Review: 'Together' is an artful effort to dramatize life in the COVID-19 lockdown — but probably out too soon to appreciate

The two-hander drama “Together,” about life in the COVID-19 lockdown, is thoughtful, smart and exceedingly well-acted — and I can’t think of a single human being on Earth who would want to watch it right now.

Written by playwright Dennis Kelly (who won a Tony for the book for the musical “Matilda”), the movie has only three characters: Two unnamed adults — played by James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan — who have been in a long and now contentious relationship, and their 9-year-old son, Arthur (Samuel Logan), who barely speaks for the entire 92 minutes.

The adults do a lot of talking, often to the camera, about how much they loathe each other — but are stuck together, because all of the United Kingdom is on lockdown because of COVID-19. He talks about his consulting business, delivering a string of techno-jargon that makes it unclear exactly what he does. She talks about her work as a charity coordinator for refugees, which is important work to her but “virtue signaling” to him.

They keep talking, to each other and to us — sometimes in monologues, sometimes in dialogue. And they go through the many things everybody in an industrialized country endured in the first months of the pandemic. They stock up on toilet paper, they talk about shortages of aubergines and other groceries, they rail against Boris Johnson’s government for its ineptitude. Mostly, they fret over what to do about her mum, who they have convinced to go into a “care center” (what we’d call a retirement home), which they’re told will be the safest place to ride out the pandemic — until, it turns out, it isn’t.

McAvoy and Horgan (from Amazon’s series “Catastrophe”) give powerful performances, especially considering they’re given nothing to work against but each other and Kelly’s overlapping dialogue. Director Stephen Daldry (“The Hours,” “Billy Elliot”) recognizes the limitations of Kelly’s script — more of a two-character stage play, really — and works within them to channel the claustrophobia and helplessness that the pandemic made all of us feel deeply.

And therein lies the problem with “Together”: Nothing McAvoy nor Horgan expresses, to each other or looking at us, is markedly different than what each of us has endured over the last 18 months. It feels like watching “Titanic” while you’re in the middle of drowning. Maybe, a few years from now, we’ll be ready for introspection about what we’ve lost in the lockdown — but, for now, we’re all just trying to get through it, together or not.

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‘Together’

★★★

Opens Friday, August 27, at the Century 16 (South Salt Lake), Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy) and Megaplex Thanksgiving Point (Lehi). Rated R for language throughout. Running time: 92 minutes.

Review: Documentary 'Not Going Quietly' shows how activist Ady Barkan builds a movement while his body gives out from ALS.

Political activism gets up close and personal in the documentary “Not Going Quietly,” a personal and intense profile of Ady Barkan, who is gaining and losing his voice at the same time.

Barkan had been known as a liberal activist and founder of the Fed Up campaign, lobbying for the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy more fair to low-income people. In 2016, shortly after he and his wife — Rachael King, an English professor at UC-Santa Barbara — welcomed their son, Carl, Barkan was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. That’s the degenerative neurological disease that’s best known because of two famous people who had it: Baseball legend Lou Gehrig and theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.

Barkan feels a literal deadline — his doctor gives him three or four years to live — and doesn’t want to waste time. He starts campaigning to save Medicare, particularly threatened by the Trump administration’s tax cuts for the rich. On a flight back from D.C., Barkan sees Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., sitting in first class — and when Flake comes back to coach to talk to him, Barkan urges the waffling senator to “be a hero” and vote against the Medicare cuts. The video of their encounter goes viral, with the hashtag #FlakesOnAPlane.

Barkan then teams with Liz Jaff, an activist who shot the video, to try to create more viral moments. They organize the “Be a Hero” tour, taking an RV — with modifications to accommodate Barkan’s motorized wheelchair — to 30 congressional districts in 18 states, to either lobby or shame congresspeople, or flip their seats to the Democrats in 2018. (One of the districts he visited was Utah’s 3rd District, held then and now by Republican Chris Stewart.)

The irony that director Nicholas Bruckman and his crew capture on the tour is how Barkan’s influence as a liberal champion is growing at the same time his physical strength and speaking voice are diminishing. Barkan narrates much of his film, and we hear his voice fading — to the point where he has to use a computer voice generator.

Bruckman and his team take full advantage of the crew’s access in Barkan’s home, the RV on tour, hotel and motel rooms, and eventually the halls of Congress — where Barkan delivered impassioned testimony at the first House committee hearing to discuss “Medicare for All.” The film deftly toggles between the public politicking and the private moments of Barkan with Rachael and Carl, trying to be a good husband and dad as his body is failing him.

“Not Going Quietly” is, in the end, a celebration of Barkan’s indomitable spirit, and the power of determination and righteous activism. If you’re looking for a hero, here’s a good place to start.

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‘Not Going Quietly’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, August 27, at the Megaplex at The Gateway (Salt Lake City); available to stream starting September 3, on the Salt Lake Film Society virtual cinema, SLFS@Home. Not rated, but probably PG-13 for language. Running time: 95 minutes.

Review: 'Ailey' documentary chronicles the life of the dance legend, and shows how his company is keeping the flame burning

In the documentary “Ailey,” director Jamila Wignot melds biography, history, social commentary and performance into a rich accounting of the life of dance pioneer Alvin Ailey.

His life is a remarkable one. Born in Texas in 1931, in the height of the Great Depression, to a single mother, Ailey endured the poverty of the South, before he and his mother moved to Los Angeles in 1943, during World War II. There, he first discovered dance, seeing the Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo. He also saw the legendary dancer and choreographer Katherine Dunham, and realized for the first time that a Black person could become a great dancer.

Moving to New York in 1954, Ailey’s founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre in 1958. Many of his works were inspired by aspects of Black life he witnessed — including “Blues Suite” (1958), based on honky-tonk bars he frequented, and Ailey’s signature work, “Revelations” (1960), which uses the imagery and music of Black churches. The troupe toured constantly, breaking down barriers for having a multi-ethnic corps of dancers, and becoming global ambassadors.

Wignot interviews a host of Ailey’s former dancers, choreographers and colleagues, and relies on a wealth of archival interviews with Ailey — essentially allowing the man himself to narrate his story.

Not only did Wignot get access to the company’s archives, she also brings her camera into its rehearsal space, following the troupe in the act of creation. What’s being created is a 60-minute piece to Ailey, being developed by choreographer Rennie Harris, to celebrate the company’s 60th anniversary.

These rehearsal scenes serve as the backbone for Wignot’s telling of Ailey’s remarkable story — and are a reminder that Ailey’s work, like that of any artist worth discussing, is living a full life after the artist is gone.

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‘Ailey’

★★★1/2

Available to stream starting August 27, on the Salt Lake Film Society virtual cinema, SLFS@Home. Rated PG-13 for brief strong language. Running time: 95 minutes.

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This review originally posted on this site on January 30, 2021, when the film premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.

Review: 'Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings' shows the smart way to introduce a new character, and his gorgeously rendered world, into the Marvel universe.

The Marvel universe makes a strong step into the world of martial arts movies with “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” introducing a new character and an ancient culture with beautiful visuals and smart storytelling.

Director Destin Daniel Cretton starts with the legend — a set of magical rings that bestow immense power on the person who wields them. For centuries, that person has been Wenwu (played by the Hong Kong superstar Tony Leung), a warlord who over the centuries has built up an army of assassins, called the Ten Rings. (Sharp-eyed Marvel movie fans, and people who read the comic books, will have noticed their logo before.)

Wenwu, we’re told in the prologue, gave up that power when he fell in love with Jiang Li (Fala Chen), guardian of a secret village deep within China. As we learn, Wenwu and Jiang Li had two children — a son, Shang-Chi, and a daughter, Xialing — whose lives changed radically when their mother was killed, and their father went back to his violent ways.

Fast-forward to today, and Shang-Chi (played by Simu Liu) is apart from his father and sister, living in San Francisco. He works as a parking valet at a fancy hotel, alongside his best friend Katy (played by the comedian and actress Awkwafina). But his old world intrudes when members of the Ten Rings attack Shang-Chi on a city bus — prompting a ferocious action sequence that’s 20% “Speed” and 80% Jackie Chan-style martial arts. (Half of Twitter has remarked on how Liu’s use of his jacket as a weapon emulates Chan in “Rumble in the Bronx.”)

Shang-Chi heads to Macau, with Katy along for the ride, for an uncomfortable reunion with Xialing (Meng’er Zhang), who’s running an underground fighting arena. (There are some nice MCU surprises on the undercard, by the way.) This leads to another Chan-esque action sequence, a free-swinging fight utilizing the bamboo scaffolding on the side of a skyscraper.

Eventually, Shang-Chi and Xialing are reunited with Wenwu, who wants his children to take part in his plans to conquer their late mother’s village, and harness the power it’s keeping from the world. This is as much synopsis as I’m going to give, because there are some surprises revealed at about this point in the story that add to the movie’s fun.

And this is a fun movie. Cretton — best known for his low-budget collaborations with “Captain Marvel” star Brie Larson, such as “Short Term 12,” “The Glass Castle” and “Just Mercy” — absorbs the world-building lessons Ryan Coogler imparted in “Black Panther,” and captures a variety of settings of Asian life. Credit production designer Sue Chan (“Shirley,” “Colossal”), costume designer Kym Barrett, and a host of other artisans for capturing San Francisco’s Chinatown, the neon glow of Macau and the splendor of Jiang Li’s timeless Chinese village.

Cretton also deftly handles the tone shift, as the movie’s action moves from the kinetic modern fighting style (embodied by Jackie Chan) to the graceful choreography of the wuxia genre of martial arts. (Ang Lee’s 2000 hit “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” is the best known example of wuxia films that Western audiences would recognize.) Cretton isn’t trying to be all things to all martial-arts fans, but he’s creating an entertaining sampler that should prompt movie fans to go search for more in the genre.

If they take on such a search, digging up Tony Leung’s back catalog is a good place to start. Leung is a superstar in Hong Kong and China, having worked with such directors as Ang Lee (“Lust, Caution”) and Wong Kar-Wai (“Chungking Express,” “In the Mood for Love,” “2046”), and starring in the “Infernal Affairs” series (the movie that inspired Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed”). “Shang-Chi” is Leung’s biggest Hollywood movie, and he gives it a darker edge than most Marvel villains.

Liu, who starred in the popular Canadian sitcom “Kim’s Convenience,” is a real find, with an unassuming charm that makes Shang-Chi a relatable hero. Pairing Liu with Awkwafina, who brings some street-smart wit to the serious-minded script (credited to Cretton, Dave Callaham and Andrew Lanham), is an added benefit.

“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” isn’t quite as groundbreaking as “Black Panther” — what movie could be? — but it gets a lot right. It’s a solidly constructed superhero origin story, steeped in a beautifully rendered view of the hero’s cultural ties, with some strong performers (some I haven’t mentioned), and a connection back to the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe. Best of all, it makes you want to see Shang-Chi’s next adventure.

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‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, September 3, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, and for language. Running time: 132 minutes.

Review: 'Reminiscence' is a science-fiction noir thriller that lets Hugh Jackman explore his dark side

Considering Hollywood’s long tradition of casting hoofers as tough guys (Jimmy Cagney and Dick Powell are prime examples), it was only a matter of time before Hugh Jackman would get a shot at an old-school noir thriller.

“Reminiscence,” a science-fiction detective yarn that plays like Philip Marlowe by way of Philip K. Dick, isn’t a perfect vessel — but rookie director Lisa Joy, working off her own screenplay, gives Jackman the room to be the broken hero.

Jackman’s character, Nick Bannister, is “the man who remembers for everybody else,” as one character puts it. In a near-future Miami where the ocean has risen several feet, Nick runs a business in which clients can relive old memories, aided by his semi-alcoholic war buddy Watts (Thandiwe Newton, who’s the movie’s stealth MVP). As a side hustle, Nick and Watts also use their services to help the D.A. (Natalie Martinez) dig out criminals’ memories to use in court.

One day, a woman enters the business — and we, as savvy audience members, recognize her as the femme fatale in this situation. She’s Mae (Rebecca Ferguson, Jackman’s alluring co-star in “The Greatest Showman”), who needs help remembering where she left her keys. Nick pursues Mae, a nightclub singer, and a romance ensues.

It’s too good to last, and we find Nick obsessively returning to his own memory machine, reliving his memories with Mae, and wondering why she disappeared. While helping the D.A. probe the mind of a recalcitrant drug dealer, Nick is shocked to see Mae in the memory bank. This sends Nick on a search, to New Orleans and back to Miami, and a trail that includes a drug lord (Daniel Wu), a dirty cop (Cliff Curtis), an ailing land baron (Brett Cullen), the baron’s brain-damaged wife (“Roma’s” Marina de Tavira) — and information that makes him doubt everything he knows about Mae.

Joy, who co-created HBO’s “Westworld” (with her husband, Jonathan Nolan), does some impressive world-building in her feature debut — creating a richly detailed semi-dystopian Miami, where the rich stay dry and everyone else fights to stay above water. There are some scenes, like a long fight between Jackman and Curtis, that are set-designed to an astonishing degree, and the visual style poured into the memory machine’s hologram technology is quite beautiful.

Not everything works in Joy’s script. A few of the twists are forced, and some of the noir references — particularly the nods to Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” — are a little on the nose. And Jackman’s wall-to-wall narration is the most oppressive voiceover since Harrison Ford’s in “Blade Runner.” 

The good news with “Reminiscence” is that Jackman puts his brooding charisma to good use, giving Nick the dark shading a noir antihero needs. It’s a serviceable role, even if it won’t be his most memorable one.

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‘Reminiscence’

★★★

Opens Friday, August 20, in theaters, and streaming on HBO Max. Rated PG-13 for strong violence, drug material throughout, sexual content and some strong language.

Review: 'The Night House' is an effective horror thriller, relying on star Rebecca Hall to provide the real chills

A good actor can be the difference between a run-of-the-mill horror thriller and something that generates some real fear — and Rebecca Hall is a very good actor, and the reason “The Night House” is sometimes as genuinely unsettling as it is.

Hall plays Beth, a schoolteacher just starting to reckon with the recent death of her husband, Owen (Evan Jonigkeit). She rattles around the lakeside home they shared in upstate New York — the home he, an architect, designed and built — drinking brandy and sorting through his belongings. She’s trying to make sense of why Owen killed himself, because the cryptic note he left doesn’t explain much.

Amid his architectural plans, Beth finds sketches of another dwelling — a mirror image of their home. She sees a light across the lake and decides to explore, against the advice of the kindly old neighbor, Mel (Vondie Curtis-Hall). And Beth finds photos on Owen’s phone, leading her to an encounter with a woman, Madelyne (Stacy Martin), who knows something about Owen that upends what Beth thought she knew about her husband.

Writers Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski serve up an economical script that carefully plants ideas — from Beth’s friendship with fellow teacher Claire (Sarah Goldberg) to Beth’s near-death experience in high school — that pay off as the story progresses. Director David Bruckner, who contributed to the horror anthologies “V/H/S” and “Southbound,” polishes the story to a glow, creating a slick thriller that builds its fear steadily and convincingly.

The success of “The Night House” in creating that terror rests largely with Hall, whose resumé covers both big-budget action movies (“Godzilla vs. Kong,” “Iron Man 3”) and challenging indie dramas (“Christine,” “Professor Marston & the Wonder Women”). Hall’s Beth is no “scream queen” — the actor conveys the fear that builds in Beth as she uncovers Owen’s dark secrets, but that fear motivates her to action rather than paralyzes her. Hall also proves that an actor who can play pretend can create a more chilling special effect than a bank of computers.

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‘The Night House’

★★★

Opens Friday, August 20, in theaters. Rated R for some violence/disturbing images, and language including some sexual references. Running time: 108 minutes.

Review: 'PAW Patrol: The Movie' is children's entertainment so inoffensive, it's kind of insulting

Who on earth would get their first exposure to the “PAW Patrol” franchise via its first movie, imaginatively titled “PAW Patrol: The Movie?”

Maybe divorced dads who had custody of their tykes on opening weekend, having never watched the popular TV series or encountered the vast array of officially licensed “PAW Patrol” merchandise — a selection that actually gets mentioned in the movie, in the closest thing this kids-only entertainment ever gets to being meta.

Well, that’s not true. There is the moment where the PAW Patrol’s nemesis, the cat-loving and corrupt head of Adventure City, Mayor Humdinger (voiced by Ron Pardo, a series regular), says, “I’m an unqualified elected official. What could go wrong?” No word yet on how many COVID-19 cases Adventure City has reported this week.

There is a plot, flimsy though it may be: After having rescued everyone who needs rescue in their town of Adventure Bay, the PAW Patrol — six brave, resourceful and ridiculously well-equipped puppies, led by a human boy, Ryder (voiced by Will Brisbin) — heads for the big city. There, they face the newly elected Mayor Humdinger, whose new initiatives, such a loop-de-loop roller coaster track grafted onto the subway system, inevitably lead to catastrophe. Of course, it’s up to our pups to save the day.

The pups have color-coded uniforms, which is easier than giving them distinctive character traits. Only two puppies have meaningful story arcs: Chase (voiced by “Young Sheldon’s” Iain Armitage), dealing with his anxiety about returning to Adventure City, where he was abandoned as a younger pup; and a new character: Liberty (voiced by “black-ish” teen Marsai Martin), a street-smart weiner dog whose knowledge of the city comes in handy for these out-of-town pups.

Director Cal Brunker (who also made “The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature” and “Escape From Planet Earth”) knows he’s dealing with a property whose audience has a short attention span. That’s why he cuts in frequently with soundtrack cuts set to montages, to give kids the opportunity to get their wiggles out. Brunker also, smartly, enlists some familiar names for the voice cast — a list that includes Tyler Perry, Yara Shahidi, Dax Shepard, Randall Park and Kim Kardashian West — who, I’m wagering, wanted on board because their kids watch this show to distraction. 

Even by the lowered standards usually applied to kiddie movies, “PAW Patrol: The Movie” is a chore to watch. When the innocuous puppy characters hop into their rescue vehicles and hit the streets, my first thought — one that a quality animated movie would never inspire — was how many toys this movie was trying to sell me. Even if your kids are clamoring to see this movie, try to dissuade them — or, at least, get it for them streaming (it’s available on Paramount+) — because life is too short for children’s movies as drab and as studiously inoffensive as this one.

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‘PAW Patrol: The Movie’

★★

Opens Friday, August 20, in theaters, and streaming on Paramount+. Rated G. Running time: 88 minutes.

Review: 'CODA' is a big-hearted comedy-drama about a teen daughter of deaf parents finding her voice.

Family is a stronger force than music or deafness in “CODA,” a charming comedy-drama about a teen girl caught in a classic tug-of-war between familial obligation and chasing her dreams.

Emilia Jones gives a star-making performance as Ruby Rossi, the only hearing member of a fishing family in Gloucester, Mass. Both her parents, Frank (Troy Kotsur) and Jackie (Marlee Matlin), and her older brother, Leo (Daniel Durant) are deaf. (The title is an acronym for “child of deaf adults.”) Ruby works on the family’s fishing boat — and, being the only one who can hear, draws the duty of working the radio and negotiating with the fish wholesalers on the dock.

Ruby has a passion, one that she can’t really share with her family: Music. When it comes time to pick a school activity, she sees that a cute boy, Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, from “Sing Street”), signs up for choir, and she does the same. She discovers that she’s actually a good singer — so much so that her choir teacher, Mr. V (Eugenio Derbez), suggests she audition for the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Mom takes Ruby’s love of singing personally. “If I was blind, you would like to paint.” Surely, Ruby loves her family, but the relationship is a complex one — she’s heard her classmates mock her family, and has felt the pressure of being the family’s in-house interpreter. 

Writer-director Siân Heder (who has written for “Orange Is the New Black,” and whose directing debut “Tallulah” premiered at Sundance in 2016) remakes a 2014 French comedy, “La Family Bélier,” into a warmly funny and quite touching story. The comedy sometimes skirts the raunchy edge of the PG-13 rating — Frank and Jackie have a boisterous sex life, and Frank’s command of dirty sign language is impressive — and the tender moments are undercut with the right amount of humor. Two of the best moments occur when Ruby is onstage singing, and only a stony heart wouldn’t sniff back a tear or two.

In a strong cast — Kotsur and Durant are delightful, and Matlin hasn’t had a chance to be this good since she won her Oscar for “Children of a Lesser God” 35 years ago — it’s 18-year-old Emilia Jones who is hands down the star here. She captures Ruby’s love for music and for her family, even when the burden of being its only hearing member grows wearying. “CODA” is sure to go down as the first of many triumphs for this talented young actress.

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‘CODA’

★★★1/2

Streaming starting Friday, August 13, on AppleTV+; opening August 20 at Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy). Rated PG-13 for strong sexual content and language, and drug use. Running time: 114 minutes.