Review: 'Ordinary Love' is a marriage story that relies on extraordinary acting

The drama “Ordinary Love” bears, in many ways, the most accurate movie title of all time — because it gently and precisely chronicles a year of crisis in the life of a most ordinary married couple.

Joan (Lesley Manville) and Tom (Liam Neeson) live near Belfast, and have what appears to be be a long and mostly happy marriage. They take walks together to keep fit, they go shopping, and they banter teasingly about who gets to take down the Christmas decorations. There is sadness in their relationship — a daughter, Debbie, who died young, is mentioned throughout the movie, though without much detail.

Then, one night, Joan takes a shower and notices a lump near her left breast. Thus begins an odyssey of doctors and tests, from mammogram to MRI, through surgery and chemotherapy. Joan copes with nausea, fatigue, pain and hair loss — using Tom as her emotional punching bag when her suffering is too great. Tom tries to stay strong for her sake, but sometimes loses his temper over how ineffectual he is in the face of Joan’s cancer.

Playwright Owen McCafferty, making his screenwriting debut, based the story on the experiences he and his wife, Peggy, endured when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The result is painstaking detail, presented with care and empathy by husband-and-wife directors Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn. 

If there’s a weakness in “Ordinary Love,” it’s that there’s little defining Tom and Joan’s life apart from their cancer fight. It’s up to Neeson and Manville to fill in those blanks through their tender, lived-in performances. Manville, especially, gives a flinty, empathetic performance, finding Joan’s breaking point and the resilience to push past it.

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‘Ordinary Love’

★★★

Opened February 14 in select cities; opens Friday, March 6, at Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City) and Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy). Rated R for some sexuality/nudity. Running time: 92 minutes.

Review: New take on 'Invisible Man' is a scary, tense thriller with a message for the current moment

An enduring science-fiction classic gets repurposed brilliantly in “The Invisible Man,” an effectively chilling horror movie with a timely theme.

The classic version, first written by H.G. Wells more than a century ago, follows an inventor who develops a way to become invisible — but then goes mad because of it. In this new version, director and screenwriter Leigh Whannell transfers the apparent madness part to another character: Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss), the psychologically abused wife of Adrian Griffin (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), a scientist whose specialty is optics.

The movie begins with Cecilia carrying out a plot to escape from Adrian’s high-security house overlooking the Pacific. She drugs Adrian, then slips away to a road where her sister, Alice (Harriet Dyer), picks her up — but not without Adrian nearly catching her.

Cut ahead two weeks, and Cecelia is still a paranoid wreck, afraid to step on the porch of the house where she’s staying — where her cop friend James (Aldis Hodge) and his daughter, Sydney (Storm Reid), live. Then Harriet returns with the news that Adrian apparently committed suicide. The news is confirmed by Adrian’s brother, and his lawyer, Tom (Michael Dorman), who tells Cecelia she’s inherited a $5 million trust fund from Adrian.

Cecelia, though, still isn’t convinced Adrian is dead — and a series of incidents, small at first but growing in severity, lead her to believe that Adrian is alive, and has mastered a way to make himself invisible. Of course, everyone around her starts to believe she’s gone crazy. Thus does Wells’ classic tale transform into a gripping story that illustrates the importance of believing women.

(Anyone accusing the movie of being “woke” to score brownie points should remember that horror has tackled big issues for decades: The pitfalls of scientific arrogance in “Frankenstein,” nuclear destruction in “Godzilla,” racism in “Get Out,” and so on.)

Whannell has launched two horror franchises, writing the screenplays for “Saw” (2004) and “Insidious” (2011), and making his directing debut on “Insidious: Chapter 3” (2015). He may have a third on his hands here, a better handling of Universal’s famous monsters than the bloated “Dark Universe” series the studio planned, but pulled the plug on after the Tom Cruise vehicle “The Mummy.”

Here, Whannell starts with the nail-biter of an opening of Cecelia’s escape, then performs a slow burn as incidents start happening to Cecelia — and she must fight to keep her sanity when everyone else is doubting it. Sometimes the effects are small and subtle, but they build to some striking set pieces. (Once again, the trailer gives away more than it should.)

None of Whannell’s clever moves would hold together, though, without Moss at the center. It becomes almost repetitive to talk about how good an actor Moss is — examples like “Mad Men” and “Her Smell” are everywhere — but it’s undeniable. Moss finds in Cecelia both a vulnerable victim and a fed-up fighter who can outfight and outthink her unseen tormentor, and her performance turns “The Invisible Man” into something deeper than a standard horror movie.

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‘The Invisible Man’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, February 28, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for some strong blood violence, and language. Running time: 124 minutes.

Review: 'Once Were Brothers' gives Robbie Robertson the final word on the history of The Band

The documentary “Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band” is the story of a rock ’n’ roll survivor — quite literally, because Robertson is still around when most of the rest of his landmark ‘60s-‘70s rock group, The Band, is gone, and therefore Robertson gets the last word.

It’s a rollicking story, stretching from Robertson’s Canadian and First Nations roots to the early days of rockabilly, from a landmark gig backing Bob Dylan to creating one of the most beloved music groups — the pioneers of what now we call Americana rock.

Robertson is a major part of that story, as lead guitarist and principal songwriter. The fact that bandmates Richard Manuel, Rick Danko and Levon Helm are dead — and keyboardist Garth Hudson, living his old age in Woodstock, N.Y., isn’t interviewed here — means Robertson, by default, tells the story his way.

As a guitar-loving teen in Toronto, Robertson’s band got a chance to open for Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, the most amazing rockabilly band Robertson had ever heard of. Robertson says he was most impressed with the Hawks’ rapid-fire drummer, Levon Helm. When Robertson got a chance to audition for Hawkins’ band, he high-tailed it to Arkansas and got the job. Robertson and Helm became instant best friends, handling arrangements for Hawkins’ songs and ultimately filling the band with Robertson’s Canadian friends: Hudson, Danko and Manuel.

That backup band became a band of their own, and on an early recording session ran into Bob Dylan. They seemed like an odd pairing — the folksinger and the rockabilly kids — but they recognized great talent in each other. When Dylan decided to “go electric,” and cross over from folk to rock, the quintet became his backup band, taking the boos and thrown bottles at every tour stop.

Finally, these five friends started recording in their own right, in a homemade studio in an ugly pink house they bought in Woodstock, N.Y., at the urging of Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman. Those sessions formed the backbone of “Music From Big Pink,” The Band’s landmark first album.

Director Daniel Roher collects new interviews from Robertson as well as a lot of friends — among them Hawkins, Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Taj Mahal, Peter Gabriel, Jann Wenner, David Geffen and Martin Scorsese (who directed The Band’s famous 1978 concert film “The Last Waltz,” and is executive producer here). Roher also collects a wealth of archival film and photos, as well as old interviews from the now-deceased bandmates and George Harrison.

Still, it feels like something’s missing, and that’s any rebuttal to Robertson’s version of the history of The Band. Robertson talks briefly about the animosity Helm harbored for Robertson after the band’s demise, which the film argues was largely attributable to heroin use by Helm, Manuel and Danko — who aren’t able to defend themselves or talk about their lives after “The Last Waltz.” (For example, Helm had a successful movie career, debuting as Loretta Lynn’s father in “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”)

For all its flaws, though, “Once Were Brothers” transports the viewer back to the days of rock’s beginnings, with a band that had a ringside seat for so much of the genre’s history — as well as creating bits of that history, with songs like “The Weight” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” songs that feel fresh and ancient every time you hear them.

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‘Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band’

★★★

Opened Friday, February 21, in select cities; opens Friday, February 28, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for some language and drug references. Running time: 102 minutes.

Review: Kristen Stewart shines in 'Seberg,' a biography that soft-pedals the FBI's harassment of the '60s star

It makes perfect sense that Kristen Stewart would be drawn to a project like “Seberg,” a look at the most tumultuous years of actress Jean Seberg’s career — and Stewart is by far the best thing in this luxuriously shot and deeply flawed biography.

Stewart and Seberg have a lot in common: Two American starlets known for short hair, gamine beauty, a rebellious streak, and splitting time between making Hollywood pabulum and artistically challenging French films. And Stewart channels her own mystique into Seberg’s, capturing the soul of a fellow actor wanting to use her fame to make a statement.

The movie begins in 1968, when Seberg — world famous as “the girl in the International Herald Tribune shirt” in Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless” — leaves Paris to audition in Hollywood for a big-budget musical. (The title isn’t spoken, but it’s “Paint Your Wagon,” in which Seberg starred with Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood.) She leaves behind her husband, the filmmaker Romain Gary (Yvan Attal), and their son.

On the plane, Seberg encounters a black activist, Hakim Jamal (Anthony Mackie), who’s associated with the Black Panther Party. On the tarmac in Los Angeles, Seberg joins an impromptu Black Panther rally, raising her fist in solidarity in front of newspaper photographers. There’s someone else at the airport with a camera: Jack Solomon (played by Jack O’Connell), a rookie FBI agent performing surveillance on the Panthers.

Solomon’s boss in the FBI’s L.A. office, Frank Ellroy (Colm Meaney), gets orders all the way from J. Edgar Hoover to make Seberg a target of investigation. Solomon and a veteran agent (Vince Vaughn) stake out her house, and eventually plant microphones in every room — particularly the bedroom. (“Hoover likes to hear the bedsprings,” another agent says.) The goal is to “neutralize” Seberg as a symbol, so she can’t use her fame and wealth to further political causes Hoover doesn’t like.

The FBI’s abhorrent tactics to silence American citizens are well documented (type “COINTELPRO” into your favorite search engine, if you trust it), and screenwriters Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, if anything, underplay the horrors Seberg and others suffered. What’s infuriating here is that Solomon, a composite character, is depicted as a reluctant smear artist, wrestling with his conscience — and prodded by his wife, Linette (Margaret Qualley) — to feel guilty about what the FBI did to her. The script, and director Benedict Andrews, is letting the FBI off too easily.

When the movie works, it’s because of Stewart’s fearless, flawless performance. (Also give credit to cinematographer Rachel Morrison, who captures the ‘60s Hollywood setting gorgeously.)

Stewart channels Seberg’s potent mix of naivety, stubbornness and what these days we would call white-girl privilege as she defiantly backs Jamal’s causes — and, for a time, shares his bed — in the face of warnings that her reputation and career will be ruined. Stewart also has a handle on the sensitive soul, the one scarred physically and emotionally by Otto Preminger (her director on “Joan of Arc”) and other men, that Seberg was. It’s a powerful portrayal trapped in an unworthy movie.

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‘Seberg’

★★1/2

Opened December 13, 2019, in select cities; opens Friday, February 28, at several theaters in Utah. Rated R for language, sexual content/nudity and some drug use. Running time: 102 minutes.

Review: Pixar's 'Onward' is set in a land of elves and orcs — and in Pixar's world of humor and emotion

The folks at Disney’s Pixar Animation Studios take their inner Dungeons & Dragons-playing nerd out for a walk in “Onward” (opening March 6), mixing sword-and-sorcery themes with the studio’s established gifts for clever humor and heart-tugging emotion.

“Long ago, the world was filled with wonder…” begins the movie’s narration, uttered by Barley Lightfoot (voiced by Chris Pratt), an oversized elf who knows by heart the history of dragons, wizards and other fanciful folk in New Mushroomton. But the creatures there now have freeways and cellphones and suburbia, so the magical arts are less important and largely forgotten to everyone except Barley.

Read the full review at sltrib.com.

Review: Athlete-turned-actress Alexi Pappas shines in 'Olympic Dreams,' a rom-com filmed backstage at Pyeongchang games

It’s the details in “Olympic Dreams” — a movie shot within the usually restricted confines of the Olympic Village at the Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea — and the discovery of athlete-turned-actress Alexi Pappas that make this small story so charming.

Pappas plays Penelope, a cross-country skier from an unnamed country whose event comes early in the Pyeongchang Games. She’s reasonably happy with her performance, but now she’s alone in a strange country pondering what to do now that she’s done the biggest thing an athlete in her sport can do. She spends time in the game room, tries out the massage chairs, and is just hanging out.

Read the full review at sltrib.com.

Review: 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire' is a radiantly beautiful masterpiece

The force of art, the pull of freedom and the power of love all collide in writer-director Céline Schiamma’s French drama “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” one of the most sumptuous and seductive movies in years.

Sciamma sets her story in 18th century France, when marriage was as much an economic proposition — a merger of two family businesses, a negotiation over property — as a romantic one. That’s why a countess (Valeria Golino) is trying to marry her daughter, Héloise (Adèle Haenel), to some wealthy gentleman. 

Héloise is opposed to this idea, so much so that she refuses to sit for a portrait, a requirement to sell off a marriageable woman. The countess brings in Marianne (Noémie Merlant), a painter and art teacher, and gives her an impossible request: Become Héloise’s companion, catching glimpses of her face by day, then painting from memory in secret every night.

Marianne warms to the professional challenge of getting Héloise to pose without knowing she’s posing. But the longer she spends examining Héloise’s form on the sly, the more the two start falling in love. The heat in this picture isn’t just coming from the copious sunshine, but from the burning passion between them.

It’s difficult to list all the beautiful things Sciamma captures so stunningly in this film. The windswept Brittany coasts are on that list. So are her radiant leading ladies, Merlant and Haenel, who capture the sense of freedom they seek through a passionate romance that each knows will not be allowed to last.

There’s one scene in particular — the one that gives this love-drenched movie its title — that is the most ravishing. Marianne and Héloise come upon a bonfire, and a group of travelers playing a simple yet alluring folk tune. The women are so enraptured by the music that they barely notice that the hem of Héloise’s dress has caught fire. That’s one bravura moment among many, but it exemplifies the sexual tension and pure beauty of this stunning drama.

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‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’

★★★★

Opened February 14 in select cities; opening Friday, February 21, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated R for some nudity and sexuality. Running time: 121 minutes; in French, with subtitles.

Review: 'The Assistant' is a riveting thriller and a rallying cry for the #MeToo movement

It is difficult to think of a movie that is so much of its moment, that crystalizes the issues and voices the concerns, quite like writer-director Kitty Green’s “The Assistant,” the first necessary movie of the #MeToo generation.

In scarcely 90 minutes, Green and her star, the frightening talented Julia Garner, itemize the evils of powerful men who use their positions to dominate, assault and rape women — and also the systems and underlings who, through snickering or silence, allow such horrific behavior to continue.

Garner plays Jane (that’s what it says in the credits; nobody uses her, or pretty much anyone else’s, name in dialogue), an entry-level employee at a New York-based movie production company. (Comparisons to Miramax or The Weinstein Company are, officially, coincidental — but, unofficially, clear as day but not the point.) She is an assistant to the company’s boss, who is never seen and only occasionally heard through berating phone calls.

Jane must carry out the most mundane duties: Making coffee, running the copier, scheduling the boss’ itinerary and travel, tidying up his office, and so on. Sometimes the duties are tougher, like fielding calls from the boss’s irate wife (Stéphanye Dussad), or picking up a stray earring off the boss’s floor, or making sure a new employee — a pretty off-the-bus waitress (Kristine Froseth) the boss met on a trip to Sun Valley — gets to the hotel for which the company is paying.

The office’s male assistants (Jon Orsini and Noah Robbins) ignore the clear signs of sexual misconduct, and only aid Jane with writing apologetic emails to the boss when he chews her out. A visit with the HR director (Matthew Macfadyen) to report her suspicions only leads to warnings of career suicide, with the nicest thing he can say being, “Don’t worry — you’re not his type.”

Green (who played with the documentary form in fascinating ways to explore tabloid headlines and a Colorado mystery in “Casting JonBenet”) makes a sure-footed leap into narrative film here. She piles on the mundane details of Jane’s first-in, last-out job, all crammed into one day, to showcase the battle within Jane’s heart — the mental and moral struggle between keeping her job, and thus being complicit in the boss’s mistreatment of women, and trying to do something about it.

All these complex, contradictory emotions all play out on Garner’s subtly expressive face. So do Jane’s efforts to keep her emotions in check, lest they be used against her by the company’s male co-workers, from her falsely friendly office mates to the intimidating HR guy all the way up to the boss himself. Garner gives a quietly heartbreaking performance, as a woman trying to hold onto her moral compass when everything around her is uncaring or downright hostile.

And saying “The Assistant” is an important movie, an urgent warning to predatory men that their days are numbered, shouldn’t distract from how tightly constructed it is. Green plays the tense, discordant notes of her story like a concert pianist, making even an innocent-looking tissue box seem sinister, and the result is as much a nail-biter as a call to arms.

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‘The Assistant’

★★★1/2

Opened January 31 in select cities; opening Friday, February 21, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated R for some language. Running time: 87 minutes.