'Star Wars, Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker'

Where a “Star Wars” fan lands regarding “The Rise of Skywalker” — the ninth and (supposedly) final chapter of the story that began back in 1977 — will depend largely on where the fan started the journey.

Younger viewers, the ones whose memories of young Luke Skywalker battling Darth Vader and destroying the Death Star played out on the small screen, likely will be satisfied with where director J.J. Abrams brings back the narrative that he started with “The Force Awakens” in 2015. The old guard like me, who thrilled to Luke and Leia and Han decades ago in the movie theaters, may be struck with a sense of “been there, blasted that.”

Read the full review on sltrib.com.

'The Two Popes'

Director Fernando Meirelles’ “The Two Popes” is a fascinating study in contrasts — of two clerics’ theologies, of two men’s personalities, and of two actors’ approaches to their roles.

Meirelles and screenwriter Anthony McCarten — who has invented conversations for famous figures in “The Theory of Everything,” “Darkest Hour” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” — begin the story in 2005, with the conclave in the Vatican to elect a new pope after the death of John Paul II. The cardinals select Joseph Ratzinger (played by Anthony Hopkins), a stern German who was expected to maintain the Roman Catholic Church’s strict doctrines. Among those receiving votes was Jorge Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce), the kindly and populist cardinal of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Cut to 2012, and Bergoglio has written to Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, to ask permission to retire. Benedict summons Bergoglio to the Vatican to talk, and the conversations — fictionalized, of course — make up the bulk of McCarten’s script.

The talks are tense from the outset. Benedict accuses Bergoglio of being soft on church doctrine by, for example, ministering to LGBTQ Catholics in Argentina. Bergoglio, though he’s diplomat enough not to say it too forcefully, worries Benedict’s rigidity — and his foot-dragging on disciplining pedophile priests — is driving away the younger generations of Catholics.

The two men talk about lighter subjects, and develop a rapport. Benedict is a fan of a cheesy Italian police procedural show and likes to play piano, while Bergoglio is an avid soccer fan and knows where there’s good pizza in Rome.

As the conversations continue, Benedict drops a bombshell on Bergoglio: It’s not the Argentine who’s going to retire, but the German — the first time in centuries a pope didn’t leave the job in a casket.

Meirelles (“City of God,” “The Constant Gardener”) keeps the talking in McCarten’s script lively. Meirelles relies both on the actors’ abundant talent and some well-placed flashbacks — particularly of Bergoglio’s not-so-noble record during the Argentine military juntas.

It seems Meirelles and McCarten side more with Bergoglio — the man who would become Pope Francis I — than with Benedict. That could be chalked up to doctrinal bias, supporting the more liberal Francis over the conservative Benedict. But I also think back to an interview I heard once with Lawrence O’Donnell, the MSNBC commentator, about his days writing for “The West Wing,” and how they had to make Josiah Bartlett a Democrat because a government saying “yes” to new initiatives made better drama than a government that said “no” to everything.

What’s most compelling about “The Two Popes” is how Hopkins and Pryce approach their roles. Pryce aims to subsume himself into Bergoglio, mimicking the Argentine’s voice and mannerisms, and even speaking Spanish as much as English. Hopkins, the old theater dog, always sounds like Hopkins, with no attempt at a German accent. 

Even taking different paths, both actors eventually arrive where they and the story need to be — a meeting of minds between two smart, headstrong men with different views on where their church needs to go. Those parallel roads make “The Two Popes” a worthwhile pilgrimage for the viewer.

———

‘The Two Popes’

★★★1/2

Opened November 27 in select cities; opens Friday, December 13, at the Tower Theatre (Salt Lake City); begins streaming on Netflix on December 20. Rated PG-13 for thematic content and some disturbing violent images. Running time: 125 minutes; in English, and in Spanish and Latin and other languages with subtitles.

'Richard Jewell'

Director Clint Eastwood’s legal drama “Richard Jewell” is, we’ve been told in countless ads for the movie, about the truth — specifically, the truth about the Atlanta security guard wrongly accused of planting a bomb during the 1996 Summer Olympics.

But with Eastwood and screenwriter Billy Ray, truth appears to be a zero-sum game — because to tell the “truth” about Jewell, these filmmakers smeared the reputation of a dead woman.

Eastwood and Ray do set forth some of the facts in a quick, straight-forward way. They start by showing Jewell (played by Paul Walter Hauser) as a shlub in a government office, delivering office supplies and talking about his goal of working in law enforcement. It’s in this office where he meets a lawyer, Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell), who gives him the nickname “Radar” (after Gary Burghoff’s eager-to-please character on “M*A*S*H”).

We then see Jewell working as a security guard at a small Georgia college, until his overbearing police-wannabe behavior gets him fired by the dean (Charles Green). Eventually, Jewell, who lives with his momma (Kathy Bates), bounces back and gets a job working security at the Olympics, specifically in Centennial Park, where crowds gather to celebrate winners and enjoy nightly concerts.

One night, Jewell finds a suspicious package under a park bench, and alerts the cops around him. They find some very big pipe bombs, and Jewell helps the cops push the crowd back before it blows — killing two and injuring 111 people. All agree it would have been worse if not for Jewell’s fast action, and he soon becomes a hero and media sensation.

That good feeling is short-lived, when the FBI office in Atlanta starts investigating — and a profiler suggests Jewell, as a wannabe cop seeking attention, might have planted the bomb himself. That thin thread is then leaked by an FBI agent (Jon Hamm) to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter (Olivia Wilde).

And here’s the moment where Eastwood and Ray do their damage to the reputation of Kathy Scruggs, the real-life reporter who broke the story that the FBI was investigating Jewell as the bomber. As a recent AJC article reports, Scruggs got that scoop because she was a dogged reporter who worked with sources at every level of law enforcement in Atlanta. As the movie tells it, Scruggs got that scoop by screwing the FBI guy. (This happens off-camera, to the disappointment of anyone hoping to see Hamm and Wilde, among our most attractive movie stars, in a bedroom scene together.)

The trope of a female journalist using sex to get a story is an ugly cliche that pops up whenever a filmmaker wants to make the press into a villain. It’s a lie, and Eastwood should apologize for it. Ray should be particularly ashamed — after all, he wrote and directed the 2003 drama “Shattered Glass,” based on the story of the reporter for The New Republic who fabricated articles.

A more interesting story would show Scruggs doing everything a journalist is supposed to do — it’s not a lie that the FBI was investigating Jewell immediately after the bombing — and still the wrong guy gets accused. It also would have been more interesting to show Scruggs, who died in 2001, guilt-ridden by what doing her job did to another human. Both of those things, as the AJC reported, would also have had the benefit of being true. (It’s also true that the guy who did plant the bomb, Eric Rudolph, was a right-wing zealot also bombed a lesbian bar and two abortion clinics — but the rigidly Republican Eastwood omits those facts from his narrative.)

Wilde has taken some criticism for taking this role, especially considering she grew up among journalists — but I only blame her about 10 percent for how Scruggs is portrayed. Wilde, in an interview, said she’s being held to a double standard that her co-star, Hamm, has not faced. True, though Hamm’s character is a fictional composite character, probably because live FBI agents can sue and a dead reporter cannot.

The stick-figure villainy of Hamm and Wilde’s characters, as conceived by Eastwood and Ray, is enough to make a viewer distrust the rest of the movie. That’s unfortunate, because Hauser (who played the knee-breaking accomplice in “I, Tonya”) gives a strong, sympathetic performance as Jewell, finding the self-deprecation of a man constantly undervalued because of his girth. Hauser is nicely matched by Rockwell, whose character reappears as the lawyer Jewell needs to fend off the Feds and the media circus.

In the end, “Richard Jewell” doesn’t even do Jewell any favors. If there’s one thing we take away about Jewell, who died in 2007, is that he believed in being fair and honest. One can only wonder what he would have thought of what Eastwood and Ray have done to Kathy Scruggs’ good name.

——

’Richard Jewell’

★★

Opens Friday, December 13, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for language including some sexual references, and brief bloody images. Running time: 130 minutes.

'Jumanji: The Next Level'

Hacking through the jungle of overloaded action in “Jumanji: The Next Level,” a sequel to the 2017 action movie about teens trapped in a video game, a viewer has lots of time to think about the lost opportunities the movie passes up.

This haphazardly structured movie, which throws random events up on the screen in no particular order, has some elements that are entertaining. Finding those nuggets takes a lot of sifting through the dirt, though.

Read the full review at sltrib.com.

'Waves'

The tragedy at the heart of filmmaker Trey Edward Shults’ drama “Waves” divides a family, and splits a movie in two — and bringing both together is a perilous journey.

At 18, Tyler Williams (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) would seem to have it made. Growing up in a prosperous family in suburban Miami, Tyler is a star high school wrestler and diligent student, someone being groomed for college and beyond.

But there are cracks in the perfect surface. A nagging shoulder injury is endangering his athletic scholarship, and prompting Tyler to try opioids. His girlfriend, Alexis (Alexa Demie), reports that her period is late. And Tyler is being constantly pushed by his domineering father, Ronald (Sterling K. Brown).

The first half of the film details Tyler’s unraveling, which ends tragically. Then the movie pivots to Tyler’s younger sister, Emily (Taylor Russell), who must live in the aftermath of Tyler’s reputation. She eats lunch alone most days, and can’t communicate with her mother, Catharine (Renée Elise Goldsberry), who has become distant from Ronald.

But Emily may find redemption, when she meets Luke (Lucas Hedges), a nice guy who isn’t phased by Emily’s family issues. Turns out Luke has family issues of his own, specifically a father who’s dying in far-off Missouri.

Shults — following up his 2015 debut “Krisha” and the 2017 horror thriller “It Comes at Night” — applies a lot of artifice to the Williams children’s paired stories, like a new generation of Terence Malick’s infuriatingly elliptical storytelling. (One recurring move is placing a camera in the middle of a car’s cabin, then rapidly spinning it to show us where everyone is in the car.) The showing-off is more noticeable in the first half, but maybe that’s because tragic spirals get Shults’ creative energies flowing more than freely than redemption tales.

In a talented ensemble, young Russell (“Escape Room”) is the standout, playing all of Emily’s complicated emotions — grief, survivor’s guilt, helplessness over his brother’s fate, and a determination to make her own life more meaningful. Russell does that with limited screen time, and with an honesty that raises the film’s second half to the lofty heights its self-absorbed beginning can’t reach.

——

‘Waves’

★★★

Opened November 15 in select cities; opens Friday, December 6, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City) and Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy). Rated R for language throughout, drug and alcohol use, some sexual content and brief violence - all involving teens. Running time: 135 minutes.

'The Aeronauts'

An odd but mostly satisfying mix of gee-whiz adventure and wrenching drama is the fuel for “The Aeronauts,” a story of science and discovery that stays afloat more steadily than you might guess.

It’s 1862, and aspiring scientist James Glaisher (Eddie Redmayne) is determined to prove his theories about meteorology, that he can find patterns in the weather and use them to predict what weather we will get. To do this, he must go airborne, and his only option is daredevil balloonist Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones), who’s more about show business than science.

The script, by Jack Thorne (who shares story credit with director Tom Harper), paints in broad strokes how mismatched these two characters are. Glaisher disdains Wren’s theatrics, like parachuting her dog down to the cheering crowd, but she knows it’s what pays the bills. Meanwhile, Wren thinks Glaisher is too buried in his measurements and readings to appreciate the glory of flying above everyone and everything on Earth.

The trip is presented practically in real time — the flight almost precisely matches the movie’s running time — though the thrills and spills of the balloon trip are augmented with flashbacks. There, we learn how Glaisher is fighting the entrenched scientific forces, who equate predicting the weather to fortune telling. We also see that Wren is more nervous than she lets on, because of a balloon accident involving her husband, Pierre (Vincent Perez).

Harper — who’s having a good year, between this and the country-music drama “Wild Rose” — deftly juggles the backstory with the ongoing airborne adventure. He also reunites the stars of “The Theory of Everything,” though this time giving Jones the juicier role, one that she leaps into with a rebel’s heart. The narrative ride of “The Aeronauts” is bumpy at times, but Jones is a confident pilot who handles the story’s emotional turbulence with ease.

——

‘The Aeronauts’

★★★

Opens Friday, December 6, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City), Megaplex Valley Fair (West Valley City), Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy).and Megaplex at The District (South Jordan); begins streaming on Amazon Prime on December 20. Rated PG-13 for some peril and thematic elements. Running time: 100. minutes.

'Knives and Skin'

Writer-director Jennifer Reeder’s high school noir drama “Knives and Skin” feels like the unwanted love child of David Lynch and Paul Thomas Anderson — a dozen different stylistic ideas going off in different directions, often canceling each other out.

It starts with two teens at Makeout Point, or whatever kids call it these days. Andy KItzmiller (Ty Olwin) is the star of the football team, and Carolyn Harper (Raven Whitley) is the nerdy marching-band drummer who will be Andy’s latest conquest. When Carolyn gets scared and repels Andy’s grabby advances, the jock leaves Carolyn on the gravel road.

Carolyn doesn’t come home that night, leaving her single mom, Lisa (Marika Engelhardt), a wreck. The girl’s disappearance also has an effect on the other kids in school — particularly Andy’s sister, Joanna (Grace Smith), who knows something is up with her brother. Joanna is having her own problems, like running scams like selling used underwear belonging to her agoraphobic mom, Lynn (Audrey Francis), to the skeevy principal (Tony Fitzpatrick).

Meanwhile, Joanna and Andy’s dad, Dan (Tim Hopper), is having an affair with Renee Darlington (Kate Arrington), the glitter-obsessed wife of the sheriff, Doug (James Vincent Meredith). And the Darlington’s cheerleader daughter, Laurel (Kayla Carter), is falling in love with Bridey (Genevieve Venjohnson), a classmate in Mrs.Harper’s girls’ choir class.

There are surely some subplots I missed in Reeder’s “Peyton Place” plot. It’s easy to get lost in Reeder’s random flashes of oddness, like the choir’s funereal renditions of ‘80s pop songs (including “I Melt With You” and “Whisper to a Scream”) or the way Carolyn’s corpse becomes a subject of the camera’s fascination, somewhere between “Twin Peaks’” Laura Palmer and “Weekend at Bernie’s.”

Reeder settles down in the second half, letting the angst-filled teen girls of her story wrestle back some emotional honesty from the onslaught of cinematic showboating. But it’s not enough to rescue “Knives and Skin” from its pretensions.

——

‘Knives and Skin’

★1/2

Opens Friday, December 6, at the Megaplex at The Gateway (Salt Lake City), Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy), Megaplex at The District (South Jordan) and Megaplex Thanksgiving Point (Lehi). Not rated, but probably R for violence, sexuality and drug use - most of it involving teens. Running time: 112 minutes.

'Marriage Story'

Writer-director Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” is the filmmaker’s most assured, emotionally mature and heartbreaking work to date, a tender yet lacerating drama of divorce and its aftermath.

At first, it seems like Baumbach is living up to his title, with montages that show Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) in the happy throes of a productive marriage. The images are accompanied with paired voiceovers, in which each describes what they like best about the other — whether it’s Charlie’s ability to remember every name in the New York theater troope he leads or Nicole’s acting talent in that same troupe. Each mentions how competitive the other is, and how well both treat their son, Henry (Azhy Robertson).

The audience soon realizes this cascade of compliments was an assignment by a counselor to help the couple ease into their impending divorce. They have agreed to an amicable parting, without lawyers. The only question is how much time Henry will spend with Charlie in New York, where he’s prepping his troupe’s production of “Elektra” for Broadway, or in Los Angeles, where Nicole — a former teen movie idol — has been cast in a pilot for a science-fiction series.

Once in L.A., though, Nicole has doubts about the lawyer thing. On the advice of a crew member on her TV shoot, Nicole visits a prominent divorce lawyer, Nora (Laura Dern). Their first meeting is a powerful moment of acting, as Dern’s Nora carefully asks the questions that get Johansson’s Nicole to ask, for the first time, what she really wants out of this divorce.

Charlie, feeling blindsided, has to lawyer up quickly. He meets with, and rejects, a suave shark of an attorney, Jay (Ray Liotta), opting instead for the avuncular — and not very effective — Bert (Alan Alda). But when Charlie faces losing custody of Henry, because of Nora’s demands that the boy live in Los Angeles, Charlie reconsiders going cutthroat with Jay.

Baumbach’s riveting screenplay captures the nuances of a couple who may still love each other, but find that’s not enough to sustain their marriage. Issues big and small play out, most intensely in an argument between Charlie and Nicole that lets both actors really tear into their roles and each other.

Baumbach also includes moments of absurdist comedy, like when Nicole asks her suburbanite sister Cassie (Merritt Wever) and their flighty mom (Julie Hagerty) serve divorce papers on a visiting Charlie. Those lighter moments become a necessary balm, to counter the sting of the break-up and the ache the soon-to-be-divorced spouses feel as they figure out their new roles.

Some have argued that Baumbach is too much on Charlie’s side, but I think a repeated viewing — a possibility made easier when the movie debuts on Netflix on Dec. 6 — will reveal that the filmmaker is fairly even-handed. Charlie’s emotional journey is more front-and-center in the narrative, but in a way that’s because Nicole has known longer about the cracks in the relationship, and her epiphany comes  before this movie’s timeline.

Baumbach assembles a stellar ensemble cast for “Marriage Story” — including Dern, Liotta and Alda as three very different types of lawyers, and Hagerty and Wever as Ncole’s family. But it’s the paired leads, Driver and Johansson, whose compelling performances bring the passion as Charlie and Nicole hash out unrealized dreams, obstacles the other set in their way, and how they might be able to survive as co-parents, if not as husband and wife.

——

‘Marriage Story’

★★★1/2

Opened November 6 in select cities; opens Wednesday, November 29, at the Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy), and Friday, November 29, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City); will debut Friday, December 6, on Netflix. Rated R for language throughout and sexual references. Running time: 136 minutes.