find Javed selfish. Instead, I think we’re supposed to root for his self-expression and mild rebellion in all its forms.

Still, Blinded by the Light is diverting entertainment, the kind of delightful bit of British whimsy that American audiences seem to eat up. And I cried at the end, just as the film wanted me to. But I can’t get too enthusiastic about it. Now, a film about a British teenager who worships the Elvis Costello masterpiece Imperial Bedroom? Where do I sign?

Julius Onah’s Luce is what I call a “bookclub movie.” That is to say, you’ll be engrossed enough as you watch it, but perhaps the best part will be discussing the film’s knotty moral themes and complex character motivations when it’s over. The film is based off a play (by J.C. Lee, who also wrote the screenplay)—and it often feels that way. Characters are prone to monologuing. Sometimes they explicitly state their worldview, in a way that feels a little stilted. Still, there’s lots of interesting stuff to chew on.

When we first meet school valedictorian Luce (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) he’s giving a speech to an assembled crowd of classmates, parents, and teachers. Handsome, eloquent, with a quick smile, he actually encourages his classmates to take a moment to thank and appreciate the adults in their life who have guided them. From the audience, his parents, Amy (Naomi Watts) and Peter (Tim Roth,) beam with pride. So does the school principal (Norbert Leo Butz). Indeed, most everyone assembled takes a certain personal pride in Luce’s success. He was adopted from a war-torn African nation when he was seven. And look at him now! What a credit to his parents, to the community, to white people he is!

And there’s something even more disturbing at play. There’s a suggestion that, at this mostly white school, there’s only room for one Luce—one shining success story. Another black boy at school is kicked off the football team—his best shot at getting into college—because marijuana was found in his locker (although all the kids on the team get high). He’s considered the anti-Luce. In this community, there’s a right and a wrong way to be black.

It’s an African American teacher at the school, Ms. Wilson (Octavia Spencer) who suspects that Luce isn’t as well-adjusted as he seems. In class, she gives the kids an assignment to write in the voice of an historical figure and he chooses Frantz Fanon, a radical French West Indian philosopher who railed against racism and believed that using violence against oppressors was always justified. Disturbed by this, she takes it upon herself to search Luce’s locker, where she finds a bag of fireworks. Does Luce have the potential for violence? Or is he just a smart kid who did the assignment? (He claims the fireworks weren’t his; he and his teammates sometimes share lockers.)

Ms. Wilson expresses her concerns to Amy and here, I confess, is where the film lost me a bit. Because instead of confronting her son, point-blank, Amy tiptoes around him, taking the fireworks and hiding them (not destroying them), and never asking him to address the essay. Indeed, lots of the film’s ongoing tensions are based on maddening inaction by its characters. If only people would sit down and have a goddamn frank conversation, we could’ve avoided this whole thing!

Still, Luce intriguingly plays with ideas of how we put people in boxes, stereotype them—often to make us feel better about ourselves or to preserve our own role in the public ecosystem. Is Ms. Wilson, who is one of the only black teachers at the school, merely looking out for the black students in her midst, or is she projecting her own insecurities, her own need for acceptance in this community onto them?

Ultimately, Luce is more about ideas and archetypes than actual human behavior, but it’s never less than compelling. And Harrison Jr. is really something special as Luce, who on the surface radiates a kind of enviable self-possession, but is clearly struggling with the expectations that have been placed on him. In one scene, he practices another speech that he will deliver, talking to an empty theater about how his parents changed his African name to the easier-to-pronounce “Luce” (meaning light) and he breaks down crying. It’s little glimpses into his pain—and other scenes that show him running with a look of defiant anger on his face—that make us wonder who Luce really is. One thing is for sure, his identity does not belong to himself—and the selfish adults around him don’t see how unfair that is.

Luce is now playing at the Charles Theatre.

They say write what you know. This is generally sound advice, mostly because specificity is the key to good writing and, through that specificity, we often find something resembling universal truths. It was certainly a smart move for Lulu Wang, the writer and director of the moving and funny The Farewell, which is peppered with the kind of keenly-observed details that make a story come to life.

Awkwafina, excelling in her first (mostly) serious role, plays Billi, the stand-in for Wang, who emigrated from China to New York with her parents when she was quite young. She has dim but almost painfully fond of memories of that childhood, and remains close to Nai Nai—her grandmother, who is played with wonderful warmth and mischief by Zhao Shuzhen.

Billi is relatively happy with her life in Manhattan, although she’s not as successful in her career (she’s just been turned down for a writing fellowship) nor her personal life (she’s single) as she might like. And she’s close to her parents, too, especially her good-hearted father (Tzi Ma). Her mother (Diana Lin) is somewhat stern and withholding.

Then the bad news hits: Nai Nai is sick with cancer and doesn’t have much time to live. What’s more, per a particular Chinese tradition, the family won’t be telling her she’s sick, but instead will make the journey to China to celebrate a cousin’s hastily organized wedding to say a secret goodbye. A despondent Billi disapproves of her family’s scheme, and since she has no poker face, they tell her not to come. Of course, she comes anyway, on her own—and we immediately see the connection she has to Nai Nai. Far from the cliché—that her grandmother would be nagging her about not being married or not thriving professionally—Nai Nai is encouraging and supportive. Their relationship is playful—Nai Nai teases Billi for being glum at parties, mischievously slaps her on the butt, and teaches her tai chi in the garden. She loves and appreciates her granddaughter for exactly who she is.

One of the things that makes The Farewell so winning is that Billi’s belief system, which often mirrors our own, is challenged along the way. She begins to understand why the family doesn’t tell Nai Nai about her illness—they are shouldering the burden of grief and fear for her. And she also learns that there’s more to her mother than meets the eye.

The Farewell is an extraordinarily confident debut from Wang. The film has a slick visual style—humorous slow motion shots that depict the shaggy family as an Ocean’s 11-style gang; painterly long shots; deadpan closeups. It also has a wonderful wit—the widowed Nai Nai has a boyfriend who is sort of lovably clueless—he loudly slurps his soup and pops up after meals without saying a word. A scene at a graveyard makes fun of wailing mourners, who have been hired by families to lay it on thick (among other things, the film explores how different cultures deal with death). Once the wedding itself arrives, it’s a wonderful montage of drunken mayhem and genuine emotion. And, of course, food plays a central role in the film, as the center of Chinese family life, an indirect way to express love, and the one thing that reliably brings people together. Wang has clearly proven that she’s here to stay. I suspect she still has a lot more to say about her particular Chinese-American experience. But even if she chooses to make a science fiction set on the planet Zanzbot, I’ll be in line for a ticket.

What is it about the premise of Yesterday—struggling singer songwriter wakes up from an accident only to discover that he’s the only one alive who remembers the Beatles—that has people so damn excited? I asked a few friends on Twitter what the fuss was all about and the consensus was basically this: The Beatles are so essential to our collective consciousness, such a part of our cultural DNA, that the idea of a world without them has mind-blowing, time-travel-y possibilities. How would it affect the entire trajectory of the world? What things would exist—and wouldn’t exist? Would our concepts of melody, of boy bands, of mysticism, of fandom, of surrealism, of, heck, the very nature of peace and love be entirely different?

Turns out the creators of Yesterday have something a bit less ambitious in mind. Instead, Yesterday is a bit of wish-fulfillment whimsy, brought to you by Danny Boyle, the director of Slumdog Millionaire, and Richard Curtis, who has written many delightful British films, notably in this case, Notting Hill.

I mention Notting Hill because, as I watched Yesterday, it occurred to me that it was, in many senses, a note-for-note remake of that film. The big wish fulfillment there was “regular guy falls in love with megastar.” Here it’s “regular guy is the only one who remembers the Beatles.” There are other patented Richard Curtis grace notes: Our hero Jack (Himesh Patel) has a gangly, goofy, stoner sidekick named Rocky (Joel Fry), who is essentially a stand-in for Rhys Ifans’ Spike. He also has a tightknit group of witty friends, who give him affectionate grief at dinner parties, an absolute Richard Curtis mainstay. Of course, there’s a girl—Jack’s manager, Ellie (Lily James), who is secretly in love with him. Like Notting Hill, there’s a scene where Jack runs through the streets trying to catch her before she leaves town.

The first half of the film is the most fun, as Jack adjusts to his new reality. When he plays “Yesterday” for his friends and they say they’ve never heard the song, nor heard of the Beatles—one friend suggests they must be an obscure band like Neutral Milk Hotel—he thinks they’re putting him on. In an ongoing gag, Jack goes to Google, typing in “Beatles.” The insect “beetle” keeps coming up. (Presumably, the Volkswagen Beetle has also been lost to the mists of time.)

Eventually, Jack realizes what a strange, precious, and dangerous gift he’s been given. But it still takes a while for his music to take off. There’s a funny bit where he performs “Let it Be” for his parents and his debut keeps getting interrupted by the doorbell, and then a beer run to the fridge. “Shush, Jack is debuting his new song, ‘Leave it Be,’” Jack’s mother says, trying to quiet the room.

It takes none other than Ed Sheeran, playing himself, to recognize the greatness of Jack’s music and, in some ways, he’s the most poignant and interesting character in the film. At some point, Ed realizes that Jack is a better songwriter than he is, or will ever be. He forlornly calls himself Salieri to Jack’s Mozart.

Once Jack gets super famous, the film loses a bit of its momentum. Kate McKinnon joins the fun as an aggressively money-grubbing agent—but her character is so broad, it’s slightly out of whack with the film’s tone. The love story takes center stage, which is fine but, charming as they are, Patel and James are no Grant and Roberts (this is hardly an insult; literally no one is Grant and Roberts). And the film doesn’t really delve into any of those sci-fi conundrums. At first, Jack discovers that Oasis, the British rockers who modeled their sound after the Beatles, don’t exist, and I got excited, thinking the film might explore more of such possibilities. Instead, a bunch of random brands have been eliminated from the collective memory—for reasons that are never explained. Then there’s a rather ballsy twist toward the end of the film that will delight some viewers and possibly rankle others. I fall into the rankle category, but at least I admired the big swing the film took with it. Yesterday is perfectly pleasing entertainment (with the not insubstantial bonus of Beatles songs!), but frankly, it could’ve benefitted from taking a few more of those big swings.

There was a time, right before he had that quintuple bypass surgery, that Dave Letterman had grown complacent. I’d always been a huge fan of his show, with its gleefully anarchic energy, but the spark was clearly gone; he was going through the motions. After he got back from that near death experience, however, he seemed to have a new lease on life—and a new appreciation for the blessings of his career. The show got good again.

That’s why the premise of Mindy Kaling’s Late Night is so plausible. It’s about Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson), the female host of a late night talk show who is in a rut but doesn’t quite know it. She ends each show by saying that she’s “honored” her audience chose to watch her, but the truth is, she takes her audience for granted. What’s more, she’s a cold, remote, and altogether terrifying boss to her frattish crew of white male writers. After being accused of “hating women” by a writer she’s just fired (he had the temerity to ask for a raise), she demands that her showrunner (Dennis O’Hare) commandeer a woman for the writers’ room. Somehow, the completely inexperienced Molly (Kaling)—she works at a chemical plant where she cracks her coworkers up with chemistry puns—is the lucky recipient of this diversity hire.

Needless to say, Molly is regarded with skepticism and even disdain by her co-writers. And then, before she even has a chance to settle in, Katherine gets the bad news from the new network president: she’s going to be replaced at the end of the season with a lowbrow, sexist, Dane Cook-esque comedian. Katherine is stunned. She thought she was still on top of her game and that the show untouchable. Then her doting husband (John Lithgow) breaks the news that the show has been coasting for years.

Of course, you can imagine what happens next: Molly injects a new, youthful, and inclusive perspective into the show and encourages Katherine to be more “real” in her monologues. Katherine resists at first but eventually begins taking Molly’s advice, with some success. She also notes, with a grudging admiration, Molly’s extreme work ethic. At the same time, Katherine is a deeply unsentimental woman (she calls her writers by arbitrarily assigned numbers, not their actual names), so don’t expect a touchy-feely buddy comedy to break out quite yet.

As Katherine, Emma Thompson is wonderful: Imperious, imposing, fabulous, casually cruel—and yet somehow, we still root for her. This is the genius of Thompson’s performance—and Kaling’s script—she shows us just enough of Katherine’s humanity for us to care. We also know that the odds are stacked against Katherine—even in this fictional, fantasy universe, she’s the only female late night host in the game. Even Katherine’s haircut (a chic pompadour) and fabulous wardrobe (men’s-tailored suits in bright red, cream, and gold) reflect her ambivalence about her own gender. If Katherine is part of the paradox of successful women in their 50s, who often have to act more masculine to succeed, Molly is part of the new generation of “lean in” young women who embrace feminist politics.

Late Night is at its best when it focuses on the inner workings of late night TV. It does a great job of conveying the neurotic, competitive rhythms of the writers’ room, and the unique pressures of working for an exacting boss. And most of its jokes are funny—or at least credibly funny for a late night host—especially when Katherine hits the street and becomes a self-appointed “white savior,” hailing cabs for young black men (whether they want one or not).

Where the film falters is around the edges, as it attempts to shoehorn in not one, but two romantic subplots for Molly. At first, she hooks up with the staff’s resident lothario (Hugh Dancy), but eventually is drawn to head writer (Reid Scott), who initially resented Molly but ultimately comes to admire her. Honestly, neither of these relationships feels particularly fleshed out or necessary. At the very least, she should’ve focused on just one.

In general, Late Night could’ve dug deeper. It flirts with big ideas about women in the workplace and women in power, but doesn’t fully develop them. Even the relationship between Katherine and Molly could’ve been more substantial (it’s missing a signature scene like the famous cerulean blue monologue from The Devil Wears Prada). And Kaling can’t quite shake some of her old sitcom habits (Molly is fond of reciting self-help aphorisms to herself and pastes a cheesy “Never Give Up” poster next to her desk.)

Still, warts and all, Late Night is smart, snappy, and altogether winning entertainment. If Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling form some kind of unlikely new comedy team, I’ll be first in line for their next film.

Hotel Mumbai is a shockingly violent action thriller—Die Hard on steroids—except the events it depicts are real.

It tells the story of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai in 2008, focusing on the brutal assault of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. Because Mumbai didn’t have any kind of militarized police force to combat these terrorists, who were armed with assault rifles and grenades, the city had to wait several hours before reinforcement from New Delhi could arrive. They were essentially sitting ducks.

The film keeps you in its sickening thrall for all of its 125 minutes, and is mounted, by Australian director Anthony Maras, with undeniable skill. But I’m still trying to sort out if it should have been made at all.

Let’s go on this journey through my thought process together, shall we?

For starters, I’ll just say it right out: I’m uncomfortable with a film that highlights extremist Muslim terrorism at a time when Islamophobia is raging. Do we really need such a film right now? To what end? The men who commit these atrocious acts represent a statistically irrelevant band of zealots and in no way reflect the 1.5 billion peaceful Muslims around the world. So why add to the dangerous propaganda?

To (slightly) combat that, Maras depicts the Pakistani young men who execute these brutal acts of terror in a somewhat compassionate way—for starters, most are still in (or barely out of) their teens. They’ve been indoctrinated by a mastermind, who convinces them that the people they’re killing are soulless infidels. A few are even given humanizing moments—one terrorist tearfully calls his father to tell him he loves him, another playfully convinces his friend he’s just eaten pork as a gag, and at least one of the boys shows actual mercy. But those moments are few and far between. For the most part, the terrorists are rampaging through the hotel, indiscriminately but efficiently killing people and, in some cases, making others do their bidding for them. Quite frankly, we want to see them dead.

The good news: the heroes in this film are mostly brown people, too—the Indian staff and management of this world-class hotel. What makes Hotel Mumbai watchable, and even poignant, is the commitment to service that these hotel workers demonstrated, even when it could potentially—indeed probably—lead to their own deaths.

I should set the stage a bit. The opulent Taj Mahal Palace Hotel lives up to its name—soaring ceilings, marble staircases, chandeliers, and guests that include numerous high rollers and VIPs. The management knows—and caters to—all of its guests’ needs: a warm bath with rose petals when they arrive, a favorite vintage of wine in the cellar, etc. They pride themselves on complete customer satisfaction. The main players in the film are both guests and workers at the hotel.

We have our hero, Arjun (Dev Patel), a poor young Sikh with a toddler and pregnant wife at home, who works as a waiter in the hotel’s main restaurant. In his rush to get to the hotel in the morning, he has lost his shoes. He’s nearly sent home by the restaurant’s exacting head chef Hemant Oberoi (Anupam Kher)—another hero—but when he pleads to stay, Oberoi loans him a pair of his own shoes, which are far too small. Arjun gratefully crams his feet into them anyway. Once the shooting starts, he demonstrates leadership qualities and bravery that are a credit to his faith.

Outside the hotel are two local cops who realize that reinforcement isn’t coming and they’ll have to try to save as many guests as possible by themselves—two men with pistols against multiple terrorists with machine guns. “If we don’t go in there, everyone will die,” one of the cops says, with sad determination.

Among the guests are a famous American architect (Armie Hammer), his beautiful Muslim wife (Nazanin Boniadi), their infant son, and their nanny. There’s also a crude Russian millionaire with large appetites (Jason Isaacs), who proves to be more gallant than he initially seems.

One of the best scenes of Hotel Mumbai showcases the film’s saving grace—its humanity. As many of the VIP guests are crammed into a private club, hiding from the terrorists, one white woman demands that Arjun remove his turban—it’s making her nervous. The way Arjun handles this moment, and the mutual understanding it leads to, is truly extraordinary.

So yes, Hotel Mumbai has moments of grace. But it’s still brutal, unforgiving—and the viciousness of the violence can’t help but to feel exploitative. Is it worth watching? I guess that’s up to the individual. I’d say ultimately that those glimmers of extraordinary bravery and kindness on display made me glad I watched it. But I can’t make that call for you.

Greta is a shlocky, campy horror film masquerading as a prestige pic. Actually, masquerading is the wrong word—Greta is in on the joke and hopes you will be, too. The film is dressed up with “classy” trappings: Liszt and Chopin on the soundtrack, well-appointed New York apartments, and a grand doyenne—French actress Isabelle Huppert—as our psycho villain. Of course, anyone who has seen Huppert’s body of work knows that the woman will go there—but to American audiences, that French accent and tasteful wardrobe alone screams arthouse.

Chloë Grace Moretz plays Frances McCullen, new to New York City and still mourning the recent death of her mother. Frances, who works as a waitress at an upscale restaurant, is a bit of a naif compared to her wild child roommate, Erica (Maika Monroe)—and she’s polite to a fault. (It’s an odd touch that Frances grew up in Boston, of all places. Seems like Iowa or Kansas would’ve worked better for the “Innocent Girl in the Big City” narrative. But hey, it’s not my screenplay.)

One day, Frances is on the subway and she spies an unattended hunter-green purse. She picks it up, looks around for its owner, then goes to the MTA booth, which is unoccupied. (This comes close to a deus ex machina—had the booth been attended, we’d have no movie. But maybe it’s an inside joke on the state of the New York subway system?) She looks inside the purse, finds the address of its owner, and—over the protests of Erica, who thinks they should take the money in the wallet and go on a shopping spree—sets off to return it. The address takes her to an ivy-coated townhouse owned by the 60something, oh-so French Greta (Huppert). She invites her in for tea, shares her tale of woe—dead husband, daughter living in Paris, the scourge of constant loneliness—and Frances is touched by her. It doesn’t hurt that Frances is in need of a mother figure herself.

The friendship is going swimmingly until Frances comes over for dinner one night—soupe de poisson and risotto are on the menu—and accidentally comes across a cabinet filled with hunter-green purses. She opens them all up—each contains the same contents: a wallet with a small wad of cash, pills, a driver’s license. She can’t leave Greta’s house quickly enough.

From there, Greta morphs into a stalker film—director Neil Jordan turns Huppert’s dignified, imperious mien on its head and makes it feel creepy—with lots of jump cuts and classic horror techniques. It’s all quite silly, but Huppert is great—a scene where she simply switches from speaking in French to Hungarian manages to be one of the most chilling of the film—and the movie gets the job done. There are a few frustrating moments when you desperately want Frances to do something else—run! hit Greta over the head! call the police!—and she doesn’t, but this is clearly intentional. Jordan is playfully trafficking in these horror tropes. My audience was all in: yelling at the screen, getting all worked up, and having a great time. Don’t be fooled by the upscale window dressing: Greta is fun trash.