Review: A new version of 'Pinocchio' is visually inventive, and a lot darker than the Disney version

If your knowledge of “Pinocchio” is limited to Walt Disney’s 1940 animated version of the story, then Italian director Matteo Garrone’s live-action rendition will be disturbing — and for that, you can only blame Carlo Collodi and his 1883 novel.

Garrone is best known to American audiences for his sprawling 2008 Mafia epic “Gomorrah.” (People should also check out his 2012 satire “Reality,” about a man obsessed with getting on the Italian version of “Big Brother.”) So having Garrone tackle a beloved children’s character seems like a stretch, but it turns out to be right in his wheelhouse.

The origin is familiar: The old and poor woodcarver Geppetto (played by the Italian comic actor Robert Benigni) is given a large log by his aged mentor, Mastro Ciliega (Paolo Graziosi) — who wants to be rid of it because the log seems to have a will of its own.

Geppetto, inspired by a traveling puppet theater, carves a marionette from the log — though he’s shocked to find the wooden figure has a heartbeat. Then the puppet springs to life, and Pinocchio (played by young actor Federico Ielapi) calls Geppetto his “babo.”

Pinocchio turns out to be a handful, good at heart but easily distracted by ne’er-do-wells. First he’s taken in by the touring puppet show, but is shown mercy by the owner, Mangiafuoco (Gigi Proietti). Then Pinocchio runs into Cat (Rocco Papaleo) and Fox (Massimo Ceccherini), grifters who try to trick the wooden-headed lad into “planting” his gold coins in the “field of miracles.” Meanwhile, Geppetto leaves their village to search far and wide for his missing little boy.

Pinocchio learns the hard way that Fox and Cat are not to be trusted — through mishaps that must have horrified Walt Disney back in the day, which is why they’re omitted from Walt’s animated telling. (Word to the wise: Take the PG-13 rating seriously.) Pinocchio is rescued and taken under the care of the Blue Fairy (played by Alida Baldari Calabria as a little girl, and French star Marine Vacth in adult form), who promises him he can become a real boy. The fairy also shows Pinocchio what happens when he lies: His nose grows like a dowel coming out of his face.

Garrone and Ceccherini co-wrote the screenplay, which remains faithful to Collodi’s plot. This means plenty of fantastical things happen to Pinocchio, and the special effects and make-up have to keep pace with his transformation into a donkey or the inclusion of many animal/human hybrids. The visuals are inventive, though not as spectacularly scary as Disney’s depiction of the fish as Monstro the whale. And Garrone neatly captures the grim existence for an impoverished 19th century woodcarver, caught on film in drab browns and grays, contrasted by Pinocchio’s traditional red jacket and pointed hat.

Benigni — who played Pinocchio in a 2002 version he directed, when he was 50 and too old for the role — is in fine form as Geppetto, bringing some physical humor to his early scenes but never forgetting the sadness at the heart of the character. He’s a fine foil and mentor for young Ielapi, who deftly captures Pinocchio’s mischievous spirit and his inner longing to be a good boy.

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‘Pinocchio’

★★★

Opens Friday, December 25, in theaters where open. Rated PG-13 for some disturbing images. Running time: 125 minutes; dubbed into English.

Review: 'Sylvie's Love' is a sumptuous period romance propelled by the chemistry of stars Tessa Thompson and Nnamdi Asomugha

Everyone deserves a swoon-inducing, deeply felt romantic melodrama, especially if it’s as refined and emotional as writer-director Eugene Ashe’s “Sylvie’s Love.”

The always radiant Tessa Thompson plays Sylvie, who in 1957 is working in a New York record store, owned by her father, known to all as Mr. Jay (Lance Reddick). She knows a lot about music, especially jazz, but her real passion is television. 

Sylvie is also engaged to a young man serving overseas, which makes things complicated when Robert (Nnamdi Asomugha) walks into the store, looking for a Thelonious Monk album and a job. Robert is a promising saxophonist, the engine of the quartet he’s in, made up of the musicians he grew up with back in Detroit. 

Despite her better judgment, Sylvie falls in love with Robert, and vice versa. But Robert’s musical ambitions, boosted by a benefactor who calls herself The Countess (Jemima Kirke), send Robert to Europe just as Sylvie learns she’s pregnant. Sylvie marries her fiancé, Lacy (Alano Miller), has a daughter, and that would be that — until five years later, when Sylvie, working on a TV cooking show, sees Robert by chance.

Ashe and cinematographer Declan Quinn get the period details perfect, from the cars to the smooth jazz music that gives way to rock ’n’ roll. We also feel the sting of racism, though subtly, like when Sylvie learns Lacy’s prospective new clients are bigots. And we experience the march of history, obliquely, when Sylvie’s cousin Mona (Aja Naomi King), a civil-rights activist, calls in discussing her exploits.

Much of Sylvie and Robert’s love story is told through music, both in the precision of the needle drops and in a lush score by composer Fabrice Lecomte that is as full as the main characters’ hearts.

In an ensemble cast that includes Eva Longoria as a jazz scene den mother and Wendi McClendon-Covey as the cooking show’s host, this movie belongs first and foremost to Thompson and Asomugha. Their chemistry together is sizzling, and separately they convey both the longing of their lost loves and the need to create that fuels their ambitions. “Sylvie’s Love” seems destined to be one of those timeless romances that we’ll be talking about years from now. 

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’Sylvie’s Love’

★★★★

Available for streaming on Prime Video, starting Wednesday, December 23. Rated PG-13 for some sexual content, and smoking. Running time: 114 minutes.

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This review originally appeared on this site on January 29, 2020, when the movie debuted at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

Review: 'Wander Darkly' is a stirring, surrealist look at love and death, capped by Sienna Miller's stellar performance

The old “’til death do us part” thing gets a real workout in writer-director Tara Miele’s “Wander Darkly,” a moving drama about love and loss, death and memory.

Adrienne (Sienna Miller) and Matteo (Diego Luna) are a Los Angeles couple that share a mortgage and, for the last six months, a baby girl, Ellie. They do not share their names on a marriage license, which is a bone of contention, and the subject of an argument the two have while driving home from a party.

Then a pick-up truck slams into them, head on.

Next thing we see, Adrienne is standing in an emergency room, watching her dead body being wheeled into the morgue. What follows is a deep dive into Adrienne’s psyche, memory and glimpses into the future. The only person she talks to is Matteo, who doesn’t believe her when she says she’s dead.

The two bounce around their shared timeline, from first glance to last breath. They relive their first kiss, their magical trip to Mexico, and their qualms about growing together as a couple. At each stop, they talk about their thoughts and feelings about those moments — and how those attitudes may not have matched what they said at the time.

Miele and cinematographer Carolina Costa fashion a visually stunning film that captures the colorful Los Angeles settings and the quicksilver transitions in memory. The storyline of Miele’s script is complex, but the visual cues help carry the viewer over the bumps and twists.

Luna is soulful as the dutiful partner, trying to guide Miller’s Adrienne through her existential doubts as they explore the roots of their love and where things started to go astray. Beth Grant and Brett Rice do solid supporting work as Adrienne’s parents, who have their doubts about Matteo, both before and after the crash.

Miller, though, is the heart and soul of “Wander Darkly,” as Adrienne tries to process the aftermath of the crash, and examine her feelings about Matteo, Ellie, and herself. It’s a restrained, yet powerful performance — one anyone who has been paying attention knew Miller could knock out of the park.

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‘Wander Darkly’

★★★1/2

Available Friday, December 11, as a digital rental on most streaming services. Rated R for language and some sexual content/nudity. Running time: 97 minutes.

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This review originally appeared on this site on January 25, 2020, when the film premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

Review: 'Farewell Amor' tenderly depicts the difficulties of an immigrant family's reunion

The American dream is not without its pitfalls, such as those endured by the Angolan family at the center of writer-director Ekwa Msangi’s warm-hearted drama “Farewell Amor.”

Walter (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine) is picking up his wife, Esther (Zainab Jah), and their teen daughter Sylvia (Jayme Lawson) at JFK. Walter has not seen his family in 17 years, which means Sylvia doesn’t really know him, since she was a baby when they were last together.

Walter and Esther also have changed in the intervening years. Esther has become a devout Christian, putting pictures of Jesus up around their tiny apartment. Walter is dealing with another change in the apartment: That Linda (Nana Mensah), who was Walter’s girlfriend for the last few years, is no longer living there. 

While Esther tries to do right by Walter, as the Bible commands her, she also is being biblically strict with Sylvia. On the other hand, Sylvia wants to explore this new American culture — specifically, she wants to compete in a dance-battle competition that a charming classmate, DJ (Marcus Scribner), has encouraged her to enter.

Deploying a three-pronged script structure — first from Walter’s viewpoint, then Sylvia’s, then Esther’s — Msangi lets surprises unfold organically, letting us get to know these people just as they are learning about each other. The three leads give lived-in performances, strengthening the notion that this is really a family in spite of their hardships.

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‘Farewell Amor’

★★★

Opening Friday, December 11, in some theaters, where open. Not rated, but probably R for sexuality, nudity and language. Running time: 95 minutes.

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This review originally appeared on this site on January …, 2020, when the film premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

Review: 'Wild Mountain Time' is a magically atrocious romantic comedy, a ridiculous pile of forced Irish whimsy

Watching the strained blarney of John Patrick Shanley’s “Wild Mountain Thyme,” I could feel the spirits of my Irish ancestors laughing boisterously — but what they were finding funny wasn’t the stuff that was supposed to be funny.

No, this attempt at setting a romantic comedy in the Irish countryside is ridiculous for all the wrong reasons — starting with the opening voice-over of Christopher Walken, his Irish accent apparently pulled out of a box of Lucky Charms, happily informing us, “I’m dead!” If only.

Walken plays Tony Reilly, a crusty old Irish farmer who has left much of the labor on his land to his son, Anthony (Jamie Dornan). After the funeral for their neighbor, Chris Muldoon, Tony tells Chris’ widow Aoife (Dearbhla Molloy) that “I don’t see a clear path” to leaving the farm to Anthony when Tony’s dead. Instead, Tony intends to bequeath the farm to Anthony’s American cousin, Adam (Jon Hamm), a Wall Street sharpie.

Anthony is frozen in place, stuck brooding over an incident from childhood: While Anthony was trying to declare his love for one girl, Chris’ daughter Rosemary intervened — leading Anthony to push Rosemary to the ground. That moment has become a source of contention between the Reillys and the Muldoons, symbolized by the twin gates Chris Muldoon installed across the road the Reillys must use to get to town.

Beneath the family feud run deeper emotions. The adult Rosemary (Emily Blunt) is besotted by Anthony, and is waiting for Anthony to ask her to marry him. Anthony seems ready to do that — he’s got his late mother’s wedding ring, just for the occasion — but something holds him back. As Adam observes when he visits, “I don’t understand you people. Why do you make everything so hard?”

’Tis a mystery why “Wild Mountain Thyme” goes off the rails so spectacularly. Shanley has earned his laurels — an Oscar for writing “Moonstruck,” a Tony and a Pulitzer for “Doubt.” And his play “Outside Mullingar,” on which this movie is based, got good reviews when it played Broadway (with Debra Messing as Rosemary, and Molloy as Aoife).

The key problem is that Shanley’s attempts to adapt the theatrical rhythms of his stage work to the screen fall flat. For example, the American cousin is mentioned but never seen in the play — and giving Adam flesh, especially in the form of the charismatic Hamm, makes him less interesting than if he was merely a looming idea.

Shanley might have survived such a structural blunder if the other elements worked. But with the sputtering chemistry between Blunt and Dornan, the miscasting of Walken, and the thick layer of forced Irish whimsy, the flaws of “Wild Mountain Thyme” are too numerous to ignore.

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‘Wild Mountain Thyme’

★

Opening Friday, December 11, in theaters where open. Rated PG-13 for some thematic elements and suggestive comments. Running time: 103 minutes.

Review: In 'The Midnight Sky,' director and star George Clooney tells an end-of-the-world story that's stirring and thoughtful

George Clooney contemplates the end of the world in “The Midnight Sky,” a mid-apocalyptic drama that simultaneously touches the brain, heart and adrenal glands.

Clooney both directed and stars scientist Augustine Lofthouse, a scientist who’s the last man left behind at a research station north of the Arctic Circle, in February 2049. Everyone else caught the helicopters heading south, to reunite with their families ahead of an extinction-level cataclysm that’s only described as “the event.” 

Lofthouse has no one in his life — as we learn in flashbacks of a failed romance and a young child he never met — and has a terminal illness, so staying behind seems natural to him. He gets used to solitude, so he’s surprised when he finds a little girl, Iris (Caoilinn Springall), abandoned during the evacuation.

Lofthouse scans the records of NASA (or Space Force, or whatever), and finds one spacecraft, the Aether, still on its mission. The Aether is flying home from K-23, a possibly inhabitable moon of Jupiter, only recently discovered — by Lofthouse in his younger days. Lofthouse knows he must get a signal to The Aether, to warn them that Earth is no longer inhabitable. The research station’s radio is too weak, so he and Iris must trek over the frozen tundra to a relay station with a stronger signal.

Half of the action in the script — written by Mark L. Smith (who co-wrote “The Revenant”), adapting Lily Brooks-Dalton’s novel “Good Morning, Midnight” — involves Lofthouse and Iris’ journey. The other half takes place aboard The Aether, following the daily grind of its five-member crew, and the dangers encountered while flying home. Most of this is seen from the viewpoint of the ship’s science officer, known to everyone as Sully (Felicity Jones, sharp and sympathetic as always).

It’s notable that Sully is pregnant, and the father of her baby is the ship’s commander, Adowale, played by David Oyelowo. Rounding out the crew are Kyle Chandler, Demián Bichir and Tiffany Boone.

Clooney once starred in a TV remake of Sidney Lumet’s 1964 nuclear-war thriller “Fail-Safe”; in this movie, he at one point references a classic of the genre, Stanley Kramer’s 1959 nuclear-fallout parable “On the Beach.” So he knows the stakes in an end-of-the-world drama, and in his portrayal of Lofthouse — a scientist who could see what was coming but was powerless to stop it — he carries that considerable weight.

Clooney also has a sure handle on the technical side, creating a plausible scientific atmosphere both in the Arctic station and aboard The Aether. Scenes involving a meteor shower hitting the spacecraft are as nail-biting as the space station disaster in “Gravity” (another film Clooney starred in).

What makes “The Midnight Sky” work is how Clooney balances between the two quite different survival stories — the one on the ice and the one in space — and gradually reveals the threads that unite them. In the end, they’re both part of the human story, the one that tells us how the species will endure because of ingenuity and boundless hope.

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‘The Midnight Sky’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, December 11, in theaters where open; available for streaming on Netflix starting Wednesday, December 23. Not rated, but probably PG-13 for bloody images, suggestions of violence, and brief strong language. Running time: 118 minutes.

Review: 'Nomadland' is a beautiful look at people constantly on the road, anchored by Frances McDormand's soulful performance

In “Nomadland,” filmmaker Chloe Zhao envelops us in a world that most of us don’t know, with the familiar face of Frances McDormand as our guide.

McDormand plays Fern, a woman who lost her home in Nevada when the gypsum plant shut down in the Great Recession. Now she lives in a rundown van, driving to where the seasonal jobs are. At her first stop, she’s in a pre-Christmas seasonal job at an Amazon warehouse, filling boxes and moving shipments. Other times of the year, she’s a camp host at a national park, or flipping burgers at Wall Drug in South Dakota, or hauling beets for harvest in Nebraska.

At most stops, she parks her van with other people who live their lives on the road. Sometimes it’s an encampment on Bureau of Land Management land; other times its in a trailer park. When she’s alone, she may park at a truck stop or supermarket, running the risk of being rousted by security guards.

Fern finds friendship and life hacks from three mentors, all portrayed here by real-life nomads. Linda May, a woman just a few years older than Fern, shows her the most efficient way to clean a campground men’s room. Bob Wells is a guru of sorts, delivering lectures about life on the road. And Swankie is a gruff old woman who recounts the wonders she has seen in her many travels.

With Jessica Bruder’s 2017 book about nomadic Americans as her compass, Chao follows Fern as she travels in her van, her solitude sometimes broken by brief friendships. One such friend is Dave (David Staithairn), who contemplates leaving the road to live with his estranged son. Fern is offered the chance at domesticity, in a scene where she’s reunited with Dolly (Melissa Smith), her suburbanite sister — who knows that Fern’s wandering spirit, not merely her economic plight, that draws her to the road.

The images of these campsites have historical parallels, from the covered wagons venturing to the West to the caravans of Okies escaping the Dust Bowl. But the problems of their inhabitants are also entirely modern, from a busted carburetor to the limitations of Social Security benefits.

One cannot overstate how multifaceted and how powerful McDormand’s performance is here. She conveys the fierce independence she’s chosen, the tenacity it takes to maintain it, and the crushing loneliness that comes with it — often with imperceptibly small gestures and without saying a word.

Zhao — who directed and edited the film, and wrote the screenplay — follows the pattern of her past films, “Songs My Brothers Taught Me” and “The Rider,” as she and her regular cinematographer, Joshua James Richards, set her quiet, brooding characters in contrast to the wide-open spaces of the American West. As Zhao and McDormand patiently reveal throughout “Nomadland,” Fern may seem dwarfed by the vastness of the plains, but we come to see her heart is as big as the mountains on the horizon.

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‘Nomadland’

★★★★

Available Friday, December 4, for one week on the Film at Lincoln Center virtual cinema (and is sold out); scheduled to open in theaters on Friday, February 19, 2021. Rated R for some full nudity. Running time: 108 minutes.

Review: 'All My Life' is a real-life romance that gets its sparks from stars Jessica Rothe and Harry Shum Jr.

Sometimes all a movie needs for a sweet romance is what “All My Life” delivers: A couple of actors with good chemistry, a few moments that show genuine affection for the characters and the audience’s appreciation of love.

The story here is as earnest and straightforward as a romance gets. Jennifer Carter (Jessica Rothe, from the “Happy Death Day” movies) is having a drink with her girl friends in a sports bar, when a couple of guys walk up trying to chat them up. They’re failing miserably, but Jennifer notices the embarrassment of the guys’ third wheel, Solomon Chau (Harry Shum Jr., formerly of “Glee”), and engages him in conversation. Sparks don’t fly just yet, but there’s something there.

A Saturday afternoon jogging date reveals an easygoing rapport, and when they arrive at the local farmer’s market, we can feel them click. In one moment, Jenn looks up and notices Sol isn’t there. As she later describes, “I missed you, and I barely knew you.” Within minutes, they share their first kiss.

Jenn is a psychology grad student. Sol has a job at a tech firm, but hates it; his real passion is cooking, but he’s afraid to risk a steady paycheck to follow his dream. Sol can save expenses, Jenn tells him, by moving in with her. Soon they are living their fullest lives, and Sol proposes, Jenn accepts, and they start planning their wedding.

Then the bad news: Sol learns he has a tumor in his liver. Jenn is at his bedside after his first surgery, and tending to him at home through his recuperation. Through chemo and other treatments, Sol starts to question whether they can still go through with a wedding — afraid that everyone will see her as “a widow in white.” Jenn argues back: “You don’t get to decide when it’s time for me to tap out.”

Their friends come up with another idea: Speed up the plans, raise $20,000 through crowd-funding, and give Sol and Jenn their dream wedding in weeks rather than months.

By this point, it’s probably not surprising to hear that “All My Life” is based on a true story. The press notes call this “the powerful true love story that inspired an entire nation” — and If you haven’t heard of it, that’s because the nation is Canada. (The movie was filmed in Louisiana, but the script never specifies where the movie takes place.)

Director Mark Meyers (“My Friend Dahmer”) and first-time screenwriter Todd Rosenberg find much beauty in the everyday moments of Sol and Jenn’s romance. There are the loving glances, the boisterous gatherings, the moments of blissful quiet and loving laughter. They also don’t shy away from the moments of tragedy that have made people cry at movies from “Dark Victory” and “Love Story” to the present.

The movie also boasts an offbeat supporting cast, including Ever Carradine, singer Keala Settle (“The Greatest Showman”) and comic Jay Pharoah. But to whatever degree “All My Life” works as a romance is the chemistry between Rothe and Shum. She’s sunny and engaging, he’s cool and collected, and together they deliver in both the light and heavy passages.

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‘All My Life’

★★★

Opens Friday, December 4, in theaters where open. Rated PG-13 for brief language. Running time: 93 minutes.